Strength and Gender

  A friend from college recently wrote a blog post on struggling with gender roles and children. She is about to be a mother for the first time and, in choosing not to find out the gender of the baby, has had difficulty finding gender neutral clothing for her son/daughter-to-be. In her post, she also referenced this interesting article about gender roles at Halloween.

  Reading her post struck a cord for me. As a child I had a moderate Barbie collection and a pink room for a while. That's about as far as my youthful femininity extended. My Barbies played in the street water and gravel in front of our house, not in dream houses. My pink room was littered with small pets, trolls and seashells. I was a child of the 80's and while cabbage patch dolls (which are surprisingly gender-neutral in design) were all the rage, I don't remember identifying with "playing house." I don't think this aversion was from lack of influence. I watched Snow White and Aurora wait for their Prince Charmings like all of the other girls in elementary school.

  You see, I have a brother. And while I am the older sibling, he seemed to have the personality that dictated our childhood interests. When other girls were watching My Little Pony, I was finding female role models in X-Men and old Batman reruns. Even when we'd watch Rocky and Bullwinkle, I found a strong, independent female in Natasha...she never took flack from Boris...and had IDEAS...even if her proportions were a little too...errrr..Jessica Rabbit. I digress. After watching the aforementioned Sleeping Beauty, we would play Sleeping Beauty...only my mom was the "beauty" (she is), the family cat was the "spindle" and I was...well, I was the witch (no jokes please). Even in playing Disney, I played "strong female." We watched Top Gun (strong female), made up dances to the Back to the Future soundtrack, acted out plays and had dirt clod fights in the backyard. Somehow I feel as though my family celebrated and expected independence from both my brother and I. We were both taught gender equality (and let's be honest, there are just as many horrible stereotypes for men as there are for women). It was just the right thing to do.

Boris and Natasha

   I also have a fiercely independent mother, who broke norms in her life and in the way she raised us. My grandmothers were all (I had FOUR. long story) loving but also confident and opinionated. They were (are) interesting and that is what I loved about them. Sure, my Grandma C. had cool costume jewelry but I loved her jokes more. Grandma B made AWESOME blueberry pancakes but I love that I can talk politics with her more than her breakfast-making abilities.

To give equal credit, my dad has always been supportive of my athletic endeavors and love of learning, however I choose to pursue them.

  So, while I am right there with my friend in wanting to banish the "princess" and  "diva" from the female gender role, I think the community that surrounded me made much more of an impact than any Barbie ever did. This is a critical element that often gets overlooked. Who we become should have less to do with toy advertisements and sitcom stereotypes and MORE to do with being surrounded by great people who will love and encourage us no matter what. This is where we all hold the power...and I'm appealing to you women out there, here...to encourage and support each other no matter what. This is where we can put an end to judgement and "norms." This is where we can stop buying sparkly pink princess t-shirts for our girls and teach them that there is NO word to contain their personalities and passion.

  Even now, I try to continue breaking down these social norms. Mountianeering and Carharts were never "female" things on my radar as a kid and yet I enjoy them both immensely now. I am an outdoors woman but I know that there is no label, princess, hiker or otherwise, that I would feel comfortable defining me. I am a lot of things (not all of them good).
 To conclude this soapbox, let me tell you that in 6th grade, my school had a Halloween parade. My mom made me a costume (at my request) that I can only imagine would bring a heckuva lot of judgement and ridicule if I were a 6th grader wearing it today. It never occurred to me that there was anything different about my costume choice. It was just a fun idea. But I had a great community of teachers, friends and family that encouraged my thinking outside the box. Because being something other than a Hannah Montana or Belle was okay. No one tried to define me based on that one costume I wore that one year.

 I came to school dressed as "half man, half woman."

Take that gender roles!

Winter Is Upon Us!!

 Snow in Omaha. Snow in Wisconsin and Minnesota and OH SO MUCH snow in Colorado.

 This week marks opening day for Winter Park Resort and the nordic center where I work. Ladies and gentlemen, the groomers were out last night, prepping the 80k of nordic trails outside of my office for cross country skiing. I saw a couple out snowshoeing on property yesterday!

 Yes, winter is upon us and I couldn't be more excited!

2 Steps forward, 1 step back

 I returned from my great European getaway to two full weeks of software training and data entry. We are switching over our entire system and the powers that be moved up the launch date while I was out of the country (or..I missd an email somewhere). So, for about 20-25 hours a week for two weeks, I have been trying to keep my head above water and my desk from collapsing from the weight of unreturned messages/emails.
  Feeling overwhelmed at work has always been hard for me to separate from my home life. In theory I "leave my work at the door" at the end of the day but while I may not carry specific gripes home, I can sense my motivation in other areas draining as a result of office situations.
  I came back from vacation feeling recharged and rejuvenated. I joined the gym, started eating healthier and hiking again. I read a book. I felt as if I was a better friend, girlfriend...even a better dog mom.

I felt good about myself.

 This week I have been terrible about all of the things I was proud to have accomplished last week. I have been to the gym once. Have stopped reading and hiking (I partially blame this on daylight savings). I've been lame about my blog posting. I ate Oreo Cakesters for breakfast, PEOPLE! And those are just wrong on SO many levels and against every value I hold with regard to diet...they're what I would call a "mutant" food.

So, these last two weeks have brought me two steps forward and one step back. I guess I'm still ending up on the right side of that equation but it's frustrating and I'm ready to be done feeling this way.

Our training should be over by the time this posts.
Here's to a new week and the power I have to change the way I'm feeling.

Getting Outside the Italian Toursit Way

One of the goals for our trip was to explore the lesser seen countryside of Italy. Usually, Italian tourists see three cities during their stay. Any guess which ones? Rome, Florence and Venice (and Verona surprisingly in 4th place. I guess we're all romantics at heart.). Each of those cities have an immense amount of art, culture and history worth exploring, almost overwhelmingly so.

To set up the trip, we only planned our first night hostel stay. We had a general idea of things we wanted to see but no set structure to our itinerary...Clark Griswold would have hated this trip. We wanted to incorporate equal parts history/sightseeing, relaxation and outdoor activity. All in all, I think we did a pretty good job, especially considering the still healing broken left foot I was burdened with for the trek. I will delve into the history, relaxation and general travel tips in another post. Today, we're going to talk about the great Italian Outdoors.

  Once you get out of the city, it's pretty easy to find beautiful, quiet places to explore. It will become even easier if you're up for an adventure on the bus (harder to navigate than trains) or are willing to jump off in small towns along the regular train routes. Our first outdoor experience caught us quite by surprise, in Sorrento. We hadn't been planning to hit the Almafi Coast on our tour but after hearing about the tourist horrors of both Naples and Pompeii (the town), we decided to take the train a little further south and explore an area we knew little about.

  Sorrento is a seaside town built right into the cliffs, near the island of Capri. We were fortunate enough to spend a lot of time walking around the town, getting off the beaten path, sitting by the ocean and hiking back up a long and steep hill toward the city center. While this city didn't provide a lot of seclusion, particularly as the throngs of cruise-goers set in, it was a beautiful, clean and well-loved place. Like many resort towns, I'm sure the locals love it when tourist season ends and they get to take full advantage of their own residency again. In short, Sorrento is a place to be visited in the off-peak season.

 While in Florence, we decided to bite the bullet and pay 70 euros (about $100) each to take an all day bike tour of Tuscany. The tour included bike rental, lunch, a stop at a villa that makes its own red and white wine as well as olive oil....and, of course, our guide. This was an AWESOME experience. Being able to ride our bikes through the city was interesting in its own right (lets just say I was glad not to have had to drive anywhere) but there was something particularly special about biking through and then OUT of the city. An interesting tidbit about Florence is that you can actually see the transition from city to countryside. Once you hit the river, the city just stops. Beyond the river are olive groves and grapevines as far as the eye can see. Now, I'm not going to pretend that this was a leisurely bike ride by any means. Tuscany is HILLY! In fact, from Florence, it's straight uphill to get into the countryside. This caught us by surprise and ended up being a great, albeit unexpected, workout. It was totally worth it though! It was incredible to get up above Florence and see a view of the city that few tourists get. It also didn't hurt that our guide and the other couple who joined us were fantastic.

  From Florence, we were off to the Cinque Terre. Theses are 5 coastal towns, inaccessible by car. The five  are connected by a train and...a hiking trail. We slept in the westernmost town to start, Monterosso. Here we splurged to stay in a hotel right on the beach where we could fall asleep to the sound of waves crashing. We planned a whole day to hike from town to town and it  did not disappoint. Again, being there in off season afforded us a lot of privacy on the hiking trail. The trails can get pretty narrow, steep and muddy while also incorporating quite a few stone steps. In some places it reminded me of the Inca Trail in Peru. I had a hard time imagining what that trail would have been like at the peak of tourist season. No thank you! The whole trail takes about 5 hours and while it's challenging (particularly on the west end), it is certainly worth it.

  The last adventure I'd like to note was another, self-guided tour through Tuscany. We stayed in a small town called Greve, in the heart of the Chianti region. Here we were able to rent bikes, helmets and locks for a half day and about $15 each. We were given a map and it was suggested we take a 12k loop route through the town of Panzano before rounding back toward Greve. Well, this sounded great and off we set. Here, we found ourselves biking through fabulous scenery but along a narrow and busy highway full of drivers headed to/from Siena. Of course, this ride was also entirely uphill...how does that even happen?!?! While this was a physical challenge, our larger obstacle came in figuring out where the roads were that we needed to take to complete the route. We ended up just retracing our steps back halfway through the ride as there were too many unlabeled farm roads/lack of signage to continue in the direction we had been heading. Still, a great adventure.

  I was thankful on many occasions to have packed mostly outdoor clothing for this trip. It's easier to wash out in the sink, less likely to stink and provides excellent versatility for a variety of excursions, including those I've mentioned here. It will be no surprise to most of you that I wore a lot of Icebreaker clothing. I also purchase a new pair of REI Rendezvous hiking pants, which looked nice enough to wear to dinner, had a nice long inseam for this leggy gal and were more insulated than my other Patagonia favs, providing a nice option for chilly days.

And we're baaaaaack...

Hello dear friends of the neglected blog! Sorry to have been on hiatus this last week and a half or so. For those of you who haven't had to hear me go on and on about it for the last few months, my boyfriend and I just returned from two weeks in Italy.

It's always overwhelming to come back from vacation to the endless tasks and catch-up work and I, unfortunately, had to move "blog update" to the bottom of the priority list....no offense blogspot.

I am still attempting to gather my thoughts and find the best way to write about the many different aspects of my trip. For example, how do I explain the events that led up to my having to shower with my backpack on? How do I describe the adventure of clamoring on to a loaded bus in the aforementioned awkward backpack or what it's like to have consumed 3 bottles of wine with friends over a long day and bike down a cobblestone road while needing to use the toilette (that's the extent of my Italian)?

There are so many things to share. Know that I'm working on it. More stories and photos to come. Thanks for hanging in there with me.

When Nature Attacks

So, you've put up with only pictures for the better part of a week by now. I'm guessing you're looking for something with a little more substance by now. So, what better to discuss...than ANIMAL ATTACKS?!?

Catch your attention? Nice!

What I mean in bringing up animal "attacks" is that I've heard comments from women for years about the solidarity we find in our fear of wildlife. I read countless stories of mountain lions encroaching on suburbs or the annoying deer that ruthlessly attack our fancy-pants gardens. I am ashamed that we have distanced ourselves so far from nature that we are more threatened by our two-four legged friends than we are enamored by them. I'm as guilty as anyone...I don't let my dog out at dusk out of fear that he might encounter a horrible, terrifying porcupine.

 I don't mean to make light of the risks that come with our wildland friends because, of course, there are some...but I also think that if we all just knew a little better how to handle encounters with them, we might be more apt to enjoy their company rather than to expend so much energy fleeing and/or destroying them. So, without further adieu, here is the first in our When Nature Attacks series.

For most animals, just being noisy on trail is enough to keep them at bay. The RCs know this as we are almost never quiet enough to see wildlife!

The Bear:
If further than 300 feet, just walk away or continue along making a wide detour around the bear. If the bear hasn't seen you, be calm and quiet as you pass and then make a LOT of noise once at a safe distance to avoid future encounters. If the bear sees you, start speaking in a low, calm voice, retreat slowly and do not make direct eye contact with the bear.
     The goal is to communicate that you are a human, that you can defend yourself but that you pose no threat   and are leaving it's territory
     Worst Case Scenario: Hold Still, Stand Tall (even if the bear charges or approaches). Make yourself as large as possible, standing your ground. Try to back away slowly and speak calmly. DO NOT RUN...EVER! If the bear doesn't back down, begin to speak more loudly, waving your arms. Do not make eye contact. Do not act aggressive, play dead, or otherwise show fear.

Of course, it helps to know the risk when you walk into the backcounty. A black bear is verrrrry different than a grizzly. Know what the potential threats are in your area and act accordingly. Know that bears don't see humans as food unless they're starving so any actions are in self-defense or if the bear is injured or immature. Quite often wildlife responds to us when we're stupid...and do things like you see above or here:

     If a Black Bear charges, muster all our strength and stand your ground. They are most likely bluffing and if you stand tall, they will likely turn away. If they're not bluffing, FIGHT BACK. The only way to scare off a bear is to scare it away. Use your fists, pots, pans, rocks, whatever you can find that will make noise and could scare the bear away.
     If you're contending with a Grizzly or Polar Bear, your bet off playing dead. If they're attacking in self-defense, you can put them at ease pretty quickly with this trick of lying completely flat on the ground. Do this only after the bear has made or attempted contact. Don't get into the fetal position as this only makes it easier to flip you over. Lay on your stomach to protect your organs, lace your fingers behind your neck, keep your legs together and wait for the bear to become bored with you and leave. Wait for several minutes before attempting to move on as a bear may return if it sees you moving.

TRES