Service Day

(I wish you could see it better, but there are kissing unicorns under a rainbow on my shirt. I made it with puffy paint at a unicorn party I threw years ago, and I was thrilled to find it while unpacking here. I thought it was lost.)

Today was another very very busy day...surprise. We spent all morning and afternoon at a service project at Riverside Park that our church put on. Our group scraped and repainted railings and fences around the place, but there were tons of others doing all sortsa stuff. There were four big groups of us I think, and at the beginning before we split up someone read to us that the mayor had proclaimed today New York's official service day. alroit, I was there for some sort of history.

After painting, I felt like some poor baby artic tern caught in an oil spill. The paint was this black, thick, sticky, oily industrial paint, and it got aaalll over my arms and legs and even in parts of my hair. It felt like tar. I took a shower with dish soap, and scrubbed so hard my shin started bleeding so then I gave up. whatever, I never cared in art class when I had paint all over me, or in calligraphy when I had ink all over me. why start now?



After showering we went on a kind of crazy adventure. See, it's really hard to get stuff here. like, damn near impossible. We don't have a car, so anything we buy has to be carried on multiple trains and buses and though skinny turnstiles. we're poor, so we can't afford taxis or delivery services. So, after learning a hard lesson from our Ikea mistake, we found a bunch of stuff on craigslist, rented a zipcar (Truck edition) and drove all over the city picking up (some rather huge) bits of furniture. Here is a snapshot whilst driving through Times Square. It's weird to drive and not walk.