I'm going home.

In 7 hours my flight leaves San Francisco Airport for Raleigh, NC.

It's been over a year since I have seen my family. In the last year there have been two major reunion things that I have missed. My father's house has been broken into, his pipes have broken, my mother has been volunteering with upteen-million things, my nephew has been in and out of trouble and finally sent to an outdoor education program to help him focus and socialize better. My brother stopped talking to me, my nephew stopped talking to me. My brother started talking to me. My sister started talking to me. Mami got recommendations for more specialists and is juggling costs with "need" to go to so many doctors.

I miss my parents. I felt it very much during the Christmas holidays.

Hmm.

It's almost 2 am and I am going to nap for 2 hours before packing and leaving for the bus to catch the BART to get to the airport.

In the last 48 hours I have mistakenly arrived at Enola Maxwell Middle School in Portero Hill of San Francisco to volunteer with Streetside Stories. I stayed for the hour session where they were working on stories and specifically setting elements. What I have loved about working with Streetside Stories in the last year has been the curriculum that they use to engage the students to write. Accidentally I walked into a classroom where the students were writing their biographies. And I stayed because I didn't know where I was supposed to be volunteering and I got to experience another program. It ended up being fine.

I began reorganizing the files for GirlHealth by downloading ALL of the files and placing them in their respective categories. It's a lot of work and slow-going on the poor Emac. This semester will be an excellent semester to organize and document. I'm excited about that.

This morning I got into the car and looked for carpoolers in the rain...I must've just missed a bus, because there were no San Francisco bound commuters to be found, so at 7:30 I headed into the tunnel and checked the traffic conditions on 511.org.
There were "4 incidents". I allow 30 minutes for each incident. My 14 mile drive took me almost 2 hours and 15 minutes to complete. I arrived at Burbank Middle School off MacClaren Park in San Francisco at 9:40 am. I couldn't believe it. I did, however, find the classroom, helped jumpstart some students with some ideas and remet my colleagues. Yay, right place. Right time. Next week I'll have it down pat.

Meanwhile, I twisted another 1/3 of my scalp between the Broadway exit where I entered I-80 and the toll plaza before crossing the Bay Bridge. I also listened to a health show en espanol on the am station and am proud to say I understood most of el show de Dr. Lisa...

Today was administrative stuff, reviewing our candidates stuff, (oh crap, I need to finish Kim's letter of recommendation), more GirlHealth stuff, and I spent some time in Rainbow Grocery researching skin stuff to get rid of the rash from my face. (It's not itchy, so I think that I am allergic to something...and I think that may be something the dogs brought in since they are spending more time in the house.) Man! I am becoming rather sensitive!

The rain stopped by early afternoon, the sun peeked through the clouds, and I have to say that the sunset was pretty darn spectacular. Out of the western window of our office, overlooking San Francisco's twin peaks, I noticed from the corner of my eye spectacular purples and peaches. I called to my coworkers to bring them in and we were treated to rippled cloud formations that resembled a phoenix flying westward and the fading sunset was it's brilliant tail. It was stunning and absolutely beautiful.

I left the office at 8 pm and drove to Houman's for sleepover. We had a psychic orange memo! Both Michelle and I wore orange pants and Houman wore an orange shirt! For appetizers? Assorted cheese, olives, bread, hummous, pomelo/apple/avacado salad, persian nut snacks. For dinner: bachelor chicken with an onion rue and sauteed spinach with garlic. Nummy nums, to be sure.

Then Napoleon Dynamite, since Michelle hadn't seen and I hadn't seen it in a bit. What a brilliant piece of cinema. Brilliant.
And I've decided to have a troupe from the crew recreate the dance at my wedding...so Austin Powers, 40 Year Old Virgin, and Napoleon Dynamite will be well represented on such occasion. Tee-Hee.

Colbert Report followed with much "truthiness" and then we were sucked into South Park, even though we were tired. Michelle made Godiva Chai, which has a nice, rich flavour to it. South Park featured the desire to lose in little league tournaments because the kids found it boring and the parents took it too seriously. Pretty damn funny, actually.

Sleepover began a few years back during the beginning of the second Gulf War or during one of the horrific elections. I don't remember. Michelle, Houman, and I get together to watch movies, talk, cook, laugh, and just be ourselves. It's awesome.
When adults can just allow themselves to exist, it's beyond a good thing. We've done sleepover despite relationship status. It's our tradition, our bonding time. Occasionally we have invited guests to come and share, but it's a lovely trio. It's something I cherish very much as a subset of my Bay Area family.

I'm going to land tomorrow night in my parent's company. On Friday I will scope out Chapel Hill and Duke University regarding their public policy programs and see if they are viable options for me. We'll see. Part of me feels I need to be open to relocation.

In the meantime I created a semester schedule inspired by a coworker's printing out her schedule and really started thinking about how I spend my time. I included an hour of blogging 4 days a week, because I find that accurate. It's a way to reflect and I hope to create a tool to slay each demon one-by-one. Or, less violently, invite the demons to coexist in harmony with me, instead of squelching them only to have them explode in my face (sometimes literally.)

Last blog for 5 days, unless I stop by a libary, but I figure I'll have tons of stuff to do, and my family love to absorb and to offer...a year of catchup time is a lot. Vamos a ver! A mis padres, senor!