Holiday Weight-Loss Secret...Revealed!

I believe, as humans (or maybe as women), that we have two target weights: one is set by our bodies and one is decided upon by our brains. The former seems to hover right around 7.5 pounds over the one our pesky little overactive brains have decided upon. My friend KJ said recently that when she is at her (brain's) target weight, it usually means something is wrong with her. I say this because I had a run-in with a strep-like illness that descended upon me swiftly, mercilessly, silently, and left me fupa-free, Christmas weight be-gone! That and the fact that I have been skiing!

I have never had strep throat before, telling the nurse, "I fancy myself a non-strep kind of person," to which she smiled patronizingly, stabbed at my tonsils for a few minutes with a 17 inch Q-tip, then rushed from the room to peek at all the little cooties who were whisked away from their cocktail party in the warmdarkmoist recesses of my throat. My only symptoms were a fever, swollen glands and a situation in my throat that felt like someone had made a blood pressure cuff out of the tenderest pinkest flesh you could find, then inflated it with 4000 degree magma, rubbed it raw with a Brillo pad and inserted it into the space directly between the back of my tongue and my larynx. How many times do we swallow in a minute? Maybe twice, three times? So for 15 hours (which doesn't seem like very long, but when you're in the trenches...) every time I could feel a potential swallow looming, I would gather all my strength, force it down, wincing the whole time. It wasn't long before I was just spitting out my spit--way easier.

Enough with the gory detials, right? So it turns out (I can tell you smugly) I am NOT a strep kind of person even though she hastily added that these tests do have a 10-15% false negative return. They then gave me these options:

1. Least expensive and longest time to return to swallowing? A course of $15 antibiotics.

2. Middle expensive and longest time to return to swallowing? A shot of pencillin.

3. Most expensive and immediate return to swallowing? A shot of penicillin AND a shot of steroids.

I'm sure you can all guess which option I chose. The penicillin went in smooth and easy in my right arm. My response: That was it? The steroid went into my left "hip" and was long, torturous, searing and nausea-inducing. My response: Can I lie down for a few minutes? They left me alone in the semi-darkened room where I found myself suddenly very weepy, tears literally coursing out of my eyes. It was rather surprising and I lay there sort of wallowing in it and weakly attempting to process it (it took a hell of a lot of energy just getting myself down to the medical center) and my conclusion? I sort of just wanted a hug.

I did also have my first "small towns can suck" moment, when I was running into old friends left and right but was incapable of speaking (for fear that I had to painfully swallow or, worse, spit during our conversation). As I like to say, when you live in a small community, on your best day you know EVERYONE! And on your worst day you know everyone. Humongo difference.

Thank you Western medicine, I say, because by the time I had trudged home and had walked a mile in the snow (thanks Ali for pointing out a grandfather clause) and had worked the steroids into the muscle of my "hip" I felt immensely better. That and the fact that I can count on one hand the number of times I have taken antibiotics means they work very very quickly on me. Okay, probably enough about poor little old me and dramatic sore throat. That I had for less than 24 hours. Yeah, I know. But I really did feel like I was close to dying. Oh and guess how much my bill was? Uninsured= $472. I had to bend over TWICE.

So let's move on to the more exciting topic of skiing!! As some of you know, when I moved to Telluride in '92 (or 3?) I knew not how to ski or snowboard. I had skied once with Alex in Vermont on our spring break and did ok--took a half-day lesson every morning and then met Alex at lunch for a half day of shooshing together. Now, when I got here my goal was to access all of the mountain in a short period of time so it seemed logical to pick up the sport with the shortest learning curve=snowboarding. Which I did for almost a decade. Well, now I am ready for something new and I have to say I think skiers look cooler so I went up with a friend for a lesson on Wednesday and loved it!! I really did. I was a tad worried because I had just investe a LOT of money in ski gear and my intention in coming here for all or part of the winter was to achieve a certain level of proficiency with skiing and I was tickled with myself (not to toot my own horn too much) with how quickly I picked it up but also at how natural it felt.

It is snowing right now and I am a little bummed that I cannot (will not) go up today but I need one more day to really rest and get right before I go back up. Rats. But again, that is the beauty of living here--I have 3 more MONTHS of unfettered skiing (and the occasional snowboarding with my g-friends).

I am including photos and also a link to photos I took over the holidays, here. That top header photo was taken from my living room window of Ajax Peak at the head of the valley.

This is my new room and my new BFF Dakota, which Kelly calls a "living pillow":

Dakota's "brother" Dallas comes home from doggie training school this Sunday and is actually shown on a YouTube clip heeling and stopping and sitting with oddly porn-like background music.

Miles High in the Mile High City

I made it on my flight out of Raleigh-Durham on December 30th, but I was barely conscious. Five o'clock in the morning comes awfully early sometimes. We had one last family dinner out at Mount Fuji, the night before, sushi and sake and topped it all off with gelato. We had some experimental rolls, with different kinds of fish draped over flash-fried and panko-crusted other fishes and avos and such. Ella was in rare form, hilarious and engaging and it seems my nickname has devolved from "Aunt Kafren" to "Aunt Rafren."

I was fully packed, with my two suitcases to check, and then my yoga mat bag and my laptop bag to carry on. I ran into Hadley and her friend as we boarded the plane and they saved me a window seat on their row so we chatted a bit before she and I fell into a slumber for most of the 4 hour flight to Denver.

Does anyone watch "Dexter" on Showtime? He sat two rows in front of us, kanoodling with his real-life girlfriend who it turns out is his sister on the show. He looks smaller and younger in real life and the sister looks shorter as well. Odd, huh?

As soon as I checked into my Renaissance room I ordered room service then slipped into a dreamless nap for a couple of hours...shower and change, connect with all the folks driving up from Telluride, then over to their Residence Inn for the pre-show festivities. And what a show! The Pepsi Arena is large, 18,000 people or so but we managed to find a nice row where we could shove intruders out and keep our people together. Concerts are just so much fun. I was overdue for a cut loose couple of days and Panic delivered. I took a cab home to my hotel at 4:30am, showered and slumbered, awakened at 10 or so, ordered a pot of coffee and huevos rancheros, then slept again until 2 or so, whence I showered and readied myself again, this time for the big show, the New Year's Eve concert, and headed on over to the Renaissance again. I am a huge fan of staying a reasonable distance away from venues and throngs of partying friends, as I can show up and leave at will. Kelly came down from Boulder for a couple of hours and Jason surprised Erika on her birthday with tickets to the show, plus Matty drove up, oh and Layla and Emmet from Denver. It was Emmet's first time seeing Panic and about a minute into the first song he turns to me and says, "I get it." It was really fun to watch his face during the show and see how much fun he was having, just taking it all in. I danced like a freak and my arms and legs are still sore! I made it back to the hotel by 6:30 this time, again showered and slumbered and awakened to order room service before we organized ourselves and hit the road for the 6 hour drive to Telluride.

I got to loll about in the back of Corina's BMW SUV while she and Alex laughed and chatted up front. We stopped at a great pizza place in Idaho Springs, and also caught an incredible sunset in Grand Junction, the sky was blood red which is always a cool treat on New Year's Day, right?

Not so many photos for you all right now, just not in the picture taking mode, but I am sure that will all shift once I am fully into a routine here. When I awakened on my first morning I was looking right up Bear Creek, sunlight playing on the snowy peaks at the top and I felt some relief. I am finally here. That is not to say that I didn't spend the next day questioning myself, Are you sure you are doing the right thing? Are you sure you can spend this money right now? What are you going to do when the ski season ends? You have to get a real job at some point in time, right? Who do you think you are? Why was the pizza crust so thick in Idaho Springs? You get the idea. Although I think it is more healthy than not to question your decisions, I was happy to fall asleep and rely on dreams to keep me feeling slightly insane.

January 2nd, and I was out the door getting my new post office box and checking account, having lunch with KJ and little Townes and then I collapsed into a 2-hour nap.

January 3rd, and I am picking up skis and boots and poles and new bindings all in place. And my old snowboard, tuned with new bindings. Another nap, this one only one hour, and more dinner and movies with CoCo. The house is great and so is she, I will have to get some photos of her and her "living pillows" these two adorable dogs that lie on you when you are supine.

It feels good to be back, but not quite there yet. I need to work and tomorrow I start teaching yoga at the Peaks, my first class at 9am! I went up for some runs today, CoCo and KJ and M, we went all over, to 6 and 9 and ended up at Allred's eating truffle french fries and drinking cider and bourbon (them) and chatting with CoCo's dad and Meghan's mom by a crackling fire. So nice.

Backroad to Boulder

On my drive from Telluride to Boulder I discovered a whole, vast section of Colorado that I had never explored before! That kind of revelation I find immensely exciting and satisfying. For my Hawaii friends, Montrose is to Telluride what Kahului is to the West Side. It is a town about 90 minutes away that provides less expensive and vastly more options for all the crap you need in your life. Telluride, by the way, years ago passed an ordinance that disallowed all chain stores and restaurants. Target? Drive to Montrose. Safeway? Hop in the car. Sears, Sports Authority, JC Penney, Walgreens, Subway, Taco Bell...you get the idea. It is simultaneously liberating and inconvenient to live in a town where consumerism is unique, expensive and at times, incredibly inconvenient. But you sort of make a day of it, stopping at the hot springs on the way home for a soak or a margarita in Ridgway.

My point to all this is that I decided that I would take an alternate and possible more lengthy route up through the state to spend a few more days in balmy Boulder with Kelly and Clio before flying home to North Carolina. Why, you ask? Well, for starters I was rather hung over. Surprisingly so, considering the few drinks I consumed and the early hour at which I collapsed into my bed. But there it is. I'm getting old--or at least my liver is. We had a fun evening out at the Excelsior, wine and pasta and lots of laughs, myself, KJ, Dawn, Peggy and Meghan but I was neglectful with photos and cannot show you our bleary faces. I am the only unwed unmother of the group, which is neither here nor there, but we toasted our friend and the town doctor who was in Montrose giving birth to a little carrot-top as we dined. Way to go, Sharon!! I think we decided to leave when the table beside us asked to be moved!

So anywho, I get up on Thursday morning and make some final rounds in town, dropping an old snowboard off at the freebox (I will explain this one later as I sense this entry will be wordy and devoid of photos--actually, I take that back, read THIS), getting a cheap ski pass (THANKS Jeremy!), saying farewell to a few folks and treating myself to a yummy spicy hot chai--sometimes sugar can jump-start a hangover but apparently not this time. Nineteen degrees!!! Yes, Indian summer in Telluride can be oh so un-summery. Quick stop at my new an improved and scaled-down storage unit to drop a couple of things off and THEN...an alternate route to Boulder. Typically, I would have shot up on I-70, which is beautiful in its own right, passing through Glen Canyon and over Vail Pass--you can get there sometimes in under 6 hours, which is making really good time. I sensed that with my impaired state and no cds or companionship, the highway drive might prove to be, well, dangerous. For real. So I shot over from Montrose to Gunnison (the Kahului of Crested Butte), where I noticed that a good 92% of the humans out and about were heavy-set hunters hauling trailers with what initially appeared to be upside-down chairs and couches, but upon closer inspection (through my camera's zoom lens) actually revealed themselves as deer and elk legs--hooves sticking straight up in the air! Oh and lots of McCain/Palin signage.

Even though I had eaten a sub from this cool local Subwich place in Montrose, it became alarmingly clear when I reached "Gunny" that I wanted--no, cancel that--NEEDED a major source of grease. For those of you who have not yet visited a Sonic, they have these cheese fries ("Super Sonic size, please" I ordered) that you actually need a fork to eat them with and are immensely satisfying. That and a cherry limeade that was almost too big for me to pick up with one hand. Now, I had a moment, as they say, while I was waiting for my order of sugar and fat, and it was a pause hallmarked by pure and undiluted gratitude. I am watching a Sonic employee walking--no, trudging--to work, perhaps from her house a short distance away, drawing her final puff of inspiration from a cigarette, and crushing it out on the garbage can before entering her workplace. And I'm watching her, and suddenly I am thinking about my time off, driving around Colorado, and all the people working in all the less-than-desireable jobs that are making this possible for me. The immensity of it was rather overwhelming, even in or maybe because of my state of mind. From the guy who works at the rental car desk in Boulder (that's his JOB), to the state highway people that care enough to get funding to post signs about watching for wildlife, to the construction workers who stand out there in that sun and wind and cold, telling us when to slow down and when to stop--they are out there ALL DAY, and then go home eat dinner go to sleep and do it all over again the next day. And that woman in the Subwich place, all she did was lean over the meat slicer and slice meat for ever single order that came in. All day. And the people that work in the gas stations, sitting behind that counter all day, just ringing stuff in for strangers, all.day.long. A convenience store is their work environment! And how about the who-knows-where-they-are Asians that built my cell phone, so I could talk to Hilary while I drove past the Collegiate Peaks later that day? They are probably in some crappy factory, just eking out a living so I won't have to be bored for part of the day. And then back to that girl coming in to work at Sonic in Gunnison, which, by the way is one of the coldest towns in Colorado because of the way the cold air settles into the valleys at night there--she is probably making, what, $15,000 a YEAR? If? I just suddenly got it. The thought and feeling of how priveleged I am almost made me lose my appetite. And then she handed me my Super Sonic Size Cheese Fries and I had to ask for a fork so I could eat them as I drove my SUV towards Monarch Pass with the heat on high.

Highway 285 heads up north of Monarch Pass, through the center of Colorado and even though it took me a bit longer than the highway drive, it was worth every minute. I must have seen thousands of horses. Hundreds of sheep and goats. Tens of thousands of cows. Red-tailed hawks, deer and elk, all hanging out talking about how much they don't want to be someone's upside-down chair at the end of the day.

By the time I got to the outskirts of Denver, I realized I needed a map to navigate the snarl of highways towards Boulder--and then remembered (!) that I had found a stack of maps when I cleaned out my storage unit and the Colorado map was on the floor in the back seat area. Well, being too stubborn to stop driving (mostly because I had passed a few hunters and didn't want to end up behind them again because it was actually a lot of work passing them in the first place, with no passing zones and steep hills and such) I tried to open and read the map as I swerved around corners, and quickly concluded that that tactic was actually life-threatening. So I winged it. And ended up in the southEAST corner of Denver, exactly the opposite of where I wanted to be. Consulting the map was useless as, it turns out, my map was published some time in the early '90's. Yes, cities change.

But I made it. Kelly and Clio were home and happy for my return, and we ordered some innovative Asian food that was brought directly to her front door. All was well. Highway 285 opened my heart to the interior of the state and Sonic opened my eyes to the cogs of the world.

Valley High

That was my first morning back in Telluride. Just to orient those of you who have not been here, the actual town is nestled in the bottom of that canyon, hidden by snowclouds. The land stretching all the way to the town is the Valley Floor, which is currently populated with a herd of elk and active little coyotes. The right side of the valley is the ski area, the peak in the back is Ajax, which gets bombed most winters to create controlled avalanches, and the left side is the "sunny side".

Despite snow that first morning, the rest of the week was typical, glorious late Indian Summer, hot enough for shorts and tank tops in the sun, absolutely cloudless and with barely a puff of breeze. Because the winter was so epic last season, the summer got a later start than usual, and most folks here felt the summer was just too short, so this weather was very very welcome.

I had a nice long hike up Tomboy Road on the sunny side with Bill and his new dog, Chester, as you can see. Bill and I worked in the Powderhouse (ironic, isn't it?) Restaurant forever ago and always fit a hike or a concert in when I visit. Bill is an official live music nut (especially for Widespread Panic) and he actually used these words to describe his infatuation with them: "It's all your fault." Can you believe it?! He had not experienced them live prior to our time working together and he has since spent countless hours and dollars traveling pretty much everywhere to see them. Rather than being the one who is to blame for his endeavors, I asked that I be the one who gets the credit for turning him on to such a fun band and fan base. Anyway, we had a great hike, caught up on each others lives and some of the local politics--there are some big issues for this small town in the coming election.

Because it is the start of the fall off-season, most shops and restaurants are either closed, open for limited hours, or offering some great specials. And lots of folks are headed out on off-season vacations, mostly desert trips for camping, climbing, hiking and rafting, or surf trips to Costa Rica, Panama or Mexico. It's a nice time to be here, just because there are virtually no tourists and little traffic, and lots of people just hanging around waiting to get a cup of coffee with ME and chat about nothing in particular. Except the local politics. You know how with people it seems that a personality trait has both a light and a shadow side? Same with Telluride. One of the greatest aspects of this town is that people care. And one of the most challenging aspects of this town is that people care. Everyone has an opinion about the future of Telluride, the identity of Telluride and the issues of Telluride. Small town, big issues. I like it and I like learning about what is important to the people here right now, same as in Hawaii, where water, development and the harmony of historical culture with moving into the future are the pressing issues. Telluride's population has practically doubled with the arrival of so many new babies. The current issues? Child care, school expansion and medical center expansion. Voters are being asked to invest their money in children and doctors.

That is the house where I will be this winter. Corina has offered me one of her 3 bedrooms, and I will be right on the bus route, just a few doors down from the cemetary (quiet and nice to stroll through) and we are on the sunny side! Hard to beat, plus great views up Bear Creek. It all worked out quite nicely. We hiked up Bear Creek with her miniature Australian shepherd/sheepy dogs, known as the Double D's (Corina shares that nickname!), for Dallas and Dakota.

Also hiked up to Lake Hope, which hovers above Trout Lake and as you can see from the pictures was more snowy than we had anticipated. Dawn and I used to live together and she now has two kids, Charlotte and Kayden, and she and her husband Jeremy live a few doors down from where I am staying with KJ and Homer on this trip. I actually lost my camera on this hike but managed to get it back effortlessly--there was a hiker behind us who climbed Vermillion Peak that came upon it and left it at the trailhead for me to pick up the next morning--we left my number with his family and it saved me doing that same hike on Sunday morning again! It's pretty steep. And I was tired.

There's Dawn breaking trail ahead of me. The lake was not yet frozen over and actually looked like a million glittering diamonds when the breeze picked up and rippled the surface towards us.

I also hiked up to one of my favorite spots ON EARTH, which I call the Sacred Homestead. You can see the old chimney and the site where a house stood, and the view of Silver Bowl, a crescent-shaped range of peaks that tower over a lake that is just hidden from view by the trees. This is up at Alta Lakes, and is one of the most peaceful places I have been.
Believe it or not, it was warm enough to lie down without much on and listen to the fluttering of the camp robbers' wings as they flew over me, for the better part of an hour. Of course this photo does not begin to capture the sensation of that range towering over and the clarity of the air and the intense warmth of the sun, but you will have to take my word for how fabulous it all is!

And then here is the lake itself and if you look carefully in the bottom right-hand corner you can just make out a house, called the Observatory. It was built in the 70's by a couple who still live here and I lucked out and happened to date Swany, who was a caretaker for it for some years. We had parties like you would not believe. It is accessible in the witner only by snowmobiling in, or cross-country skiing, I think 6 or 8 miles. We would load up with food and drink and what seemed like hundreds of dogs, and find ourselves doing naked cannonballs into the hot tub at 4 am. Good times had by all.

Aside from all that hiking I have been sleeping late, drinking too many lattes and just strolling around spending too mcuh money on gear that I will need for my winter. I got fitted for ski boots (the guy spent TWO HOURS on my feet) and I am fairly certain they will forever feel like velveteen booties, considering the amount of time and money I invested in getting a good fit. Oh, and skis. And bindings. And ski pants. And a ski pass.

I have had some good yoga classes and it seems as though the time to start teaching may be, finally, upon me. The two women who teach Anusara here will be stopping right around the time I return. Which means I may take over some of their classes. I actually feel good about it. I always felt that I would teach at the optimal time, and perhaps this is it. I am excited to give it a go.

Boulder and Beyond

I still haven't finished writing about the yoga workshop in Jackson, but I will get that posted as soon as I can. It is more reflective than just my journeys and want to give it the focus it deserves. For now, let me fill you in on my time since I left Wyoming.

I flew from Idaho Falls to Boise, then zipped into Denver, where Layla and her 3-year old daughter Isabela, whom I had not met before, picked me up and took me back to their house. I knew Layla and then Emmet, her husband from years ago in Telluride. Layla is an incredible pastry chef and is now quite successful with marketing and selling for Arbonne and Emmet just opend up a little Cuban sandwich and coffee cafe called "Buchi", which is a couple of blocks down the street from their Highlands house, at 2651 W. 38th Avenue. If you are in the area, stop in and get a pressed breakfast or lunch sandwich (pork seems to make an appearance in many of the items!) and a Cuban espresso or cafe con leche.

That is a photo of a shot glass of Cuban espresso, not a cool, foamy dark beer! How about THAT? You can probably guess the voltage of that little glass exceeds your expectation--I got completely wired (although I did have THREE shots over the course of our breakfast there). Emmet gets these crusty mini loaves and stuffs them with all sorts of yummy interior delights and then smooshes them in a panini thing and wraps them in white butcher paper and I can tell you they are incredible and a great price too.

There we all are, with little Isabela. She has this incredible strawberry blond hair and is one of the happiest kids I have been around, super chatty and spirited.

The night before we went out to a New Mexican place and I got cactus! Nopales. I love that--it's so primitive somehow, and I can remember the first time I ate cactus, I was camping in the desert with Swany and our dogs at the time, Teak (the wolf), Bullet (the Rottweiler) and Georgia (my chocolate lab). I think we were in Capitol Reef and I saw that all the cacti had fruited, so we ate the fruits and they tasted like watery strawberries! The nopales that we ate at the restaurant are just the thick green "pads" that have obviously been de-thorned.

Anyway, I hadn't seen Layla or Emmet for 8 years we figured out! They had been in Key West and made it through a handful of hurricanes before throwing the towel in and heading back to Colorado. It is so nice to reconnect with old friends, to find those ways you related before and embrace where they are now and the new qualities they have gained since we last roamed around Telluride, with Disco Night and DJs.

On Tuesday Layla deposited me at Kelly's townhouse in Boulder in the morning and I couldn't WAIT to get out and go for a hike so I went up this little trail that overlooks all of Boulder and about as far as you could see to the north, east and south, and the west you get a perfect view of the Continental Divide! It was sunny and warm and just right for my first day. When Kelly got home we went out for sushi and caught up! She has had her townhouse for about a year and she has great views of the Boulder Flatirons and I love her decorating style, sort of Bohemian mod.

Love those Colorado skies!

Kelly also has an incredible dog, Clio that is an unusual and not seen too often breed called Leonberger. They hail from some German town called Leonberg and as you can see, her other name is "Fuzzy." Here is the description from Wikipedia, and I have to say it is quite accurate:

According to the original purpose, the Leonberger is a large, strong, beast-like yet dainty dog. He is distinguished by his balanced build and confident calmness, yet with quite a lively, friendly temperament. Males, in particular, are powerful and strong. Leonbergers love the water and can hunt for wild salmon in their natural environment(s).

Check her out:

Now, I am going to say something here that many may feel is somewhat blasphemous, but I am going to go ahead and put it in print: After being in Jackson Hole, Wyoming for the weekend, I can't help but observe that something about Colorado, in comparison, seems somehow...light. It's sunny and warm and light and people are sunny and warm and light. Wyoming had corridors of beasts, bison and moose and elk, and then huge predators hyperforaging in their wake. It just felt so much more rugged and wild and dangerous, colder and windier and just plain remote. Which I like. A lot. And then I get to breezy Colorado and I have to admit it just felt a little lightweight compared to the wilderness I had just experienced (on a very small scale) in Wyoming. And I love Colorado. A lot. And I think about the bluegrass fans and the hula hoopers and sure, I am in Boulder which has a really mild climate and lots of really aware people, but I just felt a little wistful for that sense I had in Jackson that you really are in the wild west back there and you are perhaps a few degrees closer to the food chain.

But let's get back to how great Boulder is! And the yoga--so many instructors, so little time. I went to two classes at Om Time, both taught by Tarah, whom I liked immediately and connected with her teaching style immediately, partly because (as we determined) we have a similar practice with similar challenges which meant I integrated her verbal alignments easily. We did a two hour Level 3 practice on Thursday and I got so much out of it! Lots of new poses and assists with other students, forged new territory and had a fun time to boot. I think we would be friends if I lived there. Boulder has lots of options for how to spend your money, which I have been avoiding since I am unemployed and we are facing a recession/depression that seems to be just beginning to rear its head.

Kelly and I made two killer meals, one was butternut squash gnocchi on Wednesday, and Thursday she grilled an organic pork tenderloin with a raspberry chiptole sauce, and we had kale, quinoa and roasted beets. And wine. And watched Grey's Anatomy, which was incredibly disappointing. They gotta spice that show up with more sex or potential sex and some scandal and intrigue.

Today, Friday, I rented a car and drove to Santa Fe for a weekend of yoga with John Friend. The drive was 6 hours, as predicted, but I guess I have been super spoiled from living on an island for the past 6 years, because that was a LONG 6 hours! You head south out of Denver and cross the border into New Mexico right around 3 1/2 hours and just past a charming little town called Trinidad that I stopped in long enough to know I wanted to go back, and to pee.

Right now I am in my room at the Santa Fe Residence Inn Marriott and I have to take a moment to talk about how great Marriott is, as a company to work for as well as a lodging option. If you haven't considered working for Marriott, maybe now is the time. They have fantastic associate benefits, one of which I am exercising now--killer room rates. This place is like a condo--full kitchen, fireplace, couch and king size bed, and everyone is always so helpful and friendly.

The last time I was in Santa Fe was in the summer of, god, when was it? the summer of '96? '97? Not sure, but I came down here for a Widespread Panic concert at the incredible venue Paolo Soleri. I can't seem to find a good site to link you to it, but it was named after an Italian dude who did some incredible stuff with architecture an visioning, basically. Anyway, now that I think about it, I was actually there two summers in a row for two concerts. The second I went to with Kelly's now ex-boyfriend, Mark, who is smart and fun and an incredibly talented graphic designer and that was fun, but the first one really stands out in my mind because at the time I was driving an Isuzu Trooper whose starter had decided to stop working a few months prior to our scheduled rock and roll frenzy. At the time I discovered the starter needed some assistance, it just so happened that I had a Budweiser beer bottle under the driver's seat (don't ask) and it also just so happened that a single tap with that bottle on my starter would encourage the Trooper to roar to life and I would be on my way. My memories of that particular concert in Santa Fe involve me and my companions not being able to find that magical bottle (perhaps one of use wisely decided we should clean out open containers before attending a concert in a different state?) and all of them, all guys, pushing my car across burning hot parking lots , trying to gain enough speed for me to pop the clutch and get us going again. I also sat on my Ray Bans and crushed them on that trip. AND there were forest fires, and we drove through pinon pine and sagebrush smoke through northern New Mexico on the way back to Telluride.

I caught a spectacular sunset this evening:

from outside my room. The clouds around the sun looked like molten bronze, this radiant metallic texture that framed the yolky sun as it slipped from sight. Nice way to start my yoga weekend here, yes?

The Aspenization of Kaua'i

A few nights ago I dreamed that Aspen, that beloved little glitzy mountain town way high up in the Colorado mountains, that up all night-ski all day dot in the Rockies, that valley of killer music and festivals, Aspen, believe it or not, was now located on the island of Kaua'i. It was perfect, really. And the solution to my most pressing and current dilemma: how to live two places at once. How do I enjoy the fruits of Hawai'i with the feasts of Colorado? I never lived in Aspen, I was a Tellurider for close to 10 years, but I have been here on Maui long enough to know that whenever someone who finds themselves fairly clever asks me "If you had to choose mountains or sea, which would it be?" the only response that seems suitable to me is, "I don't want to choose." And I don't think I should have to!


I love Hawai'i in a way I never expected. The islands, the language, the rich cultural history, the people and their stories and memories, just keep unfolding and blossoming. I fall in love with these islands a little bit more every day. There is something about the trade winds that mirrors the clarity and the softness of the ocean. You feel suspended almost, and held, between those two big blues, the sky and sea.

And I miss Telluride in a way I never expected. The sharp peaks, insisting that you gaze upwards, the sudden, decisive seasons, the dramatic and frequent weather patterns that actually frighten you sometimes, and the people, such a community, that Telluride. Its tentacles are like those filaments you see when you put your hand on one of those electric globes you see at the Sharper Image? No matter which part of the world you are in, you will find yourself linked back to that gorgeous little mountain town. It's my kind of place!

So there you have it. I waved my sleep wand, and drifted into the dream of skiing all morning while looking down at Hanalei Bay! Holy crapola that would be fun, wouldn't it? Needless to say, I was rather confused when I woke up and realized I had been asleep and dreaming all that. It was an odd combination of blissful elation (the still-fresh memory of me driving up into jungled mountains to ski) and heart-dropping disappointment (here I am seeing the sky starting to lighten and hearing the sound of palm fronds in the breeze).

So this is the start of my attempt to reconcile those two, to bring the mountains and sea together. I refuse to choose.