Home, Sweet Home.

Yesterday was a long trek back to Carson from DC. My journey took me to stopovers in both Chicago and San Francisco (oh, so close and yet so far from the City). I was exhausted by the time I got home yesterday evening. It's been nearly a month since I was last in Carson and it has that oddly familiar-yet-out-of-place feeling to it.

This morning I took Mr. TPG to work, per my usual routine here in Carson, but we first grabbed breakfast baked goods from Schat's Bakery (my favorite!) as a "welcome home" treat. It was delicious. Their blueberry scones are awesome - flaky inside with a crunchy outside and just the right amount of sweetness. Though I did have trouble deciding between the sweet goods and their ham & cheese croissant, which is also amazing.

I just got home from the "long" 12 minute commute to find some surprises in our front lawn. Does anyone know how to get rid of these? Do I just pull them?

Makes me think of mushroom risotto...or a portabella mushroom burger...mmm.

I guess I'd better start going down my checklist of to-dos for the day. Unfortunately, there's a lot on there...

Torture.

Giants torture (of a slightly different kind than last season), that is.

Just when the wild card was looking like it was completely out of grasp, the SF Giants have finally been on a winning streak.

Can they get there? C'mon, boys!

Social butterfly.

Once upon a time, I was pretty social. Then life happened: moved abroad (and back again), worked long hours, got married, moved across the country, went to law school...and I wondered how in the world you maintain a social life between all of those things. This week was kind of a flashback to what life with normal hours (i.e. evenings and weekends free) is like.

Weekend: Wedding of my college gal pal in Los Angeles. Awesome weather. Got to see Mr. TPG who flew in from Carson and met me there. Dinner with Mr. TPG's college friend/roommate and wife. Explored downtown LA's Little Tokyo (and acquired yummy Japanese snacks). All-day wedding festivities with college friends. And even though I spent more than 12 hours of my weekend in airports/airplanes, the weekend trip was well worth it.

Week: Random weekday lunch with law school friend at Shake Shack (yes, they made it to DC). Two full work days. Two coffee meetings for a book project I'm working on. Wednesday dinner with a college friend who just moved to DC at Maoz. And tomorrow will probably be both happy hour with one group of friends and then yummy dinner out with another.

I'm not used to so much socializing after three years of being buried under law school books/providing assistance to a brand new country/and trying to be a decent wife at the same time, and think I've been compensating by holing up in my bedroom even more than usual and only leaving to go to work, run errands, or go for a run. How does one maintain the energy to do this multiple nights a week? I just feel old...and lame.

On a side note, I have a job interview out in Nevada next week (my first interview out there - woohoo!), which means I will be doing the coast-to-almost-coast trip again in a few days. Wish me luck! It would be a great opportunity, even though getting this job would destroy my dream of being a snowboard bum all winter...

9/11.

The ten year anniversary of 9/11 is coming up on Sunday. It's hard to believe that ten years have passed since that day that changed so much about how we Americans think and perceive the world around us. A friend and I talked about how we can still remember that morning so clearly - the things we were doing, where we were, the images we saw, the emotions we felt. It's a moment that is so much a part of my generation, and yet it's strange to think that many young people, even some not much younger than me, don't remember that day with the same clarity because of their age at that time. I read an thoughtful opinion piece about telling your children about 9/11. And while I don't have children, I related to the feeling of trying to explain it to someone who couldn't comprehend that day when it happened.

I was entering my sophomore year of college and had just moved into a new apartment with friends. It was so new, we barely had any furniture and no television. On top of our TV stand was our boombox radio (man, I feel old typing that), which we would turn on in the mornings while we got ready for work/school/the day. That morning, we flipped the radio on, and instead of the latest hip hop song we heard President Bush's voice speaking. It was solemn. It was serious. My roommate and I stood there frozen, listening as the news came across the airwaves. Even now, I remember the knot in my stomach, the furrowed brow as I tried to take in all that was happening. We went down to the theater room in our apartment complex and asked them to turn the news on. And we sat and watched on the large screen, as images of the World Trade Center towers flashed over and over, leaving an imprint that has not faded in ten years time. I didn't know how to feel - sad, anxious, scared, hopeless, confused, shocked. It was a jumble of emotions and to this day, I can't sort them all out.

The rest of the day was a blur. Eventually, we reached my cousin who was living in the heart of NYC at the time. We reached our close family friend who worked in the Pentagon. We learned that those we knew personally were safe, but that the tragedy of our fellow Americans still pierced our souls with grief.

My mom was in a state of heightened anxiety, because my brother has enlisted in the Army two years earlier. Her prayer had been that there would be no wars during his four-year term of service. And immediately on that day, we knew that there would be a response to such a violent attack on American soil. (He was later deployed to the Middle East, but did not get looped in to the extended active duty that so many soldiers were recalled for.)

It's strange to think back to how things used to be different, and yet we don't even notice now because they have become so commonplace. As I'm currently blogging from the airport on a layover during one of my coast-to-coast trips, this is where things have changed so much. I remember when you used to be able to escort your loved one to the gate and watch their plane fly off into the sky. Or when you didn't need to get little travel sized liquids to fit in a small zip lock bag. Or when you didn't need to throw out that half-drunk Coke bottle because you could just take it with you to the plane. Individual pat downs were rare, and there wasn't even body scanner technology available. It was a different world, one with fewer fears and, admittedly, fewer dangers.

I will be flying back into D.C. on Sunday, the tenth anniversary of 9/11. I will be praying for a safe journey, and for the safety of all Americans on that day.

Sorrow.

When I got home in the evening from class yesterday, I opened the news on my laptop and immediately went cold. There was a shooting spree in Carson. A man fired on a woman in a shopping center parking lot, then walked into the IHOP restaurant and fired all around the restaurant, killing one civilian woman and three Nevada National Guardsmen. He then left the IHOP and began shooting up other buildings in the center, then shot himself in the head.

I immediately saw the IHOP in my head. Though I left Carson nearly two weeks ago, the familiar place came flooding back into my mind. I slowly realized that over the summer, I was in that very same shopping center parking lot one or two mornings a week, picking up groceries at Raley's. And while I felt lucky to have not been there, the tragedy still hits home for me on the other side of the country. My sleepy country "town", that has shocked my city-girl crime senses, is now dealing with likely the worst incident that Carson has ever experienced. The city girl in me said "people get killed on the streets of Oakland nearly every day." But the little bit of country girl in me, the part on which Carson is growing fondly, just felt traumatized by the news.

My thoughts and prayers are with my new home town. Mr. TPG is safe and sound.

When the cat's away...

Since I've been back in D.C., Mr. TPG has continuing to explore around the Carson/Tahoe area. He snapped this photo with his cell phone and text messaged it to me, while I was sitting in a shopping mall with a friend. Talk about two different worlds!

View from the top of Mt. Tallac

Me, that sweaty girl.

Since I've been back in D.C., I've been trying to get back into my 4-5 day/week running routine that I had going for most of June and July. It's been different, running back on the streets instead of the treadmill, but it's also been fun to run past all the familiar sights. And by sights, I mean the Washington Monument, the Capitol building, the Smithsonian museums...yes, as a runner you are spoiled living in the nation's capital.

But I've also been trying to get used to being back in the humidity of D.C. There is pretty much no humidity in Carson City during the summer. Though I suppose the real question is whether I ever got used to it while living here for the past three years! I was not built for hot and humid summers like Mr. TPG, who thinks D.C. is a piece of cake compared to Houston summers.

So, I run. I sweat. I pant. I turn red.

Because of all those things, I try to tune everyone else out because I know I must look like a crazy person. To illustrate, today a group of African-American teenage boys skated by my on skateboards. One waved in encouragement. And one looked at me, his eyes got big (again, imagine a red-faced, drenched-in-sweat, panting-like-a-dog girl), and he said to me, "girl, you get your workout on!"

So if you are in D.C., enjoying a jaunt along the National Mall, snapping a picture or two of the Capitol Building, and you see a small Asian girl that looks like she just ran through the sprinklers and is about to keel over, give a wave and say "hello" to the Two Pint Girl.

Strong female characters.

A friend of mine tweeted this short piece from the New York Times called "A Plague of Strong Female Characters". I had to stop and read it because I use this phrase regularly. I like TV shows that feature strong female characters, books that feature the same, and I aspire to be a strong female myself.

I think that one of the problems with this phrase - the author of the piece obviously takes issue with it - is that it all depends on your definition of "strong." To me, toughness is a part of it. I am probably less sympathetic than many women, but I do still cry at any touching moment in a movie (I am not an emotional robot!). But there is something strong about controlling your emotions - not letting other people's words, actions, or opinions cut you down or cause you to lose control. Do I always hold myself together? No, but I also don't freely let myself get tossed back and forth on an emotional roller coaster all the time.

Also, I value physical strength and have always been one to play with the boys, play sports, push myself to physical limits. Our family often spoke the words, "if it doesn't kill you, it just makes you stronger." You don't have to be a body builder, but simply understand that the body is a tool that can do far more than most people think.

And most of all, a strong female character to me has confidence. It can be a quiet confidence or a boisterous confidence, but confidence nonetheless. I personally prefer a kind, polite, and humble confidence. She is confident in her character, her abilities, and her experiences. And because of that confidence, she is resilient, she doesn't get pushed around, she holds true to her values, she has goals and ambition, she is ready to take on the world. She may have fears, but she doesn't let them hold her back. She may not be good at something, let alone the best at something, but it doesn't stop her from giving it her best shot. She may fail, may have a breakdown, may experience hardship, may have a sobfest (what I call having "a moment") - but the story doesn't end there for her. Life does not end with being a pity party, but she picks herself back up, dusts herself off, and finds her confidence again.

This author claims that "“Strong women characters” are a canard. They refer to the old-fashioned “strong, silent type,” a type that tolerates very little blubbering, dithering, neuroticism, anxiety, melancholy or any other character flaw or weakness that makes a character unpredictable and human."

I agree that we all have our moments of weakness, anxiety, and neuroticism. But is this author trying to say that all women are like this? Or worse, should be like this? That I take issue with. Because if the world was full of blubbering, neurotic, weak, emotionally unstable people - women or men - who were unable to persevere through life's difficulties with some semblance of strength, I think the world would be a pretty terrible place.