I want to read in Ah-mericah

I don't know what I'm doing up at 7am on Christmas, so I'll just blame jet lag.

Before I forgot, I just HAD to post these two pictures up first before all the other trip photos. Spotted them in Bookshop Santa Cruz.

This is for all my special thespian friends. And no, I found it in neither the drama nor horror departments. Check out the purple tights and the make-Ben-Wong-jealous pecs.

This one is dedicated specially to Candice and Bun Bun.

Just an afterthought after browsing several American bookstores: Why are the audio books sections so huge? In Borders here, audio books take up two sides of one shelf. Over there, I see shelf after shelf after shelf of audio books. Oddly, I hear that the audio books clientèle doesn't comprise entirely of hearing-impaired and elderly people. The hypothesis put forth to me was that there are lazy Americans out there who won't read something if it doesn't come in any form other than just words. My sis tells me about people she knows and/or have worked with that seem to have hardly read a single book after graduating from college or high school, and how they graduated was a mystery.

Quick peep

Just a few quick images from the past 3 weeks. Will post more photos when I get back.

Most Santa Cruz sunsets are beautiful, but on mildly cloudy days, they're awesome.

Another tidbit from Anal Retentive Land. Guess whose handiwork this is?

And then, my sister leaves her own legacy. Told you she was stacked. By the way, she really does this at every meal/snack - stack.

I was a little horrified, plenty amused to find this in a Toys R Us email ad - Playmobil Roman Arena set, complete with lion, gladiators and thumb-down emperor. What, no half-eaten Christians?
Cute (and sometimes noisy) squirrels like to scuttle around the yard. This one found a nut and was trying to eat it literally all over the yard. It didn't keep still for more than 3 seconds I reckon. The photo's a bit blurry as I had to take the picture from behind the screen door.

The Santa Cruz coastal area is the western wintering grounds for the Monarch butterflies. It used to be spectacular, with the trees simply covered in them. Sadly, their numbers are dwindling at an alarming rate, and today they number less than 5% of what they did 10 years ago. Still, it was cool to watch when batches of them took flight.
Another rare conjunction! Venus and Jupiter were less than 2" close at the end of November, and they were so bright in the night sky that even my crappy Sony Cyber-shot camera could capture them. The crescent moon joined them on 30 November - these pictures were taken around 5.30pm Pacific Time. Venus is the brighter dot of light.

This is the photo the Ginsburg family used for their X'mas cards this year, taken 2 days ago. You can clearly tell the kids inherited their daddy's hairline and forehead size - not as obvious for Sean at this point at his fringe has grown out, but check out the length of his head. Aren't they adorable?

One storm down, more to come

FINALLY, the Yahoo situation has resolved! After I pleaded for the umpteenth time, they finally allowed me to provide alternative information before resetting my password. Relief!

The weather's about to turn. After the first few foggy days, my stay here has mostly been very sunny and beautiful. The weather forecast has predicted storms coming up over the weekend and early next week though, which is really befitting since The Parents arrive on Monday. Figures.

Been surprisingly busy here. My sis has a never-ending list of stuff to do, and having the kids around is a constant challenge, adorable though they are, and I'm pretty much helping out most of the time. Like I said, this ain't no vacation. On the plus side, I think I'm getting bigger biceps from carrying the girl a lot. On the minus side, I'm getting a bigger waistline to match - American-size food portions are a killer.

My day begins with having the little girl wake me up (I sleep in her room and she ALWAYS wakes up earlier than I do), me changing her diaper, then succumbing to her begging me to read books to her. She loves being read to. A lot. Plus she has her favourite books. This means I read 10 books or more to her every day, and the same ones every day. Thank goodness she's cute or I'd have killer her or myself by now.

Then there's the boy. I love my nephew, but I hate boys his age. Doesn't help that he has multiple issues that annoy me, including a kwai lan character and territorial issues with baby sister. Again, good thing he's charming and cute.

At least I'm spending loads of time with my sis, talking, laughing, reading, eating, eating somemore, and most importantly, bitching.

Guess the best of the trip's pretty much over, now that the folks are arriving, along with rain and cold. Sigh.

Update on Yahoo situation #3

Faxed Yahoo the following yesterday:

* Copy of passport (specifically, "Copy of state/government issued photo ID")
* Name
* Contact email
* Yahoo ID
* Permission for Yahoo to enter my account
* Birthdate
* Postal code
* Alternate email address

And after all this, they finally emailed me my secret question. I had an idea of what the answer was, but (cue to bang my head on the nearest wall) I couldn't remember the exact phrasing!! I submitted a list of possible answers, all of which were not an exact match. So access denied.

That was my last option of getting them to reset my @#$%& password. Even though I'd submitted a copy of my fucking passport and gave every other detail. What more do they want? DNA sample? Noooo...it's the secret answer or NOTHING. They're so by-the-book that they refuse to consider this on a case-by-case basis, and the one thing they accept is the secret answer.

I've even, in desperation, offered to tell them the details of my email account, the contents, my contact list, what's written in my notes, my Yahoo groups, ANTHING.

Plus, the account security department refuses to be contactable via phone, only through email. And I get the same damn standard answer bullshit that only shows they hardly even bothered reading the problems I highlighted. There's no real human being I can talk to, no manager or superior I can address who might give a damn, nothing. The drones at Customer Care refuse to do anything either.

What do I do? I have so many important information stored in my Yahoo account. It's my own damn fault that I didn't write down my new password nor my secret Q&A (which I entered so long ago that I forgot). But this is downright ridiculous.