Long Time No Talk

It's been months since my last post. A lot has happened. I'll run with the highlights.

The Girl continues to travel the world. She been about domestically in too many places to even remember. Sadly this week she woke up in Bethesda and didn't really know where she was. Kind of a downer. From Bethesda to Buffalo, NY. She should be flying home as we speak but Philadelphia weather got her planes all in a huff and she is hanging out in DE this evening. Since I've last written The Girl has also traveled internationally, most recently to Sweden and, well drats, I have to look it up . . . Germany. Yep, it was Germany in April.

I found a job. Hooray! It is at a fancy pants spa up the road. http://www.sensespa.com/ Right now I am on-call Friday and Saturday mornings and I picked up some other days through the end of August. I will figure out what days are good once school starts up again. So, the on-call thing seemed a little dicey to me when I first got hired but the place is so very busy that I am not worried. So far I have typically done three or four massages per shift. I didn't even do that many massages in school. I can tell you that after my shift my body is a little beat. I can feel muscles in my arms and apparently my third hamstring has been hanging out all these years doing nothing because NOW I CAN FEEL it on the inner back thigh. Whew, folks!

70% who is typically afraid of all things not native to the house caught a bird this week. Yes, I think it was a young bird because folks tell me that now is a period in CA when Momma birds are teaching their baby birds about life ~ but not apparently the dangers of life. The birdie was on our balcony and then in 70% mouth. I got him to release the bird and the bird was shocked but seemingly uninjured. I proceeded to put a bell on 70% collar. Now he mostly hides from the bell, which, unfortunately follows him. You see the rub here, right? He is working on being brave.

We continue to be in awe of our surroundings. The native flowers and weather is still surprising us. It would seem that since Spring started I am passing a new, undiscovered bloom about once a week in my travels. This week I noticed that some of the trees that line our very street have blossomed with red bursts of flowers. Quite lovely.

Since the rain stopped in, well, it stopped a while ago and since it has I have been primarily riding the motorcycle. With the exception of household errands that involve lots of bags I am mostly a motorcycle girl. I like it and while it is fun and cool and even a little sexy it is just not very convenient (gear, preparation, chronic bad hair days and lack of fun strappy shoes), alas, I generally forget all that once I am on the open road and enjoying the natural scents of the area and feeling the breeze. Ahhhh. Oh, and I always score rock star parking.

I have been exploring in San Francisco. I went to Golden Gate Park and tooled around. I hit the Conservatory of Flowers (much like our own Longwood Gardens - the folks at the Conservatory knew of Longwood!), walked many flower lined trails and strolled about. I went back to the park with some east coast visitors last week - FUN!!! We went to the Japanese Tea House and I got to see that famous intersection of Ashbury and Haight - it is a lot like (perhaps exactly like) South Street only there are more relaxed homeless people and the whole block smells like marijuana and patchouli.

That's my story for right now. I'll work on posting more regularly.

Peace

Outside

I am going out into the world. Hat secured; sunscreen on.

How cute is this cat?

How in the HELL did these get back in st

How in the HELL did these get back in style???

Bubbles LIVES!!!

So, I mentioned a sourdough starter last week or maybe it was earlier this week, anyway, I made something with the starter.  It is too soon to make bread with the starter, the mixture has to mature.  I guess, I could make bread as the starter is a week old already but last time we waited several weeks before the bread happened.  Regardless, I made pizza crust.  We haven't tried it yet but it looked and rose just like pizza crust should after I baked it.  Why pizza crust?  Well, every time the starter gets fed, half of the starter is supposed to be chucked.  The idea is that the starter doubles between each feeding and it doesn't take very long to have way too much starter!  But rather than chuck it, it is useable flour and water after all, there are other bread products that can be made - like pizza!  I also came across a recipe for english muffins, I don't know how brave I am for that one but I'll see how it goes.  Some photos: 

Other Fun Stuff

The Girl and I headed out into the world last night.  We went over to campus in the early evening because we wanted to see the Pacific 10 Women's Gymnastic tournament or final, I don't remember which one, it was a big game..  Coolness!!!!   But, we realized we were missing it hours after it started, SAD.  By the time we made it to campus, drove about to try and find the right building and parked, the event was practically over.  As we were walking it started to rain, then it started to rain heavier.  We opted instead to go to Men's Water-polo (That was The Girl's idea . . . water-polo???).  Alas, we got to the water-polo, the rain was coming down heavier (outside venue) and the that event too, was wrapping up.  A passerby told us that the next even was Men's Volleyball at a nearby building.   Off we went!  We ended up seeing Stanford play California Baptist (really, I am not making that up).  I had never been to a volleyball game that didn't involve folks playing just to go to the pub later with the team, as you can imagine the level of skill far exceeded what I was used to seeing.   Stanford got beat swiftly but they played well.   Fun was had by all and it didn't take us very long to find our car, which was a bonus.  But really, it was a pretty enjoyable adventure.  We hadn't been to that part of campus before so it was nice to see.

Ma'am and Wonderful Smelly Things

OK, so it seems like an odd subject line, here's the story:

I was on campus yesterday getting a tire on the bicycle fixed and a college student handed me a flyer and called me "Ma'am."  Well, that took the wind out of my sails, folks.  So sad.  So then it hit me, I am getting old.  I am more likely perceived as someone's Mom or a teacher on the campus than a fellow student.  Oh well, these are the breaks I guess I'll be picking up some skin firming moisturizer and scheduling some botox this afternoon. (OK - that is a total lie - I'll be doing neither)

Wonderful Smelly Things:  Two fold, also Pretty Things!!!

So, the weather has gotten a little drier and I have been riding the motorcycle and bicycle more often.  I took the motorcycle to knitting circle this week, which means I drove north on 280 heading towards San Francisco.  Remember, there are mountain ranges on nearly all sides of us, barring the side with all the water.  So, I am riding up the highway and off to my right is a mountain range with a ridiculously dense layer of fog rolling into it's upper portion.  The sun was setting so the sun was just above the clouds/fog; the view reminded me of being in an airplane above the clouds watching the sun set.  It was really quite beautiful.  Further up the road, as I approached my destination, not far from San Fran,  the sky went from blue and white to dark and grey and the temperature dropped probably by 5 or 10 degrees.  You can tell a lot when you ride in elements :-)  Anyway, it is surely and most definitely colder and foggier as one travels towards San Fran.  Riding home that evening I notices something totally different.  Even though I was on the highway, it smelled wonderful.  Each town that I passed had a different scent, it was AWESOME.  Some smelled like flowers, some like woods, of course there was eucalyptus, some had scents I can't even describe but they were lovely.  LOVELY.

The next day I rode the motorcycle to school.  I cross a bridge to get to the other side of the bay and on the other side of the bridge, you guessed it, are more mountains.  Well, there is a series of hills, hills big enough to be mountains to me, awfully close to the bridge.  Most days it is just a pretty green series of hills on this day, the entire hillside was full of sheep.  Actual sheep.  Sheep milling around, eating, hanging out, chatting it up.  Of course my first thought was -- imagine the cool yarn -- but my second thought was OMIGOD hundreds of sheep 10 miles from the house.  It wasn't quite as funny as seeing the cows standing on what seemed like a very high incline on the mountains by school, but it was pretty awesome.

Bubbles is Back

So, many of you may know that I created a Sourdough starter last January.  She lived and thrived for many, many months; some of you may have even gotten some sourdough bread.  In the move the starter was lost, by the time she made it back to us she was long dead.  I tried to get some of the original starter by contacting folks who had gotten a bit of her to work their own magic, alas, each person killed Bubbles (Bubbles Saccharomyces was the starter's name - I was taking Microbiology at the time and learned the scientific name for yeast, Saccharomyces is the genus name for yeast and thought it would be a riot to include it in the name of our starter).   I again started a starter, the first time I started her and promptly ignored her; turns out that yeast does grow fungus.  So is that yeast on yeast or is fungus different from yeast???  I don't recall, Microbiology was a whole year ago . . . .    Anyway, the second time is the charm.  It only took a few days and the sourdough starter is showing signs of life.  All we have to do is feed her twice a day for a month  --- you see the humor there, right?  I do think it is a little funny that we will have sourdough starter so close to San Francisco.  If you are interested, here is the link where I got the info on the sourdough starter back in January '08  http://www.sourdoughhome.com/index.html  

Other snippets:  Well, there aren't too many other snippets.  The Girl is mad crazy busy at work. She will be traveling about in the next few months, one trip to Berlin and then a couple of trips to the East (Boston and the D.C. area).  I am in school; I have mid-terms this week so that is a little nerve-wracking.  We haven't gone any adventures since my last entry but we are considering another night swim this week. The weather is starting to change just ever so slightly.  There is more sun than rain these days. The rain still happens, and often a day will start cloudy, if it stays cloudy well, you just don't know if the rain will come or not.  I started seedlings for plants and herbs.  The seedlings I started in the house are sprouting just fine but the ones I left on the balcony never made it.  I guess it was still too cold for them.  I'll try again at the end of the month.

We are bicycling as much as ever.  Last week, for the first time I strapped groceries to the rack on the back of my bike.  I have two baskets but I got a bag of sugar and a bag of flour and that seemed sort of too heavy for the basket that already had milk and stuff in it.  So I strapped it to the rack on the bike, I felt like a real tree-hugger that day.  

Well, happy day!!!