Wow. Two Months.

Is this the longest I’ve gone without blogging? Definitely some of my absence from writing is due to work stress. The job has been occupying a lot of my brain space, and that’s pretty tedious for me, so I can only imagine how unengaging it would be to read about. But things have gotten better at work: we hired a new manager for the position I’ve been filling in for, so in a few months I think I’ll be in a more creative space. I did some culinary projects this weekend—bread, yogurt, ice cream—so I think the agita grip is loosening a bit already.

So, on to catching up. I’ll do the Hawaii post separately.

Back in April, the big fun was taking a three day weekend and heading up to the coast for a multi-part visit. It was Don’s birthday, Jay and Brandon were visiting, and M and I were enjoying Mom’s Christmas gift to us, a night at the Greenwood Pier Inn, including dog sitting. We drove up Friday the 11th to hang out, walk on the beach, and have a lovely birthday dinner at a newish place in town, Uneda Eat. 

On Saturday, Felicia came up and we drove up to Elk to check out the room at the Inn and walk on the lovely beach there. 

Then they all left and M and I got some snacks at the store and just stared at the incredible scenery from the deck for a few hours. I felt like we were in training for Hawaii. 

There were two funny moments during our stay. The first came when, after we had retreated inside to stay warmer while still enjoying the view, a young woman suddenly sprang up on our room’s deck from behind the fence, saw us staring (thank goodness that’s all we were doing!) and equally shocked, leapt back off the deck and ran away. We didn’t see her again! The second came after our nice dinner—we were relaxing in the enormous bathtub upstairs that commanded the same stunning view, watching the stars come out and…a quadricopter hovering near our window. That was a little unsettling. We couldn’t see where the pilot was. I hope it didn’t have a camera. 

Aside from continued work stress, the only other notable event in April was our enjoyment of Noises Off by one of our local theater companies. One of my work friends was in it, and it was very enjoyable. That’s two live performances this year! Pretty good. Regular attendance at “church” helps me meet my goal of taking in more live music too. 

We’ve had some nice motorcycle rides. We had an incredible visit to Mt. Tamalpais last month, a place neither of us had been before. The visibility wasn’t great, but even so it was spectacular, helped by the abundant wildflowers and green pastures. I don’t think we’d realized that it had a 360-degree view of the bay, or that one of the roads along the top of a ridge afforded views of both the ocean and the valley. That one will be fun going the other direction, too. 

Then, just yesterday we rode out to Guerneville for brunch, then up over Sweetwater Springs Road, past the old quicksilver mine, to Westside Road. It was hot and my helmet is (or maybe it’s my glasses) starting to give me headaches so it didn’t end well for me. But it’s such a pleasurable way to explore and for M and I to be together. 

I had a conference in the City last week. It was just a two-dayer so it went by quickly. I enjoyed it--robots and futuristic stuff. We had unusually lovely weather. The view from my hotel room was not the worst I've ever had, but close to. 

M and I are also seeing more movies in the theater lately. I’m not sure why. We’re certainly eating out less in an entertaining (i.e., expensive) way in the past year or so, so maybe it’s a replacement for that. Yesterday afternoon, after the motorcycle ride, we saw X-Men: Days of Future Past which was a passable way to stay out of the heat. But it got me thinking a little this morning, as I was mucking around with photos and thinking about the photo book I mean to create this year (really, this year is the year!). I have so many photos now, of frivolous things and unremarkable moments as well as the more significant ones. In the future, how much will I care about some of the photos I put in? How much will I remember about what was happening when I took the photo? I think my reflections were also spurred by the realization that this week marks the 20th year of M’s first visit to New York, our first, amazing incredible date that still feels like it’s continuing. (Aw.) M asked me to come up with a photo and post it on Facebook, so I was looking through some old-ish photos—old friends whose names I can’t quite remember anymore, events that happened in a year I can’t recall. Will more details help jog more memories, or will I just wonder what the hell I was thinking? I guess I’ll have to wait til the future to find out. Here's the photo, one of the first we took together--writing this from the future of that moment, I know I'm glad I have it.