january 25, 2016

All three places I had applied to on Friday had responded – two were positive, one is not hiring currently yet was very regretful.  This is the Swiss way – punctual and respectfully heartfelt.  I responded immediately and answered questions they had.  Daumen drücken.

Gym this morning after I dropped the kids off, instead of getting up early and doing yoga.  Once home, I started looking into school for the kids.  I am concerned.  Clearly international schools are not possible – I think the least expensive was approximately 24K Swiss francs a year.  Swiss schools are set up differently than here:  Kids attend a primary school until about 6^th grade, then attend certain school/areas.  I’m not sure how to get them high school education if it isn’t available in the same way.  I called Kim, a friend who works at Union Mine, left a message.  She phoned back and told me she knows of a mother whose child went abroad for a year and she will give her my mother.  Still, Doubt was entering my mind.

Then Judy called – my speech therapist from my car accident in 1988 – and she told me what an incredible adventure we were going to be having…Universe showing me to keep on moving, keep on trying.  

Picked up the kids then headed to my client.  They are finished for now, which is wise to realize.  The door is always open if they wish to return.

Off to Zumba – with contacts this time.  It made it a lot easier, even standing in the back (where I’d been sent by the instructor, my co-worker).  I do not think much is changing with my body.  I am too attached to food and there is nothing to distract me. 

Picture: Today's Wicked Tree

January 18, 2016

6-goddamn-17.  My body didn’t get the memo this was MLK’s day of honor, so I was up...

…to get back in the groove with Pitbull  as I cleaned and cooked up more soup (and use the leek I bought).  Body is hurting, my knees must not be thrilled with the eight mile adventure, but it had been raining!  I was Ball-Point Birding…it was almost perfect!  I may have pulled something one of the many times I slipped on the wet mud.  Makes me think of when I climbed Mt Ralston and fell, how Mabi was right there by my side.  Yesterday, every time I yelped, she’d bolt over to me.  I will take a longer Epsom bath tonight.

I met Tim, the landscape dude (gardener).  He is a cool guy and has a truck bigger than the house the kids and I occupied in Placerville.  We talked about wood-burning stoves and the cost of propane.  Sometimes, many times, I truly enjoy getting to know people, yet sometimes, I want to be further away from them than anything. I needed to get an ax, a mop for the hardwood floors and 3 keys made, but I couldn’t find the axes anywhere so I asked an older man who worked there and we started talking.  He mentioned the dangers…(I’m wondering if they are required to say something along these lines).  I told him how, when I was 12, I was the one who would go out to the woodshed (in Austria) and I was the one who split the wood, that my son was interested in doing this and had been hacking away with the hatchet.  We shelter our kids too damn much, without letting them try things that, a hundred years ago, 8 year old boys were doing.  I was complimented on being a good mom in letting my son do a potentially dangerous thing.  Yay, danger. 

  

I was on my way to pickup The Boy when my sister Face-Timed me, so I pulled over (I was in a private community, anyway, not on busy streets) and we chatted for a minute.  Today is Lupe's birthday. I realize this sounds ridiculous, but that woman had been on my mind all morning long.  This must be why (I love subconscious process). This woman raised us, along with our mother.  She was always there.  I remember Lupe when she first appeared in our lives, I was almost 4.  She would stay with us when our parents when out of town, she would make and bring us homemade tortillas when we were sick, she would recite the alphabet or count in numbers for me in Spanish when I was afraid to be alone at night.  We played with her daughter, we were at her wedding (downstairs at Chesa Nova, my dad's other restaurant), we were so much a family with Lupe...or were we?  I have often looked back at those people who were so special to my life and wondered, because I was the little white girl with a dad who appeared to be (and was, by most accounts) quite well-to-do.  Midland, Texas has long been a rich town because of oil, yet there are easily the haves and the have-nots. I was in the side of the haves. This is a long, drawn-out story...one I'll touch upon another time.  The bottom line is,  Lupe is an incredible woman and I was so fortunate to have her in my life....

Got the kids, quick trip for lunch foods for them, then headed home.  I needed to get to Zumba. I made a couple if mistakes: one was wearing my long sleeved Giants shirt.  The other was not taking ibuprofen. I used the roller on my very-pained back and then jumped right in.  This enthusiasm may have been a mistake...late in the class I couldn't move much anymore, so I headed back to the roller, which helped a lot. It was another disco aquarium Zumba, but with much less oomph.

Home to Maggie, her friend and Ethan...a not-quick (it took way too long, but I couldn't move)  whipping up of healthy muffins, and now I sit in a hot Epsom bath in pain.  I'm too young to be this old.


Pictures:  Before-Zumba shot (after my body was sweaty and contorted due to pain); The walkway which is cleaner than the inside of my house; The ax.

January 15, 2016

OVERSLEPT BY AN HOUR!  Didn’t get up til 6:37 – but fortunately the kids aren’t here, so it was no big deal.  Dire Straits this morning…man, that made my soul feel good.

Work – learning the difference between a sociopath and a psychopath.  I see traits of both. Zoooom over to the clinic for a final session before our newest clinician takes him on since my Friday’s are booked. Zooooomm back to JH to meet with gang member.  Did I mention I love my job?

There was a weights date before the Zumba date.  I learned a few tricks from my friend which will be good.  I still have a paid month of training with Jake, but time is tricky now.  Maybe in March.  I decided to take off the glasses for Zumba, which was terrific as I didn’t watch anyone else. It was liek being an a disco aquarium.  I must have burned 1000 calories tonight at least, because I didn’t put on my fitbit until just before I left for the gym and when I got back into my car the calorie burn-count was over 1,700.  It bloody kicked my ASS, but man – if I keep this up with my eating for the next few months, holy hell.  

Home with a very, very pained body and I cooked a healthy dinner.  Those energy balls are gonna kill me – peanut butter, oats, chia seed, flax seed, agave juice, cacao nibs and semi-sweet morsels.  They taste like heaven.   I can’t wait til breakfast when I get 2 balls for breakfast .

  Had another lovely FB chat with a friend – a different one this time.  This one suggested I ski with her soon and mentioned the attractive, fit men who ride ski lifts.  Yes, please.  Then I laugh….  Why am I so desperately lonely now??  When I’m trying to get things together to move to Switzerland?   I’ve always been a little skewed in my planning, I find.  

Pictures: So ready to head out in Lizzie, but it's a little chilly right now and she has no heater, nor insulation; On the way to work; Arnika (the real thing) from Austria - made by my dad's friends, for my sore muscles; A glorious shot this morning; Dire Straits - "So Far Away"

January 11, 2016

“The magicians keep disappearing..”  That’s what my Irish friend Grace wrote this morning, and my god, she is right.  Jason and I were discussing Bowie last night – that’s his favorite vocalist.  I thought I didn’t really know much of his music, but how wrong I was – listening to all the songs that were playing today – David Bowie’s voice was interwoven throughout my childhood and teens years like a tapestry.  Lemmy was my later teen years, but this guy has been there throughout my lifetime.  Thank you, David Jones, for a wonderful serenade.

Envelopes in hand, I headed to the Board of Behavioral Sciences to turn in my second set of official transcripts.  Turns out they also need Form B filled out by the school. In Irvine.  Are you freaking kidding me?  Dr. Weber was injured and therefore not at work (I emailed him), Robin emailed the Irvine office.  I left to do various errands in the area and headed back a few hours later.  Weber can’t do anything for me other than contact the folks down south and try to figure out what’s going on.  It was so close – I could have had my intern numbers and a 60 cent raise today, but no such luck.  

Winco trip to buy plant-food (vegetables) and canned foods and then home where I received two of the best pieces of mail ever – my Hipnic tickets and my trucker patch for the burn in the Marmot jacket I have. Now I need to put the Hipnic tickets in my safety deposit box and learn how to put on a patch.

I was told by a person today that I should not stop writing my posts about sexuality.  This is something I’ve been thinking about.  My thoughts are as such (subjective, I understand):  I believe there is too much shame, secrecy and sexism when it comes to sexuality, particularly women’s sexuality.  Everyone knows the women sleeping around = slut, males who sleep around are “just being a guy.”  I was told if a woman (namely me) talks about sex or goes into a sex shop she is seen as easy and not girlfriend material.  If I am easy, I am certainly missing out on a lot of sex and am a little sad about that, though the girlfriend part seems to be working out well since I’m also quite single – although the reciprocal “interested in him/him interested in me” hasn’t happened, either.

I went to Zumba tonight and almost died.  My inner thighs are still so damn sore that it brings back fond memories from long (long) ago activities that are not squats.  Gotta be grateful for the memories, right?  "We'll always have Paris...".

Pictures: My soon-to-be-patched Marmot: At the car wash; Brandman; Hipnic tickets; my new zumba/running shoes