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So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.


The Profile


Zanzibar
Age. 39
Gender. Female
Ethnicity. that of my father and his father before him
Location Altadena, CA
School. Other
» More info.
The World









The Link To Zanzibar's Past
This is my page in the beloved art community that my sister got me into:

Samarinda

Extra points for people who know what Samarinda is.
The Phases of the Moon Module
CURRENT MOON
Croc Hunter/Combat Wombat
My hero(s)
Only My Favorite Baseball Player EVER


Aw, Larry Walker, how I loved thee.
The Schedule
M: Science and Exploration
T: Cook a nice dinner
W: PARKOUR!
Th: Parties, movies, dinners
F: Picnics, the Louvre
S: Read books, go for walks, PARKOUR
Su: Philosophy, Religion
The Reading List
This list starts Summer 2006
A Crocodile on the Sandbank
Looking Backwards
Wild Swans
Exodus
1984
Tales of the Alhambra (in progress)
Dark Lord of Derkholm
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
The Lost Years of Merlin
Harry Potter a l'ecole des sorciers (in progress)
Atlas Shrugged (in progress)
Uglies
Pretties
Specials
A Long Way Gone (story of a boy soldier in Sierra Leone- met the author! w00t!)
The Eye of the World: Book One of the Wheel of Time
From Magma to Tephra (in progress)
Lady Chatterley's Lover
Harry Potter 7
The No. 1 Lady's Detective Agency
Introduction to Planetary Volcanism
A Child Called "It"
Pompeii
Is Multi-Culturalism Bad for Women?
Americans in Southeast Asia: Roots of Commitment (in progress)
What's So Great About Christianity?
Aeolian Geomorphology
Aeolian Dust and Dust Deposits
The City of Ember
The People of Sparks
Cube Route
When I was in Cuba, I was a German Shepard
Bound
The Golden Compass
Clan of the Cave Bear
The 9/11 Commission Report (2nd time through, graphic novel format this time, ip)
The Incredible Shrinking Man
Twilight
Eclipse
New Moon
Breaking Dawn
Armageddon's Children
The Elves of Cintra
The Gypsy Morph
Animorphs #23: The Pretender
Animorphs #25: The Extreme
Animorphs #26: The Attack
Crucial Conversations
A Journey to the Center of the Earth
A Great and Terrible Beauty
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
Dandelion Wine
To Sir, With Love
London Calling
Watership Down
The Invisible
Alice in Wonderland
Through the Looking Glass
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
The Host
The Hunger Games
Catching Fire
Shadows and Strongholds
The Jungle Book
Beatrice and Virgil
Infidel
Neuromancer
The Help
Flip
Zion Andrews
The Unit
Princess
Quantum Brain
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
No One Ever Told Us We Were Defeated
Delirium
Memento Nora
Robopocalypse
The Name of the Wind
The Terror
Sister
Tao Te Ching
What Paul Meant
Lao Tzu and Taoism
Libyan Sands
Sand and Sandstones
Lost Christianites: The Battles for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew
The Science of God
Calculating God
Great Contemporaries, by Winston Churchill
City of Bones
Around the World in 80 Days, by Jules Verne
Divergent
Stranger in a Strange Land
The Old Man and the Sea
Flowers for Algernon
Au Bonheur des Ogres
The Martian
The Road to Serfdom
De La Terre � la Lune (ip)
In the Light of What We Know
Devil in the White City
2312
The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August
Red Mars
How to Be a Good Wife
A Mote in God's Eye
A Gentleman in Russia
The Fatal Conceit: The Errors of Socialism
Seneca: Letters from a Stoic
The Juanes Module


Juanes just needed his own mod. Who can disagree.
On the Day You Were Born
Wednesday. 3.5.14 4:04 am
My Dear Nephew Jacob,

To begin your life with the beginning of your life, I record that you were born on a Tuesday, sometime after seven o'clock at night.

That day I was preparing an application for post-doc in Germany. I had to print out numerous copies of papers and lists, attach them all with a binder clip, and send them physically in an envelope to the country of Germany. This will seem amusingly archaic to you, and indeed, even in the year 2014 it is something which is almost never done anymore. That day I was also arranging to renew my passport, as I am intending to travel to China in July. The woman told me in the Walgreens that I was permitted to smile, but not with my teeth. Having practiced only two possible picture-taking modes (smiling and unsmiling) and having never truly smiled without my teeth, the expression upon my face in the picture is a bit strange and confused. It is the last picture taken of me before I became an aunt. By the time I will have to replace it, you will be ten years old.

That day I made two large batches of brownies for your grandmother, who, of course, I had never thought of as a grandmother before that day. They are the most delicious brownies in the world, Jacob, and you will surely taste them by and by when you have the requisite teeth required to eat them. She needed them for work, and she wasn't sure she would have time to make them later, because we had no idea how long it would take for you to make your way into the world. Grandpa and Grandma were on tenterhooks all day, waiting for you, worrying about their baby who is your mother, hoping at any moment to hear that you were born and that you were healthy and alive.

Aunt Katherine and I weren't worried about you or your mother at all. This was probably more due to our ignorance of the whole process than our steely calm dispositions. I was mostly returning emails and learning to play "The Entertainer" on the piano. You should ask me if I still know how to play it and Grandpa and I will teach you how. You should convince your mother to relearn how to play the "Tarantella" which we all loved to hear her play when she was a child.

Aunt Katherine was at work at the library in Castle Rock. Grandma was working at the library in Highlands Ranch, where she the manager. Grandpa was hard at work at the warehouse, worrying about his baby-girl. He went out to buy the newspaper so that we would know what was going on in the world when you were born. Last I heard, Russia was invading Ukraine. I was at home, being unemployed. You kindly stayed in your mother's womb for long enough for me to get back from my job interview in California.

At last we got the call that you were getting serious about joining us in the world (around 3 pm). Grandma couldn't take it anymore, and dashed off to Fort Collins. I went to the post office to mail the aforementioned post-doc and passport applications, and chatted with the man at the counter who had also been in California last week. He had been at the horse track, and all he could talk about was one famous horse-trainer that I didn't know. I mentioned to him (as I had been mentioning to everyone) that my nephew was being born that day, but all he cared to talk about was the horsetrack, so I gave him my packages and bid him farewell. It was a beautiful day for errands.

We had to wait until well after five for Aunt Katherine to get home from work so that we could go up and join Grandma in the waiting room. Grandpa was as worried as could be, but I was placidly content to play The Entertainer, pay my last French cell phone bill, and join the International Society for Aeolian Research. Membership comes with a magazine, and if you wish to be a member, I will certainly sponsor you, my dear nephew. If you should know anything it about the world, it should be that Aeolian Science is one of the most interesting sciences that exists.

At last Aunt Katherine arrived home and was surprised to learn that we were driving immediately up to Fort Collins. She rather thought that we would wait a while and come to see you on the weekend when you'd had several days to process the world on your own. But NAY! Up we went. By this time it had begun raining, and the closer we got to Fort Collins, the more it rained. We stopped at McDonald's where a regular cheeseburger costs $1.50 and most of the other burgers cost $1. It's almost St. Patrick's day, so they have a special mint shake for sale, which apparently delicious but over 600 calories. We tried to guess what your name would be. We guessed Jacob. Your mother has always wanted to call you Jacob, since before you even started to think about existing. You weren't named Jacob Christopher-- too bad, because we could have called you JC, just like your mother's favorite member of the boyband NSYNC. Grandpa said that if your name was Jacob he would call you Big Jake, after the movie with John Wayne. We don't really know how big you're going to be, but you'll be Big Jake no matter what.

At last a text from your dad!!!!! Baby and mother, doing well!!! Grandpa visibly relaxed. He had been even more worried than we had thought. We listened to the Black Eyed Peas and a CD of Republican jams as we drove along in Grandpa's big new black truck.
Finally we arrived at the hospital, in the dark, in the rain. They directed us to the maternity ward where we found Grandma, still waiting. They let us go in to see you and your parents, and the room was like a palace!!! It looked more like a hotel room than a hospital room, but there it was! The place that you were born! Your mama looked so adorable under her little blanket. She was still my big sister, you may be assured, but she seemed now somehow so much older, in terms of life experiences, happily sitting there under that blanket having baked a perfect little tiny body inside of her own for all of those months. I wanted to give her a big ol' hug for being such a hero, but she was lying down. It was worth all of these weeks of uncertain unemployment so that I could be there in that moment. And you! You, my nephew Jacob! You were so tiny! Your little perfect red face and your little perfect purple hands, with little perfect fingernails. The nurse said that you were a beautiful baby. She said that she definitely did not say that to everyone. Grandma was buzzing around the room, trying to be as helpful as possible and taking pictures. Your mama was sipping water out of her favorite water bottle and getting ready to eat a well-deserved supper (a hamburger). Your papa was beaming. Aunt Katherine has spent a lot of time the last couple of years taking care of babies, and you could tell, the way she expertly picked you up and cradled you in her arms. I didn't have very much experience with babies. I felt like someone was going to tell me to sit down in a chair so that they'd be sure I wouldn't drop you or break you in half. But I got the hang of it. You were so cute, with your little button nose and your almost non-existent golden eyebrows. Sometimes you would crack your eyes open to get a look at me. All of us are sure that you will grow up to be a handsome saintly genius. It will be hard to get out of the habit of calling you "Splinter". Jacob. Jacob. Big Jake. It was a big day, Big Jake. You did well.

On the way home, the rain turned to snow and the snow was outrageous. It was some of the worst driving conditions I have ever been in in my life. I was driving one car and Grandpa was driving the other, I-25. I thought we all might die only having met you once, but I kept my steely calm. The big giant flakes flew into the windshield. I couldn't see any of the lines. I drove by the light reflected in the tire indentations of the cars that had gone before. And I wrote this little poem for you, my nephew:

On the night that you were born, the whole family was praying
Well, starting at 4 am that morning, cause it took a while (just saying)
On the night that you were born, you were bathed in a loving glow
And the skies themselves celebrated with a confetti made of snow
On the night that you were born, I thought Grandma and I would end up in a ditch
Because on the night that you were born, boy, it was snowing like a bitch
On the night that you were born, you were calm and did not cry
And the dancing coyotes in the yard sang you a coyote lullaby
On the night that you were born, we made brownies- we didn't need much persuasion
Welcome to the family, boy, brownies for every occasion!
On the night that you were born, every face was ringed with mirth
Happy to have you, to see you, to love you, and to welcome you to Earth!


Sincerely,

Aunt Laura
4 Comments.


Lucky kid! His aunts seem quite loving. I don't know if people made such a fuss over me when I was born.
» randomjunk on 2014-03-07 01:06:59

My facebook page is awash with babies. It's insane.

RYC: I'm looking at a newer (13/14) model of the car, the 14 model year is the last of the style being made. I'm wary of the depreciation costs, but the 08/09 have a known problem with the engine, and being a car typically modded/etc, I'd rather it have little/clean history, rather than one that's spotty.
» ikimashokie on 2014-03-10 12:03:45

Also, I don't think the savings are that much between a 5 year old and current model. I looked at a one year pre-owned, and it was 1k off of MSRP. I saw another that was three years, and maybe was 2k cheaper. This car seems to hold its value like nobody's business.
» ikimashokie on 2014-03-10 12:04:55

Yeah, we broke up. : I mentioned it in the entry right before my current one.
» randomjunk on 2014-03-25 12:32:09

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