The Hills are Alive

the next month should be filled with interesting adventures.  in three days i board a plane to head to the metropolis of victor, idaho – population 1,559.  in case you have not had the pleasure of visiting victor or other places in (remote) idaho, victor is in the north east corner of idaho, just over the border of wyoming.  now in all fairness to those of idaho (did i mention i am going there for christmas because some of my family lives there?), my brother has been posting pics on facebook and they are absolutely beautiful.  where my cousins and brother live is at the base of the grand tetons and the pics look magnificent.  this pic is one he took in october and it is breath-taking.  he’s become quite the photographer since moving.  now his facebook idaho album is also filled with things like bears, foxes, elk, buffalo (really!) and other interesting creatures that are basically right in their backyard.  that just seems wrong to me!  i don’t want a buffalo in my backyard, not even for a second.  squirrels are pretty much my limit.  when the raccoons wander into the yard, as they occasionally do in my somewhat suburban boston neighborhood, i don’t like it at all!

but then there are the other challenges to be encountered in a city of 1,559.  the closest starbucks is 30 miles away.  i currently live 3 blocks from starbucks.  oh sure, you say i’m spoiled.  but i’m a city girl and i have never claimed to be anything else, have i?  even if you want to go to walmart (which i am not a frequent guest of), it is 60 miles away.    i have not dared to ask if there is a whole foods (that’s a health food store in the north east).  that’s way too much to ask for in a meat-eating central-us state like this.  i think vegetarian friendly is out of the question.

here is where the real rub comes in.  my brother just moved into a never lived-in condo.  it is fully furnished, down to the flat-ware, three bedrooms, obviously in a new complex.  he says it is absolutely beautiful.  $1,000 a month.  can you believe that?  even with the current economic problems, that apparently a big housing inflation in idaho.  seriously, i live a 40+ year old house that, while beautiful, needs some significant work.  it is two bedrooms and i pay way more than $1,000 a month.  oh, sure i live 3 blocks from starbucks so perhaps that is the trade-off.  but i’m excited to see his place.  i don’t even know if they do things like this in the boston area – i’m thinking a comparable place to his in boston would be $5,000 a month – yikes.

well, three days.  i have yet to pack.  i don’t know want to bring.  but i’m excited about the adventure.  my mom is meeting me in denver and we will fly together to idaho to see my family.  there should be some tales to tell.  keep tuned.

Sea of Pumpkins

i went on one of my favorite fall adventures this weekend – the pumpkin festival in keene, new hampshire.  maybe you have to be a certain kind of person to appreciate the fried dough, kettle corn, hot dogs, street bands, pumpkin pie eating contest and children in their halloween costumes but i think it is a great way to spend a fall day.  there is also a cute, little old theatre in the downtown area that shows old cartoons for free all day long so you can take a break from the cold for a few minutes and sit down.  it’s such a laugh, road runner, tom and jerry, the three stooges, cartoons I haven’t thought of for years!  and little kids still think they are funny – who would have thought?

and then of course there are the pumpkins.  this year it was a drizzly, rainy day so i think attendance (of both

around the gazebo - pumpkin festival 2008

people and pumpkins) was down.  usually there are upwards of 27,000 pumpkins brought by attendees.  do you know how many pumpkins that is?  seriously, that is a lot of pumpkins! the first time i went several years ago i was absolutely amazed at the sea of pumpkins, pumpkins for blocks and blocks.  but this year the recorded total of pumpkins was 22,568.  granted, not an insignificant number of pumpkins, but noticeably less than last year.  and i admit (with my head hanging in shame) that i have yet to ever contribute a pumpkin to the grand display of pumpkin pageantry.

but in spite of the there being a few less pumpkins, the pumpkin display was amazing.  the three story scaffoldings of pumpkins at the end of the streets, especially once lit up after dark, were a sight to behold.  at the end of the street around the gazebo there is always a fun display and this year they had the giant pumpkins in that area.  there was a pumpkin that was almost as tall as i am.  now i realize i’m not very tall, but seriously, i am over 5 feet tall!  the pumpkin was at least four feet tall and if it was standing on end (which it wasn’t) i’m sure it would have been a couple of feet taller.  it was amazing  — and carved.  i don’t know who had that job, i’m just glad it wasn’t me!

the pumpkin festival seems like one of those things that represents whatever you might think of as good about fall and new england.  it’s an adventure that you can share with family and friends.  i won’t miss very many things about new england when i leave, but this is definitely something i will miss. if you missed it this year, don’t miss it next year.  put it in your calendar now: saturday, october 17, 2009.

http://pumpkinfestival.com/

shhhh….it’s called silent for a reason

i’m going on an exciting adventure, a really quiet one.  anyone who knows me knows that i am a pretty quiet person, i guess that is to be expected given that i am well off the introvert charts.  but i am going to go on a weekend silent retreat.  no talking from friday evening to sunday afternoon. no music, no cell phone, no computer, no tv, nothing.  just me, the jesuit monks and whoever else might show up to try this spiritual exercise of silence for the weekend.  i am about as equally excited and nervious as possibe.  forty eight hours is a long time of silence, even for one as introverted as me.  what if i just have scream 26 hours into it?  ok, i’ve never really screamed in my life.  what if i bust out in song at hour 33? now you know that’s possible.  it’s just a long time.  but i am really excited too.  i think it will be an amazing opportunity to get away from the insanity that is my life and take time to just be.  now that’s something i’m terrible at.

so what is the purpose of a silent retreat, you might ask, as i did when i first considered doing it.  i am amused by this quote from the hitchhiker’s guide to the galaxy:

If human beings don’t keep exercising their lips, he thought, their brains start working.

silence is an uncomfortable sound for most people.  we are surrounded by noise constantly: tv, radio, ipod, other people, the sound of our own voice, the list can go on and on.  so the idea of the silent retreat is simple, you go somewhere away from all of that kind of noise, and don’t talk for a short period of time (or potentially a long period of time if you want).  people have described what happens during this time in a variety of ways.  the hitchhikers guide, i think accurately points out, you can hear yourself think, which is often hard to do with all of the other voice in today’s society.  you may meditate, or seek the guidance or the voice of a higher power like god.  i think talking to god and seeing what he has to say to you is a great idea so i’m hopeful for lots of that and also hopeful for the chance to hear my own voice because i think it is easy to let my own voice get drowned out by the many voices in today’s world.

i’ve heard from others who have done this type of thing that it can be very significant and even life-changing.  i don’t want to put too much pressure on myself or the event, but i’m excited to see what happens and i think it will be really good.  so don’t call me.  it’s called silent for a reason.

academ-mania

i’ve been part of the world of higher education for, let’s just say, many years now, as a student, faculty member, and administrator.  now, i have never claimed any level of sanity but i think that higher education is a place were sanity is ironically low.  you might have thought that higher education would incrementally lead to higher levels of sanity, normalcy, sensibility and self-awareness in addition to higher intelligence and a wealth of (often useless) information about a very specific subject that a select (and oh so) few people care about.  my experience and reason says otherwise.

i’ve just returned from a fun experience, a weekend conference in indianapolis with colleagues in higher education, fellow graduate students and faculty from many schools, both domestic and international.  i got to catch up with some friends and meet some really great new people that i hope will be friends for a long time to come.  conferences of this type are always so amusing to me because sometimes i think that either i am getting more normal and sane or that others are more normal and sane than i am.  but then i am reminded that neither are true.  the very fact that i am in a phd program that has taken students an average of 13 years to finish and that i knew going in that it would be an uphill battle are two indications that i have….let’s call it issues. and when i spend time with other graduate students i realize that they are not nearly as normal as i think they are when i sitting at my house spending 10 straight hours trying to read 3 lines of akkadian.

but it is comforting to my sanity-challenged, over-worked, over-tired brain that neither sanity or normalcy are all they’re cracked up to be.  but you should probably consider the source before you put too much stock in that.

fogburn

the first day of the camping adventure could really involve nothing more than setting up the myriad of supplies that will carry us through the week. i mean, how else will we cook and clean without setting up the folding kitchen, stove, two grills, awning and various tables to hold the million other things we brought? hours of set-up for a single week of camping seemed entirely excessive, but that’s how we do it so just i shut up and didn’t ask questions.

but the second day was even better than the first. after a lovely breakfast cooked on the camp stove amid the mosquitoes and flies and dishes lovingly washed in grungy water heated over the campfire, we sat, bundled up, in the low hanging misty fog for about an hour until we decided it was too cold (and boring) to just keep sitting there. so we set out from the state park for a walk through the nearby eucalyptus grove, down the state beach and by the bird sanctuary. by the time we returned from our nice long walk i realized that i was having trouble walking. had a pulled a muscle….walking?

over the course of the day my legs started to hurt worse and turn more and more red – red as in so red they were purple-red. and by the next morning from my knees down i looked like the elephant man and i could hardly walk at all. the hospital said i had second degree burns on my legs. second degree burns? from the cooking oil that someone throw on me in my sleep….from jumping in the campfire while sleepwalking?? no, no, from sitting in the fog for about 45 minutes. that fog can be dangerous stuff you know, all white and misty as it is. second degree burns!

i tried to treat the burns with aloe but i was camping so within minutes the burns were covered with dirt – oh the joys of camping! so i spent the first several days irritating my horribly painful second degree burns by washing the dirt off many times a day so that i could reapply aloe – a completely self-defeating process. my legs kept swelling, i couldn’t eat because i was so nauseous all the time from the pain. did i mention how much fun i was having on this camping trip?

the hospital finally said i had to keep my legs elevated to get the swelling down. no walking, no standing, just elevating the legs, antibiotic ointment on the open wounds that are draining nasty stuff down my legs. how much better can it get, really?

is there a morale to this story? all i can say is fog is obviously much more dangerous than i gave it credit for before this great week of camping.