I'm home

I made it back home. This morning we got the whole farm tour at the B&B and got to ride a camel!

I then drove 8.5 hours (500 miles) back home today. Between the 9 hours yesterday and the 8.5 hours today, I'm pretty pooped. According to my trip odometer, I put 2041.4 miles on the car, round trip. My sister, Courtney, drove probably 400 miles of it. I'm pretty proud of this, I've never driven this much in one trip, EVER.

The garden exploded while I was gone...there are giant okras, greenbeans, soybeans, and strawberries ready for harvest. The cukes and pumpkins and tomatoes are producing...summer produce is in full swing!

It was a fun trip, and will be a good week...my sister Lindsey is here visiting until the 7th!

on the road again and homeward bound

I am writing this from Nickerson, Kansas. Nickerson is a teeny tiny little town smack in the middle of Kansas. I drove 9 hours today from St. Louis to get here, and I'm SO EXCITED to report that I'm staying with my sister, Lindsey, at a B&B called Hedricks.

This little B&B is home to a lot of animals including (in the order in which we've seen things so far today just driving in and walking around): camels, ostriches, llamas, zebras, chickens, peacocks, kangaroos, cows, horses, giraffes, bunnies, pidgeons, tortises, and capyrs. There may be other species around, we'll get the full tour in the morning. AND tomorrow I shall ride on a camel (in the middle of Kansas)!

I have to say, I am SO excited about this place. It is totally a dream for me to have something like this with a somewhat different assortment of critters, perhaps, but the camels are a MUST!

so this place has surprised me with its internet access, but it is slow, so I'll end here...maybe tomorrow night there'll be an update about the rest of the journey.

most optimum, inside and out

Today we took Courtney to the airport, and she is currently in-flight back to California. And yes, I cried when we dropped her off. I haven't seen her in two and a half years, and I don't know when I'll see her next.

And then my Dad asked us to review a flyer that he put together with some business collaborators, and my brother and I both gasped in horror at the phrase "most optimum". My brother put it best "it makes me cry inside" to see such writing. We proposed using the word "best" as a replacement for "most optimum". Ok, I'm persnickety, and it seems my brother is too. I've written before about my friend the persnickety lady, and on days like today, I think of her ranting about the differences between then and than, formerly and formally, etc. I think bonding with my brother over complaints of bad grammar has helped me get over the pain of seeing my other sib off again.

Well, lots of crying today inside and out

I am the future

There were some very bad storms in St. Louis right before I came out. As of today, approximately 200,000 people are still without power in the St. Louis region. My 93 year old grandma (who lives alone in the house that she's lived in for 52 years) has been staying at my parent's house since last Wednesday when the storms hit because a tree took down the powerlines to her house and ripped out the meter attached to the house.

Having my grandma at the house has changed everyone's routine and I think it has been a bumpy adjustment for everyone, including her. My grandma's health is failing: she is nearly blind, she has difficulty walking, she has back pain, and it seems her hearing is starting to go too. Despite all of this, her mind is still sharp...she remembers an incredible amount of detail. She knows that the younger generations (my parents and sibs and even me) get frustrated with her physical limitations and the fact that she can't be left alone in this house. Her lack of sight makes it very difficult for her to get around (so she can't come with to run errands), and it just isn't safe for her to be alone in unfamiliar territory (so it means someone has to stay home with her at all times).

This morning, she was drinking out of a mug that I think was mine from when I was a teenager that said "I am the future! Scary, isn't it?" I found the message, which was intended to be on a teenager's mug, very poignant.

my big loud family

Being back with my whole family again is an interesting experience. In some ways, everything is very familiar, and in other ways it feels like I'm in a foreign country adjusting to the culture.

I come from a family where the norm is: loud talking, strong opinions, multiple conversations happening at once in the same room, and sometimes overlapping participants. Yesterday, I realized, that I love that cacophony, and sometimes I miss it. Growing up, I often felt like my family was "dysfunctional" because everyone was always yelling at everyone else. I now realize that it is just the culture of my family. That the loudness doesn't necessarily mean there is a problem, and that underlying it all is love.

At the same time, it is a very interesting experience being back here, and it really does feel like I'm in a totally different culture from how I choose to be. They don't recycle, they shop at Wal-mart, and TV plays a much bigger role in day-to-day living than I'm used to. Yesterday, I kept thinking that I've changed so much, but I realized just now that these are things that always bothered me growing up. so maybe I haven't changed all that much, and neither have they.

Surprise! aka "knock, knock"

Greetings from St. Louis, MO. I've been silent on the blogosphere for a few days because there was a big surprise brewing, and I couldn't share the news here because my sibs are all on myspace.

My sister Courtney flew out to CO on Wednesday night, and she and I toured around Colorado all day Thursday, and I got to introduce her to a bunch of my friends too. (That was really cool, folks, so thanks for coming out to meet her!)

Early Friday morning she and I left my house and drove nearly 14 hours to St. Louis (arriving at 10pm STL time) at my parent's house. My parents were expecting Courtney to arrive on Saturday afternoon by plane and me on Sunday by car. When we pulled up to the house, I called my folks from my cell. My dad answered and I told him I had a joke for him.

me: knock, knock
dad: who's there
me: me!
dad: me, who?
me: no, no. you don't get it. let me try again. Knock, knock.
dad: who's there?
me: me! (massive laughter)
dad: are you drunk?
me: no, I'm not drunk. Let me try one more time (walking up to the front door).
me: Knock, knock (saying the words while knocking on the door)
dad: who's there (while opening the door)
me: SURPRISE! (my dad was still talking to me on the phone at this point while looking at me perplexed. He then got excited and continuted to talk to me on the phone even though I was standing in front of him. At this point, Courtney jumped out from behind a tree...and mass chaos and happiness followed.

It was a good surprise, I think. It took lots of explaining, but eventually everyone figured out that we were there early.

It is pretty cool because this is the first time in many years that my entire family (all my sibs) are togther in one place at one time. I will have to try to figure out how long it has been...I hadn't seen Courtney in 2.5 years, so it was longer ago than that when we were all together.

I'm going back to family time, now, but wanted to share the fun.

stress-induced spaz attack

Today I had a bit of a stress-induced spaz attack. I think there is a bit of pre-vacation freak out occurring. Somehow whenever I am getting ready to go on vacation, things just start exploding at work. I'm not really sure why that is, but it seems to be true for a lot of people I know.

The last few days have been hectic at work, which has actually been exciting...I realized that I function well and get more efficient with my time when there is a bit of pressure and some deadlines. Today, though, was a little over the top because I thought that two of my closest friends were mad at me. I had no real reason to believe this other than I hadn't talked to one of them since yesterday and I thought he wasn't returning my calls (which wasn't true...my phone was just being weird and wasn't showing that I had messages), and the other person wasn't feeling well on Saturday and so didn't come to bowling. Really, no reason to think anything was wrong, but in my newly re-found stress, I had a bit of a spaz attack.

I then started imagining that another friend was mad at me so I called him, and he assured me that he was not. Sometimes a dose of love and friendship from afar is what we need to snap back into reality and out of the spazzy mode.

babies

well, maybe it is the new 29-thing talking, but I'm not so sure I want to have babies. I spent 3 hours at the house of some folks I know through work who had a baby a month ago. I was one of the first to learn of their pregnancy and watched the development enviously throughtout the months. I really did have moments where I wanted to be pregnant too...not that I'm trying, because I'm not.

For a few months in the spring and early summer, having babies (and avoiding having babies) was the hot topic for me and my girlfriends to talk about. Not once this evening did I get any pangs of "I want a baby". This is somewhat of a weird experience for me, because I used to really want to have babies. I was a weird little girl by some standards, and never dreamed of being married, and never really thought I'd be married, but I always imagined that I'd have a child. So here I am, with a husband...and I'm not sure I want a child.

tonight one of my sisters was encouraging me to "pop out some babies" so that my family would stop pestering her about not having a boyfriend. sorry, sis, I may not be able to help you with this one.

so I've entered that phase of life. weird.

well, maybe it is the new 29-thing talking, but I'm not so sure I want to have babies. I spent 3 hours at the house of some folks I know through work who had a baby a month ago. I was one of the first to learn of their pregnancy and watched the development enviously throughtout the months. I really did have moments where I wanted to be pregnant too...not that I'm trying, because I'm not.

For a few months in the spring and early summer, having babies (and avoiding having babies) was the hot topic for me and my girlfriends to talk about. Not once this evening did I get any pangs of "I want a baby". This is somewhat of a weird experience for me, because I used to really want to have babies. I was a weird little girl by some standards, and never dreamed of being married, and never really thought I'd be married, but I always imagined that I'd have a child. So here I am, with a husband...and I'm not sure I want a child.

tonight one of my sisters was encouraging me to "pop out some babies" so that my family would stop pestering her about not having a boyfriend. sorry, sis, I may not be able to help you with this one.

so I've entered that phase of life. weird.

29 for real this time

Today is my birthday. I am 29.

About a month after I turned 23, I started lying about my age and told people that I was 29. Mostly the people that I told were my students. A month after I turned 23 I got married, started teaching physics at a community college, and also started working as the senior lab instructor in the physics labs at UCSD. And even though I had my Masters degree, I felt insecure with the fact that I was teaching people that were almost all older than me...so when they asked (and oh, yes, they asked) I told them I was 29. Nobody questioned it.

So today I am 29 for real.

How does a girl celebrate 29? Some good fun on Friday and Saturday evenings! And as for the actual day...today started out with an 8am cleaning frenzy...cleaning up the poop pile in the boys' usual area so that we could kick out the boys and make it pretty for Angel and her new boyfriend. The stud arrived for a conjugal visit (called a "drive by breeding" in the industry) at about 8:30am. The rest of the morning we did some work in the garden afterwards and after lunch we went to see the new Pirates of the Caribbean movie. After the movie, I drove Michael to the airport. He's now in DC until Friday night.

I've been pretty mellow today, just how I wanted to spend the day!

some human interaction please!

I am taking a 5 minute "lunch" break and following up on last night's blog. I am the only one in my department in the office today, and there are only 2 other people in the whole building today. I do have a bunch of things to do, but they are all paperwork/computer work things. It is extremely difficult to stay motivated and get a lot done. I know so many people who complain about the "distractions" of having students around. For me, not having the students around is like slow death.

I like my job precisely because I like working with people. The student "interruptions" are the work that is most important...they are my clients, the ones I am here to serve. Today I feel like I used to feel when I worked in a research lab when I was working on my Masters degree...isolated and alone. Does the work that I'm doing actually matter? Well, in this case, it does...but it won't mean anything to anyone for more than a month. But it keeps me thinking about what I could be doing with my time that could be valuable in such a different way.

Sigh. My 5 minute break is over, and I've got a few things to wrap up before going to a meeting at the main campus. I'm so excited to go to this meeting...I'll get a little human interaction! :)

making a difference...or is it hopeless?

so there is a major conflict going on between Israel and Lebannon, for those out of the media loop. I realized that no matter how we feel about Israel, knowing that Israel is involved in (or instigating) a war, is newsworthy in the Jewish community.

I heard the news from a friend who called to make sure I knew what was going on (I didn't). I got the call right after picking up a friend who is in Denver for a work event for a few days at her hotel. We hung out with her for several hours, and at several points during the evening, I would unconsciously flash back on "there is bombing happening in Israel and Lebannon, people are dying." And it feels very hopeless to me...is there really anything that I can do?

Maybe it is hanging around so many Buddhists that is rubbing off on me, but I can't ignore the suffering that is happening in this world. On the drive home I was thinking about my current job, and how I have very selfishly put myself in a position where I have very little influence on very few people's lives...I don't do very much to alleviate the suffering in the world. I feel like the things I did the years I was in San Diego (teaching and being a union organizer) had a lot of impact on a lot of people, but I also had very poor boundaries around keeping the work I was doing out of my "non-work" hours. I am an all or nothing person, so the things I'm passionate about I tend to spend all my time doing, and so it was when I was teaching and working for the UAW.

That workaholic life wasn't sustainable. When I moved to Boulder, I knew that I needed to find a job that would fit the kind of life I wanted to lead, find a job where I could have a balance between work and home. I have that now, and have really good boundaries around my work hours, and eventhough I'm in a salaried position, I do keep track of how much I work and when I'm over hours one week, I work fewer hours the next. But I've lost something...my work is not the kind of bodhisattva, high-impact, make a difference in people's lives kind of work. Well, I guess that isn't totally true...when the students are around I do have an impact on them...just not quite the same as what I was doing when I was teaching physics or teaching teachers how to teach physics.

I've got to find a way of eeking out some time to do volunteer work regularly...or do something much more radical. Michael suggested that I could quit my job and do something that would be very high impact, but not necessarily employable. I don't know...I'll sleep on it at very least and see how things feel tomorrow.

the woman for all places and no down time

So this has been a marathon few days...

I was at this amazing conference all weekend, and my brain is full and I've got tons of ideas and I'm in a bit of a short circuit a the moment, so maybe sometime later I'll write about the exciting stuff I learned.

Today I found out my mom went to the ER last night and was admitted to the hospital. She should be released tomorrow, but it is never fun finding out your mom is sick enough to be in the ER. She apparantly hasn't been feeling well for a week, but didn't tell anyone. She did go to the doctor a few days ago, and was put on blood pressure reducing meds. It sounds like she had a reaction to the new meds, but it isn't totally clear.

My co-worker's husband stopped by work today and he and I chatted for a few minutes, and he asked me if I was Italian. (I'm not at all). He told me he had a friend who looked a lot like me, and he's never seen anyone that looks like either me or his friend. I told him I actually hear this a lot, (peole thinking I'm any number of different things) particularly when I travel, and he said it must be because I'm a woman for all places.

Tonight we did some camelid wrangling...we trimmed Aquirius's toenails and hand-sheared the baby...I'll have to snap some pictures, because he looks a little scraggly now. Shearing with hand shears (not electric clippers) is hard...trying to make it look even is really difficult, especially since this is only the 3rd time ever that we've attempted to use the hand shears.

It has been a full several days with basically no down time. For those who've emailed me or called me, I'm sorry I've been delinquent with answering. Things should be a little better soon.

weekend conference

This weekend I'll be attending "Money and Intentional Economics: Developing an Integral Vision"A Symposium with Bernard Lietaer

I attended the Friday night lecture tonight, and I'm really excited to see what the weekend will hold. Since it is getting late, and I need to be back there at 8:30 tomorrow morning, I'll paste below the summary from the Naropa website.

I'll be at this thing Saturday 8:30a-9pm and Sunday 9-5, so I'm not sure I'll be doing much blogging...stay tuned for some inspired thoughts (I hope)

What is the role of money in business and society? Long regarded as either the root of all evil, or as a neutral force that can be ignored, it is now becoming apparent that money matters. Research has shown that the kinds of currency used in society and the manner in which money is created and administered, profoundly effects our transactions, our values, and our relationships. Climate change, sustainability, the accelerating financial divide between rich and poor, and ageing populations are just a few of the issues that are currently being addressed by innovative monetary designs in over 5,000 communities around the globe

For the first time in North America , Bernard Lietaer will lead a comprehensive symposium covering the diverse domains of money that he has researched and written about over the past thirty years. Topics will include: An Integral Vision of Money; The Mystery of Money; Monetary Crashes Past and Future; Money and Regional Sustainability; New Currencies for a New World; and Intentional Economics.

This unique ground-breaking symposium will explore the role money plays both in society and in our own personal lives, and how we can reshape our relationship with money to empower rather than to constrain us.

Discover how innovations in how we view and work with money can:

* facilitate exchanges and transactions that connect unmet needs with unused resources

* complement national monetary systems in local, regional, or global marketplaces

* create opportunities for long term business strategies and agreements

* help support sustainable solutions to environmental problems

* produce counter cyclical forces during economic downturns

* address critically under-funded social issues such as health and elder care

* encourage the implementation of emerging clean technologies

Bernard Lietaer is one of the worlds leading experts on money and its impact on economies and societies. His most recent books include The Future of Money available in eighteen languages ( London: Random House, 2001) and The Mystery of Money ( Munich: Riemann Verlag, 2001), which he wrote while a Fellow at the Center for Sustainable Resources at the University of California at Berkeley. His latest book, co-authored with Stephen Belgin is titled Of Human Wealth ( Citerra Press, LLC ). During his thirty-five-year career in finance and monetary system related endeavors, Mr. Lietaer has held an unusually diverse array of positions. As a senior central bank executive in Belgium, he was one of the two principal architects of the ECU, the convergence mechanism that created the European single currency (Euro). In recognition of his leadership as General Manager of one of the worlds most successful offshore currency funds (1987-91), Mr. Lietaer was identified by Business Week as the worlds top currency trader in 1991. He was also a professional consultant for over a dozen years to multinational corporations on four continents; an advisor to developing countries in Latin America on how to optimize hard currency earnings; a Professor of International Finance at the University of Louvain, and President of Belgium's Electronic Payment System, credited as the most comprehensive and cost effective payment system in the world. He has co-founded with Jacqui Dunne, the ACCESS Foundation, a new international non-profit organization, which aims at providing information about the best practices available worldwide in the domain of complementary currencies. He is currently a visiting professor at Naropa Universitys Marpa Center for Business and Economics.

back from DC

I'm back from my trip to DC. It was really wonderful to be able to go back to my old stomping grounds and get to see a bunch of friends. This trip for me was about people and not so much about doing touristy things. I did have one day (Monday) where I was alone for nearly the whole day because everyone was at work. It was actually quite a wonderful day...I slept in (for DC time, was still up before 7am on Colorado time), walked from my friends' place in Alexandria, VA to the bus to the metro and took metro to GW (where I did undergrad). I spent the morning wandering around GW, got some snacks from my old shopping places: the safeway and CVS in the basement of the watergate building, just a few blocks from my old dorms.

I then wandered down past the White House to the Mall and did the "monument tour" that I used to do with my friends in the wee hours of night when there were no tourists, and the city was ours. And I spent a nice while relaxing and thinking and writing and being inspired at the FDR memorial, a place where I would go to study and to think during my last year of undergrad (it didn't exist before then).

Since I was really inspired to write, here is a spontaneous poem of sorts that was created during the bus and metro trip into the city:

man cutting grass with yellow handled scissors
woman speaking spanish to me because I am a woman
or because I have an olive complexion
but the lanky white teen boys speak better spanish than me.
a girl holds a leash with her two twin sisters strapped in
who is walking who?
my cell rings its electronica beat as it flashes the caller "Spittin G"
And the humidity makes my skin feel so soft
I notice my reflection in the glass as I stare out at the kudzu covered trees
the airport still says "National" no matter what the politicians want to call it
and I remember coming to meet a tall blond boy and his mother here many years ago
when this city was my city
and it was my home

---
The FDR memorial has a lot of FDR quotes engraved in the granite walls. I wrote down three quotes that spoke to me:

"Men and Nature must work hand in hand. The throwing out of balance of the resources of nature throws out of the balance also the lives of men."

"In these days of difficulty, we Americans everywhere must and shall choose the path of social justice...the path of faith, the path of hope, and the path of love toward our fellow man."

"We must scrupulously guard the civil rights and civil liberties of all citizens, whatever their background. We must remember that any oppression, any injustice, any hatred is a wedge designed to attack our own civilization."