Holidays and smooching
Christmas this year brought me:
1 freezing night in my parents' RV
3 brand new books (2 of which I have already read - I read fast, particularly with good books)
2 family-filled days of laughing and strained muscles
10+ games of Twister with the nieces and nephew (see above)
5 cups of coffee on Saturday alone to maintain the energy needed to deal with relatives
2 belly laughs at the family dinner when various relatives high-fived and "wooo"'d for 1) liking dark chocolate instead of milk and 2) having had jaundice as a child
1 new TV that I totally wasn't expecting but desperately needed
1 repeated realization that I love my strange family and feel very lucky to be associated with them
Now I'm aiming for what will hopefully be my first non-sucky New Year's Eve! Last year I was ninja kissed by a friend who was on a date with another girl (she was too smashed to notice, but I was pissed). The year before I was in India and spent the evening dodging the fireworks Bernie kept trying to light and hold in his hands. He'd flinch from the sparks and all of a sudden we had a bottle rocket aimed at our heads. The few years before that I spent bringing various groups of people to the Space Needle and weaving through the crowds to get a good view of the fireworks. Always cold, always anticlimatic, never a kiss. This holiday has too much pressure associated with it! The beginning of a new year, to be determined by its initial few minutes. I don't believe it, though this crazy year has been worthy of its questionable beginning. So for next year, how to start? I still have no plans for the fateful day, and am seriously considering staying home, curled up with the Monkey and avoiding the crush and the pressure of looming lips. Or go out with friends and ignore the calendar date while just having a general good time. Right, and that works on Valentine's Day too...
addendum
(for those concerned, donning winter clothing and strapping household items to my feet while executing complicated rolls off of my bed is not a daily activity for me. More like bi-monthly, but I have to cut down because I keep breaking my ironing boards - did you notice in the photographs that mid-roll all of a sudden my feet were free and flopping about? That was the yelping of overstrained exploding particle board that you were hearing just then.)
(also, this should be sufficient answer to any and all family members and friends who have ever thought "Gee, I wonder why she doesn't have a boyfriend?")
The Fall (TM) - Illustrated!
A little background: For those of you unfamiliar with the snowboard, the rider is strapped on the board one of two directions. The "normal" direction is with the toes facing right, and "goofy-footed" is with toes facing left. I was "normal" (first time those words have been typed in a while), and therefore learned the toe turn as a graceful sweep towards the right (leaning towards the toes, get it?) and the heel turn as a sweep towards the left. Or at least I SHOULD have learned those two options. What I actually learned was how to execute a very nice heel turn, but every attempt at a toe turn ended up with a whooping face thud into the snow. Lots of turning left in my brief snowboarding career.
HOW TO FALL WELL (a.k.a. be able to say "I wasn't falling, you imbecile, you merely caught me mid-really-cool-trick that entailed me laying in the snow for a little bit"):
The important part is to start out facing towards the right, because no amount of bunny-slope practice will allow you to naturally turn that direction without massive amounts of pain. So, head down the mountain (going RIGHT - take advantage of that feeling while you can) and casually make that lovely heel turn that encompasses the only true snowboarding move you can do without bruising. Now that you're heading left and have gotten your confidence up, dang it, go ahead and try to do that elusive toe turn again! This time is the time! Yaaay!
After you have face-planted and can feel your legs again (this may take some time), rest on your stomach for a while, looking down the steep slope of the mountain and enjoy the whooshing of your fellow skiiers and boarders as they whip by you yet again.
When ready and done with the ponderance of whooshing, flip over onto your back with your board still above you on the slope. This is not as easy as it sounds, as you are strapped onto the board and it is a very long and unwieldy thing. Do not expect to look even remotely cool during this segment of The Fall (TM). In fact, I looked so uncool even in the dramatic reenactment (starring: my mini ironing board as "Snowboard" and my Roos as "Extra Uber Cool Snowboarding Boots") that this segment will have to be provided by your overactive imaginations. Basically, end up like this:
Once on your back, take your snowboard-encumbered feet and kick them straight up, over your body and slightly diagonally over your shoulder, landing the board back on the snow again. This is the cool part. It also helps to be a bit flexible during this section, though honestly once you start the kick, with the combination of the snowboard weight and the slope of the mountain it all just kind of happens naturally whether you want it to or not (hooray, gravity!). Roll your body around to follow the snowboard and you will automatically be standing upright on your snowboard again, though unfortunately facing leftward. Like this.
You may not be able to see it in the last photo, but in fact instead of being crumpled at the end of my bed after flipping off the footboard (as it may appear), I am actually triumphantly standing on my ironing/snowboard waving to the assembled adoring crowd. Look closer, you can see it if you squint. Anyways, once up again (like me! in that photo! dangit!), turn your board while still not moving (this is important, as you want to at least move a little bit before falling again). I find that a twisting, hopping motion sometimes does the trick. Again, you will not look cool for this part. Sorry.
(In fact, if you are trying to impress fellow skiiers and boarders, try to make sure that people really only see you doing the roll part and ending up standing. Or they can also see the brilliant heel turn portion of the move, but nothing else. All other parts of The Fall (TM) must either be executed by those with no pride or done in secret, very quickly when the run is empty. Given that this never happens, suck it up and try and work out the timing so that you're only embarrassing yourself when non-important people are around, and then hope that you don't see them in the lodge.)
The Art of Crashing
Snow and I have issues. When I was in high school, I was determined to learn how to ski and went on a total of three trips to local mountains, all ending in disaster. I never had the patience (or money) for lessons, so I relied on my friends for advice as to the finer points of ski manuevering. Bad idea. The first trip I spent about five minutes on the bunny slope before deciding that I was ready for the chair lift and the glamour of the big mountain run. The only problem was that I had yet to learn how to do two things:
1. Turn
2. Stop
Oh, sorry, three things:
3. Get off the chair lift
Once they had stopped the chair lift for me and given me a hand off the seat at the second stop (the one that was supposed to only be for people taking lessons - coincidence? yes. shut up.), I shot down that mountain like my skis had mini-jet-rockets strapped to the backs, and was in speed-induced bliss until about 2/3 of the way down, when I realized that the bottom was coming up very quickly and I didn't really know what to do about that. I remembered seeing people snowplowing, and made an attempt to copy the awkward, knock-kneed motion but only succeeded in tangling my skis together and embarking on Big Scary Crash #1 of the day's approximately 20 bazillion. Crash numbers 2-15 followed in rapid succession as I kept going down the mountain, stopping each time to get advice from my friends about ways to halt or turn my trajectory without again watching the world go arse over teakettle. Their advice? Turn sideways in that swishy s-pattern that has a very complicated possibly Swiss name that I cannot pronounce and won't even try to spell (schussing? shuss? schlemiezel? I lied about the trying part). That resulted in me shooting off to the side of the run (you know, where the trees and sharp dropoffs are) as a result of my Xtreme speed. They also said to jump up a bit and turn your skis uphill, landing on your heels for that lovely wall-of-snow stop that you see in the movies. Again, Xtream speed (a.k.a. speed so intense that it defies all traditional attempts at spelling its description) (and also a.k.a. Speed That Inspires Extraneous Capitalization) caused me to temporarily defy gravity when trying this technique and instead of stopping, whoosh again, UPHILL, towards the edge of the run and the trees and cliffs of snow.
I also have forgotten (intentionally?) to mention the unfortunate roles of the other skiers on the hill during this experience. Lots of dodging, some yelling, many children endangered. It's not important.
Anyways, crashing-crashing-crashing, snow in places where snow had never been before, and two visits to the mountain later I still hadn't learned a single thing. So my "friend" Tiffany (never trust a Tiffany) decided that I was ready for my first black diamond run. She didn't tell me this was the plan, and I went obliviously to the new chair lift that she indicated and hopped right on (by now I had figured out chair lifts. Nothing else, though, and my hopping-off skills always elicited chuckles from the staff). When we reached the top of the mountain I was still pretty cheerful, executing my uncoordinated hop and watching with confusion as all of a sudden Tiffany disappeared off the cliff suddenly under our feet and took off down the mountain. In my memory there was maniacal giggling wafting back up to me but I can't be sure. It was steeper than anything I'd ever done before, and getting started was a bit of a challenge. Once I was headed down the mountain in my typical beam-straight line, my spirits picked back up a little bit. Then all of a sudden I was airborne, and realized that the sun behind me was hiding all of the gigantic jumps and moguls that made up the majority of this run. AND I couldn't stop, and turning was really more of a matter of faith in leaning. I landed with a bit of a flail, and the rest of the weaving, falling, rocketing course is a mush to me. All I know is that I didn't talk to Tiffany for two weeks and had bruises for a very long time. And I think that was the trip where I had snow so far up my nose that I sneezed for fifteen minutes straight and strained a nose muscle (don't think it's possible? I dare you to sneeze for fifteen minutes and find out.)
Even after all of this, a couple years ago I decided that with my expertise in skiing, mastering the snowboard was my next course of action. I'll save that for another day, but will mention that the day involved me inventing a crash-and-roll technique that ended up being more fun than the actual boarding to me, and resulted in my crashing intentionally about every five feet down the hill, then sliding for a while with my butt on the board and laughing at my brother, who by then had gone down the hill, up the lift, and down the hill again while I had progressed exactly 20 feet.
Snow bunny I am not.
Workin' for a Living
Music that we have played today:
The 5,6,7,8s
Doris Day
Duke Ellington
The Gotan Project
Dusty Springfield (with sing-a-long)
Mel Torme
This is a non-typical representation of the variety of aural stimulation we typically throw out (holiday songs skew the average), but should give you an idea of the rather eclectic crowd I am currently hanging with. The only taboo musical offering that I have found thus far is Madonna, and I suspect that he only uses her name as a representative for all music that he finds "bad". For example, I put on some Eva Cassidy and he was fine with it until the fifth song or so, when all of a sudden he turned to me and said "Is this MaDONna?" in a tone that can only be described as, well, icky.
I like it here.
In other news, there is no other news. The Christmas season has effectively put a halt on the other freelance model project I was working on (for those keeping score, the deadline was November 15th. Now I'm guessing maybe mid-February) and an almost complete halt on my attempts at a social life. Almost. Holiday parties and birthday parties have been floating around here and there, but other than embarrassing myself slightly last Saturday it's been pretty tame. I couldn't help it, they were playing "Purple Rain" (the movie, not the album) on the wall of the dance club, and I spent a frighteningly large amount of time staring at the screen slack-jawed while various people tried to talk to me. Hopefully no drool was emitted, but I can't be certain. Prince is purty...
I GOT THE JOB!
I got the job I got the job I got the job!!!!
They called me last night and made an offer, which I promptly accepted. This means I get to attach ", Designer" to my name and have the novel experience of working year-round in a job with health benefits. A very rare experience in the creative working world! I'll probably start out doing a lot of drafting, but I have a strange affection for AutoCAD and a high level of comfort with the program, so I'm not at all stressing about that. Plus they want me to build models for them, and do renderings. I'm getting paid for preschool! I hope I hope they have the biiig crayons.
It's the final countdown
I haven't updated in a while because I'm waiting for the next phase of my employment life to begin. They haven't contacted me yet about the interview results, though I did get a little note today asking how much money I would theoretically want if I was theoretically hired, which I take as a good sign but am not packing my stapler yet.
I've spent the last two weekends with family, which has been a nice change of pace from the city life. Monkey adores spending time out with the cows, and gets entirely spoiled by my father, who I'm beginning to suspect loves her more than me. Case in point: Last weekend I went to drop her off so they could Monkey-sit while I visited my brother down in Portland. When we came in the door, my dad immediately got all happy-baby-voiced and knelt down to give her a big hug and a Milk Bone. THEN he looked up at me and said, "Oh yeah, hi to you too!" No Milk Bone. No baby voice. I'm telling Santa.
I also got to see my brother perform in a boy band, complete with "wardrobe malfunction", see his classmates do a "Napoleon Dynamite"-inspired dance that had me teary-eyed with happy, and see my little 6-year-old fireball of a niece perform a ribbon dance with so much vim and vigor that I can pretty much guarantee her ribbon celebrity should she choose to continue on that course. Next weekend I'm going to go back down and see my nephew be a wise man assistant and my sister be Mary (yes, mother of Jesus). We're taking over the world, one tiny stage at a time!
The only class where watching "The Princess Bride" is considered homework
When registering for my junior year of college in Texas, I decided that a P.E. class would be a great way to relax and take the edge off my otherwise packed schedule. I looked at the list of classes and found that only one of the remaining open classes fit. Fencing. I didn't know a thing about the sport, or even if it was a sport, but decided to go for it out of desperation. I signed up not knowing anyone else in the class and nervously went to the bookstore to get the required gear. When I saw the jacket, helmet and gloves a wave of excitement washed over me. I was going to get to play beekeeper! When they handed me the two plastic dishes I had no idea what to think. I packed them away and went nervously to the first class, where the instructor very quietly explained that they were breast protectors and that they slipped inside the jacket into special pouches. I felt like Madonna with her cone bra - those things were gigantic and made a spectacular "DONK" sound when hit with a foil. Also worked well as frisbees.
My fencing classmates were hilarious, and just a little bit scary. There was a giant of a man named Dirk who was the head of the campus Medieval society, and three of his minions who were far shorter and scrawnier and obviously grateful for his protection. You couldn't look at them without knowing they were at that moment imagining themselves with capes flowing from their backs as they clutched their staffs and mumbled spells, looking solemly off into the distant enchanted gymnasium. There was a couple other geeky guys of the unspecified computerish sort and one other goth girl who really just wanted to use her sword to whip people. I attempted to make friends, and had almost won the Ren-fair geeks over with my spotty knowledge of Monty Python, when we were subjected to the physical fitness test and I lost everything I'd earned.
You have to remember that I'd been a forest firefighter now for two summers, and done sports before that. I did well in all of the tests, didn't raise any suspicions with my performance in the sit-ups and push-ups. But when we got to the bench press test, things went horribly wrong. I got in position with the guys behind me manning the weights (I couldn't see how much they'd put on) and did the first rep, which felt like nothing. They asked if I wanted more weight and I told them to double it. I did another rep with the added weight and still felt like it was light. This repeated and repeated with more and more weight until I could feel that a sizeable crowd had gathered behind me. I finally reached my limit and set down the bar, getting up to see the pale faces and big eyes of my classmates who were looking at the final amount that I had lifted. It turned out that I had benched more weight than any of the men in my class. 150 lbs. I turned bright red and tried to ignore the boys muttering "No way in hell she's getting near me with a sword".
I ended up being really good at fencing, thanks to quick reflexes and enough flexibility to make really long lunges. I developed a very aggressive style of fighting that I'd only bring out when I was feeling evil, but that plus my now-infamous strength made me a force to be reckoned with in the class. One guy even got a nickname from a match we fought when I scared the piss out of him with an attack, and he literally turned his back to me and ran off the strip. Until he graduated the poor boy was known as "The Rabbit".
We had a tournament at the end of the class and I managed to beat out everyone but Dirk (did I mention he was HUGE?). I got a t-shirt and felt like even more of a dork for being a winner amongst the geeks. But my fencing journey wasn't over yet - the instructor wanted me to try out for the Junior Olympics and convinced me to train with him for an extra couple of months. I did horribly at the tournament since the women fenced completely different from the men I was used to fighting. They were all about finesse and lightly touching the scoring patch. I didn't have a chance, despite the reflexes and training - most of the women there had been fencing for years and I'd done it for less than six months. Still, another t-shirt added to the pile and another batch of useless vocabulary words to confuse people with. I still have the boob protectors, I'm not quite sure why anymore but I can't seem to make myself get rid of them.
