*actually, she's getting by on the fact that she knows she's in trouble and has a new hiding place in the house that neither I nor Simon can find.

Look, it's really not that hard, even though we're using the box with the smaller walls this week: You pee IN THE LITTER BOX! Not just over the side of the box. Not on the wall of the box so it drizzles half-in, half-out of the box! Just squat in the MIDDLE of the damn box!

Geesh!

I've eaten an obscene amount of gummy bears in the last six days.

I got a letter from Subaru a couple of weeks ago. It was a very nice letter and also enclosed was a service coupon for an oil change for $28.95 (regularly $32.95). But what got me was the line, "Our service records for your 2005 Subaru Baja show that your mileage is probably now around 3,034 miles...", ergo the coupon for Luna's First Oil Change (which needs to be done at 3,750 miles).

AAACK! 3,034 MILES...ALREADY?!? I only had a hair under 1,500 miles on it! Have I let the side down, AGAIN?!? Is Luna going to just stop running because I haven't driven her enough and even then only to work and school?

Action had to be taken!

I don't really have the money for a Big Road Trip right now (not to mention the fact that I have not spent a single night away from the furkids and I'll probably cry myself to sleep the first time I do), so I'm trying to get one good drive in every weekend.

Last weekend I haunted San Francisco once more and tromped around Golden Gate Park and had tea at the Japanese Garden. (Sadly, the photographic part of this journey went horribly wrong...only 1 or 2 salvageable shots from the 35mm...the shots from the Holga fared better except for a particularly vexing light leak.)

Today, after I took Luna in for a wash and wax (which I'm hoping the wax will last her through most of the winter), I just got in and drove...and ended up in Tracy, CA. Not exactly a hot tourist destination, but this time it was all about the journey. I've been living in the Bay Area for over a decade now and I've never been over the Altamont Pass. I've seen all the photos of those cool windmills (and believe me, there's plenty of lusty-gusty winds to turn 'em!), but I've never seen the windmills, until today. After refueling Luna (gas is about $0.10-15/gal cheaper there) and myself, we came back over the pass with a couple of stops along the way to try to get some photos. Unfortunately, the film I have in the Pentax MX (I'm going way back to basics, here) had 800 speed in it, which, with the bright sunlight, was a bit too sensitive to really get any shots.

Kind of a bummer about the photos, but again, this was about going someplace I hadn't been to. And the journey home was gorgeous with the green rolling hills, the big windmills and the bright blue skies with the huge puffy clouds (looked like lots of cold air in the upper atmosphere today). And, just as a very special treat, I saw a herd of deer grazing along I-580. My stars, they were so beautiful and looked so peaceful. There really wasn't a safe place to pull the car over and watch (or photograph) them, but how lucky I was just to get to see them! (Of course, I still get totally excited when I see snowy egrets and pelicans on my way to work...and nearly went into conniptions when I saw a flock of swans yesterday!)

Even with these weekend drives, I'm still far behind schedule! We're only up to about 1,750 miles now...and the oil change coupon expires in a couple of months! EEP!

Ideas, people: I need day-trip ideas here! Where are some out-of-the-ordinary places A Girl And Her Baja can go to (and back) in a day in/around the Bay Area?

Just testing things out, my lovely friends.

OK, anyone who has known me for more than ten minutes knows that today is a day I've been looking forward to for quite a while now: Today is the day U2 released "How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb".

If I was allowed to take my vacation time (I have to wait a year before I can take any of it), I would have taken the day off, got the CD when the music store opened, stocked up on Guiness and had one all-day listening party! Alas, I had to wait to pick it up on my way home from the office.

I've given it three spins on the CD player so far and I have to say this will probably go down as one of their best albums. I think it's their most consistent album since "Achtung Baby", or even "Unforgettable Fire".

Like I said, I've only heard it three times so far: After the third listen, I decided to just let it marinate in my head over night. With the long weekend coming up, I'll give it a more thorough play, and, in keeping with my tradition of all new U2 releases, play it next to "Boy" to see how it stands up and how it fits. Though, of all their records since, "War" I think this one will stand the strongest next to "Boy". On this album, they've really given us old-timers a great gift for sticking by them.

More to come...

It's too bad you fear my friendship so much that you run from me when you think I'm too close. When you have to stop to catch your breath, though, be sure to turn around.

You'll find I'm not chasing after you, after all.

Just know that I'm not the one to slam the door on friendship. If, one day, you decide I'm not so scary after all come and find me.

I finally got my new license plates for Luna today (I bought the car back in September!).

After making me wait nearly 10 weeks, they finally send me license plates with a number that SUCKS!!!

Next year when the registration is due I may just pop the extra $25 and get vanity plates again.

Well, so far November has provided a real window into the character of quite a few people. It's giving me cause to re-evaluate a lot of relationships and re-examine the kind of vibe I'm putting out myself.

One of the things that has been really confusing for me is that I've always been told that when I put out warmth and love and a really nice, friendly vibe, I can/should expect to get that warmth and friendship back. Without going into huge detail about my own history (it's for another blog entry, trust me), I've found it very difficult to be that open and trusting with my friendship. So, when I do open up and extend myself in friendship to people (people who have extended themselves in friendship to me--so I thought), it's quite dismaying to get back a handful of shards of icicles.

There have been a couple of instances recently where certain people have been open and friendly--in one case quite demonstratively--to where I let my defenses down and decided, "yes, this is someone I would like to be friends with, someone I believe I can trust...let's go down that road and see where it takes us!" So I open myself up to someone who is so warm and friendly one day, then BAM! Barely says two words to me just days later and tries so very hard to pretend I don't exist, even when I'm standing just two feet away.

Coincidentally--or not--both of these most recent cases have involved men. So, just for the sake of putting it on the record, let me break it down for you, guys.

When I show an interest in you and your friendship, it's of the "hey, I wouldn't mind hanging out with this person and getting to know him better" variety. My interest does NOT include a) writing your last name after my first name; b) registering us at Pottery Barn and Crate and Barrel; NOR c) checking my biological clock and determining when I'm ovulating.

Now, in spite of all that, if the very prospect of being my friend--of being seen in public with/near me--is that UNBELIEVABLY HORRIFYING because I'm not the "trophy" friend type (i.e., not cool enough, young enough, pretty enough, skinny enough, artsy-phartsie enough, smart enough or whatever), then indeed we're better off with you pretending I don't exist. The same is true if you were only befriending me because I had some temporary superficial value to you; you can just mark me right off your list (if you haven't already). Because, really, I've had enough cowards and otherwise insincere people in my life, so I'm not really in the market for new ones. But thanks, anyway.

However, if you really are brave enough to be my friend in spite of my faults (or, better yet, because of them), then know that I would do my best to be worth the trouble.

I'm just sick and tired of beating myself up thinking I've done or said something wrong, when all I was doing was trying to be friends. Opening myself up is a very very difficult thing for me to do. When I finally trust someone enough to open myself up to them only to have them slam the door in my face...well, it's making me think I don't want to open myself up to people, anymore. And I've worked very hard for a lot of years to not shut myself in. But, honestly, I don't know what else to do, anymore.

(...as to the other character-revealing issues that have come up, I'm still processing the information and deciding how I'm going to respond to these recent events.)

A few things went by the wayside during two years of unemployment, including my DirecTV subscription and my Sunday Ritual of pawing through the New York Times. Though I've been employed now for several months, I've just not had the time and spare change to get back into the Sunday Times.

Late this morning I heard someone knock on my door. I was up to my elbows in a cleaning project and couldn't leave it unattended (curious kitty was near-by and no doubt he'd try to "help" the minute my back was turned). I had pretty much forgotten about my visitor until I opened the front door to check on the water dish that I leave out for the neighbour cats.

On my door mat someone had left me a copy of today's Sunday New York Times!

To my Secret Santa...thanks! I especially enjoyed the review of the upcoming U2 album!

without saying a HUGE Thank You to all those men and women who have served my country. To the Veterans who have sacrificed their comforts of home and those who also gave their lives, I am forever grateful.

No, I'm not quite ready to talk about it yet. Not done beating myself up for being such an idiot as to believe that I can have...OOOOOOOOOHHHHHHH! Stupid stupid stupid STUPID stupid stupid!

Film at eleven.

Here's my latest Mr. Picassohead work. Go look at it, if you want: Better still, go make one of your very own!

I'm in the mood for some serious makeovers!

The web sites are going to get some re-imagining (I'm aiming to have at least one of them done by the new year).

Mostly, though, I plan to concentrate some efforts on Vicster Manor. Though my friend and I agree that the bedroom would be the easiest room to start with, I think I'll have a go at the living room. My inspiration for both rooms comes from my Gustav Klimt calendar. In the living room, I could go really bohemian and use the color scheme from "The Kiss" (one of my all-time favourite paintings), but I'm really grooving on the colors in "Goldfish" and "The Women Friends" (those spicy oranges and reds are so yummy!)

In my bedroom, I'm thinking along the lines of one of his portraits of Adele Bloch-Bauer because it would work with the quilt I have.

I'd also love to re-do the kitchen because it's just so splah, but I think that would be too much of a pain, so for now I'll just try to live with it (though it would look so good in palette of bright Mexican-inspired colors!).

Well, I've managed to wear myself out just thinking about this...time to finish the wine and think about bed.

Why is it words fail me at the worst possible times? It's like there's so much I want to say but my brain just loses every single word I've ever learned (in at least four different languages!) and I end up in awkward silence.

Gah!

(Well, I learned part of it yesterday and part of it really early this morning.)

I learned that when I drink an entire bottle of Mumm Cuvee Napa Blanc de Noirs champagne ('scuse me, sparkling wine...and DON'T LOOK AT ME LIKE THAT! I didn't have anyone to share it with and I wasn't going to let a good bottle of bubbly just go flat!), it makes my dreams really vividly insane! It brought out everything my brain and soul is trying to process right now and sort of put it through Kai's Power Goo or something!

It is kinda cool and kinda disturbing all at the same time.

** (that's the name of a song...fifty points to you if you can tell me what band wrote/performed it)

So recently it was pointed out to me that I'm rather cynical. Actually, I have to own up to it, because I have become more than a little cynical in my thirty-something years.

What those who recently accused me of such don't know is that I'm so "cynical" that the only way I get through my day is to try my damnedest to anti-dote the environmental negativity by thinking about love: How much I love my cats (and their unconditional love for me), the love of my friends, and of the one with whom I'm very close to being in love with. If I didn't redirect my energies toward that light, I'd never make it through the day.

How's that for cynical?

While I'm trying to get some posts up on the blog this evening, Simon has decided that a really good way to get my attention is to bite my feet and legs. HARD.

Gonna nip this little habit in the bud, oh yes we are!

I've been a hockey fan since, oh, about age 4 or 5. Having been a fan for over thir...well, for a very long time, you'd think I'd be nearly suicidal over the NHL lockout. But really, for me, it's just one big YAWN.

The NHL that is shuttered right now is not the NHL I fell in love with. It became too expensive and too boring to watch. I miss the NHL, but I miss the days of Bobby Orr, Terry O'Reilly and Phil Esposito, the days of Mike Bossy and Clarke Gillies, the days of Ray Bourque and Cam Neely (yes, I know I've left Wayne Gretzky off the list...I do NOT miss him!). I do not miss these days of multi-millionaire players playing chicken with multi-millionaire owners. Ah, but this dispute isn't really that simple, either. Really, the big battle is the Rich Owners v. the "Poor" Owners. The only real sane solution is contraction. Hockey in the Sun Belt, if it should exist there at all, is best left to the bus leagues. With NASCAR's firm hold on the fourth slot in the sport heirarchy (after MLB, the NFL and the NBA), there's little attention--or money--left for the NHL, especially in the South.

The over-expansion of the NHL--the root of the league's problems as I see it--is right down to owner greed: "Get those expansion teams in and get those expansion fees into our pockets and to hell with whether or not those teams can survive or if the quality of the talent is diluted beyond the NHL being a watchable product."

With contraction needs to come some kind of salary cap/luxury tax/revenue-sharing solution as well. Otherwise, assuming there is an NHL then, we'll be right back here in another ten years.

But enough of all that! What caught my eye today was this little ditty out of Philadelphia: Evidently, Flyers goalie Robert Esche referred to NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman as a "madman". So, general manager Bobby Clarke phoned Esche and told him it's one thing to back his union but he was being disrespectful toward Bettman by making his comments personal.

Wow. Considering how absolutely classless Clarke has proven himself over and over again by disparaging Eric Lindros in the press when Lindros was suffering with post-concussion problems and his sickeningly scummy treatment of former coach Roger Nielson, he's the LAST PERSON ON THIS PLANET to be going all Emily Post on his players!

(Oh yeah, and let's not forget how Clarke supported one-time players union leader Alan Eagelson, even after he knew Eagleson was screwing the players over and essentially stealing their money. Yeah, Bobby sure knows all about backing his union...)

Four more years of waging war on countries that Osama bin Laden isn't hiding in or associated with!

Four more years of corporate welfare!

Four more years of the middle class hanging on for dear life!

Four more years of the daily assault on the US Constitution!

Four more years of those fucking smug smirking faces!

Four more years of wondering if that many Americans really are just that completely filled with hatred for their fellow humans--or if they're just irretrievably stupid!

Four more years of wishing that California would tell the rest of the US to go fuck themselves and just secede already!

I've voted. I'm so relieved that it's (almost...hopefully?) over with!

Now I need a drink.