Good food and stuff...

So my good friends planned a spontaneous 7th Anniversary trip to Cabo this week, and they leave tomorrow morning. They asked if I would cat sit next week, and I said yes. Firstly, I haven't cat sat for them in maybe 2 years. And even then, they had one cat and not 2 at the time. And being a dog person who loves cats, have just never had one, I needed a refresher course. So I went over there last night to get the run down. So we had some beers while they made yummy grilled cheeseburgers and onion rings from scratch. See the progression of pictures below. Good stuff as always.






Then today we all went to one of all our favorite all time restaurants, which is in Napa... Bistro Jeanty. YUM!! We each had a tomato soup in puff pastry, which I think may actually be my most favorite dish I have ever had... top 5 at least. You do not go there and not order it. I try to go back at least once a year for it. Then we all shared the crispy fried smelt with aioli, the ham and leek quiche with butter lettuce salad and the potato gratin. What a fantastic meal. I only took pictures of the smelt and soup however.





So then a nice weekend I hope, then off to their place to watch the cats for 4 days.

Interesting phone call...

So I got a VM from my half-brother this afternoon. And I just got off the phone with him... we chatted for almost an hour. I probably haven't talked to him in a year or 2. He lives in Maine and don't think I've seen him in person in about 10+ years. He now has an almost 3 year old daughter, who I obviously haven't met yet. It was good to catch up, but just crazy to hear what he's up to and how he's grown up. And hearing him talk like a Dad is funny. Of course he was calling to chat with our Dad, who was unavailable, as it is Father's Day. They haven't seen/spoken to each other in the same amount of time as me. They will have to catch up soon. And think we all need to be in touch more often.

This is a current picture of my niece Kayda (borrowed from Jeanene)

I dreamed of flying...

Ever since I was little, people around me said that everyone dreams they are flying at one point or another. And until last night I never had... at least not that I remember. But in my dream last night I was in this area of rolling hills and was with a group of people. I think it was some amateur film/acting scenario because at one point I was holding a video camera. But we ended up on this very high plateau and were filming up there. I remember looking down over the edge at some point and was kind of freaked out because it was a long way down. I'm not afraid of heights, in real life or my dream, but the cliff was so drastic that I was afraid I'd fall off.

But then at some point I ended up with some sort of wings attached to my back and had grips to hold onto. I never really had a good look at the device, but remember it being on the small side. Not anything like a hang glider. And with this device I just stepped off the edge and soared. I was really high up as the wind kept carrying me. I could see my friends on that plateau looking like ants. and I just flew above all the rolling hills and it was beautiful. I remember having a nervous excited feeling as I was up there, but I was having too much fun. Then my fear was how to get down without crashing. I made my way down slowly, but at the end I landed a little abruptly, but I was ok. It was a lot of fun.

Now I know I personally wasn't flying myself, and was using a contraptions. So not sure if that counts for a "flying dream". But It was technically the first one where I was soaring high above the land. Too cool!!

Fingerprinted

I had to go get my fingerprints scanned today, which is required by the company I will be temping for later this week. Kind of random. But now I'm in the system. Then went for a walk around the Berkeley Marina. It was quite windy and chilly out there, but better than being super hot I guess.

Now I'm quite tired and just chilling at my Aunt's awaiting ribs and salad for dinner. YUM!

State of the Sharks

Well, that was uneventful... and probably was still going on when i got home around 10:30pm. There had to be about 30 people still waiting to ask questions when I left a little after 9pm. And there were probably less than that who had already asked theirs. I'm glad I went though. Although most were the standard answers, I felt McLellen and Wilson were sincere in their responses. And they do seem to be beating themselves up about how things played out. Which is good. Doug said he purposely hasn't spoke to JR yet, just to give them both time to think about things. So no news there, but sign my petition to get him to stay anyway. They did speak very highly of Staubitz and hinted around that he may be playing with the big boys this season.

Patty was quiet as usual, but did speak a little. JT was the most animated, and think spoke the most. Pavs answered a few questions. And Boyle just seemed pissed.

But now for the comical highlights :-)

- The kid (10ish maybe) who said he was at the game where Torrey broke his leg. And said it didn't look all that bad... and did he hit the post or something? It was very cute, and Thornton was very sweet in responding to him.

- The dude that harped about the team's charter planes, blah, blah, blah last year was back with his usual spiel. But he got Boo'd and yelled at :-)

- Then the very next speaker started his question by saying "Now I have an actual hockey question for you guys."

- And the person who confronted Thornton about not shooting the puck when he should. And after his main response, he laughed and said he promises to shoot more.

- The one dude who started out by saying he had a serious question... about the urinals. Then said he was kidding. LOL.

Fun with Coke

OK, not really. So I'm house sitting for my Mom and Step-Dad for the summer, and I haven't moved in yet, so had to go check the mail over there this evening. Did the normal stuff like bring the mail in, see if the plants needed watering, checked their answering machine, stuff like that. Quick 15 minute trip. But before leaving I checked the fridge and freezer to see if anything perishable needed to be tossed. And one look in the freezer made me call my Mom to say, "I'm calling to yell at whoever left the coke in the freezer!!" Mind you, they don't drink coke but do have it on hand for when I (or others) come over. I last saw them on Saturday and thought that maybe they put a warm one in the freezer for me, and that sometime after they left on their trip on Sunday, it exploded. But my Mom thinks it was the cleaning lady that came by today. UGH!!! What a mess!!

Jarrod Elmore

He's so talented...

Damn Sharks!!!

All I'm going to say tonight is this...

1. I've very upset, and almost numb.
2. I'm going to go have a few drinks.
3. I don't want to read anything negative about the Sharks tonight, so I'm going to go watch TV.
4. If anyone posts any comments about my blog, I may wait a few days to read it so I don't have to read anything negative.
5. As much as this makes me want to puke to say it, the Ducks kicked the Sharks ass tonight and deserved to win this series.
6. Because of the above... that would still never make me abandon the Sharks. I am let down right now, but I will never switch teams because of that.
7. I am now officially on the Blackhawks bandwagon in the West and the Caps in the East... if they move on tomorrow.

That's it for tonight, I just don't want to talk about it right now.

Playing For Change

Really beautiful!!



Click the link fro more on the organization Playing For Change. Really great thing they are doing.

I'm so sunburnt!!! OUCH!!!

This isn't even close to the worst of the burn...

So my Aunt and I headed to the coast today just to get out of the house and the heat. One of our destinations in mind was the Taco Bell in Pacifica. Sounds silly, I know. But it's apparently the only Taco Bell to actually sit on a beach. And has a deck on the back where people from the beach can just walk up to all wet and order at a window. So, we figured me may as well check it out, just for the hell of it. It was on some Travel Channel Top 10 list at some point.


We then thought we'd beach hop and take some pictures. I don't know all the names, but they are between Half Moon Bay and Pacifica (Montara and Moss Beach are two). Mostly just pulling over at random lookouts or driving down coastal access roads when we saw them.





But one coastal access road took us unexpectedly to the Fitzgerald Marine Reserve. So we pulled over and thought we'd check it out. They had a little Parks and Rec visitor booth so we walked over to get a pamphlet on the place. The Ranger in the booth let us know that the beach to the left was coned off because a harbor seal beached itself. So they were waiting for someone from the Marine Mammal Center to come check it out. So we wandered down to the reserve which is a nice beach with tons of rocks and tide pools. We took plenty of pics, and tried to look for the seal, but couldn't spot it. So, we just decided to sit on the bench and enjoy the view, and wishful thinking that we'd get to see the Marine Mammal Center person show up. And sure enough, maybe 15 mins later, the Ranger and a guy show up and walk out onto the coned off part of the beach. With a blanket the Marine Mammal guy picked up the seal from where it was laying between the rocks and laid it on the beach. He then got a better hold of him with the blanket and started carrying him back. As he got closer, he was telling us that the seal still had part of the umbilical cord attached, so they left him out there a day to see if the mother would come back. And since she didn't, they came out to rescue him. So he is probably just a few days old. And we got to see the little guy very close up (if you click on the pics, you'll get better photos). How cool was our timing to get to see that? So awesome!! And someone who was there while we were was wearing a Saku Koivu shirt. How random is that?








And at the end of the day...

Anyway, I think that was a pretty cool way to spend Earth Day.