In the spirit of sharing

Just a few songs, articles, websites, and videos out and about on the internet that I've been loving lately:

 - Angus & Julia Stone: Australian brother and sister folk duo (Their Flash website is amazing!) My favorite tunes are "Yellow Brick Road", "The Devil's Tears" and "Living on a Rainbow"
 - Meditation Oasis podcasts: Great for clearing my mind and helping me fall asleep at night
 - This goofy, awesome song and music video by Seattle's own Macklemore on thrift store clothing
 - Codecademy: Learn how to program online for free
 - A conservative argument for marriage equality (thanks for sharing, Sara!)
 - The Jubilee Project: A few guys I went to high school with who are making videos for humanitarian causes...completely amazing. Go Jason, Eddie and Eric!
 - This tasty summer salad recipe: Corn and blueberries, who can say no?!
 - Someone else reflecting on why being > doing
 - Bop-Life! My friends Lauren and Ben just launched an IndieGoGo campaign for their website and mobile app project to help travelers better explore new cities on foot
 - Blackmill: Incredible dubstep music, perfect for running, writing or meditating
 - A sweet blog post on "JOMO": The joy of missing out
 - You ran that! Paul Ryan Marathon Time Calculator

Living my fullest life

Yowzaz! Pretty sure this is the longest I've gone without blogging since I moved to Seattle. Perhaps if I get some major life updates out of the way, I won't feel as daunted by writing in my blog in the future, because the big things are covered and I can go back to writing about small everyday joys and more mundane musings. Here goes:

1. Alan and I moved into our new place on Lower Queen Anne! We had a successful housewarming BBQ/birthday party at the new digs with friends, our newly minted grill, and the most delicious homemade red velvet cake ever - kudos and thanks to my friend and baker extraordinaire Lauren W.


2. My temp copywriting job at REI Headquarters has been extended a few times, so I'm still commuting down to Kent daily to research, learn about and write about all the sweet gear we sell. Pretty pleased to still be working there! What kinds of things do I write? See here. Straightforward as our writing tasks often are, I am forever inspired by my colleagues' cleverness and creativity.

3. Yours truly has become a running/training/athletic MACHINE! Well, so I like to think. I got in a bit of inspired frenzy to sign myself up for a bunch of races. On the docket for the coming months are two full marathons, one half, and my third official ultra (50K). Oh! And I'm going to run 30+ miles around the perimeter of Mount Saint Helens in a few weeks with my friend and fellow Dutch/Swedish hybrid, Ged. Wish us luck!

4. Speaking of running...in July, a team of 11 friends and I tackled the Ragnar Northwest Passage 190-mile Relay for the second year in a row. Our team, the Alpacas by Day, Ninjas by Night, had a blast. I wrote a story about it for the REI blog here. (Beware: link does not always cooperate in Firefox. Try another browser if it doesn't work.)


I am blessed with good friends in this city.
5. Speaking of more running, I tackled my steepest, most rugged trail run yet last month, with my now-longtime trail running pals, Elodie and Tom - the Angel's Staircase run in the Methow Valley, about four hours east of Seattle on the other side of the mountains. 5000 feet of elevation change over 25 kilometers, peaking at 8000 feet, with stunning views in all directions. 6th place among women, I'll take it!


This ridiculously awesome photo courtesy of Glenn Tachiyama.




Beautiful views courtesy of race director James Varner, whom I interviewed and wrote this story on for Outdoors NW magazine several months ago.

6. Oh, and let's talk about where those marathons are that I've signed up for. I'm going to Vegas, baby! Running the strip at night - a nighttime marathon, how cool is that? Talked into it by my lunchtime running buddy at work, Logan (not that it was a really hard sell...)

7. But what's even better than Vegas? Answer: Flying over the North Pole on a direct flight from Seattle to Amsterdam to visit my mom and run the marathon there next month! Dutch Rosetta Stone lessons are in full throttle again. Can't believe it's taken me four years to get myself back to Holland, but it will great to see my mama and run 26.2 in the city that made me truly fall in love with running in the first place.


I took this photo in 2007. The marathon course runs along this river.
8. Alan took me to see Weezer on my birthday last month. In case you didn't hear the story (I love this story!), Alan and I were walking along a street in Seattle many months ago and passed a billboard advertising Weezer in Seattle on August 19. Knowing that I was once upon a time a big Weez' fan, he asked if I'd like to go. Snootily, I scoffed that the only way I'd go to a Weezer concert today was if they played Blue Album start to finish. We turned a corner and the next billboard we saw was, "WEEZER - Playing Blue Album and Pinkerton, start to finish." Wha?!! So we went! It satisfied in the nostalgia realm in big ways.


Yup, I was quite sure I could dig up an old photo of me in my trusty Weezer tee. Me, at 15, with my parents and Dutch cousins/family I haven't seen in years.
9. Been trying to ride my bike more lately...commuting a lot around on two wheels, including several bike trips up to Green Lake in the north part of this city, to go swimming with Oberlin friends - Ruth, who's happily staying another year in Seattle to continue working for Habitat for Humanity, and Shari, who spent the whole summer here leading kids' nature camps for the Audubon Society. Do I have cool friends or what?

10. So, I've been writing all this while sprawled out on a bunch of pillows and blankets on our balcony, looking at the night profile of the Cascade mountains, the shimmering Lake Union, the Seattle skyline all lit up, and even a good number of stars. Really, really happy in the new apartment! A good friend of mine whom I'll kindly keep anonymous recently paraphrased my blog as "Blah blah blah ohhhh Seattle, blah blah blah I'm so special because I love Seattle soooo much blah blah"...snarky, sure, but that's the nature of our friendship anyway (he's the big brother I never had!) and furthermore, I can't imagine a better summation of my feelings. Thank you, you know who you are, for stating it so eloquently. Indeed, I freakin' love this place!

11. Have we been over the fact that I get to have a reunion next month with this wonderful woman?


It's been a long time coming. Thank you, good world, for giving me the opportunities to work hard, play hard and accomplish so many of the things in 2011 that I hoped I could. And thanks to everyone in my life who's making this one amazing ride! You all are great.

Practicing

Well, I've done it again - gone and failed to blog for nearly a month - and as usual, I'm far more compelled to write about small moments, small pleasures, than I am all the major, more drastic things that have been taking place.

The fact, for example, that my local Trader Joe's has started carrying kale, and I told my checker tonight how psyched I was about that, and he asked what I would do with it, and I said probably blend it up with all those peaches and bananas and kiwis I was buying too.

Or the fact that Lauren and I hopped on a bus yesterday in the afternoon sun and rode it all the way to Ballard - the complete opposite corner of Seattle, but a really spectacular little neighborhood - to get a couple microbrews during the Noble Fir's "Pints for Parks" night, where they donate a buck from every pint to an environmental nonprofit. This month's cause of choice is my beloved Washington Trails Association.


Doing our part for the environment
We followed that up with tapas and gelato and a nice evening stroll as the sun was going down. What more can you ask from one evening, really?

Or the fact that on Sunday, I discovered that the river is a fantastic place to practice my banjo. I can be there with friends, but also go down by the river on my own to play where the current is loud enough to drown me out, and I can strum my banjo as loudly as I please without offending anyone's ears.


I take lessons from these cats. Future string band, hello.
The big news of the month, of course, is that I'm now three weeks into my temp job with REI Headquarters, that I'm no longer in school, that I flew home to Kansas City for all of 40 hours to surprise my dad for his birthday, that last weekend I ran my second ultramarathon (third place this year, and almost exactly, to the minute, the same time as when I ran the same race last year), that my amazing friend Shari arrived in Seattle for the summer, that I went to a beginner's meditation workshop a couple weekends ago, that I've gone on some spectacular trail runs with friends (Zanna! Ron!), that I've seen some spectacular live music (Sarah Jarosz!), that I've read some spectacular books (more Ann Patchett!), and that despite it being the most hideous few months weather-wise for Seattle, summer is definitely in the air.


The snow has finally melted off Mt. Si! As seen from the airplane window on my way to Kansas.
I went for a long (for me) bike ride after work today. After starting to feel a little stir crazy about not running in five days (trying to let myself recover fully from the 50K; I have that persistent, nagging sore right shin again that I had last year after the ultra), I hopped on my bike and just took off for the lakefront. It felt good - all that wind and fresh, just-rained air, and the glorious sensation of riding my bike over the I-90 floating bridge, my tires so near to the sun-glinting waves of Lake Washington.

Once again, I can thank coworkers at REI for inspiring to challenge myself in new ways. Last week, as part of a "team building" day for the entire Product Information team, we went kayaking together. It was only my second time on a kayak - and what a joy it is!


Paddling on Lake Washington with new friends
One of my coworkers asked if I'd like to ride our bikes down to the kayak launch together, since we live in the same neighborhood and the lake is only a few miles away. We met up for coffee in the morning and then rode to the lake together, and it reminded me how much I like being on my bike - afraid of it as I am much of the time.

See, I have the same problem with biking in Seattle that I had with running when I first moved here: a sad sense of resignation that Seattle will take away from me one of my great passions. How am I supposed to like biking with all these ridiculously steep hills that I'm utterly incapable of going up and down? But, of course, as with running, it's going to just be a matter of building myself up to it. Not being afraid, not being impatient, and not giving up - just steadily climbing the giant metaphorical hill along with the literal ones. And one day I'll enjoy a chuckle at how epic my bike ride out to Mercer Island across bridge and back felt today.

The new job is going really well. It's straightforward work and extremely project-oriented, which is the way I work naturally, so the time flies by. Copywriting has forced me to stop evaluating my language in the big-picture way that I've spent most of my life doing, and start focusing on the minutiae of my words, my sentence constructions. Zinsser's "On Writing Well" has been on my bookshelf most of my life, since my father had the foresight and kindness to give me a copy, but it had been years since I'd cracked it open. I started rereading it, and wow, it has to be one of my favorite books ever written.

Why wasn't it required reading for any of my creative writing classes at Oberlin? We spent so much energy in those classes on big-picture discussions - on plot, on character development - but so rarely did we work on the bare bones of language itself. When did we relish in the many shades of meaning maintained by a single word? When did we discuss the uselessness of most adverbs and of many adjectives, the richness of active verbs? When did we pay homage to the origins of words, express gratitude for the delicious possibilities that the English language puts at our fingertips?

I need more practice with the craft itself of writing, with the art of decluttering, of editing, of sending half my words to the chopping block. There is value in this all, and I am grateful for the opportunity to work on it in my daily life this summer. (I should practice this decluttering business in my blog more often, I realize...but cut me some slack; 40 hours a week of stripping my sentences to their essential parts...getting to ramble a little on my blog is kind of like having a familiar, relaxing drink at the end of a long day.)

Speaking of which, it's well past my bedtime now...

What happens when I don't blog for a month

This evening, I went for a nice long-ish run through Madison Valley, arguably one of the nicest parts of Seattle, and ultimately down to the shores of Lake Washington. At the end of the road is a dock that pokes out over the lake. I was about 3.5 miles into my run at this point, and decided to sprawl out on the dock beneath the horizon-bound sun for a solid 10 or 15 minutes before continuing my run. To say that I felt grateful to be alive in that moment is an understatement.


This picture was not taken today, but this entry feels like a good excuse to share this shot I took about a month ago after running to Golden Gardens - yet another lovely Seattle park on the water.
The sky felt big today...full of those massive, puffy clouds that didn't mind sharing sky space with the sun - a rare breed here in Seattle. I had the dock to myself, and nothing but the sounds of the water lapping against its legs beneath me. The temperature was perfect lying-on-a-dock-in-a-sweaty-t-shirt-and-shorts weather. I could see to the tops of Cougar and Tiger Mountains both, my running playgrounds, and some of the snowy peaks in the North Cascades as well. Really lovely indeed. I couldn't stop thinking, I live here. I ran from my doorstep to this place. I live here.

I got together with Lu last week for dinner (Thai food, yum!) and dessert (Yogurtland, yum!) and a lot of overdue catching up. At some point, we got to talking about how easy it is to forget that Seattle is a city surrounded (not entirely, obviously) by water. Although a city of hills opens itself to the possibility of amazing vantage points and views in surprising places, there are also plenty of spots in the city that proffer no view of the water at all. My daily walk to work is one of them.

So, in keeping with the lyrics that inspired the name of this blog, I do appreciate the times I'm able to be near the water. It's a rare run I go on that doesn't have me running along, around, or over some body of water. I love it.

It has been a week of quiet, content moments like that, and catching up moments like the one over hot noodles and curry with Lu, and also a week of letting go and embracing change. As many of you know by now, I was offered a full time copywriting gig at REI Headquarters for the summer - an opportunity I am beyond thrilled about, though it has meant a swift departure from many other aspects of my daily life this past year.

In the span of two weeks, I went to my last (for now) web design class, my last (for now) in-office day at the magazine, and on Thursday, my last day (for now) selling shoes at the Seattle REI store. Although the goodbyes said this week are not permanent in the sense that anyone will be out of my life entirely...my day-to-day routine will indeed change drastically, and the faces I see at work every day won't be the same. The "goodbyes" of this week reflect the inevitable groan of change that happens in our lives, and dang, it's never easy, even when the changes are exciting.

Cobbling together part time jobs and classes and the occasional freelance contract project has made for an interesting, wonderful, and full (!) two years in Seattle, but I am hungry to try life on a regular schedule again.

Over a year ago, when I went through my last "Whoops, I have too much on my plate" crisis, I remember a conversation with my friend Tom about how being stressed out not only sucks up your time, but it also deprives you of creative flow. Without the ability to let your mind genuinely wander, unencumbered by the onerous need to constantly monitor your mental to-do list, making art or envisioning anything new at all is difficult. Creativity and innovation flow only once you've decluttered your brain enough to make room for their possibilities.

Happily, since being offered the job this summer and starting to wean myself off my current mosaic schedule, I have felt more balanced and content than I have in a long time. I haven't been stressed. I have read a bunch of books. (Ann Patchett! Toni Morrison! Hello again, world of literature!) I have had time for my friends and for myself, and it's been quite lovely indeed.

With Alan in town for nearly the entire month of May, we got in a lot of nice adventures, including a day of hiking and sunshine and waterfalls and breweries and bookstore browsing up in Bellingham.




Several weekends ago, Alan and Elodie and I spent the better part of our Saturday gorging ourselves on free cheese samples at Seattle's annual Wine and Cheese Festival at the iconic Pike Place Market. Did you catch the part about it being free? Drool. Alan and I came home and filled our fridge with blue cheese, young Gouda, coconut cheese (infused with coconut oil, for real!), smoked cheddar, and acted as temporary hosts to Elodie's trove of soft, stinky French camembert.


Homemade nachos with smoked cheddar. So much for my dairy and gluten avoidance.
I also managed to make it to two of four days of the 40th Annual Northwest Folklife festival - a big old hippie party at the Space Needle every year, that Seyeon took me to for the first time in 2005, and which was a big part of why I thought I'd love living in this city. Voted "Biggest Flower Child" by my peers in my high school yearbook, is it really any surprise I went to Oberlin College and eventually wound up here?




Let's see...what else? Two evenings of dinner parties with good friends in a row - Kate and Jeff's Memorial Day deck warming party, complete with grilled burgers and mini cheesecake tarts, and Megan and David's kitchen warming/anniversary party, complete with spicy Thai soup, chocolate-covered strawberries, and the best homemade bread, made by my favorite Dutch mother currently living in the continental U.S.


Sunset last night from Dave and Megan's living room window.
Speaking of delicious food, Lauren and I hit up the brand new Skillet Diner on Capitol Hill; I'm definitely becoming one of those urban foodie divas that wants to try out all the hot foodie spots. Aiee. Seriously though...plaid shirts on all the wait staff, beer and wine in mason jars, damn good fries, and again, all within walking distance of home.

Earlier in the month, Alan and I trekked up to the small, old navy town of Port Gamble with the Outdoors NW crew for the Beast Adventure Triathlon. 6 miles sea kayaking, 16 miles mountain biking, and an embarrassingly short 5K trail run at the end...Neal, being the rockstar he is, covered the first two legs of the tri, before I took over for the final brief running leg. The weather was miserably characteristic of the Northwest, so we both got wet and cold, but (well, I speak for myself) had a blast nonetheless.


The mountain biking part was very hardcore.


Coming down the finishing chute!


Team ONW!
I've gone for some lovely runs with friends, including exploration of the water tower at Volunteer Park with Zanna (4.5 stars on trusty Yelp; go read about how people give themselves heart attacks climbing the stairs for the best free view of Seattle, then imagine the two of us RUNNING up those flights...heck yes), and my first time cruising around Carkeek Park with Ron - a sweet morning run sandwiched between delicious, raw, Incan-superfood-charged smoothies. Why am I friends with so many men (well, two at least) who eat weirder things than me, run in Vibram Fivefingers, speak with exclamation marks, and have adorable little boys I wish I could hang out with all the time? Life is good.


Summer is in the air, and I am grateful as ever to be alive and here. Hello June!

Who needs a car to get around anyway?

A life in the day (a.k.a. evidence of the Crazy.)

6:00 a.m. Alarm clock
6:15 a.m. Cook/enjoy breakfast (blueberry/banana oatmeal on the stove, yummy)
7:00 -7:20 a.m. Run 1.5 miles to work
7:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. Princess shift at work
12:30 - 12:45 p.m. Speed shopping, REI clearance
12:45 - 1:15 p.m. Walk 2 miles to meet Seyeon for soulful lunch
1:15-3:00 p.m. Amazing catch up lunch!
3:00 p.m. Run 1 mile home
3:15-4:00 p.m. Do homework for evening class
4:00-5:20 p.m. Sweet urban sunset 6ish mile run with Jenica and Lauren
5:20 -7:00 p.m. Cook/enjoy dinner with Lauren
7:10 - 7:30 p.m. Walk 1 mile to class, talk to Alan
7:30-9:00 p.m. Programming class
9:00 p.m. Run 2 miles into downtown
9:30 - midnight - Sweet Luc & the Lovingtons concert at the Crocodile with Zoe
midnight - 12:20 p.m. Dishes, apartment pick up
12:40 a.m. Drinking hot roiboos tea with milk and honey, listening to beautiful folk, blogging, feeling quite content

Total human-powered miles: 13.5

Yesterday, I did all my errands on my bike - library, post office, and grocery shopping. Loaded up the paniers with tons of fruits and vegetables and grains, and soaked up every drop of sunshine that Seattle had to offer yesterday...delightful. One of the things I loved about Amsterdam was how easy it was to navigate by bike or foot...and it's one of the big draws Seattle had for me as well. Having my car here makes me lazier (and poorer...gas here is at $3.37/gallon, oof), sometimes, than I'd like. (Thanks, Seyeon, for being a huge inspiration of late in the ways of human-powered urban transportation!) Getting around Seattle on foot or bike is one of my February projects...expect forthcoming blog entries on such.

That, and a report on my past two glorious weekends up on Orcas Island! But for now...

G'night, good world.

2011

Snowshoeing in the mountains.


Future string band.


Sunrise this morning.
I can feel it in my bones; it's going to be a good year.

(More regular blogging to resume soon.)

Now I'm pointed north, hoping for the shore

I feel like the vast majority of my blog entries lately have been very image-heavy...and they've been more sporadic recently, I think because uploading and linking in so many pictures takes a long time, and given how busy my schedule is already, I intimidate myself out of posting. So in an effort to get better about that, here are just some post-midnight musings, sans photos.

Today at work, my coworker and friend Brant spent the day asking customers, "Hey, what do you get when you spread icing all over a thesaurus?"* Apparently in the mood for quotes, at the end of the evening, he also quoted Dr. Seuss to us all, as general food for thought: "You know you're in love when you can't fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams."

That's been my problem this week. And by "in love", I mean in love with life: with this amazing state in which I live, with Alan and Seyeon and Becca and Shari and Elodie, with my amazing parents, with all the wonderful friends I've made in Seattle, with my body for allowing me to do all the things I do, with nourishing food, with bluegrass music, with books and public libraries, with dreaming about the future, with the mountains and the water and the 65-degree sunshiny summer days, and with the best cat in the world that's alseep on my butt right now as I type this.

Despite being off coffee for over three weeks now (okay, minus during Ragnar), I've had so much energy at the end of every day that I can't sleep for the life of me. Tonight's a perfect example; I was so exhausted when I woke up this morning that I could hardly drag myself out of bed, and I just stood in my kitchen in my PJ's, rubbing at my eyes and feeling miserable...but not a drop of caffeine today, and here it is, nearly 1 a.m. and I just feel so darn giddy about things that I don't want to go to sleep; I'd much rather stay awake and keep enjoying this high.

What's keeping me up at night? Big ideas. Upcoming, tentative birthday plans to drive out the Olympic Peninsula and backpack around a bit with Alan and potentially Seyeon and Leo, too. Maybe running the Leavenworth Oktoberfest Half-Marathon this fall. Having signed up for WTA's hike-a-thon in August, for which I'm going to take a break from running for a month and instead hike my butt off and raise money for the Washington Trails Association. Also, considering trying to take some community college classes this fall, an idea that's making my heart want to explode with excitement; I was burnt out on school by my fourth year at Oberlin, and I didn't have the slightest interest in continuing education at that point because I needed more time to grow outside of academia, recenter, establish some more independence, get to Seattle, and ultimately, figure out what kind of career path I really want to be putting myself on...writing? Editing? Publishing? Communications? Business/entrepreneurship? Teaching? Higher education? Psychology? Counseling? But that time has come, and suddenly my path feels crystal clear...like a fog has lifted, and now it's just a matter of putting it all into action. More on that soon.

Well, I thought I could do a whole entry without photos, but I was wrong. A few from my Granite Mountain hike earlier this week with Cam and David are begging to be shared.


David scopes out the meadow where we plan to someday return and camp.


Camba checks out the view.


The ladybug that hitched a ride to the top with me.


The Cascadias continue to serve me well.
Thanks for tuning in, folks. The title of my entry is a line of lyrics from James Vincent McMorrow's beautiful song, "If I had a boat":


Enjoy listening to it if you're in the mood to share my mood on this fine evening. Add James Vincent McMorrow to that list of loves at the beginning of this entry...so fantastic. Thanks, as always, Grey's Anatomy soundtrack, for introducing me to stunning musicians. Off to sleep now, I hope. Good night, beautiful world.

---

*"A synonym bun!" And this is why we love Brant.

Impromptu rooftop concerts and urban sunsets

Overall, this has been a good past couple weeks of working hard, but maximizing my relaxation and enjoyment of the outdoors with the free time I do scrounge up.


Random Oberlin sighting of the week! Saw this window sticker as I was sitting in traffic passing through Wallingford over the weekend.
I went for a long run on Cougar Mountain today...it truly is a trail runner's paradise there...50+ miles of trails, ranging in difficulty level from flat stretches to steeper, more technical single-track routes, and all interspersed with intriguing landmarks like a giant clay pit, an old mine shaft, several small waterfalls, a glacial boulder called the "Fantastic Erratic", and an old anti-aircraft military base. I've run at Cougar several times before, but this was the first time I set out on my own with a trail map in palm, water and energy gels strapped to my back, and just took to the woods for hours of solo exploration. It was 70ish degrees and sunny, but the forest is highly dense in most places. I ran in and out of cool stretches, warm pockets of air, sunshine and shade alike. Great way to spend my day, though it thoroughly wiped me out. I napped away my afternoon.

Jess is moving back to North Carolina at the end of this month, but we spent last Friday afternoon wandering around the lovely neighborhood of Ballard. Alan and I went back the following day so I could buy (finally, Tom, finally!) a cute lunchbox for myself to encourage more creative, thoughtful lunches to take to work. (Yes, expect a lunchbox blog post in the near future.) We also stopped in a cozy outdoor beer garden in Ballard to soak up the afternoon sunshine and watch the beginning of the Sounders game amidst a sea of fellow futbol fans. Did I mention that I love this city?

Zoe came over from Bainbridge Island later that evening so we could hang out. I met her at the ferry landing and we went out for Thai food down by Pike Place Market before going to the Hard Rock Cafe to see a band that she'd seen at the Ballard Market perform: Luc and the Lovingtons. The Hard Rock Cafe is a new addition for Seattle, having just opened its doors in February. I'm no Hard Rock Cafe groupie, but in all truth, it was a sweet venue. In addition to showcasing dozens of dolled up high schoolers for their prom dinner on Saturday, it boasts a super-sweet rooftop terrace with a nice view of the market and the Sound. In exploring up there, a couple members of the band recognized Zoe ("You're Ballard Market Girl!!") and we all hung out on the roof until the show started. The show itself was spectacular; their album got reviewed by the Seattle Weekly in the same breath as the Blue Scholars' album...woohoo local music! They're a feel-good reggae/funk sort of band whose music is all about peace, love and happiness, with special interest on their album in post-Katrina New Orleans, Latin America, and Africa.

Oh! And Jason Mraz has covered their "Freedom song." Rad.

After they played, some guy gave them $500 in cash to continue playing on the rooftop around the "campfire." It worked for a while, until condo neighbors complained and Hard Rock's bouncers kicked us all off the roof...but all in all, it was a truly magical night.


Cell phone photo. Pardon the poor quality.
In other news about my friends whose names begin with the letter Z...Zanna's birthday was this week! She had a rockin evening picnic, complete with Lady Gaga (in Ipod format, not in the flesh, sadly), volleyball net, yummy Trophy cupcakes (which just broke a record!), watermelon, frisbees, and a lot of good company.


Good, silly times were had by all.
There were also some lovely sunsets this week. Here's one Alan and I managed to catch from atop the Mount Baker neighborhood - a totally under-appreciated part of Seattle on the southeast side with spectacular views that most people don't seem to know about.


Most Seattle skyline photos are taken from Queen Anne hill, where the Space Needle features prominently in the view of the skyline. It's in this picture, too, but so tucked away behind the buildings that it's barely even a speck.


+ the moon.
So, I'm feeling much calmer and balanced than I was awhile ago. Crazily enough, I'm still averaging anywhere from 40-50 hour work weeks, but somehow I feel like I'm just managing better. The extra sunlight hours are helping my energy levels a lot. Running regularly again helps. And vacation just around the corner is a big deal! Onward...

Happy Mom's Day, i.e. ik wil het Nederlands leren!

Photo circa 2007: My mom and I hanging out in Amsterdam, Dutch newspaper ("een krant!") in the foreground.
Every year, when it comes time to make resolutions and set goals for the new year ahead, "Relearn Dutch" makes the list. It's been a long-standing index card in my box of Life Goals. Most of you already know this about me, but for those who don't...my parents tried to raise me to be bilingual with Dutch and English...and, as a very young child, I did speak a little bit of both. But come time for kindergarten, I hated mixing up my words and not being a "normal" American kid like everybody else, and so over time, the Dutch faded out.

Needless to say, as an adult, I've been pretty bummed that I lost my Dutch way back when. It's all the more heartbreaking these days, as we get a surprisingly large number of Dutch customers at REI. I'm always sad that I can't really interact with them more in their native language, even though I always surprise them by being able to identify their accents. Likewise, I'd love to be able to talk with my mom in her native tongue again, too.

It was my hope that my study abroad program (complete with Dutch classroom lessons!) in the Netherlands would help me relearn the language for good - and, true, my understanding was better at the end of that semester than ever before. But even immersed in the country and in a Dutch homestay, I wasn't fluent, let alone really even conversational, by the end of the program. I had a Dutch teacher, a Dutch homestay host, a Dutch guy I even dated for awhile...but I also had a program full of other American students, an American program director, an American roommate, and oh, 90% of the Dutch population is fluent in English.

Well, the time has finally come that I'm taking charge of my long-standing and long-unfulfilled goal. I'd mentioned to Alan several times the possibility of getting the Rosetta Stone Dutch program - generally considered to be the most effective language-learning software out there - and he finally convinced me to take the plunge. We are both going to learn it, so we can practice together at home, too! Obviously, I have an unfair head start, but I'm excited Alan wants to be a part of my effort to reconnect with some of my own cultural roots...and infinitely appreciative of his helping push me toward my goal.

My biggest excitement since starting the program? In brainstorming ways to get more exposure to the language outside of just the computer software, I realized I can listen to live streaming of Dutch radio stations on the internet. So while most people spent Sunday out to brunch or on picnics with their mothers, I spent my morning doing lessons on Rosetta Stone and listening to a radio station based in the Dutch city of Hilversum, picking up snippets of understandable speech among the DJ's and listening to mostly American pop music, with the occasional rockin' Dutch hip-hop or French rock. And even though I wasn't on the same continent as my mom for Mother's Day, and in fact, our temporal overlap of the holiday only lasted 16 hours (thanks to the epic time difference between Seattle and the Netherlands), it felt really comforting to be immersed in Dutch for the day.

Rosetta Stone Photo Album:


This screen made me choke aloud on my laughter.


Here's what the whole screen actually looked like. (The program gives you a phrase, and you click on the picture that matches.)


Not all the vocabulary is particularly challenging.


The Dutch says it all.
Tot ziens!

Mood Management: Asparagus, Books, and the Caprice of Clouds

Cooking adventures continue!
As a first-time spring Seattleite, I have to say...the weather here this month has been one capricious beast. (See how tutoring SAT vocab is rubbing off on me?) It will go from sunshine to stormy winds to full-on hail to sunshine again, interspersed with 45-second blasts of pouring rain throughout. Mostly, it's just been cool and overcast a lot, but filled with the confusing presence of blooming flowers and spring birds chirping. I don't know what to make of it. The general lack of sunshine, though, the past few weeks might be getting to me a little bit...or it might still just be my crazy hours. I've felt calmer lately in general, though. A little worn down, but mostly content. My foot's starting to show signs of healing, so that's a plus.

I'm working to keep up momentum in initiating positive change in my life, as much as possible...we'll see what direction the next few months take me, but I am simultaneously happy with where I am now and exhilarated by the possibilities for the future.

Some (temporary for now, for however long I need) commitments to myself I've made, as of yesterday:

- Read more. (Currently on my coffee table: Lorrie Moore's "Birds of America", which someone once recommended to me as the absolute best collection of short stories ever written. I can't even remember who gave me the recommendation, but I bought the book years ago and have let it sit on my shelf since. To its credit, I didn't give it away with the 70% of my books that didn't make it out to Seattle with me, but...it just takes a lot to get me to read short stories. I generally find them horribly unsatisfying...I don't like the constant goodbyes with characters I'm just barely starting to get to know. But this collection really is ridiculously good. My writing might even get pushed back into a fiction kick for awhile because of it...
- Keep a more manageable work schedule; No more months without days off.
- Tea instead of coffee, indefinitely.
- No allowing running injuries to keep me from being active. Usually, if I can't run, I just give up on physical activity altogether; the all-or-nothing personality in me is too busy being upset about not being able to run. So I really haven't done much lately - but I went for a long, brutally windy bike ride yesterday, and did an intense Power Hour at the gym this morning, and OI VEY have I missed endorphins!
- No junk food, also indefinitely. This includes chips, cookies, candy, ice cream, French fries, sweet pastries, etc...

I've tried going halfway on that last one, but I'm still making far too many compromises. I've spent six years wishing I were a health nut, and I'm just tired of wishing, instead of being. I quit junk food for a 70-day period my senior year of high school, and it was a good thing for not just my body, but my moods and soul as well. So I'm giving it a try again. So far, so good. My meals yesterday:

Breakfast: Oatmeal with raisins, cranberries, cinnamon and walnuts

Lunch: Rottini pasta with cherry tomatoes, peas and asparagus (CSA-share-food Alert!)

Snacky-poos: Apple, Carrots (CSA-share-food Alert!) with hummus

Dinner: Buckwheat pasta with mizuna (CSA-share-food Alert!), onions and walnuts

The sauce in progress.
Dessert: Vanilla yogurt with slivered almonds, fresh strawberries and agave nectar

Today so far, I had oatmeal again for breakfast, and for lunch, a banana/blueberry/strawberry smoothie and a ridiculously tasty salmon burger on a pita with fresh cucumber (CSA-share-food Alert!), tomato slices and tartar sauce. Yummy. Healthy food is awesome.

Feelin' good...

Music shoutout of the week: James Vincent McMorrow.

Orcas Photos!

All right, I told you it was beautiful, right? Photo courtesy of Glenn Tachiyama.
So, as promised...a few more photos from race weekend! Most of these are borrowed from other people's albums - ahh the joys of technology. Enjoy.

Don + me + the infamous crockpot of chili:

Photo courtesy of Don Wahl.

The Friday night potluck at Camp Moran.
Don's caption for this, which I love, is "Yitka and Don ponder their next move on the road to carbo-load shutdown."
Absolutely.

Photo courtesy of Don Wahl.

Me, posing in front of our bunkhouse the morning of the race:

Photo courtesy of Don Wahl.

Base camp, race morning.
Tom, Ryan, Jordan and I can all be found amidst the crowd...

© Glenn Tachiyama

And the runners are off!

© Glenn Tachiyama

Tom rockin the top of Mount Constitution in his Fivefingers...
+ our new friend Elodie cruising up right behind him:

© Glenn Tachiyama

Action shot on the mountain:

© Glenn Tachiyama

All right, ignore my silly facial expression, but check out those legs!
My calves were just warming up...

© Glenn Tachiyama

View from the top:

© Glenn Tachiyama

The Black Berry Bushes String Band serenade us at the finish:

Photo courtesy of Jacek Doniec.

Improbable Ninjas celebrate their victory!

Photo courtesy of Ryan Schmid.

Yup, good times. Interested in seeing more? I highly recommend Glenn's photo galleries from race day. Some truly amazing shots in there...