Field Trip

I can hardly wait for Saturday!

I'm already making a list of vendors I need to visit.

So glad I live in the SF Bay Area. Sigh.

My Little Mouthbreather

Samson has come down with his first cold. It's all at the same time heartbreaking and adorable. He seems friendlier in general, less likely to break into the fussing-whiny-screamy for no apparent reason mode throughout the day. But his audibly labored breathing is just so pitiful, and he's taken to sticking his fingers in his mouth while he eats so as to make it easier to breath through his mouth (WHAT a smart baby!) but a bunch of the milk runs down his neck. After two days of this, he doesn't smell so great.

So we bundled him up today and Max took the day off so we could give our visiting friend a tour of San Francisco. You could totally tell that we miss living in the city so so much; it was basically the Deb and Max heritage history tour. We drove past our old apartments, the restaurant where we had our first date (8 years ago this month!), our favorite parks, cafes and bars, even had a beer at our old neighborhood French cafe while Max got a hair cut at his old neighborhood barbershop. Sigh. We really miss the neighborhoodiness of San Francisco and the urban hum that accompanies living there. We appreciate the living space that renting on the peninsula affords us, and the amenities like backyards and 2 car garages. But we're just not whole without the corner store and terrible lack of parking. The outing really cemented the decision we made months ago, to move back to the city as soon as our lease is up this summer.

Soon after we initially made this decision, we decided it would be best to finally bid our rental apartment days goodbye and to buy our own place. 10 weeks and four trillion open houses later, we finally put an offer on a 2 bedroom condo in Northern Panhandle (I think that's a made up name for the neighborhood just east of Stanyan, south of Grove, north of Fell and west of Masonic) and were outbid in approximately 6.8 seconds. It was a learning experience and a relatively painless initiation into the cruel and messed up world of Bay Area real estate. Hopefully, the next time I blog about this, it will be to announce that I'm finally buying that hammock I've always wanted for the backyard or deck I've always wanted. In the house that I've always wanted.

Now I'm going upstairs to suck the mucus out of my baby's nose with a rubber bulb syringe. Which is almost as fun as hammock shopping.

You're so cute, I could eat you up...how many points are you?

I've gone and joined Weight Watchers. Yup. I'm going to try and get rid of some of this baby weight. Then I'm going to try to drop the "I'm leaving Ireland soon so I better get my fill of curry fries" weight. Then I'll try to loose the Turkey, France, Italy and Portugal weight. Then I'll work on the "I'm leaving San Francisco to live in Ireland for a year so I better get my fill of Raja's Indian Pizza" weight. I mean come on, they have pizza with tandoori on it. It's especially good when dipped in chicken tikka sauce. And they deliver. Sigh.

I've heard good things about people's experience with the whole points system, especially after having a baby. So far, I like keeping track of all of the points. It's like a game. A game where I go to bed hungry and dream about cheeseburgers.

It's working well with the Disneyland trip; I get to set two-month short term goals, like fitting into pre-pregnancy clothes and getting to the point where I eat 3 different kinds of veggies each day. And I can celebrate my inevitable success with cotton candy! Can you say counter-productive?

On a completely unrelated note, I discovered today while listening to Andrew Bird that I only like "blues" music when the part traditionally played by the harmonica is played by a violin or a trumpet or some other horn, but not a saxophone. I found this to be interesting and enlightening.

Countdown to Home

I bought my plane ticket home yesterday which is, at the same time, wonderful and sad. Mostly wonderful, because it means that in 10 short weeks I get to be reunited with all things furry and slobbery. It means I get to go back to San Francisco, I get to back to the office, I get to drive and go to Target and see people that I like more often and make more wedding plans and shop for tiny baby-sized goodies. But it also means that I only have 10 weeks left to go and do and see, not only in Ireland but in the rest of Europe as well. I've had such a terrific time traveling around and seeing so many amazing places, and I know that baby on the way means putting that sort of thing on hold for a while, so I want to cram as much of it in as possible.

Let's recap the extra super fantasticness of it all, shall we?

Portugal, September 2006



Italy, October 2006



London, October 2006,



Central Ireland, November 2006



Israel, December 2006



Western Ireland, January 2007



Northern Ireland, February 2007



Euro Disney, February 2007



Paris, February 2007



London, March 2007



Southern Ireland, March 2007



Scheduled upcoming trips:

Turkey in June 2007

Upcoming trips that are still in the works:

Scotland

Barcelona

Southwestern Ireland

Don't You Forget About Me

Boy, have I ever been MIA. Incommunicado. Fallen off the face of the earth. And what's worse, I've left that clip from the Sarah Silverman Program as my last post for people to see when they check in on the blog. Not my finest bit of blogging. Oh well.

I've been in San Francisco since Friday (technically, Foster City and Palo Alto), and the weather alone has made me consider skipping out on my flight back to Dublin on Sunday. 70's and 80's, clear blue skies--flip flop weather. It's been great being back in the office this week, actually seeing and talking to people during the day. It's a big change from my life as a Dublin hermit, and a very healthy addition to my daily routine. As much as I'll miss Ireland and Europe, I'm looking forward to coming back to a place where I can interact with friends and family on a level other than email and long-distance, time-zone impaired phone calls.

Lots of extra super fantastic things have happened since I got here. Beli Deli sandwiches. An A+ grade on my checkup at the dentist. More Nanna belly than you can shake a stick at. Alaskan King Crab legs. Pie day. Sharks hockey. Hugs from my local nearest and dearest. And even though my peeps in Oregon, Texas, Colorado and Minnesota aren't represented, I feel a little closer to them than normal.

In Between Days

I had a lovely time in London with Maya and Vivi. We saw some sites, we at at Chili's, it was good. So now I'm back in Dublin, but, like 2 ships passing in the night, Max is in Israel for the week. Sigh. But as soon as he comes back, we leave for San Francisco--yay! I'm long overdue for a dog-and-cat-filled week, a Beli Deli sandwich, and some hugs from my Bay Area peeps.

The Big One-Seven-Five

Happy birthday, Adolph Sutro! Engineering mastermind, savvy businessman, once-Mayor of San Francisco, builder of the Cliff House and the Sutro Baths, and planter of the Sutro Forest on top of Mount Sutro. This is where the Sutro Tower was built in 1971-72 (named for the location, not the man) and where it still stands, stoically watching over me and protecting my puppies as they run and play in Duboce Park. I'm a big fan of the tower. I love living near enough to it so that I can see it everyday--but far enough away so that I can avoid all that electromagnetic radiation.

The Sutro Tower is 977 feet tall, and weighs about 3.7 million pounds. It stands in the exact center of San Francisco, and I think that the city's landscape is incomplete without it. So many photographers focus on the Golden Gate Bridge (love it), the skyline of the downtown financial district (love it), the Coit Tower (love it), the TransAmerican--or, "Pyramid"--Building (love it), even the Bay Bridge (love it, except when I'm stuck on it).



But I love how all of these glorious and beautiful landmarks are all crowded around the mouth of the bay and the Embarcadero and the Presidio, all packed into this relatively tiny space (not unlike the Victorians throughout the city), and the Sutro Tower stands proudly above them and west up Market Street, balancing out the conglomeration of concrete and steel beauties. The visual is astounding. And once the fog gets involved, it's all I can do not to cry.

Sometimes I never want to leave this city.

*sigh*

Noise Pop is Good Pop

I love pop music. I was first able to admit this when I was living in Sweden in 1997. There's nothing like good Swedish pop music on your headphones to warm your insides when your trudging through the snow at 1:30pm--and the sun has already set.

But the fair-haired lovelies of Scandinavia do not have a monopoly on good pop music, as expertly demonstrated by the bands at last night's Noise Pop show in San Francisco. I was there to see Mates of State, a band introduced to me by my brother (he's the kind of guy who knows ALL of the good indie bands, bluegrass bands, vocal bands--you name it.). Opening act Aqueduct was a totally adequate, nothing-terribly-special-but-perfectly-entertaining-none-the-less indie pop band, but the sister-sister pop-duo Smoosh was an added bonus entirely. The novelty of their ages was undeniable (keyboardist/singer Asy is 12, drummer Chloe is 10), but it wore off as soon as they started playing. They were, in a word, awesome. Contagious, even. Less then 24 hours later, I've downloaded their album from iTunes and I've already made everyone at the office listen to it--twice. They certainly held their own as an opening act for the pop-filled harmonies of Mates, and seemed right at home in the smilely, head-bobbing line up.

And I fell asleep with a huge smile on my face last night, and that's what really matters.

In Your Neigh-Bor-Hood

Yesterday, as Max and I were strolling around our neighborhhod with the dogs, we had a couple of back-to-back encounters with really freindly--I mean really friendly--people. Not creepy-friendly or particularly talkative people, just the kind of people who who made us both say, "Gosh, I really like our neighborhood. People here are just so nice." Whether it involves well-timed smiles, considerate door-holding, baby-talking to a stranger's dog, or (most frequently) incredibly patient and helpful clerks and cashiers at our local restaurants, bars, corner markets and pet food stores, the feelings of friendly and nice abound.

And then today, I found this. The Muppets were right again. The Muppets are always right.

Except for that whole Christian Scientist thing.

Marquee Maddness

I just got my film back, so here are a couple of LC-A shots from San Antonio and beyond.



There's nothing quite like a Greyhound Bus station. Endless photographic possibilities.


I'm not much of a Pops fan, but I do love a good marquee.



Even though you can't see the actual lettering on the Mission Thrift marquee, I love how the whole structure appears to be on fire. Disco inferno!

The last two weeks before daylight savings time ends

Well, after what seemed like a year-long summer in San Francisco, the yucky weather has arrived. It started raining today, and it isn't supposed to stop for at least a couple of weeks. Bleh! And come Halloween, there will be even less light in which we can attempt to enjoy being outside. Aw, nuts.

Of course, just as the it starts to rain, I got some pictures back from last weekend, during which we drove the new convertible across the Golden Gate Bridge and up into the hills by Stinson Beach. So now, as I glance out the window at the darkened and overcast sky, I can turn fondly to my blog for comforting images of dogs and people frolicking, and of massive landmarks shining in the sun against a brilliant blue sky...and you can, too!




Ah, the glory and majesty of the Golden Gate!



Ah, the glory and majesty of Ozzy's head sticking out of the convertible roof.

Urban Weekend

I love the Sutro Tower so much. It's my favorite architectural thing. Ever. I live just below it, in the Castro neighborhood of San Francisco. Sometimes, when it's nice foggy, the whole of Eureka Valley fills up with this dream-like thickness, and I can see just the very top of the tower through wisps of fog, lights blinking in a near-celestial sort of heart beat...

Someday, I'd like to learn more about Adolf Sutro.