During the time I was laid off and I was finishing school, we decided it was time to make a big change in our lives. We had so much fun in the small town where the graduate school was located that we thought it might not be such a bad idea to find employment there. I did interview in that town and was one of two finalists. The other person got the job. Sad. But, I kept looking at employment there or in another town or city other than where we currently live (outskirts of Richmond, VA). None of that worked out.
Instead some consulting firm found me on Monster and now I’m working through my conversion time period at the non-profit in Richmond. I like the folks there and I think it’s going to work out…one month down with two to go.
We’ve decided that we should re-embrace our roots. I’m not talking about the outskirts. Jeez Louise, yesterday the local news was on for two minutes and two horrible stories were on about our county. Both involving violence of the worst sort (seriously, a woman axed her young blind, cancer survivor son and then set him and the house on fire) and there was at least one confederate flag spotted in the background. I’m not going to turn this into a rant on how effing sick I am of seeing those flags but JESUSGOD THE SOUTH IS NOT GOING TO RISE AGAIN SO SIT DOWN AND SHUT UP ALREADY. Also, dumbasses, take your meds because clearly there are some issues going on out here.
Whew, where was I? Oh yeah, embracing our roots.
We had friends who had a long layover on Saturday and so we drove around so one of them (he lived here awhile) could reconnect with some of the neighborhoods and monuments. We had lunch down near Richmond’s canal walk. It was a good visit and it was neat to hear him talk about what had changed since he moved out of town ages ago (we’ve known each other for almost 20 years so it’s hard for me to even think about when he left town because I’ve known people I met as a fully-fledged adult for 20 years!?!). After visiting with our friends and after the walk along the river on Sunday, we decided to make a list of all the “very Richmond” things there are to do and we are going to do them. Dagnabbit!
We didn’t list out food festivals because we’re already pretty good about that and we left off going to concerts/plays because we’re already pretty good about that too. I’m talking about things like renewing our membership to the art museum, participating in the First Friday activities (also art), going to see our farm team play baseball and other things.
If we’re going to stay, we should be involved (and yes, I really did embed that video down there).