When I got home from work today, I was in the mood to go for a long walk with the dog. Navi chomped down her dinner in a jiffy and off we went!
In Berkeley, there is a law stating that if your dog stays within 6 feet of you, they are considered leashed. I think this is a really cool law because I enjoy walking Navi so much more when I don't have to keep her on a leash. I think it's really fair because if your dog stays within 6 feet of you and is easily controlled verbally, they aren't going to ruin another pedestrian's experience. Your walking stride doesn't get interrupted every time the dog wants to sniff something, and it allows the dog to linger and sniff around a little more. Navi has always been great off-leash, but she didn't know to stay close when walking with us on sidewalks. She never ran away by any means, but we would have to vocally control her and keep her close. She's been learning that when walking on sidewalks, she needs to stay closer. When walking on paths or in the woods, she can run off and do whatever! Now she's really good at walking with us on city streets! She's also learning that she can't meet everyone she wants to meet. She's better at leaving people alone when we tell her to leave them if they are not interested. She also pays more attention to staying close than she did before, which is nice. I think she's mellowing out a little with age and realizing that we'll let her meet the people who want to meet her, so she just has to trust our judgment. She's getting so good with this that I only ever put her on the leash when there is a lot of traffic where we are walking.
Another really cool thing about the Berkeley hills is that there are tons of pathways for pedestrians that cars can't get through. The entire hill is filled with a maze of roads that would make walking to get somewhere a big ordeal if these pathways didn't exist. If you look at google maps and search for directions somewhere and select walking as the transportation, it shows you all the paths you'll need to take to get there fastest! It's really cool. I love how they managed to keep all those paths there! The paths are well used, too - it makes it easier to get home from wherever your bus stop is! I always see people using the paths.
I knew there was a small grocery store about a half mile away, so I found it on google maps, and figured out how to walk there. It seemed like an easy walk, so we meandered over. I didn't need anything at the store, but I wanted to know what kind of a grocery store it was. A general store with nothing useful, or a small useful store? When we got closer, there were lots of people out walking. They all loved Navi, and I had to stop every 5 seconds so they could pet her and coo over how gorgeous she is. I bumped into a man that Tim and I have walked past several times in the past. His dog had really bad cataracts, and it turned out that he was completely blind and deaf. The owner was really surprised that I was deaf, too, and it turns out he could only hear with one ear! So we made an odd pair. After chatting for a few minutes, I walked off to scope out the grocery store, and discovered that it was a very small store but I'm not sure how useful it is. It has a nice butchers counter though, so maybe it's good for fresh meat! I kept walking, and eventually I turned around to wander back home. Once again, I bumped into the man with the blind/deaf dog! He said that he was walking to the Blake House, which was about 4 blocks away. He asked me if I had ever gone there, and I hadn't...so he told me to tag along! It closed at 4:30p, so he said I wouldn't be able to explore for long, but he said I should know where it is to go back and explore sometime. Dogs are allowed! He seemed really pleasant, so we walked around together for a while. Eventually, we got to the Blake House, and it's really pretty! Free, too! I wandered around for about 10 minutes before the property closed, and I got kicked out. So I will have to go again sometime, with a camera to take photos of the property. Then Navi and I came home, where I baked....more muffins! I tried some orange cranberry muffins this time. When I was in Florida, I bought a few different loaves of bread on the last day to say thank you to all the people at Aurora in Florida. They are always so willing to help me out, so I grabbed a banana chocolate chip loaf, a caramel apple loaf, a pumpkin bread loaf, and a loaf of orange cranberry bread. When I gave it to them, they cut it up into slices, and gave me a slice of orange cranberry loaf. Well, I'd never had bread in this flavor before and it blew me away. It was so delicious. So I came home and made orange cranberry bread, and we've had it two or three times since. So today I tried another recipe for orange cranberry muffins. I haven't eaten one yet, but I think I should have left it in the oven another minute or two longer. Who knows! The few nibbles I had tasted pretty darn yummy! Then I decided I wanted to make garlic chicken for dinner. I wanted to make this for dinner on Saturday, but Timmy had a wicked craving for nachos, so we had to make those instead. Then I decided that I'd make the pasta from scratch too, so I found a new pasta recipe to try, and mixed it up! I let my stand mixer do the kneading while I started getting the chicken ready to fry! Then I made pasta, cooked all the chicken up, and made a buttery garlic-y mess of fresh pasta, breaded chicken, and yumminess! Then I realized that the whole dinner was really from scratch, because I had made the breadcrumbs myself out of bread that was about to go bad! Go me! :)
In Berkeley, there is a law stating that if your dog stays within 6 feet of you, they are considered leashed. I think this is a really cool law because I enjoy walking Navi so much more when I don't have to keep her on a leash. I think it's really fair because if your dog stays within 6 feet of you and is easily controlled verbally, they aren't going to ruin another pedestrian's experience. Your walking stride doesn't get interrupted every time the dog wants to sniff something, and it allows the dog to linger and sniff around a little more. Navi has always been great off-leash, but she didn't know to stay close when walking with us on sidewalks. She never ran away by any means, but we would have to vocally control her and keep her close. She's been learning that when walking on sidewalks, she needs to stay closer. When walking on paths or in the woods, she can run off and do whatever! Now she's really good at walking with us on city streets! She's also learning that she can't meet everyone she wants to meet. She's better at leaving people alone when we tell her to leave them if they are not interested. She also pays more attention to staying close than she did before, which is nice. I think she's mellowing out a little with age and realizing that we'll let her meet the people who want to meet her, so she just has to trust our judgment. She's getting so good with this that I only ever put her on the leash when there is a lot of traffic where we are walking.
Another really cool thing about the Berkeley hills is that there are tons of pathways for pedestrians that cars can't get through. The entire hill is filled with a maze of roads that would make walking to get somewhere a big ordeal if these pathways didn't exist. If you look at google maps and search for directions somewhere and select walking as the transportation, it shows you all the paths you'll need to take to get there fastest! It's really cool. I love how they managed to keep all those paths there! The paths are well used, too - it makes it easier to get home from wherever your bus stop is! I always see people using the paths.
I knew there was a small grocery store about a half mile away, so I found it on google maps, and figured out how to walk there. It seemed like an easy walk, so we meandered over. I didn't need anything at the store, but I wanted to know what kind of a grocery store it was. A general store with nothing useful, or a small useful store? When we got closer, there were lots of people out walking. They all loved Navi, and I had to stop every 5 seconds so they could pet her and coo over how gorgeous she is. I bumped into a man that Tim and I have walked past several times in the past. His dog had really bad cataracts, and it turned out that he was completely blind and deaf. The owner was really surprised that I was deaf, too, and it turns out he could only hear with one ear! So we made an odd pair. After chatting for a few minutes, I walked off to scope out the grocery store, and discovered that it was a very small store but I'm not sure how useful it is. It has a nice butchers counter though, so maybe it's good for fresh meat! I kept walking, and eventually I turned around to wander back home. Once again, I bumped into the man with the blind/deaf dog! He said that he was walking to the Blake House, which was about 4 blocks away. He asked me if I had ever gone there, and I hadn't...so he told me to tag along! It closed at 4:30p, so he said I wouldn't be able to explore for long, but he said I should know where it is to go back and explore sometime. Dogs are allowed! He seemed really pleasant, so we walked around together for a while. Eventually, we got to the Blake House, and it's really pretty! Free, too! I wandered around for about 10 minutes before the property closed, and I got kicked out. So I will have to go again sometime, with a camera to take photos of the property. Then Navi and I came home, where I baked....more muffins! I tried some orange cranberry muffins this time. When I was in Florida, I bought a few different loaves of bread on the last day to say thank you to all the people at Aurora in Florida. They are always so willing to help me out, so I grabbed a banana chocolate chip loaf, a caramel apple loaf, a pumpkin bread loaf, and a loaf of orange cranberry bread. When I gave it to them, they cut it up into slices, and gave me a slice of orange cranberry loaf. Well, I'd never had bread in this flavor before and it blew me away. It was so delicious. So I came home and made orange cranberry bread, and we've had it two or three times since. So today I tried another recipe for orange cranberry muffins. I haven't eaten one yet, but I think I should have left it in the oven another minute or two longer. Who knows! The few nibbles I had tasted pretty darn yummy! Then I decided I wanted to make garlic chicken for dinner. I wanted to make this for dinner on Saturday, but Timmy had a wicked craving for nachos, so we had to make those instead. Then I decided that I'd make the pasta from scratch too, so I found a new pasta recipe to try, and mixed it up! I let my stand mixer do the kneading while I started getting the chicken ready to fry! Then I made pasta, cooked all the chicken up, and made a buttery garlic-y mess of fresh pasta, breaded chicken, and yumminess! Then I realized that the whole dinner was really from scratch, because I had made the breadcrumbs myself out of bread that was about to go bad! Go me! :)
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