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I’m enjoying a lovely morning with Aaron, we’re prepping for Thanksgiving dinner. On the menu:
This is my first time really making turkey gravy from scratch, which is exciting! Living on the edge, making the stuffing from some delicious sourdough bread. Other than that, just having a relaxing day at home, watching a House marathon, just enjoying being together.
So, I turned 35 on Monday. My sister tells me that makes me “officially in my mid-30′s.” I’m pretty sure she told me that last year, and the year before that she told me it was “the start of my mid-30′s.” I’m pretty sure she’s just giving me shit. That’s all right, she’ll always be almost 7 years older than me, so when she’s starting her mid-40′s, I’ll still be in my mid-30′s. Anyway, it was quite an enjoyable birthday. I started celebrating on Saturday by getting my hair done at The Platinum Lounge, which I highly recommend. Sola did my hair, and I absolutely love it. First time getting my hair professionally dyed (well, second, but the first time was sub-standard, so I’m not counting it.)
Monday night after work I had dinner at Christine and Drew’s house, we had some delightful tacos y burritos. Christine marinated the meat in Coca-Cola – it was quite tender and delicious, and didn’t taste like Coke or anything. We then watched “Son Of Rambow“, which was very cute and funny. Good for kids and adults, especially adults with a sense of humor about the 1980′s (which is, of course, anyone who grew up in them.)
What you see there is the meat, grilling, and the taco fixin’s getting fixed. You have to click the images to see that my loving sister made salsa from scratch. DELICIOUS. After dinner, during the movie, we enjoyed some delicious cake. No lie.
In add ition to having a delightful day, I decided that I’m going to make some positive changes in my life, including, but not limited to, being more out going with new people. I’m going to have the best year yet, and all the rest to come will be even better.
Thanks to all my friends and loved ones that made the day special: Aaron, for being the first to wish me a Happy Birthday (called me at the asscrack of dawn before heading to school for a ridiculously long day) Mike and Sam, for calling me before I went to work to do the same, Cary for calling me at lunch, Christine & Drew for a lovely evening including homemade dinner and 
cake and contributing to my new ‘do, Sophia, for getting me ANOTHER cake from Gayle’s Bakery (a-fucking-mazing chocolate mousse cake), Cass, for trying to call, even though I hadn’t given her my new number, John for the card and the dinner yet to come. It was a very good day.
In this dream I returned to work after a 2-week vacation, but the job I was returning to was as a department manager at Fred Meyer, which in reality is a job I left in 1999. When I arrived, as is usually the case when I dream I return to this job after an absence, I was wearing the wrong clothes. They had had a change in the work attire policy while I was gone, and I was not made aware of it. In addition, there were some drastic changes made that I was unaware were happening, in the form of a remodel of the department. At one point in the dream, I realized that I had received notification, but had forgotten about it.
Part of the way through the day, I decided to run home and change, so that I would be in uniform. At this point I hopped on my shiny new blue motorcycle, and headed out the mountain road to my house. Now, to get to my house, I had to ride along a long, rickety, winding wooden walkway of sorts, on either side of which was murky green water. I was very nervous about this, and slowed down to a crawl. I eventually went so slow, that I fell into the water, trying to hang onto the bike with my left hand, and my large, empty purse with my right. I managed to pull myself out, along with my purse, but the motorcycle was already several feet under the surface of the water, and I was unable to save it. I was happy, though, to have saved the purse, maybe it wasn’t as empty as it seemed? It seemed like that was pretty important to me. I walked the rest of the way home, wet and miserable, planning what I would need to do at this point – call work and let them know I wouldn’t be back today, call the insurance company, arrange to have the bike retrieved, if that was even possible.
I arrived at home, which was little more than a shack, opened the door, and there was my boyfriend, unemployed, unwashed, unmotivated, (and unwelcome, I might add – the person standing there was the man I was with when I first moved to Alaska.) Rather than helping me deal with the situations at hand, he added to my feeling of unease and frustration.
All aspects of this dream point to my own lack of self-confidence.
I just found out yesterday that the current mayor of Santa Cruz is someone I went to school with. We were never friends, but I remember him from as far back as elementary school. There’s a picture of him on Wikipedia, and he looks just like he did in high school, only older. I guess I’m the same. I had a dream last night about people I used to know, some of them looked the same as they did back then and some of them looked very aged. I’m not sure if that means anything.
Had a great week with Aaron. He arrived on Monday evening, I was able to go straight from work to the airport to pick him up, and then home. Work was very generous with me throughout the week, I had three out of four afternoons off while he was here (against work I’m going to do after hours this week) and we were able to hang out a lot. Tuesday I came home and we just relaxed there. For dinner we roasted a chicken, had some brown rice and fresh spinach. Went for a lovely walk on West Cliff on Wednesday, then saw Pineapple Express. It was funny. The crazy guy sitting next to us that was repeating everything that was written on the screen or said during the previews was not, however, very funny. I was glad when he wandered off. Thursday I worked all day, but we watched Into The Wild that night and had a delightful chicken curry for dinner. 
Friday we went out to Wilder Ranch and took the coastal trail, walked about 3.5 miles – I got a little sunburned, as I am incapable of remembering to put on sunscreen. Stopped at Upper Crust for a slice of pizza, then came home and made tortellini, salad and garlic bread for dinner. Saturday we went to Monterey, walked on the pier and talked to the Sea Lions (I’m a sucker for wildlife) and thought about walking down on Cannery Row, but it was a little too busy. We went for a walk just after sunset, down to the cliffs near my house. Had Thai for dinner from my new favorite place, Star of Siam.
We don’t have much time together, but we try to enjoy the time we do have, whether we are hanging out at home, or out and about. He’s heading back to school now. With any luck I’ll see him again in November, if not, it will be December/January.
So we bowled today, as we do almost every Sunday. About a month ago we started tracking our scores, so we could start figuring averages. Mostly just for fun. Until today my best game ever was 126, which as 2 or 3 months ago, I believe. Today, however, I got a 144 – with two, count them TWO strikes in the 10th frame. I think it’s time to buy myself a bowling ball.
I’ve always wanted to be able to garden, but until now I’ve never lived somewhere where I had the option. So, brilliant as always, in the middle of July I decided to plant vegetables. Good thing the growing season here is pretty long, I suppose!
First, I stuck a couple of cloves of garlic in some dirt. I have no idea if they’re going to grow garlic or if they’re just sprouting. Then I added some green onion seeds to the same container. In the other container, I planted spinach seeds. After the fact, I found out that spinach does better in sandy soil, so these may not work as well as I’d like.
In this bucket, I planted patty pan squash seeds. Once they get a little bigger, I’m going to give away some of the seedlings to my sister & brother-in-law, and some to my next-door neighbor. I wish I had more ground space in which to plant these, but I’m kind of limited.
I planted more green onions in this one. You can never have too many green onions. Delightful in salads, tacos y burritos, scrambled eggs, and so much more.
I was talking to an old friend in Fairbanks tonight, and he mentioned that another old friend had finally finished their degree via UAF Distance Ed. This made me think. And now I’m considering trying to finish my degree. I’m not sure if I will try to (or even if I can) finish the Computer Science program by Distance Ed, but it sure would be nice to have a degree to show for the student loans I’m paying back. It would be pretty hard to go back and finish CS, since I still have more math to do, and as it’s been 4-1/2 years since I decided to quit, I’d have a pretty hard time picking calculus back up on a whim. This isn’t going to be a decision to make lightly, that’s for sure. I’m not sure what I would pursue if not CS.
I admit it, I love video games. I’m a 34-year old woman and there’s very little I would rather do than sit down and immerse myself in a good game. From the first time I played Pac Man on the Atari 2600 or the old Pong machine we found in the garage in the mid-80′s, to online puzzle and word games on Yahoo to RPG’s and adventure games like Diablo, Baldur’s Gate, and Morrowind to MMORPG’s like Final Fantasy XI and World of Warcraft, I’m hooked. I can play Spider Solitaire for hours.
Now don’t get me wrong, I go outside, I go to the gym and work, I like to cook and read and shop and all those other things people do outside in the “Real World” - but man, I do love me some video games.
I love my job. In April we had a team building day, in which we worked in the office for an hour, then went out to lunch, went hiking, took a wine tasting cruise aboard the Chardonnay II, and followed it up with a late dinner. Sailing on the Chardonnay II was very exciting – the weather was beautiful and the captain and his deckhands ere very friendly and obviously good sailors. They seemed very comfortable in the way they handled the boat. The winery that sponsored the cruise was Bonny Doon Vineyard – there were a couple representatives onboard to tell us about the wines. We had a great time talking with the other passengers, drinking wine and snacking on fresh fruit, bread and cheese.
Past team building days have included day trips to Disneyland and Catalina Island. Have I mentioned, I love my job?