It was 29 degree F this morning. (For you folks who reckon in Celsius,that's below zero.)It's getting too damned cold, too damned fast this year. I know that all parts of California aren't warm and sunny all the time, even down South, but we don't exactly live in Truckee either. This whinging has been brought to you by cold fingers, cold toes, and cold nose.

This morning Chris and I rode up to an organic farm & garden supply in the foothills and purchased ten pounds of seed potatoes. We haven't ever done much with our winter veggie garden. Broccoli and cabbage produced almost nothing but I noticed some success with onions and sort-of volunteer potatoes. So I proposed to Chris that we concentrate on spuds and onions this year. These are two things we all eat and enjoy. In spite of too much freeway time, we saw lots of lovely fall foliage on the trip.

A neighbor has a malfunctioning car alarm. It has been screaming most of the morning. I left a message on his voice mail. I keep hoping the battery will die, putting us and it out of our collective misery.

These critters hang out under the pier in Santa Cruz. A lot of the locals aren't too fond because the barking keeps them up some nights. I don't know what they did during the storm but they were back here when it was over.

You know how sometimes you get an idea, but it doesn't come out the way you expected? Well, we thought this would be a knarly trip to the beach and we weren't disappointed. I felt really badly for the gulls. They seemed very stoical about the whole thing. I shot this from the balcony of our hotel room.

A little over a month ago, one of the tenants was tossing out a broken, laptop computer. I asked if I could have it. I was able to get it running but there were some parts missing and the wireless card wasn't working. Yesterday we took it to a repair shop that specializes in Apple computers. Even though it's an older computer(five or six years?) they were able to replace the missing bits. The Airport card just had a disconnected antenna. So now I have this perfectly serviceable little beastie and it's one less piece of junk in the landfill.  This thing cost more money when it was new but amortized over it's still-going useful life, it's cheaper and better for the environment. I love stuff like this. :-)

"Elspeth died while Robert was standing in front of a vending machine watching tea shoot into a small plastic cup."
from Her Fearful Symmetry   by Audrey Niffenegger

I'm wondering if there is something to this Mercury retrograde thing. Last week was scary and this past weekend continued the trend. Machines doing weird things, people acting whiggy and then Saturday.  What kind of person breaks their toilet tank then goes back to bed while it floods their apartment? I know. Don't ask.  We need cool. We need rain. We need some time off.

I know work is going to calm down eventually but Please! not another week like this one! A least for a little while. The students have been frisky and the earplugs have helped. I'm trying to remember that there are a lot of anxious people out there who have nothing against me personally. I did get this lady at the phone company yesterday who was working the weirdness wonderfully. She was obviously way too intelligent for her job but she conveyed this unintentionally without the slightest trace of snark or condescension.Her name was Linda. Bless you Linda. May you continue to walk between the raindrops. The cable guy is coming after lunch. Please fix this so my loved ones can watch their futbol games this weekend. My husband is getting up at 4 am local time tomorrow to watch Portsmouth get beat again. Did I mention that we pay actual money for this? The Giants blew a lead in the 9th last night. You can put a fork in their season as it is well and truly done. I got a recorder a week ago Thursday and now I can read some music and play three little tunes. I hope to be able to do Greensleeves by Xmas/Yule. I know some find it maudlin but I think it's pretty and it sounds nice on the flute. I wish I had longer fingers and/or bigger hands. I love the sound of the alto too but I don't know if I can make the stretch. Sorry for the random. Have a nice weekend.    Love, katie.

Tonight we are celebrating Harvest Home (a tad late) with salmon with leek cream, broccoli with mushrooms and  apple pie. We will pray that the great fish get more water to sustain them. Probably should send some money to the appropriate legal defense fund too.
Yes, I know that's a trout on my user pic. ;-)

Today I bought a recorder so my grandson will have something to nag me about not practicing. :-) www.activemusician.com/item--MC.9520

This song helped me a lot when I lived in gritty Miami and wished to be someplace else.

It's hell week at work. Not a hell week but the hell week. I have a dinner to go to on Wednesday where I must explain to some dear friends why my spiritual direction is veering away from theirs. None of this is exactly low stress but I find that I am currently harboring a very positive attitude. Maybe because once we get past this huge pile of work, we will be in one of my favorite times of year? Fall and spring are times of transition, and except for the allergies in spring, damn fine seasons. I know this means I'm doing some of my living in the future when I'm supposed to be doing all of it in the right now but I can't help it. It's a hard habit to break. Having worked over the weekend, I just realized it's Monday. And a very good one too.

After lunch I picked a big pile of beans and some tomatoes from our garden. Chris went back and got the watermelon. We also have peppers,squash,cucumbers. I wonder what we could do if we got a little more organized? We are rather half-arsed veggie gardeners but we still get lots of lovely stuff. And it's such a satisfying activity.