Not Just No

Celeste, Andrew's other grandmother, reports that he now speaks in complete sentences. Not just "No" but "I don't want to do that." A new variation on the terrible twos. Adorable.

Jon turns 25

The day was autumnal, chill, foggy, but the sun broke through just about tailgate time. Each tail gate gets better. This one featured Dan's pulled beef tacos and Joe's tangerine margaritas.My spinach chicken enchiladas. Fruit and cheese and a gigantic salad. The football was the best in several years. Passes were caught, kicks scored, and the other team was baaad. Afterwards we had a crab fest. Mitch and Judy cooked the crab. It doesn't get any better than this day. Savor the moment.

Darth Dog

Perfect Days

Each day is a gift of discovery, of time stretching out before me, to be spent, hoarded, given. My time is my own. I am so enjoying the nots: not doing hair and makeup, not commuting, not opening an office, not plunging into the world of others, not spending my energy in a world not my own, not having a life, not commuting in darkness among joggers and bikers half seen, not feeling like doing anything else but repeating the same patterns.
Wednesday was a particularly wonderful day. Jon and I drove over to the coast mid morning, with Homerdog. We stopped at Cowell Ranch state beach park and hiked half a mile down to the beach and the ocean. We saw only three other people, hundreds of artichoke plants, and a fence gate shaped like a spouting whale, in the middle of the field.
Our next stop was Arata's pumpkin farm, set in a coastside valley to the east of Highway 1, four miles south of Half Moon Bay. Farmer Arata builds a corn maze every year out of corn bales, stacked 5 high, way over my head. He doesn't draw it out before construction, but it is intricate, clever and very difficult to escape. It took Jon and me half an hour, and we had to collaborate, that is, I stood at interesections while he checked out each offshoot, so as not to get lost. Before we teamed up I went in by myself, only to find it a creepy experience: just corn and blue sky and no sounds, no other people.
We took another half hour to pick our four pumpkins, to be added to the front yard display we already had. Red pumpkins, green, gray, and pumpkin orange. Afterwards we stopped at Two Fools Cafe in Half Moon Bay for lunch, on their patio, in the shade. A most excellent day.