True Warriors

 

My friend T and I completed 3.55 “hellish” miles on “the craziest (bleep) day of your life” as the Warrior Dash was billed. In truth it wasn’t nearly as challenging as it sounds. I don’t know if it’s because I regularly do crazy things like flip tires and run in the mud for fun but these obstacles weren’t all that insane. With the exception of the flame jumping and the mud pit at the end, the run was really pretty tame. But it was pretty darn fun, too. Next year we need to have costumes. Here we are in our warrior helmets.

Hip Hop You Don’t Stop

For some time now I’ve wanted to blog about the hip hop class I’ve taken off and on for the past year or so. I will expound upon it sometime in the near future, but for now take a gander at my friend M’s fab account of the recent class recital. I’m so glad she did it! Don’t worry, I’ve already promised to join her next year, come hell or high water. Yay for public embarrassment and pushing your comfort zone!

The Recital–from Molly\’s blog

Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow

While digging through childhood photo albums recently I came across this picture. I look awfully excited about my new ‘do, don’t I? I should really post the play-by-play photo sequence that followed. It starts with this beaming smile and gradually morphs into, “But Mom, how can you be upset that my friend S. cut my hair? The half short/half long uneven look is totally in right now! The asymmetrical look is really quite avant-garde among the preschool set!” The scene ends in a hug that says this will never, ever happen again. I promise.

The still-supportive yet sighing stare my mom is giving little me in this photo says it all. In a month that started with a day to celebrate mothers I’m finding small ways to honor mine all May. Thanks, Mom, for ALWAYS being ultra-supportive of me in all of my varied adventures. You are still my biggest fan.

I should also give a huge thanks to the kiddy cosmetologist in question, my oldest friend, S, who went to Redding Cooperative Preschool with me. (We met when she slammed the door in my face and gave me a bloody nose. We’ve been friends ever since.) I respect your creative style and lifelong actions that always push the envelope. And I’m so happy that we are still going through the graduate school of life together.

Snail Mail

Some say letter writing is a dying art, but it’s alive and well in my mailbox! What a treat it was to receive a good old-fashioned letter the other day from my good friend, K, from Germany. Being artsy and craftsy with a good eye for color and style, K sent a fun alternative to paper, writing instead on the back of several postcards and photographs. I loved this old-meets-new photo/letter/blog montage which gave me some nice word and image snapshots of her life. Our day-to-day lives once looked fairly similar. In lots of ways they look completely different from one another anymore. It’s fascinating to me to follow people’s journeys. Though so much has changed, so much has stayed the same, too (which is somewhat ironic considering that old “life is change” poem, right, K?). I, too, wish we could chat over a cup of tea or a walk in the woods…

Skiing Makes Me Happy

I had a t-shirt once that said this. It still holds true. I’ve been on the slopes since I was four or five. I’m so happy I’ve grown up with this sport (since I’d be freaked out to start skiing as an adult!). I learned to ski on the carpeted hill at Alpine Outfitters in Redding. From there I graduated to the rope tow at Mt. Lassen. Eventually I made it up the chairlift at Mt. Shasta, then Tahoe, Banff, Austria, and beyond. I’ve skied in the Northern and Southern Hemispheres all in the same year. I’ve skied on glaciers in France and Canada. I’ve skied California slush and Vermont ice. I’ve skied Olympic runs and kiddie courses. Downhill, cross-country, skate…I don’t discriminate. I’ve had so many wonderful, laugh-full, memorable ski trips with family and friends. Like when E, S, J and I did room gymnastics in New Hampshire. And when R, A, and I went ‘rodeling’ down an old logging road in Austria. Charging breakfast to our room with S at age, oh say, 10. Getting a side ache from laughing so hard playing Taboo with Mom and DA. Cruising Springmeier with K again and again… But above all else, my very favorite ski partners will always be my two very favorite men, my dad and my husband.

5280

Up with Peopling, Montessori teaching, Australasian learning, vegetable truck colliding, baseball watching, jazz clubbing, improv viewing, 14er hiking, skiing, fonduing, Holtzing, Sing Singing, in love falling, Capitol Hill living. Denver holds so many memories…

Breck!

Our new mascot.

Go Breck!

Nobody told Colorado that springtime is here…

Si se puede

Immigration, unions, migrant workers… These words dominate the headlines again today as they have throughout history. My family in California has just celebrated another Cesar Chavez Day, our friends in Wisconsin have been rallying for unions, my sister in Arizona grapples with the aftermath of the Gabrielle Giffords shooting and rampant intolerance, and I have been working with migrant workers, immigrants, and their offspring through ESL tutoring and helping unlock the higher education tunnel for first-generation college bound students.

The director of our local literacy center passed along this story from the New York Times. It’s nice to see a positive immigration-related story in the news for a change.  http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/06/magazine/06lives-t.html?_r=2

Intolerance is ugly. I agree with Harper Lee, “I think there’s just one kind of folks.  Folks.” 

Soy Much Love

Here’s to exquisite coffee, fancy vegan treats, manual labor, sunshiny mountain passes, ventures into the unknown, and dawn-to-dusk college visits by train (or maybe bus) to help prospective first generation college bound students. Feel free to call me crazy, but helping people in whatever ways I can pretty much floats my boat.