worth every penny, part 1

there was some excitement in socal last week. it started building early in the week, when it looked like my cousin spencer might be coming to town with the utah jazz to play the los angeles clippers.

as the week went on, hopes continued to rise and on friday, i got the news that he WOULD in fact be coming. there was a chance he might be able to get tickets for myself and the donahooligans, but we wouldn't know until game day, and possibly very late.

we decided to go ahead and purchase tickets-we just couldn't miss it! a couple hours before the game i got word from spencer that he wasn't able to get the tix, so it was a gamble rewarded.


we got to the staples center very early. SO early that most of our happy little group had to kill some time while i was picking up my tickets, waiting for the doors to open.

just as rach and i finally entered the arena, about 40 minutes before the game, i got another text from spencer saying that he'd gotten a couple of tickets. we headed back outside to wait at will call* for the jazz to drop off their tickets, at which point, we grabbed the two, and worked our way back inside.

*sidenote: THIS conversation made me feel like the coolest person ever:
me: have the jazz dropped off their tickets yet?
will call agent: um, i don't know, are you EXPECTING tickets
me: yes (thinking, DUH)
will call agent: okay, i'll check.
will call agent: here you go, they just barely dropped them off
me: thanks

i know it doesn't SEEM that dramatic, but trust me, it totally was.

about 15 minutes later, we got another text from spencer saying that he'd gotten a couple MORE tickets, so we all decided to head down. all told we ended up with 6 tickets in the lower sections (there were 7 of us).


but, what had been an obstacle before turned in to a blessing. the jazz/clippers game was the first of a double-header and would be followed by a laker game. the tickets were good for both games, so that meant that getting tickets through 'traditional' means was a non-option, and i had to resort to those resell ticket sites.

because all those ticket holders were laker fans however, the arena was dead empty for the first game. so empty we could hear what the players were saying to each other on the court. so empty that when we cheered for spencer's entry in the game, the volume was deafening (and probably embarrassing). truly i've never seen a sporting event so poorly attended and i even felt a little bad for the clippers!

we were able to sneak our extra person in and all of us ended up with really good seats...jen, nic, rach, and i were in the 8th row of the bottom section. i'll probably never have seats like that for anything ever again!


needless to say, it was soo exciting and moving to see spencer take the floor for warm ups. the jazz wrung a lot of tears from me back in the malone, stockton, hornacek days. they were a team that i invested body and soul into, and had my heart broken over and over and over. i know people sometimes have difficulty understanding obsessive fandom, and i don't know that i can explain it rationally, i just know that for several years, i was so connected to the success of a sports team that any given day could be elevated or destroyed based on the outcome of a game.

when i left utah, i left my obsession behind. partly because the team was changing so much and partly because it is very difficult to follow a non-local sports team, and even more so then. that fire needs fuel, and when you're on the other side of the country with little to no broadcast access, it's easier to let sanity take control again:)

so as you might imagine, seeing spencer play with the utah jazz held a lot of meaning for me.

.....continued in part 2......

autumn abundance

i am so grateful! i got to see massachusetts in the fall.

my only disappointment is that thanks mostly to the terrible awful no good very bad (seriously nightmarish) traffic in eastern massachusetts, i didn't get to spend any time in salem, other than my quick stop to pick up a national park stamp. aside from that however, it was an absolutely fantastic couple of days, with my sightseeing centered largely in the concord area.

i got to reflect on walden pond, literally and figuratively, taking in the incredible beauty and variation in the turning leaves.

after walden pond, i headed back to the city to have dinner with my co-workers, and wouldn't you know, i happened to notice a big gold statue off the freeway and had to inestigate further. lo and behold, it was exactly as i suspected - the boston temple!

can you conceive a better pairing to inspire awe and gratitude, than walden pond and the temple?!


the following day, i got to visit louisa may alcott's orchard house, and it was an absolute highlight.


little women was written here, and i learned just how much of the book was based on her life. i also appreciated that aside from the rugs and wall coverings, 95% of the furnishings, art, trinkets, etc. were original. i can't tell you how many 'recreations' i've seen in my life, so to see the melodian 'beth' played, and 'amy's' artwork hanging on, or directly drawn/painted on the walls, was quite special.

last but not least, i finally had a question answered that i've asked myself for years. what was up with the professor?!

well, apparently little women was written in two parts. louisa may absolutely did not want jo to marry, but rather to remain a strong, independent woman. however, after the first part was published, she received overwhelming feedback requesting the next part of jo's story - her marriage. as a way of satisfying her readers, she created the professor character, but because it was so incongruous with the rest of the story, she felt that she was having the last laugh afterall.

so now i understand why the professor never made sense:)

and after leaving the alcott home, i also understood for the first time that alcott and thoreau and emerson and hawthorne were true contemporaries. i had never envisioned them in the same timeline or social circles before, so hearing that thoreau attended jo's sister's wedding jarred a little reality into me. what a rich literary history that time and place has!

after the alcott home, i stopped by emerson's. the story about this house is actually quite endearing.

On July 24, 1872, the house caught fire and was heavily damaged. Luckily there was no serious injury, all of the Emersons escaped, and Emerson's papers were not lost.

Without consulting Emerson, his neighbors took up a collection to pay for repairs. This allowed Emerson to journey to Europe and to Egypt—as he had always dreamed of doing—while repairs were being made. In 1873 the Emersons returned to live in the house, surprised by a town-wide celebration of the event.

following the emerson home, it was on to sleepy hollow cemetery. this was another high highlight.

i enjoy cemeteries to begin with, but one with a name like 'sleepy hollow' is bound to be excellent.

what was most excellent about it was author's ridge - where the alcott, hawthorne, emerson, and thoreau plots are literally adjacent to and across the sidewalk from one another. in addition to the close proximity, i was so impressed with how unassuming and accessible each of the graves were.


no barriers or fences, in fact i was literally standing on the graves of emerson and thoreau to get my self-portraits, taken, of course, with absolute respect and appropriate humility.


emerson's was the largest of the bunch, a giante slab of granite serving as the headstone. thoreau, hawthorne, and alcott however, had tiny little headstones no different from those of the rest of their families.


at thoreau's headstone, preceding visitors have left pine cones and stones in homage to the transcendentalist nature lover.


before making my way to the airport to head home, i also made a stop at minuteman national historic park to wander across the old north bridge and visit the old manse.


the old manse was built by ralph waldo's grandfather and served as a witness to 'the shot heard round the world'. it was a hotbed of activity during concord's political and literary revolutions, and also served as nathaniel hawthorne's home for a time.

though it was a short visit, i was able to deeply enjoy both the natural beauty of massachusetts in the fall, and some wonderful historic sites.

coolest thing ever?

maybe not EVER, but seeing my cousin on the utah jazz roster has got to rank pretty high

new england fall

for as long as i can remember, i've wanted to visit new england in the fall. by all accounts, the changing of the leaves is spectacular. today, i'm getting my wish, and it's a gift from my boss.

just a couple of weeks ago i realized i was very close to getting gold status on american airlines. there are a slew of benefits, the highlights of which are the 25% increase on my frequent flyer miles, not having to pay to check bags, being able to check in at first class/priority access lines. it's not a stretch to say that this is going to revolutionize my travel in the coming year.

the problem was, that most of my events for the rest of the year are local. the one 'far' trip had already been booked on jetblue (direct flight, comfy seats, satellite tv, etc.), so i was going to be out of luck.

my boss, understanding what a difference obtaining elite status would be, asked if there was another trip i could take that i could justify. there was. one that was already on the radar, but that didn't NEED to take place until february. it's also a trip that he should take with me, but we couldn't find days for the rest of the year that we would both be available. so he told me to go ahead and go solo.

and i am. the other bonus of this trip is that it was significantly cheaper for me to stay an extra day. and because of the airport and meeting locations, i have to rent a car. what that means is that i will actually get to see some of the landscape outside of boston proper...walden pond, louisa may alcott's 'little women' home, and salem, to name a few. as you might imagine, i'm quite excited.

i thought i might be going a little early for good foliage, but according to yankeefoliage.com (yes, there is a map for new england foliage!), the leaves, while not yet at peak, are turning.



should be a great trip!