Guinea Pigs 'R' Us

One of my least favourite things is miscommunication. Whether it's with friends, in a professional setting, or wherever, it's never fun and always hard to deal with. People naturally hear things very differently, and sometimes I have to force myself to listen to the EXACT words a person is saying, rather than hearing what I naturally would. I think between my friends and my marriage, I've learned an awful lot about communicating clearly, even though I still have TONS of issues with it. Case in point: I almost texted Nolan last night before he got home, "I'm experimenting with mushrooms!"...and then realized some things can have dual meanings.

We leave for Peru in 9 weeks (from tomorrow), and apparently there is a day that we spend with local villagers, learning Incan crafts and then eating lunch in their homes. The list from which we had to choose 3 workshops was:
• Ceramics
• Chocolate making
• Chicha (typical maize drink) preparation
• Bee keeping
• Flower growing
• Weaving
• Coffee processing
• Guinea pig raising

Yes, we could learn how to raise Guinea pigs. And Nolan was pretty excited about it, until I veered him towards more sane things. Like chocolate making, ceramics, and weaving.

fungi

It turns out that I can add yet another item to my list of irrational fears: large, raw mushrooms.

After having the fantastic grilled portabella mushroom salad at Samovar, I thought I'd try it on my own. So I walked into the market, picked up a couple of big ones, and dropped them again. I had to take a deep breath before pinching them with my fingers, throwing them into a bag and dropping it hastily into my shopping basket. Getting them back out was harder, but de-stemming them was the worst. I felt the same kind of feeling as if I were staring at a tarantula through a thin piece of glass. Whew.

Even Milo was a little hesitant:

thrifty?

Nothing like yoga class with friends after a hard few days of work - I'm loving this new hobby of mine, and it's loving me back.

Still on the hunt for new shoes. What's frustrating about having gift cards to spend is not being able to find stuff to spend them on. Seriously. The only time I can remember what I want is when I don't have the means to get it. Life is full of such little puzzles as these, designed to make us realize that we can't always get what we want. Either that, or it just likes to crap on our faces.

sparkly

Sunday was our last beautiful day before the bad weather set in again, so we lived it up by laying around in the park with some friends, and watching some guy play with a sparkly ball and roll it over every bodily surface. He also had shaved his chest hair into a perfect square, and by the way he was focusing intently on that sweaty, sparkly ball, I'm pretty sure he was on some crazy drugs.

Now we're back to the rain and cold...at least I have yoga tonight to keep me warm :)

Pallino

It's proven to be yet another gorgeous weekend here in San Francisco. Who knew the weather could be so nice? I actually got to go sweater-less yesterday, GASP.

So to celebrate, a few of us went to Crissy field on Saturday to have a birthday party for Tiffany and Brandon. The grass probably hadn't been cut since last year, and as a result, all the small dogs that were running around were often noticeable only by the stub of tail sticking above the grass. This, combined with the wind, made games almost impossible. So after a few rounds of the most ridiculous games of bocce ball ever (where is the pallino?!), some of the boys thought a good man-game would be to see who could drop a ball on their abs from the highest height. Since those balls are RIDICULOUSLY heavy, even for a bocce ball set, this sounded like a stupid idea. But let me just say that I don't get man-games. This is like when I was in Israel and the boys on our team thought of the best man-game ever: who could shut their fingers in the doorjamb the hardest. Hhhh. Needless to say there weren't any true winners there. But then again this could all be related to a man's sense of competition. Case in point: Tom's need to do immediate pull-ups in his room when he lost a game of Wii bowling in front of everyone. Anyway, the only good that came of this, was that it made for excellent pictures of the madness, of which I'll only post a couple:
Tom and the initial drop


And Brandon, after his higher drop, saying, "See? Dropping a giant stone on my stomach from 3 feet up is NOTHING." Hahaha.


More big news for me: a new laundromat was just put in RIGHT across the street - and it's new, shiny, HUGE, and has pink and white shiny chairs and music blaring and a giant TV with the news on. The tiles are shiny and clean and each of the washing machines is humongous and brand spanking new. I think I'm in love.

keys!

I was going to spend this post ranting about how terrible the muni is, since it took me an HOUR AND A HALF to get home last night...but then I found out it was because someone was hit by a train underground. So now I feel like a bad person for complaining and this post is already a downer. Sigh.

On a totally unrelated note: the weather was gorgeous today, so my coworker and I went out for a walk to get some fresh air and enjoy the sunshine! We found something interesting along the way:

Instead of bike stands, they have giant keys in the sidewalk all along this random alley that has a dead end. Waste of money or interesting detail?

Hooray for yoga tonight with Ash U!

Quote of the day:
me: "what? who died!?"
DG: "Jo!"
me: "who's that?"
DG: "JO MAMA!!!"
me: "hhhh."

great expectations

I hate it when you set your hopes on something, and then it gets dashed to the ground. Even if it is just a silent wishing, it still sucks when it gets ripped away. For example: today I wanted to go to our Community Days event at work. You know, hang out with coworkers, do some good for the community. But actual work always comes first, and I ended up stuck at the office doing that, while my nice new Community Days t-shirt sat forlorn in my locker. Now I'll feel like a poser whenever I wear it.

Another example? When the sun starts to come out in San Francisco. How many times have I thought, "Ahh, maybe NOW it will be sunny! Maybe I'll get to live in a sunny coastal town!". But no.

Still a little sore from yoga on Tuesday...guess my workout today will be intense stretching to try and work out this stiffness! Tomorrow: class # 2 of yoga with Ash U!