Friday I came in on Muni because it was really wet in the morning.  I headed home at lunch and made sure that the dogs didn’t have realtors in the house.   Mr. Poe had movie plans that night and I’d made tentative plans with Miss Smith but they weren’t supposed to start until 7PM so I went for a nice walk after work.  I started out walking through Chinatown:

Then I headed up the Vallejo Steps:

This is the view looking west from the top of Russian Hill:

I walked out Vallejo to  Lyon and headed up to Broadway and then headed back downtown on Broadway and then Pacific.  This Victorian had the best lights I saw all night:

I headed over to Miss Smiths where we hung out with his downstairs neighbor who was this 23 year old guy from Connecticut who was super douchey but in the way I’m gonna forgive because he’s so young.  I pretended to be dumber than I am so that I didn’t have to hear about his job for an hour– don’t judge me– I felt a sales presentation coming on and I just wasn’t gonna have that shit on a Friday night.  He left and Donald showed up which was an ultra treat.  I love hanging out with him and performed admirably in getting me on the train as I was a little over served by the time we went home.   I think he’s coming for Christmas which will be a fabulous treat.  Stay tuned!

Thursday I headed home for lunch and came back to work down Folsom again so I could document all the construction going on.  First up was this building across the street from Victoria Manolo Draves Park.  It burned quite a while ago and they’re just getting around to rebuilding.  It was quite a fire and I’m pleased that they aren’t tearing the building down and starting over:

This small building is going in a little down the street:

The big construction is at 5th and Folsom.  This is a huge condo development that can read more about here. 

This is at 4th and Market.  It’s part of the project that’s digging the new subway:

Continuing down Folsom I saw this office tower that’s being renovated at Folsom and Hawthorne.  You can read more about it here:

This building looks to be an entirely affordable housing which is good!

Neighborhood not so much.  I hope the units have good sound insulation:

There’s a lot of property on Folsom that’s tied up with the new Transbay Terminal that isn’t going to be part of the finished structure.  The stuff on Folsom is labeled as ‘Redevelopment’.  Interested to see what that’s gonna end up being.  You can read more about that here. 

I conttinued on Folsom to Main to Davis to California to Sansome and into work.  After work I headed off down 2nd to Howard where I stopped for a pic of the last of the daylight:

I continued on Howard to 11th to Harrison to 22nd to Valencia to Tiffany to 29th to San Jose to Monterey into Santa Clara to Portola to Claremont to Dewey to Laguna Honda into 7th to Judah to 9th and into Golden Gate Park.  I went past the Music Concourse and came out of the park at 8th and took that to Lake to Arguello to Clay to Fillmore to Post to Laguna to Market to 17th to Ord and home for dinner.  Finally!  An actual after work ride. 

Bike Mileage:

Today 28.4 Week to date 59.5 Month to date 126.8 Year to date 6,540.8 To Goal 1,459.2 Over (Under) plan (1,108.5) YTD Mileage vs Last Year 1,119.4 Rolling Year 6,566.6 Since Inception 10/1/07 40,467.7

Monday I came into work Market to Laguna to McAllister to Polk to Post to Kearny to Clay to Sansome.  I came home for lunch and then up Market at the end of the day.  I ran into Mr. Poe walking up 17th St so I walked him home.  Fun fact:  whenever I come across Mr. Poe walking up 17th St and I’m on my bike, I make sure that I hoot at him like a construction worker and shout things like “Ohhhh baby!  Got to have it!  Give me some of that sugar!”  and  “Check out the sweet dumper on that hot daddy!”.  These are more reasons the neighbors don’t like me.  I baked a cake for Mr. Poe to take to work after dinner and then I went to bed.

Tuesday I came into work Market to Laguna to Golden Gate to Leavenworth to Eddy to Taylor to O’Farrell to Grant to Post to Kearny to Clay to Sansome.  I went home for lunch and then rode home Sutter to Polk to Pacific to Webster to Page to Scott to Duboce to Noe to Market to 17th to Ord.  Mr. Poe had plans after work so I had to feed the dogs and we waited for him to get home.

Wednesday was wet in the morning so I came in on Muni.  I probably should have brought the bike because it was dry albeit cold the rest of the day. 

It was gorgeous this morning.  Very chilly but sunny and gorgeous.  I’ll take it.  I got a couple of pics of our Christmas tree before I left for work.  Mr. Poe went with an avian theme and I think it’s one of the nicest trees we’ve ever had:

I came into work Market to 14th to Folsom to 2nd to Market to Sansome.  I hadn’t come down Folsom in a long time and it’s like the whole street is under construction.  Stay tuned!

Friday I came down Market into work on my bike.  I headed home for lunch and although I had high hopes for riding after work, I had to work pretty late so I ended up just coming up Market home after work.

Saturdaynight  we had the Different Spokes Christmas party at our house.  We put Mimi down in the guest room and locked the boys in the study and I think that worked really well.  I had a really good time and I hope that everybody else did. 

Sunday was beautiful and I went for a ride in the afternoon out to Tiburon.  I haven’t been on a long ride in a very long time and it felt great to be riding again.  I stopped on the bike path in Tiburon for a pic:

I headed home and got a couple of pics of some of our Christmas decorations:

The Angel Trumpet tree looks beautiful:

We headed out with the dogs after dinner to check out decorations around the neighborhood. It was a beautful night.

Bike Mileage:

Today 46.5 Week to date 67.3 Month to date 67.3 Year to date 6,481.3 To Goal 1,518.7 Over (Under) plan (1,080.3) YTD Mileage vs Last Year 1,197.7 Rolling Year 6,666.6 Since Inception 10/1/07 40,408.2 Weight 0.0 Seven Day Change

My Mom came for Thanksgiving again and she brought her adorable little puppy and, although I took pics of the desserts I made for dinner, I didn’t manage to take any of her or the dogs.  Go figure.  Rufus adored the puppy and Mimi tolerated her kind of in the same way that Cartman treats Butters on South Park but Ashley Jr. wasn’t having it because he was supposed to be the cute little one and was snarly and awful the whole time.  It was a little embarrassing. 

Thanksgiving was a little lonely this year because our friends Wildfredo and Mike who have been coming for years and years couldn’t come this year because they’ve up and moved to Texas. And they moved to the Harlingen, Texas which is the small town at the tip of Texas where we used to live–  how random is that??  Michael got a job teaching theater in Brownsville and we’re all proud of him and I hope they love their new lives in the Rio Grande Valley. 

On Thanksgiving, I cooked desserts and a couple of side dishes.  The desserts turned out really well.  Say hello to my classy friend Charlotte Malakoff–  it’s an intriguing almond cream that’s molded with ladyfingers that Julia Child described as ‘the finest dessert she knew’ on her show back in 1963.  Everybody seemed to like it and it looks spectacular. And it was surprisingly easy to make:

Here’s all the desserts lined up:

Sunday we through a another dinner party because I wanted to try out this old Southern recipe that uses the dark meat from the turkey and mixes it with mushrooms and oysters in a savory sauce.  There seemed to be a lot left over which made me think it wasn’t too popular.  Mr. Chris and Mr. Poe both commented that the problem was that the oysters I got were very large– they were the size of a poached egg–  and that nobody except for the two of the them were gonna eat oysters that big.  Oh well.  At least Mr. Poe liked it a lot and he’s really the only one that counts.  I made another charlotte–  this time with berries and it turned out even better.  My charlotte mold is my favorite thing ever:

Sadly, none for poor Rufus:

Mom headed off to see her sister on Saturday and we spent the rest of the weekend decorating for Christmas.  I can’t wait!

Saturday was a rainy day.  Everybody else tried going to beaches but I wasn’t having it.  If I’m gonna be wet and miserable it’s gonna be on a bike.  Sunday came around and it was time to head back to San Francisco.  Mr. Nick and Jess had an earlier flight so they left before us and Mr. Poe and I headed out to Spouting Horn which was a quick thing to do before heading to the airport.  It gets it’s name from a giant spout of water that shoots out at certain tides.  I wasn’t able to get a good pic of it but there’s a good one on Wikipedia. 

We headed to the airport where we ran into Mr. Nick and Jess who’s flight hadn’t yet departed.  Here’s a parting shot of Mr. Nick:
 

Out flight was blissfully nonstop which was good because I wasn’t feeling very well.  We got home and after the dogs settled down we all went to bed.  It had been a very long day.

Friday we went kayaking up on the wailua river up in Kapa’a.  The kayaking itself was really fun.  The river’s really easy to kayak on although it’s much harder going downstream than up because of the winds coming in off of the ocean.  It’s beautiful and I liked that part.  Here are Mr. Nick and Jess in their boat:

The lady that rented us the kayaks told us we had to do this crazy hike because it was so beautiful and that’s where things started to fall apart.  The hike kind of sucked and the destination was a waterfall that it turned out wasn’t running this time of year.  I couldn’t figure out why she told us to do it  when she really should have told us to stay by the river and go swimming.  I think what was going on is that she was mad at the Kamokila Hawaiian Village because they started charging an entry fee because that was pissing off the people who were renting kayaks and so she had to come up with a new destination.  Not a good strategy.  It was beautiful, but then everything’s beautiful on Kauai.  Here’s everybody crossing the river:

The hiking got rockier and rockier which was an issue given the kind of shoes you wear when you’re kayaking.  I had the ugly reef shoes I’d purchased on Wednesday so I was fine but you really need hiking shoes to hike on this shit:

It was a lot harder getting back to the river launch and I was totally beat by the time we got finished.  I hadn’t eaten enough and was getting a little punchy but thankfully, a surprisingly good Mexican restaurant was a block from where we had to return the kayaks.  I consumed a massive amount of food and several margaritas and all was well in the world.  This is Mr. Poe at the gas station on the way home:

We all went to bed early that night.  It had been a very long day.

Thursday everybody was going to the beach but I just couldn’t face that again so I took the car and headed back to Waimea canyon.  Our hike on Monday had been on the ocean side and, although it was very beautiful, I was keen to go on a hike in the canyon itself.  It was kind of a dress rehearsal for next year because I’ve thought that it would be fun to go to Kauai with Mr. Poe and Sharon if I had my own car and went hiking every day.  Going up to Hanalei is out of the question because it’s just too long of a round trip but Waimea Canyon less than an hour from Poipu and there are many hikes with a lot of variety.  So pretty too.  Check this out:

I didn’t have a whole lot of time so I hiked a couple of miles to what would have been a waterfall if it wasn’t the end of the dry season:

I headed back to the hotel and got cleaned up and we headed out for dinner.  We went to the super fantastic luau at the Hyatt next door to our hotel.  It isn’t cheap and I wouldn’t describe dinner as awesome but the show they put on it’s pretty awesome and normally I roll my eyes at that kind of crap.  Of course there was the standard fuckery of making the tourists behave like idiots:

Then came out the real dancers.  They were incredible.  The show had a lot of variety and fabulous costumes with about a dozen costume changes and the male dancers were really hot:

They also have free drinks at the luau as evidenced by a slightly overserved Mr Nick.  Say it ain’t so!

We headed back to the hotel.  It had been a very long day.

Wednesday Mr. Nick and Jess went on a helicopter tour so I headed off to beach with Mr. Poe.  I am not a sitting on the beach person.  At all.  I like the beach.  I like walking on it and looking it but I do not like parking myself on a beach chair and falling asleep which is basically the reason that Mr. Poe wants to go to Kauai in the first place.  So we went to the beach and I walked around for a couple of hours and then I got lunch and then headed back to the hotel.  I didn’t get any complaints from Mr. Poe because I got him lunch first and Mr. Poe isn’t gonna complain when he’s eating.  I got a parting shot of Poipu beach as I left:

Tuesday Mr. Poe went off to the beach and Mr. Nick, Jess and I headed up to the north of the island.  First stop was the St. Regis at Princeville which has this crazy amazing view:

We had a couple of drinks at the bar and then headed to Hanalei which I gotta say is a little dumpy and crawling with tourists.  I think at one time it was hippie central and it still has a bit of that but it was mostly tourists.  Yawn.  Then we headed to Ke’e beach which was surprisingly sparsely populated and generally awesome.  Evidence:

Mr. and Mrs. Nick:

We headed back to the hotel for dinner.  It was a long day.  Traffic is a disaster on Kauai because it’s basically one lane across the island and there’s only road.  Our hotel is in Poipu and to get to Hanalei with stops was like five hours in the car.  Still it was a glorious day so I’m not complaining.