Fall

Last night I left the office and shivered from the fall chill I felt through my fleece jacket. When I felt that fall chill in the air, as is my habit, I tipped my face toward the sky and smiled. I love fall.

There are two kinds of fall days in Colorado: days that make you long to stay in and days that make you long to go out. Yesterday was a day that would have been better spent curled under a blanket on the couch at home. A cozy grey sky always reminds me of a blanket and makes me yearn to shut off my alarm clock and burrow deeper into my bed. Every sound is muted, even the rustle of dry, yellowing leaves as the wind caresses the trees. The office even seems quieter on a day like that.

Most fall days here make me nostalgic for my college freedom—I can barely stand to be cooped up in the office when the sunshine is so golden and clear. The mountains look close enough to touch and the breeze is just pure calming energy. Days like that give me boundless hope for the future. It is those days I want to spend outside—whether that is sitting under a tree reading or walking through downtown with a friend.

Today R emailed me from Florida and mentioned she was going to try and make it to the beach this weekend. Coastal residents might have the beach, but I have warm sunlight stroking my face and neck when I run errands in the middle of day under a sun so bright that everything seems touched with gold. I love fall in Colorado.

Flower

Why does our company chili cookoff team need a stuffed skunk for their cookoff tomorrow night?

Perspective

I was a senior in high school and had never attended one of my school dances. I told friends that I wanted to go but only with a date--still never taking any personal initiative to fulfill my wish. One of my friends decided to play matchmaker, asking me that question familiar to school hallways across the nation, "Would you say yes if he asked you?" And so it came to pass that F asked me to Homecoming.

I came down the stairs that night into my parents' entry in a new dress, hair and makeup done. My mom swears she heard him whisper "Wow" at my appearance and then look around to see who said it. From there we went to his house for more pictures and to meet up with another couple. Dinner followed and then the dance--all in all a very typical high school dance experience complete with an awkward slow dance.

While we had a nice time, I never expected that it was anything more than two friends attending an event together. I clearly discovered that his perspective was different starting that following Monday. F met me at the end of my classes and literally tried to carry my books to my next class. I soon began racing out of my classes as soon as they were finished, rushing far enough that he wouldn't be able to catch me. I was a coward and never discussed my feelings with him. I never considered it a relationship and I never gave him a chance.

After our ill-fated pseudo-relationship, F and I slowly built a friendship out of the awkwardness and hurt feelings. Actually, more accurately, he made all the moves to become my friend and I warily accepted his gestures, never trusting that his motives were to be my friend and not a result of any feelings he still had for me.

Years later we were IMing one another from our respective college campuses, just a few hours apart. I was telling him some story about D, a man I started dating the spring after our aborted relationship. He reciprocated in kind, and his comment about his first love made me wonder if it was me.

What does that month of 1996 look like from his perspective?

Best of Bad Baby Names

Need a laugh? Visit Best of Bad Baby Names: "Prospective parents should give potential baby names a test: did they fit better in the sentence, 'Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States [blank] [blank]' or 'And now, on the main stage, the Lusty Beaver Adult Club presents the hot action of [blank] [blank].' I think hospital forms should be reformatted to force parents to do just that. "

Angie takes no responsibility for helpless giggling or breathlessness caused by said giggling, or being caught obviously not working by co-workers and supervisors if viewing the above site during working hours.

Katrina

Wednesday night was the first chance I had to sit down and understand the devastation that Katrina has wrought. On Monday I was relieved to know that R was safe and I thought I understood that New Orleans had escaped the worst. Then the levees broke and that understanding was clearly no longer applicable.

Seeing a major US metropolitan area under water is so overwhelming that I can't even react to it. Instead, it is the smaller pieces that bring tears to my eyes.

-Thousands of public schools across the country will be accepting children of Katrina refugees. (American refugees--something I never thought I'd have to say.) I have a number of good friends who are teachers and I know how they struggle with full classrooms and low resources already. Willingly stretching those resources to include children who have been uprooted by this storm seems heroic to me. (See here to donate school supplies.)

-Universities are taking undergraduate and graduate students from affected colleges and universities that are closed for repairs this fall or indefinitely. Even law schools are getting into the act. While it may be difficult for some of these students to resume their studies immediately, I believe it is important that they have that opportunity.

-RP shared his thoughts on the damage done to the Louisiana legal system. The thought of evidence and appeals destroyed, along with criminals left on the street and innocent imprisoned, only makes this more of a tragedy. Side note: a sorority sister pointed out to me that law students studying Louisiana's unique common law (based on Napoleonic tradition if I remember correctly) might not be qualified to study outside the state--and will there be jobs for them if they do manage to graduate? Additionally, it is possible that recent Louisiana law grads may have to retake the bar exam because their ungraded answers may have been lost.

-I am really frustrated that my fellow engineers tried to prevent this catastrophe, which their own government feared, and their efforts were thwarted by our government for financial reasons.

-But after reading this, and nearly crying over my AutoCAD drawings, I feel like concentrating on the important stuff--there are people helping and we can help. And I intend to.

Ready

Last Friday night I dreamt that I married Tom Selleck. It was a great feeling to be unconditionally loved, to have someone walk up and embrace me from behind while I was standing at the kitchen counter.  His love for me was obvious and there were scores of people in our house to celebrate the occasion.

After the guests left, he led me through the house to our bedroom in the furthest wing.  When we got there, the room was still in the beginning of stages of construction.  He was so proud of the wood framing and concrete slab floor with utility connections still sticking through it.  Does this mean that I’m not ready or that he’s not?