Nasty little kittenses

We *hates* the kittenses...nasty little kittenses...




There is a reason I haven't posted in so long. Actually, several reasons. Not having an internet connection in the new apartment is one. And the other two are Maurice and Tango - two kittens that we have been baby-sitting ever since we moved in. The first few days I intimidated them so much that they wouldn't leave their room, but NOW the tables have turned and they torment me night and day. I can't believe how much energy they have, racing from one end of the house to the other. One will stalk me from the front while another one bats at my tail - I can't stand them! Erika and Martin seem awfully attached though - luckily they are leaving tomorrow and won't be back until Thanksgiving.

While I've been busy fighting off the kittens, Erika and Martin have been exploring the neighborhood and Working! Yes, they are Both working full time these days. Erika found her (temporary) dream job working at a web strategy firm South of Market in San Francisco, and is applying for an urban goat herder position to fill in the gaps. After work, E&M have been making their way up Mission St., trying every restaurant on the block. Burritos, amazing Thai food (California Larb, anyone?), burritos, passable Dim Sum, burritos, and last night - Guatemalan food! And they haven't even reached the end of the block yet. Next week: Crossing the street! Martin has been eyeing the Peruvian and Vietnamese restaurants across the way... This should keep us busy until crab season starts on November 15.

The only downside of the hood is the local grocery store - Safeway. Erika went in search of San Francisco sourdough bread there last week and found "San Francisco" sourdough from three different states, none of which were California. As it turns out, the guys in St. Louis, MO make pretty good sourdough bread! Soon she will succumb, and drive to one of the THREE mega-Whole Foods in the city. For those of you who have not been following the debate between Michael Pollan and John Mackey, the CEO of Whole Foods, Whole Foods has changed their practices to include a much larger percentage of locally sourced foods. Erika found a mousetrap behind the refrigerator over the weekend, so my food source might be getting a bit more local in the coming weeks...stay tuned.

Another Move

While I am fairly certain that I have terrorized Montana the House Cat enough to necessitate years of Kitty Psychotherapy for that poor pussy, I'm not sure how psychologically prepared I myself am for tomorrow's move. I finally have Erika and Martin perfectly trained to open the front door within 30 seconds of my first or second "I want to go out NOW meow" and I'm not sure I'm ready to become a full-time indoor cat again.

After spending the morning supervising movers who filled up our new San Francisco apartment with boxes, Erika too became a little wistful. Especially after realizing that this is her 4th Autumn Move to SF. It's becoming something of a tradition.

First there was the move in November 1997 from Mountain View to a charming studio on Jones in Nob Hill. It was exciting to finally live in the Big City, but parking a 4WD truck in one of the hilliest and most competitive parking areas in the city soon lost its charm. Hosting dinner parties where two of the seats were on the futon bed and the other guests had to bring their own chairs finally convinced Erika to move to a 2-bedroom with a roommate in Alamo Square.

After a brief hiatus in Sunnyvale, Erika's next move to SF was in November 2000, to a drafty old Victorian on Waller in the Lower Haight. The broken heater was a hardship (a theme to be repeated in several New York apartments), but it was the crazy roommate who kept re-arranging the kitchen in passive-aggressive/obsessive-compulsive rages who finally forced Erika out. She asked Erika to leave so that her boyfriend could move into Erika's room (and pay only half of the rent that Erika had been paying!).

After living in New York for 2 years, Erika moved back to SF in December of 2003, into a gorgeous Arts and Crafts-ish one-bedroom on Steiner in the Lower Haight. It was perfect, but the neighborhood was not. The gunshots, drug addicts, break-ins, and stolen cars got a little too frequent, and Erika decided that she would be better off in NOPA in yet another drafty Victorian, but this time with two great roommates.

Fast forward 4 years to the last days of October 2007 and Erika finds herself moving back from New York yet again to SF for probably the last time, this time to Bernal Heights. Another beautiful Victorian - time will tell whether or not it is drafty too. This one has 2 bedrooms and a tiny half-bedroom in the front, just right for the Baby who will be joining us at the end of April. We are ALL hoping that our Next move will be to a place in the country that is big enough for our growing family to thrive and put down some roots...

Calling all Birds of Prey

While I've been hanging out in the backyard, avoiding dive-bombing humming birds, Erika has discovered a new hobby - counting ground squirrels on the Stanford Dish Loop. Monday she counted 52 and today - a record 76 SQUIRRELS! It's a veritable All-You-Can-Eat Buffet for some lucky hawk. And for those of you skeptics who think she might be counting the same critters twice - Erika has strict rules methods for confirming that each squirrel counted is a bona-fide unique and individual animal. She doesn't count non-descript rustlings in the bushes either. 4 legs and a fluffy little tail on each one.

Ok, others of you may now be thinking that Erika needs to get a job. She is making a tiny bit of progress in that area. Ironic, serendipitous progress, but progress nonetheless. Tomorrow she will forego rodent counting to sign a very short-term contract at the advertising agency whose client is the very same company where she worked in New Jersey. In fact, she will be working on the very same project that she was working on in New Jersey, albeit from an entirely different angle. Funny.

In other news, the Audi has been christened. She is now Maude as in "Maude, the crotchety old lady who did NOT like her parts messed with for a California smog check". For two full days after her idle was adjusted, she refused to run right. She would stall every chance she got, and rev up her engine at the MOST inopportune moments, such as while waiting at a stop light next to some souped up hot rod. Turns out she was lying about her age, too. Her birthday was actually in 1986, not 1984. After 2 mortifying days of this behavior, we drove 4 hours to Tahoe on freeways and nice curvy mountain roads. She's run like a serene grande dame ever since. But the name stuck. If Erika ever gets a new beloved Subaru, I supposed it will have to be called Harold.

Autumn in California (or whatever)

It's hard to tell that the seasons have changed in the Bay Area. It's officially fall, but things don't look or feel much different. Some days there is a chill in the air that wasn't there a month ago, and there is certainly more moisture threatening, but the hills are still sun-bleached, and the only fall color that we have noticed appears on a few Japanese maples that are planted on a freeway overpass in Mountain View.

So, Martin and Erika journeyed to "Apple Hill" in the Sierra Foothills this past weekend to really experience autumn. Apple Hill is a collection of apple growers just outside of Placerville who celebrate apple season in a big way for a few short months. You can drive from farm to farm and pick or just purchase all kinds of different apple varieties and apple treats like apple cookies, apple pies, and caramel apples. There is also the Jack Russell Brewing company, which brews all kinds of seasonal beer and hosts a BBQ and a band on the weekends. Makes for a lovely way to spend a sunny fall afternoon. In addition to The Best Apple Pie Ever, a couple of antique Polaroid cameras, and (of course) some delicious snacking apples, Erika and Martin also collected two perfect pumpkins in preparation for the Great Jack 'O Lantern Carving Contest, which will take place on October 27th. I won't be taking part in that since I lack opposable thumbs, but I *have* been practicing my Scary Cat look, making my tail all bushy and raising the hair along my spine. Makes Montana the House Cat run every time.

Ode to Tomatoes

Ok, so at this time last week Erika and I were resolute Manhattanites. But after only one short week, we are falling quickly under the spell of California. For me, it's being able to lay around in the sun, outside, where I can keep a close eye on those birdies and the House Cat, Montana.

For Erika, it's the tomatoes. She and Martin made a trip to the California Avenue Farmer's market on Sunday and could not resist loading up on all kinds of organic fruits and vegetables (And eggs! And black cod!). Artichokes, broccoli, yellow wax beans, dried slab apricots, fuju persimmons, Watsonville strawberries, all kinds of weird green and yellow summer squash, cherry tomatoes, and... heirloom tomatoes. It is a crime to give the name of "tomato" to those hard, salmon-colored orbs that they sell in most supermarkets. Tomatoes can be so much more! We got little green zebras, big yellow-red "pineapple" tomatoes, early girls, some unnamed dark purplish variety, and everything in between. Erika slices them up and eats them with salt and pepper, or gently places the tomato slices on top of cheese on top of bread and pops the whole thing under the broiler for a few minutes. Today's tomato cheese toastie got the added benefit of a bit of fresh oregano from the Lins' garden. Martin just pops the cherry tomatoes in his mouth one after the other - yellow, red, orange, red, yellow...this is the way to live! I'm not crazy about them myself, but I am enjoying nibbling a bit of that California lawn each day to get my greens...

Sunning in the Suburbs

We made it!!! Flying first class is Not Bad, especially when I get to ride on Erika's lap instead of the sub-zero floor of the aircraft. I was certainly not crazy about waiting in the airport, or actually taking off in the plane, but once I treated my fellow passengers to my full range of vocal expression (at top volume), I settled down and was happy to just doze, with an occasional glance out the window. Martin was at the airport to greet us with a box of chocolates and a fully functional automobile. (How about that German engineering?) His trip was very enjoyable - they decided to blow off Vegas in favor of camping out by the hot springs on the East Side of the Sierras and driving through Yosemite Valley. Highlights of the trip were apparently the hot springs and of course the Memphis barbecue.

We are now quite comfortably settled in a lovely cottage in Palo Alto with a large yard and flower garden, humming birds, squirrels, and even another cat (Montana). We are not friends yet, but have established a truce which involves daily staring contests from our respective doorways. Erika has spent the week remembering how to get around the Bay Area and taking long, sunny walks in the Stanford Hills. Martin is learning all about his new job and how people do business differently in California. Example: No 9am meetings. If engineering is involved, no meetings before 11am. He is already quite enamored, mostly by the free mochas and the casual dress policy. California is Cool!

With thanks again to the Lin family, who found our current abode, we are signing the lease on an absolutely lovely flat in Bernal Heights (San Francisco) on Friday and will move at the end of the month. Yay!!! You can read more about Bernal Heights here and here.
The commute from SF to Sunnyvale is actually not bad. Martin has 3 options: the train, the company shuttle (complete with wireless connectivity and free snacks!), and driving. From here, we will start our search in earnest for the goat farm and attached dream house. Life is good. Now I see a butterfly I need to chase if I can tear myself away from this sunny spot...

NEWS FLASH: PAWLENE IN REHAB

Erika here, filling in while Pawlene recovers from her latest catnip binge. It's partially my fault - I left a few tea bags of catnip on the dining room table, right on top of my to-do list so that I would not forget to pack them for California. When I returned from a brief errand, I discovered the carnage depicted in the photo (catnip EVERYWHERE) and Pawlene, remorseful, staring out of the bedroom window.

In other news, Martin had dinner in Santa Fe, New Mexico last night with Renee Zellweger. Hmmmm. Last I heard he and Neil were headed for VEGAS, BABY!

I've been trying to amuse myself over the last few days with food, naturally, and one Broadway Show (Spring Awakening) that I just couldn't miss after cousin Andrew's enthusiastic review. It captures teenage angst and sexuality like no other movie or play I have seen. In the food department, I've been alternating between our local favorites (Lassi and Cafe Asean, whose roast Long Island duckling with coconut creamed corn I just polished off) and heavy hitters such as Gramercy Tavern (a perennial favorite) and, finally, Babbo. It is every bit as good as everyone says it is. Aside from dinners I have been subsisting on the Rogue River blue cheese that Neil brought, lovely end-of-summer cherry tomatoes, radishes, and young coconut. Clearly the plan to cook a grand meal or two using everything left in the fridge and cupboards has been trashed. Movers come tomorrow and take away the plates and silverware, so I'll be forced to eat the rest of my meals out. I've got the breakfasts lined up. Tomorrow I'm enjoying cafe con leche and the best Puerto Rican oatmeal (introduced to me by a friendly tow truck driver years ago when Charlie and I had a blow-out on the George Washington bridge). On Saturday, a leisurely good-bye brunch at Prune with Andrew, and finally, on Sunday, my last trip to Jack's (our beloved local cafe) for a bagel and some of that patented Stir-Brew Coffee before I get on the plane. Luckily, I'm not moving to a culinary wasteland, although apparently Portland is where it is all happening these days.

You can get great food anywhere - even Texas - so that is not what I will miss the most about New York City. This place inspires me like no other. All it takes is a walk down the sidewalk side by side with every size, shape, and color of person you can imagine. Yesterday I saw a man who was *completely* covered in tattoos, even the insides of his ears were illustrated. But I digress. All of these people, moving with such PURPOSE. I get sucked into the powerful current that runs this city and it just CHARGES me with my own creative energy and purpose. I can't wait to connect and contribute and collaborate with these passionate and driven souls.

Living in New York City is hard. You have to really want to be here. The weather is relentlessly hot or freezing cold. The streets and subways are crowded with masses of people who push and move fast - you have to go fast too, or you get run over. It's expensive - everyone is out to make a buck and if you don't stand up for yourself, you get run over there too. But living here feels like being part of something important. People take their civic duties seriously - we help tourists find their way, we say a friendly hello to the flower guy, coffee guy, and baker whose shops we walk by every single day, we support the arts in myriad ways, and generally we take great pride in our identities as New Yorkers.

Don't get me wrong - I'm looking forward to putting down roots in California - literally and figuratively. I might eventually get tired of the hustle, the concrete, the noise, and the hard work of living in New York City, but I haven't yet. To me, it will always be the greatest city on earth. But for now, it's time to turn to the other side of my personality - the side that wears overalls instead of stiletto boots. The side that loves growing things, and listening to crickets at night, and being able to see the stars. Maybe, once we get really settled and I have long forgiven Pawlene for the mess on the dining room table, I'll even grow a little patch of catnip for her to roll in, tear up, and destroy.