On my way from work yesterday, a woman working at a LaRouche booth asked as I walked by “Do you have an extra pair of testicles?”, followed, after my completely baffled stare with “because the democrats seem to have lost theirs.”
Got back earlier today from our camping trip (1st of the year!). It was so nice to get out into the woods for a bit. We took off to the Teanaway region near Cle Elum in Eastern Washington. Turned out to be perfect. It rained a little bit but for the most part the weather was great. Our campsite was only about a mile from the trail-head, so we set up camp Friday afternoon and then went for a little hike before dinner. Among many other reasons, going camping with David (Ariel’s dad) is great because he’s so well versed in native flowers and plant-life (not to mention birds - the man knows his birds). I spent a decent part of the weekend taking pictures of flowers, trying to learn their names. I’ve posted a bunch on flickr, with the hope that in posting them, I will remember them. We had a rice medley sort of dinner Friday, accompanied by brandy and dark chocolate with Turkish apricots, which is quickly becoming one of my favorite food combos. Saturday we got up, had breakfast, then headed off for a dog friendly hike along the bean creek basin trail. Fantastic hike. It was around 8 miles round trip from our campsite to the top. The trail leads you into the basin, but then you have to scamble your way up to the ridge, an effort which is rewarded with a stunning view of the surrounding mountain ranges. One of the most calming sensory experiences for me is to be sitting on the top of a mountain, looking out over some stunning view, listening to the sound of the wind through the trees. Total serenity.
Sassafras was amazing on this hike. She seriously looked like a mountain goat going up parts of the mountain side. No fear. When Ariel and I were first talking about getting a dog, one of my big reservations with small dogs was that I wanted a dog to take hiking with us and I wasn’t sure that a small dog would be ideal, but this weekend put any doubt I still had completely to rest. She was better than capable. Overall a wonderful trip and a great start to the summer camping season.
At work, on the desk of our receptionist (which is right by one of the conference rooms, and therefore where I spend some time each day waiting for other meetings to end) sits a dish that is full (and constantly refilled) with chocolate. I tell myself at the beginning of every week that I’m going to try and get through the week without sticking my hand into said dish, only the thing is, I never seem to make it past Tuesday. And I even watch myself breaking down and eating the chocolate and am powerless to stop it. I am a slave to the cacao bean. It’s not even good chocolate. Sometimes I’m amazed at my own lack of discipline.
On the other hand, I’ve been going to the gym almost every day for yoga, weights, or just to stretch. It’s been awesome. A little break in the day where I get to be active and work off some of the stress (which has been building at work lately). I’ve reached that point in developing an exercise routine where the endorphins make themselves known and have become reason in and of themselves to get off my ass and go to the gym. It usually takes me a while to get to the point where working out actually feels really good, but once I’m there, I’m hooked. You take your drugs wherever you can get them, I guess.
Tomorrow, I’ll be heading out with Ariel, Sassafrass (sorry Lily), and David (Ariel’s Dad) to go camping. First camping trip of the season, which means summer has officially arrived.
Yesterday, some coworkers and I took a bike trip up to some wineries outside of Seattle. The trip was about 40 miles total and a beautiful ride. Seattle has crap for bike lanes in the city, but some of the bike trails are actually quite beautiful. It was great. Bike for a bit, stop for a wine-tasting, some lunch, and then more biking. The wineries were a trip. I didn’t think we had much of a wine scene up here, but do we ever. It was every cliche about American wine snobbery you have ever been exposed to (which was actually pretty fun). We were basically told to leave at one of the wineries because the dinner train was coming and would be taking over the tasting bar. WTF? There’s a train that takes you wine-tasting in Seattle? One of my favorite moments was when a guy (in a car) said “wow, you guys bike while you’re drinking?”. It’s a whole lot better than DRIVING while drinking dumb-ass. The wine itself varied from kind of crappy to one or two that were really good (I came back with a bottle of one of the good ones). It’s strange because I’m normally such a red wine person, but both on this trip and a trip a few years back when Ariel and I went to Napa to visit a friend who works there, I ended up liking the white wines, while all the reds sort of sucked. Not sure why that is. Maybe it’s easier to get away with a mediocre red wine. Only drawback to the whole trip was the slight wine hangover I had around dinner time.
I love airplanes. Which is odd, given that I have been, at times, totally freaked out about flying. But I love them anyway. I see them pass over Seattle and I feel a little yearning every time. I mostly yearn for the adventure they represent. Whenever you board a plane, you are being carried away from your routine, and your normal patterns of daily movement. I have strong memories of when I was a little kid, getting up way before dawn for transatlantic flights. I don’t think I was always happy about being up that early as a kid, but I was always aware that it meant an upcoming adventure and over the years, I’ve become very attached to the feeling of early morning or middle of the night flights. On our trip to Bali, our flight was after midnight, so we were at the airport super late and I loved being there, knowing that we would soon be on our way to a new place I’d never been. If I could live in that sense of anticipation, fully soaked in it, I think I would be a very happy man. Somehow, you are more aware of everything when you are in the middle of travelling than you are during your normal life (or at least I fell like I am).* I have two overseas trips I’m planning right now and half of what I’m excited about is simply being able to experience travelling.
* I’ve thought about this and realize that much of this is simply ones own outlook. I feel like there should be a way to maintain that same sense of awareness, of soaking in all the things around you, but I have yet to find it. Somehow the routine of it all just kind of dulls your senses. It gets put into perspective at times when friends from out of town will notice things I’ve walked past a million times but have never mentally taken note of.
On another topic, I’ve finished school, which feels great, but am also feeling like I’m at a bit of a crossroads. One of my classmates mentioned that he was taking the class for the second time as nursing school requires that you have taken it within a certain time-frame. Which sort of hit it home for me that I have to figure out pretty soon which career choice I am actually going to take. I have several different paths that I could see myself heading down at the moment and I don’t feel like I know enough about any of them to make a real informed and responsible decision (in the sense of doing the right thing for my happiness and fulfillment). I don’t want to rush into something just to maintain some sort of forward momentum and end up feeling miserable and unfulfilled in several years, yet I could also easily be paralyzed by indecision and somehow let the work I’ve put in so far expire. I think I’m need to be using some of this new found free time to mull it all over, do some job shadowing perhaps, and explore my choices more. You know, figure out what I want to be when I grow up.
Only one more day till class is finished. Perhaps I will have some time to, oh, I don’t know, post on this here blog? Actually cook a meal? Hang out with my wife? You know, the little things.