I like my parents

My parents are really excellent.  Yesterday my dad spent a couple of hours helping me figure out what I’m going to do about car and health insurance while I’m traveling.  He’s so super supportive, that he’s become aggressive about making sure I know how supportive he is.  It’s really endearing, even if it goes over the top once in a while.

My dad is a great businessman.  He ran his own successful companies, and even started his own award-winning winery, because it was something he’d always wanted to do.  He built a cabin on a river – actually helped build the thing  – and created an off-the-grid power system for it. It’s pretty amazing to go from worrying what my parents will think about me quitting my job, selling my house and traveling, to trying to curb my dad’s enthusiasm in helping me prepare for the trip.

Last night, I helped my mom set up a website for an organization that she co-coordinates.  Take a look!  It’s called Souper Supper Dining Room.  As you can probably tell from the name, it’s a soup kitchen of sorts.  It provides meals to hungry folks twice a week.  The organization has absolutely no costs.  Everything they do comes from donations and volunteers.  Let me tell you something:  this is amazing.  Food and money donations allow the organization to provide quality meals to those who need them.  Community organizations come together and provide volunteers that staff the dinners.

It’s what community organizing and community service are really about.  I learned community and political organizing by watching my mom.  She was chair of the school board, has run school bond campaigns (sound familiar?), and has volunteered her time and skills tirelessly.

It’s pretty wonderful to have parents that I love, and it’s even more wonderful to have parents that I like.  I’m very proud of them.