wildcelticrose.net

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For some reason, I’m really into this song lately…

This is a cute video adaptation (the sound comes on in a few seconds)

Hello Seattle, I am a mountaineer

In the hills and highlands

I fall asleep in hospital parking lots

And awake in your house

Hello Seattle, I am a manta ray

Deep beneath the blue waves

Ill crawl the sandy bottom of Puget Sound

And construct a summer home

Hello Seattle, I am the crescent moon

Shining down on your face

I will disguise myself as a sleeping pill

And descend inside of you

Hello Seattle, I am a cold seahorse

Feeling warm in your sand

I sing about the tide and the ocean surf

Rolling in the evening breeze

Hello Seattle, I am an albatross

on the docks and your boats

I sail above your inlets and interstates

Through the rain and open wind

Hello Seattle, I am an old lighthouse

Throwing beams of bright lights

Red in the morning, blue in the evening sun

Taken heed from everyone

Hello Seattle, I am a mountaineer

In the hills and highlands

I fall asleep in hospital parking lots

Take me above your light

Carry me through the night

Hold me secure in flight

Sing me to sleep tonight

Take me above your light (Hello Seattle I am)

Carry me through the night (a mountaineer, In the hills)

Hold me secure in flight (and highlands I fall asleep in hospital)

Sing me to sleep tonight (parking lots and awake)

Mood: Contemplative

~L

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A few people had questions about the T-shirt I was wearing at Betsy’s birthday party this weekend.

Tacoma’s nickname is Grit City

Tacoma was built on a working waterfront; ship yards, longshoreman…

It is home to two military bases, Ft Lewis and McChord Air Force Bace, with Sub Base (that would be nuclear submarines) Bangor just North of here.

Tacoma is “gritty” and those who do not care for the downtown Renaissance and associated “gentrification” of the waterfront will tell you that.

Those of us who don’t kid ourselves about the roots of this town (but who do enjoy the museums, espresso shops, art galleries, micro breweries theatres and martini bars) are proud to be Gritty Tacomans (that would be “a person from Tacoma” not a “Taco Man”, although I do love me some tacos!)

I recently explained this term to the Icky Boy (who as a self proclaimed neo-Luddite is not tied into the blogsphere like I am) and it struck a chord.

When he got back from his trip, he gave me this shirt (yes, my boyfriend went to the Grand Canyon and brought me a Tacoma T-shirt)

I LOVE this shirt by the way…

In other “news” you might want to avoid Ballard on the 17th of May as I got talked into playing my fiddle on a parade float for the Norwegian Day parade

Does anyone have anything Norwegian that I can borrow to wear on the float? I wear a women’s size medium.

My fiddle teacher is going to help me learn the three new (Norwegian, DUH) tunes I have to know.

Oh yeah, there are those (looking at YOU Leo) who give me crap about my redheaded, blue eyed fair skin and the associated burn I received on the Daffodil Classic Bicycle Ride yesterday.

I don’t normally burn. As a matter of fact, before I moved to this dark, gray, cloudy, rainy corner of the world (that would be the Pacific Northwest/Western Washington for those of you that are new here) I used to be shockingly tanned for a blue eyed, red headed Celt…

Here are my tanned feet, complete with Chaco (cool water sandals that only river guides knew about back in the day) stripes from when I was a River Guide on the Colorado River based out of Moab Utah.

I have just enough French and Arapaho blood to offset the fair Celtic skin, and up until I moved here, never got burned. (and even when I do, it doesn’t hurt and it only lasts a day or two)

I’m sure I had more to blog about, that I’m gonna call that good for now.

I need to practice my fiddle and maybe make another pomegranate martini

It was a Monday

~L

Mood: Busy

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Today is the day in which everyone claims to be “Irish” for a day. (Oh, did you know that St Patrick is believed to have been of Welsh descent?)

It’s a day where many of the self proclaimed Irish go out and drink too much and often behave like idiots. Much like New Year’s Eve, St Patrick’s Day is often considered “amateur night” due to the sheer volume of drunken idiots out getting their party on.

Like New Years’s Eve; it’s certainly not a night I’d be out on the road risking my life driving with the idiots, especially not on a week night, when I need to be on the 5:00 AM train for work the next day.

And then there’s the big debate (OK, it’s a big debate in some circles) as to if the alleged “snakes” that St Patrick supposedly drove out of Ireland really refers to the serpent symbol favored by the druids as he helped covert the country to Christianity.

I know many good pagan folk that boycott the holiday because face it, driving the earth centered religion out of the land isn’t a very nice thing to do so why “celebrate” it? (Hmmm, sounds a bit like US Thanksgiving doesn’t it?)

I know many peace loving people of Irish descent who wear red to protest the blood shed by religious war in Ireland and do not participate in the activities.

I know other people who wear Orange on the day in support of Irish Protestants.

It’s not only a holiday in which people often over indulge, but it is one that has some serious social, political and religious issues attached to it.

I’m becoming a fan of the term “Irish Day” rather than “St Patrick’s Day”. Although I am of Irish descent (and Scots and Welsh among others) I am not Catholic (nor Christian) and the only “saint” I have any relationship with is Brigid who was a Goddess long before she was canonized and her flame is still tended in Kildare Ireland. (interestingly enough, by nuns)

I wear green, not to choose a “side” but because I don’t necessarily want to be pinched. (oh, and I’ve been told it looks good with my hair color)

So I’m going to celebrate “Irish Day” and let everyone else celebrate (or not) as they see fit. (much like I celebrate US Thanksgiving as a day to give thanks and share with friends rather than pretend that atrocities were not committed against the first nations people)

I enjoy Celtic music and a Guinness as much as anyone and will most likely walk to my neighborhood pub to listen to some music, drink a Guinness, complain that it’s too loud/noisy/crowded and go home early (did I mention that 5:00 AM train?)

I hope everyone enjoys this day and that they do so responsibly; please don’t drink and drive and risk your life or the life of some innocent person on the road.

~L (whose break is over and needs to get back to work)

Mood: Celebratory

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My 4-day weekend is coming to a close. [sigh]

We had some decent weather on Friday and I’m glad I took advantage of it and rode my bike, because the weather for the last three days has sucked pond water. Snow, wind, hail, rain… YUCK!!!

One of my LJ friends (can’t remember who this late in the day) posted THIS in response to complaints from friends that he hasn’t been updating…

this is for Lazy Bloggers

I took yesterday (Sunday) as a rest day after pounding my legs on the St Patty’s Day run after the 32 mile bike ride. I really let the last weeks/months of stress/sleep deprivation wear me down and it’s not easy getting built back up.

I had a good swim today. The new suit works well and I no longer have to worry about falling out of the top or the halter coming unsnapped. It doesn’t have quite the coverage in the rear that my “fashion” suit has, but I actually look more trim and fit in the higher cut race suit.

On the way over, I stopped at Super Suppliments to see if I could find some BCAA. (branched chain amino acids) I chose some that also had glutamine and B-6 to help absorption. Of course, I won’t take anywhere near as much as they recommend for big guys doing body building, but I think that at least for the time being, I need to make sure I have a little extra to help me recover from long rides, runs, etc… Normally, I don’t believe in supplements and that we should get what we need from food, but I do take a multi-vitamin and a calcium supplement as well as MSM/Glucosamine when I’m running and pounding my fractured joints. In any event, I’ll reassess in a couple of weeks to see if they’ve done any good.

I also decided to add an egg a day to my diet to get more protein and choline. I’ve never had much luck boiling eggs without the yolks turning funny colors, so I tried the method from this website How to Boil the Perfecct Hard Boiled Egg. I’ll know tomorrow if it worked or not.

I made another “Bad Beginner Adult Fiddling” video. I’m going to need to experiment on where to place the camera. I know it doesn’t pick up sound all that well, but it seems to be much worse quality where I had it set up this time. I may not sound all that great, but the violin sounds MUCH better in real live than in this video.

And now, I need to get to bed so that I’m ready for my work week.

~L

Mood: gotta get busy

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It was a pretty mellow weekend, which I needed.

There was “icky boy time”, “best friend time”, “photography time” and “music time”.

I took a few walks, but mostly rested and ate. I’m making a conscious effort to replenish what the last several weeks of not sleeping or eating right (some days, not eating at all) too out of me and caused my bonk on Chilly Hilly. I’m also making a concerted effort to get more potassium into my diet, and I was likely somewhat hypokalemic (low potassium levels which can cause/exacerbate SVT/cardiac arrhythmias) I’m not going to take a supplement, but I’m making sure to eat more potassium rich foods such as orange juice, avocados and sweet potatoes. Despite popular misconception, bananas are not the best source and I find them gross, as well as a huge waste of fuel and other resources to ship them this far away from where they grow. Oh, and I’m also taking my vitamins and calcium/magnesium/vitamin-D supplements again.

I had a wonderful photo safari at the WW Seymour Botanical Conservatory just down the street in Wright Park.

I’ve been working my fingers raw on the violin to learn the new piece (I chose a difficult one on purpose)

It’s making me read music again.

I posted the link to the flashcards in my last post, but after some searching, I finally found the awesome practice tooks that I used before. They are at emusictheory.com the best music online music practice tool I’ve ever found.

This one is a FABULOUS timed note drill. You can choose treble, base or grand staffs and include or exclude sharps and flats

This one, is an awesome violin fingering drill. You’re shown the note on the staff and have to find the placement on the violin finger board.

Speaking of violins.

Mine still hasn’t told me her name.

My first violin’s name is “Fiona”. (aka, my Fine Irish Fiddle Cleverly Disguised as a Cheap Chinese Violin)

Does anyone have any suggestions as to what to name her?

I’d like a Celtic-Gaelic name if possible but I’m open to other suggetions.

She’s very beautiful, and has a sweet, dark, tone…

I’m taking suggestions, let em fly folks…

Now, I need to get some serious practice in, write a magazine article that is due and get some photos in, and get ready for the upcoming work week.

~L

Mood: Musical

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A friend of mine was adding some Tom T Hall songs to his MySpace profile. He hadn’t yet added one of my favorite Tom T Hall songs.

I found the original recording on YouTube. The video isn’t so good, but it’s great to hear the silly song.

Last night, I went over to the icky boy’s for dinner and do to laundry.

I was wearing some running pants, instead of my usual warm fuzzy lounge pants.

The first words out of his mouth were… “What? No moose jammies?”

“Uh, no… I thought I’d wash them so that they wouldn’t be stinky moose jammies.”

Here are said moose jammies all nice and clean. (piccie taken with my new phone)

This morning, I woke up feeling pretty decent and can’t decide if I want to swim today (tomorrow would be better as the pool will be open for adult swim only) or an easy run in the park; or maybe just a long walk?

If I look out one window, I see a bit of blue sky peeking out, if I look out the other window, I see storm clouds.

Tonight, we’re going over to Molly and Charlie’s for dinner; it seems like forever since I’ve seen my best friend, we’ve both been so busy and stressed. (and no, I’m not wearing my moose jammies)

I’ve been doing well on my fiddle practice and have been making time every day no matter how busy I am. I picked a more difficult fiddle tune to learn this week so that I’d be forced to read the music. (I only learned when I was 41, so it’s not like I had a lifetime of it and it wasn’t easy to forget with a 4 ½ year break. I’m getting it back and that makes me happy.

For anyone interested in learning, relearning or just wanting to see how much they do (or don’t) remember; here’s a cute site with online musical note flashcard (just in treble clef)

here they are…. treble clef flashcards

I should probably go actually practice instead of just talking about practice…

~L

Mood: amused

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The good news, is that after several weeks of “OMG Teh Stress” on all fronts, I’m finally starting to feel like “me” again.

I actually slept well last night, for the first time in weeks, without any pharmaceutical help.

The not-so-good is that I’m starting to feel like “me” when the trees are spewing copious amounts of pollen (the trees here in the PNW conspire to kill us each year from late February through May) and my head feels like it wants to explode. The neti-pot is making it better than previous years, and the Claratin does as well (when I remember to take it) but the harsh fact of life is, there is stuff floating around that makes me feel yucky.

I went to the the shop to pick up Flash who is bright, new and shiny (to the tune of a crapload of money even with my discount) She looks like she did here when she was brand new (this is the 2nd day I had her last April when I rode her in a Duathlon, got luck, placed and got a troph.)

I came home and had a great fiddle practice. I played “Moon and Seven Stars” all the way through without a mistake. When hitting the high “D” I held it, turned on my tuner and checked myself. I’m dead on the note (green with no red showing on my chromatic tuner) so I apparently still have near perfect pitch and good intonation. I need to work on my sight reading to get it back, but that shouldn’t be too difficult.

If only I’d known that I had musical talent and aptitude as a child…

I tried to video myself playing without making a mistake. After almost an hour (and very sore fingers) I gave up. So here is video of me, playing, BADLY. (and of course, my digital camera [not to mention my crappy playing] does not do justice to the beautiful, deep, rich, sweet sound that comes out of this wonderful instrument)

WATCH AT YOUR OWN RISK!!!

I met the icky boy at the Mountaineers clubhouse for the New Member Night and slide show of a traverse of the Olympic Mountain Range (and some cool night photography) I was still feeling close to pukey from a sinus headache I’ve had for three days that was close to turning migraine, but managed to get through the night, enjoy the slide show and chat with my friend Karen who I don’t get to see very often anymore.

I spent the rest of the evening with the icky boy and my “other cat” SweetKitty. (BadKitty hates it when I drag in the next morning smelling of my other kitty who loves my lap-of course, SweetKitty may not appreciate it when the icky boy comes home smelling of BadKitty)

In any event, I have a pie to bake, dinner to cook (for the icky boy and I, an apartment to clean and a bike ride to get ready for.

~L

Mood: Contemplative

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I was hoping to get a swim in at lunch today, but that didn’t happen.

I spent all my break time on the phone trying to deal with “mom issues”. She may have neglected herself, made bad choices and put herself in the hospital; and I may have issues with her and my upbringing, but I will be DAMED to allow her to be scared and upset because the doctor in charge has not gone to see her in the convalescent facility (where she doesn’t have a phone she can call out on, they bring a cordless phone in if someone is lucky enough to get through to the nurses station to get the cordless phone taken in to her.) she does not know what is going on, and the staff thinks she is a “problem patient” because she wants answers is scared and upset.

Let it suffice to say that by the time I was done today: a doctor made a visit to her, she had all the information she needed (and should have had been given when she was admitted) and the staff was given a reality check by her regular physician’s office..

Do NOT piss off the redhead Scorpio!!!

Mind you, I did this by being kind, patient, pleading her case, asking people to empathize with her, and thus, making people want to help me help her, not by pissing them off. (oh, and being on hold and transferred for-frikkin-ever-I don’t even want to see my cell phone bill even with the extra minutes added to my plan.)

Oh and this all took place during an extremely busy and stressful day at work.

Oh,and I never ate lunch and started to feel sick.

Such is life.

I did the right thing.

My Mom feels better and is no longer scared, powerless and frustrated.

In the end, that’s what really matters.

In other news…

Some things work out better than expected…

I had a very encouraging fiddle practice tonight.

I’ve had a rocky start getting back into it. First, having to cancel a lesson because of flooding, then my teacher having to cancel, then me having to cancel because of all the stress with my Mom and other “stuff”. (oh, and then there’s that icky boy distracting me and taking up all my spare time)

I was pretty stressed by the time I made it to my lesson last night because I had spent every moment between my ten-hour work day at a high stress job and driving to the lesson dealing with my (rightfully) freaked out mother, and really wasn’t “on my game”.

I also didn’t practice over the weekend because I was taking a badly needed mental (and physical) health break out on the coast.

I was still doing better than the last time I had had a lesson because I was starting to relax and “get it” before everything went to crap and I had to drop it.

Tonight, I “found it”.

I found the music in my head.

I found the music in my heart.

As Deb (my totally awesome teacher) told me when I first contacted her.

It’s been there all along

Life is not a sprint-it’s a marathon.

It is certainly not a merry-go-round-it’s a roller coaster.

Some days it [life] gets in the way and some days it doesn’t. (and some days it does both)

I’ll say one thing; my life is never boring.

~L

Mood: Happy

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Today’s blog post is brought to you by the letter “S”

“S” stands for Snow, Stress, Siren Song, Swimming, (my) Sharona, Slipping, Sliding, (too) Sexy and SuperBowl.

This morning started out with lots of slipping and sliding on our local roads due to another round of light yet slimy snow and the obligatory black ice.

Luckily, it was 33 degrees, (barely) above freezing when I woke up at 4:20 AM this morning, and the snow didn’t start until I was getting on the train. Generally, the coldest part of the morning is 6-7 AM and I’m already at work.

This was a shot from the traffic cam on Highway 512 this morning; good fun I tell you…

Luckily there were no kids on this bus…

Work is insane and stressful right now (tis the season). I didn’t get away at lunch for a swim because Steph (oooh, she’s a “S” word too) and I go to Taco Del Mar on our break every other Tuesday and today was the day.

So I came home from work and resisted the Siren Song of my evil couch that wanted me to lay on it with a glass of wine (S is also for Syrah) and BadKitty.

I grabbed my swim gear and headed out to the gym.

5:30 is not as bad a time as one would imagine to go to the gym and I was able to get a swim lane pretty easily.

I managed to get a nice 30 minute swim in without stopping. Having music really helps.

Some of my favorite swim tunes are:

Tusk by Fleetwood Mac (great beat for inspiring a strong stroke, rotating, reaching and gliding)

I Love Rock & Roll by Joan Jett

Fins by Jimmy Buffet

The theme from Top Gun

and believe it or not My Sharona by the Knack. (see notes above for Tusk)

The problem is, I can’t listen to My Sharona without giggling. A person could drown laughing their butt off in the water. (oh, and I don’t recommend trying to do the “WOO!” part of the song underwater.)

And the finale of today’s post.
The PETA ad that was deemed “Too sexy for the SuperBowl” that won’t be shown because it was BANNED.

I present to you without comment. (which isn’t easy, trust me)

“Veggie Love”

‘Veggie Love’: PETA’s Banned Super Bowl Ad

I managed to squeeze in some violin/fiddle practice in between typing this out and posting it) and need to get ready for another busy day.

Tomorrow is work, hopefully a bike ride after work if it’s not snowing or raining (I can do cold and wet and I can do dark, but not both at the same time) some more practice and then dinner with the icky boy.

~L

Mood: busy

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The weekend flew by, mostly because I was running around like a half crazed red-headed Tasmanian Devil.

I was going to do a “brick workout” (for those not familiar with multi-sport training, a brick is a workout consisting of two different sports done back to back) on Saturday, a swim, then a bike ride, then a run, but that didn’t work out.

After breakfast, I hit the gym where I swim only to discover that it didn’t open until 8:00 AM. I needed to be back home by 8:30 AM to get ready to go on Ron’s Tacoma Wheelmen Bicycle Club birthday ride, so I just went grocery shopping instead.

The ride was a good workout. It’s not as hilly as I normally do, but then again, it was 46 miles and I haven’t been riding that much since it became winter. It was also butt cold! (*the definition of butt cold being that after you’re done, you can feel your butt, nor imagine it ever being warm again)

It was freezing when we started and only got a few degrees above freezing. There was about a 7 mph headwind, and in some spots we were going over 20mph, that’s a bit of wind chill.

We started out at the Sumner Library and headed up the valley via Pacific and Auburn (riding through stuff that was flooded/under water as late as last week) and then on the Green River Trail (right past work) up through Kent and into SouthCenter.

Here’s the map of the ride from the motion based website. I had trouble remembering to stop and start my garmin when we were waiting for folks so the speeds are off (showing a bit slower than we actually went) and I missed some mileage. I need to get a handlebar mount for it so that I can see it more easily.

*if you’re reading this on LiveJournal, the imbed code for this map doesn’t seem to display correctly you you’ll need to click on the “view larger map” icon if you want to see it. It shows up fine on my Blogspot and self hosted WordPress blogs (I gave up on posting anything but links to those blogs on MySpace because they don’t allow java or some other code options.

View Larger Map

I finally feel a bit more like myself. The combination of work stress, sleep deprivation and not being able to exercise first due to having the crud and then due to the bad air quality had me pretty well alternating between being depressed and anxious. It was a creepy feeling.

I moved along at a pretty good clip on the ride. I was in the front of the pack all the way out. So much so that I asked our ride leader if it was OK if I headed over to the REI store which was right across from where we were eating to get some NUUN electrolytes and then met them at the restaurant.

I had dropped a chain coming up the hill out of Auburn near the river and made the mistake of putting it back one while still wearing my gloves.

The store ASM laughed at me and my greasy face. After I made my purchase and went back to the bike department to get my bike (I took her in the store as I had forgotten to take my bike lock with me) he was there and said, “Oh, I see you didn’t find the bathroom to wash your face”. Then he said, “Well, maybe you should leave it; it makes you look like one of those tough bike chicks from the movies.”

Well, that’s not how it worked out at the restaurant. Ron took one look at me and said, “I can’t stand it anymore” He went all “mom” on me, grabbed my shoulder with one hand and started wiping my face with his napkin while saying, “You’re darn lucky I’m not spitting on this napkin.”

The other really amusing part of the ride was the “tighty whitey incident”

I got behind one of our newer riders (started riding late last year) and when I looked up in front of me, I was “treated” to a view of about 4” of underwear being displayed above the top of his tights.

For those that don’t cycle, the absolute worst thing you can do, especially on a long ride is to wear cotton underwear. That can cause debilitating chaffing, saddle sores, inflamed hair follicles, cysts and a host of other bad nasty problems. One should wear cycle shorts or specific underwear with a chamois under non-cycling tights, or cycling tights with a chamois. These garments are designed with flat seams and synthetic, wicking (and often anti-microbial treatments) to avoid chaffing.

So I pedaled up to one of the guys who knows him and pointed out the problem. When he stopped laughing, I said, “Dude, you need to tell him”. He gave me a look and said, “But I’m kind of enjoying this; it’s funny.”

Look, this guy does not want a woman talking to him about his underwear, not his tushie or “guy bits”. It had to come from a guy.

Once I reminded him that in warmer weather this would really be an issue for the poor guy, he finally went and talked to him.

Later, I patted him on the back and told him he “did the right thing”.

We had a pretty evil headwind coming back and I was having to work pretty hard, but only moved from the front of the back to the middle of the pack (I was up with the guys that were practically racing out for a time, but my legs started to complain so I backed off)

The ride went farther and took longer than planned (TWBC rides always involve food, never pass an espresso stand someone wants to stop at, and take a whole day.) so I missed out on getting together with Molly (I had called her about halfway through to let her know that it looked like it was running long and that she should run on her own and I’d try to get over for a drink afterwards) which made me feel bad.

But getting 46 miles cranked out, in January felt good. After the 22 something miles from Monday, I’ve got 88+ miles in for the week.

Sunday morning, I did manage to get to the gym for a swim. It was the first time that I used my waterproof iPod case and headset and was that ever AWESOME to swim with music.

I normally get bored swimming laps, but a half hour flew by. I probably could have done a full hour, happily, but I had too much else to do and needed to go run the rest of my errands. (gas, food for the grand canyon trip, drug store)

The icky boy came back over at 3:00 so that we could pack our cache to ship off to the guy who will be taking it down the river into the Grand Canyon for us (we’re carrying a weeks worth of food in, and then picking this, another week’s worth of food, up near the river)

After that, we met Bill at the HUB for happy hour pizza & beer and then went back to my place and watched a movie.

I had to come back to work to rest up from this weekend, but it sure felt good to be healthy and have clean air to breathe.

Speaking of work, my break’s over so I’d best get back to it.

~L

Mood: Active