Redwood Creek

Muir Woods - a deep pocket of green and old-growth beauty nestled in a cranny of a valley in Marin, just north of San Francisco. A place many Bay Area kids go on elementary field trips, and a place I try to take any out-of-town visitor. A place I've taken you before, in a manner of speaking.

This spring I went with my girlfriend for her first visit ever, and after a winter of torrential rains, it was the creek that particularly captivated my eye. 

Have you ever been? What is the name of a beautiful forest near you, or that you have loved while traveling?

November bookmarks

Thank goodness, it's finally over

November is by far the busiest month of the year in my industry (because of the dread Thanksgiving). Thank goodness, thank goodness that's over and I can look forward to some time to breathe now. 

To get through the final push of this week, I decompressed with an old favorite book, one that I haven't reread in years and years - Enna Burning, by Shannon Hale. 

In a roundabout way, she is the author who got me blogging. I was part of her ferociously active little fan forum, Little Red Reading Hood (est. 2006), and a number of the girls and young women there had blogs as well whose comment sections became another way of hanging out and chatting.

What about you - do you remember who or what (if applicable) got you started blogging?

Days, lately, in photos

Hot days in a top-floor apartment = blinds down all afternoon, big fan blasting. It still reliably gets 10 degrees hotter inside than outside on those days.

Immature acorns.


A nice neighbor. I say hi to her every time I pass her yard.

Add pomegranates to the list of fruits I have seen successfully cultivated by home gardeners in my area. Another recent addition: olives!


I have taken up coloring again to keep my hands busy during team meetings on Zoom.



Our girl.

Beautiful color from the liquidambar trees.


My shady walks are becoming gradually less so...

Rosehips are ripening, and reminding me it's a good time of year for rosehip tea (a gracious source of vitamin C).

Friday chatter

Happy Friday! My work week is Sunday-Thursday, so it's actually my Saturday. After a lazy morning in bed, I'm in the middle of making cinnamon rolls. I'm using the Buddhist Chef's recipe for the third time, except this time I'm going to try fresh apple pieces in place of the raisins. We shall see how that works. 

The handy thing about these is you can stick them in the fridge overnight for the second rise and bake them fresh in the morning, but I think they're going to be an afternoon snack with tea and then it'll be the leftovers for breakfast tomorrow. Will this dough recover from my curious bad cat stepping on it (through the damp tea towel) while it was rising? I think so. But how rude, how rude.

The other thing I'm doing is watching one of my sisters' and my favorite childhood movies that I just found streaming online. 

It's an utterly '90s-tastic made-for-TV movie called Robin of Locksley which features Devon Sawa (you know, the Canadian boy heartthrob of said decade) along with some other boys with curtain haircuts. He plays a modern-day teenage Robin Hood who hacks wealthy corporations' bank accounts via the WORLD WIDE WEB ("What's that?" asks one character) in order to, duh, give the money to charity. 

I've probably seen it fifteen times, but not at all recently. I love it. Here it is if you need some cheesy-but-good '90s silliness: https://tubitv.com/movies/413028/robin-of-locksley

So that's what I'm doing today. What about you?

Friday afternoon traffic

I drive to the city, walk on the beach with my mom at mid-day. The sand has been packed down by the recent rains. Get stuck in a bit of traffic coming back, eat carrot sticks from a jar clamped between my thighs, sing along to "High by the Beach." Marvel at the billboards for cocktails, spirits, B2B tech nonsense, a movie that was supposed to come out in March of last year and still hasn't been released. Marvel at the city streets, parks, and apartment buildings that suddenly look different now that I could feasibly live there if I wanted. It's always been a strange thing, being from a city I couldn't afford to live in myself, and now finally, at my 31-year-old income bracket, partnered, and with rents crashing, that's maybe not the case.

When I land back in the East Bay, I hunt down a very well-hyped, expensive apple that I have sold but not yet laid eyes on, buy two of them back from the little grocery I sold them to. As I promised my girlfriend, I go in two masks deep, face shield and all. It's over ten months that I've been working primarily or entirely remote now. Tasting our fruits is one of the things I miss.

Proper outings are such a rarity now that it's all refreshing in a way (save for those walkers who are unmasked). Even traffic has become semi-interesting, now that I spend my afternoons - and evenings and nights and mornings... - stuck at home rather than stuck in a car on my way home. Safe in a car with a good long playlist, what's to complain about?

Point & shoot photo album: August 2020

Candle bath to cure some tension.

Morning sleepiness and loving it.

An unusual white peach variety that has a trademark stripe of golden flesh running through it - exactly on the cleft.



Treasures left by my coworkers for me to find on returning for my once-a-week office day.

Those dry-farmed tomatoes...incredible.

Look at these fallopian shapes!

Celebratory fancy take-out dessert - for my girlfriend's last final exam and me getting a raise.

Relishing the evenings as they get earlier.

Point & shoot photo album: July 2020

 

  My mother took me paddleboarding on the bay as a belated birthday gift. 

And she also gave me my first wrapped present of the year. (Of course, given the times, the rest of my birthday gifts came by mail directly from the manufacturers.)

A small but treasured garden near my work.

Some nice signs that appeared in my neighborhood ahead of Independence Day. I don't know if they stopped anyone, as we still had fireworks galore around us, but I appreciate them anyways. The one above inspired my girlfriend to make the one below.

Luscious pink hydrangea giant.

Does anyone know what this fruit is?

Gigantic magnolia blossoms - heavenly to me.

Twilight walks.

And morning walks, with admiration for these glories.

The seeds of a yellow watermelon I ate look like this.

Lovely cat neighbors.

Asian pears growing in the neighborhood - among so many other fruits. Persimmons, apricots, artichokes, grapes...!

There was a third cat who ducked away when I approached with my camera.

My CSA has been showering me with heirloom tomatoes. Here: Purple Cherokees and Solar Flares.

So: fresh incredible tomatoes (can't remember if this was a Purple Cherokee or an Early Girl) with salt, and nectarines, both raw off the cutting board.

Neighbor kitty. Margo.

Gorgeous skies. Afternoon walks too.

Glassblower's mural.

Summer evening vibes, shadows, light.

Cape gooseberries. So cute! And interesting taste.

Overflowing bougaivillea.

The nectaplum. Incomparable.

Then for my mother's birthday, I baked this cake to eat outside, socially distanced, with her and my girlfriend, graced also by the company of such trees as below.

Shishitos.

My first hike alone, ever.

There was a lot of climbing, and a lot of view (and wind) to enjoy.

Potatoes for breakfast.

And the other neighbor cat (or kitten, really)! Asoka.

(I lost track of time, and now it's almost time for the August p&s photo album!)