shiny happy purple

leo rabbit with sheep ascendant

2011-10-08T21:56:00.000-07:00

So yes, we have a second daughter, to be known here as Deuce unless I think of a better pseudonym. She is now on the verge of two months old. Here is one of the hospital photos:

Here is a more recent one:

I think she's going to be pretty darn cute as well, says the doting mommy.

Conversation with Breakfast: a short play by Una

2011-10-07T16:33:00.000-07:00

[Una takes a bite of toast.]
TOAST: Ow! You bit my bottom! Wah! Wah!
[Bacon approaches Toast.]
BACON: What's wrong?
TOAST: She bit my bottom. Wah!
BACON: I'm your mommy. I will help you.
[Bacon kisses Toast.] Mwah!
BACON: All better.
TOAST: Thank you Mommy.

eventful

2011-08-05T22:41:00.000-07:00

So, our first daughter was born at the beginning of October 2008, and our second daughter is due to be born next week. It appears that the impending birth of a child to M and I has some correlation to stock market crashes and general economic turmoil. I'm not sure why we shake the world in this way, but my apologies to your investment portfolios.

Into the third trimester

2011-05-26T19:05:00.000-07:00

Hm. It's been over three months. I really ought to post something.

Over the past week I seem to be getting more than the usual number of "My, you're big! How far along?" comments. I didn't think there'd been a super drastic change, but of course when one is oneself all the time, slow changes can go unnoticed. I'm due in August, so I'm officially in the third trimester by now; it only gets more waddly and awkward from here.

Deuce (as I shall call her here unless/until thinking of a better pseudonym) has also begun squirming in more uncomfortable ways. She hasn't picked a favorite rib yet, like Una enjoyed pushing against for the last month or two, but I think it's only a matter of time for her to grow up enough to reach that far. Last night she just felt like pushing straight out a bit starboard of my belly button, as hard as she could. Which is getting to be pretty dang hard. also, ow.

I am happy to be pregnant. I wish to be pregnant for exactly as long as I ought to be. But I will be really really happy to be done with it.

PS: yes, apparently another girl. Sisters! Ability to reuse all pink and girly apparel! Cuteness!

missing

2011-02-14T14:54:00.000-08:00

I went back and forth a bit about whether to put this out online. I've decided to go with it for a couple of reasons. The primary one is that the subject is something that seems like it may happen to people more than may be apparent -- it's not a casual conversation, so you often don't know that you don't know. In my case, feeling a bit lonely and apart from the world for a while when it happened, learning that I was not maybe as singular as I felt was comforting. (I wasn't completely lonely anyway; I had M and especially Una, ...but.) A secondary reason was that I had started to tell some people, notably at my high school reunion last summer, that I was pregnant. Anyone remembering that bit of information amid the whirl of talk and smiling faces might eventually start to wonder what was happening with that.

What happened, about a week after the reunion, was that I had a miscarriage, at about 11 weeks along.

It wasn't completely unexpected. I'd gone to the ER with some bleeding on July 13, a month to the day beforehand. Diagnosis: subchorionic hematoma, which means bleeding where the placenta attaches to the uterine wall. Often, apparently, it goes away on its own, but sometimes it doesn't, the placenta slowly detaches, and there is not really anything anyone can do about it except for me to rest as much as possible and not lift anything heavy, like a 1-year-old daughter.

It was a bit reckless to tell people I was pregnant with this hanging over me, especially since bleeding had continued now and then, off and on, but I think it was partly an attempt at magical thinking: if I say it, it will work out. But: no.

I'm OK now, and have been for most of the time since. Certainly physically: the doctor did not seem at all concerned about future possibilities. No one appears to know what causes subchorionic hematomas; they just happen sometimes. No indication of any underlying difficulty. It was also very helpful to already have Una, and know for sure that my body is capable of doing this thing.

Every now and then I do still think about the person who briefly could have been. It was not far enough along for us to know whether "he" or "she". I wish we'd gotten the chance to know that person...

...except, I'm pregnant again, due in August, and I'm now entering the second trimester with no apparent problems so far. Now, if all goes according to hope, we will get our "second" child, and this one would almost certainly never have existed if the other had survived. Once this one (whose pseudonym here will probably be Deuce) arrives, we will be so glad to have him or her, and not be able to imagine life without. But we will still visit the burial place, and tell Una and future child(ren) of the existence of the missing one.

There is a name we use. But that, I am going to keep between us.

a bit of space

2011-01-24T22:00:00.000-08:00

This last Saturday was the opening/dedication of a brand new little park nearby, called Seaside Heroes Park. I'd heard (mostly read, in the local paper) they were going to build it, in a smallish space that had been a vacant lot through all my memory: an unused right-of-way/drainage ditch that follows the line of Lomita Boulevard west a block-plus after Lomita ends at Anza Avenue. The park occupies the space there between Anza and the next street over. Since the only place we needed to go this morning was Trader Joe's, Una and I had a little time to drop by and check it out.

I was specially curious because of who the park is named for: three locals killed in Afghanistan and Iraq in 2006-2007. I knew one of them, Matthew Ferrara, not as well as my father and brother did, whose Boy Scout troop he was in, but I knew him (and wrote about him and his family and his funeral here). An older lady walking her little dog arrived the same time we did, and we both paused to read the tiled wall. She noted that her son had gone to school with Joe Anzack Sr, the father of one of the other honorees. I noted my connection to Matt Ferrara.

It is a remarkably wonderful little park. I was pleased by the design of a curving pavingstone path between the two entrances, flanked by curving swaths of lawn and one small rubber-padded play area with a few things to climb on, up, and under, suitable for kids as young as Una (with a bit of handholding).

She seemed to approve too; she liked climbing and running around, and didn't want to leave.

I am glad they built it. I am sorry the reasons for the dedication exist. But it is a place with a good cozy feeling to it. We will be back again.

a wrinkle in time

2011-01-10T22:34:00.000-08:00

This resolution business is a bit more difficult when the bambina does not nap for two days in a row. Should have done it on the weekend, yeah yeah.

I was interested in the news item that a Cornell psych prof emeritus might have found some slight evidence of ESP. Sadly, another article in the NY Times seems to explain that what is often considered statistically significant may actually not be. Which deflates the situation somewhat.

I consider myself a person of science. But I like to be open-minded about things when it seems possible. I don't think any of the really fancy ESP things that make for fun stories are very likely, or we would have seen more evidence of it by now. But I can't help wondering about little hard-to-quantify things, feelings that I have once in a while, a few stories I've heard from other people.

Okay. I can't help wondering if sometimes I'm feeling emotional echoes in my timestream of future incidents. It's never been much use, because it's not like an actual message or anything, just a feeling that "this is going to have been important later" or something like that. Once or twice I've tried to kind of feel ahead this way, trying to figure out "is this going to be bad/good" and see if I can get any sort of hint about it. I've also had a few instances where I get deja vu and was pretty sure I'd dreamed the moment previously. Never anything important; the example I was surest about was simply a moment rummaging in a co-op pantry with a friend in college, when I had not ever been to that co-op before.

Nothing I can really distinguish from normal pondering and worrying, if I really am strict with myself. And one would only notice situations that did turn out to be interesting later, after all. Mere pattern recognition going too far. Probably. Of course.

It's just kind of hard to prove a negative, innit? And more fun to think of unusual possibilities. Just in case...

This is not turning out to be a very good post. I apologize. The end of Monday approacheth and I need sleep. I'll get more of a running start for next week. ... I think?

in which a resolution is made

2011-01-03T15:00:00.000-08:00

I've been blogging, off and on, and off, since October 23, 2000, which I am pretty sure is before the term "blogging" was commonplace, if it even existed. But consistency has always been a problem. It's acted more or less as my online diary, available to be read by anyone coming across it but most likely simply by family/friends. Which is fine. And that doesn't HAVE to change. But even just for me, I want to try to be more consistent about writing actual pieces. So I am 2011-resolving to do it.

The Goal: every Monday, to post a reasonably long (ie, not just a few lines) entry on some actual topic.

Aiming to post it Mondays will in theory give me time for my procrastinating self to write it the preceding weekends. We shall see how this works. This is going to have to count for today's/this week's, because I just now thought of it (provoked partly by my cousin's related resolution) and baby's naptime will be over soon. But by next week, yeah! Multiple paragraphs! Possibly thoughtfulness! Woo!

brought to you by the number 2

2010-11-10T15:42:00.000-08:00

C is for cookie, that's good enough for me
C is for cookie, that's good enough for me
C is for cookie, that's good enough for me, OH!
cookie, cookie, cookie starts with C

this is the toy i'm looking for

2010-07-06T13:41:00.000-07:00

I am writing this entry on my new Droid. This makes me happy, now that it's not giving me all caps like a moment ago. I want to figure out what I accidentally hit to make it do that.

In other news, the weather here, two days after July 4th, is cold and even, this morning, damp. This is unacceptable. We have obviously been assigned someone else's weather by mistake, again. I hope this mistake is rectified soon.

Otherwise, we're all fine, here. How are you?

Baby Una, 18 months old

2010-04-16T15:42:00.000-07:00

This is actually from about five days before she turned 18 months old, but close enough.

I'm going to call her "Una" here, although that is not her real name, because I like Tomato Nation's method of using pseudonyms for people. And she is our first, so: Una. At some point we hope to have a second, so I guess he or she will be Secund(us/a), or maybe Deuce. Then I guess, if applicable, Terti(us/a) and Quattr(o/a). Or perhaps more obvious pseudonyms will present themselves. I could also call Una "Pumpkin," since we do all the time and she was born in October, but I like "Una" better.

...and then I joined Facebook

2010-04-15T13:38:00.000-07:00

I did take pictures for that previous post, but before getting around to adding them to said post, I joined Facebook, which promptly sucked up all the miniposts I might have got round to posting here, along with additional scarce computer-puttering time. Will now start attempting to rectify that a bit, providing my blog is still here -- it's giving me an error when I try to look at it right now.

notes to the neighborhood

2009-07-08T16:29:00.000-07:00

(Los C--- edition) <-- i feel all nineteenth-century doing that.

Dear coffee-brown two-story house,

I admire your decor, with the stonework on the front matching the stone wall around the front yard, and the flowers just outside the wall are wonderful. Most of all, I covet your left-side bougainvillea, the one whose flowers are cream-white with pink tips. I've never seen one like that; it is gorgeous.

Dear pair of adobe-style houses,

I admire what you've done on lots that are half the size of most of the other lots. Did the others used to be your size and everyone else combined them, or did someone split a regular-size lot and build two houses on it? In any case, you left-side house in particular have done a really nice job with the front courtyard with the little fountain, and the bougainvillea (regular bright color flowers) that adds just the right amount of color to the setting. Anyway, good going on your architecture (what I can see of it, anyway).

[edit 2010 Apr 16: they both have neat fountains. the other one is in a slightly different spot, and I hadn't noticed it before writing this/taking the pictures.]

Dear brick-front house with the gable second-floor windows in the dark-shingled roof,

You remind me of a common look for houses in the Philadelphia suburbs where my husband's family lives. It's a good thing; it means you remind me of vacationing every time I walk past. Though, in general, I feel that the effect of a facing on the front of the house, such as brick or stone, is dissipated somewhat when it doesn't continue around the sides. But I still like you.

Dear little house with the covered porch running the width of the front,

I admire the neatness of your front yard. Your porch looks nice and cozy and is the sort of thing I wish we had on the front of our house, with a few design differences (ours would be above ground-level and wooden railings instead of brick floor/pillars). Thus you inspire me to thoughts of home design every time I walk past, which I enjoy.

-----

Hm. I should perhaps have pictures with this. Maybe I'll manage that soon.

[Edited, finally, on 2010 Apr 16 to add the pictures. I took them only a day or two after writing this entry, but.]

of a feather

2009-06-22T13:38:00.000-07:00

The Players: Two kindergarten-age girls, four slightly older boys.
The Setting: upstairs on the play equipment at Walteria Park.

Girl #1 possesses a large black feather that is way too big and fluffy to be from any local bird. It probably fell off someone's hat.

The following is transcribed to the best of my recollection.

Girl #1: Look at my feather! (Goes over and waves feather at group of boys, who are clambering about the connecting chain-net-ladder-thing like a group of little Spidermen.) Isn't it awesome?

Boy #1: The feather is boring.

Boy #2: How old are you?

Girl #2: I'm in kindergarten.

Boy #3: Well, we're in the grades, so there.

Girl #1: The feather is awesome!

Boy #x (possibly more than one): The feather is stupid.

Girl #1 (to Girl #2): Come on. (They go to the other covered portion of the equipment.)

Girl #1: They are stupid and they LIE.

first tooth

2009-06-12T14:52:00.000-07:00

Right lower front. Emerged last weekend, seen here on Tuesday in a lucky photo. It's becoming more and more visible above the gum now. Bother, I think this means I have to start brushing it soon.

iconic

2009-02-11T08:13:00.000-08:00

the travails of mr. penguin

2009-02-07T07:33:00.000-08:00

o, the fickleness of young girl's heart:

four months

2009-02-06T20:57:00.000-08:00

of CUTENESS. Not that I'm biased or anything.

since the eagles weren't in it

2009-02-04T08:50:00.000-08:00

We all wore Steeler yellow on Sunday, although hers took the form of teeny yellow flowers, which I suspect is slightly atypical as Steeler fan-wear goes.

It is now a trend that when a new generation is born into my husband's family, the Steelers will win the following Super Bowl. It happened with him, and now with our daughter. Steeler Nation: you're welcome.

libra rat with sheep ascendant

2008-11-20T07:42:00.001-08:00

This is our daughter(!!!)'s seventh week.

Although these pictures were not taken this week, she still looks pretty much like this.

down the flume

2008-09-29T12:07:00.000-07:00

228 to 205 to vote down the bailout. That's 433 out of 435. Not bad considering that my understanding of the daily usual in the House is a few people speaking to an empty hall, aside from the C-SPAN camera and the other few members on the list to talk that day who are still waiting their turn. A bit curious who the missing two are, although not quite curious enough to go search them out.

(Assumption that the information is available somewhere, and probably on the web. Whatever did we do before the Web? Yet it's only existed in its current expanded state for about a decade.)

Heh. The Yahoo link to the AP article is labeled "financial_meltdown". Dudes, y'all ain't seen nothin'. Even a 550+ drop in the Dow, where we are at the moment of writing, is only about 5 percent. The really big slides have been in the double digits. Although, maybe the computers kick in to prevent those happening all in one day now. Guess we'll see where we are in a week.

Interesting times, as they say. I know that's supposed to be a bad thing. I can't help finding it a bit exciting. I should really hold my excitement until I at least have a functioning vegetable garden again. Which, given imminent baby, is unlikely before, oh, ... I have no idea.

one week late

2008-09-27T07:44:00.000-07:00

Another nonstress test yesterday. Another round of happy (?) wiggling. I am getting contractions more often the last few days, but nothing has ended up coming of them yet. We set her a deadline, though, for later next week. If she's not out by then, we're a-gonna get her out.

I hope she decides to appear before then though; I'd rather she picked her own date. I know I don't like being interrupted when I'm in the middle of something.

Too bad she didn't pick yesterday; it would have been M's grandfather's birthday, who died just before we discovered I was pregnant. Of all the potential "target" dates in these couple weeks (and there are surprisingly many), that would have been particularly poetic. Ah well.

zero plus four

2008-09-24T07:11:00.000-07:00

This would be a fun date for her to pick also: our engagement anniversary. But still no particular signs. I don't think Braxton-Hicks contractions count.

She was perfectly happy (nice and wiggly, anyway) during the nonstress test yesterday. Which is good. At least one of us is comfortable. :p

zero plus two

2008-09-22T08:33:00.000-07:00

I confess to harboring a secret hope that she might be born on Bilbo and Frodo's birthday. I know I would have enjoyed that for myself, although I'm happy with my actual birthday which is also my dad's (and a great-grandfather's!). But still no signs so far that she's going to make it out today.

Turns out that those who care as much or more than me about such things have figured out that, due to differences between the hobbits' Shire Reckoning calendar and ours, September 22 in our calendar isn't actually their birthday anyway -- it was September 13, this year (due to this being a leap year). Oh well.

Shire Reckoning, by the way, has always seemed eminently more logical than our cobbled-together Gregorian, but the hobbits' old-school season-based holidays (Midsummer, Yule) that don't belong to any months would, I suppose, confuse too many people used to our modern three-day-shopping-weekend system.

zero hour

2008-09-20T18:47:00.000-07:00

So today is/was the due date. So far, it doesn't feel like anything's up today. Considering I myself was nearly two weeks late, this does not greatly surprise me.

I am really rawther ready for her to be out though. She's getting ... big. I am ready for my ankles not to puff up anymore, for it not to be such a chore to roll (literally) out of bed or get up from a chair, for visits to the bathroom to become less frequent, for my regular clothes to fit again (I know I've got a few months yet on that one). I don't know if I'm ready for one or two hour blocks of sleep, or diapering, but ready or not...

At least the house is more ready for her now. Bedrooms were painted several weeks ago. Nursery is ready. Crib, dresser with changing top, glider chair (I'm actually looking forward to trying the nursing, providing we both can get the hang of it OK), a few toys already in the closet along with diapers and various other gear. Clothes, blankets, check. Stroller, car seat, check.

But most of all, it's just the curiosity. I am so very interested to finally meet her.

sock it to me

2008-08-13T08:37:00.000-07:00

Baby's getting bigger. Not actually sure where six-ish more weeks of baby/me growth is supposed to go. But I guess this is how it works.

Bigger stronger baby is good, but it does mean that she has begun actually kicking or prodding me in my lower right rib, from time to time, in a rather painful way. As in IT REALLY HURTS. I don't want her to come out until she's ready to, but I am very ready for her to BE out, if you follow me.

...well, except that the nursery's not quite ready yet. We've been playing musical-furniture with the house while we reshuffle and reorganize, and fix things that need fixing, and figure out where everything is going to go. Today we're getting our internet cable moved from the front bedroom (formerly our computer room) to the familyroom, where for the next indeterminate length of time, our computers/desks will sit in the corner all "um, hi, pay no attention to us, just go ahead and watch the TV to your right there, enjoy." Meanwhile M's 40+ shortboxes of comics on their utility shelving are camping to the left of the fireplace, which situation may or may not be altered by the time cold fireplace-using weather arrives. Anyway, after our internet is moved and functional, we can paint the front bedroom. Then we can move our bedroom stuff into it. Then we can paint the nursery-to-be, formerly our bedroom. Then we can move the nursery furniture in and put the crib together and be finally ready.

The plan is for this all to be done by sooner than six weeks from now, so that paint fumes have time to dissipate properly. Seems a reasonable period of time, doesn't it? I think we can, I think we can...

tickled

2008-07-07T14:26:00.000-07:00

I'm not one to go overboard on the saccharine even though we're having a girl. It's just not me. But when I was poking around on a forum and saw someone with a ticker similar to this one, it was the pea-in-a-pod "marker" that hooked me and made me want to make one. I'm unlikely to use it as a sig anywhere, but I had to succumb to the cuteness at least this much:

It's mainly the "ta-da!" of the pod-pea. Seems appropriate, since baby is big on making her presence felt, lately. oof. (It's a good thing.)

boom de yada!

2008-06-30T13:54:00.000-07:00

I didn't get last Friday's XKCD until I read this post from someone who'd been in the same boat, who found out what it was: a Discovery Channel commercial that is 31 flavors of awesome. watchy watchy.

Apparently there are already people making other riffs on it. Note that since I have now discovered this meme, it must be at least half over, but I will be enjoying it for a while because I like the song so much. Another interesting bit of information from that forum thread was that the tune is from a children's song called "I Like the Flowers."

I have a strong suspicion that baby will become quite familiar with this tune in some version or another.

wiggle POKE

2008-06-22T21:56:00.000-07:00

For many weeks now I've been able to feel baby moving. It's a bit odd, hard to describe (but here I go, trying). There's the flutter, faint enough that I'm not always sure it was her. On the other end of the spectrum, there's the kick or punch that can make me say "guh!" out loud, like she's doing right now to my right side as I type. She seems to be over there a lot today. It doesn't hurt, exactly, it just feels reeeeallly strange (and also tends to take me by surprise). In between are a variety of things that feel kind of wiggly or gurgly or like a popping sort of sensation. There's also a thing that started more recently that I guess might be her turning around, a sort of tight feeling of slower constant movement for several seconds.

...dih. there she goes some more. liking the right abdominal wall this evening, yes indeed.

She seems to wake up and get moving somewhat consistently around 10-10:30 pm (among other times), when I tend to be going to bed. I know this is only a small hint of the battle that shall be waged against my sleep patterns (and won, by her) starting around three months from now. .... whee. but she will be cute and worth it.

cars and effects

2008-06-12T16:06:00.000-07:00

Seems to me, over the last several months, the congestion of my freeway commute has been less bothersome than in the past. Not gone, just a bit less. For example, on some mornings in the past, my drive north on the 110/Harbor would go bumper-to-bumper starting just before the 105 interchange. That hasn't happened in months; the slowdown is still there, but it starts after I'm already past the interchange (varying by day exactly how far past, with congestion generally peaking Wednesdays barring random accidents). My evening return seems even smoother. Slow traffic south through downtown and a while after is not entirely unknown, but feels rarer and rarer.

Then the other week my mom mentioned driving down to Orange County or somewhere during the afternoon into rush "hour," and her surprise at how non-gridlocked it was, relative to historical comparisons. So while I don't have any hard data to support my perceptions, I think it's not just me. My mom and I suspect the gas prices.

(Image lifted from this Pandagon post because it is so awesome i wanted to share)

Despite my beloved Jetta's expensive 91-octane taste, I can (so far) afford the hit and appreciate the slightly clearer path, but it's a bit unnerving to actually see my region's economic life squeezed before my very eyes. Once again I say FIE upon those who killed the Red Line electric trolleys, and wait with great impatience for the slow slow expansion of Metro Rail. (But at least they ARE expanding...)

12. What do you eat for breakfast?

2008-06-10T11:35:00.000-07:00

Since I have learned, in convincing and well-documented fashion, that carbs are evil -- and (most) fat is not -- we have tended in the last several months toward eggs and bacon. It is very hard to give up bread completely though, and we haven't. In fact, we had (wheat sourdough) toast and bacon this morning, and I had milk and orange juice (separately, not mixed -- pregnancy hasn't deranged my tastebuds THAT much). M did not have orange juice because of its sugar levels. I am pregnant and OJ has folic acid.

Of course, ice cream does not have folic acid, and I have been using pregnancy to justify Haagen-Dazs dark-chocolate-covered chocolate ice cream bars once a week or so. What can I say? Baby wants ice cream.

Not at breakfast, though.

to clarify

2008-06-08T10:50:00.000-07:00

In case of any confusion from the previous post over which bits were real:

We are having a baby. She is due in late September. She also has a name, but I'm not going to post it until she's born, if then.

Everyone is very happy. This will be the first grandchild for both sets of parents, so they're pretty excited. Also this will be the first girl born on M's dad's side in about 50 years.

We do not, sadly, have a new house being built for us. But our current little house, while needing some work in several areas, suits us fine for now. We do hope to be able to move within the next few years, but that will have to wait a bit.

More details in future updates are extremely likely.

And make no mistake, it was a good dream, a very good dream. It was just way way too short. The crying was only because I can't talk to him any more in the waking world.

turning corners

2008-06-06T11:44:00.000-07:00

A little while ago, maybe almost a month now, I dreamed I was standing out front of the place where we live. Grandma was there, and my parents and M, maybe a few other relatives. We were walking down the street, toward the apartments. We were going to walk down round the corner and go to see the new house being built, that would belong to M and I, somewhere near where great-aunt Bea used to live. Everyone was talking and excited about the house. As we got near the corner, Grandpa swung into step with us, saying a cheerful hello, and oh I was so happy to see him. I joyfully took his arm as I said so -- it's been so long! -- and we continued walking and talking and laughing, all going down to look at the house together.

He looked really good: as full of energy as ever I've seen him, the grandpa of my earliest memories (not that he slowed down noticeably until the last few years). Even within the dream I noticed, that I was not sure how old he looked. He wasn't young exactly, but although he appeared younger than when I'd last seen him, he was entirely himself.

And part of the reason he was so happy, I knew, was that he was happy for me. Because we're going to have a baby, you see. And I was so happy to be sharing that with him, because it's been so long. So happy. He knows.

And then as we turned the corner and came in sight of the new house, still in the wood-framing stage, I woke up.

Then I told M about it, and cried.

Matthew Ferrara, 1983-2007

2008-01-09T23:59:00.000-08:00

(Photos from Marcus Ferrara)

A friend of my family was killed in Afghanistan on Friday, November 9. If you follow the war news, you might have seen reports on that incident in particular, since nine soldiers including Matt were killed in that ambush, as they returned from a meeting in a mountain village, and about 19 more were wounded. Matt was the platoon leader.

His family found out on Saturday, November 10. And word went out around the neighborhood that day, because the Ferrara family is a whirlwind of activity, with Mario and Linda and their five children well known and loved by wide swaths of town. I knew them mainly through the Boy Scout troop in which my brother and father were active; the oldest, Marcus, was a year ahead of my brother in school. Simone, the only daughter, was a soccer star at our high school. Matt was the third of them, and I'm still most used to thinking of him as the little Scout that he was when my brother was an Eagle. Ditto Damon and Andy, who used to be such little guys running all round -- when you spotted one Ferrara somewhere, you could bet the rest of them were nearby, and all of them dynamos of helpfulness and cheer (and the occasional prank).

None of them are little any longer, with Andy, the youngest, now the tallest. He's at West Point right now, like Marcus and Matt before him, and Damon is in ROTC at USC (Southern California). Between them, the Ferraras owned the distance running records at our high school, with the younger ones making it their mission to outdo the records set by their elders.

It seems that Matt was the first New Zealand citizen to be killed in action in Afghanistan (his mother Linda is from New Zealand and so he has dual citizenship). His uncle came and spoke at the funeral, very well I might add, and since said uncle is the New Zealand defense minister, his words are reprinted here.

...had dual citizenship.

It feels so wrong to talk about him in the past tense. Not fair, not right. His family, his friends, who spoke at his funeral, the stories they told, they all described someone with so much talent and life energy that it is hard to get into my head, or rather my heart, that he will not be here, somewhere, any more. Marcus in particular brought him close; Marcus looks older than in high school, as do we all, but Marcus and I are not so old that he ought to be speaking his soul at the funeral of his little brother, not now, not yet, not right.

Hearing the news about Matt Ferrara gave me a feeling that I've had a few times before: that what I was learning was too wrong to be happening, that somehow I was mistaken, because the news was too awful and therefore not real. I felt this way watching the replays of the shuttle Challenger exploding on the school library TV; I felt this way watching the replays of the World Trade Center collapsing. All of these were followed by a growing sadness and a feeling like a hole in my stomach as I accepted the truth. This time, though, the sadness and subsequent anger were the strongest, because this was the closest blow.

Obviously most of my anger is for those who killed him, but had I written an entry during the first few days, there would have also been some long strings of words aimed at certain political figures. But that isn't the sort of entry I want to write, now.

The only crumb of comfort that anyone who knew Matt can take from this, is that he never wasted any of the time he had. He did not get a full life, but his life was full of his family, friends, enthusiasm, joy in existing. The slideshow and videos at the funeral and reception were beautiful and funny and heartbreaking all in a swirl.

Broken surfboard in Costa Rica:

Traveling in Italy:

It was also a strange feeling, especially the first couple of weeks, that unlike Challenger and the World Trade Center, the world in general was unaware. Well, less aware -- the local Daily Breeze had a front-page story more than once on Matt and on the other local soldier who died in the same attack, and the funeral was well-attended. But as his parents received his Bronze Star and a folded flag, as the silent crowd watched under the dimming November afternoon sun, as the sea breeze fluttered the flags of the honor guard, the larger world trundled on, outside us.

It did, and it does, and it will. But one more thing is not right with the world, and it will never be quite right any more.

the cake is a lie

2007-11-09T06:00:00.000-08:00

For once, I think I may have managed to be on the early side of awareness about a Hot New Internet Catchphrase. Kung Fu Monkey gave me this awareness when he noted that it is "the perfect explanation" of the writers' strike (in the post before his extensive and excellent detailed rundown of "What's this all about then, oy?"). I googled the phrase and realized that it's from that interesting-looking game that M. was playing last week or so that I hadn't got round to trying yet -- this weekend perhaps.

T-shirts. We need T-shirts. As demonstrated above, it could apply to all sorts of situations (for antiwar protests, use one with a picture of a cake which is yellow). This is what makes me expect that it will be sweeping the nation.

Of course, since normally I only become fully aware of things as they've passed their peak, I could be wrong. But I want a T-shirt anyway.

Ghost of Halloween past

2007-11-03T06:06:00.001-07:00

Huh. It seems to have worked after all. More police than partiers, from the sound of it.

But I agree with the people who say "OK, now let's plan better for next year." It sounds like things were getting a bit out of control in some aspects, but the solution to that is to be clever in attacking the problems, not to kill the tradition altogether.

No Halloween for you

2007-10-31T14:46:00.000-07:00

I heard on the radio this morning that San Francisco has decided to cancel the Halloween revelry in the Castro because, in the last several years, it's been getting a bit out of control: six people shot last year (although "none seriously"). So they've been doing a local media blitz telling everyone to stay home, getting bars there to agree to close early, and promoting parties in other areas.

Understandable that they want to prevent people getting hurt. Taking action in that line = good. But.

Telling people not to do something. That they've been doing for nigh-on thirty years at least. That involves fun. In San Francisco. Yeah, okay, good luck with that.

ashen again

2007-10-25T13:17:00.000-07:00

For the fourth morning running, when I came out to go to work, there was a light dusting of ashy bits on my car, an orange-brown haze low in the sky, and a faint scent of woodsmoke.

But last night, the moon was its normal color. Tuesday night, it too had been orange, after a day when brown smoke piled high in the sky at work in the afternoon. And today my knee is telling me that the weather is changing.

it's made of . . . ?

2007-10-23T14:30:00.001-07:00

For a few weeks now, I've noticed that some of the burned swatches of Griffith Park, which I pass on my commute, have had some sort of bright green colored stuff spread on them. Last week I actually witnessed a helicopter dumping a load of green onto a slope. Just after dumping, the helicopter seemed to stand straight up on its nose for a moment -- from the sudden unbalancing? -- which I hadn't seen a helicopter do before. I was relieved to see it quickly right itself and putter off westward.

I wonder what the green stuff is. Something to attempt erosion control for the rainy season, I'm guessing, maybe like this.

11. Favorite TV show?

2007-10-11T16:54:00.000-07:00

back to this question business. Hm. At this moment, the first one that comes to mind is Firefly. Though as I say that, I see Babylon 5 standing across the schoolyard, glaring at me bitterly.

Do you mean shows currently on? Um... we don't have cable. We watch our TV on DVD.

fishy?

2007-10-11T16:28:00.000-07:00

Driving in to work this morning -- I've taken to using the 5 to the 134 around Griffith Park instead of the 101 through Hollywood for the last few months, saves me having to worry what Barham might be like today -- there's a stretch of the L.A. River where they've taken out the concrete on the bottom, and trees and bushes are growing. Kind of like a real, actual river.

This morning I glimpsed a guy sitting down by the edge on the other side -- I think he was fishing.

Fishing? In the L.A. River? Really? Because, on one hand, that would be awesome that there are (a) fish there at all, (b) big enough to be worth catching, (c) enough of them to be worth fishing for. On the other hand, dude, you do realize that those fish are swimming in whatever the hell the sprinklers have been washing off the streets lately?

grandma

2007-09-15T06:29:00.000-07:00

My grandma died last week.

The funeral was this last Wednesday. This is what I said:

One of my earliest memories is just an image, a moment from when I was not even walking yet, but crawling, on the kitchen floor of our old house. I was over by the doorway, and saw feet on the other side of the baby gate. I looked up, and it was Grandma! Yay, Grandma!

It seems a bit strange that I could remember even a brief moment from when I was so young. But that’s the power of Grandma-love. All of us know that it just overflowed out of her like sunlight every time she smiled; it shone out of her whole face. Everybody’s face, I think, reveals their general personality over time. Her wrinkles were smiley ones.

Thank you, Grandma, for the ginger ale, the salmon patties, the small change in the little boxes with our names on them, the peanut butter cookies, the beautiful flower-print dress that fit me just right and that I wore every chance I could for years, until the shoulders were sunbleached and worn and the fabric finally gave way.

I loved that dress. But the real reason I loved it so much, the reason I have kept it and will always keep it, is that it was Grandma-love made visible. Every time I see it I feel an echo of her and of the same emotion from my first memory: the joy of seeing Grandma.

I love you, Grandma.

She was my mom's mom, the only grandma I ever knew. Both my dad's parents died before I was born. Grandpa died ten years ago. I don't have any grandparents any more. at least that I can talk with.

I looked at the flower-print dress after the funeral. It took me a while to actually find the rip; it was lower than I'd thought, and not as big. Maybe it would be fixable, sometime: not to perfect, but not immediately noticeable amidst the flower print.

board n batten

2007-08-14T08:26:00.000-07:00

A hurricane, with bonus earthquake? Gaah. Hope everyone over there rides through it all. Good thing we got married last year.

10. Where's your least favorite place to be?

2007-08-02T11:14:00.000-07:00

Again, thinking of one specific location is difficult. In general, I don't like bad smells, rooms with no windows, bugs, or strange unidentified growths, so a moldy buggy mostly-bare room with no windows that smelled like sewage would fit the bill. Luckily I can't recall ever having been in such a room.

If we're talking places I might expect to find myself, I guess I prefer not to find myself in a hospital bed, because that would usually mean there was something notably wrong with me, but hospitals don't in themselves freak me out.

um, hi.

2007-08-02T10:44:00.000-07:00

I think I am probably back now. I shall restart with another driving-on-the-freeway item.

One evening last week (I think), I was down in the section of the 110 that I call the carpool canyon, and as I approached one of the overpasses I could see a couple of young women on the sidewalk above. One of them was waving to the traffic passing underneath her.

So I hurried to open my moonroof and signal back, first with a peace sign and then, as I became unsure she was going to see me before I disappeared, just my open hand waving. I think she might have seen me in the last couple of seconds, because she jumped up and down and started waving more energetically, but I can't be sure.

Fun though. It's nice to be looked back at once in a while.

9. Where's your favorite place to be?

2006-11-09T16:01:00.000-08:00

Cozy at home with my sweetie. That's easy. Note that his presence is necessary to the favorite-ness of the place.

Which reminds me, we're getting the house (outside and a couple rooms inside) painted next week. We really need to settle on the colors this weekend. :P

sunshiny day

2006-11-08T21:00:00.000-08:00

Well. Now this will be interesting. Too bad Pelosi isn't going to push impeachment, but I understand the point of view that it would get in the way of all the other important things that need fixing and doing, like restoring habeas corpus, and fun with subpoenas, and explaining to those who seem not to get it that: no, the executive in the American system of government does not get to do whatever s/he wants however s/he likes.

First woman Speaker of the House! Cool. Go go San Francisco values! Which to me means: let people do what they want short of hurting someone else, treat all people fairly and equally, try to have a safety net for the unlucky, and be creative.

edit: and environmentalism, of course. that (almost) goes without saying.

My favorite reading for the day was Glenn Greenwald here and here.

a taste of Hawaii

2006-11-04T06:43:00.000-08:00

Here is a photo from the first place we stayed, which was our favorite. (It didn't hurt that they upgraded us.) This is a little after 7 AM on our first morning there. I had walked roughly 100 yards across a palm-studded lawn to reach this point from our room's first-floor patio. Later in the day, while snorkeling over by those rocks at the end of the beach, we saw our first two sea turtles of the trip. The word for "turtle" in Hawaiian is "honu."

8. What's the last movie you saw in the cinema?

2006-11-04T06:01:00.000-08:00

Since the cost of a pair of movie tickets these days is roughly comparable to the price of a re-watchable-in-the-comfort-of-one's-home DVD, we don't get out to theaters a whole lot. I think it was An Inconvenient Truth. Which, btw, everyone needs to (a) see, and (b) make other people watch who haven't seen it. Gore/Obama '08: dream ticket. Too bad the press hates Gore, seemingly because he's not as much "fun" as they'd like. If you want to pick on him for something, I'd choose the idea of Lieberman as veep. But at least it would have gotten Mr. Pomposity out of his Senate seat, which otherwise he seems to think is his personal property.

Next theater-movie will probably be the new James Bond, since the sweetie is a Bond partisan.

farewell to runnymede

2006-09-28T13:39:00.000-07:00

I haven't been paying as much attention as I should, and neither have a lot of other people, but I am at least awake enough to notice that today appears to be a historic day. If I'm understanding correctly, today is the day that 791 years of Anglo-American tradition -- that the head of state cannot simply imprison people at whim, but must either charge and try them, or release them -- is interrupted. For Congress is giving Our Leader the power to imprison anyone he wants, U.S. citizen or not, at his whim and for as long as he wishes, simply by deciding that the person has been aiding terrorism in some way. If the person (or anyone else on their behalf) disagrees, tough shit. Nobody gets to second-guess The Decider. Unless something is done to overturn this bill later, the history of the USA might be all downhill from here. That's without even getting into the part in the bill about torture.

I can't completely believe this. Fine, the House has been taken over, but I thought there were more Senators left with some sense. Obviously not. And McCain is a complete poser. Why is nobody even trying to filibuster this? If I were in there, they'd have to physically drag me from the podium; at least that way maybe a few more people might passingly notice the situation. No, I'm probably still being too optimistic.

Anyway, go read Glenn Greenwald linked up there in the title; he's got the rundown.

IN style

2006-09-15T06:35:00.000-07:00

Driving home last night I found myself following an Indiana license plate of recent vintage. On top it said "Indiana," and along the bottom it said www.IN.gov.

Thought 1: Welcome to the 21st century.
Thought 2: Wait. Why wasn't California, home of Silicon Valley, the one to do this first?

7. What's the last CD you bought?

2006-09-14T13:33:00.000-07:00

hrm. I have never been a music junkie, in the sense of buying up lots of music, although music in certain contexts (e.g., film scores) is important to me. And now we're in the era of MP3s and iPods. I honestly can't say for sure, but I think it might have been the spoken-word album put out around last Christmas by Sarah Bunting of Tomato Nation, collecting her phone-conversation-with-a-friend essays into audio form.

(I've got all the honeymoon pics back now, but I still have to sift for the best ones and scan them.)

back to reality

2006-08-21T12:27:00.000-07:00

Whew. In case you've never been there (I hadn't), the Big Island of Hawai'i? Is beautiful. We just got back this last weekend. I took a bunch of pictures that I can't show you yet because they're in old-school slide form yet to be developed. Partly this is because I am somewhat old-school in attitude, and partly this is because I am not-rich and have no digital SLR (used "my" old standby Nikon N70 which technically belongs to my dad, but we share it). I did once have a little pocket-size digicam, but it had a fatal chip attack a few months ago. So. Patience.

The theme, or perhaps mascot, or symbol of our honeymoon trip I have decreed to be TURTLES.

who's a princess? i am i am

2006-08-04T16:57:00.000-07:00

okay, i have both a makeup and a hair person now (have had since shortly after that last post, but it's been a bit hectic 'round here). and we are back to the original hair plan which is piles o curls cascading partly down the back. because my dress is rather poofy and so i felt the hair needed some poof to balance. wow, i'm going to be married by this time tomorrow. wow.

simplicity

2006-07-28T12:24:00.000-07:00

I haven't lined up a replacement hairstylist yet. I've contacted a couple of people, but I haven't been pursuing it as doggedly as I could, because a thought has been growing in my mind: maybe I don't truly need one. The rubberbands and hairpins necessary to create the gorgeous mass of cascading curls in both of my trials began giving me a bit of a headache, later in each afternoon. Don't want headache. Maybe a simple braid, of the front part of my hair, down the back of the rest of my hair, naturally straight, long and free-flowing, like usual. Not only shouldn't it give me a headache, but it feels more ME. The me who, normally, hardly gives much thought to hair or makeup. The braiding would still allow for putting in some flowers and attaching the veil. I think. And it's something that my mother used to do with my hair once in a while, back in the day. We could probably do it again. In fact, that might be kind of neat.

6. Gold or silver?

2006-07-28T12:17:00.000-07:00

Silver, the mirror, the moonlight and starlight, the echo of
mithril, the family heirlooms, the jewelry gift of my love on a birthday.

5. Favorite physical feature of the opposite sex

2006-07-26T12:49:00.000-07:00

Smile, which is as much about the eyes as it is about the mouth. Both are incredibly sexy on my sweetie.

His nice strong arms are close runners-up, though. Hugs good.

Hair-raising

2006-07-21T17:19:00.000-07:00

Right. Wedding. So. Everything has been going fine, until yesterday, when drama at last arrived. The short version, as best I can tell, is that my hair and makeup artist decamped to Boston sometime around mid to late June, without notifying me or indeed many other brides who had booked her. And paid her. It seems likely that if I had not attempted to check in and confirm our arrangements yesterday, I might have discovered this only when she did not show up the day of. Luckily I've got a couple more weeks, and have already lined up another makeup artist who is a friend of a friend. Still working on the hairstylist, but at least we've got two weeks to find one instead of two hours.

Long version:

Yesterday I decided to call her just to confirm everything was set, and discuss exactly what time we wanted her to show up. I tried to pull up her website for her phone number, and discovered the site no longer exists.

Disconcerting.

I googled the website's name, Artistry By Tess (also known as the Artistry Group), and discovered an entry called "Special Report: The Artistry Group" at a blog called Wedding Bee.

Goodbye disconcerting, hello lead weights in my stomach. I'm one of the people who paid in full to get the discount, back in April, on the basis of several years' (I think) worth of glowing reviews on the weddingchannel.com and theknot.com forums with nary a dissenting voice. At least I paid only for me, and my maid of honor's hair, and not more. It sounds like others may have lost significantly more.

The bottom line appears to be that Tess Standley (aka maiden name Teresa Johnson, according to her pricing page) says she has cancer, and also a pending divorce from her husband, and has decided to stay in Boston with her family while she undergoes treatment and tries to rebuild her career there. A blog where she made several posts about these things during early July had already been taken down by yesterday, but helpful Google has cached a copy here.

Using emails previously exchanged, I looked up her (Pasadena studio) phone number and tried calling it, and it is indeed disconnected. I sent a brief email inquiry, half expecting it to completely bounce, and got an autoreply, which seems to be missing a few lines in the first paragraph:

For updates pleasde visit:
http://dayinthelifeoftess.blogspot.com/

As you may or not be aware, I have been fighting cancer since March. On
a recent trip to Boston to see my family have been my closest
assistance for the past 5 years and can always mimic what I have done.

I understand that this may cause you stress and anxiety and having been
a bride, I can completely understand.

I have provided a list of contacts below as replacements for your
services. Design Visage and Stacy Oliver are happily taking brides.

I am so sad that I will not be able to personally fulfill my obligation
to you on your wedding day.

Love and Thanks
Tess

followed by a list of contact information for several Southern California hair and makeup stylists.

I did discover a mirror of her website which is still up at this writing, which announces "Booking both Los Angeles and New England appointments for 2007," although the phone number listed is still the disconnected Pasadena one: http://theartistrygroup.com/

I'm a patient sort (sometimes too patient) who usually gives a person the benefit of the doubt, until I have reason to do otherwise. It is possible that she is telling the truth. Fighting cancer is as good a reason as any to have a bit of a nervous breakdown, BUT: not notifying her clients of this situation is a big ol' honkin' red flag. She had enough energy to set up and publish a blog, if only for a week or so. Said blog, and the email auto-reply, would only reach those who attempt to find her. Those who do not suspect that anything is wrong, which was me until yesterday, would have none of that information. In my opinion, the honest professional's very first response to a situation beyond their control would be the mass-email notification of all clients. The autoreply demonstrates that she does or did have access to her email, which presumably contains her clients' addresses, yet she did not do this.

That said, I sent her another email today taking her at her word and inquiring about refund procedure, and I will give her a chance to answer before I decide whether to take further action. Anyway, I've got a few errands this weekend, what with getting married in a couple weeks and having to find a new hairstylist and all.

feral feline update

2006-07-21T16:56:00.000-07:00

At least for this last stretch of falling-down-on-the-posting, I have the pretty good excuse of getting ready for my imminent wedding. More on that front in a moment, but first I want to follow up to that last post.

We've only done the one round of trapping so far, with the two traps we borrowed from TLC Adoptions. We got the mother and the black-and-white kitten, who also turned out to be female. Poor kitties were freaked right the hell out, of course, to be picked up and carried along in strange boxes to be stashed in the garage. It was a bit stressful on me, too, keeping them in the traps in the garage overnight for those two nights on either side of the trip to the vet (they were still groggy afterwards, and it wouldn't have been safe for them to let them out yet) -- I hated causing them so much fear, even though we were doing it For Their Own Good.

Of course after I let them out, those two in particular made themselves very scarce for the next many days. Happily, they seem to have forgotten now, a month and a half later, and have resumed thinking of me as the Person Who Puts Food Out. (If Fiance steps outside though, whist! no cats anywhere. They don't associate him with anything else besides the traps.) Mom and kids are always waiting for me outside the sliding door every morning now.

Gray kitten ... I really need to figure out what their names are. Gray kitten is bold enough to even brush past me now and then, dancing around my feet when I have a food bowl in hand. He probably won't do that any more after we trap him, sigh. But my goal is to have at least our core little family -- mama and two kittens -- fixed and living happily in our yard, as long as they choose to.

My digital camera's been broken for the last couple months. When I decide either to fix it or get a new one, maybe I'll put up some pictures of them.

Cat houses. Not that kind.

2006-06-06T14:13:00.000-07:00

I have cats in my backyard. Feral cats. I suspect the mom (a tuxedo with white back feet) is herself one of a batch of kittens we discovered in a box in the carport when we were first moving in, a year and a half ago. Sometime around mid-March this year, she had two babies. "Papa cat" has been hanging round quite a bit too, making a cute cozy family group out on the patio of an evening. Papa is a gray tabby with black down his spine and tail. "Uncle cat" is a gray whose tabbiness (stripiness) is less defined; he's around sometimes too, when Papa's feeling tolerant. The bold kitten is another gray tabby, with white back feet like mom and black spine like dad. The timid kitten is another tuxedo, with white whisker patches.

This is actually the third batch of kittens that has lived in our yard. Batch A, from the carport, disappeared for a bit, then began to be seen again, before disappearing around the time the kittens were weaning-age. Batch B, last summer-ish, was based both in the carport (which we don't use, for cars anyway) and in the fern jungle along the south fence. My brother tried to catch/play with them once in a while, and named the (relatively) tamest one Balthasar. Now we have Batch C, population 2.

I'm going to try to catch them tonight. (The kittens, and hopefully the mom, at least.)

I've been doing a bit of reading, and apparently the current best practice re: humanely managing feral cat colonies is Trap-Neuter-Release (TNR). You trap the feral cats without hurting them, take them to get spayed or neutered, and then release them back where you found them. This means that the cats (who, once they have grown up without human contact, are unadoptable) can live out their lives reasonably happily, but without multiplying. A colony, allowing for the occasional wandering new arrival, will over time shrink in numbers.

I poked around the web a bit and finally found a local group called TLC Adoptions that could help me out a bit with information* and a couple of loaner traps. Trying to make sure I'm doing everything right, and not forgetting anything, is stressing me out today not quite as much as being caught is going to stress out the kitties. I just wish I'd been more organized and got round to this sooner, when the kittens could have been young enough to be adopted. But hopefully they will have a reasonably happy -- though childless -- life around our backyard. Perhaps they will discourage any gophers from developing designs on my carrots.

*Some of the information was verrrry interesting: they were not unfamiliar with our neighborhood, indeed a particular house farther down our alley is apparently a sort of cat-multiplication Ground Zero. When kitten batches A and B disappeared around the time they got old enough to be weaned, it was probably because their mom (yet another tuxedo, now dubbed "Grandma"; she's started showing up in the yard again this last week, too) took them "home"... there.

4. If you could eat lunch with one famous person, who would it be?

2006-05-11T21:29:00.000-07:00

What I'd really like to do is get all of my friends and a lot of the people whose websites I read (some are sort of famous, depending on your criteria) together in one place, and form a rational political party, and sweep the nation, and fix everything. The good party names are probably already taken, though.

I dodged this question last time. I'd rather answer it this round. I'm just having trouble thinking of an answer.

[ten minutes pass as I go stream-of-consciousness trying to think of famous people]

Maybe Aung San Suu Kyi. How strange a shadow-life she has been trapped in. Apparently she is known for (among other things) a speech/essay titled "Freedom from Fear." FDR had something to say about that too, as I recall. I think fear is a root of so many things. If one can let it go, how much lighter life becomes.

song of myself 2 & 3

2006-05-10T16:07:00.000-07:00

The re-launch of All About Me continues.

2. What time do you wake up in the morning?
I usually wake up spontaneously around 6 AM, if I've had enough sleep. This is harder in winter, but still happens. Sleep deprivation may lead to the need for an alarm, but even if I'm free to sleep in as long as I like, I can't usually stay abed past 7:30.

That was a short one. Let's do one more.

3. What's your favorite article of clothing?
Hmmmmmm. I could be cute and say my wedding dress, and I do love it so, but obviously there's some symbolism clouding the issue. Discounting that, I choose a dress I bought last fall that is a knee-length green chiffon number with purple flowers embroidered on it. Not that I've had an opportunity to wear that in public yet either, since it's kind of summery (soon now, soon!). If we're talking about things I wear regularly, then I pronounce a tie between two t-shirts, one mottled green with silver shiny-sparklies around a rose near my shoulder, and the other purple with a golden peacock with sparklies in his tail. Not only are they pretty in perfect colors, but my honey got them for me.

blackbird singing in the dead of night

2006-05-09T23:53:00.000-07:00

Actually, it's a mockingbird. It is nine minutes to midnight (yes, I have been puttering with computer funthings, and my sweetie is out of town and not here to gently push me to bed), and our resident Mockingbird of Insanity is chirruping away. I love mockingbirds, and songbirds of all kinds, but I don't understand why this one is singing at night. They don't, normally, do they? This one does.

I'M going to sleep now.

edit 14 Sep 06: I since learned that night singing is a "feature" of mockingbirds well known to many people other than me. I guess I just never happened to be awake to hear one before. Live and learn.

song of myself redux

2006-05-09T23:20:00.000-07:00

Three years ago, I posted my answers to an "answer these questions to describe yourself" email forward, which I had received in two different forms from two different friends. I merged the two sets of questions and answered the whole shebang, over several days.

This proved to be a mildly fateful decision, because only a few months later, I met the man who is now my fiance. His interest piqued, he decided to do a little "research" on me by reading the purple tricycle, and found the April 2003 question-and-answer sequence enlightening. In a positive way, luckily.

I'm in the mood to kick off this new Blogger phase of my journaling by revisiting those questions and comparing present to past answers. I'll try not to look at the old answers before writing the new ones. For those interested in following along with the 2003 sequence, it begins
here. I did several per post before, but this time I'll do one per.

1. If you could build a house anywhere, where would it be?
I have a better idea of the sort of house it would be -- solar-paneled, well-insulated, capable of transitioning off the grid in the future, when that becomes necessary -- a house on enough quality land to raise some good food with. The size of this envisioned farm, and whether it includes farm animals, fluctuates with my mood. It would be a solid house capable of anchoring an extended family over many generations. I'm still trying to figure out where good locations would be for it, though. I want it to be at least 300 feet above the current sea level, so that it will still be above water when the polar ice melts. It should also be within a strong, friendly, like-minded community in or not too far from a town, because a farm in the middle of nowhere will be no good in case of banditry. (I'm thinking very long term, collapse-of-the-Roman-Empire timeframe, in case you hadn't noticed.) Current possibilities include the vicinities of San Luis Obispo, Monterey, and the Pacific Northwest, as well as Vancouver and Victoria in Canada in case of theocracy.

I don't want it to be very far from the ocean partly because of weather moderation, partly because fishing could be a secondary food source, and partly because I simply love the ocean.

little purple

2006-04-25T15:31:00.000-07:00

not done yet

2006-04-24T21:46:00.000-07:00

further development after sleep. still fiddling.

once more with title

2006-04-24T21:43:00.000-07:00

cha cha cha.