So many updates...so little time. Chad is here and it's great -- things are going truly well. He's been applying boldly like no man applied before -- Brooks Brothers, sure, since he worked there in Santa Fe, but Saks 5th Avenue, Pink, Burberry, and even Armani! We took a day off to work on resumes, then hit the pavement today. Chad interviewed at Certified (the agency that got me my recent job) and then we walked to 5 other agencies where we dropped off our resumes, occasionally filled out applications and computer tests, and just generally tried to make it clear that we were human beings with faces and hopes. At the very last agency, Jackson Personnel, they took one look at my resume and whisked me off to the back to take no less than 5 skill tests...and then offered me a job starting tomorrow!! Apparently a local San Francisco Health Charity was looking for a temporary admin/clerk who was 'familiar' with medical terminology, but in the absence of that, they figured a Phi Beta Kappa would do. I pointed out that my mom is a registered nurse, so I got my fill of medical terminology. ;)

I think that's everything -- I'm very excited to work for a charity, even if only temporarily...

p.s. I still stink at racquetball, and I still love it. I have yet to break my 6 point maximum...I'll miss the very free very accommodating Merced gym -- perhaps the only thing I'll miss!!

Sorry it's been a while since my last blog. Been pretty busy. This is the last week of my temp job, which is good, because Merced was wearing us all thin. I'm a little afraid of going back to the job search grind, but I feel a lot more prepared; plus my temp agent said they have another project in the works that they may be able to use me for. My options, in short, are open, and I'm seeing a lot of great job openings out there. Now if only I can get my foot in the door!

Chad is also moving to San Francisco this weekend, which is very exciting. It's been a long wait!

For those of you in search of a good book, read Bill Bryson's A Short History...as aforementioned. I've told all of my coworkers different tidbits I've learned and they're all convinced. For example: did you know that Yellowstone is one of the biggest threats to human existence on all of the earth? Yup, that's right, the park might destroy the U.S. And did you know that rain has the potential to kill us all as well if it weren't for one single defense we have? I'm not telling you what it is. Buy the book. By the way, it's not all morbid stuff; I just hit the intense chapters in the middle!!

I'll have a lot more time to blog/email/catch up on my hands next week, so have some patience; I'll be in better touch soon, and I'll certainly keep news of my job search posted here.

I have a new love: racquetball. If any of you thought hitting a hard rubber ball around a confined space with a racquet sounded stupid, think again. Or rather, don't think, try it. Of course, thus far I've only gotten 6 points in any given game. But it's fun enough to keep trying.

Vballers: Side out rules live on in racquetball. Play to 15, points can only be earned on the serve. Side out lives!!

Some interesting facts from Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything:

"The average species on Earth lasts for only about four million years, so if you wish to be around for billions of years, you must be as fickle as the atoms that made you. You must be prepared to change everything about yourself - shape, size, color, species affiliation, everything -- and to do so repeatedly[...]Not only have you been lucky enough to be attached since time immemorial to a favored evolutionary line, but you have also been extremely -- make that miraculously -- fortunate in your ancestry. Consider the fact that for 3.8 billion years, a period of time older than the Earth's mountains and rivers and oceans, every one of your forebears on both sides has been attractive enough to find a mate, healthy enough to reproduce, and sufficiently blessed by fate and circumstances to live long enough to do so. Not one of your pertinent ancestors was squashed, devoured, drowned, starved, stranded, stuck fast, untimely wounded, or otherwise deflected from its life's quest of delivering a tiny charge of genetic material to the right partner at the right moment in order to perpetuate the only possible sequence of hereditary combinations that could result -- eventually, astoundingly, and all too briefly -- in you" (pp.3-4).

"[Atoms] are also fantastically durable[...]Every atom you possess has almost certainly passed through several stars and been part of millions of organisms on its way to becoming you. We are each so atomically numerous and so vigorously recycled at death that a significant number of our atoms -- up to a billion for each of us, it has been suggested -- probably once belonged to Shakespeare. A billion more each came from Buddha and Genghis Khan and Beethoven, and any other historical figure you care to name. (The personages have to be historical, apparently, as it takes the atoms some decades to become thoroughly redistributed; however much you may wish it, you are not yet one with Elvis Presley)" (p.134).

"When two objects come together in the real world -- billiard balls are most often used for illustration -- they don't actually strike each other. 'Rather,' as Timothy Ferris explains, 'the negatively charged fields of the two balls repel each other...were it not for their electrical charges they could, like galaxies, pass right through each other unscathed.' When you sit in a chair, you are not actually sitting there, but levitating above it at a height of one angstrom (a hundred millionth of a centimeter), your electrons and its electrons implacably opposed to any closer intimacy" (p.141).

Happy Valentine's Day, Belatedly, Everyone!

I had a most enjoyable weekend with my step-dad, who was in town from Thursday to Sunday morning. After 2-Dad spent the day walking through Golden Gate Park and Haight-Ashbury (I'm sure the liberal in him was intuitively drawn to the biggest hotbed of hippie-dom in the city!!) I met up with him Friday evening at his hotel -- the Marine Memorial hotel, a very classy building dedicated to Veterans, located at Sutter and Mason (a block over from Union Square and a 5 blocks up from Market Street). We then met up with my 2 out of 3 housemates and hit Scoma's on the wharf, where I enticed 2-Dad to try the whole cracked Dungeness crab and the lobster bisque I'd so messily delighted in back in July. I believe his response was somewhere along the lines of quintessential 2-Dad: "That hit the spot!" We then filled in the cracks with a genuine Ghirardelli sundae. Having been to the city once or twice already, he'd hit all the major (kid) tourist spots -- the Exploratorium, Ghirardelli Square, etc. -- so I tried to drum up some new stuff (I can't quite lay claim to knowing actual insider stuff, so I'm just going with calling it new-to-him stuff!). Saturday morning we hit the Farmer's Market -- talk about a kid in a candy store! -- where he bought his very own farmer's market tote to carry all of his impulse buys -- 2 kinds of cheeses, one Welsh, one French, a sampler of olive oils, some California Laurel soap (for his girlfriend), and a Lavender sachet which reminded him of the smell of his mother's house. We then tromped a ways down to figure just exactly what that huge bow and arrow sculpture is -- darned if we learned anything except that a Dutch (?) couple gifted it to the city in 2002, but it's one of the few clear spots along the piers and the sky was a perfect blue, making for some great photo ops. His last visit was in the late 80's, so I of course took him to see the Sea Lions on Pier 39, who'd shown up in the early 90's. I then proceeded to tell him all the facts I'd learned from the last time when Mom and Steve were here, only to find that I was standing next to that day's Sea Lion expert from the place in Sausalito! Fortunately I'd remembered the facts right. He lasted longer than Freddie did -- about 10 minutes -- so Mom still holds the record for sea lion fascination (two visits, one at least an hour long). To save time, we'd hopped a street car from Pier 1 to Pier 39, which brought back memories for Dad of his childhood days in Washington, when he'd catch a street car for 50 cents with his young buddies to a local amusement park. We took another one back to Washington & Embarcadero, and then walked several blocks up Washington to Chinatown, which was at last less crowded (after several weekends of Chinese New Year's celebrations). My goal was to take him to good old fashioned Dim Sum, but we got there late in the afternoon on a Saturday, so rather than crowds and carts being wheeled about and lots of pointing, I actually had to check off a few choice dishes on a Dim Sum checklist. Not quite the ambience I'd hoped to share, but still delicious.

We split up then for an afternoon Siesta and remet a couple hours later for a Valentine's impromptu dinner, which I brought James to. We managed to find a place with room available on the most over-booked restaurant holiday of the year (I'd wager) and with that in mind, it was still pretty good! Afterwards we hit the main event, a production of "Noises Off!" being held in the Marine Memorial Theater (yup, he had a theater in his hotel) which was hysterically funny and amazingly well-choreographed. It was a great way to spend the evening. The next morning I drove Dad to the airport and spent much of that day and yesterday hanging out (one of my friends was in town) or napping, both well-deserved!

This weekend was a triumph of navigation -- getting from Fishermen's Wharf to Chinatown to Dad's hotel, and getting from my house to Dad's hotel, to the 101 the airport -- and quite a lot of fun. Hope yours was as good!

I start this new week in Mer-dead a new person. I decided at long last that my experiment with growing out my hair was done. It's been over 2 years since I shaved my head for Mary's birthday and it was time for a change. Nothing drastic, just something more me. Leslie and I had a girly day on Saturday -- we got fingernails and toenails 'done' (Mom, cancel your pre-SF nail appointment in April, this place is awesome and will do BOTH for $15 total...with no sacrifice of quality -- in fact, they do more than your CT woman does!!) -- the last manicure I had was at Christmas over a year ago, and the last pedicure was the September before that. In case you're misinterpreting me: it wasn't so much a sudden farcical misappropriation of femininity pre-coif-change as much as it was a means of relaxing and being fussed over, which I, for whatever reason, sorely needed. (Hey, when's the last time YOU turned down a foot massage? Exactly.) I then went to a walk-in salon in Noe Valley which had gotten rave reviews in articles and had them cut my hair about an inch above my shoulders, and then layer it and give it texture. In other words, it's a choppy, sporty kind of look that suits me perfectly. And it was only $21. You heard me correctly. (~_-)

I hope you all are succeeding in being bargain-pampered as well. Although, don't settle for less unless you have to -- you deserve the best. Cheers!

Last night I awoke at 12:30am to the sensation that somebody was softly tapping my hip.

Then I realized my hip felt damp.

On with the light. Sit up. The cieling is dripping on me, slowly -- the tap tap tap I felt. Or more correctly, the smoke alarm directly above my bed is dripping on me. My first groggy instinct is that the room above me must have flooded their bathroom, until I realize I am on the second story of a two story building. But all of yesterday it poured and poured and poured, and even now I can hear the rain pattering ever so sweetly against the window.

So the roof must be leaking. My next groggy instinct: both to inspect the leak and disconnect the smoke alarm so nothing shorts.

Yeah, hotel smoke alarms are tamper-proof. So that thing goes off full scale as soon as I twist it out of its little casing. It screams. I put it back. It screams more quietly. I let go, it screams, stops, screams again. It is not an intermittent pulse -- it's a piercing single note (I'm sure I woke up a whole host of nearby dogs) that NEVER PAUSES.

I call the front desk. Some young front desk attendant answers -- I explain -- she says, "oh, hold on," -- I'm thinking, yes! remote disconnect! -- I get the dial tone. The alarm is still screaming. I run over and open the door thinking she's sent someone. I wait several cold screaming minutes. I call back. She says, "oh is it still going off?" Her answers to the obvious questions: No, I'm alone at the front desk so I personally can't come over. No one else is here. I can't send maintenance, there's no one else here, there's no one I can call. I can switch you to another room, but you'll have to come down to the front desk. (The front desk is about 100 yards down, walking outside.)

With the alarm still screaming bloody smoking murder in my ears, I grab all my clothes off the hangers, shove them in a bag, throw all my toiletries into my toiletry bag, grab my bowl and utensils and mug and glass and throw all of my newly bought groceries back into the three bags from whence they came, grab my back pack and all the books and pens and pads and crosswords lying around, and finally, grab my boots, throw on some flip flops.

At this point, just as I am leaving the screaming mimi for good, a boy, who could have been no older than mid-collegiate and seemed younger to me, comes running across the parking lot waving and hollering. He says, "WAIT! WAIT! ARE YOU SURE IT'S NOT THE ALARM CLOCK??" My ear drums can only bleed morosely in reply. I tell him I'm pretty sure that i-- DO YOU MIND IF I JUST CHECK?? (In order to ask these moronic questions, he has to, of course, YELL above the din.) He goes into my room where the alarm clock is situated next to the bed and just below the bone-chillingly loud smoke alarm and literally taps the alarm clock to be sure. Now fully convinced, he climbs up on the bed and yanks the smoke alarm straight off, wires fraying and all, and says, "yep, it's the smoke alarm."

I then take all 5 bags, my book, my boots, and various and sundry other items -- I have absolutely no part of my body that is not clutching, gripping, or shouldering a belonging -- and hike all the way down to the front desk in the drizzle, with one side of my boxer shorts riding up my leg, with this guy following along behind me explaining how people call him at 6 in the morning insisting the smoke alarm is going off when it's just the alarm clock and he's not even thinking twice about shouldering a bag or five, to be greeted by a girl who can hardly be 18 who apologizes and hands me a new room key and says that this boy -- "the manager," -- arrived just in time to come "help" me.

I then once again take all 5 bags, my book, my boots, and various and sundry other items -- I have absolutely no part of my body that is not clutching, gripping, or shouldering a belonging -- and hike all the way back to where the new room is slightly below my other room.

Only to find that the key card doesn't work. It's not flashing green for go or red for no, it's flashing yellow. Yellow?? What, am I not keying the slot cautiously enough? As I am robotically sticking the key through the slot and consistently inciting the yellow light, you guessed it, the door opens, and I am greated by a rather bewildered looking young woman who is wondering what this frizzy-haired, boxer-wearing bag lady is doing on her doorstep rattling her lock at 12:45am. I give her a six word answer -- "they -- wrong room -- dial front desk?" to which she agrees and closes the door on me. Three sound-proof minutes in the drizzle later, she opens her door and says, "They're really confused. They said go back to the front desk."

I then once again take all 5 bags, my book, my boots, and various and sundry other items -- I have absolutely no part of my body that is not clutching, gripping, or shouldering a belonging -- and hike all the way back to the front desk, where the boy is ranting in Bulgarian on the phone and the girl is once again apologizing and saying no one ever tells her anything and they do this to her all the time, and all the rooms in the hotel are full except for two. The boy gets off the phone and nods at her and the girl then promises me the 'big' room, which she gives me still another new key card for, and which turns out to be right next to the room whose doorstep I was standing on.

This room, thankfully, is empty. My card works. It's the 'handicapped accessible' room, so the bathroom is twice as large. It has two warm, dry beds.

I put my stuff down and at 1am thankfully climb into the one that's NOT under the smoke alarm, and lay me down to sleep.

Oh, it's SO good to be back in San Francisco for the weekend. Merced wore the group pretty thin this week. Most of coworkers cope with the boredom and the complete lack of resources by drinking to escape, but I hate drinking during the work week (I don't even like staying up too late during the work week) so I hang out without participating. A new perk though: The R. hands out free vouchers to the Merced Sports Centers, so one of my coworkers and I have been taking advantage of both the feelessness and sheer boredom. They have a lap pool (yes!) and a hot tub, and great elliptical machines, weight rooms, even tennis courts -- and the man who runs the tennis program there has no problem loaning tennis rackets to us for free. (M. and I tried hitting some balls around, but I am WAY out of practice.) The other boredom buster is that I've started reading Bill Bryson's "A Short History of Nearly Everything," which is a pretty darn good History-Lite lesson about the beginning of the world. (Thank you David & Alexandra for the Bryson books -- great Christmas presents!) For example, did you know that if you rested the entire planet Pluto on North America, it would hardly cover the lower 48 states? Yeah, it's REALLY small.

Lexi is here for the weekend to surprise Leslie on her Birthday. It was a wonderful surprise for me, too, since she decided on Thursday to fly down Friday! Leslie, now 27y.o., was so shocked and touched that she wept. Then we all went out to sing Karaoke -- my first time. 5 of us got up and sang "I want it that way" (Backstreet Boys) and later Nikki and I got up and sang "Total Eclipse of the Heart," which is great because it really gets the audience going. The bar we went to was in the Marina and unfortunately filled up quite a lot, so we didn't get to go up as often as we liked, but it was serious fun. This morning James, Lexi, Leslie and I went out to Chinatown for Dim Sum -- delicious. Chinatown is really a world unto itself, and I intend to take Mom, Steve, and 2-Dad on their respective visits, because it's a key experience in San Francisco.

I go through phases of being happy, comfortable and secure here and being jittery, anxious and filled with wanderlust. Right now I'm in the former phase and it's lovely. Here's to sunshine, hills, and Boba tea. (~_-)

The Ramada is AMAZING. The softest, highest beds I have EVER experienced in my hotel history. Merced is Merced but the Ramada is the crown jewel of the central valley as far as we're concerned.

Aaaaaaaaaah, luxury.

So we're going back to the Ramada, thank goodness. Merced smells like manure 24 hours a day and is usally gray 24 hours a day, but for some reason it just didn't seem that bad at the Ramada. It is, literally, on the other side of the train tracks from the Holiday Inn Express. Admittedly, there is no hot tub at the Ram. but I'd trade it all for a little sleeping security!

Otherwise, things are going well. James and Leslie are coaching a team of 15 y.o. girls and have their first tournament in Sacramento today, so I have a rare weekend of nothing to do, which I am looking forward to. The consulting firm I'm temping for hosted a happy hour at an SF bar last night so I got to spend time with my coworkers, both old and new. The new ones have grown on me a lot -- we had a great time last week -- but boy was it good to rehash all the old inside jokes with the old ones too! It was great fun and I'm excited to know all these people.

Happy Chinese New Year!! If you have any minor irritating things going on in your life in the past year that you've always meant to change or if you just need to clean house a bit, now's the time to do it to get off on the right foot for the year of the Monkey.

We figured out the mystery of the guy last night -- turns out he's neither a psycho serial murderer nor a crackhead who misses his ghost dog -- apparently (after he showed up again last night, banged on all the doors at the end of our hall again, and Adrianne called the front desk, and they called her back) his coworker lives in a room 2 doors down from ours and he couldn't remember which one. So he tried them all. At 5am in the morning. But he's not a psycho, so don't worry.

Enjoying a bit of rare Merced sunshine today...

So this switching hotel business ain't so hot. I have yet to test out the pool but the neighborhood is sketchy enough (as is the 24 hour overcastness) that I'm not so excited to try it...it's not even lap-size either. This morning at 5:15 I was awoken by a man calling out several names -- John John, Mikey, Mr. (L name that I can't really recall) and banging on an entire section of the 2nd floor doors. (This is one of those hotels where you enter your room from an outside walkway; there are no interior halls.) This included mine, both in his first and second sweep, and it was pretty nerve-wracking, because whomever this guy was looking for certainly didn't pop his head out (if he existed at all) and so his second sweep involved swearing and declaring how 'furious' he was. Yipes. By 5:30, when his voice faded and finally disappeared, I was wide awake and timidly watching Iowa caucus results.

All votes are to return to the Ramada next week. (~_-) This is not yet confirmed but the alternative is insufferable...

Happy MLK Jr. Day, belatedly. I spent my long weekend watching movies (Calendar Girls and Along Came Polly -- both pleasant enough), ice-skating, and catching up on Buffy Season 5 with Leslie.

Hi guys,
I've been in Merced for a couple days now and things are going well. Merced is a wasteland of strip mall and foggy 24 hours a day, which is a little tough on the spirit, but we're staying in a pretty fancy-pants Ramada and my new teammates (3 guys and a girl) are pretty cool. They're not nearly as goofy as my old ones, but there's a pervasive dry wit that I am quite enjoying. The pool at the Ramada is not heated, alas, though they have free vouchers to the gym which has a pool et al., and we might change hotels next week anyway, to a different one with heated pool, sauna, and hot tub, along with micro-fridges, which this group defines as a necessity, as they cut food costs down significantly. The so-called bowling alley/arcade next to the Ramada that I mentioned to a few of you is boarded up, by the way; the web site lies, how tacky. ;)

The project is slated to go until the end of March! I'm sure that will shorten as time goes by, especially since they're intending to send in 6 more people once they get done with another project, but it's nice to know my employment will continue for at least another 1.5 months.

To those of you suffering from a cold east coast winter, know that I am thinking warm thoughts of you, and go throw a snowball for me...I don't miss negative chill factors, but snow is fun.

We finished Auburn on Wednesday and moved back to Hayward, only to find out that they're splitting us up because the Yosemite district is as yet untouched and needs a lot of work. So I'll be leaving for Merced on Wednesday. I chose to do so because the money (per diems + travel time) will be a lot better and it should last longer than Hayward, but boy am I tired of traveling. Hopefully we'll be at a hotel with a (heated) pool, though...getting to swim for 3 more days in Auburn was wonderful. Swimming is excellent post-work exercise, because it feels relaxing, and thus one can fool one's tired body into a work out. An ancient Stairmaster or worse still, a treadmill, just can't play that kind of trick!

All that nonsense about being odd and nervous was indeed nonsense now that I am here. Auburn is a warm armchair by someone else's fire. It is inexcusably escapist; the stepford wife of locations, somehow. There is so much to revisit, and I am excited, cash flow or no. The exhaustion is simply based in the traveling part, since I've been doing a lot lately; but the place itself is a third or fourth home by now.

I received word this weekend that we're going back to Auburn this week to do follow up stuff. This doesn't really change much for all of you, who can still call and reach me through the magic of cell phones, but it's a very odd feeling -- a sense of premature exhaustion, and a kind of remorse to be leaving the city again, just as I was getting in to it. This last week has been suffused with the thrill of constant plans, staying up late with the help of all the 24 hour food places, driving across the bay, friends coming and going...and suddenly all the people with whom I re-bonded I have to leave again, and the well-worn suitcase that I thought I was putting aside indefinitely is now being tugged out again. Only for a week, I know, can the melodrama. I guess it's kinda like that first time you go back to visit high school after you graduate -- it's something you intentionally put behind you, having found it both boring and wonderful, and now you're going back...

Anyway, today a bunch of us went to see Big Fish -- go see it go see it go see it. It's whimsical and simple and sweet, it deals with itself nicely if not neatly, it's dessert for the eyes, and also enormously comforting on the subject of death. Trust me, you won't be let down.

My new year's was spent keeping my friend company at the restaurant he works at and thereby gaining a 4 course meal with Chad at my side. It was a not unclassy affair and very enjoyable.

Looking back on it, the high point of the year was probably my road trip -- a celebratory, adventurous, exciting good time. The low point was probably my car accident. As the new year begins, I feel a real sense of accomplishment. Slowly but surely, it's my own feet that are doing the walking beneath me. A close friend expressed admiration to me today that I had actually managed to move to San Francisco from Connecticut, and seem to be fitting in here fairly well. This view surprised me, because I am still unsure of my niche here; but to know that, on a larger scale, I'm finding a general 'place' here, is gratifying. I hope this coming year, whatever its forseeable challenges and joys, will bring further success.

Happy New Year everyone!

I finally broke down and mimiced part of Jack's blog -- the "Current Terror Alert Level" as designated by Sesame Street Characters (see side bar -- Thanks Jack!). If we hit Elmo, run for your lives. But if you see Oscar the Grouch (oddly enough), we have at last achieved world peace.
(~_-) -- Oh by the way, MERRY CHRISTMAS!! My Christmas this year was more satisfying than I've known in some time -- I think that has a lot to do with money being a bit more precious now that I'm on my own, plus coming home after a long time of being away. Things that were tired and tedious last year are fresh and exciting this year, and I at last have some frivolous shopping ahead of me without the impending doom of rent impinging on the fun (gift certificates are the best!!). The only thing that didn't quite add up was my family's team losing this year's tundra bowl* by 3 whole touchdowns...We're gunning for you next year, Team Hawvermale!!

*tundra bowl is our annual family football game, with my uncle, two cousins, and a friend of theirs on the opposing team, and my brother, cousin T, mom's boyfriend, and a random 'recruit' on ours. I blame our loss this year entirely on Fred having Ebola, and the fact that our team can never gel because we don't have a consistent 4th...in previous years, due to greater variations of physical strength and talent, we still had a fair match up. But my two cousins and their friend are all teenagers now, with boundless energy, durability, and a lot more savvy...with body types equaling out, the sore fact is, we need a cemented fourth.

The bad news: all those suitors who were planning gala surprise Valentine's weekend getaways for me are just going to have to reschedule (but if you're nice about it, I'll give you priority on the waiting list). The good news: my step-dad is coming to San Francisco that weekend. Yay!

On the sidebar to the right is a new link -- "Elise Groo in Serbia." This is not some weird reference to myself -- this is in fact the Elise that I worked with at Jack's Bakery over the summer of '99. She is sardonic, nomadic, and hysterical, and I am overjoyed that googling someone's name can lead to getting back in touch. Anyway, she just left for Serbia and she takes beautiful pictures.

So, today is our first day at Hayward. It's a more modern facility, slightly more upscale vending machines, slightly more urban people -- a little more mellow, a little less parental. The Auburnites threw us a good-bye party, cooked us a homemade meal, left us a huge gift basket on our last day...in short, we're terribly spoiled! But thus far living at home -- not having to leave at 7pm on Sunday & knowing I'll be going home tonight -- is nice. I feel like there's so much to get done, especially christmas shopping before I leave for Bethlehem on the 22nd. They're giving us two whole weeks off for the holidays, which is a gift in itself.

Wish me luck -- got to pare down the finance$ without those per diem$. And Happy Holidays to all, across religion and culture.

Last night I went for my usual swim. This consists of sitting in the hot tub for half an hour -- contemplating the usual bluster of blackbirds who gather in the pines after first flying in swooping formations, scattering, landing everywhere, then bouncing to a branch and disappearing into the warm inner depths of the trunk area (note to self: come back as a blackbird next time) -- until I get too hot to deal, and then swimming 20 laps in the pool. From my post in the hot tub last night, though, I noticed that the pool-cleaning vacuum machine was going haywire -- it kept surfacing and spitting and hissing and then re-submerging and speeding up and down the pool's length, not at all like its usual slow and steady bottom heavy self. I have an innate, visceral fear of underwater thingies brushing up against me when I'm not paying attention, especially serpentine-corded ones that might suck your toes if you don't see it sneak up on you, but I figured what-the-hey, I like my swim.

I swam one lap -- back and forth -- and then the vacuum threw a fit and I had to stop in the deep end to time my next lap away from it. The deep end is only 5 feet, so I can stand and contemplate. As I watched the vacuum zoom down towards the other end in a fury, something along the pool's rim to my left caught my eye...

...it was a blackbird, swimming!!

My only theory is that in the fluster of its arrival it flew into one of the pool's gutters, and then since the lip of the gutter is recessed slightly under the rim of the pool, it must have gotten wet and been unable to fly back out. My presence -- or perhaps a particular fit of the vacuum -- must have led it to seek escape via swimming. It kept its wings spread out at its sides to give it some float and treaded with its teeny tiny legs towards the edge of the pool. Had I not been there this would have been futile and had depressing results. But I was there. I lifted my hand beneath it, but that only caused it to try to fly instantly, before my hand even broke the surface, and thus it hopped right back into the water. We tried again; it hopped again. But by then it had swum to the very edge of the pool, to where it could not hop forward, and I used both hands to lift it up and out.

The remarkable thing about this bird was its calm, and its enormous sense of dignity. Upon reaching solid ground -- never once struggling against me or lamenting my presence -- it kept its soaking wings out to its side and walked slowly and carefully -- like a courtier spreading her embroidered skirts out in their full glory to exit the room -- and then crossed into the bushes and hopped to the lowest brances of the pine tree. It then proceeded to hop and fall off several small branches -- too wet to keep its balance -- until it found a particularly fluffy one to support its weight and braced itself against the trunk. It then fluffed itself up and gave me a relieved look.

It never once gasped, hissed, panicked, fought, or rolled its eyes the way scared or hurt birds will. It just swam, rode the elevator, and left the lobby. It was charming.

It's those moments -- tiny toothpick bird feet on my submerged hands, supernatural dignity, human and beast together for 30 seconds of rare union -- that I absolutely live and breathe for.

I tried a persimmon today. It is quite extraordinary after 24 full and hearty years of food consumption to discover not just a new fruit, but one that actually has an appeasing taste and texture (i.e. one that is not on the fringe simply because its taste is not compelling or because its texture is mealy, etc). The particular kind of persimmon that someone brought in looked much like a small orange tomato, but was hard and firm. Apparently most persimmons need to ripen and become soft, but these could be eaten hard.

It's really hard to describe the taste. There's an element of a kind of squash to it -- pumpkin or butternut, if one were to eat them uncooked -- and that's definitely apparent in the texture as well, though not explicitly -- but sometimes there was a slight essence of plum, a hint of tomato (I emphasize, a hint -- I can't stand raw tomato usually, so more than a hint would have lessened my experience), a sense of cinnamon or nutmeg -- all of it smoothly melded together enough to defy direct comparison.

If you haven't tried one, do. It's kind of like eating an October night -- before it gets truly cold, when you could still sit out on a screened-in porch so long as you wore a relatively warm jacket, and you could smell the last tiny hint of the summer's flora on the air, and the first hint of fallen leaves.

I'm stuffed. Not so stuffed that I won't eat more turkey -- a lot of turkey -- obsessive turkey consumption -- in the next 2 days. But right now, full is full and tradition is great. Williamsburg, and more particularly, 7 Gables holds as true as it ever did -- running ship shape, aside from some Canada Geese that need running off the back lawn, and an incident with the gravy boiling over and then -- literally -- vacuum sealing the lid on tight. But at least I didn't put the pumpkin pie on "convection bake" this year -- that was a classic!

The real highlight came in the auto world this year. Dad has been mulling over what to do with his 1963 Ford Falcon Convertible, white with red leather interior, seats wider than a Clydesdale and a motor that sounds like a Harley's. His parents bought it new in '63, passed it on to him about 17 years later, and he's had it ever since, and will most likely pass it on to his eldest daughter from his first marriage, who has the money and the garage to maintain it. But the discussion last night inspired him to have us take it out today for a drive -- man, what a lulu, I mean, way outtasight, the tip top kaleidiscope of cool, the never-living end. Okay, so we only topped about 40 mph and mostly kept on the roads of my dad's gated community, but what I wouldn't give a) for the three of us to have been decked out in full 60's regalia (my dad allowed as how he wouldn't really know what that was, but maybe if he dug around in his closet...) or b) to drive that sucker across country. I would have to know car repair, though, have to have some mechanical innovation, and combined, have to be able to tweak a car from the early 60's with nothing but a big set of sunglasses and some luck -- but can you imagine??

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Last night I discovered that the pool is heated in winter. I am tickled pink. Unfortunately our time here in Auburn is depleting -- we will be done in early December and then we move on to Hayward...which means we'll be commuting every day from SF. So I'll get to be in the city, but commuting, even against the flow of traffic, is not so very appealing. We'll see.

So my blog has been running on empty for a while because I haven't much of news (or flora & fauna research) to report. One of my best friends from college was in town this weekend, so I spent much of the weekend, dancing, eating, and even playing a little sand-court volleyball (which is truly fun, as it takes away that little mental barrier towards diving and leaves you covered in sand from head to toe and feeling like a champion).

OH! I ran into still ANOTHER friend from the past -- a girl in the class below me from high school, with whom I was good friends for a semester, until she decided to leave. We kept in touch for a little while but ultimately the friendship trailed off. This means I have not seen or heard from or about her in...7 years!! The "small world" count now lies at 2: high school and 1: grade school. Her departure from EW was kind of devastating to two of my closest friends from high school, and her life thereafter was something pondered every now and then. It will be of no small fascination to catch up with her, which we have plans to do this coming weekend.

The other good news is I will be coming home to Williamsburg for Thanksgiving, which, obviously, is what I'm thankful for this year. (~_-)

Halloween WAS indeed quite fun, which is indicated by the fact that I found no time to write last weekend. Fred was recognized as Ali G. from HBO by nearly every foreign person in the Castro and a decent amount of Cable-savvy Americans, and they LOVED him. He had over twenty people come up and want a picture with him, not to mention those who just wanted to shake his hand. Leslie and I, having had some arrangements fall through at the last minute, scrounged together a pretty decent J-Lo and Ben Affleck ensemble: I was Ben, and though forced to wear a hundred pounds of facial tanner and an equally large amount of hair gel, I was pretty comfortable in Ben's slouchy jeans and t-shirt over a long sleeve shirt outfit. (Note, if I have not yet sent you the link to the pictures and you are interested in seeing them, email me.) The Castro was people-watching central, with the most popular costume being Siegfried and Roy -- people dressed in all white with stuffed tigers and fake blood attached to their necks. The atmosphere was jovial and lacking malice (good thing too -- apparently there were FOUR stabbings in the Castro last year!) and of course a little bit bawdy at times, but in good fun if not in good taste. Fred and I also took in a couple parties, the sea lions at the wharf (which we had to tear Mom away from after over an hour, but it took Fred five minutes to feel he'd "gotten the gist of it"!!), the Vtech game v. Miami at a Union street bar (the at the time 11th ranked Hokies romped on the 3rd ranked Miami -- awesome to watch), In 'N Out, reunited with some of Fred's St. George's friends and Will, his best friend from childhood in CT, dealt with a dead battery in my car (though I have to say, not very well!) and basically on the whole tried to stay hydrated, keep moving, and pounce when we saw the whites of their eyes.

This work week flew by and was great fun, thanks to it being our Team Lead's birthday on Thursday. We bought her a "hotel survival kit" filled with indulgent goodies we'd thrown together -- lotion, bubble bath, a stuffed bear, a buttercream scented candle -- and a lemon meringue pie (her favorite), and then the utility company employees surprised the pants off her with a SpongeBob SquarePants party!! Then when we got back to the hotel, the front desk clerk (whom we are on very familiar terms with at this point) had come by on her day off to drop off a cake she'd baked especially for A., complete with fancy roses and sparkling sugar accents. We were STUFFED when that day was over, especially since we took her to a delicious Italian restaurant for her special dinner. It was a great day. Plus, our latest dealing-with-repetition-and-windowless-confinement theme right now is to address each other as "Comrade," and speak in our best stiff Russian accent, which, especially when it is extended to song lyrics, makes for endless hilarity.

Finally, I saw the third Matrix movie on Friday night down at the Metreon, and I can't say that I recommend it that highly, though it does its best to wrap things up. I thought at the very end they concluded it as well as they could, but the clunky dialogue and inevitable plot twists that it took to get there, plus some seriously hokey acting and an overdose of religious imagery, made it a bit easy to disdain and detach from on the whole, which doesn't bode well for a movie. (But really, how could they have possibly followed up such a groundbreaker as the first Matrix? They have my deepest sympathies...) The group agreed that the nicest thing about the movie was hanging out as a group before hand (we went an hour and a half early, since it was opening weekend), and for me it was also the long walk home afterwards -- James, Dan, Denny and I decided to walk the entirety of Market Street from Fourth all the way to the Castro. About an hour and a half's walk at 2am, but flanked by three guys and amped by the action sequences, it was a good (and ultimately uneventful, safety-wise) way to unwind.

This weekend brings two extra days off thanks to Veteran's Day, so I won't be heading to Auburn until Tuesday night. I relish the break, and wish you all similar rest and relaxation, Comrades!! Take care...

Oh my blogs have gotten away from me...sorry guys. The tree in our backyard is a Brugmansia -- I believed crossed with "Candida" -- according to the website I looked it up on. My Mom and Steve and I (lo these many weekends ago) asked in a local horticultural shop. The man there was right about the Brugmansia, but WRONG about the Bottlebrush. My favorite trees on SF's streets are indeed called CRIMSON BOTTLEBRUSHES and you can look them up to see how cool they are. Mom -- you were right!! Whatever weird pine the man suggested did not have any kind of flowering appendages at all...

It was a busy weekend this weekend, with Leslie and I having quite a bout of bad transportation luck -- due to slow buses, miscommunications, our own ignorance about the numbering of SF's piers, and all out crowds and confusion, it took us about 2 whole hours just to get to Red Bull's Flugtag on Piers 30-32 Saturday. Flugtag is basically Redbull sponsoring people to create "flying" machines which they then pilot off a ramp 30 feet up from the water, and whoever gets themselves the farthest wins a pretty sweet cash pot -- $7500! The second and third placers get cash prizes too. Leslie and I got there just in time to see the last two teams go, the very last one being the winner, so at least we got to see that. The winners created a human catapult -- with one guy seated at the lowest end and four pullies attached to the highest end. His four friends then held on to the pullies and jumped into the water, thereby yanking the catapult down and sending the man 61 FEET!! It was hysterical (they were wearing kilts no less) and fortunate that we saw it.

The night before we had time to kill before the 8:30 showing of Kill Bill, so we ended up exploring Yerba Buena Gardens and Center, and boy is it beautiful at night. Really thoughtfully constructed waterfalls involving well placed rocks, artful use of surface tension, carved spouts...all lit up and set up so that you can sit right at the edge. As you can imagine, it was teeming with young couples, but they proved unobtrusive. -_~

I am in love with swimming at night right now -- it somehow gives me more energy to swim when it's dark and cold than during the daylight hours.

That's about it here -- me and my team are otherwise having a great time at work, and Halloween should prove quite fun this Friday, as the Castro is the hotspot for revelry and Fred is joining me out here. I'll be sure to let you know how THAT goes!! Happy Halloween and drop me a line, you people!

Last weekend, my mom and Steve were here -- it was great fun. They flew out on a Thursday and I was able to meet them Friday afternoon, show them the place, and then wander about the city with them. (I heartily invite any of you who can swing it to come out for a long weekend -- both Mom and Steve report that it was shockingly easy to manage. You just need to cough up the cash for the plane tickets, and otherwise you're welcome to stay with me.)

As is often the case, in showing them the city I learned a lot about it myself. For example, I took them to see the Sea Lions down at Pier 39. For those of you who have been here around 1989 or earlier, you honestly have no concept of how they've taken over one part of the bay. Apparently the earthquake of '89 changed something -- the theory is that it most likely changed the underwater lay of the land such that it changed the migratory paths of herring schools -- and brought a massive bloat* of Sea Lions to the pier. (*"Bloat" is the term for a group of hippos. I don't know the term for a group of Sea Lions, so bloat seemed fitting. ~_-) When I brought my mom and Steve to the pier, there happened to be a woman there who worked at the Sea Lion hospital in Sausalito and was here checking on the local population and answering questions. Thus I learned many things about Sea Lions -- for example, the herring/migratory/earthquake theory mentioned above. Nearly the entire population of s.l.s gathered at the Wharf was male, as well, since right now is birthing season and all birthing age females would be in warmer waters doing so. You can tell gender when a sea lion is lying on its back (which they do quite a lot -- coming back as an s.l. would be just as ideal as coming back as a cat -- lots of lolling, sunbathing, snuggling, and general loafing going on -- that is if you don't mind the sharks...) but you can also tell because males develop large sagittal crests (imagine an oversized lobe on their foreheads) after 4 or 5 years and grow larger in size. Females also tend to be slightly blonder in color, though when they're wet the colors are pretty indistinguishable. There were lots of BIG boys out there, but also a bunch of yearlings, who all look way too small to be weaned (but that's probably just by comparison to their 1,000 lb counterparts -- literally) and provide an added element of cute out there.

Anyway, at some point these sea lions discovered the bay, and as you may recall from news in years past, proved quite a menace to fishermen, but also to boat owners -- the flimsy docks they put up that mere humans can strut around on proved no match for whole bloats of one ton big daddies, and within no time the sudden confluence of sea lions literally sank the docks! There was a lot of debate over what to do with them -- to get rid of them or not and how -- but in the end a compromise was reached by creating huge sea-lion-sturdy floats towards the opening of the bay, which they took to immediately. Occasionally, an errant sea lion will still rest his girth on a boat dock (the woman told us that this is rare, sea lions are group-oriented, and only one that is very ill or has recently been in a doozy of a fight will stray off alone to recuperate) and the boaters are provided with large human shields which they literally hide behind to shuttle the sea lions off the dock. This is both to provide them protection from sharp canines and to keep the sea lions from getting acclimated to humans -- keeping a bit of fear and natural distrust there maintains an important boundary between shared space and unmanageable nuisance.

For the most part, the sea lions lie there and soak up the sun; they literally climb over each other like steam rollers searching for the right lions to squeeze between for a nap; despite the snooziness, a moment of silence is rare, especially when a boat wake comes through and rocks the docks, and also because the odd male will get territorial and chase interlopers off "his" dock, until the sun proves strong enough to lull him. When the sun is too strong, a sea lion will appear to be lazily waving at you, but really they are "thermo-regulating," that is, by sticking a flipper up they create more surface area for the wind to catch, and this cools them down.

If it sounds idyllic -- and it is -- in the bay sea lions have hardly any natural predators -- except for the horrific creature known as a cookie-cutter shark. These are so named because they swim up to prey, grab a piece of flesh and spin (!), leaving a perfect circle shaped scar.

Anyway, that's my report on Sea Lions -- I have more to tell you about my backyard garden, but I have things to do in the meantime. ~_-

This work week has been pretty smooth, so I've been concentrating my attention on birding. If you are not at all interested in birding, don't bother to read the rest, since it reads like a backyard ecology grade school report!

I am definitely an amateur "birder" these days, especially since the move to the West Coast has brought in a whole new batch of things to identify. For starters, in Auburn at our hotel there are tall thin decorative pines that attractive an entire flock of what I believe are Brewer's Blackbirds, who make wonderful "chuck chuck" noises and are fun to watch swirl and settle, swirl and settle. In looking up these birds I learned how to tell the difference between the ubiquitous European Starling and Blackbirds -- Starlings: often speckled, often irridescently greenish/purpleish, plumage looks a lot rougher, dark eyes, yellow bills; Blackbirds: clean, smooth, black plumage, less noticeably irridescent, generally yellow-eyed and black billed. They are often larger than Starlings too.

At the deli where we eat our lunch, there is a single brownheaded cowbird who is missing his foot. (He has his leg right down to the ankle joint, just the actual foot is missing.) He gets along just fine amidst the sparrows who frequent the deli, and ultimately I realized that since cowbirds are "brood parasites" -- meaning the parent cowbirds lay their eggs in other birds' nests and leave their young to be raised by "foster" families -- that this cowbird most likely was raised by these sparrows.

I've also been introduced to the Western Scrub Jay, which is in the family of blue jays -- it's got that lovely blue jay color, but it has a grey "vest" and no crest, and a dashing white stripe above its eyes. On my road trip I was exposed to Steller's Jays as well, which look exactly like a standard Blue Jay whose head has been dipped in black ink up to the neck. They are quite eye-catching.

Finally, while lazing in the hot tub my coworker and I noticed some gulls soaring inland. Everyone expects gulls to be closely tied to the sea, but they love lakes and ponds just as much, and as scavengers can survive quite nicely in open grasslands (and often, parking lots!) too. Out here, though, the gulls are most likely California gulls, and in hearing of this and deciding to find out what differentiates them from the East Coast Herring Gull, I was surprised to find that Gulls go through quite a variety of plumage before hitting their standard grey and white. In fact, even for experienced birders, it is hard to tell the difference between varieties of immature gulls, which start out almost uniformly brown and go through the entire spectrum of speckledom before becoming white and grey. The best way to tell gulls apart is when they're in their adult form; the Herring Gull has light eyes (i.e. yellow) and pink legs and is generally slightly larger, while the California gull has dark eyes (i.e. they look uniformly black) and yellow legs.

Back in San Francisco, I have had the delight of exposure to two new kinds of birds: Cormorants, which are sleek black birds who literally dive underwater for fish; and black-chinned hummingbirds (who frequent our back garden), whose males look much like Ruby-throated hummingbirds (i.e. emerald green coat, whiteish/grey bellies, and beautiful rich purpley throats) except that the b.c.hummers have a slight strip of black above the violet, while the rubies don't. The only reason I'm confident that I saw a b.c. hummer is that Rubies stick to the East Coast and Black Chinnies stick to the west.

This week we hit the world's most annoying roadblock: Quality Control. My team rocks, first of all, and further, we set up an assembly line system that means we QC each other by default anyway, but we still have to go back and "double check" piles of work...it's frustrating when you strive for excellence and yet pay for the sloppiness of people you don't even see or know. >:(

That aside, this week has been easy socially and moving rather quickly. And Mom and Steve fly in tomorrow night, which should be fun -- both showing them "my" San Francisco and learning their history with it too. Ghirardelli, here we come...

By the way, if you have never heard the noise a Cowbird makes, you should see if you can find it somewhere. It's fascinatingly different from other birds; it sounds more like a water drop than a chirp.

This is going to be a whirlwind, this travel thing. By Monday morning the drive out here Sunday night (a mere 2.5 hours) seemed like it had occured years ago, and I can hardly remember the weekend. Of course, I've been experiencing a sense of time dilation ever since I got to California: I wake up each morning with every previous day feeling like it occured eons ago. I feel as though I've been in California for a year by now (I can't believe it's just barely been 3 months), if not more, and I feel as though I've spent half of it in Auburn, though it hasn't even been a full 2 weeks.

This time dilation is not the bad "I'm bored" kind, just an odd sensation, as though my internal clock revs way up at some point, and when it stops I snap to, completely mystified that only a day has passed.

For those of you who are constantly exhausted by a monontonous job of endless paper pushing, I highly recommend going for a swim every day at the end of the work day. It ebbs all that repetition right off your body, and more importantly, your psyche. I don't know WHAT I'm going to do when I get a permanent job that does not involve a hotel with a pool, but I'm living it up for now. The hotel also has a hot tub, so even when Auburn starts to get chilly, I'll have a post-work-day-soak to look forward to...

Love and water jets to you all.

So, the whole internet updating thing is trickier than I thought. The connection in the hotel is "wireless," which although it sounds cool, actually means that it goes slower than dial-up! I tried to sign on to this Tuesday night and couldn't even get the sign-in page to load after about 20 minutes of waiting patiently.

That said, the computer we use at work for data-entry works well, but obviously, we are using it most of the time. I happen to be the data-enterer today and since this is my 15 minute break, I get to partake.

What this info translates to is that I can't promise updates in any consistent way. Some weeks I may be able to update, some weeks I may not. Thank you for your patience.

Everything is going well: my team, as projected, is awesome. We are also goofy, witty and brilliant. In the space of 4 days we've come up with about 35 billion inside jokes. We have a list of the greatest names we've come across in the files (interestingly enough, though I did this on my road trip, they came up with it independently of me. In case you're curious, the names are: Mr. Killingsworth, Volcanoville, Lawrence Root, Hillish Rock Road, LoneTree & Blue Oaks Road, and Darryl Sniff), we have lists of all the silly things we've said, and we've drawn some great personifications of things we've come across.

I found out on the drive out here though -- I AM SURROUNDED BY WATER SIGNS. 2 Scorpios (agh!), a Cancer, and a Pisces. So far though, I have not experienced the dreaded interpersonal problems one would expect from being surrounded by a bunch of emotional, crazy water signs. Perhaps I will have to give up a now-outdated conception of what water signs are like. (One of the Scorpios, in hearing my concern about them all being water signs, immediately pointed out that as a Gemini I'm schizophrenic. I am so not. Yes I am. No I'm not. Am to. Are not. Har har har. Anyway...)
We'll see...one of my team members also noticed that the 4 of us temps fill out the Scooby Doo team profiles almost perfectly: One of us is bearded and loosely locked (Shaggy), one of us is blond and built (Fred), the other girl has short hair and wears glasses (Velma) and I, being a tall blond, am supposedly Daphne (YES! After being a Velma nearly all of my life, I have finally achieved Daphne status...). Our team lead, however, is not really Scooby -- she decided she's more of a Scrappy Doo. So most of our spare time is spent trying to figure out just what the mystery is and who's behind it. ;0)

Last but not least, Auburn is a lovely little town (it has an "old town" section that is very Jackson Hole/Gold Rushy/Store Fronty. But it's pretty small) and our hotel has a pool and a hot tub (both of which I use every day) AND is located 500 feet from In N' Out. We also have a Marie Calender's built into the hotel. Yay!

The momentum is gathering. Though I miss my friends in SF, conditions are ideal and everything is going smoothly. Talk to you soon!

Dudes: I am now totally like Cali in a vehicular way. I bid a fond adieu to 210-MOS and welcome 5DKY203. And just as I was about to say that I'm finally done with that long list of things to do when moving (new: job, residence, housemates, cable, DSL, electric, bank, phone, driver's license, registration...whew) I realize I just need a parking permit for my neighborhood! But you can mail away for those, so other than that, everything's squared away ------ just in time for me to leave. And also just in the knick of time financially. Aside from having next month's rent tucked safely away in my savings, I'm about $94 away from bankruptcy! Of course, if my @#$%^&*! phone rebate would just hurry up and appear, I'd have a bit more breathing room.

Parents: this is not a sly entreaty for money. I'll be getting my (albeit meager) paycheck for this week's training next week, and all of my bills for this month are paid. I'm just keeping everybody posted on my masterfully down-to-the-wire but solvent financial planning. Yeah, that's it. ;0)

In job-related news: Auburn is East just past Sacramento and towards Tahoe. So it's actually probably only 3 hours away, really. This small elimination of an extra 2-3 hours projected driving time is quite a relief, I have to say. The projected time line for the project has us in Auburn until Mid November, and then in Eureka or Santa Rosa until the end of January, which would be a solid 3+ months of work. (This may mean that my Thanksgiving and Christmas vacations will be tiny. I'm sad about that. But I think they'll still be doable.) Also, on Friday we combined two-teams-to-a-group and did a workshop with "sample scenarios" for what we'll be doing at the electric company. And I must say, my team rocks! While the other team we were working with was all, "wai', wha???" we were all, "do this and this and this. DONE." And, while I have a feeling this applies to a majority of aspiring twenty-somethings in San Francisco, the two boys on my team are both writers, which is great, because if there's anything Wesleyan trained me to do, it's relate to writers. Mom, I will not be marrying, dating, or in any way teaming up with either of these boys, so let's nip that dreamy look in your eyes in the bud right now, okay? But just know I'm in great company. To that end, one of these boys is most definitely bringing his laptop and told us we could use it for email if we'd like. While I don't intend to abuse this situation by writing to you all every single night, it does mean I'm slightly more reachable electronically.

Take care everyone!

I am now a licensed driver for team California... :0)

I forgot. On the drive to the Mountain, Chad and I saw an ENORMOUS rainbow. It was gorgeous against the wet mesa backdrop. I haven't seen one like that outside of Hawaii.

So this is what, under attorney-client privilege, I am allowed to say: I am working for a consulting firm at an electric company to aid them in an internal audit. ;)

Today's meeting went well. Most of the day was spent learning exactly what we'd be doing, where we'd be going, and meeting our team leaders and the E.C. affiliates. There are 6 teams, each of which will be sent to two major areas. I ended up in one of the teams that starts out in Auburn -- Northeastern CA -- and then moves to the Santa Rosa/Eureka area. For now it will mean driving 5-6 hours in a van with 4 other people (3 other temps and our team leader) every Sunday and Friday afternoon and staying in a hotel all of the corresponding nights. The good news is, we are paid for all of that driving time (which means lot$ of overtime) and we get the food allowance as well, so...essentially I will have little to no expenses besides rent and bills from now until late January.

My team seems cool -- two guys, another girl, myself, and our team leader (who's a girl). They all seem nice, charismatic, diligent. I have a positive outlook on this one.

I'll do my best to stay in touch -- we may or may not have internet access, and I'll be avoiding using my cell phone until after 9pm PST or on weekends, since last month's bill was a whopper, plus I'll be busy anyway. But those are loose guidelines and not to be considered restrictions.

Yay!

In honor of New Mexico, one of my favorite poems:

A Blessing

Just off the highway to Rochester, Minnesota,
Twilight bounds softly forth on the grass.
And the eyes of those two Indian ponies
Darken with kindness.
They have gladly come out of the willows
To welcome my friend and me.
We step over the barbed wire into the pasture
Where they have been grazing all day, alone.
They ripple tensely, they can hardly contain their happiness
That we have come.
They bow shyly as wet swans. They love each other.
There is no loneliness like theirs.
At home once more,
They begin munching the young tufts of spring in the darkness.
I would like to hold the slenderer one in my arms,
For she has walked over to me
And nuzzled my left hand.
She is black and white,
Her mane falls wildly on her forehead,
And the light breeze moves me to caress her long ear
That is delicate as the skin over a girl's wrist.
Suddenly I realize
That if I stepped out of my body I would break
Into blossom.

-- James Wright, 1963

I got the J-O-B! I start training next Wednesday. The pay is enough, plus they compensate for all lodgings, travel time (i.e. when I'm sitting in a van on the way to Eureka, I'm getting paid for that time) and include a more-than-is-necessary food-stipend per diem. It will involve a lot of travel but I'm looking forward to that...the document collection & organization should last 2-3 months, and then they may hire me to stay on for the analysis portion...anyway...I think the words of the day are "at last!" I'll be sure to keep you posted on what the job is actually like, what the people are like (we work in teams) and hopefully what the towns themselves are like....

THE LOST ARCHIVES OF A HOUSE:

So...the thing to tell you is that I got a little mini vacation thanks to the good news about the interview. Chad, who lives in Santa Fe, NM is about to start a job at a book store this week, and I learned of said interview first thing Tuesday morning, and so it struck us both that this past week would be the last "free" week for us. Ergo, I dropped everything (which, since I had to twiddle my thumbs until the interview, was actually dropping nothing) and hopped in my under-used and still ever so eager Forester and drove to Santa Fe. As you may or may not know, I've been to Santa Fe before -- briefly with Lex and Leslie on our first road trip -- but never with Chad on the insider track. I now know where to get the best tamale, tapas, or anole pinon pancakes, the best place to go if you need a pinata or to see some prairie dogs, the best pawn shop to find old Native American crafted turquoise jewelry, and the best place to drive to if your dad loans you his Sea-Foam green mint-condition Mercedes Convertible (the ski basin)...I now also know why there's all that hype about desert sunsets (if you've ever ordered a universe-sized scoop of rainbow sherbet and then spilled it all over the clouds, then you know what a Santa Fe sunset looks like and why it's called "God Sky") and just exactly how the locals get rid of Old Man Gloom every year -- they spend a week in festival and burn a gigantic effigy (named Zozobra) at the stake. (We didn't actually see this for reasons about to become clear. But just learning about it was cool.)

If it sounds action-packed, it's because it was. We had a few days total to see the sights, because we also took off for Chad's childhood home, located on a mesa in the middle of nowhere, about an hour and a half or so from Santa Fe. About three decades ago his parents bought a bunch of acres of *rural* New Mexico land, built a house from scratch and lived off the land, from building fences and keeping horses, pigs, and fowl, to farming for food and raising two kids. Eventually they built another home on the land, and as life ran its course, they were able to move to Santa Fe (so a very intelligent Chad could get an education better-suited to his future) and revamp the second home entirely (while renting the first to a reclusive but shockingly normal Ohio State Lottery winner in need of cutting down his expenses). It's now complete with such things as a gigantic TV and pool table -- but it's still in the middle of nowhere on top of a mesa, and thereby gorgeous and uncorrupted. There are petroglyphs carved into rocks, ball cacti that hitch themselves to your flip-flops, furniture that his grandfather made by hand, and water that reeks of sulphur when you first turn on the tap. It rained off and on for the time we were there, but the first night it cleared up enough such that you could see EVERY STAR IN THE SKY, from the Milky Way to Mars, and on to meteor showers -- not just little points of light that shoot across your field of vision, but burning balls that trundle, effervesce, and spit, the kind of shimmery stuff you only see when a small child makes a wish about a whale's friendship on the Disney Channel.

It was beautiful and exhausting -- the whole trip -- and I learned as much about Chad's history (his parents have some fantastic stories about life on the Mesa -- and just some fantastic stories in general) as anything.

I apologize for being out of radio contact -- my cell phone didn't work on the Mesa, and I was in general pretty engrossed...but grateful for a last hurrah that I could actually enjoy knowing that work is on the way.

p.s. We did find that new roommate -- we met him randomly but it turns out he's a friend of a friend of James -- so naturally James called said friend and got the skinny on him, turns out he's a great guy and gainfully employed, so...hurrah! Now we continue our decorating fun...

The job front is warming up. One of my temp agents contacted me with a 2-3 month legal research job, with good pay and possibly even involving (compensated) travel. I interview on Tuesday...send the job ju-ju, mojo, and good vibes my way until then...

James and I have three rooms in this apartment and two of us. So we are interviewing for a third. For those of you who have heard of Craig's List (www.craigslist.org), it is an exceptionally useful tool for finding nearly anything in any major city. It is a website built around community. So we posted a listing on it seeking a third roommate and got 50 responses in the space of three days.

Before the advent of reality tv, it might have been a far rarer concept to interview someone in the hopes of thoroughly plumbing their personality for all its little cracks and blockages in order to ascertain whether after 5 months you will still be comfortable sharing space with them. Or rather, to do so as a roommate and not a landlord. James and I -- two totally compatible roommates, something we're both terribly happy about -- are hoping to find a third totally compatible roommate, someone who will not skulk about but will want to hang out, someone relatively clean without being anal-retentive, someone who shares our general tastes and worldviews but can bring new interests and concepts into our lives, and obviously someone reliable -- in short, it is most definitely like interviewing someone to be a new friend. Out of these 50 responses, we had 10 "definitely interview thems," 5 bench warmers, about 30 people who just didn't give us enough information to go on, and about 5 definite no's.

If you read this and you can thing of a real whizbanger of a question to peel away a layer of someone's mind (in the next two days -- interviews begin at 5pm pacific time Wed-Thur), do email me! Otherwise, James and I -- two fairly good judges of character in combination -- will have to go on instinct, employment status, and luck.

On a different note: our friend Noah bought a crossword puzzle book that has perhaps some of the CHEAPEST answers to clues ever. For example, a 7 letter word for "irritable" beginning with PE and ending with ISH was not PEEVISH, but PETTISH. Wha?? On a different note, however, I learned a (supposed) synonym for "preen" -- "prink." (Wha??? again.) Of course, the clue was "prink," which meant I had to solve it by getting every other clue in relation to it, double-checking the answers in the back of the book to be sure, and scratching (prinking?) my head in confusion. According to another source, John, another synonym for "preen" is "fard," as in, "Oh, before my date I spent an hour farding in my room." (Ha!!)

It all makes you notice that it is a rather vainglorious and silly thing, the little rituals and ministrations that people partake in just to look nice for other people, and so I suppose the language must reflect that. Huzzah to you, communicators of yore! You've made us look no less stupid and feel no less stupid about trying to look less stupid, but you sure provided fodder to fend off the ubiquitous doldrums of bored Crossword-makers worldwide.

Well folks, my time at GE has already come to a close. They were an *awesome* bunch of people, but they were looking for someone with an entirely different skill set and career goals. But at least I'm back in the market with some money, some experience, and some contacts.

James and I are now the proud lessees of my house, starting officially September 1...Yay!

I just read more of Josh's website and it makes me pale in comparison. As soon as the "trivialities" of signing a lease and finding a (permanent) job are past, I hope to do something more thoughtful with this website. There are plenty of things worthy of rumination out there, plenty of poetry quotations that should well be shared, things to observe, queries to posture...bear with me as I tromp forward through all this financial wear and tear, because I do hope the aftermath will be far more interesting...

I have a job.

It's temporary, admin assistant to a Financial Services group in downtown San Francisco. 3-4 weeks.

I have to thank Barbara for her indirect help with this one -- she emailed me some monster.com jobs, which prompted me to upload my resume to monster.com and make it searchable by any employer. Thus a national staffing agency in Illinois saw it and contacted me on Tuesday about this job! I didn't even have to work for it -- they saw that I had plenty of admin experience and want me to start work on Monday, no interview necessary. What clinched it, apparently, was that they saw I was from Wesleyan. The recruiter who called me hadn't heard of Wes but they sure had, and she said they're very excited...

Anyway, Helen -- a teacher of mine at Rumsey in 5th grade -- is checking her connections for more permanent teaching jobs, and I'm still actively looking myself. But at last, a break through and a little peace of mind. And just in time to tell the Landlord, whom I meet with today! (It may not have longetivity but it at least proves my viability in the job market...I hope.)

Added to my side bar now is a link called Josh's travels. Josh is a friend of mine through the Men's Club Volleyball Team at Wesleyan who won the Watson Fellowship. If you want to read super intelligent and involved stuff about the global effects of technology up close and personal, go to his site and look around. It's pretty awesome.

Today I meet with the Landlord of this place to start the application process. He told me that "in principal" he has no problem with James and I living here. It bodes well!

Also, I have had calls from two temp agencies and my former grade school vball coach has put me in touch with some SF area contacts about possibly teaching in the area, which would be a *dream*. I mean, obviously tough and challenging and hard. But also really exciting. As I seem to say a lot -- or at least think a lot -- keep your fingers crossed!!

Anthony wrote to me to say that I should solicit donations on my blog. I could not ever just unabashedly solicit donations on my blog.

No seriously, I take it back. Sorry folks. ;0)

Hey all, it's been a while because I've been spending nearly all my time trying to find a job, and there's just not much of interest to say about that until I get one. There have been some really cool ones, though, so I'll keep you posted if anything comes to fruition.

I did have time to do one really interesting thing, though: Alcatraz, aka the Rock. So my blog today will be a little history lesson for the unintiated. There's a lot more history to it than you might expect -- it was developed in 1853 to be a fort (along with several others) protecting the bay. So you'd have all these lonely sailors posted on Alcatraz and overlooking San Francisco over a mile and a quarter away who ultimately never saw any military action, and then they'd get their shore leave and go wild. It was then quickly discovered what a great holding pen Alcatraz was for miscreants -- originally the soldiers were lowered into a single basement cell for periods from days to weeks. And by 1861, they were shipping civilian (and unfortunately, native american) prisoners in as well: Confederates, for example. But the problem with Alcatraz was always its cost -- it has no source of fresh water (it had to be shipped in from the mainland) and had to provide its own electricity, etc. So in 1892 with Military equipment improving leaps and bounds, Alcatraz as a fort became expensive and obsolete, and thus in 1915 becomes entirely a military prison, and then 19 years later becomes a federal prison. That's where famous inmates like Al Capone and The Birdman come in. Al Capone was able to buy out all the guards at his first prison and continue his booming prohibition business et al. from his original jail cell, so they moved him to Alcatraz to completely isolate him. He only served 10 years for tax evasion, but by the time he was released, he was in the full throes of syphilis-induced delirium, and died not long after. The Birdman, as we learned in a lecture, was sentenced to be executed for murder and placed in solitary confinement pending that somewhere in the Midwest. But his mom intervened with a huge writing campaign, actually gained an audience with the president, and convinced him to repeal the death sentence. The catch was, it was still on his orders to be in solitary confinement, so for the entire rest of his prison "career," which lasted for some 40 years, he was in isolation!! He was, by all accounts, a true psychopath -- prone to stabbing anyone he got in an argument with. He gets his nickname from his practice of keeping and studying canaries and their diseases, but he didn't actually keep them at Alcatraz, he kept them at Leavenworth, having OVER 400 in his solitary cell with him there! He wrote the definitive work on canaries and their diseases while in prison -- he was the authority on them for decades -- until finally in 1980 someone looked into it and it all turned out to be complete "bunk" -- literally the word they used in the report. He was pretty much a major celebrity once Burt Lancaster played him in a movie about his life, though his death went unnoticed because he died the day before President Kennedy was assasinated.

Alcatraz ran as a federal penitentiary from 1934-1963, and that was the main focus of our tour. We took the night tour and also got the audio tour thrown in, which was narrated by actual security guards and former inmates who had lived through Alcatraz, who were amazing to hear from. There were 4 major cell blocks and depending upon their relative appeal or location, they were named after New York streets -- Broadway was the central corridor down the middle and ended in "Times Square" (where the central wall clock was located) -- the cells with the best views were called Park Place, etc. There was an unsuccessful riot and of course the infamous escape (the escapees are to this day on the FBI's wanted list: though they are presumed never to have made it across the bay, there is no evidence of their death either).

After it closed, once again for financial reasons, they almost sold it to a Texas billionaire to be made into a space-themed amusement park, except that a group of Native American Political Activists occupied it to make a statement to the "Great White Father and All His People." These occupations (three in all) lasted from 11 days to 19 months and had a lot of positive public support initially, but like every other endeavor on Alcatraz, eventually they couldn't support themselves and most of them left or were escorted off by federal agents. At this point, the National Park movement had begun and Alcatraz became part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. Because there are no land predators whatsoever (in fact, there is only the deer mouse and the California slender salamander as 4 footed representatives) it's home to all kinds of gulls and birds, including one of the largest western gull colonies in California, along with the black-crowned night heron, both of which are valuable enough that they close parts of the island during nesting and breeding season. During some of the outdoor lectures, the gulls were so loud it was hard to hear the tour guy standing 7 feet away.

The ferry ride to and from was beautiful -- we got a perfect, clear, warm evening with little to no fog, so the ride back when it was dark and we were facing all the lights was astounding.

Anyway, that's about it...I need to stop writing this and get back to the job market. Keep those fingers crossed!!

Sorry to have taken so long to write -- my roomie took her computer away with her for the weekend...

Thanks to a recommendation from Steve, on Friday we had a DELICIOUS lunch at Scoma's on Pier 47. I had the delight of ordering Roasted Whole Cracked Dungeness Crab, which for the unintiated, is a bowl with an assortment of crab parts (still in the shell) soaked in garlic, butter, and olive oil. YUM. They serve it with shell-crackers and a long thin fork, but there is no possible way to eat it politely, and so in no time I was so covered in garlic, butter and olive oil that I could not pick up my drink for the duration of the meal for fear of sling-shooting it out of my greasy hands. But the great thing about lobsters and crabs is that they make a meal not just a meal but a *process*, and so at the end of it you feel like you've really accomplished something.

I've also had some great wines: St. Francis, Kendall Jackson (a House family favorite), and Ironstone Chardonnays, as well as 2-Buck-Chuck -- a particular type of Merlot sold at Trader Joe's out here. It's produced by Charles Shaw, who had such a prolific vineyard year that he can afford to sell a really delicious Merlot at 2 bucks a pop (hence the nickname). It may be the only time in my early life where I could go buy a whole case.

The great thing about having Chad here for a long time was that he wanted to really see San Francisco, so see it we did. In addition to the things I've already listed, we went back to the wharf area to get a Ghiradelli sundae, explored the exploratorium (excellent good fun for all 5 senses), got to know Noe Valley pretty intimately, saw Finding Nemo at last ("Mine! Mine! Mine? Mine!") as well as Pirates of the Caribbean (quite funny, actually!), bought Skecher's rollerskates (4 wheelers, baby -- on sale for the ridiculously low price of 2 pairs for $35) and SKATED through much of Golden Gate Park (hard work -- but worth it) where we experienced the rose gardens and the lakes and ponds, checked out some italian food at North Beach (where the Jazz festival is coming up this Wednesday through the weekend) and walked through Chinatown, watched "Hero" on dvd with Leslie (unbelievably gorgeous cinematography, with a style and storyline not unlike Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon -- rent it if you can, it's an escape unlike any other) after walking around her neighborhood a bit, saw Chad's friend play in a band in Berkeley, and basically did a lot of walking, talking, eating, and exploring.

After he left, I also went to the 25th annual Garlic Festival in Gilroy -- the most delicious day you'll spend anywhere, at least until the Half Moon Bay Pumpkin festival -- where we sampled everything from pasta to kettle corn to ice cream -- that's right, ice cream -- flavored with Garlic!! Gilroy is south of S.F. so it was a whopping 104 degrees. We started sagging pretty quickly, though the occasional fruit smoothie and bowl of shaved ice resurrected us every now and then. They had great t-shirts, mostly along the lines of "eat, drink and stink," but we all wanted to save our cash for food, and it was well worth it. (Steve and Mom -- you need to time a visit for the festival next year. It's your kind of shindig.) The cool bonus to going to the festival was that Vida Long, one of my Wes teammates and good friends and a native Washington Stater, happened to be driving up from a visit to L.A., so she met us there and then followed us home. I got to spend most of this morning walking around Haight street with her -- perhaps one of the last key areas in San Fran that I haven't visited yet -- wacky, fun shops. I didn't buy anything -- buying's for people who have jobs! -- but I certainly know where to go to shop from now on.

In small world news: while waiting for the other half of our party to show up at Finding Nemo, I ran into none other than Bear Witherspoon, an old friend from Rumsey (grade school). The last time I saw was in EIGHTH GRADE, and to his credit, he recognized me and came over to talk to me. I'm hoping to have a meal with him some time this week...

It's been a really fun July, but now that I'm on my own again, this week and all of August is all business. I have some great leads, and I hope to have some interviews lined up by the end of this week. Take care!

At laaaaaaaaaaaaaaast, my love, at laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaast, my car is back. I drove her home and she seems fine. The nice thing is they cleaned and vacuumed her (sorely needed post-road trip); the not nice thing is that there was additional damage. They are going to send me the final bill in the mail, but I already know there was at least $300 more damage. I said it before and I'll say it again: deductibles are a great thing.

Now to get my CA license and registration...I'm sure they can't WAIT to have me as an official driver in this state!!

Good news: Laura, my roomie, and Leslie, one of my best friends, have decided to move in together -- in a separate apartment somewhere nearby. This means James, my good friend from Wes and roomie from last summer, can move into Laura's old room and we can (hopefully) take over the lease come September. I really love this house and neighborhood and James and I live together really well, so I'm really excited at the prospects. The only thing I don't know is if our third roommate, Emi, is staying or going too; but either way it will work out. Emi, by the way, was also born on June 15th. (If any of you were wondering just how many geminis it takes to change a light bulb...)

Now to find a job. Prospects are good!

Hello all. I've had quite a busy few days -- Chad is here so we've been hitting the more touristy side of town. We walked around the Mission pretty thoroughly the first day (we almost bought roller skates but they didn't have our size). Yesterday we hit the MOMA -- the exhibits were amazing -- and Fisherman's Wharf, and then met up with our friends at the Pac Bell Stadium for a Giants game. (They whupped the Colorado Rockies 8-4.) There was a moment of frustration there when we were trying to get from the Wharf to the Stadium and there was not a cab or bus in sight, but in a moment of divine benevolence, what should appear but a pedi-cab! I can't remember if I've ever been on one before, but it was probably the most ideal means of transportation in downtown San Fran late rush hour congestion. The game was great fun -- can't beat a ball park frank. No home runs though, which means we're going to have to go back. ;)

We're going out dancing tonight and we hope to visit Alcatraz at some point soon, plus dig up some serious seafood. Any suggestions from SF veterans re the latter will be greatly appreciated...

Today is a gorgeous, 75+ degree day. A block up from where I live, someone has a planter full of tiny flowers so ultra bluey-purple that you cannot look at them in direct sunlight. Just across the street from them, someone has painted a giant turquoise hippo (who closely resembles William, the Mascot of the Met) above a garage (along with a toucan and some other animals). I am definitely in love with San Francisco right now.

But if I am indeed in love with SF, then I have to admit I had a torrid affair with Pajaro Dunes this weekend. The beach house was amazing -- perfectly situated and suited for the 26 or so of us who descended upon it. It was a dune away from the beach in the back, and 100 yards from the sand volleyball court in front, with its own hot tub. (I was literally in the top 3 of the most frequent hot-tubbers.) Mornings were foggy and cool, days were hot and clear, and nights were just the kind of cold to wear a sweater comfortably. The first night, despite staying up so late that all beds and viable floor space were taken, I was more than happy to camp out on the porch with two of my friends and watch the sky lighten in blue and then gray scale stages. (The second night we snagged some of the beds.) I met new people and got to see people whom I've always wanted to see more of. There was dancing, singing, cooking, grilling, and continuous good spirits and celebration. Alexis and I built a totalitarian government and a sea turtle out of sand and detritus. There was even a spate of foot massages. Not a single negative event occured. Well, arguably, there was a dead sea-lion on the beach, which made a few people sad, but being the arm-chair zoologist that I am, I was thrilled at the chance to observe one up close. (It was not yet in a real state of decay and did not smell, so don't get grossed out.) If anything, the weekend ended too soon...

...but most of us, instead of splitting up, stopped at an In & Out Burger (I must say, I was a first timer and it was ALL that it was cracked up to be -- the fresh ingredients are unbeatable) on the way back to Berkeley, and then played volleyball in the park until the sun went down.

I suppose it's not really fair of me to have a vacation within a vacation, but I am no less grateful for such a fun, escapist, hitch-less weekend with my closest friends. ;)

Ultraviolet flowers to you all, and good day.

Sorry -- I didn't realize how long it's been since I updated. These three days have been good -- I've been getting some info on local banks and wireless calling plans, doing a lot of walking around, and keeping Lexi and Leslie company on various tasks. To my K&T cronies -- the best bank around according to my research is that esteemed and honorable bank right above you. (You understand why I'm being cryptic -- the internet being public). I'm going today to set up an account!

On a different note, I am reading the 5th Harry Potter book -- it's pretty good, in that its style and tone and general set-up is very consistent with the first four. (Thanks Leslie.) I am still reading Bill Bryson's Mother Tongue -- a GREAT book about the English language, if you are a linguaphile at all -- factual without being dull, lots of great trivia and hilarious idiosyncracies -- but I needed a good story to get my momentum back.

We are preparing for a weekend get away at a beach house that a group of us is renting -- it should be excellent fun, and I am looking forward to being around the ocean. Which is not to say that I am at the point where I need a break from the city, but I always love a good jaunt in the natural world. So I will most likely not be updating this again until Sunday or Monday. The weather, by the way, is gorgeous here -- I hope the heat wave has broken out there...

Today was the first day that I didn't wake up cringing. The moon is waxing, and it's time to move on. I went to the garage today where they provided me with an estimate: $2,400.00 Thank heavens for deductibles. I also heard from the other girl's insurance company today, which means this accident is pretty much wrapped up. I just have to get my car back -- their estimate for that is the 18th. That is, if Subaru gets the parts to them by the end of this week. He showed me underneath the wheel and there's more damage than initially met the eye -- metal folded back, damage to the bumper, stuff like that. But they think they can iron out the metal that's wrinkled under the quarter panel instead of having to replace it.

Funniest moment today: I went to the DMV and asked the lady at the first desk, "Um, hi, I'm here to fill out a traffic incident report and to pick up a driver's manual..." The look on her face was perfect.

I think today I am finally starting to get inklings of falling in love with San Fran, but I don't want to jinx that. A definite perk, however, is eating a huge, good meal and then ALWAYS walking it off. Living on an incline is the perfect anti-guilt.

The rest of Thursday was almost therapeutic. I calmed down and got some other little things done until my friends called, and then we picked up one of my favorite people from my Wesleyan class, Duke, from the airport and then went out dancing. THAT was what I needed, because I was still all clutched up inside, and we danced for 4 hours straight. Then yesterday, for the fourth, we went and played volleyball in a local park and then went to a barbeque at another one of my Wes friend's house, where I got to see even more people I hadn't seen in a while, while eating grilled corn and s'mores. I decided to leave a bit early because my roommate Laura was leaving, and but it worked out because as it turned out, we could see most of the fireworks at Pier 39 from our doorstep. We're on a slight incline and we could see them just over the horizon, and as always, they were colorful and shimmery. Happy 4th to you all!

So the first thing to tell you is that there were absolutely no personal injuries whatsoever. The second thing to tell you is that the preceding sentence is there because I got in an accident today. And the third thing to tell you is that my car is not badly hurt, and to reiterate, neither am I or the other driver.

I went to the Dept of Parking and Traffic today to get my temporary parking permit, and I got it with no hitches and no waiting in line, since I went a half an hour before they opened and was the first in line. So I left, but turned the wrong direction, away from the street I needed to get to, to get home. So I came to an intersection where I could turn left (so I could go around the block and reorient myself in the right direction), but there was also a soft left to get on the freeway, and one lane going straight. And I panicked and waited for the traffic in the "hard" left lanes to clear so I could make the hard left from the soft left lane. And then I did. And then there was someone I didn't see, who hit me solidly in the left rear wheel. And that tore her bumper off, and remarkably, only hurt my left rear wheel -- it didn't even scratch the exterior casing. (Although, it did wrinkle the casing inside behind the wheel, which is attached to that whole rear quarter paneling, so they're going to have to take the bumper off and straighten that out.) I had mostly completed the turn at that point and everybody else was out of the way, so we were both able to pull over with no repercussory damage or danger.

She was young (27) and shaking and we both apologized and exchanged info. Her friend from work happened to be driving by a minute later and stopped and helped her reattach her bumper (he had bumper stickers for the magazine they work for -- "Juxtapoz" -- which they used to tape her bumper up so she could get to work. He then stuck one on my rear window. I figured it was a fair recompense for what had happened, which is a pretty funny way to take advantage of a situation. But I figure as well that it will always remind me to chill out on the road -- false panic is worse than getting lost.) I called USAA right away. I'm pretty sure I'm at fault so I'm pretty sure my rates are going to go up. But it was only a matter of time -- I am, of course, a country Bambi in a big city. And I'd never been in an accident before. So the law of averages sharpened its teeth on those factors. USAA was really helpful; they gave me a place to call near where I live. (I also, after the claim, changed my insurance to CA insurance. So I am one step closer to being able to register my car.) The tow truck driver came remarkably fast -- literally, within 5 minutes -- and told me that the intersection where this happened is infamous locally for accidents. Which made me feel a little bit better. He was also from Grenich, CT, even, though he moved when he was 8. (He loves the city, he gave me the low-down on how to find my way around and other insider tips.) He also told me that USAA is the best insurance out there and never to lose it, and that the auto place he was taking me to was definitely top 10 in the city, maybe even top 5. And he was right, because they were all remarkably nice, too. They even gave me a ride home even though there's a convenient bus route that goes from there to here.

They guesstimated it to be around $1700.00; my deductible is $500.00 (and I do have that, so don't worry). But it's going to take some time. At least 24 hours before USAA gets the forms to them, then they have to send an estimate and have me come approve it, then they have to get the parts from Subaru, and then it will take 5-7 days after that. So it could take up to 2 weeks. They guarantee their work for life, though, which is nice. Not having a car in the city is also no big deal, because 3 of my friends (one of which is my roommate) have cars and there's great public transportation anyway. But I am kicking myself for that dumb onslaught of panic, for that sense of "no one's watching" and the results. I suppose it's not very bad as reality checks go -- no injuries, no major damage, with the benefit of being humbled on the road and remembering not to sweat the small stuff. And that added motivation to get a job fast.

I am exhausted and tremulous, so I'm going to go. But that's the news on my second day here in San Francisco. Drive safely...

So I got into to San Fran yesterday with no problem. Goodness, was it ever nice to unload my car of all that stuff, and then to find that it wasn't all that much stuff such that it would clog up my room. Said room, by the way, is big and sunny. The whole apartment is nice -- a kitchen overlooking a neighboring garden, a big living room, a washer and dryer, off the main streets so no rush hour traffic or parking issues...if Laura does decide to leave in September, I may just stay. But she may just stay too, so maybe I'll look locally. But anyway, that's putting the cart before the horse; I need to find a job. I have some leeway in my bank account, so no worries. I believe I'll be fine for all of July, at least, and I shouldn't even need that much time. I saved all the other listings on the job engines that looked interesting to me, so I have lots of leads.

I am DEFINITELY suffering from shell-shock -- I've visited NYC and Boston and Chicago hundreds of times, it seems, and stayed for whole weeks sometimes, but living here is such a different story. I have no guide, no one leading me by the nose and showing me stuff, the way you do when you visit someone. Though 4 of my friends took me out to dinner last night, so I am by no means isolated. I really, really like feeling like Bambi -- it's a regaining of innocence and newness and adventure that most people don't get to re-experience so keenly after childhood. I have so much to do -- change addresses on accounts, get parking permits and my CA license, get a job, get used to the neighborhood -- but that's really the only downside, a downside that should be gone almost entirely in the next week, completely in the next month. Two months from now, I will be completely settled, and that is exciting and inspiring.

I will be celebrating the 4th of July with some Wesleyan friends -- it will be quite a reunion, people I haven't seen in ages, people who live here, people who are visiting -- and then the next weekend we are all going to a beach house. So I'm trying to get the business side done ASAP so I can enjoy myself more thoroughly.

Happy 4th to you all and stay in touch!! I should be able to email more consistently in about a week.