welcomes back...

it's nice... i haven't blogged for a while, but i received a couple of welcome back emails. :)

in particular, i'd like to share one part from dardy's (hope you don't mind, d!):
i heard from adam that your husband can do a ton of pullups.

strange how these rumors get started.

but it's true, i suppose. m doesn't like to brag, so i have to do it for him. he has these enormous biceps. and he doesn't even lift weights or train. he just climbs. sometimes. i should take a picture of his biceps. they're crazy... like pop-eye.

i wish i had an enormous something that was comparable. i mean, i have a pretty decent sized butt and my hips are of baby-bearing proportions... and my thighs are fairly thunderous. but nobody would ever say, "i hear your new wife can squat thrust like no other!" i'm sure one would get a punch in the face for that one.

hmm... guess it gives me something to work on at the gym. :)

injuries...

i haven't been blogging for a while for two reasons:
1. i've been too busy on facebook.
2. i've got an injured right arm.

so, as it turns out, volunteering has a price. i went with m's dad (mr. b) and some friends to new orleans a month ago to rebuild, and after three days of sanding and mudding (what fun!), my right arm started to get sore. i skipped working thursday (and interviewed some katrina survivors) and went back to work on friday before i left on saturday.

mr. b did a similar thing, except on thursday, he switched to flooring. thursday night his back hurt so bad that he couldn't sit through all of dinner. i told him maybe he should consider taking a break on friday, and he said, "why would i do that?" (he's old school hard core... no messin' around kind of guy.)

so here i am a month later, and i can't climb because my arm feels numb and sometimes tingly when i do.

and mr. b got back surgery a week ago because his back was so jacked up.

now don't get me wrong; i'd totally go back to new orleans again (i'm thinking february may be a better time... less sweating), but i'm definitely going to ask to be put on different projects each day to hopefully minimize injuries.

/shakes out right arm

then again, maybe it's an injury from too much time on the internet (stupid facebook!). :p

bush reclaims powers after colonoscopy...

surprising that dick didn't do more damage during his two hours...

where i've been...

i suppose i owe people an apology and an explanation. a couple of years ago i started being flaky with the blogging, then switched servers a couple of times, and then just disappeared.

i'd been going through some rough times, lots of drama. but not the fun kind of drama; not the kind that i can air online. i'd get into a lot of trouble for that. so i felt stressed out. so i just stopped.

but over the last couple of years (i'm not sure how long it's been), i began a lead teaching position at a school in san francisco (teaching fourth grade, which i love) and got married. but i'm pretty sure most other things are the same. still a climber. oh, i guess i bought a bike (as in bicycle) recently, and i've been trying to be more environmental (i even sold my car... the poor little, sad acura integra was getting old, on all of its 190,000 miles). oh, but the hubs and i bought a honda fit together (which, if i could ever love a car, i love this one).

but yes, most other things are the same.

oh! i had a niece when i stopped blogging, and now i have a nephew too! he's cute as a button.



he's bigger than that now and he's got more hair, but still just as cute. :)

a little sad how little one's own life can change over two years. but i'm happy with the progress i've made.

thank goodness...

i don't think you can even imagine how thankful i am to be back in san francisco. last night we were supposed to take a flight from newark to chicago, and from chicago to sf. but the first leg was delayed and we'd miss our second leg. so we had to fly to la, stay in la overnight, and then come back to sf. and of all the cities i've been in recently (new orleans, ny and la), sf is definitely my favorite.

to be honest, i think the bakeries in sf are better than in ny. (of course, it's all about the food... and not just any food, but the sweets are the most important.) tartine bakery, all our bread places (acme, semifreddi), and even just our mediocre cake places (just desserts, sweet inspiration) are better than i'd say most of the places i tried in ny. i'm sure others would disagree with me, but that's mho. (new orleans takes the cake in terms of fried foods, including beignet, but i can only handle so much fried food... the 8 days of it i had were more than i could handle.)

anyway, i just wanted to say thank goodness i'm back in my bike-friendly, cake-making, fresh-organic-veggie-producing, not-too-crowded, super-vegan/vegetarian-friendly, just-right-weather-all-year-round hometown of san francisco. :)

worse than heat...

so i've discovered something that's worse than the heat in new york.... the rain. the sudden thunderstorm that darkens the midday sky and starts with rain that you think is hard, and you get drenched... but then, all of a sudden, sheets of rain start pouring from the sky and you realize you weren't drenched before, but now you are.

but that's not even the worst part of it. the worst part of it is the subway. everyone decides to take the subway when it rains, so not only is it humid, sticky and hot down there, but it's also crowded. the ground in the subway (which i've never seen anyone clean, by the way) is in puddles (which aren't pleasant when, in the hot weather this morning, you decided to wear flip flops).

ugh. yesterday was gross. so i escaped to lululemon. i need to take pictures of everything i've purchased in nyc. not that the shopping is THAT much better than in SF (we have most of the same boutiques, like ted baker, lululemon and camper), but i finally have an excuse to buy semi-expensive things (what better reason for shopping than being in new york?).

pictures soon to follow...

what do you do with the pieces of a broken heart?
and how can a man like me remain in the light?
and if life is really as short as they say
then why is the night so long?
-m. ward's chinese translation

nyc in the summer

it is H-O-T in the city today. or maybe i'm just not used to it. 95 and humid. but it's not like new orleans hot. not like new orleans, doing manual labor in an enclosed house kind of hot. but it is nevertheless hot. too hot to climb.

i walked out from the air conditioned auditorium onto the sidewalk, and immediately, i could feel the heat of the sun soaking into my dark hair. but most of all, i could feel the humidity on my skin. the smell of freshly cut grass swept over me (even though there's none to be found within miles of where i'm staying). it was refreshing in a way, reminding me of my childhood in chicago.

and then it struck me: i miss my mom.

well, it didn't really strike me in just that moment. i've been thinking about it a lot. sometimes i cry about it. (like the episode of ugly betty when she visits her grandmother, and the grandmother, who isn't quite lucid, thinks betty's her daughter and apologizes to her for not having realized that she did the right thing by marrying the man she loved? yeah, i wept like a babe.)

funny how this entry started with hot nyc and ended with me crying about missing my mom.

current hypochondriacal concern: stomach cancer (it's definitely SOMEthing. i'm going to see a doctor about this one)

here i am with all this, "i want to be a better person and live a simpler life" stuff. and i'm sitting at joe's (art of coffee in manhattan) and the guy next to me has an iphone.

and i begin to salivate.

i want to ask him if he loves it as much as chris loves his (because chris says it's the absolute best toy he's ever had, and HE owns a wii). tell me there's some fatal flaw. tell me it's not perfect -- that it's so far from perfect that you hate it. and as i eye it, i can plainly see: it's flawless.

it kills me. it's 9:30 in the morning and i want to text google: apple store new york ny. if i had my iphone, i wouldn't have to text. i could just google search on the wifi. i think the drool is actually running down my chin now.

and so the text message went out. dang it, when i was at ray's original pizza last night, i was steps away from the apple store. i could have touched the smooth, beautiful, shiny surfaces of their floor models. i could have tested its perfect user interface. but that would have been a terrible mistake. i would be sitting here, in joe's, with my iphone, browsing the web, reading nytimes.com, smirking at those antiquarians who had hard copies at the next table. a terrible mistake.

mr. mac

i can't believe i haven't written about mr. mac yet.

(not that anybody's actually reading this... i'm mostly writing for myself.)

mr. mac is a true, new orleans hero. he's the guy whose house we were working on.

let me give you a little background information about him. he's in his 60s, he's always been an hourly-waged employee, and he is presently on disability.

i interviewed him (i have it on video, which i'll share in a little while) about his experience. he said he decided not to leave st. bernard parish because he trusted in the lord. and so when the hurricane came, he felt his house shake, and although he was scared, the hurricane left, and he was fine.

but then came the waters.

the waters came up about 8 feet in his house. without hesitation, he got in his boat and went around rescuing people from their houses, bringing them to rooftops. he was a first responder.

then he went back to his own home. he said he has a habit of keeping bottles of water in his truck. now, i'm not sure how he got to that water, but he got those bottles of water and started delivering them to those people stranded on rooftops.

i asked if he had any hesitation about giving away the water... he said none at all. he knew this was what he had to do.

and the following day, after the water had subsided some (but not completely), he went into his kitchen, where his refrigerator was floating, and he opened it up, got all the food out, and again, went around, delivering food to people. again, without hesitation, he gave away all his food.

he eventually was brought out to houston, where he stayed until he got his FEMA trailer because his house had so much flood damage.

i asked if he had flood insurance. where he lives, in st bernard parish, it used to be mandatory for the residents to have flood insurance. a few years ago, they said the residents no longer needed flood insurance, that there was no longer a flood risk. so, the $20 per month flood insurance he had, he figured, he could put that money to better use.

and there it is. no flood insurance. no money. no home.

and then there was st bernard project. mr. mac asked them if they could fix his house. they said that they didn't have any money, but if mr. mac could buy the supplies, they'd supply the volunteers. and somehow, somehow, they worked it out.

so mr. mac's house is almost done. (the drywall's all up, and almost all the mudding and sanding is done... they're almost ready for a layer of primer!)

mr. mac... i wish i could capture him in words... in this little blog here. as cars drive by, as his neighbors return, he waves and gives them confidence and hope. he's a fixture in this community. a pioneer, if you will. a true, new orleans hero.

i've been writing a lot in my personal journal. i suppose that's what's inspired me to blog again.



this is pretty typical of what we saw in new orleans. just row upon row of empty houses.



even mcdonalds has abandoned the community. we talked about how easy it would be for a big business, like mcdonalds or burger king to show good faith by opening shortly after the hurricane. instead, two years after the fact, the mcdonalds lot is STILL empty.

there were some local business that opened up right away.



today's ketch seafood opened two weeks after the hurricane.

this post is a little all over the place. i'm pretty disappointed that new orleans is still in shambles two years after. this article from the nytimes talks a little about it. but largely, i think new orleans has already been forgotten by most of the united states... despite how much rebuilding still needs to be done.

i wonder, when the big one hits san francisco, if the nation will turn its eyes away from us as well.

life in recent times...

in recent years...
i got a lead teaching position at a school in san francisco. i love it. i teach fourth grade. and i got married. we're nearing one year now! :)

in recent days...
i went to new orleans to do some rebuilding. it's devastating down there even still, almost two years after the fact. (i'll go into more detail later.) and now i'm in manhattan for two weeks. i'm taking a course for teaching reading and writing.

in recent hours...
went to the seinfeld cafe. inside is nothing like the tv show. and the food and coffee was not good. won't go there again.

in recent minutes...
i'm getting ready for my first climbing trip to the gunks. the routes there are supposed to be awesome, and the bouldering hard. we'll see how it goes.

fortunate

it's been a long time since i've blogged. for a while i felt that i didn't have anything to talk about. my life was climbing, teaching, sleeping, eating... and that was about it. i was disenchanted by the state of our government, so i didn't want to talk about politics anymore. and i had a stable, loving relationship, so i had no more drama. my life was boring.

and although my life is still pretty boring, i've come to realize that there are things i want and need to get off my chest. so here i am. i'm back. :)