River Gods

From the NYT article on the Obama/Gates/Crowley beer summit:

"Upon their initial exchange at the White House, the professor said that he made a proposal: that he and Sergeant Crowley meet for lunch at River Gods, a popular Cambridge pub, some time in the near future. The sergeant accepted the invitation, he said."

River Gods is the best - where else can you have tasty fries and good beer in a setting that looks like Bjork exploded all over a medieval castle? Not the natural place for a frank discussion of racial prejudice, butwhat the hey - at least they can get better beer than they did at the White House.

Mistaken email identities continue

Dear George Brennan,

I can't email you directly, since you apparently think my email address is yours. But I would request that you stop signing up for creepy conservative mailing lists that wind up coming to my inbox. I mark them as spam, I do, but they just keep coming. I find the Irish American Association emails interesting, but I'm not going to donate to them. Because they think I'm you.

So stop.

Thank you,

Genevieve

Dear Carissa Brennan,

You're an idiot, and I'm not your brother. Stop using emoticons.

Kthxbye ;)

Genevieve

Missing out

It's photos like these that make me wish I lived on the east coast and could spend more time with my family.

These are the tubes that my mother uses to get pulled down the Delaware River - my dad pilots the canoe. This photo at least makes more sense than the one of my pajama-clad brother jumping over their lit firepit with beer bottles strewn around.

Bike-in movies

The SF Bike Coalition is doing monthly bike-in movies! I'm in Houston so I'll be missing Rad tomorrow night, but I'm in for the movies on August 19 and September 16. They're doing it at 7th & Mission.

Here's the description:

"Help us transform an ordinary parking lot in to a fabulous movie theater under the stars, complete with complimentary bike valet! Street food vendors will be out and about, including the Crème Brûlée Cart, the Magic Curry Kart, Gobba Gobba Hey, Chez Spencer's "Spencer on the Go!" Truck and more!"

Creme Brulee? Yes, I am there.

Up next: Fluffy Bunnies Fight to the Death

NYT: "Police Arrest 19 in Conn. Finch-Fighting Ring"

This is not a subculture that I was aware existed.

Health caaaaare

Please bejebus, let's do what we can to get this health care stuff passed. My head might explode if the insurance companies manage to convince people (again) that it's cheaper to let them jack up rates and create a system where preventive care isn't even part of the equation.

And what if my insurance plan doesn't cover exploding head disease?

One step forward, two steps back

Signs I might be a grown up: for the first time in my life I hired a housecleaner. I was taught to believe that it is not how we Brennans roll, but Mike and I have lived in our apartment for almost 2 years, and we are crappy housekeepers. Not that we're really dirty or messy - we just overlook things like dusting and shower scrubbing. The things you don't notice until it's too much work to even think about.

So, in deference to the couple that will be housesitting for us the next week, we brought in a very highly-recommended cleaning crew. I left home about an hour into the process, at which point one guy (the owner, I think) was cleaning our oven, one lady was in the bathroom, and another lady was scrubbing the inside of my freezer. Mike kept me updated during the 3 hours they cleaned.

Mike: they are wiping down the sides of our trash can

me: oh man

they are so good, huh?

Mike: yup

also vacuuming the dust off all the molding on our walls

amazing

The sides of our trash can! It's all I can do to wipe down the counters. Some of you may remember the beets that I left to incubate in the oven for three weeks. Again: oops. So, in summation, housecleaners = a good idea.

On the other hand, signs that I might not be a grown up: my mom sent a box with chewable gummy vitamins to my desk at work. They are so yummy I am having trouble regulating my Vitamin D intake now. They're gummy bears, guys!

Also last night I went to a Michael Jackson-themed potluck, where everything had to be named after MJ songs. My favorite: a casserole called Chili Bean Hot Pie Lover.

I eat too much

100% on this foodie quiz, suckas!

Obscene

This is an interesting article on obscenity and the court case that overturned the post office's authority to declare books obscene back in 1959. It's particularly relevant to me since I just read Lady Chatterley's Lover last week, and that shit is raunchy.

Most of the books in our house are Mike's, and so I've been randomly working my way through them over the years. Right before my trip to Boston last week I finished A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, and so I tossed Lady Chatterley into my bag. I wound up feeling awkward reading it in public places, though - I'm always sure the people next to me on the plane are reading over my shoulder, which in this case would have given them good odds of catching detailed descriptions of nether regions. Or the process of mining coal. Not too different, really.

Tiny letters

The world's smallest postal service was set up at Sunday Streets in the Mission yesterday, and I missed them! No fair.

Sunday Streets, by the way, was awesome. A few too many chirrens, but more than enough weirdness (bike-powered rock bands, rollerblade soccer games, a 6-person bike) to make up for it. The full day involved slowly biking up and down Valencia and 24th Streets, having brunch on Mike's coworker's roof (broiled oysters with smoked gouda and bacon, Tartine morning buns, Dynamo candied orange blossom and coconut doughnuts), drinking beers at Zeitgeist, and watching "Ace of Cakes" at Kari and Olivia's. Perfect day!

Oysters:

Addendum: I forgot to mention that I finally got a She-Bible dress, at a sidewalk sale. Kari and I beelined it for the same one:


We have excellent taste.

Pretty much the cutest thing ever

Avery Johnson Giles has round cheeks and is wearing tie dye. Ahhhhhh:

<3 <3 <3

I think it is fair to say that this totally tickles me.

Yay Cait!

Caitlin's got a photo in the NYT! The Lens blog solicited readers' cell phone photos, and one of Cait's was chosen. Go to the third page of photos on the Lens blog, and look at the 2nd row, 3rd column from the right. It's beautiful!

No dignity

What would be your reaction if you were walking home alone at midnight, and a van slowly started keeping pace with you? And what if the side door of the van opened, and someone within the van started hurling things at you? If you are anything like me, you would attempt to simultaneously run and duck and cover, which would make you look like a big flightless bird. And if you are like me, you would freak out more and more as the van followed along beside you, until you finally got hit with what they were hurling at you.

And it was a newspaper.

So either through oversight or through malice, the paperboy almost made me crap my pants last night.

This did not endear me any further to print news.

Run

This piece on runners is really cool (do I spend too much time reading the NYT? Yes.). I am trying to convince myself that I like to run, and this article helped mightily. There's one dude who has gone for a run EVERY DAY for 30 years! Aside from autonomic body processes, I'm not sure there is anything I have done every day of my (almost) 26 years.

Also! Running nun!

If Whoopi Goldberg is still the game, this would make a great "Sister Act 3: Sweating with the Lord". Whoopi could team up with a group of athletic nuns to fight inner-city obesity. They pray! They sing! They fight shin splints!

(Side note: when we watched Sister Act in high school Spanish class, it was called "Un Cambio de Hábito" - A Change of Habit. Way more clever, right?)

I can't decide

Do I want Sarah Palin to just go away, or do I want her around for entertainment? Usually I lean toward the former, but this Maureen Dowd column is a strong vote for the latter. Maureen, I am not a big fan of yours (my heart belongs to Gail Collins), but this is a hilarious article.

"Dear Diary - No one understands me. It’s like I’m speaking some Eskimo dialect or something. Andrea Mitchell follows me all the way to Kanakanak Beach and I get a French manicure and set up this huge photo op for her, even though she spooked the salmon."

The phrase "spooked the salmon" needs to be used more often.

What did you do today?

Mike helped do this:

He's quoted in an article here. "There’s no official word yet if the activists have been arrested by authorities. Matt Leonard, one of the climbers, didn’t post again on his Twitter account after announcing his location through a cell phone. Michael Gaworecki, a San-Francisco-based Web editor for Greenpeace USA, told the Journal via Twitter that Leonard had been taken into custody." Go Matt! Go Mike!

Mike's also quoted here - the Christian Science Monitor has some guy saying they did a great job using social media. Way to go, Mikey.

Um, I have a massage scheduled today. Does that count as important?

Mike's on a boat

Well, not yet. But from the middle of September through the middle of October, Mike will be on a Greenpeace boat in the South Pacific, leaving from Fiji and winding up in the Cook Islands. Aside from being completely awesome for him, this means two things:

• I'm sure as hell going to go meet him on the other side of the world when he's done.
• You should come visit me in San Francisco while he's away!

Seriously, if you have been thinking about coming to visit but haven't actually planned a trip yet, book yo tickets. Because it will just be me and Ezzie, chilling in our apartment at the most beautiful time of the year in San Francisco. And I will be really fiending for some adventure (did I mention Hartz is going to Sudan at this same time?), so we can do crazy things like swing from the rope swing at Bass Lake and make kooky ice cream flavor combinations at Humphry Slocombe (salt & pepper and peanut butter curry, what what). Totally nuts.

In summation: mixed bag for me (loneliness followed by an awesome trip), but congrats to Mike! And come see me!

It just don't stop

Booked: Boston next week (July 13-18)

Booked: Austin the week after (July 24-August 1)

Booked: Ireland (August 22-31)

Still to be booked: New York before and after Ireland

Dudes, my carbon footprint is Sasquatch-style big.

Lazy Sunday

Mike is on a plane on his way to DC, and I am at loose ends until Tina gets here in a few hours. What do people do on Sundays, anyway? Like a good San Franciscan, I went to the farmer's market. And duuuuude, it's fig season! Yes! I also scored a mini ollalieberry pie, a bunch of Thai basil (god I love it), three packages of fresh ravioli - cheese and spinach, butternut squash, and lobster - and a bunch gorgeous flowers - godesia. Beautiful, no?

I am also in Sonoma Coast recovery - Friday we canoed ten miles on the Russian River, which was sunny and gorgeous. I decide to show the sun my pasty body, and it got me good - every little patch that I neglected to slather in SPF 45 got burned up. Putting on my sexy padded biking shorts on Saturday was that much more painful, but we got in a great 30 mile ride along the river, from the coast to Guernesville and back. I also managed to drink a ton of tasty beer, camp at Pomo Canyon underneath the Redwoods, and slurp down several dozen oysters.

Icing down our oysters at Tomales Bay:

Heaven = oysters and a fine rose:

It was a very happy 4th of July.

Happy song

I'm going camping

Tomorrrrrrrow

I'm going canoeing

On the Russian River

I'm going camping

Next weeeeeeek

I'm going kayaking

On Lake Tahoe

The tune to that is kind of irregular (and unrecognizable), but I can't carry a tune anyway, not even in my head. But yes - we're going camping this weekend at Pomo, and canoeing the Russian River, and riding our bikes on the Sonoma Coast. Then I am throwing myself a birthday dinner next Thursday because Mike is out of town, and on Friday (my actual birthday), we are heading to Tahoe for camping and hiking and rock climbing.

I live in a place that is gorgeous year round, but apparently it has to stay light until 8 p.m. before I properly take advantage of it. Oops.

A question

Does the army bring dogs into battle? Or are soldiers allowed to bring their dogs to war with them? This seems like a rather extreme version of Google's bring-your-dog-to-work ethos.

(From the NYT)

I know I am fixating

But I am just so jealous of Katie Johnson '02. I mean, come on! No fair.