snow!!

It is snowing *right now* in seattle/redmond/washington. YEAH!!! SNOW!!!!

big puffy wet sticky lovely snowflakes.

I am totally delighted. I've been IMing people all day to let them know. Most of them are in CA and their response has been pretty much the same: "it's raining here!" "no, it's raining!!!" " We are getting rain." "lucky lucky It's just raining out here."

apparently, it is raining in SF. but it is SNOWING! in seattle! w00t!

home (in CA) for 39 hours

i'm in the midst of a travel whirl...LAX-SFO-SEA-ORD-SEA-LVS-SEA-SFO-SEA... and I just got to my mum's house in Mountain View. There is something so special and wonderful about coming home that reminds me that (a) I am so very much a californian at heart and (b) that i love my mum's home.

Perhaps it is that I walk into the house and get covered in enthusiastic kisses from the world's best dog -- Brizzie -- and then get treated with vague indifferency by MY cat (tuvi). But i think it is more the comfort and that special feeling of being somewhere so familiar, so loved that reminds me how good life is and just how lucky I am. Plus, I just love my mum's house -- there's always something new (they are constantly remodeling and changing things about) and yet the place is always the same to me. There's never food in the fridge that I would choose to eat, yet there are always yummy leftovers to nibble on. The plants are always alive and thriving and getting special mum-care. The computer always has a new virus that needs to be dealt with. Walking down the great hall I see memories, friends and family. It makes me all warm inside. Even though I am home for such a brief time, and with a packed schedule, i feel rested just being here. awwww.

new wheels!

I finally got new tires. These have been a long time coming...in fact, i have to say ... perhaps too long.

Mike and I went to costco to buy them as I had been hearing about how price efficient they are and at this point i just *needed* new tires. This is the third set of new tires I've bought for my car -- I have about 160,000 miles on my very trusty Honda -- and i decided that this time I wasn't going to go all zany trying to find the best tires for the price. I've done that before, and from what i can tell, tires are pretty much tires - if you buy good ones and rotate them regularly. All i wanted was a nice all-weather, rain-handling set of wheels. I ended up with Michelin, since they had a deal.

While costco installed my tires, mike and i shopped at costco. Oh my. We spent about 2 hours going religiously through every aisle. We looked at everything..."oooh, a new dyson!" "oooh, candy for halloween" "ooooh, 500 bajillion onions for a $1." Mike had also mentioned that we were going to eat lunch at costco. I was skeptical. I mean who goes to costco to eat food? Wow, was I wrong. Clearly everyone there is there for the food samples. On every aisle, in every nook, in every section there are people handing out food of all types and varities. Cheesy gooey things. Toasted things. Blended things. It was too much. The only thing they weren't handing out was water. Which is exactly what you need when you are snacking on an assortment of salty Costco samples.

When we were finally done I went to get my car so we could load it up with all our goodies. My tires looked so nice and shiny! Except for one thing. Green Caps! Costco fills their tires with Nitrogen. Which is apparently better than air -- more fuel efficiency and the pressure is more stable and longer lasting. (Read more about it here) All of this is great, but green caps on my wheels? on my silver car? no no no. Costco was nice and gave me replacement black caps. Me along with another couple who didn't want green caps. They use these caps to identify that the tires are filled with nitrogen. I asked if this was a safety issue and they said no, so i switched. It seems that most people switch. Maybe they should have a green stripe on a black cap instead of a green cap? As no one seems to like the green caps. We are really a fashion conscious people. ha!

jb in da house!

My very good friend JB is visiting from Washington DC for the weekend. We've known each other for almost 15 years and he's not only one of my favorite people, but one of the best wine drinkers and chefs i know. Right now he's prepping for our dinner -- halibut with some sort of walnut olive tapenade, fingerling potatoes and yummy brussel sprouts -- with BACON! i love bacon! It is so wonderful to have him here visiting.

Also, it is his birthday today! wooohooo! Happy Birthday JB! Get back in the kitchen! (don't worry -- he is getting spoiled, i'm taking him to Zoe tomorrow night for a celbratory dinner).

Adding a picture of us at Zoe on Sunday. We had such fun! and He loved the restaurant :)

lost

for some horrible reason my comcast dvr did not tape tonight's episode of Lost. I'm totally devasted. seriously. do i read the forums? do i try and download it? i just don't know. :(

almost off the grid...

something wierd is happening with my internet. I can't access my gmail account AND i can't access bloglines! Given that probably 50% of my online time is spent between these two locations (the other 50% spent searching, del.icio.us'ing or tadalist-ing...and excluding time spent IMing)...i'm feeling pretty out of the loop. at least i can blog.

what is wierder is the message i am getting from the bloglines plumber:

Hi,

I'm the Bloglines Plumber. Bloglines is down for scheduled maintenance. We will be back at 10:15Pm Pacific Time, Friday Sept 9, 2005. Bloglines will be all better when I'm done with it.

Thanks,
The Bloglines Plumber

September 9th?? am i in some time warp?

Gmail is giving me the standard, annoyingly cute:

Server Error

Gmail is temporarily unavailable. Cross your fingers and try again in a few minutes. We're sorry for the inconvenience.

Given that it has been two hours, i'm thinking there is something afoot...

today...

is my birthday..it is also international talk like a pirate day. hard to know which one deserves greater celebration. ahem! eventually i will post pics from my birthday dinner (at la bodeguita, of course!)...

in the interim check out the flickr pics for talk like a pirate day...