Rest in Peace, Dad!

It’s been a year since you left us and I think of you every single day.

Coming Back

It’s been really hard to get back to blogging after my friend died. How can you go on after someone so young vanished so unexpectedly? Her Facebook page is still open in my browsers on both computers and people still post photos of roses or other things they knew she liked, and still talk to her, tell her how much they miss her… It’s heartbreaking.

It’s weird having Facebook around, which for most of our lives we didn’t. I know I’m thinking of Cristina a lot more than I would have had Facebook not been around; I feel like I can maintain some sort of connection with her. But it’s also harder to let go. I can’t bring myself to close her page, even if I don’t check it very often. Once in a while I see posts on her page by her other FB friends and I wonder how long this will go on. At some point the living do move on, but it takes much longer in the virtual life.

And I know I’m not the only one pondering virtual life after real death on Facebook. Here’s an interesting article on The Atlantic about how people deal with it:

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/03/how-facebook-lets-you-live-forever-sort-of/254455/.

There you have it: if you want to live forever in your friends’ memory, be active on Facebook, like Cristina was.

So I’m back and hope to start offering interesting tidbits of my life again. I’m posting this pic from the Botanical Garden in DC, where I’ve been on a shooting trip recently. Here’s the link to the whole album:

https://picasaweb.google.com/simonne.c/BotanicalGarden#

Rest in Peace, Cristina!

I get on Facebook this morning and what do I read? “Today, I feel destroyed. My beloved Cris passed away yesterday. We still don’t know the reason. Cris, my beloved, mon amour, we will see us in the heaven.” This is what the boyfriend of my friend, Cristina, had posted. I just couldn’t believe my eyes. Could he possibly talk about my friend? It turns out he did.

We’re all shocked. She was in her mid-40’s and didn’t have any serious health issues, just some minor ailments, like many other people. It’s beyond sad not just because she was so young, but she only recently found this wonderful guy, with whom she had a very loving relationship, even though it was long-distance. She was more or less home-bound (in Bucharest) because she was taking care of her ailing mother, but he lived in Madrid. They probably didn’t see each other very often, but they would both post classical music clips for each other on Facebook, which I thought was very sweet.

Cristina had a great sense of humor and loved life, but was also a romantic and she was always posting warm wishes for all of her many friends on Facebook. Not a day went by without a couple of music clips or thoughts for a lovely day or weekend. To see her last post and then the outpouring of grief underneath it is just surreal. She also composed poems and set them against images with classical music background, which she then posted on YouTube. Here is her channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/CristinaCeaicovski?feature=watch. And if you’re wondering about her name, yes, she was a descendant of the Russian composer.

We were colleagues in my last job in Romania before I left; everybody loved her. When I was there in September, we were supposed to get together but she didn’t feel well that day. In the whirlwind of stuff to do, I didn’t make an effort to try again and never talked to her again. And then this. Life really is too short. In her memory, I am posting her favorite musical piece, Mahler’s symphony no.5 (IV) – Adagietto. Sehr Langsam (1 of 2), as conducted by Herbert von Karajan. Rest in peace, Cristina!

I’m Getting a Bike Horn

Spring time is around the corner and my expanded butt can’t wait to get into the serious biking regimen again. It’s been four very long months of not biking and instead stuffing my face with lots of bread and sweets. And boy, does the scales show it. But besides that, I’m going nuts without biking to work.

So I took my faithful bike to the shop for a tuneup, which she hasn’t had in two years. Or in about 2,000 miles. Yes, two thousand. On average. Given that I bike to work 26 miles/day, two days a week for 6-7 months, that averages out to about 1,250 miles/year. The guy at the bike shop took a look at it and said, “the case is gone, the crank is gone, the chain is gone. I’ll have to replace all of them.” Given that I bike uphill and downhill all the time, starting with four hills as soon as I get out the door, I change gears a lot, which wears out the spikes on which the chain rests. The good news is that it will all cost just as much as a regular tuneup anyway, because the tuneup focuses on exactly those parts. I love the guys in the back of bike shops. They know their stuff.

I was never handy with anything, let alone mechanical stuff, but I’d really like to learn it. One of my friends (a passionate engineer), gave me a bike repair book as a birthday gift, which I thought was really cool. I’d better start reading it.

And, before I hit the road on the bike again, I’ll get a horn. I’m tired of drivers not noticing me, in spite of my flashing light. I was going to the shop this evening and stopped at a pedestrian crossing (I was on the sidewalk), where an SUV driver saw me, and yet proceeded with going slowly ahead, thus blocking my access to the other side. Are you fucking nuts? Helloooo! So I’ve ordered a bike horn that’s supposed to be extremely loud; yes, the guy below. Maybe that will put some fear of God into them.

I did go to an outdoor sports store to see if they had any and had the most hilarious and edifying conversation with one of their salespeople, a guy who’s a hardcore biker. He started by saying that he lives in DC, doesn’t own a car, and bikes everywhere. Dude, same here :). Then he looked at the U-lock I was carrying (I had already dropped my bike at the shop) and said, “THAT’S your horn. I smashed two windows so far. ” He looked dead serious. I said, laughing, “well, I’m not sure I want to go down that path… Did they come after you?” To which he responded, “I’m alive.”

That’s the spirit! So, I’m sick of drivers not seeing me. I will honk the shit out of them. Let’s see if they like it. I also saw a really cool pic at the store, of a woman with a bare back, on which it was written, “you own a car, not the road.” I need to find something fluorescent on which to print that, or sew letters to, and wear it while in traffic. Or WHATEVER, but something to let drivers know that there are others out there who have the right to use the road.

Can I Cancel Today?

It’s Friday and it’s raining really hard. Maybe I should just call in sick :).

Bucharest Pics

It snowed on Friday and then was it overcast the whole weekend. Perfect weather to stay indoors and… process photos. So, a few months later, here are my pics from Bucharest:

https://picasaweb.google.com/106218092472065050772/Bucharest2011Public#

I think this is my favorite, with the old reflected in the new:

Dear Blog, I Have Betrayed You with Instagram

And, the horror, Facebook! What a double whammy. What, you didn’t know it’s much easier to share links to interesting articles others wrote than labor on creating some meaningful content yourself? Sorry I have to break this news to you.

Then, ever since I got an iPhone for my birthday and Christmas, courtesy of Steve, I’ve been mesmerized by Instagram, a really cool photo-sharing app. I’m not sharing as many photos as I’d like, but I do enjoy following the work of some amazing photographers. And that’s pretty much what I’ve been doing lately, in case you’re wondering. I don’t want to abandon my blog, though, and I feel bad about my tiny but loyal audience I haven’t been feeding regularly. I’ll try to post more from now on, though; both text and pics.

And no, I haven’t forgotten that I once left Facebook for what I thought would be forever and I got back somewhat reluctantly. But I have to say that the iPhone and Facebook are a match made in heaven and it’s due to the phone and its myriad photo apps that I started posting more on Facebook.

Thankfully, I still have things to say, so you’ll be hearing from me soon.

Oh, and Happy New Year, everyone!