Navi's Vet Appointment

Navi's hips have been giving her a lot of trouble, so I made a vet appointment to check it out early rather than later, and hopefully prevent a lot of damage. Golden Retrievers have a lot of hip and joint problems, and the sooner you catch them, the better. The appointment was set to be at 4:30p today and the location is only two blocks away from Pam's house, so I asked Pam to watch Navi for the day! I dropped Navi off in the morning, and then after work I drove straight to Pam's, which is a lot less driving than driving home to get Navi, then back to Pam's. We hung out for a while and went to a nearby store that just opened recently that showcases vintage posters, and were trapped by the lady deciding she had to show us every poster in the place. After that, we headed back to Pam's place, and tried to make some lollipops. The trouble was, our syrup kept burning before the sugar mixture got to hard crack. Eventually we decided we needed to buy a better oil based flavoring that we could add after the sugar reached hard crack stage, so we headed over to Spun Sugar to grab some flavorings. When we got back, we realized we had very little time to get to Navi's vet appointment! We scrambled, and made it just a few minutes late - whew! The vet took us in after a few minutes, and both the secretary and the doctor were extremely friendly. I liked them a lot, and felt better about this new vet than any of the other vets I have visited in the area. Dr. Mattu kept telling Navi she was beautiful. They looked at Navi and said she looked very healthy, and decided to take x-rays of her hips. They sedated her, took x-rays, and called us in about 30 minutes later. Turns out Navi has very slight hip dysplacia in one hip, and some arthritis in the other. Her hip dysplacia shouldn't cause problems until much later in life, but the arthritis is what is making her sore now. They gave me supplements to give her that will help, so now she gets supplements every day.

After the vet visit, Pam and I headed back to her place to try some more lollipops. Navi was really sedated, so she was walking really slowly, stumbling around a little, and making everyone laugh really hard. Scott and Megan had a great time laughing at her, and we all spent a lot of time playing with her in her drugged out phase. She couldn't keep her mouth closed, and her jowls were so relaxed they were hanging low and dripping drool. It was very cute. Pam and I finally made a successful batch of watermelon lollipops, so we decided to call it a night. I headed home with Navi, who promptly accidentally wet the floor because she really wasn't with it. I cleaned that up, took her out for a late walk, and then headed to bed, relieved that I don't need to put my dog through all sorts of surgery!

ER

Well, today I spent the majority of my time in the ER waiting room. I was drinking a glass of water while cleaning up the apartment, and I accidentally dropped it. My reflex was to catch the glass, but it hit the corner of the counter, so I ended up catching a handful of broken glass and badly slicing my left index finger. I could see the bone, and it looked really gnarly. It was bleeding everywhere, so Justin took me to the ER. We played lots of sudokus in the waiting room, and even managed to finish a crossword puzzle together without cheating, although we're not sure how legit some of the answers are. In the end, I got home around 3a with four stitches in my finger. Gross. They said to get the stitches taken out between 7 to 10 days, and to take it easy.

Shanghai Dumpling King!

At work this week, I went out to a thai restaurant with some coworkers for lunch, and we got onto the topic of some dumplings I had enoyed in Shanghai. They are called Xiao Long Bao, which means "Little Dragons" and in english they are known as "Shanghai Soup Dumplings." They are quite delicious, and Chris mentioned that there is a place in the Outer Richmond that is supposed to be really good. Plans were rapidly made to go eat there on Sunday!

Well, today rolled around and I rolled out of bed. Navi followed and I fed her, fed myself, and headed out the door on a nice long morning walk. We strolled around, enjoying the crisp morning. The grass in the park nearby was covered in dew, so Navi stopped to roll around in it. After she had her fill of rolling in dew-covered grass, we meandered around a little more. Eventually, we headed back to the apartment. We approached the door, I looked to my hands where my keys usually are...and I was no longer holding my keys. I was shocked. It was terrible because I needed to re-trace my steps, but Navi's hips have been giving her trouble lately. The last thing I wanted was to have to run around the entire walk again with a dog that has gimpy hips. Too bad. We had to re-trace all our steps, TWICE, and no matter how hard I looked, I could not find my keys. Navi was hot and tired. I was getting grumpy. I realized that I had mailed a letter that morning, and wondered to myself, could I have possibly mailed my keys? It seemed unreasonable because of how I tend to hold my keys, but to be safe, I wrote in large words on a big piece of paper, "If there are keys in here, please call Pam Berkeley" and put her phone number underneath. I was really frazzled because all this key searching had really sucked up all my time, and I was about to be very late to meet my friends for lunch. I ran home, and knocked on my landlord's door, praying they were home to let me in. They were, which is a miracle on a Sunday morning, and they let me in. I had spare keys to the house, so it wasn't a problem once I got inside...but I need to have more keys made.

Once inside, I kissed Navi on the top of her head and gave her lots of water, grabbed my bike, dashed out the door, and biked faster than I ever have to the bart station. I practically biked down the stairs into the station, swiped my card to get through the turnstile, and sprinted down the stairs. I felt the rush of air signaling a train coming or going, and hauled my bike down to the platform. I made it just in time, and dashed onto a train next to a man in a lavender button up shirt and a plaid sports jacket unsuccessfully attempting to tie a hot-pink bow tie onto his neck. I heaved a huge sigh of relief, and parked my bike in a good position and waited to reach the city. Halfway through the ride, the man with a hot pink bowtie asked, "Do you know how to tie a bow tie?" I replied that I didn't, but if he could show me without it being around his neck, I might be able to figure it out. He demonstrated the strategy with the bowtie around the stem of his bike, and after a few tries I managed to get the bowtie on. Not a skill I hope to need to use again, and not a skill I think I could recall.

My stop came, and I headed up to the real world again. I hopped onto my bike, and biked through the city, blindly guessing my way to the approximate region I needed to go. I passed the painted ladies, I biked through Golden Gate Park, and I meandered into the Outer Richmond. I eventually found the restaurant, locked my bike up, checked my watch, and I was right on time! Phew!

Soon, Chris, Shaina, Thomas, and two of Chris' friends showed up, and we all headed in for a delicious lunch! The Shanghai Soup Dumplings were pretty good, but I think I know of a better place to have them in Chinatown, which is a lot easier to get to. However, the green onion pancakes at this place were phemonenal. Pam would love them!

After we ate our fill, I hopped back onto my bike and meandered home. I think I have a super-hero skill of always managing to find the hilliest way to get somewhere. I always climb these huge hills, and when I get to the top, I look to both sides, and one block on both side, there is no hill. It happens far too often to be normal!! At least it gives me a good workout! I decided to take the Transbay bus home, and when the bus dropped me off in Emeryville, I pedaled over to Pam's house to guzzle some water and chill out for a while. I hung out for probably 30 minutes, and then pedaled back home, where I collapsed in a sweaty pile with the dog before taking her on an afternoon walk. Fun!

Santa Cruz!

Pam and I decided this week to take a day trip to Santa Cruz. We wanted to visit the store Synergy, and we kind of wanted to get out of the bay area for a day. I looked up dog-friendly beaches in Santa Cruz, and saw that a lot of the beaches allow dogs unleashed after 4 pm! How amazing is that?! We met up in the morning and drove down with Navi's head hanging out the back window. The first thing on our agenda was to find a farmer's market that I had found online, and explore! The GPS lead us wrong a few times, but we eventually found the farmer's market and a pretty nifty parking spot. We tied the dog up in a great shady area, and went into the Farmer's Market. The first stand was a stand with "live chocolate" where they don't roast the beans before making chocolate. It was very interesting. Pam got some really great chocolates with honey inside. I got a little batch of mixed truffles, and I didn't like them very much. At least I tried it! The farmer's market was very different than the one in Berkeley and San Francisco, and I really liked it. We got some gorgeous foods for dinner. I got a bag of salad greens with flowers in it! It was a lot of fun.

Then, we headed back to the dog, who was very happy to see us. We gave her some water and lots of love, and then headed back to the car. Then, we drove to downtown Berkeley, where the three of us went for a long and explored. We found the Synergy store and each got a few things. They let us bring Navi in, so she got to share a fitting room with me because she was desperate to be close since she didn't know the area. After we tried on pretty much every clothing article in the store, we finally left. Of course, I saw a great sun dress on the sales rack of the next store down, and had to try that on too. After that, I was pretty tired of trying on dresses! We roamed around, and found this cute little stand serving mexican food. They had a lot of customers, and the menu looked great, so we tried it! We split a chicken mole plate, and I got some lemonade. Pam got some sort of iced hibiscus tea (?) which she really liked. We also got this amazing side dish which was a piece of bread with bean paste spread on top, cheese, and chopped tomatoes with cilantro I believe on top...it was incredible. I need to figure out how to re-create that. It MADE our lunch. Two girls sat at the table next to us, and they adored Navi. It's always nice when people sit nearby that appreciate Navi, so I don't have to pay as much attention to making sure Navi is sleeping right under my chair.

After lunch, we wandered around in search for a great ice cream parlor. We didn't see any that really piqued our interest, but we kept seeing frozen yogurt places and it kept sounding so delicious and fitting for such a hot day that we caved, and got frozen yogurt. Pam bought way too much, and didn't feel well after eating it all. After that, it was around 4, so we decided to head back to the car and take Navi to the beach. I was really excited because Navi was really hot, and part of the main reason to drive to Santa Cruz was to take her to a new beach. It took us a while to find the beach, and at first we thought the "beach" was just a rocky cliff you could climb down. I was getting really nervous because Navi knew we were near water, and wanted to swim. I was worried I wouldn't find a safe place to let her swim and thus let her down. But then we rounded this corner and we could see this beautiful beach with dogs racing all around! It was beautiful and sandy and the waves were great. Navi dashed to the beach and was very happy. She wasn't used to the big waves and got tumbled around a few times, but she quickly learned when it was good to run into the water, and when to wait. After she learned the ropes of big ocean waves, we had a lot of fun! Navi is really smart; she learned that when the water started moving fast away from shore, a new wave was about to crash in. If I threw the tennis ball, and she noticed it pulling fast away from her as she ran to it, she would turn around and haul ass to get closer to me. Then after the wave crashed, she would dash out looking for her ball!

After playing for about an hour on the beach, we headed back to the car, tiredly piled in, guzzled liters of water, and headed home. It was a very fun day! When I got home, I threw together a salad of all the wonderful things I had bought at the farmer's market, fed Navi, took her for a quick walk, and passed out in bed!

Solano Stroll!!

On Sunday morning, I woke up pretty early and cleaned the apartment for a while. I text messaged Pam, and when she woke up, we decided to make breakfast together. I drove over to her house to pick her up and on the way home, we stopped at a grocery store to pick up some nice thick cut bacon. At the cooking class we took a while ago, the chef made some great bacon covered with maple syrup, so we went home to make some delicious scrambled eggs with maple syrup covered bacon. On the way home, we stopped at Guerrilla Cafe to pick up some blue bottle coffee beans, which made a fantastic coffee using the french press Whitney gave me for my birthday. Breakfast was so good; I always focus on waffles, pancakes, meuseli or oatmeal...so it was nice to have bacon and eggs after so long without.

After breakfast, we headed over to the Solano Stroll, which is a street fair with lots of arts and crafts booths. Street fairs are one of my favorite things. Last year, Tim and I were walking the dog to the fish store and we chanced upon the Solano Stroll. When I saw the signs around town, I knew I wanted to go. Last year, it was a lot of fun, but this year, it was a treasure trove of really unique things! We found some really cute skirts for really cheap, and I found a really nice canvas purse/tote bag! I will have to take a photograph of it; the fabric is really nice, and it is so me. I was very happy with the find. I have also been searching everywhere for weeks for a journal, and I haven't found any that I liked. Naturally, a stand at the Solano Stroll was selling really interesting journals; the covers were made from old library books. I got one with a geometric design on the cover, and was very pleased. I also found a few awesome shirts, and snapped them up.

After the Solano Stroll, Pam and I wandered around 4th street for a while. We went to grocery outlet, and I found some great bread crumbs for really cheap. They are parmesan flavored, which I've never seen before, but am excited to try. I really like grocery outlet because you never know what you're going to find. Around 6p, I realized that it was really late, and Navi was really tired. I headed home, and worked on a few cards for a while until I fell asleep.

Sectionals!

This weekend was Sectionals, which is the first of the "playoffs" for club ultimate season. If you do well at Sectionals, you proceed to Regionals...and if you do really well, you eventually end up at Nationals. My ultimate team signed up for Sectionals a while ago, just to get some more playing time in. I didn't want to play both Saturday and Sunday because I had a lot of stuff I needed to do, so I decided I'd play on Saturday. Sectionals took place in Palo Alto on Stanford's campus, so I woke up early, took care of the doggy, and then drove over. It was about an hour and 20 minutes driving, but there wasn't much traffic. I got there just in time for warm up, and once again, there were a lot of new people I'd never met before. It's nice to meet them all, but it's a little frustrating that every tournament involves a completely different group of people - you never improve as a team because you're constantly re-learning the people, what throws they have, team strategies, etc. Someone I played with during winter draft league, Daniel Francis, was there. I was really happy to see him, because he's really fun to play with. He and I keep randomly ending up on the same teams, which is always a nice coincidence. There were three back to back games, and each game lasted the full hour and 45 minutes - so I was pretty wiped at the end. We played well, but we lost every single game..darn. The teams were all pretty good, though, and they all play together far more often than we do. Hopefully with time we'll get better, or I'll find another team to play on.

After the games ended, Daniel asked if he could catch a ride home, and we had a lovely chat in the car about what we do for work, ultimate, and general engineering. After I dropped him off, I went home and Tim was still there watching Navi. We decided that we'd go out and get some indian food at house of curries with Navi. I got the chicken tikka masala, but with paneer instead of chicken...I'm not sure what that's called but it's very yummy. Tim got some spinach dish that was less great, but he seemed to like it. After dinner, I was pretty wiped, so I went straight home and went to bed.

Downtown Berkeley!

After work today, Pam and I met up, and we wandered around downtown Berkeley for a while. I really wanted pizza, so we wandered around Shattuck until we saw a pizza place, and we grabbed a slice. We ate outside with Navi, and she really wanted some pizza. We also walked to a nice fabric store, and took a look inside, dreaming of when I finally get my sewing machine. I should go about purchasing that soon... We also got some gelato from al mare, and sat in the sunshine eating it. We must have wandered around for a few hours...it was really relaxing. Navi enjoyed the beautiful weather.

China Camp!

Tim and I decided to go mountain biking today, so after work I picked him up and we headed over to China Camp in Marin. It was a fun bike ride, and I think I'm getting a little better at mountain biking. I have got to stop being such a wimp though. Pam had been watching Navi for the day, so after we finished mountain biking, Tim wanted to stop by Pam's while I picked her up so he could see the puppy. He biked home from there, and I went to Andronicos to pick up an avocado, and made myself a delicious salad for dinner. Yum!

Cheeseboard!

Rob and I emailed back and forth earlier this week, deciding when to get dinner, and where. We decided that he'd take the bart into Berkeley, and we'd meet up and walk through the gourmet ghetto, and eat wherever our noses took us. We walked all the way up and down the gourmet ghetto, and the only place that really stood out was Cheeseboard! It smelled so great when we passed it! We took a closer look, and the pizza that was being sold that day was an eggplant garlic pizza - almost like the indian pizza I had on Saturday with Jon and Shaina, but without the curry sauce! We split half a pizza, and a large salad, and it was really good! We were very satisfied (and full!) After dinner, we headed to my apartment because Rob wanted to meet Navi, and then we dashed out pretty quickly to head over to our ultimate team practice that was happening from 9-11p. We got to practice just on time, and realized that we were so full it was hard to run! It was a very interesting practice. It's kind of disappointing because our team never seems to get a lot of people to come to practice, so there's never enough people to do what the captain hopes to practice. Oh well. Hopefully with time, it'll get better! It was a lot of fun, anyway! It was so sad to say bye to him because he's leaving for so long, but I'll see him again in February.

Labor Day Tournament!

Since my original plans for this weekend fell through, I decided to play in the tournament that my ultimate frisbee team was playing in! It took place on the Carson Amazon fields in south San Francisco, so on Saturday morning I woke up, took Navi for a walk, and then pedaled to the bart. I rode the bart for about 45 minutes, sleepily people watching, and then biked from the bart to the fields. It took me a while to find my team, but I managed to find them with just enough time to warm up before the game started! There were a lot of guys on the team that I hadn't met before, and they were all really nice. The first guy I met was Justin, who was a really calm player who had an amazing deep throw - so I cut deep for him all day long and he'd throw to me every time. It was great! Another guy that I got along well with was Rob. He wore all sorts of silly clothes - pink argyle knee socks, crazy blue shorts, and all sorts of crazy shirts, but he was a really solid player. We had a lot of fun playing, even though the team didn't do too well.

On Saturday night, I biked into the city after the games ended around 6:30p to meet Jon and Shaina at the 24th street mission bart. Jon is moving to Oregon on Monday, so we decided we'd meet and have one last dinner together! We went to an indian pizza place, which was really unique. The bread was naan, and there was a spinach curry sauce. We got eggplant, garlic, and...something else on ours. It was delicious, and a very fun dinner! After dinner, I took the bart home, and got home really, really late! I crawled into bed and passed out, ready to play in the morning!

Sunday went a lot better game wise. We were more closely matched with the teams we were playing, so we didn't get destroyed in every game. My team is still really new, and the roster is constantly changing, so it seems like every weekend we have to relearn how to play with each other because there are so many new players. It's a really fun team to play with, but it will be nice when we learn to play with each other, and develop a more consistent roster, so that we can elevate our level of play.

Our team has this "spirit game" that they play at the end of every game with the team we just played. It's so weird - I hate it. Rob and I would hide behind everyone so that we wouldn't get picked to play it. The whole idea is that each team has a pinata. There is a fire truck pinata, and a police car pinata. Each team has to pick three people from the other team to play, and they are in a relay where they have to roll the pinata over a certain amount of times with whatever body part they are assigned. Sometimes it gets inappropriate fast, and I am far too modest for that. Rob and I managed to escape being chosen all day on Saturday, but in the first game on Sunday, I wasn't paying attention to hide in time. I was standing to the side focusing on eating the legs off my gummy bears and all of a sudden, everyone looked at me and cheered! Darn. I ended up getting off easy, though, and only having to roll the pinata with my ear. I was a good sport, but I'll be happy when the spirit game changes.

After the games on Sunday, I was so tired! Saturday and Sunday had been packed, so I hung out at the fields with Rob for a while, and then I headed home! Rob is going to study abroad in Spain this semester, so we decided to grab dinner sometime this week before he leaves. Eventually, I biked to the bart, took it home, walked the dog, and basically passed out at 8pm or so! It was super nice to have another day of the weekend to relax, since Monday was labor day, and I didn't have to work!!

On Monday, I woke up pretty early since I had fallen asleep so early, and I cleaned the apartment up a bit, which was nice. I text messaged Pam so that when she woke up, we'd get in contact, and we decided to do a little bit of shopping together. We basically roamed all over town, which was really fun. It wore the doggy out. The weather was beautiful. It was the best weekend.