The Hairy Cactus flowers!
(the cactus is hairy, not the flowers, geeze!)

I suppose it's time for a nice round of "what I did today." Friday Rich found EIGHT golf balls. Then I went to lunch for the first time all week. Afterwards, my friend and I went to the CSUS Friends of the Library booksale. Walking across the bridge, we could see the river bottom, since the water was really clear. I saw some small fish and one large salmon. That one seemed to be staying in one place, and I wonder if it wasn't a female making a nest. Last week, at the Moonwalk, Rich and I saw a couple of fishermen with three huge salmon. He hasn't been fishing in years, but I think next year he'll be at it again.
Then my friend and I continued our walk across Gerth's folly, the footbridge. Gerth, the Chancellor of CSUS, decided he really wanted to create a freeway through campus, and had some beautiful oaks taken out, and the bridge raised with a curlique ramp at the end so the road can go under it. It's a total mess, and the bridge ramp is nowhere near completed. So far, the advantage of being able to speed through campus along the River escapes me, and it hardly seems any safer for pedestrians. But then, who needs nasty students to just mess up the new buildings and the roads, eh? It certainly does make one think about throwing more money at the Universities, though, just before an election!
The Guy West bridge looks a lot like a miniature Golden Gate bridge. I hope the tinkering with the end doesn't somehow affect its safety. The trip over the River was always a soothing time while I was going to school there. Friday, after I had a good time at the booksale, I walked back across it, and again looked for fish. I did see a couple of lizards, bluebellies, which was neat.

Saturday I didn't feel like getting up for the SoleMates walk. I did, however, make it out in time for the local library Friends' booksale. 12 books, too. I went a little mad. I tried to see the new Tower bookstore. This is, they say, the flagship store, which I actually thought was downtown, near the Tower theater. I guess that makes too much sense. This one has been being renovated all summer while they occupied a vacant store right around the corner from me. I've been remarkably good, considering the temptation! Anyway, they moved back last week, although the renovation is far from complete. The reopening date was first the 9th, then the 10th, at noon. I was there too early, so came home.
Rich and I then went to the Jesuit football game. Despite the talk of how great the other team was, Jesuit started to roll over them almost as badly as the previous week's game. The difference was that there were penalties and incomplete passes slowing the game so much that the first 12-minute quarter took nearly an hour. I started to amuse myself by seeing what jeans the girls were wearing (teenage girls don't actually watch the game. They walk back and forth in front of the guys, who probably aren't watching the game either.) It's always been a mystery to me how suddenly one brand of jeans is the Only Thing Possible to wear. I never knew this, and was always hopelessly uncool, and I left my daughters to their own devices. They always knew, by osmosis, I guess.
However, I got sidetracked by seeing the Abercrombie & Fitch label on sweatshirts, shirts, hats, you name it. First off, I thought A&F was a financial firm, but Rich reminded me that they did (do?) men's suits. Still, it was a bit of a shock seeing the label everywhere on all these teens. I started counting those. I think Abercrombie and Fitch would be good names for a couple of kittens.
It reminded me of Old Navy, which I had never heard of prior to last Thanksgiving, and then saw everywhere. Does avoiding shopping malls unless one's arm is twisted lead to this sort of brand name ignorance?

We left at halftime and stopped at the house to pick up the checkbook. My computer was spread out over the kitchen and the Curmudgeon didn't want to talk, so we left him to it and went to the Loretto high barbeque. We didn't win the truck, darn it. Oh, well.
We saw a lot of our friends, though a full high school generation has passed since Bernadette was there. One woman wants her to do another logo for another group like her Broadway Bound one. We watched the parade of folks to the dunk tank. "Mathman" was all costumed up cape and all. He apparently occasionally teaches class in this outfit. Understandably, the girls were eager to dunk him. Then the shaven-headed (lost a bet) physics teacher stepped in. He was BUFF! He is GORGEOUS! I bet the physics enrollment has gone WAY up, and a lot of mommies are checking on their daughters' progress. I was going to sign up for a Parent-Teacher conference right then!

Oh, well, back to reality. My computer was waiting, and as noted earlier, faster, better, and more fun.

Sunday I walked 2.25 miles, but mostly I played Sokoban and did crosswords. I don't want Win98 since I would lose some of the silly DOS games like Sokoban. You push boxes around till you get them in place. I'd solved one level many years ago, but recently had forgotten the method, and worked on it for hours till it fell into place.

To be continued...