Nugget

This is Avery Johnson Giles, Katie and Larry's new baby. When we met him on Thursday, he was just under a week old.

What a precious little nugget, huh?

I need a new bathing suit

But even though it's got my name, I don't think it's going to be this one.

B2B

I got all focused on the banana in my last post and lost steam before I got to Bay to Breakers. After every B2B there is so much to say, yet so little: we got drunk. People wore crazy costumes. It was really, really fun. I love San Francisco.

Here is a brief overview of the day.

Note the naked dude:

Note McShane's crossed eyes:

Note that I got patted down before I could meet the president:

Note that I fell completely on top of Leslie: 

Note that Mike made a freaking brilliant Caterpillar:

Note that I am very happy I made it through the day intact. And sunburn-less and un-hungover!

Bananas

It is almost another weekend, and I have barely processed the last one. Last Friday we did Fancy Lady Drink night, in which we ate cheese and cherries and drank delicious champagn cocktails. Besha brought me a bottle of Genevieve gin! Turns out that Anchor Brewing makes it, too, so it's local. At midnight several of us decided we that we should go to a party in the Mission, and I decided that I would dance until 3:30. 

Oh! But! The party was B themed, and most people wore relatively low-profile costumes. I, for example wore the bug hat that Beth is modeling in this photo:

But one girl decided to wear a big banana costume. In all the hours we were dancing, the Banana did not say one thing. But if a song came on and the Banana didn't dance, it was quickly changed to something that made her smile. The party's theme actually become WWTBDT: What Would The Banana Dance To? All we cared about was pleasing the Banana. The highlight of the night was probably Hollaback Girl, as it allowed everyone to circle the Banana and scream about her shit being bananas. She did a very adorable shimmy and bop (which was about all she could do) to B-A-N-A-N-A-S.

I miss the Banana.

BTWD

Yesterday I rode my bike the 47 miles from my house to work. I met up with a group of about 150 coworkers, and spent the first 20 miles thinking I was at the very end of the whole pack - but it turned out I was busting my ass to stay close to the very first pack. These people are crazy cyclists, so I gave up on that for the second half, and wound up finishing in just under 3 hours - respectable, but not fantastic.

Here's the whole group, at the start.

You probably cannot see me, and that is ok. The ride was flat most of the way, but I went as fast as I could most of the time (still not too speedy) and was very happy to get to the Goog. They were offering free massages, and my massaged therapists made very disapproving noises about the state of my neck muscles. Apparently I need to buy a bike that actually fits me.

There I am!

At the office, finally. TOUGH. Well, less tough when you know why I have bandaids all over my legs (hint: fast-moving treadmill).

Ok, that's enough of me. Too much, really - even for a blog post.

*Pats publisher on back*

Bloomsbury in the UK is going to offer science books online - for free! They're going to be trade books, not textbooks, but still. It's going to be damned interesting to see how this goes.

Well, that's nice

Turns out I have 15 unused vacation days! Who wants to go on a trip?

Fingers crossed, fingers crossed

Bay to Breakers weekend!

This is why working from home is so fun

Someone is idling in front of my building and listening to "The Humpty Dance" in their car. There are only a few ways that this can be happening:

1. There is a radio station that is still playing this song.

2. The person still has a tape deck in their car, and they are playing a tape from 1990.

3. They have purchased The Humpty Dance as either a CD or a download.

None of these options makes any sense to me. For those of you who don't remember this iconic song and dance, here are some lyrics:

My name is Humpty, pronounced with a Umpty.

Yo ladies, oh how I like to hump thee.

And all the rappers in the top ten--please allow me to bump thee.

And, of course, there is video of the Digital Underground performing on the Arsenio Hall show. Supposedly Tupac is one of the dancers, but for his sake, I didn't look too closely.

Oh freak yeah

Neighborhood Fruit is a website that allows you to view the location of fruit trees in San Francisco (and other places) on a map. I've been meaning to scavenge more ever since my dad ate half the plums off a tree by the Secret Slides last year.

I am going to ravish that fig tree on Hayes.

When you walk through the garden...

I promise I will eventually stop talking about The Wire. Maybe. David Simon has some possibly ill-informed views on blogs and journalism, but he is still the man who birthed the best show of all time, and this is a great interview with Bill Moyers.

Much like the stupidity of abstinence-only education (feel relieved that I didn't write a love letter to Gail Collins/tirade against Texas lawmakers on this subject yesterday), drug laws are so infuriating as to make my head all explode-y. And David Simon gets, it, obviously, and his characters are so fantastic that you don't totally want to give up on the justice system and America in general when an episode is over. A little bit, but not totally.

And the guy who plays the deacon was a huge drug trafficker! And he was locked up by Ed Burns on a wiretap case! I can't get enough of this stuff.

Oh, it is a good day

And here's why:

PUPPY

Who are you, again?

I have a bad memory. I don't know if that is because I am not good at paying attention, or because I have some kind of intellectual failing, or because I had a traumatic brain injury that my loved ones have kept from me for kind or nefarious reasons.

In any case, I talk a lot and remember very little of what I've said. I'd like to think that I remember more of what others have said, but I'm not sure that's true. And I remember even less when I have been drinking, which means that after two glasses of beer, you can assume that you will have to remind me of anything important we've discussed.

My apologies.

This brings me to this past weekend, which began with an open bar event on Friday and ended with a booze-soaked Sunday. It was a doozy. On our way to the Sunday morning farmer's market, we were waved into Fly by the bartenderman, who proceeded to force upon us a round of sake bombs.

Bombs away:

(This was actually a later round, I think - but as I've said, I'm an unreliable narrator.)

And the night ended like this:

I'm pretty sure my vision was about as spot-on as what you see here.

In summation: am I proud that I spent my Sunday drinking sake cocktails and mimosas? Not exactly. Did I enjoy myself? I think so. Am I sure about that? No, actually, but that is why I take so many pictures.

Get ready

Bay to Breakers 

+

Me and Leslie

= 

This is my snack song

I need a snack-0

snack-o

snack-o

I need a snack-0

So I can go

home-o

Happy Wednesday

This morning when my alarm went off, I foggily asked Mike if it was Thursday or Friday.

Mike: Oh.

Me: What?

Mike: It's Wednesday.

It's deeply disconcerting when someone looks at you with that much pity when you are in such a vulnerable state. Also, we got a new bed a few weeks ago, and it is ridiculously comfortable. 

All of which made me want to go back to sleep. 

But I didn't! I'm up! I'm here! I'm feeling good for no particular reason!

(Hormones.)

No fair

A friend from high school has a ridiculously fantastic job; she is now a correspondent for the Onion News Network. Here's her first piece, on why Trekkies don't like the new Star Trek movie (hint: it's fun and watchable).

Open bar, oh yes

We're going to this event tonight, to get the weekend started off with an open bar - brilliant. I enjoy Upper Playground, even though I do not own even one piece of their apparel.

Mike has a friend in town this weekend, and it's supposed to rain, so I anticipate quite a bit of drinking in our future. And it's the SF Film Fest!

For the beer nerds

On Wednesday the founder of Allagash Brewing Company came to the Goog to give a talk and lead a tasting. He brought 5 of his beers with him, and they were delish. A company chef whipped up some awesome food pairings, too - chips with bean dip, almond salad, and angel food cake with caramelized pineapples.

For those of you who don't know, my parents brewed when I was growing up, so beer nerdom is in my blood. I was totally in heaven at this talk. The founder man, Rob Tod, gave a nice history of the brewery - they do only Belgian-style beers, which caught on a bit later than the rest of the American craft beer movement.

If anyone wants more details, let me know, but for brevity's sake, I'm just going to include my notes on the beers. I loved the Confluence - it was much more of a session beer than the rest (the Curieux was over 11% abv!).

1. White Ale - their flagship beer, unfiltered (all Allagash brews are), flavors of curacao and coriander. 

2. Tripel - traditional Trappist monk style, single = table beer w/low alcohol, Dubbel and Tripel are darker, 7-8% abv. Smoky taste. 

3. Interlude - wild yeast used to make a spicy beer = cezanne (sp?), dries the beer out to make it more like wine. Aged half in steel barrel, half in oak, then blended. 

4. Confluence - use house yeast (same as for White) and wild yeast. Dry hopped to make it citrusy. 

5. Curieux - aged like bourbon; did it by chance: the bottles hadn't arrived so they had to put the Tripel in Jim Beam barrels.