Today is one of wedding anniversaries.  Mr. Poe and I were married on February 13, 2004 but of course that got voided later that year.  We got married again on August 18, 2008 and that one seems to have stuck.  But we celebrate both anniversaries and why shouldn't we??  We slept in this morning and then Mr. Poe went to the grocery store and I took Rufus for a nice long walk to ensure dogly happiness in our house.  We headed over to Golden Gate Park which looked especially gorgeous this morning:

Then we headed over to Stow Lake:

And finally to the Chinese Pavilion:

Rufus loves to go!

Then we headed home and lunch and then went to go see Fidler on the Roof starring Harvey Fierstein.   Oy!  It was very good but I'd never seen it before and thought it would have a much happier ending.  It's actually a little depressing.  After that we headed over to Gussie's Chicken and Waffles on Fillmore and Eddy for some anniversary soul food.  They had a competent vegetarian plate(which was enormous) and Mr. Poe really enjoyed all their deep fried goodness.  We headed home after that.  We were stuffed!

After work I headed off on foot.  My plans were to walk over to the Lyon Street Steps and then home from there.  I didn't quite get that far.  Lousy weather.  But I had a nice walk over to Union St.  This is the view from the Vallejo Steps over Our Lady of Guadalupe towards the Financial District:

The Transamerica Pyramid and the Bay Bridge:

This is the view down Jones Street from Green:

Check out this gorgeous firehouse on Green St:

Semi ironic.  It would be more so if this restaurant were on Post and Van Ness instead of Green and Van Ness:

This is the glorious Holy Trinity Orthodox Cathedral:

Really great detail:

This is Allyne Park on Green at Gough.  Very pretty:

This is the Octagon House at Gough and Union:

It started raining on me while I was walking down Union.  I ducked into Sephora to look at pretty things to give it ten minutes to stop with no luck so I hopped on the Fillmore bus and headed for the Castro.  I stopped by the Indian Oven on my way home and picked up Samosas and Bengan Bartha.  That restaurant is so tasty--  I haven't eaten there in years because Mr. Poe doesn't like Indian food.  But he was at a movie with a friend and I was on my own for dinner so I greedily devoured my tasty Indian vittles. 

I got new comics on Wednesday but didn't get around to reading them all until today.  I got a couple of titles I hadn't gotten before with mixed results.

Amazing Spider Man #620 - Is incredible.  It's amazing to see how this Spider Man has almost fifty years of publication but it's still so fresh and thrilling and not at all groaning under the weight of its own mythology like Batman tends to.  The current arc has resurrected some of Spider Man's earliest enemies yet it never seems tired or rehashed.  Love it.  I can't wait to see what happens next.

New Mutants #10 - Was a very good book.  I'm crazy about where this series is headed and I like how it's drawn.  Plus it has Sauron.  What's not to like??  I wish that Titans had been able to pull off a relaunch like this when they started up again last year.

Nova #34 - Wasn't my favorite Nova issue but I like the storyline and I'm loving how it's drawn.  Plus it had Moonstone dressed as Moonstone and being evil and not trying to be Ms. Marvel.  And it had tantalizing bits of things to come.

Marvel Boy:  The Uranian #2/3 -  Was mixed.  The storyline is kind of weak.  But they reprinted a couple of old Marvel Boy adventures from the fifties in the book and they were very good.  Particularly the one with presumably busty vampire chick. 

The Authority #19 - I've never read this book before and didn't really know what was going on but I really didn't like the art and it didn't make me want to read it again.

The Question #37 - I haven't read this before either but I thought it was kind of interesting.  I may well get this one again.  It was the least irritating of the Blackest Night books I've read so far.

I finally got my crowns finished yesterday.  My dentist totally lied to me about how unpleasant of a visit it was going to be.  I don't fault him for that a bit for that because I think that it's perfectly acceptable to lie when you don't want somebody to know the truth.  It most certainly was not the easy-peasy half an hour love fest that I was led to believe.  But when it was over I had two new front teeth that are vastly preferable to the originals that got knocked out in November and almost make all this dental drama worth it.  Almost.  Here they are:

We had a surprise visit from Mr. Nick last night.  The airlines lovingly lost his luggage and he and Jess hung out with us while waiting for it to show up on the later flight before they headed off to Yosemite.  We're going to see them again on Sunday and I'm looking forward to that.

It was raining this morning and so I slept in a little with the dogs.  This was the view from my front porch right before I left for work.  All this rain had turned our trumpet vine into a force of nature:

It's supposed to clear up later.  I'm hoping to walk home after work.

The network at my office went down right after lunch Wednesday and was down for the rest of the day so I went home early and spent the rest of the afternoon working from home. I took the dogs for a nice long walk in the late afternoon.  We headed over to Vicksburg Street in Noe Valley to the sight of the hill I had to walk up earlier in the day and was able to confirm that yes it is indeed fucking steep.  It's a bit of a side show when I'm walking all three dogs.  At one point, the boys and I were sitting around waiting for Mimi to finish inspecting her lady hamper and it was taking an astonishingly long period of time.  Apparently the sight of it was so funny that some lady actually pointed and laughed.  I laughed too.

I made it out of the house this morning and didn't get any flats!  I headed of 17th to Eureka to 18th to Valencia to Mission to Silver to Alemeny to Sagamore to Brotherhood Way to Lake Merced to Skyline.  I stopped to see if I could find the piece of the light that I'd lost and, although I didn't find it, I wouldn't have noticed the dragon boats practicing if I had not.  Beautiful:

I got on the Great Highway and headed up the coast.  I went into Golden Gate Park at MLK and took that to Chain of Lakes.  I stopped for a pic of the sun rising behind the North Lake:

Me:

I got on 43rd to Cabrillo to 34th to Geary and stopped at the Holy Virgin Cathedral for pics.  I didn't like this building when I first moved here but it's really grown on me:

Close up of one of the mosaics from the facade.  I love the hand signals:

I continued on Geary to 23rd to Lake to 8th and into Golden Gate Park to JFK.  I came out of the park at Stanyan and took Page to Scott to Duboce to Noe to Market and home to get cleaned up for work.  It was a wonderful ride and no flats!

Bike Mileage:

Today 20.3 Week to date 53.9 Month to date 93.9 Year to date 449.4 Rolling Year 7,009.0 Since Inception 10/1/07 21,619.2

I was pretty sore from my long walk on Tuesday for most of the rest of the day.  There are a bunch of muscles in my leg that biking isn't working and are none too happy about all the stairs I made them do.  Rufus was in equally rough shape.  Our housekeeper thought he was sick because he slept through snack.  Poor baby!  Rufus looked at me a little suspiciously this morning.  I think he would have happily gone for another walk but he seemed relieved when I put on my bicycle clothes.  It was nice this morning--  cool and dry--  I'll take it.

I rode Corbett to Clayton to Parnassus to Cole to Haight to Stanyan and into Golden Gate Park at JFK.  I came out of the park at 8th and took it to Lake to 28th ti California to 32nd to Clement to 34th to Cabrillo to 47th to Fulton to the Great Highway and down the coast.  The Great Highway is still closed southbound from Sloat to Skyline and they're very serious about it judging from the thorough barricades that I had to go around.  I stopped a little north of Lake Merced for a pic of the ocean.  I think this is the first ocean shot I've gotten in months on a morning ride.  I'm loving the longer days:

I continued on down to Skyline where I got another flat.  Two flats in a week!  If I get another one tomorrow that tire's going in the trash.  I also managed to break my front light.  Not my best morning.  I got the tube changed and continued on Skyline to Lake Merced to Font to Holloway.  I stopped at Juniper Serra for a pic of the Twin Peaks Antenna emerging from the fog:

I continued on Holloway to Harold to Ocean to Phelan.  I stopped at City College for a few pics:

This is a Benny Bufano sculpture that I like a lot.  You can read more about him here:

I especially like the mosaic on the sculpture:

Me:

I continued on Phelan to Judson to Foerster to Monterey to Diamond to Chenery to 30th to Church.  I stopped at 23rd for a pic of one of the beautiful Victorians in Noe Valley:

I continued on 23rd to Vicksburg to 22nd which is really steep and I had to walk a bit to Noe to 21st to Castro to 19th to Diamond to 17th to Ord and home to get cleaned up for work..

Bike Mileage:

Today 18.0 Week to date 33.6 Month to date 73.6 Year to date 429.1 Rolling Year 7,028.0 Since Inception 10/1/07 21,598.9

The rain came early last night and caught me leaving work without an umbrella.  I headed over to Union Square in search of silver nail polish.  Specifically, I was looking for Dior #604 Silver Pearl which is metallic gunmetal gray.  They were out of it at Neiman Marcus, Macy, and Nordstrom and I had to reduce myself to going into Bloomingdales to find it.  Luckily, I was able to get help at Bloomingdale last night without having to employ a harpoon.  I scored the last bottle and am quite pleased at the results.  Mr. Poe isn't crazy about it at all.

The rain was just clearing up when I got up this morning.  It was still awful wet for biking so I took Rufus for a long walk.  We headed down Castro into Noe Valley and then over into Glen Park.  Then up the Harry Steps to Diamond Heights and then we headed up to Twin Peaks.  I got some pictures from the top. 

The view west:

The radio antenna:

The view south:

Rufus loves to go!

Me feeling glamorously windblown:

The Financial District:

Sunrise:

I got home a little late and had to hurry to get ready for work.  We went almost seven miles.

This morning I got out of bed and rode my bike.  Which is good.  I'm not pleased with how low my activity level has been this year and I need to work on that.  I headed off Corbett to Portola to Woodside to Dewey to Taravel to the Great Highway and down to the coast.  I came up the Great Highway and then took Geary to 34th and up to the Palace of the Legion of Honor.  The sun was just peeking up and Pax Jerusalemme looked very bright:

The view of sunrise from the Palace of the Legion of Honor:

Me:

I got on Camino Del Mar to Lake where I got a flat.  Ugh.  I couldn't believe how much glass I pried out of my tire!  I think I'm going to have to replace it pretty soon which kind of sucks because it isn't very old but when your ride in the dark as much as I do you don't really have much control over how much glass you run over.

I continued on Lake to Arguello to Washington.  This pretty firehouse and now a private residence.  It's such a nice building:

The gorgeous Victorians down the street from it:

I continued on Washington to Scott to Dubove to Noe to Market to 17th to Ord and home to get cleaned up for work.

Bike Mileage:

Today 15.6 Week to date 15.6 Month to date 55.6 Year to date 411.1 Rolling Year 7,100.1 Since Inception 10/1/07 21,580.9

My ride on Saturday got rained out.  Which was fine with me because I still wasn't feeling very well.  But on Sunday the sun came out and the birds were singing and all was right with the world.  I managed to get something like eleven hours of sleep on Saturday night or something like that so I was heavily rested for my lifecycle training ride.  We had a lot of people turn out which was really awesome and people seemed to have a great time.  I took a bunch of pics before we got started.

Andre and Julie:

James

James and James.  How cute are they?? 

Beau:

There was a lot of excitement about the micro-bear all the way on the right. Adorable!

I somehow neglected to get pictures of Michael Petty, the cutest boy ever, who showed up for our ride.  Julie made us get in some kind of bullshit circle to meditate for a minute before we left which I thought was pretty lame.  I also didn't like having to join hands.  All bicyclists are dirty, dirty creatures that really shouldn't be touched until decontaminated.  Trust me on this.  But soon enough that crap was over and I headed off with the faster riders so I could point directions.  Here's me pointing directions:

Everything worked out pretty well and I think everybody had a good day.  I got home about 3 and got cleaned up and then Nathan came over and we took Rufus out to Lone Mountain. We started off looking at the new construction in Buena Vista Park.  It looks really fantastic.  We headed over to the Golden Gate Bridge overlook and noted that the park was crawling with chesters.  This is the view looking West.

Me in Buena Vista Park with Rufus who loves to go:

Then we headed over to Lone Mountain and got there right as the sun was setting:

St. Ignatius and the Twin Peaks Antenna:

The USF Lone Mountain building:

Nathan and Rufus:

We headed home and I had dinner and went to bed.  I was beat. 

Bike Mileage:

Today 40.0 Week to date 40.0 Month to date 40.0 Year to date 395.5 Rolling Year 7,084.5 Since Inception 10/1/07 21,565.3

Wednesday I took the day off work to get fitted for my new front teeth.  If you've been paying attention to my sordid little life, I landed on my face during one of many bicycle accidents of 2009 and managed to snap off about half of each of my front teeth.  It wasn't as bad as it could have been and I needed neither implants nor a root canal.  But I did need two crowns.  They had to wait for my teeth to stop moving before they could work on them and so I've been unable to bite into anything for several months which makes burrito consumption a tiresome activity.  But Wednesday was the day and it was about as unpleasant as I'd figured.  I go back next week to get the permanent teeth but just about all the work is done.  And the building caught fire just as they were finishing up which was a little bit of drama.  My dentist didn't seem very concerned--  apparently the building catches fire a lot.  At first they wanted us to evacuate but then the fire department decided they had it contained and told us to wait.  I wanted away from the dentist so I had to leave the building via a smoky stairwell with visions of Susan Flannery in the Towering Inferno in my head.  Here was the scene as I exited the building:

I picked up a large quantity of junk food and went home.  I didn't feel very well for the next couple of days so I worked from home and didn't do much else.