sunflower feet

Why America is ruining my Halloween

2010-10-31T20:48:00.000-04:00

Happy Halloween!

Charles and I have been taking advantage of the nice fall weather and have been doing nice fall things! We carved pumpkins a few weeks ago and baked the seeds, which was a really great way to spend a Saturday, and then we set them out for the whole neighborhood to enjoy! Charles's is growing some sort of fungus by now (his is the winking one, mine is the scary one!) but mine has held up pretty well. I think we'll light some candles in them tonight and then figure out how to dispose of them. We bought some packaged fruit snacks to give away, but this far back in the valley, with few street lights and a large fence around our house, I'm not sure we'll be getting any trick-or-treaters.

I love Halloween, and I really miss the way it used to just be fun and innocent. I heard from a friend in Morristown that the mayor had declared that Saturday was Halloween because Sunday is the "lord's day" (which completely disregards the fact that Saturday is the holy day for some religions). I just don't see the problem with having Halloween on a Sunday. The holiday used to be about being a kid, dressing up, and getting candy. Now it seems that people are too afraid (of the dark, of cars, of pedophiles) to let children go out and have fun. When I was a child, my father carved pumpkins, my mother made great costumes, and then she took us out to go door-to-door and she WATCHED us. She didn't have to know how many registered sex offenders lived in the area because she was always with us and knew we would be safe. I think that Halloween is one of my favorite holidays because of that. I worry that by the time I have kids, our only option will be to go to the local elementary school or community center because door-to-door is "unsafe" and no one does it. I want to give my kids the memories that I had of running around the neighborhood, feeling safe because I knew someone was there for me. I want Halloween to be more than a college excuse to dress slutty and get drunk, I want to be able to celebrate it on a Sunday if it falls on one, and I want to make my own costume without Target making fun of it.

Okay, this was supposed to be a catch-up post to let everyone know how things are going, but obviously I was feeling like ranting. I just love Halloween. What would the Great Pumpkin think if he could see it now?

The Golden Coast

2010-10-21T19:12:00.000-04:00

So Katy Perry has it pretty much right, although if you wear Daisy Dukes and a bikini in Northern Cali, you're gonna get pretty chilly. Here are some of my favorite things about our newest home.

1. The roads are so curvy that I literally cannot drive over 25 most of the time, meaning that I can't speed.
2. Every musician I want to see will probably eventually come Oakland, so no more driving to Atlanta or Nashville!
3. I get to cross the Golden Gate every day on my way to work.
4. The Beach.
5. Not having anyone under us, so Duke can run as much as he wants in the house.
6. My internship.
7. The awesome frozen yogurt place.
8. Marin County Public Library
9. Farmers Markets every day
10. GreenFest and getting to work the Tiki booth in the kids section

Things that I'm not too down with yet.
1. Earthquakes. I just want to get one over with so they don't freak me out.
2. The fog. It looks like this every other day and its creepy.
3. There is something living in the wall next to my bed, and Charles never hears it. I am not crazy though.
4. While the buses are nice and plush, I miss the ease of the Metro. But definitely not the trains themselves.
5. California does not share a border with Tennessee. I think it should.

Wordless Wednesday from Appalachia

2010-10-06T16:16:00.000-04:00

(this is the best picture i could find. please please please go to The Beehive Collective to see better ones. just saw it in person with a narrated explanation... amazing.)

A Major Victory in Minneapolis

2010-09-27T17:27:00.000-04:00

For those who don't know, when we moved out to San Francisco a month (?!) ago, I had an internship lined up with the Rainforest Action Network. I'm now on my third week here, and I really love it. One of the really cool things is that the team that I'm on, the Palm Oil Campaign, just had a major victory in Minneapolis with one of our target companies, General Mills.

Basically, the problem with palm oil is this: "Grown on massive plantations in tropical nations, mainly Malaysia and Indonesia, palm oil has been associated with rainforest destruction; threatened extinctions of animals, including orangutans; huge increases in greenhouse gas emissions; and gross human rights and labor violations."

Recently, General Mills, one of the US's largest Palm Oil importers, has publicly decided to stop Rainforest Destruction by ending contracts with any supplier that does not produce palm oil in socially and environmentally sustainable ways. You can read their full press report here! Really, this is super exciting to me because A.) General Mills has promised to buy completely sustainable palm oil only by 2015. This goal is great because its impossible, there isn't enough sustainable palm oil grown right now, meaning that they will have to become advocates in order to get what they need for production, and becoming an aid to us. B.) Charles and I found a really great frozen yogurt place in town, and this makes me feel better about putting Cap'n Crunch on mine!

This is definitely not an Official RAN blog and I don't want to preach too much, but I'm really proud to be on a team that can accomplish this and I'm pretty impressed by General Mills for taking this big step. Mostly, I realize that no one really knows what I'm doing out here, so I just want to update everyone on what I'm working on out here!

I heart San Francisco!

2010-09-16T19:25:00.000-04:00

(I may be running out of ways to title these posts with a name of a city or state. We'll see how creative I can get.)

I've been taking the bus into the city every day this week to get to my internship at the Rainforest Action Network and so far, I have no complaints except that my legs are a bit sore (and even that's getting better!). Because our house is set back into a valley, in a very beautiful, wooded neighborhood, the bus that runs from Mill Valley into the city is a mile away. In the morning, the walk is downhill, which is nice, but of course, in the evening, its uphill. Its not very steep, though, so for now, I'm actually enjoying the walk home!

The office I'm in is in the financial district of San Fran, so its in the middle of all of the big buildings and good lunch restaurants, which is a really cool change of pace from the secluded woods-y-ness of home. I get to cross the Golden Gate Bridge every day, and I have to say, with the awesome view of the fog over the bay, its a better view than the capitol building from the metro (not that that view wasn't neat too!).One of the first things I like to do in a new city is check out the shopping (of course!) just in case I ever need something, so it was really great that the other two interns, Lindsay and Rachel, and I decided to do some shopping (all window though, I didn't find anything I needed, although now I'm thinking about a new jacket, its cold sometimes!) on Monday! They're both from the are, so they were able to show me around quite a bit, which I really appreciated.

Like I said, I haven't found anything to complain about yet, because everyone at RAN is really nice and helpful, and I'm really excited about the outline we have of the projects we'll work on this fall. One is with some Girl Scouts, about getting palm oil out of their cookies, and being a former Girl Scout, I can't wait to start working with them! I've already started a few cool things too, and its good to be keeping busy.

Charles is still in Davis, and although he's enjoying his time there, I know that we're both ready for him to get home. We've got a lot of work to do on the house that I know we'd both like to start. Plus, it would be a little sad if I did a wine tasting by myself, so I need my partner back! Good thing he's done on Saturday...

Sunny Mill Valley

2010-09-07T18:35:00.000-04:00

We've been in Mill Valley for about a week, and I've been in the house since Friday. Charles is in Davis at his class, although he calls at least once a day and came home on Saturday to handle the movers with me. Which, by the way, has taught us a lot about moving. This company , Infinity Moving, doubled the price of the move, was late, hard to communicate with, and broke too many of our things to be worth it. 3 of our hand-made plates (the ones from Jim and Teresa) 2 of my wine glasses, cracked my lamp, and dented both of our pots and the crock pot. Really unprofessional, although the guy who came to the house with the movers was nice.

Anyway, we spent some time at the beaches, which are really great (and allow dogs!) and checking out the town and neighborhood. The house needs some work, but nothing major, and its bigger than the pictures made it look. I really love it, and I'm enjoying unpacking our boxes!

I'll have more to say once we have our own internet and I'm not at the library! Off to Whole Foods to get some lunch!

Nevermind Nevada

2010-08-30T01:04:00.000-04:00

Since the post this morning was so rushed towards the end (although we really did do that much driving), I decided I'd better finish one for the day tonight.
We drove through Bryce Canyon this morning, and even though it was freezing and blowing tornado-like winds, we made it out of the car to see most of the over-looks. It was pretty cool, even if it was really really cold. (Also, I finished Pet Sematary! Creeepppyyy)
After Bryce Canyon, we made it to the Grand Canyon and walked out to Bright Angel Point (on the North Rim). It wasn't as crowded as I expected it to be, so we had a good time climbing rocks and taking pictures. I think the Grand Canyon has been my favorite stop so far. I usually like to add pictures that I find online of a place that we've been since we don't have a digital yet, but we took so many good ones today (hopefully) that I just want to wait until we can get those up.
Other than our stop in the Grand Canyon, we've just been driving all day. We had dinner at a Panda Express in Hurricane, Utah, and now we're in Mesquite, Nevada (and Charles is right, Nevada already seems a little too crowded and we just got here). So, since this is my shortest post yet, here is a link to some pictures that Charles and I laughed at a lot. Apparently this guy decided all of a sudden that he really likes cats and wanted to build them a town to live in. It looks like he has at least a hundred now. We laughed because they're cats... cats don't care about anything... especially having a church with stained-glass windows.

All the Rocks Live in Utah

2010-08-29T10:51:00.001-04:00

Yesterday, we woke up early and relaxed in the springs one last time before heading back out on the road. The morning was still pretty cool, so the hot pools were amazing. We stopped in Durango, CO for lunch and while we didn't stay long, we decided that we liked the area and would definitely go back.
After lunch we drove through Mesa Verde National Park. The park was really beautiful, and despite some traffic because of road construction, it wasn't too crowded (as long as you didn't stop at the museum at the same time as the giant bus filled with tourists). There are some Native American cliff dwellings in the area and a few are easily visited without a hike. We got to see the largest, and it was pretty crazy to think that people had once lived in a place like that.
We stopped by the Four Corners Monument, but didn't feel like paying the six dollars to get in, so we just took a picture of the road sign outside and called it even.
Finally, we made it to Monument Valley, which Charles said is featured in a lot of Westerns and which I recognized a little bit.
The sun was setting as we drove through, so the rocks looked as if they were glowing, and although we didn't take this picture, there was a rainbow as well. Monument Valley at Sunset has been my favorite part so far, and I'm glad we had such good timing!
That night, we made it to the Goosenecks State Park campground and set up camp in the dark. The campsite was nice, although the older gentleman who chatted on his cell phone from 10-10:30 was not. The morning view, however, more than made up for our obnoxious neighbor. We watched the sunrise from our tent and then walked out to find that we had been camping next to a thousand foot river canyon. It was beautiful (like everything else, maybe I should check my thesaurus) but pictures of it will have to wait, since I don't really want to steal someone else's.
After Goosenecks, we had breakfast at the only restaurant in the area and headed off in search of the turquoise ring I'd been wanting. We checked into a few stands, but since it was so early, not many were set up yet. We found one that was in the process of being set up by a few kids (obviously setting up the family shop) and got exactly what I was looking for, so the search is over!
After that, we spent most of the day driving. We drove through (and stopped occasionally) the Natural Bridges National Monument, then north through canyon country, then through Glenn Canyon, where we stopped to see Lake Powell, then more canyon country, then the sandstone canyon called the North Wash, then west onto 24 towards Capitol Reef, where it was really windy, then through the Bentonite Hills, then through Capitol Reef, where we stopped to view the petroglyphs. After the break we took highway 12 through Dixie National Forest and through the Grand Staircase National Monument, then west through canyon lands of Escalante, until we stopped in Tropic, Utah near Bryce Canyon National Park.
It was definitely a day filled with driving (I read most of Pet Semetary) but it was fun and as long as we're not tired of it yet, we're going to keep on pushing!

Colorful Colorado

2010-08-27T11:20:00.001-04:00

Yesterday we pulled into Colorful Colorado! Much of it looks like the northern New Mexico terrain that we had been driving through the day before, which means that it was still really pretty.
We had lunch in Trinidad, CO, which has the best turkey croissant sandwiches (real turkey, not deli slices!) and spent some time looking at some of the local art. One woman had a collection of beautiful vintage turquoise rings, but the vintage part made them of questionable metal and almost $100 each, so I passed, but it was nice to try them on! Another woman had an awesome sea turtle painting (had it not been $2500, I think Charles would have found somewhere to put it in our tiny little place!).
We left without buying anything, and a few hours later we arrived in Pagosa Springs, CO, where we had reservations at The Springs Resort. We spent the rest of the night snacking on my favorite food (Mexican, of which there is never a shortage out here) and relaxing in the wonderful hot tubs. The resort is built right next to the river so most of the hot tubs have a wonderful view of the rapids and the town. There are probably almost 20 tubs, each with its own name and varied temperatures, so its easy to find one that you like, and as it gets later, to find one that you have all to yourself! There is a salt water pool that was 82 degrees, and we tried it, although there were too many small people splashing around to stay in it too long (plus it was cold!). There is also a point where the river has been sectioned off, and if you're brave enough to enter with the weather this cold, you can, though only Charles dared to try it. Here is yet another picture I didn't take, but hopefully we'll fill the funsaver soon!

It's much prettier at night!
When we get the pictures, we'll upload them all and comment on them, but for now, its just Charles yelling about how great every single rock and hill is (love you!) and me trying not to nap so much. And its pretty much the best road trip ever.

I love New Mexico

2010-08-26T12:20:00.002-04:00

We woke up yesterday still in Texas, surrounded by row after row of cotton fields. Fortunately for me, the car makes me unbelievably sleepy, so I missed most of the flatness. We finally made it into New Mexico and stopped at a Visitors Center to get a map. As soon as we pulled in, a little dog ran right up to the car and whined for attention. The woman inside said that he had shown up the day before, eaten her cats food, and she feared he had been dropped off by someone who didn't want him anymore. Charles looked at me right away to say that we couldn't take him (although I'm sure Duke and Rosemary wouldn't mind), but just as I was about to argue that we could at least drop him at the shelter in the next town, the local dog-rescuer showed up and said that he would find a way to take care of it. So I felt much better about leaving him there, knowing he wouldn't have to wander the parking lot, checking every car for his owners anymore.

After that the terrain became much more interesting, with mesas on each side and an abundance of wildflowers, mainly giant black-eyed susans, along the side of the road. The weather was a nice sunny 70-75 the whole day, perfect for driving, and the forested hills on each side were so pretty that its kinda hard to explain, but we managed to get at least one picture with the funsaver! That picture is not the one we took, nor is it as good as what we saw, but its almost there. I'll post ours when I get the camera done!
We stopped in Mora, NM, and toured a weaving and pottery gallery http://www.tapetesdelana.com/, which is a non-profit weaving co-op that encourages local art and traditions. We didn't find anything for the new house in the store, but now that we've found the website, we'll definitely be thinking about ordering something!
Afterwards, we had dinner in the resort town, Angel Fire, which was very nice and scenic, but we decided not to stay there because of the price and the short time we'd be in the area. No use in paying for a night at a resort when all you'll do is sleep! So we found a nice smaller hotel in Raton, and we'll be starting our new day soon!

Washington to Texas

2010-08-25T10:32:00.001-04:00

By Friday, we had everything packed and ready, either for the movers to take or to take with us in the car. All of the furniture we own is hand-me-down, most of it older than us, and it might have cost more than it was all worth to ship it, but we love the history it all has, so we kept it. Had a nice dinner and some drinks in the bar around the corner where some of our friends work and had a great last night in DC. Saturday was spent packing the car (which was not easy, had to abandon a few things that wouldn't fit...) and driving back to TN (had to hold a few things on my lap, but at least Duke was comfy). Sunday was for spending time with family, both in Jefferson and in Nashville (and eating the best food, thank you everyone!).

On Monday, Charles got up at 4:30 and had everything ready to go by the time he woke me up at 5 (so considerate!) and we headed to Houston, Texas! The drive was long but not unpleasant, and we made really great time. Passed through 2 new states for me but Mississippi and Louisiana don't really look all that different from anything else. The swamps in Louisiana and the huge bridge going over them was pretty neat though, I'll give them that. Houston's terrain wasn't all that different either, but we had a great time visiting with Uncle Junie and Aunt Mary. We had a great dinner and found out that Charles is a crazy Red and I'm a slow Blue, so we can balance each other out nicely. The next day, yesterday, we went on a hunt for the camera that Charles is dead set on, but no one seems to carry it in a store. Instead, I bought a Kodak Funsaver in a souvenir shop on the Riverwalk in San Antonio, so there won't be pictures along the way, but we'll try and take some good ones and upload them later. What we saw of San Antonio was pretty, the Riverwalk was nice, as was the Mexican food we had for an early dinner there. After dinner it was back on the road. Texas, it seems, is a pretty stormy place right now and as it got darker, we were front and center for a crazy lightning show. Charles turned down the lights in the car and we turned on some music to enjoy the huge sky and the awesome lighting.

There were two casualties of the night, a big bunny that ran into our path that we couldn't avoid because of the rain, and Charles's recycled tire tube wallet that we assume fell from the roof of the car. We decided to honor the bunny by christening the Suburu, which had previously been nameless, Sir Rabbit Bunnington, so that the memory of the first mammal Charles has ever hit could live on through our travels in the car. The wallet hasn't gotten the same kind of tribute, but I'm sure we can replace it later.

Worst thing about Texas: Hot and traffic-y.

Best thing about Texas- Visiting family and reconnecting.

Coolest thing about Texas- The hundreds of crazy blinking synced red lights that looked like alien ships but turned out to be windmills. It was eerily beautiful to watch the high blinking lights, but once we knew what they were (windfarm!) we felt much better about their presence.

Today we're headed for New Mexico and Colorado, and I'm really excited for the new things we'll see!

packing (and unpacking)

2010-08-18T14:26:00.002-04:00

the movers are coming tomorrow (we think) and while some of our things are still boxed from the last move, we have a long way to go on the packing front.

all of this worrying about packing and unpacking and what to keep and what to get rid of has gotten me thinking about how we keep people and how we decide to let them go. in a world where our social lives are led more and more online, we can end up "saving" people and convincing ourselves we have more friends than we really do (or need).

last weekend at a bar, an acquaintance ended up getting really upset with me when i tried to let him know that my best friend would not be going home with him and that he should probably go find the friends that he came out with (all on her request, since she had already kissed him that night and was now unsure how to let him down). he let me know that he was upset with me by telling me that we should be honest with ourselves and admit that we weren't friends. this was totally beside the point, but it did make me think about who i am really friends with and why we pretend to like people when we don't.

this was compounded last night when i saw some girls that i know don't like each other acting like best friends on facebook. now, most of us know that facebook is not real life, but it is a projection of ourselves and it makes me wonder why some of these people would want to project a friendship that isn't there. following this (as well as a few glasses of wine) i decided that the guy from last weekend was right: we are not friends, i have never really liked him, and i really didn't feel like wasting my time and brain power on people like that. so if you've found this through my posting on facebook, you made my drunken friend cut last night. high school is over, and except for the few people that meant enough to me back then that i still care about them, i have no reason to keep so many people that i haven't seen in four years around. college is also over, and if we haven't spoken since that one class two years ago, we won't be sending each other christmas cards, and you're coming off too.

i don't have 496 friends, but since the human brain can only remember 150 relationships at a time, i seriously doubt anyone else does either. if facebook is how we present ourselves to the world outside those we see everyday, at least my projection won't be fake.

Background

2010-08-11T12:55:00.002-04:00

I graduated in May and moved to Washington DC with my boyfriend Charles, Duke (the golden retriever), and Rosemary (the cat). I started a political internship in June with a large environmental organization. After 3 months in DC, we've decided to pack everything again and move to San Francisco, California. It seems like a big change, and it is, (literally across the country and a long way from hometown, TN) but we've got a plan. I have accepted an agribusiness internship with a smaller environmental organization and Charles is all set up for classes, so we're on our way in ten days and as soon as the house is ready, we'll be home. We leave the 21st to start our cross-country trip if everything goes as planned and I can't wait!