First Visitors!

My mom and dad arrived in Berkeley today after a few long days traversing the country to get here. See them outside my house? You too can be seen on the world wide web for only the cost of a visit out here! They traveled through Colorado by way of "The Million Dollar Road", ( also pictured here in Ouray, CO) my dad said it was a Porche road, so is that the million dollars or was the road just expensive to make. We had lunch in Berkeley at a place called Saul's, an old school deli, fun place and fun menu then we walked around my neighborhood a bit and checked out BART. We hung out in my backyard as it was a lovely afternoon around 65, a welcome change after driving through the hot desert for 2 days! I am really happy they are here! Tomorrow we go to the big city for the day, I'll post again!

A Child Is Born

It's been a busy week, mid week we got the early morning call that Francesca's friend was in the hospital in labor, 2 hours away in Truckee, CA. We got in the car at 4 a.m. and drove up to help her through labor. When we got there she was in labor but not much, we started making predictions about the delivery time, I said 8 p.m. everyone else guessed before 3 p.m.
We were all wrong, after hours of pushing and resting and pushing, she wound up having a c-section the following morning at 9:12 a.m 6#9oz and 19 inches of beautiful boy joined the world. It was really a great experience but exhausting. We spent the next day trying to rejuvinate at Donner Lake, it was beautiful, by the time I got up to the look-out in this picture, it was clouding over, but it's really beautiful. We got one great lunch in and one yoga class in Truckee, before heading back to Berkeley, we drove through the valley in the 110 degree weather...hot hot hot. Now I am heading down to hot hot hot again to pick up our dining room table in San Diego. I am spending 2 days at the beach and making the 8 hour or so drive back Tuesday. I'll take pictures. More next week after I recover from this exhausting week by the SoCal ocean, I am looking forward to it! Don't melt in MN see you soon!

Real Olives!

I was going to call this entry "before and after" because I have transformed the front of the house by planting flowers and trees, a real olive tree! The picture on the right is 2 little olives. The other tree is a "feijoa sellowiana" (pineapple guava). I can't even stand it how great it looks and all the neighbors and walkers-by say so too. So one day I'll make olive oil and a guava salad for you to sample at my table. In the meantime, before and after seems to be setting in. I am happy to be creating a new home and trying out something new. Can I remind everyone you are welcome to visit? So let's look at this like different but good and before I get back to mpls and after I return to mpls and I miss you and I'll see you soon, only 3 weeks! Stay as close as you can and eat more olives!

Still just trying to get it all together, still feels like vacation, still not real. I got maps of Berkeley and Oakland and found out Elephant Pharmacy rents DVDs for $1- This is a cool place that really is a pharmacy but also has Bibelot type things, and Wedge type things (but no cookies) and DVDs to rent. We decided to get a dedicated landline phone and DSL service out of the house, the land line is up and running tonight and the DSL hopefully next week, so you may now call me on your free minutes after 9- which is 7 here, exciting! Call my cell for the number please!

I took some pictures of the house and my street which really don't look great, but trust me it feels great and like California and it's good, it's just different. The first picture is the mountain view looking up my street, the second is me in our lovely albeit a bit overgrown backyard which includes a pear tree, blackberries, an apple tree and more, the third is the bay view looking down my street, the fourth is the front of the house, we only have the bottom level and my room is the windows behind the tree.

I read in the paper that 1 million people move to CA each year, must mean around that many move away each year too, there's still hope. :) I'll take a picture of my newly painted room too with my awesome bed purchase next time.

IKEA, Home Depot, Target...beyond

It feels a little like creating the studio 5 and 3 years ago, endless trips to the hardware store, IKEA, and Target. And speaking of Target, I'll never call it Targhetto again in MN, why, because we have no idea what that actually means as we do have the Cadillacs of Target stores in our fair state. I think we thought the closest one was up the Bay in El Cerrito, so we went there, but it was worse than the worst you've seen anywhere in Mpls, I was imagining trips home to shop at Target to be like trips from CA to MN with the Trader Joe's contraband. Then on the way home we drove past the new Target, like a beacon and within biking distance of our front door. I'll send a picture, it's new and lovely and PALM trees out front! I'm all ready sick of shopping, but I will find a way to support my CA habit!

I checked out the Berkeley fireworks last night, it was chilly! Hey folks, there is a 25 degree temp span here, not 125! Crazy! I'll get pictures of the house up soon.

7.03.06 MN-->SF

Jennifer let me take a shower at her new house and took me to the airport ever so early. I had debated who should take me to the airport because I knew some people would make me cry! So as the fates would have it Jennifer is borrowing my car while I am gone so she was voted the one, and she was the perfect person to take me because she made it fun, not sad, of course she did! She took this picture of me at MSP--see not crying! And so I left one roomie to the next. My new room mate, which out here we call each other "house mate" was waiting to pick me up, soy latte, in hand, excitement on face, and I was great-full. We drove to our new house in Berkeley, she has been there for 2 days unpacking. It is very California, that means, just different from Mpls, more raw I guess, they don't need the same climate related things we do in the midwest, so things are just different. The house is clean and open and light, I wasn't really when I got into it though, this sort of big change is such a huge adjustment. It was all I could do to not cry every time a Mpls friend called to ask how my first day was!...the answer is "too much" ! So it's getting better and I miss everyone and everything, but I am adjusting and it doesn't feel real yet, it will.