I wonder if you would feel better if you put the lime in the coconut and drank them both together….?  Some day I will experiment and let you know.

Today is one of those dark gloomy days mostly seen in Vancouver and not Newport Beach, but the last two day have been like that here.  Makes me want to get some fake logs for my gas fireplace.  I’ve been working on my personal webpage the last few days and have gotten the foundations finished.  You can check it out here.  It may seem like a waste of time to put so much effort into a page that I frankly don’t need, but by working on my own webpage I learn in a real way how to take an idea and design and turn it into a working website.  All the classes, videos, and textbooks I’m reading don’t give you much more than an idea of how to go about it.  So, many things go awry or affect your page in ways that you could’t have guessed that it’s pretty much the only way to really learn – the textbooks and videos are all worked out in advance to give you a specific result with specific steps.  Ha! Like that ever happens in reality!

I talked to my Grandma yesterday, she’s so cute.   She told me all about how the family was doing and she talked about Clairessa coming to stay with her in February for a month, so I know she’s already excited about that.  Clairessa got to Toronto yesterday where she’s going to be for a month because of one of her med school rotations.  I think she’s liking 4th year a bit better.  Thank goodness.  But I also think she’s happier now because she went back to eating some meat.  From empirical evidence I’ve witnessed that being a vegetarian makes a person puffy and wrinkly and GROUCHY!  If you want a more scientific and peer-reviewed case for eating meat then I highly recommend this book – ‘Good Calories, Bad Calories’ by Gary Taubes.  (If you don’t have time to read the thick book here is a video of the author which covers a lot of what’s in the book ) I had so much trouble staying thin until I read this book.  A rice cake with 30 calories would make me gain weight, but eating cheese with 1000′s of calories wouldn’t – that is totally against what popular wisdom says these days – but popular wisdom is just that, it is inherently popular but it is not inherently true.

And now I will answer all your life’s most important and hitherto unanswerable questions:

Q. What is the purpose of life?

A. To spawn more life.  That is the very nature of life – it begets more life.  Go have some kids.  You’ll be glad when you’re old and still relevant to someone.

Q.  Is that a debt collector or a possibly important business contact calling me?

A. It’s a debt collector.  Answer the phone and tell them you’re not your own self and they have reached the wrong number and would they take it off their calling list.

Q. Why can’t I find the right partner?

A. The right partner is a tolerable one.  Anyone you live with will drive you crazy in short order.

Q. Why is it that my hair is dull, dry, unremarkable and I can’t seem to stay thin?

A. Because you’re eating too much sugar.

Q. Why aren’t human babies as cute as animal babies?

A. It’s easy to be objective about animal babies, they obviously aren’t our offspring, so it’s easy to love them for the cute things they are – human babies on the other hand are only really lovable to their own parents and not so much for you as they are competition for your own genetic carriers.

Q. Why are the tastiest foods the worst for me?

A. To maintain the balance of the universe.  Only by keeping us from eating non-stop can existence continue with any kind of order.

I hope that was helpful and now your life seems more organized and less arbitrary.  Animal babies ARE so much cuter aren’t they?  Just looking at my fluffy white standard poodle, Adelle, causes me to hug her and pinch her cheeks and smoosh her foofy head all day long.  Really, it’s hard to get work done.  I challenge any child I have to be that cute.

So, yesterday I went shopping and bought all the ingredients for the New York Cheesecake that I’m going to make tomorrow – yum, num, num.  I researched and found by all accounts the best possible cheesecake recipe in existence.  It calls for 5 packages of cream cheese, 1 lemon, some sour cream, lotsa eggs, a titch of salt, and of course sugar, ew, I’m substituting that with stevia.  I’ll let you know how that turns out.  I’m making a crushed pecan nut crust instead of graham cracker to keep things low carb.  I’m hoping it’s not too time consuming so that I can make and eat my cheesecakes regularly.

Tonight I went to my CSS class and we’ve all decided, the prof included, that this textbook is terrible.  It’s written in such confusing language that what should be a simple task turns into a headache-inducing day long epic drama.  Dude, it’s just CSS.  My PHP class is WAY easier thanks to the power of clear intelligible English in the textbook.  However, I ‘am’ learning and also, I’m getting straight A’s.  Hurray!  Guitar is going well too, my teacher says that I play everything perfectly.  That is very encouraging.  I’m on the right path towards being a legitimate guitar player.  During moments of grandeur I even imagine myself being in a band or at least an ensemble.

Lately I’ve had this song stuck in my head – “Just Go” by Lionel Richie – it’s really where I’m at this week, I just want to get away and relax.  The last two weeks have been just one trial and tribulation after another.  I feel like I am going to be surprised with a Survivor-type reality show trophy any minute now.  Soon it will be mine – I’m sure of it!

This weekend was an oasis of fun in the recent desert of living though, we did all sorts of Autumnal activities like go to Target and get little orange candycorn lights, which I put up around all my windows and my balcony, and I got a cute pumpkin candle holder centerpiece for my table, which I lit along with my other candles and played my guitar in the soft orange glow.  I also made soup!!!  Which was yummy, I put all sorts of veggies and just the right spices in it.  And we went for a hike in Trabuco canyon, which was interesting in many ways if not for beauteous reasons.  Much red rooibos tea was drunk and a good time had by all.

Trabuco canyon is very canyony, but I wouldn’t recommend it for hiking.  It took a very loooooooong drive down a very treacherous boulder filled ‘path’, for I would not call it a road, to even get to the trail head. Unless you are in an off-roading vehicle I wouldn’t advise it.  Several cars and us didn’t even make it to the trail head because parts of the path ahead of us were just a swatch of jagged foot high rocks – it would have just shredded the bottoms of our cars.   So, we parked and walked from there which meant we were pooped by the time we reached the trail – bah!  There was also a lot of Poison Oak and even at 5pm it was hot, so though our moods were jolly, I can’t say that it inspired my soul and regale you with tales of natural beauty that would impress you.  Foiled again!

I talked to my Mom Saturday morning, I was very relieved that she was safely back from the cabin and in good spirits.  She went up by herself last Monday, and it still has Dad’s stuff just as he left it, so Clairessa and I were worried she’d get into some weird mood and take her life.  It was a valid worry I think, but anyway she seems to have dealt with some of the issues regarding his death, so maybe she’s gonna be a bit happier from now on…..?  I really hope so.  I’ll go up near Halloween and give her a big hug.  Adelle will love that, she loves Mom and visiting Vancouver.  I’ll drive up so that I can easily take Adelle and the foliage is gorgeous through Oregon and Washington at that time of year.  It’s worth it to go just for the drive.

Looks like we might get government funding for Pacifica.  Keep your fingers crossed.  This would be the hugest relief and allow us to keep full control of the company without being under-capitalized into extinction.  Right now I know a lot of us are under-funded and under-funned, but I’ve got some ideas like the Los Angeles Haunted Hayride!  It will only solve the latter problem though, sorry.  I’m planning on doing that in a few weeks and of course Universal Studios Halloween Horror Nights! So. Much. Fun.

I serenaded the sunset below the horizon tonight with descending arpeggios – it was lovely and I’ve been wanting do it for such a long time now – I sat on my balcony and played my guitar as the world went to sleep and the night came alive and I had to get up and turn on the balcony light.

Taking deep breathes of fresh ocean air I watched as the sky changed from red to turquoise to purple and the planes landed and took off from John Wayne airport like brightly twinkling stars in the dusk.  All the while trying to keep up the timing and play the right string and fret.  I’m not really at the stage yet where I’m worrying about which fingers I’m using on certain strings and frets, as long as my timing’s decent and I play the right notes then I’m happy.

I went to a flamenco guitar performance this weekend and there were also flamenco dancers, which was very cool and I had trouble focusing on the guitar playing at times because I just wanted to watch the dancing, because let’s admit it: it’s more fun to watch.  Whenever I could pull myself away from watching the dancers I watched the guitarists’ hands and how their fingers were moving, but I don’t think I was able to take a lot away from the experience.  Maybe when I’m more accomplished I can gather more info from watching someone play, at this point it’s all very similar to me.

The dancers had great swirly dresses all red and satiny and polka-dotty with tiers and tiers of large ruffles around the hem and sometimes to my enormous delight they would use castanets! I dunno, I’ve just had a fascination with them since I was a kid.  The performance gave me the idea of being a flamenco dancer for Halloween.  I’m not positive yet though, but I better figure my costume out soon – Halloween’s coming!!! Next weekend I’m gonna put up little Halloween lights, purple, green, & orange, around the balcony and windows and put up some Autumnal decorations.  I LOVE decorating for the holidays.

Or at least that’s what I thought my horoscope said the other day and I was so excited about that.  I do think I’m ready for a unicorn, whatever that may entail I’m sure that I have what’s necessary.

Hope everyone had a good long weekend.  Sunday I went to the LA County Fair and had a lot of fun.  My favorite thing to do is pet the farm animals.  The sheep are my favorite, they’re softer and more cuddly than the goats and a sign at the fair said that they make good pets.  I plan on getting one.  The piglets were adorable too, but I eat a lot of pork, so I think that would make me feel a bit uncomfortable.  I think meat is the optimal food for humans to eat, but I wish it didn’t come from animals.  I try to separate the two objects in my mind.

Another thing I did a lot of this weekend was practice my guitar.  I am amazed that I can play simple songs now, that is so super cool to me because for many years I just stared at my guitar with a few lackluster attempts to learn to play which would last no more than a few weeks.  I think I’ve broken some kind of mental barrier between ‘I can’t play guitar’ and ‘I can play guitar’. I feel extraordinarily jubilant!  Quite a lot of the time in life after completing a task I think ‘If I’d known how easy that would be I would have done it long ago’.  We really are our own biggest obstacles in life.  I’m still waiting for some calluses to form to protect my left hand fingers against the metal strings, they are super resistant to being anything but soft, squashy, and vulnerable.  I understand where they are coming from though.  My guitar is a electric hollow body, she’s very pretty with yummy brown and amber colors, mother-of-pearl inlays, and gold-colored hardware.  I will post a pic as soon as I have a good one.  To go with my guitar I also have an fairly big amp and a processor that gives my hollow-body a fat acoustic guitar sound – awesome!!!  My gift to myself once I get to a certain level of proficiency is a nice acoustic guitar so I can play more mobiley.  I’m thinking campfires, picnics, that sort of thing.

I have my CSS class tonight, so hopefully that goes well, since that prof was such a poop last week, but I’m not worried, she probably feels bad about the incident too.  So far, I have actually learned more about CSS in my Dynamic Web Database online class – I guess between the two I’ll be pretty proficient at CSS by Chrismastime.  I can’t get over how into coding I am – weird.  Never in a million years would I have thought I had a predilection towards that.

Pacifica is moving along slooooooowly, but what can you do?  Some things, especially big things, just cannot be rushed.  All I can say about it is that our business plan is extremely fluid, but it has to be in this economy.  We are considering, right now, moving the operation to Hawaii because there just seems to be more flying opportunities there.  Hopefully next week I will have some more concrete information for you.

I love the clean fresh smell of a new blog.  Mmmmmmmm!  Put your nose up to your screen and take a good whiff because it won’t last long – I’m gonna write in this blog until it’s all raggedy and smells like old leather.

Despite my optimism I’m actually a little worse for wear this week, one of the anti-highlights of my week:  my prof yelled at me for not having known the textbook of the HTML class – but I’m not even in the HTML class.   She apologized, but I still haven’t gotten over the injustice.

I dropped the Illustrator class because it was too easy, I realized I know more Illustrator than I thought.