Friday Night In

How in the hell am I ever going to find a date if I spend Friday night in front of my computer playing with my books.

Yeah, you read that right.

Boss Lady turned me on to LibraryThing and I immediately came home from work and jumped on the computer to add my collection and to join groups. I forgive myself for being so boring on a Friday night because it is really Thursday night for me. So far I only added 37 books. 11 of them are sitting on my night stand in the "to be read" pile. The other 26 are books that I remember reading off the top of my head. I may pull out some of the boxes from my closet to add more another night, but for now I have to get off the computer and start reading! I joined a 50 Book Challenge - and while I can do that in my sleep, I figured it would be nice to start slow. It seems that the slower readers are more talkative too - interesting how that works. . .

Lizard Love

I spent a few years in southern California studying zoology. While I took many different classes about animals, one class I didn't take was herpetology. And I regret it at least once a month. And I felt that regret again today while walking our usual trails.

The hike started out ok, but getting there was a battle. For the life of me I don't know why bikers feel the need to pedal their schwinn in the middle of the road - especially when they are riding the bike to take off-road trails! Ok, I know some people actually ride the road with road bikes, but there is an obvious difference between a road bike and a mountain bike and when you ride your mountain bike in the middle of the road, I get mad. I get even more mad when bikers ride in groups of four or more and hog the entire side of the road. The polite thing would be to line up single file and let the giant car ride past you safely. Because if I hit a car head on trying to get around you, you can bet that the energy propelling me forward will suddenly propel me sideways and I will hit you with said giant car.


Now that the rant is over, LIZARDS!!!!!

Because I didn't do a lot of hiking on my own time in college - forced hikes where the biggest drag! Who wants to get up at 7 in the morning on a Saturday to go walking with people you see 5 days a week???? I never understood the value of what I was actually learning while on those walks. Now that I regularly take walks into our beautiful hills I am seeing all sorts of things that I wish I knew what it was. For example: poison oak. It would have been helpful if, in a year of studying botany I had learned to identify poison oak. After an interesting experience of my mom getting the itchiness I learned that I was immune - good thing because my dogs probably tromp through it a few times a week! But I'll probably never know. . .

Today I came across a lizard sunning himself in the path. I was initially interested, then I became worried because he was in the middle of the bike-tire divots on the curve. I had never seen a lizard like this before - he wasn't one of the typical alligator lizards one catches as a child. He was brown on his back and yellow on his stomach. I tried to take some pictures of him but all I had was my camera phone - see problems with camera phones here. On top the camera problem, I had three dogs that almost stepped on him trying to eat the turkey out of my pocket. Poor little guy, I felt bad when we scared him out of his sun - but at least he wasn't going to get run over on my watch!

All the rest of the walk I was kicking myself for taking the "easy way out" and not taking a herp class in college. Sure it would have dropped my GPA down slightly, but what's a 3.2 GPA worth 5 years out of college? Actually I probably wouldn't have remembered his scientific name anyway. But after looking it up on Californiaherps.com I decided that he is a Plestiodon"gilberti" rubricaudatus (yeah, I copied and pasted that one!) or aka: Western Red-tailed Skink.

Here is a better picture:


Here's hoping to seeing him again - or one of his beautiful babies



wait, can anyone say "supanerd"

Life is Too Short . . .

. . . To read bad books! At least that is what the lady at my free bookstore says. Yes, I go to a free bookstore - as opposed to the pay bookstore that most people go to. But that isn't the point. The point lies in the dilemma between finishing a book you don't like just to get it over with, or moving on and spending your time reading a book you actually enjoy.

I started thinking about it when I began to read A Change of Climate by Hilary Mantel. The premise is interesting enough - its about a young couple that moves to South Africa to do "missionary" work. While there they get tangled up in the politics and end up getting deported to Bechuanaland. They decide to stay and to continue with their mission work until something tragic happens which forces them to return home to England.

The book sounds interesting enough but I just couldn't get into it. I make myself read at least 100 pages of a book before I even consider putting it aside - but then my own little tragedy happens where I have no internet connection and that gets me to page 200. By this time I figure that I might as well read the last 140 pages just to see what happens. I finally get to page 240 before I want to tear my eyes out. I just can't do it. I can not possibly read any more of this book!

But how do you really put aside a book that you trudged through 240 pages of? Then again, why waste my time reading a book I hate when there are at least 1001 books to read before you die? Such a dilemma!

So I started to do the math:

I can read 1.5 books a week (a slow week) and that gives me 75 books a year – not counting a 2 week vacation (where I actually read more books not less, but for arguments sake). If I read only 75 books a year, I figure that it will take me 13.33 years to read those 1001 book. And that is assuming that I ONLY read books from that list – which I haven’t even looked atbtw . . . However, if I am reading a book I don’t like, it could take me a week and a half to finish 1 book! And that means that I will only read about 36 books a year – if I only read books I don’t like – and 27 years to get through that list!

God, I really am a nerd!

So what do I do? I decide to pick up a super easy read called The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing by Melissa Bank. This book would have taken me a night to read, but I started it a little late so it will take and a night and a half. . .At which point I will probably pick up the book I don't like and force myself to read that last 100 pages. Does this make me a masochist?

Adios Little Dude

I had to saw good bye to my little guy two days ago - it was as hard as I expected.

There were times during those 9 weeks that I flirted with the idea of keeping pap pap, but I never seriously considered it. He is way too much dog for my little family - and way too high energy for me. But we still managed to have a ton of fun together. He was worth all the time and energy and all the love that went into him. As the time drew closer for me to actually give him up I began to feel nauseated. How do you give up something that you put so much effort into? And when the applications came in I felt like I had been punched in the gut. I was afraid that the right person wouldn't come along soon enough and I would be stuck with this adolescent mutt of a dog and then I really would keep him!

But sure enough, the perfect family came along for him. She met all the criteria I had set up - even the neurotic ones! And best of all, she had an older, larger female dog that would teach him the ropes and put him in his place. I cried the first time I got off the phone with her. I knew in my heart that this is where he was supposed to be. And after meeting her and her old lady dog it became even clearer - he would actually leave me. He will go on with this family and have a life of his own - separate from me. He will have a new mom - one that will teach him how to be a good boy - not just the crazy puppy that I raised and fell in love with.

When the day came to send him to his new home, I didn't want to stop playing with him. I cuddled and kissed him - and he let me. He had already been in the "put me down mom, I want to run and play" phase for 3 weeks, but that morning he let me hold him to my hearts content. I don't think he understood, I think he just liked chewing my hair!

I still think about him first thing in the morning -but he isn't crying to go potty. I can watch a movie at night with out keeping one hand busy with a tug toy. My kids seem a bit more settled with out his constant banging into things - I don't think that they ever loved him as much as I did. I miss him. I expect that I will continue to miss him through out the next few weeks - and possibly from time to time through the next few years. He was my baby - the closest thing I will ever have to one anyway.

Bye bye pap pap

be a good boy

New Trails

We had to find some new hiking trails for a variety of reasons, so after a quick glance at ODog we found Redwood Regional Park - super close to home and completely off leash! I feel so lucky to live where I do and places like these really reinforce that feeling. We are so lucky as a dog-owning community to have the East Bay Regional Parks where we can take our dogs completely off leash on thousands of different trails. We prefer the more remote ones because none of my kids are super dog friendly - although they are very dog-tolerant and do quite well meeting dogs on hikes. The main problem with these more remote trails is that they tend to be heavily populated with bikers - not a dog-friendly bunch in general! But, lucky us, bike people tend to be early risers, and we like to cuddle a bit before the morning walk.

But even after a cuddle - and a VARY LATE start at 10:30am, there was still ice everwhere! I know its hard to see in this picutre, but its there. . .


And after an hour of this view:


I got this view:


Ok, not much of a view, but totally worth the hike to feel the sun and see green grass instead of ice! The kids got very muddy - the bikes (and shade) tend to make things quite nasty. But they are dogs, and they don't really care. My car seats care, but I have covers so I really can't even complain about the car...

I like this place and plan to go again. We might check out more trails eventually, but this one was quite fun - and pocket found a tree. . .It was love at first sniff. . .