ive been having nightmares for the past few nights. it probably has to do with getting mugged and robbed in the same week. but last night, i dreamt that after dividing up the thanksgiving turkey there wasnt any left for me. how upsetting.

i had a job interview this morning. a real job - outside the lab job. what struck me most was that the people were good looking. and they were dressed nicely - not suit and tie, but they matched. and i saw not one pair of sweatpants. its true that i have a job, unless calling it “job” requires i do actual work, which i haven’t done really since october 1, but accepting another offer (assuming they make one) isn’t necessarily a given. there are issues, i think, that are holding me up from following my heart. the first is not having my security clearance; it costs around $20k to get it, it’d basically be screwing over the lab if i leave ten months into processing. But, what’s more important, if i have it and leave i can ”easily” come right back if im terribly miserable (can i even imagine being more miserable?) or get laid off. everybody i talk to –dad, brother, boyfriend, boyfriend’s dad- thinks im crazy for even thinking about leaving a secure well-paying job before my clearance, but i hate it here. people here say things like “just wait until you get your clearance, everything will be much much better (more projects, move office out of isolation, general treatment raised above that of second class citizen), but how long is this damn clearance going to take? its almost been a year, how long am i supposed to “stick it out?” to me, another offer seems like a no-brainer. but I get these other people, whose opinions i cant seem to shake, telling me otherwise. and while I would like to think – screw ‘um, do what you want to, follow your heart - no one is saying that to me. and i have always been way to much of a need daddy’s approval kind of girl. i know im crossing this bridge to early, but i think the interview went pretty well. plus im 3 for 3 as far as interviews go. (or, 4 for ?)

when it rains it pours. had to call the cops AGAIN after dave discovered that all of his car-tools have been removed from the garage. some $600 worth. the police informed us that crack-heads run inside when someone is pulling away. i find that somewhat hard to believe. personally, i think it is one of our fucking neighbors. so, what do are we going to do? get on one of our trips where we engineer elaborate diagram scribblings and lists on cocktail napkins followed by spending lots of money, where we usually never get to step two, though have a few times. we have taken on surveillance. it seems like we can do it for *not too expensive*. we’ve got a transmitting camera to put in the garage! i swear to god, if we actually catch someone (other than a crack-head) i will totally not care who calls me a dork.

its true, at the strike of midnight i was staring into a stream of water, and its true i went to sleep with a numb forehead, but its still been a pretty good birthday. people i haven’t heard from in months called or emailed. im really excited about my presents, and tonight dave and i are having dinner at my favorite restaurant where we drink mojitos followed by wine and coq au vin. so much so that in my last visit i informed the waiter he looked like edward scissorhands. and, the cops called me today to ask if ill press charges. the kid is sixteen and has a whole load of a record. shit yeah, ill press charges.

dave and i got mugged last night. happy fucking birthday. pepper-spray in my eyes. we're fine, they didn’t get anything, three fucking punks. they were kids, and they were really stupid. the dog was with us (he didn’t defend us at all, which is another source of disappointment) who attacks someone with a dog? it was really one guy showing off, and his buddies weren’t helping him. the one was reaching around dave to find a wallet and i jumped on him and tried to burn his bald head with my cigarette. i don’t even know why i did it, it was probably pretty stupid. i think i did it because i had a sense they were not "serious." i hope i wouldn’t do something like that if they were. the good part: they ran off and we called the cops, who came by five minutes later to take us to id the little punk as they had him handcuffed around the corner. that was so satisfying and relieving to watch the person who did that to you totally helpless only minutes later. go san francisco pd!

miami was wonderful. tessa is wonderful, i am so in love with that baby. thank god she spent my entire last night screaming holy hell or i might scare myself with thoughts of my own little tessa. the begining of the trip was spent in miami, but for the weekend we all went down to the keys. ocean reef club, where i have more than a few fond memories from about seventh grade up to my freshman year of college. everybody drives golf carts around, so you get either carts full of 13 year old girls wailing over the carts full of 13 year old boys, or you get carts full of 18-30 year olds totally pissed and crashing into bushes. very glad to be back. and, for the record, getting mostly naked at the 14 tee, which happens to be suspended over a mangroove (or, south florida mosquito breeding ground) makes for interesting conversation with ones mother regarding the rows of mosquito bites up ones back, thighs, butt, everywhere.

its tough to go back to work. luckily, my birthday is tomorrow, and i have a few more presents to go.

tomorrow begins my long awaited trip to sunny miami for a week of: babies, fishing, birthday parties for me thrown by mom (the absolute best kind), probably what is considered “too much” shell-fish, bathing suits, and not one bit of fog nor physicist.

friday morning it rained like 3pm in a georgia july, this being california where it hasn’t rained since may, it was one accident after another on the morning commute, plus a good deal of flooding. it took me two hours and a whole lot of yelling at the windshield to get to work by 9am in time for a meeting i had scheduled for weeks. the guy, who I will refer to as “fuckhead,” took no less than one month of my emails, phone messages, my bosses emails, phone messages, post-its on his monitor, his boss's emails, and phone messages to even respond to me regarding this meeting. (now, to fully emphasize the point of this post –to further document where, exactly, you, the reader, are spending your tax dollars, save my canadian readers, of course – i must give some background) this meeting was for HIS benefit. fuckhead needed someone to work on HIS project, doing just the kind of thing i know how to do. when i finally heard from him, i wrote nice things such as “friday 9am sounds great. i will come to your office, let me know if i can, since I have only the minimum clearance” to which i got typical fuckhead responses such as “Friday 9am. ~fuckhead” so what happens when i finally arrive friday morning? not only can I not get to his office, since i don’t have the fucking proper clearance, but he is not answering his phone, cell phone, lab phone or any fucking phone. i stomp back to my office in the rain, am so mad i could just explode. am planning all the rude things i will say IF he ever tries to get in touch with me again, which i am sure he will not. and VOW to not meet with him, not join his project, not invite a world of pain into my life. well what do you know. fuckhead writes me this email today: “Sorry we missed each other on Friday. Can we reschedule for Thur or Friday?” are you fucking kidding me, fuckhead? we “missed each other?”

sorry for all the swearing.

a couple of weeks ago the cat started spending all of her time in the kitchen, which is unusual in the first place but even more so since she would sit staring into the mirrors on the kitchen cabinets. (there are mirrors on some of the kitchen cabinets. kinda strange, but that’s not the point.) this, coupled with our superior deductive reasoning skills, led us to conclude that there were mice running around in there. we toyed with the idea of letting the cat have-at‘em, but really, she’s not that kind of cat. so then, dave set up, a la tom & jerry, a pencil, string, and bucket operation, with the traditional cheese as bait. it was funny ha-ha, at first. he would never catch anything, let alone a giant rat, which was my fear. but, what do you know, but we done caught ourselves a little critter. i kid you not. a little brown mouse. pink ears, pink nose. he was just a baby, and way too cute. it took a good five minutes to convince ourselves to not keep him, but we finally agreed a dog, cat, fish, and mouse might me a bit excessive. and then the whole rabies thing. so we put him in a pickle jar, let the cat have a good look at the object of her two-week obsession, a carted him up to the park for a final farewell. dumb little mouse. i wonder how he’s doing?

ive been pretty bad at the sidebar, it doesnt help that i take a couple of weeks to finish a book, and lately i've spent an inordinate amount of time listening to am radio. (thats probably not new. neither of them are.) i do have to give some props to julian barnes, however. that is an excellent excellent book. its about love and sailing and history and woodworms...10 1/2 chapters that dont seem to fit together, but they do. and it is hilarious. i finished it last night, and i was going to post an excerpt, but of course i forgot to bring it. i still may.

margot and the baumer

the costumes were an overall success, dave's baumer especially. he was recognized, me, not so much. i needed the fur, and i chickened out. i was eyeing it as it hung above me on a nail in the thrift store. i bought the fox collar to go on a coat i allready own, even though my heart was with the rabbit in the store for $100. i went back on thursday to buy it, (convinced by jess) asked the guy to take it down for me, he did and added, "oh thats not a rabbit, thats a lynx. an endangered species. why do we even have this?!? here you go. be careful of the blood." my god. i wouldnt be able to handle comments like that, so i put it back. its too bad. are lynx's really endangered? i once pet one in a bar in atlanta, and it purred (very loud purr) i find it hard to believe they are endangered. so, ill post pictures of us soon, i forgot to bring them today. im leaving work at noon today for the double wammy dentist and gyno appts. back to back, baby. the rest of the weekend....did absolutely nothing. recovered from the cold i started coming down with last wednesday.