Kyle and I with Louisville behind us, about eight years ago.
Tomorrow is my six year wedding anniversary. I enjoy being married. I can’t relate to those people who say marriage is work. Really, what is Deanna on the comic strip For Better Or Worse talking about here? Marriage is a blast. I like love!
We’re not sure what we’re doing tomorrow, but we’re thinking day trip, watching the sunset, and eating fancy food at the local fancy food gettin’ place. Hooray romance!
Let me start out by saying that I’m a fan of O’Reilly Media. After all, Kyle has written several books for them. I have gone to the Maker Faire for the last two years. In fact, Kyle had a booth at Maker Faire last year, which I wrote about here. So, having gone and enjoyed it every time–especially the craft fair aspect of the event–I was happy that Marcia invited us to go again this year. She even offered to drive.
The sign that something was wrong started at the freeway interchange to San Mateo, where Maker Faire was being held. Suddenly, there was a lot of traffic. After slowly driving through it for a half hour longer than felt necessary, Marcia and Kyle started suggesting that maybe the traffic was because of the Maker Faire. I didn’t think so. It seemed impossible that this many people wanted to look at crafts and lasers. The whole DIY aesthetic and geekiness that Marker Faire represents still seems too grass roots and small to me to attract this many people. I mean, this was like being caught in traffic for a football game, not a cute little geeky fair.
But when we pulled onto the off-ramp for the Maker Faire exit, I saw that I was wrong. The off-ramp was jammed full of cars and moving at a glacier pace. For an hour and 40 minutes, we sat on the off-ramp. We were trapped. We stopped and started, stopped and started. People were parking their cars on the shoulder and peeing in the bushes. I was dying of boredom. I mean, all I saw for nearly two hours was this:
FINALLY we got into San Mateo, but the craziness continued. Traffic was clogging the streets. There was no where to park. We drove around and around but all the lots were full. My mood started to sour. I can only be in traffic for so long before I start getting upset. I took to desperate measures to entertain myself.
“Help Me! (Trapped in car, can’t see lasers)”
“All these people are coming here? Really?”
Line to get in
At last, we gave up and parked in downtown San Mateo and ate at a taqueria in the back of a Mexican grocery store. Marcia had excellent tamales. The Jesus statue on top of the meat case lifted my spirits.
I would have been happy to go home at that point, but it had taken four-and-a-half hours to get there and Kyle and Marcia still wanted to go, so we walked over to the Maker Faire. Luckily, because Marcia is all connected and important, we had free tickets, so we didn’t have to stand in the line to get in.
Once in, it was… crowded. And yet the faire was pretty much the same. I mean, yeah, they had a few new things, like bands and giant metal statues–
–but overall it was the same. Same giant robot giraffe, same cupcake scooters, same pinball trailer, same $3 water and soda (and $9 beer, I hear). What was different was that somehow–and I admit this is a subjective viewpoint–the joy had been sucked out of the event. Last year, there were people riding around on every weird bicycle contraption you could think of. This year, there were only a few people on such things. Last year, people were so cool and strange that I wanted to take a picture of everyone I saw. This year, while there were plenty of geeky tee-shirts and pony tails, only one or two people struck me as interesting. And also, people were kind of rude.
One of the biggest disappointments was the craft fair. Last year, the Bizarre Bazaar was full of awesome crafts. I walked around and got idea after idea. This year, the overall quality of the crafts seemed lower. While there were some repeat crafters, the new stuff slipped into more predictable craft territory: baby booties, cards, cutesy pillows, etc. And anyway, I couldn’t even look at the booths because they moved the Craft portion of an event into a small building and it was so crowded, you could hardly walk.
(Sample of the crowd in the Craft building)
That said, I’m glad I went because I got to hang out with friends. There were a few other cool things:
1. Giant metal statues, as mentioned before.
2. A DIY mushroom farm where you can grow your own mushrooms at home. Kyle and I bought one. We are growing shitake mushrooms on our kitchen counter now.
3. Goats
4. Various lasers, Tesla coils, robots, et. all.
5. Pops! by Krystina Castella, a book about making popsicles. I was so impressed, I went right home and made popsicles with fresh lemon and grapefruit juice.
Kyle kept saying that I thought Maker Faire wasn’t cool anymore because, like an indie band geek, I didn’t like that my little “discovery” had gotten so popular. Maybe so. It amazes me that that many people wanted to go to it, and I suspect the reason is hype more than anything else. Or, it could simply be that I resent sitting in a car for five hours.
Still, I don’t care if it is a little snotty: like a good restaurant or an indie band, some things start to suck once they become popular.
This has been an insane week. I am glad it’s almost over. A lot of things happened this week, many of them cool. I got to:
Next week looks a little saner. I have two articles due and am having dinner with friends. And that’s it. Whew.
I am doing a lot of writing lately. For example, I’m writing book reviews for the San Francisco Chronicle and PopMatters, an article on Pacific Leatherback Turtles for Bay Nature, an article on product placement in fiction for The Writer, I get to see Billy Collins read (again) for an article on poetry I’m writing for the Pacific Sun, I’m going to be a judge for a book contest run by Writer’s Digest, and so on!
On top of that, Marcia and I are thinking about having a second Word Pirates reading sometime in May. Last year’s event was a big success. There was even a pirate dance. So, as Word Pirates nears its second birthday, it seems like a good thing to do again. You are invited! And it will be free.
Other new ventures include writing for the The Compulsive Organizer, which I blogged about yesterday. But tomorrow I plan to post about making vegetable broth! (UPDATE: post here.) Kyle and I have also been very social since getting our dishwasher. Apparently, doing dishes was the major reason I stopped having people over before. Now that that’s not an issue anymore, my house has turned into Grand Central Station.
And yet somehow I had time to make some jewelry to list on my Etsy store. Here’s a pair I plan to list sometime later today:
I like when life is busy like this.
A zillion years ago, my great grandmother came to Canada from Scotland. With her, she brought her china set: fine green plates with white snowdrops painted on the front. She gave the set to my grandmother, who brought it with her to California. Then, she gave it to my mom. This weekend, it went to me.
I am happy to get a family heirloom. It’s a huge set complete with plates, demitasse, salt and pepper, coffee pot, etc. But I’m concerned about breaking it. I’m bad with antiques. I think my subconscious hates fancy stuff, if you want to know the truth. In every situation, I manage to break the most expensive thing around. This is why I never want to hold my friends’ babies.
My “new” china
My parents visited this weekend for Easter. We made a lot of food–BBQ ribs, lamb, Brussels sprouts, fresh scrambled eggs, a lemon cheesecake. We talked to relatives on the phone, went to the antique and art stores downtown, and examined my garden. The only thing we didn’t do was go to church. Oops.
Table set for Easter dinner (still haven’t gotten rid of the ugly wallpaper).
I made lemon cheesecake for dessert. I had never made a cheesecake before, and it came out pretty well, all things considered. I got the recipe from here. It’s good, except it has you make too much filling for the cheesecake. I have enough extra cheesecake filling to make a whole other cheesecake. And I will, too.
(ETA: I didn’t use the fat-free cream cheese that the recipe recommends. Fat-free cheese = barf. I used part reduced-fat cream cheese and part regular cream cheese.)
How was your Easter?
I found these in a thrift store.
Would I like them so much if I weren’t reading Anna Karenina right now?
In any case, I shall call them Anna and Vronsky.
Every so often I get it in my head that I want to do something and then drag my friends along to do it with me. For example, I will have a party surrounding the Kentucky Derby or decide that I really really need to shoot a gun. This time, I decided that I wanted to have girlie English tea in San Francisco. So last Saturday, Marcia, Krista, and I met up with Stephanie at the Secret Garden Tea House in San Francisco for just that.
I am not really a girlie-girl, but if you’re going to do it, do it. Therefore, I wore my pink dress and Krista did my make-up and I ordered vanilla tea. We ate tiny sandwiches and scones with Devon cream. I liked the curried egg sandwich the best.
Krista gazes at our bountiful tea tray
Apparently having tea can bring even reserved San Franciscans together, because all the other patrons of the the Secret Garden were friendly and cordial. We had a lot of fun watching two little girls play with the frou-frou hats and dance around and wave plastic wands at each other.
The mother holding one of the girls
All and all, it was a great experience. Afterwards, Marcia mentioned how pleasant San Francisco is when you have someone drop you off and pick you up like Kyle and Troy did for our tea outing. I concur. I might even live there if I had a driver to drop me off and deal with parking.
Hooray for occasional girlieness!
LtoR: Me, Marcia, Krista, and Stephanie
I must be having the worst bad day in the history of bad days. All the bad things that can happen in a bad day? They happened to me today. Isn’t it weird how that seems to happen?
I like to think of myself as strong, but today reminds me that I am really a delicate porcelain cherry blossom that can be destroyed with one well-placed finger flick.
So let’s all look at the expression of joy that is this little dog:
Via Cute Overload
UPDATE: Thanks for all the kind e-mails and calls. I feel very loved. I am fine. I just had a bad day. Yesterday involved tricky conversations, accountants, and broken voice mails. Today involves laughter and really ripe grapefruit. Hooray!
Now that Kyle and I have a mortgage, we have to be more frugal with how we spend our free time. So we are being more creative, picking activities that cost less but are oddly enriching in their variety. This weekend, for example, I made Spanakopita for the first time, went thrift store shopping in the rain, visited the San Jose Museum of Art, and had Indian buffet (among other things).
The art museum has long been one of my favorites in the Bay Area. It’s smaller, but more discriminating in what it displays. I find that the art they have there is often more relevant and interesting to me than art in other museums in the area.
This time, they had series of Picasso sketches and Goya etchings. The etchings were Goya at his creepiest. They are called Los Caprichos, a set of 80 etchings that are satires of the church, society, etc. Even though Goya made these etchings in 1799, they are still somewhat disturbing to look at what with the witches and goblins and decapitations and pedophilia and whatnot. This is, after all, the man who painted Saturn Devouring His Children. I thought they were fascinating. You could just stare and stare at each one. (However, I did have to raise an eyebrow at some of the parents who were showing these etchings to little children. Talk about the stuff of nightmares. Some art is for adults!)
Church in San Jose shot through an art museum window.
We also hit the thrift store jackpot this weekend. I got:
Three owl trivets
A fondue set
A $15 leather office chair
Also: A monkey bowl, a vintage casserole dish, a water timer for sprinklers, a scoop for the cat food, and a new (never worn) shirt. There’s something so satisfying in bargains.
2006 was full of excitement and socializing. By contrast, 2007 was much slower and more introspective. In some ways I like that better, but there’s less to brag about at the end of it all.
My accomplishments for 2007 included:
Published in many magazines and newspapers
Bought a house
Judged a book contest
Drove across the U.S.A. (WHILE IN ESCROW, I might add)
Celebrated my 5-year wedding anniversary
Held the Word Pirates reading at the Phoenix
Got a kitten
Kyle published the sequel to Knoppix Hacks
Went to an opera
Planted a garden
Shot a gun
Went wine tasting, hiking, picnics, the zoo, etc.
Joined a church
Read over 80 books
Held a Kentucky Derby Party
Opened an Etsy store
Went to concerts and festivals
Painted, knitted, made jewelry, and was artsy in general
Turned 31
Here is a year-end survey (read my 2006 survey here):
Where did you begin 2007?
I don’t remember. I think Kyle and I were so tired after the usual Christmas escapades that we stayed home and played DDR.
What did you do this year that you’ve never done before?
I shot a gun, bought a house, judged a book contest, and drove across the USA
Did you keep your New Year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
I did not keep as many as I usually do.
Did anyone close to you give birth this year?
Nope. My friends don’t seem to reproduce.
What countries did you visit this year?
Just the U.S.A., but a lot of it.
What would you like to have in the next year that you lacked this year?
I would like to have some new things happen in my career
What date from this year will remain etched upon your memory - and why?
June 22, 2007, my five-year wedding anniversary.
What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Buying a house.
What was your biggest failure of the year?
There were quite a few failures this year, one of which was my garden. It just didn’t produce like I thought it would.
Made new friends?
Allan and Christy are our newest friends. Hooray!
Did you have any encounters with the police?
I got hassled a lot by The Man this year. I got tickets for not wearing my seatbelt and parking in wrong places, I had to go to court for accidentally skipping jury duty, I had taxes to deal with, and my car didn’t pass SMOG. The government bled money from me every month this year. Welcome to middle class, I guess.
What was the best thing you bought this year?
I guess I’m supposed to say the house, but my real answer is my new camera.
Whose behavior merited celebration?
Everyone is moving on up this year. Kyle published a book, Tony was in The New York Times, Marcia got a new awesome job at FM. 2007 was year of accomplishment for my friends.
Where did most of your money go this year?
The house. Taxes. Buying things for the house. The government. Eating out.
What did you get really, really, really excited about this year?
New Orleans reallyX3 excited me.
What music will always remind you of this year?
Amy Winehouse will remind me of this year because my liking her coincided with her becoming popular, and then becoming a pathetic drugged-out mess. Is there a metaphor in there somewhere?
Compared to this time last year, are you:
- happier or sadder? same
- richer or poorer? richer
- thinner or fatter? same
What do you wish you’d done more of?
Finished my novel. Man!! That is taking me a long time.
What do you wish you’d done less of?
I ate out too much. Goofed off too much.
Any new additions to your family?
How did you spend the holidays?
Valentine’s Day — Kyle and I went to dinner at Underwood in Graton
July 4th — Some friends came over and we watched fireworks in downtown Petaluma
Kyle’s birthday — We went to Indian food and then to Bourbon and Branch in San Francisco
Halloween — Kyle and I watched a horror movie and ate pizza
Thanksgiving– Went up to my parent’s house in Mi-Wuk
My birthday — Kyle and I went to a fancy-pants Christmas party where we ate food and Kyle sang karaoke with a live band. The next day, we went to SFMoma and looked at art, and then out to French food with some friends.
Christmas — My parents came over and we had Christmas in our very own home.
What’s one thing you thought you’d never do but did in 2007?
Shooting a gun was something I wanted to try, and did, and probably won’t bother with again. It was fun, however.
What was your overall mood for the year?
I’m not sure what that means. I will say, this was a very introspective year for me. I spent a looooooooot of time examining how I do things and then devising systems and experiments to test my methods. I was my own science experiment this year.
What was your favorite TV program for the year?
The Office, followed by Flight of the Conchords
Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?
Hate is a strong word. There are people who are no longer in my life.
What was the best book you read this year?
I liked the last Harry Potter, Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood, The Keep by Jennifer Egan, Women in Love by DH Lawrence, and Diane Middlebrook’s biography of Anne Sexton, which I am only halfway through. Finally, Six Figure Freelancing by Kelly James-Enger is a good, if practical, book.
What was your favorite film of the year?
I am apparently over films.
What albums did you like this year?
There were lots of good albums this year. Here is a mid-year rundown of some that I liked at the time. Modest Mouse, The Shins, Spoon, Arcade Fire, Wilco, and Iron and Wine also all had good new albums this year. Overall, the Winterpills was my favorite new discovery.
What concerts/shows did you see this year?
I saw an opera, The Decemberists, Flogging Molly, and someone else… who was it? Can’t remember now.
How would you describe your personal fashion concept this year?
Ok, here’s the deal: I discovered my bra size is really 32-D, not 34-C, as I had thought all my life. And while that is good, it makes it hard to find bras that fit now, so I end up buying the 34-C anyway. Only now I know why the 34-C bra doesn’t fit correctly and it annoys me.
Who was the best new person you met this year?
Quill counts as a person, yeah?
What’s something you learned about yourself?
My actions don’t always match my goals. I am going to try to fix this in 2008
What are some things you would like to do in 2008?
I would like to publish a book, finish re-modeling the house, plant a big garden, eat at a restaurant specializing in molecular gastronomy, go to a tea in San Francisco, see what a spa is like, go camping, rent a cabin on a lake, see Kyle’s family at Christmas, and have some sort of vacation, even if it is a frugal one.
Do you think 2008 will be better or worse?
I hope it will be better.
