Saturday : Volunteer

Saturday
Wow, I haven't volunteered since highschool. I was too freaked out by college to do any volunteering but today was a first in a while. Anyway, after 4 hour nap, I went and dropped off my friend at the airport. THEN, after after like a 2 hour nap, I got up and drove to the city.

I was a little late so I missed the organization but I caught someone in the parking lot and started picking berries. I picked blackberries, I think, haha! They look like raspberries but you pick them when they turn black. They also had some dried out ones that had been out too long in the sun, those tasted like they were raisins =D. I also picked currants, that look like tiny cherries. I didn't bring my camera so I don't have any pictures.

I also helped aerate soil / kill weeds. Err excuse me, they are called "pioneer crops." I used some kind of tool that just look like a flat hoop that you run under the top level of the soil. I did two rows of tomatoes with that thing. Keep in mind, this is smack dab in the middle of a urban city. I hear they call places where nature has reclaimed the area a "urban prairie" now. Monk farmer girl told me they have pheasants in some of those places.

I went with monk farmer girl and her friend to the farmers market. They bought a bunch of random vegetables. You really see the widest collection of different people at a place like this, all walks of life I guess. Then we took off and monk farmer girl showed me a little bit of town. This place is weird; I've driven back at night and in someways its not as scary. At night, the place is kinda dead so you don't see anyone but during the day you see a lot of people on the street. But again, night is night so *shrugs* I'm going to put this in the "This city is f'ed up" bin.

She showed me this strip of houses that have been turned into an art project. The artist has been painting old houses and putting up art in the yards. He's been sued by the city for creating a public nuisance and had some of his other houses condemned or something. Anyway, I think he found a permanent home now because they own like an entire short block of property.

I wandered around and saw some of the works but two things jumped out at me: 1) there was a tree with stuff animals nailed to it, but some of the animals were crucified on crosses and 2) there was a Bacardi promo stand setup but on it was written "we've found the weapons of mass destructions" with a bunch of empty liquor bottles and some small paragraph talking about drugs. Pretty heavy shit. If you want a link, lemme know.

They've got young kids coming on Saturday for projects. The place is setup kinda like a tourist attraction and this older kid was giving out information on the project. The kids were painting this hut which they were gonna use as an information booth. They got part way and ate lunch. Monk & I ended up finishing painting the house. She's helped out here before but the 2 people in charge can never remember her name.

We finally went to eat afterwards. Up to this point, bout 3, all I had was a glass of milk, couple handfuls of popcorn, some water, and a piece of a cookie so I was freakin HUNGRY. I wanted to go eat somewhere but Monk didn't want to spend money and didn't want me to buy her lunch *shrugs* so we ended up going back to the house and making some food. We made pirogies, bell pepper stir fry and popcorn. I really needed to eat something up to this point because I was starting to shake, sugar level took a nosedive.

We were too busy eating but we made some small chit chat and she invited me to a show. I'm surprised at how much I don't have to say when I hang out with her. Typically I talk too much so this is a very unfamiliar position for me to be in. Sadly, this feels pretty platonic but I don't see how this could ever work out; there are a lot more people who her help than me. Anyway, this is no reason to stop and now I've got something to do tomorrow, haha!

Yesterday
Right now, I'm just trying to readjust. I got home and took a nap and woke up feeling kinda shitty, think I was kinda dehydrated. I just downloaded some pictures, went on an impromptu photo shoot with a friend last night. Last night was a little crazy, had 2 run ins with the police. We got pulled over by a campus cop, friend took a corner a little fast and squealed tires in front of him. I was really shocked that he didn't get a ticket and he even kinda argued with the cop.

Then, we a spot where he found a bunch of fireflies a few nights ago. There weren't that many when we went and I don't know how to use the manual setting on my camera so I couldn't' get a shot. We came up back the hill and saw a bunch of light around his car. There were two cops checking out his car. Nothing major here, just checked our ID's and reminded us that we werent supposed to be back there and he was parked illegally.

We shot the shit with his partner; there was a bunch of random strobe flashes going off right when we parked and didn't know why. He told us that the cemetery we parked next to was famous for having ghosts. Those strobes were people actually getting pictures; he said someone showed him their pictures and was shocked that you could see a silhouette of a person moving around the cemetery.