If we're ever in a serious drought, and I don't mean just a little lower on the water tables and under a solid wildfire threat, but a true, old fashioned-Biblical-proportions drought, just let GFORCE know and we'll plan Founder's Day right away.  That will assure us of at least one day of Noah-esque rainfall. 

And that's all I've got to say about that.

With *that* now behind me, I've turned my attention to a few new things.  One is my impending new work-from-home job, which I am not the least bit ashamed to say has me a smattering intimidated.  Having dispensed with the temporary pout of how it will interfere with my lolling about not doing jack shit (I can't even say it's the money because although I can be bought and usually bought fairly cheaply, this job doesn't pay enough to buy even me), I have moved on to the insecurity over using training that has not been taken out of the attic trunks, dusted off and fired up in well over 13 years.  God knows my myo-'s and my mico-'s and my micro-'s and my macro-'s are all kinds of jumbled up in the whole gray jellybean and I'm not eager to be shown for about the 40th time this month how stupid I am. 

Fortunately, I do not start training until the 8th, so maybe I'll be smarter in October.

No more Burger Nights to work.  The Clean-Up (which I was unable to attend due to some scheduling conflicts) is now in the past and that means the majority of community activity is settled for the year.  We will have bingo (if I can get enough people rounded up to work it) October - May with the exception of December, when we will have the Christmas parade and party.  The Tylers will have their annual Halloween party, which is always great fun.  We are planning to have a community Thanksgiving Dinner the weekend before Thanksgiving, but again, I'm not sure we will have enough people helping to be able to do it.  We practically begged for people to help out with Founder's Day and only got about half of what we needed, which pretty much wore out the rest of us and made some things we planned to do impossible.  With any luck and some community participation, we can pull these other events off. 

For the most part, however, my obligations have imported to the be within the walls of my house, which is just lovely.  I feel as though I have been to war and come home and collapsed. 

Sunday, we took the boys and Delena to the circus at the Arco Arena.  It was absolutely lovely and I will be doing a write up for it in the new Grizzly Flats Online section called "Daytripper," which will highlight things you can do in a day and have fun.  We'll have restaurant reviews, discussions about local attractions and reviews of certain events.  Once I get it launched, other Grizzly Flats residents are encouraged to play along as well.  So far, I have reviews of the California State Fair, The Ringling Brothers-Barnum & Bailey Circus and about a zillion restaurant reviews to write up. 

One of the other many things I do with my time is to write book reviews professionally.  When you pick up a book and turn it over and read what people have said about it on the back, that's me some of the time.  I have a stack about 10-12 high right now that are waiting for my words.  I'm so behind on that project that I'm betting a lot of them have already been published and marked down to half-price by now. 

I'm also remodeling our house, which I may have mentioned before and am too lazy to check and see.  I am wholly infatuated with our little gingerbread chalet (tiny kitchen excepting) and I have spent the last month planning and deconstructing and "being flexible" with what is and isn't possible, painting, priming, sanding, measuring, matching, clearing, cleaning and buying.  I expect to be finished in about 2-3 weeks.  I was very pleased to find that there is hard-wood above the drywall that constitutes our downstairs ceilings, but very disappointed to find that short of bashing out the drywall most viciously, there is no way to get that crap down.  I was very pleased to find that under the carpet on my stairs, there are very decent wooden steps, but very disappointed to find that for whatever reason, my dear husband is utterly dedicated to having carpet on the stairs.  I hate carpet, but he has been so generous-minded in letting be change whatever I wanted to change that when he asked for this one thing, I couldn't turn him down, so I spent about 4 hours steam cleaning these stupid stairs, trying to get up the stains the grandkids have instilled over the past year or so.  Flexibility, I'm telling you.  Must be the yoga.

Tomorrow, I will be back to work on the remodeling project.  It stalled out last week as Founder's Day planning and preparation took over my whole life instead of just most of it.   It stalled out yesterday and today as I took hours and hours to locate my bootstraps and attempt to pull myself upright with them.  Not to mention, I evidently needed to hear Founder's Day Fall Out for a while. 

My hope now is that other than cycling through a mountain of receipts, getting all the bills paid, then cutting a check to the school out of the final balance, we can move on.  We'll do an autopsy on the event in coming months and think about what to do differently next year, but my preference is to let it rest for a while and not think about the "F" word for a good, long time.

It had definite wonderful points and I am very proud of the people who made those specific things happen.  Now, real life resumes and all of the obligations that were postponed to make Founder's Day happen are waiting for their turn.

Tomorrow.

Today, I am going to go to town with my husband and get Mongolian BBQ at Dignity Dragon and have a really cleansing cry and then likely go to sleep. 

On Sunday, to celebrate the equinox, we had a wonderfully purifying sweat in our sweat lodge.  Eric had the rocks just perfectly hot enough and feeling that hot steam rise up as he poured the water on "the stone people" and they started talking to us was just blissful.  It's those isolated times of wonderfulness that are worthy of our focus and attention rather than the frustrations, insults and stresses that try to invade our world.  That's how it should be, anyway.

For me, I am so tired of hearing people fuss and complain and critique and issue orders and tell me how things should and shouldn't be and how *I* should and shouldn't be that I feel like want to never see another human who I didn't give birth to or marry for a good, long time.  Anyone who comes around me should be screened so that they are only saying things that make me happy, for their own safety, I'm telling you.  Otherwise, proceed at your own risk and bring protective gear.

Yesterday, even despite that day/night of wonderfulness on Sunday, I just hit the wall, in mid-conversation with a friend, and had to walk away.  It was done, a key turned and that was it.  The engine shut down and the car wouldn't move.  I couldn't listen to any more or think any more or even care any more.  At that moment, I didn't even care how my actions were perceived.  It wasn't so much a matter of anything personal to that person, but more like there just wasn't even one more thing left to say or give or do or think.  So I left.    I was just done.

Today, I am hiding.  Andie and I are taking time off from exercising to tend to our own worlds for a while and I'm using that time to catch up here and get a few other things done. 

Life goes on.

...and then you die.

Be particular,