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What a Weekend!!

03 Saturday May 2014

Posted by fivenineteen in Uncategorized

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adventure, facing fear, fitness, friends, friendship, lean eating, new experiences, nutrition, precision nutrition, Seattle, trapeze

Holy crap…she’s blogging on a SATURDAY – GAH!!!  Hey everyone, well yowza it’s been a few weeks since my last post…and the time felt like NOW to do one, so here I am!

Ever have a weekend with nothing going on and yet you still feel exhausted when Monday rolls around and it’s time to go back to work?  And on the flip side…a weekend so jam-packed just reading the schedule makes you feel tired…but afterwards you feel so REFRESHED and INVIGORATED??   Last weekend was one of those weekends.  My head spun at the thought of all we were going to pack into one day. A Sunday.  But afterwards I felt like a new woman and 10 years younger!

So what happened?  Well, my coach in the Lean Eating for Women program I started last July came up to Seattle to see her Seattle-area clients!  She and I Skype occasionally (she lives in the Lake Tahoe area), and she sends us videos every week with encouragement for us and some info on what’s coming up in the week ahead.  And we all belong to a private Facebook group. So I felt like I already ‘knew’ D beforehand…and I was so excited to finally see her in person!

We had a huge lineup of activities planned, from eating out to various fitness-related stuff (of course!) and people would just show up to what they wanted to do depending on their weekend schedules.  Friday night we toasted the weekend ahead with dinner at Matt’s in the Market in Seattle.

SeaScallopsTalk about an iconic location…Matt’s is right at the main entrance to the Pike Place Market, up a couple of flights of stairs. Your visit to Seattle isn’t complete without a walk through the bustling market – people, food, art, music, shopping…it’s all there!  And Matt’s is kitty corner from the famous City Fish Company, where the guys throw the fish back and forth to each other while they’re working.

Check out my dinner…YUM…that is a glorious meal of sea scallops with peas, pea puree, Thumbelina carrots and ham hock.  Absolutely outstanding!!  We then walked the Pike Hill Climb and had dessert at some cool place that starts with an “A” and for the life of me I can’t remember it.  Funny.

Some of the group met up Saturday morning for a bike ride from downtown Seattle where D was staying out to Discovery Park. I didn’t have a bike and didn’t really feel like renting one…plus I decided I really needed to just rest and do some food prep for the week ahead.  Ahhh, a perfect choice!

Because then there was Sunday.  Sunday April 27.  A day I faced two of my fears head on:  my fear of ladders and my fear of heights.  I haven’t really done any posts about fear because I try to keep things light and somewhat humorous in here, but ladders and heights do give me the willies.  Hell, I don’t even like getting up on a step stool in my kitchen!

So what did I do to face these fears?  See for yourself!!

Yes, I climbed up a 28′ ladder, jumped off a platform and swung on a trapeze!!!  Holy crap!

One of the women in our Seattle group suggested doing a trapeze class together – and when I heard about it I had the same rush and whoosh feeling as when I was asked if I wanted to try learning to play hockey years ago.  I KNEW I was going to do it, despite feeling freaked out!

We met up Sunday morning at SANCA Seattle, the School of Acrobatics and New Circus Arts.  Who knew there even was such a place?  Along with the huge circus tent where we had the trapeze class, there was another building where they teach tumbling for kids and adults and other circus-type stuff.  I was fascinated beyond belief!  And the instructors were incredible.  So happy and cheery…and they know their shit.  We did some warm up exercises together and they talked through the whole process from climbing the ladder to dismounting off the safety net we would land on.  I was getting so nervous that I was having a hard time remembering everything they were saying, but I figured they’d repeat it anyway when it was our turn to jump and swing!

Safety of course is paramount through all of this.  From the time you step on the first ladder rung to your dismount off the safety net and back on the ground you have safety lines attached to you.  You put on a belt cinched very tight which has several large rings to hook your lines on.  Once you get to the top of the ladder onto the platform, an instructor is up there to switch out your lines to the ones for your jump and swing.

And that platform up there is not very big.  I’m sure the “holy fuck” look on my face when I got off the ladder an onto the platform was epic.  The guy up there looked about 18 and was kind of short. And I’m thinking “YOU’RE going to help me do this??”  But the guy was great…and strong with Popeye forearms!  He stood behind me while I stood with my toes hanging over the edge of the platform.  I was gripping a short ladder like structure with my left hand and LEANING FORWARD with my hips forward.  This is what you do while they pull the trapeze bar to you with a giant hook.  Believe me, this is THE most unnatural and counterintuitive way to stand ever!!  GAH!!

They tell you ahead of time that “the bar’s going to feel heavy,” when they pull it to you and you grab it with your right hand.  And ummmm, hello, that was the understatement of the century!  That fucker is HEA-VY!  But the guy behind me held me in place.  My heart was pounding.  I probably forgot to breathe too.  Then I grabbed the bar with my left hand and waited for the command to jump from the other instructor on the ground.

“READY….HEP!!”  We learned that ‘hep’ is circus talk for ‘go.’  Why don’t they say “go”??  Well, in the tent with the acoustics and everything, ‘go’ can sound like ‘no,’ which is not a good thing.  With this kind of activity there is no room for ambiguity!  Well, there was a few seconds delay after my ‘hep’ before I got the courage to take my feet off the bar.  I had this weird sensation that if I did that I would drop straight down and hit my head on the platform!  Strange!  Well, there is no way that could happen because the bar is so heavy it pulls you away from the platform very quickly.

What a rush!!!  Oh my GOD…it was both frightening and exhilarating at the same time!  I DID IT!!  In fact, I got 4 jumps in during our session (there were 7 of us, including two kids, and they had the order written on a chalkboard so we each got an equal amount of turns).  In the exercise I did you’re supposed to bring your legs up and swing by your knees, get back up and then do the backflip dismount.  But I’ll try that again next time.

Yes, I said “next time!!!”

After that we changed our clothes and headed up to Whole Foods in downtown Seattle to grab lunch.  We figured that was easiest so we could just grab whatever we wanted and eat it in the store.  Then we walked a few blocks to the Chihuly Garden and Glass  exhibit at the Seattle Center!  Long gone is the old Fun Forest amusement park (anyone else have great memories of that place as a kid?)…now it’s Chihuly.  Beautiful glass sculpture and wonderfully unique installations of glass art outside intermingled with real plants.

Meanwhile, D wanted to know if anyone wanted massages.  She had found a cheap place on Yelp where it was something like $25 for a 45-minute foot massage.  What?  That sounds almost criminal.  Well, we decided to go for it so she made reservations for us.

Here’s where it gets interesting and funny.  D says “well, can we walk there too?”  After learning that this massage place was in the International District I laughed and said nope…that’s clear at the other end of town!  So, we drove! Hey, why not give D a mini tour of Seattle neighborhoods meanwhile, right?

We headed into the Pacific Rim Center, a sparsely filled out indoor mall with a rather strange vibe and energy to it.  Maybe it’s because I was somewhere I’d never been before…in my hometown.  Maybe it was because D and the rest of us were the only 4 Caucasian people in the massage place.  And maybe it was the weirdness of walking into a sea of massage chairs just out in the open.  And the silence.  Everyone was fully-clothed (whew)…but was this one of those “happy ending” places??  Yikes.

Ever have a foot massage that starts with your scalp? Nope, me neither…until that afternoon.  And the guy doing my massage was about my Dad’s age I’m guessing.  Just an overall very odd experience.  I had my clothes on with a towel draped over me so it wasn’t feeling creepy, but still was weird.  And this massage…holy crap I still have bruises a week later around my knees and on my forearms and thighs!  I don’t remember it hurting too much (would have said something) so I was shocked that I am still looking like a domestic violence victim or bondage lover even a week later!

We finished off the evening with dinner at Purple in downtown Seattle.  Great, relaxing food and a huge wine selection too.  We laughed as we reminisced about the day – such a random mix of stuff we did…IN ONE DAY!  And I laughed too thinking that WOW, of everything we did that Sunday, going to Purple was the ONLY thing I’d ever done before!

There’s so much more to my hometown, Seattle, that I’ve yet to explore and discover.  And how cool it took a visitor from out-of-town to make it all happen.  Bliss.

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Yoga’d…and Blessed

16 Sunday Sep 2012

Posted by fivenineteen in Uncategorized

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accidents, friends, friendship, hockey, jewelry, people, relationships, Silpada, Starbucks, yoga

OK, first of all, fivenineteen is officially THREE!  Three years old!!  The (my?) official birthday was Saturday September 15.  9/15.  WOW…I never realized how that’s an exact mirror image of 5/19.  Where is that Twilight Zone music?  Honestly, that’s just a beautiful accident (or was it?). Absolutely was not intended….but I love it and I laugh how I just noticed that this year.  Thank you to my followers – old and new – and to everyone out there who stumbled in here by accident!  Welcome to my big ol’ ball of random!

This weekend reminded me how blessed I am to have incredible women in my life.  Great friends – old and new – and my Mom. 

Yesterday was all about getting the girls together and playing in jewelry!  Many of you know that I am a Silpada Designs representative, representing an incredible line of .925 sterling silver jewelry, handcrafted with semi-precious stones.  I’ve been a fan of the jewelry for around 6-7 years – I’d purchased pieces at home shopping parties or for fundraisers – and never thought I’d give direct selling on my own a try…but I started doing this nearly two years ago and I love it!  It’s easy to share what you love when you love what you represent!  I love sharing how .925 sterling (92.5% silver + 7.5% copper & zinc for strength – pure silver is too soft on its own for jewelry) is the highest grade of sterling silver there is.  It’s the same grade that Tiffany’s uses in their jewelry, and believe me Silpada’s price points are nowhere near Tiffany’s!

I tried something totally different and fun, for I had my jewelry on display at a restaurant inside a hotel where my team meets monthly…a combination of current pieces plus a lot of retired pieces marked down, gift boxed and priced to move!  In the process I had a lot of people stop by while I was setting up – even the executive chef stopped by to introduce himself and snap a pic of a necklace to see if his wife wanted one for herself!  It just ‘feels’ good in there – the restaurant staff is so gracious and accommodating…believe me when you get 20 of us jewelry reps together at a big table for meetings and throw in wine and munchies we can get a little rowdy!  Those meetings are a fun way to blow off steam from the workday, or for those who are stay at home Moms to get out of the house for a few hours for some adult time with girlfriends!

It was fun seeing friends of mine meet one another for the first time, plus having everyone meet my Mom!  Heck, even my Mom – who has the most exquisite taste in fine gold jewelry – is starting to take a shine (no pun intended) to sterling silver! Plus the mixed metal look (combining gold and silver) is super hot right now and I think it’s a trend that will continue far into the future.

So we had fun playing with jewelry, and it was both fun and nice to have a lot of my retired, discounted pieces find new homes.  I never thought I’d have “too much jewelry,” but after doing this for a couple of years my jewelry box has really grown, enough to where it was time to scale back and streamline.

And this morning…drum roll…Yours Truly got her butt out of bed early!  Meaning, an 8am meetup!  For carpooling to yoga!  Now, I’ve probably posted way too much in here about how I’m not a morning person, especially on the weekends.  While I feel I’m wasting the day when I sleep in until 10:30 or so on a Saturday or Sunday, I listen to my body’s rhythms.  It needs it and I’m not going to fight it off.

When I knew I was going to take a sabbatical from hockey (starting this fall season – and wow, looks like the NHL is doing the same with the lockout – ugh) I entertained ideas of what I’d do with this new, freed up spare time (and money).  Try yoga again – or try working out with a trainer? Revisit trying to learn Norwegian again for a someday-someday trip to the arctic?  So far the personal training is underway – 5 sessions done so far with B’s weekly ass kickings and I’m slowly rediscovering muscles that were long dormant.  My hamstrings and triceps are still on fire from last Thursday’s workout!

So to add fuel to that fire, I joined my dear friend D and her friend K for what I like to call “drop in yoga.”  [kinda like drop in / pickup hockey, ha ha.]   D recently moved to Austin, TX for a wonderful job opportunity, and her amazing energy just seems to swoop in whenever it’s needed.  Here she was in town for a few days, with a spontaneous invitation for me to join her and K for a free, open house yoga session at Lila.  D is probably one of the few (well, more than a few) who can motivate me to wake up, meet at a Starbucks and whisk me away in the morning for something beautiful, new and fun.  That and the 5Ks that P inspired me to start doing a few years ago with her.  Yep, those two take the prize.

So before I could walk into the Starbucks at Carillon Point to grab a double-tall nonfat latte, D and K arrived to scoop me up and take me to yoga!  Which I have not done in nearly 9 years!  In fact, I tried yoga for the first time the same weekend I started learning to play hockey.  What an intense Saturday-Sunday that was, pushing myself physically in two different ways I’d never tried before.  In fact, I had a third opportunity that fall in 2003 to join a friend for belly dancing lessons but my dance card was full.  I like to joke with people that I had a choice between belly dancing and hockey, and hockey won out.

So here we were at Lila (LEE la), which means Divine Play (I learned that from their website).  I was so grateful that K had an extra yoga mat for me to borrow – mine is buried deep somewhere in my garage.  I was impressed with the studio layout, how friendly everyone was, the beautiful light streaming through the studio – I love the beautiful Madison Park neighborhood in Seattle – and how the instructor took the time to greet each of us newcomers with a handshake, smile and personal welcome before we got started.

Oh man, what a wake up call!  The yoga memories of that introductory course nearly nine years ago came flooding back to me.  How inflexible I am…or where I actually am somewhat.  The poses – so hard to hold after a few cycles of repetition…if you have not tried yoga it is not just sitting and meditating – you work up a sweat!  But at the same time re-centering with your inner calm and confidence.  Inner glow.  And I remember the wise words of my instructor from 9 years ago when I would get frustrated at my lack of flexibility or difficulty holding a pose.  “Just give it 10 years,” she said in a soothing voice.  Aha!  That’s when I learned that yoga really and truly is NOT a quick fix.  Rather, it’s a lifelong practice and lifestyle.

It was a wonderful re-centering experience – just what I needed.  D and I headed back to the suburbs afterwards and grabbed a late breakfast at The Brief Encounter Cafe in Bellevue – a perfect place for hearty food, nice service and post-yoga sweats and leggings. 

And then I went home and took a two-hour nap.  I was stunned at how I was back home before noon.  So much of the day ahead…with a much-needed nap to celebrate Sunday.  And I smile, relishing the amazing friendships I have in my life.  Ahhhh, bliss. 

Namaste.

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“…of course we’ll stay in touch…”

19 Sunday Feb 2012

Posted by fivenineteen in Uncategorized

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airport, contact, fax machine, ferry, friends, friendship, job, mentor, son, typewriter, West Seattle, work

The year was 1991.  I was 24, still shedding that college-esque mentality and trying to get my foothold into some sort of what I sort of thought was a career…of sorts.  Fumbling my way into adulthood.  I remember leaving my first job fresh out of college after being there just shy of two years.  My first time realizing that a job was not my life…and that the job I had at the time – well, the company rather – was going downhill and fast.  Little did I know I was a firsthand witness to the end of late 1980s gluttony, for real.  And when you work in an office with just six people you know more than you probably ever cared to know about them, their lives, family dramas, and on and on.  As a wide-eyed college graduate I soaked it all in intensely.  Was THIS how it was going to be the rest of my working career?  I was *just* getting used to the idea that going to work every day was not some make believe dress-up-in-skirt-and-heels-and-pantyhose type of gig.  This was earning a living.

I pulled the plug on that job in a cushy office in downtown Seattle we had no business occupying given the, well, the lack of business we were bringing in once our large cash cow account started drying up.  And I took up a new position with a freight forwarding company as a coordinator in their import department.  Yep, I answered an ad in the newspaper via snail mail and all.  I don’t even remember if I had an inside referral or not.  Memories fade.

But what I won’t forget is the environment shock.  Going from an overly-glamorous office on the 67th floor of what was then known as the Columbia Center in downtown Seattle with a 270-degree view to die for, to a cracker box of a one-story office down near Sea-Tac airport directly under a flight path.  Or so it sounded, as the building rattled every time a plane took off and landed.  (After awhile I got used to it – probably kind of like when you live near railroad tracks).  And my bus pass became useless, for I had to now commute by car down the (old) viaduct everyday and over the (old) 1st Avenue South bridge over the Duwamish River, which was often a white-knuckled experience – a narrow, two-lane bridge which was not good for one’s blood pressure on dark, rainy mornings with a large semi coming at you in the opposite direction.  Yep, it was a reverse commute through the gritty, industrial parts of Seattle. Which was what this job was all about….no nonsense freight forwarding.  This company was travel agents for cargo – air freight, ocean freight, domestic and international both…you name it.  My job was to process paperwork that endlessly spilled onto my desk in thick envelopes from a courier or through the never ending fax machine whirr, contact the recipient named on the documentation and pitch our additional services for US customs clearance, warehousing and delivery to wherever the freight was supposed to end up.  Sometimes it was recurring business, like the one-hour photo processing equipment we regularly imported from Switzerland and Italy.  Sometimes it was boutique soaps from Europe or a 40-foot ocean container full of beer from Tasmania.  Or someone’s items for a trade show.  Or lighting samples for what was then a fledgling store concept called Home Depot. 

Or ad hoc things like a wooden statue from Thailand, which was apparently a trojan horse of sorts for drugs unbeknownst to innocent me.  Oh yeah, it’s not fun being six weeks into a new job and having two plain clothes detectives come barging into your place of work, demanding to speak to “fivenineteen” – using my full name.  How in hell did they figure out *I* was the one in that import desk position for this company?  Guess that’s why they’re detectives. Anyway, after being questioned at length (thank goodness our branch manager was present to back me up), they realized I had nothing to do with whatever “it” was.  Instead, I got to be a part of the stake out to bust the alleged smugglers. 

When the recipient of the statue came to our office to pay for the air freight charges and customs clearance services (around $400 if I recall), he whipped out a stack of C-notes like I would whip out Ones.  Actually his stack of C-Notes was probably much thicker than that.  He whipped out a few, put them in an envelope and thanked me.  Beyond that I have no idea what happened, other than I did get a quick drive by “thank you” from the detectives afterwards.  I remember counting the money after the guy left and realizing he’d left me an extra $100 bill, probably as a tip – who knows.  I felt dirty and gave it to our branch manager, who promptly put it into our party slush fund.

You know, I could never have gotten through this and so many other bizarre and hilarious scenarios if it wasn’t for J.  I think I’ve mentioned Js in other posts, so I’ll go with JL here so we don’t mix them up.

JL literally took me under her wing.  She was about ten years my senior and already well-seasoned in the freight forwarding industry, having taken up a part-time job with DHL while she was still in high school.  And speaking of high schools, she was actually a student of my Grandmother’s while at Mount Ranier High School in Des Moines, WA.  Talk about small worlds!!  She remembered my Grandmother vividly – a tough, firm teacher for sure – passionate about her students and her craft!  (My Grandmother – age 95, turning 96 this summer – taught Home Economics for a few years after my Dad and Uncle were out of the house as adults).

JL taught me so much about the freight forwarding industry – and about work ethic in general.  Coming from a small company who was starting to see business decline, my perspective of a fast-paced office was extremely shifted to the slow end of the spectrum.  It was a shock to suddenly be surrounded and swamped by constant phone ringing (we had no receptionist so we all had to take turns answering the phone and routing calls/paging people) and that ever-persistent fax machine spewing.  Neat freaks needed not apply – our desks were always stacked high with paperwork, files, post its, and thank goodness for those vertical file folder holders. 

I probably smoked a few packs of cigarettes secondhand along the way too.  JL and I were two of the few non-smokers at that company.  People were constantly either outside or in our warehouse taking smoke breaks.  This was the subject of constant internal office bickering too…smokers vs non-smokers; I remember JL taking a quick sanity break to walk outside to blow off steam one afternoon, and our manager questioning her what she was doing away from her desk. “I’m taking a SMOKE BREAK,” she snapped sarcastically.  Right on. 

So between the phone ringing off the hook (remember this was the pre-email era), typewriters, the fax machine and our stacks of US Customs-required carbon paper in triplicate, I learned a lot from JL.  Most importantly, how to multi-task.  I would listen to how she smoothed over tough situations over the phone with anyone from customers to air cargo agents, warehouse workers and truck drivers.  And I remember telling her one afternoon, “Wow, JL….YOU GIVE GOOD PHONE!”  And we laughed.

Ironically, JL and I each resigned from that company within mere weeks of one another.  Three years was enough for me.  I’d accepted a new job offer from a company that was an offshoot of my very first job right out of college.  With a 30% salary bump to boot. 

How many of you have told your co-workers, oh sure, would love to keep in touch, after either one of you moves onward?  Nowadays thanks to LinkedIn and Facebook it’s relatively easy to do so, but it still takes work. 

JL and I left that company in 1994.  And, after about a decade gap (with one baby boy born in between – JL’s son, now age 4), we got together at her house yesterday.  She and I have chatted on the phone on and off over the years – wonderful phone conversations that go on for two hours without either of us realizing it.  But yesterday finally was The Day.

Now, before I forget, JL was also my partner in crime for not one but TWO Caribbean cruises.  1997 and 2000 respectively.  Talk about keeping in touch…she and I have actually traveled together, gloriously!

I really hope it hasn’t been since 2002 since I’ve seen JL but that actually might be true.  That was the year she and her now-husband bought their home in West Seattle (and I bought my townhouse later that same year too).  I remember their housewarming party…a wonderful barbecue with tons of people and laughter, and the oohs and ahhs admiring their view.  Fast forward to 2012 and I hit the road with a smile on my face off to visit JL and meet her son for the first time!

We’d planned on going for a long walk around the neighborhood but it was really windy and blustery out.  I smiled as I drove back out to West Seattle.  I’ve blogged about this neighborhood before…the family roots are deep for my grandfather, Dad, Uncle (and Aunt, my Uncle’s high school sweetheart to this day) all graduated from West Seattle High School. 

And the picture in today’s post is the view from JL and her husband’s house.  We’re looking directly at Blake Island.  You can just see a few white caps on the Sound (if you squint; I took this with my camera phone). When it’s clear out the Olympic Mountains frame the horizon.  And, the Vashon Island Ferry goes back and forth.  It’s just glorious.

I smiled as I got nearer to JL’s house.  It was all coming back to me now.  A decade since my last visit?  The years melted away.  As I walked up the steps to their front door I saw a giggly, smiling little boy grinning at me in the window.  Wow.  JL’s become a wife and mother (at 50-something!) in the two decades plus since I first met her. 

She’s truly one of those great friends where we can just pick up where we left off.  A few hours visit just whizzed by.  She had to get back into the office for some additional work, but we sure enjoyed some great hot tea, conversation and laughs in the meantime.  She showed me a framed picture she still has of us on our first cruise back in 1997.  A smiling picture of us enjoying ourselves in St. Maarten.  I almost burst into tears.  WOW that was a great trip.  And so long ago.

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Cabin Fever Week

22 Sunday Jan 2012

Posted by fivenineteen in Uncategorized

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cabin fever, friends, laughter, new year, paint, projects, snow, townhouse, walk, weather

How quickly things changed in 24 hours.  I came home from work last Friday (the 13th, which was a good day save for saying good bye to a co-worker who is relocating overseas), relaxed at home and slept in gloriously late into Saturday.  Know that feeling when you wake up and it just ‘feels’ different?  In my bleary just-out-of-bed attempt to wake up I couldn’t quite figure out what it was…other than it was super quiet outside.  No dull drone of street noise.

Aha!  It SNOWED!  Where did I miss this on the TV weather forecasts?  I suppose I should not have been too shocked – it is January, after all. I don’t even know where to start with this one.  Other than Snow + Seattle area is a very bad combination.  For getting around, that is.  Otherwise, it’s gorgeous.  Exhibit A – the view off my back deck. 

We got around 6 inches or so in my area – by the time it was done the faint line markings from the deck in that picture were completely covered over.  After hearing news reports and reading countless local-area Facebook posts we had anywhere from around 3 inches to over a foot depending on where you were.

The power stayed on here and my furnace is working.  Everything else after that truly is all gravy.  Check out my Cold Where It’s Supposed to be Cold post from (*gulp* wow time flies) November 2010.  Two furnace repairs and a crapped out fridge just a couple months prior to that made it an expensive end of that year…after just starting to get some decent income again following a long unemployed streak.  So anyway, here we are in 2012 and I relished my warm townhouse, hot showers and the beautiful snow falling outside.

After a couple of days it got old.  Driving in the snow in the Seattle area is a hot topic for sure.  In general, it’s not a good idea.  Seriously…a few inches of snow will literally bring us to our knees.  We’re hilly.  We don’t have a ton of snow removal equipment.  We’re not like other parts of the country who deal with this routinely and life goes on.  Around here, it just doesn’t.  Hell, when a UPS truck gets stuck in your driveway, you know it’s bad.

What is it about snow?  It brings a huge Hush Hug over everything in its embrace.  I stay in my jammies all day and take naps.  At noon. 

But soon it was time to get back to work.  Thankfully this team is all about playing it safe and not trying to be heroes getting into the office.  We can all work remotely, although in the type of work we do it’s not ideal for long periods of time as I learned.

There was one small problem.  The power cord for my work laptop was still in my office!  I never bring it home because I never work from home.  It still reminds me too much of when I was unemployed, and frankly I’d rather get out of the house and be around people during the day.  In my last work assignment my work laptop was the same brand as my home one, so it was easy to just swap out the power cords between the two if I ever did work from home on rare occasion.  Not this time, however.

On Monday I was able to squeak by with doing email either from my phone or through my home laptop.  But I didn’t have full access to the internal resources I depend on to get work done.  And I attempted a few times to get the work laptop connected with my home cable modem, but the modem is new and I was unfamiliar with the steps to switch connectivity (I don’t use a router).  And I watched the battery power indicator slowly sink southward as I chatted with our corporate Helpdesk and all to troubleshoot.  No luck. 

So I knew Tuesday I needed to get into work somehow to get that power cord.  They were predicting heavy snow Tuesday into Wednesday.  Turns out the main roads were pretty clear.  It’s the side streets, sidewalks and driveways that are the problem. 

I got into work just fine and was pleasantly surprised to see my officemate there already.  Ahhh, human interaction!  We had both planned to stay for a few hours, but then got a phone call from her husband around lunch time that it was really starting to snow hard and we better get home. I’m so glad he called, because our office does not have a window and it was snowing much harder up near where my officemate and I live compared to work.

When you’re stuck at home snowbound, the cabin fever grips tight.  The novelty wears off quickly.  So to fight it off, I vowed to get out of the house at least once a day for a walk.  And it really helps – and is pretty good exercise too stomping through heavy, wet snow.

Thankfully by Friday the snow turned to rain and everything turned into a big slushfest.  Relief was coming!  Freedom! 

And what a great way to blast back into the routine of life with a wonderful Saturday.  My friend L ventured out this way to the suburbs (I joke that he’s mentally allergic to them but that’s another story).  With iPad in hand, he and I walked through the townhouse here and talked about tons of ideas to update my place.  I know my place needs work, and I know I need to keep an open mind.  We jumped around all over the place with ideas and chitchat.  And we agreed on a general plan to start work upstairs here where the bedrooms are and then slowly work our way downstairs.  

Oh boy.  That means my 3rd bedroom – the Room of Crap – is in the hotseat first.  And that’s actually a great idea as it is very underutilized space save for a large bookcase and random stuff on the floor that needs to get boxed up into storage or thrown out.  And I get to think about paint colors too, for it’s still Insane Asylum White like the rest of this place was when I first bought it.  Oh, the possibilities!  L wants to convert it to my home office and have the home office where I am now become a guest bedroom, as this room is larger and can hold a queen-sized bed. Interesting idea!

Later I headed out (Out! After not driving for 5 days!) to meet friends for our annual Chinese New Year dinner at China Clipper in Woodinville.  They have wonderful, pretty close to authentic Northern Chinese cuisine.  We had a blast at dinner and then headed over to J’s house for board games and laughter.  Know when you laugh so hard that tears stream down your face? 

Fantastic.

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Oh, the Power of Connections!

31 Sunday Jul 2011

Posted by fivenineteen in Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

car rental, connections, friends, gas station, help, neighbor, repair, tow truck

By now a lot of you who tune in here regularly (thank you!!) know I typically have a new post on Sundays.  This is one of the most relaxing things I do all week – I look forward to the combo of mental downtime AND challenge when I blog.  Sometimes I have ZERO idea what I’m going to blog about when I sit down and fire up the keyboard.

This past week was totally different.  I knew exactly what I was going to write about today, and it was crystal clear to me as of last Monday night.

When I was a lot younger, I remember hearing people around me or on TV, wherever, say things like “it’s all who ya know.”  And for some reason that would never sit well with me.  I’d bristle inside and try to not roll my eyes.  I don’t know why I felt that way; actually this is my first attempt trying to put those feelings from so many years ago into words. 

But as I’ve gotten older, I’m reminded endlessly how true this is, and I don’t wrinkle up inside or get fussy about it.  Because I know it, breathe it, love it and live it. The connections I (and all of us) have have shaped my life in too many ways to list.  Friendships. Jobs. Dating. Hockey.  Lots of the big buckets in my life.  Well, the dating bucket is a little empty right now, but she’s there and ready.  Hmmm, that’s probably fodder for another post.

Monday started out great.  It was the beginning of my second full week in this new job.  I’m feeling so energized, motivated and happy with this group.  I wonder how much of it is honeymoon and how much is because this really IS a great place for me to be right now.  

On my commute home, I noticed my gas gauge was really low, so I stopped by a Chevron station I fill up at all the time.  After filling up my car, I started up the engine, but I couldn’t get my car out of Park, even after releasing the emergency brake.  I didn’t freak out too much, because this actually happened a couple of times a few months ago.  The solution was to shut off the engine, wiggle the steering wheel a little bit and then start up the car again.  Everything then worked just fine.

Not so much on this past Monday night.  I re-started the car multiple times and no matter what I could not get my car into gear!  I was starting to get a little self-conscious.  Here I was in peak-time commuting, when gas stations are pretty busy and I couldn’t get going and on my way.  15, 20, 25 minutes went by and I’m still parked in front of the damn gas pump!  

I went inside to let the cashier know.  He was a really nice man, and even offered to sit in my car and try it himself.  No-go for him either.  He put an orange cone behind my car and said, “it’s a linkage problem.”  And he walked away.  I also called my brother who sold me this car a few years ago.  He was sure there was a manual override button somewhere to get the car out of Park.  Even after sending him a picture of my gear console via my phone, we couldn’t find it.  

I knew it was time to call AAA and get towed to the shop.  Le Sigh.  But I tell you, that $50 annual membership fee pays for itself many times over.  As I was on the phone with the dispatcher my mind starting racing.  I knew I needed to 1) get home after getting my car to the shop and 2) get to work tomorrow morning.  By now it was around 7pm and I knew the dealership would be closed (meaning they wouldn’t be able to rent me a car that night). 

I called my neighbor A.  By some awesome luck of coincidence she was home and said she’d be able to get me home that night and would take me into work the next day, even though it was a ways from her work commute.  Wonderful!  I knew I could always get a cab home and figure out the bus to get into work, but I’m glad I didn’t need to.  My work laptop wasn’t set up yet for me to work remotely.

All I could do now was wait.  Wait for the tow truck and then wait for my neighbor to come get me. Then I remembered, oh yeah:  I have a weekly chat with L, my sponsor in my Silpada jewelry business on Monday nights.  My head was spinning with so much – when was I going to get home?  How much was this repair going to cost me?  And on and on.  I called L to tell her I was really preoccupied with this car situation and I was not going to be in any shape to talk bling. 

Here’s where it gets interesting!  She said, “oh, no worries, and I’ll call M.”  Oh my God, I’d totally forgotten her husband is a manager at a car rental company!  Within a few minutes she called me back.  M was able to get me a rental contract on the spot – at this late hour.  All I would have to do was get to the Goose (a bar in Bellevue) and he would be waiting with the car and paperwork.  WOW!  I was blown away.  If it hadn’t been Monday night, the night I typically chat with L, it never would have dawned on me to call her to have M help me out!

All of this happened while I was waiting for the tow truck driver.  I called my neighbor A back and told her once I got to the dealership to drop it off for repair, she would need to take me to the Goose to pick up my rental. 

The tow truck driver was really nice.  And before he hooked up my car to tow it, he tried nudging it very gently with his truck.  That worked!  I could now get the car out of Park and into gear!  We tried it two more times, but it failed on the 3rd try.  Yep, the car needed to go in the shop alright.

So I rode shotgun in the tow truck – it was just about a 10 minute drive to the dealership.  On the way there I called my brother back to tell him what happened and to thank him for his help troubleshooting over the phone.  We ended the call with “love you” as we always do.  After I hung up, the tow truck driver told me, “you know, we don’t tell our loved ones we love them enough. I’m glad you told your brother that when you were wrapping up your call. And take that as a compliment.”

Wow.  I was surprised but very touched.

When we arrived at the dealership I started filling out the envelope form for the after hours key drop off, and I called A to let her know I was ready for her to come get me.  The tow truck driver handed me his paperwork to sign and I thanked him for his help.  

I was still mentally reeling from everything that happened…I was feeling disoriented, overwhelmed – so many emotions all mixed up. 

What happened next totally blew me away.  The tow truck driver looked at me and said, “Ma’am, I know you aren’t very happy right now, but I want you to know how happy I am to help out someone like you tonight.” He went on to explain what he meant.  He meant someone not in any danger, uninjured and ALIVE.  We’ve had a couple of very bad accidents with fatalities these past couple of weeks.  A logging truck and semi got tangled up on one of our major freeways, slamming right into backed up commuter traffic.  About 16 cars were involved, and a 9 year old girl died a few days later.  And just a week ago, a man in his mid 40s, married with two young children was driving home from making a routine Sunday afternoon run to Costco. He was killed instantly when his car collided with a shit-faced drunk man in a road rage road race.  The driver who killed him walked away without a scratch.  And supposedly got out of the car and started beating his chest like an animal after the crash!  What the fuck?

P, the tow truck driver, explained that HE was part of the cleanup crew for both of those tragedies.  And as he told me more, his voice started to wobble and he choked up.  Suddenly, all of my inward mental bitching and moaning about my situation melted away.  I knew I had nothing to complain about that Monday night.  Sure my car had to go in the shop, but I wasn’t stranded in the middle of nowhere, I wasn’t in any danger, I wasn’t hurt…and I had great help getting through this 27-ring circus.

I’ll never forget P and his emotional reflecting on what he had to witness these past couple of weeks.  We don’t normally think about the emotional stress our rescue workers and ambulance drivers deal with as part of their jobs.  I should have hugged him.

After dropping off my car and riding with my neighbor A to the Goose to pick up my rental, I was exhausted.  But home, safe…and the proud renter of a Dodge Charger, ha!  Muscle cars are so not my style; I giggled as M pulled it up for me before signing the rental contract.  Vroom vroom!

Know what?  The next day I had my car back – and the repair was only $135!  Unbelievable!  You normally can’t walk into a dealership repair shop for that amount.  What happened?  The brake switch had failed (not the brakes themselves).  I learned that this is the switch that senses your foot is on the brake, and it then lets you take your car out of Park.  Aha! I’m such a GIRL with car repairs.  I know you’re supposed to get oil changes, check the tires and have them rotated occasionally.  Beyond that I have no clue.  

So I am relieved not only that my car got fixed but also how inexpensive the repair was!  My car is 12 years old and she’s a rockstar for sure, but I know at some point she’s gonna have to go out to pasture.

Meanwhile, I count my blessings…and connnections!

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Beat the Bridge…Beaten

15 Sunday May 2011

Posted by fivenineteen in Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

bridge, float, foot trail, freeway, friends, JDRF, jewelry, pinot grigio, real housewives, run, sleep, tired

Ah, bridges.

How much we depend upon our beloved bridges around here in the beautiful Puget Sound region.  Pulsing arteries jampacked with cars, buses, bikes – and painfully clogged during those peak commuter hours.  We’ve got so much natural gorgeousness around us…lakes, the Sound (salt water), rivers, mountains – all within a short drive for most of us.  Meaning, you can’t go far without eventually running into one of those.

Today was the annual Beat the Bridge run/walk to benefit the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.  The jewelry line I represent, Silpada Designs, has JDRF as its charity of choice.  One of the girls on our local team here had a wonderful idea for us to do Beat the Bridge and pledge to donate the commission from one of our jewelry parties as part of our fundraising!  What a great idea! With 10 of us participating and an average party commission at around $300 (yes, it’s true) we were excited to set our team goal at $3000!  Which bridge you may wonder?  The University Bridge, not far from the U of W campus where the race starts and finishes. 

This was planned back in February. And yes, we had the best of intentions.  However, the Universe had other intentions, which I discovered around 6am this morning.  

Bottom line, we didn’t go.  Damn that pouring rain already!

I knew that I’d be walking most if not all of this 8K – and most of the other girls were planning to as well.  Back in February I figured this would be a great way to kickstart getting back in shape for this summer’s 5Ks by restarting the Couch to 5K plan I’ve written about in here occasionally over the past year.  It’s an 8-week running and walking program – just 3 times a week – that gets you ready to run a 5K when you’re done.  And yes, it works!

But illness and stress earlier this year really sapped my energy and my poor lungs.  I had a bad cold and cough for about two months – it just wouldn’t go away.  It was all I could do to eeek out a game of hockey, much less hit the treadmill or go outside in our (cold, shitty) winter weather.  Soggy, soggy soggy.

Nevertheless, I was ready to get out of bed super early and drive to the freeway bus stop where my carpool was going to scoop me up this morning on the way into Seattle.

But let me back up to Saturday for a minute…a glorious, sensuous, warm and sunny day – the kind of day we’ve been starving for here all spring.  Spring so far this year has been a repeat of our rain-soaked, chilly winter sans the snow.  I had a few things planned for Saturday but decided to squeeze in another mini-adventure when it dawned on me that I really should verify I know how to get to the freeway bus stop where my carpool was going to pick me up.  I had an idea in my mind of how to get there, but realized it had been – gasp – nearly 10 years since I’d ventured to that bus stop with a friend.  I’d better go drive over and check it out!  And it was a beautiful day – a perfect excuse to open the sun roof and get some vitamin D the natural way, crank some music and just drive.

So what’s the big deal about this bus stop?  Well, it’s perched literally at land’s end before the freeway turns into one of our two floating bridges that connect Seattle with the suburbs.  These bridges were built decades ago and at the time were very state of the art given they ‘float.’  Lake Washington was determined too deep to do any sort of structural building underneath, hence the floating design.  And I’ll keep it to that because I’m no expert in structural engineering.

Now, there is an oddly creepy-looking pedestrian bridge over the freeway on the east side of the lake, which is how my friend P and I last got to that bus stop nearly a decade ago.  P and I have fallen out of contact and I’d forgotten where we had parked to walk across that bridge, hence my sunny journey in the car yesterday.

Boy am I glad I checked it all out.  There are major projects underway to build a second portion of this particular floating bridge to help with congestion…and, as I soon found out, plans to remove that pedestrian bridge!  Yep, once I figured out where to park and found the foot trail that was supposed to get me to the pedestrian overpass it was all blocked off.  Wow.

So it was a neon yellow vinyl fence that stopped me from my foot journey over the freeway.  And I was not one to rebel and climb through.  Who knows – it might not be structurally sound any longer.  Actually that’s not a good feeling since thousands of cars drive under it every day, but anyway I wasn’t going to chance it.

But I looked across the freeway and could see people waiting at that elusive bus stop.  How the hell did they get over there?  There was no parking lot near it at all – just a carved out covered area in a small, grassy hillside to stand or sit. 

As I started to get a little frustrated (NOW what?) I paused for a moment and just drank in everything around me.  I’m standing on a dirt trail in beautiful sunshine.  I’m mere steps from incredibly ritzy homes (in the ‘high rent district’ neighborhood around here called Medina).  And I’m also mere steps from, well, a 20 foot drop down to a roaring river freeway, with the hillside below covered in tangled, dirty weeds from decades of car exhaust.  How rare is it we stand still so close to a freeway like this?  Thankfully my time roadside has been those rare occasions when I’ve been in a fender-bender or have a flat tire.  It’s just astonishing watching and hearing the amount of cars whizzing by every second and being so close perched at the angle above it on the foot trail.  I think back on how many thousands of times in my life I have gone back and forth over that bridge.  As a child in the back seat of my parents’ old station wagon.  On my own as a teen and a freshly-minted drivers license in an orange 1970 Volvo (LOVED that car, wow). And countless times as an adult.

I jumped back in my car and drove back to the main road.  Aha!  I found a small, gravelly parking lot for bus commuters.  The trick was to park there and walk over the main road that goes over the freeway, not the pedestrian bridge.  Then, jump onto the trail on the bus stop side and voila – you’re there!  Wow, cryptic.  Believe me I tried searching online for maps long before I got in the car.  Anyway, a little resourcefulness pays off.

I walked over the freeway, again in awe of the cars whooshing by below me.  And looked to the west toward our beautiful, shining Lake Washington and the Olympic Mountains a little hazy along the horizon.  This is our back yard.  And how awesome it was to take it in on foot rather than as a stressed out commuter.  As I stepped onto the foot trail down to the bus stop I ran into a very nice lady out walking her dog.  She was disappointed that the pedestrian bridge was now closed off – she sounded like she walked over it fairly often so this might have been a really recent closure.

After my bridge and freeway adventure I drove over to my friend M’s house.  Back in the car, I laughed to myself and thought WOW, I am SO GLAD I did all that foot trail and bus stop homework a day ahead of time.  I am a terrible morning person and I would have been a total zombie case trying to figure it out that morning, worrying my carpool would be held up. 

After a quick visit with M (she is going to host a jewelry party in combination with her new office opening and we’re so excited!), I headed back home, grabbed a bottle of pinot grigio and walked up to my neighbor A’s house.  We’re getting in a groove of watching any of The Real Housewives series (on Bravo) that she has in her Tivo a couple of times a month.  Sadly I have not yet made the switch to flat screen TV but that’s another post.  If any of you follow the New York housewives, you’ll understand the pinot grigio (it’s the signature drink of one of the cast). 

So after getting caught up with A and laughing our asses off at fabulous trainwreck TV, I headed home to carbo load with some penne and pesto and forced myself to bed early.  I knew I had to leave the house around 6am to get to that good ol’ bus stop for my carpool.

And, it started to rain.  What a huge contrast from the tease of sunny spring we had earlier in the day.  I kept optimistic – the weather forcecast for Sunday was a ‘chance of showers.’  Actually, around here you could use that forecast every day and be pretty accurate.

I was tired this morning.  But I got out of bed, got dressed in my walking/running gear and after scaring myself looking in the mirror I dabbed on a small bit of foundation (my face is naturally ruddy so anything to tone it down helps) and a little flick of mascara for those tired eyes.  Keys, hat, sunglasses (I’m eternally optimistic plus sensitive to glare)…and…phone.

Wow.  My phone had blown up with tons of voicemail and texts last night after I’d forced myself to go to bed early, but I didn’t see any of it until early this morning.  I keep my phone downstairs at night because I don’t feel a need to have it with me 24/7.  

When I saw how my carpool driver plus a ton of others in the group were going to cancel, the wind went out of my sails.  Just poof and pffffttt.  Why cancel?  Rain. Yep, it was still raining hard this morning and even still is now in the early afternoon.

So I was a sheep and I bailed too.  I felt a little dejected because I was looking forward to trying this race for the first time with friends, but I have to know that it just wasn’t meant to be.  And I won’t dig too deep for the reason right now.

‘Cause I’m tired.    

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