This Was All Before 8:45 This Morning

Uhm, I am wearing flip flops and I have coral color painted toenails and I LOVE everything because I went running this morning.

Here are some things I saw today:

A sea of jasmine

A beautiful view

Fuzzy, red, banana-looking flowers

A spacious view that came with a delightful-feeling headwind.

An almond croissant that my mom brought me.

Mom also put lilies in my room and they smell great! Thanks, Mom!

Yesterday I got in the hot tub. No doubt I will again soon. Not only that but I had an entire row to myself on the plane over! How often does that happen?

Today we will be celebrating Mom's birthday. It's a bit early but today we're celebrating. This means there will be cake. Dang good.

California Brunch

Brunch dessert

They have fancy sand here

California Breakfast

We're at my mom's house and boy, is her house full of great food. My breakfast has Uncle Sam cereal and yogurt under all that fruit. I could eat like that in New England too but it's much harder to come by fresh fruit of this quality there. 

Food-wise I've been just barely getting by lately. I just buy the least possible stuff to feed my face healthfully. Pretty much all I buy at the market is kale (or Brussels sprouts or broccoli) dried beans, eggs and bread.

(What's the deal with this Oxford comma thing? My school was all hoity-toity, self satisfied about not using one. I distinctly remember my teacher's exposition on it. I don't remember which teacher it was so maybe I'm making it all up. "Ultimately it doesn't matter which way you choose to do it as long as you are consistent. We do not use one here at NCS." That's how I remember it.

I have very strong memories of learning punctuation. It must have been very important to me. I rember being very confused about commas and latching with relief on the takeaway: when in doubt, leave it out. I have a lot of doubt. I don't always leave it out.)

Two parenthetical paragraphs. Who am I? Mini David Foster Wallace?

Anyway, we were talking about food. I also buy bourbon and pickles but that should be obvious from some of my recent posts. (Looks like I should also be stocking up on matches, if you catch my drift.)

Maybe I'd buy a better variety of more interesting foods if I was concentrating on life's joys. I've really been focusing on the duties lately. It's fine. I'm healthy. I'm getting a lot done. I'm learning a lot which is something that is very important to me. I'm even enjoying myself when I can. It's a low-key satisfaction-with-being-relatively-competent-as-an-adult kind of enjoyment. Sounds fun, huh? Well it's different and I like variety.

I don't feel quite ready yet to go back to variety in my food buying habits yet. Grief brings out austerity in me I guess. I'm still finding my way through this landscape of absent things. I feel like I need to focus and not distract myself with strawberries. Chocolate and booze (in moderation - I'm a middle-aged lady and can't process the sauce like I used to) are okay though. Chocolate is actually a necessity.

For now I'm on vacation at Mom's and I'm so happy to take advantage of what she's provided. Thanks Mom!

Tonight

Hey NaBloPoMo people! I'm in CALIFORNIA where it is not 12:35 AM on 11/19/12  but 9:35 PM 11/18/12! I posted today! C'mon! Count me!!!! In fact I posted this for the first time at 9:00 PM pacific time but spent the last half hour trying to correct my time zone. Seriously! Help a gal out!

Okay, whatever. I know what I did.

Cake Toupée

My Brother and Jaguars

This is just obscene

Last Night And Today

I have a new nephew, born last night! Congratulations to Christian and Sarah!

More trivially, here's what I want to do today:

1. Weed, weed block and mulch the paths
2. Clean up all the flattened stems left behind by the October snow storm
3. Tidy the roses
4. Do the fall cutting back
5. Clear the dining table
6. Clean the shower
7. Laundry
8. Put away the nine plus piles of books that I have left all over the house
9. Read Sin and Syntax
10. Get groceries
11. Wash the lettuce
12. Bake something
13. Meditate

As you can see I'm in over my head by the third word of the first item on my list. Guess I'd better get going.

Chocolate, CREEPY, Bacon

Today I made chocolate chip cookies for Pete.  I think I may have eaten six of them myself already.  BAD MEL!!!  Maybe it was only five?

Anyway, while I was doing the dishes I had VPR on (yes, I'm a member) and "Radiolab" was on.  They were discussing the Uncanny Valley effect.  This is what you get when someone attempts to make a facsimile of a human (say a robot or a CGI character) and they get pretty close but not close enough.  Anyone viewing the not-close-enough facsimile gets creeped out* and can't stand to keep looking at the thing.  They said a scientist tested the effect with monkeys and the monkeys all got creeped out too.

This completely explains my lifetime aversion to that Scientology guy who jumped on Oprah's couch.  (Ew.  I don't even like typing his name in my blog.  Ick!  I typed it but I had to change it!  Shudder)  Brad Pitt is headed that way too.  When the posters for the film of "The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button" were up everywhere I couldn't stand to look at them either.  CREEPY!!!  Giant photoshopped faces of Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett.  Yeee!

Bad plastic surgery causes the same effect.  They'd better watch it out there in Hollywood.  I wish someone would fund arts education at least for the folks who decide which people we all have to look at in our popular culture.  Wabi-sabi everyone!  Please!

I'd better stop thinking about this because I'm giving myself the heebie-jeebies.

I will move on to state that tomorrow I plan to make another batch of chocolate chip cookies.  This time I will be putting fresh cooked bacon bits in with the chocolate chips and walnuts.  I need to find out if it works!!!

*becomes profoundly unnerved.  See, I don't have to talk like a hippie.

Birthday 2011

2010 was a difficult year.  For the first half I was pretty proud of myself for being able to compartmentalize the bad and the good and still find ways to enjoy myself.  Actually, I've been patting myself on the back about that ability for the last three years.  Unfortunately that particular emotional resource ran out a little after my dad died.  Since then I've had a hard time enjoying anything.  That's normal - it happens.  As long as I take care of myself I'll get that ability back.  I'm not worried, just waiting.

I did enjoy my birthday though, in a low-key way.  To celebrate we went to Hotel Del Coronado for New Years Day brunch in the Crown Room.  Here's what I wore:

Mom gave me the bag and the shoes for Christmas.  You'd have to feel at least a little bit uplifted by that combo, huh?  You might recognize the shoes from this post.

Here I am towards the end of the meal.  Notice that I have a tiramisu, three chocolate drinks, three little piles of chocolate mousse and a meringue.  The food at the brunch is stellar but my absolute favorite thing is that chocolate drink.  Maybe next time I'll get five!

After brunch we all walked on the beach.  Usually there's a chilly wind blowing on that beach but this day it was just warm and pleasant.  They have disco sand there: it glitters with golden mica.  So fancy!

Then Pete and I took Fay in her doggie stroller to smell the smellicans (pelican roosts really stink) at the La Jolla Cove.

Fay loves to sniff all the smells.  I kept waiting for someone to look into our stroller and say "What a hideous child!" Everybody just thought she was so cute. Well, she is.

When we got back to Mom's house the sun was setting.  It was an incredible sunset.  Pete and I stayed out on the lawn for about an hour watching it.

It was even beautiful to the east.  I had trouble deciding where to look.

I chose to see a phoenix in these clouds because I could use a rebirth.

After the sunset we all had dinner together.  Mom delegated the ordering of the cakes to my brother this year.  For some reason he ordered three birthday cakes for me. There have to be photos of them somewhere but I don't have them.  There was coconut, chocolate with white icing and a fruit tiramisu.  Against the odds, the fruit tiramisu was my hands down favorite.  I wish I had some right now.

So all in all a very pleasant birthday.  Ideal.  Comfortable, delicious and spent with my favorite people.  Way to start the new year.

Letting The Cat Out

Pete and I have a number of things that we like to do when we go to La Jolla to visit my family.

The first place we have to go is Mr. Taco. Everybody in the family knows that.

The second place we have to go is Tokyo House in Pacific Beach.  Everybody knows this too.  What they don't know is that Pete and I have begun to indulge in the beer and sake special: if you order a big beer (22oz. bottle) you get an order of sake with it for a penny. At lunch time.  Yes, this is what we like to do.

I looked at a couple of the yelp reviews and some of the unflattering ones do have a point.  This place is a little scuzzy. Pete and I like scuzzy (I'm looking at you, Peppermill)  The people who work there are really nice and the food is great.  The music is unreliable, which is always entertaining.  Tokyo House is also a refreshing change of pace from the mostly fancypants stuff we do in California.

After our beers, sakes and makimono we like to go to the fifteen dollar store two doors down.  Everything there is fifteen dollars or less.  Like these rings.  They're all for sale at three dollars apiece.

 I went home with the one with red eyes on my middle finger.  I probably should have just bought them all so I could wear them all at once, as shown.  However, my beer-and-sake-addled head remained cool and I didn't.

Birthday photos tomorrow.

We're still in California. We were supposed to go back to Boston yesterday but I came down with a 24 hour bug so we're leaving today instead.

I have to admit that California is growing on me. It used to be that I thought CA was weird and Califonians were nuts.* Now I'm getting used to it. Also, the thought of leaving this incredible weather is daunting. I drifted off to sleep last night thinking abut long underwear and down jackets.

My birthday was a few days ago. I had a really nice day and I'll blog about it once I have Photoshop re-installed on my new hand-me-down computer (I have my dad's old laptop - to go with his iPad)

Good luck to all of us in the new year!

*Not anyone I know personally of course.

What A Bad Girl Looks Like

She is very bad.  She doesn't care at all that we're in California.  She wants her breakfast at 4:30 eastern time.  Then she wants more food at half hour intervals after that.  She's noisy and determined.  I had to shut her in the bathroom with her kong full of peanut butter last night.  Even then she was pawing at the door complaining.  Trouble maker!

Black Cloud

Not happy.  My computer fell off the table where it was charging and died.  We're traveling so I don't have access to my backup hard drives.  Also, my iPad was plugged into the computer when it fell so the iPad is compromised too.

That is the tip of the iceberg though.

The first Christmas without Dad is being more challenging than I though it would be (for me at least) so I'm in a crappy mood to begin with.

Hey - at least the weather's nice, the company's good, The food is good, Fay is healthy, I have a home to go back to, I have back ups for most of my files, my novel is safe and overall I'm in good shape.

There's light around the edge of this black cloud.  Now I need a good wind to blow the damned thing away.

Thanksgiving Round Up

I would say that the first major holiday after my dad's death went pretty well.

It started off a little slow with me and Mom striking out for the mall right away.  Our hearts weren't really in it.  We did find a couple of cute things to buy.  I got a red lipstick and Mom got a fun scarf.  We had the most fun at the Kate Spade store. (That's where my lipstick is from.  Looks like you can't get it on line though)  Lots of fun shapes and colors there.  But we weren't really in a shopping mood.  It kind of felt like our usual lunch wasn't as fun either even though we got popovers.

When we got back from shopping, Mom, Pete and I went and picked up Pete's brother, Marc at the airport.  Things perked up after that.  We got to show him the things we like about town.  For instance we had dinner at the Whaling Bar.

While we were there my brother and Sarah arrived from L.A..  Once we were all together, including the dogs, we all kind of loosened up and relaxed.

It ended up being a pretty jolly and low key Thanksgiving.  The food was great, there was no strife of any kind (well, Fay tried to beat up her doggie cousins - I'd count that as strife)  Okay, no human strife.  A good time was had by all.  Hooray!

Maybe This Is How Fay Feels

I can't believe how hungry I am today.  You might think, "Well how convenient!  It is Thanksgiving, after all."  Well it isn't Thanksgiving yet.  Not here.  I'm in California and it's only 9:30 AM here.

When I got up at 6:30 local time I had a piece of whole wheat toast with some swiss cheese meted on top.  A little later I had some left over steak.  I also had a cup of coffee, a glass of water and a few spoonfuls of yogurt.

I've been doing a little cooking and writing in the mean time so time has passed.  I got hungry again so I looked at my watch to see if that was reasonable.  My watch said 12:00.  "Yes!" I thought, "I can make lunch.  I'll have a salad."  I got out the salad fixin's and started a-making.  Then I glanced at the clock over by the sink.  It said 9:00. :(  I remembered that I didn't reset my watch so I could easily tell what time Fay thinks it is.

I'm eating a damned salad while I type this.

Fay Loves Grandma

I apologize for the writing quality of this post.  It turns out I'm over-caffeinated.  I'm also out of the habit of editing myself as I go from NaNoWriMo.  I'm a-cranking' out the words.

Fay likes to travel.  She especially loves to go to California.  Grandma's house in California is a sprawling one level.  We put plenty of yoga mats down on the wood floors so Fay can make it easily across the wood floors from our room into the kitchen.  Elsewhere there is carpeting.  But the key is that she can make it to the kitchen.

I think the thing she likes best about California is that there are more people here to mooch food from here than there are under normal circumstances.  I have a feeling that I've written that before.  Oh well.  Sorry.  Ish.

Grandma is a total sucker for Fay's charms so Fay's mooching is very successful.  Fortunately Fay also gets a lot of exercise running from the bedroom to the kitchen and back.  Still, when we flew back from here back in August they almost didn't let me on the plane with Fay.  She and her carrier are supposed to weigh less than twenty pounds.  They weighed twenty-three!

Yesterday Grandma was a little careless when she was giving Fay a piece of cheese.  You have to give Fay her treats horsey style, with a flat palm.  She can be very grabby.  She's so rude.

School Of Life

I'm back in Vermont now. I thought I'd hit the ground running and pick up where I started.  I forgot that travel is tiring and that there's jet lag.  I also failed to take into consideration that I was under-slept (if anyone knows how to explain time zones to a dog I could use a pointer on that as Fay likes her breakfast at 6AM eastern time, 3 pacific time) and had spent the last month doing pretty difficult and draining work.

In other words, "Oh yeah, I'm tired.  Oh yeah, I'm grieving.  I forgot."  Sort of.

One thing my dad taught me was that you can learn some pretty fascinating things from pretty much any situation you're in.  This month has been EXTREMELY educational.

My dad's death has been the first major loss of my life.  I know - I've been incredibly lucky.  Now I'm finding out what grieving is - and isn't.  For example, it's not just crying or crying all the time.  There's also "numb" and "oblivious," "fatigued" and plain old "sad."

You all probably already know this and don't need to be told.

I have a lot of blogging to catch up on.  Hopefully I'll manage it in the next couple of days.

An Inheritence

I have my dad's iPad. I'm posting with it right now. So far it's pretty fun to play with but I feel a little bit like a vulture. Dad would probably think it's cool that I can blog with this thing though.

Thanks Dad.

Where I've Been Lately

You may wonder where I've been.  I've been in San Diego for the last days of my father's life.  His funeral is tomorrow (or maybe it's today, depending on what time this posts)

I'm sure you'll hear more about it in future days.

For now I'm hitting the hay.

Not Bloggy

I haven't been feeling very bloggy lately. Sorry. The things that are taking up the majority of my brain space are not things I've felt I could share.

Pete, Fay and I are fine though - not to worry.

We were in California last week. I brought the charger for the camera but not the camera. There was a photo I wished I could have taken to post that I didn't take of the top of a hedge.

Mom and I went shopping twice. We needed retail therapy. I bought a pair of those Sketcher butt shoes. Wait a second and I'll google what they're actually called... Oh yeah, "Shape Ups." Like my old Fit Flops, I don't know if they work but I like how they look and they are fun to wear. Instead of being bored while you just stand in one place you have to pay attention to keeping your balance. I love being entertained.

Today I ordered some plants to put in my garden in the spring. That was risky because I'm not positive I'll be in Vermont when the plants arrive. I went with it anyway.

My friend Jill says life is messy. Mine's not especially but maybe it should be. I'll try to work on that, though it goes against my nature.

Some Things I've Learned Recently

Number one, when reading a blogger.com blog DO NOT EVER (unless you're looking for porn) hit the "next blog" button at the top of the page (conveniently located next to the "report abuse" button) Learned that the hard way.

Feel free to hit the "follow" button, especially if you're reading my blog.

Number two, (hee hee, number two! Ugh, sorry.) Maybelline bronzing powder, the cheapest brand I could find, is an excellent product.

I don't normally use bronzing powder because I'm Palefaced and Proud* (and curly hair proud too - no capitulating to the straight hair standard!) I needed it this week to go as Rachael Ray for Halloween. I was going to use a hint of orange makeup from the costume shop (her T.V. makeup always looks overly orangey to me) but there was no way I was going to pay $8.99 for a pan of orange makeup.

Maybelline to the rescue. I bought a nice, dark color that I thought would instantly look glaringly wrong on me. In fact, I had to really cake it on to make it look overdone.

Of course I was wearing a very dark brunette wig at the time. Maybe it would look wrong with my real coloring? Nope, I just tried it. You can barely tell. Maybe that's why it's cheaper - not enough expensive pigment. Anyway, I thought it was a good way to build up a "natural sun-kissed" look. Not what I wanted it for and not something I'm likely to use again, but there it is.

Number three, "mayhem" is a crime in California. According to Wikipedia, mayhem consists "of the intentional and wanton removal of a body part that would handicap a person's ability to defend himself in battle." Also, "the noun 'mayhem' and the verb 'maim' share the same root, the Old French 'mahaigne'" which I'm guessing means "to harm in some way."

New topic:

You may have noticed I'm posting more regularly. Well it's NaBloPoMo (which I still think should be called INaBloPoMo - International Blog Posting Month) I hope to continue the daily posting habit long after November as well. If I don't then how else will anyone know what I had for lunch or how my latest pair of socks are coming along (which you still don't know) or what I think about shoes?

*Don't feel that I'm anti-tan across the board and I'll hate you if you have more melanin than me and you use it. Tan or fake tan if you want. It's none of my business.

My Crush

Here it is, the Mustang I rented when I was visiting my parents earlier this month. I shouldn't say I fell in love with it. It was more of an infatuation. I was really sad to see it go when I dropped it back off at Hertz. I had a TON of fun driving that car.