Wine Tasting

Day 73...

Last night we had a great time at our friends' home - David and Lynn. They hosted a charity wine tasting with Wine for Humanity. This org hosts wine tasting events and then let's you order some of the wines you had during the event. Then they give a portion of the proceeds to a charity of your choice.

David and Lynn chose The Society of Saint Andrew, a "gleaning" organization that recovers food that cannot/will not be harvested for whatever reason and gives it to the poor and hungry.

Didn't now anyone was even doing that. Wow.

The woman, Marilyn, who is one of three women who run the whole thing in Virginia, North and South Carolina, explained their approach and how they get things done. Totally inspiring. She also said that about 25% of the food produced in the US never makes it to market - for reasons of controlling the price, or farmers being unable/unwilling to complete a harvest, and because of perceived imperfections in the items (melons that are not the "standard size" for a supermarket, etc.).

She brought up a question that many in America have, but none of us were brave enough to ask - "If the poor are hungry, why are so many of them overweight?" She beat us to the punch and explained how many poor people live in what is called "a food desert", which is to say their part of town only has convenience stores which enables them to buy soda, candy, macaroni and cheese - essentially items that are high in sugar, fat and sodium. And many of them don't have vehicles to travel to the part of town where the abundance is.... essentially, where we live.

For a moment there, I got a clear glimpse of how things work in America and felt a little distrubed. It was a good day for reflecting on that - being 9/11 and all.

She said she is working to get a produce stand into the bus station in uptown Charlotte. Makes perfect sense.

This was one of the most interesting things we had heard of in a while and we were both really inspired. Great party, too!




^ Marilyn explaining things about the Society....



^ Marilyn and Debbie, the woman from Wine for Humanity



^ Ms. Marilyn



^ Orders were collected by Debbie.....



^ Meeting old friends and new....



^ By the end of the night, David was making strong declarations about how good the cheese was.... so, I got a picture of that.

Friday, Sept 11

Day 72...

Well, 8 years later there is not much sign of Sept 11 being a day set apart. A few things here and there, but less focus on it than years past. I guess last time we were here for it was the 5th anniversary, so much more going on. Today seemed just like another day.

Some things from the day...



^ We more or less have finished the den. Tara bought huge couches. They're ok, she likes them better than I do. I probably won't warm up to them fully until I nap on them. And Tara says they need pillows.



^ New kitchen chairs. The Shaker chairs are gone.



^ Here's the view from my desk. Window seat, nice....



^ So, I started to hear the punding of a band from my desk. Hmmmm.



^ I went down to see what was going on - it appears Charlotte is having its "Blue, Bews and Barbecue" Festival. You won't get that just anywhere. If you want insight into what it is all about, check out the sign on the right of this snap - "Outlaw Barbecue Shack - So Good It Oughtta Be ILLEGAL".



^ I will admit I enjoyed the band when they started playing the Allman Brothers. And it's amazing how every person in the crowd - old, young, black, white, white collar, blue collar - got energized by the Allman Brothers tune. I liked that.



^ Vegetable and fruit vendor.



^ Before going back to work, went to a park to see if anyone had placed 3,000 small flags in the ground - a rememberance of those who died in the WTC on Sept 11. This was a bit of a normal routine on 9/11 in years past.



^ Nothing.

Dahi

Day 71...

I made my own dahi, or yogurt. A little thing I learned in India.

Oh, hey Sam!

Day 70...



Today I got off the bus at 7:30 in uptown Charlotte, turned the corner and bumped into a friend from Hyderabad, Sam Uppaluri. He is not a Bank guy that I worked with, he's with another company altogether and had just gotten off the plane at midnight. This is perhaps the ultimate small world experience of all - we were just like "Hey!" on the streets of Charlotte.

Sam is the guy in the light blue shirt - above.

South Mecklenburg

We went to Liam's high school, named South Mecklenburg High School (above), today and attended parent's night. We met all of his teachers. They uniformly said he is doing well, is pretty quiet, and that he has been doing his homework.

Whew!

The school allows you to do two things on the web - see what assignments he has, as well as see what grades he is achieving.

So, that is good. We won't be out of the loop until some of the problems are deep - should they pop up again.

We were pretty proud to hear about his progress.

Laboring on Labor Day

Day 68...

Working our collective butts off today......

I asked Tara how long it has been since our things had arrived at the house - it has been only three weeks. We've done a huge amount in three weeks. Almost too much. We're so eager to have life here achieve some level of normalcy that we've been working very hard. And now that I am in my new role, I am a "nights-and-weekends" worker at home.

Some of the progress....



^ Front area painted....



^ Improved curb appeal. Admittedly, hard to notice from this picture - but it's amazing what a coat of paint will achieve.


Below is the big ticket item for the weekend.....



^ The den as it existed at the beginnig of the day. We have torn the wallpaper down, which left a huge amount of rough drywall, as well as ripped drywall caused by our ripping it off.



^ Have you heard of skim coating? We hadn't either. But we researched what you need to do to make a wall "like new" again. It involves joint compound, a certain type of wide knife, and a specifc technique of applying manually. It took a long time....



^ Tara applying some of the material. I did most of it... but she was a great asset in the whole process. She has the eye.



^ Yet more.



^ And, the largely finished product. Now it dries for a day, we sand and paint - again, at night.

Ashoka

Day 67....




We had visitors this evening, Gary and Rachna, but we forgot to take some snaps.

It was really great to see them!

Above is a picture of Ashoka in his new bed, very happy.