I've heard Jupiter is overrated anyway

Last Saturday night was one of those nights that didn't turn out quite how we had imagined it.

We had a reservation to camp out in a small regional park which happens to be right near Oakland and even more importantly right near the Chabot* Space Center and Observatory. Chabot is particularly neat because up on the roof they have several enormous telescopes that they open up to the public on Friday and Saturday nights after dark.

Our brilliant plan was in place: go set up camp, drive over to check out the telescopes, and then head back to the campsite for a fire, some late-night smores and to sleep under the stars. What a great evening!

Almost. A few unexpected snags got in the way, some of which were my fault. Others of which were not. Most of the ones that were my fault involve us getting lost, which we did more than once, and which I will not discuss in any detail here for obvious reasons.

Thus the story begins while we were turning around and trying to get on the right highway heading the right way, and I called the campsite to confirm that the google maps directions were actually going to work. They weren't: it hadn't taken into account the different gates and the one we had to enter at for the campground was on the far side of the park. Further, the "road" that google said we could drive on through the park to get to the observatory was a phantom and we would have to drive out and around to get there. Then the final blow: gate to the campsite locked at 10pm. No entry after that even if all your stuff was there.

It became clear that we had to choose: telescopes or camping? Which did we want more?

Telescopes.

So we turned around again and went away from the campground towards the telescopes. We got there just before dark and after chasing exiting families around the parking garage trying to get their parking spots (we were not the only ones doing this, and we were clearly not the best at it as we kept getting beat and missing out on the spots), we finally secured a parking spot and headed up to check out the scopes.

As we could have suspected from the parking garage mayhem, we were not the only people who had had this idea. There were hundreds of people up there, most of them in one of the lines for the various telescopes. We immediately got into a line, and then started wondering exactly how long this line was going to take. It was very dark. We stood there and the line moved very, very slowly. The longer we waited the hungrier we got, but also the more invested we got and so we stayed and stayed well past any rational person's willingness to wait in line to see...a star cluster. That's right: we spent an hour standing in line to look through a little hole and see a small grouping of bright white dots against a black background.

Only too late did we learn that one of the other lines was for a telescope that was looking at Jupiter.

On the way out there was also a small telescope set up that was looking at the Moon. We each took a peak and were totally blown away at how clearly you could see detail on the Moon's surface. It was amazing. It almost made up for waiting an hour to see a cluster.

Starving and disappointed, we proceeded to get lost on the way home and ended the night eating pizza at 11pm at a place near our apartment. Then we unpacked our camping stuff and went to sleep in our own bed. We'd seen enough stars for one night anyway.


*Sha-BO, in case you were tempted to make it rhyme with the Vermont cheddar cheese makers.

It must be 4pm

My office is on the top floor of my building and it has a skylight that opens onto the building's roof deck above. My office mate and I keep it open for fresh air and so that lots of extra dust and dirt can accumulate on our desks each week.

For the past week, there has been a new ritual as well: an unknown lady who works in the building and wears high heels has gotten in the habit of going up to the roof deck every afternoon right around 4pm for a smoke, a chat on the phone and to pace loudly just over my head.

Clip clop, clip clop, back and forth she goes like a chatty Clydesdale.

Rather than sit at my desk and roll my eyes in the direction of the roofdeck, I've decided it's a perfect opportunity to take a walk around the office, get the latest news, and snoop for snacks. Today I'm on the hunt for dried mango.

Things you find in the forest

Eric and I escaped the blistering heat of the sun-powered oven in which we live to go for a hike in the woods yesterday. We decided on a hike that starts up on a ridge on Mt Tam and descends into Muir Woods, from whence you must then climb out. The main attraction of this hike: trees. Eric estimates we saw about 40,000 of them, give or take.

I don't usually love canyon-style hikes (down first, then up) because it can be hard to pace yourself, and whereas one* might find it tempting to bail out early on a summit, you have no such option when up is where the car is.

We didn't see many other people on the trail, which was somewhat surprising given what a glorious day it was. We did, however (or perhaps as a result) see some fun wildlife.

• At our first break on the way down we noticed, after a moment of standing there, that there were honey bees everywhere and they seemed to be coming and going from a large tree right near us. "A treehive!" exclaimed Eric excitedly. We did not try to get any of the honey even though (/because) in my black t-shirt I could easily have been mistaken for a bear.
• Woody woodpecker made an appearance during a long flat stretch as we loped along a ridge. We heard the characteristic wood-pecking not far away and saw there on the tree ol' Woody knocking his head against the branch. Very cool, and only slightly disappointing that we didn't hear his characteristic "Ha-ha-ha-haaa-ha!"
• A large-sounding rustling noise in the brush put us both on the alert. Insurgent? No - a small buck deer who had scampered up a hillside as he heard us approaching. Once he was about 15 feet up the hill from us he stopped and turned and looked at us, looking very comfortable. Eric waved. "He thinks he's hidden," he observed. "We can see you!" he called to the deer. Deer just stared at us. We waved again and then headed on our way when it was clear the deer wouldn't be providing any further entertainment.
• Towards the end of the hike we passed a group of four young Asian men who were sashaying delicately down the trail giggling and squealing. "Gay-sians!" whispered Eric after we said hello and passed. At first I thought he said "Geishas" which I also thought was funny.
  

It was a very satisfying hike.


*Not me, but other people.

Pear Guy strikes again

It being Tuesday yesterday, I went to get the fruit, as I do.

I was greeted once again by the new young fellow who gave me the free pear last time, and we started with the same ritual as last week. "Your box sucks - have one of these special pears." I thanked him and proceeded to load the rest of my fruit into my backpack. He stood there watching me, and another young gentleman colleague came over the watch the unparalleled drama of me piling peaches, Asian pears and pluots into my bag.

Pear Guy's monologue about my fruit box continued this time.

"Oh look," he went on, "look how they gave you a whole bunch of really small peaches this week. They must think you have really small teeth."

Courtesy laugh.

"Or maybe they think they're for all your kids. They don't know that you're a single lady who..."

"Stop it man!" hissed the colleague. "Dude, look at her ring!"

"Oh yeah, look at that. That's quite a ring. What does this guy do anyway?" Pear Guy was not letting up.

"He's a scientist," I offered.

"What kind of scientist?" they wanted to know.

"A virologist."

Mercifully, the fruit was now safely stowed in my bag and I zipped it up, thanked them for their help and headed for the door.

"Watch out for H1N1!" Pear Guy called after me.

Homeless on homeless

Standing on the street waiting to see an apartment, Eric and I watched the humanity show at Church and Market.

There was a homeless man collapsed on the street about 25 feet away. He was clutching a fifth of something that appeared to be empty. It was either the contents of the bottle or some other thin liquid that streamed away from the middle of his prone body and down the sidewalk. He was either doing pilates or struggling to sit up: he kept lifting his head and shoulders off the ground, hovering for a moment, and then collapsing back down.

All flavors of hipster, fresh young ingenue, steampunk, angry older Asian woman, and muscly gay man streamed past as we continued to wait to see the apartment.

A homeless looking fellow wearing a too large suit and untied sneakers walked by and as he walked past the prone homeless man he gave him a good swift kick.

Then, not more than two minutes later, an older homeless man doing a good job of staggering down the block, paused his bobbing and weaving to yell at his collapsed comrade.

"What is it about passed out homeless people that makes other homeless people so mad?" wondered Eric aloud.

I called the guy who was supposed to be showing us the apartment. He was flaking on us. We merged into the parade of humanity and went on our way.

Strictly speaking

For no reason in particular, both Eric and I woke up Sunday feeling a little lethargic and mildly grumpy.

"Are we suffering from malaise?" I joked with Eric.

Then later, over lunch, as I flipped through the economist, I read about a medical condition the symptoms of which included chills, fever and malaise.

"Ha," I said. "Did you know 'malaise' can actually be a symptom of a disease?"

Being a virologist with extensive medical training, Eric did know this.

"I always thought malaise was more of a philosophical condition," I admitted*. "But maybe that's just a different type - so there's medical Malaise and then there's French malaise."

Eric laughed through his nose with a sneer. I briefly had the impression that he had a pencil mustache and was smoking a cigarette through a long elegant cigarette holder.

"Yes, I think you've got the French malaise," I concluded.


*When not overwhelmed with malaise, it is moments like this when Eric brings up the wisdom of my Brown University undergraduate education which, due to the absence of a core curriculum, largely lacked the more science-y offerings.

First one in gets some free Mahler!

Eric and I kicked off our subscription to the San Francisco Symphony last night with the first concert of the season. It was the SFS's beloved MTT* conducting Mahler, his specialty. The selections from last night were a set of songs called the Ruckert songs, and then Mahler's 1st. Eric and I missed the official pre-concert talk so we had our own and debated whether Mahler's music is more aptly characterized as "angsty" or "tortured." There was also some discussion of the actual meaning of the word "lachrymose" as it applies to oboes.

The concert began with the songs, sung by mezzo-soprano Susan Graham. I do not exaggerate when I say they were transcendent. This was music at its most glorious.

The performance of Mahler's 1st was wonderful as well though without that same heartbreaking beauty the songs had captured. MTT was fun to watch as he hopped around on his little podium almost like a mime performing a range of characters for the orchestra: the Tin Man, Mousy Old Woman, Used Car Salesman, Dick Van Dyke, Pillsbury Dough Boy, and many others. Parts of it were eerily like the soundtrack to Mary Poppins, which I don't think was Mahler's work but I started feeling less and less certain of that as the music went on. I think Eric's favorite part was when everything got very very quiet and I closed my eyes and everything was very soft and lovely and then CRASH! enter the cymbals. I practically leapt out of my chair.

They were recording the concert and as a bonus (and a bribe to minimize extraneous noises during the concert) they handed out cards which have a code that you can redeem on iTunes for a free Mahler sampler courtesy of the SF Symphony. We happened to get two extra cards, so the first two people to try these codes get some free Mahler!

From the iTunes store, click Redeem under Quick Links. Enter the code below and your download will start immediately.
Download code: FYKEMHPMRL9J
Download code: E96HK6NJ3M9J

Who says I never give away anything good? (Let me know who the big winners are!)

*

The cause of, and solution to, all life's problems

I'm a little late to this news but while listening to an outdated podcast on my ipod this week during my commute, I learned that researchers have finally proven what I have long suspected: beer is great for women, especially older women at risk of health issues due to a loss of bone density (I'm not sure I knew about that last part).

Mom, it might be time to switch from wine to beer.

Sweet

I went to get the fruit today* around 5:30. The shop officially closes at 5pm, so they have the gate pulled closed but they are still in there hanging out and cleaning up. Each week I pull up on my bike and wave and ask them for my box, and they open the gate just enough to squeeze the box through so I can unload the box into my backpack and bike it home.

This time there was a new guy there who I hadn't seen before and he was the one who brought me the box. He brought it over to me, opened it up, looked in it, and then looked at me and said:

"Your box sucks."

"Um...." I was a little perplexed by this exchange.

"Your box sucks," he reiterated, "because it doesn't have any Mumblety** Pears."

He set the box down and walked away, then returned a moment later with a plate of cut up pear.

"Eat this" he instructed me.

I ate a piece of pear. It was good: sweet, and peary.

"Isn't that above and beyond." It was a statement, not a question.

"Yeah, that's a great pear," I acknowledged.

"Here. You need to have one of these." He picked up a brand new Mumblety Pear and put it in my box.

"Now you're all set."



*We belong to a local, organic, fruit-only CSA at Frog Hollow Farm and every Tuesday we have to go pick up our box of fruit. It's delicious and you always get whatever is in season.
**He was clearly talking about a specific varietal of pear but I have no idea which one.

Nobody does it better

The folks over at Deepish Thoughts have said so well what I was going to say today that rather than trying to come anywhere close, I am just going to send you over there to enjoy the real thing. Not only is it funny and touching and important, it includes some truly cute and hilarious photos. Don't miss out.

For the record, this is a recognition of a job well done and not a cop out. I'd like to be very clear on that point.

Go Carson's Thunder!

And we're back

Football season began yesterday. I know this because, in spite of having just arrived off a 12 hour flight from Amsterdam and having been up since the equivalent of midnight the night before, I found myself at Jillian's watching the Titans and Steelers duke it out in the season opener.

Eric and I still don't have a TV, and we still don't want one 90% of the time. So when we need to watch live TV as is usually the case with sports, we go to this bar a few blocks away which is fine for the Sunday morning games but which in the evenings gets downright sketchy. If SF police ever wanted to nab the entire SF-based Russian mafia all they need to do is go on a night when the Red Wings are playing.

Another good thing about watching football in bars is that you have an immediate bond with anyone near you also cheering for your team. Not that there aren't plenty of Tennesseans living in California*, but it was fun to discover last night that the Titans fans at the table next to us went to Eric's high school and one of them graduated the same year as his sister.

And like that, the football season begins! Go Bears!


*there aren't

New view of old friend

And on your right, Mount Shasta from 40,000 feet.

A walk near Schiphol

This afternoon our meetings ended at 4pm so I had some time to relax a bit before dinner. I decided to go for a walk. You may recall that I am staying 100 yards from the airport, so this isn't exactly walking tour country, but one of the guys from my meetings said he'd been running along the bike path and within minutes you're away from the airport and in farmland. He said he saw chickens. I had to go.

So I set off on a little walk down the bike path, hoping for fresh country air and relaxation. I quickly discovered that one of the different things here is that motorized scooters also go on the bike paths and as far as I can tell they are all in a quite a hurry.

It was great to be outside but walking is a lot slower than running and I didn't get to the good stuff until it was pretty much time to turn around. So I got a full helping of jet fuel fumes and airport operations scenery, and just a taste of the pretty countryside. I didn't get to see a single chicken.

On the walk back not one but two scooter-ers stopped to offer me a lift and both seemed sincerely puzzled when I did not accept. It was very tempting, but then again I had gone out expressly for a walk so taking a ride would have defeated the whole purpose.

Here's the best of what I saw:

And now for something different

I'm in Amsterdam this week for work and because I didn't get to book my own travel, I am not staying at a Starwood property (booo); instead I am staying in a hotel called Citizen M which is remarkable in a number of ways.

1. It is walking distance from the airport. I literally got off my flight, wheeled my bag out of the terminal and down a small paved walkway about a hundred yards to the hotel. It it well sound-proofed so you don't hear airport noises, which is nice. At check-in I was offered a 'runway view' or a 'World Trade Center' view, which is nice way of saying the view that looks at some other buildings with a bunch of flags on them. I chose runway view but somehow got WTC view instead. Eh, whatever.

2. If one day you found yourself making hotel arrangements for George Jetson this would be a safe bet if you were worried about him feeling comfortable in familiar surroundings. As you can see in the photo below, the room includes two sliding-glass-enclosed pods for the toilet and shower. They seem to have forgotten the pod that puts your clothes on you and does your hair.


3. The room makes a lot happen in not a lot of square footage and doesn't include silly wastes of space like, oh, a closet. You only get three clothes hangers for the rack by the door and when you ask for more like one of my colleagues did, you get a look like "Ugh, Americans." And then you get told no.

4. The room has a mood pad that allows you to change the way the lights go and varies between a range of mood music options and probably other things that I haven't even discovered yet.

5. The blinds are motorized and you can open and close them from a push button you can reach from the bed (then again, practically anything in this room is reachable from the bed so that's a dubious distinction).

I've heard that the bed actually converts to a couch at the touch of a button, too, but haven't seen it for myself. Am vaguely concerned I will accidentally discover that button on the middle of the night and get squished.

Stuff and more stuff

It's Saturday morning. Eric is teaching his first class at the UC Berkeley Extension this morning (Go Eric Go!!!) and left at least 90 minutes too early but I think you kind of have to do that the first time.

I am packing and doing last minute prep for a business trip to Amsterdam for which I leave today* which means I am actually vacuuming and dusting and cleaning the bathroom because for some reason those are all more appealing right now than the things I am supposed to be doing.

Drunk Mexicans are singing and laughing on the street below. They're singing "Cielito Lindo" which I remember from my 9th grade Spanish class. It is one of those rare songs that actually doesn't sound all that different sung by bored, embarrassed 9th graders or by drunk Mexicans.

I've now decided I need to throw out all of my shoes. They are in a paper bag by the door. All except for a few essential pairs that were spared. The rest must go. And by go, I mean that they go down to the "storage area" in the garage where they sit in Goodwill purgatory while I wait to realize that I have made a horrible mistake choosing to throw them away. After a few months, if I haven't thought about them, then off they go for real.

I'm back to reading fiction books again, something I gave up for about 18 months there for no reason other than that I just sort of stopped reading them. But now I am back and making up for the lost time. The only good thing about the 11 hour flight ahead of me is that my laptop battery will die and I will have no excuse not to tuck into some quality fiction. One other good thing about the flight is that it is direct to Amsterdam. The bad thing about the flight is that I am flying coach, even though it is for work. But now it's time to go so I'll have to save my self-righteous griping about that for another time since I still need to finish packing.


*Brutal, no?

Made a friend in the airport bathroom

So that's what's on my mind

I had a full-day meeting today with two colleagues and two clients. We were preparing for the summit we're holding next week in Amsterdam and so we were running through the agenda, reviewing the various slide decks and videos, and making sure all the logistics have been thought through.

At one point in the early afternoon, one of the clients turned his laptop to the other and said "I thought this might be great at this point in the agenda."

He was so mysterious about it that one of my colleagues said "Ooh, I wonder what it is."

"It's a video of a mermaid riding a donkey," I said without hesitation.

"Sometimes Ellie accidentally lets her true self show through," explained my colleague to address the stares and confused titters of the clients.

We all like to feel useful

I am doing one of my quick Seattle trips and flew up this morning on, mercifully, not the crack of dawn flight but the one immediately after it.

I had a middle seat. The woman to my right, who had the window, was nondescript and mostly just sat there. There was an older gentleman to my right, on the aisle, who was traveling with his wife (I assume) who was seated on the other side of the aisle from him.

After the beverage service, the man put his napkins into the empty plastic cups and stacked them up, put his tray table into its upright locked position, and then just held the trash in his hands.

He sat there and held the trash. For kind of a long time.

Then, every so often, the wife would add another item to the pile of trash this fellow was holding: her empty coffee cup, then a crumpled napkin, then a gum wrapper added to the top of the pile like a cherry on a sundae. I couldn't really see her - all I could see was a ghostly hand floating into view, depositing used bits and pieces, and then floating off. The intervals between deposits were just long enough that you would start to think that it was done, and then more trash would float in from offstage left and be set just so onto the growing pile.

He continued to sit there and hold the trash.

Time passed. I took a short nap.

After a while, when I had woken up, he turned to me and said,

"Do you have any trash?"

Really?

"Um, yeah, I guess" I sputtered. I took my empty coffee cup and crumpled napkin from the seat pocket and added it to the pile.

He seemed pleased.

A solid ten minutes later the flight attendant came by with the garbage bag and he was relieved of his armload of airplane refuse.

I probably imagined it, but he almost looked disappointed.