The Amazing People I Know

I took LT home last week to DC. We're doing a decent job of things, but she is having a really tough go of it with her family in some respects. It's hard on me, and I'm not even the one who has to have the difficult and hurtful conversations, although some of the stuff is pretty harsh and pointed right at me. My xylophone friend is strong and brave; I am proud of her.

MT is once again proving her qualities as an amazing human being, fostering SEVEN kittens for the ARL until they are old enough/big enough to be fixed and put for adoption. The littlest one has an eye injury, and weighs all of 11 ounces. The patience and dedication that MT shows in caring for and cleaning up after such a herd of babies is nothing short of inspiring. And she still somehow finds time to care for her own three cats and hang out with her odd friend C.

I'm so very happy to say that GJ is finally running into some happiness and luck. She spent a long time being a sympathetic and supportive ear to my difficulties, all the while going through a pretty rough patch herself. All I hope to do is return the favor! Her door/email/phone is always open, no matter how rotten her days have been. I hope with all my heart that things keep looking up for her a bit. (But I do hope the Wings blow the Cup.) And I wish her safe driving coming to the 'Burgh this weekend!

MG has always been my biggest cheerleader and venting partner. She knows what she feels is right, and fights for it unashamedly, especially when it is a friend. She has been pulling for me in my law school journey for years--well before I even knew for sure that I was on it! Her advice has been freely given and invaluable, as well as her support.

sM and I have had an uneven path in our friendship, but his encouragement and example have been integral to the future that I now eagerly work towards. Sometimes it takes a new voice reminding you of what you are capable of to make you really see it, and he provided that voice, as well as a picture of what someone can be when they follow their heart and passion. He always take the time to see how you're doing, which is especially impressive these days for a few reasons.

AK (not your AK, MT) is an endless source of entertainment. Even though we haven't hung out in a while (mainly because I'm a ridiculously busy bastard)--she's been around as a constant source of levity and friendship. I swear, we WILL get together before I move!

MD, Maker of Lutes, McGurk (I know a lot of "M" people...), AJ, and all my other Pamela's family are just that, a family. I don't see them as much anymore, but I can show up at the back door at any time and get an immediate round of yells and hugs and high-fives and general silliness. I love you guys!

To all of you, and to everyone else who has been there for me and inspired me and comforted me and let me comfort them and made me laugh and showed me new restaurants and recommended great movies and taught me things and made me confident and made me humble, I raise my office coffee mug in a toast.

Thank you.

Heartbeat? Check.

Now that my heart has restarted several times, I would just like to say that game three tonight was one fuck of a hockey game. I'm not just saying that because the Pens won--that was damn Stanley Cup Finals hockey right there. Everything hockey should be--fast, rough, exciting, intense. I almost wished my boys weren't playing in it, because I was almost too white-knuckled to really enjoy it! (Almost.)

I have to go restore my blood sugar now.

Nerves of...um...Steel?

Twenty-three year old Marc-Andre Fleury tripped and fell while coming onto the ice before starting his first Stanley Cup Finals game. Poor kid! So go ahead, someone try to tell me that nerves had nothing to do with that 4-0 showing. Their captain can't even buy a beer yet!

Bread

Sadly, Bumblebee did not magically re-appear on my porch. (However, I task all of you with the same thing that I've tasked a number of individual friends with: if you see someone riding a very obvious yellow and black Diamondback Topanga Comp with disc brakes, knock them off and bring me my bike back. I'm recruiting a vigilante bike recovery posse.)

Happily, though, I am no longer bike-less. My new one isn't a mountain bike like Bumblebee was, he's a hybrid. I really liked the sturdiness of a mountain bike, as well as the option to go crashing through the woods if I wanted, not to mention the fact that Bumblebee was a pretty damn expensive and high quality bike. But I had to get realistic about a) what I could afford, and b) what I'm going to have time to do over the next few years. In the end, a solid hybrid was going to be a lot cheaper, lighter, and commuter friendly than another high-end mountain bike. And the more basic components will also be a lot more student-budget friendly when it comes to maintenance. So, Craigslist came through, and yesterday evening after a quick jaunt to the Irwin exit on the turnpike, I brought home Bread.

As one of my friends kindly pointed out when I posted about Bumblebee, I am a dork because I named my bike. Bread is only going to help prove her point (not that I ever argued it). This morning LT and I saw a Toyota Prius with the license plate "HI BREAD". My love of stupid puns, the fact that my new bike is also a hybrid, plus the timing of seeing that license plate, made it pretty perfect. Yes, I'm a dork. I confess.

Find Someone Else to Gamble With

A note to all my Michigan friends:

No, I cannot afford to make bets with all of you for the Cup. You forget that I seem to be a Michigander magnet--there are a lot of you! I realize that could end up being a pretty good windfall for me, but I could also end up completely broke.

The only wager I am placing is with GJ, and it's the same bet we have for everything: one beer. I would make a special exception for this momentous event and say two beers, but at arena prices that's pretty steep...

Go Pens!!

Up...Down...Up...Down...

To every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

Nothing like a few drastic ups and downs to really make your weekend.

Up! - This past week the California state supreme court ruled that laws banning same-sex marriage are unconstitutional, making Cali the second state to allow gay marriage. Such an amazing and stunning turn of events! One YouTube video in particular showed activists waiting for and hearing the ruling outside the courthouse...absolutely amazing and inspiring.

down - This past week was also the last week of my most senior writer at work. I'm left with me and two very junior writers who need a good deal of babysitting. My job is about to get really shitty, really quickly.

UP!- LT graduated this weekend from CMU. Seeing everything she did during just one school year--all the great people I've met through her, seeing the challenges she met, what she's achieved, it was a great thing to see her complete this step in her life. I can't imagine how proud I would be for her if I had known her all four years or longer. It also really got my juices flowing for school next year--recognizing the passion that I saw in the grads, especially the masters and doctoral candidates, and feeling that same passion for the road I'm about to go down. It's a great feeling, exciting and exhilarating. Combined with the recent developments in Cali, I am downright chomping at the bit.

down - Along with LT graduating, however, came the visit by LT's family to see her graduate and pack her stuff back off to DC. LT's family is great in a lot of ways--it's your typical big crazy family, fun-loving, sarcastic, funny and loud. They support LT so much in many ways, they are proud of her and care about her. In other ways, not as much, and for that reason, the two of us being around them is a bit of a strain. Especially with us likely being on opposite coasts next year, I know LT could really use the support and love of her family, the recognition of the importance of our relationship and the difficult times to come for both of us. We hold out hope that someday they'll be able to reach that place, but in the meantime, it's hard to see that they haven't.

UP! - Of course there's also been the Pens' spectacular post-season run. They hit a temporary glitch against the (fucking) Flyers on Thursday, but finished them off in fine fashion with a 6-0 spanking this afternoon, sending my boys to the Stanley Cup finals. I said a number of times earlier this year that there was no way they would make it this far, and have been very glad to be proven wrong. GJ, hope you're ready to make good on the promise of tickets for a Wings/Pens final!!

down - At the end of the game, I was looking out my door and realized something was missing from my porch. Namely, my bike. Locked up on my balcony, Bumblebee has taken one last trip to an unknown destination. I swear, I will never understand people who feel the need to take other people's stuff. Bye, Bumblebee.

I mean, I love roller coasters and all, but really...this is a bit ridiculous.

Sore = Awesome

Q: What do you get when you combine a 5:30 wake up call, a bike ride, a semi-truck full of water and bananas, chilly rain, 36,000 people, free coffee, and a body full of sore muscles the next day?

A: A happy me.

I helped with post-race refreshments at the Race for the Cure on Sunday. It's project that I've enjoyed the last few years; it's pretty perfect for me because it combines my masochistic love for physical labor and my more benign love for do-gooding. Basically, volunteers get up really early (this year we didn't have to be there until 6:00--huzzah!) and unload a semi full of bananas and beverages donated by Pepsi/Aquafina, cart the truck contents however far to a small-ish tent area where we stage everything as well as we can and then guard it with our lives until people are done with the race. Then in a dizzying rush, we "distribute" the product, sticking a banana and bottled water into every hand we see as the tide of people surges to our little tent.

I bike there to avoid having to deal with an automobile in the midst of the race madness, and while you have to be there before the coffee stores open, thankfully there's the Caribou Coffee tent, giving out free cups of caffeinated bliss. Unloading the truck usually takes a little over two hours. Staging the stuff usually starts out as nicely organized stacking, and ends as, "Oh crap, more of that? I dunno, just stack it over there." Guarding stuff before the end of the race requires a heart of stone as you turn away people who give you every sob story in the book as to why they ought to get the free stuff NOW. Giving it away requires nerves of steel as you brace yourself against the thirsty horde. Eventually you're tempted to just start hurling bananas and bottles out into the crowd.

Each year brings its own fun twists and quirks. This year, for instance, the rain and soft ground made working with the hand trucks extra special, and the area that we had been given to distribute was teeeeny tiny. Also, the semi truck, parked on the paved walkway in Flagstaff right across the treeline from Frew St., was parked uphill, which added a lot more distance onto how far we had to haul the stuff, and also meant that as we were moving the pallets of stuff to the end of the truck for offloading, we had to pull them uphill. On the good side, we managed to score the use of two of the race's motorized utility carts, which was a great boon. Also, the beverage selection was much better--2/3 was water and the rest was flavored "vitamin" water. (Last year we were cursed with pallet upon pallet of Jazz, which had been Pepsi's latest marketing misadventure.)

There's one thing that never changes, and that is the average human being's willingness to take as much free stuff as they can possibly carry. Giant Eagle was giving away their canvas shopping bags, and people were walking around with these bags overflowing with scary pink bagels, yogurt, ice cream, fruit, McDonald's apple slice packets, as much of every handout that they could finagle. And yes, water, flavored water and bananas. In the end it was good, because as the rain moved in and the masses started scattering, we were faced with the prospect of having to put a bunch of leftover water back into the truck. We solved this by quite literally handing out the stuff by the case.

At any rate, as always I enjoyed doing it and am sore as hell today, which I really like. To me being muscle-sore is a great reminder that I was out and about doing something different and useful with my body, using it to its true best abilities.

And as with any cancer-related activity, I worked this year in honor of my grandmother Virginia Lloyd, a many-year survivor of breast cancer, and in memory of Dave Deerfield, who fought his one-year battle against cancer with courage, wisdom and humor.

Lessons of the Day

1) Administer medication to cat BEFORE cleaning cage and putting down fresh paper, food and water.

2) Tigger is pointy.

It's Hasn't All Been Texting and Crying and Hummus

My last few postings have been kinda glum, because whenever I let myself slow down these days (read: have enough breathing room that I can do things like blog) that's how my mind goes. So I'll now point out a bunch of stuff lately that has been great. Some of them are small moments, some bigger.

- Gorgeous weather. As much as I like winter, the renewal of spring is always amazing.
- Upon learning that LT and I are likely headed different directions, a half-drunk friend getting very wide-eyed, putting his arms around both of us, and exclaiming, very slowly, "But....what's gonna....happen?"
- GO PENS!!
- During the tail end of the gauntlet which I haven't been able to blog about yet, my trip to Chicago was an absolute blast. I loved it.
- Being included on the season video for my Cincy buddies even though I'm not technically on their team.
- Tearing the leg of my jeans open while climbing a seven-foot tall fence.
- Pierogies at the Harris Grill.
- GO PENS!!
- Going to see Chris Pureka and Nicole Reynolds, I was reminded that music is the most amazingly direct path into my soul, and how much I love live performance. I could never imagine a world without music.
- Encountering someone who embodies all the coolest things in the universe: a Canadian, hockey-enthused, tattooed, gender-bending, socially conscious, violin-playing musician. It's true, the bass players are always the coolest ones. ALWAYS.
- The woman who adopted a very sweet, quiet, 10-year-old cat. It made my heart smile to see someone willing to give poor old Dottie a peaceful couch to sleep on.
- Softball!!
- Coffeeeeeeee
- The excitement - even if it is bittersweet - of planning the coming next phase in my life.
- Reconnecting with and remembering to get the support of old good friends - MT, GJ, MG, MD, thank you all so much - and discovering the support of good new ones.
- GO PENS!!
- Sitting on my couch with the sliding door open and fresh air coming in, with Tiki curled up on my lap and Whiskey curled up next to me.
- Planning my next TATTOO!!
- Did I mention GO PENS?!

Relaxing, or Something

After all the traveling and emotion, I vowed that this weekend would be dedicated to relaxation, specifically with LT. The first plan was, "We're only going to leave my apartment for food." Then it was, "oh, and this concert," then, "oh, and a few hours of work"...

...eight hours at PetCo, two cat adoptions, one trip to the gym, a few trips to the fence, one two-hour walk along the river, three restaurants, one softball game, one concert, one torn pair of jeans, and one tearful trip to the West End later...well, yeah.

Good weekend? Yeah. I enjoyed everything I did this weekend. Do I still remember what my apartment looks like? Not so much.

Y'know, all that a big part of me wants is some time for LT and I to relax together and focus on enjoying these last weeks we have in Pittsburgh. But every time we do that, we just start crying. Maybe this relaxation sabotaging busy-ness is our subconscious' way of telling us that we can best enjoy our remaining time here by doing what we've done all along--experiencing things and being busy together. Or maybe it's our minds' way of removing focus from what's coming. Or both. Who knows.

Oh, and go Pens.