Summer.

Today I could smell the grass. The warm, earthy smell of grass warmed by the sun.

Summer must be near.

Partying hasta las vacas viene a casa, materia de la escuela, y las noticias generales.

So it's been a little while - how's everybody doing?
I'm great.

Two weeks left of classes. I'm thrilled! My summer classes start the Monday after finals, but I don't mind. I'm just happy to be *actually starting my nursing classes*. Huzzah!
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Luis and I threw a tapas party on Saturday night. We cooked most of the day, but it was well worth it. A few of the dishes we served:

albóndigas con la salsa de la almendra del azafrán
croquetas del jamón
tortilla española
patatas bravas
chorizo, with manchego, mahon, petit basque cheeses
plus lots more... (thanks to babelfish for helping me with my Spanish, which is otherwise nonexistent.)

It was a great time. Lots of food, good friends, lots of sangria.
I spent much of Sunday sponging olive oil and red wine off every flat surface in the kitchen.
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I rode my bike to and from campus yesterday, to figure out about how long it will take me. It's just shy of five miles, and it took me a little over 20 minutes in light traffic. I'd never ridden a bike out in traffic before, and it took a little getting used to. Missoula has nice bike lanes, but if you need to turn you have to use the regular turn lanes and mingle with the cars for a few minutes. The only protection I've got is my shiny blue helmet, so it's easy to view an otherwise friendly Honda as a death-or-dismemberment-mobile.
Please watch for cyclists. :)
I haven't been able to ride much since I bought my bike - well, I take that back. I've refused to ride for fear of the random snow storms that kept cropping up. But it's supposed to be nice the rest of this week, so I think I'll ride to campus at least a couple of days. Yay for extra exercise and fresh air...
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I just got out of my Advanced First Aid/CPR lecture. Today we covered emergency childbirth. We watched videos. We talked placentas. It was awesome. (Plus, it was fun to watch the guys in class squirm...)
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Well, I suppose I should be studying or something. Ta-ta for now!

Funny.

Twenty-seven

Happy birthday to my beautiful sister Rachael!

I hope you have a big trunk...

I bought a bike today! I'd been thinking about it for over a year, so it was about time. It was an interesting experience - here's a few things I learned.

• A bicycle is built using components designed by different companies - the better the components used, the better the bike.
• Bicycle shop guys don't shower often.
• Mountain bikes are sized in inches, and road bikes are sized in centimeters.
• Bicycle shop guys are surprisingly cute, considering the lax shower schedule.
• There are bikes out there that cost a lot more than my car. Granted, I drive an '91 Corolla, but still...

Missoula is a good town for biking. Some of the busier, more recently developed areas might be a little scary, but a larger portion of the town has bike lanes and plenty of space for cyclists. We live a few miles from campus (maybe four?), so it'll be a very doable ride. It's silly for me to be driving to campus every day when I could be using the time to get a little exercise and some fresh air.

I'm excited about joining the community of people who walk around with one pant leg rolled up.

Things that go bump in the night.

I have a collection of memories that I don't like to visit - times in my life when I was humiliated or greedy, or when I felt as though I were inferior or just plain bad. Sometimes on a sleepless night one of these thoughts will work its way into the forefront of my mind and lodge itself there. The one nagging thought becomes several, looping in my head like a familiar movie reel.

I'm not a bad person.

I should elaborate a little. I'm not talking about stealing cars or doing heroin or killing puppies. It's times when I took the low road. Times when I was a bad friend. Times when I hurt someone's feelings. Bad decisions. Stupid mistakes. Little things, little isolated events which I hope don't add up to equal me. I don't think they do.

But they do stay with me. They keep me up at night every once and a while. Does anyone else ever feel like this?

Victory!

I'm done. Delirious, but done. And you know what? It's a good paper. (Of course, I'm so tired I'm seeing double, so I may retract the "good" bit tomorrow. It's entirely possible that I wrote the last several pages in gibberish, or that I simply transcribed the lyrics to old Journey songs rather than having written a conclusion. I'll let you know tomorrow.)

I just don't see the sport in it if you do it ahead of time. Where's the challenge there?

I have a sneaking suspicion that if I actually got my act together, I could be a pretty good writer.

I have another suspicion that if I don't go to bed pronto, I will fall asleep right here and drool on the keyboard.

(and another one that there will be a nap in my day tomorrow...)
Goodnight...

Diary of a procrastinator.

I'm writing a paper. Well, I'm supposed to be. But instead...

9:30 I sat down to start writing , but instead I uploaded some photos to Flickr.
10:05 I began writing.
10:30 I needed to double check one of my citations, and when I couldn't find my pocket style manual I decided to clean up the computer room.
10:57 Found the manual sitting in the open drawer next to the keyboard. Recommenced with the paper writing.
11:05 Decided snacks were necessary. Went to kitchen for some grapes.
11:15 Luis came home. We chatted.
11:30 Sent emails to Erica and Sammy featuring a British talking monkey.
12:06 Returned to paper. Stared blankly into space for 11 minutes.
12:17 Decided that blogging would break the writer's block. Sadly, I don't think Dr. Silverman will accept a printout of my blog in lieu of a developmental psychology research project.

It's not always like this.
(Sometimes it's worse.)
I need Ritalin. Or a good swift kick in the ass.

Back to work.

as promised...

Our spring break roadtrip took us west to Seattle, as well as north of the border to visit beautiful Vancouver, British Columbia. Here are a few interesting trip bits...

Luis ran in the Mercer Island Half Marathon on Sunday morning. He did not disgrace the family - in fact, he shaved nearly twenty minutes off of his goal running time of 2:15.

Sunday afternoon Luis and I left Seattle and headed north to Vancouver. While searching for a map, we discovered a third passenger holed up in the glove compartment. I simply can't imagine how a garden gnome got in there... anyhow, he accompanied us on the remainder of our trip, nestled safely in my purse.

One of our favorite things about big cities is the wide variety of cuisine they offer. While away, we had Greek, Spanish (twice), Japanese, Vietnamese, Memphis BBQ, and Mexican, along with the usual road trip munchies. (Yes, copious vacation consumption was done, and we returned with a slight waddle to our step. Gluttony punishment has commenced at the gym...) One small disappointment - the eggs benedict I ordered our last morning in Vancouver came with ham instead of Canadian bacon. I didn't go all the way to Canada for ham...

We got to spend a few days hanging out with Patt, Luis's sister-in-law. The three of us had great fun.

On Wednesday we attended the Seattle symphony concert. They performed Schostakovich's 5th Symphony, and I think I'm in love. I have a friend who rhapsodizes about Schostakovich, and now I finally understand why. It was a beautiful, moving experience.

Thursday afternoon we were sitting at a stoplight in downtown Seattle and some guy waiting to cross the street yelled walked up to our car and yelled "MISSSSOUUUUULA!" It was a friendly gesture, I'm sure, but he used a scary Satan-esque throat yell, and crescendoed through the word. Little bit creepy. (Montana license plates are coded by the city you live in, so we assume he saw the 4 at the beginning of our plate number and that's how he knew where we were from. The only other way he could know is if he was a scary stalker, and I'd rather give him the benefit of the doubt.) We smiled at him, which encouraged a loud "GOOOO GRIZZLIES!!!!" from the guy. It was an all-around odd encounter.

Luis, Patt and I visited the Chateau Ste Michelle winery on Friday afternoon. We took the complimentary tour, which included a wine tasting at the end. It was a good learning experience, plus I was wicked buzzed by the time we finished. Then we headed a few short blocks over to the Red Hook Brewery. We just missed the start of the tour there, and rather than wait for the start of the next one we opted for lunch and the beer sampler. By 2:00 we'd each had samples of six wines and five beers. Woohoo. :)

Our last evening we saw the Britten's Turn of the Screw at the Maydenbauer Center in Bellevue. The last opera I had seen was The Marriage of Figaro, so I was briefly shocked at the dark, modern feel of this one. It was very good, though. As the curtain fell we made a mad (hopefully discreet) dash out of the theatre - Chipotle was only open for another fifteen minutes, and we had our hearts set on a farewell burrito. We got there at 9:55, and they were kind enough to let us in, and even to let us stay to eat. Huzzah for enormous burritos!

And now, back to the real world...

Seven days and 1,572 miles later...

Vacations are great, but it's always nice to come home. I love home.

I'll be fondly reliving highlights from our trip just as soon as I have a little time. If you just can't wait, check out my flickr page for the first few days' worth of pictures...

More soon.