Home again

It's good to be home.
I had an amazing experience - unforgettable moments - but it's still good to be back in my own four walls, my own HSP drama, my own Moore drama, and a cat who loves me.
HSP is business as usual, the building is still standing, I still have a job, and the basement only flooded once while I was gone. The good news about being gone for a month and having someone else look at the temperatures and humidities around the building is that some other people jump into action. There are now two de-humidifiers in two rooms which I've been sending emails out about for months. Cool. (ha-no pun intended!)
Moore - well, that's another story. I found out two hours before I was supposed to teach that there is a new online system. And I decided, I think wisely, instead of trying to figure out how to print out my class lists on my own, to call the IT guy and cry him a river. It worked, I got my courses "made available" and got the lists printed out. Only one person missed class - hope she dropped - because I don't want to have to do double duty next week and of course I had one walk in 1/2hour late with a bajillion excuses I wasn't interested in. I'm such a mean teacher!
And yes, Jacques still loves me. But not until after dinner with wet food and a new toy. I bought him a catnip toy with bright green feathers on it. This morning after my shower I found him and toy in the middle of my bed. He was sending me those looks that said he knew exactly that I was leaving him again and how could I do such a thing! - and look, he even brought the new toy to play with! Ugh - how do they know how to do that?
Now he's curled up on the couch and I'm sipping a lime and bitters (with a "cheers!" for Anne-Maree who introduced them to me), and I decided I should blog.
First, a last few glimpses of Australia:
This is the first view of the ocean on the tour of mysteries with Julie and Christine. Sorry for the very wonky image - I still can't get the hang of doing a complete 180° image. You'll have to use your imagination. Look at the color of the water!

And the last view of the Opera House and the Harbor Bridge.
Anne-Maree and family have plans to climb to the top of the bridge. If you double click on the image it blows up and you might see some of the people who did climb to the top of it this evening. It must be an incredible view.

It was sad to leave Australia - but I know this won't be my only trip. I already have an installation in mind that I want to do in Anne-Maree's lagoon, even though it may have to wait a few years. It involves the paper shells I made a few years ago, that have l-e-d lights in them - if I made them out of tyvek they would float . . . . for a while. . . stay tuned. . . .
Thank goodness I had an empty seat next to me again on the flight home. It was much harder flying into the day, than flying into the night. I arrived in LA at 6:30 in the morning, wired! I spent the day with my dad and Ann getting used to a very dry heat in Pasadena and trying not to breath in too much smoke. Ann and I did some very energetic shoe shopping to go with the fabulous dress for the wedding. We weren't successful until we decided to go to David's bridal and just get some and have them dyed the color I wanted. Guess which color? Green. :) Thanks to Ann for running all over the place with me while I tried on one pair of ridiculously high shoes after another.
My dad and I had some quality time together too - which was great. He has kept a trunk of all of his childhood treasures - things he had as a child. He'd found a boat that had beached itself that was full of cork. So he and a friend dragged a bunch of cork home and made some smaller boats. They are pretty cool - we should try them out sometime. The trunk was full of other great stuff too - drawings he'd done as a child, scrap books, model airplanes, airplane trading cards, an old milk bottle, and a box of junior high school pictures of his classmates:Also a sign he'd had up in his dorm room:
He said he and his friends thought it was pretty funny - and you know what? I think it's pretty funny too because I can just imagine a bunch of 20-year-old cross-country runners thinking this kind of thing is funny. Hee-hee Daddy - you're pretty funny!

Then it was up to San Francisco for Rachael and Ben's wedding. Sorry - I didn't take my camera. :( I know - bad me. It's too bad, because it was a beautiful wedding! Outdoors, in front of a small pond, with Willow trees all around. And so much laughter - good laughter, happiness everywhere. They look so good together, so right and so happy. It's great to be at a wedding where you know this one is for keeps. Congrats again Ben and Rachael - I hope you have many long years of joy together!
And yes, the date. Yes, for those of you who don't know - I asked Rachael if she had a nice single friend who would want to be my date for the wedding. She set me up with her friend Dan. Who is very tall (6'6"!) and really nice. I had a great time talking with him - too bad he lives in Las Vegas. (sigh)

When I got home I found a package from Judy, Marsha and Linda - the ladies who visited me last fall. It contained these:
Aren't they sweet? Thanks Linda, Marsha and Judy! I love them.