Sunset sans Antenna

Last night's sunset was a beauty but in the process of taking its picture I noticed that my most favorite antenna had been snapped off in the recent wind storm. I had luckily, just a few days earlier, exchanged emails with the owner of the building next store so I quickly sent him an email about the dangling antenna. This afternoon, as I was staring out the window I noticed a man on the roof fixing the antenna and threw open the window and introduced myself.

"Hi! You must be Andy?"
"Um, Hi. Who are you?"
" I'm Meg."
"Oh, hi!"
"This is a weird way to meet."
"Yup."
"I take pictures of your antenna all the time, I was very sad to see it and the owl go."
"What owl?"
"The owl, tied to a string, on your roof. It must have blown away."
"Nice to meet you."
"Okay bye!"

My Childhood

I was recently given a bag of childhood stuff from my dad's office. I've been going through boxes of the stuff at my mom's house for years but this was a very concentrated set of report cards and notes and represented a snapshot of my childhood. I was a bit nervous about going through it since it was literally every single letter I had ever written and notes from every single parent teacher conference he had attended, but once I began exploring, I saw what a gift this, and those boxes from my mom, were.

My absolute favorite thing was a note that my dad took out of the mail. It was from a boy named Mike written to my in 6th or 7th grade, thanking me for attending his birthday party. It had never been opened but upon inspection it must have appear to my dad as some sort of awkward early teen advance. Why he thought a boy would write and mail me a love note and not just put it in my locker is totally beyond me. But the idea is adorable. I'm not sure he knew how unbelievable awkward I was around boys in middle (and high) school but he would perhaps have rested easily if he knew the first boy that asked me to slow dance was met with a shriek and a very awkward run out of the mess hall at camp. My weirdness was boy kryptonite and an overprotective dad was enough to scare any potential suitors. Maybe the US Postal system wasn't such a bad idea.

My second favorite find was a large percentage of baby teeth. If anyone needed proof that the tooth fairy doesn't exist they just need to look in this bag. There must be 15 teeth in there, all carefully taped to the notes that came with them. One note asked for the tooth back (to show my mom) while others asked from ridiculous amounts of money (see above). There is a whole mess of them from camp where I carefully wrapped them in color-coded stationary with a short explanation of how and where they came out, and a very loving "Mr Postman please hand cancel" written on the outside. The idea of these things sitting in a drawer a foot or two away from my dad for 20 years just makes me smile.

Finally, the report cards. I was a totally average kid with a few very obvious problems and strengths. I was very helpful in the class, worked well in groups, and was always happy to read when given any down time. The negative comments should just have been cut and pasted from year to year: bad handwriting, can't spell, and makes careless mistakes. My most treasured comment was "Meghan would do much better in math if she slowed down and didn't try to be the first in the class to finish". I also scored off the charts for all of my physical education markers and apparently loved to climb the ropes in the gym. Great so I was a hyper competitive gym rat in elementary school with the patience of a meth head.

I had been making good steps to do away with my pack rattery but I suspect finding this cache of my childhood will send me strait back to where I came from, two pack rats who loved their kids enough to save every little piece of childhood.

My "Day Off"

I took today off in an attempt to get some stuff done around the house. But I have a major meeting that I'm organizing tomorrow which meant that I spent most of the day tethered to my computer frantically trying to coordinate things even though the entire office was out.

I went to Ikea to measure their bathroom vanities. Oddly enough they have 15 huge ones and 2 tiny ones. You'd think that a place dedicated to apartment living would have a few more. I was really good though and didn't buy anything. Including their lovely wooden blinds because I can't find the size that I need. This would be a perfect item to be able to order off their website but nope, they don't have that available on line.

I stopped at Fairway to get some grocery shopping done but got seduced by the lobster rolls and beautiful weather out back. I enjoyed my lobster roll but totally forgot to get groceries.

One my way home I decided to stop by the Chelsea Garden Center to see what fall plants they had out. I usually shop at the lesbian overpriced organic small selection shop in Gowanus but thought I'd check it out. I had always avoided it because 1) It looked expensive 2) It was named after a place in Manhattan which guaranteed it to be expensive. Not surprising, it was in no way or shape expensive and the owner was very helpful with my microclimate window boxes and neighborhood vandals.

I should admit something. Everything is dead. All my window boxes, all my pots, everything died over the vacation. I had a few boxes down stairs that survived the heat and vandals (damn you kids!) and it was a bit embarrassing and I needed a refresh right quick. So the downstairs stoop got almost all new plants and two of my window boxes got a thorough reboot. I'm moving the downstairs boxes that are hanging on the railing up to our floor (someone just keeps walking by, pulling out plants and putting them back down).







One of these is obviously a "before" picture. Can you guess which one?

Colorado Pictures

Just in case you think I left my brain in Colorado, here are a few beautiful pictures to reassure that my brain might be there but at least its happy looking at the pretty pretty sky.





Marni took me to Colorado National Monument early in the morning (before it got too hot). She used to work there and kept teasing me with little nooks and crannies making me wish (more than I already was) that I could stay there for a month, snuggle with her dog, and be her nanny for the upcoming Meyorac bundle of joy.



Here's Marni all adorably knocked up!




And in case you're not jealous of Marni's town of residence, here is her kick ass dog (who doesn't attack people like her last one) who's only flaw is her attempt to smoother you with love and the great cowgirl sheets you get to sleep on in her guest room!

I then drove to Basalt to have lunch with Casady, another good friend from undergrad. All I can say is that it amazes me how close I can still be to people even if I haven't seen them in 10 years. The drive, as always, was spectacular and I highly recommend it if you're looking for a place to spend a few days in a car.




After lunch, I stopped in at Glenwood Springs to soak in the giant hotsprings. The summer rush was over and I just laid around, napping, soaking, napping, getting a pedicure, and soaking some more. I always get out of that place like a wet noodle. If you've never been imagine 3 olympic sized pools put together and filled with 100 degree mineral water. Its heaven.

Next stop, Ben's place in Vail.

Colorado Vacation

I've been hesitant to write about my Colorado adventures. When people asked me about my vacation I tell them that it was "rejuvinating" and that is very true. It was incredibly invigorating but it was also emotional. I went to undergrad in Colorado (Go Tigers!) and hopping in my car and driving the long stretches of mountainous highways was my escape from the laughably ridiculously easy life of an undergraduate student. Those years were some of the hardest of my life and criss crossing the state, driving 70 miles an hour while singing at the top of my lungs has always been cathatric and inspirational. Its hard to make your emotions the center of the universe when staring at 14K mountains, faults, and breathtaking ravines. I always feel a bit like I'm tumbling to the center of the earth and feeling small and tiny in the universe is almost always a cure for what ales me.

I needed this. I needed time alone, in a car, Bon Jovi and Kenny Rogers in the CD player, singing, wind in my hair, feeling like I was being sucked down into geological time to begin to confront all that has happened in the past two years. The death, the life, the changes, all of it and after a relaxing week of vacation in Seattle, it weighed down on me like never before. And I cried, howled, yelled, and belted my heart out from Grand Junction to Denver and arrived, at the end of my week raw and exposed but feeling more like myself than I had in fifteen months. And that is exactly why I went there. I also can't really tell how but I know that I've been profoundly changed by all of this but in a way, feel that those changes have made me more mellow, less judgmental, and completely unable to process negative things that happen around me.

After my Colorado vacation, I arrived home very excited about my life. Completely and totally in love with my husband, very thankful for my family, and very appreciative of my friends. I've been excited to exercise again (after about a year of being a lazy bum) and impatient with myself for not replacing our stove earlier so that I can get back to cooking. All of this new found energy makes me excited to be alive, grateful for those around me, and so goddamn pissed off that I can't share it with two people who meant so much to me. Yup, the highs are high, the lows are low, but the middle has smoothed out considerably.

Colorado

Haven't written up the colorado portion of my trip but there are lots of pics up on my flickr account, just in case you're wondering.

Screw the Tesla

I'm buying myself one of these for my birthday. When I was in Denver last January, I decided to rent a GPS system for the car and now on this trip I've gotten one for our Seattle and Colorado rental cars. They are awesome and take the guess work out of navigating a new place. May I also recommend the british lady as your guide, the American voices are both very judgemental and the australian is totally garbled and not at all kicky and spunky like I was hoping for. The British lady, she sure knows how to give directions and she says "Recalculating" in the sweetest voice that assures you "I will get you where you need to know despite the fact that you do not know your left from your right."