Did you hear my state is burning to the ground?

I am in Spokane currently, visiting friends and family. Not too long ago the air pollution here was so bad from the fires that people were being encouraged to stay indoors.
Today it is drizzly here and although the visibility is not any better than it was when the sky was thick with smoke haze, it smells considerably better.

The middle bit of the state is still aflame but most of the fires on the west side of the state are out.




They tend to call anything west of the Cascade mountains "the coast." This is blatantly inaccurate and inexcusable. Below you see a map of Washington with a highlighted line along the mountains in the middle-ish of the state. To the far left you will see another highlighted area— the actual coast of Washington, where the Pacific ocean meets the land. There is also the Puget Sound, but that is not coastline.
   

Now, the people over here on the east side have a sort of reciprocal complain about us Westies. We tend to call everything on this side of the mountains "Eastern Washington" and the people over here get all all knotted up about that because they insist there is a Central Washington. However, I have to tell you, there is almost nothing of note in the middle of the state (other than Hanford, which we frankly try to ignore) and nothing in particular to demarcate where this supposedly central region ought to be. So They make stuff up and they also can't use geographical terms correctly. We win. 

My weekend

So we lost power yesterday due to high winds.
Also, we ended up with a tree through one end of our garage.
So that was fun.
No loss of life, no injuries, and the damage is not extensive.
We spent the day clearing limbs and covering the whole thing til the insurance company gets someone out here to remove the actual tree.
Not really how we had planned to spend the day but really, I'm just happy Thing One, who was in the garage at the time, is happy, healthy, and relatively unscarred by the events (he was a bit flinch-y when the trees were cracking in the wind for the rest of the day).
 Some awesome friends came by and helped with clearing the branches and chunks of roof.
Good times, good times.

The only way the coming election is not going to be hideously painful.

I endorse this method for establishing a system of government.

July is almost over??

It is very strange to realize that I've been done with school for 6 weeks now.
I've been doing lots of catching up on normal life stuff, laundry, sleeping, talking to the people who live with me, and even doing some reading, zomigosh!

I've also been doing lots of job applications and just scheduled an interview, sadly, it is for entrance to a job pool, not an actual position... but hey, I will take it, baby.
I've also been catching up with friends that I've mostly ignored and neglected over the course of the last two years. I had a lovely lunch today with one of them and I have a hot date Friday with another one. We are going to have an awesome day in Seattle and although it may include some shopping, it will mostly be about good food and chatting and I am really looking forward to it!

I will find it easier to think about my student loans when I actually get a job but I am afraid I that is going to happen just about the time I actually get my brain to relax... typical, right?

Juy so far

 I started July off in San Francisco for the annual conference of the American Library Association. Two of my very good library school buddies shared a room with me and we had a great time together.
    
In addition to attending the conference we also did some sightseeing and exploring.

 Our room had a great view of the Ferry Building and Embarcadero. The street market was set up every day between our hotel and the Ferry Building, which was amazing.

I also liked the view at night, so here's a pic of that.

 I had a long list of the the places I wanted to see... and I got to most of them. Both my roomies were pleased that I had a plan and were happy to come along, even for the Segway tour, which concerned them at first.

 The Segway Tour took us all over Little Italy, Fisherman's Wharf, past the window where Mrs. Doubtfire lost her face and through the alley where the garbage truck ran it over.  We visited the church where Joe DiMaggio got married (the first time) and lots of other little spots like that. It was a lot of fun. We also went on a boat tour which took us around Alcatraz,

 and under the Golden Gate bridge. It was a great view of the city as well, and there were some fascinating historical details (which I loved hearing about).
I really loved the cable cars and street cars too, so much fun. SF has imported street cars and the Italian one was beautiful.

 Of course, there was much feasting and sampling, and nibbling.
Too, too good.

 This billboard made me giggle, so I had to snap a pic. We could use this in Seattle too.

 I really enjoyed my week in SF and then I came home to an injured Ariella.
She tore her ACL and is now wearing a brace while it heals.
Poor puppy.

It is finished.

This is me and some of my classmates as we prepared to get hooded and such.





It is hard believe it is finally done.
A couple people have said it seems to have gone by so quickly.
I hate those people.
:p
 

Done!

I read a whole book, well, not read exactly, more like...devoured it.
I started it after dinner and finished before noon the next day.

It was lovely. I mean, the book was fine but just having the time and mental energy to devote to the reading of the book was delightful. I've missed it and am overjoyed to think that this will once again be a regular feature of my life.