84 hours without power

Friday night I left work around 7, stopped by the grocery store and planned to park it on the couch for the rest of the evening with some mindless television. (I may or may not have watched multiple episodes of "Say Yes to the Dress" before a SYttD spin-off show came on, it's all a bit of a blur.) I had 3 air conditioning units blaring and I was comfortably zoned out when I started hearing all sorts of commotion outside. I opened the door to see gale force winds* threatening to blow my pots off my step. I rushed out into the storm to move my flower pots to what I estimated to be a safer position and by the time I got back inside I was soaked.

And before I could dry off, everything went dark and all I could hear was rain and the wind outside. I peered out the window and couldn't see much but the sky alight in bursts green and pink. And I decided it best to step away from the window. I rummaged through my drawers to find the lighter I had bought last year in anticipation of the hurricane and felt around the shelves of my linen closet for the brick of tealights that I bought on an impulse at IKEA over a year ago. Before long my bedroom looked like I was prepared for a seance, the only thing missing was the Ouija board.

I looked up the weather on my phone and which surprised and a bit relieved to read that it only said "severe thunder storm warning". I had sort of expected something a bit more dramatic but if that was all it was, I figured I'd probably survive.

Now 84 hours later, I still have no power at my house. I've managed to find places to sleep, stay cool, recharge my phone and even free wifi - skills I picked up on my recent trip and have happily fortunately come in handy stateside.

Currently my biggest concern is laundry - my summer wardrobe was already meager and I've clean run out of clothes. Fingers crossed, the powers back tonight.


* Perhaps not actually gale force as I have no idea what it means, only that it sounds impressive and it was hella windy out.

Plant ALL the plants!

I had great ambitions for this weekend. I had such great dreams for my little mess of a yard. Okay, really, my goal was simple plant all the plants that were sitting in the weed patch that I like to imagine will someday be a real live vegetable but for now is over run by this vicious weed could surely eat me alive should I be taken in by it's lush foliage and tiny purple flowers. But I will not be fooled by it's quaintness. I've learned my lesson. What starts out cute and lovely gets all kinds of ugly mid summer (I almost spelled that midsommar - guess who's excited for their Midsommar in Scandinavia?). So I dug and pulled and dragged and transplanted and I quickly went from this:

to this:

Btw, if you haven't read Hyperbole and a Half, stop whatever you're doing and go there right now. 

You're welcome.

I had 2 flats of annuals, 3 perennials and 2 tomato plants were in desperate need of being put into the ground and while I only got half of the annuals and both tomatoes planted, I did move a bazillion rocks out of what I imagine was once intended to be a rock garden but had subsequently turned into weed patch with dozens of cobble sized rocks looming at various depths beneath the surface. And because I'm a sadist, I bought another tomato plant at wholefoods in the afternoon, because, summer just isn't worth living without sweet 100's, right?

While I'm feeling a bit defeated about my silly little yard (remind me to never buy a house), I did manage to fold ALL the laundry! A small victory as it had started form a small mountain of rumpled clothes that threatened to block the door to my room. I'm going to go back to planning my vacation now.

adventures in feminism

This past weekend was our stake conference - which means there was a special meeting at 10am and we were done by noon, pretty near perfect time and length for church meetings, if you ask me. Our current schedule is 3-6 and I do my darndest not to complain about but it was nice to have a change.

Unfortunately the content of the meeting left me feeling rather agitated and quite depressed. And despite Elder Scott's exhortation that I embody respect my womanhood (which, best I can tell, means: dressing modestly; acting like a lady and requiring others treat me as such; and acting as support staff to all my familial relations), I went home, donned some ill-fitting jeans, sweatshirt and sneakers and went outside to work in my garden.

Which reminded me of this, I think she gets it.

 

 Ann-Margret singing "How Lovely to be a Woman" in Bye Bye Birdie.  

It was a beautiful day to dig in the dirt and plant some seeds - arugula and peas, for now. It may be too soon, time will tell, but I can always replant in a couple weeks. It felt good lug around those big bags of mulch, compost and vermiculite, to get some dirt under my nails and to turn on the hose again. I do love the experimentation, the intersection of biology and creation. There is something truly fascinating and invigorating about organizing life within 9 square feet of soil.

Does this qualify as nurturing? What if I put some flowers in the mix?

shark jumping and other silliness

Indulge me as I talk about television. Again. Last night on Grey's Anatomy, a van crashed into the hospital. Let me repeat a van crashed into a hospital. And while this is by no means outside of any realm of possibilities, I laughed, because a van crashed into the hospital. Seriously? Who is writing this stuff? Because, while at times Grey's features some truly great drama, vans crashing into hospitals do not in and of themselves make good drama. It was completely unnecessary. It furthered no plot lines, it was the catalyst for no moving interactions, it was superfluous violence. Please, if you're going to indulge into the ridiculous, use it do something interesting.

When that gunman was roaming the hospital shooting people, that was likewise ridiculous, but it was also incredibly good drama. So good that I didn't have time to think about how crazy it was. I had to remind myself to breath, it was so good.

So I hope that you enjoy the weekend. Are you excited as I am for a new episode of Downton Abbey? I'm hoping that now that the war's over we can get some new flavors of man candy and not just the sad wounded types - though they are kinda sweet when they aren't knocking up the help.

2011 is dead

Happy New Year!

Well, I successfully brought in the new year with family* and friends. And because my friends are fancy we even had a ball drop and celebratory toast at midnight.

My ward starts meeting at 3 today and there has been a lot of whining about this. And while I agree that it may take an adjustment, I'm looking forward to a year full of lazy Sunday mornings, a good excuse to stay in my p.j.s till noon and perhaps the occasional brunch.

But do you know what I'm dreading? I'm dreading the inevitable congressional hymn, Ring Out Wild Bells. Don't let that name fool you with it's celebratory and joyous implications, it's the worst hymn in the book. Worst because, it's depressing. I can get behind In Our Lovely Deseret because at least it's laughably bad. But why must we sing this each year?

The year is dying
In the night
Ring out wild bells
and let him die

Wow Lord Tennyson, talk about a buzz kill. 



*My little sister just moved to the area it's really fun to have her around.

unpublishable

Today I am grateful for unpublished posts. Honestly, some of my favorite posts just aren't publishable. Some I are ideas that I never flesh out, some are personal, and some are just better kept to myself.

Since high school I have always kept a journal, not the sort of journal in which I chronical the details of my day but rather bouts of confusion, frustration, gratitude and love.

I've be terrible about writing in my journal since I started this blog. But I still love taking pen to paper. I love the process of filling a page - my entries usually fill page, generally quite precisely. There is something magical about filling a single unlined page with all that I'm thinking, all that I'm feeling, to dedicate a page to one moment in time. I love to look back and see the emotion in my script, the drama, the angst and the passion. I am transported back into those moments when I couldn't keep it in and I let it spill out onto the page, uncensored and unedited.

Sometimes I worry that in blogging I sensor myself too much, that I loose too much in the process. So, I am happy when I look at my long list of posts and see a few that are unpublished.

seriously?

So what's the deal with Pinterest? After hearing about it for months, I finally signed myself up and gave it a look-see. And you know what? I don't get it. I find it simultaneously boring and overstimulating. And what's more, frustrating. I feel bombarded with images of things I don't need and can't afford. And when I do find something inspiring, that sparks my creative juices, I can't find the dang source or the instructions or pattern of said blasted muse.

Case in point. Is this not the cutest thing you've ever seen? Yeah, I know, I'd totally entertain the fantasy of making this beauty. But wait, where's the pattern? the instructions? Seriously! Turns out the only source is a stupid Flickr pic.

Source: flickr.com via Alicia on Pinterest

So yeah, Pinterest, we're dunzo.

why I'm still single

There are moments, when I am faced with the cold hard truth. Maybe there's a reason that I'm still single. Last Friday night I went on a date. He was a perfect gentleman, for the most part: chivalrous, attentive, doting, generous, complimentary. So why was I so annoyed?  By the end of the night I was ready to scream, to call him out on... well, that's the problem. It's kind of hard to call someone out on their attempts to be nice. Only a terrible anti-romantically person like myself to could find romantic gestures grating.

For example:

• He insisted on picking me up from work, which sounds nice but all the time I was waiting for him to arrive, and then waiting in traffic on the way to my house, I couldn't stop thinking of how the metro would have been so much faster. 
• He offers to stop and get me something to drink and I answered, "no thanks" - but I was thinking, "why the hell would we stop now, let's get going already!"
• He offers to buy me something at a kitschy souvenir shop and I this is were I stopped being sweet. I told him I was tired and that I didn't need anything from this shop. 

In my head I knew that he was trying, trying to be a gentleman, trying to be romantic. And yet I was incapable of accepting and appreciating his gestures as such. I think it irked my inner independent feminist, who can take care of herself and enjoys the control that that brings.

And this is why I'm still single.

did I do that?

It takes a certain talent, or should I say an exorbitant level of clumsiness, to spill yogurt on one's trousers, blouse and hair while eating breakfast her desk. The culprit: a trader joe's yogurt squisher convenient, yummy and lethal.

It's always fun to rush down the hall towards the ladies room covered in pink goo. Did I say always? because this was a first for me. It's not like I regularly wear my breakfast in this fashion, yet to deny that that this is the first time my Squisher has malfunctioned would be a lie. Back at my cube, I sit fingering through my crusty hair, hoping no one noticed and broadcasting my embarrassing moment on the internet.

But seriously, yogurt in a tube?!? Squishers, we're dunzo.

tone

I just got into a surprisingly ugly debate with a complete stranger on Facebook.  It ended with name calling and while I'm not taking it personally, I am both saddened and amused by the way this man misconstrued what I thought were relevant, thoughtful and honest comments about a subject that I am intimately connected - single members of the LDS church, specifically single women.  

http://xkcd.com/386/

I don't know why I get caught up in these things - I know that I should just let it go, delete my comments and move on but something deep inside me just won't let it go.  

If there is anything I learned from this, it is that I need to watch my tone.  This man I've never met twisted everything I said, insulted me and called me bitchy.  While he's an argumentative idiot who doesn't know what he's talking about and I reserve the right to be bitchy when the situation calls for it, bitchy was not my intended tone of my comments.  I actually went to great lengths to keep my comments positive and hopeful while pointing out some issues I have observed.  I may have failed on that front and it made me think about this blog.  I try to be honest here, but I don't want it to be a place of bitterness.  I try to balance my frustration with hope.  And if I sometimes read a little bitchy, well, we can't all be sugar and spice all the time.

 

cranky baby

So, I went back to work this week after a bout of unemployment and I have come to a conclusion.  Work is the pits, well this work is anyway.  I have been such a cranky baby the past two days, that I make myself laugh at my own ridiculousness.

Today, I got my new Virginia drivers license in the mail and the horrible picture nearly drove me into a tizzy.  I look like an oily, sleep deprived psychopath.  But then again, maybe it's the crankiness talking.  My roommate tried to make me feel better by telling me that it looks film noir - essentially an artsy spin on a creepy black and white photo, but thanks for trying.  

Sadly, I look more like the driver in my photo than his lovely passenger.

 

It's a stupid thing to care so much about, but I really liked my old picture and like I said, I've been a bit of a cranky baby lately.  Thankfully, though my cupboards are bare, I found a chocolate stash in the freezer that I'd almost forgot about and soothed my nerves with a little molten lava cake.  Once again, chocolate came to my rescue. Nom, nom, nom, I feel much better equipped to cope with the petty trials of life again.    

all in a day

And oh what a Monday it was.  It all started out with the snooze button.  I pushed it 5 times this morning, which meant that I started the day and hour behind schedule.  And when I finally got to work, all the free parking spots were taken.  So, I parked in 2 hour parking - intending to come back in a couple hours and move my car - and promptly forgot.  4 hours later, I suddenly remembered my poor car which at this point had a giant parking ticket tucked under its wiper.  I moved it anyway and knowing that I fully deserved the ticket made my way back to work.  But, not so quick, on my walk back I was stopped by an old man - probably drunk and possibly homeless - who proceeded to tell me how beautiful I was and that I should take that as a real compliment coming from a black man.  Then he showed me the dimes that he had just found on the sidewalk and said that I had made his day.  He was a real charmer and It took some finagling but I finally managed to let him down easy and get back to work.  

Later at work, I found out that the internship that I had been all but promised at EPA is a no go.  Back at home, I'm feeling all uneasy and anxious-like - maybe I'll self medicate with some chocolate fro-yo. 

An Ode to McDonald's

I learned to love McDonald's while living in Finland.  I had previously looked upon the golden arches with total disdain and turned up my nose to their greasy mass produced food.  But in Finland, I found comfort it's the sheer Americaness.  

Today, I found myself on the verge of a melt down - my brain was in a tizzy, I just couldn't cope with the enormity of the issue at hand,  I could feel my breath getting faster and shallower and I knew it was time to get out of the Barnes & Noble and find another place to work on my job search.  

I found my way to a McDonald's - which by the way, had wi-fi - Hallelujah! And as I sat down with my cheeseburger, fries and diet coke (all for less than $4.00), I began to find my breath again.  Ahh McDonald's, no matter where I go, there you are.  And maybe that's what's so comforting about McDonald's after all.  Consistency.  Be I in Rome, Turku, Krakow, White River Junction, Verona, Fairbanks or Springfield - McDonald's has always been there - a place to sit with an icy cold Diet Coke and collect my thoughts.  

Freaking out a little bit

So tomorrow is my last day of work and I'm freaking out a little bit.  Truth be told, I've been ready to be done for a while now but now that it's here, I don't know if I'm ready for unemployment and the adventures that lie ahead.  So much so that I just ate 3/4 of a $25 pizza.  Goodness, Domino's is expensive up here. 

I'll sure miss this view.
 

No sense in fighting it, bring on the funemployment!
 

don't waste your time sounding it out

Hi, my name is Maggie and I'm a bad speller.  It's true, I am helplessly strung out on spell check.  I absolutely LOVE that facebook and blogger automatically check my spelling for me.  And while many of my spelling errors are due to laziness and sloppy typing, there are a couple of words in particular that I really struggle with.


1) Tomorrow - I think that I unlearned how to spell this word when I learned Finnish.  Finnish unlike English is phonetic and like other phonetic languages uses specific vowels for specific sounds.  English does not.  The word tomorrow is particularly troubling because while it feature 3 distinct vowel sounds, it's redundant use of the letter "o" is utterly bewildering.  I have since relearned how to spell this wretched word but every once in a while I try to stick in an in the middle.  How 'bout we all just spell it "tumaaro"? Hmm, that doesn't look right either.

2) Definitely - Another puzzler,  it is my inability to spell this word correctly that has lead me to believe that I use it way to much.

3) Alaska - I really don't know why this is so hard.  For some reason it's just hard to type or something.  I know it's nothing compared to Massachusetts or Connecticut.  Even after living in Massachusetts for a summer, I still struggle with that one.   

Okay, so this is apparently a short list because I can't think of any more.  I think that "tomorrow" and "definitely" plague me because I seem to use them a lot in text messages.  And while the text predictor dictionary is a life saver that prevents me from misspelling, it can't read my mind.     

my biggest PET peeve

My all time biggest pet peeve ever: dogs named Maggie

I don't know if you have ever spent time with a dog that shares your name but it happens to me all the time.  For some reason the name Maggie is generally reserved for dogs and maternal figures in 80's tv shows and movies.  And you probably haven't ever thought about it but when there is a dog in the house, the most common word to come out of anyone's mouth is that dog's name.  It's a constant: Maggie ...Maggie ...the ...Maggie ...ummm... Maggie ...like I was saying ...Maggie .....Maggie, No!..... Maaaaaaagie. And then there's the tone in which the dog's name is said.  While it often slips in to conversation about the dog in a calm conversational tones, every conversation seems to be punctuated with shrill exclamations and of my name.  And inevitably that dog is going to get in trouble and then I get to hear my name yelled throughout the house in tones of disgust or bellowed in low tones of disappointment.  Not to mention the baby talk and cheerful coaxing tones for which I find use of my name the most annoying.  I've learned to tune it out, but eventually someone will use it in reference to me and I look like an idiot - not responding to my own name.  As my sister Ashley would say, it's "annoying as hell"!  So, when I'm introduced a dog named Maggie and everyone laughs and thinks it's so funny, I laugh, but I really wanna crawl under a rock and die.   

If you have a dog named Maggie, I want you to know that I do not hate you and I do not hate your dog.  But I'm not so happy about your choice to name your dog Maggie.  And a little advice for all potential dog owners, consider carefully the name that you choose for your new pup, might I suggest Spot.  

       

caution: dreams defered may become unstable

In my high school creative writing class, we studied the Harlem Renaissance.  And thus I was first introduced to the poet Langston Hughes.  I really liked his poems and few of them have stuck with me through the years.  Today the word of this poem came to mind as I pondered some of my hopes and dreams that are continually out of reach. 

Dream Deferred

What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
Like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore--
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over--
like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?

- Langston Hughes

Maybe there's a spot at Yucca Mountain for all these dreams I keep carrying around.  (You know, if that nuclear waste deal doesn't go down.  I am in no way suggesting or condoning the storage of volatile explosives with nuclear waste.)

it's all about choices

So yesterday (the tuesday before thanksgiving) I was painfully homesick and sad that I would not be spending thanksgiving with family this year. This will be my first thanksgiving without family (not counting my mission - which I spent with my mission president and mission mom (who are kinda like family)).  While I spent the last 3 years far from home, I was fortunate enough to be close to my very doting Aunt Nate and Uncle John, as well as my wicked awesome sister, Ashley. So when I found myself unsure of whether or not I'd even be eating turkey on thursday, I sorta had a little melt down.

I was so embarrassingly distraught over the whole thing that I finally decided to find out how much it would cost to fly home for the weekend. I went to the alaska airlines website, entered my dates and searched for the lowest fare. In case you're curious, it would have cost over $2000 to fly home for thanksgiving. I actually considered it for a moment - I truthfully have it in my bank account - and then decided that as much as I'd love love love to spend thanksgiving with my family, I'm not sure that it'd be worth $2000.

I will be spending thanksgiving with friends here in Fairbanks and the $2000 that I saved can go towards something much less fun but far more practical - my student loans.

it's begining to look a lot like Christmas

The snow came yesterday. While we had a few flurries back in September, but nothing substantial. All October, I have been hearing about how odd it was that he didn't have snow yet. Well it is here now and it's here to stay.  I'm not sure if I'm ready for this. Sure I have my michelin man coat to keep me warm and I invested into some burly snow tires but I am not ready to say good by to the sun and greet the bitter cold of the loooooooonnngg winter that lies ahead.

Time to pull out the list.  A few weeks ago, I was hate hate hating Alaska, I decided to be proactive and make a list. A list of things that I like about Alaska.  I've noticed that people really do love it here and while I have yet to fall in love with Fairbanks, Ak, there are surely things to like about it.  Now, when I find myself hating my life here in Alaska, I pull out the list and remind myself that there are plenty of things to like about this place - even if I don't love it, I can like it.

1.  I have a job here.  It feels pretty good to be employed and I feel very fortunate and blessed to have this job.

[more from my list to come.................]

blehhh

The days are getting shorter and coupled with grey dreary clouds. It's depressing. I've come to resent my lovely windows because the view is so bleak. Occasionally there is a break in the clouds and the sun light spills through. Everything is so beautiful in the sunlight but these moments are fleating and rarely occur on my lunch hour or after 4:30. 

They say that this is the darkest part of the year. As soon as the snow sticks it will reflect the light. It still sounds bleak. 


Did I mention that it's cold.