Drunken Owls and Other Delights

Not much, really. I'm currently dealing with what's either a head cold or allergies that's been leaving me congested and tired. Which is bad timing, considering I have a few days off to do whatever I want or need! Bleh.

Sunday was a bit on the lazy side, as we didn't really do anything until almost noon when we went out for a walk, checked out the dahlia garden in GGP, then had quite a tasty lunch at the Velo Rouge Cafe on Arguello. We'd been meaning to go there for ages, and it was definitely worth it! Once back home, we ended up lazing around, and I got to finally watch the first three episodes of The Fragrant Flower Blooms with Dignity, an anime whose manga version I've been obsessing over lately. 

Still, by the time I sat down at the desk, I was just too tired to get any work done or even write any blog posts. Bleh, I say! So yeah, that's why you're seeing this on Monday morning. I have very few plans today other than to rest up and catch up. Hopefully I'll be back up to speed soon!

OOOF. I feel like I've been walking all over creation these last few days! The Day Job was busier than usual mainly because it's Outside Lands weekend -- not the festival-goers, surprisingly, but the local neighbors who often use this weekend to have their own little parties. Cookouts, hanging out at Baker Beach and Ocean Beach, that sort of thing. Between helping those customers and completing pick-up orders, I know I've done at least 3-4 miles a day.

Today, however, was spent heading to brunch at our favorite bar and grill, stopping at the local hardware store, and finally giving some much-needed TLC to our community garden plot. Sadly our plot, which had been doing relatively good over the last couple of months, got hit broadside with an infestation of gophers eating most of our plants, and the tomato plants suddenly keeling over from blight. Hopefully our replanting (and using more gopher netting of various sizes) will keep things a bit healthier. We shall see!

But yeah, even despite sleeping in today I feel like I've been moving nonstop for the last couple of weeks. I think it might actually be due to my work schedule having been five straight days instead of the usual two-on, one-off, three-on which I've gotten used to. Thankfully this coming week I've got a 3-1-2 setup with a break on Thursday. That should help me catch up on rest!

I somehow managed to walk five miles during my Friday shift (believe me, it can be done despite the fact that our store is quite small) so I was quite happy to have been given two days off in a row. So what did I do today?

I walked almost five miles. Again. *facepalm*

Granted, this was done for a good reason, in that we wanted to get outside for a bit, as well as zip up to our community garden plot to water it and maybe do a bit of cursory weeding. From there we walked down to Clement Street to the farmer's market and then back home. Now, usually we bus it back home because a) we're usually dead tired by the end of our jaunt, and b) I'm usually a bit tipsy from the stout I get at the Richmond Republic for our brunch. Our joke is that if we make it to Park Presidio, then there's no reason for us to bus it because it's only about a dozen short blocks from there. [And usually if we walk back, the buzz has worn off by the time we get home.]

So what am I doing tomorrow? Not much, really. Maybe go to the bank at Laurel Village to get quarters for laundry and stop at the pet store for more kitty litter. And work on my writing. And maybe NOT walk five more miles...? 

Started the day off with a half-shift at work that was originally supposed to be a full eight hours, but managed to get the second half off as I hadn't expected to work today and had already made plans. Said plans of course were heading to Japantown to enjoy the final day of the Cherry Blossom Festival. We went primarily for the food, sure, but I also managed to pick up some manga that had recently come out. After that we took the bus most of the way to our community garden plot to do a bit of hoeing and adding of more compost. Then we walked the rest of the way home, picking up some iced tea on the way. All in all I walked a little over five miles today and I've been up since 4:30ish, so I'm feeling a bit loopy right now, heh.

Thankfully I have tomorrow off, so I get to chill a bit and get caught up on creative things! And it looks like I have Saturday off, so that possibly means that I might have the weekend off for the first time in who knows how long! Here's to hoping!

 Before I begin, can I just say that I find the validation process for this site is hilarious? I mean, it's a normal "click on all the picture of hockey players to prove you're not a bot" thing, but it occurs to me that the pictures used are AI-generated. This means that said hockey players might have three arms or be playing with five sticks and bending themselves in directions that human spines aren't meant to go in. Heh!

Anyway! Happened to have today off so A and I went for one of our favorite walks around the neighborhood, heading up to a great coffee shop near Golden Gate Park then walking back through the park itself. A good couple of miles there and back with sights to see and pictures to take! I have to say that the Day Job has definitely helped me get back in shape, what with all the walking and standing I do six to eight hours a day.

Did a lot of house cleaning upon our return home, doing some intensive vacuuming (including those hard to reach bits where the carpet meets the walls) (and several days' worth of shedded cat hair, of course). I'd have done laundry as well, but I've been told by our landlord that a major fix is being done on the machine downstairs and will be out of commission until next week. Which means I'll most likely need to slip out to the local laundromat and do it tomorrow morning before my afternoon work shift. Which really isn't a problem, considering I usually spend the time doing some reading and enjoying some coffee from next door.

And the writing? Well, it's getting there. In small spurts lately, but it's getting there.

 I was extremely lucky to get yesterday off from work -- I honestly don't remember the last time I didn't work Christmas Eve Day other than the last couple of pandemic years -- so we spent yesterday going out for brunch and then going to see Little Women (the 1994 version with Winona Ryder) at the 4Star around the corner, then spending the evening watching Hogfather (the Terry Pratchett film that's become our annual tradition). Today, post-presents, we went for a walk through the neighborhood to one of our favorite greasy spoons for lunch, and now we're just chilling for a bit before our big roast dinner. (I of course am spending time doing laundry anyway because why not.)

I'm only working four days this week (I'm getting paid for today, yay!) so other than the next two midshift days, it'll be smooth sailing. I'm expecting it to be slow and quiet the entire time save the 31st, so maybe I'll even be able to sneak in some novel-note-writing time while on shift! On one of the days off I'd like to head up the street to Green Apple so I can get my calendars (no Moleskine notebooks this time, I'm stocked up). Otherwise I don't have much planned other than to finish up my blogs for the year!


Hope everyone's having a good holiday season!

It's MLK Day tomorrow so we have another three-day weekend coming to us (or as A says "another mini-vacation") so as with last time, we're spending the days outside and enjoying ourselves. Yesterday we went to the SF Zoo and had a fun time seeing all the critters! Although every single cat was zonked out, and the bears were most likely in winter torpor and snoozing away inside. Can't say I blame them, though. [Side note, the zoo was also full to the brim with kidlets and I was reminded just how exhausting they can be, especially the boys that have obviously never once been told 'can you just calm down and not bounce off strangers for fifteen seconds?' in their lives to date.]

Today's adventure was a walk up to the farmer's market at the other end of Clement, where we stocked up on veg before having a tasty lunch at the Richmond Republic. Noted, the Altamont Nutty Operator stout was super tasty and actually kind of potent for a 5% beer (we both had two). The rest of the day is the usual boring Sunday stuff like laundry, running the various PC cleaner programs and updating the blogs. And tomorrow as planned, we'll be heading to the botanical garden in GGP as the magnolias have started to bloom!

In other news, I've been reading some fun romantic comedy books on A's suggestion -- I'd decided last year that I want to try my hand at that genre this year -- and lo and behold, I came up with a nifty idea whilst lying in bed this morning! A and I talked about some of the plot points on our walk home today and it's sounding like it would be a really fun project, so perhaps this might be something I'll work on next. I suppose my elevator pitch would be "music nerd meet-cute" (slight bit of self-insertion there, I admit). Very curious to see where this leads.

Meanwhile, I supposedly have jury duty this week, although Tuesday's is already saying "nothing today, call back again". Ah well.


Hope everyone has a lovely week!

So what's been going on this week?

We've already started buying our Christmas presents over the last week or so, mainly because of postal shenanigans, and that's fine. In fact, this is probably for the best because I usually buy things much later on in the season. We figure we'll get everything all boxed up for everyone and mail it out early just to avoid all the delay nonsense. Works for me! Although I do need to zip to a few stores later midweek to pick up a few things we missed (and to restock our wrapping paper as well). I figure I'll do that the same time I do the food shopping. And we've been doing holiday food prep early as well, considering that allegedly there's a turkey shortage. We buy the breast cuts now instead of whole birds, considering it's a) a lot less time, space and fuss, and b) it's only the two of us. And A has been stashing away cranberries for sometime now so we will definitely have enough for sauce!

Oh! And I've been told by A that our local YMCA will be reopening soon! Woo! I mean, we've been making up for it by going on neighborhood walks right after she logs off for the night, but it'll be good to return and stop by again. I kind of miss my treadmill walks with my mp3 player on, they were perfect for thinking about my novel projects! Heh. OH! I should also check if the Presidio Y is going to be reopened soon as well, because they happen to have a pool, and I really miss swimming! 

Speaking of walking, we did at least two miles' worth of it while mall shopping yesterday, and we did almost as much today doing a run up to Laurel Village then down Clement on the way home. We of course had a tasty brunch at the Richmond Republic. We are now doing stuff around the house (A is cooking and canning, and I am doing laundry) and will kick back and relax this evening.

Anything else...? Not really. Still writing, still working on stuff. Pretty much it for now! :)


Hope everyone has a good week!

WHOOF. A and I are back at home, kicking back and watching an old 2nd Doctor serial ("Fury from the Deep", which they recreated via animation) after walking about five miles today. We hoofed it up to one of our favorite local coffee shops on 8th Ave and then visited the botanical garden in GGP. After a lunch at the Republic, we hoofed it back home and now we are TIRED. Not much else planned for this weekend other than more relaxation and a run to the farmer's market tomorrow.

Meanwhile, it's been a VERY productive week in Spare Oom. I did a little math and confirmed that I'd written a bit over 16,000 words over the three novel projects -- in addition to words for four blog posts, five poem fragments, and my daily morning journal. Quite happy about all of that, really! I also uploaded several pictures to Shutterstock -- more on that in a minute -- for another side project I'm working on. This was kind of an experiment to see how much I could put on my daily work docket and still be able to handle it all without feeling overwhelmed. It was also an exercise in learning better ways to fight off distraction. Either way, I'm very happy that it's working so far, and I'm looking forward to keeping this up.

Anyhoo, about the Shutterstock thing: I recently started up a contributor account so I can upload my shots for stock (y'know, maybe make some extra pocket change if need be). I'd done a trial run with nine pictures earlier and four were accepted, but when I did a much bigger run of 37 pictures, ALL of them were rejected. Which at first pissed me off, as some of the reasons for rejection seemed extremely subjective and arbitrary -- sometimes it said the shot was blurry when it wasn't, or that it had light bleed when it didn't, and in one case stating that it was a copy of a picture I'd already uploaded (which it wasn't). I let my stew with that for a while until I finally did a bit of internet research and found that I was definitely not the only contributor to have that issue recently. In fact, some of those people said when they reuploaded the pictures at a later time they were accepted. So yeah, it was a bit of a punch to the confidence at first but I got over it. Onward and upward, yeah?

Our extended weekend vacation up in Mendocino was quite enjoyable! And by that, I mean that we hardly did a dang thing except go out to eat here and there, visit a few bookstores (including one with a cat, yay!), have a couple of good long nature walks, and sit around in our ridiculous rented room (which was once a water tower, with a lovely seating area with many windows and an open bedroom area with a weirdly high ceiling), doing little but reading and listening to music. 

(Our vacations are usually planned by way of doing all the exciting things early in the day so by afternoon and evening we can just have dinner and relax. It works out quite well.)

It took me a few days to get back to some semblance of order with my daily schedule, as I had some daytime errands to do when we returned, and some local pollen decided to burst forth and get me all stuffed up for a day and a half. By midweek I did manage to get somewhat back on track with my writing, including a stellar day on Thursday. Hopefully I'll be back on track come tomorrow.

Surprisingly, we've been to the movies three times in the last month or so as part of our post-vaccine celebrations. Two music documentaries (The Sparks Brothers and Summer of Soul) and one silly action film (F9: The Fast Saga). Looks like one of the upsides of the theaters being open again is that we can finally see all the movies that have been on TBA status for the past year! Still wearing our masks in public, though, not that it bothers us any.

And today while A remained indoors to deal with her own allergies, I headed to Green Apple to pick up the latest Susan Dennard (Witchshadow), whose books I'm currently rereading, then spent a bit of time and money at the farmers market up the street. We are now awash in fruits and veg! Which is good, because we were running desperately low. 

So! Any plans for this coming week? Not really, other than to get back into my daily schedule and maybe kickstart a few more submissions. I'm hoping the weather will comply, as we are really getting tired of the high humidity prodding our heads!


Hope everyone has a lovely week!