i just returned from a trip to tar-jay. needed storage bins for the back of dan's truck to put the camping gear in. it looked like a north pole tornado had hit - christmas stuff EVERYWHERE. not just a christmas section, but a christmas display on almost every endcap, in every section (christmas tablecloths, doormats, toilet seats, wheat thins [yes! christmas WHEAT THINS!], pyjamas. you name it) but they had a prominant display of christmas candy and 'grinch' oreos (green filling. ick. white, please) blocking the way to the front asile. it's november 2nd. hello? halloween was two days ago. can we please breathe between seasons?

going climbing this weekend in owen's river gorge. a great place to climb, and i'm meeting a bunch of friends there. should be a good time. :)

i just dig guys wearing clogs.

why i shouldn't cook. and certainly should not even consider a career that would get me anywhere near a kitchen. i could be dangerous.

i baked some cookies tonight. ghiradelli's chocolate chip. i had made some tuesday (peanut butter chocolate chip) but we ate them all. going climbing with a bunch of friends this weekend, so i thought i'd bring some cookies. it'll make them all think i can actually cook (wives are supposed to, aren't they? ugh.), and that i actually do (on rare occasion). the cookies are from a mix (shh!) so all you have to do is add butter and an egg. simple. into my kitchen aid mixer goes the mix, 1/2 cube of butter, and an egg. i turn it on and the dough begins to form. it's looking awfully crumbly, so i take it off to mix it by hand. i couldn't get it to smooth out or even be molded into a ball. i re-examine the directions. 'put mix and 1/2 cu. (1 STICK) of butter...'

oh. 1 whole stick. yeah. i knew that.

hey, at least i didn't blow up the kitchen.

finally. the story. it's not too exciting, but just, well, odd. let me explain...

two years ago, dan and i had just bought our house. he was working out of town at the time, and i lived in an apartment 1/2 mile or so from the house we bought. we moved a bunch of our stuff into the house the week before we were going to do the 'Big Move'. i continued to live in the apartment, because the bed wouldn't get moved until then. so, the house was empty with some of our stuff in it for about three days.

the friday of the Big Move, dan flew home early friday afternoon to start. when he went into the house, he quickly realized some of our stuff was stolen. almost all of our outdoor gear. tent, sleeping bags, backpacks, and a large amount of highly specialized climbing gear. dan is one of those nuts who climbs 'big walls' - like el capitan in yosemite. it takes about four days to complete the climb, and you need a ton of gear to do it, as well as a 'portaledge' or hanging tent. they took all of this. dan's snowboard and portaledge were in the exact same spot - and they took the portaledge and left the snowboard. so we suspected the robbers were climbers and had possibly watched us move into the house. they also took a bunch of cds. all our old 80s music - the old heavy metal. the left my phish and the dead and dmb. and they obviously took their time as they didn't grab the whole case of cds, just took what they wanted. climbing is something that means a lot to us. We had met because of it, and it is our main 'hobby'. i would have been happier if they took all of our stereo equipment, our television...but they went after our gear. needless to say, we were quite upset. and i was really disgusted that anyone could do this.

fortunately, we had arranged for homeowner's insurance that gave you replacement value for what was stolen. we had the policy for three days before the break-in. over the course of the next few days, we painstakingly compiled a list of all of the stolen equiptment. we had accumulated this gear over many years, buying much of it wholesale when we worked for cal poly's outdoor program. after adding up everything (8 or so pages of an excel spreadsheet) the total was almost $10,000. the insurance company did not believe it was possible for us to own almost $10,000 worth of primarily outdoor gear. we fought with them for over a month, and eventually received our check. (they dropped us the next year, though). we re-bought our gear, which we needed for our honeymoon in canada a mere two weeks after we finally received the check. we figured whomever had stolen our gear had likely sold it. what kind of idiot would climb with stolen gear anyway? you trust your life to it. bad karma. didn't think we'd ever see it again.

last night at the gym there was a guy we had seem once or twice before at the gym. we had chatted with him in the past. he had a dog named 'crash' (for crash pad, not the song). he set crash's leash on a bench and went to climb. dan sat down on the bench and noticed something interesting. the carabinier (biner - pronounced 'bean-er') on the end of the leash was an old MSR one like he had owned. and on the biner was the exact same tape that he had used to mark all of his old gear. the MSR biners are pretty rare - not many people use them. i had our only un-stolen biner from our old gear, and i always wore it on my harness (sentimental, i guess). i took it off and set it next to the MSR one. sure enough, the tape was identical.

so what do you do? did he steal our gear? we agonized over how to ask him how he had gotten this biner. we didn't want to imply anything, as well as not letting him know it is was our gear. if he did steal it, we didn't want him to think we were onto him until we had more proof, and an opportunity to get it back. dan asked him casually:

'where'd you get the MSR biner? you don't see those around too often.' (climbers LOVE to talk gear, so this was a 'normal' question)

dan said that the guy froze, and then quickly said, 'oh that one? oh, it was, uh, booty. yeah. found it at the base of a climb. it looked like it had been dropped from hundreds of feet above.' and that the guy seemed nervous. but what do we do now? we are 99% sure that was dan's biner. what if he has our gear? but, then, what if he doesn't and really did find it? we're not really sure what we are going to do now. hopefully we will end up climbing outdoors with him one day (many people from the gym go on trips together). then we can see if it was him. it's just a crazy thing. i can't believe anyone would steal all that stuff. radios and tvs? i can understand that more than our gear. just odd. hmmm. (yes, shep, i hmm'ed out loud)

last night we gave away nutrageous bars and were given a shopping cart. someone so kindly left it in our yard. nutrageous bars in exchange for a shopping cart. not a bad deal. our house definitely now looks quite ghetto. jonathon's old truck parked outside, a shopping cart on the lawn...wonder how long it will be til the neighbors complain?

spent much of the night at the climbing gym and missed the big 6pm-7pm rush of kids. but very few of the kids who did come to the door were dressed up. what's with that? no costumes...isn't that a prerequisite for getting candy? it wasn't trick or treating. it was just treating. and if that's how the holiday is working now, i'll be out on the streets next year... :) it was an odd night at the gym. it's a long story, though, so i will type it later. i need coffee first.

oops. i fixed the pictures. forgot to ftp the pages. i know, i know. someone forgot to wake up my brain this morning.

happy halloween! halloween isn't a holiday i get too excited about - i hate scary things. really. i was reading an article on haunted houses in the newspaper (read:it's in the paper, can't be THAT scary) and i was freaked. i started hearing weird sounds. hey! my house is 87 years old! who knows? no scary movies. no goobly goblins or monsters or ghosts, thank you. i can't even take commercials for scary movies on TV. my complete dorkiness: halloween & last stop give me chills. hate listening to them at night. bwwwhahahaha! i hope all of you at halloween parties have a great time tonight. scare somebody for me, ok?

finally finished getting my east coast pics together. enjoy!

remember when all we had to worry about on halloween was razor blades in apples? and no one ever gave apples out, anyways. as we went skipping house to house in our plastic costumes and masks. the masks had that little breathing slit that didn't allow for candy eating while trick or treating and always ended up perched on the top of your head. one year my mom made jaime and i princess costumes, and my dad made us magic wands. the wands were a 12" tall star cut out of plywood attached to a 2X2. they were covered in glitter. not only for decorative purposes - they would've been handy to beat up any kid who tried to steal our candy, too. in today's world, they'd be considered weapons....

so don't steal the kids candy, ok? go drive yourself to the store and buy all the good kinds - peanut butter cups, kit kat, m&m's, hershey bars. there was always that one house in the neighborhood that gave out hershey bars. and when you were 8, that just made your day, didn't it?

it's raining here. no big news, huh? well, it hasn't rained since may. on september 24 it drizzled. but, on september 24th i was busy getting rained on in rochester. they are serious about weather back there. i don't know if i could hack a winter in the frozen rochester you-can't-leave-your-house tundra. but it's now raining here. real rain. i went running this morning in it. i didn't run fast enough to dodge the raindrops, so i returned soaking wet. (ooo. that was bad. a definite pre-coffee kind of humor there. my apologies.) it was fun. rain is now a novelty to me, it's been so long. rain changes you somehow...the air is different, the sky is different, the whole feel of the day is different.

as a kid, i loved the rain. it was an excuse to jump in puddles and not get yelled at *too* much, and to use an umbrella. i just loved umbrellas - those clear ones with cartoon characters on them. mine had strawberry shortcake. the appeal of being able to walk around with something sheltering you, protecting you from what's out there. seeing the rain come down, knowing you would stay dry. i'd twirl it around. make up umbrella dances. pretend i was gene kelley in 'singing in the rain'. and when i rolled it up, the umbrella became a baton i could twirl.

today i am going to read. and read. and read. and not feel guilty. reading is one of those things you can do in the rain. you have an excuse to. then i may bake some cookies. (quit laughing, all of you who know i don't really cook. can CAN cook, i choose not to, ok?) if you're nice to me, i may just send you some.

in 1993 i bought a pair of simple sneakers. old skool, kinda an olive green colour. i still have them. as a matter of fact, i am wearing them now. yup. right now as i type this. one of the few non-birkenstock pairs i own. back when i bought them, simple was a tiny company, started by two cal poly art&design students. they made two different kinds of sneakers. and they had a really cool catalog. full of drawings and sketches and thoughts on life. not your normal catalog. it was actually inspiring. i can't think of a catalog i have seen since then that has been that thoughtful and interesting.

simple has now been bought by a big corporate conglomerate - 'deckers outdoor'. it's just not the same.

but from that catalog, back in '93, i cut out a small square of paper with inspiring words on it. words that i wanted to live by. i taped the piece of paper to my computer monitor. (13", on my 486). it was an important piece of paper. each time i change computers, it went with me. first to my 486 replacement. then my first planning job. my second planning job. my mom's old computer (which was my first work-from-home machine), then to my 19" flat screen. it is tattered and torn. but it sill makes me think "yes. that's IT. that's how it should be." and everything in the world seems better, if just for that brief moment.

what does it say? here ya go. read. think. enjoy.

follow your heart. think big. love open space. cherish your family. know that all children need love. plant trees. listen for the birds. cherish the land. save prairies, forests, wetlands, woods and streams. stop sprawl. preserve farmland. reserve habitat for wildlife. think small. one small planet. safeguard clean air and water. use alternative energy. recycle. take positive action. work for peace. promote harmony. create joy. love others. teach by example. see beauty around you. enjoy art. collect beautiful things. make mistakes. trust yourself.

will they please just STOP bombing? and give me my privacy and my rights back?

A U.S. bomb crashed through a flimsy mud-brick home in the Kabul Sunday blowing apart seven children as they ate breakfast with their father, the mother said.