i put the schmeephone to good use yesterday when jg and i went for a hike up to saddle rock. i used a free app called trailguru to map the trail.
the stats are full of surprises. all these years i thought i was doing a 3 mile round trip. turns out to be less than 2! and who would have ever guessed the elevation gain? jg used to think it was at most 500 feet.
i don't know how accurate the information is, with the app being free and all. but i like how it differentiates me and jg: the crawler thinks the trail is twice as long as it really is, while the aggro thinks it's only half as steep.
that's me bonding with the schmeephone bright and early this morning. but this blog post isn't about my weird sitting position; it's about the potted plant you see on the carpet next to my tall glass of heavily creamed morning coffee.
a very rootbound genovese basil
jg started it from seeds back at the beginning of may. it's been begging to be repotted and moved outside. i finally put down the iphone long enough to do it today.
you may be wondering why it's been kept in our bedroom. that's because something kept eating the seedlings when we tried to plant them in the garden. plus it's nice to have a houseplant that makes us want to have pasta for breakfast.
is that not a beast of a flower? i found it yesterday while hiking up saddle rock. i had seen it in pictures before. it's even creepier in person.
growing right out of a rock
i wonder if i have the right name for it. mariposa seems to be the hairless variety. i found a few google entries referring to the hairy sort as cat's ear. i bet dr eeob would know.
that's jg making an escape before i could make him pose with the unfortunate looking lily.
that's today harvest at frog canyon garden. we've been having a difficult time keeping up with the arugula, which has turned into a flowering weed.
in the basket are two varieties of arugula, a bolted spike of spinach, a head of mesclun, a head of oakleaf lettuce, and four carrots. it's the biggest and best looking harvest we've had so far.
that was taken yesterday, when jg was wearing the same outfit we had a scant harvest of snow peas and pole beans. both plants have been producing poorly, but not for lack of trying. they would do so much better if our neighbors weren't so greedy.
in case you're wondering about the container jg is holding, it's a collector for our compostable kitchen scraps. jg empties it to the garden's compost bin on a weekly basis.
i met a nobel laureate today. can you believe it? i went out to ucsb to take pictures of our past projects and to meet ray for lunch. next thing i knew, i was shooting the breeze with a nobel laureate!
the doctor is in
this happened when ray was giving me an interior tour of the institute for theoretical physics. dr gross heard ray talking so he came out into the hall way to greet us. of course, i had no idea who he was. ray introduced me first, much like he introduced me to half the staff on campus. dr gross shook my hand and asked me to spell my name. then:
ray: thuy, this is david gross. he won a small award recently.
thuy: (to dr gross) really! did you get a trophy?
when i learned that he was awarded the nobel prize (for strong force), i shrieked, "please shake my hand again!" when i asked if it would be all right for me to take a picture with him, he jumped right out of his chair to pose with me. what a guy!
a square centimeter of the universe and a michael graves lamp
by the way, did you notice that there's an imac on dr gross's desk? he even has a belt clip for his iphone. i remember how you swore by pc's. it looks like you've been disputed.
the medal is not in this building
remember the hexagon rotunda that the steel guys built a foot too short? that's dr gross's office. the view across the street isn't too shabby.
anyway, i took this picture of ray at the beachside bar cafe at goleta beach. he looks the same as he did five years ago when we worked on the addition to the kitp. he asked about you. says he still hasn't found an engineer anywhere near your caliber.
i got to spend a bit of time with my adorable nieces this past weekend. see if you can guess which one is the clown of the group.
seven, nine, and eleven
isn't it funny how behavior changes with age, even just a couple of years? the eleven year old has gotten very serious. she barely peeped a word. the seven year old is all over the place. she started posing the moment i picked up the camera.
i took those pictures of jg at target, where i was looking for a new and less ridiculous pair of cheap sunglasses. i didn't find any, so i decided to embarrass jg instead.
it's been a busy month at casa schmee. i've been obsessive about planning a backpacking trip while jg has gone completely nuts with the home improvement projects.
the sinks of baskerville
oops, i did it again
that may be the only "before" shot i have of the guest bath. it was ripped down to the subflooring within hours. note how the toilet was "relocated."
everything must go
i shall plumb this cabinet
needless to say, the house is in total disarray. between demolition days, jg made me help him pick out materials and colors for tiles and countertops. he tricked charmed the staff of tile co into lending him half their sample library. i wasted at least one full weekend sifting through all the samples for favorites. in typical jg fashion, he ended up going with none of my picks.
the charmer
he even charmed his brother into helping him with the demolition work. poor beeze, he lasted a day.
bbq tri tip dinner
actually, i think these were taken before beeze had to work; he looks much too cheerful. they did take a break long enough to telechat with their mama.
sui
(skyping under the influence)
please pardon the clutter
mama with dr manhattan's glow
and of course, the ever annoyed scooter
hat parade on saddle rock
we hiked and biked regularly despite the busy schedule. jg has taken a liking to mapping his biking routes. his stats for romero canyon is ridiculous!
6.6 miles in 75 minutes
anyway, we even managed a trip back to montana de oro. while jg biked to hazard peak, i hiked up my most favorite trail in san luis obispo county.
i tried mapping my hike but it turned out all screwy. i have the darnest time with the iphone's gps. operator error, most likely.
schmee forgot her hat
2 miles in 48 minutes
above the marine layer
the most extraordinary thing happened while i was on the peak. a pair of butterflies was chasing each other around and around. i watched them for a while before sitting down for a snack. suddenly...
one landed on my shoulder!
it was most difficult for me to move slowly enough to reach for the iphone and use it to take pictures with my left hand. but i did it. i wonder if she knew me from a previous life.
speaking of which, look what we saw at the los osos nursery:
isn't it awesome? they always have a wide variation of buddha sculptures in the yard and this one is my most favorite so far. anyway, every time i see a buddha sculpture, i think of karen.
in between construction and the excursions, july proceeded as normal for us. i go to the library every monday or so, sometimes with jg, sometimes with g.
the poor folk's bookstore
in the same building as the library is the faulkner galleries. i sneak in whenever there isn't some sort of conference going on. the exhibitions get rotated fairly often. the featured artists are mostly local. i like that they're either amateur or obscure. this is my most favorite piece from july.
$1,983
please do not sit
i'd buy it if i could. i'm hoping g could hook me up with a rebar bender so i could replicate it. all i have to do is find a ranch that gives away free spanish leather. we'd be set!
that's for my boss, for implementing an office policy that no longer allows me to ride my bike to work. may all his walls get "marked" in the worst ways.
