what it is, ain't exactly clear
In my head there is always a version of the doomsday clock that represents how long until I go crazy, assuming no course changes. "Go crazy" most probably means "quit job and leave Northern California," but there are other possible outcomes. Shortly after I moved here, it got wound up for about 4 years. It advanced as far as 5 or 6 years at one point, then snapped back to a few months. Right now it's set for about 12-18 months, I think.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. The point was that during the very boring month that followed the trip to Boston, the Clock seemed to have mere weeks to go. So I set out to pack the calendar with activities meant to fill the rest of the year, or, failing that, help decide where to go next. This all started with the Phish concert on August 5.
The concert was ok. Better than they were playing in 2000 when they finally quit touring the last time, but the songs they picked could have been better. I was hoping for Stash or Bathtub Gin or something in the encore, but no, just a couple more songs I didn't know. And there really aren't that many of those; I even listened to some earlier concerts from this summer to see if that was going to happen. Oh well.
The morning after the Phish concert, I went to Santa Monica to work for the next two days. I went to talk to some people about Picasa, thinking I might try this whole thing that some people do, working on something I'm actually interested in. That's no kind of magic bullet for a happy life, however. I really believe my relative lack of attachment to anything we work on has been an advantage more often than not. I can schedule myself for whatever of our projects nobody wants, and they will be happier and I won't care.
Not much to report about Santa Monica, though. I went to supper with Laura on Thursday night, but Alice was out of town, unfortunately.
After work on that Friday (August 7), I went on a tour to Pasadena to see Yi, then Pomona to see Meg and Kevin. This was the first time I have seen Yi since her baby was born. Being back at work, with a two year old, it's probably not the easiest year ever. I bet her first couple years at Pomona (which were my last couple) seem like a vacation now too. As always I stayed later than I meant to at Meg and Kevin's house, but not too bad, I still got to Cheryl and Ed's house by about 10 or 11 or something.
Much of the reason I went, of course, was that it was Miriya's birthday. She's 10 now, so she won't be a little girl, and I won't be her favorite person, much longer. We went to Frank and Son's on Saturday morning, then she had a birthday party on Saturday afternoon. (There wasn't a whole lot for me to do there, being neither a 10 year old girl nor the parent of one.) But the next day we went to the Orange County Fair. I got a deep fried White Castle hamburger and Twinkie. The deep frying of both is pretty unnecessary, but you know that going in. Miriya climbed both the rock-climbing walls that they had, which were too easy. Actually the first guy called up the second one on the radio to tell him that he was sending Miriya over because his wall was too easy. (Why the climbing wall ride operators are linked by dedicated VHF channel, I do not know.) Then we went to the pig races, after which they gave us all coupons for free bacon. This is not a joke. Can't be beat.
Leaving again was hard, even more than usual. Miriya is old enough now to understand that I won't be back for a long time, and she gets sad. So do I.
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