Top Ten Things I am looking forward to

1. WOOT three day weekend. 2. Cal vs. Michigan State game on Saturday 3. BEST WEEK EVER next week. Not the show, it will be my personal best week ever. Everyone descends for Jean's ceremony, and there will be SF touring, and boozing, and bonding and hugging in the middle and late night hilarity. 4. Jean's renewal ceremony in less than two weeks! 5. Also, since many people I love are coming to visit, next weekend was looking pretty good already but also TWO Dave Matthews concerts. I mean wow. 6. Dan and my 5 year anniversary weekend. We're not sure what we're doing yet, but it'll be good. 7. Weekend in Portland with Dana! 8. Weekend in Vegas with mom - we're going to see Bette Midler! We're excited about it, so don't judge. 9. Jason Mraz concert in November. 10. Working with my staff and living with Dan for all the days in between.

Congratulations v.6

Many congratulations to Kristen and Tommy who are expecting their first! VERY happy for both of you. The first 4W4L baby!

Upon returning to the US...

A short list of cool stuff that has happened in the past two weeks with Ro since she's been back in the country. 1. Watched heelarious videos on YouTube with Jean until very early in the morning. Because we are awesome. And have awesome social lives. 2. Got Ro addicted to the West Wing. She's working her way through Season Two already. She loves Josh. As everyone should. 3. Ate overpriced tasty tasty ice cream - who knew Earl Grey and Darjeeling ice cream could be so good? 4. Went to a Giants game in one of the boxes behind home plate for freeeeeeee. It was a pretty sweet view. Pictures to come. I'm not sure I need to go to a professional baseball game ever again. I mean, I don't think the seats I get will ever be better than that. 5. Also got Ro completely sucked into Settlers of Catan. If you haven't played with us yet...your time is coming. 6. On her first full day back in the country, we went to the Berkeley Farmer's Market (since she's all crunchy now) and then we went to Costco. Just for some variation. 7. Went to Costco again with my staff and basically spent an hour spending however much money we wanted. The beginning of the year Costco run is pretty sweet. 8. Watched my staff lose their frickin minds when they saw Dan again for the first time this year. "When we walked in, they all screamed "Dan!" and I moved out of the way, because I thought they were going to tackle him and I didn't want to be in the way." Nice. Clearly, I'm not nearly as important. Note: My whole staff also now loves Rosa as well. 9. James, our skittish cat, has stopped running out of the room when Ro enters one. AND he actually sat on her lap the other day. Which was cute. And great for her cat allergy. 10. Ro has also now introduced Dan and I to fun things in all of her "I just traveled around the world" type knowledge. Which is awesome because we won't be able to get much of it here. Awesome. Mango licorice, yum. Tim Tams, yum. New Zealand organic sustainable wine, yes please. 11. Since gaping at my overly full bookshelf, Ro has starting picking books off of it and reading them at random. Currently, she's working her way through a book I bought today. Not sure when I'll get that back.

Congratulations v.5

Congratulations Kevin and Sarai on your engagement!!!

August

RA Training. Am Tired. Long Days. Just Checking In. More Later. Rosa here tomorrow!

Weekend in Review

Well, this was my last full weekend before my job completely takes over my life for the next few months. I know I sound pretty melodramatic, but no. Literally, beginning next Sunday the 10th, I will be training my RA staff to do their job from about 9 AM to 9 PM every day. Our last day of training is the 22nd. Just in time for two days of students moving in on the 23rd and 24th. I do dread training starting because it's SO much. But I really do love my job, it's just that knowing I will be sleep deprived for most of the month of August is hard to get excited about. (Here's the rub: I'm the boss, so if I'm not excited, my staff isn't excited. Sooo WOOHOO about training!) Anyway. To enjoy my last weekend, Dan and I went into the city to go to the latest exhibit at SFMOMA, which is of Frida Kahlo's work. Now. Let me just say that I like art. Dan loves art. He can wander around galleries and museums for hours while I get bored about 45 minutes in and go outside to have some ice cream. But, not knowing much about Frida walking into the exhibit (actually, walking into the long line outside the exhibit) I really enjoyed it. I appreciate her painting literally, putting all her pain and other crap out there for people to deal with. I mean wow, she did some serious painting when she was pissed. Of course after the exhibit, we went out to dinner - and then the plan was to go see The Dark Knight on IMAX but it had been sold out all week. So, we still haven't seen it, but we have high hopes for this week sometime. We made grand plans for Sunday - brunch out at a new place, a city walk and then trying again for Batman. Looking back, I really appreciate our ambition. We did a grand total of none of that. We did make brunch here, and then we started watching Six Feet Under (on loan from a wonderful co-worker of mine). It's a great series so far (all of four episodes in) but if I am to love it as I love the West Wing, it hasn't happened yet. But, lots of potential, including Peter Krause being hottttt. Anyway, we also did a lot of cleaning our apartment, and giving our cats baths (mental note to take pictures next time). Yeah, we're crazy kids living the city life let me tell ya. We did also already book our travel for Thanksgiving-time. Ugh. I don't feel like flying places used to be this expensive. Has it always been this expensive?? (Did we offend someone with the Pride parade pictures? No one commented and I think some of my captions were quite witty...)