More Randomny

Went to two parties last night.

First at a lovely little house with a cozy and fully shaded back yard full of flowers. Etta retired as a schoolteacher and filled her yard with friends, family, fellow teachers, and lots and lots of wonderful food: Ribs, chicken, salads, beer, a margarita bowl, cupcakes …

She was a delight: The happiest, lovingest person. Her story: Escaped a violent environment with her three young children, came west, volunteered in classrooms, was encouraged to go to Sac State, got her credentials at forty, and taught grade school for two decades while her kids went on and got college degrees.

The most precious moment, one I will never forget: A friend brought a present, a large frame beautifully wrapped. Etta opened it and her face blossomed into the most moving expression of wonder I have ever seen. It was a resolution, passed that day by the State Legislature, honoring her life, her years teaching, her contributions to the local schools and children, written and signed by Karen Bass, the first African-American female Speaker of the California Assembly. (Sort of an added bonus, that last bit.) I was very moved by the whole thing.

And of course we couldn’t get out without more hugs, and assurances that we had enough to eat, and a promise to come back and borrow some books.

Then we went on to one of our pre-Burning Man things, held in a warehouse with a dusty half-acre backyard. I helped erect a tower that will go up on the playa, and there were numerous other projects of various sorts going on. Go see B/M pics, you’ll get an idea what I mean when I say a tall bicycle shaped like a palm tree, a huge toaster built onto the frame of a golf cart, a lit-up platform complete with stripper pole built onto the bottom half of a chopped Toyota pickup, a giant foam turtle motivated by the mechanical parts of several bicycles and lit up with battery-powered lightstrings. Other stuff, too, such as the consumption of beer and copious amounts of cussing when something went wrong. Fun.

Today I finally got my 220V line into conduit and into the eighty-foot ditch and the ditch refilled with dirt. One step closer to the backyard spa I was told I was putting in when my retaining wall was half done. Now if I only knew half the material I will be presenting to some eager young computer scientists on Monday I would feel like I accomplished something. I’m okay with these guys knowing more than me, I’m just not okay with me not knowing everything a so-called professional should about the platform architecture du jour. But I guess if I make it fun enough my lack of detailed knowledge won’t be noticed much. Or if it does, who cares, young punks anyway.

Speakin’ of young punks, let’s go politics. I don’t know what the big deal is with the Guantanamo ruling. So the young punks there are subject to the same rules if they’d been on American soil after all. Okay. I’m fine with that and McCain’s complaints fall on deaf ears here. We’re a shitload more generous with our combatant prisoners than Germany or Britain anyway, I don’t care how much they complain about us. Old punks.

“I have blisters on my fingers!”

Some young adults are playing rock and roll upstairs. Ooh, I hear my almost-adult’s trumpet joining in. Very cool. Boatloads better than those damn video games. Young punks! Get off my lawn!