back from the wonderful trees and sheer granite cliffs....

Catching up.

I so give up. let’s do a list type catch up:

1. Coraline has a gig coming up (thanks to Michael!) – very soon – we’d love to see anyone at all show up, as it is a Sunday night at a new venue for us! Details are:

Coraline
Sunday, October 8th
9pm (we are the opener and will only be doing one set)
Hotel Utah
500 -4th Street @ Bryant, SF, CA
http://www.thehotelutahsaloon.com

2. Back from Yosemite. Hard to adjust. I want to go back. Now. I think part of me is still there and has not caught back up yet. She’s standing in the valley looking at El Capitan with a mixture of horror and bubbling passion and thinking, ‘dear god, is this all really real???!!!?!??!’ It was so freaking amazing. Mom and I had a wonderful time and if I actually catch up with life, I’ll try to come back later to include details. We also drove across the whole park to the eastern side of the sierras and saw mono lake, stayed in june lake and visited Bodie, the historic gold rush ghost town. We also ate. A lot. Good times all around. :)

3. Yesterday, instead of having time to negotiate where my head begins and my ass ends, I said goodbye to mom, ran off to trapeze class, dropped off my film, ran to my first day back at work, sped out of there to meet dave, tom and kate for sushi before going to see Medeski Martin Wood at the Fillmore. Omigod, I was soooooo tired. After catching the opener, waiting 45 minutes for the band to come on (9:45pm on a Tuesday night was a little late for me), I made it through the first set with a couple of full on eye closures and had to leave. Don’t get me wrong, they are amazing musicians, but between my utter exhaustion and the prodigious pot smoking of the two parties on either side of us, I think a contact high put me over the edge and I walked home and fell promptly asleep on the couch. I am so cool. Rock on.

4. Monday was our last day with mutti. We did simple things like mother-daughter mani/pedis and yummy mescolanza dinner. We also took serafina to the vet for her second to last shot (of 8 total). It will be nice for it to be over. For us and for her. She continues to seem better. However, we had to change food types for our birdies. They are fat - not the wodgdog, her evil doings keep her trim - but they were sorta horrified at Serafina, which made us wonder what they would do if they got their hands on miss fatty fat fat (Terfle). So we have to feed them organic pellets that they do not like. They ACTIVELY do not like them. They kick them out of the tray onto the floor of the cage. *sigh* however, it is now a matter of life and death, so we have to make sure that ‘pellet conversion’ actually succeeds.

5. So this past weekend and previous week were filled with the Yosemite trip, but the weekend before that, we went camping. You would know all about where we went camping had I ever finished my labor day weekend tale, but I still have TWO days to finish and I just don’t know if I’m up to it. ;) Anyway, we went to Portola Redwoods State Park – a wonderful little find in the northern santa cruz mountains. You have to go down an 8 mile tiny twisty ‘road’ with sheer cliff drop-offs on one side as the final approach to the park, which is possibly why people don’t know about it or frequent it. They have one trail camp with 6 sites and we were able to get one on a Saturday night with only a few days notice, which is amazing in California! Plus, as a last minute amazing scheduling bonus, Mia and Dave were able to come along with us (this ended up being our 3rd annual fall camping trip, so it looks like it is now tradition!) :) We had an awesome time. It was only a 3 mile hike back to the campsites, so it wasn’t grueling at all. We heard all about the honeymoon in Hawaii and Mia’s trip to Germany and Dave’s new school year and it was just an excellent little serendipitous trip. Mia and Dave had to head out early the next morning, so Dave and I hung back and ended up doing a 10 mile hike to another redwood grove. It was rather strenuous and uphill on the way back, but was very much worth it and the weather was perfect and we did not see another person for almost 8 miles of the hike! It was wonderful. Afterwards, we grabbed lunch at Alice’s Restaurant with all the bikers and then had to motor back to the city because I had a rehearsal for ANOTHER reading that I will not go into right now for brevity’s sake. Whew.

6. The day before this, um, we are now back to Friday, September 15th at this point, I had to work and then met the AMD over in Berkeley for dinner and a show. We saw “The Typographer’s Dream” at the Ashby Stage. I am so pleased to report that it was REALLY good. There was one actress in particular that just blew me away with her clarity and specificity of character and bold choices and comic timing and willingness to go for it. I have not seen a performance of this caliber in a long time. It was inspiring.

ok. Enough of the backwards chronology for now. Off to band rehearsal and then hopefully BED BED BED.