In the Spirit of Graduating...

For those of you who may be wondering why I'm suddenly the mad blog-poster...it's raining and Jarred is gone. The house is clean, the lawn mowed and I've already ridden my bike. National Boards are far behind me and apparently I have a lot to say.

This year I've had to sit through more graduations than I'd wish to sit through. How many? Two. I know, you may be thinking that I'm a big whiner who does not value celebrations (I probably don't as I've missed two important weddings- sorry Gina and Meagan- and frequently skip out on family birthdays). But let me tell you, two graduations is two too many. I'm all for the pre and post parties but the ceremonies are less than impressive.

My first graduation experience this year was in Ephrata, Washington. Jarred's niece, Lauren, was graduating. Jarred has a kick-ass family and it was no amazing feat that Lauren was graduating, she practically has her AA degree. But it was one of those important family things that we were not suppose to miss out on (kind of like dead grandfather's funerals), so we high-tailed it out of school and pulled into Ephrata on Friday night just before the ceremony started. Luckily it was sunny and luckily I had Jarred, Claire and Jenese to sit with...the running commentary proved to keep things interesting. There were two problems with this graduation.
1. It appeared that no one had rehearsed their short speeches. The first girl to get up read her speech like it was Latin and like someone had paid her to speak in a monotone voice. She reminded me of the low-level readers in my class. Being a teacher, I know that an entire day is spent on practicing for graduation. Did this girl not make it?
2. The chosen teacher speaker was equally as painful, but in a different way. We all felt like we were being lectured....about reading books, and not paying attention in class and how tough we were on her....I almost felt guilty as she spoke but I also felt like some sort of dementia had already set in and it was a good thing she was retiring this year.
Last Friday I attended the Camas High School graduation. Us teachers are required to attend as it's written into our contract. We're also required to wear graduation robes. Graduation does not begin until 7 pm and it seems to be tradition that few teachers show up totally sober. I'd offered to have a pre-grad get together at my house. I wasn't sure about the nature of the party as I'm still fairly new to Camas so I just offered to make food and the guests would bring beverages. I wanted to play it safe in case the rumors I'd heard about alcohol consumption were not true. Nearly every guest showed up with a 6 pack of beer or a bottle of wine. I'm glad I only live two blocks from our stadium as most of the wine and beer disappeared in the two hours before the ceremony.
There were also a number of problems with this ceremony although I admit, it was impressive to have the entire staff, dressed in Harry Potter-like wizard robes, sitting with the students.
1. Three and a half hours. That's how long the ceremony lasted. Granted there were 365 kids in the graduating class so the name calling and shaking of hands and handing out of diplomas took a chunk of time, but did we really need to listen to four speeches (performed better than the Ephrata speeches), two musical presentations and see a slide show and a senior class performance?
2. The sound system. Camas just got a new stadium....$4.5 million. I'd assumed they'd spent a little money on the sound system. Apparently not. It was painful.
3. Three and a half hours.

All this graduation business got me thinking about my own graduation. That's my graduating class pictured above. Yes, that's everybody. Our ceremony did not last three and a half hours. I don't remember much about it except it was in a cool church and I spoke. Which leads me to believe that when you're a senior in high school, you think this is the most significant moment in your life, it's not....so why the big hullaboo? In this day and age, if you don't graduate from high school, you've got some serious problems. It's kind of like potty training, in fact, I'd rather have potty training celebrations as it is a really important and necessary step forward in life. Just like potty training, all of society expects you to graduate from high school...maybe you should just get a toy or a piece of chocolate when you graduate? I can't figure it out, but then again, I'm not big on celebrations as I've not gotten married, I skip out on parties, funerals and any other sort of organized celebration.

What I Learned From Racing

I'm competitive. I like pushing myself and I love to beat people. I also love the motivation I get from competition and having someone (or many others) evaluate my performance. Oddly enough, this generally isn't the case when I mountain bike. I don't know if it is because I ride with mostly guys who always beat me, so I'm content to be in the back. Or it is because I ride with girls who ride like guys and they also always beat me, so I'm content to be in the back. Whatever the case, I generally have no desire to race my mountain bike. Plus, I find it odd to pay money to ride on a course or trail that isn't generally great because it has to accompany a large number of riders. There are so many better trails out there.

So it is even more odd that I fell prey to the desire to race the Portland Short Track series last Monday. Short track is an odd concept. Riders ride a course on and off the established motocross course for 1/2 an hour. The idea is to get the fastest time and the most laps. Racers are clumped together by division; cat 2 (the level below cat 1 and the pro racers, races with single speeds men and women over 45, and so on). A number of our friends race the short track series, mostly for fun. Jarred insists that racing is a waste of time and would rather put his money elsewhere and I generally have no interest. But curiosity and some competitive need came out last Monday, so off we headed (Jarred scribbled "coach" on a tee shirt and offered to cheer and be my mechanic- Shuksan came along for some pets and dog watching) to PIR (Portland International Raceway- the location for all motor sport racing or anything having to do with speed on dirt or pavement).

After my initial ride on the course, I regretted my decision to come. The ground was all lumpy and riding around in loops seemed kind of boring. But I'd already signed up so I resigned myself stick with my original plan. So I lined my bike up with the rest of the Cat 2 under 35 girls who had little race bikes with 4 inch travel. Black Betty-my bike- is a somewhat beefier bike with 5 inches of travel and a seat post dropper (for riding downhill). She's a bit heavy and not a speed machine on the flats.

Off we went. This is when the education kicked in.
1. Do not start a race lined up last. That's more people to pass if you're competitive nature kicks in. It is harder to pass people, it is much easier to get passed.
2.Knowing how to ride your bike around a corner fast= passing a lot of people. This was my ticket to success. As most girls teetered around the sharp corners, I used my new found downhill speed skills and passed girl after girl and even some old fat guys who were riding in the other categories.
3. When racing some sort of primal instinct sets in. You don't worry about the dirt on your face or who might be cheering for you, you see someone in front of you, you try to pass them. You see a log, you jump it. It's a bit refreshing to think about only one thing at a time.
4. When breathing as hard as you can, a half an hour seems like eternity. When breathing as hard as you can, you also find yourself making primal grunting noises.
5. No matter how slow they are and despite the fact that you're not even competing against them, men do not liked to be passed by girls.
6. When breathing as hard as you can for a half an hour, your body also decides to rid itself of any stored up snot. This leads to a really runny post-race nose. If I intend to race again, this needs to be rectified. It's gross and a pain in the butt.
7. I may be faster than I think, I ended up third overall. Maybe riding with competitive men and man-girls all the time has paid off.

The Fence

Some time in May, Jarred and I got a wild hair to start our remodeling projects. We REALLY needed to re-roof the dining room addition as apes built it but the weather was not dependably sunny and re-roofing is boring. We also need to replace most of the windows in the house and re-side the place, but those tasks are daunting. So we dug into our Home Depot POS shed. I always wonder how Home Depot sells those sheds for so cheap...now I know. The only quality building material on that entire thing was the roofing, and I'm being generous as it consisted of asphalt shingles. Our original plan was to re-side the shed as the cheap siding was beyond the rotting stage, it was starting to compost, but true to remodel style, we found the shed had more issues than rotten siding.

Termites. Once we found the termites, we started demolishing the thing with a vengeance. Cheap stuff is fun to demolish as it goes fast. Before the Sunday was over, we'd torn the entire shed down.....But wait, this wasn't our original intent...so what to do now?

Thank goodness Jarred's brain is perpetually forming ideas. I generally ridicule him as I see ideas that never come to fruition as wasted ideas. But I eat my own words here. Somewhere in the back of his brain, Jarred had once designed a fence. We knew we needed a fence to keep the dogs in and allow ourselves some privacy as Jarred does like to pee in the backyard. So a fence was built. I think it took an amazing amount of time to build the thing but seeing as it was only worked on on the week days as the weekends are for fun, I think we ended up doing ok. The best thing about the fence, besides the design, is the comments from neighbors and those passing by.

When we first dug the post holes and put up the supports, the comments reflected skepticism. People would often yell out their car windows, "We're watching you guys...waiting to see what that thing becomes." I even got questions from co-workers and students at work to the point where they'd see me in the hall and seek me out, wondering what was to become of the posts in our yard. As the fence took shape, the comments changed to reflect curiosity, "I've never seen a fence like that." Or, "Nice fence...very unique.....I like what you're doing with the place." The best comment Jarred received was from an old man in an old truck eating a bag of corn chips. He told Jarred, "I like your fence but you know if you didn't have an eye for design you could really mess that thing up."

Both Jarred and I value unique and useful design, which one would never know as we've owned two design flops (the ranch house- totally utilitarian but UGLY). We often wonder if the population in small town suburbia is content with mediocre design, but the comments we've received from the fence instill a new hope, that maybe people just need a little push and to see that it's ok to be a bit different, neighbors generally appreciate aesthetics (tasteful aesthetics, not purple houses).