The perfect day

I am not sure what happened. Maybe it's the detoxing my liver. Maybe the stars are in alignment. But I have been inordinately gleeful these days. In my glee, I planned a day around an opportunity I had to volunteer sharing Cross Cultural Solutions at a conference in St. Paul. I started my day with a friend at The Loft, a literary center in downtown Minneapolis. Great food for lunch, I was on time and I had a wonderful visit with a new friend who I enjoy greatly. Then I traveled to the tattoo parlor where i asked lots of questions and got lots of answers. The place smells like chemicals and burning flesh. Yuk. After the tattoo place, where they were very helpful, by the way. Gladly for me, all these places seemed relatively easy to get to. I drove around till I found the the college where the Reentry Conference was for international volunteers/students. Keep in mind these are private Catholic colleges mostly represented. It dawned on me as I left in my Corvette with the top down that it is just a bit odd that the wealthy and the wealthy spoiled kids get to travel to foreign countries on student loans and private donated aide even government grants where mostly they have an easy vacation on the house. While the people they and I go to serve have about 1/300th of what we have on a day to day basis. What a world... what a world. It would be nice to harness that wealth, even a small portion, and distribute it to those in such dire need. (I am not ungrateful, and I get that inept governments and corruption reigns, and don't call me socialist, just commenting on the inequity.)

Anyway, i felt very good representing the group that allowed me such a memorable and favorable experience abroad. Mostly it was normal college kids wanting to know more about volunteer trips, teaching English, volunteering in other ways. Well..then there was this one guy.

I topped my day off driving home in 75 degree weather with the top down, listening to Shins and Keane and stopping for Sushi and a great seaweed salad. I don't think I could have had a more pleasant day.

Wishing you all days like these...

This was comical. Enjoy one on me:

One young gent with a large square glasses, and a large Tibetan prayer chant tattooed in Nepalese no doubt, up his inner arm in a noticable place that reminded him to not act Western, told me he and his partner want to go on a study abroad trip and how CCS felt about that. I was delighted to help him, but had to get a few of the details ironed out. I asked him what kind of business he and his partner were in. He stumbled about a bit and continued to say his "partner" was a waiter at Perkins and he did some other menial job as they were both students, his "partner" is a law student. I got it. Oh. Ha! I felt a bit ditsy for a minute and then thought, why is he not in the same world as I am in? Where partners really are in business together and most international students traveling abroad don't have to worry about bringing extra baggage with them, just a heart of servitude. I had to laugh out loud when I realized how blonde I must have sounded to the Peace Corp guy next to me. I think he was actually entertained by the whole exchange.