26 posts from March 2008

Opening day.  I am watching while I do kitchen chores and fold laundry.  Doesn't look too promising.  Still, there's always a silver lining...

 

 

I don't have any 3-D glasses either, but I'm going to follow their suggestion!
The FADER - MGMT "Time To Pretend" in 3-D

I had some cd's to sell today, so I steeled myself and headed down to the giant clusterf--- that is the Haight.  Like Berkeley's Telegraph Ave, the upper Haight seems never to change, only my perception of it does.  Back when I was sixteen I lived in the suburbs and went to school with kids who were even more insulated than I was from places like the Haight (and any part of the city other than downtown and the Wharf).  So it was all very romantic and gritty.  BUT I pretty much avoid that neighborhood now, as dodging all of the starry eyed kids (nostalgia aside) tends to put me in a sour mood.  I did consider giving the Haight another chance when Andrew briefly lived there, but he moved away too quickly for me to change my mind.  But anyway, enough bitching.  I sold a stack of cd's to Amoeba for $33 in store credit (pretty poor quality cd's, of course), and bought the Beatles' White Album and an old Apples In Stereo album with the credit.  I was thinking I could use a couple of light casual dresses for the summer, so I stopped at American Apparel before heading home.  That almost proved to be a mistake, since the concentration of douche-y people was pretty high.  Still, I managed to find what I was looking for (duh) and got out unscathed.  By then the sun had come all of the way out and the walk home was very pleasant, if windy.  And now I am at Quetzal, recovering.  Hopefully it will be a while before I have to go back (shudder) THERE. ;)

 

Although I haven't been online lately, I have been up to my usual pursuits.  That is, brewing kombucha tea and photographing my silly cat.  My latest KT venture was to add frozen cranberries before letting the bottles sit in the refrigerator, and the result was a gorgeous red.  They taste good, too, without being overwhelmingly fruity.  The first photo was taken on the day of bottling:

And then after five days of settling in the fridge:
Pretty. 
Gion pretty much hid from my family when they visited my apartment, but managed to show her sweet side when my mom came alone.  I don't think she hates my brother and sister, she just prefers a small group.  Like, two people or so. 
Her latest hobby has been to track the moths that get stuck in between the apartment windows and partial screens outside.  She waits patiently for a victim:
When a moth stumbles foolishly into her trap she pounces:
...only to be stymied by the fact that a pane of glass separates her from the moth:
Which all leads, inevitably, to embarrassment:
Poor thing.  If only I lived in one of those apartments with a view of the Telegraph Hill parrots!!!  I don't know if she could handle the excitement...

I haven't had any internet service in my apt for several days, and I AM SUFFERING!!!  My work schedule has increased slightly as well, meaning I haven't had very much time to utilize Quetzal, my fave internet cafe.  So today it took me about ten hours just to go through my Google Reader, which had over 200 unread items.  And to think, until I was run over by that van two years ago and used my settlement money to buy my laptop, I used to lead such a simple computer-free life.  Anyway, my family was in town last week, and I was able to do all of those touristy things that I would never think of normally, like visiting Alcatraz and scouring Telegraph Hill to find the wild parrots.  I, of course, had forgotten to bring my camera along, but my mom took photos and sent me some.  They are kind of small, but I think you can get the gist of our touristy-ness:

And yes, we did track down the parrots, which are not really that hard to find as they make such a racket:
I actually really enjoyed Alcatraz, which I hadn't been to in over ten years.  They have a new (free!) audio tour which is quite superior to the human guide led tours in the amount of information and aura of history and authenticity.  Plus, the dummies that three inmates constructed (including pasted on hair from their own heads, ew!) were in place in their cells, as they would have been when guards discovered them.  Neat-o.
After Alcatraz we walked down the Embarcadero for lunch at a taqueria by the Ferry Building.  There were a few birds enjoying lunch there, too:
The next day was the big protest day, in honor of the 5th anniversary of the Iraq war.  I was at work so I missed the whole thing, but my family was right there in the thick of it:

Not that it means anything to ME, and I'll be working that day anyway.  But I saw a mention of the old Cadbury egg commercials, my favorite of which is the one where different animals try out for the bunny role.  A cat in bunny ears: "Bok-mew, bok-mew!"  A lion: "BAWK BAWK!!!"  I looked it up on youtube and started laughing so hard I cried:

Yay, I got tix to go see MGMT at Slim's next month!  In the meantime, here's a funny video of them answering questions from NME, being afraid of jellyfish, and hating on Vampire Weekend:

My family has been in town from Wisconsin since Sunday, and today my mom and I spent some time tooling around Polk St. before heading over to Berkeley to have lunch at Cafe Gratitude and see Carrie Fisher's one woman show at Berkeley Rep.  It was a beautiful day in Berkeley, but unfortunately the outdoor patio was full.  Oh well.  Our meal was still fantastic, though.  ESPECIALLY the raw nut flour German Chocolate layer cake, also known as "I am Decadent."  (All of the dishes are so named, for instance the "I am Terrific" raw Pad Thai)  My mom and I shared a sampler plate called "I am Abundant," which left plenty of room for our gigantic desserts.   Oh, and I forgot to take this photo until I had already started to devour my cake and raw nut milk ice cream, as you can see.

Afterward I felt pretty engorged, but luckily I was wearing a voluminous dress that hid me from sight:

Last night I was hanging out with my brother watching the Food Network, and he says, "I'm going to have some sugarcane, do you want some?"  I thought he was just being clever, and meant he was going to get a cookie or brownie or something.  So I said yes.  He went upstairs and I sat staring at the TV for a few minutes, until I noticed some weird pounding sounds coming from upstairs.  A few minutes later my brother returned with two tupperware bowls and two large pieces of... sugarcane.  It looked kind of like bamboo, only not hollow.  "What do I do with it?" I asked, and he explained that you're supposed to bite off a hunk, chew it until all the juice is gone, then spit it out into the bowl.  So, we sat around eating sugarcane.  I totally felt like I should have been sitting in a jungle somewhere chewing my sugar cane, not my dad's living room.  But it was still pretty cool.  My brother claimed that chewing it cleans your teeth, but I was less convinced about that.  That is, I still brushed my teeth afterward.

Some of the other photos I took yesterday while in Golden Gate Park.  First, the soon to be reopened Academy of Sciences, which is across from the de Young.  The last time I visited the de Young, by the way, this was pretty much a pile of rubble:

I loved this statue of Cervantes (with his fawning offspring) which is also steps from the museum:
And for some reason I was charmed by the sight of these bees hard at work... producing some of that fancy local honey from Rainbow, maybe?  You can just hear them buzzing, "Bee plague my ass!"