San Francizzle

I am terribly sorry to have abandoned my blog for so long! It's more than a bit ridiculous. There is much to talk about. But for now, I know you've all been waiting for stories from San Francisco...well, I don't want to spend too much time here, so here are a few photos from an amazing summer.

A gayble cable car (but not a real one, shh) decked out for the pride parade.

The lovely Pacific coast.

Posing with my pal Harvey Milk.

Long story short: I had the opportunity to go to an Oscar de la Renta fashion show at Lake Tahoe with the family I was staying with. It was awesome. More importantly, I wore an awesome hat.

Gorgeous Asilomar State Beach, near Monterey.

A sampling of NARAL interns on my last day at the office! (Side note: if you click through that link, you will see how amazingly fantastic the website looks, courtesy of yours truly.)

Alcatraz from the ferry.

Downtown from a distance. And palm trees, which I never did get used to seeing.

Self-explanatory. Unless it's not.

The famous Castro Theatre.

My brother came to visit during my last weekend in San Francisco - definitely one of the highlights of the summer.

New Mexico, Part I: The Land of Enchantment

Okay. I'm finally doing this. New Mexico, the Land of Enchantment! (Seriously, is that not the greatest state nickname?) We flew into Albuquerque on Sunday the 11th and decided to walk around. Side note: the flight in was one of the more beautiful ones I've taken. New Mexico was exactly how I had pictured it - soaring over the Rockies in Colorado, then suddenly everything was craggy, then flat, and all brown, brown, brown.

Anyway, we walked around Old Town for a while. This is San Felipe de Neri, the oldest church in Albuquerque (1706).

Obviously we had to go to the chocolate shop. Also the sign (like everything in NM that isn't beige) was turquoise.

I washed down my delicious chocolate with some delicious...chocolate soda.


Dinner that night was yummy (and spicy!) huevos rancheros, as well as a free cup of coffee given to me by the very odd cashier at the restaurant. I think he was lonely, or maybe bored. While we ate, we (Habitat-ers) got to know each other a bit better - and I could already tell that I was going to love the energy of the group. They're all friendly, very genuine people.

Somewhere along the way, these pictures switch to Santa Fe. I'm not sure where to draw the line. In any case, one of our fellow travelers was actually from Santa Fe - and since we were all so worn out from getting in at different times, she graciously let us all crash at her house on Sunday night. It couldn't have worked out better! Then on Monday we spent the morning exploring the capital city.

Seriously, everything looked like this - beige, fake adobe, rectangular. I felt as though I were on the set of a movie. Can you imagine seeing a building like this in New England?

A line of people, mostly (if not all) Native American, out selling their wares - beautiful handmade jewelry.

A fajita cart!

Inside the church of St. Francis (the outside was being worked on, unfortunately).

The chapel of Our Lady of Guadalupe - the little doll in the middle is taken down and paraded around during an annual festival.

We then walked down a road that was solely populated by art galleries. Apparently the northern NM area has the third largest art scene in the world, after Paris and New York! Following this we drove a little ways to Tesuque, where we encountered a sculpture garden and glass-blowing place (workshop? studio?).

If you liked it then you should've put a ring on it.

The whole group! Minus Sean, who was the only guy (bless him) and didn't like to be in photos.

Glass-blowing is probably the form of (visual) art that leaves me most in awe. Even though I can see how they do it, I'm still thinking...how'd they do that?!

Finally we piled in the cars and drove up to Taos, on a long highway under a big sky. Pictures taken from a car window really can't capture the beauty or the scope, or the joyous atmosphere of that car ride. We were all just...giddy, overwhelmed by the majesty of it all. The landscape was just so different from anywhere else I'd ever been - the desert, the flatness, the scrubby trees, the canyons, and then the towering mountains in the distance. Nothing short of breathaking.

We arrived that afternoon in Questa, population approx. 2,000. It had one main road and was about an hour drive to Taos, the nearest city. This is the Baptist church in which we stayed.

This is the view from the front of the church. I know that three pictures of the same view is a bit excessive, but I couldn't decide on just one angle - by the end of the week, I felt so familiar with those mountains. Now, looking at the pictures, I feel that I would recognize them anytime, anywhere.

Shopping that night was pretty hilarious. Coordinating what food to buy for the week was...well, inefficient and borderline chaotic with ten people. Then we couldn't find milk anywhere in Questa. Anywhere! All was well that ended well, of course.

Coming up next: the building begins!

To Sing the Praises of the Diva Cup

So I finally got around to trying the Diva Cup that's been lying around, waiting for me to gather the courage to put the darn thing in. And I'm already completely sold. I feel like a new woman! Seriously, though, if you haven't already, run out and get one immediately. The amount of waste produced by years and years of menstrual products - multiply that by alllllllllllll the women who use them - is pretty appalling. But with Diva's help, I am on my way to a greener lifestyle. (Side note: this is part of my larger effort to stop being a schmuck and do things like recycle vigorously, waste less electricity, and so on and so forth).

Yes, the thing gets you more in touch with your inner workings than perhaps you'd like to be. But you know what? I think that's a good thing. Case in point: the first time I emptied it, my first thought was "ugh, gross." But then my immediate second thought was "oh...pretty!" It's making me laugh just thinking about it, because it sounds so corny, but my feelings toward my period are honestly more positive than they've ever been. And as a bonus, it doesn't make me feel like my organs are being stabbed, like tampons do when I've got cramps. If you're not already sold, the coup de grace: it only needs emptying once or twice a day.

I can't believe I didn't catch on to this earlier. It feels like I've just joined a cult or something...hah.

And now for something completely different:

I found this little guy in the basement the other day; apparently it was my dad's when he was a kid. His pants are a bit moth-eaten, but Schroeder has always been my favorite and I was pretty excited to find him. The Beethoven sweater just kills me. After washing him off and setting him aside to dry, I later looked over to see that he was warming his hands by the fire.

Continued Christmas Festivities

I'm still in the Christmas spirit - and probably will be until sometime mid-January when the spirit(s) of "Sarah's Birthday Month" takes over - so here are more pictures and stories from the past week.

It didn't really feel like Christmas until sometime Christmas Eve, probably because this month has been so stupidly filled with mono and finals that I didn't go to a single Advent service and wrote about half as many holiday cards as I usually do. Also, I didn't finish my 20-page anthro research paper until Sunday the 21st, so by the time Christmas rolled around I was just figuring out how to relax. But that night we went to DJ and Carol's house in Hartford for a Christmas party, which was a blast. I didn't know most of the people there, other than the Smith-Horns, but it was still a lot of fun - the only thing that would have made it better is if Mr. Prenetta had showed up. This is going to sound strange, but it sort of reminded me that good times with friends don't stop when you're young - adults my parents' age know how to have fun, classy parties with the best of them. Also, everyone was wearing Christmas sweaters, which was awesome. At some point we started singing Christmas carols, accompanied by Carol on accordion and DJ on trumpet.

The boys are totally enthused about the singing.

Everyone crowds around the piano to sing.

Mom and Lisa share a laugh.

Rosie is officially the cutest Christmas pup.

Our lovely accompanists!

This was followed by the always-beautiful Christmas Eve service at church, complete with a singing of "Silent Night" by candlelight. The next morning we did presents, lazed around, and had the grandparents over for dinner. All the usual Christmas movies were watched (including It's a Wonderful Life, which leaves me in tears no matter how many times I see it), but the real highlight of the week was going to see A Christmas Carol at the Hartford Stage - the sort of "Christmas present for the whole family." It was a real spectacle and I can see why it's so popular every year. Flying ghosts! Snow falling from the ceiling! Cross-dressing humor! The play had it all. Fun for all ages.

Afterward we had a bit of a family photo shoot.

I won't make any comments about height.

The classic "three generations" shot with my two favorite women.

The most exciting gift I received for Christmas was a webcam from my brother! If you have one too, let me know and we can video chat on Skype! I'm having so much fun playing around with it.

First post! Merry Christmas!

As a Christmas present to myself, I'm starting a blog. Hurrah! It probably won't be terribly interesting all the time, but will be nice for people who are far away to get a sense of what I'm up to. And in the event of an adventure, things will surely pick up.

Let's start off right with pictures of (a) my new haircut and (b) my cat under the Christmas tree. My hair is probably shorter than it's been since sixth grade, and I love it - and the tree is gorgeous as always because I decorated it. The cat is, um, always really cute.

Another view:
And there's my little Jenny.

In other news, my cousin got engaged yesterday! Congratulations, Becky! I'm so excited, I've already had a bizarre(ly stressful) wedding dream.