Saying Goodbye to Sugar

Just before Thanksgiving I said goodbye to Sugar.  She is, as my friend would say, my furry feline faux baby.  I suppose I should say "was".  We kept each other company for over thirteen years.

I sent an email the day she left me that I think still feels right:

Dear all,

Today I said goodbye to Sugar after 12 wonderful years, and one very sad year. She died peacefully this morning thanks to euthanasia after battling lymphoma that had metastasized to her lungs among other locations.
I am collecting remembrances from those that knew and loved her if you have any you would care to share with me. While I am inconsolable I believe this would be a comfort to me.
Thank you to all of you that shared in her life and in turn enriched mine. The picture I've attached is how I will remember her, happily purring while dozing, fooling you into thinking she might like a belly rub.

In sorrow,
Holly

I didn't receive many stories but those I did warmed my heart.

I took a short video, a day or so before the end, of me giving her a nice pet. For the most part she accepts my affection calmly but nothing like how it used to be.  Then there is a moment where she leans in and closes her eyes.  It makes me catch my breath every time I watch it.

I don't know that I've had to do anything so difficult before this.  Choosing when to end a life is a terrible burden.  I remain convinced that it was the right thing to do and I'm glad I could help in some way, even if it was so final.  I miss her so.

Autumn Escapes

Despite still being extremely fatigued I decided to take my Kauai vacation anyway.  Best decision ever!  At first I was sad, OK, bitter, about not being able to go backpacking on this lush island but I think I made the best of it and had a great time.  My approach was one day on and one day off.  I brought the first two books of the Kingkiller Chronicle for the down times, roughly 1400 pages of awesome.  Oh when will the third installment be finished?!  The timing of my escape to the islands couldn't have been planned better.  I left comfortable temps two days before the crazy rain and cold started in Seattle.  It would have been much more satisfying if I actually enjoyed ninety degree weather with one hundred percent humidity.  Never before have I run around in public in so little clothing.  The only consolation is that every other foreigner was doing the exact same thing, and there are a lot of tourists in Hawaii.  Residents are also a bit, interesting.  My favorite was "Rooster Man" who trains roosters to ride on the handle bar of his bike as he cruises through town.

Highlights: scenery that looks like Jurassic Park, a green version of the Grand Canyon, short hikes to vistas like and unlike home, snorkeling, first (and second) fresh coconut devoured, sunrises, sunsets, and Le Le.  I'll get to Le Le in a minute.  I drove my rental everywhere and was eventually able to find everything on my list as well as a few things that I didn't know needed to be on my list.  There's one main drag and for a good portion of it you can only go 25 mph.  It fits the lifestyle and it took me a couple of days to relax into it.  None of my pictures do the scenery any justice so just google Kauai and know that it looks better in person.
I went on two hikes, Nounou Mountain (Sleeping Giant) and the first two miles of the Kalalau Trail to Hanakapi'ai Beach.  Both were more challenging than I anticipated but still weren't too bad and had very nice views all along the way.  There are signs on each trail listing dangers and "please do not go here" type of warnings.

I was told they're present due to hikers not being aware and dying in various ways, like walking off a cliff or being swept out to sea.  I used common sense and heeded the high surf warnings and made it through unscathed.  Le Le accompanied me on Sleeping Giant.

Snorkeling was interesting.  I had purchased some snorkel gear before leaving because I'd had issues with mask fittings in Australia when I'd attempted my first underwater adventure.  I made some friends at the resort hot tub and headed out to Tunnels near Hanalei with them.  The reef was mostly dead (sad) but still had a number of very colorful inhabitants (yeah!).  I can't find pics of my favorite fish online.  It was brilliant with a bright pink outline.  Second to pinky were any fish with polka dots.  I was pleasantly surprised with the variety and how easy they were to access.  Though it only lasted for a couple of hours, the experience robbed me of all my energy for the next day and a half.  I didn't go again.

My new friends implored me to eat a coconut, specifically a young coconut, and spam musubi.  I was successful in the former but not the latter due to gluten presence.  I had tried coconut water before, packaged, and declared it to be the most vile liquid to pass my lips.  Fresh is always better so I watched with mild trepidation as the vendor brandished her machete and made quick work of the coconut shell/husk/thing.  I must pause to vent here.  In every depiction of a coconut I have ever seen the image is wholly inaccurate.  When searching for a coconut to try a farmer's market stall vendor told me about a stand near where I was staying.  She said, "You can't miss it.  She has a little trailer that is completely surrounded by coconuts."  I almost drove by it because, it turns out, I don't know what a coconut actually looks like.  I was expecting a brown, fibrous round ball about five inches tall.  Instead, they are green/yellow and wonky shaped, vaguely seed like, and huge!  I guesstimate eight inches minimum.  Inside there lies the brown hairy sphere of goodness. False advertising is terrible people!  But back to the awesomeness that is fresh coconut. The water is great, has a mild flavor and is tingly like soda pop on your tongue.  There's quite a bit in there, even in the small ones.  I would guess three cups worth.  Once you're done with the drink it's back to the machete to access the meat.   The young coconuts have soft meet.  Mine was like gelatin and had almost no flavor.

For comparison's sake I got an old coconut the next day.  The meat layer was thicker and was somewhere in-between dry and moist.

I loved it.  This will come as a shock to my closer acquaintances as I have detested coconut my entire life.  It's a texture thing.  Like little insect legs that get stuck in your teeth and refuse to swallow with the rest of the food.  But I had only had dried coconut to this point.  It's still icky by the way.  Fresh coconut however, I will eat at any time.  Bring it.

The condo I was staying in was in Kapa'a and had a glorious view of the sunrise each morning.  I watched several of those, either from the comfort of my balcony with a partial view or down on the beachfront for a full view.  It was cloudy every day which I think actually made for a more interesting greeting of the new day.   The fact that my internal clock was three hours ahead helped me get out of bed at 5:30 in time to watch.  The timing was never great for catching a similar sunset view so the closest I got was walking the beach east a few hotels and catching the pink sky descend behind the mountains.  Still pretty sweet.

Le Le.  A couple of days in to my vacation I learned that you can take a shelter dog from the Humane Society on a field trip!  I went to check it out and ended up choosing Le Le.

She's a pit and wasn't my first choice as pits make me nervous but she was the calmest animal in the whole place.  Even when an employee walked by with a leash and all the other dogs were freaking out on a level I certainly am not used to, Le Le was calm and happy, wagging her tail with a big smile.  I ran her a bit in a dog park next door in the hopes her energy level would be closer to mine when we hit the trail.  She was in heaven.  We practiced leading (me) and following (Le Le) in the parking lot and she learned very quickly how this arrangement was going to work.  During the car ride she was super chill and lased in the back seat, not once whining, smearing slobber on the windows, or even standing up mid-ride.  Once on the trail she was a champ.  There were a couple of tricky spots where I had to scramble with all four limbs grasping for dear life and there was no way to hold on to her.  I let go of the leash and she picked her way across like she'd been rock climbing her whole life and waited patiently for me to grab her leash again.  By the time we summited I was completely smitten.

Strangers were confused by the "adopt me" vest she was wearing because she behaved like we were already a pair.  I took a bunch of pics and lamented over our inevitable separation.  I spent the rest of my vacation (and my first two weeks back home) trying to figure out how I could adopt her or convince someone else to adopt her.  Luckily/sadly she was adopted a few weeks after I returned home.  I fought the urge to interrogate the staff member about her new owners and if they were suitable.  Sigh.  Hopefully they are good people that fell in love as quickly as I did.

I didn't think it was possible to get used to ninety degrees with one hundred percent humidity but when I returned home I just about froze to death in sixty degree temps.  I turned on the heat and huddled on the couch with a cat and blanket willing the air to heat faster.  Heading back to work showed me that I had a very noticeable increase in stamina compared to before the trip.  I'm still fatigued easily but do much better than before.  As is typical for me, I felt amazing so I tried to get my life back all at once.  Not the brightest idea but it felt right at the time.

My friend and I decided to go for a larch/mountain goat hunt (visually, no guns) before they lost their splendor and we'd have to wait until next year.  We trekked up into the Enchantments and did an overnight at Horseshoe Lake.  Amazing.  Truly beautiful.  I wish I could make trips like that happen every weekend.  The hike was difficult, especially the last part where there was 1100 gain in a mile.  Made worse of course with a pack.  I think it took us five hours to do seven miles.  Once we hit the top, all the pain was worth it.

 The lake was pristine, fish for the taking, and rimmed with steep mountain slopes, larches in waning splendor and all in a snowy wonderland.

I'd never been snow camping before and had brought some heavier clothes in anticipation of such conditions.  I needed all of them.  I think I would have gotten frostbite if my friend hadn't learned of the "heater" technique of filling your nalgene with boiling water and cuddling it in your sleeping bag.  The next morning the lake was mirror calm and I took a million pictures.  Then the mountain goat we'd seen visiting other camps the day before made its way to our humble set-up!

We made sure not to get too close and he was kind enough to pose for some nice close-ups.  We took about as long to get off the mountain as it had to get up and my legs were jelly.  I think it took me all week to recover, but again, totally worth it!

Woe Unto Me

Seattle finally gets a stretch of amazing weather and I land the biggest whopper of a "summer cold".  I use quotation marks because the popular term does not even begin to describe the one-two punch that is an Epstein-Barr viral infection coupled with a Streptococcus pyogenes bacterial infection.  I have lost three weeks of my life people, three weeks!

When I told my friend what diagnoses had come through the response was, "what are you, twelve?!".  Leave it to me to get a childhood/young adult disease when I'm neither a child nor young adult.  I thought I deserved a pat on the back for avoiding mono but noooooo, turns out it would have been better had I gotten it then instead of now.  And not just for the lack of responsibility when you're twelve.  You know how you feel after you've run up a really big hill?  Not the "yeah, I did it!" feeling but the "oh wow, that was a lot harder than I thought" feeling?  That was eating breakfast.  Or changing clothes.  Or trying to stay awake for a 90 minute movie because you don't have the brain power to do anything else.  And taking a shower is on a whole other level, a whole other, more difficult level.

It is important to remember the positives.
1. For as long as I can remember, I've not slept well.  Problem solved with mono.  Slept like the dead for fourteen to sixteen hours a day.
2. My cat was horribly ill only a month ago and now she's better. This is great because I don't know that I would have been able to take proper care of her while I was down. She has been enjoying snuggling up to me these three weeks.  That's been nice.
3. I'm not going to die, at least not from this.  Better yet, I'm improving.  I still need phone alarms to tell me every eight hours that I need to take an antibiotic (brain's still fuzzy) but I haven't had to take a nap in two days!  My lymph nodes have reduced from strawberries to grapes and I can talk again.  For two weeks I had a sore throat so awful that I became dehydrated due to the pain with swallowing.  No voice for a Chatty Cathy is tough stuff.

With September around the corner the roads will once again be turned over from the teens wandering aimlessly / driving recklessly all over the roads (while texting and updating Facebook on their smart phones) back to the commuters that curse the teens as all adults are meant to do (while emailing and updating Facebook on their smart phones).  Ah, the circle of life.

Here's hoping the weather stays fine for recuperated me to get in another backpacking trip!

Kendall Katwalk

It only took five years of trying to hike but failing due to snow or forgetting it was there entirely to make it up to Kendall Katwalk.  It's part of the PCT and a great, scenic hike to spend the better part of a day traversing.  The drop-off is impressive.  You can make out the dirt path in the rock face on the right of the picture.

It was doubly exciting to find the geocache up there.  I almost never remember to look for nearby caches before arriving at a trailhead, where inevitably there is no cell service.  Huzzah!

Red Mountain was looking mighty fine as well though my camera phone doesn't do it justice.

Looking forward to the next small adventure, hoping to make another backpacking trip.  Hurray for summer!

Backpacking's triumphant return!

Finally had a spare Saturday so I ventured to Headlight Basin with some friends a couple of weekends ago.  It was great to get out again and I was reminded of just how heavy a pack is with what seemed like only the bare essentials.  The only thing I could think to take out was food, but I always over-pack food. 

I enjoy seeing wildlife when out and about and backpacking is no exception.  I prefer, generally, to see wildlife at a distance.  Not an option on this trip.  There were 20-30 mountain goats roaming the basin and they were not shy around people.  This is disconcerting for a number of reasons.  The most amusing one is that they are salt fiends (who knew?!).  When the need arises, hikers are advised to urinate on rocks to avoid needless destruction of vegetation by salty-urine-seeking goats. While the females on this trip utilized a nearby, secluded back-country privy the lone male flaunted his ability to urinate in the open with minimal risk of exposure.  HA!  A goat appeared out of nowhere and charged in his direction so quickly that to avoid a confrontation activities were suspended mid-stream followed by an adrenaline fueled flight back to camp.

It was a bit buggy (netting worked like a charm!) but otherwise a very pleasant evening with Zombie Dice and camp margaritas.  Mt. Stuart was lovely, especially at sunset when the west face was all pink with alpenglow.  And that is when all heat left the world, or at least left me.

The trip reminded me (yet again) that I am incapable of thermo-regulation.  If I am moving, I am warm.  If I am not moving, I am freezing.  This did not bode well for an overnighter in the 50s.  Most people would be fine.  I however, retreated into my tent after dinner, put all my clothes on, climbed into my zero degree Fahrenheit bag, and tried to sleep. Now, I've had people tell me that in a down bag you are supposed to go in with very little clothing to be the warmest possible you, kind of like lying skin to skin with someone will warm them up faster.  Lies I tell you, lies!  Maybe with a buddy that works but I've never experienced warmth solo unless I was rugged up so only my nose peeks out of the bag.

The winds during the night whipped up the fine dust upon which we had made our camp and the front half of the inside of my tent (only one vestibule at the front) was completely coated in a fine layer come morning.  Luckily backpacking tents are light and a few quick shakes took care of the worst of it.  The benefit to a not so sound night's sleep was that I had a baby unveiling to get back to in Seattle and I got a nice, early start.  Made it home in plenty of time to shower and even do a load of laundry before running off to see the three week old wonder.  She was gorgeous, sweet, and let me hold her for ages before declaring me unfit company.  Successful weekend!

Grey Gardens

I'd honestly never heard of Grey Gardens or Little Edie before going to see this musical theater production.  The last performance my theater buddy and I had gone too was Flashdance and I was sad that I hadn't thought to dress up a bit for it.  You know, a demure neon green leg warmer or something.  So in the fifteen minutes I had to dress for the evening's performance before my ride arrived I texted for suggestions.  This was the response:

"you should wear a scarf on your head"

"the best thing is to wear pantyhose or some pants under a short skirt, I think"

And this is what I came up with.  Not bad, right?

Gotta love Seattle, I don't think anyone looked at me askance.  The show was great, just like watching the youtube clips.  If you've got some time to kill and want to learn about Little Edie and her mother...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzlsG26zpNohttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGTW2InfnOchttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUdlH9SPWOIhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtsM-rYG2UI 

Long Time No See

So... it's been a while.
I had decided that I was too searchable on the web and wanted to have a little less presence, be a little less blog available.  Mission accomplished.  I've had a change of heart, mostly because I miss putting my thoughts down on "paper".  Quite a bit has happened since the hand pies of 2010 but I'll just hit the highlight reel.

2011
This was a very rough year for me. That's basically all I remember. I'm sure there were happy moments but only the thorns stick out in my memory.

Thorn 1 & 2: Room and Board
The company I worked for was bought out and us employees were made to wait six months for a site decision.  The decision was to come after my apartment lease came up for renewal. Moving to a place that could be covered by unemployment insurance sounded like a good idea. In total, I moved four times that year, each place worse than the last. This is considerable as the first move involved a house with a sustained internal temperature of forty-six degrees. While I did not end up losing my job, I put in so many hours at work that I had all three meals, every day, at my desk for more time than I would like to admit. As a thank you for this effort, management gave me a Starbucks gift card with $20 to spend.  My friend said I should be thankful for that but all I could think was, "Screw you company!".

Thorn 3: Love Rollercoaster
I ended what I thought had been a most promising relationship (but aren't they all promising until they aren't?). Sigh.

2012
I had high hopes for this year.  I was emotionally drained and close to a break down at year end and clung to the belief that my family trip to Australia for six weeks would restore my soul.  It took two and a half weeks before I felt like something other than a caged animal.  Calm.  And then the storm raged anew.  Fifteen people in Tante B's house for Christmas.  The table looked like a feast at Hogwarts and we were just as merry.

 















The cousins got a cooking lesson from Oma for her berlina recipe.

I took a stab at surfing.

Surfing took a stab at me.

 I came to know the glory that is the passion fruit.

I saw the Great Barrier Reef which brought me my first snorkel, SCUBA, and heat stroke (almost). 

My most serene moment was snorkeling on my own (don't worry, the boat captain was watching out for me) above the Stepping Stones in the Whitsundays and being completely surrounded by an enormous school of tiny, silvery fish.  The way they moved was like watching a candle flame flicker in the wind, only I was the wind.  I held as still as possible, not even breathing, wanting to stay there forever.

Broulee was not as I remembered.  The waves loomed larger and the shells more numerous when I was a kid.  This didn't stop me from beach combing and getting a righteous sunburn while in pursuit of the itty bitty seashells from childhood visits to Oma and Opa.  The contrast of angry red and pasty pale was so stark you could make out the squiggles of my bikini tie.  The house that Opa built was also foreign. Is it the amount of time between making memories that changes things or is it that the details that are important to me as a child are so different from those as an adult?  Either way the beach trip was a restorative step on my path to happiness.

Melbourne was my time to myself.  Nine splendid days of doing something or nothing, whenever, however I chose.  I read.  I walked.  I got lost.  I bought summer clothes that I'll be able to wear one day of the year in Seattle.  It was lovely, truly lovely.

View from the Melbourne condo.

The return to winter and home was not appreciated but things just HAD to be better than my life a few short months before.  I moved into a rental house with a roommate I'd never met before I responded to the ad. I tried to change everything about my life so I could enjoy it to the fullest.  I played in the garden of the rental house, a lot.  I subscribed to the opera, the 5th, the Paramount, National Geographic lectures, the symphony, the Sounders, and attended various Town Hall events.  I limited work to forty-five hours a week.  I returned to online dating and cast my net wide, meeting anyone that sounded nice instead of trying to have all my criteria checked off before the first date.  It was an experience, a tour de force.

Before I knew it, Autumn strolled in on her red carpet and ushered in a new phase of my life along with the changing season.  Over the previous couple of years I had been experiencing a higher than average number of sick days (for me).  I attributed my fatigue and stomach discomfort to stress, a known cause of many ill symptoms, and I had experienced a fare share of emotional stress. From August to October pain and discomfort became almost constant.  I'm used to a level of chronic pain with my knees and headaches but this was unbearable.  With tears I begged my doctor to figure out what was happening to me.  I hate crying in front of people.  Every celiac test came back positive.

O.

M.

G.

While grateful for a diagnosis that would allow me to control my symptoms, I was devastated.  Gluten is like high fructose corn syrup.  It hides in the most unsuspecting places and it is one of the more fabulous components of food items. I embraced the new diet with as much gusto as I could muster, and plunged into the GF life with all my hopes riding on this diagnosis.  

2013

My pain decreased remarkably (hurray!) with my new diet but my quality of life deteriorated.  One gluten free restaurant crêpe incident left me in tears on the couch for three days because there were too many stairs between my bed and the bathroom.  The pain was remarkable.  Just because it is gluten free does not mean it is celiac friendly.  I didn't go out to eat for at least a month and had to swallow my fear every time I took a bite from someone else's kitchen for at least two more.

I started to replace my hunger cravings for bready things with yogurt and cheese type items.  A noticeable decrease in GI happiness was the result.  Turns out dairy free and gluten free go hand in hand.  Now I'm a celiac vegan carnivore.  This was particularly amusing to me as I had watched a friend go through gluten free shenanigans in 2006 and I declared forcefully, "If I'm ever diagnosed as a celiac and lactose intolerant I'll kill myself."  Brie and a baguette is my favorite meal. I had only discovered the joy of challah bread as french toast in 2011. What do you eat if cereal crops and dairy are off the table, literally?

I'd like to strike my suicidal statement from the record.

I have found things to eat, obviously.  I will not starve and I will enjoy my food.  As most commercial products contain some form of wheat, cooking from scratch has become mandatory.  I thought this would be more healthy, and on some level I'm sure it is, but I rely on bacon and eggs for more meals than is truly necessary. I'm trying not to picture what my arteries look like inside.  A highlight here is that I've thought I was allergic to eggs since college.  Now I can eat them as much as I want with no side effects.  This is huge as eggs are a great binder for recipes.

I'm still learning how to cope.  

It would be great if the substitutions people came up with were for more than baked desserts.  I want to feel full, not pack my day with ultra processed gf flours and sugar.  The most amazing thing in all this is that I live in Seattle.  I feel like this way of life would be ten times more difficult in most other areas of the country, or the world.  Thank you hippie foodie Seattle-ites.  Thank you vegans.  Thank you paleo people.  Thank you vegetarians.  You have paved the way for unadulterated, fresh food for me to eat.  I ate some delicious vegan coconut milk ice cream with fake chocolate chips today.  I have fake butter in my fridge that dairy eatin' folk can't tell the difference (Earth Balance - you are amazing). There are at least three different types of yummy kale to choose from at my ridiculously expensive grocery stores.  I'm learning to love potatoes with olive oil and am eating more veggies than ever.  Soy yogurt is actually appealing now and almond milk can rock a smoothie. Of course I'm writing this as I polish off a bag of corn chips (certified gluten free!).

Hope is on the horizon.

A common side effect of this diagnosis is that while my gut is healing I am more susceptible to illness and that when I do get sick, I'll be sick for longer and have more pronounced symptoms than normal, whatever that is. An informal poll of acquaintances and the Internet has suggested that my reactions and tolerance will stabilize after a couple of years. Also within this timeline, there is a distinct possibility that I'll be able to have dairy again.  Every day this is what keeps me going.

So think Fievel thoughts for me and don't be offended if I ask to dig your food containers out of the trash and recycle to look for hidden gluten ingredients.