I don’t when or how it happened, but I really love photos of interspecies animal friendships. I am trying to nail down exactly why – for sure, there’s the cuteness factor, but there’s something else to it. I love how the laws of nature can be flexible. There is usually some sad reason that these animals came together, but nature bends the rules to make a happy ending. I like the idea that they found their home, however improbable that home may be.

I myself do not have a MySpace page but I occasionally peep my younger sisters’ pages and learn all kinds of interesting things. Mark was the one who caught a fascinating tidbit this time and alerted me to check out my 17 year old sister’s page. Apparently, she got a tattoo. I don’t know if my mom signed permission or if my sister has some connections. My 24 year old sister just verified that she did not get it at a shop, so maybe it’s the latter.  I asked Suzanne what it meant in a text message and she just said, cryptically, “Long story. All-seeing eyes.” Gotta love communicating via text message. So, ya, I have no idea what the significance is.  

When she asked if I liked it, I said that I’ve always thought that between the shoulder blades is one of the best places for a tattoo. I guess that doesn’t explicitly answer the question of whether or not I like it, but I felt like I wanted to respond in a positive manner. My thoughts on the actual tattoo itself are a bit more complicated. In general, I don’t get it. I’d like to hear more about the meaning behind it. I think, objectively, the drawing is interesting and it looks like a pretty good quality tattoo. The style looks vaguely like the airbrushed Mexican style of art that’s prevalent in Southern California and that’s pretty cool. But when I get to the part where I think about having a drawing like that on one’s body for life, I have to say I’m not really a fan of that image as a permanent tattoo. Like why would you want a pair of eyes on your back FOREVER? It seems weird to me. But I say: to each their own. All that matter is that she likes it. At least it’s unique and not something completely cliché like a butterfly on her lower back or barbed wire/celtic design around her bicep.

I have a feeling that this is only the first of many for her. She once told me that she thinks tattoos are a scrapbook of your life – like each one represents what was going on inside you at the time. And that it takes all the stuff you feel on the inside and puts it on the outside. At least she’s thought about why she wants to do it and those reasons seem as good as any to me.

So, going to work in Fremont has had many benefits (including me learning the beauty of VLookup), and certainly one of the best benefits is no longer having to commute across 520. I am so happy that I have multiple routes I can take – options, people! I am happy that it takes me about 20 minutes to get home as opposed to 45 minutes to an hour. No longer do I need to cheat in the carpool lane to not lose my sanity. No more do I have to look at all the stickers people have slapped up on the 520 dividing wall as I sit in stop and go traffic waiting for my turn to get on the bridge. I spent a lot of time doing that, trying to figure out what a lot of those stickers meant or were advertising. Just so I could think about something besides NOT MOVING. I will, however, miss the view that appears when you finally emerge onto the bridge when heading west. The view of the mountains, clouds, light, and water is pretty amazing. It looked different everyday depending on the weather and water conditions.

The one thing I’ve realized, though, about my new commute is that while it may be thankfully shorter, it is fraught with a whole new set of issues. Basically, city street driving is mighty different from freeway driving. I guess I knew that in theory, but I wasn’t driving around the city everyday, so I didn’t really think about it. Turns out it’s pretty stressful. If you are in the left lane, you have to worry about someone turning left. But if you’re in the right lane, you gotta worry about buses and people making right turns. So it’s just constant lane changing in dense traffic situation! Then there are the myriad traffic lights that you just miss. When you’re passing through like 15-20 stop lights to get home, it starts to feel tragic when one turns red just as you get there because you know you’re now stuck for 2-3 minutes. And, of course, there are bikes and pets and pedestrians and kids to watch out for. Oh, and then you have to make sure you’re in the correct lane if you want to turn down a certain street and if not, then you can’t get over and have to find a new way home.  

I used to do a lot of phone calls in the car on 520. You’re not doing much, you’re just sitting in a lane. I’ve found that I cannot talk on my cell very well when in street traffic – I just have to pay attention and be alert the whole time. I think my family is going to be getting fewer calls in the coming months since I never feel like talking on the phone once I get home.

 

Apparently, there was a TV show in Canada called "The Littlest Hobo" - kind of a Canadian Lassie. The dog in the show looks like a bigger version of our Hobo! It's a very odd coincidence. Mark found this with his super sleuth skills.

Today we went to Ocean Shores and picked up a new addition to our family. We have christened him Hobo - or  Bo for short. About 5 minutes after we left the shelter, he climbed up from the backseat and settled himself onto my lap. Mark looked over and said, "He's the one." It's true.

 

Hobo spent most of the rest of the ride home alternating between laying on my lap and laying on Mark's lap.

 

We couldn't be happier.

In the old days, sickies used bells to beckon their caretakers. Today, I sent Mark text messages when I needed something. It saves your caretaker a trip to ask you what you want - it's far more efficient and precise. Although, I'm pretty sure it's still annoying to the gopher.

Most of the time, if I really love an album, I’ll know it within the first few listens. Sometimes, though, I find that the first few times I hear an album, I’m all like that was fine, but I don’t feel like my socks were knocked off or anything. But then I’ll stumble across one song and realize it is absolutely beautiful or a single lyric captures my imagination or the way it’s sung snags me. And then after hearing that song, I listen to the album again and realize that the entire album is AMAZING. It’s funny how that works. It’s like I needed to find a way in to the album before I could fully appreciate it. That’s how it happened with me and the Regina Spektor album “Begin to Hope.” I liked the singles, gave the album a listen and was like, huh, that was solid. Then, I had my Zen on shuffle and heard the third track again, “Samson”. The song took my breath away suddenly – the music and the lyrics and just the way the words sound in her voice tells a story. I think there are many technically good singers out there, but it’s seems much rarer to find a singer whose voice holds an innate emotion that tells you even more than the lyrics and the music. After that, I realized that the rest of the album was really awesome, too.  

Since that revelation about two months ago, that album is pretty much all I’ve been listening to. When I find an album I love, I can’t help but listen to it over and over again. My ears only want to hear that album, for that time, that is the only music that is perfect to my brain. There’s something about listening to an album over and over – you learn every nuance and start to have an odd affection for random notes or words. It becomes broken into all its pieces and yet remains whole at the same time. Some might think that this would eventually make you sick of the album. For some reason, that never happens. At some point, without every really deciding to, I move along and just have that album in the regular rotation. Sometimes this is a result of getting hooked on another album, other times, it’s just sorta happens.  

One of the cool side effects of this is that the album becomes intrinsically linked in my head with a certain time era. And years later, if I hear a song from that album, I’m instantly transported back to those months when it I was listening to it all the time. It’s nice to have an audio history of your life.