Strong, smart & bold

For the past three months, I've been a volunteer with the organization, Girls Inc. 

Similar to the Boys Club, Girls Inc. inspires all girls "to be strong, smart, and bold through school-based empowerment programs, assertiveness education, and community advocacy for girl-affirming policies and practices." I have been working with the Associates Mentorship Program, where four women at REI have been teamed up with four young girls. We meet with the girls twice a month to work on a challenge project and have one-on-one mentorship opportunities. We've been introducing the girls to the REI culture-- at one meeting we set up tents and tried out packs and next time, we'll rock climb the Pinnacle at our downtown Portland store. 

At our most recent meeting, we took the girls for a hike in Forest Park:Dacia, the girls and I explore the old stone house on the Lower Macleay Trail in Forest Park.

Kelly (another mentor), SaKari, me, Tyler & Alycia.

It has been a great experience so far-- I think the best part is realizing how different it is for a teenage girl to grow up in 2008 compared to my teenage years in the mid-nineties. The girls still don't believe I didn't have a cell phone.  

The other great experience has been volunteering for activities with the girls.  Over the weekend, I chaperoned seven other young girls from the Girls Inc. program on a hike to the Tillamook forest: 

The girls gather close while Charlotte, the forest ranger, shows them a nurse log. Right around the corner from the log was a gigantic ant hill. OMG. They freaked right out.Overheard in the van on the way home: 

"I didn't know hiking would be so much exercise." 

"I wish we would have seen wild horses in the woods." 

"So do they cut all these trees down for paper? That's like a ton of books."

Death by Lexan

(cue scary Jaws theme music. duh, duh. duh, duh.)

For the past year or so, customers have been coming into REI and saying things like, "Aren't the Nalgene lexan water bottles unsafe? Don't they leach a chemical?" We would always confidently respond, "I don't think any conclusive studies have been done."

Well, last week, apparently, the studies became conclusive. We got an urgent email on Friday afternoon instructing us to pull all the hard lexan, #7 plastic bottles from our shelves. It wasn't a recall, but REI decided not to sell the bottles anymore because they contain (and possibly leach) BPA, or bisphenol-A.

Ok. So, here's the thing. For years, I've been using (and selling), the glorious Nalgene lexan bottle. Now they tell me that the plastic is leaching a chemical that can cause hormone damage. Great, just what I need. (Based on what we know from the current research, PC is most likely to leach BPA during its initial use and after prolonged use. Heat increases the likelihood of leaching as well. This fact is even scarier when you consider that most baby bottles are made with #7 BPA polycarbonate plastic.) Now that have replaced these bottles with a new "safer, BPA-free" plastic bottle, how do we know that this new plastic is safe? In 20 years, are they going to find that the new "safe" bottles leach a different chemical that could be even worse?

B and I own eight of the death bottles. The things are virtually indestrucible-- we've dropped them off climbs, down trails, strapped them to kayaks and basically used them everyday. Do we a) freak out like the rest of Portland seems to be doing and replace all of these bottles with the new ones? Or b) do we just keep living our lives the way we have? My vote is b. If the lexan doesn't kill me, won't the DEET in my bugspray or the chemicals on the fruit I buy do the job? I mean, seriously, isn't everything leaching some kind of chemical these days?

My doubt and concern is compounded with the possibility that all of these bottles are now going to line the landfill nearest you. And now that the green movement has over the past months convinced everyone to carry a reusable water bottle, will they all go back to one-use bottled water again?

Lots of questions, not enough answers yet.

The Lodge Factor

It never fails. During the month of April, Oregon will give us one weekend of bright, cloudless, 70-degree sun. Of-course it only lasts one weekend and then it starts raining again, but what can you do right? Well, go skiing is what you can do.The view from the Magic Mile lift at Timberline ski area. See that second lift high on the mountain? The top maxs out at about 8,470 ft. (This lift is even open for skiing in the summer.) From there, you can ski down the Palmer glacier all the way to the bottom of the ski area, at 4,850 ft. We figured that we skied roughly 18,000 vertical feet yesterday.
Julia and me at the top of the Palmer Lift. You can see half of Oregon behind us. In this picture, I only have three layers on, half my usual set-up. I absolutely love spring skiing.
The Lodges, Geoff and Julia, and us on the lift. We all make pretty good ski buddies. Julia and I like to take our time, make some turns, stop and take some pictures. The boys? Well, the boys have a need for speed. Meet you at the bottom boys!

My Kaculia Original

I want to give a shout out to my friend Julia, who recently made me the most adorable purse. Bryan and I have both been sewing this or that over the winter and it has been really fun watching what we create. Then, Julia shows up and blows us both out of the water with her skills. Isn't this purse awesome? B asked her if she used a pattern, and she replied, "Oh, not really." She's just fantastic. And, I get to say I "knew her when."

Seattle Mini-break

I'm trying to remember the last time I had two days off work and didn't have plans......mmm, a while ago. Well, I had Monday AND Tuesday off this week and darn it, if we weren't going to make the best of them.

What was the plan you ask? Visiting my cousins in Seattle and then skiing fo' free at Crystal Mountain. Not too shabby for Gayle.

We stayed with my cousins Beth and David and their two kids Lauren and Scott. Possibly the nicest, cutest family that ever did walk the earth. On a recommendation from a co-worker, we headed downtown to the Seattle Public Library. (We wanted to go to the art museum, but it was closed on Mondays. So is the Portland Art Museum. Is there something I don't know about?) Anyway, the library is way cool. Here is B taking a picture of me while we pass through the hallway to the meeting rooms. It was the shiniest red on the face of the earth.This is B walking uphill past the 510s, Mathematics.The stacks are in the middle of the building and built on a spiral. You can walk around in a circle up four floors around a central lime green escalator.

Here is looking down to the third floor main lobby, called the Living Room, from the tenth floor.What is so fascinating about the building is that you can tell the designers took great care to design from every angle. So if you looked down, across, up or over any part of it, all the colors and elements fit together.

Monday night was spent at my other cousin's house-- Diane and Will. They have three girls, Emily, Annika and Elizabeth. Quite possibly the other nicest, cutest family that ever did walk the earth. Diane, Beth and I had a great time swapping stories and laughing about our family. Beth and Diane are quite a bit older than me so I hadn't heard most of the good stuff they were spilling. It was really fun to remember "way back in the day, when your dad didn't have gray hair" with them.

Tuesday was skiing at Crystal Mountain on the east side of Mt. Rainier. Let's just say the theme of the day was "Pow. Der." It started snowing about an hour after we got there and didn't quit. Here's a shot of me plowing my way through............and then taking a wee bit of a spill. It was definitely the deepest, softest, fluffiest snow on the face of the earth.We came back last night, exhausted, but also refreshed. Sometimes, I get homesick living so far from my parents. But, seeing my cousins made even Seattle feel like Nebraska if only for a weekend.