downtown down time

Today I woke up feeling like shit. So I stayed home and slept. A lot. and read and did nerdy things like listen to Air America talk radio and sign petitions. They've been talking a lot about the whole mess of a situation surrounding what Ann Coulter said about John Edwards the other day. I'm convinced this woman is certifiably insane. She's very in favor of killing millions of civilians in the countries we're "at war" with, has said she wished democratic politicians in this country were killed by terrorist attacks, and still sees her book sales freaking soar. google or youtube the videos if you want to see some serious hate speach that passes for political talk.
Poe has gotten into this really weird habit of dropping his favorite toy in his water dish and letting it sit there and soak up water. I asked the behaviorist at work why in the world he would do that and the only thing she could think of was that he'd figured out it could be like his own little portable water source. He drags that thing around the whole house..


Barrett had a major jonesin for sushi the other day so we decided to walk down to Chocolate Sushi, this really rad restaurant we'd seen thats near our house. On the way, this caught my eye...left right in the middle of a parking lot..

The restaurant was really nice and there was almost nobody there. The entire cocktail menu was custom drinks that were named after Kill Bill characters. There were a bunch of vegan friendly choices, including this really good roll that had 5 different kinds of vegetables, peanut butter and a miso vinaigrette. Sounds weird, but it was sooo good.


Barrett made an almost-paste of wasabi and soy...perhaps too much?

I was sooo freaking full after leaving that place. We promised the server we'd be back!
Later we went downtown to see the Camille Rose Garcia art installation. I tried to sneak some pictures but was quickly hushed and informed I was not allowed to do that! Bummer...her stuff was amazing.

Empire of Oil: The Hidden History of 9/11

deconstructing biases

The past few days have been interesting...while being equally infuriating. I had to attend a mandatory meeting at my place of work on my day off. Fine. I got paid for four hours of straight overtime. The problem is what new shelter-wide legislation was handed down to us at the meeting. First, my dept. is being split in two and merged with Adoptions. Behavior will be its own dept. and receiving and adoptions will now be one big ball of Customer Care. Fine. I'm losing all the awesome behavior experience I would have gotten...but I am gaining the opportunity to directly place shelter pets in new homes.
Then the big ball dropped: a new dress code addendum. No hollow ear jewelry in guaged lobes, no unnaturally colored hair, no more than two earrings per ear, no visible tattoos. I may as well be wearing a head to toe bodysuit. I'm not unfamiliar with strict dress codes, I've never had a job without one. My problem comes in the reasoning behind the change: to be a more professional organization. Because we all know tattoos and big earrings = unprofessionalism. Just like all pitbulls are vicious, right? We work so diligently to educate the public on common falsehoods propagated by the media and the ignorant about things like anti-breedism (thats a new word I just came up with as the animal world's equivalent to racism). Yet, its ok to look down on our own hard working staff members in the same way. Making a blanket assumption that every customer that walks in the door is going to assume we tattooed, purple haired, earring wearing young people could not possibly have an ounce in professionalism in us. Quite the contrary if you look back on who received the most over-the-counter donations and praise for our organization last month...thats right...us inked and dyed front deskers.
We are told the decision is not meant to take away our sense of individuality. We are told we can all be ourselves. We are told we're just following the norm.
To that we say...we won't let this stand, not in a high stress environment where everyday we're reminded to take care of ourselves and spoil ourselves to combat the effects of Compassion Stress and Fatigue.
Next step: present the incongruity of values in the company and how these policies will directly affect the most fragile staff members to the union.
to be continued...

Anyways...on a couple of lighter notes..
This is how he always sleeps..


they got that right...


my two men sharing some carpet time


and when all else fails, just hit this button.

Tuesdays in Big Sur

Two days ago Barrett, Peter (from Whole Foods) and I took a drive down to Big Sur to go for a little hike. No particular agenda to follow, we stopped in Scotts Valley at a truly american anti-vegan example of dining convenience..Scotts Valley Diner....basically our only choices were what shape we wanted out fried potatoes in. "Can I get a side of fruit?" and yes, a dip bowl with 6 bite sized pieces of watermelon. At least the coffee was bottomless!!!!
So, after a hearty bowl of home fries...the journey began. Down through the famous central coast ag area, passing field after field of green leafy babies being tended to by bent-over nursemaids. My back ached for them....my mouth watered for the fruits of their labor. Slowly the fields gave way to rocky coast, pelting winds, deeeep blue ocean and pounding waves. Again, following our timeless agenda, we pulled over at a random vista point and found a trail leading literally to a cliff. We explored more and I found some rickety old stairs leading down to an even more dangerously exposed rock shelf....perfect for exploring we thought.





Our ultimate destination was Pheiffer Falls...supposedly a 1.5 mile hike to a waterfall. In reality it was a ten minute walk to a jetty of water coming down a rock face into a peaceful little pool......still pretty good. We stopped every few feet to really take in everything that was around us...the hollow redwoods, the geometrically perfect spiderwebs, the fallen log natural bridges. Barrett and Peter acting like boyscouts..





Getting to the falls after scampering over numerous logs and nodding at plenty of fellow touristas (including four 40-somethings who felt the need to inform us "There's no bar at the top!!" while steadying themselves on anything within reach).





Since the orignal hike was pretty short...we decided to take a detour and head up to Vally View...quite a difference in steepness for these three smokers....but the view was worth it.


and one of a gnarled tree for kicks..

next one is a 64 mile round trip hike to a waterfall that falls straight to the beach....training is on!!

today is the day my friends

Its a lazy wednesday. Its supposed to be 90 degrees today and this pale kid can't handle that. This is the first little sum sum of this grand look into my day to day.
Here are some pigeons eating tofu rojo...enjoy.