I am woefully behind on raking the leaves in my yard. It seemed that every day I reserved for doing so since Thanksgiving I was either sick or it was raining. So today I need to rake them before taking off for the holidays tomorrow. But it's 23 degrees outside what with the wind chill factor and all, and I just cannot get motivated to be outdoors.

I realize I'm a bit spoiled these days - 23 degrees feels like it's impossibly cold out. I think I've gotten used to the hot summers and mild winters in North Carolina. I always did prefer warmth to cold, and would rather be too hot than too cold, but there was a time when I was a lot more hardy than this.

When we moved to Manassas, Virginia when I was 9, we used to get mountain-effect snows all the time. I would tromp through three or four inches of snow to the bus stop on a regular basis - they didn't cancel school for anything back then. I had plenty of lovely winter experiences making snowmen, snow cream, and chasing through the woods with the neighborhood kids, trying to step backwards in our footprints so that we couldn't be tracked. We had sled races and snowball fights and made snow forts. I didn't care what the temperature was, and came back inside reluctantly when I was half frozen solid.

Nowadays, if there's frost on the car I don't want to get out of bed. Maybe this is just a general trend in sloth, but I also think it's something I've acclimated to. I do miss snow, since we only get the lightest of dustings here, at least since I moved back down in 2002. And I would certainly rather have snow than ice, which is bad here when it happens. But for the most part, I could do without winter altogether.

May all your Christmases be green.

The second day may have topped the first, which is hard to believe. There was an all-school picnic where I chatted with old teachers (Paul Stoneham, Babette Leshinsky, Pinky Slingluff, and later on, Rick Layton) and where to my surprise my old friend Laurel showed up despite threatening that she wouldn't. We observed that although everyone's body had changed, their voices were eerily the same as the last time we'd met. Then we had a couple of hours to kill before the evening SFX (the old high school band) reunion concert, so a few of us wandered around the grounds and chatted.

At this point, I did something very foolish and assumed I could still handle going down a very steep slope of grass towards the Activity Building, and I slipped and twisted my knee very badly. :( That dashed my hopes of dancing for the evening, or so I thought.

Then the SFX concert started, and Tom gave me some excedrin, and before I knew it I was dancing anyways, though favoring the bum leg. I danced my ass off, and probably made the usual dancing spectacle of myself, because very few other people were dancing, although the crowd was sizable. But to hell with that. I had a blast. The band was pretty tight considering they only had 24 hours to practice before the event. Also, they played some of their original songs that they had released on a record back in the day, which I used to own two copies of, oddly. Those memories just rushed back into me as they played. It didn't hurt that I had a huge crush on the bass player of the band for four years. It was nice to see him and chat without any of that old angst. :) The knee is terribly unhappy today, but I think the experience was worth the cost.


SFX Reunion Concert

For those who care, some more pictures from the concert have been added to the set.

So I found out a couple of weeks ago that we were having our 20th high school reunion this weekend. I had just been up to Annapolis and have a lot of things going on right now, so I wasn't sure I could swing it, but after a certain amount of arm-twisting from old classmates Abigail, Ricky, and Jessica, I decided to make time for it. I am so glad I did.


Click for the set.

We graduated from The Key School in Annapolis, Maryland, in 1988. It's hard to describe to an outsider just what it was like going there. I only went from grades 8-12 which was the Upper School at that time (8th grade changed to being Middle School after our year) but it was a K-12 private school and several of my classmates were lifers. Our graduating class was 18 people, so we all knew each other very well compared to most classes in other schools. We were also dealing with some very difficult times for the school when they were considering shutting down the Upper School due to funding/enrollment issues.

About half of the class managed to come this weekend. After freaking out initially over the flood of memories and feelings, and also realizing how frakking OLD we all are now, the atmosphere of the evening changed for me. Suddenly, it was like we all bonded again and maybe in ways we weren't able to while still in high school. We shared this marvelous, sometimes tempestuous, experience, in a place that really taught us how to learn and how to want to learn. I know that if I had continued in public schools, with so little personal attention and such difficult social dynamics, I would not be the person I am today. It is marvelous to see the diverse paths we have all taken, from being professors at universities to editing major magazines to computer science to cancer research to the restaurant industry, etc. Many folks have 3+ children, and the enlightened discussions about parenthood that I listened in on were fascinating. At times it was almost too much for me to bear so I kept running out of the room from time to time to collect my thoughts.

There's more to come today, topped by a performance from SFX, the band which was our semi-official high school band from the class of '87. Should be interesting. :)

Also, narcissamiss - sorry that I can't make time to visit with you, but this is another whirlwind tour. :( Next time I promise to get in touch with you and set something up. :)

You know you've gotten vain and self-absorbed when you upload all the pictures of yourself you can find to Flickr, and when you start referring to yourself as "Moi" a la Miss Piggy. On the other hand, I wanted a project to do while dealing with an insomniac night and avoiding a terribly early start to house cleaning. It's nice to have these scanned and ordered.

In any case, here's every picture I could find of myself that was either solo or with a very small number of other people. My parents each have more of them, I think, and there are some major gaps in the timeline, including any picture from my favorite childhood year (1977-1978, when we were in Coronado, California) and a surprisingly huge gap in my mid- to late-twenties. I think I have a large number of undeveloped throw-away cameras from that time stowed in a box somewhere.   Come to think of it, the gothic pictures of me account for some of that intervening time.



In other news, my friend Phil will be house-sitting for me starting tomorrow while I'm at JavaOne in San Francisco. Thus the house-cleaning - I didn't want Phil to have to live in an utter pigsty for the next week. Look for plenty of pictures from San Fran during the week.

So since this blog thing seems to basically be working out, I've decided to move anything I cared about from my terribly-out-of-date personal web page to this venue. As such, I'm starting with the best of the lot - my (long) journal of the night that Jack Frost visited North Carolina in December of 2002 and took all the power away with him.

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Wednesday, 12/3/2002, 8:00 am: I took my car into the shop to have its 45,000 mile check-up, a bit early in the month, but I wanted to get it done before driving up to Maryland for Christmas. There was some snow or freezing rain in the forecast, so I got it in early, hoping to pick it up before having to drive in whatever weather there would be. People on the radio were making jokes about those silly folks who go to the grocery store and stock up on bread and milk the day before any little weather problem is predicted. I wasn't worried, the forecast seemed fairly average for winter, and I figured if anything big were going to happen then these southern folks would be much more alarmed than the situation warranted.� (I can say "southern folks" with impunity, having come from a very long line of North Carolinians!)



Wednesday, 12/3, 2:30 pm: I went to pick up my car, and as I drove off the first snowflakes started falling. I went up to my apartment and turned on the lights on my tacky white artificial tree, congratulating myself on having set it up early. The snow was falling in big white flakes, and was sticking right off the bat. I turned on some Christmas music, and started cooking some food for the soup kitchen, something I do once a month for my church. I stuck it in the freezer and started wrapping presents, having already completed my Christmas shopping. I put the last of my Christmas cards into the mail. I was ahead of the game, and could only grin at the folks who would have to endure the crowded malls over the weekend.

Wednesday, 12/3, 5:00 pm: The snow had started changing to sleet, and the 1.5 inches we accumulated were being tramped down by the heavy sleet. I decided not to brave the roads and these southern-folks-who-don't-know-how-to-drive-in-snow, skipping a church dinner I had signed up for. I felt slightly guilty, but decided it was too warm and Christmas-y in my apartment to negotiate the few blocks of slush to get to church. I watched some TV and went to bed.



Thursday, 12/5, about 5:00 am: I was awoken by a noise - my printer turning on. Then it turned on again. Then again. I realized that the power must have been fluctuating, so I got up and turned off all my power strips, unplugging one when I couldn't find the switch in the dark. As I moved to the front room where my big windows are, I noticed the CCB tower a few blocks away blinking on and off in time to my own power fluctuations. I stared at the downtown skyline, and then at the power lines near my building, which were covered with icicles. This looked a lot grimmer than when I had gone to bed. Still, I figured, the power would probably be back on in a few hours. I went back to bed.

Thursday, 12/5, 8:30 am: When I got up, the power was still out. I thanked myself for my hoarding habits, and thought I had enough water to last a couple of days. (I was used to well water, which stops working when the power is out.) I had plenty of cans of food, and some crackers and bread, and chips and some salsa. Also, there were leftovers from the dinner of pasta I had cooked the night before. I had plenty of batteries, a boom box and a Walkman that would let me listen to the radio, and a Coleman battery-operated lantern, plus lots of candles. This was the perfect time to do some reading, research for my novel. I felt quite lucky to be a statistic of all the recent layoffs, as I didn't have to worry about whether or not I needed to go to work, or even find a shower, since no one had to see me that day. The power would be back on soon enough. It was pretty warm in the apartment, as I get a lot of sunlight from sunrise until about noon, especially in the wintertime. I had at my disposal four blankets, two quilts, two sleeping bags and a down comforter, so there was no need to panic. Plus, the cats add a lot of warmth, and one or both of them usually sleep with me at night. I got in my most comfortable sweats and added a t-shirt for an extra layer, and set about reading by sunlight.



Thursday, 12/5, 12:30 pm: After reading for a few hours, I decided to find out why the power wasn't on yet by listening to the radio on my boom box. I tuned into my favorite 80's station, which was playing music. I wasn't sure how old the batteries were and how long they would last, so I thought I would listen to an AM station, although I didn't know which one was for the Durham area. I eventually found one for the Chapel Hill area that was talking about the weather. I then heard the disheartening news that Duke Power was increasing their report from 1 million North Carolina residents without power to 1.5 million. My cheerful outlook suddenly took a turn for the worse. They were predicting that everyone would have their power back in three to five days. This did not improve my mood. Still, I thought, I was clearly on the same circuit as the CCB. I would be first on the priority list. It would only be a few hours' wait. I went back to reading, which suddenly wasn't as engrossing as it had been.

Thursday, 12/5, 2:00 pm: The room was definitely getting chillier now that the sun had passed over to the other side of the building. I got out a little snowcap with ear flaps, thanking myself for this impulse buy of a couple of winters before, and snuggled down into my sleeping bag on the couch. A knock on my door broke my isolation, and I went to the door looking very strange in my sweats and messy hair, with the snowcap on my head. The hallway was completely dark, and I couldn't see who it was out of my peek-hole. I opened the door. It was Sabrina, the apartment manager, who said that two of the four apartment buildings in the complex had power, and she had opened one empty apartment so that people could warm up. She gave me her cell phone number, although she said it wasn't charged. I told her that I was worried that I couldn't get back into the building once I left, since I didn't have a key to the stairwell and had only ever used the keypad-protected elevator before. She asked me if I had tried using my door key on the stairwell. I thanked her, feeling sheepish. After she left, I decided that going outside at this point was not high on the priority list. I made a few phone calls on my (thankfully) mostly charged cell phone. Three of my Duke friends had moved onto campus, which had power, whereas their homes did not. The weekly game-playing session that was scheduled to meet at my house was, thankfully, canceled. But the next one, on Saturday night, was still on. I could leave messages on my friend Jack's work voice mail, which was fortunate, as none of my friends carry cell phones. I left a message saying that my cell phone would be turned off most of the time to conserve its battery, but that they could leave messages there. I also called my mother and my father, and gave each of them my status. Apparently my grandparents in Greensboro were no better off than I was, and so neither one of us could give the other shelter and warmth.

Thursday, 12/5, 3:30 pm: I turned on the radio again, where callers were talking about the trees that had fallen onto their cars and houses, and saying that they had not yet seen a power truck. I realized I had been quite fortunate only to have the inconvenience of a power outage. The list of cancellations and closings was lengthening. A curfew in Durham was set from 6:00 pm until 6:00 am, which was unprecedented in the area. The forecast was for a low in the 20's overnight. Suddenly I thought about my fish in their aquariums. I checked the temperatures on the aquarium thermometers. Normally the electric heaters would keep them at a nice warm 82 degrees, but they were hovering around 72, the bottom of the green range, and starting to dip into the yellow. At this point I started to pray that the power would come back on so that my fish wouldn't freeze in their tanks. A few dead snails were floating at the top. The snails were an unwanted infestation that had come along with the live plants in the tank, and I thought, perhaps this is God's way of solving my snail problem for me.

Thursday, 12/5, 5:00 pm: I made the discovery that toilets still work when the power was out, for which I was truly thankful. My experiment with flushing was somewhat dangerous, but I figured since I had two toilets, I had a reserve in case it didn't work. I thanked God for city water and sewer. I also discovered that it is very hard on the eyes to read by candlelight. This was great research for my novel, I told myself, as they didn't have power on the Outer Banks during the Revolutionary War. What on earth did they do to entertain themselves at night? They didn't have HBO. They didn't have the Internet. They probably didn't read or sew much by candlelight - or perhaps their eyes were better than mine from not watching TV and surfing the web. Or maybe they were just bored all the time.

Thursday, 12/5, 6:00 pm: I was bored. I kept thinking of Steve Martin in L.A. Story where he writes in black magic marker, backwards, on his window: "Bored Beyond Belief".

Thursday, 12/5, 7:00 pm: I went to bed in all my clothes, with almost all the blankets and one cat. I got too hot, so I took the sweatshirt off. This was okay. It was like camping, only indoors. And with a softer mattress.

Friday, 12/6, 5:50 am: My watch alarm went off, waking me in time to catch the 6:00 am status report that the radio station was giving. The news was not good. They had actually made negative progress overnight with restoring power. They would fix a line, and another tree limb would drop on it. All of the hotels with power were full, as far out as Goldsboro. There were shelters around the area, although not many people had used them overnight. Gas stations and kerosene stations with power had lines that took hours to get through. The warm weather in the lower 40s forecast for the day would help melt the ice, but the low of 18 predicted overnight would cause refreezing on the streets. The power company estimated that 90% of homes would have power restored in 5 to 7 days. My mood, at this point, was grim, and I huddled on the couch with a cat, and felt sorry for myself.



Friday, 12/6, 7:00 am: The room was beginning to warm up a bit now that the sun was up. I reluctantly went over to my large aquarium in the living room, hoping I wouldn't see dead fish. The fish were there, moving very slowly, and the temperature had dropped to 62 degrees, just under the minimum acceptable level for tropical fish. My two favorite fish, angelfish named White Eye Guy and Sunny, stared balefully out at me through the glass. They might as well have said, "Mommy, why are you doing this to us?"

Friday, 12/6, 8:00 am: After stewing for a while, I decided that "God helps those who help themselves," and that I had better do something to help save my fish. I poured the water out of a gallon jug and into a large mixing bowl (although why, since I knew the water was running at this point, I'm not certain), and headed across the street in my same sweats and pants that I had worn the day before, and the same silly snowcap. As I entered the other building, I became instantly jealous that these people had power. If I had had power, I could have been watching a movie, or checking my email. Or taking a hot shower. I didn't understand why these buildings had power and we didn't. Weren't we all on the same circuit? Why did my building, on the same circuit as the CCB building, not have power when these guys did? I grumpily filled the gallon jug with hot water, and trudged back over the ice to my building where (thank goodness) my key did actually work in the stairwell door. I bumbled back down the dark hall and fumbled with the lock for a while in the pitch black. Should have taken a flashlight. I used a cup and another big plastic mixing bowl to empty about a gallon's worth of water from the 15-gallon aquarium in the living room, then poured the hot water in. I wasn't sure if this would shock the fish too much, so I poured it as far away from the fish as I could manage. I hadn't emptied quite enough water, so I couldn't pour in the entire gallon of water, but it came close. I looked at the thermometer, and after a couple of minutes, it read 64 degrees.� The minimum acceptable level for tropical fish. After about five minutes of feeling frustrated, I realized that I hadn't put the dechlorinator into the water! I had killed a group of five fish this way early in my experience with Durham city water. I raced to the office, where the dechlorinator was, and poured a few drops into the tank. The fish were looking fairly ill anyways, so I had no idea if this was timely enough to save them. After a while, it became apparent that they were not going to die immediately. I cursed myself for my carelessness, and decided that I would do whatever it took (and be as careful as possible doing so) to save these fish. I went back for another jug of water, for my smaller, 6-gallon tank in the office, and this time put the dechlorinator in before filling the jug. After getting that tank up to the minimum acceptable level, I wrapped the tops of both tanks in saran wrap to help hold in the heat.

Friday, 12/6, 10:00 am: I called my mother and complained at her for about 20 minutes, wasting the cell phone battery, but I realized that I could go recharge it in the empty apartment. She was very comforting, but there was nothing she could do to help except listen to me complain. She suggested I call my friend and Associate Rector of my church, Cathie, who lived in the apartment complex, and in one of the buildings that had power. I hadn't even thought of that. I had so engrossed myself in my little frozen world that I didn't think to ask for help.



Friday, 12/6, 11:00 am: I realized that I had to change my attitude from feeling helpless and isolating to actually using whatever resources I could find. I hadn't even attempted to step outside the apartment until that morning, for God's sake. I found Cathie's cell phone number and called her. She answered, and immediately offered help, warmth, and coffee. I said, "What I really need is a shower." She invited me to come over, and I packed up my shower things and headed over. En route, I got a call from Jack as my cell phone was still powered on, and I arranged to come to campus that evening and watch a Duke Women's Basketball game, and have some human interaction. In the middle of the phone call, I ran into Sabrina, who told me that she had opened two more apartments, especially for showers. She said people could even sleep there overnight if it got too cold. She also said that the Italian restaurant there in the apartment complex would be open for lunch. The confluence of events convinced me that getting out and finding what was available had been an excellent choice.

Friday, 12/6, 11:45 am: After a hot shower, I felt worlds better. As my cell phone continued to recharge, I discussed the fish situation with Cathie and her friend Julie from Burlington who would be staying at her apartment. We toyed with the idea of moving the fish to Cathie's apartment, as it already had two extra cat guests that belonged to Julie. But moving the fish would be quite a chore, and I was worried that the delicate ecosystem of ammonia-devouring bacteria would be imbalanced and I would have to re-cycle the tank, which might be worse for the fish than the temperature problem. I began to feel that my recent aquarium-keeping hobby was too difficult for my puny intellect. Since adding warm water hadn't killed the fish, I decided that would be the best means of keeping them alive. Cathie and her cell phone were leaving shortly to lead a youth retreat in Burlington, where apparently the power was still on, leaving Julie with no phone access. I had met Julie before, and she was extremely nice, saying just to knock if I needed anything. I thanked them both and left, feeling lucky to have people who were generous and willing to help. I also felt that I needed to stay with my animals, being their caretaker. When I got back to the apartment, I checked the temperature on the tanks again. It was back down to 62 degrees. I knew I needed to add more hot water, but I couldn't face it just then. I was going to go get something to eat.

Friday, 12/6, 1:30 pm: Ah, a hot meal. I ordered extra food so that I would have leftovers for dinner. After eating nothing but bread, chips, raisins, and peanuts for a day, I was more than pleased with the lentil soup and penne pasta with sausage and marinara sauce. I had two glasses of wine, which seemed a bit extreme for lunch, but why not? There were only two other customers there, and the staff was milling about in the dining area, discussing the power situation and whether or not they would stay open for dinner that evening. It was freezing in the powerless restaurant, and they were only able to cook because of the gas stove. The owner, a woman about my age, decided to close up and to take some wine and tequila home with her. She invited the staff to sleep at her house, since she had power. I envied their camaraderie. I spoke to them about my fish situation, my sole obsession and purpose for being at this point. They sympathized, which was really all I was looking for. I overheard one of the staff mentioning that he had eaten dinner at a local Irish pub the night before, which was serving by candlelight.



Friday, 12/6, 3:00 pm: After filling the tanks with a gallon of hot water one more time, I decided to drive by the Irish pub to see if it was, in fact, open. All of the stoplights were out, and Gregson Street, a major residential thoroughfare, was blocked off. Almost all of the big old trees at the Durham School for the Arts were demolished. I turned onto Main Street, and parked along the road. The pub looked closed. I tried the door, and it opened. The bartender was stacking chairs in the darkness. I asked if they would be open for dinner, and he said, "Not this evening." Phooey.

Friday, 12/6, 3:30 pm: I called Jack and left a message stating that I would not be at the basketball game. If this is what the few blocks surrounding me looked like, I didn't want to try to make it all the way to West Campus. Besides, my fish needed me. I determined that I would refill the tank every two hours, all night long, if that was what it took.

Friday, 12/6, 5:00 pm: I stared out my windows at the Durham skyline for a few minutes, very miffed at the darkened CCB building, which was surrounded with skyscrapers that had power. I refilled the tanks again, and went to bed.

Saturday, 12/6, 5:50 am: My watch alarm went off. I let it beep, and went back to sleep.

Saturday, 12/6, 7:00 am: I got up and turned on the radio. People were complaining about the lack of power trucks, and the people who have power turning their Christmas lights on. Other people were calling up to complain about the complainers. The power company was saying that people should have power restored by next Thursday. The only place with kerosene in the vicinity had sold out. The shelters were nearly full overnight, and someone had died overnight from carbon monoxide poisoning from burning charcoal in a grill in their bedroom to keep warm. It was going to be colder today than yesterday. Things were not getting any better. I turned off the radio and laid in grim silence on the couch under a sleeping bag.

Saturday, 12/6, 8:30 am: I decided to get moving. One useful piece of information that the radio had provided was a caller who said that if you don't have power, there may still be enough warm water in your heater for one or two fairly warm showers at this point. I hadn't even tried the hot water this whole time. I went to the kitchen sink and ran the warm water for a moment, and sure enough, it was good and warm. I didn't want to look at the aquarium after my failure to keep to my water schedule overnight, but I braved it and there were the fish, fins barely twitching, in a stupor of cold at 56 degrees. I immediately started carting water back and forth to both aquariums, raising the temperature to 64. I thanked God for warm-blooded pets like cats that can take care of themselves. I decided that the heroine of my book would have a cat. Nobody in Revolutionary War times had tropical fish.



Saturday, 12/6, 9:15 am: I checked my cell phone messages, and called up Mom to complain some more. She made an odd suggestion - why not just come home for a while until the power came back on? Part of me objected to her use of the word "home", as though I was not home already. Another part thought that would be highly irresponsible of me, to run off without a care for the cats or the fish, leaving them to fend for themselves, which clearly the fish at least couldn't do. The much bigger and smarter part of myself said: Screw the fish. Go home to mommy.

Saturday, 12/6, 10:30 am: After changing the water in both tanks sufficiently to bring the temperature up to a nice and toasty 74 degrees, rewraping the tanks in fresh plastic wrap, putting enough food and water down for the cats to last a month (including the mixing bowl full of distilled water from the aquarium-refilling jug, see it did come in handy!) and packing hastily, I wheeled my suitcase out to the parking lot, and made for Maryland.

Saturday, 12/6 - Monday, 12/9: I spent a wonderful weekend in Annapolis, visited many friends, went to a Christmas party, and enjoyed the remains of a gentle six-inch snow that didn't knock out any power lines. I even managed to land a new contracting job. I'm not kidding. It was the best weekend ever. The only thing that didn't happen is Mr. Right riding up on a white horse with an engagement ring. Monday morning I called down and found power had been restored, so I came back in the late afternoon, entered the apartment, found the fish were all alive and well, and turned on every light in the apartment. I put my new angel tree-topper on the Christmas tree, and turned on the Christmas carols. I thanked God for power. The only problem was one of my cats, Zoot, who had missed me so much that she yowled most of the night, forgetting I was back.

Tuesday, 12/10, 12:00 am: I sang Happy Birthday to myself, lying in bed with Zoot standing on my stomach getting a nice neck rub. I think she'll forgive me.



I hope you all have very Happy Holidays! And don't forget to buy milk and bread and batteries the next time they predict snow.

I moved back to Durham in 2002 after an absence of nine years. This was absolutely the right decision for me, and I am very happy in Durham. I plan to live here for the rest of my born days barring any unforeseen circumstances. But my recent trip to Annapolis made me think about a few things that I miss.

* Having a decent radio station, in particular WRNR
* Authentic Maryland seafood, although Fishmonger's of Durham tries pretty hard
* The amazing bagels at Naval Bagels, owned by the same folks who started Bagels And... way back in the day
* The water. I forget about it until I go back to Annapolis for a visit, but the water is everywhere. You can go down to the City Dock for an ice cream in the summer or a hot toddy at Middleton Tavern in the winter. There's also the Lights Parade on Spa Creek, where you can see decorated sailboats glide under you while you stand on the Spa Creek bridge.
* Cantler's Inn, the best place for crabs and good times in all of Annapolis.
* The Maritime Republic of Eastport, of which I was a resident, and which shows the independent, rebellious spirit that is in perfect keeping with the Colonial roots of the area.
* My friends, like narcissamiss, and all the other Altairans (yes, I still think of us as Altairans).

Things I don't miss: the traffic, the way Annapolis has exploded in growth without much management, being in enemy Twerp territory, high cost of living, general suckage of international food restaurants in the area, the snooty sailing crowd, parking difficulties, the way my favorite stores were pushed off of Main Street, then off of Maryland Avenue, due to high rents... I could go on.

Durham is the place for me, but I can't deny that Annapolis has had a large effect on who I am today. I guess I have to admit that if there's someplace I'm "from" as a Navy brat, it's Annapolis.

I haven't posted any pictured of my kitties yet, so I thought I'd remedy that today. I can never seem to get good shots of them - Zoot in particular - because they interact with me too much instead of posing for the camera. In any case, here are my babies:




Zoot, my most special precious baby girl. She's 11 years old, and has periodic health issues which may or may not be FIP-related - the vets always say the tests are inconclusive. Zootie is a complete spoiled brat, highly temperamental, pretends to be friendly to strangers and then turns around and scratches them, has a serious pot belly happening, and in most other ways resembles me in the extreme. She's my soulmate kitty.




Chester is indeed female, as are most calicos (except in Saudi Arabia, where I'm told male calicos are unusually frequent.) She's 14 years old, and a very sweet kitty. She will allow you to pet her if she approaches you first, but you must be very respectful. She's sort of the red-headed stepchild in this family, and she comes second in the pecking order at the food bowl. But she's a very good kitty. She always knows when I'm upset and comes and sits on my lap.

Unrelated picture of a Christmas present my Mom gave me:




A drawing of the front of Chick and Ruth's Deli in Annapolis, MD, done by a local artist whose signature I can't read. Chick and Ruth's is an authentic deli with awesome reubens, chocolate malts, and free pickles on the table. I used to hang out there a lot in high school. It's one of the few places in the downtown historic district that still remains from my high school days, aside from the pubs and Oceans II records.

Update: I'm now linking to Chick and Ruth's website, since Joe rightfully complained. And it turns out that they spell it "Delly" - not sure why I never noticed that before.

A conversation about 1200 baud modems started me down a set of reminiscences about computers I have owned or worked with before, back in the dark ages when there were no hard drives and services like Prodigy were the major players in the ISP space. With a little research, I have come up with a partial history of my systems.

I first started programming when I was in 6th grade (1981), in a class with the SIGNET Gifted program in my middle school. We programmed in Basic, and had projects like flashing your name up on a screen which took maybe 100 lines of code, at most. At this point, Dad (who has an EE degree) decided to buy me my first computer, a Timex Sinclair ZX81. We used to plug it into the back of a black and white TV. I think Dad got as much of a kick out of it as me, if not more so.

Around that same time, I got the premiere game-playing box of all time - none other than the Atari 2600. Actually, the Atari may have come first - the order is a little confused in my head. I still have fond memories of playing Yar's Revenge on that thing.

In the summer of 1982, I went to Computer Camp somewhere in Northern Virginia. I remember it was the summer that Tron was out in theaters - we went to see it as a group. We did Basic programming in the classes, and got to see the Really Big Computers with the reel-to-reel tapes, and the punch card machines. Oooooh.

Then along about 1983, Dad and I put together a Heathkit Zenith. Dad did most of it, but I got to solder in a few resistors and generally feel like I contributed a little. I remember thinking the amber screen was *so cool*. I used it on occasion, mainly for word processing and also playing ADVENT. Dad bought a couple of prefab Tandys when I was in high school, which I used extensively for writing papers (Wordstar 3.0) and keeping track of my checkbook (Lotus 1-2-3).

When I got to Precollege Program at Duke in 1987, my roommate had an original Apple Macintosh which she let me use. I remember that it had so little memory that it was very difficult to use, and you had to keep your paper in three or four files in order to be able to load them into memory.

Finally, when I started at Duke as an undergrad in 1988, Dad sent with me his Datavue 25, which was very conveniently portable, but the display was almost impossible to read. I had an external monitor for it which made it more usable. By my senior year, I got my first (external) modem - 1200 baud - and started using Prodigy. I kept with that until switching to a real ISP after college - Digex, in particular.

I feel quite spoiled to have this lovely Macbook Pro today. I wonder how I ever got along without it.

For more memory-lane computers, this article from PC Magazine is pretty cool. And so is this one. Could there *be* any more links in this post?</chandler>

My Mom has just told me that Scooter, the bestest cat in the world ever, died last night.

Scooter came into our lives right before I went off to college. It was August of 1988, and I was working as a veterinary technician. My life was more than a little topsy-turvy, as my parents and I had just moved into a new house, leaving my only stable home in my life, where we'd lived for nearly five years. Also, since I was heading to college in about three weeks time, my mother (and father too, presumably) were getting worried about my leaving the nest. I could particularly tell with Mom, who's always been very protective of me.

One day at the veterinary hospital, somebody brought in a little, funny-looking, orange and white kitten, saying they'd found him in the roadway and wanted to make sure he was okay. They left him at the hospital, and he was immediately fawned over by the entire staff. People took turns carrying him around in their smocks. He seemed quite happy to be there. I'm not sure how I won, but I got to take him home.

I remember bringing the cat home, and the look on Mom's face was "You are *not* going to bring a new cat into the house." I said I'd take him back in the morning.

But something happened overnight, and I can't attribute it to anything but what a wonderful kitten Scooter was - he was so friendly, and cuddly, and funny, too - he was named Scooter because he used to scoot around the place, pretty much skidding to a stop on the wooden floors. And so Mom kept him, and he became her special cat. I think it was a time when she needed a pal, and Scooter came along to fill the position.

He was about 18 1/2 years old when he died last night. But he will always be the best, softest, friendliest cat - I can't expect to ever meet another one like him. I know that if there's a kitty heaven, he's romping through the grass in the sunshine right now.

Here's a photo gallery for Scooter:

I first saw the movie Harold and Maude when I was in high school, and loved it instantly. I rewatch it every few years, and I always get something new out of it as my perspective changes. Harold looks so young to me now. And Maude's vibrancy is truly remarkable the more I understand about aging, and about life.

In watching it this time, I did a Myers-Briggs typing of the two characters. I think Maude is an ENFP - The Champion. I'm not as sure about Harold, but he seems to be an INTP. Although I think Maude helps him to start letting his F side out a bit.

But what really got me this time was the following bit, which is always moving, but more especially as I have gotten older and closed myself off more, emotionally, than I did when I was younger:

"A lot of people enjoy being dead, but they're not dead, really. They're just backing away from life. Reach out, take a chance, get hurt even. Play as well as you can. Go team, go! Gimme an L, gimme an I, gimme a V, gimme an E... L - I - V - E, LIVE! Otherwise, you got nothing to talk about in the locker room."
- Maude

I hope I can embrace that idea a little more fully, embrace life more fully than I have done in some ways up until now. I don't want fear to win.

Another all-time favorite quote:

"Everyone has the right to make an ass out of themselves. You can't let the world judge you too much."
- Maude

A friend recently asked for a photo of me when I was in my Goth phase (which lasted generally from 1993 to about 1999, give or take, although I was interested in the music long before that.)

So here are a couple of pictures. I was known more for wearing red than black, and I was fortunate enough to be involved in the scene before tattoos and piercings were de rigeur. Given my belonephobia and all (which is related to the PTSD.)

I believe the following picture of me and my friend Julie was taken at the 9:30 club in Washington, D.C., during a Strange Boutique performance, circa 1993. I was wearing what one friend termed "My Little Red Goth Suit," which I gave to Goodwill a couple of years ago to brighten some other young gothlet's night. See the flickr stream for more of this sort.




So, you see, I did have a past... really, dancing was the main reason I went.