Cold Turkey and Discipline

After a long weekend of excessive drinking (and some smoking- blah) that has spilled over into the week. . . I have come to the realization that I need to detox. So I have decided to streamline my diet, cut out any impurities and quit - gulp - yes, quit drinking for a while. YIKES! I think it will be good - a little discipline is definately needed in my life, right now. I figure I will set my goal to purify until Thanksgiving. I figure that's doable, right? After all you can't eat turkey without a good merlot, can you? But I definately can not smoke anymore. I am an athelete - and it's disgusting. But for some reason when I have a couple in me, all of a sudden, it's acceptable. Until the next day when I go to take a run and can't even get through the second mile. SO LAME! It's got to stop, I say. Wish me luck...

note: caffeine will not be cut out of my diet - I would surely be forced to kill someone if coffee were taken away.

Pumpkins and Beer

Two of my favourite things...thank god today is the last day of the work week. After one crisis after another my week of "fire fighting" is almost over. Tonight I celebrate with a beer and pumpkin carving party. This brilliant idea came from my roommate who thought that mixing alocohol with a knife weilding activity would be great :) Me? I am just in it for the beer and to stand by with my first aid kit handy - I am red cross certified, you know. I just can't wait to relax and catch a nice buzz...but first I must go put out some more fires. How is anything productive supposed to get done when they have me off smoke jumping? I just have to remember the light at the end of the tunnel....mmmm, beer.

Update

I have just received an update on Sock's whereabouts. He is on the tracks in South Norwalk, CT...more updates to follow

Sock's Story

Sock monkey has been the best travel buddy I have ever had (next to Steph, Lynn and my other cohorts). He was a gift to me when I travelled to Russia three years ago from my ex so that I would have a reminder of him during our summer apart. Sock (as we have fondly come to call him) has seen and experienced more of the world than most humans dream of. When Lynn and Steph joined me in Russia they quickly came to love him and the 3 of us decided to create "the Adventures of Sock Monkey" series. And so his life of infamy (and sometimes debauchery) began...

Having broken up with the giver of Sock sometime ago, I have since donated, burned or given away all he had ever given to me. It was my way of starting over, coping or whatever you may call it (female drama?). The one thing I could not get rid of was Sock. He became so much more than a gift. He became a partner in crime, an integral part of my travels, and an anticipated familiar red smile among our photos. Deciding that I needed to let him go (sob) to finally be completely over the past was a most difficult decision. I scoured my mind and quietly studied my friends to decide who would have the honor of being Sock's new travel partner. So it only seemed natural when one average day I was reading my friend Lynn's blog from El Salvador, then the next from Guatemala, then the next from Montreal or wherever she had ended up...she just had to be the next owner of Sock!

So this past weekend I met with Lynn in Vermont. Not letting her know exactly what was going to happen, I discretely placed Sock on her bed in the hotel prior to her arrival (sob). When she did finally show up he greeted her with a most welcome and very familiar red smile that we have all grown so found of. She didn't even ask but just knew why he was on her bed. The rest of the weekend he spent in her care, driving in her car, photos in her house...

It is still hard for me, but I know he is in good hands and he will see far more of the world with Lynn. I only asked that I keep getting photographic evidence of his amazing endeavours and that he join us on our adventures, as well. God speed, Sock!

Playing Hooky

Today is a typically dreary, rainy day in Rochester. I usually feel depleted on the days it rains here - not sure if it's due to the lack of sun light or the fact that it's just not motivating to go and play outside in the cold, autumn rain. But today I feel rejuvenated. It could be the combined 24 hours of sleep I had over the weekend or it could be the fact that I went AWOL yesterday and spent the afternoon road riding in Mendon instead. Yes, I am certain the latter is the cause of my mental and physical well being today.

Having an unusual warm and sunny day in late October is reason for celebratation in this town...so that's what I did. By leaving work 3 hours early and enjoying every bit of the amazing day that was left. I know work will be here today, tomorrow and the following days to come as I also know that it will rain (and snow) for more days than I can handle (for the next several months). Therefore an executive decision had to made. Work a full day and waste the weather or skip out and pay for it later. I am currently paying on that debt but with a great sense of fulfillment and an ear to ear grin :)

Don't Upset the Monkey

This is what happens when you do upset the monkey...YIKES!

http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/asiapcf/10/22/india.monkeyattack.ap/index.html

Back in Civilization

I am back from a long weekend of no internet access and a cell phone which kept roaming on a Canadian signal. So it feels great to check my millions of emails, make all those calls that I missed and yes, to blog again. I am, however, exhausted from the drive so I will have to continue my thoughts tomorrow...

Road Tripping

So I just returned from my weekend of many miles, bad radio and even worse drivers...it's so good to be home. As I sit with my laptop, in my bed, surrounded by my menagerie of animals (real ones, not stuffed - sock monkey has a new owner now...that's a whole other story). I must say as much as I love to travel and experience new locations, re-live old locations or just get out of Rottenchester - I ABSOLUTELY HATE DRIVING! No matter how amazing the destination if the road trip requires me behind the wheel, I will most definitely be frazzled at the end of it all.

The fact that I don't have any real means to good tunes doesn't help matters. Why is it that in the rural parts of our country the only stations available to us are either "bad" country or bible thumping? I say "bad" country because there is such a thing as good country. For instance Rascal Flatts is bad country. George Strait is good country. You get the picture? Probably not but that's irrelevant.

So then my other choice were the stations that felt they needed to save my sinful soul. NO thanks. I know I am a far cry from a saint, but I do try to live a good, clean life (ok, so I like to drink, however, monks make beer & Jesus turned water into wine...I rest my case - of 2003 Modavi Reserve Cabernet). So to try and stomach the blasphemous spew that's crying out for me to take Jesus into my heart, blah, blah from a man who most likely has at least one if not several mistresses is intolerable! Ok, so then I turn to the a.m. dial on my 1998 standard Subaru radio...and I do find salvation. This auditory ray of sunlight through the clouds of the f.m. convolution comes in the form of NPR. Ah yes, the only thing I have to keep me from barrelling into on-coming traffic or veer my 16" wheels (hell yeah - El Fuego is pimped w/ his racing tires!) off the shoulder then subsequently off a cliff. This however is impossible due to the fact that NYS Thruway is as flat as the road killed possum I passed by mile marker 179. So to drive off the shoulder would only result in my car engaging it's all wheel drive and keep going through some poor farmer's field destroying either his soybean crop or scaring the shit out of his cattle. We don't like hurting the hard working people in the world.

They say it is not the destination but the journey - in my case destination was the only thing I had going for me...
The leaves in Vermont were amazingly beautiful and the couple of days in Cape Vincent were incredibly relaxing - the journey did provide a well deserved interlude amongst the chaos of the road. And now I am home and grounded - for a few days at least, when the memory of driving fades and the desire of getting the hell out here takes over again!

American Fork Canyon

Rookie

So this is my first blog - ever. Yes, EVER! I don't have an IPOD, the "stereo" I use is a boombox from 1991, I just got a laptop last fall (first computer EVER), I don't IM, I don't download songs on Itunes, nor have I ever even seen the Napster site, I don't Ebay, hell, my car still has a tape deck! So to say I am behind the techie times would be a gross understatement. I know, I feel as if I have living under a rock or in some technologically backwards timewarp - I just got my first DVD player (ever) last Christmas. Well, it's time to catch up with the 21st Century (that is the one we're in, right?)....

I must also interject here that this blogging thing was no idea of mine...oh no. As a human being we are susceptible to peer pressures and influences, both positive and negative, from those we hold closest to us. Brutus fell to the (negative) pressures of those who wanted a leader removed - so he killed his best friend due to those pressures. When in Rome.....

Here I am blogging because my roommate has started doing it on his myspace page, then one of my closest friends started her own blog site(thanks Jennie) - next thing I knew everyone was doing it! I must say, I have never been one to fall into the pressures of my peers - nor have I been known to follow the lemmings to the cliff - unless I am harnessed and tied off, of course. But here I am running with wild abandon staring at the furry little asses in front of me, not knowing where we will end up or even why we are running. All I know is they're all doing it, so it must be great....