Last Page of 2015

I'm on page 365 of 2015!

I like taking time at the end of every year to think about the gifts and lessons offered to me the previous 365 days. I've had a lot of gifts and some hard-earned lessons, which doesn't mean I got beat up in the process...it just means that I worked really hard for what I achieved this year.

What I achieved is not exactly tangible. I can't sign my name to it or hang it up or wrap it up or take a picture of it. I'm not even sure I can blog about it. But the people who are closest to me can see my achievement, and I can see it.

I spent every-other Friday afternoon working on this and most days in between, and I'll be working on it forever. Already the fruits of my labor are sweeter than I could have imagined. This is a sampling of what life should have tasted like all along--full of flavor.

A Lost Post: Normal, IN

(Started writing this when we returned from our hiking trip to Canada and Maine)


It's not easy to return to Indiana from the beautiful places we visit all over the world. Have you ever wondered why IN is not a major tourist destination? When I first moved here in the mid-nineties (having previously lived in Utah, Colorado, England, South Carolina, Arizona, and Michigan), I was underwhelmed by the natural features of this flat land. Southern Indiana has hills, and people like to call it the Little Smokeys (people who have never been to the Smokeys, no doubt) but it's just hills and trees.  Sometimes, it's not easy to return to who I am when I'm not on vacation because I question the life I am living.

To play the game of elimination and get this out of the way: I know I do not have a difficult life. I have had a difficult times in life, but right now I am feeling the rewards of good choices. I have made choices that make my life  as stress-free as possible. I have no financial debt, relationship drama, or health issues derived from poor lifestyle choices. I have been saving and investing since I was 20 years old and have never held a balance on a credit card; I have a caring and respectful partner and have significantly trimmed my "friends" list to people who challenge and care about me; I am not fitness guru, but I know enough to limit caloric intake and to exercise everyday.

I like myself more on vacation. I take risks. I escape. I see new things. I live outdoors. Everything is simple. Awaken. Eat. Hike. Eat. Hike. Eat. Read. Sleep. Do this for about 10-14 days in stunning landscapes. Have thoughtful or silly conversations with Larry. Hardly think about home or work or people back home. Just in the moment in breathtaking beauty.

Now, here's my charge. Do this in Normal, Indiana. This is a wise investment.

Photo 365: Fall 2015

I've always felt melancholy in the fall when it seems everyone else is at their happiest. I tried a little harder to experience the melancholy as something romantic rather than devastating. Indeed, there is romance and drama in saying goodbye to the last season of the year.

We got back from our trip in the middle of September. It's so hard coming back to Indiana after being in other places that are so beautiful. Yes, I do love my chosen home, but it's always nice to get away. And when I've been back for awhile, I remember that this is where I have bloomed.

Fall started out with the Super Blood Moon Eclipse. It was cloudy here in Central Indiana, and I was battling a stomach bug or MSG poisoning (turned out to be something much more nefarious but I wouldn't know it for another month!). Larry stood watch on my deck and banged on my window anytime the clouds parted. And then it happened: a magical window in the sky opened and there was the big fat bloody moon. Through the aid of binoculars, I could see the Sea of Tranquility on the moon--or in this case, the Red Sea of Tranquility.

This was an event that truly seemed to bring the world together, just for one night. Above us all is one sky, one moon, one sun, and underneath it we are all the same people who want love, warmth, food, water, and security. My friends from all over the world posted pictures and reactions on Facebook, and it really felt like a special moment to be alive. 

I didn't take these, but here are some pics:

 

We saw two plays at the IRT this fall: The Great Gatsby and April 4, 1968, which was written by the writer-in-residence James Still and is about how the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. affected a particular family in the city of Indianapolis--where Bobby Kennedy was giving a speech. It wasn't a great play, but it was okay.

We had a blast following the Fever in the world finals for the WNBA. I managed to snag four tickets, and we took my neighbor Kenny and friend Dave.

We spent a few Friday nights hiking the golden autumn of Eagle Creek, trying to resign ourselves to find wonder in Indiana again.

We hiked Turkey Run on a sunny fall Sunday, and had the place to ourselves.

We went to Amanda's Halloween party, but I had to cut it short due to my ulcer...which turned out to be NOT an ulcer. For over a month by that time, I was hardly able to eat any food except rice, Rice Chex, and Ramen noodles. 

We got dressed up for Halloween and went to a comedy show at the Indy Fringe theater, featuring Act a Foo Improv crew and an original play Men's Room, which was about, yes, the goings on in a men's room at a small ad agency.

We had recently watched the documentary "Muscle Shoals" on Netflix, and Keith Richards was featured in a few scenes. Larry was never into the Stones, so didn't really know much about him, but every time Keith talked, Larry cracked up. A few weeks later, he found a documentary on him, and he was fascinated. I couldn't watch the whole thing because of my ulcer! I was in pain! Of course, it wasn't an ulcer!

Anyway, I got the idea for Larry to go as Keith Richards for Halloween, and never has he taken so readily to one of my many fabulous ideas. (He usually declines my fabulous ideas, such as "You should wear eyeliner.) Well, what do you know! He was all for wearing eye liner to look like Keith! We had fun--went to Goodwill and a few stores to try to find wardrobe. In the end, I dug into my fabric box that my Grandma left me and wound up making him a scarf and head band. 

He looked great! He practiced the accent and memorized many famous Keith quotes. I went as a Roadie--black leather pants, black boots, black lipstick, black nails. I looked great too! 

We went to the 50th Anniversary of my longest friends in Indy--Mike and Dee, who lived behind me when I lived on Pilgrim Drive. The day we moved in, they were having a big party on the cul-de-sac, and she invited us to join in. That was July of 95. They have been like surrogate parents to me, and I'm grateful to have still have then in my life even after my life took such dramatic changes. The party was beautiful. Mike sang and played guitar. Grandchildren doted on grandparents. Even Larry got teary.

Then there was the night of unholy terror--in my bowels!

I was sick, people! Sick! And if you were anywhere near me when I farted--you would be too! Only I didn't just fart. I fucking sharted! Worse, I just fucking spouted! I mean at least with a shart,  you feel a fart coming on then realize too late you shouldn't have trusted it...but this...I didn't even feel a fart. All of a sudden, though...and at WORK....TWICE....

And then one night we were at the theater, and my stomach felt like there were leprechauns inside it, clawing to get out. I started to worry. What if I shart here? At the theater! I'll never be allowed back! Then the following night was the night that I knew was a turning point. Right here. Things can never get more humiliating than this. Or terrifying. Or bewildering. Or fucking  smelly, stinky, foul... 

I will spare you the more minute details of my shit exorcism.

It took a week to diagnose me but after a trip to the ER and several labs, my doctor found the nasty culprit that felt like an alien living inside me! I had a fucking parasite--a protozoa to be exact--called Giardia!!!!

It's a little fucker that lives in rivers (I probably picked it up on our hiking trip). You swallow a cyst, your stomach acid breaks open the cyst, it hatches, and fastens it's fat head into the walls of your small intestine and then it multiplies, and they eat your small intestine. Stuff goes right through you. I will spare you. Hikers who get it and survive proudly call it Beaver Fever.

I took some meds, and soon I was better.

Now we're into November. We celebrated Veteran's Day--that is by taking up on offers of free meals from participating restaurants. We chose McCormick & Schmick one night and Red Robin (I know, I know) another night. It was fun! I could eat food again, so long as I ate only small amounts.

Ralf & Jim had returned from France, bringing back a bounty of wine. They had a wonderful dinner party featuring all foods grown in Indiana (cheeses, butter, bacon, a yankee pot roast, winter vegetables) and wines of France.

I had to really be careful. And I was. Whew.

I had barely any wine. By that time I was 11 months into my not-drinking phase. I had been looking forward to being able to indulge, and when it was poured, I found out that either I lost my passion for wine, or I was still terrified of the Giardia!

Then we had a really fun night out with our good friends Michele, Eric, Brian, and Deb. We had a dinner at Bonge's which everyone said was wonderful, but you see, they hadn't eaten at Ralf & Jim's the previous week. Then we headed to Larry's house to play games. He has over 200 board games. They chose some MTV game. Larry didn't even know how he had such a game.

Then it was Thanksgiving, and a very fun Thanksgiving! 

I went up Tuesday after work and worked from my parents house on Wednesday. After work, I met Lori and the kids for rollerskating at Lakeshore Roller rink. The place has not changed since 1979. Same skates. Same signs. Probably the same hotdogs twisting on the skewers. I fell on my ass, hit my head, and broke my jeans. I lost my nerve. Then I decided to get my ass back out there and try again. What fantastic exercise!

I had a lot of fun watching my nieces and nephews and I also did a lot of reminiscing about the many Friday nights and Saturday mornings I spent there. I decided our music was way better than today's music, which sucks. I thought of the person who I was at 10 and who I thought I'd be when I grew up, and I'm kind of that person she dreamed about. I was feeling good and just skating through!

Thanksgiving Day was the usual meal preparation and delicious food. That night, however, was a night I didn't expect. My dad taught us all Texas Hold 'Em in his mancave with his poker table, while he played classical music in the background. Yes, this actually happened. And it was fun. The last couple of years, my dad has made more of an effort to include himself in the family gatherings, and this was taking it a step beyond that. 

Friday I hung out with my mom, reading and going for walks.

Saturday I took the kids to see a movie that turned out to be fabulous: The Good Dinosaur!  Grace, Daniel, and Laruen loved it, and we all cried. Then I took them to McDonald's and had a ball watching them play in the PlayPlace, making friends with other kids. 

Sunday I did some family portraits, and then I went back to Indy.

And then it was December. I took more reservations for my hostel, securing some long term guests for Dec-February. I took on some home improvement projects--had my windows and outdoor trim replaced. I also took a stab at a DIY project--staining the banister and railing from Honey Orangey Oak to Espresso. It was tedious and took awhile, but I did it, and I love it!

And I covered the rest in the Christmassy blog.

Next up, I need to cover the BEST OF 2015.

Thanks for reading, whoever you all are--mostly from Russia, Germany, and France. Not sure why. Hey, comment sometime if you're not actually just an evil spambot.

Looks like Tom Brady got a hold of my pizza.

Amanda took Andrea and me on a fun and interesting tour of the former Central State Hospital for Insane campus. I don't like the "developments" on this campus. Condos, and they hope shops.

The "medicine" garden. Fabulous little plot that is home to a myriad of herbs, plants, shrubs, and trees that combat many illnesses and symptoms. 

Once a week, I try to clean out my fridge and eat all perishable food in one dish. This was an attempt at something Indian--potatoes, onions, red pepper, cauliflower. I roasted it then made a curry-coconut sauce. Not bad!

We had a very warm fall--all the way through December! I made grilled chicken and potatoes on my new grill!

Flowers were still blooming in November!

A selfie I took before the Fever Final game in Indy. What a fun night, even though the Fever lost.

Golden autumn day.

The last vestiges of my garden--sweet potatoes, jalepenos, cucumbers, arugula, lavender, thyme, sage, basil, and some pretty orange and yellow flowers.

We went to the Humane Society to see about a dog, and Larry fell in love with this kitty.

Halloween with Act a Foo Improv Crew

We were decked out in rockstar duds.

Our friend Daniel was MC for Act a Foo and starred in Men's Room.

A day trip to Turkey Run. Most of the leaves had fallen already, but it was still beautiful.

A grave of an early settler. How nice and personal.

Sunset in my neighborhood

Larry's Birthday. I made him his favorite dinner--chicken and noodles and favorite dessert--chocolate cake. I got him Keith Richards' autobiography. 

Portrait of the artist as a handsome man. Larry practicing piano in his home.

My mom messing with me.

Texas Hold 'Em. New family tradition!

Thanksgiving dinner table

"You're done working."

I took some family portraits of Earl's family. The lighting was cooperating. I would love to get good at doing portraits. Part of it is getting the subjects comfortable. 

Photo 365 Hiking Trip Niagara, Bay of Fundy, Prince Edward Island

For most of the year we meticulously planned an ambitious hiking/camping trip to our nation's grandest national parks: Glacier, Yellowstone, Grand Tetons, Badlands, and Black Hills. Due to wildfires, a horrific bike wreck days before our departure, and grizzly bears taking over the campground at Glacier, we had to reconnoiter on a moment's notice.

We got out the map and looked at a few other national parks out West--all campgrounds booked. Larry came up with an alternate idea to head east instead to Acadia NP in Maine and to see some national parks in Atlantic Canada as well.

I was in physical pain from the bike wreck and emotionally spent and depressed about our big trip being cancelled, so my enthusiasm was not quite up to par. Still I appreciated and admired his tenacity, resourcefulness, and spontaneity. We were headed for uncharted lands as far as we were concerned--we had no guidebooks or maps and had no idea what we were doing. We packed the car one night and left early the next a.m.

Off to see America! Again!

Larry surprised me with a night's stay at a gorgeous B&B in Niagara Falls. It was especially meaningful because my parents had honeymooned there exactly fifty-five years to the day earlier! I had always heard the Falls were commercialized, and they are but that's mostly on the Canadian side, and we were on the NY side. I wasn't prepared for the beauty and the raw power of the river. We walked to the falls from our place, taking a path next to the Niagara River, and it was the wildest river I've ever seen, so turbulent and blue and breathtaking. Larry was pleased with my enthusiasm. "If you think is beautiful, wait til we get there."

Cozy and charming night at the Hanover House Bed & Brekfast

Fireworks over the falls on Friday nights!

We stopped at a wine-tasting room in the local culinary school. Wines in the Ontario region are prized for the crisp wines they produce. We had dinner at an old pub then walked back to our lovely B&B where cookies and tea awaited us. The next day was an impressive breakfast menu.

We drove across NY and New England the next day. Stopped in Portsmouth, NH for dinner. (Dinner was ice cream.)

We stayed a night in Maine then headed to an AirBnb at St. Andrews-by-the-Sea in Canada, which looked exactly like Scotland, 100 years ago. Here's the old house on a Potter's Lake. We had an okay dinner in town (typical tourist trap fare) then went back to the house watched the sunset over the water as the hummingbirds and dragon flies came out to play. The next day we spotted loons in the lake and looked for moose on the shoreline.

The Wharf a low tide

The next day we were up early and back on the road to Fundy National Park!

I guess I covered all of this a couple of blogs ago, so I'll just post the pics and a few words.

Fundy National Park is known as the Land of Salt & Fir and is located in the pristine Boreal forest. Hardly anyone was there, and when we did meet fellow hikers on the trail, they were always so enthused to see other humans that they would chat us up. It was kind of fun being considered "exotic"--from Indiana. Ha! They kept asking, "How would someone from Indiana even know about this place?" They kept asking. "Well up until three days ago, we didn't know about it."

I loved our campsite, and I found Canadian hikers to be more polite than Americans, but then again, we were there off season during the week, so maybe we simply had the luck of being with like-minded people that had nothing to do with nationality.

We took many long hikes, some very rugged, and enjoyed climbing steep boulders and cliffs to get closer to waterfalls. 

We hiked for several hours one day and began to tire of it and had the great idea to make use of the solar-heated salt pool. The swimming pool at Death Valley NP was fantastic (spring fed and a naturally occurring 99 degree water temp!) so we were expecting a similar experience. We expected wrong. Cold water, no chaise lounges, boo! But it did overlook a beautiful bay on the Bay of Fundy. 

We took a side trip to Hopewell Rocks.

We took another side trip to Cape Enrage. The drive was pretty fun, as it felt identical to the English countryside. 

Back at Fundy...

We had dinner at the Alma Lobster Shop. Delicious lobster rolls, crab legs, and oysters, caught just hours earlier in the Bay of Fundy!

Yummy locally made lobster chips!

In Alma, a tiny fishing town (maybe 200 people) in a remote part of Canada, people were aware of that asshole woman Kim Davis, the clerk from Kentucky who made national headlines for refusing to issue marriage licenses to gay couples, citing that gay marriage is against her religion. (She has been married multiple times and has had many children out of wedlock, btw.)  When asked where we lived, Larry said, "Indiana," and the person working the lobster shop said, "Oh! That's near Kentucky where that awful woman lives!"

We were both a little sad to pack up our camp at Fundy but were excited to head to Prince Edward Island, of which I have heard only lovely things!

It was lovely. 

And boring.

But lovely.

But boring. 

And expensive. 

And we had planned on eating like kings, feasting on fresh seafood, so we didn't buy any camping dinner food. We never did find a nice restaurant that was actually open. One night we found an ice cream stand and had a big ice cream cone and big hot dog. The other nights, I scrounged stuff back at camp, and I do say we still ate like kings!

We stayed in the Cavendish area, figuring the national park would be our best bet. It happens to be the most touristy spot as well, with a slightly Myrtle Beach circa 1989 feel to it, due to House of Green Gables.

Yes, I loved Anne of Green Gables, and I thought we might check out the museum and house, but what a tourist trap, full of buses and throngs of people. We skipped it.

PEI felt like a tiny French, English, or Irish (all signs in French, English and Gaelic and sometimes Chinese) tiny pastoral town from 1879 that was plopped down next to a beach on Mars. (Sand was the color of planet Mars and the water was deep brown.)

Now here was something strange. We were really hungry one day and against our better judgment stopped at a restaurant that had the word "Beach" in the name. (Telltale sign of mediocre over-priced food.) As we turned in, we noticed the marquee: Honk if you love Tom Brady.

WTF?

Tom Brady is a football player for New England and is known to be a cheater. My city's team pointed out something about the size of footballs and how Brady supposedly inflated and then deflated them, and the whole country seemed to go in a tizzy, which was stupid on all fronts. I don't care about the Colts or about the Patriots. In fact, I hate everything about the NFL.

Why would a tiny place in a remote seaside village on Prince Edward Island know or care about the NFL? 

On your way off of PEI, you get to pay a hefty fee for using the bridge--something like $55 Canadian dollars. Money not well spent.

And with that we said goodbye to Atlantic Canada! Thank you Canada!

Up next: 

Acadia National Park, Maine, US