July 26, 2011

it’s no wonder

Everyone knows the difficulty of returning to work after a long weekend. And I suppose I have no reason to even compare my flexible schedule with any 9-to-5-er’s. But that’s the only explanation i have for my scattered lack of discipline and motivation today.

We had a busy weekend celebrating Kelly’s birthday. On Saturday, we checked out the L.A. Zoo. There we met Reggie, the alligator.

catalina 002I admire Reggie for his escapism skills and spirit of independence. A few years ago, he was spotted in a pond at a local park. He eluded capture many times, to the point where the city was calling experts, like Steve Irwin (who sadly died right before his trip to L.A.). When Reggie was finally caught, he was moved to a lovely home at the zoo- where he promptly escaped again. Seriously, I would love to have seen the look on the face of the zoo employee who discovered Reggie’s absence. As you can see, he was found and returned to his lovely zoo home, where he gets thousands of admiring visitors. And I think there’s even a children’s book about Reggie….

Sunday was a typical work day, with duties at church followed by a picnic with a neighboring congregation. Then I headed to Anaheim to attend rehearsal for “Job”. This was the first time seeing the staging since the initial table read. It’s amazing to watch actors breathe life into a written script. I’m very excited about the project and honored to have such a role in its production.

Yesterday was another first. Thanks to a fantastic deal on groupon, we took a boat to Catalina island!

catalina 014

Catalina is about 25 miles from the “mainland”, and you can see the outline of its mountains from our coast on a clear day. The main tourist-y town is called Avalon, and hosts shops and restaurants, as well as a theater and churches. People do live over there, so there is a school, golf course, and other life necessities. It reminded me of Lakeside, the little resort town on Lake Erie where we attended church conference each year- only this was Lakeside amped up quite a few notches.

On our day trip, we explored the area with a golf cart, swam a little by the beach, and had a tasty meal. One of these days we’ll come back for a weekend, and bring our snorkel gear. The water was so clear that while standing on shore, you could see the orange garibaldi swimming around. Also, there is a massive zip line that is begging me to try.

So now it’s back to summer as usual. I still have mixed feelings about the amount of free time during summer break for school. I feel like I should find a new writing project or something, but wonder if that defeats the purpose of slowing down until fall semester begins….

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