I've started going to work over the spine of the mountains. I could take Bear Creek to 17 to 85, but the traffic flow is so unpredictable that it can take me anywhere between an hour and two hours.

On Monday as I drove over the mountains, a murder of crows dismantling a deer took flight as I came along, and I ended up driving through the lot of them. As I came around a corner, I could see the entire vista of the Silicon Valley, a giant bowl of gauzy steam.

Tuesday, just before the carcass of the deer, there appeared the body of a fox, its bushy tail sticking into the road like one of the infinite number of sticks and branches.

Today on Arastradero between the freeway and El Camino Real, the menagerie expanded to include not one but TWO dead raccoons, facing each other with outstretched claws and bared teeth, as though they had been in the middle of mortal combat before falling over where they stood. The fox tail is still in the road in the mountains above and the deer's spine and ribcage are now bare of flesh, presaging the fall I can feel in the air in the morning.

This is fall, the season of decline.

I was talking to my mother about sundry and various things, and we finally got around to politics. My mother has lived in Arizona for ~50 years, and has seen John McCain's political career since the beginning. Her opinion of John McCain overlooks his many political shortcomings and focuses on what's really important:

"John McCain can't be president! His teeth are yellow and he can't raise his arms above his head!"

When the Pirate heard that, he laughed extremely hard and then said "That's awesome! That's AWESOME! I have to slap my head with meat!"

Someone...tell me what that's a euphemism for.

I got a call from my younger sister yesterday. She said she would be in town over the weekend and asked if I wanted to get together. Of course I do! I figured she would be in town for some conference or talk related to her job, but no.

It turns out that her best friend's brother Jordan was shot and killed the other day. My sister is coming out to support her best friend and be with the family.

What hurts me the most is the number of people who heard the argument but didn't see the people involved. As of right now, nobody knows anything. It's going to be difficult for the family to get past this until they can put a face to his killers.

I have a mosquito bite on my elbow the size of another elbow.

It's not just immensely itchy, it's disquieting.

One of the women at work came back from visiting family in China and brought tons of candy and treats back with her. Many of the things were a complete mystery, as they were individually wrapped and the pictures were things like cartoon puppies and birdies. Although, for all I know, it was puppy and birdie flavored candy.

Other stuff had pictures on it, but they left us mystified. One packet had a picture of a bunch of grapes, and brown spots that indicated chocolate. Grapes + chocolate = ??? It turns out that they're grape-flavored jellies covered with chocolate, and some people found them delicious. I didn't try them.

The thing I did try was the packet of pumpkin seeds. You know. Pumpkin seeds. They're delicious. Nutritious. Really, incredibly salty. The seeds in this particular bag were covered with a white dust that made all sorts of puckery promises to my tastebuds. Except that in this case, the white dust was a lying, teasing bitch that left me with a case of blue buds. I put a seed in my mouth expecting the delicious tongue-searing frisson that comes with a massive salt overdose. My tongue immediately went limp as it tasted something like a pumpkin seed dusted with cake mix. Gummy. Floury. Icky sweet. Nasty, nasty, NASTY.

Excuse me, I need to gargle.

Apparently, ants just love blood.

My daughters have called me daily since they've been out of town with my parents. Today, my older daughter called me, and the entire time she was on the phone, she and her sister were laughing because the little one was burping and farting her glee at having eaten a zillion cucumbers.

They put my father on the phone.

"Are you sorry now?" I asked him. He chuckled and then went into detail about their day, including seeing a bunch of street performers who kept promising to perform their ultimate amazing trick, but only if the crowd coughed up some money. Dad and I laughed at how similar it was to the performers in Nice when we were there.

Then he started telling me that he'd just finished reading Younger Next Year, a book about how there are certain aspects of aging that are inevitable and others that are reversible.

He told me about a study about artereosclerosis done on rabbits. The rabbits were stacked in cages, and even after the rabbits were dosed with a drug supposed to cause artereosclerosis, only the rabbits in the top cages succumbed. They moved the cages around and repeated the study and again, only the rabbits in the top cages succumbed. It turned out that the lab technician who cared for the rabbits was a petite woman who had the habit of talking to and petting the rabbits as she cared for them. Because she was short, she could only reach the bottom cages. They concluded that it was the contact, the stroking and petting that helped prevent the hardening of the arteries.

Dad said that he'd been making a special effort to hug and caress the girls (who love it because they get so much of it at home) and to do the same for his wife, my stepmother. He said that he'd tried it with a few women in the street, but even after explaining the artereosclerosis angle neither they nor my stepmother was buying it.

You know, I don't think that my dad is aging badly at all...

		I will marry Steve.
		After a wild honeymoon, We will settle down in Boulder Creek in our fabulous Shack.
		We will have 127 kid(s) together.
		Our family will zoom around in a ear infection Prius.
		I will spend my days as a fluffer, and live happily ever after.

Slurped from grrlpup

Create your own family sticker graphic at pYzam.com

Part of my process is constantly examining every part of my life over and over and dissecting it and worrying over it. Am I a good parent? How do my co-workers perceive me? The biggest one, after three ended marriages, is always "How did I end up in such a great relationship and how do I make sure it stays good?"

To that end, tell me some things about YOUR love life. If you could poke your friends into coming over here and giving me some feedback, that would be great.

Poll #1194654 Who Loves You, Baby?
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All

What is your gender and preference?

Are you now, or have you ever been, in love with someone who loved you in return?

Did you approach your beloved, or did s/he approach you?

What was your relationship status when you met your beloved?

What do you think attracts others to you?

What's a relationship red flag for you?

To my favorite poet, the lovely blythe025. May you have yet another productive and successful year. I still read that chapbook you gave me at least once a month, and I'm still moved to tears every time.

It's so cold at my desk that I have to wear a sweater and drink endless cups of steaming tea. I can see my breath. Okay, almost. My fingernails and lips are blue.

All the joy is being sucked out of my life. I can't remember what it's like to be really happy or even particularly cheerful.

Good gracious...I work for the dementors.

On the freeway on the way to work this morning, there was a little white SUV in front of me with one of those vinyl clings in the back window. It was a picture of Calvin (the cartoon kid) naked with the words "Life is short. Go kayaking naked." As I pulled abreast of the car, I looked into the cab at a couple in their 70s.

I didn't stop smiling all the way to work.

I can't decide whether the smell permeating my cube is maple syrup or coolant. All I know is that this isn't the first time we've smelled this.

I suspect our building was once the site of a Jiffy Lube/Waffle House and now it's haunted.

On my way in to work this morning, I saw no less than three lonely shoes discarded on the freeway. And that chicken.

Have you ever lost a shoe while driving on the freeway? Has any passenger in your car lost a shoe? These don't appear to be children's shoes, thrown from the backseat window by a vindictive sibling. These are all men's business shoes. On the freeway.

I just can't fathom how they all come to be there.

I know that French broom and periwinkle are "invasive non-native species," but gosh darn it, they're pretty.

And in the Weather Meadow (you know, that big meadow that shows snow, frost, fog and sun to their very best advantages) the purple needle grass is a beautiful sort of red-purple.

How lucky am I that I get to see this every single day on my way to work?

Yesterday, I became a certified wedding officiant, registered with the American Council of Wedding Officiants. I am now licensed to perform marriages anywhere in the US. My certification is good for 5 years, and I've made a personal determination that I'm going to perform at least one wedding in that time.

I'm all excited!

The Pirate and I finally finished watching the rest of The Third Man. When we first started watching it, we both thought that the ridiculous zither music was entirely out of keeping with the tension of the movie.

Pirate: "When is zither music EVER the right thing?"
Me: "Well, if you happened to be walking down a Greek beach and see a bunch of those guys wearing the white skirts and the shoes with the red pompoms dancing around with no musical accompaniment, you'd start thinking that a little zither music was just the thing."
Pirate: "Yeah. Because that happens."

So, we're watching the climactic last scene - the big chase through the sewer pipes, and I realize exactly WHERE I've heard that jaunty zither music before. It's the theme music for SpongeBob Squarepants.

This means that we spent the last 15 minutes of the movie making horrible SpongeBob dialogue over the real dialogue.

Seriously - zither music? Who thought that was a good idea?

And now, the day after the death of Charleton Heston, we're watching Soylent Green because the Pirate's never seen it.

This is the funniest thing I've ever seen in my entire life. Funny, and very, very, very, very wrong.

While I was at a conference last month I went grocery shopping with my mother and had to snap a pic at the bakery counter. I sent that pic along to the blog of my people: Guanabee.

And now I'm almost famous.