Thursday, September 12, 2013

Purple Protein Eater Trialmageddon and Forays into Quantum Friendship

Previously on A&A's Adventures in Cohabitation: Memory hits with a hook, ganchos and secadas kicking opportunity cost between pockets of potentiality. Regrets fade with deep sips of Lethe and deeper sips of coffee on a street flushed with summer. Trials are not continued, in both senses of the word! Durians shift to carrots and Adella's repastes expand beyond the very capacity of her abstemious innards. And Mad Rasputin pops in to kibbitz on Happy Trial Preparation Days. 


Coming up: Adella busts a purple gut with plumes and prunes and demagotted dates in preparation for bigger and better Adellas. The eggs of a thousand chickens are crushed and carton-forrests ossify in the recycling bin. Will Andrew and Adella's egg-binge flat out the farm market? Plummeting past continuance into bump-ville yet again, Adella discovers the horrible truth about family law trials! Will she live to reveal the hoax or will she just go golfing? A death in the family leads to pondering of other losses and memories rent by circumstance. Time stands still, reverses, and blurs into a meaningless distinction. Even weirder, Adella sleeps in for an entire hour. Is this a sign of the coming Apocalypse or simply the approach of autumnal equinox? Read on to find out... 



  
Pinkadinkadoo and the Purple Proteins - 

No, that is not actually Fat Free Milk sitting adoringly at my feet. Not that my socks do not infect everything that sights them with their insidious pinkishness... I wore these babies running around Lake Padden yesterday morning, and let me tell you the "greenery" is definitely now pinkery with a radioactive afterglow. As are several of the blisters on my arch and heel (ah yes, there is a reason that athletic companies make special running socks and it may have to do with the fact that cheap novelty trouser socks don't hold their own after about 30 minutes of sweaty foot pounding insanity). 

No, actually, that libation up above is plum juice. I believe sometimes we call that prune juice in these parts. Which seems odd to my Amuricuuuuhn ear. How do you juice a dried fruit? Isn't that akin to rock juice? And, honestly, how often have you had raisin juice? Although, apparently there is such a thing as prune juice and it is distinct from what I've got sitting at my feet (plum juice made by my father). From what I recall, the prune plum is a specific French kind of plume, so perhaps it's a special honor to be called Prune Juice in the same way sparkling wines may aspire to being Champagnes. On a side note, I find it amusing that "prune" is so singularly unattractive a word, given its long association with age and digestive health, that our fancy french word is surreptitiously being dropped from all labeling. Soon, gramma will be swillin' FREEDOM JUICE! Or is that just a bottle of Gordon's? But I digress. More than a little. We are all totally surprised

Yes, that is plum juice laying at my feet. My father gave it to me swearing up and down that it was far too tart and required at least a small mountain's worth of sugar for proper potability. But since I am all wonky, maybe I'd like it. On first taste, I was so primed for tartness that I barely tasted the juice. On a subsequent investigation, I found the syrupy sapor most appropriate for popsicle format. I have, however, experimented and discovered that the juice takes surprisingly well to plain whey protein. Since I've only tried this directly after a run, I suspect my tastes are primed for something a bit sweeter and thicker than usual. But as a recovery drink, it's certainly faster and easier than whipping out the blender. And in that post-run state, it's far tastier than any frappucheekymonkeyjuliusmoothawalla. 

Yes, the game of adding in little caloric zips and zings willy nilly is assertedly afoot (dear Watson). First order of business has been increasing my animal proteins. Because, hell, I'm not a vegan! Might as well! About six months ago, I made the transition from two egg whites to one  full egg in my morning egg and flaxmeal sandwich thing (after making the transition from teeny tiny bread to Ezekiel hippy bread). The egg whites are now making a comeback on top of the egg. Which makes for a tasty morning sandwich.  I have to say. It also means that +Andrew Wright and I go through a lot of eggs. I even considered going ahead and getting the bulk 5 dozen box of eggs for us, until I checked the unit price and realized that it was cheaper to waste cartons. Besides, heaven forbid Andrew's riff raff eggs mix with my classy girly eggs.

Anyways, I think it gives a good swathe of our fridge a distburbingly BRO feel to it. We've got a six pack of stout on the other side, so eggs, leftovers, coffee and beer! (Granted, there are several hidden shelves devoted to all my strange seeds, nuts, fruits, and raw produce type things - but not in the main sector of the fridge). 

 My other goal is of course to add in some really super easy carbs. Like juice! Which, to my uncultivated system, is something a little like injecting glucose directly through a vein in my eye. But it works ok to just add the sugar sweet stuff to something I'm already drinking. And, really, running on the kind of high fiber diet I usually pursue has always had some ... unpleasant results for me when literally running (and yes, I just used the world "literal" in its literal sense). 

I've also relented a longstanding bias against dates (incident in the evil land of Zagora involving a very bad evening that culminated in consuming some maggot infested produce the next morning while severely dehydrated and certain that evil was closing in on us). 

And that is the limited edition whats-adella-eating post for your morning pick me up.

On Friday we attended the continuance hearing for our Happy Trial Preparation Days trial that was theoretically scheduled to happen  this coming Tuesday. No continuance was granted, but there's - of course - a 90% chance that the trial will be bumpety bumped and twerked for not-so-good measure. Our assigned judge has a trial carrying over from last week (no fair!) and another judge is going on vacation this week. That means there's one judge left. So, there would have to be a complete freeze on any criminal cases and probably several civil cases to ensure our timely commencement. 

Sigh. I hear of other attorneys being caught "in trial" all the time. So, is it us? Do the judge's hate our cases?? I'm starting to suspect we're getting the cold shoulder. OR, maybe nobody ever goes to trial and the other attorneys have all been lying!! Hmmmmm....  Maybe there is no such thing as a family law trial and we all just buy into it, assume others are doing it, and use it as a handy excuse when our five year olds do something we're so embarrassed about that we even have to hesitate before photographing it and uploading it to facebook!!! I think I'm onto something here!!

At any rate, it's going to be a wild week either way. Getting on my dancing shoes and getting ready to watusie. But only after my whey plum supplement kicks in. 

 

Bumpety bumpe goes the Trial!

As predicted, we were bumpety-bumped yesterday. That's 0 for 4, for those keeping track. And actually, I am starting to think it's me. My dear friend, +Molly Tasanasanta  made the mistake of identifying me as a potential witness in her upcoming car-crash litigation (all the cool kids are having them these days; it's more or less the modern equivalent of a quincenera or debutante ball, that first day on the stand trying to remember the details of being rammed into by a metal object roughly five years ago). Her trial was supposed to go in October. It is no longer doing so due to scheduling issues with some other more important witnesses. 

I think maybe my whole collaborative law thing is so powerful that it destroys all trials in my path!! Feel the wrath of alternative dispute resolution!!!

Having a trial bumped is a lot like having a professor who keeps cancelling class at the last minute. There's a mix of relief and delight at having the extra time, but a little part of can't help but kvetch "hey wait, I'm paying for an education and I did all the damned homework and made it to school and... I didn't have to??" Still, I'm not going to shed too many tears. The next trial will be a reprise of our summer bizarro trial. I look forward to seeing how that one gets bumped and whether we'll actually get any trial materials from the other side this time around!




Swine sprout alae, Hades has a frost warning, and Adella sleeps in! 

(All the way until 6:00 a.m.) That's right, it's possible: I do occasionally sleep in. This is usually pursuant to some illness or a series of late nights the week before, but occasionally it just happens. Usually around this time of year, when the dawn recedes further and further into the crevices of early-to-mid-morning. I rarely need anything close to an alarm, as I wake regularly through the night at predicted intervals. I have a feature on my phone that turns off the ringer between 9 pm and 5 am. When it turns the ringer back on, there is a very quiet noise that is always just enough to tip me off that this particular nocturnal stirring is the one in which I fully arise and get my shining on (like rise-and-shine shining, not like go-to-a-winter-hotel-and-talk-to-my-finger-about-my-father-who-went-nuts-and-is-now-trying-to-kill-me shining... most mornings anyways). Last night, I had already had the phone ringer off, so this morning there was no little blip.

I stirred at about 6:00 and thought it felt like time to check the clock. My brain rapidly registered the 6 as being later than 5 before quite calmly saying "Andrew, dear.... oh Andrew... I slept in... you need to get up now." To explain: I am usually Andrew's alarm clock. I get up insufferably early, start coffee and only stir him at about 5:30 with a full cup. By 5:45, there's breakfast waiting for him (and lunch, but this is in special protective Tupperware, so he doesn't get confused and consume both meals in one sitting) and by 6:00 a.m., he's been fed and I'm out the door. I'm not exactly sure when he leaves in the morning, but last I heard, he is expected to meet his carpool buddy at the park and ride at 6:20, so I imagine he leaves around 6:15ish.  

So, as you may imagine, my sleeping in can be a logistical snag for both of us. On the other hand, I left at 6:10 with Andrew fed, his lunch packed, and a teeny tiny smattering of coffee for him in a mug. I knew there was a reason - outside of my bizarre food hoarding ways - that I always keep the extra coffee from the pot in the fridge! And I had most of my meal before I was out the door. May have forgotten my iron supplement this morning, so I will likely immediately collapse with a virulent bout of anemia (that's how that works right?, and, even worse, might not spend my morning ever so slightly nauseous! I'll survive.

I blame our fabulous evening the night before for this uncharacteristic dabble in sloth. That's right: DATE NIGHT was last night, so of course we're both totally spent. You know how wild and crazy we get? It was an interesting little quest of an evening. Apparently it's a popular thing in Bellingham for the restaurants I want to go to to be closed on Tuesday. Not Monday, mind you, but Tuesday. We do everything different here. 

So, I had a craving for a big salad. We thought of Fairhaven Pizza Co., because they basically give you two tons of garden. They were closed. So I figured Boomer's Drive-In has a great salad. They weren't closed, but they were packed. So packed that there were no available seats. I suggested eating in the car, but it is still a tad hot out, so we carried on. And on and on. To Fiamma Burger. They were closed! We ended up at Avenue Bread, mostly a bakery and cafe with lunch options, but they appeared to be open. I'm guessing that they start a lot of their bread in the evening, since they were decidedly not packed, there were several employees in the background, and we were warned it would take twenty minutes to get our food to us after it took about five to ten to get somebody to come wait on us.

 In my typical persnickety impatience, I muttered about how much that sucked and was serenely sour about my perpetually thwarted evening. Then I sat down outside. It's hard to remain impatient and persnickety on a slow moving, beautiful evening at the tail end of summer. Especially hard to maintain when stuck at a quiet dining area outside, with no electronic distractions, and with your husband to fill the time with desultory encomiums on the historical significance of the Great Northwest (Adult) Bookstore, random bicycle parts and perhaps the desirability of the sartorial options of random passers-by. 

By the time we actually got out food, which I don't think was actually all of twenty minutes later, I had decidedly chilled out and then warmed back into a lovely evening. And I was not disappointed in my desire for a mountain of salad. I believe I may have gotten an entire head of  red leaf on my plate. Our return was equally pleasant and untested by the looming demons of ritual and obligation. It involved feeling the breeze of the fans, much snuggling on several sofas, and making quite the panoply of different funny faces at each other for no particular reason except sometimes this is just what we do for half hours at a time. 

As you can see, totally exhausting, our evening. Or perhaps too relaxing. Maybe that's what happened. I unwound so far that my inner clock went almost as still as the atomic clock in our office occasionally does. Unlike, say, the atomic clock I took from my grandmother's apartment for my office. Somewhat appropriate to her own spirit, it is an impatient little devil and seems to lapse several minutes fast before re-syncing with the atomic signal. Creates an interesting distortion in time that I have yet to fully explore. 

At any rate, if you were wondering, yes I can sleep in! A little. And no, I don't actually need that full hour to get things ready for work. Apparently 15 minutes will do in a pinch. But really, no actual pinches necessary. I might flinch and hurt somebody...







The Autumn leaves drifting by my window, never past but more fervently fictional as time goes by:

A little while ago, I attempted to reach out to a long estranged friend. She gave no response, as I somewhat suspected. It was a funny situation that took us both by surprise in different ways, the capping moment of our estrangement. I'd love to explain what exactly went awry - and have endeavored to do so countlessly on instant and less instant replay from every angle - but any attempt would either be absurdly effacing, or pointlessly self-serving. I don't really know her perspective and without that I can only fill in details from my own perspective, which was never hers.  I know we approached relationships in very different ways. I'm vexingly nuanced, aware and hazy about the infinite categorizations of a relationship, and prone to perpetual pondering. She was very black and white, matter of fact, and seemingly sudden in shifts. I have tried to project into more categorical understandings, but they are ironically protean and slippery for me. Any filling-in will always be far more of a literary endeavor than an honest account. There were misunderstandings, and I admit to some major breaches in friend-etiquette on my part.

Due to my grasp on her distaste for lengthy emotional conversations, I did not explain my sense that she was moving on from the close-knit to the more attenuated friendship for some time. Despite a few admissions that I didn't think we were necessarily as close as we'd once been, I'd perhaps failed to tell her my feelings more overtly. I think I was afraid that if she did not see our friendship as extremely close, it would cease to exist for her at all. And I fault myself for failing to trust her that far. 

As part of a far larger blogblubber in the aftershock of some very difficult life events, I mentioned that I had been adjusting to realizing that my once closest friend no longer was that close. I didn't expect this friend to to read or be surprised by what I had written, but of course she did and whatever else, it took her by surprise. I believe it was a breach of a very closely held trust between us. I thought she was upset because it was an obscure breach of her well guarded privacy, but I think it went far deeper than that. My impulses at first (as always) were to explain, explain, and explain again. It never seemed like she quite understood my actual intention and I certainly struggled to understand her reaction. It was the first time where my vocabulary and hers seemed entirely incompatible. She asked for time. And time stretched into timelessness. The best I could do was to respect her wishes to be left alone, mostly. For a long time I felt it was a token of respect to her to keep whatever somewhat-baffling-fall-out we had had to myself, but not without the occasional attempt to indicate I'm still there if she wants to reconnect. I doubt she ever will.

 Friend breakups are far rarer and far more enduring than romantic breakups. this is largely because there is the option to fade a person out in a way that committed relationships do not allow. Romantic relationships force the issue with their tendencies towards intensity and exclusivity, and it is clear from the beginning that a break up may come if death or happily-ever-after fail to intervene.

 Because of that, I don't have a lot of context for how I'd feel in the opposite situation. When an ex contacts me, regardless of whether he hurt me or vice versa, I'm usually warily happy to reconnect. It gives me a strange sense of continuity and a reflection on how I have changed as a person. I find it affirming to realize that I've come to an emotional point where I can accept that we are no longer so emotionally entwined that it's possible to see the beauty in the other person without the pain of having restricted access to that beauty. I enjoy finding out how he has evolved and to show him how much I have changed while recognizing some quintessential shared experience we once had. I'm not sure there is a person out there whose attempts to contact me would be jarring and unwelcome. And yes, I believe I just tempted the universe. Hence, why it is so difficult not to continue attempting contact with others. But silence is a communication all its own and I am not deaf to it. 

I've generally accepted this, though occasionally it rankles that she had previously forgiven people and reconnected with them after a cooling down period. Perhaps I should take that as a token of the depth of trust and intimacy that was lost for her.There is also a part of me that always feels that those who were in my life remain a part of my life regardless of physical presence or passage of time. Whenever we lose a person, we lose a part of our own lives. We are shaped by our stories which in turn are shaped by our memories, and these in turn are shaped by the common tales we craft and develop with our intimates. Lose a story-teller, x out some of the details, and some small portion of you goes with it. 

It's strange, because on the one hand, I regret not trusting her enough to be more pointedly honest. On the other, I suspect that the friendship I could have hoped to sustain - and the one I thought I was merely accepting as inevitable - would have been best preserved by having told her nothing. The experience is muddled for any what-if scenario by the lack of input from the other side, but of course I've determined to learn from it regardless. At the very least I'm careful about what I write about now. I joked when my nephew was trying to think of funny things he could do "for Aunt Adella's blog" that the observer effect is inevitable (the exponential stupidity and drama curve of any reality television show is a crasser demonstration of these tendencies). I feared that perhaps my own celebration of some of my nephews' more vexing behaviors could encourage them. I think the observer effect can go much farther than this, and that the mere act of voicing something already in existence can substantially alter it. Most of my loved ones know that they occasionally feature in something I record. I now try to gut-check anything I write to make certain there is no unspoken revelation hidden in my prosaic palaver. That can be a challenge, because my fingers often take over and much of my processing of the world is through these shamanistic spirit fingers and a subsequent read of their progeny. And as somebody hyper-aware of the shifting dynamics and tiniest emotional clues, I often assume others know things that they do not. 

If I'm writing about "her" now, it's because I feel that I've been pointedly truncated as a person in her life; thus the slice of her reality that I once held is divorced from her as an ongoing separate entity. As much as I fight it, I am essentially a writerly sort. Nobody is ever out of my life, but through time they may evolve into abstractions of my experience with the world and the philosophical ivy that clings to its edifice. The person she was, just as is true of the person I was, no longer exists. My version of the person she was only exists as a shadow cast by a ghost. It is my creation with her inspiration.


 The experiences that I shared with her have become patently my own by her own choice. We lend ourselves to the memories of others in exchange for their contribution of self to our experiences. When an item is abandoned and not merely lost, then it is up for full ownership. And because it was an interesting moment in my life - one that illustrates greater quandaries that continue on long after the specificity fades - and because it continues to swirl about issues of my own identity, I use "her" as a convenient starting point. The friend I mentioned is not actually the subject of this post or of much of my puzzling. While it is true that I will continue to waiver between reaching out and shrinking back (not wishing to continually pester somebody who may or may not have made her wishes clear through silence), this action is both independent and reflective of the "she" that graces this post and any other similar references. 

I recognize that these thoughts are in parallel to my thoughts about the expected-yet-unexpected death of my grandmother last week. And of course I suspect this passing is the direct inspiration for revisiting that sense of loss in other manifestations. I continue to maintain that the human brain simply does not know what to do with these losses. So many mental habits built up over so much time can take years to unravel. And that unraveling leaves us with so many threads to reweave into our own story of that person and ourselves. Knowing full well that I have taken ownership of somebody's memory, if only my snippet of that image, I can't help but wonder what my image (some small portion of myself) is doing out there in the minds of others. How am "I" used in the stories that people tell? Would it surprise me? Would the image be so jarringly different from the story I tell about myself that I could not begin to understand? And I realize I will never know that, just like nobody will ever know exactly how I utilize their images. No story is without stylization. No mind can truly be peered into. But the more attenuated we are from mutual telling of tales, the more they become less a thing of the past and more a present and future reflection of our own selves. 


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