the rabid cat

Ok, so she's not rabid. Yet.

Three days into a month-long cat-sitting for my friend finds our hero with an injured cat on his hands. What to do?

In return for Spanish lessons until my departure, I agreed to sit for my friend's cat for a month. Seems easy enough, right? Well, not 72 hours in and Luna is home with a wound of unknown origin, therefore I must keep her in strict confinement. Chances are she isn't going to develop rabies, but I need to keep her away from other critters and people and watch for signs of developing illness, just in case she was attacked by an infected animal. Ayayai!

Good news: she's ok for now and just needs to take some antibiotics for a small wound on her leg. And I can take her out on a leash! Imagine that, a cat on a leash. Sheesh. How do these things happen to me?

it's everywhere you want to be

So I'm reasearching visas. No easy task at the moment. I think it has as much to do with my frame of mind right now as anything.

The State Department's website on visa requirements to other countries is very nice... It tells me whether I actually need a visa, but it's not particularly helpful about which kind.

Then there are the websites for each foreign consulate. Those make a little more sense until I get to the part about the length of my stay. So, if I want to be in the European Union for less than 90 days, I don't need a visa. But, if I want to be there longer, I can get one that will last me 90 days. Riiiiight.

I'm willing to admit that I may not know what I'm doing here. Maybe. I'm also willing to hear any suggestions. Who knows where I can find better answers? Or, perhaps even better, who has some tips to get around these procedures? I'd love to border-hop every three months if that's what I needed to do, except that seems to be tougher in today's Europe.

Ok, here I go, in search of online help forums and books about globe-trotting. But in the meantime, if any of you out there have even the smallest piece of advice, it may prove a useful gateway to better answers. Fire away!

images from an unbalanced life

This is what happens when I do too much:



Between a contra-dance, visiting friends, haying, soccer games, work, badminton/volleyball, going out, driving trips, meetings, and whatever else I've been doing this past month, I've had just about enough time to throw my crap in my house and sleep in my bed. And that is minimal.

This results in my life feeling out of control. I've had to take some drastic measures this week to tame the piles of garbage and dust elephants in my house, pay my bills, finish projects I'd started, and generally sit still for a little bit. Oddly enough, none of the measures involved saying "no." That may be a problem...

defeat

“3:00 – Haying,” read the Activities Board.

I glanced at my watch: 2:03. I had almost an hour to get some gardening done. I biked to Avalon to meet the Monster Librarian and asked her if she was interested. Then we heard thunder roll in the distance.

“Shoot. They’re probably down there right now trying to get the hay in before the storm hits. I should go now to see if they need help. Wanna come?”

I biked to the farm, hoping to beat the storm, yet praying it wouldn’t hit at all so I could play volleyball at 4 o’clock. German #2 had the same idea; we met at the barn, both on bikes.

Nobody was expecting the storm to come so early. Farmer Brown was already in the field making bales, so German #2 and I biked out to the field along with two other farmers, ready to gather 80 to 100 bales.

The sky was greying and the wind was coming faster as the baler spewed out one unbound bale after another. All we could do as we waited for the wagon was follow behind and throw the loose hay back onto the raked rows. The rain hit just as we started piling what bales there were into the back of the truck.

After gathering 20 bales, wet and plastered with bits of chaff, we looked over the field of damp hay. The rain stopped as the last bale was loaded onto the wagon, mocking our efforts: “There, you’ve finished. So have I.”

how do you make a barn dance?

Count it off and give it a good beat!

Last night's contra dance in the sheep barn was fantastic! It took quite a bit of the community to pull it off, but we did it. I'm so thankful to everybody who had a hand in it, and there were so many hands involved. My two other planning buddies did a ton of work to set up the barn, while several other friends helped me sweep, mop, and decorate. We even got the Forestry and Grounds team to haul some furniture for us and the Harvest Barn to make us some refreshments. And the best part was yet to come.

The barn was packed for the whole dance. All kinds of community members were there, older folk, families, children. We had a big band with so many people popping in and out to play and then dance. We never had a small circle or line; we were almost dancing out the door! Even for the simpler dances, I was glad to see so many people twirling and stepping around with smiles and hoots.

Thank you, community. This is why I'm here. After the work is done and we forget just what in particular has brought us to this place, we feel like a big family. Our friends come back for a visit, and we get to lower our guards. Boundaries become less apparent, because we all essentially need the same thing: each other.

a little fix

Goodbye to my digital camera. My little Optio is off to Colorado without me to have some dust removed from the lens. I hope. This had better be covered by my warranty. But perhaps in the future, I may have to stop carrying the thing in my pocket without a case...

For the next month, I won't be able to post any pictures from my happy times here, unless I manage to fill a roll and have them developed in a reasonable amount of time. Good luck, me. Grr...

a meme for youyou

I’ve been tagged! Thanks, Mummy; you’re a peach. I guess what this means is I have to answer this question five times and ask some other bloggers I know to do the same. Here goes.

Why do you blog? Give five answers:

1. I started blogging to hold myself accountable, once and for all, for doing some much needed adventuring. I figure if I tell everybody out there I’m going to do it, and they’re expecting to read about it, I gotta go!

2. So far, it’s been the most efficient way I can come up with to let my friends and family know what I’ve been up to. I’m hopeless at emailing and calling regularly.

3. I need practice writing.

4. Everybody else is doing it.

5. I need ANOTHER thing to occupy my already limited time for at least two weeks before I get too fed-up to remember to keep doing it.

KT and Lynds: Tag! You’re it!

PS – How’s the place look? Are the pictures showing up ok? Anybody having any funniness with colors or anything? Are things looking clean and easy to wander into? And send me some comments sometime! I’d love to know who’s out there!

gunk

Ah, New Paltz. What a cool town! In this hip little college town, German #2 and I set out for the Gunks to do some climbing. After two and a half hours on the road (“we’ve been driving for two and a half hours?!”), we found the Visitor's Center, paid our $15 a piece to climb the wild and free (ahem!) outdoor rock faces, and hiked up to the walls.

We only managed to fit two climbs in before we had to call it a day and drive back home. But what a couple of climbs they were! We only did easy walls (5.5 and 5.6?) because I'm a beginner and German #2 hadn't been climbing in a while. I was quite impressed with my climbing, if I do say so. And she wasn't so bad, either. For our first climb, we had to scramble up the hillside to set up our rope and belay each other down the face. She gave me a quick review on how to tie the essential knots and how to belay, and then I was off down
the wall first, dangling and pushing off with my feet until I alighted on the dirt at the bottom. Then it was my turn to let German #2 down without letting her plummet to a rocky death. After that, we took turns working our way up the rock face, grasping for handholds, and trying to find even the tiniest crags on which we could place our crunched toes. Have you ever worn climbing shoes? Imagine trying to squeeze your feet into shoes three sizes too small, and then bending them at the arch and twisting the toes in. But they do amazing things for letting you drive your toes into any space, or onto any minute protuberance you can find.

Our second climb didn’t seem as tough as the first, but I wound up thinking about it a bit too much. As I was on my way up, I was trying to avoid ledges and obvious handholds, and then I found myself on the face with nowhere to go! I had to scramble to find anything to grab, I could only hold on in one place for so long.

And of course, we couldn’t make it home without any snags. Halfway between Hudson and Hillsdale, we got pulled over. The car we were borrowing from a friend (which we’d picked up at the shop that day) had no taillights. Good grief! So we had to drive the last 45 minutes with our hazards on. I guess I can trade that for the rest of the day.

And the Livin' is Amazing

Whew! Another post today. What am I thinking?

I had to write after the day was all said and done. After a shower, I was off to the garden to work with some other community members on a children's garden we're building. As if the children we have here aren't a handful enough, we have to grow more. All morning on that project in the hot sun (not to mention riding my bike back and forth up the hill at least six times) was enough to put me in the mood for a dip in the brook. Which I did after lunch, a tennis game, and more gardening.


What a busy day! And those things just put me up to dinner (did I mention that on Friday nights, we have homemade pizza and farm-made ice cream?) which was followed by haying. If you've ever been to the Farm for a haying, you know what it's all about. Imagine 15 or more people rambling over a field of raked hay, gathering the cubes of fodder as they fall from the baler and tossing them to a waiting stacker on the wagon. Today, I graduated to driving the truck that pulls the wagon, and then on to that intimidating job of stacking the hay so that the bales don't tumble off and kill everybody. By the end we'd brought in just over three wagonloads, just in time for tonight's storm.


And then, my friends... a sauna. The day apparently was not hot enough for us so we crammed ourselves into a little wooden box that was about 145 degrees Fahrenheit and, oh I don't know what percent humidity. Couple that with a dip in the nearby brook and you have one of the most relaxing experiences I can imagine.

Tomorrow: rock climbing!

Summertime, and the Livin' is...

Look at me, riding the bipolar express!

Just a few days ago I was so sad thinking about all the departures, and now I'm excited about some things coming up! We're having a real-live, hootin' and hollerin' barn dance right here! A couple other guys and I are cleaning up our empty sheep barn to host a contra-dance next week. Who here has ever been to a barn dance? I can't wait!

And last night was soccer! This game in particular was very frustrating for me, but I have to appreciate that we get to play twice a week. There's a lot of interest in that now, so we generally have a big crowd of people to play.

And I milked cows this morning. Ah, I do so love my milking shift on Friday mornings. So different from my kitchen work, milking is my chance to be alone with a task for a while and do something out of the ordinary. It's funny that having grown up on a dairy farm, I had to leave home and start working in a kitchen before I ever milked cows on a regular basis.

So that's a slice of my life here. So much to do and enjoy, I often marvel at my luck to have found such a place. Come visit, we like to share!

Holes

I said goodbye again today. One of my coworkers and good friends has left the Farm for good. The funny thing is that everytime this happens (and it happens a lot) it feels like they’re just going on a vacation and they’ll be back next week, or that I could walk down the road and stop in their house after work to see what’s up. But no, the house is empty and her position has been filled. She’s driving back to St. Louis.

Another team member is leaving tomorrow. One of our guests is going to college out West and he’s leaving behind a great hole in the kitchen. Another goodbye, different, and still so hard. I’m excited for both of them. I wish them well, and I hope to see them again.

We never get good at saying ‘goodbye’ here. Oh, sure, we know how to celebrate the going, but we still ache over the parting. We lose a piece of our community, no matter which side of the fence we’re on. That’s why we can call ourselves a community. Our guests and staff all have unique roles here in addition to the roles we pay, or get paid to play. When one of us goes, we all feel it, and the community loses. And when somebody new arrives, we all pull him in and we gain something fresh.

All the goodbyes occurring and impending keep me in mind of my own departure. That’s going to be hard, and I wonder what kind of hole will be left behind in me when the community and I let each other go.

Home Again, Home Again

On the last day, we left Manhattan by walking out on the Brooklyn Bridge.

Then we took the subway back in. Romantic, huh? Actually, the walk was beautiful. It’s one of those free, touristy things that can be done pretty easily in the city. And while there were many people doing it, I wonder how many denizens take the time to enjoy it. The Bridge itself wasn’t that long; we walked across in less than an hour with a bunch of stops to stare at the river and the great suspenders.

I think our crossing was a good way to bring closure to the weekend. It had purpose and direction, much unlike a good deal of the rest of our weekend. Particularly Saturday, which we spent wandering Central Park trying to find, first Bec (“I’ll be at the southeast entrance”),
and then Moo’s family (“we’re at the corner of 79th and 5th. Look for white balloons”). We wondered several times just how many people come to the City and say such silly things as, “I’ll meet you in Central Park!” and then never see each other again. Everything in New York is big, from the attractions to the hoards of people to even the intersections of streets. You better be damn sure you know the latitude and longitude for your meeting point or you are screwed.


I appreciated having that weekend of aimless wandering through the concrete jungle, however. It was exciting navigating the subway system and seeing so many things my eyes lost focus. And knowing and meeting up with so many people who lived there made us feel like we lived there, too, if for a short time. It became our City, and just that little bit of familiarity made me feel strong and motivated.

Loud & Electric

I don't know if I could've put two more disparate (but oddly agreeable) styles of performance together, but it happened last night at The Town Hall.

Gillian Welch opened the concert. As Moo put it later, her performance was much like her records: understated, but lovely. She started with some of my favorites, just her, David Rawlings, and two acoustic guitars. Moving into some newer works, she joked that the songs to that point had been mostly some downers. "Well," she said, "here come some more." The heat of the theater and the tone of the music did not prepare me for what came next.

Bright Eyes took the stage with such force, my ears felt like they were still full of the guitars and two drum sets hours after the concert was over. There was so much sound! A string ensemble, flutes, two drum kits, keyboards, and at least two guitars made up the band. And I couldn't tell any of them apart. The music was so energetic that I almost found myself joining the collective jiggle of the packed theater. The tension was amazing, and almost unbearable at times. But I was tired, and however full of sound they were, some of the songs were just slow. So I snoozed. It was a great show, four hours long, with guest performers and a joint performance by Gillian Welch, David Rawlings, and the whole Bright Eyes ensemble at the end.


We wandered back into the still-crowded street at midnight, marveling over the fact that Sephoris was still open. Who needs to buy make-up in the middle of the night? Well, everything on Time Square was still open. Despite the lure of the city lights, we caught the subway home to Brooklyn, finally giving up to sleep.

I Heart NY

Guess where I am! I've wandered into the City that Never Sleeps today with Bec, Moo, and her brother. It's been a tired day with driving, bussing, and subwaying. Lots of deadlines, but thankfully we had a break for lots of food in Teaneck, NJ. I'm just about to scoot to get some more food, see some sights, and then hit up the Bright Eyes and Gillian Welch concert! Catch you later!