Happy New Year, everyone. I hope that so far 2011 is treating you all very well. My 2010 ended on a very high note with a December filled with a lot of happy moments with family and friends. I went back to Chicago for the last 2 weeks of the year and was once again fortunate enough to stay with kat at my old digs on sunnyside! It's so nice to be able to go back to Chicago and more or less pick up where I left off. Kat has taken excellent care of the place and always makes me feel right at home while I'm there. I hope the apt is bringing her lots of luck. It was always a good time living on the sunnyside.
During my trip back to the mid-west, I realized that most of my family and friends have no point of reference as to what my life is like out here in Oregon. I should probably blog more and give everyone an idea of what I'm doing out here. For now, you can all rest assured that I'm doing fine. I have friends. It's not ALWAYS raining. I signed up for a hula hoop dance class that starts in two weeks. There's no need to worry.
This weekend, I tried out two new things that are rather typical of the PNW - I threw a pot-luck dinner party and I went snowshoeing.
I love throwing parties, but there's always something that happens at the last minute that makes me lose my mind. For my last party, I realized only 15 minutes before everyone was due to arrive that I had zero toilet paper in the house. Oops! This time, i sat down at the table about an hour before go-time and noticed that there were a few spiders crawling on the table. I scrubbed down and brought inside a few chairs from outside so that I could have seats enough for everyone at the table, and apparently I neglected to scrub the underside of the seats... where there were a bunch of spiders' nests! So, 45 minutes before the guests arrived, I was outside in my galoshes in the rain scrubbing the seats with vinnegar and salt water. The evening turned out to be a big success and I fed my landlord enough bourbon that he agreed to replace the horrible carpeting in my front room this summer, but I wonder if I'll ever throw a party without any sort of last minute incident. Knowing me, probably not.
Then at 8:45am the following morning, Chandra picked me up for a showshoeing hike to Diamond Falls. I had never gone snowshoeing before, but I picked it up fairly easily. The falls were amazing with huge ice masses formed along the sides. I forgot my camera, but will update this post with photos as soon as I can. (Here's an updated photo link, courtesy of Chandra. Also, can someone show me how to edit things so i can cross them out in text? I can't figure it out.) I will be going snowshoeing again soon. That's for sure. The evening was spent zoning out and listening to the new Grinderman LP on repeat. I can't seem to get enough Nick Cave after watching latest Harry Potter movie.
Today, I played cards and dice with Patrick and then met up with Chandra and Eric for pizza and Black Swan. The movie was quite disturbing, but I loved it.
I also learned some sad news today that Debbie F, a good friend of the organization I work for, passed away today from pneumonia. She was a joy to know and I'm glad that I had the awesome opportunity to travel with her to both Russia and Ukraine for work. In hearing the news today about her death, I couldn't help but think of the first time I met her. Debbie was an artist in residence on the Voyage on the Volga - my first work trip to Russia. It was an exhausting fundraising trip during the white nights, and some of the women on the trip were rather horrible to deal with (thankfully, none of these women are still associated with the organization). The first night, after an ugly shrew of a woman yelled at me about the bathroom conditions (like I could change the fact that the sink also doubled as a shower), Debbie found me crying in the hallway. She and her friends hurried me into her room, fed me a granola bar, let me cry my eyes out, and then told me stories until I was in good enough spirits to continue on with the evening. She was my cheerleader for the rest of the trip and I'll always be grateful to her for that. My thoughts go out to Debbie's friends and family.
So, in the spirit of cheerleading, I hope all of you readers have a great week. I'm sending you lots of love from my little cottage in Eugene. Go team! And Go Ducks!
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