It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like

Halloween?

This week in the Gila, it snowed.  Yes, snowed.  Not a lot.  Only about 2 inches at the most.  But still.  It’s only October, people!  It doesn’t even snow this early in Michigan, usually.  And I still had field work to do!  Snow is not exactly conducive to identifying forbs (aka flowering plants) and determining canopy cover percent.  Digging the hole wasn’t too bad, once we got down to the soil part.  But the main problem?  It was coooold.  Very very cold.  Not just in the morning, either, but all day long.  A couple times the sun would make an appearance for about 2 seconds, and just when we were starting to get excited, it went away again.  Boo sun!  And it was very windy also.

This morning we had to clip a site.  Clipping a site basically means going out to where you dug your hole and throwing a metal hoop around.  All the plants that fall within the hoop are cut with garden clippers and put in a carrying container (in our case a Wal-Mart plastic shopping bag).  The cut up plants are later weighed to calculate biomass content, or some such thing (I’m not really sure how this is done or what it involves, since I have never been a part of this process).  In order to get an accurate(?) assessment we have to do this ten times.  It is oodles of fun.  It’s even more fun when there’s snow on the ground.  Don’t believe me?  You should try it sometime.

While we were clipping, Nori said, “What a ridiculous way to end the field season.”

And with that, I am done with field work.

Don't be sad, Gila. I'll be back next year.

A Year in the Life

One year ago today I officially started my new job in Albuquerque.  It seems so weird that it’s been a year already.  Time has gone by so fast.  So many things have changed this year.  I’m a real scientist, getting a paycheck for doing what I’ve wanted to do since college, and I’m starting to form an idea of what I want to do with my career in the future.  I really would like to get into geology research.  It will take some time and extra planning efforts on my part but I know that if it’s something I really want, I’ll make it happen.  I have so far, and it really has worked out incredibly well for me.  I met a wonderful person who cares about me very much, and I’ve met some nice new people at work as well.  (If only they lived a little closer, as in the same city/state as me, it would be better)

But right now I’m not at work.  I’m on vacation!  I am in an exotic place called Michigan, visiting my family.  We spent the weekend at our cottage on the lake, boating and kayaking, eating and watching fireworks.  In a way, it’s like I’ve come full circle doing exactly what I was doing a year ago.

I don’t have all that much more to say about it.  It’s just really good to be home for a little while, away from the week-to-week, day-to-day, packing, waking up at 6, hiking and digging for 10-11 hours, collapsing, unpacking, starting all over again.  Not that I hate it, or even dislike it.  It’s just really really good to have a vacation.  Everyone needs one of those.

Here’s some photographic highlights of what I’ve been doing so far.  If you have never been to Michigan, it’s actually a pretty nice place.

my sister and me, boating and blue moon

The best restaurant in Ann Arbor

dinner! (at aforementioned restaurant)

Holiday Weekend of a Single* Working Girl

*and by single I mean not married.  I essentially function as a single person, who happens to have a boyfriend.

This was a four day weekend for me.  I got back from my first week of field work and had enough hours to take Friday off, so I did.  But it wasn’t exactly all fun and games.

The reason I took Friday off in the first place was because of a doctor’s appointment.  In addition to getting a shot, a pap test, and having a lovely conversation with my male doctor about sex and birth control (extra fun), I also figured out how much I weigh.  I don’t own a scale so I haven’t actually weighed myself since Christmastime at my parents’ house.  So it’s been a while.  And let me tell you, it wasn’t pretty.  Kinda depressing, actually.  I hiked around a lot and did quite a bit of hard labor in the field last week, and plan to continue doing so for the rest of the summer.  Hopefully this will help.  Unfortunately, I do not think my pedometer is giving me an accurate measure of how much I am walking.  At the end of a day in the field, it was only calculating about 3000 steps per day.  This does not seem right, since I get about 1000 just waking up and walking around my apartment in the morning before I take a shower.  Odd.   Also, my office is being dumb and not letting me count the steps I took in Lincoln because I wasn’t there to report them.  Boo. I guess I will not be winning the competition at work, but I still may have a chance to win the competition against myself.  We shall see.

In addition the doctor’s appointment, I also had to switch the title for my car from my dad to me and get it registered in New Mexico.  NM has this awesome thing called MVD Express, so this would have been super easy if it weren’t for one minor detail: the emissions test.  Is this a common thing?  I never even heard of it until I moved to Vegas, and I didn’t register my car there so I never had to do it.  Here in New Mexico, I live in the only county where the emissions test is required to get a registration.

Anyway, I went to get the test and my car FAILED.  Why?  Because of the gas cap.  I had no idea that even counted as part of it.  I knew my gas cap was loose and I had gotten a new one but had never actually put it on, so I put it on and went to take the test again.  Still failed.  But the guy at the Jiffy Lube was super nice and helpful (much nicer than at the previous one near the MVD) and told me I could still get the car title, just not register it, and get the problems checked out at Autozone for free.  So I got the title and then headed over to check out the problems.  The guy over there told me that as long as my check engine light was on, I would always fail the test, even though I already fixed the problem.  They don’t tell you this so you have to keep coming back to take the test and pay more money (duh).  He showed me how to erase the problem codes and said to drive it around for a day to see if the light came back on.  It didn’t.  Hooray!

That was Friday and Saturday.  On Sunday I went clothes shopping (I needed some new field pants and had to buy –gasp– a size 12.  Oh the shame!), took a long walk, dropped off my recycling, picked up some stuff I needed at the store for packing my vacuum to send back (if you haven’t heard, electrolux is doing a recall on certain models of their vacuums due to exploding batteries or something like that, and mine is one of them.  lucky me!), and finally managed to squeeze in a little time with Matt.  We had seen each other for about an hour the previous evening before he had to go to work.  I tried to make dinner but was in a hurry, so it was a total mess.  Plus I was annoyed with him for being cranky and watching the basketball game on tv instead of listening to me when I was talking to him.  I was so upset I just started crying then and there and couldn’t stop.  This made him feel bad, so he took me to dinner on Sunday, and he got me ice cream too, even though we both know I don’t need it.

Today I was hoping to just relax and maybe take a look at my maps for this week, but that didn’t happen.  I needed clean clothes so I went down to the laundry room, poured in the soap and dirty clothes and realized I didn’t have enough money on my card (we went to the card system a little while ago, no more quarters).  So I went over to the lobby where there USED TO BE a machine to put money on the laundry cards, but it is NO LONGER THERE.  Where did it go?  I don’t know.  But I couldn’t do anything about it because the office was closed for the holiday.  What was I going to do?  I had a bunch of soapy unwashed clothes in the laundry room just sitting there and no way to get them clean.  I did the only thing I could think to do.  I called my mom for advice.  My sister answered the phone.  She relayed the message to the family (and friends who were also with them celebrating the holiday).  After laughing at me, they finally came to the consensus that this was not an emergency and I should therefore not call the apartment emergency number, and the only thing to do was to go to a laundromat.  I wasn’t really sure which, if any, would be open so I started calling around.  No one picked up, except for one place.  The conversation went as follows.

Lady on phone: Bueno?

Me: (Oh great, they speak Spanish. maybe they’re bilingual…) Are you open today?

Lady: No ingles

Me: (nope) Um ok, esta abierto hoy?

Lady: Si

Me: (yay I got it right) gracias

To make an even longer story short, I ended up not being able to find the place, and I did not really want to look around for it, because it was in the barrio, as the Mexicans say.  Fortunately, the laundromat near my house ended up being open, so I went to that one instead.  After that I got groceries, came home, folded laundry, made dinner, saw Matt for about an hour, and that was the end of the day.  So while many others were celebrating Memorial Day weekend with their friends and family, I was doing all that.

It would be nice to have another weekend to recover from this one.  I’m completely exhausted.

Happy Easter!

Hope you find some goodies in your basket!

Have a good day

Old Year Mishaps and New Year Resolutions

It was a bit of a bumpy ride coming into the New Year. Literally.

We should probably start at the beginning. Saturday before I left for Christmas break. I decided it would be a good idea to eat Taco Sal (yummy!) for lunch that day and macaroni and cheese for dinner. Mind you, weekend lunch and dinner for me are generally around 2 pm and 9 pm, respectively. The next morning, the day I left for the A-2, I really had to poop. So I did. And then went off to do…something else for a while. Later I went back into the bathroom to take a shower and the whole bathroom was FLOODED. Yep. My toilet overflowed. Luckily, Matt was over to drive me to the airport and he knew enough to turn the toilet off (because I sure wouldn’t have thought to do that) and then we proceeded to soak poop water up off the bathroom floor and hallway carpet. It was a really fabulous way to start the vacation.

I was hoping for a nice, easy plane ride to MI, and really for the most part it was. Minus a few annoyances. First of all, Albuquerque has direct flights to pretty much nowhere, so I had to make a connection in Minnesota. As did pretty much everyone else on my flight. The day I left it was very cold in Minnesota so the plane was icy or something and the flight got delayed. When we finally got into Minnesota many people had missed their connecting flights. Fortunately I did not because I had a three hour layover anyway. So I got on the second plane and ended up in the very back of the plane, window side. Except there was no window there because I was right over the engine, which was LOUD. I had to cover my ears and could barely hear my ipod. I could also barely hear anything the pilot or flight attendants said over the intercom. It pretty much just sounded like wahwahwah to me. When we got into Detroit, it was so cold the ground crew could not go outside for more than a couple minutes so we had to wait for half an hour just sitting there waiting for someone to come out and park us. When I finally got out my mom informed me that checked luggage might take up to 2 hours to come in (by the way I absolutely HATE that they make you check luggage because of the whole liquid thing and then charge $15 to check it). Luckily it did not take 2 hours and I went out into the coldness and finally home.

Being home for the holidays was really nice and relaxing.  I spent all of Monday lounging around in my pajamas and it was fabulous.  Tuesday I got my haircut and then my sister and I went out into the craziness to finish up some last minute holiday shopping.  Christmas Eve was a  brunch party at the next door neighbors’ and then church where we listened to Fr. Borier Snorier (as my brother calls him).  Christmas day was lots of fun with family and food.  We tried out this new thing where we played the white elephant gift exchange game, but used gift cards instead of crappy gifts.  It worked out ok.  I ended up with Kohl’s, which was pretty good.  I’m just glad I did not get Tim Horton’s or Lowe’s.  Or Wal Mart.  Blah.  The rest of the time was just more relaxing and hanging out.  All in all, a very good time.

On Monday I flew back home, which took a while due to the non-direct flight thing.  But I made it back and went into work on Tuesday and Wednesday and have been off ever since.  New Year’s Eve was pretty quiet and uneventful.  Matt and I had a nice dinner at Il Vicino, a yummy (though somewhat pricey) Italian restaurant, and then went home to make fun of Ryan Seacrest and watch the ball drop on tv.  So, no wild parties this year, which is ok.  New Year’s day we didn’t do a whole lot but on Friday it was really nice outside so we went to Petroglyph National Monument, which was pretty and cool.  I also saw one of my co-workers there with his wife and twin sons.  So I hope he doesn’t tell my boss on me (hehe   Saturday was pretty nice too so we ate lunch on my balcony and then were going to go for a hike but it got windy and cold all of a sudden so we spent the rest of the afternoon at Matt’s house, where he just got in a new shipment of model airplanes (he loooooves airplanes) so we looked at those for a while and then went back to my place to make dinner Trader Joe’s style.  Sunday we went to the most fantastic Indian buffet which was really really good but did cause me to have a few small regrets in the Borders’ bathroom, where we went next.  We spent the rest of the afternoon looking at books, magazines, etc.

I’m back at work now so that’s really exciting (not really).  I’ve actually taken a few days to write this post– write a little, get distracted, come back, you know how it goes.  So in the meantime I’ve thought of some more things to talk about but at this point it would be going off on a tangent and take for-ev-er so we’ll save that for later.  I’ve just been thinking a lot about my life as it stands now, both personally and professionally and it seems I’ve got a lot of decisions to make within the next couple years.  But those will come later.  For now my new year’s resolution will be to get organized and prioritized in my life in both big and small ways so that I will be in a better position to make some of those big decisions in the future. 

And that’s about it.  If you made it to the end of this post, good for you, you win!

The Obligatory “What I’m Thankful For” Post

Today I will be spending Thanksgiving with my wonderful boyfriend and his family.  I’m really excited to spend the day with him.  I’m so grateful to have him in my life.  These past two months have been filled with lots of fun times and happiness.  Here’s to many more good times in the future.

There are really a lot of things that I am thankful for this year.  For FINALLY finishing my thesis…

For my new job that I am so glad to have (even though I complain about it sometimes). 

For my parents who helped me move from Vegas to Michigan and then down to Albuquerque all in the same year.

For all of my awesome friends, both past and present, who have always made me feel so welcome wherever I happened to end up in life.  In particular thanks to my best buddy TT for opening her home (and Lauren’s!) to me twice just this year.  She is the awesomest!

I’m sure there are lots of other things and people I can be thankful for but I’m already late and need to be off so I can spend the holiday with some of those people whose lives I’m thankful to be a part of.

See ya later and Happy Thanksgiving!

When Jesus came out of the tomb, he said “ta-da!”

A year later and that still amuses me.  I hope everyone had a good Easter.  If you celebrate it or not.  This was the first Easter I’ve actually been home in, like, six years.  Or something like that.  So it was good to be here.  Except for the part when I had to wake up at 6 a.m. to go to 7:00 mass.  That was pretty rough.

Then we went to my grandparents’ house in Monroe where the day consisted of eating food, bumming around and looking at pictures from my aunt and uncle’s trip to Mexico (so jealous!)  And my grandma and I fed the two outside cats, White Cat and Sidekick.  I also finally saw Angel, the inside cat, for the first time.  But she pretty much hid in the basement the whole time we were there.  She is not like Jazmine at all.  Who just got her Easter basket stuck on her head because she was trying to get a treat out of it.  And we all laughed at her.  Hahaha.  We are mean owners. 

The ides of March

Friday was my brother’s 23rd birthday, so we went out to eat at this restaurant he likes in Chelsea.  And then we went to a store called Pamida, because he wanted to see what it was like.  It’s kind of like a smaller, slightly better version of Wal-Mart, or Meijer without the food.  We were all very amused with the store, because my family gets into stuff like that.  Yeah, we’re weird.  I don’t know if it is what I would choose to do on my birthday though…  On my 23rd birthday, I got drunk on the wine from GeoSymposium, my advisor and I gave each other “I love soil” tattoos, and I watched airplanes land in the parking lot on Eastern and Sunset with Josh, Willy and that other dude Cory from Indiana.

On Saturday I drove to Lansing for a party at my friend Carol’s house.  I got to meet some people I went to Hope with but never really knew when I was there, and some other people too.  It was fun.  Not really like a Vegas party.  Which are also fun.  When I came in, they were playing some Irish music CD’s and the ”No Nay Never” song was playing, and I kept thinking they were going to say “fuck you, you suck!” like that band that Sam likes does, but I guess they don’t do that in every version.  They also sang their own Irish songs, and were very good at it too.  The only singing that ever went on in Vegas was generally drunken singing, which was usually followed by behavior that made even Aubrey “a little concerned.”  Ahh, I miss those days.