Tree coverage

Philadelphia is not an especially tree-filled city. Especially South Philadelphia. For a healthy city, the tree coverage should range around 40%. South Philly comes at less than 1%. Yup, that's pretty bad. But not anymore! We now have a tree in front of our house. We couldn't be more excited. Look how excited Shanti is!

Weekend Visit

Last weekend, we went to Carlisle to visit Mom and Dad Thompson. It was a nice visit. On Saturday, while Joshua went fly fishing with Dad, Mom and I went to the farmer's market and for a long walk.

The greatest part of visiting my parents is how welcoming they are. Not only does every dinner party contains an assortment of individuals that reaches well beyond their group of friends, but they are constantly doing things for others. Every time I visit, I notice how generous they are to everyone in the community.

For example, Mom and I were going to sit in the backyard under the huge tree to have some tea and assorted snacks. Before I even joined my mother, she was surrounded by a large assortment of neighborhood girls. These little girls populated the chairs, began chowing down on the snacks and conversing with my mother. And when they were done eating, they stuck around because they really enjoy my mother's company. Who doesn't, right? I love my mom to bits and I'm happy she has a crowd of little people who adore her as much as the rest of do.

Here's an image I captured before I went out to join them. (The little girls where wiggly and hard to capture on film.)

Here's one of the funnier imagines one of the little girls took with the camera. I love it!

FURminator (Unpaid Product Endorsement)

I heard about the FURminator online and could not believe the photos on their website. How can it remove that much hair?!

Since Shanti was producing "tumble weeds" of fur and Joshua's allergies were going crazy, the next time we were at the pet store we picked one up. It's amazing!!

When Shanti eats a meal, I brush her with the FURminator and the fur comes off in bunches. Lots and lots and lots of fur. She looks so much cleaner ... in fact, she looks shiny! This product would make me more willing to get a dog who sheds because now that is no longer a problem.


Seriously, this thing is amazing. Almost as amazing as our ice cream maker, but not quite.

"Creating Tomorrow Today"

This week (finals week, at that) I went on four interviews and eventually accepted a full time internship position at a very reputable non-profit-but-very-government-contact-focused agency.


The Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission (DVRPC) is a "interstate, intercounty and intercity agency that provides continuing, comprehensive and coordinated planning to shape a vision for the future growth of the Delaware Valley region." Basically they are the rock stars of planning in the larger metro area. My position will be mainly doing database work but they also said that I would have a chance to do some mapping, too.

I start on May 19th. Hooray!

Shanti, The Plumber

Often times when eating in the kitchen, Laura and I will be entertained by Shanti as she lays completely flat on her back with her head and paws jammed under the refrigerator, oven or cabinet. At first glance you think, "Oh Shanti must see something and is tying to get it." But after 10 or 20 minutes pass, it is apparent there is more involved. We had our suspicions but after today's events our hypothesis was proven true. Shanti wants to be a plumber.

Today, Laura came home to find our kitchen sink plugged and overflowing with water from the faucet that Shanti had turned on full blast. The water had poured down the floor into the basement. Luckily, we were only away from the house for two hours and most of the water was captured in the 32-gallon barrel that just happened to be in the right spot! Unfortunately, the water filled the barrel and then most of the basement.

Anyway, we now realize that over the past eight months, every time Shanti fiddled under the cabinets she was merely practicing her water management skills. Seeing today's feat, we now feel that she has an untapped gift that could potentially add to our household income. However, she obviously is in need of proper training.

Does anyone know of a vocational school for house cats? ...housebroken, of course!

The Godfather

Brian and Bridgette recently asked Joshua to be Flicker Francis' godfather.

Joshua has already starting to list all the ways he will mentor the babe:
(cue the accordion music)
1. Teaching him how to dump bodies in the river;
2. How to load a shotgun and properly decapitate a race horse;
3. The elements of a good gravy*;
4. The finer points of killing family members;
5. How to lose a g-man;
And most importantly...
6. How to speak unintelligibly and still make sense ... aka The Mumble.

The family will all be so proud.

(* Gravy = Souf Philly word for pasta sauce)