On Sunday I found in my purse a slip of paper with a phone number and a woman's name written on it, and have absolutely no idea how it got there.

I feel like that makes me sound infinitely cooler than I really am.

Happy Crane Day

Crane Day is traditionally celebrated by truancy and drinking beer shockingly early in the day.

Today I had nothing to be truant to, and I've given up alcohol, so I celebrated a little differently: by getting lost in Redondo Beach trying to find the restaurant where I was meeting a colleague for breakfast. Of course, if I only got lost in Redondo Beach on holidays, we must have had a lot of holidays this year.

Two of my friends had babies this week. This is a good illustration of the amount of baby-having that's been going on the last 10 months or so. If I change my facebook status to "Andrea is not pregnant", now you'll understand.

I just joined a choir in Torrance. I missed the registration deadline, but I begged the director to audition and he made a special arrangement for me to register and get music. I'd like to think that I was so fabulously talented that he couldn't live without me, but judging from my audition after 7 months of not singing, I think he was just nice and could tell I was desperate. I'll keep you posted on how it goes.

Positive Thinking

Over several months I created a massive art installation that came to me in a grand stroke of inspiration but took quite a bit of planning and experimentation to pull off. Even in the picture, it was not quite finished. When I bought my place in LA, I instantly found the perfect place for it, right over the fireplace.

When I moved into my new place, I wanted to christen it by hanging my hand-made installation. I opened every box the movers brought, but it wasn't there. Neither phone calls nor searches would find it. My beloved art was gone.

For weeks I was inconsolable. One day I got a letter from the moving company saying "We'd like to reimburse you for your lost items. Please let us know their value." How dare they? I asked, indignant. The material cost was almost nothing, but the piece is invaluable!

They paid me $200. That makes me a professional artist.

*snort*

My uncle sent me a Tibetan Personality Test, and I got a kick out of some of my results:

The way you describe a DOG describes your own personality: HAIRY
The way you describe a CAT describes your partner's personality: SOFT
The way you describe a RAT describes your enemy's personality: FURRY
The way you describe THE SEA describes your own life: SALTY
The way you describe COFFEE describes how you interpret sex: BITTER

www.memoriter.net/flash/test.html

Carmalyn, say hi to Ethan; Paige, say hi to Andy; Andrea, say hi to... your cats.

When family conversations end in this way, it's time to start drinking.

So I haven't provided an update since before Solstice. Now is as good a time as any. Yes, I'm watching the SuperBowl, I'm just not entranced enough that I can't blog a little as well.

I took off the last two days of work before the break to use up some of my banked vacation and rest/prepare for my holiday travel, and to finish my e-Solstice Letter, of course. I sent it to my former co-worker B-Rad the same day he left Cupertino to go to San Diego. We met up for dinner on his way through LA and shared many good stories. The hostess took a good picture... of him.

I met the family in Florida for Christmas, as usual. We went to the beach a lot. I snorkeled quite a bit (not a tour, either, just the beach) and was rewarded with up-close sightings of parrotfish, a skate, a horseshoe crab, what looked like a blue and green relative of the porcupine fish, and a seahorse. A seahorse! My life is complete. There was much reading, relaxing, cooking, and card playing. There was mucho family drama. It was exhausting.

Since I was on the east coast anyway, I popped up to see Saima and Sajid and their new addition, Safan, at their new home in Orangeburg, SC. Not much in South Carolina was open New Year's Eve and Day, but we still entertained ourselves quite well. We spent New Year's Eve watching Indian movies (my perfect vacation!) while Saima and Sajid plotted to arrange my marriage to a nice vegetarian Desi who cooks. New Year's morning, I took it upon myself to get Safan to smile. After a few tries, it worked! Then we visited an old plantation. I have to admit, it was a little creepy driving past the tiny cotton field and slave quarters beside the house. On our way home, I asked them to take me to Waffle House - I was suffering from withdrawal as I have yet to find any in California. I had a waffle and eggs and, oooo, grits!

The day I returned to work I was asked to make good on my promise to see the Worker's Comp doctor about my wrist. I was diagnosed with tenosynovitis (the precursor to carpal tunnel), fitted with not one but two wrist braces, and sentenced to "hand therapy" 3x per week for an undetermined length of time. The black wrist brace I named my "ninja claw", and the bone-colored rigid one I dubbed "skeletor". I decorated skeletor with shiny butterfly stickers and that tickled the guys at work. Hand therapy is not so bad, I get paid for my time, the people are nice, and sometimes I can read while doing the hand-o-cycle, swinging a mallet, or any of the other crazy things they have me do. But there's this one anti-inflammatory medicine that absorbs into the skin only under an electric potential. That's right. So five times they've taped two electrodes to my arm and shocked me for twenty minutes. Can you believe it? Absolutely diabolical.

The family drama escalated. It was a freaking nightmare. But it looks like it's getting better now.

Observations

1. Barack Obama is not black. He's mixed race. He's black and he's white. Growing up I was taught that it was rude to define a person by what is only a portion of their heritage. People think Kentuckians are racist, but even we knew this simple courtesy.

2. What, precisely, is so great about Joel Grey? I mean really?

3. In what subject did Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. have his PhD? Did he do a dissertation and defense or was it honorary? If I'm so curious why do I never look this up in wikipedia?

4. Whatever happened to Tempestt Bledsoe? I liked her.

5. When you meet someone for the first (and sometimes second) time, and they introduce themselves by giving you their name, you are under an obligation to give your name in return. If you respond by saying "Pleased to meet you" and nothing else, you should be punished.

6. If a movie trailer includes one or more shots of the main character falling down or tripping over something, that movie is not worth seeing.

7. At 2AM I literally sat bolt upright in bed and said "Aha! John Galecki played Sara Gilbert's boyfriend on 'Roseanne' and now Sara Gilbert is playing John Galecki's girlfriend on "Big Bang Theory"! Amazing!" I feel like this is the definitive proof that I watch too much TV.

8. John Williams would kick Stephen Sondheim's ass in a fight. Or, if I were lucky, they would gang up on John Rutter.

9. If the press doesn't stop talking about Aretha Franklin's hat and Michelle Obama's dress and Justice Roberts' tongue twister, I will personally declare war on someone just so they will have something else to report.

10. On TV, people sometimes refer to their sisters as "sis". Does anyone in real life actually DO that?

My First E-Solstice Letter!

Promoting reduced paper waste, reduced fuel emissions, and the laying off of American postal workers since 2008.

Hi, loved ones. Winter Solstice is a time of change, the promise of renewal – the original, organic resurrection story that we can witness ourselves every spring. Good times!

This is a year-end summary so you don't have to read all my blog postings for the last year (especially those I meant to make but never got around to). So forgive me if some of the photos are a repeat.

I hope you have all had a good 2008. Mine has been quite busy. I began the year quietly at my home in Sacramento, CA. However, work soon picked up and as usual I was whisked away to destinations both mundane and exotic, mild and severe. But, as usual, I can't tell you about those!

In other work-related news, in March my manager retired and returned to Japan, and my predecessor/mentor became my new supervisor. I am very happy with the new order.

I had discovered that a fellow Hanszenite, Sunil, was living in Oakland. In March I took the train down and visited him for lunch. It was good catching up.

After that I had a few hours to explore San Fran (penniless and on foot, quite an adventure). Some friendly tourists bought me a ticket to the top of Coit Tower, where I was able to see most of San Francisco and the bay. On the grueling hike down to the Embarcadero, I had a rare sighting (and hearing) of the famous Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill.

That evening, I was also able to visit my sister and her fiancé, who had moved to a beachfront apartment in nearby Alameda (no, he's not closer to the camera, he just really is that much taller than we are).

In April Mom and Dad came out for an amazing trip with Carmalyn and me. It started with a sail in San Francisco Bay – it was beautiful seeing the Bay from a different angle but omigod it was so cold! We sailed under the Golden Gate and also the current and future Oakland-Bay bridges, and around Alcatraz Island.

However, that was just the beginning. After that, we went to Redwoods State and National Parks for some hiking. It was absolutely unbelievable. After a while our necks started to get sore from all the looking up, and I almost broke my ankle several times by not looking where I was going.

In May I discovered a town in the Sierras named Volcano, and decided I had to know what was the deal. When I visited, I discovered it is host to a cave named Black Chasm. So I took a tour – it turned out to be quite nice.

After that, I shamelessly threw a birthday party for myself. I canvassed the entire Fuel Cell Partnership with the invitation, and was lucky that everyone who came was someone I really liked. It made me very happy to be surrounded by friends.

Later that week, I was invited to go river rafting with my friend Jackie. This is a traditional Sacramento pastime, and I was glad to finally be participating. It was amazing to me that even though the air temperature was over 105 F, the water was so cold that when I jumped in, I couldn’t breathe. It was a good time.

During this month, Carmalyn got married on a cliff in Point Reyes National Seashore. So far, I like the guy. I think he'll do.

May was also a sad time because I was preparing to leave Sacramento. As I hinted in last year’s newsletter, I was being relocated to the Los Angeles area. I was looking forward to new opportunities in LA, but I was also sad to leave my friends and co-workers. Here I am with my colleagues Jared and Kaori at my farewell dinner.

The Big Move occurred at the end of June, which was mercifully not as hot as it typically is in Sacramento. My mother came out to help me and the cats make the transition more smoothly. However, things don’t always go smoothly. We’d planned to take scenic Hwy 101 down the coast, but a forest fire at Big Sur forced us to take a sizable detour on a somewhat-less-scenic route. We did, however, still have enough time to drop by San Simeon to take a tour of the famous Hearst Castle.

When we arrived in LA, we made sure to hit the beaches. Then we did what any engineer and science teacher would do: the La Brea Tar Pits!

After that was more moving – we were able to get into my new condo in San Pedro but were too exhausted to go out to see the Independence Day fireworks - instead we watched them from my bedroom window!

In July my dad was being granted a prestigious award in Chicago, so the whole family met up for the ceremony and celebration. The University hosted a cruise in his honor! I was glad that I could be there to see it.

At the beginning of August I flew back up to Oakland (couldn’t take the train anymore) for Carmalyn’s wedding reception, and met her friends and new in-laws.

At the end of August I went to England to visit my sister Paige. Mom and Dad came along, too. London, Brighton, Bath, Salisbury – we went from old, to older, to oldest, to unimaginably old! I was so amazed in Westminster Abbey, where they were burying kings and queens in the twelfth century, but then we went to Bath to see the ruins of the enormous temple the occupying Romans built around a hot spring before the Common Era. But nothing could beat Stonehenge, which was thousands of years old when the Romans first saw it! Sprinkled in with that were walks on the Brighton beach, a Shakespeare play at the Globe, tours of Royal palaces and noble castles, and a hilltop view of the English countryside. It was a great, great trip, made even better in the last days, when Paige and I were able to tour London with another Hanszenite and her husband, Sara and Dan.

For a few weeks after that, I settled into my new office in Torrance. But the quietude was short-lived, as always. In November, Carmalyn came down to visit for snorkeling, visiting the Long Beach Aquarium, and seeing the Getty Center. Then, just a few weeks later, my friend from Sacramento, Brian, visited and we took a tour of the city, at one point chasing down the best view of the Hollywood sign and finding it at the Griffith Park observatory.

This was followed the next day by a business trip to Detroit. After that, I took the short hop to Canton, Ohio to see my aunts and uncle and some cousins. For me, it was an early Thanksgiving get-together. I also took a tour of some of Canton’s tourist attractions and saw a 1928 Buster Keaton silent movie in an 82-year-old theater with original organ.

So as I said, it’s been pretty busy. But good. There have been many new challenges and also new opportunities. It’s been tiring, but hopefully the new year will give me renewed energy, as spring does to the natural world.

Ginger, Dusty and I say "Here’s to a wonderful new season and a great 2009!"

How did those get there?

On a night when I was actually not on a business trip, the smog cleared a little and I could see mountains from my porch! I didn't know they were there. How strange.

The view of the refinery, of course - day or night - is always superb...

Whirlwind

The new job and condo are going pretty well, but given the amount of time I'm going to be travelling the next few weeks and the cost of utilities, I'm being too cheap to install internet/cable until September and my e-mail/blog updating has suffered as a result. O, you anonymous friend of mine who may read this, there's so much I've wanted to tell you!

The condo is nice. I'll have to post photos soon. I call it "the oasis" since it is so lush and quiet. Sunday I finally made use of the pool (I'm trying to be on a health kick) and walked to do my errands at the nearby shopping centers on Western (still getting used to the hills!). I've done laundry in my washer/dryer and washed dishes in my dishwasher, which I think is the height of sophistication since for the last 3 years I've been doing the dishes by hand. The cats enjoy their evening porch time. The movers still haven't found my table legs or artwork, so I despair of ever seeing them again. It's quiet. Too quiet. I can't search for roommates until my traveling slows in September, and I've been lonely. My loneliness has been both eased and agitated by my experiences at work (you'll see why).

Work is work. I miss my old neighbor Jay-Rock, and am struggling in my relationship with my new neighbor Daddy Mac. As you my closest friends know, I have a problem developing infatuations with extraordinarily good-looking and ridiculously out-of-my-league young men, even those necessarily interdit due to the fact that I work with them in some capacity. At the State Penn it was Crazy Jim, in Sacramento it was the Allegetarian. Here it is no different. I call him TasteeBoy (on my blog, of course - in real life I call him by his name). I met him on a business trip earlier in the year, so when I arrived in LA I claimed our slight acquaintance as an excuse why he had to be the one to help me meet the others in the office (clever, no? Serves the dual purpose of letting me meet people while having an excuse to spend time with him). He performed admirably, inviting me to an after-work outing where I met quite a few co-workers, made sure I wasn't ignored, and at the end of the evening even claimed to have enjoyed my company. I spent a large part of the evening thinking "dammit, Andrea, say something clever and funny and interesting", but nothing came. I was an absolute dud. But I did have a good time. Now in the office, I'm trying desperately to be cool, accessible but not clingy. I'm old enough and can read people well enough not to entertain fantasies. But I think we all know my success rate with not making a spectacular ass out of myself in front of guys like TasteeBoy.

The weekend before last I met my family in Chicago. My father had won a teaching award, and his ceremony and celebration were scheduled for this conference. My sisters were both coming, and since I had spent the week before in nearby Detroit anyway, my attendance was declared mandatory. It was a singular experience. Don't get me wrong, I'm really glad I went. The dean introduced him with a 20-minute speech, and he gave another speech and answered questions about the future of pharmacological education. The moderator handed him a trophy that wasn't attached to the base, and it fell and the glass broke. People I hadn't seen since I was a child, and most I hadn't seen at all, were forming a line to tell us how much they loved our dad. That evening, UK chartered a cruise from Navy Pier in order to throw a party in his honor. One of the professors told a story about how, in 1987, another faculty member had accidentally driven Dad's BRAND new Volvo into a lake. The guests were crying on themselves they were laughing so hard, but at my table we girls sat silently aghast. That story had been taboo in our family for 20 years! Seeing it told in such excruciating detail (half of it I'd never even heard) was really strange, but Dad didn't seem to mind. After we saw how relaxed he was, we let it go too. Also, I'm getting old. I must have taken a bad step or something and developed a wicked pain in my hip. I was hobbling all over Chicago and requiring my family to take cabs for the rest of the weekend! Mom and Paige used it as an excuse to berate me on my excercise habits. Mom and Carmalyn insisted I check in for spinal cortisone shots and physical therapy when I got back home. Mom asked me to put ice on my back as soon as she saw me open my eyes in the morning and every five minutes after that until 20 minutes after I'd fallen asleep (yeah, you read it right). I was absolutely miserable, as much from the pestering as from the pain. But luckily it subsided when I got back, and I haven't had a problem with it since (crosses fingers).

Today was my first earthquake in California (2nd ever). We were in a meeting in Gardena and I heard/felt what seemed like loud stomping in the hall. Just when I was wondering who the jerk was, the building started swaying, very slowly and gently, back and forth. We stopped the meeting and stared at each other: is this an earthquake? After about 10 seconds we consensed that it was, but continued to stare. So I asked "shouldn't we get under the tables or something?". People laughed. Another few seconds passed, and the quaking stopped. Finally, someone (ironically not the manager) insisted that we evacuate in case of aftershocks. So I led the way out the door and into the assembly area in the parting lot. Everyone immediately got out their cell phones to call their wives, parents, kids, etc., but all the networks were already full. I sat silently on the curb - I didn't have anyone to call. Cliff looked at Dom and said "What do you think, was that about a 6.0?" A minute later, a guy who had finally gotten a hold of his wife, and whose wife had gotten on the internet, announced "It was a 5.8". Those Geological Survey guys really move fast! As we began wondering what to do, the security guard came by and declared "All Clear" so we could re-enter the building. By this time it was lunch hour and the manager had declared the meeting over, so we got in the car to drive back to Torrance. As we were leaving the parking lot, I got simultaneous phone calls from Jay-Rock and Big Dog with the same message: How did you like your first earthquake in SoCal? Someone was thinking of me after all!

Finally, I have to thank Britton for turning me onto: Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog
This is the latest installment from the incomparable Joss Whedon.