Last weekend I jetted down to lovely C-A-L-I to visit my bestie, Jaime. She’s subletting a sweet piece of house, perched over the estuary that runs through Alameda. It was like staying on a houseboat, only the houseboat was attached.

I didn’t get the sunshiney Valhalla I’d expected since it rained 90% of the time I was there, but that was fine. I caught some sunshine my first morning there as we drank boozy coffee on the huge porch. When it did rain, it was often in big, gusty sheets; watching the rain pound the water outside the window was fun, but seeing the poor birdies trying to fly against the wind wasn’t so great. Poor seagulls.

We had some excellent meals, including a lunch at the new branch of Burma Superstar which was just blocks from Jaime’s place! We also had some heavenly burritos and some ridiculously delicious french macaroons.

We watched two scary movies: Orphan and Paranormal Activity. We watched Orphan because it featured our mutual movie boyfriend Peter Sarsgaard. The plot to this one was fun and creative and I enjoyed that they took the time to build up a good story with interesting characters. Paranormal Activity wasn’t half as scary as I’d set it up to be, but it did give me the willies in a few spots. We also watched Up in the Air. I found it kinda depressing, but there were some interesting moments.

The last night I was there we stopped by the house of a friend of Jaime’s: we had some lovely wine (okay a lot of lovely wine) and hung out with the couple and their 9-year-old son who RULED. So often kids are left at home when parents go to visit or put down to sleep in a bedroom when company is over, but this family had their son hanging out with us for most of the evening. It was so fun – we played Spongebob SORRY! and drew pictures and giggled and played hide and seek. Seeing a well adjusted kid enjoying time with his parents yet letting them be adults and have conversations was pretty awesome.

We had plans to visit San Francisco and maybe drop in on some friends, but Monday morning we both woke with awful hangovers. I guess we aren’t 23 anymore. The storm was raging outside so we ordered pizza delivery and sat around chatting. We never left the 94501 zip code and I’m not one bit sorry. It felt like old times when we both lived in the city – back then we didn’t spend our time jetting from place to place trying to mark things off of a list. We just talked. Slept in. Read books together.

I came home, feeling a bit lonely but happy to see Sky. Then I was in Jury Duty for 2 days and got the worst haircut of my life. Both those things will have to wait for another post…

Kalaloch Creek flowing into the Pacific

Originally uploaded by afagen

I haven’t gotten photos off of my own camera yet, so here’s a lovely photo someone else took of Kalaloch. My sister and I visited this weekend for a short sisterly getaway. We often camped there as kids.

We didn’t realize it was so close to TWILIGHT OMG FORKS, WASHINGTON! This made for some fun times at the gift shop and grocery store. Weirdest Twilight themed thing: sandwiches at the deli, named the Edward, Jacob and Bella. I think Edward was roast beef but I can’t remember what the other two were.

With love, from Mryna

I’m going to be home all by my lonesome for a week and a half, before I hop on a plane to join him for 10 days. I’m looking forward to bacherlorette-hood: ice cream for dinner, watching bad movies, and forgetting to brush my teeth. I’m pretty stoked.

I’m looking forward to the vacation, because things have been a bit, ooooh tense here lately? Libraryland has been fraught with stressed out patrons, stressed out coworkers and by extension, stressed out Jen.

Wait – I’m actually not sure I can eat ice cream for dinner, now that I think of it. Sky and I saw Food Inc. a few nights ago, and I didn’t really know what I was in for. I thought it was more of a hippie-mellow “hey buy organic stuff, okay?” kind of movie, not a PETA style reminder of why I’m vegetarian and how if I were a better person I’d be vegan, too. I’ve watched a lot of PETA stuff, so it’s not shocking, but it’s still stuff I can’t watch. There’s a reason I don’t eat the alive (okay, dead) stuff. I had to cover my eyes and even plug my ears for long periods of the movie. I’m feeling extreme guilt over the few fishies I’ve eaten in the last few months. Sorry, fishies. I hope you died as painlessly as possible.

I let sleeping piggies lie

Sky and I went down to Humboldt for a nice week o’ relaxation. It was so utterly needed that by the time to leave rolled around I was practically jumping out of my skin.

We were there for May Day which was a lot of fun – we went to a festival/fundraiser for his old elementary school. I got to hold a rabbit! Sky pet a sheep. We had delicious BBQ and hibiscus tea and watched all of the happy sunburned hippie kids run around having a good time.

Plenty of time was spent lazing around, reading. We read on the sunny porch. We read in the hammock. We read on the beach. We read in bed. We read while sitting in the outhouse. Yeah, I said outhouse. I made it a week without flushing a toilet and it was really kind of relaxing. One morning I was out doing my thing, reading some NYT article, and I saw a lone wild turkey strutting by. I think the rest of his pack had ostracized him, poor guy.

Which leads me to…

Jen’s List of Wild Animals She Saw This Week

• Wild Turkeys (5)
• Deer (14)
• Lizards (3, a family that lived on the deck, plus 39029 of them while hiking)
• Elk (0, because I was sleeping, but Sky saw 4)
• Rabbits (5) *
• Chickens (at least 15)*
• Baby Turkey (1)*
• Baby Ducklings (4)*
• Lamb (1 close up, many of them from the car)*

* OK, so not really wild, but I got to see them up close which was neat.

It was a Chickeny kind of trip. First we went to an Arts Alive! event that featured the work of a painter who specialized in chickens. I asked her how she got them to sit still and she said they were pretty stupid and that if you set them facing a wall they will quickly hypnotize themselves and stay still for an hour. The same event had a bunch of chickens and roosters for sale. We saw chickens at the May Day event, too. Sky got some BBQ chicken and one of the chicken legs got lost in our beach bag. It was pretty funny. Several other chicken things happened, but now for the life of me I can’t recall them.

And finally, a hammock shot. Enjoy.