aroraborealis

I always have a post-event drop after a large event, and I just finished my largest event ever: 400 people for four days at the Mount Washington Resort in New Hampshire. I started planning it over a year ago, and at the beginning of this year, I handed off most of the remaining planning (which is a lot) to my then-assistant (now successor as I've moved into my new role), but it still felt a lot like my event, especially since most people there identify me as a person who can answer their questions or solve their problems.

Also, although it was 400 very smart people, almost none of them are able to find their way out of a paper bag, which leads to a LOT of frankly baffling questions. Like: "Should I eat lunch before or after I put my suitcase on the bus?" Dude! You pick! Are you hungry now? Do you want to stop dragging your suitcase around? Both options are fine!

Overall, it was awesome. The Mount Washington Resort is fantastically beautiful, and the staff was unmatched by any other venue I've ever worked with, and the agenda worked super well, and our attendees were, in general, well-behaved, even if clueless.

On the other hand, we had a handful of prima donnas who threw dramatics over minor and soluble issues, which was a definite downside. My favorite was the fellow who, outraged, insisted he was going to fly home to California if he was going to have to share a bathroom. (Some of our guests were staying in townhouses with some shared bathrooms.)

But the highlight for me was that it was kind of a victory lap for me. This is the event I've run every year in my role as "Minister of Fun" at athena, and this group is sort of my "home base" group at the company. I was given pretty free rein to institute a number of programs that made their lives at work better and more fun, so they really like me a lot, and they're geeks, so of course I love them.

They surprised me with a thank you ceremony that involved a giant cake reading "So long and thanks for all the fish", and a set of gifts that included a fancy pair of noise-canceling headphones, a set of five gorgeous metal dice, a Star Trek sushi-making kit, an 8-bit mug, a useless box, a plastic crown and scepter, a velvet cape, and ... a drone. Oh! And an air cannon. And a truly absurdly decadent donut covered in frosting. And they said a lot of nice things about me. It was incredibly heartwarming and affirming.

Later, I sang karaoke by myself for the first time ever ("You Don't Mess Around with Jim" by Jim Croce -- with thanks to regyt for the suggestion), because I realized I was there with a group of people I truly didn't mind making a fool of myself in front of, and one of my colleagues told me she hopes her 8 year old daughter grows up to be like me, and another one told me that I make everything I touch better.

So, that was all super nice, and really well-timed, because outside of work, things are pretty sad and hard for me right now, but I have a lot of good friends, and my family is awesome, so I think I'll get through.

I just arrived home from a week+ in Costa Rica with my family and contessagrrl, which was super nice. It was amazing to be away in the warmth and sunshine for a week in the middle of winter (and a week containing two major storms -- it's surreal arriving into the current state of things). The second storm led to my original return flight yesterday being canceled, and Copa (who I can't recommend flying with, if you can avoid it) said the soonest flight back to Boston would be FRIDAY, which, no. So I wound up flying to JFK last night instead, and then made the final hop to Logan this morning. It's incredibly restful to be home after three days of active travel.

This was my first time in Costa Rica, and I really liked it. It's visibly better funded than Guatemala (the Central American country I have the most experience with), and it took me a little while to get used to potable water coming from the taps. San Jose didn't strike my fancy, though I didn't really set out to explore it much, but the countryside is fantastically lush and beautiful.

The day we drove to Dominical, taking the mountain route, we wound up on a crazy little detour off the highway that started out paved but quickly turned into an incredibly steep and twisty dirt road that left us all wondering if we'd taken a wrong turn. A quick consultation with another driver confirmed we were in the right place, and I think we spent about 30 minutes of the most difficult driving I've ever done. I was glad to have both a manual transmission and four wheel drive.

The rest of the drive was winding and gorgeous, to an elevation of over 11,000' before dropping down to sea level at a rate that made the changes in the air noticeable moment to moment.

Dominical wasn't much to write home about as a town, but I liked the house we rented, and it was walking distance to the beach, down an unpaved street. The beach was grey sand and had a pretty foamy break that was popular with surfers (which is why we chose it -- my brother's big into surfing recently), and although it wasn't my favorite ocean swimming conditions, the water was bathtub warm and wonderful to be in.

Other highlights include the next door restaurant that had super delicious batidos (smoothies), the intense and restorative massages (two of them!), and the beauty of Manuel Antonio park. I also got a surprising amount of my Spanish back, to the point that I transacted a pretty complicated exchange at the airport in Spanish on my return -- to my great satisfaction! And I think I might have drunk my weight in fresh coconut water, drunk right from the coconut. Oh! And I finally got to try a cashew fruit! It was horrible.

This is the first big vacation that my family and I have taken since we were all together in Guatemala for Christmas in 2003, and it was such a pleasure to be traveling together, so of course that, in concert with the novel and tropical setting, my companions were the biggest overall highlight. I hope we manage to do something like this again before another 11 years have passed!

And now, I'm enjoying the fullness of the pleasure of being home, even if it does require several layers of wool. It also includes a purring cat for my lap. Is there any sweeter satisfaction to travel than the first night in your own bed, no matter how good the vacation was?

Yesterday was Thanksgiving proper, and the day of giving thanks for the people in my life. I feel so blessed and lucky to know the great people I do, to share my life with my family and friends in deep and meaningful ways. I am so lucky to have grown up in a warm, loving family, and lucky again to have found my way into a community of people who work hard together to have loving and mutually supportive relationships of all kinds. People are what make everything worthwhile.

So, in talking about his anxiety with me, my brother mentioned that he's always been kind of anxious, but it got suddenly and substantially worse when he was in Mexico for a semester in college, after he got sick and was treated with antibiotics. "Hmm," thought I, "We're learning so much about the symbiotic connection between our bacterial friends and many of our other internal systems..." So I did a quick web search to see if this is something people are talking about at all.

Well, lo-and-behold, it is. It looks like there may, in fact, be a connection between our microbiome and our mental health, and though the factors and relationship are just being discovered and preliminarily explored, it looks kind of fascinating.

Do Probiotics Help Anxiety?
Probiotics a Potential Treatment for Mental Illness

The more you know, the more you know you don't know.

With this photo, my mom reminisces: We spent Rosa's first winter in Baja, camping in out VW bus. Then again when Dan was a baby, but in a bigger rig, the easter egg trailer borrowed from Joanne and Rod. Super fun to be housework-free and get to see more than our babies' hands and feet all winter.

Today, my dad's oldest brother died, after many days of preparation. And, really, months and years of preparation. He was 68.

Uncle Doug was a little socially awkward, always quirky, reserved. He took pictures of food before the Internet, and even made at least one album of photographs of dinners he'd had. The last picture in the album is photo of a toilet bowl.

He was the oldest son of a difficult father, and suffered in the military academy where he and his brothers went for high school. He worked hard to live the life that was expected of him. He loved to golf. He has a daughter, my cousin Sarah, who is my age. He lived with Parkinson's for many years.

Doug was a really good person. He was incredibly amiable and regularly struck up friendly conversations with strangers. While sitting at his deathbed, his daughter told the story of him not arriving in Boston for her to meet him because he had started a conversation during his layover and decided to miss his flight in order to continue it.

For many years, he was my only family in Boston; most other Carsons live out west, and we bonded over that.

Doug greatly looked forward to retirement as the time in his life when he could kick back a enjoy, but before he could do that, he was diagnosed with Parkinson's and took an early disability retirement that looked so different from what he hoped or imagined.

I will miss him, an the world is a less wonderful place without him.

In his memory, please do somethig pleasurable or wonderful today that you had thought to put off to a later time.

Today, Thanksgiving proper, I give thanks, as I do nearly every day, for the amazing people in my life. I have a remarkable, warm, loving family, and inspiring, creative, comforting, awesome friends. I wish I had 10 times as much time to spend with all the truly fantastic people in my life, and an instant-travel machine to make it easy to see everyone in their far-flung places. If I spent my whole life in awe of the amazing people who are around me, it would only make sense. You all challenge me, shelter me, make me laugh, give me home. You make the world bigger and better with your thoughtfulness, art, thinking, and care.

Yes, yes, yes.

My dad has been scanning old slides, and while I'm home, I grabbed a bunch of them from him. A few of them are here on flickr!

I like vacation.

This afternoon around 2:30, my dad called to tell me he and Mom were waiting at the county clerk's office in Las Vegas for my brother, Dan, and his girlfriend, Amanda, to get their marriage license.

About an hour later, my brother called to say they'd gotten married!

This evening, my mom sent photos, so there's proof (click through for the rest):



I asked Dan if he was changing his name, and he said yes, he'll take hers and she'll take his. We'll see about that :)