Taster Spoon

Primarily because of the sesame seed duvet

Did you know the Hamburger Bed is my friendster?  Or Facebook stalkee, whatever.

It totally almost made a headline.

http://www.oddee.com/item_96623.aspx

I'm actually a big fan of the molecular bed now.  I wonder if it is accepting Friendsters. 

Challah back!

This weekend went by way too fast.  Nevertheless, good times were had. 

Friday I got home from work to find Ace standing at the sink, filling a big pot of water. 

"What are you doing?"

"I bought eggs."

"You're boiling eggs?" 

Whereupon I launched into my recent scholarship on hard-boiling eggs to perfection.  (Start eggs in cold water, bring to boil, boil for 10 minutes, remove and shock immediately.)  Ace allowed me to push him aside, which in retrospect I regret, because how delightful is it to come home to someone boiling eggs for Easter?? - and then I had to go and take over his project.  (But the eggs were perfect.)

Our CSA started up again, have I mentioned?  And it's already strawberry time.  So we washed off a quart of berries and walked around the neighborhood like the old people do.  There was a guy with his garage door open with sheets of aluminum leaning up against the walls. 

"That looks like a wing," commented Ace.

So I shouted: "Are you building an airplane?"

And so we met the neighbor who is building a two seater airplane from a kit. 

The rest of the evening was a bust as Ace and I dithered about what fun thing we'd do that evening.  Would we crash the Tribe happy hour (soooo farrr awayyy)?  Would we go to the drive in (nothing good showing)?   What friends we'd go hang out with...  I went through the paper and announced that we would lace up our dancing shoes and go learn the Hustle...only to find he'd fallen asleep on the couch.   At least I got caught up on my 90210.   Silver is totally insane!  Then he woke up and we ate salad and watched Risky Business.  (He remembered all the plot points except for the prostitution ring; that's the only plot point I remembered.  I don't know why Tom Cruise ever got a nose job.)

Saturday started out cloudy with a chill breeze, so I skipped the pool and closed my ears to my bicycle and went to the gym and did a little pre-Easter laying in of foodstuffs.  Ace was thinking lamb for Easter, he who doesn't like mint, but they were out of legs so instead I got lamb leg "steaks."  I didn't really know what to do with lamb "steaks" but we recently went deluxey mid-week and had real steaks seared up in a skillet that were great - I figured we'd try the same thing.   Trader Joe's was giving out their little samples, like they do, and this time it was mashed potatoes and ham.  I don't even like ham, usually, because it's so salty, but this was so moist and mild I had to get one.   

Upon getting home Ace suggested we invite some people to join us for Easter dinner.  It's such a family occasion, plus it was so last minute - I was doubtful anyone wouldn't already be booked.  So I e-mailed probably 30 people we both really enjoy, figuring we'd be lucky if we got two takers.

Then we went to sit by the pool.  I'm reading Sally Quinn's The Party, a how-to guide for a life I'll  never lead, all about how to throw fabulous society functions among the famous and/or influential.  The implicit understanding throughout is that you have a ready supply of hired help.  She makes the point that you don't want to get a reputation as someone who just invites EVERYONE all the time, because then guests don't feel special for being invited.  Point well taken, and I felt bad about the long e-mail To: list I'd just sent.   

We jumped in the hot tub and met another neighbor who told a vivid tale of fortunes gained (Multiple homes!  World was my oyster!  Cheering throngs!) and lost (uncontested divorce).  (Message Ace took away from the encounter: I am defensive that I now live in this dump here with people like you.  My takeaway was more positive, possibly on account of the casual reference to Lionel Richie.  Oh!  What a feeling!)

We went to the Empire Tap Room for cocktails, oysters and onion rings, and then went to the Stanford Theater to see King Kong.  'Twas Beauty killed the Beast!  I persuaded Ace to stay on for the double feature, Tarzan the Ape Man, whereupon I fell asleep.  So instead of gritting it out till the end, we sneaked away for a slice. 

Sunday Ace woke up with a "Happy Easter," a glass of pink pomegranate limeade and some early morning seasonal reflection, gazing out the window and eventually turning to me to ask, "Wait.  Do bunnies lay eggs?"

Then there was a little swimming, a little tennis. 

A little egg dyeing.

I'll never buy an egg dyeing kit again.  A tablespoon of vinegar, a few squirts of food coloring, and boiling water to half-fill your little dye baths (those cheapie tea light holders from Ikea - I have a million - were the perfect size), done.  And the colors were so vivid!

Do you see these colors??

The only thing the kit is good for is the little wire dipper and the clear crayon.  Maybe you could sub with a white candle and a coat hanger.  Oh, and the drying rack.  I guess that was worth $0.99.

Ace made a variety of bunnies...

 

...one of which was anatomically correct.

This is my favorite one that he made:

Ace and Chad and I went to Mass at Mem Church and because it was so crowded we sat way up in the rafters.  It was fascinating to see all those mosaics up close, some of which, I was surprised to see, were in disrepair.  I also decided there were several generations' stained glass iterations.  There were a couple that were more in line with the color scheme of the tiles around them, and I thought they were more beautiful.  (What do you think?  They're the two forward-most windows on the left of the nave).  I thought I was being irreverent by joking about how many guys were wearing their Easter uniform (blue shirts and khaki pants), but I guess I was outdone by the gals in front of us who were texting throughout the entire service.

Chad came over bearing challah and marzipan treats, and on account of their having grown up among the Chosen People, he and Ace actually knew the first line of how to bless it.  

I really thought it would be just me and Ace and Chad.  A couple of people had regretted that they were committed to the Big Wheel race, or, predictably, that they had prior plans.

But then Derek showed up with a good little boy (who was totally just enduring us for the evening) and an embarrassment of fresh strawberries and Christina brought exciting stories of her upcoming trip to Texarkana and MichMad came just in time for dessert with a very welcome dessert wine. 

We had curried pumpkin soup (success!), lamb (wasn't great), hamb (eh, not as good as the sample), quinoa-based pasta in pesto (don't recommend: quinoa pasta was mushy and pesto wasn't so hot either), plain steamed broccoli (yay!), fennel/green garlic/leeks in a cream sauce (all kinds of awesome) and a shiraz-based rose wine.  Finally, strawberries, apple pie and ice cream! 

We never got around to devilling the eggs, despite a specific trip to the store by Ace for Miracle Whip.  I kind of enjoyed looking at them too much.  

Speaking purely for myself, I really really enjoyed the evening.  We sure do know some great people.

Happy Easter! 

Keeping up my end(s)

I know, this isn't the post you were waiting for as I hereby break my month-long silence.  Lotta stuff going on, that's all.  But then - and we've talked about this before - you take a little break for one reason or another and it's so hard to get back in the groove, because why post at all if it's not going to be about something significant, and as time wears on the bar inches higher.  So I'm instead going to abide by one of my life rules that has served me reasonably well: Keep Expectations Low.  (See how I put the "reasonably" in there?  The rule in action!)

So what's new? 

1. We are having a plethora of rainbows today! 

2. Because of the holiday yesterday, today is Donut Day!  There is someone who always gets to the donuts before me, who has been cutting the best donut (raised glazed) in half and leaving half.  The Dieting Donut Dissector!  I have been loving the DDD, because I feel like by taking the remaining half I am doing a public service by preventing staleness but also feel like I am getting a whole serving, but it is only half the usual guilt!

In the beginning of January, though, DDD started cutting only about a third of the donut out...leaving two thirds.  This was awkward, but manageable.  I couldn't very well continue to take my usual half, leaving 1/6 of a donut on the tray - that's like leaving a couple of bites.  Not cool.  So I have to either cut the remainder into halves and take a donut third, leaving a third to turn stale even quicker, or simply take all 2/3 of the donut.  You can imagine what I chose.  What with work and all, I've stopped exercising in any regular way, and, let's just say, you can tell.

Recently, DDD showed even further restraint, and began taking just a quarter donut.   Having increased my own consumption from a half to two thirds, it was natural that I seized upon the 3/4 donut as Mine!  But there's no virtue in taking 3/4 of a donut, so my pleasure is substantially reduced.  It's really a net loss.  

Can you see where this is heading?  Today the DDD literally cut out and removed just a bite of the best donut.  A tray full of variety sprinkles, coconuts, cinnamon sugars, chocolate dipped...and 7/8 of a raised glazed with drying edges. 

Which makes me want to say, Come on, man, we had a deal.  You take half, I take half.  You take a little less than half, I do my best for the cause.  Now you take a bite and I have to be the jerk who leaves 3/8 of a donut on the tray?  What would you do in this situation?

3. Have you heard about my haircut?  There's a topic we can sink our teeth into! 

I cut my hair somewhat less frequently than I go to the dentist, but more frequently than I go to the doctor.  I think it's been about two years.  After Ace begged me to get a Real Haircut from a Real Salon for my birthday in September, I hied me over to Yelp - and spent hours weeding out all the reviews from Asians (different hair needs) and was left with very few data points.  I asked friends with good hair.  I cut pictures out of InStyle.  I signed up to be a Hair Model at Edge and waited by the phone.  I pored over the archives at Hair Thursday. 

At Christmas I finally got around to following up on a recommendation from a co-worker whose hair has been looking pretty great over the last year or so.  Mine was dragging me down.  Long.  Droopy.  Ragged rather than wavy.  Anyway, I went to this salon where the lady freelanced, and she was...fine.  The haircut wasn't bad - she cut long layers into it so the wiggles in my hair look like curls that are meant to be there rather than just a failure to blow-dry out the messiness.  Picture Rachel Geller's before she got The Rachel.  Ace agreed that maybe it didn't look particularly glamorous, but said that at least it looked like a Haircut.

So I have no complaints about the stylist - hairwise.  Here's the thing - she is a recently-immigrated middle aged woman with mediocre English, challenging pronunciation and few shared cultural reference points who went freelance only recently but maybe didn't have the book of business she thought she did and is now clearly trying to rally a loyal following, and she oohed and enthused over my hair! my long, wavy, light brown hair! to a degree that was a little overwhelming.  Don't get me wrong, I like the idea of being fussed over but her fussing just had an air of desperation, making me feel less like she uniquely could see my inner beauty and was determined to bring it out and more like she was just buttering me up.   It was a stressful hour.

This doesn't make me excited to go back.  And maybe the reason I get a haircut so seldom is because I have yet to have a fulfilling relationship with a hairdresser.  It's always strictly a business transaction.  You know, gesture at some pictures, read a magazine, look up, cry, pay, tip sheepishly while apologizing for the crying, go home. 

You know what I want?  I want a hairdresser who says, "OMG!  Look at this MOP on your head!  Sweetheart, your hair needs some CPR.  Look at your eyes!  We need to draw some attention to these eyes!! Why are you hiding these cheekbones, honey?  You know what would look so good with your cheekbones?  You just sit back and let me bring out the gorgeous.  You know what you have, you have Jennifer Aniston hair!  Can you believe Jon Mayer?  Srsly, good riddance to Brad if you ask me.  OMG, are you seriously wearing White Musk right now?"  Someone who will flutter around and make me feel like a million bucks for $80.

Okay, fine, I want a homosexual.  Is that homophobic?  Or homophilic?  Maybe I should clarify that I don't precisely want a hairstylist because he likes dudes, but rather that I am seeking a certain set of personality characteristics.  And of course for him to have hair talent.  There was just such a hairstylist at the salon shared by Madame X.  He was cooing over and gossiping up a storm with his client and I looked at them longingly.  But I can't just go to the salon one day and hope that she is busy and he is not.  The salon is like a freelance workspace where the stylists rent their stations but have all their own clients.  You make appointments via their personal cell phones.

What to do, what to do.  Perhaps I was taking the wrong route by focusing my research on the hair angle.  I thought about asking my neighbors whether they "knew any hair stylists."  But I have a hunch they'd take it the wrong way, besides which, they don't seem like they would know any hair stylists.  I considered asking another friend who, while also not the type in question, seems like he'd be a little more up on the Scene and in the past has been a straight (ha ha) shooter about, you know, at which clubs in the Castro girls are welcomed/tolerated/discouraged, that sort of thing, and would probably not get his nose out of joint from my wishful stereotyping.   But he's moved away.

So I am adrift.  On a sea of wavy hair.

4.  I'm about to start traveling for almost three solid weeks.  I'm pretty excited that I am so deeply involved with work at the mo, what with the economy and all, but I'm also looking forward to checking in on some of my favorite ladies, one of whom I haven't seen in, gosh, three years?  She's a trapeze artist/salsa dancer/world traveler who keeps her independence as a freelance software developer.  She cannot be contained.  When you ask her where she is from, she says "Manhattan."  Actually, she says, "Manha-N." She is the New Yorkiest person I know, and she is going to go country and hike around the Appalachian Trail with me this weekend!   I wonder if she owns boots.  We have one of those relationships where, as long as I've known her (college, freshman year), I've done all the pursuing, and I don't mind a bit.

I love everybody today.

Ace's alarm popped off at 7:00 today, which was 10:00 in Washington, D.C.  To my surprise, it was tuned to NPR.  Usually it's about half a channel off of some loud rock-ish station that makes me want to beat him.

This morning, he rolled over to hit snooze and I shouted, "No!  Don't you want to hear the inauguration?!?"

He pointed out that we still had two hours to wait, but I wanted to hear what the temperature was, who would be on stage, the debate over whether Rick Warren would use the "J" word, what the concert was like the day before, where spectators had come from, how many people had camped out since two in the morning and how many people had been taken to hospitals for hypothermia...

I've been doing a little jig all day.  Everybody seems to be in a good mood.  Even the commute traffic seemed more polite.

At work we had been warned not to stream any coverage over our computers so as not to overload the network, and as consolation they had a blueberry pancake breakfast (and helium balloons!)  in our biggest conference room, where they showed coverage on our big projector screen.  Except, they weren't showing TV, they too were streaming from the Internet and right in the middle of President Obama's inaugural address the connection got completely chopped up (because everybody ELSE in the world was streaming) so everybody took their pancakes into the small break room and watched the little wall TV there instead.

We filtered merrily out to our desks to work, but then after a continuing legal education video at lunch back in the big conference room, somebody switched back to CNN.com and we all stood around for another fifteen minutes, pretending we were still picking at our lunches while we watched the parade.

Maybe it's because people who work in the law are programmed to look for things that can go wrong, but it seems like all day everyone has been biting our nails. 

This morning, Ace said to me, "How many snipers do you think there are?"

I looked at him in horror and said, "DON'T SAY THAT."

He quickly corrected, "No, no, I mean, how many secret service and security snipers do you think there are?"  He gestured towards the humongous throng carpeting the Mall, and my swelling happiness was dampened a little.

After lunch, as I was being impressed by the First Lady's willingness to walk a mile in pumps and pondering whether the Second Lady might have considered a below-the-knee skirt, one of my colleagues murmured, "I can't believe they're just walking along the street like that, out in the open." 

Another guy walked in to grab a brownie, glanced at the screen and said, "Look at all those buildings and windows!  How could they possibly secure all that??"

Our IT person investigated the chicken salad wraps and said, "I hear that limousine is like a tank."

Well, never mind.  If I may quote one of the great orators of my generation, "On this day we gather because we have chosen hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord."

Ooh, just trying to find that quotation, I read his speech and got all teary-eyed. 

I'm glad everyone else in the office seems equally distracted and joyous.  It seems important to take a minute to absorb this - as rare as they are, we don't often get the benefit of time to fully experience moments where ideals and hopes are made real and tangible. 

But only a minute.  There is work to do.

Winter Wonderland

  Coeur d'Alene, Idaho.

 

  The road to the lodge.

 

     Cougar Crest Lodge

  

   

     

Outside my room.

  

 

Driving to the resort downtown.

Snuggling up in front of the CdA Resort fireplace.

Stacking wood at the Cougar Crest Lodge.

   

The dining room deck at the lodge.

The gang on Christmas: Dad, Mom, Mr. and Mrs. Manning, my brother Beaker, me, and Ace

I hope everyone is having great holidays - see you all next year!

 

Christmas Cheer

We went to Symphony Hall again this year.  Last year it was to see a pipe organ; this year it was to see the Canadian Brass.  They put on a great show - lots of crowd-pleasing selections.  Plus Ace got tickets on the day for half price so I enjoyed it even more. 

Just as exciting was the annual christmas tree display they have there.  Each tree is sponsored by some benefactor, and decorated by some charity or school.  There were a few cool ornament treatments.

This one was figures made out of old CDs

 

Ha ha, remember when people used to listen to music on CDs?

For this next one, the kids made snowglobes and dioramas out of glass jars and plastic water bottles.

     
Then I took a picture of this next one just because I knew Kelli would like it.

My favorite every year, though, is the SPCA's, because their ornaments are photos of all the dogs and cats up for adoption.  It makes you want to give the whole tree a hug.

 

Merry Christmas, everybody!

I guess Ace likes nuts

Ace has two favorite holiday cookies: Mexican Wedding Cookies, translated into American by one of my midwestern cookbooks as "Snowballs," those balls of ground almonds rolled in powdered sugar. 

The other is these, which, on inspecting the creative process, Ace renamed "Schweddy Balls."

 

 

Bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens

We've had a housekeeper come a couple of times.  (I could say cleaning lady,  but "housekeeper" makes me feel like the narrator in Rebecca, where I'm handing off luncheon menus and groundskeeping requests: "A fire in the library tonight, Mrs. Danvers, if you please.")

Everyone I know who has had a housekeeper has told me it's worth every penny and they'd never go without!  Last year we phoned up the cleaning lady who works for a few friends and is by all accounts impeccable (she dusts the door jambs), but she came by to give us an estimate and her initial once-over was going to cost $400.  So we put it off...indefinitely.

Then we visited friends who moved away from California to a ridiculously enormous and fabulous farm house on the East Coast.  I swear it is 10,000 square feet and done up like a high end B&B - just gorgeous.  And the lady of the house revealed that she does not have help cleaning, despite the fact that she has a very full time job outside the home and vacuuming alone takes her two hours.  Her husband intimated that hiring a housekeeper was, in a word, sinful.  (He's a self-reliance kind of guy.)  Part of me was aghast.  Part of me secretly agreed.

And since then I have been unable to justify - morally - hiring help when we have 1600 square feet and two able-bodied adults.  I wondered whether people who have cleaning ladies are really SO ENTHUSIASTIC because their lives are that much improved, or if it's perhaps because they're trying to convince themselves that it's something other than wanton laziness.

But here's the thing.  Ace and I have different concepts of cleanliness.  For him, it equals tidiness - everything in its place, no stuff lying around.  For me, it equals, well, clean.  Mopped floor, scrubbed toilet.  There's no question I am the messy one, and when I have to pick up after myself, I do it.  But I don't do it as much as I should and in those in-between times, when my crap is everywhere, Ace goes quietly crazy.  On the other hand, he doesn't notice the dirt or the scummy tub, so it doesn't occur to him to use a squeegee, say, and when we have guests I feel like it is my burden to spend a weekend mopping and scrubbing and vacuuming.  I know that I'm cleaning for me, but I still feel unduly burdened because it is joint dirt. 

So at our Halloween party, a friend glowed about her cleaning lady and said that she reluctantly took a break when she was between jobs, but as soon as she got her offer letter at a new job, the cleaning lady was the first person she called.

So I got her number.  Setting up our first meeting was confused and hectic because she doesn't speak English but she had an opening that very week.  No turning back!

She comes once a month, so she's been here twice.  The first time, our house had degraded into tornado territory, and I spent hours the night prior picking everything up.  But when we came home that night, the place smelled like roses and I felt the cares of the world slide from my shoulders.  It wasn't just tidy (Ace had been satisfied when we finished the picking up), it was clean.   (When I noticed she'd used almost an entire $8 bottle of Mrs. Meyers' geranium-scented cleaning solution the cheapskate in me had a conniption, but I tried to keep perspective.)

This last time it was less roses, more gas leak (an unlit burner had been left on) so it wasn't quite the arbor of delights, but I had been able to use the night before to spend a little less time picking up and a little more time organizing my desk.  I hope it continues this way, that each time I'll have kept the debris a little more in line than the last time and can make progress on organizational tasks that I've put off for - let's face it - years. 

Oh yeah, and she polishes the teakettle.  We've been making good use of it this fall, what with Sleepytime Tea and hot water bottles.  As mentioned in an earlier post, we didn't turn the heat on until after Thanksgiving.  Ace just got the bill and our gas usage for November was a third that of last year.  Now we just turn it on for a couple of hours when we get home and turn it off when we go to bed.  The house is usually around 56 degrees.

So speaking of my favorite things, I wanted to pass on a tip from my mother.  My mom gives me lots of advice.  I usually pretend to ignore it, just to be difficult, but I also usually take it to heart.  One good recommendation she gave me years ago was CuddlDuds long underwear.  They're now called CuddlSilks.  It's long underwear that is actually quite sheer, so you can wear it under everyday work clothes.  I wear them every day, now.  They're so convenient that I wanted to add a couple to my closet, so I went to the depressing Sears over at the Sad Mall (Sears is the only place I've ever seen them), and they were 50% off!  Now they have a bamboo variety.  They package it up like it's all eco-friendly to use the "replenishable resource" of bamboo!  Because cotton doesn't grow on trees, you know.

(Although, it's my understanding that cotton is a crop that requires lots of resources, pesticides, what have you, that do harm the environment so that 's why you should insist on organic cotton.)   

Let's close this post with the warm woolen mittens.  I got that periodic notice from Skype that I hadn't logged in in a while (IT at work removed it from my computer despite my whining and then my parents moved back from Singapore anyway), and I had to make at least one call or they'd keep my remaining eight Euros.  So I called a long lost friend in England only to discover she'd just gotten some terrible news.  That's neither here nor there, but I've been teaching myself to knit, per Sharon's skill-building imperative, so I used her as the inspiration for my first project: I decided to make my friend (shall we call her Pom?  PomWonderful?) mittens.

I totally made a mitten!  I used a pattern out of the original Stitch n Bitch book, which I got from the library.  (Recommend.)  I should have taken a picture, it was absurd.   It was about a foot long and eight inches wide.  I put my foot in it and considered keeping it for cozy toesies.  But then I tore it apart and started over. 

I know, they don't look remotely professional, but PomWonderful is pretty forgiving.  If I made her wait until I had real skill, she'd be waiting a long time.  Next I'm going to try a matching hat with a cable in it.

Update: I tried starting the hat, but my 9" needle is way too short.  I'll have to buy another pair of needles this weekend so I can work on it over the Christmas holiday.  This so-called frugal hobby is wiping me out on equipment.

I'll be sad to be done with this project.  The fuzzy wuzzy yarn is just too soft.  It's called Sensations Angel Hair, and it's 22% wool so I'm hoping it'll be a little warm. 

Thanksgiving Round-Up

Over the past couple of weeks, it's been starting to feel increasingly holidayish, what with the summer weather that held on so long going away and the dark, rainy days arriving for their annual five-month visit. 

A little bit has been going on since last we checked in:

Rad's birthday happened while he was away competing at Clearwater, so for the first Run Club after his return, Ace made a cake!  Angel food!  I was surprised that we had an angel food cake pan.  I was also surprised when he asked whether we had any sprinkles.  We did, but usually he avoids sprinkles (on his Cold Stone hot fudge sundae, for instance) because they are just "empty calories." 

Cafe Sophia, that Afghan place on Middlefield, is fantastic.  The food is unbelievably flavorful and there is a fine vegetarian selection.  The "Chef's Choice" mixed plates are good.

We've hosted and attended a couple of Game Nights, or nights where games were played.  I'm still learning how to match games with crowds.  You can't just play anything with anyone.  For instance, Celebrity is no good with more than about a dozen people, and it works best with a crowd of at least overlapping interests.  The Werewolves of Miller's Hollow requires attentiveness by all, but is enjoyable, if quiet.  It's reminiscent of that "7 up" game we used to play when we had a substitute teacher. 

Apples to Apples tends to be popular, but I find it mostly random and therefore not satisfying.  It's a good ice-breaker, however, because it takes zero skill, and helps to knock the competitiveness out of the evening.  I still haven't formed a complete opinion of Cranium, though my initial impression is that it's too easy to be all that fun.  At least, it's better with more than two teams.  And the Zombies! game, we haven't even played it because the instruction booklet is about thirty pages.  Puerto Rico gets rave Customer Reviews, but it's not a game you can play casually or while drinking.  Why Did the Chicken must especially be played while drinking.  Taboo remains a classic.

Hey!  Did you even see my Halloween costume? 

 

I've kind of bailed on my holiday crafting.  This will doubtless come as a surprise to Ace, given all the supplies in the closet.  Stuff just wasn't turning out very nice.  But I'm learning a couple of new crafty skills, which I'll show you in a little while, i.e. as soon as I make something not ugly.

My brother returned from Iraq!  Say it with me: "Phew."

For Thanksgiving Ace and I both went to Chicago, where half of his family lives and where my parents just moved after calling it quits on seventeen years in Singapore.  We both went to both of our families' Thanksgivings and it worked out actually a lot more smoothly than I expected. 

It was a chemically-fueled weekend, tea and coffee in the morning and always, always cocktails, wine and port in the evenings.  Instead of my usual attempts to keep the system clean, I gave in and went with what was on offer, and have learned that there is some wisdom in these habits.  They go a long way towards keeping everyone's attitude (including my own) manageable. 

On Sunday I rolled my stimulants and sedatives into one by having two Irish Coffees at Butch McGuire's, after which Ace and I avoided the sleet by hiding out at the Art Institute. 

I think Ace wishes he had spotted the architectural drawings sooner, and I wished I had discovered the "touch museum" sooner. 

 

I also got to see one of my dearest friends and her kid who is a laugh riot.  (And I am not one to fawn over people's kids.)  She probably won me over when, speaking to her mother, she called me "that girl."   Sure beats "that old lady." 

Another lesson from the weekend: direct flights are totally worth it.

Ace and I have been frugalizing by refusing to turn on the heat, so our house has been at a steady 61 degrees for the last month.  I thought he was merely humoring my cheapness, but he revealed that he was kind of making a personal character exercise out of not turning on the heat until at least Thanksgiving.  We got up at 2:30 a.m. California time to fly back yesterday and go straight in to work, so in the evening when he finally made it home, I made sure there was hot vegetable soup (to counteract nearly a week of midwestern meat, cheese and white flour) and a roaring fire.  And when he climbed in to bed, a hot water bottle.  That went over big. 

Our savings on heat will probably be balanced by our electricity bill: SOMEONE left the freezer door ajar for the five days we were away.  

Silver lining

Two things going on lately have been kind of a drag.

One, I've had meetings and work up in the city several times over the past few weeks.  This is a drag because getting to and from the city from Silicon Valley is a huge pain.  In normal weather without traffic, the city is about 50 minutes from home, but then parking is kind of a headache and costs $30, and at actual commute times driving takes much longer and more importantly puts me in a foul mood. 

So I've been taking the train.  Each time I've take the train I've made a different assortment of mistakes, and so when a colleague asked me what the protocol was for taking the train to our SF office, I was able to respond with a two-page e-mail of do's and don'ts.  I will provide you my Caltrain instructions as a bonus post!

Commuting by train takes about an hour and a half. 

The silver lining is that with the enforced downtime, I emerge at either end of the commute rather serene.  I've also steadily been making progress on a handful of my needlework crafts.  I'll send you pictures closer to the holiday, but suffice it to say that a handsome stranger with a South African accent on the Muni called one of my projects "beautiful" and that lit me up for the rest of the day.

The other thing that's a drag is that Autumn has officially arrived, and in Northern California that means rain.  Rain, rain, rain until next May.  Every year I find myself thinking about that Ray Bradbury short story about (I think her name was) Margot and the other kids who live on Venus and the sun comes out only once every ten years or something?  I won't spoil the plot for you, but it's a great story. 

So we've been drenched.  But the upside of that is that we're getting amazing clouds.  I went over to Shoreline this weekend for a jog, hoping to see the zeppelin at Moffett.  It was not there, but I was treated to an incredible landscape and cloudscape that made me feel like I was on an alien planet.   

Another upside is that there's apparently snow in Tahoe!

To combine these two drags into something really special, I've had the good fortune of witnessing conversation-stopping sunsets.

 

Bonus photo:

During a meeting in the city on Tuesday I totally snapped a picture of the blimp!

 

I had to do it stealthily, under a conference table.