another lost weekend

I was sick Thursday and Friday and I came home early both those days because I could. I decided to go dancing Friday night anyway and I believe it was the right decision.

However: I did not go to Lighthouse Field: I did not go to the forest: I did not finish pruning the apple tree quick quick before three weeks of rain comes down: I did not yet clean the kitchen or do the laundry.

I made a simmified and futurificated rendition of my own bedroom for the "attic" contest at Black Pearl Sims, and I wrote a paltry chapter in the silly-sweet novella for fictionpress (nobody seems to go into automatic "nobody should write except for pay" diatribes anymore, but let me tell you, if you were thinking of it, that what I write for fictionpress has no paying market anywhere but it does have a bit of a following. Nobody charges anybody for anything: it's just an old-fashioned APA, facilitated by some webmaster somewhere who makes a living off the ads -- which tonight as I check are normal ads for tv shows and consumer reports as far as I can tell, rather than predatory scalp-the-author outfits). I did take Truffle to both Frederick Street and to Meder Street, where she played with dogs, and I did go to the grocery store and also get hot and sour soup for Emma, who has a very sore throat. She showed me the work she's been doing with fabric and she's done really wonderful things. She will be selling the series of bags and purses with leather appliqued fossils. They're really nicely conceived and executed.

And Frank is now referring to the young woman as his girlfriend who last month he was not sure he was dating.

life on the central coast January 2010

This is possibly my first of these since the nice fellow died. Maybe not. I'm not up to checking.

Here are my favorite headlines from today's Sentinel:

They've posted a corrected phone number for Fish and Game so you can report mountain lion sightings. (I was going to insert a link to James Thurber's "After the Steppe Cat, what?" from Let Your Mind Alone but Thurber's writing is not available online)


This fellow, Charles Storey, has been charged with felony vandalism and misdemeanor trespassing. He built himself a 5,000 square foot house on 8 ridgetop acres in Scotts Valley and thought that it would be no big deal to cut up or cut down 49 of his neighbor's mature trees to get a clearer view of the ocean (leaving a horrible mess behind -- treetops dangling, slash all over the ground). He's the kind of person that buys property like that at 275,000 and builds a ridiculous house -- "a three-car garage, five potential bedrooms, three fireplaces and a gathering room with 20-foot ceilings and 18-foot-tall gothic arches," which he then tries to sell for almost two million dollars, partly on the basis of views he got by felonious means. (not that the views the house would have had anyway wouldn't have been fine: I just don't get these people, who can't relate to a piece of land for what it actually is)

The neighbor is the kind to elicit sympathy around here: he's a local, a retired fisherman who uses his two acres to hike and picnic, hoping someday to get it together to build properly. He says it will cost 15 thousand dollars to clean it up. The government arborist says there's been 20 thousand dollars in damage.

Everybody already knows, but we pretty much expect rain for the foreseeable future. Now, it's not odd to have a lot of rain at this time of year -- it's when we get it -- but the weather people are modelling on big storm after another without any letup for weeks, and they're worried.

There is somethiong wrong when it is news that the largest school district in the county, serving many of the poorest students, is going to apply for a state school breakfast program that's been in operation for years. I think what is wrong is that the reporter didn't understand what was being said, or didn't express it well: both Pajaro Valley and Santa Cruz school districts are speaking of "expansion grants," to cover students who weren't already in the program. But why weren't they? Was there a rules change? Are students newly poor? Did the state apply some of the stimulus money to breakfast programs (which wowuld only mnakes sense as a use of stimulus money if the money was used to hire local workers to prepare the food, and locally-grown food for them to prepare).

PZ Meyer is coming to town next week: (from Pharyngula Blog
7:00 - 8:30 pm, Bay Tree Building, Third Floor, Cervantez and Velasquez Room. Admission is free and open to the public.

I intend to go, because Frank can't!