MonDay

On this final day of my long weekend, mundane acts stole the morning; laundry, cleaning, and organizing for work tomorrow. The highlight of the day? Definitely afternoon smoothies, coconut cream pie, and stroll in Golden Gate Park with miss rachel.I am grateful for a fantastic weekend. And a fantastic PBS show on Henry's wives that is on right now. sweet.

SunDay

This fine weekend morning found me lounging in bed, watching the new Masterpiece Theatre version of Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre. I love me a good period piece, and the thick fog outside made staying in bed a beautiful, wonderful thing. In the afternoon, I moseyed over to North Oakland to see friendslashcoworker Amy's new digs and help cut fruit and assemble shishkabobs for a BBQ she is organizing for tomorrow at Stinson Beach.Amy's quirky neighbor has like the best welcome mat ever.

Amy, Alisa (chopping in the background), Yur, and I chopped vegetables and made fruit salad for the masses. Reese came in and saved us all from cutting the onions, which was lovely of him even though we were all still tearing up by the end of the day. A hundred skewers assembled, we found that the circular squash pieces made satisfying images. Also, pineapple on shishkabobs gets a big thumbs up.

SaturDay

Some people make grandiose plans for Memorial Day weekend. My plans were grand to me and happened without much travel. Mellowness. Finally.Went to the Farmer's Market Saturday morning with my friend Brian. My soy latte was much prettier than his. He was a bit sad.Later, I rearranged my bed. I forgot to take a before picture and couldn't find an old one, but picture it with the pillows directly under that window. It took me a long time because a) my bed is heavy, b) it's on lifts and c) I did it all by myself. I really wanted space on both sides of the bed. It's kinda my definition of fully grown up.

Saturday evening, I went to see the movie The Host, a 2006 South Korean monster film at the Red Vic. I'd be interested to hear what others thought of this movie.....I haven't quite decided. I felt like I was missing something perhaps lost in translation, or perhaps the whole concept of beginning as one thing to emerge as another really is the general gist of the movie.

Also went and saw a glam rock band called Vin Rouge at the Bottom of the Hill. Eyeliner on boys is kinda rad. It was a full day.

pop smack beam the ocean goes

The ocean and I have this long standing relationship that started when I was a wee thing; I would try to stay standing and big blue would bash me along side the face. I ate a lot of sand. So, in Costa Rica, at what Coletter called a "leslie friendly beach," I watched the group of them dive under waves while I stood safe in knee deep water. And I ventured a bit further. And then I assumed "determined leslie face" and decided to dive under a wave. One came, I dove and.....

pop. there I was up the other side without a care in the world. Victory! Elation! Yay! Determined shifting to beaming. I became a wave diving rebel. Up, down, up, down, lost the trunks that time, just flashed C and T, up, down and......

smack. A wave crashed into my head with loving, maternal affection. It was amazing, going under, that I didn't panic. Instead, I could hear a conversation I had with Vernon, him telling me that I just had to relax, really relax, and the wave would spin me out. And I did. And it did. Sputtering, I marveled. And beamed. With my newfound, timid respect for so much water, I felt moved to try surfing. Under the tutelage of Chocco, I rode my first waves. Holy crap. So much fun. So much soreness. Muscles I never even knew......but it was rad. And I would do it again in a heartbeat if San Francisco didn't have such creepy, wave-thrashy beaches. Ah well. Let's go south T, woot!

about to fall and losing my drawers! (tee hee)

Definitely falling.

Beaming.
(fantastic photos a la Charlie)

inappropriate angst

I just arrived in the office after an entire week of field work....days spent in the South Bay climbing hillsides with a GPS and, in the North Bay, navigating those vegetated areas in freeway onramp/offramp loopdeloops. And now, I'm here. The blinky red light that means messages is flashing on my phone. There is a pile of wetland delineation data sheets to be entered. Diann from accounting is hunting me with a spear to turn in my VISA statement and receipts (little does she know I left most of those receipts at home). And the emails.....sigh. The client emails. sigh.

I'd rather be doing anything else. I'd rather be buying sponges to clean that nasty pile of dishes in my apartment. Or reading blogs I know and blogs I don't, the ultimate voyeur. Or working on editing some of my writing for my writing group. Or reminiscing. Or foreshadowing. Or flying kites. Or sitting sunshine-like in the backyard area of Cafe Gratitude, sipping an almond latte with whoever could find the time or inclination.

And so I leave you with an image of our office mascot. His name is Chucky, and he has velcro on his feet for a reason; we use to hide him around the office, stuck to the ceiling, sticking out from the wall, until he freaked out the head architect so much that we had to limit wee Chucky's forays. He lay where he fell currently, and on a particularly angsty day, the other Leslie in the office (LeslieM, not my mirror has two faces) and I put an appropriate sign next to him.

B2B 2007

Yesterday= Bay to Breakers. Sunburns, unforeseen whiskey shots, and Dan dropped me on my head. Karen helped a man and his hurt knee, Asher has an awesome bikini tan, and although Tara was the tortoise and I was the hare, I resisted falling asleep beneath a tree. Lori played twister on some girls, Mish was queen of everything and had another sponge bob no pants sighting, and Jeni stole a man's fuzzy pink cart. And, um, no. We didn't see the finish line. ha.

(not us.)

Find more Bay to Breakers joy at Lori's blog here.

in case you've never done it

this is what a zip line in the cloud forest looks like.

go on. fly.

a la Costa Rica

May 3rd, Tara and I hightailed it from work to the airport, caught a red eye, and began our journey to Samara, Costa Rica, where Colette has been studying massage the past few months. We kicked the trip off watching the Warriors beat Dallas in the final game of the series, cheers-ing with our "kick the trip off" vodka and sodas. Apparently, the airport bar catch phrase is "Make it a double for two bucks more."

Tara's two bucks more, woot!

The Tico Lodge in Samara, Costa Rica.

Graffiti, Samara-style.

Street walking.

We walked to Buena Vista beach and had to wade a river. This was the smallest cross point we could find with the least amount of vegetation. Our concern? Freaking crocodiles, which are quite prominent in this area. And no, that fantastic roaring in the forest isn't a croc, it's a howler monkey, who, despite it's lung capacity, is a wee bitty thing.

Sunset on the way to Monteverde. Staggering.

cat and flowers: Pension de Santa Elena. Our home on Monteverde. Card games with Canadians are dangerous things and lead you past signs that say cootiecomer and to rodeo discotheques. Who ever heard of canned rum and coke? Santa Elena Preserve. Our guide Henry. I geeked out and took notes, picking his brain profusely.

Ziplines abound in the cloud forests, and we tried to find the least ecologically impacting service. Our guides were great and really easy to make blush. We were grouped with a pack of east Texans, who we think were all related in some way. They were loud and funny and a hoot to zip with.....especially creepy uncle Dale, who was always behind us on the line, and, not being stellar with the brake, coined the phrase "I'm coming in HOT!" It became our slogan. They called us narrow-assed-girls due to our lack of padding and our quick ascents to platforms.....what can we say? San Franciscans can climb hills. But we do tend to blush when Texan wife points out to Texan husband that "he's done got his junk all tangled" in his zipline harness.

Early morning Monteverde. Dogs are everywhere in Costa Rica. This one loved Tara and burying coral.

Barigona. Soft white sand. Huge waves that slightly scared me. pretty shells. pretty sunset. pretty people. Peaceful. I sang as I walked. Charlie drove us in his truck, fording some crazy rivers. I sat by the window and wished I had a propane canister to shove down the throat of the inevitable croc that would inevitably appear at my shoulder. No croc came, but thank you Spielburg, for my worst case scenario solution. Before we left Barigona, Charlie had us help him hoist a 250 lb piece of driftwood onto the car roof for the bar he's building in Samara. Narrow-assed, maybe, but strong nonetheless.
Tara and I in the rural Liberia Airport. It's a hanger. Pretty much. You can't tell, but we are just about to start our vodka and soda and flying regime. Little did we know how long it would take to get home; thunder and lightening in Georgia shut down the airport for awhile. More crosswords, vodka and soda eased the sting of both delays and finding out the Warriors were down 2 in the series with Utah. They won while we were in the Georgia airport bar.....resisting "two buck more doubles."

Rachel was a trooper, picking us up, bedraggled but tan, at SFO at 3AM Saturday morning. Sans my luggage, which I tried to track down on Saturday. Annoyed and then accepting, the universe wanted me to realize the triviality of it before magically depositing my backpack on my front porch Sunday morning....like a gift from Santa. My dad was shaving in the downstairs bathroom when I shoved in, beaming, pack in hand. Mother's day presents intact. yay.

teaser

the elusive Costa Rican Lipton tree frog.

MaMaDay

Rachel picked Tara and I up at 3AM, Friday night from SFO as we returned from Costa Rica. We had a fantastic time (I'll post about it soon, gathering pics), and spent the weekend recovering and adjusting to intensities here at home. Overdoses of perspective were softened by a BBQ on Sunday with my family celebrating the mothers. Hamburgers, chips, goofy kids (big and little), and time spent with family...my sister and I were not good role models.
I swear she hit me first.The family jewels.Fire in the HOLE!Nostalgic for the kids' table.lovelovelove.