Nobody, darnit

Life Update

criada — Thu, 14 Aug 2014 16:55:23 GMT

I need to stop neglecting Livejournal. (This post is being made in lieu of a proper response to a comment, which LJ doesn't feel like letting me make.)
Life is being pretty good to me. I'm still going to school, with less than a year to go. Right now, I'm in the thin break between my Group Therapy class (which included actual group therapy) and Existential Therapy (which probably won't involve actual therapy, but it does have a professor who has written a lot about kink, so I'm looking forward to meeting him.)
Next month, I start my internship at the YWCA. I'm a little nervous, but also looking forward to getting real experience. I worry my anxiety attacks will return, but I can't know until I try.
I might be getting a part time job. I haven't heard back, but I got some stuff straightened out with the student loan people, so I'll have more than enough money to live on. The choice is basically "more debt vs. more stress." I'm inclined towards the latter.

My roommate (Keffy) is off in Europe for a month, leaving me alone to hang out in my underwear and take care of our friend's cat. We've got Taco the Cat until about the end of the year. I'm doped up on loratidine, but I'm enjoying her company for the most part. Earplugs are often required at night, though, and she did get herself banished to the bathroom briefly when the boyfriend was over.

Things are going well with the boyfriend. It no longer feels weird. He's met my parents, and soon I'll be meeting his dad.

Today, my goal is to do dishes, walk to campus where I'll read stuff for next week's class, ride an elliptical for at least 30 minutes, and buy a friend's debut novel.

Last night, I did a solid brain flush by watching a couple fluffy movies while playing Alpha Centauri. I may do the same tonight if I can't get out to Lake Forest Park to see my friend read from the aforementioned novel.

Geology Field Trip Report - Garibaldi Provincial park

criada — Tue, 12 Aug 2014 19:06:25 GMT

Geology Field Trip Report
Last week, me and the boyfriend went backpacking in Garibaldi Provincial Park, a few hours north of Vancouver, B.C. I love this place, not just because it's beautiful, but because it illustrates the intersection of two of my favorite geological processes: volcanism and glaciation. You know where else there's volcanoes and glaciers? Mars. And a lot of Mars may look like this area.

To start: way, way back when, in the Triassic (200 million years ago. Dinosaurs were just starting to show up.) there was an island arc, much like the Aleutians or the Leeward Caribbean islands. This got smushed into the continent, and then, in the Jurassic (150 million years ago. Full of dinosaurs) magma pushed up from deep in the earth--not breaking the surface--and crystallized into a granite batholith, which eventually became exposed to the air. Eventually, thanks to plate subduction, volcanoes erupted and created the Garibaldi Volcanic Field.

To get to the trailhead, you pass through this zone the government as designated as a landslide hazard. They don't allow any building, and recommend you don't stop your car there for long. This is because just upstream of the aptly named Rubble Creek, is...The Barrier. It's very dramatically named, and it is pretty dramatic looking. Certainly its origin is exciting.

About 9,000 years ago (after the ice ages, after humans crossed the land bridge) lava poured out of Clinker Peak on the the side of Mount Price. (For a great aerial view of the lava flows, go here. There's also nice little documentary about The Barrier.) This eventually hit a glacier, which caused the lava to pool and cool into a 300 meter high cliff. It didn't cool into a solid rock, but rather a deeply fractured one. It is constantly crumbling. Even while we were there, we heard and saw signs of landslides. Here's a big plume of dust. The picture also shows the campground, on the lakeshore beside those long, thin islands.

In the pictures on that link, you can see how the cliffs are gradually eroding farther and farther back. Theoretically, it may someday reach Garibaldi Lake, at which point, life will suck for everything downstream, all the way to Squamish, a biggish town down on Howe Sound.

Here's a view of the lava flow from Panorama Ridge, as well as one I marked up. The lava flow is in red, the site of the old glacier in blue, and the resulting Barrier in yellow.

Once you hike up The Barrier, the trail levels off a bit, and you pass two smaller lakes which ponded on the lava dam. The first of these, Barrier Lake, doesn't appear to have an outflow stream. Turns out, the water is soaking into the ground and flowing out through springs in The Barrier--adding to The Barrier's instability.

Soon, you reach Garibaldi Lake itself. The lake is an amazing shade of turquoise thanks to the sediment, known as glacial flour. (This is why bottled water labeled as "glacial" is kind of hilarious. Mmm...silty.) Glaciers can grind stone so fine, it's like flour. This makes the water almost opaque, which adds to the otherworldly beauty. (This shot shows the campground and accompanying "battleship islands")

Here's a glacial phenomenon illustrated very clearly from the campground: hanging valleys. First, a glacier comes along and carves a deep valley. Then, smaller glaciers join it from side valleys. When the glaciers retreat, the result are these smooth valleys that end very high up the main valley wall. In some places, streams flow down these and terminate in spectacular waterfalls. A lot of the waterfalls in Yosemite are examples.

If you climb up from Garabaldi Lake, you reach a plateau covered in alpine and subalpine meadows. From here, you can see the Black Tusk, but to get the best view, head up the trail to Panorama Ridge.

The Black Tusk is sacred to the local First Nations people, who told stories of the Thunderbird who lived there. It's a volcanic neck, the hard core of an ancient volcano which has since eroded away. Give Mount Rainier long enough, and it will probably look something like this. In the Black Tusk's case, its volcano was formed a little over a million years ago. There was a little activity 170,000 years ago, pushing up the lava dome on its side. You can walk up to the base, and even climb it if you've got the gear and know-how. Here's a shot of some people at the base, to give you a sense of scale.

We did not walk up to it, however, we hiked up Panorama Ridge, where there were lots and lots of interesting rocks. I'm honestly not sure what exactly the geology of the ridge is, but it's probably part of a subglacial volcano complex along with the rest of Garabaldi. That is, at least part of it erupted underneath a glacier. There was a lot of pale, rhyolitic lava on it, much of which had been fractured at some point. Superheated water, carrying dissolved quartz, poured in and deposited thick veins of quartz.

You'll notice this quartz is rusty, which is often a sign there's gold nearby, and indeed, there are a few gold mines around here.

Here's another rock. I'm terrible at minerology, but this looks like rhyolitic lava against some kind of sedimentary conglomerate. Given the history of the area, I'd say the sediment is glacial, and this is where the lava flowed over or maybe under it. The bigger rocks in the conglomerate are granite, which I know was around from the Jurassic period. It makes sense that the glaciers would have ground it up. If I'd thought about it at the time, I would have checked the boundary for signs of contact metamorphism, where rock is basically baked when lava touches it. I was too busy avoiding dehydration at the time.

That rock might have been the result of lava over glacial stone. Here's a volcanic stone which has been scraped over by a glacier. The rock was big, smooth and shaped like a whale. When a glacier goes over rock, the tiny rocks embedded underneath the glacier get dragged across the ground rocks like sand paper. They scrape tiny, parallel gouges into the stone.

Speaking of glaciers, here's a shot of the Sphinx Glacier, where two lobes have merged together. A glacier will grind away rock at the sides of its valley, forming a pile of stone called a lateral moraine which is gradually carried along as the glacier moves. When glaciers merge like this, the lateral moraines become a medial moraine.

Here's my favorite landform in the area, The Table. It's a tuya, which is formed when lava erupts beneath ice, and manages to melt a hole which it then flows up into. The result is this steep-sided, flat-topped mountain.

There was a cinder cone to the north of Panorama Ridge, and a hummocky field that looked interesting, but we didn't really have the time or energy to explore it. The Panorama trail was hard, but you do get up close and personal with a lot of rocks.

So that's Garibaldi Provincial Park. I might do another one on Whistler and Blackcomb.

Garibaldi trip report.

criada — Tue, 12 Aug 2014 18:45:45 GMT

A while back, I finally got my passport renewed. As a result, the boyfriend declared that we should go to Canada, since he's never been to B.C. My parents were going to be at their timeshare in Whistler, so it made sense to overlap the two trips. All this resulted in he and I spending three nights in Garibaldi Provincial Park. I'd been there once before on a day hike with my dad, since it's just half an hour south of Whistler. I've been itching to get back there with my new camera, and to show the place off to Andrew. (I love sharing places I love with people I love.)
You can see the bulk of the pics I took over on Flickr. It's an amazingly gorgeous place. Full report behind the cut!

The night before we left, disaster nearly struck as I realized my backpack hip belt didn't fit me anymore. It was about three inches too short. After some panic, I managed to get it to fit. Still, it wasn't the most comfortable thing in the world. I'll need to see if I can get a new belt. My backpack is ancient (seriously, I think it's older than I am.) but it works just fine for me. Note the little teddy bear in the pocket. That's Appleton, named after Appleton Pass, the first place I took him backpacking.

I was a little worried there wouldn't be any space for us at the campground, but it was Wednesday, and I needn't have worried. Nevertheless, I was counting all the cars in the parking lot. I was also a little worried about my physical condition. I've never been the fittest person, and lately my knees have been wearing out, but I took things slow, one step at a time, and Andrew never showed any inclination to do otherwise, even though I told him he could go on ahead. It's not the worst hike in the world, but it's steep and tedious, and the day was hot. Anyway, we made good time. Slow and steady is a pretty good technique.

The campground wasn't too crowded, a fact that would change as the week went on. Our site was tiny, but we weren't spending much time there, anyway. The Garibaldi Lake campground is pretty luxurious for a backcounty campground. There are day shelters where you can hang your food and wash your dishes. There's no plumbing, but there was a sink with bottles of water and some extremely dubious-looking sponges. There were also picnic tables both inside and out. This made for a very communal feel, since we typically had to share the table with others. Our first tablemates had brought a huge pot with them, while the next people over had lugged in a bottle of wine. Later people would carry in inflatable rafts. We realized then that everyone has their priorities for their backcountry trip. There was a suprising amount of alcohol, given that Whistler is Party Central and not too far away. Apparently some people can't enjoy their booze unless they carry it up a 4,000 foot slope. Anyways, our priority? Heavy camera equipment!

We were told that there was to be a minor meteor shower that night. We'd been wanting to do star photography, so that was nice. We saw a few meteors, but I'm not sure how many photos we got. Most every photo had a streak in it, but those could well be satellites. We saw the Milky Way, and were blinded by people who didn't know how to properly use flashlights.

Morning came, and it was then I discovered the true perils of this place. I'm used to worrying about bears and raccoons getting into your food. I'm not sure why I never worried about mice, but they're the big problem at Garibaldi. Despite the little plastic things that are supposed to keep them off the hanging line, at least one got into my bag. It was an open reusable shopping bag, so it probably just fell in. But it ate three little baggies of goldfish crackers and a bag of mixed nuts the size of my fist. Judging from the tiny poops, it was just one tiny mouse, but it ate the mass of at least three or four mice. It chewed into my bag of chai powder, but didn't like it. I still tossed the chai. :-( Thankfully, it didn't eat all my food, little bastards.
The second day, we wanted to go for a day hike. We figured it might be short, to make up for the exertions of the day before, but it wasn't. We ended going up to Panorama Ridge, which is one of the most beautiful places I've ever been, and probably the hardest hike. The hike, from the junction of the main trail, is short, but steep. Even the steepness might not have been a problem, but on the last section of trail you have to clamber over boulders and scree and snow, and it's easy to get lost. People coming down kept saying "you're almost there, it's worth it!" I had no doubt it was worth it, but I did doubt the "almost there" part. Believe me, on that trail, you're not almost there until you're completely there. The last thirty feet or so were the hardest. And it was hot and dehydrating. We managed to make a little hollow to capture snowmelt that we could filter.

Despite constantly reapplying sunblock, I got a ridiculous sunburn. But, this also meant it was a good time to be on the nearly 7,000 foot peak. Otherwise, it would have been way too cold and windy up there, but as it was, it was glorious.

Andrew let me use his trekking pole on the way down, which undoubtedly saved me many times from falling and breaking my face open. We only got lost once. :-/

We would have slept the sleep of the satisfactorily exhausted that night, if not for the fact that some people decided to party until the wee hours. Despite groping for my earplugs that were right beside me, I couldn't find them, and ended up stuffing toilet paper in my ears. I was too tired to get up and yell at them, and kept hoping someone else closer to them would. I guess everyone else had better earplugs.

Day three saw us on another day hike, this one much less strenuous. There are a couple little lakes you pass as you hike in, which we'd ignored in favor of pushing on to the camp. So we headed back there. On the way, we explored a side trail that turned out to be an old abandoned trail along the creek. Now, the current trail goes up a steep hillside, and then down again. I think it does this so it meets up with the trail to the upper meadows. But it means you have to go up and then down. The route we found bypassed that, but it probably only worked out because water levels were so low, we could just hop across the usually raging creek. But we had found an excellent shortcut which we used again on the way out. There were a lot of rocks and fallen trees, but I used my tripod as a walking stick.

When we got back, after a nap, we waded in the lake, and Andrew took a swim. It was around 85 degrees, even on the shore of a subalpine glacial lake. At a few times, the lake looked like a regular beach party. This day, Friday, was the day it got crowded. Turns out it was a three day weekend in Canada. This was no problem for us because we went during the week. (Suckers! I mean, poor people who have to work Monday through Friday jobs...) The site right next to ours filled up with a couple in one tent, and their buddies in another, who were going to take over our site when we left the next day. These were the smart people. The main campground filled up that night.

Saturday, we packed up and headed back. We easily passed hundreds of people, both day hikers and overnighters, heading up. At one point, a ranger headed down, stopping to let them know they'd have to go to the smaller campground. He'd overtake us, but then we'd pass him again as he stopped the inward bound hikers. I don't know why he let in as many people as he did--even if he did warn them they'd be crowding in. Eventually, he started turning them away completely.

Back at the car, we checked to make sure no one had broken into the car. No human had. However, a single mouse poo was found on the lid of Andrew's McDonald's cup, and much more mouse poo was found in other places. They ate a granola bar, and tried vainly to chew into a bag of animal crackers, but curse those little bastards!

The three day weekend also meant that Whistler was crowded. But what am I saying, Whistler's always crowded!

We stayed at a hostel across from my parents timeshare. Our first move, after checking in, was to inhale milkshakes and pancakes at the downstairs diner. Then, showers. Then, Andrew happened to run into my dad right before I took my own shower. This meant they got to have their first potentially awkward dad-and-boyfriend time. My mom was super sweet to Andrew, assuring him that she liked him. She has difficulty reconciling her desire to preserve me forever as her little virginal girl with her desire to see me be a grown woman in a healthy relationship. We've had shouting matches a couple of times about her inability to let me grow up, one of which happened because she was faced directly with me and Andrew coming to Whistler and...sharing accomodations. But hey, she was nice and more lucid than usual! She did manage to get in a good average level of non-threatening schizophrenicness though, so Andrew could experience that.

Dad bought us tickets up the mountain, along with a BBQ that they hold up on top. Mom didn't want to go, which was probably for the best. I'd rather expose her to my boyfriend in small doses. And it was hot. Godawfully hot. I got lightheaded a few times, though the Vitamin Water I bought before the gondola ride was blissfully frozen slush. I learned I just had to have a bottle of water with me at all times.

So we rode the gondola up Whistler Mountain, and then over to Blackcomb, then back again. Andrew and I were pooped, and didn't really want to go hiking, but we did want to go up the Peak Chair, which required walking down a steep path for a distance farther than I remember. The path was FULL of tourists who didn't seem to understand how trails worked. Possibly I was just too hot, tired and cranky to have the least bit of patience with them. The thought of having to walk back up that made me sick, so we decided to walk down from the peak with Dad.

To get to the very tippy top of Whistler Mountain, you take an open ski lift up a super steep cliff and a glacier. Andrew lost his camera's polarizing filter to the glacier. :-/ But it was otherwise a great experience for a stupidly hot day. Glacier wind, yay! Up top, there's this big Inukshuk from the Olympics. Dozens of people were lined up to have their pictures taken standing on the thing. Andrew wanted to be a ninja and have his picture taken from the opposite side where there were no people. So here is Andrew, with Inukshuk and Tourist Butts.

We survived the walk back to the Roundhouse, had our BBQ with accompanying mediocre live music, and headed back to the hostel. So tired...

The next morning, after I went to the convenience store and considered smuggling a KinderEgg home for the Lulz, we went for a quick walk by the lakes, so I could show Andrew more of the places I love. We saw a fledgling robin sleeping on the path. Just sitting there motionless, until finally it opened its eyes and hopped off the path.

Then I took Andrew to my special place, the delta where Whistler Creek meets Nita Lake. Looks like someone didn't understand how deltas work, and put some benches on the edge of where the delta used to be.

After breakfast with the parents, we headed for home. I drove at first so Andrew could enjoy the scenery, but I soon started to feel sick. I was nauseous and lightheaded, and felt like I'd been kicked in the stomach. Food and water didn't help much. I think it was a combination of the physical exertion, the heat, the stress of having boyfriend meet parents, and the simple fact that my period was starting. I did my best, but when I started having the dreamy little flashes that mean I'm either falling asleep or about to have an aura,* I pulled over. I couldn't drive much after that.

I did manage to have enough energy to help navigate through downtown Vancouver, which we decided to drive through for the heck of it. The map we'd gotten of British Columbia only had a tiny map of the whole Fraser River Valley. Not Downtown Vancouver. They had submaps of freaking Dawson Creek, but not one of the biggest urban areas in all North America. We also hadn't reckoned on Pride taking place. But we survived Vancouver, and we used the map to amuse ourselves while we waited for half an hour to cross the border back into America, land of cheap gas.

*I've never had an aura while driving. It's not the same as having a proper petit mal seizure, since at no point do I lose consciousness, so I'd probably be safe, but I'd rather not find out what it's like.

Geology field trip to follow!

Turkey Toss at the zoo

criada — Fri, 29 Nov 2013 21:44:45 GMT

So last weekend, I took the new boyfriend to the zoo. It so happened that this was the day they celebrated Thanksgiving by throwing raw turkeys at the animals. We got a great view of the bear, who dragged his turkey over to the window we were standing by. Mind you, this was in a viewing cave primarily intended for children. There was just enough headspace for a few adults, but it was pretty much us and a dozen children crammed in there. I didn't get particularly good shots, but there is something pleasant about sitting in a dark cave surrounded by happy kids. I may have talked before about how I'm able to connect with complete strangers at the zoo. We're all there for the same reason, and it's nice to be able to point out to your fellow viewers where the animal is, where's a particularly good angle to look from, and I get to spout animal facts at kids. (I probably should volunteer at the zoo someday.)
Anyway, this is all to say I totally manhandled other people's toddlers by lifting them up onto the ledge where they could see the bear better.

Wolves were ravenous.

Siamangs were thoughtful.

Lions cubs were as cute as could be.

And the fruit bat was fellating.

See them all over at the Flickr set.

Life update

criada — Fri, 29 Nov 2013 21:30:19 GMT

Life is still going well. I love my classes, and I even enjoy writing the papers. I'm not doing great, I'm not doing awful, and I'm fine with that since I'm learning tons. My cohort is amazing, and last night, nine of us had Thanksgiving at the house of one of our professors. One of my classmates, a woman from Bosnia, brought homemade falafel, and played the accordian. (which, btw, horribly embarrassed her twelve-year-old daughter. :-)

As much as I love my cohort, they're not quite family. I don't yet feel comfortable being my awkward, pervy weirdo self around them. I <3 you my weirdo friends!

I started dating a guy, and that's also been great. It's been a bit strange, as all my relationships seem at first (there's so few!) This is the first time I've decided I wanted to date someone, noticed that a particular person could be a good fit, and asked them out. It feels very intellectual, but the emotions are coming in quickly, as I figured they would. Plus, he loves road trips and photography...and has a car! So there may be more photos from farther afield in the future. Which reminds me, I've got some zoo photos I can make a post on.
This is also the first time in thirteen years that I've dated someone who lives within walking distance. I'm used to relationships requiring train rides. This means that certain boundaries and limitations which I'm used to aren't there, and it feels vaguely...I dunno...agoraphobic.

Still no writing, which I've come to accept. I am however, going crazy with the camera, and also crafty things. I've made a couple beaded necklaces, and am itching to teach myself crocheting.

I finally got off my butt and started having fun with my hair. (I'm not working at a job where I have to have normal-colored hair!) I rebleached my blonde streak, and started playing with colors. Right now, there's a red streak, which looks good with the gold, but I want to find some good silver toner so I can turn my streak into a candy cane.
There's a mediocre pic behind the cut. The red is really much more red. Plus, you get a bonus shot of one of the necklaces I made.
Keffy says I look like a My Little Pony.

Thoughts on therapy

criada — Mon, 11 Nov 2013 17:24:45 GMT

After a couple experiences at Orycon, I have a new question to ponder: How does one run a therapy session with a self-aware person, versus someone who just needs to talk? (With the caveat that these aren't mutually exclusive categories, of course.)

I met a man who talked about his heart-wrenching experiences with a mentally ill family member. All I did was sit with him, listen, and say things like, "that is a terrible thing to have to deal with" (and it's a good thing I didn't need to do more, since it was towards the end of a party, and I was smashed.) Another friend had a similar experience with this guy, and as she said, "Clearly, he needed to talk about it." Did I help him? I don't know, but I don't think I hurt him.

I also talked with a friend who has had difficulty finding a good therapist, since he's very self-aware and doesn't need insights he's already gained parroted back at him. I can sympathize, since I've often had that experience myself.

But I have had good (informal) therapy sessions that I think managed to combine these. So I'm thinking about what made those sessions effective. In all of them, the therapist's presence is really the big thing. The people who have helped me have this very solid sense of wisdom about them, and it's pleasant just to sit with them, because it really does feel like they can hold and comprehend all this pain that I've been burdening myself with.

One of those times, I think my friend was telling me things I already knew, (You make everyone's problems your own) but the fact it was _him_ telling me was relieving. Someone I trusted and respected and carried a lot of authority both in his demeanor and experience. (I think he might have actually said, "_WE_ make everyone's problems our own.") There is validation of a path I've been walking, until then, alone.

Maybe it's a matter of being able to stop my brain dead in its tracks and force me to sit with my own pain, rather than thinking about it in an abstract manner. I mean, I do think that peering at my issues from every angle possible is useful, but in the end, I just need to stop and metaphorically hold in my hands the leaden, velvet-lined casket that is a statement like, "I make everyone's problems my own."

Giraffes in the Mist

criada — Thu, 24 Oct 2013 20:23:53 GMT

Yesterday morning, I went to the zoo. I was lucky enough to spot the new baby giraffe, Misawa, just as I got there. Right when the fog was thickest.

What's that he's poking at on the ground? Why, a delicious dead maple leaf!

Something's happening on the other side of the enclosure. I hope he doesn't forget his leaf.

Note that Misawa is just under eight feet tall, and the giraffe in the background is like eighteen feet tall. False perspective!

By the time I reached the far side of the savannah enclosure, I found out where they were headed. The keepers had opened up some fences so they could head back to the giraffe barn. I got there in time to see the little guy pass by. Looks like he still has his leaf!

A journey to Bob Ross Land.

criada — Thu, 17 Oct 2013 05:56:34 GMT

So last weekend, my parents and I went to Montana to visit my Uncle in the Bitterroot Valley. I took the opportunity to get in some alone time and drive down the valley to Lake Como, which I haven't been to since I was a kid.
Now, I've usually been to the valley in the summer or during the winter holidays. I didn't realize exactly how gorgeous fall is there.

The Bitterroot River.

I promised I'd be back in three hours, and since I was running a bit early, I drove to the end of the road, which happened to end at a trailhead nestled into the base of the Sapphire Mountains, with at least a half dozen horse trailers, as well as cows, old weathered barns, and a bird house filled with feathers and an old wasp nest. The sort of thing you find at the end of roads in the valley.

The next morning held milkweed and empty chrysalises, as well as cold dog noses down my pants when I crouched down to photograph said things.

That afternoon, we all piled into my uncle's Chevy Avalanche and went to the Painted Rocks Reservoir, which is deep into the "nose" of Montana. The south end of the valley gets really narrow in places, and it was filled with brilliant yellow birches and maples. There weren't really any good opportunities to get good shots, and it was all so dense, it would just be one big blob of gold anyway. I just let myself be overwhelmed by how gorgeous it was.
The reservoir itself was really, really low this time of year. Dirt bikes and ATVs were having a field day out amidst the muddy stumps.

It wouldn't be Montana without...bullet hole in the outhouse!

And here's Darby and Sadie, my uncle's German Shepherds. They both came from abusive homes before my uncle got them, and now he spoils them rotten, and howls with them every morning. And this is one of the reasons I love my family. <3

Lots and lots more over at the Flickr set.

Life update

criada — Thu, 26 Sep 2013 17:16:26 GMT

Class went pretty well yesterday. This particular class is basically How To Be A Therapist, in the sense of relationships and self awareness and such. We're reading the play Agnes of God in class (or, Agnes of G-d, as our Jewish professor writes it.) I already read it a few weeks back, and I'm glad I did. I was taking care of Mom at the time, and some of the things in the play resonated extremely closely with my experiences in those very days with Mom. It was kind of traumatic, and reading it again is class is still traumatic, if less surprising. (The story, if you don't know, is about a court psychologist assigned to evaluate the sanity of a nun accused of murdering her just-born child.)

At the end of each scene, the teacher asks us to talk about what we are thinking. So naturally, I babbled about my mom, and realized my voice was possibly trembling a bit. I sort of feel like I'm letting my neuroses spill out messily. But I also know I shouldn't worry too much about what my classmates think of me. Eventually, I'll get to hear about all their neuroses, too.

I really didn't get any time to process my experience with her, not that I really know what "processing" would consist of. I'd probably go on with my life until something triggered me into a messy bout of introspection--just like what's happening now!

Bleh. But at least I have most of the zillion errands I had to do under control. I should be able to finish up the important stuff today or tomorrow. Also, the nice thing about going to a Catholic school is that there are a bunch of chapels scattered around campus, so I have quiet places to retreat to. The main chapel, in particular, is almost completely free of religious iconography, and is the kind of space I grew up with--lots of light and simple, golden wood.

But hey, I get four day weekends! which, at the moment, aren't filled with homework and crap!

criada — Tue, 24 Sep 2013 15:14:51 GMT

Sunday night, my appendix decided to do its annoying thing, and get all ouchy. It wasn't as bad as it's been in the past (no throwing up this time) for which I guess I'm grateful. Given that it seems to be connected to stress, it seems like the razor thin time between taking care of Mom and starting Grad School seems like an appropriate time.

Well, my appendix (mostly) no longer feels like someone punched me in the gut. I got a lot done yesterday; lots of running and bussing around. A morning of errands was followed up by the Graduate Student Orientation. I got there pretty early, and sitting in the auditorium, reading the brochure on Jesuit values, I realized I really wanted to cry. Crying was, in fact, exactly what I needed to do, given that I was wound up so freaking tight.

Crying in an auditorium didn't sound appealing, but I'm at a Jesuit college, and so there was a beautiful chapel just outside the doors. I didn't cry, but I did get in some quality meditation, and burned off some excess emotion.

I won chocolate and an umbrella at the general orientation. Woo! Then came the MAP orientation. (MAP=Master of Arts Psychology) There are 26 people in my cohort, which is unusually large. They all seem pretty awesome. (duh!) There was dinner and talking, and afterwards a bunch of us went out for drinks. Even though I was tired, I went for a drink, and I'm glad I did. I need to build up my social safe zone.

Still too tightly wound to even relax properly. Hopefully that will change by next week. There's still a lot to do.

criada — Fri, 13 Sep 2013 19:00:25 GMT

I've been catching up on Breaking Bad, and this has me thinking about Prestige Television. (A term I find slightly amusing because it seems to mean, "tv that is actually good, possibly because they are on cable and have a budget big enough to hire quality talent.") Looking over Netflix's recommendations for me, I wonder if it thinks I'm a middle-aged white man. Among my favorite tv shows are Breaking Bad, Justified, and Deadwood. All those shows have good female characters (Justified could make a spinoff called "Margo Martindale Deserved Her Own Show" and I'd be happy. Her character could be an anti-hero I'd love to explore.) but they are definitely primarily focused on the men, and have incredibly insightful explorations of masculinity.

It's arguable whether or not someone like Walter White of Breaking Bad could be replaced with a woman. While any gender could be driven to desperation by illness and love of family, Walt's arrogance, which drives him into the darkest depths, is likely connected with his sense of masculinity. It would be a very different, but still compelling story.

So I thought, what Prestige TV actually centers on at least one female character, but isn't Sex In The City? I'm not really pop culture literate, and my tv viewing is limited to what Netflix and Hulu and the library give me. (I'd be all over Game of Thrones if I got HBO. I think that definitely fits into my category of having women carry an equal share of the story.) Dexter probably qualifies, but it is still called Dexter, not "Deb" or "My Brother's a Serial Killer!" But if you were take Deb out of that show, it would be far weaker for it.
Mad Men probably also qualifies, but it seems like while the women are still vital to the story, Don Draper and his understanding of his masculinity is still the focus. Besides, I watched a few episodes, and though it's clearly brilliant, I couldn't handle the suburban angst. I should probably give it another try one of these days.

In the previews to The Butler, I saw Masters of Sex, which looks promising, (though it's on Showtime. Another one to wait until it hits the library!)
What other shows can I explore?

Photos - Raab Park in late summer

criada — Mon, 02 Sep 2013 15:04:18 GMT

After having a chocolate milkshake for breakfast (hey, Mom wanted to go to Jack In the Box) I decided I needed to do some walking. So I lugged the camera up to Raab Park at the top of the hill. There's a nature trail that winds it way through the woods up to the park, and I've been roaming it since I was a little kid. Nothing's changed much about it, but in the park itself, they put in a public garden. That made for a lovely photo expedition.

From the more upscale neighborhood at the end of the road: wasted apples!

On the nature trail.

Squash blossom

Sunflower detail (there are lots of sunflower details.)

Here's a bee.

Here's an ant on a sunflower stem.

Here's an ant in a nasturtium.

Lots more over at the Flickr set

Mom and R.D. Laing

criada — Sat, 31 Aug 2013 04:55:16 GMT

I spent the evening practicing Spanish on Duolingo, and discussing it with my Mom. She's a whiz when it comes to grammar, and despite her frequently saying it's been 40 years, she remembers an awful lot. I appear to have hit upon a subject that bypasses most of the irrational pathways in Mom's head. (and I'm crap at grammar, so I learn stuff from her) I can't do this forever, but I think for three weeks, I'll survive.

We also talked about her desires and the things that bother her about her life, and they really do make sense if you listen right. She's got a lot of standard issues (I'm not a woman if I don't do housework!" "I'm becoming an imbecile!") Just take those standard desires and neuroses that everyone has, and imagine voices telling you that you can't do things to address them. For instance, Mom wants to comb her hair, but the voices tell her that if she does, then she'll get fat. Imagine that, plus being forced into a loop where you have trouble connecting past and present, cause and effect. She said she does sometimes go against the voices and comb her hair. I said, "did you get fat?" She said, "well no but..." The outcome means nothing. She is trapped in the cage of "if you comb your hair you'll get fat."

R.D. Laing is one of the main figures of the "anti-psychiatry" movement, which basically tried to strip mental illness of its stigma, and get us to treat the mentally ill like anyone else. He did a lot of work with the families of schizophrenics (frequently people who desperately wanted their family members to be "fixed") and he found that in talking to the schizophrenic, they made perfect sense if you just listened. I can see what he's talking about, and maybe, in treating my mom more like an equal with reasonable concerns, she'll feel better about herself and her life, and the negative aspects of her schizophrenia will lessen.

This is hard to keep up, though. There's a horrible sense of tragedy talking with her about these things like combing her hair. She is trapped in a state that she can't escape, and I can't help her either. But one of the things I know about being a therapist is that the most important thing they do is simply to listen to people, and be that one person they can trust to take them seriously and withhold all judgement. In refusing to tell someone they need to be "fixed", you defuse that voice in the person's head that keeps telling them that they're broken. If a person can accept that maybe, in fact, they are not irredeemable, and all those weird things about them aren't just there to be hated and avoided, then they can take the first steps towards being a whole, happy person.

Home

criada — Sat, 24 Aug 2013 20:13:09 GMT

So I'm back at the parents' place, destined to be my home for the next three and a half weeks. Dad's going to Spain, to let himself get away from it all. I'm taking care of Mom and bills and whatnot. So look forward to lots of photos, because if there's one thing Mom likes, it's rides, and if there's one thing I like, it's rides to places I can take lots of photos.
I gave notice at work, so in a couple of weeks, I'll have lots of time for said photo road trips. :-)

There's also a movie out right now that we can see together. The Butler. It's about a butler in the White House, and Mom loves the political/historical stuff. She and Dad actually saw part of it yesterday...but the power went out. They got vouchers, but Dad doesn't want to bother seeing the first half of the movie again, so I'll get to go.

Mom's worried that Dad won't come back, but right now, she seems to be in good spirits, and I'm getting a good feeling.

Also, I'll have lots and lots of opportunities to get pictures of the cats.

Cats!

The Geology Post! Grand Coulee Edition

criada — Fri, 21 Jun 2013 17:12:26 GMT

Since one person liked the idea of a geology post, I made this long and rambly post laden with photos and links.

Okay, geology. I love geology, and took a bunch of classes in college. That said, I am terrible at identifying rocks, but I love them anyway. Geology is as close as we're going to get to a time machine to the far past. It's one age influencing another. The past shapes the present and the present changes the past. A humble stream bed, dry for eons, is all that's needed to divert a river and carve a canyon.

I'm particularly interested in the Channeled Scablands, aka most of Eastern Washington. They were carved by massive floods into layer after layer of flood basalt, and are pretty much as close as we'll get to certain Martian terrains here on earth. (1)

My favorite part is Glacial Lake Missoula, which was created when an ice age glacier dammed the Clark Fork River and flooded much of Western Montana's steep valleys. I like it because I like imagining myself underneath this huge, cold lake filled with icebergs whenever I visit my grandparents. I like imagining the whole system breathing as the water rises, breaks the ice dam, and pours out, rushing through the plains, pauses to pond behind the Wallula Gap, then rush through the gap and the Columbia Gorge, pause again in the Willamette Valley, and then rush on to the sea. Then the glacier kept moving forward, and the cycle started again.

A brief digression: Because of the way plate tectonics works, we should have a massive trench, a la Mariana, offshore, but we don't. Thank the Columbia for that, and those floods that shoved hundreds of square miles of topsoil into the sea. You may also notice that there isn't a delta like the Nile or Mississippi are so famous for. Deltas need a lot of slow, shallow water to form; the river has to dump its sediment over a wide area. But the Columbia doesn't get to meander across the gentle landscapes of Louisiana; it carved its way with brute force into solid basalt. You get a couple islands like the incredibly flat Puget Island, but that's it. All the sediment gets rolled over by the river and pushed out to sea like leaves before a pressure washer. There, it fills in our would-be trench, and creates one of the most dangerous sandbars in the world. (Shout out to the sixteen pilots qualified to navigate it!)

Back to Eastern Washington. Let's start with the oldest events first. Used to be, our coastline was around Idaho, but we had all these islands offshore--possibly a volcanic arc like Japan. Plate tectonics pushed those islands our way, and in time they docked. Roughly 100 million years ago, the Okanogan Subcontinent docked. It makes up Northeast Washington, and probably Southeast, though we can't tell because that area is covered in flood basalts. 50 million years ago, the North Cascades Subcontinent docked, and makes up Central Washington. Western Washington is mostly ocean floor that got uplifted during the docking, as well as trench stuffing. (Imagine stuffing a blanket between two couch cushions, but the blanket is sea floor, and the cushions are an oceanic plate on one side and a continent on the other, and and you've got trench stuffing.)

But most of that got covered up when, 17 million years ago, the lava floods came. Cracks opened up in Eastern Washington and Oregon that dumped out molten rock. Lots of it. There's one theory that says it was caused by an asteroid striking over the border between Oregon, Idaho, and Nevada, but I'm not sure that explains why there were many different eruptions over 10-15 million years. More likely, the Yellowstone Hotspot is responsible, as our crust slowly moved over it. Maybe it could be both, because asteroids are cool.

The series of flood basalts that make up the Grand Coulee are called the Grande Ronde basalts. They were the second series of floods, and came about 16.5-14.5 million years ago. It's a dense, dark basalt that doesn't weather easily, and when it does, it forms sharp cliffs. It has plenty of cracks, so it just breaks off, rather than rubbing away under wind and water.

This is a colonnade! It makes Eastern Washington possible, as well as the rather weak climax of Hellboy 2 which took place at the Giant's Causeway in Northern Ireland. Flood basalts cool into three layers, of which the colonnade is the most distinct. As it cools, it contracts and forms the distinct hexagon columns separated by what is known as columnar jointing. The jointing is what makes it so easy to break away and form sheer cliffs. This particular colonnade has a bend to it that was likely caused by pressure applied to the side, possibly from being on a slope.

On top of the colonnade is the entablature, which is more or less solid, and on top of that, are the vesicles, which is where all the gas settles at the top, and when the lava cools, it is filled with cavities called vugs. Sometimes, these fill up with silica-rich water and form agates and geodes. Othertimes, they house lichen and small porcelain frogs.

This is the underside of a colonnade. Since the vesicles are all bubbly, they erode the easiest, exposing the colonnade above. In this picture, it's easy to see the columns because a bunch of cliff swallows colonized it and pooped on everything. (This photo also shows the limitations of my cheap telephoto lens. Looking at the colony with my binoculars, which are the same magnification as my lens, showed the birds clearly.

After the flood basalts, along came the ice ages. Other stuff happened between then, like the eruptions of the Cascade volcanoes, but for this story, that's irrelevant.

The ice ages, like the flood basalts, came in multiple series. Glaciers poured slowly out of the north, turning Canada and much of northern America into the spitting image of Greenland. The farthest the ice got near the Grand Coulee is just to the west of the Grand Coulee Dam. There's an extensive geological structure called the Withrow Moiraine, a terminal moiraine which marks the point where the glacier ended, and dumped out sediment and meltwater. Cape Cod and Nantucket Island are great examples of ice age era terminal moiraines. I wanted to check out the moiraine, which consists of rolling hills and huge chunks of basalt stranded in fields, but I didn't have the time. The moiraine isn't strictly responsible for the coulees, but the ice that created it is.
It's all about the Columbia River. We don't really know where the river used to flow, but when the lava came, it pushed the river into its current place. Probably, if we cut into the mile or so of flood basalts, we might come upon a continuous line of pillow basalts(2) which would mark the point where the lava hit the water and cooled instantly. This is the sort of thing I like to think about: a flood of lava hits the water, and eventually, a river hundreds of miles long turns to steam. It probably sucked for all the rhinos and ground sloths on the south side of the river, but they, like the Blue Lake Rhino, probably died a quick death asphyxiated by gas or heat or something. Let's hope that. Those flows came at them around 5 km/h. Molten rock is kind of relentless. (3)

Anyway, enough sad dead animal stories. The Columbia River got pushed up to its current position, until the glaciers came and blocked it off. Poor river--liquid fire from the south, and ice from the north.

The collection of glaciers heading the Columbia's way is called the Okanogan Lobe of the Cordilleran Ice Sheet. (This is another reason I like geology. I like picturing the ice age as consisting of a giant ice amoeba stretching its lobes, slowing groping its way south.) At first, the river was diverted down the Moses Coulee. It's not as big as the Grand Coulee, but it's still spectacular, and has more of the giant ripple marks and flood bars visible from its time as a riverbed. The ice amoeba kept groping, and blocked off Moses Coulee, forcing the Columbia into what would become the Grand Coulee.

Prior to all this, plate tectonics were still pushing from the west, shoving up some mountains from the remains of the old North Cascade Subcontinent. This helped warp the flood basalts, creating a monocline that sloped to the southwest. When the water came, this slope helped pull the water along with even greater force.

At this point, the coulee wasn't really divided into Upper and Lower, but there was a huge waterfall at the north end of the coulee. As I mentioned above, basalt doesn't wear away smoothly and politely. The cracks that separate the columns (called joints) get easily pushed apart, knocking off boulders the size of houses. Underneath all that basalt, however, is the granite bedrock, which doesn't wear away so easily. Water cut cliffs hundred of feet high, and crashed right over. It dug huge plunge pools, and undercut the rock layers, so that the falls are slowly and steadily moving upstream, creating what's called a recessional gorge. Niagara Falls is an example, but Niagara is a trickle compared to the ice age falls in the coulees.

Eventually the northern falls eroded itself out of existence (the Grand Coulee Dam is built into the now-exposed bedrock.) There's still some remnants like Steamboat Rock that show what used to be. Down south was a different story. More erosion was happening, and the waterfall that no longer is cut open the Lower Grand Coulee.

Here's some of the bedrock, which I think is gneiss, which is granite which has been squooshed like silly putty. The above picture is about six feet high. I apologize for my lack of assistant, pen or the traditional rock hammer to use for scale.

On the gneiss were several thin layers of a thin, translucent green stone which undoubtedly had a lot of olivine in it. (If it's green, it's olivine.)

Dry Falls

Now, Dry Falls is a testament to the size and power of those falls. Three miles wide, and blah feet high, they were probably the biggest waterfalls in history. The plunge pools are still there, filled with water, as are a pile of basalt boulders which were probably either recently undercut rock, or erratics dumped there by glacial meltwater. In the above panorama, you can see the plunge pools, as well as a gap in the rock which shows a neighboring channel. Dry Falls went over several different scalloped ledges, carving out dividing ridges, again, just like Kasei Vallis Cataract and Niagara Falls. And here's Dry Falls from above.

View Larger Map

This panorama of Niagara Falls in winter is probably a good guess at what Dry Falls looked like when it was active back in the Ice Age.

Here are the house-sized boulders I spoke of. Battleship Rock is behind the boulder field, which divided the two channels, which are both visible.

Now, there might actually be water going over Dry Falls in this day and age, but we put in a dam just upstream to help regulate the flow of the Grand Coulee Dam. As a result, the Upper Coulee is filled by Banks Lake, which is very lovely and probably only covers up a few priceless Native American sites.

Lake Lenore Caves

The Lower Coulee also holds lakes, but smaller ones. They are highly alkaline and reportedly feel like soap. I wanted to experience this for myself, but getting up to the shoreline was difficult thanks to extensive reeds and a crusty layer of minerals around the shore that really didn't seem like they'd support my weight. So, I'll just assume that the people who named Soap Lake knew what they were talking about.

Above the lakes rise basalt terraces. When the floods came through, they carved away at the pre-fractured collonades, creating caves. Many of these caves provided temporary housing for Native Americans, who came there from their villages on the Columbia to gather sacred plants, and probably also enjoy the view.

Here's the view from above of the most spectacular cave. You can see what this really is, is a potcole carved by swirling eddies. if you zoom out, you can see the distinct scallops in the cliffs made by other eddies. They look kind of like this.

View Larger Map

Here's that cave from the outside:

And from the inside:

Looking across the coulee over one of the alkaline lakes (I believe this one is named...Alkaline Lake.) You can just barely see the white rim of minerals along the lakeshore. Note the slope in the layers, caused by the continued uplift of the North Cascade Subcontinent. I would also like to point out that close to where I took this picture, the trail rounded a cliff with literally a foot and a half of ledge to stand on.

The trails along these caves provide a great chance to get up close to the flood basalts. One of the great pleasures in my life is pressing my bare flesh against sun-baked basalt. look how smooth it is. I've put it a lot of my stories. I swear, sun-baked basalt is to me what big knuckles and hangnails are to Samuel R. Delany.

The biggest vug in that picture is less than a quarter of an inch wide. The elongated shape of the patch of vugs shows that there was a lava tube an inch or so across stretching through cooler lava. That's the path the gas took to the surface, and when if finally cooled completely in the tube, that's where it stayed.

This photo shows the contact point between the older vesicle layer and the newest colonnade. You can really see how foamy the rock is. The dark line marks the point of contact metamorphism, where hot lava affected the old rock. To the left, you can see a lighter structure which I'm pretty sure is the sediment that built up in the time between flows. It was basically fused sand.

Supposedly there's a trail that takes you over the cliffs to the East Lenore Coulee, which is basically a hidden mini-coulee, and sounds kind of magical. I didn't learn about it until after I got home, but it's one of many reasons I want to return and explore some more.
All images, except the Google Maps, are copyright Elizabeth Coleman, 2013, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivitives.

1 Go check out this blog, where NASA interns explore the scablands with a hexacopter. It's worth it just for the hoverbot hexacopter.
2 Check out the entire Ice Age Floods blog, which has a lot more information and makes me jealous.
3 http://vulcan.wr.usgs.gov/Volcanoes/ColumbiaPlateau/description_columbia_plateau.html

Photo update

criada — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 04:20:40 GMT

First, a couple flowers from around the neighborhood in a quick attempt to stick to my goal of taking pictures every weekend, before said busy weekend ended.

Today, I went to Winslow over on Bainbridge Island to explore, and to visit the new art museum with my dad. I found an out of the way park on the harbor that I didn't know about. (That's not saying much. Bainbridge Island has always been That Place We Drive Through To Get Home, and I know little about it.) But before that, I got halfway to the bus stop before realizing I forgot my phone (necessary for meeting up with Dad), so I had to turn back. I'm glad, because it meant I got some shots in my favorite style: glowy flowers! The playing field across the street from me is raised up about four feet from the sidewalk, and is at the perfect level to get these ground-level shots without having to squat.

Stuff from the island itself:

As usual, more on Flickr.

My adventure east of the mountains

criada — Tue, 11 Jun 2013 05:42:23 GMT

So I've been needing to get out town. Desperately. Turns out, my attempt to do so was a near perfect success. I rented a car (a bright red Mazda 2, as it happens. No free upgrade this time, though the clerk did try to get me into an SUV) and headed to Eastern Washington. Not only did I need to get out of town, I needed to get into a totally different biome.
There's lots more pictures over on Flickr. I took about 500, and uploaded about 60.

The biome of Grand Coulee in the spring, as it happens, smells absolutely wonderful. A couple different kinds of sage, plus campfires in the evening. It's also full of birds, bugs, prairie dogs, one deer who really wanted to get hit by my car, and a whole bunch of others who pooped outside my tent. Also, a dead carp. Yummy for ravens and buzzards.
Not wanting to drop money on a motel, or revisit the Yakima Valley where I have a friend I could maybe crash with if I thought a day and a half was enough notice, I opted to camp. Yes, buying a fifty dollar tent, plus a 26$ campsite might equal a night in a Motel 6, but dangit, I'll use that tent again. (My own, given to me by my dad, was lost in the move from Bellingham, as was my sleeping pad.) I loaded up on supplies at the Target in Issaquah. It was there that my first bump occurred. I dropped my phone (specifically, it dropped out the bottom of my rear pocket, from which the stitching had completely given out. More on my treacherous pants later.) When I picked it up, it wouldn't turn on. This meant I spent 25 bucks in the Target on a prepaid replacement, and later, twenty more bucks on a car plug charger. Turns out, my phone just needed to be charged, rendering the replacement obsolete. I figure, it'll be worthwhile having a spare around... and the car charger will undoubtedly be useful in the future. (You know what else is useful? Flying Js. Truck stops have everything.)
It was also at the Target that I acquired the box of red velvet cookies that turned out to be my primary diet on Saturday.
So yeah, lunch at Snoqualmie Pass, desperately looking for a charger at the Ellensburg Flying J, shortly afterwards wondering if that awful smell meant I'd somehow leaked gas when I filled up, and then realizing that no, it was just Ellensburg.
I feel I can do some cool, surreal stuff with my windmill pics.
My primary goal was to hike to the Lake Lenore Caves, in the Lower Grand Coulee, but I decided to first get a camping spot, since it was a gorgeous weekend, right at the start of camping season, and I've had some awful experiences driving from campground to campground trying to find one with space. Dry Falls State Park had space, though the sites are awfully close together, and you have to pitch your tent on hard but level ground. As soon as I got out of my car, I smelled the marvelous spicy smell that pervaded my weekend. It's hard to describe, but I think it's primarily the result of two different kinds of sage. Then I saw quail running by. I freaking love quail, with their silly little bobbing head feathers. I got some decent shots. And there was a prairie dog trying to look inconspicuous.

It was getting on in the day, so I decided to leave the caves for morning, and headed to the Upper Grand Coulee. Let me explain the coulees. Way back when, there were ice ages. Way, way back when, there were floods of lava pooling over the entire eastern half of the state, seven layers deep. At some point, the lava covered the corpse of a rhino in a pond, and left a cast. I would have loved to see this, but I didn't realize until I arrived that it was close by; you have to get permission from a resort to undergo the strenuous hike to get there...I'll do it another time. Anyway. The Ice Age glaciers blocked rivers. First, they blocked the Columbia, which shifted paths to what would become the Grand Coulee. Then, they blocked the Clark Fork River, which caused 500 cubic miles of water to build up in Western Montana. Occasionally, the glacial ice dam would break, and all that water poured out, carving channels into the basalt. So now, there are these vast, empty canyons with sharp sided walls. That's a coulee.

To get to the Upper Grand Coulee, you have to pass Dry Falls.

Dry Falls, is, as far as I'm concerned, one of the geological wonders of the world. The floods cut away layers of basalt, forming huge waterfalls that dug deep plunge pools and undercut the rock, forcing the waterfalls to actually shift upstream as it wore away the land. After fifteen miles of this, you have the Lower Grand Coulee, with Dry Falls at the top, where once the biggest waterfall known to ever exist once flowed. It's three miles wide, with something like ten times the capacity of Niagra. I spent a bunch of time there. It is there that I realized I needed bug spray. I thoughtfully brought calamine lotion, but nothing that might prevent needing it. So I promptly got lost in the next city, Coulee City, which contains nothing but houses, a school and churches, feed store and a bunch of taverns. Thankfully, there was a Shell station on the far side of the smallest small town ever. (Actually, I lie. I went to that later.)
As I was buying the bug spray, the clerk suggested I get this cheap bracelet that was supposed to work really well. I was skeptical, but hey, it was cheap, and if it worked, then awesome. Who wants to be covered in bug spray? After eating my dinner alongside Banks Lake, and not getting assailed by bugs, it seemed there might be something to it (it was infused with citronella).
I pressed on to my secondary goal--Northrup canyon, which was supposed to be pretty, and holy smokes, it was. It was almost sunset, so I didn't spend much time there, but damn, I have to go back again. With more bug spray! It was in Northrup Canyon that I learned exactly how pathetic the citronella bracelet was. Everytime I stopped to take a picture, I was swarmed. SWARMED. The bracelet works, it just has a range of about one inch. I could put it by a mosquito biting my arm, and the mosquito flew away, but yeah...one inch. This is why I also bought the ten dollar OFF!
Stuff in Northrup Canyon. I was mesmerized by how evenly rusty it was.

The return to camp involved rain storms and rainbows.

My big fear of campgrounds being full was misplaced. True, Steamboat Rock, which I'd considered going to, was full, but my camp was only about a quarter full. And those who were there were all quiet middle aged people. I experienced so, so much time filled with only the sound of quail hooting at each other.
My tent was comfier than I was expecting, considering I didn't have a sleeping pad. However, any comfort was countered by the fact that after sunset, the wind picked up and shook the tent like someone was standing outside kicking me in the head. I didn't sleep well, but I survived, and caffeine at dawn's first light helped.

After a wildlife-filled morning walk (herons and hawks and caspian terns and lots and lots of baby geese) I broke camp and headed for the caves. Though one couple was leaving as I arrived, I was the only person there. This was both awesome and annoying. I have been worrying about doing all of this alone, after all. If something happened to me, I had my cell phone (with reception, but roaming) but that was it.

If you look at the above picture, just left of center, one third up, you can see the parking lot and my car. I could see the entire trail from the far end. I spied on arriving hikers with my binoculars.

The caves were as awesome as I'd hoped. At one point, I found myself climbing up the basalt cliffs. The caves, you see, are the result of floods wearing between the basalt layers. Each lava flood ends up with three layers overall--the collonade, made up of the familiar basalt pillars; the entablature, made of mostly solid lava; and the vesicles, which are the result of all the gas bubbles rising to the top, where the lava cools into foamy rocks. It's the vesicle layer that got worn away, from what I could tell. I was really excited to actually look at the boundary separations between layers. There's a thin compressed bit of sediment between them, where soil briefly formed between lava floods. I'll probably make a separate post about geology, for those who might be curious about rocks.

Anyway, I kept going up, realizing that maybe this wasn't the best thing to do, all alone. Slopes of crumbled rock aren't terrible stable...and I wasn't sure how to get down. But I survived, and had an amazing time. When I got back to the car, and took a break before leaving, this one couple was just heading up the trail. Their car alarm went of twice. I think I set off one of them by closing my car door. Let me tell you, car alarm plus echoey cliffs is entertaining. As is watching two people and their two tiny dogs come desperately running back down the trail.

I headed back to Seattle via Stevens Pass, because why not? I had plenty of time, so I took a side trip up the Moses Coulee, through Palisades, which is truly the smallest small town in the area. It had a one-room school, some houses, and what I assume was a store, based on the fact that one of the houses had "Old Country Store" painted on a sign above the door. It didn't look open, but did have a relaxing looking chair on the front deck.

This fine edifice and its field was occupied by a burly black bull taking a dust bath.
That valley, especially when I hit the dirt road, reminded me of my summers in the Bitterroot Valley. Not the newer house, which is getting surrounded by ever more middle class housing developments, but the old days on Willoughby when you had to drive through a winding labyrinth of dirt roads and cattle stalls. There were even a couple guys on ATVs, just like our old neighbor, Judy Hoy, used to have.

Everything was straightforward from there. Lots of driving and listening to my iPod through the car stereo system. (Yay! Too bad it didn't understand playlists. I could only listen to albums.) The road over Stevens Pass is a lot smaller than I remember, and for the first half, I was completely alone on my side of the road. Why more people didn't exploit this wonderful weather is beyond me. Eastern Washington gets blazing hot in the summer, but right now, it's between sixty and seventy-ish. Warm, but with the occasional cool breeze or brief shower.
No wait, it wasn't straightforward. There's still the adventure of my pants. You know, the ones with the back pocket with no bottom. They're old corderouy things, which is why I brought them. Comfy, dirty, and sturdy. Not too sturdy, it turns out. On the way home, I realized in a bathroom, that a hole was ripping open in the crotch. I asked a lady at the sink if she could see it. She couldn't, so I figured I was good for now. I started to feel it, though, reaching back and realizing I was touching my underwear. Finally, I decided to change into my even more comfy grey pajama bottoms. Turns out that rip had ripped pretty much from crotch to waist. Nobody said anything! Maybe they didn't notice, maybe they were just sniggering to their friends. Whatever. I wasn't actually upset, except in an eye-rolling way.
So now I'm home. I just washed off at least four layers of chemicals, (sunblock, bug spray, calamine lotion, and hand sanitizer) plus sweat and grime.
I am content.

Zoo

criada — Sun, 19 May 2013 04:03:55 GMT

Some new critters at the zoo: lion cubs, sloth bear cubs, and small-toed otters. The sloth bear cubs were literally never still, but constantly chewing on logs, climbing trees, and wrestling. The otters are just freaking adorable. You can't tell how small they are, but they're about the size of a cat, and they squeak. There's more over on Flickr.

Japanese Garden, May 2013

criada — Sun, 05 May 2013 03:06:00 GMT

First Day of Boating Season

criada — Sun, 05 May 2013 02:59:53 GMT

Dad came over today, and we went out to Foster Island at the Arboretum to watch the boat parade. I used my telephoto lens, which isn't the greatest for this sort of thing, but I got some nice shots. It started with the rowing crews.

And canoes with little old ladies in them.

The UW band

Staid yacht clubbers and hula girls. An uncomfortable amount of hula girls, since the theme was apparently Hawaii.

There was some rebelling against this theme.

And some just plain awesomeness.

criada — Wed, 01 May 2013 17:01:48 GMT

Sunday I continued my goal of documenting the spring with a walk up to Volunteer Park and Lakeview Cemetery. This took me through the well-off neighborhoods of people who really liked their gardens.
My telephoto lens is pretty crappy and blurry, but I do like the painterly effect it gives me.

Some of the odd things I found:

Fairy in a tree

Golden frames on the ground just outside the gates of Lakeview Cemetery.

Musing

criada — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 15:30:13 GMT

This morning, I realized that this weekend's Norwescon is going to be my first real convention since I had my series of nervous breakdowns last fall, along with the subsequent Wellbutrin treatments, personal revelations and choices and the major personality changes that have come with this. I'm curious to see what this will be like, if nothing, it will at least remind me of the parts of myself that still are. (namely, my hatred of being in a room crammed with hundreds of people like sardines.)

Moving up the educational ladder

criada — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 04:50:54 GMT

Hey, I got into grad school. :-) This is assuming I finish my community college classes, but I'm pretty sure that will happen. (I did quite well on my math evaluation, thanks to my cramming. I actually got something like 93 on the algebra section. (43 on the college algebra section, but nobody cares about that.) I'm not sure if that's 93%, or some other arbitrary score, but I'm going to pretend it's a percentage.) So come fall, I'll be a psychology student at Seattle University.

Really, really Spring, now.

criada — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 04:47:36 GMT

criada — Mon, 04 Mar 2013 06:05:14 GMT

Life has kept itself interesting. I've been cramming for the math assessment test so that I can take statistics. Math and me, we don't get along so well. But I've been reading a nice, simple book on algebra that served as a refresher, and with every online practice test I get, I get better. Now it feels like I'm hitting my limitations--my tendency to miss stupid details like forgetting to change a negative sign or something. As long as I do well enough to get into statistics, I don't care how bad I do. After stats, there should be no math in my life for a long time.

Other stuff:
I had my interview for grad school earlier this week. No idea how well I did. I'm pretty sure I didn't bomb it, but I'm anxious nevertheless. But hey, that's what Katamari is for! And now we have both the first and second games, and there is much joy in our apartment.

I really need a container to organize my nail polish collection. $1.99 bottles of Sinful Colors are my weakness.

Tonight I went out to a sushi place in Belltown that is way classier than I am. (Once, when Keffy and I were looking for some late night food, we walked by this place and Keffy said, "if we go in there, their rating is going to drop a star.") Nevertheless, tonight we went, smelling variously like car repair, Aberdeen, comic convention, and whatever strange thing I smell like.
I had a nice white wine with a very long name, and pistachio financier with brown sugar buttercream. It was fancy.