Do These Shoes Make Me Look Canadian?

While I was couch-surfing at Smith, Miranda introduced me to the Smith climbing wall. A few years back, I had gone with KT and Nicole to the climbing wall at SUNY Cortland where I could not get up the wall and destroyed my arm muscles. For some reason, I still thought it was amazing. I decided that I would start going to the climbing wall at Smith. And then I decided I should eat some snacks instead. Two years later, I found myself addicted to the climbing wall. I think it's because I'm generally a lot more fit and spry than I used to be, so it's actually easier now. I love the Smith wall and the way that they have so many vertical paths, with a user-friendly Taco Bell rating system.

I remember reading a short story in English class sophomore year of high school just after my grandmother had died that was about the first experience of death. When you first experience death, when your grandma dies and you go to your first wake and funeral, you always remember it. It becomes your basis for judging death. It's what it should be like. And that's how I feel about the Smith climbing wall. It is my basis. I judge every other climbing wall in comparison to Smith. I don't care if the wall I'm at is three or four times as large, if it doesn't have a ton of rated vertical climbs, I'm so disappointed by it.

This is the Smith wall with my friend Kristina climbing and I believe a girl bouldering on the left. The red and white lines are the bouldering lines. Bouldering is climbing horizontally without being attached to the ropes. It is by no means my favorite way to climb.

When I went to visit Lauren in New Paltz, we went to the climbing gym in town. It was pretty huge, but still not Smith. They also gave surprisingly few instructions--especially on how to belay, which is why it's a good thing they had me as the belayer clipped into the floor.

Another thing that gets me is when I cannot tell the difference between a bouldering traverse and a vertical climb by the tape. When you climb the wall, you don't just use any holds, you try to climb only the holds in a particular path which is marked by colored tape. At Smith, at the bottom of a rope there is a guide to all of the paths--what color the tape is, what the name is, and what its rating is. I have not really experienced this anywhere else.

But now it's time that I get used to my new climbing wall at the Plattsburgh gym. Generally, I'm an optimist and a pretty cheerful person, but the Plattsburgh gym can beat that out of you. This is primarily a bouldering wall so there aren't too many vertical climbs and a lot of the time, it is difficult to sort them out from the bouldering routes. Also, it's populated by a lot of boys. Blegh. Getting into the climbing wall is no picnic either. When you go to the sign-in desk at the gym, you are bombarded with stimulation. The desk faces just the wrong way so that you cannot hear anything they are saying through the din of gym machines. Because they thought it was a good idea to put the pool on top of the gym, the gym is always a cool 85 degrees as well. The desk has up to seven people behind it, all of whom are folding towels except for the one person pointedly ignoring you. When I first got shoes for the wall, they asked me what size I needed. Knowing that climbing shoes almost always come/are labelled in European sizes I asked for a 37. "We only go up to fourteen" he replied.
"Well, uh, what kind of sizes are they? That's not the way climbing shoes are normally sized."
"It is here in the States, Ma'am."

The Couch-Surfer Does Reconstructive Surgery

The couch in our living room had the saggingest springs I had ever encountered. The Breadwinner had put the top of a Rubbermaid tub under the cushions to try to keep you from sinking right to the floor. Today, in intense frustration, I decided something must be done. I figured we could get rope and effectively make a hammock under our cushions. I cut it open and figured out how it would work. Originally, I had hoped to staple-gun the rope to the wood, but the staples didn't hold. Instead, I used the springs as the framework for my netting. In order to keep the rope tight, which was not easy, the Breadwinner helped Gorilla tape the rope in place. Once we went perpendicular to the springs, I used the remaining rope to go parallel, then perpendicular again. In the end, we created an only kind of saggy couch.
"That was the best $15 couch repair, ever," said the Breadwinner.

Also, I decided to use our otherwise useless top sheet to make a temporary slip cover for the couch until we can get fabric to recover the couch in a classier fashion (another chance to use our new staple gun!).

Repaired couch gets a big thumbs up.


And this is just because it needed to be posted! Idgy is trying desperately to escape The Breadwinner's grasp after she got a nice bath yesterday. We couldn't put a dirty turtle into a clean pool!

Cleaning Windows and Organizing the New Apartment

Today it was a nice day for spring cleaning. Well, every day of my life is kind of like spring cleaning. One of today's tasks was cleaning the windows--of which there are many. Unfortunately, only one is over a porch so I could clean the outside too. We live at a big intersection with a stop light so all of the exhaust makes the windows really gross.

But I got outside and scrubbed as best I could. We have at least one streaky-clean window!

The Breadwinner's job was to move the different layers of glass up and down from the inside. She also sat with her phone at the ready to dial 911 in case I ended up off the roof. Always good to have a spotter.

This is the big intersection where we live. A big intersection for Plattsburgh, that is.


I cannot take credit for this one, but I am proud of The Breadwinner for coming up with it:
We buy a lot of bulk foods (rice, beans, lentils, barley, on and on and on) and we were storing them in their bulk bags in a big bin that we had to dig through every time we wanted to cook something. Being a big Camp person, the Breadwinner had a ton of Nalgenes which we now have lined up on a shelf. We still need about 30 more for all the different bulk bags we have, but hopefully I will get my glass jars up from the Island soon.


This is our bedroom! I hung up the tapestry and put the ridiculous duvet cover on the bed. Suddenly, it was much more homey! Also, I'm proud to say that I make the bed every morning. If we both weren't so opposed to top sheets, I probably would not because of the extra step.

This bit of organization is my doing:
All of this used to live in a 3-foot-high pile on my side of the bed. I purchases 12 crates, wire ties, and two closet shelves. After an hour of construction and umpteen hours of sorting, we have hers-and-hers clothing storage that takes up surprisingly little space and will be easy to reuse/rearrange when we move!

Also in the bedroom is the turtle pool. No, it's not supposed to be opaque but the filter isn't working properly.

The Breadwinner is big into crafting and likes the idea of organization. She just needs some help in implementation. I will consider this the "before" picture and hope to soon have an "after." If only I had a before-the-clothing-storage-unit photo!

The one thing on this side of the room that is organized: my wool!

Some more "before" messiness.

This is my epic To-Do List. I scratch off a few things a day. I definitely have enough to keep me entertained until I find a job!

This picture is misleading because I actually did not really clean the turtle pool. That was all the Breadwinner. I will wash all the dishes in the world but I am having none of that turtle business.

Places My Stuff Has Been

I've lost count of how many places I've slept in the past two months and this is a very, very small sample of all the places my stuff has been. I'm thinking I should name my suitcases so I can say "Here's Julio in Lauren's apartment." I just can't think of good names for them.


So, only Mama Pajama is really visible in this picture, but I needed to record being at the 4-H Center in Chevy Chase, Maryland for the first time in five years--making me feel very much like a scholar. This was where I stayed January 14th and 15th.

This was all of my stuff a while later hanging out in Erika's room in Duckett at Smith in Northampton, Massachusetts on February 10th. Between the first picture and this picture I stayed in Tyson's Corner, Virginia then downtown DC then with Harris near West Falls Church, Virginia. I then hopped a plane and stayed in Enfield, Connecticut for a while, followed by some time in Tyler House and Chapin House at Smith, back down to Connecticut, then to Erika's room.

Next, I moved over to stay in Tyler between Katie and Kristina's rooms so my stuff lived in the second floor hallway. I then went with Kristina to Burlington, Vermont, then back down to Smith to spend one more night at Tyler.

Then I took my bad-self over to stay with Caitlin in Jamaica Plain.

From JP, I went down to Philly to visit with the Spellers and Rachel Brown, then up to Plattsburgh to stay with Cassie. Though this is not really a photo of my luggage, you can still see her in the background.


From Plattsburgh, I went down to New Paltz to stay with Lauren and leave my stuff in a messy pile in the corner of her yoga room. And now I am at my mom's house on Long Island until Monday when I head back up to Plattsburgh! Ooof! That was a lot of moving about. But now I have to figure out how to pack all of my stuff that I want to live with into two suitcases to bring on the train.

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Katie and I built a fort on her bed in Northampton, Massachusetts. That or I found a purple canopy in the free box and then made her let me put it up over her bed--it could be viewed either way.

Caitlin and I in Jamaica Plain (Boston), Massachusetts.

This was the day she got into the Peace Corps and much celebrating was done!

Moseph and I at his (and Annr and Rachel Brown's) apartment in Philly.

Cassie and I in Plattsburgh, New York.

Everything is classier in black and white.

Not sure this counts, but it's too good not to include. Cassie and I on Skype while she's in Plattsburgh and I am in Philly.

Planning out a St. Patrick's Day Feast!

To my new lady-friend, St. Patty's is on par with Christmas. I plan on making up quite a little feast because her mother will be visiting us. As usual, I am perusing Martha as well as not martha. Of course, I want to create the standard fare of corned beef and soda bread. However, a criticism I have often heard is that Irish immigrants rarely ate beef because they could not afford it. I thought back to a conversation I had with my dad about what my grandfather used to eat when my grandmother went away to teacher training. I'm not about to seek out headcheese and turkey drumsticks but I think I am going to go in the turkey direction. Based on mine and Cassie's love of rosemary, I'm thinking of roasting a turkey breast with rosemary and thyme. That sounds vaguely Irish, right?

As for other dishes, there will, of course, be soda bread:

Though I think I will use currants instead of raisins. Hopefully, this summer I will pick some currants off our bush in my father's yard so that I can dehyrdate them for future soda bread endeavors. I imagine my own great grandmother plucking the little red berries from the same bush to create her own jellies and breads.

I'm also thinking of making salted new potatoes and brussel sprouts (cabbage if I can't find the sprouts). Another story my father often tells about my Irish ancestors is how my great grandmother would keep a pot on the back of the stove and all of the leftover from the week would go into the pot then be cooked down until you could drink them through a straw. For this reason, my father avoided going to his grandmother's house on Friday nights, when she usually served her gourmet leftover porridge. I think I'll stray from this tradition for my St. Patrick's day dinner and just boil the potatoes and greens until they're a little soft and salty.

For dessert, who could resist a black and tan in which the "tan" is actually ice cream? Bring on the stout float!


I cannot wait to begin cooking this... in nearly two weeks. Planning out dinner weeks in advance might be a sign that I could do with at least a part time job...

Couch Surfing, Part II: Pet Surfing

When couch surfing, one often encounters residents of the four-legged persuasion. This leads me to another couch surfing rule and since I've lost track, I'll say it's Couch Surfing Rule 37: be friendly to your host's pets. Hosts appreciate this and will be much more likely to invite you back. Above is Nada in Connecticut, laying with her head in my lap.

Mona and Tigershark live with Mo, Annr, and Rachel Brown in Philadelphia. They don't normally get along very well, but I managed to capture them spooning!

Imogene calls Plattsburgh, New York home. She is fed by Cassie but she's the kind of independent thinker who would definitely not consider someone her owner.

She's quite a large Red-Eared Slider. She's about 30-years-old!

She's not the brightest and is completely unaware of a little bit of pepper hitching a ride on her shell.

Moose lives in New Paltz, New York with Lauren and her many housemates. Moose is a very affectionate cat who laid in my arms like a baby last night. Though, he also tried to sleep on my face the night before.

Expect more silly themed photo blogs about couch surfing!