snow. plows. waking up. my brain.

snow was already deep on the ground by the time i woke up this morning. another white blanket of sound-dampening softness blah blah blah. there's so much snow this winter i might be all tapped out. i'm losing my enthusiasm for packing snowballs and being the first to tromp through an undisturbed patch. i keep getting all crotchety at the state or the city or whomever is supposed to keep the roads clear: winter has never managed to surprise us. it comes every single year. how come the unpreparedness in dealing with it? why do roads still close down, and how is it that with all the plows and salt there are days the snow is left uncleared on major roadways? but this morning is different. i woke up this morning cranky and in no mood to start the day. (truth be told, this actually happens to me quite frequently, i'm no morning person despite various attempts to train myself otherwise.) so here i am, all out of sorts and brain not fully working at maximum capacity, eyes not opening to maximum wideness, etc. and i realize i'm that person who can't get prepared for the same thing to happen over and over and over. i should be more crotchety with myself about not being ready for morning, or, i should be more understanding when winter come and the roads are a disgusting mess of dirty slush and there's mayhem all over the streets. of course, i could just go to bed earlier. what's their excuse?

found

unchaining hearts

it's been a day for hearing about friends' relationship tumult. just on cue, ray charles is on my stereo moaning to have his heart unchained. his phrasing, tone, and emotional conveyance is all spot on. and i'm thinking of past aching, the kind that can come back to haunt my heart with phantom pangs of my emotional frailty - the way my knees twinge in winter weather reminding me of my physical brittleness.

i hope joy, comfort, and salve is not far away. that current pains turn one day to nothing more than scarring: proof that battles of love have been survived and created even stronger lovers.

noga

noga is my new practice of not making it to yoga classes. although i may go down in history as the person responsible for identifying, perfecting, and perhaps even perpetuating this practice, i am confident i'm not the only one who has made this practice part of their routine.

LC

a co-worker of mine recently went on a business trip to south africa. she spent her own money to buy little mementos for the people she would meet there, over $200.00 to make these new far-off colleagues feel appreciated. in part of her presentation she showed an image of our new president-elect and his family, to great cheers in the room. many folks wanted to congratulate the people of the U.S., saying they didn't think we would ever be brave enough to elect a black man as president. apparently they had some really interesting conversation. she came back with great big wide eyes, stories told excitedly of her time there, and little trinkets for all of us. she has many strengths and interests, but above all she cares greatly about the world around her and treating people well and with respect. she makes that clear with every decision, every comment, every act, every thought. i think i've found another hero.

friday night at the dojo

franch fotos finally

a full set of my pictures from our vacation in france this fall are now compiled.

See my Tabblo>

mo distractions

i find it really hard to concentrate on the multimedia software package that supports the statistics textbook we use in class. every time one of the animated activities come on it is narrated by someone who sounds exactly like mo rocca. which is awesome, but highly distracting.

walnut grove on the banks of the dordogne river

nate and i went to france in late september - we spent a week biking in the south, and then a couple of days in france. on the second day of our trip we left a town called gourdon in the bouriane region and headed towards vitrac, located in the dordogne river valley. nate had to try a fresh walnut from this grove.

enough of that other sarah

two SP posts in a row? inconceivable. on to other subjects - ones that don't raise the blood pressure so high.

nate and i enjoyed a very mellow day recovering from our latest international travel adventure: almost two weeks in france. in short, we had a wonderful time. we each have plenty of photos and anecdotes that will slowly leak into our normal lives. rebalancing the pressure between life at home and life on vacation always takes a bit of time, moving those images and stories into the airspace around home.

today was about a full night's rest, buying groceries for our pitifully empty kitchen, doing a few loads of stinky laundry, cleaning, cooking, and running a couple of errands. all in all, we managed to catch up to our normal frequency in time for the weekend.

on my plate for the next two days: homework, crafting, napping, and meeting up with my cousin, maggie, who is in town for a friend's wedding. if i'm lucky, maybe even some more bike riding and other bodymovin'.

oh yeah-
a BIG shout out to veronica whose help with round-trip airport transport (and support in the face of baggage claim delays) was invaluable to vacation peace of mind.

sarah palin debate flow chart

news from alaska

Alaska Women Reject Palin Rally

keepin' on

what nate says is true, we treated ourselves to a special night in honor of year 3.  we had a clear and twinkling view of boston from the top of the prudential building, and a lovely dinner to the sounds of a jazz trio (complete with ponytailed drummer!).  afterwards, we took a little walk to the mac store and acted a bit nerdy.  all was well.

and nate - yeah, i'm all for keepin' on keepin' on.

pushupdate

after 2 weeks of doing the pushups i was only able to do 5 more pushups in a row than when i started (25 vs. 20).  

however, i did feel a little bit better after i was able to successfully complete the 1st workout of week 3 (5 sets: 20; 15; 15; 13; 20).

even if i had to rest between them, i'm still pretty impressed that i could make it through 83!

body movin'

after waging war with a summer cold and sore throat i have been most recently in battle with a strange allergic reaction which affected only my left eye. i wish i'd thought to wear a condom as an eye patch and join a hip hop group. sadly, i was not that imaginative. instead, i bought some antihistamine pills and hoped for the best. all seems well. i look much less like the fun-house mirror version of myself that i did last wednesday. added bonus of the drugs: i spent the weekend in a cat-laden household and experienced no allergy symptoms. so, yay drugs.

i visited rachel who was house and cat sitting for her sister in winooski, vermont - just a backbeat away from burlington. it was a lovely couple of days filled with good conversation, weather and food, with some swimming and riverside walking thrown in for good measure.

i came home with the swimming bug and some pink scalp and a huge craving for more fresh cherries and tomatoes. so i've got a shopping list in mind, and a rekindled desire to use the pool at the Y. however, if i insist on going to bed at midnight i'll never realize my dream to take swims before getting ready for work.

so, no refreshing early morning swims for me yet. though nate and i did get through a good arm workout yesterday, and i started my second week of push-ups. and i am reminding myself that sore muscles are better than muscles in stasis. i need to keep reminding myself every time i move so i don't say inappropriate things in the office.

grandma

last week marked one year since my grandmother's death.  when i was at my grandparents house in july, celebrating my grandfather's 94th (!) birthday i came across this picture.  i adore this image of her.  i love seeing the same joy, style, and composure that i recognize from the older woman i knew radiating from her in this shot. 

100 pushups

new-to-me site hundredpushups has a training plan for people of all fitness levels in order to work up to 100 pushups.  i'm about to give it a shot.  anyone else in?  i've even put the site in my list to the side for easy access.  how much simpler could it be?

mass ave portrait

last fall nate and i met mary on the mass ave bridge to be models in potential shots for reflector, the zine associated with Bikes Not Bombs.  (she ended up using a close-up of nate's sexy fixed gear.)

mary  just got her website up and running and put up a picture of me from that day on the bridge as part of her online portfolio.  check out the portrait.

anyone know swahili?

tushirikiane kwa wema tuishi kwa neema

that's what's printed on a beautiful textile veronica gave me. i found a few of the words on their own, but am having no luck with the phrase in it's entirety.

thanks, v.

rich

last year i had asked my family if it would be okay if i had my grandmother's sewing machine. i remember the machine best as set up in the house in rye, ny and grandma showing me how to sew a straight line of white stitches onto a long panel of white fabric that was supposed to be curtains. it was exciting to be operating a very grown up piece of equipment, and to see so readily the result of my attentive eyes and guiding hands. (the satisfaction doesn't change.)

grandma and i spent a lot of time together, and she had a multitude of talents and interests which she shared with me. (baking, cooking, gardening, clothing, storytelling, writing, knitting, flying, hosting, fundraising, traveling, tennis, and teaching are just some of the activities which are impossible for me to even think about without accompanying thoughts and memories of her). this singular tool holds a lot of tangible evidence of her. the kitchen and garden where most of my early lessons in jam-making, cobbler-baking, weed-pulling, and fruit-harvesting took place belong to some other family now. their plane isn't in the family. most of the other associations, and rightfully so, are about spirit and personality, mind and soul. but the sewing machine - it's tangible and more than anything, i think of my grandmother's hands on it, and her hands guiding mine. and i wanted to be connected with it.

mom and grandpa were fine with the sewing machine coming to live with me. we arranged to have it shipped from florida to my office when i was visiting with them on july 4th weekend. that's how i ended up at the UPS store on tamiami trail in sarasota on a quiet saturday, quietly brushing away a few tears while handing over my grandmother's sewing machine to the blase and distracted man behind the counter. (how could he be so uninterested in the yellowing thread still running through the machine? still in play with some also discolored fabric still on the bed? doesn't he understand how i feel seeing her handiwork stopped dead in its tracks? of course not. answer the questions. sign the forms. give my credit card...) though there was plenty of sense in shipping it, i felt scared sending it off and separating from it - what if it was lost or broken?

neither of those things happened. what ended up happening was i came home and nate's mom had bought me a new sewing machine. deb had loaned me one of her machines to practice and play with, to use for as long as i wanted, and then it got a little sick and i got a little frustrated. i was about to buy a new machine for my every day use. in the airport waiting for my flight back to boston nate let me know this gift was waiting for me at his mom's house. we picked it up and brought it home and i started using it immediately. and, a few days later my grandmother's sewing machine arrived at work, all in one piece and right on time.

now i have two machines. one that is wholly my own and starts my own story. one that still bears some thread from my grandmother's story, which i will safekeep and be caretaker of until it's time to pass it along to someone else. and both machines are awash in love. and i want to thank both deb and my family for supporting my interest in handwork, and supporting me and my very full heart.