San Francisco

I loved Chinatown, and would stay there again in a second.


Getting lost is great sometimes
Love the vegetation out there. Totally different from what I normally see.
I thought this was positively magical. The books light up at night. See the words on the sidewalk?
The view from Coit tower. Thanks Coit Tower. Because of the climb to get to you, I am now treadmilling it up every day. Out of shape, that's me.
Here I am, pre-Alcatraz Tour. That's the hat that I made on the way out there. Good thing I had it too, because that ferry ride was brutal. That wind just cuts right through you. I bought The Perfect Button at Britex Fabrics earlier that day. Man, that store rules.
Alcatraz. This was my favorite thing in SF. I LOVED the self guided audio tour. Well done, not too cheesy, and fit right in with the night tour that we took. It was dark and gloomy in the prison, and a few times I got REALLY spooked. Me and my imagination, at it again.
The view from the boat, leaving the Wharf. I love that SF fog. It's like someone just takes a big gray blanket and throws it over the city. My kind of weather.
Love this- taken while preparing to dock at Alcatraz. I am thinking of having this printed for sure. I didn't know about the American Indian occupation in th 1970's. Learn something new everyday, why don'tcha.
Gaurd tower with flowers. One thing that struck me about Alcatraz is all the foreboding gloom of rundown towers and such, and the beautiful flowers that grow there. I loved the juxtaposition of it.
Bars on the bars on the windows in one of the cell blocks. Pretty serious stuff there. I could seriously do a whole blog entry on Alcatraz alone. LOVED IT.
Off we go to the Haight-Ashbury district. I love how this turned out.
Golden Gate Park Botanical Gardens. Stop it with the amazing flowers already.
And the trees. We have nothing like this where I am from. And I am surely the worse for it.
Japanese Tea Garden. I want to live here. It looks fake, doesn't it?
Lombard Street. I only include this photo because to me it reminds me of one of the most interesting things about San Francisco. I tried to imagine living on or around Lombard St. There you are, going out to get your paper, and there are people with camcorders leaning out of their cars, whooping it up while riding down your street. The attractions in SF are largely like this- you have people living by the steps up to Coit Tower, someone lives in the house at 710 Ashbury (the house of Grateful Dead fame) . Life just sort of unceremoniously goes on around all this stuff that's so remarkable. That truly boggles me.

I really, truly loved visiting this city- even if at every turn it reminded me that I am neither hip nor fit enough to live there.

I'm Home.

I'm home, and feeling really really really really great.

Really great.

Our trip was amazing. It was just really perfect, and I am so glad we went. My Partner In Crime, Obsessive Over-Planning, and I have won big this time. Victory was ours. But before I tell you alllllll about the trip, I wanted to talk more about some other stuff.

First, this trip was great in that I have returned home feeling very confident in the abilities that is the team of BF and I. We did lots of things and arrived on time, we didn't run out of money or get terribly lost in big cities (well, bigger than we are used to) and navigated 1500 miles of road in a rental car, and did it all without breaking up or (me) crying or any sort of theatrics. This was a big test for us, and I am very pleased to report that we passed. It's nice to know that you can share the familiarities of every day life with someone, while also being able to see and do new things without falling apart. I take serious comfort in this.

Second, going away really showed me what a great life I have right here. I needed that. I was getting into a seriously uninspired summer funk that I think was perfectly mirrored by this dreadful shell of a blog the last month or two. Yes, I have been having summer fun, but I have also not been writing, creating, photographing...really doing anything of interest. I think familiarity just began to breed all sorts of contempt. But towards the end of the trip, i was really longing for salt marshes, floppy dog ears, kitty moustaches- even my job. That also made me resolve to try to stay in the headspace that you are in the first few days home- delighting in the familiar, the things you took for granted.

Third, I want more. I want more travel, more new things to see and do, a better camera with which to capture it all. And, we want a Westfalia van. Badly. After seeing them in camping action and talking with some very enthusiastic owners, this is a sweet little dream that could be reality one day. It was nice to pass the time in the car talking about saving for one, and the things we could see and what we could do if we had one. I love feeling inspired and motivated.

And finally- fourthly, I learned a good lesson about myself. I learned that I need to be more fully present in the Here and Now. I have a tendency to live in Remember Whens and In the Futures. That doesn't leave a lot of room for enjoying what is right in front of me at that very moment. Seeing such a stunning part of the country forced me to do just that. I must enjoy what is here now.

Painstaking retelling of the trip to begin tomorrow!

Happy Summer to You!

My, how time flies when you are having fun. And fun? We are, dare I say, having a surplus here.

Summer is in full swing, and this has been probably the happiest and most carefree summer of my adult life. First, it is unseasonably cool(ish) here, and the next week the hottest it should be is about 92. That is positively great to me. Still hot enough to really know it's summer, but not so hot you swear your brain is boiling.

As a result, I have concocted a Summer Standby Cocktail, and drink it mostly out of Mason Jars. I have discovered that my dogs not only love the beach, but they love the ocean! Maya drank too much sea water one day, and learned her lesson. But now, that timid little girl runs and splashes right into the ocean, and chases waves and her sister with equal enthusiasm. Well, it turns out that all she had to say was that she liked the ocean, and soon enough, it seems that every waking moment is spent at the beach now. I like that just fine.

I've been busily planning this trip Out West. We have had to do a LOT to get ourselves trip ready: new shoes, a GPS, and trips to the vet so that everyone is ready to head off to the kennel. That is, of course, just a mere sampling of my near-perverse listing of Things to Do.

Also, we live in an apartment complex. Till September 30, that is. After that we are are getting into a (rental) house, so while I look for the right place and daydream about a yard for the dogs, I also am smart enough to know: I have a pool right now. A nice one. A clean one. A relatively child-free one. And let me tell you: while I am in the pool on a float with a book and a cocktail, the interwebs is far far away for me.

Summer is great. I hope it's going well for all of you, and I hope to get back to posting with some sort of regularity soon. In the meantime, I will be counting down the minutes till I get out of town, playing in the water, and enjoying a cocktail while trying desperately to think of a name for it.

Oh For Crying Out Loud

I tell you what.

Planning this trip may very well get the best of me. I have stressed over money; that part is out of the way. But apparently planning is something that even I didn't realize that I have such an affinity for.

It's eating me alive.

I have a massive envelope containing all of our confirmations and e-tickets thus far. This envelope gets bigger by the day. I have them saved in email too. I have lists, links, maps, routes, prices, and every other thing you can imagine. I have made an itinerary. I add to it. Frequently. And now, I have been given permission to totally abandon BF in the planning process. This is now my project, my fixation, my madness.

I've been making lists.

I don't know when I did this, but I made- are you ready for this? a List of Lists to Make. Yep, I did. Every other list now becomes a sub-list to the List of Lists. Is this a sign of a problem. I fear it is so. The List of Lists is really a peek into my insanity at this point:

Things to Get
Things to Make (yay)
Things to Do
Things to Pack
Things to Plan (wtf?)
Things to Pack to Make

Things to Pack to Make. What? What is that? The best I can figure is that it's a list of knitting to bring along. But really. Why didn't I type Knitting to Pack? or just Knitting? Things to Pack to Make. Huh.

The dorkiness, it's reached Epic Proportions. I feel bad for BF. I think he's resenting this trip, and the fact that it's taken over my life.

One Year's Time

This photo was taken on June 29th, 2008.



This photo was taken today.


The dog in the top photo winced when you touched her. She avoided eye contact. Well, really any contact. The dog in the second photo sits below my chair with her head on my feet as I type this.

Good girl, Maya.

Time Spent Pondering

How's about today I skip the "my my, where DOES the time go?!? How long has it been since I posted again?" stuff. I believe I will.

The past two weeks have been both good and bad, with ups and downs, and all that. You know, life stuff. We are still adjusting to life together. Some days it's all eyelash batting and frosting- the days when I come home to a clean house, and we go to the swimming pool and I do Sweet Jumps off his shoulders or knees- those are the best days. Other days it's gnashing of teeth, slamming of doors, and seeing who can yell, "NOOOOOOOOOOO! FUCK YOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOU!" the loudest. (Hint: it's usually me. However, I laugh when I say it. What I possess in sheer volume, I lack in conviction.). But that's everyone's life, isn't it? Please say yes.

Anyway, more job stuff, and more dog stuff ( I do believe some of that is share worthy, perhaps tomorrow) and more knitting stuff, and then there's the travel stuff. More on that later, too.

So anyway. I have been thinking. About blogging. And my blog. And all the blogs I read. And why I like them. And the purpose of mine. And what it's about. And what my story is. I can be crafty, but I don't even find my own crafty posts interesting. I can follow directions, but rarely am I clever in my application of said crafts. And oy, the knitting. I don't knit quickly enough to post anything much knitting related, and I have just been too lazy to post the awesome photos I have been taking. But, I plan to fix that. Yes sir. But really, what is my story?

Do you ever wonder that about yourself? Maybe not in the bloggy sense, but in the big picture sense? What is your story? I think my story is of a girl who knits, travels, has weird neurotic animals, loves a rescued foxhound probably too much, loves a boy who makes her crazy, and often fails miserably at keeping it all together, much less packaging it nicely to show to others. Is that a good story, though?

Ya know, I gotta work on eliminating self-indulgent musings from this blog. They bore even me.

Job Woe. Then Triumph. Then Woe. Then Triumph.

Here at the Stupid house, it's really been a week or so of big ups and downs, especially of the Job variety.

Down: It seemed as though even the Wine Store down the street did not want BF's help. Sigh.

Up: He hit the streets, literally, and dropped resumes off in person. And it paid off! Someone who was not even hiring would be in touch!

Down: The holiday weekend came and went, and no one was in touch.

Up: Then they finally got in touch! On Wednesday- could BF come in for an interview that Friday?

Down: Later that afternoon, we learned that I would have to take a pay cut. We didn't know how much, but I was advised to find a second job. Commence to wringing of hands.

Up: He got the job! The upside is he got the job! It's sales, so working on comission isn't always favorable, especially when no one wants to buy anything, but it's a job! And it's one that I know he can succeed in.

Down: Part-time job searching proves tough on me. I don't do F&B, I hate the public, and I really just want one job.

Up: Today it seems that it was just a false alarm. No pay cuts after all! Still looking for a second job, just a bit of extra cash to put away before the trip. The main thing is we are no worse for the wear, possibly better even, and things will be fine.

This week has been a booger. And it's only Tuesday! I feel like I have been on a roller coaster. A fucking serious one, at that. We've gone up and down and up and down, and I just squinched my eyes shut tight and held on for dear life. Now it feels like the ride has come to a stop, but I am a bit scared to open my eyes. I'd like very much to get back to the business of knitting and singing to the dogs.