It’s in the Mail!

Thursday afternoon as I drove across town for the third or fourth time, scrambling to square away the last of my arrangements for moving out of my apartment, sloughing excess possessions and cramming what was worth keeping into the space under the stairs at my mom's place, I received a call from the notorious 202 area code.

It was the placement office calling to tell me they had mailed me an invitation packets on October 9. Concluding that it must have been lost in the mail, she agreed to send a new one to my friend's address in Los Angeles. Hopefully it will have reached him by the time I arrive. All I know so far is that I’m departing in March.

Friday was spent with my new friends, OMEN's current VISTAs, on a trip to Tillamook to help Food Roots work on its community gardens. We camped in a yurt and I departed first thing this morning for Portland where I caught Amtrak's Coastal Starlight bound for LA. As I write this, a couple strums mandolins and sings folk songs two tables down from me here in the observation car as I barrel into the California night.

The 2010-11 OMEN VISTAs plus a dog (you know, the one in the orange jacket)