July 10-12

Well, my friends, I'm finally in Washington. The 28-hour train ride was exhausting. My sight-seeing afternoon was spent on a slow train from Chicago. I did get to sit next to a very kind and delightful man from Newport New, VA, who was kind enough to leave me alone for the most part, as I was busy thinking about my presentations.

I feel like this conference is going to be the Diane Show! I make a presentation this afternoon (Saturday) telling the story of how Jos Linn came to the Zero Poverty Conference to make a RESULTS presentation that hit me at such a deep emotional level that I ended up in tears and barely able to tell him I wanted to be part of RESULTS. I'm going to add to that story the reason I call Jos "Grandfather." Given that I'm part -- a very small part, but a part nonetheless -- Mohawk I feel okay about adopting that Native American tradition which gives the term of respect Grandfather to our elders. Jos started this group and kept us going and has always been there for us, and he is our RESULTS Grandfather. He laughs when I call him that.

Then Monday afternoon I give a presentation on our Pilot City program in Cedar Rapids for the RESULTS Diversity Task Force and report on our first meeting with a contact in a target population, and how Nancy wants to join our group. BTW, Nancy is an educator at Mt. Mercy. She has a degree in math and a degree in physics -- two subjects I've always avoided because they are so confusing for me.

And sometime during the three days Gwen Garcelon, the Fundraising Guru for RESULTS is going to talk about our ice cream social. I'm glad she does this presentation and not me. Otherwise, it would truly be the Diane Show!

I went to the Washington National Cathedral this morning and it's breathtaking. In its shadow, waiting for the doors to be open to the public, I wrote my presentations. And I've met the most fascinating cab drivers here. Kate, it was easy to get a cab from the train station to the hotel. The driver showed me a picture of his seven-month-old son Mohammed. And this morning coming back from the cathedral my cab driver was originally from Ethiopia. He takes his nine-year-old son to the library every two weeks and lets his son check out a book. Then, in order to get his allowance, his son delivers an oral book report on what he's read. So nice to see parents so involved with their children's education.

I'm beginning now to memorize what I'm going to say during our lobbying meetings. I have about an hour before I have to check out and the conference starts. After this afternoon's session, I check back in with my two roommates. I need to revise things a little for the Congressmen. And I saw on the news that Boswell just got out of surgery and "expects to be back to work soon." I don't know if he's going to be back by Tuesday. I hope so. Did you see Senator Kennedy came back for a vote?