PHX

I woke up this morning in Phoenix, AZ. Stepped out onto the balcony of my hotel room with a cup of hot coffee to revel in the warm desert air. Today's high was sixty-three degrees.

Not bad for a little break from the Januarys.
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Recently Enjoyed: This fascinating interview about feminism on Fresh Air

Sunday

I have exactly enough creamer for one exquisite cup of coffee. Naomi climbed into my bed early with a cough. Switched the laundry downstairs. Made a list a list of grocery supplies for the fridge while I'm gone. Looked out at the cold, gray sky and turned back to my one exquisite cup of coffee.

Shivering In The Corridor

Sometimes I'll put things in this blog only because I don't want to lose them. Yesterday I came across the following section of Barbara Kingsolver's book The Lacuna which I read this time last year. I scribbled the section into my notebook but it was lost under my bed for months, the edges of the page frayed.

The words, however, resound inside some emptiness at the center of my chest. I read the section again and again last night in hopes they'd burn through my eyes and into my brain. Ultimately I can't trust my memory though. Paper can be so delicate a thing. And I found the section too generous and tender to be lost again, so, indulge me.

"'Andele. Go on now, get in the water,' [Leandro] said. 'You will be surprised.'

"The pale-skinned boy stood shivering in water up to his waist, thinking these were the most awful words in any language: You will be surprised. The moment when everything is about to change. When Mother was leaving Father (loudly, glasses crashing against the wall), taking the child to Mexico, and nothing to do but stand in the corridor of the cold little house, waiting to be told. The exchanges were never good: taking a train, a father and then no father. Don Enrique from the consulate in Washington, then Enrique in Mother's bedroom. Everything changes now, while you stand shivering in the corridor waiting to slip through one world into the next.

"And now, at the end of everything, this: standing waist-deep in the ocean wearing the diving goggle, with Leandro watching. A pack of village boys had come along too, their dark arms swinging, carrying the long knives they used for collecting oysters. White sand caked the sides of their feet like pale moccasins. They stopped to watch, all the swinging arms stopped, frozen in place, waiting. There was nothing left for him to do but take a breath and dive into that blue place."

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Stuck In My Brain: These Air-Quality Color Changing Shirts. I appreciate the sentiment but find the lung shaped air-quality indicators uniquely disturbing.
Anxiously Awaiting: Phoenix, AZ for three days next week. Conference for work. Snazzy hotel. Temperatures in the upper sixties.
Dinner Plans: Leftover Thai Curry. I've been thinking about it all day.

Turbine

Excuse me while I completely gear-head-geek out over my job for a sec with this photo. It's a glam shot of the Westinghouse Combustion Turbine, Dual-Fuel, 27 MW, unit installed and operational in 1972.

The unit isn't often dispatched for power production. It is, however, only slightly older than I am. It was due to be either retired or undergo some serious maintenance. Given the shared vintage between me and this machine I was pleased when LES opted for the maintenance route in 2009. This was the first complete turbine over-haul performed on this Westinghouse.

I'm standing on the roof, here, to get a proper vantage point. If you're at all familiar with the sweaty palms and panic attack I'll have at even moderate heights, you can appreciate why somebody marked the moment. I'll scale tall buildings if I have to - I just don't often find an occasion where I have to.

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A big shout out to: My brother M@. Happy Birthday, man. How 'bout you let me bake you a cake?
QOTD: The best way out is always through (Robert Frost)

Cracked

Slumped against one side of my office doorway, he said I should come outside. There was something he wanted to show me. It was one of those days that required a winter coat and sunglasses. I grabbed both and met his stride down hallway, out the door. Even a short walk with the guys I work with is accompanied by an easy, joking conversation.

As we stepped outside I wheeled around toward the Turbine Hall of the power plant. Bryan veered the other direction. He motioned me to follow and stopped by the driver's side of my car.

Walking by a little bit ago he noticed the front wheel on my car was cracked. I was a little stunned. Stunned enough I couldn't really speak so the easy conversation fell to him entirely.

Call Olston's Body Shop, he advised. They might have a used wheel. It's about a 15-minute job to mount and balance it on the car. Don't let them charge more than $200.

He popped the hood of my trunk. Started the forward motion without formally offering to mount my spare on the vehicle. Bad idea to be driving down the Interstate at 70mph to work everyday on a front wheel that isn't properly affixed.

Ten minutes later the spare was mounted and the cracked rim was in the trunk of my car. I had a series of short phone conversations with Olston's. They located a used part. It's on order. My car (affectionately referred to as Lola) has a 15-min appointment on Friday to have the used wheel mounted and balanced.

I'm bad about accepting help often times. And I'm painfully embarrassed to admit sometimes I require such help. While I couldn't and wouldn't have set up a situation like this it was nice to sense the way that people look out after me.

He stood up from the side of my car, dusted off the snowmelt from his knees. Sighed and smiled confidently at me with that "We gotcha" sentiment. It made me feel not so all alone.
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Recent Misread: Journal Star Headline "Nebraska Women Suffering From A Case Of The Cold" I thought would address the emotional squish from this brutal winter. Instead it's an article about women's basketball.
New Word I Found: Discomposure
Recent Goodness: I was standing in the aisles of the grocery store. Somebody started singing MacK The Knife. It smeared a smile across my face in remembrance of my grandpa mac.

Shameless Political Plug

My friend and fellow Lincoln transplant, Josh Davies, must have landed in Denver sometime after my U-Haul was packed up for its return trip to Nebraska. Through the world of social media, however, I found out Josh is running for Denver's At-Large City Council seat.

I consider Josh a good guy: thoughtful, energetic, he's not a vegetarian but eats his veggies. If you're a meleeska-blog-reader from Colorado I hope you'll consider voting for him.

Zombies vs. Unicorns

Available for check-out from Lincoln City Libraries.

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Recent Goodness: Naomi & I had an everyday breakfast on fancy dishes.
Currently Reading With Naomi: The People of Sparks by Jeanne DuPrau
Personal Soundtrack: Whenever You're On My Mind by Marshall Crenshaw
Recently Watched: Capitalism: A Love Story
Enviable Resume: My professor this semester graduated from the University of Hawaii. Twice.

Destination Life-List

At the ripe old age of seventeen I penned my first travel destination life-list. It's a list that has gone through several iterations. There is one item with serious staying power. I'd like to see the Northern Lights from a hot tub.

Anyone who has ever asked after my far-away dreams and destinations has heard this same schpeel. The words "Northern Lights" and "hot tub" are like two-sides of a coin. They come together.

Yesterday I was surfing the CNN website travel section and found a luxury spa boat that offers "Northern Light Safari" cruise itineraries tagged with the following sales pitch: "...don't fancy wrapping up in winter woolens to watch the Northern Lights, how about watching them from a hot tub?"

Ah! Somebody stole my daydreaming, placed it aboard a converted 1950s whaling trawler named the "Vulkana" and forgot to float me a ticket.

Winter

Butternut Squash soup provided some shelter from the windchill outside today. The moment was so completely divine I couldn't help but fling it out into the blogosphere.

Weekend Numbers

4 - Number of handmade dolls Naomi sewed
2- Panic attacks suffered while setting up my new laptop
5 - Pots of Hot Tea brewed
16 - Number of sewing seam repair jobs performed. (aka further evidence that Melissa's a cheapskate)
2 - Bear hugs I received in the aisles of A Novel Idea Bookstore
6- Hours spent in the lovely company of close friends
2- Meals eaten at bedside just for unfettered pampering of it all
0 - Dirty dishes occupying my kitchen sink as of 9PM Sunday
12- Hours spent trudging around in the cold outside because a case of cabin fever will occasionally render the "stay at home" a non-viable alternative
3- Items we took through the Lincoln City Library Self-Checkout on Saturday
4- Customer service transactions Naomi managed all on her lonesome
31- Hours it took for Naomi to read The City of Ember from start to finish
1-Layers of drywall mud applied to the seams of our construction area
10 - Number of times Naomi uttered the phrase "Alyssa has really good taste in music!" as we were drove around town listening to my winter mix from the lovely Ms. Tucker.
1.5 - Hours Naomi spent studying Mandarin at the Confucius Institute
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Big Shocker Moment: Naomi appreciates the musical stylings of both Barbara Streisand and Lady Gaga (thanks again, Lys!)

Desert Island

Naomi was brushing her teeth this morning and I was angled over her, looking around on the bathroom shelf for my makeup. I have a terrible habit of slipping my mascara into my coat pocket or wandering around with my powder blush which means my cosmetics (such as they are) tend to be littered all over the house.

Naomi rolled her eyes at me. I thought this was the typical eye-roll to let me know I'm being ridiculous some how.

Naomi: If you're stranded on a desert island, mom, and you can only take one thing of make up...
Me: ...yes?
Naomi: ...take lipstick.
Me: Really?
Naomi: Yep, lipstick. You can use it...you know...on your lips. It rubs around on your cheeks, too, to make you look all embarrassed.
Me: As blush, you mean?
Naomi: Uh-uh. And, in a pinch, you can smear some on your eyelids.
Me: Sounds pretty useful.
Naomi: Mom...(eye-roll)...there's nothing useful about make up. But if you have to take something to a desert island: take lipstick.

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Other things I've learned from this desert-island game. If you're stranded on a desert island and you can only take one...
...food: pasta (Naomi), buttered-toast (me)
...book: Harry Potter (Naomi), Interpreter of the Maladies (me)
...game: Plants v. Zombies (Naomi), Scrabble (me)
...song: Sparks Fly by Taylor Swift (Naomi), Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings (me)
...smell: hot chocolate (Naomi), wet grass (me)
...person: Isabel (Naomi), Naomi (me)

Chillaxing

I've run across this hipster word for the past several months: Chillaxing. Obviously it's a somewhat clever combination of the words "chill" and "relaxing".

Cleverness mixed with laziness which is typical of the hipster scene. Being too linguistically lazy to choose between the closely related terms, or to provide either with the dignity of their full (grammatically correct) utterance.

My problem, though, isn't the word itself. It's how the word is painstakingly defined for me in each encounter. It's like I wouldn't catch on, or that I'm so far from the state of chillaxing that I'd need help navigating the definition.

It's a quip that makes me chuckle, self-deprecatingly, at the ubiquitously uncool, middle aged, type A position I must occupy in life. I've never been a hipster, not really, and I'm chill with that.

Snow Days

Naomi has been itching to learn to knit. She's a crafty sort of a kid who is commonly found in the company of molding clay or a sewing project or something that requires the use of a hot glue-gun. So this knitting request wasn't a complete surprise.

The trouble was I've knitted exactly two things in my life. Neither were done particularly well. Both projects at least 15 years ago with a lot of aggravation and profanity involved. Sizing myself up honestly, I could see I wasn't the best suited knitting teacher. So I hooked up Naomi with my friend, Sarah, who is a has a life-long crafting habit.

You name it Sarah tackles it: scrapbooking, paper-making, painting, stenciling, sewing, and...drum roll, please...knitting. The three of us (Naomi, Sarah & me) met up a couple of weeks ago with yarn and knitting looms. Learned a couple of knots. Sarah is as close to a crafting-rock-star as my kid will ever meet. Let's just say she is mentioned often and admiringly at our house.

With the cold weather and two snow-days in a row from public school, this knitting habit has been a godsend. Naomi and I will trudge up to the Meadowlark Coffeeshop, order ourselves a hot cocoa, take out some yarn and fall into an easy kind of chatter away from the cold wind outside.

Substitution Effect

I realize it's too early to congratulate myself, however, I have worked out every day of this New Year. I'm a mix-and-match exerciser. I'll try just about anything: jumping rope, cycling, running, yoga, years ago Mck equipped me with a NordicTrack.

Yesterday morning, though, I went looking for my Bollywood Dance Workout video. Here's a little known secret: my first love was dancing. I spent years taking classes. Spent years frequenting Colorado dance clubs. Wedding receptions, street concerts, live music, someplace with a nice sound system, the occasional grocery store aisle...I have the urge to move. So I was particularly excited about the prospect of this dance workout.

I spent 20 minutes fumbling around the downstairs looking for the DVD and finally gave up. Went with a yoga series instead. It was too bad. When you're itching for some Bollywood Dancing anything else pales by comparison.
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Anxiously Anticipating: NOVA's "Secrets Beneath the Ice" via DVR
Travel Docket: Phoenix, AZ for an Energy-Environment Conference in late January. Yes, I'm escaping the dark of Midwestern winter for an excursion to the desert southwest. I'm pretty pleased about it.
Remodeling Project Du Jour: Splitting the upstairs into one (hopefully two) more true bedrooms with closets and all. Photos of construction rubble to follow.