No Tofurky for me, thanks

Mmm Thanksgiving. Being a vegetarian at Thanksgiving is swell, actually. No need to eat the boring old turkey, and you can take as much stuffing as you want without getting odd looks. Even as a kid, I viewed the holiday meat as obligatory. I do admit that I miss the gravy, though. Maybe I'll whip up a packet of veggie gravy and bring it along. This year I am trying to contribute meaningfully to the meal, so I'm tackling the rolls. This side of the family always buys them so I'm going for the from-scratch route. My test runs this weekend went OK, one failed, resulting in rolls my friend mistook for cookies, the other was a success, so that's the one I'm duplicating tonight. Wish me luck.

So it should be a nice weekend: movie and dinner with the in-laws tonight, family fun at my parent's tomorrow, shopping and pedicures on Friday, soap making with a friend, (she has a soap-making business) on Saturday, and many lovely parties Saturday night. Hurrah!

Favorite holiday pleasures: seasonal beverages at Starbucks and Caribou (gingerbread, peppermint cocoa) and their cute little holiday cups, Christmas carols (top three are Carol of the Bells, Sleigh Ride, and O Holy Night), all the sneaky shopping talking-in-code business, mulled cider and gingerbread scented candles, and of course, Christmas cookies (love the peanut brittle). Oooooh... now I'm all excited! I can't wait!

Ann Bancroft is my hero

Yesterday I ended up pseudo-teaching a class... and since I suck at teaching (at least when I’m jumping in mid-semester), I was quite relieved to see that Ann Bancroft was coming to talk. And Ann was awesome... so comfortable talking to us about all parts of her trips, and in particular, her journals, which was the topic of the class that day. Can you imagine having one book to read on a hundred-day trip? (The one she took, on a friend’s recommendation, was Man’s Search for Meaning. She had to rip the cover off and was told to use it as toilet paper or burn it each day, but she didn’t, instead she and the five guys she was with ripped chapters out and passed them around.) On her last trip, she and Liv decided to bring poetry since you can mull over a poem longer, and her mom suggested that she ask her friends and family to submit one poem for her to talk. She talked about reading a poem and thinking about it all day long, as they pulled their 250-pound sleds over the ice. She also said how she asked her nieces and nephews to paint her skis to keep her motivated as she toils day after day... I got a bit choked up thinking about that. On one trip that was especially regimented in terms of what they could bring, the leader finally relented and allowed them to bring 100 oz. of their favorite candy. What would I possibly choose? I read her book Four to the Pole (aimed at middle school children I think) this morning... it was inspiring to read about how hard it was and how tired and depressed the team got at times, and how they had to keep going. The talk really left me waiting to take another long trip again... to see what I can accomplish and what I’m inspired to do out in the wilderness.

One thing I’ve noticed as I have met famous people (Michelle Kwan and Ann Bancroft), is that they are really aware that a lot of people don’t really care about what they do. Michelle said of the kids begging her for autographs that most will find it under the beds in a couple weeks and ask, “Who’s that?” And Ann sort of apologized for work, saying that it’s just what she likes to do and she knows it’s not a lot of people’s idea of fun.

I’m really stupid around famous people. All flustered and subservient and dumb.

Will Iowa be a nice pilsner?

Last night I drank the beers I vowed that I would on election night - one for every Midwestern state that Kerry took. Minnesota was a nice winter ale, Wisconsin, a bass that I enjoyed while singing On Wisconsin! between sips, and Michigan, a Vienna malt whose last few inches (or the U.P., as I was referring to them) where hard to get down.

I only other thing I'll say in reference to the election is to share what I saw when driving home through my neighborhood's downtown on Wednesday evening: an older man surrounded by Kerry signs and a boat he'd painted yellow with the slogan "Bush's swiftboat assault" or something similar in black. The sight of him holding vigil and feeling strongly enough about it to deface his boat comforted me.

Tomorrow I'm helping a good friend move out of her house and into an apartment because she's separating from her husband. I feel so very sad for her. It is times like these, though - such as when I'm at parties where most of the guests bring along their kids - that I realize I am not a kid myself anymore. I feel caught sometimes between my go-out-and-do-crazy-things side and my church-going-hanging-out-with-people-with-kids side. I usually feel like an impostor with the older people... as if I'm playing adult.

I voted!

I get a nice satisfying rush from having voted. Admittedly, it was a little sad at the polls, because there weren't too many boxes to fill in and I had that election day why-didn't-I-research-all-these-obsecure-offices-so-I-could-vote-knowledgably-like-the-responsible-citizen-I-consider-myself-to-be anxiety. Also the voting machine broke right in front of me, so it was a little disconcerting not to see my ballot zip confidently into the machine, but instead slip uneasily into a slot to be counted later.

I have this glorious fantasy of the results being announced at 2 a.m. and running outside to the dark wet street to be joined by my neighbors, cheering and cavorting, imbibe ourselves silly as we rejoice together the return to normalcy. I have that optimism that you get on election day when you can't image the converse coming true.

Leo for President

I saw Leonardo DiCaprio today. He was giving a stump speech for Kerry on behalf on environmental groups. He wasn't bad - seemed like a normal nice guy, and covered well when he reminded us that we could still register absentee until Oct. 26. I'm quite ready to vote and be done with this (is anyone still making up their mind? Are they really swayed by those people holding signs on highway overpasses and causing accidents?) although I do fear the results. After getting burned in the last gubernatorial election, I have lost my naivety and blind faith. My grandma won't tell anyone how she votes - not even my mom - saying that it's a secret ballot and she doesn't have to share. I can see her point - I feel strongly about politics, but I don't enjoy going back and forth debating topics very much. Maybe because I did enough debate back in high school. Yet I don't want to be one of those lazy people who don't care enough to do something to better our nation. What a quandary.

So I have yet to find a productive way to fill my evenings now that grad school is done. I could volunteer, but I decided to take a break from the Girl Scouts (apart from the teen book club I lead, I'll still do that), and no other group really excites me at the moment. I considered taking a part time job, but I don't want to be tied to a schedule. I completed some home improvement projects, enough that more time isn't going to help me do more. And I've learned that unstructured time doesn't necessarily mean I'll do anything productive - like work on doing some freelance work. I used to be gung ho about starting a book club, but they seem so fraught with danger. I don't know if any of my friends really have weekday nights to devote to me either. As husband is starting more evening rehearsals, I need to think of something to do.

Reading: Calm Energy, Interpreter of Maladies
Eating: A lot of squash. Will I turn orange like with carrots?
Watching: a lot, since we joined one of those video store clubs. Just finished Mean Girls.

All-you-can-drink-buffet

Abruptly after declaring everything wouldn't work and we were back at square one, my dad called to say it was decided - Playacar for us. For those keeping score, this was the place with the free premium drinks (it's an all-inclusive, so all food is included too). But all the Bacardi you can drink was not the deciding factor. The direct flight, nice beaches, things to do nearby, ease, and the fact that it's someplace we've never been were the deciding factors. It also has daily afternoon tea, with those tasty little cakes, and a whole slew of those wonderful little classes like yoga on the beach and cooking lessons which I plan to attend upon arrival but miss once the beach-yes-I'd-like-another-Mojito-mmm-this-is-the-life lethargy sets in.

Something warm sounds nice as it is brr brr-ity cold here. Last night I clung with the tenacity of a leech to A, availing myself of his warmth. Perhaps it's time to start thinking about turning the heat on. Or purchasing a hot water bottle.

I have the wonder of wonder, miracles of miracle next week - two days off, during the week, when no one else has them off. I'll be able to live the leisure life of the rich urban socialites, running errands in the expanse of daytime hours, sipping coffee while writing letters, basking in the glow of real daylight that seems only an illusion from my office window. These days were given to me and my coworkers as a precious gift in return for the countless extra hours we have worked lately, including many weekend hours.

Looking to the Beach Boys for inspiration

How hard can it be to pick a vacation destination? My family is working to find out the answer to that question. So far we have seriously considered and almost booked the following:
Costa Rica
Bora Bora
Tahiti
Cabos St. Lucas, Mexico
British Virgin Islands (3 resorts on private islands)
Playacar, Mexico
Aruba (several resorts)
After having to give up Costa Rica because there is, according to our travel agent, nothing to do there and no shopping, I have been careful not to become really attached to any of the places.
We've looked at private islands more attuned to the likes of celebrities, we've looked at big chain resorts, all-inclusives (AI, to the vulgar), and small getaways. Our standards for the room and restaurants are so high, and we want both a quiet, peaceful island and enough things to do. Culture but not too much culture. Direct flights are a plus, less-than-spectacular beaches get you cut from the list. We've considered places that have come with everything from private butlers to huts over the water to free unlimited premium drinks to our own private plunge pool.
Where oh where we will end up? Is there something in paradise to meet our every whim and fancy? Or will we be disappointed because we've seen the best that's out there and couldn't have everything?
It seems sort of ominous - will we, like Gatsby, fall victim to our vanity? Or will we have the vacation of the lifetime, followed quickly by some unfortunate event that will change everything? Why am I so fearful? I think I read too much. Good things always go bad in novels.

I burunti your Fendi bag

I just finished reading The Sex Life of Cannibals, which was oddly not very much about sex lives and cannibals. What it was about was the author's two years on a remote atoll in Kiribati in the south Pacific with his girlfriend. I've always fantasized about visiting those end-of-the-earth places, the tiny dots on maps that look impossible to get to. (My desire is also enhanced due to our failed Bora Bora trip.) But Kiribati is no Hawaii. Picture Hawaii with no greenery, elevation, or island breezes. His diet consisted of fish and beweeviled rice, with a few expired cans of chicken curry. I won't ruin all the surprises, in case you read it, but one of my favorite parts is when he describes this custom called burunti (OK, I don't have my book with me, so that's probably misspelled). But the custom is that anyone can request something of someone else and they have to give it to them. (I.e. I burunti your fishing pole). Anyway, it was a fascinating read, and again made me ponder whether we will ever give it all up and live really simply somewhere, or continue along our consumer-driven path. The odd thing is like the couple in the book, I think we'll float back and forth between the two worlds. The couple moved back to D.C. and spent some crazy years flinging money around, then moved to Fiji and returned to the simple life (although not quite as terribly simple as their life on Kiribati was).

Meeting Michelle Kwan and the perfect cabin weekend

So what I joked about for weeks did come true. I did meet Michelle Kwan and I did, yes, weird as it sounds, see her pee. When we signed up for this doping thing I didn't really know what we were getting into.. and it was really strange that we, two people not connected with the skating world, were doing this. But we got to see some amazing skating from our well-stocked suite, then pop down to lower levels to see all the skaters up close warming up. It was a bit awkward watching the testing, mainly because we felt self-conscious that we had signed up for this, and who were these pervs who volunteered to watch skaters pee, but really it wasn't a big deal. Michelle was nice, albeit tired and a bit jaded, I think. She's been doing this a long time so I understand. Damn are those figure skaters fit, though, especially the women. It's hard to look past the sequins and netting and lame of the guys' costumes.

We left for the cabin at 11:45 p.m. - Husband drove the whole way, while I succumbed to sleep for awhile but then awoke to assist in watching for deer... which there were many.
The rest of the weekend was wonderful - long walks and hikes in the beautiful fall foliage, tasty squash soup and homemade blue cheese dressing, good times with friends EC and P, who brought up a fun craft project and two seasons of Coupling. Really, a perfect weekend. Too bad that as I write this I realized that we left the heat on! Damn! I think my parents are going up next weekend though.

Leaves glorious leaves.


Mmm... there's nothing like a fall cabin trip.

In the doldrums

It's one of those days where I feel there is nothing in particular to look forward to so I just want to lie around like a bum.

But there are shining-ray-of-light things to look forward to! Such as
1. Cabin trip this weekend - tasty fall food, hiking in beautiful foliage, relaxing with friend EC and her boy
..... and..... and.... and....
Hmm. Can't really think of anything else.

OK, I have to do better than this.
I am excited for:
2. Spring vacation with family
3. Building my Web site at work
4. Colder weather so I can stop wearing in-between clothes
5. Reading the two books I started, Evening Clouds by Junzo Shono and The Forgotten Island by Sasha Troyan.
6. Painting the kitchen wall

That's better, but still not very good. I guess I'll have to work on cultivating things to look forward to.

A dark and stormy day

I generally tell two kinds of stories: camping stories and Japan stories. Here's a pair of them about rain (inspired by the pounding rain outside)

We usually had pretty good weather on our trips... there were only a few times that it was storming or raining so hard we had to pull off. Once, during a particularly rainy day when we were lake-hopping in Ontario, it finally got too bad so we paddled over to the shore, anchored ourselves, and then huddled under one of those big blue tarps. You might think this would be cozy and nice, but it wasn't - with hands icy but everything else sweaty under the rain gear, we were fairly glum. Finally it let up a little and we threw off the tarp, and beheld a Kool-Aid pink sky. It was so real that I immediately wondered what type of meteorological phenomena would cause this. But alas, the eerie pink sky was only a phenomena of another kind, created by the prolonged exposure to blue light. How real it seemed.

My commute in Japan consisted of a five minute bike ride, followed by two bus rides. Days when it rained always presented a problem. I could wear my rain jacket, backpack underneath, enhancing my foreign freakishness, or I could do what every other Japanese person did - bike while holding an umbrella. Gamely, I set off one rainy morn with the umbrella, winding through the neighborhood and over the small bridges. As I rounded a corner, I saw a motorbike headed my way, and at the same time realized that I had lost control. In that terrible slow motion, I attempted to gain control, but instead progressed steadily at the bike. He saw the panic in my eyes and slowed down, but collision was inevitable. Greatly embarrassed and having failed at the equivalent of patting my head and rubbing my tummy, I resigned myself to the unsightly hunchback jacket for the rest of my time there. [Other lessons about umbrellas learned in Japan include the equation: 2 people + 1 umbrella = 2 people who are 1/2 wet.]

Take that, seasonal goals

I'm only into week two or so for fall and I've already made progress on the list of goals.
This weekend I learned a new skill (#5 on list) - soapmaking! My friend EC has a soapmaking biz and she let me help out for the day. Together we made two batches of soap (a creamy vanille and a minty green Wicklow soap that she refers to as "sexy man soap) and two batches of lip gloss (chai and honeybee). I also helped her trim soap (cut off the little bits of the bottom that went past the mold). It was quite fun, and I got to take home the extras as a reward. It's also so nice that EC is just a short bike ride away, especially during the beautiful weather we've been having.

We've also made progress on the home improvement front (#1). I've done a lot of the small chores (working on art and stuff on walls, etc., also trimming the trees), while super husband did some of the big chores (cleaning gutters, buying and installing new shutters on garage.) I realize that a part of my problem is I worry about the expense, so sometimes try to get buy with only the basics, instead of getting everything to really make the job easy to do well.

I ate 3118 calories yesterday. Today I'm at 838. Shocking how easily I go to 3118 without realizing, and shocking how easily I do 838 without appreciating it and feeling good about it. What to know where you're at? Try the food calculator

Tornado-shaped swarm of lakeflies (May 04, on the way to cabin)

Seven blissful years together. Congratulations, Short Bus and Grizz.

The more things change...

5 weird things I thought/did as a kid
1. As a kid, (kindergarten or so), when asked what I wanted to be when I was older, I'd say "a mommy" and say that I wanted to have 10 kids.
2. I used to be terrified of someone breaking into the house, so I employed two tactics: Encouraging my brother to do his Miami Vice routine (which consisted of yelling, "Stop! Miami Vice" and whipping around corners with his fingers held in the shape of a gun), and keeping a note in my bedside table that indicated that I knew that a burglar could come in, because I thought that bad things like burglars happened only when you weren't expecting it, so if I expected it, it wouldn't happen.
3. I also used to hide my meat (especially hamburgers or ring baloney) in my napkin so I wouldn't have to eat it. When forced to choose between eating my meat or going without dessert, I always went without. I'd swipe finger fulls of peanut butter or take hits off the pickle jar as I cleared the table to make up for it.
4. I once chased my brother around the house with a fork after he teased me one too many times at the dinner table. When he tripped on a chair rounding a corner, I pounced on him and got one good stab in before I realized what I was doing.
5. I was nuts about penpals... always filling in those forms in the back of books to get them. I had one in California that I wrote to for a long time, and one in Australia. I also wrote to this girl in Texas for awhile but pretended to be a boy (I had some lame excuse why I had a girl's name). I'm not sure why I did that. I don't think she was convinced but she never said anything.

7 a.m. on a Saturday

I'm up early on a Saturday morning and the neighborhood is quiet and the air still. Based on last weekend's poor wakeups and headaches, I've started a weekend policy of setting my alarm for eight hours. I like wandering around in my robe, drinking tea and getting little things done before A gets up.

It looks like we're getting a second chance at joining the in-crowd of neighbors. Almost a year after our first invite we were invited back to a outside movie viewing. (Maybe they invited us because they knew we could see the viewing from our house and we'd feel bad!). I suppose we should throw something of our own sometime, but we really don't know enough people. We could at least invite them over or for a walk. If we had a kid like they do it'd be easy; we'd have been instant friends, bonded over the lack of sleep and the frequent walks around the block.

Recently finished: House of Mirth by Edith Wharton "The Member of the Wedding" by Carson McCullers, working on A Room with a View by E.M. Forster.


Rocky, the cutest cat alive. I've had him since I was ten and he used to ride around on my shoulder.

Seasonal self improvement, Round 2

Goals for summer (in review):
1. Complete one good home improvement project (retaining wall, here I come) Well, we decided to wait on that until we had more money. Projects accomplished include: purchased, ironed, and hung new curtains, purchased and hung floating shelves in bedroom, tore out wild growth and installed garden, planted flowers and kept a generally well tended yard. That's a pretty sad list. I hope fall is better.
2. Learn new skills (possibilities include refinishing furniture, baking bread, and developing a stupid human trick, which I lack) Hmm. Didn't do any of those. I did make progress on the furniture research...
3. Wear sunscreen (so long tans of yesteryear, I'll miss you). I did really well on this one. Yea me!
4. Have spontaneous adventures (detailing what they are would ruin the "spontaneous" part). I also did some good work on this one. Check check.

5. Explore the nighttime (Olympic-worthy sleeping skills preclude 3 p.m. moon bathing sessions). Hmm... I had a few failures but I also looked at the stars more than I have in a long time. I general I think I did quite well.

Goals for fall:

1. After seeing the pitiful list of home improvement projects that we completed summer, I have to put this on my list again.

2. Do some freelance writing work.

3. Lose 10 lbs (all right, I'm putting it out there. A public declaration. Let's see if shame can motivate me.)

4. Do something each week that I have never done before.

5. Learn new fun homekeeping skill (of the making jam, baking bread variety).

D.C., the promise of fall, and family reunion

D.C. Did you know they have "taxation without representation" on their license plates? A and I couldn't decide if they were meant to be funny or a bit snide. The highlights were the National Building Museum, where we learned amazing things about concrete, the Holocaust Museum, because I've always been interested in that stuff, and Union Station's yummy sushi. Things that I would not have missed are the humidity (I'm afraid I was a bit whiny) and the fact that D.C. was surprisingly rundown, in my opinion. It was great to see J and his friends, who are truly great, especially C and D who let us stay with them in their nice apartment.

I must note that I was especially lame in D.C. I slept a lot, especially during times when others were socializing. I feel quite bad.

Even though it's August it feel like September here, as it has almost all month. I actually picked up some red and yellow fallen leaves toda. The upside is that I LOVE September, that's right, LOVE. It's my favorite month. It makes me feel all newly-sharpened-pencil, I-have-a-new-Trapper-Keeper-anything-is-possible, get-a-new-day-planner-cause-I'm-planning-out-my-life.

Big brother JJ and his girlfriend KK are in town... so great to see them. I'm not very good at phone calls and he is not very good at email so we don't talk much in the interim. We're having a family fun blowout weekend at the cabin this weekend, so I'm resting up. Well, I guess if going out with husband and his co-worker E is resting up, then I'm doing that.


Family reunion at the cabin... it looks like 95, actually was more like 65. My brother and his girlfriend tried to get in the water but immediately got out after diving in because it was so cool they were shaking.

Blue lake and rocky shore, the champagne of beers, and a broken toe

Ely was everything I hoped it could be. We spent the main part of the day doing things outdoors - canoeing, hiking, running The Most Gorgeous Run in the World - and spent the other part reading, eating tasty food, hanging out in Ely, and just sitting and staring the beautiful lake.

Most exhilarating moment - taking a sauna and then running out in the 45 degree chill and rain to jump in the freezing lake.

Saddest moment - When Husband broke his toe portaging the canoe, putting an end to his much-beloved daily runs.

Family fun moment - Hanging out with Husband's cousins the first night, having Husband and his cousin E get into the type of hijinks they were famous for as kids.

Sweetest moment - sharing carrot cake with Husband and toasting each other on our 2nd anniversary.

Sobering moment - the row after row of empty liquor and beer bottles on Sunday after our weekend with friends M and B. As M would say, we "lived the high life."

Tomorrow it is D.C.-ho as we embark on a very unplanned adventure... we don't have any agenda, and haven't talked much with the friend we're visiting, and are staying with some of his friends who we've never met...

I'd also like to note a visit yesterday and today by good college friend J.C. and his girlfriend... although it's been awhile it feels as if no time has passed. It's great to see him again.


Our first harvest

Staying up past midnight

I've discovered the secret to exploring the night time, one of the goals on my seasonal self improvement list: start later. We keep starting gatherings at 7 or 8 and finding ourselves tired by midnight. But if you start later, before you know it it's 2 a.m. Husband and I hung with out a couple from his cast (including the guy I find attractive, detailed in the "embarrassment of the day" from the Where I fantasize about the perfect bed linens entry), and they came over around 10 and we ended up talking until 3:30. So they stayed over and we rounded it out with breakfast at Perkins in the morning (it had been years. They still do a decent oatmeal). It was different hanging out with 19-20 year olds, though. They didn't watch the same sitcoms as kids as we did. 3:30 a.m. is more the norm than the exception. And we did feel strange with the whole alcohol thing - do we offer, or no?