Loca Luna

My lover's exotic clothing store in Chattanooga was voted the second best place (behind Victoria's Secret) to go if you are "in the doghouse and need to buy gift." I'd say, considering the disparity in ad budgets, that that's pretty wonderful after only 9 months in business. www.localuna.net

Hanggliding competition news

Best site I've found for it is http://www.ozreport.com It usually keeps up with all the major comps and is reporting, right now, on the Worlds. I'm hoping, personally, to make it to Quest in April for those preliminaries, not as a competition pilot, but as a volunteer.

Only comp hanggliding I've ever done was local in the 90's, though I did set a personal best cross-country flight of 46 miles over in Sequatchie Valley during one of those (out and back). Flying back and forth along the ridge to the point of Lookout Mountain, while a glorious view, doesn't feel like nearly such an accomplishment (though it is about 22 miles total.) It's awesome to see the mountain fall away from you as you mount the thermal (or ridge lift) that is invariably there at the confluence of three valleys, Chattanooga spreading out below you, the tourists unaware that you are soaring overhead, unless some dog barks at you or a more curious than usual child looks up.

Simplicity

I get teased a lot by my love that I have a "Little House on the Prairie" attitude -- "We didn't have it when I was growing up, and we don't need it now." (Specifically, he's referring to the fact that I lack a dishwasher at age 45, though I could well afford one, and cable TV.) But, the truth is that I like simplicity and every gadget you add is another gadget to maintain and service. As an old boyfriend (into Zen) once told me, "Ownership of cow means care of cow."
Other than hiding the dirty dishes or storing the freshly cleaned ones, I can't see the advantage in a small household (two people, four animals) of having a machine to do my dishes. I can very well wash all our dishes in 20 minutes every other day. (Yes, she hangs her head in shame, every OTHER day.) I loathe paying the price for cable or satellite television since most of what is on is not worth watching anyway, let alone paying the cost of a decent bottle of wine monthly, and I don't have more than an hour or so a day to waste on it anyway. Likewise, I have yet to purchase an I-Pod, though I am not anti-technology. It's merely that I have so many other music-playing devices in my life and I'm not that intensely needy of a soundtrack to my life.
I think differentiating between what one desires and what one needs is vital. Once you have decided that you want something (rather than need it) you have to decide what price you are willing to pay for it -- not just in money, but in maintainance or space or clutter or aggravation when it breaks. Thus, I have not been willing to pay the price in space for a waffle iron or mutltiple other small, subspecialized equipment for the kitchen. Nor, for a dishwasher.

When did you know you HAD to fly?

Hanggliding, for me, was an "aha" moment. I had never seen it, but when I first read of it in the early 1970's, it was as if I had been waiting for my wings to appear. I flew in my dreams all the time and used to leap from the top of our house with sheets, umbrellas, my faith alone. The bruises didn't matter (somehow I managed to avoid broken bones or brain damage) but I knew I would have to get into the air. Somehow.

Hanggliding was as if the gods had read my mind -- my own wings, no motor, silent, soaring with the birds. I loved the idea of hanging over the landscape, observing, isolated, contemplative. The lack of motor appealed even more since I loathe unnecessary noise and complications. No motor to maintain meant I was in charge of my dream even more -- no other humans need be involved. And the simplicity of the wing -- the apparent simplicity(nothing more than dacron, wires, and aluminum tubing) -- made the sport perfect in my eyes. Less equipment equalled less aggravation -- fewer things to break.

(Actually, I have found that hanggliding is a solitary sport in the air -- or can be if you resist the need to discuss every turn with your buddies over the radio -- and a group sport on the ground. You need help with windy cliff launches, hangchecks, and wind dummies.)

Flying with Hawks

I have flown with a hawk, wingtip to wingtip, and she stared back at me, repeatedly twisting her head to see what it was flying beside and whether I intended to attack. We were a mile over Lookout Valley on a clear cold morning and strong enough that I had the air to myself. We sat over the Cloudland Canyon gap and turned in the strong thermal, each circuit carrying us about to face northwest, the wind direction. I was too cold, but I couldn't leave that much joy. I'm sure I was chuckling, I wanted to laugh in triumph, but didn't want to frighten my flying partner. It was my first time, but it hasn't been my last.

Flew Yesterday despite...

Despite it not being a flyable day (i.e. very few getting up); flew despite my venoumous ex leanig over from the deck glaring at me (he works at the flight park); flew and landed well despite my ex parking himself prominently in the LZ. Thought I saw his truck as I flew past the flagpole checking out the wind direction, but too busy on my approach to dwell on it. Had a no-step landing within a hundred feet of the cone (not bad with only four landings under my belt in the last 15 months.) Realized after touching down that he and his buddy were both waiting down there, leaned against the pole. They drove off after I disappointed them. Felt good; felt right.

Christianity and BDSM

I grew up Southern Baptist in the late 60's which means that I heard about sex more by the lack of coherent comment than by explicit warnings to avoid it. By the time I came of age the sexual revolution was in full-swing -- post Stonewall and the original Women's Lib marches, long after the pill, adecade before AIDS terrorized us into being "good" and "celibate" like Mr. Falwell.
Sex was "bad" in general (except inside of marriage) but they never really specifically said which type -- man on top, anal, oral, fetishy. I assumed that that meant that what happened between the duly married was their business, and, having read the Bible through more than once (okay, maybe I skiped Job the second time and some minor prophets) I found nowhere (except in reference to a woman's "unclean time" in Leviticus -- the same book that talks about eating of clean and unclean animals and forbids spilling your seed on the ground and male to male intercourse) when specific sex acts were excluded. Therefore, except for the fact that I am currently unwed, I don't think that God cares if the woman is on top in a corset and nipple clamps with a reddened ass or if the man's scrotum is pierced multiply. And if they make each other feel good in their souls' houses then they are a little closer to heaven.