budding gardener

Today is Friday.  Friday May 9th.  May 9th is a national holiday in Ukraine, celebrating the end of WWII.  As of yesterday, I was to have the day off.  Then I had an Office Space moment, and lo an behold…

Here I am.  At work.  On what is probably one of the biggest holidays of the year here.  Why?  Because I work in support.  People have to have their problems solved 24/7.  Problems don’t take time off, you know.

Yes, there is a big difference between “I am going to Lviv on vacation” and “I am going to Lviv to work.”  Is this the kind of place I might come back to on vacation?  Possibly.  Not likely, though.  I think I’d rather go to southern Utah or visit friends in Kentucky, California, New Mexico, or Massachusettes (did I miss anyone?).  Lviv is interesting, but there are only so many old buildings I can look at before I feel like I’ve seen them all.  And I think last night, while walking around the “Center” (of town, yes, very original), I hit that point.

Unfortunately, I have a weekend ahead of me, where I am expected by my hosts to be overjoyed at the prospect of spending my days tromping around town.  They say the weather might be bad, though… I can’t remember the last time I was so excited about the possibility of a downpour!

Does that make me a party pooper?  I hope not.  For me, it’s really a matter of timing.  A week before I got on my first plane to Novosibirsk, I was driving a rental truck 2/3 (3/4?) of the way across the US.  A week after I get off my last plane, I will be recovering from surgery.  Squishing this business trip in between two major life events may not have been the best of ideas.

But then again, it might have been brilliant.  Since arriving in Lviv, I have had little to do.  Work here does not even come close to rivaling the usual this must get done right this second or someone will have a coronary pace of US business.  I am tired by the end f the day, but that’s mainly because my job is to sit around and answer a barrage of questions about the product I normally support.  Soon, though, that will no longer be my line of work.

But I digress…

What I also do a lot of here is walk around.  At least, it’s a lot of walking for me.  On average, we’re talking 2-3 miles a day.  And this weekend, it’s likely to be a lot more than that.  And most people here walk fast (it’s the main mode of transportation), so by the time we get anywhere, I have worked up a nice sheen.

Not sweat.  That would be unattractive.

I have a sheen.  Kind of like a glow, but less motherly.

Another digression, I know.  The point is that I have little to do outside of my eight hour shift (including lunch, mind you), except rest.  And go for the occasional walk.  I can’t really eat a lot, because food at the hotel I am staying in is damn expensive.  Sure, the cafe down the street is dirt cheap.  But I will have no idea what I am ordering (except borsch, which I thankfully enjoy).

So what can I say about my wide ranging trip?  Not much, so far.  Except business trips are less fun than I’d hoped, but not as much of a drag as they certainly could be.

I’ve got one last week to chill out here, and then it’s back to the firing line.  Back to ohmygod this guy is freaking out because his ____ doesn’t _____.   Used to be, that kind of thing would really get my blood going.  Now, I find myself thinking, “Is this guy serious?  He’s freaking out over this?  What would he do if his house were on fire?”

Yeah.  Time for a change of pace.

That means hello, here in Russia.

Yes, that’s right.  For those of you who haven’t been following along, I am on A Big Trip Around The World.  Well, not quite.  But it sure feels like it.

Sadly, I don’t yet have time to start the storytelling, but I can tell you that Russia is very different.  It looks different, it feels different.  People drive like maniacs, for one thing.  In a way I kind of respect, though.  There are very few rules of the road, and yet somehow people manage to get from one end of town to the other in cars we would not consider to be road-worthy without smashing in to one another.  I have been here two days and have yet to see an accident.

I see about one a day in Seattle.

Doesn’t say much good about American drivers.  Or maybe it doesn’t say much good about rules.

Time to get back to work!

I sat down this morning to plan out the next couple of months of my life.  I’ve got three major things that have to happen, in addition to the usual (work duties, eating, sleeping, etc):

• I have to move from Louisville, KY to Seattle, WA
• I have to go on a training trip to Lviv, Ukraine and Novosibirsk, Russia
• I have to have surgery to remove a rapidly growing fibroid tumor.

That last is most important in terms of physical health.  The first, in terms of spiritual health.  And the training trip?  It keeps the paychecks coming.

Now I have known for some time that I would be moving.  I just didn’t know where (another apartment here in town?  Some other part of the continent?).  Because I like to be prepared, I have been slowly (and sometimes quickly) working to get packed over the last few weeks.  Thursday I was told I could move to Seattle if I liked, and I could pretty much show up any time I wanted to.  This morning I kept trying to find a way to put things together in this order:

1. Trip to Lviv/NSK
2. Move to Seattle
3. Surgery

But no matter how I tried to plan it, I kept coming up with surgery being literally weeks away.  It’s already been two weeks since I found out I need surgery - by the time I was going to get it done, it would be close to two months later, and probably another centimeter in growth.  That’s not good, in my opinion.

Then it hit me: Why wait?  Why spend the next two weeks sitting around Louisville (I have to wait for a Russian Visa), when I could use that time to move to Seattle?  That would give me a chance to meet with the doctor again (I need a referral to a specialist for the surgery) before my trip, opening the possibility that I can plan the actual procedure for immediately after my return.

That might shave as much as 3-4 weeks off my time.

Plus, I won’t be wasting the next two weeks out here in Kentucky.  I hate sitting around, wasting time.  It’s not like I get that time back or anything.

Once I stopped assuming I had to do everything in the order suggested by my bosses (I now appear to have several), everything fell neatly into place.

So here’s the deal: I probably won’t be writing much over the next few weeks, because I will be traveling in one way or another (either moving or on a business vacation/trip/something).  Then I will be sleeping a lot, because I will be tired from said travel.  And then I expect I will be on pain meds, which will probably again make me sleep a lot.

I promise, though, to document everything as best I can, both in writing and with my nifty new camera, and to come back here and share it all with you.

If you’re interested in a post card, please email me your address, or leave a comment with your email (so I can send you my email, and you can then email me your address.)

I am standing in what used to be my kitchen, watching two big, strapping men haul large pieces of furniture out of my apartment.

This is a completely new experience for me.

The last 20 or so times I’ve moved, I either did all of thos grunt work myself, or had one or two folks helping me out with the big things.  It’s hard, honestly, to stand here while they work so hard.  Really.  I am not kidding about that.  I feel like I am a complete waste of space.

Now I know I am paying them so that I can stand here and do nothing.  And honestly, I am very glad that I am not having to do this myself.  Most of the furniture belongs to my brother, and I am seriously considering never accumulating this kind of stuff.  Ever.  I move too much.

Maybe some day, when I settle down and buy a house.  But maybe not even then.  Tonight I am going to be camping in what will be a very empty living space, and the thought is kind of exciting.  It’s a novel new experience.  I haven’t lived like this since college (Remember our first apartment, Tomoko?).

Of course, the main reason I have never hired movers in the past is because I could never afford to.  That’s part of what makes this so interesting.  This is probably going to cost me $500 or les.  Five years ago, that was a small fortune.  Now, I think, “Man, to think I could have spent a few hundred bucks the last time I moved and not had to spend two days slaving like a mule.”  See, I’ve discovered something: I have better things to do with my time.  It takes me about three days to make the money that I am paying these guys.  Sure, I could do this work myself in less than three days.  But to do it myself I would have to impose on another person (or small group of people), and ask them to give up their precious time as well.  In the end, it’s just not worth it.

Now if I were only moving my own things, I probably still would have done it myself.  I have very  little furniture, and boxes are really not that difficult to deal with.  Plus I’ve gotten rid of most of my books, so the number of way-too-damn-heavy boxes I have is greatly reduced.

Did I just contradict myself?  Maybe.  What I am trying to say is that, if it were just my things, I might have asked a friend to come over and spend an hour helping me move my three pieces of furniture.  I would then have considered the moving of boxes exercise, and viewed it as a normal part of a healthy lifestyle.

Moving a large two-bedroom’s worth of nice, heavy furniture, on the other hand, is a large enough task that it no longer qualifies as exercise.  It falls into the category of way too much damn work not to hire professionals.

Isn’t it ironic that at times when stress is high and a body most needs sleep, it seems least able to get it?

I don’t know if that’s true for you folks, but I sure find it to be the case.

Take tonight for example.  It’s Wednesday night.  Ok, technically it’s early Thursday morning.  I am sitting on the couch writing a blog post, rather than sleeping.  I would prefer to sleep.  I have even, twice, laid down with the lights off and tried.

The trouble is, the longer I lay there, the less I am able to sleep.  I start thinking about things I need to do later.  Stuff I could be doing now.  And then, the worst: I start think that if I don’t get some damn sleep, I won’t be of much use doing those things I need to do later, because I will be too tired.  This morning I even stopped off to get some coffee on the way to work, because I was concerned I wouldn’t make it through the day without it.

(For those of you who don’t know, caffeine is about as much of a drug to me as alcohol.  I am what they call caffeine sensitive.  I am not kidding.  Ask my coworkers.  They got a show today.)

So what am I supposed to do tomorrow?  I am already not going to get enough sleep.  I will be tired.  I don’t want to drink coffee two days in a row.  Movers are coming Friday afternoon to help with the heavy lifting (thank god for a good paying job and a brother who cares - I have never been able to hire movers before).  I’d love it if pretty much everything were packed, so they could get it all into storage for me.  Unless I take half the day off, that’s just not going to happen.

Or I could stay up half the night tomorrow night and finish.  But that’s probably not a very good idea.

My main concern is that I am here, busting my balls* to get everything ready for my big trip to Lviv.  Then I will spend a day or so traveling, and find myself on the other side of the planet, exhausted and jet-lagged, expected to teach perfect strangers how to use our software.   Correction: teach perfect strangers how to teach other people how to use our software.  That’s harder.

I am half tempted to take some kind of knock out pills.  Of course, that would require a trip to the store, as I don’t have any knock out pills.  Why oh why can’t I just go to sleep?  What is it about my biology that likes to conspire with  my ego to drive me into the ground?

Why is my body not as logical as my brain?  Why can’t it just go, “Oh, loads of crap to do.  Need to be well rested.  Lights out for us!”

Why!

Hmm, getting a little why-ny.  Is it obvious yet that I need more sleep?

They say the third time’s the charm (if anyone ever actually meets They, I’d like to hear what their conversational skills are like - full of old cliches?  Or is it memorable new bits?) .  So here goes - my third attempt to get some sleep tonight.

Wish me luck.

* Yes, I have been watching Deadwood lately.  So you may get the occasional reference to reproductive body parts.  I promise to avoid the really bad ones.  But I can’t resist the alliteration - busting balls.  And the irony in the image provoked.  I think it captures my feeling nicely.  Not that I’ve got balls to be busted (literally, anyway).  But I have got an imagination.

Yesterday, at work, I got an email.  In it, I was asked if I could be in the Ukraine.

Next week.

So, with short notice, I am scrambling.

Not that getting ready for a trip really takes me all the time.  I am a well-practiced traveler, and pack lightly.  But they think I may need to be there a couple of weeks, and in a couple of weeks I will no longer have an apartment.  My lease is up here at the end of the month.  So I now have what is probably five days (I don’t know exactly the day I am leaving) to pack my things and get them in storage.

That’s not a lot of time, I know.  So tonight, I decided to use what little time I have to get something done.

I went shopping.

I am now the proud (really?  proud?) owner of a Canon PowerShot SD1100 IS Digital ELPH.   The picture makes this camera look big - in reality it’s tiny, and you can barely read that novella of a name.   The battery is charging right now, so I can’t show of my new gadget.  What most important is that now, my wordy blog will be adorned with more pictures.

From what I have heard so far, I will be leaving this coming Monday and be gone about a week or two.  Not very firm plans, but I am ok with that for now.  Still no clear word on what my new job will be - I am hoping to sort that out during my European vacation.  I mean business trip.  Whatever.

I get a free trip to Europe!

In case you’re wondering just where in Ukraine I am headed, it’s a town called Lviv.  I know nothing about it, except that there are a lot of neat pictures of it in google earth, and that their economy is somewhat depressed.  I promise to take pictures and keep something of a journal, and, if I can’t post while I am away, at least be ready to share my experiences when I get back.

Well, sort of.

I’ve never really been able to think of Kentucky as home, to be honest.  And that strikes me as a little strange.  It’s not like I haven’t had friends here.  In fact, most everyone I’ve met since moving out here qualifies as a great human being.  In terms of people-I’ve-met to people-I-want-to-know, Louisville has by far the highest ratio of any place I’ve ever lived.

That’s pretty impressive.

But people aside, this place just feels wrong.  When I am here it is hard to put my finger on it.  Things just feel a little alien.  I just can’t quite feel, well, at home.  As I drove away from Seatac airport two weeks ago, I finally began to understand why.

I am one of those people who is very interested in and becomes very connected with my geographical surroundings.  For example, any room I spend a lot of time in must have windows (with the exception of the room I sleep in, as I like it to be pitch black when I am sleeping).  It must have windows because I need to get up and look at what’s going on outside once in a while.  It’s the only way I can stand to be indoors at a desk job all day, without feeling like I have become a kind of caged rat.

I’ve discovered, though, that it’s more than this.  I look out the window not just to see what’s going on in the wider world, but to see where I am.

I have a strong sense of place.  And having spend the first 30 or so years of my life in the Northwest, living in a place like Kentucky I find the place lacking.  Specifically, it lacks drama.

Now I don’t normally think of myself as a drama queen.  But when it comes to the place I live, I am all about dramatic views.  That’s part of why I love Utah.  Utah is home to some of the most amazing geography I’ve ver seen.  So is Washington.  In spite of the fact that I have never lived in Utah, I feel more at home there than I do in Kentucky.  And I’ve been here almost a year.

So now I am working on getting home.  I know I haven’t written much lately.  I was on vacation, and have been waiting to hear about the course of my future lately.  This waiting has been hard for me - I am a woman of action, so to speak.  My energy has been going to keeping myself from doing something rash.

Hopefully, I will have news soon, I can begin to act, and my creative juices will again begin to flow.

I’ve been keeping an eye on the art crusades over at this blog for a couple of months now, but it wasn’t until this month (and a trip home to Ellensburg) that I finally got motivated to give this a try.

The idea of making my own stamps immediately sounded like it would be right up my alley (I find I like constructive arts), but I didn’t have any of the tools or supplies involved, so as the days went by and I got involved in other life crap it seemed less and less likely I’d get around to giving it a try (yet again).

Then I showed up at Robin’s. Of course she had magically just been to the store to buy tools for making stamps, so guess what we did for the next two days!

No, it wasn’t watch TV. Gosh.

We made stamps!

My stamps are nowhere near as complicated as some people, but I discovered that this is a great way to solve one of the stamping problems I have had: I can never find what I really want.

Now, if I can draw it, I can make it happen. Over and over again, if I want!

In the second image, you can see I made a stamp that repeats (several of them do), and then a bunch of small stamps to fill in the diamonds it leaves open. That was a lot of fun. I actually made a whole bunch more stamps than you see here, but I’ll save those for later - I want to use them to make something and then post the end result instead of the tools themselves.

I have to say, this really is addicting. I am still without my own set of tools, but I intend to grab some before I leave town.

One of the things I really like about vacations is the time difference. I don’t mean that literally, although I am in a different time zone than I normally find myself, so there is a time difference. Three hours, to be exact.

What I mean is the difference in the way time moves. When I am working (meaning not on vacation), there is a great deal of routine to my days. Not that I do everything according to the clock. I actually don’t even use an alarm to get up, so each day I get up at a slightly different time, leave for work at a slightly different time, etc. But the difference is slight.

But now I am on vacation. I have no where to go, and nothing to do. Somehow, though, my days are actually more full now than they are when I work.

Let’s take yesterday, for example. Yesterday I got up about, oh, 9am (or so, I am not sure now as I just figured out the clock in the room I sleep isn’t correct). I wandered around the apartment I am staying in a bit. Ate a little breakfast, made a half hearted attempt to settle into some eraser carving (I am learning to make my own stamps). I then decided I needed some more supplies, so I took some time shopping. I went to Jerrol’s, the off-campus bookstore. They didn’t have everything I wanted, so I went to the bookstore on campus. They also didn’t have everything, but since I’d never been to the new bookstore (this is the bookstore in my alma mater I am talking about here), I spent some time looking around. It reminds me a lot of Barnes & Noble. Not sure if that’s a good thing, but it’s certainly fancy. And has a lot more books than it used to.

Then I hit the dollar store for some dirt cheap stationary and erasers.

And I figured, while I was around, that I would drop in on my old advisor in the philosophy department - Dr. Li. Dr. Li is one of my favorite people, as he put up with a lot of crap from me and decided not to let it deter him.

After that, I spent about three hours driving around town with my friend Melissa. My job was to entertain and/or keep her kids asleep while she ran around trying to figure out how she can get medications for 1) her youngest, who appears to suffer from the same allergy troubles that I do, and 2) her dog, who has a kind of anemia.

While driving around town in an oddly shaped minivan may not sound like an exciting time, I found it a pleasant way to spend the afternoon. It was snowing but not sticking to the roads, so town looked pretty, and it gave us a chance to talk. We did spend a couple of hours in her actual house, where I got a chance to play with her kids for a little while. So it’s not like she just lives in her van or anything. It was just one of those days. (I assume if you have kids, you already know what I am talking about, and if you don’t, no amount of my explaining will make it click for you, so I’ll just leave it at that.)

I ended the night by having some fantastic ginger pork at Sen, and then carving up some erasers. This brought my day full circle.

Incidentally, I wasn’t able to carve erasers because I could not find Robin’s tools. At some point, a little elf got them out and left them on the couch for me, so that when I finally made it back to the apartment, I was able to get to work.

Also, I am staying at Robin’s, if you’ve been trying to do that math.

If you don’t know who Robin is, you should probably find out. She’s the one who got me started blogging. And carving erasers. And puts me up when I come to town. So far I don’t think I’ve repaid any of these debts.

Yes, I have again strayed from the point. Did you notice?

Yesterday I got a lot done. More than I usually do, frankly. At no time did I feel rushed or even busy. I just got up, did some stuff, and went to bed. It felt fantastic.

Some day (sooner rather than later I hope, but it’ll probably be later), I want to be able to spend every day like this. Some people refer to this state as retirement. These days, I am not sure that term makes sense. Perhaps it is better to say that some day, I will be able to attain a state of nirvana. Or rather, to sustain. To reach a point where my life and my happiness are in accord, and I am free from the past in a way that allows me to fully explore not only my inner world, but the all-important world of relationships.

Eastern religions seem to teach that this state requires only a spiritual endeavor. Here in the west, where money is king, there is a financial aspect to be addressed as well. I won’t have it tomorrow, or even next year. But I know if I keep working at it, I will get there.

Yes, some day I will take a permanent vacation.

Or at least close to it.

Well folks, I am off to vacation yet again.  Unlike December, where vacation meant my birthday and doing as little as humanly possible, I have plans for this trip: it’s more of a working vacation.

Kind of.

Some of you are familiar with some of the craziness at work.  For those of you who aren’t, let me just say this:  There is craziness at my workplace.  I am not particularly fond of craziness in the workplace, so I am, shall we say, window shopping.

There have to be other options, I am sure of it.

So I’ve got a couple of informal interviews scheduled, as well as an appointment to see my doctor (and have my fibroid tumor measured - yay fun, I know).  And this time ’round I rented a car.  I’ll be headed to Portland first, then back up to Seattle, then over to Ellensburg for a few days.  That’s a lot of traveling, I know, but I haven’t done much driving lately (commuting to work doesn’t really count in my book) and I am hoping to enjoy a few solid hours on the mostly-open roads (after all, we are talking Seattle traffic at least part of the time).

It seems, too, that I may be moving soon.  I am not sure where, but it appears there are three main choices:

• Herndon, VA
• Renton, WA
• Novosibirsk, Russia

I have already voted for Seattle, but as we all know by now, my vote is not the only one that counts when it comes to where I get transferred to (one of the downsides to having a boss).  Each option does have some benefits, of course.  If I were to move to Herndon, I would be half a day from my friend Christine, instead of a whole day.  Plus I’d be close enough to New York and New England generally that I could finally explore this last corner of the country.  The downsides are, of course, high cost of living.  I also hear that Herndon is sort of a really boring yuppie center.  Lots of higher end box stores, housing developments and chain restaurants.  Not really my cup of tea, but I suppose it wouldn’t kill me.

Renton, being a suburb of Seattle, would put me near my family and friends again (or at least near enough that a day trip would be reasonable).   Obvious advantage.  It would also put me a day closer to Novosibirsk, and I understand that I may travel there on occasion.  As much as I do like traveling, spending an extra two days round trip each time I were to go there would, well, really suck.  That is unless they pay for first class.  That I might consider.

Novosibirsk has its appeal as well.  It’s in Siberia, a part of Russia that I studied way back when I was a grad student.  It’s also near (or relatively near, by Russian standards of nearness) some geographically interesting places like Lake Baikal.   It’s also near places like Mongolia and Tibet.  Assuming I’d have the time and money to travel while there, it might be an interesting opportunity to explore the over side of the planet.

Of course I’d prefer that Seattle be my base of operations, and would not at all mind traveling to these other offices, even if I wound up spending less than half my time in Seattle itself.  I’d just like to know that, in the future, I will be able to spend time with the people who are important to me.  I am not interested in letting my owrk take over my life again.

My vacation this time around is twelve whole days.  That’s plenty of time to think about all this, get some rest, interview at a couple of places, and come back here ready to start the Next Big Chapter.

***Anyone in the Seattle/Portland/Ellensburg area that I have not yet directly contacted about hanging out - I am not ignoring you.  I have, honestly, been swamped at work and with illness.  My decision to take a few extra days was so I could try to fit in a few more people.  Call me if you’re interested and have time - I’ll be making some more phone calls once I get into town, too.