I often wonder how to revive a stagnant blog, or whether to revive it at all. Perhaps this stems from my reluctance to fall under some cliche. Like obscure bloggers who apologize to "all" their readers for some leave of absence. Whatever the case, jumping back into blogging is like trying to resurrect Pogs. Perhaps I will once again find the pleasure in those magical cardboard circles. Or maybe I'll remember why I drifted away in the first place.
This has quite possibly been the first time in my life that I did not more distinctly realize the transition from Summer into Fall. I might blame this confusing weather for that. But the true culprit I believe is my absence from school. For the past 16 years I have spent each Fall resuming my life as a student. And although each Fall begins with the fresh excitement that a new school year brings, each Spring brings the longing to be done with school for the Summer. For ever. Summer begins and you tell yourself you'll never put yourself through the torture of another semester.
But I graduated, and now it's Fall, and I most certainly miss school. Last May, as the buzz of graduation grew louder and I anticipated my new life to come I thought I could never again miss the dread of 8 a.m. classes or the headache of mounds of homework or that ever-pressing list of thing to do... that never gets any shorter! And yet, as I scroll through my Facebook news feed and catch up on all the latest whereabouts and adventures of current students, it's almost depressing. I miss the friendships. I miss the feeling of checking something off the never-ending to-do list. I miss the late night runs to In-N-Out or Boba. I miss the studious feeling of a backpack on my shoulder. I miss meals in the cafeteria. And most of all, I miss my roommates. I terribly miss the TV shows we watched together and the plans we made together and the tears we shared together... and even Rachel's stupid, stupid phone alarms (which I heroically endured for 2 years).
I miss all of this more than I ever imagined. Jordan said he went through this the first semester or two after he graduated. And at least I'm fortunate to still be in the same state as all my college friends! He has assured me though that it will get easier as time goes on. I hope he's right. Or he might be funding a few more years of college tuition.
There's a strange curse in my house. Anytime my dad leaves for an extended period of time, say, for a business show or like this weekend, a retreat through church, something always goes awry in our house. One year the water pipes froze. It's Southern California. Water pipes don't freeze. But because my dad was gone, they did.
This time he's away, it's the hot water heater. Last night, in a Lassie-like fashion, our Blue MerleAussie was makin' a ruckus at the back door which naturally prompted my mom to see for what reason now he was acting stupid. And then I hear, "Oh no !...Uh-oh..." which naturally gets any person to respond, "Oh no. What's the matter??" but what they're really thinkin' is, "Alright! Drama!" So, in my concerned but secretly excited manner I head to the garage to find a spray of water projecting out of a hose coming from the water heater which has thus created a lake in the corner of the garage.
Now, before I continue, I must comment on how influenced I am by television. Because even though I was feeding off the rush of something dramatic happening, visions of this episode of that oh-so-wonderful show, Mythbusters, immediately flashed into my head. And I got the worried face on...
Needlesstosay, I had images of hot water heaters exploding through the roof and, yes, even bringing a sad, water-heater-turned-missile death upon me. But, being the "eh-hem" brave soul I am I stood on a stool and turned the only lever we deduced would stop the flow a of water. And, what a McGruber I am, it worked! I saved my family and my house from a perilous misfortune.
We cleared away some of tools and other random items from around the hot water heater base and after all that action and adventure it was time for me to take a shower! ...without hot water :o\ So, I sucked it up and told myself I'd rather be clean for the night at the price of showering in ice-cold water.
The water pressure was sucky but I kept trying to focus on the positives... You know, "At least we have hot water all the time. At least I can get clean tonight." Well, all that positivity was shattered when the water pressure of my already frigged water slowly died. And yes. In the moment, felt singled out by God to suffer that night. Ha... Well, my mother made the heavenly decision to turn the hot water back on until I finished my shower and just let the water spray out for a couple more minutes until I was finished. So she heads out the garage to save my freezing, soggy bum.
But, I wait for a couple minutes anticipating her angelic voice informing me that the hot water is available for the next several minutes. And then I wait a couple more minutes... and a couple more. And she finally comes back and says, "You're done, ya?"
Well, apparently she assumed I'd just turn the water on and get started after she left. And I was sitting crouched in the shower like a third-world country child waiting for her to come back. Anyways, the water got turned back on once again and that 2 minutes of warm water... well, there's not much that can be said to describe something that magnificent. I felt like I'd won the lottery after that hot water started comin' out.
All-in-all, I discovered that I think I could do well in a "you get three minutes to shower" environment. And these kinds of situations always do give me a greater sense of appreciation. Hot showers... we take them for granted so often.
I later found, after mom had gone to bed, that the water had seeped under the wall into the pantry/laundry room. So, in my pajama's, I cleaned up another lake in our house. Thankfully we had a close family friend who also serves as our contractor/handyman come by the house this morning and fix it. Hallelujah. Hot water again...
Speaking of fixing things. Did you know Home Depot is open at 6am?? That's just crazy. I found that out last night when I heard Mr. David was coming a little after 6am to fix it... after he made a stop at Home Depot to get the parts. Way to make yourself available Home Depot. I admire that...
When I grow up, I want to be Mariska Hargitay... You most likely know her from the TV show, Law and Order SVU. This woman's got it going on. She wears leather jackets; wields a gun; is the ultimate tough girl yet rocks the little black dress; has gotten shot at, punched, kidnapped; kicks some serious criminal booty and looks magnificent while doing so; and is straight up gorgeous. Ok, so I know we're just talkin' a TV show here, but she could probably still pull it off in real life. According to IMDB, "on one occasion, she came upon a pregnant woman who collapsed while in New York City. When no one else came to the woman's aid, she lapsed into her character on Law and Order while aiding the victim." Uh, huh. What now?
In her non-justice serving time, the woman speaks English, Hungarian, French and Italian; was crowned Miss Beverly Hills in 1982; is the founder and president of Joyful Heart Foundation; and has won an Emmy and a Golden Globe award.
Well, after a demanding morning filled with phone calls and emails regarding my upcoming summer internship I decided to treat myself to some pancakes. I wasn't satisfied with traditional Bisquick and was in need of a health-conscious fix. So I combined my whole wheat flour and oatmeal and fresh goat milk... But my Iron Chef demeanour quickly changed upon this horrifying discovery -- a chicken embryo in my egg. Yes folks, an embryo.
Now, don't be alarmed. This wasn't any egg from the local market. This was an egg from my own backyard where roams my mother's menagerie of farm hens. And although I am not a completely squeamish person when it comes to odd and grotesque things, this still kept me grimacing.
Thankfully, my pancakes were not tainted by this rather unlovely discovery and they turned out healthy-like but still yummy... especially with a little bit of butter and sugar-free syrup :o)
It has come to my attention to express my distaste for two things:
1. Daylight savings time. I do like to fall back, but I do not like to spring forward. Lame.
2. Sticky residue left from stickers. I'm appalled. We can send man to the moon, we can engineer wind-powered walking machines (I dunno, Jordan said they exist) but we can't design a sticker than comes off without leaving it's devilish stickiness behind.
Right now I'm attempting to write a paper on the article on the evolutionary transformation from Australopithecinesafarensis to Homo ergaster involving postcranium anatomy and craniodental morphology and encephalization... Uhhm. Hmm.
My newest addiction: Trader Joe's granola bars. Especially the Chewy Fruit, the Sweet and Salty, the "This [Fruit] Walks into a Bar" ones... well, basically, all of them. Just can't get enough... I'm currently all out of granola bars and this greatly distresses me. S'pose I'll just have to force myself to go to Trader Joe's soon.
Well, this post is about a week over due. Regardless, I shall not neglect to proclaim to the world how magnificent a little place called Joshua Tree is... Oh, "WORLD! It's MAGNIFICENT!" There, there is my proclamation.
I admit, my expectations were limited, so perhaps my experience was heightened by this fact. It really is natural anomaly. Upon entering the park, the terrain drastically changes, and we, of course, had our own theories as to how the intricate rock formations came about -- the flood, aliens... well, it really does seem unexplainable. No picture can fully capture being in the presence of this graveyard of boulders. Anyways, I felt similar to a child at an aquarium, fascinated by, yes, rocks.
I make one confession -- that I overestimated my climbing abilities. At the gym I can qualify myself at a beginning V3 climber. So I anticipated hitting every VB to V2 that I encountered. We all were a little overly zealous to get our first climb in and began a V0 climb on the nearest boulder. It came as quite a shock to us when Matt and Jordan found themselves struggling. We disregarded it as a fluke and set out to our next route. V0 again. Too hard of a route again.
Well, it definitely was an immediate soak of humility in our present presumption of our abilities. As our hands got more accustomed to the roughness of the boulders and as Matt and Jordan began to find routes that they could mantle, I found myself a little more confident and was able to attempt 4 or 5 routes and flash three of them... yes, all VB's.
Our trip was quite successful as we left relatively injury-less and all alive (well, I suppose that was more of my concern than of Matt's or Jordan's) and we all felt a little more inspired to head back to the gym to prepare ourselves for our next climb.
