December 30, 2006

the waves of 2006

last year I called the year end recap "cheesy". mmmm.....cheese. i'll eat those words, cause apparently i am doing it again. it's a fun thing to look back on a year later, thus, I bring you the thumbs-up and the boos of 2006.

The Crap:

Had to put Milo down. Hands down, this was the saddest, shittiest thing of 2006. I miss him still.

The Car Accident on April 5, 2006 and the resulting loss of my cycling year. Learned how much Allstate sucks, too.

Worked a hell of a lot and didn't have much downtime during the good weather.

Basically shut down the dog biz due to being so busy in advertising.

Didn't make it to Yosemite even once.

No backpacking trips.

Parking in my 'hood.


The Good:

Sold the house right before the market skidded and did well on the sale.

Purging and simplifying during the move. It's nice to have less stuff!

A couple good car camping trips.

Having a solid friendship with my ex-spouse.

Luna staying in good health and getting to see the joy of her having two homes.

The freedom of renting versus owning. Owning isn't all it's cracked up to be.

Being in a really healthy, wonderful relationship with someone I adore.

Hippo the Cat, a fun addition to the fam.

December 21, 2006

The Longest Night



It is the Winter Solstice. The shortest day. The longest night of the year.

A time of darkness. And the promise of lightness. New life. New beginnings to move forth from the darkness. A time for quiet. Introspection.

Light a candle tonight and sit for a moment in silence. Appreciate what has come to pass and all that there is to come.

December 18, 2006

Holiday Madness

People are insane right now.

For real. The frenzy of the holidays brings out the worst in people right now. The expectations of the holidays, the shopping in particular, results in people being crazed right now. Hurried. Rude. Inconsiderate. Absent-minded. Must shop. Gotta get everything on the list. People seem quick to cut each other off driving.

What about good cheer? Goodwill towards others? It's gone the wayside due to consuming, and the commercialism of this grouping of holidays.

It sucks. Reason # 613 I ignore the holidays. Perhaps this year, with taking the month off, I am more acutely aware of the madness because I am not moving anywhere near that pace of life.

In other news: I sat for a few more hours of tattoo work on my belt piece. It's nearly done; just have another couple hours of the fine details work, the shading and refining. Marcus layers his colors in like a watercolor, so he likes to see the colors from session to session so he can really work in the details. This sitting was more painful than the last one. I was complain-y and getting electrical current-like radiating sensations far from the actual needlin'.

Advice for the day: If you get tattooed along the beltline the day before, it's a really bad idea to put on spandex shorts and go to a spin class less than 24 hours after a tattoo appointment.

December 15, 2006

I'm not, honest!


Playful Loon
Originally uploaded by jenworth.

I'm really truly not turning into a crazy cat lady, blogging and flickring all about my cat.

i'm just an all around animal nut, and to prove it, here's a photo of my supercute dog Luna. She took a break in between killing her stuffed toy to post for the camera.

Am I dork? Quite possibly.

Introducing.....Hippo!


Kitten Study #1
Originally uploaded by jenworth.

yep, that's his name.

December 13, 2006

Powder Days

Caught my first day of snowboarding yesterday. It was awesome! P and I got season passes to Kirkwood and since I'm taking the month off, I wanted to get up there fast. Tahoe got a foot of snow this past weekend. My friend Michelle and I drove up for the day, leaving Oakland in the rain before 6am.

We got in a good five hours of riding. My first run, as usual, left me thinking, "Do I remember how to do this?" and from there on out, it only got better. It's feeling more natural. Pilates seems to be helping my snowboarding, even!

A good good day. Wet heavy snow fell after lunch, but we still rode until the lifts closed.

So much fun. Went back to the car, and the tire chain mishap we had driving in left me with a flat tire. Called Triple-A, waited by the fire, and they came and replaced the tire and followed me up Carson Spur to make sure I could get out of the snow without my broken chains. Even that business didn't put a damper on a really fun day!

I'm already wanting to be back on the slopes!

December 11, 2006

Kitten needs a name!


Killing the Duck
Originally uploaded by jenworth.

Mr. Kitten just ain't cuttin' it as his name.

No name has really jumped out. I had considered naming him True, since he was found at Truitt and White, the lumber yard, as a stray.
P didn't care for that name.

Help name the cat!

Current names under consideration:
P likes Angus. It makes me think "steak".
Henry. P likes, and I can live with it. A bit of a lackluster name.
Zeppo. I like, P is neutral. Zeppo is random. A bit nuts.

When he's not hiding under the couch, he's zipping all over the place. Kitty freak-outs. Attacking anything not moving. The spazzattack last about 15 minutes, then he's back under the couch for a nap.

We wonder if he needs a sibling. Most of the time he's a lone wolf just chillin'. But maybe he'd do well with a buddy?

December 6, 2006

Adding to the family....

No, no, no. I'm not knocked up.

I adopted a kitten. He's being neutered today and I bring him home after his surgery.

The little guy picked ME, I swear. He's an orange tabby. He seems super mellow, at least in the shelter environment.

Kitten!

November 20, 2006

Mellow Monday and more to come

Ahhhhhhh.

Not gloating, but I'm done working! I left there Friday night with a sense of relief.

I had to teach Saturday morning at 7am, though. But I always get extra energized when I'm teaching a Spin class. My music, my designed workout and, in a sense, it's a bit of a performance. Two hours of class flew by. Saturday afternoon I took a three hour yoga class. One of my long-time teachers does a three hour workshop once a month. It's a way to chip away at the crust in one's muscles in a deep way. A hot tub and sauna finished my Saturday off nicely.

Sunday was more mellow, until we had a special birthday spin class for one of our friends, followed by a get-together at Trader Vics in Emeryville. Love that place, despite it being expensive with marginal service.

Luna girl didn't go to her Dads on Sunday night like she usually does. She's staying here for a couple more days, until I leave for Chicago. It's nice having a dog here more than two days a week. She's far less of a freak than she once was and has settled into being a nice mellow dog.

More mellow than manic today, too. I could get used to this. Got a massage this morning and then went to yoga. Did some errands, been chilling out at home, and now off to Spin.

After I get back from Thanksgiving travel, I plan to take a look at the December calendar and squeeze in some adventure, be it a camping trip or a quick visit to Yosemite. I'm hoping for snow soon, so I can start making use of this season pass to Kirkwood. The dude is saving for his motorcycle so there's no days off for fun outta him anytime soon.

I swear my shoulders are sitting three inches lower now that I'm not a computer slave in a shitty chair in a dark cube.

La la la. I could get used to this freedom.

November 14, 2006

Too funny!

So yesterday I posted my wish to the universe to hand me a slow period of work, since I seem unable to do it for myself.

Within two hours, I received an email about more work. HA!

It's a project I worked on a while back. It's more arty than what I usually produce. It's about art, not advertising. It's working from home finding cool art to be in klassy stores. It's working from h o m e . That alone is meaningful. Yes, of course there are the usual politics, layers of approvals, and the usual. But it could start after Thanksgiving and take me through the end of March.

working from home. during snowboarding season. uh huh.

i am going to give them my highest rate and see if they bite. no loss if they don't!

November 13, 2006

The Wall

I've hit the proverbial wall. I'm done. I'm exhausted. And cranky.

I no longer care. I just want to be done.

I've been working too much this year. Giving too much of my own energy, brainpower and life. I don't know how the people around me, the staffers, do it. We're all working on one of the biggest product launches in years, and these exhausted souls have been at it for months.

I wish I could be done working in advertising. I think what I find so draining about it is that I find it meaningless. It doesn't fuel my need to do personally meaningful work that has a purpose that I find worthwhile.

Today, while riding BART into the city, I thought, "I really wonder what it would take to work in Veterinary Medicine." In high school I abandoned my call to be a Vet, thanks (or not) to some very misguided advice from my high school guidance counselor.
I want to work with animals. I want to be involved in holistic health. This is all overshadowed by my reluctance to go into debt by going back to school.

It's hard to summon the ongoing energy to work on something that doesn't feel fulfilling.

I've also realized that if I want time off, I need to turn down work. I would really like the month of December off. I'm just putting that out into the universe, since I seem to have a difficult time turning down work.

In other news:

I've really been feeling the loss of Milo lately. I've had a couple hard crying jags. He would have been eight at the end of this month. I still miss his velvety block head and weighty silent presence on a regular basis.

I have decided to take fun into my own hands. Years ago, I said I wanted to do a rafting trip through the Grand Canyon. Next year, I will do it. Alone.

I've also been talking about taking a yoga teacher training course. Next year I want to begin this. I'm not saying I will be a yoga teacher immediately afterwards, but I want to begin the process.

Starting in December, I have a permanent slot teaching Spin at Berkeley Ironworks. An evening class, even!

There's a lot of good in my life. I just need to take a step back from all this work to recognize and appreciate it.

October 19, 2006

A Long Time Ago

I'm having dinner tomorrow evening with an old friend. A person I have not seen since art school in 1989.

I can't wait. This ought to be fascinating. Google in an amazing tool.

October 17, 2006

Duh, Jen...

Newsflash!

I'm working too damn much.

I haven't been to the gym in 12 days. Sure, I've been sick. But, still. I vote for sleep over spin, and that's not right. Neither is it right that it's not light out until after 7am, which is part of my problem in waking up.

Must. Exercise. Soon.

October 13, 2006

Changing Seasons

Fall is definitely in the air. We've had our first rain. The air is chillier. Comfort foods and soups are making appearances. For me, though, the changing season is signified by getting my first cold of the season. Which would be fine, if I were like a normal person who got a cold and said cold continued on it's merry way after a few days.

No such luck. Since I was a small child, colds often morphed into something larger. Sinus infections. Bronchitis. A few times, pneumonia. All require antibiotics. Nowadays, as a stubborn adult who eschews medication and goes for alternative remedies, this usually means a week or more of being miserable until I give in and go to the doctor. This week has been filled with painful hacking coughs, shortness of breath, an asthma attack or two, and feeling like hell. My coughing is worse at night. It routinely kicks up into full gear around 4am. My dearone P has been woken nightly by my bouts of coughing. I've even woken the neighbors above me in the pre-dawn coughing spells.

My body is incredibly sore from all the coughing. I feel like I've done a thousand crunches. My psoas aches. My thighs ache. My chest and shoulders are sore to the touch.

I broke down and went to Kaiser today. Antibiotics, inhalers, codeine cough syrup. The predictable goody bag.

More importantly, I go to my acupuncturist tomorrow. I managed to score a cancellation. I should have gone sooner, the "fall tune-up" is something that should become part of my preventative routine.

Tomorrow's a big needlin' day. After the acupuncture, I go get my tattoo worked on! Haven't had a session since June, so I don't care how sick I am, I'm not about to cancel this one.

I finished a nice freelance gig yesterday. Six weeks back at my old haunt. Nice to see everyone. Amazingly, I had two agencies wanting to have me start on Monday. Nice to be able to have choices. I am incredibly grateful and surprised at how work keeps showing up. I don't even have a resume these days. In this business, if you're pleasant to work with, do a kickass job, and leave things wrapped up so someone else doesn't have to figure out loose ends, it seems to be plenty to push one's professional reputation forward and keep the work coming. All those things come easily, and I'm so so so much happier being a freelancer. I was hoping for a break, but I'm riding out this wave of work and being grateful that I can earn this kind of money and save save save.

Snowboarding season is just around the corner, and I'll be happy to have those slower months to be in Tahoe.

That's what's keeping me plowing through all this work.

Gotta go hydrate.

September 27, 2006

On the brighter side

Little Miss Cranky Pants (which is what I consider myself to be when I read something like my last posting) will be taking some down time this weekend. Tomorrow I'll be heading up to Mendocino for a four day women's yoga retreat. Four hours a day of yoga, good food, good company, and stargazing ought to chill me out.

Planning to bring my bike with the hopes I can squeeze in a long ride on Highway One. I love riding on the coast.

September 25, 2006

Another Month, Another Thought.

I'm 37.

Damn it. I'm starting to feel the effects of aging. Not the "Oh my god, i have wrinkles!" sort of aging. I feel it physically.

I'm just coming off an intense work stretch of nearly two weeks of working without a day off. Long hours, long days, strung together. Lots of driving. I feel exhausted, not right, lethargic. In recent memory, a day off and I'd bounce back fine. Didn't need lots of sleep or pampering. Not so any longer. I need sleep. Desperately. So much so that I am choosing sleep over early morning spin classes, which really sucks incredibly hard.

I've been noticing my knees are stiff and achy more often than not. I have arthritis which usually appears in the winter months. It seems to have settled in on a full time basis lately. The shots I get in both knees usually last a full year. The shots had seven months of usefulness this year.

When I went away earlier in the month, I slept in a bed that wasn't mine. My back hasn't been right since. Granted, I was in a car accident nearly six months ago (when the hell can I stop thinking about the accident and all the ways it has impacted my life? Such a minor accident in the scheme of things, yet it has impacted more than words can say month after month.) Why would a different bed destroy my back? I'm fucking aging. And life is handing me very obvious signs, because I am known for missing subtle cues handed to me by my own self.

There is an end in sight to the work. They hired a full-timer. I'll be staying on until she starts and get her up to speed, then make my departure into the unknown. I hope to see a lot of hours in the gym and on the saddle in the second half of October.

Fuck, man, aging sucks.

August 26, 2006

New Growth


New Flower
Originally uploaded by jenworth.


This flower opened a few days ago.

Seemingly insignificant. And it is. Aside from this being the plant I bought when I moved into the apartment. This whole branch has since developed from the main stem, essentially from nothing, over the course of a few months sitting in front of the big window diffused by airy linen.

Before moving, I could never keep a houseplant alive, let alone an orchid.

It's so pretty.

August 25, 2006

Restored


Burney Creek
Originally uploaded by jenworth.

Camping trip was most excellent.

We went with P's wing-it method, which is a little different than Little Miss Planner's methodology. Although I did some research online and had printouts and such, really, it all came down to getting in the car and driving. We looked at, and rejected, campgrounds along Lake Shasta. Too populated, too many RV's, too tourtisty for our tastes. We like our camping to be more remote and free of people close by.

We drove farther north, and headed out 89 East past McCloud. Saw more campgrounds. At about 6pm, we declared a winner. Algoma campground was on Forest Service land. No running water, and an unmaintained vault toilet. It was also free, and we scored a site on McCloud river, with no people in sight. It was awesome hearing the river at all times.

Spent two nights there, checking out the McCloud River waterfalls, the towns of Weed and Mt. Shasta, and having slow mornings. I now have a souvenir "Experience Weed, California" t-shirt to commemorate the trip.

We decided to do some road trippin'. Headed out 89 East again, to check out Burney Falls, drove through Lassen National Park (awesome! far less crowded than Yosemite, and some darn purty landscapes!) We had a snowball fight in August near Mt. Lassen peak; well, not so much as a snowball fight as I ambushed my traveling partner. Made a mental note that I'd love to hike up Lassen peak sometime, plus that place is so uncrowded it would be great for backpacking.

Kept on truckin' out of Lassen and decided to find our campsite for the night. We drove to Lake Almanor and found a nicely empty campground on the south shore of the Lake. It was blissfully quiet thanks to it being Sunday evening. P made a bean stew that even after cooking for, oh, about three hours and two cannisters of propane, the beans were still hard in the center. Go figure. Late and dark into the evening, we heard a noise that caused P to pause (note: only pause, because being a manly-man, he does not frighten. ha!). I recognized the screams as a pack of coyotes in the night. To those who've not experienced such a sounds, it sounds quite like a screaming child and something not-quite-human. Wild!

Next morning we tried to cook those damn beans some more in hopes of having breakfast, but after another hour they still were hard. (And even after two more hours at home that evening: still hard! what the hell?). Finally we gave up on the beans, and headed out. We took Highway 70 down the North Fork of the Feather River. Unbelievably gorgeous territory. Shocking to come into the Delta Towns that were utter shite. Made our way back home, relaxed and happy to have had a few days in nature.

This week has been more dental work, more errands, and then it's back to work for me on Monday! Two weeks off was great, not enough, but hey! That's all some staffers get all year. Ouch! Anyway, I have to wrap my brain around the idea of long hours and such again, but at least did my annual hourly rate increase, so I can't complain too much.

Except I'd like to live someplace more mellow and less crowded. Some day, perhaps.