More

To continue the saying-nice-words thing, "extravaganza" is another of my favorites.

Our Nooma video today was about how death is the engine of life. I knew about the seed-has-to-die-to-become-the-plant thing, but I hadn't thought about how food must become dead before it can nourish us. Good stuff. We ended up talking more about image and ego and how much we try to be a certain way and why. One of my friends mentioned cleaning before people come over, and I started thinking about one of my best friends growing up. She had two sisters and a dog, and their house was always a gracious and fun mess. I don't remember ever seeing her kitchen counters because there were always stacks of dishes. It was one of my favorite places to be! Her dad had the first DVD I ever saw (Stigmata--didn't watch it, just looked at the disc itself), and he dreamed of having a motorcycle. One time, I went over there for New Year's, and we did snap-n-pops right on the kitchen floor! Inside! That was also the first time I saw What Not to Wear. And there was almost always something chocolate to enjoy at their house.

So the lesson (for me) is, cleanliness is overrated. I never went to someone's house and wanted to come back because it was so clean. I want to come back because I love them, enjoy their company, and feel at rest there. Personal hygeine is another story, but at least as far as spaces go, there's a lot to be said for a welcoming disarray. At the very least, your guests are never afraid of messing something up.

Excellent Day

This morning I slept about an hour later than usual and felt it pleasantly in my joints upon waking. I visited Karen at the Little Chapel to pick up a book I'd loaned her. She told me I'd lost weight! I always love seeing her.

I went to the Poplar Grove farmers' market to buy tomato juice from Alexis and Betsy, but they gave it to me for free because they liked the article I'd written about them. They had framed a copy! I also picked up a Pink Lady apple and two sweet chili peppers from a booth that had almost a whole table of just peppers and another of just apples, plus fragrant muscadines, blueberries, eggplant, and more. The peppers were individually priced, which pleased me for some reason (as in not by the pound or ounce).

I then stopped at a thrift store and, after much trying-on, bought only books: a Hafiz/Hafez volume and Miss Rumphius. There was a Little House on the Prairie cookbook, but I was happier to glance at it than I would be to own it.

My assignment for the day was to cover the United Methodist Women's Game-a-rama. They were so sweet and insisted that I eat from the buffet. Shockingly, I was happy to see the veggie plate and gleefully took carrots and broccoli to dip in the ranch dressing. I got three or four little desserts and after a couple of bites, thought, "I don't really want to finish this." Who am I? It was a great feeling, to eat good things and skip less-good things not because I felt obligated but because that was what I wanted. I never. (I didn't actually skip the desserts because I was worried about someone seeing me throw away their own creation. And because I was just so incredulous that I fell back on habit. Or something.)

I went in to the office after that and got some interesting work news about a possible change. I saw on email that Harris Teeter's baguettes were half off, so I went there after work to pick up one of those and a few other things. Came home and read, then I went to have FONDUE at the Little Dipper! I can hardly think of anything I'd rather do than dip things in chocolate and cheese, especially in such rich and relaxed company.

Now, to make some more days like it. Go!

Hundredth Post!

Sometimes when I'm by myself, I say nice words out loud. I usually start with "striations" and "cumulonimbus."

A Pretty Sweet Week

Here I am chillin' at Panera of a Saturday morning, on the first day in recent memory that I haven't had anything scheduled. I do have to write an article, but it's a fun one and doesn't feel burdensome. Later, I'm going to run and shower for the first time in at least a week (the run, not the shower) and make granola and green tea and stretch and maybe call Lyndsay for movie/show-on-DVD chill time. This is what Saturdays should be!

So the article I'm (ostensibly) about to write: a response to Shadowlands, the play based on C. S. Lewis's late-in-life romance. I didn't know a dang thing about his life! And I learned it in the most enjoyable of ways. He met Joy Gresham when she was 41 and he was 58. He was a bachelor, and she got a divorce soon after they met but not because they met. They had corresponded by post for a long time. She came to visit from America, and then after her divorce she ended up moving to the same town as him, Oxford. I won't give anything else away, but I will tell you it's a great and unusual story. This is Big Dawg Productions' second time wowing me with atypical romance, which is the only kind I can really stomach in stories. A few weeks ago, I saw their production of Neil Simon's Chapter Two, a more light-hearted but still very affecting love story.

On Thursday night, I went to see the musical The Secret Garden, also for work. It was weird and artsy, like with ghost people showing up during regular scenes so you know they're remembering the past, and red cloths to represent cholera. But it's The Secret Garden, and by no means did they mess it up. I'm so ready to read it again!

Both plays made me feel kind of icky and eye-rolly, like "la la la, I'm not listening," because they were both about trust and loving people even though you know you're going to lose them. My deep dark side said, "Psshht. That's all well and good for other people, but I'm not capable of, or not interested in, that kind of love. I prefer the illusion that I and everyone I care about will live forever, and if maintaining that illusion means keeping everyone at arm's length, then that's what I will do." Not my best moments. Growing up is hard to do, especially when you keep thinking you're done. But Lewis's wife in the play said, "The pain then [later, when one person dies and the other has to handle it] is part of the happiness now. It's part of the deal."

Oh, and the actor who played Lewis was phenomenal. Real tears, I saw.

Speaking of illusions, it hit me a few weeks ago that disillusionment is a good thing. It doesn't feel good, and when I say I'm disillusioned I usually mean "I hated that." But when faced with a choice between illusion and reality, a choice we don't always have, you're not in your right mind if you consistently choose the illusion.

And I think I have some solid thoughts for my article! But before I go on to that, I'll leave on a lighter note.

The boss called my coworker at 8 a.m. the other day to tell her a plane had crashed on I-40. As she was getting ready, coworker thought to look it up and make sure it was true before getting all worked up over it. She found nothing online, so she called the county EMS. The desk worker who answered knew nothing about a plane, but coworker left a message for the director. He called her back much later, laughing hard, and said it was a crop duster. It happens pretty frequently, he said: people see the crop dusters flying very low and think they're planes in trouble. This one landed, on purpose, in a field, not by accident on I-40.
So coworker called boss to fill her in. During that same call, boss said, "Oh, and ask someone about the fire on Teachey Road on Wednesday."
I am so proud of coworker for thinking of it then and not after hanging up. She said, "Are you sure it wasn't a cookout?"

Also, I was really mad over food and drink being missing from the fridge, and then one roommate wrote me a note explaining that she'd been taking Ambien and it made her sleep-eat. The only explanation that makes me not mad! And the last one I would ever have come up with.

Oh, is God ever good.

New frontiers!

Woooo...I am blogging on my own computer at my parents' house! They have wireless now, and I got it to work all by myself.

Also, I just got a new phone with a keyboard for texting and the ability to take and send pictures. I love how if you just wait long enough, you can get up-to-date phones for free (with mail-in rebate). I would never have paid extra for such features, but since they were in the tier that I'm "due for," I'm like, why not? I love it already. And even though someone told me on the phone yesterday that the Verizon store was open at 10 and it really opened at 11 so I had to wait an hour at Waffle House, the service was very good and helpful. She didn't try to sell me anything extra or unnecessary. Then I had lunch with Keith, my parents' church's pastor, and brought home a whole bunch of pizza that I'll probably leave for Mom and Dad. A good day already, and I've got the whole church homecoming ahead of me still.

My Precious

And while I'm doing pictures, I decided to take some of my recent pottery purchases in Seagrove. In the group picture, the bowl is Chris Luther's, the teacup/teabowl/wine cup is Tom Gray's, and the light green mug is Travis Owens' from Jugtown. All three of those were part of the Seagrove Potters for Peace event, as well as the bird pendant at bottom by Jennie Lorette Keats at Jugtown. The plate is Tom Gray's, and the dark mug at right is Michael Mahan's of From the Ground Up Pottery. I call it my caveman mug because it's big and heavy. The others show some of the details.

This last is a group shot of some of the pieces I've had for a while. The wine goblet is part of a six-piece set my mom got in Scotland; the purple mug was a gift from Dr. Wills for graduation, bought at Summitt Coffee; the green mug I found at the Habitat for Humanity store in Cornelius; the blue bowl in the center is from Taize; the blue and green bowl is from Dirt Works Pottery in Seagrove, a gift from Mom; and the two small bowls in front, I made during my pottery class at the Icehouse in Davidson.

Hooray for pottery! Thanks for indulging my image fix.

Nest Analysis

I'm happy to present some pictures from my sea turtle nest analysis assignment.

Here are the two Sea Turtle Project area coordinators excavating the nest. Sea turtle nests are shaped like an upside-down lightbulb, large at the bottom and narrow near the surface. The left pile between them is hatched eggs; the right pile is unhatched ones.

Here is the baby turtle they found alive. They had to put him in a bucket and release him only after dark because baby turtles are too vulnerable and visible to predators when it is light.

Here they are using a flashlight to candle the unhatched eggs and tell if they are fertilized. If they had found any, they would have reburied them in anundisturbed nest.