Saturday, February 28, 2009

Texas trip


feb28-2008 068
Originally uploaded by pamplemousse2007
Here are all the photos from my drive to Texas, just click on photo of Lulu.

Stop sign with color digitally added

Just an example of posting a photo from Flickr to my artyfartyparty blog.

Monday, December 31, 2007

Thursday, November 29, 2007

adorable - adjective

Loving this quote from CS Lewis

"To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken.

If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal.

Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness.

But in that casket—safe, dark, motionless, airless—it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation.

The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly save from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell."

- C.S Lewis
The Four Loves

Friday, November 23, 2007

Excerpt from tourista advice email

A new friend from Austin is coming to visit San Francisco in late December. Here is an excerpt of my email to her, describing some places to go see. Just posting it here so I can remember these same things if anyone else asks!

There are truly a bazillion great things to see and do in the SF bay
area, but here are some ideas for you from the local girl perspective:

1 - Union Square, San Francisco. It should wildly festive during that time, great shops, people watching, lots of places to eat. The dopey thing I love to do is saunter into the Sir Francis Drake Hotel, act like a hotel guest and head for the guest room elevators at the far back of the lobby. These are glass elevators - punch the button for the top floor and enjoy the free (and great) view! From there it is just a couple of blocks to walk into the world-famous Chinatown (which is a bit touristy but still pretty interesting). While you're in that part of town, I would check out the SF MOMA.

2 - Drive up to Point Reyes. This is a full day's trip, but one of my favorite things to do ever. So incredibly beautiful. If you have the time, you could drive out to the lighthouse and see if you can see whales, then circle back to check out the very cute towns of Inverness and Point Reyes Station. The latter has fantastic art galleries and restaurants and a funky old bookstore. I like to send people to the Cowgirl Creamery.

If it were me, I'd leave from Berkeley, drive out Sir Francis Drake Blvd through Fairfax to Point Reyes and then take Highway One back from Point Reyes through Stinson Beach, over Mount Tam, down into Mill Valley and then back to Berkeley. It's a peak time for whale watching.

If you are even a little bit of a bird watcher, this would be the day to bring your binoculars along. Actually, you'd want them for the whales too.

3 - Check out Berkeley's 4th Street - just a nice local's shopping street with a Peet's coffee, great local bookstore, an OUTLET of Crate and Barrel, and so on.


4 - If you are going to go to Green's for breakfast or lunch, it makes a very nice morning to stroll along the marina. If you're up for a bit of a longer walk, you can keep going all the way along Crissy Field to the Golden Gate bridge (about a mile and 1/2) and stand on that spot where Kim Novak falls (throws herself?) into the bay in the movie Vertigo. :)

Tuesday, November 13, 2007

ferrets!!

Help ferrets who have cold noses!!
America needs to knit little warm hats for ferrets, who otherwise would get cold.

Saturday, October 20, 2007

Trek to Austin

Austin was pretty good - mostly work and very busy, but beautiful weather and improving relationships with the Austin office folks. I'm going back again Nov 5 - 7 and Nov 11 - 16, so am planning to do a bit more than just hotel to office to hotel next time. I've started using Priceline and am getting some great hotels for tiny prices, too. Oakville Grocery opened a satelite store in the fancy new mall just across the street from the Austin office, so I walked over there for lunch several times and had broccolini salad and chipotle chicken and such.
I'm again giving serious thought to moving there. I'd abandoned the idea when I was feeling uncertain about work, but things have improved quite a bit. Boss keeps backing me up and increasing my role and visibility, he walks his talk, and my one-on-one with our CEO also gave me a positive read. It's also exciting to be on the brink of going public. When I'm out there, I get so much more done - amazing the difference it makes to be at HQ in person. I am in my lease at my current place through January, so wouldn't probably make a move until after then. Austin truly is a fun, creative, dog-friendly, artist-friendly, affordable place to be, so why fight it? I do loathe the packing and hauling part of the whole moving thing though, ugh.
Right now, I'm house and dogsitting for P, sitting on her humungous couch with a dog snuggled up to me on either side (and snoring!) - very cozy and lovely. My painting class starts at 9 am at College of Marin, but it's so cold that I'm not sure I want to stick the dogs in the backyard to go paint. Argh. I wish I could leave Lulu inside, but she still chews things up when she gets bored, which is pretty quickly.
Laura's mom is still hanging on, but barely. She's been moved to a nursing home but is not expected to live more than a few days - although that's been the prognosis for weeks. Luckily, Laura was able to get her on Medical (or Medicaid or something) so some of the financial burden is relieved.

Friday, October 12, 2007