Today, Winnie officially became an American citizen. At a 2:00PM Citizenship Oath Ceremony in the Fairfax USCIS center, Winnie did take the oath of Citizenship and became an American.
Tag: <span>Family</span>
Here it is already September, the long hot n’ Dry summer almost passed. Although I enjoy warm weather, these past two months were almost too much of a good thing. And in the category of “here we go again,” we have a hurricane watch just days after the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina.
The more things change…
I’ve just returned from nearly two months working in Portland, Oregon. It was somewhat frustrating on a professional level, but my work there gave me a wonderful opportunity to experience a part of the country I’d never been in before. All-in-all, I really enjoyed being in Portland.
Our local newspaper is calling it “Snowzilla.” Other news media are calling it “Snowmaggedon” and “Snopocalypse.” Yet other helpful news sources are calling it “number 4 in recorded history for D.C.”. Whatever our media chooses to call it; I call it 30 hours of watching the snow fall, interspersed by periods of going outdoors and shoveling the winter wonderland off the sidewalks, driveways, and cars. When all was said and done, this past weekend we had 21 inches of snow pile up on top of the six inches left from the week before. With the weather services predicting more to come over the next several days.
Is summer here yet?
I had the chance to make a quick trip to my former hometown of Gautier, Mississippi, this past week. It was a quick 6 hour visit made on the spur of the moment while in New Orleans, Louisiana, on a business trip. Although it felt good to be back in my former home town even for a short while and visit with old friends, I also felt a small bit melancholy.
In my first post of 2009, I want to wish all our loyal readers a new year filled with good health, happiness, and prosperity. I won’t wish anyone a new year filled with excitement and interesting times as I think most people have enough of that already. Not the good kind.
Winnie loves to grow things. Calling her a “natural gardener” may be a fair statement even though she did grow up in a small farming village. Having seen the village she grew up in with it’s wonderful small vegetable plots surrounded by hundreds of acres of rice fields, I’m not too surprised she’s good with plants. But she really does love to grow plants and work in gardens.
She is also extremely resourceful.
Winnie returned home in Virginia from her month long visit to China Sunday morning. She reports she had a nice visit traveling around different family in different towns around south-eastern China. However, her flying experience coming back to the U.S. left something to be desired.
Here’s to wishing all Mother’s in the United States a Happy Mother’s Day. For those families who actually live within commuting distance of “Mom,” be sure to take her out to breakfast, lunch, dinner, or at least stop by and say hello. For those of us too far away to commute, at least give dear old Mom a call….after sending a card or some flowers… Read a short history of Mother’s Day on the flip.
I’ve written recently about the issues of immigration here and the attitudes of far too many residents in Prince William County. The attitude can be summed up in the statement “There’re against it.” At least, they’re against Hispanic immigrants who have the temerity to actually expect to be treated as human beings in exchange for doing a large portion of the manual labor around these parts.
Last night, I was privileged to be among a large group of Hispanic people who respected me, just having a good time celebrating their achievements.