Between a Book and a Soft Place

Yesterday, trapped in the alternating confines of my bed and couch, I finished Between a Rock and a Hard Place, the book by hiker/climber Aron Ralston about the harrowing six days he spent wedged by a boulder in a Utah canyon in 2003. To escape, the severely dehydrated and sleep-deprived Ralston broke the bones in his forearm and cut through the flesh. Oh, and then he rappelled down a rocky cliff and hiked about seven miles to safety.

Much like when I read Into the Wild several years ago, I was struck not just by the physical circumstances (my mouth felt dry when Ralston described his parched tongue) but by the isolation, the vast wildness of being outside.

It was all Yellow

Image credit: www.flickr.com/photos/vhtrc

In the beginning there were colors. That's what Charlotte Hatherley says, and she must've taken a recent trip to Potomac Overlook Regional Park.

The trees are brilliant--I feel like the reflection from the yellow canopy makes everything glow.

There was a trail race there over the weekend that I was thinking of doing, but I decided to continue to enjoy the solitude of the trails instead. I rarely see people other than an occasional dog walker.

The Great S-Crepe

The bright yellow autumn leaves were no match for the hot pink trailer.

Between the leaves still clinging to the tree and those already dusting the ground near the Ballston Metro, Solar Crepes popped out of the landscape.

I recently visited the solar-powered food cart for the first time--and then the second time, all in the span of a week. I hold food carts to a high standard, and Solar Crepes exceeded it. Their website boasts: "Almost every ingredient is organic or local!" I was in local-ganic heaven.

Fright on Fairmont Street

The nicest compliment people could give Elle Becker this Saturday is to tell her that she’s one sick f***.

She’d like it if people raise their eyebrows and believe something is seriously wrong with her.
So she said on an October afternoon as she tinkered with a flashing red object in a jar labeled ‘heart of bat.’

Judging by her preparations two weeks before her Halloween party, Becker is well on her way to achieving the reaction she seeks.

Becker, 36, is hosting her third Halloween party in four years on Saturday night, and the cauldron of ideas in her head is bubbling over.

Her decoration collection alone would rival any Halloween superstore: stuffed snakes from a taxidermist, a blood-splattered chainsaw that plays loud whirring noises, and rubbery body parts with bones jutting out are just a few of the ghoulish items that bring a smile to Becker’s face.

And surely the decapitated heads in her foyer are deterring any would-be thieves in her Columbia Heights townhouse.

“I don’t have to go insane,” she said, “but if I do have life-size mummies in the living room, it’s fun.”

Champion of the Sun

In the darkness of night. In dimly lit alleys and in shadows on creaky wooden porches.

That's when mysteries are formed and revealed. Right?


Ah, but I'm finding the mysteries of the day are far more complex. Day people are creatures who openly move about during daylight hours, who run errands while freely soaking up vitamin D instead of squeezing in a grocery store trip by moonlight after a long day at the office. They are the women who attend mid-morning yoga classes, the city employees who clean up roadside brush and the backpack-clad kids who saunter home from the bus in the afternoon.

I never thought much about the day people or what day things happened when I was tucked away in an office. But now that home is my office, answers to some of my previously unknown yet apparently burning questions have been revealed.

Waiting to Inhale

I wouldn't be surprised if lilacs are sprouting in my lungs.

Not in a subtle, these-are-nice-and-pretty-and-purple kind of way but in an unwillingly-seeping-into-every-fiber-of-my-being kind of way.

The automatic air freshener in my work bathroom was just changed, and the smell is beyond overwhelming. Ew.

I wait as long as possible between bathroom trips, holding my breath and crossing my fingers that the automatic sensor doesn't go off and cause another 8-magnitude eruption of faux-sweet flowers.

An object in motion

Yesterday, in the midst of prepping for an impending international trip, I decided it would be the perfect time to change my shower curtain liner.

I ran the dishwasher. And the vacuum. I folded and put away all my laundry--while it was practically still warm. And I revived my semi-dormant exercise routine by going for a run.

The trip prep? Well, that happened, too.

Why I thought my empty apartment will be better off with a fresh shower curtain, I have no idea.

But apparently an object in motion remains in motion. That, and there's something to be said for deadlines.

What're you in for?

Back-to-back blizzards have made me realize that I would do remarkably well in solitary confinement.

Instead of gazing aimlessly into the darkness, I'm surrounded by whiteness. Don't worry--I have no plans to sport an orange jumpsuit, but like those locked up:

• I am kept away from other people. In a small space.

• I have a limited supply of food.

• A vast expanse of time to just think lies before me.
  

• I am only allowed periodic exercise, whether in small increments in the treacherous yard outside or bursts of sanity-saving jump rope indoors.

Cabin fever moments aside, I'm rather enjoying the break from the world. (I suppose prisoners don't relish the forced respite from society quite so much.) I've read books, made tea daily, finished long-neglected projects and started new ones, and taken time to, well, be. It seems my normal, non-snowed-in life, with its schedules and tasks and meetings, leaves me too much of a prisoner for that.

Picnic anyone?

FLOP

I saw two people wearing flip flops in the snow today. TWO.


Image source: www.rocktownweekly.com/rocktown/rock_archive_details.php?AID=136&page=focus

Science Fare

As part of a greater effort to reduce waste, I vowed to undertake the move from many individually packaged yogurt cups to a larger container doled out into daily servings. Thus, this week I launched (drum roll) The Great Yogurt Experiment. Pardon the spotty methodology; I haven't set foot in a science lab since high school.

Problem: To find a reliable way to move yogurt from large container at Point A to consume in smaller quantities at Point B. Yogurt must be transported with minimal spillage; yogurt containers must possess a minimal spray factor when opened.

Control: vanilla yogurt, from 32 oz. container

Variable: types of tupperware used to transport smaller amounts of aforementioned yogurt to Point B, including but not limited to glass tupperware and a recycled plastic butter container.

Results: No yogurt was spilled in the course of the experiment. Preferred container: small butter container--allows for portion control and easier polishing off of side-dwelling yogurt remnants.

Conclusion: Yogurt transport provides reliable storage options while reducing disposable packaging of smaller yogurt containers.

Extra credit: Make my own yogurt? Hmm.