Plants I want to acquire

Fairy Roses
Gas plant (already killed one)
Gunnera
Horehound
Oregano
Swiss Cheese Plant (I refuse to be rational about how much space I have)
Thymes (more of them!)
Zebra plant

San Francisco, Part II

The day after our arrival, we walked to Fisherman's Wharf. It turned out to be rather a long walk. We just went in the direction of the ocean and kept going.

The summer fog cleared to leave us hot and blinking in the early afternoon.

Fisherman's Wharf is the most mundane and conventionally commerical part of San Francisco. Lots of chain restaurants and mainstream tourists. Crap like the Rainforest Cafe. However, there is an absolutely charming museum called the Musee Mecanique. It's a collection of vintage coin-operated fortune telling machines, moving dioramas, games and it's just wonderful and a little creepy.

Being completely sick pups, the Spousal Unit and me were charmed by all of the sex and violence exhibited by a number of the dioramas and the picture displays. You can insert a coin to see the activity in an "opium den" (lolling druggies, sinister Orientals), a "drunkard's dream" and several styles of executions for your education (hanging, guillotine). Sick, sick, sick.

Oh yeah, and if you get a chance, try to do as I did, and read American Gods right before visiting the Musee. You'll understand.

Next, kimono-clad women and primitive plants.

Must.Not.Hurl.

My cubicle neighbor is eating something that smells like dog breath. After said dog just ate fish rotting on the beach.

Turn the air conditioner WAY up.

Woo hoo!

Charges dropped against Texas woman who held sex toy 'Tupperware parties'

Let the vibrators run free!

San Francisco, Part I

Did I mention I really hate to fly? It's not the idea of it, it's the motion, especially the motion during takeoff. I hate the sensation of being thrown foward.

I mostly held it together, but I did gibber a little during takeoff. I hummed Kelis' "Milkshake" over and over again, because it has just the right beat that it was nice and distracting. That's what happens when you don't raise your kids in a faith. Instead of Hail Marys, we hum "Milkshake".

The Spousal Unit had the window seat. The less I look out of a plane's window, the better. To the right of me was The Bride. Her engagement ring was so new it was still loose on her ring finger. She had a bulging backpack full of wedding magazines, wedding books and a series of worksheets all with titles like, "Your Reception's Menu" all of which she filled out over the next six hours.

She looked a bit older for a first-time bride, let's say late thirties/early forties+. My guess is that she had been starting to wonder if her wedding dreams were ever going to come true. I will say that her self-absorption made her the almost perfect seatmate for a long flight. The only downfall was getting her out of her seat and away from her "Your Seating Plan" worksheet long enough so I could use the bathroom.

I had to keep shutting my eyes during the drive to our hotel, I'm sure he knew what he was doing, but the driver drove like a bat out of hell. But, I opened them long enough to realize that I already recognized bits and pieces of California from the television and how weird that was. Every mountain looks like one you've already seen on M.A.S.H.. every other house looks like something you've seen in the background of the Brady Bunch.

The hotel was a brilliant Expedia find by the Spousal Unit, we stayed at the Mosser Hotel. You should stay there too. One word of warning, the rooms are small. I mean, VERY SMALL. We had enough room for our bed and a sink and not much else. Also, we had a bathroom, but a lot of the rooms are shared baths. But, it's very attractive inside (Victorian building with a lot of contemporary decor to keep it from being too precious) and it's right in the center of the city. Chinatown is a short walk, Fishermen's Wharf is a long walk and we're a quick ride away from the Castro.

We dropped our bags in a daze, and then went out to explore. Because it was close by, we wandered into Chinatown. I have never been in a real Chinatown before, just the baby ones in places like D.C. The San Francisco Chinatown just goes on and on and on. We kept encountering odder and odder stores, with stacks of unidentifiable fruit and herbs and mushrooms and dried seahorses in heaps. There was something pleasing about being foreigners within our own country and also being so incidental to the activities around us. Our presence didn't make a whit of difference, the storekeepers had dried seahorses to sell! Fish to unload from the truck! Herbs to prepare! We finally stumbled back to the more touristy parts and had a very nice supper and then we crashed at the Mosser, ceiling fan whirling at 9pm (West Coast) which of course was 12am our time.

Guess where I went?

Yeah, I went on vacation. I didn't say anything because I'm still paranoid about saying explicitly that there won't be anyone at my house for a week. Some enterprising intruder might track me down and break into my house. Which is really dumb, because there's got to be easily hundreds more attractive targets on Cape than our homely little house.

San Francisco is a wonderful, wonderful, WONDERFUL place. I don't normally like cities, but SF, makes me want to chuck the rural life and live in an apartment the size of a tin can. Right now, I'm shedding a brief tear because I can't walk a few streets and get a bowl of noodles at the little Thai noodle shop that was cheap and had the best food and was a quick walk from our hotel.

I'll post more details later.

I'm Copying Kathleen

Because my mind is all skittery and unable to come to a point. Bold what you've seen, underline stuff you own. Add three movies to the end of the list.

01. Trainspotting
02. Shrek
03. M
04. Dogma
05. Strictly Ballroom
06. The Princess Bride
07. Love Actually
08. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Rings
09. The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
10. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
11. Reservoir Dogs
12. Desperado
13. Swordfish
14. Kill Bill Vol. 1
15. Donnie Darko
16. Spirited Away
17. Better Than Sex
18. Sleepy Hollow
19. Pirates of the Caribbean
20. The Eye
21. Requiem for a Dream
22. Dawn of the Dead The original.
23. The Pillow Book
24. The Italian Job
25. The Goonies
26. Baseketball
27. The Spice Girls Movie (Spice World)
28. Army of Darkness
29. The Color Purple
30. The Safety of Objects
31. Can't Hardly Wait
32. Mystic Pizza
33. Finding Nemo
34. Monsters Inc.
35. Circle of Friends
36. Mary Poppins
37. The Bourne Identity
38. Forrest Gump
39. A Clockwork Orange
40. Kindergarten Cop
41. On The Line
42. My Big Fat Greek Wedding
43. Final Destination
44. Sorority Boys
45. Urban Legend
46. Cheaper by the Dozen The original.
47. Fierce Creatures
48. Dude, Where's My Car
49. Ladyhawke
50. Ghostbusters
51. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
52. Back to the Future
53. An Affair To Remember
54. Somewhere In Time
55. North By Northwest
56. Moulin Rouge
57. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
58. The Wizard of Oz
59. Zoolander
60. A Walk to Remember
61. Chicago
62. Vanilla Sky
63. The Sweetest Thing
64. Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead
65. The Nightmare Before Christmas
66. Chasing Amy
67. Edward Scissorhands
68. Adventures of Priscilla: Queen of the Desert
69. Muriel's Wedding
70. Croupier
71. Blade Runner
72. Cruel Intentions
73. Ocean's Eleven
74. Magnolia
75. Fight Club
76. Beauty and The Beast
77. Much Ado About Nothing
78. Dirty Dancing
79. Gladiator
80. Ever After
81. Braveheart
82. What Lies Beneath
83. Regarding Henry
84. The Dark Crystal
85. Star Wars
86. The Birds
87. Beaches
88. Cujo
89. Maid In Manhattan
90. Labyrinth
91. Thoroughly Modern Millie
92. His Girl Friday
93. Chocolat
94. Independence Day
95. Singing in the Rain
96. Big Fish
97. The Thomas Crown Affair
98. The Matrix
99. Stargate
100. A Hard Day's Night
101. About A Boy
102. Jurassic Park
103. Life of Brian
104. Dune
105. Help!
106. Grease
107. Newsies
108. Gone With The Wind
109. School of Rock
110. TOMMY
111. Yellow Submarine
112. From Hell
113. Benny & Joon
114. Amelie
115. Bridget Jones' Diary
116. Monty Python and the Holy Grail
117. Heavenly Creatures
118. All About Eve
119. The Outsiders
120. Airplane!
121. The Sorcerer
122. The Crying Game
123. Hedwig and the Angry Inch
124. Slap Her, She's French
125. Amadeus
126. Tommy Boy
127. Aladdin
128. How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days
129. Snatch
130. American History X
131. Jack and Sarah
132. Monkey Bone
133. Rocky Horror Picture Show
134. Kate and Leopold
135. Interview with the Vampire
136. Underworld
137. Truly, Madly, Deeply
138. Tank Girl
139. Boondock Saints
140. Blow Dry
141. Titanic
142. Good Morning Vietnam
143. Save the Last Dance
144. Lost in Translation
145. Willow
146. Legend
147. Van Helsing
148. Troy
149. Nine Girls and a Ghost
150. A Knight's Tale
151. Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey
152. Beetlejuice
153. E.T
154. Harry Potter and the Sorceror's Stone
155. Spaceballs
156. Young Frankenstein
157. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
158. American President
159. Bad Boys
160. Pecker
161. Pink Floyd: The Wall
161. X-Men
162. Sidewalks of New York
163. The Children of Dune
164. Beyond Borders
165. Life Is Beautiful
166. Good Will Hunting
167. Run Lola Run
168. Blazing saddles
169. Caligula
170. The Transporter
171. Better Off Dead
172. The Abyss
173. Almost Famous
174. The Red Violin
175. Contact
176. Stand and Deliver
177. Clueless
178. William Shakespeare's Romeo+Juliet
179. Dangerous Laisions
180. I Am Sam
181. The Usual Suspects
182. U-571
183. The Cider House Rules
184. Bring it On
185. A Beautiful Mind
186. Dead Poet's Society
187. Lovely and Amazing
188. Southern Comfort
189. The Lion in Winter
190. Big Trouble in Little China
191. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

No Theme Here

You couldn't pay me enough to work at Chuck E. Cheese.

Rare corpse flower is preparing to bloom at in the UConn Greenhouse. The webcam of the corpse flower is here with a large view here.

Someone on one of my crafty boards mentioned this site as a source for Japanese fabric. That's all I need, more fabric. ;)