Thursday, August 31, 2006

if you lived here, you'd be home by now

or could be if you'd acted on the post to scrappy last month, by the woman running code pink. some women are just luckier than others, i guess. since we passed this place on the way home from albany, naturally pictures had to be taken. and so i share them with you.

also pix are up from a jaunt to point isabel. more notes on all the recent gallavanting soon...

Thursday, August 24, 2006

getting my goat

while i'm waiting for various files to open...and incidentally i love XMLSpy....

today my little goat, aka pearl, decided to get into something she shouldn't have. and by today, i mean at approximately 3am this morning. and by something she shouldn't have, i really can't elaborate because i have no idea what she ate. whatever it was, it didn't agree with her and she promptly sent it back to the bedroom floor, and across our bed.

yes, she was sleeping in our bed. our girl is more than a little spoiled. and as far as we could tell, the bedroom was clear of anything remotely bad for her, and/or items like medications were safely out of her reach.

so about 315 this morning i woke up to what sounded like a whine or whimper. to be honest i wasn't sure if it was pearl, or min talking in her sleep. i nudged min - what's up? she mumbled or something and i heard it again. not min! i started feeling around for pearl on the bed and she was nowhere.

pearl! where are you? i heard her dog tags clanging from across the room, heading towards me. on goes the light. she's drooling like a leaky faucet. good grief. in addition to her shaking and other sharing of fluids, after a few minutes we got dressed and headed to adobe. well, after cleaning her real quick (quite a mess).

and of course, by the time we got there and seen by the doctor, she was totally fine. mouth dry as a bone, no shaking (well, other than a bit of nervousness at first), no fever, heart rate fine, got perky and everything. we watched her another 15 before leaving... with a very cheap bill. doesn't cost much when they don't really do anything. :-p

we got back home around 5 and though tired, i couldn't sleep yet. wanted to watch her a bit longer to make sure she was alright. started laundry for offending bed items. then i got hungry. tried one snack...waited...not enough. ok pearl's alright, but now i need real food. damn this mac&cheese craving!

fine. i'm awake for the day. made my cheesy goodness, min went to bed, and i got ready for the day. and pearl, she got reacquainted with her kennel. and she will stay friends with it every night from now on.

Monday, August 21, 2006

the wandering minstrel

my mind - and body - they have been on such a journey this last week.

thursday night we went to a Career Exploration Workshop at The Women's Building in sf. i instigated this trek because, as i've mentioned before, i'm not really grooving on my current gig. i had hoped that this class would help point me in a new direction.

well, it didn't. it's not really the fault of the class (limited scope due to funding - ah, the joys of nonprofits), BUT it did have some good food for thought, and got me thinking about the things that are important to me in a work environment, as well as some ideas on areas to explore to help me find That Thing That I Want To Do.

so yes, that was good. but what was great was there was another lesbian couple in the class. as class was breaking up, min goes: does anyone know a good place for dinner around here? and i said: oh, i already know a good place. we started downstairs and then one of the dykes - sandy, as it turns out - said: are you sure you want to turn down a good restaurant recommendation? i laughed and said good point! so she and her partner sara told us about two places. neither of them sounded good for then, but it was good to know. we were dropping some paperwork at the car, and the other couple was across the street, and min said: should we ask them to dinner?

so in a nutshell: we went to dinner with them, plus a friend of theirs visiting from australia, and had a GREAT time. so great that we all agreed to go out again sometime. pretty nice result for a class that didn't help much!

friday i had my offsite at lake berryessa/spanish flat resort. i must say, before looking up that link, i had no idea how much it cost to rent a boat. wow. but: what a blast. i posted some pics but naturally there are no pics of me bouncing, hovering, and skidding across the water since it's impossible to take a picture of yourself when both hands are grabbing, with all their might, to straps on a gigantic innertube.

and, i had no idea hanging onto a giant innertube could be so tiring and yield so many bruises. but as AG said (yes, AG. more on that later), "they're bruises of honor." i couldn't agree more. especially since, of all the people who rode that damn innertube, i was the *only* one who did NOT go flying off it! that's right - i did better than all those tall guys with the bulging arm muscles.

of course the flip side is, i rode that innertube to death, and it paid me back with the bruises, a good case of wind/sunburn and a (mild) knock upside the head. had a headache for three days straight...it's almost gone now. even so, i'd do it all again. sooo much fun!

oh and yes i attempted to wakeboard. later i heard that almost no one gets up (on the board) the first time. swallowed a bunch of water, got crabby with myself - but i'd try it another time if i had the chance.

also i got to see charissa that morning (but not at the offsite, wah). other than "hi", the first thing she said to me was "you're so tiny!"

what? ohhh. weight loss. for those of you who haven't seen me for a while, i am far from tiny, believe me. but since the last time she saw me (march?) i had dropped about 40 pounds. plus i had clothes on that *fit*. anyway, she asked me what my secret was and i said: stress, a little exercise, a little eating less, and stress. did i mention stress? so, not really a diet i recommend, but there are worse ways to lose weight, as i saw quite clearly with min. still, it was really nice to get the compliment so if you're out there reading, charissa - thanks! :-)

rest of the weekend was pretty mellow. m's birthday was saturday...all we did was get takeout from buca di beppos, because she has been very ill lately. it's just the usual, but she's been worse the last month or so. i seriously think she may be headed for a hospital stay soon - another obstruction/impaction. without going into details, let's just say all signs point to this, but i hope i'm wrong and she starts feeling a bit better soon.

ok...AG. so, for reasons i will not elaborate on but were TOTALLY innocent and well-intentioned (think: apology), i wrote to AG last week. we ended up having some good dialogue (note: i did not use dialogue as a verb) and, i think, left things in a much better place.

and they were so much better that of course, i found myself thinking about her too much again. however i (think i) did a better job redirecting that than i have in the past, and i started to feel better by sunday. the main trick i have learned, if i may say, is to simply not respond. compelling? absolutely. compulsory? absolutely not. so let's put that energy into something more productive! yeah!

in case you didn't know, i am not a cheerleader. but, sometimes i think everyone needs one, at least a little bit.

ok that pretty much wraps it, and good, because this post is long enough. :-p

incidentally

if you want to see your work in a browser, it really helps if you save your changes.

Friday, August 18, 2006

oh, i am SO tired

but: i had a great day. more later!

Monday, August 14, 2006

loving the light


Originally uploaded by heatherama.

i don't know why, i guess it's the reds, greens, and misty light, but i really love this shot. on saturday i was itching to go oustide, so we went to the thornewood preserve just west of woodside. it was supposed to be a gentle hike...and i guess it mostly was, except for all the areas with slide damage. min didn't make it all the way, but i was determined to make it to the lake. which admittedly was more of a glorified pond. still, i was happy to have made the trek and get a few nice shots.

today we went and saw world trade center which was pretty mediocre overall. loud. it did give a good sense of some people's experience that day, but it was a little slow. went to greek later in mountain view - cafe baklava? - on castro. yum.

and if you've heard about the infamous Pearl Dancing, here is your chance to see the SHORT (but still 5mb) version. on a normal day she probably goes twice as long and is twice as bouncy. :-D

Saturday, August 12, 2006

fascination wimmin


Originally uploaded by heatherama.

as we all know, there are some fascinating wimmin out there. so of course, when i saw this tonight, i had to snap a picture. and snap i did, with my snappy new canon! a birthday present which i got to research, pick out and pick up today thanks to a good deal (i was determined to spend under $200) at wolf camera.

after we picked that up, we went out to dinner and then down to the boardwalk to listen to a free concert by john waite. it was pretty packed, and he was good (and loud) so we ambled around, took the sky tram, and otherwise just had a relaxing and wonderful evening.

topped, of course, with a stop at marianne's ice cream on the way out of town. requisite!

ok i think i'm finally off to sleep now. hopefully more adventures this weekend. i am determined to get some video footage (yay! in-camera video!) of pearl doing her famous belly dance. :-D

Wednesday, August 09, 2006

the haps

since july 29, not even two weeks ago! altho i admit, it's close. let's see...

july 30: we went to wen and tara's engagement party out in the boonies (ripon). before we went though, we took pearl to the house of a Kind Stranger From Bascrappy. m had posted looking for a last-minute place for pearl to get puppysat (i thought she'd be ok at home, but no matter) and a very sweet woman posted saying she had a small chihuahua that would probably looove to play with pearl. we talked on the phone...she offered references but seemed so nice we just went for it.

and that all went just fine, thank you. pearl and the other pup had the Best Time Ever. meantime we also had a very very good time at tara's parents' place. beyoootiful garden/backyard. great food, excellent company, most of which we didn't know, but everyone was super friendly.

on the way home we stopped in pleasanton? amidst an explosion of superstores, anyway, and had a meal and did a bit of shopping. had to buy some new bras because half of my old ones were too big! annoying but of course, good.

july 31: i think we went to the women's group at the defrank. kinda nice. i even talked! a lot! but not as much as this one woman...wow.

aug 2: we tried to go to the PWG meeting but we'd had a fight on the way up, and ended up leaving halfway through for more processing. yay. all i feel like saying about all that is, it had to do with this stupid poly stuff, and theoretically the particular subtopic at hand was all sorted out, but i don't know if i really believe it. i think the next time it comes up will be the true test.

and no i have not resigned myself to anything. i really don't know where she and i will end up eventually, but for now, for sure it's still just her and i.

aug 5/6: i think we just stayed home - cleaned and did more medical paperwork, for which we have an endless amount. a lot of what we're doing now involves scrilla payback! which is a great motivator. and the cleaning, well, that is its own motivator too. looking over and not seeing piles of cwap really *is* nice.

aug 7: women's group again. was fine but i didn't feel chatty for some reason. like that EVER happens! that's ok though, that same woman i mentioned last time reeeally likes to talk. she does have interesting things to say, but wow.

aug 8: took my bad self to target, to try to return some swimming trunks that i had outgrown (undergrown?) before i even had a chance to wear them! but could NOT return because i didn't have the original credit card anymore (bank just switched me from visa to mc). grr. in the meantime target had also decided to sell off 90% of their swimtrunks and i almost didn't find any! but did at the last minute, and in a smaller size than i expected to have fit me. heh. very nice. was determined, too, because we have an offsite to waterski next week! and i've never been! woo!

other than that, it's just been work, eat, sleep. like normal for most people i guess. and really, i suppose most of this entry is boringly normal and relatively calm. i'm ok with that for now. :-)

Friday, August 04, 2006

lunchtime fun

while i'm waiting for the *fastest*bestest* application of all time, clearwaste, here are some lunchtime observations from this week:
  • buck rogers is funny. especially when people say things like "But I can't leave Musicworld!"

    it is amazing how, even 26 years ago, jerry orbach still looks old. i also never noticed that buck's robot - twiki! - pulls a road runner (bdeep-bdeep-bdeep) sometimes. but i guess that makes sense since mel blanc did both. :-D
  • that KITT car is a bonafide wiseass. i heart him. also, why is david hasslehoff so adored (by some)? i don't get it.
  • a luau salad tastes better under a series of shady trees, with your best girl and puppy by your side. as well as some damn good cake to polish things off.

ok clearwaste isn't done, but i am for now. have a good weekend!

Wednesday, August 02, 2006

a voyage...of bananas

this is brought to you by i heart carol.

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