houston – Page 25 – hannah ananas

Stepping up

Dear ——, is this still your number? Hannah ——- here. I wanted you to know that I am very interested in renting out your apartment. However, I have three concerns. 1) I’d like to see it to be certain. 2) I would prefer to move in in June instead of May. Would that be possible? 3) If something were to come up where I receive a job offer abroad, would it work for me to move out sooner than anticipated (even if that means I find a sub-letter, etc.)?

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A series of text messages I am considering sending tomorrow (as the person prefers messages to calls, and it is too late to do it tonight).

Post-a-day 2018

Bud, My Buddy

It never ceases to amaze me how memory works. I regularly wonder at what point the brain moves a piece of information to the far-back storage area; the one that needs only a brief review class for it all to come flooding back into the immediately-retrievable information area of the brain again. How long of not using the information does the brain let it sit up front, before sending the information to the middle ground and then finally to the back storage grounds?

You see, the summer after my first year in college, I did an internship (paid, of course, and sponsored by Shell) with a park conservancy. I had no background in trees and plants, but I told my eventual boss how I was genuinely interested in them and learning more about them. And so began my adventure of studying, researching, and identifying and plotting trees in a local park. My co-intern and I really took the studying to heart, and we would look up the most detailed pieces of information regarding tree identification for our area – fun fact: she wasn’t even from the south, but she learned all about our plants and trees, anyway. Sometimes, we’d learn distinctions that couldn’t even be found in some tree identification books, they were so specific and unique. We would discuss thoroughly what we though a tree was, based on the bud beginnings that were visible on the tree, and then have our boss verify for us what it was. And we loved it all.

By the end of the internship, we could walk around the park and identify any tree around us, almost immediately (there were a couple that had only a tiny difference, and so we had to check for a hint of color underneath the leaves in order to tell which was which). I enjoyed greeting the trees by their species names. Hey, Live Oak. How are you doing today? I’m really happy to see you here. I hope you stay around for years and years to come. Wherever I went in the area (Houston/Southeast Texas), I identified what trees crossed my path, and I enjoyed it. Riding my bike home from work was like a scavenger hunt of What kinds of trees can I find today? My brother and sister-in-law would send me photos, asking me to help them identify trees in Wisconsin. I didn’t know most of the trees, but I knew what parts I needed to see in order to find the trees in tree logs, and I got to work once I had the needed photos. It was fun for me, and I did far more than was necessary in terms of identifying trees.

Now to this afternoon.

I found myself just staring at these buds. It was cold out, but I didn’t seem to care for a couple minutes. I didn’t even seem to care about the conversation in which I had been participating. I walked right up to these buds and just admired them. It felt as though I was waiting for a name to come to mind, so I could finish the mental thought of Hello, … But I knew I didn’t know the name that went with these buds. I eyed the buds, but somehow didn’t dare examine them properly, look for things I once sought out for identification purposes – I didn’t want yet another verification of the fact that I’d forgotten almost everything, even though they weren’t necessarily buds for a tree (I know that sounds crazy, but it is totally possible. Trust me.).

I know that, if I only had a brief refresher, I’d be good again on all the identifications. I still recognize so many of the trees, without even trying to do so… I just have no more names. I remember only four names, and can only really identify two of them perfectly (Live Oak and Chinese Tallow) – I think they might have been the first two I ever remembered, so they were kind of special for me… plus, they’re kind of everywhere in the Houston area, which is probably why I learned them first.

Anyway… memory is interesting, and today it had me a little on the mellow side of nostalgic, wishing I still could identify trees effectively, even though I can’t quite tell why it ever would matter, my being able to identify trees.

Post-a-day 2018

Unpacking & Unboxing

Three and a half thoughts:

1. I spent my afternoon today opening and sorting boxes from Japan. I finally have the much-needed winter clothing I’ve been wanting the past month and a half. Good thing it was almost warm today.

2. I was happily surprised that almost everything I brought back was totally practical and useful and something I really like. I was worried that I wouldn’t like loads of it all.

3. It’s interesting to me how Japan no longer feels like a sort of adventure. It actually surprises me when people have big reactions to the fact that I was there, living there. It feels the same as saying that I buy vegetables at the grocery store – it’s just something simple and everyday. I lived in Japan… and so do millions of other people. I know that it isn’t the regular deal for people around here; I’m clear on that. I just mean that it feels so not special to me specifically. It almost feels more unique that I floss my teeth every day (sometimes more than once a day), than that I lived in Japan. I guess it’s just old news for me now. So does that mean I need some new news, then, if only for myself?

1/2. Wait until you see the tubs of kimono that I have…! (Doesn’t that sound like ice cream or something?) 😛

Post-a-day 2018

Longest and Shortest Years

Okay, please exclude February 29th from existence for this reading and any further conversation on the topic. Kay, thanks. 😉

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Thus ends the longest year of my life. It began in Tokyo, Japan and ended in Houston, Texas, thereby making it 13 hours longer than any regular year in my life. Last year, 2016, was the shortest year of my life by 13 hours, because it was reversed: It began in Houston, Texas and ended in Tokyo, Japan.

Before this year, my shortest year had been 2012, beginning in Houston and ending in Vienna, Austria, making it 7 hours shorter than usual, and making 2013, which ended in Houston, 7 hours longer than usual. Those years are now in second place for the shortest and longest years of my life.

Fun, huh? 😛

When I was little, I made several lists of things I wanted to do in my life. I remember writing into one at some point that I wanted to live the longest and shortest year possible one day. That means spending one December 31-January 1 in the first time zone, the following in the last time zone, and then the third in the first time zone again. I now actually have friends in both locations, so it is totally possible. Let’s see if I can pull it off, shall we?

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Just to drive me nuts, these had to clash with leap years, instead of working with them. I’ll get there some day, I imagine. I’ve gotten so close without even putting forth a conscious effort already. I can only imagine what I’ll pull off in the future. And I know it will begin with the January first of a leap year, whenever it happens. 🙂

Post-a-day 2017

Clothing

We went to the Oscar de la Renta exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts today. Inside the exhibit, a display said that Oscar de la Renta deigned his clothes so that they would inspire women. I certainly was inspired looking at the outfits alone – I was filled with some kind of hope, delight. And now, afterward, I want, more than ever, to make my own clothes. And I want to have a cape on at least one dress. If he did it, then I definitely am allowed to do it, right? I want capes and cloaks.

Post-a-day 2017

Ninja Gym: Round Two

I tried out the ninja gym again today. My brother is again in town, and one of our stepbrothers came with us to the gym to check it out. Apparently, my brother hadn’t even really considered going while he was in town this time, because of his trip being about family time and all, but he was glad that I came up with the idea, and that we turned it into family time after all.

Really, though, I didn’t just come up with the idea. I’ve been exercising specifically to help myself be able to go to the ninja gym with him the next time he was in town. I’ve slipped off the goal exercise dramatically the past two-ish weeks, but I still have done way more exercise than I was doing the first time we went together.

Now, since my brother wasn’t planning to go, he didn’t have his special shoes with him. They’re these special parkour shoes that were apparently ranked as the parkour shoe to have, but that aren’t made anymore. The soles of the shoes look like they have a car tire pasted onto them. I call them his cheater shoes (lightheartedly, of course). So, he had to be with us mere mortals today without his special shoes. (We both were laughing about it throughout the gym time.)

Our stepbrother got to nerd out with my brother in a way that made me just want to watch the two of them. They had a good time trying the different obstacles together, and they were a good matchup for it. Whatever one could do well, the other only mediocrely, and vice versa. So they got to help one another figure out things, and work through it all.

As for me, I brought my gloves, muscles, and endurance, and went for it. I didn’t attempt everything they did, for sure, but I gave a lot of things a good go. I watched for a bit to start, and then went and ran on a treadmill for a quarter mile to warm myself (it was cold today, even inside the gym). I tested obstacles I’d failed doing before, as well as loads of new ones for me, and made it through almost none. I had a really good time doing it all. My goal was not to succeed in the specific obstacles, but to attempt them, to have the ability to do something with them. I was still terrified of various things, and so still haven’t done any lâchés, but I actually got up on a bar, swung around a bit, and even considered going for the jump. I even tried a swing and jump on a ring-style lâché. I almost got it, too, but my fear got the better of me. (I actually was worried that I’d flung the ring across the room when I missed, because I was so immediately focused on landing safely, but it had only flown and landed about two feet in front of me.

So, I still had tons of fear present, and I worked through some of it anyway, and I had a great time. I can tell that this kind of thing is really a process with me, for various reasons, and I accept that. It doesn’t mean that I’m giving up on it, not at all. It is just that I have to keep making new efforts and new goals, always with the plan of going to the gym again with likely very little notice. I definitely have a goal for myself with this kind of gym. No, it is not to be like the other guys doing all the obstacles in it. Not in the least. But there are certain specific motions, movements, and obstacles I can envision myself doing… that is where I want to be with my fitness and my confidence and this gym. That’s what guides me forward in this endeavor. (Even when I have other stigmas that hold me back from my goal fitness.)

All-in-all, I had a great go my second time at the ninja gym today, and my family is still awesome – notice how we so easily turned fun exercise into family time.

Post-a-day 2017

Asian-English teatime with the bff sister

This evening, by a wonderful unfolding of events, I ended up having tea with my best friend’s little sister. As my best friend’s little sister, she holds a sweet spot in my heart. What’s more, the fact that she’s the first person I’ve seen go from little kid, singing nursery-rhyme-type songs, to a mature young adult (and soon full-blown adult), makes that spot even sweeter.

As we sat in the tapioca teahouse, drinking our warm (Taiwanese style, I think – at least, that’s what a friend of mine saw constantly while in Taiwan, and which we haven’t seen much elsewhere) bubble tea, our attention somehow turned to the menu on the wall. Naturally, we hadn’t thought anything special of it when we actually were looking at the menu to order earlier on, but it was suddenly relevant to our conversation, so our attention turned to it. She is studying Mandarin this year (since August), and I’ve just moved here from Japan. So, we have some common ground on understanding Chinese characters. (For those who don’t know, Japanese kind of stole the characters from Chinese, and adapted them a bit, so loads of them look exactly or almost exactly the same and have the same or very similar meanings.)

We joyfully pointed out that “ice” was on the end of each name in the ‘Snowy Drink’ category, and that “little” was next to one other character on the “Snacks” sections – likely ‘little meal’ or ‘little food’. Something like that. And then we discussed how we were scouring the menu, picking out little pieces that we understood. It was like a fun little puzzle that we were putting together, piece by piece… one that we know will take months, even years, but the timing of which doesn’t seem to bother us in the slightest. We’re just excited that we’re able to make the little sense of it all that we already can. And we aren’t even using the same language to do it, technically, making it simultaneously that much sillier and that much more awesome.

So, we got to enjoy one another’s company and be nerdy language-lovers together, while sipping warm asian versions of English tea (Earl Grey) on a cold, cold night (for Houston, anyway). Blessings abound when open our minds and schedules to them, it seems. And I am grateful for this one in particular. 🙂

Post-a-day 2017

Snow in Houston, Texas (and t-rex Christmas cards)

Last night, it snowed here. In Houston, Texas. It happened yet again. What miracles lie before us? It began after I went to sleep, and didn’t begin to stick until after I woke up for a bathroom break in the middle of the night. So, I woke up to snow covering everything that wasn’t concrete this morning. Which, when you think about it, is kind of the best kind of snow – you don’t have to shovel or worry about tire chains or anything, but you get to have beautiful snow everywhere around you.

The hit of the morning was arriving to school. My mom drove me in, because we were going to a Christkindlmarkt (German Christmas market) together after school, and the market was too far away for me to drive home first and then go, and it didn’t make sense for us to drive two cars out there. She was staying for a bit, because we had Mass at school for the Immaculate Conception, and this was a chance for her to see the school a little bit. Pulling into the parking lot (vacant of teachers, because we were so early), we discovered a sort of snowball fight happening in the picnic table area next to the lot. We didn’t have much snow on the ground, but the kids were making some snowballs out of it, and throwing them around at one another. It was adorable.

Naturally, my mom declared that I had to make a snowball, as we were leaving the car. I grabbed an already-made snowball from the ground, which had lost only a bit after originally falling there, and showed it to her. As she eyed me up while she finished off her own snowball, I realized that she intended to throw hers at me.

And so the fight began.

My mom and I, shuffling around a parking lot and a small grassy area with snow about it, picking up and throwing odd snowballs at one another, practically screeching with delight. When I was turned away, a snowball hit her square in the back of the head. No one was too near us, though, so it had come a long way. And these were a little tough for regular snowballs, so it definitely hurt her a bit in the moment (stung, perhaps, is the appropriate word here). It didn’t ruin out fun, of course, but merely added to the silliness of the whole affair – one of my students had attacked my mother with a snowball*. No part of that declaration makes sense for living here, in Houston, Texas. 😛

In class, before Mass, kids lined up at the windows to stare at the snow in the courtyard below and on the roofs within view. This was only the second time in their lives that it has snowed here, so their fascination with it was completely understandable, and utterly adorable.

Today had some magic, that’s for sure.

*I found out later that the student who hit my mom actually was a student of mine. He asked me ‘who that teacher was, walking with me earlier,’ and, when I asked for clarification, he described the morning snowball affair. “That was my mom.” In shock, he declared that he thought it was a teacher and asked me to tell my mom that he was sorry for what he did to her. (My mom and I laughed at the thought that he apologized for having hit my mom, but that is seems to be the case that he willingly would hit a teacher in the head with a hard snowball, without question.)

P.S. My task today was to “[d]raw a Christmas card”. So, I drew one on the roof of my mom’s car tonight as we were leaving the Christkindlmarkt. Frost had begun to reappear all over the place.

Post-a-day 2017

Hers, mine, & ours

I have been teaching during someone’s maternity leave recently, and I discovered something today – when the teacher returns, I will have been with the students more than she has. Just now, I checked the calendar, and it seems that I have already been with them for longer than she was, due to Hurricane Harvey. It is odd to me to consider that these kids would be more my students than her students. It is her class, and I have always seen it that way. So have the kids. And so we likely will continue to live in this odd little my world within her world setup, where the kids are, indeed, mine, but we are all hers. Something like that, anyway.

I will miss these kids. If I really think about it, …well, no I don’t do that. Whenever I begin actually to consider it, my eyes grow hot and threaten an outpouring of tears. I suppose I really do love the kids so much, even though they drive me frustrated so often as they do. They know I love them, and so do I. And it is difficult to consider that I no longer will see these people who have been part of my daily life for so long, and as we all have worked through so much together.

A teacher friend of mine sent me a message tonight, saying how we needed to do something, because she missed me. It turns out that neither one of us has done much other than school lately. This time in particular, even more so than other times I have taught, the students are my social interactions in life. I call my mom in the evenings, because I am craving adult interaction. I don’t have interaction with friends. I just have these kids. In a sense, they are my friends, and I have no others (whom I see, anyway). And so I will miss them all greatly, and even some of the stupid stresses they force upon me, like throwing ice at one another in class or unknowingly rejecting a beautiful opportunity to learn and to help themselves become beautiful successes in life. Yes, I will miss these kids who are not mine, but mine. I love them dearly.

Post-a-day 2017

Pants at home

Tonight, a few friends and I got on the subject of housemates and the comfort of being pant-less at home (US pants, not British, of course). It reminded me of my first flatmate. When we lived together, it was a quickly-known thing that I ditched my pants almost immediately after I walked in the door after work.

Truly. It was part of my ‘arriving home’ routine, really. I would walk in the door (and shut it, of course), set down my stuff, take off my shoes, shove off my pants, toss them to the side, and then put my shoes on the shoe rack. Some days, I even would collapse forward onto the carpet after the pants-removal step, and sigh with exhaustion and relief. We live in Houston. It gets hot here, but the insides of buildings do not. At my job at that time, my classroom was guaranteed winter temperatures, so I was extra overdressed for the outside weather. Sometimes, I would be more peeling off my pants than sliding them off of me, it was so hot outside.

Since it was a well-known fact that I was pant-less almost the instant I arrived home each day, slight precautions were taken. One day, I received a message from my flatmate’s boyfriend, asking if I were home. He said that he was told he should text me before coming over, because I might not have any pants on. I think I let him know that I was home and all was appropriately dressed. He then added that perhaps he should have just not asked, and just shown up and caught me off guard. I chuckled hard at that one. I knew it was a joke, and he knew that I would understand it to be, so the comment was actually quite funny, instead of terrible, as almost any other person in the world would have caused it to be.

Thinking about all of this tonight had me notice how rarely I am pant-less nowadays. I guess I’m just not so hot outside anymore, that I want to strip the moment I arrive home. I also have little space of my own, in which I am even able to be pant-less. Though, I don’t recall being without pants/shorts very often in Japan… You know, I think I have moved to a slightly different style of pants/pant fit. The other bits are valid, too, to a certain degree, but so is this one. I found a pair of pants that I used to wear to school, and wore them tonight. It was warm out, but not hot. I remember peeling off these guys regularly in the afternoons. Yet, now, I can hardly imagine being able to peel them off, they are so loose on me. Have they stretched with the aging of sitting around? Have I lost weight in my legs? Both? This would not be the first pair of pants that has seemed oddly large on my legs lately, however, I still weigh what I have weight the past two-ish years. And I haven’t done enough exercise since moving back (I think, anyway) to have had such an impact on my body yet… have I? I don’t know, but, if I am losing fat in my legs, it’s for the better – my body needs it. Now just to trade that loss of fat with some gain of muscle and tone.

Anyway… this has gone a bit of a ways from being pant-less at home. I will leave this open for further consideration, and I will go to sleep now. Goodnight, world. Sweet breathing.

Post-a-day 2017