Day 799 – The Weekend

This morning I sprang out of bed and hustled down to the farmer’s market for some….

FOOD GLORIOUS FOOD!

The only redeeming quality about summer – strawberries.

Later on, I went to my solo performance class to go over the sections of my show that had been cut. It only came to like three more minutes of material, so I think it will be a relatively easy to put them back in. And then next week I am going to bring in another story that has been brewing in my mind for about two years since shelter in place. It will be interesting to see what my teacher thinks about it.

After class I ran errands with my friend Tati and then discovered our new favorite outdoor patio spot:

We got there in time for happy hour and the tapas were top notch!

We even found one geocache about 40 feet away when we were done with our meal. It was Tati’s first geocache. 🙂

And then I watched Saturday Night Live’s season finale tonight. That show has been on the air since I was a kid in 1975. It has always been in my life. My earliest memories of watching it was when Madeline Kahn hosted, and they did a skit called “Slumber Party”. I just remember holding a tape recorder up to the television set and recording it while Jane Curtain said, “Isn’t your brother the one that says, ‘if you chew your nails and swallow them, hands will grow in your stomach?'” I thought that was so funny and I have been hooked ever since.

Saturday, May 21, 2022:

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Day 798 -You Gotta Start Somewhere

I start my solo performance class again tomorrow. I am not sure what I am going to work on next, besides fine tuning the show I already have. I just need to keep a regular routine so I can stay creative.

I zoomed with the Gen Zer again today to go over my new website. I wish I had more cool pictures or images to put on it, right now everything feels sparse, but you gotta start somewhere. Self-promotion is the worst!

After work I headed up to the hills in search of a lone geocache on the Tres Sendas Trail at Redwood Regional Park:

I don’t think I have ever been on this trail before, so that made me happy, but when I got to “ground zero”, I couldn’t find the cache. A tree had fallen in the immediate area and there was all sorts of debris I would have to wade through, and well, meh. So I headed back to my car before it got dark. As I was heading home, all of a sudden I remembered to check something I had completely forgot about:

Woo hoo!!

Friday, May 20, 2022:

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Day 797 – The Town

On my morning walk I saw this:

Bloom Where You’re Planted

If God is calling you to the concrete jungle that is Oakland, you can still bloom among the hard soil. (And by “you, I also mean “me”).

I worked in the office today and when I went outside during my lunch break, I saw all these honey wagons aka “movie crew trailers” parked on all the neighboring streets. I haven’t seen a film crew around these parts since shelter-in-place. I saw a fake Oakland news van and a pimp’n convertible parked right outside my office building:

Damn, It Feels Good To Be a Gangsta

‘I’m A Virgo’: Boots Riley Series At Amazon’s Prime Video Adds Brett Gray, Mike Epps, Olivia Washington And More

“As we previously reported, the half-hour series is described as an “absurdist, coming of age story about a 13-foot-tall Black man who lives in Oakland, CA.” Riley has been developing the series for at least two years..”

Give it up for Oakland!

After work I went for a walk up in the hills and to look for another geocache, (which I struck out at). But I did see this cutie pie posing by its own sign.

It didn’t have care in the world as cars whizzed past it! It was like, “I own this town!”

Alright, time for ice cream.

Thursday, May 19, 2022:

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Day 796 – The Bay

No one should have to live like this:

‘We don’t feel safe’: Many Black Americans experiencing grief, trauma after Buffalo shooting (msn.com)

What more can we say? How is this still happening in 2022?

I had to be in the office earlier than usual today- we had to purge a bunch of old landline phones we no longer use because now we call people via Microsoft Teams on the computer. The future finally made it to the State of California. It was weird and cathartic to toss all those phones in a box, marked for donation.

After work, I met my friend Tati over at Trader Vics for a bite to eat overlooking the Bay.

I was just looking to chill with my friend after a busy day at work, followed by a stressful dentist appointment….

ME: Owwww!
DENTIST: Have we ever prescribed Valium for you?
ME: Once. It didn't work.
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ME: Owww!

But when I walked into Trader Vic’s and was seated, who was staring right back at me from the TV set?

I was worried I would be too preoccupied and stressed out from the game, but they CRUSHED it tonight!

Okay, time for ice cream.

Wednesday, May 18, 2022:

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Day 795 -Zooming Before Sunset

Well, look what my mother dug up:

*Sigh* I miss collagen. At age 51, I totally get now why people get Botox. Gravity just takes its toll, or as Dolly Parton’s character says in the movie “Steel Magnolias” — “Time marches on and pretty soon it’s marching all over your face! Now repeat, after me, “there’s no such thing as natural beauty!”

I do want to age gracefully though. I want to be as accepting and as healthy as I can be in this season of my life.

But I totally get why celebrities get Botox. Just sayin.

I worked from home today, but by mid-afternoon, it was getting pretty stuffy. I would have gone for a walk after work, but I forgot I had a zoom call at 7pm (social reasons). What was I thinking, zooming before sunset? And tomorrow I have to be in the office earlier than normal. At least it’s easier for me to rise in the morning when the weather is warmer. That is the only good thing about this weather. I know, I am a cranky girl once it gets into the mid-70s. My apartment can’t take it!

I love how these flowers have taken root in the sidewalk. A beautiful depiction of the phrase, “Bloom where you are planted.”

Tuesday, May 17, 2022:

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Day 794 – The Purge 2022

Well, well, well, look who is finally wearing a mask…..

Kim Jong Un Finally Admits There’s a Pandemic

Although it wouldn’t surprise me if North Korea “caught it last” because that country is so closed off, it probably took a while for the virus to travel there. I wonder who brought it in!

Speaking of early pandemic days, in 2020, during shelter-in-place, I was purging my apartment like crazy, getting rid of old things I no longer needed, and I did a pretty good job. But lately, with trying to get a website going, it has made me realize I need to purge my online content as well. I have so much junk in my computer! Duplicate photos, crappy photos, “what-was-I-thinking-photos”…… you get my drift. It’s going to take a while to organize my electronic life, but I am determined to clean and purge a little every night. Please hold me to it. Even if it’s just one deleted photo of Lake Merritt, I need to do it and lord knows I have too many of those…

And then this desire to purge has crossed over into my work life as well, and today I spent a good hour deleting outdated documents in the office and it makes me feel so much lighter. Marie Kondo was right.

Alright, time for strawberries and whip cream and “The Gilded Age”.

Monday, May 16, 2022:

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Day 793 – Bay Area Backroads

Today I was in the mood for a change of scenery, so I headed off to West Marin in search of nature and open space. As I drove, my GPS kept rerouting me north, insisting that my original route would take me twice as long now due to an accident on the bridge. *Sigh* – I guess I will be taking the really scenic route.

I sat in a ton of traffic anyway, but I suppose it was the lesser of two evils and I also found myself discovering the cute neighborhoods of Northern Marin. I stopped at a store to use the bathroom and, BAM, found my first geocache in the parking lot.

An old pill bottle under a lamp post skirt- An “LPC”

I got back on the road and a half hour later, finally made it to the Point Reyes Station.

I have only been here one other time before. I pulled up by the cheese shop and got myself a snack and purchased a wine glass, because, well, it’s super cute. However, the problem with these small towns way out in the boonies, is that they don’t always have good reception and I guess that’s the point. I was having trouble locating a couple of more caches on my phone app when finally…..

FOUND THEM!

After Pt. Reyes Station, I got back on the road off to my next location – the famous Cypress Tree Tunnel. I had always seen pictures of it but had never been. My GPS was a little spotty and I wasn’t sure I was even going in the right direction, when I noticed people pulled off on the side of the road and there it was…..

Yes, a couple was taking wedding pictures. The weather was kind of chilly and cloudy, but the lighting was perfect.

From the tree tunnel, I could hear the ocean waves. They beckoned me. I got back in my car and drove another ten minutes to my final destination.

Point Reyes Beach – North

I hung out at the beach for about 45 minutes. As I was leaving, that same newly married couple’s wedding party had arrived and were taking even more pictures.

I headed east to Olema to grab dinner at a favorite restaurant of mine. And low and behold, guess what I found in the parking lot?

Another LPC

I swore that was my last geocache of the evening, but there was just one more that was so close by and I’m glad I went for it because the closest place to park put me right next to this fella:

She was so friendly. She just walked right up to me, but the sign said, “no touching”. Such a cutie!

Alright, time for another episode of “The Gilded Age“.

Sunday, May 15, 2022:

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Day 792 – Free Saturday

This morning I woke up and cleaned, cleaned, cleaned! I am so proud of myself. I rarely have a free Saturday, so I took advantage of it. I originally was mopping to 80’s music to motivate me, but then I thought, why not take it to the next level?

“Roku, play Sixteen Candles”

It’s weird watching this movie all these years later, with some of its racist stereotypes I was clueless about back then.

Long Duk Dong

After I finished cleaning, my apartment begin to feel stuffy from absorbing all the afternoon sun, so I fled to my friend’s much cooler place in Berkeley. We walked to her neighborhood market to pick up fresh food, then she made me dinner as we enjoyed a cool breeze on her deck overlooking the bay.

Saturday May 14, 2022:

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Day 791 – Spin Cycle

It warmed up today. I had to rise earlier than normal to get my steps in and even started a load of laundry before 11am. But a half hour later, when I went back down to the laundry room to put my clothes in the dryer, there was an error message on the machine, the spin cycle never happened, and my clothes were soaking wet with the machine still filled with water. UGH. I texted the apartment owner and let him know.

It’s one thing to have to go to the laundromat, it’s another thing to have to put your heavy soaking wet clothes into trash bags before going there. My clothes must have weighed three times the amount that they normally do when they are dry. I prayed for “rock star street parking” before heading over. None of the laundromats by me have parking lots.

Fortunately, I found a pretty good spot and was able to work remotely from the laundromat, answering work emails on my phone while eating a burrito from a nearby Mexican place. I made the most of it – multi-tasking.

Step Into My Office

In other news, I think I found my next favorite show on HBO Max:

So far, I love “The Gilded Age“. I love looking at the furniture and the costumes. It makes me want to buy a gas lamp. And the acting is really good. Ah, life before cell phones…..and electricity.

I suppose there is a cozy effect to it all.

Oh and also….

Friday, May 13, 2022:

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Day 790 – Accomplished

This morning I woke up and found out there was a new geocache hidden in the dog park I always walk though. It was a “mystery cache”, meaning I had to solve a puzzle, get the coordinates, and find the cache.

FOUND IT

I felt so accomplished before 10am.

I went into the office today and I kicked butt, workwise. I am getting some new staff’s cubicles ready before they return to the office. Everyone gets an ergonomic evaluation in State service to make sure their work environment does not cause them physical pain. It also reduces future disability claims. It just makes sense.

YOU get an ergo evaluation, and YOU, get an ergo evaluation, EVERYONE gets an ergo evaluation!

After work I went for another walk to burn off the carbo-heavy lunch I had today. On my way to the lake, I ran into a friend I hadn’t seen awhile. We used to take the same solo performance class.

Mi Amiga Irma

Irma has a show next week at Stage Werx. Get tickets here

I was supposed to have a show there the following Thursday, but it got postponed. I will keep this blog updated when I get more information.

Alright, a new episode of “The Flight Attendant” just dropped. Byeeeee

Thursday, May 12, 2022:

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