Vet

Navi wouldn't eat her food on Monday, so we got a little worried. Tuesday morning, she still wouldn't eat, so we decided to call the vet and make an appointment just to make sure nothing was seriously wrong. We had a feeling she just hated the food, but it was strange enough that we wanted to have her checked out.

Tim's bus was late, so he got to the vet 20 minutes late. I figured I'd be fine on my own, so I just went in with the vet and Navi and tried to talk with him on my own. Usually, when we go to this vet, we get a very sweet indian woman who I like a lot. This time, I got an arrogant and pompous jerk that I immediately hated. He was nice enough to Navi, but he didn't care to spend much time making sure I understood him. At the end, he sent me out to the waiting room, basically saying that I was too difficult to talk to, and that he would talk to Tim when he arrived. I was kind of shocked because there are a lot of easy ways to communicate with me, including failproof methods involving writing or typing. His blatant and rude dismissal shocked me, and I told the secretaries that if I ever came back to this vet, I would appreciate that I was never given that particular vet again. They were a little shocked with the situation, and with how upset I was.

Timmy arrives, and I told him what had happened. We had to sit around and wait for ten minutes until Mr. Pompous decided he would see us. He brought us back into the room, and talked to Tim for a little while longer, and decided that Navi was fine. He didn't ask Tim any questions he couldn't have asked me, and I think it would have been simple enough to write down, "I think she's fine, I think you need to change her food." Tim felt the same, and brought it to the vet's attention that it was illegal to not be willing to work with me. The vet didn't apologize, and basically said that he felt he had been nice enough. I think not!

We went back to the waiting room and were waiting to pay, and the vet decided that he hadn't gotten enough protesting that he was innocent and perfect in. He pulled Tim to the back rooms again, and lectured him some more. I ended up paying, and when they asked if I wanted to schedule her next appointment (for her next vaccination) I said no, and I think they knew that they had lost my patronage. Their loss. I hope they get all the nasty dogs.

Timmy was finally released, and we left the vet. Later, we looked up the website, and it turns out that Mr. Pompous is the owner of that facility, which only solidifies the fact that I will never go there again. Plenty of other places in the area, and I deserve better. He does not deserve money for treating me like the scum he finds on his shoe.

drop kick!

We decided to take Navi to the beach today, and we played with her for quite a while. There were lots of kites flying, so we decided that since the weather was perfect and our new kite was in the car, we'd head over to a different park and try flying it for the first time! We headed over to the marina and walked to cesar chavez park.

The new kite is a dropkick, and it has four flying lines. You have two handles, each with a power steering line connected to the top, and a brake line connected to the bottom. It is very, very hard to fly. We had a lot of improvement with practice, but we have a long way to go! You have to pay attention to a lot more than you do with a dual line kite, and there are so many ways to screw up! Half the time, we would crash the kite less than a second after launching it! It was a good amount of fun, and I can't wait for the next windy kite day! I will have to bring the camera to get some sweet photos!

Trey's Birthday!

It was Trey's 31st birthday this Saturday, and he wanted to go for a hike and then have a picnic on the beach! The hike he chose wasn't dog friendly, so we woke up early and treated the dog to daycare. On the drive home, we stopped at the grocery store to grab hummus and pretzels for the picnic. We got home and waited for Trey to come and pick us up. Trey's girlfriend, Yeagan, came, as well as Jim and Jim's girlfriend, whose name I swear I know except for at this exact moment...

We drove down to South Bay, and set on a 7 mile hike up to the top of a ridge and through and around a valley. As we started, Jim's girlfriend put on her camelback, and started trying to pull the top off. We quietly observed until she exclaimed, "How do you work this thing?!" We told her that she was supposed to bite it and then suck the water out like with a straw which brought about an exclaimation, "but it's dirty!" Eventually, she took a drink, and we started off. The first part of the hike was well shaded, somewhat damp, and filled with banana slugs! I get excited over strange critters easily, and every few steps was punctuated with my exclamation that I'd seen another bright yellow banana slug! Oh, and look over there, it's a baby banana slug! Tim protested that it might be a midget, and that I was hurting the slug's feelings. "How would you feel if you were a midget and someone called you a baby?"

The first 5 miles were uphill and very gradual. Lots of redwoods, banana slugs, and shade. The last 2.4 miles were very steep downhill, and sunnier and drier. I had been hoping to see a salamander, and my wishes were answered when Timmy suddenly dashed off the path and scared a salamander he had seen back to the path! I was delighted! We watched it for a while and then it got away. What luck I had that the one critter I'd really hoped to see was the finale to the hike!

When we got back to the car, we piled in, and headed to pacifica for the picnic. On the way, we passed what is supposed to be the third most beautiful taco bell in the world. We pulled into the parking lot, and looked for a place to park, but it was full. Trey got tired of circling around, so he parked illegally, and said we had to be quick! We had expected a pretty building, but it was a wood shack! The thing was, it was RIGHT on the beach, had a wonderful porch that you could look over the beach from. When you went inside, it had wall to wall glass doors so you had the gorgeous view. It was quite pretty. We all grabbed tacos because we were starving and the picnic food was mostly snacks, and then hurried back to the car to drive somewhere more suitable for a picnic. Trey had a nice dose of birthday luck when he pulled out of his illegal parking spot just as a cop was driving in.

A little farther down the road was a nice place to have a picnic, so we piled out of the car again and had apples with caramel dipping sauce, cheese, hummus and pretzels, and pecan pie. It was delicious! At this point, I was starting to get a headache, but nothing I can do about that!

After chatting and eating for a while, we all headed home. Trey dropped everyone off, and I had the worst migraine I've ever had in my life. Holy moly. I shuffled to bed, covered my head, and writhed around in pain. We had plans to go on a bay cruise with a bunch of Cal grad students, but I was not feeling up to it. Timmy went on his own, and Navi snuggled with me while I suffered the worst migraine of my life. I couldn't even sleep it off like usual! At 10, the migraine finally broke, so I made a quick dinner, and went to bed before it could come back again!

birthday surprise!

For my birthday, Timmy had a surprise planned! He told me that I wasn't allowed to plan anything from 2p-9p on Friday. On Friday morning when I headed to the car to get to work, I noticed that the snowboarding rack had been replaced with the second bike rack, which got the gears in my head turning. Then, Tim told me that I was to stay at work until he got there at 3! So I figured, if he is biking, and he made sure to install the second bike rack...someone else must be coming too. When Tim arrived and started driving, I quickly figured out that we were going flying!! We get to the small airport, and George is waiting with a plane!

We flew east over the hills. The grass was so green, the sky was beautiful, and there were lots of cows to see. They looked like little ants, hiding in the shade near trees. I like cows quite a bit, so seeing them from so far up made me happy. We flew around Mount Diablo, and over several windmill farms!

We landed at a small airport past Mount Diablo, and soon after, Andrew showed up with a picnic! Timmy had found an asparagus sandwich recipe because if you know me well, you know I tell everyone I meet about the asparagus sandwich I had in Florida, and Andrew had adapted it! He heated it up over the campstove so it was warm, and it was delicious! There was a lot of other food including a delicious salad with apples and blue cheese dressing, hummus and chips, and several other yummies! After we all ate until our tummies were bulging, they brought out the badminton net! We played badminton, and suddenly we noticed something white jumping around in the tall grass nearby. Eventually, a spunky cat saunters out, and attacks the birdie every time it hit the ground. I loved playing with him - if you rustled the grass, he would pounce on it! His name was Beer Light, according to his name tag. I wanted to take him home, but Timmy said, "absolutely not!"

After a while, George, Timmy, and I piled back into the plane, and flew home, which was another beautiful flight. When we got home, we cleaned up the plane, put it back in its hangar, threw the bikes on top of the car, and drove home. What a wonderful birthday surprise from a wonderful boy! :)

Birthday!

I woke up on my birthday, and used the french press Whitney gave me to make a delicious cup of coffee. I really wanted some homemade oatmeal covered in strawberries, so I set to cooking! Tim woke up just in time for a yummy breakfast, and then Sarah arrived! We had plans to head to a first aid class for dogs, so we all piled into the car and drove south to Lake Chabot. We got a little lost on the way - read: someone missed the exit and kept driving :) - but we found our way to the classroom and we were only a few minutes late! We sat down with lots of stuffed animals and CPR mannequins, and we learned how to do doggy cpr, and other basic first aid. A lot of it was pretty standard and common sense, but a lot was stuff I didn't know. I didn't realize that there was a poison control hotline specifically for dogs. So now I have that phone number up on the wall, along with other emergency numbers! I also know how much hydrogen peroxide you should give a dog to induce vomiting (a teaspoon per 10 pounds, a maximum of 9 teaspoons!) and that you shouldn't induce vomiting if whatever they ate is corrosive. If you think you need to induce vomiting, you call the poison control hotline first and make sure! Other random tidbits like that are always useful to know!

After the class ended, we were all famished! We headed out to get some food, and drove home. Sarah is really fun to be around, and we had a lot of fun chatting on the drive. When we got home, Tim and I realized that this was the first weekend we had no real plans for! So we just relaxed and played with the dog, which was absolutely wonderful.

Fun!

Today, I wanted Indian food! I decided that after work, I would run home and get the kite and dog. I drove over to campus, picked Tim up, and we went to Pam's house. Pam, Tim, and I went to Viks, ordered take out food, and then walked Navi to the park to eat! It was delicious, and it really hit the spot. After enjoying our dinner, we headed over to the marina to fly our kite and let Navi run around. We had plans to meet Andrew at the park because his parents were in town and they wanted to meet us and the dog. We were running around in the grass flying the kite and having all sorts of fun when I see Andrew and two others come over the hill. So we headed over to say hi, and meet his parents, who seemed really nice! I showed Andrew how to fly a double line kite, and he really had a blast. I've decided to buy a quad line kite, and learn how to fly that! I've seen some amazing quad line kites, and I really want one.

After hanging out at the marina for a while, Andrew and his parents headed off to have dinner. I decided that I wanted ice cream, so Pam, Tim and I headed over to downtown Berkeley to get some ice cream. There is this frozen yogurt place that is completely self serve. They have tons of different frozen yogurt flavors, and tons of random toppings. You serve yourself whatever you want, and pay by weight. I think the quality of the frozen yogurt isn't as amazing as it is in some places, but it was a lot of fun to have lots of flavors and random toppings. Pam and I haphazardly put almost every single flavor into our cup of frozen yogurt, and Tim took a more systematic approach to making a peanut butter chocolate banana themed frozen yogurt cup. We wandered around downtown Berkeley with the dog while munching on our treats, and then we got really cold! So we all headed home for the night.

Whitney and Grant Visit!

Whitney and Grant were in San Francisco visiting Grant's brother, Matt, his wife, and his new baby! We had plans to get together on Sunday, since San Francisco is so close to Berkeley! Tim and I drove over to pick them up in the morning, and brought them back to the east bay. We parked near campus, and took them on a tour of Cal. Grant really wanted a Cal Golden Bears shirt, so we went to a store on Telegraph Avenue and searched for shirts for both of them. Whitney found a nice shirt and a really nice sweatshirt, Grant found a nice jacket, and I found a nice tshirt, which they bought for me! Around this time, it started to rain, so we decided to grab slices of pizza and see if the rain stopped. The pizza was delicious, but the rain didn't look like it was going to stop, so we ended up walking back to the car in a light drizzle. We took them to our apartment, and Whitney gave me my birthday present, which was a wonderful green french press, and a coffee bean grinder! We hung out, playing piano, mandolin, the banjo, and being amazed at how fast Grant can change subjects. After a while, Whitney and I decided to head to a nice grocery store to get some coffee beans so we could make ourselves mugs of coffee! We rooted around the store for a while, bought some coffee beans, and headed home to make steaming hot mugs of coffee. The coffee was delicious, and sadly, it quickly became time to take Whitney and Grant back to Matt's house for an easter dinner! We drove them home and had a wonderful chat in the car while stuck in traffic! Tim and I stopped in for a few minutes to see Matt and Tyler, and they had us look in on the baby. We didn't know what to do, so we said it was cute! We headed back home, and the traffic was terrible. Eventually we got home safe and sound, somehow exhausted!

Skiing!

Today, Tim and I tried out our new skis! Our friend Ben came along, and was learning to snowboard. He snowboarded once a few years ago, so he didn't really know much. We helped him for a while, and had a lot of fun getting used to our new skis! We bumped into my friend Jon from work, and Jon decided to snowboard with us! After a while, we decided to separate from Ben to ski on the backside for a while. Jon, Tim, and I worked our way to the farthest on the backside we could go, and we had an amazing powder run through the trees! It was breathtaking. I decided to head back to the car to take Navi out for a nice walk in the snow, and Tim went back to help Ben with learning to snowboard. I skied straight to the parking lots, put my skis away, and went out into the snow with Navi. I was playing with her near some condos, and all of a sudden all these parents and kids came out! They had seen us in the windows, and the children wanted to play with Navi! There was even a one year old boy who tried to ride Navi like a horse. She didn't like it much, but she let him down gently. After playing for about an hour, I met Tim and Ben back at the car, and we all headed home.

Racquetball!

Today we met with Ben to play racquetball! We were a little late, but we had a lot of fun! Ben is very competitive, and Tim and I are just playing for fun, so sometimes it makes for unusual play. After a while, Ben headed out to shower and get back to the lab. We decided that we'd get ice cream on the way back to the north side of campus, so Tim and I kept playing until Ben was done in the locker room. After we all met up again, we went to John's One Dollar Scoop and had some delicious ice cream! Yum!