Oh, hai, LJ!
I am alive and... I'm not sure if I'm exactly up to well, but I'm okay, surviving, living, learning, doing...
I will be carving out time this evening to pull all the Colorado photos off our collective devices and get them all in a central location so I can share them. There narrative of that trip is spread out over the two of our phones and our camera. In short, the trip was everything I wished it would be and so much more. I got to see three friends (Yvette, Michelle, and my friend Holly in New Mexico whom I hadn't seen in about 8 years and I finally got to meet her kids and that was just fabulous).
We summited the tallest peak in Colorado. Which is sort of misleading to say, since it's class 1 trails all the way to the top. One of the easiest of the 14ers to conquer. But for someone who is used to climbing peaks in the 6,000 foot range, it was a challenging accomplishment and felt akin to running my first half marathon. Also, when we hit the first snow field and the last cairn we could see, it appeared all the other footprints went straight up, while indeed the trail zigged to the left to begin switchbacks to the summit. So, for the last half mile or so, we climbed straight up the side of the mountain over 4 or 5 other snow fields when we should have only had to cross that first one. Oh well. We made it without incident and found the trail again on our way down.
We spent three days amongst marmots and mountain goats in Weminuche Wilderness. The train was quite the experience. On the way out, we got put on a car that was full of a senior citizen tour group. When the train stopped before reaching Silverton and we hopped off and they noticed the brakemen tossing backpacks out of the freight car directly in front of us, they seemed a little alarmed that the train was leaving people in the middle of nowhere at first. But then, as more people joined us and they noticed this was a typical thing, they waved at us through the windows and told us to have fun as we strapped on our packs and crossed the foot bridge over the Animas River into Weminuche. The goats were... interesting companions. Always following us around waiting for us to pee on something so they could get some salt. There was one point as we hiked down from Twin Lakes where a mama and baby were following close behind me and I turned to snap a picture of them and mama hopped off the rock they were perched on, eyeing me as though I was a human shaped salt lick. Had I not moved on, she might have come right up and started nibbling the exposed skin on my arms. But we're supposed to respect their wild nature and not allow them to approach us so I shooed her away and kept on going. The marmots made me laugh every time I saw them. Seriously, these things are hilarious! And we ate better in the wilderness than we ever have before. All of our dehydrated efforts well worth it!
We stayed in the hotel equivalent to Soul Plane in Albuquerque which was kind of hilarious. I used the phrase, "polished turd" several times in describing the place. Holly and her family stayed there too and we had a good laugh about it over breakfast.
We ate green chili smothered everything.
And we spent 17 hours in the car driving back from New Mexico all in one go which was ridiculously stupid and dangerous and not something I will allow to happen again. Chris did all the driving. I kept offering, but he kept saying he was fine. Until after Memphis. And then we sort of started to fall apart. But we made it and literally fell into bed once we got in.
And then a month later, I went to New Orleans for Alqualonde 2013. I make that designation now because it seems like there's demand for us to do this again. I'm in agreement. It was ridiculously fun. There were six of us. A great group that was totally able to get along and everyone seemed able to do their own thing for the most part. Plus, we closed down Bourbon Street one night, which I didn't think was a thing that happened. Especially not at 3am. But there were elvish pool parties and drinking and plantation tours with velvety voiced bus drivers who entranced us and drinking and Anne Rice's old house in the Garden District and drinking and elvish shenanigans on camera in Louis Armstrong Park and drinking and a riverboat cruise with a jazz brunch and drinking and eating all the things. It was marvelous and I can't wait to share those pics, too.
And somewhere in there, I reconnected with my friend Johnny. It's a short but complicated story about how we both sort of conceded this as a test of our friendship and decided to look at it as water under the bridge and move forward with lessons learned on both sides. It was really rocky at first and I was the one to come forth first to apologize for my wrongs done in the interest of throwing barbs at him from the pit of my pain. But we've worked past terse messages exchanged and superficial online chatter back into serious exploratory conversation and co-meditation. We're both spurring one another on into our respective intended paths as far as our life purposes. He's working on getting his business and contractor licenses and liability insurance and such to make his dreams of being a handyman/meditation facilitator/herbalist a reality and I'm working on heading that direction myself and carving out my own legacy of being a writer/costumer/jewelry maker. He's pushing me to write and publish. He recognizes that's a huge outlet for my soul purpose. This week, we finally had our first conversation that felt like the ones we had before our meltdown. When we parted ways, we both felt like we'd just finished a therapy session. I've missed that. So much good stuff gets dredged and begins healing in those conversations. Well, actually it's usually really awful stuff that's getting dredged, it's just that it's good it's getting dredged.
And that's been my summer pretty much. Jonah is back in school and excited about being a first grader. And I'm in this deep breath of "now what?" as I try to organize my thoughts and start moving in productive directions during the day while I don't have anyone around to care for.
I'm not going to Dragon*Con, though I wanted to start costuming as if I was. I have finally found my roll of fabric for Celeborn (oh, right, I finished my mockup and was all set to cut it out and finally get this costume done for Alqualonde and I couldn't find my fabric anywhere). But now, after a plane ride home which broke off most of the fragile little points and appears to have done something akin to tarnishing the paint somehow, my collar needs to be remade. I'm thinking of getting some Worbla to try on v2.0 and the belt buckle thingy. I've always wanted to shift the design a tiny bit anyway. The perfectionist in me has always been dissatisfied with the way I drew out the original design in that I did it too wide and the angle wasn't quite right. Skipping the gluing step by using Worbla seems very appealing to me right now. But I know it's a hell of a lot more expensive than Sintra.
Oh, and we're going to Disney Oct. 7th-11th. So there are costumes for Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party to contemplate as well. Then there's GMX at the end of October, so there's that. I've got enough half finished projects that I made a list of all of those and will just work through finishing them before starting anything new.
I will be carving out time this evening to pull all the Colorado photos off our collective devices and get them all in a central location so I can share them. There narrative of that trip is spread out over the two of our phones and our camera. In short, the trip was everything I wished it would be and so much more. I got to see three friends (Yvette, Michelle, and my friend Holly in New Mexico whom I hadn't seen in about 8 years and I finally got to meet her kids and that was just fabulous).
We summited the tallest peak in Colorado. Which is sort of misleading to say, since it's class 1 trails all the way to the top. One of the easiest of the 14ers to conquer. But for someone who is used to climbing peaks in the 6,000 foot range, it was a challenging accomplishment and felt akin to running my first half marathon. Also, when we hit the first snow field and the last cairn we could see, it appeared all the other footprints went straight up, while indeed the trail zigged to the left to begin switchbacks to the summit. So, for the last half mile or so, we climbed straight up the side of the mountain over 4 or 5 other snow fields when we should have only had to cross that first one. Oh well. We made it without incident and found the trail again on our way down.
We spent three days amongst marmots and mountain goats in Weminuche Wilderness. The train was quite the experience. On the way out, we got put on a car that was full of a senior citizen tour group. When the train stopped before reaching Silverton and we hopped off and they noticed the brakemen tossing backpacks out of the freight car directly in front of us, they seemed a little alarmed that the train was leaving people in the middle of nowhere at first. But then, as more people joined us and they noticed this was a typical thing, they waved at us through the windows and told us to have fun as we strapped on our packs and crossed the foot bridge over the Animas River into Weminuche. The goats were... interesting companions. Always following us around waiting for us to pee on something so they could get some salt. There was one point as we hiked down from Twin Lakes where a mama and baby were following close behind me and I turned to snap a picture of them and mama hopped off the rock they were perched on, eyeing me as though I was a human shaped salt lick. Had I not moved on, she might have come right up and started nibbling the exposed skin on my arms. But we're supposed to respect their wild nature and not allow them to approach us so I shooed her away and kept on going. The marmots made me laugh every time I saw them. Seriously, these things are hilarious! And we ate better in the wilderness than we ever have before. All of our dehydrated efforts well worth it!
We stayed in the hotel equivalent to Soul Plane in Albuquerque which was kind of hilarious. I used the phrase, "polished turd" several times in describing the place. Holly and her family stayed there too and we had a good laugh about it over breakfast.
We ate green chili smothered everything.
And we spent 17 hours in the car driving back from New Mexico all in one go which was ridiculously stupid and dangerous and not something I will allow to happen again. Chris did all the driving. I kept offering, but he kept saying he was fine. Until after Memphis. And then we sort of started to fall apart. But we made it and literally fell into bed once we got in.
And then a month later, I went to New Orleans for Alqualonde 2013. I make that designation now because it seems like there's demand for us to do this again. I'm in agreement. It was ridiculously fun. There were six of us. A great group that was totally able to get along and everyone seemed able to do their own thing for the most part. Plus, we closed down Bourbon Street one night, which I didn't think was a thing that happened. Especially not at 3am. But there were elvish pool parties and drinking and plantation tours with velvety voiced bus drivers who entranced us and drinking and Anne Rice's old house in the Garden District and drinking and elvish shenanigans on camera in Louis Armstrong Park and drinking and a riverboat cruise with a jazz brunch and drinking and eating all the things. It was marvelous and I can't wait to share those pics, too.
And somewhere in there, I reconnected with my friend Johnny. It's a short but complicated story about how we both sort of conceded this as a test of our friendship and decided to look at it as water under the bridge and move forward with lessons learned on both sides. It was really rocky at first and I was the one to come forth first to apologize for my wrongs done in the interest of throwing barbs at him from the pit of my pain. But we've worked past terse messages exchanged and superficial online chatter back into serious exploratory conversation and co-meditation. We're both spurring one another on into our respective intended paths as far as our life purposes. He's working on getting his business and contractor licenses and liability insurance and such to make his dreams of being a handyman/meditation facilitator/herbalist a reality and I'm working on heading that direction myself and carving out my own legacy of being a writer/costumer/jewelry maker. He's pushing me to write and publish. He recognizes that's a huge outlet for my soul purpose. This week, we finally had our first conversation that felt like the ones we had before our meltdown. When we parted ways, we both felt like we'd just finished a therapy session. I've missed that. So much good stuff gets dredged and begins healing in those conversations. Well, actually it's usually really awful stuff that's getting dredged, it's just that it's good it's getting dredged.
And that's been my summer pretty much. Jonah is back in school and excited about being a first grader. And I'm in this deep breath of "now what?" as I try to organize my thoughts and start moving in productive directions during the day while I don't have anyone around to care for.
I'm not going to Dragon*Con, though I wanted to start costuming as if I was. I have finally found my roll of fabric for Celeborn (oh, right, I finished my mockup and was all set to cut it out and finally get this costume done for Alqualonde and I couldn't find my fabric anywhere). But now, after a plane ride home which broke off most of the fragile little points and appears to have done something akin to tarnishing the paint somehow, my collar needs to be remade. I'm thinking of getting some Worbla to try on v2.0 and the belt buckle thingy. I've always wanted to shift the design a tiny bit anyway. The perfectionist in me has always been dissatisfied with the way I drew out the original design in that I did it too wide and the angle wasn't quite right. Skipping the gluing step by using Worbla seems very appealing to me right now. But I know it's a hell of a lot more expensive than Sintra.
Oh, and we're going to Disney Oct. 7th-11th. So there are costumes for Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party to contemplate as well. Then there's GMX at the end of October, so there's that. I've got enough half finished projects that I made a list of all of those and will just work through finishing them before starting anything new.