Am I Really Old Enough to Have "Old Friends"?

I have issues with using the term "old friend" because I think both my friend and I would agree that we're not OLD. *sigh*

Anyhow, as I was making our Christmas card list this week I realized there were some friends I wanted to add to my list that I couldn't because time and distance and inconsistency had lost their addresses. No working e-mail address, no working phone numbers....Nada. I've been thinking a lot about mending relationships as I've been reading Viktor Frankl's "Man's Search for Meaning." So I decided to do my own investigative work and try and reconnect with some of my favorite people who I miss.

I'm constantly amazing (and frightened) by how easy it is to find information online. But in this case, I was so excited to find at least one of the people I've been missing. A couple are still eluding me, but I haven't given up hope yet. There's always that Christmas miracle.

It might sound a bit morbid, but death has been on my mind a lot lately. Not my own. But the idea that life is short and that people are always gone too soon. We realized this all too viscerally last year when we lost 7 of our family and friends. Now I feel this deep need to let others know what they mean to me - to not allow life's complications & frustrations get in the way of loving people and letting people know what they mean to me. There's not always time for a second chance or to tell someone later or to wait for an argument to clear. And not being able to tell that person when it's too late is almost worse than the death itself.

Anyway, I'm so excited to find my friends and share life with them again.

money makes the world go around

So. I finally finished and turned in my paper for my economics class. Who knew that you had to write a paper in economics. Go figure. It was about the South Korean economy and ended up being much longer than I'd expected. Still, after learning so much about it I must say I'm impressed with the little country. Can you believe that in the mid-50s the country was poverty-stricken, had basically no infrastructure and was almost completely dependant on foreign aid? Now their cell phones are in millions of American hands and they have one of the largest ship-building industries in the world. Crazy.

Anyway. I've moved on to the next chapter in the book and have just learned that I didn't know what money was. There's actually a definition of money in my book. Check it out: Money is a highly liquid financial asset that's generally accepted in exchange for other goods, is used as a reference in valuing other goods and can be stored as wealth. Whatever happened to just calling them bucks, clams or smackaroos?

Camo couch

What to wear when you're trying to avoid

doing chores around the house.

It was Swell

I went and saw an amazing concert this week.
If you haven't seen the movie Once than you need to. It's about an Irish musician and the connections he makes through his music. It's a simple film, but the music is really powerful. The musicians, Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova, are now touring with their small acoustic band and performing music from the movie as well as new music they've produced on a new CD.


There were no sets, no crazy light shows and no costume changes. It was a pianist, guitarist/lead singer, bass player, cello and violin. I have never been to a show where I felt so connected to the music and the musicians. They took requests from the thousand+ audience, let a guy who e-mailed their MySpace page propose to his girlfriend on stage, told stories, told jokes....it was awesome. Their band is called The Swell Season. Listen to their music at The Swell Season's MySpace page.
Enjoy!

Seeing red

I dyed my hair back to red today. Have really missed it. Not sure the color I picked is red enough actually. You can barely see the red. Not that I want fire engine red hair or anything, but still. I also painted my nails red today. Been a while since I did that. Both are in an effort to reclaim girlie-ness. Have sort of ignored my female side as of late. Time to bring it back. Truly, red heads have more fun.

Dots not feathers

Feeling a bit Indian tonight. Went and saw the Darjeling Limited after walking down by the shore. Liked the movie. Even though it's about 3 brothers who try and find an emotional connection after their father dies, I found a lot of funny similarities between them and me and my 2 sisters. I suppose we all have our roles to play. Finished the night out with some Indian food (my all time favorite: samosas. although the coconut ice cream we had for dessert was pretty tasty).

Overall it's been a good weekend. Good conversations. Emotional connections. Good times.

Now onto this week.....

South Korea Way

Ever since John started learning Korean, it seems like I've been inundated with all things Korean. Not that I mind - it's a culture I never knew much about growing up (in our house everything Asian was Chinese). Now that John walks around the house mumbling things in Korean (still don't know what he's saying), we've started bringing more of Korea into our lives. The most recent addition is this great Korean grocery store on a part of a main street that's lovingly called "South Korea Way" - it's really called South Tacoma Way. The market it awesome. Not only are the prices great but there are SO many fruits, veggies, fish, sweets....so many things I've never heard of, let alone seen. Usually we're the only non-Asians in the place and sometimes John has to translate the signs for me. But I love it! I've grown to love the sesame balls and red bean donut things in the bakery. It's great. Although they can keep the kimchi. No thanks.

So now my South Korean addition to the house is my economics paper. Ya. It's on the history of South Korean economics. Like I ever thought I'd be writing something like that. Ah well. I'm learning a lot. For such a small country, it has been ravaged with war and economic craziness for the last 100 years. And why they don't teach more about the Korean War in school, I'll never know.

For now I'll just enjoy my sesame balls and fresh coconut. Yum.

Cup a tea

Nothing like a warm cup of tea to soothe a sore throat. It finally turned chilly on the Northwest. Trees are changing color - I'm still amazed at the number of trees here. The water is a deeper blue today. The chill is seeping through my old, rickety windows and making my nose cold. Time to break out the wool socks.