Saturday

This morning we got up around 8:30 am and we thought someone was gardening because there was a buzzing like a gardening tool. It was someone in the tree in the yard behind us cutting down the tree. Now it's gone and there's more light! It was right next to our avocado tree.
Speaking of trees, the leaves are changing!

This is Walnut Avenue, right near the farm where we used to live.

While there aren't many, the ones that change are beautiful.

A look down Mission Boulevard shows some leaves changing, a rare moment of no cars, and the golden hills in the background.
This corner is UGLY. The sign that was holding all the political signs was knocked down, probably due to a combination of wind and the weight of the signs.
We've had burritos from this taco truck that parks on Niles Blvd., and they are huge and good! We share one! We've never been in line behind anyone who speaks English - all Spanish! So you know it's good!
This looks like leaves changing, but the leaves are actually burned from the fire back in May. Part of the building was finally demolished, but the ugly part still stands to the left of this picture.

Friday Ceiling Fan

We love our house. It is very retro - 1955 house updated in the 70s complete with the avocado green stove (which people keep telling me is coming back, but I have never seen any indication of that, nor do I care). We LOVE the retro! Today we went to an estate sale in a house like ours, but an "expanded model" that is about 250 sq feet larger. The floor plan is the same but the rooms are larger. The bathrooms are larger, but the stall shower in our house is much larger than the one in that house. NOTHING was remodeled in that house - the kitchen counters are turqouise with stainless around the edges. My neighbor thinks they are ugly and remembers them, but we thought they were retro cool.


One of the things I instantly disliked when I saw our house was this chandelier in the dining area. We cleaned it and it grew on me. Actually, Will moved it higher and I stopped noticing it, but I always wanted a ceiling fan. Someone posted on our local email group that he was selling a ceiling fan for $20 that he took out in a remodel. Of course labor cost much more, but we had a GREAT handyman recommended by our neighbor who did some other work for us, and all of it was worth every penny spent.


This is "during" the ceiling fan installation:

And, walla - AFTER!
And closer....
It will be so nice on those hot days!

The Lucille Packard Foundation at Stanford University Hospital has a monthly rummage sale. I've always wanted to go, but the logistics never worked. I went to a client in Palo Alto today and arranged for it to be right before the rummage sale started at 2 pm. It was very cool, but I only bought 2 skeins of yarn and some double pointed needles, all for $3. Some guy got all the circular needles for his wife. I didn't even see them until he snatched them up. I hope she can use them!

I know someone who loves purple, so I will be able to make something for her using this yarn! I also have some lavender that will go well with it. Unfortunately, I think the 2 dpns are #2 instead of #1, but I haven't verified that yet. I just held them up to my #1s.

Things on Thursday With Pictures Below

I'm not a competitive person. I like sports, but that's other people competing. I cheer for my team, not like most SF Giants' fans who yell "Beat LA" (probably even if they aren't playing LA) instead of "Go Giants", and think it's the same thing, but I digress. My friend Diann posted on her blog about a fall she took on Wednesday while avoiding one of her affectionate cats. On Tuesday just after Will dropped me off at BART, I tripped over something. It could have been the curb, it could have been my own feet, who knows, but it definitely was not a cat! I fell smack on my knees and elbows. I have a bruised left elbow and right knee (above and to the side of the kneecap) but Diann's fall sounds much worse. Is this just two friends doing the same thing within a day of each other as in a bad example of "great minds think alike" or is it just coincidence? Sheesh. Grace, as she called her Blog post. I can hear my cousin Barbara saying "Hey, Grace!". We both could have really hurt ourselves, so I can live with some bruises and "owees" instead.

Speaking of cats, this is one of the strays we feed when our neighbor is unavailable to feed them. She recently had kittens.


And this is what my cats do to keep me company when Will is at band, like tonight. They hang out in the other room!

Closer - look at that position Mow Mow is in. And look how white Alex is!
And don't look how matted Cinders is.
So I went and scooped some ice cream. This time we bought Raley's house brand Double Fudge Brownie. I often wonder if the house brand isn't made by someone like Dreyer's, with different labeling. What I like about this is that it comes completely sealed in plastic, and it costs less.

But it was not as good as my favorite ice cream, Dreyer's light Chocolate Fudge Chunk. It doesn't come sealed in plastic, and it costs more (unless you can find it on sale) but it's worth it! You do not need any other flavor ice cream if you like chocolate!
We are getting a new door to the attic that goes to the garage. The current attic access is in our little pantry closet in the kitchen and is all but impossible to access. Will saw this at the neighbor's across the street, so we're having the guy who did hers do this.

I never liked this chandelier, and always wanted a ceiling fan in the dining area off of the kitchen. It's been two years, and I don't even notice this any more, but someone was selling a really nice ceiling fan they took down in a remodel for $20, so we couldn't resist. It's going up tomorrow. The guy who sold the fan to us came over and showed Will which wires went where. He was really a nice guy! So the guy who is doing the attic door is also doing this.
Two nights ago the moon looked like this!
And this.
I ripped out the black sock with experimental cables, and now I'm doing a plain black sock with knit 7, purl 1 on the top and instep so there's more flexibility than just stockinette stitch.
I like how it's coming out!

How do you know when you have too many cats?

Or the corollary, how do you know when you have enough cats? I think it depends on who you ask. Some people think one cat is too many, but those people don't count. We once found a cat, but we didn't want three, so we took it to a vet around the corner from where we found it, and asked them to find it a home. They hate that, but we didn't want three. It was only a few months later when we were looking at cats at cat adoption at the local pet store just for fun, and we walked out with Alex. That was 8 years ago. As in life, timing is everything.
Above was the old office configuration, and now that the desk isn't under the window, they don't do this any more.

Our friends have 12 cats. I think that is too many. But they find cats who need homes, or I should say, cats who need homes find them. The most recent one was walking down Niles Boulevard and she surely would have been road kill had it not been for my friends rescuing her. So that is how you get 12 cats. They have never picked out a cat as we did with Mowy.

We have 3 cats. My mother, who reads this, thinks that is too many, but she isn't a big animal fan, so sorry, Mom, your vote doesn't count.

Cinders is estimated to be 16 years old and she has kidney problems, and I don't expect she'll be around too much longer, but until she's in pain, she's not going anywhere. She's already outlived two cats since I've known her - Murphy and Dave.

The dilemna - my friends who in the past year or so had to put down two of their three cats, are down to one, but the cat and the toddler aren't working out, so they thought of us first. They forgot we had 3, and thinking we only had 2, asked if we'd adopt their cat. The funny thing is, he looks EXACTLY like Alex. I think it's a payback - I once threatened to switch the two since theirs is friendlier and not a scaredy cat like Alex.

I thought maybe this could be for a year until the toddler grew out of the "not good with cats" stage, but she reminded me they want to adopt another baby, so we're talking 4 years.

Can you tell the difference between Ziggy and Alex?

Now that Alex is turning gray, he doesn't look as much like Ziggy as he used to, but maybe Mowry and Cinders will think it's Alex and not have to get used to a new cat?

They are asking other friends and co-workers, so we'll see. It may be hard to say no.

I mentioned this dilemna to a business friend and she has a friend who is a cat lover, so while it seems she only has "girl" cats, and Ziggy is a "boy" she may or may not be interested, but it's worth asking, and if it's a good fit, then I don't have to decide.

Monday

It's been chilly the past few mornings for us California weather wimps (which we are proud of being), but not as cold as where Will's mother and her husband live in Ocean Shores, WA. Look at these pictures from a webcam near where they live. It's a gray beach with rip tides, but there was some sun and blue skies on Saturday, at least in this picture. According to my weather program, right now it's around 66 here, but only 52.7 in Ocean Shores with a wind chill of 49. How cold was it? Alex was very happy sleeping on the down throw that Will had on his lap.
Mowry slept cuddled right by my arms most of last night. He never gets up on the bed at night.



I saved this picture from the train station web cam of the Amtrak as it left the station. I just thought it was a cool picture.

This weekend we went to a few garage sales, the flea market, and an open house two blocks away for a house like ours but with one bathroom, and one tiny half bathroom in the garage. It wasn't retro - everything had been updated, and while it was beautiful, we like the retro look, and we like the extra bathroom in our bedroom (even if it is pretty small).

This is the remodeled kitchen.

And the remodeled bathroom. It looks smaller than ours, and we love our green bathroom!

The living room hadn't been changed. Our sunroom is where the sliders are to their backyard.They are asking $80,000 more than what we paid two years ago near the top of the market. It would be nice for all if they got it, but who are they kidding? They won't get that! I'll keep watching it.

Pictures Pictures Friday Pictures

What a beautiful day it was in San Francisco. This is the view from the 13th floor window of my client's office facing the Embarcadero and Ferry Building.

That's an apt. rooftop overlooking the Bay Bridge.

A closer picture of the Ferry Building.

I saw the Blue Angels from the window of my client's office, and again from their 7th floor cafe patio area. That's the Blue Angels practicing flying over Treasure Island.That's the Blue Angels to the right of the tower below the line and above the road portion of the SF-Oakland Bay Bridge.

And closer...they look like birds. They are very very loud!There are actually trees in SF. I never noticed because the buildings dominate.This is the stairs down the Embarcadero Bart Station at the Muni level. That's a muni train, and BART is at the lower level.
We pass by Sunshine Biscuits in Oakland. Today I was wearing the first pair of socks I made in 2006.
While our Mayor thinks most people who go to the Oakland A's baseball games don't take BART as his explanation of why BART won't go into the proposed new stadium in Fremont, BART and the A's are still advertising on the train. I think he's wrong, of course.
The view out the window where you can see the train that is going in the opposite direction.
There was a "you know what" while we were stopped at the Hayward Station so we had to wait for 5 minutes, SOP for BART when there is one of those. I'm glad we were at a station and not in the tube that goes under the bay for those 5 minutes.
Here's the story: Magnitude 3.1 Quake Temporarily Disrupts BART - The U.S. Geological Survey is reporting an earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 3.1 struck at about 4:19 p.m. Friday near Piedmont (for my readers, that's the expensive part of Oakland). According to the USGS, the earthquake had a depth of 8 miles and was centered 1 mile northeast of Piedmont and 3 miles north northeast of Oakland. Bay Area Rapid Transit officials said there would be temporary system wide delays of about five minutes this evening but they did not know how long the delays would last.

And at home at the Union City BART Station they are building a huge apartment complex. We hate it. Will calls it the "Beehive". The buildings block the views of the hills for those of us driving by, they come right up to the sidewalk with no setback, and they just smell like trouble to us - more people = more crime, more traffic, etc. You know the drill, but apparently the city of Union City didn't see it that way.

Peety waiting for me!
At home

Mowry just woke up and is very sleepy! I think everything was still twinkly for him when I took this. He went back to sleep moments later (no picture).

Alex sure looks gray in this picture.

ADDED: Sorry, no comments allowed on this post. Some internet predator scumbag posted something about her obscene website, so I had to block comments from this post. In the future, you may leave a comment, but it won't be posted until I approve it. People suck. Those who I'd want to comment know my email address, so you can email me.