Last Gasp of Summer

We spent last weekend at Pat's cabin on Lake Donner. It was utterly perfect - 80 degree weather during the day, no wind and not a cloud in the sky. The lake water was calm and there were only a few boats. I spent every moment thinking of ways that I could soak up the last gasp of Summer.

I'd heard there was a canoe in the basement storage area. Apparently one day Jon's mom looked out the window and saw a big silver thing poking out of the beach sand. They dug it out and it was a massive silver canoe. Biggest canoe I ever saw in fact. I got it out this weekend and it seemed to be in great shape.

But of course there were a lot of questions - it hadn't been used since it was found. Does it float? Are there spiders living in there? Do we have oars?

As luck would have it there was a set of oars in the basement too.

We shoved off from the rocky beach into calm water and abundant sunshine and Friend I tell you it was utterly magical.

We paddled around, dipping our hands in the still water every once in awhile. We would stop and drift along for awhile and then pick it back up again. We bumped over the wake of other boats and glided over the large boulders underneath the surface.

Eventually and inevitably Jon and I decided to play a little game to see how fast we could make the old girl move. We are ALL about friendly competition. The sprint would involve a lot of digging, reaching, and well...rowing, so we took a moment or two to drift along before we counted down to start.

Jon said "You ready?" and I said "Let's do this!" and when I tell you we were taking it extremely seriously I am not even exaggerating.

But as soon as we both dug in to row, the canoe rocked a uncharacteristically. I shot Jon a concerned look, knowing that rocking in such a way would definitely take seconds off of our finish line time. But when I turned to look at him he was holding up his oar, Which, after one meaningful stroke he literally bent into a 90 degree angle.

You see he's very strong.

But bending a metal object in water by brute force, Who does that?

Anyhow, we headed back towards the cabin, and with only one working oar I was determined to do my share of the paddling. But after just a few strokes we found ourselves in an unrecoverable left turn. If I hadn't handed my oar to Jon I'm sure we would have drifted into the nearby docks with the rest of the lake debris.

The day was capped off by a fabulous dinner at Cottonwood restaurant, which has a great patio with a view of old-town Truckee. We had a few drinks, good food and I had a truly delicious creme brulee.

And just when we thought the day couldn't get any better, we ended up playing Trivial Pursuit until 1:30 in the morning. Singing, laughing and...cheating. It was a blast.

Things I could have done to avoid the car accident this morning

I got in a minor three car accident this morning on my way to work, through no fault of my own. I'm fine and the Accord, which is a veritable compact Japanese tank that swallows lesser cars, took the hit well.

But the whole thing is a pain in my ass. And I think the most frustrating part of it is that there are a million things I could have done to avoid the situation.

For example, this morning I could have:

Gotten up early

Hit snooze (again)

Read one more page of the Fall edition of Better Homes and Gardens while the shower water heated (I do love a creative Fall centerpiece)

Moisturized

Ironed my pants

Found the other black sweater

Flossed

Put on deodorant

Dried my hair

Found a silver-friendly necklace to wear

Packed a lunch

Discussed the details of Plaxico Burress's imprisonment a bit longer

Checked the traffic for the least-congested route

Hugged Jon Boy goodbye for one more second

Let that other driver into my lane (instead of speeding up)

Taken the new found "back way"

Applied the e-brake while I saw the car behind me coming too fast

Blinked, breathed, sighed or yawned just one more time

Low Tide

Greening the Back

My front porch gets a lot of garden love. I mean. I don't have "space" or "a yard" for a garden, but I've experimented with container gardening for the past four years here with varying successes and it has sort of become my most satisfying hobby.

Right now on the porch I have rosemary, chives, snapdragons, yellow squash, tomatoes, (dying) bell peppers, a homemade topiary, a bunch of herbs whose names I know not, and a couple other plants that are cute.



So with the maybe 10 sq feet space that all of these things fit in, we're sort of at plant capacity in the front right now. But I'm not satisfied. These plants are surviving, and thriving as best they can, and I'm very proud of them - but I finally decided that I needed more space and was ready to take on our back patio area.

We live in a townhouse in San Francisco. There's a big community grass area out back that is perfect for the dogs, but the space that we call "ours" is relatively small. I haven't paid too much attention to it even though we see it constantly, but once I realized that shade plants were just as fun as sunny plants I started day dreaming about what we could do with the back patio...On a budget.

So today Jon and I cleaned up anything that could be thrown away. An old barbecue, a lot of pine needles, an unappealing door-mat and the dry soil in my spare terracotta pots.

We had a few long wooden boards from when Jon worked on the house in Oakland that we kept, and with $10.00 worth of cinder blocks we made a really simple shelf for some shade-friendly plants.

Entertained

It's pretty much the off-season for good television and can I just tell you that it's killing me?

What happened to the days when Sunday was Sopranos. Monday had Rome. Tuesday-Thursday held American Idol AND Lost AND The Office AND Project Runway. It was almost too much TV. There weren't enough evening hours to fit in all of the entertainment in front of us.

But now? Desperation. Jon & Kate Plus 8 rolls across my television screen like a lone tumbleweed in the desert.

Despite the tragedy of it all, we've managed to get by...and with some really random shows too.

1. Weeds - Ok. Weeds doesn't count as "getting by", it's just good television. And yeah there was a span of time just before Nancy got FULLY involved with Esteban that it got a little ridiculous. But as far as I'm concerned since she moved to Mexico it got SO good again. (And how much do you love the place she lives in?) Huh. Too bad the (amazing) season finale was yesterday.

2. Shaq Vs. - Wow. You need to check this out at least once. In this series Shaq challenges some of the best athletes in the world at their own sports. So far he's competed against Quarterback Ben Roethlisberger, Olympic Volleyball duo Misty-May Trainer and Kerri Walsh, and St Louis Slugger Albert Pujols.

In each of these instances Shaq has lost - but I think the most interesting thing about the show is that going in to it, you feel like there is always the possibility that he has a fighting chance. I mean, the man is like 7'2. And as far as his coaches are concerned, he's extremely agile for a guy of his size - and on top of that, you know, there are just some people who are all-around athletes? Like Steve Nash, Bo Jackson, "Neon" Deion Sanders and AC Slater? Shaq is one of those guys. It's good TV.

3. Hardknocks - Yeah this is how desperate it is. Two of my favorite shows during the week are sports shows. Please trust that as soon as the actual games come on I completely tune out, but something about the reality shows with the players are so damn good.

Hardknocks follows the preseason of the Cincinnati Bengals (they follow a different team each year). From training camp to the preseason games, you see players join the team and get kicked off. Star players getting season killing injuries, and personal stories that put an interesting twist on a sport I would not give a shit about were it not for my boyfriend's obsession.

4. Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern - This Travel Channel show is such a wonderful and random jewel. The best part about it is, I don't know when new episodes are going to be on, but every time I turn around there's another one I haven't seen.

Andrew Zimmern is the perfect host because no matter where he is (Africa, Asia, Appalachia) or what he is eating (Squirrel brains, bugs or beavers) there is nary an awkward moment. And seriously - can you imagine how not delicious some of those meals are?

But food is a delicate subject. Telling someone that you don't like their culture's food is almost like not accepting the culture at all. And so Andrew Zimmern always finds something to say and manages to be pretty funny about it all in the end.

5. Project Runway - Finalmente! I am loving the new Project Runway and am so glad that despite the delays, we finally get to see it. I haven't fully formed my opinions on the contestants yet; I think I'll have a top 3 to report by the end of this week.

The designers are obviously the focus of the show, but I would not even consider tuning in if it weren't for Michael Kors and Tim Gunn - they are hilarious - and I can't even think about them without remembering Santino's impressions...