Reading rainbow

Hip and happening people that we are, Saturday date night was spent combing the aisle's of our local Barnes & Noble Booksellers.

S had a gift card to use, and I, for obvious reasons per my last post, couldn't wait to get my hands on this little lady:

After much consideration of SpongeBob Squarepants DVDs, world map puzzles and various other non-book items, S settled on a a Godiva chocolate bar and a history of classical warfare.

Later that night we'd wax nostaligic about the battle of Mediggo circa 1457 BC. Sad thing for the Canaanites, who developed Chariot technology only to lose to their Egyptian overlords better equipped to handle such technology.

Gotta love weekend downtime.

It is officially that time of year. When winter is not nearly done and summer is so far, far away. I'd love to say great things about this winter, but it is my lowest energy season and is hard to stay motivated during this time.

Snowboarding has been a very rewarding and challenging part of winter for me for the past two years, but this year in particular, it's been rainy more than snowy, making the weather conditions on the mountain quite bad. Last weekend there was finally snow on a Saturday! It was so cold but incredibly awesome to actually have a powder day. I got the chance to try out a new run that hadn't been open for the first half of the season, and it's amazing - more backwoods and much more of a trail than the ominous Big Blue.

Work has been incessant this season. I try to balance leisure and out-of-work life, but it is hard not to just want to work all the time, knowing that without putting in extra hours, items are just piling up. I try to focus on the mission of my work, to learn to fall in love with it all over again, and to be responsible for my own morale and motivation. I'll be traveling soon, which will be motivation enough to get my office in order.

Reading has occupied so much of my other time this winter. After down time afforded me the chance to get back into reading during Christmas, I picked up the Girl With the Dragon Tattoo series while traveling to Colorado and absolutely absorb it all. I am baffled by how detailed the stories are and enamored of Lisbeth Salander. From Tom Wolfe to Wally Lamb to Luis Alberto Urrea and now Stieg Larsson, I've noticed how much I love a strong, young female protagonist written by an old(er) man. I am almost certain I could never write a male protagonist - I really have no clue how men think and would never feel I could do the character justice. The one downside to all this reading is that my imagination is depleted in that process.

In between sleeping, eating, working, riding and reading, I am pretty much flexing every muscle I can to stay sane this winter. Still, the cold feels somewhat immobolizing to me, and if it weren't for more chances to snowboard, I would give the weather gods the okay to wrap this season up. Summoning my own summer means that I have to keep pushing myself to move forward, to expand my thoughts and renew my spirit no matter the sludge outside.

Happy MLK day!

And I’ve looked over, and I’ve seen the promised land. I may not get there with you, but I want you to know tonight that we as a people will get to the promised land. – Martin Luther King Jr.

Vroom

We went to the New England International Car Show today!

It was pretty fun, and I am proud to say I've picked some more vehicular knowledge, especially when it comes to high-performance Cadillac (the CTS-V), Audi (the R8) and Lexus (the LFA) models. What can I say? I live with a nerd, and I am a geek - he always knows something about everything, and I am always curious about it!

There were plenty of 2012 and 2013 models that we not all that interesting - Toyota, Honda, and Jeep brands for example. I figured there would be more concept cars present, but given the economy of the world, the concepts I suppose people are most interested in are fuel economy and cost efficiency. There were far too many hatchbacks, as well as a fair share of newly emerging hybrid models attempting to look as aesthetically pleasing as their gasoline-only counterparts.

Lucky for me, the only Lotus model shown was the Evora, my personal favorite. It doesn't have a lot of horsepower for a racing car, but it's very lightweight and fun to drive (so I hear).

S got to oogle a really nice 2013 Ford Mustang "Boss" 302 in "grabber blue," the best Mustang color out there, in my opinion. We saw this car first, and really, nothing could top it.

The rest of the show was spent with Steve comparing the horse power and styling of different Mustang "competition" cars and with me comparing the trunk space of family sedans (practical, right?) and different luxury SUV models (nothing is as nice as a Land Rover!).

Oh, yeah, and poking innocent fun at the "Gucci" model of the Fiat. This little lady had a lot of admirers, but S and I were not among them.

So, in the words of a car commerical voiceover: Here's to innovation, to creativity, to the blend of beauty, power and functionality in the machines that take us the places we want to go.

Why I hate religion

Really cool video.

I love these things. I mean, I would never have the courage to do something like this, not only because I am not much of a spitter, rapper, spoken word artist, but also because I feel that this guy speaks from the spirit, and this makes him vulnerable to the world and the people in it who might be offended (and who might sling a contradictory Bible verse or two his way - never mind the fact that he and his detractors probably claim to love the same God as one another, and that the same God  most certainly loves them.)

Why do we have such a problem with Jesus' words "It is finished"? They might be the most beautiful words in all of history - the proclamation by God that creation is reunited with and redeemed by the Creator.

When we insist that Christ's work is insufficient to make us whole, we tend to think more of ourselves than is healthy or true, and less of others than is in keeping with the love we're called to show.

Somebody's Birthday

S celebrated the big 2-5 last weekend, and it was mucho divertido!

Actually, it was kind of tense, because I had missed a flight the day prior and was exhausted from my transition back and forth from altitudes, and didn't want to get out of my pajamas. I was a bad girlfriend, a bad, lazy girlfriend.

Luckily, the cure for my transgressions was food, pure and simple.

I treated S to a meal out Friday, where he got both hot wings and a burger, and on Sunday we had the traditional birthday boy cake.

I have discovered that in the family of S, meaning with his brother and his parents, the cake is the most important part of the birthday. No need for presents or a party, just feed me cake, say the Ys. Next year, I want to make it a theme cake. Over 350 days to prepare for that one...

Our final birthday hoo-rah will take place this weekend, when we get to the New England International Car Show. I am thinking I will blog about that too, especially if S and I get to see our favorite vehicles, the Nissan GT-R and the Lotus Evora respectively. Or, if we see anything with wings, I'll be sure to post that.

S and I started dating when he was but a wee teenager (19, but still). It is exciting to look back and see how he has grown, and all the memories you can make in 6 pretty incredible years. Happy birthday, S!

P.S. - Clearly O the cat was pouty that cake was not for him. Sorry, O, you're a March baby!

Eskimo love

In addition to re-reading the Twilight saga when I should be sleeping in my spare time, I have developed a crush on books this winter.

Normally, a book has to be really special to catch my eye, and even more so for me to actually open up the cover. It has to be “the one” for me to read it all the way through. For evidence of this, you can either check out this post - and note how my reading list from two years remains basically untouched - or you can stalk me as I renew the same books from the library time and time again. I’d prefer the former; it’s less creepy.

This winter, in addition to Twilight (le sigh), I’ve read three books in a very short period of time. One was a gift, another was a hand me down, and the third was a book I got at a Border’s going-out-of-business sale this summer (waiting to become “the one,” it sat neglected on my bookshelf for six months).

• Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns) By Mindy Kahling
• Fall to Grace By Jay Bakker
• The Secret Life of Bees By Sue Monk Kidd

I’ve been trying to come up with book reviews for these books, because I really like to read the reviews other people give random books on Amazon, or to talk to people about what they think about the books they’re reading. I did this for Battle Hymn of a Tiger Mom recently without having to spend money on the actual book, for the all insight other people offered me. I think this – hearing a non-paid human’s opinion - is different than reading a critic review. I kind of find formal reviews tainted by the critic doing this for a living - It’s not just about the book, it’s about how fancy or witty or trendy the critique of the book can be, you know?

So I wanted to review the books I’ve read for you, with the hope that you’d take away some of the same pleasure I get from hearing what the common man feels about the literature he’s just poured over. I hope you’ll find my reviews disjointed, incomplete and wonderfully thought-provoking (as much so as something this much randomness can be!).

Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns) By Mindy Kahling

I wrote a long time ago that there a million and one guidebooks and websites for puberty, marriage, parenting and the health problems of the elderly, but there are very few resources for how to be a successful person in one’s twenties. As Billy Crystal said in City Slickers, “Your 20s are a blur…” This has often bugged me - as a 20-something - and this is why I like Mindy Kahling’s book. It’s written mostly about her life in her twenties - what about her adolescence made up her 20s’ identity, how she survived not having a real job or a real apartment, and how her friends loved her through all of that, so that she is into her 30s and all the better for being 20-29. In her memoir, I saw points of reference that I wouldn’t call advice, so much as indirect reminders – to be supportive of my friends, grateful for my mentors, and gun-ho about my career in my twenties. She also writes from an unabashedly goody-goody standpoint, with which I strongly relate to (I know, you’re surprised). But kudos to Mindy Kahling for being a beacon to current 20-somethings learning how to get it done sans blur.

Fall to Grace By Jay Bakker

I think I’ve always been an advocate for human rights, and in particular, equal civil rights, protection and respect for people of all sexual and gender orientations. Not that I am some guru on all things LBGTQ, but it’s an issue I think about and try to learn about. As someone who loves Jesus, and therefore loves the people God created gay, straight and in all other ways all the more, I’ve been frustrated by the hate and hypocrisy propagated by religion, especially my own. But in this book, in addition to loving the rest of it, I loved someone brave enough to promote gay rights and a gay agenda inside of the church, as well as someone who can clearly articulate why his faith and Scripture call him to do so. It’s refreshing, so refreshing, to have any faith leader chose the unconditional love of God over the bigotry of the current social world, and say that they’re choosing this love OUT LOUD. Thanks for not tip-toeing around the vital issue, Jay.

The Secret Life of Bees By Sue Monk Kidd

One of my favorite parts of this very cool book is when August (awesome name, by the way), rhetorically asks Lily (paraphrase), “Wouldn’t it be nice if there were different words for love, instead of the same word for loving peanuts and Coca-Cola as there is for your love for Rosaleen (Lily’s surrogate mother)?”

Yes! Yes, it would be so nice, like the Eskimos - who apparently have lots of words for both “snow” and “love ” – to have more than just one type of love to express in our common understanding today.

Sometimes I secretly worry that I love too much. Certainly, other people have not understood me – how I can see no distinction in the deservingness of love between “good” people and “bad” people, how I don’t have a “type,” and how I can usually see the other side of things and learn to admire it. I have been called idealistic, diplomatic, mature and naïve for all these reasons. Mostly, I don’t care what people think of it, but I wonder for myself, if I see love in more shades and gradients than others.

Sometimes I feel like there really must be an infinite number of dimensions, and in those alternate dimensions, I’m living an infinite number of lives where I have the space to love all that I do love, but cannot fully appreciate fully in the short span of this lifetime. This book drove that home in me, and showed me I am not alone – that it is human condition to want to love deeply, fully, and more than we are capable of. 

Colorado sunshine

Last week I blessedly wasn't returning to work like the rest of the world. Nope, I got to go here instead:

I went out north of Denver to visit my work friend K for the week. I'd like to say I went to snowboard, but as a matter of fact, I ended up in an extreme adventure of all sorts - riding, swimming in hot springs, ATVing around the Rockies, and otherwise getting my butt kicked by vacation.

It was sunny and beautiful and completely dissapointing to everyone around me, because there was "no snow" anywhere. May I just say that CO has softer, prettier snow than any of the places I've been on the east coast - no contest - even during this spooky snow draught of a winter we've been having all over the place this year.

K worked with me a lot on my riding. At first I thought she might want to abandon me somewhere on the mountain to enjoy more challenging terrain, but she is a total teacher and kept saying she was over-training me, trying to push any piece of advice into my helmeted head that she could so I'd come away a better rider from this trip.

It was my 6th day on snow this year, and my 18th day riding ever, and I definitely learned more in those few hours than ever before.

Now it's back to the land of gravel and ice, but I am reinvigorated from the trip and ready to take my riding to the next level.

Romance on the slopes?

An Introduction to the problem

S has sadly decided not to buy a season pass to snowboard this year. While he liked it a lot last year, he clearly didn’t love it as much as I did, which is unfortunate, but okay. Seeing as I ride just a few miles away from home, it’s easy and fun for me to get an hour or two in at the mountain before or after work, when there are fewer people around than on the weekends, and when I can concentrate on progressing instead of socializing.

That said, riding sans S does come with a few side effects. One is certainly that I miss the time with him, the inevitable memories that would have been made, racing and falling and racing some more. The other is that I am a lone female rider, a sitting duck for awkward situations with the opposite sex. Three such situations have already occurred, which I will explicate here.

Is this post an attempt to get S back on the slopes? Maybe. Is it all in good fun? Most completely, definitely so.

The mountainside Lothario

Everyone knows that I am a beginner snowboarder. I make that abundantly clear when I talk to people about it, and it is abundantly clear when I am riding, just trying to stay upright, and maybe practicing a turn or two. This is why I was laser-focused on front side turns when I rode down the intermediate hill last week.

I will often literally talk to myself when turning, because it’s new to me, saying things like “commit! (to the turn),” and “girl…” as in, “girl, if you don’t make your heels plant down like they need to and move your hips into the turn, you’ll have another thing coming!” This would be highly embarrassing if I were not so hell-bent on actually getting better, to the dismissal of any dignity out there to begin with.

But imagine how surprised I was when someone else started talking to me on the mountain, while I was in this uber-lame-o state. As he passes me, and I am completely unaware of him, I hear, “You harrr…” going down the mountain. “Huh?!” I ask, assuming he’s telling me I am an uber-lame-o, or that my bindings have come off, or that I am about to fly into the netting on the far side of the trail. You know, some sort of comment that would make sense, and that I would need to hear pronto.

Nope, the second time I hear it more clearly. “You’re hot!” says the young man as he veers off to the terrain park on the other side of the mountain. To which I say, “Uhhh, tha...” not finishing that word, because 1) he is already out of earshot, and 2) because I am not sure I really want to thank him.

See, the mountainside Lothario is 12 years old. I mean, that’s just a guess, but the boy is shorter than me and wearing what is noticeably a child’s coat. I should call his mother.

The androgynous chair mate

You might assume that awkwardness between the opposite sex and I might occur only going down the mountain, but in that assumption, you would be wrong. Enter androgynous chairlift companion, who is slight of build, with pretty, shoulder-length auburn hair, who politely allows me to share a chair going up the mountain, even though this is much ill-advised. I’ve watched this person glide down the mountain and admired the skills so gracefully displayed. And yet, as I tell said rider that I might fall off the chairlift (disclaimer fully necessary), said rider says, “That’s okay, I’ll just ride off.”

It’s at this point, because of the vocal intonation, that I realize the girl with the pretty hair, with whom I am about to get on the chairlift, may be a boy. Another frickin’ 12-year-old boy, most likely. But I do not know for sure. And this shouldn’t matter, except that, based on his/her former friendliness and demonstrated skillset, I had just been about to ask her how long she’d been riding, and if she had any tips for women’s riding, seeing as our bodies are different and all of that.

Oh. My. Can you imagine? So while boy/girl/most likely boy had no idea, we rode up the chairlift in silence, with me half-mortified and half-sneaking glance of his/her profile as we went up the mountain to see if I could “tell.”

The date I was stood up for

My second time on the mountain, I spent most of the day at the beginner hill, doing basic falling leaf patterns on the snow, working on my edge control. I probably looked (and felt) like a worse rider than I really am, because I was being really hard on myself and demanding perfection on all of the most basic moves.

The beginner hill is reached by a magic carpet, with a guy or a lady standing at both the top and the bottom of the carpet, spotting the skiers and riders. On this particular day, one of the spotters was a dude who, each time I rode up the hill, would say something very suave, as to get to know me better. Most of the people who work at the mountain are awesome and friendly, but this guy was friendly and also, I got that vibe from him; he’s the only one who introduced himself to me, formally, and tried to get personal information from me – nothing creepy – just my name, and if I had a season pass and other familiarizing questions (but not if I had a boyfriend, because I suppose then that would be creepy).

As I got ready for my last run on the beginner hill, I told him to have a good night, to which he wondered whether I’d be back on Friday. Kind of like a, “What are you doing Friday night?” question, except again, not as creepy. I told him I would probably be back (season pass and all), and he said he’d be riding that day and he could teach me some stuff.

I show up on Friday and go for quite a few runs before I realize something. I have no idea what this person looks like, with whom I have a most-likely not creepy (I think) snowboard instruction date. What do I remember about him? A) He had a name tag on, because he was on the clock, B) He had a brownish coat on, and C) He was an average-to-tall Caucasian male. Finally, not a 12-year-old, but essentially the profile of 45% of all other persons snowboarding that day (or any day). I have no idea who or where he is, even as I scan the mountain and see a handful of people he could be, everywhere I look. I realize too that I am wearing a different jacket than the prior day, and that I am spending most of my time on the intermediate hill, looking much more polished of a rider than the last time I saw now-nametag-less non-creeper.

No one approaches me, and I approach no one. I consider myself stood up, and I am not the least bit upset about it (and a little relieved).

Concluding remarks

There are potentially some lessons to be learned from my experiences with romance, very loosely defined, while snowboarding. One is that snowboarders, overall, are a really friendly lot. Everyone’s been very nice to me, in their own special way, I suppose.

But another, more poignant lesson, is that snowboarders cannot see each other’s faces. Learn this, and all else makes perfect sense.

New Year's Eve In Pictures

The Fat Cactus Cantina, or a very large, restaurant-shaped pinata.

The boys and the bubbly

An epic Friends' Game battle

...And a final, exhaustive victory beating our high score

Happy happy New Year (with a kiss goodnight)!

The start of it all