Images above: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10.

This week and last have been busy ones. I’m looking forward to getting out and spending more time outdoors soon. We’re in the process of building a bed in the back of the Land Cruiser for a trip down the coast this weekend. Keep’s coming, Jack too. Woot.

#JesuisCharlie

“Hey bay, if you could eat anything you wanted right now, what would it be?” I asked Trey, looking up from the magazine I was reading on the couch. “Fried chicken from Fremont Diner in Napa”. He responded promptly from the next room having obviously already thought about this.

It was the weekend. We were on vacation from the week. We needed to take showers anyway. Driving an hour for fried chicken just made our brains feel right. So off we went with the dogs. Keeper sleeps a lot. She runs everywhere all enthusiastically and then just stops in her tracks and falls asleep in the middle of the floor. Her favorite place to sleep in the truck is either inside the center console that’s missing its top or on the bench seat in the back with Jack. She’s Jack’s biggest fan. He’s incredibly sweet to her. They play together a lot and she has perma-wet ears because Jack puts her whole head in his mouth.

Over the holidays we got a new puppy. A little girl border collie named Keeper. We had been talking about adding another dog to the mix for a while now, but had gone back and forth as to whether we should actually do it. It went something like this – “No, we’ve got all we need with Jack”, “Yes we should, Jack needs a dog buddy to grow up with” , “No, it might change Jack in a negative way”. Then, last week the opportunity came up to see a litter of unwanted border collie puppies an hour outside of Yosemite and we decided – “Yes, let’s do it”.

Jack and I have been by each other’s side for five years and there’s a certain amount of love and loyalty that comes with that, so it was really important to me that he didn’t feel like he was being replaced or anything (slightly anthropomorphizing here). When we got home, Jack kept his distance, his eyebrows tellingly furrowed with worry whenever she walked past him. But, like all mammals, there are certain introductory rituals that need to take place before a relationship is formed, and we knew it would take a little time before they would feel comfortable around each other.

What are your plans for this weekend? Jack’s thinking about having a quiet night in with a glass of local pinot on the fire escape, listening to the sounds of the city in the background. Maybe watch a documentary on bees later if it feels right. #hipster

It’s noon. I’m thinking eggs. My slippers are a good five feet from the bed, so you know, I will have to sit and think about that for at least 20 more minutes. Mila is making her rounds, meowing loudly in each room she passes, announcing to the world she’s hungry. Jack is more subtle, remaining by my side until I make a move. Trey’s in the shower, says he wants to ride the ship yard later.

It’s cold in my apartment. The one time I adjusted the radiator valve it caused a leak downstairs so now I just wear more clothes. My mind’s on surfing somewhere warm. I won’t go in the water here, not now. The water is too cold and it’s white shark season. There’s this rock out at the Farallones (some islands just off the coast), called seal rock. It’s called that because during high tide the rock gets flooded and all the elephant seals that typically occupy it get washed off the rocks into the water. It’s a popular place to see great whites because a big, blubbery elephant seal is like chocolate to them. After leading trips out there and experiencing a couple 18 footers wipe out seals, it’s like….nah, I’m good for a bit. 

So yeah anyways, Sundays. You really can’t beat them. Sleeping in late, eating eggs in your pajamas, playing around in ship yards with the sounds of the fog horns in the distance. check. check. check.

This year we wanted to cut down our own tree, so after a quick google search we found that there was a tree farm deep in the East Bay hills.The farm was started by a U.C. Berkeley forestry professor in the 60s who wanted to provide a place in the woods where you could cut your own tree every year. As we drove through the hills, we passed through densely forested areas and came across the tiny town of Canyon, a hidden, unincorporated community, home to only 200 people and a post office. 

When we arrived at the farm, they gave us a hand saw, a couple twists of twine and a map showing where to find the type of tree we wanted. We were looking for a small/mediumish Douglas Fir that would fit nicely in the corner of our living room, but not be so big that it overpowered everything else. Something a little more like A Charlie Brown Christmas and a little less like the Griswold’s Christmas Vacation.

I got a text from Trey around 4pm on Friday afternoon asking if I wanted to get some dinner and see a movie after work. I was down, happy that the week was coming to an end. I got home and combed through my closet for something to wear. Jack followed dutifully at my feet, moving from the closet to the mirror to the closet over and over again until he got tired. Finally he circled a few times and laid down in the hallway. I settled on a gray sweater, black skinny jeans, chelsea boots and some apple-y red lipstick I picked up a few weeks ago. Trey walked in a little while later bearing two bottles of red wine, one in each hand, presenting them like gifts at an alter (I may be embellishing here, but that’s what it seemed like at the time). “This one is the storeowner’s favorite, and this one I just liked because there was a dog on the label”, he told me, reminding me why we get along so well. We opened a bottle and laid in our hammock looking up reviews of sushi restaurants nearby. Then we made our way downtown for some sashimi, sapporo and miso soup. After dinner we stopped in at a french bakery and managed to get the last chocolate macaroon left in the case. Then we walked the few blocks to the theater and watched Night Crawler, the one with Jake Gyllenhaal where he begins covering night crime in LA and sells his footage to a local news station. It was equal parts entertaining and creepy.

On the way home I picked some wintry looking foliage from the nearby trees and bushes, carried it home and hung it on the wall the next day using some twine. It’s beginning to look festive around here, especially since yesterday we went and chopped down our tree! I plan on sharing that later this week.