Counting My Blessings

Enough time has passed that my heart is no longer in my throat when I talk about it.  Well, not in my throat and pounding and making me nauseous.  For all the grief that my dog causes me, I do love him.  And I'm pretty sure I wouldn't do very well if he pulled stupid stunts like this on a regular basis.

To add pictures to the colorful commentary that I've been giving everyone over the last couple days:

Setting the stage--Kolbe had done brilliantly on his first 14er two weeks ago, navigating the boulder fields of Mt. Bierstadt like a pro.  I had no qualms about taking him on another one, my second summit of Gray's Peak (3rd attempt, but who's counting).  I even remembered to bring the good leash this time. 

All smiles as we started out.

We hit 13,000 feet without a hitch.  Then we stumbled upon a couple mountain goats.  Not my first sighting, but definitely Kolbe's first. 

I started with a firm grip on the leash as he lunged for the mystery beast.

After the first goat went behind the ridge, I focused my attention uphill and onward.  Another goat lay another couple hundred yards in the distance.  Little did I know the first one came back to make another appearance.  Kolbe ripped the leash out of my hand and started sprinting for the goat up the hillside to the right.  Unfortunately, he hasn't lived his whole life navigating the loose rock.  He quickly lost purchase and started tumbling down to the left, gravity winning over instinct and balance.  Just before hitting the tiny landing before the cliff dropped off several hundred feet below, survival kicked in and Kolbe skidded to a stop. 

If you can't read the arrow labels, bottom left is where Kolbe ended his slide. Top right is the goat he was trying to chase.

He sat at the bottom, glancing alternately between the goat (as if he could still get to it) and us (who were frantically screaming his name).  He wisely gave up on the goat and started back up the rock, sliding down a foot for every two he climbed.  Eventually, his leash caught between two rocks and I had to slide down halfway to free him. 

All things considered, ripping off a couple pads and a toenail, while causing a fair amount of bleeding, left him relatively unscathed.  He was actually able to finish the hike, albeit with a lot of coaxing. 

A successful summit.

 He was walking fine, just worn out.  Trust me, I don't consider it dog abuse, because he obviously felt well enough on the way down to resort to humping dogs he just met.  Yes, he's neutered.  The back of my dad's car looked a little bit like the storage site of a dead body, but once I got everything bandaged, he looked like a champ. 
 
Someone asked when our next 14er would be.  With him, probably never.  No wonder I call him Spaz Butt. 

I threw a wish in the well, don't ask me, I'll never tell

I know it's teeny-bopper, bubble-gum, middle school pop, but I have had "Call Me, Maybe" stuck in my head for about the last 24 hours.  It's an awful song to have stuck in your head, because it's the same thing over and over and over again.  But it's a fun song, catchy and relatable.  And I graced all of my coworkers with my pathetic rendition for about the entirety of my shift last night.  Here are some other musings while the Orkin man does his thing at this God-awful hour in the morning:

It's only a God-awful hour because I was out until about 2am last night.  We decided to mix it up from our usual Aurora happy-hour hangout to appease some folks who don't live out that way.  You know, the folks who bailed on us anyway.  So, we hit up Falling Rock Tap House, which I've been dying to go back to since the Denver Microbrew Tour introduced me last year.  A long drive from Fitzsimmons, but so is anything that's open past midnight and isn't seedy.  I got really excited browsing their beer menu before I'd even left work.  I had five beers picked out, knowing I'd have to narrow it down to two.  Good news, they were out of three of them.  Problem solved.  That's the only scenario in which being out of great beer is good news.  Bad news, I was already so tired by the time I pulled up on Blake Street that I totally spaced putting money in the meter.  Suddenly, a night of (expensive) beer and snacks added up, what with that $25 parking ticket and all.  Oops.  And then, there was the getting home just before 2am and having to get up to greet the Orkin man at 8am. 

So, on to pest control.  The joys of home ownership continue.  Snakes, hornet's nest, spiders, and of course, the reason for the visit--mice.  I feel a little redeemed by my Tuesday efforts of cleaning up the mice nest and setting my own traps until the pros could come in.  One mouse caught, unknown hordes to go.  Hopefully the additional traps and sprays work or I could end up with mutinous roommates.  And murine roommates.  Ha ha.

And now we will play ready, set, word vomit in order to finish the blog post in time to go shopping with Kelly.  Because, remember, after last night, spending money is just what I need.  I already have a hard enough time making it to Rockies' games, and now they suck so bad, I'm not sure I want to go.  It isn't summer in Denver without a trip to Coors Field, and I don't even have a game on the horizon.  I hit Canvas and Cocktails for the fourth time last weekend.  I'm what you call an "addicted painter."  If you need some artwork for your house, let me know.  Tickets for Dierks Bentley at Red Rocks go on pre-sale today (well, they went on pre-sale for Dierks fan-club members yesterday, for KYGO folks today), and I'm terrified I won't be able to get tickets.  One show that I would want to see no matter where he was playing, and it happens to be at the venue on my 30-before-30 list.  It would be just my luck to not get tickets.  However, I have the day off for Iron Man at Film on the Rocks, so that's a big plus.  Speaking of good movies, I found someone who has never heard of, much less seen, The Princess Bride.  Crime against humanity much?  I invited her over on Saturday.  I think I scared her.  Still playing the waiting game on the job front.  We'll see if I'm more management material than I am preceptor material.  Fingers crossed.  Trying to remember to pray.

Until next time...

Catholic and...

I just got back from my first Theology on Tap in probably over a year.  Working evenings doesn't allow me the luxury of participating in the bulk of the Denver Catholic Young Adult event calendar, but having a roommate on the ToT hospitality committee gives me very little excuse to skip when the opportunity presents itself.  The topic was "Gay and Catholic: Is there a place in the Church for me?" as presented by Eve Tushnet, a Yale-grad convert who found and joined the Catholic Church years after coming out, a rare progress of events.  This isn't a topic that I particularly enjoy spending time with, because there is a lot of animosity and misunderstanding in our culture surrounding it.  It isn't the topic that I would have chosen for my one Theology on Tap this year.  But I think it's important to continually challenge ourselves in our faith.  There is a danger to living in any comfort zone, particularly the one in which I typically reside that says that being Catholic is the logical, comfortable norm.  While I don't have the desire or the expertise to go into the Catholic teaching on homosexuality, I did find a few points of Eve's talk relevant to the challenge of living Catholic, regardless of your particular struggles. 

The first question that Eve had to answer before joining the Catholic Church was which did she believe more? That homosexuality was morally neutral or that the Catholic Church had the authority to teach on the topic of homosexuality.  She phrased it better, but you get the idea.  Her conclusion was that she believed the latter more.  For anyone struggling with a teaching of the Catholic Church, I think this is a fundamental question.  Is __________ (fill in the blank) morally neutral and/or does the Catholic Church have the authority to teach a doctrine on the matter.  You can fill in the blank with abortion, premarital sex, contraception, the death penalty, euthanasia, etc.  You can talk about the need for confession, Holy Days of Obligation, the primacy of the Eucharistic presence of Christ, or any other hot-button topic that non-Catholics and uneducated Catholics alike can argue to a pulp.  Ultimately, it comes down to a matter of faith in the Church that Christ founded and to whom He gave authority.  I don't have to understand why the Church says what She does about any of these issues, but I do believe that it is within Her scope to teach the truth about them.

Eve also mentioned that in her journey, many times she felt like Peter, saying "Lord, to whom shall we go?"  There were many moments that led her to an edge, a crossroads, and she found herself thinking that if there were anywhere else that she could possibly go, she would choose that instead.  But she realized that she didn't have anywhere else to go but straight into the arms of the bride of Christ.  That was home.  It wasn't an easy home, and if she could have taken another path, with less suffering, less doubt, she would have.  But she couldn't.  And that's what I find myself thinking when I encounter not just non-Catholics, but those who have no place for religion of any kind in their lives.  Where else are you going?  I don't have anywhere else to go and I can't imagine that what they've found could possibly be any better.

The final point that I want to process is Eve's distinction between a negative enactment of a vocation and a positive enactment.  The negative is "God doesn't want me to have homosexual relations" whereas the positive is "how does God want me to give and receive love within the guidance of His Church?"  You can apply this to any vocation, and I certainly see a parallel to how I am living as a single woman.  Until I am blessed with the grace of marriage (which is where I believe God is calling me), I can focus on all the things I can't do.  I can lament the childbearing years lost.  I can wallow in my loneliness of another Saturday night without a date.  I can succumb to jealousy of all my friends who are living their vocation of marriage.  Or, I can figure out how God is calling me to give and receive love in this moment.  He isn't calling me to be a wife and mother tomorrow.  But He is calling me to be a woman of God tomorrow.  And if I can figure out the best way to embody His love in that way, then when I look back, these won't be years I spent waiting for my vocation, but they will be years spent living my vocation.

I think it's important to recognize that it is difficult to be Catholic and homosexual in the same way that it is difficult to be Catholic and anything.  That your sacrifice and your cross are no more or less uniquely difficult than anyone else's.  It is difficult to be Catholic and chaste before marriage.  It is difficult to be Catholic and a doctor.  It is difficult to be Catholic and work weekends.  It is difficult to be Catholic in a materialistic, hedonistic society.  The lesson that I take from tonight is the importance of offering all our brothers and sisters in Christ compassion, support and love.  I don't have any more answers than I did three hours ago.  But I do cherish the knowledge that God knows what He is doing and He gives us a way to peace and joy, if we are only willing to accept it.

Speaking of being long overdue...

It's been awhile since I've posted, mostly because I can't keep a train of thought for longer than about seven seconds. So sitting down to write a blog post has seemed a little daunting. Plus I used all my writing skills on Hilary's Wheat Letter. Sorry to the rest of RM TEC 131, you get nothing because like every other TEC, this weekend snuck up on me without so much as a warning and I have no time. Still, sending you love and prayers.

Speaking of TEC...Angie McCann has got to have the world's most pure, most loving, most welcoming heart. I swear, every time I see her, it's like she has been waiting all day just to give me a hug. People like that make it hard to feel justified when you just want to wallow in a bad mood.

Speaking of not wallowing in bad moods...I saw a bumper sticker today that said "Don't Postpone Joy." Doesn't that just say it all? I'm so glad it didn't say "Don't Postpone Happiness" or "Don't Postpone Pleasure." Because those can leave you empty if that's all you seek. But joy, oh joy. It lifts up the soul, it is not fleeting, it grounds me in turbulent times. Sometimes I forgot the mass of joy that sits inside me. It's there, because even on the days I forget, I still believe Jesus when He said He came "that my joy may be in you and your joy may be complete." I am reminded of that joy when I catch a glimpse of the impossibly blue, white-capped Rockies. When I catch myself singing along to an upbeat song in the car. When I take stock of everything that is going right in my life. When I take that first sip of coffee. (And I want to clarify that something as mundane as coffee can bring joy rather than happiness, because when I savor it, I thank God for the blessing of the small joys in life and am reminded of His love for me)

Speaking of coffee...it's one thing I do well. I hate to brag (who'm I kidding, I love to brag), but I make a darn good cup o' joe. One more thing to offer to my future soul mate who is floating out there in the universe. Is it sad that that's what I think of when I make coffee? That I want someone to make it for? To appreciate my subtle talent for grinding beans, measuring grounds, hitting the 'on' button. Am I that lonely? I'd like to think it's just me preparing my heart to serve, but I think somewhere in there is some extreme selfishness that I'll probably need to purge before I'm ready to meet Mr. Right.

Speaking of purging...Lent is hard. Harder than I remember. It's certainly bringing to light that my will power is so weak. I consider myself to be a strong person, physically, mentally, occasionally emotionally, sometimes spiritually. But my ability to exercise self control is about up there with my ability to whistle and wink. It doesn't exist. I've tried to practice, I've tried to have people teach me tricks. But I am a weak-willed individual, and it's disheartening. However, buck up Michelle, we're more than halfway there. I will run the race, I will cross the finish line. And I will continue to stock up on sweets throughout the week, saving them for Sundays (and those blessed solemnities that seem to pop-up at the most needed times).

Speaking of weekends...so looking forward to Tracy's visit. We're gonna knock off a couple more beers on my tour (getting close to 100, folks), do a little painting at Canvas and Cocktails, hit up some fabulous restaurants, cheer on the Avs in their hunt for the playoffs, and in general try to convince her to move back to Colorado. With how crazy things have been at work, we could use another good pharmacist.

Speaking of work...someday soon, I'm going to have a drug-name pictionary t-shirt to show off. That's all I'm going to say about work, because even though I love my job, sometimes it's better not to get started on the egos of surgeons and how pleas fall on deaf ears. That's all I'm speaking of today.

My anchor in the storm

This week has been one I'd like to forget for a lot of reasons, the most prominent and obvious being the huge disappointment of a failed job interview. Not really a failure on all fronts; it allowed me to take a good long look at what I want out of my career, forced me to update my CV, helped me practice my interview skills. But after finding out that I didn't get the job, I was left to go through the stages of grief in a way that has certainly never happened for me in the workplace. There are a lot of factors playing into how I'm processing this and the two primary warring forces are my attempt to trust unconditionally in God's plan for me against my absolute disbelief in the outcome. Trust in God is winning out mentally, but the disbelief and anger has been winning out emotionally. That anger is tempered by the fact that I have the most amazing coworkers. If I'm stuck on evenings for the indefinite future, resigned to a lacking social life and lonely mornings, at least I know I'm stuck with an incredibly supportive bunch. They are my family, and they have made this week bearable. My real family has of course helped, empathizing with appropriate sadness and indignation. But it's my Children's family that has me believing it will all be ok.

So here's a toast: to HR nightmares, Irish Car Bombs, drunken sign language, breaking phones, getting heck-fire messed-up faced, ninja-stickering, and generally being rock stars at keeping the hospital running when the dark side goes home for the day. Thanks guys.

You Make Me Feel

This is why I listen to music. To make me feel. Happy, sad, nostalgic, romantic, content, energetic, full of longing, joyful, hopeful, home. Music makes me feel all of those things and more. I listen to enhance what I'm already feeling, or to get me out of a funk that I don't want to be in. I listen to celebrate a great day or to wallow in a bad one. I listen to dance, to belt it out, to absorb. And the reason I love this video is because not only is it a phenomenal song by an incredibly gifted vocalist, and not only is it my current favorite song that I sing in the shower every day, but because it shows the human side of music. Not every moment of this version is my favorite, but I love the start of the second verse, I love her forgetting the lyrics, I love the ad lib "wanted" because she doesn't like him anymore, and I love watching someone share their talent.

Here's the link again because it's AMAZING!

All Smiles on Friday the 13th

Reasons to smile today:

• Eli Young Band covered Will Hoge's Even If It Breaks Your Heart, so that amazing song is hopefully gonna get a whole bunch of airtime
• Haywire comes out in a week. Hello James Bond for women!
• It's Friday the 13th
• Happy Hour, here I come
• Pizza night at work
• The weather this weekend is supposed to be AWESOME!
• I get to wear jeans to work. Not even my sneaky trouser jeans that barely look like jeans. Real jeans, 'cause it's Broncos Friday
• I made yummy salmon for lunch
• Listening to Adele makes me want to write song lyrics ALL DAY LONG
• I interview in two-and-a-half weeks for a possibly career-changing job
• Did I mention it's Friday? The 13th?