Day 339: Moody, Bluesy, Lonely & In Need of Chocolate

Thursday, August 21

Another gray start to the day, rain channeling in and out of the sky.  I wasn’t really hungry, so I had a lovely frozen fruit pop in coconut milk and pineapple.  It’s packed with vitamins and tasted like a pina colada.

I chugged through a busy to-do list.  It’s amazing how quickly the days fly by.  I’m still stunned that we’re in the near last leg of August.  How did that happen?

I wasn’t feeling great early in the day.  Not sick.  No, more mood-wise.  I had PMS, I guess, unless that’s just an excuse I’m using for feeling a little bluesy.  I played some music at my desk today and kept it on artist Meiko for awhile.  Her song Hawaii is ethereal, delicate and haunting.  I imagined myself floating on a longboard under a pink sunset, towering palm trees behind me, cautionary fronds swaying in the wind telling me to paddle in.  It’s easy to get carried away by gentle waves of distraction.  I am rocking over the rise and fall, sweating under the languid breeze, hot and warm, while the persistent pull, the letting go rolls me along.  And sometimes I really just want to let go.

I met a photographer for lunch today at the Dundee Bistro to go over some shots we need for our stock photo library.  It’s all part of a larger piece of work I’m doing to use better images for storytelling.  I had Italian sausage with polenta and broccolini and a side salad.  It was pretty good.  My favorite sausage and polenta remains to be cooked up at Bar Mingo, mamma mia!  But this hit the spot.

After lunch, I finally went to the post office to send my cousin’s new baby the adorable Portland designed onesie and baby cap I purchased at the Saturday Farmer’s Market a few weeks ago.  I picked up a book of stamps with sunny sunflowers on them.  Very vibrant.  I needed vibrant.

I didn’t leave work until 7:15 p.m.!  What the heck??  I had a lot of work to do.  And I also emailed Kerry, who was back on the east coast for work, to give her my typed verbal diahharea on the usual woe-is-me crap that came with the said “PMS” blended with boredom and loneliness.  There.  I said it.  The dreaded “L” word.  I’m normally not so down, not so, well, lonely.  Mostly, I missed my family.  At least I’ll see them in a few weeks.  I’m looking forward to that.  And I missed my friends – we haven’t been able to hang out much these days.  I’m flailing all by myself, so I suppose it’s good that I have a lot of work to do.  It’s a distraction.

I have also been concerned with my aunt in Seattle.  I received an email this week from my cousin that she had to have surgery on her gut.  Well, apparently, there was some kind of infection.  I’m really not sure.  But, she’s back in the hospital.  So, I called my dad’s brother the other day to check in.  It sounded like she’s stable and doing okay for now.  Hopefully she’ll get to go home this weekend.  I have been thinking about them all week.  I plan to go up for a visit when I return from the east coast, which means, most likely, in early October.  Plus, that will give her ample time to recover.

I went to Fred Meyer to stock up on some fruit, salad mixings and, oh yeah, Dagoba chocolate.  I found a new organic, gluten-free EnviroKidz cereal in peanut butter and chocolate, called Leapin Lemurs.   I also picked up a box of Frosted Perky-O’s.  I don’t usually eat sugar cereals, but, well, clearly I’m jonesing for some sweets.  I got organic strawberries and white nectarines, as well!

The sunflowers on my postal stamps must have been in my head, because I bought myself a bouquet of flowers with three lovely sunflowers.  I needed some cheering up.  Sometimes a single girl’s gotta buy herself flowers.  I mean, I do everything else for myself.  Why deny myself from receiving flowers?  There I go again with my moodiness.  Well, the flowers were a treat.  And, yes, I even smiled.

My sunflowers shown with the green-leaf square ceramic plate I had painted a couple weeks ago.  Painting pottery has been another soul soother for me these days.

When I got home, I re-heated the beautiful gluten-free pizza I made last night.  I actually took a photo of it:

Yup.  Brown rice crust that I brushed with olive oil, a little bit of organic tomato sauce, fresh mozz, a little salt and pepper, super-thin local heirloom tomatoes and fresh basil from our garden at work.  It’s the best thin-crust, traditional Napolitano Margherita pizza I’ve had since I was diagnosed with celiac (hey…Dad…are you looking at that photo??  Now that’s gluten-free pizza!!).

As I ate, I turned on the genius box and watched Jaws 3.  Hell, three’s a charm!  I figured, I watched the first two the past two nights, might as well fry my brain with the 3-D version without 3-D glasses.  I was stunned.  Was that really Dennis Quaid, Louis Gossett, Jr. and Lea Thompson??  Ha, ha, ha.  This was 1983.  I was nine years old when this flick came out.  And still swimming competitively.  Though, I figured out at this point that sharks didn’t swim in pools.

 

That’s awesome… Anyway.  The 3-D made for silly television viewing.  Especially when the “35 foot” Jaws swam straight for the glassed-in control room at Sea World in the end.  It was so fake, so goofy I couldn’t stop laughing.   Oh, and then when it blew up in the end – it was hilarious how ridiculous it looked with bits bursting out in blood red ocean water, namely a large half of the jaw with several jagged teeth still intact floating to the forefront.  I laughed out loud again.  Too bad I didn’t have any 3-D glasses around.  Anyway.  Why was it that all the Jaws sharks were blown up at the end of these movies?  I guess that was done for the teenaged boys.  After Jaws 3, after the great white explosion, Dennis Quaid and his lady friend surfaced in their scuba gear and called out to their dolphin friends, who flipped and jumped in the finale.  Uh, that was the teenaged girl’s ending.  All they needed were rainbows and pegasus.  And then, Jaws 4 could emerge from the bay and take down the wing of pegasus..a segue to a final chapter.  I digress…

Anyway.  I turned on the Beijing Olympics to watch the American men win the beach volleyball gold medal.  It was killer!  Again, I am pumped to play volleyball.  That’s another thing I missed about living in Seattle.  I was part of a group that played volleyball every Tuesday all summer long at Greenlake.  I missed summer volleyball.

In any case, I had a round of crunches to get to.  And another piece of Dagoba dark chocolate.  My favorite.

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Day 241: Portaits in Dundee

Wednesday, May 14

Again, I found myself scrambling at work with design projects that need to get done quickly, which has ruled my day.  But, at least it keeps me busy and focused.

 

After work, I went over to my friend Carolyn’s house in Dundee.  On the way over, I stopped by the Dundee Bistro and bought a bottle of chilled grower’s Champagne, as the attached Ponzi Wine Bar was closed.  I headed a few streets over to Carolyn’s, and we opened the bubbly and enjoyed the creamy texture and larger bubbles.  It was rich and lush with a hint of pink from Pinot Noir skin.

I played with Carolyn’s kids until we drove up into the red hills of Dundee.  Being there made me miss living there.  I used to live in a great little cottage on 9^th Street before I moved to Seattle.  I loved that cottage, and miss it despite the fact that I am really happy in my new place. 

Carolyn took me to a vineyard site to photograph me.  After getting a bunch of shots in, we went down Fairview Road toward Red Hills Road where there was an old shack at a crossroad.  Carolyn took more photos of me by the shack.  And finally, we went back to her place for another round of photos in her back yard.  I’m going to use some of these shots on my up-and-coming website relaunch.  Here are some samples of Carolyn’s lovely work:                                                        

                                                               

 

We had dinner – a lovely salad and lentil soup.  We had some of the Chardonnay her husband, my co-worker, made for her 35^th birthday.  They gave me two bottles on my way out.  Carolyn photoshopped a couple of the pictures she took of me.  They were amazing.  She made me look like a supermodel!  I am going to use some of the shot on my web re-launch.  I can’t wait! 

I feel really blessed to have Carolyn and her family in my life.  They are great people and there’s there for me – like when I had my car accident before my holiday party or for Thanksgiving.  I am humbled by Carolyn’s photos.  They are really beautiful.  I can’t wait to get my new site up and running.

 

 

 

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Day 166: Leap Day

Friday, February 29
11:47 p.m.

Another productive day at work.  I am in the process of updating portions of our website, including the staff section.  There were 4 new staff who needed their photos taken, mine needed to be updated, along with our winemaker and assistant winemaker and president/co-owner.  So, I hired my friend Carolyn, the assistant winemaker’s wife, to take the headshots in our barrel room.  When I went down for my photo shoot, well, she made me straddle a barrel.  Seriously.  I couldn’t stop laughing.  Once I was balanced, and stopped goofing around, she took a number of photos.  It was really cool to see Carolyn in her element, being creative, taking serious photos – although, with me as her subject, I’m not sure how serious that could be.  It was fun.  Her shots turned out to be quite lovely.  Here’s a sample:

Carolyn will specialize in children’s photography, but all of her shots are impressive.  As far as I’m concerned, with a camera, you either have “it” or you don’t – an eye for the shot, for the right lighting, a sense for the perfect shot.  Here’s more info on her work:  http://carolynwells-kramer.vox.com/

After work I looked up times to see the newly released film The Other Boleyn Girl.  I went over to Pacific Breeze for my Catholic Lenten non-meat dinner of seafood rice noodle soup.  Yum.  I brought along the book Unpredictable by Eileen Cook.  It’s a charming story, so far.  After dinner for one, I drove back home and got in touch with my friend Susan, who was at the Bridgeport Village cinema holding our tickets for the movie, which was about to sell out!  I met her and I have to say, we end up seeing the best movies together.  The last film we saw together was Atonement, and we sat still as statues during the ending credits while people stumbled over us to get out.  We were just mesmerized.  This movie didn’t pack quite the same punch as Atonement, but we remained in our seats well after the theater cleared.  It was really good.  Perhaps I’m just a sucker for period pieces, but both of these films were about tender and fragile relationships between sisters that go so woefully wrong.  Both Susan and I have a sister, and our sisters are so different from us.  Our relationships with our sisters are quite different, but the impact of both stories was pretty indelible.

After the movie we went over to Tutto Bene for gelato.  I had a small scoop of pistachio and a small scoop of ciocolatto.  Yum.  We chatted about the movie and complicated relationships.  I drove home feeling a little congested.  By the time I got in my pajamas I was getting a runny nose with some congestion.  Here we go again.  I didn’t feel stressed.  But there’s another strain of the cold going around, along with this crazy flu.  I haven’t heard about anyone around here with this particular flu – it was huge on the east coast.  In any case, I was feeling like a cold was coming on.  So, I took a Claritan before going to bed and administered my ever so helpful Breathe Right Nose Strip.  I could do a serious ad campaign for both products!

I read a portion of Eckhart Tolle’s latest book A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose.  This book, selected by Oprah for her book club, is actually the best selling book in her popular series.  It really compliments the Tibetan Buddhist books I have been reading, actually.  I read through the first chapter.  I am currently reading 5 books at the same time, so this one was on hold for awhile.  In any case, I took away an understanding, more or less, that it is no coincidence that I have been relating to Tibetan Buddhism to help me in my spiritual exploration.  According to Tolle, we are onto a new era, a new chapter in consciousness of the human experience.  He basically suggests humans have been operating in an insane, mad entrapment of Ego for the past millennia or so, which explains the cause for wars, mass murders (more people have been killed on this earth by the hands of humans than natural causes or disasters).  We are on to a new consciousness.  I hope he is right.  I am eager to read on.

So, as I am writing this, I’m listening to a special recording of Prayer of Saint Francis by Sarah McLachlan.  It’s so beautiful.  I am a huge fan of the writings of Saint Francis.  He’s the Catholic’s poet, in my opinion.  St. Cecelia is my patron saint, the saint of music and poetry, but, I think Saint Francis is another sacred being in my life.  I reference him so much in my novel.  He is a very important symbol in the story.  I think about how I might use this recording in the promotion of my book…

It is time to go to sleep.

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Day 158: Full Moon, Creative Cup Fulleth to the Brim

Thursday, February 21
9:31 p.m.

So I’m watching Lost and I’m a little lost.  I missed the last episode and I’m doing work to get ahead of some of my projects.  There is a full moon tonight but I couldn’t see it on my way home.  After work, I drove to Dundee to meet with my friend, who’s getting a start on taking professional photographs.  She mostly photographs children, but shoots other stuff, as well.  She needed help with Photoshop and getting a website started, so I tried to give her some helpful hints on the software and how to go about setting up a website where she can post her photographs.  She gave me a bowl of homemade Miso soup, we opened up Bethel Height’s Pinot Gris and we eventually came to an agreement to barder our talents for each other.  I need professional photographs for my website re-launch and she needs help designing a website and logo. 

Anyway, I got home and started thinking about what I want to paint on the new canvases I bought.  I want to do some abstract painting of trees – firs/sitka/spruce/aspens/birch.  And I’m going to do one tryptich on three square canvases.  It’s nice to feel the creative juices flowing.  I haven’t been writing fiction or poetry, pretty much exclusively this blog right now, so some painting would be good for my soul.

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