...Because it's never too late to jump on the bandwagon

Future Trips?

I read this article yesterday about the Arctic ice melting a lot faster than climate modelers have been predicting and a variety of factors for that.  It's hard to believe how soon it could be gone.  I think we need to schedule a trip to Churchill ASAP to see polar bears.  Jeff loves bears and looks like these ones will be extinct sooner rather than later.  I won't even get into this discussion in this post.

But it made me think about traveling to the Arctic.  I believe the best time to see the polar bears is sometime in the fall.  I guess they are out actively hunting to bulk up for the winter.  On the other hand, we'd really like to see the aurora borealis, which I guess would be best seen in winter, if only to increase the chances via longer periods of darkness.  But I'd also like to see a 24 hour day.  Years ago, Breean and I said we should drive a couple days straight through from Seattle to the Arctic circle to arrive on the solstice.  I recently told her I was still holding her to that, and she said she hasn't forgotten!

It sounds like the only time not to bother with the Arctic is spring.  But, it's too cold to travel up there for each of these different things!  Might just have to suck it up, because it is a fascinating place.

Next Trip in the Works

Where are we going next?  Well, we figured that by Christmas-time we would want somewhere warm and super relaxing, where we could just spend time together and zone out.  We are going to Kauai!  

We've booked a condo right on the water in Poipu, the warmer, sunnier side of the island (by all accounts.  We've never been there, of course).  We will be there for a whole week, including over New Year's!  Even more exciting news is that we will be there at the same time as the Kay/Tingleff family, so we can hang out with Breean and Sam, their boys and meet Leah.

We will be doing some hiking, maybe a helicopter tour, probably scuba diving, and I'd really like to go ziplining.  I guess it won't be all just lazing about.

Anyone else want to join the party?  Traveling with friends is so fun...and I can't think of Hawaii without thinking about our last trip there, with so many friends, for Shane and Melissa's wedding!

 

In Case of Emergency

I was going through my wallet today and took a closer look at something I've carried around with me for a long time.  A VERY long time, apparently.  It's a little slip of paper that says, "In case of emergency, contact Jeff Smith" with our home and his work number.  His old work number.  But worse, when was the last time we had a home phone number?  Five or six years ago, I believe.  The final piece of the puzzle?  It doesn't even have his cell phone number on it.  We all know Jeff resisted a cell phone for years, but still, maybe 2003?  Later?  We can't even remember!  I mean, this thing in my wallet is like 8 years old +/-?  I have to say, it is in really great condition for being so old.  It's just a small slip cut out of printer paper.

I've been carrying this thing, a smart safety precaution!, for years, transferring all my stuff to new wallets along the way.  So weird!  Good thing I never had an emergency during that time...

Outsmarted!

We think our house is finally cat-proofed.  You know, we really think the cats have more aggressive tendencies since we've been feeding them the raw diet that we started back in 2009.  Never before did they go through our trash.  But it started soon after that.  They learned how to open the cabinet (slide out, like a drawer) that holds the trash and recycle bins.  This was very bad on nights that we'd have ribs, fish or steak. 

We soon decided we needed to baby-proof.  We used those little clippy-type plastic hooks, where it lets you open it a bit, then you depress the hook so it releases.  I remember one night watching Dilly watching Jeff, as he reached in and unlatched the trash can.  Eerie.  Those cats learned how to open the baby latch by watching Jeff.  Later, when they had perfected the skill, I remember seeing Dilly get up on his hind legs, make the drawer come out a little and start sticking his paw in there.

Well, besides being eerie how smart they were, we needed a better solution to keeping our trash safe from these monsters.  We were putting weights in front of the drawer as an interim solution.  We started with like 15-20 but that wasn't enough.  They moved it easily out of the way the first night.  We talked about it and thought about going up by 5 pounds each night until we found that weight that they could not move. But then we realized that we would just basically be training them to get stronger and stronger!  So we skipped straight up to 35 pounds.  And that did the trick for a while.  But then they did move it one night!  Must have been teamwork.  Plus, it was very inconvenient each night.  They would still get into it during the day if we were upstairs or gone for a while or whatever.

In desperation, I posted to Facebook.  And a friend did come through.  A magnetized lock!  You install a lock on the inside and it has a latch.  But you don't open it an inch to disable the latch, you just put this really, really strong magnet against the drawer where the latch is located and the magnet releases it.  The magnet sits on the fridge for convenient access.  Also, if you are cooking a lot or something  like  that, you can disable the lock.  You just have to remember to re-enable it!  So the cats have not successfully outsmarted this technique...yet.  It has a number of advantages, including that you probably really need opposable thumbs to grab the magnet off the fridge, and then you have to be pretty good with the magnet to rub it on exactly the right place and hold it there so you can open the drawer.  If you move it off that particular spot, it latches again.  Even with teamwork, this should be a real challenge for them.  Our trash is safe for a while.  If they ever get past this obstacle, I don't know what we'll do or if it will have to be something that outsmarts us!

At the Garage Sale

I've been meaning to post this forever, because it is something I don't want to forget.  Finally, almost a month after the garage sale at my dad's house!

Quote from garage sale shopper, upon hearing that my dad's two ex-wives and ex-girlfriend were helping his daughter on this day:  "Wow, he must have been a pretty great guy to get all three of you here to help out!"

Where Do the Years Go?

You all already know the story of 15 years ago.  To celebrate we went to El Bizcocho, the site of one of our Top 5 Meals.  In looking back through the archives here at the Bandwagon, I see we somehow failed to write about that experience at the time!  I don't know how, frankly.  Anyway, I think it was 2008.  We had a Valentine's Day dinner there.  They had a ten-course menu that night, and a lot of the plates were shared, and some of them were his and hers, so we got different things and got to taste each other's.  We definitely don't remember everything, unfortunately, but we remember the monkfish, and that we could have died happy after eating it.  And the service was so great.  Round about course 9, we mentioned to the server how the monkfish was to die for, and he offered to bring us more.  That was one of the hardest decisions of my life.  To pass up that monkfish was to miss out on extending a great joy the likes of which are very rare.  But to eat it would be to risk a fate akin to the Glutton in the movie Seven.  We just couldn't do it.  That was also the night we had one of the most amazing bottles of wine ever.  I think it was a Silverwood Cabernet.

This night was a good, solid dinner, if not as culinarily magical as the previous.  A great heirloom tomato salad.  An amazing wine pairing with some ahi.  The dessert was fantastic.  We weren't painfully full like the previous time, this time the excess was the wine:

 

I don't know what is the earliest picture we have of us together.  After all that was back in the days where you had to take photos selectively, since you only had like 24 on a roll.  But here's a decent comparison...

 

 

Hats

We saw an interesting array of hats at Outside Lands.  We had barely gotten in on the first day when I was wondering why I was seeing multiple people wearing panda hats.  Then, throughout the event, we saw all kinds of animals hats.  Well, turns out that a company called Animal Hats is based in San Francisco, and it looks like a panda hat is their flagship.  I especially like the Polar Bear Hat.  Several of them have those paws, which hang down from the hat and you can put your hands in like pockets/mittens, and I was very jealous as the evening cooled and I saw people wearing them (well, I had brought a hat and gloves, too, but theirs were cuter!).  In a different vein, the Shark Hat is pretty funny.

I saw one woman with an owl hat and I really liked it.  It was kinda different than Animal Hats' hats.  Anyway, I thought how much I would love to have an owl hat and of course there are so many, mostly for babies.  Etsy has 218 items listed for Adult Owl Hat, although there are still plenty of baby pictures in there.

On the second day, I saw a guy wearing a disco ball hat, although it was shaped more like a helmet.  It was really cool.  I googled this and there are lots of different types, most of them not as cool as the one the guy was wearing.  Here is one that is close, but the helmet this guy was wearing was more like the ones baseball players wear, if you can picture that.

I didn't expect hats to be such a primary feature of the festival!

Outside Lands

 
What a great music and arts festival!  I really wondered whether I could do 3 days of live music and whether it would be worth the money.  It was!  It did get quite crowded, food and drinks were expensive, and yes, by the evening of the third day, I was too lazy to keep running around between stages.  Luckily, that day almost all the bands we wanted to see were on just one stage!

The spirit of the place was very congenial, very friendly, very San Francisco.  We listened to a lot of new bands (one, The Joy Formidable, we especially liked), saw some groups we like perform for the first time (John Fogerty Band, Ok Go) and the highlight was, of course, the Shins.  James Mercer is backed by a new band now, which is a little sad.  But they are getting ready to finally release a new album, so we're looking forward to hearing it.  They played two new songs, I believe, that night.  Most of their old songs, Mercer gave a crazy twist to the vocals, which worked really well for New Slang but not as well on others (Saint Simon).  I do get the feeling Mercer doesn't like the most recent album, Wincing the Night Away, as well as older ones.  I heard he said something about the new album being less melancholy, and WtNA is a bit melnacholy, so maybe he's just moved away from that mood in his music.  Anyway, he played only 2 songs from that album.   Their set seemed to end after just 15 minutes!  And when it ended, I was like, that's okay, we'll get maybe two more songs for the encore.  But apparently, it doesn't work like that at festivals.  Their time was pretty much over and they didn't come back out, to my everlasting chagrin.

We also spent time enjoying the food and looked around at some of the other exhibits and performances, like "The Barbary Tent" where we saw a comedian, contortionist, improv comedy/rap group and this cool thing called a Cyr Wheel, which I guess they have in some Cirque shows. Check out an example.  On Satuday and Sunday, the weather in San Francisco was fantastic, and it was actually clear and sunny!  Still cool and breezy, which was perfect for being outdoors all day.  But it was so nice just to have the sun.

We were so lucky to be able to stay with Geoff and Becky.  They live right across from Golden Gate Park, where the concert was held, so we had less than a 5 minute walk to the 36th Ave entrance, and then a bit longer to get into the venue.  We also enjoyed a fantastic dinner with them Saturday night at Chapeau!, a fantastic French bistro.  Geoff had the opportunity to mention that he works at The Wine Shop, where our waiter often goes and then we were in like Flynn.  We had them share a glass of one of our wines, and they brought us extra appetizers and desserts!  It was a fantastic meal, including a perfectly done foie gras, an amazing scallop, my skate wing with a delicious sauce, and Jeff's homey, comforting cassoulet.  So, so good.  When we finally left, I think it was about 1am or later!

On Sunday, with the continued beautiful weather and a later schedule at the concert, we spent a while at the beach with Geoff, Becky and their Bernese Mountain Dog, Stella.  They are friends with other people with "Berners" and if anyone else was walking their Berner that day, they all had to meet each other, too.  I guess dogs have play groups now, just like kids do.  Earlier in the weekend, we met Grizzly, a 140 lb St. Bernard that they were sharing dogsitting duties for.  He was a total sweetheart and very cuddly.  Jeff used him and Stella as my wake up call at 11am on Saturday, as you can see here.

Well, that was our last adventure weekend for a while!  We got up at 4am to make our flight and as I was dropping Jeff off at work, thinking about how depressing it is to spend the day there, I asked him, "But was it worth it?"  He smiled big and said, "Yeah!"

Good idea/bad idea

2:08pm: slightly overcast, occasional breeze. Mid to high 60s. "What a good idea to have a 3 day long concert in the summer in San Francisco!"

8:21pm: fog has rolled in. Sharp winds at times. Feels like about 5 degrees...Kelvin. "why would anyone choose San Francisco for an outdoor concert in the summer??"

Birthdays Abound!

Today is Jan's birthday!  We are going to dinner with Jan and Darrell, Jon and Eleanor tonight at Donovan's downtown.  We haven't seen Jan and Darrell since June, before I went to South Africa!  And we haven't seen Jon and Eleanor in an even longer time, way before their 3 week road trip on Route 66.  I'm interested to learn how well 3 weeks in a car went for them, and if they have any scars from the ordeal.  

In years past, we often celebrated Jan's birthday up in Tahoe, usually with a dinner out to Swiss Lakewood, a restaurant the Smith's have been visiting nearly as long as they've been going to Tahoe over the summer.  Unfortunately, this summer kept us and Jon & Eleanor away from Tahoe, but celebrating in San Diego should be nice as well.  Happy birthday, Jan!

Yesterday was Dillinger's birthday, and we are so sad that we missed celebrating it on the right day!  We did, after all, celebrate Akila's with a blog post this year.  It seems like each year, we forget one or the other's.  We're such terrible parents!  Anyway, better late than never, here are some of Dillinger's aliases:

• Dill
• Dilly
• Billy, and therefore, of course Billy Goat
• Dillinberry (sometimes this type of berry can be made into a Dillinberry Pie)
• Dilibuster (probably came form filibuster)
• Dilimundo (definitely came from Telemundo)
• Dillin the Villain
• The Dilibomber (a domestic terrorist)

If you referred to our past post, you can see that we are, in fact, harboring two terrorist entities in our home.  They spend most of their time terrorizing each other, so we are keeping the world safe from their terrorist ways.  For now at least.

Happy 8th birthday to our little guy!