December 2016
Bishop sun's out guns out!
Winter bouldering is the best. It's hot enough during the day to climb shirtless, but the nights drop to freezing temperatures! The contrast between night and day is amazing.
For some people, this is a reason to hate winter climbing, but I love it. The crispness of the air reminds me that I'm alive. It's cold but I've accepted it, so it's not painful but enjoyable.
To a certain point, anyway! At cold enough temps, I'm sure it gets downright miserable, but luckily it didn't get that cold for me.
Anyway, it'd been a while since the last Bishop trip-- maybe a year! I was excited to give some old and new problems a try.
To be honest, I'm not sure how much I've improved in bouldering in the past year, but I did send the crack climb to the left of the Ironman Traverse, so I've for sure improved in crack climbing! Which is great because getting better at crack climbing was one of my goals!
However, not great because getting better at bouldering is also one of my goals...
Oh well. Win some, lose some.
On the plus side bouldering with dogs is great. If you want endless stoke, just get a dog. They're excited for you regardless of how you perform on the rock! Thanks pups!
Now if only you could channel that stoke directly into me...
My family celebrates Thanksgiving every year with a proper American Thanksgiving meal-- turkey, ham, mashed potatoes and gravy, stuffing, pumpkin pies and greens. We watch football and drink shitty American beer like Coors and Budweiser.
At what point will someone look at our family and finally think of us as Americans?
I made deviled eggs. Deviled eggs are my favorite appetizer to make. I usually do a pretty good job of it, though this time I think they could've had a little more kick to them.
The first time I'd ever had deviled eggs was when I was living in Atlanta. I didn't even know what they were before then! But now I love them lots. Yummmm.
Ginger is a funny thing. The flavor is so great for cooking, and ginger candies are delicious. This is ginger ice cubes in ginger beer which is absolutely delightful. But eating just ginger by itself is gross.
Allison made the ginger ice cubes. She is a wizard, and I'm glad for it! I hope she makes ginger ice cubes forever.
To be honest, I'm not big on gifts.
I try to minimize my possessions, so I feel bad buying people gifts if I'm not sure they'll like them. For me, there's nothing worse than to receive a gift I don't want from someone, because then I don't want to throw it away because it's full of good intentions and yet it's not useful so what do I do with it?
I also believe that the most important part of a gift is that it's full of good feelings.
So I often try to make my gifts.
This year, I made pre-measured cookie mixes, because cookies are delicious and make you happy, and also who couldn't use another mason jar in their life? And cats.
Speaking of cats, I went to this super adorable cat event and they had a cat-shaped cookies which they also used as ornaments in their Christmas tree.
Or should I say
Catmas tree.
Sorry.
I'll see myself out.
But also I'm not sorry at all.
I love puns.
I'm pretty sure they're the punnicle of humor.
Okay kinda sorry.
The Ghost Ship fire took place just a few blocks away from our schools. I pass right by it every single day on my bike ride to work.
Immediately afterwards, people began leaving flowers, candles and art to commemorate those who died in the fire.
Several of the local schools put up letters from the children.
It was really quite beautiful.
It rained in the days just after the fire, soaking all the things left behind.
It seemed a little sad, that things would just wash out like that so soon.
But at the same time, appropriate.
The earth continues to spin, the sun continues to burn, and the rain continues to fall despite what we do.
Whether we eat each other alive or raise each other up, life goes.
All we can do is to make life as beautiful as we can, really.
The area our schools are in is a high poverty, high immigration area. Every winter, our teachers band up together to, out of their own pockets, help support their highest need students. They buy winter coats, shoes and even toys to give to their students secretly as gifts from "Santa".
I made a post on this on my Facebook, asking if people would like to donate. I thought I'd get just a few messages, but actually ended up with a quite overwhelming response!
It was really heartwarming to see the community reaction. I was able to buy jackets, shoes and grocery store gift cards for two of our families.
In some ways, these actions don't fix their plight. It doesn't increase their wages, if they even have jobs, and doesn't remove the language and cultural barriers they face.
But I like to think this gives them hope and faith in goodness, so that they can tear down these barriers one brick at a time.
As long as we hope and believe in goodness, we can still achieve so much more.