Halloween and We Olive!

Let me try to get caught up with what's been going on.  Mostly we've settled into a kind of rhythm that's going to be very hard to break.  Don gets up first so he takes the dogs out for a walk while I attempt to go back to sleep after the banging that goes on upstairs ceases.  I eventually get up around 8 or so, drink a cup or two of coffee while laying in bed (it's the most comfortable place to sit) and play games on my phone (Scramble With Friends thanks to Colleen and Peggy).  I get up after 30 minutes or so and eat a breakfast of yogurt and granola with a few frozen blueberries thrown in (my attempt at eating healthy).  Then I get to do whatever I want whenever I want.  But usually it's finding something to fix for dinner, doing my image descriptions or reading my book.  I'm actually reading a real book, not my Kindle.  The latest is Little Bee by Chris Cleave, I highly recommend it!  I'll probably pass it along to Maggie when she comes.  I have to walk Missy every afternoon around 3 or so.  She still won't poop in the back yard and seems to need to move her bowels twice a day.  We're feeding her really good dog food so I don't understand why this is, but it gets me out of the apartment.  Then it's a walk to the market for dinner supplies and home.  After dinner Don and I usually gather around this laptop to watch something.  Sometimes it's the news, or some program I taped on Hulu.  That's it.  That's my life these days.

For Halloween Don got some mini cupcakes from a bakery on Chestnut for the little boy upstairs.  He came down with his mom, his nanny and his mom's "friend" to trick-or-treat at our apartment.

She told us about a block party down on Avila Street.  They barricade the street and all the houses have their garages open and everyone just strolls down the street visiting.  There are some interesting costumes.  It started drizzling so we didn't stay long; it was fun to see though.  Avila is my favorite street here.  It's like a neighborhood of it's own.

Every other Monday we go down to Chestnut Street to We Olive! for a cooking class.  We Olive! is an olive oil store so the chef cooks on hot plates using the different kinds of olive oil they sell.  Again, I don't really learn anything but the other people in the class are fun.  I met one woman that seems to have made a point to befriend me.  She's emailed me many times suggesting different restaurants to try.  Anyway, we get lots of food, bottomless wine glasses and it only costs $35!  It's a great deal and a fun evening.  Next week's class is full already, but I signed up for the next two weeks.

Then we leave!  I can't believe we leave here in 3 weeks!!!!  Where has it gone?!?  That'll be a sad day when we get in the car headed home.  Elaine died 2 months before we left so I haven't gotten used to her not being there.  And I heard they sold her house so when I drive by, there will be somebody else living in her house.  I drive by her house to and from work so I think I'll have to find another way to go.  And I'm afraid nobody will remember us.  Elaine was the person who held us all together.  Now that she's gone, we'll all probably just move off to our own little groups.  It'll be sad.  But I don't want to worry about that now.  I want to enjoy these next few weeks.

Just a comment on the weather.  It's a little colder than it was this summer, but only barely.  People are still walking around in shorts and t-shirts, but it gets chillier at night.  Highs in the 60's, lows in the 50's.  But it does rain sometimes now.  The first time I got rained on since July 14, was when Colleen and Peggy got here in October!  There's a touch of humidity in the air.  Tough, I know.

Next, Michael and Katie!

Alton Brown and Naked Castro People

Yesterday we had a great and extremely interesting day.  I had to give equal billing to the two most interesting events of the day; one pretty great, the other pretty weird.  But I'll get to that in a minute.

We woke up and watched the Gamecocks beat Tennessee in football.  The score was a little too close for me, but we won, so I'm not going to complain.  And after losing the last two games, it was a nice way to start the day.

After a quick lunch here at the apartment, we walked down to Chestnut intending to see the movie Argo.  We walked in, got our popcorn and sat down in the theater.  After the previews were done and the movie started, I realized we were in the wrong movie!  We were in the theater for the psycho movie, so we got up and walked to another room and found the right movie.  There are no titles over the doors letting you know which movie is playing in that theater like we have at home.  But we only missed a little bit of the beginning.  We both loved the movie.  I'd see it again, and Don said he'd also watch it again, with captions.

Then in the car to go see Alton Brown.  He was speaking at the Castro Theater for Science Week hosted by UCSF. When we got there, we realized we were an hour early so we thought we'd go get a glass of wine while we waited.  Then driving past the theater we saw a line snaking around the block.  So, Don dropped me off to get in line (it was first come first seated) and he went to find a parking space.  Then the weirdness began.  When Don found me in line he said he was driving down the street and saw a women walking the other way, WITH NO CLOTHES ON!  He said he thought it looked like a costume at first.  A man walked out of a store she past and took a picture of her.  I found this a little hard to believe.  As we were waiting in line, people dressed up in all sorts of get ups were milling around.  I didn't know if this was normal (it is Castro after all) but soon realized they were dressed up for Halloween.  Interesting.  There were lots of men in drag, women in slinky get-ups, all sorts of people.  When the line started moving, we were able to turn the corner heading for the front door.  That's when I saw him!  Alton Brown was outside taking pictures with everyone in the line:

I know it's not the most flattering picture of me, but I was tickled pink!  And notice we match!  His bow tie matches my shirt!  Or maybe that silly smile is because just before it was my turn to take this picture, two men walked by WITH NO CLOTHES ON!  I saw them coming and thought "where are the seams on their costumes?" just as Don had done.  There were no seams because they had on no costumes.  What would make someone do this?  Isn't it against the law for people to walk around naked?  There were lots of policemen around, so how could this happen?  And what would make someone want to walk around naked?  I don't understand.  Even Alton mentioned it in his show.

Anyway, I'm distracted.  Alton had a wonderful show.  It started a bit late since he was taking pictures with everyone in line (except Don, he opted out) and he took lots of questions afterwards so the event didn't end until around 9:30.  It was great though, I thoroughly enjoyed it.  But we had not eaten dinner so we were both starving.  We decided against having dinner in Castro for obvious reasons and drove back to our area.  We had a nice, albeit late dinner at Ristobar, then a nightcap at home.

A strange full day.  I think the most interesting thing I'll do today is walk to the grocery store.

Colleen and Peggy

Colleen and Peggy visited!  I had not seen anyone from home since July so I was ready for this visit.  They came on October 11 and stayed until the 15th.  I'm afraid we suggested that they stay in Fisherman's Wharf but they wanted a Marriott and that was the closest one to us.  I don't think they minded all the tourists though.  At least they didn't mention it to us if they did.

We did a whirlwind during their visit!  I'm writing this some time later so the timeline might be a little off.  But regardless, this is what we did while they were here.  Their first day we ate lunch down by the wharf then drove them around our area in the Marina/Cow Hollow.  Saw Billionaire's row, Lombard Street, Chestnut Street, we drove them up and down some pretty steep hills and showed them the one we walked up.  We had a coffee then took them back to our apartment then down the street to the Palace of Fine Arts.  Dinner at Meze's and a night cap (or two) before calling it a night.  Friday was Alcatraz day.

Don and I

Alcatraz Cell

Not so legal photo of us

The return trip

It was a fun morning.

Then we met up with Colleen's old college roommate, Pam.  We all hopped on a cable car (waited an hour for it) up to China Town.  Peggy bought some things for her granddaughters and we had a great time looking at all the China Town tourist stuff.  

Stopped in a restaurant for dim sum and on to Stockton Street where the local residents do their shopping.

Pam left us then and we got ready for dinner at Parma.  Good Italian food but I'm thinking I like e Angelo better.  They're real Italians there so that makes it a little more authentic, for me.  Anyway, more nightcaps.  We found Bin 38 with a patio and a fire pit.  Reminds me of home.

Saturday we met Pam in Little Italy for some good pastries. We walked around a bit until I tripped on a curb and broke my wonderful $2 flip flops.  Don was a hero and went down to Walgreen's in China Town for another pair for me.  He got a medium but when I put them on, they didn't cover my heel.  I guess Chinese women have smaller feet than I do.  But I made do for the rest of our tour.  We took a bus up to Coit Tower:

The view from Coit Tower of Fillmore Street

San Francisco from the top of the Coit Tower

Peggy, Pam, Colleen, me and Don

Then off to Zeke's to watch the Georgia game:

San Francisco Gamecock Club

We won!!!  That was a great game.

Then to the tapas place off Union Street for dinner.  Peggy was the only one who got a good dinner.  That was just about the only meal I've eaten here that was not great.

Sunday we did the Muir Woods thing.  Don, Colleen and I walked the regular track while Peggy took off and hiked one of the trails.

Beautiful.  We got a little worried about Peggy as she went off by herself.  The trail was supposed to be 2 hours but if she had taken a detour, it would be 4 hours long.  But she came back in the 2 hours.

After that we stopped and got some great pictures of the Golden Gate Bridge:

They wanted to stay in the Fisherman's Wharf area that night and do the tourist stuff.  So we hung around Pier 39 and had dinner and drinks there:

We had our second not so great meal there.  Oh well, the company more than made up for it.

Monday was the day they had to leave.  They went back to FW for some sourdough bread and some almond pastries to take home with them (Colleen graciously got some for us) then off to the airport.  

We had a great time and I hope they did as well.

Next visitors - Michael and Katie!

(Happy Birthday, Maggie!)

Fleet Week

So much has happened and I really need to catch up before I forget anything.  The first thing is Fleet Week.  If you're not familiar with this, it's San Francisco's way of paying homage to our military.  I thought it would be a good thing for me to do while Don's away.  Don left Thursday morning and by the afternoon I could hear the Blue Angels practicing over SF.  I was so excited I got chill bumps.  By Friday morning, it got a little annoying.  I would be out walking the dogs and all of a sudden a plane would whoosh by.  They  are loud.  I mean LOUD.  I had to not only give Bailey his medicine again, but I gave Missy one as well.  They were freaking out.  I read in the paper that they expected a million people to descend in the Marina area.  A million.  I seriously considered putting the dogs in the car and going somewhere else.  But at this time I still had hopes of meeting the Gamecock Club for Saturday's game so I decided to try to enjoy it.  On Saturday during the main event on our back patio I took these:

They were writing things in the air!  This one was for Geico.  I walked to the Marina Green to join in the festivities and tried to see how they were doing it, but I couldn't see a thing.  

There were so many people in the city that I decided not to try to drive to watch the game.  The paper was discouraging people from public transportation so I thought I'd take a cab.  The land lady had recommended something to Don so I called them and they turned out to be a limo service.  Long story short, I decided to walk up to Campus (a local bar on Chestnut) to watch the game there.  I got there and it was not so crowded so I got a table and a beer and started watching the game.  No one else was into the game, but that's alright.  It made me a little lonely watching it by myself, but they were doing well.  After my beer was gone, I noticed the bar was filling up.  It was 5 o'clock so I was a little surprised.  Then I found out the A's were playing trying to get in the playoffs.  Everyone was there to watch that game.  It got so packed that I thought I'd walk down to Ristobar, sit at the bar there and try to watch it.  As I tried to go pay my bill, there were so many people there I was stepping on peoples feet.  As I stood at the bar waiting and stepping on people, I just looked up, apologized and shrugged my shoulders, I couldn't do anything about it.  Down to Ristobar and no luck.  The Giants were playing after the A's so everyone wanted to watch that game.  That place  was so crowded I got one glass of wine, couldn't get anyone to switch the game over to mine and gave up.  There is an "Irish" pub down the street so I headed over that way.  As I turned the corner I saw a tv set up outside with Giant's game on and I knew I was not going to finish watching USC.  So I went over to Meze's to sit at the bar and have some dinner.

The service there wasn't any better.  Not because of the game (no tv's there), just bad timing.  I eventually had a nice dinner though.  As I was paying my bill, the bartender came over to apologize for the poor service.  I said I had been to two other places that night and this was the best.  She said that she was sorry I was having such a bad evening.  I gave her a big tip and went home.

But the Gamecocks beat Georgia!!  So it wasn't a wasted evening.

Don's "Weekend" Away

Don is back home this "weekend"; that is to say this morning at 3 am until Monday midnight.  So the dogs and I are on our own.  I just got back from walking them, it's quite enjoyable.  First Missy since she can't go poo in the back yard (probably the rats as I mentioned earlier).  The America's race has a preliminary race today in the Marina so they wouldn't let Missy off leash in the Marina Green so we had to go to Crissy Beach:

 Then is was Bailey's turn.  He doesn't like to be out much so we just went to move the car and pick up a paper.  I have to see how badly Obama did last night in the debate (no television here) and to find out today's schedule.  The Blue Angles are supposed to be flying at the cup and I want to go see them.  Hopefully it'll be after the exterminator comes.  They were supposed to come yesterday at 1 pm but by 1:30 when they haven't shown, I texted our land lady to ask if it was postponed.  She texted me back at 2:30 to let me know it was postponed until today.  2:30!  So I'll wait around today for them again.

BTW, Missy is much better today.  I think she had an upset stomach yesterday.

Cooking Class

Don and I went to a cooking class last night.  A woman who lives down by China Basin runs it out of her home.  There were 8 of us all together taking the class.  It was a "hands on" class so we were all supposed to be participating in the cooking.  One point of taking this class was to give Don some positive experience in the kitchen.  But Don and I were pretty much the only ones who did not have a chance to do any cooking.  There were several younger people there who stepped in and pretty much did everything.  Oh, well.  After we were finished cooking, we sat down and enjoyed the food together.

We made marinated chicken in parchment with beans and carrots, jalapeno flavored mac and cheese, roasted cauliflower with garlic and bread crumbs (I've actually made this before), and salted toffee.  The food was very good, but I don't think I need to do this again.  Most of the people in the class didn't know how to cook at all.  I did learn things, but not $65 worth.

Missy has been having issues.  I'm not sure what's bothering her but she seems nervous a lot of the time.  She's been going in the crate periodically, particularly when we leave the house.  I don't know what it is.  Maybe she needs more exercise?  We're taking her out walking pretty much twice a day.  I think I'll take her to the Palace of Fine Arts today and sit on a bench to watch the swans, and tourists taking pictures.  Right now she's sitting behind me whining.  I don't know what she wants.  She has food and water and she's been on a walk already today and I threw the ball to her in the back, twice.  Maybe she's bored.  Bailey entertains himself looking for the rats.  Speaking of which, they're going to come today to put something out for them.  I hope it's not so bad that we can't let the dogs out.

Don has a pinched nerve in his foot.  He says it's been hurting him lately when he walks too much and was afraid it was broken.  So he went to the doctor to get it x-rayed.  It made me smile when I pictured this.  He has the ugliest feet ever.  I can't imagine what they were thinking.  I guess they've seen this kind of thing before.  Anyway, they put a simulated prosthetic on it (they wrapped it) and he has to leave it on until Thursday.  If it doesn't get better, he might have to have an operation.  Then he said if he has to have this operation, I might have to do all the driving home in December.  It would serve me right as he had to drive most of the way here.

That's all the news for right now.  I'm going to drive down to Trader Joe's today and find something for dinner.  Oh, speaking of food!  We were getting the car fixed yesterday and while we were in the waiting room they had Giada DeLaurentiis on the Cooking Channel!  I'm sorry, but I used to watch the Foodnetwork all the time and haven't seen it except sporadically in the past few months.  I was disappointed when they told us the car was ready.

That's really all for now.

Gamecocks and Car

We have the car, as I said earlier.  Don and I drove to a bar down by the east side where the Gamecock Club meets to watch the games.  We played Kentucky and the whole bar was decorated with Kentucky paraphernalia.  There were about 6 or 7 Kentucky fans and just as many Carolina fans.  Well as you know Kentucky played very well the first half (and we didn't).  They were ahead going into half-time.  But in the second half we pulled ahead.  One of the fellows watching the game with us pulled out his clarinet and started playing the Carolina fight song:

How cool!

After the game we went to Union Street for dinner and back home.  The dogs were left inside for most of the day so I was worried about them.

That was the good news.  Now the bad.  Yesterday when we went to get the car from where we parked it on the street, we noticed the drivers side side-view mirror was bashed in.  I mean the mirror was dangling by some wires and the whole housing unit was in shambles.  So we spent the morning going to the police dept to fill out a claim then trying to find a Toyota place to get an appointment to fix it.  But we were successful in all of the above and will get the mirror fixed next Tuesday.  It'll be interesting to see if parking on the street will really be cost effective.  Then we get up this morning and Don decided to take Missy for a walk while he went to get the Sunday paper.  When he came back he declared that the car was gone.  He called all the places is San Fran who might have towed it and was unsuccessful.  So, he called the police back to report it stolen.  The police officer said she would come by to fill out a report but that it would be a while.  So, Don decided to take my clicker to try again.  He came back to report that he had found the car.  Whew!  But we really have to find a better method of  remembering where the car is.  We have to move it every three days more than a block away and they do street cleaning every first and third weeks of the month and it varies which day of the week it is depending on the street.  I thought I could drop a pin on my iPhone maps but I'm not able to get the to work right.  So the bad news is we have to replace our side view mirror.  The good news?  We only have to replace the side view mirror.

Ah, life in the big city!

Car, Rats and Play Dates

We have our car!  I'm so excited that I can actually travel around the city without getting on the bus or walking.  Of course as I said earlier, parking might be an issue but when I walk the dogs and walk to the grocery store, I can see lots of parking spots.  During the day, that is.  But that's when I'm going to be driving!  Yay!!!!

Next, rats.  I got up the other night to use the rest room and when I was on my way back to bed I saw Bailey standing in front of the door like he wanted to go out.  So I thought I would buy myself some time in the morning by letting him out on my way back to bed.  As soon as I opened the door, both dogs went charging out the door and one rounded the corner in hot pursuit of something that I couldn't see.  They rounded the tree together and that's when I saw little brown puffs of something that were running from them.  I knew they were the rats and fearing they would get bitten, I turned the light on and yelled at the dogs to come in.  OMG there were lots of little brown furry things out there.  But I was told the exterminators were going to be here today to start getting rid of them, but alas, no exterminators.  I'll text the land lady tomorrow and ask what's going on.  Or I might ask Don to text her...  Anyone heard of Willard?

If you have a house with hard wood floors, and rent the bottom floor out, it should be against the law to ever host a play date at 8 am no matter what day it is!!!  I'm just saying...

Enjoying the afternoon sunshine.  Or is Missy watching for rats?

Dinner in Oakland

Don and I were invited to dinner in Oakland at the house of Don's contact at UCSF.  I was a little nervous but really excited about this.  I knew there was an opportunity to meet people, other than the clerk at the Marina Market.  There were 3 other couples from UCSF going and there was going to be a wine tasting "game".  There was a description of three wines and 3 unlabeled wine bottles containing the wines in question.  We were supposed to taste each wine and match it to the description given.  Well I got none of them right.  Don got one right but by default.  Everybody was very nice and the wife of one faculty member  talked to us about joining them to visit one of their favorite wineries in Napa.  This winery is pretty small and family owned.  I might like to do that.  Don's not too sure.

The dinner they served was amazing.  We had two appetizers, a green olive tempanade on crustini and mini bbq pork sliders.  For dinner they served potato au gratin, skirt steak with balsamic glaze and roasted fig, salad with grilled peaches and candied pecans.  There were three mini desserts, a rum raisin ice cream, salted dark chocolate bark and panna cotta with fresh berries.  The husband did all the cooking.  I was truly amazed at how wonderful the meal was.  I felt like I was at a real grown-up dinner party.  But by the end of the evening I found I had nothing in common with anyone at the party, other than our love of good wine and good food.  But they didn't talk about that, they talked baseball (The Giants (?) were vying for the playoffs) and the difference between living in Portugal and Brazil.  I know nothing about what they were talking about.  I kind of wished they talked Statistics since I know a little about that!  Don commented that they were a little more worldly than we are.  We've traveled over seas several times but I felt like a country bumpkin listening to them talk about stuff.  It was quite the experience.  The wife who invited us to the winery was not a faculty member so she may call still, but I'm thinking her husband won't want to do that.  If they call, I'll try to convince Don to go.

We're getting the car!!!  The guy who cut my hair the other day mentioned that we could get a pass for $88 for 8 weeks to park on the street.  The only condition is that we have to move the car a block away every 72 hours.  So we downloaded an application from the city and sent it off with the check.  Hopefully it won't take long to get the decal.  This will save us hundreds of dollars.  We were paying $300 a month to park the car in a garage far enough away that we have to get a bus to go get it (rather, Don has to get a bus to go get the car) and now we'll pay $88 for 8 weeks and I'll actually be able to drive it!

Since we had the car yesterday so that we could drive to Oakland, we did our wine shopping at BevMo and drove around for a while.  I don't know why we haven't done this before.  It seems we're always driving to get somewhere and not really enjoying the area with the car.  We found Union Street which looks to be a better shopping area than Chestnut Street so we're going to go Tuesday and actually do some Christmas shopping.  I'm determined to buy more gifts for other people than for ourselves!  So after driving around for a while, we tried to find a place on the street to park the car until we had to leave for Oakland.  We drove several blocks until we found a space big enough to fit the car.  Finding spots to park on the street could be a little difficult.  I imagine during the week might not be so bad when everyone's at work, but the weekend might be a problem.  Oh well.  I think it's great that we spent the first half of our trip walking everywhere and the second having easier access to the car.

Did I mention that we almost stayed in Mill Valley while we were here?  I read in the paper this morning that Mill Valley Film Festival begins the weekend Don will be in Columbia, leaving me here by myself... with no car.  Guess who's going to be at the Film Festival?  Billy Bob Thorton, Ben Affleck, Ewan McGregor, Dustin Hoffman and Stevie Nicks to name a few.  Don will be in Columbia the first weekend, but some family and friends will be here the second weekend.  Maybe we can catch a glimpse of some famous faces!

Not much else to report.  Other than the fact that the exterminator will be here this week to take care of the rat problem.  When he came to check out the back yard, he said it was a "haven for rats".  And rats can climb:

Our Front Entryway

When I walk outside or walk back inside I have to look up to make sure there's not a rat waiting to pounce.

We're off to watch last night's new on Hulu.

Video Update

I was really embarrassed about my video of the messy apartment I posted the other day so I spent the 20 minutes required to tidy up and took another.  Here it is:

Okay, I tried for 3 days to upload the video and it gets stuck.  I'll continue to try but you might have to make do with the messy apartment video.

But, I have my herb garden:

There's parsley and thyme.  There's also lots of ivy that I couldn't pull up.

And where I saw a rat the other day:

I was sitting on our "couch" and saw him out of the window.  He scurried underneath the lattice under the boards.  He was huge!

Okay, I need help.  Don is going home for a conference and to hear his student's PhD defense.  He told me he's going to be there the weekend of the Georgia game.  We have spent around 10 weeks together so I was kind of looking forward to having a weekend on my own.  But he told me yesterday that he's going to be gone for 5 days.  5 days!!!  How could he not have told me this before?  What am I going to do for 5 days?  2 days okay, but 5???  So we have to start thinking of things I can do for 5 days.  I'm a little worried that the only human voices I'll hear are the waiter asking what I want for dinner or the check out person at the market asking me if I found everything okay.  This might get me back on the bus before he leaves so I can get used to it in case I need to get out of this area when he's gone.

We went to the wharf area yesterday and then downtown. We were supposed to go on a culinary walking tour of Little Italy but when we got to the meeting place we were told the guide had laryngitis and couldn't make it.  I don't think he was telling the truth.  I think we were the only ones who booked that day and the guide just wanted a day off.  But since we were there we had a nice dinner in Little Italy and did a little shopping.  

Don is getting so good about just getting on a bus and knowing the general direction it's going.  I just know we're in the Marina district but don't know what it's north or south of.  I don't know what side of the road to be on to get a bus home.   I just followed along like a little puppy as he made our way through the crowds for the appropriate bus stop.   Since I'm so bad with the bus, I told Don I'll try to go to the wharf area again today.  We found part of a birthday gift for somebody whose birthday is coming up but didn't have enough cash and the guy wouldn't take credit.  So the guy told us we could have the gift if we come back today and pay him what we owe.  We were only $5 short but I feel obligated to go pay him.  And I saw some possible Christmas gifts there yesterday that I would like to pick up.  I'll let you know if I go and if I make it back home safely.  Wish me luck.

Bus Update

Well, I got on the bus heading toward Pier 39.  I had to get off our bus, cross the street and get on another bus.  I did that just fine and got off at the stop for Pier 39.  I was so happy.  I shopped a little (got some small Christmas gifts) ate a fantastic salad with fresh crab, had a glass and a half of wine and started to head home for an afternoon nap.  I walked down the Embarcadero looking at all the tourists until I got a little tired.  I then asked the GPS on my phone which way to go to get a bus home.  Then my trouble began.  My phone kept changing it's "mind" which way I should go.  I went to where it said I should go and the screen showed I was somewhere else.  I walked around the block several times, backtracked, asked a few people (one being a UPS guy who told me the wrong way) then finally decided to walk.  It's only a mile and a half but there are a lot of hills here.  I walked up a hill (not as steep as Fillmore!) and caught a bus 30 Stockton that was really full but I got on as it was heading my way.  Off we went.  A little while later, the bus stopped and we were told to get off; the wires kept getting disconnected.  So I trekked up the hill once again.  Again I asked if there was a bus and when I looked up I saw the bus 30 Stockton Jefferson Loop and knew I could make it home.  That bus stops a block from our house.  So much to the relief of the dogs, I'm home.  I just finished eating a mint dark chocolate truffle that I bought for myself today.  Heaven.  Maybe I'll try again.  But not tomorrow.

One Month in

We've been in San Francisco for one month already.  Where has the time gone?

We spent a lovely evening with Don's San Francisco family.  His Uncle Bob and Aunt Delores live here in the city.  They have always been very nice and I've always liked them very much.  Their daughter lives north of here but not far so we all went to her house for dinner.  We couldn't stay long as uncle Bob needed to get home to bed but I'm sure we'll see them again before we leave.  But the gift we bought for Delores mistakenly got opened by Don's cousin.  Oh well.

We spent a night in Mill Valley last weekend.  We left Saturday morning and just drove north.  Don had never been to Muir Woods so we went there.

We had a nice dinner in Mill Valley.  While it would have been a huge commute for Don, I could see myself spending Sabbatical there.  In SF I feel kind of claustrophobic, but Mill Valley is more open.  But we've gone for the experience of living in a big city.  So here we are.

Speaking of the experience of living in a big city, my goal today is to get on a bus by myself and going somewhere.  I think I'll go down to Pier 39 since they have a huge shopping area down there and I still haven't bought any Christmas gifts.  I think I can get down there, but I'm a little nervous about getting home.  Don thinks I'll be much happier if I can get around by bus instead of just staying in the Marina district.  I'm not sure.  There are shops and groceries here.  I can walk to anything I want.  But I'll try it today and we'll see.

We're making our first trip to Sonoma this weekend.  There aren't a lot of dog friendly places to stay within our price range, so we're just going to take lots of day trips.  There's a limo bus tour here in SF that takes people up to several different wineries.  They give you breakfast on the way up. tour 4 wineries, give you a snack on the way back and you can drink your purchases on the way home.  Don doesn't want to do that because they don't go to some of the places we want to go to (J, Coppola to name two) so we'll go on our own.  Maybe some of our visitors might want to do something like that when they come???  You know who you are.

Oh, I forgot to mention that I had my final visit to an orthopedist.  My foot has officially healed!  The doctor in San Diego said that while I didn't have to wear the boot anymore, I needed to wear shoes that tied, like sneakers.  Well, I brought about 20 pairs of shoes and could only wear my walking shoes.  So now I'm free to wear whatever pair of shoes I want.  However, it's like 60 degrees everyday and we walk a lot, so some of my shoes are not practical.  And when we leave here in December, it'll be too cold to wear the sandals so, I'm out of luck there.  But I can wear my boots, so I have that.

Okay, I can't procrastinate any longer.  It's 11:30 so I only have around 4 or 5 hours before Don comes home.  I need to get down to Pier 39.  I can always take a cab home, right?  Wish me luck.

Some miscellaneous pics:

And our very messy apartment.  I'll post another when I've straightened up a bit.

Week Four in San Fran

So much has happened since we've been here.  The dogs are adjusting, a little.  We got an amazing dog whisperer for Bailey, Jeff Stallings (look under the reviews for a picture of Bailey!).  He's actually from Georgia but has been living here for a while.  He came over to the apartment and the dogs took to him immediately.  He tried to get Bailey to walk with a head collar but Bailey was having no part of that.  Jeff said this was the first time he couldn't get a dog to walk on that collar.  So we got him a harness and a better leash, relearned how to walk a dog and he's much better.  He's still really skittish around the traffic noises but we take him for short walks and, with the help of some Prozac, temporarily, he's getting better.  Jeff and I took him and Jeff's dog Otis to the dog beach without Missy and he did really well.  There were no other dogs there so Otis played with the Chuck-it and Bailey just stood by my side.  After a while a few other dogs came and were playing.  Bailey watched them for a while and after a couple minutes he actually joined in!!!  I was so excited.  Small steps.

Jeff also told me about these amazing treats the dogs absolutely love.  I can get the dogs to do just about anything with them.  We're working on basic training with Bailey; sit, stay, etc and using the clicker.  I'm having Bailey sit for 10 - 15 seconds before I click and give him the treat.  But sometimes he gets so excited looking at the clicker waiting for the treat, that he can't stand it any longer.  He puts his haunches up in the air and wags his tail.  I'll get a video and post it.  It's adorable.  But since Missy already knows how to do these tricks we're teaching her other ones.  The latest is "turn around" when she has to turn in a complete circle.  She's getting pretty good at it.  But surprisingly she's having trouble with "shake".  She's watching the treat if it's in sight or looking around for it if it's not to pay attention to what I'm trying to get her to do.  It's fun though.

I cannot find a job.  Rather I can't find one that sounds exciting.  There was a help wanted sign on the window of a paper shop on Chestnut St that Don suggested I apply for.  But that seemed kind of boring so I haven't done that yet.  I applied for thousands of online teaching jobs but can't get a nibble.  I guess that line of work is really hard to get into and without any prior experience actually teaching online (lots of training and experience incorporating online instruction within my classes) I can't get my foot in the door.  So I looked for volunteering.  There's a website that lists opportunities to volunteer and I found one that puts books online for the blind or visually impaired people.  I work with textbooks and have to describe the images in words to be read online.  It's actually really difficult.  I described a figure from a Geometry textbook to Don to see if he could draw it:

"The figure is of a ray and a triangle.  The ray is horizontal and points to the left.  The endpoint of the ray is also a vertex of the triangle.  The second triangle is above and to the left of the first and the third vertex lies on the ray.  The interior angle of the vertex formed by the endpoint of the ray and the triangle is labeled 72 degrees.  The interior angle of the vertex above the ray is 42 degrees.  The exterior angle formed by the ray and the third vertex is labeled x degrees."

Of course this requires knowledge of the math terms, ray, endpoint, interior/exterior angles, etc (which apparently Don had forgotten) but he eventually drew the figure.  It was hard!!

Between that and a special project I'm working on for some people for Christmas, I'm keeping pretty busy.  When I get cabin fever or if I just need a break, I walk up to Chestnut St. and shop or walk to the market to buy stuff to make dinner in our very rustic kitchen.

There are three issues that we  have not been able to get over.  They are the noise issue, the lack of comfortable seating and not being able to watch the news.  We can hear nearly EVERYTHING upstairs.  I've become quite the expert on ear plugs just so I can sleep past 6am.  I can almost make out conversations.  I can hear different voices but can't quite make out all of the words being said.  And if I can hear them, they can probably hear us.  And when that baby gets on his little scooter??? Arg! I have more of an issue with this than Don does, he gets up really early anyway.  I like to sleep in the morning.

The apartment has a table and three chairs, a wicker rocking chair and a white futon.  Why anyone would have a dog friendly apartment and put a white futon in there is beyond me.  But that's what we have.  And for a coffee table, we have a wicker basket that is very unstable.  So we have one of the dining chairs to act like a coffee table.  I got comfortable the other day sitting sideways on the futon with the computer on my lap watching a rerun of "Locked Up Abroad" and a glass of wine sitting on the chair.  I reached around behind me to pick up my wine when my elbow knocked the back of the chair sending the wine flying.  It spilled onto the wall behind me and, you got it, the white futon.  The cushions of which are dry clean only.  And it was red wine.  So I'm sitting on the stuffing of the cushion covered by a towel while the covers are at the dry cleaners.  But we bought two cheap vinyl chairs (like we use for tail gating) so at least we have a choice of where to sit.

Lastly, the news.  I didn't even know there was a hurricane last week or that the Republican Convention was going on.  Well I don't care about the convention, but what else is going on in the world that I don't know about?  I'm watching reruns of "Locked Up Abroad" and "Downton Abbey" (which is really good).  So we miss the news.  Don wondered aloud last night what it would cost to get cable in here.  It's all part of the adventure I guess.

This is a really long post and I haven't even gotten to the football club we found or the side trips we've been taking.  But that'll have to wait for another day.  My rear end is getting sore so it's time for a stroll up to Chestnut.

San Francisco

We made it to San Francisco!  The area where we're staying is wonderful!  It's about 5 blocks from Chestnut St and a couple blocks from the marina.  We emptied the car and took it to a garage and haven't used it since.  We walk everywhere, to the grocery store, to the bank, everywhere.  The grocery store is half a mile away.  After 4 months of this, I should be in much better shape!

We were so pleasantly surprised by the apartment.  We have stayed in some rather sketchy places during our trip and weren't sure what we were going to get.  We saw pictures of it, but pictures can be deceiving.  We have a kitchen (very, very basic), a great room and bedroom.  We also have our own courtyard out back so the dogs can go do their business.  What we don't have is television.  We have a tv, but no channels, only netflix and iTunes.  No news, no foodnetwork, nothing.  So, we signed up for huluplus.  We watched the news yesterday for the first time in quite a while, albeit on my computer, and not live.

The woman who owns the apartment live upstairs.  She has a little boy 2 or 3 years old.  She's very nice.  The floors have little to no insulation, so as soon as the baby gets up, around 5 or so, we can hear his running up and down the house, toys rolling over the floor, and even some conversation between the mom and the nanny.  This will get some getting used to.  When we met her the other day she asked if we could hear him and when we told her we could, she's been trying to keep the noise to a minimum.

My next step is getting a job.  Maybe I'll volunteer somewhere, I'm not sure.  We'll see what turns up!

Ridgecrest

I lived in Ridgecrest with my first husband when he was stationed at China Lake Naval Base.  This is where my daughter was born and I have some good memories there.  So, I was thankful that Don didn't mind making a small (?) detour so that I could go back after 28 years.

The Mojave Desert

Windmill farm on our way to Ridgecrest

More Mojave

China Lake Navy Base

They wouldn't let us drive in, not surprising

Where my beautiful daughter was born

More hospital.

I worked at this dealership.  The same guy owned both the Chevy delearship above (which is now a Toyota store) and the Ford store below.  The Blue Angels were at the base once while I was pregnant.  I was outside and walking around the dealership for some reason when from around the corner of the building, a jet flew past really, really low.  I looked in the plane and saw the pilot's face and I swear he saw me as he flew by.  I went into labor that night.

Ridgecrest has really grown in the last 28 years.  I couldn't find a lot of the buildings that I remembered  but that's what happens!

Leaving Ridgecrest we had to stop and take a bathroom break.  We haven't lost anything during this trip except for my pillow.  But we thought we lost Don's phone here.  We had to drive back and look around for it.  It was in a bag in the car all along.  Whew!  We also almost lost Bailey.  He took off smelling things and wouldn't come back.  Once again I had to weigh coaxing him back to the car and determining his survival skills in the desert.  He came back.

It's no wonder that when I went back home after the two years or so we were in Ridgecrest that I felt claustrophobic!

So on to Ojai.  This place is a major contender for retirement!  It's hot here right now but I understand that's unusual for this time of year.  There are some beautiful mountains for me and the beach isn't that far away for Don.  Hmmm.  Anthony Hopkins lives here I heard (but no sign of him yet).

We're making our last trek to San Fran tomorrow morning.  We've been traveling for 4 weeks so it's going to be really nice to unpack that car for the last time and stay put for a while.  I want to make dinners every night (almost), find a job (maybe) and not be hot anymore!  We'll send our summer clothes home and have a little more room in the car for all the things we're buying.  We're supposed to be buying Christmas gifts but we've only just bought things for ourselves:

Okay it looks kind of sketchy in the picture but it's really kind of cool.  It's two foxes made out of metal playing.   It's part of a wildlife sculpture that a local artist was doing for the city of Los Angeles but he had a stroke while working on it. The family is selling pieces of it and we came across this today.

It's been an amazing trip.  A once in a life time kind of trip.  We live in a beautiful country; from the mountains of Tennessee to the rolling hills of South Dakota to the desert in the southwest and finally to the beautiful diversity of California.  Everyone should take this kind of trip at least once in their lifetime!