My internet is currently down AGAIN, but I'm going to bite my tongue and instead draft this in textedit. Look at me being efficient. (Note: this entry's gonna have some cuts in it so it doesn't look so scary long on the front page)

Today I got my first call from my temp agency. Tomorrow I start a week-long stint as a file monkey for Honeybaked Ham's corporate office. Sweet. A week seems just long enough to get my kicks without killing myself, so that's fine. It'll be something to do during the day. It makes my trip to San Diego on thursday a little more squeezy, but I'll live. I probably won't like the openers anyway. Woohoo, ham.

*****

I've fallen in love with Ladera Ranch, the several year old city located in what used to be a valley between my house and Saddleback Mountain. The city planners really got it right this time--the "mercantile" area (as they call it) is extremely cute, quaint and main-streetish while still looking new and interesting, there are footpaths that run from a road behind the shops into the residential area (so your kids can ride/walk to the store), the houses range from small and adorable things with front porches (but tiny yards, gotta make some sacrifices) to big houses with big yards and mountain views that look more like the typical suburban development to little condo complexes where six or so places all open into a little shared courtyard with benches and stuff and a walkway that leads out to the main street... They do a really good job of changing up the designs and colors so they don't have every third house identical (the plague of suburbia: cookie cutter housing developments). The elementary school is next to the middle school, and the school's library doubles as the city library (only downside: no adults during school hours, so as to avoid molesters, I suppose) so the kids have a great resource/place to go study if their parents can't pick them up. Plus there are no huge streets in the whole neighborhood so your kids could pretty much walk everywhere. There's been a big shift in these parts lately towards not knowing your neighbors, so I think this project was an effort to reverse that. There are parks scattered throughout, even a little gazebo for performances and a mini baseball diamond. Trees everywhere, too, and all the houses are just overflowing with things growing around and on them (I love ivy on houses!). Oh, and all the bigger intersections are roundabouts. :P The whole place really feels like someone manufactured Maine (don't ask me why) or something in southern california. It feels east coast, not west coast. It's "Hometown USA" right across the street. If all that sounds funny to you people who are used to this sort of thing being natural, it's new to me, because I live in, well, not that. I had just about given up on raising kids here, even though I love the weather and the location/opportunities, because I would be afraid to let my kids walk across the street by themselves, but Ladera Ranch has redeemed Orange County for me. Not that I don't still love New England, but this place doesn't have the bitter cold winters or snow that requires shoveling.

*****

Do you remember when Nintendo Power used to make images with their collected spine art (confusing description, sorry)? Like when you'd stack them all next to each other and you'd see mario or link? That was cool. :)

*****

When I was helping my dad with his shelves I found a really old copy of The Divine Comedy, not to mention two copies of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (I'll take one, thank you very much), and A Tear And A Smile by Kahlil Gibran. (I've got to get my hands on a copy of The Prophet. I'm sure he's got one somewhere.) I haven't started Anansi Boys yet (have to finish the hard sci-fi book I'm reading right now just to prove to him that I like that genre), but as soon as I'm done...I've probably got five or six lined up. Then there's Why I Am Not A Christian and Marriage and Morals by Bertrand Russell, Narcissus and Goldmund and Siddartha by Hesse, Wuthering Heights, and I never did finish The Poisonwood Bible (even though I said I did and gave a report on it in senior english). Yay. My dad said at one point he'd set aside for me all the books he owns that have "changed his life," so to speak. So that's all something to look forward to. (Maybe I'll reread Fahrenheit 451 and The Giver, too...I like those.)

*****

Here's something that's...um...awkward. Emi wants to introduce me to the twenty-something chef at the restaurant at which she hostesses. He's "interested in meeting me," but I can't get her to understand that without knowing anything about me or having seen a picture, the only thing going through his head is "I sure hope this underage hottie has a comparable older sister." He's apparently a musclebound mexican who enjoys working out and fixing up cars. And he's a chef at a golf club restaurant. Uh huh. AND, she wants me to meet the 23 year old new band director at my high school. I don't know why she's trying so hard to play matchmaker all of a sudden, and with weird candidates, too. I'd really rather avoid being set up with anyone at this point. Not really...yeah. Not interested. I guess that's what high school girls like to do, though.

*****

Apparently my sister and her friend have a new favorite game (the old favorite is "Would you rather..." with the grossest possible alternatives, like "would you rather eat a plate of dog poop or have all your friends spit in a cup and drink it?" Or there's the game's variation, the opportunity cost game, wherein my sister asks, "Would you swim in a pool of vomit for $500? $1000?" and tries to discern exactly how much you value your dignity) called "Marry, Kill, Do." You give someone three options (people, animals, objects, anything goes) and they have to choose one to marry, one to kill, and one to do. If you're sitting in a car of four people, that game gets dangerous. One scenario I was given as an example was, "A 12" length of pipe, Mrs. L (my senior english teacher), and an In'N'Out burger." I can tell you right now which one anyone would kill (hint: it's the only thing that's sentient), and the last two really depend on who you ask.

-m

*****

--The sky is overcast
With a continuous cloud of texture close,
Heavy and wan, all whitened by the Moon,
Which through that veil is indistinctly seen,
A dull, contracted circle, yielding light
So feebly spread, that not a shadow falls,
Checkering the ground--from rock, plant, tree, or tower.
At length a pleasant instantaneous gleam
Startles the pensive traveller while he treads
His lonesome path, with unobserving eye
Bent upward; he looks up--the clouds are split
Asunder,--and above his head he sees
The clear Moon, and the glory of the heavens.
...

-A Night-Piece (excerpt), Wordsworth