5/31/09 winding down and a couple of stops on the way home.

I got to meet Audrey's roommates. We talked about having people and finding people, and how wonderful being in California had been for her. We talked about things that were challenging too. I am so glad that i got to see her, and I think seeing her might have been one of the reasons it was exactly right that my trip turned out the way it did. Above is Audrey's mandala.
We had breakfast at Starbucks and she got me to the airport. She sent me number for people in Chicago in case there were plane issues or I had to be there longer than I thought.
When I actually got to Chicago I didn't have time to use them, just a brief stopover at an internet kiosk and I was on my way.
It was late by the time i got into Massachusetts, but my friend James came and picked me up. There is something about being picked up at the airport late at night that makes one feel very loved.
Also I once again had a really good conversation with a lady while I was waiting for James. I seem to meet good people everywhere.
James and I stayed up talking for a bit about life and the meaning of things, and what we see for ourselves, and then he had to get to bed, and I crashed on the couch with his cat May lcking my face intermittently.

5/30/09 Maker Faire and injury and a kidnapping.

I woke up on maker faire day bright and early. I got packed up and then checked in with the Ria. While she was getting ready I decided to go rest on the couch and ponder for a bit.
My back apparently decided it wanted to stay on the couch longer than I did, because when I tried to get up it hurt to walk, and for a brief period I was holding the wall.
Thankfully Miss Ria is a massage therapist, and she made things better. They still hurt a lot, but at least I could walk without holding onto walls.
We left for maker faire without the exact parking directions, so we called our friend Jen in Massachusetts, and got her wonderful husband Cole who helped us by reading off directions from the website. Cole Rocks in lots of ways.
Maker faire was quite the interesting event. I did not get pictures of the moving soda bottle sculpture that was probably my favorite thing, but I did get photos of a lot of other interesting things.
The driveable cupcakes were pretty high on my list of cool things.
then there were mechanical giraffes,
Giant tesla coils.
and odd seemingly flyable contraptions, or maybe just shaded sky chairs
But mostly we were there to see and support Brent and Evonne and the lightening temple.
They have been working with a group of design an build an interactive muscial station where people can work together to make music. That day they were working on playing it through the tesla coil, but eventually they will have play loudly through the coil and have people do performances with electrical wands around it I beleive.
You can see the idea for the final product here http://lightningtemple.wetpaint.com/
And you can see Brent standing by the interactivtaion station here
(don't feed the Brent)
I loved playing with that thing. you and five other people can play beats and sounds and syncs that go together. It was lots of fun.
I also met Evo who is a very cool woman to know.
I think I told her later in the day that I wish I had met her on another day as that day I could barely stand up, and so I had NO energy, even though I was in this place with all these cool ideas, and interesting things, and had I not been injured I would have likely been bouncing from place to place to see everything. I kind of spent the the diet pepsi and mentos show squating on the ground to avoid pain so I missed it.
Thankfully after that Miss Ria came to my rescue again with a massage. She also likely put something in my back back into place, because about 20 minutes afterwards I regained the ability to stand up straight. However that was pretty late in the day by that time, so I still didn't see too much.
I did have a really good conversation with Brent about how he uses the lightening temple to build community, and he talked about teaching people tings they want to le4arn about technology and holding respect for people.
There were lots of people who worked hard on this but Brent has been working like crazy and ignoring things like sleep. However since I spetn most of the day sitting and watching I was able to catch this shot to prove that even Brent's need sleep.
So as our afternoon wound down Ria and I had been able to make plans to have dinner Audrey, a friend of ours from college. Audrey had also lived in Rochester for part of the time I was there fro grad school. Audrey is an amazing woman to know, and she made my time in Rochester so much better, so I was very grateful that i got to see her. We had dinner at a nice little Italian restaurant.
I love the shot above, but I figured I should take a good one.
So we chatted away and the original plan was for Ria and I to go to the house where Brent and Evonne were staying and sleep there, and then Ria would take me to the airport in the morning, but the Audrey asked if we could come to her house and spend time there. She wanted us to see her people, and was totally willing to welcome us into her space. That is a very Audrey thing. I remember when we were in Rochester she took me one weekend to her family's retreat/camp space, and wandered around in nature and came back and listened to Steve Miller band and talked about life. I knew this night would be different, but that in Audrey's presence there would be warmth and life would be good.
Ria really wanted to spend time with Brent and Evonne, but we figured there was no reason I couldn't go, all we had to do was move my stuff from Ria's car to Audrey's, and Audrey would drop me off in the morning. SO that is how I got kidnapped (not really) to Albany CA.

5/29/09 Hold on or ride the waves

Ok so you know how sometimes things take a while to process.....
Yeah while the 2009 tour took some time to process. SO it's July and I'm finally posting about the last week of May. I say it was processing time.
The most memorable thing that happened on the 29th was the trip to the Monterey bay aquarium. http://www.montereybayaquarium.org/
Ria knows people, so we got the backstage tour.
That's Ria next to Brad and Dave our Tour guys, and on the left is this guy she knew from a writing class who apparently wrote an episode for a foreign TV show.
Brad and Dave were most amazing and gave the best tour. if I had posted like oh say three weeks ago I could probably remember all of what they told us but I remember most of it, and some of the good environmental points. I think i mentioned before my friend Jen and her family were traveling across the country visiting places that help make American life more sustainable, and eco-friendly, and her son was interviewing people about it. (http://ourrenewablenation.blogspot.com/) When I went to the Monterey Bay Aquarium I felt like I got a feeling for what that might be like.

We started off at the kelp tank which has to have moving water to keep the kelp alive
The kelp tank is the highest tank in the aquarium so they can use gravity to help pump the water into other tanks, and keep the flow in this tank. We continued in the aquarium proper and saw sting rays, octopi, and various other fish and sea life

Dave told me a story about these fish called California sheepheads. The most dominant fish in the group of females will become male if the male is taken out. There was one fish who was half way transitioned because the male was taken out and then brought back. It kind of made me think for a moment about gender constructs, and transgendered people and how nature already has some precedents exactly for that. Who would have thought?

Then the tour went under the aquarium.
There were three main points to Dave's tour of ecological wonders behind the scene. I remember 2 of them clearly, and I hope I'm not just fudging the third.

The first was sand filters. The basement of the aquarium is filled with giant filters which are basically giant tubs filled with sand. They let sand and natural processes filter out the creatures form the bay so that they get good water for their tanks. They have computer set up to monitor water pressure and back wash the tanks if the pressure gets too high.
Sometimes they have to go in and clean off the machinery
This little baby is something they pull through at times to clear out the pipes.

The second major point of the aquarium underground tour was heat exchange through water.
There are metal mesh things inside these tubes where two pipes are running, and the heat exchange allows them to control the temprature of the tanks and through that of the aquarium using the water they had pumped in. It's amazing what water tempature can do.

I beleive the third point of the tour was filtering out any sea life from the aquarium water before returning it to the bay. The bay does not need exotic life added into it as it could damage the ecological balance that currently exists, so they go through a multistep process to ensure nothign living gets out. Two of the steps include uv rays and oxidizing the water.

Nothing living gets past that.

After our wonderful underground tour Dave and Brad had to get to work so Ria and I toured the rest of the aquarium ourselves. I came across this sign, and it felt like a metaphor for my trip, and it was at this point I decided to ride the waves.
It got peaceful after that.
Of course the jellyfish, seahorses and giant tank certainly added to the peaceful atmosphere.

Please note that the lighter looking fern on the right is actually a seahorse that cleverly looks like plant life. NO I'M SERIOUS. it was kind of bizarre.
I didn't grab a bay shot, because the bay was a little busy, but there was peace even in the bay's business.
After our Aquarium tour we walked the rest of cannery row.
We were attending a birthday party for a girl I had not met before and I found a nice simple birthday gift for her. We also met a psychic who said my aura was spiritual but could be happier. I was thinking "Well it hasn't been the best week, and you should have seen me before I went to the aquarium."
From there we went to Ria's dojo where the first tiem in America someone was testing for the high rank in swordsmanship. So it was a big deal, and a ton of people for the dojo were there for the man's test. It was also a wicked cool show.

this was the guy.
there was group deomnstrations
There was him bringing a live sword within inches of people, butting up vegetables in people's mouths, and cutting up what looked to be old blinds.

And there was some fighting with not live swords.
It was very impressive.
I enjoyed it immensely, and also happened to have a great conversation with the guys partner who is interested in studying how kids and teens can be supported in developing good emotional and social skills, which is something I happen to be working on a group for, and interested in seeing if it can support kids and teens in a mental health setting but also in a more public school setting as well. We had a good conversation, and I will be interested to see where she goes to school and what research she gets into.
Following the demonstration Ria and I headed out to the birthday party, but made a detour to Heather and Dave's house.
Dave is the guy that gave us the tour earlier in the day. He is also a cool musician and his girlfriend is currently studying integral studies. We had a long talk about the project she is working on and how it relates to community building. Heather and Dave at the time I saw them were trying to find the community that fit best for them, and whose values they resonated with the best. I think that is pretty amazing. I think starting in middle school people start longing for the community they fit best with, but at that point still don't know who they are so they muddle around a lot. As adults we do our best to fit in with the communities around us i guess, but someties I think there is still a longing to be a part of community that really fits what we value. When people actually have the courage to go look for it, and stand with integrity in what you believe, that's very cool.
So I am curious to see what they will find
Then it was off to the birthday party which was at a sushi place.
This is the birthday girl Sarah
This si the birthday girl in the obligatory hat. This is a cool girl also named Liz who sat near us. She was good to talk to.
And this is my Ria being very contented. because it was a good day.
After sushi and party we were tired peeps, and we knew we had to get on the road early for maker faire so we went home to bed.

5/28/09 This lesson is done.

SO the second reason I am grateful my trip got completely upended was because on the morning of the 28th I was with my friend Ria when she went to court.
Ria had a stalker. It was a guy who asked her out and she went on like 2 dates with him, got bad vibes and said "no thanks". He persisted in contacting her and harassing her so she pursued a restraining order through the courts, and when she got a temporary restraining order he backed off..... until it lapsed. Then there was more e-mails and letters. So Miss Ria finally asked for more help. She got a lawyer and asked if her friends would help her cover the legal fees. http://riamegnin.chipin.com/anti-stalker-legal-fees She was kind of amazed at how many people donated.

I had been planning to arrive on the 28th just in the afternoon after court. It kind of gave her something to look forward to.
But Miss Ria was still scared.

Ria is over 6 feet tall and has a black belt in a martial art. I've seen the video of her blackbelt test in which she disarms people with various styles of weapons. but somehow this man and this process made her afraid. Recently I spoke with one of our friends who was expressing his amazement that anything could make Miss Ria afraid because she is such an impressive person in so many ways. However I think everyone has that space of doubt and insecurity, and when someone else goes to the personal place and they prey on that insecurity and doubt, it can make it harder to find that center and hold ones ground.

I'm 5'5" on a good day. I'm in slightly better shape from yoga and bellydancing, but physically I'm not exactly intimidating to anyone.
However when it comes to my friends I am fierce. I have known Ria for almost 13 years. We lived together for a year in college, and so whenever my dear friend loses sight of who she is, and what her strength and heart make her capable of, I'm a very good reminder, or as Ria has said it's more like a swift kick in the butt reminder.
Besides I had let it be known that whatever lesson the universe was trying to teach my dear friend through this man's crazy actions was done. So if I had to show up and be the support in person... so be it.

Ria's friend Kate was there for court too. She'd helped Ria deal with court days multiple times before. This is Kate.
She and Ria have been supporting each other all year through their own various challenges. I'm so glad Miss Ria and Kate have had each other for support.
We both gave Miss Ria as much support as we could before going into the court, and once in the court she sat in front of me and I literally had my hands on her back until the case was called up front.
Ria's laywer was very good, very precise. It is always nice to watch someone who is good at what they do and does it for the right reasons. Ria's was the first case. the restraining order was granted for three years, with relative ease. There is a possibility he will ask to make it shorter, but that will be an issue for another day.

At the end I wanted to walk up and look that man in the eye. I wanted to give him the serious look I get when a person has really crossed me and tell him "no more" and tell him in person this was done.
But the laywer had done her job, and ours was to leave, and go have breakfast at a diner in celebration and support of Ria.
Ria said she felt empowered. I am very glad.
We went back to Ria's after brunch, hung out a bit with Kate took some deep breaths, let things out, talked about stuff and things and then and took a few pictures.


(tired Liz picture, but also good Keira the cat picture)

Then Kate had to go, so Ria and I wandered to the pond that is right near her house.
They have paddle boats there. Ria in all her years of living there had never been on those paddle boats. We decided to remedy that, and had a lovely ride around in the paddleboat.

We spent that evening at the movie Wolverine. Ria the writer wanted to rewrite the whole thing, but I figure after a stressful morning, action eye candy without much plot is just fine.
What I remember most though is the conversation we had on the way home.
Ria and I typically have good conversations, this one was again about angels.

I think this was the night Ria made the really good food, but it might have been the night before. I can't remember. I just remember that I wasn't really hungry but then the stuff she made was so good (and reasonably healthy) that I had to try it. nummy.
It was a good day, and like I said before it me being with my Ria that morning was EXACTLY where I was supposed to be.

5/27/09 The shaping of a new adventure

Wednesday morning I woke up early to go to the UPS store and use internet there. I still needed time to process, and think about what had happened a little. I took the shuttle to the store and spent a good two hours there writing and checking internet andsorting things out for myself. My parents and I were planning on taking a cab back to the airport around 10 so I was doing my best to get back before 9:30. I got off the shuttle and realized I would be a little later than expected so I went to call them and realized my phone was gone. Also in those two minutes searching through my purse I realized I didn't have my camera card or the reader that allows me to put it in a USB port. Not having the phone was bad, but the thought of not having my pictures made me want to cry. I couldn't figure out if I had dropped my phone on the monorail, but I figured I had left my picture reader hooked up to the computer at the UPS store.
I think I managed not to be hysterical and my parents were just like "hey we will go back to the store in the cab on the way and you can run and check."
We had a really good cab driver who was incredibly nice, and spoke about how some cabbies will be rude to people, but he thought in his job you get to see a lot and you should enjoy it and the people. I think it's a good theory.
I beleive his name was Johnny Kako, and if you are in Vegas, see if you can get his cab. Listening to someone who enjoyed his job made me calm down. Then when I got to the UPS store the girl there too one look at me and handed me both my picture card reader with card inserted, and my phone. She said she saw that I left the reader connected, and then saw that the phone had fallen under the chair. SO i got both back, and was incredibly relieved and grateful.
Even more grateful because if I hadn't dropped my phone I might not have realized I had lost my picture card & reader until it was too late.
Sometimes things work out really well for me in ways that are completely unexpected.

At the airport I talked with my mom more. Over the course of our vegas trip she had told me some things about herself that I didn't know, or didn't fully realize the impact of certain things on her. I want to say this in a way that is respectful to my mom's privacy, but it is also a really important part of the story for me. My mom has had seizures do to medical issues, and they have caused her to lose long term memories.
I have had this lingering feeling that mom doesn't really know who I am, and what is important to me. For a long time it made me frustrated, and at times it made me sad, but ultimately I figured it was just a holdover feeling from adolescence.
It's not.
My mom doesn't remember my life growing up.
She doesn't know who I am because she doesn't have the context I expect her to have without those memories. She didn't know whether or not she was a good mom, and she didn't know how much I can handle things because she doesn't have those memories. She worries a lot about me anyways, so mostly she has just been responding from worry.
It's sweet and it's sad and it gives things a whole new perspective.
But what my mom said at the airport is that, seeing me deal with everything that happened to mess up my trip impressed her and made her understand how well I deal with things. She also said the trip gave her a chance to really see me more, and understand more of who I am. This is the thing I am most grateful for out of the whole trip. If I had to have two of my friends essentially bail on me when I was flying out to see them to get this, it was totally worth it.
My parents flight left about an hour before mine.
I had time to wander around the airport and grab a sandwich before getting on my flight to San Fran.
I flew on Virgin.
I believe Virgin is more expensive on cross country flights because it is direct, but if you can get a short cheap flight on Virgin or if you have enough money so you don't care FLY VIRGIN.
the guy at the Vegas flight desk was hilarious. The flight attendants were nice. They sold headphones that go over your ears instead of ear buds which I prefer headphones 1000 times more, and they have this things in the seat in front of you.
They call it red. It allows you to order sandwiches from flight attendants, allows you to personalize your TV and movie watching with a certain selection free and a cetain selection paid movies. THEY HAVE FREE VIDEO GAMES (they are old school and simple, but they are built into the seat in front of you.). They also have a good selection of the Virgin music catalog programmed into the Red system.
I spent the first part of the flight playing majong, then I got the headphones and started making a playlist. I didn't get even halfway through the playlist before we touched down. I could totally lfy Virgin across the country and be completely comfortable and distracted and not even notice I was on a plane. The only thing they could fix is I couldn't figure out how to listen to music and pay video games at the same time. Oh and by the sumemr they are planning on having internet.

When I touched down in San Fran I felt like it was exactly where I was supposed to be. I felt light. I know I was probably made happier by my flight on Virgin, but it was more than that. It felt right.

Ria had arranged for a shuttle to take me to Monterey because she didn't feel up to the drive. I met a woman there who teaches at Esalen. She was just coming back to the country after doing a workshop i beleive in Bali. She was a very nice woman with a lot of wisdom. When I looked her up online this is what I found. http://www.movingventures.org/
It's her company, and it gives a good description of the good she has been doing there.

We had a good conversation about culture and people, and she gave me two practical pieces of advice, one of which I used on the trip, and one of which I will use in the future as the need arises. The first practical piece of advice is when traveling by plane wrap breakables in a good bit of fabric. The other of which is to as much as possible when looking to fly somewhere deal directly with airlines and try and find someone who is feeling helpful to check into tickets, because you might get a good deal.

The ride was peaceful. After the conversation died down I read and felt calm and good. Ria picked me up and then she had to go almost directly to a women's group she is involved in. Her group is a closed group because women are processing more personal issues, but I was just as happy to sit on Miss Ria's bed and go online and rest and relax.
I ended up calling my friend Meg (See Michigan from last year's trip) at one point and we talked for I think hours.
I made friend's with Ria's cat Kiera, so much so that the usually skittish kitty was all over me by the end of the night.
Ria came back, I think made late night good food and we talked and then crashed.
I was VERY glad to be at Ria's.

5/26/09 Liz's surprise extra vegas day.

So Tuesday was my surprise extra vegas day. I had brekfast with my parents and then since i had a surprise extra vegas day I decided I would see a show.
I really enjoy Cirque du Soleil, and I've only ever seen them once in person, so they my first choice. I wandered to the half price tickets place and got tickets for Mystere which is the Cirque show that has been running the longest on the strip.
After getting the tickets I spent the rest of the day walking the strip back to TI where the show was and seeing hotels I hadn't seen prior to that.
I went to the Bellagio.
This is the ceiling inside the lobby.
The Bellagio also won my heart over with a giant sunflower ferris wheel. I did not go on, but admired it from afar. On the other side of this garden were some indoor hot air balloon replicas. However the main reason I went to the Bellagio was I heard they had a chocolate waterfall. Again visions of Charlie and the Chocolate factory sprang to my head. It was not quite that grand, but still mass quantities of dripping chocolate is quite a sight to see.
From their I wandered back up the strip seeing some rather unsurprising vegas sights
Like statues commemerating Sigfriend and Roy, and some unexpected
This little mediation shrine to Brahma I believe was in between the Bellagio and Ceasars palace as one was walking. I stopped to look and meditate for a moment.
It was quite unexpected in a town where there are certain sections where the street is littered with cards with women topless. Vegas has a lot of variety and I think they are still working on making it work.
Oh and on Tuesday President Obama was in town. He was giving a speech at the convention center, and people were commenting on how Vegas had been hurt by the presidents comments about CEO's taking flights to Vegas on private jets. I would have loved to have seen the president, but I was too busy trying to get to Cirque du Soleil. Still I had to walk through protesters. Primarily they were protesting Harry Reid, and Democrats in general, but there was some Obama protesting as well.
I walked by TV crews near the protestors. They weren't especially rowdy protesters, and I figure wherever the president goes there are probably protestors. Most were upset about the ecomnomy, which I can understand, but personally I think it is a little early for the railing against what Obama has done, as at the time it hadn't even been 6 months in, and the problem is kind of enourmous. However I appreciate people exercising free speech even when I don't agree with them.

I have no pictures from Mystere. Cameras were not allowed. It was a good show, but I was a little wanr out and I think nodded off into my own dreamland a couple of times. On the way back I got to see the Mirage's "volcano" show which is fire and water and lights every hour at night.
I pretty much crashed when I got back as walking the Vegas strip made for a long day.