November 30 , 2002

The big event since my last entry was Halloween. Katelyn was a bat, and Haley was Tinky Winky, the Teletubby. Katelyn's costume was from e-bay (how very geeky, eh?) and dressed up by a wonderful mask made by Andrea. Haley's was a hand-me-down from Katelyn, who wore it when she was 2.

We've been trying to go to temple every month. Since I don't have the kids every weekend, that's been difficult, but luckily now we have two options. There's a "Tot Shabbat"geared towards very young kids on the third Friday, and a "Family Shabbat" on the second Friday, geared towards school-aged kids. So in any given month we get to one or the other.

We did some visiting around this month:

We also had some friends visiting us:

Val and I went to"Generous Portions: Stories of Substance", a fat dyke variety show, at Luna Sea on 11/2. It was fun seeing some of my old friends from the Fat Lip Reader's Theater, and well as people I just know and others from the Exiles, all getting together for a fun evening of excellently fat entertainment. Right now I don't have enough time for things like this because I'm so busy with the kids, but I miss it and I'm sure I'll get back into it when the kids are older.

Once again Katelyn accompanied me to the polls on Election Day, 11/5. Even though I decide my ballot beforehand so we're only there for a few minutes, she really likes it. She helped me mark some of the ballot, and then drew a picture of the voting booth while I finished up. She proudly wore her "I Voted" sticker to school the next day!

Katelyn's social life is quite busy. It seems like she gets invited to birthday parties almost every week now. She's gone to some, but we've had to politely decline others because of other events. It's hard to believe she can be this busy in kindergarten! And now we're planning for her party, which has caused excitement (fun activities!) and angst (who to invite, who not to invite).

Work is going well for me. I'm now involved with four projects:

Keeps me very busy! I'm also doing advisory work for a startup, CotageSoft, advising them on general UI issues and techniques.

On 11/11 I got to spend an afternoon at Oracle's huge yearly conference, Oracle World. It takes over both sections of Moscone Center in San Francisco. I made a day of it, having lunch with my friend Deborah and meeting up with Val for dinner.

I'm continuing my parade judging. I do only 3 parades a year right now. I recently judged the Columbus Day (aka "Italian Heritage") Parade and the Veteran's Day Parade in San Francisco.

I got a new mattress on 11/18. This is a big deal because I went from a floatation mattress (with a pillow top and tubes of water) to a plain 6" foam mattress. Val has one, and I love it, and I wasn't comfortable with my old one. So I gave it away and got this one from foamorder.com. I'm very pleased with it (and so is Val, who hated my old mattress).

In honor of my 40th birthday, I had my first mammogram in October. All is well.

I'm continuing my mentoring activities. I'm an Academy Mentor at Carlmont High School in Belmont. My "mentee", Maata, is a nice young woman, a junior. She recently visited me at Oracle and was quite impressed. I hope to take her on a hike up Sign Hill near my house soon.

Mom and I went to Susan and Joel's for Thanksgiving. Kathie had the kids (took them to Amy's parents in Colorado), so it was just us. They have a new house - it's huge and elegant, and perfect for them. While we were there we also celebrated Lee's 14th birthday. It was weird without the girls, who didn't see until the following Tuesday.