tonight, the blog pays the price

so today . . . was my first day of school. as it turns out, i didn't have any kids to teach yet. they come tomorrow. i spent some time today preparing for their arrival--not nearly enough time, but it will have to do.

i am so used to staying up after midnight, that it is now difficult for me to get everything done in the evening and still get into bed at a reasonable time. so tonight, the blog will suffer. i'm sorry about that. but tomorrow, something else will suffer, and i will write a decent blog. i promise.

seriously. dude.

so today . . . i said dude. in conversation. twice.

eight years ago when it looked like we were going to be relocating to southern california, i was less than thrilled. i think my sentiment basically was, "you have got to be kidding me! los angeles?!?! i don't think so--they have smog, traffic, sales tax, AND you have to pump your own gas!" none of which we had to deal with in beautiful oregon, where we lived.

but we came anyway--eventually.

rollie came first. he drove a huge truck down and settled in with about half of our stuff. diandra and i stayed in oregon for two more months while she finished out the school year. whenever rollie would call, he would tell us how beautiful it was here--i would ask how he could tell, looking through all that smog. he would describe the amazing mall that was just a few blocks from our house--i would remind him that we would have to pay sales tax in that mall. he would tell us about all the cool places we could go--i would ask how many times he had had to pump his own gas.

i was having some trouble adjusting to the idea of moving to such a mega-metropolitan area.

i bought birkenstocks. "if i am going to have to live in california, i am at least going to get some new shoes, and that's what they wear there." i bought a ring with morganite stones. "morganite is a california gemstone." i did NOT buy tofu. "never mind the mall--what kind of fast food places are there?"

i was trying to adjust.

rollie came back to oregon for diandra's 16th birthday, and drove another huge truck down with the rest of our stuff (i told you, we have a lot of stuff!) and then the day came when it was time to pack up my purple honda and get the heck out of dodge . . .

i don't remember much about the trip south. i know diandra was with me, so i'm sure it was fun! i do remember trying to pump my own gas, and having to go inside and ask the guy behind the counter to help me. he gave me instructions, and i went out and tried again, but still no luck. i went back inside, and he repeated his instructions--a little more slowly and a bit louder. i went out and tried again, but i just could not make it work. i finally had to say, "look--i'm from oregon. in oregon trained professionals pump our gas, and clearly it takes a trained professional to do it, so will you please come out and show me how to work this confounded thing!" he relaxed a little then (i think he thought i was part of some complicated scheme to steal money from his cash register--or some skittles) and came out and showed me what to do.

i knew i was going to hate california--if for no other reason than that my car would always have to get it's gas from an amateur.

we got to l.a. and settled in. at first i spent a lot of time home alone, but i eventually ventured out, found the grocery store and the amazing mall with palm trees inside it, and realized that california was not going to kill me with smog.

eight years later, i love it here! the weather is perfect nearly every day. there's hardly any smog--really! i've adjusted to the sales tax and the traffic. and it is beautiful. really! i've learned that they don't wear birkenstocks here--they wear high heels. i've found that it is much easier to find a hamburger place than a tofu burger place (although the very fact that there ARE tofu burger places haunts me.)

and apparently, i've added some new words to my vocabulary. like "dude." i can promise you, dude is not a word that was even in my brain before we moved to socal. but now it is. it has popped up in my thoughts, and i have said it when recounting the words of someone else. i even write it when i am messaging a friend of mine. recently, i have had to stop myself from saying it more than once, because, i am sorry, but it would just be weird for people to hear a woman of my age say, "dude!" seriously weird.

but i guess they are going to have to get used to it, because it slipped from between my lips today, twice. i guess i am turning into a california girl--although, now that i think about it, the girls don't say "dude." so maybe i am turning into a california surfer dude--but i don't surf, or even swim, or even really want to put anything other than my feet in the ocean.

maybe i am just spending too much time talking to teenagers. california teenagers . . .

warning!! whiny blog today!

so today . . . i'm not feeling so good. i have had a headache for two days. i've tried to get rid of it, but we had plans to go to the gem faire yesterday and the swap meet today--both fun activities that i didn't want to miss. so i just keep popping tylenol and going--the energizer bunny on drugs. but this afternoon, i kind of hit the wall.

school starts for me on monday. i cannot believe my summer is already over. it has been very strange. i only read one book! that should tell you that it has not been my most relaxing summer ever. and now it's over.

maybe i should be glad it's over. it feels like i have worked hard and accomplished very little. maybe i need to get back to work to get myself moving and organized. or maybe it will just bury me. i guess we will see . . .

diandra joined a gym several days ago. and if i join with her, i can get an amazing deal--too good to pass up. i think. no enrollment fee, no contract. i just pay $20 a month and i can use all their equipment, attend classes, and have access to a trainer--although after seeing diandra try to move after working with her trainer, i think i will pass that feature up. so i will pay for a couple of months and see what happens. if nothing else, i'll bet i get some good blogging material . . .

i'm making myself tired. and did i mention i have a headache? and tomorrow is going to be an exceptionally busy day. and then school starts on monday morning.

i think i need sleep . . .

the blogger tries something new--and lives to regret it.

so today . . . i lost my blog!!! and it was so good!!!

diandra and i went to a photography meeting tonight in orange county. it was only 20 minutes away, but we had to go during night traffic, so we left about an hour and a half before it was scheduled to begin. we knew a lot of people were going to be at the meeting, and we wanted to be sure we were there soon enough to get a good seat. and we were. but the traffic wasn't that bad, so we actually got there an hour early!

shortly after we laid claim to a couple of good seats, diandra was asked to help with the name tags. that left me sitting in a nearly empty room with nothing to do. so i pulled out my phone and started playing around.

i have accessed my blog on my phone before, but i've never tried to actually write it on my phone. while the keyboard on my treo 755 is fine for texting, i didn't think it would be good for writing a whole blog! the keys are tiny, and right now my "w" key does not work well. but i had nothing else to do, so i thought i would give it a try. i didn't really think i would write the whole blog, but i thought i could at least get it started.

i got to the web page with no problems, but it took a while to figure out how to make it work. once i was able to type "so today . . . " i started blogging away. i knew that i would have some editing to do when i got home, because there were no "w"s. i was more than half way done and was very pleased with how it was coming out. and then the announcement came--there was food in the back! well, you know i put my phone down and went to see what goodies were available. there were chocolate chip cookies and red velvet cupcakes! i helped myself, took some to diandra (who was still helping with name tags--250 people came!) and got back to my chair just as it was time to begin.

the meeting was fun, the speaker was good, and now i think i might want to be a photographer when i grow up--that's how amazing the speaker was! it was a wonderful opportunity to meet other photographers, and a lot of them recognized diandra from her blog. i thought that was kind of exciting!

we came home and i settled down with my computer to burn cds of diandra's most recent photo shoots so they could be mailed out. but first, i thought i would finish my blog. it was almost done and i wanted to get it posted before i started anything else. i logged onto blogspot. i went to my list of drafts, and the post i had written earlier was gone! and it was really, really good--you guys would have loved it. i could just try to rewrite it, but i have found that my rewrites are never as good as my first attempt. i couldn't believe it was gone! my computer autosaves what i write every 5 minutes. and that is when it hit me--my computer autosaves what i have written, my phone does not. i vaguely recall seeing a "save" button on the webpage on my phone, and i briefly thought of pushing it. but then cupcakes were mentioned. with cream cheese frosting . . . and i guess i sort of thought my phone would be as smart as my computer and save my work. clearly, i was wrong.

so now i am bummed. and tired. and hot (i think it was over 100 degrees today!) and not a photographer. and almost not a blogger . . . and it is late. and i still have cds to burn.

but tomorrow is the gem show, and i LOVE, LOVE, LOVE the gem show--i am going hunting for peridot and garnet and quartz!!