Also - look, I'm famous!

My friend Erin came for a visit last Friday. She's a popular food blogger based in LA (at least until she moves to NYC later this month), and I am proud to be featured on her post about a lovely meal we shared in sf!

I. Miss. SUMMER.

seriously. san francisco is a beautiful place to live. but it is cold. not frigid, like winter in the northeast. just, always a little damp and chilly. the kind that gets into your bones. always between 50 and 70 degrees. which generally doesn't sound that bad.

except every year around the turning of each season, i get nostalgic for...the turning of the seasons. right now, it's summer. warm nights - evenings when the air is still warm (here, it gets chilly as soon as the sun goes down) and everyone is out and about, playing music and laughing on the sidewalks. i miss that.

and i miss swimming in the summer. up in sonoma, it gets nice and hot, and there are some lovely swimming holes. but here...i rarely feel the need. just the desire to go swimming like i did when i was a kid - barefoot all day, dripping hair drying in the sun, and never taking off your bathing suit.

so, i miss summer. in about a month i go back to massachusetts. let's hope i get some quality summer weather. and that i remember how to pack. last year i brought a wool sweater home in july. seriously.

henry coe state park

(pic: walking w/ d. through tall grass at henry coe)

a few weekends ago, d. and i headed south to henry coe state park for a friend's b-day. she had planned a weekend-long birthday camping extravaganza. we went with two other friends for the day - hiked, walked about, and went swimming in a real swimming hole!! (i MISS those!!). here are some pictures from that day.

aside from being irrationally paranoid about poison oak (it was everywhere) and lyme's disease (ditto, ticks), it was a perfectly perfect day. full, long, and relaxing in the sun.
(pics: d+j swimming; d's see food. gross.)

Orcas 2007!!

in what WILL be an annual tradition, maddy and i made a trip to orcas island (in the san juan islands) in april.
We stayed at the lovely north beach inn, more specifically in the cabin called "lala rook". their cabins are adorable, well-worn, bare-bones cottages with a bed/sitting room, bathroom, and kitchen for cooking meals. each cottage has its own beach and picnic area. it was so peaceful.



we hung out, read, napped on the beach, climbed a mountain, cooked gluten-free good food, and enjoyed some lovely naked hot tubs with strangers. it was my first relaxing weekend away in a long time, and i enjoyed every minute of it.


and, as usual, maddy time was good for my soul. darn, it sure felt good to see her! Orcas Island remains one of my favorite places on earth.

here are some cottage pics:





mountain climbing pics: