being stereotyped sucks

Warning: this is going to be a rant, possibly with foul language. If you don't want to know, don't read it!

So there have been a few situations in the last week in which I've gotten really triggered.

On Friday, Michael and I went on a hot air balloon ride. There were at total of 8 passengers (including us). The balloon people (all guys) were short staffed, and asked Michael if he'd be willing to help do a few things. He was happy to help, and he was clearly the one person among all the passengers who would be most likely to be able to assist (6' in his 30s, and not obviously physically challenged or injured). The rest of the group consisted us plus of a family of 4 (the adults were in their late 40s, and the kids were a 14 year old girl and an 11 year old boy), and a grandma in her 60s and her 8 year old grandson.

At one point they needed more than just Michael, so they then turned to this very middle-aged, big-bellied, clearly out of shape man and the 11 year old boy to assist. I was slightly insulted that an 11 year old boy would be asked to help before me, but let it roll off.

At the end of the ride, we landed in the middle of a field, and they again needed help rolling up the balloon and putting it back in the stuff sack. The first person they turned to was Michael...this makes sense...but then they clearly needed more help than just him. I was standing right there, and I offered. The guy responded by saying that maybe I could help later on when there was less balloon and it was lighter. That was the trigger, and I got pissed, but not too aggressive. I then starting working to convince the guy that I was stronger than I looked, told him that I lived on a farm, told him about lifting hay bales, that I wasn't concerned that it would be too heavy etc. etc. After a lot of verbal back and forth, he finally agreed to let me help...turns out it wasn't that heavy, and we took turns lifting the load while Michael and the other guy pulled the basket. By the end, he was huffing and puffing quite a lot more than I was, and we were lifting equal amounts of weight (yay for me!)

So the trigger for me here was taking me back to my days as a graduate student engineer when I was told by research faculty that I wouldn't be a good fit for their lab because they had a lot of heavy equipment and their labs were loud, and that they only ever had 1 girl in the lab before. Fuck that. I never heard of any boys being told that maybe they shouldn't consider asking to work in a lab because the lab was loud and contained heavy equipment.

And then today I was at this group that I belong to that I really like. It is a group of business owners that gets together once a month and people talk about their businesses and we help each other brainstorm ways of doing things better. Typically 10-15 people come to the meetings, and I am one of 3 women participants. Today I was the only woman, and it was my turn to present my business along with one of the other men. Maybe it was because I've been thinking a lot about being the balloon and grad school episodes a lot the last few days, but it was really noticeable to me the dynamic in the room, and how actively I was working to not fall into one of my two survival tactics from grad school (either be one of the guys, or fall silent). I'm not sure I succeeded when the other person was presenting, but I think I did OK when it was my turn to talk about SanchoPaca.

fuck...why does it have to be so hard.

I made a choice to leave science...and now I wonder if I could ever go back. It is so much easier being a very competent administrator...most people in administrative jobs are women, after all. When I think about going back into science, I think about how hard I had to work all the time, just to be taken seriously.

sigh...time for some BVTS therapy. I've been watching a lot of Buffy lately (I got season 2 as a birthday gift from Michael)...that Buffy girl seriously kicks ass.

pain in my neck and the lashes

so I have a pain in my neck from being at a desk on a computer most of the day today. After dinner, I got on the computer at home to put together a talk I'm doing tomorrow night for a small business owners group I belong to. Now I'm bloggin...after this, I'll try to do something away from the computer.

This evening, when I went out to feed the animals, there was a runaway cow in my pasture. My next-door neighbors were haltering it up to take it back home. I had to put the alpacas and llamas away because the cow was scared of them...this gigantic cow was scared of my tiny (by comparison) animals. Not the sort of thing you expect to see walking by right after eating meat for the first time in a long, long while. OK, universe, I GET IT! I'm not going back to meat. Poor cow.

And I'm completely obsessed with The Lashes. Their CD "Get It" is all I've been listening to for days and days. The song on my main myspace page "Sometimes the Sun" is like my theme song for the summer...particularly given my frequent home alone status. Here's the lyrics:

"It's been so long since I've seen your face except inside of my head

Counting down the days 'til you're home hoping then we'll share a bed

Sometimes we fight about the little things, but now they seem like such little things

I woke up from so many dreams with visions of buying diamond rings

Sometimes the sun goes down, sometimes it comes back up

I'm wondering which one you are watching now

It's been so long since I've heard your voice except inside of my head

Waiting for your phone call to ring replaying things that you said

Sometimes we fight about the little things, but now they seem like such little things

I woke up from so many dreams with visions of buying diamond rings

Sometimes the sun goes down, sometimes it comes back up

I'm wondering which one you are watching now

Sometimes the sun goes down, sometimes it comes back up

I'm wondering which one you are watching now

Are you feeling just like me, feeling down, down, down

Wishing you were beside me nightly, down, down, down

I keep my eyes glued to the ground, down, down, down

I'll be there for your airplane touchdown, down, down, down

Sometimes the sun goes down, sometimes it comes back up

I'm wondering which one you are watching now "

see, totally a song for me for the summer. And I'm still waiting tonight for Michael to call...

7 eggs today.

insomnia

It is 1:30am, and I am awake. why am I an insomniac tonight? a few reasons:

-a 2-hour nap this afternoon

-michael is out of town (once again), and I usually have trouble sleeping when he's gone

-I was up until 1:30am yesterday, and didn't wake up until 8:30am, so my sleep cycle is off

-michael may have a job opportunity outside of Colorado, and there is a chance that he may apply and that we may leave and I am having a bit of a freakout about this.

5 eggs today.

anniversary

hooray for a hot air balloon ride on our anniversary! it was a pretty sweet ride, but we had to wake up at 5am to be at the balloon at 6, got done with ballooning at 11, came back to the house to change and eat a snack, then went to work from 12-6pm...long, long day. there are some balloon pics up in my photo pages now. michael leaves in the morning for San Diego. time to sleep zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

oh, yes, 6 eggs today.

transgendered chicken

well, long time no blogging, eh?

My sister, Lindsey, was in town from the 30th to the 7th, and I'm still catching up on some things. It was a fun visit and we got to do some fun things (and well, some boring things too, but that is part of life). some of the fun highlights: a trip to Rocky Mountain National Park for a day of hiking, a tour of Coors Stadium, getting stuck in my dead truck at Chataqua park, playing the game Life, baking cookies, and watching some good movies.

On monday night, Michael and I realized it was the first time we were both home at the same time without a house guest since my birthday (that's three and a half weeks for the mathematically challenged). We have a few days this week, and he leaves for another trip on Saturday morning. By the time he comes back from this trip, from June 18 to August 18, we'll have had 14 days together in 2 months! good grief!

And the farm news...the adolescent chicks are all laying eggs. Today our Arucana named Baby laid her first egg (it's a green one, Paulie!). In the last week it has become apparent that one of our chicks, Bunny, is probably not a girl chicken. Bunny is probably a rooster (a boy). I was pretty devestated when I started to figure this out a few days ago...lots of crying, as my sister can verify. The problem is that we don't want a rooster, and we don't really have enough girls to keep a rooster busy, and roosters are pretty mean. We selected chicks that were supposed to be sexed and sorted, and all this time we thought Bunny was a girl. In the last week and a half, she's gotten a lot taller, her tail has started to grow in with long shiny feathers, and she has started to jump on the other girls in the way that roosters jump on hens. I was hoping she was a lesbian hen, but her physical traits and her behaviors are starting to be pretty rooster-like. Our choices are not good: try to find a rooster rescue (pretty unlikely) or kill our transgendered Bunny (ok, ok, she's not a transgendered chicken, he's a rooster).

...horrible realization just now. The only animals we've given animal names to were doomed to die: Chicken and Duck were brutally murdered by a skunk, Pig (the chicken) was found in the hen house with a broken neck, and now Bunny is a rooster. too much crying at the moment...must go.

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.