Honduras

Two things are happening in Honduras this week.

First, good ol' Mel is back! For a helpful perspectiv

e, check out this Wall Street Journal article.

This is also a helpful blog of an ex-pat living in Honduras. She gives good English translations for those of you not reading El Heraldo.

Second, Jorge (now 15) is in the hospital for surgery. He was scheduled to have it today...hopefully the surgeon was able to get to the hospital despite the curfew in place. Pray that he would heal well and not get infected. The hospital is not a nice place.

Mayor Nutter

That's actually his name. Full name: Michael Nutter. I can't help but giggle every time I read an article about "Mayor Nutter." It reminds me of the mad hatter.

The last few weeks the city has been locked in limbo waiting to see if Mayor Nutter's Plan C (ie: The Worst Case Scenario Plan) would have to be enacted. For those of you not listening to news about Philadelphia, Pennsylvania is actually the last state to have balanced their budget for this fiscal year. And you thought California was bad.

Here's a little of what Plan C (a.k.a WCSP) entailed: laying off 3,000 city employees, closing after-school programs and senior centers, shutting down a large portion of the city courts, and finally, closing the libraries. Yes, that's right, closing the libraries. For the last two weeks if you visited the Free Library of Philadelphia website (why do they have to tell us that it's free?), a box popped up saying, "Libraries to close Oct. 2! Contact your legislator!" I wasn't sure who mine was, but they provided a handy-dandy link to look it up, and I happily did so. I mean, the libraries in the city aren't that great to begin with, but to close them completely? It seemed to me downright un-American. Where would Robert go to get books? And where would the people of the neighborhood go to take their GED classes, or register to vote, or just check their Facebook sites?

The library down the street from us (about a mile away, I can walk there in 20 minutes) is at the center of a busy shopping district called 5th & Olney. (Note: Olney is pronounced Ahl-nee not Ohl-nee. This has been difficult to get used to) The first time Chris tried to go there it was closed. It was a weekday. It was the middle of the day. They were just closed. The first time I went there, it happened to be open. Their hours were something like this: Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, 10-5, Friday 12-5. But the librarian who helped me get a library card seemed to apologize as she handed me a business card with the hours and phone number and said, "Always call first, just to make sure we're open. Sometimes we close even when we're supposed to be open." Um, really? I learned that a bunch of libraries were closed down last spring due to budget cuts, and the books are all just sitting in those shuttered libraries, gathering dust.

So you can imagined my outrage, but not surprise, when I heard the libraries might close. Thankfully, the state government came out of their meeting yesterday having passed the budget, allowing the city's funds to move slowly down the pipeline back to Mayor Nutter's office, and hopefully out into the services they're supposed to fund.

Don't even get me started on what might have happened if they had closed the city courts.

Adventures With Robert, part II

This afternoon I was torn away from cuddling with the kitten (a necessary part of my pre-grad school afternoons) by a knock at the door. Actually, there was a knock, then a second knock...and then the doorbell rang...and then a knock again--finally I came slowly down the stairs to open it. I had a pretty good idea who was there, as the mailman doesn't knock, he just shoves the mail through the slot and continues on his way. Sure enough, I opened the door, and Robert was suddenly in my house.

"Can you come out?" he said.

"Well, I'm not gonna' come out right now," I responded, stalling for an excuse. "I'm about to bake some banana bread." Good one.

"Bread? Where's the bread? Gimmee some!" he shouted, looking around my living room.

"No, I'm about to make it..." I tried to clarify. Suddenly, distracted by a movement near the window, Robert shouted, "Oh! Is that yo' cat? Can I hold 'em?"

"No, Robert, you can't hold Tibu right now--is your sister home from school? Maybe she could play with you," I suggested, directing him back toward the door.

"Naw. Can you puh-lease come out?" he begged, and then went for the ultimate weapon. "Can you read me the teddy bear book?" He knew I couldn't resist that one.

I've been trying to read to him whenever I have the chance, since he can hardly sit through a story and that makes me sad. Plus, he's starting Head Start in a week and I figure it can't hurt to give him an extra-head start. I picked up a few used books at a thrift store, including Corduroy, which he loves for the scene where the night watchman finds the bear hiding in the bed after trying to remove a "button" from a mattress. That's the part where he usually says something along the lines of, "Oh, snap! The cop's gonna lock 'im up!" I always try to point out that the watchman isn't actually a cop, but that's much less interesting to my little urban-culture-saturated friend.

"All right," I said. "I'll read you Corduroy, but then I'm gonna go back inside." Right. He knows once he's got me on the stoop, anything can happen.

Sure enough, a few minutes into the story (after I've threatened twice to stop reading because he keeps interrupting me and shouting at neighbors as they pull up in their cars) Tiara comes outside. She's carrying her Everyday Mathematics workbook, and asks if I can help her with her homework. I agree, and Robert takes off to find a basketball.

As we're working on a math pattern, Robert shoots his basketball into my recycling bin with an accuracy even LeBron James would admire in a four-year-old. Suddenly, the ball bounces off my house and out into the street. Robert's mom has told him he can no longer play in the street (a good rule, don't you think?), so he yells to me, "Miss Katie, Miss Katie! My ball!"

I get up, and make a big show of looking both ways before I walk to the other side of my car and retrieve his basketball. As I turn to hand it to him, he asks, "Are you gonna get in trouble?"

Confused, I ask, "What do you mean?"

"Is yo' mom gonna get mad at you for goin' in the street?" he insists.

"Um, Robert? I don't live with my mom anymore. I'm a grown-up."

Not Something You See Every Day

Fully covered Muslim woman taking digital photo of Michael Jackson look-alike (oops, I spilled the beans). Yes, we live in a city.

Chocolate Cheesesteaks and Michael Jackson Lives On

Saturday, we took the Broad Street Line in to Center City to find a coffee shop for studying purposes, and hang out on a beautiful early fall/late summer day. We headed to Reading Terminal Market, which is Philly's version of Cleveland's West Side Market, although the stands look more like shops and less like actual stands. There was a coffee shop where Chris could set up shop, so I left him to study and wandered around the market.

I found all sorts of yummy shops, including this one, a Chocolate st

and whose wares looked delicious. Is that a chocolate cheesesteak??

Later, I cruised outside and found my way around some of the main CC streets: Walnut, Locust... I stumbled upon Rittenhouse Square, which is a cute European-meets-NYC park filled with benches, bikes, people, kids, and, of course, street performers. I was shocked to find that Michael Jackson (or, as his true fans refer to him, MJ) is not dead, as the media would like you to believe, but alive and well, performing at the NE corner of Rittenhouse Square. Check it out:

Tibu

Our new kitten, Tibu. She's a bit bigger now, but still like 1/3 of Sadie. You can see why the neighborhood was so excited to meet her.