Dwelling

Ritual

2010-10-04T16:55:00.000-07:00

Today was Chad's birthday.
For lack of a better idea, I drank a shot of whiskey tonight in his honor. Steve did it with me. I just needed something to mark the occasion.
Chad would have laughed at me for having a shot of Jameson's, and that's just as well.
Happy Birthday, old friend.

I met a traveller from an antique land

2010-09-18T06:59:00.001-07:00

About a week before my due date, I found out that one of my friends had died. I wanted to write "one of my closest friends on earth" but that's misleading, if only temporally. For 6 or 7 years he was just that, only we were romantically entangled by the end of those years, ultimately leading to a break up, a necessary period of separation, and the ensuing detachment that removed the label "closest." But we were still friends. And we still shared an almost psychic understanding of each other, a mutual love/hate relationship with words, and an indellible sense of nostalgia. These things never died. And then he did. And now I'm the one who carries them around in an urn inside me, not sure if they're whole or ashes, wondering what to do with them now that the person who gave them their worth is gone. The hardest part to wrap my head around is the fact that my not-seeing him is now permanent. In this day and age, we don't-see people all the time, but we know they're out there, and we reach out with a phone or email or skype or what have you, and they respond, sometimes months later, sometimes at such great length that one loses the words to respond back because they've used them all up. I have become way too accustomed to this sense that all the people I love dearly are "out there" like fruit on the branch, that all I have to do is look up and reach for them and they'll be solid again.
The branch that held my friend let him go when I wasn't looking. I can look up and reach all I want, but all I'll find is branch, and the very ground I stand on to do so is where he is now.
The problem is, I keep walking past this metaphorical tree and not looking; the synapses in my brain that trigger loss have withered from non-use. This is a blessing and a curse. This is my first major loss of a person I knew intimately, loved deeply, a person whom I wanted to share my life before, during and after romance, a person whose life was so precious to me that I spent time actively fearing his death. Those synapses withered because I made it this far without that kind of loss: blessing. But now I can't seem to bring his death into my everyday life: curse. This feels like a betrayal of how much I loved him. I should be wracked, wrung out, a wreck, because I loved him that much, and instead, I drink my coffee and I coach my team and I send emails to his friends speaking the language but not feeling the emotions.
I know that no grieving process is wrong, that everyone does it differently. But I want my grief to equal the loss of him, an oceanic grief where his shade haunts me, and instead I have a shallow and muddy puddle.
I know in his pragmatism he'd say "House, chop wood, carry water." He always did seem bemused by my ability to overthink emotions, and to an extent I am most certainly trying to find wood in the well and chop water into logs. But I am disappointed in this grieving process, as absurd as that is. There are a lot of ifs -- if I hadn't just had a baby, if I hadn't just started a job, if I hadn't just moved to Connecticut, if I had still seen him regularly, if I had the time and the space -- I would engage the tragedy in a way that feels appropriate to its magnitude.
Instead I'm taking a stolen moment to write a blog entry. Chad, are you laughing at me? I'm sure you are, in your caustic way.
I feel lucky that the last time I saw him was in New Mexico. I close my eyes and think of him and I smell new-fallen snow and pine trees. I see him, hungover in oversized snow boots and his Wesleyan sweatshirt, trudging through the snow to show us his property: the fences he repaired, the shooting ranges, the marker for his parents' graves. I hear the way he snorted in air periodically, see his jaw lock as he aimed his gun, watch his casually down-cast eyes trace the path ahead of him, the solicitous tone to his voice, the sarcastic tone to his laugh. I'm glad it's not Wesleyan, or San Francisco, or New York, or Chicago I remember first. I'm glad I see a winterized desert landscape, boundless and bare, where the lone and level landscape stretches far away.

"I met a traveler from an antique land..."

Teaching an old blog new tricks

2010-08-04T11:27:00.000-07:00

Well, hello there. It's been over two months since I updated, and what a coupla months it's been. Since I wrote that graduation post, I:

packed (read: watched my husband pack) up our house in Denver into a pod
packed my dog and my mom into a car and drove all the way out to CT
enrolled my dog in "Auntie M's Doggie Summer Camp" (Tika stayed up the road with my aunt and her dogs due to some territorial doodles at my mom's house)
lived in my mom's house for a month and worked on preparing for baby's arrival
started up appointments at a new OB's office
reunited with my husband after his own road trip upon successful completion of his Project Manager job in Wyoming
enjoyed a second, extremely successful baby shower thrown by mom on what turned out to be the hottest day of the summer
greeted the arrival of the pod in CT with only one torn lampshade as a moving casualty
moved (read: watched my mom, aunt, and husband move) all our stuff into our new apartment at the boarding school where I will be working this fall
spent our first few nights in the new apartment

And now, though we have the apartment livable, we're working on unpacking and organizing all those boxes, as well as acclimating Tika to her new home and lifestyle. She spent her first night here last night and seems mildly confused and as usual mostly unfazed. Perhaps the husky in her is what makes her so adaptable to what has been almost a nomadic lifestyle. We have been lucky that she's a total champ that way. I'm hoping she'll be similarly flexible when the baby is born and becomes the newest member of the pack, and when the girls get back to school and the nightly home invasion begins!
So, two more events to go: the arrival of said newborn, and the start of said job. The newborn's not disclosing its arrival yet but the girls will be here starting September 3rd.
Wish us all luck!

Mastery

2010-05-29T11:18:00.000-07:00

On Thursday, May 27th I handed in my very last assignment (what ended up being a 33 page research report, lest 'assignment' sound too diminutive!). And on June 4th, 2010, I'll graduate. It is amazing to me how much work I did and how little work it seems to have been now that it's all over. I'm grieving a bit over losing the amazing community of social workers that I've been connected to over these last two years, and hoping this whole era of online networking will keep us all in touch. But I'm glad to be done. I'm looking forward to not having "homework" hanging over my head for 30 weeks of every year. I'm looking forward to dispelling the sense of my life being suspended and instead feeling like I'm back in it -- out of the cerebral, intellectual world of theorizing and role-playing and into the humanistic, physical, sometimes spiritual world of understanding and interacting.
I use the term 'mastery' with my tongue firmly implanted in my cheek. I don't think anyone ever attains mastery over relating to others, or figuring out how to help them without harming or hindering them, or gaining insight into their motivations and fears. But I've gained mastery over the education that promotes this other work, and there's something to be said for that.
Spring is becoming summer. The heat turns up, shy buds give way to confident blooms, life shimmies under its own abundance as roots lengthen and shoots stretch and clouds burn off beneath a powerfully blue sky...

Well, that's a first!

2010-02-17T20:21:00.000-08:00

Steve and I headed over to DU's gym to sign him up for a membership. They needed me as the primary so he could get the spouse-of-student discount.
When we brought the receipt home, they'd misspelled my name.
Not Elsie, Alice, Alisa, Lisa, etc.
Not "Haus" as they sometimes guess my last name is spelled.
For the first time ever, I was Elise Mouse.
!!!!!!!

Cheating on my blog...

2010-02-03T22:08:00.000-08:00

...or rather, adding to its family.

To find out what's been going on for the last 12 weeks and 2 days (now why would I say it like that?? *wink*) head on over to http://acornchronicles.blogspot.com/.

Non-acorn related stuff will still show up here from time to time.

A little about the new house

2009-11-14T11:03:00.000-08:00

I've got 3 days until all my finals are due, so naturally I'm going to post on my blog rather than work on one. Really, I was brought here because a stupid spammer decided to comment on an old post and I came by to delete it, and then I realized I hadn't written in ages. And then I sit in front of any empty update window and remember the 15,000 things about which I thought to myself "I should put this on the blog," and remember only that I thought that and not what I intended to write at the time.
So let's see...the new house. The new house is just fine. It's kind of a lemon; in the past two months of living here we've had a mouse (Tika and Kali took care of that little problem on a doggie-date day), a shower drain that backed up and was barfing out stuff from our garbage disposal, leakage problems in the rooms downstairs, the kitchen sink's spigot spontaneously shooting off (fortunately that one just needed to be screwed back in), and a front-loading washing machine that occasionally doesn't drain fully. Fortunately most of this stuff, aside from the foundation leakage, just needed to be fixed, and I live with one of the fixiest people in the world. The nice thing about these little cruddy occurrences is we're not terribly attached to the house, so we won't be reluctant to leave when it comes time for that. Other than that, we like it. We hosted a halloween party with a zombie make up bar, and you can see some shots of the house in the photos:

Behind Sam is a view of pretty much the entire upstairs. The railing behind her is for the stairs leading down to the bedrooms. Behind that railing is where we watch tv. Directly to the right of Sam in the picture (you can see the cups on the edge of the table) is the "dining" area:

(Steve was half hick, half sociopath, all zombie-proof. Note his glorious mullet wig.)
Directly across from the dining area is the kitchen, which is pretty galley as kitchens go:

We're pretty much taking up all the kitchen space here. Daniela's elbow points to the stove, and mine kinda points at the fridge. (I was a 50's Zombie Housewife, and Daniela was a zebra.)
Pretty nice party space, aside from the wall to wall beige carpeting.
Alright...back to finals...maybe more on Colorado life once they're over. :)

Siphons, Moves, and Dreams

2009-08-29T17:02:00.000-07:00

My husband is a genius. Seriously. He just seems to know everything you need to know when you need to know it, particularly when it comes to things that one builds or buys or modifies.

Today's example? You know how he built a wood-fired water heater that flowed into a hot tub? Well, we're moving houses (again, more to come on that) and we decided said hot tub will not be coming with us, so we needed to drain the hot tub. All of the valves had been sealed (we used it literally as tub and not a jacuzzi). How would you have drained it?

Tip it over on end? Cut a hole in the bottom? Bucket by bucket? Rig up a pump? Hire a large friend in padded suit to do cannonball after cannonball?

Well, because Steve knows everything you need to know when you need to know it, he created a siphon. Oh you know, he created hydrostatic pressure through a hose which once started allows you to drain a "reservoir" of its liquid contents provided the walls of the reservoir are no higher than 20 feet and the exit point of the hose is lower than the other end of the hose that's in the water. No pump needed. No special tools, destruction, or large friends needed.

What, you didn't know you could do that? Oh right, me neither. Steve's brain is the exact opposite of a siphon; it never drains.

As for moving, yep, we're moving again. Our landlord needed to move back to Denver so he gave us 30 days notice. Being the supremely industrious and efficient people that we are, we had a new rental house lined up within 3 days of that notice. We take possession of it Sept. 1, and then we have 20 days to move into it. We met our current landlord today for the first time (we'd found this house through his agent originally) and he is a very nice guy in a bit of a crisis which we totally understand and thus we take no offense at his need to boot us out.

But.

WE HATE MOVING. WE ARE SO SICK OF IT. I'm sorry for the virtual yelling, but we wanted to stay in this house until we could figure out where to buy and how to pay for it, and then we wanted to buy and never, ever rent again, and probably not move for a long time. Years and years.

The longest I have spent in any one place in the last *SIXTEEN* years is ~1.75 years. Because I went to boarding school for high school (moving back and forth between school and home for 4 years), and then away to college (moving back and forth between college and home for 4 years), and then moved to an extremely expensive city in California, and then moved in with Steve a year later, and then Steve left for Toronto 1.75 years later, and then Steve came back 6 months later and we needed bigger space soon after that, and then I made a career change and we moved to Denver a little over a year after that, I have moved, on average, once a year, every year, for the last *SIXTEEN* YEARS.

Did I mention that I'm sick of it? I did? It bears repeating.

Steve and I were delighted to find each other, delighted to move in together, delighted to figure out careers and get jobs and get into schools and delighted to get married, but short of our first born child nothing, nothing, is going to make us more ecstatic than to finally buy a house, and settle down.

And not move for years and years.

I wish...

2009-05-12T10:29:00.000-07:00

I wish I was an 1/8th of the poet Mary Oliver is. Seriously. Everything she writes is exactly what I wish I could write, and how, and on so many of the same topics.

This post brought to you by the following poem:

Breakage

by Mary Oliver

I go down to the edge of the sea.

How everything shines in the morning light!

The cusp of the whelk,

the broken cupboard of the clam,

the opened, blue mussels,

moon snails, pale pink and barnacle scarred—

and nothing at all whole or shut, but tattered, split,

dropped by the gulls onto the gray rocks and all the moisture gone.

It's like a schoolhouse

of little words,

thousands of words.

First you figure out what each one means by itself,

the jingle, the periwinkle, the scallop

full of moonlight.

Then you begin, slowly, to read the whole story.

Attended a reading last night...

2009-04-07T16:51:00.000-07:00

...by my favorite blogger, who has just published a book. Another fan-girl from school was eager to go too, so we could be fanatical and geeky together.
My favorite blogger's husband posted a picture of the Denver crowd in which you can see Katie and me:

How awesome is that? His fan-girl radar must have been super strong that night.
My favorite blogger's website: http://www.dooce.com
Her husband's website: http://blurbomat.com
The photo in his photostream on flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/blurb/3422120442/
Much like a concert is a way more amazing experience than listening to a cd, a reading is a way more amazing experience than reading a blog. When the band or the blogger are amazing to begin with, then the amazing is exponential.
Katie, I'm glad we went!!

For the record...

2009-04-05T08:23:00.000-07:00

...I have been to hell and let me inform you that you better get some religion right now.
S and I are currently in Connecticut celebrating the happy occasion of my step-dad's 60th birthday. We were supposed to get into White Plains, NY's airport on Friday at 3:30pm, rent a car, and get to the house in CT at 5pm or so.
We got on our flight in Denver at 7am MDT and got to our connection in Atlanta at 11am EDT with no issue. We get on our flight to White Plains on time at 1:15pm EDT. The flight is uneventful until we get to the airspace above White Plains.
And remain there.
For an hour.
Because there's not enough visibility to land.
Then get diverted to Newark, NJ. And land.
But they won't let us off the plane because the clouds over WP might clear up at any time.
We hear this many many times over the next FOUR hours as we sit there, waiting.
And waiting.
And waiting.
This would simply be obnoxious if it weren't for the fact that because I'm dehydrated, and by about the time we land in Newark, I'm developing a headache that is about as close to a migraine as you can come and not be a migraine. I'm nauseous. I'm extremely sensitive to smell, light, and sound. My head is pounding.
And we're trapped on an airplane for FOUR hours. They've even turned the stupid air off. We're just sitting there, by the runway, stewing, with the pilot coming on the intercom about once an hour to say "really, it's supposed to clear up any minute."
The *only* thing that gets AirTran to finally go to a gate and give us the option of getting off the plane is the fact that there's a woman with epilepsy in the front row who hasn't eaten over the eight hours since we first set foot on that plane and if this continues, she'll have a seizure. So they taxi to a gate to let her off, and then the mutiny begins. Passengers with New York accents and deep male voices are beginning to yell "HEY LET US OFF THIS PLANE." The crew is beginning to care very little for regulations.
Finally, they let us go. In Newark. About two hours further south than where we're supposed to be. About 5 hours after we were supposed to have arrived.
At this point, I'm not kidding, I'm weeping from pain.
S escorts me to the nearest kiosk where they have a whole beautiful bottle of excedrin migraine and cold, delicious water.
We go to the car rental counter to see if we can transfer our reservations, get a car and go. But the Hertz at Newark won't let us transfer our reservation because we have to return the car to Newark; we can't return it anywhere else.
So we go to the only car rental company that will allow us to do this, Avis, and the line is 20 people deep.
That's when I call my step-dad and step-brother who are at the new Yankee stadium for the first game. They agree to come pick us up when they're done. Fortunately for us, they've put the second string in by then so the exhibition game is much less exciting, and they kindly decide to leave early.
An hour after I've taken the headache medicine and we've finally gotten to eat a meal at McDonald's, which is the only thing open at that hour, my migraine-in-training finally, blessedly, subsides. We stand out on the curb in the fresh air and await my step-family and rehash our experience over and over, pointing out silver linings (at least it wasn't our first flight that got diverted, otherwise we'd be nowhere near home; at least the 12 year old girl who was flying alone started crying before I did) and terrible decisions (or lack there of, like the one they should have made hours and hours earlier to get us on a bus to White Plains, which is what they were threatening to do when we finally left them on the plane, or the decision we made to use AirTran and fly to WP when we could have used any other airline and flown to Bradley, which was fine).
Remember how we were going to get in at 5pm after a 2 hour flight and a one hour drive? We got in at 1am, after a four hour flight, four more hours on the plane, an hour or so of waiting at the airport, and a 2.5 hour drive.
Here's the beautiful view of Newark from the plane:

Gorgeous, no?
If a migraine on a plane that's sitting by a runway in Newark not moving and full of angry New Yorkers and crying 12 and 29 year olds doesn't qualify as hell, then I'm going to say that Dante unknowingly took a detour and missed a circle.
It was that bad.
However, I've learned that when the chips are down, my husband can invoke the patience of a Saint. When my headache cleared there was much venom and frothing to be shared, but when I was a wreck and we were in the thick of misery, he was an angel.
Steve for the win.

Man's Best Road Companion

2009-03-24T12:28:00.001-07:00

Spotted outside the breakfast joint we hit up earlier this week:

In case you can't make it out, he was tied in with a leash. My guess is he loves the feel of the wind in his curly canine hair...

Someone screwed up but good

2009-03-24T12:22:00.001-07:00

Spotted on the walk from the pool hall to the Mexican restaurant we went to afterward for dinner:

Not even advertising agents pitching their wares in huge font written on glass can seem to escape the it's/its trap. Nonetheless I ate my enchiladas with a heaping side of utter disdain. Tsk tsk...
(By the way "LoDo" is short for Lower Downtown.)

Almost a year to the day

2009-03-24T12:09:00.000-07:00

Almost a year to the day that we first set foot in Wynkoop in Denver, we went back to the pool hall/brewery/comedy club (yeah, they have a good thing going) to celebrate another quarter of straight A's. I checked my phone's photos from last year and they were dated 3/20/08; we went this year on 3/23/09. That was probably the last time we played pool too. Steve and I split 2-2 (but admittedly only because he scratched on the 8 ball in the last game) but we were both quite aware of how rusty we were. Also the tables are utterly felt-less and thus totally fast, as we've become used to from pool halls. I can't imagine what it's like to play on a properly felted table any more!
I did indeed try chile flavored beer as you can see from the post below, and it was delicious. If you don't believe me, here's the blurb from the Wynkoop website: "Patty's Chile Beer: A light German-style beer made with Anaheim chiles and smoked Ancho peppers. A 2006 Great American Beer Festival Bronze Medal Winner in the Fruit and Vegetable Beer category and a Wynkoop specialty." You hear that? It won a medal. So there! It warms the belly and bites the tongue just a touch more than regular beer.
My first classes of the last quarter are on Thursday...10 more weeks and 4 more chances to rock the grades, and then summer...

2009-03-23T15:13:00.001-07:00

Chile flavored beer is good - who knew?!

Oh, that smell...

2009-03-22T17:10:00.000-07:00

Murphy's oil (for cleaning hardwood floors) smells exactly like saddle soap. The moment we opened the bottle I was shot back to days in the tack room learning how to take apart, polish, and reassemble saddles. Oh...yum.
I mopped today. I can't think of the last time I mopped...probably one of my apartments in SF, but who knows. So because I didn't have any strong mopping memories and the smell of the Murphy's Oil was ever-present, I remembered my days of sweeping the corridor in the stables, my riding boots clomping and stomping behind the broom's bristle, horses whickering and watching me with relaxed amusement.
I might just mop again soon for the sheer nostalgia it brought on.

Happy "Luck O' Th 'Irish T' You" Day

2009-03-17T13:07:00.001-07:00

Right now on our stove a pot of corned beef is merrily boiling away. Parents of mine reading this will recognize the extraordinariness of this admission -- as a wee one, I loathed corned beef. I continued to loathe it, even after trying it again in my adulthood, until a year or two ago when that husband of mine decided he was going to make it himself to show me its delicious potential.
He was right. (I hate it when that happens. At least he was deliciously right!)
Why, oh why, is corned beef so often dry, salty, chewy and generally icky? S showed me it can be moist and even slightly sweet. I love his version of it. Throw in some cabbage and potatoes and I'm in hog heaven. Which is what we have planned for dinner tonight. I can't wait!
Lest we stray from the ethnic fare today, S. also cooked up some carne asada from flank steak this morning. It smelled so good I sat down with a fork and ate it plain, sans accoutrement. Oh the warm spicy happiness in my belly.
Now if only we were as creative and consistent about exercise as we are about cooking...
Cooking opportunity aside, today marks another very important event: the 7 year anniversary of one mom and one recently-upgraded-to-step-dad, or "3D" as Fred deemed him.

A long, long time ago in a Fish House far far away, two souls were blessed by the Luck o' th'Irish and have been divesting each other of creme brulee ever since.
Happy Anniversary Mom & Sabatini!!

2009-03-05T21:43:00.001-08:00

Along with spring comes spider season. Let the squealing commence...

2009-02-23T10:30:00.001-08:00

Two more things:
1) I just discovered google reader. I am never going to get any work done!
2): I've learned how to post using my cell phone, so expect some one line posts...but they should be more frequent. Maybe. I just tried it and I can only send it one text length at a time, so we'll have to see if I can fit my thoughts into such a small box! (Might make for a blog full of haikus.)

2009-02-23T08:04:00.000-08:00

Since it's February and I haven't posted since December, let me say: Happy New Year!
I did my taxes early again this year. Taxes, for whatever reason, make me reflect more on the previous year than does the actual turn of the new year; maybe because they're tangible evidence of how the last year went. This year's tangible evidence: one federal tax return, two state tax returns, and a pretty decently sized refund all around, since both the Feds and California taxed me with a view toward a whole year of income, when in fact I had half a year of income. In fact, this is the first time in at least a couple years where California owes me. This will be the first year in four or so where I really really need the refund, so 'tis better for California to give than receive, much as I sympathize with their budget crisis. (S is dubious that I'll get my refund at all...I can't see how they could get away with that.)
That last statement -- "I sympathize with their budget crisis" -- is truly not hollow. Staring down the precipice of a job in social work, I see that much more clearly how essential state money is to the survival and well being of its constituents. So many of the Federal government's programs for funding to states are matching funds -- so the state has to be able to pony up money to get the benefit of Federal help. Given its Libertarian roots, Colorado in particular has all kinds of binding restrictions on taxes and budget surpluses, meaning that in times like these Colorado has its hands full -- well actually, empty -- trying to find a way to cover the predicted losses without cutting the budget into confetti.
Maybe it's just growing up, but I sometimes wonder how I got by for so long with my head in the sand about stuff like this. It feels much better to know about state budgets, poverty, oppression, policy, etc. and be mildly overwhelmed and sad than to be sitting at a desk job (albeit at a great organization, but still) having sent my inner Jiminy Cricket on sabbatical. Ignorance is not bliss; right now I'd say contribution is. I'll be spending my 2009 figuring out just how I plan to contribute my time and energy, and Jiminy Cricket will be right here beside me.

Doggy-back ride

2008-12-15T08:20:00.000-08:00

Yes, it is just that cold. We took our dog and the neighbor's for a long walk to the university library so I could drop off my books from finals, and then walked all the way back. Took us about 2 hours and by the final third of the trip, the neighbor's dog was over it. Poor pup kept getting ice stuck in between her toes, causing her to limp, and when we went to clear her feet for the third or fourth time, she lay down and looked at us with eyes that begged, "ARE WE THERE YET?"
We weren't, but fortunately S has a sturdy set of shoulders, so Kali got the Steve's eye view of most of the walk home. It is a testament to how miserable Kali was that she only struggled a couple times against being carried like a little lamb. Tika had her momentary ice-limps as well, but being the half-husky she is, shrugged it off and forged ahead. If we'd had a sled, she probably would have towed us all the way home.
I went home with the realization that I need to invest in long underwear. Turns out it was about 10 degrees out during the whole walk, and any part of me that had more than one layer was fine. My thighs thus took about an hour to thaw out completely, and last night I noticed a slight rash on my cheeks from the cold.
S is the only one of our little snow posse who proved not to be a delicate flower -- on the outside at least.
A couple hours after I snapped this camera-phone photo, all four of us were fast asleep. That was some walk.
(*~ _ ~*)

Hope is the thing with whiskers...

2008-11-24T08:58:00.001-08:00

An entire childhood of hope has been vindicated at long last, at the tender age of 29, in the most unexpected way.
Last Tuesday evening S hollered "the dogs have something!"as he ran from the house. Turns out Tika and her "BFF" (our neighbor's dog, Cali) had decided to be cats for the night and caught themselves a field mouse. I pinned the dogs as S, with gloved hands, pulled the drool-covered little guy from certain death. Its whiskers were twitching and its chest was heaving, with no visible puncture wounds.
How many times have I picked up a bird, a mouse, a vole, its chest heaving, with no visible punctures wounds, and stood there with it on the very edge of death, wondering if this time, this one time, it would pull back?
Too many times to count. And every time it was game over. Even if the physical injuries were nonexistent, the shock was always too much. The next morning I'd find a stiff carcass where a freaked out little rodent used to be. I know why the caged bird doesn't sing -- because it's dead by morning.
Despite the impregnable evidence to the contrary, S and I did the unthinkable and decided to build an out-patient mousie hospital. I found a shoebox. Lined it with paper towel. Bundled up some kleenex for nesting type materials. Put in a bottle lid with water and a tiny pile of bird seed. And we placed the mouse inside -- still paralyzed, still heaving its chest, not moving a voluntary muscle -- partially under the kleenex, crossed our fingers, and closed the box for the night.
A couple hours later, no noise from the box.
A couple hours after that, we head to bed. S says he thinks he hears scratching.
The next morning, I tiptoe to the laundry room, ready to accept defeat. I tilt the lid back...
...and there is the mouse, not so much dead as confused, rising to his hind legs, whiskers ablaze with alarm and curiosity, looking at me as if to say, "WHO THE HECK ARE YOU AND WHERE AM I??"
Later that day S would text me to say he'd set it free in the woodpile and it left with all the joyous panic of a survivor to points unknown. The mouse and I would share a rare moment of symmetry; just as he described it LEAPING from the box like it was shot from a gun, that morning I put the lid back down before the thing escaped and LEAPED across the house to my still sleeping husband to greet him with the rooster crow: "IT LIVED!! IT LIVED! IT LI-II-III-IIVED!!"

Denver

2008-10-11T17:27:00.001-07:00

So many little things to note about Denver that I think of in the moment and then forget to write down, and can't think of when I sit down in front of my blog.

But why not try anyway? Here, some miscellanea:

1) It is supposed to snow tonight. In October. Wha'???

2) Having a real fall again is AWESOME to behold. We have two huge maple trees in our front yard that are just barely starting to change -- I can't wait. And it's brisk and cold now too. I baked chocolate chip cookies today, and warm chocolate chip cookies on a cold fall day may just be the exact composition of Heaven.

3) Fermenting crab apples (almost wrote that crap abbles, lol), such as those that have fallen off the tree in our backyard, smell delicious. Don't worry, I have not tried to fashion a drink out of them. They sell pumpkin beer here that does the trick. I just like the smell.

4) We are truly a swing state. I have never seen such a diversity of political lawn poster endorsements in my life. Our block alone is evenly divided.

5) Denver's large interstates are designed such that you have to constantly keep merging left; all right lanes become exit only lanes. It's annoying but perhaps it's meant to keep you vigilant?

6) The curbs in our neighborhood are slanted such that if you ride your bike parallel to them and steer ever so slightly on to them, you can glide right up them.

7) S and I are totally acclimated, which makes me think that we are going to drink our cousins and my brother under the table this Christmas. Not that we don't anyway. And not that drinking competitions should be endorsed. Still, the thought is personally satisfying. Altitude adaptation for the win!

8) The difference between morning and afternoon here is often 30 degrees or more. Riding my bike to school, I can get near-frostbite on my fingers at 7am and be sweating in my t-shirt by 3pm.

9) The food in this city is strangely bland. Seriously. You have to work to find real flavor here. This phenomenon is very distinct from San Francisco, where everything was seasoned, a lot, and brilliantly.

10) Our neighbors are the most neighborly neighbors we've known, with the last apartment building we were in being a close second, and that's only because we hang out and drink beers with our neighbors here all the time.

To be continued!

Marriage...!

2008-06-16T12:49:00.000-07:00

What length we lacked in warning people we made up for in explaining...

What volume we lacked in planning we made up for in exuberance...

And what procrastination we truncated by way of City Hall, we'll certainly make up for at the Wedding Celebration still to be planned!

Oh My Grand

2008-04-29T14:22:00.000-07:00

S and I went out to lunch today. I had a mild throat spasm, so I got up to go to the bathroom (sometimes just walking it off helps). In the bathroom was a young woman and the restaurant hostess. As I walk into a stall, I hear the young woman say, "are you okay?" Then a lot of thudding. (At first I thought the hostess was upset about something and crying and slamming on the soap dispenser.) Then the woman says, "excuse me, EXCUSE ME" and I realize she's calling out to me. I come out of the stall and the hostess is in a full grand mal seizure: flat on her back on the bathroom floor, arms, legs, head flailing, eyes bloodshot, mouth open; her feet had kicked through the plaster in the wall.
I recall what my Mom has told me about seizures and immediately stabilize her head while the other woman runs to get help. I talk to her and tell her she's okay. (I know that during a seizure people black out but I figure anything soothing I can do can't hurt.) The manager, a woman, comes back with her and immediately puts us at ease -- I would not be surprised if she had RN training. The first woman wets a paper towel with cold water and kneels on her left, gently wiping the hostess's forehead. I'm kneeling at her head, keeping my hands on either side of her head and gently stroking her temples with my thumbs. The manager is to her right, talking to her. The seizure is easing -- she's gaping like a fish, and jittering, but not flailing any more. The manager keeps in good humor and rubs her sternum and tells her to breathe, and tells us there will be maybe another minute of this. The manager is watching the two of us to be sure we're not flipping and when I look over at her, she says, "Women are great, aren't they??" with pride and kindness in her eyes. (Definitely.) I ask the manager what kind of seizure this is and she says epileptic. Finally, the hostess' body and face goes slack, she takes her first full breath, and then her eyes start to track the manager's, who continues to talk to her, often in a playful manner ("you're looking at me now, aren't you hon?"). The manager is very good at relieving everyone's tension.
When I feel the hostess's head is safe, I hold her hand and squeeze it every now and then. The first words out of her mouth, heart-breakingly, are a slow, thick, "I'm...sorry..." to which all three of us are immediately like, "don't be silly, honey!!" Then, "water?" The manager goes to get her some and the woman and I help her slide a little away from the door so a few women who had tried to come in can finally enter. We reassure them that she's okay, and she is. The manager comes back with water, and the woman and I help her sit up, and the manager kneels behind her so she can lean back against her and helps her stabilize the glass -- the hostess' hands are still shaking. (The manager tells her it's okay to lean back and says, "don't worry, I'm wearing non-skid shoes.") At this point the manager says we can return to lunch, it's under control, and she says she's going to comp our lunches, to which of course both the woman and I say, "not at all."
I return to S., poor guy, who's seen women running to and from the bathroom and is starting to worry that I choked. He's relieved to see me. I tell him what happened and a few minutes later the manager and a waitress walk the hostess over to a booth and sit her down. She still looks a little lost -- a little like she's moving underwater -- but otherwise she's fine. I want to run over to her and verify that she's fine and soothe her and also ask her a million questions about her condition, but I decide to respect her privacy instead. It's her place of work and we eat there a lot, and I don't want to embarass her. The manager comes over again to thank me, and of course ends up comping our meal anyway.
Afterwards, I shake and tremble from the adrenalin rush as my muscles slowly release their tension, and for the next few minutes eat like I just fought all of Sparta. My throat spasm disappeared instantaneously the moment that woman called for my help, and is all but forgotten as my body's fight or flight response makes way for its renew-lost-energy response.
I suppose it may seem sentimental but my emotional response in the moment and in the aftermath was gratitude. As frightening as the seizure appeared, I knew she'd be okay, and I felt strangely grateful that I got to understand something I'd never witnessed before. I recall hearing about certain cultures where epileptic fits are taken as shamanism, and I wonder what she saw and felt when she was gone from 'this' world. In the meantime I took my instantaneously appointed role as her guardian as a welcomed education in the human body, compassion, and my own ability to stay calm and focused when chaos drops in on lunch.

Our New Tenant and His Attempts At Redecoration

2008-04-20T16:22:00.000-07:00

To get the full story, go here!

Denver

2008-03-26T11:55:00.000-07:00

As many of you know, S and I took a long weekend and visited Denver to help aid me in making my MSW decision. My preconceived notions about Denver -- mountain town, ski town, athletic town -- were all proved quite wrong.

1) Mountain Town: False. Aside from the fact that 'town' is an obvious misnomer, seeing as it's a city, this concept was proved false because Denver squats on the very last vestiges of the plains that stretch through Nebraska and Kansas. Denver is flat. Denver has gorgeous mountains off in the background. That's about it. Denver also has the flavor of a central/midwest state in that it has more strip malls and housing developments than I thought could possibly be packed into one city. There were at least four Walmart complexes in ONE city, not to mention the Target complexes, the J.C. Penny complexes, the outlet malls, and fast food after fast food after fast food chain. (If I had spotted one Dunkin' Donuts, maybe I would have forgiven Denver. But I didn't. It seems they couldn't spare the extra McDonalds and definitely needed two Long John Silvers.) San Francisco in all its high-and-mightiness tends to eschew major chain stores within city limits: we have our Walgreens and our McDonalds but they are far, far outnumbered by privately owned pharmacies and food places, not to mention all the independent clothing and furniture and art and knick knack shops. Denver was perhaps the complete antithesis, almost as though Denver eschews indepedence. It made me want to start a website listing independent stores in Denver so that if one wants to find them, one can. (Maybe I will!)

To help you understand just how much of Denver is made of "new homes" -- town houses, condos, and McMansions, all painted dull colors to blend in and avoid being even more of an eye sore, I have created this handy jpeg showing just exactly where there are "normal" brick and wood houses in the Denver area:

Seriously, that's it. Not kidding. In the South East corner on the road back up towards Parker there are a bunch of horse ranches. And in Boulder there are some more houses. Otherwise, that tiny little circle in the middle and the one in Englewood is about all we spotted. Fortunately, Englewood is where University of Denver is located, so we might actually get to live in a real house.

2) Ski Town: Inconclusive. I had half expected a Jackson Hole, Wyoming type place, but as reported above, Denver is a plains city. I'm sure the occupants love to ski. There is a train that takes you directly from Denver to the ski resorts. There is lots of skiing to be had within mere hours. But it's not a ski-town per se. It is, after all, a city, and can't cultivate that much cute and yuppie with so many other things to do. Also, I don't ski, so one might question why I care. It's not so much the skiing as it is that ski environments are often rustic and full of great food and cozy scenes, all of which I like. And I do cross country ski -- perhaps I can take that up as a hobby again.

3) Athletic Town: Inconclusive. I am used to California where the equation is something like: (warm + sunny) / most of the time = less clothing + higher levels of vanity = fitter bodies. Denver suffers no such mathematics. But it was March and still somewhat cold so perhaps the athletes were hidden under layers of wool or in the gyms getting ready for hiking season.

This post undoubtedly comes across as negative, as it is conveying my disappointment in Denver, which I foolishly thought I could compare to San Francisco. (I certainly have a whole new appreciation for San Francisco now!) There is one caveat to my experience there, and many things that I like:

Caveat: I caught a head cold the day before I left and was sick the whole time. It wasn't a full body cold, at least, but I did have to spend much of my time in Denver "toughing it out," and so I associate the city with a mild sense of post-nasal nausea.

Things I liked: The zoo. Always love a good zoo. You may recall that on my road trip out to San Francisco, I stopped at the Denver Zoo. Steve and I went again on Saturday. This time we got there around 2pm and it was overcast. Many of the animals were asleep, but many more were inside and restless to eat as the day wore on. The lions in particular were spectacular. One male and three females were in a small pen with a large glass wall and they were hungry. We were treated to lots of small spats and the male lion suddenly deciding to majestically, loudly, well, whine! Think of the ordinary housecat making those repetitive whiney meow noises when they want to be let inside or they're hungry, and then deepen the tone quite a lot and make the melody of it a lot rougher, and boom, that's what we heard. ROOOWW! ROOOWW! ROOOWW! We also walked past the giraffes, which had two babies stirring up each other and the elders, and they have the most eye-boggling run. Because their limbs are so long they appear to be running in slow motion even as they're running at a speed faster than a human can match. It hurts one's brain to watch. Very cool. We saw a lot of beautiful birds in their indoor atriums as well.

We also enjoyed the Wynkoop Brewery, which we found on the first night. The top floor was a pool hall with darts and shuffleboard; the middle floor was a restaurant and bar; and the bottom floor housed an improv comedy troupe and bands. We, of course, hit up the pool hall. It was the only place I took pictures (on my cell phone -- I just kind of forgot to after that):

Steve and I played horrible pool and ended up having a better time playing darts. We have a dartboard at our apartment so both of us got some practice in, and I actually beat him the first round, after which he beat me, after which I think he beat me again, but I can't remember. It was quite close each time. The beer there was quite yummy and the food was solid.

Lastly, Saturday evening after the zoo, we finally found a cute little neighborhood that reminded us of San Francisco: Highland Square. There were real houses there! And independent shops! It reminded us of Cole Valley, in that it was basically a neighborhood centered around one intersection that had shops and restaurants. We found the 8 Rivers Cafe there by chance and I was treated to my first great Caribbean food since Wesleyan. Steve and I both got Jerk Chicken dishes, mine with the traditional rice and plantains, his over pasta. The slow burn commenced, and we were treated to a quiet and reserved snow fall while we ate.

Other things I liked: the view of the mountains was beautiful, and merits exploration time that we could not carve out in one weekend. The vast emptiness of the plains and the blueness of the sky at that altitude made me want to write. Costs are generally cheaper out there, especially things like housing and gas. And the weather is so dry that the environment feels more tolerable. Steve and I stepped out of the airport on the first day and laughed because we were comfortable in t-shirts in 50 degree weather -- no wind and humidity to creep under our clothes and our skin. Our hair and towels dried quickly. And it was, as promised, quite sunny. The horse ranches in close proximity hold the promise of me getting to ride again for the first time in years. The University of Denver has picturesque brick buildings, and holds the promise of a career waiting to be learned.

Initial shock now over -- I think we can make it work. News to follow as it comes!

a big update of small things

2008-02-25T12:30:00.000-08:00

1) I got into University of Denver's Masters in Social Work program. They have a program for animal-assisted therapy that inspired me to apply. It's looking likely that in September I'll be going to school for the first time in 6 years, and finally pointing myself down a career path!

2) S. and I talk about some day opening up a bed and breakfast; little did we know we already have. We've become quite the rest stop for the birds in our neighborhood, many of whom troll our fabulous finch seed diner, and some of whom even sleep for the night on our carpeted porch -- mourning doves in particular seem to like our cozy housing. Our most recents guests have extended their stay -- I guess Oregon Juncos found it a pleasant winter stomping ground, perhaps recommended to them by the house finches who are our daily customers. We also are familiar enough with the birds to notice that we now have white-capped sparrows as well as regular house sparrows partaking of our sumptuous buffet. The scrub jays and humming birds seem to have taken the winter off for now, but we're hoping to see them back when the spring weather rolls in.

3) My hair is the longest it's been probably since Freshman year of high school -- that would be in 15 years! I'm getting cut and colored tomorrow though, as it's fallen into the trap of being so heavy as to lose all body. I don't think I'll go too short -- I'm enjoying the length.

4) How to tell the weather in Oakland if you were somehow unable to see, hear or feel it: the kinder the compliment, the nicer the weather; the more direct the request for money, the worse the weather. On sunny days, especially the first one after a long spell of cold, fog, or rain, I get told I'm beautiful, a supermodel, and I've made someone's day. On lackluster but not particularly ugly days, I'm always asked to smile. And on gross days, everyone cuts to the chase: spare some change?

5) I'm coaching a volleyball team of 13-14 year olds; I'm loving every minute of it. The organization is called the starlings, and I've enjoyed titillating and horrifying the girls with stories of how starlings were brought to the U.S. because they were mentioned in Shakespeare, but now they've become a veritable plague. Of course, I try to spin this as a good thing -- we can be a plague on the court! We'll be a bad disease our opponents can't shake! We'll devour points the way starlings steal resources!
No, it's not really working. But it's still fun to say. :)

6) Buckets. Buckets are the bane of corporate lingo right now. Every time finances come up here, it's bucket this, bucket that. It makes me want to put a bucket on my head and bang it with a wooden spoon until I go deaf. Just saying.

Corp Speak Alert, edition 2

2007-09-13T10:09:00.001-07:00

Come, let's journey down Corporate Etymology Way again. Lately I've been hearing:

Machine: an organization's structure and processes, writ large. E.g.: "We need to fix our machine if we want to get this done."

Siloes: over-specialization among departments. Indicates a need for better communication and even overlaps among departments. E.g.: "Let's tell everyone about the change in this department; we don't want siloes about something so important." Note: this one is so well built into our lexicon where I work that it only just occured to me to think it strange and share it.

Fred has an East Cost update:

Flow-Down: a report communicating decisions from upper-mgt to the rest of the team. E.g.: "Today's flow-down includes the following..."

My final word is a little bit separate from the others because I know its source exactly and there's only one manager here who really abuses it (and I adore her, so this has no bearing on who she is).
Arranger: from the book Now Build Your Strengths, it is defined thusly: "People strong in the Arranger theme can organize, but they also have a flexibility that complements this ability. They like to figure out how all of the pieces and resources can be arranged for maximum productivity." The manager who learned this as one of her 5 strengths has been running with it ever since - now everything is a product of her Arranger strength, from coming up with creative ideas, her interest in staff perks, or just pulling a meeting together, and if you do the same, then you must be an Arranger too! I particularly like this one, though, because I keep hearing it as "A Ranger," and I think of her tromping through the woods in a Park Ranger outfit, helping the trees to organize their leaves and giving the woodland creatures assignments and words of encouragement...

Old building, new building

2007-09-13T09:52:00.000-07:00

About 3 weeks ago, we packed up our old office and moved into a new one 6 blocks away. I have never been a part of this kind of shift before, and so there are lots of small culture shocks I have to get used to.
Today, for example, when I got in the elevator, every single button for every floor was pressed. Had this happened in our old building, I would have considered it a very bad sign -- our old building had 14 floors, and that would have meant there were at least 13 people in the elevator. Our new building has 6 floors, and there were 7 people in the elevator - it was a short and comfortable ride.
Another good example is the bathrooms: Old Building: genders alternated floors, there was only one per floor, everything was manual, there were two stalls per bathroom, entry doors didn't lock, and each had either windows or those squirty smelly air fresheners blasting out canned scents every 10 minutes. New building: both genders on every floor, 3 sets of bathrooms per floor, automated everything -- flushing, sinks, and soap (!) -- three or more stalls per bathroom, keyed in codes for the bathroom entry doors, no windows (at least in the one we we use most frequently), no air fresheners. For some reason the soap is the kicker for me -- automated soap? Who does that? New building does.
There are large things that are different too -- the fact that we have twice as much space, the fact that we moved into a Class A building (i.e. really really nice), the fact that I have my own office -- but those were all known changes. It's the little things that truly reinforce that we moved on -- and up -- in the world.

Pretty much my picture of heaven

2007-07-24T13:44:00.000-07:00

Trilogy

2007-05-02T11:17:00.000-07:00

Today marks my 3 year anniversary at the Donor Network. Remarkable. Not only have I worked here longer than any other job I've had, but I've worked here longer than all my other post-graduation jobs combined!

In honor of this momentous occasion, I wanted to let you know of three new corporate-speak alerts. We all know that the lingo flies fast and furious in an office...but have you heard these recent new-comers to the scene?

Have Energy About: A guarded way to state that you're really worked up and angry about something. E.g.: "Can I talk to you privately about something? I have a lot of energy around it and I need feedback..."

Bucket(s): a way to financially group costs, employees, etc. "Let me know if that event is going to cost a lot because if I have to put it in a different bucket I will."

Operationalize: Taking something theoretical (or not perfectly functional) and making it practical. "We need to work on operationalizing this plan so it makes sense given work flow."

As an addendum, Fred notes that he's hearing a lot of "the reality is..." over in Virginia!

The ultimate in armchair ornithology

2007-05-01T14:41:00.001-07:00

Click here to see the live-Falcon camera up on top of San Jose City Hall: Swoon!

Today I saw:

*Mom and Pop both falling asleep and startling awake depending on the chicks' activity
*Pop shredding a small bird and feeding the chicks
*Pop resting on his very fuzzy brood
*Pop pacing to and from the nest (to stretch legs?) and checking out his surroundings
*Pop taking a quick flight (to stretch wings?) and coming right back
*Mom standing nearby to keep an eye on things

I'm assuming that the lone bird I saw today is the dad, but I might be wrong. I'm looking into it and the easiest way to tell the sexes apart is that the females are 15-20% bigger and usually have slightly darker markings on the belly, and I haven't seen them together frequently enough to be sure...

I'm also guessing that the young are only a couple days old, as the websites say they will separate from each other a bit in the nest after a few days, and right now they're still huddling together. In only a matter of a couple weeks, they'll be growing their feathers and flying!

All right here in sunny San Jose!

Falcon information found here.

Post-script, 5/2/07: Apparently 11am-12pm PDT is nap time for the falcons. Today is the second day I've found them dotingly dozing on the job during this time frame!

Better even than expected

2007-04-26T11:44:00.000-07:00

Two weekends ago, S. and I finished moving everything we own into our new apartment, which is situated up on the side of Twin Peaks, one of the larger but less populated hills in the heart of San Francisco. This past weekend we were able to start building our environment from all the raw material we moved, and sacrificed our extra second bedroom to the clutter gods so that our actual bedroom and our living room could take on a semblance of organization and polish. We could -- and did -- finally, in good conscience, have guests over. We also discovered, to our delight, that S.'s projector can handle high definition cable channels, and we have been completely infatuated with the Discovery-HD channel's Planet Earth series ever since. (Watch it, watch it, watch it. Beautiful, astonishing footage! There was a scene with Birds of Paradise in which the display of a male bird was so surprisingly transforming that everyone watching literally exclaimed out loud "WOW - WHAT WAS THAT??")

Our biggest triumph, however, was our back roof-patio. We are situated in the building thusly:

So as you can see, we have nothing but roof stretching out before us, giving us a spectactular view of the bay. We are asked not to walk out on the roof past our little fenced-in portion of it (as indicated by the rectangle drawn above) as it supposedly weakens it and causes leaks for our neighbors below, but we loooooooove our little fenced-in portion of it so much anyway that it's no big deal. Our major project this past weekend was to find and put up some kind of pleasant barrier to give us more privacy from our neighbors to the left and right (we have a building's light well to the right of our little patio which has windows with a direct view of us, and the building to our left has the same set up as ours so that they can walk out on their patio and look directly on ours) without seeming to be completely unneighborly (to spin on the saying -- pleasant fences make pleasant neighbors). We found some great 6 foot high woven straw matting at Lowe's which we put up that gives the patio a bit of a tiki-feel while still being mildly transparent. We also chose to cut it into a triangle by our neighbors on the left, so we can still poke our heads around it and say hello. (I'll try to take pictures.)

Having this all done by Saturday meant we could bask in the glory of our patio on Sunday, and bask we did. San Francisco was kind and gave us a glorious, mostly-sunny day where we could stretch out on the patio chairs and enjoy that famously mild San Francisco weather. Even then, I got more than I bargained for: the neighbors who live on the top floor of the building to our left have a hummingbird feeder complete with black-chinned hummingbird client who pops by to feed (we ran right out and bought a feeder too!); a mourning dove is nesting in one of our gutters (which, oddly, is one long horizontal piece without a drain in it, (?!?!?) so we cut a small hole in it to drain it of accumulated rain and spare the dove a soggy nest!); two raucous scrub jays came by scouring for food (we bought a feeder and some seed for them too, althought if it attracts pigeons, we'll take it right back down -- fingers crossed); and either a merlin or a prairie hawk flew by (judging purely by the shape of its all-black silhouette against a pale blue sky) being heralded by alarmed smaller birds. And on top of that -- it is so quiet, so away from the city roar of street-cars, large thoroughfares, crowds, taxis, etc., that we can hear all kinds of bird calls, out of which the only ones I can identify so far are mourning doves and crows.

Can you guess? I was in heaven. Home sweet home!

All hail the hale and hearty hail!

2007-02-27T14:45:00.000-08:00

Or as one of the managers I work with put it, "what the hail was that??"

Yes, last night at approximately 9ish pm PST we heard a familiar tap-tap-tapping at our window panes which was not the known rogue agent Jack Frost but was instead his sneaky samurai cousin, Jethro Hail. Only Jethro Hail could have snuck into San Francisco for about two minutes to regale us with morse code for "winter precipitation can happen to YOU!" and indeed, it did. Steve and I ran out to our back stairs and stuck our hands out to find cute little candy sized (think Nerds or Pop-Rocks) nubbins of hail tap-dancing with wee feet on everything around us.

Being the total weather-weenie that I have become after 3 years in San Francisco, I immediately rushed inside and put on a winter coat and then rushed back outside to ogle the little deposits of New England nostalgia still bombarding us.

We got a good two minutes of bonafide precipitation people! I was 30 seconds away from buying a snow blower...

It's been quite the eventful climate week -- a 3.6 quake felt by our office on Friday afternoon, the thunder and hail storm that struck last night, and as I'm typing still another thunderstorm is flashing its wares and gnashing its teeth outside. Highly irregular -- our 'thunderstorms' out here are usually the equivalent of a limp handshake -- lightning that would rather be on its lunch break, thunder that would prefer to hire telemarketers, and rain dropped from a machine whose meter is obviously set on the "low/moist" end of the spectrum, rather than the "high/zero to soaked in 7 seconds" end. Thunder that can actually be heard -- repeatedly -- is, well, unheard of. As is lightning born of something stronger than heat.

On another note -- does anyone know why it's called "hail?"

Move over chameleon!!

2007-02-06T12:34:00.000-08:00

COOL:

Taken from National Geographic:
An Octopus:

A Lion Fish:

An Octopus Mimicking a Lion Fish because they're poisonous:

Release

2007-01-31T10:24:00.000-08:00

For a long, long time now I have had one quotation serve a gentle reminder at the bottom of all of my emails:

"Let the beauty we love be what we do." ~Rumi

When it comes to quotations, particularly those I sign my emails with and see a lot, I tend to be fickle. They last weeks, in rare cases months, until I grow bored, or until I seize on a quotation from something I read and want it around for inspiration or further rumination. This one from Rumi, though, came at a time in my life (I believe something like 2 or more years ago) where I was struggling for so many things and the desire for the reminder was pervasive: in love, in your job, in your friends, in your independence, even in how you comport yourself on a day to day basis -- remind yourself of the beauty you love and let that govern your choices. This, too, necessitates knowing what you find beauty in, giving an added level of depth to the missive. I never cease to get a light frisson when my eyes fall on the quotation -- even now.

That being said, I have finally reached my saturation point with seeing it. I crave newness. Part of it is feeling some accomplishment in finding and doing "the beauty I love" -- I'm ready for a new challenge. Read for a little badinage in my emails, a little extemporaneity (is that a word?? It is now! Hmmm...how fitting). Those of you who get missives from me, be prepared for some fluctuation in the signature line. I did, however, pay small homage to the Rumi quotation by adding it as my scrolling screen saver at work, perhaps one of the most relevant places for such a reminder.

As for this blog, which I have left fallow for such a long time: This post is indeed a sign of a renewal, though I make no promises as to how often and how consistent it will be. I do like writing on a public forum, and at this point I have read enough personal blogs to realize that even the mundane musings of the most random person can still be relevant and interesting, so I feel renewed comfort in tapping out my own maundering mundane musings again.

"Maundering," by the way, is my latest favorite word.

Happy New Year to you all.

Alas, poor Pluto

2006-08-24T09:57:00.000-07:00

Alas, poor Pluto! I knew him a planet: a fellow
of infinite path, of most excellent orbit: he hath
flown him round the earth a thousand times; and now, how
abhorred in Nasa's imagination it is! my gorge rims at
it. Here hung those moons that I have ogled I know
not how oft. Where be your Charons now? your
Nixs? your Hydras? your flashes of astrology,
that were wont to set the hippies on a roar? Not one
now, to mock your own spinning? quite chap-fallen?
Now get you to milky way's chamber, and tell him that
we paint a fine line, to this favour he must
come; make him a dwarf at that.

If you're not catching on...read this.
And for facts about pluto, I went here.

Dormant

2006-08-21T13:33:00.000-07:00

My mom noticed the two month hiatus from the last post and asked me about it. I doubt very many other people are reading this besides my parents, but I think it polite to inform you that this blog is basically taking a note from Haleakala and lying dormant for a bit. I think the time for blogging may have passed, and it is due time to get back to other writing endeavors; plus most of the real updates about my life are too personal to post.

In other words, this blog's initial purpose as a forum for mass-updating has passed. If it speaks to me of another purpose that inspires me to update regularly, well then, it will stay. If it loses its appeal altogether, it will go. For now, I can only advise you to expect no more than the occasional anecdotal update like the one below. If you really miss having a blog in your life...maybe start your own? (~_~)

Seats, Walks, and Books

2006-08-21T13:06:00.000-07:00

I had an illuminating experience today. Upon catching the train to head to work, a young man with Down's Syndrome immediately offered me his seat. I said "oh no, thank you though, please -- stay," thinking to myself, you have D.S., you should keep the seat. I had to laugh when he said, "but you're so tall, you should take the seat." Well met, my friend. I wouldn't have called my physical characteristics a disability either!

An organization in our office building apparently works with all kind of special needs children and adults, as there are many mornings in the week where the lobby will be full of these people as they await buses for a field trip. At first I was nervous -- am I staring? I am not looking enough? Should I smile or is that patronizing? -- but I've since learned that such second-guessing is not necessary. I treat them like anyone else I walk past, a smile if I make eye-contact, but for the most part being non-intrusive. I can't say that I've gotten to the point where I don't think about it when I walk in; I believe that's also because I relish the exposure. There are so many different walks of life that can give one's one life perspective, and daily reminders of perspective certainly don't do any harm.

In that vein, since as far as I know none of you work in my office building, I can recommend a few good books if you're looking for this particular kind of perspective.

1) Expecting Adam, by Martha Beck, a true story about a woman expecting a child with D.S. and the fantastic occurrences that herald his birth (and continue even after he's born). My aunt and mom clued me into this book -- it touched us all.

2) The Memory Keeper's Daughter, by Kim Edwards, which charts the consequences in a family unit when the father secretly chooses to give away a twin born with D.S. while keeping the other. (This happens in the beginning -- I am not spoiling anything, don't worry.)

If you read either of them, please let me know what you think -- and be sure to pass them along to friends and coworkers, or whoever else might be in your book network. These books have a lot to say and need to be heard!

lots of activity

2006-06-20T14:08:00.000-07:00

This weekend S and I had a going away/birthday party. It was fun. We played ring toss again. The drinks were somehow slightly less disgusting than last time. For those of you I may not have indoctrinated yet, ring toss consists of putting the entirety of your liquor collection out, along with a few gross bonuses like vinegar or cooking wine or lemon juice -- and then tossing homemade aluminum foil rings until you land on three, which you then must drink in a shot. Since it's only a shot, you don't get drunk; mostly it's a gross out game. Also -- L made me a pear ginger upside down cake, not remembering that I don't like pears. Fortunately for everyone involved, the pears she'd selected where mild in both pear flavor and pear texture, and it turned out to be delicious. I ate it for breakfast the next couple days. :)

I think I have told most everybody that I am moving to a new apartment. We moved a bunch of stuff and found some furniture and planned some more. It was good. I think we might actually be ready to move in this weekend.

Yesterday morning I threw out my back. I have gotten twinges and soreness before, but this was quite demobilizing -- twin sneezes and suddenly tilting forward or backward causes intense pain. I have never had anything quite like this happen, especially without a known cause -- moving furniture, or playing a lot of volleyball, or whatever. The heating pad and I are once again sharing quality time together.

Oh yeah -- my birthday rocked. I had the actual day off from work, so S brought me up to Napa on Wednesday afternoon where we stayed at an adorable homey B&B, walked around, ate the yuppiest of cuisines, and went wine tasting. We each tried five at one place, split two flights (six total) at another, tried 8 at another automated place where you create a little debit card that you can stick into a machine which then pours 1 oz of whichever wine you choose, with each one pro-rated according to its overall cost, and then I had a glass with dinner. That's 20 -- count 'em -- different wines in one night. The highlight was the first place, which had great picks, and the automated place, which allowed you taste a couple $100 bottles. We tried one at $8.30 for one ounce -- it was a dark, luxurious cabernet. I quickly learned that one way to tell the difference between a bargain basement wine and an expensive wine is that first smell -- cheap wines just smell medicinal (one even smelled like bug spray!), while expensive wines smell like a pantry, or a basket of vegetables, or a freshly planted earthy field. In other words, they don't smell like alcohol, they smell like other smells. It's not a far leap to see how this contributes to their flavor. I also learned that the proper time to decant a wine is a couple hours before you intend to serve it. Cool.

On the way home, we were passing by a six flags and though, why not? It turned out to be a great day for it. Being a week day and still early enough in summer not to be too inundated by families, the lines were fairly short and the crowds were manageable. We rode some great coasters, ate some greasy grub and dippin' dots (which are always an interesting taste sensation) and spent about 5 or so hours being, well, amused. They also had a sea world there and we ended up catching a show in which a dolphin and an orca swam around and showed off -- together. That was a first, and pretty fun to watch.

It's been a great last few days and a wonderful birthday. We're smack dab in the middle of a huge transition, but everything's going smoothly. In a few weeks time, we'll be starting a whole new phase of life.

Which reminds me, I signed up for the GRE in August. It's about time to start planning ahead.

Warning: extreme cuteness content below

2006-06-09T10:27:00.000-07:00

This one HAD to get a mention on my blog. It is just too cute. SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

I would post it here but photographer has set it up so you can't capture her pics. The Cat's Jungle pictures of animals are awesome -- she's a regular at the San Francisco Zoo. But it's her otter set that has totally captivated me. They are so photogenic and adorable. I believe that's why this photoshopped pic rings so true. :)

Oh my goodness, it's nearly unbearable...the further along you go in the set, the cuter they are.

See? Otter cuteness even makes the otters squeal!
(This is from a different photographer all together...I'm just illustrating.)

House Finch

2006-06-06T09:42:00.000-07:00

That lovely bird in my profile photo is a house finch. I found Larry Hamrin's photo collection on Flickr; he is a talented photographer of all manner of birds, and was willing to share this photo for the sake of a pun on my last name.

Larry if you see this -- thanks again!

Changes afoot

2006-06-05T12:13:00.000-07:00

Most of you know by now...

Steve is moving (states, possibly even countries).
I am moving (neighborhoods).
Life is moving along.

Eh-adventures indeed!

We are having a going-away party on the 17th of June -- if you would like to go, email me. (Or leave a comment.)

Hurrah!

Record breaking month for organ donation

2006-06-05T11:49:00.000-07:00

In the month of May, 2006 the nation saw 733 donors in a single month. This is the first time the nation has seen the 700 donor mark...

Consider this:
The first time we reached the 400 donor/month benchmark was July, 1990.
The first time we reached the 500 donor/month benchmark was April, 1998 (~8 years later).
The first time we reached the 600 donor/month benchmark was May, 2004 (~6 years later).
The first time we reached the 700 donor/month benchmark was May, 2006 (~2 years later).

800 donors per month -- here we come!

Top O' The Bottom

2006-05-17T15:01:00.000-07:00

My coed volleyball team played in our league playoffs last night and won!
'Cept what we won was the "silver pool" of our league. The league manager splits each league into two based on their season record; the top 6 or so teams play for the "gold" title and the bottom five teams or so play for the "silver" title.

So we won the silver, which means we're top of the bottom.

Got a clever way to say it? Stuff I've thought of:

Best of the Worst
Champions, Lite!
Halfway Fabulous
Champions, Jr.
Masters of the Molehill

I welcome further teasing!

Arthur Jackson

2006-04-11T15:06:00.000-07:00

The modern day Patron Saint of San Francisco died yesterday morning: Arthur Jackson.

I knew him as the hands-on owner of Jackon Personnel, a temp agency in the city specializing in non-profit jobs. I walked into his office one day last March and had a month long non-profit temp job the very next day. This is also the man who, when that ended, placed me here at the donor network. The man who found me some permanence in a city known for its high cost and instability. He handled everything in that agency; I have no idea what will happen to it now.

In my short time getting to know him, I learned that he was a kidney recipient, the former Public Health Commissioner in San Francisco, and more recently appointed to the Commission on Homelessness -- he even brought me to one of the meetings as a public member, so I could learn more about the city perspective on homelessness. His agency was the donor network's source for administrative assistants; in fact, we only went to him. I sent five of my friends to him for jobs, with my full recommendation for his abilities.

Because he was such a public figure, so involved and so vocal, I figure the best way to eulogize him would be to do a search for him on the San Francisco Chronicle's site. Here's some of what I found, which paints a picture of the man he was:

"Arthur Jackson, a dynamo in local government and business, got a phone call Tuesday afternoon: ``Mr. Jackson, have we got a kidney for you!'' Jackson has been on dialysis for six years, waiting, a dynamo cut to half power by a funky organ. Yesterday, he got his kidney. Arthur runs Jackson Personnel Agency and has been commissioner of the Public Health Dept. and the Commission on Aging. This is your man if you're looking for someone who gives his heart to the city. So Arthur getting a kidney seems like a fair trade." 1/13/00, Scott Osler

"Among the impressive new candidates [...and...] likely to provide clear, fresh thinking at City Hall are Casey, a business consultant, and Jackson, an employment agency owner. They both display the energy and inclination to demand government accountability. For a board with fortitude and balance, we recommend Kaufman, Katz, Yaki, Marquez, Casey and Jackson." Editorial, 10/25/96, re: Board of Supervisors election

"For Arthur Jackson of San Francisco, ``helping out'' was something he observed growing up in his Chicago neighborhood. ``Maybe there wasn't anybody to borrow money from, but if someone got sick, everyone cooked something and brought it over,'' said Jackson, who has volunteered most of his adult life, helping seniors and youths and working on public health issues." 9/13/99, Thomas Ruppaner

"[Mayor Willie] Brown spoke about Arthur Jackson, a member of the city's Commission on Aging who finally received a kidney transplant after waiting four years for a new organ. ``He had spent full time over the past four years wondering if his life would be snuffed out,'' said Brown. ``Finally, just about four months ago, Arthur got the kidney. I had the great pleasure this past week to swear Arthur in for another term on the commission. He looks totally and dramatically different.''" 4/17/00, Jonathan Curiel

"If you need a job done right, you give it to Arthur Jackson, businessman and community activist, and imagine what Arthur could do if he didn't spend half his waking hours hooked up to a dialysis machine. Tomorrow afternoon, Arthur will be sworn in by Willie Brown to serve on the city's Commission on Aging. It's one item on Jackson's list titled ``Things to do while waiting for a new kidney.''" 1/20/99, Scott Osler

"Arthur Jackson, who serves on the Commission on Aging, wanted more money for senior services. He said at least $2 million is needed - for meal programs, legal advocacy, housing support and transit, among other services. He and other senior activists said waiting lists for food programs include many elderly. "We must have a zero tolerance for hungry seniors," Jackson said." 6/20/99, Rachel Gordon

"Arthur Jackson, local business and political figure, is a compassionate champion of the underdog. It's his life. But recently Arthur has been haunted by the memory of a kid from his high school. ``Ronnie Gebron,'' Jackson says. ``He was fat, had red hair and freckles and wore glasses. That's the grand slam of nerdiness, isn't it? We were never kind to him in four years. He must have been angry.'' Arthur was a high school jock, a soccer star. The scariest thing he and his pals could imagine was to be seen being nice to a Ronnie Gebron. And sweet Jesus, what if Ronnie somehow showed up at a party? ``Why was I like that?'' Jackson says. ``I wasn't brought up that way. And it was a Quaker school. But they never once told us, `You've got to be nice.' We have to teach that.''" 5/19/99, Scott Osler

Queen Anne's Lace

2006-03-31T12:39:00.000-08:00

Steve has a friend, Anne. Anne has a husband, Alex. Alex and Anne moved to Laos about a year ago. Anne posts about it on occasion.

Anne's writing is complex and playful. Her latest post is gorgeous. An exploration of hell, physical, personal, religious, ending at the crossroads.

I am always impressed by Anne's writing, but this time I liked this post so much I had to share it with you.

Does it come as a surprise to you that Anne worked at a company that published children's books while she was here? Probably not. (~_~)

Complex instincts and Simple thought

2006-02-28T14:35:00.000-08:00

A very interesting article about how best to employ your conscious and subsconscious minds...

Want to make a complicated decision? Just stop thinking
·Tough problems 'best left to the unconscious mind'·
Psychologist questions merit of serious thought
Alok Jha, science correspondent
Friday February 17, 2006The Guardian

Here's a suggestion for the next time you need to make a complicated decision: stop thinking. According to a new study, thinking too hard about a problem leads to poor choices - difficult decisions are best handled by our unconscious minds. While most people are happy to buy a new set of towels without much thought, they are unlikely to buy a new car or house without some serious thought. But Ap Dijksterhuis, a psychologist at the University of Amsterdam, argues that we might be getting these methods of decision-making the wrong way around.
He asked volunteers to pick their favourite car from a list of four based on a set of four attributes including fuel consumption and passenger leg room. He gave them four minutes to think about their decision and most people chose the car with the most plus points. When Dr Dijksterhuis made the experiment more complex - 12 attributes rather than four - people could only identify the best car a quarter of the time. This result was no better than choosing at random.
However, when the researchers distracted the participants after showing them the cars (by giving them puzzles to do before asking participants to make their choices), more than half picked the best car. "Conscious thinkers were better able to make the best choice among simple products, whereas unconscious thinkers were better able to make the best choice among complex products," wrote Dr Dijksterhuis in a paper, published today in Science.
The problem with thinking about things consciously is that you can only focus on a few things at once. In the face of a complex decision this can lead to giving certain factors undue importance. Thinking about something several times is also likely to produce slightly different evaluations, highlighting inconsistencies.
"Participants who chose their favourite poster among a set of five after thorough contemplation showed less post-choice satisfaction than participants who only looked at them briefly," said Dr Dijksterhuis.
He added that unconscious thinking does not seem to suffer the capacity limit: "It has been shown that during unconscious thought large amounts of information can be integrated into a evaluative summary judgment."
Jonathan Schooler of the University of British Columbia in Vancouver told Science that, while the new study builds on evidence that too much reflection is detrimental in some situations, he is not yet ready to dispense with conscious thought when it comes to complex decisions. "What I think may be really critical is to engage in [conscious] reflection but not make a decision right away," he said.
Dr Dijksterhuis said that when an important decision comes up he gathers together the relevant facts and gives it all of his attention at first. Then, he told Science: "I sit on things and rely on my gut."

Beethoven's 5th Drilling

2006-02-23T10:52:00.000-08:00

The DDS that I go to offers you headphones and a discman with an assortment of cds to listen to during his procedure. Yesterday I selected disc 2 of "Favorite Beethoven" because it has Fur Elise on it, and I figured that would be soothing. And it was. Today I figured I'd stick with the theme and listened to disc 1.

I am fully convinced that there is no more appropriate song to be listening to while awaiting the dentist's drill than Beethoven's 5th Symphony. You know, the one that goes:

dunh dunh dunh DUNH!!
dunh dunh dunh DUNH!!

The one that exemplifies tension and trauma and anxiety all comingled together and resulting in constant explosions with resounding silence...and then starts all over again.
Not that this is what the dentist is actually like. Just that this is what *waiting* for the dentist to *drill* is like.

Last night at about 9:30pm the pain in my jaw and teeth on the right side finally ebbed away, and they have been fine ever since. Now that the anesthetic is wearing off on my left side, I could use a little Moonlight Sonata until about 9:30pm.

I'm going to rush off to my amazon wish list and put Favorite Beethoven on it right now! Any self-respecting "Elise" should own it anyway.

Toodles!

Chompers

2006-02-22T16:39:00.000-08:00

For the first time in maybe 4? 5? years I went to get my teeth tortured today.

Okay, so tortured is a bit much. More like mildly irritated. But it didn't tickle!

Got three fillings replaced and a deep cleaning...on just the right side of my mouth.

Left side goes tomorrow -- but just one filling and a deep cleaning.

I am feeling pretty sorry for myself right now -- the anesthetic has worn off and I'm achey by way of both jaw and tension headache -- but I'm glad it's finally done. Both Mom and I have been trying to guilt myself to go for ages. ;-)

In two weeks, this will be but a distant memory as I relax on the shores of HAWAII. Woot!

And a happy belated Valentines day to you all, too.

The Second LIVING HEART DONOR I've ever heard of!

2006-02-03T15:20:00.000-08:00

From http://abcnews.go.com/Health/story?id=1569963:

Feb. 2, 2006 — Two babies made medical history earlier this month after they successfully underwent an extremely rare procedure known as domino heart transplant surgery, according to Columbus Children's Hospital in Ohio.
Five-month-old Jason Wolfe, born with primary pulmonary hypertension, needed a new set of lungs. Because of his condition, his doctors knew a lung transplant would work better if he also received a new heart at the same time.
And that meant that his heart, which was otherwise healthy, could be donated to another baby — and that's precisely what was done on Jan. 14 during a 12-hour surgery in which Jason received a new heart and lungs from a deceased donor, and Jason's heart was transplanted into Kayla Richardson, a three-month-old baby born with a single ventricle in her heart.
According to the hospital, the procedure was historic because it was the first time domino heart transplant surgery had been performed on patients so young anywhere in the world, making Jason the youngest living heart donor and Kayla the youngest recipient.
There have only been 12 infant heart-lung transplants performed in the United States, because timing and tissue matching can be tricky.
"It really is a quite rare event because everything has to fall into place," said Dr. Tim Hoffman, director of the heart transplant program at the hospital.
Saving Two Lives at Once
Though rarely performed, this type of procedure helps save two lives at one time.
"Without the use of this domino transplant, most likely Kayla wouldn't have had the opportunity to get a transplant and most likely would not have survived," said Dr. Todd Astor, medical director of the lung and heart-lung transplant program at the hospital.
So far, everything seems OK with the babies. The rarity of the procedure makes their long-term prognosis hard to predict.
"At this point, we're just so excited that he even has a future, that whatever future he has we'll just cherish every day," said Mike Wolfe, Jason's father.
No matter what happens now, the two families feel inextricably linked as well.
"I'm close to Kayla because she's my daughter. But I also feel close to Jason because it feels like we're connected now," said Rebecca Lovins, Kayla's mother.

The Significance of February 15th

2006-02-01T15:00:00.000-08:00

It is now February. You know what that means.
My mom's Birthday on the 19th? Yes.
Valentine's day on the 14th? Yes.
Black History month? Yes.

But you know what else it means -- the annual renewal that alters lives, affects relationships, and changes the course of the entire universe as we know it?

The day after Valentine's day is the day that the drug stores put out their Easter candy.

This means Cadbury Mini Eggs and Cream Eggs.

In 15 days people. 15.

Prepare.

Wedding Crasher pummeled by Angels in America

2006-01-17T15:03:00.000-08:00

After hearing so many glowing accounts of it, my friends and I rented the Wedding Crasher last night. So lame. So incredibly lame. The first 20 minute montage was funny, and then the movie derails, and becomes tired Frat Pack schtick.

The movie makes one despise men and women alike -- more so because the men and women in the movie are such incredible stereotypes of men and women. Women are either glowing adorable angels, or psychotic. Men are either effete, pathological artists, or uber-competitive shallow pranksters. These stereotypes can be used to great effect when presented in a tongue in cheek or satirical manner. This movie doesn't have that kind of self-awareness. It just has its improbable scenarios and the supposed charisma of the actors to rely on, and that collapses as soon as the premise is introduced and illustrated.

Lastly -- every bride and groom I know pour over the guest lists for their wedding, agonizing about who they're inviting (and not inviting), who to seat where, and how to pay for it all. Two guys suddenly showing up claiming to be distant relatives would be zeroed out and caught so quickly that this movie's premise is incredible to begin with -- NOT CREDIBLE. Not credible in a sci-fi or fantasy movie is one thing. Not credible in a romantic comedy is another. Failure. Don't rent it!

Ugh.

So to redeem my wasted afternoon and convince my eyeballs to trust me enough to guide their use ever again, I put in Angels in America, the 6 part HBO fictional series based on a broadway play documenting the early years of the AIDS epidemic. And redemption it was. The series is so beautiful -- it handles terror and belief with a masterful hand -- its writing is superb -- its subject weighty without being too heavy handed -- and every single actor/actress is absolutely compelling and realer than real. I only watched 4 of the 6 chapters but I was awe-struck with the thoughtfulness and care committed to the topic. There are themes that are noticeable and yet still subtle -- like having one actor play several roles to draw a subtle similarity between the roles -- such as Emma Thompson, who plays a nurse, an angel, and a homeless psychotic (all of the emissaries with weighty messages); or Meryl Streep who plays a Mormon mother, a pedantic Rabbi, and the ghost of Ethyl Rosenberg (all of them strong moral compasses in the movie).

If you can get past some of the vivid physical decay and destruction portrayed by those who have AIDS, you will see such a beautiful series with a powerful message...personally, I have yet to finish it but I already feel 'spoken' to.

In non-indoor news, this weekend we went for a walk in Golden Gate Park -- meandered through the botanical gardens, which were fun and relaxing -- and saw what I believe was a Red-Shouldered Hawk. They're common to forests in Florida and California though uncommon elsewhere, and this one's pine-tree perch and distinctive set of white bands across its tail led me to identify it. I've had a surprising amount of raptor luck since I've moved out here -- could it be the pigeons? (~_i)

1 W-2

2006-01-10T15:36:00.000-08:00

I received my W-2 for 2005 today. Why is that significant?

Because this marks the first year in 5 years where I only have one -- where I only worked for one organization all year.

In 2004, I worked for 3; in 2003, I worked for 3; in 2002, I worked for 2; in 2001 I worked for 2; in 2000 I worked for 2; 1999 is the last time I worked for 1...

...ahh, 1999. That was a landmark year in job history too. That was the first year where I left my summer job at the bakery when my junior year in college started, but came back to work there over Christmas break (the landmark part being that it was the first time in the history of my summer employment that I bothered to come back!). I loved that job. It was high stress, early mornings, and full of big egos -- egos that it seemed I was captain at soothing and amongst whom it seemed only I could negotiate, short of the owner's edict. It was mayhem and madness and anal retention and hilarity and endless inside jokes that come from being in a confined space together doing something tedious for too long. And I had a crush on two of the people who worked there. It was great.

So this year I'm going to do my taxes like it's 1999, but tonight I'm going to raise a toast to the bakery (terrible pun -- get it?) with a glass of hard-earned wine.

Hoorah!

I'll be home for Christmas part III

2005-12-20T14:14:00.000-08:00

Which "rhymes with 'if only in my dreams'" variation is most suitable to my annual return home to Connecticut? I'm leaving tonight, so I give you, dear reader, the choice:

I'll be home for Christmas,
You can count on me.
Please have snow and mistletoe
And presents under the tree.
Christmas Eve will find me,
Where the love light gleams.
I'll be home for Christmas,
_________________.

a) listening to mom's parrots scream!
b) drinking dunkin' donuts coffee (which is mostly cream)!
c) cheering for my tundra bowl team!
d) watching gutter icicles gleam!
e) admiring the hot tub's steam!

Happy Holidays!

Unprecedented

2005-12-20T14:11:00.000-08:00

I left home at 8:15am today. I got into work at 8:35am. I never dipped below 40 miles per hour on the bridge, whose speed limit, I believe, is usually 50mph by law and 15mph by practice.

Happy Holidays to ME!! People need to take vacations more often!! If only every morning could be THAT easy!

Cheerfully yours,

EHH

Not Terribly Clever

2005-12-06T16:06:00.000-08:00

You're all probably familiar with the myriad names that a spoof or spam email will use to get their emails past your spam detector. "Thurnbockle Snogglesworth" has sent you an email entitled "BEST STOCKS ACT NOW," for example.

Which is why I had to laugh when I opened my spam folder to be sure an email wasn't accidentally diverted into it, and saw maybe the least clever cover name I'd ever seen attached to a spam email.

It said, simply: PARASITE.

Ha ha ha -- I'm a cheap date!!

2005-12-05T17:04:00.000-08:00

My blog is worth $564.54.
How much is your blog worth?

Driving Miss Piggy

2005-12-05T15:15:00.000-08:00

I left the house at 8:05am today, and got to work at 8:40am.
I left the house at 8:15am on Thursday and got to to work at 9:15am.

There is no calculating Calicommuting...you just leave a little early and cross your fingers.

Last night S. and I had a baking fest. Don't know what inspired us exactly -- he got a hankering to bake a pumpkin pie, because it's one of the only sweets he likes, and because he's not "a baker" and wants to start learning. So I gave him my favorite pumpkin pie recipe and we dug up a graham cracker crust recipe (which we used old girl scout shortbread cookies for -- at last!! a use!!) and he buckled down to bake (or should I say, bakled down?)

I got a hankering for bread. Hadn't used the ol' bread machine in a bit, and hadn't yet used the birthday book o' bread baking recipes (or should I say, the broeakingday o' recipes? Hmm, that one didn't work so well...) I got from L., so I dug up a yummy sounding recipe and another yummy sounding recipe, and made a bread machined loaf of parmesan olivey goodness and an traditional oven baked loaf of Pumpkin bread, substituting the 1/2 cup of oil in the recipe with cinnamon applesauce as a low fat option, thanks to a trick my stepmother taught me.

The parmesan olive one kinda came out a little shrunken and none of the olives incorporated into the inside of the loaf -- so it has a very elaborate crust!! But it still came out okay and is quite flavorful. And the pumpkin bread is too moist. I didn't think pumpkin bread could be too moist, but I cooked it at a slightly lower temperature than was recommended -- so S. could bake his pie at the same time -- and I'm wondering if some of that moisture was meant to burn off? Or was it the applesauce substitute? Dunno.

S. reports that his pie tastes great, though the crust is stuck to the pan. So I guess it was a moral victory for us -- sheer creativity points -- rather than an awesome success.

I have been getting over a cold. I seem to get one annually, and this one came right on the heels of my flight back from VA, so it makes sense. I think yesterday may have been my first full day of energy post-cold, which may explain the sudden burst of baking endeavors...

Happy Christmas Season!

Superhero or Cleaner?

2005-11-18T15:22:00.000-08:00

This is pretty funny!

http://www.bbspot.com/News/2005/11/superhero_quiz.php

I only got 12 out of 20 -- it is harder than you think!

Vegetable Victory and Vitamin Value

2005-11-18T11:32:00.000-08:00

Last night, after a long day and a lengthy gym workout, I was desperately craving pasta -- rich, cheese-laden rigatoni with italian sausage in the marinara sauce. Instead I walked to the supermarket and bought italian and yellow squash, mushrooms, an onion, and some canned diced tomatoes and made up a little ragout-like saute instead, like my mom used to make. Which she then would put over some angel-hair pasta.

Which I did not. I did put it over a half a cup of cooked white rice. But I was led not into pasta consumption, for I delivered myself some vegetables.

It was good.

Also, I've started taking a multi-vitamin, daily. I have proof that my body is absorbing and benefiting from this practice -- my fingernails grow like nobody's business, but more noticeably, they don't break or chip any more. Previously they've grown pretty fast but have an upper-limit of length because they chip and shred after a certain point. These days I've had to file those suckers down twice since I started taking the vitamins, because they're getting in the way of me comfortably typing!!

Aside from Veggies and Vitamins, things trundle on like normal. Hope you all are well. (~i_i)

Life Quiz

2005-10-31T15:31:00.000-08:00

Thanks to Jack for posting his first...

This Is My Life, Rated
Life:	7.1
Mind:	7.2
Body:	6.8
Spirit:	7.9
Friends/Family:	5
Love:	6.9
Finance:	7.7
Take the Rate My Life Quiz

It's kind of a bland quiz -- it just sort of rates how healthy each of these factors is. My life is "on a good path" -- apparently. "Your friends and family score is not bad but can be improved. Maintain your current social net, while you try to expand it. Try new things and form new friendships. You will be rewarded greatly." I think this quiz is predisposed to believe that three to five good friends is too low. I disagree. I think the people who are close to me are great at support, healthiness and dependability. So there!

Halloweeeeeee!

2005-10-31T15:05:00.000-08:00

Hey everyone,

I had a great Halloween weekend. Steve has started accompanying me to ROCK, the kids organization I volunteer with, and so this Saturday morning was their costume celebration. I put on some tiger pants I hadn't worn in 5 years (ow, were they tight!), ears, a tail, and some tigery eye make up, and Steve dressed as a 'giants fan.' So many cute costumes -- little American Idols, Devils, Samurais, one Human Torch, some Scream masks that "dripped blood" -- Halloween is really all about kids age 6-12, so it was fun to get to be with them. Steve, by the way, is a hit with the 5th grade boys. They want to sumo wrestle him, sword fight him, beat him in basketball...it's really cute. I, on the other hand, seem to be a hit with the 4th grade girls (which was probably my happiest year at Rumsey...interesting) -- especially the ones who find themselves on the margins. It's still hard to get up early on Saturday morning, but even more fulfilling to be making lots of connections with these kids. This weekend is the last one of the season, to resume in January.

Saturday night was our friends 3rd annual halloween party, as well as Steve's best friend's 30th birthday (he got the "best depressing statement of the night award" by saying, Welcome to your Fourth Decade!). My friends had cooked up a fairie theme, Leslie was an Autumn fairie, Laura was a Winter fairie, Sarah (their new house mate and a friend of mine from Wes) was Spring, and another friend, Becca, was Summer. To fit myself into this theme with some degree of autonomy, I went as a Night fairie, or Night personified, and Steve, game as he always is, went as...you guessed it...Day. When we thought of it, it clicked like a pair of red sequin heels: night and day. I rocked a black bob wig, a black vintage eightie's dress with lots of tulle in the skirt, black wings, dark make up, false eyelashes with shimmery beads on the end, and stars and moons where ever I could draw or stick them (though they didn't stay stuck long). Steve found a flamey colored tunic, a sun mask, some flamey wings, and some orangey gold tights. He vaguely looked like a Mexican Wrestler, which led us to call him El Sol all night. He was a hit where ever we went, not just for sheer bravery points. Also, we got to use our latest word of the day -- together we formed a Nycthemeron, which is a 24 hour period. (~_-)

Email me if you must see pictures. (^_^)

And today -- the actual day of Halloween -- I re-donned the wig, threw on some dark make up and some red lips and a black dress and some black boots -- kinda going as a 1920's vamp...only to find that NO ONE IN MY OFFICE DRESSED UP.

Um...can we say, "salient"?

But if I've learned anything, it's that I can "do" goth or "go" black if I "wanted" to. Lots o' compliments, double takes, and extra visits to my desk.

It's been nice to transform 3 times in a row. I hope you all got equal opportunities for rebirths, be it cosmetic or metaphysical...Happy Dark and Scary Day!

Also -- thanks to 2Dad for the card and to Mom and Steve for the care package. Always a pleasure to receive honest-to-goodness mail. Kisses!

In neglect, the Mountains Stood in Haze

2005-10-25T14:00:00.000-07:00

A. called me a couple days ago and reminded me of a few of my favorite poems I'd dug up in my college days. I'm grateful because I'd almost forgotten they'd existed, but I used to love them so much that so much as the first few syllables escaped his lips and I was spouting the lines with him.

Here they are:

In Neglect, by Robert Frost

They leave us so to the way we took
As two in whom they were proved mistaken,
That we sit sometimes in the wayside nook,
With mischievous, vagrant, seraphic look,
And try if we cannot feel forsaken.

An excerpt from The Mountains Stood in Haze, by Emily Dickinson

So soft upon the scene
The act of evening fell
We felt how neighborly a thing
Was the invisible.

Follow your passion...even if you want to eat your city

2005-10-25T10:46:00.000-07:00

My friend L found this. It was too cool not to post.

http://www.lizhickok.com/assets/portfolio/pages/01city.html

Random poem, revisited

2005-10-13T11:53:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite poetry sites is the plagiarist.com, where users type in their favorite poems, and after verification, they get posted and can be commented on, discussed, etc. They also have a feature for generating a random poem, and today's random poem was one that I not only knew, but has a line I absolutely love. Here's the poem reproduced, and with my favorite line in italics:

Autumn Daybreak
Edna St. Vincent Millay

Cold wind of autumn, blowing loud
At dawn, a fortnight overdue,
Jostling the doors, and tearing through
My bedroom to rejoin the cloud,
I know—for I can hear the hiss
And scrape of leaves along the floor—
How may boughs, lashed bare by this,
Will rake the cluttered sky once more.
Tardy, and somewhat south of east,
The sun will rise at length, made known
More by the meagre light increased
Than by a disk in splendour shown;
When, having but to turn my head,
Through the stripped maple I shall see,
Bleak and remembered, patched with red,
The hill all summer hid from me.

The whole poem has a lot to say -- that impending cold and bleakness can reveal as much as light and warmth -- but the line I italicized strikes a chord with me as a reminder that --evolution, change, the light at the end of the tunnel -- the things we strive for -- so often show up as a "meagre light increased" than as "a disk in splendour shown."

Sometimes what reveals progress most is simply the guts, not the glory.

Hesychasts

2005-10-05T16:26:00.000-07:00

I've been hearing the phrase 'navel gazing' boundied* about for a while, and today I finally decided to see from whence it came.

Found an unexpected answer here -- it came from monks!!

*so this is obviously not a word. I didn't even notice it at first. I meant to say "bandied about" or "bounced around" and got "boundied." I stand by my completely made up word -- it's obviously divine inspiration as a direct result of hesychasm.

Yes Please!!

2005-09-28T14:22:00.000-07:00

Check it out -- a new twist on an old idea...

Cell Phone Booth!

Now, do they make any for cars?

Playing Catch Up

2005-09-28T11:48:00.000-07:00

Hey guys,

Last week was very busy as is this week, but I've noticed my energy levels are revving back up, so I'll try to post more often. Great things have happened in the interim since I last wrote -- firstly, two (more!) of Steve's friends got married up in Healdsburg -- one of the more awesome weddings I've been to. It was a traditional Jewish wedding, and everyone totally got into it, Jewish or not -- singing to get the couple to come out and sign the ketubah (sp??), crying at their vows, laughing at their foibles; at the reception: hoisting them up in chairs, forming a circle and doing goofy little skits and dances to make them laugh, and going even further -- doing the wave during dinner, creating cheers for each individual table (which were named after obscure islands -- we sat at Palau), and everyone in the room squinting one eye and shouting "ARRRRR!" like a pirate at the best man's behest. It was one of the most participatory weddings I have ever seen, and it was awesome.

The second major event was Steve's "3rd annual 29th birthday," as he likes to put it. This past Saturday we threw a little late afternoon barbecue and lots of people came -- the last guest didn't leave until 7 hours later!! We created a new drinking game too, one whose premise is not based on getting smashed, but rather, based on guts. Succinctly, we called it ring toss. Between my birthday and his birthday and people showing up bearing booz,e we had a lot more alcohol than we could have ever anticipated, and people were daunted by what to mix. Rather than maturely suggest common drink combinations, we created three foil rings and willing volunteers threw them until they landed on three different bottles -- which they then combined in a shot and drank.

I know warning bells may be going off in your head, so let me tell you the parameters:
1) no one was forced -- to play you had to volunteer
2) you only mixed 3 things
3) there were lots of standard non-alcoholic mixers on the table, including some wild cards -- rice vinegar, pepper shaker, home-made hot-pepper infused vodka, etc.
4) the ring-tosser got to choose their own quantity of each ingredient, and these only combined to the size of a shot, so no one got ill
5) we only played three rounds

Immature, gross, and hilarious, but by no means a road to getting smashed, which is why it was fun. Actually, the most fun part was coming up with terrible names for the things we had to drink, most of which aren't reproducible here. One of the grossest ones, for example, was named "living death" by its drinker -- lemon juice, beer, and tequila rose -- which for the uninitiated is a creme liqueur that tastes like an ever so slightly alcoholic strawberry milkshake -- the key word involved here is "Curdle."

What really counts though is that Steve had a fabulous time and felt very loved and celebrated. (A shout out to Mom and HerSt for their generous gifts -- S. was tickled pink and especially ecstatic over the slicer, as you well know! We also received the best buy g.c., though it didn't say it was from you so I had to tell him.)

Other than that, I've been working hard, trying to get to the gym at least twice a week, reading some great books (I think you will very much enjoy Mary Doria Russell's The Sparrow and its sequel Children of God -- read them if you can), and trying to relax when I can. This weekend volunteering starts up again, next week volleyball starts up again -- oh, by the way, we were league champions for our division this past season -- woohoo!! -- and tonight I'm going to an A's game.

Life is good. Hope the same can be said for you.

Horsie!

2005-09-15T10:07:00.000-07:00

So a funny thing happened on the way to work this morning -- driving down Telegraph in Oakland I see someone on horseback at the side of the road. I was fully prepared to assume it was some loon taking the urban frontier back, but it was a policeman. "Cool," I thought, "wish I could take a picture," and drove on.

When I got to work, I needed coffee -- got lots of meeting minutes to polish. So I trot on over to the coffee joint and who should I see at the intersection but a mounted policeman. "Cool," I thought, "if he's still there when I come out, maybe I'll see if I can take a picture."

He was. I walked up and politely asked to take his pic, and turns out he was very friendly and handsome -- gave me an open smile (while his equally handsome horse turned to inspect me -- probably smelled the sugary cinnamon bun in the bag), and even asked if we wanted him to face or pose a certain way.

"Nope, just a smile will do."

Not one to be passive, he gently tugged his horse ("Rocko?" I think was his name) to look at the camera.

Et voila. I had mentioned that I wanted the pic because it was such a rare thing to see, and he said that was no surprise, because there was only one of him. So it was the same man I saw driving in.

The one mounted policeman in Oakland.

Oh man, do I miss horses. "Rocko?" was very blase and matter of fact about the whole interaction, obviously well accustomed to his rider, traffic, and pedestrians. Aside from that distracting whiff of cinnamon sugar, he was ready for a pleasant amble or a sudden burst of action. How well I remember that attitude from all the bomb-proof trail riding antics of camp horses, or the bond that formed with my favorite horse of all back when I used to take lessons -- Tasha, a long, tall drink of horse water who used to take me around at a break-neck canter and rub her head against my back when we were walking to cool down.

*Sighs.*

Might be time to look into some riding lessons around here, or to take a vacation in Montana -- if only to get my fix.

Alabama, Louisana and Mississippi OPO's

2005-09-06T10:35:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone,

While I'm lucky enough not to have close friends or family left behind in the path of the hurricane, I do have "coworkers" there by virtue of the organ donation community. I thought I would let you know that everyone in the Alabama, Lousiana and Mississippi OPOs (Organ Procurement Organization) -- Alabama Organ Center (AOC), Louisana Organ Procurement Agency (LOPA) and Mississippi Organ Recovery Agency (MORA) -- escaped unharmed, and they are continuing their operations out of alternate locations, and working on getting their technology back in light of the power outages. Not surprisingly, the hospitals they work so closely with are overwhelmed, but everyone is making a valiant effort to lend a hand -- each OPO to its hospitals and the hospitals to continue to refer potential organ donors where possible -- and of course all 3 OPOs have had numerous offers from the OPO community to back them up with man power, resources, etc.

All of it in the hopes of continuing to donate life (and/or quality thereof) in a death-heavy time. I truly love my job. We combat death and aid the severely ill every day, and in times like these, are particularly well equipped and quick to help.

I encourage all of you who feel helpless in the face of such wide-scale death to put some thought into donating organs and tissue, and if you decide that is what you want to do, make sure it's documented and discussed with your closest kin.

Otherwise, I wish love, light and courage to everyone facing the (personal, professional, and psychological) reconstruction of the coastal south.

Take care and lots of love,

Elise

p.s. in case you noticed, I deleted the "where I've been" post because it screwed up my side bar. Interestingly enough, Mississippi, Alabama and Louisiana were all on my "I don't think I've been" list. A lost chance for me...but I will be happy to put some tourism money into the reconstruction efforts by visiting soon.

Dear Saint Potpourri,

2005-08-26T12:50:00.000-07:00

The time has come to complain. I'm sorry.

I appreciate the fact that there's a scent-squirter in the women's bathroom to mask any unpleasant smells. And for the most part, it works unobtrusively.

But it seems to be my luck to walk in at about the time that it sends out a fresh blast of scent. And in a small, windowless bathroom, it is like walking into the perfume section of a department store when they are actively hawking "Remora," their new expensive gladiola-sandalwood-eau-de-gorilla musk, and being cornered by three ambitious perfume mongerers who are paid on commission.

And worse still, it aims directly over the sink, so I am constantly facing the dilemma of whether to clean my hands and risk blinding myself, not to mention subject myself to level 5 olefactory hurricanes, or whether to spread germs as far as the office's kitchen sink, and THEN kill 'em off.

All of which leads to total paranoia -- entering the bathroom and listening, trepidatiously, for that unholy "shppppppppst" sound, at which point I have less than 5 seconds before I feel my hair anointed and must return to the office smelling like a french...well...you know...woman who likes to hang out on street corners late at night.

I swear I have transcended the sins of evil scent. Saint Potpourri, I need no further anointment! I have paid my nostril pennance! I have already been baptized! Have mercy!!

PSA: demonic possession still a myth

2005-08-18T12:15:00.000-07:00

Calm down, folks, the zombie-virus has not yet leaked from the pentagon/terrorist/monkey facility in Africa, etc., nor have the demons finally broken the human brain-wave barrier.

It's just color contacts.

For those of you unacquainted with them, color contacts appear to change the color of your pupils, and these days they do so quite masterfully -- they can have the same streaks, spots, and variations of tone that normal irises do. However, the shades themselves are still unavoidably unnatural. There are eye colors we expect to see with certain hair shades and skin tones, and then there are startling eye colors that can make someone gorgeous, and then there are color contacts, which, more often than not, speak to me of demonic possession. They aren't meant to be subtle, so the colors are turquoise rather than blue, cedar rather than brown, emerald rather than green, and in some cases, violet or gold, which you just don't see much, if at all.

I will admit, my education in color contacts comes more from sci-fi and horror movies, so I'm probably making the association based on the content of said movies...

All of this stems from an experience with one of the girls behind the jamba juice counter, who was wearing color contacts. I'm sure jamba-girl usually has lovely brown eyes, and with her contacts on, she had golden orangey streaks and flecks as well.

She was smiling and friendly, and I'm pretty sure she wanted to make jamba juice out of my brains and suck them down with a straw. And while I'm sure my brains would go well with strawberries and orange sorbet, too, I'd rather not have to contemplate this on my lunch break.

However, it was just a false warning, so I thought I'd reassure any of you who have encountered it...reassure and forewarn. (~_-)

Returned from my return

2005-08-10T17:06:00.000-07:00

I got back yesterday (about a year ago) from a week's visit to Connecticut (wait, I don't still live there?) with a day visit to New York (about five years ago) embedded.

The time dilation was astronomical and cohesion of experience entirely subordinated. Steve and I found ourselves unable to plumb the concept of a San Franciscan domicile within about 12 hours of our arrival last Tuesday. Assimilation into Connecticut life came swiftly and cleanly -- conversing about cars, dogs known as doods, real estate, tractors, humidity, Eastover; waking up to sunlight, which, bounced off of all that humid verdure, took on a golden crystalline aspect that both energized and soothed; and then morning broke on the crowning event of the visit -- an enatic family reunion.

Said family reunion, from marinated kabobs to souvenir t-shirts to Eastover's Erik-trimmed lawns, went off completely hitch-less-ly. My mom and Mary had the clever idea to color code the t-shirts according to branch of the family, so that the Freddie Pratts (my mom and Mary's dad) all received purple, the Teddie Pratts all received red, the Tracy Pratts all received blue, and the Butlers all received green. The brilliance of this idea became clear once the t-shirts were dispersed and donned -- almost immediately the family was aware of the tendency to clump within one's "color." This led to a sense of belonging, certainly, but also made later evidence of more widely dispersed comingling a satisfying visual collage.

I realized I have awesome cousins, all within 9 years of my age, athletic, friendly, wry and quick. This would be the result of excellent breeding, no matter what everyone says about their first marriages. ;0)

The trip to NYC was brief and phantasmagoric. We caught up with old friends and walked north along Central Park West for an hour, simply taking it all in. Sponsored by Steve's parents in their upper west side apartment, we gazed at the Hudson from the 23rd floor and slowly picked out the shapes of passers-by from the frenetic beige of the buildings.

Planes lead to the staccato of experience, it is widely agreed. But I must say, the train we took to and from NYC was no more skilled in adhesion than its aviatior counterpart. Steve and I bore a swollen sense of dislocation with a stoic cry of wee-wee-wee all the way home...and I find myself at work today sorting through a disjointed collage of contentedness.

I raise a toast upon the memory of an icey bottle of Sam Adam's Summer Ale -- Here's to family!

Hang in there, London

2005-07-22T10:35:00.000-07:00

I'm glad to see that no one was killed this time, and my heart goes out to those people in London who are just trying to carry on with a normal commute and instead confront terrorism.

Again.

Let's hope it's the last time.

Also in my Links I Like section...

2005-07-21T12:55:00.000-07:00

"How to Hawaiianize your name:

There are two ways to determine the Hawaiian equivalent of your name. The first is to determine the meaning of your name and then obtain the Hawaiian word for that meaning. The second, and the most common, is by the process of transliteration -- that is, to replace the letters in the English name with Hawaiian letters. This is not so easy since, as noted above, Hawaiian only has twelve letters.

So here is the formula:
Replace B, F, P with P

Replace C, D, G, J, K, Q, S, T, X, Z with K

Replace H with H

Replace N with N

Replace L, R with L

Replace V, W with W

Replace Y with I

Vowels remain the same. Also be sure to separate all consonants with a vowel. For example, Barbara would be PALAPALA because there must be a vowel between the "r" and "b" in Barbara."

This makes me Elike, pronounced Ay-Lee-Kay. If I go by translation, Elise is a derivative of Elizabeth, which is from the Greek Elisabet from the Hebrew Elisheba, which means "my God is an oath" or "my God is Abundant."

Translated into Hawaiian, Abundant God = Nui Akua, and God Oath = Akua Ho'Ohiki.

What's your Hawaiian name? Add it to the comments.

C'mon people, a little more audience participation, hmmmm?

Euphausia Superba

2005-07-21T12:33:00.000-07:00

Hi all. I don't know how many of you have bothered to click on the "Antartic Krill" link to the right...so I thought I show you what you'd find.

From the web page about them: "special: some scientists describe Euphausia superba as the once most abundant multicellular species of the planet - some scientists describe Euphausia superba as one of the most flexible of our planet - some describe Euphausia superba as the most physiologically dynamic - some as a most interestingly designed - a famous scientist as "of almost extraterrestrial appearance, endowed with magical powers ", another: "The high importance of lowly krill"- and most of those few humans who were lucky to observe Euphausia superba alive, under water, lights still on, with the right optics, as utmost beautiful and fascinating."

Euphausia Superba. Aptly named.

I believe I found these by doing a search on Bioluminescence, but the website doesn't confirm if they're bioluminescent or not.

Still, bioluminescence has to be one of the coolest things on earth.

Though I would say, tied with some cephalopods' ability to shift color and irridescence. See my "Links I like" section to find out more.

Have a Great Oink Time

2005-07-20T15:33:00.000-07:00

This is a fabulous site: http://drawapig.desktopcreatures.com/

You'll have to draw one first...

Draw yours first!!

Draw it!!

As they say "looking at other drawings will change the way you draw a pig and will change the results of the test."

Then -- THEN you can see mine. (Go to "Main Gallery," then to "Search the Piggies" and type in "E House.")

PLEASE copy the link to yours in the comments below!!

I'm about to be explaining this post

2005-07-19T15:41:00.000-07:00

Recent IM conversation between me and a friend. I'm in regular green font, my friend's in purple. (Keep in mind that when you have typed conversations, replies are often one step behind the statement they're replying to...so try to keep up!)

TMC: When I grabbed lunch today I heard (to me) such a funny exchange. Two guys walk by, one goes "Where you fin to be?" and the other goes "I'm about to be right there." Translation: where are you going to sit? Right over there.
TMC: I like the "I'm about to be _________."
TMC: Like he's psychic about what happens next
FNL: hahahaa
TMC: FNL, I'm about to type the letter J.
TMC: J
TMC: OOOOOOOOOOOOOOH!
FNL: LOL
TMC: Not to be snide. It's actually the whimsy in me coming out. I want to popularize it beyond ebonics
FNL: i'm about to support you.
FNL: yeah
TMC: i'm about to be psyched
FNL: o my, omg. i'm about to...laugh
FNL: LOL
TMC: I'm about to laugh too
TMC: rofl
TMC: ROFL (*editor's note: ROFL means Rolling On the Floor Laughing, and is often symbolized by an emoticon laughing so hard it's crying)
TMC: whew, that was a close one.
FNL: whoa. did you know you were about to cry, too?
TMC: I was almost about to just abbreviate without laughing
TMC: yep.
FNL: i was about to say!
TMC: I said that out loud. you just didn't hear me. I'm about to be misunderstood!
TMC: I said that too
FNL: too late
FNL: i was about to be almost misunderstanding.
FNL: wha?
TMC: Dude, I'm about to be about to being.
FNL: NO WAY!
TMC: Seriously. It just happened. What did I about to tell you?
TMC: Hee hee. Can I post this conversation on my blog?
FNL: I'M ABOUT TO BE FORGOT
FNL: i don't know if i'm about to agree or not.
TMC: It's okay, I'm about to remember you
TMC: you what? Play'a pleeze. Everyone who's anyone is about to KNOW
TMC: ha ha
FNL: O.o
TMC: I'm about to be drinking fruit punch.
TMC: (sip)
TMC: (aaaah)
FNL: i'm about to pee my pants if i am not about to go to the bathroom
TMC: LOL
TMC: I hope you're about to be there
FNL: i'm about to hope, too.
FNL: who you about to be foolin!?
TMC: Ha ha, you were about to be fooled but then you're about to be getting wise to how about to be you are
TMC: word

And that, my friends, is a quality conversation you too can be about to hold with me on IM.

The footnote being, that in the conversation that I overheard that sparked this hilarity, the first guy says, "where you fin to be?" "Fin" is slang for "fixing," or "about," so he actually said "where you fixing to be?" or, more importantly, "where you about to be?" Which shows that he is so obviously not psychic like his friend. Ha!

I'm about to be ending this post!

Evil Orchids

2005-07-18T14:58:00.000-07:00

If I'm ever sick or in the hospital and delirious or on pain meds and stuff and you want to send me flowers, please don't send orchids.

If you take a close look at them, it's pretty clear they want to eat you. Look here, or here. This one practically has a beak. Look at the evil little guy in the center of this one, plotting your demise. Here's an after shot of the first one, still spattered in the blood of its last victim. And you think I'm kidding?

I'm serious. They have what appear to be little tiny evil faces tucked inside their 5-6 groping, clutchy petals. If I ever woke up one night in a dimly lit room and "saw" their little mandibles grinding, I do believe I'd have a heart attack...but it would still come as no surprise.

This musing was brought on by the fact that I had a little stem with two on them tucked into a bud jar on my desk. One flower fell off. I felt bad, and looked at it closely.

I'm now missing an eye.

Well, not really, but looking more closely showed me the evil being piloting the orchid. I'm pretty sure it fell off because it was straining to nip at my elbow.

Sylvia Plath made Poppies grotesque...I'm calling orchids out as alien carnivores. I'm not saying they're not pretty...just that beauty is such an apt disguise -- a diversion to keep you from noticing the insidious little monster in the center.

Be warned.

Beyond Bonding

2005-07-15T11:09:00.001-07:00

I have just been informed that my Mom and her Steve now drive the same car.

Hers (4 cylinder)...

2005-07-15T11:09:00.000-07:00

His (blue, 6 cylinder)...

People, this goes beyond bonding. They already got His 'n' Hers dogs, now they have His 'n' Hers Highlanders -- what's next? His 'n' Hers houses?

Oh wait...riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.

It's only a matter of time before they start wearing matching Hawaiian shirts, hats, and black knee socks on non-tropical vacations.

Not that they don't deserve the right to do that...but...but...

(Splutters, falls victim to saccharine-sourced aphasia...)

Wu Lou for you

2005-07-15T11:01:00.000-07:00

Nearly every one in my immediate family has fallen prey to a recent illness -- be it crippling back pain, gastrointestinal adhesions, viral gastroentiritis, or involuntary incisions of the big toe. THAT'S IT PEOPLE: I'm feng shui-ing my website. May I present to you, Wu Lou, bringer of health, vitality and longevity. GAZING UPON THIS IMAGE MEANS YOU ARE NOW CURED.

Image provided by way of Dragon's Gate. I love their monthly alerts and all their merchandise -- if you're looking to feng shui, may I recommend them...

AAAARRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHHH!!

2005-07-15T10:23:00.000-07:00

As I recall, my friend Jack was the one who figured out* that if your store-bought coffee is leaking with no perceptible looseness in the cap, the culprit may be the seam of the cup, which, if perfectly oriented towards your mouth, will sometimes, under the pressure of all the coffee tipping towards your gullet, create a tiny airspace under the cap from which to leak.

As you can probably tell by the subject heading, this happened to me today.

However, while we're discussing coincidences, I submit to you the following:

1. I indulge in mochas sporatically.

2. I chose to wear a WHITE skirt today.

3. Said white skirt not only shows brown coffee stains in the starkest contrast of any other pants or skirts I own...

4. ...it also TURNS TRANSPARENT WHEN WATER IS APPLIED to clean it.

If you need me, I'll be rendered immobile behind my desk for the next hour, thank you very much.

*I very much wanted to cite the specific reference on Jack's website, House of Cheer. So I hit CTRL F "coffee" through each and every one of his monthly archives until I found it in March '04...that's 33 times for just one reference. Do me a favor -- at least GO and read what he wrote!! Click on the hotlink! He really explains it so very well...and consider yourself WARNED!!

Filed under Weird Coincidence number 44NM1A

2005-07-14T13:53:00.000-07:00

Recently a coworker, K., joined my gym -- I gave her a guest pass when she was looking into where to join and she got hooked on their fun classes. For the last two months, I've been going regularly -- two or three times a week.

This week I went on Tuesday. Last night I had volleyball so I didn't go.

This morning my coworker caught me as I was walking in and handed me my gym card...which I didn't even know I was missing.

The gym's lockers are set up so that you insert your card on the inside of the specially-made lock and said insertion allows you to pull the key on the outside out of the lock when you close it. The locker is thus locked. When you return the key to the lock, the card is released for you to take home.

So here's the coincidence part: My coworker went to the gym last night, walked into the locker room, and somehow selected the exact same locker I'd used the night before -- where my card, which I must have forgotten to take out, was still sitting -- undisturbed -- 24 hours later. Either no one happened to use that locker until K. came in, or any one who did open it decided to leave the card there, without turning it in at the front desk or taking it themselves. And then K. just happened to walk in, choose that locker, and find it!!

What's more, I was going to go to the gym today but changed plans to go shopping with Leslie for a birthday present for another friend -- so if it weren't for K., I would have had NO idea where my card was come Monday.

Lucky Ducky!

2005-07-08T16:08:00.000-07:00

May I present...me, if I were a character on South Park!

If you would like to do the same, go here and be sure to explore -- there's lots of options!

Eerie and evil...

2005-07-07T14:11:00.000-07:00

A coworker of mine found this pic on the web and sent it to us. I apologize for not being able to credit its source (I tried a google search but didn't turn this one up).

It's a picture taken from someone's camera phone in the tube after the blast in London. It's simply haunting. It could be a still from a disaster flick or a zombie movie.

Dark. Smokey. Everyone is faceless, practically featureless. Yet clearly distinguishable as people, en masse.

The phrase, "what is this world coming to?" comes to mind...

London 7.7.05 by way of someone's camera phone.

Flying Saucer lands in Oakland!!!

2005-07-07T14:08:00.000-07:00

Just kidding. It's actually the Good Year blimp. I was so amazed to see that the Good Year blimp can actually be seen "around" (especially in Oakland, of all places?) that I took a picture with my camera phone.

Of the course the zoom function is about as magnifying as one of my fingernails, but um, posterity doesn't care if the details are fuzzy, as we've all learned by now.

Now, prepare to be astounded...

...no really, go ahead...

...I'm waiting...

Blimp!

You're in the right place!!

2005-07-05T17:27:00.000-07:00

I was attempting to configure my blog so that you can write comments.

Note the "Comment" link at the bottom of this post.

This way, if I launch into a cascade of profound questions or beg you to enlighten or entertain me, you now have a forum to. Keep in mind that other people can see your comments. ;o)

But then I saw that Blogger had updated their templates...and this one's all pretty...so I put in a little elbow grease and updated all around.

Hope you like it -- with the Comments enabled, you can tell me if you do!

2005-07-05T12:21:00.000-07:00

Good afternoon, and happy day-after-independence-day to you all.

I had a lovely long weekend.

I played doubles volleyball on the grass in a park in Berkeley with Leslie and my old wesleyan men's vball pals. It's been a loooooooooong time and it felt great.

Steve and two of his friends and I checked out a pinball "arcade" in Alameda, if by "arcade" I mean "one man's private collection of approximately 14 pinball machines housed in the auxilliary room of his housing complex which he opens up to the public two nights a week with a $5 donation and then all the free pinball you can play, BYOB." It's decidely hipster but also quite fun, and free play means you can actually linger on any given machine until you get the hang of it without blowing $25 in quarters. And most of them are old and show depictions of the usual buxom women only they're completely covered up except for the occasional short 70's style mini-skirt dress. It was fun.

Steve's former coworkers also had a bonfire on ocean beach on Sunday night which we went to.
We were not the first people to think of this -- not only were there enough bonfires to resemble a small military encampment in the cannonballs and musket era, but we hit up three different Safeway supermarkets simply seeking jumbo marshmallows for S'more roasting purposes and they were completely sold out, and we only just barely stumbled on a fresh shipment of firewood in the last one, which was so fresh as to still be industrial-saran-wrapped to the pallet when we pounced. We also saw a lot of amateur beach fireworks that occasionally endangered surrounding clusters of beach-happy Fourthers, but for the most part just frightened the dogs. The Rottweiler simply went (by all appearances) in to a comatose state of "I'm going to die" depression by the fire; The German-Australian Shepherd mix barked his panic until we learned to cover his ears for the boomy ones, in which case I believe he rather began to enjoy the displays of light.

The actual Fourth, a.k.a. yesterday, we went out and got breakfast, and relaxed our vigorous weekend away for the rest of it. It was nice.

Today I'm back at work. It feels weird. I could get used to a four day work week...

2005-06-22T16:07:00.000-07:00

hee hee, playing with photoshop is cool.

2005-06-15T15:44:00.000-07:00

Today is my birthday and I am feeling VERY loved.

My coworkers took me out to lunch. And then when they paid the bill, they came up with $5 extra after everyone chipped in and no one thought it was theirs, so they gave it to me!

I baked a cake and everyone ate it.

Then when I got back from lunch, two bouquets, one from Steve and one from CTDN, were on my desk. And then a THIRD one showed up from Mom and Steve.

I am SWAMPED with flowers.

I have a HUGE stack of presents sitting at home and a new dress to wear tonight that I bought yesterday.

15 people are coming over to our house tonight to do a happy birthday fondue potluck too.

I am just overWHELMED with good wishes. Thanks to my family and friends, I tend to have exactly the kind of birthdays that people wish you to have.

So I wanted to thank you all. I am so touched by how elaborately you celebrate my birth. Thank you.

2005-06-13T13:03:00.001-07:00

I see London, I see France...

2005-06-13T13:03:00.000-07:00

It helps to have inner beauty when you're a transparent being...

2005-06-13T13:02:00.000-07:00

Lugubrious artsy exhibit...

2005-06-13T13:01:00.000-07:00

Traffic jam in the jelly world...

2005-06-13T13:00:00.000-07:00

Dragon-like plume o' jelly...

2005-06-13T12:59:00.000-07:00

Bombs away...

2005-06-13T12:28:00.000-07:00

Instead of taking my birthday day-off on Wednesday, I decided to take it this past Friday for the sake of a long weekend. Steve and I decided to go down to Monterey overnight -- we stayed at a holiday inn for free thanks to all the points I racked up through their priority club during my audit/travel job. It was right smack dab next to cannery row and the aquarium, so it was perfectly located.

Cannery Row was deserted when we got in on Friday, so after lunch at a diner (where I tried deep fried artichoke hearts with ranch dipping sauce -- delish) we wandered around. We hit up some free wine tastings (including one at the hotel, which we enjoyed over a crossword puzzle...ah, the good life) and later that night had a delicious lobster dinner on the wharf. It was advertised as Maine lobster, which gave us pause for a moment, until we realized that lobster is kept alive until cooked, so it would still be fresh. It's been quite some time since I've had a whole lobster and it was divine. I remembered the time that Mom, (her) Steve, Chad and I tackled some enormous lobsters Steve had brought home -- except they hadn't molted any time recently, so their shell was as thick as steel, and a slippery, aggravated wrestling match ensued in the heavy July heat -- we were all exhausted by the time we got through them!

Saturday a.m. we hit up the aquarium -- and not a moment too soon, when we had just about seen everything people were starting to pour in. They really did such a fabulous job with so many things, the otters and jelly fish especially were SO awesome. I also *loved* the open air aviary with all the sea birds, and the leopard sharks within it who were obsessed with the wave machine (they hung out by it and popped their heads up at it every now and then -- really cute). I can see why the aquarium is so reknowned, and all while maintaining the cannery facade. It's so rare to see an aquarium that isn't all angular glass and blue, so we were impressed.

One overnight was plenty, and on the way back up we detoured by the Santa Cruz boardwalk so I could see it -- a little less crowded it would be a LOT of fun. Seeing it was enough for me.

We stopped just outside of Santa Cruz in Davenport for a late lunch/early dinner -- and paid out the nose for it. It's a one horse town and the restaurant there charges $9 for a plain old burger!! But they had us pegged because we were starving, and the $11.95 Bacon Cheese Burger did come piled with bacon, cheese, and mushrooms -- and it was a big burger too.

See if we ever go back, though...

Yesterday was a lazy (and much warranted) day. This Wednesday is my birthday, and I'm having a fondue potluck -- I'm supplying the fondues and my guests will hopefully bring the dippers. Should be fun. Then Thursday marks Steve & my 1 year anniversary. Since we're living together, it seems like sooooo much longer than that -- a year hardly seems a big enough marker for all the ground we've covered. :)

Some jellyfish pictures to follow shortly. Hope you all had a wonderful weekend too, and thanks to all of you who've been shipping me birthday presents. I'm spoiled rotten and it's your fault!!

*Dwelling*

Ritual

I met a traveller from an antique land

Teaching an old blog new tricks

Mastery

Well, that's a first!

Cheating on my blog...

A little about the new house

Siphons, Moves, and Dreams

I wish...

Breakage

Attended a reading last night...

For the record...

Man's Best Road Companion

Someone screwed up but good

Almost a year to the day

Oh, that smell...

Happy "Luck O' Th 'Irish T' You" Day

Doggy-back ride

Hope is the thing with whiskers...

Denver

Marriage...!

Oh My Grand

Our New Tenant and His Attempts At Redecoration

Denver

a big update of small things

Corp Speak Alert, edition 2

Old building, new building

Pretty much my picture of heaven

Trilogy

The ultimate in armchair ornithology

Better even than expected

All hail the hale and hearty hail!

Move over chameleon!!

Release

Alas, poor Pluto

Dormant

Seats, Walks, and Books

lots of activity

Warning: extreme cuteness content below

House Finch

Changes afoot

Record breaking month for organ donation

Top O' The Bottom

Arthur Jackson

Queen Anne's Lace

Complex instincts and Simple thought

Beethoven's 5th Drilling

Chompers

The Second LIVING HEART DONOR I've ever heard of!

The Significance of February 15th

Wedding Crasher pummeled by Angels in America

1 W-2

I'll be home for Christmas part III

Unprecedented

Not Terribly Clever

Ha ha ha -- I'm a cheap date!!

Driving Miss Piggy

Superhero or Cleaner?

Vegetable Victory and Vitamin Value

Life Quiz

Halloweeeeeee!

In neglect, the Mountains Stood in Haze

Follow your passion...even if you want to eat your city

Random poem, revisited

Hesychasts

Yes Please!!

Playing Catch Up

Horsie!

Alabama, Louisana and Mississippi OPO's

Dear Saint Potpourri,

PSA: demonic possession still a myth

Returned from my return

Hang in there, London

Also in my Links I Like section...

Euphausia Superba

Have a Great Oink Time

I'm about to be explaining this post

Evil Orchids

Beyond Bonding

Dwelling