Snowcumentary

This is my life. This is my life on snow. The corny puns are just beginning, folks.

This is why we get the mail every week as opposed to every day.

The stop signs are invisible. Sad. The speed bumps have eroded. Happy!

This snow monster has been inserted for dramatic effect.

I would now like to lodge a complaint with the creators of Dawson's Creek. They informed me that living where I live would look like this. Or this. Or this (I don't need the teenyboppers, I just need the sun).

I am going to pretend I wasn't aware that the show was shot in North Carolina, because I don't wanna wait for this winter to be over.

That is all.

212 Degrees

At a conference last year, my colleague and I got this from a vendor next to us.

At the airport, I read it. It was short and sweet. It was good. It made me want to do things like learn to sail, always look people in the eye, and start waking up at 5am on the dot each and every morning to enjoy the blessings of just being alive.

I have not done those things. But I do hope to persevere by doing small things in my imperfect life that come from love, truth, and going the extra mile for others.

Today, starting now!

Yee haw!

S and I had a movie date last night, traveling to Dedham Legacy Place to see Country Strong.

I tried to make it a theme night, like this date we had awhile ago, by country-strongin' my hair for the occassion.

You see, I have stick straight hair, and in the south, that just won't cut it. So after my transformation from little hair (see Exhibit A, to right) to big hair (Exhibit B, clearly) for the event, we were off!

Legacy Place is a beautiful shopping area that apparently (we'd never been here before) is just 10 minutes away from us.

We laughed at how we are so bent on saving money this year, that we will never get an opportunity to shop here. However, when it is summer time, this kind of open air shopping will be much more appealing, and maybe with some money in the bank, a little window shopping won't hurt.

courtesy

S and I liked the movie a lot! I think I liked it more so than other people, who's reviews I have read, because it's marked with a lot of tough love moments that I think are fantastic, and which other people might just find sad. The music, for the most part (I dislike the Oscar-nomiated song "Coming Home," actually) is really enjoyable, so much so that I will be listening to the soundtrack all this week I bet. It also inspires me to keep up my song writing - I've already been working on my guitar scales today, though I have such a long way to go before it comes naturally to me to play.

courtesy

I am excited for the Academy Awards this year. Of the nominees, I'd like to see The Fighter and The King's Speech. True Grit and Black Swan were both entertaining, but I think Inception is actually my favorite movie nominated for Best Picture. I kind of have a nerd-attack (panic attack for nerds) thinking about the premise of the movie and how much I would like to be a rogue inception agent.

This weekend we won't go snowboarding, so next week this means more time at the gym and planning out a couple of yoga sessions. I love snowboarding, because the exercise is great without feeling like any kind of work whatsoever. Oh well, back to the treadmill it is.

I hope you have a productive, fun-filled week!

Wisdom calls...

"Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute. Speak up and judge fairly: defend the rights of the poor and the needy."

~Book of Proverbs; Quoted on Page 46 of The Rough Guide to a Better World.

Recently, I have been reading this. It is a basic, and indeed rough, but also an inspiring and straightforward guide about what all of us can do to fulfill our obligations to one another.

What are our obligations to one another, you might ask? Well, I don't prescribe to know how to live anyone's life for them, and I struggle often about how to live my own best life. But I tell you, if there is one thing we are called to do while we are living our mortal lives on this earth, it is to love God who created all of us together, and therefore, to love one another as ourselves.

The opportunity to love one another is always in plain view to us, if we are still and observant of our current situations. It can be disheartening to think about how much the world would be improved if others cared more about those most in need, but becoming disheartened about others does not take advantage of the opportunity we each have, holding only ourselves accountable, to make a change.

The opportunity to love one another might come to you through a phone or mail solicitation to give money to a worthwhile cause. It might be present during an argument with a loved one, when you have a choice to be silent, be combative, or to practice forgiveness all in the same moment. It might be there to love yourself in the face or what you consider a personal mistake, error or failure, with the knowledge that you are worthwhile in spite of your weaknesses.

For me, I had an opportunity one night to become a vegetarian. While eating a Mexican chicken dish, it occurred to me that I was asking an agricultural/commercial system to end lives for me, for my nourishment, in a way that I didn't need to survive. After all, I would never end the life of a cow or a chicken with my own two hands. Now, this might not resonate with you. You might find it childish even. But when I felt that emotional opportunity to commit to a life that felt more humane and loving, taking that opportunity did real things in the world. It decreased my carbon footprint by over a ton every year going forward. It increased my life expectancy by several years. And what was best, it allowed me to advocate for the rights of animals as fellow creatures, and the starving across the world as fellow human beings, without talking out of two sides of my mouth. Those are tangible benefits that came out of an intangible opportunity I could have missed trying to save the world all at once, and all on my own.

I think it is important to understand that none of us have been asked to save the world. We have grace for that, and it does not come from us. We have been asked to love one another. Or rather, it has been commanded of us, by the very bestower of grace on all of our lives.

So I think it is important to make ourselves aware of what's going on, and to look out for opportunities to serve one another daily, without lamenting the inability to make dramatic changes to world overnight.

"Defend the rights of the poor and the needy." This call comes from the Book of Proverbs, a book devoted to the development and practice of wisdom. It is wise to care for one another, especially those who need care the most, whether or not they "deserve" it at all. And I think it is wise to take our care of one another one day at a time.

Chompy chomp

Sometimes living with this guy

Is like living with a furry snapping turtle

Ever vigilant, ever watching, ever O the cat.

Day trip in my mind

So it snowed last week. And the week before that. And guess what it's doing this week?

And by snow, I mean mountains of white stuff. I mean that every time we drive by the Jewish high school in our town, which happens to have a great hill in front, there are always kiddies there on saucer sleds.

The snow has led to some great mini-adventures in addition to all the snowboarding - like making a snow angel for the first time in years, having plenty of snowball fights, or shall we call them run-ins?, with S the human-being boyfriend and O the cat, and getting to sit on top of my car. I suppose I could sit on top of my car any given day of the week, but she's an old lady. It only makes sense to sit on top of my car in an attempt to save the old gal from the 4 feet of snow piled on top of her, and otherwise lacking the height or a shovel to remove it any other way, that's what I have to do.

I tell you of all the great mini-adventures I've had in the snow, including eating it, outside, right after it's fallen, and getting the pure, clean, freezing, amazing sensation of thrist quenching that only fresh-fallen snow can bring, because other than these fleeting moments of glee, I am pretty much in favor of an 85 degree heat wave to head up to New England, the sooner the better.

Overall, I've been opting to day dream of summer instead of bagging on winter too much, which got me thinking about a less than recent trip to the land of 70 degrees and clear skies, San Diego, CA, back in good old 2008.

San Diego is the only place I've ever been inside of California, and only for 3 days in fall of '08, but the experience was pretty priceless. So much so, I can't really put it into words, and when I reflect upon it, I pretty much remember feelings more than sights, sounds, or a chronology of events. But for the sake of my currently chilly toes and my pale skin, I will try to record my time in the sun.

I went to San Diego for 3 days in October 2008 to present at a public health conference. I'd been working on the research for the conference pretty much up until the minute, and to me, it was actually pretty exciting, novel stuff. But I stress, I had been working, in the way where I was putting in full-time plus hours at an internship and an assistantship and researching in my free time, when I wasn't spending it revising my thesis.

I was pretty much going full speed since the summer, and I was really ready to move on with my life. I was at the end of my current period of schooling, and I was really trying to close it out well, but nevertheless, to bring it to a close. I wasn't going to go on a long vacation to anywhere exotic anytime soon (I have yet to do this!) and my Baltimore home was sinking into cooler fall weather, soon to be winter. San Diego, California was a great idea. Presenting at a professional conference was an "eh" idea.

So I did what I needed to do. I went to my presentation early the day it was scheduled, I stood there by my poster for hours, I answered a bunch of questions and exchanged email information with those who wanted to learn more. Then I left that beautiful convention center for good. No mixers, no keynotes, no extra-learning, no above-and-beyond stuff involved at all. Not this time.

Instead, I woke up for yoga and water with orange slices. I walked over to the contemporary art museum and to the naval memorial at the harbor. I shopped for halloween costume acessories at Max's Dollar Store. I ate a really massive burritto.

harbor daisies, october leaves, and so much sunshine

The next day I went to the San Diego Zoo before my flight out. It was the first time I had ever gone to a zoo alone, and first thing in the morning. Most of the animals were asleep when I got there! But because I was so early, with that bright, steamy sun already warming up my forehead, there were no lines and no little munchkins in my way to view the great cats, the camels, the porquipine, or the pandas.

And then...I met a man. Not like that - I met and made friends, in an hour's time, with a teeny tiny Chinese man who was elderly and spoke no English. We met because he had the habit of being the only one to be visiting the exact same exhibits that I was, just moments after me. I laughed at the monkeys jumping around in the trees, then he did too. He pointed to the baby gorillas play-fighting, and I nodded in acknowledgement. He and I walked round and round the manatee tank trying to find where those guys had swum off to.

Maybe this little guy made friends easily at the zoo. When I tried to talk with him, to share my name and to express my fondess of the creatures we were looking at, he showed me an ID of his, which happened to be his zoo pass for the year. It was battered and obviously very well used. I bet he made lots of of people's zoo experiences a bit more fun and cheerful, quiet as he was, but kind as he was. But for me, he did more than brighten my day. He made my year, my life, instantly more peaceful. He made it make sense that I study in a field seeking after ways for humans to live healthy, happy lives, connected to one another, but content within themselves.

He and San Diego will now and forever be my sunny day to remember.

Be

The PULL of simplicity

is a gentle tuG

or a modest tendency.


It never gets in the way of complication's wild array

or AGENCY.


The air of SILENCE

rings PURITY or signals

U N I T Y

or otherwise

underperforms

mindless cacophony.


The BEAT of SUFFICIENY

is a steady humming

UnConfused with the DRuMMinG

of the urges and purges and regurges of Consumption.


There is enough. It is enough. It is.

10-4-2010. dmv

Presents in the Past

I have been a horrible blogger this year so far. I get home from work, and I am either desperately trying to do something active after a day of sitting at the office, or I am desperately trying to not use my brain at all, which leads to no blogging.

At any rate, this post is overdue.

One of the fun things about the holiday season is that, in addition to Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years, S' birthday is on January 6. That meant for him lots of fun things in a row, like visits with my family, visits with his family, and a gaggle of food, more food, and presents.

For his big day we did something similar to his 21st, when we went to, hands down, the fanciest Chinese Restaurant we have ever been to, Mr. K's in New York City. This time around, we stayed pretty local but went into Boston to eat at Morton's Steak House. S got the New York strip steak and pretty needless to say, I got the vegetable plate, which came with some of the largest pieces of broccolli I have ever seen, much less eaten.

We then proceeded to take a nice long walk around the Prudential Center, admiring what was left of the holiday lights and trying to stay warm in the "smix," or what I have been getting quite used to in New England as snowy mix of freeeezing rain, sleet and snow, which always seems to form in puddles right in front of the place where I am about to walk. I end up with soaking feet every time, I sware. Despite the chill, it was a fun time reminicent of S's earlier birthdays.

Decked Out for Dinner

Birthday dinner that weekend for S was preceeded by a more traditional celebration during the week on his actual day of birth. We had a little cake, for which I found the best candles ever - the kind where the flame emitted takes on the color of the candle itself - so purple candles burn purple flame and so forth. My scientist boyfriend, before he knew the were special candles, got freaked out and shouted, "How hot is that candle?!" when I at first lit the white candle in the pack and it emitted a light blue-ish flame. Observant to the core, he is.

Birthday Cake with the "Shrek" S

Family Photo during the Party

Earlier, and by that I mean LAST YEAR, I meant to post pictures of S opening some Christmas gifts from my family, because they didn't get to see the pure joy in his eyes in person when he opened his "Man-poo" and other Axe male hygiene products, or his coveted Cat-A-Day calendar and all the other great goodies he got. We really did have a wonderful holiday season, filled with plenty of downtime, great food and entertainment, and best of all, family and quality time to spend together. It's made it a struggle to get back to days of report writing and editing, planning meetings, and the constant delegation of work and crazy that life tends to bring after the start to a new year.

The good news is, I think I am on the rebound from my earliy 2011 funk. The bad news - until we get back to mountain, that is, is that it's snowing...again. Get ready for the smix!

band wagon

So after much procrastination, I'm writing my first post of 2011.

I didn't know exactly what to say about the new year for awhile, and now that I have a sense of it, I still don't feel fully prepared.

I feel like my life has shifted, perhaps imperceptibly, this past year.

At home, I was living alone with one cat, and now I am living with someone and with another cat!

At work, I was working with a good friend, and now I am once again the sole person fully devoted to my department.

I was just beginning to do yoga, and now I am struggling to get back into it.

I am much more settled in this life than last year's, and I bit more forward thinking, in the sense that I have a foundation to built upon and am living less day-to-day in a skeleton of an emerging life. I know mostly how I want to live this year and what I would like to do. It's exciting, but at the same time, not exciting in the same way that last year was, when I was sprinting and stopping, sprinting and stopping. Now it's a steady race.

I hope everyone has a wonderfully reflective and celebratory beginning of the new year. Don't feel like you need to be anywhere than where you are right now. You are meant to be there. And don't worry so much about what you'll accomplish this year as who you will become. Being is the important thing.

Love, D