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.

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.

For courses I’m taking classical guitar, woo hoooo! Also, CSS(cascading style sheets) because it’s not enough to know how to use Adobe Dreamweaver to create a website, if you don’t have a good understanding of CSS then you’ve only got a very rudimentary ability to create webpages. I am not okay with that. Both these courses combined will only take up two nights of my week, so I think I can handle it with my workflow for Pacifica. At least I hope so, I feel so defeated when I have to drop a course.

The above photo is from three years ago, but it seems so much longer than that in my memory. I was in Miami and I remember thinking I was fat. Ha! I’m on the steps of the Vizcaya mansion, which if you’re in Miami is worth seeing and not much is.