Double Rainbow Amazement

It truly is Oz-like in San Rafael. It's so beautiful, even when it's raining. Where else can you look over your fence and be greeted with a double rainbow?! No wonder people in Marin are so smug...

Thanks, Apple

Shockingly (oh, how naive!), we've been out of a computer, off and on, for just about two months now. A one-year old Apple iMac whatever (early 2008 20" iMac), purchased September of 2008, crashed suddenly. Good thing we had purchased the extended warranty Apple Care whatever, allowing us to take the machine to the Apple Genius Bar (rather than being shit-out-of-luck, as we would have been had we not purchased the extended warranty Apple Care) and be told the hard drive was dead, likely due to a manufacturing error. They replaced the hard drive (took seven days) and then we got it back and it still didn't work. Back and forth to the Genius Bar we go... now it's the logic board... wait, no it's not... repeat three times. Finally a traveling Genius (Mac Medic) comes to our house... opens the machine, tells us that the in-store Genius ruined a cable (the cable looks like a Listerine breath strip) with a tweezer, and he's going to suggest we be sent a replacement machine.

Apparently the FOURTH REPAIR is the ticket: if your machine needs a fourth repair they will replace your machine.

The new machine was released November 1st, but we didn't get it till November 12th, because of course it came from China and then went to Alaska and finally came to California.

Whew! The moral of the story is... I'm not sure what the moral of the story is! Apple could take a lesson from Zappos!

Shadow Fun

One of my favorite shadows to make is the vulgar penis shadow. You do this by clasping your hands together, bending your knees a bit, and holding your combined hands between your legs so your shadow looks like you have a giant penis. We used to do this in middle school and for some reason I STILL think it's hilarious and usually can crack myself up by doing it over and over again.

Protea Bouquet

They were selling these interesting, sci-fi-looking bouquets at the Marin Farmers' Market today. The pinkish flower is called protea, and the yellow phallic-looking one... I'm not sure. It's one of the strangest plants I've ever seen!

Office Space

Due to a new crop of employees coming in all at once, our office has lost any etiquette we ever followed. For example, we have three bathrooms - a unisex, single stall bathroom upstairs, and a women's bathroom downstairs with two stalls, and a men's bathroom downstairs with one stall and one urinal. We have only four men in the office and about 15 women, so traditionally, the men have left the single stall upstairs for the women uptairs (and visitors) and have gone downstairs to the men's bathroom. Not so any longer.
Now the upstairs bathroom frequently has pee splattered on the floor and the seat is left up. We have a nice Method air freshener in the upstairs bathroom, which actually smells really good (it's the vanilla-apple scented one, but it smells like pineapple), and someone actually carried it over to the toilet and perched it right on the edge, as if they thought they were going to take a really smelly poop and it would help to move it closer. Finally, I found that someone had pried open the tampon dispenser.

At one point, long ago, we even used to go across the street to a private (public) bathroom that is very nice and clean and seldomly used if we had to do a #2. Just like animals in the wild, we'd rather others not know. Judging by the odor in the bathroom now, someone is "dropping a deuce"-- as my coworker H. puts it-- frequently... the "across the street" convention has died. The whole bathroom situation has me frequently looking longingly out at the trees outside my work when nature calls. I'd love to pee out there on one of them than encounter whatever is happening in our bathrooms.

People are leaving their dirty dishes in the sink instead of rinsing and putting them in the dishwasher, much to the chagrin of the receptionist, whom I supervise. What's more, people are leaving dirty dishes crusting at their desks with food still in/on them, causing a shortage of forks. People are putting empty peanut butter jars back into the cabinets. (See photo.)

The latest is that I have a very loud, shrill new co-worker. She only speaks at one volume, and it's extreme. The entire floor is treated to her conversations, whether she's speaking to you or not, but what's more, she overshares. Yesterday she ran around telling everyone that she and her husband have sold their condominium for the asking price. She was THRILLED, RELIEVED, HAPPY, AMAZED and "IN SHOOOOOCKKKK!!!" In the morning she ran around telling everyone she GOT AN OFFER ON THE CONDO! By afternoon she had SOLD THE CONDO!!! She told her peers, she told her boss, and she bypassed me, perhaps because she can tell I try to avoid contact with her, and charged right into the CEO's office to tell him.

Our office used to be tiny; manageable. When I started, there were a mere 9-10 full time employees and a few contractors that came to the office part time. At 20 we're still considered small for a lot of legal purposes, but things have gotten out of hand, and it's become a huge mess. As the CEO's assistant, and without an office manager, I'm the default office manager, something I am way too uptight to be. I mean, my face gets hot and I get angry when I see a spoon in the fork part of the utensil divider... imagine what the rest of this is doing to me.

Figs are almost ready!

A few of the figs on our fig tree suddenly fattened up, turned a brighter, more yellow shade of green, and got softer to the touch. I sacrificed one to see how they are tasting... the inside was pinkish violet and tasted pretty sweet, but had not gone fully ripe or fully sugared yet. It was definitely almost there. Now I am watching the four or five that are in a similar state to see when they will ripen. The rest of the figs (hundreds) are still fairly small and green. I think these are Kadota figs... but I'm not sure.

Lizards

There are lots of little tiny lizards where I live now. They're so small and fast that you can miss them easily.

California Modern

These are two of the houses in our neighborhood. I love these two. I've really never thought much about owning a house... I sort of assumed I want to, one day, or it's the "right thing to do", or the grown up thing to do, or the thing Suze Orman said is really financially important to do... I think I have Peter Pan syndrome. I don't want to grow up.

It wasn't until I moved to this neighborhood recently that I started to think I really want to own a house; one of these houses! They were built in the late 50's and early 60's, during the height of the California Modern period. They are designed to be low and softly colored, and not overshadow the landscape. Most of them have an atrium inside!

Tomatoes.

It's funny when fruits and vegetables grow these little appendages. Appendages is probably not the right word... we got these delicious dry-farmed Early Girl tomatoes at the farmers' marketing today.

Tillandsia, or "Airplant"

On a lunch break one day about a month ago, a co-worker and I stopped by the local garden store. There we saw these tiny little cactus-looking plants that were light as feathers, seemed pretty dry, and were not potted in soil, but instead attached to driftwood, wired to a gazebo, or just set into little pots with nothing holding them in.

My co-worker bought one for me and one for herself... they were tiny ones, less than three inches tall. We learned that they are called "air plants", "airplants", or Tillandsia, and they don't need soil. They will flower once in a while, and they just need a misting of water or a weekly drench to stay alive and thrive. Someone told me they grow all over Florida, but to me, they are pretty exotic.

I started reading about Tillandsia on the internet, and eventually I went back to the garden store and got a few more small specimens in the $2 - $5 range. At work, my friend Ashley admired the ones I had brought back to the office, so I gave her one. I then ordered a specimen online... it's a huge ball bigger than a big grapefruit, and it has a thin wire attached for hanging. My intention was to hang it, but after reading the instructions, I realized the most suitable place in the apartment was on an open shelf under a frosted skylight, so I placed it there. Not since carnivorous plants when I was a child and orchids for the last several years have I been so fascinated and enamored of a plant. Much like when you're infatuated with a new lover, I think about Tillandsia about fifty times an hour.

Iitala Kartio Glassware

I recently discovered iitala's Kartio glasses and pitcher. To say I discovered them is silly - they were designed in the late 1950's and have been around ever since. I've wanted these drinking glasses for a while, and they're not terribly expensive, but since I had plenty of generic, works-fine-but-not-inspiring clear drinking glasses from places like IKEA and Crate & Barrel, I never got them. Moving to a 557.5 square foot miniature house with the help of professional movers who charge by the hour seemed a good reason to give a dozen old drinking glasses away before the move and purchase six iitala glasses instead and have them shipped to my new place. Okay, I also got the set of 4 mixed color small glasses (good for juice, cocktails, a small serving of ice cream or yogurt) and a carafe/pitcher in "blueberry blue", a discontinued color. These glasses are a dream to hold, and the glass is so beautiful and so clear. It's amazing how different a drinking glass can be... apparently designer Kaj Franck was obsessed with this simple object - the drinking glass!

Wild Blackberries!

I grew up in a very dry climate; the desert. Now, here at my new home, I was shocked to see wild blackberries growing throughout the neighborhoods and along the side of the road. They are plentiful, and they are ripe! We got a handful this morning and we washed them well and had them with yogurt from the Farmers' Market...

18 Miles Away

After several years of living in the coldest, foggiest part of San Francisco, and escalating unhappiness with my neighborhood and my downstairs neighbor (downstairs neighbor number 4, she was), DD and I were ready to move. As most people do when they are looking for an apartment, we had a "wish list" of qualities we were looking for in a new apartment. There's always the Dream List and then as you start looking for apartments you have to give on certain items on the Dream List, because you're really not going to find a place with updated kitchen appliances, a washer-dryer or washer-dryer hook ups, a parking space, an energy-efficient heater (or hell, just a heater, period), decent neighbors, a view of something interesting or pretty, or just not dumpsters or chain link fence or better yet, a wall...carpeting or floors that don't have bodily fluids in them. A sink without a chip. Caulking without mildew. Toilet without stains. Stuff like that.

One thing on our Dream List was outdoor space. Just a little wee balcony or something like that... a few feet of cement outside the door, even. A little place to put a potted plant and two chairs, a place where, hopefully, the sun's rays might hit a few days out of the summer. We weren't too hopeful about this. It was just an item on the Dream List.

Well, we found it! Our new apartment is a dream come true. It has every item on the Dream List and then some. We have a yard! And a round stone patio right outside our door, under the shade of a beautiful bay tree. We have a fig tree full of baby figs! And pink lilies, purple agapanthus, deadly nightshade and a tiny orange tree. Bees and hummingbirds. All the power lines are under the ground in our new neighborhood! The sky is beautiful at night and there are no neighbors above us or below us. Our landlords are real people, nice people, not a "property management company". I would so much rather give these people my rent money... they take care of their property and beautifully remodeled our apartment a few years ago, with quartz floors, wood beams, new cabinets, double paned windows, and skylights. I've never lived in a more beautiful space! It is truly amazing...

Poppy King's Lipstick Queen Lipstick

This is the packaging for Lipstick Queen. It's very romantic, fun and colorful. I ordered them sight unseen, as I was too lazy to go to Barney's downtown (all of four miles away), and got the Sinner lipstick in "Pink" and the Saint sheer lipstick in "Pink", as well as "Medieval" lip tint. I love all three! The cases close nicely and feel kind of rubbery even though I think they're metal. So nice!

A Neighborhood Jewel

Oh my God.
This is GORGEOUS. I love living in this neighborhood. Living in an ex-military complex that is run by the federal gov't is JUST LIKE living at Disneyland, I'll bet. Soooo pretty. This curb is better than animal-shaped topiary.

Pocky Bookmarks

These are my Pocky bookmarks, which I made by cutting the image with special crafting scissors and punching a hole at the top of the bookmark for a ribbon.

Crack and Bleach

My neighbor was washing her blinds on the asphalt while exposing her ass crack.
But everyone's ass crack is almost always showing these days, so what does it matter?
Maybe I should be more concerned about the neon-pink dish soap (organic? I think not) and straight-up Safeway brand bleach she's pouring all over them... and letting run into the storm drains. We live less than a thousand feet from the Pacific Ocean, so close that there's a little illustration of a crab painted on the drains in this area.
I kind of hope she's pregnant and she decides to go down to the beach today...

Water Mosaic

Went for a walk and saw this cool thing in the neighborhood the other day. From a distance it looked like water pouring from the vessel, especially the way the light was glimmering off the "water". Upon closer inspection, we saw that it was tile...

Georgia Was Here

For 4th of July DD and I went to his company picnic, which was on a ranch in Marin County. There was a lake, grapevines, a herd of cattle, a friendly miniature donkey, chinchillas and, as if that weren't enough, this beautiful skull! When we left San Francisco that day, it was cold and foggy, and when we crossed the Golden Gate Bridge it magically became hot and sunny. Of course, this is not actually magic, but a phenomena of landscape and hills and wind and whatnot. All I know is that I live in the coldest part of SF (cold = affordable) and 10 minutes away it's hot. This led me to consider moving 18 miles from work, to San Rafael. (I currently live walking distance from work.) I grew up in the desert, and while I have no desire to live in a climate that extreme again, I do object to wearing my coat in July, as I do here. As DD pointed out the other day, we have six dresser drawers and one is devoted entirely to knits - knit caps, scarves, and mittens.

So, it remains to be seen what will happen, but we are now trying to move! The great thing is that prices have come down a lot all over San Francisco, even the desirable sunny parts, and DD and I are still employed, so we're checking it out.