Oooh Marilyn

It has been brought to my attention by my sister, that Marilyn Monroe once said "I'm selfish, impatient, and a little insecure. I make mistakes, I am out of control, and at times hard to handle, but if you can't handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don't deserve me at my best..."
What can I say? That Marilyn knew what she was talking about and I could bet that we would have been good friends. I have been told that in my younger years I could through an epic tantrum to put all other little girls' tantrums to shame. Apparently I could stomp my feet, throw myself on the ground, kick and wail and even run in place in little circles while doing it. I know my mother well enough to not even imagine that this worked on her for a moment but I do hear that I certainly had my father, various aunts and uncles and even my brother well under my spell.
I have no idea at what age I grew out of my tantrums but I'm sure that selfish, impatient, insecurity is still in me. When you grow up we learn to channel our frustration into other ways, some healthy and some harmful.
I have, at rare times, been called energetic, judgemental, moody, and out of control. And you know what? I am fine with this. No one else is going to live for you so you might as well live for yourself.

Monday Night

It is Monday evening 5:45 pm and I am just getting ready, packing dinner, and procrastinating before heading into work. For the night. Yes this is when my "work week" starts. I will not see the light of day again until 8am tomorrow morning, at which point I will come home, collapse into bed, sleep for 4 hours and then wake up and spend the afternoon doing paperwork for that other job of mine. I will then attempt to sleep tomorrow night for a few hours and spend the next 3 days on the dreaded "day shift". You see I am a night shift person and waking up at 5am to work 14 hours seems unnatural, cruel, unusual and just plan awful to me, but a few days a month I must spend in the sunlight with the rest of the world.
And so you see why I am so cranky so often? It's my darn internal clock thrown into a tizzy.
Just went for a walk around the neighborhood with my 2 year old niece, my cousin and my dog-who was dressed as a zebra. My niece wanted a practice run for trick-or-treating next weekend. The foliage is at it's peak here now and absolutely beautiful. That is all for now, I cannot be late!

Weekend at home

It is fall, It is chilly and I am sick. I am happy about the first two things. When I got home from my trip I went home to see my family. There is no better place for fall I think than Northern New England. Everything, and I mean everything was orange, red and yellow. I took my nephew, who is one and the love of my life, to a corn maze and the pumpkin farm. They had a whole village set up of playhouses- a log cabin playhouse, a stable playhouse, a jail playhouse, a farm playhouse. It was great, he is just starting to say No and learning to be a little bit naughty. His new favorite game is running up to Koko, my pug, and "tickling" him then running away on his wobbly legs, screeching and roaring with laughter thinking that Koko is going to get up and chase him, but he never does. Anyway he tried to do this to the farm animals at the corn maze- the bunnies and sheep and Pygmy goats mainly. He thought it was hilarious and thought it was a riot. He wakes you up in the morning or from naps by petting your face and singing "lalala". I take him to playgrounds and run him down the dirt road at full speed in his little tykes buggy car. There is nothing better than being the favorite Aunt.

I took this picture on my way "home" from home, back down to the city anyway. Hours in the car with just me and Koko and my ipod. We stopped in the White Mountains of NH for a little break and discovered this path.

Hopefully I will be better soon, I grew up under the strict values that being sick is no excuse for not going to work, and I have a lot of work to be at the next few days so we shall see. I am enjoying having cancelled my plans to wine and dine and shop with friends today. My tea, and my current book and my bed are so much more inviting. Let's keep it on the DL though!

Home sweet home

I am back on solid, stable and safe ground. Nicaragua was amazing as usual, the sense of beauty, danger and adventure keeps your blood flowing. We spent the first part of the trip in Managua, the capital city, which wasn't planned but we had a really great time. We stayed at the Backpackers Inn, which 8 bunks (meaning real mattresses!) to a room, hammocks galore and an actual working refrigerator the accommodations were excellent. We also went to an outdoor Reggeatone concert which was an experience in itself. Later we went down to Granada and visited that amazing Volcano crater lake I talked about before. If anyone ever makes it down I really recommend staying at The Monkey Hut. They speak english, have plenty of cold beer, yoga, kayaks, rope swings...basically every fun thing you can imagine. Granada is also a beautiful city. One of the oldest colonial cities in the western hemisphere, the colorful arcitechure is a blast to explore.
Next we took a boat to Ometepe. One of the most remote islands in the world. We stayed on a plantain plantation situated between the two volcanoes that make up the island. Life on the island was perfect. The electricity was very unreliable, which much of the time meant non-existent which meant no fan (AC doesn't exist there) on the 100+ degree nights. Without lights also that meant that when it got dark at 7pm at night there is not a whole lot to do, except what the locals do; sit in the rocking chair in front of your hut for 1-2 hours a night and comment to the person next to you on the most mundane things possible, ie "that breeze feels nice.", "yes that breeze does feel nice.". etc. There is no phones and no computers. Trucks are very rare so everything is "just a 7 or 8 km trot that way". One morning we actually hiked one of the volcanoes(straight up), 12 km each way, 98 degrees out to get to the coffee farm at the top and proceeded to enjoy the best cup of coffee of our lives.
Everything was beautiful, peaceful, perfect. All natural volcanic spring swimming holes, coca cola in glass bottles drank while exploring the jungle, dinners of rice, beans and fried plantains on the porch in the dark while reminiscing with your best friend about high school. I forgot work by day 2. Its easy to blow off and forget things in the real world when you're thousands of miles away and have no way to keep in touch if you wanted. I recommend it for everyone at least twice a year.
I was sad when I had to come back and leave Liz, she is there for another 6 months. Her two year commitment to the peace corps will be up then and then she will be back in the real world.

Fall here is beautiful. I would never want to be anywhere other than New England for it. More on that later