heading to boston

I love having external reference points. I love keeping this blog as a way of tracking those reference points.

Tomorrow I leave for Boston to visit the BFF (ya know, best friend FOREVER). Last May, I went to Nashville for the BFF's graduation from medical school and blogged about my ritualized pre-travel freakout which includes cleaning, shopping, and running other errands that don't really need to happen right before I leave town when I have other things to do.

And, I realized that as I've been patting myself on the back for doing such a good job of NOT having a pre-travel freakout, I've been doing all the pre-travel freakout stuff. This morning, I went to the mall to return a pair of pants I bought a month ago. I could have waited 5 more days until after my trip to do this, but I didn't. And while I was at the mall, there was a sale at Victoria's Secret, and well, I need new underwear, right? and they only have a sale every 6 months, and well, I was able to get 3 bras for $50, when they normally cost $34 each! Ok, fine, I could have gone shopping with the BFF in Boston, but it felt like I needed to take care of this stuff NOW.

And I cleaned out almost all the stuff from the trunk of the car that has been sitting in there for months. And I started to organize my closet...sigh.

In some way, it is comforting to have this ritual, to have this thing that I can count on, an internal crazy clock that says "now it is time to clean and shop".

I'm looking forward to the trip, to seeing the BFF. I haven't seen her since last May, and we don't do a good job of staying in touch via phone or email between visits. But we've got that connection going back years and years that whenever we get together things just fall into place. She's doing her residency now at Mass General Hospital. Crazy to think that she's a PhD and MD and this was her dream going way, way back, and she's DOING IT. I just hope she's happy. I guess I'll find out :) I'm so excited to see her!

Boston could be interesting to explore, as I've only been there once before the spring break my junior year (or maybe senior year) in high school to check out Boston University. That trip was just me and Dad. It was the first time I felt like an adult. I was looking at college and my Dad wasn't treating me like a kid. We ate clam chowder, I drank coffee for the first time, I got a nosebleed on the T (public transit). I remember walking around on Harvard's campus and seeing some of the historical stuff in Boston, and thinking that there was a real chance that I could move to this old, American city and live there for several years. It will be interesting to go back and be in that city 12-13 years later.

thinking about my sister

thinking good, happy, gonna pass her boards thoughts for my sister, Lindsey. Keep her in your thoughts...she's got a BIG test on Tues, June 26 and I think she's nervous. She's so smart, she's going to be fine...just needs to relax!

to winter park and back

I went to Brooks and Lisa's Wedding this weekend up near Winter Park. So beautiful...the whole thing! I drove John up there and back (2 hours each way) and we caravaned with Dolly & Adam. We had lots of time in the car to contemplate on the nature of the world. Here's some highlights of the topics we touched on:

• amerigo vespucci--who was he? a map maker? an explorer? *
• relationships. lessons from the past.
• why I'm really, really sad that Chad is moving away
• the joy of beef jerky...mmm, salty. (no, I didn't have any, but I sure did sniff it!)
• how beautiful the wedding was. How happy we are for Lisa and Brooks (the Witters!)
• incubus
• the part of the reception where I cried and cried
• the history of the philly cheese steak and how long has cheez whiz really been around? **
• how cool Adam is, and how much we love Dolly.
• melty, melty reeces peanut butter cups (and how to eat them without glopping chocolate all over yourself and/or the car
• my upcoming trip to Boston
• the kinds of nintendo games I played when I was a kid (remember the Chip n' Dale Rescue Rangers game? oh, yes, I was a dork, too. But a dork with much younger siblings. My brother wanted me to beat that game. I think I did, too.)
• why would anyone name their hot sauce company "Captain Spongefoot"?! maybe becasue it is super, super funny. I crack up every time I say it.

*Amerigo Vespucci, explorer, was credited by a german mapmaker as the first one to "discover" the "new world" and thus the Americas were named.

**The philly cheese steak was created sometime in the 1930s. Cheez Whiz, a traditional topping on the cheese steak, was introduced around 1958. Looking into the history of Cheez Whiz lead me to some inadvertent information about Velveeta. This 'cheese food' has been marketed since 1923. There are some funfacts about Velveeta on these site:
http://www.monroecheesefestival.com/history.shtml
http://www.kraftfoods.com/Velveeta/Timeline

i am not a fan of rollercoasters

i am not a fan of roller-coasters. I've never liked them, even as a kid. I think since I was a small child, I wasn't tall enough to ride them. I don't really remember. As a teen and adult, when I've tried them, it seems they are not built for my body, or my body is not built for them.

Once at disneyland a few years ago (i really did like going there when i lived in SoCal) Michael and I went on some snowy mountain-theme one. The "lap" strap hit me across my stomach and not my lap, so every time the thing jerked, the seatbelt hit my diaphragm and forced the air out. It was probably only a 2-minute ride, but gasping for air for that long is really not much fun. I did try to fix the belt, but couldn't undo it or force it lower.

Most other times I've been on roller-coasters, I walk away with big headaches. I think they mess with my inner ears. I dunno. Me and roller-coasters, we don't get along.

So why roller-coasters? Because I feel like I've been riding one lately. Up, down, up, down, sometimes a loop gets thrown in there. This emotional roller-coaster is really not much fun. It is leaving me exhausted. Yesterday is a prime example: llama shearing in the morning went better than expected, went to work and had a long talk with my boss about some stuff going on that left me feeling really sad, came home and had an awesome, incredible evening of food and games with friends, after the friends left, talked to my roommate about the stuff I talked to my boss about and felt sad, sad, sad. I have no gaps these days...my time is filled up so much that I ride the roller-coaster and I'm only half-feeling it sometimes. I want to be able to feel it all fully, to experience it all fully. I need to have more space between things, particularly between the things that I know have big emotions attached. I need to pull the break and slow down.

It is 9:30pm, and I'm going to start getting ready for bed. Step #1 in slowing down is getting more sleep and going to bed at a reasonable time at least one night this week!

aunt purl is funnier than yellow me

If you want to laugh out loud, read today's Crazy Aunt Purl blog. She cracks me up. http://crazyauntpurl.com/

my adventures today can't compare to Purl.

I went to the indian market today just to get some chickpea flour (besan) and ended up leaving with besan PLUS samosas, mint chutney, a giant jar of mixed pickle, and soan papdi. I'm not planning to make indian food anytime soon...or at least, i wasn't. maybe now i will. maybe that will be the next game night dinner... we'll see. OOOH. then I can make cheese. :) YAY.

Tonight I made salsa for tomorrow. And I'm having an at-home all-natural 'spa' pamper time. I made a face mask with turmeric and besan, and then put on a layer of yogurt mixed with honey. I really don't know if this worked, but well, can't hurt, right. at least i'm not still yellow. I couldn't bring myself to take a picture of myself covered in deep yellow goo. Maybe next time...

i need to eat a snack, and i need to go to bed.

read aunt purl. she's much funnier than I am today. she really, really is. i'm serious. go read her now.

girl talk

so I'm gonna rant. you don't want to hear it, then go read some other blog.

here I freaking go, again. falling back into an old pattern. every time i think i've got it beat, i find out i've got more to learn. today i recognized that I'm being one of the guys again. not guys as in 'people' but guys as in boys. who is it that I'm becoming friends with among the recent grads? all guys. there are some awesome women that I want to hang with...but somehow that is more work, more effort, more risk than hanging out with the guys and just being with them. why is it that being one of the guys is easy for me? more for me to consider, more for me to work on, more to take to therapy.

I have been working on being comfortable with being feminine, too. It really is a constant struggle for me to be strong and feminine at the same time. I was talking to John about this earlier today, and we started ranting about how irritating it is when women act stupid and weak in order to attract men. Somehow being dumb and weak is appealing? Who wants to stay trapped in a tower waiting for the guy to come along and rescue you? Because the fucking patriarchy (our society) says that is what women are supposed to do? If I do get stuck in a tower, I'll climb down my own hair, dammit! I don't need to wait for anyone to save me. I'm saving myself. This doesn't mean that I don't want to have a partner; it doesn't mean that it isn't nice to have someone to share life's struggles with; it doesn't mean that you can't be cared for (or take care of someone). But I'm tired of buying into the idea that women are weaker, that we're not as smart, that we're in any way less than.

I'm tired of feeling like I have to prove myself all the time. To prove that I'm smart enough, strong enough, tough enough. Enough for what? for whom? I want the base assumption that I'm smart and strong and capable, not the other way around. I try to start with that assumption...start with high expectations of people. Not that I expect that everyone will have the same foundational knowledge or physical or emotional capacity as me, but that people will tell me what their limits are, not have me set up limits for them. I want to be met in the world this way, and I'm not. I experience suffering because I want the world to be something other than it is. I experience suffering because I don't accept myself. I experience suffering when I doubt myself, I doubt my own intellect, my own strength, my own capability. I breathe in all this suffering and I breathe out a moment of relaxing with things just as they are.

hay in every orifice

well, ok, I don't have hay in EVERY orifice, but there is hay in my nose and throat and ears and in my pants and down my top.

the pasture was cut and cured last week, and baled yesterday. 142 bales this year. I was up at the house yesterday and Michael and I got quite a workout. I drove the truck with a borrowed flatbed trailer attached, and he walked behind and chucked hay bales onto the flatbed. Once we got the flatbed and the truck bed loaded, we drove around to the hay barn and then unloaded hay off the trailer and into the barn. This means each bale was handled 3 times. I started out carrying bales into the barn as he tossed them down. After a while, we traded places and I tossed them off the trailer and he stacked them. After we got the load off, we started all over in the pasture and got a second load of 65-70 bales. We were really wiped out, and it was getting dark, so we only emptied the truck bed.

I went back up to the house after work and we finished unloading and stacking the hay. I was surprisingly not sore today, though my biceps are feeling it now.

I'm going back up there tomorrow morning to be on baby watch. Angel is close, and the baby is clearly in position. She's changed shape, she's laying around a lot, and the baby sometimes pushes against her perineal area making it bulge. At least I know the baby is alive right now. This is the first year I haven't dreamed about any alpaca babies. Every year since we've owned them, I've dreamed about the babies before they were born. My dreams weren't always accurate about color, but they were always right about gender. No alpaca dreams this year. I think this is a bad sign. I have a feeling about tomorrow...maybe it will be the birth day. I feel called to be there tomorrow. There is no real reason, no logic to explain it, but I feel I need to go.

sticky liquid

so it is 1:30am, and I'm WIDE awake. I took a 2 hour nap today. I didn't mean to nap for that long, but it happened. So now, here i am randomly musing with random capitalIzation.

i had a conversation with john guy about the sticky liquid that the jarred cactus is in. I've got a jar of cactus (nopalitos) (yum) in the fridge, and he wanted to try one of my crazy favorites, eggs with nopales. I told him about the sticky liquid in the jar. that when i cook fresh cactus, the cactus naturally oozes sticky liquid, so not to be afraid of the sticky liquid in the jar. and then i realized that I like saying sticky liquid. fun words to say over and over. sticky liquid sticky liquid sticky liquid. ok. enough of that.

the power was out at work today, so i didn't work. no phone service because we've got digital phones. it reminded me of the time when there was a power out in the summer a few years back and nick b was a workstudy in tcp and came over to my office to hang out in the semi-dark with me. good times. miss you nick b!

and it keeps feeling like the weekend today since there was no work and i took a nap, but it is thursday. i've got a long, long day tomorrow at September School and i'm happy to do the prep work for the event, but not really excited about the schmooze part that i'll have to do once the event starts. 5-9pm is a long time to schmooze with highschoolers, their parents, and alumni. the good part is that dolly will be there the whole time, so we might get to talk a bit, but since we're both on the board of directors, we've really got to be chatting up the people there. blargh.

and my babygirl, Angel, is due any day now. i fell for her when she was a tiny baby herself, and bought her when she was 6 months old. she's my girl, my favorite. she isn't that cuddly, but god, i love her. and we may have to put her baby down after she delivers. and it is just tearing me apart. heartache upon heartache. 2 years ago her 1-month old baby died on my birthday. and now she might have caught a virus that if it was transmitted to her baby in utero could doom it to die. I'm terribly sad right now, and I can't stop thinking about her and her unborn baby. i should be at the house on baby watch like usual, and i'm not this year. sadness for lots of reasons.

so on to happier random thoughts. i decided today that i miss cooking. when i was at my best girl dol's place, she and her partner did most of the cooking, so i didn't do much at all there. so far in my new digs, i've cooked eggs with cactus and eggs with braising mix and garlic. and hot water for tea. what the hell have i been eating?! cheese. and bananas. and leftover pizza. and tomorrow, i've got a breakfast meeting, so i'll be out for that meal, and dinner is at the sep school event...so no cooking tomorrow. i got my cook's illustrated magazine in the mail and finally read it tonight. geez, i love that mag. i got a handy tip on why nonfat milk foams better than whole milk, and why you need to bring your eggs to room temperature for cakes. very useful stuff, right?! and there's an awesome recipe for a plum tart...looking forward to summer fruit so i can make it! plum is another funny word repeated over and over. plum plum plum plum

and this summer i want to teach myself dvorak. i told my workstudy about this a while ago that this would be a summer task. i was going to last summer, but somehow got too busy. uber, uber nerd. yup. and speaking of nerds, dorks, and geeks, i fit nicely in with nerds and geeks, but i'm not sure with dorks. does anyone fit in with dorks? is it possible? that's one to contemplate at 1:51am.

so i've gotten all the random stuff out of my head, and i think i can fall asleep now....
g'night.

impermanent strength is fine by me

yesterday was alpaca shearing day. day for my babies to go to the 'salon' and get their annual haircuts. I met up with michael at the house at 7am and we got the kids haltered and loaded up in the trailer. Maya had been shorn already after the stillbirth and the llamas are going next week to CSU for their shearing, so we only had 6 to take.

We got everyone up to this other ranch where our favorite traveling shearer from down under, had been booked for the day. The other ranch had about 20 animals to shear, and a few friends who had minimal experience with alpacas helping out. The process this particular shearer uses is lay down the animals on their sides and keep them stretched out by attaching a loop of rope to each foot, each end of the alpaca (front end and back end) is then connected via rope to a pulley that can be tightened to keep the animal immobile. Sounds harsh, but is actually the most humane system I've seen...and I've seen several different ways to shear an alpaca. Some animals freak out during shearing and spit, scream and/or pee. Some just quietly take it.

We had enough people that we were able to have a few people on take-down the animal duty, some on grabbing and bagging fleece duty, and some getting the next animal to be shorn haltered and ready. I did some of each, but ended up doing the bulk of the getting next animal ready duty. There was a woman there who had a little experience with the animals, but not much. She was hesitant and shy around the alpacas, not wanting to hurt them and not wanting to get hurt. She was awkward with the animals and didn't seem comfortable 'on deck' standing in a big open area trying to handle fidgety, freaked out alpacas. I watched her for a bit while working in the shearing area. After a few animals, she said she'd need help getting more alpacas haltered up to bring out, so I stepped out to help. Once in the pen, it was really clear that I was the experienced handler. She was shy about grabbing the animals, and I just stepped up to animals I didn't know, caught them pretty easily, and haltered them up. I ended up doing this with several animals, including a male that everyone warned me was difficult--he was a sweetie and I had no trouble on my own. I led several of those alpacas out to the 'on deck' area and did some on-the-spot tonglen with some of them. Some were really nervous, and I just breathed in their fear and sent them out open space, I breathed in the terror and sent out coolness and relaxation. Some of them I could tell needed to walk instead of stand around waiting, so I walked them and talked to them. I had the realization that this woman that I was assisting (and sort of took over for) was how I was with these animals 5-6 years ago. I used to really admire people who had the confidence to walk up to any alpaca and be firm yet gentle, and just grab an animal in a way that looked effortless. Here I was doing just that. I've owned alpacas for 5.5 years, and started looking at them as a dream 9 years ago.

I don't know when I lost my fear, I don't know when I found my seat, when I became the woman who could pick up wriggling 20-50 pound crias (babies), who could evaluate a stud by the size of his testicles (and the rest of the conformation package), who could give shots and worming paste and trim toenails, who could hold the tail of a female while she was being bred, and put her arm inside an alpaca's vagina and attempt to deliver a baby. When did I become a woman who is stronger than she realizes? I've learned so much about myself from having a farm. I learned that I can't be a rancher without becoming attached to my animals, I can't kill my own chickens (so I won't eat meat), and I can I can cry at the injustice of a chicken and duck dying at the hands of a skunk who could kill them but wouldn't eat them. I've learned that I can shovel feet of snow and carry hay bales and drive rigs full of trees and trailers filled with animals, and dig graves for dead cats. I can love my animals so much that I mourn them when they die, and cry when they give birth.

So I'm proud of myself for being strong. I'm proud of myself for getting outside my comfort zone of suburbia and I'm proud of myself for doing hard work and trying to live a life that has a lot of challenges. I'm proud to recognize how much I've grown and changed in my life, and I don't want that to stop. I'm stronger than I think I am, and this is a great lesson to remember. I keep learning it and remembering it, and I keep forgetting. I've been down on myself the last few days, berating myself, and being really self-aggressive. Yesterday was so wonderful to be able to take another look, to know that none of it is solid. Even the pride isn't solid, the "yay for me, i'm so strong" isn't permanent. None of it is. None of it needs to be.