Nightly Walk with Fresh Snow

Here are some pics from my walk in the snow tonight around my neighborhood.


I love the color of those leaves.


The light is amazing through this ice.


I love clouds, these snow clouds are a different color than rain clouds.


A neighbors old truck.


A pretty neighbor's house.


Bush destroyed by snow and a view of the valley.


The wilderness trail near my house.


I think today is the last day that my flowers will bloom.

Snow Shoeing

I have my beautiful new German scarf wrapped around my neck, and I can't help but think about snow shoeing. Snowshoeing up the mountain from my backyard or maybe even driving up the turquoise trail on the other side of the mountain. Sure it won't be as nice as all those winters on Mt. Rainer with dad, just outside of Seattle, but New Mexico will have a very white winter this year from the looks of it. I also am daydreaming about snowshoeing in Montana, not as a weekend thing, but as a job that I just caught a glimpse of. I've been at this job for two years, and even though it makes me a lot of money, I'm unhappy with it. It's made me fat, and I'm sitting in an office now even. They fly me all over the country and I just drive pick up trucks around all day, then get a large per deim to eat out three times a day. I remember when I would hike for miles everyday just to do my job. I miss being poor, not always knowing where my next meal is coming from because I have to pay rent. There are some beautiful momements in being poor, and a well toned body in occasional starvation.

Very Sick

Some horrible virus hit me so suddenly, it felt like I was hit by a bus. I was barely able to drive home from the doctors office and spent most of a morning online corporate work meeting drooling on my desk. I have a fever, headache, cough, severe chills that made me put on a coat and sweatshirt, a nauseated feeling, and the worst body aches (that hit by a bus feeling). I can't remember ever feeling so sick, except a few times during childhood. I still can't drink that Hawaiian Punch, because I threw it up as a kid, even the smell of it grosses me out.

It might be the H1N1 virus, the Doctors said. You would think they would test everyone to see if it is that for sure, but they don't. Everyone in my family dropped like flies with this virus. It started with my sister, who works in a gas station, then me, then her four kids. At least I don't have to worry about getting everyone else sick anymore.

Thinking in Colors

Sometimes I think in colors. That is instead of thoughts, words or pictures, I just see a bright yellow or a medium blue. It is like a brush painting over glass on the window of my mind. I think they are triggered by emotions, or maybe a image of something significant flashes through my mind then blurs till I just see the color. Right now I had a flash of blue being spilled onto red, not completely covering it, drips of the blue running down the sides of the red. Weird huh? Sometimes the colors have shapes but are too blurry to make out, like I took off my glasses or contacts.

Dancing Stick Figures and Post-its

I was down in Brownsville, TX again last week, driving my pickup through the small downtown streets when I saw this weight loss ad. It showed the outlines of three women, one was fat, the other a little skinnier, and the last one slim and voluptuous. The slim one popped off the ad into my head and started moving, dancing really. Her pencil drawn legs started twirling around artistically, then a stripper pole appeared in my head and she went from a ballerina to pole dancer. It was the weirdest thing! Then I imagined myself drawing it all out on some post-it notes, so I can flip the pages and make the image really come to life.

Since then though, it has happened a few more times, usually inspired by music in my car. I pictured two stick figures dancing to a country song, and even saw two pairs of cowboy boots and hats on them when the were moving. He was twirling her around quickly to the beat of the song. Then I imagined a stick figure with a covered face belly dancing to my Shakira CD. My work has a lot of post-its lying around. One of these boring days, I just might turn them into small booklets of animated art.

Loney by Choice

This is a period of deep thought for me, and if you are one of my friend's reading this, sorry if I've pushed you away in the last several weeks. Sometimes it is hard having everyone, including your junior high friends, see what you do all day and look at your new photos. I feel a deep loneliness, but a desire to recoil from everyone at the same time. It would be nice to have a beagle to keep me company. I guess I don't want any one's opinion on what I should do in my life right now, or for them to be updated on what I'm doing. I feel like I'm being pulled in two different directions, my past and my present.

I never knew I could have such deep heartache, maybe I've never really experienced love before. There is a love that grows through the years, with the one you promised to spend your life with, a familiar comfortable love, but it isn't the same. New thoughts, new plans swirling around in my head, and I don't even want to look at any of my online sites or talk to anyone. I just feel strange.

So what can I do, but read, write, and bake? I love all three.

Feels Like I Stepped off Another Planet

I'm back from Germany, adjusting well to thinking in English again, but I admit, I read about 2000 pages and several books in English while there. Why do they have to dub every American television program in German? Never a moment to relax, unless I want to watch Pimp My Ride on MTV, or boring British news. I've discovered that my German is now way better than any of their English, and it is just easier to talk to them in German. I have hand written journals that I wrote everyday there and will post a few of them here under their original dates on this blog. Until then...

Sheep in the garden, lamb on the grill, street cars, friends, family, the Rhine River, moss in fish tanks disguised as modern German art, lots of insightful haiku written, pigeons, cathedrals built in the Gothic period, monasteries built in the Romanesque period, weird modern theatrical art in a regional dialect that I couldn't understand (what was wiht all that paper? I'll never know.), good food, umlauts, Canadian clothes, train trips, and a decade long flame with wood turned to charcoal that needed some fan waves to crackle and spark again.

Don't Feed the Pigeons!

Stephen King must have voices in his head, because his characters do, but he explains it as coming from the creative side of the brain. Today I seemed to have a voice narrate my day...

"Annie sat on the side of the wall eating and guarding her sandwich from the hungry pigeons. She pitied them, the descendants of a thousand years of pigeons from that same muenster, now forced onto the ground with nails placed on the muenster's ledges preventing them from perching there anymore. They scavenged for dropped french fries and crumbs across the scalloped cobblestones. A very aggressive pigeon hopped up on the wall next to her and ate some crumb that might have come from Annie's sandwich. He made a noise, then more and more started to fly in. It looked like something out of a horror movie, birds everywhere. She rose her leg to pretend to kick one of them, and wiggled it to shoo a few more. A sharp pain rose in her back again and she gently climbed off the wall. Not missing an opportunity, a bird inched toward her sandwich. Another bird eyed it from a few feet away, then looked cautiously at her.

"Get out of here!" She yelled flapping her hand in their direction.

They moved a few feet away, knowing that she might walk far enough away to grab something. They patiently waited, food eventually was left alone when they waited for it. Annie stretched her arms up in some kind of elegant yoga pose then arched her back. Her man came over with his sandwich and plopped on the wall, giving her a curious look. He held a piece of food out for the birds, something that he would soon regret."

Drowning in German

I've spent the last week speaking nothing but German, and my brain is fried. I brought several French classic novels with me as well as Jack Kerouac, and I devour them every day I am so starved for English.

I like taking photos, really I like collecting objects with the photos that I take. So far I`ve collected a lot of weird signs and Germans with dogs. The weirder the dog, the more value to my collection. Everyday life can be boring, no matter what country you live in. I wake up late, like the true artist I am, and usually entertain myself with the Rhine River sometime during the day. Each day is dedicated to something, wether going to the modern German art gallery or visiting a friend for dinner. The best day so far was going to the carnival, I couldn`t stop taking pictures. This German keyboard is driving me nuts, I keep hitting ö, ä, and ü by mistake, and the y is in the wrong place. So bye, for now, until I get home. A place where I can buy medicine and know what it is, and understand how expensive everything that I buy is.

Plane

Me in like 6 hours, I should get some sleep.

Bonn Haufbahnhof

Where it all started in May 2000, I was sitting in one of those orange chairs in the photo. It gives me chills to look at this photo I found. I'm nervous and excited about Saturday morning, when my train rolls into this station. The last nine years have been based on five minutes, a chance encounter in this exact same spot.

Sexy 2009 Fall Boots!

I'm just drooling over boots, all kinds of them. Here are a few I found on the Internet. Victoria Secret is having a 20% sale on fall boots, and I found the top three on their website, all reasonably priced for the average income. You can also go to wide widths for athletic calves like me, but it was a sea of boring black on their website, disappointed.



Jessica Simpson created these beautiful butterfly cowgirl boots. I love butterflies, I work with them. I also love cowboy boots, but usually get mine at the western store.



Jessica Simpson riding boots, addorable.



My favorite so far, these slouchy Colin Stuart boots, I'm eyeing the red.



I loved the studs on these, very cute.



...and here are the Alexander McQueen dream boots. Sigh.

I'm Sorry

I am sorry, for always being so blunt.

...for pointing out painful things about self, even though it was always done with good intention.

...for being selfish.

...for not understanding the weight of responsibility, although I do now.

...for not being able to recognize my exit.

...for stating my feelings.

...for becoming angry with one I care so much about. I am extremely apologetic about this one.

...for wanting what can never be mine.

...for telling the object of my desire that I wanted it.

...for conflicting a person who has so many people to take care of.

...for my dreams.

...for the past year.

...for being there that November day.

...for the email replies.

...for the bad advice I gave you, even though it was with good intentions.

...for any sad faces on those who you care about.

...for being the brassy, red-haired, temptress that I am.

...for being outgoing, yet shy at the same time.

...for not letting a wonderful opportunity pass by without shouting at it, and letting my true thoughts be heard.

I'm truly sorry for it all.

Beautiful Healthy Flexible Backs

Best Friends

Recently I've discovered just how great my best friend is.

Best Friends...

...were there 10 years ago, and remind you how far you have come...

...point out your financial success when just two years ago the best solutions to your overwhelming credit card debt were either a bottle of pills or a tall bridge...

...after reading your mind, they call up and talk about something you almost emailed them earlier, how did they know that? It was the most random thought that crossed your mind...

...they remind you that there have been bigger heartaches through the years, and that somehow you survived those...

...they try their best to keep you out of Germany...

...they know you better than anyone else, even better that you know yourself...

Die Server Die MF Die!

Just insert the company server where the fax machine is in this clip, and that image puts a smile on my face :)

The Sandwhich Company

Just about every work day, someone else's little old Spanish grandma cooks me up something delicious at the Sandwich Company across the street. If it is leaning more towards breakfast, I get cheese enchiladas with an egg over easy on top. If it is closer to lunchtime, I get an Albuquerque Turkey, a sandwich with turkey, green chili and avocado on it. Today, I have biscuits and gravy with bacon. Whatever this place serves up, it is very tasty, and you will have to wait in line if you go at noon. Even the mailman is there everyday, eating at the same table. Eating here is one of my daily pleasures.

Pretty Pink Sparkling Abundant Words

I was helping my niece with her 7th grade English homework last night and was amazed that she didn't know simple stuff like what an adjective was. Always the teacher, I gave her a lesson that should stick with her through college on parts of the sentence, I saw it all clicking in her head. I think I'm the only one to have ever helped her with her homework, something that almost cost me my new car last year when I slid off the icy road near her cabin to bring her Goddess Athena pictures for her school wide project (that she won first place on!).

I first fell in love with adjectives in third grade. I remember them well, because the English language was just something that I spoke until that lesson where Mrs. Perkin's wrote some of the most colorful words of that language on the board. I don't remember the exact words, but they were probably simple, for us to understand. I'm guessing (eyes closed): bright, beautiful, green, sharp, red-haired, alert, abundant, pretty pink words. I love playing with words, and I really, truly love adjectives, something that brings everyday beauty into our descriptive words.

Blackbeard for Dinner

Sometimes the things that get you through everyday can be as small as a vacation video. I can go weeks without seeing it, but the past couple of days I might have watched it a dozen or so times.



I'm not the kind of person to actually use my vacation or sick days, and I don't have a family that I plan a yearly vacation with. I'm an overworked career woman who flies every other week all over the country for my company to complete projects for clients. So this trip was a last minute thing, in between projects.

I started having these haunting dreams, and needed to get away from everything. I went alone, and since I live in hotels I took my tent for a real vacation camping on the island of St. John in the US Virgin Islands. For four nights I slept a few feet from the most beautiful beach I ever laid my eyes on. I had the birds, sea life, frogs, and National Park employees for company. The best part of the whole trip was the snorkeling with a rainbow of fish staring back up at me around the most bizarre looking coral. I even saw a sea turtle munching on some sea grass after I took a sea kayak to another part of the island. Blackbeard, the cat, joined me at my table for every meal, and a local taxi driver who had a crush on me gave me free rides around the island. Life was simple. The mongoose greeted me every time I took a shower, my biggest worry was keeping the pearl-eyed thrashers out of my food. I would watch them all work together at the local restaurant, stealing when the cook turned his back for a minute. If they didn't get a piece of my dinner, they would settle for a ketchup packet. I love swimming, and I love the ocean, so I spent everyday in the beautiful clear blue water, all day like a mermaid. I read my book, I wrote every night under the full moon next to the water, I tried every flavor of the local rum, and took my favorite three home with me.

Neighborhood Beauty

It's been a tough week, but in the last few days I still managed to find the beauty in my own neighborhood:



Birds will build a nest in anything, these birds liked the "Q" in ABQ.




When it's been a tough day, nothing beats a cup of this sweet smelling lavendar and spearmint tea. It came in a sturdy addorable tin too.



I found these flowers growing out of the sidewalk when I went for a walk around the block. They were so pretty, and the seeds must have escaped the neighbors yard.




I find the humor in the everyday, like this warning on the back of a dog leash I found yesteray. There is an acutal diagram of your dog wrapping the leash around your legs with a warning.




I thought the birds lined up on the wire looked pretty against the blue sky, hanging over a neighbor's house.




These annoying neighbor dogs wouldn't stop barking at me as I walked by, so I might have teased them a little.




My dog always finds a reason to be happy, me standing next to her can be enough. She won't stop wagging her tail.

Broken Body and Fighting Spirit

I've been offline for a while since a car accident that put me in a lot of pain. The worst thing that can happen to me is to loose my freedom, and being stuck in bed for days has taken it's toll on my spirt. My best friend keep calling on me, as well as a few other important people in my life, which helped. I wasn't able to cry or even laugh without extreme pain, sometimes staring at the ceiling alone for hours in silence. Yesterday after what must have been two whole days of laying on my back, I was able to get up. I could barely walk, but made my way to the deck hanging off the top story of my house to see outside. There was a cool late August breeze, wet wood on my bare feet, and Sandia Peak in my backyard. Nothing is more beautiful than something we take advantage of everyday, until it is taken away from us.

It wasn't easy getting up, it sometimes took me a few hours to stand up, every slight movement very painful. I never give up though.

Ibo

I received a German phone call and got to hear a song from new Ibrhahim Tatlises (affectionately called Ibo) CD over the line. I love my collection of Arabic and Turkish tapes, and have all of Ibo's tapes from 2003 till now. Little things like that can really change the mood of your day for the better.

Fat Raindrops

Big fat raindrops fell out of the semi-desert sky as we were hiking up the Sandias right now. It was refreshing, because Albuquerque is still pretty hot in late August. Where there is rain and sun, there is a rainbow, and we saw one over one of the peaks. I love that I now live at the base of the mountain in the Northeast, but miss certain parts about my quite, brightly colored apartment next to UNM, within walking distance of Knob Hill.

Antonio R.

Click on it to see the detail. At the intersection of Central and Yale in the UNM area of Albuquerque. The ad on this bus cracked me up. A casino wants to take your money and this old guy is probably spending his whole Social Security check there.

Doggy Backpacks and Watermelon Peaks

I love seeing the humor in this modern culture, and yesterday I saw not one, but two dogs in backpacks. These aren't just any backpacks, they are ones meant to carry babies and kids on your back while you hike. The first one I saw was a lady carrying a small poodle on her back, which made us all laugh. The other one was a guy on a bike who had on a kid carrier with a large golden retriever on his back! I have never seen such a large dog being carried on someones back, that is what makes America so wonderiful everyone.

Yesterday I was invited hiking by my friend, and I pictured a nice leisurely walk for a mile or two. I wasn't prepared for the 3 mile hike and back up and down Albuquerque's 10,000ft Sandia Peak! The desert scrub at around 5,000 ft where we started turned into juniper and pinyon pine trees around 6,000ft, then douglas fir and ponderosa pine around 8,000ft and finally aspen trees applauding us at the top around 9,000ft. I'm a pretty competitive person, so I wasn't going to show the 3 girls and their dogs that I was with that I was out of shape and dying inside. I lasted a few miles and several thousand feet into the sky, keeping up with them and hiding my pain well. Then I couldn't breath, and I felt nauseated and couldn't walk anymore. My company either flys me to South Padre Island or San Diego all the time, so I really live at sea level even though my stuff stays a mile high all the time. My friend stayed with me as I huffed and puffed while sitting on a rock under the pines for several minutes, trying to suck in as much oxygen as possible. Then I had her go ahead with the others, while I forced myself further up the mountain, stopping every few steps for more oxygen. My heart rate was going crazy. I finally caught up to them and we all headed down, much easier than going up. The massaging shower head helped, but my legs still ache. I didn't have enough energy to do anything else yesterday, laying on the sofa with a remote in my hand in my pajamas with a down comforter over my beat up body. I was so worn out, I didn't even want to eat.

3 Trick Candles Instead of 29 Normal Ones

It was one hour until my 29th birthday officially started, and I was in bed snuggling Bare Bear (a teddy wearing nothing but cowboy boots) instead of a man when this info commercial came on with an anti-aging skin care system. I work outside and forget sunscreen a lot, and just started looking for fine lines on my face last month. As a personal joke with myself, I got on my cell and ordered Cindy Crawford's miracle melon enzyme crap. I know she probably has a crew of beauty experts following her around shading her face from the sun and reminding her to take vitamins and probably even a personal chef who is an expert at cooking her meals that only use ingredients that make her skin reflect wrinkles. I'm going to try it anyway, my only birthday present other than a make-it-yourself necklace kit. Nothing else exciting happened on my birthday, but my skin will be fabulous!

Juniper Juice and Judas

Nothing is as wonderful as hanging out with an old friend, drinking disgusting gin (her favorite), and watching a movie that leaves you confused and laughing. It was called something like "On the road with Judas", but Judas never went on the road. I think the whole movie was in the author's imagination where he wrote a book with no plot. It was confusing with him being interviewed on some lame talk show in his mind with the actors that played the characters that were based on a real story, so there were a lot of Judases running around the movie. It won a lot of awards, but do I care that some Seattle film society gave it an award? No, I want my $5 back!

The most beautiful moment today was walking down Central St in Nob Hill in Albuquerque, my old home. There was even a homeless guy yelling at a trash can, and I felt homesick for that broken down apartment that I moved out of last month, good memories. What stood out the most was that the tattoo shop had a new tattooed manikin in the window, and I think she had plastic surgery, because those breasts were ginormous.

My Quarter-life Crisis

My love life is lacking...maybe more on that later. Children...zero, cats...zero, house plants...dead. I turn 29 on Friday. This isn't what I wanted for a life at this age. I'm one to look on the positive side though, and I try to find the beauty in the most mundane things.

Today, it was spun sugar. What is spun sugar? It looks like a bird's nest of sugar and it was sitting on top a chocolate cupcake in Martha Stewart's cupcake book. I told everyone in my family that I am baking my own cake for my birthday in two days, and I think that cake will have spun sugar on top.