SwimFinsSF

Heimat

When I was studying German at the Goethe Institut a while back we got into a long discussion of the German word Heimat. If you look it up in a German / English dictionary the definition is Home / Homeland / Country. But the discussion around it was that the meaning was a far less tangible thing that is farily deep seeded and important to Germans. It is a sense of center and a sense of where you come from and where you live. There is a definition on Wikipedia that is interesting but that didn’t even quite cover it. Its a little hard to describe but I think the english word home has some of the same connotations but we tend to discount it much more and overload the term with ‘the place where you sleep at night’. I like Heimat better..

So I’ve been feeling a bit lost lately for a variety of reasons that really aren’t a big deal but as I got to work today that term popped into my head and I started to understand it. There are a lot of things that are rather topsey turvey in my life – for good reasons but still upside down for various reasons. I woke up in a cold empty house with Kevin thousands of miles away. I took a bath in a tub with no shower, leaky fixtures, and construction all around (don’t get me started). I’ve been drinking warm soda and eating in restaurants cuz of the lack of a fridge. November and December always suck at work cuz of performance reviews and deadlines. I’m trying to take care of all my Christmas shopping in time and find gifts for family that are meaningful. Oh.. and all my favorite shows are on their winter break so i’m stuck with re-runs.

All of this kinda makes me understand more clearly what they mean by Heimat and why its so important. Its your center and the keel that keeps your boat upright. Its a sense of whats truely ‘home’ in your life. Where you come from, who you are, and what you hold to be sacred. When those things get jostled its more unsettling and makes it harder to deal with the other things that don’t matter so much.

But this really isn’t a weepy or upset post or anything. All of these things will be fine and I just gotta muscle through them. House will be GREAT – Kevin’s learning good stuff – and Lost and Battlestar Galactica will return! :):). Its just the typical engineer / scientist analyzing touchey feely shit that I usually just ignore. All’s good – just doin a little self discovery! 🙂

Anyway – thats a long enough break – got bugs to fix… Hasta pasta! 🙂

He made it there

Celas Maya Courtyard

Originally uploaded by SwimFinsSF.

Kevin made it to Guatemala safely and now is dealing with a little bit of culture shock. I’ve been swapping text messages with him yesterday and today (which will no doubt cost us a fortune) and he’s sent a couple of pictures which I’ve posted to my flickr account… I’ll let him describe the details on his blog (yes – he has one. Matt says kevin getting a blog may be a sign of the Apocalypse – we’ll see). But had to share a few pictures.

Now back to writing reviews… more later..

Back to Reality

Uggg… Some times coming back from vacation is particularly harsh… We spent the past week in a super cool condo in Cabo San Lucas Mexico… The timing work and otherwise was REALLY bad but we planned the trip so far in advance that I couldn’t skip out… The week was relaxing and just what I needed to recharge so I could dive into things back here with energy again..

Or so I thought..

Then we came home to our remodel project and I just want to scream.. Or cry… Or something… Everyone I know tells me that these never go the way they’re supposed to and I should just deal. But this is my house and right now it resembles a war zone.

We were supposed to come back today to a house that, while not completed, was at least a place we could live. Well – no such luck. The flooring guy is still trying to finish the floors so the fixtures aren’t back in and I could go on and on from there…

Luckily we have friends that are SO GREAT so we have places to crash (and I’m eternally grateful for that). But thats kinda not the point – being homeless for this long is really getting to me and some times it feels like the people working on the project just don’t get that or don’t care..

Anyway – enough ranting… I’ll post the pix from the trip shortly and we can talk about happier things.. I just had to vent a little… thanks for indulging me! 🙂

Weekend update

This has been one of those really odd weekend for a number of reasons. The first of which is I’m sitting here in a hotel room in my own city. I’ve never done that before. R&R have been gracious enough to let us stay with them while our place is getting remodeled (I can’t thank them enough and will always feel horribly guilty for the imposition) but part of the deal is we promised to be like church mice and vanish if they have other friends that are in town. Last night was one of those nights I’m probably going to get smacked by a number of people when they read this saying ‘you KNOW you can always stay with us’ – and by my mother who would have wanted us to visit Granite Bay for the weekend. But we decided we kinda wanted to escape and order room service and watch TV. Kevin was also feelin under the weather so I had to attend to him a little bit.

Yesterday was also a day of running around and errands too which was a little crazy. We had to get the B&B ready for a guest (ya know – vacuuming, cleaning the bathroom, dishes… wee haa). Also had to do mundane things like getting the laundry done, get a hair cut, that kind of thing.

Also had to go by the house and meet the contractor to go over where things are at. They put up the sheet rock last week and put down the flooring. We also got all of the fixtures for the bathroom in.. So its all starting to come together now and look like a real place. The current plan is to be back in the house at the end of the month and be finished in time for turkey day… I’m not sure if it’ll actually happen but we’re leaning on them pretty hard to make it happen..

Hows that for a rambling entry? Sorry bout that but after reading a bunch of blogs I felt like I needed to post something myself…

More later..

A serious and a comical note… on Pages

Rather than blather on my own opinions about all the crazy crap that has been going on in Washington lately I’m going to leave it to others…

First – a serious commentary.. I heard this on KQED on the way to work yesterday and couldn’t agree more… Take a listen:

Tue, Oct 10, 2006 — 7:37 AM

It’s So Not the Gay Thing

Listen (RealMedia stream)

Download (MP3)

The Mark Foley scandal is about many things, mostly power. The one thing it’s not about, says Kate Kendell, is the disgraced Congressman’s sexual orientation.

Host: Kate Kendell

And now – From Jon Stewart – a HYSTERICAL segment from the daily show (thanks to Towleroad). Again – VERY well put.

New Art

The remodel isn’t even done but we’ve got new artwork to put in the new place. Some time ago Kevin got in touch with Casey O’Connell who was an artist whose work was showing at Chow on church street. Her work is really cool in an edgy innocent sort of way.

Kevin originally was scouting for artists to show at the art shows at Gensler but after talking about it we decided it would be cool to get one of her pieces for home. We met with her over dinner at Chow and absolutely loved her. She’s REALLY sweet and we had the best dinner where she spent a lot of time getting to know us and we got the scoop on who she was and her story.. After we left we decided that it would be cool to have more than one and as it happened she got some of her other work back and let us come pick out one while she was finishing ours…

So now we’re the proud owner of two of the coolest paintings. The first one is a very personal one of hers about her sister (there is a HUGE story behind it and i’m not even going to try to tell it) and the second is the one we got this weekend that she painted for us.

I think the best part was when I was talking to my carpool partner about it. I described that we were having this done and that we were picking it up tonight – to which he asked ‘Well what if you don’t like it’… It honestly never occurred to me that I wouldn’t like it…. And I wasn’t wrong – I think its really damn cool! 🙂

If you wanna check out her stuff you can see it on her web site or at a show at Gensler in January