Monday Moans, How is your Monday going?

I'm at work this Monday morning trying to get motivated to dive into reading all about satellite telemetry. Telemetry is a fancy word for how to gather, send, and display all the data about the health of a satellite. The health of a satellite is things like are the batteries operating properly, are the solar panels operating properly, is the satellite in the proper location, etc.

I wish it were still the weekend and I were out hiking again! I went on two hikes this past weekend. The weather was awesome: sunny, blue skies, and pleasantly breezy. The wild flowers were out in force. It was beautiful. You can check out my pictures from both hikes at
http://picasaweb.google.com/cathy.roberts/...feat=directlink
and
http://picasaweb.google.com/cathy.roberts/...feat=directlink


After hike number one on Saturday I came out as asexual to the woman I was car pooling with. I go geocaching quite often with this woman and so I'm curious if she will spread the word about me now to my other lesbian geocaching buddies.

My being asexual came up because we were talking about the San Francisco Gay pride parade and I said I was marching in the parade this year. She asked me which group I was marching with and I said the asexual group. She asked me what asexual meant. I told her it meant that I didn't want to have sex with anyone. I also told her that I now identify as asexual lesbian. She did not say much after that and we moved on to other topics.

I have a feeling that my marching with the asexual group in the parade this year will open up quite a few opportunities to come out as asexual to quite a few gay and lesbian friends of mine.

Cathy

Beautiful pix Cathy! I especially like the pix of flowers. I adore flowers!

WOW! You came out as an asexual?! Kudos to you! Was it scary or did you feel calm and comfortable doing it? I'm (pleasantly) surprised that there is an asexual group marching in the Pride parade! How many members are there? Have you met them before? I'm pretty sure I'm the only asexual lesbian in Ohio! :haha:

Do you have a long weekend for Easter? Focus on that to get you through the satellite stuff! :D Monday is halfway over...well here in Ohio it is, out there it's just starting!

Yes, WOW, I did come out. I hadn't planned on it but it was just an awkward moment when I said I was going to be in the parade and I couldn't think of a way to sort of fudge around the fact that I was going to be marching with the asexuals. So I just dove in and came out. It was scary and yet I know the lesbian I came out to fairly well and wasn't too worried about her reaction. It was a little awkward that her reaction was basically one question and then silence. I wasn't sure what to do so changed the subject. I sort of thought she would ask all sorts of questions and be more interested in the topic but she wasn't.

I do find that I have some internal asexual "phobia" in the same way I had some internal homophobia when I came out as lesbian years ago. There is that sense that this is a private thing and not something I should share with people. I feel mildly ashamed to admit I'm asexual. I don't have asexual pride so to speak. I don't know why I feel that way. Intellectually I don't see anything wrong with being asexual and sharing it with folks but on a gut level I do feel a little embarrassment about being asexual. I still have that feeling that something is inherently wrong with me. I found that coming out as lesbian helped me to overcome my internal homophobia so I'm hoping coming as as asexual will help with that internal "asexual" phobia.

Oh and for info about the group marching in the SF gay pride parade see the AVEN post:

http://www.asexuality.org/en/index.php?showtopic=37181

This year so far the AVEN meetups in SF have drawn 10 (in January) and then 5 (in March) people. Our next meet up is May 3. I think at least 10 people have committed to marching with AVEN and the SF group is hoping to get people from out of town to attend also. I don't think any of the SF group except me identify as asexual lesbian. One of our SF AVEN meetup members is the founder of AVEN, David Jay. He will be marching with us.

I do not get any time off for Easter. It will just be a regular weekend to me. I'm not a Christian so I don't celebrate Easter in the religious sense. As a kid my family did do the easter egg hunt thing and I loved that. If I am around people who celebrate Easter I enjoy joining them for the secular parts of the celebrations (i.e. dinners or breakfasts or easter egg hunts but not church) but otherwise Easter usually passes me by without much fanfare.

Cathy

Nothing really to moan about this Monday morning. I had a good Easter weekend. I had fun geocaching on Saturday. We found 18 geocaches at a park called Manzanita park in Prunedale, California (southwest of San Jose). If you want to know what geocaching is check out geocaching.com.

Sunday I got two loads of laundry done and cleaned house all while watching the Master's golf tournament. I tried to go to the library to get some new books but the library was closed because it was Easter.

I didn't know they closed the library on Easter. I'll probably go tonight instead. I'm in a mystery sort of reading mood. Anyone have any recommendations of good mystery series with female protagonists? I have already read the following authors: Nevada Barr, Margaret Marron, Rita Mae Brown, Sue Grafton, and Abigail Padgett.

Cathy

Hi Cathy, my sister-in-law likes, no is addicted to, books by Patricia Cornwell...she writes more about crime though.

Great Monday here! I got a lot of errands done in the pouring rain. I adore rain! It's cold and damp and rainy and everyone else is grumpy but I'm over the moon! :D

for me it's over, nyah nyah

Excuse my dim wittedness ... I assume you mean Monday is over for you?? I still have about eight and one half hours left in my Monday.

Cathy

Another marvelous weekend filled with hikes and another Monday when I would rather be still hiking and not heading to work. Oh well. The hikes were great. It was a bit hot this weekend (high 70's and 80's F) and we had to skirt around quite a lot of poison oak but it was so beautiful. Pictures of the hike on Sunday are at http://picasaweb.google.com/cathy.roberts/...feat=directlink.

What did you do this past weekend?

Cathy

I think I'm in withdrawal from lack of hiking. Doing paper work all weekend was a real drag. But I did get quite a bit finished up.

I have a hike planned for this coming Sunday to a stunningly beautiful park, Pt Lobos in Carmel, CA. Its advertised as a seal pup hike so hopefully we'll get to see some baby seals along the coast.

Meanwhile a long week of work is stretching out before me. I hope to spend some time working with a fellow named Mitch who wrote the battery simulator software which I will use to test my battery software.

Cathy

Awwww! Baby seals?!!! I wanna go too!! :) Have you ever seen any up close and personal before? Carmel, CA has a reputation for being gorgeous, even here in the Midwest we've heard of it's beauty!

Had a fun weekend. On Saturday I went to Stanford and watched a softball game. Stanford beat Arizona 4-3. It was a good game and it didn't rain.

On Sunday I went hiking at Point Lobos. It was misty and windy but we still had a good time hiking. We saw seal pups. They were very cute. We saw them play in the water, nurse, and sleep. We saw a couple of sea otters too. We also saw a deer on the trail about 10 feet in front of us. It was not very afraid of us. We applauded when she ate poison oak! Unfortanately I forgot my camera so no pictures of this hike.

After the hike was over I went to Monterey Bay Aquarium with the hike leaders. They are members of the aquarium so got me in for free with a member's guest pass. We saw the new sea horse exhibit and checked out old exhibits with river otters, sea otters, and penguins. We had lunch at the Aquarium restaurant. It was a delightful day.

Now its back to another work week.

Cathy

Today I'll moan about feeling like I was talking to myself the past several days on this board. I hope folks are doing OK and just busy and not able to tune into the board. I hope I haven't scared people away with all my chattering.

Work is going OK so far. I'm trying to get my nerve up to go ask a fellow who I find intimidating some questions.

I'm going to go to the gym this afternoon after work. I'll do the old elliptical machine again for probably 45 minutes.

I'm going to watch my taped coverage of the Amazing Race tonight so please don't tell me who won if you know! I might also watch Dancing with the Stars.

Cathy

Very busy today so not much of a post. Hope everyone has a good day. Happy Monday!

Cathy

Enjoying a lovely spring day and savoring every minute of the cool breezes. B)

No Monday moaning this Monday. I got to sleep in and I have the day off!

Happy Memorial day in the U.S.

I'm off to a barbecue at 4 pm. Till then I'm going to get chores done around the house.

Cathy