Monday I slept in and just came down Market into work.  I headed home for lunch and spotted this asshole in front of Fox Plaza.  Why couldn't he have parked in the car lane or even on the sidewalk.  I guess the donuts were ready and he wasn't thinking:

I got a few pics of Christmas at our house when I was home for lunch.  We've got a Mardi Gras theme this year:

The view from my front porch:

Here are the dogs sniffing around the tree and thinking about Poodie Claus.  Poodie Claus, as most dogs know, is the magical Christmas Poodle that brings yummy snacks for all the dogs on Christmas day.  Poodie Claus doesn't go all judgy on you like Santa with naughty this and nice that.  Poodie Claus has snacks for everybody!  Note the dogs got smart Christmas haircuts:

After work I headed off Sutter to Fillmore to Clay to Spruce to Washington to Arguello to Lake to 23rd to Cabrillo to 47th to Fulton to the Great Highway and down the coast.  Then I took Taravel to Merced to Hernandez to Laguna Honda to Portola to Corbett to Ord and home for dinner.  After dinner the dogs and I headed over to Topher's house to get a baking dish we'd left at the party on Saturday.  Then we went home and went to bed.  It was a very long day.

Sunday was a big disappointment.  I had a ride posted but nobody RSVP'd and it was so crappy looking that I stayed in bed and the when I finally managed to get moving it was like noon.  What the fuck??  I managed to get the dogs out for a walk in the afternoon using a classic "bait and switch" technique where I take all three of them out for an hour and then when we get home, while the two little ones were drinking water, I ran Rufus out for another hour. 

After dinner I baked some cookies for Mr. Poe.  He's got a long list of coworkers who are getting cookies for Christmas and I baked all night:

For reference, I made gingersnaps, M&M cookies, chocolate with peanut butter chips, nutella, and chocolate chiop and almond.  It took forever.  Mr. Poe shushed me around 10PM and it didn't phase me at all.  That's how I roll.  I finally stopped baking around 11 when I ran out of sugar.

Saturday was the monthly Different Spokes club ride.  The weather pretty much sucked but we're a hardy bunch and we didn't let it get to us.  Except for me.  I complained bitterly and frequently.  My teammates pointed out that it was snowy in most of the rest of the country and that, in Minneapolis, their football stadium was all collapsing and stuff but I told them to fuck right off because I live in Northern California and I'm only comfortable in temperatures between 60 and 75 god dammit.

Here's everybody at the Golden Gate Bridge where the living were envying the dead:

Sadly, I don't think they were arguing about whether they should all go home and drink:

The view on the bridge on the way over:

Not a beach day:

The view from Paradise Drive:

We stopped at Tiburon at Cafe Acri where there was a dog.  He was super cute and very friendly:

After lunch we headed over to Belvedere where we were awestruck by the awesome views:

This is the view of the Golden Gate Bridge from Fort Baker where the fog seemed to be an advantage.  Awesome:

Me:

Here's Chris at the Golden Gate Bridge who probably should have rethought his water bottle placement ... or the facial expression:

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A better pic of Chris from the bridge on the way home:

Lousy fog:

Me looking totally douchy:

I went home and got cleaned up and headed off to the Different Spokes holiday party which was lot of fun although Topher and I might be married in some states now.  After, Mr. Poe and I went out for Thai food and then we went home and went to bed.

Bike Mileage:

Today 49.9 Week to date 123.6 Month to date 219.3 Year to date 7,009.5 To Goal 2,990.5 Over (Under) plan (2,442.6) YTD Mileage vs Last Year (726.2) Rolling Year 7,165.9 Since Inception 10/1/07 28,179.3

I overslept a little this morning but still managed to get out of the house in time to go for a nice ride before work.  It's warm but very foggy and very, very wet.  I headed off 17th to Eureka to 18th to Valencia to Mission to Silver to Alemeny to Sagamore to Brotherhood Way to Lake Merced to John Muir to Skyline to the Great Highway and up the coast.  I stopped at the foot of Sloat for a pic of the foggy morning at the beach.  You can see a lone surfer coming out of the water.  There are probably many more still surfing.  You know they travel in packs:

I continued on the Great Highway and went into Golden Gate Park at MLK.  I stopped at the Shakespeare Garden for a pic:

I continued on MLK to Middle to JFK to the Panhandle to Baker to Fulton.  This is the view from Fulton at Broderick:

Such great detail:

I contined on Fulton and stopped at Scott for the view down towards City Hall:

Beautiful homes on Scott:

I continued on Fulton to Steiner.  I think this was at one point the Archbishop's house:

I took Steiner and stopped at Golden Gate for pics of the lovely Victorian buildings:

I continued on Steiner to Post to Kearny to Bush to Sansome and into work.

I registered for the California Death Ride which I've never done because of its crappy placement in July when Mr. Poe is invariably out of town doing teacher union stuff.  This year his conference is over a few days before the ride so it will work out just fine.  I'm really looking forward to it.  Mr. Poe used to have a ski cabin in the area and says it's super fantastic.

It slowly dried out all day Thursday.  I managed to sneak out of work a few minutes early and it was still light out when I left the office.  I headed off down Sutter and stopped to a get a pic of the view looking down Grant:

I continued on Sutter to Fillmore and stopped at Pine for pic:

I continued on Fillmore to Clay to Spruce to Washington to Arguello to Lake to 8th to Cabrillo.  This is Park Presidio and Cabrillo.  The shiny thing above the street light is the moon:

I continued on Cabrillo to 47th to Fulton to the Great Highway and headed down the coast.  I took Vicente to 46th to Wawona to 45th to Sloat to Skyline to Lake Merced which was a huge mistake because it's so poorly lit and there's a lot of oncoming traffic with headlights and it was terrifying.  I took Winston to Lunado to Holloway to Harold to Ocean to Geneva to Alemeny to Silver to Mission to Valencia to 18th to Eureka to Market to Douglass to 17th to Ord and home for dinner.  The dogs and I went for a nice long walk after dinner and then we all went to bed.  It was a long day.

Bike Mileage:

Today 30.3 Week to date 50.3 Month to date 146.0 Year to date 6,936.2 To Goal 3,063.8 Over (Under) plan (2,461.1) YTD Mileage vs Last Year (780.6) Rolling Year 7,111.5 Since Inception 10/1/07 28,106.0

Wednesday it rained all day.  All day. It's usually not like that here.  Usually the storms come in bands and blow through and then are gone.  But not yesterday.  I was raining when I got up and it was still raining when I went to bed.  The dogs, of course, blame me for this terrible predicament.  I took Muni all day which I think was a wise decision.

This morning it was still very, very wet but the weather is slowly clearing up.  I decided to come into work on my bike and to make it a little safer I came in very early before there was a lot of car, foot, and bicycle traffic.  Here is a view looking down Market from Octavia:

The Golden Gate theater from Market and 6th:

I got to work early which I'm hoping will translate to leaving early and a little bit longer of a ride after work.  It's supposed to be gorgeous and warm later today.  Stay tuned.

Tuesday I had a hard time getting out of bed and just came down Market in the morning.  I didn't go home for lunch, but I went on a nice ride after work.  There was a storm coming and it was pretty warm outside which was nice.  I headed off 2nd to Howard to 11th to Harrison to 26th to Valencia to Tiffany to 29th to San Jose to Wilder to Diamond to Monterey.  Monterey is currently under construction and I can't wait for them to be done with it because the road surface is in pretty bad shape.  I continued on Monterey into Santa Clara to Portola to Claremont to Dewey into Laguna Honda into 7th to Irving to 9th and into Golden Gate Park.  I went past to Music Concourse and headed over to 8th to Lake to Arguello to Clay to Fillmore to Post to Laguna to Market to 17th to Ord and home for dinner.

Mr. Poe was having dinner with work friends and so I was on my own.  I cook pretty well, but I tend to fail when it comes to the having to feed myself usually because of a combination of a lack of organization and a lack of time.  I tied to think ahead and got this new soy/gluten based pulled pork substitute when we were at the store on Saturday.  Now I'm sure any non vegan who is reading this is having a hard time envisioning a soy/gluten based pulled pork substitute and having even a harder time figuring out why somebody would eat such a monstrosity so I took pictures.  Here is is in the box:

Here it is in a sandwich with onions and capers and tater tots and a pickle on the side.  The package said it was 2 servings but I put the whole thing on the sandwich and I think it was a little over full:

It didn't have either the taste or the texture of pork, thankfully.  The nice thing about being vegan is that so long as it's vegan how bad can it be?  It was basically really firm tofu in a mildly spicy barbeque sauce.  It was pretty good and I would definitely have it again except next time it's gotta be on hot dog buns as it's extremely messy and the next time it really needs to have pickles on it.  It isn't as good as Morningstar Farms Riblets but a girl likes some variety now and then.  After dinner I cleaned up the kitchen and took the dogs for a long walk.  Then Mr. Poe came home and we went to bed.

Bike Mileage:

Today 20.0 Week to date 20.0 Month to date 115.7 Year to date 6,905.9 To Goal 3,094.1 Over (Under) plan (2,436.6) YTD Mileage vs Last Year (810.9) Rolling Year 7,081.2 Since Inception 10/1/07 28,075.7

Saturday the weather was kind of all over the place.  I tried to take all three of the dogs for a walk but it started raining immediately so we all came home.  When I saw the sun peeking through the clouds a half an hour later I just took Rufus because he doesn't get quite so cold and miserable when wet.  When we got back Mr. Poe and I headed off for the grocery store and then home for lunch.  After lunch everybody was exceedingly tired:

I spent the afternoon working on my gingerbread house.  Saturday night we went out to dinner with Nathan and Daniel and it was totally awesome.  Mr. Poe headed home after dinner and I watched a movie over at Nathan's and then headed home and went to bed.

Sunday I had intended to go riding but the weather didn't look good so I bailed and helped Mr. Poe set up Christmas.  I also finished my gingerbread house.  Here are some pics of it.  As we're having a Mardi Gras Christmas I decided to make a Cajun swamp shack.  It's pretty similar to the one that I did last year except that it's raised up on pylons that I made of Wheat Thins glued together with royal icing.  Here's a progression of the construction:

The swamp water is tropical tye died fruit rollups that I painted with watered down royal icing.  It isn't perfect but I think it works:

Gingerbread house consruction is a messy business.  I'll be cleaning up for the rest of the day.

It rained all night but was drying off by the time I got up this morning so I went riding.  I headed off Corbett to Clayton to Parnassus to Cole to Waller to Stanyan and into Golden Gate Park at JFK.  I took JFK to Arguello and into the Presidio to Washington and then over to the Golden Gate Bridge.  It was less foggy there than I thought that it would be:

I headed over the bridge where there was an almost identical view on the other side:

I came back over the bridge and got on Lincoln to McDowell to Mason over to the Marina.  I stopped at the Palace of Fine Arts:

Me:

I took Beach to Scott to Chestnut to Laguna to Francisco to Polk to North Point to the Embarcadero to Washington to Sansome and into work.  I realized when I got here that I forgot to put the Fedex slip on my front door which means I'll have to head home for lunch super early and hope I beat them.  I hope it's not going to be that kind of a day.

It was dry when I headed home for lunch but it got a little rainy later in the afternoon.  It was a little wet when I left work but I decided to go riding anyway.  I took 2nd to Howard to 11th to Harrison to 22nd to San Jose to 26th to Valencia to Tiffany to to 29th to San Jose to Wilder to Diamond to Monterey into Santa Clara to Portola to Claremont to Dewey into Laguna Honda into 7th to Hugo to 3rd to Frederick to Stanyan to Waller to Clayton to Page to Scott to Waller to Fillmore to Hermann to Church to Market to 17th to Ord and home for dinner.  It was raining again by the time I got home and the dogs were sad to see there was no walk for them after dinner because of it.

Bike Mileage:

Today 34.7 Week to date 137.5 Month to date 72.3 Year to date 6,862.5 To Goal 3,137.5 Over (Under) plan (2,343.0) YTD Mileage vs Last Year (761.0) Rolling Year 7,152.3 Since Inception 10/1/07 28,032.3