Adventures With Patti

OK, so I said my challenge was to have fun despite my homesickness. I got my wish on Saturday. Gauss and I went to San Francisco for dim sum with a meetup group to discuss a book about Joseph Needham, an Englishman who spent years in China traveling and researching Chinese inventions. Since the topic was China, we took our pictures to share with the group. Dim sum was yummy, and we had a nice time. As we walked back to the car, we stopped at a grocery store and picked up a few items. We kept thinking we should do something more exciting in the city, but we wanted to relax, so we headed home. As we pulled into the driveway, we realized that we had left the photo album and discussion book back at the store. So, after a couple hours’ rest at home, we drove back to the city, enduring a godawful traffic jam on 101. (On Sunday evening?? Go figure!) We picked up our stuff from the store and then decided that since we were in San Francisco and it was dinnertime, we should look for a place to ...

Now that we’ve gotten the living room set up, we have actually had house guests. Last weekend, Patty, Dan, and Annie from the running group came over for the evening to play board games. Patty (the iPhone junkie) took this pic of us and the bug, with the kitchen wing of the cottage in the background. I’ve joined up with a bicycling group that meets midweek after work. It’s a fun group of people, and there’s always dinner afterwards. We usually meet in Woodside, a cute little town that reminds me of Marine, and then bike through the hills. The big challenge for me is CLIMBING. Unless I stay right by the bay, roads here go up and down hills, and they’re not just the little roller-coaster things we have in Minnesota. Climbs may be gradual or steep, but they go on for a mile or two. I’ve made it a point to go out at least once in between group rides to do a loop through the hills west of Menlo Park, and it’s paying off. I don’t slow down quite as much when I’m out with the folks on Tuesday...

The morning started with a bomb—a stink bomb, actually, at about 5:00 a.m. Gauss and I were awakened by some kind of wild yowls outside (not Spicy, he was asleep on the sofa) instantly followed by the pungent aroma of skunk. It was worst in the bedroom and kitchen, almost nauseating. We went outdoors to see where the smell was coming from, but out in the yard...nothing. Inside...BAM! STINK! Since I was up, I opened my emails, and the first one was a panicked message from the Paragon tenants—they had no water, hadn’t had it for a couple of days and now they were at the end of their rope. I made emergency calls to the well drilling company and to a neighbor, asking if the tenants could come by to at least get water from her hose. $1200 later, there is water again. Gauss had taken the train to work. I was going to give the car a rest and take the train to my well-deserved appointment with a massage therapist, but just as I was leaving, the phone rang. Gauss’ boss had forgotten to tell h...

I made a tablecloth for the rusty metal patio table, and with the addition of four cheapo plastic chairs, we now have a place to eat al fresco.

Spicy somehow managed to get himself up onto the roof, and then he couldn’t figure out how to get down. I kept hearing thumps overhead. Spicy had made his way to a skylight in the kitchen and wedged himself beneath the glass so that he was resting on the screen. When the screen started to bow like a hammock, Spicy got nervous and scrambled to the ridgeline of the roof. Then he paced and yowled intermittently for about half an hour until Gauss went up with a ladder, grabbed him by the scruff of the neck (traumatic for a 15-lb. cat, and cause for additional wailing) and brought him back to terra firma. Later he forgave us and came in for some food.

After weeks of painting the bookshelves, we have transformed the living room of the cottage into a livable space. Gauss has set his office up in a corner so that our guest room can really be a guest room.