She's a jar, with a heavy lid...

I'm out the door the second the clock hits 5:00. This weekend's plans include a fancy dinner, a barbecue / rock show tomorrow afternoon, and a whole lotta sleeping in and making the cat play fetch.

Paydays always make me feel good, and it helps knowing that if I wanted to go buy a six-pack of Pabst, I can.

For The Love: Today's daily photo is one of my favorites if only because the graffitti seemed so out of place, and so overlooked, that it caused me to turn around, park across the street, and take some shots out the window without the old guy waiting for the bus seeing me.

Miss Rodeo America and I watched a thing on the Food Network last night about how to make pork ribs, and what to rub on them to make them taste good. It was fascinating watching cooking being treated as science, and I learned quite a bit in thirty minutes about how to cook meat. Of course, now I just crave ribs.

It's one of those s-l-o-w days at work when I start daydreaming of anything and everything, from transcontinental travel to getting home and cleaning out the lizard cage. Anything to save me from staring at the ceiling while aimlessly chomping down on sour gummy worms.

I did a bit of research, and it looks as if *nothing* of musical interest is happening in the smoggy city during my visit, unless I want to go see Momus flail around and be full of himself all over the place while talking about how wonderful and endearing the Japanese are. Maybe I'll go look for moviestars or go to all the bars featured in Swingers, but you will definitely not find me at Disneyland. The last time I went to the Magical Place they kicked me out for wearing an AFI t-shirt with Robert DeNiro's Taxi Driver character on it. They told me that "guns had no place in the happiest place on earth," while they sold toy rifles to children throughout the park. Although I will not be rocked, perhaps I'll go watch some crazy movie that will never ever come to any Bay Area theater.

I'm off to go sweep the sidewalk or *something* for the last 2.5 hours left in the day.

Attention Los Angeles! Witness the return of yours truly to the smoggy city on Saturday, July 6th. I'm taking one last solo roadtrip in the hot car to visit my brother, but he already has plans at Ye Olde Hollywood Bowl that evening. I'm up for shows/movies/bars/restaurants/general delirious late night activity. I've already got a place to stay, I'm just requesting some insight or some company. Shoot me an email if you've got some suggestions of Saturday night activities. I'm hoping to leave the car resting at my place of lodging, so anywhere available by cab or train would be preferred. Oh, and I'll probbly take a lot of pictures like a big old photo dork.

On a completely unrelated note, it's nice to know that in this day and age of decreased civil rights, the the justice department still wants to bring us into the 21st century. The fight against the death penalty in the United States is probably the single issue I feel strongly enough about to discuss openly. Baby steps, baby steps...

:: solano county, california ::

All Roads Lead To Davis: Yesterday we aborted plans to go get a new kitten to keep Bunny company, and instead attempted to make our way out to Sacramento on rural backroads. After a decent breakfast we drove to thrift store in Fairfield. At the Taco Bell next door there was a group of kids playing Magic Cards in the corner, and one of them had his hair cut like a Jedi knight from the new Star Wars movies, with the shaved part and the braid going down the side. Ah, I remember the dorkiness of the suburbs.

Then we circumnavigated the Air Force Base and hit the backgrounds of Solano County, listening to Springsteen and passing hay balers and country trucks down the long straight roads. Unfortunately, the furthest we could get on small highways was Davis, since shortly after that you hit a bit of water, so we made the last ten or so miles to Sacramento on the Interstate.

There's not much to do in the State Capitol, so walked around Old Sacramento for a bit and laughed at all the tourists shopping for cheesey t-shirts (like "Jesus: That's My Final Answer") and California souvenirs. Checked out the trains and the river and the "olde tyme" photo booths, got some icecream and headed on our way back home. We stopped in the town I grew up in and visited my best friend and his kids. Emma, the four year old, just got a pet chicken named Flower, and told us how the chicken lays eggs, but not the kind of eggs that make baby chickens, but the kind that you make scrambled. She also showed us her hamster which she named "Come Here," because she thought that was a good name for a small animal.

My friend, who's a bailiff for the county, busted out the yearbook and showed me all the people from our high school that he's seen come through the courts. He's only been there two weeks and seen three people come through on serious charges, assault, drug possesion, kidnapping...it all makes me glad I got out of that town when I did.

Just getting out of town for a day felt good, like I was leaving all the stress and worry back at home and all I had to do was find my way to the next destination.