And So It Begins...

Just to prove to y'all that I have not taken up beer drinking as a competitive sport and thus ended up with this...



Here is the internal critter assuming the famous pose of The Thinker...



Who'd a thunk?

No. Freakin'. Way!

Alirghty, its a school night, so I've got to keep this short...

First of all, I somehow missed the entire boat on the Roe v. Wade anniversary, and the accompanying Blog for Choice day yesterday. For a quick (and always fabulous) sample check out Bitch. Ph.D's entry here and pretend that I wrote something that could be called half as informed and succinct, and I'll be happy.

Secondly, speaking of feministic issues... I AM NOW AN OFFICIAL ENGINEER IN TRAINING!! Yes, due to some wild freak in nature, I somehow managed to pass that dreadful eight hour exam that I was completely sure I had failed. So to whatever gods or goddesses are responsible for me passing despite inadequate study time, I send my sincere gratitude. The only downside to this is that The Hub will never again believe me when I say I did abysmally on something. And well, I guess I can live with that. It sure beats another two months of frantic studying and eight more hours of cerebral torture. Yay! Hey look, at the age of 35 I'm finally on my way to being a professional at something!

A Day In The Life...

Okay, so now I have this job. A real full time job! Which is sorta rare for me. I really can't think of the last time I was going to an office for a scheduled 8 hours a day... I do happen to think that full time jobs are the downfall of modern civilization, but that's another story. So anywhoo, this is rare (AND temporary in view of my pregnant status) so I thought it had better be documented! That and the fact that I work in a jaw droppingly stunning place... So here it is in prose and pictures, my Take Your Blog To Work Day!

A tiny side note here. This actually took place over two days 'cause I ran outta room on my camera card before arriving at the office the first day. (Yes I have a lovely commute) So please roll with any tiny inconsistencies, thanx!

So here we are in the car heading out from under the (still standing) Tarp Carport a little later in the morning than we had actually planned. (It should still be dark...)


Or alternately we can carpool with our neighbor, Mr. Imp...

He really is more awake than he looks.

Then featured in the back seat are our two other carpool players, Squished Hub and Junior Imp...

Junior was having a cranky morning, which I have to say is pretty much par for the course for me, so I can more than empathize.

So then we take a nice little drive down the Merced River canyon, which seems to always be artfully decorated with cute little puffs of mist...

This goes on for half an hour until we get to Stop 1.

Here we lose half of our load, as Junior goes to daycare, and The Hub unsquishes himself and walks up the hill to his office.


From there Mr. Imp and I continue up the curvy canyon


To the Arch Rock entrance to Yosemite...

Here it comes...


closer...


through!

Then we continue to follow the river...


Through the woods...


and past The Captain, in his snow frosted glory.


And here is my final destination.

Yes, I live AND work in a trailer. But the office is a Triple Wide! Its much wider than the Double Wide! If you look closely you can see a waterfall at the top center of this picture. That is Yosemite Falls, aka North America's tallest waterfall. I have to state once again that my location Does Not Suck! Here's a pic on a sunny day, with more artful mist puffs...


I then spend 8 hours doing stuff here...

and here.

And looking out at this...


At lunch I try and take a walk to experience things like fresh air and sunshine and... you know... Half Dome.


And then we pile back in the stationary wagon for the trip home, which always includes a lovely rising mist view of El Cap Meadow.


So that's what I've been doing all these days that I haven't been updating my bloggy. AND I get a paycheck too! Can you forgive me?

The City Of Queens, Kings, and Angels

First and foremost, we are doing just fine. Thank you to everyone who has volunteered to come over with their own hammers and elbow grease and put our Humpty Dumpty the Double Wide back together again. We will be sure to keep y'all posted on the New Roof ETA! Secondly we fled the scene of the crime last week, and here's the scoop...

Since the insurance man couldn't deign to make it out to our house, The Hub and I got to attend the final farewell for The Hub Family Ruling Matriarch. Yes sadly the Grande Dame Hub-Gramma decided to make her final exit the morning after Christmas, drifting off in her sleep. I won't assume that any death is pleasant, but if you have to go, doing so at the age of 98 while napping sounds like the best possible way for it to happen. On an awkward side note, don't you find it a little more than creepy that the funeral home was so booked they couldn't get her in until two weeks later? I do, ick. Regardless, the service was lovely, The Hub's family is lovely (literally too!) and we had gorgeous weather. So, I think Gramma was sent off in the style she was well known for, simple yet elegant. Now, moving on from this rather dour subject...

The rest of the week/weekend was surprisingly pleasant. One of the cousins gave us his tickets to see the LA hockey team (the Kings, for those of you who aren't yet familiar) and we CREAMED the Coyotes. Yay! I have been quite distressed this winter since I haven't been able to play any hockey (due to the budding critter in my body) so it was a nice, safe way to experience the thrill, at least vicariously. Now, if only it had been a women's hockey team!

The rest of the days were a pleasant blur of sunny beach walking, fresh farmers' market lunches, some light shopping and mellow family dinners. Unfortunately somewhere in there TH came down with the cranial cavity creeping crud, and sounded like a dying walrus gargling motor oil. Poor Hub. I'm sure it has nothing to do with the two straight days he spent on the roof in the driving wind and rain. Can you hear that? I'm playing the violin, just for him. Listen.

The weekend was capped off with a Catholic mass in Gramma's name at the Hungarian Catholic Church (St. Stephen's, again for the uninitiated). This was an entire mass, spoken in a foreign language that I had no hope of following. Wow. The cool thing about the church though, is that it has its own attached restaurant/bar. Unfortunately something in the air disagreed with The Hub-Dad's underlings, and we didn't make it that far. One by one all three of us (Hub, Hub-Sis, and myself) became light headed and dizzy and had to leave the church. Ah well, embarrassing, but I can pretty much blame everything on the gherkin these days. Lucky me. And the poor gargling walrus didn't stand a snowball's chance.

So on the agenda for the coming weekend? I thought I'd take a stab at Christmas presents. Ha ha ha hahahahaaahahaha And perhaps clearing some of the detritus from the front lawn. Big. Detritus. Happy MLK day!

While I'm Waiting For My WoWarcraft Update To Download...

I thought I'd post some piccies of the carnage...


Here is where our roof used to be.


Here is where our roof landed.


And here is its final resting place after a nasty encounter with a chainsaw.

Pretty huh?

On a sillier note, I had this, this (Thanks MsKathleen), this, and this for lunch, and for some reason had a tummy ache afterwards. I can't imagine why...

So We're Thinking Of Calling The Baby "Windy"

Well, its a happy new year and the shirt has hit the proverbial fan. See, we've been having some hellacious wind and rainstorms up here on Double Wide Ridge, and the 20 year old trailer pretty much threw up its arms in disgust. During a particularly gusty part of New Years day I was peering out the front door at our tarp and cement-filled-bucket carport (classy!) to see if it was going to fly away, when there was an odd crunching noise behind me. A moment later a massive piece of debris comes flying over the house and lands diagonally across the front of the house and yard. I close the door.

What in sam hill was that? I walk the 10 feet to the back of the house and notice that it is much brighter than usual. Peering out the back window reveals a slight problem. It seems that the roof extension over the back porch has always harbored dreams of being a jet wing. In perfect imitation of an airfoil, the 6 foot-wide 40 foot -long section of roof took to the air with the greatest of ease, ripping out some porch railing, a hose spigot and a fair chunk of the roof layers over the actual house. Holy Carp!

Ok. Ok. I'm ok. Wait... WHAT!? Half of my roof just went flying over the house and landed 3 feet from the car?! THIS IS NOT OK! I CAN'T STAY IN HERE! But wait... I CAN'T GO OUT THERE EITHER! PAAAAANNNNIIIICCC!

What to do what to do what to do? Call the neighbors call the neighbors, busy. IM The Hub IM The Hub, momentarily offline. Next logical step? Call my poor sister 3,000 miles away with panic tears rising in my throat. That makes sense. Upon her good, calm advice, I fled out to the car and hightailed it to the neighbors warm safe quiet stable house. Again with the coveting.

So here I sit, 24 hours later, still warm safe and quiet. After my precipitous arrival, the neighbors here (and The Hub who arrived moments later) all ran over to see what needed to be done. Within 15 minutes almost 20 neighbors had shown up with flood tarping, power tools and their own hammers to try and minimize the water damage. I hear it was a very moving display of neighborly barn raising goodness. Of course I hear this hours later, so I missed out on the fuzzy emotional part of the whole thing, and was left with my own personal crying/stress headache instead. Which I can't seem to shake despite all the warm neighborly goodness I have been receiving as well.

So here we are Jan 2nd, and the insurance companies are still closed. Its raining cats and dogs, and the bedroom is starting to leak. We've shut off the water until the broken pipe can be fixed. We shut off the gas, because the flying roof may have damaged the hot water heater. BUT we officially have a claim number, so that should keep us nice and warm and dry, huh? Heh heh. And here's the funny thing... that darn tarp carport? Still standing.