Ours

So don't you worry your pretty little mind,
People throw rocks at things that shine
and life makes love look hard.

The stakes are high, the water's rough
But this love is ours.

Home foodies

One of my favorite things about weekends is planning and preparing really simple, nourishing homecooked meals.

Yesterday S and I got to the grocery store (we always go together - this may be one of those tips we tell the youngsters when we're 90 and they ask how we did it) and found some buffalo wing sauce on sale. We also found lemons. That were also on sale. I know. So exciting.

When we got home, we were on a mission to transform our leftovers into new, tempting dishes with this sauce, these little lemons (that promised to be both "sweet & tart") and all the junk that would go bad in our fridge if it wasn't eaten soon.

Presto-chango, and after a little boiling and simmering, we had buffalo steak & potatoes, and cabbage soup with beans, broccoli and brown rice.

The ingredients may sound familiar, but they felt brand new to us, as we flavored everything with lemon and enjoyed our Saturday evening.

You know the food is good when the cat is curious. Or at least I take that as a complement to the chef.

Blushes and confessions

Do you ever want to save the world another day, and get all dressed up today instead?

Last night we treated ourselves to a few little indulgences, like dinner out, a new video game for S, and a trip to Sephora for me. I was so excited to find "Rosebud Salve" - produced in my awesome home state and apparently popular the nation over - and two little fancy products, a small palette and what I searched the store high and low for, some gel eyeliner. (I actually bought this for a practical reason - my eyes get really sensitive to makeup during springtime allergy season, so I needed a high quality liner that could be applied with as few sticking-myself-in-the-eye qualities as possible. Pencils require poking, and liquids are too risky - one false move, and there's liner in my itchy, red, pathetic allergy eye. Waterproof gel is the perfect solution, an I have been liking it a lot so far.)

After we got back home, I was so pleased to find my Glamour magazine, which I subscribe to for free with  my airline points - woot woot! - ready to inspire me with fluff and glitter and spice and everything nice, to go along with my make up and my need to relax this weekend. I took the magazine to the gym and poured over the glossy ads and silly stories on the eliptical, not caring that my super-serious gym rat buddy for the night probably thought I was a athletic light-weight. I admit, I used to think that about some of the people in college who would read a magazine on the eliptical for 20 minutes in the ahtletic center and call it a work out while the rest of us put in real time on the track/treadmill/with weights.

Well, I stayed on the eliptical for a whole 40 minutes, so I guess I deserve to be judged half as much? A quarter as much, for working out longer, but then going home and lying in bed to read the rest of the magazine in total veg mode?

Anywho, I learned that coral as a color is "in" this season, that new shiny things never cease to make me happy, and that sometimes it's okay to be judged, be lazy, and be happy about having a carefree weekend ahead!

The sky is closer here

This week was a mess. I had a bajillion things to do at work, a doctor's appointment at the end of the week, and an out of state presentation in the middle of it.

What made the week substantially better is that the out of state presentation was in Vermont, where I' never traveled previously, and where it is beau-uuu-ti-ful.

Just being on the road was such a relief - to be by myself, in the middle of the sunshine, cruising along with the radio. If there was ever a time that I needed a three hour drive, this was it.

I loved how the whole world just expanded up there. One of my favorite things about my work is getting to travel, and one of my favorite things about traveling is being shaken out of my element just enough to appreciate every aspect of the environment and my ongoing experience in it.

It was chilly, bright, and oh so blue. There were multiple "Moose Crossing" signs and a "Bear Crossing" or two. I envied the layer of snow on almost every surface - no wonder skiing is so big up there and they can still snowboard after our mountain has been shut down for the season. It was very, very vast and the emotion of the state, to me, felt very, very steady. I was getting out and getting some fresh air, so to speak, and it was just lovely.

Another nice perk of traveling is that the sense of self travels with you, but feels different in the new place than in the old. For instance, I found myself laughing with people I had just met, and it was refreshing to think that my quirky personality was easy to bring out among strangers. I've been working so much and trying to keep my old friendships strong, so that it was neat to just be me an know that I still could be around new people. That probably doesn't make any sense at all, but I am very thankful for the chance to get away once in awhile, to rejuvenate, and to get out of the rush. This helps me to remember who I am, anywhere and everywhere, no matter what.

Those people

Yes, we are the kind of people who throw birthday parties for our cat.

We should have actually done it earlier. The recorded "birthday" for our little guy is March 18, 2009, a year before he was brought into the shelter where we found him, took him home from, and made him ours.

We didn't remember to throw him his 2nd birthday part last week, with St. Patty's Day getting in the way a bit. But I think that's all as well, because we do think he must have been younger than the shelter said he was when we got him, for all the crazy antics he was still up to kitten-style at the time (and up until today). Plus, a birthday based on the day he was put into the shelter is a little depressing...

In order to make up for the delay, we decided the fiesta should be marvelous, complete with food, fun, and costume - at least for the cat.

O loved it all, even the ribbon, which was surprising considering he hates his sweater and seems to shirk off all other garmets. Maybe he knew he was special with his birthday ribbon on, because he had no problem with it and wore it around the house the rest of the day.

We got him fancy cat food - with a real whole shirmp in it (ew!) - and even gave him a cat nip mouse, which is a luxury, because we rarely allow him pyschoactive herbs that encourage his outlandish side...

Happy birthday, little boy O. You've been a joy and a pleasure this past year!

Side-stepper

I got blisters on my inner-arches running way too long today, jamming to Boston and being competitive with all the other men and women at the gym. I am uncoordinated, people, endurance is the only game I've got! I am going to be walking on the outer-edges of my tooties all week.

Boston's a pretty good band to run to. I also really like Green Day's American Idiot album - it's good for a distance run in the city, on the concrete, pounding it out like you're mad at the system or something. I am a little mad at the system sometimes, but anger always gets in the way of love, so I don't dwell on my frustrations.

A good song about system-hating/world-lovin' revelation that made me cry the first time I heard it was "The World I Know," by Collective Soul. I really had a spiritual experience watching MTV that day as an 11 year old.

I really think God crafts our lives in a beautiful web, so that it hangs together in ways we'll never see but in hindsight, looking back on it someday, when we're no longer hanging on every thread. I think that not so much because it necessarily makes the best sense to believe - by some rationale, it'd be more likely that an authority like God builds a life like an architect, not a spider - but because I feel it and I know it, especially when I see it in glimpses of the story behind me.

Have we eyes to see that love is gathering, the music says. This is why it doesn't do to dwell on hate. Love is gathering, that's the fact my soul can't deny, and it isn't so much a theological debate to win with myself, but a picture to open my eyes to.

When I heard that song as a little girl, it's like I was being prepared for that fact that all those little girl emotions don't go away when you get older. In fact, even big boys in a rock band feel them, heh he. But seriously, I was being prompted to keep feeling my feelings, and learning that they weren't so much mine as a part of the human condition, and maybe even the very condition of being period. Being a part of this thing...flora, fauna, foe, or friend.

So that's a bit about why I try, as much as I fail, to side-step fear and hate and disharmony.

So I walk upon high and I step to the edge to see my world below.
And I laugh at myself as the tears roll down, cause it's the world I know.

Except when I'm at the gym. Then, bring on the blisters and get outta my way!

Okay, so technically...

...I suppose this is the first blog post of spring, but you have to understand that I was waiting for over a month to unvail the new lay out, and sometime last night, I just could not wait anymore!

Today we celebrated spring (something I think I will be doing for at least the next month, until I transition to a stage that looks more like pining for summer) by re-discovering our traditional weekend walks in the Blue Hills.

Living here a year and a half now, I have discovered that our ebb and flow of life is intrinsically marked by what we can do in the natural world five minutes away from us, and that this is an excellent thing.

In late fall and summer, there's lots of hiking and jogging. In early winter (and spring), there are leisurely walks aroun Houghton Pond, admiring the uniquely transcendent light of these seasons. In the middle of winter, there's now snowboarding, and in the heat of summer, we're swimming and occassionally hiking our guts out again (it can be brutal when the humidity gets up there).

Today it was chilly and exquisite at the pond. There was still a thick layer of ice working itself out, providing S an ideal opportunity to skip rocks (when he wasn't trying to take pictures of my chest).

We met Kayla, the one-eyed rockweiler and a few other human neighbors as we stayed on the western edge of the pond - it was too cold for a longer walk...

...but we'll be back soon.