Ketchup and wine

A lot has happened in the last month. I'm going to try and re-create it for you here in these next entries. Oh the joys of ketchup.

We gave ourselves a week to recover from Oliver's ragin' bday celebration. (Right.) So the BF, John, Kev, and I declared it Friday Ditch Day and went to Napa/Sonoma. Actually it was my last Summer Friday (and, sadly, those of you in the corporate world know how dearly we hold on to those--ugh, kill me). It was a good day and a good haul--way better than sitting in a lightless suckhole aka. my desk. We had the carefully planned out route of let's-stop-at-the-next-one-on-the-right. Cline, Trefethin (they had dogs roaming the grounds so of course that was my favorite), Miner, Ballentine, and... at least two more... I can't remember. And no, I wasn't looped. I was the DD. And I still managed to enjoy myself. Shocking, yes I know.

More ketchup (and ice cream)

The following weekend, I volunteered to scoop ice cream at the Slow Food festival. Slow Food and the ideas behind slow food are pretty cool. There was an interesting article in San Francisco Magazine about how SF completely missed the boat on the purpose of slow food, making it elitist, yuppie and inaccessible. I dunno about all that. I'm not really into food. I mean, I like to eat, but I'm no foodie. That's more the BF's arena.


Ok, so back to volunteering. Here's the thing. It was fun and all, but the next time I'm anywhere where VOLUNTEERS are handing out food, I'm really going to think twice about eating it. Don't get me wrong. Volunteers are lovely people, yes, yes. And I try to volunteer at least once a month. It's awesome, can't say enough good things about volunteering (except that I don't do it often enough). Not only am I "doing good" (and contributing to something bigger), I meet tons of great people and I have fun in the process. THAT being said... at this event, some volunteers were simply lazy. Others were just plain gross. I could kinda handle the gross ones if they were earnestly trying. I get it: things can get a little hectic if there's a long line of people and ice cream is in demand. So they're slobs and have a messy workstation, so what--at least they have a good heart. Licking your fingers or the scoopers and then handing the ice cream over to a customer all while sweating profusely... now that's just straight up sick. Gross, right? Wait. It gets worse. So the booth had those typical ice cream freezers, the kind where you've gotta lean over a little ledge in order to reach the containers? One lady (a fellow scooper) was reaching into the freezer to scoop, and there were some already-scooped dishes of ice cream sitting on the ledge that she had to reach over. I swear her pits touched the top of the ice cream in those dishes. And she was wearing a tank top! Honest to god. You'd think I'd lose my appetite after that, but I still somehow scarfed down at least eight scoops (which I scooped myself thankyouverymuch!!)



1. Fort Mason, all prettied up. 2. The booth. 3. MMM pre-pit ice cream! 4. My blister from scooping.

Sprucing Up in the TP

It takes a lot to get me out of bed before 9am on a Saturday. Hell, me being up before noon on any given weekend is just shy of a miracle. So if I'm going to get up, it had better be good. And for a good cause. And I'd better get a free bagel out of it too, dammit. Well, every so often, the unlikely happens and I wake up early. Through Hands on Bay Area, the BF and I get a chance to do good and spruce up our neighborhood. Twin Peaks is the second highest hill in SF, draws a lot of tourists at the lookout area up top, and is literally our backyard. HoBA volunteers team up with REI and the SF Recreation and Park Department to clean up and restore the hilltop, which is the indigenous home to lots of plants and wildlife, but most notably to the endangered Mission Blue Butterfly. Basically, we spend about 3-4 hours pulling weeds. The first time we did it, it was cold, wet, and extremely windy. My hands and feet were frozen and my knees were soaked and muddy. This last time was the polar opposite. It was unseasonably hot weather and, tugging at those roots, we were sweatin' big time. The BF even busted a shoe. It sounds miserable from the way I've described it, but it's actually a lot of fun. We learn a lot about the local animal, bird, and plant life, and we get to meet cool people who live in the area too. It's a pretty satisfying feeling--toiling away and then taking a look around you. You get to see how much you've accomplished and how different the landscape looks. Definitely worth getting up early for on a Saturday morning.



1. Snapped a few of the other volunteers; 2. Tugging at those pesky radishes; 3. Filet of sole (the BF's busted shoe); 4. Looking up the hillside.