the sickies

so...it seems our house is at risk at being overtaken by the plague.  3 of the 5 of us have had some form of not fun illness over the past 3 days.  lucky for me, it seems i had the least severe of all symptoms.  one of my roommates ended up in the hospital -- the hospital!!!  how scary.

yesterday i came home from rehearsal completely exhausted and decided to take a nap to ward off getting the illness that kept my roommate up the previous night and landed her in the hospital.  of course when i woke up from said nap, i was cold (cold is not a word i have used since getting to mexico, i mean, i'm not sure that cold exists here!!), i had body aches, an awful headache, and my belly was not happy at all.  so i put on my fleece pants and a fleece sweater (not sure why i brought those, but sure am glad that i did!) took some pepto, started guzzling gatorade, got under my comforter, and went back to sleep.  i would wake up sweating, but i surely wasn't hot.  luckily, besides a not happy belly, getting that fever to break was the worst part.  today i'm still sorting out the belly issues, but i have these things to help:

hopefully this all clears up fast.

for me, being sick is one of the most dreaded things in the entire world.  i just cannot handle how uncomfortable, painful, and vulnerable i become.  i remember as a little kid not wanting to tell my parents that i didn't feel well, because if i admitted it out loud it would be true, and then i'd have to take medicine and be forced to deal with everything that comes with being ill.  not much has changed.  i still cannot stand taking medicine, altho i now realize it's there to help you feel better so i grin and bear it.  my big thing is making sure i stay hydrated, our bodies work much better for us when they are hydrated properly.

and besides, dehydration is an irrational fear that i carry, along with running out of gas.

i pride myself with being a stubborn and independent person (not sure those things are pride-worthy qualities to most people) and when i am sick i turn into a blubbering fool that just wants her mommy.  no joke, the last time i was super duper sick was 4 or 5 years ago, when i was in my late twenties - i was in new york for a cousin's wedding, my boyfriend at the time was there with me, i made him CALL MY MOM to tell her i was sick.  i was for real 26 or 27.   big baby.  i then cried to pretty much everyone, including my cousin who's wedding day it was.  big baby.  when i am sick i am a person i don't know - weak, vulnerable, and crying for her mommy.  mom's always know how to make sickies feel better.  they make chicken and stars soup (without the chicken, please) and the famous soft boiled eggs!!  and feel your forehead to tell you if they think you will start feeling better soon or if you need another dose of medicine.  they always know how to make you feel better.  it must be in the mom manual.

i cannot imagine living this far away from anyone that i am close to and getting stupid sick. especially ending up in the hospital.  what a champ my roomie is!  i have never had to go to the hospital before, let alone go to one in a foreign country and have no idea what people are saying to you.  i would have cried the ENTIRE time i was there (she was there for 8hrs, they would've given me extra saline drips because of the amount of liquid i was losing from tears).  and i would've insisted that chad come with me, then i'd be this crazy 30-something with a raggedy and dirty teddy bear that wouldn't stop crying for her mommy.  hahahaha, kinda humorous to think about.

good thing i don't think i'll be ending up in the hospital anytime soon.

here's hoping all your tummy's feel better than mine!!!

stop. be here now. be in this moment.

whelp, i've been here for a month already.  an entire month!!  i think time moves faster in mexico, because it does NOT feel like i've been here that long.  i've gone through times in life where it feels like time is just standing still, where the weeks take forever to get through and time just drags on and on, and all you want is for it to move a little faster.  there's also been the opposite, where i felt like time was moving so fast and there was nothing i could do to slow it down.  i'm hoping at the end of next month, being here feels like somewhere in the middle - a steady flow of time that leaves me feeling neither rushed or dragged.  so far it's been a whirlwind of a time and i'm looking forward to what the next 6 weeks contains!!

one of the things i've always struggled with is being present in the moment;  making sure that i am living in the present moment and not getting too preoccupied with what i want to have or where i want to be, but accepting what i have and dreaming big and working hard towards where i want to be.  for me it seems i am constantly looking forward to the next thing.  after high school - college, after college - air force, after air force - grad school, after grad school - finding a job.  for the past five years i have been single-mindedly focused on where i will be next, and most of the time i know i was forgetting to live in the present moment and appreciate where i was and what i was doing to obtain my big dreams.  there were definitely times when i would sit back and think "i'm not sure life is better than this, remember how this feels!"  i wish i could bottle those feelings up and put them on display in my house, because it was in those moments that i was actually "here now" and living in the present moment and unconcerned with what might happen next and just enjoying the life i had.  if i had them on display i might remember to find these moments more often.

so i'm working hard here, not just as a musician, but as a person trying to be better.  and trying to live each and every moment of this wild adventure that is life.

when i was in college i used to wake up way early every morning to go for a run before beginning my day.  it was such a wonderful time of day for me.  i would meet a very good friend of mine (who now has three children under the age of 3, two of those are twins!!  she's pretty much super woman) we would run and chat and enjoy the day before the rest of the world was awake.  i often tell people that those early morning hours are my favorite time of day, altho i'm way too lazy now to see them.  but there's something so special about being awake and outdoors at a time when most of the world around you is still asleep.  it's an absolute beauty that can't be described.  the days here get hot really fast, so i've started waking up early(ish) to run.  a couple days ago i woke up and wanted to stay in bed, then i looked out my window and saw this:

let's take a closer look at the sun:

the sun was still behind a thick veil of clouds, and looked so beautiful.  i wanted to tell everyone i know to hurry outside and see the sun before it rose above the hazy clouds and began it's daily duty of cooking the people of culiacan, but i knew at 6:30am no one would appreciate my exuberance, so instead i put on my running clothes, laced up my shoes, and headed out the door to experience a part of the day that was just for me. 

and the entire time all i could think was "stop.  be here now.  be in this moment."

i was going to write a new post tonight, but then i saw that this one was never posted.  so here you all go!!  (don't worry, i'll write a new one soon)


this past week has been c.r.a.z.y. i for real could not keep track of the actual day of the week.  we had two overnight trips and one day off, friday, which for some reason i kept thinking was thursday.  i was wrong.  who needs to keep track of days of the week anyway?  luckily i had the companionship of some absolutely wonderful opera arias to keep me sane :-)

on wednesday we headed down to mazatlan, that gorgeous city with the beach and mountains in the water.  it was here that i took this picture

for mother's day this year my siblings decided to do a photo collage of each of us spelling out "i <3 mommy."  it was our way of saying that eventho we're all very far apart and rarely make it home, no matter where we are, we love our mom.  here's how the whole thing turned out

pretty awesome, i think.  it really makes my heart happy.  i'm sure it made my mom cry.  and dobby even made it into the picture!  he sure does love his grandmommy!!

i tend to forget about holidays like this until pretty much the last second.  and then i feel terrible because i end up sending nothing and try my absolute hardest to squeeze in a short phone call and mumble something about how i meant to get a card but ran out of time or just never put it in the mailbox, blahblahblah.  i'm full of excuses.  basically i'm just the worst person in the world.  ok, so it's possible that i'm exaggerating.  i'm the second worst person in the world.

this week was a bit different, for some reason i thought about mother's day a lot.  i think mostly because i was scared i was going to forget to take my picture and ruin our entire gift idea, and after i took the picture i was so excited about what this collage was going to look like.  my mom receiving this gift was apparently exciting for me.

note:  this is where it seems i just stopped writing.  i'm gonna go out on a limb and say that the mexinet was probably being super sucky so i just gave up.  i promise something else soon!!!  

hanging on

i was told by a friend today that my readers are anxiously awaiting a new blog post.  i'm sure it's the absolute truth, so i better get writing.

honestly, it's been a rough week and i didn't want to write because i wasn't sure what i'd say or how it would come out or how it might make me feel.  thankfully, the week is over.  and i survived.  and there was even little bits of magic that found their way into my week.

i never thought in 6574986756 million years that i would be so under amused with playing mozart 40 and tchaik 4, and on the same concert none the less!!  i also never thought i'd play in a professional orchestra where the conductor stopped the orchestra twice in one performance.  and really, it's not even worth going into the details of any of it.  it's over.

life is still very typical (bassooning and reeding all day, every day) except now i have time for luxurious naps.  practically every single day.  who's life is this?  oh yes, mine.

i'm becoming rather fond of the air mattress i've been sleeping on, i don't think i ever realized how comfortable the nice ones are!  i do miss my fancy practice chair and reed table, but i'm doing just fine with what i have.  our internet connection absolutely blows.  sometimes it will stay on for a long while and other times we have to reset it every 10-15 minutes.  most of the time i use it as a sign that it's time to do something productive instead of reading facebook for the upteenth time, but sometimes it gets sooo frustrating.  i mean really, why does the internet connection go out that much?  it's crazy.  

and i, of course, miss the dobby dog.  i have had some prime cuddle moments that i wished we could share.  instead i was left to cuddle with chad, which is great and all, but dobby is a much better cuddler (don't tell chad i said that!!!).

i know, this is super boring...so i'll leave you with what i have found to be one of my most favorites things about culiacan.  being a pedestrian here is an endless adventure.  most streets do not have official crosswalks and it's just kind of a "go when you can and won't die" type of thing.  however, in centro (the downtown area) they do have crosswalks with the little light signs (for the life of me i cannot actually remember what these crosswalk signs are called, cross signals?? oh well...).  i love them.  here's a few youtube videos of them, make sure you keep an eye on the sign!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PH6Hat6ZQ0c

and...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0RYegbWWQM&feature=related

i don't think the last one is here in culiacan, but it gives an awesome view of the sign.  i love how the guy is actually walking, and when time starts running out he starts moving faster and faster.  they make me smile.  one day i'll take a video of one myself.  you all will be the first to know!!

buenas noches!!