Not much to report yet – still waiting on the first call from his doctors with an evaluation. Mom was told today he’d be in there at least 5-7 days, though, which means….

Christmas with the Crazies!*

Yes, we will most likely be celebrating Christmas in the psych ward. I actually feel like this suits the Clower family rather well, and am sort of looking forward to it. I hope to be allowed to take pictures.

The down side is that there are very few visiting hours during the day (a total of 3, I believe, non-contiguous). I’ve decided to extend my visit through Friday the 29th to maximize my Daddy-time. Thanks to our new Caltech president, who’s French and appreciates vacation time, we now have that entire week off, so it was a pretty easy decision.

*Not in any way meant to be derogatory. After all, almost everyone in our family can be labeled a Crazy in one way or another (or several ways).

I’m pretty sure the whole family has gotten word of this already, via phone calls or email, so I think it’s safe to go ahead and post.  This morning my dad had to be checked into the psych ward at the local hospital (he agreed to go, though not at first).  He’s been having some serious mania for the last few weeks; sort of a repeat of something he went through this summer, but much worse this time.  Today it reached the point where Mom (and a friend of hers) needed to take him in for evaluation, and the doctors’ recommendation was that he be admitted immediately.

Hopefully they’ll get him on the right drugs in a day or two and his brain will return to normal (or, as normal as it ever was).  We’re flying out this weekend for Christmas, by which time I hope he’s back at home.

I’ll post news when I get it, unless I’m asked not to (this blog isn’t widely-read, but if it bothers anyone that I’m discussing family health issues on-line I will, of course, desist).

Bleah.

I have gone over.

Carol suggested them for dive boats, as something I could easily slide on and off over bare feet or wool socks. I bought them for the 3-day trip on the Conception, and they were wonderful. But I promised myself I’d never wear them anyplace but boats – I mean, they’re just too ugly.

Then I discovered they make great shoes for when I spent hours in a row standing in the kitchen, baking. Much more comfy than bare feet, it turns out.

Next, it was a trip to the corner market. But it was dark. I doubt anyone noticed.

But alas – yesterday I wore them to a well-lit supermarket.

It’s only a matter of time before I start turning up to work in these things.

For the last 3 years, we’ve gone out on a 3-day trip with Truth Aquatics, and had fantastic conditions every time, with at least 2 whole days spent at San Miguel.

This was not one of those years.

The lovely swell rolling in from the northwest meant we had a hard time finding dive sites. I have to give major kudos to the captain and crew for effort, but sadly we spent a lot of time cruising around looking for spots with diveable current/surge, so didn’t get in as many dives as in previous years.

We did make it to San Miguel on Friday, which I didn’t expect after seeing those swell models. I was happy to get to spend a day with all the sea lions out there. I love pulling up to the first dive site at San Miguel, and seeing all the sea lions leaping out of the water and racing towards the boat. We dived Cooke Point, Tyler Bight and Wycoff Ledge, and had no shortage of pinnipeds.

Play with me!!

We also had no shortage of surge. The swell on the surface didn’t seem all that bad except for the occasional big roller coming through. But the long wavelength meant those big rollers were REALLY INTERESTING underwater! The first one that hit us took me completely by surprise. We were in about 50 feet of water, in fairly thick kelp and nice vis. All of a sudden I saw the kelp in front of me start whipping around like it was in a washing machine, and then BLAMMO! I went flying backwards in the turbulence; it felt quite a lot like getting caught in a breaking wave on a beach dive! I quickly learned how to hang onto a stalk of bull kelp and “tarzan” my way along to avoid getting slammed into rocks and urchins. One time I had a good hold, but Jeff went flying, and wound up a good 40 feet away. Forty foot surge. That was a unique experience.

That was the worst surge we had all weekend, but the occasional 10’+ surge wasn’t unusual at all the rest of our dive sites!

A rare non-surgy moment:

Still, I had fun. We were on a limited load trip with a bunch of photographers, so there was plenty of room for everyone’s enormous camera rigs. I think I even got some fun footage of the effects of the surge – though it may make me seasick to watch it!

Critter highlights of the trip: a school of what I think were kelp pipefish, high density of rainbow surfperch at Coches Priestos, a cormorant underwater, several super-juvenile sheephead that weren’t too camera-shy, nudis by the dozen, courting snubnose sculpins, enormous abalone, and lots of chestnut cowries.

Juvie sheephead, feeling safe in his gorgonian:

My favorite dive site was actually the last one: 9 o’clock reef, off the east end of Santa Cruz. It’s not always diveable due to current, but when we anchored there it was pretty mild. We dropped down into 50′ vis and an absolutely BEAUTIFUL kelp forest: equal parts bull and giant kelp, with each enormous, healthy plant spaced about a foot away from the next. Absolutely gorgeous. However, the vis started to deteriorate and the surge picked up, which made the beautiful kelp forest a beautiful entanglement hazard – I’ve never had to untangle myself so many times on one dive! Then we couldn’t find the anchor line to go back up (turns out the wind changed and the boat pendulumed away), and surfaced to some serious wind chop and a long swim against-current to the boat. Well, it STARTED as my favorite dive!

The ride back was… bumpy. But again, not as bad as I’d feared from those swell models last week.

The rest of Jeff’s pics are here:

3 Days on the Conception

If any of my surge footage is watchable, I’ll try to put together a few clips for your enjoyment.

We survived the trip, and even got a few dives in.

I did, however, manage to contract one raging ear infection that is currently trying to burrow through my brain. At least, that’s what it feels like.

When the pain stops long enough for me to think straight, I will post a trip report. With pictures! I promise!

In the meantime, go see Jeff’s pick of gallery-worthy photos from the weekend here:

http://gallery.thelaitys.com/v/underwater/uw-20061208_conception

Well, fuck.

This weekend (Fri-Sun) we’re supposed to be on a boat to San Miguel with a bunch of California photography nerds.

But look:

In other news, I’ve been noticing a disturbing pattern on the roads the last few days. On my way to work Friday, I wound up behind someone who was noticeably weaving on the freeway, and also appeared quite confused about the use of his/her blinkers. There were several near misses as people hurried to pass and get out of his way. Today on my way in, I was behind ANOTHER weaver on the freeway. Then on surface streets, someone ran a red light right in front of me (luckily I was going slow enough to avoid a head-on collision). Leaning on my horn didn’t even get the driver to glance my way.

I wonder what traffic nightmares await me tomorrow? It’s like the Twelve Days of Evil Christmas.

Today I was sent a link to pictures from the ten-year high school reunion that I missed. Although the pictures mostly made me glad I missed it, I couldn’t resist digging out the senior yearbook when I got back.

And so I bring you… snippets from the notes written in my senior yearbook:

First, the nail-on-the-head crowd:

• “No one can talk about tampons and brest [sic] like we can”
• “Make it so”
• “I will miss you, your incredibly DIFFERENT (with all respect) ways…”

I sense a theme here:

• “I owe you my life, because without your help, I surely would have failed Latin, and my parents would have killed me!”
• “Thanks for all the help you gave me in our years of Latin! You are the Latin Queen!”
• “Thanks so much for helping me study for the AP Latin Exam. I think you saved my butt!”

Worship me:

• “What do you write to the smartest girl you know?”
• “You’re a lovely intelligent young lady.”
• “I look at you and I see beauty that is unfathomable. I’ve always imagined you as the queen fairy sitting inside of a huge rose.” [ed: that’s one huge rose, all right]

A little alarming:

• “Before you know it, we’ll be walking down the aisle together!”
• “I’ll fondly keep our wonderful memories together in the back of my mind: making up cheerleading dances to Paula Abdul, making earring [sic] out of noodles, traveling to a New Kids concert, and many more.
• “Thanks for being my ‘instruction manual'”
• “This year was really fun. Especially the puppy noises.”

And a little lukewarm:

• “I suppose you will do well in college.”
• “Best of luck at Pomona. You SHOULD be at the Fermi lab, but you’re such a great student I’m sure you’ll do well wherever.”

Tell me if you do this: Google people from your past, secretly hoping that you’ll discover they’ve driven over a cliff or self-destructed in some spectacular fashion.

Do you kind of want to blame Google when it turns out they’re alive and well, and pursuing careers that seem to be more than slightly at odds with their moral fibre (or lack thereof)?

This morning, as per usual, I had a hard time getting out of bed.

I slipped in and out of consciousness, vaguely aware of Jeff eventually getting out of bed, hopping in the shower, and getting dressed. He poked fun at my laziness (again, as per usual), and I dozed off again when he left the room. The next thing I was aware of was the sound of the front door slamming closed as he left for the day, usually my signal to wake the hell up already.

Then I felt something move by my foot.

I poked at it, sure I’d just imagined it, or the blankets were shifting or something.

It moved again, clearly on its own this time. I LEAPED out of bed (naked) with a yelp, wondering if Jeff had gone too far down the hallway to hear me or if I was going to have to run (naked) after him to get help removing this rat or whatever from our bed.

Then I heard the alarm going off. “What?” Jeff asked sleepily from his side of the bed, where I’d just poked his foot and then jumped up screaming.

Damn. Usually when I dream about getting up and leaving for work, I dream about ME getting up and leaving, not Jeff…

My career as a shell-collector may be short-lived.

I picked up my first cowrie shell at Old Marineland a few weeks ago. It had no visible inhabitant, and when I picked it up a ton of sand came pouring out – so I assumed it was empty.

It was left to bake in the front seat of my car while I went to an afternoon lecture, and when I returned, I noticed a dried-up something sort of sticking out of one end. Definitely not a snail, it mostly resembled a piece of plant. But with tiny legs and a stringy tail-like end. Ew. I was able to pull the thing out and discard it, and the cowrie went into a bleach/water solution to get rid of any, er, remnants. After I described the critter to another shell collector, they pointed out it was most likely a hermit crab. The part of them you don’t normally get to see is kind of like a tail.

Last weekend, I picked up my second cowrie shell – also appearing empty, and dumping out sand. This one didn’t get the benefit of a sun-baking, however; it went straight into the bleach solution for a day. Then I left it on a paper towel to dry.

The next morning, it stank like dead fish. Not good.

I popped it back in the bleach, figuring I could always resort to digging around there with a paper clip or a needle to pull out whatever was inside.

After work today, I took the shell out of its bleach solution – and saw a tiny little claw hanging out. Attached to a tiny little hermit crab.

Largely deteriorated by two days of soaking in bleach.

YUCK.

A small wooden skewer came in handy for prying the little critter out, and the shell went back into the bleach for what is hopefully the last time.

But I don’t think I can stand to kill any more hermit crabs. It’s not so much the actual killing of them, as the having to look at (and touch!) their slimy little dead bodies. Bleah.