let it be

I miss having free time. And not free time to clean my room or catch up on lesson plans (which I did today), but free time to hang out with people and have a life outside of school.

Yay, grad school.

I'm babysitting tonight. Pheobe finally stopped crying about 20 minutes ago and I'm watching Stephen King's Dreamcatcher - an OK movie and much better novel. Man, I love scary movies.

I like October because October means Halloween and Halloween means lots and lots of horror movies on TV. I love horror movies. Good ones, bad ones, cheesy ones, terrifying ones. I love them all. And I'll watch them over and over again, even if I've seen them a million times already. It's kind of ridiculous. I'm glad the kids are asleep.

Tomorrow Daniel and I are driving down to Carmel (hooray!) for Alex & Erica's wedding (double hooray!). I'm looking forward to great weather, late-breakfast/early-lunch in adorable Carmel, and a really fabulous wedding with all of my absolute favorite people. Then, I get to go visit my parents and do laundry! A full weekend, indeed.

I just found out that I have to dress up for Halloween at my junior high. But I still need to be able to move around and teach and be taken (somewhat) seriously. Any ideas?

From Junior Year, ...

I carved this pumpkin!

we used to be friends

For those of you who read this and don't actually know me (anyone?), my family owns a grocery store in Palo Alto. It's uniquely situated in the middle of College Terrace and a block from the Stanford campus. We've been there, family owned and operated, for over 50 years. There are, in fact, only 2 family-owned and operated grocery stores left in Palo Alto, and we are one of them.

There are a lot of things that make JJ&F really special. One is that the store is, at least superficially, run almost exactly the way my grandfather ran it back in the 50s. We have customers who have shopped with us for their entire lives. People come in not just to shop, but to see friends and catch up with people. My dad is one of the only butchers left in the Bay Area who breaks his own beef (we get a whole cow from Harris Ranch and do all of the cuts ourselves). We are a neighborhood market with specialty items and a gourmet meat department.

And we're being forced out of business.

This has been going on for about a year, but it's a complicated situation. First, there was going to be a big remodel, per the request of the property managers. Then, we realized we would have to close in order to remodel, and my dad wasn't willing to take that risk because we are already in close competition with Trader Joe's and Whole Foods and closing the store for an indefinite amount of time is just recipe for losing customers. Then the property managers got angry and all hell broke loose. The store is being sued, my dad is being sued, they say we owe a ton in back rent, we are counter--sueing because they never told us they raised the rent, etc etc. The fear, of course, is that we will lose in court (although it's not likely) and the store will close and we will have, quite literally, nothing. Not only will we not get any money (because the other option is to sell), but we'll owe all of these bogus back-taxes and rent. And it sucks because my family has worked so hard for so long and it may all end up being for nothing. And all along, no one has known anything about it because my dad wanted to keep things quiet

Yesterday, the Palo Alto Daily News published a big story. Because they couldn't contact us for an interview, they only had the property manager's side. We were made to look pretty bad. My dad was super upset because now he has to field questions at work because, obviously, our loyal customers are going to be caught totally off gaurd.

Today, the San Jose Mercury ran a story. This one was better, but things are still really up in the air right now.

The whole situation just sucks. My dad just turned 60 and all he can think about is how he's worked so hard his whole life and he's going to have nothing but debt when he retires. This store is all we have ever known. And, even more than that, it's like an institution in Palo Alto and to see it go.... Well, it would just be bad.

So, I don't know. If you pray, pray now. I hate seeing my family so sad.

no sleep tonight

I'm sick again.

I went to school anyway because, you know, it's my job, and came to a really depressing conclusion about growing up...

See, when you're a kid and you go to school and you get sick, you go to the nurse and relax for a while and they call your mom and she comes to pick you up and take you home and you lay down on the couch for a while and she brings you medicine and doesn't let you do anything until you feel better.

When you're an adult and you go to school and you get sick, you suck it up and deal with it. That, or you decide that indeed you are too ill to stay, so you drive yourself home and lay on the couch and watch crappy daytime TV until you get thirsty or need more medicine or need to take your temperature, at which point you drag your sorry butt off the couch and get a glass of water or dig through your medicine cabinet fruitlessly for ten minutes, only to realize that your thermometer has disappeared in the move and you took the last of your DayQuil the last time you were sick.

These gastrointestinal pyrotechnics are getting old. I miss my mommy :(

you know youve gotta help me out

There's this fabulous little place in Claremont that Stephie took me to called 21 choices (there's also one in downtown Pasadena). It's basically Coldstone, but approximately 1 billion times better AND with handmade frozen yogurt and specialty flavors that change daily. Tonight, I could really go for French Vanilla with some Twix mixed in. I miss LA. And Stephie...

Staff retreat at Tucker's cabin this weekend was super-fun as usual. Sadly, I represented basically the entire female staff all weekend and it was... tiring. As much as I love being "one of the guys", I really missed Monika and Bethany and wished that Kelly and Cathy could have been there so we could discuss small group things that pertained to girls. Oh well, maybe in January. It was fun, however, to be there with the high school staff and to have a couple of days with nothing to do but enjoy the scenery and a little serenity. I needed a break.

My dad turns 60 this Friday, so I'm heading home after our game on Saturday morning to celebrate a little and attend Palo Alto's Glass Pumpkin Patch with my mom. It's fall! I'm so excited!

this desert life

I'm heading back to the Bay this weekend to celebrate Nana's birthday and do some laundry, because I refuse to pay $1 to wash and $1 to dry at my apartment complex. I've never had to pay for laundry before, and I'm not starting now.

Plus, I have no change.

I'm way glad this week is over. Orientation classes are boring and have too much group busy-work. I'm trying very hard not to see the majority of my credential classes as a colossal waste of time while anxiously waiting to finally get inside a classroom. HJHS doesn't start until after Labor Day, so while Jenny and Lisa have already taught their first lesson, I haven't even been on campus yet. Ugh.

I need a new computer. My baby is getting old and sluggish.


And my guitar gently weeps

i believe the sun also rises

Oh yeah, I'm home.

Since rolling into the Bay around 2pm on Wednesday, I've spent copious amounts of time with Steph & Family prepping for the wedding, worked a shift for my dad, taken lots of naps, talked to Canadian Mike at COTW on the phone (!!!), bought a new bathing suit, went to the eye doctor, did some Ebay-ing (Seychelles shoes and Anthropologie skirts, to be precise), and have not unpacked a single thing.

I enjoy being home because it gives me a chance to decompress from a frantic 9 months in Davis and then, once properly decompressed, to get excited about the next frantic 9 months. Talking about the graduate program hasn't gotten old yet, which is nice, nor has talking about the new apartment and the new(ish) boyfriend and the (frighteningly impending) future.

Being back at home makes me feel very adult and very childish all at the same time. Steph and I are amazed that our 1st period PE class freshman year at St. Francis was over 8 years ago now - sometimes it feels like we ran the mile together just last week - but at the same time we are proud to be college graduates, going to grad school and getting married and expected to be real adults. Being 22 is such a funny age because I'm not entirely sure where I stand right now. Sometimes I'm a big adult and ready to take on the world and other times it's my first day of high school and I don't know anyone in my homeroom and have a huge zit in the middle of my forehead.

I just want a peek at my future sometimes, just to make sure that everything turns out OK. Will I be a good teacher? Will Daniel and I get married next summer? Will I stay in Northern California (perish the thought!)? Will I eventually get to do AIDS education in Africa? Will I get back on stage someday? What if all these things I'm so passionate about get pushed aside for something else that I haven't even thought of yet?

You see, I often come home and get overwhelmed with all the possibilities. I don't think about them much in Davis because I'm preoccupied with papers and junior high students and the drama of small town living, but I come back home to a house so big and a Bay even bigger and I think about all the places I could go and all the people I could be and I pray that God, in His awesome power, crafts something undeniably "me" for me, so that I can be everywhere and do everything and accomplish something incredible for Him.

I come home and I want to write novels and travel the world and be an amazing mom. I come home and want to learn how to cook and sculpt gorgeous abs and build an impressive library of books no one has heard of but that everyone should read. I come home and I remember who I am - where I came from and what I came through and, most importantly, who I've always wanted to be.

Hold me
Break me
Mold me
And Make me more and more like You

dramarama

Not the most appropriate title, but it's stuck in my head at the moment.

Although there is mad drama going down, hence an update 30 minutes before I leave for Napa, by way of UCC. I called mi madre yesterday on the way home from the Sacramento Jazzfest (where we saw Emma and Sterling rock out at the free jazz venues) and she informed me that the unthinkable had finally occured: they kicked my brother out of the house.

This may require some backstory, probably more than I have time for at the moment, but, bottom line, Daniel has two rules to follow as long as he is living at home with my parents: #1 be home by 2am and #2 no drinking if you take the car, especially if you take Dad's car.

Needless to say, Daniel sucks at following rules. Let's not even get into the fact that he's only 19 and that he's essentially an alcoholic and that he has no respect for anyone in our house. He just can't seem to get home by 2am or resist drinking when he takes the car.

So after breaking the rules several nights in a row, my mom kicked him out. And took his house key.

Daniel, being the arrogrant kid that he is, didn't take any of his things with him, including his books for class. If he fails the classes he's taking at De Anza this quarter, my parents won't pay for him to go back to Chico. Daniel has no money. None of his friends want him to stay with them. His car is about 45 seconds away from breaking down for good. And he insists on calling my parents horrible names and saying that he doesn't need, or love, them anyway.

It hurts to love my brother, because he doesn't love back. He's never been nice to me, he's never respected me, and he's never made any effort to even try to know who I am. And now he's completely turned his back on his family and the only thing I can do is pray. Hard. Because that kid is running from something and none of us know what it is and we've just gotta hope that he finds something meaningful in the process.

Off to Napa. Pace sempre.