Pursued By A Bear

For whom the bell tolls...

The day after I arrived in Germany, we took the train to Cologne to go to the Chrismas market and check out the big cathedral.  We've driven by it many times, and I was curious to go inside.

So, here we go!

 509 steps to the top of the belfry. It all starts here:

There are three sets of stairs up to the top.  We'll get to the 2nd and 3rd set later in this blog. This set looks inoffensive, right? Except that you have to hug the inner wall when you run into people going DOWN the stairs. The stairs are pretty narrow. Luckily, we didn't have to do that very much.

(My friend Catherine did this climb in the Summer and she said that she pretty much hugged the inner wall the entire time and that it was also very hot and smelled like sweaty people the entire time. Merit badge to Catherine -- I don't know if I could have done this climb under those circumstances. I'm not a fan of crowds or hot or small spaces. A triumvirate might have sent me over the edge.)

About half way up the tower, you have the option of going into the space that holds all the bells. Fred really likes bells.

You know what Fred also likes? Starting random conversations with guards.  

Sometimes, I'm like,

"Don't bother the guards! They're WORKING."

But the guard in this bell tower was bored and didn't mind visiting with us. He told us that a small bell goes off every 15 minutes and if we hang around just a few more minutes (until 10:45am), we'd be there when it rang. 

We decided to wait.  At 10:45am, the bell clanged three times.

Fred: "Hey!  What will happen on the hour?" 

Me: "Well, maybe it could ring four times...?"

Fred: "Let's stay up here and find out!"

Me: "Um...really?"

I'll just say this about that: we have got to stop going on road trips the very next day after I land in Germany. I usually fly to Frankfurt overnight and I can't sleep a damn wink when I travel.

I am so jet-lagged in this clip:

 

You guys.  Because Jesus wants me for a sunbeam (/sarcasm), we stood in that bell tower for fifteen minutes until the bells went off again. It was cold. You can see my breath. I'm giggly because I am so sleep-deprived:

 

"OOO! BONUS!"

(I just love Fred's reaction to the surprise bells)

Part II of the belfry climb involves an open room with a ceiling at least 200 feet high and some scary scaffolding stairs that went up into...OH MY GOD...where?!

It snowed the night before. Those "windows" don't have glass panes. The metal stairs were full of snow and (in my opinion) too dangerous to climb!

I got up three stair sets: my muscles were trembling and my heart was beating fast and this is how the conversation went: 

Erin: "Okay. I think I'm done."

Fred: "NO. I won't let you get this far and give up."

Erin: "BUT - snowy stairs! I'm scared!"

Fred: "Pretend you are on The Amazing Race. You must climb!"

Look at the snow on the stairs!

I KNOW!!

They would never let you climb wet, snowy, rickety metal stairs in America. They just WOULDN'T.

(whoever "they" are -- but you know what I mean.)

The platform was shaking as a gaggle of teenaged boys scrambled past me, followed by a woman with a baby on her hip. She was climbing the snowy stairs by holding the baby with one arm and holding the handrail with the other.

"Oh, you are very brave!" I said to her as she passed me.

"...Or very silly!" she replied happily with a crisp British accent.

I decided that if she could climb with the baby, I could do it, too.

I tried not to look down and I was all, "La, La, La -- just climbing stairs, that's all!" until I finally made it to the ceiling...

...only to discover that wasn't the end of it. Part III of the belfry climb is a little metal spiral staircase -- like the kind you find on a ship or backstage. The kind that usually lead to a cat-walk and, you know, are mesh-y and grid-like? Steps that YOU CAN SEE THRU all the way to the ground?

Did I mention that I find HEIGHTS terrifying?!

No, I didn't pull out my camera to take a picture at this point. It was seriously All Hands On Deck for me.

At the top of those stairs, we found ourselves OUTSIDE, spilling out onto a caged-in walking deck at the base of the steeple.

WHAT.

Our effort was rewarded with a stunning view of Cologne:

If you are feeling super nerdy (or you are sitting at work today and have NUTHIN' GOIN' ON) you can read about the Kolner Dom HERE. It is a really beautiful church. I know it's so Amurrrican for me to say this, but I am awed by things that are built over the centuries, staring in the mid 1200s. 1200s!

Inside the church, you walk by all these plaques and it's like,

"Here Lies Bishop Phillip VIX. Died 1380"

...and it's very humbling. 

Also, I love that all the European churches have "mascot" relics. We don't really have those, do we? At least, none of the churches I've ever been to (which is to say, mostly heavily carpeted and technofied "Rock Fer Jesus" mega-churches...)

Can you even imagine?  

On Christmas day, we went to a church in Trier that has the seamless robe of Christ. My favorite cathedral, in Brugge, has the blood of Christ. This church has the bones of the Magi. The pamphlet I picked up at the front of the church says that inside the sarcophagus, the skulls have been crowned in honor of the fact that they were the three kings that visited the lil' baby Jay-sus (although who knows if that's really true...)

Are you sufficiently creeped out by that?

You're welcome.

I don't know why I find relics so fascinating. I mean, can these things be proved? I don't...I don't think so. But, if I have the chance to see a big gold box that reportedly houses the finger of an apostle, I'm always game to give it gander.

What church relics have you seen?

To Blonde....or not to Blonde?

I've been wanting a change lately. I started coloring my hair when I was 16 and hadn't ever stopped until just a few years ago.  Curious about what my "real" color is now that I am an adult, I stopped coloring it.  

(Answer: Brown)

Here's how I spent most of my 20s:

Lovely, yes?  My mom and Fredster are both big fans of The Blonde.

However, I am not a fan of roots.  Maintaining this color is a major commitment, both in time and money.

But I do like it. It's very similar to the shade of my hair in childhood:

The "Childhood Blonde" -- it is magnificent, non?

(P.S. Thirty years later, I still have that damn cowlick in my bangs)

(P.P.S. Yes, my mom made me a Tom & Jerry cake. HOW RAD IS THAT?)

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What do we say to going blonde again after this seven year exploration of red and brown?

The "Pros"

1. It's pretty. 

2. It could put me in a different casting realm in my acting career.

3. I don't have grey hair yet, but when I do - it'll be less noticeable.

The "Cons"

1. It's expensive.

2. I hate it when a girl with highlights pulls her hair back into a ponytail and you can see all an inch or more of dark roots. I just don't like it. It bothers me.

3. I'll have to get new headshots. (...but - honestly - I want new headshots. I can't really count this as a Con except that it's a whole day out of my life and a 1k expense to get "That One Shot" - Oh, getting the new headshot is such an ordeal.)

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I've had a good run at being brunette.  I've felt super smart and sometimes edgier than I ever did as a blonde. I started a company as a brunette. Smarty! But now I've passed a lot of the responsibilities of the company off to a new team of people. I'm going back to school and I'm going to be auditioning more in 2012.

I recently had a one-on-one coaching session with Jackson Gay. She says I should definitely be going out for those tightly-wound WASP roles -- like in Reza's "God of Carnage", La Bute's "The Mercy Seat", Lindsay-Abaire's "The Rabbit Hole". 

Jackson: "Are you familiar with August: Osage County?"

Me: "Oh my God, that's one of my dream plays! I can't wait to play any of the sister roles.  All great parts!"

Jackson: "You should be auditioning for those roles. I just directed that show at the Alley and the actress playing Karen was 32 in real life."

Me: "But in the script, (author) Letts has the youngest daughter at age 40!"

Jaskson: "No offense...? You should start going in for roles in the 35 - 45 range."

Me: "Ouch..."

Jackson: "You are still on the young side, but the 25 - 35 range doesn't fit your vibe."

What she means by that is that I'm not really so much in a place where I am grappling with the questions in my life anymore. I'm more about dealing with the stuff that's already there. It's a gravity shift.

I'm really glad for it, actually.

I'm kind of curious about the kind of woman I could be as a blonde (again) now that I am close to my 40s -- eek. In my 20s, when I was a blonde, I was rather manipulative. In my 30s, with red and brown hair, I grew to be a fairly direct person.

I don't give 100% of the credit in my personality shift to my hair color -- BUT when I was a blonde and people spoke to me like I was a little plaything, my inner response was, "Fine. I'll give you that...just don't be too shocked when you figure out that I'm using you as a stepping stone to my Next Big Thing."

I feel like people have spoken to me more directly and expect me to be more intellectual as a brunette -- has this caused me to respond in a way that is direct and intelligent?

Or is this just the way my life path worked out...? I was selfish and opportunistic in my 20s but then grew to a place in my 30s where I found some solid ground...?

Tricky. Hard to say. 

SO --

What do you think. I'm totally up for change.

I WANT SOMETHING BIG FOR MY LIFE.*

Shall I start with the hairs?

(*Calm down. I don't mean a baby.) 

Manicure and Mishmosh

Here it is, the last manicure of 2011:

Opi's "My Chihuahua Bites"

I chose this color for this week because I am committed to four holiday parties. I wish Fred was here to go to them with me.

Why the "chihuahua"...?  Well, I am not a fan of little dogs. When Fred and I were dating back in 2004, we got into a conversation about childhood pets.

Fred was all,

"Act-shlee, Ah ha-yave fo dawgs at mah parrrrents howse."

(he had a pronounced Texas drawl back then)

I was all,

"Oh! What kinds?"

And he said,

"A chihuahua an' 3 rat terriers."

And then I was like:

"...Hmmm. Well. Together, they almost equal one real dog."

(My rat terrier does not bite. Just growls a little.)
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Here's the mishmosh part of my blog today:

You guys are hard to figure out! I'm looking at my stats and I can tell that you know I don't blog on weekends. My "hits counter" goes down to, like, NUTHIN' on the weekends. (Yay! My readers obviously know how to get a life! They are not on the computer on the weekends -- good on ya, gang.)

However, I can't get a handle on what you LIKE to read, topic-wise. I seem to get the most hits when I write fluffly, inane stuff about Fred and our marriage.

Really, y'all?

Why don't you like my charity posts as much as you like funny stories about married life? Why don't you like the rehearsal recaps as much as you like looking at my manicure? I'm trying to express some depth here, some facets of me that have gravity...and you're just not that into it.

YOU GUYS. 

I will continue with the Advent of Awesomeness, oh yes I will, blog hits be damned. 

 But - you do know that I am writing about charities that I have personally invested in, right? I want to make sure you know. I wouldn't use up my blog space and my readers attention on something I wasn't totally on fire about.

If none of my favorite causes are exciting for you, I urge you to check out

http://www.charitynavigator.org/

http://www.givewell.org/

http://www2.guidestar.org/

And if you wanna get dirt on charities that might not be legit, you can check out the Hall of Shame.

http://www.charitywatch.org/

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OKAY.

That's my PSA.

Please give me some feedback -- don't make me be the girl that posts videos of her cats every week. 

("Not that there's anything wrong with that!")

I mean, the internet already has plenty of cat videos, right?

 

Meet Eric Briarley

Today's Advent of Awesome entry is truly awesome and it was started by a choir mate who sits behind me with all those....sigh....TENORS and kinda (kinda?) talks when he's not supposed to be talking (which is to say...A LOT.) 

Yeah. That's right, Eric. I just called you out on the internet.

(hah!)

No, really.  He talks because he's excited and has exciting plans.

Check it out:

 

There's another cool video on his website DoYouHaveOneDollar.org

You should go watch it right now!

I'll wait.

(...)

Isn't that COOL?

A dollar is, like, NOTHING these days. However, if everybody chips in, it can mean huge change. And aren't you ready for a huge change?

I'm sure every person reading this blog has felt awful at some point in their lives for walking past a homeless person on the street. Maybe you've stopped to give them some money. Even braver, maybe you've stepped into a nearby deli and bought some food and then handed it to them. It feels weird, right? I mean, you hope the person will use the money well. Or maybe you hope you bought them a food item that they will enjoy...but how do you really know?

What if you are female, like me? There are some times that I feel moved to help a homeless man...but then I think, "Wait - this might not be safe!" I don't make a habit of approaching any men on the street, but - c'mon - the homeless ones are often murmuring to themselves. I don't think it is wise to walk up all by myself and start chatting, you know?

And sometimes - and this is the New Yorker in me - sometimes someone will approach me on the street and ask for help and my first thought is, "Of course! It would mean so much to me if I was in trouble" but then my second thought is, "Pull out my wallet? Right here on the street? Uh...NO."

Life is hard.

Won't you consider helping Eric with this incredible project?  See, the thing is -- this could go global.  Just think of how Occupy Wall Street caught on and started occupying other large cities...wouldn't it be fantastic if this project was a huge success and got lots of media attention? Wouldn't it be great if other cities started asking Eric to help them launch their own DoYouHaveOneDollar campaigns? 

It really boils down to this:

Why not make 2012 a year of unlimited abundance?

We the people can choose that for ourselves. We don't have to wait for policy-makers to say it is so.

Here's What you can do --

Easy Like Sunday Morning:

1. Go to Eric's personal webite. Like him on Facebook and/or follow him on Twitter and/or check him out at Reverbnation (...because you know "fan clout" is the media currency these days!)

2. Check out the The Bowery Mission website. Like them on Facebook and/or follow them on Twitter.

Get By With A Little Help From My Friends:

3. Go to DoYouHaveOneDollar and DONATE YER DOLLER!!

The Greatest Love of All:

4. DUDES. Spread the word. Link the DoYouHaveOneDollar website on Facebook. Tweet it. Blog it. We're on a DEADLINE here!! One million participants by Dec 31, 2011.  WE CAN DO THIS!!

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Advent of Awesome Hall of Fame

December 5 - Join the Voices

December 6 - Over The Fence and World Vision

December 7 - International Arts Movement

December 8 - DoYouHaveOneDollar and The Bowery Mission

Meet L. A. Chandlar

L.A. (Laurie to me) is a fairly new friend, but one of those people with whom I had an immediately click.  You know, the kind that you meet and say, "Why, yes, we are from the same tribe."

Laurie is an author.  She had this massive historical fiction book bouncing around in her head a few years ago, so she just sat herself down and wrote it! Now she's working on her second novel -- all from an auspicious little work station at her local Starbucks (Hilariously, she brings her own can of WD40 and does constant maintenance on the squeaky front door. She's a big hit with the day manager.)

Laurie's husband is the executive director of International Arts Movement. She helps him out so much!  Seriously, it's like, a second job for her.

Here's a blip from IAM's website:

IAM is a cultural movement dedicated to inspiring all people to engage their culture to create a more good and beautiful world. As a non-profit 501(c)(3) IAM presents lectures, performances, exhibitions, screenings, projects, and workshops. Our programming and resources equip the creative community to generate good, true, and beautiful cultural artifacts: sign-posts pointing toward the “world that ought to be.” Through understanding the culture that is and looking toward what could be, we hope to rehumanize our world.

The world is not as it ought to be. We long for meaningful existence and involvement in our culture - to be part of a story greater than ourselves. Often our reality is a broken and fragmented story in which dignity and value are stripped from humanity. Art and creativity, as universal languages, can begin to address this dehumanization. The world needs artists and visionaries to lead the way in seeing beyond the trivial to the transcendent, bringing synthesis to fragmentation, and hope to despair.

Isn't that....awesome?

CAN YOU GET ON BOARD WITH THAT?

Um...yeah!

I went to IAM's Holiday Mixer and Small Works auction last week:

The way this thing worked was like this: you bought a raffle ticket and then at random times during the mixer, the MC got on the mic and picked a ticket out of the basket at random. The winner got to go up to the wall and select a piece to take home. Of course, the fun part was wishing and hoping that your name would get called before someone else picked the piece the YOU had your eye on all night.

This is the piece that I chose:

It's called "Nubian Princess in Pink" by Diana Contreras

It's done in oil paints and I love, love, love the colors and texture.

(There was one other piece that I liked that wasn't selected. Laurie said all the unselected paintings would go up on the website for purchase: Laurie! I've been stalking the IAM website all week -- whither the rest of the paintings? There's still one more on my mind!)

Laurie is super dynamic and has A LOT going on.

Here's how you can support Laurie, incredible Light extraordinaire --

Easy Like Sunday Morning:

1. Like LA Chandlar on facebook and/or follow her on Twitter

2. Check out her cool website (and blog!)

3. Like IAM on facebook and/or follow them on Twitter

Get By With A Little Help From My Friends:

4. Make a tax-deductible donation to International Arts Movement

The Greatest Love of All:

3. Commit to buying from small businesses for arts and crafts (well, anything, really!) Blog about artists in your community. Please support all artists within your sphere of influence!

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Advent of Awesome Hall of Fame

December 5 - Join the Voices

December 6 - Over The Fence and World Vision

December 7 - International Arts Movement

 

Meet Fred Gilbreth

I might as well start the Advent of Awesomeness with my own hubs-bin!

 
Fred is really into doing relief work in other countries. Sometimes he goes on a volunteer military project and sometimes he goes with a church group or a non-profit. If they need a nurse on the team - and they usually do - he's more than happy to step in. He's just a travel-loving, extroverted person like that. He's volunteered for work in Australia, China, El Salvador, Germany, Guam, Haiti, Kenya, Mexico, Panama City, Rwanda and Uganda.

(He might have worked more places - check the comments, he'll probably correct me. Those are the ones that I remember right now.)

Fred really loves Africa. In fact, one of my first memories of Fred is when we were dating in the summer of 2004: as we walked past a booth at street fair that was selling grilled corn-on-the-cob, Fred responded wistfully,

"Oh, it smells like Africa!"

After we wed, he convinced me that we needed to sponsor a child in Rwanda through World Vision. We picked a boy named Xavier. Sadly, he moved to a different village within a couple of years and we were assigned to another boy about the same age. The Rwandan World Vision leaders (they have an office in Kigali) gave us Jean. Our church has had a relationship with two villages in Rwanda for many, many years. We send a team of workers to the villages twice a year to help build houses, treat small health issues, play with the kids and generally just hang out. The cool thing - and this doesn't normally happen with World Vision, but we're an exception - is that our teams get to meet up with our sponsored kids.

Here's Fred and Jean:

CUTE.

Heartbreakingly, the local government decided that only the sponsored kids would be able to attend this meet-and-greet party. The children who were still unsponsored stood outside a fenced area, looking in. It was just so sad. Mike Whalen, one of the team leaders from Fred's trip, felt an urge to do more. He started an NGO called "Over The Fence".

At first, it didn't go as well as he had planned*:

Over the Fence, as a non-profit, began after a Rwandan Mayor refused to accept free school lunches for their children. Mike had found school kids in need of food and successfully organized provisions from the UN World Food Program. However, the Mayor would not accept this form of help. From this interaction led to the formation of OTF. Mike says, “I went to the Mayor, and was so happy to tell him I had gotten food for the school children [school lunch program]. It took a lot to make this happen. And he told me, ‘Thanks Mike, I know your heart. I can’t accept this free food because it won’t help my people. What happens to them if and when you leave?’ Then, proceeded that he was sick of NGO’s coming and telling everyone all they do in Nyamagabe, yet he could see none of their accomplishments. The Mayor was turned off by NGO’s — and saw them for the most part to be self-serving.”

But - oh, Mike is a really persistent guy:

Mike proceeded to ask the Mayor, “Do NGO’s ever come to ask you what your needs are? Do they ever want to assist you in your initiatives, for your success?” He responded, “[No, they never seem to care what I need help in. They have their western ideas to implement.]” To which Mike asked, “If I started a new NGO… and if you were to advise me as to what it would look like, what would you say?”

With this question, Mike says Over the Fence was born. “He wanted me to help with enabling his people to take care of their own needs and not be dependent on others. He requested agricultural training to enable his people to be self-sustainable. He requested a school lunch program to be run and operated by the local people. He requested training and management help until they were able to manage on their own.”

That's how OTF got started. They do the school lunch program, a farming program and a coffee business -- but they do it as a cooperative with the villagers. Many are widowed women, like Jean and Xavier's moms. 

...So that's Fred's Awesome Cause!

Do you like it?

If you feel inclined to chime in, here's what you can do --

Easy Like Sunday Morning:

1. Like them on Facebook or follow them on Twitter.

Get By With A Little Help From My Friends:

2. Make a donation (air miles needed, too!) 

The Greatest Love of All:

3. Sponsor a child from Rwanda through World Vision

Urakoze!

("Thanks!" in kinyarwanda)

 

* From the "About" page of the Over The Fence website

Advent of Awesomeness

On Sunday, I finished my nine qualifying races.

This means I am eligible to run the New York Marathon in November 2012.

BWAH HA HA HA HA HA HA HA.

(I totally won't.)

Here's Fred's wall:

Fred will TOTALLY run the marathon.

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Anyway, I have an IDEA!

I was on the train on Sunday morning, heading to the race start and a young woman sitting next to me saw my race bib and said,

"Oh. My mom died of brain cancer. How do I get involved?"

And then I felt a little dumb, because sometimes I'm not personally invested in the charities that sponsor the NYRR races. I'm just running them because I am in the running club. But, my bib was screaming:

"JOIN THE VOICES! STOP BRAIN CANCER!"

(doh.)

So I told her to go to the NYRR website, scroll to the December 4 race date in the Calendar section on the left margin...and the website of the sponsoring charity would be linked.

And sure enough it was.

But, I totally guessed at that. I need to be better informed before I race from now on. If people ask me about my bib, I ought not to be flying by the seat of my pants.

ANYWAY.

I don't know about the rest of you NaBloPoMo-ers out there, but I took 4 days off from blogging and my numbers PLUMMETED. 

Do you know what it's like to go from 90 hits a day to, like, 3?

It's DEPRESSING.

So, I was thinking of doing some sort of advent project in December...some sort of count down to the holidays.  Then, I had this encounter with the lady on the train and I realized that I am a really involved person and I welcome really involved people into my life (which is why that young woman and I had a divine appointment on the train on Sunday morning...)

There is an AWESOME spirit of giving going on in my life circles.

So --

I'll be counting down to Christmas by sharing with you the Advent of Awesomeness.  This will be daily little snippets of friends' causes I have supported this past year. Perhaps, like the woman on the train, you are looking for something. Perhaps one (or more!) of these causes will inspire you to get involved.

Also, friends, if you have a cause that you support and you haven't made it known to me yet....WHY NOT? I am an excellent charitable supporter. You can ask any of the 13 people I already have scheduled for a star spot this month. You got an animal shelter to save? A walk-for-the-cure to complete? I'm all about it.

I have a few spots left in my blogging schedule. So, you should totally clue me in so I can give you a donation and a spot on the Advent of Awesomeness, riiiii-iiight?

 

Already?!

Yeah.

Y'all need to keep in mind that I am getting on a plane in two weeks and I'm not coming back to my "real life" until nine days into the new year.  So, if I am gonna do my annual Christmas card (and yeah, Ima gunna do mah annual Christmas cards!) it has to happen now.

Yesterday, I felt a glorious sense of satisfaction as I dumped 28 cards in the chute on my way out the door at the end of my work day. I will do the same today. And probably tomorrow and Monday, too.

Do you send out Christmas cards?