"All these things I should keep to myself
But I feel somehow strangely compelled...."

- Neil Finn, Sinner

I hope my last post wasn't triggery for anyone. I realize it may have been and I apologize for that. Thanks for your comments, I'm sorry I haven't responded to any yet, but I will. And I have gotten some recommendations for counselors, although I still need to make an appointment.

A year and 15 hours ago, my dad passed away. I wish I were at home with other people who miss him, but instead I'm in Portland OR, with people I like, but I don't feel I know very well, because we're supposed to be professionals, y'know. I suppose it's kind of a good thing, because I have to focus on what's being discussed so I can report back to my superiors, and y'know, not get fired for going all the way to Portland and not knowing what went on at the meeting, and it's kept my mind away from thinking about it. However, when we ended for the day and four of us went out to dinner to a "sustainable" sushi restaurant (Bamboo Sushi, if anyone near Portland reads this) because they supposedly use albacore from the MSC-certified fishery we make recommendations for, ha-ha! And Dad liked sushi, and after I'd had a glass of Malbec (Steve offered to buy me a beer, but I'm not much of a beer drinker) and we'd been seated, I'd thought I'd splurge in honor of my dad, and I ordered a flight of sake and an extra glass. Not that either I or my dad was any sort of sake connoisseur, but he liked it occasionally and he loved sushi as well, even if he was late coming to it - he was not a big fan of Japanese culture, being a WWII vet in the Pacific theater and all.

I asked the server for her recommendation and of course, she chose the second highest priced one on the menu, but what the hell. I asked for an extra sake glass. They arrived in a little wooden platform with a divot for each glass; I took the extra and poured a little from each sake glass in the flight into it. All of them actually were really good; a little fruity and sweet, I think dad would have liked them. I would have set a piece of one of the rolls we ordered aside, but we were all sharing and there wasn't really any place to put it. When I was done with the rest of it I took the glass I'd filled and set it in the center divot by itself and stared at it for awhile. I thought about leaving it there, but then I thought Dad would have been pissed off spending that much for something and then leaving it for the staff to pour down the drain. So I tossed it down before we walked out the door.

So I just spent on alcohol what could've bought a decent lunch out for all five of us at home.

You know how every once in while you might do something, kind of hoping someone will notice and maybe make a comment? That's ok; they don't know me that well, just acquaintances really, even though we've been on the same team for four years, and I'm not about to bum them out after a nice meal.

It's about time for John to get up to go to work, so I'm going to go give him a call. And then see if Tumblr is working yet because I could really use a good belly laugh before I crawl into this nicely-made-but-not home bed.

Yeesh. You wouldn't think you could cram so much crap into a 9'x9' cubicle that it would take a day and a half each way to pack and unpack. Since we've been in this office for 10 years, and the lease was being renewed, we're getting a little renovation: new paint and carpet, new flooring elsewhere, and new cabinets in the breakroom - although the state won't pay for a new dishwasher, so it's going away. Which doesn't make a lot of sense, really - it works fine - the only time it really gets used is maybe once a week and then when we have a potluck on a holiday to wash the serving dishes. Anyway. Until that's totally put together, the building is letting us use some unused office space, with an adjoining kitchen area as a breakroom; which is actually nicer than ours. It has windows and you can see all the nice landscaping in the front of the building (our entrance is in back, so they don't take as much time with it).

So, we had to have everything out of our cubes, stuff from bookshelves loaded on carts or packed in boxes so they could move it, before leaving last night. Then apparently they raised the cube walls at the bottom, and laid down the carpet underneath it- looks like its made of those glue down squares, so easy enough to lay down piece by piece, and so new carpet and fresh paint for our section in the morning. There's surprisingly little smell considering. The old carpet was this kind of khaki/dark green mix that matched the cube wall almost exactly, combined with khaki wall paint. Felt a bit like working inside a military uniform - I have heard some folks describe it as "soulless" and that the guy who buys all the office stuff must have been getting it from garage sales or when Home Depot was having a clearance.

The new carpet is dark chocolate brown with gray streaking, so now there's at least a bit of contrast with the cube walls. The main wall paint is now sort of butter-yellow, and it wasn't until they started to spot paint around outlets and fixtures that I realized how dark the original stuff was. The hallways are much brighter now, however, I heard my coworker in the the cube next door remark that it's a color that makes people angry. Well, we'll see. All the support columns, one of which is right outside my office, are a sort of brick red.

I recycled a bunch of paper while I was packing - the PFMC Council briefing books they send me before every meeting are all online if I ever need to look anything up - but I need to do a ton more, as for the last hour or two yesterday I was just throwing stuff in boxes just to get it off the desk. I took two plants home that need repotting, and a bunch of personal stuff to my car so it didn't get broken. Plus I'm realizing I have a ton of paper relating to Coastal Pelagic Species, which I don't do anymore. Ugh. I spent the morning getting everything off the carts so the next group can used them. I'm thinking I need to just put away the boxes I already had to go through later and since we're supposed to pass on the boxes we were given for the next group getting their carpeting, unpack the new ones. Especially since any paperwork I was working on before packing will be in them.

I took my laptop home overnight, but the IT guys reset up my monitor and hooked up all the cables I didn't take with me. They reset my monitor up in the very corner of the desk. I can still read it but I'm used to having it a foot and half closer. It did always bug me that whole corner behind the monitor wasn't being used. He suggested that some people like to use two monitors; one for email and one for whatever documents being worked on, but I think I'd rather just switch windows on one screen. I lose stuff from having too many windows open as it is, I think I'd be more likely to if it was spread across two screens!

So it does look fresher in here. Back to it then. I think I'm starting to get tennis elbow from book moving though.

I'm counting this entry as work planning. ;p

(We seriously need to do the same thing at home, too.)

I have not been walking after lunch regularly since my walking buddy VT went out on maternity leave around Thanksgiving, but I just looked out the window and noticed one of the neighborhood dog walkers we would see often when we did. An older man with an Australian shepherd, we come across them as we circle back around the building - the lawn surrounding it adjoins a dog park behind the building, and lots of people and canines from the neighborhood from across the street use the grass as a good place for playing fetch. No exception, the man has one of those diamond-shaped fabric with weighted corners, meant for dogs to chase. This dog apparently takes that literally - he runs in a crouch typical of shepherds, may stretch out in a jump to catch it but just as often lets it fall to the ground. Then he collapses to his belly next to it, staring at his human intensely as if to say, "Ok, I stopped it, it's not going anywhere else; my job's done and it's YOUR TURN." And waits all SRS BSNS, panting tensely, until the man approaches to pick it up and throw it again. And the cycle repeats, until they work their way across the grass and go back home across the street.

I chuckled at him once, observing the dog makes him get a workout, too. It's only fair. He laughed back, "Yeah, he keeps me busy!" Serious business, indeed.

Oops, forgot the icon offsets stuff...





( Wish it were true... )

Comment to this post, and I will list seven things I want you to talk about. They might make sense or they might be totally random. Then post that list, with your commentary, to your journal. Other people can get lists from you, and the meme merrily perpetuates itself.


nugatorytm asks good questions! I don't guarantee I can be as interesting...I always feel like I'm prying when I ask...
( Read more... )

I'm not sure it was "celebrated" - I was in Sacramento for a PFMC meeting, it was the day before payday so I was broke, had to decline when invited out to both meals, and went back to my hotel room to have canned kippers, instant noodles and an orange for lunch and dinner. Well, it was a Doubletree, so the hotel gave me a cookie when I checked in, as well. Whoopee-snort.

But I did go out and find a geocache that evening so I got a little "souvenir" for Leap Day on my geocaching profile. And I dropped off a travelbug I picked up in La Jolla, so it can travel farther. Unfortunately, I realized after I dropped it off, it came from Central/Northern CA to begin with (Sonora, which isn't too far from Sacto). I headed across the street to find another one, but it seemed to have been muggled, and the mall security truck came by and flashed their lights at me, so I got spooked and came back to my room. Probably just as well.

Dammit, it bugs the hell out of me that expensive hotels charge $10/day for internet access (which the Council no longer covers your expenses for) unless you go to the lobby, while cheap places like Motel 6 and the Quality Inn where I stayed when I was up there earlier in February, give it to you free.

Meatless Monday: Mushroom, leek, butternut squash, and barley bake

Probably because it's just before lunch and I'm hungry, but this sounds really good. And someone mentioned having leeks recently? Or maybe not that recently, I haven't been able to get on here a lot lately. And I have an acorn squash and and turban squash I need to use...

Gareth: (glum) I'm kind of sad I didn't get to see the last shuttle launch (live).
(He didn't wake up in time and we forgot to DVR it)
Me: You know something will come along in your lifetime that'll be even more exciting and wonderful.
Gareth: (sighing) But I'll be on that one, so I won't get to watch it!

Shortly after Avalon's birthday last summer, I bought a Groupon deal for half-price for whale watching, and bought six, thinking it could be a birthday present and she could take a friend. And of course, I almost forgot about them. They expired at the end of January, and earlier in the month, there was stormy weather and after that, a huge swell. Sunday was sold out already when I called to make reservations, so we decided they could take a day off for something educational. ;) Instead of a friend, we took John's grandmother along, as she's never seen them off this coast.

We left out of Dana Wharf Sportfishing on the F/V Dana Pride - GGma was a little surprised we went so far south as she was expecting for us to go out of Long Beach. Well, we only saw small whales. Common dolphins and bottlenose dolphins, and sea lions of course. And tons of shearwaters, seabirds that don't usually come very close to the coast. But that was fine. The kids had never been out on a boat like this before or seen wild dolphins, so it was all good. It was a nice day for it, especially for January. John's grandma had a nice time too.

And I forgot the stupid card for the big camera, so I put it away and there's only crap phone photos. Which I couldn't remember where the stupid lens was so my fat finger is in the way half the time. >:p



Sea lions on the buoy outside Dana Point Harbor.

( blurry dolphins and fingers ahoy... )

When I was very small, people used to tell my parents I looked like Shirley Temple.  My hair was very curly as a toddler.  It's not so much in the icon here (I'm about six here), but that was pretty brushed out for school picture day, and when I was younger, it straightened out more as it got longer.  Puberty seemed to make it a lot curlier again.  As a grown-up, one of my mother's elderly church friends told me I looked like Nicole Kidman in "Far and Away" - although I was never that skinny or blonde. I could probably be two of her.