Rebecca A. Foster

A 10 + Alarm Fire broke out in west Salt Lake County (Herriman area) this afternoon. It's close to 100 degrees and there are 100+ firefighters on scene trying to contain the fire. No rain since I can't remember when, everything is bone dry. You can see the smoke plumes from all over the valley. (Reports are it started from a car fire.) My best wishes go out to the firefighters and National Guardsmen fighting the fire. The Red Cross is on scene with assistance for the evacuees. I know how generous people are here, they will be well taken care of. A lot of farm animals in that area, they are being evacuated as well and taken to horse shelters. They asked us on the news to not make cell phone calls in the valley unless it's an emergency, only send texts, to clear up the cell service for the evacuation. My part of the valley has totally outlawed fireworks this year. I will snuff out any sparkler I see! 

You know that thing where you like a person a lot and you think they like you, but then their actions show you that they don't like you as much as you thought or hoped, and you realize on the teeter-totter of likeness, you are the fat one? Now I can say, "Well, these things happen" instead of "What is wrong with me?" because there is something wrong with everyone, it doesn't mean people can't like you anyway. You didn't do anything wrong enough. These things just happen! It still sucks, though. So, shockingly, this has happened to me at times. I know, right? The nerve. And there are other disappointments I've experienced, and letdowns, and unfilled expectations. And I didn't want to carry these around with me, so I got some rocks and wrote names and/or words on each rock and put them in this jar. (I've turned the rocks around so you can't see the names/words; I never know who is reading this blog, so I err on the side of caution.)...

On a mobile device, you can now click the down arrow in the 'Home' bar near the top to view links to my contact information, Instagram and Flickr feeds and other stuff. _____________________________ I started this blog on June 28, 2007. I began it as a tool to think/write about stuff I love, because at the time I had a hard time finding any joy in life. It was therapeutic. Things are different now. ( I laughed pretty hard reading this blog post from June 28, 2007 . Might as well be 1997.) In the last five years I have hopefully shared a few things you liked, could relate to, considered a cautionary tale, or made you laugh. Life isn't perfect, but I've stopped expecting life, or anyone I know, to be perfect, so I'm enjoying it a lot more. My dad used to say, "Happiness is largely a matter of managing your own expectations." He was pretty smart.

Yesterday I wrote about men I know who act selfish and I don't mind as long as they are fun. To be fair, sometimes *I* am selfish. And I have some bad qualities: I am prone to anxiety and worry, for one. My friends and loved ones could name others. And here is the awesome thing about how the world works: the friends who act selfish? Exactly what I need, actually. Someone who would be as focused on my anxiety as I am would make it that much harder to deal with. Yay for complementary weaknesses and strengths! In fact, the fact I am even writing this is part of my anxiety that I would offend someone by saying I know selfish dudes. Obviously, I don't mind if they are selfish. But I feel bad about saying it out loud. It's not people I am in common contact with! I meant like the guy who calls me once a year to meet him in Vegas and only talks about himself. He's fun, though. (I usually don't go.) Or the dude in China I went clubbing with every few months who woul...

Spanish culture places a high value on fun, which is why I believe boring is worse than bad. So when a man is repeatedly selfish/kinda jerky, I should immediately walk away, right? But if he's fun, I don't always right away. I'm not proud of this. Just keepin' it real, son. I showed the Nike ' Write the Future ' commercial in my employee training class this week and when Ronaldo came on screen, the guys immediately started with the "He's a douchebag" Ronaldo screed. I counterargued, "But he's so hot!" Which is true. You see, it's not that Ronaldo is NOT a jerk/douchebag, it's that I don't care. Don't need to. To a varying degree, this is also true of men I know: if I don't want to date them, it doesn't matter too much how selfish they are, or how often they contact or want to see me, as long as I have fun when they do. (Many guys I like I don't want to date seriously, for various reasons. And that goes bo...

My contact information is available under the 'Contact' link above. My Flickr, Pinterest and YouTube links are on the right.  My Instagram and Twitter accounts are both Beccaplay.  I was an Army brat for a while and have lived in Idaho, Virginia/D.C., Tennessee, Arkansas, Texas, Utah and China.  Please feel free to ask me about any of these places.  I have been a project manager, teacher and now corporate trainer/instructional designer. I'm really interested in how technology can be used in adult education. 

Today at Whole Foods checkout with a young male cashier, where I'm buying several bottles of kombucha tea: Him: You know, if you buy 12 of one kind of kombucha, you get a 10% discount. Me: Really? Okay, I'll remember that for next time, thanks. Moment of silence. Him: I really like your necklace, it's really cool. Me: Well thanks, I'm not creative enough to make something like this, I just bought it. Him: But you were smart enough to buy and look good wearing it. OKAY YOUNG MALE CASHIER YOU WIN I WILL BUY ALL OF YOUR KOMBUCHAS WHATEVER YOU SAY BRING THEM TO ME NOW. (j/k, I still only bought a few. But nicely played, cashier, nicely played.)

Text I got recently from a night person friend: My not-a-night-person reputation precedes me. ------------------- I don't do sleepovers that often now, but in China I did them all the time because of the time and trouble it took to get places. When I stayed at T.'s or V.'s, I had to plan for things to do in the morning because I'd routinely wake up several hours before either of them did. Especially T. We're talking sometimes 5+ hours.  One thing I did at T.'s was go for a run because he lived in the countryside. Once, I forgot my key. And he lived on the top floor of the girl's dorm. And I had to stand there knocking, trying to wake him up, while girls stared up at the top floor from the courtyard, wondering who I was, trying to get into the hot American teacher's apartment at 8:00 AM dressed in skimpy running clothes. It's fun doing a walk of shame that isn't even a walk of shame! After that, pretty sure I was just called ...

I loved the little dish of pickled radish we ate with meals in Chongqing, so I made some. I got the recipe from Fuschia Dunlop's Sichuan cook book. (I think these would be more accurately called salted, fermented vegetables, not pickled vegetables, but they translate as pickled.) In China they use large ceramic pickling jars but the ones I could find are super expensive here (over $100 on Amazon) so I went with this clear glass jar I got for $6 at Target and sterilized with boiling water. (It needs to have a tight lid.) The recipe is salted water (I used kosher salt), Sichuan peppercorns, fresh ginger, a small piece of cinnamon stick, rice wine, a little bit of brown sugar (those last two are for fermentation), dried chilis and a little bit of star anise. I couldn't find whole star anise so I use liquid drops, just 2 or 3. I put in western radishes, Chinese radish (daikon), cabbage and lotus. (Lotus root is one of my favorite new veggies I learned about in China. I can...

This is neat. Museum of Endangered Sounds. (Click each photo to play, click again to stop.)

I'm not very traditionally romantic. I don't like beating around the bush, which I think lots of traditional romance is. Get to it, I say! But here is one example of how even nontraditional things can still be romantic. Something I did with this guy I knew in college that I've never done with anyone else: we'd pick one book and read it together. The same book. One person would read as far as they wanted, write comments on paper and leave them in the book, mark the beginning and ending spot, then give it to the other person. We went back and forth, reading and writing comments, passing the book off to each other at parties, in cars, on doorsteps, at the library, wherever we happened to be. It's possible I worried whether I was thin enough or sexy enough or any of those things, but I don't remember that at all. What I remember is sharing ideas and jokes and enjoying each others' company. (And one slightly disastrous fishing expedition.) There were dates a...

A former student has asked for my help in filling an ESL position at his school in Changde and my former university in Chongqing is accepting applications until July 31st. If you are interested in being an ESL teacher in China, please click the 'Contact' button above to shoot me an email and I'll hook you up with their info. T. told me this week his school district in San Diego laid off 1,500 teachers; it's the same story I have heard from friends across the country who want to be teachers but their districts aren't hiring. I taught the ESL class in public school for two years (several years ago) and even then because I wasn't tenured my position was knocked back to $600 a year in the budget. Well, that wasn't going to work, so I took a job in business and I've never been back in the public school system. (I volunteer ESL and taught in a Chinese university through Peace Corps.) S., my best friend from Texas, teaches high school in Brooklyn and is an aw...

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An article from the NYTimes last Friday , a roundup up of technological innovations on the horizon. This one startled me: "You need a lot of water to put out a sizable blaze, and the chemicals used in fire extinguishers can be toxic (halons, the most effective chemical fire suppressant, create holes in the ozone layer). So the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency at the Pentagon has developed a hand-held wand that snuffs out fires, without chemicals. According to the program’s manager, Dr. Matt Goodman, an electric field destabilizes the flame’s underlying structure rather than blanketing the fire to smother it. Eventually, the technology could be used to create escape routes or extinguish fires without damaging sensitive equipment nearby." (#27) Will it be possible to someday install these electrical field generators in buildings and if you have a fire, you flip a switch to extinguish it? Call me small-minded, but it never occurred to me there are other ways to put ...

It was finally hot enough today in Salt Lake City: Living in the mountains in a desert makes for a very temperate climate, which I appreciate when I receive my electric bill each month; it's never been higher than $35. Compare that to the $180 it used to be in San Antonio in the summer (read: March through November). But I love any excuse to wear my summer hat; I learned in San Antonio for dark-hair, it really does make a difference in how hot you feel. But I do miss the heat and humidity; when I was in NYC on vacation, I slathered on face lotion and cream one morning and my make-up all started melting off my face, because I was so...dewey. Oops. I'm so used to greasing up like a piglet here, I forgot I didn't need to do it there. And my hair got that awesome humidity thickness to it. Speaking of a day almost two years in the making, I realized today the Peace Corps China volunteers I trained on my way out are coming home this summer. Crazy. Can't believe it...

Today I tried barefoot running for the first time; the first few strides I was still using my heel to absorb my stride shock, which felt awkward in bare feet. I remembered the research I had done and focused on absorbing my stride shock on the balls and front of my feet instead. Instant change in my stride and momentum. I'm never running in running shoes again. Here's why: 1. When I used the ball of my foot to absorb the impact, I had more momentum because I was directing my energy forward, rather than backward onto my heel. I was shocked at how much more energy-efficiently I could run barefoot. 2. I could feel my pelvis tilting in a different, forward direction while running barefoot, which seemed to help direct the impact of hitting the ground forward into greater momentum, rather than up into my knees and hips. It just felt more natural. 3. I recognized that the ability to roll the shock of hitting the ground off the balls and front of my feet would be nearly imp...