Summer Bucket List: 2014

This summer is already promising to be super crazy and busy in the work-family-life balance sheet, but I do want to make sure I get a solid run of awesome things in before the weather turns cool again. Blue Eyes and I will have his kids for 3 weeks in July, and I certainly hope they can participate in many of these with us. However, I also know that most of that time will be spent with family and family is first. The following is my bucket list to be completed between Memorial Day weekend and Labor Day weekend:

  1. Visit the farmer’s market – bonus points for riding my bike
  2. Wear white pants successfully
  3. Climb a mountain, a big one
  4. Make homemade ice cream
  5. Roast marshmallows with my stepkids
  6. Dangle my bare feet in a cold mountain stream
  7. Attend a bonfire – bonus points for spending the evening updating our plan for the zombie apocalypse
  8. Make out with that very handsome husband of mine, a lot
  9. Sleep under the stars – bonus points if I can see the milky way
  10. 21 days as a vegetarian
  11. Go to a baseball game (one will suffice), and sit on the lawn
  12. Run a 5k for a good cause
  13. Many, many photo walks around my neighborhood and the surrounding canyons
  14. Go to a rodeo, yeehaw!
  15. Hike in red rock country
  16. Read a whole pile of books, a big pile, obviously
  17. Dinner in the canyon – bonus points for cooking said dinner over an open fire
  18. Attend an outdoor concert
  19. Eat lots and lots of corn on the cob
  20. Watch the sunset from a beautiful vantage point
  21. Keep my tomato plant alive
  22. Make it to September without getting any tan lines (meaning, no tan, not nekkid tanning)
  23. Go to the wildflower festival, take an inordinate amount of photos
  24. Go to Food Truck Thursday for lunch
  25. Take a midnight walk, preferably with an enormous full moon and a sky full of stars
  26. Schedule a personal day off work, take myself out to brunch and get a pedicure, for no other reason than I can.
  27. Go camping
  28. Eat strawberries off the vine – bonus points if they are sun warmed
  29. Visit one of the formal gardens in my city
  30. Go on an overnight motorcycle adventure with my sweetheart

Expect a full report in September! What is on your bucket list for this summer?

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Love all your neighbors

Almost a decade ago I was tentatively coming back to my church after a relatively brief–but angry and heart-broken–absence. I was newly single and learning how to be myself again while slowly putting my life back together. One Sunday evening I attended a dinner gathering for us newbies to meet some of the church leadership outside of a more formal church setting, an idea I think is kind of brilliant, actually, and wish happened more often. I was sitting in someone’s living room, paper plate of pot-luck on my knees, chatting and trying to make some new friends. That is when Gaaron walked in. Gaaron was an old friend of someone who was there, he was on a cross-country road trip and only in town for the night. His friend had invited him to come to this dinner thing for a little while.

Gaaron–a name he explained was an amalgam of “Gay” and “Aaron”–had a fuzzy Kermit the Frog backpack, a pink baseball hat, and wore a black t-shirt that said “Nothing This Fabulous Should Be In The Closet.” He was introduced to the group, and to their credit the people there were polite, if not overly friendly or kind. I immediately liked Gaaron, he reminded me of a couple hilarious graphic designers at my office. After he got a plate I beckoned to an empty chair beside me; I asked him about his travels, he complimented my liquid eyeliner and nail polish, and pulled a bottle of body glitter out of his Kermit backpack explaining that it would make my eyes sparkle. He was genuine, happy, kind, and funny. Had Facebook been invented at the time (you know, for non-Ivy League plebeians) I would have added him as a friend on the spot. After maybe 45 minutes or an hour, he and his friend–the guy in my church–left to go about their business of catching up and a little city sight seeing.

And that was when those church people I was meeting for the first time–highest local leadership included–stopped being polite. They laughed, nastily mimicked his voice and hand gestures, mocked his clothes and the content of his backpack, said a number of offensive and degrading things about his character, morality, and personality, and expressed genuine relief that he had finally left.

I was shocked, and to my forever shame I said nothing. I was so surprised at the two-faced behavior of these “Christians,” I was confused as to why they were polite to his face, only to mock him behind his back. In a world of “love thy neighbor” and the Golden Rule, how could they possibly justify their behavior? I don’t portend to know everything about Jesus, but I’m pretty sure that were He there He wouldn’t have belittled Gaaron. He would have just loved him because Gaaron is a human being and we as humans are to to be kind and respectful to other humans, and as Christians we are commanded to love all other humans, end of story.

If Gaaron was your friend, would you mock him? If he was your brother, would you laugh at him? If he was your son, would you ostracize or scorn him? Well, he is someone’s friend, someone’s brother, and someone’s son.

For several days I had all these terribly conflicting emotions about Gaaron. How could I sit there, thinking I was this reconverted Christian, embarrassed for how my new friend was being treated, yet too embarrassed to stand up for him to a room full of bullies strangers. This was ten years ago, but I still acutely feel how uncomfortable this situation made me feel, both the comments that were made, and the fact that I did nothing. Then I was uncomfortable, now I am outraged. A few days after meeting Gaaron I typed out my experience and my part in this bullying behavior, and I sent it to the 5 or 6 gay friends I had at the time. It was so hard to admit that I didn’t defend Gaaron, or even tell his taunters to shut the hell up. At the end of that email I promised each of those friends that I would never again stand by in such a situation, that I would not be too embarrassed to tell someone to shut their mouth, to knock it off. That I would actively defend any gay person against those who mocked or hurt them based on their sexual orientation or outward appearance.

I have kept that promise–I will not tolerate homophobia to any extent. I will not allow someone to make biased and generalized judgement on someone’s morals or character based on whether or not they are gay. (Caveat: online posts I sometimes choose to disengage/defriend/unfollow/block instead of fight. Explaining to someone in-person that their behavior is not okay is very different than calling them out online. Wars have started due to the latter; I don’t fight with trolls or bigots online.)

My state leads the nation in suicide attempts of youth who identify as gay or lesbian. Almost half of the teenage homeless population here are gay and lesbian kids who were thrown out of their (religious) homes after coming out to their parents. Now, you tell me, does it seem more decent, more moral, more Christian to actively fight against this prejudice? Or is it better to actively contribute to teen homelessness and teen suicide and turn a judgemental-blind eye to the thousands and thousands who are seeking acceptance, kindness, and basic humanity? If you aren’t Christian, you don’t somehow get out of this “would you rather” scenario. If you are HUMAN, you need to make a choice: fight prejudice, or contribute to it.

I am a Christian, and despite what any religious leader says about homosexuality or homosexuals, Jesus said love thy neighbor. He didn’t say love only your white, middle-class, heterosexual, Republican, traditional-family, Christian neighbors. He said love thy neighbor, and that seems like a good rule of thumb for me. And if I get to St. Peter and the pearly gates and it turns out I am not heaven-bound because I did not make my gay/ethnic/poor/Jewish/Muslim/liberal/divorced/single-parent/blended family neighbor feel somehow “other” or “less than” then I don’t really want to go to heaven anyway. If that is the trade off, I’d rather be a decent human than be a celestial angel; if I’m wrong, I sure as hell don’t want to be “right.”

 

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You don’t have to agree with me, but if you leave a comment you do have to be nice. If you can’t say something nice, find somewhere else to spout your feelings. All homophobic or degrading comments will be immediately deleted and the author blocked. My blog, my rules.

Phoenix Used Book Sale

Every February there is an organization in Phoenix, Arizona that holds an enormous used book sale; 600,000 books are sold over the course of two days for a few dollars each and all proceeds go to literacy funds and such in the greater Phoenix metropolitan area. For the last decade or so I have made serious attempts to attend the book sale every year, with only a few misses. This sunny weekend escape in mid-winter is one of my particular favorites; the fact that I cart home grundles of books just makes it all the more fantastic.

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The sale is held at a large warehouse at the fairgrounds, and while the doors open at 8:00am it is really best to arrive the night before and sleep in line in the parking lot. By the time the doors open there are easily five or six thousand people in a Disneyland-type line that snakes back and forth a half-dozen time (see above).

But, if you are at the beginning of that line, you have an incredible opportunity, see, Target donates shopping carts for the day, and if you are one of the first 150 people or so to get through the door you can nab one to carry all your treasures around the warehouse, tossing volumes into it willy-nilly and sorting it all out later. This is a far preferable situation than trying to haul books around in your arms, making decisions on the spot about whether or not to keep this or that, and having to cut your shopping short because you just don’t have any more strength to carry one more book, even a thin little paperback. No, it’s much better to grab anything interesting and make enormous piles in your shopping cart and then sit down in an out-of-the-way corner on a stack of dictionaries and spend a good half-hour deciding what to keep and what to have re-sorted. The wonder of modern air travel is you can usually take about 100 pounds of books home in your checked luggage for a nominal fee (or free, depending on your airline/status). The book sale also arranges shipping if you want to mail boxes of books to yourself.

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I have acquired the bulk of my book collection on my several trips to the book sale, and a pile of delightful weekend memories of hanging out in the parking lot with friends chatting about books and music and travel and whatever else. Blue Eyes goes with me now, sleeping in the parking lot in line with the most delightful (and nerdy, and quirky) group of bibliofiles.

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There are easily hundreds of tables packed and stacked like this one, organized by topic and then–generally–alphabetically by author. The treasures to be found, my friends, are incalculable!!

Next year’s date is set for Saturday, Feb 14 and Sunday, Feb 15. What are YOU doing for Valentine’s Day!?

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2014 haul, part 1.

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And part 2. It was a small year for me, apparently.

If you go:

  • Check out VNSA’s website for all the pertinent info.
  • I highly recommend spending the night before in the parking lot, it is far superior than trying to wake up at 3am to get a decent place in line.
  • February in Arizona is pretty mild, you will want a hat and gloves, hoodie and jacket, but you won’t need winter camping gear or anything. I have backpacking gear (sleeping bag, air mattress) that is super compact and travels well, but many people simply bring a folding camp chair and get a few hours sleep on that.
  • If you want to sleep, bring earplugs and an eye mask, the parking lot floodlights are on all night and many people are up and chatting and laughing and playing cards.
  • Bring your own breakfast foods, the fairgrounds have concessions–your typical fair foods–but unless you want a hot dog with your coffee you should bring a bagel or muffin, or something.
  • They have nice bathrooms on site with flushing toilets and hot running water.
  • Bring a list of books you ALREADY OWN; this helps keep you from bringing home duplicates. Also helpful is a list of authors you would like to collect.
  • If you are going to the 2015 sale let me know, we can meet up in line!

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Deep as a River

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When I was an angsty teenager I wrote a book of poetry, 64 pages carefully copied into a beautiful notebook with pages lined in gold. The first poem was dated April 7, 2001 and the last is June 28, 2002. I did not compose in this book, the rough drafts and scribbles of my thought process have long been lost, but the final versions are there in my best handwriting.

Those pages are an interesting study into my 18-year-old psyche. I was angry, suffocated, broken, and desperate for recognition, understanding, and unconditional love. I also wanted nothing more than to be free of the life that brought on all those hurtful feelings. I wanted someone to see me, not for who they thought I should be or who they wanted me to be, but just for me, as myself. I was anxious and desperate for space–space to breathe, space to move, and just space to be.

I told you: angsty teenager.

Which doesn’t invalidate my feelings or make them somehow wrong. They were, and I was, and that is all historical fact, carefully recorded in a golden notebook.

There are several pages dedicated to deep, wild rivers constantly on the move, belonging nowhere; lyrical paragraphs about roads to anywhere; ballads about ocean waves crashing into a shore only to race back to the comfort of the sea and throw themselves back on the sand; poems of thunderous rain clouds sailing over dark, moody mountains with angrily flashing lightening; stanzas of shooting stars; a haiku about racing the sunrise across the sky;  verses of a bitterly cold but terrifically strong northern wind whipping snow into the sky and exposing craggy granite peaks; prose about value and worth and distancing oneself via emotional canyons.

Goodness, I so wanted to be simultaneously lost and found, to be loved and appreciated yet on my own and free to make my decisions. I was willing to accept any consequences as long as I could also revel in my own successes. I think, to some extent, all people go through a similar period of being caught between adult and child, independent and also protected.

When I was 21 I signed a lease on a small one-bedroom apartment, left my abusive husband, and felt–for the first time–that I was finally free.

My new-found freedom was intoxicating, exhilarating, sometimes frightening, but I owned every minute of it.

I was finally that dark river, full of secrets and hurts, determined to keep going, to live a life “passing through” until I found somewhere safe to rest. The need to move, the constant churning, that is still there inside of me, a fierce independence that demands her freedom. However, right now–and for the last little while–I am content. I don’t expect this contentment to last the rest of my lifetime, but I also am better equipped to “run” without actually leaving. All it took was a couple of years of testing my wings to learn how to fly, but also to learn how to return home, wherever that home existed.

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Comet Mine, Montana

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Last weekend Blue Eyes and I packed up and headed north to escape the interminable spring allergies. I think we went far enough, it snowed on us for two days. We ended up exploring this fantastic abandoned mine in Comet, Montana. The Comet Mine, located in the High Ore Mining District southwest of Helena, opened in 1883 and experienced it’s hey-day in the 1890’s, miners pulled $20 million in lead, zinc, copper, silver, and gold out of the mountain, making it the most profitable in the area (although, it is incomparable to the enormous mines in nearby Butte). The Comet Mine closed for good in 1941 when the resources had been exhausted. (Click on any photo to enlarge.)

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Today what remains is an enormous dilapidated building where the ore was processed, a dozen houses and other buildings that are in ruins, and one active residence: 4 satellite dishes on top of a double-wide trailer with several pick-ups parked in the front yard. In the last 15 years much of the area has been reclaimed, although the only vegetation that has returned in high numbers so far are grasses, a few wildflowers and some scrubby sage brush, but I did see a couple of knee-high pine trees growing.

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Luckily, Blue Eyes likes an adventure as much as I do, and we were not content with standing on the road taking pictures (I was taking pictures, he was standing). We decided to go exploring, despite not wearing nearly the appropriate footwear for the muddy and steep mountainside. Don’t worry, we were very careful about where we walked; Blue Eyes is a civil engineer who specialized in mining, he knows his way around a mining site and made sure we were stepping on concrete and not rotten floor boards or anything.

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No idea what this is or what it was used for….but I kind of want it. The top of that notched ring on the right came up past Blue Eyes’ shoulder, this thing was massive!

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I never really saw myself as someone who had a thing for ruins…but I just could not get enough of this place!! The history, the destruction, the looting, the effects of time. It was just so beautifully fascinating!

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This is looking down three or four stories into the bottom of the structure. I totally have a crush on the light coming through the roof (long shorn of it’s shingles).

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Mmmmm, rusty things just photograph so well! (Don’t worry, I am current on my tetanus shots and didn’t touch anything sharp or rusty.)

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“Harriet, what are you doing? It’s just a rusty pipe…” I know it is!! But, dammit, I’m going to take 5 minutes trying to get the right photo of it because apparently I LOVE RUSTY PIPES!

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This weathered and aged wood was everywhere, and I just thought it was so incredibly beautiful. Swoon.

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After an hour of wandering, hiking, climbing, and exploring we finally found the mother-lode, a delightfully rusty chain, something I’d been hoping for since we drove up to the site. There is no color enhancement or other processing on this photo–just a little crop. It really was that beautiful orange color!

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This was an enormous site, this photo was taken near the top of the mining building (which was several huge stories and built into the mountain). You can see the broken and rotten houses across the road, our old red jeep, and on the far left you can see the white pick up of the one family who currently lives in this ghost town. At it’s height, Comet had a population of 300 people, a school with 20 children, numerous homes and businesses, and 20 saloons.

For more photos (and there are a LOT more photos), check out my Flickr album.

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