Surprise Good Things

This week was the Fall 2016 AGU meeting in San Francisco, CA. For anyone not familiar, it's the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union and it's attended by over 20,000 scientists annually (24k last year). Just about every topic in the very broad Earth Science umbrella is covered and there is no way to see all of it. This year, a conversation that I had months ago with a friend has been on my mind as I move between meetings, talks, and poster sessions. I won't get into the longer conversation we had but, in response to a comment I made, my friend suggested that female role models were less important to me because I had always had them.

Though it took me by surprise, it was an incredibly true assessment. Throughout my growing up, I was surrounded by women (and men) doing awesome things. I was never told (at least, not by my parents) that there was anything that I could not be. Other people suggested it but I was always encouraged to shrug off their comments. Luckily, I am just contrary enough (it's an ingrained personality trait) that the suggestion that I cannot do something will usually spur me on to prove that I can, regardless of wanting to or not. It gets me into trouble sometimes.

On Monday evening, I met a fellow scientist, helicopter and fixed wing pilot. It's an unusual thing and even more unusual that both of us were women. Like all pilots when meeting, we were quickly off an talking. It was surprising and it was exciting. You have to understand the odds here. Women account for only about 5% of all pilots in the United States. Based on FAA statistics, only about 1.3% of all pilots in the US (both men and women) are dual fixed wing and rotorcraft certified. Even if that 1.3% applies to women (it's probably lower), the odds of happening to bump into another female PhD (roughly 1.5% of the population of the US), who is also a pilot with a dual certification were pretty low. We were both incredibly excited. ;-) It mattered in a way that is difficult to describe but deeply exciting.

Our meeting didn't change my belief in my own ability to do science or to fly an airplane or a helicopter but it was still powerful and unique to find someone that I shared so much in common with.

Christmas in Texas

You can take the girl out of the North but it's hard to take the North out of the girl. There are so many things I love about living in Southern states. Okay, mostly Georgia. Whether I'm in Georgia or Texas or Florida though, I still find it hard to get in the Christmas spirit when it's 70 degrees F outside. While "Christmas is still Christmas after all" (name that movie anyone?), I always find myself yearning for snow and for temperatures cold enough for hot cider and hot chocolate and warm clothes.

The day after Thanksgiving, I dutifully put on jeans, sneakers, and a long sleeve shirt, as if it were cool enough to warrant it. A whole group of us headed out to pick trees and drink cider and it was wonderful. As soon as we arrived home though, I swapped out my long sleeve for a t-shirt and my sneakers for flip flops. The house was starting to look Christmas-y and our cat was definitely in the holiday spirit but it still didn't feel quite like Christmas.

Last weekend we headed to San Antonio with close friends for a quick weekend getaway. It was raining and in the 40's or 50's all weekend. I think we were all drenched at one point or another. And it was brilliant. Rain isn't snow but it was cool enough to bundle up as we toured around. Warm beverages were no problem and neither was hot soup. The lights along the river walk were magical as we wandered along. Mass at the cathedral was great (and a well timed Saturday night coincidence), though I've never been to Mass with a mariachi band before. Somewhere between the chill and the friends and the lights and a beautiful Mass, I found a little more Christmas spirit. Even if it was 70 again today.

Home Improvement

Back when we were dating, my husband and I agreed to watch each others favorite TV shows. I'm pretty sure the idea was mine. My favorite show is Firefly though, which only ran for one season. My husband's, to his glee, was Home Improvement, which ran for eight seasons. Good grief. Since we made the original deal, we've watched both together and a number of other shows as well. And okay, we might re-watch Firefly as much as one to two times a year. Anyway, watching Home Improvement gave me some interesting ideas for what to expect from our own home improvements. The good news is that it set a really low bar.

Originally, we had planned to spend the fall "finishing" our currently unfinished garage. We decided to set that project aside until later for a number of reasons and then both immediately looked around and started listing off other things we could do. High on my list was our shower. We knew we didn't have the know-how to remove the whole thing and re-do it and, with Thanksgiving approaching, didn't have the patience to try but our caulk and grout was in pretty bad need of repair in some places. I'd like to say we dove into fixing it but our approach more closely resembled a child cautiously dipping their toe in an uncertain lake than anything else. We read articles and watched videos and hemmed and hawed and eventually got to work.

We chose not to do the whole shower both, I believe, feeling pretty sure that we would fail the first time and need to re-do everything anyway. We cut out the worst of the grout though and all of the caulk and, a week later, had a re-caulked and partially re-grouted shower. It's not the prettiest thing in the world but the final product is a lot better than what we started with so I think we'll call this one a win. Of course, in the end, we didn't mess up so badly that we needed to immediately re-do anything so our shower grout is just going to be a little mismatched for a while. It's not the worst thing that could happen.

Hilariously, while our shower was out of commission, we used one of the other bathrooms. Now we have a list of projects to attack in that bathroom. Apparently this is exactly what being a home owner is like.

Before

During

After

Old Things

Marking our sixth move in two years (yes, that's right sixth), my husband and I drove a uhaul of stuff from my parent's home in FL back to TX this past July. Much of what was on board was furniture that they were kind enough to give to us, allowing us to finish furnishing our home. Beds, sheets, towels, dressers, and shelves will turn our previously empty rooms into a place for friends and family.

Then there were the boxes. The boxes that you inherit when you become an adult, live in your own place, and have some elbow room to take on all those pieces of your childhood that you left behind. As I mentioned a while back, I have a special affinity for hand-me-downs, for things that once lovingly belonged to a friend and now belong with me. On this, my husband sits almost diametrically opposed to me. The newer the better. Brand new preferable.

So, as I gush over my old puzzle collection, my many boxes of Legos, and my baby dishes, my husband grumbles, as good-naturedly as he can manage, that we will always be surrounded by old things. He wonders if our children will someday ever have new things even as I lovingly hold baby blankets made for generations of children before me and imagine covering our someday-child with them.

Looking for a way around this stand off, I briefly thought that we should wade through our old things together. Compromise is always easier when we are both involved. The idea never even made it to the table though. As soon as it had formed in my mind, I realized exactly why it wouldn't work. My husband's family left things behind when they immigrated to this country. The baby blankets belonging to great grandparents, the hobby horses, the toys, the hope chests, and the heirlooms, were all left behind for a new country and a new life. My husband doesn't have old, he only has new, and, as much as I want my old things to be our old things, they only tell the history of my family, not his.

I wonder what old things my family once left behind and I wonder where those things are now. It was so long ago though that the whole thing is intangible to me. It's someone else's history that is only very distantly related to mine. I hope that someday both my husband and our children will love the history in those old things but, in the meantime, perspective makes the grumbles and complaints about them easier.

The cat knows how I feel

Blogging recently has been tough. Work has been especially busy and, many days, feels entirely overwhelming. Maybe someday I'll blog about that, but today isn't that day. I'm facing another knee surgery in the not too distant future and, despite knowing that the surgery and recovery will be a lot easier than the last one, it's not a fun or happy prospect. I actually did write a blog about that but decided not to post it for any number of reasons. If you want to read it and don't feel like it will make you squeamish, let me know and I'll email it to you. The election is looming and, while there are so many things I'd like to say about that, I've started and stopped those blogs more times than I can count.

So, what's this not-very-cheerful sounding blog about?

Maybe it's the value of life. Maybe it's me wondering where all this rage is coming from.

It seems like I can't log on to facebook anymore without encountering angry posts and articles. With the exception of my friend's who post pictures of their children and (or) cute animals, it feels like wherever I look there is someone angry about something. Usually I roll my eyes, find a cute kid picture, and try to put whatever unnecessarily mean thing I read out of my mind. As the election draws nearer though, it's getting harder to ignore. I genuinely like reading posts from different political, cultural, and economic views. I seek them out. I have friends with whom I deeply disagree on a broad spectrum of issues but we still love each other, respect each other, and frequently get to have good debates with each other. And then.

And then I read an article from an author who hopes that every member of the opposing political party will die.

I'm not even kidding. My heart rate sped up and I did a double take and then a triple take. How has it come to this?

I can't separate my belief that all life should be respected from my faith but I'd like to believe that, whether a person holds a faith or not, they can respect that life is a precious and wonderful thing. It's fragile and too easily destroyed. There's a lot to be angry about this election season and I know how angry I am personally about things that I feel shouldn't be happening. I still can't imagine ever wishing someone dead over it though because your life is precious whether we agree or not.

When I was in the second grade, a boy in my class started shouting that he hated me. I can't remember what triggered his reaction but my teacher's response has been indelibly ingrained in me ever since. She pulled us both up to her desk and said, very gravely, you do not hate, you do not know what hate is, you never say that to another person again. It was, by far, not the worst experience I can remember from that school but it has defined nearly every bad experience I've had since then. You do not hate.

I think I wish my second grade teacher was here now. I'd like to think she'd be telling people on both sides to stop name calling, to stop saying awful things, to sit down and talk.

Maybe consider doing something nice for someone on November 9th. Donate to a food pantry or a charity. Buy a meal for someone who needs it. Adopt a pet. Send someone flowers. No matter what happens, it seems like there are going to be a lot of upset people next Wednesday morning but it would be awfully nice if everyone could take a deep breath and try to make someone else smile.

PS. If you're not sure what the picture has to do with anything, I chose it because (a) cute animal and (b) the title of this post.

How the cookie crumbles

Years ago, I was going through a really rough time. The exact how, what, and why aren't really important anymore but I definitely wasn't in a good place. At first, the boy I was dating thought he could fix me. When he couldn't, our relationship was over. Not long after, my closest friend at the time followed him in the same way. I will never ever forget her telling me that she just couldn't stick around and watch me be sad. It took me years to find any peace with what happened, with the idea that people I trusted, people who loved me, could walk away like that. Months later I sat down and talked to a priest about everything that had happened, about my confusion, my anger, my hurt. His response was nothing I ever would have anticipated.

Maybe they did you a favor.

It didn't feel like a favor at all. It felt very much like the opposite of a favor. The priest didn't stop there though. He went on to suggest that people who walk out of your life when things get rough aren't friends at all. That I was better off without those kind of people. I didn't even think priests could say that kind of thing.

Luckily for me, I found better friends. Friends who loved me exactly where I was. Friends who were sad that I was sad but knew that sometimes you just need time and space to be sad. Because that's okay.

Recently a friend going through a rough time, mentioned that they felt they had to be a certain way- the way they were before. Our situations are so different but all I could think in that moment was that I needed my friend to know that it's okay to be different, to be sad, for as long as it takes. Because everyone who loves her will be sad with her and when, down the road, a day comes that feels a little warmer and a little sunnier and a little better, we'll all be there for that too.

Two Years

Yesterday, my husband and I celebrated our second wedding anniversary and I think that all we know for sure about this marriage business is that two years feels a lot like one.

We hadn't been living together for a month yet when our first wedding anniversary rolled around. We celebrated in a big way (Red Bull Air Races! Hockey game!) but we missed out on many of the things you might expect from a couple that has been married for a year. Among those things, the year old wedding cake tradition. In all of our moves, our cake ended up with neither of us until well after our first anniversary. So yesterday we dutifully pulled it out of the freezer and dug in (after letting it warm up a little) to our now two year old wedding cake, which was surprisingly delicious!

Of course, I'm wondering if we'll always feel a year behind or maybe we'll just always feel like we've been married for half of the actual length of our marriage? Probably time will catch up with us at some point but for now it's kind of cool to feel like we've had two first wedding anniversaries.