Winter is the new spring

One of the signs that I'm adjusting to California is that, when I see the gravel along the road being misted with fresh greens, I think, "It must be winter, there are weeds!"

In the last two weeks it's been raining every few days. I love it. Our office is on the third floor overlooking the San Mateo County airport and a National Wetlands area. If I turn away from the computer, I can watch egrets stalking or pelicans flying past. I love seeing their silhouettes emerging from the misty rain that has enveloped us. Yesterday we all crowded the window as a rainbow appeared over the runway--end to end touched down just outside our window.

I've developed a superstition. If I see one of the little planes coming in for a landing, I have to watch it finish. My fear is that I might turn my back and not see it crash. Our staff meetings are often punctuated by horrified gasps as a plane wobbles down toward the runway.

Now that it's an exception, only appearing for two months a year, I love the rain. The frantic pace of life seems to slow. Commutes clog up even worse, people are late for work, it's easy to curl up with a good book and there's cloud action instead of a blue bowl overhead.

Sojournering Lite

Well...I'm not bored anymore! The clients are all back and are panicked about the fact that their big show is 16 weeks away. So we're running full-tilt, boogy towards the goal. Unfortunately, it seems to involve going to endless meetings as well as trying to hit their hurry-up and wait deadlines. I get to the office and the day goes by in a blur with no time to check blogs or email or facebook. Look at me, whining that there's no time to goof off while being paid!

IN any case, I miss reading what's up with y'all. It should be a new Hallmark card, "Just cause it's sporadic, doesn't mean I don't care."

I've drifted through two weeks at work with most of my clients and many of my co-workers out of town. The days are never so long when I'm busy. This is BORING! (I'm sure I'm going to be eating these words and kicking myself later) I thought everyone would be back today, but it's even worse than last week

You can always tell there's not much going on at work when I have time to "clean house" on the blog.

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Our CD player (read: boom box from 10 years ago) finally died two weeks ago. I finally caved and rode to Target on Monday (I have a cousin who works for them, have to 'keep it in the family') to get a new box. Once there, I discovered it's impossible to find a quality CD player anymore! It's all home theater systems or iPod docks. I found a cheap one with both a dock and a CD slot, got it home, and found out it sounds awful.

To my shock, Mr. Thrifty (I tend to be the spender in the family compared to his saver) suggested we look into getting a Bose system instead. Hey, I'll spend the money, babe, just say the word! He suggested I check the reviews on Cnet first. They actually preferred a mini-system that plays DVD movies, CDs, MP3/WAV files, etc. Better sound, separate speakers and available at Amazon (one of my close friends works there, see above...). In fact, Amazon was having a sale so we were able to snag the system with an iPod dock for $100 less than a Bose player.

In many ways this isn't that big a deal. I know that, but it feels similar to when we bought a washing machine the first time: we're not in college anymore, Toto! It's very silly, but I'm excited. We skipped all Christmas gifts this year, so I guess this makes up for those savings... It's not "fair trade" though, is it?

My kind of shopping

I found out about this site today at church. A guy who lives here in Silicon Valley worked with Mother Theresa for a while. One of the guys there told him, "Don't come to the frontlines of poverty, we have plenty of foot-soldiers here. We need you to be a catalyst between people in the West and the poor here who want to work." It changed his life. He's created a website that sells goods produced by people who have come out of dire poverty. They work specifically with vulnerable women: single mothers and many women who have been involved in human trafficking.

I know it's too late to do your Christmas shopping there, but please bookmark the site (TradeAsOne.com) and consider it first when you're looking for purses, toys, bags, journals or housewares. Give a gift that tells a story and helps lift women out of slavery.

You can see the video I saw today at this link:

http://tradeasone.com/who-we-are/Watch.html

The Best of the Rest

On our second day of vacation we snowshoed up to a nearby ridge. (All the signs listing distance were in km. I love the metric system! 1.5 km is MUCH easier than 1.5 m) We arrived at 8500 feet where there was no wind. We heard absolute silence: no birds, no planes, no car sounds, no other hikers. I felt like I got to drink a full cup of Bigness.

Jrex is gazing at the ridge that lines Kings Canyon. That road is closed from November through April. Not due to snow, but because there are often rock falls that wipe out sections of the road.

Unfortunately, the view to the west, which should consist of glimpses of Fresno, is solid brown smog. From Fresno, you have no idea there are 11,000 foot peaks just an hour away. The brown curtain shrouds both ways.

The day before we left, we got 24 inches of snow in 20 hours. That day Jrex went out cross-country skiing while I opted for a book by the fireplace. The next morning at dawn we went snowshoeing again since it was our last hurrah and we wanted to enjoy the fresh powder. Enjoy we did, up to our knees, despite the snowshoes!



I loved all the funny Dr. Seuss trees.

At every exit from the lodge there were signs that read, "Watch out for falling snow". I wasn't sure how bad it could be until I saw this (that's the main lodge, by the way)

The food was great. Served buffet style, both guests and staff shared the dining room. One night we had braided salmon, the next there was swordfish. Each meal had a veggie entree as well as red meat and an alternative (fish, poultry or pork). Lunch and breakfast were included as well, for $90/weeknight and $120 on the weekend! Nothing fancy, and certainly not a honeymoon locale, it suited our blue-collar style perfectly (good bang for the buck, real people, no pretensions).

Due to the snow, the roads were all closed. We had to wait for an escort to lead a caravan out to the main road.

Twenty minutes later...

Giant Sequoias: More than you ever wanted to know*

On the first day in the Sierras, we drove down to the "Grove of the Giants" in Sequoia National Forest; we collected tidbits we've been inflicting on people since our return:

Sequoias have chemicals in their bark that have made them immune to dying of old age. They aren't succeptible to fungus or bacteria. The only thing that really kills them is fire, or being blown over (usually due to fire damage). Even then, the wood doesn't rot.
Their pine cone seeds are only released through heat; sequoia stumps show fire scars every 13 years or so for the past 2,500 years.
We'd read in the book that we were going to see the largest tree by volume in the world. Honestly, from a distance, it's underwhelming. Redwoods grow tall, Sequoias grow stumpy. At some point, it looks like someone hacked off the top of the tree. They look like a big club with random green stuff clumped at the top. But when you get close, they are definitely huge!
This tree was used as a cabin and saloon in the 1800's.

I took a wonderful shot of Jrex facing the camera while looking up at this 'skylight'. In yet another example of why I love him, he then said, "Do you want me to turn around so you can put this on the blog?"
Aside from signs that said, "Take photo of General Grant Tree here", the other thing that annoyed me was that almost every tree had a masculine name. "The Chief", "The President", "General Lee". Two groves were called "The Senate" and "The House". When I look up at a big, old tree, brooding over the forest and sacrificing itself for the sake of it's seeds, it seems matriarchal. Ah well, I guess that's what we get when a bunch of crazy bachelors are the ones who arrive somewhere first and throw labels on grandeur.

*In true geek fashion, I love random factoids.

Fun times!

I swear I'll upload the pictures tomorrow! I don't even have the excuse that I haven't had time; rather I've been consumed by the dark hole that is Facebook. I'd tried to reconnect with Baltimore friends, but half of them have the last name "Kim" (which is as common as "Smith") so searching for someone with that name got me nowhere. Then I thought of searching for the networking queen with a Czech last name. Bingo! I sent 'friend requests' to 20 people. And they've been answering! Which has been fun for me, but detrimental to my blogging.

In the Facebook fun, I found the guy I had a crush on from 7th-10th grade. (Our school was grades 7-12). In 10th grade I asked him to the Sadie Hawkins dance. We had a great time, lots of fun, but no chemistry. There's a very good reason for the lack of sparks--it turns out he and his boyfriend are now living in Brooklyn.

The whole Facebook thing is worth it though to get a message like this (from the guy I just mentioned):

"I had forgotten that you went to Hampshire, but it's all ringing a bell now. It makes sense, being that you were all artsy and stuff. I always thought you were kind of ahead of your time in high school. Meaning you were a little more mature than most, which I guess isn't saying a lot, but still... You always seemed sort of sophisticated somehow."

Fake it 'til you make it, baby!