My MJ

29.1.05

Tired....

Had a pretty long day, but I'm glad none of it was real work. I didn't have to fill out any meeting minutes, or meet with teachers, or do some bullshit paperwork. In the morning, I headed out early and brought Gilbey with me. I went to San Ramon, way up in the cuts, and scoped out a Golf Course with a creek in it as a possible field trip site. It was a beautifully well-done community, if you like that cookie cutter suburban crap. I even passed by the model homes, and got a price listing.....$1.2-1.8 million bucks. What a waste of money. As you could imagine, the school that I'm working with gets a lot of property tax money, so they are really well off. Gilbey and I walked along the border of the golf course, scoping out possible places, but the creek looked overgrown and really, who would want a group of 30 kids screaming at the top of their lungs while they're in their backswing? God, I hate golfers. Bunch of pretentious, pompous pussies. I love alliteration, though. Punk asses. Prostate-cancer having penises. Pencil dicks. Porn-watching, popcorn-eating pontificators. Alright, I'm reaching.

So I give Canyon Lakes Golf Course a call, and the director told me in no uncertain terms, "No." Just as a I figured. Next time I go to the school, I'm gonna drop by the golf course and lay a crap on the 18th tee. Then I'm gonna piss in each hole, so that said pee gets all over the fingers of all the golfers who pick up their balls. Huh-uh....I said balls. Do golfers have balls? Or are they all castrated by their own pompousness. Geez, here I go again. Where the hell has this journal entry gone. I think I'm going nuts because it's 6 in the morning and I've been up since 3. I was so tired that I slept at 9pm and woke up at 3. Can't fall back asleep. Which is all good, because I plan to get out of here in the next hour and bring the dogs on a hike. Then the dog park. And finally, get my bloodwork done at the hospital. I haven't eaten anything since 8 last night. I actually fell asleep on the floor while Brady, Noel, and Arlene were still here. Joanne's Dad's birthday was yesterday and we celebrated it here. He's 69. Next year, we've gotta throw him a big party.

Back to golf. I took some pictures, saw some birds, and headed off to Antioch. I actually got a nice picture of this Kestrel on a branch. I also saw a female Northern Harrier scoping the golf course for some rodents. Then a Starling just chillin' on top of a house. Everytime I see birds of prey that I haven't seen in a while, it's always a good omen of things to come. I saw a sharp-shinned hawk right before I quit my job at Kelly Scientific Resources. What a dead end job. I swas a Cooper's Hawk right before we got to call for Mya. I'm trying to convince Joanne to put up this really beautiful poster frame of different birds of prey in the living room, but she ain't havin' it. Even though she knows how much it brings us wonderful blessings.

So I did a lot of driving, which includes going to Antioch right after San Ramon. The weather was a bit unsettling, because it rained, stopped, rained, stopped at least 20 times. Jo and Ket even said it hailed in Oakland and wherever Bella Vista Elementary is. I get to Antioch at about 10:20am and meet briefly with my teacher at Fremont Elementary to drop off pencils for the class (they're made out of recycled money and is their rewards for their great work), talk about a possible field trip site, and a possible action project (releasing tree frogs);. Right before that, I went to this really run-down creek which is walking distance from the school. I don't think we can have a field trip on this site, but it might be a good place for a restoration. When I come back to the office, Ket reminds me that she has a contact with Antioch High School to find a place to collect eggs, and also a contact with Dow Chemical (irony once more), which owns a preserve, with a big-ass factory in the middle. I'm glad she's taking care of this because it seems like a tough situation. When somebody in the City of Antioch caught wind of our tree frog release, that person stirred up some shit and wanted to make sure that we had the proper permits. The easiest thing would be to forget it and do another action project. But I want to show this chick that we can bypass her bureacracy, and teach the kids a wonderful lesson of restoration and re-population of a native species. No worries, Ket's holding it down.

Since I was near Concord, I drop by my favorite Vietnamese place called Pho Hoa Hiep or something like that. For the linguistically challeneged, they have another name for it - Kevin's Noodle House. The place is goddamn good. Jo introduced it to me when we went to one of our initial adoption seminars in Pleasant Hill. I didn't want to go because I thought it was too far, and we only had an hour for lunch. But she persuaded me. I'm glad we went. They have the best Pho, not to mention their blended pearl shakes (even though I don't order the pearls - too much carbs). When Ket and I went here while we were still teaching at Fremont, I brought her there and she liked the food, too. All except the fish sauce, which I mistakenly told her was some broth. She took a nice healthy sip of it before the waiter motioned to her not to do so. Oopps! So I got two, yes two, shakes. An avocado and taro. I was glad to see that they used real avocado. I was also happy to see that they have other restaurants in Oakland and in SF. On 12th St. in Oaktown, too which I frequent anyways.

So I take HWY 4 through Martinez, 80 south from Hercules, and I have some time to take Gilbey to Pt. Isabel. Pt. Isabel is this really huge dog park bordered by a US Post Office Mailing center, the freeway, and the bay. On any given day there could be 50 dogs at the park. But it's so big that fights are really uncommon. Gilbey had a grand ole' time running around, sniffing butts, peeing all over, dumping his load, and finally, chasing this Goldie all over for a good three minutes. Needless to say, he was pooped.

Afterwards, I brought Gilbey into the office, and everybody fell instantly in love with him. Even Mandi commented on how beautiful his coat was, despite the fact that she's not really a dog person. He hung out in the Rodeo while we all ate at Cha Am. After lunch, I made some calls, did a little paperwork, finally got our vacuum working, and headed to the grocery store to buy some stuff for tonight.

Jo's family came over at 7pm except for her brother and his fam. That dude trips me out. I leave two messages on his house and cell phone to call me back, and he calls back Joanne's cell. I think he's scared of me. I'm pretty friendly with him, but I sorta clump him and the wifey in that golfer crowd. On the alliteration tip, they can sometimes be pretentious, pompous, passive-aggressive and petty. Aw, puck it. They're family; I still love them.

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