Humanize the Earth!

co-op gathering 3rd week in April in Little Village

Email I sent to Hub Housing Cooperative members, Mark Fick and Dorian Breuer tonight (crossposted at the Marshall Square blog):

Sarah and Mark Fick spoke at one point about two things:
1. http://chicagocoop.info that Sarah and I are starting (it’s slow-going) and that all will be welcome to contribute to.
2. A one-day gathering of co-op folks in the spring sometime, as a replacement for the Chicago Mutual Housing Network annual meeting that is no longer.
3. Possibly using 1 as a collaborative space to plan 2 and using 2 as a way to get more folks involved in creating 1.

So, tonight I was at the Illinois Green Party fundraiser with Howard and spoke at length with Dorian from the Pilson/Southwest Side Greens about co-ops. He’s been kicking the idea around with some friends about starting a co-op. I said we (Hub in general, and me specifically) have lot to share about our experiences and we’d love to help others.

He’s a do-er, not a talker, so we immediately decided to do a one-evening event the 3rd week in April, hopefully in Unit M1 at the Hub (is that possible, Dan and Laila?). If this isn’t okay, maybe we can use Cafe Catedral. If it is okay, which night of the week would work. We’re just to pick a date and tell Dorian.

And Mark, is that day-long gathering still in the works? How might these two events work together? Share a flyer? Be billed as a “series”? Have the Little Village event be but one topic for the day-long event, but be a different day? I don’t know. I’m just brainstorming here.

We didn’t talk about length or agenda or anything like that. Nothing is set in stone except for our desire to make something happen for information purposes in this part of the city.

Please let me know how you (each of you) see this and what you might like to do to make it happen. Thanks!

invite to my place

Was just reminded by Sam:

On that note, we’re hosting Critical Mass Happy Hour on the 9th of September. You’re all invited. It’s going to be a sort of pre-housewarming party. You should come! It’ll be fun!

I concur. Come on over. :-)

important stuff is hidden

This weekend I took a hammer and punched some holes in my bathroom walls. Then I punched some more and made them big enough to see where the plumbing and electrical was behind those walls. We’re renovating so will be removing some of these walls anyway and wanted to see what was in there to assess our possibilities. I don’t understand much about plumbing. After seeing in there, I still don’t understand much. And now I know how little I know. There are 1/2 inch copper pipes feeding the sink, for example. One of them runs both up and down from the point where it goes into the sink. The down branch runs close to the floor and then seemingly around the tub, maybe to hook up with the hot water supply over there? The cold one going down is capped. Going up, it seems to go into the ceiling.

So anyway, it got me to thinking about how much of the time in life we live with just what we see on the surface, never really understanding what’s going on behind the drywall, so to speak. Profound, huh? :-)