ddr_ho

I was surprised by the replies I got to my last post, though I shouldn't have been - Lord knows I read Miss Manners enough. I was expecting people to defend themselves or their friends for the practice. I must emphasize I'm generally a fan of potlucks, and think they have their place, particularly in groups where someone's house has taken over what might have been the church hall function as a social gathering place in previous generations. I would just rather be asked than told. Yes, there is a difference.

Instead, I got, "Don't worry if you can't afford it, come anyway."

Whether I can afford it is beside the point. I don't avoid gift registeries because I'm too cheap to buy a gift. I avoid them because I don't like being told, "Buy this for me." I don't like having services or goods demanded of me for the privilege of attending an event, period.

From now on, I am on the record as a conscientious objector. I won't go to any parties that order guests to bring contributions, and I won't go to any event that has a registry listed in the invitation.

Dear Friend X,

I am having a party! I'm honored to have you come and join me to celebrate. I am delighted to have you come over to my house and share your delightful company.

But please don't come unless you bring food, because I'll only take hostessing duties so far. We all know times are tough, and you don't expect me to make do with what I have, do you? And really, waiting for you to *offer* to bring something is so inefficient, don't you think? And so we can stay with efficiency, I've enclosed the three stores I'm registered at, so you won't go through the trouble of buying me something I don't like. And don't bother wrapping it, either, just hand it over.

In fact, let's just skip all of that, and you can mail me twenty bucks at your earliest convenience. I really understand if you can't make it to my party, but I know you'll be there in spirit! You are one of my dearest and closest friends, so I hope you don't doubt my sincerity.

Love,

the hostess of 2009

( In the interest of full disclosure )

Next Saturday - April 4, at noon - at Gold's Gym Willow Lawn, a Les Mills Master Trainer (squee!) will visit us to lead us in a BodyVive class. (Check out video samples under "Programs" at Les Mills.com.

I think BodyVive is a really fun class. I'd describe it as upbeat cardio and strength training that you can tailor to your own fitness level. I enjoy it enough to think I'd love to teach it. So come, check it out, and let the management know if you think it would be a good addition to the schedule.

If you aren't a Gold's member, ask me about class passes.

See you there!

Last week, there was a fire on Oregon Hill. It destroyed three of the Albemarle Street row houses, and the center one was yellow. I moved into the lower floor of that duplex when I was 10, moved out of the upper when I was 14. (The upper one was better, so when we had the chance, we took all our stuff upstairs. It also got me away from having porn and snakes shoved in the mail slot by teenage male bullies.)

I have so many memories of that place, and I can’t quite decide how I feel about it being gone. In one way, I feel it has nothing at all to do with me, with who I am now. But then - and the feeling I can’t shake - it does seem a bad omen, a place you called home falling in flames.

We always used to worry about fires on Oregon Hill. Most of the houses share walls, and are made of old, terribly flammable material. Mom referred to the lot of 'em as “tinderboxes.” I once came close to burning the yellow row house down myself, when I was lazy about cleaning up a small bit of spilled kerosene before lighting the heater. I put the fire out with my strawberry bed ruffle. I was proud of my quick thinking, but Mom was mad at me for not being more careful and for destroying the bedspread, one she had made for me years before when I loved Strawberry Shortcake.

In another Oregon Hill house, over on Laurel Street – it was much later; I was about twenty - we had a crazy landlord who tried to commit insurance fraud. My mother had overheard a conversation that made her suspicious, anyway, and then coincidentally went back early one morning after we’d moved out. (We’d left a few things behind, having been kicked out rather abruptly and having years of stuff accumulated, on top of not ever being the most organized of families.) She found an oil-soaked mattress next to an open gas valve in the basement. The fire trucks came quickly, and the fireman my mother talked to said it would have blown up the whole block if she hadn’t found it when she did.

My mother had often quoted the Wallflowers song - “Sometimes I think I'd like to watch it burn,” I think it went? - but she didn’t really mean it.

Sometimes when I drive through Oregon Hill, I have the oddest feeling. So many of the days of my youth were there, and every spot seems to recall something from one of those happy and miserable days. Aside from my grandmother’s neighborhood, it’s the place I know best in the world. It has changed so much with all the renovations, though, all the yuppies who’ve moved in and started an actual, functioning neighborhood association.

It’s not the place I knew at all, and this late fire seems to be a closing chapter in that part of my life, another connection severed.

After we’ve finished digging out from the Massive Snow Ought Nine, some of us are going to take a trip up to Lake Anna State Park over the weekend. sleepinbeauty and jumpintheleaves are the prime organizers, and it had been so long since someone else was doing the organization on this sort of thing, I didn’t realize how nice it is to be one of the people who just shows up. So, thanks ladies!

It will be my first visit. I’ve had a few near-visits before. One was when I was in Alpha Phi Omega, and I was to go with an acquaintance – Gina - on Memorial Day. I had never heard of it and remember thinking we would be doing something new and exciting. I don’t remember the why we didn’t go, other than a vague recall of flake-out on my part. I learned later that Memorial Day is a pretty busy time there, and we would have been lucky to even get a parking space.

The other near-visit was more recent. I had read a year or two back in Backpacker Magazine, and later in my much-beloved 60 Hikes Within 60 Miles of Richmond, that Lake Anna was a quiet, pristine, solitary hiking spot in winter. So I thought I would go up this year on my birthday and have a meditative hike. I scratched that after weeks of illness and too many weeks of being alone at home.

In researching the area, in addition to learning the surrounding land was the site of one of America’s earliest gold rushes, I was surprised to find this area of natural beauty isn’t exactly natural. It was created as a cooling reservoir for the North Anna Nuclear Power Plant. It turns out there is a “cool side” of the lake, and a “warm side.” Why, you may ask? Why, of course it’s because one side is to provide cooling water for the station, and the other side is where warm spew from the power plant flows. Because that’s how nature rolls these days, yo.

This is one of the most popular recreational spots in the state, including swimming and fishing. There is a proposal to add two more reactors on the private side of the lake. Now, I don’t know how much you trust nuclear power plants’ environmental regulation, but I would not want to go swimming in that water, much less put my theoretical two-year-old in it. And fishing? I can only picture the three-eyed fish from The Simpsons.

But hiking? I am all about hiking. It will be 4 to 11 miles’ worth, depending on the mood that day. I notice, looking at the trail map, there are some of the category of names I used to make fun of: Pigeon Run, Turkey Run, that sort of thing. I still think they are pretty silly, an attempt to make people feel immersed in the wild simply by naming a path after a creature they may or may not have encountered in their lifetime. I stopped making fun of them, though, when I was on Turkey Trot Road in Goochland one day and did a double-take at a round plump mass of brown. An honest-to-God turkey, who knew?

I note that Lake Anna is not in my Best of Tent Camping in Virginia guide. There is probably a reason – lots of crowds, lack of privacy and cleanliness, maybe a good deal of asphalt – so it’s probably a good thing we’re renting a cabin this weekend. (In fact, it will be novel in itself to be at a state park and have bathrooms and showers in the very space I’m sleeping.)

One of the best things about living in Virginia is a having a crazy amount of geographical variety, beauty, and history, all within driving range. So I’m really looking forward to this time away.

Last week, not having cable, I (successfully) made the conversion to digital using a STB. That’s what the all the cool kids call a set-top box, a low-flash black device about the size of a (non-Tad-Williams-sized) hardcover book. The most exciting thing that happens on the box is the amber stand-by light turns to green when it’s turned on.

I noted with interest that the directions specifically instruct – with a rather dire tone – under no circumstances to put it on any surface that will block the ventilation holes underneath. This seems a curious place to put ventilation holes on something that, according to its very name, is supposed to be put on top of your television. But whatever.

My first reaction to my newly digital reception was, “Oh, how pretty!” The picture really is quite lovely, just like watching a DVD. I had never seen Dr. Gregory House look so sharp. (And look! A five day forecast whenever I want it! Sweet.) The thing is, it’s gorgeous, until it isn’t. If you’re using an antennae, you know what I’m talking about. One second, you’re dangling on Hugh Jackman’s every word. The next he is a pixilated mess hanging in space, his punch line suspended in the ether.

There’s enough coming between Hugh and me, you know. I don’t need this.

I might just be an old fogey, but it makes me miss the days of scratchy picture and fuzzy image. At least then you knew you had bad reception. Now you’re merrily sitting there, complacently popcorn-munching, and suddenly it’s all mush. You live in suspense, waiting to see what happens next. And it happens over and over again. It’s like nails on a chalkboard, a jolt to the nervous system.

Banging on the TV has lost all of its joy, as well. You know it won’t help. What has the world come to when banging on electronics doesn’t satisfy? Computers, iPods, STBs – all unresponsive to blunt violence. Le sigh.

I love and hate the digital conversion, as with so much modern. I admit to generally happy use of technology; it permeates my life and is something for which I am grateful. But sometimes? I wish things could just be simpler.

After a week or two of it being what we Virginians think of as very, very cold, we were greeted with a weekend of sunny, 70 degree weather. It's so beautiful. It gives you the feeling of having gone on a cruise ship, and being dropped into a warm climate. There is a happiness in the air, children laughing, people merrily walking their dogs; I think everyone feels like they're on vacation.

How nice that inaugeration day has coincided with my day off. Anyone else a slacker who wants to come hang out with me? If we put 40 people in my living room and open the balcony door, it'll be just like being on the Mall.

Yes, I stole that joke from Wait Wait Don't Tell Me.

Rumors of their demise have been greatly exaggerated.

I was interested by own response to the rumors, though. Within moments, I went from, "OMG! I have to back up all my posts!" to "Well, I guess I don't really care if I lose all my posts."

I was surprised by this latter reaction, but I don't feel as strong a sense of loss as I would if, say, you told me my apartment had burned down with all my paper journals and photographs. I know logically it's the same thing, but it doesn't feel that way for some reason. Maybe because I was just reading back through old posts the other day and not really all that excited about their content.

Found: red jacket, my living room. Anyone lose a red jacket on election night?

From George R.R. Martin's LJ:

( A Game of Thrones HBO pilot ordered )

This is very cool. I might have to get cable.

I am so purely happy right now. I feel a pride in my country, and in my world, that we can all work together to make something truly beautiful together. I loved the looks on people's faces in the crowds, reflecting my own feeling of hope and innocence, that anything is possible.

Anything.

Keep walking, though there's no place to get to. - Rumi

I had another fab hike today, an easy 6-miler. It was at the Amelia County Wildlife Management Area. I think it's mostly used for hunting, but thankfully it's off-season.

Yesterday, I called my mother to let her know when she could call the police and report me missing. That wasn't my intention, actually, but that is how she took it. "You aren't supposed to go hiking alone, all those rangers say so!" Good Lord, it's not like I'm going into canyons, woman. I ended up getting quite snippy with her, and told her I wasn't going to tell her my plans until after I'd gotten home from now on if that's how she was going to be. She said fine, but she did try to persuade me to ask baronmind to come with me first.

Seriously, sometimes I can't believe this is the woman who drilled into my head for years upon years that I didn't need a man.

I told her she might as well be worried about me going to Kroger, because it's just as dangerous, but then I spent the rest of the night worrying about what might go wrong. (Mothers really know how to get to you, don't they?) What if there was a random crazy person waiting for someone to walk by? What if I got in the way of the shooting range stray bullets? What if the grass was "waist high," like the guidebook said it would be?

I decided that confronting my fears (neurotic though they may be) is part of the reason I go on these little adventures, and that I would at least go for the drive there. If I got there and had any weird feelings or found the trail completely overgrown, at least I had a nice drive.

So, after my morning yoga class - which was just great, by the way, I'm really starting to get the feel for walking around and giving feedback and just generally interacting with people - that's just what I did. It was a completely gorgeous drive, too. A lovely passage into the backroads of Amelia county, which was a bit longer than I intended after I missed a turn, but it was totally the kind of day that makes a girl thrilled to have a convertible. The drive really was worth the trip in itself.

I got there about one. Now, starting a 3-hour hike in Virginia in August at 1 p.m. with one liter of water is not exactly the smartest thing one can do, but it turned out to be a great day for it. Not too hot, cool lake breeze, even overcast without raining for the second half of the walk.

As to the trail, I was completely alone. I haven't been on such a low-traffic trail, ever. I saw one bike rider, and that was it, the whole time. I started to understand why Backpacker magazine is always going on about the joy of solitude. I did feel completely at ease occupying this little corner of the world, watching the birds, flushing the occassional small animal from the hedgerows. I felt really at ease with myself, and felt like, for just now, just here, my life is exactly what I want it to be, and there is so much I am grateful for. There's just something so therapeutic about going for a long walk in the woods.

The grass did get waist-high at some points - even head-high - but only long enough for me to quietly begin to wonder if I'd have to turn around, then it would go back to a more natural level. Just high enough for me to watch for snakes.

I took a lunch break at an earthen dam that had a gentle grassy slope down to the water. The illusion was neat sitting there, like the lake was at eye level. Sitting by a lake is even better than walking by it, so I stayed there a while. Watched dragonflies, saw one lone boat with anglers out on an opposite shore. The world seeemed pretty darn awesome.

Then I got bitten by a snake.

Just kidding! Then I walked for another hour or two, including passing the shooting range without incident, and passing an old barn that looked so much like my family's old Wisconsin dairy barn - the silos, too - that I had a very strong pang and missed my great-grandfather fiercely.

I made my way back to my car uneventfully, where it greeted me as I stepped out of the woods. Even coming from such a lovely simple time in nature, I was positively elated to see that red Mustang waiting for me. It's a damn fine car. I had finished the hike in much less time than I expected - 2 hours and 45 minutes, including my lunch break - and was happy to find Wait Wait Don't Tell Me was ready to accompany me home on the radio. I stopped by Friendly's for a small sundae, which absolutely hit the spot, and well, that was my day.

It was a fantastic one.

Yoga Source offers free Intro to Yoga classes every month, and it just now occurred to me that the people who most would benefit from knowing this are probably not on the studio's mailing list.

So, info below! http://www.yogarichmond.com if you need their address or directions.

***

Intro to Yoga
with Aimee Yowell, RYT 200

Start where you are and come as you are. Designed for any student wishing to learn the fundamentals of Hatha yoga. Basic postures (asanas), terminology, relaxation and breath work will be covered. No need to pre-register for class. Please do arrive 15 mins. early for studio orientation.

Saturday, August 23
1:00-2:00pm
FREE!

***

Also - and this is sort of yoga-related, in that I read about probiotics in Yoga Journal this month - I was at Kroger today, and oh my goodness, does Activia cost a lot for those teeny little portions!

Yes, they have a trademarked digestion bacteria, so that's great. The thing is, all yogurt is a probiotic, meaning that it makes for happy intentistinal bacteria. So if you're looking for something that's going to help digestion, I'd suggest trying regular, cheaper yogurt first. As great as Activia may be, I think all that price is going for advertising more than anything - and paying for lawyers to guard their trademark, of course.

Also, twists in yoga practice are said to help with digestion.

I hardly ever talk about digestion - it doesn't really seem the most popular of blogging topics - but so long as I'm on the topic, I'll add that I've noticed something troubling. A lot of the most common ailments, costing gads and gads of money for pretty little pills to help, are probably the result of nutritional needs. Pretty simple ones, too, items that in a society with ample food supply, we all have ready access to.

For example, vitamin E is crucial for digestion. I think everyone knows it's good for the skin, but it's important for all cell walls. So if you aren't getting enough, the cells of the intestinal walls aren't getting enough support, either. And IBS has become the new chronic illness you hear about all the time.

Dunno, just makes me wonder how many "designer drugs" are filling a spot that could be better filled by a squash, or a handful of berries.

Today I went for a hike at the Dutch Gap Conservation Area. My guide book is a little behind (or just plain wrong), because on the way in - still in car - it told me to turn left, but it was actually a right. (I know this because the area is very well signed with the newest historical tourist spot in town, which I think has the most romantic name: The Citie of Henricus at Dutch Gap.)

The book was also wrong about the distance of the hike. I was expecting an 8 mile out-and-back, but at some point they built a bridge in a convenient spot, and now it is a 4-mile loop.

The third error isn't technically on the trail I was on, but it was the trail next door and also recommended in the book. After I stopped in the visitor's center, I was told they discourage people from taking that river trail. They've tried to block it off, because crime has become a serious problem there. Yeah, I'm a little bummed that two hikes in a row have had this criminal element as a theme attached; I'll just try to develop some sort of plan to have in place - self-defense? mace? - which isn't really a bad idea for a woman who likes to travel alone, anyway.

So, aside from those glitches, it was a lovely day. The ride in is fascinating. Just south of the city on I-95, you make a turn and go a small ways, and suddenly there is this giant power plant looming right in front of you. The hike guide had made mention of this branch of the Dominion Virginia Power Plant, but my goodness, I was not prepared for the sight. It was the most industrial image I've seen in ages, maybe ever: massive metal work, including lots of rusty exposed frame bits (sorry, don't know the lingo here), smokestacks, billowing clouds of smoke, and yeah, rows and rows of electrical lines and transformers.

I tried to get my camera to work - it was a very impressive image - but no go. I was even more floored by the contrast of industry and nature. Another two minutes down the road, in the parking lots, and down a trail - and suddenly, solitude. The marsh on a wide, lovely lagoon, chirping and trilling of natural things. Within ten minutes, I was sitting on an observation deck, taking in the quietest, loveliest morning.

The contrast came again, later on the hike, where one lovely view of the whole expanse of water opened up - and straight ahead on the horizon, the power plant. It was completely odd. But with a strange sense of hope, too, this intermingling of humanity's harsh needs and the loveliness of the natural, like maybe we can find a balance someday. I found hope again when the man in the visitor's center told me such fly ash ponds (where industrial pollutants are kept) as attached to the conservation area are increasingly being converted to energy sources, and Dominion has a chemist (just one?) hired to try to do the same here.

Okay, back to the hike. Because it was half the distance I expected it to be, I took a lot more time to wander down spur trails and sit at observation areas. I thought a lot about the colonists, and the Indians, and what a wonderful area this would be for living outside, with a sweet breeze, lovely shade, and abundant wildlife. If it weren't for the bugs, it would be just about perfect. (The flies were annoying, even with bug spray, but there was something about my hat that seemed to drive them away.)

There's something about wandering new places that makes me feel like an explorer, too, even on well-trodden trails. I felt such in Rome as well; traveling is the closest I think we may come to time-travel.

The trail was stunningly wide and well-blazed, and even had historical informational signs occasionally. The wildlife was all about - so many different kinds of dragonflies and butterflies, songbirds and marsh birds, and great blue herons - "of all these sorts great abundance" as John Smith himself did say, though I suspect there was a tad more abundance in his day.

At one particularly secluded observation point that was still all grown over, I was surrounded by masses of dragonflies, butterflies, many crawling bugs, all mating and eating and diving and fluttering. I thought I'd hit a nest of some sort - and then I realized, no, this is what it's like all along an undeveloped shore. The idea of biodiversity came into sharp clarity.

It was a beautiful morning, and I really enjoyed the area. I would like to go back and play tourist, take a group of friends and take the tour of the recreated settlement, sorry, Citie. I had heard very little of this site, and what I had heard hadn't given me a clear idea of what a big undertaking it was. I do hope they are able to leave the wild parts be, though. It'd be such a shame to lose it if the tourist aspect took over.

I love airports. Even when I'm just going to pick someone up from an airport, I get a little thrill - the complete delight we live in a world where we can go to a building, be put in a carrier, and be transported to absolutely any region of the world. It makes me unbelievably happy, every single time.

When I was a child, there was an awkward little phase where my mother tried to let me get to know my biological father. (I know that's a term usually used for the adopted, but I think it's appropriate for me, too.) One of our outings was to an airport, in the days when you could just take a kid to the airport to watch the planes take off and land. He might have been picking up a girlfriend or something for all I know, but I clearly remember how excited I was to be at the airport.

There were these little 4-inch black-and-white TVs in the chair armrests in the waiting areas. I was probably a huge pest, because I remember asking a lot to watch them, but he didn't want to put the quarters in. Every other few seconds I would ask if that plane over there was taking off, and it wasn't, not ever. I'm not sure I ever did see a plane take off or land that day, but the very idea was so exciting.

I never get tired of airports. Sure, I get tired in airports. Travel can be exhausting. But I love the energy, the bright feeling of people going places. I love arrival and departure monitors, pay phones to tell people where you are and how the trip is going (I'll miss them), tiny bookstores that put bodice-rippers next to sci-fi anthologies.

I love the bigness and magnitude of the major airports, and am feeling a little bittersweet sadness that our small stodgy airport is actually becoming a big shiny airport itself. I'm also a little excited about it.

I saw a man riding a Segway through the airport last night, and thought that was so cool. Then I saw a plane landing outside, and felt about six years old again.

I'm worried for airlines. I know it's not terribly green of me, but I look forward to long plane trips the way I look forward to long road trips in my Mustang. The industry is having hard times now, and sometimes I worry that flying will again become something only the very wealthy can do, and that zipping about the world will become terribly limited until we figure out how to disassemble the atoms of the human body and restructure them in a transporter beam.

I bet transporter stations won't be nearly as exciting as airports, though.

I have stocked up on annuals in a big way this year. Usually I get only one or two, but this year I have a ton, and they have all been transferred to roomier pots and gotten right to work brightening up my balcony. It's a perfect place to be on a day like today - warm, sunny, blue skies, not a trouble in sight.

Last night I got so down! A little bit of hormones, a little bit of top-shelf tequila (yeah, I think that did me in) and a little bit of Indiana Jones. I loved it, completely, thought it was such fun, but the downside of movies that are big and adventurous and has one big ole' handsome heroic man in it? Everything else seems sort of blah.

The last time I felt this way was after seeing Enchanted, another movie I loved. But I felt like, hey, why can't life be like this? Why can't it be fun and exciting and adventurous and full of big people doing big things?

And the answer, of course, is that it is. Once I came back down from the movie and a lovely dinner with friends, I settled back into crocheting and petting my cat, and making plans for all kinds of fun, adventurous and exciting things coming up in my life.

I escaped into fantasy a lot in my childhood, and it was a survival technique for me. Now I find myself having to overcome that, still, many, many years later. The reality of my life is quite wonderful, with friends, music, laughter and so much to learn and experience. I am grateful for health and being surrounded by all kinds of good, nay, wonderful people, and feel very fortunate.

Fantasy can still be a wonderful and fun escape, but I have to remind myself that reality, for once, is so much better than anything I would have imagined for myself.

Went to the Bruce Springsteen concert last night, and after a long, involved process involving wristbands and counting off, and selling off our first-born sons, I and my companions found ourselves ten feet from the stage.

It was pretty cool.

Okay, it was absolutely amazing. It was one of those nights so utterly, completely magical that when I woke up, I had to pause a few moments to sort out which parts of my memories had been real, and which part had been dream.

I've started going to movies by myself again, and it's really fun. It's part of the Artist's Way deal. Though it is not specified to go to movies, with all the times I put off planning my romps alone, it's usually the quickest, most accessible way to do something a little different. Especially at the Westhampton, where there is always some movie playing that hasn't been advertised to death, and is often a refreshing surprise. It is also always a good way to challenge my nervousness at being "by myself."

Saying, "One for..." always takes me one extra deep breath to say, and feels so good after I've said it. Don't know why - probably because there are so many people around you saying, "Two for," which has such a comforting, reassuring sound to it. I've always loved saying that, or being with someone who says it, even if it's just a friend. It means you're with someone, and not completely alone in the world. Friday there was a woman ahead of me who also said, "One for," and that gave me a reassured feeling in a different way. I felt like part of a club, a tribe of independent women.

Anyway, last Friday I went to see Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day, and I loved it, utterly and completely. It was such an unexpected girly-fun movie: Frances McDormand as a frumpy frazzled incompetent governess fired from yet another job, turned social secretary for the girl from Enchanted playing a ditzy socialite. The actors who play Caeser and Cleopatra on HBO's Rome? Recast as a troubled couple. Really, just so much about this movie to love. I wept for Miss Pettigrew's hardship. I laughed at the myriad goofy schemes. I sighed over the romantic scenes. Complete girl bliss: just me, a unique sort of romantic comedy, a popcorn and a Cherry Coke. (So decadent!)

As I was walking out, with that divine feeling of re-entering one's own real world, rainy darkness and all, I overheard a man say to his date/wife, "It was harmless enough." I had the dual reaction of wanting to punch him and a sort of giddy joy of, "Man, I'm glad I'm not here with some dumb man." I hate when someone undermines my enjoyment that way. I was totally, completely happy walking out of that theater by myself. If I had to go home with a man who had said something like that - ugh.

Independence is bliss.

So how many of you party kids are heading down to the NORVA on January 13th to see our favorite little make-up/rock-out duo?

If there's enough peer pressure, I may be up for it. Though it couldn't possibly be worse for timing - a Sunday night? Bonkers.