A good way to start the New Year...

It's a lovely rainy day and since I decided to take a sick day today I get to really enjoy it, instead of simply admiring it from glances stolen out my office window. Today is one of those days that make one think, "Hey, Tucson's not so bad. The weather here is amazing." How quickly one forgets the six-month long summer...

It was sufficiently chilly on New Year's Day when we headed to Mt. Wrightston for a hike, joining some friends who have turned this trek into an annual tradition. Originally we had talked about summiting, but you know how that goes. We all went to bed too late to jump up at the crack of dawn, so we didn't get to Madera Canyon until after 10am. Nonetheless, we still had the perfect amount of time for a comfortable hike to Josephine Saddle (through occasional patches of snow and ice), where we had a picnic lunch -- complete with boxed red wine and a shrimp plate -- before heading back down.

At Josephine Saddle

Sean's brother Nate with his ears aglow : )

A close up of one of the beautiful sycamores near the trailhead
~~~

The weather has been perfect for lazy weekend mornings on the porch. I love to sit and read while the sunlight streams in through the catclaw vines that cover the screens.

My favorite elements to this particular morning: drinking hot tea from my new, hand-painted, yellow mug; a steaming bowl of polenta; and the thick, snowflake covered, winter socks that keep my feet oh so warm.

A busy month

I see that my last post was on the first of this month. It's shocking how quickly this month has passed and how it felt like I had no time for blogging. I didn't just get behind on my own posts, I couldn't even find the time to check my friends'. I went home to visit my parents the first weekend in December and that visit launched a week-and-a-half long project that consumed every moment of my free time. I was busy creating my father's 60th birthday present, which I can't describe yet since his birthday isn't until Christmas day. While there is basically no chance of him getting on the internet and reading my blog (he's a serious technophobe), I wouldn't want anyone else to ruin the surprise.

The cool thing about this project is that it gave me the opportunity to scan a ton of my family's pictures, which means that I now have copies of some of my favorite photos. It also means that I may be including the occasional baby shot or other favorite in my posts...just for fun. Like this one:

This is my sister and me. I'm the little one : )

This month has also brought new developments in our spring plans. With our tickets purchased and our visas approved, we are ready to start making concrete decisions about our time in New Zealand. Our WWOOF member book arrived in the mail and we've been spending a good deal of time pouring over the descriptions of the different host situations. There are full blown, 100+ acre farms, B&Bs, lifestyle blocks (I need to research this, but I believe they are referring to intentional communities/communes), private homes with big gardens and orchards, etc., etc. I'm excited to start contacting some of these places and searching for the right place to begin our adventure.

One of the most thrilling features of the upcoming departure is my imminent resignation from my job. It has been the opportunity of a lifetime to work with such a diverse staff in a very interesting and dynamic field. That being said, I have discovered that life as a social worker in and underfunded non-profit does not exactly provide the spiritually uplifting environment that I naturally crave. Instead, I find that my efforts to help people are routinely thwarted by the endless bureaucratic red-tape in the state welfare system, health insurance companies, and the social security administration. I now fully understand that our country, and our state in particular, is not designed to provide any meaningful support to families or individuals struggling with poverty, mental illness, physical disabilities, and the like.

I desperately want to help the clients I work with, but encounter frustration at every turn. I feel terrible leaving the families that I currently serve, but at the same time I know that I cannot save them. I cannot lift them out of poverty or take away their pain; I can only give them the tools to be their own advocates and hopefully improve their chances of success. Now, I am not referring to success according to the modest middle class vision of owning a house and a couple of cars and someday retiring with enough money to send your kids to college and travel a little. No, I am referring to something much more basic: finding a job, keeping a roof over your head and food on the table. It may not sound like much, but when you come to America with no English, suffering from PTSD, and trying to weather an economic depression, it sounds like a miracle.

The refugees will always be with me. I'm sure I'll continue to hear Arabic in my dreams and I know I will never lose those memories: late night pick ups at the airport (AA flight 403), watching the television screen at the bottom of the escalator and straining to catch sight of that glossy white IOM bag, hot cardamom-spiced black tea, loading up the big green truck in a freezing downpour, speaking at a crowded Lutheran church service, staying at the office until 11pm to sort holiday gift donations, witnessing the reunion of a Somali family with long lost friends... My mind is flooded as I remember the past year and a half. Certainly my relief at leaving the job will be mixed with sadness.

The Holidays begin

Last week was all about family. On Thursday we drove to Phoenix to spend Thanksgiving with Sean's family, hosted by his oldest brother, Tighe. His other brother Nate and girlfriend April drove down from Flagstaff, and the Tucson clan (his sister Cait, grandmother Pat, mother Andrea, and uncle John) all went up as well to share the Thanksgiving feast and pass the night together.

His family is really into gourmet cooking, so the food was fantastic. The full spread is pictured above, and at the near end is Andrea's famous stuffing. I've never had anything like it. She makes it Santa Fe style with cornbread, chorizo, dried apricots and cherries. There was also a roasted winter vegetable medley with turnips, butternut squash and carrots, and excellent homemade cranberry sauce.

My new sisters April and Caitlin

The morning after Thanksgiving we drove back to Tucson and were at home just long enough to shower and put on fresh clothes before we drove to my grandparents' house for another Thanksgiving. This night differed from the one before in just a few aspects: there was no gourmet food, no sit-down dinner and really no mention of Thanksgiving at all. In fact, the night was more of an early Christmas than anything. Since the family would not be all together at Christmas, it was decided that we would celebrate early for the kids. It felt like a total time warp as we exchanged gifts while listening to Bing Crosby and drinking eggnog.

Everybody
(Well, almost. Of course we forgot to take the group picture until after a third of the people had already left.)

Me in some holiday bling with my grandma. She is a genius with bows for her X-mas presents and I happen to love putting on said bows during the unwrapping extravaganza.

Annetta came with us and received her first ever present from Santa : )
(A hand soap & lotion set, which she said she actually needed. How did he know...?)

At home at last, Sean and I spent Saturday cleaning the house and decorating for Christmas. It was my first glimpse of his amazing collection of antique tree ornaments and holiday decorations. It was a little overwhelming at first as I put my three ornaments in to the mix, but it turned out really lovely. Our first Christmas together!

The Huntington

Last weekend Sean and I flew to California to visit my Aunt Carmen and her family. The highlight of the trip was our tour of the Huntington Botanical Gardens and museum. Our second day in L.A., we borrowed my aunt's car and drove out to Pasadena. I had been there once when I was about 14 and remembered very little; my overall impression was of the cool, drizzly spring day and the expansive, manicured grounds. We had only spent a couple of hours, but the experience remained with me. So much so that when we decided to do this trip, my first thought was that we had to see the gardens. Sean, the eternal plant fanatic, was immediately sold on the idea.

The cool thing about the Huntington is that because of its location in temperate southern California they can grow just about everything, from cactus to tropical plants. Among other things, there is a Japanese garden, a huge rose garden, an herb garden, and a rain forest greenhouse. They also have eleven gorgeous acres of cactus and succulents that made Sean's face light up like a kid in a candy shop. (And if you know Sean at all, you know the truth in that comparison.)

A (bell?) pepper from the herb garden

There were thousands of varieties of roses, in every color imaginable. It kind of renewed my love of a flower that is usually dismissed as cliche.

Of all the new plants I learned that day, this was my favorite: The dragon tree. It's incredible. It's a little hard to tell in the picture, but it's huge, and the canopy of the tree is composed of hundreds of agave-like clumps at the end of rounded arms. The most notable aspect of the tree is the sap, which bleeds red from the tree. That's right. Red.

In the rose garden

Breakfast for dinner

Note the only slightly misshapen heart pancake I made for Sean. If I had thought of it earlier I would have made them all into shapes, but it didn't occur to me until the very last one went on the griddle. Darn. Anyway, I made buttermilk pancakes for the first time and was thrilled with the restaurant quality results. So that's how they make those pancakes so light and springy! Now, the question of what to do with the rest of the buttermilk. As it turns out, they only sell buttermilk in quart-sized bottles. I already made a cake and pancakes and I still have half the bottle left. What am I supposed to do with all of it? When I was little I remember my mom used to drink the buttermilk that we would buy for special recipes. She claimed it was a Southern thing, a remnant from her grandparents' Kentucky origins.

I know this breakfast-dinner hybrid doesn't look like much, but this has been one of those weeks where I am proud to have pulled it together to make anything. It has not been overtly stressful... in fact I can't really even pinpoint what is making me tense. Work is busy, but no crises to speak of. Everything is great in the old homestead. Nevertheless, I keep catching myself clenching my jaw -- to the point that it has caused me jaw pain for several days now and, I believe, directly contributed to the migraine I had yesterday. (Emery, is this how it starts?!) No, I'm sure there's no TMJ here, just a deep need for a little vacation. Thank god it's almost Thanksgiving. Yay for federal holidays!

I have another picture that I wanted to post. It has nothing to do with food or aching joints, but I thought it was too cute to keep to myself:

Pobrecita Petrie. Is it wrong that this picture makes me smile?

Autumn Sunday

"The Survivor"

Yesterday it was cold when we woke up. After a very long summer, it seems like fall has finally arrived. Sunday was a day made for the season and we decided it was time to bake the first of the two big squash that our garden produced. The Magdalena Big Cheese squash that we planted in August had grown like wild, taking over our back yard. The vines grew from one end of the yard to the other and even climbed into the trees, easily reaching 25 feet in the air. We have had a continuous production of male flowers from the plant but were beginning to despair of ever getting fruit. Finally, one appeared near the end of the longest vine, nestled beneath a giant leaf nearly a foot in diameter. Then another one fell from the sky...literally. Apparently it had developed on a vine that had grown up a high branch branch and on that particular morning the weight became too great for the vine's little tentacles to support. When we stepped out the back door, we found it sitting peacefully and unbroken on the ground, some ten feet from its nest in the tree. It was already the size of a large grapefruit and we were incredulous that it hadn't been damaged in the fall. Indeed, no harm was done and we harvested it last week as big and ripe as its sister across the yard.

The squash was beautiful and -- I don't want to brag, but -- it was essentially perfect. The skin was smooth and uniform and the flesh was sweet and firm. Sean helped cut it into slices and we decided to bake it all with a bit of butter and nutmeg. I also roasted the seeds, which turned out really well. (Even though I tried my best to burn them in my ridiculous oven :) We ate some of the squash with our lunch of lentil soup, and took a pan of it over to Annetta's later. Even so, there was a ton left over so I'm hoping to convert the remainder into squash bread tonight.

Round 1 - "Raw"

Round 2 - Squash Bread a la The Joy of Cooking
(Round 3 was the curry I had to make a couple nights later to use up the rest)

~~~

Sunday was also the celebration of Tucson's traditional All Souls Procession. It was my first year attending, even though I've lived in Tucson for almost seven years. I'm so glad I finally went, because it was awesome...quite a surreal experience. As a friend pointed out, it is much like stepping into a Tim Burton film. (The comparison was confirmed a few minutes later when some people passed by carrying a huge representation of the little dog from Nightmare before Christmas, complete with the glowing red nose.) There were giant skeletons walking among the crowd, wild costumes ranging from grotesque to gaudy, and elaborate portable shrines for loved ones lost.

A group of met up before the procession to paint our faces and share some food. I think it may have been the first time I have ever worn face paint. Strangely, I kind of enjoyed it.

It grew colder as the procession moved toward downtown. The clouds were building and the flashes of lighting intermingled with the flashes from the many cameras in the crowd. The atmosphere was charged and finally broke right before we entered the Sixth Avenue underpass. As the rain began to fall, you could hear exclamations of joy and praise for this beautiful and unexpected occurrence.

Politics (not) as usual

A mural from the Santa Fe Art District

This has been a wild week. Tuesday marked the end of a seemingly endless 22 months of campaigning for the presidency in the form of media manipulation and a lot of tired rhetoric (certainly more heavily on the Republican side, but I am in no way absolving the democrats of that crime). Much to my surprise, it was a happy ending. As a twenty-something whose only political experience has been bitter and characterized by the feeling of near total disenfranchisement, I was fairly resigned to my cynical perspective. After the re-election of Bush in '04, I was convinced that the electoral process was rigged, that the votes weren't counted and that nothing could reverse the course we were on. I had also lost faith in my fellow citizens, sure that the majority was either satisfied with the current political BS or feeling helpless like myself. I also suspected that racism was too deeply entrenched -- and at the same time hidden -- in America to be overcome. I did not believe 'they' would let Obama win. The presidency had been stolen before, so why not this time?

Also, in all honesty, VP Palin scared the hell out of me. Before her appearance, I felt almost indifferent about the election... I mean, McCain was bad, but he was no extremist. It's funny. They say that she energized the GOP, but I think it is fair to say that she also energized the opposition. She got people talking and offered an extreme viewpoint that people could rally fiercely against. I suppose we should be glad for that.

I almost didn't go to the election party we were invited to on Tuesday. I assumed that something would go horribly wrong and we would have to wait days, if not weeks, before the final results were revealed. Again, my only experience with elections (2002 and 2004) had conditioned me to expect problems and delays. I couldn't believe it when they announced that Obama had surpassed the 270 electoral votes needed to win. Even while jumping up and down with the rest of the guests, there remained a seed of doubt. I was still waiting for them to take it back, to say that they had jumped the gun calling Pennsylvania or Indiana. Which state would host the debacle this time?

It didn't become real for me until McCain gave his concession speech in front of that sad little crowd in Phoenix. I got teary and my heart hurt a bit. Hmmm, is that what hope feels like? Who knows, maybe I was just caught up in the moment, but listening to Obama inspired a feeling in me that was unfamiliar in the context of political speeches: trust. I actually believed him. Silly perhaps, but it felt awfully good. For the time being my faith is renewed and I am happy to put aside my cynicism for a while and embrace HOPE.

p.s. Before you think that I've become a total believer, I must say that I was supremely disappointed with the passage of Prop 102 here and Prop 8 in California. A majority of people in these states voted to pass an amendment to their state constitutions defining marriage specifically as the union of a man and a woman... I just don't understand. What is the deal with fundamentalist Christians' fear of homosexuality? What do they care?! This level of state-condoned inequality is mind-blowing in a time when it is generally taken for granted that all people in this country are "equal" in the eyes of the law. What a joke.