AIDS Trails, Pea Patches and things we can do.

I was allotted a P-Patch today! It's 10'x10' only 8 blocks from my apartment! For those of you who don't know, a P-Patch is an urban/community garden plot. There are all of these community gardens all across the city and I signed up for one last spring/summer. Of course I was too late to get in on it last year and I barely made the registration deadline this fall (I called in on Friday at 5:30 p.m. after offices were closed) but I got in and today was awarded my very own spot! (I love dirt!) The funny thing is I don't come from a family of gardeners. My mother always assigned me to weeding the flowerbeds as one of my chores and after griping about it enough, I eventually found great peace and quiet in weeding. (It was funny, she asked me a few summer ago how I became so good with plants and I sighed - all of those summer you made me weed, I read the little tabs with the plants and learned about them.) So now I have my own patch, with community tools to share... I can't wait to plant basil, carrots, tomatoes, peas... yum!

A month ago a community educator from the HIV Vaccine Trails Unit spoke at the PPWW Young Professionals meeting. He was dynamic and passionate, hilarious and charming, in his enthusiastic speech about the HIV Vaccine Trail. I had seen a bus ad for it when I first moved to Seattle, read more about it at the AIDS Walk in the summer and it wasn't until I heard David talk about it that I remembered I was so interested in it. I decided a few weeks ago to volunteer for it. You are not given a live virus or even a dead one. Three (3) pieces of man-made DNA are spliced into another virus (common cold) and you are injected with it to see if your body builds any kind of response to it. It was a year long study and I thought, I am, sadly, NEVER going to be a research scientist and find a cure for this horrible disease that has seemingly impacted so much of my life from growing up in the 80's to its horrible effects on my communities in the Peace Corps. so I might as well volunteer for a possible vaccine - at the very least.

It turns out that I am short on Adenovirsus antibodies (which mainly cause respiratory infections) which mean NOTHING about my general health as anything 2/3 of Americans don't have them (but they wanted volunteers with these antibodies present for this study). So I'm going to have to wait until July to become a part of another study. In some respects, as a healthy young woman, its the very least I can do.

Some people find it courageous to do something like be a part of a vaccine study... but there are a million things we can do like eat tasty meals at our local restaurant and Dine Out for Darfur which in Seattle will be held on Tuesday, April 3rd. I don't have a scheduled skate practice that night so some friends and I are going to go out and eat... not from the P-Patch just yet, but for an even better cause.

B-I-N-G-O! On a quiet weekend...

Woo hoo! I was a bingo winner on Friday at the Grave Danger fundraiser for their Chicago trip. I was out to support my friends Skate Trooper, Sara Problem (always) and other GD members and play bingo. I love to play games (especially if there are prizes involved that I can win!) And I did win (promptly started screaming and forgot to yell bingo at first). It was great fun and great to hang out with some pals (Jeremy, Katie and Katie) that I hadn't seen in a while.

Saturday started with Internet problems that I tried to fix by "contacting your local administrator" who happens to be my brother. It turns out my provider was down which forced me down to one of my favorite coffee shops where I drank in my own brand of sunshine (Americanos) before going to the gym to start my new routine. (Before I had Internet at home, I spent many hours in coffee shops, writing emails, drinking coffee, being out and about.) Then it was off to another Kelly Rae Cunningham art opening followed by a birthday party and late dinner in Eastlake - the Eastlake Bar and Grill has revamped their late night happy hour menu. (It's sad that I know these things).

Sunday was sunny and spring. I grabbed Lara and headed over to Coffee at Bird on a Wire in West Seattle for coffee, breakfast and chatter with my skate coach Nate - then over to Discovery Park for a hike - which felt fantastic to be out in the sun. We went down to the ocean where it was low tide and looked for "reluctant creatures" and found a tiny dungess crab and a hermit crab. Two crabs and birds. No star fish or little fish in the tide pools. But it was nice to be reminded how small we are in the grand scheme of things.

And of course, to win at BINGO.

Traffic, Thunder Storms, 4th Dimensions

I know I've griped about this before but I honestly don't understand the traffic patterns here in Seattle. It took me over an hour to get to Everett on Friday at 3 p.m. (not rush hour) and two hours later it took 25 minutes. It's hard to understand where everyone is going and why they all decide to go the same place at the same time. Sundays at 1 p.m. going into the city is nearly impossible but who knows when rush hour really starts on Friday. Today was an easy Monday drive into work (didn't get up in time for the bus) and other Monday's I've sat in traffic for 40 minutes. I truly, just don't understand it. Where is everyone going? And why?

I dreamt about thunderstorms the other night. I was flying in an airplane to Cleveland and could see the thunderstorm as we approached the city - fantastic lightening! I was slightly nervous (I've flown in one thunderstorm and it was incredibly rough) but so thrilled to see the lightening. There aren't thunderstorms out here. The temperatures aren't extreme enough to create the volatile reaction when a cold and warm front collide. They're missed.

I do have to add though, the 4th dimension, opened up by my landlord when he added a pipe to the bathroom has been an incredible source of entertainment for the kitty friends. I KID YOU NOT, they are in the bathroom when I come home from work, looking at the hole in the wall, receiving life instructions of some sort. Monkey jumps in the bathtub and then darts down the hall. Sometimes they sleep in the bathroom. It's hilarious. It's crazy. I wonder what the hole in the wall is telling them.

Clearly, my life is full of mystery right now.

Green Jello, Car bombs and Sunshine

Green Jell-O, used in wrestling is a bitch to clean-up but it makes for a nice gentle medium for wrestling - which is what some of my league mates subjected themselves to in the name of derby on Friday. I did not (as I quit wrestling when my brother was one day suddenly able to beat me.) I sold Jell-O shots (from the fridge, not from the "pit"), t-shirts and other stuff. Talked up the league, hung out with friends and after clean up the bar, found myself eating Denny's at 4 a.m. - which is really the only time you need to eat Denny's.

Car bombs are truly evil though they makes for great St. Patty's day drinks - with your friends. A group of us decided to celebrate St. Patty's day - me - who use to do anti-St. Patty day events in Cleveland (the land of Irish Catholic)... had a great time at a non-Irish bar drinking cocktails with names that reminded us of Ireland's less joyful days.

Sunshine is delicious and it one of the great things about Spring in Seattle - um yes - it's spring in Seattle. I skated on Myrtle Edwards in the sun with daffodils, cherry blossoms, magnolias, all of the wonderful things. I never thought I would love March.

Contact Origami....

Every once in a while I get a message on my cell phone that goes:
Michelle, what is contact origami?
Michelle, am I missing out on a new phenomenon - what is this contact origami?

However most people leave their message without listening to the message on my cell (which changed when I was chastised for the lack of variety in language.) For those of you who want to know, here is where the idea came from... an essay I ran across while working for the literary magazine at the University of Iowa. It's brilliant:

http://www.english.upenn.edu/~cjacobso//appess.html

This is actually an essay written by a college applicant when applying to colleges/universities.
----------------
The author of this essay, Hugh Gallagher, now attends NYU

3A. ESSAY: IN ORDER FOR THE ADMISSIONS STAFF OF OUR COLLEGE TO GET TO KNOW YOU, THE APPLICANT, BETTER, WE ASK THAT YOU ANSWER THE FOLLOWING QUESTION: ARE THERE ANY SIGNIFICANT EXPERIENCES YOU HAVE HAD, OR ACCOMPLISHMENTS YOU HAVE REALIZED, THAT HAVE HELPED TO DEFINE YOU AS A PERSON?


I am a dynamic figure, often seen scaling walls and crushing ice. I have been known to remodel train stations on my lunch breaks, making them more efficient in the area of heat retention. I translate ethnic slurs for Cuban refugees, I write award-winning operas, I manage time efficiently. Occasionally, I tread water for three days in a row.

I woo women with my sensuous and godlike trombone playing, I can pilot bicycles up severe inclines with unflagging speed, and I cook Thirty-Minute Brownies in twenty minutes. I am an expert in stucco, a veteran in love, and an outlaw in Peru.

Using only a hoe and a large glass of water, I once single-handedly defended a small village in the Amazon Basin from a horde of ferocious army ants. I play bluegrass cello, I was scouted by the Mets, I am the subject of numerous documentaries. When I'm bored, I build large suspension bridges in my yard. I enjoy urban hang gliding. On Wednesdays, after school, I repair electrical appliances free of charge.

I am an abstract artist, a concrete analyst, and a ruthless bookie. Critics worldwide swoon over my original line of corduroy evening wear. I don't perspire. I am a private citizen, yet I receive fan mail. I have been caller number nine and have won the weekend passes. Last summer I toured New Jersey with a traveling centrifugal-force demonstration. I bat .400. My deft floral arrangements have earned me fame in international botany circles. Children trust me.

I can hurl tennis rackets at small moving objects with deadly accuracy. I once read Paradise Lost, Moby Dick, and David Copperfield in one day and still had time to refurbish an entire dining room that evening. I know the exact location of every food item in the supermarket. I have performed several covert operations for the CIA. I sleep once a week; when I do sleep, I sleep in a chair. While on vacation in Canada, I successfully negotiated with a group of terrorists who had seized a small bakery. The laws of physics do not apply to me.

I balance, I weave, I dodge, I frolic, and my bills are all paid. On weekends, to let off steam, I participate in full-contact origami. Years ago I discovered the meaning of life but forgot to write it down. I have made extraordinary four course meals using only a mouli and a toaster oven. I breed prizewinning clams. I have won bullfights in San Juan, cliff-diving competitions in Sri Lanka, and spelling bees at the Kremlin. I have played Hamlet, I have performed open-heart surgery, and I have spoken with Elvis.

But I have not yet gone to college.

Dead mice...

End up in the water bowl. Nearly every time I come home from work... there's a pink one, or green, yellow sometimes a ball or two. This is all Monkey's doing. She's really the only one who plays with these things.

Fez and I just watch her - curiously.

However, as I write this, both of my cats are in the bathroom staring at the portal to the Fourth Dimension that was revealed when the landlord put in a magic pipe.

Curious.

Indeed.

Voodoo, Volunteering and Dirt

Friday I succumb to my frustrating fatigued and on the advice of my friends and colleagues, I went to the witch doctor to get stuck with pins. Ok, I went to an acupuncturist - one that pretty much my whole department and then some have seen. I was lucky enough to get a visit in before he left for two weeks for China.

I not a skeptic - honestly. I'm a big fan of the "body is your temple" and you need good physical health to have good mental health and vise versa. He asked me if I had ever gone to an acupuncturist and I laughed "where I come from we call it Voodoo." He asked me where I was from - I told him Cleveland. He was from Louisville and we immediately had that Ohio connection (Louisville is right across the river from Cinici.) He told me about what the Chinese believed. We talked about how long I had been under the weather and what he thought it might be and then he stuck some pins in me. I barely noticed them. He massaged a few knots in my neck and talked to me about circulation (how the tension was blocking blood flow and consequently not allowing my sinuses to clear up.) He suggested that I eat a warm breakfast (oatmeal instead of yogurt) and how really we were looking at healing my organs (digestive, liver, respiratory). A few more pins, a few deeps breaths and an hour later I walked out feeling a little bit better with a bottle of dirt (ok, their herbs but it tastes like dirt tea) I headed out with high hopes for the next 48 hours.

I finished Friday off having beers (more than one) with friends I hadn't seen in a while and woke up this morning, tired. Not fatigued, not struggling to get out of bed. Just plain tired. It was different. I am hopeful the acupuncture is working... along with the dirt. And the beers too.

And just in time as today was a mega day of volunteering... or just a long day of volunteering. I picked up another skater in my league and we sped off to Monroe (north of Seattle, rural town) to help out with an auction for a kid who had Leukemia. There wasn't much to do early on, so I spent a lot of time getting to know my fellow skaters and explaining roller derby to those who knew nothing about it and laughing about it with those who remember it from their youth.

I sped back to Seattle, ran a few errands (kitty food, lipstick, apples - the important stuff), ate some lunch and then went to volunteer at Provail's and Parkview's auction. A new friend of mine works there and I was glad to be there - to help out with an organization I wouldn't have done anything with otherwise (and not for any reason, beside exposure). They had quite a diverse group of people volunteering and hopefully raised a lot of money for all of the work they do for those with speial needs.

All and all, it was a good day. Tiring. But a good tiring.

Finally.

Other Fourth Deminsion Kitty Stories...

My friend, upon reading my blog, sent me this "best of Craiglist" posting... click the link below. Holy cow, it's too funny. (I'm still laughing).

Crazy Kitty Story

Fourth Dimension...

The kittie friends have been going all out on the "Kittie Olympics" lately - Monkey especially. It seems when my landlord did some plumbing work in the bathroom and added a new piece of piping under the toilet, it opened up a 4th dimension (we live in a three dimensional world. The 4th dimension, well, now that's hard to explain). Monkey and Fez both hang out in the bathroom staring at the new shiny piping. Monkey will sleep on the toilet seat, meow at the pipe. Her tail will poof out and she's start Kitty Olympic Relays at 11 p.m. at night. A colleague of mine once said about cats randomly staring at things "You know Michelle, they can see into the 4th Dimension. They will stare intensely at the wall or their tails will poof out over seemingly nothing. They see things we don't. Just accept it." I didn't know that at the time but I'm pretty convinced that they see something - and it might sometimes just freak them out.

With poofy tails and parties in the bathroom, the kittie friends have their own Olympics to train for and experience all the time. To that end, I am going to start training for the Danksin mini triathlon. Yes, I said it. I am going to be participating in a triathlon. And not as a spectator.

I had always said I wouldn't do a triathlon because I don't like to run. (If only there was one that involved all wheels - like skate boarding, rollerblading and biking. Or biking, driving and rollerskating. Yes - driving is a sport.) The mini is 1/2 mile swim (with thousands of people), 12 mile bike (cake!) and a 3 mile run (ugh). Pygmy and I had considering doing the Danskin last year but the Seattle Danskin is the only one that fills up and they actually have to close it. (Exercise freaks!) My friend Lara wanted to do it. She knew some people who had done it and since we had become roller derby girls (and athletic like no other time in my life) we decided we'd do it - together. The email came from my boss that the registration was open and we managed to get registered before it closed (the next morning).

Now, I'm in a triathlon. Hmmmm....

I still don't like to run but maybe if I could find a way to see into the 4th dimension like Monkey, I could more readily poof out my tail and run some serious laps.