Posts (page 2)

July is national ice cream month! What's your favorite flavor?
Submitted by LittleWiseOne.

      Mint chocolate chip, via Baskin Robbins.  I love the fresh, creamy flavor of mint, and the delightful light crisp of the dark chocolate flakes, the simplicity of the combination.  A scoop is filled with memories of going to the coast and getting a cone, summer afternoons following swimming, birthday treats...
     However, it is hard to beat a really good vanilla.  Boring as it may seem, a good vanilla is complex and satisfying, a classic that never lets down.  A poorly balanced vanilla ice cream is either lacks flavor, is to vanilla-y, or artificial.  My husband recently began working at a frozen custard store.  (Frozen custard is apparently timeless on the East coast; we just have this single vendor in the West.)  It is a rich premium ice cream, with more butter fat that soft serve, less air so it is creamier, involves egg yolks, and is served at 26 degrees as opposed to 10 so that your taste buds don't freeze.  It is perfection-- the creamiest, buttery vanilla I've ever had.  An unbeatable ice cream experience.  I almost hate to put a topping on it, lest it taint the perfect balance in flavor that it already has.  I took my parents- who used to have ice cream daily but are now the most health conscious people I know, who eat that non-fat, flaky, ice-cream wanna be stuff- and they almost died.  It was hilarious to watch them savoring each spoonful.
     And that bastard Chris gets it pretty much every night.

The recent ban on driving while talking on a hand-held cell phone has only created a more dangerous and annoying problem.  This is the rise of the Blue-Tooth Blockheads.  These assholes create a far worse distraction.  They have invaded the city, their hands-free devices blinking idly on the side of their face.  They are a surprisingly silent beast, but ever prepared for an abrupt, hands-free conversation.

It truly bugs me, this need to wear a blue tooth device at all times.  Are you always on the phone?  Are you expecting a call?  Last Saturday, my aunt left hers on during quilt club, while we ate our Quizno's, while we shopped for fabric for our Christmas project.  She never once had a call.  And my mom was the driver for the day.  The little black wedge remained wrapped around her ear regardless, antagonizing me with its tiny blue light.  I wonder if she wears it at home, while she watches the home shopping network.

I understand that now there is a need for such devices.  The majority of my drive home every day is spent catching up with my sister.  I don't have a home phone, and it really is nice to talk on the go (although I dislike public cell phone conversations very much.)  I simply do not see the need to wear the device at all times.  It is unsightly.  It is unnecessary.  It is an absurd status symbol that I don't yet understand.

The air in Fresno is not improving.  I think it has grown worse.  Every day my eyes burn.  The sun cannot break through the horrific haze that clouds the edges of trees.  I often think of desolate scenes from movies, where the future earth is war-torn and has gotten so dirty and destitute that all you see are shades of gray and brown.  It feels hopeless.  I pray- fervently- that we extinguish these fires soon.  This has to be the worst summer I've ever known.  Usually, this extreme heat gives me a little high, with all of the sunshine illuminating all that is brilliant and alive.  This year, I feel like each day is a little grayer, hotter, darker, harder to breathe in.  I feel bad that I have to drive and add to the hell.

As I was driving home from dinner with my folks, thinking that sunset was looking pretty blah, I almost screeched to a halt at something that changed my mind.  Amidst the dusty haze, the setting sun popped out almost artificially.  A solid acid orange, concentrated and illuminated.  Unearthly orange.  Orange colored with a highlighter then set on fire.  Like the sky had a hole poked in it and another universe was glaring through.  I wished I had a camera on me.  Unbelievable. 

The smoke and pollutants may be ugly, but they sure make a breath-taking sunset.

Show us why you get up in the morning.
Submitted by David.

Please excuse my cheese factor here...

freak.

Reason #1 to investigate the Washington possibility:

Fresno's forecast: today 109, with severe weather advisories and unhealthy air advisories.  Tomorrow we can look forward to 111.

Kent, WA forecast:  82, and hovering in the mid-70's all week.  And, you can probably breathe comfortably.

Just sayin'...

Have you ever broken a bone? If not, what's the worst injury you've sustained?

We always had our church picnics at someone's home on the river.  They had this giant swing suspended from trees.  There was a rope attached to the seat, and a team of people would pull you up a hill, let go, and you would swing waaaaay out over the river.  It was outrageous.

I was only 9, and decided to give it a go.  They hoisted me onto the wooden seat, and I unsteadily tried to stabilize myself on the swaying bench, seven feet off the ground.  Those assholes didn't even wait for an okay before they started running up the hill.  It jerked the seat from under me, but they kept pulling!  Grasping onto the ropes that suspended the swing, I dangled for a moment before falling to the ground.  Luckily, my right arm broke my fall.

The saddest part is that, because I could move my arm pretty normally and it appeared in tact, my parents didn't think it could possibly be injured, and I had to wait a whole day-- in pain-- before they took me in for x-rays.  I ended up with a bright pink cast that I wouldn't let anyone write on.  They still feel aweful about it.

However, I've sustained worse injuries.  Yeah, like when I was seventeen, and jumped on the bed while talking on the phone to my boyfriend, and whacked my head into a full-speed ceiling fan, resulting in a lot of blood, stitches on my eyebrow, and a horrendous black and purple eye that lasted for weeks.  Yeah, that was awesome.  And not at all humiliating.

For the 7th day of the 7th month, show us 7 of something - OR - something lucky.

lucky foot

     There's this website that asks you a bunch of questions about what your ideal lifestyle is like- geography, education, recreation, cost-of-living, climate, etc.- then spits out a list of US cities that would likely suit you, complete with reports, housing listing, basically all of the info you could want to get the gist of a place.  I've been concerned lately with the future (yeah, it blows,) and am really wondering if Fresno, even California, is right, so I made Chris sit down with me and answer the questions to get some different ideas. 
     I realize we left out political and religious preferences.  I wonder if this makes a difference in our cities?  We're both pretty neutral.
     Soooooo.... our list.  Yeah, some locations made sense, others total shockers.  Many, after reading the info on them, seemed surprisingly appropriate.  And, none of them in California.
     I think I was expecting more Southeast cities, the Tennessees, Kentuckys, and whathaveyou.  Our list was comprised mostly of Washington and North Carolina cities, with a sprinkling of Oregon, Virginia, and Pennsylvania towns.
     While I am still trying to conquer the fear of living far away from my family, Chris and I have talked about moving out of state, and as far away as another country, so although my gut dropped at this list of states that, to me, might as well be another country, I began to read up on our recommendations.  Although Chris says he is down to move anywhere, I was less interested in the Carolinas, and Chris immediately perked up at Washington.  Seems some  distant family he once visited lives there, and he thought it was beautiful as a kid.  I was pumped that America's #1 most literate city-- Seattle--  appeared on our list.  Other smaller cities in Washington were list-toppers, like Tacoma, Kent, Bellingham, Olymipa.
     So, we read up on them.  And I got all excited.  These places sound like a west-coast dream.  Washington is absolutely gorgeous, especially if you love the outdoors.  The cities we were recommended are all on the Puget Sound.  Cost of living is affordable.  Cities are clean.  The industries we want are there and growing.  They seem perfect.
     If we made a similar income (although, logically, our income should increase after Chris finishes this last semester and starts working full time,) living there would work out easily. I can imagine buying a small home or condo, biking in the Cascades, spending a day in Seattle, kayaking on the Sound, teaching in a good school district.  We could get a dog (a lab if it were up to me, or a corgi for Chris,) and throwing snowballs if we lucked out with some snowfall.  To top it off, many of these cities are very ecologically conscious, which is very important to me.
     What I have a harder time imagining is being far away from everyone important to me as they have babies, buy homes, retire, die...  How do people deal with this?  My mother would be devastated in her silent way.
     We loved Santa Cruz and talked in depth about moving, but the cost of living is so extreme, drugs are rampant, and the school system is the worst.  While it's close  to family, it's on the iffy list.
     Maybe these suggestions would work for us, maybe not.  While I hate leaving my family, people do it all the time and love their decision.  Besides, we could always come back from anywhere if we wanted to.
     Since the best time to move is coming in half a year, we should probably check things out before we make concrete decisions.  Maybe it's time to plan a trip to Washington!

This was our first married Independence Day.  I had hoped for more.
When I was a kid, every 4th of July was spent at aunts and uncles homes, with homemade ice cream and fresh peach pie, sparklers and big booms.  I was the baby, and loved it until every else lost interest, and the tradition ceased.
When I was a teenager, my neighbor started having block parties on the 4th of July.  Kids, seniors, and pets from all over the neighborhood brought sweets and flammables.  It was a good time, to make strangers friends.  They did three several years in a row, until their kid grew up and got bored with it.
When Chris and I started dating, my family had stopped gathering to celebrate, but his hadn't.  So, we would barbecue with my parents, then go over to his aunts, with many cousins and children, and have more homemade ice cream, (and homemade fireworks.)  This is the first place I learned the names of his family members and got to know them.  We did this for six years or so.
This year we were promised by his mother a wedding gift of a trip to Pismo Beach, with a room on the ocean and fireworks on the beach.  They started going every year, and this year, they would include us for once, to replace the wedding gift they never got us.  This gift was a lie, and was taken away from us last minute.  I was hurt.  So hurt.  The details aren't important, suffice to say that it sucks that my husband is used to being flaked out on by the person who is never supposed to let him down, and it is impossible for me to get used to.  I hurt for him.
So we called around.  His sister was going to her new in-laws.  My sister is moving.  My parents did nothing.  His dad didn't include us.  Family traditions have died for us.  Friends were all busy with theirs.
So we stayed home.  We watched a little TV, I drank a margarita and wondered at how we've grown up enough to see the truth of it all, and we went to bed early with no traditions, old or new.
Happy independence day.

Sometimes she quietly announces herself with a delicate whine like a muted question mark, and most times I never know she's on her way until I feel the solid thump next to my head.  But, like clockwork, she's there every morning, whether I like it or not.

Just as the sun is starting to illuminate my bedroom, every single morning, Freya wanders in, jumps up on the mattress, and sits on my chest.  Her exceptionally soft fur often covers my nose, and I have to remove her, but she gets right back up until I've pet her.

She never has gone to Chris, not once.  This is our ritual alone.  I'm the one who can comfort her when she gets lonely.  The night I brought her home, miniature and barely-weaned , I was a scared mom who didn't know where to put her to bed.  Freya was scared and clingy, and I thought she might be frightened in the night, now seperated from her mother and siblings.  She was far too tiny to jump onto the bed from the floor, if she could even find me.  So I arranged the blankets and tucked her in next to me.

She didn't stay still long and began wandering from the head of the bed to the foot and back again, whining and whining.  I tried petting her, which seemed to help, but she'd start up again if I moved my hand away.  I placed her on my chest and rubbed her ears, and after a moment, she curled into a ball and fell asleep to the rhythm of my heartbeat. 

For weeks, every time I laid down to rest, Freya climbed atop my chest and slept with me.  Sometimes she'd stretch out across my throat, which didn't bother me considering she was just over a pound at first.  She later began curling herself around the top of my head, or "spooning" with me.

The night Chris began living there, she was certainly put out of place.  She tried several times, but I think the extra body taking her space annoyed her, and she found other places in the house to sleep.  Eventually, she tried it out again, and occasionally finds room by our feet, or wedged between us.  Mostly, she sticks to her bathrobe in the living room.

I miss the softest sleeping buddy I've ever had, and feel like something special was stopped.  But we still have our ritual.  She finds me in the beginning of every day, before the alarm clock chimes, and wakes me with a purr, or by cutting off my air supply.  Even if I'm exhausted and cranky to be awake, I never can resist my baby girl and her genuine love.  She butts her face against mine, streches out down my stomach, and makes sure that we get in a moment before the day starts. 

As I sat complacently in my morning meeting, a thought that is thick and dark like tar seeped into the crevices of my brain.

"How did I get here?"

Not in the how-are-babies-made kind of way; rather, in the how did my life come to this point kind of way.

There we were, discussing MediCare and resident movement and it hit me that I really hate this.  Really.  I love the idea of my job enough to feel okay getting up every day and doing the best I possibly can on the clock, and I certainly love the stability of a decent paycheck, but I genuinely resent the fact that I am not filling my life with the persuit of my dreams and happiness.  And I hate that I go home at the end of every day bitching about work, just waiting to kick my shoes off and forget what happened in the previous eight hours.  It has changed how I live and think.

I left high school at that stupid know-it-all age thinking that a college degree would give me an edge into my dream life.  Truth is, I'm working full time in a profession that doesn't suit me in any way, and pretty much depresses the hell out of me.  I'm too right-brained to excel at this, the only possible upward movement is in a direction that I'm not interested in, and I'm fighting it all the way.  But something is keeping me here, whether it is fear or laziness or what.

The only thing that excites me is the bous I've earned this month.  Pure luck.  And the periodic sense that I've able to help someone.  I really miss being content with what I fill my days with.  And seeing a naked dying man flail about while I try to get his signature on a state-mandated document isn't cutting it.  I don't suppose I ever suspected it would. 

How did I end up in this place?  At what point did I make the conscious decision to persue this industry, these kinds of jobs, this way of thinking?  It's like, one day I woke up and *BAM*! the sensitive, artistic, passionate Erin was gone, and I was surrounded by paperwork and feces, with a frown on my brow.

Maybe we all have to put in time doing something we don't care much for before we earn a job we love.  Am I too young to desire more?  I certainly haven't earned it.  But, aren't there entry-level jobs in the right industry for me?

The more relevant question, though: is anyone really happy with what they do for a living?  I know my parents aren't-- they just want the money and safety.  At some point, we all have to choose whether we want to make a living or persue happiness, and I think we are all driven to find stability, sacrificing that which our soul begs for.  In the persuit of our passions, there are always the roadblocks of logistics.  So, no.  I don't think that anyone is really happy with their jobs.  We all realize, at some point, that we are somewhere we never intended to go.

Please correct me if I'm wrong.  I'd love a reason to think otherwise.

In the meantime, I should get back to my paperwork.  I've ended up here, and I might as well get paid for it.