Summer Storm

I love thunderstorms in California during the summer. The temperature always drops because the air is so dry and the smell of petrichor is strong in the air for a long time.

It's Snowing

The snow isn't the normal Sierra cement, though. It's light and fluffy and drifts slowly down to the ground rather than falling like a rock. There's very thin layer on the porch and the snow creaked when I walked on it. This is the kind of snow I imagine they get back East: light and dry(ish).

Also, it keeps the pollen down nicely. No itchy eyes today.

Wonderfully Weird Weather

Today's had some wonderfully weird weather:

When I left my apartment this morning, the sun was shining in my eyes and the clouds looked white and fluffy.

At around eight, I could see dark, ominous clouds to the west.

Some time near ten, the sky opened up and sent torrents of rain down upon the world.

By eleven everything looked to be clearing.

One-ish, the darkness returned.

As two rolled around giant drops in massive amounts fell from the sky.

Now, nearly three-thirty, the clouds to the east are black, to the west are fluffy and white, and the sun shines on the dry, except for some puddles, parking lot across the street, but what looms just beyond?

I watch and listen to the people in my office get frustrated at all this. It's almost May, they say, the weather should be clearing. I sit and think how wonderful it is.

I like the rain. The only thing that makes the rain better is when there's thunder and lightening.

Of course, this could be like me liking the snow. I've never lived though snow that piles upon itself day after day for a week and I've never been though tornadoes and hurricanes. And even if that is the reason I like it, I like the rain. I like the smell of the concrete and pavement after the storm. I like the oil slicks on puddles or running down the street after a craptastic car drives by. I like the sound it makes on roofs and my umbrella. I like how it makes my shoes and the cuffs on my pants wet.

I wrote last week about how the weather here has been warm and clear, but every week or so we get a storm and I hope to whatever possible god that may or may not be out there that this cycle continues all summer long. Not just to please me, but to also piss off those around me.

How's this for screwy?

Today's high is supposed to be 94. Tomorrow, 91. Wednesday 77. Thursday, 67. And Friday, 63.

Guess I'll be breaking out the box fans tonight and putting them away on Wednesday.

Jeez.

A Report

While trying to figure out what to write today, I remembered that my mom once told me that when she had a journal (or dairy, depending on how old she was at the time) it was boring; filled with what the weather was like that day.

Today, it's been sprinkling on and off, but it's not too cold, to me.

All Day Blog

We had rain this morning, as I walked to work, but no lightening, no thunder. The rain didn't pound down, either. It wasn't a real storm, but the drops were too big for a drizzle.

Now the clouds have broken up. The sky is clearing. Once they pass, they'll be all gone. The sky's not any more blue than it was yesterday, though. I guess there wasn't enough rain to scrub the sky.

I think I heard some of the first drops fall last night as I was finished reading The Westing Game again. It's been one of my favorite books for a long, long time. I think I've read it at least once a year since I was in the fifth grade. It seems like someone should make a really good movie out of it. Too bad they haven't, yet.

Once I finished The Westing Game I started reading Neil Stephenson's Zodiac. For those who haven't read it, it's the best summer movie you'll ever read. Heels loaned me her/Johnny Logic's copy during the summer that I lived in Cowcity. After I returned it to them, I went out and bought my own copy to read it again. Since then, I try and read it each summer. It's got everything a great popcorn flick should have. Scruffy hero? Check. Chases? Check. Satanists who use PCP? Check. Interesting and sort of creepy settings? Check. Girl who likes the hero but is also annoyed by the hero? Check. Nutty science? Check. Enough real/plausible science to make the nutty science believable and fun? Check. Lobster fishermen? Check. Retarded sidekick? Not so much, but there are plenty of little people could who fill that role.

Books this week are to be quick. One or two days worth of reading, at most. They are also to me entertaining, which is why I've read them before. This is all to lead up to the new Harry Potter book on Saturday. No, I will not be buying it at midnight, I have ordered it. And if it's not in front of my door by Saturday evening it's free. Most, if not all, of Sunday is for reading the new Potter. And then, I start the series from the beginning to get them all in one lump. It'll a fun week or two.

Most of that was written before lunch and it's now almost four.

Work has been worked upon. Files moved from the shelf to my desk to where they need to go. There are more at my desk, but I've found that keeping things stacked at my computer allows people to believe that I'm doing work, rather than not doing work.

The sky is now clear. The temperature has risen. And the humidity has dropped. How I miss the overcast morning. I like to watch the clouds rolling through the sky on their way East to the mountains. Sometimes, if I look carefully enough, I can see where it's raining by how some areas of the clouds smear.

Oh, I finally learned what Athena (often called Minerva, but the Romans were just hack when it came to their religion) is doing on the California state seal. I suppose the story makes sense, but I don't think the casual observer is going to know. Hell, I've been wondering about it since I started working for the State, and I've just found out. The worst thing about it is that it doesn't really connect in an obvious way. Athena is the goddess of wisdom and battle and weaving. She supports the cunning characters in the mythology, like Odysseus. She brought the olives to Athens. And even when she punishes a mortal, like Arachne, she lets the mortal live.

What does she have to do with California?

Nothing, that I can see, but she's there and the people in charge back in 1849 came up with a reason to put her there. Just not the right reasons. Honestly, Demeter or, maybe, Hephaestus would have made more sense. At least then, upon seeing them on the seal, I'd be able to think of a reason for either of them to be there.

Well, shit. I just found out that for each interview I have, I'm only allowed 4 hours of free time off. The other 4 hours are for me to make up. So, that's my trip there for free. FUCK! I don't think I'm going to take any interviews as far away as Cowtown, anymore. The one I have on the 24th will be the last. It's my 6th or 7th interview and if they don't want to hire me then they can go fuck their asses with a fat, spiny cactus.

Fuck this.

And fuck them.

Snow At My Parents'

The back deck, at my parents', on the 23rd.

The back deck this morning.

And, apparently, all the schools in the county are closed due to snow. In all my years going to school in that county, I never had a snow day, a few 1 hour delays, but nothing more than that.

I wish I had some snow here.

Concentration

I spent my lunch hour wandering around the Barnes & Noble that's two blocks away. I didn't buy anything, I just wandered around looking at the crappy books on the bargin tables and through the magazines. I picked up a few books and magazines and read the back cover or thumbed through them, but nothing deeper than that.

I just haven't had the concentration today to sit and read.

Even on my 15 minute breaks I can't just sit and focus on my book. I get halfway though a page and my mind starts to wander and I start to wallow.

It's cold here. Well, cold for here, not for many places across North America. As I walked to work, it was raining and the temperature was at 34 F. At lunch it was raining and around 44 F. I find the temperature refreshing. It's closer to the way winter should feel. (Yes, I do realize that if the temperature was hovering around freezing from November until May I probably wouldn't feel this way, but I live in California and most of the places where people live don't get like that. Especially this year.) I'm jealous that my parents and my friends who live in Cowtown had snow, but it's nice having the cold for a while.

One thing I don't like, though, is that air here, as I walk to work, smells and tastes like cars, even though I don't see or hear any cars going down the road. Back in Cowtown on cold mornings after, or during, a rain storm the air smells fresh and crisp and doesn't taste like anything. I miss that.

At My Parents', Early This Morning

Out the front door.

Out the back door.

Swiped from my mom's website.

I wish it had done this while I was visiting last week. I may have walked around a lake, but I'd have rather taken a walk in the snow.

Today Was Another Day

I have yet to do any work today. I've been here for almost two hours. I really don't want to do anything. I mean, why bother. If I do the work that I have now, I'll be finished by two, at the latest. By then, I'll be given more work that if I start doing I'll get a large portion finished by the time I leave this evening, which means Monday morning, I'll have less to do then and everyone will be here and take it upon themselves to find me work to do that I normally wouldn't have to do, like taking the bag from the shredder that's too full of paper and put half in a new bag, trying not to spill the shredded paper all over the floor, and taking the two bags downstairs and trying to find someone who can tell me where to put the bags and then be told it's not my job to take the bags downstairs and I should have left them up in the office to be picked up by the maintenance guy (although I won't understand why they call him a maintenance guy when all he does is clean stuff up, shouldn't he be called a janitor, that's what he does, after all) and when I ask if I should just take the stuff back upstairs I'll get an eye roll and a huge sigh and the bags taken from me and then as I ride the elevator back up I'll remember that I didn't put a bag into the shredder and I'll get back to the machine I find that some jackass closed the door without checking to see if there was a bag and after I open the door the shreddings go all over the place and I'll sigh and I'll pick up the paper bits and put them in the bag which I'll put in the shredder before going back to my desk to be given more work that I normally wouldn't have to do.

And now it's around 10:30. I've been playing that game I wrote about the other day. Honestly, it's not that great of a game after playing it for a couple of weeks, but it's a good distraction from all the stuff that I'm supposed to be doing right now.

I keep thinking that I should have called in sick today, but what good would that have done me. I'd just be sitting at my apartment in my underwear watching Star Trek. What a waste of a sick day. A sick day should be used when you're actually sick or when you're going to be doing something interesting. Like go to an amusement park or friends are visiting or sex is being had all day long or all three at the same time. Not to sit and watch TV.

About 366 days ago, things looked a little better. I described them as, "Right now my outlook is bright and bleak, sunny and stormy, half-full and half-empty; you choose the metaphor."

And then there's the fog here. I'm one of the few people I know who likes fog, but the fog here is weird. In the morning, as I walk to work, the fog is really high up. Visibility on the ground is nearly perfect. When I get to work and look out the windows on the fourth floor, the visibility is still nearly perfect, this is at 8 AM. By 10AM, the fog, from the fourth floor, is so think I can barely see the parking garage across the street. I don't know what it's like at ground level because I'm, usually, working. Around 11 AM sunlight starts streaming through. At noon, when I go on lunch, it's clear out. I miss the farmland fog that just seeps out of the ground and then sits there all day long.

I got a call last Thursday after four from one of the places I sent off to saying I was interested in an interview. The lady on the other end asked me if I could be in Cowcity for an interview the next morning at eight. I told her that it was too far away and not enough time to ask for the next morning off. She said don't worry about getting the morning off because they may not actually get to the interview until the afternoon. I said I was sorry, but couldn't make it because it was such a long drive and I needed notice to get the time off. She said not to worry because they have plenty of other candidates.