Category: deep thoughts

  • making tracks


    Those who know me well know of my rather morbid preoccupation with death. Perhaps because of my own brush with cancer, I think about dying a lot and I’m quite paranoid about my own death, and the possibility of that of my loved ones. I often have dreams about death.

    So, I’m spending most of my time these days thinking about mortality and morbidity as a result of 19th century railroads (sorry to those whose eyes are already glossing over or are already clicking away from this blog). I know that few people care about this odd topic.

    But there’s something about the human drama of it all–the thrill of speed (of trains) combined with the fear of derailment (or some other type of accident) that drove people to try this technology, and to eventually depend on it for so much of their lives. Even when it was so unpredictable and unsafe. When the possibility of crashes or robberies or some awe-some adventure lay at the end of those maddeningly predictable parallel lines stretching off into the horizon.

    To me, RRs are a lot like life. We check the schedule and try to get on the right train going in the right direction. We expect that we’ll get there somewhere near to what the timetable predicted (unless, of course, we’re riding Amtrak–so let’s pretend we’re on a train in Europe instead). But we also know that there are so many variables that will affect our path: detours, weather conditions, broken couplings, possible injury or illness, etc. But it’s the possibility of reaching that depot at the end of one’s journey that motivates us to hop up onto the train in the first place. And the view is so amazing along the way. There are some great friends to ride along with, and some yummy snacks in the club car. Sometimes the rhythmic swaying of the train lulls us to sleep. We awake and see it’s only dark outside w/a few random streetlights passing by to mark our progression. And when the sun rises and the train bends around a curve we can see the track that forever lies ahead…

  • five things

    (a meme from Holly)

    Select five people to tag:
    1) madwoman
    2) brookewill
    3) laughtear
    4) dora
    5) chudacek

    What were you doing 20 years ago?
    I was a freshman in high school. I had a buzz cut (my hair was just growing out from chemo), that I spiked up sort of punk-like. Was dating Brady S. and writing for the school paper.

    What were you doing 10 years ago?
    Conceiving Baby #2. Enduring another awful Utah winter (do these somehow go hand-in-hand?)….

    What were you doing 1 year ago?
    Sweating through my first year year of full-time PhD coursework. Writing an article about Civil War amputees. Reading Marxist theory.

    Five snacks you enjoy:
    1. cookies (esp sugar cookies sans frosting)
    2. ohagi
    3. tea & scones
    4. green olives stuffed w/pimento. straight out of the jar.
    5. whatever john is eating (as long as it doesn’t reek of meat)

    (more than) Five songs to which you know all the lyrics:
    1. “The Queen and the Soldier,” “Calypso” and “Ironbound/Fancy Poultry,” Suzanne Vega
    2. “Wuthering Heights,” Kate Bush
    3. “Roxanne” and “Russians,” Sting
    4. “Annie’s Song” and “Rocky Mountain High,” John Denver
    5. “Bridge Over Troubled Water” and “Sounds of Silence,” Simon & Garfunkel

    Five things you would do if you were a millionaire:
    1. travel to the Isle of Man
    2. hire a personal masseuse
    3. build a straw house (eco-friendly)
    4. buy some beautiful bookshelves
    5. master the French language

    Five bad habits:
    1. gnawing on the sides of my tongue when I’m nervous
    2. piling books and papers (and shoes) on the table and in the corner of the LR
    3. not giving my full attention to my kids when they’re talking to me
    4. driving to school when I should take the shuttle
    5. not answering the phone, even though I am often home (I hate talking on the phone)

    Five things you like doing:
    1. talking w/my outhouse friends
    2. sitting in my garden and watching the bees in the lavender
    3. eating fruit
    4. being with John and my kids
    5. exercising: lifting weights and swimming

    Five things you would never wear again:
    1. a cast (I hope)
    2. 80’s glasses (like the clear round-ish ones I wore my soph year)
    3. earrings w/dangling fruits (my 1st year of college–ACK!)
    4. can’t think of anything else….

    Five things that scare you:
    1. Something awful happening to the kids or to John
    2. rodents
    3. gophers
    4. ROUSS’s
    5. my computer dying…

    Five favorite toys:
    1. ellycat and tobyjoy
    2. junebug
    3. retro turntable
    4. dig camera
    5. ingenuitea

  • you know you’re getting old when…

    Sore today. That nasty lump in my right shoulder that recurs every few months.
    Tiger Balm is my new best friend.

    Wishing Yvette was here right now because she has the magic fingers that can untie my knots…

  • meme (from John)

    Four jobs I’ve had in my life
    -Legal Secretary (blech)
    -Guardian (read: babysitter) for foreign high school students
    -Janitor (for LDS Institute)
    -coffeemaker/server for UCI cafe (funny, a Mo girl doing this job–the first day all of the coffee was full of grounds because I didn’t know about coffee filters. One customer told me that he really did like “chewing” his morning coffee)

    Four movies I can watch over and over
     -It’s a Wonderful Life
    -George of the Jungle
    -Princess Bride
    -Lady Jane
    -Moulin Rouge
    [couldn’t stop at just 4…]

    Four places I have lived
    -Tulsa, OK
    -Englewood, CO
    -Salt Lake City, UT
    -Bakersfield, CA

    Four TV shows I love to watch
    -What Not to Wear (what can I say, it makes me cry…)
    -Deadwood (not for family viewing, but a must-see for a historian of the Am West)
    -Thin Blue Line (super-funny Rowan Atkinson sitcom)
    -Moonlighting (it’s a classic!)

    Four places I have been on vacation
    -Suzhou, China
    -Paris, France
    -The Isle of Man, UK
    -Canterbury, England

    Four of my favourite dishes
    -Oatmeal w/fresh fruit from The Stand (vegan restaurant in Laguna Beach)
    -Healthy Crunchy roll from SushiWave
    -Portobello and ‘Sausage Burger’ at Native Foods
    -anything John is cooking

    Four websites I visit daily (besides mindonfire)
    –dooce
    –eee
    –freecycleirvine
    –chudachek

    Four places I would rather be right now
    -Cambria, waking up to the morning sun from our campsite in a grassy meadow, then heading off to the TeaCozy to get warm
    -Paris, in the Rodin garden. With John, C & E at my side.
    -Canterbury, enjoying the dawn chorus and seeing the morning sun reflecting off of the cathedral spires
    -lying in a patch of sun taking a nap w/a cat on my back
    -riding the electric train down the coast from Laxey, IOM. Where huge fuschia bushes grow wild along the tracks.

  • brown paper packages…

    I was wrapping up a (belated) holiday box to send to my in-laws last week. I piled all the stuff inside the box and pulled out a couple of rolls of wrapping tape (one tan, one clear) to tape it all up.

    I realized as I was wrapping, that for me wrapping tape has really ruined parcel post. I long for the days when packages were all wrapped in brown paper and tied up with string. And I think the string is what made it really satisfying.

    That magical string–that was knotted in places and could double as a handle when a package was to bulky to carry otherwise. I really miss it.

    In my 19th-century fantasy life (the one I live when I’ve leapt headfirst into some primary source documents), everything is tied with string. When I go to the local store to stock up on essentials the shopkeeper ties string around my paper parcel of tea, my carefully chosen spices, and the newly-milled packet of whole wheat flour. Even the length of calico that I buy E’s new dress is tied up with string. Of course I carefully untie the string from my parcels and add it to the ball that I keep in the back of my bureau drawer.
    :)

  • I am so not a football fan

    When I was 13, Rich Karlis–the then-famous barefoot kicker of the Denver Broncos–kissed me in front of my entire middle school. Rich was visiting the school to speak at an assembly, and I had walked in late to the gym, and…voila, he spied me sneaking in (‘cuz it’s hard to sneak on crutches, which I was using at the time), and planted a big kiss on my cheek.

    We’d been friends for about a year. He often came to the Denver Children’s Hospital to visit us cancer patients, to cheer us up. Sometimes he even brought his buddies–guys like John Elway–to visit, too. He got us tickets to Broncos games, brought us Broncos T-shirts, etc.

    Of course all of us teen girls were completely smitten with the handsome and famous football player. We especially appreciated his hugs and kisses. What a great feeling to get attention from a hunky athlete!

    During the time when I was kissing Rich I was an avid football fan. Though I never bother with such things now. But when I do hear that the Broncos are having a good season, I get a warm fuzzy feeling. And, the last time they won the Super Bowl I watched the game and cried. Rich was long-gone from the Broncos, but my tears were still ones of joy. And of gratitude for the famous guy who gave so much hope and love to us kids from the 4th floor.

  • old flames

    Do you ever wonder what happened to your high school sweetheart?

    Today I met up with my boyfriend from my senior year of high school. We had an intense and somewhat stormy relationship–but isn’t that what high school romances are always like??

    We were both very different, yet perhaps too much the same. Strong-willed, passionate, idealistic, and very, very young. Also, he was a good Methodist boy and I was a Mormon bishop’s daughter. As such, it wasn’t a relationship destined for longevity.

    We met for lunch. I didn’t feel so self-conscious about my own grey hair when I saw the threads of silver in his beard. :)

    I guess we’re both getting old. But I guess that’s okay if getting old means that you can remember the past fondly–like a pleasant dream–and we can now move on and enjoy getting to know the ‘adults’ that we’ve each become…

    It was also a treat to meet his SO and to introduce him to John :)

  • revolution, part II


    So I did set a few New Year’s revolutions.

    The first one is that I will eat more fruits & veggies each day–at least 5 servings of different f&v, and most of them raw.

    Might sound like a funny resolution for a vegetarian, but it’s one that I need. I’ve gotten into a rut of eating a lot of processed foods–mostly starches or simple carbs–and I need the vitamins and fiber from the real thing.

    The second part of that resolution is that I need to eat more organic produce. It’s a bit beyond our budget to _buy_ all or even lots of organics. But I really should (and will) grow more myself, year-round.

    The odd thing about keeping this resolution so far this year is that I’m not cold anymore. I am almost _always_ cold–so cold that I carry a cardigan sweater with me and wear it most all the time. So cold that I can rarely go sockless, and anytime I read I have to have a blanket to cover me up. So cold that I can’t sleep at night w/o John next to me because he is my only source of heat.

    But the last few days I’ve been warm, even downright hot. At night I’ve been scooched way over to my side of the bed–not even touching John. I’ve been wearing shorts and short-sleeves. It’s a lovely feeling to be warm.

    Maybe it’s not a side-effect of the increased veggie consumption. But I feel like it is because that’s all that’s changed in my life/diet lately.
    :)

  • Siddhartha Gautama
    Founder of Buddhism

    “All wrong-doing arises because of mind. If mind is transformed can wrong-doing remain?”
    Link: The Religion Founder You Resemble Test written by Stinkbot

  • god within

    My new fav quote:
    “The Greeks…bequeathed to us one of the most beautiful words in our language–the word ‘enthusiasm’–en theos–a god within. The grandeur of human actions is measured by the inspiration from which they spring. Happy is he who bears a god within, and who obeys it.”
    –Louis Pasteur

  • movie

    My movie of the day was Raisin in the Sun.

    I watched it as I was waiting for my prosthetist to fix my leg (love the laptop w/a DVD player!!).

    A powerful must-see movie. Though the acting was a bit overwrought at times–as if the actors were more familiar with stage than with cinema–the sentiment shone through.

    It made me think of my own dreams, my own battles. Made me wonder which ones are worth fighting for. Which of my aspirations are worth the daily struggle?

    I want to be the type of person, like Poitier’s character, who doesn’t pander to others. I want to draw on the legacy of my ancestors (even my father) to motivate me to achieve more, to more fully grasp the opportunities that are available, to open more doors for my own children.

    Though I don’t share the goal of home ownership that was so important to the family in the movie, I know the need to have my own space, my own place, my own niche in this world. And the satisfaction of knowing that I have worked hard to achieve it.

    Watching this movie made me think not only of my own goals, but of my father’s legacy. He was not a laborer like the father in the movie, but he was a man who achieved much through his efforts. He came from a blue-collar family, yet earned a doctorate in Chemical Engineering. He worked hard at his job to provide well for his large family. He served as a Mormon Bishop– a lay position with heavy eccelstiastical duties–for many years.

    Dad’s legacy lives on in many ways. I see it most in my son when he gets quiet as he muddles through a complicated math problem, or gets twisted up in a logic conundrum. I see it in E as she loves animals and I remember Dad’s fondness for Tucker (tho, admittedly, that was a bit of a love-hate relationship). I see him in my siblings–especially Becky, who has his same pensive disposition, and in David who shares Dad’s love of chemistry.

    Just the other day I was imagining Dad here with us at our kitchen table. I thought about how he might react to the kids chatting, the craziness of mealtime. In my mind’s eye he was quiet, sort of sitting back in his seat and watching us–an observer and not an actor in the scene. And he was smiling, that slight close-lipped grin that most people wouldn’t know was a smile. But I did.

  • Tiger Hill


    IMG_4398
    Originally uploaded by pilgrimgirl.

    More China pictures uploaded to flickr. Click on the image above to see more.

    Tihs picture is of the Suzhou garden plaza at Tiger Hill. Supposedly 1,000 workers were murdered here after they buried the King He Lu in 496 B.C.E. His son murdered them to prevent them from revealing the exact gravesite.
    An eerily beautiful place.