april already. this means i've just wasted an entire quarter of 2005. this morning i woke up shouting rabbit rabbit. poor jg he was so startled he shouted it right back at me. at breakfast he asked, "what was all that shouting about this morning?"
april is pretty innocuous in my book. i think jg foolishly asked me to marry him this month some years ago. i can't think of any personal importance to april other than that.
today is the warmest it has been for some time. the wind has finally stopped pounding my windows and the clouds are back to their playful selves.
taken at 5:12 pm today
let's aim for a colorful and memorable april, everyone!
yesterday i decided to resume my aimless impulse shopping routine. i used to do this most often on thursdays, when i spend a few damaging hours in the afternoon waving my credit card around either clement street or japantown and hoarding things i don't need. i blame the weather for jacking up my spending habits.
this morning the wind+rain have also resumed their routine. the sky is one impenetrable mass of clouds but not at all spectacular as it was yesterday.
07 april 2005 at 11:42 am
i hadn't been to japantown for over a month so it was time to go back. as usual, i hit the dollar store first.
dollar store window
surprisingly, i bought nothing other than tea and instant miso soup. i think their fun racks have diminished. i wonder: could it be that i'm so used to seeing and buying the same fun stuff that they're no longer, you know, fun?
nah.
i dropped the goods off at my car in the basement parking garage and proceeded to kinokuniya.
the book store
close up on the tee shirt
window display for sarah flores
i spent about an hour browsing and ended up with two packs of letter sets (from the stationery division across the hall) and two books, one of which can put engman out of business. look:
adventure of crochet cat, i think
i was not happy that it was the very last copy in the entire store. it looks beyond used with the cover dirty and torn. i am anal like that. i always want the copy on the very back of the shelf, the one no one has breathed on. i would never buy the last book. i had to make an exception, obviously. i wouldn't have bought it if i knew japanese.
anyway, the entire book is about the same fabulous cat but crocheted in different sizes and colors. there are pages upon pages of funny pictures showing the cat(s) propped in curious scenarios. it's very entertaining in a japanese sort of way.
sadly, these are the only good jpegs i have of the cat book right now. i'll show you the staged ones another day.
hm, what are the four cats doing lying so close to each other?
how to punish your spouse
this next book is a part of a let's knit series but three quarters of the projects are for other crafts.
let's crochet and sew
i bought it solely for these two ideas:
kidney+lima bean pillows
more sucker fodder
as it was, i get pretty unstable with my credit card whenever i'm near kinokuniya. i'm even crazier today because i just learned to order from their website. i had to solicit some help from the supa eggplant but i now know which button submits my order! watch out, mastercard!
let's end this thursday madness segment with last night's sunset. check out the ominous looking cloud.
taken two weekends ago at the entrance of camp taylor in lagunitas (north of sf) where we tried to camp for beeze's birthday except it was full.
i checked my fuji files and it looks like i had overlooked a handful of potential photo essays. i'll try to write them up the next few weeks. i need to show them to you before they get way out of date.
in the meantime, check out my current favorite photo blogs.
1. g, aka cheenuh.
2. erin, the academic.
3. maura, the knitter with mad skills.
4. neene. i know nothing about this photo blog except it's based in new york.
i discovered it from this shot on photo friday.
i once scanned all my favorite pictures into jpegs and promptly forgot about them. i found the folder full of images yesterday and i've been back on sentimental lane since. let me show you one for today:
jg
september, i think, 1996
that was taken at the top of valencia peak, one of my top favorite hiking trails on the central coast.
jg looking at the rio grande
white rock canyon, new mexico, june 2002
i took that picture with an old film camera, a pentax wr z90 point+shoot. i have no idea why the side edges fade to dark but i really like the picture.
that's jg standing at the very end of stearn's wharf during sunset, waiting for that sail boat to come ashore, i guess. i should have included his legs in the shot so it wouldn't look like he's floating on the ocean. i really can't say why i once liked this poor shot. seeing it now sure makes me sentimental about santa barbara living.
anyway, the faint bar of gray you see on the horizon is actually the santa barbara channel islands. they're like recluses of the famous landscapes. most days they hide themselves in the haze pretending to be a marine layer. rare days when the atmosphere is perfectly clear, they reveal themselves and steal the show.
this morning i made jg put on one of the 7,125 tee shirts sarah flores gave me while i was in santa barbara. he found it entertaining for about a second. i managed to snatch this shot for posterity.
jc on jg
this photo essay is going to be choppy because, as usual, i didn't put any effort into using the camera. i take least pictures when i'm in sb for some reason.
ok, let's start with yesterday. one of jg's firestones exploded on me just north of king city.
i was going about 75 mph when i heard a bone rattling loud explosion. i thought someone shot the passenger door with a cannonball. i did not think for one second that it was the tire. i was so distraught i slammed on the brakes. only when i slowed down did the car start to wobble. it wobbled so badly that i could hardly pull it on to the shoulder.
7:32
so i sat in the car while eighteen wheelers took turns trying to rip my side rear view mirror off. i couldn't tell aaa exactly where i was except that i was just south of the eucalyptus patch on the 101. it took them about half hour to find me.
i sat in the passenger seat waiting, knitting. i managed to get out of the car a few times when the freeway was clear to take these:
looking east
west
north, eucalyptus patch at center right.
my hero from tino's towing
i drove with hazard lights flashing all the way back to sf at 50 mph, stopping every 40 miles or so for 15 minute breaks in order to check the spare and let it cool down. i might have been ridiculously cautious but you can't blame me. with the sort of automobile mojo i have, the spare could have easily fallen off and roll past me. and then a deer would jump over it and land on my hood.
april sb week started on sunday. i arrived without incident and checked into my motel around 6:30. this time i got a room with a kitchenette. something about the bed's proximity to the gas range unnerved me.
late one night, tuesday night i believe, i heard the folks next door doing the deed. they must have been wearing latex body suits because the rhythm sounded like two rubber balloons being rubbed together violently. the porn watcher in me was thinking, "oh yeah, there's gonna be cheering, clapping, and fireworks in this here finale." some half hour later, the commotion simply ended. no hooting or hollering. not even the default screaming for god. nothing! possibly the most anticlimactic porn immitation i've ever overheard.
tuesday g and i went to lunch at tupelo junction. we had fried green tomatoes, crab cakes, and a fried chicken salad. the waitress gave us our check before we could order dessert so we went to coldstone for icecream. we competed taking blog worthy pictures of this magnificent flowering tree.
taken in parking lot at haley+anacapa
navy car hood
close up on tubular flower, note fuzzy interior
wednesday i went for a short hike with nootz.
more blog fodder showdown
our objective
it's my all time favorite trail in sb, mcmenemy on east moutain drive. in half a mile it winds through all sorts of terrain: drive ways, back yards, creeks, oak forests, etc. there's even some rock climbing. the view from saddle rock is panoramic up and down the coast. of couse, i have no pictures to show you. here's nootz at the trail head.
taken at the end of the excursion
thursday erkan and i walked to art from scraps, a strange little business that's only open 10-2 daily. i love this place! it's full of junk, y'all!
my accomplice aka walking buddy among the goody bins
fill any paper grocery bag with colorful junk for $8
i merrily filled up a bag full of foreign maps, old ledger books, match boxes, remnant fabrics, and fine colorful electrical wires. only to put them all back because i only had $3 cash at hand. no credits cards accepted, alas.
thursday evening i had a fantastic time with g and her full lipped cousin, sarah flores. we did the usual costco ross routine plus longs and a failed attempt at finding a thrift store off patterson. we shopped so much we nearly had to strap me to the soft top to make space for the loot.
these were taken randomly on friday, when i realized i hadn't taken enough pictures for the week.
on my way to work, passing the amusement park at...
earl warren fairground at 7 am
walking to muddy waters for coffee at 7:10
standing at office front door looking up at 7:15
daily walk with erkan at 2:30
and that was that. i had a great week spending quality time with familiar faces in a comfortable town. glad to be alive in general.
i took that silly picture with my canon ae1 program back when i was living in the north mountain dorms at cal poly. i believe that's lisa, karen, ione, and jennifer, left to right. these girls lived in the building next to mine. i really don't know what they were doing. i just remember lining them up right outside their dorm so i can get that blue wall in the background.
another blast from the dorm days. that's my friend dave. he's about to get married any day now. i used to have such a crush on him. when we first met he had a massive bandage on the top of his head. his buddies had taken him skiing for the first time and tricked him down a black diamond slope. all he remembered was seeing one of his skis fly up in the air and then waking up in the back of a patrol vehicle.
novato skatepark 06 feb 2005
