Harvey Milk Civil Rights Academy

It was a few weeks ago, but here are some pics from when I danced.

27m 10 sec, 927th place! A personal best.

OK, so 927th place out of 1086 is pretty close to coming in last but I still did it. I climbed 1197 steps in 27 minutes, 10 seconds.
I was super sweaty and stank a little but I did something I was only "pretty sure" I could do.

Here are some pics.

The building whose butt I kicked

The view once I got to the top ......

6 minutes, 32 seconds

Tomorrow's the big day, folks. Tomorrow I'm climbing up 52 flights of stairs for chairity - The American Lung Association to be exact. My wave time is 2:30pm EST. I'm in Pacific Time, but I thought I'd mix it up a bit and make you do some thinkin'.

Yesterday I did 717 stairs, but not in one go. My office is on the 4th floor, but one has to climb 5 flights of stairs to get there, weird I know. I did that a few times, plus I not only did the Filbert Street Stairs, I also hiked down the other side of Coit Tower, then back up, then down the Greenwich stairs. It totaled 717 and took me about 50 minutes. I was kinda meandering and not really busting my ass to get there and back.

Tomorrow my goal is to make it up 52 flights of stairs in about an hour. The record is 6 minutes 32 seconds. I think an hour is reasonable.

Help me Obi-Wan Kenobi . . . . .

Not feeling too creative today so instead of being witty I translated the holo-message from Princess Leia to Obi-Wan into Engrish.

"Before the year, it was useful to my father of clone war; Now he asks in order to help him of that struggle vis-a-vis empire. As for me me my father' The fact that it is not shown is regretted; To in the demand direct 々 for your s; But as for my boat attack and I' It fell with under; M where you fear failed my delegation which it comes accompanying in Alderaan. I' ve made serious information continuance of the riot in the storage unit of this R2 unit. My father has known the method of removing that. You must look at this droid which is offered to him of Alderaan safely. This is our most desperate times. The band weak Kenobi help me; you' In regard to just my desire."

Up the Stairs

I climed up the Coit Tower Stairs 2 days in a row. 370 stairs. I am such a nerd-ball. I love stairs. I love that burning feeling in my thighs. I love that stretchy feeling of my patella tendon of which I only have 2/3 - Actually I have all of it, it's just that 1/3 of my patella tendon is doing duty as an ACL.

Please enjoy some pictures I found on the interweb of the coit tower stairs. . . . .

The Beginning

Some of the middle

the prize

Hooray Hubby.

http://spot.us/stories/76

The Lady I've Come to Know

I saw my Lady today. I don't know her name. I only know I really like her and I get a warm fuzzy feeling whenever we talk.

About a lifetime ago I worked for Whole Foods. I worked in the deli getting paid slightly over minimum wage to put potato salad in 1/2 pint containers for rich people who thought I was uneducated. There was this Muslim woman who would come in. She was really nice. I would make sure that I was the one who served her when her number was called. She like the really crusty bits of the turkey meatloaf; the ends that nobody wanted that had little charred bits of ketchup. I always liked serving her.

I transferred to the seafood department (ask me to tell you my story about my Russian Orthodox Priest someday). I hardly saw her after that.

Then I got preggers with Little Miss. After Little Miss was born I would see my Muslim at the doctor's office. We went to the same medical group. She had a baby that was a little bit older than mine.

For a few years I'd see her on the platform of the Muni. She took one train, I took another. We would talk. I would often let my train pass so I could talk to her while she was waiting for her train.

A few years later I was at our medical group getting an MRI. My Muslim was in the waiting room. Her kid was getting an MRI. She was talking to a woman. Then my Muslim went to be with her son, but not before giving the lady a hug. I asked the lady if she knew my Muslim. She said she didn't. It was the first time they had ever spoken. I told her that I'd been running into my Muslim off and on for the last 4 years and that every time I spoke with her I felt nice. She was a nice person. The lady thought for a second then said she felt nice too and hoped she would run into her again.

I saw her a few times on the muni platform after that. I hadn't seen her for a very long time. It's been about 5 years since I've seen her, and more than 10 years since the first time we met.
I was driving down the street today going home from picking up some cheese for Little Miss (another story for another time). My Muslim was standing on the corner at the busstop waiting for her bus.

I hope to run into her again soon. I'd like to tell her that I am always happy after I run into her. I don't even know her name.

Thankful

One year ago tonight my sweet baby little mister was born. He was born at 6pm. I remember because I went from 4cm to 10cm in 40 minutes. I pushed him out in 20 minutes. He was the worst color of gray anyone had ever seen. He was revived and then after a quick kiss on the forehead, he was swept away into the nicu so the doctors could work on him. The first time I saw him he looked like this. . . .
He had a breathing tube and IVs and all sorts of devices hooked up to every limb. He was so sick. His cord got pinched and he wasn't receiving any new blood or oxygen. He spent a few weeks in the NICU until he got over the problems he was having. In his first few weeks of life he had a blood transfusion, a spinal tap, an MRI, a few EEGs, a lot of drugs, but mostly A LOT of love.
I'm happy to say that today he looks like this . . . . .
He's healthy, strong, sweet, funny. He says "kitty" and "dada". He's saving the best for last "mama". He has beautiful blue eyes. I love him more than anything in the whole wide world.

I thank God every day that that the doctors who were on duty that day were there. They saved my baby's life.

365 days ago today

I was in the hospital with a bp of 170 / 100. I had the worst headache ever. I had an IV in my arm and a 37 wk baby in my belly. I was home the day before, but two days before that I was in the same hospital, IV in my arm, headache, high bp. I remember the nurse coming into the room telling me there was a nursing shortage and they were going to send me via ambulance to Oakland hospital. I told the nurse that my baby was NOT Oaklandish and was going to be a San Francisco native like his big sister. She gave me a really odd look and went to tell the doctor. The doctor came in and told us that she completely understood. San Franciscans are very proud of being from San Francisco. Although Hubby and I aren't native (he's been here since 1976 and I've been here since 1991) we are San Franciscans and so are our kids. A Daly City birth would have been OK with us in an emergency, but that's only because we live west of Twin Peaks.

Anyhow, 365 days ago I was in the Labor and Delivery. About 10pm my hubby said he was going to pick up Little Miss, take her home, get a good night sleep and come back in the morning to hopefully take me home. He left the room. A nurse came in with a sweet-ass looking wheelchair with great shocks. She told me were were off to the delivery room because they were going to induce me tonight and I was going to have the baby tomorrow. I called hubby, told him change of plans. Instead of him going to pick up little miss, he drove over to the grandparents' house and kissed little miss, then went to our house, grabbed some stuff and came back to the hospital.

365 days ago this happened.

My Kingdom for a Blast Chiller

Oh my gosh.

I've been planning my kids' baptism for months now. We are down to the final days of preparation. I'm making lasagna for 100 people. Yesterday I made the sauce. Today I'm making more sauce. See, I put the sauce from yesterday in the fridge and instead of the fridge cooling down the sauce, the sauce heated everything in the fridge. Everything in the fridge was warm. I had to throw out the milk (luckily there was only 1/8 of a carton left) , the eggs (1.5 dozen), 6 tubs of Ricotta, let's say that again 6 tubs of ricotta. I took the ricotta's temperature this morning and it was at 75 degrees. It was hotter inside my fridge than inside my kitchen. I don't want to go out and buy more stuff, but I can't chance making my family and friends sick. So in about an hour, we're heading off to costco for some more ricotta and a few #10 cans of crushed tomatoes.

This time, after I make the sauce, I'll divide it into a few different containers and ice it down in the sink.

What a waste. A waste of time, money and food.

At least my hair looks great today.

A lesson I taught Little Miss.

I don't wear make-up all the time. I am perfectly happy going for weeks on end without putting on any makeup. Usually the only jewelry I wear is my wedding band; sometimes a necklace, but usually only my wedding band. I don't even wear the whole wedding ring set which includes two additional pieces.

I know sometimes life tells us we have to present ourselves according to the situation at hand. So, I wear makeup to work. Sometimes I'll put on a pair of earrings.

There's one thing I've been telling my daughter ever since she showed an interest in watching me put on makeup.
Here it is --

Makeup is like Jewelry. Sometimes you need it. Sometimes you don't. Sometimes you need a lot. Sometimes you need a little. But you never ever never need it to be beautiful.

Dear Pyrex
When I moved out of my parents' house about 15 years ago one of the things I was sure to do was to hide all of my mom's cooking utensils that I loved inside my bags ... to name a few -- the wooden spoon with all the perfectly cured edges, the perfect bowl for mixing, my favorite fork and the 9x13 pyrex glass baking dish. Growing up, I remember all the yummy dinners and desserts that were cradled inside that baking dish -- veal parmesan, shake'n'bake, red velvet cake, etc.The first time my parents came to visit me in my new house, my mom managed to take back everthing I had stolen, except for my favorite fork and the 9x13 pyrex glass baking dish. Over the last 15 years I've been using the trusty glass baking dish to cook many batches of scalloped potatoes, chicken breasts and frittatas. I've long since lost my favorite fork and the other night, I lost a part of my childhood. I was making chicken breasts. They were going to be really yummy; Herbes de Provence, a little bit of olive oil, what a treat. When I checked on them I noticed the bottom of the dish was a little dry. I added a little bit of chicken stock right from newly opened box and POP! The glass baking cracked down the middle. I quickly had to lug my 9x13 cast iron Le Creuset dish out of the cupboard, thow in the chicken breasts and along with all the nice fond that had been cultivating on the bottom of the pan while the chicken was baking, I had to throw the 9x13 pyrex glass baking dish in the recycle.
Darn.

There's a first time for everything.

I have my first follower. I'm so excited.

Welcome!!!
Onaona i ka pot roast!


I'm such a dork.

Weed out the Riff-Raff, with Aloha of course.

Maybe it's all in my head, but this time I don't think it is.

When I started taken hula from Kumu Patrick at Na Lei Hulu, there were about 160 people in my class. Now we are down to about 50, give or take a few.

Every once in a while, maybe about every 8 months something happens and I look around and notice that someone I used to see all the time isn't there anymore. I think "oh, where's xxxx?" and then I realize that that person hasn't been around in quite some time. Sometimes people send out an email to the group stating their intentions to leave the halau. Sometimes they just disappear.

I notice that this happens right after or during a particular event. When we moved from just working on the basic hula movements to learning our first kahiko it got a tiny bit harder and people dropped out. When we moved from kahiko to chanting, then to chanting solo in front of the class, people dropped out. When we started our first 'auana, people dropped out and so on, and so on, and so on.

The biggest exodus was right after ho'ike and Kumu joined the two classes into one big class. Three years later our class is half the size it was at ho'ike.

It's getting harder again. We're preparing for a show that will take place in October. I wonder who will drop out when the dancing becomes more intense and Kumu is harder on us to do our best. I wonder how many people will leave right after the October show.

As we prepare for our huaka'i that takes place in 2 years, I wonder how many of my hula brothers and sisters will still be with me.

It's as though Kumu is thinking "ok, I want to take you all with me, but I want you to be sure you want to be here too. here are the tools. it's up to you to use them."

In a way, it's a good life lesson. "Here are the tools. It's up to you to use them."

A sweet moment on the Muni

I crochet on the train. Sometimes I read. I go through phases switching back and forth. The only constant is that I always have my headphones on. I don't always have music on, but I've always got my earbuds in so people don't try to ask me what I'm crocheting or what character from whatever book I'm reading do I most identify with. When I crochet, I always keep what I'm working on tucked in a bag and I only pull out the part I'm working on.

The other morning I had my headphones on listening to some Kinks. I noticed a really old Chinese lady watching me crochet. After a few stops I pulled out what I was working on and passed it to her. She looked it over, gave me a big grin, said thank you and then got of the train.

It was a nice morning.

I don't get it.

I went to a Lutheran school from the 3rd grad to the 9th. I didn't like most of my time there. I desperately wanted to fit in, but no matter what, I just couldn't swing it. Most of the time I felt like I was the weird one, the one that didn't have many friends, the icky one, the one that got picked on. I think that some of it may have been my own insecurities, but I also think that some people there played on those insecurities - including some of the teachers. I admit, I was odd. I had a weird sense of humor that nobody understood (still do, but I like it now), I didn't dress super girly, I wasn't popular.
There were 2, possibly 3 teachers that singled me out as the student they didn't like. One teacher, Mrs. C. made me crawl on my hands and knees up and down the aisles of our classroom picking up little pieces of trash that only the vacuum would get. When I finished she asked me if I learned my lesson. I told her I didn't know what I had done. She smacked me in the face and told me not to be a smart-ass. To this day I still don't know what I did. (One night, a few years ago I told my dad that story. He said "I better not run into her at Home Depot." I asked him why Home Depot, and he said "Because I go to Home Depot a lot and if I'm going to run into anybody it's going to be there." Gotta love my dad)
There was another teacher, Mrs. F. She seemed to have a special dislike for me. A few girls wrote something mean on the bathroom wall about Mrs. F. Mrs. F. accused me of it. Not only did I know what was written on the wall, I didn't even know that something had been written on the wall, or even what wall. All through PE class she kept asking me if I did it. She kept asking in me in front of other students. I found out what was written, I found out who did it. I told the three girls who did it that I got accused of doing it. They apologized to me. I thought that Mrs. F. should have apologized. I asked her to. She said that she wasn't going to because she probably wasn't far off from thinking that I'd do such a thing. I saw her about 4 years later. I brought it up to her again. She told me again she wasn't going to apologize and then she told me to stop holding grudges. OK, maybe I should let this go, you can't push a string, but if you ever read this, Mrs. F., please know that a teacher shapes a kid's opinion of her/himself more than you probably realize. It's not just the good teachers we remember, but also the ones that hurt us. Her husband was a teacher at the school, too. I never thought he gave me a fair shake, but he didn't do anything directly to me that made me feel bad.
There were other bits and pieces from those two teachers and a few others. Some of the kids' parents had a few choice words about me. I know I was the weird kid, but I was never malicious. I was never overtly bad. I was just the kid nobody understood, so rather than just recognizing that, teachers and parents reacted in such a way that made a little girl feel awful.
I had one teacher that I really liked. Mr. S. He was the type of teacher that everyone should have at least once in their school careers. He was funny, smart, dorky and nice. He let us laugh and he was strict all at the same time. He is THE best teacher I've ever had. He didn't make me feel stupid. He didn't make me feel weird for my off-beat humor. He didn't make me feel weird because I was interested in things that nobody else in my class was interested in. Thanks Mr. S.

OK, I write all this because I've recently become obsessed with the school. On Facebook I joined two separate groups for the school. I've reconnected with some of the people I was friends with, became 'facebook friends' with a few people that I thought were super-cool but never thought they'd give me the time of day when we were younger. I check the school board for updates on old friends and people I used to know.

Why do I do this? Why do I care? I guess I always had this weird longing to fit in. I have this weird feeling that I have to justify myself to everyone who thought I wouldn't amount to anything. To prove them wrong, I guess. So I don't have my PhD, I don't make tons of money, but by many people's standards, including my own, I've done pretty well for myself. I'm a college graduate, I've been married for almost 12 years to the love of my life, I have two kids who are sweet and kind, I work, I live in a house. I don't have everything I want, but I have everything I need.

Go Hang a Salami. I'm a Lasagna Hog!

So I've spent part of my morning looking for a lasagna recipe, sort of.

I make pretty good lasagne but I've never made it for 100 people at once. I need to make enough lasagna to feed 100 people, and some of it needs to be vegetarian. None of it can have beef or veal (darn, no veal bones) because Little Miss is off the cow. She doesn't eat beef.

If possible I don't want to make two different sauces. I want to use the same sauce for both versions of lasagne. I know I will cheat and say the sause is vegetarian because , in my opinion, no sauce is complete without a little bit of anchovy. I like the kind that comes in the toothpaste tube.

I guess what I'm looking for is a good lasagne recipe that I can use as a guide so when I make my shopping list I know how much of each ingredient I should plan on buying.

Any help you could give me would be great.

Oh my gosh, you'd think we were killing him.

The Mister has two states of emotion -
Yay, life is good
and
OH THE HUMANITY! YOU'RE KILLING ME. I CAN'T BELIEVE THE INJUSTICE!

Crying Baby

I was going to write a blog about Valentines Day, Love, Chocolate and all that good stuff but my baby is crying and he needs a cuddle.

Food

I can't order food off a menu if the listed item isn't punctuated correctly. It might taste bad.