Plum overload

My mother and grandmother purchased about three dozen plums this past week. Since then, we've had plum pie, plum cake... and munched on plums for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. But we still have quite a few left. So, if anyone has a sudden craving for a certain small purplish fruit... feel free to stop over here and have one. Or two. Or several. o.O

I spent about six hours on Friday entering names into the database... which might go a long way towards explaining why my brain was mushy enough for me to destroy my laptop that night (see previous entry). Nothing else of note really happened that day.

This weekend, however, provided some interesting distractions... which meant that I didn't have time to get too worked-up over the loss of my computer. I mowed the lawn on Saturday in the blazing sun, and then spent awhile basking in the shaded vinca patches in our yard with my dog.

Christina's mother came over to my house that evening, and she took Christina and I downtown. It was wonderful to see Christina again after so long, and finally catch up with each other. We went to a concert in the Band Shell, featuring various former Boulder High students mocking popular songs. There were a lot of people that I recognized there from days gone by, which made me somewhat uncomfortable. It would be awkward for me to go up and say "hi" to them out of the clear blue, considering that they may not remember me. Yet I still feel guilty sitting around and pretending that I have no idea who these former acquaintances are... were my high-school years really so awful as to warrant my ignoring everyone that I associate with my life back then? I fear that I'm drifting away from Boulder and the people in it somehow... that I'm leaving everything that I once knew behind without really meaning to do so. I know that doesn't really make any sense. I'm just so... confused... these days.

Anyways, Christina and I roamed Pearl Street together, picked up ice cream at a stand, watched street performers stuff themselves into glass boxes, discretely spied on a parked playboy limo with a license plate reading "Hefner", and spent hours flipping through the beautiful photography collections at the Boulder Bookstore. I love having weird adventures of this nature.

Today, I went for a hike in the high mountains with my father, who was intent on pushing me up the mountainside at an alarming rate. It took us well into the afternoon to actually leave the house, but the weather was fortunately very pleasant, and we avoided being caught in any afternoon thunderstorms. I tried to surprise my dad by taking him on a trail that we've never visited before, but the dirt-road to the trailhead was long and very rugged... I'm astonished that our old Saab made it up there. The 5-mile-long hike itself was lovely, though... albeit crowded in spots, and riddled with mosquitoes. We made our way through a shaded forest, past avalanche slopes, through fields of wildflowers, and across many cascading streams, all while incorporating spectacular views of the Indian Peaks and the continental divide. After that, we turned away from the main trail, and descended to a nice waterfall on the North Fork of the Middle Boulder Creek, where we had a snack. The trail then rose up again through bristlecone pine forests to the tranquil Diamond Lake, which is situated almost exactly at timberline amidst a backdrop of tall peaks. Pico had a delightful time bouncing hyperactively through the alpine meadows, and swimming in the lake itself.

It was getting late at this point, and we decided to head back. On the way down, dad tripped on a log, and fell hard. I raced over to make sure that he was okay... and he assured me that everything was all right. But he badly scraped-up his shin and shoulder during his fall. Worse still, his right hand began to cause him a lot of pain, and it soon swelled up like a balloon.

He had to drive the car all the way down to Boulder one-handed, and yet he wouldn't let me operate the gear-shift for him to make his life easier. I repeatedly asked him if he wanted to go see a doctor to make sure that nothing was broken, but he angrily refused on the grounds that, and I quote: "doctors are for wusses". I don't understand him sometimes... he constantly injures himself while performing various activities, and yet he always shrugs it off, insisting that he'll see someone only if the situation becomes significantly worse (which he never does, of course). And there's absolutely no way of talking him out of his stubbornness. When he broke his collarbone many years ago, for instance, he literally wouldn't see a doctor until my uncle pointed out that there were two pieces of bone poking out from under his skin. Ugh. For his sake, I hope it's nothing major this time around.