I'm in Austin!! I'm sitting in Caryn and James' living room right now. Caryn and I were total geeks, sitting on her couch with our laptops and watching a movie. She went to bed a while ago, and I think James is still in the computer room playing games, but it's early for me. I finished off the movie we were watching, and I think I may go to bed and read for a while. I'm just so stoked to be here with her without having every moment scheduled like my last visit, which was wonderful, but so tiring.

Kelly gets here tomorrow, and the three of us, along with some of Caryn's sisters are going to have a girly day of shopping and hanging out, and there will most likely be some level of alcohol consumption. Oh, and Chuy's!

When I left off last, I was sleeping in the back seat of Heather's car near the shores of Lake Mead. The next morning, we all pulled on our swimsuits and bathed in he lake. I'm sure we were quite a sight for the families pulling in for a day at the lake with their kids. We spent some time enjoying the cool waters and then headed to see the Hoover Dam.

I don't know about you, but the Hoover Dam was never even on my list of places I wanted to see, let alone not being high on the list. As a momentary aside, my grandparents went to there for their honeymoon... I mean, what??.

It was neat enough I suppose. We looked down a couple of very very steep and very very high dam walls, and marveled at how high the water was on the other side. There were a ton of huge black fish that all congregated in one corner- apparently another thing the tourists like to do at the dam is feed the fish.

And really, that's all there is to say about the Hoover Dam... I have pictures around somewhere, but this post will probably be long forgotten before I see them again. We only spent a couple of hours there, because really, there is not a lot to see there. So, we got in the car and drove in the direction of the Grand Canyon- on Route 66.

We found a neat little store full of Route 66 memorabilia, and we spent some time sitting in a rock garden in a dirt yard in front of the store drinking lemonade with the proprietor before hitting the road again.

We also found a place called Grand Canyon Caverns (warning- site has horridly irritating loud music). That was really neat, but Heather's asthma was acting up and she was worried about the air down there so she didn't go down. Shim generally acted like a jerk the whole time we were there. We were only two days into the trip, and I was already thoroughly tired of him, but what could I do, tell Heather to leave him on the side of the road?

After GCC, we found a Wendy's and had dinner, and found out that you can just sleep on the ground in the Arizona National Forest, as long as you went at least a mile off of the main roads you could camp off a fire road. We decided we'd do that, and found a nice spot where the ground was actually pretty soft. We built a fire and settled into our sleeping bags and talked for a while.

I'd never been camping without a tent. I was laying in my sleeping bag, chatting with my friends mundanely enough, but just outside the ring of firelight, coyotes were howling, and I was really scared. I did the silly thing little kids do, saying if I couldn't see them, they could not see me, and pulled the flap of my sleeping bag around my head. We continued to chat for a few minutes, then right next to me, Shim howled like a coyote and grabbed me through my sleeping bag.

I, naturally, screamed bloody murder and started crying hysterically. Heather and Shim both found my reaction hilarious, but thankfully, Dan was not amused. I frankly was ready to be driven to the nearest airport. Dan made Shim trade places with him and laid down next to me and managed to get me to go to sleep.

Okay, aside from the ending, this piece of the story sucked. But it gets better after this, I promise.

The first leg of the drive was pretty uneventful. I sat up front with Heather while Shim and Dan wedged into the back with all of Heather's crap. We drove south through California, and at one point (in Barstow maybe?) we were driving in the midmorning traffic and we smelled something burning. We were all craning our necks around trying to figure out what it was.

Dan saw it first- and said there was hay burning on the side of the road. Then we realized it wasn't hay. It was burning horse manure. But not like a big burning pile. There were small piles of two and three droppings that went on for about a mile. And they were all burning.

MMMMMMMMM. Breakfast anyone?

We drove though Joshua tree, which was kinda pretty but apparently I wasn't overly impressed with it since I barely remember it. We stopped into a casino right on the CA/NV border, and it had a roller coaster, so we took a spin. It was tiny, but fun and scary, just like a roller coaster should be.

We pulled into Las Vegas at about 6 PM, and we wanted to see the pirate show at Treasure Island at 7:30, so that gave us some time to kill. We looked at our maps that we had and decided to camp overnight at Lake Mead. Heather was not old enough to go into the casinos, so we wandered around the strip. We saw the white tigers at the Mirage, where we also drooled over the pool. But being on very limited fundage for the trip, mostly we wandered.

We made it out in front of Treasure Island to get decent spots for the pirate show. It was touristy and fakey fakey, but entertaining. Then we watched a fountain show done to look like a volcano. That was cool- the red lights on the spraying water. After te water show, I found myself separated from my friends. I had no idea what to do- we had no plan for if this happened, and I did not know where the car was (this was before cell phones). It was all I could do to keep from wandering the strip in tears. I worked my way back to Treasure Island, and managed to find Heather, who said the boys had gone to get the car, and we were going to go get some groceries.

Our "groceries" consisted of a loaf of bread, a package of cold cuts, squeezable mayo and mustard, and a package of danishes, an a box of plastic knives. We were just Las Vegas gourmet...*barf*. We ate our sandwiches and went back down to the strip for a bit, why, I don't know. I think because the boys wanted to. Heather and I sat on her trunk in the parking lot, and for some reason I can't remember anymore got hassled by security, but there wasn't really anything we could do, because we had to wait for the guys.

When they finally came back, we took off for Lake Mead. We pulled out our sleeping bags, and stretched out on the ground. Dan slept on a picnic table. I could not sleep on the rocky ground, and the flying insects were really bothering me, so I got up to sleep in the car. And let me tell you, sleeping in a closed up car all night is *not* comfortable. It's very cramped and stuffy.

I actually hated Vegas. Probably because I was hot, tired, broke, and traveling with someone I didn't really like and who smelled vaguely of urine.

Well, after 2 years of wanting to do it and not, and after months of waiting for a date- I'm signed up for Blogathon.

My charity is The San Francisco AIDS Foundation. I worked with them a lot in when I was in highschool, and I really believe in what they do.

If you wanted to sponsor me that'd be really great.

Okay, so this isn't about the trip, but about how we met the homeless man...

In the summer of 1997, My church went on a missions trip to inner city L.A. I didn't go but several of my friends did, and they came home with a passion for the homeless. So the bunch of us spoiled suburban kids went through our closets and pulled out all the stuff we didn't want anymore (or that we hadn't worn in over a year but were still hanging in our closets), piled them all in the trunks of Heather's and John's cars, and headed up to San Francisco to hang out with the "gutter punks" (homeless kids) in Golden Gate Park at the end of Haight. I was 21 that summer, and most of the "kids" weren't really kids at all, but young adults my age. They ranged in age from 16-24 or so, I'm not sure we ever asked most of them.

The clothes were quickly snapped up, and we had many, many requests for clean socks, of which we had none.

We made an announcement before the congregation in both services the next day, and a ton of people from the church brought us old clothes, and packages and packages of new white socks, and new underwear for both men and women, and the next saruday we headed up to the city again. We passed out socks to the gutter punks, then went down to find the homeless living at the wharf, and distribute clothes and socks there.

It was at the wharf that we met "Shim". That was not his real name, and though he eventually told us his real name (Joe) we were not allowed to call him that. "Shim" was his street name, and that was what he wanted to be called. In subsequent weeks, we got to know Shim, often seeking him out when we went down to the wharf. He was one of those street perfomers that paints himself silver and stands very still for long periods of time. He also did firebreathing at night.

During this time, Heather was getting ready to leave for DTS in Denver. She was going to drive out there so she'd have her car at school with her, and Dan and I were going to accompany her on the drive and then fly home. We were going to make a road trip of it, and see Las Vegas, The Hoover Dam, The Grand Canyon, Four Corners, and the Focus on the Family Visitor Center, which had a 3 story corkscrew slide(!). We were all broke, so we were going to camp out each evening rather than getting hotel rooms.

The day before we left, Heather announced that Shim wanted to go to Boulder, and so he was going to come with us. I was less than thrilled, but was looking forward to our road trip too much to back out.

Last night, when I got home from working at the theater and running a couple errands, I planned to hang out online a bit and get some reading done. I walked up the driveway to the side door, mentally cursing the guys for not leaving the light on for me. I got in the door, flipped on the light switches, and realized I was probably the first one home, because the house was dark. Then I realized the living room lamp had not come on. I flipped the switch a couple of times, and nothing happened. I thought someone must have turned it off at the lamp rather than at the switch. I looked outside, and the porch light, which I had just switched on, was not on. It slowly dawned on me that the clock on the DVD player was not on either.

I made my way up to my room and turned on my computer, to give me some light (ah sweet laptop battery!) and called Keegan to see if I could sleep at his house, since I didn't know if I'd have an alarm clock in the morning and it was way hot in my room, when Dau knocked on my door asking if I knew what was up with the power. Apparently our neighbors were out of power earlier in the day, so we thought maybe we had some residual effects from whatever had caused that. I went out to my car (which still has not been unloaded from camping last weekend) and rummaged in a basket and found my battery lantern, and ran into Troll in the driveway. I told him we had no power, and he said he knew, and held up a package of tea lights. So once we all got upstairs and settled in with candles and stuff, I called PG&E from my cell, since my home phone is cordless and runs off the power, of which we had none.

Turns out when Mer moved out, she ended the power service in her name, and Dau was supposed to call and get it switched into his name. Apparently he never did that. Apparently we've gotten two bills with no name on them, and a letter stating they were leaving our power on as a courtesy, and could we please call and start a new account for our property. We've paid the bills, so it's not like we owed them $500 we were not paying and they shut us off for that reason. The person I talked to said that we had a balance and that needed to be paid "by the person of record" and once that was done we could go to the local branch office and make arrangements for our power to be turned back on, and that it takes 2 business days. The conversation that ensued went like this"

me: so it'll take 2 days to get our power back?
PG&E: 2 business days, yes.
me: but tomorrow is Friday
PG&E: Yes, so you're probably looking at Monday for a restoral, but when you go in you can ask if there are any Saturday appointments available
me: so you're telling me I'm looking at two days with no power, and possibly an entire weekend?
PG&E: possibly yes. There is a balance owed on this account, it's small, just the balance of the current bill, but that needs to be paid before service can be restored.
me: how much is that?
PG&E: Unfortunately I can't tell you that because you are not the person of record.
me: but the person of record doesn't live here anymore!
PG&E: I understand that, but I still can't tell you. This is the problem we sometimes run into with roommate situations.

At this point, I start crying, and ask, bottom line, what is the fastest way to get this done. She says there is no way to get a same day appointment, so if I went into the branch office this morning, the very soonest appointment I could get was on Saturday. I think the tears got some pity, because she told me there was a 24-hour check-by-phone line, and if I could get my hands on our account number, and the amount due, I could call, pay the bill, call PG&E back with the receipt, and since it was still Thursday, she could try to get me an appointment for Friday.

I went out and started screaming through the bathroom door to Dau, who was taking a shower, that I needed the most recent bill. Got that, called the number, got it paid. Started to call PG&E back, and my cell started beeping low battery. So I went out to my car, started the car, then plugged my phone into my car charger. Thankfully it held out for the call, and I got an appointment for today, so there should be lights and telephones and internet when I get home tonight. If there is not, let me just say that unhappy things will be happening to Dau.

Once I got back into my room, I called Keegan and said I was going to stay at home, but could he please call me in the morning to wake me up, forgetting that my cell battery was very near dead. I set up a bunch of candles on my bedside table, and read for a while, and fell asleep in my book, waking a little while later with all the candles still burning. It was about then- 1 AM- that I realized my cell would not make it to morning the way it was beeping at me, and so I found my travel alarm clock, and set it for morning. Thankfully it went off and woke me up, and thankfully our water heater is gas so we had hot water this morning.

When I got to work we had to deal with some crap, and the day was shaping up to be completely sucktastic, but it seems to have settled down.

Charlotte: Hey. I have to run down to the mall at lunch. You wanna meet there and grab something to eat?
Me: I'd love to but I have to run errands on lunch myself. Where do you have to go?
Charlotte: Well, I need to find a beret, either red or black. I was planning to hit Nordstroms, because I know they always have them.
Me: a beret?
Charlotte: Yep.
Me: For a show, or just because?
Charlotte: I'm celebrating Bastille Day, and you can't do that without a beret.
Me: You're funny. Is that today?
Charlotte: I've got the rest of the outfit going on (I'm so not dressed appropriately for work), but I need the beret.
Charlotte: . . . and the make-up, but that I'll do after work.
Me: This I may have to see... what are you wearing, and what are you doing after work to celebrate?
Charlotte: I'm wearing the four inch, spike heel, red, vinyl boots, and a short black dress. The dress is fine, it's the boots that make it questionable. It's fun, but I gotta be careful how I sit down. Flashing issues - you know.
Me: yes. So how are you celebrating, other than mode of dress?
Charlotte: Julie and I are going Snotty French Wine Tasting at a Snotty French place in Santana Row. I intend to speak in a French accent, and insult people for no reason.
Me: wow.

10 years ago: I was doing a play at a tiny tiny theater that involved wearing an ugly ugly dress, was in the scary fanatical phase of becoming a "Born-Again Christian" but still getting drunk way too often, and preparing for my first missions trip, to build houses with Habitat for Humanity.

5 years ago: Was living in an amazing apartment, working in a job I loved, spent most of my time at church or with friends from church, was just getting back into the SCA after a long break, and was getting ready to buy my first non-junker car.

1 year ago: Was living in a house with a juvenile delinquent who had just been taken back to jail complete with a "COPS"-worthy 911 call and pepper-spraying, was about to break the heart of the man I loved by telling him that I had been lying to him, was very much looking forward to meeting Brad and Jen when they came to california, and to flying to Austin to meet Caryn.

Last Week: (I added this one to make my "Yesterday" make sense) I decided to join OA, and went to my first meeting up in San Francisco.

Yesterday: I worked all day, managed to stay in control of my eating, and went to an OA meeting.

Today: Working again, and have a Westermark meeting tonight.

Tomorrow: Either hanging out with Lolly or going to an OA meeting, and finishing up the difficult post I am working on.

(isn't my life exciting?!)

5 snacks I enjoy: pickles, crackers, pretzels, hostess anything, gummi anything. Sadly, I'm not allowed to snack anymore.

5 bands/singers that I know the lyrics of MOST of their songs: Five for Fighting, Sarah MacLachlan, Collin Raye, Three Doors Down, Barenaked Ladies

5 things I would do with $100,000,000: Buy houses for all my friends, a mainstage for Affordable Theater, quit my job and go back to school

5 locations I’d like to run away to: Austria, Germany, Greece, Italy, South Africa

5 bad habits I have: forgetting to check my oil, never cleaning out my car, getting wrapped up in life and forgetting to post here, eating junk food, putting things off until i risk missing a deadline

5 things I like doing: acting, singing, swimming, going to movies, embroidering

5 things I would never wear: black/brown, black/navy, or pink/orange color combinations, a mullet, any print that belongs on a sofa, asymetrical hemlines, anything with fringe

5 TV shows I like: Friends, Law & Order: SVU, Gilmore Girls, Survivor, America's Next Top Model

5 movies I like: Garden State, Shakespeare in Love, Mr. Holland's Opus, Almost Famous, Center Stage

5 famous people I’d like to meet: Angelina Jolie, Al Gore, Jessica Simpson, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Dooce

5 biggest joys at the moment: getting my iTrip working again, tickets for a flight to Austin in 2.5 weeks, finding OA, shoe shopping, and the thing I can't talk about

5 favorite toys: iPod, iTrip, laptop, wireless connection, lemon zester

5 people to tag: Caryn, Erin, Tara, Kat and Kelly

I'm still here. There just wasn't anything to say for a while. Now, there are things to say, but almost no time to say them, as life has gotten busy again. For the moment I will leave you with a snippet from IM this morning:

caryn: how are you?
judy: that's okay
judy: I'm good
judy: sunburned (again!) and sore, but good
caryn: good weekend?
judy: yeah
judy: camping with my medieval group
caryn: ooh. fun. :)
judy: I've decided I need one of those spray-on-tan booths, and need to fill all the jets with sunblock, and spend a moment in there every morning
caryn: *laughing* that sounds like a good plan for you

I'll be back with real content soon.