Isn't she cute?

I just love this chicken. She's like 95 chicken-years old now. You'd never know it, though. She even laid an egg the other day. I love to watch the feral cats out in the backyard. They just stare at her. They know she's a bird, but they also know that she'd kick their butt if they tried anything. So they keep their distance.

No News was Good News for awhile

For a whole two weeks I was able to have hope about that job, but you can only say "no news is good news" for so long, so I finally e-mailed the art director whom I interviewed with to find out the status of the job. She wrote back saying that they've hired someone. No explanation - she'll "keep my resume around." What a bummer. This was the job I really wanted; of all the jobs I've interviewed for. This gets old and depressing after awhile.

I do have a couple of little freelance projects going. And I'm taking a super-wonderful class at the JC called "photo restoration." It is the most advanced Photoshop class I have ever taken, the teacher is amazing, and comes from a photography background. Most of the students are super smart professional photographers, and I feel like I'm finally using photoshop to its full potential after all these years of just scratching the surface.

Tonight I had hula, which greatly helped ease my misery. Hula is incredibly fun these days, as we're learning a fast-paced sassy choreography to Amy Hanaiali`i's "Hale`iwa Hula." Also our little `ukulele group is having a lot of fun and picking up speed a little.

So all-in-all life is good, and I've decided to beat myself up too bad about the job. There's some reason it wasn't the right job (I just wish I knew what it was.) And I have hope that something better will come along, and I'll look back and say, "Man, I'm glad I'm not commuting to Petaluma."

Visitors with Aloha

I love blogging when I have something to blog about, and boy do I this week! No, I didn't hear about the job yet; this is just plain fun stuff. I'm gonna embarrass the Hell out of Amelia, but sometimes a parent just has to do it. She'll never tell anybody I have a blog.
Earlier this week we had visitors from Hawai`i. Our old friend and hula sister Judy, who used to live in Forestville, came with her friends Led & Sharon Ka`apana and Mike & Malissa Ka`awa. Led & Mike were doing a West Coast tour. They'd just played Freight & Salvage in Berkeley on Sunday night (great show!) and had a couple of days off before their next gig, so they came up to Sonoma County. We went over to the Napa Valley on Monday and toured the new Castello di Amorosa; a winery in Calistoga. Apparently the winery owner is a Medieval Architecture fanatic, and had this castle built exactly as the castles in Tuscany were built. The architect and the artists who painted the frescoes all came over from Italy, and it took 14 years to build. You can't see it from the highway, which is good, because it is pretty extreme. Something like 107 rooms, 7 levels, even a torture chamber (yuk) Although flamboyant, it is authentic and artfully done. Under the castle are 35,000 square feet of tunnels for wine barrel storage. Yeah, they really make wine there, and it's good. The acoustics alone are amazing in these rooms made of stone with arched ceilings. Something to see if you're in the area.
Then ... Then!
On Tuesday night we had a party for Judy with all her old hula friends. We had it at a great little English Pub in Railroad square called "Toad in the Hole." We had hula class that night only a block away, so after hula everyone walked over to the pub. Led & Mike got up and played music and we got to dance. After 15 years of studying hula, I can honestly say that dancing to Led live doing "Ikona" was my hula hightlight. By far, bar none. I don't usually like to perform, but this felt comfortable because it was mainly just us, the lighting was low, and there were probably 10 or so of us who jumped up to dance. There was very little room, so we were dancing all over the place. They took a short break and then invited Amelia and a couple of guitar players up to play with them. Oh Wow. Now that's what I'm talkin' about! Dave & I must have been beaming! (Although, if Dave were writing this, he'd mention how they didn't have the sound right.) She just jumped in and knew what to do. I asked her later if it was hard, and she said it was pretty easy. The worst part was the nervousness before going up. She did so great, and I know that it meant the world to Judy too, to see Amelia up there with her buddies Led & Mike. I was a lame photographer that night, because I just didn't want to miss the experience, and besides our friend Peter was shooting left and right. I don't have pics from Peter yet, but here's one I took, just to prove it really happened - oh, and a few from the Castello too.

--click to view larger--

Schollenberger Park

Today after my interview I drove down the road, changed my clothes and rode my bike around Schollenberger Park. I was in birdie heaven. I can't believe I've never been there before. The interview went well, and I really want the job!

There were white swans, Canadian Geese, Sandpipers,

and Redwing Blackbirds!

Looking towards Lakeville

Finally got my portfolio online!

Finally, finally, finally!!! I have been wanting to put my portfolio online for years now! I've been putting it off because I am not a web guru, and it just seemed like such an insurmountable task to learn Dreamweaver (not to mention expensive.) Especially when I have so much else to learn about everything else! And when I got laid off this time, it was one of my first goals - no excuses now. I was going to have it done by January. Around mid-January, I remembered that I hadn't started yet. Thanks to iweb, I finally got it done. I've been consumed by it for the last couple of weeks, barely able to tear myself away from the computer, working late, late, late into the night and giving myself eyestrain headaches, but... finally it is done. If you would like to take a look at it, I'd love some feedback. It's at http://web.mac.com/nancylorenz

Job Interview!

My last job interview was really disappointing. I'm sure that he was as disappointed as I was - not a good match. BUT! Next week, I have an interview here:

http://www.dauphinepress.com/

I love their stuff. I'm super excited.