Flipping Eggs! (And Other Sad Stories)

I can't flip an egg to save my life. Apparently I was not granted the egg-flipping gene, and egg-flipping doesn't seem to be a learned trait, although I'm sure there's a paper or something Wingal could direct us all to if we really had an interest.

It's only a shame because I love eggs over-easy but I more often than not end up with scrambled eggs. And I (admittedly inexplicably) hate scrambled eggs.

It actually came to my attention last night while attempting to flip some eggs that in fact many of my most recent posts -- similarly to the way this one appears to be shaping up -- have focused on things that are not working in some way thereby causing me loads of anxiety, encouraging great strife, and really just disrupting my self-contained little universe to no end.

I want to make it clear that, while I certainly appear to invest an unreasonable amount of personal energy on these unhappy circumstances, and while I am in fact horribly melodramatic about such events and bemoan them for days to Raphael, to my coworkers, to random people on airplanes (not actually true), and at people's birthday parties, I really don't dwell on the them quite to the extent that it might otherwise be interpreted from a glance back over the last few posts.

Unless I have had too many glasses of wine, which probably explains the birthday parties.

So to prove the point, I'm not even going to venture into the territory currently occupied by my car. More specifically, by weird car-related flapping noises combined with strange jerking first thing in the morning and whatever that expensive thing was a couple weeks ago where the ignition stopped working. And I'm certainly not going to mention how in order to unlock the driver's side door you now have to open the passenger's side and crawl over the seats because as of yesterday the key doesn't work anymore.

In fact, since I want to shift my dramatic focus from bad things that are happening to good things that are happening, I would like to talk about how much I LOVE my otherwise trusty little red Toyota pick-up. Not counting the ill-fated Izuzu Trooper I owned for three weeks, it was the first vehicle I ever found and bought all on my own. I test drove it by myself, signed all the paperwork with nary a family member in sight, and proudly sent my grandparents a hand-drawing of it. At age 27, I think it was.

It's got over 100,000 miles on it. I paid it completely off on my 31st birthday last year. It takes me everywhere. It's been on archaeological surveys with me and has the scars to prove it. Mainly from a fencepost I backed into. It's had a tree fall on it. It's been rear-ended twice. We slept in the back during our west coast roadtrip. I rode in the back with a terrified Lila when we picked her up from Phoenix while she was still Maggie.

My little truck has carried trees, large rocks, massive bags of laundry, numerous random pieces of furniture scavenged from alleyways, hundreds of archaeological artifacts (and too many archaeologists to count), and two bachelorette parties without complaint. Until about two months ago.

And I'm still not here to discuss its failings. Because, like many things in my life -- including my relationship, my family unit, my friendships, our garden, the computer, the sewer system, my pharmacy benefit manager, the food processor, my cardiovascular system, the US Postal Service, and the dog -- it works perfectly most of the time. It costs something to have everything, of course, including relationships and puppies and a decent pharmacy benefit manager. And the more you have, they say, the more you have that is going to fail at some point.

But when it comes right down to it, in spite of my dramatic reenactments of how the fridge imploded or a coworker got dragged away by mountain lions, I know I'm lucky to have so many things that work so well. I'm lucky to have so many things that will someday stop working. And I'm lucky to have all the eggs I need any time I need them, even if I can't flip them to save my life. Scrambled eggs are the price I pay for an egg over-easy every now and again, I guess.

And I will never want for scrambled eggs.

Alive and Caffeinated

Contrary to being eaten by mountain lions, I was not eaten by mountain lions.

I didn't even get to see a mountain lion. In fact I am presently sitting at my desk drinking a Stone IPA while Lila breathes hot dog breath on my arm and tries to remember who the hell I am.

I'm not going to give away any excursion-related secrets yet because I took Dad's old 35 mm Minolta rather than the fancy new Canon Digital Rebel which means I have to wait for the pictures. So feel free to get all psyched and everything, but try to keep in mind that mountain lions will not be in any of the pictures.

Instead, let's discuss my new coffeemaker, shall we?

Sunday morning, when Mike and Stacy arrived at 10:00 for Guatemalan Breakfast & Mimosas, I put the coffee on. And the coffeemaker promptly stopped working. This particular twenty-dollar coffeemaker was something like eight years old, so we let it go without too much of a fuss. It deserves a nice plot with a pretty view, really.

But because I had to be at work by 6:00 the following morning to pack the trucks for our almost disappointingly non-mountain-lion-inclusive trip to Burro Creek, it was the perfect excuse to buy my new favorite appliance: a decidedly-not-twenty-dollars sort of industrial-kitchen-y coffeemaker extraordinaire with a multiple-use gold tone filter. It makes delicious coffee and it looks pretty.










And I'm so happy to have it. Because ranch coffee doesn't mean good coffee. And that's all I've had for days.

The Grandest Garden

We met our cross-the-street neighbor Kim and our mutual friend Clariza this morning to go pay a visit to Clariza's mom Millie. Clariza brought her dog Milagro who stays so often at Kim's that I will refer to her as Clariza & Kim's joint-beagle from this point forward.

Everyone clear on the key relationships? Good.

We spent two hours or so wandering around Millie's yard while she snipped off bits of this and that for Raphael to put in a big cardboard box and Mila terrorized the cats. We had coffee and doughnuts midmorning while perusing Millie's books on succulents and then went back out to say goodbye for another hour.

Millie is sweetly and matter-of-factly enthusiastic about her plants. She would say "obsessive." But she is not scary at all. She does have a number of scary things in her garden however. Her thumb is very green and some of her plants are very, very pointy.

But we had an awesome time. You will more clearly understand exactly how awesome from a glance at the number of pictures I am posting below.

Yes, this is what we do for fun now. Oh my god. Adios childhood, hola people-whose-big-weekend-plans-involve-planting-things-hood. At least upon saying our goodbyes to Clarisa and Kim, one of them mentioned cervezas around the pool. And at least Kim has a pool.

So we're not that lame. We do have neighbors with a pool.

And we have a lot of plants.


it's Christmas for Raphael.



A tree you wouldn't want to lean against.























chicken.






sweetie Mila.














the back of our truck after our visit to Millie's.

Comfort Zone, Schmumfort Zone

Raphael has been urging me to slip out of my Comfort Zone into something more anxiety-generating for some time now. I've been thinking about it a lot lately because the older I get, the smaller the boundaries seem to be getting and I'm bugged by it.

In order to inspire myself, I have compiled a list of people I know who have spent some time out of or at least at the outer limits of their personal Comfort Zones (which may or may not be significantly more roomy than mine).

These people include:

1. my mother - who went back to school to be a teacher after raising two hooligans (also she raised two hooligans, which couldn't have been that comfortable to begin with)

2. my dad - who gave up his mustache to go into the Air Force (and I'm sure enjoyed many additional trips out of his Comfort Zone courtesy of the military that I am unaware of, probably due to their top-secret nature and such)

3. my sister and and her fancy doctor husband Eugene - who are about to produce (if family history is any indication) a hooligan

4. Eugene - who is going to be a doctor (while raising said hooligan)

5. Raphael (whose Comfort Zone appears to encompass several Third World Countries, a handful of volcanoes, making small talk with guerillas, and drinking yak butter tea with sherpas) - who has finally got up the gumption to apply for the UA architecture program at age 33

6. Wingal - who turned family tradition on its head to earn her PhD and is subsequently (and perhaps as a direct result) about to become a whiskey drinker

7. Lila - who ate a bee the other day and also rode in the back of the truck one time


I could go on. But that would put your Comfort Zone at risk of breach, so I'll wrap it up.

My Comfort Zone is pretty narrow. Not much room in there for things like talking to strangers, asking for raises, taking an 8-hour bus ride through Israel alone with no directions and no phone number, teaching middle schoolers how not be looters, hiking up volcanoes, flying, quitting jobs, swimming in icy mountain streams, ordering eggs in Spanish, blogging, whitewater rafting, or summer in Tucson.

Huh.

I had no plan for this post, and I haven't really learned anything from writing it. But I think I've inadvertantly convinced myself that I needn't be that worried about the upcoming canyon hike with the hordes of mountains lions waiting at the bottom - because as it turns out, all my favorite stories have been generated by extreme anxiety.

Comfort Zone be darned. I'm ready, Mountain Lions. Do your worst. If I'm going down there, I want something great to talk about later. I want to make somebody's list.

Save Me, Hyperactive Coffeeman!

There is a redhaired, bearlike, somewhat hyperactive guy named Seth who probably consumes altogether too much caffeine but more importantly operates a little coffee cart/store situated in a narrow alley draped with string lights and green vines in Bisbee, Arizona.

His business isn't that old or that big. He roasts his beans daily and makes deadly amazing chocolate truffles that he will not serve during the summer in Bisbee because it is not truffle season. (He is conscientious.)

If you stop by his little store he will offer you a free shot of espresso that will knock you down and pick you right back up again. He will talk to you about coffee all day long if you ask him to. If you order some of his wonderful coffee in the morning, he will roast the beans himself before shipping them out to you that afternoon.

And if you like coffee and chocolate...why are you still reading this? Go! Go! Go!

The Season When Car Seats Go Bad

They keep telling us it's going to reach the "century mark" this weekend. This might be it, folks. Midwesterners...East and West Coasters...Wingal...Let the weather-related gloating commence.

Yesterday was in fact a turning point of a sort (besides that it was the day we got our wonderfully sturdy Whirlpool fridge). It was the first day this summer that I got innocently into my car after work, leaned back against the light-colored non-leather seat, and burned a swathe of skin off my back right through my shirt. I guess summer really is officially here.

Perilous Journeys

I could talk more about the fridge.

I could explain about the missing (and apparently fictional) screw and the repeat delivery trips to the wrong address; the day our fridge was never loaded onto the truck at all; the endless "I'll-call-you-backs"; the several times managers not only never called back but went home so we could not call them back either; the broken seal; the sagging door (unrelated to the broken seal); the incorrectly attached door (unrelated to either the broken seal or the sagging door but causing its own problems); and our no-doubt legendary status at Lowe's as "Those people about the fridge again"...

But I won't.

To satisfy any residual curiosity, however, I will say that the fourth and -- dare I say it -- final fridge will be delivered today. We have been upgraded to a more expensive and hopefully much higher quality Whirlpool. According to our two friendly delivery guys and a random fridge repair dude, the brand we originally purchased is, in a word, crap. But of course that was only part of the problem.

And there you have it.


I promise more interesting stories involving perilous journeys down into unexplored canyons brimming with mountain lions and treks across stark volcanic landscapes in search of ancient abandoned fortresses shortly. Because hopefully those will be the only things causing me angst in the weeks to come.

And I really hope I don't get eaten by a mountain lion. Because if things finally work out, I will have a functioning fridge to come home to.