November 28, 2008 | Filed under: Is She Still Talking?, The Fam

I noticed this my first night home — plastered to the inside of the door that leads from the kitchen to the garage. I was a bit concerned that this display of private activism was perhaps not the most effective, but was assured that this is the magnet’s retirement home, after its stint on Dad’s car for the last several weeks.

Step 1: Stand on front porch.
Step 2: Grip stick or cane in one hand.
Step 3: Raise arm.
Step 4: Shake arm vigorously.
Step 5: Switch arms and repeat steps 1-4.

Note: This exercise is most effective when neighborhood teenagers are present. Muttering under one’s breath is recommended.

Oh, sure, they tell recovering heart patients to grip this to their chest when coughing or sneezing to reduce the pressure on the sternum, but secretly I think it’s a “scared straight” program in the works. “Here! Have a pillow that shows all the arteries that lead away from your heart! Try not to ruin any of them, OK?” This may be the creepiest thing I have ever seen, and I used to work in a medical library. I’ve seen some f-ed up shit.

This isn’t the half of it. (Not pictured: lemon bars, gingersnaps, and oatmeal molasses cake with lemon topping.) Not to worry, they are all going to the cookie walk at church in a couple weeks, to be foisted upon other people’s waistlines.

Uh, this one we ate. See all those apples? Fruit is good for you! Stop looking at me like that.

November 19, 2008 | Filed under: Boys Are Dumb, Is She Still Talking?

Well, here we are again.  You get paragraph snippets instead of nice, well-thought-out posts, because there just aren’t enough hours in the day for me to do this blogging thing properly.  But, hey, at least I’m only a few weeks behind here, as opposed to the six years behind I am at work.  Which, ha, is funny because I’ve only worked there a year! HA!  (Kill me now.)

Oh yeah, the election

New Hampshire went well and all our candidates won and we kicked ass in my traditionally-very-Republican county, so it was a win all around.  Again this year, I was moderately happy on Election Night, but nothing overly emotional, which is fine by me. And then I spent part of the plane ride home crying.

(Did I not tell you this story from Indiana 2006? I was probably too busy then, too. Anyway — I’d picked out music for the candidate to use at the victory party, a long looping of “Take Us Out” (go listen to it on iTunes, I can’t link to it from here) from the Rudy soundtrack. It was perfect. The day after the election, I got on a plane back to California, exhausted, and spent most of the flight asleep. Slept through beverage/snack service, slept through announcements about the in-flight entertainment, slept through most of the movie. I woke up, put my glasses on and in a few seconds, recognized that the movie being shown was Rudy, rather than some much newer release. Having seen it so many times, I knew we were near the climax of the movie, the last game of the season. I popped my headphones in the armrest and lo and behold, that exact track started playing not 10 seconds later. And I lost it. The end.)

This time around, the emotion was driven largely by what electing Barack Obama means for this country. I am proud of US. All of us.

Yes, it’s historic that we’ve elected a non-white leader. But even bigger than that, we’ve chosen optimism for the future over the old way of doing things. I cannot tell you how many people were truly excited about his candidacy. This wasn’t 2004. People didn’t vote for him because he’s not George W. Bush, they voted for him because he is who he is. And, more impressively, people got involved in the political process because they were drawn to him and his vision.

One woman I volunteered with — someone my mom’s age — came up from Boston. She’d never done anything political before, other than voting, but back in the primaries she said to herself, if Barack Obama is the nominee, I’m taking a week off of work and volunteering somewhere. And she did. Yes, this was a campaign that involved a lot of young people — they always are — but his message resonated with those who are a little older and a little wiser and who are crafting a future that they want their kids and their grandkids to experience. A future that’s better than what we’ve had for the last decade.

Another volunteer told us about the cashier at Wal-Mart who commented on his Obama-Biden button, days before the election. “I’m not really supposed to talk about this stuff here,” the cashier said, “but I want you to know I support him. I’d love to be involved, but I can’t — I have to work — but I just think he’s going to do good things. He can really help people like me.”

Yes, he can. Together, we all can.

Bleeding heart, of a less liberal variety

There’s no good segue into this, so I’ll just say it: a couple of weeks ago, in the midst of all my traveling, my dad had heart surgery. A triple bypass, to be exact.

The good news is, the surgery was the result of diagnostic tests, not a massive heart attack. The bad news is, uh, it’s still major heart surgery. After racking up a bunch of points toward that Daughter of the Year award through annoyingly frequent heartfelt long-distance phone calls (meanwhile, my sister spent a week at the hospital and at home and EVEN MY BROTHER was around for the surgery and two recovery days) I finally figured out that, hey, maybe I should go home, even if I can’t be there for the exact day of the surgery. So I am. (Mother: Well, you don’t HAVE to…  Me: Of course not. In our family, we don’t NEED anything. But I’m coming anyway.)

It’s like a hobby, only not as fun

I’ve been spending an inordinate amount of time lately furniture shopping, both online an in real, actual furniture stores, all of which are conveniently located 20 to 100 miles outside of DC. (You think I’m kidding.) After six months of living here and not having made any real progress on the living room and kitchen areas of the house, I figured it was time to get moving. Part of that is also because I knew I didn’t want the happy lime green and and yellow and white stripey-ness that was summer furniture this year, so I had to wait for that stuff to get off the sales floor.

As time- (and gas-) consuming as furniture shopping is though, it’s been much more rewarding now that I finally stumbled upon my theme. (It came to me in New Hampshire, of all places.) Bascially, I want my living room to be like fall. The walls are painted green and there will be golds and pumpkin oranges and rich, chocolatey browns and it will make you feel like oatmeal raisin cookies and hot apple cider. Eventually, there will be furniture. And pictures for you, of course.

Retreat! RETREAT!

Him: Maybe it’s tough for people in their early thirties to understand this sort of thing… *meaningful glance in my direction*

Me: Did you just assert that I’m in my early thirties?!? That’s got to be worse than anything I said this weekend.

Note: I’d said some pretty stupid things over the weekend, including getting upset about something that really, really shouldn’t be a big deal. I even realized at the time that it shouldn’t be a big deal, but it was still gnawing at me, so I said something ugly. At the end of the day Sunday when I went to take my pill, I realized why I was making a bigger deal out of this than was warranted. I’m thinking I should just add a recurring appointment to my Outlook calendar for five days a month: “Dear Self, Do you suspect that you’re over-reacting about something, but just can’t shake it? Are you generally frustrated and can’t figure out why, so you blame everyone else? ALLOW ME TO EXPLAIN.”

November 2, 2008 | Filed under: Is She Still Talking?, It's Called "Having a Life." You Should Try It.

Oh, you knew I’d use that line at least once this week.

Things are going well.  I have managed to not look like a complete idiot this time around, with the exception of getting my rental car stuck in the mud yesterday afternoon. Um, yeah.

(The short version: Google sent me down a “road” that was not so much a road as ooky-gooky-mud-and-maybe-cow-manure-covered-by-leaves. Between a campaign staffer pushing the car and my forward/reverse/turn the wheels magic, we managed to unstick the car. Then I asked the local farmer for better directions, ones which involved driving on a paved state highway to get to our destination.)

At any rate, the people here are great, the volunteers are numerous and dedicated, and I’ve managed to find a good niche, doing whatever needs to be done that the regular campaign staff can’t get to. Today that was running a satelite location from whence canvassers were dispatched.

New Hampshire itself (or this part of it) is ridiculously pretty, with shining blue lakes, evergreens and deciduous trees decked out in golds and oranges and rusty, firey reds. It’s certainly not a wealthy part of the state and much of the county is rural, which is supremely comfortable for me, as it’s reminiscent of where I grew up.

(Please excuse the shoddy pictures; it was the best I could do in 60 seconds of fine quality photography on my cell phone.)

The craziness of the campaign has set in — in my house I’m the first one out the door in the morning and the last one to come in at night. I eat handfuls of dry Frosted Mini Wheats for breakfast on my drive in. I’ve managed to spend time chatting with the other volunteers crashing there, but I have yet to meet the owners. (Four of us are staying in their “guest house,” which used to be a family’s real house until the current owners purchased it, as it was the property adjacent to their real — and even larger — house.)

Despite the 12- to 15-hour days, I find myself mentally toying with the idea of doing a campaign — like, really working, not volunteering. It appears I have the required qualities — supreme organizational skills, constant enthusiasm for mundane tasks, and the ability to accept whatever the volunteers produce, even though it’s often less than perfect. Also, a car I’m willing to chuck miscellaneous campaign literature, food and signage into. And drive through the mud in.

Yes, I am crazy, thanks for asking.

October 22, 2008 | Filed under: I Run Therefore I Am, Is She Still Talking?

I like to cook. It relaxes and soothes me. I often find myself cooking at high-stress times, or when I’m trying to fend off upcoming stress. Occasionally I cook because I need to eat dinner soon, but that’s often not the case. I know plenty of people who are stress eaters, and it’s probably a good thing they don’t live with me, because that could be a dangerous symbiotic relationship there. Cooking (or baking, my stress doesn’t discriminate) allows me to be creative and focus on a project and shut everything else out. This explains why, when leaving the office tonight, I had to beat back the overwhelming urge to come home and make chocolate chip cookies. Not only do I not really have the time for that sort of thing, I don’t have any chocolate chips.

I could be cleaning the house — another of my stress management techniques (now you REALLY want to come live with me, don’t you?) — but I’m blogging instead. I know I’m woefully behind here on the fascinating life updates, but I haven’t done a faceplant in front of strangers recently, so it’s been challenging to make the time to sit down and write. If it’s any consolation, there’s no doubt that I’m further behind at work than I am here.

As I mentioned a long, long time ago, I signed up to run a half marathon. It was…good enough.  (2:27:54, for the record.) Not great, no personal records, but a solid performance — only a couple of minutes slower than my best half. I’m OK with that, especially considering that the race course looked like this:

…a wee bit different than the half marathons I ran in Sacramento, which had roughly the elevation change of a straight line. Seriously, the program guide describes miles 6-12 as being “Boston-like.” Thanks, guys.

At any rate, it was a beautiful day and other than my stomach not enjoying the water and Gatorade I cruelly forced into it, I felt pretty good. There’s still plenty of room for improvement at this distance, so I won’t be tackling a whole marathon any time soon. (My training partner is trying to get me to do a marathon at our current pace; I’m angling for us to do another half at a faster pace. We’ll see who wins.)

Regardless of the outcome of the race, the training experience emphasized for me the fact that (1) exercise is really important to my quality of life, no matter how little time I have and (2) I like having a tangible goal to work toward. These are things I know, but every once in a while need to be reminded of. I like working hard. I like pushing myself, even when it doesn’t seem like much fun. And I like how utterly STRONG I feel after finishing a 12-mile weekend run.

September 7, 2008 | Filed under: I Run Therefore I Am, Is She Still Talking?

August, as I told a friend, turned into Mental Health for Katherine Month.  (Yes, I realize I missed 2008’s official Mental Health Month.  It’s been one of those days weeks years.)  She started to remind me about the flurry of activity that September was sure to bring, but I stopped her, imploring, “Please don’t ruin Mental Health for Katherine. Things were going so well!”

I spent less time at work.  I spent less time at the computer.  I spent less time being stressed out. 

Even better, I used those extra hours that I wasn’t working to do things that are important to me or needed to be accomplished. 

I think it may have worked — in the last two weeks, I’ve exercised more than in the previous two months combined. I finished all of the painting around my house.  I’ve hosted out-of-town guests and gone out of town and seen a bunch of friends around town.  I’ve read books — plural!  I’ve consumed copious amounts of alcohol in the spirit of being social, not as a coping mechanism.  I am, I think, a more pleasant person to be around.

In a moment when I suspect my mental health was in a frightening place, where thoughts like “Life is grand! I can do anything I put my mind to!” abound, I signed up for a half marathon only six weeks hence.  Because getting to the gym more than once a week somehow qualifies me to run 13.1 miles.  Mm-hmm.  Brilliant.

But, tra-la-la! I’m determined to make Mental Health Month for Katherine last through October, even if my legs don’t.