10/30

You know you're living in California when Halloween is around the corner and they're predicting high fire danger for your area. I wish it would frickin rain already. This has been some month. I wasted the first 3 weeks working on this evil graphic designer's website. Never again. I'm tempted to not do any more web development for private clients after this one.

Our Halloween party was fun but it had all but petered out by 10.30 pm. Next year we should just start in the afternoon. Gettin' old..

Plumpkins

My kids are cute.

Keeping the tide in its place

It didn't rain today. It was sunny and cool.

I stayed up until 2 in the morning and woke up at 5.30. I function better on more sleep but I'm on a roll. I need to drink chamomile and have warm milk and honey in the evening and be forced to go to bed at a decent time. I should be forced to soak in a bath.

Good Gawd - Chazbo found Shea's MySpace page. Fucking nutter. Mermadness indeed.

Bipinnately Compound

Ok, it rained. It properly rained. The dog got all wet, rolled in the mud, tracked it through the house and shook himself in the kitchen.

Today I went to lunch at Amanda's house. She is the mom of one of Alfred's friends and is very nice and interesting. She is originally from Nanjing, lived through the Cultural Revolution and now works translating ancient Chinese poems and inscriptions made on jade and bronze for her husband's business. She made me delicious homemade pork dumplings, asparagus, potatoes and the tastiest "Dragon Well" green tea. There was also a moon cake with a whole salted duck egg yolk, bean paste and nuts in it! I will have her over my place for lunch next week. Must figure out a nice menu. I think I'll give her sprats. Have to think what to make..

Besides the culinary delights, she was quite delightful to speak with. She is sensitive and talks about things I like to speak about, essential things, ideas, senses, family, culture, history. There is a lovely hill near her house which will go hike on next time I visit her.

Outside her house there is an unusual tree. It droops like a willow but has more delicate, bipinnately compound leaves with dark pink berries just forming now after an efflourescence of tiny white flowers. Maybe it's just plain old pinnately compound. I wonder what it is.

First Rain

Not enough rain for me though. When it rains, it pours and I want it to pour. Rain on me. It's lovely to get cool and refreshed outside and then to come in for the warm and cozies. The chimney needs a sweeping.

Work and general business are raining on. I have two nervy women who are trying to avoid paying me for my services rendered, one for a class her son is taking with me, the other for web development services. I don't know how some people live with themselves. They must make up some idiotic justification for trying to get another person's hard work for free. I can't imagine what it is since these people are certainly in no way my superiors. I'm glad to be older and wiser. Ain't no one taking advantage of me no more unless I want them to. Rain on!

Blowin' in the Breeze - Trees are Terrific

They promising that the weather will chill. They've even promised rain. Maybe tomorrow. Leaves are blowing all around.

Here is a fun website for the elementary school 1st and 4th grade buddies class.

Trees are Terrific (with Pierre!)

Autumn Comes

Art and I were talking in bed this morning about how far we've come in our ability to feel happiness. When we first met we were both emotional basket cases, terrified of doom and bearing the scars of all the death, sickness, abuse and maladaptive behaviors we had experienced all around us in our youths. Stalwart in our determination to breed and create a better life, it still amazes me that we have perservered so long and that life has indeed improved. And yet, both of us are always, in the back of our minds, not even too far back, expecting utter disaster at any moment. A vestigial warrior exists in both of us, his more stoic than mine, but both willing to trudge onward through the obstacles.

It's now autumn proper. The leaves are thoroughly dried out, the branches reaching bravely in their thrist. This time of year reminds me of a movie I once saw about tribal tensions in Yugoslavia. It's called "Before the Rain".