Sunday's on the way.

Today I kicked myself out of bed and went to Mass. I kept telling myself, if I can't motivate myself to go for spiritual reasons, I better at least go for professional reasons. And that's what got me to Immaculate this morning.

I grabbed a burger on the way, and then before I could think about how gross I felt about going to work tomorrow, I got my cowsins together and drove to Auntie Baby N's place way up in mlt. When we showed up, she was cooking and cooking and cooking and cooking. C was there with her kids; I hardly see them since they moved to North Carolina. Anyway, all the usual suspects were there.

The food: salmon filet (as big as the baking tray); secret lasagna (the secret is soy sauce); two kinds of lumpia, chinese chicken salad, two kinds of lumpia. THICK grilled steaks. A pot of adobo. Fresh fruit and berries. Carrot cake.

Anyway, as the day was getting later, my godmother and her sidekick J started making noise about taking off. C told her something to the effect of, "Go where and do what? Nothing. Just stay here. We're all here."

And I realized that there were few places I'd rather be than eating good food and catching up with my cowsins. We laugh harder with cowsins than with other people. We eat better too. And if there's some food that we suddenly remember and wish we could eat (i.e., "food regret"), even that is fun too.

Anyway, just as it was starting to get dark, I managed to leave without getting a balkot. And as I came home, it started to rain.

Thank God, it has started to rain.

The air is clean and sweet. It's pants and sweater temperatures. Car prowls in Seattle will drop to nothing. Suddenly, I feel productive again, no longer sweating or regretting not being outside. Instead of bright, fresh, and charred foods, I will start craving heavier, more complex stews and baked foods. The rice pot will stay plugged in from now until the sun comes out in May.

Today as I was driving home in the rain, I thought about quitting my job. I could apply to grad school again, sell my condo and live off loans, grants, and pittiful little salaries.

Or I could go to and get a teaching certificate. I might or might not have to sell my casita, but I could get loans to pay for it, study for a year (at SU) or for two years (at the UW) and then hit the job market with a teaching certificate. I could get an endorsement in Spanish, French, maybe even choral music and percussion. As a newly certified teacher with 6 years of full time experience, I would be taken in the first round (so to speak). I could also teach leadership.

And, if I keep my nose clean in teaching school, I could get fabulous recommendations that would send me to a PhD program in language pedagogy.

See, when it rains, I start thinking straight. I can see more and more possibilities. I am not stuck in my job.

I love the rain. So does Tom Robbins, who wrote an essay that resonated so much with me, I clipped it and put it on my bedroom in Ann Arbor. That was back in 1994, when I was in exile. My years of captivity. My journey to the underworld.

Yes, going back to school full time would make me poor again. But it's nice to know I have options.

The one bad thing about the rain: I'm pretty sure it's seeping into my bedroom.