Occupy My Pants

Gah. I need to start taking pictures at the hostel of my favorite guests and some of the stuff that goes down here. I also need a computer of my own, so I don't have to do this on the office computer. Someday, these things will happen.

In the mean time: I spent Christmas out at the hostel. I was a little sad to miss the Oakland festivities, but I was afraid I would get overwhelmed while I was there like I did the last time I was down that way. I ended up having a really relaxing four days, went on two long hikes, cleared my head up and then had a blast christmas night with the guests that had come out. I made some new friends and sang songs and played guitar and laughed real hard.  Favorites: A couple from the bay area, she worked on scrap booking and gave me some occupy pins before she left, he asked a lot of questions about Cilantro. I had made their reservation and spoke to him over the phone, and apparently they had been asking for me, and he was really excited to meet me. She told me, "He's been so excited! The whole way up here he was all, 'My friend Ashley...'" I laughed and looked at him, and I said, "Yeah new friend! High Five!". He was stoked. They basically weren't having any of the silent oppression of the common area on Christmas night, and they truly made it a night.

The next day my favorite Texans came out with cobbler and a band shirt, and the ugly mom scarf. I'll come back and post pictures of this scarf as soon as I can, because it is truly something to behold. Really. It's a genius masterpiece of ugly.

Last night we had an arborist staying at the hostel, who happened to be a good friend of a previous landlord of mine, who was also here. This is a fine example of how small my world is getting and how it attacks me at random at my work. Anyways, apparently, you can compete at anything, including Arboristism. No, this is not a real word. I made it up, however, competing as an arborist is in fact a real thing, and this is the stuff I love my job for. How else would I know that you could compete in tree climbing/trimming competitions? Note: This is NOT a lumberjack competition. I mean, damn, just look at this guy:

Is this not honey badger status? I think so.

I have some friends coming up for New Years Eve. I'm hoping rain doesn't dampen our party, I really want to take them all out to the beach for the rise of the New Year.