Blog Action Day

I thought you would be interested in this upcoming event. Here is a short description of the event from the Blog Action Day Website:

First and last, the purpose of Blog Action Day is to create a discussion. We ask bloggers to take a single day out of their schedule and focus it on an important issue. By doing so on the same day, the blogging community effectively changes the conversation on the web and focuses audiences around the globe on that issue. Out of this discussion naturally flow ideas, advice, plans, and action. In 2007 on the theme of the Environment, we saw bloggers running environmental experiments, detailing innovative ideas on creating sustainable practices, and focusing their audience's attention on organizations and companies promoting green agendas. In 2008 we covered the theme of Poverty, and similarly focused the blogging community's energies around discussing the wide breadth of the issue from many perspectives and identifying innovative and unexpected solutions. This year we aim to do the same for Climate Change, an issue that threatens us all.

-- Pat Jones

Mile Long Yard Sale

The "West End" of Alexandria has the traditional Mile Long Yard sale along Taney Avenue and adjacent streets during one of the final Saturdays of September. Today was the day. This year we were lucky the rains held off and neighbors and friends were able to enjoy a good bargain in cool and dry -- if not sunny -- weather. Everyone seemed to have a good time. From food and furniture, to lawn implements and old videotapes, electronic devices that were cutting-edge at one time, well loved toys, musical instruments, shoes, and jackets, the yard sale this year was the bargain hunters heaven.

Returning home, I started thinking about the wonderful community building aspects of our own St. Clement yard sale when, between Thanksgiving and Christmas, we invite the extended family over to our place to purchase one of 600 or so beautiful Christmas trees. Ah, you can smell the aroma of Douglass firs wafting out from the branches, sticky, pungent sap on your hands, and needles in your socks and hair. The air is cooler then -- the hot coffee or cocoa between your hands serves a useful purpose -- and I have an even warmer feeling when I see old acquaintances, friends who perhaps I see only once a year...in pursuit of the perfect tree.

The Mile Long Yard Sale is like that. It happens a couple of months earlier. And it's a wonderful harbinger of the colder months and the warm thoughts to come.

-- Pat Jones

ALIVE...Marching Captains!

Three volunteers from ALIVE (Alexandrians Involved Ecumenically) came to our house today and took away the bunk beds that had occupied the girls' room for a number of years. Now another Alexandria family will be able to enjoy the bunk beds, thanks to the great volunteers at ALIVE. Katie is enjoying her freshman year at Christopher Newport University (CMU), so Maria has a new bed and room to herself. Maria (left) and Katie posed for this picture during our recent "Family Weekend" at CNU. Katie, an active member of the music program, is festooned in the silver and blue of the CNU Marching Captains. Go Katie!

-- Pat Jones

Back to school..."a closer walk."

I began the day in my car running some errands at the height of the post-Labor Day back to school and back to work pandemonium, slowly passing many buses, crossing guards, carpools, parents, and children. Sam and Maria went back to school today, too. After the errands, I went for a long walk in the rain, confronting much of the bustle I encountered before, just in a different place. I walked past an elementary school, a middle school, Alexandria hospital, and Foxchase Shopping Center. Then, in Holmes Run Park, the scene above magically appeared before me. O peace and serenity. O manna from heaven. O quiet desolation in a day filled with words and noise. It's nice to find an oasis in a desert of distraction.

-- Pat Jones