El Potrero Chico, Nuevo Leon, Mexico

OK. So here it is; a brief synopsis. Got here. Culture shock. Got used to it. Started using some rudimentary Spanish. Got on the rock. Loved the rock. Went to sleep. Got up and hiked up a canyon and got on lots more rock, and loved it more more more. Took pictures. Drank beer. Ate breakfast burritos. Climbed more rock. Knee hurt. Knee got better. Went to sleep. Ate, drank coffee. Climbed all day long. Had dinner. Climbed in the dark. Slept the sleep of the dead. Woke up late, had breakfast, hiked long and hard, climbed long and hard. Now sitting typing on Jeff's computer, at a table with Aaron, Steph, Amanda, Jeff, Adrian, Shawn, Katie, Glenn (already left), and me. Tomorrow a lot more climbing. Margaritas, maybe some slacklining. The next day... the last day of climbing!!!!! Argh!

The cold

I have one word to say.

Fuuuck!

It is cold. It is biting pain cold. It is numb toes cold. It is "cover your skin" cold. It is cold.
It is down jacket cold, it is puffy mittens cold. It is extra layers cold. It is creaky snow cold.
It is frozen eyelashes cold. It is "can't walk into the wind" cold.

January!

Stayed up too late. But it was a good party. Fun games with new people. Silliness. Good scotch. Good music. Woke up too early and now I could really do with a nap.

I hope, in this year, to run a half-marathon... something I've been talking about for years and yet not doing. The key seems to be having some discipline and building my mileage up at the appropriate rate.

I want to be more positive this year. To not get frustrated in traffic. I want to do more art, and have a more productive attitude when I come home from work. And if my job goes away, I want to be positive and proactive about my next career move.

I want to cultivate old friendships and new ones.

Christmas

We drove up to Ross' mom's house on Christmas eve. Planned to leave the house by 2, and it was closer to 3 when we left. Then the traffic on 94 was hellish. For some reason everyone was driving out of town on Christmas eve! Imagine! However, we got there, helped Sara install her new blinds in the main room, and she cooked a delicious meal of tenderloin. Stayed the night and in the morning we took Toad and Clio out to the horse farm to go for a relatively short walk in the cold - it was 1 degree out. Warmed up a bit walking through the barn and saying hi to Hawk (Sara's horse) and then we said hi to the "babies" who were in the outdoor paddock. Toad actually touched noses with one of them! I think he wasn't as freaked by their smaller size.

Then to Ross' dad's house, where there were many people who all loved Toad. Susan's sisters and families were there, and Ross' two brothers. We sat down to brunch. Hung out, chatted. Opened presents. As the evening approached we packed up and drove back to the cities. I think Toad was very happy to be home; he sacked out on the couch for the rest of the evening.

Well, I'm not on top of it

Not blogging every day, by god, but here I am making an effort.
Today was a day of wasting time and pooping around. I had a goal of dropping some books off at the library and hitting the REI clearance sale. Ross decided to come along as long as the trip would include coffee and a book store. The trip ended up including HOM furniture, IKEA, Borders, Southdale.... argh! Too many people! Too many shoppers!

We hit IKEA because we've had thoughts of upgrading to a queen size bed someday. Of course we walked out of there with several other items and not a queen size bed. Hit Southdale because Ross wanted to get Mille Bourne for Billy, and of course the game store didn't have it. So instead I bought a pair of jeans at the Gap. Ha ha.

The lesson is: buy everything online.

hangin' out, making beer

Wow. I look tired. Perhaps because I climbed for 3.5 hours, then walked the dog in the cold.

Ross, on the other hand, looks perky.

The beautiful stream of liquid malt extract flowing into our beer... not yet beer.

I get artsy with the malt extract. "Work with me! That's it!"


Cold snowy weekend, but we're tough. We're Minnesotan. We shovelled and trekked through the snow and didn't let it stop us. This morning I drove to the climbing gym and had a scary interlude in which people in front of me on the highway were spinning out and I honestly feared for a moment that I would hit the car in front of me. But that moment passed.

Now we make beer. I am weary and already tired of making beer, but you can't really stop once you've started. I can tell I will sleep well tonight.

the Christmas Toad

winter, and surviving it

It hasn't been too bad so far. I have shrugged off the cold. I have walked and even run through the snow. I faltered a bit after Thanksgiving, struggling to throw off a cold and rejoin the world of the running, but now I've run in 3 degree weather... I've run in snow. Today, in the midst of the biggest snowstorm of the season Ross and Toad and I went out for a walk on the golf course. The wind was biting as we walked into it, but once we turned around and walked back it hardly bothered us. Ross commented, "I feel warm now." I said, "Yeah, I'm fine." Once we got home we learned that it was only 6 degrees out.

Of course it's all easier in December. Ask me how I feel in February.

Rejoining the blogging world

Okay. Here I am, and it has been a long time away, but in my defense I just got busy with other social networking stuff... check out my stuff on flickr, goodreads, facebook... But it is true that those really are different animals from blogger and I do seriously intend to get back to blogging. And posting more pictures! Here's my vow - at least one picture per day between now and the first of the year (barring any days away from the house that prevent me from blogging).

To start out I'll post a few pics from last weekend's Sandstone Ice Fest, at which I was one of the instructors for the women's ice clinic.

The whole class; Amy and I are at the left in the back row.
Two climbers on the ice flow. It is basically dead vertical, if you can't tell.
Kiri belaying. Note my gloves - I finally indulged in some "lobster claw" gloves and I love them!


Kiri and Amy belaying.

I'm so behind...

Just haven't been blogging, recently! Ross has made his green Jaguar sedan into a genuine runnin' automobile! We're going to drive it down to Kansas in a week and a half. I am always in awe of his many many skills. What an accomplished dude.

Toad is a sweetie pie. Toadblerone. His newest name is "Bubbajum". Don't ask me why.

Shawn, Katie and I went to Taylors this past weekend and had a beautiful adventure; we rented a canoe and went downstream to the rarely-climbed cliffs at Franconia. Awesome to climb some unfamiliar rock, and we ran into four friends of Sue there which was an amazing coincidence since so few people climb there - and the group of us climbed on each other's ropes and chatted and had fun.

Two movies that everyone should see: "In Bruges" and "Hot Fuzz".

Wasp sting adventure!

On Friday as usual I biked to work with Rick, my boss. Good day for biking, pleasantly cool weather. For lunch we walked to the nearby strip mall, had some soup, visited the excellent running store TC Running at which Rick bought his next pair of running shoes. Then back to work, walking around the small lake behind the strip mall. As we strode along I suddenly felt an intense pain in my wrist and immediately knew what it was - wasp sting! I yelled and flailed my arms, transferring the wasp to my neck, and from there it bounced into Rick's hair. Neither of us actually saw the wasp but I know a sting when I feel one, and boy did it hurt. I wasn't having any immediate intense reaction but I was concerned about the possibility, so he ran back to work to get my epi-pen, and I walked. We met up in the parking lot - I was still OK, but within the next twenty minutes I started to get hives on my opposite wrist and on my back so thus began the search for benadryl. I had some in my bag, but it had been expired for over a year. I called Park Nicollet and spoke to a nurse who told me to get some new benadryl and take 50 mg right away. Rick and I checked around at work; no benadryl in the medicine cabinet and no one had any. People came by offering me claritin, benadryl ointment, etc... all of which would have no effect on a systemic reaction. Finally Bridget offered to go get some. She came back with benadryl "allergy and cold", which loaded up the benadryl with aspirin and nasal decongestant. I took some anyway. The hives gradually faded.

By the time we left work the hives were gone but my wrist and hand had started swelling; there was a significant red lump covering the back of my hand. The bike ride home went smoothly, though. Once home Ross and I settled in for a quiet evening of pasta and a movie. "In Bruges" - if you haven't seen it, DO! But despite the benadryl my swelling increased - much of my forearm and hand. I ran over to Byerly's before bed to get some "real" benadryl, regretting the decision to not go to urgent care right after work. Got through the night, went to urgent care in the morning. They gave me Prednisolone (steroids) and the doctor said that in the future I should go ahead and use the epi-pen... I'm still not completely clear on whether the benadryl or the epi-pen is the first line of defense. I have the vague impression that the pen is for genuine breathing difficulty, which I never had.

So. A weekend of swollen, painful hand, drugs, tiredness. I really need to avoid wasps! But this one really came out of nowhere. And I've had remarkable luck avoiding them at the cliffs this year, even when climbing near them. They seem to be more irritable at this time of year.

Women climb Red Wing

Yesterday Katie and I met Sandy at Red Wing. I had met Sandy last fall at Taylors Falls; she and her climbing partner Eugene had come up from Chicago to experience the basalt wonder of Interstate Park. Shawn and I got to chatting with them and Sandy and I had exchanged email addresses. I had been in contact with her sporadically, but recently we had been trying to engineer a climbing rendezvous.

Katie and I got there first because Sandy got a bit lost on the way from her campsite near Cannon Falls. We warmed up on Cinq Jours D'Afille (5.7), and when Sandy found us we got on Micro Balls (5.9+). I had climbed it once or twice before, and remembered well the awkwardness of certain parts. I was gratified to see that Sandy found it awkward, too. It has all the downsides of a Red Wing climb (polished, slippery holds, dirty ledges, tiny polished footholds, lack of friction) with none of the upsides. From that we moved to Annadonia (5.11b). Thanks to climbing it with Shawn the weekend before I remembered the difficult sequence at the beginning. I had one hang before the top crux, and then moved through the powerful crimps to grab the chains in triumph. We each ended up climbing it twice, because I wanted to try the alternate, easier finish and Katie and Sandy both wanted to work through the bottom crux.

Then we moved down to No Whippin Boys (5.10), possibly my favorite climb at Red Wing, and I led it with one hang. Not bad, but I know I can do it clean. I just have fears about gear blowing out and it makes me timid. Katie and Sandy toproped it. Then Katie and I both toproped Prairie Fire (5.10c), which shares anchors with No Whippin Boys, and Sandy boldly decided to lead it with the first bolt pre-clipped. She had carefully watched our sequence through the crux. It is, incidentally, a pretty intense climb; getting to the first bolt requires the use of a very polished foothold, and the landing is not good if you blow the sequence. Getting from the first bolt to the second is perhaps the real crux of the route; the key for me is a tiny foot pebble that allows me to move off two bad crimps. That allows me to throw my left foot into the large dish and stand up to grab the next two crimps - bad, but not as bad. Those allow me to work my feet up to the crimps that my hands had been on. Damn good climb. After Sandy led it I decided I had to, also. So I did. Major happiness. Katie and I both climbed No Whippin Boys a second time. Love it.

By then we were all tired and it was after 5 p.m. We wandered down to the sunny side so we could point out climbs to Sandy. Found some guys who were finishing up on Foreign Affairs (5.10d), and they put our rope up on it. So we got one last climb to complete the exhaustion! Hard climb. I want to lead it someday. Not yet. And not when I'm already tired.

Last weekend - Red Wing with Shawn

First time climbing with Shawn in a while! And neither one of us had been to Red Wing for... probably a couple of months. It ended up being a great day. We started on Frequent Flatulence (5.10a) as a warm up. Shawn cruised it until the awkward mantle move, at which he actually took a big fall. I toproped it with ease. Then we did the always awkward Vertical Vice (5.8+) which I was gratified to see Shawn struggling with, and Call of the Mild (5.11a) which we both led with a fair amount of confidence. Then we did the 5.10 to the left of Vertical Vice... Pandemonium. Dirty route because it doesn't get climbed enough.
Then Shawn had an urge to get on Annadonia (5.11b), and I led it after he did and cranked through the very tough start! Definitely had an advantage with the preplaced quickdraws on the finish, though. And we finished off with Out of Control (5.11a). I kind of love the first half of this route, but it has it's awkward moments. I took an unexpected fall at the second bolt when my foot popped off, but totally clean fall.

Squee and me

I did not know what "squee" meant, or what it meant to "ship" someone, despite frequently running into those words in internet fandom. Oh, sure, I had a sense from context, but it was only when I stumbled across this article (http://firefox.org/news/articles/1275/1/Celebrating-Squee/Page1.html) on Firefox News that I finally found an official definition of the term.

"What is squee? If you're a fan and you’re reading this, you already know. It's that happy, warm, fluttery feeling you get in the pit of your stomach two minutes before a new episode of your show airs. It is defined by the sound that very likely escapes your mouth when your favorite couple (or threesome) is on-screen together, interacting, and omg, their hands are touching, that was definitely a touch, and did you see how they were looking at each other, they're so doing it, it's canon!"

I could really just post that entire article in here, it's so good, it gets it so right... I think it's fun to read, but then I AM a fan and I squee on a regular basis (albeit usually alone). So you who might be reading this, give it a try. Read about squee and then do it yourself. Ha ha.

And "ship" is apparently short for "worship" but has taken on additional overtones and nuances; it seems to me that fans don't ship merely a single character - they usually ship a pair of characters, and indeed the relationship between those two characters. So it's sorta like worshipping the relationship. In case it's not obvious, I ship the Doctor and Rose. And I'm certainly not alone in that.

Here is the best site to indulge my shipping.
http://www.loony-archivist.com/who/betterw2/index_s1.htm

fun with the internet

In the book "Quicksilver" it's often hard to know what stuff is based on reality and what is fictional. I was looking at the amazon.com reviews of the work, and this led me to the wikipedia article on the Baroque Cycle, which has an entire section listing the elements which are fictional. "Aha!" I thought to myself when I learned that Qwglhm is actually a fictional country. "Well of course it is!" you might think to yourself, but "Quicksilver" is so well-written and the fictional stuff is so thoroughly intertwined with the historical stuff that I did find myself wondering if Qwglhm was just some place I had never heard of before.

Another intertwining of fiction and history in the book: the origin of the word "cabal" - based on the first letters in the names of the five people who formed the first cabal. Although the five characters in the book are fictional, the word apparently does stem from the initials of five crucial individuals.

Anyway, at the bottom of the wikipedia article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qwghlm) there was a link to a list of "Fictional European Countries" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Fictional_European_countries).
God I love the internet!

Who am I, really?

Ross and I watched "The diving bell and the butterfly" last night. It has been on my mental list for months, after my mom and Ross' stepmom both recommended it very highly. Finally it was time.

Wow. The images were so beautiful. The life, so unimaginable. The accomplishment.

I'm trying to remember where this particular quote came from... it might have been a movie or a tv show, or the olympics coverage. Someone was describing a guy and saying that he didn't really know what he wanted or how to get it, and Ross exclaimed, "But that's how we all feel!" There was more; it sounded more profound. Ha ha. It certainly describes me. And sometimes I realize that it's a universal state, more or less. That makes me feel more OK about it. I think it's good to feel... to accept oneself, more or less. I don't usually accept myself; I beat myself up a lot. But I think there are things I should change about myself. I feel like I've grown into a crabbiness (ha ha) that I'd like to shed. I'd like to rediscover a youthful playfulness. It would be easier to rediscover that if I won the lottery and didn't have to sit at a desk all day.
Oh, and now I'm whining!

I'd like to be better at staying in touch with my family.
Family, I'm sorry I haven't been good at that. It is not for lack of caring; it is due to the crabbiness that I need to shed.

Devil's Lake

Went to Devil's Lake with Katie last weekend.

Saturday - left her house at 7:30 a.m. Climbing by 1 p.m. after driving there, missing a turn, reversing, finding the campground, setting up the tent, getting to the park, buying a sticker, etc. I led Push Me Pull Yu (5.6). Didn't have my lead head, made it harder than it should have been. Set up a toprope on Cheatah (5.10). Struggled with the bottom crux, glad I wasn't leading it. Then cruised the rest. Katie did great, too. Then I led Brinton's Crack (5.6) and Katie followed. Brinton's is superb. Then led Anemia (5.2) because I thought Katie should lead it and she didn't feel ready. And by then the sun was low in the sky and we decided it was time for showers and dinner. Shower facility near the parking lot is very convenient. Ate at the Barn Restaurant (not to be confused with the Farm Kitchen) which has a really great beer selection! We had beers from Furthermore Brewery of Black River Falls, WI. Highly recommended. I slept like a log.

Sunday - reasonably early start. We hiked along the railroad tracks to the Railroad Amphitheater. Very easy to find. I led Pine Tree Step-Across, 5.6, although I wimped out on the step-across move; on lead your last gear is below your feet and you have to do a step-out with hardly any hands... scary. Then we set up a toprope on Catenary Crack (5.9). This was definitely old-school Devil's Lake 5.9 - the hardest route of that grade that I've ever climbed. Really fun, but strenuous. Then I led Pine Tree Dihedral (5.5) which was fun. Then toproped Cop-Out (5.11) which was a majorly great climb. I'd love to get on it again. Then a final lead of The Pillar (5.6), with an awkward move into a chimney, and a finish on the top of Catenary Crack.

We called it a day and were back in the cities by 9 p.m.

Katie near the top of Pine Tree Step-Across - note the pine tree below her.
Kiri at top of Pine Tree routes.


Catenary Crack! follows the arcing, chalked-up crack. The Pillar is to the right. Cop-Out to the left.


Kiri on the starting hold of Catenary Crack.

Wow, summer

It passes. The evenings grow dark, sooner. When I walked Toad around the block after work tonight there were tiny baby toads all over the neighborhood; some combination of the rain, the season, the toads themselves... The annuals in the garden are blooming in the way that is hard to imagine at the beginning of summer. Prolific as all getout.

Katie and I climbed at Taylors Falls last weekend, and Katie did her first trad lead! I almost got stung by a wasp. We both got hissed at by a bat. I led Inside Corner (5.8) and felt really strong and in control. We both toproped Batman (5.10) and we both hung at the crux.

Ross has been making constant progress with the Jag sedan, but now he's thinking about other cars since he has probably sold his Miata to Randy. Toad needs a bath, badly. I have pre-ordered the 4th Season of Doctor Who (available November 18) and can hardly wait.

Not enjoying work; some days are better than others. Sometimes I think I should just be profoundly grateful that I have a wonderful, well-paying job. Other days it kills me a little.

I'm behind on this...

But only by a week or so. Went to Taylor's Falls with Shawn and Sue last weekend. Sue is a very strong climber I haven't really climbed with before; she and Shawn are going to the Tetons... actually they're on their way there right now. They had an agenda last weekend - to get in some practice aid climbing.

Aid climbing is distinguished from free climbing by the fact that you hang on every piece of protection that you place; it is a technique for ascending rock faces so sheer that they cannot be free climbed. Shawn and Sue hope to do a route that includes one 25 foot section of aid climbing. The technique is relatively straightforward, but the sequence definitely benefits from practice.

Tom, a friend of Sue's, found us at the Airconditioned/Layback Crack area, so I ended up climbing with him while Sue and Shawn did their aiding. Tom is a slightly older guy, very experienced, very mild-mannered and pleasant with much tattoos on his arms and torso. He also rides motorcycles. It turns out that he and I both have a Ducati Monster 750. We climbed Layback (the old guidebook calls it 5.7 but Tom said he thought it was easily a 5.9), and then I climbed Mantrap (5.10). Tom tried but backed off because of knee pain. Mantrap is wicked! The bottom, at least for me, involves desperate slopey slippery laybacking, and then a funky traverse under a roof. I had tried the top section before but failed; this time I pulled through to the top.

Good day, and good climbing and meeting new friendly people. Also met Jared, another friend of Sue's, and people with him. Climbing folks are usually really great people.

Vintage Races at Elkhart Lake

Once again it is that time, time for the Brian Redman Challenge, the vintage auto races at Road America, Elkhart Lake, WI. Ross and I left the cities very early Friday morning, dropping Toad off at Luka's house. Our goal was to get to Madison by 11:30ish in order to have lunch with Moria and Edward. We actually stayed on schedule and made great time. We walked to a Turkish restaurant just down the street from their house (ah, Monroe Street, ah, Madison!) and had a wonderful meal with wonderful conversation. Nice to see them both looking well.

Then it was a very easy drive from Madison to Elkhart Lake, so easy that we decided to go that way in the future. Got to the track in time to set up our tent, get informed about Scott's secret plan to propose to Jen, and drive into Elkhart Lake with Clancy. Friday evening is the race car concours, when selected race cars drive from the track into town and get admired and judged. Scott's plan was to stop at this specific corner, jump out and propose to Jen (who would be riding with him in the Sprite). Photos of this event are on my flickr page.

The concours was great. Saturday was great; the usual combination of racing, relaxing, walking around a lot, putting earplugs in and out of ears, looking at stuff for sale, etc. Scott had some good qualifying sessions - he and Clancy run their Austin Healey Sprite race car. The street car concours on Saturday night was nice, too.

Saturday night we got rained on from about 1 a.m. until about 6 a.m., but my tent kept us dry. The rest of the day was just right; Scott's race was at 9:30? and went beautifully until an incident with an early-braking Austin healey 3000 put Scott in the difficult position of deciding between hitting the Healey or going off into the gravel. So he spent half of the race in the gravel... frankly, the better choice. The Can-Am race was exciting, with the L&M Lola in second place and never quite able to fight for first.

Then Ross and I got packed up, said our goodbyes and hit the road, heading north through Green Bay, then Wausau, on our way to St. Germain where Ross' mom's side of the family was having a week at a cabin. There we joined Ross' mom Sara, her sisters Abby and Sue, Sue's husband Fred, Abby's daughter Melynn, her husband Jeff and their daughter Lexi. Nice quiet cabin on Found Lake. Fun time spotting eagles, frogs, turtles, loons. Played Wii games - fun.

And despite all the relaxing we had over the course of the five days, we came home exhausted and in need of sleeping in!