I'm even more excited for Hawaii now. I checked into our flight a day in advance and found out United had upgraded our seats to first class. First. Class. The only sad thing about this is that my poor husband will be forced to sit for 6 hours next to his wife who will be most certainly hammered from free champagne.
Anyway.
I had to work all weekend because we had a "fire drill" at work (no, I'm not a fireman. I use the term as a metaphor). Only to find out that much like all our "fire drills", the day they're due one finds out that they're not quite as urgent as everyone thought they were. In fact, I've asked my creative director twice now if he'd like to review the "hot" work, only to be greeted with a negative head shake and an eye gaze aversion. As if I were the one who brought on the Panic Stations.
I don't like unnecessary drama. This might come as a surprise, as I seem to cause or bring about unnecessary drama all the time. But that's just bad habits. I grew up with unnecessary drama all over my home life, and learned to create it as a means of getting my way. The more annoyed / worn down the other person got from my dramatic antics, the more likely they were to give up their stance, if anything just to shut me up. I had to learn the hard way that most people in the world are actually less likely to bend to your whims if you make the situation more dramatic than it has to be.
I also learned that I actually dislike this drama. It makes me irritable and literally feels like an irritant within my joints. So I'm on a lifelong quest to eliminate this sort of behavior. Unfortunately, I have a creative director who scares about as easily as an over-raced greyhound. The slightest tap from marketing sends him into a package redesign frenzy that I'm left to manage and execute in an ungodly timeframe.
I need to find a way to redirect (or quell) his anxieties so we can get to the heart of the problems, solve them in a more efficient way, and prevent me from having to work all weekend when I should be spending my time packing and making / wrapping Christmas presents.
Or, maybe I just need to go to Hawaii for 10 days or so and mellow the fuck out. I'm going to try that first. Class, that is.
Monday, December 12, 2011
Wednesday, December 7, 2011
Hawaii and Yoga
I had a really great yoga class yesterday.
Nothing was really that different from my usual yoga class, except this time for some reason everything started to click together. My breath stayed in rhythm with my movements. I was able to focus on my breath rather than the strain of the pose, which meant I was more stable and more flexible in the poses and was able to hold them longer than usual. And, I got uttiyana bandha.
I've been working on getting uttiyana bandha all year long. It sounds simple; on a deep exhale you pull in your stomach muscles to support your spine, then use them to push up your internal organs to almost inside your ribcage. It looks like you lost 10 pounds. Then you hold it as long as you can. The thing is, that last part of pushing up the organs is way harder than it sounds.
Or is it? Yesterday, it just made sense what I was supposed to do. I sucked in my stomach muscles and very effortlessly rolled them up and literally felt my internal organs getting pushed up towards my rib cage. It didn't feel strenuous or weird. It just felt like that was what I was supposed to do the whole time. So I started applying it to every pose that I could (maybe not the best thing, but I was curious how it would feel). What happened was fantastic - I forgot about the physical strain of my poses and got into the rhythm of the breath so much that I could've held the poses way longer than I did. Amazing. And, I found that when uttiyana bandha is engaged my flexibility increases dramatically. Very cool.
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We're headed to Hawaii in 5 days. I'm so excited I might pee my pants. We have tons of activities that we want to do: hiking, kayaking, snorkelling, swimming, zip lines.
Hiking should be, well, hiking. In a jungle. With waterfalls and beaches. I'm stoked. My knee is not. It has been giving me trouble ever since our little jaunt to Tahoe back in October. From my detailed internet self-diagnosis I believe it is a simple case of tendonitis where the quadriceps femoris meets with the patella, so all I really should be doing at this point is stay off of it. But I want to hike, so I'll probably get a knee brace or something just in case. We've cancelled our super-long 11-mile hike that we were hoping to do originally. The Sierra Club rated it as strenuous, and as it's a "hike in 11 miles, camp overnight, then hike out 11 miles" kind of hike we figured that 22 miles on my bum knee would probably not serve me well.
After a week by ourselves, we're moving to a different resort and meeting up with my Dad, brother, his wife and my nephew. We'll be able to snorkel at this point. I've never done snorkelling before, but my dad has, and is going to show us how it goes. He's a certified scuba instructor, which means I kind of have to trust his judgement by default, even moreso because he's My Father. In any case, I bought a long-sleeved rashguard so that I can snorkel all damn day if I want and not worry about a sunburn. At least, on my back. Of course there's always the possibility that Jon and I will just go out by ourselves anyway and have a blast before we meet up with the gang.
The hardest thing about this trip is actually that it's happening just before Christmas. Which means we have to not only get our Christmas shopping done early, we also have to wrap the presents and send them out early as well. This weekend is our last to get our acts together; it seems I'm going to be busy, as I'm making many of the presents that we're sending out. I prefer handmade presents any day to pre-fabricated ones. The effort of making someone a present ends up outweighing the present itself every time, and even if it's not something I would typically want, I end up loving the gift just because it was handmade.
I promise I'll make a more interesting post next time. Sorry this one was a bit on the boring side, I'm kind of tired and not feeling all that funny today.
Nothing was really that different from my usual yoga class, except this time for some reason everything started to click together. My breath stayed in rhythm with my movements. I was able to focus on my breath rather than the strain of the pose, which meant I was more stable and more flexible in the poses and was able to hold them longer than usual. And, I got uttiyana bandha.
I've been working on getting uttiyana bandha all year long. It sounds simple; on a deep exhale you pull in your stomach muscles to support your spine, then use them to push up your internal organs to almost inside your ribcage. It looks like you lost 10 pounds. Then you hold it as long as you can. The thing is, that last part of pushing up the organs is way harder than it sounds.
Or is it? Yesterday, it just made sense what I was supposed to do. I sucked in my stomach muscles and very effortlessly rolled them up and literally felt my internal organs getting pushed up towards my rib cage. It didn't feel strenuous or weird. It just felt like that was what I was supposed to do the whole time. So I started applying it to every pose that I could (maybe not the best thing, but I was curious how it would feel). What happened was fantastic - I forgot about the physical strain of my poses and got into the rhythm of the breath so much that I could've held the poses way longer than I did. Amazing. And, I found that when uttiyana bandha is engaged my flexibility increases dramatically. Very cool.
--------------------
We're headed to Hawaii in 5 days. I'm so excited I might pee my pants. We have tons of activities that we want to do: hiking, kayaking, snorkelling, swimming, zip lines.
Hiking should be, well, hiking. In a jungle. With waterfalls and beaches. I'm stoked. My knee is not. It has been giving me trouble ever since our little jaunt to Tahoe back in October. From my detailed internet self-diagnosis I believe it is a simple case of tendonitis where the quadriceps femoris meets with the patella, so all I really should be doing at this point is stay off of it. But I want to hike, so I'll probably get a knee brace or something just in case. We've cancelled our super-long 11-mile hike that we were hoping to do originally. The Sierra Club rated it as strenuous, and as it's a "hike in 11 miles, camp overnight, then hike out 11 miles" kind of hike we figured that 22 miles on my bum knee would probably not serve me well.
After a week by ourselves, we're moving to a different resort and meeting up with my Dad, brother, his wife and my nephew. We'll be able to snorkel at this point. I've never done snorkelling before, but my dad has, and is going to show us how it goes. He's a certified scuba instructor, which means I kind of have to trust his judgement by default, even moreso because he's My Father. In any case, I bought a long-sleeved rashguard so that I can snorkel all damn day if I want and not worry about a sunburn. At least, on my back. Of course there's always the possibility that Jon and I will just go out by ourselves anyway and have a blast before we meet up with the gang.
The hardest thing about this trip is actually that it's happening just before Christmas. Which means we have to not only get our Christmas shopping done early, we also have to wrap the presents and send them out early as well. This weekend is our last to get our acts together; it seems I'm going to be busy, as I'm making many of the presents that we're sending out. I prefer handmade presents any day to pre-fabricated ones. The effort of making someone a present ends up outweighing the present itself every time, and even if it's not something I would typically want, I end up loving the gift just because it was handmade.
I promise I'll make a more interesting post next time. Sorry this one was a bit on the boring side, I'm kind of tired and not feeling all that funny today.
Thursday, November 17, 2011
Improvement and aprons
Ok, I'm a bit less complainy today.
It's probably because things are improving. I'm measuring my calories, restricting my food and upping my exercise tolose weight feel healthier. I'm making a better effort with friends. I'm fitting in the things I like, even if it's only 5 minutes to practice guitar or something like that. The baby thing is still weird but I have, like forever to deal with that so I can let that go.
In 2 days I'll be cooking (with my buddy) a big vegan meal for my friends. Last time we did this it cost each of us around $150, so this time we restricted the invitations to half what they were, and kept the ingredients / recipes to in-season, easy-to-make dishes. Less work, less cost, more fun for everyone. Here's what we're making:
It's probably because things are improving. I'm measuring my calories, restricting my food and upping my exercise to
In 2 days I'll be cooking (with my buddy) a big vegan meal for my friends. Last time we did this it cost each of us around $150, so this time we restricted the invitations to half what they were, and kept the ingredients / recipes to in-season, easy-to-make dishes. Less work, less cost, more fun for everyone. Here's what we're making:
- Roasted butternut squash salad
- Seitan bourgoignon with Sage Polenta (served in a roasted pumpkin)
- Fall-themed roasties with an almond-butter sauce
- Fall-themed mashed vegetable something (probably potatoes or yams)
- Pumpkin bread with vanilla rum glaze
- Mulled wine
Delicious, no? Yes.
I've been really organized lately at work, mostly because I've had the time to be organized. So I happily transferred all my organizational prowess into this dinner: I even created a Gant Chart that lists the dishes, their ingredients, where we can get said ingredients and the time to prep. Looks like it's going to be a lazy, fun afternoon of cooking, as none of the dishes is over 45 minutes to prepare. Yay!!!
Yoga is better. My instructor went on a retreat with her instructor and came back gentler and more giving. Which is great. Before she left, I tried to catch her after class to ask her how to improve my side balancy planky pose and she literally said "Look, you can catch me before class, but right now I just want to go home and drink some soup. OK?" Which seemed a bit, I don't know, unwelcoming for a yoga instructor. But I supposed that hey, she's human too and this is her Job and sometimes you just don't want to stay late, you want to just go home and have some soup. She seems much happier now and in less need of soup.
Riding is much better. I learned things today that I've never learned before - how to get my horse to collect and package her energy, round out her back and roll her neck up like a Proper Dressage Horse. I could actually feel my horse doing this (which meant I was doing it right). It was awesome. I tried forever to get my pony to do that when I was younger, but no one knew how to teach me. My current instructor gave me about 5 minutes of directions and pow, there it was. She's awesome. And so is my horse, for getting the idea way faster than I did.
Tomorrow I'm going to Creative Mornings, this cool session for creatives where we sit and listen to someone lecture for 20 minutes, then spend about 20 minutes discussing it. Sweet. Afterwards I'm buying an apron because I don't have one can't find mine and thus need a new adorable one from Anthropologie. Like this one:
Or this one:
I haven't decided yet. But they're both gorgeous, so much that I doubt I'll take whichever one I buy off even after the party's started.
Monday, November 14, 2011
mugwompery
I'm feeling kind of complainy. Which is fitting because this is kind of a complainy blog. And no one but me reads it, so I figure it's ok if I'm a little complainy today.
Things I am confused about / sad about / unhappy about / otherwise not perfectly content about, in no particular order:
Things I am confused about / sad about / unhappy about / otherwise not perfectly content about, in no particular order:
- I want to lose weight. More specifically, I want to get back to the size I used to be (4) which isn't really that far from where I am now (6) but seems to be this impossible hurdle that diet and exercise don't seem to be able to help with. I'm thinking amphetamines. j/k
- My relationships with friends are not as good as I want them to be. This isn't because anyone is mad at me (that I know of) but more because I don't have time to go out AND work out AND go to work AND see my husband AND walk the dogs AND clean the house AND practice guitar AND ride horses AND see my family. It's just a fact of life right now but it's really saddening because months will go by before I'll see friends and I feel like their lives are fading away from me and there's nothing I can do about it. I'd fix it, but, well, it seems from two sentences ago I'm really too busy.
- My mom makes bigoted statements. She's not a bigot (I know, that sounds like quite the rationalization). If you knew my mom, you'd know why these to seemingly incongruent statements actually are both, at the same time, true for her. She's a really nice person who makes offensive remarks without understanding what's so offensive about them, which is really annoying because it's hard to yell at someone who means well, really.
- I wish I had more time to ride / practice guitar / do yoga. See above.
- Everyone around me (by everyone, of course, I mean like 6 couples) seems to be having babies. They either have had them in the last few months or are due to have them in the next 6. I don't know if I want children or not. At one time I did, then later I didn't, then I did, then I didn't. I see perfectly rational arguments on each side of the fence, but don't seem to want to get off on either side so far. So, I'm trying to talk to those I know who are pregnant or with kids about their experiences to see if things push me one way or the other, but here's what no one tells you: if you don't have kids, people just assume a) you're not interested in hearing about theirs, b) even if you say you're interested, you're really not, c) you won't like what you hear or d) you must want to have kids if you're asking about them. Or, what they do tell you is so negative and complainy it seems as though they're trying to convince you not to have kids. Why can't they just leave it objective and give me facts? Here's the thing: I really do want to know, I won't be afraid, I really am interested and it doesn't mean I am or am not going to have kids as a result. I just am interested right now. My brother is the exception; he's asked me to send him baby boy names periodically for his latest offspring-to-be, which I have found exceedingly fun. Today's favorite: Finn.
- My dogs love my husband more than me. Well, more accurately, as he is the one who takes them on their walks and feeds them, they come to him when they need things. I miss being needed by them.
- I want to get a saddle for myself (a used one) but am conflicted because a) I don't want to buy leather, as I'm vegan and that goes against my non-cruelty values and the non-leather ones have terrible reliability reviews, b) I don't know which brand I would be happiest with (I rode in a Collegiate when I was younger but what did I know? I thought I was going to be a hand surgeon back then, and look how that turned out), c) saddles are really expensive, even the used ones.
- I want to be closer some friends that I have but they seem really hard to get a hold of. I realize that this may have nothing to do with me, despite my obsessive, selfish and paranoid thinkings, but it's sad nonetheless. I just find them really interesting and wish they found me the same.
- I'm bored at work because things are generally quiet these days. Most people wouldn't find this a negative but my active, wanting to be busy all the time mind is really stressed out whenever I have free time to do non-worky things during work, like facebook and blog. I shouldn't complain; things could be worse. Like not having a boring job. But for now, this sucks.
pooh. Hopefully I'll feel better later today when I ride the new horse I'm leasing. She's not new to me; I've been riding her for a year now. But I like that she's "mine" for a day by myself every week. Plus, she really likes granola bars, and so I give her little bits of them because it's nice that even on a bad day, I can make someone happy.
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
Back. And scattered. Hold on tight.
I've been back from China for a few weeks now. I did intend to post at some point, but I was jet-lagged and tired and then I had to get back in my routine and then I owned up to my procrastination and didn't do anything. I'll probably be headed back twice a year, and in all probability for the same amount of time (5 weeks). Understandably I've been practicing with my Mandarin studies much more, because I don't want to get stuck with the same problems I had this last time. Namely, not being able to order for myself, not being able to ask anyone for directions, and not being able to buy proper bug spray. Or tell whistling scooter-riding creeps to go fuck themselves. Or whatever.
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I've been on a quest to get back into my yoga routine. But to be honest, I was never really in a set routine with yoga, I just went when I could find the time. What I'm attempting to do is prioritize my day in a better way, and put yoga higher up. I like how I feel after yoga. I like that my warped body image is improving with every class despite lack of weight loss in the midrif. I like that I'm not reacting emotionally as much or with as much intensity as I did even a month ago. Even if it means that I'm in a state of perpetual soreness. I have specific goals in mind, though they might not make any sense to anyone because, well, I can never remember the names of the poses. In any case, here they are in case I forget or need to prod my motivation a bit:
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I've been on a quest to get back into my yoga routine. But to be honest, I was never really in a set routine with yoga, I just went when I could find the time. What I'm attempting to do is prioritize my day in a better way, and put yoga higher up. I like how I feel after yoga. I like that my warped body image is improving with every class despite lack of weight loss in the midrif. I like that I'm not reacting emotionally as much or with as much intensity as I did even a month ago. Even if it means that I'm in a state of perpetual soreness. I have specific goals in mind, though they might not make any sense to anyone because, well, I can never remember the names of the poses. In any case, here they are in case I forget or need to prod my motivation a bit:
- be able to do plank for 1 minute continuously in proper position
- be able to do that weird side plank that is terrifically difficult.
- be able to do that weird side plank that is terrifically difficult for a minute continuously on each side.
- be able to do the splits (that one may be a life-long goal, as I've never in my life been able to do that)
- be able to do that cool side crow arm balancy thing for a minute continuously
- be able to do binds fully.
- be able to meditate for more than 2 seconds
- be able to meditate for a minute
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I haven't really been cooking. There really isn't time by the time I get home. I need to find a way to convince my husband (who is home all day) to make dinner. Husbands have convinces wives to do this simple nice gesture for decades; why can't mine take a hint? Maybe it's because he's working a full day too...but it is at home. He could throw stuff in a crock pot and get back to work and it would be ready. Maybe I should voice this concern instead of complaining. But I really like complaining.
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I'm making an effort to dress better. I'm tired of being a schlub and I'm tired of wearing jeans every day (or every other day). More dresses. More trousers. More style. More fun.
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My first day back riding in 6 weeks went surprisingly well. My right ankle was killing me but then again, it usually does. My legs were weak but not useless. All in all I was relaxed and remembered my sister-in-law's advice "have fun". I get so wrapped up in trying to get things correct (this is a problem that invades my entire life, no realm is safe) that I forget that I'm doing these things to have fun. I had fun last Monday at my lesson and it really made a difference. The horse I rode was much better behaved. Before I went to China I was having a lot of frustration with her; she'd be too fast, mix up signals, not read the signals I was giving her, tear around the ring, pull too much, that sort of thing. This time she listened to me, mellowed right out, had plenty of energy but didn't tear about like a mad horse. This time I relaxed and tried to laugh and have fun and what do you know, I did. Funny that.
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Starting the week after next I'll be working from home for 6 weeks while our office gets remodeled. I'm really, really looking forward to it. I think I'll have to be in the temporary office for one day a week, max. Which means I can cook while working from home, save on gas and wear / tear on the car, have a looser schedule, take the dogs to the park, all that stuff. And have a beer while working if I want. Or work in pyjamas. Whatever.
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Also, in a few weeks we're going on a vacation. Finally. I haven't taken one this year and last year I was unemployed, so that doesn't really count because although there was a lack of work, there was no pay and thus lots of stress, which is not a vacation at all. We're headed up to Tahoe for 5 days to snowshoe, snowboard, hike, sit and watch the lake, whatever. Should be fantastic. Cabin is booked, PTO time is taken off, all is set. We just need snowshoes and a meal plan (there's a kitchen at the cabin!).
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In December we're taking another vacation. My Dad has a timeshare in Kauai, and decided to give a week of it to my brother and his new wife as a wedding present. As it turned out, the only room available at the resort was the 3-bedroom presidential suite. So my brother decided to invite my husband and I to join him and his wife for that week. We're thrilled; I've never been to Hawaii and never, ever have been anywhere tropical. Wait, that's not true. I think I can count southeast Asia as tropical. It certainly was hot and humid there, and there were native palm trees and I did go to a beach...it just wasn't a full proper jungle or anything and there wasn't turquoise waters.
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Apparently I've been playing Words With Friends with a stranger, and I didn't know it until yesterday evening. I had asked my husband what his handle was so we could play a game. He said he didn't know, but that it was probably his traditional handle, "srndpty". So I started a game with "srndpty" and have been playing...and last night I had a conversation that went something like this:
Me: You're not the best Words With Friends player. You keep opening up the board, it's really poor strategy.
Him: I'm not playing Words With Friends with you.
Me: Yes you are. I'm playing it right now on my phone. There you are. "Srndpty". That's you, right?
Him: No. I haven't been playing with you at all.
Me: Yes you have. You even said the other day that you were going to log in and continue playing.
Him: Yes, I did try to log in, but I can't remember my login information and I couldn't get the tablet to log you out. I haven't been playing. I told you this a while ago.
Me:...
Him:...
Me:...so who have I been playing with then?
Him: srndpty, it seems. But not me.
I thought about it and decided that this srndpty person was really weird for accepting a random game from me, and that I'd teach him/her a lesson and win the game. Except that I have had shitty letters and so he/she's winning. I keep thinking maybe I'll just concede the game but I don't want to be a quitter. So, I'll finish it out. But it's still weird. I wonder if it actually is my husband and he's having a very, very funny private laugh about this. That's not nice, Jonathan. It's very funny, but not nice.
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
China, Part 7
I am still in China.
My return date has been changed twice already, and there's a chance it might be changed again. I'll find out at the earliest in the next few hours, at the latest in the next day.
And, I'm homesick. I really love to travel and experience new worlds, new people, new customs. But I'm starting to get depressed, possibly because my return date keeps getting changed. It feels as though there's no end in sight, and I miss my family.
On a positive note, I have a fun project that has been taking up a good amount of my free time and has provided a productive outlet for my time here. Unfortunately, due to it's nature I can't talk about it here. What's really a funny and kind of ironic coincidence is the way I'll be presenting this project is with an espionage graphic design angle. On go the sunglasses.
The rest of my free time has been taken up with self care. I've been doing yoga in my hotel room (setting goals of a certain number of sun salutations and adding on after that whatever I have the strength for), swimming in the hotel pool, sweating out the dirt in my pores in the sauna, massaging my muscles in the hot tub, and various other grooming rituals (eyebrow shaping, self-facials, manicures, pedicures, etc) at the vanity in my room.
My teeth have never been so clean. When I floss I can feel the cleanly "squeak" when all the food particles are removed.
I wonder if others find this sort of thing gross or too personal. I don't. I wish I had more time to do all of this at home. I have this obsessive-compulsive nature that basically amounts to feeling immense calmness from detailed, precise and repetitive tasks. It's kind of like getting a hug. Does that sound weird? It doesn't to me. I think we all have little behaviors or actions that calm our anxious minds, and these might seem weird to others who experience the world differently.
Sometimes I feel really alone that I don't experience the world the way others do. I don't think the way others do, I don't construct sentences the way others do, and I don't often understand why others think and do the things they do. I've been told that this is due to my having dyslexia; Dyslexics don't express themselves or even experience the world the way others do. The problem is, I'm not exactly sure how others perceive the world. I mean, I've been told how they do but I don't always really understand. Sometimes I say I do or change the subject just to be polite, because it takes too long to explain to them that I just don't get it, or I don't think they'll understand what I'm saying. It's hard to put into words what I'm thinking in my head. The words in my head aren't in any particular order, they're just sort of there. I guess the closest thing I can think of that resembles my thoughts is free association. Does everyone think that way? My husband says he has solid sentences in his thoughts, and he's pretty normal in his thinking and perception so I don't think that how I think is how everyone else thinks.
Where am I going with this?
I was letting my thoughts just flow today while running through my new grooming routine and remembered how a year ago, my sister-in-law told me a story of how her husband saw a string tied up along a street. (I'm not certain I have the story exactly correct, so forgive me if you know it and I'm not recalling it perfectly.) It was put there by a religious group for some reason I can't remember, but he didn't know that at the time, he just saw it every day on his walk into work. So one day he cut the string to see what would happen.
I got really upset when I heard this. I insisted that he was being disrespectful to their right to put up string. I thought it was rude because clearly whoever put it up there wanted it to be up there, and cutting it down was blatantly destructive to others' feelings.
He felt he was just curious; he wanted to see what would happen.
I thought I understood him then, but didn't agree with his reasoning and got frustrated with him. We ended up letting the discussion go because I was clearly upset and he was trying to explain, futilely, his point.
Thing is, today while free-thinking I realized that it's okay to be curious. I realized that his curious mind just wanting to know "why" or "what would happen if..." was a perfect example of his incredible intelligence. Which is one reason he's so good at his job; it requires one to intelligently and creatively ask the question "Why is this happening" or "What would happen if something changed", for example. How can one expect to solve complicated problems in fields like GPS Systems and Technology if they don't ask questions?
I really respect his ability to question the world around him. I wish I had seen that a year ago instead of judging him as unfeeling (which he definitely is not). But more than this, I wish I asked that question more often instead of just rolling with the world the way it is.
In any case, I emailed him out of the blue and apologized for my misunderstanding, and happily he didn't think it was totally weird that I did so (or at least, didn't tell me if he did). So now I feel as though I've learned something new about my brother-in-law-in-law, and something new about myself - that I am actually questioning my world. Instead of just accepting his action blindly I questioned why he would do this action and what his motivation could possibly be, and when I didn't get the answer that made sense, I continued to question (in my head) until I got it.
Unfortunately, I'm still terribly homesick, maybe even more now. I really hope my current return date isn't extended again, or I might have to subject you all to more long, rambling, free-association posts about how I think and the obsessive thoughts that never stop running.
My return date has been changed twice already, and there's a chance it might be changed again. I'll find out at the earliest in the next few hours, at the latest in the next day.
And, I'm homesick. I really love to travel and experience new worlds, new people, new customs. But I'm starting to get depressed, possibly because my return date keeps getting changed. It feels as though there's no end in sight, and I miss my family.
On a positive note, I have a fun project that has been taking up a good amount of my free time and has provided a productive outlet for my time here. Unfortunately, due to it's nature I can't talk about it here. What's really a funny and kind of ironic coincidence is the way I'll be presenting this project is with an espionage graphic design angle. On go the sunglasses.
The rest of my free time has been taken up with self care. I've been doing yoga in my hotel room (setting goals of a certain number of sun salutations and adding on after that whatever I have the strength for), swimming in the hotel pool, sweating out the dirt in my pores in the sauna, massaging my muscles in the hot tub, and various other grooming rituals (eyebrow shaping, self-facials, manicures, pedicures, etc) at the vanity in my room.
My teeth have never been so clean. When I floss I can feel the cleanly "squeak" when all the food particles are removed.
I wonder if others find this sort of thing gross or too personal. I don't. I wish I had more time to do all of this at home. I have this obsessive-compulsive nature that basically amounts to feeling immense calmness from detailed, precise and repetitive tasks. It's kind of like getting a hug. Does that sound weird? It doesn't to me. I think we all have little behaviors or actions that calm our anxious minds, and these might seem weird to others who experience the world differently.
Sometimes I feel really alone that I don't experience the world the way others do. I don't think the way others do, I don't construct sentences the way others do, and I don't often understand why others think and do the things they do. I've been told that this is due to my having dyslexia; Dyslexics don't express themselves or even experience the world the way others do. The problem is, I'm not exactly sure how others perceive the world. I mean, I've been told how they do but I don't always really understand. Sometimes I say I do or change the subject just to be polite, because it takes too long to explain to them that I just don't get it, or I don't think they'll understand what I'm saying. It's hard to put into words what I'm thinking in my head. The words in my head aren't in any particular order, they're just sort of there. I guess the closest thing I can think of that resembles my thoughts is free association. Does everyone think that way? My husband says he has solid sentences in his thoughts, and he's pretty normal in his thinking and perception so I don't think that how I think is how everyone else thinks.
Where am I going with this?
I was letting my thoughts just flow today while running through my new grooming routine and remembered how a year ago, my sister-in-law told me a story of how her husband saw a string tied up along a street. (I'm not certain I have the story exactly correct, so forgive me if you know it and I'm not recalling it perfectly.) It was put there by a religious group for some reason I can't remember, but he didn't know that at the time, he just saw it every day on his walk into work. So one day he cut the string to see what would happen.
I got really upset when I heard this. I insisted that he was being disrespectful to their right to put up string. I thought it was rude because clearly whoever put it up there wanted it to be up there, and cutting it down was blatantly destructive to others' feelings.
He felt he was just curious; he wanted to see what would happen.
I thought I understood him then, but didn't agree with his reasoning and got frustrated with him. We ended up letting the discussion go because I was clearly upset and he was trying to explain, futilely, his point.
Thing is, today while free-thinking I realized that it's okay to be curious. I realized that his curious mind just wanting to know "why" or "what would happen if..." was a perfect example of his incredible intelligence. Which is one reason he's so good at his job; it requires one to intelligently and creatively ask the question "Why is this happening" or "What would happen if something changed", for example. How can one expect to solve complicated problems in fields like GPS Systems and Technology if they don't ask questions?
I really respect his ability to question the world around him. I wish I had seen that a year ago instead of judging him as unfeeling (which he definitely is not). But more than this, I wish I asked that question more often instead of just rolling with the world the way it is.
In any case, I emailed him out of the blue and apologized for my misunderstanding, and happily he didn't think it was totally weird that I did so (or at least, didn't tell me if he did). So now I feel as though I've learned something new about my brother-in-law-in-law, and something new about myself - that I am actually questioning my world. Instead of just accepting his action blindly I questioned why he would do this action and what his motivation could possibly be, and when I didn't get the answer that made sense, I continued to question (in my head) until I got it.
Unfortunately, I'm still terribly homesick, maybe even more now. I really hope my current return date isn't extended again, or I might have to subject you all to more long, rambling, free-association posts about how I think and the obsessive thoughts that never stop running.
Thursday, September 1, 2011
China, Part 6
Yesterday I went to a supermarket and bought laundry detergent.
This sounds quite ordinary, but I assure you, here it's not.
Wait, maybe it is. I went to the laundry detergent aisle, found a brand I recognized (Tide), took note of the price (16.8 RMB), took it to the cash register, paid for it with a 20 RMB note, and walked out with my Tide and change. Simple.
I think what did it was the confidence I had in my need for detergent.
A week ago, I had thought to hit up the same supermarket to get toothpaste. I went down and up the escalators, hemming and hawing about whether I should "give it a go" and just attempt to buy something in a language I couldn't speak. I chickened out, and denied myself the toothpaste, relying on the hotel-provided stuff.
Well, when I realized the hotel charged 22 Yuan ($3 USD) for each pair of undies washed, it occurred to me that spending 17 yuan on a huge bottle of detergent basically meant I could wash all of my undies for less than the hotel charged for one pair.
Little did I know, it would take 3 days for said washed undies to dry.
There's a laundry line in my shower, which is helpful, but no ventilation unit. So with all the humidity of late, it's taking FOREVER for my undies to dry. But, they're clean. So I guess that's all that matters.
---------------------------------------------------------
In other news it looks like I might be coming home sooner than I had expected. Like, 10 days sooner. I really hope this is true, because I really, REALLY miss my husband. And my dogs. But mostly my husband. I miss the feel of his stubbly beard on my lips and how his body feels when I hold him close. A pillow, despite my attempts at faux cuddles, just does not suffice.
That, and Chinese TV has totally lost it's charm. I mean, how many times can one watch another episode of "The Voice"?
---------------------------------------------------------
In other other news I had a moment last night where I really started to think about who I am right now as a person and who I want to be as a person. I thought at first "Silly Kate" because I was worried about how I might seem to others, and then I realized that my intention (at that time) was really based more upon making others feel comfortable and less about my own needs. So I thought, "Not so Silly Kate". Maybe I need to not classify myself so much as "silly". Maybe I should embrace who I am, or rather, who I want to be. Someone who is thinking a bit more of others and less of herself. This is a very hard one for me, as I naturally am very selfish and egotistical. But, I recognize this as Something I'm Always Working On and am trying desperately to correct. So, I thought, just for tonight I can try to embrace who I am right now for the positive merits instead of trying always to force myself to be someone I am not (currently).
For last night, it felt great. I meditated, did some yoga, and felt much better about my place in the world.
Today, I felt kind of the same as I usually do. I wish change happened faster.
Abrupt ending, starting...NOW.
This sounds quite ordinary, but I assure you, here it's not.
Wait, maybe it is. I went to the laundry detergent aisle, found a brand I recognized (Tide), took note of the price (16.8 RMB), took it to the cash register, paid for it with a 20 RMB note, and walked out with my Tide and change. Simple.
I think what did it was the confidence I had in my need for detergent.
A week ago, I had thought to hit up the same supermarket to get toothpaste. I went down and up the escalators, hemming and hawing about whether I should "give it a go" and just attempt to buy something in a language I couldn't speak. I chickened out, and denied myself the toothpaste, relying on the hotel-provided stuff.
Well, when I realized the hotel charged 22 Yuan ($3 USD) for each pair of undies washed, it occurred to me that spending 17 yuan on a huge bottle of detergent basically meant I could wash all of my undies for less than the hotel charged for one pair.
Little did I know, it would take 3 days for said washed undies to dry.
There's a laundry line in my shower, which is helpful, but no ventilation unit. So with all the humidity of late, it's taking FOREVER for my undies to dry. But, they're clean. So I guess that's all that matters.
---------------------------------------------------------
In other news it looks like I might be coming home sooner than I had expected. Like, 10 days sooner. I really hope this is true, because I really, REALLY miss my husband. And my dogs. But mostly my husband. I miss the feel of his stubbly beard on my lips and how his body feels when I hold him close. A pillow, despite my attempts at faux cuddles, just does not suffice.
That, and Chinese TV has totally lost it's charm. I mean, how many times can one watch another episode of "The Voice"?
---------------------------------------------------------
In other other news I had a moment last night where I really started to think about who I am right now as a person and who I want to be as a person. I thought at first "Silly Kate" because I was worried about how I might seem to others, and then I realized that my intention (at that time) was really based more upon making others feel comfortable and less about my own needs. So I thought, "Not so Silly Kate". Maybe I need to not classify myself so much as "silly". Maybe I should embrace who I am, or rather, who I want to be. Someone who is thinking a bit more of others and less of herself. This is a very hard one for me, as I naturally am very selfish and egotistical. But, I recognize this as Something I'm Always Working On and am trying desperately to correct. So, I thought, just for tonight I can try to embrace who I am right now for the positive merits instead of trying always to force myself to be someone I am not (currently).
For last night, it felt great. I meditated, did some yoga, and felt much better about my place in the world.
Today, I felt kind of the same as I usually do. I wish change happened faster.
Abrupt ending, starting...NOW.
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
China, Part 5
I've been here 2 weeks. I found out this weekend last that I have 4 more weeks to go.
Last week I wanted to see some history. Shenzhen is, however, not a city with history. Well, at least, it's not a city with an obvious palpable history. About 30 years ago some financial wizards decided to make Shenzhen, at the time a small fishing village, an international business metropolis. I don't know the specifics but given it's proximity to Hong Kong, I wonder if it was a competitive move.
What this has meant for me is that as far as the eye can see out of my lovely 5-star executive hotel room, there are tall buildings interspersed with small buildings. Roads, streets, metro subway systems, cars, everything a major city usually has. Even parks, trees lining sidewalks, golf courses...all perfectly manicured and styled to be "appealing to the discerning eye". Everything is as one would expect it to be. Everything is sterile. There is no life, on the surface.
To see "life", or the heart and soul inside the city, you have to peek inbetween the buildings. You have to look around corners, walk on the streets inbetween the nice English-translated street signs.
When you do this you get a glimpse of how the non-financial wizards are living. You also get a glimpse of what they think about others. I've been hollered at, cat-called, sneered at, glared at and shoved aside so many times I've lost count. At first I thought it was a culture difference. But I don't think so. If I walk around a place where the majority of the people have a decent income (they're dressed well, they carry nice bags and have clean, new shoes, etc.) I don't get this treatment. As soon as I step into a more low-income area, the entire vibe changes.
Nonetheless, I'm still seeking the hidden culture in Shenzhen. I found the remains of an old city in Nantou, in the Nanshan district, where there were amazing old structures from the 1300s dropped sporadically between larger apartment buildings that had noodle houses at the bottom floor, where a very thin man would be tossing, twisting and spinning dough to make long noodles. Or a small vagrant dog would sleep on the steps of a buddhist temple, occasionally looking up at me, then away in disinterest.
I wish Shenzhen had more of this. The executive-style room is just not what I'm used to. Walking everywhere is. Taking the subway instead of a taxi is. Walking around a park instead of driving by it while talking on my cell phone is. For someone like me who is desperately trying to learn Mandarin and learn about the Chinese culture, this town is a prison.
This weekend I got out of my prison to visit Hong Kong. My cousin lives there, and I spent the weekend hiking in the hills, soaking up the rays at the Marina club and swimming in the Repulse Bay beach. I loved it, but still feel like something's missing. I've travelled across the Pacific ocean, and I feel like I haven't experienced much that was different.
Part of this is my own fault. I haven't been learning Mandarin fast enough, so I can't talk to anyone. I can't take a cab to Dapeng Fortress (a Ming dynasty fortress that I'm dying to see, but it's 55km away with no ties to public transport). When I go to new, non-touristy places I get lost very quickly and have trouble finding my way back, because the streets that are away from tourists are only in Chinese characters, and no one speaks English.
I think the other part is where I am. I think that even if I spoke fluent Mandarin, I would be disappointed in Shenzhen for being so "Los Angeles". For tearing down and rebuilding instead of preserving and building around or above. For not respecting old ways and insisting that new ways were superior. I'm spoiled I think in living in San Francisco. Old buildings are kept, people still live in apartments from the 1920's, and in that sense it's almost European. I think that if the big earthquake hadn't happened in SF, people would still be living in homes that would be much, much older.
So I'm trying to remedy this by making plans to visit Shanghai. I know it's a modern city, but I also know that there are some areas of historical interest that have been preserved. I know there is a history and a culture and a life there that is so very Chinese, and I want to experience it. I'm also planning to visit Taiwan to see what has gone on there as well.
And, I'm still plugging away at Mandarin. I think it's silly to expect others to know how to speak your language if you're the one coming to their country.
And for the short-term, I have "Lost in Translation" ready to watch as soon as I'm done with this post, for a little sympathetic comfort.
Last week I wanted to see some history. Shenzhen is, however, not a city with history. Well, at least, it's not a city with an obvious palpable history. About 30 years ago some financial wizards decided to make Shenzhen, at the time a small fishing village, an international business metropolis. I don't know the specifics but given it's proximity to Hong Kong, I wonder if it was a competitive move.
What this has meant for me is that as far as the eye can see out of my lovely 5-star executive hotel room, there are tall buildings interspersed with small buildings. Roads, streets, metro subway systems, cars, everything a major city usually has. Even parks, trees lining sidewalks, golf courses...all perfectly manicured and styled to be "appealing to the discerning eye". Everything is as one would expect it to be. Everything is sterile. There is no life, on the surface.
To see "life", or the heart and soul inside the city, you have to peek inbetween the buildings. You have to look around corners, walk on the streets inbetween the nice English-translated street signs.
When you do this you get a glimpse of how the non-financial wizards are living. You also get a glimpse of what they think about others. I've been hollered at, cat-called, sneered at, glared at and shoved aside so many times I've lost count. At first I thought it was a culture difference. But I don't think so. If I walk around a place where the majority of the people have a decent income (they're dressed well, they carry nice bags and have clean, new shoes, etc.) I don't get this treatment. As soon as I step into a more low-income area, the entire vibe changes.
Nonetheless, I'm still seeking the hidden culture in Shenzhen. I found the remains of an old city in Nantou, in the Nanshan district, where there were amazing old structures from the 1300s dropped sporadically between larger apartment buildings that had noodle houses at the bottom floor, where a very thin man would be tossing, twisting and spinning dough to make long noodles. Or a small vagrant dog would sleep on the steps of a buddhist temple, occasionally looking up at me, then away in disinterest.
I wish Shenzhen had more of this. The executive-style room is just not what I'm used to. Walking everywhere is. Taking the subway instead of a taxi is. Walking around a park instead of driving by it while talking on my cell phone is. For someone like me who is desperately trying to learn Mandarin and learn about the Chinese culture, this town is a prison.
This weekend I got out of my prison to visit Hong Kong. My cousin lives there, and I spent the weekend hiking in the hills, soaking up the rays at the Marina club and swimming in the Repulse Bay beach. I loved it, but still feel like something's missing. I've travelled across the Pacific ocean, and I feel like I haven't experienced much that was different.
Part of this is my own fault. I haven't been learning Mandarin fast enough, so I can't talk to anyone. I can't take a cab to Dapeng Fortress (a Ming dynasty fortress that I'm dying to see, but it's 55km away with no ties to public transport). When I go to new, non-touristy places I get lost very quickly and have trouble finding my way back, because the streets that are away from tourists are only in Chinese characters, and no one speaks English.
I think the other part is where I am. I think that even if I spoke fluent Mandarin, I would be disappointed in Shenzhen for being so "Los Angeles". For tearing down and rebuilding instead of preserving and building around or above. For not respecting old ways and insisting that new ways were superior. I'm spoiled I think in living in San Francisco. Old buildings are kept, people still live in apartments from the 1920's, and in that sense it's almost European. I think that if the big earthquake hadn't happened in SF, people would still be living in homes that would be much, much older.
So I'm trying to remedy this by making plans to visit Shanghai. I know it's a modern city, but I also know that there are some areas of historical interest that have been preserved. I know there is a history and a culture and a life there that is so very Chinese, and I want to experience it. I'm also planning to visit Taiwan to see what has gone on there as well.
And, I'm still plugging away at Mandarin. I think it's silly to expect others to know how to speak your language if you're the one coming to their country.
And for the short-term, I have "Lost in Translation" ready to watch as soon as I'm done with this post, for a little sympathetic comfort.
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
China, Part 4
Eating in China is difficult. If you're vegetarian. Moreso if you're vegan. There's egg in everything that doesn't have meat, unless you're fortunate enough to get out with a native Mandarin speaker who can utter such phrases as "She doesn't eat anything but vegetables. Really! No, Seriously! Just vegetables!".
I've tried a few unusual foods (for my American palate) while here, mostly to prove to my husband that I am, in fact, brave and willing to step out of my comfort zone. But tonight I asked a chinese friend of mine to order for me, keeping in mind that I don't eat meat or meat products or anything to do with animals. He smiled, shook his head, and said that he would make sure I was happy. Here's what we had tonight:
I've tried a few unusual foods (for my American palate) while here, mostly to prove to my husband that I am, in fact, brave and willing to step out of my comfort zone. But tonight I asked a chinese friend of mine to order for me, keeping in mind that I don't eat meat or meat products or anything to do with animals. He smiled, shook his head, and said that he would make sure I was happy. Here's what we had tonight:
- Eggplant with black pepper, onions and spicy green peppers. This dish was amazing. It was full of spices, loaded with garlic, and mashed up to a rich, peppery goodness that I cannot wait to make once I get home. I've never seen anything like it before at a chinese restaurant.
- Potatoes with dried hot peppers, green onions and a vinegar sauce. Again, amazing. The potatoes were sliced like they were noodles and because they were that thin, absorbed the flavor of the green onions and hot peppers perfectly. He told me that if he cooked the dish, he would have first soaked the potatoes in water (after slicing), then tossed with vinegar and cooked them. Then added a bit of white wine, a pinch of white pepper, the dried chopped peppers and green onions, and sauteed until soft. Then drizzled a bit more vinegar on them. Again, can't wait to make this one. One just cannot find these flavors together in a typical american chinese restaurant.
- Sponge cucumber. This was a really strange dish. It looked just liked sliced (vertically) cucumber, but tasted so strange I can't even tell you what it actually resembled. Wait, yes I can. It resembled sponge cucumber because nothing in the world tastes like that. It was sauteed in soy sauce and chili oil with garlic and salt. Simple and scrumptious.
He and another friend split some liver and spicy pepper dish and another meat dish, but I really wasn't paying attention. I was too engrossed in the decadent veggie feast in front of me.
When I'm eating alone here and I tell waiters and waitresses that I do not eat meat, I'm usually greeted with a very confused look. They then beckon someone else over to the table who says something to the broken English effect of "Really? No meat? Seriously?" Of course, I'm paraphrasing. They honestly could be saying "I have no idea what this silly girl is saying, let's just give her some broccoli and shut her up already". Whatever. My point is that this is just not a culture that gets my vegetarian choice.
I'm really grateful that I have a friend here who is helping me live the way I want to live and eat the way I want to eat despite cultural differences. I wish there was a gift I could give him to show my appreciation but I fear the only things that would make him happy would be meat on a stick or cigarettes.
Sunday, August 21, 2011
China, Part 3
Yesterday I decided to get a massage at the hotel where I'm staying. The 3 days prior, I hadn't slept more than 8 hours. Total, not per night. And the thing is, when it's been 3 days of very little sleep, it's surprisingly difficult to just lie down and get to sleep at night. So, I thought I needed some relaxation.
The massage was really nice; one of the best I'd ever had. Very swedish-like with aromatherapy kind of oils, one hour of muscle rubbing, all that stuff. Your typical massage.
Today, one of the women that works for the printer where I'm doing press checks offered to take me out for my first Traditional Chinese Foot Massage. I accepted, as I had spent the morning hiking in a nearby park up and down stone steps for about 2 hours. I was beat, and wanted some foot love.
FYI, in China, "Foot Massage" means 2-hour whole-body massage, ending in a foot massage.
I sat down in a chair that resembled the chairs one sits in when getting a pedicure at a nice nail salon. I was then asked to sit up and put my feet in almost boiling-hot water while a man got behind me and started massaging my shoulders. Painfully.
The woman who took me there, a native speaker of Mandarin, told him at my request to take it easy as I had just had a massage the day before and had tender muscles. He responded with "She just needs to relax and it won't hurt". I thought, no, other way around. Don't hurt me and my muscles will happily relax. I was certain this was not to happen.
However, after a bit of time, I just decided to do what I do when in yoga and in a difficult, painful pose...breathe. It worked, kind of. The massage progressed to my back, then he beat my back and asked me to lie down on his lap.
Yeah, I thought this was weird too. But everyone else was doing it and didn't look like they were feeling taken advantage of, so I rolled with it. Nothing weird there. Apparently he just wanted to massage the muscles in my back with his knees. Which hurt like hell once he started massaging my spine with his knees. I don't think the spine is meant to be massaged with bone tissue.
"Oh my GOD" he says. In english. I think this was the only english he knew.
He complained to my host in Mandarin that I was too tense and wouldn't relax. I told her that it was my muscles, not me. I was trying to relax. My muscles were in pain and not interested in further treatment, so they were tensing to send the message to back the fuck off already.
He asked me to sit up, then grabbed my head in a weird way and pulled up. CRACK went my neck, then he pulled my arm across my body and before I knew it, cracked my back. Then the same on the other side. All of a sudden I no longer felt tense. My muscles gave up the battle.
More back knee massaging followed, until he felt I was adequately tenderized. I sat up and he began looking at my feet.
"Oh my GOD" he says again. My host laughed and told me that he wanted to shave the calluses off my feet. I said fine, as long as it didn't hurt. Everyone laughed, except me, horrified at the shame of my overly callused feet.
Then I finally got my foot massage, which was wonderful. And he then took out something that looked like a glass light bulb without the metal bits, sprayed alcohol in it and lit it on fire. And then stuck it on my feet, twisting it as though he were screwing in a lightbulb.
He said in Mandarin "This will rid your body of it's humanity. Your body has too much wet. You need to eat less cold food, only hot food. This will help you sleep better tonight. You will see."
What could I say? I had lightbulbs stuck to my arches. I rolled with it.
The thing is, now that the massage is done, I feel amazing. I didn't think I would because of the excrutiating pain I was in during the process, but I really feel like I did a great workout and I just need a short stretch and I'll be ready for bed. And my feet feel amazing, like walking on pillows.
Who knew? 2-hour relax is just as good as 5-minute relax.
The massage was really nice; one of the best I'd ever had. Very swedish-like with aromatherapy kind of oils, one hour of muscle rubbing, all that stuff. Your typical massage.
Today, one of the women that works for the printer where I'm doing press checks offered to take me out for my first Traditional Chinese Foot Massage. I accepted, as I had spent the morning hiking in a nearby park up and down stone steps for about 2 hours. I was beat, and wanted some foot love.
FYI, in China, "Foot Massage" means 2-hour whole-body massage, ending in a foot massage.
I sat down in a chair that resembled the chairs one sits in when getting a pedicure at a nice nail salon. I was then asked to sit up and put my feet in almost boiling-hot water while a man got behind me and started massaging my shoulders. Painfully.
The woman who took me there, a native speaker of Mandarin, told him at my request to take it easy as I had just had a massage the day before and had tender muscles. He responded with "She just needs to relax and it won't hurt". I thought, no, other way around. Don't hurt me and my muscles will happily relax. I was certain this was not to happen.
However, after a bit of time, I just decided to do what I do when in yoga and in a difficult, painful pose...breathe. It worked, kind of. The massage progressed to my back, then he beat my back and asked me to lie down on his lap.
Yeah, I thought this was weird too. But everyone else was doing it and didn't look like they were feeling taken advantage of, so I rolled with it. Nothing weird there. Apparently he just wanted to massage the muscles in my back with his knees. Which hurt like hell once he started massaging my spine with his knees. I don't think the spine is meant to be massaged with bone tissue.
"Oh my GOD" he says. In english. I think this was the only english he knew.
He complained to my host in Mandarin that I was too tense and wouldn't relax. I told her that it was my muscles, not me. I was trying to relax. My muscles were in pain and not interested in further treatment, so they were tensing to send the message to back the fuck off already.
He asked me to sit up, then grabbed my head in a weird way and pulled up. CRACK went my neck, then he pulled my arm across my body and before I knew it, cracked my back. Then the same on the other side. All of a sudden I no longer felt tense. My muscles gave up the battle.
More back knee massaging followed, until he felt I was adequately tenderized. I sat up and he began looking at my feet.
"Oh my GOD" he says again. My host laughed and told me that he wanted to shave the calluses off my feet. I said fine, as long as it didn't hurt. Everyone laughed, except me, horrified at the shame of my overly callused feet.
Then I finally got my foot massage, which was wonderful. And he then took out something that looked like a glass light bulb without the metal bits, sprayed alcohol in it and lit it on fire. And then stuck it on my feet, twisting it as though he were screwing in a lightbulb.
He said in Mandarin "This will rid your body of it's humanity. Your body has too much wet. You need to eat less cold food, only hot food. This will help you sleep better tonight. You will see."
What could I say? I had lightbulbs stuck to my arches. I rolled with it.
The thing is, now that the massage is done, I feel amazing. I didn't think I would because of the excrutiating pain I was in during the process, but I really feel like I did a great workout and I just need a short stretch and I'll be ready for bed. And my feet feel amazing, like walking on pillows.
Who knew? 2-hour relax is just as good as 5-minute relax.
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
China, Part 2
It's summer in southeast China.
This means that when you step outside it feels like you just stepped into a Bikram yoga class, but you're wearing more clothes and within 5 minutes, have sweated through most of them.
It also means mosquitos.
In an effort to keep us cool in the press check waiting room yesterday, our vendor opened the doors. Which let in a cool-ish (85 degrees compared to 95 of the standing air) breeze, but also the mosquitos. These little bastards are nothing like we get in the States.
They look just like the tiny, small mosquitos we used to see in summers in Michigan, a far cry from the giants of California. But they don't make the typical mosquito "hum"...they are silent, and brutal. Instead of the traditional itchy welt that progresses to a red bump by the end of the day, these bites itch with a fury, swell up to the size of a half dollar, then disappear and leave a huge bruise about the same size. It doesn't hurt, and once they're at the bruise stage they don't itch, but that doesn't take away the hours of itching agony experienced prior to the bruising stage.
So today I decided to get bug spray.
This was a bit more difficult than I had imagined. I have practiced the one phrase I can say without offending billions of Mandarin speakers, "Nee huay schwa yingwen mah?", which means "Do you speak English?" This, for your information, is practically useless, as most people in Shenzhen reply back by shaking their heads in the negative.
Fortunately, my drawing skills took over and I quickly drew a little mosquito with a very long proboscis and mean, beady eyes. I then drew an aerosol can and showed mist spraying out of it at the mosquito. I looked at the shop keeper and nodded, saying "Huay?" in Mandarin, which means "yes?". She nodded for me to continue, or just nodded to be polite. Whatever. I was on a mission.
Next I drew a big "x" on the bug and circled it, illustrating its' untimely death by undefined mist. She seemed perplexed and smiled more. I knew I was fucked.
A young girl of about 12 saw me drawing, looked at the illustration, and made the international hand signal for "I'm spraying my arm with bug spray" with her hand. Everyone who spoke Mandarin (note: not me) laughed and repeated something I couldn't understand, and the shop keeper handed me a box that had a picture of a little girl dressed in a suit of armor and a cartoon mosquito looking irked.
I took it gratefully, knowing now that not only are my drawing skills awesome, but that the real phrase I should have learned was "Do you sell bug spray?".
This means that when you step outside it feels like you just stepped into a Bikram yoga class, but you're wearing more clothes and within 5 minutes, have sweated through most of them.
It also means mosquitos.
In an effort to keep us cool in the press check waiting room yesterday, our vendor opened the doors. Which let in a cool-ish (85 degrees compared to 95 of the standing air) breeze, but also the mosquitos. These little bastards are nothing like we get in the States.
They look just like the tiny, small mosquitos we used to see in summers in Michigan, a far cry from the giants of California. But they don't make the typical mosquito "hum"...they are silent, and brutal. Instead of the traditional itchy welt that progresses to a red bump by the end of the day, these bites itch with a fury, swell up to the size of a half dollar, then disappear and leave a huge bruise about the same size. It doesn't hurt, and once they're at the bruise stage they don't itch, but that doesn't take away the hours of itching agony experienced prior to the bruising stage.
So today I decided to get bug spray.
This was a bit more difficult than I had imagined. I have practiced the one phrase I can say without offending billions of Mandarin speakers, "Nee huay schwa yingwen mah?", which means "Do you speak English?" This, for your information, is practically useless, as most people in Shenzhen reply back by shaking their heads in the negative.
Fortunately, my drawing skills took over and I quickly drew a little mosquito with a very long proboscis and mean, beady eyes. I then drew an aerosol can and showed mist spraying out of it at the mosquito. I looked at the shop keeper and nodded, saying "Huay?" in Mandarin, which means "yes?". She nodded for me to continue, or just nodded to be polite. Whatever. I was on a mission.
Next I drew a big "x" on the bug and circled it, illustrating its' untimely death by undefined mist. She seemed perplexed and smiled more. I knew I was fucked.
A young girl of about 12 saw me drawing, looked at the illustration, and made the international hand signal for "I'm spraying my arm with bug spray" with her hand. Everyone who spoke Mandarin (note: not me) laughed and repeated something I couldn't understand, and the shop keeper handed me a box that had a picture of a little girl dressed in a suit of armor and a cartoon mosquito looking irked.
I took it gratefully, knowing now that not only are my drawing skills awesome, but that the real phrase I should have learned was "Do you sell bug spray?".
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
China, Part 1
Last week Wednesday (the 10th), my boss told me he wanted to send me off to Shenzhen, China for the next 2 weeks to press check our fall packages. I've been once before, to meet our vendors here, but never by myself. And I've never travelled internationally without a friend or family member accompanying me or meeting me at the airport, so this was a bit of an adventure.
First thing I did was book my flight. Non-stop, Economy Plus, window seat. Some like aisle because they don't like to crawl over people to get to the toilets or want to get off the plane faster. What they don't realize is that if you're on an aisle seat you have people constantly crawling over you, back and forth. The decision becomes: to crawl or to be crawled upon. I prefer to have the command decision in this situation, probably because I'm a control freak.
As far as getting off the plane faster, the aisle saves you maybe, maybe about 30 seconds. That's just not enough to make a difference in my book.
What the window seat really offers (other than a false sense of control and a nice view when landing) is a corner where you can wedge yourself in and sleep for most of the flight. And on a 14-hour non-stop flight from SFO to Hong Kong, it is essential to sleep as much as possible on the flight. Not just to make the flight seem shorter, although this is a nice perk. Sleeping the flight away (at least when headed West) allows you the opportunity to reset your internal sleep clock, which means less jet lag issues. You sleep about 5-6 hours on the plane, arrive around 6pm the next day, get to your hotel, and go back to sleep. When you wake the following morning at 8am you feel great, refreshed and sans jet lag.
I chose a different hotel then the last time I was here, primarily because we received a corporate memo that said the original hotel was not to be used anymore by our company. Apparently they couldn't work out a cheap executive discount rate or something, and so they switched us over to this new one, the Marco Polo hotel. It's cheaper, and for some reason the hotel has decided that I'm actually entitled to the Executive Privileges (though I did not book an executive room): free breakfast in the morning and cocktails in the evening. It's a nice perk, but doesn't quiet make up for the lack of perks from the former hotel: an iron and ironing board in the room, a huge claw-foot tub with bath salts provided every day, and wine delivery to my room each night. First world problems, I suppose. At least this hotel has a huge pool for me to swim in (open at 6am), yoga classes and a day spa. Things could be worse.
Like not being able to check your work email while on a work trip. Or your work not paying for an international phone (or international calls).
The company I work for is very tight on security, so we have to enter a code from an RSA key (which changes every minute or so). Unfortunately my RSA key seems to have given up the ghost; instead of 6 clearly lit digits I see 3 or 4 garbled ones. Which meant when I went to check my work email last night, my attempts were futile.
As one might surmise from earlier sentences, my work does not think it's necessary to provide us with an international phone when travelling internationally for work. They also don't think it's necessary to provide us with compensation for international calls if we already have an international phone. So I'm essentially phone-less when I come to China.
This is particularly a problem when you've been put under the assumption that your very important press check, for which you traveled over 6,000 miles, is the next morning, possibly at 8:30am, and your ride to the printer has not been scheduled. And, you're in mainland China where almost no cab drivers speak English and all you can say in Mandarin is "Nee huay shwa yigwen mah?" which translates to "Do you speak English?".
So I tried to email my boss from my personal email account to alert him of the issue (and get it resolved), but then realized that my laptop wasn't plugged in. So I plugged the power supply into my China adapter outlet and nothing happened. I tried again and again, to no avail.
Finally, I gave up, put my lap top to sleep and took a hot bath. And ate some food. And came back to my laptop and thought...hmm. I don't recall actually plugging the power supply into the computer itself. Perhaps I might try that. And of course it worked perfectly, proving that one shouldn't make complicated decisions like plugging in a laptop without proper relaxation and sustenance.
I went to bed and woke up to an email from my boss saying he had contacted our IT guy here and that he would be providing me with a new RSA tag today. Which he just did. And another email from our printer that said the press check today doesn't start until 4:30pm, which means I have most of the day to relax, get my things together, and enjoy.
Then I checked my work email and found the usual flurry of 69 panic-stricken email threads, each ending in the usual "ok, glad this was resolved" email. So, there it is.
Did I mention today is my birthday? Happy birthday to me.
First thing I did was book my flight. Non-stop, Economy Plus, window seat. Some like aisle because they don't like to crawl over people to get to the toilets or want to get off the plane faster. What they don't realize is that if you're on an aisle seat you have people constantly crawling over you, back and forth. The decision becomes: to crawl or to be crawled upon. I prefer to have the command decision in this situation, probably because I'm a control freak.
As far as getting off the plane faster, the aisle saves you maybe, maybe about 30 seconds. That's just not enough to make a difference in my book.
What the window seat really offers (other than a false sense of control and a nice view when landing) is a corner where you can wedge yourself in and sleep for most of the flight. And on a 14-hour non-stop flight from SFO to Hong Kong, it is essential to sleep as much as possible on the flight. Not just to make the flight seem shorter, although this is a nice perk. Sleeping the flight away (at least when headed West) allows you the opportunity to reset your internal sleep clock, which means less jet lag issues. You sleep about 5-6 hours on the plane, arrive around 6pm the next day, get to your hotel, and go back to sleep. When you wake the following morning at 8am you feel great, refreshed and sans jet lag.
I chose a different hotel then the last time I was here, primarily because we received a corporate memo that said the original hotel was not to be used anymore by our company. Apparently they couldn't work out a cheap executive discount rate or something, and so they switched us over to this new one, the Marco Polo hotel. It's cheaper, and for some reason the hotel has decided that I'm actually entitled to the Executive Privileges (though I did not book an executive room): free breakfast in the morning and cocktails in the evening. It's a nice perk, but doesn't quiet make up for the lack of perks from the former hotel: an iron and ironing board in the room, a huge claw-foot tub with bath salts provided every day, and wine delivery to my room each night. First world problems, I suppose. At least this hotel has a huge pool for me to swim in (open at 6am), yoga classes and a day spa. Things could be worse.
Like not being able to check your work email while on a work trip. Or your work not paying for an international phone (or international calls).
The company I work for is very tight on security, so we have to enter a code from an RSA key (which changes every minute or so). Unfortunately my RSA key seems to have given up the ghost; instead of 6 clearly lit digits I see 3 or 4 garbled ones. Which meant when I went to check my work email last night, my attempts were futile.
As one might surmise from earlier sentences, my work does not think it's necessary to provide us with an international phone when travelling internationally for work. They also don't think it's necessary to provide us with compensation for international calls if we already have an international phone. So I'm essentially phone-less when I come to China.
This is particularly a problem when you've been put under the assumption that your very important press check, for which you traveled over 6,000 miles, is the next morning, possibly at 8:30am, and your ride to the printer has not been scheduled. And, you're in mainland China where almost no cab drivers speak English and all you can say in Mandarin is "Nee huay shwa yigwen mah?" which translates to "Do you speak English?".
So I tried to email my boss from my personal email account to alert him of the issue (and get it resolved), but then realized that my laptop wasn't plugged in. So I plugged the power supply into my China adapter outlet and nothing happened. I tried again and again, to no avail.
Finally, I gave up, put my lap top to sleep and took a hot bath. And ate some food. And came back to my laptop and thought...hmm. I don't recall actually plugging the power supply into the computer itself. Perhaps I might try that. And of course it worked perfectly, proving that one shouldn't make complicated decisions like plugging in a laptop without proper relaxation and sustenance.
I went to bed and woke up to an email from my boss saying he had contacted our IT guy here and that he would be providing me with a new RSA tag today. Which he just did. And another email from our printer that said the press check today doesn't start until 4:30pm, which means I have most of the day to relax, get my things together, and enjoy.
Then I checked my work email and found the usual flurry of 69 panic-stricken email threads, each ending in the usual "ok, glad this was resolved" email. So, there it is.
Did I mention today is my birthday? Happy birthday to me.
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
Grammar Police, Episode 1
AFFECT
-verb meaning "to influence".
-noun meaning "result".
-verb meaning "to influence".
- The drug did not affect the disease.
-noun meaning "result".
- The drug has many adverse side effects.
- The present government effected many positive changes.
Please pay attention, people.
Friday, July 8, 2011
Polka Dots
There's a wedding I'll be attending in two weeks. I had a cute, casual summery dress that I was planning to wear, but then at the bridal shower, the bride told me she was wearing Vera Wang to her wedding.
Immediately, I panicked. The majority of my anxieties revolve around pleasing others (which of course translates to not offending them with my horrific sense of style), so I'm constantly plagued with obsessive thinking regarding my clothing choices and others' approval of them.
A more secure person would probably wear whatever they wanted and look fantastic, and no one would care if their dress was nice, fancy, inexpensive or shabby. They would exude confidence in every look and step, walking about the party without a care in the world about what other people thought of them.
I am not this person.
I'm trying to be this person, however. I'm just not there yet and I'm realistic about my goals, which involve baby steps. The first baby step is to look awesome. The second, to feel comfortable with the fit of the dress. I read somewhere that if you feel comfortable in your clothing, you stop worrying about it and start to enjoy the event. In other words, if you're not thinking about your clothes, you probably have time to think about others. Or drink more. Whatever your priorities.
So in this quest for a dress that feels comfortable and impress everyone whose path I cross, I did some online shopping and found a gorgeous frock. By Kate Spade. With polka dots all over it.
"You have a whimsical style! Polka dots would be perfect for you!" says a dear friend of mine.
"No, no, emphatically NO. Polka dots increase width and fat and all that so they never look good unless you're super skinny. Beware that print." says my sister, who is my fashion consultant and who clearly, by this statement, doesn't want me to have fun or impress people.
Anywho, it got me thinking about patterns and looking fat in clothes and I came to this conclusion:
Patterns don't make you look fat. Being fat makes you look fat.
So I ordered it. Because whimsy always beats out fattening. I figure that in my quest to become more secure with my looks and naturally exude confidence, this dress allows me to achieve my First Baby Step: Find a dress that is so awesome, no one will notice your fat.
Did I mention it was on sale, knocked down from $400 to just under $200?? Sold.
Immediately, I panicked. The majority of my anxieties revolve around pleasing others (which of course translates to not offending them with my horrific sense of style), so I'm constantly plagued with obsessive thinking regarding my clothing choices and others' approval of them.
A more secure person would probably wear whatever they wanted and look fantastic, and no one would care if their dress was nice, fancy, inexpensive or shabby. They would exude confidence in every look and step, walking about the party without a care in the world about what other people thought of them.
I am not this person.
I'm trying to be this person, however. I'm just not there yet and I'm realistic about my goals, which involve baby steps. The first baby step is to look awesome. The second, to feel comfortable with the fit of the dress. I read somewhere that if you feel comfortable in your clothing, you stop worrying about it and start to enjoy the event. In other words, if you're not thinking about your clothes, you probably have time to think about others. Or drink more. Whatever your priorities.
So in this quest for a dress that feels comfortable and impress everyone whose path I cross, I did some online shopping and found a gorgeous frock. By Kate Spade. With polka dots all over it.
"You have a whimsical style! Polka dots would be perfect for you!" says a dear friend of mine.
"No, no, emphatically NO. Polka dots increase width and fat and all that so they never look good unless you're super skinny. Beware that print." says my sister, who is my fashion consultant and who clearly, by this statement, doesn't want me to have fun or impress people.
Anywho, it got me thinking about patterns and looking fat in clothes and I came to this conclusion:
Patterns don't make you look fat. Being fat makes you look fat.
So I ordered it. Because whimsy always beats out fattening. I figure that in my quest to become more secure with my looks and naturally exude confidence, this dress allows me to achieve my First Baby Step: Find a dress that is so awesome, no one will notice your fat.
Did I mention it was on sale, knocked down from $400 to just under $200?? Sold.
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Like owner, like dog.
One of our dogs, Connery, had to go under the knife today.
Well, more accurately, under the dental pick. He had his teeth cleaned. For dogs, they put them under general anesthetic so that they can do extractions, root canals, whatever without injuring themselves or the dog.
He just got home and has been moping around the house, whining these sad, pitiful little moans and resting his head on my knee / hand / couch / chair any chance he gets. He'll look up at me with the saddest puppy-dog eyes ever, and let out this soft little cry of discontent every few seconds.
If he were me, I'd say "quit whining, you're fine, you just had your teeth cleaned". And I'd still keep whining because that way I might get more attention, and possibly a favor or two. Like getting to avoid doing the laundry. Or vacuuming. Or anything other than sitting on my bed eating ice cream and watching bonnet dramas.
But he's a dog. He normally doesn't do this. He does "unk" on occasion, but it's in the morning when he has to pee or if he wants to get up on the bed and cuddle. We always take him out to pee first, because you don't want to get that sequence wrong.
So I'm a little concerned. I called the vet and asked if I could give him some ibuprophen or something.
"The vet is busy with a client right now. But he wanted us to tell you please don't give the dog anything until you talk to the vet first. He'll call you right back."
Apparently it's about as urgent as when I whine about being in pain.
I wonder if dogs like bonnet dramas. I'm pretty sure they like ice cream.
Well, more accurately, under the dental pick. He had his teeth cleaned. For dogs, they put them under general anesthetic so that they can do extractions, root canals, whatever without injuring themselves or the dog.
He just got home and has been moping around the house, whining these sad, pitiful little moans and resting his head on my knee / hand / couch / chair any chance he gets. He'll look up at me with the saddest puppy-dog eyes ever, and let out this soft little cry of discontent every few seconds.
If he were me, I'd say "quit whining, you're fine, you just had your teeth cleaned". And I'd still keep whining because that way I might get more attention, and possibly a favor or two. Like getting to avoid doing the laundry. Or vacuuming. Or anything other than sitting on my bed eating ice cream and watching bonnet dramas.
But he's a dog. He normally doesn't do this. He does "unk" on occasion, but it's in the morning when he has to pee or if he wants to get up on the bed and cuddle. We always take him out to pee first, because you don't want to get that sequence wrong.
So I'm a little concerned. I called the vet and asked if I could give him some ibuprophen or something.
"The vet is busy with a client right now. But he wanted us to tell you please don't give the dog anything until you talk to the vet first. He'll call you right back."
Apparently it's about as urgent as when I whine about being in pain.
I wonder if dogs like bonnet dramas. I'm pretty sure they like ice cream.
Friday, June 24, 2011
Surprise! I have another blog!
Ok not really a surprise to some of you. Big surprise to those who don't know my other blog, www.fortheloveofseitan.com. It's a blog that's all about vegan cooking. Except, you know, not based in lentils and rice. Because if there's one thing I'm bored with, it's lentils and rice. Fuck that.
Here's a sampler; this is what I cooked tonight - vegan tempeh "short ribs" with grilled corn and grilled brussels sprouts. Who says vegan cooking is tasteless (and devoid of protein)??
Enjoy, eat well, and don't hurt anyone (including yourself) in the process.
xoxo Kate
Here's a sampler; this is what I cooked tonight - vegan tempeh "short ribs" with grilled corn and grilled brussels sprouts. Who says vegan cooking is tasteless (and devoid of protein)??
Enjoy, eat well, and don't hurt anyone (including yourself) in the process.
xoxo Kate
Thursday, June 23, 2011
My Father, part 1
I find it awesome that my father, who is quite an amazing cook and foodie, emails me recipes.
I find it weird and sad that he, knowing that I am vegan, starts them off like this:
I find it weird and sad that he, knowing that I am vegan, starts them off like this:
"This takes all day and looks like soup from a can, but the flavor is incredible. In a large pot, place 2 lbs veal bones..."
He also recently emailed me a recipe for beef short ribs. I hope he's not too disappointed when I turn it into the Best Tempeh "Ribs" Ever.
Multitasking at it's best: Cooking while asleep
Yesterday evening I put the following into a large ceramic pot (aka, a slow cooker):
2 chopped carrots
2 chopped parsnips
2 chopped red potatoes, skins on
2 chopped white onions
1 cup cranberry (aka berlotti) beans
about 10 large crimini mushrooms, quartered
a few sprigs of fresh thyme
a small handful of fresh parsley
a few sprigs of fresh rosemary
4 large fresh sage leaves
4 sliced cloves of garlic
a shitton of water (maybe 9 or 10 cups? Enough to cover the veggies and then some)
about 1/2 cup soy sauce
about 3/4 cup vegan chicken stock (powedered)
a few dashes of mesquite liquid smoke
1/3 cup of olive oil
about 1/4 cup of maple syrup
I turned on the crock pot to Low, then had a glass of wine and went to bed.
When I awoke the house smelled of French Stew, and it was marvelous. My husband can now eat throughout the day without having to do ANYTHING other than filling his bowl and lifting the deliciousness-laden spoon to his mouth.
And I have like, ONE dish to wash in a day or so. Everybody wins!
I realize this is not new information to anyone, that a crockpot can create super delicious, easy meals as long as you just leave it alone to do it's work for 8 hours or so. But everyone needs the reminder sometimes.
You're welcome.
2 chopped carrots
2 chopped parsnips
2 chopped red potatoes, skins on
2 chopped white onions
1 cup cranberry (aka berlotti) beans
about 10 large crimini mushrooms, quartered
a few sprigs of fresh thyme
a small handful of fresh parsley
a few sprigs of fresh rosemary
4 large fresh sage leaves
4 sliced cloves of garlic
a shitton of water (maybe 9 or 10 cups? Enough to cover the veggies and then some)
about 1/2 cup soy sauce
about 3/4 cup vegan chicken stock (powedered)
a few dashes of mesquite liquid smoke
1/3 cup of olive oil
about 1/4 cup of maple syrup
I turned on the crock pot to Low, then had a glass of wine and went to bed.
When I awoke the house smelled of French Stew, and it was marvelous. My husband can now eat throughout the day without having to do ANYTHING other than filling his bowl and lifting the deliciousness-laden spoon to his mouth.
And I have like, ONE dish to wash in a day or so. Everybody wins!
I realize this is not new information to anyone, that a crockpot can create super delicious, easy meals as long as you just leave it alone to do it's work for 8 hours or so. But everyone needs the reminder sometimes.
You're welcome.
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Summer Pony and George Morris
Thanks to my sister-in-law, I'm reading Hunter Seat Equitation by George Morris. It was first written in the early 70's and is an excellent learning tool as far as the details and rationale behind hunt seat riding. I've already learned a lot, and I've just begun the book. The first important improvement was my stirrup length. George Morris points out that while a shorter stirrup length is very helpful as far as being light on the horses back over fences, dropping them down by a hole will make for a more stable leg. He recommends a middle length (dressage riders usually have longer stirrups, while jumpers have shorter stirrups) in the beginning while you're developing your leg strength.
Huge difference. I felt way more stable yesterday and rode deeper, consequently controlling my horse better. Because I wasn't worrying about why my leg was flopping about, I had the time and concentration to work on sitting up straight and keeping my hands soft, yet maintaining contact. It yielded great results.
We also started working on turning on the forehand and turning on the backhand (hind end). The former is pretty simple for me to understand, but the latter is much harder. If you're not using your legs correctly as aids exactly when you need to in perfect coordination with your rein aids, this move turns into a small circle, which is not the exercise at all.
All this good information makes me wonder, with all my years of riding as a kid and teenager, why didn't someone recommend this book to me before? Why weren't my instructors informing me as to why "inside leg, outside rein"? Why was I just told "do this" instead of "you do this so that the horse will do x. If you do another thing, the horse will do y"?
I think this is the difference between having a trainer who shows on the C and B circuits and a trainer who goes to the Maclay finals.
Not that George Morris is my trainer or anything, but what he says is perfectly supporting everything my current trainer has been saying, so I'm going with it. Clearly she was taught by someone who knew the same fundamentals as Mr. Morris. I'm becoming such a better rider than I was when I was young, despite not having a horse / pony of my own and riding every day. I wonder how things would have turned out if I'd had a better instructor from the beginning. Would I have gone to a college where I could have gotten a riding scholarship? Would I have competed at top shows across the country? Would I have driven my poor father into early poverty by begging (and getting) a horse that cost more than the cost of the cars we drove combined?
Maybe. Or maybe this information is sinking in with me now, as an adult, because I care about it more and am coming back to this sport. And, as I'm paying for it myself, I want to get the most out of my money.
In other news, my summer pony is doing well. He's gotten a bit of a bite on his haunches, which we're treating, and his hives got worse yesterday. But, with a bit of exercise and a cooling rinse, they were diminished by half, so I'm happy. I'm looking forward to trying out Mr. Morris' "no stirrup" exercises with him on Wednesday.
Oh, my poor legs.
Huge difference. I felt way more stable yesterday and rode deeper, consequently controlling my horse better. Because I wasn't worrying about why my leg was flopping about, I had the time and concentration to work on sitting up straight and keeping my hands soft, yet maintaining contact. It yielded great results.
We also started working on turning on the forehand and turning on the backhand (hind end). The former is pretty simple for me to understand, but the latter is much harder. If you're not using your legs correctly as aids exactly when you need to in perfect coordination with your rein aids, this move turns into a small circle, which is not the exercise at all.
All this good information makes me wonder, with all my years of riding as a kid and teenager, why didn't someone recommend this book to me before? Why weren't my instructors informing me as to why "inside leg, outside rein"? Why was I just told "do this" instead of "you do this so that the horse will do x. If you do another thing, the horse will do y"?
I think this is the difference between having a trainer who shows on the C and B circuits and a trainer who goes to the Maclay finals.
Not that George Morris is my trainer or anything, but what he says is perfectly supporting everything my current trainer has been saying, so I'm going with it. Clearly she was taught by someone who knew the same fundamentals as Mr. Morris. I'm becoming such a better rider than I was when I was young, despite not having a horse / pony of my own and riding every day. I wonder how things would have turned out if I'd had a better instructor from the beginning. Would I have gone to a college where I could have gotten a riding scholarship? Would I have competed at top shows across the country? Would I have driven my poor father into early poverty by begging (and getting) a horse that cost more than the cost of the cars we drove combined?
Maybe. Or maybe this information is sinking in with me now, as an adult, because I care about it more and am coming back to this sport. And, as I'm paying for it myself, I want to get the most out of my money.
In other news, my summer pony is doing well. He's gotten a bit of a bite on his haunches, which we're treating, and his hives got worse yesterday. But, with a bit of exercise and a cooling rinse, they were diminished by half, so I'm happy. I'm looking forward to trying out Mr. Morris' "no stirrup" exercises with him on Wednesday.
Oh, my poor legs.
Monday, June 20, 2011
Sailing complaints.
I went sailing with friends this weekend. Usually it's a group of us ranging from 27-40 in age, singles and couples. We all drink a little beer, sail around the bay and generally have a great time. But the guy who organizes these trips (who has the most sailing experience and belongs to a sailing club, so thus gets us discounts on the boat) had a child with his wife a few years ago. So now, I'm noticing that each trip progressively adds more children to the boat.
This weekend it was six. Six children under the age of four. Surprisingly, there weren't much tantrums or bad behaving. Everyone had fun, even though it was really windy and we couldn't get the boat sailing fast because the kids got scared. I really had a nice time.
But, it wasn't as fun as the other trips. It was way more tame, there was less interesting conversation, and I ended up feeling at the end like something was lacking. I don't think there was actually something lacking, but really it was just different in a way I didn't enjoy.
I love kids, they're fun and incredibly interesting. I like talking to them and listening to how they work out the world around them. But, I'm finding less in common with those friends of ours that have kids. Not for lack of trying, but their lives are just so different than ours that it's becoming increasingly difficult to relate to them.
I guess I'm less bothered by the kids and more saddened that the non-kid folk were not there. I have more in common with them, I don't get asked repeatedly when I plan on having children, and there's less mess to clean up after we're all done. Because I was one of the few people not herding a child off the boat, I was stuck cleaning up after everyone's kid spilled their food all over the floor, as well as putting away all the parents' food / juice boxes. It was a little annoying, because if my dogs made a mess I'd clean it up immediately - there wouldn't be a mess left at the end of the day in the first place.
Maybe next time I need to check who is coming before I commit to the event. Because it's not like I didn't have fun, I just didn't have so much fun as to warrant spending $60 on a day with six young children screeching and squealing every few minutes.
Or maybe I'm just a grump and am cranky because there's a no pet-rule for renting the boat, which means I can't bring my dogs. Stupid no-pet rule.
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
Summer Pony, take two
Saw Jack again today. The horse, that is. I don't actually know any person named Jack.
He was great; hardly any limp or favoring of the front feet, his hives are almost gone (!!!!!) and his trot is actually rather comfortable. He kind of lifts you out of the saddle, so that if you don't quite try to post you still get a good lift, which means a more stable leg, less bounce and a smoother ride.
He got a little spooky when I took him on the trail. Everything was freaking him out - even people with other horses (on horseback or leading their horse) was making him come to a full stop to check it out. I think it's because he has so much energy pent up.
The only thing that wasn't quite kosher was that he has this mysterious scrape on his right hindquarter, about 6 inches out from the hip bone. It wouldn't have bothered me much (horses get little scrapes all the time) but it was crusty with blood and I hadn't seen it Sunday. So I took photos of it (as I had no ointment to put on it), and washed him. I plan to send the photos to my instructor tomorrow morning to get her thoughts. He'll be fine, but I'd like to treat it with triple antibiotic or something so it doesn't get infected.
We shared an apple at the end of the day. I'm hoping this will become our little ritual, so that he will start trusting that I have his best interests at heart.
He was great; hardly any limp or favoring of the front feet, his hives are almost gone (!!!!!) and his trot is actually rather comfortable. He kind of lifts you out of the saddle, so that if you don't quite try to post you still get a good lift, which means a more stable leg, less bounce and a smoother ride.
He got a little spooky when I took him on the trail. Everything was freaking him out - even people with other horses (on horseback or leading their horse) was making him come to a full stop to check it out. I think it's because he has so much energy pent up.
The only thing that wasn't quite kosher was that he has this mysterious scrape on his right hindquarter, about 6 inches out from the hip bone. It wouldn't have bothered me much (horses get little scrapes all the time) but it was crusty with blood and I hadn't seen it Sunday. So I took photos of it (as I had no ointment to put on it), and washed him. I plan to send the photos to my instructor tomorrow morning to get her thoughts. He'll be fine, but I'd like to treat it with triple antibiotic or something so it doesn't get infected.
We shared an apple at the end of the day. I'm hoping this will become our little ritual, so that he will start trusting that I have his best interests at heart.
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
Stupid Americans.
For my work, I'm having to create a quick-start guide for an electronic device. This is a device with literally 3 outputs / buttons. A power button, a USB port and a headphone jack.
Why do consumers need a quick-start guide for this? The answer, of course, is because most Americans are too stupid to figure out what is perfectly obvious to a normal, intelligent person. They need to have their hands held literally every step of the way on everything, or they'll fuck it up, complain to customer service (deferring their stupidity onto someone else) and cost the company tens of thousands of dollars. To create a quick-start guide is, relatively, way cheaper than fielding all those moronic calls.
But it makes me wonder, are we actually perpetuating stupidity by dumbing down everything? Are we creating a world where people expect to have the most basic of functions (turn on device by pressing power) spelled out for them?
I think so.
If we forced people to figure things out more (maybe even from an early age! Imagine that!), maybe we'd have a smarter society.
Or, maybe I'd be the one having to field the annoying customer service calls of "Ah cain't figger owt whah mah thang don' turn awn."*
*(not that I have a problem with country / southern accents. It's just that most of the people I've heard that can't figure out the most basic of functions tend to have them. No offense to any intelligent person out there who happens to be cursed with this regional accent).
Why do consumers need a quick-start guide for this? The answer, of course, is because most Americans are too stupid to figure out what is perfectly obvious to a normal, intelligent person. They need to have their hands held literally every step of the way on everything, or they'll fuck it up, complain to customer service (deferring their stupidity onto someone else) and cost the company tens of thousands of dollars. To create a quick-start guide is, relatively, way cheaper than fielding all those moronic calls.
But it makes me wonder, are we actually perpetuating stupidity by dumbing down everything? Are we creating a world where people expect to have the most basic of functions (turn on device by pressing power) spelled out for them?
I think so.
If we forced people to figure things out more (maybe even from an early age! Imagine that!), maybe we'd have a smarter society.
Or, maybe I'd be the one having to field the annoying customer service calls of "Ah cain't figger owt whah mah thang don' turn awn."*
*(not that I have a problem with country / southern accents. It's just that most of the people I've heard that can't figure out the most basic of functions tend to have them. No offense to any intelligent person out there who happens to be cursed with this regional accent).
Summer Pony
About a week ago I told my riding instructor that I'd like to be at the barn more often, and asked if the horse I usually ride would be available. She's not. But as luck would have it, another horse is. This horse's owner is going to be in Southern California for the summer and was looking for someone to lease her horse...for free.
As it turns out, he's recovering from poor shoeing, which on top of poor confirmation means that he's really sensitive on his front feet and limps. He's been checked out by the vet and is on the road to recovery, but he's basically only able to walk and trot for now.
On top of this he has environmental allergies that result in hives all over his neck and sometimes, when they're bad, his sides and stomach. And he's thin enough that I can see his ribs. Easily. Without trying.
I figured I could either get cranky that my instructor didn't exactly get that I was looking for a horse to ride more often, or I could take advantage of this great opportunity to help this horse get as healthy as possible.
And thus began Makeover: Horse Edition.
I'm going to try to update here as much as possible to see how he progresses over the summer, just to see if I made any difference, either in his health or my riding. And his being able to walk and trot only isn't really that big of a problem for me; if I remove the stirrups, a walk and trot for 30 minutes is a huge workout.
So Wednesday last week I met him, got to know his feed, lunged him and rode him a bit. He seemed noticeably lame; he was stumbling every 10-20 feet or so and seemed very hitchy on his front end. His stride is very short for such a tall guy (he's 16.1 or 16.2 hands at least). It took him 10-15 minutes on the lunge line to warm up, and even after a good stretch-out he was still off. So we didn't do much.
His hives were pretty bad, all over his neck (both sides) and sprinkling on his stomach sides. Seemed mellow in temperment, like he really didn't want to be out there but was so eager to please that he wasn't about to complain.
Sunday I went up to see / ride him again. Although he took longer to warm up on the lunge line (20-25 minutes), he was way, way better riding. His gait actually felt normal, and only started to get wobbly / hitchy towards the very end of a 4-5 mile trail ride (at a walk / trot mix). After our short ride, I rinsed him off with cold water and his hives looked noticeably better. I'm going to try to rinse him off every day that I'm out there from now on, as it seems to help immensely. Still a short stride, but he seemed much happier and more active. We also started him on some anti-inflammatories, so hopefully that will help him also.
Yesterday (Monday) I had my lesson on the other horse I ride, but stopped in to give Jack grain and his meds. His hives seemed less than Wednesday, more than Sunday. His temperment seemed a bit down, but it could've been because it was evening and he was about to go to sleep (9:30pm). I've almost doubled his grain ration, and will keep doing so until he starts to gain some more weight. I'm pretty convinced that part of his problem is that he's not getting adequate nutrition. At least, once he's getting adequate nutrition I'll be more convinced of the external sources of his troubles, but for now I'm helping him out on that front.
And friends wonder why I don't have children yet. With two dogs and now a horse, I have enough on my plate, thanks. :)
As it turns out, he's recovering from poor shoeing, which on top of poor confirmation means that he's really sensitive on his front feet and limps. He's been checked out by the vet and is on the road to recovery, but he's basically only able to walk and trot for now.
On top of this he has environmental allergies that result in hives all over his neck and sometimes, when they're bad, his sides and stomach. And he's thin enough that I can see his ribs. Easily. Without trying.
I figured I could either get cranky that my instructor didn't exactly get that I was looking for a horse to ride more often, or I could take advantage of this great opportunity to help this horse get as healthy as possible.
And thus began Makeover: Horse Edition.
I'm going to try to update here as much as possible to see how he progresses over the summer, just to see if I made any difference, either in his health or my riding. And his being able to walk and trot only isn't really that big of a problem for me; if I remove the stirrups, a walk and trot for 30 minutes is a huge workout.
So Wednesday last week I met him, got to know his feed, lunged him and rode him a bit. He seemed noticeably lame; he was stumbling every 10-20 feet or so and seemed very hitchy on his front end. His stride is very short for such a tall guy (he's 16.1 or 16.2 hands at least). It took him 10-15 minutes on the lunge line to warm up, and even after a good stretch-out he was still off. So we didn't do much.
His hives were pretty bad, all over his neck (both sides) and sprinkling on his stomach sides. Seemed mellow in temperment, like he really didn't want to be out there but was so eager to please that he wasn't about to complain.
Sunday I went up to see / ride him again. Although he took longer to warm up on the lunge line (20-25 minutes), he was way, way better riding. His gait actually felt normal, and only started to get wobbly / hitchy towards the very end of a 4-5 mile trail ride (at a walk / trot mix). After our short ride, I rinsed him off with cold water and his hives looked noticeably better. I'm going to try to rinse him off every day that I'm out there from now on, as it seems to help immensely. Still a short stride, but he seemed much happier and more active. We also started him on some anti-inflammatories, so hopefully that will help him also.
Yesterday (Monday) I had my lesson on the other horse I ride, but stopped in to give Jack grain and his meds. His hives seemed less than Wednesday, more than Sunday. His temperment seemed a bit down, but it could've been because it was evening and he was about to go to sleep (9:30pm). I've almost doubled his grain ration, and will keep doing so until he starts to gain some more weight. I'm pretty convinced that part of his problem is that he's not getting adequate nutrition. At least, once he's getting adequate nutrition I'll be more convinced of the external sources of his troubles, but for now I'm helping him out on that front.
And friends wonder why I don't have children yet. With two dogs and now a horse, I have enough on my plate, thanks. :)
Friday, June 10, 2011
WFH
At my office, we are encouraged to work from home at least one day a week. The other day, my direct manager was out of the office unexpectedly, so I asked around "Where's K__"? My creative director (K__'s boss) said "He's working from home. We all work from home one day every week, except you. You should probably fix that."
Well. It's not like I don't want to work from home. It's not like I enjoy the 45 - 60 minute commute in to and from work every day.
The thing is, it's really hard to get anything done when I'm not in the office. If I go out to a coffee shop, which seems to be the Thing To Do in SF if you're not in the office, I can't get anything done because I regularly work on highly confidential products, and I'm a designer so there's visuals of those products in everything I do. So unless I pick up a privacy screen and / or a very large dark sheet to hide under, coffee shops are out.
I've tried working actually at home. Which sounds innocuous enough. But my husband is very loving and attentive and a little on the clingy side, so he'll come up every hour or so to just give me a hug and say hello. I know, I know, this is something I should not complain about. I'm sure there's a lot of women out there who would love it if their husbands / boyfriends paid them half as much attention. But when you are trying to get in a creative focused zone and stay in it long enough to get work done, little distractions can be kryptonite.
So what I've come to do is frantically plow through my work during the days I'm in the office so that my WFH day is so light that I don't actually have any work to do, other than being available on email in case any emergencies crop up.
What this means is as today has become my WFH day, I've been baking cupcakes while periodically checking my email and working on some designs. Red Velvet cupcakes with Cream Cheese frosting. And they're vegan (no eggs or milk, with vegan "butter" and tofutti "cream cheese"). And they're delicious and gorgeous. Check it out:
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| Red Velvet Vegan Cupcakes |
I've also been periodically furminating the dog. She's shedding like crazy and has this super-thick winter undercoat that, if not combed and removed regularly, turns into dreadlocks within minutes. She's not thrilled with the idea, as the device pulls on the fur and I'm sure her skin is a bit sensitive now. But that's the price to pay for a soft, silky coat with no dreadlocks or tangles.
I've also been listening to a lot of Dolly Parton. Man, what a great singer. I'm not a big fan of country but the girl's got some pipes.
Todays been one of the best days I've had in a long time.
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
Buckets
I know a guy who lives in a warehouse. This isn't actually odd; many people live in reconditioned warehouses in an attempt to have large open space and an open floor plan in the usually cramped city. Silly innocent me has always assumed that if a warehouse is zoned for living, then it must have indoor plumbing. Not so, my friends. The Warehouse has no toilet.
Fortunately for his girlfriend, he's created a mock toilet out of a bucket and a funnel they picked up at Kragen Auto Parts. For poo-ing, they have another bucket in which they have put kitty litter.
I'll let that sink in for a moment.
Did I mention that he'll often use an empty soda bottle for a urinal? By his bedside?
I understand that sometimes, when you gotta go, you gotta go. You do what needs to happen to get the job done. And you never speak of it again. Or if you're camping or hiking. Sometimes, the facilities just aren't in the middle of the woods, so you run off behind a bush and do your business. But it seems to me that maybe your own home would be the one place you'd not only prefer, but insist upon indoor plumbing.
He does have some facilities. He owns a bus that tows it's own composting toilet bus. Which I suppose is a little better.
The weird thing is, you'd never know by looking at him or hanging out with him. He's a really nice, intelligent guy. He's clean. He doesn't smell, he doesn't try to pee in my empty bottles or buckets.
It just goes to show you: you never know. You just never know.
Fortunately for his girlfriend, he's created a mock toilet out of a bucket and a funnel they picked up at Kragen Auto Parts. For poo-ing, they have another bucket in which they have put kitty litter.
I'll let that sink in for a moment.
Did I mention that he'll often use an empty soda bottle for a urinal? By his bedside?
I understand that sometimes, when you gotta go, you gotta go. You do what needs to happen to get the job done. And you never speak of it again. Or if you're camping or hiking. Sometimes, the facilities just aren't in the middle of the woods, so you run off behind a bush and do your business. But it seems to me that maybe your own home would be the one place you'd not only prefer, but insist upon indoor plumbing.
He does have some facilities. He owns a bus that tows it's own composting toilet bus. Which I suppose is a little better.
The weird thing is, you'd never know by looking at him or hanging out with him. He's a really nice, intelligent guy. He's clean. He doesn't smell, he doesn't try to pee in my empty bottles or buckets.
It just goes to show you: you never know. You just never know.
Sunday, June 5, 2011
Today, I made a blog.
I had a blog on livejournal for a long time. Thing is, I haven't exactly been updating it. Partly because I don't like the look of the blog and am way too lazy to change it, partly because the people who can see it are people I want to gossip about, and partly because I'm just bored.
So, I'm starting a new one here. No theme, no mystery, just what I'm thinking about.
So first up, I just booked a room for 3 nights in Santa Rosa to stay in during a friend's wedding celebrations. I was thrilled that the room is only $78 per night and that I was able to reserve it without a card. Who does that, anyway? I need my card to reserve my presence at everything from dinner to knife sharpening classes. This "we trust you" concept is refreshing, albeit strange.
I'm hoping to do some wine tasting while we're up there. I got into wine when I started designing wine labels. Well, to be honest, I was into wine before, but it was mostly whatever bottle I could afford at Safeway that night that had the coolest label. After working in the wine industry (and recieving many bottles of very good quality wine), my palate has improved (slightly). I've been to quite a number of places up in Napa and Sonoma county (and a brief stint in Ithaca, NY that I'd rather forget), but haven't yet made it up to Santa Rosa. It's technically Sonoma county but not a part of Sonoma that I've explored.
Wine tasting is always an adventure for me, as my husband doesn't drink wine. He has nerve / muscular / inflammation problems in his hands / joints / back / arms and drinking alcohol exacerbates his condition. So, I have taken it upon myself to drink for two. Which means I always get what I want (very important!) but I end up with having to start and finish a great bottle of wine by myself.
I suppose there could be worse things in the world.
So, I'm starting a new one here. No theme, no mystery, just what I'm thinking about.
So first up, I just booked a room for 3 nights in Santa Rosa to stay in during a friend's wedding celebrations. I was thrilled that the room is only $78 per night and that I was able to reserve it without a card. Who does that, anyway? I need my card to reserve my presence at everything from dinner to knife sharpening classes. This "we trust you" concept is refreshing, albeit strange.
I'm hoping to do some wine tasting while we're up there. I got into wine when I started designing wine labels. Well, to be honest, I was into wine before, but it was mostly whatever bottle I could afford at Safeway that night that had the coolest label. After working in the wine industry (and recieving many bottles of very good quality wine), my palate has improved (slightly). I've been to quite a number of places up in Napa and Sonoma county (and a brief stint in Ithaca, NY that I'd rather forget), but haven't yet made it up to Santa Rosa. It's technically Sonoma county but not a part of Sonoma that I've explored.
Wine tasting is always an adventure for me, as my husband doesn't drink wine. He has nerve / muscular / inflammation problems in his hands / joints / back / arms and drinking alcohol exacerbates his condition. So, I have taken it upon myself to drink for two. Which means I always get what I want (very important!) but I end up with having to start and finish a great bottle of wine by myself.
I suppose there could be worse things in the world.
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