this is a week of many visits from folks i know from back east.
saw hideo monday night. haven't seen him since that week i spent in tokyo before i went to china. we went to disney. i wandered around a city where i couldn't speak the language, but could suss out the meaning of most of the signs. thank goodness written chinese is pictographic and the japanese borrowed it. but it had been years upon years since we'd last seen each other and just about as long since we've even conversed. i think we were both surprised by how little either had changed. after some initial awkwardness and idle chit chat it was almost as if we'd never left boston.
i teased hideo relentlessly about not planning for san francisco summer weather. (look how i force him into my too tiny hoodie and hat) he had no idea that it gets chilly and foggy here while the rest of california gets hot hot hot. but hideo is all grown up now and a salary man. he's here in san francisco for an exhibition on precision machinery. (i've no idea really either) he'll be around for four more days. perhaps we can do something other than me dragging him around the city at night while he's underdressed to see my favorite scenic spot. (the top of dolores park, 20th and church) well, at least he agrees with me that it is pretty.
tiffany is here! she arrived on tuesday! let the sisterly-ness begin!! may it not let up until end of august when she goes home.
erin and noah, famous on the internets as ninja consultants, stopped by today for dinner and some anime watching. i completely forget the title of what we saw but it sounded kinda like denim circle or something. i dunno. but there's some kids, and they have these glasses that connect them to this hacker like computer world that is somehow also reality. and it seems that if you want to actually produce code you get to make these ancient magic looking symbols. i dunno either. erin has to review it. i am hoping that it gets a solid plot line soon. we talked and stuffs and played warioware on the wii. there should be some more hanging out soonish. they're around for another week.
departures.
alas, poor black eyed fish and tangelo have passed on to the big fish pond in the sky.
last photo before they became ill.
the tank got some weird bacteria/parasite that we think is one of these. it took less than 48 hours. if they didn't look so tortured i would have considered it merciful they went so quickly. we have bought appropriately shaped flower pots. while shopping i kept thinking of the word cairn. it's not quite the word, but it makes the right sound. both fish are buried. now we must choose just the right flowers to plant above them....
i guess you should add snorkels to the list of things to pack
so, somehow, on the internets, nathan found this website with 3D interactive photos of yosemite.
so we were playing with it to find the spot we found in april to get married at.
the tree that we found that i like. note how it is very dry around it and there is hardly any mirror lake at all near it.
the tree i like as seen from the aerial photos taken on june 1st.
there is so much water!!! hopefully it'll dry out again.
but it's not like i'll let that ruin my camping trip/wedding. we'll all just take off our shoes and wade into the water or something ridiculous like that....
and on a completely different subject.
tengen toppa gurren lagann is my newest favorite anime. their mechs (ganmen) are sooooooo cute!
even the badguys are adorable.
and as the series progresses they get even bigger. there's one that looks like a giant banana and then lord genome's makes me think of cats and alien. i dunno. go watch it.
i've run out of stephenie meyer vampire novels to read and the next one isn't out until midnight august 1st! what have i done to myself? what will i do for the next 4 weeks? AGONY!!!
other news...
work is work. trying to think of ways to make it run smoother and better without making too much work for myself or turning the office into some weird machiavellian soap opera. i need to level up on my people skills.
holy crap! the fire escape vegetable garden is taking off.
it is trying to escape the fire escape
look at that cucumber! so yummy!
the fishes are doing much much better than last time. for a bit we were worried that ludwig might go to fishie heaven, but he made it through. he still has the weird discoloration on his fins, but he's not moping around the tank anymore or staying so still we think he might have already passed. he swims around and is curious about things again! there is no font adjustment that could properly convey my happiness, relief and gratitude.
it's blurry, but it shows ludwig swimming around
and you can see the discoloration on his back fins. i guess they won't go away now.
lavender. she's always curious about everything. sometimes i wonder if maybe she's secretly more intelligent than i am and loathes her fish body. i mean, look at those eyes...
lady (the brownish one) and boy (the blueish one). i think their tank is probably the most wild looking. but they like it like that. nathan and i think that we saw them mating the other day. (i know. scandal.) but we realized we don't know enough about their habits to even know if they lay eggs or have live birth. perhaps they have already eaten their young....
and the goldfish are as big and fat as ever.
spent a good portion of my yesterday on the phone catching up and making last minute wedding plans. (still haven't mailed out those invites) i swear they would have been done ages ago if i hadn't figured out how to break the printer beyond repair. do you know how much effort it takes to get me to even muster up the energy to think about hand addressing all those envelopes? perhaps it is getting to the point where i'll hand them out at the wedding as a joke. everyone i really want there has already been invited and working on (i hope!) plans over....
for those of you i have so ungraciously overlooked and demand attendance we'll be at yosemite national park august 7th-11th. the ceremony will take place august 8th around sunset at mirror lake. you won't be able to miss us. we'll be the large group of people trying not to look suspicious....
not much is going on in my life. i'm rather dull...
baby cucumbers (though not the same japanese ones as last year.)
green beans (i had somehow thought the plants would be taller and make more beans. as it is i pick maybe 3 beans a week. i do not think i shall be growing these next year.)
the tomatoes that fall from the plant when it is windy and i am not at home. but i am not really worried. this is how we got the tomato plant a second year in a row. i just need to get better at picking them before they are too ripe.
i forgot to take a picture of the radishes. you can kinda see them in the larger picture between the tomatoes and the squash. since the tasty part grows in the dirt, they're not as exciting to photograph. though i have been told that if you sautee the greens with olive oil and garlic they're yummy. oh, and the pepper plants aren't growing anything yet. soon i hope.
i dunno.....
i wanted to take pictures of the fish, but they're not doing so well. the hot weather, then the cold weather, then the hot weather, has not been to kind to the algae/chemical balances in the tanks. i do not think that any of them will die anytime soon, but they're not as genki as usual. i feel bad photographing them when they're not at their bests.
but in other news....
changed my hair to something more closely resembling my original color. still not so sure what kind of cut i want, so i let it grow....
books....
just finished reading 'water for elephants' by sara gruen. pretty good. post stock market crash living in traveling circus love story involving the menagerie, a dozen horses and one plucky elephant interspersed with now a days tales of life in the nursing home as told by the protagonist. who doesn't want to run off to join the circus. i really liked the afterward. makes the story that much better.
also forgot to mention that i had read 'a supposedly fun thing i'll never do again' by david foster wallace. every time i read him i wonder what in the world was wrong with me that i wasn't reading him in the 90s when he initially published. where was my brain? who am i currently skipping that i will read later and wonder why i wasn't reading them now?
and now for something completely different...
photos from the internets that are on my desk top
ian and i are not the only ones that thought that ad campaign meant babies were delicious instead of trying to explain what kinds of foods to put into a baby....
again with inappropriate baby references. though i do think that if i were to make a baby i'd want to double check that i had done it right. (sign that i shouldn't be making them yet?)
if being slutty gets you james spader i'm going to try harder.....
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