Crawdad

I was out with the clients from Robertson Place for our daily walk and I usually like to take them up and around Stowe Lake in Golden Gate Park.

We were on the trail around the backside of the lake, almost to the falls on Strawberry Hill when I noticed something on the ground. I've always been able to pick out living things or moving things out of the corner of my eye. I don't know if it's energetic or just a visual/physical eye thing but in any case, I often get to see stuff that a lot of people don't usually see.

And this was one moment where the clients did not see and I had to stop them from walking forwards, as the eye-catching object was right in the middle of the path and was about to be severely trampled.

In the middle of the path was a crawdad. You know, a crayfish. Okay, people, TINY LOBSTER!!

You know what I'm talking about now? He/She/It was just right smack in the middle of the dirt path, unfortunately looking similar to the color of the dirt, but just moving along, slow as you please.

However, as our shadows fell upon it, it reared up and raised its claws to us in a very threatening manner (well, probably in its little nervous brain stem).

I was so impressed by that. This little creature posturing and threatening towards us, hundreds of times its size. It didn't run or shrink down to be unseen but brashly waving its claws up at us.

The clients stopped and watched it, some with amusement, some with apathy, but all with respect. "Wow, he really thinks he can take us on! That's cool!", "He's got some balls!", "Don't wanna cross him!", and were generally very fascinated and curious about this fearsome creature before us.

I maneuvered in behind the crawdad to try and pick him up so we could get "him" off the path. It was a bit difficult as he kept shifting around to face my hand. I'm no dummy, he had some healthy pair of pincers there, and I wasn't going to get pinched in front of my clients. Finally, I was able to grasp him gently by the back tail and we carefully transported him to the falls to leave in the shallows of the rocks.

For us, it was a good experience and the clients were talking about it all the way home. For him, I'm sure he was going "What the hell? I just left here!"

Dead Fish

I was preparing a big slab of salmon, cutting it up into smaller pieces to freeze and just take one out at a time and normally, I'm completely fine with meat or fish but for some reason the fish seemed truly disgusting in that moment.

It was horrible to touch it, I felt sort of horrified. I thanked the fish, something I haven't done in a long time and should pick up again.

Then I was like "Shit! Now what am I going to eat"! Although I suspect it won't last long.

Marty's gonna love this....

EMP

EMP = Electro Magnetic Pulse

A totally random thingie.

But quite a contemplation.

10-26-09

Well, I'm sitting in Fresno, California, having jumped in the car to come down here upon hearing that Marty's grandfather was doing poorly. And this about a 94 year old man who lives in Fresno and until just now, drove himself to San Francisco (several times) to come to see the new De Young museum. So it seemed fairly important to come down right away, especially when he's saying in various ways that he doesn't want to be here anymore.

It's my week off before my "new" job starts up and I certainly did not expect to be on basically a "death watch" in that time. Ah well, so life (and death) goes.

I so don't want to start work. I don't want to work period. Well, okay, I want a job I actually want to go to. Maybe that's more the case. Although I always wonder if this is just a pipe dream or not, the "American Dream". That we should unequivically love our jobs and be thrilled to be "productive citizens" in our great society. Haha. Or there's the other way of how we look at working: work sucks but you gotta just do it because you need to pay your rent and eat. Never mind if you really hate it or not. Shut up and get working.

Well, I guess I have to shut up and get working. And then see where it goes. But I'm having these extreme spikes of anxiety when I even just think about going in to work, basically what I was having when I had to go in and work for my rotten boss. And I haven't even started yet. So I'm trying to find some place of "how do I do this" so I can pay my rent, eat, pay off my debt and start saving. I realize too that some of my anxiety is coming from my work being gamey about Egypt. I had stated to the Assistant Director that I already have this set up, I needed it understood that I would be going for a month in April and he said it shouldn't be a problem. When I called to state I could work Thanksgiving (that had been a commitment already set up as well and got changed) and asked for Egypt in writing, he said "We'll see." and some nonsense about HR (who told me at the time to work it out with the directors). Arggg, so in April I may not have a job again. Extremely frustrating.

As to seeing where it goes, this week was my last chance to sit in on the Intro to Environmentalism class and I'm missing at least Tuesday. Very likely Thursday. Bah. I guess I can sit in during the spring semester if it's held at a time I can attend. Since due to Egypt I wouldn't be able to actually take the class. My brain hurts. If we could afford it, I'd go work with goats.

In any case, it's now Tuesday and still no idea how long we're going to be here. There's one computer in the house that has internet connection and everyone and their mother, literally, is using it. There's no internet node in the area to hook into with my cool new little mini computer Marty gave me for our 5th year anniversary. It's odd, I think I've gotten to a place that I'm not sure what to do with a computer if it doesn't have internet. I figure we'll be at a place soon when everthing we do depends on the internet. So I'm writing in a wordpad document this blog entry. And I haven't written in my blog in forever. Shoot, I haven't written anything in forever. Well, the adventure blog Marty and I have, but I mean fiction. Or otherwise. So, a good practice I guess. And unfortunately, this computer has shit for games, or those stupid little trial runs that you have to download the full version off the 'net. Great.

I didn't sleep well last night, tossing and turning. I finally had to put something over the clock to keep from seeing 2:00 AM, 4:00 AM, etc, ticking away in that bright, devil red. The bed we're in isn't great and I was alternately hot and cold. Finally, in the morning, I was dozing fitfully, still in that half waking stage when I thought, well, I should just get up and wham, this thought, sentence, whatever, almost in huge lettering image, popped into my mind, "There's something out there, waiting." I knew it applied to Grandpa Cooper and I could almost sense that lingering something, at the edge of consciousness, waiting.

Robert (call him Bob) Cooper isn't one foot out, yet. I remember coming to see my maternal grandmother for the last time. She was in home at Aunt Ellen's house and I hadn't seen her in some time so it was a huge shock. She had ovarian cancer, plenty of stages down the road and I think it had matastasized as well. I learned a lot about cancer upon learning her diagnosis. She was 87 and very strong so the doctor's recommended that she could go through chemo if she so desired (usually at that age, they don't recommend it or people just can't handle the treatment). She did so choose and went through several runs but eventually it just caught up, it was basically too late, she'd gone too far without being properly diagnosed and the cancer had the run of her body. But she was apparently a trooper throughout all this.

But by the time that I saw her, it was basically a situation like this, "Hey, grandma is getting worse, everyone should come". So I did. So did my father, which surprised me (he and my mother have been divorced since I was about 2) but turned out to be one of the sweetest interactions I've had with him in my adult life. She was in the living room, where David and I used to drink stupid amounts of Jolt cola and Dr. Pepper, eat grungy, self made nachos and watch Doctor Who, my experience was also echoing with those memories as well (David is gone as well). She was in a hospital bed and looked like an angelic wraith. And you could tell, right off the bat, that she had one foot out the door. She had lost a ton of weight, most of her hair and was on a lot of morphine. I think she was under hospice care as well, that last program to basically just keep people comfortable both mentally and physically before they head out of this plane.

We (the family) just hung out together, mostly in the living room, chatting with each other, sitting by her bed side, talking to her in her occasional lucid moments. It was an extremely comfortable, touching time. At one point, I started experiencing a couple of odd things. First, it was feeling as though I had giant wings coming out of my back. Energetically mind you, I'd have been more concerned if I had been sprouting actual wings from my back. They felt quite "real" and almost heavy, an odd "physical" sensation, almost in the back of my head. I told my mother about it, who over the years has heard, I'm sure, stranger things pop out of my mouth. And later, were both a bit shocked when my grandmother suddenly snapped from her bed, "Have that girl turn around, what's on her back?!" And upon realizing she meant me, I turned around and she examined my back with a critical eye and said "Hmmph." My mom and I just looked at each other, wondering what it is that she saw. Eventually that feeling faded and well, I started seeing this guy.

Okay, this is rather hard to write, as I've often had these experiences blasted in the past and so I've locked them away, or perhaps the ability away. But recently seeing Adyashanti, I've sort of starting thinking about that space again. So, in any case, this is what I experienced and no, I'm not crazy.

Standing in the doorway to the living room, leaning against the side, was, erm... Okay, I don't believe in the christian form of god and I certainly don't believe in angels. In fact, I still don't. But there was a tall man, raven black hair, bright green eyes, basically handsome, wearing one of those molded Roman leather chestplates, with the caligae type sandals and the roman pleated leather skirt, basic Roman warrior type get up, sans sword or any weaponry. Oh, with huge black feathered wings. Let's not forget that rather important feature. Now mind you, it's not like I was actually seeing him with my physical eyes, more like seeing him there with my eyes but as if projected from the back of my mind. I've never been really sure how to describe these sorts of things and it's not like they occur very often.

He just stood there, looking at my grandmother. He didn't look anywhere else, at others coming through the room, at me looking directly at him. I don't think he ever looked away from her. He didn't do anything either, just stood there, leaning almost casually, arms loosely crossed over his chest. He just seemed to be... waiting. Her guardian angel. Or in my mind, her guide. Waiting for her.

At one point, I was starting to get headaches. I could always see him standing there and I think whatever part of my puny little human brain that was allowing me to see him, was getting strained. They got pretty bad but at one point, near the end of my stay there, my grandmother beckoned to me and I came over and sat down. She didn't say anything and I just laid my head on the bed and she laid her boney, withered hand over my head for a minute. It seemed very solemn in the moment and then she patted my head, the energy shifting to a lighter, more casual space. And I couldn't see him anymore. Nor did my head hurt anymore.

I wasn't there when she died but I got to say my goodbyes at that point. She was in a respite home later, there for a brief period of time when my Aunt Ellen was leaving to go to my cousin Jessica's wedding in New Mexico. She died after she left, I think with no one there. We all think that in terms of her personality that she wouldn't have had the terminity to die in front of anyone, how rude, you know.

So, it's a bit curious to be here with Marty's family and his grandfather. I was a bit concerned about leaving to go to Fresno when I have this week off and having all these things planned this week before I start the new job. But I wanted to support my husband. It's funny how guilty one can feel in this situation when, really, it's sort of understandable as I am not blood linked or had plans. Marty was very understanding about my uncertainty about coming and has been reminding me that I am able to leave if I need to. Not something I'd probably do but dang, sort of sucks to watch my week off dwindle away or even to know when I'll be heading home. I think that's the worst part, not knowing if I'm going to be here until Saturday or some such and then have to go to work on Monday. Okay, starting to feel guilty again...

Although he looks much different than the last time I saw him, paler, thinner, frailer, as I have said, he did not seem to have one foot out the door. He's always had a fantastic mind and apparently that organ is still working the best out of everything else in his body which is in quick decline. The next day, the family sitting in his room, lounging on his bed and sitting around the bed, he felt more absent to me. But still not quite one foot out yet. But earlier I felt that something waiting. A faint "knowledge" that it had not yet entered the house but no idea what it was, other than perhaps Robert Cooper's guardian "guide". And later, same day, a faint image of large golden paws crossed over each other, the feeling of a great cat. And a bit later, clearer, a lion. You'd think male but a hefty lionness, waiting with infinite patience.

If nothing else about death or watching someone die, I have found seeing the guardians the most comforting part of the process. And who knows, perhaps they are there to guard or guide or don't exist at all but in my mind, but still.... a good thought.

Heather's New Computer - Going Mac!!

October 20, 2009

On another topic, since I could ramble on and on in a negative fashion about work, I finally bought a new computer! Although I am not currently using that new computer. My old computer (the still current one, but I mean my very old, geriatric computer) is a PC, about six years old at best calculation and has served me quite well up until recently. Things got so bad (meaning slow and almost unusable) that I reformatted it in an attempt to extend its lifespan a bit longer so that I could save up for a new computer. In my, I'm sure, whining to Gieve (and anyone else who would listen) about my dying computer, he suggested that I might start thinking Mac. I think I may have scoffed since I've been quite anti-Mac in my life, having used PCs from the DOS days and the few times using a Mac in a library, I think as part of my job. I remember hating it. I remember using a more contemporary version last year in a failed photography class, learning how to use Adobe Photoshop and Bridge, but someone was telling me exactly what to do, where to click. I remember still despising the non-intuitive, user unfriendly interface of the Mac OS.

But I think he unfairly started the whole thing off with "You know you can boot a Mac as a PC and run Windows and anything else Microsoft. It'll probably even run it better than an actual PC." To which I probably snorted skeptically but damn him, it started a small seed in my head. You see, I have this tendency to abuse my computers. Which is why I need serious workhorse, power house computers. I usually have running, at least, World of Warcraft, four browser windows open with about 10 or so tabs each, MS-Word, and often will pull up a resource hog like Photoshop or other photography program. Seems like not that much but WoW and all those tabs are quite heavy on the computer, especially WoW. Then try to pull up something like Sony Vegas Movie Studio to mess around with film editing. Computer go squish. Well, my old, geriatric computer go squish. In its day, it could run a small country. A very small country but there you go.

So, in my obsessive research manner, I started poking around about using a Mac as a PC. I know, I know, anathema to Mac users I'm sure. But hell, if a Mac could run Windows better than a PC, and possibly last a lot longer, I might go for that. I started asking more questions of Gieve about Macs, knowing virtually nothing about them. Take for example, when I looked up pictures of the iMac, the computer Gieve was recommending (I really don't need a Pro, no matter how much the thought of eight processors might make me slobber), I called him up and said, "Well, it does look nice and fancy, but uhm.... where's the rest of it?" I think he laughed at me. "That's it!!" And thus I started leaning in that direction but he said to wait, there's rumours of a new iMac update coming soon, possibly with quad cores. And apparently he was very excited about that (despite him having that 8-core processor MacPro), stating it would be a computing platform not seen yet, very powerful, etc, etc. I think I gave him another skeptical look.

But I said okay, my computer would probably last until the end of the year, although I recognized my sanity might not (when I tell my computer to do something, it'd better do it with extreme swiftness, and if it doesn't, I get crazy). So I started lurking at the Mac rumour sites, macrumours.com and appleinsider.com. And remember that obessiveness I mentioned? Well, I think I refreshed those sites several times a day. Sigh. Nothing. Well, actually, a lot of rumours and some news stuff. But I got a very interesting education about the goings on with these two big giants, Apple and Microsoft, both to them and between them. At some point, it became a very interesting anthropological study and eventually, in my mind, I realized that either way, I'd just be getting a new computer, it didn't really matter which kind it was. Both have "great reputations" although usually from within their own user circles. Mac users hate PCs, PC users hate Macs, etc, each think their own hardware is the bomb. Doesn't that remind you of something?

So, I think at this point I was about 70%/30%, in favor of a Mac. Something in my research was pointing to a more versatile and possibly stable experience (can use the Mac as a PC but also as a Mac for my photography and movie editing stuff). Gieve had said wait, so I was waiting, and still obsessively checking the rumour sites, still doing research. Things were looking clearer that an announcement of upgrades would be coming very soon and many theories stated that it would be right before the release of Windows 7, slated for October 22, probably to steal the thunder of Microsoft. Which at this point didn't seem very thunderous to me, considering I'd learned that to upgrade to Windows 7 cost $200 and stand alone was $400 but to upgrade from Mac's Leopard OS to their new OS, Snow Leopard (which just charms me since they are my favorite Cats) costs maybe $40. Please. That is just sad.

So, if I were to buy a new computer, especially if a Mac, and paying for Mac at Mac prices, much higher than PC, I figured I'd better get the newest damn thing they put out. So, I decided since this announcement might be so iminent, I better go play with an iMac. Off to Best Buy I go wherein I find the 24" inch iMac and start messing with it, thinking I'm going to have the same experience from long ago, that I'm not going to know what to do and I'm going to tear my hair out and go crazy. But I have to say, it wasn't so bad. At this point, I probably know computers pretty well, in the sense of how they flow, interface-wise. I think I've been through at least five different versions of operating systems. From BASIC, programming those really old Apple IIs or whatever they were, to DOS (my first AT 8088), to Win 3.1, which I thankfully managed to skip over (it drove me crazy and I had to use it in the psych computer labs), Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows 2000, Windows NT (which I didn't use all that much either, I think at some work somewhere), Windows XP (on my desktop now), Windows Vista (on my laptop now... sucks balls), Windows 7 (Starter version, on my new little mini computer). Okay, that's ten. Wow.

So maybe it's all that direct experience that allowed me to catch on fairly quickly, plus having used a Mac before at some point, or maybe they improved their interface and what they say about being so intuitive is true. In any case, I did pretty good. The programs in iLife were pretty cool, seemless, like in the way that iTunes and my iPod always have been, plus I was charmed, perhaps evilly lured, one might say, by the sleek, rounded and chrome look of all the programs. I do remember liking this look from my use of the Mac Photoshop from my class. Plus, that screen. My gods. I'm still not sure about the glossy surface but the colors were just so rich. I guess the test will be running WoW or seeing my (in my eyes) boring photos on this. So... that experience bumped me to 90%/10%. I still had some doubts. Well, naturally I think anyone would have doubts, doing a "switcher" but I foolishly wanted to be 100% sure. Plus, I was still waiting.

Then, October 20, 2009, they made the announcement. Two days before Windows 7 is to be released. I was at work, but knew from the rumours sites that today was looking like The Day. I'd been scouring those stupid sites for probably a month or more. Obsessively. So I asked a co-worker with an iPhone (which I regrettably don't have) if I could check the Mac site. She was quite agreeable and I went straight to my "trusty" rumour sites, saw the announcement (they mix actual news with conjecture) and then right to apple.com. Upon even a brief glance, I had my 100%. I called Gieve, asking for help with ordering my computer that night, which he was probably amusedly amenable to.

So that night, after celebratory sushi, we came home and ordered my new iMac computer. It was a bit more expensive that I had thought, considering bumping up processors from i5 to i7, but saved by staying at 4 gig RAM, but then adding a ton for taxes. "Free shipping" is balls, since the taxes bump it far too high anyway. In any case, I got an iMac = 27" screen, quad core i7 processors, 4 gigs of RAM (probably soon to be upgraded but can't afford it now), ATI Radeon HD 4850 512mb video card, etc. Lots of bells and whistles. I'm a little in trepidation about switching but I trust Gieve. And I did play with it, so... should be fine...

9/7/09 - 10/19/09

September 7, 2009 - October 19, 2009

As usual, it's very hard to re-integrate into my "regular" life after Burning Man. I hadn't heard anything about the job, lost a bunch of shifts that I had set up before I left and was just feeling a bit crazed about work. So by the end of the week, I figured that I hadn't gotten the job because I hadn't heard anything either way. So I agreed to a temp hire for one of the houses, part time, through December, swings, much to my extreme irritation. Then suddenly, I guess because the director called in to set up the temp hire, I get a call to set me up for a second interview with the assistant director and regional director because he (the AD) wasn't there at my first interview. This second interview gets rescheduled four extra times, leaving me a nervous wreck. Finally the interview happens. I leave the building thinking it went poorly but then get a call about a half an hour later offering me the job. I call back (from the message) about an hour later and the HR person has gone on vacation for a week and I can't do anything about asking about the trip to Egypt or Thanksgiving until she comes back. So, again, I'm a nervous wreck. I get very anxious often and have a hard time holding it.

Finally, I get a chance to speak with the AD about Egypt, he says it shouldn't be a problem so I accept the job when the HR person gets back. But she says I have to give "30 days notice" to any and all houses I have relief shifts with so I can't start until November 2 (that first Monday) and it's practically the beginning of October at this point. I have all swings ahead of me and of course they aren't going to pay me at my new rate but at relief pay which is balls. And swings are just killing me. I think I've gained almost 15 to 20 pounds and had very little life while working these stupid swings. So I was a bit put out about that. Okay, I was mad. But at one point I realized that I needed a break between "jobs" and found relief counselors to cover my relief shifts for the last week of October.

But I keep having these spikes of extreme anxiety about starting. I don't really want to be doing this job any more. But it's decent money (sort of), stable (meaning I don't have to plan ahead to try and get 40 hours a week), and day shifts, Monday to Friday, 7am to 3pm. It's running groups and doing the basics that I have been doing as a relief counselor. However, the AD is suddenly being gamey about Egypt and I may have to drop back to the relief pool in April and try to get another job after I get back in May. I'm hoping we can work it out since I've already been planning this from even before I was hired for relief in March. So I'm extremely anxious about that. I'll know more about that after I start. How tiring.

Of course, I realize that when I go in, whatever happens I'll be anxious about something. If I don't get it worked out, I'll be anxious about not having a job in April. If I do get it sorted and on the books, I'll find something else to be anxious about, probably the job itself. Sigh. It's one of my biggest mental buggaboos (used to be depression).

So the PD (Program Director), whom I met for 20 minutes for my first interview, is apparently gone, one of those "this person is no longer working for the agency" kind of things. And then I find out that the AD is leaving, retiring but I don't know when. So I have no idea whom I will be working for eventually after he leaves. I won't even have a chance to work with the managers I thought I was going to work for when I got hired on. Which I guess is fine, since it seemed to me that the AD maybe didn't like me too much. But you never know who you're going to get coming on board either. Nice or abusive. And these sorts of agencies and fields tend to attract the abusive managers. I started having nightmare fantasies about COC getting hired on since I heard that she basically left Eucalyptus House, probably before her foul ass could get fired. So, lots of stress there, so much sometimes I feel like I need a prescription for Ativan.

Burning Man August 30 to 9/7/09

Yeah, I went to Burning Man. It actually is my favorite year so far but not really writing anything these days on my Blog.

Charnal Pit

For some reason, life feels like a charnel pit today and I'm home crying. The world and I feel gross.

This song seemed so sad to me (heard it on an episode of Bones) but later in the day it seemed to fit my mood.

Heartbeats - Jose Gonzalez

One night to be confused
One night to speed up truth
We had a promise made
Four hands and then away

Both under influence
We had divine scent
To know what to say
Mind is a razor blade

To call for hands of above
To lean on
Wouldn't be good enough
For me, no

One night of magic rush
The start a simple touch
One night to push and scream
And then relief

Ten days of perfect tunes
The colors red and blue
We had a promise made
We were in love

To call for hands of above
To lean on
Wouldn't be good enough
For me, no

To call for hands of above
To lean on
Wouldn't be good enough

And you, you knew the hands of the devil
And you, kept us awake with wolf teeth
Sharing different heartbeats
In one night

To call for hands of above
To lean on
Wouldn't be good enough
For me, no

To call for hands of above
To lean on
Wouldn't be good enough

For me, no

Listen here:

Stunned

I'm just feeling stunned.

The new relief schedule is killing me and I can't sleep. Need sleeeeeep.......

Rolling!!

We went rolling skating today as one of our little adventures. You can read about it here as well as view some video, including my first edited video from the clips we took with the phone.

We were Fast and Furious, like car driving/racing cinematography!! With me in braided pigtails! And trying to remember how to skate.

Seal Training - The Field

So, Harbor Seal Training, this time out in the field!!

We went out to Drakes Estero, which is behind Point Reyes Station.

Boy, I have to say, they sure are cute. And they kind of move around like inch worms on crack. Snicker.

And the red animals I learned about in the training are quite distinctive.

You can read about my secondary follow up training also at Drake's Estero, that completes my full training, at Marty and my Adventure Blog. This details more of the process.

Click here for our seal adventure entry!!

Or read it below:

Adventure - Heather

Description: Wherein we set out to fulfill Heather's training in seal counting, at Drake's Estero.

(Marty's Report):

Now, I wouldn't normally go play voyeur to seals, but my Wife Unit has taken up volunteer work with the park service that watches over the seal populations. Apparently, seals, because they are near the top of the food chain (they are predated on by sharks and the occasional orca, and coyotes will go after the pups), the health of their groups indicates the health of the ecosystem. So the park folk need people to go keep an eye on them, which means schlepping out to relatively remote spots on the Marin coast, and doing the schlep work ofenvironmentalism: counting them.

We got up early--well, historically 7am is early for Heather, but with recent morning shifts with Baker Places, she no longer thinks the crack of dawn smells like ass. We got our morning coffees from Javaholics on Balboa, ourneighborhood joint where we are recognized by the regular barristers, and where we've spent many Sunday mornings. Heather, who used to be so snooty about the imbibing of the "blood of the bean" ("battery acid" in her pre-fallen vernacular), now has surrendered to the dark lure of a caffeinated life. And since I've fallen off the wagon after a period of righteous abstinence, we sin together.

So fortified, with me in Zippy's driver seat (see here for a full account of our meeting and naming of our current vehicle), we headed up through the morning fog, over the Golden Gate, and into the Green and Verdant Lands of Marin. I don't remember if the fog and overcast continued for the whole drive, but it certainly was there at the coast, as we drove across the rather bleak lands to the north of Pt. Reyes. This the route I'd driven once before with James, out to the Pt. Reyes lighthouse. But we went to the parking lot at Drake's Estero, a long empty beach next to bluffs, that lead to a sizable inlet about a mile south of the parking lot.

We arrived at the same time as Heather's mentor. To do this volunteer work, you have to go with an experienced counter to each site, and in the case of this site, twice. Heather had made it out once, but hadn't been able to find anyone to take her out again. I counseled her to email the mentors and offer to take someone out for dinner if they'd go with her to the site. I don't know if she did that, but she emailed and Ruth responded.

So when we pulled up, Ruth and her cousin Bruce had just arrived in the empty parking lot, the colors of the ocean, beach, and scrubby hills washed out into different shadings of gray. They greeted us warmly and functionally, which was a nice tone for the whole outing, everyone there to do a job, and therefore not much reason to be very chummy. We got the gear together, consisting of lunch and some binoculars and, um, unioculars, and started down the totally empty beach. I was reminded unpleasantly of the 6 hour whale watching tour Heather and I did, through a world of gun metal and sweatshirt grays, sans whales. And vomiting and nausea only second to skydiving. I averted my eyes and walked on.

Then we cut up and started what seemed to me to bushwhack through the tall grass, but Ruth seemed to be seeing a path. Either way, we ended up cresting a bluff and heading down to the observation point, about a quarter mile away from the sand spit where the seal colony had "hauled out" (I'm learning all this new seal terminology). Meaning, the place where they like to squirm theirunarticulated worm bodies up onto the beach and plop down for a good nap.

While Heather and Ruth and Bruce busied about with the setting up of tripods and scopes, and then the first round of counting (which Heather can describe in detail--basically it's a clicker and trying not to count), I dug out a novel written byNaguib Mahfouz, the Egyptian Nobel Laurette for Literature from the 80's (I think he's deceased). Heading off to Egypt next year, I've been wanting to go prepared, so I got a random novel of his from the library and started it up on a cold-ass hill next to a gray ocean, with a lot of sand. So not much difference, perhaps.

It's a strange book so far, reminding me of Marquez' and Allende's books, allegories about suffering which strike me as at least tedious, if not self-indulgent. I'll keep plugging away at it, if nothing else than for anthropologicalreasons, but as a personal experience it's not doing much so far. (When I got home I returned to reading my delightfully trashy Elizabeth Peter's novel aboutEgypt, written by a modern British woman. Telling, I suppose. I've not found yet a way to relate to such novels. It almost feels like I'm having to translatedevelopmental levels, which is a strange process.)

Then I napped, finding a relatively unbumpy 6 foot stretch of grass, until Heather stood over me and accused me of not be adventurous enough. I got up and ate while they clicked away, and then checked out the environs and seals through the scopes. Initially the contraptions confounded me, till I saw how they are focused, at which point the experience of watching the seals took on an amazing quality. The clarity of the image was so great that I felt almost that I was hovering above the critters.

And what strange critters they are. Heather says they are schizoid, meaning they don't really have much use for each other, not even touching like the seals at Pier 39 do. Watching from afar, it seems like just a group of vaguelydistinguished dark shapes, but "up close," they're squirming and worming around the sand, including one who was, for no known reason, flopping around in a circle like a dog chasing its tail, but more befuddled about why. Not that a dog knows why, it just pretends it does for the audience.

My adventurousness, however, was drawn at actually counting the critters, despite Heather's seeming idea that it would be fun. There were maybe 700 of them at several "haul out" sites, I was told. OK, good for the frisky buggers.

From there, more bushwhacking, and a walk down along the beach, where we saw cormorant babies up in the Cyprus trees, and a little golden finch in abeachside meadow. Oh, and a mangled headless seal corpse.

When we got back to the parking lot, I got a cup-o-joe at the 12 dollar hamburger joint on the beach, we said goodbyes to the mentor and cousin, and headed back off through Petaluma, stopping at the cheese shop that probably everyone who's gone along the Petaluma-Pt. Reyes Station route has stopped at. I say, I do like cheese.

(Heather's Report):

Poor seals. Either popular and cute or called silly worm-like creatures.

But Marty is correct. They are the best population to count (since it's rather hard to have regular volunteers to count sharks or such) to find out what might be happening in the ecosystems "below" them. Bad fish year, the seals will be affected. Bad plankton year, the fish will be affected, thus affecting the seals... you get the idea. Including human impact, even hikers, oyster farming, possible environmental pollution, etc.

Since I've been toying with this whole environmentalism idea, I had decided to volunteer somewhere to get a taste. Unfortunately, my taste was like a tiny appetizer since it's just been a rather crazy time considering right when I signed up to volunteer is about when I got hired at Baker Places for relief work. And out the window went my time and many possibilities to finish out my mentorship/training. Bah.

But I love being out there, the few times I made it. Drakes Estero is apparently a very hard site to count, huge and with several "sub-sites" that are difficult to see even with the scopes. It is a heavy pupping site as well and pups can be hard to differentiate from the other seals when they get a little older, which is very quickly. 700 at this site is, from what I've heard, low. I take it there can be over a thousand at this site.

So how do you count a thousand seals, let alone 700? You don't. Well, you don't actually count them. We have little clickers for counting. So you learn to take in groups of seals at a time visually and as you (try) to look at each seal in the grouping, you don't attach a number, you just click your clicker which keeps count for you. It was very hard in the beginning for me. Plus having to recount to double check and being so slow at it and then losing your current "grouping" and having to start all over again.

This time, I was a bit more swift and able to hold the groupings in my head more consistently. My counts were similar to my mentors which was a bit gratifying. My first time out I was usually off by a hundred and there were only 350 or so last visit.

But all that aside, Drake's Estero is an extremely gorgeous area, to me anyway. It's quite wind swept and scrub bushy, see out across the hills and ocean. Quiet. I like quiet. I like that sort of quiet that's more quiet in the back of your brain not just in your ears. There's no city buzz in the background. There is only the wind, nature sounds, the seals (they make the occasional snortling (that's half snort, half chortle) and mewing sounds from the pups). There's something calming to me about being there.

I don't know if I'll get to go out again this season, considering the craziness of my work schedule and the fact that the season is winding down but I'm hoping to continue the work in some form or another (maybe raptors next year!!) and possibly looking into classes on conservation.

Just All UP

March 15 - 30, 2009

So I'm slowly getting full swing into work, managing to find shifts to fill in my days but dang, the early morning schedule is very hard for a very non-morning person like me.

And I'm starting to hate the hip hop class. The current routine I really hate and I and the only guy who is totally wild in his movements are always getting singled out to "correct". Bah, I guess I'm just not one for "set" type dance. Or I have an issue with authority. Hahhahahhaaaaa!!!!

Human Flight!

March 14, 2009

We went out to do an adventure in an indoor wind tunnel, basically a big ass vertical wind tunnel in which you can do "free fall" sky diving. Wow, I was addicted right off the bat and now am plotting how to get back there...

You can read my report from Marty and my Adventure Blog. Although currently the video isn't working.

Or Read Below:

Adventure - Marty's Dad, Steve

Description: Experience indoor sky diving, wherein one can experience the free-fall aspect of diving without the death part.

Check out our video at the end!!

(Heather's Report):

Steve, Marty's father, got it into his head that he wanted to go do some indoor skydiving and invited us along, his treat, which was extremely, very nice of him. He came down Friday and we hung about, going out to eat Indian food at my favorite place, Tasty Curry in the Inner Sunset and then to the Planetarium at the new Academy of Arts and Science. I hadn't been to a planetarium in years and years and so it was great fun to go and allow myself to be all girlish-kid delighted in the whole thing. Plus I love astronomy so double bonus!

The next morning, fortified by scrambled eggs and veggies and my usual Marty-brought-Mocha, we launched in separate cars (since it would be easier for Steve to drive back to Sacramento from the East Bay) towards Union City, around a 45 minute drive. Okay, I don't think I even knew of Union City existing in California. Maybe I'd heard of it in other states. But, yes, we do indeed have a Union City, which I didn't see much of since the building for iFly (yeah, really) was right off the highway. But it sort of smacked of Fremont where we bought Zippy, lots of Mall-like installations, like those big groupings of outdoor shops (meaning not like a whole indoor mall) - theater, various restaurants, Best Buy, Borders, Michael's Crafts, that sort of thing. These places always seem to have a vaguely depressing quality to me, a separation of community, which must exist somewhere in the area but is not inherently visible.

The building itself was oddly shaped and much smaller than I thought it would be and for some reason, taller, which doesn't make sense because you'd need tall for a giant vertical wind tunnel, right? I guess I wasn't sure what I was expecting. But it was a narrow rectangular building, long on front, thin on the sides. The observation/launch deck was the second floor, the blue part, while the tunnel ran right up the middle of the building from what looked like underground to the very top. That squarish part in the middle of the open part is the tunnel. Apparently it took about $8.5 million dollars to build the entire thing, I think it was said about $6.5 million for just the wind tunnel. These tunnels are a fairly new design, safer and apparently the best for simulating free fall. Apparently even the military adopted it over their old design they use for training their jump troops. Skydivers also use it to work on free fall flight skills for competitions as well.

And then of course, there are the folks like me, Marty and Steve, coming for the "oooh, indoor skydiving!" bit. Most have never been close to jumping out of an airplane, so this is a fun, safer and cheaper option for folks like us. Well, Steve has jumped out a perfectly good airplane about 30 times and Marty and I did a tandem jump a long time ago. I vividly remember that jump. One, I have a fear of flying so the old tin can with wings we took off in was extremely scary to start with. Two, yeah, jumping out of a... well, not perfectly good airplane, but it was keeping me in the air so that was good to me. Three, the absolutely incredible nausea from having the adrenaline caught up in my torso after the chute went off and cut off the blood flow to my legs (apparently adrenaline needs the entire body circulatory system to process through). Not to mention the abject fear throughout the whole thing.

But this seemed much safer. No plane to start with. A large mesh where the instructor stood to adjust your basic flight stance. Someone to control the wind speed. No falling to one's death if the chute doesn't go off. Well, I guess if the power went out you might be in trouble but I imagine there are back-ups and back-ups of those. So I went forth mostly willingly. The only thing I was worried about were all the warnings that you shouldn't go in if you've ever dislocated your shoulder or had other severe shoulder injuries. I tore my rotator cuff in my left shoulder years and years ago kayaking in college (in the pool no less, after I was tired from learning rolls over and over, pulled up with my paddle when I should have hip snapped). I've never even really been bothered by it after it healed up until about a couple of months ago when I notice that my shoulder has been bothering me. Years and years later, for no apparent reason. But hell, I was willing to risk it.

So I flopped forwards into the air tunnel. My first little "flight" was just getting used to the environment, having the instructor stabilize me in my "free fall" posture. I felt I caught on fairly quickly. Marty and his dad thought I wasn't having fun but that was just because I was concentrating on all the instructions before hand and trying to adjust "on the fly" as it were. I felt completely fine with the experience. However, when I got out though, I was shaking all over and my legs were jelly. I attribute this to a body memory of the original tandem jump I did and that fear stuck in my body. It took almost the entire round of other people going for their first and second rounds to be able to calm myself down. But by the time I got up for my second round, I was feeling fine and eager.

The second time around, the instructor gives more time to stabilize on your own and then takes you by an arm and leg and whoosh, up you fly into the top of the air tunnel and down and up again and then with a wild spin in the air. By that point, I was howling with laughter and wanted to go again about five more times. We got to watch our instructor do some crazy stuff in the chamber. Folks might say oh whatever and poo poo it but you have to have some damn fine control to do the stuff he was doing in a confining cylinder like that. Full on dives to the "floor" with a last minute stop over the mesh, that sort of thing.

By the time the day was over, I wanted to take on a career as a body flight instructor. Or a sky dancer. Even though my shoulder was having some problems and I had dreadlocks in the wisps of hair that were poking through the helmet. I'd go again in a heartbeat. They do teach you how to do extra stuff the more you go. You can even train to be an instructor through various programs. I probably wouldn't end up doing that but I am interested in flying upside down on my head.


(Marty's Report):

So today was indoor skydiving day. Yesterday was Hangout With Pop and Heather Day, which was just as good as floating on a 100mph column of air in the boondocks of the East Bay (Union City, anyone? Does anyone not think it's somewhere near Daly City?)

Dad came down yesterday afternoon. We had planned for a 1:30pm meeting at my house, after Heather and I met with our couples' therapist. (I think we've done probably 3 1/2 years of couples therapy, with maybe four or five therapists, and it's really paying off. I wouldn't want to be married to anyone else.) But apparently Mom, having been thrown off Grandpa not being able to go (he had to sit on a grand jury), but nonetheless kicked him out at 10am, after cooking him a breakfast so he couldn't make excuses about how long it was taking to prepare the cereal. So Dad got to sit in his car on our street for a few hours, drinking coffee and watching the goings ons of 4th ave.

Heather had gotten tickets to the Planetarium, so we went to our favorite Indian joint (Tasty Curry, best Indian in SF, well, at least the nicest proprietor), where we had a big old table full of nan and entrees, and dosed ourselves up on highly sugared and caffeinated chai. That's one of my favorite parts of the place, the big tub of free chai.

We took a quick tour of the natural sciences museum--Heather's getting tired of my criticisms, so I tried to keep them at a minimum--hitting the aquarium (my favorite are the alligator gar, though the leafy sea horses are ridiculously cool) and the living roof, then going to the planetarium show ("Fragile Earth"). We agreed that the best part was when it simulated the whole room rising up through the roof of the museum, and swooshing around the roof, then lifting up and off over the city and finally into the heavens. I'd seen it before, though, so I allowed myself to drift off... or tried to, because Heather kept squeezing my hand each time I twitched (signaling a switch from waking to sleep state, apparently a common sign for me), so the show became a bit like a sleep deprivation torture.

Then we hung out at home and, as my Gpa likes to say, "hooted and scratched." We covered the bases, from movies to nuclear power to our parrots (a hard topic to avoid when they are laughing and chortling in the background, or on your head). Then we watched "Serenity," which Dad hadn't seen before, though for Heather and I it was perhaps our fifth view through. It's funny how with most films, once is enough, but with some, you can watch over and over. And it is an odd quirk of my character that the one's I love over and over are the genre films (I've watched "Live Free or Die Hard" about five times). Shrug.

Boy, it was cold last night! We slept on the futon in Heather's room, and got the cold air from the window seeping down on our heads. I said to Heather in the wee hours that it felt like camping.

Then today we got up at about 8am, and Dad and I went for the coffee run while Heather began some cooking behavior (what a good wife!). More hooting and scratching around the kitchen table--and I must say, I love have guests around, most of all in the morning. There's something deeply soothing and reassuring to me about having folks poking around in the AM, and with whom you can reconnect after a night of being dissolved into the dreamtime.

We headed off in separate cars (Dad was leaving after the adventure), and made our way down through the Peninsula, then over the San Mateo Bridge to Union City. I don't think, if we'd not gone to "skydive" there, that I might have even known that UC existed, not to mention actually having gone there. It reminded me of, well, every other American suburb I've ever been to. Except with a place where you could parachute on a big fan.

I told James Thursday about this upcoming adventure, and said there was an option to do the flying without the grate that covers the fan, the Super Adventure Option. He understands my humor, and was not afraid.

We got to the place, which was a custom built facility out front of a standard later-model shopping center, and went in to register. Eventually, after watching the earlier crews float around, we got into flight school, a quick video, then suited up and entered the chamber. They sealed up the doors and turned the fan on, and off we went.

I was nervous, as usual in these situations, more for the embarrassment factor than any fear of harm. Which is a little silly, given my minimal investment in being a good indoor flying, uh, person, but there it was. So I stepped up to the door after pop had did his turn, and it was tense such that the instructor kept trying to get me to take the right posture. It looks on the video that I eventually did, then after a minute he took me to the door and I climbed out.

The sensations were so strong in my body, like every cell and organ had gotten a little dose of adrenaline and was kind of humming inside with it. Then there was the wait for our second turn, where the instructor took us floating up higher into the wind tunnel, which was pretty cool. Though time did seem to slow down, so the minute that went by very quickly sitting on the bench, kind of slowwweddd down when you were actually doing it.

And that was that! We'd done it, we'd not fallen to the (almost) fate of Charlie and Grandpa in "Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory" (when they almost floated up into the fan with the super bubble gum). Heather had pulled her shoulder, which she injured years ago, and I popped my right shoulder, which is still a bit achy.

Dad, the stalwart Northern European descended dude, survived just fine.

Planetarium

March 13, 2009

Today was the usual every-other-week appointments with the "treatment team", my Rosen Bodywork and then Couple's Therapy. Then back to the house to meet up with Marty's father, off to Indian at Tasty Curry which I adore, then to the new Academy of Arts and Sciences to wander for a little bit and then go to the last show of the day at the Planetarium.

I hadn't been to a planetarium in a long time and I delightedly thrilled to go to this one.

Then home, chatting in the living room and then watching Serenity, to show it to Steve, and that must be my.... fourth time watching it? Rockin' movie!