A Post AT LAST

Okay, okay, I KNOW.

It's been a Very Long Time since I have updated my blog, and too many people refuse to cut me any more slack on this score.

So, family, Rachel, Jen: here you are. I hope the fact that I am blogging after a long hiatus fills all your hearts with joy. Yay!

And, of course, to make up for the lack of blogging, I will post dozens of pictures. It's the least I can do.

So, I woke up on the Monday before Thanksgiving (yes, we have to go back to Thanksgiving. I haven't blogged since then) to this:



8+ inches of gorgeous fluffy snow that floated straight down, piling up in deep drifts on branches, electric wires, cars, houses.


An absolutely perfect winter wonderland snowfall.






What else is there to do with such lovely snow except . . .



. . . go hunting? Oh, wait. No, I did not kill these deer. They were killed by my friend Peter, who then invited me over to enjoy some oven roasted stuffed deer hearts. Notice, the deer in this picture are lacking hearts. That's why they have large bloody gashes in their chests. Mmm, meat!

So some Missoula folk go hunting.

Midwestern folk, on the other hand . . .



. . . stay inside in their pajamas and make yummy food on Thanksgiving morning! Jen and Joe came to visit me for Thanksgiving, and we had a lovely four days together. Though we did very much enjoy cooking/baking and later devouring the fruits of our labors, I am enough of a Missoula girl after 2 1/2 years to take Jen and Joe to do what many other Missoula folk do . . .



. . . go cross-country skiing in the Rattlesnake Wilderness area.

The snow was perfect.

The sun was shining.

The cold winter wonderland days stretched on.

And I tried unsuccessfully to avoid skiing into trees and small shrubs.






I did successfully manage to look cute with my cross country skiing gear, though!



Jen and Joe succeeded in looking cute as well . . .






I do so like warm hats and fuzzy scarves.



Not to mention good friends.



And, of course, Montana.



(And having my own cross country skis, which I bought this weekend!)

December also brought fun things, though there were the not-so-fun things like final projects and presentations to prepare. Perhaps such things would not have been so not-so-fun had not I procrastinated most of the semester, but alas. Fortunately, Elsa procrastinated as well, so we spent a couple of long late nights sitting at opposite ends of the house, surrounded by papers and pieces of research, shouting encouragement to each other and occasionally meeting in the kitchen to do necessary tasks such as taking out the compost:



and drinking espressos made expertly by Elsa in the French press:



and making various kinds of food in the wee hours of the morning:



Happily, however, Elsa and I both finished the required projects, papers, and presentations, and managed to do them well. Ah, procrastination.

On December 15th, after enjoying our stress- (and schoolwork-) free existence, we decided to take a little tour of the local Humane Society. Just for fun. Just to see all the nice dogs and cats. Just to . . . LOOK.

53 minutes later I walked out of the Humane Society with a box that contained a 10-month old male black domestic shorthaired cat.



Elsa's cat, Olive, was not particularly impressed at first.



But everything's better after a meal . . .





Basil and Olive now get along quite swimmingly, though they have a tendency to tear through the apartment like wild pumas on the rampage, and get into places they're not supposed to, like the Recycling Cave of Death (where their food bag is located, though it is no longer located on the floor), and the kitchen table, the kitchen sink, the bathroom sink, my favorite plant, and on top of the DVD player. And, of course, Basil loves to perch.



Other recent exciting additions to the household are Beth and Britta, two very good friends who have just moved to Missoula! They are in the process of finding an apartment and jobs, and are currently crashing in my living room.



It is so good to have them here! Yesterday we combed the sporting good stores of Missoula for cross country skis, finally hitting the jackpot at Sportsman's Surplus. We also combed the thrift stores for beds (and books . . . and clothes . . . right-o). Today we went to church, transported the bed from the thrift store to my storage shed thanks to Than and his truck, ate burritos at Taco del Sol, and went cross country skiing this afternoon. The past few days (not to mention the past few months) have been very full. So begins 2008!

October.

The leaves are turning colors here, and it's surprising to see what changes happen overnight. I walk down the street on my way to school, and come upon a flame-red tree whose colors shimmer in the air and scatter along the sidewalk. Or I'll turn a corner and look down a long gilded archway of branches, with the leaves glowing golden above me. Though the days have been gray and rainy, the bright colors of autumn are bursting forth as if trying to make up for the lack of sunshine. They seem to be succeeding.

My coworker Marissa is down in Central America right now, vacationing. She and her fiance just got married down there--I suppose you might call it an elopement, since they took a plane to an exotic location and got married on a beach without any family or friends present. At any rate, we had a bridal shower for her before she left, which included lots of wine, good food, flowers, and, of course, fun gifts. Marissa is beautiful, and she manages to look elegant even while wearing a plastic Viking helmet with sexy underwear hanging off of it. Ya just gotta envy some people!
















Besides the occasional fun night out with friends, I'm back in the swing of school (well, mostly, anyway). Thankfully I'm only taking one class, but it's going to keep me busy enough, I'm sure! And then of course there's work . . . and the longer I work this 8-5 (or 7:30-5:30, or 9-6) schedule, the more certain I become that this is not they way humankind was meant to spend its days . . . and months . . . and years. Of course I am grateful for the income which allows me to buy plane tickets to visit friends in Toronto and go home for Christmas, or to pay for the gas so I can visit my sister, or to allow me the resources to eat out with friends one or two nights a week. At the same time, however, I am resentful; I feel as though I'm selling my soul for security, and how can that be a good thing? SIGH. Change is in the air . . . the first whispers of it, anyway, and I'm excited to think of the future and see where it takes me.


Sometimes, when life gets busy and you're being pulled a thousand different directions at once and you're just overwhelmingly STRESSED OUT, DAMN IT!--well, there's just nothing for it but to put on your footie pajamas and watch Brotherhood 2 videos and Daily Show clips online.
















Okay, so this is admittedly random, but I bought this completely gorgeous green pepper a couple of weeks ago and just had to take pictures of it. Isn't it lovely? Almost too beautiful to eat . . . but eat it I did, and it was GOOD. And I have a picture (or six) for posterity!
















So last weekend my friend Francie and I drove up highway 12 to the Woodman School, where Francie teaches, to decorate her classroom for Halloween. We did this last year and had a grand time, and have decided to make it a tradition. Francie & her skeleton:




















Cobwebs--and creepy spiders!--paying allegiance to the American flag:















Here we are, two gorgeous girls enjoying lovely Montana!




















I didn't take any pics of this, but yesterday I had the opportunity to attend one of Missoula's most popular and peculiar cultural rituals: a Montana Griz football game. Yes, indeed, I spent three and a half hours sitting in a stadium with 15,000 maroon-clad fans watching a bunch of guys fight over an elliptical chunk of pigskin. GO GRIZ! Around the stadium, filling the parking lots, were an unseemly number of RVs, around which people stood drinking beer, grilling hot dogs, and having loud, drunken conversations. We won, 24-23, with a field goal in the last 1 1/2 minutes of play, and I guess it was actually a pretty good game (??), but my favorite part was just before the game when three parachuters jumped out of a plane a mile above the stadium and dropped down onto the field, right onto the Griz insignia. Pretty sweet. At any rate, I was glad to expand my cultural experiences and to participate in an event that will allow me to better understand a significant percentage of the people in my community.

And now, on to my homework! Woohoo!

Really, ya'll should be impressed that it's only been two weeks since my last blog. Amazing! Truly spectacular! Take note! Who knows when this may happen again??

Earth Day & Ranching & Fencing, Oh My! (and a brief digression into Pride & Prejudice)

I do love Pride & Prejudice, in all its forms. Currently I'm delving into the written form. Just a few tidbits:

"The stupidity with which [Mr. Collins] was favoured by nature, must guard his courtship from any charm that could make a woman wish for its continuance."

Oh, Jane Austen, how delightfully snarky thou art!

And better yet:

"'Adieu to disappointment and spleen. What are men to rocks and mountains?'"

Indeed. But I digress . . .

Earth Day has come and gone, and along with it, a mobile glass pulverizer from Helena. A group of EVST students worked hard to get that darned thing over to Missoula, and we were not disappointed! Missoulians (and Montanans from farther afield) flocked to Caras Park on Earth Day (April 22), and brought about 10 tons of glass for us to pulverize into cullet. It was quite a satisfying day, all told. Here are a few pictures:

Two years' worth of glass from our Recycling Cave of Death:































Other Missoulians' glass stashes:






























The Pulverizer from Above (the big vestibule into which all the glass is being thrown is called the "hopper"):





























Me working hard! (Ooh, pretty bottle!)







































The crew:
Derek, me, Aubree, Marlee, Stacey, Bill (from Headwaters Recycling in Helena), & Robin (EVST prof)--and the pulverizer, of course!



























Let's just say that our Earth Day demonstration was wildly successful. :)


So that was two weekends ago. This past weekend I headed out to Central Montana with a group of EVSTers to do a little fencing for a rancher who had 95% of his 11,000 acres burn in an enormous wildfire last summer.



























It was one of the most lovely weekends I've had in a long while. The weather gods were smiling on us, giving us 75 degree days, cool breezes, and warm sunshine. And the lush green beauty rising out of the blackened ash of the wildfire was utterly glorious. One evening we drove up to a high ridge on the Terland's land.





























To the north were the peaks of the Crazy Mountains, misty in the setting sun; to the south were the snow-capped peaks of the Beartooth Mountains, and on the hills all around the grass was green and dotted with wildflowers--bread & butters (white six-petaled beauties that taste delicious), fire flowers, bluebells, and even some bitterroot plants (Montana's state flower), though they were not yet in bloom.







































On Friday morning as I sat out in one of the sloping meadows above the river, I realized that THIS is what human beings are meant to do: We are meant to be outside. We are meant to breathe and run and live beneath the sunshine, in the path of the wind, along the curve of the earth, drinking the air, smelling sunlight on grass and leaves, hearing the sandhill cranes cry as they drift on high currents of air. It was a moment that could not be bought by anything but my experience of it.

Sunday, Rainy Sunday . . .

I like the rain, like watching the dim curtains of mist wash across the Missoula Valley, smelling the soil as the rain soaks in, smelling the freshness, anticipating the new life. It is spring--spring!!--and the rivers are running higher, swifter; the buds are pushing out of the dark tips of branches; and the birds are weaving their canopies of song above me as I walk to work or school.

But rainy days like today are perfect for curling up on the couch, with warm yellow lamps pooling light around me, a fuzzy blanket tucked around my legs, and my laptop on my lap. Perhaps, if I feel so inclined, I will make myself a cup of tea as I sit here reading and writing this afternoon.

Spring break. Doesn't FEEL much like spring break, since all it means is that I get to work even MORE this week, with no inconvenient classes taking up my time, but already I'm feeling more relaxed. Though I suppose it's a bit of a false feeling, since I really ought to be working on my project for my environmental organizing class. Yes, indeed, I am working to bring glass recycling to Missoula, and at times this seems a nigh impossible task. Yeep. However, I encourage ya'll to check out www.recyclemt.org for some pictures of the mobile glass pulverizer in Helena (and you might just see a certain familiar face in a few of those pics, too).

Speaking of pics, I ought to post a few, eh? Though it's been three weeks since I visited my sister out in Lynden, I did promise to put up a few pictures of our trip. Enjoy!

This was the day I left: it snowed the night before, thick, soft snow, and all the streets and cars and trees were white and clean that morning. This is my view on my way to work, and is my favorite part of my two-block walk.

Here's Ishta in the blizzard we drove through--let's just say that I did not at all mind going 20 mph while driving in this stuff!


Andrea on the ferry ride from Anacortes to Orcas Island. Oh, little did we know that the ferry ride would be the best part of the day!


Sistah luv:


Discoveries in Victoria, BC:




After wandering around the city for an evening and the following morning, we made our way to the southernmost point of the city (and, therefore, of Vancouver Island). Waves, water, sky, cloud, wind, driftwood: beautiful! And, of course, we couldn't help but take some 'artistic' shots.




All in all, it was a great weekend, though it did feel as though we did a lot of driving and money spending. It was lovely to get out and away, though! Even lovelier is the latest news that Andrea accepted a teaching position at Ebenezer Christian School in Lynden, WA, and will be moving there this summer! I'm looking forward to many more excursions to the Pacific Northwest in the future.

Just a few more pics, of people I often talk about but whom most of you have not met: my good friend Lindsay Iudicello and her family. A couple of weeks ago we went hiking up to the "L" on Mt. Jumbo.


Here's Linds and Corin (who's 3) and Seth (in the jester hat):


And Corin in the late afternoon sunshine:


And here's a view from the "L" of my lovely Missoula and the mountains which embrace it:


Soon the hills will be green, as will the lawns and the trees and the bushes, and the days will be sparkling with color and light and warmth, and I'll throw all the windows in the house open, day and night, to let the spring drift in.

Ahh.