Where there's smoke.... - ay jay kay squared.

Hola people!
First of all, I’d like to wish a very very happy birthday to my mum, who turns another year older today. Happy Birthday Mum! (“Mum!” said Fred, as though he’d only just spotted her, and seized her hand, too. “How really corking to see you-“).

I have pictures this time around! Yay on me! Last Friday (holy crap! it’s been a week already!) Anthony (a guy who’s really involved in the parish here, a couple/few years younger than I) and I went to Santa Monica because Jacqui told me there was a Harry Potter store, Whimsic Alley, there. And so, we went. Anthony’s whole family, except him, are really into the HP books, so he was happy to go and check it out (which was really nice, as it provided company and a mode of transportation other than public). And there, I spent much, way too much, money. And I’ve provided some pics of the materials I’ve bought, cause they had some of the coolest stuff there. I’ll list them at the end.

I don’t know if any of you have heard about the southern Cali news (I sure didn’t, I just found out Wednesday), but there are some major forest fires just to the north of where I am. Wednesday I went up to the diocesan office, which is about a 40 minute drive north if traffic allows you to go btwn 70 and 80 mph, and Nancy (who is the Coordinator of Faith Formation for the diocese, and also Rick’s wife, and Rick is our worship director at OLF) was telling me that a for a couple days her car was covered in ash from the fire when she left at the end of the day. From what she’d heard, the thing that’s stopped it has been the Toll Road (not sure which one, but not that you all care either), otherwise it would have started heading into some main residential areas and there wouldn’t be much else to stop it at all. Toll Roads here are always controversial pieces of development in communities, as they’re huge and loud, and because they cost so much money, but not tax money, so I don’t know what the complaint about that is really about. Anyway. At our diocesan Youth Ministry meeting, there was someone from in the firey-area where people from her parish had been evacuated from their homes because of it. They’ve since been allowed to return, but yeah. Serious stuffs. Thursday I woke up and I could see a brown haze over the water area, which meant that San Clemente must have been enveloped in the smoke that day, and it smelled like it, too. Normally we don’t get the smog haze here, the hills between us and the LA metropolis stop that, so it was a pretty distinguishable haze. I got a couple pictures that I thought would sort of show that, but they’re not top-notch pics either. Oh well.

Oh, what else…9 days until Andy arrives down here in So. Cal! My first Canadian visitor! I’m quite excited. Yay! Double-yay even!

I’ve decided that my Tuesday/Wednesday days off was not working, so I’m trying Friday/Saturday instead to see how that works. Apparently everyone has meetings only on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, and that just wasn’t working for me.

That’s about all I can come up with right now. Oh! No it’s not! Yesterday I got a six-page letter from none other than Peter Bagnall. Can you believe that?! Peter, you amazed me. I was quite excited about that. I love letters. The thrill of ripping open the side of the envelope and pulling out a personally addressed letter is not comparable to any other type of mail, including anything e-related. Everything e-related, actually.

If anyone cares to know, the Barenaked Ladies are testing out podcasting, so if you have iTunes, in the left navigation bar, click Podcasts (under Library), at the bottom of the Podcast window, click Podcast Directory, when that opens, in that window to the bottom left there’s an option to search, type in BNL, and hit enter. When the screen pops up with it, click Subscribe, and it’ll download it and you can listen to it. I think they’re really quite funny. And they have good, Canadian music. I miss Canada and all it’s -isms.

Yeah, that’s about all I can come up with. So hope you’re all doing well, and I hope to hear from you (don’t say you’re going to email me, cause you won’t. Just comment :D). Take care!
Peace,
Jane

1. This is the smoke I saw from the hill by the church – all that haze is actually browny and not the white that it decided to turn up as
2. This picture is actually of the fog/mist rolling in from the ocean. The best way to describe it is if you remember back to Pirates of the Caribbean and with The Pearl all that fog rolled in behind it, that’s what this fog was like, it just rolled in magically and I think it would have been kinda cool to have the Pirates (from the movie, not real ones) come barging in. Anyway. It had smoke in it too, cause I remember taking it for that reason as well.
3. You can’t read it well at all, but it says at the top Weasley’s Wizarding Wheezes, and underneath it says 93 Diagon Alley. I love the Twins.
4. These were some of the buttons I bought
5. These are the rest of them, and the one that’s missing (it’s at work somewhere) is ‘Free Stan Shunpike!’
6. These were some mini Christmas Ornaments that were on sale.
7. The majorly awesome bumper stickers I bought. My fav. is the middle one.
8. The Candy from Honeydukes
9. More candy
10. They’re Skiving!
11. They’re Snack Boxes!
12. My beloved house!
13. Yes, I even bought myself a sweater of that house, which you can’t tell very well, but around the collar is blue and bronze and the cuffs, and the bottom seam area. I love it. But it needs ironing, and I haven’t an iron yet. It’s now become a near top priority, though. 😀
14. I couldn’t believe this truck, and I had to get a picture of it. It reminded me of that IKEA commercial where that car is loaded down…
15. And cause you all don’t see me a lot, I thought I’d grab a picture of myself while on the roll. Hola from So.Cal!