I'm coffee-ing and internet-ing surrounded by pre-shower fishermen and other Sitka early risers who have a need for the outside world, internet-style but who don't have the luxury of the internet at their own boat. Or home. I've always liked this place. I've got a minute or two left before my allotted time runs out on the internet ~ so I'm just signing on to say that this is going to be an INTERESTING summer spent in the company of The Overachiever, The Feral One, the FartMaster, Mister Nice, and K-to-tha-Athy. Always fun, always stories to share. But when I have more time. Last thought, local humor-style: "you'll never find a Tlingit in a Haida bed." HA~!

Wrangell Narrows:

Petersburg waterfront & our wake:

And I am still unable to locate the friggin bathmats....but I will!

Working on a different yacht each year means having to put a puzzle together every time--and currently, I'm just getting an idea where the edges of this puzzle might be. Where the sheets are stored, where the extra lightbulbs are, what do you do with a mobile massage table on a boat without a massage therapist...how can you keep the white carpet white, what happens when 12 passengers are booked on a yacht built to accommodate 10, etc.

Let the good times roll!

Anyhoo. Wrangell Narrows was beautiful - rain, the sweet smell of conifers, and the squeaky-toy cry of eagles at low tide.

Now we head north through Frederick Sound to Chapin Bay for the night...where the fishing's pretty prime...and the beauty will continue!

(time passes....Internet connections wane...)

And it's a new day.

(here's the wake-up shot in Chapin, above)

And now we are off in search of a fresh-caught halibut lunch. Scrumptious!

{{I couldn't post this yesterday, as cell svc ran out--but whatev!}}

I'm still having a great time, even WITH a frickin mouse (or more) inboard, crapping everyplace; with a marginal lack of sheets, and with crew quarters that don't include privacy curtains. Which suuuuuucks. Ah well.

It's still awesome!

(internet connections still wane; what I thought was posted isn't...and so I continue:)

I'm lucky to be working, when so many others are NOT!! I won't be back in Seattle until mid-August at the earliest...which hopefully will give my knee time to heal (?) - & which means I'll get plenty of money even just based on a daily wage scale...which trumps unemployment. Good times.

Because unemployment will be there when times are tougher...but hopefully I won't need that at all.

Good stuff is in the works.

By the way, here's an odd twist: this boat, "Crystal," is registered in Phoenix, AZ. Strange, eh?

I think so.

Posted via LiveJournal.app.

Last night.
My dream.
It...disturbed me.
It...haunts me.
It...came from nowhere.
It...needs to be forgotten.

I dreamed that I was a delegate from someplace in South Texas. I was at a convention, preparing to cast my vote. On the folding chairs to my left, which were empty, I noticed an overcoat and an umbrella. I pondered them as I waited for my turn to ascend to the pulpit and decry judgement regarding who the candidate should be.

Then she approached, laying claim to her overcoat, picking up her umbrella, and giving me a piercing, yearning stare that could only mean one thing...
Hillary.
Placing her warm right hand on my left inner thigh, she leaned her face near to mine, cocking her head to the side as her lips parted *just so.*

"I must tell you," she breathed, her pupils widening slightly and her pheremones rushing toward all of her glandular output stations. She bent her head toward the intimate space between my chin and my shoulder - and then, urgently, she locked her lips onto mine, exposing the inside of my mouth to all of her tastebuds in an increasingly provocative, demanding fashion.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.

The Most Icky, Wierd & Massively Horrid Part Was:
She had such severe halitosis that I could almost taste it.

I woke up, choking, and ran to my toothbrush.

I'm not sure what to make of it all.

The dude at The Bambino greeted me this morning with a somber (yet friendly!) nod as he turned his neighborhood newspaper page* with a flourish: "it's been a long time since we've seen you in here!"

*[he & I both agree that more often than not, it's the neighborhood newspapers where you REALLY learn what's up with the news that matters...zoning issues, neighborhood news that matters, how city ordinances that are being debated will affect your life on a daily basis, etc. we've had lengthy chats on this before, as you can see--]

This fellow doesn't work at the shop, rather he sits inside on one of the five stools that line the counter near the window. It should be noted that the place is large enough for about THREE stools, so the fact that he's sitting on one of the FIVE that they've crammed into the space should not only tell you about the intimate environment that The Bambino presents, but it also provides insight into the dude who chooses to sit there, taking up space as neighborhood caffeine-seekers clamor inside, taking refuge from the ark-worthy weather outside, seeking sustinence and the nectar of the coffee bean.

"Well, I've been a little busy - my job is ending next week," I mentioned. "I'm wrapping things up and looking forward to a few weeks of chill-out time after my last day there on May 15. Until then it promises to be a little crazy."

"Aaah," he smiled. "Your job's eliminated, eh? Microsoft?"

"No," I replied, recalling that maaaaaaany Microsofties were alerted yesterday that their jobs also don't exist any longer. I'm betting their severance is a little bit more robust than mine, but I'm not complaining. "Actually I work at a ski area that has decided to restructure a bit, and they're dismantling the HR department so my job doesn't fit the model any longer."

"No HR?" he choked. A little bit of muffin, which had been stuck to his chin since before our conversation began, absorbed the sputtering coffee dribbles that oozed from his mouth as he reacted to the information. "How do they think they're going to be able to run a business without HR?! Especially that place - it's huge with a gigantic part-time workforce!"

This is a man who looks like The Gerber Baby All Grown Up And After The Atkins Diet. He's got a massive bald head which he shaves in that trendy "balding dude" sort of way. He looks like he used to be a bigger man who has shrunk. He has kind eyes and an intelligent (but not arrogant) charisma. The kind of person who can manage to capture your attention for longer than you realize, because he has this gravitational wisdom that makes you reluctant to part company with him. He's a little bit shaman, a little bit Grandpa, a little bit quirky neighbor, a little bit older brother.

I explained that the administrative aspects of the HR world will be absorbed into the Accounting department, and my more 'strategic' job of training, developing, and strengthening the front-line leaders (as well as the not-so-front-line-leaders) is perceived as an "extra" sort of "fluffy" - [ie, non-essential] - role.

Buh-bye, HR.
Hello, Personnel.

"It's cyclic," he observed. "They'll feel the pain of this decision for years before they actually realize it, and it will cost them more than they can buy back. Eventually they'll bulk back up but during the mean time a lot of organizational knowledge will be lost through attrition."

How could I argue?

"So what's your plan?"
His tongue discovered the soggy muffin crumb on his chin as he pierced me with those brown eyes that soooo matched the vegan chocolate donut I was devouring.

"Oh, who knows?" I shrugged. "I'm in a good position to use this as a jumping off point for the next chapter."

And it's true.
I have NO plan, but I have a LOT of options.

I want to make sure I move forward from this point with my eyes on the WHOLE horizon. I don't want to limit myself in any way. I want to take advantage of the "new beginning" that I'm staring down, while building on past successes and leveraging all of my MIGHT into...The Next Big Thing.

Whatever it is.

I know everybody's already heard of singing sensation Susan Boyle, so perhaps she's old news at this late date, but it's an inspiring story nonetheless. Her spunk, combined with her humility, along with her overwhelming talent...well it makes for great viewing.

Here's the link (not sure it's actually embeddable):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lp0IWv8QZY

My attempt to embed it anyhow:


See what you think.

In other news, I'm back to soccer. As Nicoll told me yesterday: "you're showing signs of age with all of these injuries" - and, once again, she's right. And also wrong. But ultimately, right.

My teammates who are also in the 'near-injured' category include:
- Carly with the back / hip flexor problem
- Alyssa with that wierd quad strain
- Bri and her ankle, though that seems to be getting much better
Important note: all of these girls are 25 or under.
Me? Upper 30s. And still keeping up with them.

Back to soccer means lots of managing-the-soccer-team stuff going on. We're trying to go play at the Gay Games or the Olympics or whatever it is in Koln, Germany (Cologne?! however they like to spell it, I've seen it both ways) next July.

So our fundraising attempts are beginning:
(you may have to click on this to enlarge it)


We're also doing a jackload of community-service stuff along with our blatant fundraising get-us-to-Germany stuff. Last month, we raised over $3,000 for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. Tomorrow, we're doing some benefit for the Lifelong Aids Alliance. Next week, it's something for Lambert House. Hopefully soon we'll get back out into the greater population. I mean, doing good stuff for the gays is great, but it's not the ONLY way to do good in this world.

So we're hoping to partner with Seattle Scores (they help students who are primarily first-generation immigrants connect with each other, with leadership skills, with soccer skills, and with english/writing skills...they produce "Player-Poets" by combining soccer clinics and games with poetry writing and full-on poetry slams! It's cool!) and whomever else we can promote that will give us some community cred (giving-back) along with more exposure that will help fuel our efforts when it comes to $$-raising for our international tournament play in 2010...

LAST BUT NOT LEAST:
- I no longer have 26lbs of FAT that go with me everywhere
- In the last 6 wks I've reduced that to 19.8 lbs of FAT. NOT BAD!
- I also added 1.9 lbs of lean mass (muscle!)
- Which means I dropped my overall body fat percentage from 22.4% to 17.7%.

Nobody was more shocked than I...my Physical Therapist tells me he suspects one of those hydrostatic tests wasn't entirely accurate (that in his opinion such a feat is nearly impossible). I have to agree with him, sort of.

Then again, fat-tester-guy was all SORTS of excited for me. He told me that I'd somehow achieved a really sustainable fat-loss balance without letting my metabolism shut down, allowing me to put ON muscle at the same time.

"It's an awesome thing!" he raved.

So of course I like HIS version better...
And yes I asked whether being over- or under-hydrated would make much of a difference in this test. For caliper-fat testing, yes. But for the hydrostatic test (dunk tank) - not so much. So.

?

It can be done. You can massively alter your body composition with a little intention and follow-through. I wouldn't say I changed much about my food intake (ie I didn't 'diet) and I wouldn't say I upped my exercise (during this 6 wks I once again got SICK, I tweaked my knee, and I've had to miss several weeks of soccer as a result...and soccer is my primary cardio activity).

BUT!
I have been doing 30min strength sessions at PT (physical therapy) and I've had 6 hour-long sessions of the 'other' PT (personal training) too.

I'm of the opinion that those lunges, squats, and muscle-building ('toning') activities really do work.

One thing that will work your funny bone is if you walk around your newly vacuumed carpets wearing soccer cleats. It makes the whole place look...somewhat pummelled. Which is kind of hilarious.

Time to vacuum again; it's a lot like 'grooming' the carpet.

When did I allow myself to begin using EMOTICONS? :-!
I'm not sure! ;o?
I wish I worked harder at using WORDS. =)
Emoticons are the lazy way, and I'd like to think I wasn't lazy. :-P
But, well. I am. =D
So I'll continue to use them, sometimes, even though it angers me. ;~o

Other things that I'm coming to terms with as I navigate the fantastic month of April - The Mariner's Schedule!


BASEBALL IS BACK.

Baseball is almost the most boring game ever invented, falling on the total excitement scale somewhere between "The Quiet Game" and being forced to play Monopoly on a summer day with your geeky MBA-bound 8-year-old cousin when you'd been invited to Andy Torres's tree-house-at-the-river-with-the-tire-swing-and-the-rest-of-the-cool-kids all-day-while-his-his-mom-makes-awesome-food-and-it's-never-ending-and-then-you-can-ride-dirt-bikes-later-and-finally-watch-movies-after-the-sun-goes-down-party.

But really, the worst thing about baseball is that it causes horrendous traffic.

Oh yeah. I exaggerate NOT. :)

Check it out above, the bastard Mariners have the audacity to have 9 home games [colored dark blue in the graphic] during the next week and a half. That's like EVERY FRIGGIN DAY! Awesome. The one day they don't play is My. Day. Off. SWEET!

I.
Love.
Traffic!

EMOTICON TIME!
I <3 Traf!

Aaah.
In other news, we've had inches and inches of new snow so I've started calling it Second Winter.

BUT!
I woke up to some pretty awesome views today. Please enjoy.



The iPhone leaves something to be desired as a camera, really. The dark and looming clouds off-set the brilliance of the Olympics in a way that is so understated in these photos...

Really, you should just come see for yourself.



AND, last but not least: I'm scared for my job.
Excellent!

New.
Car.
Payment.

Really, no worries.
Heh.

Easter evening at home, after a day of solid and unrelenting rain, saw a moment of heavenly sunbreaks that illuminated the once-dark-world with a sense of rebirth.

HOW EASTER-ISH!

It's all going to work out, I think. Though the knee is still tweaked. I wonder if it has to do with that car accident I was in back in 1990...my knee still bears scars on the skin, who KNOWS what happened to the inside of all its moving parts (eek)! Nonetheless, I'm still taking great pains to rest and relax it.

Wah.

As for the world of duplex-living...well, it's duplistic. Sometimes it's going to be great (or, if not 'great' then perhaps at least 'acceptable' will have to do) - and sometimes it's gonna suck.

Like a sine wave, we'll hopefully move gracefully from trough to crest. Hopefully, with better communication, the highs and lows will diminish so that things equalize in a reasonable manner.

Let's hope!
And I'm hoping.

First of all, my radio station is doing its pledge drive right now. This is a precarious situation for me due to the fact that for some reason I'm a SUCKAH for their pleas.

Last year I think I donated $$ at EVERY pledge drive (much of this is driven by my greedy desire for things like that branded license plate frame which, were I ever to put it on my car, would allow me to brag about my do-gooder-give-$-to-public-radio-prowess AND my advanced-status-music-listening-profile - or, that one time I REALLY wanted the keychain - or, last pledge drive they were all saying how AWESOME the t-shirt was, so I had to get THAT...plus all of those wicked awesome VIP club concerts at the Triple Door - those are cool too).

I love music, I love learning about NEW music, and I like seeing LIVE music. So it's a great thing for me to do.

EXCEPT. I should *not* give them money right now.

Why!?
Well, because I just purchased a new set of wheels:

HENCE, I'LL BE LIVING ON A BUDGET FOR THE NEXT SEVERAL YEARS.

"What!?" you say. You peer closer at the photo above. Perhaps you click it and drill down to its largest pixelation. You wonder, "could that be a SUBARU!? Is Monique driving a station-wagon-ish SUBARU!?"

No. I am not.
Take a peek:




As you can see, it's a little less station-wagon and a little more SUV. I would have gone for the Tribeca except it gets really awful gas mileage ~ somewhere between 14 and 17mpg. Whereas the blue beauty you see pictured above gets a healthy 20-27 depending on conditions.

Thanks to a handy little in-dash reporting system, it turns out I'm averaging 22-23 with the driving I've done so far. Other wicked cool features include:


THE SUNROOF.
I told myself I was NEVER going to buy another car without a sunroof. And so I have purchased one with the most GIGANTIC sunroof I've ever seen. Seriously, it's bigger than the screen of my TV...which is fairly large. I. Love. The. Sunroof!

Also the interior is pretty roomy (everybody who's anybody has given it an approving nod with an expression on their face that I interpret as: "wow, this is a car that I would actually want to RIDE in!") Yeah.

Not that the RAV4 was *bad,* per se - but it was a little cramped for pretty much anybody but me.

The subaru was a dealer / demo and so I was able to buy it AFTER depreciation pricing, but WITH a bunch of extra features that would have cost me a pretty penny if I'd added them onto a "new" vehicle purchase:

REMOTE START: hence, I can sit in my cozy house or office, press a button, and allow the vehicle to warm up without the inconvenience of going outside until I HAVE to

PUDDLE LIGHTS: have you ever heard of these? They're under the running boards & light up when you unlock or open the door so you don't step in any puddles when entering/exiting the vehicle.

A CD PLAYER IN THE DASH: yeah, I've *finally* made it to the 1990s...but seriously this is a feature I've never ever had!

THE BEEP-BEEP UNLOCK THE DOOR FEATURE: Ok I realize this is pretty standard these days, but again - with my 10yr-old car, it wasn't something I'd ever OWNED before now.

CRUISE CONTROL THAT WORKS: The RAV4 did great for numerous years, but over the past several the cruise control has been hit or miss. Usually, it's been a miss: the little lever that the cruise control was connected to was hanging by a thread (?WHY? we don't know) so it wasn't terribly RELIABLE.

A CIGARETTE LIGHTER PORTAL THAT DOESN'T HAVE THE CIGARETTE LIGHTER THINGY STUCK INSIDE IT: I know, it sounds really dumb, but for like 8 years my old car had the lighter thingy stuck inside the cigarette lighter, meaning that any charger I wanted to plug into my car needed to be plugged into the BACK near the cargo door. Inconvenient, but I survived. So now I feel like a little queen.

FOG LIGHTS: A seriously cool feature for someone who drives through migrating elk country every flippin day at 70mph.

LEG and HEAD ROOM: It's true: normal-sized people all report feeling vastly more comfortable in this car than my trusty old RAV4.

AUTO-DIMMING REAR-VIEW MIRROR: It's a wierd thing, but it's nice that it dims those super-bright headlights coming at you from behind. No more blinded by the rear-view!

TOW PACKAGE: It's got a hitch, which ain't too shabby! Nice that I don't have to put that onto it! And I can get the bicycle carrier that slaps into that bad boy so I won't have to lift those bikes to a roof rack! Or snug a strap-system carrier to the back of the car, shudder.

DIRECTIONS AND TEMPERATURE: The small things are nice - I can tell which cardinal direction I'm traveling AND know what temperature it is outside with this handy feature.

...AND....IT'S A STATUS VEHICLE: (go with me on this, you'll see:) If you tell someone you drive a Toyota, that's not enough. You have to clarify: a Camry. Or a Highlander. Or whatever. You can't get away with saying you simply drive "a Honda." You have to say "an Accord" or "a CRV." But with a SUBARU, people just leave it at that. Subaru is good enough. Like when people say they drive a VOLKSWAGEN. Or an AUDI. No more clarification needed, really. Saying you drive one of these vehicles sets you into a certain class of people. Pemco should make a commercial about it. I'm not talking 'status' car like BMW or Porsche or Bentley - but it's a status car nonetheless. And it has that cool logo with the stars on it.

PLUS....THE STEREOTYPE! Yeah, now I'm a COMPLETE stereotype, right down to the Subaru. However, there are parts of the stereotype I don't forsee myself embracing anytime soon: the dog or the U-Haul.

AND OF COURSE - - THE NEW CAR SMELL: I bought this thing with 7,000 miles on it. So it does, in fact, maintain some of its new car smell.

Tomorrow it gets teflon-wrapped with some product called CHIP-PROTECT that's supposed to protect the paint and headlamps from chipping caused by road debris. This was a good investment for me to make. I know that I've been rabid about the car here; but hey: why NOT be excited?

I'm euphoric that I've got a car where there's no shi-shi-shi sound alternating from alto to tenor to bass and back. I'm stoked to not have the rusty rotors squeaking every time I apply the brakes. I'm thrilled with slightly better gas mileage. I'm happy not to have to worry about "the big one" - the break down that would cause me to, you know, have to shell out lots of money out-of-pocket and THEN STILL require me to get a new ride.

RIP RAV4: you were good, and I loved you, and now it's time for a SUBARU.

IN OTHER NEWS, the Surge is going swell. We battled the UW women's club team last Saturday and experienced a fair amount of humbling AND happiness: we didn't get slaughtered and considering it was our first game as a team, and that the other team has been playing together since September, and that THEIR average age is somewhere around 20 and we've got some rippin players ranging from 22 - 40 (but our average age is easily 29ish)

...a 0-3 loss wasn't such a stampede. We have been wrecked by playing Co-Rec rules for so long, so our aggressive side ain't there. But it's gonna be. It will.

Check out our new jerseys! The photo below shows the team jersey's front (in blue) and the keeper jersey's back (to demonstrate how names/numbers look):

Cool, eh?

I'm excited for this team...it's pretty cool that we've consistently had 12-15 people show up for conditioning and practice each week! And we had 16 at our scrimmage! Woot.

And finally: yes. I moved. I now live in Ballard. This is what I wake up to many days (below).


AND, it's close to an awesome little room-to-stand-only coffee shop that point blank refuses to accept credit cards or cash in bills of greater denominations than 10. Love the sign!


The ONLY thing I've got complaints about is the wierd way that air circulates in the building where I live and the way sound travels.

(I've got the top floor of an old house, and some friends of mine live in the apartment below. That's it. Just us. We've got a detached garage and a small yard where gardening can happen, lounging will occur, and socializing is easy! == many things to love!)

But! When Kevin comes home at 2am and microwaves his horrid after-drinking meal, all of its processed ickiness wafts RIGHT UP INTO MY BEDROOM. If anyone slams a kitchen cupboard downstairs, my entire apartment shakes. And if somebody decides to smoke (anything) downstairs...it floats up to enliven my olfactory without delay.

One thing I know: there will be challenges anywhere I live. And these are rather small ones to deal with - but I'm going to come up with a clever way to propose to the neighbors that a little less cupboard-slamming and a lot less loud-music-playing at any time of day is advantageous to all.

We'll see!

LASTLY: this 26lbs of fat I've headlined with!
You should know that I am 90 pounds of lean mass (including muscle, bone, internal organ, etc) and 26lbs of FAT! Which makes me a plump 22% body fat! EGAD. I'm aiming to eliminate the "twenties" from my body fat ratio altogether. We'll see how it goes. I've got 6 weeks of personal training lined up as a part of the American Athlete Fitness Challenge.

I'll let you know how it goes. To get to where I want to be, I'd need to lose at least 7.5 but preferrably closer to 9lbs of FAT. I think I can probably lose a pound a week if I put my mind to it. So this is a little bit of a stretch goal!

Overall, life is good.
Except for the excess body fat and the severe budget I'll be living under for the next few years. But really, boundaries and projects make me more motivated than not having them.

Sorry this is just a 'here's what's happening' post, but...well - it's all I've got right now.

Toodles.

Yep.
You know it.
Wicked-awesome.
Feel the Surge.
We're gonna rockit.
Follow all the happenings at http://raincitysurge.blogspot.com

I've gotta tell you that occupational injuries are a BITCH.

I've spent the past few days employing the following regimen while gulping vast quantities of Arnica Montana and slathering myself in liberal amounts Tiger Balm:
- heat
- stretching
- rolling around on a tennis ball
- stretching
- heat
- bath
- stretching
- ice
- nap
- repeat

I had no idea but if you look up QUADRATUS LUMBORAM on Wikipedia, you'll find that I've been flirting with disaster with this particular muscle for a LONG TIME. It turns out that my habit of going to work, sitting on my ass and typing emails (or data entry, or whatever) all day can take an angry toll after a few years.

ON YOUR LOWER BACK!

Who knew!? Check the following diagrams so you can feel my pain:


Here, you see a muscle-y depiction of the Quadratus Lumboram. Looks signifigant, but not huge, right?

Here's another view--

Yeah, it's a biggie.

Here are a few more, this one from Gray's:


And another one that simplifies things a bit--

Basically the "quadratus lumboram" is like the quad muscles you've got in your legs, but instead it attaches the top of your pelvis to your lower vertibrae.

So when you're walking, it's engaged.
It's hard at work when all you're doing is simply standing still.
When you're sitting, your "QL" is keeping you upright.
In essence, it is ALWAYS working!

Also enraged with me is my psoas. Check out how the QL and the PSOAS occupy some similar spaces:

See how big THIS bad boy is?

Psoas...one major hip flexor. Since I do a lot of running, other muscles in this group are also a little tight from time to time but thanks to a friggin LAMINATOR project for work about 3 weeks ago, ironically something I was doing for SAFETY WEEK of all things, I was able to over-tax my QL. Because it's so related to the PSOAS, I spent the past few weeks nursing some wild and wierd spasmy pain that finally crested this weekend after Sunday's soccer practice.

I'm in love with massage and I've been very lucky for several years to have a fabulous LMP who has patiently worked with me, educating me about all sorts of body awareness that I didn't have before.

It was from her that I learned just how delightful it can be to have the adductors paid some attention - likewise the piriformis.

She heroically spent 1.5 hrs with me on Friday and then nearly 3hrs with me on Monday trying to coax my QL down from that suicide mission it was on. She gave my psoas a nice deep rub. And we've got a regimen outlined for future, as well.

SO have it be known, people: I will have to take it easy on the skiing, the soccer, the hiking and the running until this thing works itself out.

NO CHANCES. I can't handle another day of the pity-party that overtook me yesterday, wondering whether I'd ever be able to do anything I like to do ever again!

(I was told to avoid "pelvic-centered activities" until we get this worked out a little.)

Groan.

So I'm a Broke Back Tight Ass who's getting none.
But let's just look at as an investment in my future hedonism.

Please say a little prayer for all of the muscles associated, as I really do enjoy and NEED running, playing, jumping, bumping & grinding to be a part of my daily life:


((aren't these diagrams cool?))