In other news....

Who knew that moving to Wyoming again would prove to be so life changing for me?  Wedding plans are now dominating my life, and each day is occupied by thoughts of invitations, decorations, and organization (what are we doing to eat, party favors?!).  Fortunately, I get a kick out of event planning, and have done lots of it before.  I think the difference, this time, for me, is that it is all very, very personal.  I'm putting a lot of myself & C out there for people to look at, think about, comment on, etc.  Somewhat unnerving.  But, the best part, is I'm getting to spend the rest of my life with someone who makes me laugh, shares my same values, and pretty much makes me all around happy.  What a lucky gal I am!

Thoughts during a Snow Storm

When I lived in Bozeman, MT, I did most of my running during the winter time.  As a city employee, I had a significant discount on a membership to a local gym.  The gym had a giant room with row upon row upon row of treadmills, stationary bikes, and eliptical machines.  The East-facing wall was a giant bank of windows with a view of the Bridger Mountains.  I primarily used my gym membership to attend yoga classes early in the morning during the spring and summer seasons.  My route to the studio involved passing this room, where fanatical suburbia moms and dads and college 20-somethings chugged away on the machines, plugged into their iPods, running towards the view of the mountains.  I found it infinitely depressing.  The few times I was in the gym during the winter, practically every machine propelled a sweating human.  Several of these individuals would, later in the day, find themselves on the lifts at either Big Sky or Bridger Bowl, standing in line to take a lift for their ski run down the mountain.  So, clearly, they were not afraid of the cold.  Why, then, toil on a machine when Bozeman had impeccable trails that made winter running exceedingly enjoyable? 

Frankly, I didn't, and still don't, really care.  Their presence in the gym meant that the trails were blissfully absent of humans.  I enjoy running in the winter.  This evening, while I trotted through a easterly snow storm, I was reminded of why I found it strangely satisfying to complete a run in the dawn or dusk of a winter day.  Part of it is the sense of accomplishment over such clear adversity that I feel after completeing my run.  Propelling myself to go for a run is hard enough, to do it when the wind is blowing the snow sideways adds a clear example of how significant it is that I went for a run that day.  Another part is the winter landscape.  Snow always muffles sounds, so I feel even more privacy as I squeak across the snow.  The dark contributes to the sense of solitude.  This evening, the a herd of approximately thirty elk were in the horse pasture below my cabin escaping the snow storm higher in the mountains.  The shadowy outlines moving in the darkness kept me company, reminding me that I am not the only thing relishing the camoflague lack of light provides.  Oddly enough, I also just like the cold.  The icy air rushing into my lungs and rasping in my throat tells me I am breathing.  The tingle of my numb skin as I warm up in the cabin is invigorating.  Best of all is the warm shower bringing life back to my limbs.  All of this makes running in the winter one of my favorite activities.  Now, to just remember this when I'm laying under my feather comforter trying to convince myself that a run is exactly what I need.

Wyoming...again.

Back in Wyoming.  I've been living here for a little over a year.  From a hike this fall...oh, and I have a dog now too.  Best mountain dog there is; his name is Moose.  Now that I've settled down a bit, will try blogging again.  Maybe.  I'm averaging one post a year, so what do I have to lose?

A Relationship with Coffee

I associate the smell of a coffee bean with my dad.  Ever since I can remember, he's been drinking coffee, whether at his office when I visited him as a kid, on road trips in a thermos, and now, when I visit home.  As a child, I did not understand the relationship he had with coffee.  The bitterness of the drink did not appeal to me at all.  During college I became astonished when my younger sister insisted on having a cup of coffee in the morning.  Surely the caffeine would stunt her growth!  (Never mind the fact that she is simply a petite person...coffee-drinking would most certainly lead to shrinking!)  My personal relationship with coffee began in graduate school, when I would drink a cup after a long night of studying.  As I would sip my cup (heavily laiden with sugar, mind you), I romantically associated myself with a stereotype of graduate school: the hard-working student consuming pot after pot of coffee in between cigarettes, working feverishly on a dissertation or thesis into the wee hours of the morning.  Hardly.  Never mind I don't smoke.  Instead, I was a complete weakling.  One cup of coffee would send me on such a hyper spin that my friends expliciately forbade me having a cup before any class presentation.  Apparently, I would platter on a-mile-a-minute with the elixar of coffee-supplied caffeine coursing through my veins, making absolutely no sense to anyone but myself.  And, perhaps, the instructors, for they never seemed to dock me points from my grade.

As an adult, I drank coffee to socialize.  Initially, I drank mochas.  I could not stand the sharp taste of a coffee bean without chocolate and milk.  Mexican mochas were my favorite form of decadence; they had a dash of cayenne pepper for a little fire.  A daily mocha became a habit in the professional workspace.  Towards the end of the month, when things were getting a little tight before payday, I would scrounge for change to purchase my own personal form of heroin.  The day just couldn't seem to get started without my coffee fix.  Plus, a hefty employee discount at the coffee bar did nothing to curb my habit.

My relationship with coffee is much more ritualistic, now.  I no longer drink lattes.  For one thing, I cannot afford them.  It is more than that, however.  Lattes and mochas seem watered down, and I am unable to taste the acidic flavor of the coffee bean.  The act of drinking coffee is becoming something much more personal for me.  I am in control of the preparation.  First, I journey to the store to purchase my beans.  It use to be that I only purchased a single roast.  More recently I am more experiemental, and mix my roasts.  The bag I have at home right now is a lovely mixture between a nutty medium roast and a smooth dark roast.  Then I grind the bean.  I have my own personal grinder at home, and sometimes use the device, but right now I am on a grind-it-at-the-store kick because I can make the grind coarser, which works well with my French press. 

The act of making the coffee in the morning is another ritual.  I use to be able to completely empty my 8-cup press on my own.  Recently, as my running increases, I've noticed that I only need one, perhaps two, mugs of coffee to be satisfied.  Any more than that, and the caffeine and acid wreaks havoc on my stomach.  I return from my run, and place a teapot of hot water on the stove to heat right before I jump in the shower.  When I emerge from the shower, I measure my grounds into my French press.  (Do not let anyone tell you that all presses are made the same.  This is not true.  A little over a year ago, I had the misfortune to break the beaker to my press and tear the screen all in one go.  In an effort to save a little money, I purchased a store brand press.  What a disaster.  The screen let little grounds of coffee float through, and the taste was inferior.  After a week of suffering, I caved and purchased my lovely 8-cup Bodum French press that sits on my counter today.)  After a judicious stir, I let the coffee do it's thing.  Different modes of seeping coffee does create different tastes.  Drip coffee is different from espresso.  When I am backpacking, I boil the grounds in a pot, and strain it through a screen into my cup.  This produces an invigorating brew that I compare to the "cowboy" coffee Louis L'Amour wrote about in his novels.  French press coffee is by far my favorite.  It results in a full-bodied flavour that I crave.  When the coffee is ready, I perform the most important part of my ritual: choosing my coffee mug for the day.  I deliberate over which coffee mug to use the same way some people ponder their outfit for the day.  I sincerely believe that the coffee mug I choose to use sets a tone for my day.  Each of my mugs are cherished thrift store finds, and each one has a story.  One I found during my first camping trip after graduate school in a thrift shop in Whitefish, Montana.  Another one I purchased at the Goodwill in Billings, Montana.  I have a beautiful Mexican mug I found in Fort Collins, Colorado.  And a mug from home that I declared as "mine" for tea in my childhood.  I have about a dozen mugs to choose from, and my choice means a great deal to me.  It is something I take very seriously.  After making my choice, I pour in a bit of sugar, a dash of half and half (I only drink coffee straight when camping, but I believe this, too, will evolve), and pour my steaming brew over the mix.  Relishing the steam, smell, and taste, as well as the feel of my chosen mug in my hand, is the only way to truly start my day. 

Autumn in the Foothills

Autumn is a favorite time of year for me.  Growing up in Nebraska on the farm, I could always tell the arrival of fall by the gathering of fog over the various bodies of water cutting across countryside: the Missouri River, the Niobrara River, the Bazile Creek, and the Verdigre Creek.  The air had a certain quality of briskness that had not been evident a few days prior.  The fog gathered in billowing, rolling fuzzy white catepillars over each river and creek.  From the top of the hills west of the farmstead, I could see each hovering caterpillar as the colder air collided with the warmer temperature of the water.  Sometimes the air would cool to the point that the fog would stretch over the bluffs surrounding the rivers, enveloping the farmstead in the fog.  Other days the fog caterpillars would stick to the waterways, and I would descend into the low-lying clouds as I drove out of the hills into the town of Niobrara on my way to school in the morning.

It is many years since I spent an autumn in Niobrara, and I have not thought about fog caterpillars for quite some time.  I saw them again this morning on my run along the Foothills trial north of Bozeman.  They were not quite the same type of caterpillars as in Niobrara.  These were a little bit grayer, and they mainly stuck to the mountains east of town.  They seemed to be rolling up the east side of the Bridger Mountains, not quite making over the top to slide down to the trail.  I'm certain there is a logical explaination for this, but not one that I have immediatly available.  As I had my warm-up scramble on the steep trail leading to the college "M" (vandalized by red, yellow and green paint this morning--not quite sure of the significance of that), I debated bagging my run, and continuing the scramble up the ridge, so I could look down on the mass of clouds.  I ultimately decided against it.  The scramble made my arches burn, and I have no desire to agitate the bunion in my right foot more than is necessary.  My body responded well to the couple days of rest I gave it, and my stride felt smooth, almost springy, as I glided down the trail and through the foothills. 

By the time I made it back to my car, the caterpillars had evaporated, leaving behind small puffs of clouds that hoover over the Ridge the rest of the day.  Autumn is here, and I know that I will get to see the caterpillars a few more times before snow chases them away.