All That Sparkles

NaNoWriMo 2009 Sponsorhip

 

Dear Friends, Family, and Righteous Supporters,

On November 22, the Office of Letters and Light will be bringing together the most mighty of endurance novelists for an event that will define our generation forever.

I'm speaking, of course, of National Novel Writing Month's Night of Writing Dangerously. It's a write-a-thon, and it will take place at the beautiful Julia Morgan Ballroom in downtown San Francisco. I will be there, writing my heart out and raising money for the Office of Letters and Light, NaNoWriMo's parent nonprofit.

Attendees like me must raise $200 to get in the door, and from there, a rich array of prizes, delicious food, and sumptuous writing time awaits. But this is not about me getting a treat-filled night of literary abandon. This is about children and adults getting the encouragement, structure, and inspiration they need to achieve their creative potential. Proceeds from the event will fund National Novel Writing Month's free creative writing programs in hundreds of schools and communities around the world.

The Office of Letters and Light does inspiration like nobody else (did I mention they're making me write an entire novel this November?). And on their behalf, I am asking you to donate. Also, I will let you touch my raffle prizes if I win some. Thank you for supporting me in my novel-writing quest, and for helping the Office of Letters and Light create a more engaged and inspiring world.

Sparkly Jules

PS:  Tax deductible as a 501(c)(3) charitable organization. Donations go to NaNoWriMo, not me.

Click HERE for more or to donate. $10, $5, $1, it all goes to a good organization!

I updated this once over the weekend, but just noticed it never updated!! In less than 24 hours, I had raise the required $200- to attend the swag party in SF, I RSVP'd, and yesterday received word that I was one of the 200 people who had raise enough money, quickly enough, to go to the night of Writing Dangerously. Thank you to everyone who gave. It's still a good charity if you have an extra $5 or $10; every bit helps!

It's My Birthday . . .

Updating - With Pics

As I wrote about a couple of days ago, I'm having a hard time right now with depression which has been exacerbated by first the pork-flu and now severe back pain (which I think is menstruation-related, but I'm waiting to see. It is a bit better today. And, after all, as the Dr. told me at my last OB/GYN appointment, "you are getting older." Hmph. Twist the knife why dontcha'.)

So anyway, having been through this before, i.e., severe, serious depression, I can, at times, intellectually, view my situation from without and make judgements based on experience and objectively view what is going on with me and then act accordingly, or rather, force myself to act accordingly, because my brain keeps saying. "Eff it. I'm not doing it. I'm just staying right here" (in bed, or on the computer, depending, or both, sometimes.)

My husband and I had a whopping nasty fight three nights ago, and I look at my behavior and some of the cruel, cruel things I said and I feel ashamed and humbled. Beaten down, as I commented to a friend. So after the difficulties encountered with the psychotherapist who I could not afford from a week or so ago, I had given up getting help, and asked my friend/SWAT team to stop, also. I needed to handle the situation with the therapist myself, but I needed to wait for a time when I wouldn't explode in rage and then horrible words would start pouring from my mouth. Yesterday I was ready. I phoned her, we talked, she had been dialing my number incorrectly, she made a few calls on my behalf, called me back, we talked some more, she indicated a desire to help me and see me in the future when I could afford it. I called the referral she gave me, and I have an appointment on Monday afternoon with an MFT intern. Thirty bucks. Sweet. It's a start.

Then my husband offered to drive me out to a local Apple Farm, where I had wanted to go in October to pick our own apples and berries, but we hadn't made it in time. So we drove out there yesterday. Harvesting is mostly over, but they had a shop and a bakery, and we wandered around both for a while before we left. OK, I bought an apple pie. And it is damn good, I might add.

This is the apple farm storm. They had many varieties of apples, some I'd never heard of, and the wonderful perfume of apples filled the air inside. The farm is in Watsonville, CA. (I'll add links if I can get my mouse working properly--just uploading the pics took forever.)

 

Right next to the farm shop, this one is self-evident...

 

This house is across the parking lot from the retail portion of the farm. I don't know who lives there, but it was clear that someone lived there. To the left of the house is an antique shop, but I didn't want to be tempted by going in there.

Some apple trees in a nearby orchard....

Then we drove over the hill to Gilroy where we knew a cheap oil change place was, (they couldn't take us, it was too late in the day) and it was such a beautiful day to be outside and in nature/the forest, that the drive itself was restorative particularly after spending so many days cooped up, both voluntarily and involuntarily, inside the house. It was a good move on his part to get me out of the house.

R. had dropped me off at Big & Nasty (Barnes & Noble) to browse while he took the car over for its oil change. I grabbed a couple of magazines, a copy of Larsson's The Girl Who Played With Fire, which I held in my lap and did not open--I decided not to buy it (at full retail)--and had a cup of coffee while enjoying a very comfortable upholstered chair. After an hour or so, we exited B&N and up in the sky was a HUGE rainbow--and it was not raining!! I reached into my blouse to pull my phone out of my bra and in my excitement I fumbled it and it fell, splattering into a million pieces (ok, four), like the confetti inside a snow globe.

As I hastily put it back together on the back of the car and then waited for it to reboot--it seemed fine--the rainbow kept diminishing. By the time I was ready to take pics, I had about half of a rainbow. And that's it, center left of the screen, taken in the bookstore parking lot around 5pm, Gilroy, CA, facing northeast.

We headed back to Monterey to see a production of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream at a local college, but when we got there, people were sitting on the floor and standing around holding scripts--it looked like a rehearsal, not a production, so I said I would pass--floor sitting having long been written out of my repertoire years ago when I injured my left knee.

So we came home and that's when I remembered I needed to do some writing for NaNoWriMo. Ooops! It was after 10 o'clock. I was up until midnight, screwing around with my laptop, the mouse having decided it would highlight what it "damn well felt like," leaving me to McGuyver something so I could get it to work even halfway decently.

And that leads me into my last story from last night. I talked my husband into buying me an external hardrive backup for my laptop for my birthday, so we went over to Best Buy where we have a credit account, just opened in February, never missed a payment, often paying more than the minimum. My husband waited in the car as I dashed in and picked a salesman's brain before picking one out, and then adding Michael Connelly's new book, 9 Dragons to the mix, I went to check out. $126 for both. And the card wouldn't work. The cashier said that perhaps my payment hadn't posted? I said, "It's not due until the 29th."

So I called R., he came in, and by then another CSR took me over to CS and she made a call on our behalf. Turns out Best Buy/HSBC had lowered our new account "due to the economy" by over $800.  WTF? Why had they given us a high limit in February only to take it away? I thought the worst was over and that if, at any time, a low limit would be in play would be when the account had been opened. I heard R. respond to the CSR at the bank on the phone, "No, you need to apologize to your shareholders when you explain to them why you're losing sales."  Which I thought was a pretty snappy line. And we left the store, *sniff*, without the external drive. I'm not taking my laptop in until I can back it up. I never could get Mozey to work so I guess I'll just keep looking for something online (suggestions? Anyone?) And I was going to use the Best Buy card to take the 'puter in to their Geek Squad and have them work on it, AFTER I HAD BACKED IT UP. I've heard too many horror stories of things being erased after being taken in for service, and it's just a good idea to back up anyway, and I've been procrastinating.

So, cold-water dashed in face, we left the store, empty-handed, and came back to Monterey. I'm SO disappointed.

Today, my back is bothering, so I'm taking it a bit easy, going to do some reading as my auntie sent me Gabaldon's latest, An Echo in the Bone yesterday for my birthday. R. called just now to tell me that his mom, my MIL, sent me three books, the John Twelve Hawks Fourth Realm trilogy for my birthday. (Those who know me know what makes me happy ;-D ). I've been waiting for that third book for about two years, it just came out. *pant pant* I think I'll read all three again. ;^D

If the Advil and Alleve kick in, I may even get dressed and do a load of laundry.

Oh, and one last thing: We heard from the Assemblyman's office about my problems with the EDD (unemployment). They have a liasion there who is working on it, but, as I suspected, the EDD is SWAMPED, so it may be another week or so. Take that @$$hole on the phone at EDD who, when I told him I was contacting my assemblyman after he refused to give me his supervisor, told me, "That isn't going to help you."  Ha! *fingers crossed*

And it's a lovely golden fall day. Very nice. This is putting me in the mood for a whopping big thunderstorm. *please*

NaNoWriMo: Day 5

Well, NaNoWriMo is going well for me, much better than I expected. I just finished 8,593 words, and which gives me sixteen single-spaced pages. I remember now that I wrote a “short story” for a creative writing class I had at Chico. It was eighteen pages, and I knocked that out in one day—not including revisions and edits. That had been fun, too.

 

But last night I had some issues because my back was really, really hurting, and I had blanked out on what to write about. But I didn’t want to quit or procrastinate, so I got off the Internet and just started writing, whatever came into my head relating to my basic story idea. And eventually the words were pulled from me like a team of horses pulling an old stump out of the ground. It was an effort, but out they came.

 

Tonight, I was really looking forward to writing. I wasn’t sure exactly where I would be going with the story tonight, but had a brief flash in the car on the way home which I immediately began exploring as soon as I started writing.

 

Then my mouse decided it wanted to act the fool. Every time I dragged the cursor across the screen, whether it was to add the missing “T” to “assistan”, or to add a couple of spaces between chapters, it would highlight everything, or turn into that drag-and-drop option so that assistan would be dragged and moved to the wrong paragraph and I still couldn’t get the “T” added. Or it would highlight the whole page or lines and lines of text and move it somewhere else. I started freaking out because Control Z (undo) wasn’t working either!! 

 

I knew the mouse has had a habit of sticking, but I couldn’t find my compressed air anywhere. It’s still at least 2/3’s full, but it is gone, baby. I was 648 words short of my count for the day. I was also on a roll—the plot was really going somewhere—and I couldn’t get it down on paper due to the malfunctioning mouse. Ugh!

 

So, I went to the old standby, ‘restart.’ That didn’t help either. So I saw some nail polish I had left out when I did my nails the other day (and which have gotten very long, they look nice. I’m painting them with a pale, pale pink  from NYC in a color called Love Letters. My nails look like they have a mild French manicure—nice.); so I got a paper towel, put a little nail polish remover on a corner, and dabbed at the mouse. Wunderbah! The mouse started behaving again.

 

And so my writing is done for today, and I am free to go to bed.

 

Today was a better day.

 

The Most Beautiful Girls in the World

I couldn't love them more if they were my own daughters. Perhaps I do because I only get the good parts--no diaper changing, projectile-vomiting, 3am feedings, and whining--when I get to see them, it's always good times--playing, reading, talking, hugging, watching videos. But they're not, they're my sister's children, and she is a very good mother. I mean exceptional. These girls are very well-behaved. I don't know if it's nature, nurture, or both, but these girls have been good in restaurants since they were 18-months old. At least the times I was with them. ;^D

They're twins, fraternal twins. One is taller than the other, and they are completely different in attitude, personality, and likes, not like identical twins at all. They are so different, that people often comment, "They are so close in age. How far apart are they?" I always delight in replying, "About 20 minutes."  Heh.

The one on the left looks like me as a girl, and the one on my right my sister. We weren't blonde, but in the face there is a resemblance. I had a dream about the girl on the right just before my sister's pregnancy was confirmed (she underwent fertility treatments so we know the exact day she became pregnant). I dreamed of a little blond girl with the face of my sister, and so, here she is. The other twin was undreamt of, but loved all the same. (And she loves books!)

I hope at they reach their teen years, they don't become too monstrous. I have stories ready for them if they do, to keep them humble, or just embarrass them ;-D--like the time I watched your mum change your diaper on the trunk of her car in the Target parking lot for one, missy! LOL If the past is any precursor to the future, hopefully they'll come out the other side healthier and wise, and fine young ladies.

I can't wait to start Christmas shopping for them. I'm modeling my aunt-style on my favorite aunt, the MFP, who was a wonderful aunt. She was always there with a hug, a kind word, non-judgemental, and the most unique gifts and places she took us. (Remember HAIR, MFP, at the Cinerama Dome in Hollywood? I loved that day.) And she is that person to this day--I can tell her anything, and she never loves me the less.

I hope I can be that kind of aunt to these two girls, the most beautiful girls in the world. (Kindergarten graduation, May 09)

Reno, NV

 

The long slog through the Utah and Nevada deserts had left us tense and cranky. Fear of a breakdown in the middle of all that desolation, with no cell signal most of the time, gnawed at the backs of our subconscious. The heat was miserable adding to the crankiness level and anxiety.

 As the sun went down we hurtled onward toward Reno. We then discussed sleeping arrangements for the night. I said, “hell with it, let’s get a hotel.” R. agreed. We’d been camping out in the van, showering at truck stops every-other-day for about ten days. We got into Reno about 10pm. We started looking for rooms, I started making calls to the different hotels in town looking for a deal. At the Sands, I hit the jackpot--$55- a night, two people, no reservation required, so I got directions.

 

 

This was a really big hotel. I wouldn’t call it luxurious, but it was very nice. We stayed on the other side of the hotel, in a different wing on the west side. We parked the van in the fenced, security-intense lot near the casino, grabbed our luggage, my train case—leopard pattern, which, over the years we had nicknamed “the leopard case,”—all my good drugs go in there; we grabbed our laptops and headed up to the eighth floor. The room was very nice—one king-size bed, TV, and a huge bathroom. I called dibs on the potty. My husband collapsed on the bed, and I, while sitting on the toilet, began to peel my sticky, sweaty, dirty clothes from my tired body. I threw the stinking mess into a pile on the floor.

 

I came out of the bathroom and. R. had essentially done the same thing—as soon as we had hit that room, we had both stripped out of our yucky clothes. We pointed at each other and laughed.

 

I then took a very long shower, drew back the covers of the bed, and lay on the cool, crisp sheets. Aaaaah. I steel felt like I was jiggling a little from having been in the car for so long. I had a similar sensation after coming back from a week-long sailing trip to the Channel Islands off Santa Barbara, CA with our church the summer before my sophomore year of high school. I felt like I was still on the boat about a day-and-a-half after returning home.

 

My husband came out of the shower and had the same “aah” reaction to the clean sheets and the non-moving bed.

 

It was midnight, California time, and we both passed out and slept the sleep of the truly tired.

 

The next morning, we both took a shower, again, just because we could, not because we needed it.

 

We then drove around Reno for a while just looking around touristy-like, and also for a place to have some brunch. We had both slept until 11pm, and after showering and packing we didn’t leave our room until noon, checkout time. In addition to being tired, after checking in so late, we wanted to enjoy every minute of that room possible.

It threatened rain all day with those dark, menacing clouds, but it never did rain. Not really.

 

We drove by the University of NV, Reno, around the suburbs, and found some cheap gas. It wasn’t the $1.09 we’d paid in Iowa just over a week earlier, but it was cheaper than downtown Reno.

 

 

One of the things Las Vegas, Laughlin, and Reno have become famous for over the years are their cheap buffets, and that’s where we were headed. Unfortunately, no one had their prices listed on their marquees, so we just picked one. We picked the Silver Dollar. Oddly enough, it turns out the gleaming silver dome we had driven by a couple of times is the Silver Dollar casino. Well, part of it.

 

That had a huge parking garage, a walkway over the street directly into the casino. We held hands and walked through an assemblage of lights, sounds, and activity slack-jawed like a couple of country rubes who had just fallen off of a turnip truck. We were in grownup Disneyland.

 

We were pretty hungry, too, so we headed straight for the buffet. At $9.95 a person, it was a steal. After we were seated, I sent my husband to get some food before his head exploded and to scout out the food-lines.

 

He came back with a glazed-over look on his eyes like he’d seen something truly unbelievable. “They have a really nice, I mean, nice, spread here. It’s unbelievable. Go, get something.”  So I did, and he was right. Man alive, they had everything. And the coffee was outstanding. Really good, and prompt waitress service delivery of the kaffe.

That big white domed building is actually where we ended up having brunch.

 

As we sat there in our post-meal stupor, I started to feel weird. Really weird. Like I was drunk. Dizzy. Then the light came on: I had forgotten my insulin before we came in. Stupid. I rarely forget it. Very rarely. I looked at R. “I’ve done something really stupid,” I said.

            “What? What?” he said, concerned.

            “I’ve forgotten my insulin.”

            “Where is it, I’ll get it?”

            “It’s in the van, in the ice chest.”

So he ran down to get it while I sat there feeling crappy and really, really dumb. I couldn’t imagine what my BG was—it had to be between 300-400, if not more.

 

The insulin I take has two aspects: It is a slow- but long-lasting insulin, and the first stage doesn’t kick in for 45 mins – 2 hours. I’m supposed to take it at least 45 minutes before I eat. The second stage kicks in after about eight hours. I had just eaten a big meal. And I had made a very bad mistake.

 

R. showed up with my kit, and I staggered over to the ladies’ room to shoot up, nearly falling from the dizziness as I went.

 

On my way back to our table, I remembered something:  Alochol. It can reduce blood sugars very quickly. I knew there was a bottle of vodka in the car that a friend had given me before we left town. We hurried down to the garage and I pulled out the bottle of Absolut and poured it into a to-go cup of Diet Coke I had, and I started sipping. Within a few minutes the dizziness abated and I started feeling much, much better. I also needed to keep an eye on my blood glucose now to make sure it didn’t fall too far, that’s almost worse than too high. Argh. We had snacks in the van just in case of an emergency like that.

 

I couldn’t believe I had done that. Just really dumb.

 

Regardless, we cruised around Reno some more….

 

 

…and then we headed for Carson City, the capitol of Reno.

 

Here is the capitol:

 

The capitol steps—the whole property is surrounded by beautiful trees so it’s hard to get a glimpse of the actual building—I was lucky to get this one:

 

Then we saw this lovely little neighborhood near the Capitol. It reminded me of my childhood. Just a very sweet neighborhood with charming front-porched homes.

 

 

Then we cruised on downtown…

 

 

…and then into the mountains headed to this place:

 

 

 

Wendover, East and West

After we risked life and limb to drive through the central and western Utah salt flats, we arrived at the Utah/Nevada border. After seeing no civilization, nothing, literally, for hours, this eensy little town on the border came as a breath of fresh air.

 

In addition to being famous (and infamous) for Las Vegas and Area 51, Nevada is also the toxic dumping grounds of the United States. With of state-wide population of about 2.6 million, (just 2 million over Alaska), there is a lot of empty space in Nevada. You can see that just from the pictures I'm posting here, alone. There are vast, vast, vast desolate areas of empty space in Nevada. If there is a master planner for the universe and the Earth, he forgot to do anything with Nevada. Granted, I'm biased because I am NOT a desert person. It makes me feel empty inside, anxious, and eager to get out of there. I could never live in a desert climate--I would definitely be on more drugs than I am currently for depression, anxiety, and insomnia. I would have to make a ton, and I mean a TON of money to live there, even in Vegas, which I am not overly fond of. I am more of a Laughlin, NV kind of gal--less frat boys and party girls in Laughlin. I'm not a recreational drinker, I hate big crowds and lots of noise--Vegas is not for me. I would never make it there, or anywhere else in Nevada except perhaps Tahoe. More on that in another post.

So West Wendover, Nevada is just over the border from East Wendover, Utah. There is an actual line painted in powder blue on the pavement in the center of town where the the border divides the two towns. This is important for two reasons:  1. there are casinos on the Nevada side where gambling is legal and 2. there is free-flowing liquor in Nevada due to the same laws. In Utah, one must go to a state-run store to procure alcoholic beverages. We went to one in Moab, UT earlier on our Road Trip.I wanted chips, but they only sell booze, unlike liquor stores in Calif. that sell, well, almost anything.

I don't have any pictures of the town or the painted border-line because our camera was charging. We bought this cool little device in Ft. Riley, Kansas at a Best Buy. It's a car electrical-device charger. It has a standard two-prong outlet. After my BlackBerry charger died, and having little access to outlets because we were driving so much, we decided to get the converter, worth every penny at $50, to charge both our phones and the camera. It did not charge as quickly as say a regular, land outlet, it took longer, but it was a long way from better than nothing. It was one of the smartest purchases I've ever made.

In the meantime, the camera had died and it would not be charged up enough to take pics before we left town. I did, however, take some pics for R. with my BlackBerry because Wendover is famous for this historical item:  The Enola Gay was housed at the base there and is where it departed from when it left on its missions to bomb Hiroshima and then Nagasaki. 

It's in a state of decay now, and IMHO that's the way it should stay. Although we should remember the awesome and terrible power of those two bombs, I believe we should remember more those who died in those bombings. Housing a memorial here would, I feel, give a sense of celebration to what should really be a more somber event. I'm not going to debate whether dropping the bombs were wrong or right, it's a fact of history and cannot be changed, I'm just saying we should just remember the human cost of these weapons, and of all military killing devices.

My mother was in an assisted living facility in Southern California before she went rogue. One of her facility-mates was a tiny Japanese woman who had been in Nagasaki as a girl when it was bombed. She had been significantly burned, and at that time, in her 80s, was fighting cancer that is speculated was triggered by the radiation. That was about eight years ago, my mother moved out, but I've often wondered how that sweet, elfin lady was doing.

So, regardless, I give you pictures of the now closed Air Force base at West Wendover.

 

Sobering, is it not?

So after my hubby got his turn of the AF base, I asked him to try to find me a post office. I had been purchasing and sending postcards to a list of about ten-twelve people from interesting spots along our trip. I had pre-made labels with addresses for each person enough, I hoped, to cover all the postcards I would send. I didn't, but I just handwrote them instead. It was just a little messier and took longer.

We didn't find the post office in Wendover, both east and west, although we drove back and forth through the town and over the painted border several times. Finally we just gave up and we headed for a Pilot to potty and re-fuel, i.e., cold drinks and ice for the ice chest which had melted going through the desert very quickly, even with the A/C on.

We came out of the Pilot, I dumped out the melted ice in the ice chest, repacked it with drink cans, and snacks, put in fresh ice while I waited for R. to come out of the rest room. Once he did, we both got into the van, R. started backing us up, and I realized at that point that I couldn't find my phone. It was a red BlackBerry Curve, the one with the full qwerty keyboard. I had purchased it, very cheaply, from a friend who had upgraded to an iPhone. It was compatible with my T-Mobile SIM card and it worked so well, that while in Denver, I upgraded to full net access program from my e-mail only account so that we could be online, including Google for directions if needed, almost everywhere across the US.

My phone was not in the van. Not in my purse, the door of the van, or my bra, where I'll sometimes put it if I don't have pockets and I need both hands. It wasn't on the floor, the dash or in the center console, either. I checked the ice chest, twice. I bade my husband stop the van!! And I ran back into the mini-mart bathroom to see if it had been left there. If it had, it was gone. I checked with the cashier who went in the back. I waited two or three long, long minutes when he came back out, smiling saying, "I got it!" except that it was a black Samsung flip-phone, not my red BlackBerry Curve.

I asked him to look again or if anyone had reported it missing. I checked the chip rack by the register to see if it had fallen off the counter while I paid for my drink. It wasn't there, either.

Finally, it became apparent that it was not there or, if it had been, it was now gone (stolen). I was dejected. This also meant that we would have no phone as we continued across the Nevada desert--my husband's having been stolen in Illinois earlier in the week. This was not good.

Then I remembered that my husband had made a pit-stop at the local information center to use their bathroom--it was urgent--so I stayed in the van while he ran inside to take care of biz. I thought we'd be there a few minutes or I would have gone inside and enjoyed their A/C.

Minutes turned into more minutes turned into thirty minutes, and still n o R. I was reading a novel that I had been reading all morning. I noticed I was starting to get hot, clammy, and sweaty. I had left the door and window closed to keep the A/C in. But it wasn't meant for long term coolness. So I opened the van door for some air. R. eventually came out and we drove over to the Pilot.

I wondered if it had fallen out, then. It was a possibility. I asked him to drive back over there, a couple of miles away, to see if it was still in the parking lot. I would stay at Pilot and see if anyone turned it in.

No one did, but R. came back and through the windshield I could see him holding the BB Curve up for me and smiling. It had fallen out of the car. I was SO relieved!!  I jumped in the van and snatched it out of his hands. The red light indicating I had an e-mail was on, but the phone wouldn't turn on. Then I noticed that the screen was badly cracked, like spiderweb cracks, and it had a black mark down one side. We had run it over after it had fallen out of the van.

Oh my poor beautiful toy!! The humanity!!  So I whipped out my old BlackBerry Pearl, I had brought it on the trip to put on eBay at some point but never did--I took the SIM card out of the Curve and put it in the Pearl. So, we had phone, I could still access e-mail, the net, and Facebook, but the QWERTY keyboard was gone, and I was back to intuitive typing--the BB tries to guess what you're spelling because every key has two letters on it. It makes for some odd combinations, sometimes. Like OHUNE instead of PHONE. And Hey and Get are the same three keys. *sigh*

I killed it. I had been absorbed in my book and it hand fallen out of the car when I opened the door and I never even noticed. *guilt*

So fighting back tears (yes, over a phone), we got back on the 80 and headed for Reno on the other side of the Nevada desert.

Twitter

Real quickly:  If you look to the right, you'll see a widget that says, "Twitter."  You do not need to be a member of Twitter to read my tweets from the blog--just click on the link, and you can read my Twits. Twats. Tweets. Whatever. My thoughts. Just click and you're there.

Salt Lake City, UT

OK, less crazy today, more road trip.

We're almost at the end. This part of the trip I don't even like to think about. It was fraught with tension and anxiety that was exacerbated by the high heat of the western Wyoming and eastern Utah deserts. Our money was dwindling, our patience, too, and a sincere desire to quit being so hot and sweaty hovered over everything.

I have no pictures of the road from Rawlins, WY to Salt Lake City because I spent that entire time with my face  buried in a novel. I was hot, tired, cranky, and sick of looking out the window at the same dang landscape and scenery, for miles. I don't like the desert--it depresses me on a good day.

We arrived in SLC late in the day. Before we left for the Road Trip in June, we discussed places we wanted to visit. After reading a post from Tabitha on June 18, 2009 at From Married to Single, (one of my favorite blogs), about a trip she made to the City Library in downtown SLC, I said, "I want to go to that library."

So we exited the freeway and headed to downtown SLC. That's the capitol in the background. (And how many pictures like this have I taken on the Road Trip? Deja Vu, man. Maybe I should have dubbed this the "State Capitols and Campuses Tour. Argh.)

Tabitha's pics are better than mine--she had more time, a better camera, and, well, she's just a better photographer. Make sure you look at her pics of the library, too.

Then we saw the library, looming up on our right. My heart started to speed up, my breathing became shallow--yes, libraries are my rock stars--and we circled the building looking for a parking spot.

Here is the back side of the library.

We opted to park underneath the library simply to leave the van in the shade--it was hot, and the sun was still burning down on us, and the inside of the mini-van was like an oven. The air conditioner could only do so much. We had to pay $3- to ransom ourselves out of the parking garage, but to me, that was $3- well spent. The van was nice and cool after our two hour respite in the library. Free A/C and wireless Internet, dontcha' know. ;^D

Here is a pic of the library's lovely outside relaxation area.

This library has shops inside of it. Stationers, The Library Shop (good thing that was closed--like I needed more books), flower shops, gift shops, all those cutesy little shops women (or men) who love to shop enjoy hanging out in, oohing and aaahing--and they were all closed. We had just missed it. *sigh* I pressed my nose against the shops' glass like a child dreaming over a bicycle  in a toy store window. "Tchotkes," I exhaled. I could see them, but not touch. *sigh*

And I'm kookoo for nice stationery. I still haven't found my box of stationery and fancy thank you notes from our move--I expect I won't until I move somewhere big enough to unpack everything.

Above the shops are reading/relaxation areas accessible from, and belonging to, the library. We found a quiet area on the third floor (fourth?) next to a window and surfed the net, enjoyed the A/C and the view until they closed at 7pm.

This is a view of the plaza facing east, from the western side. I am standing more-or-less directly under the mobile, and the glass elevator is to the right.

 

There were some great views where we were on the 3rd floor of the library. This view of the low rust-colored hills looks like Southern California to me, particularly of the San Fernando Valley.

This next thing is also a big part of why I wanted to visit this particular library. It's a huge mobile hanging from the high ceiling in the walkway between the shops and the actual library.

From the above angle, it isn't exactly clear what the mobile is supposed to be. The next photo it is clearer what the mobile is. Can you see it?

 
It's a human head. Isn't that cool? I stood there and stared at it, snapping pics, for the longest time. It's even more fascinating in person. People were staring at me staring at the mobile. I wanted to say, "Hey! Don't you see it, too? Look up!" But I kept my thoughts to myself.

 

The above is a great view of the mobile from the glass elevator. As someone who is not fond of heights, I generally skip glass elevators. But this was the best way to get to the top floor (upper left corner is the nook where we hung out for a few hours), and the view of the mobile at this angle, with the sun setting on it, was worth not looking down to get.

And then I got this close-up of what the mobile is constructed of:  Make-believe Monarch butterflies each carrying a book. Delightful!! I have looked all over the net to find the name of the artist of this wonderful mobile with no luck. If anyone knows, would you please pass that along to me? Thanks.

I could spend a lot of time in this library if I lived there. If I ever go to SLC again, the City Library is totally on my "to do" list.

After the library closed and for all intents and purposes kicked us out, we headed north to take a look at the capitol building. It is one of the finest capitols I've had the pleasure of viewing this entire trip. It's situated on the top of a hill overlooking the entire city and the lake itself. Stunning

 

Across the street is the Council Hall, the original SLC Capitol building, built in 1864.

This cute buffalo statue graced the lawn of the Council Hall.

Again, our camera doesn't do night shots too well, and this is the best of the shots I took from the hill where the capitol resides. That shimmering blur in the center/right of the photo is the Great Salt Lake. And due to a communications problem, that's as close as I got to the lake.

We then drove back down North State Street, past the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Days Saints Temple. It was also just closing, and hordes of tourists were exiting from Temple Square. I wish I could have gone in and walked around, viewed the gardens, and admired the architecture of this stunning building, but once more, timing was just bad.

This next photo is the clock tower of the courthouse buildings downtown.

As hunger was kicking in, our mediocre breakfast/lunch having worn off, we started the search for a dinner place that was not fast food but that wouldn't bust our budget, either. We also visited Utah State University's campus (yawn); no pictures of that. I mean, college campuses were all starting to blur together for me.

We found a restaurant we both agreed on, Wingers, and we settled in for some din. The food was ok, not terrific, not terrible, service was excellent--they had closed but they let us continue to relax until we noticed we were the only ones in the restaurant, except staff, and they said for us to take our time. So we did. Our dinner came with a free slice of mint chip mud pie--mint chip isn't high on the list for either of us, and we left most of it uneaten.

My husband wanted to camp overnight on a small island in the Salt Lake. I questioned why we had driven all over SLC looking for dinner (gas prices were rising the further west we went, so we were trying to keep fuel costs low), if we were going to go back up north to the lake where we had already been?  By this time my energy was failing, and as most nights on this trip, I fell asleep in the passenger seat. When I woke up, we were parked outside of a grocery store main entrance. That's where my husband wanted to "camp out."  I flipped my pancakes (after a debate ensued), and we ended up parking behind a mini-mall (the only place to get some shade from the early morning sun). Why we didn't go to the campground at the island is beyond me.

The next day, we got back on the 80 and headed for Nevada. That is a brutal, brutal drive. It is truly desolate, and in the summer, raging hot. This is not the place to break down. No joke.

 

Those are salt flats. After winter rain(s), the water evaporates and leaves salt flats behind for miles.

Here's an up-close view of some of that evaporated ground. The white stuff is salt. Although it appears wet, this spot, and the whole desert here, is completely dry.

 

There is a salt industry here, also. See the mounds of salt in the distance?

Here's a close-up of the salt mounds.

We looked at these bright white salt flats for miles. Sunglasses NOT optional.

Bored and nervous, I stuck my nose in a book until we reached East/West Wendover, a border town with a side in Utah, and a side in Nevada. And where my new-to-me BlackBerry Curve, unbenownst to me, was to meet its untimely death.

Today Sucked

Why?  I'll tell ya why, in bullet points, to keep down my frustration level by not being too elaborate.

It started with:

• Heartburn, bad, at 1am

• Husband drove me to counseling appointment as I felt icky then proceeded to argue with me on the best way to get there. I finally told him to just be quiet.


• PA who referred me, sent me to the wrong address, I needed to be around the corner on a different street. Fabulous.

• went to psychology appointment--after sending in the SWAT team to wrangle a *soon* appointment for me--turned away by PsyD due to inability to pay $98. One of the most humiliating things to happen to me since I was asked to exit a roller coaster ride in 1994 (too fat). Managed to exit without putting fist through window, throwing a tantrum, or crying (sunglasses helped) before leaving the building.


• Got a couple of referral numbers from PsyD to call for sliding scale counseling--first number she gave me went to the Monterey County Democratic Party--which would have breen great had I been looking for them



• Went to the library to find some more Anne Perry "Thomas and Charlotte Pitt" novels, they only had a few, not the ones I needed to read them in order; no Alexander McCall-Smith, no Stieg Larsson, nothing in the new book section that looked interesting, so gave up



• Called PsyD from the car about bad phone #, she said perhaps a 2 was a 4 to try that, and to try another number also. I had no pen, (completely dumped purse out upside down on passenger seat in frustration) was unable to write the other number down (can't remember more than three at a time, ever) so didn't get the number. Also was told in the future that I should "call the front desk instead of her direct line as they could help me. Good luck."  Uh, I did call the front desk, they put me through to you. ??? Tore up PsyD's card in a fit of anger.



• Called SWAT Team friend who said, "uh, no," called PsyD back on my behalf, and am now awaiting a phone call from PsyD for a referral.



• Came home, ate lunch, felt extremely tired and wiped out, got into bed with laptop, futzed with technology, badly, and then watched Keith and (part of) Rachel on laptop, and fell asleep until 10pm



• Starving, craving peanut butter. Weird. Not a favorite food.



• And lastly, signed up for NaNoWriMo. What the hell. I'm not doing anything, maybe I can channel some of that rage into something creative. 



• That is all.

Where Have I Been?

Guess.

Today is my first day out of bed--I mean dressed and moving around, not a visit to the bathroom or kitchen--since last Tuesday. I don't know for sure if I had Swine Flu or not, (I did have six of the eight symptoms) but I do know I Felt BAD. Very bad.

I slept until 6pm yesterday, Sunday, then watched the rest of Season II of Fringe on Hulu, having watched Season I Fri/Sat/Sun. I then made a tuna melt, cut up an apple, and did some reading. My husband got into bed with me, with his laptop, and we both watched the Live U2 Concert in Pasadena (I lived there for seven years in the 90s) on YouTube from 8:30 to 11:00-ishpm.  Pasadena's royalty doesn't like noise and lights after 11pm. *ahem*

R. told me that yesterday, while I was sleeping, I kept moaning and saying, "I have a headache...." He said he thought it must be pretty bad if I would talk about it in my sleep. It was the worst headache I've ever had in my life.

I got up, like I said, around 6pm, headed into the bathroom, and sat on the toilet while I massaged my temples trying to make it lessen up. The sink is close by, so I heated up the water as hot as it would go, wet down a washcloth and put that on my face, then on the back of my neck, re-heating and wringing it out about three more times. And the headache started to lessen. And this was about thirty minutes after I'd taken 600mg of OTC generic Advil (ibuprofen).

In the last seven days, I've woken up with a version of that headache five of those days. And so I am up. Two reasons:  I don't like sleeping all day, I hadn't seen the sun in a while; and second, I'm afraid I'll wake up with that b*tch of a headache. So I'm postponing it as long as I can.

In the meantime, I felt well enough to make hubby take me out to breakfast (with an IHOP coupon), and then take the letter I wrote last night to my Assemblyman regarding my problems with the EDD and my unemployment benefits to be faxed.

All this state-money, federal-money, extensions, quarters, earnings, work, not-working, federal employee, back and forth, confused the h*ll out of me but, my husband, the math geek, had it all down so I typed it up the way he explained it to me, using bullet points for clarity, and he reviewed it and said that I had gotten it right. So after breakfast we drove over to our PO Box post office to get our mail and send the fax. We got there right at 8:30, but they don't open now until 9:00am. When did that happen? And they close at 5:30, too, including the lobby where the postal boxes are located. WTF? Regardless, they don't *do* faxes anymore. There's an office supply store by the house, so we drove back this way, and he went in there (while I waited in the car--I'm very tired), and he faxed it over for me. So it's done.

My friend also did a HUGE favor for me today and hopefully I'll have the psych referral sometime today--someone is supposed to call me *today.* I'd like to thank her, and the only way I know she would accept any kind of thanks is a donation to NaNoWriMo, which she is participating in next month and which I am seriously considering doing. I signed up in 2003, but I just stared at Word and there was nothing there. I feel something in there, now, that wants out. Not trying is 100% failure, right? OK, I'm just talking to myself now. I'm going back to my book, Summer at Tiffany by Marjorie Hart. Unbelievably charming. The perfect, no stress, carefree kind of memoir for me right now.

And then a nap. I'm pooped.