A Twilight Walk In Golden Gate Park

Took a walk in Golden Gate Park over in the city tonight with some friends. Beautiful evening.

The new De Young museum, where there are two exhibits currently I really want to see, the King Tut and an Amish quilt exhibit...




Gotta remember to take my camera with me all the time; it's so much fun to play around with photography! I love this night photo stuff... but I need to take my tripod next time.

Brittany and Mexico, Close To Home Photo Journey

My friend Vanessa invited me to brunch today over in the Mission District in San Francisco. Since the restaurant she wanted to go to is very close to a BART (subway) station, I said yes. I love taking BART and it would make the trip easy and fast.

I drove to the closest station, at Rockridge (North Oakland). This is a nice station with beautiful views of the Oakland hills from the platform.

I forget how truly beautiful these hills are, especially on a chilly winter morning.
I had already taken a brisk walk in those hills this morning (in my beloved local cemetery) and so I was really hungry. But first, a very homey cup of cafe au lait. I really like this photo.

The restaurant, Ti Couz, is a creperie. But not just any creperie; they do authentic Brittany-style buckwheat crepes. Large and thin and filled with amazing savory or sweet goodness, they are amazing and I wish I had another one right now. I had a mushroom-and-cheese crepe. It had this very delicious sauce on top and I could barely talk, I was so busy eating. Yum.

After a really fun visit and being completely stuffed (too stuffed for Nutella-and-banana crepe, dang!), it was time to stroll back to BART. The Mission district in San Francisco has a strong Hispanic/Mexican history, and is colorful and full of great restaurants, thrifting, little produce stands and tons of hipster bars. It's a fun place to wander around.

Showing colors of one kind (hooray, rainbow flag!):

And of another. I loved this pretty buildings and awnings against the blue sky.

Then it was down to the subway again. I was struck by the colorful, busy street and the quiet dark passageway down to the tunnels.

Standing around waiting for the train.
And then home again, to our house and our Christmas tree. (maybe pics of the tree in daylight, tomorrow)
It was a perfect local adventure. I really wish I had another crepe right now. I wonder if I can learn to make those. It was amazing.

Happy Birthday, Sweetie (and goodbye, vacation...)

Happy Birthday, dear Terri! Today is Terri's birthday. We celebrated by sleeping in as long as we could, until the kitties couldn't take it any more and relentlessly campaigned for breakfast. Actually just the one kitty, Cleo. She's a bit demanding.

Tea in bed, plus presents. I got Terri a bunch of warm clothes for winter, plus a few fun things thrown in for birthday cheer. Since she is doing miraculously well for this, Day 11 of vacation, we decided to go out for a bit to celebrate the fantastic fact that she is here on earth!

We did a little shopping, then over to Berkeley for an indulgence of our new obsession: Ici ice cream. We do live in one of the foodie meccas of the country, so of course we have fantastic fancy ice cream shops. We mean to try them all, but this is the one we're focused on right now. I can't get enough of their burnt caramel ice cream. Terri loves their chocolate. I also had a scoop of amazing candied Meyer lemon ice cream that was pretty awesome.

Then we headed over to Dark Carnival to browse for a bit. Didn't buy anything, although we were tempted. We have plenty of books and a big library. But oh, this bookstore is dangerous.

It's in a really pretty part of Berkeley. It was so lovely today, low 70s, sunny, perfect early-fall weather.

Then we headed to the movie store to get some videos, and some of Terri's favorite pasta sauce for dinner, and a berry pie for dessert. Nope, I didn't make anything for dessert. We were going to have s'mores roasted in our own fireplace, but after the ice cream, s'mores sounded WAY too sweet. So we're having pie. Much better, right? Right.

***

It's been a lovely vacation. Lots of little luxuries and indulgences, lots of sleeping and reading and doing nothing, lots of meandering drives around the East Bay. I've been so impressed with how Terri's held up, because we were out almost every day, with just a few exceptions. We're both kind of worn out from all this 'play' and although I will miss being home, I'm ready to get back into a normal routine. We didn't do most of our normal chores so the house needs cleaning, the laundry needs doing, the bed needs changing, etc. I'm sure by the end of next weekend we'll be all put back together, back in frugal mode (sort of took a vacation from that, as well), ready for to enjoy fall.

Oh, here are a couple of shots from the dog park, Point Isabel. Love those doggies. And the beautiful scenery we are blessed with here in the Bay Area.

A Day Out (massive photo post)

Today we went out for a bit since it was a gorgeous fall day here in Oakland.

First, we went up in the hills for a short walk in one of our favorite regional parks.

Not much for fall foliage yet, pretty dry and dusty, but still pretty.



We stopped on the way down to take some pictures of the view. You can't really tell here, but this is a view of San Francisco, including the Golden Gate Bridge.

And the San Mateo Bridge (and rest of the bay).
We took the long way home, going through downtown Oakland to get some favorite pasta sauce at a little store we know in Old Oakland. This is the famous Oakland Tribune Tower, reflected on some anonymous downtown office building.

And the newly renovated Fox Theater. They are getting some amazing shows there. I really want to go. Pixies, anyone?
Love this sign...
Oakland has some really wonderful architecture.

And some not-so-wonderful architecture.
And who can pass up a trip to the Glamor Beauty Supply shop?

We stopped at our local store for some garlic bread for tonight's viewing of The Godfather II.
Me, in full no-makeup glory.
Our bookstore, just two blocks from our house.
The movie theater, also two blocks away.
And requisite adorable ice cream shop.
And finally, home.
And, at long last, some fall foliage.

"Eff You, Safeway!"

It's so warm! Luckily our apartment isn't too hot yet. I'm hoping it stays cooler since tomorrow I'm having my book club over in the evening, and it can get SO HOT in here. Praying it stays relatively comfortable. If not, we'll go to a local park and have a picnic. I want to show off our new home so I'm hoping it stays bearable.

Speaking of the local park, we went out for a bit this afternoon since it was so nice. We went over to Lake Merritt and went to the Garden Center to walk around and admire all the gardens. Vegetables, dahlias, flowers of all sorts, Japanese and bonsai gardens. Beautiful and relaxing.

Two things happened:

1. A killer squirrel came after Terri. There was a cute one, the "distraction", sitting there very sweetly, eating a green apple and looking adorable. Then, out of nowhere, comes this big fat aggressive squirrel, with big teeth and big bright beady eyes, straight for Terri. Brave Terri ducked behind me because "he can smell the fear!" (I think he was hoping for a handout, but I could be wrong...)

2. Then, we were strolling back to our car, and we saw this sweet little old (Greek?) man sitting there weeding (again... looks can be deceiving!). He was trimming the sorrel and he offered us some. We started chatting... he asked if we had a garden. We told him about our cherry tomatoes and basil. He approved. Then he started in about how bad it was to go to Safeway and buy the expensive, genetically modified, "plastic" vegetables. "It's all plastic! It's not real food! It's killing people! F**k you, Safeway! F**k the corporations! They don't care if people die, they only care about making money! They don't care how many people die because of their bad food! F**k you, Safeway! F**k them all!" and on, and on, and on, even after we drifted away and he was knee-deep in the tomatoes, muttering about Safeway and the corporations.

I happen to agree with him, but, um. Um.

Anyway, it was an amusing walk in the park.

And now we are home. And it's hot. Effing hot?

Couple of Perfect Days

Yesterday was Valentine's Day, and Cupid delivered a special treat for us: Terri felt well enough to go "out" for a few hours. So we took advantage of this and had a lovely day.

We took a cue from this cutie-pie guy sitting in the car across from our house and decided to hop in the car and see where it took us. (don't you love blondes with long floppy ears?)

We headed to Temescal neighborhood nearby us, full of cute little scrappy shops and Oakland hipsters.

Then we headed over to Rockridge, another cute little Oakland neighborhood, and popped into Market Hall, a sort of snooty yuppie fancy food market, just to have a look around and look at pretty displays. It was crowded.

But pretty displays of fancy foods always please me to no end, so we put up with the crowds for a few minutes and browsed. Chocolates were tempting, but we had cookie dough chilling in the fridge at home, so we managed to escape with empty hands (even though this display of salts and spices was quite compelling).

Lots of pretty Valentine flowers out for sale as well.

Then we headed up to the cemetery to enjoy watching the storm roll in.

This little angel looked very forlorn so we chatted with her for a minute.

Lots of corners and interesting gravestones to explore...

I don't know if these are cherry blossoms or what, but they are blooming all over and are so pretty, pink and frothy.

Sort of illustrating the transition from bare winter branches into spring bursting forth.

Remember those cookies I mentioned earlier? They were good. I had no heart-shaped cookie cutter so I just carved these with the tip of a knife. What's not to like about pink sugar cookies?

So yesterday we spent out in the world, and today we spent hunkered down inside against the storm. It's been gray, rainy, cold and very windy -- my favorite sort of weather. We have had a fire in the fireplace all day, and have been watching movies and munching cookies all day long. Warm and cozy. I never *ever* spend all day watching movies, so it's been quite luxurious.

Speaking of movies, we've been on a scary-movie kick. Last night we watched the 1963 version of The Haunting, and the 1979 version of The Amityville Horror (romantic, right?). Neither were particularly scary although they were nice and atmospheric. However, afterwards I got totally spooked out and once in bed, had to send Terri out back into the apartment to get my book, and then to get me a glass of water, and then to shut the closet door. What am I, five? Yes, exactly. I could not get out of bed again -- too scared. It didn't help that the wind was whooshing around our bedroom, rain pounding on the windowsills. Um, it was actually sort of great.

I haven't done any painting or drawing or anything else I'd planned to, but I've had a wonderful, wonderful couple of days. We don't get those too often right now (the Valcyte is no fun for anyone) so they are even more precious and we are enjoying them.