Sunday, August 26, 2007
Le Weekend!
it's over! AHH!! But I just have to get through this week and then i have a FOUR-DAY WEEKEND to look forward to! :) And goodness, i am going to need it!!! and, knock on wood, if the weather cooperates, we're taking this new boat to.... THE BAHAMAS!!!!
So yeah, we went to this charity thing last night. I had to go dress shopping for it. That sucked. My photography lesson got cancelled (rained out) so at least I had time to do that, and then I was able to get a dress I like. But then I saw the picture afterwards and was, like, "Omigod, I looked fat." Ah well, you can't win 'em all.
SATURDAY: CANCER BENEFIT
Anyway, it was an American Cancer Society benefit. They had an auction to raise money for this R.O.C.K. camp for kids that have cancer. You know, they get to go there and forget they have cancer for a couple weeks in the summer. One of the pre-auction speakers was a little girl named Pilar. She went up to speak and I was, like, "Oh, no, that's the cute little girl that was smiling at me in the foyer." Thank god, she was in remission.
My good boy Chris ended up buying a rock, which sponsors a kid going to camp.
After the valet guy drove the Corolla up for us to go home, we ended up totally cracking up in the car, like, "Yep, we're the help." A 1996 Corolla. :D The rock-Corolla combination was just way too funny, but I guess I'll let you draw the reason why on your own.
Oh, this is cute: some dude from Chris's work pulled me aside to tell me, "Hey, just so you know, Chris is the nicest physician of all of us at work." "Yeah?" I said. "Yeah." "I'm not surprised," I answered. I'm really not. But, man, I'm proud. :)
SUNDAY: DIVE!
today i got to sleep in a little. :) some dude chris works with dives and has been talking about coming over to dive with us for ages, so finally today he did. we met up at 11 at commercial pier. he brought his wife and kids, with a babysitter for the kids.
it was just a gorgeous day out. we made our little dive plan -- first reef, then second reef until 1500 psi, then back to shore... but after we got to the second reef, we weren't seeing much, and i couldn't tell if they were having a good time. i am used to patty & chris not being too impressed with the dives, so i figured we'd head back into the first reef and tool around until they were ready to go back in. but then nick made a motion to stay where we were, so i did, and we ended up having a lovely dive.
we saw this big brigade of squid at one point. probably a row of ten of them. this was early on. i love squid! so that was cool. then a while later, we see three. then, from that point on, those three squid were with us the whole time. seriously, chris brought me over to a yellow stingray at one point and, afterwards, i'm like, "but now where are the squid?" it took me about 5 seconds to spot 'em again. following us again. so strange. i could get within a foot of the little guy. and that's talking face-to-face close. when i'd get that close, i'd start to wonder why he was letting me get so close... and what was he going to do? touch me with those tentacles? but he'd back off. he would flash his body purple and white at me. sometimes they would make their tentacles go up in the air, like an elephant. sometimes they would hold them down below them, like they were holding it like a claw. sometimes i'd notice two were holding them up towards chris or another diver... was that some kind of body language? a threatening posture? were they just curious about us? being territorial? it was bizarre, but very cool. such neat little creatures.
we saw the usual stuff - baby & grown-up damselfish, baby & grown-up angelfish, hamlets, hogfish, pufferfish, a couple of big tarpon, parrotfish, some tiny stingray (given away only by their tails).. then we surprised a nurseshark asleep in the swisscheese of the first reef on the swim back in.
i knew that nick & carolyn had been diving for 20 years - and had been certified in thailand of all places - but they were a treat to dive with. it was really cute, actually. i saw carolyn point out a sea urchin to nick underwater, one that had tiny baby fish all around it, and of course, i thought, "bless her heart, she's pointing out a sea urchin!" nick paid attention when i pointed out a baby french angelfish. we were all enthralled by the squid. everyone loved the pufferfish, those darn little cartoons they were super, super slow - which is a great thing for me underwater! and they didn't seem to want to come up! we started in about three times before we actually were able to drag them back in. heh. we ended up staying down a good 1:45. it was when nick hit 1000 psi that we decided we'd really need to leave the 2nd reef line.
so yeah, it was a really nice dive. i hope they come back out. :) oh yeah, and I guess carolyn is a vegetarian, too, so is automatically on my good list.
then we came back here, chris rinsed the gear while I swam with the dogs (yeah, who lucked out there - I did give them baths so I would feel semi-useful, however), went to costco so we could get our yearly supply of toilet paper and the like, ordered Indian food, etc. etc.
oh yeah, chris worked on the boat! I got pictures!
the new boat, and the soon to be former boat - the guy finally showed some interest in picking it up!
i was in manual mode and messed up the picture, but like it anyhow. chris spent a long time scrubbing the boat guys' footprints off his new baby tonight.
see? scrub, scrub, scrub. this picture i didn't really screw up. i don't think. i mean, it was dusk-ish and all.
i like this picture both because chris is smiling and also because if you look closely in the upper left, you can see oreo. she's totally become a dock cat now, mainly because the other two cats kick her ass if she tries to go in the front yard. this is good - she literally has put on like three pounds since she discovered the backyard/dock area. :) my little butterball girls.
what a good sport, right? he said tonight that he gave up on making faces all the time. that's right, i finally broke his spirit!!! ;) but honestly, he even cleaned around me tonight so i could take pictures of him and of rope (none of those turned out) and of the boat.. what a good boy. :) ¶ 9:01 PM
So yeah, we went to this charity thing last night. I had to go dress shopping for it. That sucked. My photography lesson got cancelled (rained out) so at least I had time to do that, and then I was able to get a dress I like. But then I saw the picture afterwards and was, like, "Omigod, I looked fat." Ah well, you can't win 'em all.
SATURDAY: CANCER BENEFIT
Anyway, it was an American Cancer Society benefit. They had an auction to raise money for this R.O.C.K. camp for kids that have cancer. You know, they get to go there and forget they have cancer for a couple weeks in the summer. One of the pre-auction speakers was a little girl named Pilar. She went up to speak and I was, like, "Oh, no, that's the cute little girl that was smiling at me in the foyer." Thank god, she was in remission.
My good boy Chris ended up buying a rock, which sponsors a kid going to camp.
After the valet guy drove the Corolla up for us to go home, we ended up totally cracking up in the car, like, "Yep, we're the help." A 1996 Corolla. :D The rock-Corolla combination was just way too funny, but I guess I'll let you draw the reason why on your own.
Oh, this is cute: some dude from Chris's work pulled me aside to tell me, "Hey, just so you know, Chris is the nicest physician of all of us at work." "Yeah?" I said. "Yeah." "I'm not surprised," I answered. I'm really not. But, man, I'm proud. :)
SUNDAY: DIVE!
today i got to sleep in a little. :) some dude chris works with dives and has been talking about coming over to dive with us for ages, so finally today he did. we met up at 11 at commercial pier. he brought his wife and kids, with a babysitter for the kids.
it was just a gorgeous day out. we made our little dive plan -- first reef, then second reef until 1500 psi, then back to shore... but after we got to the second reef, we weren't seeing much, and i couldn't tell if they were having a good time. i am used to patty & chris not being too impressed with the dives, so i figured we'd head back into the first reef and tool around until they were ready to go back in. but then nick made a motion to stay where we were, so i did, and we ended up having a lovely dive.
we saw this big brigade of squid at one point. probably a row of ten of them. this was early on. i love squid! so that was cool. then a while later, we see three. then, from that point on, those three squid were with us the whole time. seriously, chris brought me over to a yellow stingray at one point and, afterwards, i'm like, "but now where are the squid?" it took me about 5 seconds to spot 'em again. following us again. so strange. i could get within a foot of the little guy. and that's talking face-to-face close. when i'd get that close, i'd start to wonder why he was letting me get so close... and what was he going to do? touch me with those tentacles? but he'd back off. he would flash his body purple and white at me. sometimes they would make their tentacles go up in the air, like an elephant. sometimes they would hold them down below them, like they were holding it like a claw. sometimes i'd notice two were holding them up towards chris or another diver... was that some kind of body language? a threatening posture? were they just curious about us? being territorial? it was bizarre, but very cool. such neat little creatures.
we saw the usual stuff - baby & grown-up damselfish, baby & grown-up angelfish, hamlets, hogfish, pufferfish, a couple of big tarpon, parrotfish, some tiny stingray (given away only by their tails).. then we surprised a nurseshark asleep in the swisscheese of the first reef on the swim back in.
i knew that nick & carolyn had been diving for 20 years - and had been certified in thailand of all places - but they were a treat to dive with. it was really cute, actually. i saw carolyn point out a sea urchin to nick underwater, one that had tiny baby fish all around it, and of course, i thought, "bless her heart, she's pointing out a sea urchin!" nick paid attention when i pointed out a baby french angelfish. we were all enthralled by the squid. everyone loved the pufferfish, those darn little cartoons they were super, super slow - which is a great thing for me underwater! and they didn't seem to want to come up! we started in about three times before we actually were able to drag them back in. heh. we ended up staying down a good 1:45. it was when nick hit 1000 psi that we decided we'd really need to leave the 2nd reef line.
so yeah, it was a really nice dive. i hope they come back out. :) oh yeah, and I guess carolyn is a vegetarian, too, so is automatically on my good list.
then we came back here, chris rinsed the gear while I swam with the dogs (yeah, who lucked out there - I did give them baths so I would feel semi-useful, however), went to costco so we could get our yearly supply of toilet paper and the like, ordered Indian food, etc. etc.
oh yeah, chris worked on the boat! I got pictures!
the new boat, and the soon to be former boat - the guy finally showed some interest in picking it up!
i was in manual mode and messed up the picture, but like it anyhow. chris spent a long time scrubbing the boat guys' footprints off his new baby tonight.
see? scrub, scrub, scrub. this picture i didn't really screw up. i don't think. i mean, it was dusk-ish and all.
i like this picture both because chris is smiling and also because if you look closely in the upper left, you can see oreo. she's totally become a dock cat now, mainly because the other two cats kick her ass if she tries to go in the front yard. this is good - she literally has put on like three pounds since she discovered the backyard/dock area. :) my little butterball girls.
what a good sport, right? he said tonight that he gave up on making faces all the time. that's right, i finally broke his spirit!!! ;) but honestly, he even cleaned around me tonight so i could take pictures of him and of rope (none of those turned out) and of the boat.. what a good boy. :) ¶ 9:01 PM
