This past Saturday Charlotte and I walked downtown to get some exercise and check out the Mountain View Art and Wine festival. We walked around for a couple hours looking at booths and munching on various junk food (pastries from the Hong Kong bakery, garlic fries, ice cream, a slice of pizza, and a coke). I got a new hat. Its a white hat with a big brim made to help protect the face and head from the sun. It works well and looks nice. I wore it on the walk home with my old hat lanyard around my neck and the hat hanging down my back. Charlotte found the hat and it was marked as costing $10.00. It turns out it was actually an $18.00 hat that someone labeled incorrectly. They sold it to us for $10.00 since the tag was their mistake.

Sunday, I went off to San Bruno County park to lead a hike for OAW while Charlotte went off to walk in the "Run for the Community" event put on by Front Runners. I headed to a park-n-ride to meet folks for the OAW hike. Alas, not a soul showed up so I was on my own. I had suspected this might happen as no one had inquired about the hike at all. My back up plan in this event was to go geocaching at San Bruno County park on my own. I found four caches: two up on the mountain and two below the mountain. It was a foggy windy day. It was cool sitting at the top of the peak, eating lunch, and watching the fog blow around the peak.

When I got home Charlotte was home. She had a good time at the race and managed to get a T-shirt for me at no extra cost as a friend of ours didn't want her t-shirt so Charlotte snagged it for me. I took a long shower when I got home as while hiking around I brushed up against some poison oak. I carefully took off all my cloths and put them in the washing machine and then cleaned my self up with Tecnu soap followed by a shower. Cross your fingers that I got all the poison oak oil off of me!

After my shower, Charlotte and I watched the movie Cold Mountain on DVD. It was good although a little violent and bloody (its about the civil war). I enjoyed the second movie we watched in the evening more. It was called "Door to Door". It was made in 2002. Charlotte found it at the Mountain View library. I recommend seeing it if you haven't done so already.

The work week is almost over. I'm quite busy at work on my newest assignment. Did I mention that I have been having to work overtime?

This weekend I lead an OAW hike on Sunday to San Bruno County Park. I should probably post a reminder to the list. Charlotte is opting out as she is going to participate in Front Runner's Run For the Community race on Sunday. She should get a nice T-shirt with her friend's Terri's art work on it in addition to the satisfaction that she contributed towards supporting good causes in the GLBT community (I think I missing some letters in there).

Last night I attended the Loma Prieta GLS board meeting. We discussed what we might do if we can't find anyone to be on the board next year. I'm not going to serve again. I'm over extended with volunteer work right now and I need to let something go and GLS is the unlucky candidate. We think that if no one comes forward we will have to let LP GLS go dormant. We'll discuss what that means if we hear from the nominating committee that they had no luck getting volunteers.

Labor day weekend is over. Charlotte and I stayed home most of the weekend.

We did go hiking on Sunday to Wunderlich after a nice brunch at Denny's. We hiked to the meadow and then hiked to the Salamander pond where we stopped to see if we could find some newts. We did. There were lots of them floating on the surface of the pond. We spotted them at first by seeing the algae on the pond move. Then we could peer in the water and see the newt under the motion!

Yesterday we had a dinner party at our place. Four friends came over for dinner at 6ish. We served a very simple dinner of pastrami sandwiches with lots of good fixings (romaine lettuce, onions, tomatos, mayo, horseradish sauce, and several types of mustard). We had some cut up apple too. We served Charlotte's sister's husband's excellent wine. For desert we had ice cream. We had purchased coffee to serve which was my responsibility to make but no one wanted coffee. Oh well.

Saturday we spent almost all day watching movies on DVD or on TV. Sometimes a day of couch potato'ing is fun.

I'm free now! The fire deparment gave the all clear for the chemical spill and we are free to go outside if we want now. That's cool. I can go home on time. I hope the traffic is normal on the drive home and not messed up by some traffic residue from the accident.

I'm trapped at work! There has been a chemical spill at Bernal and 85. Its sulfuric acid I believe that leaked out of tanker truck. We have been advised to stay inside the building until they get the spill cleaned up since breathing acid fumes is not a good thing. They don't know how long we'll be stuck in here.

Ten hour days at work are not my cup of tea. I decided to work 10 hour days the weeks of July 25-29 and August 1-5 so I could take July 29 and Aug 1 off for a camping trip and still get my 40 hour week in. I have determined after today (my last 10 hour day) I am not going to try this again. 10 hour days are just too much for me. It doesn't leave much down time at the end of the day. Next time I need a day off I'll use some vacation instead.

The GLS camping trip in the Eastern Sierra's was awesome. Check out my pictures. Charlotte and I had a great hike from Lake Sabrina to Blue Lake!

Wen asks ...
So, RQOTD: How much PTO/Vacation/Sick leave do you get?

I get ...

Vacation: 10 days/year
Sick: 6.5 days/year
Holidays: 11 days/year

Four of my holidays are for a year end company shutdown for the last week of December.

If there were a competition for weird sounds your digestion system makes, I think I would be winning now. I'm wondering just what folks around me are thinking of these sounds. Fortunately there are not that many folks around me at the moment. Oh well.

C and I went to Santa Cruz pride yesterday. It was mostly fun but my legs had a reaction to the sun screen lotion and itched like crazy for a while. What finally calmed them down was baking them in the sun. What a relief that was. We watched the parade first. The radical fairies had the best float with a down in the sea theme. There were brightly colored sea horses being carried around by mostly naked men painted various colors (blue, gold, black), a truck with mermaids on it, and a couple of guys running around with umbrellas decorated to look like jelly fish when the umbrella was opened. The SF cheerleaders were fun as usual. I didn't know anyone in the parade but C did. She ran over to say hello. Its always sort of fun to have a parade participant wave at your and run over and say hi.

After the parade we checked out the festival. I only saw one famaliar face at first at the Triangle speakers booth. C and I checked out all the booths and snagged candy from some booths and entered some raffles. We found a spot on the lawn in front of the stage and ate lunch. We watched the cheerleaders on the stage and listened to some proclamations (YAWN!). After getting bored of proclamations we left to head to the movie theatre to see crash. On our way out we ran into R and had a nice chat and then we ran into T and L and walked with them to downtown SC. They were off to eat.

We saw the movie Crash at 2:15 p.m. Its a good movie but a little disturbing. Its sort of about racism. After the movie we went to Saturn Cafe for chocolate madness. We were a bit mad to be thinking we could each eat one. Neither of us finished our madnesses. After our indulgence we headed to Natural Bridges State Park to hang out on the beach. That was nice. We had a very relaxing time just doing the tiny walk from rock to rock on the little beach, playing in the water, digging holes in the sand for our feet so we had a nice chair of sorts, and just watching the boogie boaders, little kids playing in the sand, the kite flyers, and the pelicans. We left at 7 p.m. and had an uneventful drive home.

At home we watched a DVD. We just got netflicks and are having fun watching all sorts of movies. Last night we watched part of a French movie called "Amour de Femme." Tonight we may finish watching it or maybe tomorrow. We got about 2/3 of the way through it before it was time for bed.

What a long hard week it was last week. I can't go into the details in this public forum though. Sorry to entice you so. Please send relaxing vibes my way. I'm still coming off all the stress and angst I went through last week.

The visit with my folks went well.

• Thursday: after a day of work drove to SF, greeting my parents, watched my nieces practice gymnastics followed by dinner at my brother's, drove back to Mtn. View
• Friday: after a day of work, drove to SF, watched two of my nieces do a dance performance (they were great) followed by dinner out, drove back to Mtn. View
• Saturday: drove to Carmel, had lunch with Charlotte's parents, hiked at Pt. Lobos, ate dinner out with Charlotte's parents, drove back to Mtn. View with my parents, got them settled in our room, and got some shut eye
• Sunday: slept in a little, hung out in the a.m. with Mom and Dad, had lunch, drove to SF, visited the gross anatomy lab where A works (yes, I saw some cadavars a.k.a dead people), went on a walk at Golden Gate Park, ate dinner at my brother's, drove back to Mtn. View
• Monday: got up at 5:45 a.m., took Mom and Dad to the airport, returned home, showered, ate breakfast, and went to work.

Phew! It was fun but exhausting. We did lots of talking and lots of driving and lots of watching. My parents looked pretty tired when I dropped them at the airport on Monday. Now they are happily settling in at Dyers Bay for the summer. They arrived there last Friday.

This weekend was much more relaxing. Charlotte and I went hiking at Point Reyes. We hiked out to Arch Rock. It hike started off in the clouds but it was sunny with blue sky at Arch Rock. We ate lunch on the rock. We saw a couple of gray whales from the rock. It was very exciting. It was a Mom and her baby as best we could tell. Sunday I slept in a bit. Charlotte went off to be with her Mother in Carmel for Mother's day. I called my Mom and had a nice talk with her. Then I spent the day just puttering around and doing chores (laundry, balancing my check book, and backing up my computer files) and enjoying the time by myself to regroup and think about the tough week I had last week.

Its early morning at work. I'm drinking my ritual cup of decaf coffee with cream and sugar. It is Peet's coffee but I'm thinking that the generic brands suit me just as well so I'll probably save some money and get a generic brand when the current bag of Peets runs out. I'm not much of a coffee connoisseur.

Mom and Dad arrive today. Bob is picking them up at the airport around 11 a.m. Tonight we drive to SF to see them. We are going to watch Eva and Marlena practice their gymnastics for a little bit and then go back to Bob and Anne's for dinner. After dinner is over we'll probably head home so I can get to bed. I'm off for another day at work tomorrow at 7 a.m.

Charlotte sent me this chocolate math thing. However it could also be called your age by asparagus math or by whipped cream math or etc. etc.

Your age by Chocolate Math

1. Pick the number of times a week that you would like to have chocolate (more than once but less than 10)
2. Multiply this number by 2 (just to be bold)
3. Add 5
4. Multiply it by 50 -- I'll wait while you get the calculator .
5. If you have already had your birthday this year add 1755 .... If you haven't, add 1754.
   Now subtract the four digit year that you were born.

You should have a three digit number . The first digit of this was your original number (i.e., how many times you want to have chocolate each week). The next two numbers are your age! (Oh yes it is!!!!!) This is the only year (2005) it will ever work.

My result was 744. Yup ... I would like to have chocolate every day of the week and I am 44. I'm too lazy to figure out why this works but I'm sure I could.

Mmmmm ... organic Gorgonzola tomato soup with a nice slice of sour dough bread to sop it up with -- lunch at work this fine Tuesday at 11:40 ish.

I find myself squeezing into my trousers and lagging on hikes. I think its time to lose some weight and get back in good hiking condition. Charlotte may join me in this quest. The party this weekend didn't help much. We both downed lots of delicious pot luck food -- squash soup, a tasty salad (asparagus, mango, avocado, lettuce, tomato, and shrimp), brownies laced with espresso, maple/chocolate squares, a decadent chocolate cake, quiche, and cheese and crackers. All the leftovers are gone now.

This weekend Mom and Dad visit us. It will be a short visit packed full of driving and visiting. Thursday and Friday Mom and Dad will be in SF and we'll drive up after my work to join in the fun. Saturday we take Mom and Dad to Monterey and Carmel to visit with Charlotte's folks and have dinner at their house. Mom and Dad will spend the night with us. Sunday its back to SF for a day of visiting Anne's lab among other activities and then back to Mtn. View. Charlotte will probably take Mom and Dad to the airport Monday morning unless their flight is very early in which case I'll take them before I head to work.

The GLS newsletter is just about done. Being newsletter chair is one week of intense business followed by being mellow the weeks until the next newsletter. I do have to go to board meetings once a month. The next newsletter will be July/August so I'll be busy again at the end of June. Actually I'm volunteering at the gay pride booth and will be helping Tina get it nicely decorated. Come to think of it ... we are supposed to be meeting soon to talk about the ideas we have for the booth.

Happy Birthday to me

Happy Birthday to me

Happy Birthday dear Cathy

Happy Birthday to me!

I'm 44 today. I like being 44 so far. I'm actually roughly 44 years and 12 hours old right now. I was born in the wee hours of the morning ... 12:30 a.m. EDT March 24, 1961 in Columbus, Ohio at University hospital.

I opened some nifty presents this morning. Lets just say I'm all set to go shopping at REI and do a jigsaw puzzle. I got some cool birthday cards too. Charlotte found one that says "Happy Birthday, girlfriend." One had a cute picture of a little girl with a puppy. The third had a wonderful nature scene on it. Tonight Charlotte and I are off to the Fish Market for a birthday celebration dinner.

We were going to go backpacking for my birthday but I decided I didn't really want to go backpacking. It just seemed like too much work and I was worried we would get rained on and be wet and cold and uncomfortable. So I called off the trip. Maybe we'll go in April or May when the weather is a bit more reliable but still cool enough for Henry Coe where we planned on going.

Work is going well. I like the project I am assigned to.

I'm testing out the comments with this post.

Things have changed a bit since my last post. I have a job at Northrop Grumman. I have a domestic partner duly registered with the state of California, Charlotte, and we are living together. I have a gold ring on my left hand (ack ... me ... who never wears jewelry ... now wears a ring) signifying my committment to Charlotte. I have bifocals (the kind without the telling little line -- progressives) and new glass' frames which makes me look a bit more feminine so Charlotte says. I have a PDA now which I won in a raffle and I am having a grand time using it. I didn't get season tickets to Stanford women's basketball (Pac 10 champs again!!) this year but had fun at two games thanks to Moonshadow's generosity. I have gained weight yet again and am trying to lose it yet again. I am no longer at Kaiser after 17 years of giving them my business. I have been venturing out with my new insurance and seeing new docters this winter. The only constant in my life seems to be change.

Ack ... major non-blogging time since January. I would have thought being unemployed would leave me with lots of time to blog but ... no ... it doesn't. Job hunting is keeping me busy as is my new relationship that is almost one years old now (May 17 I'll have known Charlotte for a year).

Charlotte and I went on a backpack trip a couple weekends ago. We drove to the Henry Coe Hunting Hollow entrance on Wednesday morning and hiked 6.3 miles and 1500+ feet up to Kelly Lake. We set up camp there and did day hikes or hanging out for the next 3 days.

On day one we had a challenging hike to Pacheco Falls. It was a steep up followed by a long gradual down to the Falls. Then we had to retrace our steps to return. We climbed 2000 feet and hiked 9 miles. We got to see a nice garter snake on the way up the hill near the Falls. On the way we searched for two geocaches and found neither one of them. That was annoying. The falls did not have much water in them but were still beautiful to look at. The place where you could view the falls was riddled with poison oak so we didn't get to sit and eat lunch while admiring the view. I took a couple of nice pictures. Charlotte did a sketch but not of the falls.

On day two we just stayed at the lake all day. We did attempt to walk around the lake but found the route had too much poison oak on it so instead we found a nice shady spot in the trees with a view of the lake. I read allowed to Charlotte while she did a sketch. One fellow showed up on Friday so we no longer had the lake to ourselves. He was real quiet and unobtrusive though so it still felt like we were sorta alone. We got in a skinny dip!

On day three, Saturday, we went off on a day hike on an unmaintained trail. We failed to stay by the creek and lost the little indication of trail that was there. We ended up having to bushwack up hill through very thick dense bushes. We were both a little worried but after looking at the maps we realized if we just kept at it we would eventually find one of the three trails that surrounded the area we were in. We finally did break out of the bushes on to a delightful grassy hillside. We had lunch and revelled in the lack of bushes. After lunch we hiked up the grassy hills and found one of the trails and got back on course. Both of us had many wonderful scratches to show off our adventure on our arms and legs. We also tempted the poison oak goddess many times. After the hike we tecnu'ed ourselves and went swimming in the lake. That felt good. In the end Charlotte got a bit of poison oak and I managed to avoid it altogether. I'm not quite sure how I did that!! That night we gave each other massages while listening to the big group of 10 people camped on the other side of a hill from us. We missed our privacy of the previous nights.

We saw and heard lots of animals. Here is the list I made: garter snake, wild turkey, horned toad, mystery red bug, toad, mouse, turtle, coots, ruddy ducks, bats, swallows, red wing blackbirds, fish, bumble bees, ants, locust with orange wings, deer, hawk, turkey vulture, lizard, squirrel, frog, quail, dove, owl, malards, malard ducklings, orange red dragon fly, and a gopher. The gopher let us use his home for our kitchen ;-) It was cute to see his little head poke out of a hole nearby as we cooked dinner.

On this trip Charlotte and I got to know our camping routine together better. We figured out how we like to cook dinners (who does what and how we do it), ways to be more comfortable in the tent, etc. I got upset about some stuff and it all came out the day we were hiking out. I can say now that one unique way to get up a steep hill with a backpack on is to cry about stuff and discuss it with your girlfriend and use that to distract you from the discomfort of the uphill! The hill seemed to be over very quickly because we were so busy discussing things and working things out. Phew. We did a decent job of communicating and I felt better on the long downhill slog to the cars. It was a good trip. We look forward to doing more backpacking trips together.

I'm at a low point right now in my job search. That's because I got another rejection today. Those always hit me hard and it takes me a while to get my confidence back. This time I didn't get another interview because I didn't answer the "C" programming question with enough depth. Sigh. At least I did have a phone interview. I had a couple of real interviews in April but did not get the jobs. At least it was good to know that I could at least get job interviews. I need to keep plugging away. I have joined a group called
ProMatch. Its a nice networking, informational, and support group for finding a job. I highly recommend it to others searching for a job.

Oh ... pictures from backpacking will soon be up at my Webshots site. Look for the obvious folder which I will label something like Henry Coe Backpack May 2004. Feel free to check out other albums too.

OK .. so what has happened to me since Oct 15. I was indeed laid off at the end of October. My last day at work was October 31st. I have been searching for a job ever since.

I did most of my searching via web sites and some networking in November and December. With the coming of the new year I have been buckling down and really working on the job search. I went to an ASME meeting called "Building a Whole Career." At this presentation I heard about ProMatch and decided to look into what it was. I went to a ProMatch foundation workshop meeting the first Friday of January at a place called the Connect Center in Sunnyvale. It is a great resource center for job searching. They do workshops on resume writing, interviewing, networking, and career exploration. Last Friday I went to the ProMatch orientation meeting and filled out lots of forms and got on the ProMatch waiting list. The group is very popular and very effective in helping folks to find work. They estimated that it will be 5 weeks before we are contacted and asked if we want to join the group. While I wait, I'll be taking the free workshops at Connect center. I'll keep going until I have done all of them or found a job

I have been doing pretty well with networking. I sent an email to everyone I could think of in October telling them I was job searching. I also went to 3 holiday parties and mentioned to folks at these parties that I was looking for a job. I also networked at a FrontRunner's coffee after the Saturday morning run. I'm trying to get more involved with SWE again. I volunteered to be the SCV web master. I have been watching the meetings to try and attend them and also the monthly lunch get togethers. I'm slowly getting better at networking and understanding how to use it to my advantage in a job search.

CCC and I have had lots more time together since I was laid off. The honeymoon is over and we are both working hard at improving our communication and getting used to each other's foibles. This has taken up much of the time I am not job searching. I have little time left for blogging. CCC and I have gone on many wonderful hikes this fall and winter: Santa Teresa county park, Briones regional park, Diablo foothill regional park, Uvas Canyon, Point Lobos, Nisene Marks, Fall Creek, Skyline Open Space Preserve, Castle Rock, and Henry Coe are the ones that come to mind.

CCC and I went to Philadelphia for Christmas to my sister's house. My parents were there too. CCC got to meet half my family. Now the only person she hasn't met is my younger brother, David. I have met all of her siblings and her parents. We had a nice visit to her parent's in Carmel about a week ago. We hiked at Pt. Lobos and had a wonderful Thai dinner afterwards.

CCC is quite the movie buff so I have seen lots of movies on the big screen and on DVD or VCR. We have found the video section at the Mtn. View library and have taken out many movies to watch. Its free of charge although there is a steep late fee. We watched the Shipping News and Two Week's Notice recently. I liked the Shipping News. The scenery of Nova Scotia was marvelous and I liked the story. Two Week's Notice was funny and a good movie to cheer us up after watching Tuesdays with Morie earlier in the day.

Long time, no post. Things have been unsettled at work to say the least. First for most of September it was a waiting game to hear who won the ACITS contract. We never did find out in September. We found out in October who won the ACITS: QSS/Raytheon. Then a new thing to worry about arose. I found out that my task is going to be closed so essentially I'm out of a job when the task closes. That will probably be towards the end of October. Ug. I didn't seem to have any urge to blog through out all this.

I have another geocaching hunt under my belt. This past Saturday we went to Diablo Foothill regional park and searched out 8 caches in the shadow of Mt. Diablo. One cache was way up on a hill that took some steep bushwacking to get to the top. We also charged through this yellow plant that coated our pants legs with this sticky substance. CCC and I saw a tarantula. I got a picture of it. On Sunday CCC and I dragged her brother along with us to find an urban cache in San Francisco. We found it eventually but got off track when we didn't pay pay attention to the cache being only 140 feet away according to the GPS. We went up more when we should have gone down. I failed to see that there was a staircase to the downward side of the street. Oh well. We eventually figured it out. CCC's brother was jazzed about finding the cache. I'm up to 41 caches found now since I started geocaching last October.

Hey ... here is my resume in case any of my blog readers know of a position I might qualify for :-)

• 
  Cathy's Resume
  

Check this out ... sorta fun:

My inner child is ten years old!

The adult world is pretty irrelevant to me. Whether
I'm off on my bicycle (or pony) exploring, lost
in a good book, or giggling with my best
friend, I live in a world apart, one full of
adventure and wonder and other stuff adults
don't understand.

How Old is Your Inner Child?
brought to you by Quizilla

I have always told folks I'm an overgrown 10 year old!

I led a hike on Saturday to San Bruno Mtn. Park south of San Francisco. The hike started off overcast but the clouds burned off as the hike progressed so we finished up the hike with a blue sky and sunshine. We had many nice views of San Francisco from the park. We had a nice view of the bay bridge, the airport, a glimpse of the tops of the golden gate bridge, Candle Stick park, Mt. Diablo, Mt. Tam, Montara Mtn, the downtown buildings, and the Pacific Ocean. Only 3 of us did the hike but we had a good time talking and hiking together.

Sunday I slept in (ahhhhhh) and went to a barbecue in the afternoon with CCC. We left the barbecue early to head to my house to watch a DVD. I just got a new DVD player. We watched Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. It was my second time watching the movie. I have my own DVD of it that I got when I bought my new computer a year and a half ago. I had watched it once on my computer. It was nicer to watch it on the bigger TV screen and with CCC.

On Friday and Saturday night we went to watch Stanford women's volleyball matches. Stanford beat University of San Diego on Friday night but lost to University of Florida (the Gators) on Saturday night.

My DVD player arrived but I was lacking the correct devices to hook it up. I have an "old" TV that does not have the proper outlets for the DVD cables. I just went internet surfing and bought a device to convert my old single cable outlet to a set of DVD compatible outlets. I will go pick it up at Circuit City this afternoon after getting the proper credit card from home for proof I'm me. I also got the two DVD's I ordered. I got myself the LOR movies. When the third one comes out, I'll buy it too. [LOR = Lord of the Rings]. Nothing is quite so frustrating as having a new toy and not being able to play with it yet.

Labor day weekend was nice. I got 30 hours of sleep: 10 hours each night.

Saturday CCC and I went to see Finding Nemo before heading to Rodeo to have dinner at one of CCC's good friend's, JJ. Dinner was yummy: roast chicken, asparagus, fresh baked bread, and some good wine. The conversation was somewhat dominated by T, JJ's friend. She had a load to get off her chest and couldn't stop talking about it. We all politely listened but CCC said later that she was disappointed that I didn't get to talk more with JJ. At 10:30 p.m. we said goodbye and headed to the Chabot science center to view Mars with a telescope. We stood in line for the telescope for 15 minutes and only moved about 10 feet. It was very crowded. We decided to bail and head home. We entertained our fellow line standers by describing what we saw when we took our glasses off and looked at Mars. I saw a snow flake. CCC saw a tree.

Sunday I helped CCC clean at her condo. Then she took me to see Matrix Reloaded as a thank you for helping her clean. I liked the special effects in the movie but found the plot just way too confusing.

Monday CCC and I went hiking at Skyline Open Space Preserve. We hiked from the Russian Ridge parking lot, past Alpine Lake, along the ridge, around Horseshoe Lake, and back. Its a beautiful little hike that not a lot of people know about. It was very hot though. We didn't get to the park till 2 p.m. when it was thoroughly baked by the sun. We still had fun despite the heat. We saw oodles of lizards on this hike. We saw some coots at Horseshoe lake.

My therapist has recovered and weekly therapy has resumed for me. I'm almost having to get used to it all over. I got accustomed to not going the last month or so.

Yesterday CCC and I did our usual walk from our neighborhood to Shoreline park. Then we watched the video, Chicago. Oh and CCC and I had dinner at my place. It is sort of nice to sit down and have dinner with someone instead of my usual cook a frozen dinner and then eat it while sitting on the couch watching TV.

Its been a nice week for the most part. CCC and I have been hanging out almost everyday. Wednesday we cooked our left over camp food for dinner and then last night we ate the last of the left over food. We had cheese tortellini with pesto sauce on it, corn on the cob, fruit salad, and mixed vegetables {with no evil mushy beans which I dislike ;-) }. We meant to have ice cream for dessert but we left it at CCC's house and we were eating at my house. Ah, but tonight we're eating at CCC's place and so will get that ice cream I imagine. After dinner we are going to go for a walk. I'm going to suggest we walk all the way to the dam at the Charleston Slough and back to burn off some of the much fat we ate the last two nights. We watched the video Songcatcher last night. I really enjoyed it. It even had a little lesbian content. I enjoyed the singing of the mountain people in Appalachia. This is a good movie to rent if you're looking for one.

I gave in to my desire to buy a DVD player to hook up to my TV. I bought it on the internet. It should arrive around Sept. 3. I was getting tired of watching DVD's on my little laptop screen and was too lazy to figure out how to hook up my lap top to the TV.

My kitchen sink drain is partly plugged. The water drains very slowly. If I leave the water on, its flow is faster than the drain flow so the water would overflow the sink. Fortunately I haven't done that! Its annoying so I expect soon I'll get a plumber to come in and fix it.

For once I'm staying home for a labor day weekend. I'm hoping to catch up on sleep. I may be able to sleep in tomorrow, Sunday, and Monday. That would be marvelous. Although I'm willing to get up a little earlier if CCC and I decide to go hiking or make a day trip somewhere. The U.S. Open tennis tournament is on TV this weekend. I might tune in to watch some of it.

I took a day off on Friday and CCC and I rented a red Mustang convertible and drove it through the Sierra's to Buckeye campground near Bridgeport, CA. It was a beautiful drive (after we got through the Sacramento valley part). We got there at 4 p.m. and spent some time trying to find where W. got a campsite. Turns out we were the first to arrive so we picked out a couple sites and left a note on the camp bulletin board as to where the campsites were. W. found us at 5 p.m. and let us know that it would be only 6 of us on the campout and that the remaining 3 were going to be arriving late that night.

We cooked our dinner and enjoyed chatting with W. and admiring the stars. We saw Mars. We went to bed at 9ish. While we were sleeping the other 3 arrived. We all slept in on Saturday. We ate breakfast and then headed to the Buckeye hot springs a mile down the road. We hung out at the hot springs for several hours. K1 and K2 left to go take a look at Mono Lake and do some shopping. CCC and I decided to walk back to the campground. W and K3 stayed at the hot springs for some one on one time. CCC and I had a nice walk back and then napped in our tent for an hour or so. We were being baked in our tent and decided to get up and walk down the hill to the Buckeye creek. While I soaked my feet in the cold water, CCC wandered around exploring the creek near where I plopped down. I had wacked my toe against a rock getting into one of the natural hot spring tubs ... ouch ... it was all swollen so I figured giving it a good soak in cold water would be helpful. We stayed about an hour and then headed back to camp to get our contribution to the evenings pot luck ready.

We supplied crackers and cheese (Brie and Blue Cheese), a bottle of wine, and a bowl of Strawberries. The other contributions were an excellent squash soup and a tossed salad. After cleaning up after dinner, K2 started a fire. W and K3 got out their drums and did some drumming for us. Then everyone got in a silly mood and started belting out all sorts of tunes. It was very fun. W then played her big drum and just kept going with a single beat. It made us all very sleepy so we put the fire out and headed to our tents.

Sunday morning we got up around 8:30 a.m. for a pancake breakfast. K3 brought buttermilk pancake mix and made pancakes for us that morning. I love pancakes and I had about 5 of them. Yummy. After cleaning up breakfast most folks started in on packing up camp and getting ready for the long drive home. CCC wanted to clean off in the creek so she went off with towel in hand. Meanwhile I packed most of our stuff into the Mustang. When I was ready to go I yelled at CCC to come up. She had missed saying goodbye to the others so I gave her a hug for each person she missed.

We finished packing the car and were on the road around noon. We had the top down and enjoyed the views and the sun shine as we drove home. We stopped at Pinecrest at the Steam Donkey restaurant for a late lunch at 3:30 p.m. We both had the chicken club sandwich. After lunch we pretty much drove right home except for a couple of gas stops or restroom stops. We got home at 7:30 p.m. It didn't take long to unpack the car. Then CCC and I parted company and went to our separate abodes to take showers and get some sleep! It was a long tiring drive.

It felt good to sleep in a soft bed last night. I didn't want to get up at 6 a.m. this morning. Tonight CCC and I are going to go walking probably at Shoreline park.