Old Pecos Trail

Will and I headed down to Santa Fe a few weekends ago. Will had never been and our friends, Brian & Amy, invited us to join them for the weekend. We had a great time, and Will even drank a margarita.

Anne & Will

Really, Will wanted a beverage with a salt rim and Brian and I ordered margaritas that were really weak. Amy didn't drink margaritas because, well, see photo below. We convinced Will he could handle a weak margarita, so he joined us for the second round - and the margaritas this time were wicked strong. He toughed it out and tried not to make too many funny faces while he choked it down. 

Will, Anne, Brian, Amy

(I never realized how much shorter I am than everyone else...)

Letter Writing Campaign

I had a goal in high school to get into as many yearbook photos as possible. Being editor of the yearbook my senior year helped, but so did joining a boatload of school organizations. I had a bunch of friends in Amnesty International, so I thought, "I can go to a lunch meeting once a month to protest against torturing people. I mean, that's bad stuff."

One week, we started writing letters in protest of the death penalty. I pulled our advisor aside and told him I thought I'd have to drop out of the group. I believed in the death penalty. I believed that if you killed someone, your death was a logical punishment. An eye for an eye type of thing. Fortunately, the AI advisor said I could stay in the group and focus my efforts on another letter writing campaign. If you look at the 1995 Manual HS yearbook, I'm totally in the Amnesty International group photo, probably rockin' my favorite red & blue rugby shirt and some sweet ripped jeans (ah, grunge).

Fast forward 6 years after high school graduation...

I got a phone call from Jon's mom. Jon was a childhood friend that I hadn't seen in about a year. I knew it had to be bad news because why else would Jon's mom be calling me? I thought maybe someone's dad had a heart attack. 

It turned out that our dear friend, Roberta, had been brutally, brutally murdered out in LA. Her body had been found in a park by some joggers and the killer was still on the run. The police had an ATM photo of the killer from the night before when he'd forced Roberta to withdraw money from her bank account. They knew who he was, they just didn't know where he was.

It took about three days for the killer to turn himself in - he had taken Roberta's car and driven all the way to Michigan. During those three days, I thought a lot about this guy. Was he mentally stable? What happened to him that he could be capable of the horrible things he'd done? What made him so powerless in life that he felt the need to violently dominate another person? 

Faced with the stark black and white reality of Roberta's murder, my stance on the death penalty was all of a sudden very gray. I'd think about what Roberta's last moments alive must have been like and that this guy was responsible for those last minutes consisting of fear and pain. I wanted him to feel those same things. To feel what it was like to know someone else held power over whether he lived. And yet if this guy was executed, it wouldn't bring Roberta back. It wouldn't make me feel any better.

The crime qualified for the death penalty - kidnapping, robbery, rape and murder. The trial was relatively quick. With DNA and photographic evidence and the car, there wasn't really too much to defend. The killer got life in prison, and the relief I felt at his sentence was surprising. The death toll ended there. One life was gone, but another life still held hope for something good to somehow come of it. 

This year, the Colorado legislature has been considering a bill that would take away funding for the death penalty and instead put the money toward solving cold cases. In effect, this would take away the death penalty from Colorado courts without jumping through the hurdles of declaring it unconstitutional. It looks like opponents of the bill will defeat this legislation by providing alternate funding for cold cases. 

If the bill does face defeat, I think I can pick up where my teenage self left off and start up that letter writing campaign.

Nostalgia

We are getting ready to put our house on the market.  So far, "getting ready" has entailed creating a list of the home improvement projects we didn't quite finish or get to, convincing my Mom to be our realtor, and creating piles of stuff we don't want anymore.  Needless to say, we've got a lot of work ahead of us.

I went through my books and CDs today and separated out the keepers from the get-rid-ofs.  It was so much easier to get rid of the CDs than the books.  I get really, really attached to my books. Even books I didn't love, I feel like I'm somehow betraying the characters by admitting that maybe they aren't worth living in my library.  

CDs on the other hand, are pretty easy to get rid of. The good ones I've got on my computer. And the bad ones are the hardest to get rid of because I have to admit that I actually purchased that music at one point (um, Candlebox? I plead the insanity of the 90s).

I also found a whole bunch of tapes that I held onto.  Mostly mix tapes from old friends and a large collection of U2. I know I got rid of tapes a long time ago and I must have held onto U2 because the tapes are all from when they were beyond awesome. I purged the tapes, but found a few that I just couldn't get rid of:

To: Anne From: Chris Keep Jammin' in the Car, Chica. A mix tape from my friend, Christine, from our junior year of high school. Having good tunes in the car in high school was key. I took this mix with me to Architecture Camp the summer between my junior & senior years of high school and the mix became famous in my studio for its awesomeness. Plus, I'm feeling all nostalgic.

Learn Xhosa with Anne Munik. This tape is from my Xhosa language class in South Africa. Anne Munik was my teacher and she was the cutest little white lady. She had grown up on a farm outside of Cape Town and absolutely loved the Xhosa culture and language - enough to dedicate her career to teaching it to other white people so they could appreciate it as well. The thing I absolutely adored about Anne was that whenever we'd learn something contradictory from our host families to what she taught us in class, she'd say, "Well, it is their culture, so they know it best." And she'd make a note. In a country where white people had for so long ruled as oppressors, it was amazing to see this woman who not only loved and appreciated the African cultures around her, but realized that she could never be the ultimate expert despite all of her learnings. 

A Reading for Anne 2003.  I usually get my tarot cards read about once a year, usually around my birthday.  I adore my Mom's friend, Bonnie, who reads the cards and records the sessions for us. She is such a gentle soul and I love that there are people in the world that see things that I don't. I also think that this is the reading she gave me where she said I would have a husband whose birthday was very close to mine. I met Will later that year and his birthday is 5 days after mine. Coincidence? I think not.

An unopened, blank tape. You never know when you are going to need ancient relics like this.

Now that I've decided what to keep, I need to figure out what to do with the old.

Lost in Translation

On Saturday morning, I had a voicemail message from my mom:

"Hi Anne, it's me.  I can't believe they named the baby Costco!  Give me a call when you get a chance.  Bye!"

Some dear friends, Marc & Perrin, had a baby boy late last week.  They didn't share the baby's name ahead of time, just like their last pregnancy with Malia.  I think we were all pretty sure that this baby wouldn't end up with a name like Joe or Bob.  If the mom's name is Perrin, it doesn't really work well to go everyday with the rest of the family.

And Marc & Perrin do indeed have a membership to Costco - I clearly remember that they got their membership before moving to Hawaii earlier in the decade.  But being the Boulderites they are, I'd assume they'd choose a local business name (McGuckin's has a nice ring to it) before a national chain if they decided to indeed name their progeny after consumerism.  

Fortunately for all involved (especially the baby) there was a horrible connection in the game of telephone announcing the baby's name.  I told my dad, who told my mom, who got it all wrong when she called me.  And baby Costco is actually baby Kosmo.

Is the Week Over Yet?

It has been a rough week for me, and yet it could have been worse.  My work laid off my whole team except for me.  

I've been through rounds of layoffs before - at my current company and at other companies where I've been employed.  They are never any fun and I've always felt horrible and guilty that I was spared.  But this round has hit me especially hard.

My teammates, Aleta and Amy, are really good eggs and great people to work with.  They are friends that I love to see outside of work when I'm in Portland.  They were my confidants, my support system, my additional brainpower when mine was stuck.  Aleta and Amy both believed in me and my projects when I had a crisis of confidence in both. 

I've talked to Aleta and Amy this week and fought back tears on the phone.  I feel selfish because I can't imagine doing my job without them.  And yet, I still have the job and I know it will somehow all get done.  It doesn't seem like my place to be so sad and upset when I have a lot to be thankful for.  

I am mourning the loss of one of the best teams I've had the pleasure of working with.  I know we will all come out ahead and look back at this week as one of those experiences that makes you stronger.  But it really sucks right now.  

And to top it off, I'm heading to a funeral tomorrow. 

Curve Ball

I thought I'd write something today insightful today about the Obama inauguration and how happy I am. But people that are much smarter than I am have got that one covered. So then I thought I'd write about my cat cheating on his girlfriend (the story involves multiple cashmere sweaters and should have a soundtrack straight outta the '70s and maybe a pornstache on the cat). Or maybe I'd write about the freakin' snow pile still on the North side of our block despite almost 70 degree weather. But sometimes, life throws you a curve ball. 

I found out today that a guy I grew up with died in a plane crash last week just outside Wray, CO. He was deadheading on the flight so the FAA records initially only showed the pilot & copilot.  But it was confirmed this weekend that Zach was on the flight too and died in the crash.

I have such a jumble of memories of Zach - mostly from elementary school when I was crazy about him. I remember playing blocks in first grade when he told me he had a girlfriend. 

"Oh, yeah, who is your girlfriend?" I asked, trying to be cool and hide my massive disappointment.

"It's you." Zach said. 

 

A little presumptive, but whatever. I was all about being his girlfriend.  Which mostly meant that I let him catch me when it was boys chase girls on the playground and vice versa. But apparently that was serious enough for 6-year olds because our teacher, Ms. Furnace, introduced our parents to each other as the in-laws at Parent / Teacher conference night. Which, I mean, was inevitable since we were going to get married after high school. Zach was going to play for the Broncos and I was going to be a yuppy lawyer. I really wanted to be a yuppy. 

I remember him dressing as an Ewok for Halloween, a whole bunch of us trying to break dance at Christine's birthday party (a massive fail on my part), school plays, and just a lot of silliness (all set to a soundtrack of Michael Jackson back before he was a giant weirdo). By the time Zach and I were in high school we hung out with different crowds. But we still had a good giggle at high school graduation about our former plans to get married (at 6, high school seemed plenty old enough for marriage).

And really, I haven't seen Zach in a long, long time. Maybe 7 years. I didn't even recognize him in the news footage. But the 6-year old in me feels like I've lost my first boyfriend.

Zach was a good guy and my heart hurts for his family.

You Know What They Did to Jesus?

I went to a 33rd birthday party this weekend and even though I had a fabulous time, I felt old. It isn't the highest friend birthday party number I've been to (I have lots of friends that are older than 33). And well, lots of older relatives, so I've been to their birthday parties too.

But here's the thing. I remember when I was a teenager and my Uncle Mike turned 33. Why was it so memorable? Well, my mom called him up to wish him a happy birthday and then said, "You know what they did to Jesus when he was 33?" And my mom and my uncle laughed and laughed because they grew up Catholic and Jesus and nuns are pretty funny stuff to the Catholics (as far as I can tell). Guilt, on the other hand, they take very seriously.

My parents making fun of religion was pretty darn funny to me too. It was almost as funny as my dad bitching out the Broncos on Sunday afternoons with all kinds of good swears when they didn't do well. My dad is a pretty soft spoken guy, but he has no problem coming up with all kinds of "advice" for the Broncos when they screw up that is best delivered in a tone that can be heard by the neighbors... 4 blocks down the street.

So, I'm at this birthday party with my dear friends from college at an old college hangout. And the guys are drinking beer and the girls are not (most of them are preggers and alcohol = hard times for me these days). Okay, so Will wasn't drinking beer because he hates it and Colleen was because she is awesome. But had this been 10 years ago, we all would have been drinking. Except for Will - he is impervious to peer pressure.

It occurs to me mid-way through dinner that I should ask the birthday boy, Brian, if he knew what they did to Jesus when he was 33. But then I realize that this is a bad idea because a) Brian isn't Catholic; b) it is kinda depressing if you aren't Catholic; c) it might just be depressing in general unless you are my mom and uncle.

And then I felt old for being mature enough not to blurt out a depressing topic, but also because my college friends are now the same age as my uncle once was. I mean, whatever, he was 17 once too but I don't remember that. But 33 seemed OLD when I was a teenager. My hip and cool uncle was OLD at 33.

I still have a few years to get to 33. So maybe it isn't me that is old, it is the people I hang out with. Yeah, that's it. (Shuffles off to take Metamucil and curl up in bed at 7 pm.)