New Year's Eve Eve

Well here we are on the eve of the eve of another holiday. Rather, a so-called holiday, I don't really celebrate New Year's, usually. Probably won't this year either. At least not in any way to distinguish it from any other night of the week. But I'm sure, despite the fact that the world doesn't magically change with the turning of the calendar page, everyone will be happy to see this sorry excuse of a year put to rest. Remember how it started? Full of hope and promise? Neither do I. But it did, it did.

It's been a ridiculous ride.

But to pretend for a moment that I've spent this week celebrating the approach of the end of the year, I will note that I took another trip to San Francisco this past Sunday. Did a walk around the city, stopping at Amoeba Records to shop for CD's, and a New York style pizza joint for lunch, the Disney Store to buy some Christmas ornaments at half price, and finishing with a stroll down the Embarcadero. That's not an unusual trip for me, but we can pretend it was to honor the end of 2020. Why not?

The other night I took a stroll as the sun was setting to our local Starbucks for some hot cocoa. I've done a lot of walking to a lot of Starbucks this year, in-between all of the hours I spent not working or somewhat working from home. What a wild ride!

The sunset was nice at least, as clouds had been passing through the area, offering a nice canvas to reflect and define the rays of light as the colors slid from orange to pink to blue and violet, with every shade in between. And then, darkness. I actually started out a little late, so it was dark well before I made it to my cocoa destination.

But I made it to the Natomas Crossing Starbucks, one of three within reasonable walking distance of my home base apartment. And honestly it's the nicest and friendliest one in the area. They also make their cocoa somehow taste better. More...chocolatey. As if they added, well, more chocolate. In any case, I think I'll need to go to this one more often. That almost sounds like a resolution...but it's not. Just a promise to myself to acquire the best cocoa possible.

And tomorrow is New Year's Eve, and to treat myself and celebrate the fact that I survived this year relatively unscathed, I'm taking a little road trip up the hill to the Auburn area to explore some new hiking areas. New to me, that is. This one should be a 6.5 mile loop trail around Sugar Pine Peak, assuming I can find it okay. Adventure!

And that will round out 2020. I might watch a movie on Disney Plus tomorrow night, make some popcorn, drink some alcohol. I did in fact buy some Mike's Hard Strawberry Lemonade. Party on! That's about as much partying as I do on New Year's. Or any other day, really. Wild man! On Friday morning we will all awake into a new year, with new dreams and new possibilities, steeped in the reality that it's really not much different than the day before. Or the day before that. Or the day before that. And so on. 

Happy New Year! Or whatever. 

Twas the Night Before the Night Before Christmas

Well here we are, on Christmas Eve Eve. We made it nearly to the end of 2020. Only one more week of this train wreck left to go! Of course, the world doesn't magically regenerate ands reset just because we flip over a page in our calendar book. Does anyone even keep a calendar book anymore? It must be pretty empty, these days. And so it goes.

Tonight though, I took Connor to go see some Christmas lights in North Natomas, in a display that rivals the famed Fab 40's. It was quite nice, if not bitterly cold, and the neighbors out there really go all out for the holidays. 

It was an arranged outing actually, to meet up with his little girlfriend from school and recreate their holiday light trip from last year. That trip happened by random dumb luck, and was actually in the Fab 40's. But who can trust to luck on such things now? If we could, we probably wouldn't be wearing masks today.

This is actually probably one of the few photos I've taken of Connor with a mask on this year. Usually we're not around other folks, and don't don these atrocious pieces of fabric. I'm just glad I could get him centered on the camera screen, as I can't wear my glasses while wearing a mask. Well, I can wear them for about 10 seconds before they fog up.

But tomorrow is Christmas Eve, and then on to Christmas. I suddenly have found out that I will actually have Connor on Christmas Eve and Christmas morning, so tomorrow I get to go in to "work" and find a gift from Santa. Oh, the trials of single parenthood. I wonder...are stores insanely crowded on Christmas Eve? Will they be crowded this year?? Well, after tomorrow I will know. I'm sure it will be fairly ridiculous out there. Technically we're still under a "stay at home" order due to Covid right now...but in reality it doesn't seem like people are paying much attention to that. Not like they did in March anyway. But that was a long time ago, and folks' patience has run thin it seems. 

Anyways, I will brave the crowds - or maybe lack thereof - tomorrow morning, as early as I can manage, and hopefully be in and out in a jiffy. I'm not entirely sure what to pick up for him. Though tonight he did tell me that I had to get him a Rubik's cube. But that's only because he happened to watch a YouTube video of people setting world records by solving them in 3.8 seconds. So now he thinks he can do that, too.  He's so impressionable! 

But who knows what still remains on the shelves right now, which honestly were already somewhat depleted from Covid. It might be like the mad dash at Walmart on the day after Thanksgiving for whatever gimmicky high priced item was being offered at a slight discount off of the MSRP. 

Pray for me, those of you who are so inclined.

Also today, we made cookies. Sugar cookies. With sparkly sprinkly decorations. It was actually the second year in a row I've done homemade decorated cookies with Connor. I suppose that's a new tradition of ours. It isn't easy, in an apartment with a kitchen the size of this one. Next year will be better. 

And next year, I'll do lights and perhaps some other exterior decor for the holidays. And not just because I was inspired by the extravagance on display tonight. But even the lesser-decorated homes outside of the magic neighborhood had some really cool looking displays.  So, if we survive Covid for another year, that's what I will do. 

And that's where things stand, more or less, on this the 2020 Night Before Night Before Christmas. And, well, to all a good night.

Bring It, Christmas

So here we are, on the eve of December, with fall in full swing. Leaves are falling, falling, and the ground becomes a canvas of oranges and reds and yellows. One of the few places that always demonstrates the changing of season in full grandeur is Sac State, a small forest of a campus. Which, now, is virtually abandoned. Again. We've been directed to forego our former plans of face to face education in the wake of the most recent surge of Covid-19. The worst surge yet, with numbers spiking far higher than they ever have. 

Sigh.

2020 has been such a train wreck. It started full of optimism and promise, as years so often do. The start of the 20s! Again! We barely made it half way through March and BAM! Our world, as we knew it, collapsed around us. Now it's clear that we are incapable of dealing with this pandemic. Our society just simply can't do it. Hopefully a vaccine will be just around the corner, as that's the only thing that will apparently stand a chance of getting up out of this mess.  And hopefully by then we won't have completely forgotten what "normal" was like.

And Christmas is just around the corner, and houses in the neighborhood are starting to sprout lights and statues and various baubles of the holiday season. Though, not that many. I went for a walk around the neighborhood this evening - and to be sure, there was some impressive displays of festivity - but it seems less than 10% of houses had decor. Well, it's still early, I suppose. I haven't put out anything myself, but I do still plan to erect my annual Disney-ornamented tree. So at least some things will be "normal" this season. 

And today, I did some Christmas shopping for my son, so that part of the holiday tradition is underway. I imagine this Christmas will be a challenge to many. I'm still not sure how it will be for me. I mean, in many ways I've been quite fortunate this year, despite the pandemic. I still get a paycheck at least, which means I can still pay rent, and other bills. Not everyone can say the same. This will be my first Christmas in many years spent in an apartment. Which brings its own challenges in getting inspired for the holidays. But it will hopefully be my last as well, which inspires hope. It's a superficial thing to be worried over, I know. But that doesn't make it less real.

And it occurred to me during my walk this night that in the last 25 years or so, I've lived at about 10 different places. That's an average of moving once every 2.5 years. And that's a lot, especially for someone who loathes change and moving in particular. Hard to build any sort of consistency of tradition, especially for the holidays, when your living arrangement varies so often. 

But it's okay, I will persevere. And next year, new traditions will begin. With any luck, pandemic free. And it will, with any luck, be the start of my longest tenure at any residence since the house I grew up in, back in North Highlands, over 40 years ago. And that one lasted all of what, 14 years or so?

But for now, it's nearly December, and we have to focus on this year's Christmas, laden with Covid restrictions and boarded up businesses and booming homeless populations.  And curfews and masks and social distancing.Oh my. I'm sure our society will survive, somehow, and be better in the end, someday. I mean we have to believe that, right? But for now, let's enjoy some well-deserved distraction. Bring on the Christmas season!

To Vote or Not To Vote

So, yesterday was election Tuesday in America, with Donald Trump running for re-election against Joe Biden. And even now, at 10am Pacific Time a day later, we still don't know who won. If we go with who currently has the lead in the states where it's still too close to call, Biden would win.  If we used that same logic last night, Trump would have won. As far as the popular vote goes, Biden is about 2.5 million votes in the lead.

Kind of looks like four years ago, except it's a bit closer of a race as far as electoral college votes go.

Four years ago, America elected someone whose sole qualification was that they were rich. They had no political experience, no military experience. Yet they were elected to the highest position in the land for both. It would be like me landing a job as the CEO of a pharmaceutical company. Crazy. Yet, amazingly, we survived. And he we are again, almost on the brink of repeating history. Well, at least he does have some political experience now.

I actually did vote, though it was back and forth there for awhile. Honestly, none of the candidates or issues really inspired me much. I should say none of the top candidates, since we are in effect only voting for the top two. And it saddens me that in this country, with all the potential candidates we have and all who were originally running before the primaries, that it's been whittled down to basically the two worst choices. Voting for the least objectionable candidate has become something of a motto around here.

Americans, for a long, long time, have been brainwashed to believe that only the top candidate from each of the top two parties has a chance of winning. And that's certainly true, as it now stands. Folks say that a vote for anyone else just "takes votes away" from these two candidates, and that you're throwing your vote away by not voting for one of them. But imagine if tens of millions of Americans decided to vote another way - any other way. That would certainly put a kink in the results. And even if it was not initially successful in getting someone else elected, perhaps it would turn the tide enough to convince this country that they can elect someone else. Of course, millions would have to eschew party lines for this to happen. But it could happen, it could.

Anyways, I wasn't really sure if I was going to actually vote until the morning of the election. I wasn't even really aware of what propositions or measures were on the ballot, save from the little info I could glean from the campaign signs plastered all over the city. But as is always the case, they offer no real details of substance.

So this year, I voted based simply on the little description of each item on the ballot. If it seemed reasonable, I voted yes. If it didn't, or if I was at least unsure, I voted no. Did my vote make any difference, sway any results? I seriously doubt it. 

I did no research, save for taking a quiz which asked your stance on various hot topics of the day, and then ran through all sorts of visually stimulating screen shots while it "calculated" my results to see which presidential candidate I was most in line with. And guess what? The winner, for me, was neither Biden nor Trump.

So I didn't vote for either of them.

As an aside, I would add that our political system is clearly broken. It is dysfunctional and corrupt, controlled only by money and special interests. Which is why our "top" two candidates are always the ones with the deepest pockets.  And the whole government seems locked in a never ending stalemate, on all of the most important issues.

Sigh. Maybe I shouldn't have bothered voting.

The Scientific Method

So the other day, some of the "adult" folks who play on the Minecraft server that my son and I play on noticed some of Connor's builds. Specifically, they noted the "redstone" creations he made - machines with pistons basically - which he frequently loves to invent. Some are quite elaborate, actually. All of them are above my head. 

One of the adults, who I suspect is secretly an engineer, is something of a master at the art of redstone mechanisms. I suspect her to be an engineer because, when she still proceeded under the assumption that Connor's builds were done by an adult, she gave little tips on how to improve them. She suggested he google "quasi connectivity" and continued on babbling about "rising monostable circuits".  That sounds like engineer speak to me. I laughed and laughed, and informed her that he couldn't likely even spell "google". He's only 6 after all. Well, almost 7.

After the shock among the general public of the server subsided, it was generally agreed upon that Connor was quite smart and quite advanced for his age.

I wasn't about to disagree. 

I will shamelessly and selfishly concede that he gets it from his father. After all, I used to be smart too! A nerd, if you will. I actually was awarded the Bank of America Award in Science in high school. I graduated in the top 10 in my class. Not the top 10 percent mind you, but the top 10 people. Granted, it was a relatively small high school graduating class. But still. I gave all that up, by and by, because...well, I suppose because I just wasn't inspired anymore. Maybe I was tired of it. I don't know.

In any case, the other night Connor fell asleep with tablet in hand as he was reading books about kitties on Epic. As the picture clearly illustrates. He's taken to reading more, which is a good thing. He was already pretty sharp in math. Today he was struggling a bit with double-digit addition. 24+13 and so on. He's only in First Grade after all. Meanwhile, in class, they slowly plod along working out the mental processes behind determining the answer to 5+1.

Science remains, at present, still a bit of mystery in the scope of his interests. Sometimes he asks lots of questions, like tonight in which I was interrogated about the phases of moon and their relation to the position and movement of the earth and sun.

I guess I need to brush up on my astronomy. Maybe I can find the paper I wrote in college on Seyfert Galaxies. Not that that would help much, but at least it would be in the right discipline.

Usually though, his thoughts are on more typical six-year-old topics. Farts, mostly. His inquisitive mind came up yesterday with this delightful mind twister: does the smell from farts follow you? Well. I don't know about that. They sure seem to. Sometimes.

I suppose I should have applied the scientific method on this one. Would have been a good way to exercise my mind again, after all these years. The problem was as stated. The background research...I imagine would be difficult. I don't imagine there's been lots of scholarly work done on flatulence. Excepting of course in the case of cows and methane production. The hypothesis is as simple as: Yes. Yes it does. As far as experimentation and recording and analyzing data...well, does anyone really want to go into that much detail on this topic?

I think perhaps this should be left to Connor to figure out. Or maybe such scientific dealings can wait until he's a little older...and picks a slightly more appropriate topic. We didn't get that far on this question, unfortunately, as he suddenly had a "loosy goosy" toot, and our attention was directed elsewhere. On second thought, maybe that was his Step 4 in action. He was attempting experimentation in order to prove his hypothesis and find an answer to his problem.

I guess he tried too hard. So much for The Scientific Method.

Perspective

I made a reference yesterday to watching a live OMD concert on YouTube, and how those guys were "old" now. I guess in my mind I still see them the way I saw them in my youth, when they were in their 20s and I was a little kid still in single digits. They seemed grown up, and I suppose event then they were "old" in comparison to me. And my mind's eye still visualizes them looking just like that today.

But they're not. They're old. Relatively speaking, of course. Everything is relative in regards to age, which is simply a function of the passage of time. And boy, a lot of time has passed. But I have to say, they've still got it. And oddly enough, they still sound vert much like they did...40 years ago. And what a life they must have had! Pop icons decades ago, to a different generation. Making music ever since, and still going strong with their own cult following. 

When I first started at Sac State, as a bright-eyed and bushy-tailed freshman of 18 years, I would occasionally hear some of the "older" professors mention how they had been teaching there since the early 70s. To which I replied of course that I was not even born yet. Imagine that! That was back in the fall of 1993, to put a number on it. And now of course, today's freshmen were born around 2002 or so. I can now say to them that I've been working there since 1999, since the last century. And they can tell me that they weren't even born yet. The tables have turned! Now I'm the "old" one. 

Funny, I don't see myself as particularly old. But I am, I am. Relatively speaking of course. I certainly don't see myself as being as old now as those professors were in 1993. But you can tell I'm old. You can tell by all the grey hair. The hair that I still pretend is a lovely golden brown. And it is, in my imagination. And when did this happen? When did I get old? And where did all these years of youthfulness go??

So much happens in the passage of time. Yet looking back on it, it seems like it passed in the blink of an eye. Thank goodness for digital photography, so we now have mounds of photos at our fingertips to prove that we actually did stuff. That we existed. 

And I'm reminded now of my mathematical calculations, that have informed me that I will be 57 when my son graduates high school. 57! It's just a number, of course. But why is it such a high number! I could almost cry. 

I hope people at the ceremony don't assume that I'm his grandfather.

Well, I suppose in the grand scheme of things I'm just somewhere in the middle of it all. There's people younger out there. There's older people out there. They're all comparing themselves to others, who to them are "young" or "old". And, like me, they probably all see themselves as some other number than what the passage of time tells. I'll just go with what my gut tells me. With what I feel I am.

I'm 27. Why not? It's just a matter of perspective.

Rambling

Today, on my kidless Saturday, I took another voyage through nature. But no, not to San Francisco. Not even in a westward direction. I actually went...east. I found myself exploring the Auburn State Recreation Area, a popular place apparently, which I have never explored before.

So I explored it.

It's a beautiful area partway up into the Sierra Nevada mountains and along the quarries of the north fork of the American River. In Auburn. Just like the name says. And despite the water level being fairly low at this time of year, it was a beautiful if not dusty place to explore. And it had been awhile since I did some hiking through forested areas.

It's cold up there, at 8am, when the sun hasn't quite crested the topmost ridge of the surrounding mountains. My fingers were numb as I clumsily attempted taking my first photos of the day with my phone. But I persevered, and as the sun rose higher in the sky it got pleasantly warm. Just shy of being hot, actually. A pretty perfect day, as weather goes.

The trails meander through the wooded areas and along the cliffs overlooking and along the river bank. Up and down they go, though most of them are relatively flat. But some have some really sharp inclines. I won't say that at one point I stumbled on a protruding rock on one of them and fell down. But, well, I...might have done that. 

Anyhoo, after 7 miles or so of wandering through the dusty trails and trying desperately to avoid stepping on horse poop while tracking my progress on the All Trails app to make sure I didn't get lost, I sat down for a little picnic lunch back near the ranger's hut. I think they call it a park headquarters of sorts. But it's the place where you pay $10 for the right to park alongside the edge of the highway. Good thing too, because the only other option was to self-pay in the little envelopes and drop it in the metal drop box. And I didn't have exact change. Or my checkbook. Seriously, does anyone carry a checkbook around anymore?

I remember in high school when I got my first checkbook. Such a thrill! And it became its own math assignment as I tried to do the necessary amount of accounting required to make sure I didn't run out of money by the end of the month, Ah, those were the days. Before debit cards and phone apps and the ability to pay by just getting your plastic card close enough to the terminal. And frankly, the checkbook was almost never kept up to date, through sheer laziness mostly, nor was it done with mathematical precision, so no one ever knew how much money they had. Spoiler alert: we were all broke.

Anyways, it was a pleasant trip today, shared with a plethora of other hikers, joggers, bike riders, dog walkers, and so on. There was fortunately not quite as many people as I imagined there might be, from the description of the area as "heavily-trafficked" on the All Trails app. Or perhaps it's just that there's so much space and trails all over the place that they're spread out a bit. In any case, it was nice up there and even relatively secluded at times. 

I remember where I learned the meaning of the word "plethora". It was from the movie "The Three Amigos". What a great little comedy, with Chevy Chase, Martin Short, and Steve Martin. Though in the movie we learn the word from the bad guy, the infamous El Guapo. But I see I'm rambling. 

So it's 9pm right now on Saturday eve, the eve of getting my son back. I walked to the grocery store an hour and a half ago, and bought some pumpkin-shaped and colored sugar cookies. Because Connor wanted them last week when we walked there looking for an electric tea light candle for his jack-o-lantern. For Jerry, as he has named him. We didn't find a light, either at the generic dollar store or the supermarket. Nor did I buy the cookies then, because, frankly, I didn't want to wait in line. Selfish, I know. But now he has his cookies, ready and waiting for his arrival. Won't he be surprised?

Pro-tip: The real Dollar Tree has those electric lights. 

Boy, I'm rambling again. I must be tired. I am, I am. Well, off to bed then to recharge.

Oh and also: I put up some Halloween decorations, including two new hanging shrouded skeleton things, which frankly look really cool out on the porch with their black fabric cloaks rustling in the breeze. I got them at the Halloween Superstore, the one with the giant inflatable pumpkins on top of their buildings. They were BOGOHO, or Buy One Get One Half Off. We went there initially to get Connor the one thing he told me he wanted for his birthday when I asked him: a scythe. Like one used by the Grim Reaper. I mean, yeah, his birthday is on Halloween, but what a random thing to ask for for your birthday.

Dang it, rambling again. Did I mention I watched the last half of the live OMD concert on YouTube today? They've still go it, but when did they get so old?? OK, I'll stop...

Bang Bang Went the Guns

Today was an adventure day, marking the end of yet another week. It seems like Monday was only yesterday; the days just seem to fly by and I don't seem to have much to show for it. And tomorrow Connor returns home.

But today I headed out on what initially appeared to be one of my regular treks to the Bay Area. But this time, I pulled up the map on my iPhone and picked a spot of green to visit, just 20 miles shy of San Francisco as it turns out. And thus I found Point Pinole, an area I had never been to before, just past an industrial area of mammoth warehouse distribution centers belonging to UPS and Amazon.

The area boasts a vast and mostly flat shoreline overlooking the San Pablo Bay, just north of the Richmond Bridge, and further south, the Bay Bridge. With wide gravelly trails running along both shoreline and groups of eucalyptus trees, it's a pretty nice area to get out and stretch your legs, and enjoy some fresh air. And fortunately, despite the recent historic fires, the air was clear and cool, with layers of cloud cover and a gentle breeze blowing in over the water.

And lots of gun shots. I...think there's a gun range near there. Or else there was a massive shootout at the San Quentin prison. I any case, I came out of the experience unscathed. But the noise sure got annoying after awhile. Bang bang bang. And so on. Over and over and over again. It's hard to understand people's fascination with guns, it really is. I know, I know, don't knock it till you try it, as they say.

Perhaps it was fitting however, as the area was apparently once used as production zone for black powder, the precursor to dynamite, and the eucalyptus groves were apparently planted as a sound buffer for planned explosions. I don't imagine they actually provided much of a buffer, but apparently a hundred years ago not many people lived around that area anyway. But there's still a few historic relics left on the grounds, including a giant black powder crusher under a wooden framed tent. It's nice to see history, left behind by people who came long before. I supplemented this by finishing the book I was reading, The Revenant, which is a piece of historical fiction set in the mid-19th century midwest during the heyday of the fur trade business. Not to mention dangerous encounters with a variety of Native American tribes. And it is in fact based on actual historical events. People who lived and struggled long ago, and slowly carved out the framework of what this nation would eventually become. But I digress.

In any case, it was a pleasant day out of town, and quite a bit shorter than I usually spend when I traipse out all the way to Fort Mason. And I got home early enough to go pull some Halloween decor from my storage unit, so my apartment is at least a little festive now. It's hard for me to get inspired to decorate when it doesn't feel like a real home, not really. Nor do I want to start nesting here. Next year I'll be in my new place, so that will be more of a holiday-decorating time. But for now, anyway, there's a few things up.

Maybe...I'll put some more up. Or at least get some pumpkins. Connor would like that.

Well soon it will be bedtime, my last night of freedom before Connor reclaims the attention of my daily schedule. And hopefully I won't have dreams tonight featuring a multitude of guns going off.  Bang bang, and so on. Sigh. Guns.

Walking Around

So now, as I'm rounding out the third week of my new apartment life in South Natomas, I've had some time to really walk around a bit and explore the area. Jefferson Park, not three-quarters of a mile from my place, borders this nice little bike trail which meanders through old growth oak trees as it cuts a path through cute little neighborhoods of 1980s era homes. Or, more likely, the houses encroached upon the wooded area, whittling it down and leaving just a strip of woods which pass through like a winding little river. But it's a nice trail, with several little spurs providing access to different neighborhoods. 

The main path passes by what I can only assume must be the original farmhouse of the area, complete with a fully functional windmill at its side. The windmill looks as if someone once tried to convert it to a garage, but never quite finished. The old wood exterior is surrounded in thin wood scaffolding, apparently some homemade fixture by someone who once fancied that they would restore the windmill to its formal glory, but never got around to it. The whole place seems stuck in time, and stuck in the middle of the path and surrounding subdivisions.

Zillow says the house has 5 bedrooms and 2 baths, and just shy of 3000 square feet, and was built in 1920. It's 100 years old this year. Imagine that! Imagine what it would have looked like, the home and the surrounding area, 100 years ago. The Roaring 20's, as it came to be know. A far cry from today's time.

But aside from this trail, I've explored the other park and the Sonora Springs subdivision and the FoodMaxx shopping center. I actually went to the little generic dollar store this evening. Bought an RC cola. Not a typo. RC. Blast from the past! I also, on Sunday, walked all the way to the El Camino shopping center with the Bel Air and stopped at the Taco Bell for lunch. Which I subsequently ate while sitting on a curb next to a bank. Because, no indoor dining. Sigh.

But the area around here is somewhat pleasant, after all, helped to a great extent by all of the large old trees surrounding the area. And the apartments, albeit old, have been renovated and kept up somewhat well, and I am fortunately bordered by neighbors who are not particularly loud. I actually haven't even seen a lot of them, much less met them. I see their garbage strewn out all around the dumpster, so I know they exist. And as if to solidify that point, the building tends to shake whenever anyone anywhere closes a door or walks across a room, and the pipes are incredibly loud whenever someone turns on their bath or shower. So I know the neighbors exist, at least. But hey, it's an old building. Older than me, I think. 

I'll probably only be here till March however, as plans are in the works for something new. Really new. Like, currently just a plot of dirt new. More on that later...

For now, I'll just bide my time by walking around and enjoying the lovely trees and, at least for now, the  fresh air - since the smoke from recent fires has cleared. It's a transition, as I believe I said before, and transitions mean changes must be in the future. And they are.

Day 4

So, it's Wednesday, and the 4th day in my new apartment. The cats have finally settled in; at least they're not hiding in the closet anymore, so that's a bonus. It's been something of an adventure in downsizing, after being used to a large house for so many years. I...got rid of lots of stuff. And I still have...lots of stuff. Most of which is in a 10x10 storage unit at a secret undisclosed location. Actually it's at Public Storage, 

The move was, as moves tend to be, an exhausting and unpleasant experience. It was compounded by the fact that the weather decided to throw temperatures at us approaching 110 degrees. Just for the two days I was moving. Someone up there doesn't like me, or at least has a poor sense of humor at my expense. Fortunately my brother and his wife and middle child helped with the moving experience, which was invaluable in making it just a little more bearable. Thank goodness for family! I might have died otherwise. In any case, we were able to do small stuff on the first day and large stuff on the second, both days finishing before noon. So the move has been about as smooth as can be expected, I suppose.

So today I'm working from home, as we're still limited to 20 hours per week onsite at Sac State. I also managed to sneak in a haircut today. You sure take little things like haircuts for granted when they're forcibly closed due to a raging pandemic. But, thank goodness, the hair salons reopened last week. And just like it was the last time they reopened after being forcibly closed, the wait time wasn't too bad. If you got there right when they opened. On a weekday. Wait till the afternoon and you'd likely see 2-3 hour waits, if they were even still taking names. It's almost noon now, and they're showing an 85-minute wait online.

So I'm at home, as I mentioned, currently having my brain rattled around by the obnoxiously loud leaf blower outside. Churning up all the pine needles, garbage, and ash that litter the parking lot. Yes, California is still on fire. We can't catch a break! So there's ash, ash, ash everywhere. Hopefully it's not all blowing on my car. One of the biggest things I already miss from my house is having a garage.

This new area is not so bad, actually. It's a ten-minute walk to two different (and nice) parks, one of which boarders the bike trail that runs from San Juan to Garden Highway, and Discovery Park. At least I think it goes that far. Guess I'll have to take my bike and go find out. If it hasn't been stolen from my balcony. It will be nice to explore a new area though. An adventure. I keep telling myself that, to look for a positive in this whole downsizing situation. In a few months, perhaps, I'll start looking to see what I might be able to afford in terms of a home purchase. This place is just a transition, after all. Or that's the idea, the grand plan, anyway, 

So, Day 4. Yeah. And life goes on.

Are We Having Fun Yet?

No. No we are not.

I could have ended this post right there. I'm pretty sure everyone would get it. And they'd agree. But for posterity's sake, or to remind me decades from now when I'm partially senile and reliving my "youth" through this blog, I'll elaborate. 

This year has been. Just awful. People were looking forward to this year for quite some time. The return of the 20's! A century ago it was synonymous with good times, economic prosperity, and cultural growth and enlightenment. And now? Covid-19, race riots, and fires. Oh my. At least, today, the smoke has cleared from the air here in the valley, and we can breathe again.

Also, I'm moving this weekend. And it 's supposed to be over 105 degrees. Sigh. Can't catch a break.

Meanwhile, public school has just about finished its third week and Sac State has just about finished its first. All online. Or mostly online, in the case of Sac State. But these poor kids in grade school! Online schooling is simply not an effective way to teach. I mean, I have to applaud the teachers who are clearly working very hard to make the best of a miserable situation. But teaching 20 or more kids online...it just doesn't work. The pacing is taken way down due to the myriad of problems with the technology, the students are incredibly distracted by whatever environment they happen to be in, and they don't get the instant feedback that they would in an actual classroom; nor can the teacher really see how they are doing on their assignments. At least, not in real time anyway. But taking a picture of your daily work and submitting it online after the fact just isn't the same. 

But the teachers are trying The kids are trying. The parents are trying. And everyone, I think, is exhausted. I know I am. I'm ready for this year to be over. At least it's already September. Life has been shut down since March,. Nearly half a year, gone. Maybe we can get a do-over, Wouldn't that be nice?

Meanwhile, at Sac State, the staff is limited to 20 hours in house per week. To be honest it's been somewhat helpful in having to work around Connor's school schedule.  And it's...dead there. Usually the first week is bustling with activity. This week I think I've seen maybe 8 students. All week. It will probably pick up a little, and of course it will be busy when we start doing "concerts". With no audiences. But this is not the experience anyone signed up - and paid - for.

Can we get back to normal soon? That's what we're all wishing, I suspect. I can't keep writing anymore about this now; it's late, I'm tired, and my laundry has just finished running. Fun. 

Good Lord It's Hot

Today is one of those days that reinforces the notion within me that I must someday end up somewhere where the weather is more temperate. It's hot. Like, really hot. The kind of hot where you don't want to stand too long in one spot outside, for fear that the soles of your shoes will melt right there on the spot. 

Okay, maybe I exaggerate. Slightly. But we are in a heat wave mode this week, with temperatures all week slated to be well into the triple-digits. It's so hot that even the pan handlers over by Taco Bell took the day off and stayed home. Not that I went to Taco Bell this evening...I went to In and Out.

But after 8pm, when the temperature had cooled down to just 102 degrees, I went for my evening walk. It never feels quite as hot once the sun has fallen below the horizon, when it no longer beats at your brow. So it was not so bad at that hour. The sky in its infinite wisdom took no notice of the temperature; the sunset was as marvelous as ever, with a canvas ranging from pale orange to dark orange, from pale blue to midnight blue, all blurred together in gradients of color. The clouds, what clouds there were, were but little blotches of shadow and lavender. It was nice. Pretty.

I'd still rather be somewhere cooler.

Meanwhile, "school" starts on Monday for Connor. It's not much like school, as he'll be at home, likely on the couch, staring at his school-issued iPad. It wasn't long ago that experts warned of too much screen time being harmful to our youth. And now screen time is mandated. Honestly I'm not sure how it's going to work, especially when I actually return to the office for work. He's going to have to learn real quick to work independently and stay focused. So much for being a kid. 

And in other news, my house has sold, or at least an offer has been accepted. The search for somewhere new to live continues, as there's just not much out there that fits my meter needs and is in a price range I qualify for on a single parent household income. Wherever I need up, it will definitely be no where as nice as where I've been for the past 7 years. Really, it won't be anywhere as nice as anywhere I've lived for the past 13 years. But I will persevere, and life will go on, and someday I'm sure I'll be back on top again.

Hopefully somewhere where it's cooler than here.

Today

Today I'm out sitting along the shore in Benicia, just watching and listening to the waves lap at the shoreline filled with tiny little pebbles of varying colors. I didn't know when I got up this morning where I'd end up. I knew I wanted to get out of town a little bit, preferably somewhere cooler than Sacramento has been. Usually my go-to place is San Francisco of course, and I almost did that again. But along the way I got sidetracked to the Benecia State Recreation Area.

Well, It means about an hour less of driving than if I had gone all the way to San Francisco. So, there's that little bonus.

I had actually been here a couple times before, albeit briefly. It was a chance find when I was playing a musical at a nearby high school. I came early for my show just so I could look around a little. But I didn't have enough time to have a real chance to explore it. Today I corrected that oversight. And now after walking about 7 miles and having a picnic lunch, I'm just sitting and enjoying the sounds of the waves and the nice refreshing breeze. Just a little bit of paradise.

It's the last day of July. Tomorrow, August is here. Connor will start 1st grade in August, although with distance learning. Somehow. I will undoubtedly return to work at some point, after a long hiatus. I'll likely have Connor with me, since he can't very well stay home. I'll probably end up moving from my house, assuming the house sells. Not sure to where. The realtor thinks there will be lots of interest and that it will sell quickly. Lots of change on the horizon. Change change change.

I never cared much for change. But it's an inevitability of life, I suppose.

But today is just...today. Simple. Peaceful. Relaxing. Ordinary. Tomorrow will be a new day.

Time Capsule

So today I went back in to work for a bit. Like, actually on campus. Being back after all this time was a little surreal. But it looked just like we left it, way back at the end of March. Stuck in time, advertising upcoming concerts and with ads on the board still posted, just as they were. It's like the whole campus was stuck in a time capsule, just waiting to be reopened and rediscovered. I wasn't there too long. Just taking care of some business which required live signatures and a live presence to push some buttons on the lighting controls. It seems they needed to be rebooted after all this time, sitting dormant. 

This is the longest break from I've had since...well since forever I suppose. I mean I've worked from home a little bit, logging an hour or two here or there. But for the most part, I haven't really worked for three and a half months. That's one long vacation. Even in high school with breaks for summer, it was never this long.

Boy, it's going to be difficult to go back to work and get into the routine again. Well, maybe not. I've always been good at routines.

Sunday I took a walk after Connor left me for a week, and I eventually ended up at Jamba Juice. As this picture will attest to. It's nice to get both exercise and your daily serving of fruit, all in one trip.  I've made a habit of walking to and fro, whenever I can. I mean, it's not really new or unusual, as I've been averaging 5-6  miles of walling per day for some time. But I keep expanding my route, to keep it fresh I suppose. But also, I think, to enjoy it while I can. The realtor came by with a photographer yesterday to take photos of the house, so it will be on the market soon, and this chapter of my life will finally draw to a close. And then I'll move to an entirely new neighborhood, likely, so I won't be walking these now familiar paths much longer.

There really are nice trails and paths around here.

But anyways, as July draws to a close around us, and this ridiculous virus is still dictating our lives, it just becomes all the more obvious that I have little idea what August will hold. I guess I'm stuck in a time capsule too, just waiting for the world to open up and let me out again.

The World Is Crazy

Well here we are nearing the middle of July, and more or less the middle of summer. I'd like to say things have calmed down, returned to normal. Or some semblance of normal anyway. But no, it hasn't. If anything, it's even more crazy today. Who'd have thought this is where we'd be, way back in March, when we were first dealing with this mess? Not me. Not anyone, likely.

So COVID-19 cases are on the rise, with the CDC reporting the highest daily totals of new cases we've experienced, at over 60,000 per day nationwide. The uptick has been attributed by most politicians and news media to poor social distancing at BBQs and parties and whatnot, mostly from the recent holiday weekend. The government's response to this today? Close the hair salons. Yeah, really. I'm not making that up. Because, that makes sense. Apparently. If ever our society was starting to resemble a mid-20th century dystopian novel, this is it. I mean, it's like we're all a bunch of kids being put on restriction by our parents for breaking curfew. Of course, it's not just the hair salons. It's also museums, movie theaters, zoos, and so on. Basically any form of recreational or social activity. Is this our...spanking??

Honestly, the government should have never starting making mandates. Our society just isn't up to the task of accepting mandates. We're too stubborn and independently minded. And we're not a "mask" culture. And, sorry, but you can't change the nature of a culture through mandates. I think what they should have done was to make a concerted and unified approach to recommending specific guidelines - and then lead by example. All of them. But they won't, they won't. Individual stores and businesses should have been free to implement their own policies and procedures. Which they were doing. Before all the mandates. I think we were on the right track. Then the government tried to intervene and tighten the noose, and the public turned their nose up to it.

And now here we are.

Sigh.

It also looks now like all schools will start the fall in total distance learning mode. They habven't all announced this, but several have. The rest will follow suit. Just like when the schools started to close in March.

For the record, I do have a mask. I got it from my mommy. Several months ago. It's one of those simple and common blue disposable ones. I only wear it one I need to go into a store that requires it. Which is every store, these days. It makes my face hot and makes it difficult to breathe and cause my glasses to fog up which effectively blinds me. So yeah, that's fun. I take it off as I soon as I can, and then fold it up and put it back in my pocket. Somehow I don't think I'm making use of it correctly...

You won't see a picture of me wearing it. I won't take a picture with one on. A lot of people do, though.

Is this our new way of life now? Our we doomed to live in this new society for the rest of our days? Will our children's children never know what it's like to go to school, meet and make friends, play on a playground together, have play dates and sleepovers? I sure hope not. I'm already tired of this. Ready to go back to MY world again. Because this alternate reality of ours is just too crazy.

Independence Day?

Oh yeah, today is July 4. I almost forgot that when I woke up this morning. As I've alluded to before, the numbers of the days and the days of the week just kind of blur together in this melting pot that is what remains of our former livelihood.

I'm not really celebrating. I didn't buy fireworks. Connor doesn't come back here until tomorrow. That's actually the one way I keep track of the days now. I always know when it's Sunday. I would have gotten fireworks for him. We would have had a grand time. But alas, that's not the case. And besides, I don't feel like celebrating this country right now anyway. We've become the laughingstock and embarrassment of the world. Not that we weren't far removed from that before. It's been a long slow process in that direction, it seems. Don't get me wrong, I love my country. But our leaders and half of our people just need to pull their collective heads out of their asses. Instead we are even more divided now than when Donald Trump took office. Everyone is bickering it seems. Wear a mask or don't. Socially distance or throw a holiday BBQ. What to do, what to do. The photo here was taking as I sit secluded away in my house, just me and the cats, as I wait for my French bread pizza to finish cooking in the oven.

But I digress.

And boom goes the dynamite. That's actually a Family Guy reference of a rather...crass nature. But it's what I think about as I hear fireworks going off outside. Pop. Boom. Pop. It's going to be a long night. And speaking of Family Guy, I'm actually watching back episodes of The Orville right now, which was created by the same guy, who also stars in this show. I could write a whole review of this show if I wanted; it's a pretty decently fun show, even if the writing displays some glaring plot holes. But it's basically a parody of Star Trek, in which character are less serious and display the personalities of 1980s and 1990s era humans. And a little bit of the potty humor that's made Family Guy famous. Fun times.

So this is it, the big 4th of July holiday. Oh wait, the oven timer just went off. Time to pull my pizza out of the oven. And maybe I'll pour myself another glass of chardonnay. Bon appétit! And, boom, pop, and all that.

Summer Continues

Well, here we are on the 1st of July. The month of American Independence. Fairly ironic considering that we've now been socially distancing for over three months now, held back from our liberties by mandates to stay at home and avoid people and wear masks and on and on. Restaurants and bars were just ordered to close again today for dine-in services. Seems like they just opened. Well anyways. People like to panic when numbers of infections spike. All in the name of public health. We've already been warned, as a society, not to have gatherings for the 4th of July.

Meanwhile, I take walks every morning and every evening and sometimes in between. And especially in the evening, you can see people playing basketball and volleyball at the park. And the playgrounds are full of children. The parks are essentially re-opened. Even though they're not. Guess we can't enforce that. But we can make Chili's close so that I can't go and have a pleasant sit down meal by myself. Sigh. Anyways. Moving on.

So it's July, and I'm still (not) working from home, owing to the fact that there's simply no volume of work to do. All of our summer events were cancelled. Haven't heard yet about the fall. The public schools are proposing a two day a week schedule for children, with learning from home the other three days of the week. Not sure how that's supposed to work with many parents working full time. Who has time to also home school? I mean I'm still hopeful that I'll actually be returning to work at some point. Well who knows, maybe I'll win the Publisher's Clearing House sweepstakes so I can quit my job and then I can homeschool my kid.

Speaking of my kid, we did a beach day at Crissy Field Beach in San Francisco this past week. It had been a couple of years, it seems, since I took him to the beach. He loved running around the sandy beach and into the waves, and hunting for little pieces of seashells in the sand. Unfortunately he only lasted about an hour and a half before he was ready to go home. Four hours of driving back and forth for 90 minutes at the beach. Well it was a good experience for him, anyway. Though it was a little colder than I had anticipated. Sure was nice to get out of the 100-degree weather of the central valley. But now I'm back in it. Slowly melting away.

And life goes on. No idea what the rest of the summer may hold. I mean at some point I need to return to work, right? Paid administrative leave and vacation time can only last so long. l suppose this is what retirement must be like, frittering my days away going for walks and watching TV and playing Minecraft and reading. Yeah, that's it. I'm doing a trial run of retirement right now. Oh and yeah, I play Minecraft now. Connor got me into it, or rather I started so that I could share that with him. It's actually a fun and stimulating game. And we're playing on a family-friendly server run by a 15-year-old and his dad from Seattle. So that's fun. I was never a gamer, admittedly. It was just never something I got into. We had an Atari 2600 when I was a kid, and an Apple IIe computer that could do rudimentary graphic games like Speed Racer. But that was about it. So gaming is, or at least was, a bit of a foreign world to me. But now I'm learning. God forbid.

Anyways. So continues the summer.

Beach Day

Today I find myself laying out on Marshall's Beach, near San Francisco, watching the waves crash along with smooth dark sand. I brought my new pop-up beach cabana ($20 on sale at Big 5), and backpacked in a picnic lunch, so I can spend a few hours out here enjoying the calm peacefulness of the Pacific Ocean.

I was actually never a beach person growing up. It was never my thing to just go and sit out on the beach and sun myself. We were more of mountain and camping people, owing to the fact that my parents' one family vacation a year was always to the PG&E campgrounds of Lake Valley Reservoir or Jackson Meadows.

In recent years I've gotten more in touch with the beach and ocean, and actually prefer it now to the mountains in some ways. Though usually I just go for walks along the beach and spend less than an hour there. It's just the highlight of a long day's walk, really.

Marshall's beach, incidentally, is a nice little out-of-the-way spot nestled between Golden Gate Bridge and Baker Beach, which is a more popular beach for sunbathers. This one is actually a very popular spot for photographers, but they come out right before the sunset usually. And actually, last time I was here there was a bit of nudity going on. You can read about that in a former blog post.

Today, it's nice and quiet out here, though more and more people are starting to arrive as the day wanes on. I think there's a total of seven people here right now, though and handful are currently coming down the stairs in this direction. That's how you get here, by taking a long path from the top of the cliffS down a series of wooden stairs and dirt passages through thick underbrush. Being a little less accessible than the surrounding areas makes it naturally a more secluded and peaceful spot.

So today I try and experiment. To see how well I enjoy just sitting out along the beach for hours watching the waves. I'm sure I can never get tired of the sound of the water crashing in. Makes me think that someday I should perhaps live by an ocean. Maybe that's where my retirement will be. In any case, as I said I backpacked in a lunch and some snacks, and brought a book to read, of which I've already completed another chapter since I've been here. "To Kill a Mockingbird" this time. I recently finished "Bluebeard" by Vonnegut.

I haven't actually done as much reading this year as I did last year, the last year being something of a banner year for me in that area. The downturn this year is mostly owing to the fact that now, Connor has gotten me into playing Minecraft. That seems to be just about all he wants to do, most of the time. And I have to admit, it's a fun and addicting game, inspiring quite a bit of creativity and problem-solving. So I'll still consider that a parenting win. But it also absorbs a lot of time.

In any case, today is for the beach, so here I sit with no video games and hardly any cell service. Roughing it, more or less. Guess I will take another stroll along the beach now, and get my feet wet.

Back To My "Home"

I have to say, I'm getting to like this whole showering at night thing, and the ability to sit up in bed and click clack away on my computer. My portable computer. The laptop has grown on me. Anyways.

So yesterday I took one of my pilgrimages to San Francisco. It had been quite awhile since I'd gone, mostly due to this whole Covid-19-stay-at-home-quarantine thing. It was actually early January, the last time I took this road trip. Over 4 months. Wow. So I took a Friday, incidentally the start of a holiday weekend (which I had forgotten about), and made the trek. As most of the free paces I normally park are still closed and physically roped off, I had to improvise a little. Fortunately I'm familiar enough with the Marina District that I know where to go. And it's still with sight and sound and smell of the water. Easy peasy. The length of the day here would ultimately turn out to be a 13 mile, 30,000 step day for me, and the weather was idyllic. Warm and clear - but not hot - with a cool, gentle breeze blowing through the air.

I know, I know. we're supposed to stay at home and so on and so forth. I'm so bad! But hey, I social distanced, which is to say I stayed away from pretty much everyone. Like usual. I did find it funny that there were these professionally printed Stay At Home posters scattered all around the more touristy spots. Like, on the Golden Gate Bridge. I mean really, if you get as far as the edge of the bridge, and there you see a sign, well you're not going to suddenly change your mind, turn around, and go back to where you came from. You've come so far already, you're going to walk across the bridge. It's okay though, 6 feet away from everyone of those signs is another sign saying Stay 6 Feet Apart. So we're good. I only went halfway across and back though, as by that time I had already walked three miles just to get there, and it was getting close to time to turn around and head back for my picnic lunch. Turkey sandwich.

I did walk down what was left of the Embarcadero. They're making use of the down time to do some construction, so a lot of the street was fenced off. Not that it mattered. There's not many people down that way anymore anyway. Pier 39 is completely fenced off, as is most of the seaside boardwalk. But the flowers are all in bloom, and it's still picturesque. I did stop in to one ice cream shop in the Cannery that was open, for a milkshake. The proprietor was relaxing outside, since no one was around to buy anything. But he quickly got to his feet and came into the store to serve me, and he seemed genuinely grateful that I was there. He thanked me profusely for stopping in, and for the 75 cent tip I left in the jar. I feel bad for the businesses that are there. Technically they were allowed to re-open as of May 18, the Monday before, as long as they offered to-go or curbside service. Several restaurants had signs suggesting that they were in fact open. But they looked shuttered and abandoned. And unlike the beach areas of Chrissy Field, there's just no one there.

It would have been nice to have a pleasant sit-down lunch or dinner, as a special treat to myself, if anything were open. I do that sometimes when I'm in San Francisco. But I'm sorry, I'm not going to get a nice meal "to go", and then try and clumsily eat it out of a styrofoam box while perching on a hard sidewalk bench as the breeze steals my napkins and the homeless man on the adjacent bench mutters incoherently to himself while smoking from a homemade bong constructed out of a discarded beer can. And that last part is not made up, I actually did see a homeless man doing this.

So after finishing my milkshake and walking as far as the sadly abandoned cruise terminal at Pier 27, I turned around and headed back to my car near Fort Mason, and returned to home. I'm sure there's folks out there who would say I shouldn't have left home in the first place. But I do consider it an "essential" trip, for me. I had to go. I had to. To feed my soul, which was in need of maintenance. I can't really explain how or why it works, but these trips are one of the few things that repair my soul. It places a band-aid on the small fissure through which my soul tends to leak its essence from. It's a patch job, to be sure, but it does the trick. And now I'm energized again, rebuilt and restored, which will hopefully last until the next time I get to go "home".

Rounding Out The Day

So, I try and end out each day a little differently, before succumbing to my nightly routine of showering (yes that's still thing), watching TV, having a small bowl of ice cream, brushing my teeth, and collapsing clumsily in bed. I don't always succeed in variation. But I try, I try.

Tonight, I sat out on my front porch and read a little. It's not the first time I've sone this, to be sure, but it is admittedly a rare occurrence. I have a nice front porch, with nice furniture to sit on and a nice little table to hold my little drink. It's a shame I don't use it more, really. Though maybe infrequent use makes it more special when it's done. I'll go with that.

Oh yeah, I'm supposed to throw in a picture to augment my writing. OK. Here's a picture of me from earlier today, looking all fuzzy because I haven't shaved in weeks. You're welcome. This was taken out on the American River Bike Trail near Sac State, where I also saw three deer this morning.

Anyways, I'm currently at the hind end of reading Vonnegut's "Bluebeard", a quasi-autobiographical work of fiction. Probably more fiction than biography, but it's the best we're going to get from Vonnegut. Anyways, the point being made at the hind end of this slab of paper and ink seems to be this: in life we're tormented by the dichotomy of choosing between doing something we're really good at versus something we think we should be good at. Or wish we were. I suppose truly successful people are those who have it both ways. They lose the dichotomy. Vonnegut's character stresses the reason why he chose not to pursue what he was "good" at. Because it's "too fucking easy". He doesn't swear much, so I suppose this should be a grand gesture of a serious point being made.

Of course, who wants to just do what we're good at? How boring would that be? But I see a lot of people at school pursuing goals that I know most of then will never reach. Should I tell them? Should someone? Nah, I suppose life is about the journey anyways. They'll learn, by and by.

Bluebeard is also an old French folktale, about a wealthy man who murders his wives, and one wife's attempt to avoid this fate. It was made into an opera by Bela Bartok. But the book deals, more or less, with the idea of the creation of meaningful art. Whether anything we do is truly meaningful. It's a good point on life, really. It also talks a lot about the the relationships between men and women in society, as well as trying to find a place where we fit in. Good stuff.

Well anyways, I could ramble on and on, but I've already showered, the TV is on playing old episodes of Family Guy, and somewhere downstairs there's a bowl of ice cream calling my name. It's a good way to round out the day, anyway.

New Work Week

Well, tonight was a lovely evening. I took a walk around the neighborhood fields right around dusk, which is a perfect time to see the melting of colors from daylight into the setting sun. It was augmented tonight by vast fields of lush, fluffy clouds, leftovers from a passing storm front. We've had this welcome change in the weather, a cooling off and a smattering of rain to clean out the air. Fresh. Pretty soon it's going to be hot again, so I'll enjoy it while I can.

Honestly, I wanted to write tonight just to share this picture of the bike trail near the North Natomas Regional Park. It isn't everyday that I have a beautiful picture to go along with my ramblings, so I have to take advantage of it when I can. I was right in the sweet spot of perfect lighting, where light meets dark and the two dance together to bring perfect clarity to shapes and depths and contrasts, before the onset of night downs it all away. And this picture was just shot with my little iPhone 8 Plus. Which, incidentally, is nearly paid off. Just one more month to go. Small victories.

Well today I actually returned to work. I mean, to Sac State. It's the end of the semester now, as finals concluded last week. Who knew? Not me, really. Never before have I been so oblivious to the end of a semester. It seems like it ended back in March. For me it kind of did. But today we re-opened the gates, albeit only briefly, as we've assigned a time window of 10:00am-2:00pm for students to come back and clear out their lockers and return instruments. It's a normal end-of-year rite of passage for students, slightly altered this year due to Covid-19. The game changer. Students now have to sign up for a window to come in, and only 5 can sign up for each window of 15 minutes. And they have to use separate doors for entrances and exits, and avoid contact with each other and with us, and so on. They took it in stride. They're so adaptable, these college students. Not like old farts like me.

Dan and I were the only employees at work today, and there was a steady of trickle of students for much of the four-hour window. But overall it was slow. Quiet. Not like the music building used to be. Now it's more...somber. Still, it was nice to see bodies back in action at Capistrano, if only briefly and only for clearing out the remains of their belongings that were left behind when this storm hit. Tomorrow and Wednesday, more of the same. Though the trickle of people will slow. And after Wednesday, we can crawl back under a rock again and shelter away from the rest of society.

Except, society is starting to re-open. Just a little. A peep through a narrow crack in a door. Hopefully the door opening will continue to widen, and before we know it we'll all be back in business again. More or less. Though as of right now, I'm having to assume that there will really be no work load for me until at least August. And Sac State has already announced that they intend to keep classes mostly online for the fall, so who knows when my "normal" work week will resume.

I've kind of gotten used to being at home. Though I'm not nearly as productive as when I'm in the office, where I can focus. It will be quite a system shock when and if I resume a normal 40-hour work week again, back in the old tired building which I've spent the better part of the last 25 years of my life. I'm bleeding out vacation hours now, and also some Paid Administrative Leave offered by the State for those who's work lives were upended by this unassuming little virus. Well, whose life wasn't upended? But the Leave is welcome, and will help keep me from bankrupting the hoard of vacation hours I've amassed over the last 20 years. You never know when you might need a whole lot of time off.

But hey. I was AT work today! Been a long time. It is definitely a "new" work week. Looking forward to tomorrow, actually.

Old Town Roads

Well it's Sunday evening of Mother's Day, a new week is blossoming on the horizon under a cool breeze reminiscent of the fall. I brought Connor home to begin his week with me, and at his request we listened to the song "Old Town Road" featuring Billy Ray Cyrus. On repeat. Again and again. All the way home. It's a catchy song, I have to admit, even if it doesn't seem to know whether it's a country song, or a rap song, or something somewhere in between. Connor declared that it's his favorite song. I wonder what his next favorite song will be next week.

Well, while I'm contemplating on that, I'll reminisce on my Saturday. I took a Sunday drive on Saturday morning, all the way south 7 miles to Old Town Sacramento. It had been awhile since I walked around Old Town. It's not the same as San Francisco, for me. I mean, it's nice and all. Waterfront, old-timey boardwalk, touristy shops, bridges, and so on. It's like a little San Francisco in many ways, when you think about it. But it doesn't quite speak to me. The sea lions did. Oh yeah, we have sea lions downtown now. At least two sitting on the docks near the marooned Hornblower cruise boats, and more having intimate discussions from somewhere under the pylons of the Tower Bridge. It's getting even closer to San Francisco down there, apparently. But San Francisco is my soul place, it just speaks to me on a whole other level. Old Town Sacramento works in a pinch though.

I expected it to be quite barren down there, what with the Covid-19 crisis still in full effect and people supposedly sheltering in place. Which...I clearly was not doing either. In some ways it was pretty barren, with the non-food stores shuttered up and looking abandoned and lonely. Like a ghost town. But I was surprised to see several dozen people milling about down there. Biking, jogging, enjoying a leisurely walk. Living. Like a normal Saturday morning. Go figure.

I stopped at Danny's Mini Donuts after they opened at 10:00am. I should say after "he" opened - not "they". The place epitomizes the small business model. It's a classic mom-and-pop shop, except it's just a Pop running it. In the past he's had various other family members helping out. But as he said, though he himself is doing okay, business is way down. So now it's just Danny there. I bought an 8-pack of of minis (4 chocolate and 4 cinnamon-sugar), and then followed up with a chocolate milkshake chaser for the walk back to my car. I don't usually double down like that. But I guess I felt kind of bad for him. His location is not ideal to begin with, being in the far corner of Old Town away from the central hub where most of the foot traffic tends to linger. And with less people out and about than normal, well it must be difficult to sustain a small independent business. Hopefully my small contribution to his daily sales volume helped, at least a little. Well I can pretend I made a difference, anyway. And he seemed happy to see me, and even seemed to recognize me from previous visits. (I swear I don't go there that often).

So that was my big outing of the week. The weekend was filled with Old Town and Old Town Road. A themed weekend I guess. And now onto the "work" week. Like before. Rinse and repeat. But first, I think it's just about bed time. Wait...yes, it's 10:30pm. Guess which song is now stuck in my head as I drift off to slumberland? Well, it's my own fault. Zzzz...

It's Hump Day!

Hey, it's Hump Day! Well, not that it really has a lot of meaning these days. I mean, the weekdays all seem to blur together into the weekends. It's often hard to remember what day it is. Not because I'm becoming old and senile, although there's probably a bit of that going on too. I'm not exactly a spring chicken. But the scenery stays the same. Day after day after day. And so on. I mean I know I can't, or rather shouldn't complain, I still have it better than a lot of people who without work, without paychecks, trying to figure out how to make ends meet. I'm just not used to this new lifestyle. it feels a little bit like detention. Not that I've been in detention since...1987 or so. But that's a story for another time.

Anyway, this evening I broke out of my box and ordered food to-go from a restaurant. Chili's, to be exact. It was the first time I've been to a former sit-down restaurant since this whole fiasco began. But the only sitting down was in my car. I had actually ordered through their app, which seemed to suggest they had curbside, to-go, and delivery options. But there's no "to-go" per se. I found that out by trying the front door, which was locked tight. So, it's all curbside now. But they don't bring the food to your car; they put it on a tray in front of where you're parked, and after they take your payment and leave you have to get out and pick it up. So, that's weird. But, it was pretty much the same taste I remembered, for what I had. Though lacking in ambience. And with packaging reminiscent of a fast food drive-thru. Sign of the times I suppose.

So I'm sitting up in bed click-clacking away on the laptop as the TV drones on in the background. It's the third night since I shook up my shower routine. Fourth night? 17th? Well it's hard to say, but Im still keeping it up in any case. It's a silly thing for me to babble on about, but sometimes even a small change in the mundane routine of daly life can be refreshing. Especially in this day and age. And again, I'm not one for new things. I worship routines as intangible gods, usually. But I suppose I needed a little bit of a change, just enough to keep things interesting. I can say that my hair is a bit of a bear in the morning after sleeping on it, and without the benefit of a morning shower to drown it into compliance. But in its defense, I really do need a haircut. Like, seriously.

But in any case, it's Hump Day! Two more days of the "work week" before the weekend is upon us again. And the routine rolls on.

I Must Be Going Crazy.

So I've made a drastic change to my daly routine, or at least I'm trying one out anyway. I took a shower. In the EVENING. Shocking, right? As far back as I can remember, I've always been a morning shower person. You know how you get in routines, from early on in life, that just stick with you? And they stick to the point that it just seems obvious to do it that way? It really never occurred to me to try taking showers in the evening, because starting my day with a nice warm shower is so ingrained into my being that it just seems that's how it's done. It's like breathing the air, or walking upright on two legs. You don't think about it. You just do it. Because you always have, or so it seems. Of course every now and then I'll talk to someone and they mention taking their shower at night. And it always seemed so...foreign to me. I mean really, what planet are THEY from? Well, most often, it is after all women that I'm talking to...

But it kind of makes sense, I suppose. I mean, after a long hard day of toiling away out in the world, you don't want to put your sweaty, dirty body on your nice clean (presumably) bed. Right? I mean the more I think about it the more it seems almost...logical. So I'm giving it a try. Live dangerously!

What else did I do today that was dangerous? I went for a *gasp* drive. A drive! A ROAD TRIP. Take that, you shelter-in-place order. I mean yeah, I was by myself and avoided other people, like I normally do as a fully functioning introvert. But today I drove east and north, ending up around Bodega Bay and the town of Bodega, before heading south on HWY 1 along the coast to HWY 101, near San Francisco. Bodega, incidentally, is mildly famous for its association with the Alfred Hitchcock movie, "The Birds", which came out a dozen years before I was born. I snapped a photo of the Saint Teresa of Avila church, just to prove that "I was here", as it's perhaps the most famous and recognizable landmark, even though it only appears briefly in the film.

But really I found the 1869 Calvary Cemetery even more interesting. This is a picture of some brilliantly blooming poppies with some gravestone markers in the background. A juxtaposition of life and death, if you will. Interesting note: the first two residents of this graveyard were a 7-year old and 5-year old boy. True story. They had a nice little sheet of history there, available to people who have morbid fascinations with old graveyards. I didn't spend too much time in Bodega though; I was really going to spend more time in Bodega Bay, or so I thought, but there's not too much there to begin with, and the nice little picnic area near the marina was - you guessed it - closed. Also I had to pee, and there didn't seem to be any public facilities near to where I was.

Since most of the beach parking lots in California are closed off thanks to the COVID-19 scare, leaving beachgoers to fight for what little parking still remains on the side of the roads (or rather the side of the highway), I didn't get to see much in the way of beaches today. In fact, I didn't even step foot one one. I mean, I was hoping to do some hiking along the beach, maybe sit and read a book for a bit (currently I'm halfway through Vonnegut's "Bluebeard"), and use the restroom facilities that are conveniently placed at many state parks. But those were closed as well. Fortunately, being a man, I can still pee on a tree. Or bush. I did see some nice vista views of Stinson beach, which still had quite a few determined people using it. And I did just a little bit of hiking off of the Olema Valley Trailhead, which to be honest, I didn't know existed before today. Sometimes it pays to take a chance and park on the side of the highway where other cars are parked, just to see what they find so interesting.

And before heading back home I was able to stop at the Muir Beach Overlook, which again was closed-but-not-closed if you could find somewhere to park and walk in a little bit. And despite being incredibly windy, it was sunny and more than nice enough for a little stroll. They've actually built up the Overlook quite a bit since I first discovered this little treasure around 25 years ago. Back then I referred to it as the "end of the world". And if you ever get a chance to take the easy little walk out onto the cliff to the viewing platform, you'll see why. But the spot now has a paved parking lot and a permanent bathroom structure. Which was, of course, closed. Sigh. I know, I know, it's to persuade us not to use these recreational areas in this time of human crisis. But come on, you can't expect reasonable people to just stay at home and stop living, can you? I've stayed home a lot in the last 6 weeks, but even I have limits as to how much of life I'm willing to let fritter away. And we can still social distance and wash our hands more frequently and avoid touching our face and so on. Surely it must be far safer to be walking out alone in nature than, say, going to the supermarket. Well, suffice it to say, I certainly was not the only "crazy" person out there today trying to enjoy a little bit of nature.

And now I see it's past my bed time, so I must start winding down. We'll see if I go even more crazy tomorrow, though it's the start of a new "work" week, so it will probably be an uneventful week at home from here on out. But seriously, what can top the Evening Shower? I mean, that's a serious, mind-blowing routine change. And I don't like change. Yeah, I must be going crazy.