Making Lemons Out of Lemonade, or whatever.

I am sitting in the Denver airport, flying home after a three day meeting and my flight, I have just been informed, has been cancelled. Not delayed. Not rescheduled. Cancelled.

Cancelled, they tell me, for weather related reasons, out of Denver. As I sit here brooding, two hours after my flight should have left, I am looking out at clear skies. In the distance, the Rocky Mountains frame the horizon. United Airlines put me on another carrier’s flight, about four hours after my original flight should have left, but with no guarantees that I’ll get home tonight. We’ll see if it goes out, they tell me. This flight to Madison is the only way home tonight, and if they cancel it, they won’t even comp my hotel room. It’s weather related, you know, they remind me. I stare out the window at blue skies and I smolder. Rar. And also, grrrr.

This is the first time I have been away from Jack since he was born (shout out to Grandma who flew out to my annual conference in November so Jack could travel with me on that trip). First of all, let me say, this sucks rotten eggs. Second of all, the Denver airport has no effing place to pump breast milk. As I sit here, all of the milk I have pumped over the last three days sits thawing out in my carry on suitcase, no doubt making a gross milky mess of my Smartwool socks and whatever else I crammed in there to try to up the insulation factor. And I get pissier by the minute. So naturally, I turn to people watching.

Why is that woman wearing such ridiculous high heels? Why is that man talking so loudly on his cell phone? Why is that lady speaking that way to her kid? They are eating THAT? What is that guy reading? Why is her bag so… pink?

Why is it that when we are unhappy we begin judging other people?

There is this really unfortunate tendency that I think we share as humans to start judging others and ourselves when we are unhappy. I have no doubt that it feeds back into itself- we judge ourselves and others, which makes us unhappy, then we judge others to make ourselves feel better. We can always find someone that we can compare ourselves favorably to, right? That stranger, that co-worker, that neighbor, that friend, that cashier who totally didn’t know what she was doing on the cash register at the drugstore. Good thing we are not as bad as THOSE folks. Right?

I suspect this explains the ratings for the Jersey Shore.

It is always a good time for mindfulness, but as I sit here brooding, anxious to get back home and to my family, it is a particularly good time to practice mindfulness and loving kindness. To stop the angry judging, to stop the irrational and unloving inner sniping at myself and others. To take a deep breath and perhaps, even, maybe, enjoy the next hour or two as an opportunity to read, write and meditate.

You know, make lemonade out of lemons… or perhaps butter out of thawed breastmilk…?

Well, Nebraska isn't SO bad…

I am in Nebraska today, on day three of our great Midwest Adventure. I am checking out a conference facility here in Nebraska City, where my organization will hold a conference in November. We pulled in late last night amid torrential rain and lightening so strong that it lit up the entire sky like day light. We had a quick, late dinner and fell promptly asleep. This morning I have finally had the chance to look around and check out the facility in earnest. So far, so good. Lots of natural light, wood ceilings and beams, decent coffee, hiking trails and comfortable beds. Now I am off to see what else this lodge has to offer our members, and then we’ll continue on to Kansas for a couple more meetings and then a visit with some family.

Before this, we drove through South Dakota and before that Minnesota, with several meetings in Minneapolis. The best part, by far, of Minneapolis was sitting in a coffee shop, having a cup of coffee with one of my board members, and watching a Peddle Pub cruise past the window. I did not take this video, but could have, as this is exactly what I saw while sitting in Nina’s coffee shop in Saint Paul:



The name says it all. It is a pub. That you peddle. Excellent.

Aside from the beer, we have seen lots of corn. Lots and lots of corn. Minnesota, South Dakota, Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas. I had no idea our country grew so much corn. Which, Chris informs me, is not the "eating kind of corn". These corn fields we are passing are actually "milk" fields. As in, the corn is grown to feed cows, which we then milk. But, considering the preponderance of high fructose corn syrup in everything from ketchup to Pepsi, I am pretty sure that we are actually seeing soda fields.

Alaska

We got in last night (actually this morning) and are adjusting to the time change and sleep deprivation. We went for a hike at Hatchers Pass after some sleep and some more sleep.

Where's Hatchers Pass?

Here:


Or, here:












It's 9:30 pm and still full daylight. Exhausted. Sleep. Must sleep.

Packing

Packing

We're packing. Well, Chris is packing. I am updating my blog (and checking Facebook)and trying to figure out if I can send pictures from my camera to the blog. As it turns out, yes.

Yes, I can.

Expect to see approximately one gillion blurry camera phone pics over the next ten days (or until I get distracted by something shiny and forget to email them to the blog).

I'll try send at least a picture a day while we are in the 49th state. Enjoy. Or whatever.

Things my Facebook status might say if I were not friends with people that have the power to fire me

"Melissa Gavin is not concentrating very well today"

"Melissa Gavin is thinking about what to pack for Alaska instead of what elements need to be included in this final report"

"Melissa Gavin is secretly looking at maps of Alaska and abruptly minimizing the window when an office mate walks by"

"Melissa Gavin is wishing the work day were over instead of just beginning"

"Melissa Gavin is wondering what to bring along to keep the kids occupied for five hours in the air"

"Melissa Gavin is wondering whether to bring her Tevas or her Keens to Alaska"

"Melissa Gavin is doing a piss-poor job of lots of things today"

"Melissa Gavin is pulling up travel sites while on a conference call"

"Melissa Gavin is doodling 'Melissa loves Alaska forever' with hearts and flowers all over her call notes"

"Melissa Gavin is, like, totally checked out"

Things to do before I go:

• Pack


• Make packing list


• Think of things to put on packing list


• Start packing again with packing list


• Realize (yet again) that I hate to be told what to do, even by my ownself. Ball up packing list.


• Toss list ball over my shoulder.


• Get distracted by mess in the room (Look at this! Someone threw a balled up packing list on the floor! God, does the cleaning in this house never END??)


• Begin obsessively cleaning entire condo


• Obsessively clean entire condo late into the night


• Give Chris the evil eye for not helping me regrout the bath tub at 2 am


• Fall asleep, exhausted


• Wake up in a panic to realize that I have still only packed a bathing suit, some lip gloss and a pair and a half of socks. Wonder why I packed a bathing suit. Contemplate which bathing suit, if any, I should bring.


• Go check the weather for Alaska


• Spend an hour on Facebook and get sucked into funny YouTube clips


• Get reminded by Chris that we need to leave in half an hour to catch the plane


• Roll eyes


• Open dresser drawers and scoop random clothing articles en masse into suitcase. Hope there is something in there that matches whatever else is in there. Guzzle large of amounts of coffee


• Spill coffee mug on newly steamvaccummed carpet


• Get huffy and emit generalized angry vibes


• Watch gratefully as Chris silently swoops in and saves the day by cleaning, packing for the kids and herding everyone out the door on time.


• Sheepishly thank Chris for this and the last nine years of this. Secretly wonder what I would do without him.


As you can see, there is still much for me to do. So how can I possibly work today? There's no time like the present to start procrastinating.

I love bullet points

• It’s as if I don’t have to organize my thoughts or even be particularly concise because there is this small circle at the beginning of my sentence and this is all the organization and consision I need (I made that word up, but I kind of like it, so let’s roll with it). Looks like I could be in the military .


• I finally did get the sand box done and the pictures are in my camera. But I can not show them to you. Because my camera is broken. It is … clogged with sand. I wish I were making that up.
  
  God, the irony.


• We are going to Alaska in three days. I have not mentioned this before on the blog because I have not thought about the trip since I booked the tickets two months ago. It is not that I am not excited. I just can’t think past dinner.


• Does anyone know a good acupuncturist? How do you tell the quacks from the nonquacks? Do they help make stabbing, shooting pain running down the entire back of your right leg go away? How much would it cost for just the stabbing pain to go away? Is shooting pain more or less expensive to treat than stabbing pain? Can needles even make stabbing pain go away? Does it work like a double negative in Algebra? When, if ever, does self administration with a knitting needle make sense? Do I send myself the bill? Will I have good magazines in my waiting room?


• This is what I devolve into at 4 pm on a work day.


• It is raining here, again. Good for the (now) sixty plus tomato plants that are taking up residence in our no-till plot. We had twenty plants in already, but were given an entire flat of tomato plants yesterday for free and, well, we love our Friday night pizza tradition.

  We were also given celeriac. Which I assumed was the misguided giver's poor attempt to spell "celery". It wasn't. I planted four plants before it dawned on me that maaaaaaaybe this person didn't have such a precarious grasp of spelling. Maybe there IS such a thing as "celeriac". And maybe it is not just a word that sounds like a treatment for a mental disorder.

  I just hope it doesn’t taste like ass, because it is taking up precious real estate from my beloved tomatoes.
  
  Also, we discovered asparagus in our plot! This new section was plowed into garden plots just this spring. Prior to that it had been a neglected baseball field. After I fenced off our plot this year, I noticed asparagus growing along the chicken wire. Woohoo! I noticed it too late for us to harvest this year, but next year we’ll have some fresh asparagus.

• I'd like a couple of book suggestions for the trip.

• I will probably not read the books.

• I will probably get them, pack them, feel guilty about hauling them to Alaska and allowing them to replace other things in my suitcase (like Children's Tylenol), intend to read them as soon as the kids fall asleep, try to get the kids to fall asleep, fall asleep myself, wake up to see the kids using them as hats, confiscate them, shove them into my suitcase, forget about them, haul them home and wonder why I even thought I should bring them along in the first place because I never have time to read at home, let alone when I am on a trip with two kids who are bouncing off the walls from all of the excitement and no place to settle them down in, and then leave them in my half unpacked suitcase until Chris decides he has had enough and unpacks everything for me and puts my suitcase away, neatly placing the books on my dresser.

• So do you have any good book recommendations?

  
  

It’s raining.

But despite the downpour I am in sunny spirits, because:

1. We leave for the Porcupine Mountains tomorrow and I am eagerly anticipating hiking through the forest to a cabin on Lake Superior, cooking beans on the woodstove and inhaling the sweet scent of pine and cedar, or whatever.

2. The dreaded board meeting is over and yippee! We all get to keep our jobs for now. It is, of course, touch and go, with our funding still anticipated to last until EXACTLY the end of this year. But at least the board did not decide to lay off the entire staff to make the funds stretch further, which was one of the options on the table. Deep sigh of relief. I can pay the mortgage for a couple more months. As my Dad points out, maybe getting a degree in Nonprofit Management was not the best idea. But I am now adept at making no money, and can help you, too!

3. Ella is on the mend from Roseola, which makes life so much better for everyone. Word.

4. Tom Delay danced the cha-cha to "Wild Thing" on Dancing with the Stars last night. I don't know whether to be amused or sicked out, but I suppose I can be both. Go watch him make a spectacle of himself in all his booty shaking, stuffy conservative glory.

5. My dad reminded me that life goes on, and kids eventually stop vomiting in your ears. Kathy reminded me that dogs can get sick, too, and empty their insides all over your carpet, which she had the pleasure of waking up to this morning, and I did not. It is the simple things in life, like not waking up in a bed filled with a variety of canine fluids, that really make me happy, I suppose.

I’ll be out of range of the internet for the next several days, but will post when I get back on Tuesday. In the meantime, check out where I’ll be:

Days 1-3: Hiking to a cabin on Lake Superior in the Porcupine Mountains
Days 4-6: Paddling to our campsite in the Sylvania Wilderness

Look for pictures in a few days!