Still Having Fun While Working A Ton

School has hit me full swing and I somehow ended up with FIVE shifts at the emergency clinic this week despite intending to only pick up two (I must practice saying no in the mirror and then also make sure I never owe anyone any favors... ah well, it's a lost cause and I enjoy the work and the people too much to do more than complain a little).

But I'm determined not to become a recluse. Thursday night I went out to say goodbye to The Brazilian Dancer, a co-worker I have known for several years. This is her below, and as a disclaimer I did not take this photo:


She is a fearless, extremely competent nurse, upbeat, funny and one of the best dancers I know. Unfortunately, just as I arrive back in the Bay area she takes off for Brazil for a month, but she'll be back. Joining me was LaMexicana and her sister and sister's boyfriend. It made for a fun evening. I had my first sake bomb. Hit the sack close to midnight. Genetics quiz 8:30 am. Who needs sleep? (Oh yeah, Melissa thinks it is important and there have been some interesting studies on it in the news recently...)

Saturday morning before I sat down to study, I took a few hours to go downtown and check out the San Jose Tapestry Arts Festival. I've lived in San Jose for seven years now and have never been, though I know lots of people who have and loved it. Since I have a feeling this may be my last year in San Jose I want to see everything local that I can. Also, since the San Jose State campus is downtown I have gotten more acquainted and interested in the goings-on there in the past week than in the entire preceding seven years.

The festival was OK. It is primarily a bunch of art vendors, and since I had no intention of buying anything I just looked. I liked the photography the best.

Then it's back to the books.

For breaks, I've done some cooking. I sauteed enough farmer's market vegetables to leave a plate for Dr. Cool in the fridge. I also got gifted a starter mix for Amish friendship bread by the head nurse at the adjacent specialty hospital (we took nursing classes together back in 2002/2003, kind of cool). How many recipes have ten days of instructions, where mostly you just "mush the bag"-- now that is my kind of cooking!

Meet Pete-- My Study Companion For The Evening

Dr. Cool is on an overnight shift and I'm home studying with the dogs. Pete is mostly sleeping but when I get up to dance to Dalom Kids and Spash's song "Cellular" he joins me. (C'mon no one else takes study breaks to dance when home alone? I hate hate hate sitting still). He's actually very good company, that Peter.

I think I've always liked this kind of dog. Here I am on the beach in Baddeck, Nova Scotia in the summer of 2002-- long before I was in the veterinary field-- with a little pittie puppy I just picked up:


Kind of looks like Pete, huh, but perhaps with a bit less bulldog in the mix (or whatever it is that makes Peter so monstrously huge).

And yes, I am guilty as charged of selectively editing my past so that it makes for a more cohesive story in the present, but don't all people do that whether or not they are aware of it?

Terminal Differentiation (i.e. Life Decisions)

I'm going to quote Thumbscrews here. I don't know her personally, but she is a very eloquent writer and I have her permission to quote her blog.

It's damned unfair, isn't it... how constricted we are by a single lifetime, by a strictly linear timeline? We get no do-overs. You can be resuscitated a thousand times in a video game. You can switch jobs, phone companies, fabric softeners. You can exchange your burger for a BLT. But every "choice" is a single stitch in a contiguous whole. It's a vast lumpy sweater knit from a single thread, and knit only once. You can vary the pattern at any time, but you can never pick up missed stitches. You can't look back on your deathbed and say, "Oh f*ck it... I'm going to unravel this thing and make an afghan instead.

For some of us the very finality of our choices is paralyzing. Thumbscrews goes on to write:

It's a rough state of affairs, particularly for the philosophical and fickle. Failure to choose leads to aimlessness and stagnation... But it's so frustrating, feeling as though choosing one route means barricading a thousand others.

I've given a lot of thought over recent years to my career (much more thought than I initially gave to my past relationships, and suffered as a result of that). I don't want to have to choose one path at the cost of others. I know EB found herself in a similar conundrum during and just out of college, but by now she and my other friends seem comfortably settled in their lives, graduate degrees framed above the fireplace, while I am still deliberating.

I've gotten frustrated with myself for not making a final decision. Family members have gotten frustrated with me too, saying, "Just do something, it doesn't matter which of the choices you pick."

It's been agonizing. So when I settled on applying to graduate school in ecology and got accepted to a nearby university, it seemed like a g-dsend. I was nervous of course, dreading what I call "terminal differentiation" (which is something I picked up in a biology class, meaning when a cell becomes so specialized it can no longer be anything else; the cell loses the ability to change course, reverse direction, perform another function in the body-- the term appealed to me because it sounds so harsh, which is how I feel about specialization). But I knew I couldn't stay a pluripotent stem cell forever, that to succeed I would have to differentiate, so I packed up my things and moved to Washington, DC for the summer to begin my new life.

As is often the case, life did not go as planned. It turned out that this particular avenue of research was not a good fit for me. It took me awhile to wrap my head around the fact that I would need to go back to square one, start over again with my career search. Perhaps that is not entirely the case. I was graciously given the option yesterday to defer graduate school for a year while I explore my options both within and outside of that department.

I've already enrolled in one class at a local state school. Once again, I have a panoply of choices before me. This time around I feel less paralyzed, more certain of my course. Things could change, but I have priorities now and I am working on meeting them.

I once spoke to a counselor who strongly encouraged me to abandon my paradigm of terminal differentiation. She herself had gotten a PhD in genetics and then gone on to medical school at a later age (in a different country from the one she got her PhD in no less!). I suppose this is true, but when one is 30, like me, time feels more limited. It's not that my next career move has to be my absolute last, it's just that I want it to work well for me. I'm chasing that elusive post-modern dream of being happy at one's work rather than just being grateful to have a job and food on the table. I'm even optimistic that given all the thought and exploration I've given it, that I may find such a thing. EB and D certainly did (and not in academics either shockingly) so I know it is out there.

A Room Of One's Own

My family wants to see pictures of my room, so here they are. Simon is happy to model for the photo shoot, somehow wiggling his way into almost every photo. (Aah Simon, my feral heart wrapped in brown tabby fur. His summer caretaker told me he never crawled under the covers at her house because she made the bed every day. A little OCD? Just kidding, I know I'm messy but I made the bed for the photos).


The trick to living in a room 100 sq ft (perhaps smaller) is that everything serves two functions. The bed has storage underneath it-- if you look closely you can see the drawers built into the frame (though at the moment only one of the three drawers contains any possessions). The small wooden table/desk on wheels at the end of the bed doubles as a filing cabinet:


The closet has the litterbox. In the corner to the left, outside the closet, my hiking backpack (i.e. the only piece of luggage I own) and sleeping bag are resting against the wall. If you are wondering about the bag of fluids hanging in the closet, well that is because I give subcutaneous fluids to my chronic renal failure kitty, Lindy, every day.


So far the only artwork on my wall is this piece which I picked up at the Eastern farmer's market in Washington, DC. My friends Eagle Eyes and Corvid own the same piece and I like to look at it and think of how they admire crows too. (Hi Eagle Eyes! Hi Corvid!)


I feed Simon on a place mat so that he doesn't make a mess with his wet food on the hardwood floor. With my perverse sense of humor, I choose to feed him on a parasite place mat that I picked up at a conference in San Francisco a few years back. Somehow no one else seems to think this is as funny or clever as I do but I don't know why that is.


Lindy is a more private creature and often prefers to have her meals served under the wooden table/filing cabinet. The white stuff on the bamboo mat is clay litter she has tracked to her hiding spot. Cutting down on my cats tracking litter out of the litterbox and into the room is one of my biggest challenges, but with enough rugs and bath mats in the closet, most of the litter seems to stay in there and I can just wash the mats periodically.


Those of you who know me well may have noticed there are no books in the room. My much cherished collection of poetry and a few California field guides are stored in boxes in the garage. I may unpack them (how long can I go without reading Audre Lord or consulting Adrienne Rich, not to mention deriving inspiration from Simon Armitage and Yehudah Amichai?) at some point but for the moment I like the room bare. The two or three books I am currently reading are tucked in one of the drawers under the bed along with a few CDs and some chargers for my computer, camera and phone. That's about it folks.

The Struggle For Less

When I got back from the East coast, I stared in disbelief at the boxes of stuff I had in Dr. Cool's garage. I couldn't believe how much stuff there was. I actually got rid of most of my possessions the previous year, after my divorce was final, but I still have a lot of things. And the surprising thing is that I didn't miss any of it while I was in DC for four months.

This revelation has prompted me to get rid of more things. I want to pare down my possessions to the bare minimum so that I don't have to cart around so much stuff when I move. And also because I fundamentally believe in living simply-- it just makes my life easier overall, and I have found I am happier with less. Yes, my new motto is less is more.

I have a few good role models. Dr. Perceptive can fit everything she owns in her sweet new Prius so that when she moves all she has to do is load up the car and drive. Amazing, huh? Now that is something to aspire to. I know that for awhile, before he bought the house, Dr. Cool could pull off the same feat. Ditto for Dr. Writer before she married her wife. How do they do it? Dr. Cool had no bed. Dr. Writer would sell her furniture on craigslist and then buy new stuff wherever she moved. Dr. Perceptive's furniture is all full of air so that it compresses down to almost nothing.

There is quite a bit of stuff I'm not willing to part with. Sentimental things. I have a bunch of paintings stored at my mom's house in NC (thanks mom) and a few things at my dad's too. I don't want to get rid of my photographs, though Corvid solved that dilemma for herself by scanning them all into her computer and storing them there. (I might do the same but I will still probably send the originals to one of my parents to store-- I'm bad about trashing photos). I've gotten rid of most of my books. What I've kept is my poetry collection (for which I won an award in college as it contains several out of print books) and a few guides to birds and butterflies of the Bay area.

Right now I'm focusing on eliminating clothes I haven't worn recently. Then I will get around to my other possessions. I might solve the problem quite underhandedly-- by sending more stuff to NC to store out of the way there.

The other half of the equation is resisting buying more stuff. I live with the best model of all in this regard, Dr. Cool. When I moved into his house last March, he had almost no possessions. For the one month I was there, I cooked my meals (which at that time in my life mostly consisted of boiling water) in my camping pots. There was no shower curtain, so I only took baths. Etc. When I arrived back in San Jose last week, I expected that there would be more stuff in his house. Most people start to accumulate things quite rapidly once they live in a large space and feel more settled. Not Dr. Cool. The only knife in the kitchen is still the one my dad sent me last spring. There are no measuring cups or a teaspoon or tablespoon. It's bare bones. I commented on how impressed I was that not a thing had changed. He shot back, "What did you expect-- a plasma TV and leather couch?" Well, not exactly. So for the time being I've been cooking by estimating the amount of ingredient, and it hasn't gone too badly. Meanwhile, every time I go to a thrift store I take a look for some measuring devices. Other than that, I think I can survive with not much more.

Taking The Train: For Ember & The Planet

I took the train again yesterday to Menlo Park. It is quite a relaxing ride and it went without any hitches this time. I have always liked the Menlo Park train station building (above), it is quaint, as if it were out of another day and age. I feel happy getting off the train there.

I've also been taking the light rail around San Jose. I am quite enjoying taking more public transportation. I've never liked driving all that much. Plus being on foot I discover so much more-- yesterday I bought a dress for $2.50 in the thrift store on the street over from where I live (half price on a dress already reduced in price, sometimes I impress myself). Although I'd driven past that thrift store for over five years, I'd never set foot in it until last week. Being in a car is just so removed from the feel of a neighborhood, from the stores, the people, the pulse of a place. I like being in the thick of it, and public transit is good for that.

So I'm committed now-- I bought a ten ride ticket that expires in October so I have to make another nine trips in the next two months on Caltrain. I'm looking forward to it.

Histology: Who Knew It Would Be So Beautiful?

I spent yesterday morning hanging out with my friend L, and got the chance to sit in on a histology class. I had asked L beforehand why she wanted to take a class called Vertebrate Histology. She said because of the pretty colors. I laughed dismissively and said, "Really? Someone as brilliant as you wants to take a class because of pretty colors???"

I have to admit publicly I was 100% wrong. Not since I first came across fractals in my high school math class have I been so astonished and pleased by the aesthetics of a subject in a scientific field. Just like fractals, there was a psychedelic quality to the images. I was just plain blown away by the beauty of the slides I saw. Who knew a cross-section of the trachea would be so stunning? All that detail-- the hot pink of the epithelial cells lining the trachea, the brilliant blue of the basement membrane (that's the stain binding to the carbohydrates FYI). A cross-section of the eye was a close second as my favorite. The lens a hot pink orb, the cornea even thinner than L and I had imagined (you can see why cats get such nasty corneal ulcers, there isn't much there to start with).

By far our favorite stain was Mallory-Azan. L commented, "Mallory-Azan stain wins over everyone else for sheer aesthetics."

There are so many things I am grateful to my friend L for introducing me to-- too many to name. But I am especially grateful this week for her sharing her love of the microscope and introducing me to histology. Incredible.

This Just In-- Crows Remember Individual Faces

When I was in Seattle a little over a week ago, I couldn't help remember and think often of the University of Washington, which is home to one of the more famous corvid researchers in the world, John Marzluff. I think anyone who is interested in corvids is familiar with his name. I've read his work, but have never met him.

I was struck by the large number of crows in Seattle, a bit like the huge number of ravens in Marin though I don't know if there is any quantitative proof that the numbers are denser in Seattle than other cities. I took a lot of pictures of crows, including the one above at the farmer's market eating peanuts. J humored me as she is not a crow fan (she's close to perfect, but she does have that one crippling shortcoming-- just kidding J!)

But maybe my constant attention to the crows around us made an impression on her after all because today she sent me these articles: "Friend Or Foe, Crows Never Forget A Face," and "UW Professor Learns Crows Don't Forget A Face." Pretty cool stuff. I suspected robins recognized Eagle Eyes and I this summer, but whether they would remember us months later I don't have an inkling. I bet all kinds of birds recognize human faces to varying degrees, though I wouldn't be surprised if crows are better at it than other species.

Thanks J for the heads up on this research :)

Meet Marble

This is Marble. She is belongs to J's family and currently resides with J in Seattle, WA. Marble is 19 years old. That means I've known her my whole life, since I was eleven to be precise. I remember Marble hunting in the acres and acres of woods around J's family's house in NC. Marble and their two other cats, Blackberry and Raspberry, were my first lessons in cats catching mice and wildlife. I remember being horrified that these creatures I admired so much were such ruthless killers, and not only that, they played with their prey before they ate it! Growing up can be rough, the world is not always a pretty place. Marble brought back those troubling memories, and many more happy ones of running around in the woods with J, bushwhacking and playing. Sometimes old friends don't just come in human form. These days Marble has an indoor only existence in Seattle (which may partly account for her longevity). I am glad I got a chance to see her again.

What I've Been Up To: Back At Work

A few people have commented on the dearth of posts lately. Sorry, folks, I don't have a regular internet connection at La Casa de Doctor Cool so it is tough to post sometimes.

Friday night I had my first shift back at the emergency clinic. The photo above was actually taken last spring by a friendly animal control officer. Far from feeling like being in jail, I was elated to be back at the clinic and very touched by the warm welcome I got from MonkeyButt and others. Thanks y'all.

Saturday morning I didn't get to sleep till around 5 am but I was up and awake at 10 am. I headed over to the Wildlife Center Silicon Valley for a class on behavior. I always learn a few really interesting tidbits on top of the overarching ideas. This time what I gleaned was that when stellar's jays spot several birds feeding on a really good food source, like peanuts, they will make the alarm call of a red tail hawk (or was it red shoulder?) in order to scare off the other birds. Quite clever those corvids.

Saturday night I got the heck out of Dodge, more on that below.

Sunday morning I headed to the Princeton Plaza farmer's market, then I wrote part of an essay I really needed to start.

Sunday afternoon I headed over to the Los Gatos Wild Bird Center for a display of local Bay area photographer's work depicting birds and other wildlife. My favorite photographs were a series done over several years of an Anna's hummingbird nest in the backyard of one of the photographers. You can check out some of her work at this website, though she hasn't updated it recently so my favorite hummingbird photos aren't on here.

Sunday evening a friend and I headed down to Monterey for dinner at one of my all time favorite restaurants, Stokes. I love the atmosphere of old town Monterey, the restaurant is in a 171 year old adobe house in the historic district. Plus the food is good, and it is all line-caught or humanely raised or locally grown. The best dish there is definitely the heirloom tomato pizza. It's only available for a little longer, once there are no more locally available heirloom tomatoes that is it until next summer. It is my goal while living in the Bay area to have heirloom tomato pizza at least once every summer, so I was happy to achieve that and to get to spend time with one of my favorite people in the world too.

Right now I'm chilling out at one of my other friend's houses taking advantage of her wireless connection after a long day. Here's the view when I parked in the driveway at dusk-- the house overlooks beautiful Almaden valley:

Gilroy Ranch: A Saturday Night Spent In The Garden Of Eden

Saturday evening I got an invitation from Dr. Perceptive to hang out with her at a friend's ranch in Gilroy, where she was watching 15 horses, 3 cows, 5 dogs, 3 cats and 3 chickens. I jumped at the chance to get out of San Jose for the night and spend some time in the country. It turned out to be nothing less than paradise. It even had that pungent garlickey odor that is so characteristic of Gilroy and that I love.

I've known Dr. Perceptive since I started at the emergency clinic; she, Dr. Cool Fool and I all started together two summers ago. In a strange twist of events, she rented my room at Dr. Cool Fool's when I left over the summer and vacated it just days before I got back.

Here is her extremely well trained saddlebred horse, Jasmine:


And here is her equally impressively trained hot dog, Jaden:


And Jaden's friend, the good-looking border collie exhibiting the breed's typical intensity:


And the most intimidating pack member, the big red Rhodesian:


Dr. Perceptive helped deliver this calf:


Then there was the garden, which photos can't really do justice:


All kinds of leafy greens and different varieties of tomatoes, apples, peaches, artichokes, squash, bell peppers, hot peppers, carrots, corn, grapes, sunflowers, and so much more. Ever seen an artichoke flower?




Not only was there plenty of delicious fresh food from the garden, we also made a late night trip to San Juan Bautista for cheese enchiladas and chile relleno, plus a walk around the mission square. I felt like I was transported back in time, and I felt my spirits soar with a break from my more mundane life in San Jose.

I Got My Cats Back

I think Simon gets a bit grumpy when I take too many pictures.

This is Simon just waking up. Sometimes when I come into the room I can't find him at first because he likes to sleep under the covers.

A Night Out: Frida Kahlo At SFMOMA

Last night I went to see the Frida Kahlo exhibit in San Francisco with my friend LaMexicana (that's her work nickname, though Dog Whisperer would be more accurate in my opinion because she has the best touch with canines of anyone I have ever met-- fearless, this one). It turns out that Kahlo has been one of LaMexicana's favorite artists for as long as she can remember, and she even named the dog that she rescued last spring Frida after the artist.

I admit, with embarrassment, that I did not know who Frida Kahlo was before this week. I immediately recognized her work though because it has been incorporated into so much of the art that I see around San Jose. She is legendary, which has perhaps distorted an accurate portrayal of her life and art-- for one critique, read this piece, "The Trouble With Frida Kahlo."

The pieces that were most powerful for me were the ones that were the most emotionally charged-- "A Few Small Nips," "Henry Ford Hospital," "Suicide of Dorothy Hale," and "The Two Fridas." Less charged but still close to home for me are the quieter "Self Portrait on the Border Between Mexico and The United States" and "My Grandparents, My Parents and I." I also really like "Me and My Parrots" because it reminds me of so much of the Mexican folk art I have seen.

Interestingly, the most disturbing, most emotionally charged pieces were not for sale in the museum gift shop as posters or postcards. LaMexicana's favorite piece is "A Few Small Nips," which she desperately wanted to buy, but she had to settle for a reproduction of "The Two Fridas" instead. I think it is telling that the museum has chosen to sanitize and de-sensationalize Kahlo's work in this way. Actually, I think it is really a shame because her genius was in turning emotion into image-- the pain, the detail and even the surrealistic aspect (maybe due to the drugs she was often prescribed). Or is it just that people who are not emergency room nurses cannot stomach that much blood and gore? I think not. In her essay, "The Trouble With Frida Kahlo," Stephanie Mencimer notes that "Among all the Kahlo tchotchkes now on sale at the NMWA gift shop, only her self-portraits adorn the fridge magnets, not "My Birth," or "A Few Small Nips." So others have noted this incongruity as well. Is it because Kahlo is a woman, or as Mencimer argues, does it have to do with depicting a wholesome image of Kahlo? Neither seem to fully explain the phenomenon to me.

In "A Few Small Nips" I think the rawness, anguish and rage probably speaks to anyone who has had their heart badly broken. Kahlo painted this after discovering her husband, Diego Rivera, was having an affair with her sister. The title is a quotation from a man who was being tried for murdering his wife and said in his defense that he only gave her "a few small nips." The frame of the painting is spattered in blood and gouged, which has a strong visual effect, as if the emotions cannot be contained and will spill out onto the viewer.

The only other piece on exhibit in which the painting spills over onto the frame is the "Suicide of Dorothy Hale," which I found so disturbing I had trouble even looking at it. Although it preceded the event by years, I cannot but help thinking of the images of people jumping from the World Trade towers on Sept 11, 2001 when I see that picture.

"Henry Ford Hospital" is unusual because it is the first painting I have seen depicting the aftermath of a miscarriage. The details remind me a bit of one of my all time favorite artists, Hieronymus Bosch. The autoclave is an especially striking detail for me since it is a piece of medical equipment that is so often overlooked, but so critical.

"My Grandparents, My Parents and I" speaks to the universal divisions in any family, more striking in Kahlo's perhaps because her father was of European Jewish origin and her mother Mexican. I think there is a divide in every family. For me it is the German half and the American Ashkenazi half. I always knew which set of grandparents were calling me in college because my roommate EB would say, "It's the ones with the accent," or "it's the ones without the accent." Two halves to me.

I like "Self Portrait on the Border Between Mexico and The United States" because I have often felt pulled between two countries, growing up in Europe and The US. I have always liked the song "Pines" by the Israeli group Achinoam Nini Gil Dor because it captures that feeling: "Oh my darling, I have grown with you/but my roots are on both sides of the sea"-- and this painting captures the emotions in that song for me in a visual form.

Not only did LaMexicana and I get to see Kahlo's paintings and photos of her, we also took advantage of the related Kahlo film series and got to see the Mexican film "Aventurera." This film about a bourgeois young woman turned cabaret dancer had enough twists to the plot to keep anyone on the edge of their seat.

I'm grateful I got to see this exhibit and that I got to spend an evening in a city. San Francisco is no that far-- I really want to try to make it there more often, because in the past it might as well have been another planet for all the times I visited. I might even try to go back next weekend and see the double feature of films related to the Kahlo exhibit showing then.

Living In A Small Space

Good news that I haven't shared publicly: I have a place to live. My old landlord, Dr. Cool (aka Dr. Fool) has a room available in his stunning Spanish style house. This is wonderful for me because not only did I really enjoy living with him before but I can have my cats with me and all my stuff is stored in his garage so it's not like I have to move it far!

The down side is that once again, I will be living in a tiny space, 10 feet by 10 feet to be precise. I have lived in a room this size or smaller for the past year.

There are some things that I really like about living in a space this small-- I love the fact that there is practically no cleaning or dusting (how I hate cleaning). I also like that it has forced me to pare down my possessions and prevents me from buying new things (I certainly think twice before buying anything now).

But it is certainly a challenge to fit everything I need to live into a 100 sq foot room. And I feel bad for my cats being cooped up, although I am going to try to let them out into the rest of the house from time to time.

It is interesting to me that both my sister and I live in what some people consider impossibly small spaces-- this year she will be living in a 300 sq ft apartment in New York city with her husband and in the winter she is expecting a baby. More than one person has told me they think she or I (or the both of us) is just plain nuts. However it is understandable that these people find this incomprehensible since most of them live in much, much larger spaces (like over 2000 sq ft for one person or over 3000 sq ft for two people). You would think the trend these days would be for people to live in smaller and smaller spaces, as the human population continues to grow and there is less and less space available on the planet, however, when I was in DC this summer there was clearly a trend among the upper class to re-model to build bigger and bigger, hence the new term McMansions.

For years I have been interested in simple living and so I have read with great interest articles on living in small spaces. Below are some of the articles I have found interesting over the years.

The first article that really sparked my interest was in SFgate last summer and features a 250 ft sq foot Pacifica house that looks quite appealing in the photos. I think what really stood out to me is that to make the space look larger, the owner did away with baseboard and molding. The idea of changing the rules like that, shirking convention on something as standard as baseboard, really excited me even as it shocked me a little. I thought the thinking that went into making a space that small work was really cool. Re-reading this article a year later, it now catches my eye that the owner added a garage the same size as the house to reduce clutter in the house (kind of cheating, huh? At least it makes pulling off the feat of living in such a small house less impressive, though the effort and planning is still remarkable.)

Then this summer, while staying with my aunt K, she pointed out an article in her local paper, The Courant, that caught her attention and that she thought might interest me, which it did. It is a story about the ambitious project of a first year student at Yale's prestigious, top-ranked School of Forestry and Environmental Studies to build her own 144 sq ft portable, sustainable house for less than $14,000. I was proud as a California resident to see that this student-builder had gotten the idea for such a small house from a California company, Tumbleweed Tiny House Co, based in Sebastopol.

A quick search on the internet turned up some other interesting articles. There was one in The Washington Post about a guy living in a 187 sq ft condo, and although there are no photos, there are lots of tips on living in small spaces. And there was another one in The Washington Post about a couple living in a 416 sq ft studio in Washington DC, and the challenges that living in such a small space places on relationship.

Seeing I was really getting into my research, my aunt also dug up a link to a TV show called Small Space, Big Style in case I can find time to watch it someday. Thanks, aunt K.

It's a big subject. Everything I've written seems almost conventional when compared with EB's little brother's plan to build a cob house in NC. Now, that sounds really interesting! I hope someday to visit and see it and get a chance to talk to this idealistic, motivated young man myself. Perhaps one day I will buy a piece of property in a forest and live in my own cob house. After living in such small rooms for years, it might not even seem cramped anymore. In the meantime, I will try to post some pictures of my room and a post on some of my solutions to making the space work, as soon as I find time.

Mix It Up: Not Your Regular PB&J

Garlic jelly and peanut butter sandwich. Yes, that is what I am eating for lunch. Thanks aunt K for the jelly, it is a treat. I think garlic jelly is really quite fitting as I live next door to the garlic capitol of the world (Gilroy), though this particular garlic was grown in Connecticut, where the jelly was made near my aunt's house.

According to one of the articles I posted on the therapeutic benefits of blogging, you are not supposed to blog about what you are eating for lunch (There's even a book titled "No One Cares What You Had For Lunch"). Oh man, I am in trouble. I have so much fun coming up with wacky sandwiches to keep lunch interesting.

Breakfast With T: Crepes, Conversation And The Backyard's Plentiful Bounty

Yesterday morning I had breakfast with my friend T. We've known each other for years because for a long time we lived on the same street and would often casually drop in on each other. She says she misses this and I do too!

I share a lot in common with T-- when I met her she had been working in the largest animal shelter on the West coast. Now she is an EMT. In fact, yesterday when I came over around seven, she had been up since 4 am due to a call she received on her overnight. I was grateful she kept our planned breakfast despite clearly being tired.

Like me, T loves animals, and has an interest in anatomy. When we are driving down the road together and see roadkill, we exchange a look that says, "Shall we go for it?" We've been known to skin dead animals and T knows how to cure the hide to make beautiful wall hangings. T also likes to check on roadkill and make sure it isn't still alive and just concussed. It is from this practice that my ex and I acquired our cat Oliver Twist, a cat she rescued from the side of the road late one night in Alviso, who remained with my ex after the break-up. I also learned from T that most roadkill lying on the side of the road died from a fractured skull, since with other injuries the animals often make it off the roadway.

T is thoughtful and cares about the environment. It is she who first put the seed in my head that installing solar panels and going off the grid might be a better use of money than remodeling the kitchen say. And in fact, just before my marriage ended, my ex did get solar power thanks to my advocating for it.

We might be similar in some ways, but T is a much, much better cook than me. And she likes to cook when I come over. She says cooking for me is fun because I'm not picky and so she can experiment with new recipes without worrying as much about the outcome. For my part, I'm eternally grateful when anyone cooks for me, and I find her food very tasty.

Yesterday she wanted to try out a new crepe recipe. I ran home (I still only live a few minutes away) and got the remaining blackberries that I picked along Lake Washington in Seattle with J. T cut up some apples from her backyard and sauteed them with some jam. So we had crepes with wild blackberries, apples, and some peach jam made from peaches in her backyard. One thing I love about T is that she is not wasteful with food and eats what her backyard offers instead of letting it rot. Here is a shot of her overburdened apple tree in the early morning:

And below are some apples in the process of being turned into apple jam:


After breakfast we had a long talk, about everything from interracial relationships to careers in medicine. Before I left T let me gather a bag of tomatoes, apples and peaches from her backyard that would otherwise go to waste. Crepes, conversation and free food, does it get any better? Thank you T!

The Future Of This Blog And A Big Thank You

Several people have asked me about the future of this blog now that I am safely back in San Jose. The answer is that I plan to continue blogging. (That should come as no surprise to those of you who read the previous post). I might at some point change the location or title of the blog, but I will inform my readers first. The only thing that would make me disappear at this point from the blogosphere would be a stalker.

That being said, I am finding it challenging to keep my entries interesting. Life here seems more routine, more staid. There are no gorgeous bird photos, fewer travel adventures. It's hard to upload photos at all at the moment because I don't have regular access to wireless internet access so I have to take the photos off my computer and carry them with me to upload them.

But for everyone who has enjoyed reading about my adventures, I will try to do my best to keep you posted on my life even as it becomes more boring and probably more hectic, leaving me less time to blog.

Now is the time for me to say a heartfelt thank you to everyone who posts comments, emails me privately, or tells me in person they've enjoyed my photos or reading my writing. It means the world to me that you care.

Blogging Might Be Good For Your Mental Health

I stumbled across three articles that talk about the positive community forming that comes from blogging-- they were in Newsweek, Scientific American and CNN online. Check them out by clicking on the highlighted words in the last sentence.

I certainly wasn't aware of this research when I began this blog. I started it as a way to keep my friends back in California informed of my research and day to day life when I moved to DC for the summer.

It has become much more than that, though. Writing in of itself is therapeutic for me, whether or not I share it. However, posting my writing where my friends and family and even strangers can access it on the internet has had unexpected benefits. It has strengthened friendships, mended some relationships and even helped create new ones.

Although I was initially hesitant to make a blog because I was worried about being stalked and revealing too much or pissing people off with my writing, I can honestly say I am quite pleased with the results. It's always nice when you stumble across a medium that works for you.

Swimming And The San Jose Farmer's Market At Cambrian

I returned to San Jose on the same day that my favorite swimming pool in the whole world closed for a month for renovations. Bad timing.

So today I tried out another pool that I have access to. I don't like this pool nearly as much. A few years ago, a man punched me in the face one night for having the gall to get in the fast lane as a woman when there were only men in it. I was in fact the fastest person in the pool, and I think I hurt his ego. I am usually the fastest person in this pool, whereas the Campbell pool is mostly triathletes and they push me and kick my butt, not the other way around.

The pool was as I remember, crowded, and I got pushed around. I think I'm going to be doing a lot of running for the next month or so. Bummer.

After my swim, I headed just down the street to the Cambrian farmer's market. Fortuitous timing here. It turns out this farmer's market has more free samples than any farmer's market I have ever been to and I was ravenous after my swim. I had mouth-watering mouthfuls of every kind of peach, pluot and plum imaginable. And there was also spicy ethnic food, my favorite. For all the diversity in DC, I still think San Jose has DC beat. At least at the farmer's markets. First I sampled two different Afghan spreads, the eggplant one was heavenly. Then I had Indian food. The woman looked me up and down, sizing me up as if to determine whether to believe a white girl like me would really like something very spicy, which is what I requested. She obviously was not sure as she first gave me a mild dish, then medium, the finally super spicy. Delicious. There was also Mexican food, but I held off on that as I was no longer starving.

I am now cooking the green beans I got at the Seattle farmer's market, just as my aunt N taught me in Quincy this summer. I will have that on a bed of San Jose farmer's market greens for dinner. In the fridge is rainbow Swiss chard for tomorrow night.

There's another farmer's market Sunday, at Princeton Plaza. I can't wait. If there are half as many free samples there as there were today I won't need to eat breakfast!

California Day Two Of Being Back

Things are getting better already. The train trip back to San Jose went smoothly. I was in a better mood too, having felt like a weight was lifted.

It's been a social day. Tea with L, then a short run and I spent the evening with Slow Feet and friends.

Tomorrow I am doing breakfast with my friend T. Then hopefully I can get some more unpacking done before I pick up my cats.

I'm not so tired either, which helps. I'm trying so hard to force myself to get more sleep, it's one of the few really physically unhealthy habits that I have-- burning the candle on both ends, so to speak.

More later.

Changing Times: Today I Took The Train

I took the train from San Jose to Menlo Park today for a 3 o'clock appointment there. In the past I would have driven. Maybe I am still in a city mentality from DC, where I was in the habit of taking public transit everywhere. But I was also very influenced by a post I read this morning on an acquaintance's blog, Two Years Of A Fierce Heart. She was analyzing her impact on the environment and how she can improve her lifestyle to minimize her use of resources. Although she finds her current lifestyle fairly consistent with her values, she realizes that she does use a lot of gas driving. Now, unlike many people, who would simply say that their good habits in other parts of their life make up for any undesirable behaviors, she resolved to change her driving habits, starting with bicycling to work one day a week. I found this so remarkable and inspiring, that I decided that instead of driving today, I would take the train.

However, the train is not without some major drawbacks. First of all, it is expensive. $8 round-trip to be exact. Driving would certainly cost me less in gas, and maybe less overall even after I factored in the cost of putting those miles on my car (I'm not entirely sure how to do this easily). Second, Caltrain is notoriously unreliable. I know this from riding it on and off over the years (when I worked as a chemist, and then later to a job in a veterinary hospital in San Mateo). Today, shortly after our train started rolling, the conductors came on over the intercom to inform us that there was police activity at the Redwood city station and all Northbound trains were being held at Menlo Park, but that our train would only be able to make it as far as Palo Alto. This seemed rather bad luck as Palo Alto is the station before Menlo Park. As it turns out, the police cleared the trains to go through Redwood city in time for me to make it to my appointment, but it was a near disaster, and not only would I have missed my appointment, in my experience Caltrain would not have refunded my money and I would have had no way to get back home until the trains started running again because there were no Southbound trains either.

It frustrates me that we don't put more money into our public transit infrastructure. I've talked to a lot of people who seem to think that the price of gas rising is a really good thing for the environment, but the extra cost of gas is not going into improving our public transit system so I'm not sure how things will improve drastically just from gas going up.

But today I succeeded in changing my old habits, and for all my complaining, I enjoyed reading a book on the train instead of driving or being stuck in traffic.

California I Am Almost Free

I'm back.

I've had Melissa's lyrics in my head for days. All summer, I sang along with these words-- in the car, at concerts, swimming:

California
I am almost free

I will find my love
I will know my peace
I will seek my truth
I am almost free
I am almost free...

Lots of people have asked how I am doing.
The answer is I'm exhausted. I'm so overtired it is not even funny.
I think being this tired skews my view of the world so maybe I shouldn't even answer.

Honestly, I'm sad. I'm sad my adventure and my vacation are over. And coming back is hard. Change is always hard.

San Jose holds lots of painful memories for me. I will never forget how lonely I was this past winter after my break-up with M. The enormous weight of that loneliness is still almost palpable now. It is like a ghost that haunts me. It is like remembering an elephant sitting on your chest, and just the thought of it is crushing. I never want to feel that way again.

Yet, here I am, sitting in an empty house typing on my blog, staring at the glow of a computer screen, silence all around me. It is a shock to my system. All summer I shared a room with Eagle Eyes. I had constant companionship. The past two weeks during my vacation I have rarely been alone. I've slept on sofas, even the hardwood floor of my brother-in-law's studio in Florida, but I almost never had a room of my own, a door to shut between me and the rest of the world.

Now I have my own room again, and for that I am grateful, but it is going to be an adjustment.

I am determined not to be sad. I am determined to be more social. I tell myself it will be different this time around. I'm a different me.

And I have lots to be grateful for. My dear friend L picked me up at the airport and took me out to a lovely lunch. I immediately felt better after chatting with her, as usual she cheered up my spirits immensely. And I got to see my angels-- my cats, Simon and Lindy, and their very dedicated, hardworking caretaker, Corvid. My cat Simon even seemed pleased to see me. Lindy, on the other hand, was none too sure about my intentions and preferred to hide.

I'm in limbo now. This week I plan to unpack, work on some writing, and try to get out and have some fun (yeah, what's that?). To this end I already have planned:

1. Breakfast with a friend and then a trip downtown with same friend Wednesday morning
2. Dinner in Monterey with a different friend on Thursday
3. A late shift at the emergency clinic with Slow Feet as the graveyard nurse Friday

It's not too shabby but I'm hoping to add a little more. I'd like to also get in some open water swims, a hike or two, and perhaps cook a meal with a friend. Next week will be even busier, so now is the time for me to settle in and go out. I'll keep you posted.

Oh yeah, I forget to mention that for the first time in several weeks I have a key chain. It has been awhile since I have carried keys with me. Feels odd.

A Perfect Sunday: My Last Day Of Summer Vacation, Spent In Seattle With J

• Wake up 5 am and write for several hours (no alarm, I was just wide awake)
  
• Talk to my father, who has just arrived back in the country, by cell phone
• Breakfast of crepes with jam and bananas, cooked by J while I was on the phone, yum!
  
• Go with J to Capitol Hill farmer's market (where I saw adorable boxer puppy above)
• Leftovers lunch
• Swimming in Lake Washington at Madison Beach in choppy open water to help prepare J for her triathlon next weekend (it's been awhile since I have swum in open water, I had water up my nose and must have swallowed a gallon of it!)
  
• Pick blackberries at Madrona Beach
• Go for jog down into forest, run up steep hill to Louisa Boren Lookout
  
• Dinner of farmer's market salad and watermelon from Mt. Rainier (I obligingly ate half of our watermelon-- lovingly dubbed "Sweet Sugar Baby" as I held it the whole trip back from Mt. Rainier-- since there was no room in the fridge for the whole thing)
• Drink delicious sake (Fudo Myoo Ginjo Nigori Genshu Sake, bought by J in OR, it is a rare cloudy sake), wonder why we are tipsy, read label and see sake is 18% alcohol
• Sit around talking, drive to airport to pick up friend at close to midnight

And when will I be getting up in the morning? Oh, around 5:30 am again. Yeah, I must be nuts. But it was the perfect end to my travels, thank you J!

Mt. Rainier

Mt. Rainier turned out to have many different facets to its dazzling charm. Approaching the peak in the car, the forest reminded me a lot of the feel of Muir woods and the redwoods in the Santa Cruz mountains. Then, climbing to Mt. Fremont lookout, J and I rounded a bend to see a wooden building perched far away on the stone mountainside. At that moment, I felt like I had stepped into the movie "Himalayas" set in the Tibetan mountains. Especially because with the steep slope on one side and the loose stones underneath my feet, I feared I would meet the same fate as the fake yak that slid to its demise. I wish I had taken a picture at that point, but was concentrating too much on not slipping or looking down to want to stop and take photographs. If I had taken a photograph, it would have looked like this. Descending from the rocky slopes of the Mt. Fremont trail, we entered field after field of spectacular subalpine wildflowers which reminded me a bit of my visit to Tuolumne meadows in Yosemite during July, only much nicer. Such a small area of land really packs quite a punch with such varied and stunning scenery.

J said quite perceptively that it is challenging to accurately capture the feeling of being in a field of wildflowers because you can't easily simultaneously show in one photo the view of being close up to one flower and also the wave of flowers receding behind it.

So here is one of my favorite genuses of wildflowers, lupines. These are subalpine lupines.







Although I did see Clark's nutcrackers at the Sunrise visitor's center, sadly I did not see a gray jay or any ptarmigans. Nor did I see any mountain goats or marmots, but I did see this frightened chipmunk peering out at me from its perch in the pine:


Driving down off the mountain with J and I singing along to the Indigo Girls "Shaming of the Sun" I was exhausted but so content...

"I said come on down to Chicano city park wash your blues away the beautiful ladies walk right by You know I never know what to say They'll be singing oooh la la shame on you"

And we both think this line is particularly poetic:

"With every lesson learned a line upon your beautiful face."

Re-entering civilization, J got some caffeine to keep her awake for the long drive home. It was a pretty setting, but so strange after climbing Mt. Rainier's remote stone peaks. That's J, checking out the menu. The funniest part, that you can't see from the photo-- the woman serving us inside was wearing a bikini! Yes, it was that hot outside.



And finally, for a bit of feminist history since women's accomplishments are so often overlooked. While in the visitor's center, I picked up a postcard with this tidbit: the first woman to climb Mt. Rainier was Fay Fuller on August 10, 1890. She would not let anyone help her. After accomplishing her goal she said, "I have accomplished what I have always dreamed of and feared impossible." On the front of the postcard is a photo of Fay with her flannel skirt, bloomers, mittens and supplies wrapped in blankets around her waist. I think I will send it to my aunt N in Quincy as she is a fierce feminist and would enjoy the image and story.

The Intrepid J

This is my oldest friend, J. I discovered today that she is half mountain goat, half camel. She has sure footing on narrow, sandy trails where I was slipping and scared half to death of falling several hundred feet down the steep mountainside. She also did not get dehydrated, while I managed to nearly faint on our ascent to Mt. Fremont lookout. I definitely felt like a big wus! Luckily my fearless companion was patient with me, and even held my hand when I got really scared. Unfortunately for her, I asked to turn back before we reached our destination on either the Huckleberry trail or the Mt. Fremont trail. Sigh.

(If you look closely-- click on the picture to see it enlarged-- you can see the reflection of the photograher, i.e. me, in J's sunglasses. Putting the artist in the picture via the glasses is a neat trick I learned from that spectacular retrospective of Barkley Hendricks' work that I saw at the Duke art museum this summer).

Clark's Nutcracker!!!

Today I saw my first Clark's nutcracker. I immediately knew what it was, not because I had a bird book with me to check, but because its inquisitive, intelligent look identified it to me as a member of the corvid family.

I've wanted to see one of these birds for a long time. I looked and looked when I was in Yosemite in July 2005 but never saw one. They are found primarily at high altitudes in alpine forests, feeding mainly on the seeds of white pines.

The one I saw today was at Mt. Rainier. Unfortunately, the pair was hanging out by the bathrooms in the parking lot, which means they are habituated to humans and possibly even dependent on people to some extent for their food. I spoke to some of the park rangers later in the day and they said studies show that Clark's nutcrackers in the National Park get up to 50% of their food from people. Not so good for the birds.

My first Clark's nutcrackers, joy!

Reconnecting With My Family: A Newfound Interest In South Africa

Spending time with my aunt K, my recent visit to my great uncle and great aunt in Florida, and being at my mom's house this summer I have seen a lot of stuff from South Africa-- wooden carvings, paintings my grandmother did (above), photos (like the one above of my grandparents on their wedding day, on the steps of the synagogue in Johannesburg-- yes, that is my grandmother's sister and my grandfather's brother on either side of them, the same great aunt and great uncle I just visited all these years later in Florida).

It has kindled (re-kindled?) in me an interest in South Africa. (It's not like I am completely ignorant about the country having grown up hearing about it and then having a close friend in college who spent a semester there and worked on learning the click languages, even producing a CD of South African music she conducted on a post-college trip-- the very talented Molecule--hi Molecule!).

To this end, I have been made an effort to choose movies set in South Africa while I was at my aunt's. First I watched "Yesterday," which was quite moving. My aunt says the scenery is very realistic, that is how she remembers South Africa looking.

Next my aunt and I watched "The Color Of Freedom." This is one of the best movies I have seen in a long time, though oddly it has not gotten a lot of acclaim (it received a Peace Film Award and was nominated for a Golden Berlin Bear). Perhaps this is because although it claims to be the true story of Mandela's prison guard (based on the book Goodbye, Bafana written by James Gregory), the guard's story has never been corroborated by Mandela himself. Regardless of whether the film accurately portrays the relationship between Gregory and Mandela, it is a good historical piece and gave me a condensed history lesson.

My aunt kept exclaiming that growing up in South Africa she didn't see the brutality that the film portrayed. Perhaps because my family left in 1968, and my aunt was only 10 when they left the country... It's hard to believe that the treatment of the black South Africans did not affect everyone viscerally, whether or not they supported apartheid. I certainly have the utmost respect for my grandparents for having the courage to emigrate for the second time in their young lives in order to remove their family from a country whose politics they did not support.

My aunt did show me photos of when she returned to South Africa at age twenty, in 1978. That trip she did witness a very disturbing incident where she saw police arresting black people without the proper paperwork at a train station. She said she felt her blood chill. She says she was afraid to intervene or become more politically active while she was in South Africa is that she was told by the authorities that because she was born in Joburg, the United States would have limited powers to intervene if she got imprisoned even though she was a US citizen (whether or not this was true she was never able to find out).

At any rate, I intend to continue to try to watch more movies set in South Africa and maybe even read some books set there (certainly after watching "The Color of Freedom" I am curious to read Goodbye, Bafana). I bought a used copy of the movie "Beat The Drum" to watch while I am waiting for my flight from Seattle to San Jose tomorrow morning (long story but I have another four hour wait...). I've already read Cry, The Beloved Country and seen "The Power of One" (which made a big impression on me), but if anyone wants to recommend any other movies or books that take place in South Africa, by all means send me an email or post below. Thanks.

Pieces Of Me: HT At Thirty

When my friend D's baby was born he made a collage of the first pictures he took because he felt no one image would adequately capture the full essence of his newborn child (I found this incredibly moving, I might add).

At thirty, it felt a bit vain to be putting together a collage of myself, to be honest. However, I owed my aunt a hard copy of a photo from my blog thanks to her entry in my pop quiz, and she requested the picture of me waking up on the train. That picture had very poor lighting, and so instead of just using it alone, I decided to make a collage with that photo as the background (I also knew my aunt liked collages)-- but I restricted myself to photos taken in the last five months.

It turned out to be an interesting self-assignment. Somewhere along the way the feelings of shame and vanity gave way to a sense of love, and pride. I've had an amazing six months of being thirty so far.

Looking at these pictures has made me think about myself, and all the different aspects of who I am. I'm still trying to fit these pieces together; it's a puzzle I expect to be working on the rest of my life. When I look at this collage, I see first and foremost my love of wild birds, blue jays and pileated woodpeckers in particular. It is a lifelong love, as I have written previously. Then I see my love of domestic animals, muscle dogs to brown tabby kittens. And also my love of my friends and family, for many of these photos were taken with them, although I cut out all other people for the purpose of the collage.

I think it might be instructive for me to make a collage of myself every year. I can see where I'm at, and what that tells me about where I want to be going.

This collage is certainly fresh in my mind as I return to California and face some big decisions about the future of my life and career.