My dad, the rock star

Back in 1971, this was my dad's band. He's the lone wolf on the right with bare feet (didn't it hurt to climb up there?) gazing wistfully off into the distance. I guess they're all sort of gazing off. What are they looking at? Are they about to be blown away?

Incidentally, my dad is still rocking out in this band.

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Sweet androgyny

So I went to the ladies room this afternoon, as I am wont to do from time to time. There was a woman in there -- sixtyish, short gray hair, business skirt and suit jacket. I had this conversation with the crotchety old bitch:

COB: You're a girl, aren't you?
Me: Yes.
COB: I just wanted to make sure you didn't wander into the wrong restroom by mistake.
Me: That's very flattering, thank you.
COB: I didn't mean to be rude, I just couldn't tell.

So far, the alternate comebacks I've come up with are:
"I will be next week."
"This isn't the men's room? I thought you were a transvestite."

What would YOU have said?

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Two weeks in

I've been catching up on blog posts over the last few days. Because Google aggregates RSS feeds for me, I get to ignore them for long periods of time and then pick up where I left off in chronological order. This is a blessing and a curse.

The posts I'd neglected started a couple of weeks before Christmas, and so I've just been wished a Merry Christmas by several of you. I'm now just past New Year's Day, and reflecting that I didn't do much reflecting around then, at least not publicly. 2008 is shaping itself up to be busy and jam packed, which doesn't bode well for future reflection, either.

Looking back on the last couple of weeks, I find some fairly large events that I still don't think I've entirely processed. My uncle and his wife had a baby, Davis Lee, who only lived for about ten hours. I never did get to meet him, but the photos showed a cute bundle of a baby. There was a memorial service in Chico the following weekend, and what impressed me the most was how supportive and caring my uncle and his wife were toward each other. Under such sad circumstances, it's good to know that they've got each other's backs.

The trip to Chico happened during one of the worst storms I've seen in that area. The power was out all over town and grocery stores spent a couple of days filling dumpster after dumpster with food they couldn't sell. Trees and fences were knocked down. Roofing shingles littered the streets. Amid it all, we breezed through on our whirlwind trip as though someone had cleared the way for us. We found a great last-minute travel deal that allowed us to skip the part where we would have driven through a blizzard, landed in Sacramento without difficulty, and wound up in Chico where the power was on at the hotel where my family stayed and at Michele's house where I stayed. Actually, the power was not on at her house when I arrived in town, but was on by the time I got over there.

At Michele's house, I had a chance to reflect on the aging process. There were several drunk people in her kitchen, as the obvious response to the power outage was to play drinking games. I wholeheartedly approve of this approach, although I never did manage to catch up to their level of inebriation. They had a terrific head start on me. Observing them, though, I thought about how happy I am that I'm not in my early 20's anymore (most of her friends were 20-23, I'd guess). For me, and for most people, that was such an era of turmoil that I'm thankful it will always remain in the past. I am quite pleased that when something isn't going my way, I'm able to remind myself that it's temporary, and that good and bad seem to flow in and out of each other with some regularity. Enough so that I tend to panic a lot less these days. Don't get me wrong, I'm still a total spaz and I worry far too much, but I really have come a long way.

So my goal for the remaining 11.5 months of 2008 is to continue to reflect more, and to slow things down where I can. One thing that 20-year-old me did way better was to think before she spoke; I'd like to get back to being a little more deliberate about what I throw out into the world. Failing that, I think I'll drink a lot more so at least I can blame it on the booze.

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Slacktastic

Since nobody wants a post about how I haven't been posting, I will give you a list of things I'm thinking about today. This will be slightly less boring, and easier to parse visually so that you don't have to waste quite as much time figuring out that I have nothing to say.

• I'm going to Ethiopia in about eight weeks to pick up some kids with my sister and her husband. Mid-March, we're guessing. Weird!
• Tomorrow, I get vaccinated for Hepatitis A and B. I've always wanted to never get Hepatitis.
• I wish I could learn languages really, really quickly. Like Amharic.
• Before Ethiopia, I get to go to the coast with some of my funnest friends and take a business trip to Trenton, NJ. I'm the luckiest girl in the world! (Actually, I am the luckiest girl in the world. On top of everything else, the business trip gives me the opportunity to visit my dad, et al in NJ and my friends in NYC. Neat!
• If I refinance my mortgage, I can pay off my house in 15 years. OR, I can do a 30 year loan and invest the extra money and potentially come out ahead without committing to a higher payment and keeping the larger tax deduction -- if the investing works out. Which is better?
• Maybe I need a calculator watch.
• Ransom would like that. Then I wouldn't keep asking him to tell me the time or calculate things for me.
• I hope I can work my way around to being patient with slow progress on the house.
• I should join the climbing gym.
• I should really do a lot more work today.
• I'd prefer to go home now.

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