Oh, for those who care, some more pictures from Catalina are here:

Our mission for this Saturday was to test the camera enclosure, and make sure that it was seaworthy before we trust it with our replacement D-Rebel. We’d given it the tried-and-true Bathtub Test already, but we really wanted to take it down deep and make sure nothing leaked.

Not wanting to potentially waste a 3-dive boat trip, we decided to just head out to Casino Point, where we could do as many dives as we felt like (depending on weather, water conditions, and the functionality of the camera enclosure).

This morning, my alarm went off at the strangely civilized hour of 7:30. Usually, our trips to Catalina begin with a 4:15 alarm, so this felt just, well, weird. As we rolled our gear bags down to the car, there were other people awake and about! And the sun was shining! I didn’t feel like a real diver.

We hopped the 9:15 ferry from San Pedro, and I must say, it was quite a ride. There was 4-6 foot swell, and we were in one of the smaller ferries. It wasn’t nearly as bad as being on ANY DIVE BOAT, and I feel very sorry for anyone who made that crossing today. But we got a few good stomach-lurchers in, and there were constantly huge streams of spray arcing past the boat as we crashed into the trough of each swell. It was actually kind of fun (I can say that, because I didn’t get seasick today. Other people were not so lucky.)

We were feeling a little lazy, so we hired a cab to take us and all our gear (there’s more gear than there used to be since we bought a Pelican case for the camera enclosure) through town to Casino Point. It feels downright decadent to take a taxi; like somehow, you’re not a REAL California diver unless you’re willing to lug all your sh*t across cobblestones for 15 minutes.

At the point, we discovered a surprising number of classes working on their certifications - lots of newbies cluttering up the stairs. It was also darned windy, making the temperature in the shade something like VERY COLD.

This was our first dive since we returned from Bonaire, and man, it’s hard to get back to California diving. Not that I don’t love the kelp forests, but MY GOD IT’S FREEZING! My feet were freezing when I first stepped down into the water off the stairs to rinse my mask; my lips froze the instant they touched the surface; the rest of me was a complete icicle for the whole 20 minute (was it even that long?) dive.

Basically, we just headed down. We followed the reef south until we came across the wreck of the SuJac at about 90 feet, then I indicated to Jeff that I’d had all the cold I was willing to put up with, and we returned to the stairs and surfaced.

That’s it. No exciting dive stuff to report. And as we huddled by our gear in the windy shade of the Casino, I informed Jeff that one dive was plenty for me today, thank you, and at least we’d ascertained that the camera enclosure was fine. My whole body felt the way your hand feels after you’ve stuck it in snow - kind of a stinging/burning kind of cold. Ugh. This is why we don’t live someplace where it snows (and tell me again why we DON’T live somewhere with warm water?)

We took another cab back to the ferry and stored our bags there (for anyone keeping track, the taxi and luggage storage costs have now made this trip pretty much as expensive as a day on a dive boat), and went for some lunch and stroll-around-Avalon time. Oh, and ice cream:

While we were tooling around Green Pier, a very friendly seagull approached, making odd little barking/grunting noises. He perched on a trash can and posed for us for a while. I know seagulls are boring, but I just couldn’t resist a few pics:

So, not our best dive trip ever, but still a nice way to spend a Saturday. I think we might have to cut back a little on diving in the winter; we’re getting too spoiled by our trips to warmer climes! Either that, or we need to start saving our bucks for dry suits before next winter rolls around…

At first, I didn’t really want a TiVo. It just seemed sort of unnecessary; we have two fantastic VCRs that we’re quite talented at programming. Plus, TiVo can’t record two channels at a time, or let you watch one while it’s recording another - and believe it or not, that’s a situation that comes up fairly frequently in my household. Anyone remember the great Sopranos/Angel/Alias conflict of 2003?

But, I quickly realized that the TiVo more than makes up for its shortcomings in its skill at this one particular thing:

Reruns.

That’s right. Reruns. There are hundreds of cable channels airing reruns of shows I love but haven’t seen in years, or have missed large chunks of because Jeff makes fun of me when I try to watch them in his presence. TiVo will magically record them for me all week long, and then I can have mini-marathons whenever I want! It was especially great when I was home sick for 2 or 3 days; I pretty much OD’d on MacGyver and Rosanne. (Let’s not discuss Jeff’s take on the MacGyver mullet! No dissing my first crush!)

And then… then, I discovered that ABC Family shows Gilmore Girls reruns. Seven days a week! (This would be the afore-mentioned “show that Jeff makes fun of,” which I have therefore missed whole entire seasons of, except for one or two episodes here and there when Jeff was out of town.)

Luckily for me and my girls of Gilmore (less lucky for Jeff), I have finally outgrown any sense of shame I used to have at watching shows he deems less than outstanding. So now I come home every night (that’s right - every single night) to a new episode of Gilmore Girls, just waiting for me. (And I can skip through the commercials!!!)

I always kind of liked the show, but it wasn’t until now, when I can immerse myself in it totally day after day, that I realize I’m capable of becoming completely obsessed with it. It’s kind of nice: a return to my old TV-aholic roots, if you will. Last night, when I couldn’t sleep, I even found myself at the computer browsing through Gilmore Girls fan fiction. Fanfic. For a non-sci-fi show. That’s just weird.

9 days till the reruns wrap around and I finally get to see the pilot episode!! I’m thinking of throwing a party. My TiVo is invited.

(Oh, in case any of you are wondering what on earth Gilmore Girls fans could possibly be writing fanfic about, here’s a hint:)

My first-draft edit of Kathy’s rose picture:

Kathy sent me a DVD today with all the RAW images from Friday, so I can go nuts editing the ones I like. It’ll be interesting to see which ones she and I pick differently, and how we edit them. I’ll post a gallery of my finished products (with appropriate credit to the actual photographer, of course), and maybe some sort of compare/contrast gallery as well if our results are different in interesting ways.

Last night, I spent a few hours at Kathy’s with her friend Zena, modeling for Kathy. (She got these kick-ass strobes and fancy backdrop for Christmas, so she can set up a temporary studio in her apartment). I also got a few Kathy/Chaco shots in of my own. :) Kathy’s promised to set me up with lots of the RAW images to play with, but in the meantime she sent me a few previews:

TiVo is pissing me off.

I mean, I LOVE it - it’s great.

When it works.

The damn thing has crashed about a dozen times in the two weeks we’ve had it set up, at totally random times - sometimes in the middle of a show we want to record. I’ve taken to doing a backup VCR recording of anything we really want to watch.

And there’s no e-mail support, so I have to actually get on the phone to call these people now that I’ve decided it’s time to bitch and moan (and hopefully get a replacement TiVo) - I am now on hold, which I hate. And the little recording says it will be “less than 15 minutes.”

FIFTEEN MINUTES? Are you kidding me? I’m at work, for crying out loud. But hey, they’re only open during business hours. ARGH.

So, I’ve been way off the wagon for the last two months. What wagon is that? THE ONE WHERE I LOST TWELVE POUNDS, GODDAMNIT, ONLY TO PUT HALF OF THEM BACK ON AGAIN.

Sigh. Breathe.

8 weeks seems to be about my limit for successful dieting. And then I get sick, or have to travel, or it’s the holidays (or, in the case of this last November, all three at once), and it gives me an easy excuse to blow off the diet and start eating like a pig and sitting on my ass.

The last week or so has been especially spectacular, as I came down with a nasty cold just in time to avoid going back to the gym like I’d planned. I pretty much sat in front of the TV for 4 days straight, eating grilled cheese sandwiches, multiple Zone bars every day, more than 2 bowls of Cocoa Puffs in each sitting, and sending Jeff out for pizza or McDonald’s at night.

Oh yeah. THAT’S the way to lose weight.

But it was allowed, because I was sick.

Sigh. Breathe.

On Sunday night, I found myself scarfing down a snack after dinner, even though I wasn’t really hungry. I just wanted to eat, and why shouldn’t I have a 500 calorie snack? Then I remembered there was ice cream in the freezer (actually leftover mango soy cream). And I couldn’t just leave the ice cream alone. I didn’t really WANT mango soy cream - I mean, it’s ok stuff, but I don’t lie awake nights thinking about it. But I just couldn’t be sitting around, watching chick flicks on DVD, feeling slightly sniffly, and NOT EAT THE PSUEDO-ICE CREAM.

So somewhere near the bottom of this bowl of not-really-ice-cream that was only ok-and-not-great, still stuffed from dinner and my previous snack (a Zone bar and many handfuls of dry cocoa puffs, if you must know), it hit me that the eating had gotten way, way out of control. Not just “it’s the holidays and I’m sick” out of control, but “why the hell can’t I eat what I want when I want, or even what I don’t REALLY want, but when I’m bored and it’s available?” out of control.

It’s clearly time to locate that wagon that I lost in November.

I’m worried about just repeating the cycle again, though - being great for a few weeks and then getting lazy and turning back into a pig. To paraphrase my shrink (what shrink? I have a shrink? I bet you’re all soooo surprised), it’s time to tackle this thing from a behavioral angle. That is, have a real plan in place, with backup measures.

So: lay out a menu. I have trouble when I don’t have a specific plan of what to eat, because at the end of the day when it’s time to decide what’s for dinner, I don’t want to have to think. I just want my food to come to me. And that sort of food usually isn’t healthy. I’ve been resisting really laying out a menu and sticking to it, because I don’t usually feel like eating what I put on the menu yesterday. But I think I need to learn to force-feed myself with the planned meal.

And: have fallbacks in the house. A few Lean Cuisines, sandwich fixings, etc. Throw out all the cereal and the zone bars (these both get me in trouble because one helping never seems like enough).

So, after my weekly chat with said shrink, I tried to make myself a menu for the next week. And I decided I’d better find a few some new recipes while I was at it, preferably some that were pretty healthy but not too self-depriving (or I wouldn’t want to eat it, and would go get McDonald’s), could be made in bulk and saved for lunches, and had some veggie content.

After reading Jenn’s blog, I decided to have a crack at her roasted veggie dish (potatoes and brussel sprouts). I’ve never actually eaten a brussel sprout, and I suspect I’ll hate them, but it’s worth a shot. If they suck, I’ll have a Lean Cuisine. For my second New Dish, I found a low-calorie pasta salad (with veggies) recipe. Mmm, pasta.

The point of this story? Well, I had to go shopping for ingredients.

Ingredients like shallots and scallions.

Now, I’m aware that shallots and scallions are members of the onion/garlic family, but that’s where my knowledge of them ends. I wandered around the garlic and onions at Vons like a moron, carefully scanning all the labels for the words “shallot” or “scallion.” No luck.

After the fifth time a produce stocker asked me if I needed help finding something, I admitted that I couldn’t find the shallots. (I figured the shallots and scallions would be close together, and he could just point me to them and never need to know that I actually couldn’t find EITHER on my own).

The shallots were in a Special Onion section, next to the Special Potatoes in part of the refridgerated section. Go figure. And they were rather garlic-like, which made me wonder: does “six shallots” mean six whole shallots? Or six cloves off a shallot? I mean, they look like one giant clove each, but how do I know what’s inside the skin? I certainly can’t take it apart in the store. So, I grabbed six Whole Shallots. And if there are actually a dozen cloves in each one, Jeff had better learn to love shallots.

The scallions were nowhere in sight.

After another cruise past the entire produce section, I chased down the poor Vons employee again and confessed that I was also unable to find the scallions. He patiently directed me to the green onions, which were labeled “Green Onions.” So you have to KNOW in ADVANCE that SCALLIONS ARE GREEN ONIONS. If I’d known that, I could have found them - I mean, I know what great onions look like!

These recipes had better be darn tasty, and suck pounds right off my hips just by virtue of being digested.

Why I need to lose at least 30 pounds:

I should print that thing out as an enormous poster and plaster it all over my office and home.

I have discovered such a great blog:

http://www.dooce.com

This is a woman who started her blog when she was single and living in LA, working a so-so job. After getting fired from said job due to mocking co-workers on her website, she eventually got married, moved to Utah, and had a baby.

The best part about all this is that she can WRITE, and I find her blog to be completely hilarious, especially on the topic of child-rearing. And making post-partum depression “hilarious” is clearly the sign of an award-deserving writer.

I never just get a little bit sick. I’m never sniffly for a day or two, but able to work. Nope, when I get sick, I do it right, dagnabit.

Wednesday at lunch I felt fine. By 2pm, my throat was sore. At 4pm, I had an itchy nose. By the time I got home, there was some serious post-nasal drip action and it hurt to swallow. I went ahead and emailed my boss that I would most likely be out on Thursday and Friday.

And so I have been. The really great thing about my being sick is that I’m capable of pretty much nothing. Reading makes my head hurt; I lose count trying to cross-stich; I doze off trying to watch TV, but it’s hard to sleep because my throat hurts so much and I can’t breathe through my nose. Aaaaah!

I usually have about 3 days of serious SUCKINESS (ie, mild fever, muzzy-headed, sore all over, plus all the normal cold symptoms), followed by up to a week of general bleah. Sigh. What a nice way to start the new year!

(And to top it off, our internet has been mostly non-functional all week - let’s give the folks at SBC and Earthlink a big hand, shall we? So I don’t have much contact with the outside world. Maybe it’s just as well, since I’m pretty out of it anyway…)