Pictures I forgot to include...

Requested Abby Update

Hello Quad Family!
I'd like to begin by saying that I am sad to say that I can not participate in any skyping, etc. because I have no video capabilities on my computer. Sounds like a really neat thing to do. I look forward to pictures of Evie!!!
So... this morning I baked blueberry muffins. (See picture) I was going to ride my bike to the farmer's market to do some grocery shopping, and then later to school to go to the end celebration of the Native American Week festivities that have been taking place. Unfortunately, the wind is CRAZY today (up to 60 mph gusts!) and riding across town through blowing sand is not sounding so good. These are the times that I miss my car the most. I feel pretty trapped. I'm pretty sure I posted this here, or on fb or something, but in case anyone missed it: after almost 6 months of wrangling I got checks from my Accord being destroyed by a drunk driver and bought a cute VW Cabrio. I had $1100 of work done and then went on a Spring Break road trip to first visit my parents in Dixon (northern NM, almost to Colorado) and then to meet up with my lover (boyfriend?) Dan in Arizona. I made it about 120 miles when the engine started missing out on the highway. It was very windy that day, too, and I wasn't sure if it was huge gusts causing the starts and jolts or not. The car also started overheating so I pulled in to the next town. While in town it got herky-jerky and herky-jerkier until it just screeched to a halt in the middle of the road, locked up, and emitted a poof of smoke. I turned off the car, called a tow, and thanked God that I was right next to a motel. Checked in, spent the weekend waiting for Monday when repair shops would open, and after two nights took my parents' advice to leave the car, rent another, and just keep going. Leaving the problem behind felt great. I never got to see my parents, but I got to meet up with Dan a week early. We convened in Flagstaff, at a Barnes and Noble that we both recalled having seen as we drove around in circles trying to orient ourselves. It was all snowy, and too cold to camp as planned, so we (and Jack) checked in to the nearby Super 8. Hot. Haha. Anyway, Dan's story: He's from Tennessee. A very small town in Tennessee. He's got those polite Southern boy qualities. And a really sweet drawl. A kind voice that just puts you at ease. And wears cowboy boots. He moved from Knoxville (where he got his bachelor's and master's degrees) to Las Cruces a bit over 4 years ago. With a girl. He got a job with the BLM as a water resources manager or something (M.S. is in environmental engineering I believe?). The girl didn't work out, but he dug the job and hung around, made a lot of good friends. After a while he decided that he wanted to quit his job and travel for a while. He bought an awesome 1986 Toyota van ("The Spacecruiser"), got rid of most of his stuff, figured out where to store the rest, etc. Also found out that his job was about to get slashed due to budget cuts, and that if he waited it out for a bit he'd qualify for unemployment. Sweet. I met him... oh, I'm not sure when I first met him. He first caught my eye last spring. Something drew me to him. There was something magnetic. It was at the bar and I assumed the magnetism was tequila and his indie musician moppy hair paired with his SW cowboy boots. And he must have appeared potentially homeless. *swoon* Haha. Anyway, I saw him around a few times but never talked to him. Kind of the strong, silent type. And the kind that seems like he has a girlfriend because when we did make eye contact it was never sustained/flirty style. Jump ahead to December or January or something. I was at a party with two of my best girl friends (Monica and Andrea--see photo of "jazz hands" at Easter potluck) and there was this quiet, magnetic red head again! I was all, "There's that guy! I'm going to talk to him!" I knew he was known as "Tennessee Dan" in town, but didn't want to seem like a creepy stalker so I omitted his name. Monica and I went to make drinks in the kitchen and returned to... Dan asking Andrea for her phone number. DAH!!!! Okay, I thought, if it's not a mutual interest it will never work out. If he's got something for her, and she for him, well, sucks to be me but that's how it is. Andrea and Dan hanging out (I think they went on two dates) brought him into my life via. facebook friend status. He invited me to a trail run he and his friends were organizing (that was Feb 18th) and we started fbing and texting once in a while, mostly regarding running. The day of the race he was like, particularly friendly, and I was all, "Cool! This cool dude that I was once interested in is now my friend. That's nice." By then he and Andrea had realized they weren't meant to be and were cool with being friends. Dan asked what I was doing that night, and I told him, figuring it was small talk. He said it sounded fun and he'd probably go to the event too. I was like, "yeah, you should, that's cool." Later he texted to check in if I was going, and then when I saw him there he came right over to hang out. After a while I realized it wasn't just like, "Oh hey, I know you, thought I'd come over to say hi," but more like, "You're the person at the art show I want to hang out with." I was dating a guy named Chuck at that point, and while I was talking to Dan (and experiencing confusion about why he was being so friendly) Chuck's best friend Kelley and Kelley's girlfriend spotted me and came over to hang out. At that point being stoned (which had happened by accident on the walk over, a whole different story...) began to be a disadvantage. I wasn't sure how to act. Kelley asked me if I was going to Chuck's party later. "Yeah, of course! Are you?" I didn't want Kelley to think I was talking to a different dude (and I didn't realize at that point that Dan had shown up to see me) and I got stoned-awkward and excused myself for a minute, really intending not to return. Throughout the night Chuck became increasingly intense with his text proclamations of love. They were really unmerited given our less than two week dating status, and made me uncomfortable. I said this, and his responses sounded more creepy stalker than comforting, i.e., "I can't help it! I think about you all the time. I just want to make you happy. All day I think about ways to make you happy. I miss you. GOD I miss you so much" etc. etc. Yeah, really. Eventually i went home, made the mistake of getting stoneder on the walk back (a friend lived between my house and the art show and her boyfriend happened to be rolling joints both times i swung by), and decided I couldn't deal with Chuck. I basically broke up with him via text that night, rather than going to the party they were having at his house. Burn. Oh well. And then Dan texted: "It was really nice to see you tonight. Hope we can hang out again. I'm leaving in a couple of weeks, so maybe soon?" Huh. Interesting...
Okay, so this story is like, way too long, but basically I got all intrigued, like, whoa, I really don't want Chuck. I want to talk to Dan! But Dan is/was Andrea's. What to do? Dan is leaving. I should just let it go. But do I have to? We ended up hanging out... 5 days later? I was pretty flaky, feeling nervous that my friend had dated him, and even though she was seeing someone else I didn't know what the resolution had been, and if I'd be a huge jerk to hang out with him. And that night he kissed me. It was magical. I loved it! It wasn't even so much that he kissed me, it was like, we were both there and there was this energetic pull that neither of us could escape and we ended up in an unavoidable embrace. It was just freakin' perfect. I was like, "Whoa! Movie moment!" in my head. Then I vaguely discussed it with Andrea, who said it hurt her ego that he quit calling her and moved on to me, but that she was cool with me hanging out with him. She basically said, "He's leaving anyway, so one of us might as well get some action" or something. She's funny. I didn't tell her anything had happened, because if it didn't go any father I didn't want to have to admit what I had done. The next morning he texted asking if I was free and if he could buy me lunch. Oooh, yes!! So we had lunch. And hung out every day for at least a bit until he left. When his lease ended before his job I invited him to stay with me. He slept here for 5 nights before taking off. It was weird how incredibly comfortable and right it felt. And then he pushed back his leaving to go to a show and hang out with me and some friends (Andrea included--she and I had a good talk by then) that weekend. Then he left for California to climb and run in the mountains and camp. We talked a lot, and I asked him if he would consider driving partway back, to meet me in the middle to camp for my spring break. He had to think about it (it meant postponing plans to go to San Francisco) but decided to do it. Check out his album "Northern Arizona" on facebook for a few pictures. And... I left pretty much at the last minute that I could to get back to talk to the mechanic about my car and then drive back to Las Cruces in time to meet up to work on a group project. I was stinky, but really happy. i was in love. I AM in love! Yeah. He's great. And yesterday I got a letter in the mail where he painted a pretty landscape of cliffs in Utah in the moonlight (where he went to after Flag) on one side and wrote a really sweet letter on the other side. (Photo included.) The next time I'm likely to see him is in another month, when school gets out and some of my friends and I are planning to drive up to Northern NM to camp. Dan said he'll drive to meet up and camp with us. Ahhh, so long to wait.
Okay, thanks for reading (if you did). Wow, that took a long time to type, but there's most of the story!
Love to you all!
Abby

Also, there is this:

http://thecolorrun.com/

I feel guilty for writing this at work...

But I did it anyway (but did not take the time to edit, so apologies for insane run-on sentences and ridiculous amounts of parentheses):

Dearest Quadlings,

Hi :) I miss you guys so much.

Abby inspired me to write :) I, too, want to know more about your long distance boy and future career plans ;).

Also, I was wondering if you guys would be interested in 'hanging out' via Google+ sometime soon for a video chat. My sisters and I have had semi-reasonably good conversations with it. I'd really like to catch up with you all, but I'm really bad (as you know) about using the telephone :) And I think we'd all love to meet Evie. If you guys are interested, maybe Nicky could give us 3-4 dates/times (don't forget to specify which time zone you're using ;)) in the near future that might work for her and Evie (i.e. aren't nap times :)), and we can vote on which works best. What do you guys think? Nicky, is this something that's doable or way too annoying to even consider right now? If the latter, no worries :) We won't be offended.

Also, brief life update: Nothing really new. I'm still working for Friendship with Cambodia. I still really like it (as far as nonprofit office jobs go). My boss is an amazing human being. We talk about spirituality a lot. She just got back from her annual trip to India where she lives in an ashram for 3 mos every year. She still cries when she reads the profiles of the students we sponsor, even though she's been doing this for years. And she's actually able to be a good manager and a good friend at the same time.... shocking.

I'm still taking Latin and Greek. It's recommended that you have 3 yrs of one and 2 yrs of the other to get into any good Classics grad school program, so I'll be here another year, doing that :) Just FYI, in case you guys want to visit -- you have until, like, July 2013 (assuming, of course, that I actually get accepted into a graduate program - Though, if I don't get into one in the States, I've pretty much decided to go to a 'backup' program overseas. It can get pricey for Americans over there, as we are v unlikely to get funded, whereas, in the States, it's pretty much a given for what I do, in that, if you can't get funded, probably, you're going in the wrong direction ;) So either way, I'm probably leaving Oregon).

Nick is doing well. Though, Climate Clean (the company based here that he was working for) is not doing so well and is pretty much 'paying' him in stock. He was working for a research project as a consultant, but that ends this month, so he's doing a job search (PS - He's not that good at it ;) He's not really ever actively had to look for a job before and didn't start until, like, last week even though he knew this research project was ending and even though his brilliant girlfriend told him it would take longer than a month to find a job in Oregon... *sigh*). I'll keep you guys posted on how that's going :)

Ziggy's still doing well, though I definitely notice him slowing down on hikes.

I might be in DC sometime mid-late July. I'm planning my trip home for Bit's wedding and am considering visiting my top choice grad schools (NETWORKING like a motherfucker) while I'm over there. If I make it through DC, it'll only be for, like, 48 hrs, I think, but I'll def keep you guys posted.

Love and miss you all so, so, so very much.

This girl made me laugh

Okay, so I'm not proud that I spent 4 minutes or whatever watching this video that randomly popped up on the side, but I do have to say I appreciate this girl's ability to laugh at herself. Cheers!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=fvwp&v=OYpwAtnywTk&NR=1

Oh, and p.s. life update!
I am living without the convenience of a car (transmission went on my spring break road trip and I ditched the car, got a rental, went on trip anyway), just got a new roommate (she's awesome; a social worker and soon-to-be-MSW student), have spent more time recently applying for GAs and scholarships for next year than doing anything else, just invested in the most expensive camera of my life (was given an extra online class to teach this semester, treated myself), and am in a long-distance relationship with an AMAZING person! He lives out of his van.