200 thoughts for the bus

I realized late last night that I was going to have to take the bus early this morning and neither Eric nor I had any single bills or more than a few stray pennies in our wallets.

I took a moment to wander aimlessly around the apartment in search of inspiration or some pile of small bills I had put down and forgotten about.

I didn't find any small bills. What I did find was a jar of pennies.

So I counted out 200 pennies, put them in a plastic baggie and put them in my coat pocket for the morning.

Epilogue:
The bus driver gave me a quizzical look as I hauled the sack of pennies out of my pocket.

"I'll just be a sec. You can go ahead - I'm balanced." The last thing I wanted was a busload of glaring non-morning people blaming me for making them late to work, or wherever they were all going.

The bus driver looked at me, may or may not have sensed the potential rage of the other passengers, and decided that driving on would be a good idea. Everyone went back to their reading, napping, or vacant staring, as desired.

It took me two stops to get all of the pennies funneled into the machine. The full fare "beep" was a great, great sound to hear.

Go that way really fast

One of the many adventures of this past weekend was renting a ridiculously powerful motorcycle and driving on it for many, many hours. We went north. We went south. We came across a down home country barbecue and chili cook-off and petted some friendly dogs. We zoomed like the zoomiest.

Check out our hot wheels:
The unexpected epilogue to our badass motorcycle weekend came this morning at the rental car counter when they upgraded me to a gold Mustang. Totally unsolicited. So this week I'll be cruising around Seattle in style.

Fan club

Yesterday afternoon I was sitting in my office, minding my own business, when suddenly the ceiling fan in my office turned on and started spinning.

"I have a ceiling fan?" I thought to myself. I'm fairly sure this is new. It's very shiny.

I watched it for a moment. It was on. Fanning away. I sat there and looked around: I was alone in the office and no one was near the door. I stood up, walked to the door of my office and peered outside.

Nobody.

It had been a little stuffy in my office, so I just nodded at the fan, sat down and went back to work.

Time passed. I got chilly. It was time for the fan to be turned off. But how?

I decided to ask our new office manager Linda who started last Thursday and was camped out in the office next to me. Because, having been with us for one and a half days, she was clearly going to be the best person to ask for help. More importantly, she was the first person I came across upon venturing out from my office.

I had barely gotten five words out of my mouth when she burst out laughing. Apparently, much earlier in the day and all the way across the office in the supply room, she and Emily had found a homeless remote control and pressed all the buttons, joking about how they were probably opening and closing someone's garage door somewhere.

She went and got the remote and we tested it: sure enough, fan on, fan off, fan on, fan off.

Case closed.

Critical, motorized

Riding my bike to yoga this morning, I unintentionally timed my trip perfectly to coincide with the Pride parade, which routes a few blocks past where I live. I tried to navigate around it when, suddenly, I found myself in sea of motorcyclists.

And these weren't just any motorcyclists: they were Dykes on Bikes.

And there were many hundreds of them!

It turned out they were turning right in front of me, trapping me in the elbow of the turn. All I could do for over 10 minutes was stand there and watch, and cheer, and be delighted and just a little scandalized at what I saw, which ran the gammet from women in full leather to women in nothing but leather thongs* and boots, and covered a lot of ground in between: leather corsets and garter stockings, topless women in tutus and bright pink fishnets, and even a couple of women dressed as bumble bees.

It, also, was quite wonderful. And just as unexpected. The mood was spectacular and it was hard not to feel, well, proud.


*I said "thong."

Unstacked

On my way home from work on Tuesdays I stop at the Ferry Building to pick up our organic fruit CSA box at Frog Hollow, a wonderful farm just outside of San Francisco. And every Wednesday morning on my way in to work, I stop there again and get a much larger CSA box for my office. Biking with 20lbs of very delicate stone fruit is just the sort of challenge I enjoy on a Wednesday morning.

When I get to work, I very carefully (but also usually very quickly as I am running late for a meeting) lay all the fruit out on the table, each peach and apricot in it's own little spot, not touching anyone else. It's for their own safety.

For context, I need to tell you that the office is kept on high tidiness alert at all times. Neatness counts here. Violators are summarily berated, and, just for good measure, our Office Manager is regularly berated on their behalves in spite of the fact that she is awesome and takes really good care of the office.

Knowing that the urge to stack the fruit in a bowl to look neat and tidy would be practically irresistable, I was very explicit via office-wide email that this would not be advisable.

"If you're wondering about the non-hierarchical presentation, it's because the tender flesh of the stone fruits does better in a single layer rather than stacked in a bowl."

Given all this, I'm sure you will find it easy to understand my reaction walking by the fruit table later in the day only to find, to my shock and horror, the fruit had been stacked in the bowl.

"Ahh!" I cried out, loudly. "Unstack the fruit! Unstack the fruit!"

I paused and stood there for a moment. No one responded.

"Who did this?!" I shouted some more. "I was very clear! No stacking! The tender flesh! Oh the tender tender flesh! It can't take it! Unstack the fruit!"*

Nada.

I walked over to one of my teammates who wasn't going to the meeting that I was now very late for.

"Would you please unstack the fruit? It's all going to rot if it stays in the bowl like that." I used a much nicer voice. She humored me. And I'm pretty sure Emily didn't get yelled at (um, other than by me...)


*I did, in fact, literally shout this in my office.

Best weekend ever

It was a solidly fabulous weekend. Beekeeping class on Saturday, a wander around Santa Cruz, overnight camping at a state beach including a most improbable and unfortunate hula show, breakfast at the beach in Capitola and last but not least a kayaking adventure through Elkhorn Slough ("sloo") on Sunday.

I'm still not sure what a slough is, exactly, but from what I can tell it is place that includes a really really shallow tidal river that connects to the ocean on one end and who knows what on the other and is full of animals.

Here are some of my favorite animals that we saw, starting with...otters! These guys were hilarious. They would pop up nearby out of nowhere and then rub their bellies and pretend to wash their hair. Then they would do these crazy rolls, going around and around and around. If I had to choose a water animal to be, this seems like a good option. They certainly look like they are having a lot of fun.

These guys, who are either seals or sea lions I'm still not sure, also seem to have it pretty good except that boy do they stink!

And then later, this one was looking at me.

These are gull-lings. I don't usually find baby birds particularly cute but holy gray spotted fluff balls are these little dudes adorable!

And then there was the sort of wildlife that just makes you shake your head.

Who says being wet and cold can't be fun

The river trip was a success. Not only did no one die or even get thrown out of the boat*, but on the first day which was miserable, freezing cold and raining, we were all such good sports that no one even whined about it. Or at least not much. I think we are to be commended. When you spend two fulls days shivering in a wet wetsuit with several additional wet layers it can be easy to forget that you are doing this because it is fun.

The whitewater rafting was truly great fun and there were some neat bonus moments on the river, too. Perhaps the best special thing was a circular rainbow around the sun on the second day. Wow! I don't think I even knew that was possible. Also, not long after that, we saw an eagle fly by carrying a snake. Double wow! Omens both, surely, though I don't know of what. Something good, I hope.

My least favorite moments were my not awesome jogging-with-luggage stints which bookended the trip. I had to take BART to the end of the line where my ride was picking me up to head out on the trip. Of course, on Thursday I left home late and ended up lurching awkwardly as fast as I could move to the station carrying tent, sleeping bag, sleeping pad and my backpack. On the way home, we hit traffic and I ended up doing that same miserable arm-aching hustle to the train station from the parking lot where my ride dropped me in order to avoid waiting a whole 15 minutes for the next train. "Why?" I had to ask myself. "Why am I always running to catch trains?" It's not like the schedules are a surprise.


*It's unclear if this means there will be layoffs when we get back to the office.

If he were dead, Edward Furlong would be turning in his grave*

Eric and I saw the new Terminator movie Sunday night after eating dinner at the food court at the mall.

(Writing that sentence makes me wonder if my current existence is not the hip, alternative, urban lifestyle that I imagine it to be. Does it matter that it's a really nice food court?)

I don't want to ruin the movie for anyone but: it was horrible. Laughably horrible. So so so bad. Seriously.

I mean, why was Christian Bale doing his ridiculous Batman voice for most of the movie? And who really expects us to believe that any human is going to be able to hold his own even for a moment in hand to hand combat with a terminator? And why does none of the plot or timeline make any sense with the other Terminator movies? And has Helena Bonham Carter always had such a big butt?

Clearly, the movie raised a lot of questions for me.

The stirring syncopated percussion of the theme endured, however, and I think the highlight of the evening for me was watching a dorky middle aged guy in the row in front of us do a jerky dance with his shoulders as the credits rolled. He really got into it! And I thank him for it.


*Since he's not, I'm not sure what he's doing. Probably nothing very interesting.

Go that way really fast. If something gets in your way...turn

Eric and I hit the slopes again this past weekend in Tahoe. We managed, on several occasions, to cavalierly disregard signs marked with skull and crossbones and dire warnings about Experts Only and got ourselves into plenty of trouble. There's nothing like standing on the top of a nearly sheer cliff wondering how you will negotiate the boulder-field on the way down. Except then having to jump off it and hope for the best.

One example of a no-way-but-through exit was this steep chute between large boulders. Eric went down first and captured my not-so-graceful exit. Not pictured here is the rock wall which I am headed straight towards at approximately 800mph.

We were lucky enough that the worst that happened to either of us was a few somersaults down the mountain and getting snow down our pants. I was particularly proud of one tumble which prompted a woman nearby to shout "Holy shit are you OK?" If you're not falling, you're not skiing hard enough.

Slaughterhouse Boogies

In Hawaii, Eric and I discovered a beach that is referred to by the locals as Slaughterhouse Beach. It is a smallish beach at the end of what is effectively a small canyon, and it is on the north shore of the island which gets the big swells from the open ocean. The waves coming into this beach are terrifyingly large and violent, which is why we decided that of all the beaches in paradise, this is where we wanted to spend not one but two entire afternoons swimming and trying not to die.

There is a reason for this beach’s name and it is not that it is near an animal processing facility.

Our first afternoon there we just happened upon it while out for an exploratory drive around Maui. The humongous waves beckoned us with promises of outstanding body surfing, and there were a couple of other people in the water so we figured it was probably OK to swim. In we went!

Just trying to get past the break to where we could start bodysurfing, we got absolutely pummeled by wave after wave. I was repeatedly picked up and tossed around by the waves I was trying to catch, somersaulting involuntarily in the churning water, until it dumped me into the sandy bottom and I could come up gasping for air.

Sounds fun, doesn’t it?

Once I learned how to duck dive the waves (go under them as they come towards you) rather than get savaged by them, it was actually pretty fun, though I still got worked over a bunch of times. We decided that the only way to make it more fun would be to get boogie boards to ride the waves. It was too late to do that on day one, so the next day we came back with our boogie boards ready to show the ocean a thing or two.

The waves were smaller on day two, but still big enough for some good fun. The most important discovery of day two is that I suck at boogie boarding. A newborn deer would be a better boogie boarder than I am. And it is really hard to duck dive with a floating barn door leashed to your wrist, so I got ravaged by more than a few waves just trying to get past the break. I am still amazed that nothing truly terrible happened to me.

Here’s a really short video of a wave from day two. Note that the waves here are smaller than day one.

Back at the hotel, I was a little disappointed in myself.

“I suck at making boogies,” I whined to Eric.

He couldn't disagree. Luckily, we both agreed it probably didn't change my overall worth as a person. Much.

Minor redemption came this past weekend skiing, or "making snow boogies" as we now call it. I am waaaaaay better at making snow boogies than I am at making water boogies. As for my prowess at making land boogies, I'll let you know after our salsa lesson tomorrow night.

I wish Phil Hartman could have lived to see it

I heard on the radio this morning that one of the proposals currently being floated is for the prisoners being held at Guantanamo Bay to be moved to Alcatraz. Though probably just a nasty poke at Nancy Pelosi (Alcatraz is within her district), I think this is a brilliant idea.

First of all, I think that the prisoners will probably really enjoy the boat ride over there. Especially if it is a nice day and not too windy. Sure, it's a step down in terms of climate from being in the Caribbean, but what with global climate change and all the weather here has been a lot nicer than it used to be so it might not be too difficult an adjustment. Plus, prisoners who had been planning a swimming escape will just need to make a few minor changes to their plans rather than starting a whole new escape plan from scratch.

One thing that some of them may appreciate is that the name Alcatraz comes from the Spanish for Pelican, and the Spanish word actually comes from the Arabic word "al-qatras" or "sea eagle." I'm not sure if the audio tour is available in Arabic, Farsi, and other terrorist languages so they may need to have it translated for the prisoners to fully appreciate the rich history of their new digs.

Most importantly, though, I think that they should keep Alcatraz open as a tourist destination once the prisoners are moved there. Imagine how much easier it will be to picture Alcatraz as a scary, outside-the-law kind of place with illegally held, tortured prisoners actually in the cells. This opens up a number a great new marketing opportunities and in this tough economy, I'm sure the Alcatraz tour operators will appreciate all the help they can get.

Greener than thou

I used the word "meamble" in a rhyming contest with Eric yesterday. These happen a lot, especially when we're hiking for a really long time and have completely run out of things to say to each other. We'll be trotting along and one of us will say something inane, you know, just making conversation. When the other person has no intelligent response, this can unintentionally spark a rhyming contest where that person just says a word that rhymes with whatever was just said. This then continues, the loser being the person who can no longer come up with a rhyming word.

Ellie: We'll have to see about traffic. I think it is kind of a gamble.

Eric: Bramble.

Ellie: Scramble.

Eric: Preamble.

Ellie: [silence]

Eric: Ha!

Ellie: No wait! Uhh...meamble.

Eric: No way.

Ellie: Yes! It is a combination of meander and amble. It's one of those new energy efficient hybrid words.

Eric: Does it run on corn?

Ellie: No. It lowers my carbon emissions from speaking because I get more meaning into each exhale.

Eric: Does that make the deaf the biggest environmentalists?

Ellie: Hmm.

Eric: And people who use a lot of contractions and acronyms. And innuendo. They're the lowest carbon emitters.

Ellie: Yes. OMG. They're the real heroes.

Eric: So does exercising increase our carbon footprint?

Ellie: Yeah, I guess it would have to.

Eric: I'm being green by sitting on the couch instead of going to the gym.

Ellie: Nice. Does that mean we should fine people who spend too much time at the gym? Should there be a cap and trade system for professional athletes' carbon exhalations?

Eric: Now you're just being ridiculous.