Catching Up

I know, I know, I'm not keeping up on posting... But yesterday was one of those days that was spent running around in a tizzy, not spending enough time at my desk to accomplish any work, let alone write here.

So, having explained my absence, let me recap the past few days:

Friday I left straight from work with my mom and my son to head up to her cabin for the weekend. We stopped in Davis to pick up my sister, and grab dinner, and didn't end up getting to the cabin until about midnight.

Why did it take so long? Well, let me give you an idea of just how out in the middle of BFE this place is. From Berkeley, you have to drive an hour and a half to Sacramento. From Sac, another 45 min to Marysville. From Marysville, its another hour and a half North East, past Plumas National Forest, before you get to a teeeeeeeny tiny little village (a general store with a bar in it, an RV park, and a post office -- population? Under 200) called Clipper Mills. On the outskirts of Clipper Mills, you go off the paved road for a good 2 to 3 miles before you end up on the 7.1 acres of undeveloped forest my mom and her husband own.

When I say undeveloped, I mean just that. There is NO electricity and NO running water. There is a cabin, of sorts (which I'll describe in a minute), and an outhouse.

The "cabin" is actually kind of cool. It was originally a 20ft metal shipping container (like the ones you see on trains) and has been outfitted with a door and windows. My mom's husband sided the thing with cedar, and built a loft onto it... It actually looks pretty good. They put in a wood burning stove, and a propane range/oven, and furnished the place pretty simply. Its cozy... althought, to be honest, I would have been happier in a tent... But that's mainly because Mom stuck me up in the loft to sleep, and not only am I deathly afraid of heights, but the ladder to get up there was murder on my knees. In fact, I ended up wrenching my knee climbing the cursed thing, and spent the entire weekend in wicked amounts of pain. I refused to be deterred from hiking at least a little bit, but ooooooh am I still paying for it! OW!

The outhouse, and I know this next bit is going to sound odd, was cool too. See, they built the thing way up this hill, away from the cabin, facing out over this wonderful vista. And because its so far up, you can leave the door wide open, and enjoy the view while you do your thing. Weird, I know, but... Hey, when have I ever claimed to be normal? There was also a little mouse who'd taken up residence in the thing. He was remarkably civilized for a mountain mouse; leaving his droppings in the urinal thingy, and clawing up the TP as if attempting to get a piece small enough for his little butt... My mom didn't appreciate the humor in it, but my sister and I got quite a laugh.

Lessee... Other memorable moments...

My mom scared my son while hiking by telling him to be careful of rattle snakes. So, the poor kid spent the entire hike asking if any rattlers were around, and then asking if there were cobras too (because, you know, if there is one deadly snake around, there must be more... right?). And we could not convince him that there wasnt anything to worry about.

My sister and I were watching a humming bird that sounded like a Harley and had a red patch on its throat, and I turned to my sis and said "Look! Even the birds up here are rednecks!" (damn I'm funny).

On the drive up, Mom and I had my son singing along with The Beatles "Hey Jude," "Yellow Submarine," and "Octopusses Garden." My kid has some seriously good taste in music. I wonder where he gets that from? *wink wink*

I had rather disturbing dreams while crammed up in that loft... I kept dreaming that I couldn't breathe. Not that someone was suffocating me, or choking me, or anything like that. Just that I couldn't breathe. And I kept waking up gasping for air. Weird shit man. Weird shit.

Oh yeah... And I made quite the fool of myself several times by shrieking when crickets jumped at me unexpectedly. In my defense, I have huge phobias of a variety of bugs (not crickets mind you), and have huge issues with things jumping at, or being thrown at, my face. So the combination of "unknown bug," "thing in my face," and "surprise" was overwhelming enough to make me scream like a girl. And no, I am not a girl. I am a woman, thank you very much, and should scream accordingly!

By the time I got home Sunday, I was desperate for some non-familial adult interaction *ahem* with which I was enthusiastically provided *blush, cough cough*

You know... There's something about having someone to fall asleep, and wake up, next to that is amazingly pleasant. Especially when its someone you really, really like a lot. *grin*

Okay... Where was I? Right, lost in sappy romantic day dream land. *shakes head vigorously* Thats enough of that! On to Monday!

Monday was easily one of the most hectic days I've ever had. First thing in the morning I was asked to serve as union representation for my department in a barganing session about this stupid re structuring thing. That afternoon. I agreed of course. I mean, what was I going to say? "No thanks, I don't give a shit about my job at all," or "Nah, thats okay, no one needs to hear the staff's side of the story"?? Riiiiiiight. So I spent all the rest of my morning (an hour or so after all was said and done) trying my best to prepare for this impromtu obligation.

The meeting was weird. I mean, this is the first one of these things that I've ever been to, and I felt entirely out of place, seeing as I was in jeans and a tank top (as usual), and everyone else was much more formally dressed. I was also the youngest person in the room by a good decade or so. The thing that was the strangest though, was that people actually listened to what I had to say. I mean, truly listened. They were even TAKING NOTES while I was talking! I'm used to my concerns and opinions being automatically dismissed because I'm "young and inexperienced." I am NOT used to being taken seriously.

Immediately after the meeting, I had to dash all the way back up the hill to make an optometrist appointment at the optometry school here... which they ended up taking me an hour late for... *grumble grumble* Cool thing though, I got one of the strangest compliments ever, during that appointment. After they dilated my pupils, and the student clinician had done her thing, the attending doctor came in and had his look. While he was using some arcane apparatus to blind me (temporarily), he says to the student: "Wow! What did you rate these?" The student says: "4 plus" Then the doctor explains to me that they have a scale to rate the size of dilated pupils, and that on that scale of 1 to 4, I'm about a 6. Then he went on talking to the student (still blinding me) saying things like: "that's textbook!" and "these are amazingly healthy!", all in a tone of voice that made it sound like my eyes were the greatest things since sliced bread. So yeah, I have textbook retinas, my eyes (despite having myopic astigmatism) are amazingly healthy, and dilate off the scale by half. Yay me.

And the day's not over yet!

When I finally got home (after picking out some very cool new glasses), I immediately jumped into a 2 hour explanation of various accounting concepts, and totally fried my brain. I didn't mind though -- helping out someone I care about is always, in my opinion, worth my time and effort *smile*

Wow, have I been busy or what?

Probably won't post tomorrow... have to actually work for once... but yeah... *sigh* oh well.