Do you ever have dreams where the people and places from your life are a bit mixed up? Like, you’re at your old high school with your college friends; or you’re in high school again and they won’t let you graduate, but for some reason you’re still working your current job?

(Is it just me?)

That’s what the Pomona College 5-year reunion felt like to me: a surreal experience, surrounded by people who I was not supposed to be surrounded by anymore. On the other hand, since it took place on campus, it also had the disconcerting effect of being as if I’d never left, and my life now is some sort of dream.

In a word: weird.

It’s not that I didn’t enjoy the chance to catch up with people. It’s just that I’m already “caught up” with most of the people I was really close to, anyway. I know what’s going on in the lives of Sarah and Mir, and I get occasional Amit updates. Nicki and Justin still live here in LA, and I run into some of my physics profs at Caltech from time to time. Jenica emails regularly, and I see Sabrina whenever she’s in LA.

There were dozens of people from my class at alumni weekend, and I recognized all of them – but none of them were long-term friends. Lots of close-while-we-were-in-Calculus-togehter friends, or always-ate-lunch-together-as-freshman friends, people who I’d always say hello to or feel free to sit with in the dining halls. But seeing these people 5 years later turned out to be less meaningful than I’d expected.

Maybe it’s just that a 5-year reunion is sort of a silly concept. No one’s changed enough to be interesting, but everyone’s just different enough to be slightly hard to recognize. There were two girls that I lived with freshman year (we were in the same Sponsor Group, for those of you familiar with Pomona terminology), and I would have called them fairly good friends of mine for those first few months of school. They were both at the reunion, and at first I couldn’t tell which was which! They’d switched hair styles (curly was now straight, and vice versa), and both had a super-high-energy sort of “Oh my gosh, how are you I haven’t seen you in so long” attitude. The one I remembered having freckles didn’t anymore, and vice versa. It actually took some help from Sarah and Mir (who did not actually LIVE with these people) to set me straight. It also didn’t help that the nametags (wood with stickers on it to make it look sort of like burned-in lettering) kept flipping around backwards. They actually looked disconcertingly like little gravestones.

See? Gravestones:

Two other people from my sponsor group are now married (to each other, I mean – they started dating the second week of freshman year). They are EXACTLY the same as they were as freshman. They look the same, they talk the same, they have NOT CHANGED.

Several of the, how shall I say this, more weird and annoying people in my class had also NOT CHANGED. One of these people always seems drunk, despite the fact he’s completely sober. After our first encounter with him over the weekend, I seem to recall Kris mentioning to Sarah that he seemed drunk. Indeed.

Another was one of those tragically unhappy people, who always needs a friend. Like, neeeeds a friend. She used to wander up to my dorm room, because no one on her hall was friendly. (This should have been my first clue she was needier than normal, because out of 20+ people she couldn’t find a single decent human being.) For a while, I tried to be her friend. But you know what? There are some people who are not worth the energy. I thank her for teaching me this. (I successfully avoided her at the reunion, and did not feel guilty at all.)

About two hours into the reunion, I realized I was already forgetting what everybody was up to. You can only ask so many people where they’re living / what they’re doing / if they’re married before you start to confuse the answers. However, it helped quite a lot that pretty much everyone:

• Lives in Colorado or in Northern California
• Is almost done with a PhD, OR just out of law school, OR just quitting a job to go to law school

We also noticed that lots of people brought boyfriends, but there were no husbands present. Mine certainly wasn’t; he’s way past the proving-my-love-for-you stage and was completely unwilling to suffer through such an experience. Too bad for Kris, who probably could have used the company.

The highlight of the day for me was the Glee Club concert – especially the part where we all got to go up on stage and join in with the college songs. This is especially funny, because as students, the Glee Club mostly hated the college songs. (Ok, not all of them – most of us at least liked “Over the Years.”) The only reason the Glee Club sings the dorky college songs is to make the alums happy. And sure enough – it made me extremely happy to run up there and spot all my old glee club friends, not just from my year but from the years bracketing me (those who still live in CA, anyway). Jason Hewitt, who was one of the biggest “I’m not singing these stupid college songs” grumblers while actually in the Glee Club, was one of the most enthusiastic alumni voices there.

Glee Club + Over-enthusiastic Alums:

Highlight #2 would have to be our tour of Mudd-Blaisdell, where Sarah, Mir, Amit and I all lived our Junior and Senior years. Ah, what a dorm! The lack of air conditioning, the ugly pinkish-with-a-grid-pattern carpets, the slightly-different-pink walls and trim. Alas, dear old MB has had some serious renovations. All the pink is now gray and blue, and the lucky kids who live there now have CENTRAL AIR CONDITIONING. In a dorm. And wireless internet. We thought it was funny that Pomona spent years and lots of $$ rewiring all the dorms to have ethernet – and after another couple of years, it was all made obsolete thanks to wireless.

Mudd-Blaisdell Reunion:

“The Tower” (where I lived with Sarah and Mir our last year) is currently inhabited by some sophomore guys, one of whom we startled in his underwear, and they were quite willing to chat with us about Pomona, the dorm, future career plans, etc. One of them mentioned how great it was that the Tower had two showers in the bathroom. “Two whats???” We had to see for ourselves. This is a floor with only three rooms, mind you, and their own bathroom – with two showers! What decadence! We thought we were pretty lucky to have the one!

I have to say, I came out of the whole experience feeling somewhat ahead of the curve. Ok, so I don’t have a PhD, MBA, or law degree – I can live with that. I’ve already got a job I like; there’s no more school in my future, and I’m not career-hopping. I live in a city I love (despite the CRAPPY ASS real estate market), so no more where-to-live angst. Most of all, it was great to head home and get back to Jeff, who I sorely missed during the day. Surrounded by all those college people and college things, I mostly realized that I do not miss it – not ANY of it – anymore. I loved it while I was there, but four years was plenty; I’m liking the rest of life a lot better.

(Actually, I take that last bit back – I do miss the mint-chip and coffee ice cream shakes that the Coop is willing to make. Yum.)

The Suities – we haven’t really changed:

Jeff has a co-worker named Dave who will be in Hawaii at the same time we are, for the same reason – the Kona Classic, an underwater video/photo seminar/competition. Dave’s gone for the last several years, and was probably instrumental in talking Jeff into signing us up for it this year.

I own a Sony miniDV camcorder that I’ve occasionally thought of buying an underwater enclosure for. Going to Hawaii seemed like the perfect opportunity to find out whether I liked (and was any good at) shooting video: clear water, long dives, professional supervision. But I didn’t particularly want to sink tons of money into something that I wasn’t sure I’d even like.

Dave to the rescue! When Jeff mentioned to him that we were looking around for cheap, used housings, he mentioned he has an old Top Dawg housing “at his Kona house” that we’re welcome to borrow. These housings were designed to fit just about any Sony digicam, although not all perfectly. For instance, my model of camera won’t line up quite right with the viewfinder, which is small to begin with. No problem, though – Dave also has the monitor back for the Top Dawg, so I’ll have a nice big screen to look at underwater instead of a little viewfinder. On top of that, he’s willing to loan me lights for the night dives, and a filter and wide-angle lens for the day dives!

I think I love Dave. :)

Now let’s just hope I don’t suck at underwater video.

Finally, we got in a nice day of diving with decent visibility and warm water (relatively speaking, that is). Jeff and I boarded the Great Escape last Saturday night for a Sunday trip to Catalina. First we dived Eagle Reef, a big pile of boulders offshore that is CRAWLING with lobsters. This year there were more juvenile sheephead than I remember seeing last year, and we also spotted a new nudibranch that we later identified as Flabellina Trilineata:

This was our second time diving Eagle Reef, and I think it’s one of my favorite spots at Catalina. We didn’t see anything too spectacular this time, but it’s got an interesting topography, with lots of crevices to poke around in. There are also two distinct “sides” to the main reef, as well as many little outlier reefs, so it’s easy to stay away from other divers (and especially students, who are still learning how to not bump into things and kick up sand).

The crew decided it was getting a little “snotty” in the water (visibility-wise) out there, and moved us into Isthmus Reef (by Two Harbors) for our next two dives. I’m not sure what they were thinking, since Isthmus was much snottier than Eagle; we saw 30 and then 20 feet of vis, as opposed to Eagle’s 50. But it’s still a fun dive site, with a good wall where you can pretty much pick your depth. Here we saw many, many, MANY gobies. Behold:

Black-eyed Goby:

Blue-banded Goby:

The little blue-banded guys tend to show up unexpectedly in pictures of other subjects. In fact, if you look above the head of the blue-banded goby in the picture above, you’ll see another, blurry blue-banded goby in the background! They are everywhere at Catalina right now.

Isthmus Reef was also covered with abandoned bits of fishing line, so we had to be careful not to get snagged. I’ve never seen so much line at Catalina – there were quite a few lures as well, which could be a bit startling.

All in all, it was a good day of diving. The weather stayed sunny despite a forecast for clouds, the ocean was flat enough that my tummy didn’t rebel, and the camera and housing completely behaved. That’s right: not a single problem with the zoom ring, auto-shutoff, or strobe. It’s a miracle.

More pics here: Catalina, April 24 ’05

• Tar. On my shoes. And dive booties. And FEET. From the streets of Laguna. After about an hour plying them (well, not my feet) with toothpicks and Goo-Gone, I think I’m ready to buy new sneakers. The dive bootie may survive, but if it still smells in two days I’m buying new ones.
• Blockbuster’s new no-late-fees gimmick. The downside of this is NO DVDs LEFT IN THE STORE!
• Birds that fly into your office window while you’re typing on the computer and SCARE YOU HALF TO DEATH. I choose to believe it was a bird, because otherwise I’d have to worry it was someone trying to break in. (Since this happened before it was dark, that seems unlikely, right?)
• The smell of tar and Goo-Gone combining in your apartment (and on your hands) to make you dizzy

I left Jeff to sleep in this morning, while I met up with Kaz and Lars for a beach dive with the Sole Searchers dive club. Lars drove us all, as well as his 7-months-pregnant wife Ceci, who I was glad to see even though she couldn’t dive with us. The drive down to Laguna was fun in itself, thanks to the good company.

We parked by our intended dive site, Shaw’s Cove, and met up with 2 other dive club members, Tom and Mark. Mark had a newly-created map to Deadman’s Reef that he wanted to try out; this site is a loooong surface swim from Crescent Cove (next to Shaw’s), and can be hard to find. Lars and Tom were eager to check it out as well, since early reports of conditions seemed good, but Kaz and I decided to stick with the less-athletic Shaw’s Cove.

Gearing up was made a little bit interesting thanks to the angle at which we’d parked; we were on an extremely steep hill, and had to really watch how we laid bits of gear down on the sidewalk! Finally we were all neoprened-up and headed down the stairs to Shaw’s.

There’s nothing I love more than the sight of little 1 foot waves! We headed on in without incident, and descended near the rocks at the north side of the cove. The visibility wasn’t so great, thanks to a combination of the recent algae bloom (red tide) and all the dive classes that had been through Shaw’s that morning kicking up sand. We checked out the Crevice, a big space in the rocks where you can swim through to the next cove, but the current and surge were too strong for us to go in (not to mention even worse visibility). Instead, we continued west along the rocks.

I can’t really say we saw anything that exciting, but it was still a fun dive. I just relaxed and followed Kaz, letting myself be carried back and forth a little in the 3- or 4- foot surge. I startled a california scorpionfish hiding in the rocks, and we watched it swim away; as they swim, the undersides of their butterfly-like pectoral fins are exposed, and it makes for quite a show. Kaz pointed out some chestnut cowries and spanish shawls, and I found more camoflauged fish.

We also spotted two blue plastic easter eggs, presumably left over from the Egg Hunt here last month!

On the way back, Kaz suddenly started pulling on a chunk of rock. I was rather confused as to why he would be yanking on the reef, but all of a sudden it broke off – and turned into a sheep crab! (Well, that’s how it looked!) Jimmy would have been proud.

I had a bit of a scare on our way out. As we prepared to take off our fins and walk out through the breakers, one larger-than-usual wave came by (we managed to duck under). I am not into surf. It’s a bit irrational, actually – even this “monster” wave didn’t do me any damage. As long as you hang onto your regulator and mask, it doesn’t really matter even if you get tumbled fairly badly; your wetsuit protects you from abrasions, and you’ve got plenty of air. But I always flash back to my first attempt at diving (actually at Shaw’s Cove), when we had to go in for just a skin dive first (ie, mask and snorkel, but no scuba gear). The waves were probably 3-4 footers, with the occasional even larger one. It was the kind of surf I probably wouldn’t attempt today, but we all gave it a shot at the time. Bad idea. I got so tossed around that it completely scared me off beach diving for years, and I still have to really psych myself up to walk through that surf zone.

So, I’m working on that. :)

Luckily for me, this turned out to be a fluke. We floated out past the breakers for about 5 minutes watching the sets come in, and they stayed nice and small, so we finally went for it and walked out on the beach without incident.

Once we hooked up with the rest of the gang, it turned out they hadn’t been able to find Deadman’s Reef at all – it was basically a non-dive. So I guess Kaz and I made the right decision!

We had a delicious, high-calorie lunch at Ruby’s in Newport Beach on our way back, and the conversation was as plentiful as the milkshakes! :) We covered pretty much any topic you can think of except diving, from marriage and child-rearing, to the advantages and disadvantages of making your hobby your full-time job, to California real estate… you get the idea. The drive back was more of the same, as Lars, Kaz, Ceci and I sat in traffic on the 5 for over an hour. It was probably the least boring hour-in-traffic I’ve had in a while!

So, good day. I missed having my usual dive buddy along, but there are definite advantages to diving with someone who isn’t stopping to take pictures constantly! Although the water was as cold on this dive as on any other CA dives I’ve done lately, I lasted about twice as long and didn’t get too cold, thanks to the fact that we were constantly moving. I’d love to dive more with Kaz, although I’ve got to work on my air consumption before I do, and/or get a high-pressure tank; my air was definitely the limiting factor on our dive. And I think Jeff might not mind at all if I don’t force him to do more beach diving – it doesn’t usually provide many good opportunities for photography.

I, however, am determined to hone my beach diving skills and get past my fear of surf, largely so I can pursue being a dive instructor myself one day. You can’t teach in SoCal if you can’t beach dive!

On Saturday night, Kathy and I made Jeff drive all by his lonesome behind us on the way up to Ventura – turns out you just can’t quite fit three people and all their scuba gear in one car, even if that car is a station wagon. (But sort of a small station wagon.) We made it up there just as people started arriving to sleep on the boat, nabbed some decent bunks, and headed out for margaritas at the dockside mexican restaurant before snuggling up in our sleeping bags:

I woke up the next morning as the remainder of the passengers arrived, but stayed in my bunk trying to sleep until I felt the Peace’s engines start. Even then, I thought I might manage to snooze until we reached Anacapa – but as soon as we got outside the harbor, the boat started rocking in a very stomach-unsettling fashion and I bolted for fresh air.

On the bright side, it looked like it would be a beautiful day, sunny and warm. There were plenty of friendly faces on the boat, including a few folks I’d dived with before. But within a few minutes, most of those faces started to look a bit green. It wasn’t a particularly rough day – I’ve certainly survived worse – but for some reason, it was unusually seasick-inducing, and I wound up visiting the boat rail more than once. :(

Anacapa was too rough, so the captin headed for the backside of Santa Cruz. Once there, he continued west along the island in calm seas, giving everyone a chance for their stomachs to settle. We finally dropped anchor at Flame Reef, and started suiting up to hop in as a threesome (Jeff, Kathy and I).

Another diver who I’d been chatting with quite a bit on the way out, Birgit, asked if she could join us since she was buddy-less today. It made a lot of sense, since if the visibility was crud diving as a threesome could be difficult, and we could split into two normal buddy teams. Birgit has about the same number of dives under her belt as Jeff and I, many of them in even colder German waters, so we were happy to have her as a buddy.

It turned out to be a good move, because as soon as we all jumped in we could see a) murky water, b) lots of kelp, c) a moderate current. Not ideal conditions for trying to keep track of more than one buddy! Indeed, by the time Birgit was a few feet down the anchor line, she was invisible behind kelp – and then I realized Kathy was still on the surface having some mask problems. I waved at Jeff to go ahead and follow Birgit (I figured they were a natural buddy team because they both tolerate cold longer than I can), and I headed back to the surface to help Kathy with her mask. It’s never fun to spend too much time on the surface, especially when the current is pushing you back towards the boat, and waves are smacking you in the face as you try to fiddle with your equipment! Luckily, it wasn’t anything serious, and a quick removal and replacement of the mask had Kathy ready to go on her way.

We dropped down the anchor chain and then swam into the current so we wouldn’t wind up downstream from the boat. We never did find Jeff and Birgit on this murky, surgy, currenty dive, nor did we find much else! There were a couple of big sunflower stars, which I don’t think Kathy had seen before, but nothing else of interest. It felt a little strange to be leading the dive; usually I let Jeff navigate, although I try to keep a sense of where I am. Come to think of it, this was the first time I’ve dived without Jeff since my certification dives. It was kind of fun to be the “boss” for a change!

Back on the boat, Jeff and Birgit said they’d watched a harbor seal having a snack – but sadly, didn’t manage to get a good picture before he bailed.

Dive #2 was a bit of an improvement – less current and more fish, but still pretty murky and surgy. Kathy didn’t have any trouble dropping down this time, but we stayed in two buddy teams anyway and didn’t try to all stick together. It’s fun to go diving with a relatively new diver, because the same critters that Jeff and I have seen over and over are still new and interesting to Kathy – or if they’re not, at least I can believe they are when I excitedly point them out to her underwater.

Kathy opted to sit out dives 3 and 4, while Jeff, Birgit and I decided to get one more dive in. I think Kathy was the smart one. We dropped down into 10 foot vis and largely barren rocks, plus a bit of a current and freezing temperatures (it was about 52 degrees all day, and on dive #3 I had finally had it). I thumbed the dive after a measly 15 minutes; German-cold diver Birgit probably thinks I’m a big wuss!

Back on the boat, we all got nice and toasty in the Peace’s hot tub. Why don’t all boats have these?!?!?

All in all, definitely not the greatest day for diving, and I’m bummed we didn’t get to show Kathy anything very interesting. Still, it was nice to be out and in the water again (aside from the seasickness), and to spend the day with other divers. I’d definitely like to dive with Birgit again, on a day when I don’t need to wimp out from cold!

Jeff’s pics are here:
http://gallery.thelaitys.com/v/underwater/uw-20050403_santacruz

And Kathy’s topside shots:
http://gallery.thelaitys.com/v/chronological/2005/20050403_kathy_peace

We’ll see if Kathy got any video….

Just a couple of pics from a second trip to the Antelope Valley Poppy Preserve, with my trusty water bottle full of “dew:”

I’d say we’re past peak, although several websites claim we haven’t yet reached it. The preserve proper had fewer blooms than 3 weeks ago, and those remaining were a bit tattered. The surrounding area is still pretty spectacular, though, since it’s a bit more protected from the wind.

More pics here: http://gallery.laityphoto.com/v/anastasia/20050402_poppies.

Friday evening, I came home to 4 messages on the machine. Jeff mentioned that several were from my mom, but didn’t fill me in on any details. Message #2 was the typical Mom message:

“Hi, it’s me calling from South Carolina. [She always identifies herself as either “Georgene,” “from South Carolina,” or both.] I don’t really have anything important to discuss, just thought you might be home to chat. You don’t have to call me back.”

Message #3 was also from Mom – and it was a bit more unusual. She started off by telling me that Katie would probably not be camping by herself anymore. My sister is a big camper, so I rightly suspected that some story of camping woe would follow.

Apparently, Katie was out camping alone, and woke up in the morning with a snake bite. (At this point I gasped aloud and yelled to Jeff that my sister had been bitten by a snake – he didn’t seem particularly surprised or moved, but of course, he’d already heard the message.)

Since Katie had seen rattlesnakes in the area, she was understandably worried, and drove herself to the nearest clinic. They kept her overnight to see if there were any signs of invenomation (I wasn’t surprised that Mom was familiar with snakebite terminology, because in the past few months she’s become an enormous fan of “Venom ER” on Animal Planet.) Mom’s voice was shaking a little; I figured she must have been pretty upset that Katie had such a close brush with the wild!

She tried to lighten the mood by joking that it was just too bad Katie hadn’t wound up at Alta Loma (the hospital featured on Animal Planet), because then Mom would have “had” to fly out and visit those cute doctors.

I should have been suspecious at this point, but still bought it all until she continued: “but of course, I didn’t have to fly out because this is all just an April Fool’s joke!”

She gets me every year! Almost always with a story about Katie, which I suppose just proves that I’m willing to believe anything about my sister, no matter how ridulous… Of course, the “shaking” voice was just Mom trying not to laugh!

The story that she got Katie with this year was that I’d spent a night in jail after being caught driving medicinal marijuana to an ill friend of the family – Katie likewise fell for it hook, line and sinker, and apparently complained that Mom always gets her with stories about me!.

Friday morning at IPAC was a bit surreal. At about 10am, Shelly (the secretary at the “main” desk, although that “main” desk is buried in the middle of the IPAC labyrinth) came bustling through the hallways, urging everyone to read their e-mail from Kathy (the MSC secretary).

Said e-mail didn’t materialize after a few minutes, and when I spotted Shelly heading back the other way I asked what it would be about. Apparently, Kathy had entered IPAC into an “office of the day” drawing at KRTH (oldies radio station), and won! They were on their way to the office with snacks and coffee, and were bringing someone who’d be “serenading” us as well – all the conference rooms were booked already, so we’d have to squeeze into the kitchen.

The ipac-staff mailing list was still taking it’s slow time actually delivering Kathy’s mail, so a few of us helped Shelly make the rounds and fill everyone in on what was about to go down in the kitchen. It turns out that not that many people are in their offices at 10am on a Friday morning, but we managed to get a fairly respectable crowd (mostly women, for some reason) in there by the time the KRTH van pulled up out back:

They brought in several boxes of Krispy Kreme donuts, some coffee – and a mexican acoustic guitar player, Miguel Rivera, who did in fact proceed to serenade us, mostly hamming it up to the ladies in the crowd. He was actually quite good, even!

Miguel and Kathy:

Everyone got into the silly spirit of things, getting autographs and snapping pictures. For some reason, the men didn’t seem quite as interested in joining the fun:

Fun way to start a Friday!

What a weekend!

Friday night, A2 and I picked up Kathy and headed to Happy Hour and McCormick & Schmidt’s, for cheap burgers and drinks. The drinks were absolutely necessary – we’d all had a nutty week and needed to vent for various reasons, plus it helped to be slightly tipsy for what followed: Bride and Prejudice at the Laemmle. By the director of “Bend it Like Beckham,” “Bride and Prejudice” is an adaptation of Jane Austen’s classic done in full-on Bollywood style. That includes people spontaneously breaking into badly-dubbed song and modern-Indian dance – I loved it! The leads were terrific, the music was fun, and one of the cute guys from “Lost” had a large-ish role; definitely a good Girls’ Night movie.

Saturday am, A2 and I headed down to Anza Borrego State Park, northeast of San Diego, to check out the wildflower bloom. The day started out well: we had a pretty drive, and after a brief stop at the visitor’s center we were directed to check out acres of wildflowers blooming just north of Borrego Springs.

The high point of this area for me was a gigantic caterpillar flopping around in one of the bushes. This puppy was about six inches long, and nearly an inch wide:

Yum!

Our original plan was to do a hike near the visitor’s center in search of bighorn sheep, but the heat did us in by the time we’d walked from where we had to park (it was seriously crowded) to the trailhead, and we heard the sheep weren’t showing anyway. So we piled back in the car and headed south, since we’d read online that the southern half of the park was putting on quite a show.

Sadly, the show never materialized – unless it referred to all the yellow hillsides, which actually got a bit boring after a while. And then A2 started to get carsick, and we got a bit lost, so it was pretty much all downhill from there!

We compensated for our lousy afternoon by heading to the California Poppy Preserve the next day, since we knew they were pretty much in the middle of peak season. Here are some non-poppies, as seen from the poppy preserve:

The whole area was obscenely windy, so we didn’t get too many good shots in. Still, it was a beautiful area to walk around, full of birds and waving grass (and closed-up poppies hiding from the wind).

Windy poppies:

Despite the weekend’s disappointments, we walked away with some nice pictures and got to see lots of pretty flowers. Both parks were definitely worth checking out while they were in bloom!

My pics: http://gallery.laityphoto.com/v/anastasia/200503_wildflowers