The Hallmark channel is showing Northern Exposure's episodes in order. A thinking woman would have confirmed that she had enough video tape to transfer them to as they turn up, but oh well, who's thinking these days? :) I saved the pilot episode and will likely transfer some of my favorites to tapes as they come up.

I'm not sure why I liked the show so much, probably a lot of it had to do with the fact that we were stationed in Hawaii at the time after being here in Washington for three years. Watching "Cicely" on TV, in reality the town of Roslyn, was a bit like being back in the state. One of the things we did when we moved back up here is to drive out to Roslyn and walk up and down the streets. At that time, the series was still being filmed so it was really awesome to see "Dr. Joel Fleischman" painted onto the storefront window. Apparently that location is now a memoribilia shop but they've painted the name onto the wrong window. The last time I went out to Roslyn, Rob Morrow was no longer on the show so the storefront had no name on the window at all. I was sorry I hadn't taken a photo of it while it was still the way it was.

The best years of the show were the first years, when Joel and Maggie (Janine Turner) had that love/hate relationship going on strongly. For some reason, Maggie was toned down from her original feisty self, which took some of the zip out of the relationship. And of course, once Rob Morrow left the show it wasn't the same. The new doctor's family just was not as compelling or interesting.

At the company I worked at, one of the computer dudes and I would chat about the show. This was in the days when GEnie was still a viable concern and email within the company was pretty limited to technical stuff. Since I loved working on the word processing system at the time I often had to work with this particular guy who was our support person. When one of us missed an episode of Northern Exposure, we'd email the other to find out what happened. It was kind of funny because the show was at its peak but I couldn't find anyone else besides him who actually watched the show. :) He and I dated for a while after I was separated from Dave, on and off for a couple of years. Watching the show now, I think about him and wonder what he's up to nowadays, but I don't necessarily regret not seeing him any longer.

It's not hard to get over someone who tells you they can't introduce you to their family because you haven't a college degree -- not that you're not smart or anything, because obviously you are -- but just because "they" wouldn't have anything to talk to you about. Well! Sayonara, Stupid! :) I was pretty burnt up about it at the time although my irritation has mellowed over the years. Partially because it's true: I don't have a lot of conversation in me, so what would I have spoken about to his brother and sister-in-law, the college professors? I like to listen to smarter people talk about things that interest me, but I'm afraid I'd be pretty much limited to, "I'm not sure" when asked for my opinion. :) I've gotten more opinionated over time but I'm still much more interested in listening to what other people have to say, keeping my comments light and fluffy.

And in a sweet bit of irony right before we broke up, said college professor mentioned to his brother, my boyfriend, that he'd caught his young teenage son staying up all night long drinking two liter bottles of Coke to stay awake, playing a computer game -- GemStone 3. Heh. :) I actually ran into him in the game once and we went hunting together; later I sent him one of the coffee mugs I'd bought at SimuCon 2. He was a nice kid, I wonder how he turned out? Hopefully not hung up on college degrees like his uncle!

I'd give Sushi hints about FFX but I'd be getting them from my strategy guide (what Rob calls my "Cheat Book") and not from memory. I'll just encourage her from afar and wish I could be better at Blitzball. I've only won one game so far, can't copy any skills and that annoys me cause it seems it should be so easy.

Anyway, sorting out issues in the little game. Sorting out issues with school. Trying to figure out what my work study boss may want from me since I haven't heard from her since last week.

Sigh. sigh. Sigh.

Rob's new toy is this. Very nice toy. Necessitated cutting out a section of the top shelf of the colossus entertainment center.

It reminds us of the Ethan Allen commercial, where the announcer says that changing a room starts with one piece of furniture. Had I not made the colossus, Rob would not have determined he needed new speakers, a new receiver, a new DVD player and thus a new TV. Now eying up the big TV from my 20 year old couch I whimpered, "We need a taller couch." Which isn't of course true, but it sure seems like it.

At the very least, I could use a new slip cover for it.

While at the store, Rob bought me The Sims Deluxe. It's basically the first three Sims games plus some extra features. They've included several Roman/Grecian elements too which is nice. One of the homes I built before this came out was a Greek-style home with a cluster of columns supporting the back porch, and it's one of my favorite houses. Now I'll be able to include some spiffy Greeky wall paper and flooring and bath fixtures. The joy of it all :)

School eats up my time. I'm in the honor society now (ooOOOoooh :>) as well as the student paralegal association. Plus work study, volunteering at the courthouse, and that massive eater-of-time, Tivo. Argh!

Ya know, before Tivo, you miss a show: "Oh, rats! We missed Enterprise again!"

Post-Tivo: "Oh, rats! We missed Enterprise! And TNN's Next Generation Marathon! And Good Eats ! And Antiques Roadshow UK! And Northern Exposure! But fortunately Tivo caught them all so let's sit down and watch now!"

It can take hours to get caught up to the point where I'm not guilty about all the shows I've missed but want to watch. I say again, ARGH!

Anyway, off to the courthouse today for a class. Rob's new toy will be delivered tomorrow so we'll have to talk about that then :)

Yesterday was our 2nd anniversary. I spent the day looking for the perfect gift, as the prior couple of weeks were too hectic for me to even think about shopping for anything not remotely shaped like a grocery. In the end, I got Rob a CD stand that matches our desks and sits between them, to hold some of his reference booklets and extra games. It's also a handy repository for his sheep collection. :)

School seems to be in control in a vague, worrisome way. There are days when I am so sure I'm forgetting something, and other days when I'm not sure I can get it all done. I have an exam tomorrow night, the first of the quarter. Bleech. Today there's a meeting of the paralegal association but I'm going to skip it. The last meeting I went to was a bit too scattery to make me feel efficient. Perhaps by the next meeting they'll be more organized. I hate meetings where half the information isn't available and the person leading the meeting doesn't seem to know who got assigned what when.

Of course, that's how some of my little game meetings might seem. I dunno. Sometimes I feel like I'm too absorbed by the details. Other times, I'll reflect that Suz never spent as much time worrying about us as I do, but that's because I didn't have a me to do the worrying for me until lately.

After I got back from the memorial, I kept worrying: what if something happened to me, who'd take care of my game. It's not my game, of course, but having been there since before day one, it feels that way to me. And after pondering the idea that Suz had picked me for the game for her own devious reasons, I selected my most likely successor using my own devious reasons. She's smart, good with people and looooooves the game. At this point, it's an unofficial stance, but since we recently promoted her, I think I'll mention it to the rest of the staff sometime soon. With all the chaos of the past several months, I am not sure we'd be in the shape we are without her helping to ground me and encourage me. It's nice to have someone that you can depend upon who doesn't think your bonkers for some of your silly notions. :)

Yay for Beth of the soon-to-be six-pack abs! :)

As soon as I can think of various things to do around here in somewhat coherent detail, I'm gonna send it off to John for his listing. It's a neat idea! I thought of some things, but I'd like to make sure I have enough detail to make it a worthwhile contribution. And there's some stuff I've always wanted to do but never have yet, so perhaps this'll make it a nice project to plan things out for me and Sheepy.

Definitely Mondays through Wednesday are busy here. Tuesday is a bit of a breather as I have only one class on campus, but I've been spending time in the little game as often as I can, since now I won't be available most week nights till late. And this week, the Housing Justice Project asked me to come in to work as their usual Tuesday volunteer wasn't coming.

Tuesdays are busy at the HJP, and it was interesting. It's the first day I got to see our attorney actually take a case into the courtroom. The opposing counsel is the sort that gives rise to attorney jokes -- all blustery, waving his arms about, objecting to pretty much everything our counsel said. It was, well, interesting to observe. Our guy looked classy, professional, calm. And we did get a small victory out of the proceedings, so that was good.

School this quarter is going to be interesting, schedule-wise. The first part of the week is the hardest, with the volunteer work, the class schedule, etc. Thursdays and Fridays will be calmer as I won't have class those days, although I will have my work study job. Fortunately, I suppose, I'm only eligible to work 6 hours per week this quarter. That means less financial aid money coming in, but on the other hand gives me time to work on the little game and clean up around here.

It's depressing the amount of housekeeping this little condo needs.

I'm sorry I missed your birthday, Broos. :(

The little game seems to be running smoothly after all the big changes we made. The staff are incredible, their dedication and desire to make this succeed are heartwarming. We've had some turn over of late and are now interviewing again. Seems that whenever we're fully staffed we ride the rollercoaster down the other side and then need to ramp up again. Hopefully, we'll be able to get in the folks whose applications showed the skills we really need. We need more renaissance folks, who can both code and roleplay. My fingers are crossed that the ones with those qualifications are up to our challenge!

Exhausted right now, but still in the little game doing a post-mortem on the auction this weekend. Tomorrow will be so busy, volunteer all morning, class, job interview for a work study position, followed by my night class till 9:30PM. Yeesh.

I can't sleep, which is really unlike me.

Floating to the top of my mind is one of my staff, or former staff as of yesterday, who I thought I was being kind and generous to and turns out that I was facilitating something else entirely. At least so it seems to me. I hate when I believe in the goodness of people and it's not there, or it's buried or subverted or something. I hate second-guessing myself. Why didn't I see it, or listen to anyone else who saw something I didn't see? Why do I always have to feel that it's better to bend over backwards for others only to have it tossed back at me, casually, as though I haven't any feelings?

See, I knew I shouldn't have said anything about parking. After I wrote my post this morning I dashed over to school to try to get my teacher's signature for financial aid and there wasn't any parking at all on campus. Since he was only out of the office for one hour (and of course, I couldn't find parking before that one hour time frame), I ran some errands and then went back when he was going to be in his office. No parking. Tried all three lots on campus, finally ended up in the old drive in theater across the street, which is the college's overflow lot.

Got in to see Mr. Wheeler, who has a wicked, dry sense of humor. He asked me what other classes I'm taking this quarter, and I totally forgot. I said, "er, education something or other....with Mr. Hughes." Mr. Wheeler frowned, "education? Do you mean legal writing? legal research?" I strained my brain, "er, edu...hmm. It's the special topics thing. In education?" "Ohhh," Mr. Wheeler said, enlightened, "You mean employment law." I blushed, "Er, yeah. I knew it started with an 'e.'"

Naturally Mr. Hughes, who teaches that class snuck up from behind me then and said, "Should my feelings be hurt that you forgot what class I'm teaching?" Mr. Wheeler said, "At least she knew it started with an 'E.'"

After he signed my form and we chatted about internship possibilities for me next quarter, Mr. Wheeler turned to Mr. Hughes (they share a tiny little office) and said, "So she's taking 'E' from you. (at which I naturally started babbling and got flustered) She's a very good student. Very good." That made me babble even more especially when Mr. Hughes replied, "Yes, I've already noticed that." Well! I gibbered and thankfully didn't upset my cup of coffee as I continued to babble and genuflect, backing slowly out of the room, completely flustered and agitated.

That'll teach me to never go to see my instructors while drinking a double shot mocha. :)

Huzzah for the feds, approving an extenstion of unemployment benefits! That removes some of the anxiety I've been feeling lately. Without their extension, my benefits would have run out in March.

Yesterday was a surprisingly good day. Everywhere I went, I had enough time to do the things I needed to do. Parking was always available. Kind of scary! Mondays and Wednesdays are my volunteer days, so I start off at the Regional Justice Center from 8:30 - 11:30, then I head to school for my employment law class, which lasts till 2PM. Since I needed to pick up a financial aid form, Allison let me leave 15 minutes early from the HJP. I got my form and since I was about 1/2 hour early for class, I went to the student work study area and located a job posting on campus. Then I managed to get an interview for the same day right after class. So, 2:15, class is over I ran to the library to print out my transcripts and class schedule for the interviewer, then dashed over to the interview site.

If I get this particular position, it'll be real nice as they want someone to work for all the rest of their college quarters, which means I wouldn't have to look for another work study job. We'll see what happens.

First volunteer day today. This is my community service project for my ethics class. I volunteer at the Housing Justice Project, which assists low income people who have landlord/tennant issues and the like.

It is a depressing field of work. I don't think I shall stick with it after this quarter. Even the attorney supervising me said she sometimes felt discouraged by what happens in that office because there are too many cases where there is nothing we can do but tell the client they'd best have some moving boxes and some friends to help them move out.

In today's episode, I sat in the courtroom for the morning session as I'd never seen eviction proceedings and the attorney thought it would be good for me to view them. In one case, the court clerk told the gentleman at the counter that he might want to consult with the HJP (that's us!) so I followed him out of court and found him lost in the hallway, so I took him to the office. Turns out he had been served at the beginning of December and an attorney friend told him he'd help him out after the holidays. In Washington, you get 20 days to respond. The twenty days ended 12/26, and his friend wasn't back from holiday yet. Looks like this poor man and his family will be evicted tonight.

After he left, Allison (the attorney at HJP) said that this illustrated one of the frustrating things about the job: if he had come in sooner, we could have helped him. Because he waited until the last day of the eviction notice, there's nothing we can do and it's all according to the rules so there's not much he can do either. I don't know if I'd want a full-time job where there are so many instances that you cannot help the client. Allison said that almost every single case goes against the tennant; a depressing thought.

John Ratcliff's discussion of memory is absolutely fascinating. I love the photos that illustrate it as well.

Sometimes I think that taking photos is a waste of time; you've been there so you'll have the memories. Yet, like John, I've occasionally found myself staring at old photos and I have no idea who some of the participants are. It's so cool that he's been able to reach out and connect with his old friend Donna as well! And that she was able to give him the jumpstart on memories he has hidden deep inside.

Several years ago, I was putting photos from a box into an album and came across my old rifle drill team photos -- I had completely forgotten how much that team meant to me and that I'd been involved in it. I lived, slept, and dreamt about that team in high school for all four years and ten years later or so, I'd forgotten completely the joy that it brought me. That really shocked me when the memories returned because it had been such an important part of my life, I could never have imagined forgetting it. Yet, without the photos I had closed off those memories because I never used them any more. Kind of like the old prom dresses hanging in my closet; I've carted them around for over 20 years and it's not like I'm going to a prom again anytime soon -- but they're there if I need them.

My memory though is pretty poor. As Rob will tell you, I can't even quote him when I want to argue a point with him :) For me I think it's the passion that overlays everything, so that the memory is not exact but the emotions remain. Not a good technique for debate. :)

School starts on Monday. I'm taking 3 classes plus a Saturday seminar this quarter. Additionally, I'll be volunteering at the court house for the Housing Justice Project. Volunteer work is required in the paralegal program and one of the advantages of the HJP is that it's relatively nearby, in Kent. That'll save an hour commute to and from Seattle to volunteer at other places.

Of course, poor Rob will be tossing his hands into the air at that remark. He hates the commute, which makes sense. It can be pretty distressing even when you're used to being stuck on I-5 for an hour. His former commute was about 10 minutes, if that. He feels discouraged by living so far from where he works. If I get another job in the city, we may sell my condo and move further north. Still, this place has plenty of room and a garage and unless we buy a house, we won't find something as large in a condo in Seattle.

Glad to see Broos is back from holiday. ::hug:: Steph was on the coast for her holidays; I'm sure she's the one who was agitating the local wildlife to go visit him. :)

Two Towers, a condensed version in the vein of Very Secret Diaries. Cute stuff including:

ROHIRRIM GUARD: Oh! Elves! Wow, I didn't expect that.

PEOPLE WHO READ THE BOOK: Neither did I...

New Photos!

That's new, not nude.

The colossus stand is under Friends and Family. :) Seemed like a good place for it.

Happy new year!