Sympathique

Sympathique, by Pink Martini

Sorry guys, long time no blog! No excuses, but I've been a busy girl. Two of my classes ended at the same time (Growing Grapes and Wine Production I) so I was hella swamped with those. Anyway.

Let's see, let me bring you quickly up to speed. Since the wedding, I've seen quite a few people. The first were Maelina and Ela, friends of mine from college, who were out visiting SF. Thankfully, I was able to spend an afternoon with them in the city. It was VERY nice to catch up with both of them. We ate lunch at a restaurant called the Stinking Rose, which is in North Beach, the Italian Neighborhood of SF. We then we off on a walking tour-ish of downtown...we saw Chinatown, did a tea tasting, and walked, basically. I attempted to take them to my favorite Chinatown stop, a bakery called the Golden Gate Bakery, which has Chinese pastries to die for. Unfortunately, the bakery was closed.

Chinatown is a favorite of mine in SF. It doesn't smell like NYC's Chinatown and it reminds me very much of Sydney. It's one of my happy places, and I go there as often as I can. If anyone wants to go...let me know!

Anyway, some photos:


Maelina and I posing in front of the Port of SF/Embarcadero...in cartoon motion!


Ela and I in front of the Bay Bridge

Thanks to she and Maelina, these are their photos!

Upon arrival home that evening, I had house guests! My friends from Fox Run, Mike and JR, came out from their new home in Healdsburg to visit so that we could make the trip to Gilroy for the mother of all Garlic Festivals. Also arriving that evening was Gianna, another Fox Run alum who is on temporary assignment in LA. Reunion! We drank some FL riesling (home it's home i'd like to be!) and ate some pizza. There is something very special about spending time with people who know where you come from.

The next day we were off to Gilroy for the less than awesome garlic fest. Numero uno: it was FREAKIN' HOT! Fox Run puts on a much more garlic centered festival! Gilroy's fest was over commercialized, and I was surprised at how little raw garlic there was there! One of my favorite memories of the Fox Run garlic fest was sneaking out from behind the tasting room bar and doing a "garlic tasting" of all of the different types of garlic. Nothing of the sort in Gilroy! Most everything was cooked garlic. And, don't get me wrong, I loved my garlic fries, but, totally missed Fox Run. First full weekend in August people, remember!

Took Gianna to the airport and JR and Mike to Wente for some barrel surfing. It was nice to see their reactions to the sheer size of Wente. I have adjusted, but it was a nice reminder of the wonder I once felt. Now I just need to work on restoring that sense of wonder!

Here we are with the Foster Farms chicken people, saying "No" to plumping....and YES to sunscreen!



And...the coolest thing in Gilroy...the Olympic torch of garlic...amazing.




The next weekend, my old friend Sara Marian visited! She is amazing! I hadn't seen her since I visited her in Boulder, CO. She's now in med school and kicking ass! She's pretty much my shopping soulmate...and it was so nice to see her! We did Wente, climb Mt Diablo (yes, I mean climbed...we took a wrong turn and took a very long and steep path up the mountain!), toured around in the city, and had ray-ban wayfarer and dress up day in Napa. She, of course, is one of the only people who can talk me into wearing a dress where jeans are perfectly appropriate. ;-)


The vista from the summit of Mt. Diablo. Yes, it was sunset. This resulted in some running back down said steep mountain.


Extra-circular dress wearing day.

And finally, this past weekend, we had a weekend outing just the Wente labbies! Chris has a cabin near Lake Alpine, CA. OMG! It was amazing. It reminded me of how much I missed green. I accomplished the first of my "skinny" goals: kayaking. Turns out, I freaking love it! Chris has promised before we left that he would teach me, so I held him to his word.



Ahhhh...Nirvana. I will be kayaking a lot more in the future.

It was a fantastic weekend. I admit I was a little anxious to go away someplace for an extended amount of time with my coworkers, but my anxiety was not grounded. I think we all agree we had a great time! On my first day at Wente, one of the winemakers said to me "Welcome to the Family", and he wasn't kidding. They are a big part of my Cali family. :-)

Speaking of family...I GET TO SEE MINE IN THREE DAYS! Family of the east coast variety, of course. I am so ridiculously excited. I haven't been to NY in 14 months...since Miranda's wedding! I could just about dance up and down I am so excited. I get to see my grandparents, cousins, friends, ahhhhh! So pumped!

For any of you in the PY metro, I expect you to stop by my house for a hot dog and a beer on Friday (the 14th) after 7 pm. Party up in 289 E. Lake Road. Come on now, put it in your GPS.

More pics on facebook from the last few weeks.

Cheers
Catrina

Ain't It Good, Part II

Let's see, where did I leave off? Oh Yea! Alcatraz. So, the national park service runs Alcatraz. It certainly shows its age and it is sad to think that it won't be there forever! So anyway, Alcatraz was first a military base, then a federal maximum security prison. It closed its doors in 1963, owing to the gigundo cost to run it...being off shore they had logistical issues with waste, supplies, etc etc.

So, it is about a 20 minute boat ride across the (very windy and cold bay) to get there. See below:



Windy!

They call it "the rock" for a reason:


So, when you approach the island to dock, one of the first things you see is a large sign identifying the place, but someone has spray painted "Indians Welcome". I'm not 100% sure on the story, but Alcatraz was occupied by Native Americans for nearly two years, and the proposed to turn it into an ecology center, etc, but they were forced out, and it was during this period that many fires took place. Here is the wikipedia article should you want to read more about it!

Here is a photo:



You get off the boat and hike up a gently sloping hill that is supposedly about 13 stories when you get to the prison at the top, but didn't seem to bad to me, then you go in the main cell block area and start an audio tour. I have to say, I felt like a giant nerd walking around with that orange string around my neck with a player attached to it, but it did end up being cool. The park service went and found prisoners and guard from Alcatraz and interview them for the tour, and it was nice to hear some history first hand.

I'll walk you through a bit of it here.

First stop: in take showers. This is where the tour started. Not terribly private, hey?



Welcome to Alcatraz, here is your cell! (Very similar to my 1k per month apartment!)



Block of cells on C-D Street.


The inmates had plenty of time to knit!


Solitary Confinement was not a friendly place. This is where "The Bird Man" spent a great deal of his time.



Where inmates had visitors.

There's Jennie in front of the city skyline from Alcatraz. Could be worse for a federal penn, right? CHHHYEA!


Three inmates escaped from Alcatraz by burrowing holes from their cells air vents into the exhaust system and out. Somehow, they managed to make life like masks of themselves and place them in their beds, so the guards didn't notice that they were gone until long after they had left the island. No one knows if they made it to the city or the Angel Island (the "Ellis Island" of the west) to this day. They were never heard from again. They may have made it to safety, they also may have drown int the cold waters of the bay. It is up to your imagination as to what happened to them. I imagine that they made it to San Fran and got the hell out of dodge so fast no one could find them. The above photo is one of the dug-out air vents.

And finally, one of the things I found strangest about Alcatraz was that the menu board hung with the breakfast menu from the day they moved the prisoners. Granted, someone may have re-created it, but in my world it has remained intact, kind of like a snapshot in history. I found it fascinating that a detail like that would be left intact, even during the Native occupation and almost 50 years. Here's a photo:


There is your brief tour of Alcatraz. :-P I recommend the full one to anyone in the area!

The rest of the time, Jen and I took a tour of the city (sorry, not too many pics, too fast) and then we went back to Livermore for the 4th, watched some fireworks, drove around the valley a bit, and just laid low after several days of jamming.

The 5th came and I dropped her off at the airport, and was sad for a while, but, owing to my very generous mother, was able to go drown my sorrows in retail therapy. I needed new sneakers very badly, and I got them. Did you know you're supposed to switch out your sneakers every 300 miles? Well, I had long since bypassed that mark, but now I have a bright pair of brand new Nike's. I will be honest and say I had never been able to fit in Nike's before, but these are awesome. Thanks Mom!

Next, I was off to my coworker Debbie's place for dinner, but first she had agreed to take me to a movie. I love going to the movies, but I so rarely do it, so it was so very nice of Debbie to take me! We saw Public Enemies, which was a bit long, but still very bad ass. Then she had me over for dinner, and her oldest son Eric and his GF Sarah surprised me with a beautiful bouquet of lillies and peonies, which made my kitchen smell wonderful for a week. Sweet birthday, right? I had dinner at Debbie's, he SO, Ron, made kebabs of chicken and lamb. I had one bite of just about everything on the table...risotto, kebab, fresh tomatoes and cheese, yum yum! It was a birthday feast for sure. Debbie and her fam even got an angel food cake with lots of fresh fruit and sung to me! I didn't have much, but it was so delicious. I took a photo of my glowing cake (I know it's bright, 25 whole candles!). Here it is:



Aren't I lucky?

As if that wasn't enough, the party continued Monday! Plenty of well wishes from my coworkers. My Claude, the SLW winemaker, had myself and Monika and her family over for yet another amazing meal. We had venison...it went very good. Best I've had, probably. And bonus, I got to see Monika's adorable daughter! My supervisor, Chris, made me real buttermilk pancakes too, and he even made them tiny sized for me. Perfect. I will admit, I am spoiled. I had a FANTASTIC birthday. Thank you to everyone for making it so special!

PHEW. Lots of adventures. And the summer of fun continues: this weekend I am off to Seattle to be in Anna Sweet's wedding. Heck yes! I am psyched. Weddings are very exciting. I get to see my room mate Chris, from crush in WA, for the first time a while too. You all will hear about that soon!

PS-- Home in NY in just under a month! Can you say...excited?!!?!?

Cheers!

Don't Stop Til You Get Enough

Song: Don't Stop Til You Get Enough, Michael Jackson

I don't think any of us can believe Little Michael died yesterday. Despite his personal choices, the guy did make some rocking music. As evidence, I took a screen shot of my iTunes library sorted to his music (this excluded Janet, which is another lengthy collection!). Almost 200 MB! Thanks for the music, Michael.



Onward, I had quite an action packed weekend. I spent the day Friday studying, which was not so action packed, but necessary. Then Saturday I went scouting in San Francisco for some people's upcoming visits, and it got me out walking (uphill) in new scenery and away from the gym! I got off of BART at 16th Street, in the middle of the Mission District. Below is a photo of a beautiful mission there. Missions are quite frequent in California, and I find them so beautiful. In the future, I'd like to visit them more often.


The next stop was the Castro to see 1)where it was and 2) Harvey Milk's place at 575 Castro Street. (Castro Camera) It is obviously no longer Castro Camera, but Harvey is remembered herein. I stopped in, snapped a picture, paid my respects, gave my thanks, and continued around the neighborhood. There was a show at the Castro Theatre that afternoon and the place was a buzz. I encountered a few friendly people that pointed me in the right direction to my next destination. Nice place.



And where Harvey Milk lived:




My next destination was "The Haight"...AKA the home base during "The Summer of Love" in 1967. Jefferson Airplane, Janis Joplin, and the Grateful Dead resided in the area during what history writes as quite the summer! Anyway, I don't know if they intentionally scent the air to smell like sweet, sweet marijuana, but it appeared that they did. A nice place now, mostly owing to that smell, but mostly tourist-y now. I'm pretty sure that's not what Janis, Jefferson Airplane, and the Grateful Dead had in mind...but, it is consumerism at its best.


Not bad for my little point and shoot, huh?



Building on the corner of Haight and Ashbury



The next stop was one for my cousin, Miranda. I was within a mile or so of the Painted Ladies, so I decided to go and "complete" Miranda's honeymoon photos, because we had been too late and it was too dark for her to get any good photos of them when they were out here. The Painted Ladies are a group of elaborately painted Victorian Houses in Alamo Square in SF. I thought they were the same houses as feature on 'Full House", and they are similar, but these are NOT where Danny Tanner lived. Here are some pics, be sure to notice the city's CBD in the background...they are up quite a hill!!









My next step was to get back to BART, as I was a few miles from it. So, I walked down into the CBD...through the Civic Center Area and City Hall. City Hall is very lavish!
From the outside, anyway. Didn't hang around too long here, I was chasing daylight.





On Sunday, I went to the Giants Game (interleague play, vs the Texas Rangers) with Debbie's significant other's, Ron, family. I had never been to Giants stadium, so I jumped at the opportunity. It is a beautiful stadium, it overlooks the Bay! Sometimes, if a homerun is hit hard enough, it will splash! It was a good game, the Giants won. I also got myself quite a nice sunburn, despite my frequent sunblock use.






Notice the Bay Bridge in the Background!


In other news, I had a great week and am about to start on my growing pile of homework.

I know a lot of you probably have questions Re: gastric bypass, I know I did! The most common question I've been getting is some variant of: Do what are you allowed to eat? I intially did this so my nutritionist could spy on me when I had questions, but I'm cool with it, so I will make it public. I track me food daily, mostly to keep an eye on my grams of protein (I'm supposed to be getting 80-100). So, here you go guys, have at it: http://www.livestrong.com/thedailyplate/diary/who/cnorth84/

Maybe this will help disperse some of the thoughts that I eat nothing but yogurt and babyfood. :-P

More adventures coming soon!

Cheers