church robbery

This morning, Tim and I went to church to help out at the food drive/health fair. When we got to the church there were police cars and the church was a mess. Apparently, some people broke into the church last night, disabled the alarm and rummaged through everything looking for money. They ended up stealing some petty cash and some tuition money that was supposed to help kids attend Baltimore Christian School tuition free. Who would rob a church? It's a shame...


Our friend from Cornell, Yuriy, is here for the weekend. We're going to a Baltimore Ravens football game tomorrow, which should be interesting. None of us has been to an NFL game before.

Guitar Hero

Kitty kat likes to play the guitar, especially to Bruce Springsteen...


Sorry--you'll have to turn your head to see this one.





I think I've posted too many things about Sealion. It must seem like we're one of those couples obsessed with their cat. We're really not...

Suspenders

Because Tim looked so nice wearing suspenders at our wedding, we decided to buy a pair for him to wear to work. They're black and make him look old-fashioned, which is always good, in my opinion. Tim likes to say, "Once you experience the suspension, you don't go back [to belts]." Weirdo.

Here are some pics of him:


Tonight, we joined one of our church's covenant groups (basically a Bible study/fellowship group). We had a great time, and met some very interesting and funny people. We talked about Luke 4, which is kind of weird, because I had just read that yesterday!

Today, Tim and I volunteered at a community project our church organized. We went around Pen Lucy, the neighborhood our church is in (one that's considered to be full of drugs and pretty dangerous), and did some trash pick-up, gardening, lawn mowing, street sweeping, etc. It was a fun day since we got to meet some people from church and talk to some people in the community.

Later on, in a grocery store parking lot, I saw one of the cutest dogs I've ever seen. Apparently, it was a poodle/terrier mix, but to me, it looked like a chocolate labradoodle. It mostly looked like a chocolate lab, but her face had a little mustache and beard. Her owner let me pet her, and she was so nice and beautiful! She sort of looked like this:

I want to get a dog, but I think we'll wait awhile. I don 't want to keep her cooped up in a small apartment, especially since we'd want to get a big dog.

In other news, here's a couple funny picures of our kitty kat. He likes to sit on Tim's lap like a little kid, and sometimes, Tim pulls his arms apart like this:

Our photographer at our wedding, Rose, sent us a few "teaser" photos!

*all images by Rose Ann Ghabour

Also, Tim and I just met our next door neighbor tonight, and turns out, she played Detective Kima Greggs on the tv show "The Wire," which was based and filmed in Baltimore. We live next door to a celebrity.

Weekend in D.C.

Here are some photos from our little trip to D.C. We went to the Smithsonian Museum of American History, Holocaust Museum, Lincoln Memorial, WWII Memorial, Vietnam Memorial, White House, etc.

The Saturday we were there, there was a huge protest against "big government," health care reform, Obama, etc. People from all over the country were there, wearing American flags and other patriotic attire. Many people were wearing t-shirts with really rude and sometimes just plain ignorant messages. One shirt I saw said, "Kenya called. They want their socialist back." Barack Obama isn't even from Kenya. Sure, his father may have been, but geez. To me, it's reminiscent of the whole sending-black-people-back-to-Africa racist movement. It's absurd. Another shirt said something like, "Everyone welcome King HUSSEIN," with a picture of Obama. Exploiting someone's middle name to instill a false fear of terrorism is just immature. There were thousands of people there, but I personally didn't see a single non-white protester.



This guy below was a counter-protester. I'm glad someone was there fighting against the ignorance.

dinner

Tonight, we had a couple over for dinner at our apartment. We met them in church two weeks ago. They were just married about 5 months ago and also just moved to Baltimore, so we're both without friends here.

It was nice to interact with some people around our age, since we've been without friends for about a month.

We found out that they're friends with Claire Bryant, a friend of ours from Cornell, and her family. What a small world!

I made rigatoni with vodka sauce for dinner. I bought a bottle of wine, but we discovered that we couldn't find our wine cork. oops.

Tomorrow, we're going to D.C., which is only about an hour and ten minutes away, to explore. I've actually never been to D.C., so we're going to do all the touristy things like go to the White House, the memorials, the history museum, etc. I'm looking forward to it! We're even going to spend the night there at a hotel, sort of to celebrate our two month anniversary, which was today.

Have a nice weekend.

Collage

Today, I made a collage to hang up amongst the other pictures above our living room couch. It's scene of a sunset over the ocean with two sailboats on the horizon. I made it out of magazines that I cut up into little pieces. I glued the pieces with Mod Podge, a paper mache-type glue. I really like making these little collages. Since I don't have a job yet, maybe I'll open up a shop on etsy.com to see if anyone's interested in buying them. Then I can feel like I'm contributing to our livelihood. : )

My workspace

photo with the flash on

poor photo, but oh well

kitty kat

Last night, Tim and I were watching "Man Push Cart," a movie about a Pakistani immigrant who sells coffee and bagels out of a cart in Manhattan. There was a part in the movie where his little black and white kitten died, and because it made me sad, I wanted to give our cat, Sealion, a hug. So, I got up to get him, but couldn't find him. I soon realized the screen in one of the back windows was out of its frame. Sealion had escaped! We went out the window and onto our roof and found him two houses down from ours on the roof. He wouldn't come to us; he was enjoying his freedom. He hopped over the precipices between the row houses, risking his own life, in order to frolic across all the rowhouse rooftops of the 3000 block of N. Calvert St. in Baltimore, MD. In the dark.

Tim and I went inside to see if he would come in by himself. About 45 minutes later, I saw him on our roof. So, I went to the window and shook his food cup to coax him over. He slowly approached, and then I grabbed him and took him back in to safety. Ever since, he's been eyeing the window, trying to get out.

The rooftops on which he ran around

Sealion after his excursion.