Recent goings on...

Well, just to catch everyone up (which apparently is necessary my mom complained today that the blog needs updating)... **My grandmother is doing...OK. She was in the hospital a few days ago for some serious nausea and pain after her first round of chemo - bad news. She had an MRI a couple of days ago and everything looks normal - good news. So, we're kind of all over the place. Obviously, I want her to be feeling as good as possible, which doesn't work out 100% of the time. I try to send positive thoughts her way rather than worrying about her, but who knows if that helps. Thanks to anyone who has been doing the same or praying or whatever have you. So, everything else is going to sound trivial after that. But, life goes on even while serious things are happening, I guess? Last Friday, Dan and I took a day trip to Marin - it was kind of a pre-Vegas birthday/save Kristin's sanity trip - to visit the creamery where our favorite cheese is made. Yummmmmmm. We got a "tour" where they tell us how their cheese is made, got to watch said cheese making and then got to taste all 8 of the different kinds they make. It's nice to find out that our favorite cheese is made from the same local milk we buy our milk from, and use alternative energy to power their factory. Yay. I would totally go back and even survive the long windy drive to hang out in the TINY town they make it in, because the tiny town is super hippy sustainable-tastic. EVERYTHING was organic, compostable, local and whatnot. It blew my mind. I thought Berkeley was intense about it - we have nothing on these folks. The coffee shop we went in, there was a container with a sign that said "Please put used stir sticks here to recycle. They make great kindling!" um, wow. Killing two birds with one stone, our favorite cheese is made closeby to where some of the best oysters in SF are actually (sustainably!) harvested. So, we went to get Dan some fresh-right-out-of-the-bay oysters (I am not a fan). The folks who work there clearly have no patience for the folks who come in from the city to eat oysters, so they don't shuck them and give you about a 3 second lesson on how to open them yourself. Ha, it was fun to watch. But, as you can see below, Dan did OK. Took probably longer than it needed to for him to shuck 6 oysters but hey, he said they were delicious. Cheese=perfect food. Favorite. Dan's (open!) oysters Clearly, they know what they're doing. Cow. There were quite a few. We were out in the country. I took the Friday off to take this trip because the creamery only does tours on Fridays, but also because work has been craaaaaaaaaazy the past couple of weeks. We're right in the middle of choosing the RAs for next year, and the Wed/Thurs AND Sat/Sun of the same week we went to Marin, I was interviewing RA candidates for big chunks of time, as well as doing, you know, my regular job. I was also slammed because I have been teaching my first RAD class in the evenings. So, I was certified to teach a women's self defense program back in October, and this is the first class I have taught (with two other instructors). We had 5 students, and they did SO AMAZING. They started feeling scared and quiet and finished up loud, empowered and confident. This is something I will now totally be doing all the time, that makes me feel like I'm doing something right and good and helpful. It's a nice feeling. To come: Many fun filled kitty photos, to hold you over until Dan and I get back from Vegas this weekend! It's Dan's birthday trip, just a little late. Hooray.

New favorite things

Life is still rolling along I guess. Dan is now in Austin, working for South by Southwest, the big music festival, so I'm stuck here in Berkeley all alone. Don't tell him, but I'm throwing huge parties while he's away. It's shweet.

So, my new favorite things:
1. Bookmooch
I joined this online group called which is a book sharing community thing. Which I totally think Blue Benson should join, BTW Laura. So, you list all the books that you own that you don't want anymore, and then people ask you to send them to them. You're responsible for paying for postage everytime you ship a book to someone, and then when you ask for a book to be sent to you, you pay nothing at all. It's a good time. I listed 10 books on Friday night and by Saturday, 8 of them were already requested! I'm going to have a lovely time at the post office tomorrow morning. Every book you list is worth 1/10th of a point, when you send a book, you get a point, and when you send to people internationally, you get three points. For each point you have, you are eligible to have a book sent to you. So, I've requested three so far. I'm kind of excited about it in my dork way. For reals, if you have a lot of books, and have some that you don't think you'll read again, this is a great way to get rid of them and get other books you actually want to read for free! OR if you don't want to go through the hassle, save your books and give them to me!(http://www.bookmooch.com/)

2. Vosges Chocolate Bacon Bar
OK I know what you're thinking. Bacon in a chocolate bar. EW? People. Let me tell you. This is a fantastically wonderful experience. It's made by Vosges which is a relatively snooty chocoalte company, started in Chicago, and they specialize in odd chocolate pairings (curry powder, lavender, other assorted spices). Yeah, so I heard about this bacon bar which combines two great loves of mine (yes, I count bacon as a love) and decided that I should probably test it out. It's unbeliveable. Sweet and salty and bacony. Real bacon pieces right there in the chocolate. Wow. Stop judging and try it out.

3. Savannah, Georgia
Ok, so I haven't been yet, but I'm visiting Ben and Jess at the end of the month for a couple of days and I'm REALLY excited about it. Not only is it a new place, which is exciting, but CC reunion in a new town? C'mon people, that's the stuff fantastic weekends are made of.

*pauses to consider if people will still be my friend*
4. Fromager d'Affinois (fro-mah-ZHAY dah-fee-NWAH)
Note - I did not write that pronunciation guide.
It's a cheese. A fantastically amazing cheese. I know that this is ridiculously snooty, even more snooty than joining a wine club, but um, it's on the "best things I've ever eaten" list.

5. The weather in the Bay Area in early March
It was sunny, cloudless and almost 70 degrees all week. But it also hasn't been windy, so it feels toasty warm. I've been in flip flops since last weekend.

6. Daylight savings time!
Wasn't that excited that we lost an hour of sleep last night (and seriously, pondering on that...where does it go? It's a little mind boggling that we decide that that hour just simply doesn't exist) BUT I love the fact that the sunlight lasts until 7 PM now. The getting dark at 4:30 PM in December thing really makes me sad.

7. Laura being awesome
So, Laura got accepted into her summer internship program in London which is AWESOME. I hope she's up for visits!

8. Rosa
For serious people, she comments on blogs from around the world. Can't you do the same while you're bored at work?!?

The end for now :) Fun new things to report on soon!

Photo for an upcoming celebration. Happy Birthday Jess!

Quite the update

Well, it's been a while since I caught up with y'all on the blog, but I've kind of had a lot going on! When I wrote my last very short post, I was finishing up two weeks of RA Training, which means anywhere from 10-16 hour days, which gets directly followed up by move-in weekend, which I'm sure you can surmise is a lot of organization for a lot of anxious parents. Directly after move-in, is Welcome Week. At Cal, Welcome Week is a week purely for welcoming, without classes or anything, where the students mill around, get to know each other and the area and basically get trashed at night. So, not only does my staff have to plan a bajillion events for residents to go to, because they're bored and don't know anyone, at night they have to confront a ot of drunk people and send some overly drunk people to the hospital. Really, it's been fun. But, today started classes, so hopefully, things are actually for real calming down around here and I will be able to occasionally get 8 hours of sleep again every now and then.
In an effort to do so, Dan and I actually tried to get out of the apartment this past weekend. On Saturday, we went up to Golden Gate Park to the SF Renaissance Festival. Who doesn't love a Renaissance Festival? I mean, there is quality fair food, some jousting, some people in clothes that I would never wear out, and usually some sweet art. Now, there were some high points, including a women who clearly bought an outfit for her and her partner to share in the bedroom that she thought would also be appropriate for this occasion, but this Fair has nothing on the Renaissance Fair in the DC Area. If you have never been to that one, and you live in DC, you should defintely go, it's a good time. And you can get your face painted and eat a turkey leg all in the same place. Anyway, there are some photos from our outing below.

Sunday, to continue the festival theme, we went to the Oakland Chinatown Streetfest. It kind of blew. I mean, there were lots of booths, but mostly they were corporations trying to pick up some more business (like Bank of America or Western Union) or people selling lots and lots of socks (seriously...I have photographic evidence). There were however, lots of performances, which we watched a few, because I mean, can you pass up young people who are clearly performing for the first time? I submit that you can not. Well, we ended up in San Francisco again, in the Ferry Building buying yummy yummy foods - seriously, one of the best cupcakes I have ever had - and CHEESE. There is a Cowgirl Creamery out here, and since we're addicted to the stuff, we end up with a lot of cheese in the house a lot. Um, not to get heavy handed with the advice for people in DC, but if you have never been to Cowgirl Creamery (919 F street) GO RIGHT NOW. I don't care what you're doing, if you're fully clothed or not, you have not lived until you've A) tasted their cheeses, and B) eaten all of the other cheeses they sell. The end *steps off soapbox*


And the photos:

Some inappropriate dress, some jousting, a pug/noble steed (loved it!) , and some pretty hair/dress.

And from Oakland:

Orchids, architecture and socks. Quite a day.