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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.
A Slice of Life
Thursday. 5.12.16 12:13 am
When I lived in Providence, Rhode Island, my apartment had a little backyard. In the backyard was a little tree with branches that grew like an umbrella. In the summer, bunches of white flowers bloomed, weighting down the branches. One year I planted a bunch of flowers in the harsh Providence soil. I traveled so much in those days that I didn't even see when they sprouted and bloomed. Our neighbors, a very young and impulsive couple, married themselves below our umbrella tree and wove my flowers in their hair. When I returned, the garden was empty.

It's a strange little life that I've made for myself here in California. My house sits in an eccentric little neighborhood with towering pines and leafy avocado trees. Occasional lemons, oranges, and stately palms give the place a tropical feel, especially this year, which has been heavy with rain. The clouds gather in misty splendor around the mountains and the arroyo has filled with saplings. When the leaves rustle, it's usually a lizard. I still find them to be quite novel after all this time.

I have a job that I love. I tell people that all I have to do for the next 30 years is not get fired. It's weird to feel committed to a workplace like that, especially after so many years of moving around all the time. I guess it's kind of like marrying someone. JPL has its flaws, clearly visible and annoying, but I'd be content to let them annoy me for the next 30 years at least. JPL's redeeming qualities more than make up for these things. JPL's campus feels like a playground. Each building you enter contains something more amazing than the last: people driving a half a Mars rover over a circle of fake terrain... a house-sized robot in the shape of giant spider... tiny robots that can climb up walls like my garden lizards... real flight spacecraft in the process of being assembled. There are plenty of buildings I haven't explored yet. There is plenty of time for that. People more senior than I am are in the midst of filling our hallways with new hires. We have no voice in the hiring process. I wonder if the senior scientists, a few years from retirement, realize that they're hiring our friends for the next 30 years. It's a mistake to hire the best one, people always tell me. Hire the one who will get along with everyone else in the group. One superstar is great, but a team is greater. I still have a frequent urge to move away to a place where I can buy a house on a big plot of land and have five kids and let them run wild through the great outdoors. But how could I leave my job? How many people wake up in the morning with their heart a-leaping at the thought of getting to go to work that day? Maybe I can buy a little shack somewhere in Utah and we can spend the summers there.

In the evenings my little dog Juan Pablo and I walk around the neighborhood, looking at the houses. When I arrived I'd looked at them despairingly-- tiny little shacks with prices in the high six figures-- it was criminal. Now I'm more discerning. This one is small, yes, but it has a beautiful Spanish balcony. This one has a large gazebo in the backyard. This one has a large, exposed front yard, but if I planted some hedges I could make a beautiful little private garden. There are always possibilities.

My gym is close by. When I signed up I told the guy that I was going to attend the gym for one year. "Exactly one year?" he said, skeptically. "Not three months?" "A year," I said, annoyed. "Not more than a year?" he said. I smirked at him. "My desire is to go to the gym for exactly one year, not a day more nor a day less." He gave me my year-long membership. Now we are a little community of zumba-dancers, women about my age and considerably older, from every race on Earth. We look at each other with breathless despair between all of the fast songs, and that's what brings us together.

I have habits now. After years of constant traveling, being gone at least one week out of each month, I've made an effort to be still for a while. Take classes. Host garden parties. Every weekend I have to wind my grandmother's old clock. Every morning I have to water my herb garden. I vacuum. I clean the counters. There is only me, so everything stays pretty clean. I am annoyed when someone moves something out of its place. This is new. I'll have to relax again a bit if I ever find myself a family. Sometimes, when I go out walking in the evening with Juan Pablo, I leave the door unlocked and all of the lights on, so I can pretend that we're not coming home to an empty home.

Since it is summer, I've been playing softball in a league. Everyone is always surprised, but JPL not only has enough softball teams to fill a league, but enough to fill THREE leagues. We are the C league, the lowest league there is. One time I played for the B league, but they actually have strikes there. In fact, you only get two strikes before you're out. It's too serious there. I've never even met anyone who plays in A league. I like the C league because sometimes a stray child or dog runs on the field, and everyone has to chase it. Sometimes they put kids up to bat, and let them catch. Everyone's boyfriend who is in town for the week can play, and in the middle of summer we fill the team with interns. I can't remember how I got on the LA Radars, but I'll play for them for the next couple of decades, God willing. Maybe even after I retire.

My house is a little two-bedroom rental in the backyard of a larger house. It has a picket fence around a little yard and patio. I have a deck for my herb garden that has the perfect amount of sun. Maybe at the end of the summer I'll have a tomato. I can walk to the library from my house. It doesn't have very many books, but it has enough of the basics to keep me busy. I'm in a book club, and I'm in town for most the meetings. What a novelty. My friends in France want me to come and visit them in France. My friends and colleagues want me to come to Iceland. Or Hawaii. Or Brazil. I just want to stay in Altadena, playing with Juan Pablo and watching my garden grow.
Recommended by 2 Members
randomjunk The-Muffin-Man
7 Comments.


I feel like if you wrote a whole book about one day in your life, I would enjoy reading it.

I could tell you what happened on April 26th, but I've pretty much only been telling people in person or over videochat, because text alone does not do it justice.
» randomjunk on 2016-05-13 05:01:47

This entry just makes me feel happy. It's such a calming entry. I agree with RJ. You could basically write a book. I'd buy it, and read it over and over.
» LostSoul13 on 2016-05-18 11:36:10


» The-Muffin-Man on 2016-06-04 10:21:22


» The-Muffin-Man on 2016-06-04 10:21:30

I've been trying to comment a heart but I think it's interpreting the angle bracket as HTML...so instead you get a smiley face


:)
» The-Muffin-Man on 2016-06-04 10:24:00


» Helena on 2016-06-04 11:25:42

Same as the muffin man. :)
» Helena on 2016-06-04 11:25:59

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