Tuesday, November 2, 2010
Monday, October 25, 2010
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Day 7 - The Phantom of the Opera
This was more the start of a new experience than a new experience in a one day neat package. I've never read this so I tried to read it all in one night. I realized I wasn't going to make it at 11:45 pm with 80 pages down and 140 to go. I did get half way through it before I called it a night though ;)
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Day 5 - The Village
Pre movie I felt like this was a pretty lame "new thing." I was trying to come up with other, bigger and better new things all day. Here's the thing though, by the end of the day about all I had energy for was a movie (kind of exhausted by my weekend packed full of bigger and better new things) so The Village was it. Post movie I feel a little differently. I will be processing The Village for a while. You may need a little personal background in order to understand why this movie was so impressing. I wasn't raised in an actual village with actual walls surrounding it and actual construed monsters to keep me in but to say I was raised in a theoretical village with theoretical walls and theoretical construed monsters to keep me in is not at all a stretch. My parents came from two very different background, my Dad from the inner city and my Mom from suburban Pleasantville, but somehow both come to the same place of dissolution with where society was headed. They wanted to protect their girls from all the evil in the world, my Dad because he knew first hand what that evil looked like and my Mom because she didn't. One feared what he knew the other feared what she did not know. I was first enrolled in a private Christian school and then later home schooled and then home schooled within the confines of an ultra conservative sect. Before you judge too quickly let me just say my parents are fundamentally wonderful people and they will be the first to tell you that, in hindsight, they made some mistakes. And I will be the first to tell you they did the best they could with the information they had at the time. That's the best any of us ever do. We none of us has a crystal ball. We look into the future through the distorted lens of our past and make decisions, some good and some not so good and some down right bad. I had a near idilic childhood, one I've come to be deeply greatful for. I had a near completely sheltered childhood, one I resented for all of my late teens and early 20's. When I was 19 I busted through the fear and climbed the walls into the big bad real world and didn't look back for several years. My forest was the sinful world...and it's now 1am and I think I've lost the capacity for coherent thought so I will finish this tomorrow ;)
Monday, October 18, 2010
Day 4 - The Shinning
Okay I have a confession to make...I wasn't scared at all ;) I actually loved The Shinning and was laughing at all the wrong times. I think my sense of humor has darkened, probably a result of listening to music like The National :)
Day 3 - The National
I feel like I never really heard The National before this. Their performance was very raw, very real and very much something you should take in if you ever have the chance!
Thursday, October 14, 2010
Day 1 - Noriega's
The Basque cuisine and family dining style of Noriega's was today's new experience but I had no idea how much of an experience it would prove to be! In addition to eating more boiled cabbage in one sitting than I ever have in my life (although Mark says it was good boiled cabbage as opposed to the kind of boiled cabbage that makes you never want to eat boiled cabbage again...I actually wasn't aware there were two different kinds), today, for the first time, I was also spoon fed ice cream by an intoxicated senior citizen. Yep, how many of you can say that, huh? It seems it was his birthday as well and wow didn't we have "so much in common!" The author Louise Beal said "Love thy neighbor as thyself, but choose thy neighbor." I think the same principle can be applied to table mates. I think that possibly there is a reason that dining out has evolved to separate tables with table mates of one's choosing as opposed to the family style dining arrangement we experienced today. Sam told me I handled the situation well. My typical reasoning for everything; I figured what's the worst that could happen, I end up wearing vanilla ice cream. As it turned out I didn't end up wearing vanilla ice cream and had said intoxicated senior sing "happy birthday you old fart" to me; truly a cherished moment. Somehow I think I will remember this birthday. I had to kind of laugh though because my ice cream feeding old codger asked me what year I was born and when I began evasive maneuvers he said 1967. Well that's one way to get me to 'fes up to my real age.
When I was first researching Basque restaurants in Bakersfield I thought the idea of unlimited red wine was phenomenal and why didn't all restaurants do this. I'm not reneging this opinion I'm simply revising it. Unlimited red wine at lunch is only a good idea in the evolved form of dining out but not such a good idea when your fellow red wine drinkers are strangers over the age of 60 and single. Just something to keep in mind.
All joking about cabbage consumption aside the fare for vegetarians was minimal to say the least. Okay, okay, I knew that going in and had already reconciled that today would need to be one of those not so vegetarian days. We were served Cornish game hen, (and if someone can tell me the difference between Cornish game hen and chicken I'm listening) which I ate and it was okay...nothing to make me miss meat over but not bad. I couldn't do the corned beef. I know I have almost no principles as a vegetarian but I do have a hard time with beef (unless it's in hamburger form and even that usually requires some level of drinking the night before, like the time I tried match Travis tequila for tequila, I think the day after was the last time I had a hamburger). From start to finish we had Cabbage soup, Salad (which never made it down to us so I didn't have salad but it was on the table), French Bread, Corned Beef and Cabbage (with potatoes and carrots) chicken disguised as Cornish game hen (or possible Cornish game hen disguised as chicken, not sure which), and blue cheese. I'm still not entirely sure what we were supposed to do with the blue cheese but we decided to attempt spreading it on the french bread and eating it that way, which worked, sort of.
You know the really cool thing about today's adventure was that this was a new experience for everyone else that came with me too. Adventures are always great but they are even better when they can be shared. With that said, special thanks to Mom & Dad, Sandra (who miraculously got my Dad there on time), Mark (who was really not late at all), Sam , Joel, and Jamie for being such good sports and making today's adventure a resounding success, not to mention tons of fun! To everyone else, thank you for all the good wishes. Today was a very Happy Birthday and the perfect kick off for the year of adventures to come!
When I was first researching Basque restaurants in Bakersfield I thought the idea of unlimited red wine was phenomenal and why didn't all restaurants do this. I'm not reneging this opinion I'm simply revising it. Unlimited red wine at lunch is only a good idea in the evolved form of dining out but not such a good idea when your fellow red wine drinkers are strangers over the age of 60 and single. Just something to keep in mind.
All joking about cabbage consumption aside the fare for vegetarians was minimal to say the least. Okay, okay, I knew that going in and had already reconciled that today would need to be one of those not so vegetarian days. We were served Cornish game hen, (and if someone can tell me the difference between Cornish game hen and chicken I'm listening) which I ate and it was okay...nothing to make me miss meat over but not bad. I couldn't do the corned beef. I know I have almost no principles as a vegetarian but I do have a hard time with beef (unless it's in hamburger form and even that usually requires some level of drinking the night before, like the time I tried match Travis tequila for tequila, I think the day after was the last time I had a hamburger). From start to finish we had Cabbage soup, Salad (which never made it down to us so I didn't have salad but it was on the table), French Bread, Corned Beef and Cabbage (with potatoes and carrots) chicken disguised as Cornish game hen (or possible Cornish game hen disguised as chicken, not sure which), and blue cheese. I'm still not entirely sure what we were supposed to do with the blue cheese but we decided to attempt spreading it on the french bread and eating it that way, which worked, sort of.
You know the really cool thing about today's adventure was that this was a new experience for everyone else that came with me too. Adventures are always great but they are even better when they can be shared. With that said, special thanks to Mom & Dad, Sandra (who miraculously got my Dad there on time), Mark (who was really not late at all), Sam , Joel, and Jamie for being such good sports and making today's adventure a resounding success, not to mention tons of fun! To everyone else, thank you for all the good wishes. Today was a very Happy Birthday and the perfect kick off for the year of adventures to come!
Saturday, October 9, 2010
Plan?
Last night someone asked me if I had things planned out for this little adventure I've decided to embark upon. Plan, what's that? I have things lined up for the first few days and somehow that seemed a good enough start. While I do not have a plan and do not intend to develop anymore than a rough outline I do believe an increased awareness of my surroundings and the possibilities available to me will be required for the project.
Yesterday I disappeared from the office, left my phone on my desk, and took Moses for a walk around the park. Now we've walked to the park before but never mid morning like that and it was really great! There weren't many people around and we only spotted one other dog which, and those of you who know Moses will understand this, made the walk truly relaxing. Moses takes his job as my body guard a little to seriously sometimes and can appear quite intimidating to people who don't know him. If there are no people around I don't have to worry him scarring them. There was just the tiniest hint of chill in the air and some Oak leaves on the ground so it almost felt like October. I love fall and I've really missed feeling it here in Cali where it's still in the mid 80's. Yesterday I stubbornly wore my favorite go to outfit of black knit dress, tights, boots, and drapey cardigan with scarf and was, if I am to be completely honest with myself, fairly uncomfortably warm all day. It was worth it though because for once, since moving down here, I looked and felt like me and not some lawyer wanna be in a stuffy suit.
Yesterday I disappeared from the office, left my phone on my desk, and took Moses for a walk around the park. Now we've walked to the park before but never mid morning like that and it was really great! There weren't many people around and we only spotted one other dog which, and those of you who know Moses will understand this, made the walk truly relaxing. Moses takes his job as my body guard a little to seriously sometimes and can appear quite intimidating to people who don't know him. If there are no people around I don't have to worry him scarring them. There was just the tiniest hint of chill in the air and some Oak leaves on the ground so it almost felt like October. I love fall and I've really missed feeling it here in Cali where it's still in the mid 80's. Yesterday I stubbornly wore my favorite go to outfit of black knit dress, tights, boots, and drapey cardigan with scarf and was, if I am to be completely honest with myself, fairly uncomfortably warm all day. It was worth it though because for once, since moving down here, I looked and felt like me and not some lawyer wanna be in a stuffy suit.
Thursday, October 7, 2010
One week from today...
Marks the anniversary of my 21st Birthday (which I don't really remember, unfortunately more because it was 10 years ago than because it was memorable if I could remember it ;). I wanted to do something big last year for the big 3 0 but I think just the fact that I was leaving my 20's behind was big enough so I didn't run a marathon (although I did try and train for one...again) and I didn't climb Everest (or any other mountain for that matter) and I didn't jump out of an airplane (I did that somewhere around 26 anyway). Instead I began to cultivate, what was for me, a very new philosophy on how I would live my life. I began to take each day as it arrived. I stopped planning out my future in minute detail and stopped measuring my success against the time line for success in my head that told me where I was supposed to be and what I was supposed to have accomplish by milestones like 30.
This is where I get a bit gooshy so skip to the next paragraph if you're anxious to get to the point. You see the last ten years have been fabulous for me. I've had lots of successes that I'm really proud of like finally finishing a degree and all the things I've done with fitness. I've experienced so many amazing things like learning to ride a motorcycle, travelling to Japan, living in Alaska, and meeting more wonderful people than I can even begin to name. But there have been the inevitable mistakes along the way. There's the five years I spent estranged from my family that I will never get back and there are the two marriages and subsequent divorces, both of which left me feeling altogether not together, which deducted a lot of time in emotional rehabilitation. However, all of these experiences have helped shape me into the person I am today and, you know, I kind of like that person.
Okay so getting to the promised point. I have been trying to figure out what to do for 31, as it looms out there in the not so distant future, and decided I wanted to do something new. Then I thought why not make a year of it? Why not attempt to do or try something I've never done or tried every day for the next year? Of course the "why not" reasoning has gotten me into serious trouble in the past (like the two afore mentioned marriages ;) but somehow I think this time the risk of trouble is low or at least not likely to have long term emotional consequences. I've adopted the life motto of While Alive Live and this little endeavor seems to go along quite well.
While I have some pretty great ideas for the first few days, I have a feeling that I may need suggestions. Coming up with something new to do every single day for 365 days might get...err, difficult...possibly. That's where you all come in, I need you to suggest away and I will do my best to give you daily updates on my progress. Here goes nothing! ;)
This is where I get a bit gooshy so skip to the next paragraph if you're anxious to get to the point. You see the last ten years have been fabulous for me. I've had lots of successes that I'm really proud of like finally finishing a degree and all the things I've done with fitness. I've experienced so many amazing things like learning to ride a motorcycle, travelling to Japan, living in Alaska, and meeting more wonderful people than I can even begin to name. But there have been the inevitable mistakes along the way. There's the five years I spent estranged from my family that I will never get back and there are the two marriages and subsequent divorces, both of which left me feeling altogether not together, which deducted a lot of time in emotional rehabilitation. However, all of these experiences have helped shape me into the person I am today and, you know, I kind of like that person.
Okay so getting to the promised point. I have been trying to figure out what to do for 31, as it looms out there in the not so distant future, and decided I wanted to do something new. Then I thought why not make a year of it? Why not attempt to do or try something I've never done or tried every day for the next year? Of course the "why not" reasoning has gotten me into serious trouble in the past (like the two afore mentioned marriages ;) but somehow I think this time the risk of trouble is low or at least not likely to have long term emotional consequences. I've adopted the life motto of While Alive Live and this little endeavor seems to go along quite well.
While I have some pretty great ideas for the first few days, I have a feeling that I may need suggestions. Coming up with something new to do every single day for 365 days might get...err, difficult...possibly. That's where you all come in, I need you to suggest away and I will do my best to give you daily updates on my progress. Here goes nothing! ;)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)