salutations from the land of the bleary!

i've been getting up an hour earlier each workday, for maybe 3 weeks now. there are a couple of reasons for this but receiving immediate benefit is my employer, who has seen fit to keep me insanely busy, and of course, starbucks. i really don't understand why i'm still so sleepy when i'm making sure that caffiene has been properly installed but here i am, yawning at noon just the same. or perhaps i'm yawning at this unix script poking across my screen.

ah well. i hope you all have enjoyed some festivus of late, and a bit more this weekend. we are considering going to grace cathedral on NYE, there's a free concert there. min loves to rave about how beautiful it is, and perhaps i will finally see it on sunday!

as to what else has transpired in the last few weeks: other than the usuals and working like a bandit, i was graced with a minibreak to the coast. we rented a house because we wanted a full kitchen for a full christmas dinner! rather i wanted the full dinner since i was the main one eating, but min ate a little. =) plus the requisite apple cranberry sparkliness, mmmm. oh and for christmas i got some emily goods, starbucks AND toffee crack GC(!), an exercise mat (so sweet!), short exercise dvd i look forward to trying, cute notebooks and i forget what else, i'll have to doublecheck when i get home. but, all good stuff.

anyway the rental house -- i researched all over the bloody coast of california for a good deal, and after much calling and cajoling for pictures (first, second choices not available, but we have alternates. ok fine, send us pictures!) we finally ended up here. it wasn't until we drove up to it that we found out it was for sale and now that i'm back where the internet roams free, i'm a little surprised to find that they're including the furniture. some of it was quite nice, but otoh, some stained and broken.

oh..i get it now. the owners have abandoned it. see, this explains the bugs.

yeah, bugs. granted, it was mostly potato bugs, but when you have to:

• check the floor before getting out of bed
  
• get rid of at least 3 every time you cross a room
  
• brush them off of you because THEY DROPPED FROM THE SKY (ceiling)

it doesn't leave you feeling very relaxed. no, you probably even dream about bugs, or mysteriously harmful goo, dripping from the sky. not that i would know.

that aside, it was a gorgeous house. wonderful views, plenty of room and only a few minutes from one of my favorite restaurants ever, which unfortunately was not *quite* as good as normal but still very excellent. we ate lunch there on tuesday and planned to find a xmas gift for our neighbor penny, but across the street is gallery bookshop and as i probably should have predicted, it sucked up most of our afternoon and of course, a good deal of scrilla. that store has the best per-square-foot selection of books of most any bookstore i've ever been in, and i've been in a LOT.

by the time we escaped, it was probably only 430, but most of the other shops we wanted to hit were closed and several appeared closed for the week. tuesday night there was a nasty storm - wind howling, things clattering outside, lights flickering, the whole shebang. wednesday we figure we'll hop up to fort bragg, maybe more stores will be open there.

and maybe they would've been, who knows. however the storm played havoc with several trees across the region (would you like to wear this tree as a hat? how about doubling the thickness of your fence?). as a result, power was out in most of fort bragg. great. luckily we found that out *after* we had lunch, at smart-enough-to-have-a-generator silver's. wow that website is from 1997. anyway, we’d planned to dine at the next-door Chapter & Moon…but no one was there. and there were oh, 50 cars at Silver's, so we decided to go with the safer bet. we were *so* not disappointed, especially with the clam chowder.

incidentally i am a clam chowder snob. this is because i grew up on the best chowder in the friggin free world and everything else pales in comparison. god just seeing that building, on the website, makes me feel homesick. and ack! it burned up! i hope they can rebuild! :( anyway i am VERY happy to report that silver's chowder? almost as good as dory cove's! and much closer so i bet we'll go more often. yum.

after lunch we found all the closed shops (boo), then just enjoyed the afternoon, driving along the coast and drinking in the ocean air, before heading home. still no pics (probably get around to uploading this weekend) but all in all, a nice little getaway. and i really needed to get away, so, yay. =)

hello, internet

i didn't forget you, i've just been busy working and then spending time near albion.

and yes, internet, pictures are coming. because santa brought me a digital camera for christmas! a replacement canon a430, cheaper than the first time around even.

more soon...

btw

happy holidays from the future, y'all!

smart cookie

your clever mind will lead you to many rewards.

so said my fortune cookie, at lunch today. i can attest to my cleverness yielding rewards o'plenty. i can also attest to it fucking things up rather grandly. but for the most part, i like clever. it's much more entertaining, for me AND for you.

in the Slightly Amusing Department, since i'm waiting for clearcase to wrap up…friday night i rediscovered the joys of meatloaf.

i am generally of the opinion that no one makes good meatloaf except my mother. i have ventured into the beefy wilderness, on one or two occasions, resulting in gastric acid misadventures and of course, wasted scrilla. this all changed on friday, when min and i met karen and samantha for dinner at rick and anne's.

there was a beet salad that was tempting, as well as my standby, mac&cheese, but for some reason, i felt the call of the beef. i was considering my options when karen pointed to our left and said, "i think that's the meatloaf over there."

and what before mine wondering eyes appeared, but a pile of creamy mashed potatoes and beef gravy, itsy broccoli florets, and thin green beans, encircling a sizeable slab of gravy-topped meatloaf.

instantly i began salivating. i couldn't smell it, but it looked so amazing, it just *had* to be. so i ordered it. and oh, how good it was. seriously.

our conversation was also quite lovely. as was k&s's cute little abode! very cozy. really dug the wheaties display in the kitchen, and atticus jumping in my lap after 2 seconds, and promptly falling asleep.

saturday we went to SF. saw the therapist for a very good session. there be some growing in our household! i'm really proud of both of us, really. still plenty of room to get better, but we're communicating in a much healthier fashion overall and that's nothing to sneeze at. went to palomino for dinner and decided that place isn't as good as it used to be. oh well.

sunday we went to breakfast at mimi's cafe in campbell. as we got out of the car, min looked across the street and saw that my new favorite movie, stranger than fiction, was playing at one of the century theatres. "hey, what do you think about seeing STF later today?" she asked.

how can i not think that's a good idea? so after grubbin we went and checked the time - 7pm. wah. let's check the paper! hey! 235 at the camera 7! since min needed a few more winter shirts, we killed a little time at ross, got me a winter jacket (finally), and then headed over to ze filme. which ended up being a double feature with for your consideration. incidentally, that movie? kinda mediocre. but did have this great line: The internet. That's the thing with email, right?

i enjoyed STF (and now i'm enjoying its proximity to STFU) just as much as the first time. i am also enjoying the same post-movie writing spike, thank you very much. i love anything that reminds me of how completely bewitching prose can be, and that's precisely what this film does. so color me a little more in love than i was yesterday.

Sir Frisk-a-lot

we have a new and possibly permanent member of our household: senor frisky. and in case you wondered, he lives up to his name quite well, thank you. the reason we have him is sad - he was min's mother's cat. they tried to place him with tucson relatives but didn't go well. however, pearl and frisky get along *swimmingly*. watch them go!

right now frisky's camped in the bathroom, acclimating and enjoying all forms of toilet paper. plus unfortunately my dolce is a little ill...some kind of infection in her hindquarters...going to the vet monday, but i'm trying to be careful about them sharing space til dolce gets cleared. meantime dolce is claiming her space verbally. step off, bitch!

so, yeah, min got home a few days ago. i'm really really glad she's home. how's that for being writerly? yeah whatever, i'm exhausted. this is MHP week AND it's been insane at work. TGI(70MinuetsFrom)Friday! bring on the weekend, bring on the sleeps!

perhaps the greatest toy ever

i offer for your consideration, the completely brilliant avenging unicorn set, which i believe cannot be beat for sheer awesomeness.

thanks to laughing squid!

teach my feet to fly

as i prepared to start writing about tonight, these lyrics popped into my head:

It's coming on Christmas
They're cutting down trees
They're putting up reindeer
And singing songs of joy and peace
Oh I wish I had a river I could skate away on

christmas is coming. reindeer everywhere. songs of joy, peace and praise were in the air tonight. and yes, i ended up wishing i had a river to skate away on. more on that later.

so, today. today i actually cooked. took beef (i'd previously cooked!), made a pasta kit and sauteed some mushrooms to create not-too-shabby beef stroganoff. my mom would be so proud.

around 315 i took off to visit 2 holiday fairs up in SF before going to oakland for dinner and symphonic escapades. i live in san jose. driving to sf - barring an accident - usually takes 45 minutes, hour tops. i got to sf at 520!! and no accidents, mind you. i'm quite happy that everyone's driving slower and safer in these torrential downpours, but apparently i need to start doubling my drive times in rain rather than adding 50%.

so, it's 520 and the first fair ended at 5. thanks! i tried to find the location anyway, just in case some folks were still there, but i couldn't find it so gave up by 530. headed over to the 2nd one, and wow what a waste that was. incredibly tiny, mostly scarves and stone jewelry. pretty, but not for me.

now it's almost 6 and i really don't need to have dinner until 7, but i head over anyway because i haven't planned alternatives. and hey! it's still raining! so it took me a half hour to cross the bridge. sweet. by the time i get parked and over to luka's, a mere 2 blocks from the paramount, it's almost 645. that plus the incredibly slow service meant i finished dinner about 730. had the roast chicken, which was pretty good. also the slow service gave me plenty of time to write. =)

i'd called ahead to try to find out how many tickets i had for the concert, and no one knew. thanks! turns out there were just 2, so at least i only wasted 1 ticket. i didn't mention this earlier, but i never really planned to sing, even thought it was a singalong. i know 2 pieces from handel's messiah and that's IT. so in perfect Moore tradition, i hummed rather than sang.

i ended up thinking about my parents a lot while i was there. during the intermission i wrote this:

sitting in a gilded palace, i am overcome with loss and longing for my parents tonight. knowing there was a time when both of them sang this production, and undoubtedly better than some of these guys. i wish so much that i could rescue them. give them the best medical attention, all the money they need, to return them to a time when they were as golden as this room.

i almost started crying when i wrote that, not just because i wanted it, but because i knew that even if i could move the earth for them, tomorrow the problem would just be something else. i love them, god i love them. they can be so much fun. but...i guess i hate feeling like the Really Mature One because often, i'm not that bright.

this was the first time, as an adult, i'd sat all the way through the messiah and i must say, it's a rather uneven bit of work. sections are quite beautiful and others rather dull. but there was one soprano who took my breath away, her voice was so incredibly delightful that again, i got misty.

i really ran the emotional gamut tonight, and i suppose i shouldn't have been surprised, since good music has been known to make me cry. nevertheless i felt a bit stunned by the amount of crying i did on the way home. FlagFloodgatesOpenEnabled. found myself thinking about things i thought i had resolved, and realized they weren't, which i've decided is my favorite tactic for torturing myself.

i still feel rather unsteady but since it's after 2am now, i'm going to interpret that as needing sleep rather than analyzing myself *any* further. 'night. :)

la bella luna

Originally uploaded by extra medium

i've never considered myself to be ruled by moons rising in cancer, or whatever happens to be appropriate for my astrological chart.

however, i have always been completely captivated by the moon. when i see it, my breath catches. harvest moons put me all a dither. and if i'm Driving While Moon Is Present (as this picture encapsulates) then it takes all my concentration to avoid an accident, because i just can't take my eyes off of her.

it's just a big rock, you could say. no atmosphere, trees, glittering neon lights. what's the big deal?

i think part of it is the archeologist in me. what happened there a million years ago? why are there only remnants of lakes? these and other questions beguile me.

but more than that is the promise. the promise of the future, that one day we will explore the heavens. not just with mechanical devices, but humans, out there, gallavanting among the nebulae, discovering the wonder that is our universe. the promise of even more beauty and knowledge at our finger tips.

i get to see that promise almost every night, and it's a little intoxicating.

thanks to WWdN for finally getting me to write a bit about this love affair.

wrinkles, burritos and Limited Time Offers

in an entirely boring series of internet trolling events, somehow yesterday i ended up on a movie poster/wallpaper website and stumbled onto this set. the will ferrell one is pretty funny but not surprisingly, i opted for the lovely yet utterly stark shot of emma thompson. apart from her nicely disheveled reddish hair (o red, how i love thee), you can really see her wrinkles, her age, and for some reason, that makes me love it more. every time i clear the apps from the screen, or start up the computer, seeing this shot of her makes me think of the movie and subsequently, want to write.

and that feeling -- the desire to create -- is better than any pleasure i might get from a cute, silly, artistic or nature- related backdrop. it makes me feel alive. even if all i do is write a little blog entry like this.

today did not go quite so well as yesterday but it was not without its treats. after a very annoying workday and later botched attempt at visiting richmond, i went to el cerrito and visited a ross, trying to cheaply procure another professional outfit. i only had the one outfit, you see, that fit me. :-p i used to have this beyoootiful baby blue suit but now that's a world away.

after scoring a couple of decent options, i hooked up with the lovely karen and samantha for dinner! when they found out i was going to be up their way today, they sweetly invited me to a meal. i'd met them once before - at liz's baby shower - so i had a vague idea of how they looked. but naturally i didn't remember what they sounded like, so when a woman answered the phone i asked, is this samantha or karen? the woman laughed and said, is this heather?

hee. anyway it was samantha and - i forgot to tell you then - you really do have a great laugh! we met at a place down the street (from me) whose name i've already forgotten, but it was pretty tasty burrito-ness plus some great conversation. afterwards we went to coldstone creamery, which considering how full i felt as i headed home, i probably should've skipped. but...so! tasty! and good to get to know you guys a bit better. :)

tomorrow i was hoping to visit the telegraph street fair, however considering the amount of rain forecast, i think i'll pass. hopefully next weekend will be better for outdoor exploits! and tomorrow night i'm planning to go to the sing along messiah in oakland. scored me some free tickets back in july!

which brings me to the Limited Time Offer. i can't recall how many tickets i have - it's either 2, or 4. right now i'm going by myself, but i could bring with me 1 or 3 additional people. i'm going to call tomorrow to try to confirm but... if anyone out there is interested in attending, email me (queen at iheather dot net) by 2pm tomorrow! i promise not to sing off key. ;-)

thank you

to everyone who sent condolances on min's mom. so very sweet. min is now en route to tucson, but in a vehicle rather than a plane. she lost her wallet near the end of her Great Escapade and thus only has a temporary replacement license. they won't let you fly with those (requires a passport or other ID that she doesn't have).

so, with a little scrilla from her sister wilma, we turned in one rental car and got another for her next expodition. amazingly even that was fraught with technical hijinks but i'm too annoyed over the whole thing to write it out. end result: new car. fine.

had considered going with her (and pearl, who loves the car so of course went with min) but i needed to stay here today and tomorrow. for everyone who sent me good vibery, danke schon, i think it helped! hopefully it'll carry over to tomorrow's adventures in richmond. when i think richmond, i pretty much think of their oil refineries. if anyone has recs for good but cheap dinner up yonder, gimme a holler! i'm sure i will be peckish afterwards.

tonight i was at the stanford mall, getting some dinner and blithely looking for christmas presents. i have decided i don't really care for that mall anymore. it has some decent restaurants for a mall, i'll give you that. but the rest is pretty much upscale, predominately bland yuppie. midrange, moderately bland yuppie, i'm used to and usually it includes some unusual places as well. and i remember more of that the last time i went - admittedly, a good 5 years ago or so. i was hoping to stumble onto some excellent gift ideas but no luck. ah well. Ye Olde Internet, don't fail me now!

jinx

i took today off so min and i could have a little fun. however, that is not what happened. our day was jinxed first by the phone call we got around midnight, from her sister wilma. i pick up the phone. wilma says: i wanted to let you guys know that mom died.

WHAT? i say, both because i'm half-awake and can't believe it.

unfortunately this made her repeat it. unfortunately i blurted out with another WHAT? and she graciously repeated it again. then she started to tell me more details and i said wait, and handed the phone to min.

later i felt bad for how intense and abrupt i was, but hey! i could barely hear her through my sleepy haze. and on top of that, it didn't make sense. dead? out of the blue? what? later m told me i was fine, my sleepiness distorted how i thought i sounded, too. :-p

min always had a pretty rocky relationship with both her parents but in the last few years, and especially the last few months when she got to visit with her mom for almost 2 whole weeks, she really reconnected with her mother. and of course, now she is ever so grateful she had day after day to just talk with her.

her mom's health has been iffy for a while, but relatively stable considering she'd had a few strokes and strong diabetes. apparently she had a quick onset of pneumonia, and had been in the hospital a day or two. then last night her blood pressure suddenly lowered, and she went into a coma. she died about an hour later. a rather gentle way to go, really, considering.

we totally could not afford to fly or drive her down to tucson, what with the Great Trip she just took that we haven't finished paying for. but one of her sisters is going to cover a flight down and she'll leave thursday or friday. she actually didn't want to go - she feels like she said goodbye to her mom already - but is going to support wilma, who is the foundation of the family even when she should sit on her ass and take a break.

i asked if she wanted me to come with her and she said nah, not for her sake. admittedly i felt ambivalent about the whole deal, but we realized it was really better for me to stay because of a) money b) my thing thursday and c) pearl, who we'd have had to get a sitter for. technically we could bring her but she's been a little under the weather and i'd rather not put her through a plane ride right now.

despite all this we hoped to get out to SF today, take advantage of the free first tuesday at the deyoung museum. but - i suspect partially due to the above - min was just too sick today. there were a lot of phone calls this early morning, and then needed more sleep (we both did), and when she got up, the stress, i think, just made her condition really horrible today. she fell asleep early tonight though so i'm hoping tomorrow is better. for everyone.

metamorphosis

despite not really feeling like i've changed that much in the two months (ok, 7 wks 6 days) min was away, i guess i really have. some of this has (apparently) been apparent on this blog, but most of it i've just felt in my heart and mind.

anyway, i'd realized some of this over the last few weeks, but i really didn't feel a need to articulate it much until i had another person here asking me questions. ;-)

yesterday, amid a flurry of craft fair visitations, we went to oakland for yet more craftiness. on the drive up she asked me about something that i *deplore* talking about: AG.

what with all i've said to date regarding AG, that might surprise some of you, but it's true. and in this case, i deplore talking about AG not because of how i feel about her, but because of what that relationship means to min. so: she asked me how it was going.

well the truth is it's going really great. and by that i mean, there's nothing happening at all and barely even care. i haven't talked to her in, well, almost 2 months. i stopped reading her blog ages ago and i don't get email from her anymore.

granted, the early period of withdrawal was brutal. and to be clear, i don't feel like my actual feelings for her have changed. but my awareness of her, her impact on me even if she wasn't trying to impact me whatsoever, has dimished to the point that..well, like i said, i almost don't care if that ever changes.

and even more, at this point i don't WANT it to change. things are going ok for min and i right now, it feels like, and i'm hoping that with work and love it'll just get better.

incidentally - and i noticed this when i was getting reports during her trip - min seems to have more energy. gets up earlier, has more energy, period, during the day. still has all the pain, but seems to be doing better managing it. i seriously did not think that when she got here late saturday, we'd be able to go out and have fun most of sunday, but we did. i know that sounds like a little thing but believe me, that's a substantial improvement. it makes me feel hopeful, for both of us.

there are other ways i feel like i've changed in the last 2 months but i'm getting tired, it's been a long day (thanks clearcase) and this post is long enough already. :-)

ps. i really am addicted to wordie. i've added 15 more words since my last post.
pps. psst: think good thoughts for me thursday afternoon.

word geek extraordinaire

today i was browsing presurfer, which - true to its subtitle - is often diverting on a daily basis, and came across the surprisingly addictive wordie.

the concept is so simple it borders on boring: make a list of words. words you adore, despise, etc.

i thought, what the hell, i'll check it out. so i'm browsing the homepage, enjoying beautiful, complex words, words that sound funny, when i stumbled onto kleptocracy. someone made that up, right? but no! and, how awesome that word is! does it not describe almost every goverment on the planet?

at this point i was officially hooked. i added a few words, but really all i had to do was keep refreshing the homepage and someone had posted, or made me think of, a word i adored in some way. there's an rss feed for new words and i can tell i'll be geeking out left and right.

btw if you want to see what words amuse or move me, here's my list. 52 words are enough for now, because i've really spent too much time there today already. :-o

you talkin to me?

if you are a prospective employer, apparently this is the day to talk to me. because i was contacted directly about 3 different jobs today. and i'm not talking about random recruiter spam. i'm talking about:

- contacting me randomly about a position *actually* targeted to my very specific interests,
- giving me a supplemental test/application, sent to all the 'top applicants' , or
- phoning me for an initial but lengthy interview!

the killer part about the first one is, the job was posted on craigslist a few weeks back and somehow i totally missed it and didn't apply. but that's ok, they realized the oversight and contacted me about it. SWEET.

seriously, a great way to end an insanely long week at work. oh, and that min should be home sometime tomorrow is also a nice capper. ;-)