DaveT’s Neighborhood

I've always been interested in other people's stories and problems. Not in a busybody way, just in a curious way. That's why I am a psychology major, and it's why I watch shows about drug addiction, mental illness, and physical disease. The last few weeks I've been marinating myself in other people's challenges, and right now I feel like it's verging into unhealthy territory. Educating oneself and improving one's emapthy is one thing; drowning yourself in troubles that you can do nothing about is another.

So for today, at least, I'm veering into lighter territory.

How about a Christmas carol? I love Christmas music. I love carols that are as quiet and solemn as the snow that falls at night in December. I love big brass songs that play at warm and well-lit parties. I love singing in church with all the out-of-tune old ladies and I love listening to polished choirs.

I also like sparse, bright takes on traditional carols, like this one from Sufjan Stevens.

Hello, Vox neighbors! I'm back from a class trip to D.C., which was a wonderful week all around. It was very, very busy, but we did a lot of sightseeing and a lot of volunteering.  Now I'm back with about 10 hours of sleep debt and a lingering cold, so I'll just post a few pictures and be done for the evening.

Archives

Washington Memorial at night

It's National Adoption Week. I found out by accident; for my family every week is Adoption Week! I came across this article on Google News. The article talks about the complex reality of adoption:

The British Association of Adoption and Fostering (BAAF) has published information today stating that one in every three parents looking to adopt would not consider a child born out of a pregnancy that included alcohol or drug abuse by the mother. This view on adoption is troubling given that nearly half of children in the U.K. that need adopted families originate from homes where drugs and alcohol were abused.

With National Adoption Week beginning today, BAAF wants to place an emphasis on steering prospective parents out of a fantasized ideal of adoption and into today’s modern reality of adoption. (Bolding mine.)

I don't blame adoptive parents for wanting a baby with a "clean slate". Raising a child with special needs, be that a disability or a troubled past, is heartbreaking and difficult. But the idea that a "baggage-less" adopted child  will be just like a biological child is a fantasy. Every adopted child has a past:

Genetic ties and shared history can never be severed. An adopted child and their new family must always live with that difference.

YES. I want every person who has any contact with an adopted child or their family to understand that. I want people to understand that adoption is a beautiful and wonderful thing, but that it ain't perfect. Adoption is born out of hope, but it's also a connection forged out of the grief of parents: birth parents who have to give up a child and many adoptive parents who are unable to concieve. Adoption changes everything you know about family and genetics and love. I want people who know my family to acknowlege that. Don't put adoption or my family on a pedestal.

"Adoption is such a miraculous process!" Yes it is, but so is having a biological child, and that is messy and scary and frustrating while also being joyful and more fulfilling than anything else in the world.

Happy Adoption Week to everyone touched by adoption. God preserve all of us! :) 

Drops

Hello pumpkins! I haven't forgotten you, I swear! It's just been an odd end to the year and I have been having a bit of a hiatus from photography - wedding and street-wise. It was much needed, but what can I say - I have now started to have a lovely tickle to actually want to lift a camera up and start taking some photos again. :) So, watch this space, as the film is in my Holga 35mm and I'm back on the streets of London!

...I would buy everything in this store. I look at their website and salivate. I walk into their store and get weak at the knees. If I found some genie, my third wish would be to get a hundred-thousand dollar giftcard to this store, right after world peace and the elimination of hunger.

Seriously....this quilt? These shirts? This skirt?? To die for.

So I'm doing dishes, as repsonsible people ought to do, and as I'm finishing up I notice two limes sitting at the bottom of the sink. "Hm," I think to myself, "Ctirus is supposed to be great at making the disposal smell nice." So, I shove down the limes, lean over, flip the switch, a terrible grinding noise ensues and...

Half a shotglass comes flying out.

!!

I guess a shotglass had slipped into the disposal without my noticing, and the disposal shredded it. The entire base and jagged edge where it broke made a giant arc and landed literally six feet from the sink on the floor. O.O

It was pretty hilarious after I was done thanking God that I hadn't been leaning over the sink. Shotglass to the face is not a great way to end one's day. :-)

Yes, I know I said I'd be posting more. That was before my laptop gave up the ghost for good. So! Now I have a shiny new laptop, and will be posting more. For real this time.

For fun

I love Buffalo. In a real sense, it's my ancestral homeland. My ancestors came from Germany, Sicily, Switzerland, France, and England, but they all ended up in Buffalo. Most of my relatives live there still. Buffalo is the "home base" for nearly every family gathering. I have lived in Ohio since I was a toddler, but I was born in Buffalo and it feels like a second home to me.

Western New York is not glamorous. The glory days of steel are long over. The winters are cold and windy and gray. The local accent is too nasal to make it on any TV show that is not the local news or Roseanne. And yet, there's a charm to it, and a deep history.

Anyway, I miss it. And my family. And the amazing beef-on-weck I had at this place over the summer. YUM.