Nice weekend!! Today I drove up to Birmingham to volunteer with the Human Rights Campaign booth which was at the PrideFest. All in all it was a blast! It's good to see evidence of progressive folk all the way down here in the Deep South. There was a pretty decent turnout when I was volunteering, and we met and surpassed our goal of getting 25 memberships! By the time I had left at about 3pm we were at 34 already and we hoped to make another goal of 50 by the end of the night! Looks like the memberships/funds raised from today will put an HRC office in Birmingham!! Right now Alabama is one of 5 states without an HRC presence...so that's super exciting to have that change soon!
All in all I'm optimistic about the various signs of progressiveness floating around where we live...Legalizing Sunday alcohol sales, the various public spaces opening around the city, the fact that the Tuscaloosa Rebuild Team visited Greensburg, KS to see how they took their tornado disaster into an opportunity to rebuild smart and green, the fabulous farmer's market that pushes the eat local movement, the fact that My Morning Jacket is coming to play at the Amphitheater!! All of these things are great little reminders that progress is possible...you just have to believe...
The PrideFest was a culmination of a week of festivities - parades, filmfests, music shows, etc. I always enjoyed going to the Pride parade in Seattle, which was centered near my neighborhood of Capitol Hill. It was usually good weather with great people watching and a very fun atmosphere. Memories of that plus the fact that there was an extensive nytimes article about eating your way through Seattle (thanks for the heads up Iowa!) made me miss the Emerald City for all that it is...But I'm lucky I was able to live there with so many fond memories AND all my great friends!! I'll be back soon enough! sigh...
I asked a fellow volunteer about some local eateries in B-ham...He was a vegetarian so he suggested veg-friendly places that I am excited to try with Dan when he returns - The Purple Onion, and the Pita Stop are supposedly tasty Mediterranean cafes!!
Another exciting thing about PrideFest other than the warm fuzzy feeling that Alabama is much more open-minded than I give it credit for: the free swag...a handful of chapsticks, and a bunch of free dog food samples means Hannah gets a bunch of treats, which I stuffed into her squirrel-kong, only to have her slowly but surely retrieve them one by one...I could watch this forever (for the email subscribers you may have to go to the blog link directly to view the video):
- bye y'all!!
xo!!
I'm so proud of you for fighting the good fight, Chau! I forwarded this post to my (super-activist) mother, who still thinks of the movie Deliverance as her shorthand for the South. She'll come around...eventually...
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