Fall upon me
The air has a bite in the mornings. The leaves here do not change color; rather, it is the landscape itself that creates an impressive array of hues at this time of year. Traffic lightens up, the apples on the tree outside my work window are getting plumper, frost appears on the windows, and the grass becomes slivers of ice because the sprinkler system is still set to the hot dry summer schedule, I crawl snuggly under the covers at night, only leaving my head out to chill with the air from the open window.
My house displays anarchy at its best. Everyone does their chore of choice, this is never discussed. The idea is that if anyone cares about any particular cleanliness in the house he or me will do it themselves. Sometimes we share things like powdered sugar (Eric makes a lot of gourmet whoopie pies) or chili paste (Ben got really into stir fries for a while) with or without permission. Before Burning Man, our house became Truckee's creative safe haven. The entire living area was occupied with sewing costumes, electicity projects, construction materials, scraps of fauz fur drifted throughout the house. Music on the stereo and people on every power tool or sewing machine in sight, cookies baking, eyes glazing over as the wee hours of morning snuck in.
Dan and I rode to Lake Tahoe from Truckee, along the Truckee river and then we rode around the lake. It takes some 4-8 hours to ride the 72 miles around the lake. This is about a 4000 fot climb, but you obviously start and end at lake level. Riding from Truckee, we turned this into more like a 105 miles ride and did it in two days, stopping at a crappy motel in South Lake Tahoe, and meeting Liz and her visiting dad for mashed potatos and irish coffee at an English pub (per thier request).
We did not rush, I stopped to help everyone with a flat tire, because I secretly LOVE fixing flats, especially for incompetent unprepared goons biking around the lake. We had leisurly lunches in cozy restaurants with cocoa and oh yeah, baby MOUNDS of whipped cream. We stopped to absorb beautiful views-- sometimes for an hour. And all this led to us getting home after dark on Sunday, beat from the wind and sun and exertion. We took a few pictures-- Dan looks like a cool pro-cyclist in all of them and I look like a total geek, sun-starved legs poking out from under my spandex and/or layers of fleece (depending on the wind at the moment the photo was snapped.
This past weekend, I decided to hike out to one of the Sierra Club backcountry huts to volunteer on a work crew getting it ready for winter, cleaning, haulting wood in wheelbarrows along the often steep and always bumpy Pacific Crest Trail. Sierra trotting gleefully along beside me, back and forth and back and forth, happily covered in burrs and sticky pine sap. I come back to work with a pink face and the under parts of my forearms feeling like Popeye, trying to work but distracted by the grandeur of life in mountains, once you get away from the Malibu Barbie houses and Disney World feel of Tahoe.
During the weeks, I make cream puffs, try to eat no sugar, run daily with the beast, and work on med school applications. Everyday, I meet more people in the small town, likely friends, and I start to feel like less of a stranger. This week I think I will make pumpkin cream puffs and ship a giant one in dry ice to Chris Manone in New York for his birthday. Still trying to find and maintain peace in life, and to leave the world a little better than I find it, little actions every day with love and loyalty to life on earth.
My house displays anarchy at its best. Everyone does their chore of choice, this is never discussed. The idea is that if anyone cares about any particular cleanliness in the house he or me will do it themselves. Sometimes we share things like powdered sugar (Eric makes a lot of gourmet whoopie pies) or chili paste (Ben got really into stir fries for a while) with or without permission. Before Burning Man, our house became Truckee's creative safe haven. The entire living area was occupied with sewing costumes, electicity projects, construction materials, scraps of fauz fur drifted throughout the house. Music on the stereo and people on every power tool or sewing machine in sight, cookies baking, eyes glazing over as the wee hours of morning snuck in.
Dan and I rode to Lake Tahoe from Truckee, along the Truckee river and then we rode around the lake. It takes some 4-8 hours to ride the 72 miles around the lake. This is about a 4000 fot climb, but you obviously start and end at lake level. Riding from Truckee, we turned this into more like a 105 miles ride and did it in two days, stopping at a crappy motel in South Lake Tahoe, and meeting Liz and her visiting dad for mashed potatos and irish coffee at an English pub (per thier request).
We did not rush, I stopped to help everyone with a flat tire, because I secretly LOVE fixing flats, especially for incompetent unprepared goons biking around the lake. We had leisurly lunches in cozy restaurants with cocoa and oh yeah, baby MOUNDS of whipped cream. We stopped to absorb beautiful views-- sometimes for an hour. And all this led to us getting home after dark on Sunday, beat from the wind and sun and exertion. We took a few pictures-- Dan looks like a cool pro-cyclist in all of them and I look like a total geek, sun-starved legs poking out from under my spandex and/or layers of fleece (depending on the wind at the moment the photo was snapped.
This past weekend, I decided to hike out to one of the Sierra Club backcountry huts to volunteer on a work crew getting it ready for winter, cleaning, haulting wood in wheelbarrows along the often steep and always bumpy Pacific Crest Trail. Sierra trotting gleefully along beside me, back and forth and back and forth, happily covered in burrs and sticky pine sap. I come back to work with a pink face and the under parts of my forearms feeling like Popeye, trying to work but distracted by the grandeur of life in mountains, once you get away from the Malibu Barbie houses and Disney World feel of Tahoe.
During the weeks, I make cream puffs, try to eat no sugar, run daily with the beast, and work on med school applications. Everyday, I meet more people in the small town, likely friends, and I start to feel like less of a stranger. This week I think I will make pumpkin cream puffs and ship a giant one in dry ice to Chris Manone in New York for his birthday. Still trying to find and maintain peace in life, and to leave the world a little better than I find it, little actions every day with love and loyalty to life on earth.
posted by Betony at 11:43 AM
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