hot wings, jalapeno poppers, chocolate chip cookies, and malibu

I am eating a significantly more amount of bad food that I love in these last remaining days. I am however, trying to keep my coffee addiction at bay. Coffee King in Mongolia is apparently quite terrible and the only option.

I have had several queries as to my state of mind and preparedness lately. I am anxious, not yet to the point of anxiety attacks, but there is still time. In many ways I am really prepared, I am certainly more prepared than last year. If I would have gone last year as planned, I am sure I would have been fine, but I would not have the benefits of this crazy "accidental" year in the life of me. I, for example, would not have had this amazing "adventure" back pack into which I fit the majority of the stuff I am bringing. (thanks Dad!) I would not have known that I would not only be able to stand working with children for a year, but I would have many many moments of joy with the little hellions. I would not have seen every single episode of Buffy, The Vampire Slayer with my two amazing little sisters. Should Mongolia become overrun with vampires, I will have a significant leg up. Madeline, by the way, is 14 and 5'10'' with legs all the way to to there and a quick mouth almost to rival her big sis. Claire is apparently a softball protege, the "big kid" coach wants to groom her to be his star pitcher in 7 -ish years!

I would not have worked on the Democratic Coordinated Campaign for South Dakota and thereby helped get Stephanie Herseth-Sandlin and Tim Johnson re-elected, and of course, the man himself, Mr. President, Barack Obama! That victory party is something I will never forget and I truly believe that these people have and will continue to do good for South Dakota, The United States, and the world. I would not have gotten to once again lend my time, talents, and sanity to the Black Hills Community Theatre. Cinderella was an amazing show and it was great to see some of the old faces and feel that production buzz again. I would not have been able to help my grandparents out for a couple of months. I would not have been introduced to The Gilmore Girls by my wonderful friend, Miss Becca Davis, and therefore would not have spent the majority of my time in Steamboat Springs obtaining and watching the remaining episodes. (Which I finished with a week remaining, guess I'll watch Star Trek online now :)

I would not have come here to Steamboat and spent so much time with my Uncle Doug, Cousins Taylor (Brother) and Kimberly (Berly!) and my Aunt Casey who has been such a joy and been so good to me. I can never give enough thanks for all that Casey has done for me. She gave me a place to crash for a couple months, which became a home away from home. She gave me a wonderful trip to Costa Rica, through which I bonded with my cousins so much that while I know we will always be family, know I know we will always be friends as well. But, above all, she has given me the gift of knowing who she is. We have shared some amazing times and some hard times, and through it all she was someone I wanted to be with and hang out with, laugh with, and cry on. I am so grateful that she is my aunt and even more blessed that she is my friend. My thoughts will be with you guys all the way from Mongolia. I wish you all joy and the strength to overcome all obstacles.

Of course, there were disappointments this past year. I was unbelievably devastated when my Peace Corps adventure had to be postponed. Dealing with this delay also came, of course, right in the middle of having to deal with my medical issues. This was a extremely frustrating and painful experience that I would not care to repeat. I also had to cope with the uncertainty of my Peace Corps status, a low-paying job after finishing my degree, and explaining to everyone why my best laid plans were suddenly derailed. My mother and I also had our huge blowout fight that we must have forgotten to have when I was a teenager and it was more appropriate. This was hugely distressing to me as my mother is the most amazing person on the planet and I am so happy to have her as my BFF.

I am leaving Steamboat Springs on Friday to go spend a little time at home before I ship out. This has been a great town and I will miss it. The mountains are beautiful, the sky is a vibrant blue, and the natural hot springs are something I am sure I will remember and drool over in Mongolia. Friday evening I will get into SD and immediately head to a memorial service to honor Miss Rowan Grace. I am blessed to have known such an amazing little girl and I know the world seems little less grand since losing her sparkle. In truth however, her sparkle remains with those who had the privilege to know this leukemia warrior. Rowan was and is an inspiration to so many people, including myself. Her mommies are amazing people and I know they will get through this. Rowan Grace 6/23/1998 - 4/23/2009 "Tuesday's Child is Full of Grace"

I will spend 12 days at home, soaking up time with my family, seeing my friends, eating more delicious food, and hopefully getting everything ready. I fly out of Rapid City at 6:11 in the morning on 6/11. I love numbers and am taking this as a good omen. I fly to Denver and then on to LA, the same flight as another volunteer headed for Mongolia. I told him we should make sure we become friends and then everyone else will be jealous of our special relationship we developed since we got to meet a full 4 hours before everybody else! hahaha I will spend roughly 26 hours in LA, including 2 hours of filling out and turning in forms and 5 hours of various orientation information including Welcome to Peace Corps and start of Training Program, Background to Peace Corps history, mission & goals, Anxieties and aspirations for service, Managing Risk (personal responsibility for safety), Policies, Reflection on commitment to service, and Logistics and departure/arrival information. We to South Korea the next morning have a short layover and then on to Ulanbataar, Mongolia. Oh boy! and Yikes! and deep breaths...

Fire Island

Well, my grandparents refused to move to assisted living and have completely forgotten who I am, so I left. They have Comfort Keepers coming every day, Meals on Wheels Mondays through Fridays, and a Geriatric Care Consultant to oversee everything. I am trying to wash my hands of it all. And trying to remember my grandparents before they were suspicious, accusatory, rumor starting mean people. Hahaha. So in the mean time I am in Steamboat Springs, CO living with my Aunt Casey, Uncle Doug and Cousin Taylor. I have a room in the ridiculously nice basement. They have cable, wireless internet, and an ice maker in the fridge. The only downside is I don't know anybody here really, I don't have a job yet, and I have Fire Island by Fountains of Wayne stuck in my head perpetually. "Don't you remember, last December, when you went to Steamboat Springs." There is so much snow here! It is ridiculous. It is taller than me! (I know I am short, but it is still significant.) Oh, there is also a hot springs here. It is really nice and kinda smelly. Happy Groundhogs Day!

I wanted to write a blog in the worst way possible...

...standing up in a hammock. Alas, I can come by no internet in the basement of my grandparents house where I am currently test flying my hammock. So I write this hammock-themed blog on an ordinary bed and as close to the far wall as I can to achieve the best wireless connection from my generous neighbors. As for my new hammock, I have decided to name her "Stargazer" which makes me a big nerd, but I can't help it. For those of you who are not quite as nerdy as me, it is the name of Captain Jean-Luc Picard's first command. Plus I like the idea that I might be able to hang my hammock outside in Mongolia for a couple of months in the summer and gaze at some stars in the process. I got the hammock for christmas and am excited with the possibilities it brings. Hammocks are traditionally warm weather, even tropical, amenities so one in Mongolia is certainly thinking outside the box or rather box shaped bed.

I am still in Fort Collins, CO with my grandparents who are systematically driving me insane. I love them dearly and I am trying to remember patience. I particularly love that my 86 year old grandpa has let me start reading him Harry Potter, and that he now LIKES it. I also love that my grandma threatens my grandpa when he is being mean or obstinate with me. These are the things that I try to remember when I feel like just getting in my car and driving away.

Last Sunday night, I had to seriously talk myself down from doing just that. It had been a difficult day. I went to my cousin Ellie's 25th birthday party in Aurora Saturday night. We had a good time, minus a few snags, but in the morning I had to get up and come back to Fort Collins so I could take my grandma to Mass, because the comfort keeper canceled for the day. We went to the 10:30 mass and my grandpa decided to go as well. I, for some mysterious reason ;), felt a little queasy so didn't eat before church. It ended up being a baptismal mass, which was really cute, but the sanctuary was really crowded. Which meant my grandpa had to sit next to some poor young man and proceeded to talk to him whenever it wasn't wildly inappropriate. Because of the baptism, the mass was about 20 minutes longer that usual, which didn't help either. After we shuffle to the car, my grandma asks if I had made a list for the store. I didn't know we were going to the store and she asks what I thought we were going to eat if we didn't go. Mind you we still have about a week's worth of groceries in the freezer. It is really hard to get my grandmother to the grocery store. She hates it, thinks I spend to much money and buy things we don't need, like peanut butter and barbecue sauce. She compares prices on everything and only wants the cheapest, even if it means white crap bread with no nutritional value. This is especially aggravating since they sold their ranch and made a HUGE profit, so they don't have to worry about money. I really didn't want to not go when she did, but it is now noon and grandpa complained that he is hungry and didn't eat breakfast. (Grandma says he did, and I honestly have no idea with these two!) I am now hungry as well so I suggest we go to Perkins for lunch and then go to the store. Stunned silences follow. Spend money?!? Are you crazy?!? Grandma wants to go to the store, I want to eat, and grandpa wants to eat and wants grandma to go to the store and wants someone else to tell him how they are going to accomplish this. I suggest we go home eat, and then go to the store and grandma insists there is no food in the house. I assure her there is. She replies, "Oh sure, what do I know about my own kitchen, I am just a crazy old lady. hmmf!" So we sit in the car for 7 minutes waiting for them to make this most difficult of decisions. Grandpa eventually says we should just go home and I can make some food. Grandma says she didn't know I can make food out of nothing, but she would love to see it. (oh, boy) So we go home and I make mac and cheese and grandma heats up some left over casserole because she had randomly decided that grandpa doesn't eat food "like that" (the mac and cheese)
After a couple of hours of cleaning up and list making we go to the store. I pretty much try to move fast so grandma doesn't have time to argue with me, only time to keep up. She sees an advertisement for a whole chicken in the deli and wants that for dinner. But then she decides it is too big, maybe some chicken fingers, but no, Bill won't eat those! I suggest some Safeway signature sandwiches and she agrees. But now she is afraid we have waited too long and the lines are too long at the registers and she wishes we never would have come and maybe we should just go home. AHHH! So I tel her I will go stand in line, she should get the sandwiches and walk down the aisle and find me. I stand in line. Put the groceries on the belt. They are scanned. And bagged. No grandmother. There are of course people behind me and I have no money. I go back to the sandwich counter and the lady tells me my grandma left a long time ago. I look around. I run around the whole store. I run out to the parking lot. I yell her name. I yell "GRANDMA!" I have her paged. I station an assistant manager at each door and run around the whole store with the manager of Safeway again. I call my mom. I consider calling the cops.
...and then she is there. She claims to have been standing right there the whole time. (she wasn't) I am practically hyperventilating and still have no idea where she went.
Fast forward abut 5 hours. I go to my room to go to bed and see a MOUSE in the middle of my floor run into my closet as I turn on the light. I, not really thinking but desperate to protect my clothes and shoes, yank my purple storage bin out the of the closet. The mouse runs at me and over my BARE FOOT! I scream quickly three times, wash my foot and cry. I am tired. Oh so tired of everything, of these crazy people I am related to, of being looked at suspiciously by my own grandmother, of being walked in on in the bathroom by my grandfather, of being here. I have to babysit at 7 am and now know I cannot sleep in my room. I almost give up, get into my car and drive to South Dakota. But, I sleep in the basement in my hammock which makes my toes fall asleep.
My mom points out later that if there are more mice, the basement is probably where they are, but I was suspended from the ceiling in what I now sometimes refer to as my "cocoon of safety, the Stargazer!" Just another beautiful day here in Fort Collins, land of elderly loons.
Question for Madeline (and anybody else)
Would you rather live here or next to the Hellmouth? (the one in cleveland obviously, Sunnydale was destroyed)
Happy Birthday Madeline, you are super!

78 degrees

No, it is no where near 78 degrees her in Ft. Collins, Colorado. That is unless you happen to be living in a house with my grandparents. My grandfather and I go through this daily ritual of him turning up the heat and me turning it down. Last night it was 74 and he complained of it being cold. Ahhh, well. I would honestly rather be hot than cold. Which makes me wonder about me going to Mongolia, Land of the (cold) Mongols.
So, yes, I have moved to Ft. Collins to take care of those whom I (lovingly) refer to as the elderly loons. Last evening for example I could not find the more than half a loaf of bread that was left and neither could my Grandma. This morning it was in its spot by the toaster. She doesn't remember where she found it or even that it was lost. We looked for at least 15 minutes for this elusive bread. What bugs me is not that I had to eat my peanut butter sandwich sans bread (think about it) but that now I will never know where that bread lay waiting to be discovered for more than 12 hours. Well, as the French say, "C'est la vie". Of course they also say, "Vous etes vieil et fou" and sometimes even "Est-ce que tu voudrais jouer au ping-pong avec moi ce soir?" although that last might actually just be me.
I just got a job working at La Quinta Inn here in Ft. Collins. It is managed by two brothers from India. Wouldn't be nice if they were from Mongolia and then I could learn the language from them instead of from these awesome audio files the Peace Corps made available that sounds like they were recorded in 1982 with a tape recorder in an office some where with people shuffling papers, which isn't like totally out of the realm of possibility.
After typing that last sentence I started to dream that the realm of possibility was an actual Realm ruled of by the Monarch of Fancy, riding a horse christened Embellish, with his trusty hound Wonder, on whom dotes his only daughter, the lovely Imagine. But one day Imagine is kidnapped by the evil villains Tedious and Insipid putting the lovely Father/Sovereign out of mind with grief and anger. The handsome Prince Envisage sets out to rescue the dark maiden with the almond starry eyes only to find that she has converted her captors to scholars and gentlemen with the help of two forest creatures, Wit and Witticism. They all return to the Realm of Possibility where Imagine and Envisage spend some time to get to know one another before rushing into a foolish marriage, only to discover that although they are both perfectly lovely people, they are just not meant to be together. Imagine eventually finds a nice writer to dally with and goes on to inspire many of his works. They sleep, sometimes in separate rooms sometimes decidedly together, for the rest of their lives. He her artist, she his muse. Envisage discovers his French roots (and his homosexual tendencies) in the brothels of Paris and dies early but surprisingly peaceful in the arms of his lover, Espoir. Fancy the king is buried between Wonder and Embellish next to a joyous spring in the mountains.
Wow, that was quite the whimsical tangent wasn't it. I shouldn't take myself so seriously and try to lighten up a little.

Step Forward

I apologize to all of you that have been anxiously checking for an update over the past couple of months, I am sure you number in the hundreds! I have been re-medically cleared for service and have received a new assignment. I would like to take this opportunity to thank Jason, my placement officer at the Peace Corps for making it possible for me to keep the same blog address so as not to confuse my adoring fans. That's right ladies and gentlemen, I am heading for MONGOLIA in June '09. I am seriously thrilled about this assignment. I feel I am mentally prepared for Mongolia as well as sock-ally prepared as many people gave me smart wool socks for graduation. (Not that I couldn't use a few more pairs...it's cold there people.)

Since being deferred I have been working at The Rapid City Childrens' Center. December 5th is the Christmas party and also my last day. I will miss all of these wonderful children I have gotten to know.

(OK quick eye-rolling adorable kid story... I dyed my hair a deep chestnut and the next day a little boy (He's 4) saw me and ran into his classroom and exclaimed "Miss Caitlin is Beeoootiful!" Be still my heart!)

I love other people's kids. You get all the best parts and getting to know and love them, and you get to go home to (theoretical) peace and quiet.

I am all packed and ready to move to Ft. Collins, CO next week to help take care for my grandparents, Bill and Ginny. I will work on learning Mongolian, saying goodbye to America and spending lots of time with friend Becca as she conveniently lives there and has a fabulous group a friends I am going to thrust my acquaintance on. (Becca has assured me that they are all prepared and excited for my arrival. I had a great time meeting some of them last summer, especially Scott!) I will miss my friends, both old and new, in Rapid City, but I know it isn't goodbye forever! I will also miss my family incredibly much, but it is time for me to be more independent. Well, as much independent as living with my grandparents can be.

My Grandpa Bill and Grandma Ginny!

More to come later. I hope you all are well. Be good and keep in touch!
Erüül mendiin tölöö (Cheers/Good Health)

Set back

I have been medically deferred and will not be going to Mongolia. I will still be serving in the Peace Corps, but not for at least 4 months and most likely not in Mongolia. I developed a blood clot in my leg due to the combination of the birth control I was on and driving to North Carolina with my Grandparents. The party in Rapid City is still on at 1 pm at my mother's house, 508 Robbins Dr. Call me at 605-645-9305 for directions. I am still planning on serving and appreciate everyone's support. Thank you! love, C

Hello Wisconsin!

I am currently in Menomonie, WI for the Upper Midwest Honors Conference, my last Honors Conference of my undergrad career! The conference gave us bright lime green bags, which are atrociously awesome! We are here until Saturday morn and then we are staying Saturday night in the Twin Cities, which should be great. I am presenting on the application process to the Peace Corps! This might get people interested in applying or at least learning more. It was at the National Collegiate Honors Conference in Denver last November where I found out I was nominated for Community Youth Development in Asia/Central Asia. Hopefully, no shocks at this conference!

I getting very excited for graduation and the trip to North Carolina and for San Francisco and for Mongolia. There is a lot to do before leaving, but a lot of what I have planned is exciting.

I am interested to see how my relationships with people survive (or not) with these transitions. I am trying to spend time with my friends and also trying to repair any broken bridges that may have been created over the years. I am also trying to not be over dramatic about leaving. I am not dying, just going away. It is true that I will never be back here and nothing will ever be exactly the same , but paths with the same people or places may cross again.

Someone commented that this could be one of my only opportunities to reinvent myself. I feel reaffirmed in myself that this is not something I want to do. I have toyed with changing what people call me to Caitlin Rose full time, but other than that, I am confortable with who I am. There are qualities I may want to emphasize and others I may want lessen in myself, but I certainly not going to "reinvent" who I am.

For April Fools' Day, I told my parents the Peace Corps moved my leave date up 3 weeks. This wouls mean I would be leaving 1 week after graduation. They both fell for it and mildly freaked out before realizing (with heavy hinting) that I was joking. My father called me a "snot" and my mom told me I was mean. Ahh, success!

I am completely over food poisoning, which is a relief. One of the M18s told me online that it was just good training for when I go to Mongolia. This did not make me feel loads better. I am almost done with my blanket I am crocheting and wonder if I can find yarn in Mongolia. Hmmm, that would be something to do during those long winter days. Other things that I am planning on doing is watching DVDs, (like The West Wing which I got for my birthday and LOTR) reading and writing. I am also hoping to get lots of time riding the short, hairy Mongolian horses!

Well, I am going to go try and find some cheese, this being Wisconsin and all!

Love, C