Yes, this is a picture of my laundry

Yes, this is a picture of my laundry, but I was so impressed with how pretty and well-packaged it was, that I felt the need to share it with everyone. Isn't it beautiful? I'm very pleased... (For those of you confused by why I posted a picture of my laundry, please see previous post where I discuss the reasons...)

I also thought I would post a picture of our brand-new reading nook in the library. It's very comfy. Please note stack of books and comfortable blanky...In fact, I think I will head off to enjoy it right now. Just picked up some new books from the library...

SF Impressions

I haven't posted anything recently because with the new job beginning and all, I didn't really think I had anything interesting or worthwhile to talk about. I've really just fallen into the old pattern - work, eat, sleep, repeat. But riding the ridiculously crowded bus home this evening, I realized that I have adoring fans out there waiting with bated breath for my next post. :) I'm not one to disppoint so here goes:

New job is fine so far - I don't think they really completely know what to do with me yet. It's a new position and I don't get the feeling that they did a lot of planning before I showed up. So I've just been shadowing the accountant, Jennifer, and learning her job for now. She's leaving for vacation tomorrow, so I will be performing her job while she's gone next week. I think it's actually a really good thing, because it will force me to learn how the organization's cycles work - FAST! Jennifer has a serious hearing problem (literally, she told me so the first time I met her) which makes it very challenging to communicate with her. I repeated myself 5 times earlier today. You don't really want to shout in the nice peaceful office environment, especially confidential information. That should make life interesting.

Everyone is very nice, but it is no Gary McGee & Co., I will tell you that. I had a crisis on Tuesday when I first realized that this was the case - we were waiting in an all-staff meeting for the LA office to conference call in, and there was dead, you could hear a pin-drop, silence! I thought longingly back to our staff meetings at GM&Co. where there was always witty banter and hearty laughs! :) I panicked for a second and thought what have I gotten myself into and then remembered - oh yeah - I have never had a job where I worked with friends and not just co-workers before GM&Co. It's really not that common. It just reminded me what a special office that turned out to be. So, I merely adjusted my expectations about this job, and got on with life. Just a slight hiccup in the road.

So, now that the job post is out of the way, for your reading pleasure, here are a few things that I have noticed/learned since we moved to San Franisco:

1. 65 degrees in San Francisco is HOT! Like put on a tanktop and lie in the sun in the park hot. I swear, if it was 65 degrees in Portland, I would be in three layers and huddled in a blanket. But there is something about context down here. When it has been 58 and cloudy for a week, 65 feels like a ridiculous heat wave. I remember a couple of weeks ago it was in the low 80's and I seriously felt like I was going to die. Weird.

2. H&M is the best department store in the entire world. Why the HECK don't they have one in Portland yet? There is nothing in that store priced above $25 and it is actually CUTE! And a gigantic selection of stuff to choose from. Yes, we have only been here for three weeks, and I admit that I have already managed to spend more money there than I am proud of. But it's CHEAP and CUTE!!

3. It is WONDERFUL when someone else does your laundry for you. Okay, okay - I do pay these "people" a fee, but STILL! There is this service in the city called Laundry Locker and all you do is go put your dirty clothes/sheets/towels/etc. in one of the open lockers. The company picks up the clothes, washes them all to your specifications (hot water/cold water/fabric softener/your choice of detergent), and then returns the washed and FOLDED laundry to the locker where you originally left it. BRILLIANT! Well, I never, ever thought I would pay this much money for laundry, but after two and a half hours and $15 in quarters at the laundrymat last weekend, I decided that it was well worth the price for my personal sanity. Plus, remember I mentioned that we signed up for Zipcar - well because of that, we now get a discount on the Laundry Locker - the circle of life? Spend a little money which will lead you to spend more money :)

4. Taxi drivers do not observe crosswalks -EVER. Yes, I did get nearly run over by one this evening and yes, this is why I chose to mention this fact. However, a couple of days after we got here, I did see a woman with a tiny baby strapped to her chest almost get taken out, child and all. I don't really get why they're in such a hurry, either. Wouldn't it be more beneficial, monetarily, for the taxi driver to wait for us to shuffle slowly through the crosswalk, all the while his little money-meter ticking away at $3.00/second or whatever that ridiculous rate they charge is. Hmm...

Okay, I guess that's enough of the observating - in this post, at least. Please stay tuned for further random observations...

In other news, I am not the only one to have fallen off my bike now! Although still the only one to have done it twice in one week and while at a complete stop... :( Neil has joined the club! He got his back tire stuck while trying to cross a train-track yesterday and fell and slid pretty far. He's got a raspberry on his shoulder and his hip is pretty tender. But for all the falling and sliding, he's really pretty unharmed. Nothing like my beautiful knee. Probably because he was riding with more clothing on than me. Oh yeah - and he also scraped up his leg on his pedal the other day, too. This one was really nasty looking - long, jagged scrape all the was up his shin, oozing with dried blood. I really wish I had a photo to post to share the loveliness with you all, but too bad.

Finally - I GET TO COME HOME THIS WEEKEND!!! YAY!!! I found an awesome last-minute fare plus rental car! The only bad news is that my flight comes in on Fri. at 10:00pm and leaves Sunday morning at 7:00am. Hmm, maybe not such a great deal after all? No, but it's perfect timing, because it's my sister and her boyfriend's birthday on the 22nd - yes, they have exactly the same birthday and are exactly the same age. I know - a little bit twilight zone... Anyways, so the whole family is getting together for the celebration on Saturday, including Lila and the DOGGIES! So I get to see my family, my babies - the whole lot of them. I am so excited I can hardly see straight. I can't believe how much I miss home and Portland and family. Neil isn't going to come on this trip because he thought I needed it more than he did and he has to stay and get some painting and reading done, now that he is a serious student again. At least that's the plan - we'll see if he changes his mind at the last second and comes as well. Then we'll have two rental cars...

See! I had plenty of REALLY interesting things to write about! I'm off now to pick up the laundry that someone else did and FOLDED for me! (Yes, I know I am paying for it - that is beside the point) Family, I will see you SOON! Friends, I miss you guys tons!

It's nice to have friends...

Saturday was a very full day for us! We got to meet up with friends, buy new furniture, drive a car and watch a bike race - all in one day!

We joined Zipcar, which for those of you not in the know is a car-share service. You pay an annual fee and then they let you drive all sorts of cars for an hourly fee. You can rent anything from a Nissan Versa to a BMW. It should be perfect for running errands, picking visitors, I repeat, visitors (ahem) up from the airport, etc. So, you reserve your time-slot and then they tell you what cars are available and where they are located, you pick a car and drive it away! Very cool. So when Neil saw the list of cars, and noticed that there was a Mini Cooper on the list, it was over. He had to have that car. Neil has been lusting after Mini Coopers for atleast 6 years now and he finally had the chance to drive one. See pictures of him looking very proud.

The morning started off a little rough, as I, being so very smart and saavy, decided to wear my brand new, stiff, high heel shoes to WALK to pick up our car. By the time we had walked at least 15 blocks to get to the car, I had more blisters on my feet than I have ever had. And one EXTREMELY painful one right underneath by big toe. Yikes. So, with my feet throbbing and shoes off, we headed north in the Mini to meet our friends Jason and Tracy and their daughter, Isabella.

We met in Fairfield, CA which, who knew, has quite a few things to see and do, including touring the Jelly Belly factory, the Budweiser factory, wine tastings, olive oil tastings, and farm to visit. The first stop after we had lunch, however, was at Macy's where I bought a new pair of shoes to save my feet. I made a beeline for a pair of flat shoes that looked like regular shoes on the outside, but had a soft, fuzzy inside that felt just like a slipper. PERFECT! I didn't even blink, I just put those shoes on as fast as I could and handed over the credit card. My feet were in shoe heaven. I don't think I could have made it through the day without that purchase. Whoever designed these shoes is a genius...

So, after the shoe nightmare was resolved, we all went wine tasting at a vineyard and bought some yummy wine. Then we did the olive oil tasting and bought some yummy olive oil. Then we ran out of time and didn't have a chance to do the beer and jelly bean tours, but you've got to leave something for next time, right?

Jason and Tracy had to head back to Sacramento for a wedding, but we had a great day getting to spend some time with them and catch up on stuff. They live in Spokane, so we don't really get to see them very much. Their daughter is ridiculously adorable!

We then headed to Oakland and the IKEA, to use our day rental of the car to the fullest, and picked up some new furniture to make the studio more comfortable. We are adding a reading nook to the library, and needed a comfy chair... And I needed somewhere to put the bread-maker in the kitchen, counter-space being pretty scarce, so we got a little kitchen stand. And of course, when you visit IKEA, you end up buying all the other fun stuff that catches your eye as well... So we filled the MINI to the brim, literally. Of course Neil's favorite car also happens to be the smallest. :) Actually, we were pretty surprised by the amount of space that was in there once we folded the back seats down.

By this time, our car reservation was close to ending and it had already been a pretty full day with all the driving and visiting, so we headed for home. We dropped the car off and managed to just miss our bus - it was pulling away as we showed up at the stop. Unfortunately, after 6:00, they only come every fifteen minutes, so we decided to walk. Over the hill... with blisters... Actually, in the new shoes, it felt okay - and when we got to the top of the hill, there was a beautiful view of the bay and the fog moving in -

As we headed down the hill we heard the haunting sound of... cowbells? And loud music and cheering. Was there a concert going on? With cowbells? As we got closer, we saw that it was not concert, but bike race! It was a criterion race, which is a closed-loop city-street race, where the bikers ride around and around the loop. The loop is usually under a mile long and there are lots of corners, which makes it more difficult. And to make it more fun, it was being raced at nighttime, under lights. There's actually a whole professional series of these races all over the country and results are tracked through all of them and the rider who has done the best overall at the end of the season is the overall winner. If you are interested in more info, here is a link to a good page with easy-to-understand info: http://www.usacrits.com/fans.html.

We got to see the very end of the women's race and then most of the men's race as well. It was really fun to watch really talented riders close-up! These guys were amazing! It was a really nice, impromptu end to the day - a real treat to have that going on in our neighborhood and just stumble across it...

What a great day! So full and fun... Today is now a day of recovery from all the fun. Neil is in the studio and I am just being lazy. So I guess I better get to work and get the reading nook all set up with the new chair! Hope everyone had a fantastic weekend. Tomorrow it's back to work for me - YAY!

employment is a good thing...

So the big news first for those of you who haven't heard - I got the job! YAY! I start on Monday and now I'm just nervous about starting a new job. It's always something. But the news came along just in time - I was starting to get very down in the dumps about the whole situation. The waiting was starting to wear a little bit. I spent a couple of long days in the apartment with a book. On the upside, I discovered an author that I like and have been raiding the library for all of her books. It's nice to have time just to sit and read.

Let's see - what else have we been up to? I haven't been posting much, because things have been pretty slow. We had a really low-key weekend, Neil went to his studio and I, as mentioned before, holed up with a book on Saturday. On Sunday, we tried a Presbyterian church which was a little strange for us, but will work out if we can't find anything else. Then we had another really restful afternoon and ran some errands. No fun outings on the bikes with pictures, or anything, though. I haven't been sleeping well for the last week or so, so I've been taking naps during the day, which I'm sure is contributing to the restless nights. It's a vicious cycle. I feel like I'm converting to my college sleep schedule - stay up til midnight, sleep in until 10:00 and then have a nap in mid-day. Yep, that sounds just like college. :)

I went back to the nursery and volunteered again today and again, it was just lovely. For my first activity, we collected the seeds of an endangered member of the aster family that grows only in San Francisco. It's this tiny little yellow flower and when the flower dry out, the seeds fluff out like dandelions. We picked off the little fluffs. It was also very interesting, because the area of the Presidio where these flowers chose to grow actually used to be a cemetary a long time ago, and then a landfill more recently. So they have to try and clean up the landfill, but they can't disturb the cemetary or these federally protected flowers. The flowers are called "Lessingia". Here is a picture of this flower:

It's pretty insubstantial, actually. Here is a link to an article about the flower, if you are interested. I thought it was fascinating. http://www.ggnrabigyear.org/sanfranciscolessingia.html

The only two places that this flower is located in the world is in San Francisco and Daly City, CA. See, you can learn something when you read this blog! :)
My second activity wasn't quite as exciting - we took the berries from a dogwood tree and smooshed them to get to the seeds. There was a bunch of white, sticky stuff surrounding the seeds, so we had to wipe that all off. Then we planted them in individual pots. Still fun, just not as much useful information to give you. There is tons of different kinds of dogwoods, so I can't even give you much general information about them... Sorry! :(

Well, if life gets more exciting, I'll be sure to let you know. We will have visitors this weekend! YAY! Neil's friend Jason and his wife Tracy will be visiting with their two-year old. We're going to take a tour of either a winery, or the Budweiser plant in Fairfield, CA. Sounds like an appropriate activity for four adults and a two-year old, eh? But it will be GREAT to see friendly faces. More people need to visit! :) Just kidding, I realize that we've only been here three weeks. I may be jumping the gun just a tad...

Well, I'll get to the other half of the picture tour of the neighborhood later...Right now I have a date with my blanket and book.

Tour of the neighborhood

Update on the job: They will be in contact early next week. The audit is interfering in the CFO having time to call references, so it's taking longer than he thought. Now I'm just concerned that if I get the job, the audit will interfere with me starting the job!

On Thursday night, I met up with Neil and some of his classmates to go see first Thursday in downtown San Francisco. It's very different than Portland's first Thursday. All the galleries are in one building, so there is not really any walking around the neighborhood. I guess that could be either good or bad, depending on how you look at it. I always like exploring the Pearl as well as looking at the galleries. Not to mention there was a million people in the building. I felt like we were a huge herd of cattle being pushed along from one gallery to the next. If you stood too long in front of a painting, I was sure they were going to pull out the cattle prods and get you moving again! We all went out for drinks at a nearby pub afterwards and that was very nice, although I was the only non-painting graduate student there. In another development, the people that Neil has become closest to so far are all girls - hmmm...?

Yesterday I tried to ride my bike to the local YMCA in the Presidio to go swimming, got a little bit lost, ended up riding my bike for a lot longer than I thought I would, and then when I got there, the pool was closed for cleaning... Not a great way to start off the day.

In other news, we had a little rumble down here last night (and by that I mean an earthquake). We were sitting in the "living room", watching the Godfather and all of a sudden it felt like a truck ran into the building, or something. The bikes kind of rattled on the wall. Then it just shook a little bit for a few seconds. We immediately got on the internet to research what to do in an earthquake, having completely forgotten that, yes, those do occur down here. The one good thing that we remembered is that our building was built in, like, 1915 or something, so it didn't collapse in the 1989 earthquake, so we figure we have a fighting chance, at least, that our building won't go down. Great.

Here is the clip from the Associated Press:

"SAN FRANCISCO — A minor earthquake rattled the San Francisco Bay area Friday night.
The U.S. Geological Survey's preliminary report put the quake at a 4.0-magnitude. The temblor's epicenter was near Alamo, Calif., about 28 miles east of San Francisco.
There were no immediate reports of damage or injuries in Alamo or surrounding communities, said Contra Costa County Sheriff's spokesman Jimmy Lee.
The quake hit just after 9 p.m. and could be felt throughout the region.
Fans at the San Francisco Giants' waterfront ballpark felt a jolt during the game with the Pittsburgh Pirates, but there was no interruption of play."

So, I mentioned a tour of the neighborhood, and Neil and I took a good walk last night and took some pictures so here we go. First a map of San Francisco, with our area circled:

Then a map of route our little tour will take. Letters indicate stops with pictures!

View down the street from in front of our apartment, looking at the Moscone recreation center and fields at the end of our block. Softball leagues play there every night under lights.

Stop #A on the map, if you can read it - I realize it's a little blurrier than I intended it to be. :( This is part of the field and the tennis courts at the end of our block. It's nice to have a big grassy field so close to our home. We'll do a tour of Fort Mason another day, and that is a huge park a block away in the other direction. We have nice placement!

We take a right onto Chestnut St., stop #B, which is the main street in the neighborhood, filled with cafes, shops and restaurants. There are some of the big stores, like GAP and Williams-Sonoma, and then there are lots of little unique shops as well.

Neil and I can't actually afford to spend any time on this street yet - stuff is pretty pricey. Soon...soon.

At the end of Chestnut, we take a right onto Baker Street, and in the middle of Baker is the Palace of Fine Arts, (stop #C) the only remaining structure from the 1915 Panama-Pacfic Exposition. Not sure what that is, exactly, but it is a really pretty set of buildings, and there are beautiful grounds around it.

Some of the houses are pretty amazing as well!

Finally, we take a right on Marina Ave., (stop #D) and head towards home. This is a main thoroughfare for tourists heading to the Golden Gate bridge, residents of the Marina running and biking and people just out enjoying the sun. When we ride our bikes into the Presidio, this is the beginning of the route.

A shot of Alcatraz from the Marina Ave.:

A look back at Golden Gate bridge from Marina Ave.:

So, that's the tour for now. Let me know if it was too ridiculously long! I plan on doing another one in the other direction, through Fort Mason to Fisherman's Wharf, and if I should shorten it a a little, just leave a comment.

Oh yeah, Katie - if you're reading this, we noticed this name painted on a shop window on Chestnut Street:

We weren't aware that Charlie had opened a shop down here! We're not sure what he was selling though?! :)

We miss you all! Have a great weekend...

planting strawberries

I still haven't heard about the job, so to try and distract myself from the stress of waiting, I decided to join a volunteer group at the Presidio Native Plants Nursery today. It was a three hour-session and I had SO MUCH FUN!! I started out transplanting sage seedlings for the first hour and a half - I transplanted about 100 or so. They are teeny-tiny little plants, and so they give you a chopstick and you dig each little plant out with the chopstick, then use the chopstick to make a hole in the larger container. There was about 5 or 6 other people also doing transplanting and so we had nice chats as well, about where the plants would eventually go and other native plants from the area. Then we got to take a break and have a snack for about 30 minutes, and there was yummy snacks - deviled eggs, oreos, chocolate-chip bread, cornbread w/cherries in it. I also got a chance to talk for awhile with some of the other nursery workers. Eveyone was really nice.

Then after the snack, we broke out into groups for the second activity. They give you a choice of about 5 things to do. There was more transplanting, bucket patrol (which is picking up buckets from places in the Presidio with compost items in the buckets and taking it to the compost heaps), mosquito traps (setting mosquito traps), and strawberry seedlings. I picked strawberry seedlings. In the earlier session, a group had taken strawberry clippings from runners down at Baker's Beach. We clipped them down into smaller sections and then planted them in perlite. Eventually the clippings will root and then they will re-distribute the plants to different parts of the Presidio. It was really fun and really peaceful to help out.

Also, there was another girl who showed up late (yes, of course I was late) with me and was really nice. We spent a lot of time chatting and then she gave me a ride home so I made a friend! She rides her bike a lot as well and so we might meet up later in the week for a bike ride across the Golden Gate bridge to Sausalito, to a happy hour at a mexican restaurant over there, and then catch the ferry back into San Francisco. YAY!

While talking with the other people during the strawberry session, I heard about some local community gardens, where you can sign up for a plot and then grow whatever you want there. So I'm thinking about looking into that as another option for getting outside and gardening. I would just love to be able to still garden, even though we are in an apartment!

Well, there's not too much else to report. Neil had his first class yesterday and seems to really like things so far. He is in his studio painting today as he has no classes. He's also applying for a work-study job as a library assistant, which would be nice for him!

Sorry, no pics from today. I would to have loved to take some, but totally forgot the camera. I think tomorrow I might try to take some pics from the neighborhood, and give a little tour of where we live...

We made it out alive!

Well, no pictures today - we didn't really think a camera was appropriate in the part of town that we were in! We picked up a U-haul today to move Neil's stuff into his studio. To keep the story short, the U-haul lot was in a pretty sketchy part of town, and we rode the train to get there. We were in a severely economically depressed area, and when we got off the train, the one block walk to the U-haul was one of the longest walks of my life.

We made it to the lot and got the U-haul okay, and Neil got all moved into his studio. He has to share with another person, but it's a really large studio and he has a window as well, which is nice. So we unpacked all of his stuff and returned the U-haul and took our first taxi ride in San Francisco, to get out of the neighborhood. The best $16 I ever spent! Although the taxi ride was a bit harrowing as well. We were flying - and were riding in one of those old Crown Victorians, so it felt like we were literally flying through the city! Yikes.

Well, we made it out alive and celebrated with big beer, burgers and the best garlic fries ever at Gordon Biersch! We will not be returning to the Bayview/Hunter's Point area! It's been surprisingly hard to find a decent brewpub in S.F., and we're in withdrawal right now. We took the good beer in Portland for granted. Although they do have a Rogue in the neighborhood next to ours, and I just found out that happy hour pints at the San Francisco brewing Co. are $1.75. So we'll check it out...

This morning we went to a bike race called the Metromint Giro. We watched the elite women do 36 laps around the course. It was really fun to watch the cyclists live, and there was a crash around one of the corners.

Neil has his first class tomorrow and I will sit around waiting to hear if I got the job or not. No, not really. Tomorrow is an adventure in laundry! :) I haven't used a coin laundry since I was in college. Really looking forward to spending three hours in a dirty laundromat waiting for my laundry to dry...