Taking a walk with me

Instead of inserting these pics into the previous posts, I'll just show them here. These are the paths I keep talking about that are within my neighborhood, and the hike I found that goes up the hill behind my neighborhood and into one of the parks, and the views from up on the hill.

The start of the biggest, most secluded path is about 2 blocks from my house. Today I found a way to get there in the common space behind the houses so I am off-street nearly the whole time. There are amazing tall trees there you have to pass under - I keep calling them redwoods, but I don't think they are. They are very straight, tall, big around, and have a red-ish tent, so they may be related. At any rate, this is just inside the path, near the start. Notice Audrey is ahead of me - she always likes to lead the way :)























Then you pass a little stream Audrey likes to get muddy in - it should have more water soon when the rains start. And you get to a part which is a bit more meadow-like. My neighbor says the eastern part of this neighborhood didn't have the trees cut; rather it used to be meadow - where our part has these amazing trees. Even though our part is older, I far prefer it. You can see one of the new mc-mansions I have to pass once I exit the path before I get to the park land and the hill just beyond.











It is hard to see in this pic (you can click on it to expand it) but this is the view from the top of the hill. To the left just out of view is the cascades and some peaks that are over 10,000 ft high, and to the right is the smaller coastal range with Mary's peak at just over 4000 ft.




Here is a close-up of the moss that is prevalent here. I think it looks amazing - it is stiff, like starched string. I was so surprised the first time I reached up to touch it and found it was so dry and hard - not soft and moist like I expected.

Taking Saturday off

Today my mom reminded me that I had made a promise to myself to try to take Saturdays off. I mentioned to her that I was going to work some today - how quickly I had forgotten the promise! I have managed not to work today - so thanks, mom, you were able to save me :) Tomorrow is going to be a long day though! I hope to fit in another hike but that will probably be it.

Today I rode my bike (here's a pic of it in front of my house) for the first real trip in my new town - I rode it downtown (about 3 miles one way) to a fall arts and music festival. It was delightful! I thought I'd be too tired to ride it back home and may take the city bus if needed, but it was great. I had to walk the last two blocks since my neighborhood is on a hill (I stopped to take this pic on the way home - the hill in the background is the one I've been hiking up, my neighborhood being at the base), but the ride was fairly easy. It took just over 30 minutes though - I am slow. I need to get a basket for the bike, and a thing to hold a water bottle. This town is great for biking - there are dedicated bike lanes on nearly every street. I felt safe the whole time, despite not doing in-town biking for a very long time.

Later in the day (after spending some more time enjoying my hammock and porch!) I decided to drive 15 miles to Costco to activate my gift membership and look around (I'd love a fire pit for the porch) - it's in the next town. I got there 10 minutes after they had closed, however, so I had to turn around and drive back home. It was such a beautiful day, though, and the valley is lovely - the length of the trip was only the time it took to listen to 5 great songs on my stereo while looking at beautiful scenery. Whenever I count driving distance by the number of songs I get to listen to, I always think of "The Point" - the time it takes to get to the pointed forest is exactly the time it takes to sing a song...

Points to you if you remember which song it is :)

I really love it here!

I have had a very busy week and Monday seems like it was long ago. Someone today asked me when I started my job and I said "last week" then I quickly corrected myself - "no, this week, but Monday seems like it was over a week ago!" Everyone here totally understands that is how it is at the start of the quarter, and compounded by the fact that I am new here. I couldn't ask for people to be more helpful or friendly than those in my new department.

Besides preparing for my fall course, I have had some fun this week. There was a college of science party on Wednesday, a department party on Thursday, and a lab party today - 3 days in a row! It has been nice to learn some names, socialize, and get free snacks :) I am still learning the names and faces of the graduate students, but since the faculty is fairly small (14 full time and 2 semi-retired plus 3 staff instructors) I know them mostly all fairly well already.

I used my kitchen for the first time Tuesday preparing for the department picnic. Thanks to the recipe of a friend of mine, I made very successful mini egg-custard pies with cinnamon and nutmeg sprinkled on top. They were very tasty and addictive, and somewhat healthy (at least for my low blood sugar due to the lower sugar and high protein content.)

The nicest part of the week, though, was probably in my last hour. After taking a well-needed rest upon arriving home, I spent a few hours collapsing boxes that I had piled in my garage, then re-organizing things there so I could start cleaning out the random boxes in the house. This was great progress - I finally feel the house is nearly settled. I suspect by the end of this weekend I'll be fully unpacked. This wasn't the nice part though.

When I went outside to load some things (I had borrowed) into my car, I noticed how beautiful the night sky looked, with all the stars clear and a beautiful moon. So I went outside and set up the camping hammock that mom had sent on the back porch, turned out all the lights and enjoyed my little corner of the world. It was so peaceful - it was the first time I had really enjoyed my yard - and probably my house, for that matter. I know I will love living here.

More on the food here...

I was talking to the lady who does our accounting today - and I have only scratched the surface. Apparently along the street bordering our side of campus with all the restaurants has pretty much every type of cuisine within 6 blocks of my office.

There is: mexican (fast food and sit down), chinese, thai, japanese, middle-eastern (again two types), vegetarian, hawaiian, a few pizza places, the soup place, a bar/burger place and more that I'm not remembering off hand.

Maybe I should start at one end and work my way down the street and try everything...

Today I had the left over pizza from last night at home. I stayed home to do some more unpacking (I really needed to find my teaching notes) and then took a really nice hike up the hill to the park near my house. I'll post pictures soon...

On my way to getting fat :)

I hope the title of this post is a joke - since I'll be hiking and doing other physical activities enough to counterbalance the eating...

I am writing this post from my favorite pizza place - probably anywhere in the world. I'm eating pizza with an olive oil base, cheese, artichokes and garlic - no sauce. It's yummy! With it, I'm drinking a sparkling apple juice that is nearly as good as the "appletizer" drink I became addicted to in Cape Town. This place has the best choices - 4 different bases, about 30 different toppings... you get the idea. At lunch time they have pre-made slices of lots of different flavors. This is actually the first place I ever ate here, when I came for my job interview. The decor is great, with creative murals like guys snorkeling in an underwater pizza paradise, and painted chairs with crazy and random themes.

I also had a terrific lunch today - there is a Japanese noodle and sushi place just across from my department. I had a great Bento (lunch "box") with edamame, stir-fried veggies, rice and tofu (each in their own little compartment) and a side of miso soup. There are other great lunch combos that I can't wait to try - and of course I'll try the sushi. There was a Bento place at Ohio State I kept intending to go to but only went to a few times - now is my chance to take advantage of one. This place seems a lot better, too, if only for the fact it is clearly a mom and pop (who barely speak English) who are lovingly running the place, and not some commercial operation.

Other great food places include an all vegetarian place with all sorts of crazy dishes inspired from mexican, asian, and american food. There's also a soup and salad place with 8 varieties of soup on any given day (and when I've been at least 3 are vegetarian). There's also a bar-style place with a great portobello sandwich if I get a craving for french fries :) These are all close walks to my office :) I haven't even mentioned the other decent places, or the places I'm not likely to try... Then there are the restaurants downtown, and the restaurants along the shopping strip... All this in such a small town?

Enjoying the quiet

So here I am, living in a small town in the middle of a rural valley. Not all the students have arrived yet - school does not start yet until a week from today, but I must say the peace and quiet of this town is terrific. I can walk around and across campus so easily, and there are so few cars on the road. I wonder if things will be much different next week? I recall how much nicer summers at ohio state were than during the regular school year just because of the quiet on campus. I think because the town is so small, though, that much of the quiet here will remain. Our student body is also about half the size of ohio state, too, so that helps!

One thing that was WONDERFUL was that Saturday we had the first home football game since I've been here, and I completely forgot about it. It was so quiet in my neighborhood and I didn't see or hear any evidence of a football game all day. I may actually start to appreciate the game under these conditions! At ohio state I lived way too close to campus and the crowds, parties, trash, and noise were horrible. One thing that is the same here as there is that there is no parking on campus during game days unless you're going to the game. Hopefully the weather will be ok enough that I can bike to campus those days if I need to go in. I hope to not work on Saturdays though - at least that is my goal :)

I'm listening to the people at the table next to me complaining about how loud their neighbors are - I am so glad I'm living where I am. So far the only thing I've heard from inside my house is a dog barking.

The weather here seems somewhat unpredictable in the sense that (except for June-Aug) there can be heavy cloud cover on any given day that may or may not burn off from the sun. If it burns off the weather will be great and warm; if it does not, it will be chilly and unpleasant. Today after getting my faculty ID I was shocked to realize that I was squinting when I reemerged from the admin building basement - the sun had actually managed to come out after a 4 day hiatus! At least, so far, the cloud cover has been interesting, and the air at ground level is still fairly clear, so it's not like an overall gray haze that I am used to from ohio winters.

Reflections on my summer

This summer was totally amazing in many different ways. I was free to choose my own goals, and free to explore life in ways I had never done before. I didn't have a job to worry about (though thankfully I had a paycheck - I love academia!) and since my stuff was in storage all my old projects could be forgotten. I was thrilled to have a new job - my dream job, to look forward to, and thrilled to be done with my first job which I was glad to leave. This feeling of liberation and accomplishment gave me the confidence to be open to the world and to enjoy my interactions with new people and places during the summer.

The summer started before I left Massachusetts, with a long visit from my mom. Together, we drove up to Maine for my first ever visit there, and on the way up we went to a terrific music hall in the middle of nowhere for some great modern folk-style music. We also went on a whale watching cruise off the Boston coast. We did a little hiking including the cedar swamps that feel magical to be in.




Then I sent my stuff into storage, loaded up my car with my summer essentials and pets, and headed to North Carolina to spend the summer with family. I had my own apartment waiting for me and I knew more of my neighbors within a week than I had known after a year in Massachusetts - people were much friendlier in N.C.! I was thrilled to spend time with my mom and sister, and especially to get to know my adorable nephew.

Shortly after arriving in N.C. I flew out to Oregon to find a house. There was one I had in mind when I flew out; walking distance to campus and quite cute. However, the neighbors were reportedly drug dealing and the street just wasn't good. Fortunately the place I ended up buying went on the market while I was there, and I jumped on it after seeing it and exploring the neighborhood. That was after having been up and down nearly every street in town - and picking up every for sale flier I could find. There was little here in my meager price range. I was happy to stay with a friend's brother and his family while looking for a house - they live only about 20 miles away from where I now live. It is nice to know good people here. I will have them over after I unpack.

Once I returned to N.C. I got started on an old research project that had been sitting in my files. I knew if the data was decent I could get a small paper from it this summer, and I intended to present it at a conference which was fortunately near home. Having worked hard on that project I was ready to spoil myself, so when I found out a guy I knew would be in Vegas and said I could join him and his friends I got online and used a voucher I had to go there for only $100. With all my job interviews I have made elite status on NWA, so I was upgraded to first class - funny since I booked it 2 days in advance and paid so little...

I made a friend on the plane and he invited me to join him and his friends the following evening for a show. After being fairly bored with the guys I was hanging out with (they were math grad students and mostly interested in star trek and poker...) I jumped at the chance to join my new friend for a show. The girl he had gone on the trip with met us there, and she was a hoot. We are still in touch. She had friends from Poland she was meeting there and she invited me to party with them. We stayed up dancing all night and went in Caesar's fountain at 4am - this is a lot more fun than the Star Trek exhibit! I went to my first gay bar that night - I saw a transvestite pole dancing, a midget on the dance floor, and the guy from the plane got us free drinks because the bartender was hitting on him. These people were a lot of fun and we ended up staying up until morning joking and laughing. I am still in touch with the lady - she is hilarious.

Upon returning home I had to nearly immediately leave again to go with my mom and sister to help take care of a cousin (and very close friend of my mom) who broke her hip. It was not an easy trip because my mom's old home town is very depressed, and the conditions of our cousin's hospital and home life were hard to deal with. I also had trouble finding healthy food and felt sick for most of the week. It was, however, a great time to spend with my sister as the two of us continued on and saw a few aunts, uncles and cousins in Birmingham while my mom stayed in the country with our cousin. My favorite part of the trip, however, was the final drive home when we started singing the songs we used to sing as kids - and ended up calling an old babysitter to help remember some lyrics. She was at work, but joined in the singing over the speaker phone :)

Even visiting these people was different from my usual experiences. I went out clubbing with a cousin and saw a lifestyle I had never experienced. She is such a beautiful and sweet girl that everyone is drawn to her and wants to do things for her. Her friends were very welcoming to me which was nice because they are not like people I usually hang out with. One is a model and all were seemingly more interested in beauty than academics. Charles Barkley was at the club we went to, which was rather cool. I didn't go talk to him though - he seemed bombarded. My cousin did as one of her friends knew him. After leaving the club we went for food at the only place still open - a late night bar which was rather seedy. Some guy who tried to convince us he was a vampire was trying so hard to pick up my cousin's friend. She was understandably totally uninterested and gave him a very hard time in return. We had a fun evening and had a good time laughing about it on the way home and the next morning.

Shortly after returning to N.C. I left again for Ohio to see old friends. On the way (well, not really on the way but I made it work anyway) I went to Nashville to use the gift certificate I got for my birthday. It entitled me to laps in an Indy race car and a Stock car, each going up to 180 mph. I didn't even know what those two types of cars were before booking my rides! It was awesome - probably the best gift ever. Thanks mom! Next time I'm driving :) A friend of mine - in fact an older student from my last quarter in Ohio, invited me to join her family for a day at the mid-Ohio race tracks to round out my racing weekend. That was awesome. I got to see both types of cars in action, and we got passes where we could go behind the pit crews and see behind the scenes. I loved the smells, the sounds, and the adrenalin in the air. I had no idea racing would appeal to me, but it did. I was glad to have that new experience!

In Ohio I had bad sleeping arrangements as my friend (the same one that helped me make the drive to Oregon) had a horrible house mate. That house mate had invited his (previously unmentioned) wife and two kids to stay for what he said was a week or two, and it had been 6 weeks and they were still there. They were total slobs, too, and freaked out by my dog. I didn't enjoy that at all and spent as little time there as I could. That freed me up nicely though to see other friends. I have 3 friends there who are artists - though one has yet to decide if she will ever part with anything, even though she has had nice offers for purchasing some of them. The other two both have works I would like to buy and I enjoyed visiting with them again.

One of those artist friends is the one that originally rescued my dog. She had me over to party, got tipsy, and told me more of the story of her rescue than she ever had in the past. Apparently she thought I would feel guilty and want to return my dog - but after 2 years now there is no way - she is mine for good. She found out who the owners were about a month after I took the dog in and had kept the secret all this time. Apparently the owners had bought a new house in the country and couldn't move in yet, but couldn't have a dog in their apartment. So they (after having obtained the dog in exchange for work done for a breeder) dumped the puppy outside and left it there for over a month until they could also go live there. When my friend's grandma found the puppy, she was covered in tics and fleas, dehydrated, and malnourished. I don't think these people deserved to have her - I am glad she is mine. I also think my friend did the right thing to not tell me immediately - I would have felt guilty then, but my bond with her is too strong now.

I also went out with another friend to a fancy new restaurant/bar/club in a restored church. The place could be really cool but probably will not do well. The service was horrific. Our waitress seemed totally inept and clueless, and seemed to think it was cute that she was that way! And this at a place where entrees start at $20 for a small plate. After the dinner we went to a lesbian dance club - also a first for me. I had not even known of it my whole 7 years living in Columbus. I have to say it was really liberating to be there. There were no pretenses and no snobbery like I felt at the place I went to with my cousin earlier in the month. There were straight couples, gay couples, but mostly just groups of friends dancing and having a good time. No one was dressed fancy and everyone seemed accepted and comfortable. There were even very nerdy looking guys confident enough to dance on the tables - that I would never see at some hip trendy club. I had also never been dancing with this friend before - it was a weekend unlike any other I had ever spent in Ohio.

When I returned back to N.C. I was happy to be dating a really fun, nice and cute guy I had met just before my trip. We had probably the most fun date ever, starting with a good dinner at a Thai restaurant, then an impromptu canoe trip down a river around midnight. This was tricky as there were lots of downed trees blocking our paths and places where we had to wade through in the dark. I ended up bruised up a bit but it was fun. Then we talked for a while on his porch and ended up cuddling in a hammock until dawn next to a horse pasture. I had actually dated more since April than I had in the last 2 years combined. And although this guy was the first person I liked enough to spend so much time with, overall the dating has been fun and positive and gives me hope for the future. I am starting to enjoy meeting people, getting to know them, and am meeting people that are worth knowing. On another fun date with the N.C. guy we camped out by the river - my first time sleeping outside in a long time. I was comfortable outside and I can't wait to get back into camping now that I'm on the west coast. A day that I also really enjoyed involved hiking, eating homemade ice cream on the porch with locals at a little country store, then helping him move bales of hay on the farm. That's hard work - I was sweaty, filthy, and sore after that - but it was fun :) This is the same friend that fixed up the bike for me as I mentioned in an earlier post. The last evening I saw him, just before the move to Oregon he also took me on my first motorcycle ride which I really enjoyed - it felt liberating!

Then it was time for my conference. I had submitted my paper and was ready to give my talk, which was well-received. I made a lot of new friends at the conference as well as spent quality time with some old friends. A friend I had made a few years ago (and not seen since) had lost over 100 lbs since she had started power lifting, and she can now dead lift 270 lbs! It was great to catch up with her and hear of all her adventures. It was also terrific to see how empowered she is becoming, and how great she looks! I have been inspired (by more than one source) to be more physically strong this summer, having spent a lot of time at my sister's yoga studio and gotten a private work-out routine worked out with one of the instructors there based on my personal goals and target areas.

At the conference since I wasn't stressed about anything I was able to hang out with people much more than usual. This allowed me to see things I don't normally see. I found out things about people I never would have guessed - personal things I would not post here. I also participated in drinking games (though I didn't drink - I was still accepted) at 2am in the hotel lobby with a bunch of professors and teachers ranging in age from mid-20's to probably about 60. I had no idea such behavior went on at conferences and although I'm glad I saw it, I'll probably avoid it next time :)

After the conference two old friends came back to my mom's house with me and we hiked, went canoeing and on the jet ski, and had some nice meals both out and at home. It was great to have visitors, catch up with friends, and to do some more activities before heading to South Africa.

This summer was just amazing. Not only did I get the quality time with family I had been missing, but I also learned things about people I never knew, met people I would have never met in my past, experienced loads of awesome new things, and enjoyed every minute of it. I also had the chance to re-evaluate goals, set and work on new ones, and re-think how I want to shape my future. All this and I still got a paper accepted for publication :)

And all this BEFORE my amazing trip to South Africa!!