…beyond nice.

With spring kicking into full gear around here and much of snow melted on some mountain top, I figured I could finally hike something other than Mount Si. Don’t get me wrong, I love Mount Si and all, but no decent self-respecting seasoned hiker would ever claim that place as a “real hike”, it’s more like an extend walk around your backyard. I’ve really missed my favorite place, Mailbox Peak, so I made plans to solo hike it on Saturday.

On Saturday morning, I bounced out of bed super early all mentally charged and ready to go. After a quick breakfast, I started packing for the hike and I felt this strange sense of dread spreading through my body. The body has a strange way of remembering things that the mind forgets. It remembered how much this hike burned. It’s quite strange to have your mind war with your body. The mind said, “Come on, let’s go! We miss our trees. We could definitely use some clarity in the head.” The body replied, “Oh, hell no! We’re a bit out of hiking shape. Remember how much that place hurts? Remember how we’ve vowed to never go back again after the first time? Remember!!?”

That hike did not disappoint, I loved every bit of that hike. I hugged many a trees on the way up and down, and thanked them endlessly for their help with their rooted staircase and trunks for handholds. The smell of damp forest and the echoes of birds created a calming and wondrous place. I remembered why despite vowing to never return to such an evil god-forsaken rough hike, it became my all time favorite battery recharging hike. This year is proving to be a much warmer year already, the view was very different compared to late April last year…there was so much snow then that the lower mailbox was nowhere to be found.

I woke up incapable of moving on Sunday morning. I guess that’s just what happens when a person goes from hiking every single weekend to hiking once a month and thinking it’s okay to go at the same pace. It wasn’t just a minor ache in the calf muscles, I had pain shooting throughout the entire length of my legs, if I tried to do anything other than lie perfectly still. Of course, I wasn’t having any of it.

I stretched, took a couple ibuprofen and went out for a bike ride. Even with the hills and all, the bike ride wasn’t all that bad…so long as my body stayed in motion. At one point, I stopped by Trader Joe’s, I got off my bike, stumbled around trying to support my own weight on the worthless stumps I sometimes call my legs and involuntarily let out a load groan that sounded like a dying animal getting kicked on its head. It was so pathetic and horrible everyone stopped, turned around and stared at me. I don’t understand what’s their problems, it’s just a short Asian girl stumbling around the sidewalk like she could possibly be drunk in the middle of day while groaning like a wounded beast, I’m sure that kind of thing happens all the time, it is Capitol Hill.

In the afternoon, I checked out a Bikram Yoga class as I’ve been meaning to do (yes, I know I need a new sports activity like I need a brain aneurysm). Two things to note about Bikram Yoga, the poses seem easier than I thought they would be, and the class will make you sweat your nuts off. I’ve backpacked for days in the scorching sun, I don’t think I came near sweating this much in that 1.5 hours. My sore muscles loved the over-heated room. There were a couple one legged squat type pose that was less favored, but overall, I didn’t even notice that my legs were unhappy. It could be because I was more distracted by a couple other things with the class:

1) The heat. The temperature was set up in a slow boiling a frog method where they slowly crank up the heat so you don’t notice yourself dying slowly, but by the end of class, you’ll definitely feel well cooked.

2) My new yoga mat smells like cat piss. I picked it out because it looked all earthy and happy, but I’m pretty sure the key ingredient in the earthiness was cat piss. Sticking my face in it for one of the yoga pose was about as relaxing as enjoying the aromatherapy of a two month old litter box. Delicious.

3) Honorable mention – dude wearing nothing but a speedo. Once class got rolling, I really didn’t notice that guy, but for just a moment there, it made my eyes twitch. I can understand the practicality of that, but only a select few underwear models could pull off that look, everyone else should stick with board shorts.

It was pouring rain out when class ended. Talk about a system shock, biking home in the cold rain when you’re soaked in sweat is not quite the goofy fun that it poses to be.

Give in, silly girl, just drive next time. Fuck off, lazy bastard self, it’s only 7 blocks away.

This morning, all the weekend combined self abuse tallied itself up. Honestly, if someone offered me a walker this morning, but I have to push over a little old lady to get it – that hag would be going down so fast, but she could probably out-run me (Benny Hill credit scene on slow-mo). Sure strolling around with a walker might not be the most dignified means of getting around at the age of 30, but half hobbling and half dragging yourself around while screaming at seemingly unprovoked moments isn’t exactly the epitome of poise and grace either.

Brian has caught yet another strain of nasty bug that seems to cycle and fester in the cube farms. I think it tried to brush by me last week, it’s kind of hard to avoid when you share food and booze with a sick person. Brian’s cure-all for this was to hole himself up and sleep the entire weekend, my cure-all was to go on a hike that could hand me my ass on a silver platter. He still sounds a little wheezy and congested today; I am incapacitated today…still, I’m not sick, so my cure-all is obviously infallible.

Between biking, bussing and begging for rides from random people, I haven’t really have to drive much, which I really enjoyed. I took Sung’s VW Golf out last night to go over to my sister’s place for dinner, as I was parking the darling little car, I realized, “Holy shit, I actually have to watch for the curb and not just drive on it like it’s part of the road.” I actually miss my stupid gas guzzling truck. I miss the ability to haul my bike/gear/small chamber orchestra ensemble out to the woods. Granted driving a truck doesn’t exactly consent a bad parking job, I’d like to note that I am also an Asian female driver – I am hyper-genetically predisposed to park like an asshole. Sure, I can try to fight my natural instinct to park on the curb or two feet away from the curb, but that would be using up my reserve of willpower. It’s a scientific fact that willpower, like a muscle, can be exercised and built up, but as the same with muscle, it can be fatigued if overused. I don’t want to fatigue myself over my car placement, I figured I should save it for something more important…like fighting the urge to gnaw on chicken feet when I’m having dimsum with the family. Dimsum is hard on this poor newbie vegetarian.

Speaking of newbie veggie, I’ve been asking some veggie coworkers where they like to eat and I’m finding a disturbing trend in a lot of these “good” vegetarian restaurants. A lot of these places make their food heavy in sauce, and at some of the Indian places, I feel like I don’t even have to chew, I can just gum my way through an entire meal. Just because I’ve given up my biological need for canines does not mean I no longer wish to chew my food. I have a thing for texture in my food. Right up until I stopped eating red meat, my favorite food item on the entire planet is steak (surprise, surprise), not just any steak, but prime New York steak, cooked a tad above blue rare because rare is too cooked and tends to dry out the steak, while complete blue is a bit too cold in the center. I did not care as much for filet mignon because the meat is a bit too soft and tends to be less bloody. Texture. I want that from my vegetable. I want stalks of mini-trees, to taste a small forest being crushed in my teeth with bursts of chlorophyll with every bite. I don’t want a bowl of gravy with bits of chopped carrots stirred in, that doesn’t even qualify as food to me, not even with a side of brown rice. So far, I’ve found Asian stir fried bok choy, Chinese broccoli, mustard greens and whatever awesome seasonal Asian greens to be delightful, but I seem to be the only vegetarian that likes my meals prepared that way. I seem to be missing something here, but aren’t vegetarians supposed to like vegetable?

I’m still hunting for a new place to buy…finding an affordable non-closet sized space in Capitol Hill is pretty rough. I think I’m going to look into the renting route pretty soon. Booo!

Here’s a sweet idea: I think I will cook dinner so that I don’t have to be suspicious of whether or not someone snuck fish/oyster sauce in my food (yes, Eric, I know oysters aren’t exactly sentient creatures, but they’re still not vegetable).  Here’s a very dumb ass idea: Walk to the market to buy grocery when I’m hungry.

I’ve been a little saddle sore from all the riding I’ve done over the weekend, so I figured I could go for a nice little jaunt to the market.  Wrong!  I’ve entirely underestimated the actual distance of the market from home.  I’ve ridden my bike many times up to the market and the distance always seems so shamefully short…it’s not nearly as shameful nor short when traveling by foot.  By the time I got there, I was so hungry I no longer knew what I wanted to eat.  I think I ran into a friend there, who introduced me to three of his friends – don’t ask me what are their names and what they look like.  I ran out of there so fast because I was about two seconds from falling over dead at their feet.  Some time after I cooked and ate dinner, and was feeling a little more human, I wondered if I even remembered to say “Good-bye,” to all those people that I’ve just met.  Doubtful.

This brings to mind a rude habit of mine that I’ve recently taken note of, one that I’m not sure I actually want to change despite its irritation on my friends.  I used to have a bad habit of interrupting people in the middle of whatever they were saying, I hated that so much that it would irritate me whenever I catch myself doing that.  New thing that I noticed this weekend, I have a tendency to walk out on people.  Three things occurred within a span of 4 days that made me very aware of this strange habit:

Thing #1) I was out at a bar with my sister on Saturday.  I wasn’t quite feeling the place and as I looked out the window at the rain, I felt like I should be out there.  I wanted to feel the wind and smell the rain.  So I took off.  I did call my sister to let her know I was gone as I was wandering the streets.

Thing #2) On Sunday, I met up with Brian and some friends at another bar.  Soon after I got there, Brian said, “I’m going out for a smoke, promise me you won’t leave.”  I asked him why would I consider leaving when I just got there.  He told me, “You always take off when you get bored or antsy, just promise me you won’t leave.”  Hmmm, yes, in my face.  He made me promise to not take off at least three different times in the course of the night, which means he was probably very drunk and stoned out of his mind, but what he said did have merits.

Thing #3) Tuesday – that thing at the market, where I barely said hi before trying to book it.  My friend asked if I was in hurry.  I mumbled something about needing to cook dinner before dodging out.  I haven’t spoken to this person in while yet I couldn’t even be bothered to stay for some courtesy chit-chat.

The only thing I have to say for myself if you’re my friend is: Wherever I am, if I am around you, I am exactly where I wish to be – because if I wished I was elsewhere scratching my butt, you sure as hell will know it.  On thing #1, I guess I could have stayed and harassed everyone with my surly ass but didn’t it seem more fitting to have me doused with a good cold shower?  With Brian, I was quite content with where I was, he didn’t need to say anything.  Thing #3, while I can see how it might be hilarious to pull a fainting goat stunt when meeting people for the first time, that’s just not how I like to be remembered, and trust me on this – you don’t want to be around me when I’m that hungry.

I crashed my bike.  I’m fine, but my poor bike took a beating.  How did it happen?  Well, I went out for a ride to the market, and about 2 blocks from home, I fussed with the straps on my bag, I looked down for 2 seconds and I ran into a cinder block pillar.  Somehow I managed to hit the thing at such an angle that it completely mangled my right shifter.  I’d like to take out a moment now to say, “Fuck you, you crappy wimpy plasticky shifter!”

I’ve had a mountain bike for a few years now and I’ve lost count on the number of times I’ve crashed the poor thing into boulders, smacked it against trees, and generally been making non-lady-like landings on top of the thing, crushing it between me and large rocks.  That bike has never asked for anything more than a bit of chain cleaning and tire inflation.  I’ve owned this new road bike for about 5 minutes and the damned thing needs a new shifter!?  I crashed the stupid thing going at like 2 mph and it crushed the shifter and brake part in, the bike still worked fine, but braking for the back tire was suspicious at best, and shifting required some extra coaxing.  I know I’m a bit of a klutz at times, but crashing my bike at TWO mph and destroying it might be a sign that I should not be allowed to operate a bicycle within city limits.  I think I just discovered my second super power: super klutz (my first super power is the insane ability to shock myself if there should be any free floating electrons in the air, it’s very handy, I plan to save the local orphanage with it someday).

Now because my new bike isn’t just any old road bike, it’s a god damned princess bike with Campagnolo parts – parts that not everyone carries, my day was spent questing for a new bike part.  I started in some bike shop in Capitol Hill, rode down to REI and I ended up in some bike shop at the very end of U District.  In the end, as annoyed as I was for having mangled my bike, I had an awesome time riding across town in search of a new bike part.  I’ve been very nervous about taking my bike out for long distance rides but in the middle of being fixated by my quest, I didn’t pay attention to the distance and didn’t bother thinking about staying within my comfort zone…because I was on an adventure…and I crossed this magical bridge of hope and wonder.  Yeah…okay, next time I’m floating around Capitol Hill and someone passes me a pipe, I shouldn’t take a puff out of it before passing.

One thing to note on being a vegetarian, it’s a royal pain in the ass.  It’s not even because I miss fish or anything like that, it’s because it’s actually very hard to avoid fish.  If you like Asian food as much as me and you end up in some non-vegetarian specific restaurant, there’s a good chance you’ll end up with fish sauce or oyster sauce in your food.  I was at Thai Ginger recently, and one of their vegetarian specialty lists: Soft tofu stir-friend with carrot, sweet peas, baby bok choy, shitake mushrooms and oyster sauce.  I know I can buy vegan oyster sauce in the form of mushroom sauce, but I pretty sure they don’t actually use vegan oyster sauce there.  A lot of people don’t seem to understand that they don’t call it “fish” sauce just for giggles, yeah, I’m sure marketing execs thought a dancing fish illustration  is going to attract more consumers, but that fish is also dancing in the sauce.

So I’ve been staying at Capitol Hill for over a week now, how am I liking it?  I can’t say enough about how much I love it.  I love wandering the streets at night, and getting hit on by homeless men – it feeds my fragile hungry ego.  All joking aside, I really do love living in an area that is teaming with life.  My original fear before moving out to Capitol Hill is that I will not be able to stand the noise because I’m a super light sleeper.  I’ve lived in very quiet residential my entire life and I wake up if I hear so much as the soft click of a door opening.  Somehow living the in Capitol Hill with all its city noise made it a wonderful background white noise.

All this riding around the city has been wonderful, but I do miss me my trees, I need to get my ass out there and hike this weekend before I go crazy.  There’s just something rejuvenating about being out in the woods that no amount of biking and pretending that I’m flying can replace.