Oh Idaho, sometimes.... sometimes

I never thought I'd grow up to be somebody that had visited a bunch of different countries. It more just happened, it was not really something I ever actively pursued.
But I am glad it happened. For many reasons of course, but one being that it really humbles you.
Gives you perspective.
When (especially white and straight) people in Idaho talk about their rights and needs and values.... it's very obvious that that slice of humble pie was left untouched.
So many people seem to think that they have the right to do certain things, or better yet deserve them, have earned them even.... just by being born in a certain place, looking a certain way.

God bless America, but he sure as hell doesn't bless any other countries.
If you're bilingual, it means you speak English and Spanish. (why, those are the only two languages, right?)
Any foreign person living in the States is a) extremely lucky to be living here and b) wants nothing more than to become a citizen.
And finally (although I could of course go on and on...) all foreign people constantly think of themselves and their home countries, values and cultures as foreign and exotic.
America is the norm, to everybody everywhere. For always.
Amen.

And just like that...

I come home from work today and BAM!
A recycling bin, right there, next to our dumpster.
I had to walk up and touch it, peek inside, to make sure it was real.
And it seems like it is.
Just like that, we now have recycling right outside our door.
Good job Coeur d'Alene, you're officially only about two decades behind the rest of the first world.

Embarrassing, really

The only good news is that we live really close to the recycling station and can take our stuff there without much hassle.
But the bad news is that I sincerely doubt anyone else in our apartment complex does it. And that the city won't give us a recycling bin with the argument that "we can't force anyone to recycle".
Like the blue bin would come alive and attack people if they threw their cans and empty cartons in the regular dumpster (which would be totally awesome, but they have yet to invent bins with this feature).
I don't see how I am currently forced to throw my garbage in the big dumpster right outside, either.
I feel totally free to haul it off someplace else if I felt like it. But I don't, since it's way easier to just toss it right here. And if we had the option to recycle right here too.... yeah, I think a few more people would.
But the city disagrees and I have less than a little faith in the manager here who acted like we asked her for a golden jacuzzi complete with seahorses when we asked about recycling on the property.  
It is so stupid.
And embarrassing, really.

Drop and give me a million burpees

I knew very well I couldn't do a pull up. No surprises there.
I thought however, that I could do a few push-ups.
Cross Fit told me no. Nope, those are not push-ups.
Bitch.
So yeah, after a lot of first-Saturday-of-the-months coming and going without me making it to the bring-a-friend day, I finally made it today.
I drank the kool-aid. And didn't spit it out. But I also don't know that I'll be coming back for seconds.
I might just keep doing my push ups the way I'm used to.
Elbows out and wrists all flimsy.

Dinner is ready. And lunch. And breakfast. For ever.

Dylan made a meal in the crock pot last night. Or more like 50 meals. He mixed a huge bag of beans, rice, peas, onions, carrots and random whathaveyous.... and let it slowly cook together, as one does with a crock pot.
Only, the beans were the rock hard, un-soaked kind you have to leave in water over night. So by the time the beans had reached eatable texture, the rest of the ingredients had disintegrated into a giant mix of mushy food-smelling, porridge looking cement.
The good news is that all the ingredients were dirt cheap so the whole batch probably cost us a total of 6 bucks or less.
The slightly less exciting news is that we have about a hundred pounds of it now.
And we'll eat it.
Cause I don't necessarily like to waste food, and Dylan grew up in a household where moldy oranges make perfect stocking stuffers....
So we'll eat it.
And it's not like it's that bad. It smells like food and tastes like food.
Like Grandma Melba said when I gawked at how much sugar was in her jam
"if it bothers you, just shut your eyes!"

Hey there

Wow, it's been a while.
Anyways, we had a couch surfer come stay with us the other night. A musician from Ohio, on a great big tour of the US. Just a man and his car, driving from city to city, playing gigs and chasing his dream.
Sounds poetic, no?
Just a man and his guitar.
And, a shit ton of electronic equipment to drown the smallest resemblance of actual music.
(That last part is my own reflection of his art. Dylan is much nicer, he stubbornly maintains that he liked his gig...)
He played Calypsos, downtown Coeur d'Alene in front of a handful teenagers in skinny jeans and hipster hair dos. We caught the last few....songs? no, I can't call them songs.
We caught the last few pieces of sound production.
Then he stayed in our guest room before heading for Montana the next morning.
He texted and asked us to mail him the ice pack he accidentally left in our freezer.
Ice packs are heavy and cheap. You don't send things in the mail that are heavy and cheap.
But then again, that's just my own take on things.
He can keep calling what he does music and he can keep playing his songs.
But we're not mailing his ice pack.

Ever seen that episode of Friends where Ross is playing the keybord and has all this songs that are made up of sounds like birds chirping and helicopters taking off?
Yeah, it was like that.

Alrighty then

So I pretty much quit my job.
Now I need a new one. In CdA.
Pretty please...

Shit that makes my eyes hurt

It makes me so mad lately. Facebook. The people on it that just posts and shares whatever shit they think they agree with/support/stand by... but really don't know anything about.
If you can explain the reasoning behind why you think a certain way or support/oppose a certain issue, then by all means, I support your right to do that.
I may not agree, but I will respect your opinion.
However, if you can't state your opinion in any other way than "...er.. well, that's just... duh... what I believe. Yeah. That's it. That's just the right thing. I believe. Cause.... yeah, I dunno...that is just how it is."
Then maybe it's really you ruining this country....?
Maybe?
I dunno....

Reality check

Life has been very intense lately.
Not in terms of work, school, money, deadlines, trainings, shit-that-doesn't-matter.
But in terms of what does.
Life has been intensely sharp around the edges, painfully defined, brutally concrete.
Brutal. To some.
And kind to some.
Life and all that matters.
Death, loss and the end of what gets to matter.
People celebrate, people mourn, people pray, people say they pray.. People forget. Some people forget. Some people forget what really matters. Me too.

Dreams & Reality (what is wrong with me anyways)

Right around 3am I had a very vivid dream that I had these crazy insane cramps. Like it was hurting sooo bad I couldn't stand up straight.
In my dream, that is.
In reality I was sleeping, so naturally laying down.
Then I woke up and took 3 advil.
Then, right before I woke up at 7:50am (in my dreams I hit snooze but I don't know... it somehow didn't transfer) I was snuggled up on a plush couch with Beyonce while we were watching Angelina Jolie do a cover of one of her songs. I have to say she had a decent voice, Angie, but it was obviously nothing like the real deal. And I also, me and Beyonce kind of got a feeling she was mocking her, especially with the outfit... neon green daisy dukes and hooker boots. Queen B did not approve.
Then I had to go to work.

Another silent rejection

Got another friend request on facebook today.
Another student or something that I'm sure I've met and that I'm sure is very nice and that I'm sure I'll meet again.
But no.
Not on my facebook.
I'm starting to draw the line. I got a late start separating my professional life and my personal life, so some people are already on the wrong side of that line.
But now that it's drawn, you guys can stop sending me requests. Or you can keep sending them and I can keep ignoring them.
Which ever works.

International family time

Spent a family packed weekend out in Buhl.
Love the fam and all, but only so much at a time, porfa. My dad, all the in-laws, cousins... and a new exchange student from the Czech Republic who's been dropped out in nowhere, redneck Buhl America, poor poor thing....

My mom called yesterday, as she always does on Sunday mornings, and I talked to her in the kitchen of Mary and Micah's new home, while the rest were watching football in the living room. The whole time Codee, 5 years old, kept running around me, giggling, and as soon as I hung up, she was like
"You was spoke Spanish!!"
and I told her
"No I didn't...."
"Yes, you did!"
"It wasn't Spanish..."
"Chinese..?"
"Nope"
"Mexican?"

Truly helping or just scoring karma points?

Last night I drove out to WalMart (to purchase a phone card I cannot possibly get anywhere else, I try not to shop there, ok? don’t judge. anyways ) and as I parked the car there was a guy, in the 40+ age range, sitting on the street corner, holding a sign.
I walked in a little bit of a loop to be able to read the sign, which said Hungry.
And then I went into the store.
I bought him a roast beef and cheddar sandwich. It took me forever to decide, not whether or not to buy anything, but what to buy.
Should I get a hot meal? Something from the deli? Does he like chicken? Fruit?

Once I had finally decided on a sandwich, roast beef seemed heartier than tuna… and then they were out of mayo, so I put back the mustard packages I had grabbed since I didn’t want it to seem like I didn’t think he should have mayo and I figured it would be awkward to stand out there, screaming over traffic, that I’m sorry but unfortunately they were out of mayo!

Anyways, grocery bags and sandwich in hand, I walked across the parking lot and over to him. He stood up as I got closer, hesitantly lowering the sign. I said “I got you a sandwich… I don’t know what you like, I hope it’s ok?” and cursed myself for not having asked before I went into the store. How hard would that have been?
Hey, I’m gonna grab you some food, what kinda stuff do you like?

His name was Sean. He said thank you so much for the sandwich and wished me a good night.
As I drove home, at first I felt pretty good about myself. I texted Dylan “I just bought some food for a homeless dude” Then I realized, how do I know he’s homeless? And who am I to just assume he’ll be thrilled with roast beef? Because he’s sitting on a sidewalk, he can’t be choosy? Should just appreciate anything?
I don’t know.
I don’t know.
His name was Sean and next time I see a Sean I’m going to ask what kind of food he likes.

Super cute

Last night I cried for an hour before going to bed. When I woke up I had some yellow crap in my eyes and now it looks like I have allergies/haven't slept in a week/an eye infection ...
One of those or a combination of all.
It's great. Super cute.
If you're into gremlins.

Don't Ask

My work computer thought it'd fun to switch things up, apparently, and changed my search engine from Google to Ask.
What the hell is Ask, you may ask?
A shitty, useless search engine, is what it is I will tell you.
Google is a site that became a verb. Ask is a verb trying to be a site.
Stop trying Ask.

Nights are getting cooler

Dylan's department had a get-together last night.
Last time they did an all inclusive departmental thing like that I was insanely bored, hungry and grumpy since nobody would talk to me, they served  ribs, beer and a bacon infused potato salad (which to a non-beer drinking veggo offers little to be excited about) and the professor hosting it really just kind of struck me as an arrogant bastard.
But last night there was a new host, some new people, a huge selection of veggies, dips and breads (still ribs though, maybe there's some strange connection between Political Science and ribs..?) and sure, plenty of beer, but also red wine to be enjoyed on back porch while the evening got cool and people talked about other things than how to clime the academic career ladder.
Nice.

Kikus!

Dylan's birthday is coming up and somehow I'm getting new skis. I don't know where the logic is in that but I don't care.
Ladies and Gents, this season I will be skiing Vokl's Kiku.
Holy snowballs, I know.
It's like a bad ass ski for the ladies who rip and shred and all that ski lingo.
I don't know that I can handle it.
But, you know... challenge accepted.

Lessons from Montana

I prefer having people around me.
Except when they're redneck-wannabe children, chugging whiskey, shooting guns and being assholes.
It'd be nice to have a dog when you camp. (and possibly at other times too)
Bozeman is a pretty cool town.
Fried sushi with cheese is spectacularly good. It pains me to say that the least authentic dish on the menu was by far my favorite. But it was. So, so good.

Check yourself

I just had to run the bookstore to see if they still have any copies of the textbook I’m using for my class. Cause I can’t yell at the students for not having the book if the bookstore is out. And I also don’t want to stand there like an idiot and wonder if they’re lying to me when they say
“but the bookstore is out… we couldn’t get it” ..
So, I had to see for myself. And they are actually out.
No yelling.

Fantasy or nightmare

There are many qualities I love and appreciate about my husband. One of them is that he doesn't play video games. If you can call that a quality, maybe it's more like a non-quality, an unquality... few things are bigger turn off/reason for despise/simply impossible to understand to me, than grown men who spend hours upon hours playing games that are typically either mindnumbingly violent or almost so real-sport-like that the only difference is that... well, you're not actually playing sports, you're sitting on your ass eating cheetos and drinking Dr. Pepper. 

With the violent games I guess it is preferable to get BBQ sauce all over your sweatpants and not shower for two days than to actually kill people, but this is all besides the point...
My point was going to be that it is once again the season for Fantasy Football and Dylan and his friends turn into teenage versions of bully-macho wannabe-coaches who trash talk each other over, and take unreasonable amounts of pride in, athletics acomplishments they had absolutely nothing to do with. At all. It's like a more social and disruptive version of  videogames, because it infects and ruins almost every aspect of their social life, social media interactions and casual conversations.
And mine too.