Rachael

    Harriet and her blanket (knitted by Lala for her — how CUTE is that?)

Lately my favorite part of the day is early in the morning. (Super early. We won't even say how early, but it might start with a three. We can't really think about it.)

I go out in the living room, start the coffee, feed the cats, and then go to the couch and pick up 18-year old Harriet. She can't hear that much anymore, but I think she feels the vibration of my feet puttering around, and she's usually poking her nose up, waiting for me, by the time I get to her.

I carry her like a baby (something she used to hate), and take her outside, across the back porch, down the steps, and set her down on the concrete. She wobbles a bit, and I hold her back end up, scritching at the same time. She thinks about it for a while, and then pees. If I'm not right there, she wanders off and gets lost under the porch, so I stand and wait while she gets it done.

Then she follows me slowly up the stairs and into the kitchen. She walks with me through the house, but usually ends up on her cushion or back on the couch for another nap while I write and shower.

    Lala and Harriet (sweater made by me)

At least a couple of times a week, we think she's dead. Does this sound callous? Like I don't care? I do. We do. We care SO much, but while we're not ready for her to go, we're very conscious of the time we have. And when you find her on the couch, completely still, no rising or falling of the chest, you wonder.

The other morning I actually thought it had happened. I touched her. She was stiff. No motion. She felt cold. I started to well up.  Then she puffed and snuffled up her head and I sat back on my ass in happy surprise.

It's the sweetest time right now. While time is running out (what time isn't?), it's nice to know that she's healthy, and happy (when she's not grumpy), and in no pain. And everything she does is the cutest thing we've ever seen. Today when I got home, she ran around like the house like a maniac and grinned from ear to ear when I got out her food. IT WAS THE CUTEST THING. I was so sad I hadn't videoed it, and it was just running around.

Harriet is the dog of Lala's heart, but having lived with her for more than three years now, I can honestly say my step-dog Harriet is the best dog ever (don't tell Clara or Miss Idaho, who are obviously close runners-up). It's good to have this time (WHICH COULD GO ON A LOT LONGER, YOU HEAR THAT, UNIVERSE?) to appreciate her.

Now, go give an animal a pet. I have to take Ol' Groany outside again.

    I can see you, you know.

Photos, for I am too tired from a very long week for anything more (click for biggety-ness):

A ferry, hiding in the flowers. You know how they are.

A gorgeous day, seen from the cable car (two rides in two weeks!).

Windy.

Alcatraz.

The central cable car hub, which is also the cable car museum. Free, AWESOME. It also figures into the screenplay that I just finished (no more than that to say, but crossed fingers!), so it was awesome to visit it. The noise of that place, the smell of the machinery…. Highly recommended.

Okay. I'm off to the couch to sit and stare blankly. I worked a lot this week, weird hours, and I rock-climbed twice and did yoga once, as well as finishing the screenplay and the final edits on Book 1. Wait a minute. Hey! No wonder I feel completely exhausted.

Knitting will be my balm. (I'm working on White Lies Colette, which I picked up at Stitches and am loving. Just enough easy lace for my brain to flirt with, but miles of stockinette, also. Can't you just picture it with jeans and a tank top? Or a dress?)

As a 911 dispatcher of more than ten years (what? Wow!) and as a soon-to-be published Real Live Writer who had a nightmare the other night about cover art (what if it has a bright metallic glow-in-the-dark pink albino Robin Hood on it?), THIS was the funniest thing I've read in forever.

The Wrestler made me sick. I twittered it, but I must say it again (what? You don't twitter? You should! If you're in an RSS reader, jump over to my site, grab my twitter feed, and follow along!).

It made me actually, physically ill. I've NEVER had that happen to me before in a movie, and I think perhaps in my head I thought people who said they got motion-sick in movies were just A Little Sensitive. But my god. It was like I was on a ship — no, wait, I don't get seasick. It was like I was riding in a car on a winding road up to Yosemite, trying to read a dictionary (oh, the very thought…. I DO get carsick).

Of course, I didn't know that's what was going on, and I just thought, oh, no! I'm getting the stomach flu! And hoo-EEE, it's comin' on fast. Ninety minutes into the hundred and five minute movie, I left. I have NEVER left a movie before, no matter how bad (which is odd, given the ease with which I jettison books I'm not enjoying).

But the movie was unpleasant and violent (duh) and sad, and even though the characters were wonderful and believable and sympathetic, it was wounding my soul to watch it. Plus, I had the stomach flu.

Then I left, and the flu went away. The vertigo disappeared. My brain stopped spinning, and my stomach stopped heaving.

I find it completely fascinating that film footage (shaky, handheld)  can do that to a person. I'm rather glad I went, just for the experience.  Did you see it? Reactions?

Oh, what a weekend! It was one of those perfect combination weekends, where I got stuff done and also did a ton of great things (the Cable Car Museum, rock-climbing, breakfast at Brown Sugar, yoga).

I tell you one thing, a grown-up scavenger hunt is HELLA FUN. It was Bethany's birthday party. We all grouped up in cars, and drove all over the East Bay, looking for clues. When we were counting the party horns in a box we found by a bridge, pairing the number of them with a numbered coin glued onto a nearby concrete map on a bench, figuring out what the coin directed us to? Dudes, it was like being on the Amazing Race, only I got to sleep in my own bed that night.

It was AWESOME. I swear, it was as fun as any scavenger hunt I participated in as a child — no, it was BETTER. The first clue was written in Italian, and when roughly translated by the four or five us who could fake a little Italian, it spoke of a good sandwich she'd once had, so we went to the Italian deli where she'd had it. The note referenced Naples and its warmth, as opposed to the colder north, so we completely believed the clue would be hidden in the ice cream freezers (perhaps by the Neapolitan ice cream?). Um, no. It wasn't. But we sure looked funny looking for it, moving every ice cream container around…. Turns out the clue was in a big, birthday-paper wrapped box on the shelves near the Nutella. We totally missed it.

Another one of the good clues pointed us toward a handsome chocolatier on Millionaire's row. Using the power of technology on our cell phones, we decided we were looking for Ghiradelli's grave in the Mountain View Cemetery in Piedmont. When we got there, the cemetery was just closing, so we had no map, but Bethany found the coordinates online of a nearby gravestone, and plugged it into her GPS device and we all tromped up the hills in search of the tomb, following her as if she held a divining rod. And then we found the tomb! And the clue! It was SO exciting!

Unfortunately, with the time change and all, Lala and I had to leave everyone standing in a park in Chinatown trying to figure out the clue (tiny bottles of booze and a compass pointing East, found in a tree). So I didn't find out the ending. I ended up getting only a couple of hours of sleep, since I'd lost my mind earlier in the afternoon and had a cup of coffee, which kept me up almost all night. So today, I'm exhausted. But happy. I can't wait to go on another one (or plan one! I want SO BADLY  to plan one!).

I'd totally put a clue in a yarn store. A knitter's clue. A knitting scavenger hunt! Ooooh. Don't get me started. Who's in?