Back down south

Seattle was HOT and HUMID! The whole time we were there - nearly a week - the temperature was above 100, and 15-20 degrees warmer than the average for this time of year. And of course no one has A/C. We sweated and sweltered, didn't sleep well, and I had no energy. Once the shade hit our friends' backyard in the afternoon, it cooled down a bit, and a quick dip in the pop-up pool or standing in the spray of Charlie's ingenious "Arizona sprinkler" did help. The bees were busy, and the deer flies were buzzing, and I swear we heard a bear in the bushes several times. Never did see him though. The one benefit of the heat? the smell of pine and cedar trees on a hot day....mmmmmmm! And of course it was still about 10 degrees cooler in Seattle than it was in LA during that week. You do know there's no such thing as global warming, don't you?

Traveling during Mercury retrograde is always fun, too. When we booked our flights, we ended up flying up at a really weird time - we usually fly out first thing in the morning (which is normally the cheapest), but we ended up with a flight at 5:30 pm on a Friday night (which was the cheapest this time - go figure!). Of course, the outbound flight was delayed. First by a half hour. Then an hour. By the time we actually took off, our flight was two hours late. We didn't land until 10:30 or 11 pm, picked up the rental car and drove the hour to our friends' house, where we arrived at 12:30 am. At least there was no traffic at that hour. Coming back home wasn't quite as bad. Our flight was only delayed by a half hour or so, and we landed in Long Beach with 7 minutes to spare before curfew. If we'd been 7 minutes later, our flight would have been diverted to LAX. Yuck.

My honey got to celebrate her birthday with her long-time friends, BBQ, cake and ice cream. We got to see her dad every day, and spend time out of the hussle and bustle of our everyday lives. I wish it had been a little more restful; it was awfully hard to get up and go back to work right away. Hopefully our next trip (October) will be more restful!

Wildflowers

Bull thistle and Common Tansy at Pike Place Market

Bull thistle (Cirsium vulgare) and Common Tansy (Tanacetum vulgare) are both members of the aster family. Neither are native to the Americas; both were introduced from Europe, and both seem to thrive along roadsides and other disturbed areas. Thistle down was once used to stuff upholstery - the fluffy down, NOT the prickly bits! The leaves of the tansy may be used as an insecticide, but they are poisonous, so don't put them in your salad!

I've been tagged....!!!!!

I was tagged by Elfkat and this seems like a fun meme:

1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the next 3 sentences on your blog along with these instructions.
5. Don’t you dare dig for that "cool" or "intellectual" book in your closet! I know you were thinking about it! Just pick up whatever is closest.
6. Tag three people.

"Roughly dressed, grizzled old men and some little more than boys went poking around the tents with stout sticks, one or another now and again scaring up a rat that he chased down and clubbed before adding it to the others dangling from his belt. A big-nosed fellow in a stained leather vest and no shirt, bow in hand and quiver at his waist, laid a long string of crows and ravens tied together by the feet on a table in front of one tent and received a purse in exchange from the bored-looking helmetless Tairen behind it. Few this far south really believed Myrddraal used rats and ravens and such for spies -- Light, except for those who had actually seen them, almost no one this far south truly believed in Myrddraal, or Trollocs! -- but if the Lord Dragon wanted the camp kept clear of the creatures, they were happy to oblige, especially since the Lord Dragon paid in silver for every corpse."

Lord of Chaos by Robert Jordan (Book 6 of "The Wheel of Time" series)

I tag Mary, Diana and Jeni!

Can you hear me singing?

Happy birthday to you,
Happy birthday to you!
Happy birthday, my love,
Happy birthday to you!

I am so fortunate to be able to spend this day with you. We'll sit in the pool, have some bbq, and visit with friends. I hope your day is all you want it to be.

MWAH!

North to.... no, not Alaska

We're prepping for our bimonthly sojourn to parts north. Still have to do laundry and pack and tie up some loose ends before we catch our late afternoon flight. Usually, it's cooler up there, but this trip, it looks like Seattle is about the same weather as LA - humid, hot, temps in the 90s. At least we'll be out of the rat race, and have a chance for some R&R. Better run... lots to do!




Drac thinks he's going too.

Meme

Things you may not have known about me...

A) Four jobs I have had in my life:
1) ASL Interpreter
2) High School History Teacher
3) McDonald's crew chief
4) Secretary

B) Four movies I would watch over and over:
1) any Harry Potter movie :-)
2) Sister Act
3) Mists of Avalon
4) What Dreams May Come

C) Four of the places I have lived:
1) Buena Park
2) Long Beach
3) Stanton
4) Downey

D) Four TV shows I love to watch:
1) Star Trek: The Next Generation
2) The L Word
3) The Golden Girls
4) Meet the Ancestors

E) Four places I have been on vacation:
1) Scotland
2) England
3) Quebec City, Canada
4) Yellowstone

F) Four Web sites visited daily:
1) KFWB
2) Livejournal
3) Blogspot
4) AOL

G) Four favorite foods:
1) Salmon
2) Tofu Pad Thai
3) Coffee!
4) Jelly Bellies

H) Four places I would rather be right now:
1) Vacation in England
2) Camping somewhere cool
3) Cruising the Inner Passage
4) in a house I owned


I tag..... Elfkat, Mary and Jeni!

GRRRRRR

Ok, so I just have to vent. For the second time this week, I was late for work because some idiot on the road doesn't know how to drive. Can you say SigAlert? Wednesday, I sat at a dead stop (yes, ZEROmph) for 15 minutes behind an accident on my way to work. Then again today, another 15 minute dead stop followed by 20 minutes of crawling. As if that wasn't enough, It took me nearly three hours to get home tonight! Yes, I know it's Friday night, and yes, I know I'm driving through LA, but I left work at 3pm and it's only 38 miles! It normally takes me an hour if I leave at 3pm. Three hours????? What is wrong with people this week? Did they inhale too much fumes from their fireworks? Did someone tamper with the water supply? Is there a new Idiot Driver Disease making the rounds? Goddess, I hope next week is better! My knee (and my clutch) can't take much more of this.

By the way, for those of you who may not know what a SigAlert is: The term "SigAlert" was coined in the 1940s in Southern California when the LAPD began regularly notifying a local radio reporter, Loyd Sigmon, of bad car accidents. So "SigAlert" meant "alert Loyd Sigmon". A SigAlert is now defined by the LA area California Highway Patrol (made world-famous by CHiPs) as "any unplanned event that causes the closing of one lane of traffic for 30 minutes or more." Of course it can be more than one lane closed. Like today. During MY commute. Both ways.

Catching up

Yeah, I know, I haven't posted in a while. This heat and humidity is just sapping everything out of me. At least the A/C works good! Too bad it doesn't reach the bedroom...it's been very difficult to sleep the last few nights.

Last Friday we went and saw Melissa Etheridge at the Long Beach Terrace Theater. What a show! This is the third time I've seen her in concert, but the first time I've seen her in Long Beach where her career began. She had a blast, the fans had a blast. She played a lot of her old stuff, and new stuff too. There was one whole segment that did me in though - she started with "Legacy", which I've always thought is the most powerful message she has ever written - and continued into "Scarecrow". As soon as I heard the opening chords to that one, I started to cry. I always cry when I hear that one, remembering the hours waiting to see if Matthew Sheperd would survive or not, and the disbelieving, bitter tears when he did not. My friend Keith (a UU minister) was at Matthew's funeral. As if that wasn't enough, Melissa went right into "Flight 93", a song in honor of a gay man who helped prevent the terrorists from reaching their target, and the US government who does everything in their power to avoid admitting that gays can do anything heroic or positive. For more on the concert, and a great review: click here.

Saturday afternoon, I presided over a gay couple's commitment ceremony. Sort of last minute, but fun none the less. A very nice couple, seemingly mismatched on first thought, but then you realize how much they ground and center each other. This Saturday I'll be meeting with another couple to start planning their ceremony for this winter. I love presiding over weddings and handfastings. I like the ones that take place in someone's backyard even better than the ones that take place on a harbor cruise or in a posh country club. There's something much more "real" about them.

Sunday, my parents and brother came over. Andy (my bro) built us a new computer, the one I'm using right now. Our old computer was running on Windows 98 (eek!), and running much more slowly than it should have been. Eventually, once we transfer the files to the new computer, we'll bleach the old hard drive and reinstall everything, then let the kids use that one. This new computer is lightning fast! We've got a DVD burner, 1 gig RAM, 80 gig hard drive and Windows XP with Office 2003. We're finally making use of the high-speed internet service we've had for a year - the old computer just couldn't reach the speeds that the modem was channeling. Thanks, Andy!!!!

The 4th of July was alright. We took the girls over to Jo's for BBQ and a movie. Fireworks are illegal in Long Beach, and after going one year to the City's fireworks show, I swore I would never deal with those drunken crowds again - wall to wall sots. The kids are old enough now that they weren't disappointed. Did I mention fireworks are illegal in Long Beach? Then can you explain the load noises I hear all night, and every night for the past week? Firecrackers in trash cans, mostly, and a few Whistling Petes. Every time I just dropped off on Tuesday night, another trashcan would "BANG!!!!" and I was awake again. Not a very restful night.

And now we're back in the grind. Work, drive, eat, sleep. Sigh.