A bean out of town

Mt. Ama Dablam -- It's distinctive shape makes it easily identifiable. How can you not love this mountain? Just look at it, and it is called ama dablam -- how can you not love saying that out loud?
This is why I never want to attempt the summit: These aluminum ladders are placed over crevasses that are hundreds of feet deep. Then, you, in a full snow suit, with a backpack, wearing crampons on your feet, walk across the ladder. A common ways climbers, including sherpas, die is from falling in crevasses. No thank you.

We stopped at this woman's tea house for lunch. It was amazing what came out of her open-fire kitchen.

Gelgin Sherpa: In the summer everything moves. Everything comes down from the base camp. During the summer earth is moving, glacier melts, it is very unstable.

Me: So, it's dangerous to go up to base camp in the summer.

Gelgin Sherpa: Yes, very dangerous.

Me: (in my mind...yikes!) -- even more yikes when we arrived and could hear avalanches all around us and see the trail being interrupted by glacial lakes, and newly opened crevasses

crazy glaciers

360 degree panoramas -- everywhere - enormous, beautiful peaks

There she is...the tallest mountain in the world!

"Meet Me in Harvard Square"

“Meet me in Harvard Square.”
Like some type of overrun chick flick, only this is real life. Not reality TV, but my life. 100 dates in 100 days. First dates are great and all, but I sincerely hope there is someone out there who wants to spend more than 2 hours over a burrito with me.

Ice cream is unto Mormons as beer is unto the majority of the American population.
I remember the first time a guy asked me to a bar. It was a Thursday night. Weekends start early, right? Mormon pop culture, on the other hand, is all about the ice cream. How about I take you for some ice cream? Ah… the natural (?) high of cholesterol and fat.

I am not cynical, just tired, and coming to the realization that I have become what TIME magazine dubbed a “twixter”. In between. Not a teenager, yet lacking the full-blown responsibility of an adult. We move from job to job, city to city, schooling to internship to placement. Never settling down to start a family. Continuing to text, email, and call our own parents instead of becoming parents ourselves.

I always thought I’d be married by this point in life. And maybe that’s the challenge. I was mentally prepared for high school, college, motherhood. I never heard a young women’s lesson about the joys of being 25 and single.

Touch me, hold me, compliment me. At the end of the night I walk back through Harvard Square, get on the train, and head to my apartment. The smell of Thai food, salsa dancing sweat, or the latest cologne still is on my clothes. I take them off and crawl into bed alone.

the book

You would think such a serendipitous meeting would happen in an old New England bookstore with used books and rare editions, but if providence wants to happen in Barnes and Noble in the center of downtown, I’ll take it. I had decided to return a Christmas gift. I had chomped through the first bit of the book, and was really enjoying it, which surprised me since I’ve been rather anti-reading-for pleasure for quite some time. The story was great and I actually cared about the characters, but it was also filled with a lot of dark. It is something that I have questioned more than once. Life can be evil. And the unthinkable actions of others can affect and harm the innocent. How do I preserve my naiveté, while not turning away from the suffering and want that exists? If I have a desire to help teenagers, should I not be cognizant of what goes on behind closed doors? And it is a personal choice. Different causes result in a variety of effects on people. And whether it is the bulk of my imagination or the sheer covering of my heart, for whatever reason, I packed the book up and took it back. The added drag in my feet had been the giver of the gift, who I knew spent time carefully selecting the book, and will no doubt ask how I enjoyed it.

I was delayed the first time I tried to return it. All of Huntington Ave. shut down in some rare accident, and the bus that I was on had to take a large, unexpected detour.
The next time, things went smoothly, and I happily dumped the thick, hardback novel out of my backpack onto the counter in exchange for a “Star Girl” gift card. As I walked away, I heard my name, and there he was. A dear friend from college, and one with whom I knew things were still incomplete. There was mutual joy in the “chance” reunion, and we promised to meet up again soon. He immediately recounted the times we had spent at a family’s house (unknown to him, it was the branch president).

The amount of joy I felt on the way home was enormous. I felt so much excitement, energy, and light. There was a clarity in my mind and a confidence that I can accomplish everything that needs to be done. And these feelings had been missing the past couple of weeks. I knew once again that I was part of a crazy cross stitch where God guides my steps to intersect with someone else’s in a pattern only He could design.

There are so many good things to read, why spend my time on something that potentially is not?