Towse: views from the hill

December 16, 2008

Weird back-ness

Filed under: health,life,photographs,travel — Towse @ 4:57 pm

So I’m back. We flew Air Tahiti Nui from Papeete to Los Angeles, leaving Tahiti at 10P Sunday and arriving LAX around 8:15A yesterday. Time difference only two hours, which is nice.

Checked in through immigration. Picked up our bag at the carousel and checked through Customs with our bag and carry-ons. Easy-peasy. Smoothy-oothy. Got to the Virgin America desk before 10A and saw that they had an SFO flight at 11A. Asked if they could shift us from our 2: something flight to the 11A: flight. The cheery staff said, sure, they’d put us on stand-by. Then they popped us to the top of the stand-by list because we’d joined their frequent flyer program before we flew out.

The flight was delayed because it was raining in San Francisco (which slows the landing pattern to about 1/2 of normal) and they weren’t getting clearance to leave LAX until they had a chance to land at SFO. The plane carried a number of staff deadheading to SFO, but there was still room for us. Together. With a window seat for me.

I dozed off a bit because I hadn’t slept well on the overnight flight from Tahiti and there was cloud cover and nothing to see. I woke up again and enjoyed the last half hour of the flight. Cloud cover had broken. I could see the beaches along Monterey Bay and the wooded hills climbing to the east. I took photos from the window of the sunshine on water,

 

Elkhorn Slough Posted by Picasa

 

San Francisco skylinePosted by Picasa

Beautiful day coming in. Even with the delays, we arrived at SFO two or three hours earlier than we would’ve.

Got home to a giant pile of mail inside the front door and a week-ago’s Sunday paper lying outside. We can never quite figure how SFC figures out when your “away” start and stop dates start and stop. His nibs thought he’d stopped after Saturday morning’s delivery, but no.

We puttered around. Cleared the stack of mail. Washed the laundry. Downloaded all the photos from the camera. Had ricotta-spinach ravioli tossed with butter, fresh garlic and Parmesan cheese for dinner. Tucked in.

His nibs was off to work relatively early today because it’s been chill and road conditions are weird. He needed to get in to work for a meeting at a certain time and decided to take plenty of time.

We had hail downtown when we were coming in from the airport in the Super Shuttle yesterday afternoon. Snow down to 500-1000′ this morning. Hwy 17 over from Santa Cruz has snow on it. Snow plows in Scotts Valley last night. Colder than we’re used to.

… and I’m … not allowed to eat. No solid food at all. No milk, if I want coffee. Only clear liquids, consistency of water. I don’t think they mean tequila or vodka here. … I guess I’ll subsist on maté until tomorrow.

Tonight at seven I get to drink a liter of prep and tomorrow at five in the morning another liter, to clear out my innards because (yippee!) I check in for a colonoscopy at 9:30A tomorrow. His nibs needs to accompany me home and for the rest of the day I’m not allowed any sedatives or alcohol and I’m not allowed to operate a moving vehicle or heavy or dangerous machinery.

Maybe Thursday I’ll really be “back” and we can get a Christmas tree and start freaking out that Christmas is JUST A WEEK AWAY!

Colonoscopy is no fun. I have to have one every five years, ever since my next older brother was diagnosed with colon cancer (which by then had spread to his liver) in 1998. So 1998. 2003. 2008. 2013. and so on ad infinitum or ad mors or whatever.

He died in June 2001 and I miss him. I see things I think he’d like, weird things [a glass block etched with a DNA pattern] [magnetic wall paint], interesting books, scientific paraphernalia.

The colonoscopy is just another reminder that he’s not here. And why.

Quite the abrupt and bruising return from a short but warm and welcome vac, but there’s only me to blame. I consciously scheduled the appointment for tomorrow, because they couldn’t schedule it back when they’d intended because we had other things happening and I just want to get it over with as soon as I possibly can. Back yesterday. Today for fast and prep. Done tomorrow by noon. Just get the pall and the memories it dredges up over with and carry on.

Thursday. Thursday will be a much better day.

Back …

Filed under: life,travel — Towse @ 5:06 am

Over 1500 photos later …

 

Posted by Picasa

December 6, 2008

Back in a few

Filed under: life,travel — Towse @ 7:20 pm

 

Posted by Picasa

December 4, 2008

Holidailies

Filed under: blog,life — Towse @ 6:46 am

Got this from a well-spoken^H^H^H^H well-written (and interesting!) blogger whereof whom I know.

[Read her. You'll be happy you did. ...]

Heed:

Holidailies

For those all you-alls who need to get your butt in gear:

Holidailies participants solemnly vow to update their Web sites daily from Dec. 5 to Jan. 6.

I’ll be away from the Web for part of that time, but I think this is a useful project, so I’m passing it on to you. … you know who you are. …

Beethoven’s 5th Argument

Filed under: video — Towse @ 12:04 am

Beethoven's 5th Argument

Sid Caesar. Nanette Fabray.

A Classic.

December 2, 2008

Venice under five feet of water as the city suffers its worst floods in 22 years

Filed under: life,news,travel — Towse @ 9:01 am

Venice under five feet of water as the city suffers its worst floods in 22 years

I love Venice. I could spend some serious time there. I think it’s a magical place.

When we got back from our one and only trip there (followed by a walking holiday poking through Palladio sites in the Veneto), I had a dream … a nightmare.

In the dream, we had bought a palazzo in Venice and moved lock, stock and books to take up permanent residence. Knowing the dangers of putting heavy loads of books on upper stories of aging homes, I’d set up all my book shelves on the ground floor of the palazzo.

All this is backstory.

The dream opens with me leaning against a railing, looking across the canal to the palazzo that we had just moved all our worldly goods (and books) into and were making our home.

As I leaned against the railing, the rain began to fall and before you could say, “George Washington” (this was a dream after all), the waters start to rise and rise fast. I realized the waters will rise enough that everything on our ground floor will be flooded …

MY BOOKS!

I don’t have time to run down the paths to the nearest bridge and across the bridge and back down the paths to our palazzo and get the books shifted in time to save them.

… so, Freud. What is the deep meaning of this nightmare?

December 1, 2008

The Pownce Blog — Goodbye Pownce, Hello Six Apart

Filed under: app,technology,web2.0 — Towse @ 9:16 pm

The Pownce Blog — Goodbye Pownce, Hello Six Apart

Pownce is closing down effective December 15th. They’ve added an export function so you can download all your messages. Leah Culver and Mike Malone are joining the engineering team at Six Apart, and bringing the Pownce technology along with them.

[via a tweet from Laughing Squid]

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