Thrihyrne

Evan and I went to Home Depot on Wednesday in preparation for 'summerizing' our apartment. We bought curtain rods and special fabric that absorbs heat, noise, and is reflective. We sleep out in what would be considered the living room, and we have large windows with only a set of slatted blinds. When summer kicks in and there's relentless sun and heat, it makes it challenging to stay comfortable. So when I looked at the weather and saw days of sunshine with the temperatures in the 70s and even 80 by Monday, we decided it was time to take care of this. It also helps that I'm on leave as I can get out my sewing machine and make some curtains as well. I'll also make a long curtain-like divider to hang from the ceiling to make our bedroom/living room somewhat blocked off from the rest of the apartment— we have a rolling air conditioning unit that we used last year, and cooling off just our living space is much more efficient. We did that last year by using thumbtacks and hanging up a blanket. This year we thought we'd be slightly more sophisticated. ;) But there's no denying it: SUMMER IS COMING.

My leave is going well; extra therapy, lots of bodywork, especially this week. I had ashiatsu massage on Monday, chiropractic adjustment on Tuesday, and today I'm going to get acupuncture and cupping thanks to a Living Social deal. I try not to think about having to return to work and the stress of it, and have been mostly able to do so. I'm pretty sure that around this time next week, however, it will be more challenging to continue focusing on the here and now, and not project forward. I've tried not to impose too many expectations on myself during this time, though I wish I'd wanted to write on my sequel more. OTOH, I'm not taking this leave as a means to finish it. It's time to heal, to sit with my feelings of loss and anger as they arise, and to take extra care and gentleness with my whole self. It can be difficult for me to turn off my constant need to be productive, but I've been somewhat successful in that regard.

evannichols had an overarching Word for the Year last year which was 'celebrate.' He hasn't been doing that kind of representational statement for many years, but we were discussing it this morning, it being a new calendar year and all. He's focusing on finishing things, so I suggested 'closure.' And since, of course, I wanted to think about me equally, I thought about my own goals and what word would be my go-to for the year. It came pretty quickly: tenacity. I'm very, very skilled at starting over. But it's been since the first half-decade of the 00s since I've worked on my staying power. This is the year that I want to hold on to what I have: the integral presence of Evan in my life; engaging employment; staying in this residence for a year; and, most importantly, keeping thoughts of 'this is all too good to be true, the universe loves bleak irony and some horrible tragedy is right around the corner to show me how too good to be true this is' at bay, whatever that takes in as healthy an approach as I can muster.

So. TENACITY

Jury duty was nearly as uneventful yesterday as Monday, though at 3:15 or so I was finally called to go to a courtroom! We were interviewed for a while to decide which of us would be unbiased and the appropriate jurors for the case, which was going to go on for the next day, perhaps two. Now, if this had happened on Monday I would have been stoked, but Wednesday is my day off and if I had been selected, it would have meant (I think) that I'd just be in jury duty and not paid or if I was paid, that would all be fine and good, but that day off would not necessarily be rescheduled. To my immense relief I was not chosen, and was able to go and leave the courtroom. The judge thanked us and I spontaneously replied, "Thank you for inviting us to be a part of the process," which she really seemed to appreciate. Fun fact I learned from this process and the juror movie we watched yesterday morning: there are more women judges than men in the state of Oregon. ♥

My left pinkie toe still hurts a lot. I've been icing and elevating it each day when I come home. I realize this may resemble a rib injury in that it just hurts for a long while as it heals. Ah, well. I did buy an exercise ball yesterday, something I'd been intending to do for months, so I can add in that element to my toning, but I think jogging again is still a little ways off. My sister sent me some birthday money so I can try out hot yoga, which I'm very excited about. :)

Today after doing laundry I'll head out to the jeweler who has resized my rings and pay for them and wear them, then go to visit sanguinity until lunchtime or so and then have quiet time at home. Yay!!

Oh, and I would be remiss if I didn't note the splendid evening we had with oh_that_jocelyn on Monday. There was yummy food and delightful conversation and gifts! I am grateful that Evan and his wife emerita are still close and that I, too, enjoy her company, very much. As Evan noted, she and I do have a lot in common: we both love cats, we love decorative stationery arts… ;)

We're in the new space!! And for the first time in my work week, I'm at home. That said, we're still dealing with the Comcast situation as they sent a modem… but not the wireless modem that was agreed upon. :heavy sigh: So I'm plugged into my desktop and in continued correspondence with my customer service contact in an effort to get this resolved. Hopefully it won't be quite the drawn out process that it was when I was at Julia's. :reflexive shudder:

One marvelous element to these apartments is that they have ambient heat. And our water is included. So I can be warm *and* it's not blowing hot air *and* it's not going to cost lots of money! *And* we have a bathtub and a very effective hot water heater, so I can soak with epsom salts. I plan on that, and soon, as after hauling my stuff around for 3 days, I am very sore. I definitely need to make an appointment for some serious, deep tissue bodywork. If anybody wants my snail mail address, email me and I'll send it on. We have metal cabinets now, so if you stumble across fun/funky magnets and would like to send them my way, feel free. ;)

✌ 'breaking curfew' nail polish. Thank you so much for sharing that with me, Beren!!
✌ A true Friday for me after what was a very challenging workweek.
✌ OMGLASTCOMMUTEDOWNTOWN. Hopefully ever.
✌ Following on that, that means that I begin working remotely on Sunday! I will be mobile! Watch me and my MacbookAir go! Well, and also making sure that my home workspace(s) are as ergonomic as possible. In all likelihood I'm going to get a large monitor to plug the laptop into. It will be a learning process and evolve over time, to be sure.
✌ Talking with Evan about making a home together. The joy that comes with the thought of sharing a bower with him and working from home is just about enough to make me melt with happiness.
✌ Grey skies again this morning! It will clear off later, but for now, this is my most groovalicious Portland weather.
✌ You all, my friends with me on this journey. Thank you. ♥

And this old guy cleaning them with a dental tooth scraping tool.

Well, I did, but this post isn't about that. It's more about a few things of note to do with work, the weekend, and other stuff.

~ The Airbnb pop-up location is located in The Pearl District. I'm growing to love it, seeing the fancy restaurants, Whole Foods, and even an Anthropologie store. I didn't know they had actual stores! I've long been an admirer of their clothes, though only once items were about 80% off. :P I go out and about during my two breaks and lunchtime, seeing what's out there and stretching my legs. Quite a pretty area.

~ I ate my first even lemon cucumber! I didn't know such things existed, but they were growing in evannichols's sister's garden. Their cucumbers, whether those or more conventional, are growing like crazy. I was encouraged to eat my fill, which makes me so very happy. I love cucumbers!

~ As Evan and I were having coffee and chatting Sunday morning (which I actually had off thanks to a generous new Aircorps friend switching with me for Tuesday), I mentioned that I'd realized that I didn't have the energy or attention or time to really go ahead with my Etsy shop idea. I'm not giving up the idea and concept, because I think it's great, but instead of trying to sell these adorable infant's sweaters made of reclaimed and/or hand-dyed yarn, I will mail them on to my two stepsisters who are having second children. The zip-front vest I'll send to my sister, who has a 2 year old, and she can grow into it. It's not that I spent a lot of money getting the yarn, that was part of the point! But I've come to peace about maybe making myself a couple of things out of the yarn I reclaimed and washed and made into center pull balls. It's all good. I'll take pictures of course before I send the garments along.

~ Apparently I won't know my actual schedule for another several days, but I will have Wednesday off and Evan generously took a half day. I'll be making some of my usual weekend calls Wednesday morning, and I'll look forward to hopefully chatting with a couple of you.

~ Thanks to still being subscribed to redheadedmales, I see that there are two red-haired lovelies on the U.K. Olympic team! Daniel Purvis in gymnastics and Greg Rutherford in track and field. :D :D

'Vomiting rainbows', while descriptive, is disturbing to a couple of people on my flist. I'm open to suggestions, because that does appear to be a theme here in my life. And I don't want that to change, I might add.

The weekend was truly lovely. evannichols had Dude Night Friday, which meant that we had a later start to our weekend, but there was still cake to be enjoyed that night— a delicious Carrot Zucchini/Hummingbird gluten- and dairy-free cake from Petunia's Pies and Pastries. Long story short on this: I'd special ordered a unique cake for Evan's 50th birthday and by human error (not on my part), the icing was incorrect. The cake was scrumptious, but Lisa (the founder and pastry chef) felt really badly when she found out and offered up cupcakes or another cake in the future to make things right. So I took her up on it as part of my own recent celebration. Saturday we went out to sushi with grrlpup and sanguinity, which was also delicious. Sunday featured our usual rituals: coffee and online Boggle and an online Tuesday NYTimes crossword in bed; breakfast and internet, domestic chores, a couple of phone calls, some work on personal projects, and as an added bonus, doing Pilates. We didn't so much follow along as use the DVD as a jumping-off point to do our own Pilates with our own music and the DVD on mute. It worked. The weekend was particularly quiet (his sister, BIL and niece were at the coast) and restful; Saturday I even took a nap! This is highly irregular, but apparently much-needed. Yesterday I also had an hour-plus long phone call with emansil_12, which was absolutely wonderful. I'm thrilled to say that she's coming out this way next month and I'll get an entire day to spend with her. :D

This week is my big transition week: I'm still on assignment at the company in Beaverton, but I'm moving up my last day to Wednesday so that I can have a bit of downtime and prep time before jumping headfirst back into full-time work in a new job, in a new work environment for me, and a new field in many ways. I'm terrifically excited!! And also want to make sure I don't start out sleep-deprived and anxious.

And as an aside, I'm so glad that I had a couple of my Etsy sweaters-in-progress to show and tell with grrlpup and sanguinity. sanguinity pointed out something that I knew in my heart to be true with the beginnings of my first sweater with my hand-dyed yarn, which was that with the short variegations and the pattern I'd chosen, it was super busy. She articulated what I knew was the case, so I undid it and am now starting on it as a cuff-to-cuff pullover, which will be different simply because it's cuff-to-cuff, but it will be subtle and showcase the yarn. I'm much more at peace with it now. So, thank you, Sang!! ♥

( The temp job )

( The weekend )

This week is shaping up to be particularly productive and could quite potentially herald a sea change in my life here in Portland. I have a final conversation this morning with a person who could be my supervisor at the company with whom I've been interviewing. They seem keen to bring me on board and I'm keen to put my skill set to work for them— and to stay a while. They are particularly supportive of their employees in the professional development realm, and I would love to be in a position where I can really sink my teeth into the job and plan to stay for several years, moving into another position if that fits. And if I want to! What struck me yesterday afternoon as I was lying in evannichols' arms and chatting about things was the fact that nearly everything in my life right now is win/win. I'm so grateful for him, for my friendships, for these work and self-employment possibilities… I did cry a little bit, being so overwhelmed at how phenomenal things are. I feel that I've paid dearly for being where I am now, and don't ever want to go down that dark path again.

I'll definitely keep you all posted as I know more! :)

As I was out and about to run a couple of errands, I crossed the street and stopped at a house. Well, I stopped to pause and look at the contents of two bags of things that caught my eye that had been put to the curb. Our trash doesn't go out until Monday, so seeing it now is code for, "Take whatever you want." I snagged a child's Gap sweater almost identical to one I'd found in another colorway for my knitting endeavor, so with an unbelieving smile, I picked it up and kept looking. I also came away with a knitted REI winter hat with a bill that may need replacing, and one knitted (perhaps hand-knitted) longish fingerless glove in a yummy knitted colorway I'll enjoy using as an accent somewhere. Portland is a great place to be a scavenger. For me, Portland is simply a great place to be.

So I'd drafted this DW/LJ entry in my head while walking home when I impulsively stopped by the library at the foot of my street to see what knitting books they had for inspiration. I finally settled on two and went to check them out. As I did so, who did I see but a long-lost Opera buddy, a friend I met up with when I first re-arrived and had been communicating with regularly until Jen and I ceased to be functioning friends. He'd pushed his glasses down and was looking intently at the DVDs when I walked over and said, "Well, hi!" We had a great conversation, all good will and pleasant catching up. He asked why I was at his favorite library and I explained that I lived up the street. Eventually we parted ways and I beamed as I walked down the street, marveling at how amazing this day has been— and it's not even noon! This must be the universe's way of being kind to me after I was so disconsolate yesterday. I am truly at home here, job or no job, complete with a small but devoted support system, and where I'm learning to trust in happiness. Pretty phenomenal. :)

Probably not fair to combine all of those into one post, but so be it. I met up with my cousin Matthew for coffee and tea (tea=him, coffee=me) in the Alberta district, and it was absolutely marvelous. We're both writers, both struggling with some stuff going on in our brains that we own but can't necessarily control, and from similar (well, very similar) stock genetically. We talked about a lot of stuff and I'm hoping that we'll go for a walk around Mt. Tabor next week and that we'll keep up as the weeks go on. He's newer to this part of the country than I am, but it was just delightful to hang out with someone from my extended family who can really understand what I've been through in the past half-decade or so.

So I caught the bus back to my part of town and got off a stop too soon than I'd intended, but it allowed me to wander into Good Neighbor, the Russian market close to me that I'd been wanting to visit after realizing how close it was. I was mildly disappointed in that the staff spoke to me in English (as opposed to the other two guys in the shop). Did I look that Anglo? When I'd spent three weeks in Vladimir, USSR, I could pass for a local. But not here. I did say (in Russian) that I'd studied Russian, and the woman at the counter asked if I understood, and I said a little, and that I'd forgotten most of it. But I did say the Russian equivalent of 'see ya!' as I departed, with eggs, apple cider vinegar, and red potatoes in my bags. I really need to post on Craigslist about tutoring in English if I can get some Russian tutoring in exchange.

So I got home, put away my groceries, changed clothes, and went out running. I have a new route, and it was great, taken more at a run than a jog, as evidenced that I was home within 30 minutes. But lovely, though when I attempted to take a cool-down walk, I was being rained on, so it was a very short walk.

This evening's priorities: dinner (potatoes with some sour cream before it goes bad), knitting, talking with evannichols, some ibuprofin and using my heated rice bag on both shoulder and calves, and an early night. I applied for 5 positions this morning, and there will be more tomorrow, so I know I'm keeping up my end of the deal to the universe of seeking out what is appropriate. But I must admit that I'm so excited both to see if I can model at Hipbones studio, and then to head out to BHFT and spend the night with my beloved. Even 48 hours seems like a long time. Yes, I'm becoming a romantic and am oftentimes at a loss. ♥