Land's End

I'm trying to go hiking at least once a week. Last weekend I went to Land's End. It's part of the GGNRA, the National Park site that Alcatraz is also part of, and it's completely awesome and beautiful.











The full set of pictures is here.

BONE ZONE

My sister and I started a new blog, Welcome to the Bone Zone, based on inside jokes and stupidity and hilariousness and us talking about how much we need to get laid. I think it's pretty funny. Check it out.

Terrariums, 3 weeks later

From this:

to this:


This:

to this:


This:

to this:


And this:

to this:

(The little plant actually went through it's entire life cycle and then died. At one point it was so tall I had to take out the cork and let it grow out of the top.)

I've been..

getting back into cooking and crafting recipes in a MAJOR way lately. Here are some pictures from this past week:

Pear, Plum & Ginger tartlet.


Stuffed Acorn Squash


Ratatouille

Update Post #2: Hike from Ocean Beach to Stow Lake

So the day after Garrett left I decided to take the train down to Ocean Beach and then hike my way home through Golden Gate Park. It was an amazingly beautiful and warm day and a fantastic way to spend a few hours.


The swells at the beach were huge and moving very very fast. It was awesome.



These little jelly things were everywhere on the sand. No idea what exactly they are.



Kelp and sea foam.



Dead sea lion. It was pretty small, maybe 3-4 feet and something had stolen its head.



There is a great group of ravens, or an "unkindness" if you will, that live at Ocean Beach. I see them around the park and the Sunset all the time. They love to hang out on these lights along Great Highway, and this one totally succeeded in scaring off the gull who was trying to share it with him. (I have the whole incident in series in the album on Flickr)



There were so many mushrooms growing under this tree. Back in my pagan days I'm sure I would have thought that fairies lived there or something.



Dead gopher at Stow Lake.



Dirty tree sex behind South Lake.

Oh! The best part of this hike is when I totally discovered the gay cruising spot in the park. I saw a random trail and decided to follow it. As I'm just going into it, I see this sort of business-casual dressed guy walk by. I thought it was a little weird but kept following the trail into this much more heavily wooded area, full of large thickets of bushes and trees. This old guy passes me in a cardigan and khakis. Thought it was weird that I kept getting passed by all these men who were definitely not dressed for a hike through the park. Then I see a guy standing ahead of me, but facing away, in this sort of clearing through some trees and I think "Huh, that guy looks like he's taking a leak, maybe I should stop and wait until he's done" and as I'm thinking this another old guy just pops out of some bushes to my right and starts walking away while buttoning up his cardigan. Then it all comes together and I say "OH MY GOD" out loud and start laughing, and immediately turn around and walk away, still laughing. It was amazing.

Update Post #1: Garrett Comes to Visit

So I've really been slacking on shoving my rad life down all of your throats. This is where I get back on that.

I took a few days off last weekend because I was supposed to go to Houston with my mom and sister to visit family. That of course didn't work out, because trying to plan anything with my family is an exercise is futility and ridiculousness, so Garrett came up and visited me instead. We had a much more mellow time than we did the last time he was up here, but it was still huge amounts of fun. Plus I made him gourmet breakfasts everyday, which got me waaaay back into cooking in a major way, so I'm happy.



Dragged him to bingo on Thursday, so that we could both drool over Johnny the hot bartender. He ended up winning and got this fantastic alligator.



In front of Saints Peter and Paul Church in North Beach. I walked him from Market and Kearny, up through Chinatown and North Beach, over to Pier 39, and then back down to Market later that night. We hit up some bars along the way and played tourist.



Sitting in my kitchen, eating breakfast burritos I made using homemade refried beans.




We spent a lot of time just hanging out in bed, talking and cracking each other up. Those are the best times.

As promised...

the full files for the songs from "Ships & Seas" in a 70MB .rar file.

1. Bonnie "Prince" Billy - My Home is the Sea
2. Okkervil River - Lost Coastlines
3. Nick Cave - Pinery Boy
4. Dead Man's Bones - Paper Ships
5. Bonnie "Prince" Billy - Is it the Sea?
6. The Long Winters - The Commander Thinks Aloud
7. Death Cab for Cutie - Transatlanticism
8. Okkervil River - A Girl in Port
9. Bonnie "Prince" Billy & Matt Sweeney - Death in the Sea
10. Rufus Wainwright & Kate McGarrigle - Lowlands Away

Ships & Seas

My newest "mixtape":

Inspired by a night on a ship on the bay. It was beautiful.
I'll put all the actual tracks up on here later this week.

Oh November..

aren't you off to such a great start? Sigh.

Sunday night was the first time I've hated this city. I got better though.

I do hate this new time. The days go by so fast and the nights seem to drag on forever. I used to love the dark but right now all I want is sun and running around outside and being in nature. It doesn't help that all of a sudden we're in the middle of full-fledged summer weather up here.

Garrett will be here tomorrow night and then I've got 4 days off, on 3 of which I will be hanging out with him. I hope the weather lasts through then. We will have epic hikes and beaches and exploration and adventure.

Oh yeah....

I saw Dead Man's Bones the other night. It was basically amazing. If
you weren't there you should be super jealous.

Green goodness

So I've been making terrariums like mad for the past few days. Right now I'm using very special found materials to make them, instead of buying plants, but I can't say where I'm getting the plants/bones from because it's super top secret. But I will show you pictures.










Random terrarium inspiration links:
This guy's flickr.
The Fern and Mossery.
Pitcher plant terrarium on a great botany/horticulture blog.
Design Sponge: Found Terrariums.
SFGate article: Gardening Under Glass.

Songs of the Morning

This is right where I'm at today. Listen to get there too.

Breakfast

Sliced fingerling potatoes and mushrooms sauteed in butter, garlic, and herbes de provance and then scrambled with eggs. Finished with fresh mint and crumbled chevre.

Be jealous.

My day in camera-phone pictures

Vulture

Images of the progress are here.

Banana Slugs on the Island

It's that time of year again.

(2:45:35 PM) Marie: So last night I was hanging out on my roof with this guy for a few hours
(2:45:51 PM) Marie: and when I came back in my room this bag of rice cakes had been ripped open and stuff
(2:46:00 PM) Marie: and my roommate said we had mice so that's what i thought it was
(2:46:25 PM) Marie: just now I was walking around and I had noticed this smudge of black on my bedside table which i thought was paint that i had gotten on there and didn't notice
(2:46:26 PM) Marie: but no
(2:46:35 PM) Marie: there are sooty raccoon prints all over my floor
(2:46:41 PM) Marie: pretty sure one came in through my fireplace
(2:46:46 PM) Chris: Bwahahahahahahahah!
(2:46:59 PM) Chris: You has raccoon friends

More pictures here.

Fleet Week

So last weekend was Fleet Week. I'm not really into airshows and planes and shit, and I saw it all last year, but I have to say that watching the Blue Angels fly over us from the roof of the cellhouse was pretty thrilling. Must be my adrenaline-junkie side kicking in again. I got some pretty cool pictures. The grey skies were apparently detrimental to their flying, but I think they add a nice surreal aspect to the pictures.










I took some video too which I'll probably upload soon.

Boats in the water for fleet week

Sunset over Judah