Chuck Norris fears my father

In Edinburgh, in 1984 I was in the same nursery school, then the same primary school as K. We met briefly and hit it off, but were never in the same class. Then she moved schools.

In San Diego, in 2004 or 2005 I started commenting on the blog of an Edinburgher I'd noticed in comments on a few of my favourite blogs. We had a lot in common, and eventually figured out that we'd met at age 4.

This year, in Edinburgh again, I met her Mum, who also reads blogs (a rarity, my parents know I have one, and as far as I know have never visited it, it's not their thing).

So the mother of my nursery-schoolmate whom I re-met through the internet...alerts me to a news article on my father's retirement (before my father does), and the article mentions there's a Facebook group of his students, and "appreciation society". Of course I go to join it, he's my Dad after all. The first post I find on the group's home page contains a Chuck Norris joke about my dad.

The internet is a wonderful, bizarre place.

Hi Ho

Back to work I go.

It has been a lovely long weekend. We didn't get the magical stone shelter in the desert campground, because the campground was booked up with reservations. We ended up in a free camping area, with no amenities beyond dunnies, but it was great because we had the whole area to ourselves, under a funky tree for shade. Just us and the desert. A coyote came to check out our campground the first night, we heard him yip-yip-yipping, and the answering call from further away, he wasn't close enough that we heard his foot falls, but he was close! There were a lot of wild bunnies around our site, and a lot of coyote scat (poop), so I think we were invading a favourite coyote hunting ground.

Wednesday night we had our tent pitched, set a fire going in our fire pit, ate hot dogs, drank beer and hung out until we'd burned half the firewood we had with us, just chatting. Thursday morning, after breakfast and espresso, we went for a little hike along the dirt road that lead to our site. When we'd drunk half the water we were carrying, we turned around and went back to the site to prepare Thanksgiving dinner. Roast turkey, potatoes cooked in garlic olive oil with a bit of bacon, mixed veggies in butter and herbs, corn bread (bought, then heated over the charcoal), and pecan pie (also bought and heated over the charcoal) and wine from our favourite winery. Yum.

Matt's on holiday from work all this week (though not from his online university courses), I'm only at work today and tomorrow. It is so hard to concentrate! I want to be on my break! Camping for Thanksgiving! I've just been told that Thanksgiving weekend is the official start of desert season (get out there and hunt you some desert boy!), so our genius plan of trying to get a choice camping spot out in the Borrego desert might be a bit optimistic. I'm sort of banking on the assumption that most people will do "the dinner" at home on Thursday THEN go camping, whereas we want to go out on Wednesday and spend the turkey day in the desert with fire-warmed pumpkin pie and fire-cooked turkey. No fancy place settings and centerpieces for us. If we can't get the favoured spot I hope we can at least camp in the same campground.

The spot we want has a little stone windbreak shelter with a fireplace and picnic table inside it, no roof, but it provides shelter from the strong winds at night while sitting by the fire. Friends of ours once took a bunch of tea light candles there and set them in the crevices of the walls, so they were surrounded by candle light.

Copies of what?

The university enrollments office wants me to stop by with my A-Level certificates, since they need to see the originals and keep copies. Sure, I keep 9 year old high school exam result certificates handy at all times.

I am saved by my Mum, who was able to put her hand on the certificates inside about 5 minutes (a rare feat of finding in their house, usually once something is lost it's lost to a black hole only to reappear 15 years later when you are looking for something else entirely). Even better, the office is fine with faxed copies for now, as long as I bring by the originals for inspection once they get to me. It's beyond me why they need documentation of high school exam results, though I suppose it's something about the US equivalent "AP" classes, counting for university credit.

This morning I went on a bit of a rampage after putting up a shelf in the kitchen, I scrubbed the kitchen floor, cabinet fronts and all the doors and door frames in the flat. This may have something to do with wanting to nest before my family comes to visit for Christmas. Can't have grimy door jambs!

As Promised

See my Tabblo>

Slightly less active waiting

My application materials for the Master's program are now completely submitted. After applying online on October 4th, then sending in my essay on the 22nd, which was also the second day of the big fires and the beginning of a week when all the universities and some of the postal service were shut down for the duration, I found out in the last week of October that my home university had not yet sent the transcript of my BSc degree. Considering that the transcript serves as proof of possession of a bachelor's degree, and that the final application deadline was Nov 1st...I was a bit freaked out by this news. The transcript was "missing some information from the department", and the department had been contacted, but had not responded. For two weeks. There followed a few emails back and forth with the registrar's office in London (each with a one-day turnaround because of the time difference), some fingernail biting on my part, several slightly frantic calls to San Diego State to find out if they could at least LOOK at my application while waiting for the transcript to arrive, a short break to gnaw on the furniture in frustration and, finally, (after my mother offered to go to London and beat on the office doors herself) one phone call to my former department in London before it was fixed. Transcript mailed on November 1st, I am told the post mark is the important thing for the deadline, so I was under that wire by the smallest amount possible. I get the distinct impression the registrar's office never thought it important enough to phone for the missing information, just fired an email off into the ether. Once I called my department it was all fixed inside two days.

The day the transcript was mailed I found out that not all of my reference letters had arrived, but nobody could tell me which of the three was missing. The person in charge of those files was on holiday and "nobody else has access". Those tooth marks on the arm of the sofa? No, not Marble, too big, not fangy enough, those were made by an anxious female Homo sapiens sapiens wannabe graduate student. I was about to ask all three referees to re-send when I received a form letter telling me which reference was missing. I called my previous boss and she not only FedExed another copy of the reference, she faxed it and called the admissions office to tell them it was being re-sent. That type of overkill made me want to FedEx her cookies in return.

This morning my online application status page told me that my transcript arrived. Just when I was starting to think about lost-in-the-mail scenarios. The woman in charge of admissions returns next week, she of the magical one-woman access to the files. I don't know when I can reasonably expect to hear if I have been accepted or not, the session starts at the end of January next year, so it can't be that long before they send out acceptance letters...unless they like to keep things exciting and only notify students mere days before their graduate program begins. Which would fit with the way things have been going. So now I wait. At least now I am no longer waiting while expending my limited psychic powers willing strangers in offices in London to get off their arses and produce paperwork for me.

I hear massive cat battles going on in the living room, it must be dinner time for the felines. Tali has taken to chasing Marble about when he's hungry, she growls and makes a lot of noise when he does it, so it gets my attention. Little brat boy. He tried to run off with a half-knitted sock earlier this evening. He looked very cute hopping off the sofa with it in his mouth, needles and all, but I had to scold him, I don't want him thinking it's ok to nick my knitting.

Self Portrait #3 - We Can Do It!

IMG_4125
Originally uploaded by Rosemary Grace

I am inordinately pleased with this photo, I've always got a kick out of sharing a name with an early feminist icon, Rosie the riveter. So this year I have dressed up in a pair of Navy coveralls and a polkadot headband to become the icon!

Red Wind

There was a desert wind blowing that night. It was one of those hot dry Santa Anas that comes down through the mountain passes and curls your hair and makes your nerves jump and your skin itch. On nights like that every booze party ends in a fight. Meek little wives feel the edge of the carving knife and study their husband's necks. Anything can happen. You can even get a full glass of beer at a cocktail lounge. ~Raymond Chandler, Red Wind.

On Wednesday last it was gray and rainy, chilly, even. For San Diego. On Thursday, blasts of hot dry air from the desert had made the thermometer climb, along with the barometric pressure. The humidity level plummeted and my sinuses began to stage a revolt. I spent two days with a splitting headache.

By Sunday, everything I touched gave me a static shock, the cats kept coming up to me for love and running away when they were rewarded with an electric spark on the nose or ear. Overnight the county caught fire.

The whole city is surrounded by encroaching brush fires. I have seldom been more glad to be living in a suburban apartment surrounded by roads and a lot of concrete, rather than a canyon view house. Everyone I know is safe, we will most likely not have to evacuate, since we're not too near any wilderness areas. I am so impressed by the emergency responses, this whole thing is so huge, and yet the authorities have very good plans in place because of lessons learned in the last big fire four years ago.

Tah Dah!

Originally uploaded by Rosemary Grace

Still blue, but now you can see that lovely green highlight on the back of my neck. We aliens take our skin-burnishing very seriously you know.

I have finished the first draft of my application essay, now it's being circulated for comments and I can go back to my knitting. Or sew the grim reaper costume I promised to construct for a friend for Halloween.

psychedelic mac fun

psychedelic mac fun
Originally uploaded by Rosemary Grace

I wish macs weren't so expensive, I really want my own little ibook with it's own little photobooth, instead of surreptitiously snapping myself at work for Friday entertainment. The lab looks much more impressive in this colourized version than in the "normal" setting.

Sweet Susie

Fwd: Christmas Day II
Originally uploaded by Rosemary Grace

My grandmother is having hip replacement surgery today, probably right now as I type this in fact. This morning I called Mum for a chat, being 8 hours ahead I knew she'd already been up for 8 hours worrying and hoping for news. I'm trying not to worry too much, we'll know how it went in a couple of hours, though if my general anesthetic experience last year is anything to go by, she might not wake up until a couple of hours after the surgery is finished. The recovery is going to be a hard slog for her, but Matt's grandma had a double hip replacement 2 years ago and says she feels better now than she did for years before she fell and needed the emergency replacement. My granny's surgery is not emergency replacement after a fall, it's been planned and carefully prepared for, and she's determined to get her mobility back so she can enjoy gardening again.


UPDATE: The surgery went very smoothly, so it's so far so good.

Powderpost dust on the carpet

It has been a nest-building week. On Wednesday I finally framed a poster that has been propped up in the back room, with it's frame, only wanting for some matting material. I realized that the desired shade of red would be difficult to find in big enough sheets of paper and took a look at the fabric remnants bin, finding just the right size and colour of stuff for $2. I went right home and framed the poster, feeling very smugly creative and domestic.

This weekend we painted our bedroom two shades of blue, a very pale sky blue called "raindrop" and a medium french blue with the odd name "liberty". Liberty is almost but not quite Saltire blue.

So we have been hauling half the furniture out of the room, discovering three whole cat's-worth of fuzz under and behind the furniture, sleeping in the living room because of the fresh paint fumes and lack of curtains, buying a new bedside lamp and, finally, discovering that my blanket box had become the home of a bunch of Anobiidae. Painting is always disruptive of course, but the woodworm were an added spanner in the works. I'm very glad it wasn't moths eating the contents of the blanket box, since the box was a cheapie from IKEA I've had for five years, but it contained a couple of nice woolen blankets and an expensive William Morris tapestry it took me four months to complete. It's convenient that Matt and I were eyeing up a rather nice trunk when we shopped for a new bedside lamp, and it's exactly the same size as the wormeaten number we just threw out.

We might even have enough money set aside for home improvement that we can replace the blanket box and not have to delay the next project, which is reflooring the bedroom with red cherry laminate.

Meme - taken from K

-----------10 years ago----------
1.) How old were you?: 17
2.) Where did you go to school?: Edinburgh Academy.
3) Where did you work?: Nowhere, I was a schoolgirl.
4) Where did you live?: Edinburgh.
5.) Where did you hang out?: Café Florentin.
6.) Did you wear glasses?: Yes, just to read the blackboard.
7.) Who was your best friend?: My boyfriend.
8.) How many tattoos did you have?: None.
9.) How many piercings did you have?: Ears (one left, two right) and navel.
10) What car did you drive?: None, buses only.
11.) Had you been to a real party?: Yes.
12.) Had you had your heart broken?: Yes. Only recently though.

-----------5 years ago----------
1.) How old were you?: 22.
2.) Where did you go to school?: Nowhere.
3.) Where did you work?: UCSD Whittier Institute for Diabetes.
4.) Where did you live?: North Park, San Diego California.
5.) Where did you hang out?: Pannikin, The Field, Bookshops, Claire du Lune, Julian.
6.) Did you wear glasses?: Yes, still only for distance.
7.) Who was your best friend?: Monica, Bob & Matt
8.) Did you party like hell?: Heh, no.
9.) How many tattoos did you have?: Two.
10.) How many piercings did you have?: Same as before: 3 ear, one belly button.
11.) What car did you drive?: 10-year old Ford Escort.
12.) Had your heart broken?: At least once since the previous time.
13.) Were you Single/Taken/Married/Divorced?: Spoken for.

-----------2 years ago----------
1.) How old were you?: 25.
2.) Where did you go to school?: Online.
3.) Where did you work?: UCSD Experimental Neuropathology Lab.
4.) Where did you live?: El Cajon, California.
5.) Where did you hang out?: Home, Borego Desert, Idyllwild, Julian, Presidio Park.
6.) Did you wear glasses?: Yup, all the time.
7.) Who was your best friend?: Matt.
8.) How many tattoos did you have?: Two, still.
9.) How many piercings did you have?: No changes, not using "extra" earring much.
10.) What car did you drive?: New (to me) Nissan Sentra.
11.) Had your heart broken?: Not since the last timeframe.
12.) Were you Single/Taken/Married/Divorced?: Just Married.

-----------Right Now----------
1.) How old are you? 27.
2.) Where do you go to school? Nowhere...Yet.
3.) Where do you work?: UCSD Peripheral Nerve Lab.
4.) Where do you live?: El Cajon.
5.) Do you wear glasses?: Yes, same presctription, wear 'em all the time.
6.) Where do you hang out?: Home, Borego Desert, Julian, Mission Beach.
7.) Do you talk to your old friends?: Have relocated a few recently.
8.) How many piercings do you have: Still ears + navel.
9.) How many tattoos?: 2, sometimes I contemplate #3, then spending the money on yarn instead.
10.) What kind of car do you have?: Same 2002 Nissan.
11.) Has your heart been broken?: That brush with cancer was a bit rough, but it didn't break my heart.
12.) Are you Single/Taken/Married/Divorced?: Married.

The timing of the snapshots completely pass over my 3 years of university living in London/La Jolla/London respectively. There were a LOT of changes between 1997 and 2002, by which point I was very much set up on the path to where I am now.

Three pixels outside the Bank Hotel

Picture 176
Originally uploaded by Rosemary Grace

While back in Edinburgh for a visit I managed to have a coffee with K and Shauna aka Dietgirl. It always feels a little strange sitting comfortably having a chat and realizing you met someone through the internet. Technically, only Shauna is "from the web", since K and I figured out that we went to nursery school together at age 4, but reconnected through both being readers of Shauna's.

I'm very happy to have been able to meet two such sweet and witty women in the flesh. It's a shame I live so far from them most of the time!

K and her mum, Isabelle were able to come over for an impromptu coffee that weekend, unfortunately Shauna had another mountain to conquer. My parents got a kick out of the whole scenario of the two kiddies bumping into each other online 20 years later, and even more of a kick this past Saturday when they ran into Isabelle again at a charity event. The world keeps shrinking, it's just a pity the airfare and travel times are not shrinking along with it.

All of the photos from our trip are still on the camera or the travel hard-drive, including the cow photo session. I plan to upload a lot to flickr, and post a few as blog posts, AND make a tabblo, but I have just found out that SDSU is accepting applicants to start the MPH program in January, so I have forms to fill out, references and transcripts to request, and an admission essay to write. Application deadline is Nov 1st, I also have to figure out a "retro sci-fi" halloween costume for a party.

Moo

I forgot to give K and her Mum a tour of the cow collection when they came by for coffee, so I decided to do a circuit of the house, recording the location and arrangement of the various Bovine-Themed Dairy-Product Containers. I thought it would be fun to snap a few shots and put together a Tabblo. I have taken ninety-seven photographs and I am not finished yet. I found one display cabinet with no visible cow presence, and three dedicated entirely to cows. There are brown cows and black cows and cows with no legs. Glossy black cows with gold horns, simple white cows with pretty blue flowers, Staffordshire cows with lids and bases, a tiny 50 ml disembodied head of a cow, one almost big enough to use as a teapot, and some with built-in milkmaids.

I am now upstairs, about to continue my photographic cowalog. Some day I want to make a complete album of the whole collection, as a coffee-table book.

Re-living my youth

The fireworks last night were fantastic, viewed from an encampment of picnic-munching, wine-drinking Edinburgers in Princes St Gardens. It was very gratifying seeing how impressed Matt was with the display.

Now we are going to climb Arthur's Seat. Well, Matt and my Dad are, I have a cold, and I wish the cold to go away, so I'm probably only going to climb part of Arthur's Seat.

We arrived safely, after several near-incidents, but no actual delays or misfortunes, even the guitar and both our bags made it with us. We only arrived yesterday, but we've had so much fun with my cousins, including a lovely posh dinner today at a hotel near Arthur's Seat, and hanging out at home sharing Laphroig and Aussie wine (and Spanish beer, and chorizo, peanut brittle, See's Candy, chocolate cake, guacamole, fresh salsa, home-made pizza, Dutch cheese, oatcakes, croissant, and even some wild strawberries from the garden.

The garden is still wonderfully overgrown, a bit short on daisies since my Dad just moved the lawn, but I managed to squeeze a daisy-chain crown out of it nonetheless. The house is still filled with randomly placed display cabinets full of cow creamers, ranging from lovely classic Staffordshire to horrendous cartoon numbers with painted on eyelashes and pouty red lips. This is the first time that I have found myself thinking that home is smaller than I remember it, not that the house is small, but that the scale of the hallway and staircase, the width of the lawn in the garden feel like a real sized house, not the giant things of my memory based in childhood

So now I'm sitting in the living room, using my sister's laptop on the wireless connection that Matt set up with three boy-cousins (they celebrated with beers all around, the Aussie boy-cousin has his own beer-cozie that he travels with). The guitar is being passed around, we just watched the student films of one cousin, and Matt's sharing the recordings of his music with everyone. Tomorrow we'll go into town and soak up some Festival atmo, and hopefully not too much rain.

Life is good.

Brace Yourself

All packed and ready to go, the airport shuttle cab picks us up at 8.30am tomorrow, a very civilized time to be departing on such a long trip. We JUST fit all our stuff into two large duffel bags, which seem to be under the weight limit, at least according to the relatively scientific method of weighing myself, then weighing myself holding the bag. For the larger of the two bags this involved Matt handing me the bag, held vertically as though I'm hugging a fat legless teddy bear, then he had to guide my feet onto the scale, since the bag obscured my view of the floor.

I am very glad that I resisted the lure of the super-efficient silver collapsible suitcase that tempted me last month, it was greatly discounted, but still expensive, and since then we've had to service the car, and not only tow Matt's bike, but replace the blown back tire. Perfect timing for these things to happen before a trip to Europe.

The cats are a little bemused by all the packing action, I will miss them a lot while we are gone, but I know our neighbors will take good care of them, G was talking about coming down to our apartment to study, so he will have a quiet space to read, and be company for the beasties at the same time. We are very fortunate to have such good friends living in the same building as us, and another eager potential cat-sitter who lives further away and was a little disappointed that he didn't get cat-guarding duty this time. His consolation prize is getting to pick us up at the airport when we get back.

By now everyone from my Dad's extended family has arrived at the house in Edinburgh, we're the last ones to roll up. Seventeen people total. Matt, Me, my parents and sister, four Aussies, three Catalan (near Barcelona), four French and one Englishwoman 30+ year transplant to Mauritius. Matt has met the Mauritian and French contingent, but not the rest. Poor lad. I think it's going to be utterly chaotic and great fun. Especially if the wine keeps flowing. Aunt Julia and I have a deal to keep each other's glasses full.

Tabblo collage of my cousin's wedding ceremony

See my Tabblo>

Hey!

Where did my flickr thingy go? It suddenly vanished from my side bar. Maybe this is punishment for not adding interesting new photographs for a loooong time.

I'll have to add it back again, I have some lovely photographs from my cousin's wedding yesterday.

*ETA: OK, new flickr flash badge added, and new template picked