We decided to ditch the lender that was "working" with us on our refi and go with a different company. The new guy says he can have our loan closed within two weeks if we don't run into any underwriting problems, and I think I actually believe him. Of course, it's possible that I'm just a colossal rube who will end up photocopying and FedExing the same damn stack of documents another three or four times, but today, I feel hopeful.

Much more fun than hanging out at Kinkos was visiting with Mike and Heather this weekend. They drove up from on Friday afternoon, a time when the drive from San Diego to Orange County feels only slightly shorter than the drive from Mexico to Canada, but they were none the worse for the wear. They're about to move, so we wanted to spend some time together before they leave Southern California, and we were overdue for a visit, anyway--Mike pointed out that their last trip up this way was nearly a year ago. It doesn't seem nearly so long to me, but I have no concept of time.

Since they're in the middle of the hectic, surrounded-by-boxes phase that precedes moving, Mike and Heather were, I think, looking forward to spending a bit of time relaxing. The evening was appropriately mellow. We ordered pizza and chatted. Jeff and I also had the pleasure of introducing our guests to both Hedwig and the Angry Inch and a few Adult Swim favorites, including the first "Mooninites" episode of "Aqua Teen Hunger Force," which I am convinced is one of the funniest fifteen-minute blocks in television history.

We ended up going to bed well after 3:00 am, so it was late morning before we finally rolled out of bed. By "we," I mean "everyone except Mike," who only got three hours of sleep, but was preternaturally fueled by large quantities of Mountain Dew. After a pancake breakfast, we lazed around, talking and playing games until the late afternoon. I even had a good time playing Trivial Pursuit, despite the fact that I'm terrible at Trivial Pursuit. You'd think I'd do well in the "literature" category, but my failure to love mystery novels and nineteenth-century Hallmark poets leaves me hamstrung. Thanks, Mike and Heather, for not mocking me mercilessly!

Today, I am determined to restore my study to some semblance of order, and to finish some reading for my dissertation. It's re-reading, actually, but it's one of my primary texts, so I need to know the play better than I do. At some point, I also need to fit in a nap, as I inexplicably woke up at 4:00 in the morning. Without coffee, I'd be lost.

Three years and one day ago, Jeff and I went to a jewelry store to buy rings. My choice was not difficult, because I needed a simple gold band to go with my engagement ring, which is rather unusual and wouldn't look good next to anything elaborate. Jeff's choice was not difficult either, because he needed a ring—you know, just a ring—and out of the half dozen the woman behind the counter chose to show him, there was only one that both fit and was suitably, you know, just-a-ring-like.

"Do you want to get it engraved?" the woman asked, and yes, he did. He wanted the wedding date etched on the inside of the band. What date, she wanted to know.

"July 14, 2000," Jeff answered, and the woman's eyes popped a little.

"That's tomorrow!" she exclaimed.

"Right," he agreed. Both of us laughed, and we explained that we were going to be married in a civil ceremony, and we were planning to go to the courthouse the next afternoon. Early, because the website said Fridays were big marrying days at the courthouse, and if you got to the courthouse too late on a big marrying day, it would still be a big marrying day—just not yours.

"Well, you have to get there early, now," the woman behind the counter said as she handed back the newly engraved ring a few minutes later. "Can't have the ring be wrong!"

The manifest trueness of this remark could lead to nothing but paranoia. I checked the Orange County website at least three times that night. I knew I had read the page that said the state of California didn't require blood tests anymore, but I couldn't seem to find the other part of the site, the one that would inform me that blood tests would be mandatory just for five foot-tall blondes, or for men with red hair, or for anyone who lived in Huntington Beach but once had chickenpox in Texas. Ultimately, I decided that I couldn't find the page with those caveats because it didn't exist, though I remained uneasy. After all, this is the OC government we were talking about.

---

The morning after we bought our rings, I was awoken by helicopters. The sound of helicopters wasn't out of place in that neighborhood, but it was awfully early for the police to be flying around just to advertise the fact that they existed, and the Fuzz didn't normally buzz so low or for so long. After trying to ignore the noise for nearly a half hour, I gave up and pulled on a pair of jeans. I then wandered outside to investigate. The helicopters held news crews, not officers of the law, and people with cameras were filming some sort of hullabaloo down the street. I wasn't the only one who had come to see what was happening, and as I stood a few feet back from the rest of my curious neighbors, a barefoot woman with mussed hair and a spandex shirt caught my eye.

"It was so LOUD!" she complained, not unloudly. "It woke me up! I was disoriented at first, and I thought, 'Oh no, they're coming for my husband again!'"

I tried not to choke, and I put on my best poker face. My best poker face is not particularly good, but I suspected she wouldn't notice.

"Me too," I returned, just for the hell of it. For effect, I threw in a we're-all-in-this-together-kid nod. The chatty stranger in the spandex shirt, encouraged, continued to talk.

"... so, I heard all the racket, and I went to shake my husband and tell him, 'Hey, baby, get up! You've got to jump out the window!' But then, I remembered, 'Oh yeah! My husband's already in jail!'"

I actually did choke at this one, but I pretended I was just coughing, and pointed by way of explanation at the cigarette I was holding.

"Mine is at home," I told her once I could manage speech. "But we're going to the courthouse later."

---

And so we did. We bought flowers and then drove to the courthouse, where it was a big marrying day, just like the website said it would be. After confirming that we had arrived early enough to ensure that the ring wouldn't be wrong, we filled out some paperwork and sat down to look at the other people who had gathered in the waiting room. Some were there just for marriage licenses. Others, like us, were there to get a license and marry right away. Some people wore jeans. Some looked like they were on their way to (or from) work. One woman wore a formal wedding gown with lacy sleeves; she kept grinning at her fiancé as she tried to squeeze the endless layers of her skirt into a chair that wasn't meant to accommodate such sartorial complexity. Me, I wore a sundress and sandals, and I carried my flowers, and it wasn't long before we exited the building and made our way down the sidewalk towards the parking garage.

As we walked, we heard someone on the street call to someone else. Turning our heads to find the owner of the voice, we realized the "someone else" was us. A woman had slowed down her car and rolled down her window so she could speak to us.

"Hey! Did you just get married?" she asked excitedly.

"Yeah!" we told her, holding up our hands to display rings she no doubt couldn't see.

"Congratulations!!!" she shouted. We thanked her as she honked a few times and drove away, waving at us in her rearview mirror. We couldn't stop smiling at her, even after she was gone.

I am very tired. I spent most of yesterday with channelinglucy and crew at Disneyland. It was a pleasure, as always. The lines were surprisingly short, given that it was a Saturday, and the good company made them seem even shorter. It also helped that we noticed a couple of baffling fashion trends that provided fodder for discussion:

First, terrycloth jogging suits are apparently in.

Second, young girls who participate in what I can only assume was some sort of junior cheerleading competition—Lucy and friends spotted groups of them praying and flipping—wear matching jogging suits when they visit park attractions in between basket tosses. This is not baffling, for the jogging suits they wear are nylon, and I don't find nylon jogging suits baffling. What I do find baffling is the fact that they all put their hair up and then affix fake hairpieces to the backs of their little twelve year-old heads. They make some effort to match the shiny cascade of curls to their own hair color, but there's no real attempt to make it look real: it's fake. Obviously fake. And all of them had one.

"How many points for touching one of the cheer-toupees?" asked one of Lucy's friends. "I bet they feel like plastic."

"Like Barbie hair," another member of our party speculatively agreed.

"Okay, so one of us obviously has to check on that. But what's next? How would you score points after that?"

"Does anyone have a lighter?" I wanted to know.

I didn't set anyone on fire, but I did enjoy the rest of my evening. By the time I had gotten home, washed my face, and brushed my teeth, it was 2:00 in the morning. I then sprang forward and realized I had to get up in six hours. The company I work for just started offering prep programs for the SAT II exams—they used to be called Achievement Tests—and all of us verbal folks had to get ourselves trained. I drove out to LA, talked about grammar for three hours, and then came home and took a nap. I still haven't managed to fully wake up. That will probably happen just as I lie down and attempt to go to sleep again, because I am a vampire.

This last one is an inside joke. Sorry. It couldn't be helped.

... but not delivered until now: some pictures taken by beatnikside when he and I switched cameras for a couple of hours at the Happiest Place on Earth.

Clearly, that lady with the cards hyp-mo-tized me.

I seem to remember beatnikside taking a shot much like that last one several months back, but I couldn't find it. So for now, I'll just pretend that I'm not a stinkin' copycat. The Nightmare version of the Haunted Mansion is incredibly cool, so we went on it twice. I didn't manage to get a decent shot of Jack, but he did tell me to say hello to twinstar and savonarola.

Thank you so much for the birthday wishes, everyone! I keep sitting down to respond and then ending up on the phone. It will happen, though! Oh, yes, it will!

I've been hiding. I didn't tell anyone I was hiding; I just didn't return phone calls. I think I am ready to not hide now, but I should like to have a Jean-Pierre Jeunet kind of day. A playing music on the roof, dipping hands in sacks of grain, flea mission kind of day. A bubble-blowing, stone-skipping, radiateur-ing kind of day. The kind of day when you think maybe you really can build a world out of whimsy. It's simpler than you thought, and it's also more.

I should clarify that I do not wish to have an Ellen Ripley and Annalee Call kind of day. Alien resurrections, in my experience, are not very whimsical.

On a side note, I have this theory that Dominique Pinon is in every French movie ever made.

He used to leave flowers on my car. I would stumble outside in the morning, still waiting for my second cup of coffee to kick in, and find them on my windshield. I'm slightly embarrassed to admit that I didn't know who left them at the time. There were a few different possibilities, really—I was in the middle of one involvement that had started out very simple and was fast becoming complicated, and another that was already complicated and was fast becoming positively gordian. I lived in a room off a house that belonged to a married couple, both of them political science professors; they were amiable, no-nonsense people whose toddler son used to stand on a bench and smile into my window. He would always nod when I asked if he wanted to help me write a paper on the Harlem Renaissance.

"How lovely that someone is leaving you flowers," said my landlady, only it was more of a question than a statement. I nodded and gave a bit of a shrug to let her know that she knew only slightly less than I knew. She shook her head with that amused look people get when they see others doing things they associate with foolhardiness and youth. It's often a knowing look.

I continued to dabble in the romantic arts. It was fun or difficult or euphoric or a mess, depending on when you asked me. Messes could last a very long time and get even messier than you thought they could: I had already learned that, but learning something and learning from it aren't always the same thing. There was a break, and in that break a boy who was a bit younger than I was. That was unusual for me. He was nice, his parents were nice, our nights out were nice, and the sex was nice. Everything was so nice that I don't think we even bothered to break up. I reverted to messiness, which brought an odd and temporary sort of relief after so much what-do-you-mean-"stop by the ocean"-it's-midnight-brand predictability.

Somewhere in there were some mediocre dates with random people whose names I don't remember and who made dinner seem interminable. I'm sure some of them were perfectly decent people. Still, the fact is that it often takes less than half an hour to determine there's absolutely no chance that anything remotely resembling either lust or love will blossom with a given decent person, and most dates last longer than half an hour. I might be criticized for lacking patience, but I just didn't see the point in going any further, and I must point out that I had a great deal of patience where both lust and love were involved, though it might not have looked much like patience. It might have looked more like a curiously long-lasting combination of masochism, recklessness, and militant optimism. But I'm not really one to guess how it might have looked; at the time, as you might imagine, I was occupied with other thoughts.

Yet a time came when I wasn't so occupied, and my housemates and I planned a cocktail party. We wore things like velvet and satin and stockings and heels. We lit candles, walked around holding pitchers of blue margaritas, mixed several drinks we had never heard of, and distributed cigarettes to the social smokers on the patio. Magdalena taught salsa in the living room. People who had decided to dispense with the whole cocktail charade by going to shots did so in the kitchen. I hear that one guest was rolling around in the back yard. Me, I ended up talking to a boy on the steps. He lived with a friend's boyfriend, and before, he had lived with a different friend (which is a story in itself). We had been running into each other or going out in small groups for over two years. He showed up in jeans and a leather jacket—he's never been one to dress up—and it was getting late when we found ourselves talking. Other people left, but he stayed. That was five years ago today. I didn't know he had been the one tucking carnations on my windshield two years earlier, but it made sense when he told me. I remembered how I was then and how he was then, and it made sense.

So today, I celebrate my five-year anniversary with my husband. He still shows up in jeans, and he can still make me feel like I'm waking up to flowers—and if you have ever seen me shortly after I've awakened, you will know that is indeed a remarkable feat.

Yesterday, I did a bunch of errands. One of those errands was getting my car washed, since beatnikside, bohunk, and channelinglucy are going to be in town this weekend, and there's an excellent chance that they will end up in my car at some point. Whoever got the front seat wouldn't have had such a raw deal, but the back was scary, as 1) Nobody goes back there much; 2) When someone does go back there, it's usually two labrador retriever mixes; 3) I tend to toss empty Diet Coke cans and cigarette packs onto the floor behind the driver's seat, since it's not really trash if I can't see it; and 4) Ashes from my smokies have a way of being blown back there and accumulating impressively. So, I cleaned out what I could and then took the trusty Corolla down the street to be de-ashed and de-doggified.

Usually, people just sort of shift uncomfortably and avoid looking at each other in car wash waiting areas. However, in this one, there was a guy named Carlos who had come to have his car detailed, so he had a long wait ahead of him. Carlos had brought along his guitar to pass the time. At the table with Carlos was a woman named Pilar; she couldn't have been happier about the fact that Carlos had brought his guitar. She sang along with him and requested James Taylor. When I looked over and smiled, she said, "You know this song?" I nodded. "Well, sing, then!" she exhorted.

We sat there singing, laughing when we realized we didn't know the lyrics in the very middle of a song, and laughing more when Carlos played a song that got too high for me, necessitating a change of key between verses. (I'm an alto. I am perfectly comfortable singing along to things like Tracy Chapman songs.) "This fills my heart!" Pilar would exclaim periodically. "This is what we did all the time at home in Mexico! Carlos, you are amazing! And you—what is your name? Shasta! Shasta, yes, this is excellent!"

And that is the story of how I ended up singing "Your Song," "More Than Words," and "Cruisin'" at a Chevron in La Palma.

So, on Saturday, I headed out to Downtown Disney to meet up with beatnikside and channelinglucy. We parked ourselves at a big, round, outdoor bar with good drinks and food, and even better company. Lucy was holding up remarkably well despite knee pain, and I felt comfortable with her right away. After some yapping, eating, and drinking, we said a temporary goodbye to her as she disappeared back into her natural element. Beatnik and I then spent some time poking our heads into shops and people-watching: there were people in Santa hats and big, plastic beards. There was a group of young women who had decided to shiver in the service of sexiness. There were people whose annoyance with their families was obviously not lessened by the fact that they had all come to have a good time, damnit. There was the always-creepy sight of children on leashes held by their parents. I felt like a mediocre consumer because I wasn't carrying a bag, but I was fine with that.

We later met up with an old friend of beatnik's, who told us great stories about Bad Actors in commercials for pilots—"Prepaaare for VIC-toryyy!"—and the three of us hooked up with Lucy once again to indulge ourselves in yet another dessert and caffeinated beverages with yummy stuff mixed in. "I'd like some more Irish in my coffee, please!" Lucy and I, obviously over-caffeinated, made a late night of it. The Pringles helped.

The next day, we met up for lunch. During the course of our conversation, I was sorely tempted to jump into the theme park fray with Lucy and family, but I decided to leave that for another time, when I could actually get up early and spend more time taking it all in. Instead, I contented myself with more shopping and with the sight of kids doing things like spinning around and around just for fun.

After saying goodbye to Lucy and then to beatnik, I spun my own way home and treated myself to a nap. It was the best way to end a lovely weekend.

It would have been very difficult to get out of the shelter with someone else's dog. They asked to see vaccination records, they compared where we live to where they picked Napa up, and they asked to see pictures. I find that comforting—they're obviously serious about making sure there aren't any mistakes.

The supervisor took a couple of our pictures to Napa's kennel for comparison, and she went without us. Napa wouldn't get up or look at her. She was curled up in a little ball, lying as far away from the front of the kennel as she could. Apparently, she wasn't responding to any of the shelter workers. The supervisor called us over, and when Napa heard our voices, she came up to see us. She was a little tentative at first, but as soon as she could see, hear, and smell us, she went into her Queen of Spazmania routine, wiggling all over the place, jumping up and down, and letting out great big yelps. (She cries whenever one of us returns after having been away for more than a day.)

The supervisor smiled and asked us to come back to the office area to complete the paperwork. Napa protested loudly, but it was only a few minutes before one of the shelter workers brought her around to us on a leash. Napa strutted right out of there, giving little hops and looking altogether proud of herself for pulling off such a fine escape. A woman with a baby in a stroller was cracking up at how happy she looked.

We had brought Ivy with us, and the two dogs had an extremely joyful reunion, during which Napa started crying again. Once we got home, we brought the dog beds out into the living room. Both pups are now totally sacked out. Napa is on the smelly side, and her nails look rather ragged, but all is good. Very good. :)

As it is past midnight, and therefore officially September 3rd, I have two things to say:

First, I would like to wish the happiest of birthdays to doctorgogol! It still amazes me that I had the good fortune to come across someone who would end up becoming so dear to me through this medium. Back in December, when the doctor was still a professor in these parts, I certainly didn't anticipate that doing a "similar interests" search would lead me to someone who would end up being not just an online acquaintance, but a trusted friend. I was very, very lucky. And, good doctor, you have a package on the way, but it will be late, because I never manage to send birthday presents on time.

Second, as of today, I have had a LiveJournal for exactly one year. I hereby post my stats:

Account Number: 13685
Account type: Paid Account, previously an Early Adopter
Date created: 09-03-2000
Journal entries: 320
Support points: 8
Comments: Posted: 2,037 - Received: 1,715

Holy cow. The thing is—and I know I've told a few of you this—I never meant to keep a journal here. I had been following some other people's journals, and I created an account so that I wouldn't have to post anonymous comments all the time. I signed my name when I commented anonymously, but still, I felt like I needed to jump into the fray more officially, especially "Shasta" is one of those names that seems made-up to many people.

It took a while, but I got sucked in. I look back at my early journal entries, and it's obvious that I wasn't very comfortable posting in my journal. I used the account mainly to post comments for a while, but after a few weeks, I decided to add some people to my friends list. I kept coming across interesting people, and going through several other people's friends lists started to seem silly. I remember adding blackhellkat and unquietmind and whorlpool and zuul very early on, and I also remember being shocked that they were adding me back.

I don't think I actually started feeling comfortable here until January or so. I think that at some point, I decided that it might not be such a bad thing for me to share parts of myself in this format. There are all sorts of things I just won't say here. At the same time, there are things I say here that I don't say to most of my real-life friends. I've written about things that have been painful, and I've found the process cathartic. Writing here has challenged me—and I think it's because the pressure I sometimes feel to come up with something interesting makes me to dig a little bit deeper, to be more introspective than I might otherwise be. And I'm thankful that LJ's features make it possible for me to do this in a way that seems safe to me.

I didn't know that a few of you would be people I count among my closest friends. The surprise was both unexpected and delightful. As for what I did expect: I enjoy following your adventures, plunging into your darker moments, wondering along with you when you're feeling doubtful, joking with you when you're feeling silly, and celebrating with you when you're feeling cheerful.

I like it here. I like it a great deal.

One summer, several of us stayed at my friend Eva's house in Berkeley after our yearly stint as camp counselors was over. It was great fun—we stayed up late and took over the living room, and I was amazed by how it didn't seem to bother her mom at all. Still, there was constant social contact, and every once in a while, I needed a bit of a break.

One morning, my friend Polly and I decided to escape temporarily. We got bagels and coffee at Noah's, and then we headed over to the Berkeley Rose Garden. The day was simply perfect, and the roses were stunning. I wish I had brought my camera. Polly and I sat on a bench, sometimes talking and sometimes just sipping at our coffee and looking around. We soon noticed people walking around in tuxedos and dresses, and we realized that there was going to be a wedding.

We retreated to an unobtrusive spot (you can see where we were sitting here), but we didn't want to leave, and I'm glad we didn't. Everyone there looked happy, not tense and freaked out about music or flowers or whether there would be enough wine or whether the bridesmaids were secretly cursing the day their friend decided on lavender pastel dresses. Someone started playing a song, and the bride walked down to the middle of the garden. "Slow down!" her fiance mouthed at her, smiling. She laughed and slowed down; she really was walking a little too fast. They said their vows and kissed, and Polly and I decided that it was time for us to leave.

It was one of the loveliest weddings I've ever attended, and I don't even know who those people were.

We were able to get the dogs up to the local high school for a romp in the field on Thursday... they love having a huge expanse of grass to run on. I think they like it even more than they like the dog park—they certainly do more running at the school. Too bad there's usually so many kids there. ;-)

Here's Napa:

And here's Ivy: