Lady Axe

Thought you guys would like to see what Axe has been up to. She's been having trouble w/ some flaky musicians for her band so she ended up recruiting her mom and daughter to be in the band. Her mom's a musician and from what I hear, Anushka can really shred a guitar.

I love these pictures of them.

Cali-flora & Fauna

Now that I've uploaded a bunch of pics to my Facebook photo albums, I'll have some subject matter on which to draw, if I want to keep my blog limping along.

There are some pictures of the local California wildlife and such.  

This is our hamster, Buddy, eating some roodles.

Our bunny Clover.
Mule deer behind our townhouse in Fairfax.

"Nice rack!"
Also taken from our townhouse in Fairfax.
Fairfax
Foliage in Northern California starts slowly in October and peaks at Christmas.  This picture was taken in December, 1994.
Hawk.
Madrona tree.
This moth was really big, and sitting in the bushes in front of our townhouse.  I have no idea what kind it is.  
It was as big as a butterfly.  
Our guinea pig, Oliver, in the patio garden, Fairfax.
Spring in Fairfax.
Sea lion in Noyo Harbor, Fort Bragg, CA.
Sheep in Humboldt County.
This is the day after Thanksgiving.  The night before, Brian flung the turkey carcass into the woods behind our townhouse.  We woke up to vultures all over the ground and in the trees, fighting over the carcass.  
Yosemite Valley, 1992.
Yosemite Valley, 1992.

Because Actions Really Do Speak Louder Than Words

Well I had quite the humbling experience the other night, and it's left me feeling just awful and guilty.

I was on Facebook, commenting back and forth with a guy I knew in high school. We'll call him Danny. Note I didn't say, "a friend I knew in high school" because he and I didn't exactly travel in the same circles. He told me something that just made me feel like a heel. He didn't mean to, of course, but what he said not only floored me but made me realize how actions really do speak louder than words......

Flashback to Sandwich High School, 1979 - 1982, which were my freshman to senior years at SHS. I was a different girl back then. Lonely. Although I had lots of friends, I always felt like I was outside looking in. I enjoyed their company and they seemed to enjoy mine, but I got the feeling like, would anybody really miss me if I wasn't there? I wasn't good at sports and I dreaded gym class, I wasn't pretty enough or thin enough to be a cheerleader. I was an A/V geek, worked at the radio station, had a very strange sense of humour. Imagine my parents' alarm and distress when they read the autographs in my yearbook, many of which start out, "Drugwoman". I never touched drugs in high school; in fact, thanks to the "DAT (Drugs Alchohol & Tobacco) class that was mandatory when we entered 7th grade, I was abjectly terrified of drugs. But my sense of humour was, and still is, pretty far out there. A fact not lost on my classmates, apparently. I wore the wrong clothes, I had a super dorky haircut. The "burnout" girls made fun of me for being a 'goody two shoes' and the popular girls were in their own little clique. I had a great group of friends though and I did have tons of fun with them. But let's just say that the kinds of parties we attended, or hosted, actually were pizza, pop, candy & chip parties with a parent always in attendance. About as daring as we ever got was a very chaste spin the bottle or truth or dare. Silly stuff, nothing major. I'm not talking about jr. high or elementary school parties, I'm talking high school parties. Never, ever, ever any alcohol or pot. When I tell Brian, The Party King of Peters Township High School, he patronizingly nods his head and tells me "how adorable" that is.

I was sheltered, naive, immature & under the thumb of an extremely strict mother. I lived in a remote part of town, E. Sandwich. There were no neighborhoods full of children. I wasn't a "town kid", so my after school time was spent alone in my room listening to records, or out exploring the woods. Fortunately I did get to see my school friends on weekends. But even then, depending on my age and which group of friends I was planning to see (there were my radio station friends who were mostly guys and a year or 2 older) or my classmate friends (pizza & pop party friends), my mom really cracked down on who I could see and for how long. As long as say Holly or Liz was going too, she was more likely to let me hang out w/ the radio station guys who were all good guys, but probably consumed beer at their parties, to which I wasn't invited.

The other thing about me, is that I had way more guy friends than girl friends. I did hang out w/ a pretty even mix of girls to guys, but b/c most of them were in the year behind me, the people I talked to a lot were the kids in my actual classes. I just got along better w/ them; I can relate to them better. And the girls I was closest to were the girls who also preferred the company of guys. I got along w/ all the guys, from the burnouts to the ones in band.

Danny, on the other hand, was one of the kids whose names was read over the morning announcements, requesting their presence, post haste, at the Vice Principal's office. He was, in my eyes, pretty tough and rough. He was really, really cute, but he was the bad boy of my class. Of course that's attractive to us innocent girls, b/c admit it ladies, we LOVE the dangerous guy. He hung out in the smoking room outside our cafeteria. He seemed to run w/ a party crowd and I was a little bit afraid of him. We also didn't have that many classes together. So my interaction with him was extremely limited. I was quite sure he had no idea who I was and wouldn't ever in a million years remember me, esp. not after all these years. He was going out w/ a friend of mine though, but although we liked each other and had known each other since 3rd grade, she had a different group of friends she hung out w/ and their parties were quite a bit different than mine.

One of my friends had a HUGE crush on Danny, in the 9th grade; we were all in the same algebra class. We'd linger by the school buses, waiting for him to walk by so she could hopefully catch his eye, get an acknowledgement of some kind; one that we would then proceed to giggle about, as 9th grade girls tend to do. One of my fave memories, b/c it's one of the funniest things I ever witnessed in my life, was when we were slowly strolling along the sidewalk next to the buses, waiting for Danny to come down the walkway from the exit by the bandroom. Here he comes, right on schedule. Next thing I know, my friend face plants right next to me on the ground. Her books and papers went all over. Right in front of him. She tripped over something and just went flying. Needless to say I of course collapse into a fit of hysterical laughter. We're talking throat cramp, tears streaming, gonna pee yourself laughing. She was completely mortified, although also laughing with me, but bright red. Danny was amused, he chuckled and shook his head as he walked by. I helped collected her papers and had to run to get on my bus. The memory of that incident still makes me crack up.

He hung around w/ a guy I'd known since first grade, so it was always easy for me to talk with the guy I'd known the longest. My friend and I were into punk rock, in fact, me, him and Liz were voted by our classmates as Class Punk Rockers of the Class of '82. By the time I was a senior, Liz & I were hanging out w/ a group of people from Hyannis, who went to Barnstable High School. We were hanging out at a record store that mostly sold punk and new wave imports from Europe, and we counted among our friends Cape Cod's only, and now oldest, punk rock band, The FreeZe. My last year of high school, I had drifted very, very far from the group of friends I'd had from 9th to 11th. I was really into punk rock and so were these people. No one at Sandwich liked punk except for me, Liz, our friend Joe, and my co-class punk rocker friend.I spent a lot of time in Hyannis that year, and my first boyfriend was a senior at BHS. I didn't go to my senior prom which was 100% fine by me. When my boyfriend asked me about our attending his or my prom, I told him thanks, but I really wasn't a "prom person" and I didn't think we'd fit in very well at either high school prom.

Danny & I graduated together in the same class in June of 1982 and that's the last I saw of him. I would think about him from time to time, as I do w/ all my classmates, esp. if I'm browsing thru my yearbook. "Wonder whatever happened to him? or her?"

Flash forward to 2009. I've now married a guy who was EXACTLY like Danny at his high school. The internet has now made the world into one very large living room, where we can hang out w/ people in real time, from all over the world. People my age are feeling nostalgic as we enter the throes of middle age, children growing and leaving the nest, so we sign up to social networking sites to see who is out there from our past.

He asked if we could go into Instant Message mode to have a private chat. My curiosity was piqued. He said that he remembered me. I said "why? Because I was the only kid in our class w/ blue hair and wore an army jacket? Because of being on the radio station? Because everyone thought I was weird?" He goes "No. I remember you as the girl who wouldn't talk to me". I stared at the screen in disbelief. To say I was floored would be an understatement. I was like, "What????" He tells me that I'd always talk to our mutual friend, the one I'd known since first grade, but never to him. He'd be sitting right next to our friend, but I never once talked to him.

OK, it's 27 years later, and this is how he remembers me? I was and am devastated. Seriously. I feel so bad about it I could cry. But stepping into his shoes and looking back, I can totally see why he'd have gotten that impression. I didn't talk to him. I was afraid to talk to him. He really did intimidate me at the time. He was such a "bad boy" and I was sooooo cloistered. Even if I had talked to him & we were friendly in class, there's no way on earth my mother would have EVER EVER let me hang out w/ him.

So yesterday I told Brian what Danny said to me during our chat the night before. Because Brian was "that guy" in high school, he of course knew how this guy must've felt, but because he is my hubby he also understands how I would have perceived Danny at the time. I'm a different person now of course, but back then, I was just a sheltered Catholic only child. Then of course came the comparison to "Breakfast Club", me being the Molly Ringwald character, not giving Judd Nelson's "John Bender" the time of day, and it turns out that he torments her because he likes her so much, but their backgrounds are just so different.

Could this guy have liked me "that way" when we were in high school? Or did he just think I was a snob? He remembers that we had 11th grade English together, as well as the 9th grade algebra. I don't remember him in my English class, but then again, I really don't remember anyone else who was in that class except for the 2 guys who sat next to me on either side.

He didn't tell me this to make me feel bad, and kept telling me not to feel bad as I kept apologizing and explaining to him why I was the way I was back then. We actually had a great chat for quite awhile, around 2 hours. He wants to call me and Brian gave his blessing for giving him my cell number.

I think what is the most surprising to me, is that I never would have pegged this dude for someone who would remember minutiae from high school. To me, he was the party guy that was maintaining a high enough grade point average to get the hell out of SHS and never look back. I don't think many guys have that kind of memory capacity; that's a sentimentality that's always been reserved to females. Yet he scans lots of his photo album pages, and even bits from our yearbooks. The fact that he can even lay his hands on photo albums and yearbooks shows that he has this great depth to him that, again, I never would have thought "a guy like that" would have had.

It makes me very, very sad that I never made the effort to get to know him. He's the kind of guy that I wish that I had kept in touch with all these years, like I have so many other old friends from "back in the day". I look forward to getting to know him better now, but I deeply regret the time we lost not being friends in the past. It makes me very, very sad that he's carried that with him about me, when he looks at our senior yearbook, comes across my picture and thinks, "that's the girl who never talked to me." Let me tell ya, right now, it sucks to be that girl.

Nothing to say

I know I should update my blog more often, but the bottom line is, I have nothing good to say anymore. No job for Brian. Not even anything on the horizon. I continue to take more abuse than I should, at work, by the clients, and that makes me more angry and stressed out. I am very depressed that 2009 didn't start off like we'd hoped. Not even close. The only bright spot is that Obama is officially our President, but the fucking Republicans would rather see our country go down the drain than work WITH Obama on a solution. Funny thing is, those right wing fuckers are the ones that got us into that situation, and now they are trying to rewrite history and blame it on everyone but the real culprits.

I never wanted my blog to be a downer. But unfortunately, that's all I can talk about. Gloom and doom. More regional layoffs, more not-so-subtle begging for donations to help this person, or that school, or that team, by way of the news media. I have thought about blogging about the idiot nimrod assholes who are our clients, but this being a public forum, accessible by anyone, that could leave our office wide open for a lawsuit, so I can't even bitch about them, most of whom have brought most of their problems on themselves. I will say that we have a whole bunch of extremely abusive men as clients and I'm fucking sick of them calling and demanding things. I know I'm the rude one in the office and I don't give a shit. I'm here to do a job, not mollycoddle and say, "there there". Debby can be sugary sweet and hand hold and waste countless hours on the phone, but I don't have that kind of time. I've always been a "cut to the chase" person. In fact, I can't even stand it when people start "story jokes". I like quick, one liners. Biff-bam-bing. Whenever Brian goes, "I have a joke" I whine, "It is gonna be long? Because you know I just don't have the attention span for a long joke."

Anywho. I haven't shot many photos as there's nothing to shoot right now. Road construction is going to make it nearly impossible to take any day trips this year, not even to Seattle. I won't be going to the Cape (not terribly bummed about that), I won't be going to Canada. I won't be going anywhere except home and work. That's all my life revolves around. Well, that and Facebook. I don't even answer emails anymore. Diane finally gave up on trying to get me to respond to her emails and called me on Saturday afternoon. Everything is just a huge fucking effort. I try to check all the blogs, daily, but I find myself drifting farther and farther away from the blogosphere. Things go so much faster on FB, the interaction w/ people is instantaneous. I can carry on a conversation w/ my friends in Denmark, Portugal, Canada, etc. in real time.

Over the past few months I've located, or been located by, tons of old friends from high school, college and my Channel 58 years on FB. Getting caught up w/ everyone and their lives has taken a HUGE chunk of my time, esp. when it seems that my role in life is "Archivist". I was probably the only kid who brought a camera to high school to take pics of my friends in the late 70's and early 80's. Back then I had to cajole, beg, trick, whatever, to get the photos. After a lot of whining and eye rolling, my friends would finally consent. So I scanned a bunch into a Facebook photo album, much to their delight. Now they are begging and clamoring for more. Apparently I'm the only person who can readily lay hands on yearbooks and 30 year old photo albums. So if I'm not playing on FB, I'm scanning photos.

I'd be happy to blog if I could think of anything to say, but I can't. My muse has left me. I can't be funny on demand, and I just haven't felt funny at all lately. What would you guys like me to talk about? Should I deluge you with more vacation photos? High school and past career photos? Cause at this point, that's about all I have.

Wordless Wednesday

Spring Hill Beach, E. Sandwich, Massachusetts - Fall, 1987

An Interview Meme

My friend and fellow blogger, Fancy Schmancy, received an interview meme via email. Here's what you do and Fancy's questions:

A. Leave me a comment saying, "Interview me."

B. I will respond by emailing you five questions. I get to pick the questions.

C. You will update your blog with the answers to the questions.

D. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post.

E. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions. Here are your questions:

1. How were you introduced to the Grateful Dead?

Well I knew the "hits" from when I was in high school & college (Truckin, Casey Jones, Sugar Mag, Eyes of the World, Shakedown Street). At the time, I was mostly into punk rock and 80's music. On a trip to Maine in the fall of 1987, I wanted something different to listen to. I stopped at a record store in Kittery and found the cassette of "Skeletons from the Closet". I knew some of the songs so I bought it. And was hooked. From that point on I was obsessed with the Dead. I subscribed to "Relix" magazine and put an ad in the back, looking for Deadhead friends in Massachusetts. I got lots of replies and slowly built my live tape collection. I'd listen to the "Dead Ahead" show on WZLX radio at midnight on Saturdays and get to know the music. One of my male Deadhead penpals, who was helping me collect tapes, had an extra ticket to the 4/7/88 show in Worcester and wanted to take me to my first show. They played almost all the songs I was hoping to hear. It was an amazing show and my life revolved around the Grateful Dead from that point forward, till Jerry died in 1995.

2. How did you end up on the extreme opposite coast from where you started?

For as long as I can remember, I had wanted to get off Cape Cod. When I was a little kid, I used to bum hard on Sundays when, during early evening football games, the announcer would say, "Stay tuned for 60 Minutes, except on the west coast." I would wish so much to be there. I'd watch the sunset out of our west-facing livingroom window and be so miserable, wanting to be in the west. I went thru a phase in 6th grade where I would draw the California state flag all the time, trying to perfect the bear. I thought I wanted to live in LA b/c that city seemed so exciting. Eventually I turned my interest towards moving to London, England. Then my parents gave me a trip to California for my college graduation and my friend Charlene wanted to start in San Francisco and drive down the coast to LA. Sounded good. I could hang in Ess Eff for a few days before going to the city I'd always wanted to see, LA. That first morning in San Francisco, I fell head over heels in love with it. Heard the bell on the cable car, saw the beautiful filigree gates and fences, hiked those crazy, dizzy hills, heard the foghorn on the Golden Gate Bridge and finally understood the song, "I left my heart in San Francisco." LA turned out to be a huge, smoggy, crowded, icky disappointment. I was so homesick for San Francisco and took 2 more vacations there, subscribed to the Sunday SF Examiner newspaper and researched the hell out of it. Moved in July, 1989. I love the west coast. I hate being on the east coast. I'm so homesick for the west when I'm back east. Like I'm missing out on something. I love Washington and Oregon too. And British Columbia.

3. When did you know that Hubby was the one?

I was dating his next door neighbor, Jef at the time. Holly, me, Brian & Jef were hanging around all the time that winter of 1988-1989. Jef and I had dated during the summer of '88, broke up but were still really good friends. I'd met Brian at the Maine Dead shows in July, '88 b/c he'd gone up w/ Jef and I sold Brian my extra ticket. Then in Jan. of '89 Jef wanted to get back together. But the closer friends I became w/ Brian, the more I wanted to be around him. We'd spend HOURS on the phone at night. Jef wasn't exactly the world's best boyfriend. He was drinking heavily at the time (now clean/sober since 1996), and had a problem with fidelity in that he couldn't be faithful, and also couldn't tell me the truth. He decided to move to an apartment in Pawtucket, RI that didn't have a phone. His car finally died. It finally hit me that I'm talking to Brian all the time, thinking about Brian all the time, and dating a guy who was clearly indifferent as to whether or not we saw each other. I broke up w/ Jef the day I was supposed to go down to help him move from his mom's house in Attleboro, to RI. Brian invited me to dinner one night shortly thereafter and we had a fantastic time. A few days later he sent me a very sweet card that ended with "...and that's why I love you so much". I didn't know if he meant "love love" or "best friend love". So I sent him a card and fessed up that I was in love with him. By the time we started actually dating, we'd already covered sooooooooo much ground. Our first "date" was more like an already established relationship date b/c we already knew so much about each other. We started going out on April 25 and eloped 2 mos. later, on June 27.

4. Did you plan a career in law? If not, what was the deciding factor that led you to take the job you currently hold?

No, I never saw myself in law at all, my degree is in Television Production and that's all I did & knew. From 9th grade thru college, I worked in radio and TV. But I crashed and burned from the stress extremely quickly. When we moved to SF, I had to reinvent myself somehow. I could type, so I got a job working as the secretary to a contractor who lived in my neighborhood. Answering phones, payroll, clerical stuff, billing, etc. A year later, he told me he had to lay me off. I applied for tons of jobs and interviewed for a receptionist position at a law firm downtown. I hit it off with the office manager right away. I got called back for a 2nd interview with the partners. They could see I was educated and well spoken, but I had zero experience. I basically just said, "If you hire me, if you give me a chance to prove myself, I won't let you down. I can do this job, but I need a foot in the door. Please give me this opportunity." By the time I got home, the message was already on my answering machine that I was hired. I worked my ass off, learning everything I could, taking on every responsibility that came my way, all the shit work, all the copying jobs no one wanted to do, all the law library updates. Through the years, I worked my way up to fill-in legal secretary, to legal secretary, then paralegal. I love, love, love what I do and I'm good at it. I hate the clients, but I'm good at the job itself. I thought about going to paralegal school but my boss in SF told me not to waste my money b/c I was getting on the job training. He told me that by the time I took the first year of classes, I'd already be way too far ahead of everyone else.

5. How did you obtain your wonderful dogs?

I didn't have a pet when I was a kid. My mom had a cat, to which I was indifferent. When he died in 1978, I waited a suitable period of time, then asked for a dog. My mother issued the edict, "no more animals b/c it hurts too much when they die." I was told that I would not keep up the responsibility and they wouldn't do it for me. I wasn't even given a chance to try. I loved my cousins' dog, Disha, who loved me too. I was devastated when she died. By this time I was an adult and Brian was begging for a dog. I kept saying no, the expense would be too much, the mess, etc. etc. We actually worked our way up the evolutionary chain. First we had fish, then a hamster, then guinea pigs, a rabbit and, briefly, a hedgehog. In 2002 Brian stepped up the lobbying for a dog. I could not find one person on my side. Not one. So finally, in Feb. 2003, I relented and he dove into the search for a new dog on the Humane Society's website. I happened to be upstairs and I pointed to a particularly cute dog and said, "Look! Pepper! She's cute!" Brian went there the next day and someone else's name was on the cage. Brian waited and waited long after they were supposed to get there, and they never showed up, so the employees agreed to put our name on the cage. He picked her up the next day and she's been our little baby girl since then.

In 2005 we started talking about getting another dog, a German shepherd. We looked at a couple of dogs that year that weren't quite right for us. In December, Brian was again looking on line, at the Washington State German Shepherd Rescue website. I pointed and said, "Oh look! A 9 month old!" Then we read Sagan's heartbreaking story of starvation and neglect and that pretty much settled it. Brian went to see him first, then brought me and Pepper over to the foster home to meet him. Sagan chose us immediately. Brian and I were talking to Teresa, the foster mom, and little Sagan who was all skin and bones wedged himself between Brian and me and leaned on us. I reached down instinctively to pet him and when I looked down, he was looking up at me with those big, brown almond shaped eyes and that was that. I could almost read his mind, "Will you be my mommy and love me? I'll be good!" Pepper, unfortunately, was not at all on board with having a second dog in the house. She took to her bed, "with a sick headache" for about 3 weeks. We kept calling her "Sarah Bernhardt". She still loves to beat him up and chase him, but Sagan adores her. And when she thinks we aren't looking, we catch her nuzzling him. They make us laugh every day with their goofy antics and to me, they are like living stuffed animals.

OK then. So the first 2 people who comment that they'd like to be interviewed, and I have your email address, will receive a set of 5 questions that I get to make up.

Wordless Wednesday

I miss Victoria so much. Wish I could go this year but it's not lookin good.