To List or Not to List.

Normally I am a lover of lists. You know, I’ve blogged about it, and typically I love making them. I love the finality of crossing things off of them, and I love anticipating getting things checked off. That being said, there are some things in my life that I feel I do not need to list out. Things I need to accomplish, groceries, work tasks, people to invite to things etc are all totally acceptable. I’ve even so much as listed out things I would possibly like to splurge on in the future, books I want to read, and potential life goals; However, I have not, much to my mother’s dismay, mapped out the exact characteristics that I am looking for in a husband…

Frankly, I don’t even really know what to say about this. Perhaps it is baffling to some that at the ripe old age of twenty-four I am not incredibly concerned with marriage… at least not in the immediate future. Ok, so I’m not planning on becoming an old maid either, but I can honestly say that I do not spend my days planning out what characteristics I want my future husband to have. (which actually, I think is quite healthy thank you very much). Perhaps it has a lot to do with my current surroundings, and the people that I am around the most. I remember a few years in college when my roommates and I were pretty much taking our cues from Teen Girl Squad, and we all had a crush on every boy; but nowadays a majority of my friends are married, engaged, or significantly attached, and so it’s not like I have a lot of single girl-friends on the prowl. Perhaps if there were more of us, I would spend a little more time whimsically planning out my romantic future… but I kind of don’t think so. I don't spend my days thinking about what I want in a husband, because I'm not too concerned about it. I'll know it when I find it.

It’s been a challenging year, and one that has really solidified for me that I need to start really living in the present and not projecting things onto the future. I’m really trying to embrace things in the here and the now, and making my life what I want it to be, rather than waiting for all the right circumstances, and waiting for things to happen to me. Thus far, I’m thrilled with the way it is working out, and am finding that I am a whole lot happier than I was a few months ago. That being said, I’m still trying to figure out my own life, and what my own wants and needs are, and the idea of listing out what I’m looking for in a life-partner seems a little bit overwhelming. I don’t even know what I want to be doing a year from now, so trying to think about what type of person I want to be spending the rest of my life with is just so not where I’m at… but could someone please explain this to my mother?

She means well, she really does, but our brains work in totally different ways, and I think there is part of her that thinks I am somehow emotionally defunct for not having my “dream-man quality” list at the ready. Granted, it makes it even more challenging when this is something that I typically wouldn’t discuss with my mother, even if I had a physical list filed away somewhere. It just works out better for everyone involved if the sharing about my dating life is minimal. This is not because I’m hiding things, it’s just how my relationship with my mother has worked out (I am totally fine with this fact, she is not. What can you do?) It is challenging to explain without getting into huge amounts of detail, but in general I just feel like dating is between two people, and I like to have time to form my own opinions and figure out what I’m feeling, and where the situation is going before discussing it with anyone, and this for some reason doesn’t sit well with her. She likes things to be done with her timing, and her timing is always me sharing things pretty much the second they happen to me… so not my style. I think it actually has a lot to do with my writing. I’m constantly editing, and tweaking, and re-writing, and I like things to be in a place where I’m comfortable with them before putting them out into the world. The same is true with my life, I like to share things in my own time.

And there have also been a few occasions in the past when my mother (well let’s be honest, both of my parents) have tried to take matters into their own hands when it comes to my dating life (again they mean well, I know this) and as a result it makes me even more reluctant to share. Knowledge is power… and there is a huge part of me that is terrified that if I actually give my mother a concrete list of things I am looking for in a husband, I will suddenly find that she has set up a profile for me on E-harmony.

She wouldn’t really (I don’t think) but she has gone so far as to give out my phone number to one of her patients who was under the influence of anesthesia… I’m not even kidding. This guy pretty much woke up with my phone number, and though he and my mom had a bunch of great conversation when he was on the drugs, he doesn’t remember what they talked about. In her defense, he was pretty cute… and we went on a few dates…but in the end, he was actually addicted to pain pills, and he was a Yankees fan, and after things went south I decided that perhaps blind dates that start with anesthesia are not really my cup of tea.

Maybe I am not in a hurry because right now marriage is not high on my priority list (it is slightly higher than children, but not very). I’m only twenty-four, and I have a lot going on in my life right now, and the idea of spending the rest of my days with the same person is completely foreign to me. Not that I am anti-marriage, or against relationships, I just haven’t gotten around to that yet. Perhaps my priorities are a little askew, but I’m young, and certainly not interested in settling down any time soon. I’m much more concerned with my career, writing, graduate school, traveling, and overall figuring out what makes me happy! It’s not that making a concrete list of what I’m looking for in a husband makes me uncomfortable, but I honestly just haven’t thought about it. Again, this is apparently really hard to believe, especially since I have maybe given a thought or two to what I might what in a wedding. I also blame this on the “being a product of my environment theory”, because I am around weddings all the time. Last year I was in three, had a handful of old roommates get married, and spent a good portion of my work year dealing with brides. When you take into consideration that I am an Event Coordinator by day, so I spend a lot of time advertising weddings, going to bridal shows, and get complimentary bridal magazines sent to my office, I think it would actually be extremely unnatural if I didn’t give any thought to what I might want in a wedding! And weddings are easy! It’s all about your personality and what you like, and reflecting that… and it is only one day! I think it is so much easier to be able to pin-point what you might want in a bouquet, or for wedding favors, rather than to pin-point what you might want in a man you are planning on spending eternity with.

Perhaps I am making the argument that the man is actually more important that the flowers, so maybe I should be spending a little more time focusing on what really matters. But I’ve always believed that things would happen when I least expected them too… so, sitting around thinking, listing, waiting, seems unnatural to me. I sort of embrace the metaphor of the watched pot.

So in the past few weeks, my mother has brought this subject up more than once. I know that she is reading about book about praying for her adult children, and this is probably a chapter focus or something, but every time it comes up, I sort of just roll my eyes. Especially when you start to ask her about the qualities she was looking for in a guy… because to my knowledge, my dad doesn’t have a lot of the qualities on the list (and they are totally perfect together!) And then you ask my dad what qualities he was looking for, and he just sort of laughs, and said he didn’t have any specifics in mind. (Apparently I am my father’s daughter). Even so, it is really hard to try explaining to my mother that I’m still trying to figure out what sort of qualities I want my own life to have!

Anyway, the list thing has been coming up a lot with the family. It doesn’t help matters, that my brother of course had a mental list of what he was looking for, as did my sister-in-law, which therefore solidified the fact that I am the odd-ball in the family for not giving it a second thought.

Then to my surprise I was at work, and one of my co-workers out of the blue asked me if I had made “THE list” (ok it wasn’t exactly out of the blue… we were looking through the before mentioned bridal magazines looking at flowers). Actually one of my best friends had told me a few days prior to this conversation that I needed to start being specific and asking the universe for exactly what I wanted, so I thought it was pretty interesting that now my co-worker and my mother were asking me to make specific lists. Anyway, we got to talking, and apparently my co-worker had numerous friends who were completely frustrated with their dating situations, and so they made “THE list” and both of them were married in six months. I will admit, this perked my interest a little bit (not because I want to be married in six months… more like six years) and I started to think about my current dating situation. I have always sort of been the type of woman who wants what she can’t has (I’m working on it) and I’ve never really had a “type”. Every guy that I have ever dated, or lusted after, or had a crush on, has been completely different from each other in looks, personality, interests, and attitude, and I’ve pretty much always believed that the second I started getting down to specifics of what I wanted, I would fall for someone completely different.

I began to discuss this a little bit more in-depth with my co-worker, because both of us have mixed feelings on the subject. I hate the idea of making a list of shallow, surface level things, and yet also hate the idea of making an incomplete list. “Dear Universe, this is what I want… I think… but I reserve the right to change it at any given time, and add on qualities when they come to me” … My co-worker fully admits that if she made out a list of what she thought she wanted, she would have completely over-looked her current relationship. Of course she is totally happy, but her boyfriend is twenty years older than her, and he is very into cars and fishing. She never would have pictured herself falling for someone like that, and yet here they are. Interestingly enough, her ex-husband is pretty much perfect on paper, and had so many of the things that she would have listed. He was a poet, and into farming, a great father, very literate, and yet things went awry, and the marriage fell apart. The same goes for my ex-boyfriend… on paper there were so many similarities, so many common interests, and so much of what I was looking for… only he is an ass…

So though I am more intrigued now by putting a list out there, I am also a little bit more reserved about it. It seems like perhaps it is a good starting point, but the list needs to be flexible… perhaps generalizations rather than specifics… I want this quality(ish). Now I sort of visualize “THE list” as being a connect the dots picture, with each list point being a dot, and the lines are all the stuff I haven’t quite thought of yet…. So I’ve been giving it a lot of thought the last week…. I still don’t have anything tangible (meaning I haven’t written it down), and it’s still not something I’m quite ready to share with my mom… but I guess having a starting point is better than the alternative?

Veggie Minded

“This is the emerald season of spinach, kale, endive, and baby lettuces. The chard comes up as red and orange as last fall’s leaves went out. We lumber out of hibernation and stuff our mouths with leaves, like deer or tree sloths”

“That’s how springtime found us, grinning from ear to ear, hauling out our seedlings”

- Barbara Kingsolver, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

Spring in the Pacific Northwest has been a little slow this year… At least it seems that way… I realize this might not actually be true, since it has rained on Memorial Day weekend pretty much consistently since I’ve lived here, but for some reason this year the cold dreariness has seemed to linger longer than usual. I’m actually rather ok with that though, because it has allowed me some extra time to come up with a game plan for my planting endeavors.

I should probably start out by saying that I just finished reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver, and though I have always had a love for gardening and local produce, it is probably safe to say that reading this book has pushed me over the edge into gardening fanaticism… well as fanatical as one can get while living in an apartment with no real land to call my own.  For the past two summers the only real gardening space I had consisted of two window boxes. Considering that I lived in the world’s smallest apartment I was actually pretty happy with that, and was able to grow some of the basics. I had basil, rosemary, sage, chives, dill, one giant container of mint, some thyme, and one box of flowers. Pretty good, right?  Plus, the weekly farmer’s market was literally right outside my front door, and the organic grocery store was half a block away, so I was able to supplement my boxes with tons of fresh, local produce.

Then this past summer we put in a small garden at work, and having no idea what to really do with the produce (most of the employees already had large gardens) I was able to take home tomatoes, cucumbers and zucchini throughout most of the growing season, which was pretty great. All of the benefits, with none of the real labor.  And though I have no problem slapping down a few bucks for a head of lettuce at the farmer’s market, I do have to admit that there is nothing more satisfying than making a meal out of something that you have grown yourself (even if it is just sprinkling fresh basil over pasta. )

So this past February when I was looking for a new apartment, I was drawn towards this place because of the incredible porch. It is expansive, and though it slants a little bit, and is made of tin (weird right?) I could definitely see the potential for container gardening (not to mention all the stellar summer evening soirees I plan on throwing). And so I began to dream past the two window boxes. At first I thought I would just grow some lettuce, and expand my herb selection a little bit. Nothing too crazy…

That was February… this is May. And though I think I have done a fairly good job controlling my vegetable planting impulses, I definitely have expanded my container gardening horizons…  Though I will partially blame that on Barbara Kingsolver… The way she writes about food is breathtaking. I was hooked after the chapter on asparagus, worked my way through spring, and by the time I got to August I had to actually restrain myself from buying six different kinds of tomato plants.

I constantly struggle with finding a balance between my urban desires and my suburbanish lifestyle. I love so many conveniences of the city, but lately I’ve really been embracing the simplicity of a more rural life-style, and I have to admit, the idea of living on a farm for a year and growing a massive vegetable garden is greatly appealing to me. Sure, cleaning chicken poop off of eggs, and slaughtering my own meat sounds less than glamorous, but a season of fresh produce everyday is something I could get behind. Growing up, my family always had a large garden, and I grew up with the flavors of home-grown vs. grocery bought. I love how garden-fresh carrots taste like dirt in an incredibly delicious way.

Since I do not have any land to call my own, and I cannot really dictate what goes into the workplace garden, I have spent the past few months trying to make creative suggestions to my parents about what they should plant in their garden. I had to laugh when I was reading about Barbara Kingsolver being listed in a book as the “74^th most dangerous person in America”. I think my mother might agree with her though, because just about every day as I got through another chapter I would start suggesting a new vegetable. “Mom, what about fingerling potatoes… and onions? Lets grow tomatillos. Do you still have a food dehydrator? How would you feel about raising a few chickens?” She stopped listening after I started to suggest that they turn part of their lawn into a raised bed. She insisted that someday her grandchildren would need to play on the lawn… I tried to argue that that my future bulldog AKA the only grandchild in the foreseeable future wouldn’t need very much lawn to play on, but that didn’t go over too well.  I can’t really complain though. My parents did buy a fig tree (at my suggestion) and a kiwi vine (without my suggestion!) and they just signed up for a CSA, which I will gladly pick up for them when they are on vacation.  Though I don’t think I will be able to convince my mom to start canning things with me in the fall, or to grow enough onions so we have a supply all winter, at least she will share the figs.

Of course the real fuel to my gardening flame is mostly due to the fact that I work at a specialty plant and herb nursery. My co-workers are all extensive gardeners, some of them with their own farms and CSAs and my boss is a Master-Gardener. Being around these people for over two years I am inspired by the way that they eat, and I will admit in the summer I am always jealous of their lunch.  After being around these people, and in a place that is all about growing and nurturing, it should be of no surprise to me that the second I got a porch I marched out to the green-house and started spending my latest pay check. It started with a planter full of lettuce… lettuce is the gateway vegetable.

And the thing of it is, I don’t feel any guilt whatsoever  spending money on plants. Sure, most of them come from my place of work, so I get a great discount. But even so, I can justify spending $3 on a basil plant that will last all summer, when I often spend $3 for roughly six leaves of basil in a package from the store. Plants are basically the gift that keep on giving.  I love that I can buy a tomato plant for $1.50 and it will get me through more than one salad… so with that logic, what was once a few simple plants, has turned into a porch full of glory.  I still have the basic herbs… rosemary, dill, basil, chives, sage… I also have three different varieties of thyme, red veined sorrel, cilantro, French tarragon, lemon verbena. Yes I have the essential spearmint…. I also have apple mint, mint julep, peppermint, and chocolate mint. I have a stir-fry garden with kale, spinach, swiss chard and bok choy.  I have my lettuce pot with red leaf and mustard greens, and a wine barrel with snow peas, Romano beans, and multi-colored carrots. And even though it took great restraint, I only let myself buy two tomato plants. (I had every intention to buy only one, but who can choose between the delicious little yellow ones, and the green zebra striped ones? ) In the next few weeks I fully intend on bringing home a few more varieties of basil, a cucumber plant ( I have a sneaking suspicion the tin porch will be the ideal growing climate for the heat loving cucumber) , and a pineapple sage. (Seriously, if you don’t know about pineapple sage, you are missing out) 

 The Row of Mint

My Little corner of edibles

The Tomatoes in their walls of water

Beans, and Carrots and Peas, Oh My!

A little excessive for just one person? Maybe. But think of the salads! Think of the stir-fries! Think of the beans drizzled in olive oil! Think of the cooking adventures, and the summer soirees! At the very least think of the copious amount of mojitos! (I know, I know…five different types of mint might be a little extreme… but if I had my way it would already be growing waist high in some obscure corner of the yard… )  I might not be ready for my own farm quite yet, but I’m damn excited for the summer and my small harvest of vegetables.

The Epitome of Perfection

I'm helplessly and permanently a Red Sox fan. It was like first love...You never forget. It's special. It's the first time I saw a ballpark. I'd thought nothing would ever replace cricket. Wow! Fenway Park at 7 o'clock in the evening. Oh, just, magic beyond magic: never got over that." - Art Historian Simon Schama

In a moment of impulse, I bought a plane ticket, joined Redsox Nation, and decided to escape the Pacific Northwest for a few days of baseball bliss before settling into “Wedding season”.

Let me start off by saying it was the perfect vacation...Seriously, it could not have been more ideal. Of course I almost missed my flight, but it wouldn’t be a “Tayler vacation” unless some sort of fiasco almost happened. I thought I was being very travel savvy, I didn’t check a bag, had my ticket sent to my smartphone, even had the perfect spot in long-term parking. I arrived at the airport in plenty of time to get through security, buy a cup of coffee, and take a Dramamine, or so I thought. Of course after getting through the line, there was a problem with the ticket sensors and I was sent back to the check in counter, only to be informed it was too close to my departure time to get a boarding pass. Long story short, I demanded one anyway, waited in line again, (the whole time muttering & fidgeting about karma and vacation, and of course this was happening to me) ran through the terminal, and was the last person to board the plane. For a split second I also thought I left my ID in one of the plastic totes at security. (which thankfully I did not, but I spent a few minutes in full blown panic, not worried about how I was going to get on a plane to come home, but more concerned with how I was going to buy beer once in Boston).

Lately I’ve been struggling with life happening around me, and not being able to fully embrace what it is I want in my life. So a mini-vacation doing exactly what I wanted to do was a huge step in the right direction. It was incredibly refreshing to be on MY vacation. It was fantastic to get up at my own pace, wander around at my own pace, see what I wanted to see, eat what I wanted to eat etc. To be perfectly honest, I was there for the baseball, and so long as that happened I was happy, and pretty much everything else was an added bonus. I spent my first morning in Boston wandering around the Museum of Fine Arts. Their Egypt section was spectacular, as was their Etruscan section. I loved meandering around taking everything in at my own pace and not having to worry about rushing someone else, or slowing everyone down. I got to hang out in a room with works by Monet and Picasso, and just study the paint.

It was also totally refreshing to be in a totally strange city by myself and just figure out where I was, where I was going, and what I needed to do next. I’ve traveled quite a bit, but on most trips there is usually someone familiar meeting me at the airport, and I don’t have to worry about navigating to my final destination. It was fun to explore and to get from point A to point B unassisted.

And then there was Fenway. What can I even say about it? This happens to me every time I am in an awe-inspiring, and dare I say life changing place. I feel like words (at least the words I have) are not adequate to describe the experience. A few years ago I had this same feeling when I was visting Tintern Abbey in Wales. A poem that I wrote while there describes it as "the epitome of perfection" and I have to admit, that my new epitome of perfection may very well be Fenway Park. It is the coolest feeling in the world knowing that 39,000 other people are having the same experience, and are all gathered in a place where, for just a few hours, you all want to same thing. I was grinning like an idiot, and sort of bouncing around pretty much the whole time we were waiting in line (and even after we were inside). Being a members of Redsox Nation the first thing we did was head to entrance C, and wait for batting practice. Red Sox Batting practice isn’t open to the general public, and as a “Nation” member you get to go into the ballpark before everyone else and watch from the Green Monster. Talk about the perfect “first time” experience. I’ll always have that memory of walking up the outfield steps, and the very first view that I had of inside Fenway Park was from essentially the best seats in the house.

Of course our actual seats were phenomenal as well. I probably splurged on this trip a little more than I should have, (naturally I came home with an abundant amount of Red Sox gear, including tee shirts, sweatshirts, underwear, and shotglasses) but I sort of took on the “go big or go home” mentality. First base field box, section 15, box 25, row M, seat 4. AKA first base line, center of the dugout, (right behind the N in Boston) ten rows back. We were sitting directly behind first base, which of course meant an all night view of Kevin Youkilis and a stellar view of Home Plate. Did I mention the constant grinning & bouncing around? I was like a little kid on a sugar high. I’m sure I was actually terrible company most of the time, not only because of the bouncing & radiating excitement, but because I also just sort of went into my own little mental happy place for most of the game. I didn’t talk much, just sort of let the experience wash over me.

Naturally there was junk food and beer, and naturally the first thing I ate was a Fenway Dog… you know, when in Rome. (who am I kidding, hot dogs are like my guilty pleasure food, but as a recovering vegetarian who is still on the brink of a meat free life, I like to pretend that it wasn’t a crucial part of the experience…. Even though it was!) There is that quote by Humphry Bogart "A hot dog at the ballgame beats roast beef at the Ritz" and I have to agree.

I was actually pleasantly surprised to find Veggie Dogs and Veggie burgers on the menu there, and allegedly they were also selling vegetarian burritos somewhere, though we walked the entire stadium looking for them, and they were not to be found. I wouldn’t have had my Fenway experience any other way, and that of course includes the hot dogs, but it was nice to know (maybe for future reference) that vegetarian options were available.

And then there was Sweet Caroline. Maybe someday I will figure out how to post a video on my blog (then again… its pretty much me singing really really loudly and really really badly, so maybe it’s a good thing I’m not as tech savvy as I like to think I am). Again, it goes back to the whole 39,000 people acting in unison all hoping for the same outcome, and all singing their hearts out. So good, so good, so good.

Varitek hit a home run, Daisuke pitched a great game, and there was much joy in my heart. There was still joy in my heart the next day, even though the game didn’t go quite as well, and our seats weren’t quite as prime. It was all about the experience though. The right field grandstand is not quite as glamourous as the first base fieldbox, and our view might have been obstructed a little by the foul pole, but it was still Fenway Park, still the same feeling… and a much more vocal fan base. Tim Wakefield got his 2,000^th strike out during the game, I got to see the Ted Williams seat, and we didn’t get rained on, so all in all I call it a successful outing. (though we never did find that vegetarian burrito)

Afterwards we decided to see what we could of the city, and walked most of the Freedom Trail. Very cool, very historical (plus I spotted two bull-dogs along the way. Which I am choosing to take as a sign that there will be one in my near future).

All-in-All it was a fabulous trip, involving a lot of junk food, copious amounts of beer, a good buddy, historical sights, lots of fun, and my first time to Fenway. I can now say that I have closed down Boston Beer Works on a Tuesday night, eaten a Fenway Dog, frolicked on the Green Monster, and been close enough to the Red Sox dugout to see the light reflecting off of Kevin Youkilis’ head.

My one complaint… the two sections of Yankees gear in the Red Sox Team Store. WTF? And I didn’t get to see Papelbon Pitch… but considering I did get to see the Knuckleballer, I’m calling it a trade off.

Oh, and I didn’t get the chance to seduce Theo Epstein either,(which is my new backup-backup life plan) but overall it was still exactly what I needed in a vacation. And I’m thinking my first real trip to Boston, will not be my last.

Spending time in Nutrition Land

 I’m ill, and have been for the past week or so, and have spent almost every waking moment that I haven’t been at work glued to my parents couch watching CSI, and Law and Order marathons on TV. What is it about being sick that makes us yearn for our parents to take care of us? Almost everyone I know, wants their mom to take care of them when they are sick, and I am no different. Sadly for me my mom is not a nurturing as I would like her to be in this respect. Let me just say for the record, that my mom is fabulous. She is an excellent care-taker, and she tries incredibly hard. That being said, I totally get where she comes from. I am not a huge fan of children, especially loud, whiney sniffling children, so I can only imagine how she feels when a twenty-four-year-old child shows up on her couch, wallowing in self-pity, carrying around a box of Kleenex. She will gladly give me a bottle of Musinex, make me a cup of tea, and once in a while if I look pathetic enough she will rub Vics on my feet, but other than that she is pretty much hands off when it comes to me recovering from illness. (this of course doesn’t count last summer when I had a staph infection, and she essentially took care of me 24-7 for 3 weeks) She gladly provides me with a place to wallow though, and thankfully that place is mere feet away from her kitchen.

I can honestly say that my mother’s kitchen is a magical place, especially when compared with my rather pathetic kitchen. I hate my kitchen, though I’m trying to work on that… but it has indoor/outdoor carpet, a ghetto stove, and very little storage space. It also doesn’t have a dishwasher… though this is not new to me, I haven’t had a dishwasher for about two years, I especially hate my kitchen when I am sick. I lay on the couch thinking about making something like soup, and then I think about all the dishes that will result, and I usually give up before I even start.

My mother’s kitchen on the other hand, seems to be fully-stocked all the time, has every pot, pan, or gadget that I could ever need/want/use, and yes, there is a dishwasher to take care of all the unsightly mess afterward. Though she might not be willing to make me chicken soup, I at least know that all of the ingredients are tucked away somewhere so if I’m motivated I can make it for myself. And I usually do, or I make something else, because lets face it, there are only so many hours you can spend on the couch with a book, and the tv to keep you company. I’m a pretty active person, and so sitting around day after day starts to drive me crazy really quickly.  I want to go for a run, and do some yoga, but neither one really go hand in hand with the amount of snot that has been coming out of my nose, and so I turn to less strenuous, and less inverted activities. And so after about 3 days of being a couch potato, I start cooking ( I know, snot probably doesn’t go with cooking either, but when you are cooking for yourself who cares? ).

Growing up I never really realized how fantastic my mom’s kitchen was. Now that I am on a fixed income, and don’t have much pantry space to speak of, I am totally enamored by the amount of ingredients that are always on hand at my parents house. The pantry is stocked with grains like barley, lentils, quinoa, whole grain pasta, beans, etc. There are always salad makings, spices galore, fresh fruits and vegetables, meats, sauces, milk, coffee, wine, beer, not to mention baking supplies. Last night, when my restlessness got me off the couch, I was thrilled to find that she had virtually all the ingredients for stuffed bell-peppers, creamed spinach, and an impromptu apricot thyme galette.

Now that I’m an adult, I have really started to appreciate the way that I was brought up, and the eating habits that were instilled by my parents. I never realized how special it was that our cookies and pancakes were always made from scratch, salad never came out of a bag, and white bread was never in the pantry. My brother is and always has been more of a picky eater than I am, and so looking back on our childhood the fact that his favorite food of all time is spinach quiche, and his favorite vegetable is brussle sprouts really speaks for our childhood eating habits.  I’ve had relatives tell me stories about watching me sitting in a stroller, being rolled around an amusement park eating broccoli trees. Though I will be the first to admit that my childhood eating habits may not have been the most “normal” (I hated pizza until I was in high school) I didn’t really realize how “abnormal” healthy eating was until I was a sophomore in college. One of my good friends came home with me during a break, and when we got back she told her parents that my house was like “nutrition-land”. She was amazed that there were always almonds and dried fruit on the counter for snacking, there was always a salad at dinner, and water and milk were our typical beverages.

And I’m so glad that my culinary experimentation and healthy eating habits have carried into my adulthood.  Yes, I do like junk food, in fact I’m eating left-over pizza for lunch as I write this, but for the most part, my food tastes and cravings tend to be on the healthy-ish side, and for that I am eternally grateful.

Blast from the Past

I'm still trying to figure out who ever thought/ said that High School was the best time of your life...seriously, I'd like to track down that person/ those people and punch them right in the face. (and I'm deeply sorry for those of you who think that high school truly was the best time of your life... I'm hopeful that if you think that you are still in high school, and if you are out of high school and still think that... well I send you my regrets. Lets agree to disagree)

But let's not dwell on the past, I only bring this up because I am currently at a high school prom (one is being thrown at my place of work, I'm not here attending) and every ounce of me is so thankful that High School and Proms are behind me. I'm still trying to figure out the fashion... Granted, I'm sure I didn't look overly amazing at all of the proms I attended. Anyone who has eaten at the Bearcreek Saloon & Steakhouse in the past ten years can attest to that( There may or may not be a picture of me at my Freshman prom hanging on the wall close to the restroom... Only in Montana do you go to saloons where there are nightly pig races for your prom dinner.) Though I will not delude myself with thinking that I had the best taste in High School, I still like to think that my dress choices were a little more timeless and classic than the dresses being worn today. Are that many rhinestones really necessary?

That being said, even with the rhinestone factor, this prom is a little more high class than any of the ones I attended. My high school barely had 200 students (the whole school, not just my class) so over the top proms were really not an option. I would have loved to have Prom in a private event space at an Olive & Lavender Farm! This setting is a little more ideal than a high school gym... and from what I can tell the music is a lot better as well At least right now they are listening to some Black Eyed Peas. I partially blame the music and the gym on growing up in Montana, but in all seriousness, there is absolutely no reason why the last dance at my senior prom should have been to "Proud to be an American". Who wants to slow dance "Proud to be an American?" Apparently half of my class, who were all on the dance floor thinking it was the greatest thing since sliced bread... I fled to Oregon shortly thereafter and have not looked back.

I considered putting on a black cocktail dress before coming to work this evening, after all how many times a year do you have an occasion to break out your one and only Nicole Miller little black dress? But I just couldn't do it, I put Prom in my past, and settled on turquoise tights, and a more sensible black sheath dress, both stylish and professional. Apparently the work is looking for me, 'cause when I walked into work this afternoon my Boss's twelve-year-old grandson stopped in his tracks and said "Wow!" I guess I can still turn a few heads even without the formal wear...too bad more men don't visit my place of work, cause it would be nice if the heads I was turning weren't attached to a twelve-year-old.

If I could go back and do it all over again I think my prom dress would look very similar to the dress worn in Dirty Dancing Havana Nights (don't judge me because I have watched/own that movie.... it is majestic in it's own way... the completely awkward one-liners, Patrick Swayze looking very plastic, Diego Luna shaking his hips, the fashion, the revolution, the dancing)

Bridging the gap

Over the past few months I’ve been attempting to bridge the gap between who I am and who I want to be. It’s really easy to project things into the future. “oh someday when I can afford it…” and “when I have more time I’m going to start project X” But if you live like this too long, you sort of just start to feel like life is happening around you while you are going through the motions and waiting for the stars to align and for things to fall into place.  

For the past few years I feel like I’ve been waiting for my life to happen (though not always patiently) and putting my own wants, and needs on hold until I got a better sense of what I was doing with my life. I felt like I needed to put things off until I had the right finances, living situation, support system, etc. and so most of my goals were sorted into the “life goal” category rather than the “immediate future” one. 

And it is totally legitimate to have wants and desires about the future. I know that it would be completely irresponsible for me to spend my life savings on a Bulldog puppy, and I probably shouldn’t plant mint in the backyard of my rental apartment, but a few months ago I sort of woke up to the fact that life was happening around me, and I sure as hell better start living it, otherwise I was going to look back on my twenties and wonder why I didn’t do things differently.

This all sort of started when I applied to graduate school. I knew that I wanted a change, and a pretty major one, and applying to school seemed to be the most productive form of adjustment. Sadly for me, my plans for going to school did not match up with the plans of the people who were in charge of reviewing applications, so this spring found me restless and thinking “now what?”…

But I should back up a little bit, because before I got to the “now what?” moment, I had started to feel a little anxious about leaving Oregon. I started making lists of places I wanted to visit, things I wanted to do, restaurants I still needed to try, and I was almost getting a little overwhelmed when I thought about trying to cram all of these experiences into the next four months. Though I definitely felt a twinge of disappointment that my life wasn’t going to be plunged back into Academia, I also felt a sense of relief knowing that I could actually do a lot of the things that had started appearing on my list.

Let me just clarify, that I am the type of person who knows what I want. That being said, I often don’t express what I want, or at least not adamantly, because I often find that I have to choose between doing what I want to do, and being with my friends… and a majority of the time I choose my friends. I am a social creature, especially since I live alone, and so for the past few years I have often passed up things that I was really passionate about, and settled for things I was semi-passionate about. This is not a complaint. I knew what I was getting myself into, and my friendships are important to me, so if I have to go to a restaurant or bar or movie or club that I’m not that into because all of my friends want to go then so-be-it…

That is until I started to realize that time is a precious commodity and, in general, I was spending a good amount of time doing a lot of stuff that just didn’t do it for me, just so I could be around the people that did do it for me.  And I still do… to a certain point, but I’m starting to learn that that this is a time in my life when I get to be selfish just a little bit.  So here I am, getting ready to make the person that I am, the person that I want to be.

Let me just explain that I hang out with a very diverse crowd with diverse interests, and we are all held together by the common thread of our undergraduate education. We do all have some similar interests, but as we aging and getting more into our jobs and our daily lives, I’m finding that our interests and goals don’t seem to intersect as often as they once did. Again, this is not a complaint, because it makes our group that much more interesting, but it is challenging sometimes when I am the only one in my core group of friends who likes to watch baseball, read Steinbeck, and gets excited about composting.

When I was just out of undergraduate I spent most of my free-time commuting to hang out with friends in the city, and I was in love with every second of it…. Now I often feel very torn, because I still want to see them and spend time with them, but I also  want to become more rooted in my community, spend less time driving, and more time focusing on my own wants, rather than what the majority wants to do. I realize this sounds a little self-centered… and I am totally one-hundred percent OK with that.

When I realized that I wouldn’t be going to school (at least not in the next sixteen months) I knew that something had to change… and I started to think about the reasons I applied to school in the first place. Yes, I want my Masters degree, and I want it in Poetry, but did I apply this year because the timing was right, or because I was un-happy with how things were going in my life? What was the root of my restlessness, why did I want a change so badly? What could I do with my current circumstances that would remedy the unsettled feeling?

And so I did some thinking… (and also some impulsive phone calls and ticket booking) and I started to really try to identify some things that I could start doing that would satisfy my needs, wants, and desires. I realize that there is a fine line between forcing things to happen, and taking initiative. I’m not going to go out and sign myself up for E-Harmony just because I’m less than thrilled with my dating situation. But I am going to be more pro-active in doing things that make me happy, even if that means doing them alone.  Because at the age of twenty-four, why shouldn’t I be passionate about the things I am doing in my life? I figure if I am a little bit selfish now, if I start living the life that I really want to live, it will make me a happier more fulfilled person (now, and in the future when I am ready to spend my life with someone else) There is a chapter in Refuge by Terry Tempest Williams, in which she discusses this exact thing with her mother. (I cannot find my copy of the book right now, and that is really irritating, and I know in the book they are discussing having children… which is so not where I am at, but the same theory applies. I am being selfish right now, so I don’t have to be later)

So here I am, re-focusing a little bit, and making some changes. I’m trying to pull as many of my goals into the present tense as I can, and setting new ones for the future.

In one week I will be in going Boston, on a purely whimsical vacation that is entirely centered around the Red Sox. I am going to eat copious amounts of hotdogs, purchase Redsox underwear, watch batting practice from the Green Monster, and bask in the glory of doing exactly what I want to do while on vacation.

And a few weeks after I get back, I’ll start my training towards becoming a Registered Yoga Teacher.

I’m taking time off of work to go to the Shakespeare Festival, and some baseball games in Seattle. I’m getting patio furniture, and plan on turning my deck into a garden oasis complete with herbs, flowers, cucumbers, and more mint than I know what to do with. My next big purchase is going to be a composting kit.  I’m going to go see Anthony Bourdain on my twenty-fifth birthday. I’m going to get a dutch oven, a tattoo, and I’m going to run a half-marathon. I’m going to start saving money for my Bulldog, and this summer I’m going to make it to the Portland Art Museum, the zoo, and the Chinese Garden.  I’m going to ride my bike, and take off Thursday afternoons so I can go to the farmer’s market. I’m trying new recipes, being a vegetarian (minus the Fenway hotdogs, and perhaps 4^th of July with my brother’s in-laws. ) I’m reading more poetry… I’m reading more in general…and I’m writing.

And I’m feeling more like myself than I have in a long time….or maybe I’m just liking who I am a whole lot better…