New Beginnings

I haven't really done anything with my hair since 2005 or 2006. I've just let it grow and grow and grow. I hadn't even trimmed it in a good year or more. So no surprise that my hair was long - it fell to my waist - and was frequently tangled (that's what split ends will do, I suppose - and my hair was full of them, thanks to not being trimmed). It had reached the point that most days I just ignored my hair - pulling it back into a pony tail to keep it out of my face and putting on a beret. Needless to say, it was time for a change.

I've been talking about cutting my hair for, oh, six months? I keep mentioning it and thinking "Oh, I'll get around to it." I've known what I wanted my hair to look like, I just haven't actually done anything about it.

And then I did.

Yes, that's right. I finally cut my hair, and I didn't pull any punches when I did either.

Best part? I absolutely love it.

I know you can't see too well in the picture (flash messed it up), but it's really short, and it flares out all cute (if I style it appropriately, of course). I think my straightener is finally going to get some mileage on it.

Other things that I'm working on, and I guess this is the perfect time of year for it, are a Happiness Project, and being more organized.

I've simply come to the conclusion that I'm sick of tired of being sick and tired. And so far doctors, in their various forms, have been mostly unable to help me out. So, I'm going to try to take my happiness (or unhappiness) into my own hands, and see if I can't start to feel better about the world.

I have a whiteboard, which I've been referring to as my Scrum Board (Tene gave me the name). It's basically an interactive to-do list. I use post-it notes to symbolise tasks, and they get moved from the "To Do" Column to the "In Progress" Column as I begin working on them, and then go into the "Completed" box once I'm done. I also have a section for things that I'm not quite ready to start on, but that I need to look in to (my "Planning" section). So far it's been really helpful, and I think it will only become more so as I get into the habit of using it. I admit: It doesn't hurt that the post-it notes are all different colors.

I bought myself a sewing machine. I've yet to even unpack it, but I finally did buy one. Now I'm working on making some space in my workroom for it.

I wanted make sure to thank those of our family who sent Tene and I such nice gifts. My dad and stepmom got him some interesting books, and got me some nice photography equipment (which should come in handy soon as I start to take something from the planning stage to the implementation stage). We got some nice dishes from Tene's older sister, and I hope his younger sister and her family enjoys the books we sent (a phonecall from her points to "Yes"). Tene's mother and grandparents also sent us some things, as did my mom and stepdad. So thank you all!

The last big thing is that I'm going to upgrade the cage the girls are in. Having helped a little with the North Star Rescue, I've been able to see the Ferret Nation cages in use - and I must say I'm really happy about them. So, I've decided to get one for myself. Well, almost. The Ferret Nation cages are made, as the name implies, for ferrets. The bars are wider spaced apart than is entirely comfortable, is the main problem I've been able to find. A lot of people at the animal forum I frequent (and the people at the rescue) have discussed wrapping the cages with hardware cloth. I've decided that unless I can find a really inexpensive Ferret Nation cage, I'll instead get the more rattie appropriate Critter Nation cage.

I'm also pretty set on adopting two new girls from the San Jose hoarding case. I know they'll come with their own set of health problems - but I can at least give a good, safe home to two more girls.

Moe

Late into the evening on Monday I went to check on my girls before bed. I found that Moe had the bald patch that you can see in the picture and some bloodied ears. I freaked out, because I wasn't certain what was going on. Moe seemed less active but otherwise normal.

Then I took her out of the cage. She was limping awkwardly - more just ignoring one of her legs than avoiding using it. This seemed odd but not too horrible.

I put her in a separate cage for the night, and checked on her the next morning.

Her limp was more pronounced and she was more lethargic. She wasn't moving much, just laying in her hammock. I decided to take some video of her limp to see what the great folks over at the Goosemoose Pet Portal Rats Rule forums thought. I had previously had a thread about her baldness.

This is the video.




They urged me to take Moe into the vet as soon as possible. So I called and made an appointment - this morning at 7:00AM. I took Moe over to the Adobe Animal Hospital, and met with the vet there. Moe had worsened greatly from yesterday - now almost completely listless, only wanting to be in the darkest corner of the carrying case, and not using either of her front paws. She was off balance and seems extremely confused.

The vet didn't have anything really comforting to say (the official diagnoses of the two vets who observed Moe was "I don't know") and gave me the standard regime of Baytril and Metacam to give to her.

It's my belief from the symptoms I've observed that Moe has a pituitary tumor and has at most a few months to live, and that only if the medication helps. I'm hoping it does - and I'm also hoping that my diagnosis is wrong and the vets are correct; that Moe is far too young to have a pituitary tumor, that it has to be something else, that PT doesn't cause the skin condition she has, and since the two appeared together they must be related, if it is PT that the medication will help and she'll have some happy time left ... but I'm bracing for the worst.

EDIT: Around Sunday (December 5) she began showing signs of an upper respiratory infection. Then, in the early hours of the morning of 7 December 2010, Moe passed away. Her death was not unexpected, but was extremely tragic, and she will be very missed by her cagemates, and by myself.

Thanks Giving. Thiving.

I decided to go all out on Thursday and make Tene and myself a proper Thanksgiving feast. I think it turned out well!

The meal itself was completely Paleo, sticking with our newish diet. I was really proud of myself for being able to find so many tasty paleo dishes - and for making them all!

We also got to talk to my family over Skype, after some initial connectivity issues (due to my laptop running Linux, Tene had to help me set it up properly so it could use the microphone, and there were some troubles on my mother's end as well, but I'm not actually certain what those were). It was nice to see my grandparents and the step-siblings who were still around, even if it was just through a webcam. My grandmother tried to get me to promise to visit over Christmas - we're still working out what our plans are going to be for then.

But the feast! It was a marvelous feast, and I was quite proud of it (we still have leftovers!)

I started out with an appetizer (told you it was a feast) of spinach stuffed mushrooms - the recipe I used asked for panko bread crumbs, which I substituted out for a little bit of almond meal (which has almost the same consistency). These were gone by that night, 30 of them, eaten by Tene and me! They were really delicious, and are definitely something I want to try again.

Then for the main meal, we had the turkey (of course, what's Thanksgiving without a turkey?) that I roasted myself (first time I have ever tried to do anything like that). My first observation when I started doing stuff with the turkey, though, was a not entirely pleasant realization. Turkey is gross.

I find most raw meat to be unpleasant, but for my first time working with a whole bird ... well, I can't choose anything else except that turkey - as a whole - is nasty. Especially since they store the "giblets" and neck inside the thing for selling. I didn't want anything to do with those. And cleaning the turkey out? Yuck. That's definitely something I'm willing to not do very often.

But the turkey ended up very nice! I used a cheap roasting pan for it, put a couple of pieces of onion (amounting to about a half) and some fresh thyme inside, covered the thing with butter and salt and pepper, and then stuck it in the oven for three hours. It was still moist and was cooked all the way through and was just tasty.

I also made roasted Brussel's sprouts (a standby that I'm glad is a normal part of our eating habits), some baked honey carrots and oranges, asparagus with an interesting bacon vinaigrette, and another of our standbys - sweet potatoes and onions. None used any extra sugar (the carrots had a little bit of honey added, and I put some agave nectar on the sweet potatoes), and all ended up really delicious.

And then I broke Paleo for our desert - a really tasty, very dark chocolate and rich flourless chocolate cake. Because it didn't use flour I'm pretty sure it was gluten free - making our Thanksgiving definitely friendly to those who can't have gluten. The cake had an added cup of sugar in it, plus the slight dusting of powdered sugar on top. Then there was the whipped cream (whipped by Tene) made from sour cream, heavy cream, and some more powdered sugar.

Unfortunately I didn't bake the cake quite long enough. It was still delicious (and we ate the whole thing), but next time I'll need to remember to leave it in the oven a little longer - either that or flourless cakes are just normally a bit thicker, I'm not sure which.

I think I should add an electric mixer to the list of things I want, if only to save Tene's arm from all of that stirring and beating.

After having a lot of fun cooking all of this and feeling proud of myself for a job well done, I started thinking - I think I might want to host a dinner like this once a month, invite people to come and eat some good food and hang out. It would give me a chance to really practice my cooking and baking skills, and it would help Tene and I strengthen our social circle here, both of which are good things, I think. It would also be somewhat of a challenge (for me) to find the recipes I want to make, and then cook them and have them done in time for people to come share with us. The Thanksgiving meal I made was delicious, and I'm glad I did it, but I started late and we didn't actually get around to eating it until seven or eight Thursday night. Time management just isn't one of my strong suits.

The joke in today's title comes from a series called Look Around You, in which it is an ongoing thing. Specifically from the Water module. Bless you, ants. Blants.

Letters Letters Everywhere!

NaNoWriMo is going well. I'm a two days behind, but I'm planning on spending most, if not all, of tomorrow writing up a storm (finally got Pandora and Rdio onto my cellphone, so I don't even need my laptop to be connected to the internet!), and hopefully I'll get back on track. I must write the life of this intriguing mail carrier!

I fell behind because of two things: One, I got tired of my story and plot. So I time warped into the future of my character, added a second character, and stuck them in a Gaslamp Romance. It's turning into a cute love story - and is going to include some themes about what I want from my own life. Second, I'm sick. I picked up a cold somewhere and I've felt more or less terrible. I've also been less than stellar emotionally, and I really should go see a doctor soon for recommendations to ... a lot of things (gyno, sleep therapist, psychologist, psychiatrist, a doctor (or dentist, but a doctor is preferred) specializing in the jaw ... the list never ends).

Speaking of health, I went to the dentist two weeks ago and found out that my life of no cavities ever was over. I had five of the little buggers. One for each of my back-most molars, with one of them having two! Well, I scheduled a visit to have them taken care of (and a deep cleaning). I was scared and nervous about two things - the shot, and the drill.

Before the first appointment to take care of the right side of my mouth I had never been conscious for a shot in my mouth. I've been numbed before, but always under sedation - once when my wisdom teeth were removed (I was 15 or 16 at the time), and nearly two years ago when I had my front gum repaired, both times I was put under sedation before I ever saw the needle come at my mouth. After talking to some friends I was less worried (apparently Novocaine is different then whatever the used to numb my eyelid for that surgery/biopsy, which burned before numbing), but still a little anxious about the thought of a needle piercing my gums. More than that, I was worried I would freak out at the sound of the drill - and of the drill drilling away my teeth.

I did the best I could to explain my fears to the dentist, who ended up prescribing me some Valium, which I took, and which allowed me to get through my appointments with few problems (my iPod helped too). I've decided that Valium is fine and good for serious circumstances that make me feel really anxious, but it's quite overkill. I ended up coming home and sleeping it off afterward.

After the break I'm going to type up some letter to people I've noticed while driving around Palo Alto and Mountain View, otherwise, that's it!

NaNoWriMo 2010 ....

Yep, despite failing the last three years, I'm going to be attempting NaNoWriMo again this year.

So, as usual, starting Monday the first of November, 2010, I'll be attempting to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days. That's almost 1700 words a day. I'm nervous, but I know I have plenty of time to do that (7 pages a day? Totally within reason, I think). I'm more nervous that I'm *also* going to be doing some other things: making Christmas presents for people being the Big Thing that I'm thinking about right now. Every year I start on such gifts too late in the season to get people their gifts by Christmas ... or I just give up. This year I've decided I'm going to start working on some of them tomorrow - and my plan is to have them given away or shipped off by 1 December (except in the case of one friend, Zoie, who I'm sending her gift to by 15 November, because she's leaving for Japan in early December).

This year I've decided to do some preparation work. Writing by the seat of my pants has failed me miserably the past three years, so it's time to try something new. I'm planning on having a rough outline, characters, and setting and plot built before November first, so that if/when I get stuck on things I'll have a way out. Less writers block is my intended goal, and I'm really hoping it works out the way I want it to.

Of Cavemen and Cold Monsters

It's been a month or so since I last posted, so I figured I should finally get to it. Overall, our lives have been quiet and uneventful, which has been rather nice. We're still settling in, we're enjoying what we have. It's nice.

The biggest thing going on for us right now is that we've decided to change our diet a bit. We are going onto a Paleo diet for the next month or so, to see if we feel healthier having done so or not.

What this means is that we're cutting out added sugar or sweeteners (with the exception of honey and agave nectar), and all grains and grain products. This means no more pasta, sandwiches, cookies, cakes, ice cream ....

I'm taking it mostly in stride. I've agreed to try this thing out with Tene, with the exception that I'm going to eat mostly Paleo - with sweets sometimes thrown in (I can't just totallly give up my sweets, after all).

The reasons we're trying this out is because we've heard a lot of good things about it from a friend we've made out this way, Frank, and because it seems like a very healthy choice. I haven't been eating enough, at all, lately - so hopefully I'll eat more on this diet and feel better for it. Tene had some blood work done for a physical, and while he's not horrible - he tends to be on the upper side of "normal" for the bad things, and the lower side for the good stuff. So we're also hoping that this will get him (and me - I didn't get any work done, but I would be surprised if my results were very different) to a more balanced place, health wise.

And, if you didn't get it from the name, the idea behind Paleo is that we eat what our bodies have evolved to eat - it's based on things that were available before the agricultural revolution, so things available to our hunter-gatherer or cavemen ancestors. I've been eating a lot of berries and nuts, and I'm enjoying all the fruit and vegetables. I could do without cooking so much meat, though. I hate handling it when it's raw. It's just gross.

We're also exercising more - Dance Dance Revolution, Yoga, I'm thinking of taking up jogging (maaaaaaybe), and maybe CrossFit - which a lot of Paleo-people like to do. I'm sick of how easily I get exhausted.

The only other big thing to happen for us is that we both got horribly sick the last two weeks. It was a basic cold - but it seemed like it laid us out for a good week or so, much longer than I was expecting it to.

Other than that, we're doing well and are enjoying our lives. We've been able to purchase a TV and a PS3, so we've got some more "luxury" items in our home, which has been nice - especially while we were sick. There are still a few things we want that fit into that category, but overall I think we're doing well.

The Life of Rats

So I thought I should show you how the cage looks, what the girls have to play with, what they eat, etc.

 So here's their mansion of a cage, where they spend most of their time. Up on top half there are three hammocks, all purchased from Booth Seventeen (which has since stopped producing them, since the owner has some severe health problems). There is also a litter box, which they're still figuring out, and the green food dish (behind which is a water bottle). The rope is basic cotton rope, two braided pieces twisted together and pulled as tightly as I could get it. They don't use it often. The wheel is a new acquisition - a Senior Wodent Wheel that Moe and Anise use decently frequently, and the other two mostly ignore.

On the lower half there's a nesting box, food dish, water bottle - and the newest thing in the cage, a cloth-stripfilled digging box that has some as of yet undiscovered treat puzzles.

Then of course there are the girls themselves - Moe down on the bottom, hoping I'll let her out, Ai nibbling on something from the food dish, and Anise and Absinthe sleeping up together in a hammock.
 

The food I feed them is a mixture of Kaytee food blocks (which have full nutrition for the girls), and Suebee's Rat Diet - a new batch I made just last Friday.

Suebee's Diet doesn't have full nutrition (according to The Rat Lady ... that's why I've added the lab blocks, which I may switch out for something else) but it does satisfy much of what they need - and, most important to me, it uses human-grade food and doesn't have anything in it I wouldn't eat myself. It's also cheaper than buying traditional food.

The big problem with rat food sold in most pet stores is that it's formulated for rats and mice - usually taking mouse diet into consideration more than rat diet, which leaves much to be desired for the rats - and gives them a lot of junk they don't need (peanuts, which can cause allergic reactions; corn, which if eaten in large quantities can cause illness or even death ...). That's the biggest reason I decided to make my own food for my girls.

So there's a bit more information about the little fuzzbutts!

June to August

So, the last time I posted anything meaningful was waaaay back in June. Even before Tene's birthday.

So, for Tene's birthday I made dinner and a cake. I, unfortunately, spent more time on the cake, when what Tene was looking forward to was me making him dinner and having it ready for him when he got home.

Regardless, I had a lot of fun making dinner and a cake for Tene (or, rather, making .... four cakes. They continually failed, and I was trying to make a multiple-layered cake - three of the four layers ended up being useable, if broken in half), and I enjoyed making him dinner.

The cake I made, as I mentioned above, ended up being three layers - and was a very rich chocolate with a chocolate ganache frosting. I also made a little red marzipan robot to decorate it with! The end result wasn't the most beautiful of things, but I was happy with it anyway, because it was fun to make and it was special and everything. The robot ended up looking like the Pusher Robot (possibly the Shover Robot, I can't remember which one is red) - here to protect us from the Terrible Secret of Space. Or like the red robot. That wasn't intended, it just ended up happening. And ... Tene asked me for a red robot, and I only had so much chance to do anything special with him (I wanted him to be much more detailed, but ran out of time).

I've been doing better at cooking dinner nightly the last few months; missing fewer nights than before. I'm really proud of myself for that. My main-made meal is still rather plain - pasta with Parmesan chicken and some type of vegetable or green.

I've become very fond of artichokes, personally. Especially their delicious centers. We eat at least one a week, and usually two each within the course of seven days. Hooray Costco! Bringing us healthy food in bulk!

I've also found that I'm okay at making steak. This was my second attempt, and was better than the first. Although I didn't actually cook the steak (Tene did that for me), I did do all the preparation for it, though. I was focusing on steaming the artichokes, asparagus, and broccoli, as well as frying (and burning) the onions.

I prefer working with chicken to steak, perhaps because I prefer lighter meat to red meat. Chicken is also a lot cheaper (hellooooo Costco and buying waaaay more chicken than I need!), although a lot nastier when raw (I wash my hands a dozen times when cooking with chicken, a lot less when cooking almost anything else).

Which brings me to tonight! Parmesan chicken, baked potatoes, baked Brussels sprouts, baked asparagus, and steamed artichokes. Made way-too-late to be reasonable, but we needed dinner.

In the last few months we've also added some things to our home - Now we have three bookshelves (two are full: one with books, the other with DVDs and video games), and a dining room table and chairs. We also have a nice red couch! Soon I should be getting my craft desk and shelves (ordered them from Ikea today), and hopefully within a few weeks or a month I should also get my computer desk as well. I'm excited that our home is coming together and things are looking so nice. It makes me feel nice and at home.

Speaking of my crafts - I've started up on them again. Right now I'm focusing on soft toys and possibly making a quilt for us for Christmas (a gift for us). I've also been working on fixing Tene's favorite blanket - a quilt his mother gave him when he left for college. Unfortunately (or, perhaps, fortunately I suppose), it has been well-loved, and is falling apart.

I'm doing the best I can to repair it, but it's taking a while and is difficult.

I'm hoping to get a sewing machine in the next few weeks/month or so, which will make my soft-toy making a lot easier (and save my back).

Otherwise, not much has been happening the last couple of months. Tene's been working and I've been sticking around taking care of home (and loving it). I'm starting to take up Yoga again, and I've joined a couple of local groups for books, writing, and crafts. I'm hoping to start taking classes again,  but I know it will be a while before I can - I'm really getting impatient, though, and wanting to return to school.

Well, that's all that's been going on around here. I've managed to kill three more plants (two small roses and a flowering plant called an Orange Star - I had named them Rosie and Posie, and ... I never named the orange one), and the girls are doing well. I'm hoping to get something to make a play area for them soon, so that I can have more than one of them out of the cage at the same time - as it is right now I'm too afraid of them running off in two (or four) different directions at once - leaving me unable to find them again.

So, that's it! I'll try to post more regularly again from now on.

The Girls Meet An Apple

I decided to put an apple in the girl's cage to see how they liked it.

They ended up finding my feet much more interesting, and it turns out that Moe is totally an attention whore.

Dinners For Two

One day I will be a master cook and a great housewife. I will have a healthy and delicious dinner ready and waiting for Tene when he gets home from

That hasn't happened yet, and probably won't for a while. But I'm working on it.

These are two meals that I have put together for Tene and I, and that were very delicious.

First was this lovely looking meal. I call it the Green Meal. We ate this maybe two weeks ago?

We've got an artichoke, boiled, with some garlic-lemon-butter for dipping. Then .... there's baked/steamed potatoes (they were baked in the oven, but were wrapped in foil, leading to a more steam-like situation than a bake-like situation; asparagus, which was fried; and finally brussels sprouts, which were baked in the oven. It was a very tasty meal, and I really enjoyed it. We'll probably be having it - or something similar to it - again soon.

Then, tonight's dinner - Parmesan crusted chicken which was made from two chicken breast halves and that I'm finally getting into the habit of cooking. I tend to have trouble not burning it to the pan. Up next we have whole-grain spaghetti with a tasty spinach pesto that Tene made on it. Ingredients for that were spinach, some basil, some olive oil, garlic, etc. It's very tasty, and gave us a good reason to use our new food processor! I'm very happy with the food processor. It's exciting. And, again, artichokes. Steamed, this time, but again with the artichokes.

I like artichokes. Who would have thought that such a spiky plant would be so delicious, let alone even edible? To whoever in the far past first attempted to eat an artichoke - thank you. You have made my diet a little healthier!

In other news, Tene and I might be starting on the paleo diet for the month of July, as a simple test for allergens and to see if it actually makes us feel healthier and more energetic like we've been told. So ... the two dinners above have parts that are disallowed - potatoes in dinner one, the pasta and breading on the chicken in dinner two. I'm hoping we get something good out of it, but even if we don't - it'll be a new, good experience, and I'm happy with that.

I've also be playing with my hairstyles, trying to find pretty things to do. Recently I figured out this one, which I thought looks elegant and casual at the same time. I might be cutting my hair soon, I'll give before and after pictures if I end up deciding that.

Other than that, things are going well for us here in CA. As seen above, we're eating mostly healthy - and we're being social and all that. We're working on getting me stable emotionally and healthy (the newest thing to happen is that I've been getting headaches almost every day, ranging from annoying cluster-headaches to full-on migraines, I see the doctor again on Monday to talk to him about it; currently looking at sleep and/or anxiety as the culprits).

Bad Dreams and Headaches

I've been having a lot of bad dreams lately - not quite nightmares, but enough to keep me up and make me feel bad for the day. Most of them center, oddly, around high school - particularly my high school choir. I'll have missed the entire semester, or I'll have a solo and my voice will crack, or I'll forget the words - or the entire song (or a combination of all of the above). I'm often made fun of in such dreams. Sometimes one of my high school crushes is in them - pretty evenly split between my main tormentor and my biggest support. Oddly, Tene is always lacking in these dreams. I'll end up feeling humiliated, confused, lost, and just plain depressed - a feeling which continues into my waking hours.

I don't know where these dreams are coming from, but I'm having them at least three nights every week. One of my friends suggests that they are little more than stress dreams, which certainly could be accurate. I just don't understand why I'm having them so much, and why they tend to focus around my old choir class.

I've also been having near-constant headaches. They've improved over the last week, but they're still there. I think I clench my teeth (perhaps grind them?) in my sleep, which would account for the pain. My doctor has given me some migraine medication to try to help take care of them - so far I've only needed it once.

Speaking of doctors I finally went in to try to understand why I've been so fatigued and tired. I underwent a sleep study (a take-home version, my breathing was monitored but my brainwaves weren't), and it looks like, while I don't have sleep apnea, I might have "Upper Airway Resistance Syndrome" - which basically means that while I don't stop breathing in the night (which is apnea) I get really close. I apparently don't enter the deep, very relaxing sleep (because when I do, I almost stop breathing, so I wake up - just a little - to avoid that), which is why I'm frequently tired. I'm trying to sleep with a C-Pap machine to see if I get better/more restful sleep with it. So far I've been having a hard time adjusting to sleeping with this HUGE THING on my nose, and it's been overly warm in our apartment - which means lots of uncomfortable sweating around the mask. I've gotten a few hours of good sleep from it, though, and I seem to be adjusting - just very very slowly. I think I might end up buying one for myself.

If I do have UARS, it could also explain my depression (or at least, part of my depression), my headaches, maybe even my bad dreams! I go in again on either Wednesday or Thursday, so we'll find out some more then.

Life has been mostly uneventful for us, honestly. It's nice here - I'm really liking Mountain View - and we're enjoying ourselves. So not so much to report right now.

Sustaining the Earth

Most links in this post go to items I'm hoping to purchase. I promise I'm not trying to sell anything to you or beg for you to buy anything - I just wanted you to see what I'm looking in to.

The last few days I've been on a bit of a "green" kick. Part of it is from being utterly annoyed at the plastic and paper bags floating around the apartment (I can only use so many as garbage bags ... ) and part of it is from just not wanting to live such a wasteful life. As a result I've started looking in to some sustainable resources to try to help Save The Earth.

I already use reusable water bottles more often than not - I own six or seven waterbottles made from either plastic, aluminium, or stainless steel (I'm working on replacing them all with either BPA-free plastic or stainless steel, since aluminium has been linked - rather weakly - to Alzheimer's, and BPA has been linked - also rather weakly - to cancer, and I'd rather be safe than sorry), and the only time I use non-reusable water bottles anymore is when I'm out shopping, don't have a water bottle with me (which is sadly quite frequent - my bag doesn't have a water bottle holder, so taking a water bottle is often inconvenient), really need water, and won't be heading home soon. This happens ... once every few months? And soon I hope to make myself a different bag, or a smaller water bottle, so I'll be able to more easily carry water with me.

I have a single reusable shopping bag. I got it from our medical insurance company for becoming a member (how nice of them!). This bag is another part of why I've been thinking of making such changes. I'm hoping to buy some more bags from reusablebags.com (or reuseit.com - they both go to the same website) so that I don't have to bring home more plastic and paper bags from shopping.

Another thing we already do deals with lunch - I frequently try to make Tene's lunch so that he doesn't have to spend money on it, and I send it with him in a bento box. We now have three between us - mine is smaller and has a bunch of Totoros on it (it's adorable, and I love it) - and I hope to eventually get some more.  I'm hoping to eventually do furoshiki wrapping of the bentos, and to get some To-Go-Wear utensils to send with the lunch.

The adorable fuzzy thing sitting on the tree branch over there is Totoro. Or a Totoro. He's the biggest in the movie, but they come in a few different sizes.

Speaking of wrapping - another place that I'm hoping to save a bit of the earth will come when Christmas gets closer (or birthdays, possibly). Instead of wrapping gifts in wrapping paper, I'm going to wrap them in fabric. Which saves trees (and looks elegant, in my honest opinion)!

Finally - I've been thinking about buying a bike to run errands. Right now I get around town by driving, but it feels kinda wasteful - the temperature is nice, and it's not like everything is So Far Away that it would be impossible to do. Plus it would be good exercise. As long as I didn't need to get something like ice cream or milk, I think I would be fine - especially if I had some sort of case or basket on the back of the bike (which are pretty inexpensive themselves). And - if I had a case - I could easily put an ice pack in it to keep milk or ice cream chilled enough to get it home.

Anyway, that's what has been going through my head lately - I'm suddenly turning into an Eco-conscious type of gal. It must be the San Francisco atmosphere!

Things I Learned At Penguicon 2010: Post-Scarcity Futures

Title: Post Scarcity Futures
Panelists: Karl Schroeder, Geoffrey A. Landis, JD Luzio
Date and Time: Saturday, May 1, 2010; 9:00 PM

This panel ... wasn't what I was expecting, and I ended up not liking it very much. Anyway, the panel started off with a minor complaint from JD Deluzio. He had meant to have a panel talking about how the common views of the future had changed over time. It used to be that the future was either post-apocalyptic or it was the Star Trek future with humans colonizing the stars and winning all the battles. Now the two futures are a post-scarcity future, one where we've run out of some resource or another and the world has basically fallen apart; or a no-scarcity future - the one "the transhumanist optimistics" think of (there were a lot of digs at transhumanists in this panel, and it bothered me a lot).

The panelists talked about how there is always some type of scarcity, that things tend to balance out. One scarcity is solved only to be replaced by another, different scarcity. The panelists complained that there wasn't much ingenuity in the books that discuss such futures - because they always follow the same, or a similar, storyline.

They also talked about how they thought all futures would arrive - just not equally. The horrible post-scarcity future will come to some people, while others will experience the transhumanist future. I, personally, disagree with this, but that's for another time.

Finally, a lot of books were mentioned - many of which sounded interesting.

• Wind Up Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi was frequently referenced
• World made By Hand by James Kunstler
• Julian Comstock by Robert Charles Wilson
• Lady of Mazes by Karl Schroeder
• Accelerando by Charles Stross
• and anything by Greg Egan - I think Permutation City was specifically mentioned, but I'm likely wrong (Tene read it recently so I easily could have picked it out from the Amazon author page as looking and sounding familiar).

Penguicon 2010 Posts
Character Driven Storytelling
Non-Obvious Reflections of Culture in Science-Fiction
Methods of Life Hacking
Publicity 101
[[Post-Scarcity Futures]]

Things I Learned At Penguicon 2010: Publicity 101

Title: Publicity 101
Panelists: Cherie Priest, Patrick Rothfuss, Daniel J. Hogan, Brian Briggs
Date and Time: Saturday, May 1, 2010; 5:00 PM

This was the only panel I went to that Cherie Priest was on, which made me a little sad, I had hoped to see more of her (she is seriously awesome). I went because I wanted to learn some about selling myself - since I ... had no idea how to do it.

The panel started with things that we shouldn't do to try to sell our works. First was that we really shouldn't be "that guy" - the guy who writes his own reviews, pumping himself up on Amazon, or the guy who sics his friends and family after bad reviewers. In fact, the panelists agreed that we should avoid fighting on the internet and just roll with the punches - everyone gets bad reviews, after all.

We were also told that we shouldn't overextend ourselves financially - publishers don't pay for conventions or marketing, and conventions don't really end up being worth the cost.

The last Don't Do This was that while blogs, podcasts, Twitter, Facebook, and Myspace are good for staying connected to your fan base, they're not so great for marketing purposes. Which makes sense - you don't get new people just by tweeting all the time. Also that anything that requires a psuedonym is probably a bad idea: specifically things like posing as your characters on Facebook or Twitter. All of the panelists agreed that doing that was fun at first, but quickly becomes annoying.

Then the panelists moved on to good things to do to promote your work. Branding yourself is a good thing to do, although they never really talked about how to do that (or they may have, but it's not in my notes, and I don't recall it).


We were told to be confident, modest, and earnest - because all of those are endearing qualities. Basically, to be honest - especially with the important people (publicist, editor, etc). They need to be kept in the loop, because otherwise they can't help you need it.

Getting into a habit of making frequent posts to blogs and other social networks was also suggested, because you can learn from your mistakes - and your wins - before you're more popular. It will also help to put you out there - especially if you don't make many "horrific asshole mistakes". We were told that we should tread carefully putting ourselves out there like that. The panelists suggested we avoid talking about sex, politics, and religion on blogs - since those topics are likely to really upset or even offend some people (which is part of why I've yet to merge Criss Cross Asterisk with the rest of the blogs on here).

Spending time on marketing was encouraged - but that it should be secondary to creating. "The best possible promotion is quality work," the panelists said, and, "If it's good nothing can stop you, if it's bad nothing can help you." We were told that we should make the novel the absolute best that it can be.

The last part of the panel was about getting readers - we were told to become part of a network like the SFWA or the Author's Guild (although the panelists admitted that none of them were in such networks). Having friends boost your work up on Amazon was also good - but only when we're getting started. We were told to make friends with local, private booksellers and libraries - and to be nice to them - because such a relationship would definitely be beneficial. Also, and this one I liked the idea of, When we get our initial run of books printed we shouldn't necessarily give them to friends and family (who would boost us up and support us regardless), but to send them to people we think are cool - even if they're unknowns. The worst that happens is the never read it - the best that happens is you get a review from someone you find awesome! There are also book review websites available that will, well, review books. Business cards were also suggested, but not in much depth.

And my favorite quote from this panel came from Cherie Priest: "Everything you finish levels you up." I'm now going to play Writing: The RPG.

Penguicon 2010 Posts
Character Driven Storytelling
Non-Obvious Reflections of Culture in Science-Fiction
Methods of Life Hacking
[[Publicity 101]]
Post-Scarcity Futures

Things I Learned At Penguicon 2010: Methods of Life Hacking

Title: Methods of Life Hacking
Panelists: David Erik Nelson, Jim C. Hines, Dave Crampton
Date and Time: Saturday, May 1, 2010; 3:00 PM

This was one of the panels that I was really excited for. I've been looking into life and mind hacking to try to help myself, so I figured this would help me out. I wasn't disappointed!

We started with finding time to write. Everyone gets the same 24-hours in a single day, and how those hours are used is up to the person in question. It's always a choice, and you need to take what you can get! Once the writing time has been chosen, I need to stick to it. It needs to be routine - so that my brain builds "Time to Write!" pathways and make it easier to write in the future. Part of this is that I should avoid doing anything but writing during it - no checking email or various websites, no leaving my chair, just writing for an hour or so. One warning about the routine is that it's hard to break away from that if you ever have to.

One suggestion I really liked from this panel was about writing itself: The suggestion was to write long hand. It's slower, but that's often a good thing - it forces you to think about what you're putting on the paper - rather than just blurting out everything that comes to mind. Besides, in a word processor what's typed looks like a book, which could cause anxiety about it being absolutely perfect. Also suggested were writing on index cards or legal pads - because that makes it more difficult to ramble or lose track of the story.

My favorite advice was to "Write crap for ten minutes every morning" - that way all your bad writing is out of the way, so you can work on more serious things. I don't think I would actually be able to do this one, but it would certainly be nice!

The overarching theme was to try new things, different things - and find what works for each you. And to remember that things that are attempted might now work, and so as a writer I/we need to be flexible and able to try something else.


One book that was brought up numerous times was Booklife by Jeff VanderMeer. I hope to get a copy of it soon, because it seems like a very nice resource.


Penguicon 2010 Posts
Character Driven Storytelling
Non-Obvious Reflections of Culture in Science-Fiction
[[Methods of Life Hacking]]
Publicity 101
Post-Scarcity Futures

Things I Learned At Penguicon 2010: Non-Obvious Reflections of Culture in Science Fiction

Title: Non-Obvious Reflections of Culture in Science Fiction
Panelists: Sarah Monette, Doselle Young, Stewart Sternberg
Date and Time: Saturday, May 1, 2010; 2:00 PM

I got something completely different from this panel than I was expecting going in (although, I'm not certain what I was expecting) - it was fun either way, though, and I enjoyed it. I've seen Sarah Monette at the last three Penguicons, and she's often a very interesting panelist, so I was glad to get to see her again.

A lot of this panel focused on subcultures, rather than culture at large, which I believe surprised me. But it made sense - it's hard to see culture when you're in the midst of it. To see your culture you have to step outside of it - subcultures give people a way to do that; to view culture through the eyes of a subculture. Besides that - in order to understand culture fully, you need to know about all the facets - subcultures. It's the only way to know the whole picture, to have all the context.

Also discussed was where a non-obvious interpretation comes from, that is: biases brought to the reading will shape the interpretations that come from that. Experience shapes interpretation. You also get wider cultural meaning to bias your reading - so things take on meanings about gender identity, religion, or power reversal.

On the topic of culture most of what was discussed was that cultures repeat - but it's not always noticed. For example: Nirvana and Lovecraft deeply inspired and informed later generations of music, literature, and all sorts of facets and sides of culture; but not everyone knows what a Lovecraftian monster would be.

Finally the panelists gave some suggestions of some science-fiction informed by current subcultures or pieces of cultures: A future dystopia about gymnastics, a NASCAR-based science fiction, etc.

The best thing I wrote down from this panel is simply this: Everything has a fandom, and everything is interesting. So writing about a NASCAR-based science fiction would have a following - although it probably would not be the regular readers of science fiction.

Penguicon 2010 Posts
Character Driven Storytelling
[[Non-Obvious Reflections of Culture in Science-Fiction]]
Methods of Life Hacking
Publicity 101
Post-Scarcity Futures

Things I Learned At Penguicon 2010: Character-Driven Storytelling

Title: Character-Driven Storytelling
Panelists: Tara Tallan, Karen Howard, Jason Dunstan, Other Person I Didn't Write Down and Don't Remember
Date and Time: Saturday, May 1, 2010; 1:00 PM

The first panel I went to at Penguicon was about Character Driven Storytelling. The four panelists were webcomic artists and writers. We ended up discussing more about character development than character based plots, but I guess that makes sense - with character driven storytelling the characters, not the plot, are the important part.

So why should someone choose character driven storytelling over plot or action driven? The panelists talked about how when a story is character driven the audience can connect and identify with the characters much stronger - because the story isn't as important as the emotions and internal experiences. I realized that this is how I write normally - which explains why I have a big problem with writing down plots or what's going to happen in the future of my stories.

The rest of the panel was about characters, and character development. It was strongly emphasized that we - as authors - needed to know our characters inside and out; we need to know their voices and their quirks and everything about them - even if those facts don't come up in the story. Of course clothing and names can help to develop a characters personality (we were, of course, warned against using clichéd names like "Chastity" - there's only two things that can happen with such a character: she either becomes a nun, or she becomes a slut), but their voice is much more important.

Something that was suggested that I never thought of doing was taking two of my characters, and switching their places. If they end up being interchangeable - dialogue flows the same way, the scene has no or few variations, etc - then I haven't done enough work. The analogy was made that good characters interacting with one another should be like a pinball machine - all sorts of things should be going on. One of the panelists mentioned that it was interesting to see how characters can and will play off of each other if they're done correctly.

Another thing that was pointed out that I never considered: If I, as an author, don't like my characters, my audience will also not like my characters. I would imagine that this goes the opposite way, as well: If I care a lot about my characters, and put the work and effort into making them the best people that I can, and I love them - my audience, my readers, will see that - and they'll feel the same way.

The last thing that really, really stuck out to me was a very simple idea: Characters should be written as people first, characters second. It's the best way to make them as real as they can possibly be.

I don't feel as strongly toward any of my characters as I should, and many of them feel shallow. I guess I have a lot of work ahead of me.

Penguicon 2010 Posts
[[Character Driven Storytelling]]
Non-Obvious Reflections of Culture in Science-Fiction
Methods of Life Hacking
Publicity 101
Post-Scarcity Futures

Penguicon 2010

Last night Tene and I got home from Penguicon 2010 at ... sometime around eleven. I'm going to do posts about the panels I went to (and I'm actually going to do them this year!), but I figured I would give an overview of how the con went for us, well, me.

Because we waited far too long to get plane tickets, we ended up missing all of Friday. I don't know what we missed - because I didn't want to feel bad about missing things, so I completely skipped over the Friday panels.

After two uneventful flights (first from San Jose to Phoenix, AZ then from Phoenix to Detroit), and talking to the rental car agency, we got to the hotel at ungodly early 2:00 in the morning, and promptly crashed into bed. Tene and I shared one bed, while Bancus and rlpowell shared the other (rlpowell is the one who funded our hotel room, yay!). Saturday morning we woke up around nine, left the room around ten thirty, and had breakfast.

I spent most of my morning hanging out with the Lojban people - Bancus, rlpowell, Tene, Matt, Neptunepink, djanatyn, Hugglesworth ... and some people I don't know the names of - and admiring the pretty costumes of other con attendants. I wandered the Dealer room/Artists alley and found some things I was interested in, but wanted to give myself a chance to think about before buying (this ended up being a good thing, and saved me a good $150 on a bodice I might have never worn).

My first panel was at one, and then I was in panels until four - when I got a half-hour break - and then I had one more at five.

At six I wandered back to the room where all the Lojban attendees were chatting, and it was decided that it was up to me and one other person to decide what we were all going to eat for dinner. I was informed this was because we happened to be the most picky eaters out of the group - I found this to be an understatement. The other person, who I'll refer to as "P,"  was so much pickier than me it was scary. I know I'm a picky eater. I've been working very hard to change this aspect about myself. And, most of the nearby restaurants were places that I would have been alright eating at. P was .... a lot pickier.

We ended up deciding (I ended up dictating, really. P ... kinda freaks me out. A lot. I don't like being around him) on a nearby Indian restaurant that offered takeout, and Tene, Bancus, and I loaded up in the car and headed out.

Unfortunately I was very disappointed with Priya's (the restaurant). Worst mango lassi I've ever had (which brings my total of mango lassi's from different restaurants to 3), tiny tiny portions, and ... I don't know, it just seemed to be low quality - especially for the price we were charged. Bancus footed the bill, and I worry that he was essentially ripped off :(.

After eating (I didn't eat much, which is becoming disturbingly normal) I went to one more panel - which I kind of regret wasting my time on. Then it was ten at night and I was tired and Tene and I decided to go up to go to sleep. This ended up turning into a sleep over - as rlpowell, Bancus, and I stayed up late into the night chatting about all sorts of things, and Tene played Disgeae on my PSP and contributed every now and then. It was really fun and I enjoyed it. We finally went to sleep at, like, three in the morning.

Sunday I didn't go to any panels, although I wanted to, but I did get to go shopping! I bought some nice steampunk goggles (pictures to come soon), debated over the bodice I had tried on the day before (decided against it - pure leather, which means it wouldn't breathe well, and I wasn't sure where I would wear it - I don't really go to RenFests, and it wasn't quite steampunk enough to match my outfit), bought a medium-sized bottle with a leather holster (Tene and I have plans for this), and got some nice, padded leather cuffs. A very lucrative trip.

Shortly afterwards we got back into the rental car and took rlpowell to the airport, then drove around (I slept in the backseat) for a few hours before going to the airport ourselves. We almost missed our flight to Phoenix (we were there early, but the flight was leaving early. We didn't realize how close we had cut it until we heard my last name on the intercom, followed by Tene's and Bancus'), and were very lucky we didn't.

One other thing that happened to me happened on Saturday that had me giddy for much of the day following. I have been a fan of Cherie Priest since I first learned of her at Penguicon in 2008. After sitting in on one of her panels I got up the courage to request she sign my copy of Boneshaker, and I ended up asking her if it would be alright if I emailed her and asked her some questions about writing and the business and everything. She was very friendly and told me: "Yeah, of course!"

While I haven't gone through with it yet, I'm definitely going to. I hope to become friends with her over email - because she is so awesome, and it would be great to have some connection to the writing world. But mostly because she is awesome and I think she would be a great person to be friends with/close to.

So much happened, though, this post really doesn't do it justice. I learned so much at the panels I went to, even though I didn't really go to many. I'm just so excited to share everything I learned.

The last awesome thing about this weekend: I had confidence in myself and my self-esteem was at a ... well good level! I felt confident and sexy and pretty and I didn't have any of that self-hate and self-doubt that has plagued me for years. The best part? It hasn't left me yet! I still feel great. I'm trying my hardest to keep this feeling working - and I think I've realized that it is (a least partially) a choice to be happy or not. I mean, I've been acting like my depression and my emotions are something that are being done to me, something outside of my control And to some extent that's true: I have a chemical imbalance in my brain, I cannot control the fact that something related to my serotonin levels is messed up. But I can control how I react to it. Right now, it's easy, and I'm scared of it becoming a lot harder. But I hope that I'm on the right path to finally feeling like a normal person.

The Great Merger

As you may have noticed, some of my blogs - Rats in Pants, Truth in Lies, and 3 and 20 Black Birds - have gone missing. Nothing was lost from them, however, as they've all been merged into one giant blog: A Nest For Two!

I decided to create ANF2 a few months ago with the idea of it being a "couples blog" where Tene and I could share our thoughts and memories about our lives together. After talking to Tene over the weekend about it he helped me to realize that I already did this (Rats in Pants) and that the number of blogs I had at that point was ... rather absurd. I've cut the number of blogs I run down to two: this blog, and Criss Cross Asterisk. I am considering merging Criss Cross Asterisk with this blog, but I'm still undecided if I'm going to or not.

The biggest change you'll see is that I'm going to talk about anything and everything: From cooking and cleaning, to crafts and writing, to clothes and housewares, to simply living my life with Tene and the Girls. Also, from time to time Tene himself might post! It seems like this will definitely be much more efficient than managing some eight blogs :)

Home Sweet Home

For all of you asking about the apartment Stephen and I live in now (or those who haven't asked, but are curious) here you go! A video walkthrough by yours truly, showing you the apartment from our front door to our bedroom.

Enjoy!

Sickness, Sushi, and Self

It seems that all of us are adjusting well to life here in Mountain View. I've been taking care of the apartment - cleaning and organizing things, trying to figure out how best to organize the furniture (and even what furniture we want - thanks Ikea!). It's been fun.

In less fortunate news, Absinthe has gotten sick. On Monday I went to check on the cage, only to find dark red urine on the second full level. It took me much of the day to figure out which of the girls it had come from. The next day I took Absinthe in to a nearby vet (which I'll talk about later). Fortunately it doesn't appear that she has a tumor (which would have surprised me, but was a possibility), and instead she has a UTI - a basic urinary tract infection. Now she's on a medication regime, which she (and I) hates. I'll be done next Monday. Hopefully after that it will be cleared up.

Last night, Tene, Bancus, and I went to a newly opened sushi bar - Sushi 85 - and I ate real sushi for the first time. I didn't like it. Well, there was one type that I enjoyed - but overall I've decided that sushi isn't for me. Which is fine - there are plenty of other delicious Asians food that I do like - and I'm glad I finally found out.

As for myself: I'm still doing alright. My depression and motivation isn't quite as great as I would like, but now Tene and I have registered for our benefits, so I should be able to go talk to a psychiatrist sometime soon.

Changes to Be Made

As I mentioned before, I'm now in California with Tene. It's been an exciting two weeks.

We now have an apartment, and on Saturday we finally got everything moved into said apartment. Now I'm just trying to go through boxes and unpack all of the things we own.

I've been having bad dreams lately - they seem to be caused by the combination of stress from the Major Lifestyle Change of moving from Utah to California and the anxiety of the same. I seem to be clenching my teeth as a result, though, which is less than ideal and makes me unhappy. I've been waking up with headaches.

On a different side of things, I've been a little disappointed in my own reaction to the move. I had apparently been thinking - more strongly than just idle daydreams - that simply moving out of Utah would be enough to bump me out of the rut I've been living in for the last .... five? six years? It wasn't. I'm still the same girl I was in Utah, I'm just not wearing winter-clothes anymore. I don't like who I am, and I don't know how to change who that person is into someone I would like.

I have a severe case of akrasia - failure of will - when it comes to motivation. It's hard for me to get the energy to do anything that might be mildly unpleasant (pretty much anything I don't want to do ... and even some things I do want to do). So instead of actually doing anything I just watch stuff on hulu.com and youtube. I just don't care. I feel fine watching things, and when I do feel guilty ... it's not a very strong feeling.

I'm considering doing a complete overhaul of myself, of my personality. First I'm thinking of doing something similar to what Alicorn talked about over at Less Wrong - basically actively rewriting my emotional states, rather than just passively feeling and acting as though my emotional states are something that are out of  my control that I cannot control. Hopefully this will help with my depression as well as with my motivation. I'm also looking into some mindhacks to help me with my motivational issues (the link is another post at Less Wrong, this one about Pain Motivation vs Gain Motivation - I am very much "pain motivated"). I know the person I want to be, and I have some ideas of how to become that person ... I just need to actually enact them.

Another thing I'm considering is possibly taking on a new name - or doing something that is tangible or obvious to say, to show that I'm a different person than I was. That I'm going to become a different person.

I'm not certain if that makes sense, but it's just something I'm thinking about now.

A New Nest

We're in our new nest!

Tene and I moved the last of our belongings from storage into our new apartment yesterday with the help of Bancus and his girl. Can I just say I am so happy that we're no longer sleeping on a couch, a holey air mattress, or the floor? We've got our bed back, and oh - how I missed it.


The new apartment is rather nice - I have a large area outside (a private patio) that I plan to use part of as a garden area. I have no idea what I'm going to plant, yet, but I'm sure I'll think of something. Two bedrooms (one is going to be a work room/office), a decent-sized living room, a full-sized kitchen (yay! I have a real stove now!), a dining area, and two bathrooms. I'm quite pleased with it.

The next things on our list of making our apartment our home are getting some more furniture and sheets and the like, and getting internet access set up.

Possible Changes

I'm considering integrating the majority of this blog to my newest (yep, another one) blog, A Nest For Two. I may not, but right now I'm thinking about changing this blog to being completely about the rats, while I talk about Tene and I on A Nest For Two.

I'm not certain what to do.

Switching

I'm moving/integrating this blog with my new blog: A Nest For Two. It seems that it will fit better there.

Journey

Tene and I got to Mountain View, California last night around 6:00 PM. I know the exact time because the storage center where we're keeping our stuff until we find an apartment closed at 6:00, and we barely made it in time to get our unit.

We decided to leave on Friday, and our plan was to travel through the night until we got to Mountain View at Ungodly Early O'Clock, whenever that ended up being. So, around noon on Friday we hopped into our rented U-Haul and started driving.

The first part of the drive was rather uneventful - no surprise, western Utah is little more than desert. Tene was at the wheel, and I was spending my time listening to my iPod (we have a radio transmitter) and singing. Somewhere around the Great Salt Lake we entered the first of many high wind areas. That was a little scary - U-Haul's are basically giant metal kites - and I was glad that I wasn't the one driving. It also started storming a little - rain was falling pretty constantly throughout the trip.

Utah's west desert area is desolate. There's nothing out there. I mean, there's sage brush, and a lot of dirt, and some tumbleweeds, but it's overall pretty empty. That's probably why it's called the west desert. But while we were driving we saw this weird thing in the distance. I took some pictures of it, remarked that it looked like a tree, and puzzled over what it was. Turns out it's something called "Metaphor: The Tree of Utah." So .. yeah. Utah has some random abstract art piece just sitting out in the middle of the desert. No real reason for it.

Shortly after the random artsy tree (which is what I searched for in order to find out what the heck it was) we got to the Bonneville Salt Flats. This is where the high-speed-mile tests are conducted (or, so said the placard erected at the rest stop). Tene and I got out and stretched our legs, and walked a ways out onto the salt flats. I don't believe I've ever seen them in real life before (and if I had, I don't remember it at all), and I was surprised at how un-Earth-like they look. It was also interested to be shown so clearly that salt - in all its deliciousness - is nothing more than a type of rock. I took a hard chunk of the salt flats (Tene pulled it up for me), and filled a water bottle with some loose salt/sand from the edge of the rest stop. Then it was my turn to drive.

I didn't drive long - I think I was behind the wheel for maybe an hour. I drove from the salt flats to Wells, Nevada, where I realized I was far too tired to keep driving. Tene took over again, and we had more uneventful driving between Wells and Winnemucca, Nevada - a 3 hour drive. At Winnemucca I took over and drove to Reno Nevada. Another 3 hour drive. Nevada is big ...

At Lovelock, Nevada I had my first hit of culture shock. It was pretty mild, all things considered, but it was still a little surprising. We stopped at a gas station - I needed some caffeine (thank you Starbucks Mocha Frappachinos - I realized after I started drinking it that I had wanted a Vanilla Frappachino, but ... oh well), and the truck needed to be refueled - and when I entered it I was hit by the very distinct smell of cigarette smoke and the distinct sound of gambling machines. This would never happen in Utah ... so it surprised me.

Lovelock had an interesting (and cute) romantic culture. At the gas station there were a bunch of locks available to buy in order to connect them to a chain somewhere - which is apparently stolen from a Chinese custom. I thought it was cute, and started thinking ways to implement it in a fantasy story. If anything comes of that, I'll put it on Truth in Lies.

So, I drive to Reno, Nevada. As we approached Tene and I discussed whether to push on through the night or if we should stop. We ended up deciding to stop for the night, and stayed at the Sands Regency hotel.

The girls had a bit of an adventure here. We weren't certain we could take them into the hotel with us, so we decided to keep them out in the truck. Had it actually been warm, I would have felt a lot better about this. We ended up putting them in their smaller temporary/training cage, and wrapping it up nicely with a blanket and some pillows, as insulation. I guess it worked out, because the girls were just find in the morning (if a little chilly to the touch) and two of the pillows, and the blanket, had been chewed a bit (and there was cotton in the nesting box that wasn't there the night before).

The next morning, Tene and I set off again at around noon. And the last leg of our adventure began. We soon crossed the Nevada-California border without trouble, and had to stop shortly thereafter so that our truck could be checked by the Agricultural department. The woman who was checking our truck seemed a little concerned when she saw my large cage in the back, but she made cute noises at the girls and we were sent on our way.

The drive through California was pretty uneventful. I was glad we had waited the night out - the mountains as we came down were beautiful, and I would have missed them had we gone through the night.

Then, as I said earlier, we got to Mountain View at around 6:00. It took about an hour to unload the truck with the help of our friend, Bancus, and then we dropped off the U-Haul and trailer.

I'm glad we're here, safe and sound, and I don't think I want to make another trip like that again. Unless I'm in my own car, then it might be okay.