Well shoot. My small-ish hometown of Hickory, NC is finally featured in the Washington Post…but this, my friends, is NOT good news. No, similar to a good 80% of all stories in big papers around the US at this point in time, Hickory shows up in yet another article about unemployment in the economic crisis.
Just as musical wonder Wesley Willis ends each song with a motto (“Wheaties – breakfast of champions”), I have spent the last 12 years of my life marketing Hickory as the “furniture capital of the world.” Well, the Post – in too many words, I might add – basically conveys to the reader in this article that China has taken all of the worth out of Hickory and the surrounding area. What’s left is an unemployment rate of 15%, vacant textile mills and furniture factories, and still far too many restaurants and steakhouses per capita.
And that’s it. My tagline for Hickory is irrelevant. Perhaps I could say something like: “Hickory – WAS the freakin furniture capital of the world until China thought they could do it better.” Just doesn’t have quite the same ring… The tagline is gone, the jobs are gone, and the people are CONFUSED. The Post’s article is sprinkled with what must be the best quotes they could muster up from Hickory’s finest:
“Now what is everyone supposed to do?”
“The people in the think tanks keep saying we are going to become — what’s the term? — an ‘information and services’ economy… That doesn’t seem to be working out too good.”
“At my age, I didn’t want to go back to school… But I looked around and everything was $8, $9, $10 an hour. I said, ‘Hell, I’m worth more than that.’ “
“I wish they’d just flush the whole NAFTA idea and tell all the other countries the heck with you.”
And of course, my favorite…
“We don’t want to lose our home… I’m just not seeing where the jobs are.”
Someone needs to tell this poor lady that there are no jobs. Anywhere. (Except, maybe, North Dakota…) Poor Hickory. Poor, poor Hickory. People are feeling good about the supposed “end” of this economic crisis, but as the resident pessimist, I feel as though it is my job to let you know that we are nowhere near the end. N Street Village is seeing an increase in numbers of homeless women almost daily, and pretty soon, it sounds like there will be a great job market for me to work with the homeless back in Hickory. <sigh>
To read the article for yourself, click here.

Contrary to what my housemate Allison thinks, you can only blog about Mole Day once a year, and today’s the day! Happy Mole Day, everyone. Now if anything from my highschool education stuck with me, it was that the unit of measurement called a “mole” is 6.02 x 10^23. It sure wasn’t my chemistry teacher that taught me this… no, I only remember her for being one of the worst teachers of my life. Rather, it was the Mole Day celebrations we had that won me about 40 points of extra credit starting at 6:02 in the morning on 10/23 my junior year of high school that really impacted my learning.
seemed all too risky for my first ever mural to be on the old front door of a center-city church that’s on the National Register of Historic Places! But PK pushed me and said it was a risk that she would like me to take, so I did. A few weeks later, my first mural is complete, with all of the good and all of the bad, and I’ve learned many things. I learned artistic techniques and logistics, sure, and I developed a newfound love and respect for murals around the city, but perhaps most importantly, I developed some sort of reverence for St. Francis, as he gradually came to life on what was originally a piece of plywood.
St. Francis, while walking with a few of his compatriots, said: “Wait here while I go preach to my sisters, the birds.” I couldn’t help but smile while picturing this scene and remembering several distinct moments during my LVC year when a fellow LVCer would essentially say to me, “Wait here while I greet every dog that walks by.” At the time, I thought he was ridiculous…an embarrassment to say the least! But the more I thought about St. Francis loving each and every creature – even the smallest of birds, the more I realized how much beauty the rest of us are missing. In an urban setting like Washington, DC, it is easy to take one glance at the pigeons, the rats, the dogs, and curse them for making a mess of our home, our creation. But as Christa, one of my LVC housemates, challenged us last year during a spirituality night, why should we value ourselves as more than a small part of the one great unit of creation?
Ah, the final day of our trip! Erin and I were sad for the end, but with a long day’s drive ahead of us, we were sure there was something good still in store! It was our last morning of singing On the Road Again, so we videotaped it so it could go down in history. (Check out the first minute of that video
It was a foggy morning, which Erin kept wishing away, but I loved the magnificence the fog gave the redwood trees as we began driving through the forest. The trees were so huge, and with the low-hanging clouds, you really couldn’t see where they ended. It was a beautiful drive, just as we had anticipated. We kept making ridiculous remarks about how much better it was than Olympic… we just couldn’t let go of our negative attitudes from the day before. As per usual, we didn’t have
much time to do much else other than drive through the forest slowly, pulling over on occasion to take photos.
Now, Erin and I have seen some strange statues on this trip, but this was by far the largest, so we pulled over to take a picture. While we stood there staring and wondering why on earth this would exist in the middle of a beautiful forest, Paul Bunyon suddenly winked his eye! “Erin!!!! Did you see that?????? He winks!!!!!!” I watched in awe at this amazing mechanical device that seemed to blink every few minutes or so. As if this weren’t enough, our mouths gaped as Paul waved his right hand, side to side. Little kids climbed over his boots – we were not the only ones watching. A crowd began to gather, when SUDDENLY, a voice said, “You kids tryin’ to climb on my boots? Good luck with that…I’m pretty tall!” Heads swiveled as tried to figure out where the voice was coming from. It didn’t stop there. Paul continued talking, and Erin and I could not take our eyes away. Eventually he said, “You ladies in the parking lot look like you’re waiting for me to do something! Did you wanna see a wink? Or perhaps a smile? Or maybe you wanted a profile…” Paul began turning his head to the right before saying, “Oo…let me show you my better side.” Turns his head to the left. Erin and I were really quite shocked. There is no way to describe this, so you’ll have to 



the outskirts of the park with only a few options to turn down a smaller road and actually enter the park. We had high expectations, and considering the fact that we had seen some incredible sights, we really expected Olympic to top them all. But things just didn’t seem to go our way. We had heard a lot about Hurricane Ridge – an overlook that is supposedly amazing, but it was closed down because of a landslide. Then, we heard about a place where we could bathe in natural hot springs. Aside from being a long detour from the direction we needed to head, the “natural” hot springs were basically turned into hot tubs with tile flooring and walls… Not quite as natural as we were hoping for, but a chance to “shower” nonetheless
(which we were always seeking)! We made our way around the park, slowed often because of construction. We hadn’t completely lost hope as we were sure our last stop would be the greatest: the rainforest.
days and in comparison to our unreasonably high expectations that we had set. As we walked through the rainforest, we fulfilled Erin’s only request to find a fern that was taller than her. We walked and laughed and joked about “how much fun we were having,” forcing ourselves to have a positive attitude on what was clearly becoming our least favorite day.
Erin and I weren’t really prepared for this day… at all. Neither of us had ever been to Seattle, and we didn’t have any solid connections in Seattle like Kyle in Portland. We read through our travel books during our drive and decided we really wanted two things: to go to the market (and especially to see people throw fish), and to do something in water (preferably kayak). We arrived in Seattle and headed straight for the Pike Peak Market. It was lovely! We walked around for quite awhile, buying gifts for family members left and right. And, just as Erin had hoped, we saw the fish throwers. We decided to have some fish shipped to our brother Jeff & his fiancee Danielle, and as we were seeking advice and deciding what to get, someone practically threw a fish over our heads to his fellow worker! As if this wasn’t thrilling enough, our biggest thrill was this: all of the cute young men in the nation seem to live in Seattle and work at this marketplace. Overwhelmed, Erin and I walked slowly through the market, being swayed from one stand to the next by some delicious young man offering us a juicy slice of peach, or a sample of chocolate spaghetti, or – our favorite – the taste of a pluot. A what??
Please note that neither Erin nor I had showered since Portland, and quite frankly, we weren’t looking too hot as we headed into the restaurant. Then, the strangest thing happened – Erin ran into a friend of her husband’s! Small world, right? He was there for a business meeting, but his company never showed, so he invited us to eat with him…and payed for it! Nice. After a rather lengthy lunch, Erin and I made our way to Lake Union to go kayaking! The water was so refreshing, and the view of the city was just what we needed to take it all in.
May I foreshadow day 6 by telling you that the ferry ride to the peninsula was more beautiful than the peninsula itself… Our intentions to finish our day with a pluot were blindsided by the frustrating realization that our campsite that night was covered with gravel, as though dirt ground isn’t already hard enough. It had been a long, insatiable day with a lot of driving… the pluot would have to wait.
(a report on me and my sister’s roadtrip…)
I kept trying to take artistic photographs… it was a little obsessive. We didn’t stay at the falls for long – too many other places to check out! Unfortunately, Erin and I had a hard time agreeing on what to do. We really wanted to go kayaking in the Gorge and have a chill day, but finding a place to kayak was trickier than we thought! We decided instead to spend some time checking out the Fruit Loop.
After the lavender field, we hit up a winery to satisfy Erin’s Napkin cravings. (Luckily, her wine snobbiness wasn’t too embarrassing this time around…!) While at the winery, I had a sudden craving for huckleberry milkshakes. I didn’t know anything about huckleberries except that they were popular in that particular region. Erin asked the wine pourer if there might be some place that we could find such a delight,
and believe it or not, she directed us to the perfect place! As we pulled up, we were thrilled to see a “Huckleberry Milkshakes” sign out front! What are the chances?? The milkshakes were a great accompaniment to our sandwich picnic before we headed off to Mt. Rainier.
Erin, a master of hyperbole, also boldly stated that Mt. Rainier is her new favorite National Park. During the months of June-August. Although she really liked Zion National Park. And Yosemite. In any case, Erin would not say something this extreme unless she actually meant it, so when she says it was the best day ever… it was.

School, and some Portland night life (including a drag show!). We also had a wonderful ice cream sandwich as well as testing out the cupcake scene in Portland. (I am sure I’m missing things, but with the fast pace that we kept, this is really the best I can do.)
It only seemed right that we follow the ritual of having tea time while we were at the Chinese Garden. An hour later and several shotglass-sized cups of tea, we emerged from the tea house feeling enlightened..
.senses heightened, and abs sore from laughing…to say the least. The tea ceremony was…beautiful, and… too much for Erin to handle! Why go through the process of steeping, pouring, and smelling when you just want to drink?!
In any case, I’m not sure I’ve laughed that hard in a long time…so thanks to Erin and Ky for that. That evening, we had dinner at the Kennedy School – an old elementary school that is now a bar and restaurant and hotel and lots of other stuff. The designers really tried to keep it looking like a school, which was sort of creepy, but mostly fun. A fun-filled day was completed as all fun-filled days should be – playing shuffleboard at a bar before watching a drag show at another bar! Oh, Portland! How we loved thee!
