Cloudy

Cloudy, my thoughts are grey and white and cloudy
they seem to wander all around, you'll see

and distractions, they're all around
in a plethora abound
and my mem'ry's like a child's...
I abandoned concentration; is "fuzzy" valid style?

Cloudy, my thoughts are scattered and they're cloudy
They have no borders, no boundaries

They echo and they swell
From groceries to "what's that smell?"

like chasing rabbits down a well

it seems like all the jokes are new and sassy fits the bill

Hey sunshine, I haven't seen you in a long time
Why don't you show your face and bend my mind?

All questions now I find

I just leave them all behind

And let myself unwind
They don't know where they are going, and, my friend, neither do I

Cloudy, cloudy
Cloudy, cloudy
Cloudy, cloudy

___________

This is a partial parody. I used some of their lyrics. They're just too good.

 

Ninety-nine percent of the people who read this blog know that recently I sustained a "mild" concussion. Ha. It doesn't feel mild. 

 

I already was convinced that, due to other things in my life, that "Cloudy" is really the perfect, absolute perfect, song to describe my life (with the exception of the first verse). 

 

This parody isn't my finest work, but I felt that I had to try, since it just seemed so fitting that with all the concentration problems I have had, this song keeps popping into my mind. 

 

 

party people in the house

Recently, I held a small soiree of sorts at my humble abode. An assortment of people came. I was so excited for it...ridiculously excited. It felt like Christmas morning and I was nervous over whether people would enjoy themselves.

First, no party happens because of just one person. Unless it's a one-person dance party, but even then, usually it involves music made by other people. So a true one-person party is rare, but should be cherished.

I had so much help with this party. I got a mild concussion earlier in the week and I was limited on driving. A friend of mine volunteered to pick some Christmas crackers for me (which were the highlight of the party), and I was so grateful. Another friend brought some folding chairs, as I did not have enough seating for my guests on my own. Yet another friend brought cream cheese and crackers to munch on. Another came to help me make hot cocoa mix, decorate, and brought Clementine oranges. Someone brought candy canes, which I hung up for more decorations. Lastly, a friend brought milk, eggnog, a record player, and good vintage Christmas vinyl.

We made food. We ate food. A children's book was read aloud. Christmas crackers were popped and jokes were read aloud. Music was listened to. Hot chocolate, eggnog, and all other comestibles were consumed. Then someone got out the guitar and started playing Christmas songs. Many others still in attendance sang. Then someone else took the guitar and the singing still went on. Then silly pictures were taken. Then I had a Grinch moment. Then we adopted the rules of "Yes or No" from A Christmas Carol and we played a round. Then the stragglers who were left went to a very late lunch, as nearly everyone was sugar-bombed. And then we said goodbye. I found out later someone in the party got a parking ticket, which made me sad.

Apparently I win the prize for "Best Non-Standard Christmas Party of 2015" -- so far. Several people told me they enjoyed themselves, and many people really liked the Christmas crackers and the sing-along. I guess having a party in the morning and then just doing what I like to do is enough to carry the day for that competition. Several of my friends were very excited, and I'm really glad that everyone seemed to have such a good time.

I felt like Ramona.."I'm going to have a par-tee! Here comes my par-tee!" Could hardly sleep a wink before the party for wondering if I would get everything done and there were a few last-minute cancellations, etc., that made things a little tricksy. But I so enjoyed myself, even if the first half hour or so was very stressful. I couldn't have done it without my MJ -- she took over the cocoa and getting the cinny stax out of the oven at the end.

There were pictures taken with crowns on, as well as with fake Rudolph nose, which really was supposed to be a magic trick. It was a good time.

recycling

it is a good thing
no emotion recycling
plants exist on earth.

some upwellings are
really too awful to bear
mulling or reuse.

talk about awkward.
speaking of which, I own the w's
you cannot have them!


________________________
 on a separate note:

long, wavy, reddish
sparkly brown, voluminous
all describe my hair

Angry Birds

Once upon a time, there was a very popular app called Angry Birds.

It was, for some time, the most popular game sold in the app store.

It has spawned its own full-length movie. (It won't be any good -- something that takes three seconds to explain is almost never a good 102-minute movie.)

It was actually truly amazing how the oinking pigs could mock you derisively through their little pixels and make you upset. Maybe even angry. Maybe that's why the game was so popular -- it made all the "birds" playing it angry.

I'm going to tell you some things that seem unrelated, but they're not.

Today, I went and spent some time with a friend. We played with a bird. It was a dead bird that had been cooked. I was teaching her how to make broth. It will make a very tasty soup sometime. We had fun picking the meat off the bones and just generally laughing and talking together.

Late last week I had a bird adventure: I chased a band of coots in a current on foot. At least, my non-local but very loyal bird enthusiast contact assures me they were coots. I was mostly chasing them so I could tell her what kind of bird they were. I don't even like birds, really. When they bomb my car, I get upset. Angry, one might even call it. So annoying, the birds are! The crows with their noise and invasive ways, the geese with the honking and the droppings everywhere...the swallows and their porch-bombing habit...you get the idea.

Today, I got ANGRY.  The scary part is, I kind of enjoyed it. It felt empowering to be so upset. I felt like my wrath was fully justified (highly unusual) and like it was useful (moving me along an emotional path I need to explore further). I was so angry. Angrier than even the Angry Birds! I have been angrier in my life, but I can only think of a handful of times where this has been the case. I reveled in the anger. It brought me joy and sparkle. Hot and spicy was how I felt today. Being mad at someone else instead of yourself is actually kind of liberating. No wonder people do it so often.

squish

squish
it's a nearly perfect word
onomotopoeic
able to be drawn out to match any circumstance:
squish
squeeeeesh
skaweesh
squishsquish

it looks odd if you analyze it

it is nearly impossible to misinterpret the meaning

it conjures up clear images when you say it

and applies to physical and emotional situations: squish a bug, feeling squished in your feelings

can be injected with horror, vehemence, playfulness


and also, many things that have been squished taste better as a result.

so it's not like it's all bad, this squishy business.

Mondegreen in Ceylon; Picture

A few things:

1. Playing with colors on your face (also known as "makeup") can be fun.

2. My hair is really long.

3. This song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fncjgN88xUE

4. In conjunction with this song, every person deserves to feel like "warm night air" in each of their relationships. There is nothing like that time when the sun goes down and the yellow-orange-green-fade-to-blue is streaking across the sky.

5. Watching this happen with someone you care about is the keenest of pleasures.

6. When the warm air surrounds you without being too hot or too humid--it's comforting, familiar, and you just relax, that's when you know it. 

7. The people from Erasure knew what they were talking about when they wrote the lyrics, but I actually have been focusing on the happy part of the lyrics, and didn't even hear the sad part, really, until I went to look for the lyrics just now.

8.  From the window in the kitchen/To the fireside by the chair/Sat in familiar surroundings, warm night air...
All the feelings I remember, I cannot hide/Not for want of trying

9.  I have recently discovered that mostly, I don't want to hide my feelings. I want to feel them. 

10. Now comes the funny part...I thought this song had lines saying "On, into Ceylon."

I was pretty impressed with the band's geography and history awareness. Little did I know it was just another mondegreen. The lyrics really say: Longing to sail on/Through the night to the stars/On until sunrise.

Oops. I still just love the overall feeling of this song.

11. The bottom picture reminds me of my niece. She sometimes stands the same way. I didn't realize we had a similarity like that. It makes me happy that we do.

12. My socks not being the same height makes me smile.

beyond a solecism: made to look

Recently, I did something I'm ashamed of. I took a picture of someone who didn't know I was taking his picture. He was sleeping, though, and I didn't have the heart to wake him up to ask him.

I don't think I have seen someone who so obviously was so particular about how he looked in a long time. I mean, I know people who care about their dress and appearance...but this fellow was so meticulous, so exacting in his standards. I wondered if he was extremely insecure or just very confident. Probably a mixture of both, like most of the rest of us.

My eyes probably widened when I saw him. I had just sat down on the bus.

I noticed his hat first. It was the little feather, sticking jauntily just so, that grabbed my attention. Then I looked at the rest of his hat. It was perfectly clean -- no little bits of anything stuck to it. (With hats like that, it's hard to do. Trust me, I know.)

Then I looked at his face. (I had just seen pictures of the Facial Hair competition [I did not know there was such a thing] --  some of these are pretty outrageous.)

This picture doesn't do it justice...I was very impressed by his facial grooming. His beard was perfectly pointy. Perfectly. Perfectly enough that I imagined the chin it was hiding was classic storybook villain pointy, as well. His moustache blended in so well it was scary.

His nearly full length wool pea coat fit him as if it were made for him. He had a leather briefcase (black) that was on his lap, and a large umbrella with a wood handle (it was a knob, not a cane-head shape) was between his knees. His entire person was so very well put together, I wondered how long it had taken him to get out the door that morning...if he did it every day, or if this was the Wednesday Special.

We got off at the same stop. I walked behind him. He had on black leather half boots with silver zippers with pointy toes that clicked when he walked. As I walked behind him, I imagined that the silver was a sticking point with him, but that he had been looking for the perfect boots so long he decided he would accept this quibble and just move on. His step was measured. He walked resolutely, but carefully, as if he were wanting to get to the his destination, but wanted to not disrupt anything about his appearance or seemed rushed.

His hair, which was almost to the bottom of his shoulder blades, was trimmed neatly. The only thing that anybody could argue threw off his look at all was that his hair was not perfectly straight in the back -- it looked like it had some wave, but only in the last four inches or so. It was like he had partially braided it the day before and then didn't realize there were still braid marks in it today. (Not that I've ever had this phenomenon happen to me...)


 

A Pressing Matter

Facts about pressing cider:


* It is always more fun to press cider with other people than with yourself. Kind of like a barn raising, quilting bee, corn husking, or any other sort of work "party."

*  20 lbs of apples = 1 gallon of cider. No wonder it tastes so good -- all that fructose, condensed!

 *  Pressing cider is the most fun when you do it in a fun, beautiful location. (See picture <--. You'll get what I mean.)

*  When you freeze apples before you press them, your cider turns out a lot differently -- more like applesauce than apple cider. It's not a bad thing -- just leads to extra thick, almost syrupy goodness. W says it's because the freezing action helps break down the cell walls.

*  Pressing is a multi-step operation.

1. Buy apples

2. Wash apples

3. Cut apples into halves

4. Put the straining sack in the barrel.

5. Put the barrel under the press.

6. Use the press, hand cranking, to chop the apples into tiny bits that go into the bag.

7. When the bag is full, close it up, ties inside, and put the lid on the barrel.

8. Screw the lid of the barrel down tightly. Leverage (see yellow rod) helps. Don't get dizzy!

9. Enjoy the hissing and popping of the fruit and watch as the juice oozes slowly out of the cracks in the barrel.

10.  When you can't press any more juice out, let it sit under pressure

11. Unscrew the lid. This is actually harder than it looks because your hands will probably be cold and it is hard to unscrew something smoothly.

12. When you've unscrewed it enough to clear the barrel top, remove the barrel and the bag for cleaning.

13.  Tilt the table to make the juice run into the container under the spout.

14. Funnel the juice into your final carrier.

15. Enjoy!!!! 

*  And then you enjoy dinner, ever so tastily. And enjoy the view, too. This picture of one of my favorite people basically sums up how I felt about Pressing Day.

the power of numbers

Tonight I hung out with four guys and played video games. I haven't hung out with that many guys, with me the lone lady, in a very, very long time. I also wasn't very good at the video games, but it's okay, they beat up on me mercilessly anyway.

We were sitting around eating tortellini and dark chocolate chip peppermint cookies (rather, they were eating) and something that a friend of mine I had in middle school used to say popped into my mind: "You know when the odds are good, the goods are odd." (Meaning, if you're vastly outnumbered by the opposite sex, they are all likely bound to be weirdos, too nerdy for words, painfully awkward, unattractive, or some combination of all the above.)

I don't agree with her assessment, but it has made me smile a time or two when it came to my mind. The thing is, odd doesn't mean bad. It doesn't mean below-average looks or intelligence. It can even just mean "not even." (Not in the Valley Girl sense, either.) It's not negative -- it just...is.

But there's something about the numbers being very uneven that does change behavior--I'm not a psychologist, or a sociologist, so I can't tell you why. And I really don't care, to be honest...because  tonight, I was happy to just be "one of the guys."

Eagles vs Shakespeare

Another song plug for you:

I don't really like the Eagles. At all. I have never liked them. I was really upset when they were voted the band of the 20th century over the Beatles. At the time, Hotel California was the only Eagles song I could name, whereas I know almost all the Beatles songs by heart. The Eagles didn't have fans tht were so loud they couldn't hear themselves play. The Eagles don't have more than one "sound." The Eagles got back together after claiming they never would. The Eagles just...well...when your claim to fame is Hotel California, what else can I say?!? Hotel California seems to last an eternity for me and I really think it should be banned from all karaoke bars, as a matter of course, along with Piano Man. But that is neither here nor there in context of what I would really like to talk about, so I will move along.

There is one song that I heard earlier in the summer on my Tom Petty Pandora station that I considered for awhile. It had lyrics that, in part, went like this: [I was infuriated that the station ran amok -- I think the same day I heard it for the first time, I also heard a U2 song, which you can best believe earned a prompt thumbs down, and, thank goodness, I have not heard one since.]

I've got a peaceful, easy feeling/
I know you won't let me down/
cause I'm already standing on the ground

If that's all you hear, you might think: wow, that's a really awesome perspective to have. To be peaceful, secure, and comfortable in a relationship! That's amazing. How logical -- he's recognizing that although he isn't feeling the butterflies anymore, the peace and calm he's feeling, knowing he's not in the clouds, hoping for someone to return love, but that the person is already returning the love and it's a firm reality, a grounding, rooted relationship--solid and secure.

But if you bothered to listen to the song in its entirety, you would probably hear something else: the exact opposite of what I just described, which irritates me. He already knows the end is coming, he's seeing the fruitless inevitability of the ending of the relationship. He's already over it -- there's nothing she can do to hurt him any more, and he has his eyes wide open. He's either already hurt so much, he is either numb or already has worked through it so the fact that he is standing on the ground with zero expectations and singing this laid-back country song is just a testament to how those darn women always do you wrong and why should you expect anything else?

Or perhaps there's another meaning that I just didn't hear. I did, after all, practically fail the poetry interpretation portion of my English Lit class. That is putting Don Henley on par with Shakespeare, which I am really not comfortable with, though.

Either way, I'm probably protesting too much, methinks, about the merits (or lack thereof) of an Eagles song. So I'll leave it after this--except to say that I hope every person I know gets a chance to experience the first interpretation at least one time in their life.

Hold On, Let Go

Seems like most of my blog posts are related to a song of some sort. Sometimes there are songs that just resonate, echo, explode, calm, fill the empty place, or make the jumbled thoughts in your mind clear.

I wish I could make songs like that. Perhaps I could, if I could really let myself go and focus on it. I've never...really let myself though.

[Sidetrack:  If there were a Music and Lyrics of my life, I would definitely be the Lyrics part of the duet. I'd rather have someone besides Hugh Grant as my Music though...just saying. And I'm nothing like Drew Barrymore, I'm quite sure. (We both are female and live in America and speak English, but the similarities pretty much end there.)]

My parents recently came to visit. My mom told me that she sometimes thought that of all her children, I am the most expressive. I think I kind of laughed at the time...but since, I have felt that the need to express yourself, and to try so hard to do it perfectly, and then to fail but keep trying, is actually really difficult, hard, and not very much fun, to boot. As I have been thinking about expressing myself, and the emotions in my life I am trying to sort through, as usual, things came to me in my head in a song.

This song came to me from a familiar source; however, the source told me to focus on the lyrics, which almost never happens. (It is not a completely clean song, lyrics-wise, which also surprised me, considering the source -- but by no means is it anywhere close to explicit. In fact, they play much more offensive things on the radio every day.)

It reminds me of a story -- one I read in Book Club this summer, about Corrie Ten Boom. She watched the love of her life marry for money. For her, there would never be another, and she, in tears, wondered aloud how she could possibly kill love, love that was strong, love that she had nurtured. Her father told her that the better thing to do would be to give her romantic love for this person to God, and pray that she could love the love of her life as God did.

When I read it, I cried. I thought she was brave, and bold, and how horribly, horribly sad it was that she would never experience the kind of love she had dreamed of as a little girl ever again. She, being the strong, amazing person that she was, truly followed her plan. Not only did she do that with the love of her life, but I truly believe she tried to see every person who came into her path as God saw them.

Part of being able to do as Corrie did is what is mentioned in this song: "At least I hold on when I get love, and I let go when I give it." She held on to the love she had for her mother, father, sister, refugees, the Bible, God, colors, and, eventually, even was thankful for fleas! She held on tight to the memory of the love even when she was in a concentration camp, not knowing if she would survive. And she let go of love, too. She let go of her resentment toward the fleas, for the horrid conditions, for the mistreatment of the guards...of everything. And you can bet she loved those little fleas that were so pesky, because of the freedom the fleas afforded her and her fellow roommates. She cast her love net wide and did not bother to pull it back, but just kept sending out tendrils of love.

The other part that resonates is the part about taking the weakest thing in you and beating everyone else with it. Sometimes I think my weak things can't beat anything but myself--and myself, they can beat very effectively, as they know the most tender places with the freshest wounds. But weak things can become strong, and there is nothing, nothing in this world or the next as powerful as true love.

That's all you can do--be grateful for the love that you have. And when you give it, you don't know how the people you give it to will use it- if they'll return it, perhaps with interest, or if they'll hightail it out of sight and never come back. So, even though it is impossible to do this, it seems the song would advise you to have no expectations that anyone or anything will love you back. It is certainly an interesting idea to think about. In the meantime, I am going to give freely, with the best of myself-- as I wrote almost four years ago in this post. I'm going to hold on to the love that I get, tight tight tight, and when I give love, I will send it toward the other person with everything I've got, letting go completely. Only when you open yourself are you completely free.

just a girl

The particular girl I'm thinking of is wandering about in the slush, both her own emotional, and nature's physical, in front of a tiny store. She has on a bedraggled hat, a nondescript coat, and low suede boots, which are completely inadequate: her socks, when she takes them off tonight, will have permanent black marks on them, as the quality of the suede is very poor indeed. As she meanders, pretending to be nonchalant, she is also desperately trying to ignore the fact that her left boot has a hole the size of a dime in the sole and cold water is seeping through at an alarming rate. If she bothered to drag her mind away from her runaway emotions, it would be obvious to her, as it is to all passers-by, that her efforts are wasted, as her entire gait has been altered awkwardly to allow her foot the least amount of contact with the pavement.

Every so often she stops, seeks the advice of a device telling time. She's impatient with herself for being impatient. To distract herself, she tentatively taps at a pile of slush with the tip of her boot. Then, as if her tap has contaminated the pile, she balances on one leg, swings the other to the side, and, using her leg as a shovel, she creates a new pile and begins to shape it with her boot, tamping it down from an irregular mountain range to a perfect mesa, sometimes even rubbing the toe in clockwise circles--just so--to even the surface. It’s as if she’s forgotten the discomfort of her wet foot, her bedraggled self – she’s pouring all her self-consciousness into the busy, busy work of smoothing the slush. Smooth! Smooth!

The taps of her boot toe and the swipes of her leg get more aggressive, until her agitated state can no longer be masked by the menial task she has assigned herself. She sullenly kicks the slightly imperfect Mesa Slushie she spent the last ninety seconds constructing and lets out a long sigh before resuming her sentry-like tread in front of the shopfront, warily watching the windows for any activity, then pausing and pretending to act as if she is waiting for something or someone whom she has high hopes of actually showing up.

But to be honest, it’s a pretty thin veneer, and even she knows it. To distract herself from the fact that she is alone, and the someone (thing) she wants to arrive is not, in fact, going to come, she begins another Mesa Slushie right next to the one she demolished just a minute ago. Tap, tap, circle, slow circle, tap goes the boot tip. She rests too much of her weight on the tapping leg and gets off-balance and slips on the slush, nearly falling. Flushed and embarrassed, she determinedly ignores the scene of the near mishap-- she doesn’t even bother to demolish her second “creation”--and rocks forward and backward in place, pointedly staring into the distance and amusing herself by pretending to be a dragon and blowing her breath toward the streetlamp. But she is foiled even in this, as it is not quite cold enough for a reliable puff, and the distraction loses its appeal, as it is no longer a distraction. Quite soon, she no longer is content with sentry duty, and after one considering look at her timepiece, and a too-long stare down the road in either direction, she heaves a sad sigh both long and eloquent and disappears.

phases

I am in a phase of life where it seems like everything I listen to, absorb, watch, or process, I am relating to my life--even if to an outside observer the situation seems out of context. I don't know if I'm thinking too hard about myself or whether I am just stressed out to the point where I think everything's about me, or if I'm bored so I think about what I /should/ know best (myself--but these days it feels like I don't know myself at all).

Knowing what you want and where you want to go is a powerful asset.

Some days I feel like I don't know one single thing and I'm relying on the things I read to teach me about myself.

Perhaps, as one of my favorite books says, "it's just a phase."

Maybe that means that I've been a caterpillar my whole life and am preparing to become a wet-winged butterfly. I'm hoping that there's a wind that is good, but not too stiff to help me get my wings to harden so I can tackle the next "phase."

four five seven five

all little moments
coalesce into a life:
habits, character

climate, not weather
is determined by small choice
steady rotations

inexorably
seasons change, but in rhythm
a cadence steady

same things over and over
small tweaks of navigation
hope is powerful

impossibilities

Thoughts swirl in every possible prepositional position through the grey matter between my ears. Always.
If they were electrical impulses, they would light up the grey 'sky' like lightning streaks
on a recorded loop whose rhythm is just slightly off, but never turning off.
Not even while I sleep.

The emotions I feel are spurs of energy that carry their charge
and jolt through my body -- usually straight through my heart.
There is no predictability to the tide, to the ebb and flow.
Even neap tides are large, and largest when my body's energy is drained.

It never ceases to amaze me how tiredness
seeps
leaches
melts
whispers insidiously
sidles up and overwhelms even the firmest of resolves; makes all situations seem worse.
Fatigue opens the door to emotional entropy; sweet slumber does not always close it. 

At times when the tide is out, when the sandbags under the eyes are stacked down to the bottoms of the molars, and some of the sandbags have burst and gotten in the eyes and the grain is just too much to bear, it seems impossible to stop the emotions from overwhelming. The sadness is sadder, stronger...it's like the swamp of sadness from Neverending Story is real, living inside me. Hounds of sadness bay, the echoes growing nearer. Sometimes it feels like I can hear their snarling and they're nipping at my heels.

But sometimes the relief of going to bed before you're too exhausted to sleep, just because you can, is enough to make the hounds quiet, the swamp evaporate just a little, and the sandbags a little less full, and life turns around a few degrees -- enough so you can see all the good things in life a little more clearly through the tired fog, and that sometimes relaxing isn't as impossible as it seems.

Escorts

I love my nephews. I adore my nieces, too, but there is a special spot in me for my nephews. Today I held one for almost an hour while he banged his fist on the table (he was so very obliging, and did not bang in my food or spit up all over me, though he is a "drool-bot" and could win a contest with one gland tied, probably. (This is a joke.) He is almost three months old and is in a very smiley stage of life. He is so cute! His li'l eyebrows are so expressive, his eyes so blue, his eyelashes so long, his need to suck on things so great...he is a gift. Every new thing he does astonishes; he smells so sweet and his skin just shines with light. It made me think that even if I didn't believe in heaven, that I might believe that's where he came from anyway, because of how his whole being shines.

My other nephew is empathetic. He knows what I need and just how to touch my heart and make it tender again. Today, he told me that he hoped that I would be able to enjoy every day at work, that I could relax, that my friends would be nice to me, and that he wished I would call him on Friday afternoon so we could be in better contact. He gave me so many hugs and kisses today, freely, without prompting. He held my hand and squeezed it sweetly. He told me he loved me, and walked me to my car to say goodbye, before opening the door for me, and then, upon being told that I needed the drivers seat door open, promptly walked around the car and did it again, perfectly intent on helping me. I wanted to cry. It was so genuine, so caring, so unselfconcious, so freely given. And the tenderness with which he and my niece each kissed my cheek and hugged me, and the determination with which he ran after me yelling, "Goodbye! I love you! Goodbye!" until he couldn't see me anymore nearly broke my heart. I teared up and could barely drive away.

I feel so grateful for the love of these boys and their families. Being told repeatedly that I am "Best Auntie Ever" (a title for which there are unending "ties" in terms of number of places) makes me feel so popular, so wanted, so cared for. If, indeed, I am tied for "Best Ever," it's because I have the best nieces and nephews ever -- so easy to love, and some of that stems from the love my siblings have for me.

Thank you, siblings. Thank you, nieces and nephews. Thank you, everybody who loves me and makes me feel special, even on days when I'm just sure that all the special beans for the day got sown in someone else's field (forgive the reference, but I played Bohnanza today) and mine is all hopelessly dried up and there is no special crop to harvest.

Sky and Pumpkin

1. I found an artist the other day I really like. I happened to hear him first when at a restaurant. It had Latin American food. The people I was with both spoke Spanish, but one mostly Dominican and the other Chilean. They compared food and platano dishes while I ate my ropa vieja and was grateful I didn't embarrass myself with the pronunciation of it when I ordered.
   
   If you can get past the first 30 seconds, you will like this a lot. This is an alternate link in case it doesn't work if you're not a Spotifier.
   
   Also, this needs no 30 second buffer. It's Ron Murray's version of While My Guitar Gently Weeps.
    
2. Today, the sky as I came home from working at the coffee shop was perfect.  This is a couple hours later, and is not so perfect. It was the most lovely grey -- grey in the way that only Pacific Northwest skies are.
   
   here is something:
   
   The clouds are perfect in their coverage.
   Not one inch of sky is blue; neither can the label "grey" be uniformally applied.
   They maintain a dimensional appearance. And although they end up resembling
   polyester quilt batting that has been washed with denim jeans on accident,
   and has subsequently been played with by the family cat, they are not unfriendly.
   No soft mists of rain are currently being bestowed; the marks on the pavement
   tell me they finished giving out such generosity about twenty-five minutes ago.
   The soft sworls and swirls of grey aren't really "marble," though I do not have a better descriptor. Although the thickness appears to vary, the light ends up falling uniformly anyway, and only those who look up would notice the shades of the shade.
   This sky is not a simple canopy, but ever-changing, and would defy even Monet an accurate portrayal.
   
   
   
   The sky fit my mood perfectly. It isn't a dull grey, but a grey that's ever changing. Darkness ebbs and flows, but the overall effect is slightly melancholy and calming, simultaneously.
3. I had fried rice with bacon in it that was then baked in a whole "pumpkin" for dinner last night, along with yakiniku. It was definitely An Experience. My dinner companion and I ate the whole thing. We also hate Washugyu beef and outside skirt. I wonder if inside or outside skirt tastes better. Either way, it's probably delicious.
   
   

Atmospher(a)

 

Today I was in Tacoma. I actually was there for a cool thing -- I watched some glassworkers at work for about an hour, and saw some really cool sculptures. The colors of the glass, the light from the forge...they were mesmerizing. Also, it was interesting to see the flow of the workers. Although I think the one guy was visiting from somewhere, and was clearly in charge, he barely needed to talk to the others. They worked together, seamlessly. The one dude with a ginormous fro that I was afraid was going to catch on fire at any moment (It was seriously an awesome 'fro) was the junior man on the account, and then there was a guy who clearly knew what he was doing, and another guy who answered all our questions while he was wrangling with 45 pounds of glass on the end of an eight foot pole that was approximately 1100 degrees. No big deal. It was epic -- and it would have taken away from the experience had I taken photos, so I didn't. 

But on the way to the cool thing, I saw kind of a lame thing. It was right across the street from the freeway and the industrial traintracks --which are still definitely in use-- and some very new apartment buildings, which were clearly having both the upside of location (proximity to public transport, freeways, and a cool museum) but also the downside (loads of cars, very loud trains, and did I mention, a general seedy industrial feel?). 

It was right by a posh restaurant that probably only the inhabitants of the several-story apartment complex frequented, but which probably kept them in business. There it is, in hard-to-see letters: ATMOSPHERA. Was it retail? Leasing agent office? Interior design consultant? It was unclear from looking at the wall; however, what was clear was the utter and complete neglect of the fish tank in full view -- the centerpiece, as it were, of the whole operation. I know you can't see it very well, because of the reflection, but that's not just a beige colored wall -- it's one very, very dirty fishtank. The walls are definitely fully coated with a thin layer of algae everywhere, and more in some places. If there was a filter, it hadn't been changed in forever. No lights, no nothing. And just one small fish, lonely and sluggish, then seeming to desperately dart. If you look closely, you can see it. It's slightly to the right of center tank. 

Atmosphera was doing its part to lend a sad, neglected atmosphere to Tacoma, which in many ways already seems sad and neglected. (Sorry to any native Tacomans, but everyone else knows what I'm talking about. At least there is [mostly] no longer a Tacoma Aroma to contend with, as well.)

burps and breakfast

A recent breakfast conversation:

Nephew: *burps loudly*
His mom: If you must do that, please do this. (Covers her face with a napkin.)
Nephew: You mean, covering it up?
His mom: Yes.
Nephew: But then no one will be able to HEAR IT!
*me shaking the table from silent laughter*
His mom: Yes, dear. That's the point.

I love family time. 

summary of sisterhood :: misplaced modifiers

Sisters are the best.

Sistern, sissies...sistahs...they're all little nicknames for marvelous people that have all the best ways to comfort you, the fastest ways to get under your skin, and the capacity give you tough but necessary love when you need it most.

Recently, I had a conversation with my li'l sis that went like this (via text):

Me: I got a message from so-and-so today. (So-and-So and I had been on a couple of dates.) He said he was sorry, the truth is that he "enjoyed getting to know me immensely" but that he was "focusing more on a girl he met in Utah" and that he would "appreciate any opportunity to remain friends and include me in social activities in the future."

[I should say that I was not surprised by what he had to say.  In fact, I gave him full points for actually letting me know, as most people don't even give that courtesy these days. The wording of his text seemed like he was...trying too hard to be nice. Perhaps I am extra critical of him, as being rejected, two dates or twenty, is not most people's idea of fun. I do believe he was trying to be kind, but it seemed a little over the top. Not that I'm really complaining, of course -- merely making an observation. I would much rather rejectors try too hard to be nice than to be jerkfaces.]

Her response came back almost immediately:

"Tell him he misplaces his modifiers. I doubt he knows you "immensely."

 I laughed and laughed, as the "immensely" was what caught my attention, as well.

jellyfish beach

little blob, you've got just enough:

mass for the receding tide to be unable to take you back to the sea
buoyancy to float in the little divet on the beach you're holed up in
tentacle length and clarity of membrane to attract old and young, plus random dogs
moisture to let the sand stick to you wetly, dehydrating you slowly as the sun beats down
life left that you're still pulsing slowly, mesmerizingly, angrily
sting to make life really, really miserable for awhile if I touch you.


I wonder if all your little blob friends you got separated from are emitting a song of sorrow for you, or gifting the water with a commemorative stinging symphony of electric impulses lighting up the sea as they float away.

Go Ahead With Your Own Life...Leave Me Alone!

I was a special eight year old. The Billy Joel song referenced above was literally my theme song. I hated being told what to do, when to do it, with whom I should do it, or how to do it. My emotions ran high pretty much all the time. It was during this phase of my life that I began self-imposed anger management seminars. I was so easily overwhelmed by emotion, and I so disliked being unable to control how I felt that after the third Saturday in a row of me crying my eyes out and embers of rage burning within me over something chore-related, I just couldn't take it anymore and decided there had to be a better way to live. It took awhile, and sometimes I still have meltdowns, but I think it's safe to say that things are better (overall) for me emotionally these days.

It's interesting that as an eight-year-old I related more to that song than I do now. Now the line that resonates with me is "Either way, it's okay, you wake up with yourself." The key is to being happy with the self you're waking up with. Doing the things you tell yourself you're going to do is so important. Being emotionally honest with yourself and with others is often the most difficult thing you can do in life, but if you can, you're so much better off. Hardly anybody wants to hear it (and here's where another Billy Joel song pops in my head, "Honesty...it's such a lonely word...everyone is so untrue. Honesty, it's hardly ever heard! But it's mostly what I need from you").

The more your actions align with your thoughts and your emotional plans to be honest, the happier you will be. In the last few months, I let go of some things that had been bothering me for a long time. I kept telling myself I was going to do it, that I needed to do it, but the fear of an emotional blowout kept me from it. In the end, it wasn't nearly as hard as I thought it was going to be. I had already distanced myself from the situation, and it was just in my mind that the things I was laying to rest had power over me.


I walked to the river of dreams and let the things holding me back from rising like a phoenix, triumphant, fiery, and brave slip into the depths. I told the little devils inside me to go ahead with their own lives and leave me alone. It was liberating. It was needed. It was wrenching.

I don't know if the imps are completely exorcised, but they are vacationing somewhere very warm -- too warm for me -- and I don't wish them to come back. If they ever do, here's hoping beyond hope that I'll sing with all the emotion of that angsty eight year old: "Go ahead with your own life. Leave me alone."

Icarus and Billy Joel

"So I would choose to be with you, as if the choice were mine to make...
But you can make decisions, too, and you can have this heart to break."

That song makes me so, so sad every time I hear it.

Earlier today I was contemplating Icarus in relation to dating. I knew that Icarus had wings, and that he flew too close to the sun. I misremembered the story -- I thought they got burnt into little stubbly nubs and he had to be earth-bound his whole life and long to feel the breeze under his wings, but no. He didn't have to live the pain and sorrow and longing that I attributed to him.

The real story actually makes more physics sense--the wings were made of feathers and wax, and, because he thought he was all that plus a bag of chips, he ignored the manual, which specifically stated that you shouldn't fly too close to the water or the wax will get soggy, and you shouldn't fly too close to the sun because the wax will melt. Icarus thought he was above the rulebook, which is why he ignored it and, when the wax melted, he went tumbling, perhaps as many as a few thousand feet into the ocean and died.

I was thinking about Icarus because a ridiculous number of my closest friends have recently gotten out of relationships. In a couple cases, they were the ones who ended it -- in a few, it was the other way around.

It seems that with dating, everyone has an Icarus story.  When you're just starting to date someone you're excited about, it's hard not to assume that gravity will win...Every. Single. Time.  But then things seem to be going really well, and -- it's not usually the case that my fellow single fliers get cocky, like Icarus -- it's that we start to hope too much, thinking that this time will not be like all the others. Surely! An investment is made. It starts generating interest. The interest compounds, the interest is reinvested -- and voila. Recipe for disaster and heartbreak has been written. Already the wax is beginning to soften. Softening isn't bad, if the wings are being reshaped to be more aerodynamically efficient when they cool.

Sometimes, especially lately, it seems that as all Icarus daters fly along in their relationships, one of three things happens:

Option one, the one that doesn't really seem like a possibility for anybody on the ground, is to manage to make the up and down work, strengthening themselves and working together to dip and dive and soar and all those lovely-sounding things.

Option two is to do as Icarus did, not obey the rule book. The result is to tumble down, down, down, no parachute in sight, not doing a single thing slow the fall or look out for a safe landing. Splat. Failed love -- no more trying. This is very uncommon -- the least popular choice, I would say, as human beings are generally creatures of hope.

Option three, the one that seems to happen the most often to people in my life right now, is that the sun decides to dip down and singe the little relationship wings that were growing past all repair. The damage is done, and it seems like, instead of the fate of tumbling a fair distance and have the risk of essentially splatting, the wings are singed, and somehow the flier makes it back to safe ground, with a bit of a bumpy landing, and for their trouble they receive the option of being doomed to wander about with the burnt stubbly nubs I mentioned earlier, longing for the loft of a relationship. Eventually, after a good long bit of running back and forth madly in a futile effort to generate enough land speed to become airborne without wings, and perhaps much despair and fist-shaking at the sky, when acceptance comes, bit by bit, feathers come back, until one day a hop is taken, then a bound, and then a downright leap off the precipice is taken. Again. I know I'm mixing Greek stories and maybe even metaphors here, but come on, that Pandora's box of hope is a pesky, real thing.

The thing is, with option three, sometimes each person is Icarus in the relationship, and sometimes the sun. And sometimes, after the sun has just singed wings, all that's left is to sing Billy Joel and realize that each person can make decisions, and sometimes, that means hearts break.

Hugs to all those Icarii out there with singed, stubby wings. Sometimes it's a false alarm and it's just a few burnt feathers and you'll really make option 1 work -- it was just a scare. If not, I will wrap my arms around you, cry with you, and maybe together our tears will heal the little stubbly nubs and someday you can go flying again and find a beautiful partner, and option one WILL happen. It doesn't make it any easier now to hear that. I know, all too well. But keep a tight hold onto that pesky Pandora's box, and, with some luck and a lack of hubris and bitterness, you might just leave behind your Icarus days forever.

Emma

Recently, I finished reading "Emma" for the first time. The book is so much better than any movie adaptation. Though I admit, for the longest time I had a crush on Jeremy Northam, and I really want to find a copy of Emma so I can see him say, "Badly done, Emma! Badly done." Haha.

It was a thoroughly enjoyable experience. I laughed, I had my heartstrings plucked, I squirmed at the social situations portrayed, and generally felt really involved with the experience. It doesn't happen that often anymore. I have to hand it to Jane Austen. I know her style isn't in vogue anymore, exactly, but I find the refreshing conversations -- the everyday conversations that people still have, even if not exactly the same, as the class differences, etc., have evolved somewhat since then -- but there are Miss Bates in every person's life, and little petty disturbances, and people who we feel we need to cater to. Perhaps not as much as Mr. Woodhouse is catered to, but still! I am grateful for good books -- books that are well-written but I also feel good after reading them.

Mr. Knightley is amazing. I want someone like him. A Knightley Orange. (See my post about orange relationships.) Although Mr. Darcy grows on you, Mr. Knightley is the real deal.

I'm impressed by his ability to tell Emma how it is, but still be sensitive. There were so many lines I loved, but perhaps one of my favorites: "Emma, if I loved you less, perhaps I could talk about it more."

Hip Hop Heat

It's been a crazy few weeks. I feel like I haven't gotten anything done...really, I have, but not the normal sorts of things that I usually do. I've been a little more social than usual and I have been listening to new music. A lot of music. And I've even gotten started on another song; when I have it done I'll put it up.

On Sunday I went south for my nephew's hip hop dance recital. He stole the show. He choregraphed his own solo and it got the loudest in-number applause of any dance recital. Perhaps he had the most people there representing him as well (he is well-loved: eleven people came to see him). It made me wish I had danced more as a child -- indeed, that I danced more now. There were some adult classes and the ladies were definitely getting up there. I liked the confidence with which they danced though. I wished there were more boys dancing, too. It seems in our culture we shame boys into thinking that dancing isn't cool. It IS cool. Very cool. I hope he continues, because he has such a talent, it would be so sad to see him not develop it.

It has been so hot. SO HOT. I get home and I roast. I can sweat by just standing still. It's ridiculous. Today I wore SHORTS to work. I have never done that in the history of ever. But I knew I had to stay at work all day (no escaping to the relative cool cave of the library) and so I just bit the bullet and did it.

And yesterday we had an outdoor chess tournament. I lost, as I always do, but I did it with a smile on my face.

If you're looking for some good songs to listen to, I recommend "You Don't Know Where Your Interests Lie" and "Punky's Dilemma" by Simon & Garfunkel. You who know me best know that it's hard to get me to laugh out loud -- I'm more of a smiler. I laughed out loud to BOTH of these. My favorite lines are "Obviously, you're going to blow it..." and when the English muffin makes the most of a toaster. Or perhaps "I'm a Citizens for Boysenberry Jam fan."  Either way, good stuff.

That's a lot of small almost-nothings that I hope turned into a something. In any case, life is going well. And that's something to write about.

Mars

Recently, a friend recommended a CD to me: a version of Holst: the Planets. I wasn't so sure I would like it -- after all, I am one who likes /the very version/ and all other versions that I hear afterward I am less likely to like.

It was probably because I listened to this first thing in the morning, when I was fresh and the temperature was just right. I was in my car, on the way to work, listening to it on a CD, old-school style. This song is the first on the CD.

You should listen to it, and then listen to it again while reading along with my journey. Or just listen and experience as I did. But I would really suggest doing the former. 

I started listening and it sounded like space travel. It already had me hooked, before the music box came on and made a lullaby from another Planets selection.

Then came the part I loved. It sounded like two aliens talking to each other, and then, seconds later, they're dolefully singing. And then real life comes in -- the alert. Help! Bad people are on the way. We're being invaded! Counterattack! (And then the alien not-counting counting that gets more and more animated before....mushroom cloud. Even though I know mushroom clouds cannot happen in space, my media indoctrination will not allow me to not have a mushroom cloud in my mental space.)

All the fallout! The ash is going everywhere. And then suddenly the ginormous ships are coming -- the big Empire ships from Star Wars, all angular and threatening in their relentless press through the stars toward their target. Then first army release their weapons, and they approach, and then all the other little ships and suddenly the second army is surrounded. The massive  first army just keeps assembling. Hurry up, you say. Gather an opposition! No, we will push you back. Yes, take that! We just hit five of your ships in succession.

Then comes more communication. "Yay, we are victorious!" And then off into hyperspace they go.

But! Little do they know, they are being followed. The insidious Death Star-like ship that is the End of All Enders is stalking the little hyperspeed space party. It's gaining creepily.

And as the general of the first army discovers the Death Star is behind, he says, we will not retreat! We are calling reinforcements! Look! Here they come!

Battle ensues for about a minute.

Then, at approximately 9:55, the climax happens. The Death Star has regenerated all its weapon power and now everything is aflame. Explosions on both sides. There is death and sadness everywhere. And then the Death Star just can't help itself and puts the final hammer down. End of all life. It seems like it even catches itself on fire in one big conflagration of an inferno that only one little tiny ship survives, sending its distress signal out to the world...

Turn-Offs

As a single person, I have encountered a few things that are just really turn-offs. They're not necessarily deal breakers, but when the person I'm dating does them, it makes my blood pressure go up or my bile level rise slightly, or both. Not great reactions, I'll grant you, but sometimes you have to take some superficial things you don't like in order to get a heart of gold you do like.

I decided to make a list, in case it will help me later.

1.  Spitting in public.
I think this is gross. Especially if you hack first. It is particularly nearing unpardonable if you happen to spit /across/ me in order to get your spit to the ground in the place you are aiming for. What if you miss? Eew. Just, eew.

2.  Calling me "dude" or "man" on a frequent basis.
I am not a dude. I am not a man. Even dudes do not like to be "dude-ed." I know, because I did it once to someone I was dating without even realizing what I had done, and he immediately called me on it. I'm not saying it's a turn-off to all of them, but it is a little casual and also not accurate (in my case).

3.  Wearing flip-flops year round.
I know this is slightly ridiculous, and truly peevish. But if your uniform is flip flops, shorts, and an (optional) sweatshirt, even when it's snowing, I'm not interested. (This was more of a problem when I was in college. Now, most people I'm remotely interested in do not dress like this. It could also be a function of where I live.)

4.  Commenting on how much a date does (or doesn't) cost while we are out.
If you planned the date, then you probably had an idea of how much it would cost to go out before we actually got out. I am a moderate person. I generally do not order the most expensive thing on the menu, just kind of out of principle, even though sometimes it does sound the very best. Please do not comment on how poor you will be after the date while we are on the date. This has happened to me many, many times and I just think to myself, "We don't have to be here. You didn't have to choose this restaurant. We could have gone somewhere free, and I wouldn't have cared. But now I think that you don't like it here, and you don't like being with me, and I'm a burden." Who wants to be a burden? Besides, talking about money matters at dinner, especially in initial courtship phase, is just in poor taste.

5. Always telling me what to do.
This needs no further explanation. I realize men like to solve problems! I do. But you can solve problems without talking down to me.

FFF

It occurs to me, on this F-is-for-Friday night, that the bulk of all my culinary wants can be categorized in the triple-F category:

Fat
Fiber
Fructose

I think if I could only ever eat three things, triple F is what I would eat. (If you wanted to be very lawyery and say that "bacon" does not fall in the "fat" category, I might have to file a countersuit. But I believe any reasonable fairy godmother granting three food wishes would let me have bacon as a fat, all leafy greens (and other things) for fiber, and all fruits for lettuces.

Sometimes it's better to be broader in your language so that you can let more of the good stuff in. I've discovered that life often tastes better that way.

Bits of Honey at Breakfast

A recent breakfast conversation:

K: "Mom, have I ever eaten any candy you didn't want me to eat?"
W (her mom): "You do that all the time."
K: "No, not like that! Candy that you think is super disgusting."
--pause--
W: "Bit o Honeys."
Me: *shudder of horror* "Yes! Bit o Honeys!"
K: "What are "Bit o Honeys?"
W: "They're candies that taste disgusting. When we were kids, nobody wanted to eat them at Halloween. All of us (her and her siblings) would eat everything else and then the icky Bit o Honeys would be all that was left."
K: "Why are they disgusting?"
A (her dad): Because they're made with only a little bit o honey!"
K: "Yeah"
--then, with all the derision a ten year old can muster--
"I bet they are made with PASTEURIZED honey!"
W, looking at A: "Wow, we have successfully raised food snobs, haven't we?" in between bursts of laughter. K looked extremely pleased with herself that she had managed to amuse the whole table so easily. 

Then, a couple of minutes later:

K: "Mom, what is pasteurization?"


---
Note: K had heard several times from her mom and other families of the health benefits of eating raw honey. She knew raw honey was superior, but hadn't yet picked up on all the nuances of exactly /why/ it is preferable. I am proud of her that she asked, later, why pasteurization is not preferable when choosing honey products, instead of just assuming that because someone said it is superior that it is, just because they said so.

This House of Sky

There's nothing like the beautiful sky of the Pacific Northwest.

Recently I took a trip northwester in the northwest. The sky was low, and the clouds were heavy, but it didn't rain all day.

There were two ferry rides and two pieces of pizza and two kids and two galleries and two museums.

There was also a a sketch artist and a Victorian costume festival and and five adults and one lighting museum and three galleries.

Furthermore, there were wet plants, gun batteries more than a hundred years old, pitch-black tunnels to wander in.

I even saw a whale on the ferry ride home. The thing about whale watching is that your eyes think that the whale is going to come up exactly in the same place that it did before. Even if your eyes track the direction it's going, depending on how fast the vehicle you're in is going, your eyes will never be able to accurately predict where the blowhole plume will appear next.

Green rocks and a thousand seagulls jabbering at each other as they floated along the swiftly moving current were also highlights. The light is beautiful. The old houses of the Port towns are beautiful. The northwest sky is just amazingly gorgeous. No filters. It fills me with such contentment to walk by the water. I hope you feel even a little of the joy I felt as you look at the pictures.

Peachy Pearly Birthday Cake

Last weekend I went to a birthday party for one of my favorite people on the planet. We had mac n cheese, saw Big Hero 6, and I even had a piece of "black pearl" birthday cake. Although the pearls look pretty, eating pearls is kind of an unpleasant experience and I ended up focusing more on the frosting.

On the way to the movie, I took this picture. It was raining most of the weekend, but it cleared up for just long enough for me to get this shot of a beautiful tree and my beautiful people.

Spring has come early! And, despite the allergies that it I have had, and the drought we are in, I am grateful.

And I am grateful that  I have people -- pictured or not -- who love me and want me to have a peachy pearly life and yummy birthday cake.

Albatross

A small flock of albatross has been following my boat of late.
I know Great White sharks also follow boats. I wonder if both "bigs" are always attracted to the same vessels?
Seems a bit unfair, if so.

This week, one of the birds that has been flying low and close suddenly peeled away and flew east.
Watching it fly away, I was struck by
how big the dang thing was
how powerful its wingstrokes were
how unsurprised I was at its choice to suddenly depart
how much I wanted to feel relieved by its absence

I expected more relief as I watched it depart. At first it made a shadow on the water, and then slowly it became a speck on the horizon. Then, in a matter of just a few minutes, I couldn't see it anymore. I knew it was still there -- the laws of matter and physics still apply -- but it was, in effect, gone. I wondered how something so big have disappeared in such a short period of time.

As I have pondered this, a cloud has come, and dropped misty, friendly rain on me, covering me tenderly, letting me know I am cared for and loved, leaving its evidence with little droplets, so I won't forget.

And I am grateful.

End of the Line

It's not uncommon for me to get a song stuck in my head for about a week. I call it the SOTW phenomenon. Often, it's a song I like. Sometimes it's a top 40 song that they always play about the time I leave work, permanently and indelibly etching feelings of happiness and freedom into my life whenever I hear it. This is an example of such a song. I don't know what all the lyrics are saying, and I don't care. Please don't tell me. It's just a simple elegance. Sometimes I have felt like I was drifting away in my life, and it sounds like how I imagine it would be to float away...fun at first, then going a little too fast, then slowing down and realizing how amazing life is.

*coughs* ANYWAY

This song of the week is one that I heard awhile ago but then forgot about. Thanks to Pandora and Tom Petty, it was brought back to my attention. It is very fitting for my life right now. I'm going to the end of the line. Things are a little muddy right now. I still have something to say, it doesn't matter if I'm in a purple haze. I'm still relevant. I still matter. I'm going the distance, dangit. All the way to the end of the line. I have people -- not Jeff Lynne, Tom Petty, or George Harrison -- but wonderful people in my rail car with me who love me, listen to me, help me, and genuinely desire "every goode thingie" for my life.

So listen, enjoy. Be with me on my (sometimes bumpy) journey to the end of the line.

I Got Out [of that game] For a Reason

Last Sunday was SuperBowl Sunday. (Someday I'll have to write a blog post about SuperCute Sunday. Both are high-stakes, go-win-or-go-home outings...or so I've been told.)

I think everyone in the city I live in watched the game. I heard on the radio last week that the average person consumes 2,400 calories during the SuperBowl. My jaw dropped. I'm pretty sure that's more calories than I usually eat in an entire day. I guess if you just absentmindedly chow down on seven-layer dip all night, things can add up pretty quickly.

Let me back up by saying that I used to really like college football. I watched the games almost every week, and felt deprived when I couldn't. I knew all the players' names of "my team." I knew how tall they were, how much they weighed, where they were from, how many years of eligibility they had left, what position they played, and all sorts of other statistics. I was slightly obsessed.

Then, one day, I realized that there were many glorious Saturdays that were entirely taken up by just sitting around watching a bunch of guys with future knee, back, and concussion problems play a game that I needed announcers to help me figure out what was happening -- even though I knew the rules -- because in the end, it just was a huge pile of people at the end of every thirty seconds or so. The thing was, there were just bits and spurts of action, which was really annoying. (This, from the person who loves baseball!)

Anyway, last year, Seahawk Fever started rising. #BeastMode kicked in, as did Legion of Boom. (Who comes up with these names, anyway?) This may be the only town where there are equal amounts of offensive and defensive jerseys, though. But everywhere I went, it was neon green and navy blue, neon green and navy blue. EVERYWHERE!

I admit, I caught a small case of the dreaded virus. I blame it on my coworker, who exposed me due to the fact that he has season tickets and always comes in hoarse on Monday mornings due to cheering his heart out. I was curious, and I invested enough to know what #beastmode and LOB are. I know a few stats now. I even watched the NFC game, after the fact. If there was ever a game to make you say, "It's not over til it's over," that was the game.

Sometimes, you just "feel" it. It's like your team is in a groove, and although you're tense, you just know in your bones that they're going to pull it out. I had invested, but the day of the SuperBowl, I just had a feeling that there would be no RePete. I watched the game, and was thinking, "noooo, don't do it. Don't dooooo it! Don't fall apart!" It was one of those things where you cover your eyes and then peek anyway even though you know the bad guy is coming and is going to kill the person they were stalking in the mirror.

So, I'm here to say this: I got out of the football-watching game for a reason. I let myself be suckered back in for a little while, but it's totally not worth it. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: The pain of watching your team lose is so, so much harder than the happy of seeing your team win. For some reason, for me, the emotion is amplified with football. Don't get me wrong, I was totally on the edge of my seat when my Giants were playing in this last World Series (as you know), but the emotional roller coaster is a lot bigger with football.

So, from now on, I am going to do my best to bow out of the football watching game. For good.

Hair, Hoar::Etymology, Entomology

The other day I went to a meeting with my boss. Although it has mostly been a really mild winter, there were a few really cold days last week, and this was one of them. We went outside to get in the truck, and lo and behold, there was hoar frost on it. It had sprouted up on the edges of the pickup and in the bed like hair grows on a head. It reminded me of someone I knew in junior high who used to "frost" his hair. (He once frosted his eyebrows, too -- made them bleached, when he had black hair. It looked kind of interesting for awhile, especially since he stopped about halfway through and decided he didn't want to go through with it.)

It looked like little frost grass had grown up, as almost all hoar frost does. I was struck by the uniformity of it -- the little crystalline warriors marching up and down the truck rail. I wonder why they call it hoar frost instead of hair frost. Maybe it all started as a misunderstanding...someone said, "This looks like hair!" and his or her friend thought something else had been said. Probably someone with a more serious interest in linguistics could tell me. Etymology, not entomology, right? Just like hair, hoar. (And I know some of you reading this wanted to add, "Har," as in hardy hard har NOT FUNNY, after that last sentence.)

What's that Noise?

Yesterday, while I was walking around at lunch in the neighborhood, I was talking on the phone with the insurance guy. It turns out he was unable to help me (a fact of which we are not surprised) and that there will be many more lunchtime phone calls to get my predicament sorted out.

I was perambulating along at a not great but not little rate when I heard a noise. It was too big to be a squawk, too loud to be a squirrel, too abrupt to be a cat (cats always seem to have to ease themselves into their vocals; everything slips and slides for them).  It decidedly was not a dog. I had never heard it before, and I had no idea. I thought it could have been a mangled crow, but it would have to be a BIG mangled crow that sounded nicer than a murder-wannabe-sized crow could make.

I looked up, as that was the direction the noise came from, and up in the tree, I saw something i had never seen before. If you look in the picture, maybe you will see it, too. (It was better in person, but alas, you all cannot be with me all the time.)

There were herons in the tree. One had its big beak open and was attacking the other one. He snapped it shut and it looked like the other one had to do some fancy neck work to avoid a serious injury. They flapped and fought their way through the tree. I wished I could hang up on the insurance guy, as this seemed much more entertaining and useful. But I was grateful that I got to see them. In the tree, they're not very graceful at all. They seem like they should be called lurchers, not herons, given what I saw. It was like they were those shooters on planet Hoth, lurching about. Not the four-legged ones, the two legged ones with shorter-range blasters, but more aim/mobility.

I was sorry they were fighting, but glad that I got to see a spectacle. They settled down and agreed to ignore each other after awhile, so peace in the neighborhood was restored, and I perambulated back to work. So, if a heron fights in a tree, and nobody was there to see it, did the heron fight still happen? I'm writing this as proof that it *did* in fact happen.

Of High Import

There are a few things that really, really matter to me.

1. My family. 

I like spending a lot of time with them, doing things for them, laughing with them, playing games with them, and just generally hanging around. I always get new ideas from my sisters regarding cooking, and they always listen to me and love me, even when I'm being utterly ridiculous. I'm telling you, you can't buy that dedication and love. You also can't force someone to play approximately 15 rounds of games with you during the holidays. My brother can always be counted on for a good round of gaming! 

2.  Comfort. Especially furniture and clothes.

I cannot abide being uncomfortable. Couches that have faux cushions, pillows that have rough or hairy finishes, chairs that have backs that only go halfway up your spine, or are not the right shape for my little non-bony behind are just wrong. I'm not saying your couch has to be more comfortable than your bed. I'm just saying that if I can't watch a movie on the couch without aching at the end, the couch isn't comfortable, and you should get a comfy one, if at all possible. 

My clothes must also be comfy. Soft is the byword. No little beads that can scratch my sensitive skin. No constricting materials to keep my legs so they can't breathe. Rough material is verboten! Supima or bust! And my shoes. Oh, my. My shoes have to fit. (Shoe shopping with me is a nightmare. Ask anyone! They'll tell you I'm telling the truth.)

3.  Food

The older I get, the more I appreciate good food, and the effort it takes to put food together. Recently I took up reading cookbooks. I thought only boring people read cookbooks for the first 27 years of my life. Ha! I was wrong. I have benefited many times from cookbook readers. I used to have a swanky job where my boss' boss was a foodie. We went out to all the fashionable restaurants in San Francisco when I had occasion to go there, and I had some great food. I had sea bass at a dim sum restaurant that I still can almost taste. I had halibut that melted in my mouth. I had partridges that were skewered and had arugula and risotto with it. I had ginormous corn at a Peruvian restaurant. I also (not work related) have lovely memories of eating Rainbow Salad. 

Now I read cookbooks. I think about the things I eat. I think about the lives of the animals I eat. I think about what the animals I eat eat. I think about the farmers who farm what I eat. I think about the hands that pick the food I eat. 

4.  Time to myself.  

Sometimes, I get "like butter over too much bread." It's important to take time to be myself, for myself, as myself. The older I get, the more "recovery" time I need. Hmmmm. I'd prefer for that to be reversed, but I'm making do with what I have. 

5.  Sleep.  

I love it, I hate it. Can't live without it, don't like taking the time to recharge. I'm working on my attitude about sleep. I've made almost no progress on it. I'll try to improve a little every day.