Count my Saturdays.

My boyfriends brother came for a visit. We just hung out at our usual places. Went for lunch at Michaels and a walk at Shoreline. We found these snails all over the grass there so I texted a picture to my daughter, the snail PhD to be. She said its a Milk Snail. They’re invasive, which is obvious from the number of them everywhere.

We also ran into a Eucalyptus and a Tea Tree which are also invasive. Lots of restoration to be done at Shoreline.

Looked at their family photos in the evening. It was nice to see them go through an interest in discovery.

The Maker Faire was on all weekend. Spent hours looking at really cool stuff. This was a little boy with a gocam on his head. Its like Burning Man but kid safe. Our friends, who do steam punk drove so we didn’t have to deal with staying sober or finding parking but I did both. At one point I thought about how great it would be if downtown really was like the central grassy area in Maker Fair world, everyone at their most creative.

The thing that is missing is the “assistive technology” area. Maybe I’ll suggest it.

Drove over to visit my daughter and her husband and by granddaughter. Took a bunch of plants that I’d been growing for her garden and planted them. We hadn’t spent Mothers Day together for years, so it was quite wonderful.

Spent several hours earlier in the day with a bunch of post-doc psychology students. That was just thrilling. Their professor was there and she seemed to like pointing out how old I was. Strange person.

There was a street fair in our downtown. I had to backtrack to remember which Saturday it was on. We spent the day with some friends and then they invited us over for dinner afterwards. We picked up lots of the dinner at Whole Foods, but they had steak and beer so its only fair. It was really nice to just hang out, play some board games, throw the ball for their dog. Nice day.

I got these Budda Dave tshirts for my grandkids and a pair of pants to sleep in. The have a funny laundry tag that says “Wash in da masheen. No use bleach. Dry um low.” Met Dave and his son. He told me to go to the Aloha Festival in August in San Mateo.

I picked fruit with Village Harvest today. The first house was in my old neighborhood in an area with streets of original Eichler style houses. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Eichler. There was a huge lemon tree in the back yard and some gnomes in the front yard. The owners offered to let us use their bathroom and even offered water, which nobody has ever done my volunteer days. The lady was a first grade teachers aid, so she took a picture of us. I told her to tell the children that we were lemon fairies. 400lbs of lemons.

The next house was immaculately landscaped with low water native plants and seating areas, birdbaths, giant roses in full bloom. We got 700lbs of oranges. She brought her cat to the door at the end so we could pet it. It had been meowing at us from the sliding door because 12 people were it its yard doing something.

The final house was what can only be referred to as a mansion. On the way we passed people doing a walking home tour dressed in dresses and wearing hats. There was a giant grapefruit tree in the center of the backyard, maybe 3 stories tall, covered with huge ripe grapefruits. We spent about an hour pulling down grapefruits( I extended my picker to double length), dodging falling grapefruits, and finally catching them from a tall guy on a ladder that would just toss them down(hence the dodging). At a certain point the muscles inbetween my shoulder blades tried to lock up.

I actually managed to wear myself out completely. I came home, walked over to get lunch at a new Greek place about a mile from our house then fell asleep for a couple hours.

Its really great to pick fruit. Most of it went to the Senior services center but I think they took some to a food pantry too. The thing is that it would go to waste otherwise.

My boyfriend’s brother was telling us that he heard about a similar program in LA today called Food Forward. http://foodforward.org/about/ He only noticed the story because he knew that I do this so that made me feel pretty proud.

What the heck did I do last Saturday? I have no recollection of the day at all. I even tried to reconstruct it by going through my journal, 43things and FB but I couldn’t remember anything about the day. Its a mystery.

I must have spent quite a while writing because there were several 43things posts. Only one FB post that didn’t shine any light at all into my cobweb overgrown brain. Its really bothering me that I can’t pull anything up at all. Working with memory loss research makes me even more concerned about the day. I think I may have started to clean up my desk, but maybe that was Sunday.

Maybe I slept. My spring allergies knocked me out so maybe thats how I spent the day.

Ahhh, finally. I remember going to the Passage to India buffet for dinner. They have fantastic food so its easy to remember them. The place was full of families and groups of friends. We were lucky to get a table. They have a strange little section of fake chinese food selections; chow mein, some stir fry choys and a chicken thing. Otherwise its authentic and wonderful indian spices, scents, and nommm.

Whew, my basic biology helped me remember.

We worked at a conference for students with learning differences. Strange venue. The conference was all over in the AT&T ball park. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AT%26T_Park We were up in one of the suites that overlooked the field from behind home plate. We had a magnificent view of the bay on a clear day plus we could watch conference participants running the bases and picnicing in center field. There were vendor tables in the hallways and keynotes from the sidelines. Interesting day.

Afterwards we went to dinner with a friend that is working on his PhD in tequila at Tommys. We’d long heard tell of his adventures there but finally managed to try it for ourselves. http://sanfrancisco.citysearch.com/profile/907656/san_francisco_ca/tommy_s_mexican_restaurant.html So what I learned is that there are 3 levels of tequila based on how long they are aged. We sampled 3 from each level. I just tasted but didn’t drink. Its amazing how good tequila doesn’t make you ill. I do think some of my sore throat was from the sortof “unkempt” character of the place and this tomato pepper drink that we had between shots. I might not have had enough alcohol to kill all the germs.

I went on a tree walk. I’ll never not understand some things about trees again. Now everywhere I go I see the trees and mostly wonder why people plant them in places that they can’t grow. Its sort of a horrible thing to know but I guess its better to know than not.

I worked on training videos all day. I was able to get 3 done finally. I’m pretty sure that the critical eyes of my coworkers will detect some errant punctuation after its all done. I’m getting to be sort of an expert in video production on a shoestring.

I think the thing that bothers me the most is that they made me make them as boring as humanly possible. The design is like robots made them, completely lacking in human warmth and literally as little color as possible. They feel safe that way. This is not in any way acceptible to my inner school teacher.

Someday I will be finished with this. Today though, I won’t be feasting for the holiday or sharing brunch and egg hunts with the grandkids. I’ll be making more of these horrible videos.

At least I have a job.

I volunteered to do park cleanup at a local reservior. Its along Highway 17 and I’ve driven by it maybe 100 times but never went there. They only have one staff person who is responsible for 3 huge parks so he really appreciated the 20 or so folks who showed up.

We mainly just hoed up the grass that was growing under the picnic tables. I raked. There were a couple of spots that were just covered with the winters Oak leaf pile and we managed to unleaf a couple of benches that were up to the seat in leaves and a whole picnic area that were almost unnoticeable.

I was not really too happy about filling in the gopher houses. I did worry about people tripping and elderly people having accidents so my care for people trumped my concern for the rodents. I’m sure they found their way out.