Flying Days and Broken Cars

Last weekend Jess and I went to visit Smalls in California. It was a semi-planned but never planned out trip that was delightful and slightly disturbing all at once. We set off Friday morning in my car, feeling pretty good about the day and determined to make the most of it.
(sidenote: Liz, I wanted to stop sometime in Cedar and see you; I even wondered if we could leave Thursday night and stay with you. But I'd been working like mad to get done by Friday and didn't know how Jess would feel about it, so we didn't. then I really wanted to stop on our way back, but again, long drive, Jessers...tell me ya understand!!)
Okay anyhoo, it was nice. We drove, Jess crocheted and did homework, I thought about stuff...we took about an hour detour for lunch cause we thought Cafe Rio sounded good but got a little lost looking for the one in St. George. But we decided to just enjoy the ride and not worry about getting to Smalls. hmm..

Jess really likes palm trees.

Anyway, on we went, until I saw a sign that said Vegas was close...I couldn't remember how close, but close enough that I was excited about this milestone we were about to pass. We drove on a bit and then-we couldn't drive anymore. My car just stopped accelerating, just like it did on my way home from Yakima. I pulled over and turned off the car, then tried to restart it, a trick that has always worked in the past.

It didn't work.

So there we were, dead on the side of the freeway in the middle of the desert, in 107 degree weather. This was concerning. Jess said not to worry, she has roadside assistance so we called them seeking help, and they gave us nothing but anger, frustration, and an extra hour sitting on the side of the road in the desert. the incompetence of those people is hard for me even to grasp. A kindly stranger from Mississippi stopped to offer us advice during this hour long duration of pointlessness, and we decided he was very friendly. Then, after learning that, supposing these failures at assistance could ever determine our location and get a tow truck to us, we'd have to pay for towing anyway, I decided to give the ol' suckwinkle one more try to redeem himself. and what do you know-he started! So we drove into Vegas ourselves and got to a mechanic.

3 and a half hours later, $550 poorer but with a new fuel pump, we hit the road again, about an hour after we had anticipated landing in California. It was a bitter night. But Smalls and fam were so helpful and wonderful and seeing them made it all worth while. And we did have some fun while we waited.

Jess drew a lovely interpretation of my idea for a tattoo, so I could see how it looked. We ate our Cafe Rio leftovers, did homework, chatted, I talked to Julie which I'd been meaning to do for a long time. Julie, by the way, this is the rest of the story and hopefully I'll talk to soon since we got cut off.

Anyway, after that night things got much better. We had a great time visiting the smallcombs and especially checking out the FLUG TAG

Really phenomenal. there were 34 teams, each of which had costumes,

skits, and some sort of aircraft that they would launch off the pier and measure how far it "flew." Of the twenty we saw, 50 ft was the farthest, although the record is something like 207. We also saw a famous skater skateboard off the pier, and parachute guys flip around in the air and then land right on the pier; pretty impressive.

Some of my favorites. They did the dance from the three amigos and it was fantastic. Ah Flugtag, what a day.

We also went to the beach, just to walk around.

Well, among other things. All in all, a ton of fun but way too short. and maybe not cheaper than flying when your  car breaks down :( But its been running alright ever since, so that's good. I was just glad to get back to my scooter!

Writing

Well, today is writing Wednesday, so I thought I better write something. So far, my plan to accomplish things with my life is not really working. I came up with a schedule, to help tailor my daily activities and ensure certain things happened each week. Here is the schedule:

Music Monday : practice some instrument for some undetermined amount of time with undetermined result goals.

Turtle Tuesday : clean that stinky cage, get the mold off the turtle's floatie, and give her some special attention.

Writing Wednesday: Very vague here....write in a journal, a blog, some sort of written word.

Throw-down Thursday : I had a very hard time coming up with anything except throw-up thursday, so I fudged a little to make this day. Basically I'm supposed to do chores, clean the room, the bathroom, tidy things up.

Food Friday : A day to go shopping and make meal plans for the week.

Weekends are apparently free because I could come up with nothing else, and two S's in a row was just too much.

So far, I played the guitar once last Monday. I made an exception today to play my banjo because the dam jam is this weekend and I need to practice. I need to practice a whole lot more than that but, as you'll see, my accomplishments in general have been very limited, so music making follows suit.

I did not clean the turtle's cage until friday. Which left me feeling very iffy about cleaning it again this Tuesday. I mean, it had only been three days! Maybe next week...

I wrote nothing last Wednesday but here I am today, posting a blog! Yeah me, this is worthwhile.

No throw-down has happened, no chores. I tidied up my room a bit when I thought my mom would see it, and vacuumed on saturday when my dad brought a vacuum down from Idaho for me, but I don't know that that counts.

No food shopping has been done, except ice cream. But man, if food is a necessity for our physical bodies, this ice cream has been twice as necessary for my emotional body, and it has been sustaining me physically as well. Private selection, cookie dough. There are almost too many cookie dough chunks!!!! Is that even possible?!!? They have a great chocolate ice cream that smalls loves, and I'm betting their mint is divine as well. all around happiness in that container.

The weekends have indeed been free of anything productive as well.

So I'm not entirely sure this schedule has been helpful for me. But I'm not positive it hasn't either.

Unrelatedely, I am now the Field Administrative Assistant at Outback. After two other unfortunate souls attempted this job and did not stick around, and upon my pleading for a steady job instead of the inconsistencies of my previous "title", I have taken the yoke upon me and will become, in effect, Outback's b*!&h. so I"m pretty sure when bleeping out words, you're supposed to do it randomly or something. Having never done it, I thought it looked funny, so i went back and tried about ten combinations and am wholly unsatisfied with the result. How is that supposed to look?

Anyway, point being I do a bunch of dirty jobs and am available for anything they feel like throwing at me, but I have freedom in when I work, somewhat, and when I do things, and I like that. I've discovered I prefer having tasks to do instead of time to kill, having my own pace instead of someone breathing down my neck, and having the option to come and go as I please, with vacations when I want, as long as I get my crap done. This is why I'll never have a real job, but so be it.

My bosses are also very gungho about my scooter. One of them just got his own, albeit a pansy 50 cc that is bright green. His helmet, however, is a perfect orange that would compliment my scooter greatly. My other boss says I sold him on the scooter, and once I get some flames on mine he committed to getting his own and we can start the scooter club. Another boss said he wants something similar...but with 1200 cc's. We'll see.

Okay, do I have anything else at all to say here? umm, did everyone appreciate Monday? 8-9-10!!! I thought that was stellar.

Oh, I know what happened last Wednesday. I crashed my scooter and it left me speechless.

 It was a crazy stormy day, full of lightening, thunder, hail, rain, and wind. Like, downpour-rain. Flooding my work-rain. And making huge puddles-rain. I went through a huge puddle, got covered in water, and then tried to turn my little scoot.     :(   It went down. I didn't though, so that's something. Just got that nasty bruise on my leg and a scratch on my thumb. I was a bit shaken up though, thus the no writing.

Here's my dad on the scoot, just for fun. Miku's the little guy's name, scootin's his game and he's one mischevious little hooligan.

Peace.

Lasts

Thursday night I went with my roommate Jess to get sushi for that last time. I discovered it wouldn't actually be the last time, because my roommate is vegetarian and she got some veggie rolls, so I will be able to as well. The sushi wasn't great and I thought the salmon a tad bit slimy.

Friday night/Saturday morning found me huddled in a corner at 12:30 AM, devouring my last whopper and fries, after working unexpectedly 14 and 1/2 hours with very little to eat. I actually love the whopper jr., but as I was starving and it was my last burger, I went for the full on guy. Granted, it was way too late to be eating such things, but it settled in my stomach uncomfortably and wasn't nearly as good as I thought it would be.

I've been finding this every since I knew I was going to stop eating meat. I allowed myself a grace period, a prep time to accept the fact and make sure I was committed. Yesterday was my last day to eat meat, and I am now going to fruits and veggies, and hopefully more natural foods. But for that intermittent time, when I was in my no eating meat mindset, but still my indulgent, eat your lasts mode, every time I ate meat it wasn't even that good. The first time, at the family picnic in bear lake, I ate a ton of bacon and sausage, realizing for the first time that sausage is pig, and that I think I love pig more than all other meats. I also ate that sketchy tuna salad, knowing I shouldn't be indulging like that but trying to take advantage all the same. And I got horribly sick as punishment.

Had some In-N-Out, a thing of tuna when I was starving at work, all these little lapses, though allowed as August 1st hadn't come along, and every time I thought, this isn't that good, I don't need this.

I guess we'll find out! As I've been talking about this new plan with various people, I've heard about a lot of health benefits coming my way due to my avoidance of meat. That is good, but not my purpose. I made the decision after watching The Cove, a movie about dolphins that get slaughtered for their meat in Japan. I watched this about 8 months ago, and almost made this decision, but decided I couldn't.

Then on my trip to Omaha I had to wait in the airport a really long time, so I bought the book The Whale Warriors, and was instantly sucked into this movement that I apparently feel very strongly about. Same idea, Japanese ships slaughtering whales for meat, although this time they do it in reserved ocean sanctuary, claiming its for scientific research.

The book and movie are not anti-meat eating. They talk about the high levels of intelligence of whales and dolphins, and that we shouldn't capture them and we shouldn't eat them, although as far as eating them goes, they are highly toxic with exorbant levels of mercury that does not get reported on nutrition information for the meat. But for me, it was appalling. To see people kill these animals, slaughter them cruelly, just for their meat, made me so sad.

And I had to take it further. To some people, killing dolphins and whales is just what has been for years. Traditions. No different, except for astounding intelligence, than our killing and eating cows, pigs, chickens. We take something else's life to satisfy our lust. My real decision came when I accidentally killed some small potato bug or something at work, and I felt bad. I don't like killing. I don't like killing anything. Even spiders, which I detest when its in my room. And yet, because I don't see it, I'm okay with eating another creature, because I don't have to kill it, I don't have to know what happens.

It opened up this whole viewpoint of my lack of awareness of what I eat, where it comes from, how its made, and if its at all good for me. According to the book, tuna is horribly high in mercury (something you can't find levels of on the packaging), and the current methods of fishing are destroying the oceans beyond repair. So much of what I put in my body, I'm unaware of the consequences.

So there's my spiel. I am not purporting that everyone become vegetarian. I just decided that for me, personally, to go along with my "peace" idea and desire not to hurt other things, I will not eat something I wouldn't prepare myself. If I wouldn't kill it, if I would be horrified to actually watch it killed, I won't eat it. I did, in this way, decide eggs were okay. I would keep chickens and take their eggs. I almost decided I could kill a chicken, so eating it would be okay. But not now. Not until I really do kill a chicken.

Again, this is in no means an attempt to convert anyone else. I honestly don't want to tell people because I don't want it to sound like I'm right and you're wrong if you don't agree. This is just for myself, something I believe in, but a lifestyle that goes very much against the grain of what I'm used to, with a family of ranchers and hunters that I will probably never inform lest I should become an outcast. (not immediate family, but extended relatives).

But there it is, My commitment to a purer lifestyle for me, and a conservationist approach to the world. My scooter uses way less gas and should hopefully cut down on emissions, (except now I want to ride it everywhere so I find excuses to go places), I won't eat meat and will try to be more conscious of my food, (not eliminating sweets and such yet though. one step at a time), and I may one day up and join sea shephard, run away to sea and attempt to stop the killing, on an issue I've felt passionately about since Free Wiley and just didn't realize it. I guess we'll see what new firsts come along this month.

oh, i found the veggie pattie at subway is quite delicious!