... the gentle "wack wack" of a kitty tail against the side of your head as she sits on the back of the couch behind you! Odd I know, but its so nice to have my kitty here with me. Its odd things you miss about those you love.

My doctors appointment went fine. The lump has not changed so I have been referred to see a specialist and most likely get an ultrasound done to try and find out what this is.

Some amount of immediate stress is gone, at least in the anticipation stress I was feeling in going to the doctor today. However I'm still stuck in that trap of everything being unknown and some part of me not really wanting to know (that whole no news can't be bad news syndrome).

Anyway, thats the update and the saga goes on. Its a happy Nym (my kitty) day though, she is keeping me company while Kevin works his little tush off!!

Tonight I took my first intermediate class at St. Stephen's Green Ceili dancing. It was fun, confusing but fun and I'm feeling good about my dancing progress. It was a good dancing evening though I didn't take too many pictures. Kevin was able to come for a little bit. I really do miss dancing with him; he has been too busy the last few weeks to go dancing much. Overall a good night!

Home now winding down from the evening. Weighing heavily on my mind right now is tomorrows doctors appointment. This will be my third breast exam in less than two months (if you don't know the story you can read it here).

I'm not sure what I think or feel about any of this anymore. Its not the worst it could be, it might be nothing, or something mild which could still call for removal. Who knows at this point, all that I do know is that I'm a ball of nerves. Not knowing is killing me as much as the possibility of knowing. Weird I know - but true. Anyway, tomorrow I see the doc again and we will see what happens.

I have to note how thankful I am for Kevin. When I spaz-out about one thing when this is really what bothers me, he figure it out and forgives me and holds me. He's also going with me tomorrow, he will mostly just be waiting for me, but just knowing a friendly face will be there after is one less worry.

In any case thank you to everyone who helped me learn new dances tonight; And wish me luck tomorrow.

As sampled here, I have added two new wallpapers to the In Pictures side.

I'm also looking for suggestions about which photos you think would make good backgrounds! Thanks

Sorry this last photo album went up late: The hosting server has been having issues and I couldn't upload anything. So I went out with the new camera instead! ;)

Please forgive me!

Got the new Nikon D70 Digital SLR camera today! *bounce*

Us Portrait by Kevin Fox; Editing by Me

I spent the evening last night in the best way possible: having a pajama party with my best friend!!

Kevin came home from work around 11 and I was already tired, but rather than being pathetic and going to bed we pulled out the futon, got into our pjs, put in Joe Versus the Volcano and muched at some Ben and Jerry's special core filled ice cream.

It was wonderful. By the end I was half asleep, but besides just cuddling and laughing and such we would wiggle dance when Tom Hanks was dancing on the screen, and pretended we had our own typhoon on the little raft of the futon. I love the playfulness - I love pajama parties with my best friend!

I'm laying on the couch bored right now. Normally I'm really good at entertaining myself, but I'm at a loss right now. So I'm going to ramble a bit.

First off, on a odd thing happened yesterday. I very simply walked to the mailbox, just barely down the complex road. You wouldn't think something odd could happen in that short time span, but it did - it was a douple ganger day and they were stalking me.

My first clue was the caw I heard, I looked for the crow who made it and found not one but two crows so cuddly together they almost looked like a two headed crow. I know what you are saying... silly Rachel, two black birds is no big deal. It was just funny as I just looked down from the birds and found two orange cats having a hissy fit just below. I said odd, not life shattering, work with me here folks.

So then today was a good day. Slow kind of lazy start Kevin and I eventually decided to go on a walk with our cameras. It was a nice walk... we were out for quite a while and took quite a few pictures. We went all along Castro St and circled along down the Central expressway, did some back streets, visited Ranstorff Park and then wandered home.

I LOVE spending the day with Kevin. We have so much fun just randomly wandering and doing whatever. We have our moments (And I'm really sorry I've been a bit stressed and sensitive lately hun!), but it was a wonderful day and its a wonderful life having a partner like him!!!

Oh, so also I/we are really excited! Tomorrow we are getting the new Nikon D70 Digital SLR camera. Really Kevin is getting it, but he is a cool boyfriend and shares. We held it today when we went to pick up some batteries and film for Kevin's current SLR camera. It was so pretty. So we called to check on the status of the one we had ordered, and it doesn't look like we will have it for at least 2 weeks minimum. So we are going back to the store around the corner and picking it up first thing tomorrow. I'm oh so excited.

Anyway, I guess thats all the babble from me for now. I'm sure I'll talk about more important things soon, I have some ideas on the burner.

See ya later kids!

Kevin and I have both signed up for online photography classes at Better Photo.com. Kevin is taking The Art of Composition, (which I can't give you a link to cause the course is full now - I got him the last slot - and they took down the description) and I am taking Understanding Exposure. Both classes start in 12 days on April 7th.

So I logged in to the virtual classroom today to look around. There is a place for students to introduce themselves and provide a self portrait. I'm taking class with people from Denmark, Syndney Australia, and New York City among other places.

So I'm preparing to introduce myself to class, but I don't have a self portrait. So that has been one of my tasks for today. I have however discovered this is hard. Normally when I photograph its because I find something and I'm inspired by the subject. I don't know how to photograph myself, and I'm not sure what I want to say with the photograph.

*ponders* I'll let you all know when I come up with something, but advice is welcome!

This seems to be the topic of day in blogs I read. And its important so I feel the need to comment.

I am Pro-Choice because no one should be able to tell me what I can and can't do with my body. But besides that different situations call for different actions.

For example my friend DM recently made a post in her live journal about 3 women she knows (I know two of them); this is the short version of her post, but her long version is so so worth reading.

Woman 1: Recently had a baby at age 20. Is a very strict believer of all catholic practices and so never gave a thought to abortion. She dropped out of college, her parents took out a second mortgage. Her husband to be owns his own mortgage company and barely makes any money, so she and the baby are on welfare. She had planned to go back to school in a year, but it doesn’t' look like it will be possible till the baby is in school, if then. They are planning to be married in May, but he makes excuses to say at work and she plays the house wife but sneaks in a drink here and there. And this poor baby though she has parents who love her also has parents who resent the life they are now forced to live.

Woman 2: Had a child who is the joy of her life. Her second child is being induced tomorrow and everyone is excited and happy. Her first child is healthy and happy. They may not be a perfect family, but it’s a good life.

Woman 3: Recently had an abortion. It was a hard decision and against her catholic upbringing; however she and her boyfriend discussed it rationally and decided it was the best thing. They didn’t believe it was something they were mentally or emotionally prepared to deal with. However she can never tell her mother because she would never have approved. She knows it was the right decision for her to make, but it was a very very hard one. She went through the procedure quite well and is going to be quite healthy.

Three women, three circumstances. Whether they made the right decisions can't really be judged. I don't think woman 1 did, but that is my point of view and may not be right. The point is that these three women are examples of the right to choose that they have as US citizens.

Blacksheep also posted today about abortion; this time about laws. The senate has now ruled to recognize "a fetus as a separate victim in cases involving pregnant women". This may not be a ruling to outlaw abortion but this will be used in cases to support the outlawing of abortion.

Abortion isn't right for everyone, but we live in a country that was created so its people could choose what they want to believe and practice. This should count for our bodies as well as our minds.

*giggle* And that’s a mouthful!

I created this game for Mark! Because he "asked for it" and it will be fun.

There are about three and a half weeks till Easter, and I don't care if you celebrate Easter or not, everyone loves Easter eggs! For this reason I'm sending you all on an Easter egg hunt, Rachel style.

No, you are not looking for a decorated egg this time, but instead the techy version of an Easter egg. An Easter egg is a hidden, invisible or unknown link on a page. The little hand that appears when you put your cursor on a link will appear when you find the Easter egg. The best way to find the egg is simply to scan the page with your cursor until the hand appears in a place where there isn't an obvious link. Click the link and it will take you to the first Easter egg.

There will be a new hunt each week until Easter. So you have three hunts to look forward too.

How to Play:
1. I have placed 3 Easter eggs on 3 different Phoenix Feather pages. The first one is on this blog default.

2. Find the Easter egg and click on the link; it will take you to a hidden page with your egg and a link to the page that contains the next Easter egg.

3. Repeat this process until you have found all three Easter eggs.

4. The last hidden Easter egg page will have a random surprise and a secret email. Email me there and I will put your name on the Easter Egg Hall Of Fame.

5. You have until Wednesday March 31st to find the eggs and then a new Easter egg hunt will be put into place. One hunt a week(approx) until Easter!

I will try to make the Easter eggs worth the search. See you at the end of the hunt!

On Democrats Questioning What Bush Knew Before 9/11:
"…what I want to say to my Democratic friends in the Congress is that they need to be very cautious not to seek political advantage by making incendiary suggestions, as were made by some today, that the White House had advance information that would have prevented the tragic attacks of 9/11. Such commentary is thoroughly irresponsible and totally unworthy of national leaders in a time of war." [Cheney Remarks, 5/16/02—aired on NBC Meet the Press, 5/19/02] [http://www.democrats.org/blog/display/00010527.html]

*ponders* I think this translates as: "No comment! And anyone who tries to make me comment will wish they were never born"

But you know, I could be wrong.

While Kevin was in the eye doctor I did some photo wandering around the Berkeley campus. I found some beautiful flowers to photograph on a bridge near faculty glade. As I was photographing two men came onto the bridge and began setting up equipment. I was about to move on when I realized these men were setting up photography equipment. So I stopped to talk to them.

I ended up spending about 45 minutes chatting with freelance photographersEdward Caldwell and Jed Manwaring; asking questions about their equipment and backgrounds. Jed told me about Better Photo.com which is a website that gives all sorts of tips to beginners as well as offering classes online. Kevin and I are both considering taking a class.

Both guys were really nice and really helpful and wonderful. Their photography is wonderful and if nothing else comes of it, I really loved just talking to them. However I made one request of them: Both men were happy to offer me their email and agreed that if I sent then a couple of photos they would be happy to give me some feedback. I'm so excited! I promised I wouldn't pester them; I would just send them my photos.

So now I'm trying to decide what photos I want to send to them. I'm working on sorting through all my photos and narrowing it down, but if you have an opinion please let me know!!

So the question is, of all the photos I have up on In Pictures, which ones should be critiqued?

So I have had Phoenix Feather In Pictures open for a little over a month and I am starting to notice two problems with how I am dealing with photo albums.

Problem 1: I have lots of ideas about things that I want to go and photograph, however I have so many albums backlogged plus the photos I take just doing what I normally do that I end up feeling guilty going out to take more pictures. I really don't want that!

Problem 2: When I have first taken a set of photos I'm really excited about them and want to share them right away. But I feel guilty again because I have 5 other albums of photos that I'm also excited about that aren't up yet. And so I end up with more backlogged photos and more guilt.

As an attempt to deal with this situation I have initiated a marathon for photo albums. For the next two weeks I will be posting a new album every other day! That’s 2 weeks and 7 albums. The first of those albums went up today: "Irish Feet a Smilin'" is now up. The next one will be up on Tuesday.

So check In Pictures frequently for the next two weeks, and make sure to look back and see if you missed any!!!

A long long day, but oh so good.

Kevin and I went to Berkeley for the day. He had an eye doctors appointment at 10:30 and we also had a dinner and movie party at Emily's (in Hayward) at 7pm, so it made sense for us to spend the day hanging out in Berkeley. Yay!! Always fun.

So Kevin let them put things in his eyes and when they were done we picked out new glasses for him. He's so very cute in glasses... looks so smart. And then the day really began...

We started with exploring campus. Well, exploring for me, not so much for him since he graduated from Berkeley. There is still a lot that Kevin hasn't shown me, and he is ever so excited about sharing. So we wandered around and took pictures. I was proud of myself as I randomly identified a tree from a picture Kevin had taken years ago. After a while we got hungry and shared a panini sandwich from the Musical Offering restaurant; which was followed by browsing through Hot Topic, walking the Berkeley streets and smiling a lot.

We paused to view and photograph two boys playing metal music on their violin and cello. The boys weren't more than 20 years old and related (they have the same last name). Called Judgement Day; we enjoyed their music as well as the ability to photograph them so we gave a donation and were given a CD in return.

Their music wasn't bad. Technique was a little bit lacking, but their style was good. A lot of potential here and even more important a lot of spirit! I wish them luck.

After that we went to the Berkeley Hat Store. This store is my weakness! While I can rarely justify buying a hat, I do love them ever so much. This time however was not about me. While I had fun trying a few on, there were no hats that called to me. There was a hat that called to Kevin though. Kangaroo leather, squishy and very very cool. We walked some more and enjoyed a beautiful day. I took a bunch of pictures, which will be going up soon!

After Berkeley, we went over to Karen's to say hi, drop off some books, borrow her bike and visit for a bit. We gained a Paul there and soon headed over to Emily's for yummy Chinese food and to watch the Miyazaki movie "Laputa: Castle in the Sky". Dinner was wonderful and this was a great movie, though I had a hard time staying awake at the end. It had been a long day and it was catching up to me (didn't go to bed till almost 2am the night before).

Home at about midnight I happily climbed into bed and passed out; exhausted in body and mind!

I'm warning you now... this is a rant... just warning you!!!!

I am so so so angry!!! Some of you know that I have a possible health issue. It’s a possible issue with a non-cancerous breast lump. If you want the whole story read it here.

To continue the story, I knew that my insurance ran out on my birthday, May 1st. Since that was coming up fast Kevin and I got to work on making sure I was going to be covered all the way through. Now one of the downsides of my current insurance is that it won't cover anything preventative, only specialist/emergency issues while I'm not in the state of NY, which is the insurances origin.

So I call to find out what paperwork I need to deal with in order to transfer myself over to Kevin's insurance on my birthday. I get on the phone with them and they are all of a sudden telling me that they have made a mistake and they need to cut my insurance that day. No grace period, nothing.

So Kevin was wonderful, we scrambled, signed some papers at Google to start the process of getting me on his insurance. The only thing missing is the letter from my old insurance telling me the date that they stopped covering me. This allows the new insurance to retroactively pick me up from that day and I have continuous insurance.

The insurance company promised to fax a copy of the letter I needed. They said it would take them 3 days to get the letter together. After meeting with Google, the HR department asks if the letter can be faxed directly to them. I call back to find out if this is possible. Well the girl I had been talking to has left for the day. Well I just want to change the fax number, so I tell the guy this and he comes back telling me its illegal for them to fax this to me at all. He says he can mail it, or I can have the new insurance agency call them. Kevin and I decide that it will be easier to have it mailed.

That was Monday and I have been checking every day for the letter so I can get things going. I have an eye doctor appointment on Tuesday (I've been wearing the same contacts way longer than I should have) and my third breast exam this year is on March 31st.

I got the letter today. It’s a computer print out that the guy I talked to that day made from his computer screen. It lists my original end date, 05/01/04. It says NOTHING about the fact that they already dropped me from the insurance; it doesn't have the right end date on it, and it does me NO GOOD WHAT-SO-EVER!!!

I'm so angry right now. By the time the mail was delivered today, the insurance company was closed (east coast time). So now I'm stuck, waiting all weekend... further putting off this issue. While I can claim that I have insurance... I really don't and the whole issue is kind of shaky. I think I would be covered by Kevin's insurance - as in the insurance company would wait for everything to go through and then back pay the docs. But I see headaches for me in this situation.

Truly, I got this letter and wanted to cry and scream and stamp my feet. They have reduced me to a child having a tantrum. This whole unknown health issue is stressful enough to me without adding this crap on top of it all.

Anyway, thanks for letting me rant!! I might still go do some screaming or something. The insurance company will at least get an earful on Monday! *sighs*

NOTE: Later in the evening, after I had figured out how to get them to fax me the right letter on Monday, Kevin called me. He went to check his desk at work and a fax had arrived. Apparently the guy who insisted he mail the letter (and got it wrong) never bothered to tell the first girl I had talked to about this. So when she got the letter she faxed it to Kevin anyway. All in one day the insurance company messed things up completely and then fixed it, all without even knowing it. Don't you love with the right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing!!! End Rant!

So its possible that there is still hope for good TV. Last night Kevin and I watched the re-aired pilot of the new show Wonderfalls. The show had been recommended to us as a must see for Joss fans. Apparently one of the main minds on the project also worked very closely with Joss (was supposed to take over guidance of Firefly for him among other things).

So we sat down, unsure what we were going to be watching. Much to my amazement, I still don't know what it was I watched, but I loved it. I haven't really laughed at a tv show like that since Buffy or my intro to Firefly.

I don't know if I could tell you exactly what its about. Their is a girl who works at Niagara Falls (One flaw: they claim to be on the American/New York side - However if you grew up only an hour and a half from the falls you can tell quite easily that they are on the Canadian side. I mean why would you want to tape on the American side, Canadian side has much better views) and is kind of depressed because her life isn't really going anywhere. She works in a gift shop, blah blah... that is till a deformed wax lion begins talking to her and telling her to do odd things.

That is really about all I could tell you about the show. It's hilarious and has promise and the second episode is on Fox tonight at 9pm. I recommend setting your TiVos, tape recorders or being in front of the tv tonight. I know it’s a Friday night, but this show may be worth it.

We have 4 of them... and so what if they aren't human, we still love them.

Starting with Nym, she has been my sweet little kitty for almost 3 years now. Since moving to CA she has been living around the corner from us with Ammy and Rick. We are soon going to try Kevin on some allergy medicine and hopefully be able to keep her here. For now she occasionally comes to visit. Like today!

Then there is feeder. He is the smallest, but the next oldest pet. Let me explain that feeder the fish wasn't susposed to live. We bought him and two other feeder fish for 10 cents each on the suggestion of the pet store. The idea was to get something living in our new tank and create an eco system. Because they were cheap fish, it shouldn't matter if they died. Well out of the 3 we still have Feeder (named so since we didn't want to get too attached). We waited a while before getting new fish, figuring once Feeder went, we would get started with our tank. Well feeder has decided to hang around for about a month now, and we are attached now, so he better stay for at least a little while longer.

This brings me to our newest additions, Goldie and Usta. Goldie is the smaller of the two goldfish. Usta is the larger who has a white band around her lips (Usta means lips in polish). We picked these two cause they wanted to be together. They were in two different tanks with a tank in between them. But both fish kept swimming up against the inner walls seeing each other across the tanks and trying to get to each other. Or at least this is what we tell ourselves. We have reunited them, and they are happy.

So the fish have fun swimming and Nym has fun watching them and its all a great big happy family!!

Possible Mathmatical Origin of "The Number of the Beast: 666":

Take the main roman numerals (the ones that get a new letter) 1 through 50 and add them up:

I = 1
V = 5
X = 10
L = 50
C = 100
D = 500 +
___________
666

So whether or not this is true Scott Flansburgh, aka The Human Calculator has suggested letters were put in place by the Romans to make math difficult so people wouldn't progress. Therefore 666 became an evil number because it implied intellegence and breaking their code.

So I did a google search on the "Origin of 666" and this is what I came up with:

The devil is both god (the god of flesh) and man so he gets the trinity of numbers for being a god and the number 6 which is the number for man, hence 666.

Its also suggested it connected to ancient Pagen Numerology and the Illuminati (I'm still working on reading about this one - their explination is long!! - and they also suggest that Phoenix is the ancient name of Lucifer, which I'm annoyed about, but must read). However my short term understanding is that there were 36 lesser gods and when the numbers 1 through 36 are added (1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 + 6 + 7 + 8 + 9 + 10 + 11 + 12 + 13 + 14 + 15 + 16 + 17 + 18 + 19 + 20 + 21 + 22 + 23 + 24 + 25 + 26 + 27 + 28 + 29 + 30 + 31 + 32 + 33 + 34 + 35 + 36 = 666) you get 666.

I have no idea why I latched on to this train of thought. I was just listening to the radio before my workout in case they gave out any bonus codes (I'm a sucker for dumb promotional games). Scott Flansburgh was a cool morning guest. His math theories and abilities were interesting and I love that his main work is teaching math to kids. But he randomly brought it up and my mind got hooked.

Anyway, I'm amused - thought I'd share.

Thanks to Ryan for this post!!!

Here is a really quick quiz you can take to find out how your beliefs fit in with the political parties. Don't take this as law or how you should vote. Get to know the ideas of all of them. But this at least is informative.

I came up Left Liberal Though my dot on the graph was very close to the Libertarian line and not too far from Centerist.

My score was 90% Personal Self-Government and 40% Economic Self- Government. I'm not quite sure how I got 40% Economic... I said Maybe on a bunch of things. In a lot of economic areas I'm undecided.

Anyway, What was your score?

Kevin recently blogged about the possible flag burning amendment. I think the conversation about this has been good. However commenting there myself has gotten me thinking again.

I have always been somewhat out of politics. I was a little involved while in High School, however as time went on I got jadded and frustrated. I don't watch the news anymore because its so depressing. I figure if anything important happens, someone will tell me about it. I also have some moral issues with activism. I don't understand it or agree with most of the activist practices. I took a class in grad school called "Art in Activisim" mostly so that maybe I could understand this mindset. I still don't.

I realize that my lack of involvment in government is part of what has contributed to what I see as the current problems. If I'm not informed enough, I won't vote, if I don't vote, I'm not heard and I can't complain.

For the Last month or so, as I have gotten more and more frustrated with this country, and Kevin and I have talked about what it is I can do about it. I'm actually a little proud of myself already. I have already begun taking active steps to be a bit more informed, to understand something about what is going on and to ask more questions about what I don't know.

I just don't think that being informed is enough. I have the time to volunteer, and it would be a good way to meet people in this new place too. I have looked into some of it. Its that moral aversion to activism that seems to always get in my way.

So now I'm brainstorming. What I want to know is: What do you do to be involved in making a difference in this country? Or what is it that you would like to do if you had the time/resources you would need?

Ali helped me fullfill a random urge to dye green streaks into my hair. Its temporary, and sadly its already fading away (some will still be there for St. Patricks day tomorrow) but its oh so much fun!

So I had my first goth club experience last night at the Death Guild 11th anniversary. It was an interesting and fun experience. I had fun dressing up and going out to do something I wouldn't normally do.

I'm not big into dancing by myself... or at least not while I'm out. If I'm out dancing I want it to be social. So I spent most of my time people watching which was really really fun. I got a few really great photos that you should check out on the In Pictures... side.

Its dark outside so you can't see my cool hair color or makeup, but here is me just before going into Death Guild.

A little bit about the person writing this silly blog:

My name is Rachel Lea Fisher

Nicknames: I most often go by Rachel or Rachel Lea. I also answer to Rhea. I really don't like being called Rach or Ray, though if you spell the last one Ra I feel a bit more god like and its okay. :)

Where: I live in Mountain View CA with my wonderful boyfriend Kevin. We live in a great townhouse that has a beautiful garden that I now spend lots of time in. Down the street lives my Cat Nym, who will hopefully be coming to live with Kevin and I as soon as we can get him some medicine.

What: What am I and what do I do? Hmmm... well I have a BA in Speech Communications (backgrounds in Theatre, Computers and Philosophy) from Susquehanna University; I also have my Masters in Arts Management from Carnegie Mellon University.

Since graduating from CMU in May of 2003, I have been in search of a theatre management job (development, marketing, events planning, general management) in the San Francisco bay area, or elsewhere if need be.

In the meantime, I'm playing at being part-time photographer. You can see my photos in the In Pictures... section of my site.

Why: Because life is fun!!!

Want to ask me a question? Please do!

Hello and welcome to Phoenix Feather web log: In Words...

Its taken me quite a while, but I have finally gotten my very own blog set up!!! (With lots of help from Kevin. He is wonderful)

I don't know if everything I write will be great and interesting, but please come and read and chat with me. It will be fun!

Overall life is odd, interesting and sometimes crazy - if for no other reason, come here to laugh a bit while I tell the story of my life. *grin*

See you all soon!