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july 31 — henry and i watched three mr. rogers episodes today, off the TiVo. in one of them, we saw how people make combs, in another we saw how people assemble traffic signals, and in the third we saw how people assemble computermice. we love mr. rogers!

july 30 — the hard drive in my desktop box (strangelove) finally failed… so we bought a nice big one (40 gigs! i used to have 20) and finally got around to hooking it out a few days ago. and then i had floppy drive/cable problems so we couldn’t boot off a floppy so the project was delayed… so finally last night i borrowed dan’s floppy drive and cable, andwe finally started installing the lunix! YAY!

july 29 — i picked henry up early in temecula, and gave him the “NO!” cd i bought for him at the concert. we listenedto it all the way home, and he listened to it for most of the day, as well. he loves it :) and i haven’t even shownhim the interactive animation on it yet.

july 28 — last night we went to hear They Might Be Giants in anaheim, at the house of blues. we had a kind of a hard time finding the place — it’s in this horrible disney-kitsch shopping/restaurant mall thing. you can’t see it at allfrom the road we were on, and we had bad directions, so we went past it and had to call the place. but we got there okin te end. TMBG was wonderful! they are SO GOOD live! they did lots of songs from “NO!” (“NO!”is their new kids’ cd which is very good, by the way, and you should BUY IT for your kids (or yourself)). my favorite was “violin”.

july 26 — lego fun — great site, go there NOW!

july 25 — last night i had a really great dream. i dreamed i had this great job working for a scientist. my job was tokind of make things easy for him, take care of little ordinary tasks like the phone, and the mail and stuff… i had this nice reception room/office place, all pleasant Ikea-style furnishings and lots of plants, and the scientist liked it that Henry came along with me, and we made a little place for him to play and we listened to audio-books, and i would cook lunch for the scientist and make sure he didn’t forget things and keep people from bothering him. the scientist had a BIG room next to my office,with giant tables and stuff, and his science friends would go in there and talk to him. it was a good, happy, fun dream :) and then i woke up and it was 5:45am and i never did get back to sleep.

july 24 — taught jonathan how to play legato today, and he picked it up in no time at all. he’s a nice kid :) henry went swimming twice today, and went to his new “handstands” gymnastics class today, and loved it. it’s more of a challengethan his old class. tonight dan let me practice docking in jumpgate! he offered to let me play when he saw how muchi like Elite, which is kind of the ultimate ancestor of jumpgate. i can hardly wait to play some more!

july 23 — took henry to the park this morning, the nice big one in carlsbad, and we shot off his water-rocket things for a long time, and then he played in the sand with his dump trucks and i read my book… i finally bought a couple of thosenice collapsible comfy chairs, so i took one along and was all happy in the shade. and then we went to the libraryand got him a giant stack of books about knights, two new computer games, and three books-on-cd!

july 22 — beatlefair was yesterday! henry and i were there all day and had a great time :)

july 19 — lazy morning, then i picked up henry in SD and brought him back here for his gymnastics class. traffic was horrendous. some day i’m moving somewhere where the rush hour parking lot freeway doesn’t start at 2pm. it took me an hour and 20 minutes to drive about 40 miles. in the evening we took henry geocaching — it was a cache that dan had found already, so we thought it would be good for henry’s first time. he LOVED it. before he went to bed he told dan that that was the most fun he had had in his entire life so far :) after henry went to bed we listened to the next CD of “black sunday”, while dan worked on his helicopter and i charted a new needlepoint design onto canvas. oh the book i’m reading, “code of the lifemaker” by james p. hogan is SO GOOD!

july 18 — had a great day today! woke up early, took henry to the beach around 9:30. it was all overcast and cloudy there(that’s the way i like the beach) and the water was 70 degrees, and the tide was out, so every time a wave came in therewas lots of shallow water to wade in. henry played on his kickboard, and bodysurfed, and bounced around in the waves, and i waded. and then when he turned blue and freezing, we sat on the beach. i read my book (code of the lifemaker byjames p. hogan — good sci-fi) and henry played in the sand for AGES. it was just so nice! and then we went home and got all the sand off, and i made a good lunch. and then in the afternoon i had a piano student (cheyenne, who didvery very well today) and then took henry to karate. matthew picked him up there. and then i went back to sally’s to teach elizabeth, who is also doing very well, and then eventually i came home. and then dan took me out todinner at ruby’s, on the pier!

july 17 — last night i finished reading “time and again” and i was kind of disappointed. so, exactly HOW did itbecome safe for them to go back to 1882, when the cops were supposed to shoot them on sight??? anyone who knows whythis makes sense please email me. the author seemed to say that because they knew carmody’s real identity, he wouldn’t harm them… um, doesn’t that make him MORE LIKELY THAN EVER to want them killed?? if the rest of the book was bad, i wouldn’t mind so much… i just feel as if the author got lazy and didn’t feel like coming up with a convincing ending. grrrr. in other news, henry and i made blueberry muffins this morning and they turned out great! the batter seemed kind of dry, so we added an extra glug of milk. oh, and we used frozen berries.

july 15 — we had such a nice time in berkeley — we stayed with our wonderful friend david (“wastrel” on the irc) whom we had never met in real life before, and he was absolutely great, 100%! We felt really happy and comfortable at his place.we got there after 9pm sometime on friday, and wastrel wasn’t home yet so we walked around berkeley for a while, and then after he got home we went out to dinner at a nice diner-type place. wastrel has a great fat orange cat named george (a veryfriendly cat) and a fishtank with fish, frogs, and a sinister-looking small eel. on saturday i got up early and walked down to the corner for coffee, and locked myself out of the apartment. so i sat on the porch tapping “SOS” in morse onthe window til dan heard me and let me in. i lay around a lot of the day, just reading in wastrel’s quiet, pleasantapartment. he and his g/f amy have several LARGE bookshelves filled with wonderful books. and we dealt with the server, and walked around berkeley, and ate pizza, and went to a fabulous independent bookstore where i bought a present for henry — a nice new copy of “animal fair” which is a book i loved when i was little. sunday we drove home…left nice and early, and the drive only took 7.5 hours. we listened to an audiobook (Black Sunday by thomas harris)all the way and it really helped to pass the time. it was nice to be away together :)

july 12 — we’re driving to the bay area today, as soon as dan gets the new server up and running (we’re taking itto a colo in SF). i’ll be back late sunday, probably…

july 10 — yesterday our power was out from 8:30am til almost 10pm. candlelight, lantern, propane stove :) this morninghenry and i took a long walk on the beach — it was all foggy and gloomy and lovely. henry collected gull feathers…i think we came home with 30 or 40 tattered, sandy old feathers :) i made a pen out of one feather for him, athis request — not an old fashioned quill pen (he gave me a big feather, and i’ll make a fancy pen for myself out of it),but a nice easy pen for a little boy — i took apart a ballpoint pen, took out the inside part with the ink and the ballpoint tip, cut it to the right length, and shoved it up inside the quill of the feather. he was delighted, and it worksvery well :)

july 08 — i’m reading a really good book with a terrible title (girl from the south). can’t put it down! tomorrow the power company is doing some major work near here so our power will be out all day, pretty much. whee :)

july 07 — feeling better finally! just a stuffy head now. we all went to the movies today — dan and court sawmen in black 2, and henry and i saw lilo and stitch, which was pretty good :)

july 06 — still sick. ugh. i’ve been lying here watching “one hit wonders” on VH1 all day… best thing on, believeit or not. we picked up dan’s friend court at the airport last night, and now they are out flying dan’s RChelicopter.

july 05 — i still have a cold. yuck. today i did pretty much nothing, which was nice… oh, if you are looking for me on IRC, i’m not on openprojects anymore — all my channels there moved to a more stable, less annoying network, oftc. connect to irc.oftc.net and /join #palmchat or /msg kayray if you are looking for me.

july 04 — happy independance day! this morning henry and i drew some flags and stuck them on the windows,and then we went for a walk all around the apartment complex, and looked over the edge at the view, and henry playedin all the little play areas and climbed trees. and then we watched 101 dalmations (original), and then matthew cameto pick him up. and then i hung around, and cleaned the living room pretty well (vacuumed and everything!) and spent hoursreading. the bird is so nice! she climbed in and out of her cage all day and walked around, and sat on my leg and my ethernet cable. sweet adventure bird!

july 03 — woke up in the night with a little sore throat, yick. but this morning it’s much better, just a littlebit tender. i’ve got a whole bag of lemon-mint ricolas to suck on. warning: mushy stuff ahead… one year ago today, dan moved to CA so we could live together, and it has been a wonderful year, and we have a great life together, and i love him so much. thanks for being here, my dan :)

july 02 — the most interesting thing i saw at the fair yesterday was the collection of lovely art deco stovetop saltand pepper shakers, the large ones that came with the new modern white enameled stoves of the 30s and 40s. the collecterhad typed up information labels about every set of shakers, pointing out design details etc, and also a couple of big pages about the art deco movement and everything. i never knew that stoves used to come with salt and pepper (and sometimesflour and sugar) shakers for the cook to use.

july 01 — we’re probably going to go to the fair today! more later… well we went to the fair, henry and i,and we had such a nice time! we met up with lisa for a while, which was really fun, and went to the design-in-wood and gemstones exhibits with her, and looked at some of the widgets. and then henry and i went off together and looked at hobbies and cakes and animals, and just really had a great time together.