22 December 2013

Doctors and Do-littles

My time at home has not been going as usual. The main reason? I've been busy going to doctors' appointments: dentist, optometrist, physical, blood work, sonograms... 9 appointments in all, and two more to go. This is the trouble with not coming home twice a year anymore. :P And with all these appointments and all this running around (with winter driving thrown in the mix) I get home and am completely wiped of my motivation. It's sad: my purge has only managed to produce one full waste basket and one full box for the local goodwill, and maybe just a couple pounds or so of recycled paper.

But I am making a little progress, I suppose, bit by bit. It doesn't help that my Christmas presents still need finishing. Tomorrow will be my first time experimenting with a dremel drill, and trying to finish up my presents, along with finishing purging in my dormer. Goodness knows I need that space to look more open and less like a collection of piles of clutter, and despite my lack of diligence it's already looking much better than when I arrived. I've got half my Christmas presents wrapped up and ready to go (and out of the way), so that helps with the clutter, too.

I had hoped to be doing more on the exercise front while I was at home, too. Particularly on the yoga and cross-country skiing fronts. Well, the latter hasn't happened due to lack of time (and, since our latest weather craze, lack of good snow), and the former hasn't happened because I'm medically not allowed to for the moment. I had a mole-type deal removed from my shoulder and I'm not allowed to do any crazy stretching for awhile per the doctor's orders, lest I pop my stitches. Not to mention it makes wearing a bra terribly uncomfortable.

But it's not all humbugs here. Things are getting done, and they will get done, eventually. I've gotten to spend lots of time with family: my sister and her to little boys, my brother and his wife, my cousin Jeanette. I finally finished my fisherman's sweater - pictures will come when I get a chance, I promise. At least, given that I've been wearing it every day since I finished it, it'll probably show up in pictures sooner rather than later. Christmas is just a few days away, and in one week I will hopefully be bringing Jack back from the train station to meet my folks and family. But there's a lot to be done before then, so I'd better get crackin'!

Until next time!

15 December 2013

Michigan

My hometown looks like a Christmas card. Every time I look out the window: it's all so perfectly snowy, little flakes zig-zagging about, trees silhouetted against a perpetually grey, cloudy sky. I've seen both of my siblings now, reintroduced myself to my nephews, shared meals with my parents, spent an evening at my grandma's house, greeted the neighbor boys, and went to church to check in with that extended family. This weekend was all about relaxing and spending time with my family; starting tomorrow, the real work begins.

What work?

Come on, do you really have to ask? I could only be talking about one thing:

The Purge.

It's been about 6 years now since I first started the Purge, and I have to say that I've made an amazing amount of progress. But there's still plenty of work to be done. My dresser smells like unattended cotton, my dormer is still full of junk, there's papers from my last two semesters that I haven't gone through yet, I have books in excess of what I will read, and there's an closet half-full with my college apartment-living items that needs a hard looking-over. Yes, I've got my work cut out for me. Between that and doctors visits, family functions, finalizing Christmas craft-presents, and hopefully getting together with a friend or two, or at least chatting on the phone with some, I'll definitely be keeping myself busy this week.

The weekend has been nice, but tomorrow: the work begins.

08 December 2013

Snow.

 Beautiful, cold, crisp, and clear. I haven't seen snow in awhile. Granted, there have been little bouts of it during my time in Bodie, but not the real, sticky, snowman-worthy, slushy-drive snow that I would see back in Michigan and occasionally in Chicago. But that has changed. Our trip ended in snow. We stayed at Jack's friend Andy's house and enjoyed a good 4-5 inches of ever-accumulating snow. Perfect to pack, perfect for snowmen, dangerous for snowballs. The drive out of the Trinity Mountains was slow-going, but full of wonder - a true "winter wonderland" - as we coasted along the curves of an icy black river and snow-draped mountain canyons.
 Our epic road trip up to the norther portions of California is at a close. Now it's decompress, unpack, and pack for my trip to Michigan (where I will hopefully get plenty more snow!) and finish up Christmas presents for the holidays.
 The ocean in the north is beautiful and violent, but it gives good things. I want to see it more, and I think I will get the chance - a job at Humboldt Redwoods State Park seems imminent for the spring. Jack will hopefully be staying up in Eureka, and many more adventures will ensue once we both get settled again. For now, it's enough to say that we had a good trip, we're both tired, and we now have to buckle down for holiday travel. But in all the running around, there were still those still small moments of peace and beauty and enjoyment of God's beautiful creation, and those are the ones I'll be holding onto amidst the chaos and busyness of the next few weeks.
Until next time!

02 December 2013

Beautiful Things

 I'm on the road with Jack. We've hit up all sorts of places since we left the high desert. Venice, California, is a lovely boardwalk with lots of cheap deals on bikinis, shoes, sunglasses, and the like. Big Sur, the Slow Coast, and the entire Highway 1 up to Frisco was lovely, if not a little windy. Camp Meeker, as always was pleasantly beautiful, and the day trip to Point Reyes was an enjoyable little jaunt with some beautiful shiny blue mussel shells at the end. And now as we continue north, it's gorgeous. Mendocino County is rolling hills, big trees, and Fort Bragg's beaches gave forth something new and shiny: red abalone shells.

It's been a lovely trip so far, and unfortunately the last week of travel is upon us.

Until next time!

14 November 2013

I passed!

After 9 days of drinking information from a fire hose, participating as both rescuer and patient in numerous scenarios, and both a multiple choice and a practical exam, I am now officially a certified Wilderness First Responder. Or WFR (pronounced WOOF-er) for short. Maybe I should start using that at the end of my name like doctors do...

Well, it's time to hit the road once more. I got laundry going, and I'm picking up pieces with regards to my phone bill (my phone got possessed and tried to get on the internet when I was in class one day and charged me $0.31... luckily I got that reversed this morning), emailing folks, cleaning up the room I let all my stuff sprawl in while I was staying here with Chris and Charley. Last night we had an after-party type deal at Paul's house, aka the Zoo, and it was actually kind of sad saying goodbye to all my classmates. Most of them were pretty cool cats, and I hope that we run into each other again someday.

Now it's on to Tujunga and Roger and Cecile's house. I'm hoping to meet up with a friend from my time in Botswana this weekend for a little hiking and catching up. Jack will be back in Cali after the 19th, so we'll be hanging out a lot, too, after that.

So it's time to bid adieu to the Sierra Nevada at last. Hopefully we'll see each other again soon.

03 November 2013

Decompress

It's half past 2 in the afternoon on October 31st, and I ran up Green Street to take a picture that I had always told myself I would take, but never actually took the time to snap in my three years at Bodie. I figured it might be my last chance.

I didn't get out of Bodie until quarter to 3 in the afternoon, after a few final, hasty goodbyes. I put the largest ghost town in the west in my rear view mirror. As I drove away I was struck by the thought that that might be the last time that I drive away from Bodie and feel like I am leaving 'home' behind me. That could be the last time I could call Bodie my own.

So it's up to Cerro Gordo for a few days to decompress. Mornings in front of the potbelly stove, knitting, sipping tea, journaling. Peace, quiet. Chatting with Robert, the caretaker, and walking around the little town. Using the outhouse (always fun). I even did a little painting.
Now I'm at Chris and Charley's in Bishop, and I start my Wilderness First Responder Course tomorrow morning, bright and early. I can tell that I'm not used to living in normal towns at the moment - every time I hear a car go past my first thought is, "I wonder who's visiting?" Hmm... I'll have to work on that.

Anyway, I think it's time to rustle up some grub for supper (quietly, since Chris is hopefully asleep so she can start doing her night shifts tonight) and then I'll think about going to bed myself. After a shower, of course.

Until next time!



29 October 2013

Closing Time

As of this time tomorrow, it'll be a wrap. The stamp mill will be closed, the kiosk cleared out, and the season completed for another year. I'm trying to get a start on packing today... and mostly failing. But I got a lot done - sent some important emails, wrote a few letters, made a few phone calls. I'm trying to pack a box to ship home and part of that is loading up all cds onto my computer so that I can send the physical ones back to Michigan to go in my piles of stuff. I stumbled upon one I hadn't even looked at yet that had some of Jenna's pictures from the season, and I thought I would post a few as a sort of recap.
One of my first shindigs back at Bodie - it snowed just after we got done grilling.




Bodie Clue - the theme party that I threw this year. This was way too much time right here, but so much fun at the end!
Part of the turn-out for the Bodie Clue night. Note the colored outfits.

Trailer Trash Party - Pretty sure this could be a calendar shot. I, of course, was a pregnant hick.

The most nerve-wracking 3 minutes of my season.

Another FOB Day shot - in case you're wondering, that's a bearded man in a dress and the district superintendent with me in the photo.

Running to my place for the cemetery tour on FOB night.

Maggie McRae looking for the unmarked grave of her brother.

3rd Annual Bodie Luau... and the return of the Shenanigan Glasses!!

Limbo Champion - two years running

Chillin' out at the Luau

Jack the Latchbarman
I did decent at my goals. I slipped up on the hiking majorly, but I did get a fair amount of yoga in. I successfully created a social life outside of Bodie, from going to church to driving over the mountains to see friends. I definitely got out a lot this year! As for my reading, I finished 12 books this year: 7 books and 5 audiobooks. As for my goal to get my student loans under $7000... that one is gonna have to be on hold. My car broke down a couple weeks back and I only got it back after over $2600 in repairs. So I won't be making that goal anytime soon, but it's still on the horizon. I'll be unemployed for a couple months or so, and hopefully as soon as I'm working again I can knock that goal off my list.

I might get in another quick entry before I head off into the great unknown with my car packed full and my plans in God's hands, but if I don't, it'll probably be mid-November before I post again.

Until next time!

16 October 2013

A quarter of the way there!

Where? you might ask. A quarter of the way to finishing my fisherman's sweater!
The color is a little more golden than it looks in the picture, but that there is the back of my sweater! There's a few mistakes here and there, but nothing too terrible. I'll be starting the front once I get back out to the kiosk. Due to staff persons being sick and other random extenuating circumstances, I get to be in the kiosk all day today. Not my favorite thing to do (especially now that we've slowed down quite a bit), but it is good for making headway on big knitting projects! I've just got to do the front and two sleeves and the neck and then I'll be done - oh, and I have to sew it all together, of course. But it shouldn't be too bad. I'm hoping that I'll be able to get this project finished by the time I finish my season here. We'll see.

Two things I won't miss about Bodie when I leave: having people peeping in my house, and getting verbally abused by visitors with regards to the road (even after I tell them that I have nothing to do with the quality of the road, and that I have driven it far more times than they ever will). I'm starting to think that it's a human rights violation of some sort to keep it in such poor condition because of all the unearned flack we the kiosk workers get for it.

Anyway, time to start getting ready to face the penalty box for 5 more hours!

12 October 2013

Vacation Wrap-up

So I'm back in Bodie, working some extra days to make up for switching my schedule around for my 11-day vacation, and I think over the next day or two I'll put together a general story of what went down for those 11 days. I packed a lot in there, so I'll do my best to be brief, and we'll see what happens.
I got stuck behind a real retired London double-decker on Tioga Pass
I started out on Friday once I got off work and drove out to Kings Canyon National Park, where I was going to meet my friend Jack for an end-of-season party. Kind of like a pig roast, actually. Finding my directions too easy (follow 180E from Fresno to Kings), I got mildly lost, but only arrived about 45 minutes late. Saturday we hiked 16 miles up a canyon towards a place called Lower Paradise - we didn't quite make it, but we had a lovely time. In the evening, the meat was dug out of the fire pit and we had a marvelous time eating, chatting, dancing, and playing music until early in the morning.
Suki all loaded up - yes, that is a hula hoop in the back.
The next day I drove down to Three Rivers to meet Alyssa and start our little surfing vacation. I got the meeting place wrong, and it was an hour and a half before a mutual friend approached to tell me that she was waiting for me at a different pizza place. Oops. We met up and caravanned down to Atascadero, bandit camping in a Trader Joe's parking lot along the way. On Monday we dropped her truck off at an auto shop, loaded up my little Suki with all our stuff and surf boards, and drove to the coast. We camped at Morro Strand, Pismo Beach, and El Refugio, and surfed at Morro Strand, Shell Beach, Pismo Beach, and El Capitan. I went out 5 times and Alyssa said I picked up fairly quickly. I only stood on the board 3 times, but I half-stood multiple times, and I rode a lot of waves on my belly on the board. Monday I came down with a cold, which was a bit of a bugger, and continued to be for the rest of my vacation. Monday night we went to yoga, but arrive a few minutes late and found the door locked. However, we hung around and did an exhilarating West African Dance class at the same place an hour or so later. Wednesday we tried to do some yoga in Pismo, but once again arrived a couple minutes late and were refused entry to the class. Very disappointing. But we were really there for the surfing and, although the surf was poor-to-fair the entire time, I had an absolute blast learning how and would definitely LOVE to get out there some more.
Catching a wave!
The intensely wavy beach in the town (?) of Surf - we did NOT surf here.
 On Thursday we drove back to Atascadero, Alyssa loaded her stuff back into her truck, and we parted ways. I drove up north to Betty's in San Francisco and spent the night there. The next morning was the first day of the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival. I went all three days, thoroughly enjoyed myself, and met up with Jack and Alyssa and Betty throughout. I think if I did it again I would only go on Friday, unless there was someone I really wanted to see on one of the other days, because there was just way too many people on Saturday and Sunday.
Conor Oberst at the Rooster Stage on Friday night for HSB
Sunday night Jack and I drove up to Aunt Barbara and Uncle Paul's. On Monday I started off my day with a few laps in the pool and a good soak in the hot tub. In the afternoon Uncle Paul drove us down to Tomales Bay and we cleaned up the Lion for a little sail around the bay. It was a relaxing and fun afternoon. That night my cousin Nolan and his girlfriend Jaz came over and we all had dinner and played some music. A nice, relaxing way to end my vacation.
Sailing the Lion
Tuesday morning we drove back to where my car was parked and Jack and I parted ways, him going south and me going east. During rush hour while driving in the fast lane on I-80 in Sacramento my car engine blew up and I was stranded with a dead cell phone. When I got the opportunity to call my dad and the tow truck, I called Jack and he turned around and drove 200 miles to come rescue me. Dad had the presence of mind to look up local pastors in the CRC yearbook, and one was nearby and put me up for the night. The next day we found a Subaru Specialist to leave my car with and discovered that I'd done quite a bit of damage to my car, and thus to my pocket book. A week or so and a couple thousand dollars from now I should be getting my car back. Poor Suki. Jack drove me back to Bodie, and now I'm stuck here until he returns to take me back to Sacramento to pick up my car.
Surfer Chick - note the wild beach hair.
All in all, it was a great vacation - very relaxing, very fun, good times with good friends. But I have to admit that just about everything that could have gone wrong, did. I suppose life is just like that sometimes, though, and I can't complain. Things happen, and you just gotta roll with it. It's nice to be back at Bodie, and I'm feeling a lot better about visitor relations than I was when I left! The vacation was good for me, in spite of the fact that I'm still trying to kick this darn cold I picked up while I was out in civilization.

21 September 2013

Autumn is here!

Okay, so technically Autumn starts tomorrow, however, we've already had a successful test run of it here in Bodie! The low on Wednesday night was 14*, and the low on Thursday night was 21*. We've started running our faucets at night, and John (who is almost always hot) turned on the heater last night.

In preparation for my vacation, I have started a deep clean of the house as of yesterday - when I tidied and then moved all the furniture in the living room so I could vacuum everything (even the runner boards!) and also vacuumed the spare bedroom (since I've got a hypothetical house guest arriving after I get back from my vacation). On the list for the rest of the weekend are the bathroom, my bedroom, and the kitchen (where I will be trying my hand at mopping a greasy floor), as well as doing the laundry and my sheets and towels. Speaking of laundry, I recently finished my 66-load, 4x concentrated Seventh Generation Laundry Detergent and purchased, due to availability on vitacost.com and lower prices, Mrs. Meyer's Clean Day Laundry Detergent, which does 68 loads, is also 4x concentrated, and takes up less space than the container of the Seventh Generation one I've been hauling around. In fact, it's about half the size! When you're nomadic and living out of your car, you really appreciate things like that. Not to mention that, so far (after having only washed my yoga mat with it), I seem to like the smell. There were lots to choose from, but I played it relatively safe and got the lavender, though I wonder what lemon verbena, bluebell, and sunflower all smell like. Perhaps in a year or two when I have cause to buy one again I'll try and locate a store that sells this stuff so I can pre-smell and pick a different scent.

Aside from cleaning, there's a regimen of packing and other small chores or activities that need to or I that I would like to get done before I go, like finishing the book I'm reading - Dead Pool - or clean up the things for the house that I offered to take after Eric found them all in the back of his storage shed here. I already cleaned up a beautiful glass gas-style lamp last night - the bottom, top, or both light up, and it's now the beautiful centerpiece of the living room, and easily brighter than any of the other lights we have in there. There's a GIANT lamp that showed up in the red barn that I think I'm going to snag today to put in the cave - since there's no nightstand in that room, a table lamp that's so big it doubles as a floor lamp seems rather fitting. We'll see if I can't get it in there today.

Sunday, Jenna and Ryan will be going to church with me, and afterwards we're having dinner at the pastor's house, which should be fun. Monday I'm thinking of going for a nice bike ride, and the rest of the weekend will largely be devoted to cleaning, packing, and checking things off my to-do list. I'm also busy trying to set back my internal clock by waking up 15 minutes earlier every few days. This work week I set my alarm back to 5:45, and during my weekend I'll be setting it back to 5:30, then 5:15 for next week. The goal being that on Friday, I will be up early enough to start my work day at 6am and, taking only a half-hour lunch break, be off work by 4:30pm and out of here by 5pm at the latest, so that I can make the seven hour drive to Sequoia in a slightly-more-reasonable time frame.

So that's a lot of business over all. Nothing too exciting, but hopefully when I get back I'll have some good pictures/stories from my epic little vacation starting the end of next week. I'm thinking I probably won't bother to bring my computer along, so once I leave I'll be out of the e-loop until I return (a real vacation, if you ask me), and phone calls will be the best way to attempt to reach me. For now, I'm going to leave you with a picture I managed to obtain of my Botswana quilt on display at the annual Bridgeport Founder's Day Quilt Show:
Until next time!!

17 September 2013

Internetical Fritz

That is to say, the internet is going crazy here today. I had plans of ordering yarn, buying a pattern, doing some online banking, downloading an audio book, listening to a sermon, and all sorts of other wonderful things. But I can't do them. Because the internet will only load pages sponsored by google. What the heck!? Not to mention that I spent 2 hours of my day off trying to fix the state's internet and was entirely unsuccessful. I am not very pleased at the moment.

So I guess I have no choice but to make a blog post. I've been knitting up washcloths like a maniac in order to use up my scrap yarn from this tunic project (incidentally, I finally got the pattern written for that, and it will - hopefully soon - be up for sale on ravelry), as well as from my earlier tank top this summer. I decided that I ought not do the same design twice, so it's been a fun time.





As you can see, I've been hard at work. I finished another one yesterday, and I would have made another (hopefully my last) one today, but I wasn't ever able to get on and download another pattern. Poop.
Not sure if I ever posted pictures of my finished tunic - but here's a couple that I had my coworker take to be in the official pattern write-up.

That's her dog, Bella, in the photos with me. She's a Chesapeake Bay Retriever. It's supposed to be an Eastern Sierra-inspired design, so I figured that Lundy Canyon was a good, iconic, Eastern Sierra locale to take the photos. In retrospect, they'd probably look better if I a) was sitting up straighter in the first photo and b) didn't have stuff in my pockets in the second photo. But oh well, it's life, it's not like I'm a real model or anything.

But the core question I'm trying to get at is this: why, if I could upload all these pictures and write up this blog post, do I not have a good enough internet connection to go onto any of the sites I need to in order to get my work done?

It's just a week and three days 'til my vacation, and good riddance.

12 September 2013

Disconnect

It's funny how much we take modern technology for granted. Example? Our internet has been virtually non-functional for the majority of the day for the last three or four days. That means little to no email, no new knitting pattern downloads, and definitely no phone calls for me. Yuck. I'm just glad I downloaded all those yoga podcasts last week, at least I'm set on that front for awhile. When you prepare yourself for a disconnect like that, it's liberating. When it's forced upon you, it seems stifling.

But there's a much more positive disconnect coming up: the final pieces have finally fallen into place so that I can take an 11-day vacation at the end of this month (including several days of PAID vacation!)! Hooray! I'm not going to lie, it's been very difficult for me the first part of this month, and I think that the next month and a half will be as well. I'm just not accustomed to staying in one place this long, and some days the incessantly repetitive questions just about drive me up the roof! That's why this vacation is going to be so nice - a chance to disconnect, really remove myself from the place a bit, before I lock in for the long haul of my last three or four weeks in Bodie. I'll be returning to Sequoia to visit Alyssa, then going up to San Francisco to visit Betty, attend the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival, and visit Uncle Paul and Aunt Barbara (hopefully with a day of sailing, if the weather cooperates!).

When all is said and done, I'll have spent 11 days traveling around and visiting, and hopefully that'll whet my appetite enough for me to settle into my final weeks at Bodie. And if that's not enough, I've got someone interested in paying me an extended visit during those final weeks as well. But that's not 'til after I get back. For now, I've got roughly two weeks and a day before I leave on my vacation.

I can hardly wait! :)

07 September 2013

Engage

Keeping busy, that's what engaging is. I've been keeping busy, alright.

This past week I've been doing yoga every morning, went on a 3 mile hike on two of my three days off, and with the exception of my opening shift I started each work day (after my morning yoga) with a 1.5 mile hike on the EPA trail with coworkers. I'm a bit sore, but I'm already starting to feel pretty darn great from the routine.

I've also been hard at work knitting - turning little bits of leftover yarn into washcloths! I've got two different cloths knit up now, and I'll be starting a third this weekend, and have plans to make at least two more after that. It all depends on how far the yarn goes.

The smoke came in again this afternoon. We'd been without it for several days, but I guess our luck ran out. I think I might be sleeping on the floor again tonight.

I whipped up a plum and white peach pie earlier this week, and had it for supper on two separate occasions. It turned out really well, for not having a recipe, and everyone who had a piece made sure to tell me that they liked it.

I finally found a cribbage partner! It turns out that Alex knows how to play, and we've gotten together twice this week, each of us winning one game on both occasions. He's a darn good pegger, though, and it's not easy to squeak out my wins by any means.

Another thing I've started doing this week is oil pulling. I talked about it awhile back, but now I've started doing it every morning, and I think I can actually see a difference in the color of my teeth already! Basically, I take a teaspoon of coconut oil and swish it around in my mouth for 5-10 minutes, then spit it out and brush my teeth. I am also about to finish my baking soda and fluoride toothpaste and swap it out for a fluoride free, baking soda toothpaste (Tom's brand) that I bought at Trader Joe's when I was in Fresno. So hopefully I'll continue to see improvements in my teeth over the weeks and months to come.

Other than that, not much is happening here. It's slowed down, and I don't have much to look forward to until the end of the month. Hence all the engaging in activities to fill my days right now. But it's working: so far this week went by pretty quickly. Now I just have to do that a few more times and I'll be on my next little vacation! :)

Until next time!

02 September 2013

A Contented Tummy

"I no say dis cuz I need someting. I wen learn dat I get nuff stuff awready. I stay good inside no matta wat happen. I wen bottom out, an I wen get plenny. All dat stuff wen happen to me. I wen learn da secret, how fo handle anyting everytime. No matta I get plenny fo eat, o I hungry. No matta I get plenny odda kine stuffs, o I no moa. I strong nuff fo handle any kine, cuz I stay tight wit Christ, an he give me da power fo do um." - Philippians 4:11-13, Da Jesus Book (Hawaiian Pidgin Bible)

It's easier to understand if you try to read it out loud. But I like this translation from time to time, and I certainly like this verse. Here it is from the slightly-easier-to-comprehend Message translation:

"Actually, I don’t have a sense of needing anything personally. I’ve learned by now to be quite content whatever my circumstances. I’m just as happy with little as with much, with much as with little. I’ve found the recipe for being happy whether full or hungry, hands full or hands empty. Whatever I have, wherever I am, I can make it through anything in the One who makes me who I am."

I used to think that the full and empty party referred merely to food, but I've come to see it as having pretty multifaceted meaning. It can relate to your material status, but it can also relate to your relationships, your work load, your inner emotions, your spiritual life, just about anything. And lots of times those things are rather tied together, I find. Everything seems connected the more I think about it. 

For example: when I take the time to actually prepare a delicious meal, my emotions are generally lifted by the effort, and the combination of good food and good spirits puts me in a better mood overall to tackle my work load (or put up with the lack thereof, as the case may be), and when I'm okay with how my work is going along I'm more likely to relate better to those around me - to be less needy, or less defensive, to be more open.

I've known for a long time now how to live with little, but I am learning how to indulge in the abundance that I feel I've been blessed with this year. It could be something as simple as buying a cast iron skillet for my personal cookware and making an oven-puffed pancake in it, or buying grape juice at the store, or keeping large quantities of blueberries on hand in my freezer. In a culinary way I have stepped out of my box quite a bit this year, even making up some recipes! I've tried to take some pictures of some of my dishes to share with you guys, but I have to admit that I'm not very good at taking food pictures - I promise these things looked much more appetizing in real life, so you'll have to use your imagination.
Veggie tacos: corn tortillas fried in coconut oil; zucchini, yellow bell pepper, kidney beans, and peanuts sauteed in coconut oil; topped with Trader Joe's Southwest salsa (corn and chipotle) and shredded white cheddar cheese.

Duck Soup: homemade duck stock with shredded duck, zucchini, summer squash, carrots, celery, eggplant, great northern beans, and country herbs.


Roasted tomatoes: homegrown tomatoes from my cousin Amanda's in-laws, olive oil, country herbs, paprika, pepper, and cayenne pepper.

Oven-Puffed Pancake: fresh out of the oven (they deflate later) in my new cast-iron skillet! Topped later with greek yogurt, defrosted blueberries, and Michigan pure maple syrup.

And in my freezer is shrimp, a cornish game hen, and plenty of other experimental ingredients. Not to mention the ratatouille I made (my first time cooking eggplant ever!), and the numerous recipes I've made from the Glorious One Pot Meal cookbook this year. I have certainly been well blessed when it comes to food this year, and I am glad that I am taking advantage of it. It feels so good to be eating food made with love and not just something out of a box with little to no thought or personality going into it. Now if you'll excuse me, I've got the last quarter of a stuffed zucchini (what I've started calling zucchini steak because of its heartiness) to reheat for supper, along with some enhanced marinara sauce!

29 August 2013

A (Digital) Tintype

This is one of the numerous photos I posed for on Memorial Day Weekend (see this blog post) - actually, it was the last, which is why I could barely smile. The guy posted this one on flickr and one of my coworkers saw it and sent me the link. If you click here you will actually be able to zoom in real close and personal with the details, and it's astounding how much clarity there is in this photo. I'm still waiting to get my actual physical tintype - it won't be this picture, but a much more flattering one that was taken of me on the porch of my favorite house. But it was really cool to get to see this one, as I had no idea how most of the pictures turned out!

26 August 2013

The Cusp of Autumn

The air maintains a crisp quality, breezes are cool and speak of the winter to come. The sun seems to have taken a step back from us, no longer casting as warm a glow as she was just a month ago. No, now is the time for her to retreat, for her to retire, so that we can rest for awhile in the embrace of winter.

Outside the visitors are less numerous, their disruptions less frequent as I go about my day off. The window stays open, and their voices, if they do travel alongside my house, are increasingly foreign in nature. Which is just fine by me. For once I am glad not to understand them: ignorance is bliss.

With autumn, as with spring, comes the need to clean. Papers are sorted into three piles: keep, trash, and kindling. Soon we will be starting fires in the stove again, and I have no intention of running out of fire-starters. Everything off the floor! It's time to run the vacuum, shake out the rug, suck up the cobwebs from the floor runners. Make that four categories of paper: anything remotely interesting gets poster-puddied onto the wall. I've got a growing gallery there: postcards, phone numbers, Mom's little doodles on the back of which she sent me her most recent letter, a map of Sequoia and Kings Canyon with the Big Arroyo Trail highlighted. Someone I look forward to seeing again is out there right now. If patience pays off, they will be here soon enough. Feathers are collected from the corners they've blown to, tied down onto a length of hemp, strung from a push-pin in the wall along with my old dream catcher. Not the one I got free with a coupon at some gift shop in New Mexico, but the one that I made my first season here. Where I hiked up the canyon alongside Geiger and cut a willow, soaked it, debarked it, and fastened it into a circle with my trusty hemp, weaving the web from whose center I would dangle another hemp strand with swallow feathers I found in the basement of the toll house by the parking lot. This is the dream catcher that hung in my room in the J.S. Cain, which then became Eric's room, and which Eric returned to me when he moved out of that room at the beginning of this year so that Terra (now a permanent employee) could have the house along with her husband, dog, cat, bird, and brother-in-law. This dream catcher will stay here, a modern Bodie relic - it'd probably be bad luck to take it out of town anyway.

My hair grows long, barely grazing the tops of my shoulder blades. A single ponytail holder stands between me and cutting it short again, an unspoken promise that I'll let it continue to grow in spite of myself. Peppermint-soaked cotton balls find their way to the recently de-webbed corners of the room to disinterest further spider activity. Things find their places once more, slowly but surely, and the bed reappears. That quilt needs to be bagged for the quilt show. They said to describe it's story in 25 words or less. I did it in 47. Excess boxes clutter my space - do I recycle them, or are they good for something? It's the age-old question when you move every six months. Except that I move every 4. Since I graduated high school I have never been in one place for more than 4 months at a time. And yet here I am, honing in on that 4-month mark, and staring down the barrel of two more months in the same place.

But September is my favorite month here, when the days grow more introspective, the increasingly elderly visitors ask more insightful questions, and all is peace and quiet and crisp and clean. The aspens will start to change soon, you can feel it in the air, and I will be compelled to ride my bike up the Virginia Lakes road once more to engross myself in that decay-dent scent of autumnal detritus. Soup is on my mind - the duck soup that needs finishing in the fridge, the squash soup I gathered the ingredients for on my last trip to the west side, the chicken soup with the paprika that I love so much, the minestrone that I haven't made in over a year, Eric's chili cook-off which I darn well hope I will get to participate in this year. My visions shift from knitting tank tops to knitting sweaters, and I regret leaving so many of mine in Michigan. I sense a mail-order of sorts is forthcoming. In the meantime, my progressively threadbare flannel serves me just as well as it ever has, and I pull it close around me in the wake of the coming autumn chill. We've been through a lot of firsts together, that flannel and I, always making itself present in my life. There's no reason why it shouldn't do the same while I try to pin my beating wings down for a couple months longer than usual so I can enjoy one of my favorite places - possibly for the last time - in my favorite season.

The cusp of autumn is here, and I look forward to the season with placid joy.

25 August 2013

I'm painting blue skies!

Cobalt blue = perfect blue skies. Yes.
I painted this one last night - hadn't painted anything in awhile, so I thought I'd test out my new paint. Turns out it also does a good denim. Also tried to be real conscious about where the light was and where it was coming from in this painting. Can you tell? In the end I don't think the lighting was quite as dramatic as I was trying to get it to be, but I think it kind of showed up. I even did some pressing of lines with the flat tip on the other end of my brush for the trees in the foreground, as well as the delineation of the hood in the jacket. This whole person-in-the-landscape thing is inspired by a watercolor artist whose painting I bought at the 4th of July Booths in Bridgeport earlier this year - he includes a person in almost every single one of his landscapes to bring connection with the Nature. I liked that idea, and I think I'm going to try and start doing that more often, now.

I had a pleasant surprise when I got to church today: I found out that there was a church picnic afterwards! My poor bike rode all the way down the mountain with me, but I ended up not going for a ride because once the picnic was gone, the smoke from the Rim Fire had blown in and I wasn't prepared to develop sports-induced asthma today. A bit of a bugger. I left the bike in the car for the night and will try to take her out tomorrow morning, before the smoke rolls in. I also might be putting my quilt in the local Founders' Day Quilt Show, so that's exciting.

This weekend is the clean-the-house/do-the-laundry/unpack-from-my-trip weekend. Not a whole lot of fun, but I'm going to try and get a decent hike and a bike in, assuming that the smoke cooperates. It's also the cook-those-veggies-in-your-fridge-before-they-go-bad weekend which, with two monster zucchinis and two decent-sized zuc/squash hybrids, a giant beet, some corn cobs, overly-juicy plums, and other delicacies, should be fun! I'm going to be cooking up/baking a storm! Maybe I'll do a post on culinary creativity/activity.

Until next time!

21 August 2013

Weekend Adventures

So this weekend I went to Columbia SHP with a friend, but I didn't take a single picture in the state park. Oops. However, I did get a goofy shot of us in front of a storefront in the town of Bootjack, where we stopped because of the funny name.
We also stopped at the CA State Mining and Mineral Museum in Mariposa - where I geeked out for an hour or so. They've got an operational model of a stamp mill! How cool is that! Anyway, we made it up to Columbia, explored a bit, had ice cream, sarsaparilla, and chocolate, then went to Tuttletown Recreation Area to cool off because it was ludicrously hot! We swam for at least a couple hours, then had dinner and camped out. Overall, a very fun time.

The next morning I went to Stockton to visit my cousin Amanda. But first I stopped in at her winery in Acampo, where I got the Mr. Rogers tour - so cool!

It was fun catching up with her, meeting the addition to their family, swimming in their pool (again, it was REALLY hot and humid), and generally having fun. Then the next day it was off to Bodie again, where a 14,300 acre fire is burning a mere 3 miles away at 20% containment. I'm up and at 'em this morning, but word on the street is we might not be open again today. We'll see if they find anything worthwhile for me to do with myself for 10 hours if that's the case.

Until next time!


17 August 2013

Checkup on my Goals

Since I'm coming down the backside of my season now, I thought it might be good to reevaluate a bit. At the beginning of the season, I had three active goals, and one monetary goal. I wanted to amp up my hiking mileage and get out with my backpack more; to create a social life outside of Bodie; to read a lot; and to get my student loans down below $7,000. Well, it's been about 3.5 months now, and let's see how I'm doing:

1. Eight miles is now a pretty standard hiking distance for me, and my new record for a hike in a day is 23 miles. I haven't been hiking terribly regularly, but the hikes I have been doing are typically a bit longer. I've also gotten out and explored a couple places in the Bodie Hills that have been on my to-do list for awhile, like Mt. Biedeman and Beauty Peak. It would probably be good if I got in the habit of doing these hikes more frequently, but at least I am doing them. The only downside to emphasizing hiking this season is that my cycling really fell by the wayside - I've only taken my bike out about three times this season. Very sad. But I blame that on losing momentum because I had hoped to get a mountain bike and then I didn't get one, so I was waiting to start biking when I got one and then that didn't happen. But on that note, I've got a model picked out that I want to buy when I get around to it. However, I don't think it's going to happen this year, anymore. As for backpacking, I used my backpack only the one time in the Bodie Hills at the beginning of the season (my infamous mail hike), and I went backpacking once with Alyssa. So I suppose that I'm a bit lacking on that end of the goal.

2. I have one hiking buddy in Lee Vining who I have met for hikes on a handful of occasions. It's been nice to get out of town and meet new people. I also became somewhat of a regular at the local billiards and the postmaster knows me by name. New this past couple weeks, I started attending Bridgeport Christian Fellowship on occasional Sundays. That is, I don't drive into town every week on Sunday, because I don't like to drive into town more than once on my weekend, and sometimes I have to get weekday stuff done (like going to the library). I've also gotten out of town for some trips, and am planning some more for the future. I went to Sequoia and visited Alyssa; this weekend I'm going to the west side again to see Columbia SHP and visit my cousin in Stockton; in October I'm taking a couple days off to go to the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival in San Francisco. Overall, I think I've definitely broadened my social horizons from what they were in the past couple years here.

3. I've managed to read (and listen to) several books this season, which is several more than I have in the recent past (if you don't count textbook reading!). Since I arrived, I have read "Old Murders Never Die" (a goofy ghost town murder mystery thing), "The Secret Knowledge of Water" (which I HIGHLY recommend), "Zorro" by Isabel Allende, Edward Abbey's "Desert Solitaire", and am currently reading "The Last Season" by Eric Blehm. On audiobook I have listened to all three Hunger Games books and Pride & Prejudice, as well as a prequel and sequel short stories to accompany the Golden Compass series. That's a total of 4 (soon to be 5) books read, and 4 books listened to, 8 books (soon to be 9) altogether. So I would say that this goal is definitely being met with success!

4. My student loans are currently at about $8,700. I've been making payments around $200 twice a month, so at that rate, by the end of October when I make my month's-end payment and finish up my season here at Bodie, I should have achieved my goal of getting under $7,000 by the end of the season. I'm on track! Yipee!

So overall I think that my goals are being met fairly well. Hopefully the trend continues in the next two-and-a-half months!

Until next time!

12 August 2013

Post-FOB Pass-out

Well, we've survived Friends of Bodie Day once more, and in my opinion it went down pretty well. For those who haven't heard it yet, I did have the privilege of singing the National Anthem to open the parade on FOB Day:
It went alright, I suppose.

The park still seems to be busy, though I can't say for sure since I've been on my days off, and will be until Wednesday. I've slept in both mornings so far, and yesterday evening Betty and I stayed up late and laid out under the stars to watch the Perseids. Bodie is a pretty spectacular viewpoint for the annual meteor shower - in fact, I think the only thing Big Bend has on Bodie for Perseids-viewing is the fact that if I were watching them from my blacktop driveway in Big Bend I would be warm, and in Bodie I was bundled up and still quite chilly.

Evening temperatures continue to drop into the 20s here, and Autumn is definitely on its way. Our first park aide left for the season, and as time goes on there will be more to follow. Hopefully visitation will start to taper off a bit, too, though I wouldn't mind if it stayed busy for a couple more weeks, at least. Betty will be going back to San Francisco to do her tutoring thing and it'll just be John and me in the house once more.

I've decided to sort through my iPhoto library this weekend (or at least get a good start) and after going through 15 events I have put 800 photos in the trash. I'm going to wait 'til I get through all of them before I delete them, so I've got a final count. :) Mostly what I'm getting rid of is duplicates or really blurry shots of ???, but there's a few of people I don't know (or don't know anymore) and other random things that I feel I really don't need. It's very fulfilling. Betty thought my monologue while I was working on it this morning was so hilarious, she set up a camera and recorded it. I promised to do a goofy youtube video montage from the footage in the next couple weeks.

Tonight is the annual Bodie Luau, and I've got a coconut cream pie waiting for whipped cream in the fridge. Tomorrow Betty and I are going to go to town and play one last round of pool before she heads out to the big city once more. Now we're on the downhill side of the season, and I have to say it's a bit bittersweet. But as always, I am looking forward to my favorite season: Fall.

03 August 2013

Halfway through

Photo Credit: Shawn Biessel
There's a light at the end of the tunnel, you might say. My hiking buddy took this photo when we were exploring a mine tunnel during our hike up Mono Pass last Sunday. It seemed rather fitting for the post.

August has begun, and we are officially halfway through the season here at Bodie, with just three months left. Where has the time flown!? Things are definitely in a groove here, and I'm enjoying myself thoroughly, though starting to realize that I need to quickly make good on all those "one of these days I'm gonna..." statements I've been making about things to explore around here. Otherwise they might not happen at all.

Friends of Bodie Day is fast approaching. I'm hoping that my tartan that I ordered will come in with time enough for me to affix it to my costume in a pleasing manner. The weather has turned decidedly cool - a pleasant mid-70s in the day, and 20s at night. I've started keeping my window shut at night so that I don't wake up with too stuffy a nose, but I can't really complain. This is the kind of weather for which I love this place. I am definitely wearing out, tiring of the same ten questions, getting more and more perturbed when people peek at me in my house in spite of the modern curtains and multiple signs that say "Employee's Residence".

But even so, there are moments of wonder to be found throughout. Like the Trailer Trash party that was such a hit yesterday, after which Betty and I returned home to laugh outrageously for at least thirty minutes straight. Or the tour I gave today, which wasn't so remarkable in and of itself - I simplified it quite a bit because I had a French couple wherein the wife was translating for the husband and I didn't want them to miss anything too important. But when I finished, they stopped at the gate and chatted with me for a good fifteen minutes, first asking questions about Bodie, comparing it to their last visit - thirteen years ago - and then being very genuinely interested in my life working here. What brought me here? What do I do in winter? The usual questions. But their seemingly sincere concern for my well-being as a nomad was touching. "Isn't it hard for you?" they asked, "to always be going around and not have a family?" I assured them that, for now, it was alright, that it did make dating difficult, but that some day I would settle down and have a family.

At least, that's what I hope.