Backpacking listmania!

I make lists like mad, and this is my one for backpacking. The things I leave out (stove, matches, flashlight, etc.) are things that Morgan has. Also bowls. I never seem to have the right bowl for backpacking, especially in my new awkward dish smashing phase.

The list! (It's really long.)

pack ( I decided on the REI Venus 75 '08)
tent
sleeping bag (REI Zephyr +15)
sleeping pad
yoga mat
32oz SIGG
16oz SIGG
BC pills
pocket knife
fork
keys
wallet
headlamp
lip balm
sunscreen
lotion
toothbrush
toothpaste
bar soap
deodorant
towel
hand towel
hat
gloves
scarf
chacos
shoes
pants (1)
shorts (2)
tshirt (2)
pair socks (4)
undies (4)
bras (2)
tanks (2)
fleece
raincoat
bikini
journal
book
pens
mesh bag
trash bag
hair ties
brush
hand mirror

trip specific:
IKEA list
clean outfit
driving directions

We're going up Mt. Hood (not summiting) on the Timberline Trail to Elk Cove from the Vista Ridge Trailhead. There are supposed to be thunderstorms, but it might be hot and sunny, hence my eclectic wardrobe choices. I hope Morgan lets me borrow my camera for part of the time, but one of the reasons I wanted to go to this particular place is because it's supposed to be great for pictures.

On the way back, we're going to stop by IKEA in Portland so I can pick up a few items for my RA room next year, like a handy bookshelf and some blankets and cork board. I'm a little worried that I'm going to be a dirty and disheveled shopper, which is why I'm going to leave a fairly nice and clean outfit in the car to change into. Morgan threatened to do my shopping for me if I refuse to get out of the car due to dirtiness, so I think a quick change at a gas station will work out. :)

We need to be back by 3 on the ninth so I can take a real shower and get prepared for the RBD PACURH site visit. My Transportation meting with them is at 3:30 and I have to go to the moderately fancy dinner at 6:45. We'll have to hike out pretty earlier to make it to Portland and then Corvallis in time.

Doing well.

I've worked out every day this month so far. I know that's only 4 days in a row, but I do feel better. Yay endorphins! I also just concocted a rather amazing chard and polenta extravaganza. Mmm.

Morgan will be up here in a few days, and I have mixed feelings about it. I love him. I want to see him and go backpacking and have a wonderful time. But the sooner he gets here, the sooner he leaves for Whitman again. And I know there's a chance he'll transfer before winter term, but I'm not sure how big that chance is.

Drinking fountain

I drink tons and tons of water, more than 3 liters a day. It's made me a water snob, as odd as it sounds, to the point that my perniciousness rivals that even of coffee snobs. It has to be super cold, it has to be tap water (because bottled water tastes like plastic), and it has to be from a bottle with a small mouth, like a Sigg. I'm also a Sigg snob, but I think that's a whole separate issue related to my future yuppiness.

I've noticed recently that I subconsciously map the drinking fountains around campus by their convenience, temperature, and overall flavor. The ones in Dixon by the cardio room are pretty excellent.

Apparently my OCD is becoming more pronounced. :)

One.

Day one of the fabulous month-long extravaganza of fitness has gone quite well. I stationary biked for 45 minutes and carted my groceries around campus for another 15. I also forgot how much I love frozen banana slices ... mmm.

My weekly budget for food is $30, but I've notice that I usually spend another $10-20 on gross processed food from the Dining Center each week. It's vegan, but definitely not awesome. SO today at WINCO I decided to spend up to $50 to get enough food to actually make stuff that tastes good.

I already made some pretty damn excellent mac and cheeze from the Fat Free Vegan Kitchen blog. It was tasty. I was shocked. The last time (which was also the first time) I tried to make vegan mac it tasted like... nastiness. I wouldn't feed it to anyone who hadn't tried nutritional yeast (nooch!) before, but I really love it. I also plan to make gnocchi this week. Ah.

My new almost favorite vegan cooking/photography blog is Vegan Yum Yum. Her picture are amazing and her recipes look very fancy but doable.

Peace!

Quinoa Deliciousness

Quinoa is amazing. It's a complete protein (lots of aminos), fun to say (Keeeen-waa!), and almost disturbingly cute when it's cooked.

So I made this tasty salad.

Cook the quinoa and chill it before you add the veggies and whatnot. This makes about 5 servings.

1 cup uncooked quinoa ( I used a mix of light and dark)
2 cups water

While the quinoa is cooking, mix together:

1/3 cup crushed raw cashews
1 cup chopped celery
1 cup chopped carrot
1 whole zucchini, chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 T fresh ginger, minced
3 T rice vinegar
1/2 t salt
1/2 t black pepper
1 t curry powder
1 t lemon juice

I let the veggies and cashews kinda marinate in the vinegar and spices, then I drained most of the liquid and added the ginger and garlic.

When the quinoa is done, fluff it with a fork and cool it in the fridge. When it cools, fluff it again and then mix in the other ingredients. It may need more salt.

Peace!

August Challenge

I've decided to try and work out for an hour every single day in August. No breaks. I can mix it up with cardio or weights or swimming or whatever, but it has to be one hour and it has to be every day. The Midge Cramer bike path that goes out past the covered bridge and the fair grounds to Bald Hill is really beautiful, and I can bike the whole thing from Campus and back in about half an hour, so I could do that in the morning and a half hour at Dixon in the evening.

I've been using the excuse that Dixon's hours suck in the summer, but that's pretty lame. I only think they suck because I like working out at night and their summer hours are M-F 6-8 and S-S 10-4. My work schedule is pretty screwy, but I really should be able to fit an hour of working out in there somewhere.

Usually when I'm not in Corvallis I'm out doing something active, so on days when I don't have access to Dixon I should still be just fine. Example: Backpacking.

I'm also going to make a better commitment to structuring my veganism in a more conscious way. I really need more protein. My food budget needs to go more towards tofu and beans and fresh fruits and veggies, and I need to replace the cheap but gross staple of Top Ramen with more heart and proteiny vegan options. I like the healthier food so much better, but it takes more work and a little bit more money. Making better use of my cookbooks and the kitchen will be very helpful.

Hopefully my August Challenge will make me feel awesome about my body for the coming school year and get me ready for the more rigorous schedule that will come with September.

On a completely different note, today I found out that McNary won't be ready for RA's to move into until September 15th, a week after training starts and only three days before early arrivals. We're all going to have to live in Callahan or Wilson. That could be pretty sweet, because we'll probably bond more than we would otherwise, but it also kinda sucks because we'll have to prep the building really fast.

I'm really starting to look forward to starting school and classes and the whole RA thing. I like the more refined schedule that comes with all that stuff. I feel like I have more dedicated time to study, cook, workout, be with friends, work, and have class, whereas now my schedule is a big jumble of weirdness.

I had a meeting with my PACURH advisor yesterday that went quite well. Now I actually have some stuff to work on, which is a change. I think I'm finally done with the logo design and now I just need to work on the t-shirt.

Peace!

I miss my dog.

Dot the Majestic Labrador Retriever. She may be on the below-average intelligence side of life, but she's pretty much adorable. These are from the day I left for college. :(

I hate taxes/ I love REI

You see my dilemma.

My budget exists in extreme Excel format, and I kind of love it. My dad made it and it has lots of equations and highlights and shades and comments in it. I'm not sure how it works, but it basically runs my life.

When I was working at the library last year, I never had taxes taken out of my paycheck. I actually ended up getting money back. Last month, nothing was taken out. Pretty sweet deal, yeah?

Booooo. Sad day. I think I've crossed some pay threshold into adulthood. Oh well. Now I get to deal with the pain of partially funding wars and soup kitchens and public education. I can I can be like 60% fine with that.

But since I outgrew my internal frame pack and my sleeping bag at the same time, I get to spend my already hurting paycheck on an assortment of items that include a new pack and a new sleeping bag, along with a few backpacking essentials that add up to nearly $500 dollars.

I'm really excited to get my new things, in part because I know that this is the stuff that I'll have for the next 10 or 15 years, and this is probably the stuff that will be with me on my RTW trip.

Yay! :)

The Itinerary

So. I want to backpack around the world. Who doesn't? I'm not sure how or when this fits into my life, but I feel like I need to do it all in one stretch. I don't want to spend a summer in Europe and another summer in Asia and just kinda kick it. I want to pack up one bag, get a huge chunk of passport pages and visas, and then I want to leave. Probably for at least a year, maybe WOOFing (working on organic farms) or teaching English or bumming around. Whatever.

But I have this huge Rand McNally map on my wall, the kind that your second grade teacher used to show you how much ocean there is on earth. Awesome. Right now it has little thin strips of blue painter's tape traversing it in an enticing manner that Morgan and I put together the last time he was here.

This is my (or perhaps our) itinerary as it stands, years from a possible trip, on the wall of my temporary dorm room. At times it makes no sense.

Portland
Germany
Morocco
Spain
Portugal
France
UK
Ireland
Netherlands
Denmark
Sweden
Hungary
Romania
Greece
Turkey
Israel
Egypt
Kenya
Uganda
(Lake Victoria)
Tanzania
South Africa
Madagascar
India
Nepal
Cambodia
Thailand
Vietnam
Japan
(Tran-Siberian Railroad)
China
Mongolia
Russia



.... so yeah. Not a very defined shape. Lots of tangents. I can always move the blue tape if necessary.

On Earth as in Heaven ~ Holden Village

The journey to Holden Village felt a bit like the beginning to a nursery rhyme. First was the long drive to the bed and breakfast, where we were greeted by an exuberant cat and a fresh layer of crystalline snow. Then came the ferry ride through the gray lake with a darkening sky above and the gradually fading of cell phone signals, and finally a trip up the hill and into the village in a cold and well-packed school bus sporting a good 6 inches of snowflakes on its roof. After the fairy tale journey into the Holden, it was hardly a surprise to see a tiny town straight out of the Polar Express spread into the valley before us.
Our first greeter within the village was Olaf, an independent 4 year old adventurer who was much better at scrambling around on the icy paths than I. He was one of a herd of little ones who seemed to exemplify the spirit of Holden- silliness, fairness, and holy hilarity. I watched them embrace two young girls who came to the village towards the end of our stay. They were part of a “permanent” Holden family, meaning that they’d be staying for a year or two. The other kids dutifully helped unload their belongings and then quickly made sure that the new kids knew that any shyness would be unnecessary.
Besides the exuberant love of the village children, the most striking part of Holden was the way that foreignness and familiarity lived comfortably together. I’d never shoveled an inch of snow in my life, yet quickly found myself armed with an effective-looking metal shovel that stayed with me for a good eight hours. I’d never gone sledding before, at least not in a way that seemed adequate. At Holden, Mary Beth and I went sledding down Chalet Hill late at night, choosing our transportation with the help of the expert sledders from the elementary school. I was constantly placed in situations and environments that I’d never been a part of, but I always knew that I would be perfectly alright with whatever challenge was thrown at me. Our whole group embraced this concept- we ripped two lodge floors of carpet in just a few days. It was four degrees outside, and we were stripped down to t-shirts. It was good hard work.
The hard work of village maintenance was beautifully intertwined with the equally hard work of the spirit. Holden pulls emotions out into the open with surprising ease, and the nightly vespers services were a time for spiritual rest and intentional reflection. As we prayed and sang together (because Lutherans must sing everything), it was easy to imagine staying at Holden for a long time, and to be completely fulfilled.
Our retreat from Holden was not as picturesque as our way there. We got off the ferry to the news of a coming storm, and drove through the night to get back to OSU rather than staying at the Bed and Breakfast to mull over our experience. It was a jolt of reality that seemed to be a reminder of the world we were returning to, but now, from my real-life world that is so inherently different from the reality of Holden Village, I know that I can conjure the memory of the village and feel at home and at peace.

I've started considering spending a year at Holden after graduation. I could work with high school kids and gain practical experience as well as some rich life experience, so I think it would be a positive professional move as well as a personal one. The idea of being away from Morgan for a real year, not a year interspersed with breaks, is daunting, but it's a long way off. Maybe he could come with me, or maybe we'll be apart. A year at Holden would be a spiritual, interpersonal, culinary, and physical journey. It sounds perfect right now.

Perhaps my favorite poem.

i carry your heart with me
by ee cummings


i carry your heart with me (i carry it in my heart)
i am never without it (anywhere i go you go, my dear; and whatever is done by only me is your doing, my darling)
i fear no fate (for you are my fate, my sweet)
i want no world (for beautiful you are my world, my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)

Think think think.

I know what kind of person I want to be, and I think I'm doing alright in my efforts to become that person. In my head, there's this vast framework of stuff that I want to do that will help me get there, like living in Holden Village for a year, or doing Teach for America, or joining the Peace Corp. I'm afraid that doing all three of these things would be some excuse to stay out of the "real world". I mean, Holden would be a year, and TFA and the Peace Corp are both two year commitments. That's five years right there. I'd be 27 if I did that all rapid-fire right after graduation.

I worry about having a teaching license and doing TFA. It might be seen as a redundancy of experiences, and I'm already committed to going to the UCC Synod in Hawaii the summer that would be my TFA training period. Not that going to Hawaii is tragic.

I know I think about all this stuff too much, but I don't know how else to sort it out in my head. Is there such a thing as too many options? Right now, I think what I want to do after I graduate (three years form now, mind you) is work and live in Holden Village, perhaps my favorite place on earth, for a year while I apply to the Peace Corp. That would give me twelve months to clear my mind outside of a school. The Corp has many opportunities for English teachers, and if my Spanish gets good enough it would be useful in the Corp and at Holden.

But what about Morgan? Sometimes I feel like our current long-distanceness is divine practice dictated from above, preparing us for an even longer separation. The Peace Corp has a program for spouses; that would be amazing, but I know not to think that far ahead in any but the most vague of terms.

I have plenty of time to figure all of this out, but maybe I just need to let it be.

Ramen: wonderfood.

Oriental Top Ramen is vegan. Weird, I know, but it is. It also costs seventeen cents a pack at WINCO, so I pretty much eat it once a day.

This is my foolproof recipe for semi-healthy, 100% vegan, and an actually kinda tasty lunch. I just cook it in my ricemaker, because I cook everything in my ricemaker. Yay!

1 pack ramen
1 pack oriental seasoning
1 zucchini, chopped,
1/2 sweet potato, chopped
1/2 C celery, thinly sliced
1/4 C chickpeas
1 clove garlic, minced
1/3 C cashews
1 T peanut butter, natural fresh ground if possible
1/2 t sesame oil
1 T tamari
1 T rice vinegar
1/4 t salt
1/4 t pepper


Yum! And almost cute. :)

Three Story Set

I don't think I'll do this very often, but I really like these three little stories I constructed for an American Lit class. They're crafted out of inferences from an Ezra Pound poem.

The first voice is inspired by Levi, the youngest son in Zadie Smith's amazing novel On Beauty, the second voice is more or less my own, and the third is my grandmother as I envision her at age 10 or so.

---

In a Station of the Metro

The apparition of these faces in the crowd;
Petals on a wet, black bough.

-Ezra Pound, 1916


Voice One
Everybody knows how it is that nobody rides the bus anymore, except that everyone whose anyone rides it sometimes when they have to, like when they don’t have gas money or when your mom won’t come pick you up so late or you just want to drop in, all stealthy-like, to your brand new location and not let anyone see that the car your driving isn’t really the car they would want to be seen in, or that it doesn’t exist yet except in your savings account, which is in the old Coca-Cola tin that you found someplace dusty. So then you have to ride the bus. That’s okay most of the time, unless you really need to actually be somewhere pronto, you know, like maybe you have to pick up your little sister from the dentist or you just really need to get to see this movie because your brother and his friends keep going on about the part when if your mom was there, she’d cover your eyes. Maybe you have a job, and then you really don’t want to ride the bus, because chances are if you’re riding the bus and you have a job, you need to wear a nametag or maybe even a hat. In that case, you for sure don’t need to be seen. Even on the bus. You’d be better off walking yourself to wherever it is you feel you’ll be needing to go.

Voice Two
Where I come from - a place that often invokes grins or knowing looks that I’d rather not reciprocate - the bus is not a ferry for the infirm and recently released. It’s an experiment in urban sociology, one that I’ve enjoyed since I first made the decision to remain without a driver’s license. I love my hometown buses because they often smell like patchouli, and because my age places me in the middle rather than youngest quartile of their ridership. The offhanded upholstery of the seats and sideboards, reminiscent of the outskirts of a 1980’s skating rink, is so perfectly thin that comfort begins to seem like an unwanted luxury. On the bus, I sit up straight in my anonymity and open myself up to the judgment of my public transit peers. Will the stroller-maneuvering mother send her second child to sit by me, or will the older gentleman with the hammer and sickle pin on his lapel take the seat first? Will it be the headphoned and hooded boy who entered the bus as if an invisible and unpleasant force had pushed him up the steps? The matriarch and her little brood head to the back of the bus, the older gentleman settles gingerly into the row marked “reserved for the elderly” and the head bobbing teen gives me an appraising look before sitting, sideways, in the seat next to me. Wrinkled edges of a red and yellow striped shirt stick out from under one of his layers of insulation. He’s headed to work out at one of the fast food restaurants on 11th, and I can feel the lack of burger and fry enthusiasm radiating through his back. Now the rest of the passengers begin to file past the driver, wallets held open to expose their neon tickets. Only when all the window seats are full does the true sorting begin.

Voice Three

My mother used to say, as she glanced sideways at our father with a seasoned smirk on her face, that roses were one of the only gifts that God couldn’t give. My brother and I were included in that list of gifts, and we were meant to know it quite constantly. My father, however, did not often find himself gracing the pages of her sacred lectionary index. The roses, my brother and I knew, were something she wanted in a sort of whimsical way. She was quick to remind herself in a quiet voice that roses were, in fact, a gift from Our Father, but not from our father. He wasn’t one to give that kind of gift. He gave presents like a brand new yellow rain jacket when all the other girls at school were wearing red ones. He gave presents like what you might expect Santa to give if Santa had been an Eagle Scout. We don’t believe in Santa anymore, but we want to. It’s a hard place to be. My brother and me are in that awkwardness between absolute love and terrifying rebellion, and our parents know it. They have two of us to deal with, too, you know, which I have to think will be quite a bother. But right now we are still their darlings, we love them as no other human being can.
So now we are walking together, the two of us, back to the little townhouse where mother sits in her rain-watching space and knits in preparation for the winter that won’t be here for months yet. She is a hunter, a gatherer, a relic of the Depression who was born thirty years after those times had ended. She cans things, all sorts of things, and we wear crocheted sweaters to school in November. Our mother is not a woman who gets roses on a regular basis.
I hold the roses with all the strength of my eight years and they bounce along beside me, flowers down and stems up. Behind my brother and me is a trail that goes all the way back to the sign for the C Line, Red Train, and a man my father’s age bends down to tenderly pick up each petal as it falls. He cradles them in his hand for a moment, and then lets them go.

The First Complaint

Between PACURH, UHDS conferences, START tours, and UHC registration, my tolerance for acronyms is dwindling pretty quickly.
I could whine for a long time about evil soccer moms and their spawn, but let me instead wax philosophical about how this job is teaching me how to be a mom. In the future, guys. No surprises.

I see all these women come in with their daughters, piles of luggage and hair appliances and food in tow, and they just do everything for their kids. Not in a noble and empowering way, but in a let-me-help-you-find-your-name-on-this-alphabetized-list way. It makes me sad for them. The moms will yell and cry about their daughters being with a roommate who isn't a best friend, and as soon as they leave, the daughters are just fine.

Above all things, it makes me want to give my future children the confidence to be independent. Especially daughters- if I have girls, I want to raise them to be strong and beautifully aware of their intelligence and power. I feel like these helicopter moms are stealing something vital from their kids.

Maybe being raised by a man has some benefits I hadn't realized before.
Peace,
Erin