Very-very-very fine house

Sean and I are officially residents of Palo Alto. We have no furniture and have discovered that our DirectTV account is useless at this new address, but we're moved in and so far everything's fucking super.

I've been riding my bike to work every day - besides the oil-less commute (which I love), the best part is smelling the eucalyptus each morning as I ride through the less developed parts of campus to get to my building. And this morning I watched the sun rise over Hoover tower - it also turned the rolling hills in the distance an amazing purple color.

The new 'hood requires some adjustment for our dog - Brisbane was the land of off-leash living, not so much Palo Alto.

Hopefully muttly will get used to leash-life before she dislocates one of our shoulders...

We're still in the process of emptying and cleaning out our old place in Brisbane - time and energy are at a premium, lately. *Yawn*

Emily, my first roommate in Alaska and good buddy flies into town this afternoon, so we probably won't get much done this weekend, either - she's worthy of the sacrifice, however; no complaints.

Autumn is beautiful in Palo Alto - maybe not as beautiful as New England's, but it's warm and colorful, so as burnt out as I feel, life is really very good.

And that's the news from here.

If you have second, check out this website about breaking the bottled water habit - our water supplies may depend on it.

Read it, embrace it and pass it along.

All the livelong fucking day

Work's been busy lately. The academic year is about to begin (Stanford is on the quarter system, so classes don't start until the end of September. Yes. I find this stupid. I heart the semester system.), so our newest crop of Knight Fellows are upon us at the Fellowship office. This involves helping them in a variety of ways: email and computer concerns, grocery shopping, childcare, prenatal care, insurance, purchasing cars, immigration paperwork, trips to the beach where they shiver in horror: "Isn't California supposed to be warm?"

And we haven't even started orientation yet. But, all this insanity has some great perks - I'm meeting incredible people each day and often get to hang out with their adorable kids. There's free food around, too!

Speaking of Stanford, Sean and I are more than actively looking for a new apartment that's closer to campus, we may have found one. I met a Stanford Art Professor who has a guest house to rent - we're still working out the details, but assuming he likes our dog (and everyone likes our dog, the slut) we'll probably be renting it. Sean and I biked there from work the other day, just to time it. Eight minutes. It takes us 15 minutes just to get to the train station in the morning, never mind parking, riding the rails and biking into campus. Eight fucking minutes. It makes me weep to imagine that I can feasibly roll out of bed at 8:00 am and be in work by 8:30. Oh, the humanity. The guest house is a quirky little property, but has two bedrooms, an ample double living room deal and hard wood floors.The professor, Paul, has a lovely family, so I think this will be a good fit.

We're in the middle of a heat wave right now, it's been close to or at 100F every day this week down in Palo Alto. It's a dry heat, but I'm still ready for the cold air to come back. I miss autumn, when September rolls around I can't help but look forward to crisp air and orange sweaters. Typical of San Francisco and the Bay Area, the seasonal changes are more or less subdued. Summer gets going slowly and lasts through October. December and winter in general mean rain, then everything turns green. I appreciate this more and more as the years go by. Fuck winter.

Guess that's all we have going on. My life feels busy and crammed, yet four paragraphs later I'm running dry on news.

I'll tell you this, I'm getting tired of hearing, reading and seeing anything having to do with Sarah Palin. I'm also tired of answering questions about her. I did not live in Wasilla and knew nothing of her during my time in the interior there because there wasn't much to know, other than her corrupt political decisions, which weren't terrilbly notable becuase, well, most political doings up there are corrupt. Oh, she's pro-drilling? Um... most Alaskans are.

I don't blame people for being shocked. All I knew about Alaska before living there was that it was cold and prone to earthquakes. And something about oil... yeah, oil. Now everyone's finding out that dirty dealings go on up there and that evangelicals can indeed survive, nay thrive, in the sub-arctic.

They can and they do. "God bless" my new blue state.