Farewell Washington

On the last full day of my visit, Ru and I drove out to Mount Rainier and hiked around. This is the trail on which I found the banana slug.


On the information sheet that the ranger gave us at the entrance, it recommended that all hikers carry the "10 Essentials" which include: a topographic map, compass, extra food, extra clothing/rain gear, emergency shelter, first aid kit, flashlight and extra batteries, sunglasses and sunscreen, pocketknife, and matches. Guess how many we had with us? Um, extra clothing? We did have water and crackers in the car to snack on afterwards.


We got into the park via Carbon River Road, and hiked 3 miles to the Carbon Glacier viewpoint. Being from the desert, I had never seen a glacier before, let alone snow during the month of May!



To get to the glacier, we crossed another suspension bridge. This one seemed a little less sturdy than the one in Canada, but I think maybe that was because it was longer. Also the plank design seems to have a lot more give than having several beams parallel to each other.


After crossing, I spotted this sign:


Of course, we had managed to break rule numbers 1 and 3 on the way over. What's the point in crossing a suspension bridge if you can't try to bounce your friend off of it? When I showed my mom the pictures last weekend, she pointed out that she thinks we broke number 2 as well.


From the viewpoint, we hiked down into the river bed, which is a big "no-no" as well. As we got closer, two other hikers passed us on their way back from the glacier. They recommended actually crawling inside, but "one of you at a time, so the other one can stand on the outside and watch for rocks." As we got closer, you could see and hear small rocks continuously falling down the slope of the glacier.


There were two wide caves at the base of the glacier, and water was dripping down from the mouth of the glacier. Call me a wuss if you want, but I decided that at this point I didn't want to make the 2006 Darwin awards. I could just see the headline: "Medical student dies in avalanche, last photo on camera is sign saying 'Stay away from glacier'." Plus, if I had died 5 days before graduation, that would just suck to not have the title after all this time and money.

Why is it that only famous people get their names in the headline, and everyone else just gets their work title? Wouldn't it be just as dramatic to say "Kate dies in avalanche" and then explain who I am in the article?


Anyway, we took our photos and hiked back out of the river bed. From a distance, the glacier had just looked like a wall of rock, but closer up, you can appreciate the actual shape of the ice. It kind of reminded me of Superman's Ice Palace, but a lot less stable.


On the way out of the park, we stopped at Chenuis Falls, which is only .2 miles off the road. It was pretty, but I didn't think it was near as impressive as Brandywine Falls. On the way onto the trail we passed another hiker in flannel with a beard, and beautiful green eyes. He kind of looked like the Brawny paper towel guy, and I tell you he was HOT! I am not normally attracted to lumberjacks, so at this point we decided we had been in the woods for far too long!



Total hiking distance: 6.4 miles. The park road is very muddy with potholes big enough to bury children in, so if you want to do this hike, I would recommend driving a truck rather than a compact car! Also, there are no "facilities" on the trail. If you have had your morning coffee, you may find yourself peeing in the woods while your buddy keeps a lookout, just 40 feet above the heads of some picnicking lovers. --I'm just saying hypothetically, that could happen.


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That night, we stayed up late watching movies. Unfortunately, we had to get up super early to take me to the airport, and poor Ru had a full day of work ahead of her.

REDRUM

After our Canadian adventure, Ru and I decided to lay low a bit. We spent a day roaming around Seattle. First, she took me downtown to Pike Place Market.

These guys are the famous fish-throwers.

Unfortunately, there was not a whole lot of purchasing going on that morning, so I guess they were not in much of a fish-throwing mood. The place was packed though, as we were there during Memorial weekend.

I have no idea how you cook any of this stuff, but I thought that maybe Chris of www.inanethoughtsandinsaneramblings.blogspot.com might be impressed.

The market also featured many homemade crafts by local artisans and there were many beautiful arrangements of fresh flowers at insanely low prices.

After that, we went to Seattle Center, in the area of the Space Needle to check out the Folklife Festival. I managed to distract Ru just long enough for her to lock her keys in the car, but my AAA membership came in handy as unknown to me, they provide FREE locksmith services!

The festival was a lot of fun. There was a good variety of performers and tons of food to try out. I spotted this sign and just had to snap a quick photo-- sorry about the poor quality:

Does the word dingleberry mean the same thing to you as it does to me? It is not exactly the most palate-tempting name.

We played it safe and stuck to funnel cakes with powdered sugar, banana & nutella crepes, and fudge! Ru had been raving about this groovy donut guy, who inconveniently RAN OUT OF DONUTS when we arrived.

These guys were fun to listen to, and I especially found it amusing that the drummer’s setup featured a Safeway shopping cart (where we happened to have parked illegally) and a Starbuck’s umbrella with the logo ripped off. Way to “Stick it to the Man”, dude.

These guys were also amusing, as were their unpictured groupies who were shaking their stuff in tanktops and had their own following of teenage boys hoping for a wardrobe failure.

Other interesting performers:

After the festival, we tried to meet up with Ru’s church group to go on a ferry ride around Puget Sound, but they had left without us, despite our arriving 5 minutes early. Instead, we walked up and down the very cute main street of Ana Cortes. It was there that we had our most extravagant dinner during my trip, dining on some excellent salmon and also some sort of ravioli with a weird name that was stuffed with lobster and crab. Mmmm.

I don’t think my fitness model friend who reviews my workouts would have approved of my diet that day, but whatever. I think the best way to get over a performance plateau at the gym is to screw things up quite a bit!

There are no pictures of the next day as we laid low, and rented semi-obscure movies. We met up with one of Ru’s friends, L, for dinner, who I can best describe as an entertaining bundle of energy in a small package. I highly approve. Ru also pulled her disappearing key act once again, but this time I had her spare in my purse, so there was no delay for a locksmith!

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Back on the homefront, I really think that this city is out to get me. I survived my obligatory lunch, but a funny thing happened on the drive home.

My car had been sitting outside the restaurant in the sun for about two hours, with its contortionist silver sunshade in the windshield.

I was wearing shorts and luckily was stopped at a stoplight. All of a sudden, I felt something hot and wet on the top of my right thigh. I looked down, and there was a quarter-sized splotch of dark, red fluid on my thigh that had left small splatter droplets across the inside of my left thigh. Gross!

I looked up at the roof of my car, looking for the source of the blood. I didn’t hurt anywhere and the roof was suspiciously its usual dry beige color. I don’t know what I was expecting to find up there, maybe a small animal tacked to my ceiling by some sort of psychopath vandalizing parked cars? I don’t know.

I looked down at my leg and back up again.

This time I noticed that tucked under the elastic of my driver’s side visor there was a red ink Pilot pen. Apparently, it had gotten too hot when I had the visor folded down with the sunshade and red ink had started slowly leaking out just in time to land right onto my bare leg.

Pretty random, eh? I guess I’m a very lucky girl that it didn’t happen when I was wearing nice clothes and that it didn’t even land on the upholstery of my car! I guess tomorrow I’ll grab some rubbing alcohol and try to get it out of the fabric of the visor as it does look kind of morbid.

I tried to clean up a bit as I was on my way to the mall to look for some new running shoes. I don’t believe I have a pair that’s less than 2-3 years old, and on our hikes I’ve noticed that I can feel the texture of the rocks I’m stepping on.

So there I was, in the bathroom of a very snooty department store scrubbing at the top and inside of my thighs with a wet, soapy paper towel. It smeared around some, but wouldn’t really come off. I probably looked kind of suspicious to the other women in the restroom. If it was blood, it would have been darker and washed off really easily, but perhaps these upscale housewives aren’t as well-rounded as the ones on television.

The shoe salesmen were particularly unhelpful today. I don’t normally shop there, but I had a gift card from my birthday that I have been meaning to use before I leave town. Perhaps the oddly placed streaks of red ink on my thighs had something to do with it.

The End of an Era?

I think that 28 is a bit too old to be doing things I don't want to do just to please other people. If I had my way right now, I would just disappear with a barely-audible *poof* and perhaps a wisp of smoke for dramatic effect.

You are probably wondering WTF I'm talking about right now.

You are probably also wondering whether or not I actually returned empty-handed from the Canadian pharmacy the other week.

I now have less than a week left in this city, and there's still so much to do. I'm just sick of all of the unneccessary time-killers like lunch today and another lunch tomorrow because so-and-so couldn't make it today. I am not a goodbye person. I would much rather just leave and let everything sort itself out later. I already know which friendships are maintainable and which aren't. The rest is all just fake pleasantries.

So in the meantime, I am cranky. I am saying the things that I'm thinking without a filter even more than normal. At lunch today, when a Jewish friend of mine made a big show of the rosary necklace her husband gave her for graduation (don't ask), I asked her if it burned-- which was not very nice of me.

By the end of the week, I'll probably be so intolerable to be around that poor Ru will end up wearing headphones and bringing some sort of makeshift room divider for the cab of the rental truck!

I know it is naive to think I won't continue to put myself in empty social situations in the future, but hopefully I will be a little more saavy about who I choose to spend time with. I don't know why I am so careful about not wanting to offend others. I dread constantly going to all of these stupid get togethers, but in the end, it is no one else's fault but my own that I'm there.

Exodus

I am continuing on with my Washington/Canada vacation. I last left off with Ru and I arriving in Squamish, BC late at night and checking ourselves into an older motel. Things often look entirely different in the morning, and I was thrilled when I opened the dreary motel room curtains to this view:


When vacationing with little disposable income, it becomes necessary to improvise a bit along the way. Since we pretty much came to the conclusion that while Vancouver looked like it had some nice window shopping, there wasn’t really much there in the city that we couldn’t find in Seattle, so we headed on further north towards Whistler.

Along the highway, I spotted a sign that had a silhouette of a hiker and the name Brandywine Falls, so we pulled over. The falls turned out to be less than a kilometer from the highway and were spectacular!

Additionally, there was a 3.5 km trail leading to a suspension bridge so we did that as well, first attempting the unmarked route and then doubling back after losing the way when we came to a wall of loose boulders. We did eventually make it all the way to the bridge, and I think our spontaneous stop turned into a 10 km hike!

Next we continued on to Whistler, which turned out to be a very well-manicured ski resort area. While there was still plenty of snow, I don’t think it was particularly the best time to ski, but we enjoyed walking around the shops and had a nice dinner at a local deli and flirted with a cute coffee barista. It turns out that both Ru and I are suckers for men with accents.

I have only ever attempted skiing once. After feeling that I had mastered snow plowing on a bunny slope, I insisted that I was ready for a “real run” and proceeded to pull every muscle in my legs, taking well over an hour to complete the run. The next time I go out, I’m definitely going for real lessons rather than 5 minutes of guidance from an acquaintance!

After that, we decided to head back to “the States”. The day before, we had “borrowed” a tulip from Stanley Park to take with us on the road. Seeing as how it was the end of the tulip season there, the poor flower continued to drop petals over the course of the two days. It finally gave up the last one just before we crossed back over the Canadian border.

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Although our trip wasn’t what we had originally planned, it still turned out to be a lot of fun. I think we did pretty well too, having only offended two Canadians (that we know of) during the course of our stay.

The first was a bank teller in Squamish, who Ru was chatting with about exchange rates. She commented on how she had thought that the British pound and the Canadian dollar should be more similar in value then they are. All of a sudden the teller retorted, “We ARE our OWN country!”

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Our next “victim” was a pharmacist close to the Canadian border. I was once again checking prices on some things, When I found out that the cash price of one of medications that I was interested in was only a few dollars more than the co-pay here, I said, “I’ll take two of them!”

The pharmacist kind of paused and gave me a strange look and said that I’d need a Canadian prescription for it.

Without even thinking about it I said, “Really? In Mexico, I can just pay cash for whatever I want.”

At that point, he rather sternly reminded me that I most certainly was not in Mexico.

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Oh well, so much for diplomacy…

Think Metric!

On Day 2 of my visit, Ru and I decided it would be cool to cross the US/Canada border and drive up to Vancouver, BC. I was a little disappointed to see that the Border Patrol vehicles up there look exactly the same as along the US/Mexico border.

This is the Peace Arch:

Does anyone else remember the push to switch over to the metric system? I just remember that one year in math class, my teacher insisted that we learn the metric system as “the changeover is sure to occur any day now.” Was this a national phenomenon or just the quirk of a particular teacher of mine? I mean, it was the mid-1980s and I was attending a parochial school in south Texas, so who knows what was really going on!

I hate the metric system. I still can’t tell you whether a quart or a liter is bigger. I can convert pounds to kilograms, but that’s about it. And as for speed limits, while it sounds cool to be barreling down the road at 80 km/hr, that’s really only like 55 mph. Even worse, is when American doctors start pronouncing the word centimeter as son-ti-meter…apparently it’s some bizarre right-of-passage that goes with the degree.

As for the actual border, they were reluctant to even let us into Canada. I had my passport with me, but Ru had only her driver’s license. We also had the misfortune of choosing the slowest entry lane, so poor Ru got grilled about who owned her car and what our plans were, etc.

Once in Vancouver, we crossed the bridge and made our way to Stanley Park.

This is perhaps the world's tamest peacock:

We walked around a bit, and then made our way back to the city, where to our horror we discovered that even the cheapest room in a Holiday Inn cost $215. The Canadian dollar is also pretty much equivalent to the US dollar right now, so there were no deals to be had.

Frustrated, we had a very late dinner and drove off into the dark night, headed north towards Whistler. We drove for well over an hour along a windy, unlit road that at the time we believed was a highway. Visibility was poor, and it had begun to rain. Signs for falling rock and truck crossings did not soothe our nerves. Our maximum speed was probably 60 km/hr and our only company was a pair of distant red taillights. Eventually, we merged with an actual highway. Exhausted, we settled into the first available nonsmoking room in Squamish that we could find. Apparently there was some sort of movie being filmed in that area and hotel rooms were not easy to come by.

Can't Sleep...

I am not blessed with ever knowing what words to say. One of my friends got some very crappy news today. After finding myself at a loss for words, I agreed to accompany her to a movie that I clearly stated in my last entry that I did not want to see. I guess everyone has a different coping mechanism for dealing with their problems. I can't speak for her, but for 1 hour and 45 minutes tonight, I forgot all about her problems.

So here I am, having safely made it back to the house without having a homicidal nanny attack me in my car. However, I am now wondering if anyone will cut off my hair in my sleep with the world's biggest scissors looking for any telltale birthmarks on my scalp!

Ketchup

Sorry about the lack of entries lately… I am scum, I am the slime that collects on scum, etc.

Anyway, today is 06-06-06: bars are hosting devil-themed parties, and many went to the opening of The Omen. Personally, seeing as how I will be soon living on my own and scary movies are not my bag, I went to X-Men III with my best friend, who has hereby dubbed herself “The Phoenix”. I think that it is a well-earned moniker as our school has been trying to kill her spirits as of late, but I am confident that she’ll make it out intact and keep her good sense of humor.

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After graduation, I made the drive in the blistering heat to see the PU’s (Parental Units) to pack up stuff at their house. Yes, my hometown has internet, but it is dialup service and seeing as how I haven’t quite decided about sharing this blog with family members, why risk updating on their computer?

On Sunday we drove their beat-up Ford Explorer out along a desert trail for a short hike. Luckily, we waited until evening when it was a cool 104^o to venture outdoors. (It was 114^o on graduation day!) After a short hike we turned around to head back and managed to puncture a front tire on a sharp rock. Seeing as how we were over a mile from the main road, my father decided that we should drive for a few minutes on the leaking tire. Rather than jaunting down the steep dirt roads we had climbed up, he veered us into the softer sand of a wash.

From there we proceeded to bury the Explorer into the sand, and I mean axle-deep into the sand. I attacked the sand around the tires with great ferocity as it was dusk and the light was fading fast, however, there was no coaxing the Explorer out. It had lost its will to live and abandoned its four-wheel drive capacity in the process.

So, my sexagenarian parents and I proceeded to walk back to the house.

For over five miles.

At night.

Having not eaten dinner before we left.

I am not proud to admit that I sulked a little bit, as I thought we could have tried a little harder to dig the Explorer out. Two hours later, we made it home and had a light supper of freshly-baked bread and butter, as we were too tired to be hungry.

It is somewhat odd visiting home as it seems that our roles are evolving, and even reversing a bit. I am now the overprotective one, and I warily kept an eye on my father throughout my stay. Although he is the only male on his side of the family to have made it into his sixties without a heart attack, he is not the intimidating figure that he used to be. Small changes in behavior appear with every visit, and although he still somehow manages to bombard me with advice, he is so much more cautious and fearful than he was in the past.

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As you may have already guessed, my recent vacation was to Seattle, Washington. In true tourist fashion, the first night I requested to visit the Space Needle. It turns out it costs $14 to ride to the top! We got our money’s worth though, as we stayed up there watching the sunset wash gold, pink, and ultimately, blue hues over the water and skyscrapers while we sipped on hot chocolate.

It’s always fun to catch up with old friends, and with Ru I am never quite sure what to expect. We have known each other since middle school, and although interests and location have often separated us, it is always good to reunite.

I remember a recent visit of hers when I met her at the Greyhound bus station. I had expected to find the same girl from my childhood—halfway through any book she could get her hands on, and too smart to conform to things like peer pressure. I always somewhat envied her, as back during high school, I was always scraggling to fit in with everyone from student council to the cheerleaders to the weekend binge drinkers and never quite seemed to find my place. She always held steadfast to her beliefs though, and didn’t seem to waste time worrying about what everyone else thought.

However, instead of the quiet girl from the past, a tank-top clad woman stepped off the bus that day, complete with straw cowboy hat and flowing honey-red tresses—a completely transformed confident and carefree Ru.

So last week, when I halfway expected to see a cowboy hat in the car coming to meet me at the airport, I was shocked again to meet a metropolitan version of Ru, smartly dressed in a fitted jacket and tailored pants with a sophisticated shorter hairstyle.

Many times I think that distance is really the true test of friendship, and it is always interesting to see which friendships endure with time.

School's Out FOREVER!!!

It's official: I graduated today! Hooding ceremony, oath, diploma, and all that other junk.

Off to celebrate!

Hermaphrodites and MORE!!!

My vacation was excellent, and there are many pictures to share. Tonight I'm too tired, so I'm giving you a slightly blurry picture of the hermaphrodite that I rescued during a six-hour hike yesterday. I probably should have set him/her down on something brown so that the picture would have shown up better.


Not having ever encountered a banana slug before, my friend Ru emailed me this link that I thought was rather amusing... particularly the paragraph about the sexual practices of banana slugs.

Today's vocabulary word: apophallation

Vacation!

Ok, where do desert rats go for vacation? Where it rains, of course!

I should be back next Tuesday-- pictures to follow!

Don't be a Dumbass

I am not one who is blessed with the ability to remember movie quotes, bible verses, or antibiotic dosages for that matter. I came across this during my reading last night, and just had to laugh.

The Lord says, "I will guide you along the best pathway for your life.
I will advise you and watch over you.
Do not be like a senseless horse or mule
that needs a bit and bridle to keep it under control."
Psalm 33:8-9

So the next time that someone asks me what my favorite verse is, maybe I can respond "Don't be a dumbass. Psalm 33:9!"

Some days I think I'm not mature enough to be anyone's doctor!

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I also learned a new word last night from the other book that I'm reading: kleptocracy

Here's the definition according to Wikipedia:

Kleptocracy (sometimes Cleptocracy) (root: Klepto+cracy = rule by thieves) is a pejorative, informal term for a government so corrupt that no pretense of honesty remains. In a kleptocracy the mechanisms of government are devoted to taxing the public at large, or using their control of government processes in order to amass substantial personal fortunes for the rulers and their cronies (collectively, kleptocrats), or to keep said rulers in power through redistribution schemes. Kleptocrats typically use money laundering and/or anonymous banking to protect and conceal their personal illegal gains.

What's a Little Uranium Between Friends?

Ok, so the home inspection went well-enough. Other than playing lottery with both a furnace and water heater that have outlived their life-expectancies, most of the problems are actually with the detached garage. Fine, I can deal with that.

This morning I found out that the radon inspection came back high, specifically 8.8 pCi/L. The cutoff for livable spaces is 4. I’m not that familiar with radon, as the soil clay here is pretty much too hard for anything to leak out of it, so today I did a little reading.

Radon is formed from the breakdown of thorium and uranium. Decay elements include two different forms of polonium, which are highly effective in damaging lung tissues. Even worse is that it has a synergistic effect in smokers.

The response from the seller is that they do not want to fix it (cost approx. $1500), and are questioning the validity of the test, as technically the basement is unfinished and not a “livable space” and they recall the levels being significantly lower than 8 when they bought the home 8 years ago. They are ordering a retest of the first floor, which should come back with a level half that of the basement. Their agent additionally told my agent that a lower result could be obtained be opening windows, and improving ventilation in the house. While I’m glad he’s figured out a way to destroy the entire integrity of the test, my concern is that radon levels are often quite a bit higher during the winter when the house is sealed up.

I am not really all that concerned about my own personal exposure, particularly as I am only planning on living there for my residency, but it might make the home more difficult to resell to anyone wanting to modify the basement. Ultimately, if when their test comes back negative, I’ll probably just end up doing long-term testing over 6 months to a year, and deciding whether or not to fix it then.

My loan application was “instantly approved” today as soon as I submitted it, and a good chunk of the morning was spent calling for estimates on homeowner’s and auto insurance. It was another thrilling day all around.

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I haven’t mentioned my running in terms of distance lately because it has been sporadic at best. And, considering that I’m leaving again on Wednesday for a week, I doubt that I’ll make my original goal of 5 miles by June. Hopefully, I can pull it off before I leave town for a week’s worth of driving a big-ass rental truck!

Today I ran 3.25 miles without stopping. After a few minutes of walking, I was able to do another 0.75, but I was sure huffing and puffing by the end of it!

Sigh

Today I cleared everything off my desk, leaving only exactly what I need over the next few weeks behind. And, while it's always good to remove a layer of dust, sometimes you find some good surprises and some not so good surprises. Every time I think I've gotten rid of most of the remnants of my past relationship, something else surfaces.

I was sorting through a collection of thank-you cards and found a couple of random "thinking of you"/"I love you" cards from Hallmark's Warm Wishes line. Every now and then, when I'd go over to X's house, I would hide a card somewhere for him to find after I left--in the microwave, clothes dryer, under a pillow, tucked in with a uniform, just wherever I could think of.

Although he wasn't much of a talker, he was a sentimental guy. He saved every card I ever gave him. One year, I baked a batch of sugar cookies that were heart-shaped, and decorated them with phrases like the little Valentine's Day candies. He refused to eat them, and kept them in his pantry, forever on display in a glass cake dish.

I ended up tossing the cards tonight, even though they were blank. I am sure there will eventually be more someone special's down the line, but it just doesn't seem right to recycle them.

And, while I now have a tidy desk, there's still a big pile of random crap on my bed to sort through.