Mostly December...

Lunch on Peak 9

Mike Graduated!!!
Next year he'll even get a swanky velvet hood! Which is totally the reason to finish grad school...

Driving Home from Denver- Hwy 58, near Coors

Cows in the Hay Field at the Horse Rescue

November- Hwy 93- The leaves still on!
No Halloween Snow- wtf???

Psychology Grad Students will FEAST UPON YOUR SOULS!

A Very-Merry Christmas

For the first time in several years, I'm thinking 4 or 5, we had a nice, casual, at-home Christmas with my family. After my head injury there were several holiday seasons with me not present, several with my sister and/or mother gone mad, and a couple with Gram sobbing on the balcony in St. Thomas. Mike usually flies to Houston just before Christmas to intercept his sister's visit with their parents- she lives in Tokyo and this is her long vacation to fly to America- and my family often goes to St. Thomas to celebrate with my mother's family.

This year, I asked Mike to stay for my birthday (Christmas Eve) and leave Christmas evening, so he could have the full holiday experience with my side. I asked my family to spend Christmas Eve helping me at the horse rescue as a birthday gift, and for a Christmas morning kringle and bacon feast like we had when we were kids.

I may have missed all the 'big' birthdays- 18, 21- thanks to PTSD etc, but 23 made up for it! We woke up and Mike brought in the gift from his family- a really, really nice orange Le Cruset (sp?) dutch oven that I've been drooling over for years! The moment we walk into my parents' house, they made Mike 'bacon master' based on their ironic sense of Jewish eating. I'd ordered a couple kringles since I knew I wouldn't have time to make them this year, so we ended up having bacon and kringle two mornings in a row. I think I gained 10 lbs! My mom and Katy made a cake and Gram and Alyssa came over to help us eat everything and play some charades.

At 3, we drove up to the rescue and I introduced the horses. Mike's horribley allergic, but he couldn't resist petting Princess, the obese mini, before heading home with Katy to play video games. My dad fell for Winston, who I want to adopt but think he'll find a better placement in the spring. He's just so friggin' cute, and has such a personality! My mom mixed grains (and accidentially gave everyone their morning suppliments, I knew I shouldn't leave her alone...) while my dad helped me throw hay. It was a balmy 25 degrees and my parents had dressed appropriately, but they still whined mildly about the cold. Seriously- it's been in the teens and snowing the past couple of weeks! But they don't usually spend a couple hours hauling feed through the snow... so the mud seemed awful.

Dinner at "George W Bush's favorite Chinese restaurant!" where you have to ask for chopsticks and they look at you funny when you do, but the food's pretty good and pretty cheap. All in all, a wonderful day with the people I love!

Christmas morning Mike and I drove back to Boulder for more kringle and bacon. Mike was shocked at all the gifts under the tree, and even more shocked that a good fraction were to him! With a big family, the numbers add up quickly, and I think he finally understands the massive shopping list each winter! Great t-shirts from the St. Thomas diving club (Kiersten), bizzare hats (Cindy and Pete), and picnic/car blankets from my parents were group highlights. Katy got a microphone for school and money for a keyboard when she gets back (no point in buying one here!) and I got coveralls and a possium wool sweater from Tasmania that's fatally soft! We got mom some bath stuff that she adored, and dad a tie and polo shirt with kangaroo logos that he can wear to AWWA 'casual' events or whatever. My mom 'casually' mentioned to Mike several times that if he decides to really become a part of the family he'll get in on even more gifts. No pressure, of course, but wouldn't he like to officially be my family...

I took Mike to the airport before dinner at Laurie and Alden's. They sold their farm and bought another, and are extremely excited about everything! Alden's sick of growing hay, so their new property will be pastures only, once they re-do the barn. The new owners of their farm are boarding their horses for as long as it takes to get everything done and keeping the boarders that are already there in return for Alden and Miguel, the barn hand, helping them figure out the details of the operation and what hay farming actually involves. Anyhow, it was a nice Christmas dinner after a glorious day.

Today, a long hike to begin re-shedding these pesky holiday pounds!

Instructions for Winding a Watch

Incredible amounts of snow. Freezing cold (high of 13 F, low of -5 F) but sunny!
Our power went out three times yesterday, but the longest was only for an hour so more of an adventure in candles than a problem. I'll try to take some pictures today.

I've been thinking a lot about this translation lately. I did it a few years ago for a class on translating poetry, and although it's not my best work, something about the piece captivated me. I should really buy his most famous novel, "Hopscotch," so I can unstick myself from his Instrucciones. Part of what makes this short fiction fun is that the words don't make a whole lot of sense in Spanish, so translating them directly doesn't convey much. Instead, you have to decide what level of integraty can be maintained by changing words to say the same thing in another language. I should probably edit my translations, pull them together into one 'favorite', but until then here are the two I think are closest:

Instructions for Winding a Watch

Translation 1:

There at the end is Death, but do not fear. Hold the watch steady in one hand, hold the knob in two fingers, wind it gently. Now you open another time period; the trees display their leaves, the boats run in regattas, time like a fan will fill it exactly, and off it buds the air, the breeze of the earth, the shadow of a woman, the perfume of bread.

What more does it want? What more? Attend quickly to your wrist, leave it throbbing freely, mimicking panting. Fear rusts the anchors, each thing that it could reach and was forgotten circling the veins of the watch, gangrening the small rubies of cold blood. And there at the end is Death, if we don’t run and arrive before and understand that this does not matter.



Translation 2:

There at the end is death, but do not fear. Secure the watch in one hand, take the knob with two fingers, wind it gently. Now it opens another era, the trees display their leaves, the boats run regattas, time like a fan will fill this place, and off it buds the breathe of the earth, the shadow of a woman, the aroma of bread.

What more does it want, what more does it want? Attend quickly to your wrist, leave it throbbing freely, mimicking panting. Fear rusts the anchors, each thing that it could reach and was forgotten running through the veins of the watch, gangrening the rubies of cold blood. And there in the end is death if we don’t run and arrive before and understand that it won’t matter.

~ Julio Cortazar

Mike's Graduating Next Week!

And all of my family will be here to celebrate. Thus outnumbering his family by at least 6:1. I swear to God, if my grandparents tell his parents that they flew all the way out here just to meet them because, and I quote, "we'll be dead before Amy and Mike ever get married" it will ensure that we elope! I mean, they'd already have met his parents so why would we need to have a ceremony? It just eats me up to hear them say that, since they have never accepted my mother or my uncle's partner and they couldn't give less of a shit about my sister's love life.

See, Mike's technically Jewish. My grandfather survived the Holocaust. I understand the bitterness of having one son come out of the closet and sing on Broadway and the other marry a Christian girl after having your culture nearly wiped off the map, but I don't see how my Jewish wedding would fix anything. Accepting your very accomplished sons and their extended families would at least mean more time with the family you do have, in what time you have left. What's really ironic is, Grandma claims to see a lot of herself in me- that I'm strong and stubborn, unconventionally smart, and willing to take a stand for what I believe in. The rest of the family sees me as exactly like my mom- strong, stubborn, unconventionally smart, and willing to take a stand for what I believe in. My grandma started a culture club in her rural high school and hosted dances where the Jewish kids could dance with the Christian kids, and graduated at the very top of her class even though she was a woman. She reads more than anyone I know, and I was a poetry major! My mom failed out of a few undergrad colleges, attending 10 in total, then zipped through Yale grad school and got into Berkeley for her PhD, but didn't go because she had an idea about using forest service lands as recreational areas. Any forest service lands in Oregon that aren't logging sites, you can partially thank my mother for. For their eras and circumstances, they both made unprecedented stands for what they believed in. I still think they should put aside their ridiculous bitterness and get along!

Anyhow, I'm extraordinarily stressed about them coming to visit, along with my amazing uncles and Mike's parents, and all of my family that lives in the area.

Oh, and did I mention that they'll all still be here for my final's week? Yeah. My finals start a week from Monday. Gah.

With my erratic posting, I'd be shocked to find I had any readers! Still, the urge to 'blog' lingers on my fingertips.

I made almost all of Thanksgiving this year, driving to Boulder every day this week to use my parents' kitchen and going to 5 different grocery stores, almost all of them on more than on occasion! Damn the prevalence of specialty stores! I can get canning supplies in our middle of nowhere King Soopers, but nowhere in Boulder sells jars! The same, local eggs are nearly $1 cheaper per dozen here than at the same chain store in Boulder. How does this even happen?
I'm happier every day I manage to avoid driving into that town!

Everything tasted wonderful and everyone left with enough left-overs for plenty of sandwiches today! Still, I've made better meals with much less effort, so I doubt I'll go down this over-the-top road again, at least not alone!

Also, we've added another example of why I'm hesitant to lend my mom my car:

Monday, my mom tore up the front walk and had my sister and me help her lay a new flagstone path/patio. She can't life the heavy rock slabs and buckets of fill dust, so we spent 5 hours moving everything around. On Tuesday I drove my mom to the gravel place and helped her load more rock dust into my car, then lent my mom my car for an appointment and started cooking. She got back about 3, and comes into the house saying she's too tired to finish the patio so why don't borrow her car and leave the dust alone for the night? I say okay, and keep cooking. At 7, Mike comes in and says to me, "why is your car in the middle of the street with the lights on, a door open, and the keys still in it? Are you getting things out?"

Yeah. My mom left my car in the middle of the street, lights on, driver's side passenger door AND trunk door open, and the keys in the ignition. For 4 hours. Her excuse? "I was really letting go of not finishing the patio, I guess I just relaxed too much. Oops."

Unlike all the times my sister has wrecked my car, my mom has no karmic punishment attached. The car was not stolen, it started again just fine, and even if everything had gone as wrong as it could have she has the money to just 'make it right.' She ran over a huge rock in my ancient, ground-hugging Saab and destroyed the radiator? "Oops!" and a new radiator for me. Not that I don't appreciate her taking financial responsibility, but I do wish she'd acknowledge that doing something she knows is going to lead to damage is irresponsible and, well, stupid!

Sister car wrecks were pretty amazing, though. Especially the last time she drove that old Saab:
My sister got arrested for having a bong in her purse when she was 16. The anti-pot laws here are rarely enforced, but it was this cop's first day and he was a bit over-zealous. The judge sent her to alcohol classes as the lowest available punishment, which is ironic since she had chosen not to drink because she felt more in control smoking... Anyhow, right after her 18th birthday she had borrowed my car to go to a choir performance. If you don't know Saabs, their ignition is in the center console and is completely removable, and sometimes you can knock the key out on the older ones if you swing your elbow just right. My sis did not know this, and as she was about to turn onto a main street she apparently knocked the ignition just enough to turn the car off. The ignition was misaligned now, and since she had no idea it came out at all she had no idea she needed to fix it. All she knew was the car wouldn't start and the key wouldn't come out!
A cop driving by on the main road helped her push the car into a parking lot, then ran her license as protocol. Turns out, the paperwork for finishing her alcohol class had never been filed, and there was a warrant out for her arrest now that she'd turned 18! My sister when to jail, and my parents got to argue with the cops all night until someone found her paperwork and allowed them to take her home.

Okay, off to bed. Hope anyone had a lovely Thanksgiving!

More evidence that PETA needs to spend more time in reality

When you've created a flash game to protest a video game about cooking, you're not paying enough attention to the real animal right's issues of our world.

PETA protests Wii Game

Seriously.

My sister comes to Colorado on Wednesday! Yay!!!