winter in the city

is something completely different than winter spent tucked away in Northfield or Chanhassen. There's a deeper need to keep going here, a sort of harshness that comes from not having the luxury to travel on plowed streets and sidewalks, take time off from work, or simply pull your SUV out of the garage. It's more beautiful how the grittiness here fades and gets tucked away by the whiteness. The kittens are always entertaining. They sit at the window watching entranced for hours as snowflakes blow past.

I really like the job I have at Ramsey County Environmental Health setting up the food recycling programs in the elementary schools. I sit and talk with the kids while they eat and they tell me stories of life in the U.S., Somalia, Puerto Rico, Mexico, Ethiopia, or refugee camps in SE Asia. We talk about their pets, what they like about school and their families, what they hope to do with their lives. If I end up becoming a teacher, I want to teach in the city and pour as much love and kindness into the school as I can.

When I'm not in the schools, I work at a desk in an office in Maplewood. I generally like the people I work with but as a recent environmental studies grad, I don't necessarily find a lot to do that coincides with what I'm interested in. There are a lot of wonderful projects going on, like an environmental health handbook in Spanish for families that have no access to this information. It's ridiculously funny that I'm in charge of setting up focus groups, professional reviewers, and distribution for the book. I didn't have a clue about county govt, its projects, or how to go about contacting Latino nonprofits but it's been a good experience overall.

So, right now the main pleasures in life (other than telling kids where to put their food scraps) are cooking with Jimmy, playing with the kitties, knitting, coaxing our window herb garden into existence, reading books and short stories, playing with the Mpls South Community Band on my very own bass clarinet, looking at houses in Mpls and St. Paul, and relearning to play the piano. Actually, not too shabby. It's still hard to accept that so many of the people from college and before are far away either in distance or time. Grant, Cathy, Elizabeth, Justin, Amanda, Jennifer, Stacey, Cate, Guro, Bridget, Megan, Anna, Jacob: I really miss you! I hope everyone out there is finding their various present occupations satisfying.

Lots of love from Lauren, Jimmy, Mitch, and Ruby