Happy October

Glass reeds, birch
Originally uploaded by suzipaw

So the blogging has been a little spotty, sorry. There's some stuff at work weighing down my words. But overall life has been good. It rained yesterday, hallelujah. The ground absorbed it quickly enough, but it brightened the flora and the air felt positively sweet today. And tis the season of soup and squash. I've roasted my first pumpkin and made ravioli out of part of it, and suspect part of my Sunday will be devoted to minestrone making, despite predictions of 80 degree weather.

The last weekend of September was a lovely one for me. M took me to see the Dale Chihuly exhibit at the newly remodeled De Young museum in San Francisco.


The California Academy of Sciences, located just across the way from the museum, was reopening after a long refurbishment, so traffic was crazy and the place was packed. But after we parked (thank goodness we found a parking spot), we just tried to enjoy being in the City and Golden Gate Park and taking in new sights. The glass was wonderful--it was an embarrassment of riches--enormous translucent vases twined with luminous flowers, glistening forms piled into rowboats, laid out on a slab of an ancient tree trunk, stacked on shelves among Indian baskets, layered atop clear glass and beams to form a multihued ceiling. I've seen his installation at the Bellagio hotel in Las Vegas, and I had that same feeling of sensory overload in a dark, timeless building that I experience when I visit Sin City generally. We did rent the audio tour, which was very illuminating, but thank goodness the sounds of slot machines were nowhere to be heard.

After seeing the exhibit, we wandered in the Botanical Garden a bit then hiked back to the car. M drove us home along the shoreline highway and it seemed odd to have wild ocean so close to a city, separated only by a thoroughfare and a wide, landscaped divider. The surfers were out in force. We lunched in tony Mill Valley, at a place I'd dined ages ago with my gourmet pal Cathleeen, then gelato'd at another (locally grown and owned and chic) little place. It was a nice continuation of a very pleasant birthday month. Thank you, Paw.

I took last Monday off (partly why I'm feeling a little underwater at work), and indulged myself by buying some glass on sale in preparation for my glass fusing class, which starts next month. I was *very* restrained in my spending and I hope to get a little bit of a head start on the class now that I have some basic materials in hand.

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More happy news on the legal front: M has been officially deemed to be of good moral character! One of the steps to becoming an attorney is a Morals Application, which is a great deal of paperwork, having people recommend you, and your past being scrutinized by investigators. He had to provide additional information part way through the process which made him nervous about whether or not he'd be approved, but he was. One more hurdle behind him. 47 days, 22 hours, and 30 minutes to go til those Bar Exam results are in…

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I realized while addressing a card to my cousin the other day that I know several people with literary addresses. My cousin lives on Emerson; my mother-in-law on Hemingway (I'd just written her a note); and I live on Cooper, which I'd always ascribed to living in wine country, but counts for high level fiction, too, doesn't it?

Speaking of literature, it took ages, but I finished Hawthorne's House of Seven Gables. Some nights I could only get through a page or two before nodding off, his language is so dense. So I took a little fiction hiatus and read a romance novel! From 1981! In two days! It was such a hoot, you have no idea. Why do people who supposedly despise each other so much also lust after each other and fall and love and get married just days after meeting each other? Amazing. But romantic!