Planes, Rings and Hospital Rooms… Part2
21 Nov 2011 Leave a Comment
In a nutshell… Ireland was AWESOME! We did more pub hopping and talking to people than the tourist attractions but we saw Ireland our way. Plus we missed all of the natural disasters at home.
After Hophead proposed, of course, I was thinking about the next step… how and when we would get married. I figured a year or so is normal, right? We had just gotten home and stopped over to see my parents when Dad said, “Why wait? Mother and I got married only three months after I proposed” and he walked away.
Hmmmmm… Yeah why wait?
You know it’s amazing how life still goes on and keeps moving no matter what anyone has going on in their life. The Fall season was approaching and this is such a fun time with so many festivals going on. We found out about this Festival in Frederick with Blind Melon headlining but even better is The Amish Outlaws, they are a favorite of ours. We immediately hit the beer garden for some Flying Dogs and started getting hungry. We sent Ginja off in search of what kind of foods this place was offering but then the rain started.
It rained for a good while but we got shelter in the hay pavilion. One of the vendors decided the rain wasn’t going to hurt their profits and decided to take orders from people hiding from the rain. Smart idea cause we took them up on it. Because of that vendor we waited for the rain to stop and just when it did The Amish Outlaws started playing.
Ginja had never seen them perform and I was excited for her to have The Amish Outlaw experience. They finished up with Dropkick Murphy’s ‘Shipping up to Boston’. We were having a blast and didn’t care about the rain. Afterwards Brother Eazy Ezekiel came down to the masses to hand out bumper stickers. I was so excited I ran up to get one and slipped. As I was going down I was determined not to get my shorts muddy. Eazy looked at me and said “Eeeewwww here have two stickers!”
How embarrassing!
When I got up I looked over at Hophead and said “I think I may have hurt myself… Let’s go get another beer“. Unfortunately, the beer didn’t help like I was hoping. Leaving the beer garden I was having a hard time walking and Hophead had to help me get over to the aid station. They were so excited to help me get to the car because they had a shiny new cherry red golf cart and I was the first to get a ride in it.
So Hophead and Ginja took me to the ER and according to Ginja I was funny cause I was still buzzing from my beers. I may have had a buzz but I was feeling stupid and in my mind I was entertaining them. I figured I pulled something and this meant I was not running in the morning and this was going to screw up any plans of running for a while since sprains take forever to heal. Imagine my surprise when the Doctor came over and said “Well you broke it but at least you don’t need surgery“.
Shut the Front Door!
That week after breaking the ankle was a real tough one, the best part was we set a wedding date of November 5th… 2011.
Give to the Max
08 Nov 2011 3 Comments
Starting at midnight on Wednesday, November 9, local residents will donate online to help raise millions of dollars for local nonprofits as part of the first annual Give to the Max Day: Greater Washington.
• Give to the Max Day is a massive one-day regional online fundraiser that will unite local Maryland, Virginia and Washington, DC communities to support nonprofits serving the area.
• As part of Give to the Max Day: Greater Washington, nonprofits large and small can earn their share of $125,000 in cash awards, including up to $25,000 for nonprofits with the most individual donors and the most money donated.
• Homelessness in Washington, DC, the Nation’s Capitol: there are more than 6,500 homeless men, women and children in Washington, DC on any given night. Of those, nearly 2,000 are chronically homeless–meaning they have been homeless for a year or more, or four or more times in the past three years.• Miriam’s Kitchen provides free, homemade meals and high-quality support services to more than 4,000 homeless men and women each year in the Nation’s Capitol, Washington, DC. Their core programs are meals, case management, Miriam’s Studio, and Miriam’s Cafe.
• Homelessness at Miriam’s Kitchen: on any given day at Miriam’s Kitchen, 82 percent of their guests are chronically homeless. In fact, the average length of homelessness of the guests is 5.5 years
• Nearly 80 percent of Miriam’s Kitchen’s guests live on the streets of DC, in parks around the city, under the bridges along the Potomac River, and in emergency shelters.
• Miriam’s Kitchen’s guest demographics: 95 percent of Miriam’s Kitchen’s guests are male, 60 percent are African American and the median age of our guests is 50.
• Mental illness and addiction at Miriam’s Kitchen: Many of Miriam’s Kitchen’s guests suffer from severe mental illnesses and addictions, making them the most fragile and hardest to connect with social services.
Homelessness in America
• There are 671,859 people experiencing homelessness on any given night in the United States - roughly 22 of every 10,000 people are homeless
• 18 percent (124,000) experience chronic homelessness in the United States:Chronic homelessness is often the public face of homelessness, involving either long-term and/or repeated bouts of homelessness coupled with some sort of disability (physical or mental). People experiencing chronic homelessness often end up living in shelters and consume a plurality of the homeless assistance system’s resources
• 37 percent of the homeless population are people in families: Families become homeless as a result of some unforeseen financial crisis – a medical emergency, a car accident, a death in the family – that prevents them from being able to hold on to housing. An estimated 85,000 families experience homelessness each night.
• 50,000 young people are homeless long-term: Young people often become homeless due to some familial disruption, including divorce, neglect, or abuse. An estimated 50,000 youth experience long-term homelessness.
• 20 percent of the homeless population is made up of veterans: There are approximately 131,000 homeless veterans, accounting for 20 percent of the entire homeless population. Veterans often become homeless due to war-related disability. For a variety of reasons – physical disability, mental anguish, post-traumatic stress, etc. – many veterans find difficulty readjusting to civilian life.
• Non-chronic single adults: Survivors of domestic violence and former prisoners re-entering society are among the other groups of people that often experience homelessness
• Lack of affordable housing leads to homelessness: Homelessness occurs when people or households are unable to acquire and/or maintain housing they can afford. The main reason behind this inability to acquire/maintain housing is the scarcity of affordable housing in the United States – particularly in more urban areas where homelessness is more prevalent.
Miriam’s Kitchen
Miriam’s Kitchen was founded in 1983 by a collaboration of The George Washington University Hillel Student Association, Western Presbyterian Church and United Church in response to an urgent need for services for the homeless in Washington, DC.
Miriam’s Kitchen’s mission is to provide individualized services that address the causes and consequences of homelessness in an atmosphere of dignity and respect, both directly and through facilitating connections in Washington, DC.
Miriam’s Kitchen provides free, homemade meals and high-quality support services to more than 4,000 homeless men and women each year through our core programs: Meals, Case Management, Miriam’s Studio, and Miriam’s Cafe.
