I feel like I belong...

"You eat like one of us," she said with an enthusiastic and purposeful smile.

"I'm sorry?" because I didn't understand what she was getting at - plus, it was hard to hear over the box fan.

"You eat like a black person; we like to put hot sauce on everything!" Merl told me this, the smile never leaving her face.

She's the owner of a new breakfast / lunch corner restaurant appropriately named, "Merl's." If you can believe it, for lunch (at this point, a couple of weeks ago) I had fried salmon patties (covered in hot sauce), fried eggs, grits, and wheat toast.

The meal was pretty good. The service was outstanding. Merl's hospitality made me feel like I belong.

There's a lot to make me feel like I don't belong here (that is, in my neighborhood).

The color of my skin.
My family origins.
An accent that slips out every now and again.
Where I work.
Where I play.
My age.
The multiple tickets I've received.

Sometimes, there are stares. When we first moved here, someone saw my truck as an object of their hatred - I think I may have written about this earlier (the scratches). After the truck came the trash - not just normal Philly trash, but the kind that is intentionally left in front of our home in a bag. Following that, there have been at least two people (neighbors - I know where they live on our block) who have asked us for money.

But then, there are the smiles.

There's Mr. Henderson, our next door neighbor who tells us he's missed us when we travel and who tells us he's glad to see us again.
There's Bill and Juliet (members at Tenth Presbyterian) who always greet me with a smile, who always have something to say about what's going on with them or something to ask about what's going on with me.
There's Rahim - our little buddy Rahim - who waves at me from down the street and yells "Hi," to me. He remembers my name too.
There's also Rahim - the adult Muslim who lives down the street - who always has a honk , a wave, and a smile as he's driving past.
There's our neighborhood association - a group of people who want to see a difference in our neighborhood.
There's our church - a group of like minded believers who want to see Christ make a difference in our city.
Now, there's Merl's - a corner restaurant with an owner who tells me that I eat like a black person.

Travel (By the Numbers)

Four airline tickets purchased with frequent flier miles.

32 nights spent in hotel rooms.

Over 7,000 miles traveled by air.$0 paid to see One Mormon Temple in Salt Lake City, UT (more to come)...

Format

So, I'm thinking of a new format here - something that would be a bit more regular while incorporating both personal and impersonal content. Though, I suppose it will all be "personal," as I don't intend to enlist others to write here.

The plan would be to write 3 or 4 times a week. I'm thinking something along the lines of, "By the Numbers," (I always love segments / articles like that) "Where I've Been," (Travel), Probably something more serious for the weekends, and the "or 4," would be whatever I feel like doing.

Feel free to feed back anything you wouldn't like, would think is wonky*, or just generally uninteresting.

So, I guess this would qualify as a blog about a blog.

(*Wonky is a word that I got from Laura, she heard this from her mother. It is slang for stupid, British slang for unreliable. On an unrelated note, we recently watched the season finale of Extreme Home Makeover ((on our laptops - for those of you wondering, we've still been television-less and will remain so indefinitely)) that featured "Willy Walker" as one of the two owners of a renovated property - a church. So, perhaps the Rev. Willy Walker would be a more appropriate name. All I could think of is to associate him with Willy Wonka and think that he was living in Ray Nagin's Chocolate City. Wonky > Walker > Wonka).