I Love San Francisco

It's a beautiful day today in San Francisco. I didn’t bring my camera, but sometimes I think I couldn’t take a better picture than some of the stock shots or those I find online. It’s about a 6 or 7 minute walk from BART, and that may be because I try to walk fast. Except that I have to avoid annoying people, and watch lemmings cross on red lights, mostly it’s all good.

My client's building is across the street from the Embarcadero. We're on the 13th floor. They don't pretend there isn't a 13th floor like some buildings do!

I don't have a window, but I can see thru the window of the office in front of me. If I walk around the building, this is my view.
This is where I walk from BART - down Spear Street. It's almost like being on vacation each time, and I never get tired of it.While I don't get to see the Golden Gate Bridge because of all the buildings in the way in that direction, I know it's there and it is a beautiful site.

I started knitting a black scarf for a holiday gift. I tried a slip stitch drop pattern, but I didn't like it with the yarn I was using, so I'm back to the faggot stitch. This is not the scarf (see, it isn't black!) but I found this picture so you get the drift.

I need to start working on finishing the brown sweater that got shelved when it was too warm to have it draping over me while I knitted it!

Sunday Pictures

Lots of errands today. Went to Dale Hardware, then to Big Lots, then to the Farmers' Market, and then to Trader Joe's.

Here are the crowds at the Farmers' Market. It wasn't the same since Darlene and Lorne are away! We usually meet them here on Sundays! The veggies look delicious!
Coming back from Trader Joe's we saw that leaves are starting to change! The hills are golden and the leaves are turning.

Going down Mission a train was going over the bridge.
It's ALMOST election time. I can hardly wait since these signs are such an eyesore. I'm not going to vote for you because your sign is on a fence.Even the old burned-out Henkle building has become a place for wannabe politicos to hang their signs. There are more that weren't captured in the photo.

Yesterday morning I trimmed the lavender bush. It probably needs some hacking, but for now it looks much better than it did before.

Have I mentioned how much I dislike the plum tree? It's dwarfed by the neighbor's magnolia tree. We don't need it for shade with the magnolia tree, so I'd love to chop it down, but we'll probably just prune it very much this year and hope it doesn't grow as big. Ha!

It's time to walk into town. It's 70 degrees with 2 mph winds - perfect for a walk.

Saturday Happenings

This morning it was overcast, so we did some gardening before the sun came out. I trimmed the runaway lavender bush, and Will raked leaves. Good exercise, good accomplishments!

We picked up Lorne and Darlene to take them to San Francisco Airport. First they took us to lunch at KingFish restaurant in San Mateo. MMmmmmmmmm. I ordered Grilled Salmon on Greens - shredded napa cabbage, mised baby greens, cucumber, honey roasted peanuts, citrus-giner vinaigrette (whcih was very strong, but delicious) drizzle of peanut sauce. (Note: I thought there would be no way I'd be hungry by dinner time, but it's dinner time, and that's not the case!)

I see that not all reviews of this place are good, but at our table they got 100% rave reviews.

Then we dropped them off at SFO - they are going on a three week vacation flying to Paris, going to Provence, Belgium, etc. It will be fun to see their pictures! We'll miss them!

I missed posting this picture when I wrote last week about Costco. I couldn't resist. I did not take it, but it was too funny to not put here, even though it has nothing to do with today's post.

FRIDAY!

This morning we slept late since I hadn't scheduled myself at a client's office. Alex thought he needed to wake us up several times during the night, always purring, and sometimes cuddling until one of us moved or breathed or whatever spooks him spooked him!

It's 11:30 am now, and of course ALEX is sleeping!
Cinders is back to the spot that was her favorite before we moved the office around - on top of the toilet seat cover that covers the scanner. Mowry likes the ironing board in the spare room.

It was hard to photgraph and I didn't want to bother scanning it, but our local newspaper ran a great set of caricatures of the presidential and vice presidential candidates.

I went outside to take some pictures, and Mowry spotted me from inside the window. I think he's asking to go out. It looks so interesting out there!

Our pineapple guava tree now has fruit on it. I found a large one on the ground yesterday that I washed up and was going cut up and put on our pork chop, but I completely forgot about it. I thought of it in the middle of the night! I HATE when that happens!!

Here is proof that our avocado tree has avocadoes on it. They should be ready in February, unless the squirrels (and maybe raccoons?) get to them first. I'm finding some small avocadoes on the ground, which means the wildlife is getting them.
This one may be safe from the critters because it's on a low-hanging branch that isn't one of the stronger ones near the trunk. Can you see it?
My artichoke plant was done to one leaf, but it's coming back. In the foreground is sage. I actually have a few tomatoes almost ready to be picked. I hear that mint grows like a weed, but not at my house! That's a scrawny mint plant in front of the tomatoes.

Back in the house, Mr. Joe Cool Mowry hangs out on his "Crow's Nest".

Tonight is Open Mic. Knitting for me, performing for Will! I hope I can stay awake, thank you Alex!

Thursday

What's going on out there? Banks and brokerage firms are failing or getting bought to survive, and yet we have to abide by Sarbannes Oxley processes that are absurd. My favorite was the time a SOX auditor asked how I obtain the stock price for my database. I told her I go to the NASDAQ website. She and her cohort literally sat and watched my keystrokes. They should have been looking at other things. STUPID waste of time.

I got home from a client in San Francisco and we went for a walk. We went on another route, and walked for 24 minutes. Can you see the owl in the palm tree? Upper right perch below the fronds. It's a little hard to see, and it's a little blurry, but you can see some of the white around its face. I am bound and determined to get a good picture of the owl. I really like this plant. I don't know its name, but I see it all over on our walk. I think they sell small pots of it at the Sunday Farmers' Market, so I may get a few to replenish some plants that don't like it since we took over gardening when we bought our house two years ago.
Speaking of not knowing what the plant is, this was a funky plant we saw on our walk.When we came home, Kman was waiting for us.
Before we left for our walk Will was giving Mow a tummy tickle. I snapped the picture, and while it's a little blurry, I think it captures him. Does he look happy, or what?

Will found Alex on his back being "sprawly boy" before I got home, so he grabbed the camera and snapped this picture.

No band practice tonight, so we'll relax and watch TV, and I can knit.

Tuesday Pictures

Mow was happy resting his paws on the arm of the chair that is perpetually covered by a throw because it might otherwise be mistaken for a scratching post. That was before the musicians came to rehearse. This is the view from the TV room looking thru the sheers to see the lights of the sunroom, aka "rehearsal room".

All is good. I could listen to them while watching House Hunters on HGTV, and Jeopardy!
This is taken from the TV! Maybe there is something to HDTV. And I did a load of laundry in between.

And, the Chicago Cubs won tonight and are in FIRST PLACE!

Even Mowry came out while the guys were rehearsing. Since this is the 3rd week the guys have come over to rehearse, it's about time Mowry's curiosity outlasted his fear of "strangers".I think he was smiling in that picture!

Sunday

We went to the Farmers' Market and saw Ken and Diann, and Lorne and Darlene there. We bought vegetables for a stir fry dinner tonight, corn for the next meal which will be chicken, and grapes for snacking during the week. I didn't think of taking out my camera for a picture until after we walked away from the Farmers' Market.

Then I went to the Body Shop in the mall to use my $10 coupon, but they wouldn't accept it because I didn't print the email information for myself, and they wouldn't let me write it in. I told them I wouldn't be back. Why don't the instructions say that? Or if I missed it, can't I write in my email info? I guess a lot of losers try to use the coupon twice, but I wasn't one of them. No thank you, Body Shop.

Then we went to Costco. On a Sunday. What were we thinking? We showed our passport and went in. It felt like being in an ant farm. Yuck. We got what we needed as fast as we could, and while the customers are annoying with their baskets every which way blocking wide aisles and going slow or whatever, the checkout was fast! I even ran back for frozen blueberries and Will had to call me on my cell phone to tell me he was about done, so I ran thru the store avoiding baskets and people.

This Costco doesn't even carry the coffee we like. The best way to shop Costco would be when it looks like this:

Will is watching football, so I may or may not be able to tear him away from it. I love sports, but to me football is a bunch of big oversized guys jumping on each other until someone gets hurt.

There is even a website where you can find out all the injuries for the week at http://www.nfl.com/injuries. I'd much rather watch basketball or baseball. I just don't understand hockey, and it, too, seems a bit rough with fans thinking it wasn't an exciting game because there wasn't a fight.

It's time to walk into town to retrieve the knitting needle I lost on Wednesday night.