…beyond nice.

If I stop posting, you can rest very assured that I am slumbering peacefully (for eternity) under the wheels of some truck with my bicycle crushed into my pelvic bone.  I’m not sure how people get around on their bikes in Seattle, I always feel like I’ve got a big “Please hit me!” and in smaller print “If I’m stopped at a corner, please please please hit on me.” sign attached to my back when I’m riding around.  Obviously that’s not stopping me, and since I now know how to use the gears on my bike, I’ve been huffing around the streets of Capitol Hill quite a bit.

Things I’ve noticed from riding around the neighborhood, the hills on Capitol Hill seems worse when you’re driving around on it and Seattle is frickin’ small!  There’s something about being on a bike, I don’t really notice how steep some of the hills are until I get off the bike and I’m seeing black spots and I feel faint.  I know I’m a wuss at the moment, but if my one year old blog has anything to prove – it’s that this will all pass soon enough, in another year I will be blogging about leading my own crew of bicyclists across the city – egging them to go faster and calling them pussies when they whine.  Seattle is retarded small; when I’m driving around, I get all the sprawling little sections of Seattle, so I don’t really notice how ridiculously tiny the city is…on a bike, I pedal around for a couple minutes and…hey Capitol Hill just ended!  There just doesn’t feel like there’s much to this place because one runs out of non-residential road so fast.

I took a bus into work for the first time in my life yesterday.  I could tell I was the only first timer by my overly cheerful disposition compared to everyone else.  I was sure my coworker, who was kind enough to show me the routes/stops/transfers/whatnot, wanted to strangle me for being a bouncing ball of sunshine at 8 in the morning.  Still, it’s hard to not be cheerful when the sun is out, and you’re about to be driven through your nasty commute and you get to sit back and read.  I’ve been a live-in-the-suburbs-and-drive-a-truck-that-is-bigger-than-your-house girl for so long that this is a nice change of pace.

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Keys found! Apparently, I left them at work thinking I wouldn’t be moving in until Monday.

Sunday was a pretty nice day so I thought I should explore the neighborhood in my brand new road bike. Sounds like a pretty sweet idea, right? Right - unless you’ve never tried riding your bike before and you realize you don’t know how to use your gears right as you get to a hill in the middle of a busy intersection. I have a mountain bike and I’ve used those gears plenty of times, but the gears on this bike is quite different from my other bike. I ended up wobbling all over the freaking intersection trying to make sure every car on that road might get a good chance to clip me…then finally I had to hop off the damned thing to avoid serious injury to my pride. I went to Madison Market to pick up some Kombucha and struggled with figuring out how to lock my bike to the bike rack. As I was leaving, one of my coworker came riding up in his bike. He smiled at me and said, “Wow, look at you and your bike go! Is that your new bike?” I replied, “Yes, it’s my new bike. Can you show me how to use my gears?” I’m a pro, man.

I went my doctor’s appointment this morning to make sure I’ve got all the vaccines I need for volunteering at the hospital. Never joke about how many shots you will be needing! I ended with FOUR needles to the arm. You know how you will know if the shot is about to hurt like a bitch? When the nurse asks you which arm you write with to give you a shot in the other arm…and she tells you to breathe deeply and exhale right before she stabs you. Gah!

I haven’t moved my computer over yet and I’m kind of enjoying not having a computer at home. Last night, instead of checking my email for the five hundredth time (Why does no one love me?), I decided to take a walk. I walked by a homeless man who was cracking open a beer in a paper sack, I smiled at him. The man started hitting on me with, “Konichiwa? Hi, sweet thing.” It’s good to know our Seattle bums are so cultured as to try hitting on me with Japanese, but doesn’t he realize it’s offensive to Asian people when you get our specific ethnicity all mixed up? I mean had he said, “Ni hao, sweet thing,” I would be all over him, instead I got all offended and started walking away real fast. He stumbled a little toward me, “Come back. Konichiwa? Hey, sweet thing.” Yeah, okay, this is why people adopt the city frown.

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Sung’s place is awesome, and by awesome I mean, when he comes back to reclaim his space in one month and three weeks, he will have to fight me to the death over it. I plan to take a few more karate classes these next two months. If I feel like I might fail, I’ll just call my best friend, Brian to back me up. He has a black belt in karate, and while I’m sure there’s some kind of code of conduct in whom they are allowed to attack under special circumstance, I think “defending best friend’s right to freeload off someone” is a very noble cause. Sung’s place is also a nice place but has a very masculine feel about it, not in a bachelor slob sort of way, but in a masculine furniture sort of way, I figured it could use some feminine touch. I’m bringing over my PS2 and Xbox to decorate the place; the place is so girly right now, straight men will turn gay walking into the place.

Last night I decided to move my stuff over, I figured I would move early-ish then walk over to the store and cook myself a lovely vegetarian feast. I get to the building door and found that I had somehow lost his keys. I DON’T lose stuff. I’ve got lipgloss older than its expiration date sitting in my purse; I don’t know how the hell I lose the freaking keys. I’m sure it’s all karma for making fun of my sister for losing her restaurant keys the day after she gets her place re-keyed, but that’s my sister, she loses shit all the time. My mom has always said, if her head wasn’t attached by the neck, she would lose that too…I’m not that person. Damn it! Luckily, Sung has the foresight to tell me that Jesse has an extra copy of the keys – you think he didn’t trust me to hang onto the keys or something.

I parked illegally near the front door and dragged most of my stuff in…then I went to park my car in a space that happens to be in right in front of Brian’s building. As I dragged the last bit of stuff out of my car, I realized I needed a hand, so I called Brian out. We made our way over to the condo and the first thing we decided we had to do, was play some Guitar Hero. Then I noticed, Sung must have loaned out his PS2 because it wasn’t anywhere to be seen…but Brian said, “That’s okay, I’ll just run home and get mine.” It’s so sweet when your best friend lives half a block away. This reminds me of being 5 and playing with the neighbor’s kids and we get to run home to grab some toys to share, but the best part is we don’t have parents harassing us to get to bed…a good stiff drink with the games doesn’t hurt either. I think we played about 5 minutes of the game before I declared that I’m never moving home again and Brian said, “Fuck yeah, you should never move home again!”

I’m thirty so you would think I should have been out on my own long ago…well, I was, but there was a point a few years back when I would get terrible terrible nightmares. It got so bad that I would wake up sobbing and I would be too terrified to go back to sleep, right about that same time my mother divorced my dad. It was really hard on her since they had been married for 30+ years. She bought a big house and asked all of us kids to move in with her, we all did and for a long while we all lived happily together. We’re still happy together and we all still get along great, but I can’t deal with living at home anymore, and I was clawing at the walls to get out. So right now, I’m searching for a place to rent or buy. Wish me good luck with that.

I went out clubbing with my sister last night. At the end of the night, we get inside her car and she said she lost her car keys. Yeah, she somehow thought it would be smart to take only the alarm fob and leave the keys behind to minimize things to carry. We had to cab back to her place where she has spare keys.

Keys lost in less than a week: 3

Dignity preserved: none

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As I was dropping Sung off at the airport to visit his sweet adorable sexy girlfriend, he said something that nearly made me cry. He said, “I cleared out some drawers for you in the room and bathroom so that you have room for your stuff.” I know it’s silly to cry over empty drawers, but it’s more the fact that after all that he has done for me already, he’s still willing to go the extra mile. All my life, I’ve gone out of my way to do things for other people, it’s rare that I ask other people for anything, I forget how nice it is to have someone show me love in return. This isn’t even the same kind of love as doing random acts of kindness for a stranger because I do that a lot too, and I know that kind of love is about 99% selfish because in the end, I did it because I know how good doing stuff like that makes me feel. When you do something for someone you care for, it’s because you genuinely love them and you’re not thinking about what you might get in return, and there’s something sweet and pure about that. I guess what I’m really trying to say is, I feel really blessed to have good people in my life that continues to inspire me and show me that the world isn’t all selfish – that in the end, to be that stupid nice person isn’t all stupid because it guides you to these wonderful people.

I made an appointment to see my doctor yesterday because in order to volunteer at Harborview Hospital, you not only need criminal history check, and TWO letter of recommendations – you also need proof that you have a list of vaccines done. I can’t remember if I have half of the stuff done ever, so I’m guessing I will need a shot or five. Why is it, recently, every time I try to do something for someone else, I get stabbed in the arm with a giant needle? I mean, c’mon, I can clear some drawers too you know.

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I’m moving out to a place that’s a block from my best friend’s apartment…scratch that, I’m squatting at that place. My friend Sung is going to be in Korea for a month so I asked if it would okay for me to camp there while I search for the condo of my dreams in that area, he didn’t even think about it and said yes. He asked me today if I would need to borrow his car since my car will probably not fit in his parking space and trying to find parking in that area is a royal bitch especially with my huge ass SUV. The guy is a saint, not only is he letting me trash his place while he’s gone, but I get to trash his car and run up his electric/water bill…bills that he will NOT let me pay for. I even tried to buy him some games and stuff to repay him but he wouldn’t even hear of it. Yes, even though I call my friends assholes, they really are amazing people. They put up with my annoying I’m-so-independent-I-don’t-need-you ass and take care of me when I need it the most.

There are a few things that I’ve wanting to do that being in the Capitol Hill area would greatly improve:

1. Volunteer at Harborview Hospital (he lives 5-6 blocks from this place)
2. Train with Jesse for bicycle ride for Seattle-to-Portland. (he lives 5-6 blocks from Jesse)
3. Take Yoga (he lives a 2-6 blocks from a bunch of different studios)
4. Guitar Hero with dual guitars parties with some thrown in Wii action (my best friend lives a block away, it doesn’t get any easier)
5. This is probably the most important thing: Figure out if I could live in this area because I’m a light sleeper and he said that there’s an ambulance going by every five minutes because there are two major hospitals in the area. It could be a bit unpleasant, in a pineapple shoved up the ass kind of way, to drop 3-4 hundred grand on a closet space only to find that I can’t get any sleep in it.

I’ve also been wanting to find if I could bike/bus to work instead of chugging around in my giant vehicle, a few of my coworkers live in that area and they said it’s pretty easy to bike/bus to work, so I’m very excited by this prospect. Waking up extra early to catch the bus will be a bitch, but I can learn to deal with it. I’m hoping since I might be borrowing Sung’s car that I would feel really bad about using it and be encourage to bike everywhere.
I asked Sung to pack his personal stuff, things he doesn’t want people to riffle through, and put it in a box and label it “DO NOT TOUCH!” so that I could claw through that first. Is there a better way to entertain myself at a new surrounding? I think not. Next, I plan to steal all his friends and his life…it’ll be like Single Asian Female. I’ll start showing up on poker night and sit in his spot and insist that his friends call me Sung. Hey, it’s not creepy until I murder him and stash his corpse in the closet.

Side note: I’ve stopped eating seafood too…so if you’re out with me and I insist on vegetarian fare, please don’t give me grief, you should just be happy I’m not stealing half your steak.

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What’s a girl to do when she wakes up feeling extremely dehydrated from a hangover and recent blood donation? Hiking of course. It rained buckets yesterday while I was hiking through Mt. Si, but the temperature was so warm, I didn’t bother with a jacket or hat. I highly recommend hiking in warm rain and just letting yourself get soaked, it just feels amazing. When the fresh rain hits you, you get this wonderful smell of ozone combined with the smell of wet tree and dirt…the world could not be more wonderful.

The nice thing about blogging is I can see around this time last year, I was doing the exact same thing…hiking 36 hours after donating blood…but in completely different hiking shape. God damned I was a whiny newbie hiker. It’s good to see I’ve made some improvement in mental strength, I definitely felt a little faint the beginning of the hike again, but never for a moment did I think I would have to turn back. The sad thing to see was last year we still had snow galore at the top of Si…hell it was snowing while we were there, this year with the crappy warm weather, there was hardly a patch of snow up top.

I woke up this morning to strange feeling of…muscle soreness. This is why athletic health nuts abhor drinking. Damn green beer day! I eat Mt. Si for breakfast; that hike usually doesn’t even faze me a bit, but you combine that with severe dehydration and the oil that makes your muscle move goes to shit. If you are out of shape, DO NOT try a hard hike without hydrating the hell out of yourself, it will make everything hurt that much more the next day.

I decided to go shop for a road bike today. When I walked in Gregg’s Greenlake Cycles…I felt a little overwhelmed by the endless options. How the hell does a person pick out a bike from all that stash? Then the salesperson talked to me…and asked me how tall I was, and suddenly the endless options became TWO. Apparently, not every bike company out there makes bikes for midgets, go figure. The lady pulled out these two bikes that are so small framed that a miniature daschund could ride it. My options are not too bright, I’ve got:

1. Bike with great parts and feels great in the world’s crappiest color.
2. Bike with a sweeter paint job and not nearly as great parts.

Great, kick me in the head again for being short.

I went for a walk at Seward Park afterward…halfway through my walk this lady catches up to me and said, “Wow, you’re a fast walker. People tell me I walk fast all the time, but you’re half my size and you’re going close to my pace.” She has at least 10 inches on me. I laughed and told her, “I’ve had a lifetime practice of being short, I make up for the fact by walking as fast as my little legs will carry me.” We ended up chatting a bit for the remainder of the walk. At one point she said, “Look at that kid go!” I looked over and there’s this kid that looked about 10, riding a skooter with his little brother who looked about 6. The older kid was talking on a cellphone! He rode by us talking the whole time. We laughed with disbelief. I said, “Oh god, I feel like smacking the adults when they do that, let alone a kid.” Seriously…if you’re 10, just be 10, there isn’t any conversation so important that it can’t wait until you get done riding through the park with your little brother.

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We have a major milestone tomorrow so we’ve been putting in a couple extra hours at work.  We also had a blood drive today, so I thought it would be great if I donated blood then go pass out at my desk…because you know, panicky coworkers could be funny.

I make it a point to give blood whenever there’s a blood drive here, but after the last couple times I’ve donated blood, I’ve been a bit scared.  I’m not exactly the biggest gal on the planet which makes it a bit hard to locate my veins and even when they do, they sometimes lose the thing, which means they manipulate a needle the size of a garden hose while it’s inserted into your arm to find that vein again.  Fun stuff.  They always give me crap because they don’t think I weigh enough thinking I’ll pass out if I try…I’ve donated more than a gallon of blood now, you think they would trust that I might know what I’m doing.  They always do an iron test to check if you’re anemic before you give blood, I was a bit worried about that since I’ve gone the no eating red-meat route for over half a year now…nope, I’m still good.  Blood sank like a rock in the test.

The one fun thing is, one of the tech was someone that worked at the last blood drive.  She was just starting to date this guy last year…I asked about the boyfriend and she’s still cute and blushing and said she’s hoping he’ll marry her soon.  Blood donation went so well this time I don’t understand why I ever had problem with vein finding or slow flowing blood.  As I was leaving I told Sue I hope to see her happily married next time I see her, she smiled and said, “Yes, working on it.”

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Life isn’t always ponies and rainbows in Champagne Land. Sometimes, little things get me down. Sometimes I have to walk away from things that hurt me. I tend to be overly happy most of the time, so when I’m down, it’s almost crippling. Still, I am very lucky, even when life serves me its best backhand, I have a wonderful best friend who is there to hug me and tell me I’m a wonderful human being and that he loves and accepts me for every little flaw that is me. Finding someone that loves me just the way I am is a true blessing. I am humbled by the fact that life would grant me such a person by my side.

Except he won’t read my blog because he thinks blogging is for lame-ass hippies. What an asshole.

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No, I am not bloated, pasty and floating in some ice cold water somewhere. I have officially survived snow camp #2. We did camp next to a lake, but the lake was so thoroughly frozen over that it would take a lot more than some fruit train storm to thaw it out. To be fair, we got buckets and buckets of rain dumped on us…but our tents and tarps held up.

The hike in and out was ridiculously flat and it wasn’t all that scenic, but the heavy weight we were carrying plus snowshoes still made for good exercise. We got lucky with the timing of rain, because it started pouring after we made our way to camp and had our tarps set up. Then the rain stopped in the morning right around the time we got up to cook breakfast and pack.

Since the overall hike was pretty easy, we each packed in one dura-log each. At night we had a huge fire going while each person took turns making hot beverage spiked with whatever alcohol they brought. I brought chai with vodka again, which was still one of the biggest crowd pleaser and we had decaf coffee with Kahlua, some spiced fruit drink with rum, and my favorite was hot chocolate with Rumplemintz (it tastes like Thin Mints Girl Scouts cookies). Yes, the trip was a cheap excuse to go out in the woods and get shit-faced, which was mostly why I didn’t want to go, but it was definitely a good way to send a buddy off to the land of sleepless nights and diaper rashes.

Randomly, Fraser would forget that he’s about to be a father and he would start planning trips that we should think about doing soon.  Then we all joked about how his kid is going to turn out black because we all knew he spent more nights out in the woods than with his wife last year.  I think he’s hoping his kid will turn out black.

On our way out, we felt the Pineapple Express randomly blowing warm breeze across the path which was extremely pleasant.

I’d like to take a petty moment to express how nice it is to backpack with a group that isn’t made up entirely of people with legs twice as long and that are in much better shape, because I was starting to thinking I must be the world’s slowest backpacker.  Well, actually everyone else’s legs were still twice as long, even Jason’s wife Shawna is much taller than I, but I’m just happy to not always be the person waaaay in the back.

Slide of the trip here.

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Tomorrow is my buddy Fraser’s funeral. Well, he’s not actually dead, but he’s wishing he is right about now. We had a snow camping trip planned for this weekend and I’ve originally decided not to go because it’s got a few big things going against it:

1. Place we’re going to is completely flat, which means it will not be any kind of work-out heading in.

2. We’ve got too many people wanting to go…with me, it’ll be 8. Numbers beyond 4-5 gets to be a bit much and the group tends to not be as cohesive.

3. RAIN!!

I know I’ve been complaining a bit too much about the rain but when you read articles like this:

Friday, March 9, 2007 - Page updated at 10:54 AM

Heavy rain forecast for Western Washington

By The Associated Press

The “Pineapple Express” is headed for the Northwest.

The National Weather Service says moist air from the direction of Hawaii will bring heavy rains this weekend to Western Washington. Meanwhile the freezing level rises to nine-thousand feet in the mountains.

The combination of rain and melting snow could fill some rivers to flood stage.

The city of Seattle has advised contractors to inspect street storm drain filters to make sure they are not clogged.

Heavy rains last December killed a woman who was trapped in her flooded basement in Seattle.

Copyright © 2007 The Seattle Times Company

And we’re thinking of camping in the snow right next to a lake that could flood and drown us in our sleep…makes me rethink “rain”. One guy in the group asked to move our camp date to another weekend. This is Fraser’s email response:

“That would be nice, but I can’t. If we each bring a tarp, we can get a pretty good tarp city deal going on, and that lets you get out of the rain and dry off. Plus the duraflame fire will be nice!! C’mon, lez dooooit!!!!!!!!!!”

That last sentence screamed dead man walking. I almost forgot why he was so desperate to go…his wife is expecting their baby any day now. I told Fraser it’s not cool that his kid is cramping our style even before he/she is born. Fraser isn’t exactly dealing so well with this being a father business, whenever we mention the baby around him, he gets all wild-eyed and frightened. I’ve never met anyone soul more independent than Fraser, even his dog, Haley takes after him. That dog is the first of its kind that I’ve met that acts like a cat…ignores you completely and doesn’t let you pet her. So yeah, this weekend, if we don’t all drown, is the trip to send a buddy out in style.

I’m sure you’ve read articles about groups of people that go on some outdoors adventure and they get in some horrific accident because they’re out in weather that they have no business being in - I’m betting somebody in that group is about to be a father.

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