Nice Day for a White Wedding

Nice day to start again. Billy Idol.

Back at RLG in a new cube. White wedding theme left over from the last occupant. She got married and moved back east. It is kinda dark and quiet and I have two old friends as neighbors. As long as none of us eat beany burritos or fight with our respective boyfriends, girlfriends, spouses, or kids on the phone...

This is pleasant. I cheerfully talk to customers and still run into people from my past lives at Bird Library, Syracuse University or Melville Library, SUNY Stony Brook, or Green Library, Stanford University or even Bancroft Library, at UC Berkeley. As a short timer, part-time temp, I know I am not trapped. I don't go to any meetings. I come in very early (6 am), do productive work, and leave. Life is good. I see my old friends and sometimes wait around long enough...take a nap or whatever...and go out to lunch. It is a good three month long gig.

New desk is still cluttered

But it is mine. All my clutter. This is my new corner office. Three phones. Three soon to be four computers. Wireless home network. Klimt 2006 wall calendar. Wine glass (Merlot). TV news. 2005 taxes in one crate, 2006 taxes in another crate. MercuryWebSolutions in a crate.
COBRA, Unemployment insurance. CBEST practice test. Child Advocates. RLG is nowhere to be seen in this image...because 6AM to 11AM M-F, that is all they get. When I am in my home office I work for MercuryWebSolutions and take care of personal business.

Chat of course; lots of business and personal chat. Knitting; still have a half dozen crazy boas started. Gifts; not made yet, so not ready to be sent. Books; a line of books to read. Dog; sleeping or begging for a walk.

Tomorrow is an important anniversary. Sometimes I try to take the day off to contemplate what I've done with my life. Not as much as I might have but way more than I ever dreamed.

Pam Cam number one

This is a Google Earth view of my cul-de-sac in Sunnyvale, CA 94089

HamCam#2 is also Pam Cam number one. There I am far below in Santa Clara valley, looking up toward Mt Hamilton observatory, waving madly at you! This gives a birds-eye view of Silicon Valley, and real-time info about weather and daylight. "Most of what has become the megalopolis known as the Bay Area and Silicon Valley was a rural patchwork of farms, orchards, ranches, and sleepy towns", in the late 1800s. Now, at night, it is a sea of glowing lights.

Something special about January 1

Today is roasted fresh hen turkey day. January 1, 2006. Same day, 1980, I got married in Marin County, CA. See happy couple a few years later. No way to predict what this New Year's Day might bring. National hangover day? That seems poetically just.

Just like that day in 1980, it is raining and has been raining for days. Raining too hard to cook a turkey outside on the Weber grill. So she is stuffed with onion wedges and garlic cloves and lemon pepper, and rubbed with olive oil, shoved easily into my new black sealed- top oven, I so rarely use.

I like to think about how I got here and certainly getting married that day was a significant decision along the way. Always will be a special day, New Year's Day, for me.