Category: optimism

Oh Let’s Let Her Lope Again

This exercise was so amazing for me and my old friend The Muse last week. It really helped break some of the rust off the creative pipes and since it was so much fun, let’s let The Muse play the Unconscious Mutterings free-association game again.


  1. Social ::


    A friend posted a link on Facebook essentially declaring that social media is over. Wait, there’s something ironic about that sentence. No matter, let’s press on.

    Personally, I’m pretty ready for all things social networking to stop being all anyone talks about. As if this is changing the world.

    Sure, something just as annoying will take it’s place, but maybe as “the book close(s) on Web 2.0” the internets will have grown up a bit. Stretched a bit. Maybe the next big thing will be something great, innovative and useful.

    Just don’t take away my lolcats. I beg you.

  2. Fairy tale ::


    It’s too early to discuss Christmas songs. Way too early.

    However, if we were going to discuss Christmas songs I’d tell you that I think it’s magic that a song entitled “Fairy Tale of New York” begins with the lines:

    “It was christmas eve babe/In the drunk tank”

    I mean really. Could that be any more perfect of the holiday season? I think not.

    A nod of thanks to my Rock Star cousin for turning me on to that tune many years ago when I was having a Very Dark Christmas.

  3. 0 ::


    Neither odd nor even, positive nor negative. Zero is the beginning, a place to start. Nothing and everything. Zen. Infinite.

    And a bunch of other woo-woo stuff.

    Null, nada, naught, nuh-uh, nope, zilch.

    Sort of beautiful in it’s perfection, really.

  4. Football ::


    I’m not much of a football fan, but I do idly keep track of the San Francisco 49ers. Last year I even took in my first NFL game, and it was awesome.

    That said, I think I’ve become too much of a baseball girl. I mean…162 games a season vs sixteen. Right? I think you can get by with a lot of luck over 16 games whereas you have to be mentally and physically disciplined to make it through 162.

    This is a weird time of the year where the end of baseball overlaps the beginning of football.

    Right now my San Francisco Giants are oh-so-very-close to making it into the postseason again and the 49ers have won their first two regular games.

    All in all, not a bad place to be.

    Who’s got it better than us?

    Why, I’m pretty sure the answer is: Nobody.

  5. Action::


    Lights, camera, action. Take action. Action Jackson. Action hero. Action games.

    Yeah. I got nothing here.

    Next!

  6. Setting ::


    Sometimes, on a rough ol’ Monday like this, I think about going to my happy place. I have several, actually, but the one I’m thinking about today is the town of Half Moon Bay. It’s about a half hour drive away, it’s where I got married, and it’s the beach I visited just after moving to California.

    It holds a special place in my heart and features some of the most beautiful sunsets I’ve ever seen.

    I’ve watched that setting sun alone, with dear friends (and beers) and with my love.

    Here’s my favorite photo, taken (by me) near Miramar Beach, and even this cool photo doesn’t totally capture the quality of light. But it’s enough to help me escape gray cubicle walls, if only for a moment.



  7. Boomers ::


    Did you know that in Australia, an adult male kangaroo is called a Boomer? I didn’t either.

    I learned that seeking an alternative for this prompt that would let me write about something other than ol’ hippies.

    And I thank YOU, Wikipedia, you glorious repository of knowledge.

  8. Rough ::


    This morning, this glorious Monday morning, I woke up rough. Real rough. I remember the days where I could stay up all night drinking and carousing and then get approximately one and a half hours of sleep, wake up chipper, go to class, take detailed notes, get through the day and go out again.

    Now I stay up late on Sunday night watching a good movie and oh holy hell I’m a mess from the time the alarm goes off until I can go to bed early the next night.

    Time really does make fools of us all.

  9. Words ::


    “What are words for? When no one listens. What are words for, when no one listens at all?”

    Hello you beautiful Missing Persons.

    That was the very first non-rodeo related concert I attended. (If I include rodeo shows, my first concert was Freddy Fender. You can’t make this stuff up). My big brother took me to a show at the Civic Auditorium in Albuquerque. Bits of what I’m sure was asbestos fell from the ceiling during the show.

    I wanted to be Dale Bozzio so bad I couldn’t see straight. I still do.

  10. Account ::


    Longing to be Dale Bozzio, and Belinda Carlisle, and Terri Nunn and others like them – yeah, that accounts for a lot of my teenage years.

    Really, a lot of my life.

    I just read British comedienne Dawn French‘s memoir. Now there is a lady who is 100% comfortable in her own skin. And now instead of just admiring her, I want to be her too.

    I’m such a suggestible little girl.

Ok, well…back to work.




When In Rome…or Reading

While on my way out the door and quite ready to make a voyage to England, among the parting thoughts from The Good Man was:

“Enjoy the traditional English breakfast.”

I’m a fan of all things breakfast so I readily agreed, despite not really knowing what a traditional English breakfast was all about.

My first morning in country, I stumbled downstairs to the complimentary buffet and started to understand.

It looks a little something like this.





I say “a little something” because this plate is missing a couple key components, mainly blood pudding (a sausage, also sometimes called black pudding), fried tomatoes and fried mushrooms. But other than that the main items are there. Griddled eggs. Hash browns. Bacon (center cut and YUM).

And the key component: Heinz Baked Beans.





No other will do.

I’m no stranger to eating beans for breakfast. I’ve been eating pintos in many forms alongside eggs for years, so this was zero hesitation to me. That said, I usually hate baked beans because they are just too sweet. Too much brown sugar, I think (as if such a thing as too much brown sugar exists).

I really like the Heinz baked beans because they aren’t especially sweet. They are tomatoey but not sugary sweet. A perfect compliment to eggs, in my humblest of American opinions.

Here’s the thing…I started having the Full Breakfast every day. They even served it at the cafeteria where I reported for work the second week of my stay. This meal formed a good solid start to my days of battling with suppliers and the English rain and pesky coworkers.

I felt like I could climb mountains on that breakfast.

And now that I’m back home, I miss it.

Breakfast now just seems sort of…blah. Sad. Lacking. And without verve.

So I looked at a couple local grocery stores. Lo and behold, I found the key ingredient here locally.





The real stuff! The good stuff. Ok, it’s a little more work to make all the fixins myself rather than ladling from a hotel buffet bar.

But it’s worth it.

Oh so worth it.

Now that breakfast is sorted, let’s chat about British dinners too, eh? Here is a beauty shot from one night at the local pub. Big yum.

Though all of that on the table (except for the Pedigree, a proper English Ale) is quite readily available here in the US. Thank goodness!





So now I have quite a menu for my post travel life as there is plenty of can’t-live-without-it food from Singapore (laksa, chili crab and kaya toast) and Costa Rica (tostones, Olla de Carne and Cas) and now the charms of Britain.

Tonight, however, I head back to my roots. We’re cooking New Mexico style in my house. All that British culture made my green chile blood level get a little low.

Must fix that problem right away!




All photos Copyright 2012, Karen Fayeth, and subject to the Creative Commons in the far right corner of this page. Photos taken with an iPhone 4s and the Camera+ app.



Meanwhile….

After spending a mind boggling sixteen days in another country working her arse off and also having a little fun, our Superhero returns to home base, Casa de Enchilada, for rest, relaxation and to plan her next move.

Lacking a blog post for the last week, it’s time to take action. However, jet lag, life lag and a lack of ideas has caused our superhero to be stumped.

“To the Random Word Generator!” she cried out. And thus it was so.

——-

In one of those cosmic kinda “whoooah, I’m not drunk enough to understand the meaning of this” moments, I sauntered over to my favorite Random Word Generator this morning while looking for inspiration.

A kick start and kick in the butt for the Muse.

Upon click, this is what the generator replied:

“Your random word is: Changeover”

Well shut my mouth. That about sums it up, doesn’t it?

The changeover. From GMT to PST. From rainy ol’ England to sunny ol’ Northern California.

From maudlin faces over England’s poor showing in Euro2012 and Andy Murray‘s loss at Wimbledon to holy hell YES the Giants put on a clinic at the 2012 All Star Game and then swept the Astros.

From the barking mad Mayor Boris Johnson to the stoic and reserved Mayor Ed Lee.

From London Bridge to Golden Gate Bridge.

From cold sandwiches alone in a hotel room to vibrant dinners with The Good Man with The Feline trying to sit on my lap.

From a little lost American in London to a New Mexican in California.

Ah yes. The changeover is really a changeback. Back to where I belong.

Reunited and it feels so good.







Photo from SFGate.



Wanna Be There Now

Today I ate lunch in a small cafe and sat at a table looking out the window into an open air mall. As I slurped soup, the rain began again, in earnest. The large drops plopped and the people outside scattered.

It’s been doing this for the last ten days, almost non-stop.

Opening the weather app on my iPhone, it became clear that this rain, rain isn’t going away anytime soon.

Here’s the weather where I am, now:






Drippy, drippy, drippy.

Two ladies chatted loudly behind me. One was complaining about how her daughter is misbehaving and that her acting up is disrupting the whole home.

She said “To be honest, this bad weather has got us all in a bad place.”

With a deep sigh, I took another slurp of broccoli soup.

After sixteen days in jolly yet rainy ol’ England, I get to go home tomorrow.

I am so ready.

So I flipped the pages in my weather app.

Here’s how it is where, if all goes well, I will be tomorrow:






Those little yellow disks, all in a row. That looks really nice.

Plus there is The Good Man at home. And a cranky Feline. And an elderly fish. And my life.

I’ve loved living here for just over two weeks but now it’s time to get back to the business of living my beautiful, wonderful, magical, messed up but all mine life.



I Got Some Thinking To Do

Do you know who this guy is (the one in the middle)?

Don’t worry if you don’t, because I didn’t know who he was either before this past Wednesday.



Photo Copyright 2012, Karen Fayeth

His name is Raphael Jacquelin and he’s a pro golfer.

I took this snap while wandering the course during the last practice day before the start of the US Open.

To be perfectly honest with you, I was heading back to the fancy tent (seen in the background) where I had a fancy pass to enter and drink not really fancy, but totally free, beer. I came across this guy and another golfer, Anders Hansen, teeing off on what I think was the 18th hole at The Olympic Club.

Now, I don’t present this photo to you to show off my brand new golf knowledge.

Nope.

I display this photo and ask you to take a look at the complete sh– eating grin on this guy’s face. To be honest with you, that is not just a one-moment-in-time kind of a smile. I have a series of photos and this guy had this grin on his face from start to finish.

A little research tells me that ol’ Raphael is a good enough golfer to qualify for things like the US Open, but perhaps not a good enough golfer to win any of the majors. He’s picked up a few tournaments in Europe, but basically he plays well enough to stay in the top 150 or so golfers in the world (which, let’s be fair, is pretty damn good).

Here’s my point.

There has never been a single day on the job, whether at age sixteen, my hardworking late twenties or sitting here at my desk today where I have worn a sh– eating grin that big while I did the work that got me paid.

My job does not give me a smile that wraps around the back of my head.

Go ahead, click that photo to see. In the larger version you can inspect not only the man himself but the guy standing behind him. Grin city.

I want a gig that pays pretty well (let’s be honest, he gets cash just for finishing the event), doesn’t really stress me out and makes me smile like everything is always gonna be really all right.

I want a job like that.

How do I get a job like that?

I’ve got some thinking to do.

I’ll be in the courtesy tent quaffing Stellas until I find the answer.

Or until they kick me out.

Whichever comes first.
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By the way, I just checked the leader board for day 2 of the Open and Mr. Jacqelin is in 13th place. Not bad.



Photo Copyright 2012, Karen Fayeth and subject to the Creative Commons license in the far right column of this page.