This Week was also Birthday Week, which ended up wonderful after a rough start. On Tuesday evening, the snow and ice came back to make things interesting. Our neighborhood saw a few inches of snow, and the roads iced up overnight, so I was back to the bus commute on Wednesday morning. But the week ended with an extended birthday celebration involving sushi dinner, well-wishes and gifts, two brunches, Star Wars, model trains, and reading books by the fire on a rainy evening.
Through the magic of mobile phones, I am posting this as I wait to meet my mom at PDX! Sorry for the uninspired photo; it has been a long day. Writing from: PDX! Listening to: the murmuring of baggage claim.
Today we made the long drive back to the Bay Area. Well, FunkyPlaid made the drive while I napped, read “The Shadow of the Wind” (OMG so good), and scheduled a job interview for next week! Nothing more on that for now lest I jinx it, but your good thoughts are sincerely appreciated. N.B. I’m a few days behind with the project, so these descriptions will be brief.
Today FunkyPlaid and I had a long drive northwards. This photo was taken during a particularly scenic bit. When we finally arrived at our friends’ home in Portland, they greeted us with locally-themed gifts and a lovely home-cooked meal. I was too exhausted to take photos of any of that, though, so here is one I took on the road. N.B. I’m a few days behind with the project, so these descriptions will be brief.
[caption id=“attachment_91927” align=“aligncenter” width=“687”]Processed with VSCOcam with t2 preset[/caption] I’m not going to bury the lede: Zen is stuck in Newark due to Storm Jonas. I’m distraught both by the circumstances out of our control and by the lack of appropriate action taken by our pet transport company. But with any luck she will be with us in less than twelve hours, so I am resolved to stay positive. The past twenty-four hours has contained nearly all of the standard range of emotions and some of the limited-edition ones I collected by saving cereal box tops.
Choosing today’s photo was more difficult than usual but I settled on one of an ancient yew tree that John Knox purportedly preached under because … well … that. Knox is not pictured, but I did leave in a human and a wee dachshund for scale. This is the magical Ormiston Yew Tree. It is difficult to find, so I am glad that I had a local guide in the aforementioned human, my friend Juliana.
¡Estamos en Barcelona! FunkyPlaid and I arrived last night, excited to return but also a bit disappointed. We were due to meet my father and stepmother here, but because of the storms battering the east coast of the States just now, their arrival was significantly delayed. They couldn’t get a connecting flight out of the east coast, so as I write this, they are driving a rental car to Detroit where they’ll be able to catch a flight over the Pond and arrive two days later than scheduled.
You genuflected outside the gothic cathedral the day after I got officially old. My nose was running and cold and I turned from the great grey edifice to see the only familiar face for miles. On that face, the expression I tried to capture: irreverent yet strangely penitent, maybe just tired from walking or overwhelmed by unfamiliar vowels or musing how new it feels to feel this old.
Yesterday I accidentally posted a blurb from my “about” page. (Serves me right for fiddling with stuff I don’t understand.) My apology comes in the form of a photo of FunkyPlaid at La Pedrera in Barcelona. And a sincere promise that more photos are on their way!
We spied Gehry’s golden fish, or El Peix, on our stroll along the beach today. twitter.com/cygnoir/s…