Last weekend I had a cooking class for four hours Sunday, so Dad agreed to come down this weekend to celebrate Father's Day. Friday night we all took it easy. Julien and I snuck out a bit early from work so that we could buy some groceries for dinner, and Julien prepared jumbalaya as a treat for all of us. We had a pretty relaxed evening and went to bed early -- I had been feeling shot since Tinariwen kept us up 'til midnight the previous Tuesday.

Saturday morning I got up early to go to ballet class while the gentlemen slept it. I think it was the first time that I didn't leave ballet class feeling invigorated. I don't know if it was my sweating problem, or the fact that I couldn't stop stressing about all of the work assignments I need to complete before our vacation, but when I got back I was testy and unfortunately everyone could tell. Dad did his best to cheer me up while Julien made us a nice lunch of asparagus, sausage, and omelet. Dad had brought down his Julia Child cookbook for us to admire, which we had been quite interested in since seeing "Julie and Julia" Thursday. We followed her directions for preparing an omelet, and came out with the very best ones Julien had ever made. They were crispy on the outside but tender and moist on the inside, and all around wonderfully delicious and satisfactory.

After breakfast we decided to go to Sauvie Island to go raspberry picking. I think this was what really cheered me up. We went to the same farm as last year, which I find inspiringly beautiful. It was still rather early in the season, so we had to hunt around for the berries. We started with the variety that the host had recommended came in earlier, and after picking nearly a flat's worth, we decided to try the other variety just for fun. These, the Tillameens (I think), turned out to be far more delicious, so we ended up picking a second flat. Then we went to check out the blueberries, but these were definitely still too early.

We dashed home to drop off the berries before taking the Max to meet the Steiners for the Organic Beer Festival at Overlook Park. We didn't find the beers as outstanding as the ones at the winter beer festival, but there were a lot of fun varieties to sample and it was very pleasant to sit under the shade of a large tree, with bright sunshine all around. After a few hours we headed home and had a nice dinner of lamb shank, pasta, and green beans. After dinner I completely passed out, leaving poor Julien to make all of the jam.

When I was a kid I used to get pretty bad stomach aches, and my Dad always had the most amazing technique for curing them. He would systematically massage my abdomen (helping what was usually just a severe case of trapped gas escape) while telling me comforting and soothing things in a style learned from a hypnosis class. I had forgotten all about this, but as soon as he offered to help that evening, and he began the first ritual words, I could feel a whole class of tension escape my body. He soon had my tummy feeling much better, and I slipped into a deep and restful sleep.

Sunday morning we all slept in. Julien and I had apparently traded places, and after slaving over the jam he was exhausted and ill. I left him at home to recuperate and took Dad out for a tasty brunch at screen door. Afterward, the two of us went for a long walk up the waterfront, to Jamison Park. Along the way, we stopped at Saturday market and did a bit of shopping. Once at the park, we stopped for ice cream before catching the street car back home. All in all it was wonderfully lazy.

Once Dad had headed home, I did some laundry and made a Berry Glace Pie out of the remaining fresh raspberries. We had it for dessert later that evening, and it was delicious! I had also picked up a stash of books from the library, and devoured almost entirely the excellent "Hunger Games" by Suzanne Collins, which I had been awaiting eagerly for months.

Tags: book, cook, dad, movie

My 5k race time from last week was 29:11, a 9:07 pace. Seeing as my previous pace has always been 10:00, I'm super pleased with this improvement. Of course my rank puts it in perspective -- I finished 259 out of 699, but then again, the average time was over 36 minutes. I'd post a photo but a) you have to buy them, and I'm a cheapskate, and more pertinently, b) I look bad in all of them so I don't really want to pony up the cash for that :)

Tags: run

The rain finally let up to reveal a spectacularly summery weekend. We've been drowning in sunshine and basking in temperatures in the 80s. Yesterday we celebrated by taking my bike to a local shop to get its front tire replaced. I really like the guy at that shop -- they do all of the service stuff for free, so buying a $30 tire meant that he replaced and installed a new U-lock holder for free. Nice!

We then enjoyed ourselves by biking all over the east side neighborhoods. We stopped at Pix for a pick-me-up snack. I had a St. Honore pastry and an iced latte, and Julien tried there house-made ice cream (the Port flavor blew us both away) along with a Chimay. Then we fulfilled a long time goal by biking up to Allen's place in NE. He was having a back yard BBQ to celebrate his parent's visit and his newly finished patio. We played horseshoes in one of the terraces he built (not yet planted) and overall had a fabulous time.

Tags: bicycle

We actually managed to get to bed at a reasonable time last night. I've found that if I target a particular time, I usually manage to get to sleep within an hour of that, so I aimed for 10:30 and indeed we went to sleep around 11:30. Perfect -- I have to get up at 7:30 for Saturday ballet class. I was determined to finally ride my bike over there. The weather didn't look that promising, but I decided I'd have to stop making excuses and just do it one of these days, or I'd never make any real progress. So I did, and it all went very smoothly. However, it is becoming quite apparent that I REALLY need a new front tire -- maybe I'll put it on this afternoon's agenda.

Anyway, I really wanted to make this class because according to the schedule, there wasn't a counterpart for summer term. To my delight, it turns out that the class pretty much just runs the entire year. Woo! In my excitement I bought a ten-class card. This was probably a tactical error, seeing as there aren't ten Saturdays left before our trip, but I'll work it out somehow.

On the way home I ran afoul of one-way street problems, but a kindly biker helped me figure out the way to get back on the Hawthorne bridge. Plus, it had turned into a spectacular sunny day, so there was really nothing to complain about at all! Now I have the whole day ahead of me, and I fully intend to take advantage of this sunshine, as soon as I finish the laundry.

Tags: bicycle, dance

Julien was in Arizona for a conference Wednesday and Thursday (and should be arriving home any moment now). I have to confess that I went a bit crazy, me-style. What shenanigans did I get myself up to? Well Wednesday I decided to follow his injunction to "eat the strawberries" my making strawberry shortcake. I deliberately skipped dinner and gorged myself on five helpings, instead, while proceeding to drink the remainder of Julien's Collette six-pack (okay, it was only two beers) and finishing re-watching Season 2 of Veronica Mars on the WB website. Yes, I admit it, I stayed up until 3:30 a.m.

I must admit that Thursday I regretted that rather rash decision making. Obviously I failed to get up with my alarm at 6:40, but I was actually pretty pleased that I managed to drag myself out of the sack at 8:10. I still made it into the office before 9:30 (though I did observe that morning traffic is waaaay worse that late). A cup of strong English breakfast tea actually got me through the day all right. Ironically, it was the day of the JF 5k (Jones Farm is the name of our Intel campus) and naturally I had signed up. Unfortunately the rest of our team was in Santa Clara for a big event having to do with a project I'm not on, so I was all by myself. I have to admit that I felt pretty poorly during the run, and I blamed this on my foolish lack of sleep. I finished the race feeling a bit nauseous, though not as bad as my first 5k. I wandered around a bit -- they had organized a nice fair to celebrate -- but I was pretty soaked from the downpour around mile 1 and had piles of work to do so I headed back to my cube. The race had supposedly begun at 2:00, and the first clock I saw showed about 2:37, so I realized that I had probably just run really fast (for me). Hopefully we'll get the results next week -- my goal had been less than 30 minutes so I have a feeling some celebrating will be in order.

Thursday night I made up for my previous bad behavior, sort of. I had a bowl of lentil soup and only two pieces of the shortcake. I had gone through all of the strawberries Wednesday, so I proudly used up some of the nectarines instead. You'll be pleased to know that today I managed the self-control to save that final slice for lucky Julien. It's actually remarkably good microwaved. Anyway, I didn't have much juice in my left, so I just read a bit and then hit the sack at 10:00. Frustratingly, Mr. found it appropriate to wake my up at 5:30 am. I, however, stubbornly refused to feed him and instead pathetically tried to sleep until my alarm, succeeding intermittently between when he'd wake me. Clearly he was missing J.

Today I was very productive... it was a good day at work and I even did my PNB dance workout when I got home. Yay!

Tags: cook, run

We had a fun and relaxing weekend, and probably spent over 20 hours sleeping. I have no clue why I've been so exhausted lately, but it sure does feel good to catch up... from whatever it was!

Saturday evening we went to our friend Kelsey's birthday party. She lives really close to us, so we just rode our bikes. It turned out nicely: it's pretty steep on the way there, but on the way back we didn't have to pedal at all. It was a garden party, with lots of snacks and a brand-new grill that she borrowed from Allen (he bought it for his parents' visit coming up next weekend). I know Kelsey through Amy (they used to be roommates) so I'd met most of her other friends before, but it was fun to renew the acquaintance, as it had been years since I'd seen many of them. We particularly hit it off with Sadie and Gabe, and made a mental note to meet up with them on a couples' date some time.

Sunday we had matinee tickets for Oregon Ballet Theater's performance of Bolero. It was actually three shorter pieces, with the Bolero as the finale at the end. Both Julien and I loved the Bolero, and were more luke-warm about the other two pieces. The first was excerpts from Petipa's Raymonda, very classical and formal. It was Julien's second favorite of the show. In general I find the extremely traditional ballets too constrained, so while I greatly admired the stunning tutus and technical virtuosity, it left me lukewarm. I preferred the second piece, and much more modern dance. We both agreed that the costumes were stunning, and I found the middle section (with veiled women doing a burre interruption to a more flowing group phrase of all men) quite striking.

In the evening we watched the French classic film "Breathless". It seemed very French to me (in an admittedly sixties sort of way) and frankly, I just didn't "get it". Julien blamed the translation -- but we think the problem is that some cultural things just aren't really translatable. It was a nice way to end the evening, though -- Julien had made a spectacular roast chicken dinner and I had made flan with rhubarb sauce, and we had opened the very nice (for us) Medoc which we had intended to bring to the Hammerlunds (but their son had gotten sick so they'd had to cancel). We'll have to buy it again when we do finally get together.

Tags: cook, dance, movie, party

I find myself increasingly enjoying Roger Ebert's movie reviews. I find his prose and style engaging and refreshing, and I often agree with his film assessments so reading him is useful for picking movies to see, as well. I found his relatively recent review of "The White Ribbon" (which I haven't seen and probably won't) quite eloquent in expressing a political concern of mine personally, so I'll quote it here:

"I wonder if it's mostly a Western feeling that misfortune is intolerable and, to every degree possible, death must be prevented. I don't hear of such feelings from Asia or Africa. There is more resignation when terrible things happen. Yes, a man must not harm another. He should be punished. But after he causes harm, they don't think it's possible to prevent any other man from ever doing the same thing.
...
It is possible to say that when the prevention of evil becomes more important than the preservation of freedom, authoritarianism grows. If we are to prevent evil, someone must be in charge. The job naturally goes to those concerned with enforcing order. Therefore, all disorder is evil and must be prevented, and that's how the interests of the state become more important than the interests of the people.
...
I wonder if Haneke's point is that we grow so disturbed by danger that we will surrender freedom -- even demand to. Do we feel more secure in an orderly state? Many do. Then a tipping point arrives, and the Berlin Wall falls, or we see the Green Revolution in Iran. The problem, as philosophers have noted, is that revolutionaries grow obsessed with enforcing their revolution, and the whole process begins again.
...
"The White Ribbon" tells a simple story in a village about little people and suggests that we must find a balance between fear and security.

Tags: movie

I'm in Santa Clara visiting Mom for 10 days. I took the shuttle down on Friday (they only had an a.m. flight available) and have really been enjoying Vida's cube. Not only does she having a docking station that fits my laptop, she has the most amazing headset ever. I can actually hear when people talk during meetings!! I also got to meet a bunch of people I've been working with (the ones who own the product right before us). There's been a lot of collaboration, there, so it was nice to put faces with names. Once again I was amazed at how different people look from how I imagine them. One guy who I thought was an old Japanese guy actually turned out to be a young Indian. Oops!

Mom and I have been having a ton of fun visiting together. We met for lunch on Friday and tried a very tasty organic Italian place in a strip-mall near Intel. After work, Mom and I visited Santana Row, a very posh mall relatively close by. We did some window shopping and had dinner at Roux, a Louisiana-themed restaurant. They had amazing cornbread, and Mom got to try alligator for the first time. The flavor was all right, but it was a bit too chewy.

Yesterday we went to Gilroy Gardens, which turned out to be more children's theme park than garden. However, it was fun to go on the kids' rides, which gave nice tours of the various gardens, and in a manner mild enough to be agreeable to Mom's sensitive stomach. My favorite part was the paddle boats, adorably shaped as ducks and swans. I'd definitely rent a paddle boat again! The site was built where a guy had cultivated "Circus Trees", cunningly grafter sycamores that defy reason. Overall it was a lot of fun.

Later in the afternoon we visited the local Outlet mall, and I picked up quite a few things that I needed (new flats, leggings from American Apparel, etc.) I don't know how I'm going to fit it all back in my suitcase, though. In the evening we had a lucky find at the Empress of India. I had an amazing paneer tikki masala, and Mom's mixed meats were tasty too.

Today I slept in, and then we met up with Gene, I-Ming, and Pou Pou. We had a nice brunch together and then went to visit Goon-Goon's grave. It's the second anniversary of his death today. Afterward we got dessert at a local cafe and did some more window shopping in the cute local tourist town.

We came home to freshen up and then were off to a dinner with a bunch of distant relatives I never knew I had -- they are the descendants of my great-grandfather's sister. They are a wonderful family, warm and loving and generous, and I'm looking forward to seeing more of them throughout the week.

Tags: california, mom

Yesterday we went to Macy's to cash in some wedding gift cards and to take advantage of their 25% off sale at the same time. We bought new down pillows (desperately needed for months now and well worth the cost), another baking mat (the first one was so useful), cookie cutters (after the unattractive gingerbread I made last week), and a crepe pan.

I also used a cake pan we'd received as a wedding gift for the first time -- I made a rhubarb crumble that was truly delicious. Thank you!

Tags: cook, wedding

Last night we were witnesses to a slap bet. For those of you not in the know, a slap bet is a bet wherein the penalty of losing is getting slapped by the other party. You have to know our friends to understand the attraction -- suffice to say that Julien and I are quite content to be always observers and never participants.

Anyway, for Halloween last year Allen wore a three-year-old's dinosaur costume, which meant that he barely squeezed his legs into the costume legs and left the dinosaur's head and neck projecting from his pelvis. He then had a sign on his back saying, "Pet My Dinosaur". Timm recently slap-bet him that he couldn't wear the costume for an hour in a local gay bar.

In spite of Allen's terror of intimacy from other men, as predicted, he made it through no problem. We all agreed that the bar let him off rather easy, especially since Julien probably scared Allen with his dancing more than any of the other clientele. Allen really didn't want to do the bet, so he took out his vengeance in a pretty manly slap.

Tags: slap bet