It’s been one of those lovely weeks where we’re booked solid every single night (and sandwiched between two fairly strenuous weekends, to boot).

On Monday night, I wandered over to Vroman’s Bookstore in Pasadena for an author event; Robert Jordan was there to do a Q&A and sign copies of the Wheel of Time series. It being Halloween, I was really hoping some hardcore geeks would show up in WoT costumes; alas, I was disappointed to see only a handful of vampire and Japanese schoolgirl outfits.

A lot of the excitement of the Q&A was gone because of the detailed reports everyone had posted on the internet since he started his tour a month ago – ten years ago, you could get away with giving the same spiel at every stop, but now we’re all spoiled in advance! Still, it was good to see one of my favorite authors still hale and hearty. He’s a little thinner than the last time I saw him, and a little grayer, and he wasn’t personalizing signatures – but he was posing for photos with the fans, which is new. He used to always wear a hat and dark glasses indoors, and seemed to dislike having his photo taken.

Getting my books signed by Robert Jordan:

He commented on my battered-up copy of The Fires of Heaven, which is dog-eared, fruit-punch stained, and a bit wobbly in the spine, saying he liked to see a well-read book. You’d think I’d take more care of first-edition hardcovers that I always make the effort to get signed, but you’d be wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong. Books are for reading, not re-selling; that’s why I’m bummed he doesn’t personalize anymore, though it makes them more Ebay-able.

***

Tuesday, I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the dive condition reports coming out of Laguna. Zero to one-foot surf, almost no surge, and 15-20 foot visibility. On a beach dive!! The reports had been steadily improving since Saturday, and I didn’t dare hope they’d last much longer. I jokingly sent Jeff an email asking him to ditch work with me Wednesday morning in favor of a dive – and we wound up heading down for a Tuesday night dive instead.

By the time we’d picked up tanks, packed up gear, and waded through rush-hour traffic on the southbound freeways, it was well past sunset. We pulled up in front of Shaw’s Cove at about 7:30 or 8pm, and I was delighted to see a few other groups of divers suiting up on the street.

It was dark down there. We’d timed our dive well to coincide with high tide, but it was also a new moon. Did I mention dark? The instant I hit the water, my octopus started free-flowing, and the bubbling/whooshing air was so distracting that I almost dropped a fin, which would not have been good in the dark. By the time I had my fins firmly attached and could pay attention to the octopus (one good whack set it to rights), it had blow through about 500psi of air; we still had plenty left for a long shallow dive, though, so we headed down to the reef.

All in all, it was only a so-so dive. We saw a little octopus, some skittish stingrays, and one little bat ray that floated slowly over our heads and then zipped away at an amazing speed – but that was really it, other than what turned out to be a whole lot of other divers bumping into each other and the sand. A class or two had apparently decided to take advantage of the nice conditions! Jeff also discovered that the macro lens’ autofocus really is not sufficient for night dives, even with a focus light, so he didn’t come away with any pictures. (On the up side, this means he won’t waste any of our night dives off the Vision later this month with the macro lens!)

It was midnight by the time we’d driven home, rinsed our gear and tidied up, and probably not really worth all the effort; I don’t think we’d do it again. But it’s cool to be the kind of people who just up and go diving mid-week.

***

Wednesday, Jeff and I split up again – he went to some sort of alumni/student networking event at USC, and I went drinking. Well, I went to a movie with some girlfriends, and we just happened to hit a local pub in time for happy hour in advance, and walking distance from the theater. Several cocktails in the space of an hour turned us into three very loud women (okay, not that different from usual), having intensely personal conversations in the middle of a crowded bar. I think a few barflies got an earful; every now and then we’d see a guy sort of twitch in our direction like he wasn’t sure if he’d heard correctly.

***

Thursday we finally had a “boring” day – we stayed home and did laundry. And watched Nikki’s video from diving in Borneo, 2004 – we’re scoping out the South Pacific for our big 2006 trip, and so far Tahiti is losing its lead (despite the 6 night stay Jeff won at the Kona Classic – the darned place STILL winds up more expensive than anywhere else!).

***

And now, Friday November 4, we’re celebrating two holidays in one: Jeff’s 35th birthday next Tuesday, which he’ll actually spend on a plane, and our 5-year “smoochiversary.” We’ve got a fancy dinner planned, and then it’s off to bed as early as possible (which won’t be very early, since we have 8:30 reservations) – tomorrow we’re doing our drysuit checkout dives at Catalina.

Jen blogged earlier this week about celebrating her “real” anniversary; the anniversary of the day she and Jeremy decided “they liked each other well enough,” as opposed to their wedding day. I feel sort of the same way; the day that Jeff finally decided to make a move in response to my endless flirting was hands-down the best day of my life. So I was pretty happy with the idea of celebrating tonight, even though it’s not his real birthday yet.