NorthDownMuse

Racism and baking

I once had a heart-to-heart with a fellow Unitarian Universalist about the racism I sometimes feel. I would never own the label racist--I’m a typical liberal in that sense--but I have some racist reflexes (I realise that sentence may sound like classic denial). My friend told me we are

Bad habits

My first few weeks with Preventable Surprises, I developed a pretty good work habit. I’m meant to work three days a week. I find I’m not a lot of good past 6 or 7 hours per day, so I might work a bit on the fourth day. The

A happy end

A tent with a leaky fly isn’t much good. I dried the tent and the fly in the back garden and was planning to then put them in the bin. The fly is not only leaking but the fabric is producing a snowfall of plastic flaky bits. Binning the

A tent shun

We got into camp last night, set up tents, had dinner, then took photos. Views in every direction. My favourite: The group I hike with is called NI Walking and Photography Group. The rest of the members are Good Photographers, unlike myself. I tried to steal one of their shots

Slieve Bearnagh

After failing to pin Raj down on a few last minute details, I left town for a camping trip without getting the monkey off my back. I climbed Slieve Bearnagh with three friends from a Meet Up hiking club. We saw these dudes on the way up: Hiking companions Andrew,

Orchestrated

I spent most of the day dealing with issues with the e-mail. Then I went into town with neighbours Michael and Faye. We had dinner with David then went to hear the Ulster Orchestra at the Ulster Hall. It is a very impressive orchestra. The problem is I can’t

Perfection

For the most part I stayed away from my computer and my monkey today. I had a massage at 9:15 in Bangor--pure heaven. I’ve been running 35 minutes per run without stretching, which is asking for trouble. The massage was like preventive medicine. On Tuesday, I bought five

Monkey off my back

Today I did a test drive of the e-mail I’m trying to send using Mailchimp to see if it looks alright. The e-mail links to seven different pages. Raj keeps sending me edits to the pages we link to. I’ve figured out how to edit these pages (once

66 Days

Tonight we went to see a documentary about the life and death of Bobby Sands, an IRA volunteer who went on hunger strike while imprisoned in H-Block in the Maze prison, where all the IRA prisoners were held. Sands was one of 10 prisoners who died during a hunger strike

Whinger

Today is the seventh day straight that I’ve been working on an e-mail for Preventable Surprises. It’s meant to go to 500 people. I’m having to quickly learn how to manage a Mailchimp e-mail database, design an e-mail template, and create links on a Wordpress website. Raj

Divis

I’ve neglected to mention the British Olympic team lately. Team GB is just amazing. The women’s hockey team beat the Dutch last night in a nail biter. They won on penalties, basically b/c they had the better goalie, Maddie Hinch. That sport is brutal--the pitch is SO

Couture clash

Sometimes I am forced to stare my hypocrisy in the face. I like to say I believe in living simply so that others may simply live. But I also absolutely love couture--really well designed clothes made with high quality fabrics. I have never bought high end clothes because the prices

Bookish

If you’ll recall, after two lengthy phone calls, Work & Pensions said I already have a National Insurance Number from the 1970s and all I had to do was show up with my passport. Wrong. Passport is in my married name. I must bring my birth certificate or my

Anna’s eye

I’ve been hiking a few times with a woman from Poland named Anna Smolenska-Howie as part of a Meet-Up hiking group. The group is for people who enjoy photography and hiking. Anna’s photos are amazing. I’ve learned from her work how critical composition is. Which doesn’t

Meltdown

After three days in bed, I needed to make an Olympic effort to get caught up with Preventable Surprises. We are trying to do an e-mail campaign to about 200 supporters asking them to take a survey (on which sector should we focus during next year’s AGM season?) and

Olympic feat

I stayed in bed much of Saturday and Sunday, coughing and blowing my nose. Occasionally hacking up goo. The good news is the Olympics are on, so I watched cycling, diving, judo, golf, dressage, track, rowing, tennis. It was exhausting to watch but I managed. And watching BBC coverage is

Flying blind

I flew to London Gatwick on Wednesday morning, worked with Carolyn and Raj Wednesday afternoon, and spent Wednesday night with Carolyn at her home in Kentish Town. Thursday I took the subway to Raj’s in Shoreditch. The plan was to first meet with a volunteer intern, Cristina, at a

They’ve got your number

Now that I’ve started working, I need a National Insurance Number. You call the Work and Pensions (W&P) Department to get one, a call that you are charged for. I don’t think I should have to pay to call the government, but that’s just me.

A good day at the beach

Marblehead beach in Dunfanaghy yesterday. The weather was pretty bad while I was there (low 60s?, windy, rainy) and my cold was taking root so I wasn’t eager to go swimming. Dozens of other people were swimming and surfing. Caroline and her kids were in the water for hours

Derry Day

My friend Julie’s sister Caroline rented a house in Dunfanaghy for a week so I drove to Derry this morning and Julie and I drove to Dunfanaghy for the day. I spent the night at Julie’s in Derry then drove home Monday morning. I absolutely love my time

Running on empty

If I write two weeks of blog posts today, I’ll be caught up. That won’t happen, but I’ll try. Each will be written as if it were in real time. I’ve had a sore throat for two days. I decided to do the Park Run 5K

Process Princess

I spent an hour on the phone today with the woman I replaced at Preventable Surprises. P.S. really wanted to hire a process person to help them with their website, their online dialogues, and their fundraising. An organisation of two highly functioning and fast-moving leaders needs someone to keep

Clear and Elegant

I spent Tuesday through Thursday editing documents for my new boss, Raj Thamotheram. He’s a visionary, extremely intelligent, and a maverick--however his thinking gets ahead of his writing. Some of his pieces read like a mind dump. So I reorganise and finesse them, send them back, he fiddles with

10 things I don’t miss about America

1. Litter. 2. Bumperstickers. 3. Billboards. 4. TV presenters. 5. TV commercials. 6. SUVs. 7. Heavily air-conditioned buildings. 8. Aggressive drivers. 9. American sports. 10. Strip malls. 11. Plastic bags. I know I went one over, but that gives me an excuse to include a recent article from The Guardian:

Memories

I exchanged letters with an old friend this week and I enjoyed reminiscing with her about people we worked with at a newspaper in the early 1990s. One of them, Dan Margolies, explained to me when the word “however” takes a comma and when it doesn’t. I don’t