Fourteen Years Later...

I know I've written about the morning of September 11th, 2001 before. Maybe I will again. Maybe I'll write about it every few years. It's a strange time to remember.

On that day I was twelve years old, and Tall One was ten. He would sometimes sleep on my bedroom floor, I don't even know why anymore, but he'd done so the previous night. That's how it was that our mom woke us up at the same time, and tried to explain what had happened to us. There was a history of trouble in the Middle East, she said, and it was inevitably going to result in something big and terrible happening. Well, that big and terrible thing had finally happened.

I don't remember what she said beyond that. I don't remember what I said, or how Tall One responded. I didn't even know anything about the Middle East, and was shocked that something like this was apparently inevitable. But I remember watching the towers fall on our TV, and not feeling anything. I was numb. I couldn't grieve or be upset for those who had died, and I was angry with myself for that. I wanted to feel something, but I didn't. I couldn't.

These days I know that being numb is my natural first response to any tragedy. Grief will follow soon enough. But I was twelve years old, and didn't know that about myself yet, so on top of processing what was happening in our country I was beating myself up for not feeling the "correct" emotions.

There are other things I remember from that time.

I was working my way through (while skipping the "boring" parts) the novel Les Misérables by Victor Hugo, and found myself thinking that it was a rather grim book considering the events of the time. I thought I might be better off with a happier book, but stuck with it.

Even then I needed to write. My diary was missing, and I couldn't persuade my parents to take me to buy a new one, so I started a new sort of makeshift one with regular lined paper and something to hold the pages together. I needed that, as I sorted out both myself and events.

Then, there's the Star Wars video game I'd play with Tall One. Before watching the towers fall one of our favorite pass times in that game was to shoot up our own buildings. Hey, it looked more impressive than killing the bad guys. The explosions were cooler. After the towers fell, though, I just couldn't keep doing that. Yes I'd play the game, but somehow I couldn't playfully destroy our own buildings in that video game anymore.

...and looking at my two previous posts about that day, I see that I've written about each of these things before. I guess there are a few things in particular that have stuck with me.

firefighters

Although this photo isn't directly from that day, I thought it might be appropriate.

A Former Dream House

Koi pond

It's a bit funny how the above photo led to this post.

I was amazed to find how relaxing it as to relax with my feet in a koi pond, and it reminded me of a dream house I was sure that I had once sketched with a koi pond stretching from the front yard into the living room. Well, I was unable to find that particular sketch, if I ever did draw it, but I decided to share another one.

(And I really would love a koi pond. They're amazingly relaxing.)

The idea behind the house below was that it would be placed in a forest (full of Douglas fir trees because, I freaking love them and spent much of my childhood surrounded by them), and as many of the walls as possible would be windows so that I could look outside and see the trees and wildlife any time I liked. When drawing it originally, I even remember imagining being able to see bears when looking outside.

Cleaned up sketch

Above is a cleaned up sketch, I think it's easier to understand, though it's lacking certain details like curtains and ventilation. And yes, there really are lots of windows, even between rooms whenever possible. I notice though that although there is an abundance of bookshelves, which I love, things are also a bit sparse. If I moved in to that house today I'd put dressers in the bedrooms, and fill up the front room a bit. It also occurs to me that with that sort of space, I'd be able to put in a few cat trees.

Original messy sketch

Just go give a written description of the house...

I've got a front room with lots of open space, and only containing a sofa, piano, and small bookshelves. There's a hallway going all around the outside of the house, with the outside walls being windows. (Floor to ceiling? I don't know.) I've got my bedroom, a guest bedroom, one corner has lots of bookshelves with a comfortable chair. Then of course I've got the necessary kitchen, with a dining room, plus a utility room and a bathroom. And, as stated before, windows between them whenever practical.

I guess I was pretty excited about the windows and having everything as open as possible, so that I could quiet enjoy forest life.

Desk

And, just because I've been getting excitable with photos recently, my desk as I was redrawing the house blueprint.

Girl Scout Memories

For whatever reason, maybe it's to do with the Girl Scout cookies that have been in the house lately (the Thin Mints are really great with Nutella...just thought I'd mention that detail) I felt like dragging up my old Girl Scout uniforms, and in particular my vests. I wanted to revisit the badges I earned, but to my surprise it wound up being the patches on the back that I was more interested in.

I guess I should mention the difference between badges and patches. Badges are earned by doing certain things and ideally learning a new skill set (or in the case of Brownies, it's Try-its and all I had to do was try), whereas the patches on the back of the uniform were usually more to commemorate something that's been done...though they can also be to remember certain achievements.

(Things might be different now...? I don't know. I know things were changing in Girl Scouts when I left.)

Although I might take a closer look at the front of the vests later to try to remember what was what, I found it was the patches on back that held more memories for me.

My Mother is a Leader

My mom was my troop leader when I was a Brownie, Junior, and I think some of my time as a Cadette...I had a different leader by the time I became a Senior, but I don't remember exactly when that switch happened. Despite her long time as my leader this patch was only on my Brownie vest with the date 1995-1996, so maybe I just decided to leave room on my later vests for other things. Since, after all, everyone knew who my mom was. (Sorry, does that sound a little arrogant? I guess I was a bit proud that my mom was my leader, and that she had a leadership role in things getting done even outside of our troop.)

Flag Ceremony

I was pretty proud of myself as Brownie when I learned how to take part in raising and lowering the flag(s). It seems like this would have been a Try-it, but it was a patch. One of two flag ceremony patches on that vest, actually, I guess I was pretty proud of myself.

And since I'm talking about things I was proud of...I took some of pride in how well I could sew patches onto my uniform. These days I take those skills for granted, I guess because I've had them for so long, but at the time it was new to me and I was so happy that no one could even tell what color thread I used. And not everyone took such care with sewing their patches on.

Let's Read

I don't remember the story behind this one. But I guess I loved to read even when I was young. Well, I did get a taste for books as a toddler chewing on my mom's special edition copy of The Hobbit...

End of the Oregon Trail

There's a...I think museum...dedicated to the Oregon trail in Oregon City. As a GS event a bunch of troops got together and walked the last mile or so of the trail, learned about the trail in the museum place (I got to do needlework and make butter!), and then camped out on the lawn in front of the building.

My troop was the only one to do this while wearing period appropriate clothing. I'm sure I still have my pretty floral bonnet around somewhere.

Camp Arrowhead

Just, just...I don't know what to say. I freaking loved that place. In the Columbia River Gorge, huge fir trees...lost of trails...dangit now I want to go back there. That place was so important to me growing up. I think I actually feel almost homesick for it now, is that weird?

There was also Camp Mountaindale, where I'd go for day camp each year, it was a really important place for me too. I guess it had lots of lemon balm, because the smell of that plant always reminds me of Mountaindale.

Hiking

My troops tended to do a lot of camping when mom was my leader. It's no surprise that I picked up this hiking patch somewhere along the way.

Southern Vancouver Island Area, Girl Guides

I think it was the only trip I took where my mom wasn't my leader, I visited Victoria in Canada. We stayed in a building that belonged to local Girl Guides, and I guess we got this patch from them during our stay.

We visited the Butchart Gardens, rode a double decker bus, visited a local government building, and while at a museum I discovered that there'd been a town named Sarita. That was just some of the fun we had. There were also two local Girl Guides who seemed to be doppelgangers (personality wise, that is) of a pair of best friends in our troop. That slightly weirded the four of them out, and greatly amused the rest of us.

Pins

Three pins on the front of my vest. As I recall the top and bottom pins stayed with me all the way from Brownie to Senior, and although they were important I can't remember for certain what they meant. (And I don't want to make guesses since I don't want someone to stumble across this post and then give others bad info about Girl Scouts that they picked up from me.) The pin in the middle, though, saying PA, refers to the fact that I'd become a Program Aid, meaning that I was an older GS helping with the younger ones and learning leadership skills in the process. I took some pride in that one.

There were also patches to celebrate things like selling a certain number of cookies, but even though those were great achievements it's more patches like those above that I pause over when I look at my vests.

Letter From the Past

Have you ever written a letter to your future self? I've written one. Or, I thought I wrote only one. I went looking for it as something to write about here, and instead found another one that I wrote to be opened in 2012. I'd completely forgotten this second one. Here it is, with a bit of editing, due to a) personal stuff, and b) clarifying details that wouldn't be obvious to readers here.

While I'll mostly reserve my comments for after the letter, I want to mention PoP before hand so that you'll know what I'm talking about in just one read through. Pride of Portland (PoP) is a barbershop chorus that's part of Sweet Adelines International. The short explanation is that it's a group of women spread out over the globe who love to sing barbershop, wear too much makeup, wear lots of sequins, and hold musical competitions every year. My first international competition with PoP was in Vegas, and my second (and last) one was in Hawaii. I found that Hawaii agreed with me much more than Vegas, though I was too focused on the competition to really get to enjoy the place properly.

November 24th, 2007

I'm 18 years old as I write this.

I'm currently taking Poetry and Math 60 at Portland Community College. By the time I read this I hope to be working in a library, and possibly making plans to major in English at a 4 year college. I've not even begun to think about which one I want to go to yet.

I went to my first poetry reading today! It was at [I'm keeping this private], and I read my poem "He Fought His Heart" for the group. I plan to continue going to that group.

Working on music for PoP is a challenge, but hopefully I'll get better at it, and am already making progress on it becoming easier. Last year in Vegas we took 14th, and next year we go to Hawaii! I'm excited.

I'm thinking that I just might get some of my poems published. But it'll be a while before I try to go about it, I think.

I wonder -- might I be married, with kids, when I read this? Or will I still be single? Currently I've never been on a date, and never been kissed.

To date I only have one poem memorized -- Ogden Nash's "The Turtle," or I think that's the title. Anyways, I think my future self will know what my current self is talking about. :)

Well, I might add some more later, but that's it for now! 

See ya!

Sarita :P

"See ya!"

...and the above letter is exactly why I have trouble making long term plans these days. Give it a few years, or less, and my plans evolve into something else.

At the time that I wrote this letter I was pretty intimidated at the thought of going to a university. It seemed like a huge commitment (which yeah, it is) and I wasn't sure whether it was for me. So my idea around this time was to maybe get a two year degree that would aid me in getting a library job, then maybe think about going to a university. And of course I was thinking an English degree since that's what I was taking every term at Portland Community College. May as well stick with what I was already nuts about.

I'm certainly not complaining about my decision to pursue an English degree before getting settled in my own place, as I believe was assumed though not stated in the letter. But it's an example of how a long term plan I have one year isn't what I want the next year. Another example is when I picked out my Music Therapy degree, then eventually realized that it was a bad idea. I guess I just don't know for sure what I really want, career wise, though something in a library still sounds awesome.

As for poetry, Fall 2007 was the term I got really into writing poems. It all started when I turned a dream into a haiku immediately after waking up one morning, or maybe I started writing the poem in my dream. Whichever way, that opened the floodgates, and I wrote a lot of poetry until my inspiration more or less dried up. Some of my poems were good, most of them not. One was good enough to get published in the magazine Cricket less than two years after the above letter, which I was beyond excited about since it was my favorite magazine at the time. The poem mentioned in the letter is still unpublished, however, and revisiting it recently I could see that it needs some TLC.

Oh yeah, and "The Turtle"....shame on younger me for not knowing the name for certain. Come on, how difficult could it have been to remember the two word name if I memorized the poem itself?

I'm still unmarried and there are no plans for kids, but I'm definitely not single and am lucky enough to be very much in love with an amazing man. ♡

Have you ever written a letter to yourself? Future or past? What did you put in your letter?

The young architect

Years ago I fell in love with the idea of designing elaborate rooms, and then houses. I recently looked through my old notebook (well, sort of a notebook) of what I came up with, and decided to share one or two.

A few interesting things struck me as I was putting this house layout into a format that would be easier to make sense of on this blog. The two obvious odd bits were that I didn't know how to spell, and that I may not have had a good grasp of how big things should be. But also, other odd things I noted...

• I'm also not sure why I gave Tall One and me our own secret room that we had tunnels to. I guess for the sake of having our own secret place? It's not even a very big place.
• I gave my brother a box of snakes? I thought I was the one who wanted a snake when we were young.
• On one hand I wasn't very considerate of my family in making this house. I mean, look at the windows. I put my parents bedroom in the middle of the house where they couldn't possibly get any windows, and even though Tall One's room is in the corner he doesn't get any windows either.
•  On the other hand, I also notice that my bed is the smallest. So I was nice to them there, I guess.
• I still think that the library is awesome. Though I wonder who I imagined cleaning the giant koi fish tank...probably not me.

Maybe these details give insight into my mind when I was younger. lol Not sure what it says about me though.

If you want to look at the house, I suggest clicking the pic to enlarge.

The house, tidy

Below is the original. It's messy, but it has details that I couldn't transfer over easily. For example, a secret way for Tall One and me to talk to each other. So yeah, we've got secret tunnels and a secret means of communication. :)

I do want to explain about the lab, since it's not something that most people would put in a house. My dad used to be an electrical engineer, and our last house was a five bedroom one. Two of the bedrooms were used as his office and laboratory, and I couldn't imagine a family home without a room for his engineering stuff.

The house, messy

Girl Scout cookies

My parents have bought Girl Scout (GS) cookies every year ever since I was young. First it was from me, because I was a GS. Now it's from girls selling at the exits of grocery stores, and/or my mom buys them from a coworker's daughter.

I have some fond memories of selling cookies. Perhaps the best was selling at a grocery store with a friend and her mom. The three of us were in a homeschool family choir together, and we sang when we were packing up at the end of the evening. I think that was the same evening that I bought myself a box Do-si-dos since I'd missed dinner (hey, they have peanut butter in them! peanut butter is healthy!) and my toes practically froze despite my wearing multiple pairs of socks and sturdy snow boots. It was a very cold evening, but fun.

Dream Big GS cookie patch

Finals: another horror story

I decided to share another horror story of finals, since I'm watching my mom and brother this finals week while I've got no homework of my own to do.

Or, well, it's sort of a horror story of finals. It's about the final weeks of a term. And I did show up an hour late for one final.

~ ~ ~

My first term at Portland Community College (PCC) had gone fairly well. Sitting in classrooms was a bit strange for me after I'd been homeschooled for so long, but I made the transition gracefully. I'd even gotten over my fear of the strict writing professor, once I discovered that he had a sense of humor.

Then two weeks before finals, I got sick. I tried pushing my way through it, and insisted on going to school despite how bad I felt. Until...

...early Friday morning I got so sick that I fainted.

I'll spare you the details of my fainting and how sick I was. Suffice to to say that I was so sick that I couldn't really do any homework at all for a few days. At least through Sunday, as we entered the week before finals.

(It isn't really relevant to the story, but I do want to mention that I turned 18 that Monday. It was the day I started feeling human again.)

I think it was a couple more days before I was able to return to classes, which was maybe mid-week before finals. One thing quickly became apparent: I could not possibly manage all my homework. After being so sick, even for a few days, it was an impossible task. But, out of my three classes, I could manage two of them. Or so I thought. So, which class would be the most difficult to cope with, and professor should I ask to cut me some slack?

I chose my (no longer so scary) writing professor. Probably because his was my hardest class. I e-mailed him, explained that I'd been really sick, and asked for just a couple extra days to turn in my final paper.

My (actually quite wonderful) writing professor shocked me by saying that he would give me an Incomplete, and said I could take a whole extra week to turn in my paper.

Things still weren't easy for me. While I was busy worrying about my writing class, I wound up missing some homework assignments for my music class. I'm not sure if I forgot the homework or if it was assigned during classes that I missed. Then (probably because of missed classes) I didn't realize that the music final started an hour before the regular class time.

Imagine arriving to your final exam an hour late

In the end I got two A's and a B that term, the B being in writing. So I guess showing up late to my music final actually wasn't a problem. Still, my heart may have stopped momentarily when I realized what I'd done.

Finals: a horror story

I'm watching my mom and brother prepare for finals weeks. And it's strange to not be doing anything myself for finals, so I am going to instead share a horror story.

The story actually starts the evening before my math exam. My brother's first pipe band had their final practice for the year and a pot luck that evening. So I did last minute studying while listening to pipe music, and then I got to eat yummy food.

Only problem was...I was vegetarian. And most main dishes at pot lucks aren't vegetarian. So I wound up eating the deserts. In fact, I ate a lot of deserts.

I may have slightly gotten on a sugar high and had trouble getting to sleep that night.

The next morning my math exam was at 8am. Why I chose to take a math class at 8am when I'm not a morning person and I don't like math is beyond me. But that's what I did.

So I was tired, had some coffee that morning (probably before the exam), and was trying to focus, after having stayed up slightly late on a sugar high the night before. Not exactly ideal circumstances for taking an exam.

To make it worse, I wound up stuck on this one problem and was the last student taking the exam. I kid you not, I was the last person in that classroom aside from the professor. The professor even wound up telling me to take a break and go for a walk.

I did take a walk...to get more coffee. I should probably mention here that this professor did not approve of coffee and was none to pleased to see me walking back into his classroom with my small white chocolate mocha.

After finishing, the best thing I could say was that the exam was over. I wasn't too pleased with how I had done on it, and was apprehensive about that one problem. Perhaps I was more concerned than I should have been, since it was only one problem, but I was rather focused on it.

I wound up with a B in that class. These days I would say that's a decent grade, but at the time I was making mostly A's and said that B is for Bad. So I wasn't pleased. Still, I hadn't been doing my best in that class anyways, and in retrospect I guess the sugar high and getting stuck on that one problem probably didn't hurt me too badly.

Meeting Murray

I'm a little late, but I guess it's better late than never? Magaly put together a blog party of sorts where we talk about our first date with our boyfriend/girlfriend.

I met "Murray" at school. Specifically, in our effective listening class. I had arrived early to class before him, and had my back to the door. So I didn't see Murray until he was putting down his backpack with a camouflage pattern on the table next to me. I tend to take up a lot of space with my stuff so I automatically started to move my things, but he told me that I was fine. That was our first exchange.

He and I spent our 20 minute break talking. We discovered right off that we were both Pagans, so we talked about that. We also talked about his time in Iraq, since he's a vet who returned in 2006.

I was fascinated, but wasn't sure what to make of him. A lot of what he said went over my head, but either I've gotten smarter or he's learned to speak so that I can understand. lol I hope it's the first. :)

We sat next to each other a lot that term, and when we were separated into different groups Murray even sweet talked the professor into letting him join my group. Maybe I should have guessed he sort of liked me then.

Our first "date" wasn't until a year later, after we had seemingly gone separate ways and then found ourselves taking an ethics class together. He was calling it a date, but I was determined to make it clear that it was just two platonic friends getting together to hang out. I liked him a lot, but couldn't see myself making out with him.

For our "date" he took me to a sea food restaurant, and then to a local bookstore. Oh yes, he knew to woo me with books. And brownies, which he had brought to class. He's smart. Then he took me to his place to introduce me to old horror movies and he gave me a wonderful foot rub. After a vampire movie we spent a while talking, and I decided that he was my new best friend. I also had cause to tell Murray that he had no chance with me, sadly.

Then, maybe four days after declaring that I had zero interest in him I asked Murray to be my boyfriend. And (mom, stop reading) I learned how much fun it is to make out with a guy in his car. :D

My library card

Once upon a time there was a little girl. One evening she was at the library for story time, and was told a story about a mouse. There were lots of strawberries in the book, and lots of red.

That same evening she got her first library card. Her father wrote her last name on it, but allowed her to write her own first name. She was so proud that she clumisly wrote the letters of her name upside down so that the librarian could see what her name was.

The girl is now 23 years old, and although some might have "lost" their card so that they could get a less childish signiature on their new one she has kept it. That awkward signiature is proof of how long she has been a library patron, and she takes a certain childish delight in how old it is.