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Friday five.

We have a pretty sweet kitchen at our current farmstay and I've been going a bit nuts with the homemade meals. Last night I accidentally recreated the Whole Bowl's Bowl:

Or something like it, anyway. Their version has brown rice, red and black beans, fresh avocado, salsa, black olives, sour cream, Tillamook cheddar, cilantro, Tali Sauce and "trace amounts of attitude."

Mine had local ingredients (parsley from the garden, local Hawaiian onion and sea salt, kale and a jalapeno pepper from the U-Pick garden up the road) and not quite local ingredients (1.5 cans diced tomatoes, 1 can tomato sauce, 2 cans black beans, 3 cloves garlic and 4 chopped carrots from California, dried oregano from Australia, generic black pepper, brown rice from somewhere, frozen corn from I-don't-want-to-know-where).

I had a bad day yesterday so there were definitely "trace amounts of attitude" in my version as well.

Here's what I did, in five easy steps:

1. Saute carrots and onion until the aroma permeates the kitchen.
2. Add garlic, jalapeno pepper, kale, salt, pepper, oregano, and everything canned and frozen.  
3. Bring to a boil, then simmer 20 minutes or until you can't wait any longer.  Throw parsley in during the last 5 minutes or so.
4. Serve over brown rice with a blob of shredded cheese on top, along with a simple side salad of local greens and palmelo from the backyard.
5. Top bowl and salad with this amazing dressing (backyard avocados and lemons, of course!) and crushed tortilla chips.

My main goal was to use up all the veggie bits and pieces in the fridge and all the canned food we'd bought when we got here 10 days ago and hadn't touched.  My secondary goal was to make something that would last as long as possible so that we could prolong the 5-mile-return walk to the supermarket until next week.

Pretty sure I succeeded on both those fronts - we'll get four meals each out of this "bowl," which works out to roughly $1/person/meal, which by Hawaiian cost standards is pretty remarkable.

I totally winged the recipe.  It's just chili, so it wasn't rocket science, but I'm pretty proud of how it turned out.  I also think mine was better than Whole Bowl's.

See?  Attitude!  (But just a trace...)

Book-o-rama.

I loves me some goals. (But you know that already.)

It's been a while since I did quarterly goals. It's now 2015 and I just keep pushing out the completion date for these, at least until we are back in the Pacific Northwest. They all still apply and I still practice them on a fairly regular basis, so it's all good.

But the strangely addictive Goodreads put out a 2015 Reading Challenge. And I loves me some challenges. (But you also know that already.)  So I signed up to read 24 books this year. I'm at 8% of my goal already - hooray for lazy afternoons after a hard day at the farm!

In light of this exciting new goal, I was inspired to give a rundown of the books I have read over the past 650 days of our trip. We were really fortunate to pass through dozens of hostels, guesthouses, and WWOOF accomodations offering book exchanges so I found some real gems I probably would never have picked up otherwise.

So without further ado...  I didn't track every single book I read over the past few years on my Goodreads list, but if they aren't listed here they are probably forgettable to me.  An * means I really, highly recommend checking it out.

Literally literature

• * The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho) - completely mesmerizing.  Can't believe I didn't read this sooner.
• The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle (Haruki Murakami) - I really wanted to love this but it just got too weird.  I'll try another of his novels when I run across it, but in the meantime I recommend I Am a Cat (Natsume Soseki) instead.
• * The Wonderful World of Oz (Frank L Baum) - one of those books I re-read every few years, along with A Wrinkle in Time and The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.  I  always see something new in the story.
• The Metamorphosis (Franz Kafka) - probably would've appreciated this more 20 years ago, but it was definitely engaging.
• * Dracula (Bram Stoker) - any story about vampires is a good story, no matter how many times I've read it already.
• * What the Body Remembers (Shauna Singh Baldwin) - beautifully written.  The first book I read in ages that I actually couldn't put down.
• Please Don't Kill the Freshman (Zoe Trope) - ehhh... very Portland, very high school, very tedious.  I didn't quite finish it.
• * Tales of the Unexpected (Roald Dahl) - perfectly dark and twisted!   And I have a whole new appreciation for Royal Jelly now that I've worked with bees.  Anyone who loves Hemingway's short stories will love these too.
• * The White Tiger (Aravind Adiga) - edgy, fast-paced, very well written.  I really liked this one.
• * Last Man in Tower (Aravind Adiga) - and I liked this one even more, especially because the plot translates to almost anywhere in the world right now.
• Great House (Nicole Krauss) - I need to remember that I like her ex-husband's novels much more than I like hers...  As with History of Love, I ended up skimming the last several chapters due to lack of interest coupled with a need for closure.

Beach chair books

• The Fault in Our Stars (John Green) - I finished it in, like, a day, and then promptly forgot about it.
• Everything by Kathy Reichs - to be honest, I am ashamed to admit how many of her stupid books I have read on this trip.  If her characters were vampires I would probably suck these up like I did the Twilight series and the True Blood series... but after one too many "OMG SERIOUSLY WHO TALKS LIKE THAT?" exclamations, I finally had to call it in Hawaii.  I will never pick another one of her books up.  (Unless, yunno, it's just sitting right there and I'm on a beach somewhere.)
• You Suck (A Love Story) (Christopher Moore) - definitely teenage vampire pulp fiction.  A quick, fun read and I loved all the references to familiar San Francisco places and things.   
• The Gunslinger (Stephen King) - an oldie but a goodie.

True stories

• * No Picnic on Mt Kenya: A Daring Escape, A Perilous Climb (Felice Benuzzi) - the title really sums up the plot.  A really engaging read that I enjoyed very much.
• * Riding the Iron Rooster (Paul Theroux) - Theroux is my favorite travel writer, my hero in that sense.  This is the story of that year in the '80s that he spent riding the rails in China. I wanted to re-read it as soon as I finished it.
• * Booby Trap (Allison Bially) - anyone who knows Allison will love this book.  
• Point to Point Navigation (Gore Vidal) - I had no idea he knew so many famous people. I had no idea I would be so enthralled by stories about famous people. I later tried to read Palimsest but barely made it through a few chapters.
• * Daughter of the Killing Fields (Theary C Seng) - stunningly heartbreaking. And then we actually went to Cambodia and my heart broke again and again.  One of those only-available-locally books, so next time you're in SE Asia definitely pick it up.
• * Night (Elie Wiesel) - stunningly heartbreaking. And then we actually went to Auschwitz-Birkenau and my heart broke again and again.  Must find Dawn and Day.
• Garlic and Sapphires: The Secret Life of a Critic in Disguise (Ruth Reichl) - a fascinating look into the life of a food critic.  This book made me never want to eat in a hoity-toity restaurant ever again.
• * Me: Stories of My Life (Katharine Hepburn) - written as you'd imagine her talking.  She was an amazing lady.  Just look at all these awesome things she said...
• The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom (Jonathan Haidt) - Interesting thoughts mixed with too many words, too many examples, too many external sources.  He had me... Then he lost me with all the fluff... Then he quoted a bunch of studies from Flow and Influence (which I've read) and he really lost me with the simple regurgitation of ideas.  I liked the Geography of Bliss (Eric Weiner) a lot more.

Sorta true stories (where I got on a roll reading stories about true terribly depressing historical events set in fictional settings)

• * Burial Rites (Hannah Kent) - a beautifully written but terribly depressing story of an Icelandic woman charged with murder who lives her last days with the local sherrif and his very begrudging family.  
• * Year of Wonders (Geraldine Brooks) - an enthralling but terribly depressing account of a woman who saves her local village from the Black Plague.  
• * The Lazarus Project (Aleksandar Hemon) - a thoughtful (yep, and terribly depressing) tale of a writer exploring the questionable murder charges of an immigrant from the prior century.  Honestly, I never could figure out if this was based on an actual historic event but it had the same feel as the two above.

Our next life (where I sifted through thousands of permaculture and design books at our last Tasmania host's house - these are some of my favorites)

• * The Resilient Farm and Homestead (Ben Falk) - definitely the most accessible book on permaculture that I've come across, plus the author is in Vermont so a lot of the climate tips will be similar to Oregon.  I hardly ever get inspired to buy books anymore but I really want to buy this when we get back.
• * A Place of My Own: The Education of an Amateur Builder (Michael Pollan) - anything this guy writes is golden.
• * Mini Farming: Self Sufficiency on 1/4 Acre (Brett Markham) - another really accessible book, very relevant to how we want to start small.
• A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction (Christopher Alexander) - lots of  interesting design theory, much of it was over my head but I still enjoyed perusing the concepts.
• And then these just had lots of pretty pictures and good design ideas:
• Sticks Stones Mud Houses: Natural Living (Nigel Noyes)
• Small Spaces (Terence Conran)
• Building of Earth and Straw Structural Design for Rammed Earth and Strawbale Architecture (Bruce King)
• The Beauty of Straw Bale Homes (Athena Swentzell Steen)

So that's my 2013-2014 summary.  What's on your plate to read this year?

Belated Friday five.

We recently had the opportunity to watch a bunch of movies in a comfortable hotel room with lots of wine. It was awesome.

In between Guardians of the Galaxy (which was brilliant) and Expendables III (which was terrible), we saw five others. Here they are, listed in order of most favorite to least favorite, with a sentence one of us uttered during the movie:

• Snowpiercer - "This is the silliest crackhead revolt movie I have ever seen."
• Lego Movie - "So... the point of the movie is that management saves the day?"
• Chef - "You had me at 'put a big blob of butter on it'..."
• Captain America - "Robert Redford - what is he, like, EIGHTY??"
• Transcendence - "Just replace Johnny Depp with Monsanto." (Runners up: "It's like Zombieland for nerds"; "Johnny Depp should just play weirdos.")

Seriously, though.  Snowpiercer + wine = you won't be sorry.

On hitting The Wall.

It's a long-distance runner's worst enemy: The Wall. The point where you are mentally and physically spent, where you cannot possibly continue, where you feel like you might puke and all you want is a warm bath and a soft bed.

And maybe a pizza.

And a kitty. Definitely a kitty.

During my marathon training eight years ago, I hit The Wall at 16 miles. I think that was the week our training run was 24 miles; somehow I pushed on for 8 more miles and finished the run. I had no issues while training after that training run, but interestingly (perhaps only to me), when I was actually running the marathon I hit The Wall at 24 miles. I never ran a full marathon again.

The Wall isn't specific to running. It rears its ugly head in any endurance activity.

Like, for example, editing 700 vacation photos. Or attending a five-day work conference. Or my most recent encounter with The Wall: hiking the Annapurna Circuit.

We had been trekking every day, at least 4 hours a day (and usually more like 6-7), for 10 days straight. We started at 840m/2756f*; each day we gained hundreds of meters in altitude. The air got thinner, the trees became sparse, our packs seemed to get heavier with each step. It was beautiful and exhilarating and exhausting. We were working toward a culminating ascent of 5416m/17,769f (also known as 3.4 miles above sea level) on Day 11.

Somewhere around Day 8 (4076m/13,372f/2.5mi**) as we got closer to Thorong La High Camp, I started to freak out.

Just mildly at first, so I kept it to myself - but really, 3.4 miles above sea level? Was that safe? Was it sane? Were we prepared - physically and mentally - for this? Were human beings really supposed to climb that high?

On Day 9 we skipped a side trek to Tilicho Lake because my old leg injury (from aforementioned marathon) had kicked in and I didn't want to risk the rest of the trek or WWOOFing through the last six months of our adventure. Was my *leg* prepared for an ascent of 5416m/17,769f/3.4mi?

The last hiking hour of Day 9 was the hardest hour we'd seen yet. It wasn't even hard hiking. It just sucked. We moved at a turtle's pace and stopped every few minutes to rest. At the frontier-like guesthouse (4200m/13,780f/2.6mi) we skipped cold bucket showers and laid around all afternoon in prep for Day 10 - a 725m/2379f climb - and the inevitable Day 11 pass crossing.

Day 10's ascent went surprisingly well but for whatever reason, at High Camp (4925m/16,158f/3.1mi) above sea level, all my emotions culminated into a gigantic wig out. I was terribly agitated all afternoon; I couldn't concentrate on conversations or crosswords or my book; I wasn't hungry.

I started to wonder if I had altitude sickness.

(I SO did not have altitude sickness.)

I actually sat under the blankets in the cold, damp guesthouse room for an hour, "what-iffing" and trying not to cry, while Patrick went around camp exploring. He was loving the physical and mental challenge of this trek... I usually love a challenge but I most certainly did not love this challenge. That didn't help my mood.

That night we attempted an early sleep for our 5am wake up but all I could do was freak out whenever his breathing was slightly irregular. "If either of us has a heart attack, how will they get us off this mountain?!" He barely slept; I barely slept. "What if our lack of sleep causes us to fall off a mile high cliff?" We didn't have down jackets. "What if we are hit with hypothermia or frostbite?"

We didn't have heart attacks. We didn't fall off cliffs. We were plenty warm the whole climb.

We climbed to the pass without issue and took celebratory photos. It was awesome.

I wrote most of this post two days after we summited Thorung La Pass but never finished it - I couldn't get past the whiny tone and I kind of wanted to forget that I had been so silly about the whole thing.

Today we learned of the lives that were just claimed on that same pass during freak blizzards. Those people didn't get their celebratory photos. Five weeks ago that could've been us.

So even though I still can't get past the whiny tone and I really want to forget that I was so silly about the whole thing, I am posting this to remind myself to be grateful.

Even when the moment sucks - even when the whole damn day or the entire week sucks - I am here. I am taking the sucky celebratory photo. And I am grateful for that.

----------------
* Isn't the metric system fun?
** Isn't this obnoxious? Just giving you a small taste of my world over the last 18 months.

Another one bites the dust...!

After (six years and) five days, 535 US dollars, one bum knee, a hell of a fin blister, and 381 minutes underwater, I can officially check #9 off the list!

Advanced Open Water, baby! 

Those five days were incredibly challenging - physically as well as mentally - and I am pretty sure this was the hardest goal I have completed since I started making these lists six years ago. (Apologies in advance because there's a lot of cursing in this post...) 

The physical challenge is probably obvious. It took a lot of swimming, a lot of carrying around really heavy equipment, and a lot of bouncing and sliding around dive boats in choppy water. I banged the hell out of my knee on a particularly choppy day which made swimming that much more difficult. (It still hurts, actually.) And despite my daily exhaustion I didn't sleep solidly each night.

But I survived, physically.

Mentally it was a whole other story. Yes, I have done crazy things like jump out of airplanes, swing 250 meters over canyons, and climb mountains.  But I am not a terribly adventurous person. I don't consider myself brave, either - I'm cautious to a fault.

At first the mere idea of being 18 or 30 meters underwater for an extended period of time Freaked. Me. Out. The dive shop wasn't the most professional (equipment didn't fit or seemed to keep breaking and the instructors were all ADD twenty-somethings), which didn't help with my unease. I surprised myself at how quickly I got over all that, though. The amazing fish, beautiful coral, and grumpy grandpa moray eels helped enormously in that regard.

What I couldn't get over during the classes was the notion that I was on my own in this strange new underwater world. It's really the first significant solo activity I have done in over 450 days. I overthought all the exercises, I couldn't remember the instructors' directions, and when I did ask for help or feedback or reassurance all I got was "you'll be fine."

Um... thanks.

The first four dives actually weren't too bad - I opted for the PADI version of the Open Water course and wound up in a class by myself, so I had one-on-one instruction the entire time. He had the attention span of a gnat while giving lessons, but at least I knew that if something went wrong he would be right there. There were a few skills that a lot of people have trouble with; I did those with no problems so despite my overall nervousness he assured me I would "be fine."

Um... thanks.

When I moved on to the Advanced Open Water class via the SSI program, things changed. I had five other students with me. I had a different instructor who also had the attention span of a gnat during lessons, but this time he was focused on the girl with ear problems and the hot chick from the UK (who kept swimming into me from behind!!! SOOOO annoying!!) and the guy who kept running out of air. And we had harder skills to pass underwater.

Starting with dive #5. To practice buoyancy, we had to hover upside down for a minute or so near the bottom. I got upside down (which I did NOT enjoy one bit) and suddenly found myself flying toward the surface. For the life of me I could not get back down. I totally panicked. The instructor's frantic (almost angry) gestures for me to descend didn't help my panic, either. We were only at about 14 meters so nothing bad would have happened if I did surface, but it was overwhelming and frustrating all the same. Eventually I figured it out and joined the rest of the group.

He passed my skill.

Really??

Dive #6 entailed navigating around a dive site unsupervised with my "buddy" (aforementioned hot "stop-swimming-into-me!!" UK chick) while following given depth and time parameters.

My sixth time underwater, pretty much on my own (as she was - for lack of a nicer word - useless), with a watch and compass I just learned how to use? This was not a fucking hike or a mountain bike ride - it was 6-14 meters UNDERWATER, unsupervised. With an ADD twenty-something for a "buddy."

This did not sound like a good idea to me. Not at all.

My "buddy" had supposedly whiteboarded all of our parameters and drawn a map of the site. I glanced at everything before we jumped in but I was nervous about this dive and still freaked out from the upside-down dive so I didn't really look too closely at what she'd written down.

Also? We had no dive plan. (Hey SSI students, can you guess one of the first PADI rules? MAKE A DIVE PLAN BEFORE YOU DESCEND.) I tried to discuss a plan with her after we jumped in but she wasn't engaging at all. Not that it would have mattered - I am a terrible navigator on land and completely hopeless underwater. I basically shrugged, said, "OK, you lead," and tried not to cry. (Really. It was kind of pathetic.)

Before we all descended the instructor asked me specifically if I was okay. I hesitated - how to say "no" without sounding like a cautious old lady and tattling on my stupid "buddy," while still making the point that my life is at stake? He asked again, this time with a definite tone of annoyance. I took a deep breath, said "yes, I'm fine," and down we went.

Thirty incredibly frustrating minutes later my "buddy" and I surfaced within sight of the boat and I left her to flail slowly back while I booked it to the ladder. (I am not proud to admit this but for the next 24 hours I had no interest in, or regard for, her well-being.)

With each fin kick back to the ladder my anger grew. How horribly irresponsible to leave two strangers still in training to navigate around on their own! What if something had happened? And what the FUCK is wrong with the youth of today? No manners, no attention span, no communication skills!!

Kick, kick, kick.

Of course, a lot of it was on me. Why didn't I take charge of the map and parameter documentation? Why didn't I say something to the instructor before we went down? Why did I care what these young stupid kids thought of me?

Kick, kick, kick.

Turned out, my "buddy" and I came up nine minutes later than we were supposed to (a parameter she forgot to write down, which I only realized after we underwater, far away from the instructor). 

We passed the skill test.

Really??

The rest of the afternoon I fumed, wallowed, continued to try not to cry, and dreaded the next three dives. "Just get through tomorrow and you can dive wherever you want with a real 'buddy'," I kept telling myself.

But as Patrick and I walked around town and hung out in the dive resort's wifi area I also started to realize that something bigger was going on. A lot of my insecurity about the dive classes was insecurity in general that was fueled by my surroundings.

Physiologically speaking, I could've been a mother to four of the students in my class, several of the instructors, and countless others on the island - being on the cusp of 40 hadn't bothered me in the slightest until that very moment. The girls around me wore shiny new bikinis to class every day; I had my ratty old one I bought at Ross eight years ago. They wore skimpy shirts and short-shorts to the dives; I wore my $2 baggy farming shorts and the same baggy t-shirt all week. They talked about getting drunk; I thought about the crossword puzzle I was going to do when I got back to the room.

I felt old. I couldn't relate to any of these people and their priorities. I felt alone.

It was like high school all over again.

High school, when I doubted every move I made, every word I said, every article of clothing I wore. When the cool kids whose attention I craved ignored me or only talked to me because they wanted to copy my homework. When I wanted to be accepted even though I found those whose acceptance I craved incredibly shallow and obnoxious.

As soon as all of this occurred to me I was mostly able to snap out of my funk. And Dive #7 (our first deep dive) went fine, and Dive #8 (a wreck dive) was really awesome. And I had a nice chat with a few of the kids in my class who were impressed with our extended travels.

However. On the way back from Dives #7/8 the instructor lengthily and loudly dissed people who go through the PADI course (designed for working professional students and instructors who value structure and their students' learning styles and safety) instead of the SSI course (designed for twenty-something students and instructors with absolutely no attention span who just want to finish class as soon as possible each day so they can party).

At one point during his anti-PADI spiel I looked at him like, "HELLO, SITTING RIGHT HERE." And then I just turned my back and ignored him. Not my finest moment but when surrounded by immaturity...

Dive #9 (a night dive) was horrible for everyone - really rough water and no visibility. If not for the class requirement they would've definitely canceled the dive. But we all got through it alive.

It is customary to debrief with the instructor and group after each dive. When we finished the night dive and got back to the resort the instructor bought us a beer and with great theatrics, handed us our AOW diver cards. He started going through the motions of asking which dive was our favorite, where we planned to dive next, etc.

I half-listened for a moment, and then my tolerance for enduring those people for another second totally evaporated. I downed my beer in three gulps, stood up and said "thanks, safe travels everyone, goodbye." And I walked away to their awed comments of how I'd drank my beer so fast. Twenty years' practice, kiddos.

The next day Patrick and I did two dives with a mature group of divers and instructors.

It was incredible.

It was laid back and slow and easy. We saw tiny things and ginormous things. The candelabra-like fan coral was gorgeous. The trigger fish who normally terrorized the giant groups of students left us four alone. I did a few swim-throughs (under arches) with no freak-out moments whatsoever.

During the dive break on the boat the small groups of three or four sat in silence sipping coffee, watching the water or talking about interesting places to visit in Cambodia. There was no clusterfuck of absolute chaos in the equipment room. No divers talked about pub crawls, full moon parties, pizza, hooking up, or "uni." No Dive Masters told "dumb diver" stories, did cannonballs, or pushed other DMs off the back of the boat while we were waiting to leave the site.

It was amazing.

It made my five days of physical and mental torture completely worth it. I think I have found my dive people.

And then we finally got the fuck off that hellhole of an island.

good riddance! 

It's so weird how certain situations can cause such a fast reversion to old ways of thinking. But I am so glad that my years of therapy and personal growth allowed me to snap out of it so quickly. That's really going to come in handy as I start to rebuild old high school and work connections on Facebook that I avoided for so long (so as to maximize points of contact as we head into Australia and New Zealand - yep, it's purely strategic, all those new "friends" I suddenly have might know folks down under).

But! Never mind all that - I am a Certified! Advanced! Open! Water! Diver! (said in a Keanu Point Break voice, of course).  Grumpy grandpa moray eels lurking 30 meters below sea level, consider ye warned - I'm coming for you!

100 happy days: what I learned from this project.

I cheated a few times and I didn't take actual photos a few times, but otherwise I mostly stuck to the photo-a-day for the 100 happy days project.

In hindsight, the challenge itself is a bit misleading - "can you be happy for 100 days in a row?" These 100 photos were moments in time each day when I was happy. Almost all the photos were chosen in retrospect and posted in time-delay fashion, except for Day 1 (the last day) which I staged as soon as I had the first draft of the final week ready, because I was really realllly reeeeeaaaalllllly ready to be done with this project. Some days I only had one photo, other days I had to choose between quite a few. Each day's photo was chosen because it made me laugh, smile, or just appreciate where I was or who I was with.

However, I can confidently say that I have not been "happy for 100 days in a row." (Actually, I have probably been more cranky over the last 100 days than in all of the 330 days leading up to Day 100.) The cynic in me doesn't think it's possible - or even reasonable - to ask someone to be "happy for 100 days in a row". The pessimist in me says that anyone who says they've been happy for the last 100 consecutive days is either lying or selling something.

That said... Many times during this project, I looked back at prior weeks of happy moments and realized, as the study results suggest, just how lucky I really am. And recently when I've been cranky I drift over to that "lucky" headspace more automatically than before. It doesn't always happen, and it doesn't always help, but it's a good habit to practice.

In other results, what was reinforced for me during this project:

• nature, artsy things, goats, and good food make me happy
• I am so glad I learned to let go of bad memorabilia (photos of exes, high school diaries, mix tapes from those dark years) - I used to think that re-examining those memories from time to time was therapeutic when in fact it's just not healthy
• be present! - sometimes it's hard to retrospectively think of something that made you happy (especially when you aren't taking 100+ photos a day), so you'd best recognize it the second it happens, before the moment is lost

And new things I have learned from this project:

• I don't need to do any more "100 day" projects

There are probably other important lessons but I've invested enough time in this for now. Thanks for indulging me.

100 happy days: OH HAPPY DAY IT'S THE LAST WEEK!!

This is it! The very last week of the 100 happy days project! I could not be happier!

Here is the grand finale of photos of things that made me happy over the last eight days... (Yes, I am aware that there are seven days in a week. You must've missed the last installment.)

Day 8

Day 8: when we dropped our laundry off at the place across from our guesthouse and walked by an hour later to see it hanging on the fence. And then we got it all back the next day, every last sock and t-shirt. Thailand is such a trusting country. Don't tell anyone but I've even stopped wearing my money belt that I have been religiously using since September, and instead I just carry everything around in my purse.

Day 7

Day 7: when these two little guys headbutted each other right before I snapped this photo.

Day 6

Day 6: when we had coffee in front of this scene in a little mountain town. I want a bike exactly like that when I get back.

Day 5

Day 5: when we randomly wandered into this wat that had beautiful mosaic flowers inlaid in the sidewalk. The actual temple hosted a 12-meter reclining Buddha in what appeared to be a former school gymnasium, rather than an ornate Lanna- or Burmese-architectured, gold encrusted building. I think it's my favorite wat so far.

Day 4

Day 4: when we spontaneously bought these pork sausages on the way to the early morning bus to Mae Sariang. They turned out to be curry spiced, and they were so, so good.  After this trip I know we will seriously cut back on our pork intake but for now, I'm just enjoying every single bite.

Day 3

Day 3: when elephant tree aht happened right before it rained for the rest of the day.

Day 2

Day 2: when we visited a beautiful wat up on a hill, with a lovely view of the town, and a gorgeous 12+ meter Buddha statue... and this ginormous amplifier underneath the prayer bell.  You know, for all the wat raves, I guess?

Day 1

Day 1: WHEN I FINISHED THIS RIDICULOUS PROJECT.

So, I did it.

Now what?

GOOOOOAAAAALS.

I was looking for an old post a few weeks ago and ran across the last bullet and last paragraph of this post...

Six years later, six things crossed off the list. (Does "milking a goat" count for "milking a cow"? Yes? Then make that seven things crossed off the list.)

And let's not forget the official list which drew somewhat from the original list. Thirteen down there.

Make your list, people. Seriously. Before life gets away from you.

100 happy days: week 13.

I am totally cheating this week and next week because there are only 16 days left and I'm not doing a 2-day week as the finale. So! Behold the latest installment of the 100 happy days project...

Day 16

Day 16: when this scene greeted us from the back porch/living area/dining room of our WWOOF hosts' handbuilt stilt house in a small Karen village in northern Thailand.

Day 15

Day 15: when I got to help in the family's organic garden for the first of many days. My job was to find tiny pumpkins and cover them with fabric so that fruit flies didn't attack them. It was a detailed, tedious task - and I loved it.

Day 14

Day 14: when I finally remembered to take a photo of the family cat, Cat. We ate on the floor of the porch and Cat would wander over meowing for food, so he would be put on a loose leash. Cat could easily slip out of the leash at any time, if he wanted to, but he never did. He just waited patiently until we were done with meals. It cracked me up every single time.

Day 13

Day 13: when we got to help in the family's rice field. I think our "help" was more symbolic than anything, as we didn't really do much. But I'd been wanting to get up close and personal with rice fields since we first saw them in Hoi An. Squishing barefoot through mud doing the backbreaking work of edging the paddies was a really cool experience and I have a whole new appreciation for that little white grain now.

Day 12

Day 12: when the wife cooked instead of the husband, and we got to eat something other than veggies with chili paste. Don't get me wrong - his cooking was amazing - but hers was a little more thoughtful and creative, even with the use of just one pot, and therefore hers was more delicious to me.

Day 11

Day 11: when another volunteer made a clay elephant sculpture after we spent a few hours working on the clay hut. The work was messy and repetitive but this guy, a regular who visits from the city on weekends, sang and smiled and generally had a good time for the two hours we worked. His cheerful mood was contagious.

Day 10

Day 10: when we stumbled upon The Curry Shack after a long day of buses and windy roads, and I got to eat the most delicious khao soy curry dinner. Super spicy, freshly prepared, worth the wait.

Day 9

Day 9: when we hiked to Mae Yen waterfall and found all these magnificent trees with green bark and umbrella-like branches. I want to know what they're called...

100 happy days: week 12.

Seventh inning strettttttttccccccccccchhhhhhhhh on the 100 Happy Days project...  If we were at an Orioles game we'd be singing "Thank God I'm A Country Boy."

Day 23

Day 23: when the sky happened behind this awesome wat.

Day 22

Day 22: when we wandered through a fruit market and came upon a food cart that looked tasty. The chef didn't speak English and we had no idea how to order, so two nice Thai men at the next table helped us. "You like spicy?" they asked. We said "yes but..."  "You want normal?" they asked.  We said "um...yes." They ordered for us. The dish was still SUPER spicy but really, really good. We still have no idea what it was other than noodle soup with fish balls and a ton of spices.

Day 21

Day 21: when we made all three meals in our apartment. That was a good day.

Day 20

(no photo available)

Day 20: when we broke the key in the door lock and Patrick went all Toolman and we scrapped our plans to visit the museum so that he could fix the door and I got to catch up on blogs and pictures and reading and resting. That was also a good day.

Day 19

Day 19: when this awkward translation of "map not to scale" made me laugh out loud.

Day 18

Day 18: when the Chiang Mai Saturday flea market had everything including kitchen sinks (see bottom left).

Day 17

Day 17: when we stood ten feet from this scene with no barrier between us and them.

On being "simply" a writer.

A few months ago I joined several writing groups on LinkedIn. I did this mostly out of curiosity - some groups are travel-related, others are generally aimed at independent writers - and many of my favorite travel writers are members of these groups.

I've made a few new connections and discovered a handful of good resources from these groups but otherwise it seems to be a lot of self-promoting noise. (Like everything else on the internet?)

Recently someone posed this question in a discussion group: "Are you an author, a screenwriter, or simply a writer?" He included a link to his self-promoting blog in which he offered his self-promoting blah blah blah answer for himself and of course, a self-promoting link to his latest book.

When I read the question, I did a double-take. "Simply" a writer? Did he really type the word "simply"? Any writer reading this is probably cringing right now.

So I posted a reply: "I am a writer, but there is nothing 'simple' about it." (Since then a few people - total strangers to me in this new community - have liked my comment and another few have posted a similar retort. Zing!)

For better or worse, though, his question hung around in my head for about a week and I started to give some serious thought to why I write.

Well, not why I write - I know why. It's fun, it's creative, it's something I can truly call my own (those things are few and far between these days), it allows me to express myself without having to do that awkward social talking-to-others thing.

So I don't question why but I do question the purpose - my intended goal or outcome - of writing.

I don't write off the cuff. It doesn't matter what I'm writing about, nor does my intended audience matter - writing is a tedious, detailed process for me. Always has been. I draft, then I edit, then I edit some more, then I sleep on it, then I edit some more, then I edit one last time before "publishing". (Case in point: I've sat on this post for weeks now.) There's a bit of obsessive perfectionism to my method, but I also liken it to the athlete who studies the playback reel so that he can improve in the next game.

But why the perfectionist approach if only ten non-judging dear readers will ever see it? For whom am I trying to improve?

And how will I know if I have improved? I really like feedback, even the hard-to-hear constructive kind of feedback. I kinda need it to feel successful, actually. Would I learn guitar only to hole up in the basement and play to myself? Unlikely. Was cooking fun when it was just for me? Not really. Hell, I even looked forward to annual reviews at work, as bureaucratic and ridiculous as they were at times.  (Also known as "always".)

So apply all that to writing. You ten people are reading this blog because you want to, and that makes me want to keep doing it. But you're a pretty quiet bunch.  To get the feedback fix do I need a bigger audience? Even scarier, do I want that kind of feedback?

Everyone says I should write a book about our year-plus on the road but honestly, I can't imagine who would read it (other than me and maybe you, dear reader... unfortunately that won't pay my bills). Besides, what I have to say is already available in hundreds of blogs by like-minded travelers.

A published article here or there about a specific destination or topic would be an accomplishment, but when I consider the amount of effort it took to give my Canadian national parks road trip story away for free, I most certainly don't have time to look for paid outlets right now.

And while I have great respect for those (except for maybe that "just a writer" guy mentioned above!) who attempt novels, screenplays, television scripts - fiction writing does not appeal to me. I barely have the patience to read made-up stories anymore, let alone write one.

If you were expecting a tidy wrap up, I'm afraid this is going to be a little anticlimactic. After all this self-promoting blah blah blah I am still purposeless. Sigh.

But I will keep at it. Maybe the answer will come to me someday.

A lot of you (ten) dear readers write. Why do you do it?

100 happy days: week 11.

Getting soooooo close to the finish line with this 100 happy days project...

Day 30

Day 30: when we ran across this hand-lettered sign in Pak Beng.  There's just something nostalgic about hand-lettered signs.

Day 29

Day 29: when nine hours on the Mekong proved to be worth the time and cost.  I didn't even multi-task for the most part - I just stared at the scenery.

Day 28

Day 28: when this bus got us to Thailand.  Finally!

Day 27

Day 27: when we saw a billion decked-out elephants at an otherwise overly-decorated wat. It was a pretty wat, but as my mom would say, it was "busy."  The elephants, on the other hand, were mostly white with just a little embellishment and they all looked really happy to be there.

Day 26

Day 26: when I realized I'd just spent the last three months in communist countries where abstract art was rarely seen.  (Pictured: sculpted hands in hell at the White Temple.  The detail in this whole section was amazing - note the red fingernail!)

Day 25

Day 25: when we ran across a communal line-dancing party at the Saturday night market in Chiang Rai.  Wats and museums and ruins are all well and good, but scenes like this make me so happy to be traveling.

Day 24

Day 24: when I was wandering through the Chiang Mai Sunday night market on my own, and I ran across what appeared to be a Junior Star Search competition. These two were doing an amazingly awesome imitation of the dance scene from Pulp Fiction (with different music, and I'm sure that's not what they were imitating).

100 happy days: week 10.

Coming closer to the finish line on this 100 happy days project... This week featured lots of critters. Critters make me happy.

Day 37

Day 37: when we mustered the energy to walk down the muddy road and across the ugly concrete bridge to see the lovely views of Nong Khiaw. One of the remote places we've been (and probably one of the most remote places we care to go in SE Asia) - but absolutely gorgeous.

Day 36

Day 36: when food sounded appealing again.

Day 35

Day 35: when I was joined on the balcony by this fascinating (and surprisingly big) leaf-like bug. He let me touch him briefly, and he actually felt like a leaf!

Day 34

Day 34: when Patrick got a photo of this little guy in our bungalow. Nong Khiaw is crawling with geckos and they make the funniest croaking noises - it's almost like they're saying "OH-kay, OH-kay." I had no idea.

Day 33

Day 33: when we waded through dozens of butterflies on the way to the other cave. We got some video of it too.

Day 32

Day 32: when I coaxed this guy (gal?) onto my finger and he (she?) just sat there for 5 minutes, probably licking the salt off my hand. So pretty.

Day 31

Day 31: when we found a restaurant that only had three things on the menu. THREE things! It was heaven. I cannot wait to get back to the States and not make a decision for at least a month...

100 happy days: week 9.

And so goes the 100 happy days project...  Who knew 100 days could feel like such a long time?

Day 44

Day 44: when this was one of my last views of Vang Vieng.  Drunk tourists in inner tubes aside, it was a really pretty little village with some of the friendliest people we've met so far.

Day 43

Day 43: when I first saw spring in Luang Prabang.

Day 42

Day 42: when I finally did what my t-shirt has been telling me to do for months now.

Day 41

Day 41: when we saw how paper is made by hand.  It looks time consuming but not difficult and I'd like to try it someday.

Day 40

Day 40: when trying something new on the menu works out extremely well.  (In this case, it was khaosoi - spicy pork noodle soup.)

Day 39

Day 39: when I hung back and took some photos of the red-blossomed trees we all came to love.

Day 38

Day 38: when I realized we still had sugar packets from Bucharest in our secret stash.  (We also still have wet wipes from Turkey.)  My, how far we've come...

100 happy days: week 8.

WOW. This was a hard week. I don't know if it was the heat, the humidity, the hormones, or some combination of all three but I was quite the Little Miss Crankypants. The first two of those three will continue for the foreseeable future so it's just time to roll with it. But I do hereby apologize to anyone who had to deal with me in any way, shape or form over the past seven days.

So the 100 happy days project was definitely a challenge, but here we go...

Day 51

(no photo available -
it's my project and I can do whatever I want)

Day 51: when we rode the equivalent of an old yellow school bus for about ten hours in 100 degree temps with no air con (but there were fans installed in the school bus ceiling - genius!). Why was this a happy thing? We were the only white folks on the bus. The hot air beat against our faces as we passed through villages of stick houses and dry brown fields. Ladies boarded at every stop to peddle grilled half chickens on sticks and fruit. Lao men in army camouflage boarded here and there; eventually people were sitting in the aisles on plastic stools. At lunch the monk sitting next to Patrick graciously let us know when to get back on the bus by punching the time into his phone. All in all a very surreal (and amazing) experience.

Day 50

Day 50: when our Thailand visa plan fell through and we stopped off at That Luang before heading back to the hotel. We probably wouldn't have visited if our visa plan had gone smoothly. It was a beautiful and peaceful space.

(I definitely wasn't in the right mindset to appreciate it at the moment but sometimes the "happy" comes later, and as long as it eventually comes that's all that matters.)

Day 49

Day 49: when we could see Thailand from the Vientiane riverbank. I looked down at my bracelets from Sapa and was reminded of sitting in Argentina, wearing a t-shirt I got in Ecuador and bracelets from Peru, looking at Brazil and Paraguay a few years ago. I am very lucky to have seen all that I have seen.

Day 48

Day 48: when we ran across this sign in Vientiane. Honestly, Lao is the last place I would expect to see something like this - although the actual state of the sign seems very Lao. Environmentalism seems a bit high on the self-actualization pyramid for such a poor country, but from what we have seen so far the government seems pretty committed to general preservation (of health, culture, green spaces). Lots of cities also proclaim themselves "smoke-free"... even though all the locals and a large number of the foreigners are chimneys.

Day 47

Day 47: when double rainbow aht happened.

Day 46

Day 46: when we crossed this bridge numerous times going from our bungalow to town... and it didn't fall apart. (This was a serious concern every day! Also a concern? Getting pushed over the side by the motorbikers! It was a short fall but that water was just gross.)

Day 45

Day 45: when we got to the restaurant before the daily rainstorm. (This was a particularly cranky day... Sorry again.)