new orleans... that's another story.

We are off!  Tomorrow morning, Justin & I leave for New Orleans.  We have tomorrow night on our own - maybe Cochon Restaurant for dinner and a jazz club. We're using my free night on Hotels.com, so I booked the nicest room the Sheraton New Orleans would give me. 

On Friday, the whole gang arrives.  Team 890 (Ruari, Chatham, Michelle) plus Ashley, Steph, James and Ryan.  The Texas contingent is Matt, Mark and Tim.  Matt rocked the Starwood Hotels employee rate and is keeping us at the Sheraton for $69/night.  (Not quite as good as free in Lima, Peru, but hey.  Matt rocks.)

By Friday night... I wonder if even the proverbial party town is ready for this traveling circus.

Bourne in the USA

On my birthday, I wished for "more Matt Damon kicking ass in 1990s sunglasses."  Presto!  Trailer's up for GREEN ZONE, the Matt Damon-in-Iraq actioner from Universal (thanks again, y'all!).

If it looks like Bourne and sounds like Bourne... it's probably directed by Paul Greengrass (Bourne Supremacy, Bourne Ultimatum).  I wish every movie was Bourne.  Bourne baking his way through the Julia Child cookbook, Bourne throwing the Pemchencko Twist, Bourne swordfighting Will Turner in a blacksmith shop, Bourne getting a Tercel (yeah, that's a Toyota).  Think of the fun!



Mostly I like to see Matt Damon in fatuigues when it doesn't involve 60 pound weight loss and shooting heroin between his toes.  Or Meg Ryan.  He cuts a very heroic figure, doesn't he?  Matt Damon for justice?  I'd join that army.

no shoes, no shirt, no problems

I'm more than a little jazzed about Hotel Barrio Latino in Playa Del Carmen.  Not only do we have a private hammock deck on our garden view room, but look how cute and blue it is!  One block from the main street, two blocks from the beach.  Zero blocks from the bar.

Best part?  The price of this vacation keeps going down!  I got the Lonely Planet Cancun, Cozumel and the Yucatan guidebook, which recommended this and few other lovely midrange hotels. I checked the hotel's website price vs. Travelocity - it was the same. So I used Travelocity to earn 1,300 points, and cashed in some old points for another $100 off the price.  We're down to $56/night - that's cheaper than staying at the Snowed Inn!

Now, to find a hotel deal in Cancun and choose our diving trips...

fortunes, forecasts, lucky charms.

Now that I'm over my cold, I can officially say I'm wearing this for Halloween in New Orleans.  If I go to a fortune teller, will she think I'm one of her people?

families cheating at board games

I have an awesome family that is in no way normal but in every way perfect.  My mom, dad and Shane each play a very specific role in my life.  It's more obvious because I don't see them often, and they always fit right where they're supposed to go.

My mom knows the truth about things.
My mom is extremely smart.  She retains all kinds of information, and uses it to form fiercely held opinions.  We often disagree, but I admire that her convictions are well researched and considered.  She's also not afraid to change her mind.  Her sources are delightfully old fashioned (Newspapers! Books! Even TV seems dated.)  She still VHS tapes her reality courtroom shows every day.  I can tell Judge Mathis from Judge Joe Brown just by hearing it blare over the sound of dinner cooking.  My mom is an information person - she wants nothing but the truth.

My dad knows the secret of life.
My dad always wanted us to be happy, no matter what.  He's laid back.  He is the supporter of dreams, of crazy ideas and even of occasional laziness masquerading as extra months in Thailand.  Opportunity, that was always my dad's goal for us.  The chance to do things he never did - and for him to come along.  When I was too Type A-Hermione Granger to see that straight As and team captains were not the only ways to succeed in life, my dad was the voice of reason, the voice of staying home from school once in a while or buying popcorn AND candy at the movies.  My dad sees the big picture, and wants to help everyone get there.

My brother knows himself. 
Anyone lucky enough to know Shane... well, you know what I mean.  The absolutely hysterical, completely fearless life of the party.  But Shane is also very serious.  He's extremely politically savvy (Shane vs. Mom is always fun) and really knows his stuff.  He's also passionate.  Anything he's ever done well, he's taught himself.  Big tasks, like computer programming and film editing.  He has surprising discipline and capability, but he only applies it where he wants it to go.  Directionality and focus - who would have thought?  Shane is completely happy with himself, even when he has to defend himself against the doubt of others.

How do you see your family?  I wonder how my family sees me.

thirty: every day's a revolution

Today, I was wide awake at 8 AM.  So I cleaned the kitchen.  Guess I'm old now!

Thirty sounds old, but let's be honest.  It's set up to rock.  This is the prime of your life!  There is some (but never enough) money, freedom, vacation time, achievement.  I even have a boyfriend - that took almost the whole 30 years! - an apartment and some fool made me the boss of something.  HA!  It looks like I've done all the hard work already.  The pressure is off and I plan to accomplish nothing in the next decade.

I've done a lot in the last 2 years - moved to SF, became the boss, fell in love, moved in with the boyfriend, hiked the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu, figured out my finances, seen half my best friends married, and I even wear my hair curly now!  I would like to think that I've taken 29.99 years and soundly kicked their butts. 

My OCD loves to make lists, so I was thinking of Things to Do When I'm Thirty.  Some are grandfathered in from my "before thirty" list, but many are new.  They include

- Be unanimously elected Queen of Canada (that's a given)
- Consume less, consume consciously
- Get a dog!  Or lots of dogs!
- Maybe get a baby while out getting dogs
- Climb the Harbor Bridge in Sydney, Australia
- Visit India
- Cage dive with Great White sharks in South Africa
- Kiss the Stanley Cup (done in'94, but we need a recharge)
- Learn Spanish
- Watch more sunrises

My overall plan, as it has successfully been since 1979, is to never ever ever grow up.

 

"I'm just hanging on while this old world keeps spinning,

And it's good to know it's out of my control.

If there's one thing that I've learned from all this living,

Is that it wouldn't change a thing if I let go."

- Jimmy Buffett & Martina McBride

"Trip Around the Sun"

autumn in new york

I miss living in the country!  SF has many parks and plenty of trees, but it's not the same as actually being in the woods.  Shane and I hiked to the Shale Seats at Eagle's Landing yesterday to get some shots for his Catskills documentary.  I'd never even heard of this place, and it's so close to my house.  The view looks southeast over the back mountain road and down over Woodstock.

It's the height of fall foliage season now, and my favorite time to visit home.  People don't realize that all this is just 2+ hours north of NYC.  I love tromping through the mud, climbing over fallen logs, jumping across creeks and getting all outdoor-sy.  Plus, I can be home by lunch, warm and dry!  On these trips, I always take some time to recharge my nature batteries, soak up the beauty of Upstate NY and think about leaving the city someday.

Shane's Catskills footage is amazing so far, you can check it out on his Facebook page.  He knows all the most beautiful spots, and he's the only person crazy enough to climb down Kaaterskill Falls and put his camera underwater at the bottom.  Thanks TVille for another great visit!

there’s no place like home.

I was home in May for my dad’s heart surgery.  It was tense, but we all did a good job of still enjoying each other’s company.  While my dad was in surgery, my brother and I got lost on our way to the hospital.  We arrived to find my mom in the waiting room, holding the kind of buzzer that indicates when your table is ready at Outback Steakhouse.  Except when this buzzed, vibrated and lit up, it was time for news from the doctor.  We approached the desk, and were told, “The doctor will call you.” as the woman pointed at a white rotary phone on the wall.  In that moment, there was there a breath of abject panic.  A moment where we all wondered simultaneously if this was it, the end, the last moment of our lives as we knew them.  Shane held my hand.  A heartbeat later the doctor was telling my mom that everything was fine, and we should go have lunch.  Probably at Outback.

In retrospect, I should have been relieved when the nurse sent us to the phone.  There were a few private rooms where doctors met with families in person – much more ominous.  But at the time, it all seemed so clinical and anonymous, where you could get the worst news of your life in front of a hundred other people waiting for their turn at the same fate.

Being home now is wonderful.  It’s all fun.  My dad is going to golf in Myrtle Beach for a week.  Shane has two new cats of indeterminate gender who think they’re tigers in a circus.  As always, the house towers with books and bedclothes and holds a treasure trove of artifacts from my childhood.  My old bedroom is a time capsule, complete with *N Sync posters and high school letters on the wall.  My mom takes me to lunch at the deli and I see the parents of my friends who now live far and wide.  They make broccoli soup because it’s always been my favorite. My luggage got lost on the way here, but no one cares if I rock sweatpants around town.  People ring the doorbell for rooms, but we’re full (because I took that last room upstairs).  My mom makes pancakes for breakfast and buys Friehoffer cookies that don’t last a day.

One of the cats (Osiris? Icarus? I don’t know.) is asleep in my lap, having worn itself out trying to step on every letter that I type.  My mom bought me a library of Suze Orman books at a yard sale.  My dad read the “Twilight” books and is on to “The Sword of Truth” because I keep sending them here.  It’s my life-long collection of things, things that I would never keep myself because I can count on home to always have them around.