Category: weekending

Liar, liar, pants on fire

I have this friend. One of my best friends, actually, who is this little tiny bit of nuthin’. 90lbs soaking wet. She’s the sort of golden retrieverish person that will get up in the morning and go to spin class before breakfast, take an intense yoga lesson at lunch, and then go wind surfing for dinner.

She fancies ten hours bike rides. Yeah. That kind of gal.

But recently, at age 43, she’s found herself (happily) pregnant for the first time, and is very superstitious about this baby, so is, in her words, taking it easy.

Over dinner a few weeks back, my friend told me about this place she has been going hiking. “Oh, it’s great. They have a paved walking path, and it only has a few rolling hills. It’s great! I’ve been walking it a few times a week!”

Well, hey! To me, her elephantine friend who has been hitting the treadmill with vigor lately, “a few rolling hills” didn’t sound so bad!

Sunday I set out for The Dish, the landmark walking path on the campus of Stanford University.

Ok, fabulous. I got a much coveted parking spot, strapped on my shoes and off I went. The Good Man was up in SF with friends, so I was alone in this 3.7 mile mission.

I stopped by the ranger’s shack and he gave me a map, talked me through the path and off I went. Just to get to the trail, you have to walk up a large hill. Neato.

And so I get to the top of that first hill. Once there, you have to choose if you want to go clockwise or counterclockwise.

I looked to my left (to go clockwise). There was another steep hill. I looked to the right (to go counterclockwise) and there was a gradual decline. Hmm. So I decided I wanted to take the big hill at the first part of the walk while I still had energy, so I turned to the left and started walking.

And began gasping, sweating, became good friends with my heart beating out of my chest. I had to stop and put hands on knees multiple times (an elderly hunched backed woman strolled past me) and my lungs burned. Oh how they burned.

This was not a rolling hill. Neither was the next one. Or the next. Or the next several, actually.

Ok, fair enough, it was a beautiful walk. I saw deer, many ground squirrels, and a red tail hawk.

I did manage to actually complete the walk. I scaled the last uphill before leaving and had worked myself into quite a sweaty, panting froth.

So, of course, I rewarded myself for a job well done by eating a pint of Ben & Jerry’s.

Oh well. I’m less golden retriever and more couch hound.

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Isn’t that a pretty flower? I took a photo of it while lying on the ground crying out for dear mercy and sweet mother oxygen.

The end of civility?

This, the next in my line of roadway rants. See my four way stop discussion here.

This weekend The Good Man and I had occasion to take a bit of a road trip. Just down Highway 1, a small jaunt in order to meet up with a whole passel of my in-laws. (passel being smaller than a gang but larger than a group)

As we drove, in many instances, we were forced to merge, to turn, to navigate our way carefully through the highways and byways of the Bay Area.

I noticed, as The Good Man drove, he always, very politely, gives a wave when someone does him the favor of letting him into a lane, or allows him to turn in a busy, congested area, or stops to let him through.

I also noticed that when The Good Man generously does the same for others, he rarely gets a wave of thanks and recognition in return.

Politeness, it seems, is on the soon-to-be extinct list.

This makes me cranky.

Sure, I know that a polite wave isn’t required by any driving laws. I’ll have you know that when I had to take that drivers safety class to work the points off from a speeding violation, it was often suggested that a polite wave was much appreciated by others on the road. That acknowledging each other actually makes us drive better.

Connectedness people! Put down your Blackberry and say hi to an actual person sometimes!

I shall tack on a quick rant: Upon employment here at my new job, I tried, in vain, for two weeks to say hello to the security guard on the first floor who I must walk directly past EVERY day. It seems strange not to acknowledge another human you see five of every seven days of your life. But he will NOT say hello to me. Will. Not. It kind of hurts my feelings…..

When reality reaches up and grabs you by the throat

I have a milestone birthday coming up in May. It is an age I’m not sure I’m happy about being.

Ok, fine, I have to get old. Everyone does it (barring the alternative, of course). I’m ok with it.

Until I’m reminded clearly and plainly how old and out of it I am.

It began, this past weekend, with the shopping excursion to procure new jeans (see previous post for my thoughts on that). While out and about, I wandered into a store called Anchor Blue.

I’d seen an article in a trashy gossip magazine last week while at the dentist’s office about “the best jeans.” There was a pair of Anchor Blue jeans featured that looked like I’d be happy with them.

So. Anchor Blue. I’d seen the store but had never actually been inside before.

Well. If you go to the webpage (linked above) you’ll see several fresh, dewey-faced CHILDREN on the splash page, showing you just how cool and beautiful YOU can be if you wear their clothing.

Walking into the store, I practically coughed dust and picked cryptkeeper tendrils from my person as I looked around and the clerks looked at me.

I did, actually, pick out a few pairs of jeans to try on, none of them the fabulous pair I’d seen in the magazine, of course.

So, yes, happily, the jeans I’d picked fit me. Well. Sort of. I mean, I could get them on and button them.

But to look in the mirror, you could see clearly where the jeans ended (below my hipbones) and my (evidently) granny panties continued on.

Now, I don’t wear old lady briefs (yet)…what I wear are respectable cotton bikini chones. But in the spotlight of Logan’s Run (In case you missed that film, everyone is executed at age 30), my respectable bikini yonderwear appear to be practically up to my ribcage (just below what they must believe to be my sagging boobs).

I may as well give over to the white belt and Velcro shoes ferchrissakes!

So I gave up on those jeans, but continued to look around the store. I checked out accessories.

They had quite the assortment of Che Guevara-style caps for the ladies. I want to look like an Argentinean communist revolutionary why again?

I looked at skirts. I have this little cloth that I use to clean my glasses. That cloth is larger than these “skirts.” Even if I could get a lens cloth skirt to fit me…no, it’s too terrible, I can’t even go there.

Fine. Thus ended my shopping trip.

Sunday rolled around and The Good Man and I traveled up to Muir Beach to meet with some friends. “Take a walk,” they said. Oh, sure, yes! A walk on a sunny day would be nice. Maybe even help me work off some calories in hopes of wearing that lens cloth to dinner!

These folks are all about my same age…well, TGM and his best friend are a year younger. And the best friend’s wife is a couple years younger still. Ok, so I’m the matron of the bunch, what of it?

So we walk on the beach a bit and then decide to hike a trail. Fun!

An uphill trail.

What?

So evidently that one-year age difference between TGM’s and me is a huge gap, because all of my friends scampered up the hill while I was in the back gasping for air and feeling my thighs wobbling.

Now, the other lady in our group is in knockout shape, I forgive her. But TGM and his buddy have no excuse. They billy-goated they way up the hill with ease, leaving me with hands on knees feeling like I was going to puke.

I was further insulted when a tiny fourteen year-old dog named Chester paced me, turned and ran halfway back down the hill to greet his people, then turned around and paced me again.

His legs are three inches long!

Damn you Chester!

Now it is Monday and my legs hurt. My lungs still burn a little and I’m faced with my group of fifteen employees, not a ONE of them over the age of 30.

I remember 30. That was a good year. My thirties…yes, a fine decade. *sigh*

Aaaaaand we’re back…

Had a *fabulous* time this weekend in southern New Mexico. The weather was clear and cold and my fair New Mexico is looking gorgeous. I didn’t know how much I needed that trip back home, but I can say I feel “right” since I got back.

The trip was mostly to visit with my best friend, her husband, and my two amazing goddaughters (now 9 and 6). My own version of NewMexiKen’s sweeties.

And I ate. Oh did I eat. Whoa. My best friend and her husband are both amazing cooks, and they treated me right for three solid days.

I got a good snootful of green chile, so I can continue to survive with the appalling lack here in the Bay Area.

I also got a chance to eat oryx. This was my first try at oryx and it was TASTY! My dad was a hunter, so I’ve eaten a variety of game meat sampled from the great state of New Mexico and have no qualms. My friend’s husband is especially good at field dressing so as to help alleviate the gamey taste, so what he brings home is really fantastic.

Plus he’s good with the seasoning, so the outcome was tender, sweet, delicious and quite satisfying. I was able to have oryx prepared a variety of different ways, but by far the most amazing was tacos al carbon cooked down on a disk. (you gotta love game meat cooked on something that used to be a farm implement)

Reflecting on the last post I wrote about good food bringing people together, I smiled on Sunday night when, at the same moment, my best friend was frying rellenos, her husband was cutting up the meat for tacos and I was rolling enchiladas with the help of my oldest goddaughter. While we worked, we shared stories and listened to good music.

That right there is family, and I’m deeply grateful to have it. Food made with love tastes that much better.

I also had the chance to drive up to Cloudcroft looking for snow. They had gotten three inches a few days back, but as you can see by the photo below, there wasn’t much left on the ground. It was a nice day trip anyway. Had lunch, shopped a bit, took a few photos and spent time with my friend.

Back home now. Mainly I’m just a bit homesick, happy to have made the visit and glad to be back in the house with The Good Man and the Cranky Cat.

This going back to work thing, on the other hand……….

(click for full size)

Photo by Karen Fayeth

Unity brought about by food

Upon starting my new job, it was perplexing to me how often they feed us at this place. I mean, I’m not complaining. But seriously, I get at least two meals a week provided, sometimes more.

Good food too, full meals, like chicken and potatoes, cheese tortellini with salad, lavish Mexican buffet, a full course Vietnamese meal, and more.

This was especially peculiar to me, since, at my former employer, I usually ate my lunch by myself at my desk. A friend and I would walk over to the cafeteria, get food, walk back and go our separate ways. Clean. Sterile. Boring.

Now that I’ve been at the new gig 90 days, and having just stuffed myself silly at the potluck to end all potlucks (yum), I realized that this habit of sharing meals together is a bit of brilliance.

Really, how more primal can you get than breaking bread with other people? It creates connections.

Earlier today, I looked around the room at all these people I’ve come to know. Over a plate of homemade food (that’s our pot luck rule, it must be actually homemade), I found an easy camaraderie.

I know that one lady’s young daughter loves red velvet cake, and when she heard another lady at work was making it for our potluck, begged her mom to bring some home.

I know that the lady who sits right next to me was raised in the Philippines, and her homemade lumpia is worth weeping over. (I had three)

I discovered that the guy on the next row who identifies himself as Asian actually has a Mexican mother, who was kind enough to make flan for our potluck. Really, really good flan, too.

The reason for our potluck was to “Share the Love” for Valentine’s Day. As we all ate and complimented each other and asked for recipes, yes, there was love, and connection and a diligence to work together and believe in each other and do our best to get through the obstacles.

All because we got out some paper plates and plastic forks and brought out food that represents a little of ourselves. We’re all taking in a bit of each other and blending into something that much better.

I think that kind of connection is rarely found at work, and has to be part of the reason why this group I work with and for manages to get along so damn well. That’s the kind of “corporate goodwill” you just can’t force.

By the way, the contribution that represented me was a kickin’ bowl of guacamole. I make *really* good guac and today I earned some new fans.

Bet you never knew that guacamole tastes really good on lumpia!

Bringing cultures and oddball coworkers together, one delicious meal at a time…

On this same topic, I am fortunate enough to be able to make a trip to Southern New Mexico this weekend. I’ll be with my best friend of twenty years, and when we settled the date for a visit, one of the first things she said was, “we have to plan the menu”.

Food, for us, is family, is bonding, is life, is earth, is the heart of who we are. Nourishing both body and soul.

I can hardly wait for her homemade rellenos. Right then, I just did a little jump and clicked my heels.

New Mexico, here I come!