While my guitar
Gently weeps

Just a note to say that I’m really digging the guitar, or really just playing an instrument again.  It’s nice to rediscover that 1) I could play for hours if my fingers had the stamina 2) that I totally lose myself when I’m creating music (no matter how ragged it is).  Great way (dare I say even better than that glass of wine?) to take the edge off a rough day.

Added bonus: Bailey’s “humming” has progressed to a full “singing” now with quite a range from high to low and a few “barking” raps thrown in for good measure.  Enough to make me weep - although the guitar weeps too since he usually licks it midway through his performance.  We’re trying to get a video update, but he seems to get more shy around Kyle.  It’s a mama-puppy thing I guess, and really best experienced in person.

And before you know it
It’s nothing but
work work work all the time!

I think I averaged 60 hours a week for the last few weeks and managed to miss every possible amount of daylight that I could. But now the work’s done. And it’s time to relax. I’m looking forward to a weekend as great as the last one:
Last Saturday we discovered a really good Thai restaurant on San Pablo - one that’s been there for years, but I had never gone into. Was so good that we got take out from them two days later - medium spicy is hecka spicy - BUT SO GOOD! Had a good time over dinner catching up with recently transplanted cousins from Munich - it’s nice to have family so close!

That night, Evelyn & Scott managed to convince me to not work on Sunday like I had planned and to instead spend the day hiking in shockingly sunny Point Reyes and watching them enjoy oysters by Tamales Bay. It ended up being a fabulous and much needed break - I’ve termed these breaks a “sharpening of the sword”. A moment to hone what’s dull. The view out to Pacific was clear and blue and warm and calm and spectacular. A real treat, and I couldn’t think of a better way to have spent a Sunday! I was so happy, I even hugged a tree. Almost got run over by a cyclist, but neither the tree nor I were worse for wear.
So far so good this weekend. After work on Friday, Kyle and I went for a walk with Bailey and perched on our sunny porch enjoying a glass of wine, my feebled guitar strumming - and Bailey’s ever so sweet howling voice as the sun set. A sunny deck and a NY Times crossword puzzle, and I’d say life’s kinda pleasant right now.

If you don’t come across
I’ll be down

We saw Wordplay last night at the Albany twin. I’ve been a huge fan of Will Shortz since he was the editor at Games magazine, and the movie confirmed that the guy has a wicked sense of humor. Twas fun to watch it in a theater since I could be nerdy like the rest of the puzzlers in the room and yell out answers. Kyle kept quiet.
Did a NY Times Saturday puzzle this morning on the deck (a heavenly way to spend a Saturday morning I might add). It was very clever - and I finished it for once, which means that I’m feeling rather clever myself. Sudokus are so last year….

Kyle and I caught this in the Sunday paper:

Champion of nudity found dead in jail cell
‘Naked Guy’ won fame in Berkeley, challenged values

The door is locked
Just you and me

Digging through a bin in the bathroom, stumbled on this little treasure which I must have brought home with me from Japan circa 2000.

Go away.
Come again some other day.

I hereby apologize for even hinting that I was smugly satisfied that the east coast was getting those awful rains. Period.

Mah.

Who wears short skirts?
We wear short skirts!

Twice now I’ve come home on the bus and sat facing women who should know better than to:

1. Wear skirts that short
2. Wear ankle length hose with them (who invented this fashion faux pas?)
3. Leave their legs uncrossed while sitting across from someone - or worse yet - leave them open while bending forward to get something out of their briefcase.

Short skirts on uncrossed legs ride up when you sit down. PERIOD. And ankle hose is just silly - if you’re going to put sheer synthetic fabric on your legs, at least wear the full length stuff so I don’t contemplate if you were scarred in an ankle-height fire. Now granted, I’m a girl (last I checked), and so maybe this inexcusable behavior is somehow ok among “just us girls.” But somehow being offered a view to places I don’t really care to see, on people I don’t really care to see them on… makes me want to smack them. Ladies! Have some dignity. Just cross those legs, please! Even an ankle cross is ok. Please?

And while you’re at it - please remember that the girls do hang out if not properly secured… I’ll save that rant for another day.

I feel bad for the folks stuck in the rain in the Northeast. I really do empathize. But is it so wrong that part of me wants to say “Hah Hah” (a la the bully in the Simpsons) since it wasn’t so long ago that our situations were reversed? Here’s to glorious sunshine. Amen.

All that she wants
Is another baby
What a weekend! I need a weekend to get over the weekend! We had a fabulous eve of mother’s day celebration with our folks. Everyone saved up their calories expecting to indulge, and I ended up making a moderately healthy meal!  The meal was a labor of love - I think I was shelling peas and fava beans (and peeling beets) for most of the day. But it was pretty darn tasty at the end.

The mothers had a fabulous opportunity to gang up on us about the unsuitability of claiming Bailey as a surrogate “grandbeing”. Honestly, my mother has no excuse - she’s got three fantastic grandsons. So what if there’s no granddaughter - greed is never a good thing… And yes, Kyle’s mother has a legitimate claim, but really now - claiming that a granddog just isn’t good enough??! Poor Bailey!

Sunday was a baby shower for my cousin Supriya and her husband Sridhar in the city. The little one’s due in a couple of weeks, and I’m very excited to have a new cousin around the area. No pressure there either. Although now we’re expecting a total of 3 new cousins this year. Seems like the next generation has decided that now is a good time to generate.

So, no pressure or anything. But, maybe Bailey does deserve a sibling after all… good thing the Milo Foundation just set up shop a few blocks away!

J’ai un haricot dans l’oreille
O - comme il est gros!
Maman, viens voir dans mon oreille
J’ai un haricot!

We’re continuing our tradition of mothers day eve at Curtis Street. A preview of the menu:

Champagne
Baby lettuces salad with Kyle’s famous shallot vinaigrette
Artichoke and sun-dried tomato filo
English peas and snap peas with mint or basil
Roasted or grilled asparagus with some meyer lemon concoction (the tree keeps on giving!)
Either: triple ginger biscotti with sorbet OR apple rhubarb crisp…

I’d love to get some beets in there (cause I love them SO!), so if I can find some yellow ones at the farmer’s market, they’re going to get tossed into the salad, and the salad dressing will become a meyer lemon-shallot dressing instead. And the asparagus will have to find a different partner…