…beyond nice.

My company recently hired a new studio coordinator and she’s been putting pretty touches everywhere.  This morning I walked into the kitchen and noticed how nicely arranged all our snacks are when they used to be piled in cardboard boxes.

A couple thoughts came to me at that moment.  One, it never occurred to me that I can arrange my food all pretty-like and it brightens up the space, but even if it did, I would never do it.  Two, it must be a nice perk for guys with wives that likes to organize things like this, and I will never be privy to this.

I was complaining to my coworker about how I’ll never have a sweet wife that will pretty up my snack table at which point he said I could marry a nice metronome guy that could do the same.  I scoffed and said I doubt I could stay with a pansy guy that puts my food in linen lined baskets for long.  I’m quite okay with lamenting over the wife that I will never have.

A couple friends and I just signed up and paid for a mountaineering course.  It’s a two month program with a class every Tuesday and a weekend trip every other weekend.  At the end of it, we will climb Mount Baker, but my friends and I are really hoping we will be able to Mount Rainier before the summer ends as well.

The two guys have been training for last few months while I sat on my ass since my last hike of the year on December 31st:

The weekend before last, I went on my first hike of 2008.  I felt great and pushed myself as hard as I always do.  Two days later I was hobbling around and in a world of pain but loving every minute of it (I couldn’t tiptoe without crying like a little girl, but when I’m clinging for dear life while rock climbing, my legs can move every which way without hurting, go figure!)

Last weekend we went on a nice mild elevation gain (maybe 2000ft) hike with great distance (11-12 miles) for stamina building and it was just so wonderful.  I remember at one point I felt like calling all my friends and family and telling them I love them.  Hiking is some powerful drug.

We hiked to the top of Oyster Dome.  The hike was very easy, I didn’t even feel a muscle twitch the day after.  Most of the trail was snow covered but luckily the viewpoint was bare.  If you plan on hiking this anytime soon, bring gaiters and waterproof boots, there is much slogging through mushy snow.

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I mentioned to one of my backpacking buddy that I hiked Pilchuck over the weekend, and he said, “Wait…did you just admit to hiking Pilchuck? I thought you said you would never do that hike?” He said that because when he related his plans to hike that last year, I made fun of him for even bothering with such a ridiculously easy hike…I would be lying if I said I was too classy to use words like “weak ass” and “pussy”.

Keep in mind, I am a hiking snob and a real big bitch. I haven’t gone on very many new hikes this year because I pretty much hiked everything that is within 1.5 hours driving while fitting my minimal difficulty requirement (8-10 miles with no less than 3000ft elevation gain) last year which means I have to drive at least 2 hours to hit a new hike.

Another reason for my lack of hiking is the weather has been complete shit this year. All of Seattle is still waiting for summer to begin. The weather has been so horrible that I fear we will not squirrel away enough sunny days to survive our notoriously drab fall, winter and spring…hell, we’re barely maintaining our will to live this summer.

Still, it’s not like I mind hiking in the rain, it just seems a bit pointless to drive two hours to hike up a mountain to see fog.
Last week, I got an IM from my old roommate, Dave, asking if I wanted to hike Pilchuck with him and his buddy, Ken, on Saturday. I hadn’t seen Dave in months, so I was more than excited to hang out with him. He’s pretty much the only reason I would agree to drag my disgruntled corpse out of bed before 7 to go on an easy hike.

The only time I’ve hiked Pilchuck was when it was completely covered in snow and I had to snowshoe in, so I remembered it being quite difficult despite it not looking that impressive from stats standpoint. I wasn’t sure how it would fare without the snow.

Pilchuck is every bit as stupid easy as I feared. Because it is an easy hike with great view, Pilchuck draws a huge non-hiker crowd. There is a short scramble to the fire lookout up top which created a terrible bottle-neck for people that are afraid of climbing huge rocks.

One lady in front of me, sat frozen on a rock for a good minute unable to climb back down but was too scared to keep climbing, it took her another minute to realize she could move out of the way to let me and the traffic jam behind me keep going. The view was partially fogged but it was still gorgeous and I had a great time hanging out with Dave.

I highly recommend this place for any newbie hiker, it’s a good bang for the buck. The view is spectacular for the little amount of footwork required but as someone who enjoys an unhealthy dose of pain with my view, this is not a place that I will return to anytime soon.

Slide of hike here.

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Dear Lazy Bastard Self,
I have to admit, being lazy and sitting around on our ass while watching Heroes was fun, but did you honestly think you’d get away with that shit two weeks in a row? Thanks to you, by the time we finally got ourselves to the trailhead, the morning sun has long since hidden itself behind clouds that mirthfully dumped buckets of rain on us. Hilarious. Oh, I’d like to point out that it was pretty fucking annoying of you to bitch up a storm when we got to the Mailbox Peak trailhead. We’ve already established that this trail hurts, just suck it up and go. And that last minute attempt to get us to turn around to Mount Si for an easier hike; that was not cute not even with the lips quivering pout.
Also, we’ve already complained enough about the heat in our Bikram yoga class in this blog, complaining more before the class will not get you out of it. If you don’t hold such regular influence over our every action, we might get a stretch in once in a while, thus eliminating the need for a class to force us to stretch.
Thanks for hiding our climbing gear underneath the other bags, that was actually a pretty good move, it’s nice to see you putting some effort in being lazy. I almost gave up…but we’re going climbing today, so suck it!

Love,
Your Secret Admirer

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I had a wonderful three day weekend. I biked, read, spent time with friends and family, hiked and cooked.

I went back on the bike trail on Saturday because it doesn’t seem fair for me to get on a trail once, declare it “suck” and never go back again. It still sucked the second time around and I figured out why. For the first part of the ride, I took the trail from UW to where it ended in Ballard and I loved it. The scene kept changing from one area to the next from the nice college town of UW, through the lush green parks in Fremont, and all the way to the factory areas of Ballard. Unfortunately that trail ended quickly, so I turned around and rode past UW toward Redmond once again and the homogeneous scenery got boring once again. It just felt like I was going nowhere, fast. Side note: The Aeon Flux catching a fly with the eyelash thing is not nearly as sexy-cool in real life, it’s quite the opposite with me screaming, “Oh God, sick! Get it off! Get it off!”

I had a nice gorgeous long hike lined up for this past weekend, but the weather gods were not playing nice. It was either rainy or cloudy all weekend which means I would be driving 2-3 hours out of the way to see fog. I’m not sure if you’ve seen fog before, but it’s not all that exciting and if you’ve seen fog in one place, you’ve seen them all. I ended up at the top of Mailbox Peak again because I wanted the convening with nature and exercise part of hiking without the stupid long drive. You can see the very exciting view of nothing right behind me. If I Photoshop out the mailbox, I can claim to be on top of just about any pile of rocks and you would be none-the-wiser.

I cooked up a storm this weekend past. I highly recommend The Modern Vegetarian Kitchen for any vegetarians that has a decent grasp of basic vegetarian cooking but is looking for ways to add a little sumthin’ sumthin’ to their meal, just the recipe for seitan alone is worth the price of this book. I’ve never been a fan of cookbooks as a meat-eater because I preferred to cook by instinct and that translated pretty well with vegetable, but after a while all green things started tasting the same so I picked up a few books to see if I can add some flavoring to my food. I’ve purchased 5 vegetarian cookbooks and this is the first book that inspired me to cook something.

I love this book because it’s not written as a simple recipe book, but it’s written as a book with stories and suggestions. If you want a book that gives you a ton of recipes and pictures, this is not the book for you. There aren’t any pictures but there are wonderful illustrations on how to trim certain vegetables (I had no idea how to trim artichoke and fennel). Unlike the other books I’ve picked up, this is extremely light on numbers of recipes but he comments on each of them and they all seem very hand-picked. I’ve picked up the book from time to time just to read what he has to say about some of the dishes, sometimes it’s a history on the dish, other times it’s the health benefits of the dish and after a while, he made me want to cook. This book is like a math book that teaches you the theories instead of giving you the formula straight-up.

I made my first batch of seitan on Sunday morning while nursing a hangover and I forgot about my headache while cooking. The seitan smelled so yummy while cooking in its broth that I started picking at them one by one. I intended to cut up them up to stir-fry at a later date, they never made it to that stage. Freshly cooked seitan is soft and chewy with the consistency of chicken and the taste of whatever sauce it was cooked in along with a hint of dough. I don’t miss eating meat, but I really do miss the texture and this really hits the spot.

After my hike on Monday, I went home, showered and cooked for three hours. I made a second batch of seitan, put that in an Indian curry dish, cooked a light soup, roasted asparagus and sautéed snowcap mushroom. There was a recipe for Indian curry from scratch which was wonderful because I’ve always felt like I was cheating when I buy whatever curry powder and stir it in my food. Since I had every herb/spice/seed that went into the curry, I was able to chew on the individual ingredients and see which flavor I would like to bring out more in my own curry, then shake a bit more of that in the final dish. I made a soup called “Spring Tonic” which started with caramelized scallions, onions and radish, then simmered with watercress…it was light and oh so delicious. I ate all the food, with the exception of two pieces of asparagus, then passed out in bliss.

Side note 2: My new squatting location doesn’t have the interweb hook-up, so I will be updating a lot less frequently until I find a more permanent home.

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Last year, I hiked/backpacked every weekend between April and October, about half of them were with friends, half of them solo. Whenever I mention that I hike every weekend to a non-hiker they would ask if they could join me or suggest a friend that I should look up to keep me company and I would always decline. I decline because I am an asshole misanthrope that jealousy guards my quality time with me. And why would I want some newbie to hold me back? I was in my selfish mode and I wasn’t done with my solo talks with me, god, and the universe (although there was one hike that was 11 miles roundtrip in complete solitude that got me pretty bored with all three company).

This year, I felt that I should try to get people into hiking so I figured I would try to gather a group of newbie hikers once a month and drag them up Mount Si or something to that equivalent. I gathered 3 hikers and somehow by Saturday, only one showed up. This was the real reason I didn’t try to form newbie groups before…people seem more interested in talking about hiking/biking/backpacking/climbing than to actually do it. I was really glad that Jesse showed up for the hike, because even with all my pep and energy over hiking, having 3 people bail could sap whatever go-getting I had.

Jesse was well-rested and in good form to kick Mount Si’s ass. We completed the hike in about 2.5 hours which beats even my usual time of 3 hours. I’ve noticed whenever I bring one of my long-legged buddies, I always tend to go faster. I’m just happy that Jesse was such a trooper, quickly leading the way up top, waiting for my short legs occasionally, and he was so kind as to oblige me a a photo next to the sign.

Later that night, Jesse, being our token Latino friend, was so kind as to host some Cinco de Mayo festivity with some magically delicious homemade sangria. Still later that night, we wandered the streets of Capitol Hill looking for a good club for some dancing, we heard there was latin hip-hop at Baltic Room. Somehow we forgot that we live in Capitol Hill and what we ended up with was gay latin hip-hop night.

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With spring kicking into full gear around here and much of snow melted on some mountain top, I figured I could finally hike something other than Mount Si. Don’t get me wrong, I love Mount Si and all, but no decent self-respecting seasoned hiker would ever claim that place as a “real hike”, it’s more like an extend walk around your backyard. I’ve really missed my favorite place, Mailbox Peak, so I made plans to solo hike it on Saturday.

On Saturday morning, I bounced out of bed super early all mentally charged and ready to go. After a quick breakfast, I started packing for the hike and I felt this strange sense of dread spreading through my body. The body has a strange way of remembering things that the mind forgets. It remembered how much this hike burned. It’s quite strange to have your mind war with your body. The mind said, “Come on, let’s go! We miss our trees. We could definitely use some clarity in the head.” The body replied, “Oh, hell no! We’re a bit out of hiking shape. Remember how much that place hurts? Remember how we’ve vowed to never go back again after the first time? Remember!!?”

That hike did not disappoint, I loved every bit of that hike. I hugged many a trees on the way up and down, and thanked them endlessly for their help with their rooted staircase and trunks for handholds. The smell of damp forest and the echoes of birds created a calming and wondrous place. I remembered why despite vowing to never return to such an evil god-forsaken rough hike, it became my all time favorite battery recharging hike. This year is proving to be a much warmer year already, the view was very different compared to late April last year…there was so much snow then that the lower mailbox was nowhere to be found.

I woke up incapable of moving on Sunday morning. I guess that’s just what happens when a person goes from hiking every single weekend to hiking once a month and thinking it’s okay to go at the same pace. It wasn’t just a minor ache in the calf muscles, I had pain shooting throughout the entire length of my legs, if I tried to do anything other than lie perfectly still. Of course, I wasn’t having any of it.

I stretched, took a couple ibuprofen and went out for a bike ride. Even with the hills and all, the bike ride wasn’t all that bad…so long as my body stayed in motion. At one point, I stopped by Trader Joe’s, I got off my bike, stumbled around trying to support my own weight on the worthless stumps I sometimes call my legs and involuntarily let out a load groan that sounded like a dying animal getting kicked on its head. It was so pathetic and horrible everyone stopped, turned around and stared at me. I don’t understand what’s their problems, it’s just a short Asian girl stumbling around the sidewalk like she could possibly be drunk in the middle of day while groaning like a wounded beast, I’m sure that kind of thing happens all the time, it is Capitol Hill.

In the afternoon, I checked out a Bikram Yoga class as I’ve been meaning to do (yes, I know I need a new sports activity like I need a brain aneurysm). Two things to note about Bikram Yoga, the poses seem easier than I thought they would be, and the class will make you sweat your nuts off. I’ve backpacked for days in the scorching sun, I don’t think I came near sweating this much in that 1.5 hours. My sore muscles loved the over-heated room. There were a couple one legged squat type pose that was less favored, but overall, I didn’t even notice that my legs were unhappy. It could be because I was more distracted by a couple other things with the class:

1) The heat. The temperature was set up in a slow boiling a frog method where they slowly crank up the heat so you don’t notice yourself dying slowly, but by the end of class, you’ll definitely feel well cooked.

2) My new yoga mat smells like cat piss. I picked it out because it looked all earthy and happy, but I’m pretty sure the key ingredient in the earthiness was cat piss. Sticking my face in it for one of the yoga pose was about as relaxing as enjoying the aromatherapy of a two month old litter box. Delicious.

3) Honorable mention – dude wearing nothing but a speedo. Once class got rolling, I really didn’t notice that guy, but for just a moment there, it made my eyes twitch. I can understand the practicality of that, but only a select few underwear models could pull off that look, everyone else should stick with board shorts.

It was pouring rain out when class ended. Talk about a system shock, biking home in the cold rain when you’re soaked in sweat is not quite the goofy fun that it poses to be.

Give in, silly girl, just drive next time. Fuck off, lazy bastard self, it’s only 7 blocks away.

This morning, all the weekend combined self abuse tallied itself up. Honestly, if someone offered me a walker this morning, but I have to push over a little old lady to get it - that hag would be going down so fast, but she could probably out-run me (Benny Hill credit scene on slow-mo). Sure strolling around with a walker might not be the most dignified means of getting around at the age of 30, but half hobbling and half dragging yourself around while screaming at seemingly unprovoked moments isn’t exactly the epitome of poise and grace either.

Brian has caught yet another strain of nasty bug that seems to cycle and fester in the cube farms. I think it tried to brush by me last week, it’s kind of hard to avoid when you share food and booze with a sick person. Brian’s cure-all for this was to hole himself up and sleep the entire weekend, my cure-all was to go on a hike that could hand me my ass on a silver platter. He still sounds a little wheezy and congested today; I am incapacitated today…still, I’m not sick, so my cure-all is obviously infallible.

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