Black and Blue

Here I am in San Francisco, a city with a history of colorful characters. Remember the Gold Rush and painted ladies? Remember flower children and psychedelic colors? What about flaming gay dressers? Far out!! Why is it then that people on the streets of The City are almost completely dressed in black pants or blue jeans? I get it that people want to look sophisticated and that people think black is slimming. But enough is enough! This is Donna Fujii's home town. She is a great color consultant. She and Nancy Nix-Rice need to get the word out that color is OK and that black isn't the only basic color around.

An Old Dog

We're still in San Francisco, but have to leave tomorrow morning. We've really enjoyed our stay. Yesterday I was too tired to write about our adventures, so I will mention a few highlights now. We went to the new CA Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park. It was amazing. The building itself was fun to look at with its living roof. Inside, we were also wowed by the rainforest exhibit and aquarium. We were pleasantly surprised by how uncrowded it was. We were able to view the planetarium show and 3-D Bug’s World movie without waiting. I decided to try using some of my available technology to illustrate my blog. My first challenge was to learn how to turn off the flash on my camera. The next was to take movies. Let’s see how this works. Larry says that he'll help me see if we can compress the movie files. I guess I'm learning a few tricks as I go along with my blog.

A Wish Your Heart Makes

Today Larry and I explored San Francisco on foot, setting off across town to the new Disney Museum. Once again we had ideal weather for our trek and even climbed a few hills. We walked through North Beach, which still has some of it's counter culture charm, walked passed the cable car turn-around at Ghiradelli Square, and finally over to the Presidio where the museum is located.

The Disney Museum gives a comprehensive "dawn to dusk" story of Walt Disney and his empire. It chronicles his early family life, challenges growing up, and what his dreams were. Walt was talented,brilliant, and driven that is for sure. But what was it about him that helped him succeed in a business with many other talented competitors? I was struck by the support he had from his family. He and his brother were close partners, his mother let him volunteer with the Red Cross during WWI, even though he was a year too young, he had an uncle that let him live with him as he was starting out in Hollywood and even loaned him money. Walt also wasn't afraid to take risks and to fail, even as an older family man. He put everything he owned on the line a few times and lost big, but still kept getting back into the business. Maybe it was the support he had from his loved ones that gave him confidence to take risks in life. They helped him feel like they would still be there for him even if he hit bottom. I'm sure they also encouraged his dreams. At any rate, he was a remarkable man and I recommend the museum. By the way, you don't have to walk there. They have lots of free parking! Remember these lyrics?

A dream is a wish your heart makes When you're fast asleep In dreams you lose your heartaches Whatever you wish for, you keep
Have faith in your dreams and someday Your rainbow will come smiling thru No matter how your heart is grievingIf you keep on believingthe dream that you wish will come true

Arrival in San Francisco

Today we made it to San Francisco after a beautiful drive down from Ashland. Once again, we had a perfect fall day for the journey. We made it over the Siskiyou Mountains easily. Our Prius at times got 99.5 mpg, that was going downhill, of course. We enjoyed seeing Mt. Shasta and Lake Shasta along the way. We arrived in San Francisco around 3:00. The drive was much shorter than yesterday. We are staying in a nice condo in the SOMA neighborhood, which is where son Cliff lives. It is convenient to such attractions as Moscone Center, MOMA, the Metreon movie theaters, Whole Foods, and Cal Train. The most striking feature I noticed is that it is in one of the only SF neighborhoods that is flat. When we've stayed in SF before, we've always climbed up and down hills.

Larry and I had time for a pleasant walk down Market Street to the Ferry Building. I thought of our friend Mike who has been terriorized by motor scooters in Taiwan, where he has gone to study. We encountered quite a few young men on skate boards whizzing around us as we walked. I hope it's just a weekend thing. On the way back to our condo, we stopped at Whole Foods to get dinner. We really seemed to be dining as the locals. The place was packed with people getting take out food. They had a terrific variety to choose from, so we didn't miss searching for a good restaurant for our first night in town. We have been making plans for our 3 days in the city. We want to visit with Cliff, see a few museums, and just enjoy the scenery.

Pay It Forward

We made it to Ashland! Our first day on the road went well. We left Bellevue around 10 am, with almost everything we thought about taking along packed into our Prius. The weather was perfect for a fall day. Yesterday was rainy and blustery, so the change in weather was a relief. We also found that there was little road construction going on to slow down traffic. The fall colors were so amazing that it may have been nice to have slow traffic in places to be able to observe things more closely. We made it around 6 pm, just at sunset. After settling into our hotel, Village Suites at Ashland Hills, we left to explore the town and have dinner. First we tried the Lithia Water. A fellow sitting near the drinking fountains said that alcohol tasted better. I agreed with him. Larry didn’t enjoy the water, but enjoyed inhaling second hand marijuana smoke from some other young people hanging out by the fountains. We had a nice dinner at the Asian restaurant “Sesame”, walked around town some more, then returned to our hotel. It has comfortable, pleasant suites. We are happy with it.
I keep thinking about a couple of incidents along our way here. We had stopped at a rest stop. I noticed several people begging for money. One of them, a young man in his twenties, approached me and asked if I could spare any money to help him get his flat tire fixed (the car with a flat was right in front of us). I had a relatively small amount handy, so gave it to him. He reminded me of son Phil. When I last saw Phil a few days ago, I noticed that his tires were practically bald. I pleaded with him to get new tires for safety’s sake. As I saw this other young man, I thought of how fortunate our family is. We could afford to get Phil new tires. My only worry about Phil was that he might put it off, not recognizing the danger, and skid. At any rate, the young stranger I helped seemed to appreciate it. Just an hour later I had an experience where someone else his age paid me a kindness. Larry and I stopped for gas just off the freeway. We were confused about how to get back on and started following signs to Eugene. It turns out that we had already passed Eugene, and the signs were directing us to go N not S. I stopped at a light in the left-turn lane that would have taken us N onto I-5. I knew I didn’t want to go that way. In the right lane a state trooper pulled up. I wanted to pull into the right lane to eventually turn around. The trooper didn’t move even when the lights were green. I figured I couldn’t change lanes after all. I wondered if he were watching me. I then had the inspiration to make a U-turn. I had not noticed the “no U-turn” sign directly above me. I thought for sure the state trooper would pull me over and give me a ticket. To my surprise, the young man just went on his way. Maybe I reminded him of his white-haired mother or maybe he was off-duty and wanted to get home. Whatever reason, I am grateful I didn’t get stopped.

Saucha

Today, our last before we leave, is fittingly dark and wet. Larry and I are looking forward to brighter days ahead. I have one last day to clean and get things in order. As I found myself scrubbing out our garbage cans, I found myself growing calmer. I've been thinking about why I enjoy cleaning and bringing order out of chaos so much at this time in my life. I used to hate cleaning. Why do I enjoy watching reruns of "Monk" so well? It must be more than being a little compulsive about things. Maybe there is something to the lessons I've been learning in yoga. As a yoga student, I have been taught the value of honoring inanimate objects, keeping them clean and in good working order. The same goes for personal thoughts. This principle (or "niyama") is called saucha, which means cleanliness of body, heart, mind and environment. I know that we are leaving things in good shape and that that if we forget anything, our friends will help. That thought has been keeping me happy and calm.

Past Pull Dates

We are almost ready to go! Today I worked at cleaning out our refrigerators and pantry. I'm trying to get things in good order for our house sitter, Cindy. I put on my highest magnifying reading glasses, entered the kitchen, and went looking for pull dates. First, I hit the refrigerator upstairs (we also have 1 in the garage). I couldn't believe that at least half of the bottles of condiments, salad dressings, oils, etc. were at least a year past the pull dates. The oldest one I found was a large bottle of barbecue sauce that was 3 years past date. Ugh! I tasted it, just for kicks, and it still tasted fine. My 2 year old olives were yummy, too. I still threw them out. I don't know where we've slipped up. I'm very careful to check pull dates when I buy food. I even trained sons Cliff and Phil to do the same. Perhaps we have old things in the refrigerator because our sons with great eye sight no longer live with us. I need to be more conscientious about marking my items with the date of purchase and circling the pull date with my sharpee pen. Someone always seems to walk off with it, though...

I got to thinking about other things I own that ought to have pull dates. Bras definitely. My sewing friends have lectured me recently on the life expectancy of bras. Rotary cutting blades and sewing machine needles always should be replaced or pulled more than they are. Larry's favorite night t-shirt and Larry's favorite orange down jacket are past pull date. The bed pillows that we replaced last summer were 10 years past pull date. It's easy to go on and on. I'm trying to live in a green way, but some things just have to go. Husbands and friends, though, are not on my list!

A Flurry of Activity

Our house in Bellevue isn't quite ready to let us go. We've had a flurry of activity recently getting it fixed up. When it rained so hard last weekend, we discovered that our newly installed drain on our front walkway didn't work so well. Our crew came back to fix it yesterday. Our new deck also has needed some work, so another crew came to repair it. Finally, a fellow is coming to replace some windows with failed seals. Everything seems to be coming together, though, so we should be able to leave in a few days without worry. It helps to have people we trust on call.

Son Phil was here visiting yesterday. I took him to IKEA for a birthday trip. He wanted to get a sofa and bookcase for his new apartment in Bellingham. Our van is gone, so we were limited by what would fit into his VW Golf. We found a small inexpensive sofa that fit into the back of his car perfectly--not an inch to spare. The bookcase also fit. Hurray for IKEA! I guess the packing gods have been on my side recently. I also did a packing trial for our trip with my Prius and found that everything I wanted to take fit in fine. Let's see if it works out that way on departure day.

Adding Photos Experiment

I am trying to learn new things as I blog away. One of my challenges is to add photos to illustrate my adventures. Let's see if I can do it!

Less is More

Today I'm doing more packing and decluttering of our house in Bellevue. I keep chanting "less is more" as I go about cleaning out our refrigerator and pantry. We had a great meeting yesterday with our housesitter, Cindy, who seems to be very conscientious about details. I felt bad as we showed her how to work our TV's, which we want her to be able to enjoy. She took notes as we showed her how to work the 3 different remote controls for each system. Most of the controls don't look the same. That made me think of how much more complicated our lives have become with advances in technology. I'm not sure if we are happier because of all of our new inventions and many choices. There is pleasure in simplicity. Nothing beats sitting down in peace and quiet and reading a book--unless it's listening to an audio book while sewing.

My big job for tomorrow will be to do a trial run of packing the car. I'm really curious to see what it will hold. I'll keep saying my chant and hope that I pay attention to what I'm saying. It's easy for me to get carried away with sewing supplies. I just discovered that I have multiples of many of my favorite sewing notions as I began to pack. I want to take them along. They remind me of what I do when stocking my kitchen. I discovered that I have multiples of canned goods and salad dressings that I forgot we had to eat. Now some of them are past pull-date and need to be tossed. My friends with more than one home have pointed out that it's also hard to remember what you have in one home vs. the other. Maybe I'll learn someday to keep inventories and check them more often.

Getting Ready to Go

The weather here Bellevue has turned dark and rainy. My husband, Larry, and I are dreaming of heading south to catch more sun. I thought it would be fun to document our adventures for posterity. My own parents became snowbirds when they were around our age and enjoyed getting away very much. This will be a record so people can check up on us.

The packing is going well. We are fortunate to have a wonderful housesitter lined up to stay at our place in Bellevue. The hardest part of leaving is not the packing, it's saying good-bye to friends and family. Fortunately, many of them are planning trips to visit us in sun country.