hometown

If you are in Asheville tomorrow morning and would like to go to a bakery and drink lots of coffee and maybe (if you can resist, you are a better person than me) eat some cinnamon rolls then walk around town looking like a tourist while snapping photographs with a group of other camera-wielding wanderers, then come on over! I’ve sent out a call to the Internets and planned my first photog meetup, for which there are Twitterers and Flickrers in attendance. Some famous!

So, here are the details:

Photog meetup from 9-11 a.m., Saturday, meeting first at West End Bakery in West Asheville. Share your goodies on Flickr, tag with AVLmeetup. Woot! Contact me with questions and Lemon Drops, please. See you tomorrow!

We woke up this morning, returned from a quick-as-lightning beach trip, to find a dusting of snow over everything, and sneaky flakes still falling from the sky. Sammy and I slid down the driveway to go for a walk in the early-morning light. We found the last of the zinnias, now just brown props for small caps of snow.

It was a quick walk. I slid over the ice to head up the road, but had to resort to my lack-of-snow-legs by walking in the ditch. Not fun. But we made it to the church, one of my favorite places in my neighborhood. I’ve never been in, but I want to.

We turned around and slip-slide back to the house. No one was around and everyone had their doors shut, window curtains drawn. There was just the wind. It pushed and prodded us back to the house. We climbed up the hill and up the stairs.

Snow clung to my shoes and jeans and I thought about making some tea or a pot of coffee. And the work ahead was easy this morning — fact-checking stories, scrounging around for some ideas, running errands. But Sammy! Always there’s Sammy, the dog on the hunt for a bone. Here, he’s using his doggy mind powers to get me to open the door and go to the treat box. It always works.

It was a happy beginning to a cold, snowy day. I hope yours is a good one, too.

“If opportunity doesn’t knock, build a door.” ~Milton Berle

Last night, Pat and I went to the Doors of Asheville fundraising event for Mountain Housing Opportunities. Pat works for the organization and a program that helps families build their own affordable housing. He’s working with five families now, and I thought about them at the auction, as people milled about, looking at all the donated artwork, much of it literally paintings on doors. We grabbed a plateful of barbecue and sat down to wait for the auction to begin.

Milton Berle’s quote was on a poster propped up on the edge of the stage, which sat on the same stage where David Earle and the Plowshares ended their performance with a version of “When the Saints Go Marching In” (On another note, I never get tired of watching the Muppet trombone player). It’s the same stage where the auctioneer encouraged and needled and cajoled bidders to up the ante to help fund the organization’s work to make sure people have a safe, affordable place to live in our community.

Some of the doors were amazing, and I wish now that I’d written down the artists’ names for you to go check out. I remember work by Joanna Gollberg Stirling and Jonas Gerard (huh, I wish I could write like he paints) and Ben Betsalel. These people were so generous of their talents to help, I think.

But, of course, they could use more. The fundraiser was a success, but it left me feeling that problems in the economy have dipped into area donors’ pockets pretty hard. To me, that makes affordable housing even more important. If you want to find good organizations supporting housing issues in your own communities, there are lots of places to go. The Directory of National Housing and Homeless Organizations and the National Low Income Housing Coalition can help. When the bidding was over and left the crowded room to go home, I left in love with this quote, the idea of making your own opportunity. It’s an entrepreneurial sprit, of course, one that takes courage and support and belief that it can happen.