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- Camping this past weekend with the kids went well.  I forget sometimes how much kids just want adult attention (and food and sleep and the like), though I get a little overwhelmed after a while.  But they were really good when Aunt Beeker needed a few minutes and then glommed back on when I returned.  We needed two cars to fit everything which meant I got to drive by myself which was lovely - except for the traffic.  Over half an hour to travel four miles up a 6% grade in first gear the entire time is not relaxing.

- For LJ Idol this week we had to write on two topics Canard and Tool Box.  For Canard I had the idea early and was able to get it written before camping.  Amusingly the nephew wanted to do a round of story telling around the campfire Saturday night so I ended up telling them the canard fable as best as I could remember it.  He didn't quite follow it (the tropes aren't so ingrained at 8) but my mother-in-law and husband gasped very satisfyingly at the first twist.  Tool Box I ended up writing after midnight on Sunday, and then revising heavily the next day.  I had a lot of vague ideas throughout the week, but none that sparked enough to become words on a page.  In any case there is a live poll this week divided by topic.

Week 24: read and comment and vote


- I was on the waiting list for Denver Center of the Performing Arts Broadway subscription this year, but they called Friday and we're in.  A large part of the reason for the wait list is the thing I'm super excited about, we now have tickets to Hamilton when the tour comes to town.  Funny how that tour is jumping subscription rates everywhere it stops (since it's the only way to guarantee a seat).  I hope all the companies are making good use of that cash, and planning for the likely fall-off the year after.

- We finished season 5 of Samurai Jack.  I liked how it ended and am glad that Genndy Tartakovsky came back to write his version of the end.  If you've never seen SamJack, it's one of the more unusal cartoons out there.  The visuals are stunning, and there are entire episodes with no words just images.  They really worked at the boundaries of what cartoons can do.  I was introduced to it while working on Pacific Overatures because Mako (the original reciter on Broadway) was the original voice of the villain Aku.  It's well worth trying if you've never seen it.

I keep composing LJ posts in my head but not writing them down.  It's time to try to fix that, again.

- I have a letter (partially) published in the back of Paper Girls issue 14.  It's the one I wrote with my SASE to get my American Newspaper Delivery Guild card, which I received and carry in my wallet, so it wasn't particularly deep or thoughtful.  But I'm still tickled after all of these years reading comic books to see my name in one.

- I tweaked a muscle in my hip a few weeks ago.  After as I was updating my training log and saw how I had jumped my mileage for the week and a half previously I was not surprised - I know better and it was an idiot thing to do.  The hip is better, now the tightness all seems to be at the very top of my hamstring and quad on the right side.  I'm still mostly on the elliptical and walking, though I started back at zumba class this week.  Trying to find the balance between healing and being sedentary.

- Along the same lines I took a workshop at a local yoga studio this past weekend called "heal your psoas".  The psoas is a muscle deep in your core-ish that connects your spine and your femur.  It was interesting, the movement was challenging, and I think it is part of the underlying issue of my right hip/glute having been tight for years.  Sadly one class can't fix that, but hopefully I'm gathering good tools.

- There are some issues to working remotely that never occurred to me.( Read more...Collapse )

- My cough is almost gone, seven months later.  I really like the pulmonologist I met with, and need to email him (per his request) next to send an update.  I've got a lung stress test scheduled for next week which I'm not certain I still need.  But at least if that all starts again I already have a relationship and won't have to wait through the new patient queue.

- I'm still in Idol which is an honor at this point, especially given how many amazing writers have left.  We get to write two entries this week, due on Monday.  My time is going to be limited because this weekend we have J's 8 yr old nephew and 5 yr old niece in town.  The plan is to take them, and J's mom, camping Sat-Sun which will be fun - but also cuts into my writing time.  I have one vague idea that I like but don't love, and nothing at all for the other topic.   Hrmmm... might be time to take a cup of coffee/tea outside and not come back in until I have an idea.  Surprisingly that's worked at least twice this time around.

- I was talking to my husband about my story for Idol this week, and mentioned that the magic box had to be at Mt. Tam, because hiking on Mt. Tam always felt like there were mysteries around the next corner and magic happening where you had just stepped.  That made him remember this photo taken on our last Mt. Tam hike:


(for the VI: it's a misty day and trees and vines overgrow both sides of the path and seem to link together up above.  I'm about 30' ahead of the photograhper facing away at the mouth of the tunnel of green, there's a small area of brighter grey just around me.)
See, magic.

- I went back to the doctor for my cough which still hasn't gone away after five weeks despite the antibiotics.  I'm now on prednisone for the week to hopefully finally reduce the inflammation and be done.  It doesn't hurt, or come with any other symptoms so it's not that awful for me, but I think everyone around me is really tired of hearing it.  My furstration is that I started a really simple breath practice in the mornings in February, and am wanting to grow it into something more (daily meditation?) but I still can't talke more than four deep, fill-my-lungs breaths in a row without coughing.  I'm maintaining the small start I have, but am ready to do more, as soon as my lungs let me.

-We're about to hit a travel phase again, it always seems to come in streaks.  I cling to my routines even more when I've been away and apparently when I'm about to be away, so i can already feel myself wanting everything just so.

- For the past three weekends J and I have gone cross-country skiing just north of Winter Park.  The first day we also had a private lesson (it was my birthday present).  I've never liked downhill skiing (too fast, the chair lifts are too high) so this is a middle ground that still gets both of us outside in the mountains in the winter. It's been fun, if tiring.  Going up the few extra thousand feet in elevation means I end up gasping for breath occasionally, but the views at both places we've gone are stunning.  Each trip we've gotten a little better about preparing - wearing enough layers but not too many, bringing a handkerchief, having something warm to drink not just gatorade.  We'll probably go another few times this spring, one of the things I realized is that only going once a year would be tough - that leaves no chance for finding the right rhythm or developing the right muscles.  I've also discovered that rental boots tend not to be my friend because my feet are weirdly between sizes and narrow.  I may start bringing extra socks to see if that helps.

- I'm on my regular movie watching binge pre-Oscar's.  I've seen six of the nine nominated best movies this year, and plan to see at least one, maybe two more in theaters.  But even more exciting is the fact that our current basic cable package comes with the Turner Classic Movie channel.  I've never had that channel before and it's a little dangerous.  I've been going through the guide for the 28 days of Oscar and recording each movie nominated for best picture I haven't seen yet.  I think I have 40 or so movies on the tivo to watch right now, and the month isn't over yet.  So I will be able to make a big leap forward in my goal to see every nominated best picture film, that is if I can find the time to watch them all.

- I am registered to run the Colfax half-marathon in May.  I had originally been planning to run the full, and still feel a little like I'm wimping out.  I could have trained up enough to run it, but I was a little behind before I even started, pushing too hard is an easy way to get hurt, and we want to do some other things this spring instead of just running.  The half marathon makes a lot more sense.  Turns out Brett Favre recently ran his very first half-marathon and finished in 2:06.  So this Packer fan can now identify my goal like this  - I want to be faster than Brett Favre.  Actually I want to set a new PR and my current one is 2:07:44 so they do line up.  In support of this I am finally using the training time I bought last fall at the YMCA.  Once a week I meet with Dayna and she walks me through strength exercises.  I have to keep reminding myself I asked for upper body stuff too, because oof my shoulders ache after every session (mostly because of how weak they are currently).  I have a plan for the race that should be doable, though I have to start paying attention to my pace soon.

- I am taking antibiotics for a dry cough that turns out to be bronchitis.  Amusingly I had already been taking probiotics just to reset my system.  I keep picturing a mini-war happening in my insides and hope the anti- are killing all the right things and the pro- are helping everything else survive.

- I can't quite figure out Denver winter.  It snowed about 4" overnight and through this morning.  Wendesday it's supposed to be 50 degrees.  This happened with the last storm too, over a Wed-Thurs we got 10" of snow, by Sunday it was in the upper 40's and all of the snow, except for a few banks in shady spots, was gone by Tuesday.  I'm not complaning, it's just odd.  I'm used to an upper midwest winter, once it's gotten cold enough to snow it usually stays that way for several months and all of the snow sticks.  This snow / no-snow pattern is going to take some getting used to.  Though it does make the way the city plows (or doesn't for non-major residential streets) make more sense.

- During the last storm my car got stuck turning the corner from a road that had been plowed to one that wasn't.  I was about a block from home, so I put on my flashers and called my husband.  Just as I got off the phone a car pulled to the side of the road in front of me and two guys jumped out.  They helped push me out, smiled and waved, and got back in their car and drove away.  It's nice to know that still happens.

- I missed LJ Idol this week.  I had no good ideas for the topic and was busy so I let this become my first bye.  Hopefully it'll be my only one.

- I don't quite believe the Packers won that game.  After so many blow outs it was great to have a really good, close game of football, but my heart might have preferred it to involve someone else's team.

- I kept forgetting that this is a three day weekend.  It feels too soon after the holidays for another day off.

- Happy New Year to one and all.  I kept forgetting to open with that in work emails today and had to remind myself - a little social lubrication will make things better.  But things are busy enough it's hard for it not to feel a bit like wasted time.  I got asked a question today where the answer was 'don't know, won't have time to figure it out until later this week'.  Whee!

- Part of the oddity of wishing folks happy new year for me is I don't really feel like mine has started yet.  I looked at my calendar and now have numbers to put to my discombobulation, since November 16 I've been home for 23 days and travelling/away for 25.  So the time I usually spend tidying and summing up at the end of a year hasn't happened, nor has making any resolutions or plans for the year ahead.  I've just been keeping up.  But there are two dates coming up that feel like beginnings for different reasons, January 16 and 21, so I am going to spend some time this weekend getting settled and organized and calm, then pick one of them to be my new year. I just need to re-center, I keep spinning on small to-dos and have no head at all for the big picture right now.

-NYE was board games and hot toddys, so lovely.  Though it was surprisingly difficult to find a station doing a countdown in Mountain time, most channels apparently did east coast and then began replaying the whole thing for pacific time.  Hrmph.

- I picked up the scarf I had started and knit a lot while watching football this weekend.  Hopefully I'll maintain motivation to finish it, it's cold enough right now that a new wool scarf sounds like an amazing idea.

I am at the Vegas airport killing time until I board a plane back to CO.

We spent the holidays in NW Arizona with J's sister-in-law and kids.  J drove down with his mom, brother, and niece in the car from CO to AZ.  I have to work on both sides of this trip so I flew in on the 24th and am flying out today.  This has the added benefit of no road trip with lots of family, which would have made me crazy.
( holiday reactionCollapse )

I'll get home to work for a few days, and then am travelling again for New Year's weekend.  I'm hoping to be home for January, we've travelled a lot for the last six weeks and I'm ready to stay still for a while.

I'm a little nervous about work, this is my first time doing end of year and all of the 2016 audit items and my boss is a decent guy but absolutely believes in the sink-or-swim way of teaching things.  He'll answer questions, if I know what to ask.

Not much else to report from here - it's been a lot of hurry up to wait and filling time as best I can.  My Christmas present to me was reading "Snuff" by Terry Pratchett. Reading a new Pratchett has long been a balm, something I saved for a stressful time as a way to make things better.  There's only one Discworld novel I haven't read now.  It might be a while until I get to it since this is the last fix I get.

Happy late December everyone - I hope the week is treating you well.

Wow, when you say restore from draft not having posted anything in months what you get is - odd.

It's been ages. I've been reading sporadically since I last posted but life got away from me a bit. The short version:

-The person just above me in seniority in the department quit in March. After learning lots of new things and several months of limbo, I got a promotion and a raise and the ability to work remotely full time. That last one is necessary because..
- We moved to Colorado. J¹ & I officially left CA on April 2.
- For the summer we guest room hopped and traveled a lot for both work and family (and at least once for a long weekend just for ourselves). This was fun, but also exhausting in that 'no, I really am an introvert' way.
- But we now have an apartment of our very own and are all the way unpacked and everything.

Why return now? Idol, and Gary, of course. I'm in for season ten.

And because as an introvert who now works remotely and is in a new state I need to keep my social skills up somehow.
And because 'post on LJ' has been on my to-do list for over a month. Yippee crossing things off.
But also, Idol, and all of the beautiful craziness to come.



¹This is my husband, who I started referring to by initial shortly after we started dating, and why ruin a good thing?

- I am the only person in my office today.  If everyone was here (which has literally never happened) there would only be eight of us, but this week many folks are travelling or working from home and the one other person who was supposed to be here is sick.  So it's just me.

- About that subject?  Super Bowl city, the NFL's party zone that will be in operation from Jan 30 through the game, is being built across the street from my office.  Road closures have already begun so traffic is a mess, and my train to the city has more people on it than usual.  I need to run an errand at lunch today which should be simple, but I'm not sure if the sidewalks are open the way I'd usually take.  Next week when it's fully operational we have been given permission to work from home the entire time if we choose.  Part of me wants to come up for at least one day to gawk out the windows and people watch, but I can't quite decide if it will be worth the commute.  Hrmmm....

- For a brief time last week I thought I was getting cold #3, but that didn't happen.  Now I just have my standard winter cough, though odd things keep popping up that make me think I'm not entirely well.  I guess not being actively sick is what I've got and I should be grateful for that.

- J and I spent MLK day hiking to the east peak of Mt. Tam.  It was a very grey day and misty, luckily it didn't actually rain on us until near the end of the hike.  The weather meant we didn't see any of the views that were described in the guide we used, but we also were sharing the trails with only a few people and there's something peaceful about the grey enveloping everything.  J described it as cathedral-like.  It also meant I paid a lot more attention to the flowering bushes, or the odd bright orange brain mold, and all of the waterfalls were stunning (and a few were probably new).  There is a theater space up there that I had no idea existed.  Every new year J and I determine we're going to do more hiking, and we tend to fall off that by early summer.  Maybe this time it'll stick.

- My birthday last week was very quiet.  My co-workers took me out for lunch and J took me out for dinner.  The hike was also sort of for my birthday, we've been doing that for several years.  I'm a little sad to not be 42 anymore because I enjoyed the geekiness of that number but it was pointed out that 43 is prime, which made me feel better.  (And next year will be a palindrome!)

- We're planning a ski weekend with friends and I've been stressing a bit because I don't like to downhill ski.  I never feel in control enough going down, and my fear of heights kicks in hugely on chair lifts.  But I don't want anyone else not to have the fun weekend they want to have, and if I stay indoors the whole time a few folks will feel responsible for me.  (Which isn't exactly my problem I know, but...)  I'm looking for a place to cross-country ski, which I did enjoy the last time I did it 25 years ago or so.  I keep reminding myself it's a silly thing to be stressed about and it's okay if I don't want to learn to ski in my 40's, but I keep feeling like I'm somehow being a fuddy duddy and should get over it.  Or maybe I just need to embrace the fuddy duddy.

I have a monster cold.  Last Monday we went to see The Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder on tour and I could feel my throat getting sorer with every swallow from intermission on.  It moved from the throat, to the congestion, to the cough that settled in on Christmas and stayed. It finally seems to be on an upswing, but it's hard to tell for sure - every day I had a few good hours when I thought I was getting better and it hasn't panned out yet.  Cross your fingers for me this time.

One of the casualties of the illness is my participation in LJ Idol.  I waited until nearly the last moment to sign up, knowing this wasn't great timing for me and not wanting to take a spot from someone who really wanted it, but also wanting to play with all of my friends again.  The first two weeks went like I expected, byes due to the marathon and holiday shopping which left me without a net, and then this damn cold.  I suppose I could have written something from the depths of cold medicine which might have been amusing, if incoherent, but I couldn't pull anything together.

My holidays were lovely and quiet, J and I stayed home and cooked good food and napped (he's sick too), and watched movies.  We have a sort of tradition of watching horror movies on Christmas which we didn't quite live up to, but the whiplash of going from White Christmas, which I had never seen but J had, to Bad Santa seems in a similar vein.  They're both great movies in really, really different ways.

I'm not quite running yet, my foot finally stopped hurting about two weeks after the race, but then this cold arrived and took all my motivation.  I've hit that point where I'm not certain if I'm really too sick to run or using it is an excuse which means I should get out there soon.  Maybe a few bike rides at the Y (indoors!) first to make sure my lungs won't revolt.

I hope everyone who celebrates had lovely holidays, and just everyone did something that makes them happy.