More pictures below...and if you'd like to see the infamous Steve bouquet, I inserted that into the relevant blog entry, so scroll down. ;)

This gives you a sense of the lovely birthday bouquet Mom & Mary sent from Hawaii. It was very fresh and crisp and bright and it smelled marvelous. I love the pale red poppy (around back) and the creamy gerbera daisy. 

This is me on my birthday. After the wrap-up of the LMF, we went to Orphan Andy's for some late night grub, and my friends surprised me with a chocolate cake. Look at that 4 Alarm Fire...and even in my old age, I blew it all out in a single, easy, poof! 

This is characteristic of many fountains in the Bay Area: steps. They look as though they are meant for you to step right into. It's a funny phenomenon compared to your more regal and user-deterring East Coast fountains... 

What strange birds are these?? 

In his poem, Verses on a Butterfly, Joseph Wharton calls butterflies "Nature's completest miniature divine."

In another poem entitled The Way Of The Coventicle Of The Trees, Hayden Carruth writes, "I have looked at them out the window / So intently and persistently that always / My who-I-am has gone out among them / Where the fluttering ideas beckon."

And Jorie Graham writes, in Salmon, "What is the light
at the end of the day, deep, reddish-gold, bathing the walls,
the corridors, light that is no longer light, no longer clarifies,
illuminates, antique, freed from the body of
that air that carries it. What is it
for the space of time
where it is useless, merely
beautiful?"

Perfection. This is why I need to write again.

We so often create checklists in advance of going on camping trips. So I thought I'd create a post-camping checklist detailing the proper packing in of experiences:

1. Injuries (Designate experiences with Yes/No)
Cuts (Y)
Scrapes (Y)
Welts (Y)
Bug Bites (Y)
Bruises (Y)
Sun Burn (Y)
Fatigue (Y)
Achiness (Y)
Bone Fractures (N)
Heat Exhaustion (N)
Altitude Sickness (N)
Snake Bite (N)
Dog Bite (Y)
Death (N)

2. Activities
Bear Wrestling (N)
Swimming (Y)
a) with all kinds of water bugs and spiders (Y) *If yes, please detail below
b) with teeny tiny frogs (Y)
c) with snakes (Y) **If yes, please detail below
d) with giant squid (N)
e) in dirty gross muck (N)
f) in a shockingly pristine 25 foot deep pond (Y)
g) in the early morning (Y)
h) in the late morning (Y)
i) in the early afternoon (Y)
j) in the late afternoon (Y)
k) after night fall (N)
Sleeping in a tent (Y)
Cooking on a portable stove (Y)
Axing and digging up nefarious black berry limbs (Y)
Machete-ing nefarious black berry limbs (N)
Watching a cowboy-hat-wearing teva-clad testerone tornado machete black berry limbs (Y)
Gathering pretty rocks (Y)
Clearly delineating a new trail with said pretty rocks (Y)
Clearing brush (Y)
Napping (Y)
Number of cool new earthy hard working people met: 11
Number of canine companions: 3
Number of sticks/pine cones/pieces of bark thrown for doggy entertainment:" ~3,000

3. Sounds Heard:
Buzzing chain saws (Y)
At least 10 different species of bird calls (Y)
a) including hawks (Y)
b) including jays (Y)
c) including hummingbirds (Y)
d) including lovely unidentified songbirds (Y)
e) including wild dodo (N)
Mid-afternoon snoring (Y)
Splashing (Y)
Robins tromping around underfoot in the brush (Y)
Snide jokes (Y)
Wild yeti call (N)
Ambulances going by (N)
City cacaphony (N!)

4. Food consumed
Egg, sausage and cheese scramble (Y)
Belgian Waffles with fresh Strawberries (N)
Olive Bread dipped in Balsamic Vinaigrette (Y)
Melba chips and duck pate (N)
Fresh salad with red bell peppers (Y)
Venison Jerky (N!)
Sausage Stroganoff Soup (Y)
Liver and Onions (N)
Egg, Sausage, Cheese and Potato Scramble with Lemon Pepper (Y)
Chocolate Croissant (N)
In-N-Out Burger on the way up (Y)
McDonald's (N)
Rick's Freezette's (founded in 1960) infamous Nacho Cheese Dog (Y!!)
Quinoa (N)

5. The Drive:
Hours spent driving up there: 5
Number of hours added by SF/Sacto traffic: 1.5
First use of 4W Drive option in Pick up truck (Y)
Hours spent driving back: 4
Number of hours added by traffic: 0
Number of hours added by Nacho Cheese Dog Consumption: 0.5

Overall Impression: AWESOME, can't wait to go again!!!

*I've had a heck of a time figuring out what kind of spider we saw. It was big, sleek, and sharp-toed, looked black with yellow stripes. I think it must have been a kind of wolf spider -- family lycosidae -- since they are known for being comfortable with water surface locomotion. But I can't find any pictures that match what we saw. We also saw lots of dragon and damsel flies, including their nymphs; water boatmen (very cool); and what looked like a large beetle with big pinchers. And plenty of tadpoles too.

**This is the common garter snake, eastern subspecies. It's the closest in appearance to what was swimming around with us in the pond. Very docile and not the least bit concerned about our company.

Oh wow. Oh wow. I just went to go do some little administrative thing and when I walked back there was a crowd around my desk. And an enormous box on it, whose contents were too tall for the box and thus covered in tissue paper. And I opened it and it's a two and a half feet tall, I literally measured, bouquet of fresh summer flowers. Irises, pink gerbera daisies, purple hydrangea, pink roses, purple liatrus, purple stock, yellow chrysanthemum, magenta dendrobium orchids, bells of ireland, heather, stuff I don't even know the name of. Deep lush purples with yellows and pinks to highlight. And it's from Steve...


Here they are... 

I believe the work consensus is "he's a keeper."

Interesting. I looked back on my enneagram type and wondered if I had changed, the same way my myers-brigg changed. What's fascinating is...

Conscious self	Overall self

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...my conscious personality did not change, but my unconscious one did. Crazy!!

Last night (my) Steve got back in from LA, so I picked him up from work (he'd driven but he had to take a work car to carry the equipment) and brought him back to his apartment. There was soft lighting, fresh flowers, a sense of joy and delight...and a big ugly squirmy CENTIPEDE on the ceiling!! (For a vague idea of what it looks like, click here.) My first reaction was to squeal with total horror, mostly because it was on the ceiling -- the idea of it dropping on me was horrifying -- muscles rigid, staring, ready for fight or flight. Steve was going to kill it, but then my entomological impulse kicked in, and I nabbed a clear pint glass, climbed up on the couch and captured it.

That's when I realize how incredibly amazingly COOL these creatures are. The pint glass became a means of holding it up close and studying it. The glass had a film of water on the bottom and Steve pointed out that we probably saved its life, as centipedes usually prefer moist, damp areas. The centipede pounded the walls for a second -- they have that amazing synchronization of their legs, like an assembly line of coordination -- then did the most curious thing: first, it tapped the sides of the glass with its antennae. Far from being flaccid appendages sticking out from its head, these things were muscular: he had total control and to prove it, formed amazing little intricate spirals at will. He then curled a single spiraling antenna down to his incredibly sharp horizontal fangs and ran it through them. He did this with each one over and over again. He was basically collecting the water and sampling it, and to watch him curl his antennae was indescribably fascinating.

He then got bored and started to claw the walls again. When he bent half his body over backwards as he looked around, that gave me the heebie jeebies again, and I was done. Blllluuuuuhhh. When he was at rest and doing cool muscular things, that was okay; but any unnecessary displays of unctuous flexibility made me histrionic. Steve got a moment's jolly from taking the pint glass and threatening me with it, and then he threw it out the window.

Oh man, that thing was cool. Terror and intricacy all wrapped up in this little segmented bundle. But if that thing had dropped on me, I would have freakin' lost it: Dear Mom and Dad, I'm writing you from the local asylum...

I am going camping here this weekend. It looks like quite an amazing place. It will be "car" camping more than trail camping, so I can bring bird books and journals and too much clothing and not-so-perfect hiking boots and not have to bear the weight of my inexperience high up on my shoulders and back. :) And it's a work weekend, so I'll be digging in and clearing some trail and getting dirty, along with frolicing in the pond and sunbathing and bearwatching.

So I'll be MIA this weekend via all things electronic. But know I'll be communing with Connecticut Nature's distant cousin, California Nature. Very exciting.

My boss is so incredibly thoughtful. She was working overtime last week, so she gave me my birthday presents this week. One of them was a small frame on one side of which is a bas relief of palm trees -- so I can put a picture of Sanny in there. So touching.

If any of you have a 3x3 suitable picture of Sanny that you can spare, I would love that.

On a lighter note, another one of my coworkers at CTDN gave me a promotional tote as a belated birthday present. On the side it say, "ATHU / Accepting Organs for Research" and then ATHU's number.

I can't wait to see what happens when I take THAT out in public!!!

I am still so incredibly happy. This has to have been the happiest week I've ever had, maybe ever, or maybe since I was a kid. Seriously. Between Landmark, my birthday, the awesome people at my job, my awesome friends, and this amazing person I just met and have the most intense connection with (you know who you are), even a rare visit from Jeptha, a dear friend from college -- well, it feels like I just stumbled upon a free time share on cloud nine. With an option to buy...

Aloha, everyone.

Funny -- I've taken the MBTI twice now. Back then I was an INFP; now I'm an ENTJ. Another possibility is that in answering specifically towards my work persona I'm an ENTJ; but perhaps I'm at heart an INFP. The Myers-Briggs is big on this kind of inconsistency, seeing as we all act out slightly different versions of ourselves in each of our life capacities: friend, lover, coworker, family, and "just ourselves." Either that or I'm just expressing my gemini self.

Thank you to my ENTP for catalyzing the memory of the INFP in me. (~_-)

ENTJ - "Field Marshall". The basic driving force and need is to lead. Tend to seek a position of responsibility and enjoys being an executive. 1.8% of total population.

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Most of the people at CTDN have taken the Myers-Briggs, so I thought I would. For a more complete understanding of ENTJ, look here.

LANDMARK WAS AWESOME. I am so happy right now. I see the world as full of possibilities. I feel complete with my parents. I feel complete with my friends. I feel like I can have anything I want...

...and so many good things are happening right now that I keep forgetting it's my birthday because everything else that's happening is already so great. And then I realize that I've been around for 25 years today and take a look at myself and see my own happiness and everything is even GREATER.

I'm walking on sunshine...

I've meaning to write about this: a couple of days ago I was riding the Muni underground and there was a man in a wheelchair on board. We ended up getting off on the same stop and as I watched him wheel toward the stairs leading up, I wondered where the elevator was; I'd never noticed it before.

If there was one, it didn't seem to matter to him. He wheeled right over the escalator, got both sets of wheels safely on, and held the moving hand rails to stay balanced. It was impressive, independent, and pretty cool.

However, I have noticed in a few places that the hand rails sometimes move faster or slower than the escalator. Here's hoping he doesn't go to malls, for example, very often...

By the way, those of you curious about the landmark forum can see the relevant page on the website by clicking here.