Category: Personal

Day-to-day life and other ramblings

Lawnmowing

Today I mowed a lawn for the first time in, oh, 20 years or so. I’m pretty sure I stopped mowing my Mom’s lawn when I went off to graduate school, since I had less and less time to go back and visit from that point forward.

I borrowed an electric corded mower from my friend Chad, who has a gardener who does his and Camille’s yard. Since it had been sitting around for a while unused, I cleaned it up this afternoon, bought a 100-foot cord, and tonight took it out for a spin (it having been maybe 2-1/2 weeks since the lawn was last mowed, around the time we closed escrow).

The two big drawbacks:

  1. The cord is by far the biggest pain in the ass in the process, having to swoop it around to make sure I didn’t mow over it. Fortunately, I didn’t, and I didn’t get tangled up in it either.
  2. The bag is small, maybe 1/3 to 1/2 the size of the bags on the mowers my Dad owned growing up. So I had to stop to empty it often.

So I bet I’ll end up buying a new mower with a larger bag. While I grew up using gas-powered mowers, I’m not too enthused about having to buy and store gas for it. So more likely I’ll get an electric battery-powered mower.

I might also need a weed whacker or other edging tool, as part of the yard is edged with large rocks. Fun fun.

All-in-all it took about an hour, but I think with no cord and a larger bag it would be faster and even pretty easy.

Still, how long do you think it’ll be before we break down and just hire a gardener?

Rude People

There seemed to be more rude people than usual out this past weekend.

Saturday night we went to Cafe Borrone as we usually do on Saturdays, but since I was assembling furniture we didn’t get there until almost 8 pm, rather than our usual 6-6:30. The place was packed – a little surprising since I think Stanford is done for the year – but after walking around for a couple of minutes some folks got up from a table we were near and we went over to it. I was distracted by something for a moment, but when I turned around a woman had come over to Debbi and was telling her that they were ahead of us “in line” and that the table was theirs. For whatever reason – probably shock at her sheer gall – we gave her the table, but I argued with her for a minute about this ridiculous notion of “in line” – what line? I’ve been going to Borrone for 12 years, and plenty of other coffee shops for longer than that, and getting a table has always involved getting to the table before someone else does. As Debbi said later, if they wanted to make sure she got the table, they should have had someone waiting in that area of the cafe, not have both been standing around elsewhere.

On our way out I told her that I hope they’d have a terrible time. And I hope they did.

We went to Amicis for dinner and had a perfectly pleasant time sitting by the fireplace there. Then we came home and spent the evening reading in front of our own fireplace.

Sunday we were shopping at Safeway and I went over to grab some chicken sausage for the barbecue on Memorial Day. An employee was stocking the shelves, and a couple of other people were hanging around waiting to get in. One of them left and I said “excuse me” to the other guy who was standing there talking on the phone, and who had just been handed something by the employee. He didn’t move, so I stepped around him. Then I heard him say, “Well I’m not picking that up.” I picked out the sausage I wanted, and he said to me, “You realize you just knocked that out of my hand.” I looked at a package of sausage on the floor and I said, “No, I had no idea.” He said something like, “Well, you should be more careful.” I said, “Well, I was trying to get by, and I said ‘excuse me’, and you didn’t move, and you’re standing there talking on the phone…” He sighed and turned away.

I handed the dropped package to the employee and we commiserated about people on the phone living in their own little world. (Usually when I call someone in a supermarket I try to go off into a corner to talk to them.) Sure enough, later on we went down an aisle and there he was standing in the middle of the aisle, not moving to let us get by. He didn’t even have a cart or a basket.

This last story is a little more reasonable, but still a little weird. I ran by OSH on Memorial Day morning to pick up some more pads for our dining table chairs. Lots of places had sales this weekend, so it was pretty busy. I got into a pretty short line, and the guy in front of me was buying a big set of shears and three packs of flowers, and he had a coupon. Not bad, right? He tells the cashier he wants to pay for the shears separately from the flowers. She’s a bit croggled and says that he won’t get the discount on the flowers from the coupon if he buys them separately. He repeats that he wants to buy them separately. Then he pays cash for each transaction (though both are well under $20), so she has to fish out change for each transaction.

When I handed her my one item I said, “That’s all.” I was very tempted to say, “And I’ll pay for it in one transaction,”, but I decided that would be a little too snarky since the guy hadn’t gotten very far yet. But I’ve gone to this cashier before and I’m pretty sure it would have amused her.

It’s not really unreasonable to buy items separately, but it did seem a little weird.

Anyway, hopefully all these rude people will stay home next weekend so we don’t have to deal with them. One can only hope.

Unpacking Weekend

This weekend was mostly given over to unpacking. Debbi has been stressed out with all the boxes around the house and was frantically unpacking the kitchen, while I figured it would take several weeks to get most of the stuff put away. Eventually we came to a compromise where I’d prioritize unpacking the books in the living room, but have more time to do the study and library. So yesterday I anchored the tall bookcase to the living room wall, and then I unloaded all my hardcovers into it and the two short bookcases next to it, cutting in half the unemptied boxes in that room. Progress!

Meanwhile, we went to Ikea on Friday night and picked up a couple of bureaus (and they were heavy, so picking them up was no mean feat!). It turns out that Friday night is a great time to go to Ikea, as they were pretty quiet and we got through (and, in particular, got parking) in record time. I put the bookcases together over the next two days, which was rather a pain in the ass: Since all the drawers are themselves unassembled, it took about 2-1/2 hours per bureau to assemble them. But they look pretty nice now that it’s done, and we’ve unpacked most of our clothes. It also feels right to me to have a bureau on the wall across from the bed.

(By the way, our friend Chad pointed out that Californian for “bureau” is “dresser”.)

We also ran some errands on Saturday, in particular buying a couple of counter stools at California Stools Bars & Dinettes. While the price was more than we were prepared for, we had not had much luck finding what we wanted at places like Target and OSH, and admittedly the quality of what we bought at CSBD seemed better. And honestly I couldn’t fault their service on the showroom floor (yay for salesmen paid on salary and not on commission!). We’ve sat in the stools for breakfast the last two days and are very happy with them! (Blackjack also enjoys sitting on them sometimes.)

We’ve been in our new house a little over a week now and we’re really enjoying it. Debbi keeps saying how it feels right. The cats are all used to it, although Roulette still prefers the upstairs to the downstairs. We spent Saturday evening on the couch in the living room (a.k.a. “the room without a television”) reading, enjoying the gas fireplace, and the cats hung out with us.

We’re still moving the last items out of the old place. Almost everything left there is now in the garage, but we still have a few more car loads, not to mention stuff to throw away, stuff to donate, and stuff to take to the dump. It’s “the unromantic part”, Debbi said. But we’re getting there.

We wrapped up the long weekend with a small Memorial Day barbecue – though it hardly felt “small” since we had three couples (Subrata and Susan, Chad & Camille, and Joar and Karin) and their children (4 all together, each one 3 years or younger). Yes, the cats spent almost the whole afternoon hiding in the bedroom. But we got to show off the house to people who hadn’t seen it yet. I was able to use my grill to cook 12 hamburgers and 4 sausages all at once, and the kids enjoyed running all over the yard. We had a nice warm – if a bit windy – day. Also, Chad brought over his electric lawn mower which I’ll borrow for a while – I just need to get a long cord for it! (He hasn’t used it in years since they have a gardener for their place.)

We had a great time, but were definitely tired by the time everyone left.

Actually the whole weekend has been pretty tiring, even though we were very productive and had a good time today! But somehow I don’t think it’ll exactly be a relief to go in to work tomorrow! 😉

The Big Move

Buying a new house and moving sucks up all your available time, which is why I haven’t been writing here lately. Plus, we don’t yet have Internet at the new place. But! On Saturday we made the big move to our nice new home.

We closed on our new house last Tuesday, and we took Thursday off to be at the house for some appointments, including Comcast coming by to set up cable TV, and our washer/dryer being delivered by Home Depot. All the appointments went off without a hitch, and we were able to move some stuff over during the day as well. Susan and Ajay also came by to see the place, and Ajay enjoyed playing in the yard as well as running in circles in all the empty rooms.

We were packing right up until the movers arrived on Saturday, though we did go to bed and got about 6-1/2 hours of sleep the night before. Debbi called around to several moving companies and we went with Trusted Van Lines, based in San Jose. The phone contact was apparently very helpful and was the only place she called to give us a written quote. They also had the best price. Originally they were supposed to show up between 1-3 pm, but they called on Thursday and asked if they could come between 8-10 am, which was fine with us! They actually arrived around 8:40 am with a 3-man crew and a plenty-big truck.

I think we packed around 90 boxes all together, and the movers filled a couple of larger boxes with bedding and pillows. Plus our furniture, which actually was not as tough to move as the fact that about 50 boxes were filled with books, comics and CDs! Heavy!

But these guys were awesome. They were friendly, courteous and careful, and impressively efficient, only taking a few breaks. We had water available for them, and I went out to buy us all lunch from Quiznos. They trucked lots of boxes up the stairs at the new place (where they didn’t use dollies to spare the new carpeting; the old place didn’t need such care as its carpet needs to be replaced before I sell it), and got almost everything routed to the right place (3 boxes ended up in an adjoining room – hardly a tragedy!). Given the heavy stuff they moved for us, we gave them a pretty hefty tip (at least, I think it was hefty, from standards I’ve read about elsewhere), and the final total was actually close to what I paid for my 2001 move. It took about 7 hours end-to-end, which was slightly above estimate, but given all the books I wasn’t too surprised.

We would definitely use them again. In fact, we might use them again to empty our storage locker next month!

As the movers were finishing, Chad and Camille and the twins came by to give us a care package of mai tais, and we invited them in to see the place.

I locked the cats in one of the bathrooms in the old place for the day. Newton spent much of the day meowing, but I hope they were able to get some sleep after we left for the other house. Debbi and I made a run back to the old house to pick up some key items we’d been unable to pack, and then we picked up the cats, put them in their carriers and brought them over.

Newton is a well-travelled kitty, having done 2 previous moves (1 cross-country), and he was out of his carrier within 5 minutes, and trotting around with his tail held high within half an hour. Blackjack and Roulette, however, refused to leave their carrier after a peek outside, so we eventually pulled them out and closed it up. Blackjack started to come around, finding a good hiding spot but venturing out periodically to explore before retreating. Roulette, however, was miserable, looking for somewhere to hide and not finding one she liked. Debbi eventually took her upstairs where she hid under the bed for the rest of the day.

As I’d predicted, she came out overnight and had pretty much conquered the upstairs by the next morning, but she’s still very wary of downstairs and mostly stays upstairs. (I hope she comes down to eat at night.) Blackjack has gotten used to most of the house, has been scratching at various posts, and took off up the stairs at high speed this morning, so I think he’s used to the place. Roulette may take a week or so to fully acclimatize.

For Debbi and myself the house feels like home already (albeit home with a bunch of boxes piled in every room). She’s unpacked much of the kitchen, I’ve set up the computer, TV and stereo, and we’ve made another run to get more stuff from the old house. (We still have another 2-4 car loads in the garage to bring over, but we’re almost there!) But we’ve been there a couple of nights now, cats snoozing on the bed with us, and we watched an episode of Doctor Who while drinking mai tais last night.

We have several projects to get the place just right over the next month or two, but so far so good. I think it’ll be a great place for us.

A Bookstore-riffic Visit From Mom

I took a week off recently for a visit from my Mom, who hasn’t been here in a couple of years. We’d planned the trip a couple of months ago, so we didn’t know that she’d end up being here right in the middle of our escrow period for our new house! This had some pluses and minuses: The plus is that the day she arrived, Wednesday, we had a walkthrough of the house with the agents and the seller prior to removing the property contingency, so she was able to come along and see the house. The minus is that we were still working through the approval of the mortgage, so we had several times during her visit when I had to spend time sending more information to the lender. But despite some frustration over that, it all worked out.

House stuff aside, we had a very nice visit.

Thursday (two weeks ago) we drove over to Half Moon Bay and had brunch at the Main Street Grill, which has Mom’s favorite eggs benedict, or so she’s said. We walked around downtown and hit the used bookstores, and then went for a walk along the coastal trail, which was fun but a bit chilly and very windy. Then we went by the Bay Book Company where we talked with one of the staff at some length about mysteries and science fiction, and picked up a few things. On the way back we drove along Skyline Drive and stopped at various vista points.

Friday we had brunch at Stacks in Campbell, and then hit Recycle Bookstore where we ran into my friend Chad. Then we drove up to Big Basin Redwoods State Park, doing the redwood loop trail and visiting the gift store, which I hadn’t been to before. After a round of talking to Debbi about some new information needed for our pending mortgage, we were able to head down to Santa Cruz where we walked along the beach, got some frappes, and walked out the wharf. Unfortunately there weren’t many sea lions under the wharf, though we could hear a few.

Saturday Debbi joined us for a trip into the city. Alas Borderlands Books was having an event, so Mom wasn’t able to meet their cats, who were hiding in the back. (I found three hardcover books, however.) We went to Golden Gate Park to go to the Japanese Tea Garden, and then to Ghirardelli Square for ice cream.


The tea garden is always pretty

We also made a special trip to Pier 39 since Mom loves the sea lions.


There weren’t a lot of there, but there were some.

Sunday we had brunch at the Moss Beach Distillery and drove around the coast a bit. We stopped at the Fitzgerald Marine Reserve where we saw – among other things – a beautiful hawk hanging out on the hill above the entrance:



Surfer girl car magnet I saw in the parking lot

We ended up at the Point Montara Lighthouse, which I’d learned recently had originally been built in Wellfleet, Massachusetts and somehow migrated to the California coast in the early 20th century.

Monday we had a fairly quiet day in the valley, dropping by Apple so Mom could pick up some swag at the company store (and so I could swing by my office and pick up my newly-delivered iPad), and also swinging by the other branch of Recycle Books. Yes, I think we hit just about all the book stores on her visit – which she was happy to do. Here’s a list of all the ones we visited:

Blackjack especially enjoyed her visit: She’s his absolute favorite house guest, and he’d be up on her bed at night meowing at her to go to bed. It was really cute. I think Debbi was a bit jealous, though. But for whatever reason he seems to like Mom better than any of our other visitors.

Tuesday I took her to the airport, the week having just flown by. We even spent more time than usual just hanging out at home (and of course plenty of good food), yet we still couldn’t believe it was time for her to leave. Hopefully it won’t be too long before she’s able to come back.

A Little Staycation

I’m taking a week off, starting today, for my Mom to come visit. We set this visit up a couple of months ago, thereby ensuring that we’d find a house and be in the middle of the process of buying it when she got here. 🙂 On the other hand, it’s a better time than when we’re actually moving, or just moved and not yet unpacked. I’m looking forward to some down time with her.

The house thing is moving along. We’ve been providing a heckuva lot of documentation to our lender – I don’t remember it being this bad when I bought my townhome, but in the wake of the housing crisis I think the government has tightened up a lot of regulations. I think we’re just about done with this step of the process, and then we wait until we go in to wear our arms out signing the title documents. Well okay, we’re going to start packing after Mom leaves, too.

Blackjack is doing well. Monday’s chemo treatment I guess is the worst he’ll get, but so far he hasn’t been nauseous or anything. The vet said he’s been doing really well, and the technician said Monday was the first day she was able to get him to purr for her. His energy level is still lower than usual, but we’re hopeful that he’s going to get through all this without too much trouble, and that the lymphoma will be sufficiently in remission so that he’ll have a good life ahead of him.

Spring has been having trouble deciding whether to arrive, as the temperature has bounced around from highs in the 50s to highs in the 70s over the last few weeks. Makes it hard to decide whether to wear jeans or shorts! But the rain has just about ended (at least in the south bay, I guess it’s still raining up the peninsula fairly often), which means I’ve been cleaning up the porch and patio. I finally figured out the easiest and most effective way to clean the porch – just in time to move out of this place! Figures.

Over the weekend we went to see five children in four days: Thursday night we visited Subrata and Susan and their son for dinner, and then an evening of gaming. Saturday we visited Chad and Camille and their kids to keep the kids occupied for a few hours. And Sunday we visited Lisa and Michel, and their daughter and newborn son, whom we hadn’t seen since he was born a month or so ago. Young children seem to love me, which always strikes me as a little strange. I was definitely kidded out at the end of the weekend, though. But it’s nice to visit them.

Anyway, time to get some things done before going to pick up Mom this afternoon!

The Big News

The big news from this past week is that we’re buying a new house! We found one not far from where we live now, and put in a successful bid. So now we’re in escrow. It’s a fairly new house, and both our agent and our house inspector (who did his inspection yesterday) were impressed with the quality of the construction.

I’m being a little coy about details because, well, partly because I don’t want to jinx it – even though I don’t really believe in jinxing things, and there’s not really much that could go wrong. But I think the stress involved in buying a house triggers my irrational paranoia. But we’re really pretty excited, and working in getting everything lined up to close next month, and then to move.

It’s gonna be a busy summer!

Meanwhile, I spent most of the last week somewhat ill. Wednesday (the day we made the offer on the house) I felt unwell enough that I stayed home from work. Mostly I just felt tired and had a scratchy throat and rough voice, but a few mornings I was parched enough that it was actually difficult to talk. I guess it was a cold of some sort, but it was a weird one. I’m feeling much better today.

It’s always something.

Teatro Zinzanni

Those of my readers who know I work on Apple’s developer tools may have heard that we recently shipped Xcode 4. But this entry isn’t about that (since, well, this isn’t a work or an Apple blog). Rather, it’s about our ship celebration, which was dinner at Teatro Zinzanni in San Francisco on Thursday night.

Debbi and I decided to take the bus up with most everyone else, mainly because driving into the city during rush hour wasn’t attractive, but also because driving home after dinner wasn’t real appealing either. It only took a little over an hour for the bus to get there, so it wasn’t much of a compromise.

Teatro Zinzanni is – literally – dinner-and-a-show, the show being similar in some respects to Cirque du Soleil, but with a dash of vaudeville and audience participation thrown in. The show alternates a comedy bit – usually plucking an audience member for their involvement and a little embarrassment – with a musical and/or acrobatic performance, and one of the five courses of the dinner. While the style of the comedy bits were not really my thing (although seeing my cow-orkers’ involvement was greatly humorous, which made up for it), the other performances were very impressive. I was particularly amazed at the feats of strength and acrobatics performed by “Les Petits Frères”, which were frequently amazing.

(I’m amused that Zinzanni’s slogan is “Love, chaos and dinner”, since in order to perform these stunts in a dinner setting what they’re doing is anything but chaos.)

Almost worth the visit all by themselves are the available mixed drinks (PDF), of which I think I had one more than I really ought to have had. (Another excellent reason to have taken the bus.) I think the “Bella Donna” was my favorite.

We had fun socializing before dinner. Debbi met many of my cow-orkers, whom she mostly hadn’t met since I moved to a different team last summer, and we caught up with a few people we don’t see very often.

It was around midnight by the time we made it home, but it was well worth it. We have some friends who are big fans of Teatro Zinzanni, and I can see going back sometime.

I’d just rather not be one of the people picked to participate in one of the comedy bits!

Health Update

Another big gap between updates. Things have been real busy around here lately, so let’s try to catch up over the next few days.

Last Monday I went to see my doctor about my recent health concerns, and also to get a physical exam. Since I’d gotten blood work done on my trip to urgent care a week earlier, that meant fewer tests to do. I’m in slightly better shape than I was at my last exam 2 years ago, and have lost a little bit of weight, too. I also seem to be about an inch shorter than I thought I was, which is bizarre: I’ve always been an even six feet tall, and now I’m a little over five-foot-eleven. I’m not sure if I’ve shrunk a little (aren’t I a little young for that?) or if their measuring stick is a little off.

I talked about my health concerns with him, and he said that stress could certainly be a contributing factor, but that it could also be a case of gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD). He said that reflux can result in a phenomenon which feels like chest pain, as well as stomach pain, and the phlegmy feeling I’d developed in my throat the weekend before the appointment. He suggested I buy a 14-day round of omeprazole (brand name: Prilotec OTC) and see if that helps.

And, I’m pleased to say, a week into the treatment I’m actually feeling much better, with all of my symptoms being just about gone. I’m trying to cut down on coffee and caffeine a bit, which should also help. But hopefully I’ll be all better at the end of the treatment.

So that’s all a big relief.

That same Monday was Blackjack’s first chemotherapy treatment for his cancer, and yesterday was his second treatment. The vet said both times that he’s doing very well (though I’m not entirely sure what this means; are they X-raying him to examine his tumor, or just seeing how he physically is reacting to the treatments?), and the staff at the vet all seem to like having him, too. I guess he’s pretty easy to deal with. He is still low on energy compared to how he was before starting radiation treatment, but he’s been pretty friendly, has been up and around (and very happy to have had the back door open during our recent warm weather), and has been playing some.

I do miss the overexuberant Blackjack running all over the house, though. I hope he bounces back to that once we’re done with all the therapy.

But he’s enjoying all the attention, canned food, and extra treats, that’s for sure.

Urgent Care

Yesterday was highlighted by a trip to urgent care.

I’ve been feeling somewhat out-of-sorts for a while. I think it started on Tuesday, when I had a general mid-range feeling of crumminess. I chalked it up to having slept poorly the night before, but skipped playing frisbee anyway. Wednesday I felt better, but not perfect. And in the evening while sitting reading comics I keenly felt my heart pumping and my blood pulsing – not that it was fast, just that it was strong and noticeable. Thursday I was again not feeling great, but had a bevy of meetings in the afternoon (one of which I was running), so I was at work anyway. I came home with a headache, which turned into a debilitating headache – possibly a migraine – by 7 or so, and I went upstairs and napped until 8. I felt better, and came down and had a Diet Coke and some Hormel chili for dinner (Debbi prepared it), and felt better afterwards. (I rarely get migraines, by the way – maybe one every 2 or 3 years.)

But Friday and Saturday I again was feeling kind of off. I had a recurrence of soreness and stiffness in my hip joints which I’ve had a couple of times before, and general soreness elsewhere, including some in my torso. So at this point I’m starting to wonder if I’m on the verge of having some heart problems, or if something else serious was going on. So while we were at lunch yesterday Debbi asked me if I was okay, and I said “I don’t know.” So we headed off to the urgent care center (in the cold, wind and rain).

(Aside: the Palo Alto Medical Foundation uses medical office software from the company I used to work at, Epic Systems. This always amuses me. I make a point of telling people there about this, and I always end up getting feedback about it, even though it’s been 12 years since I left. That entertains me, too.)

This is my first trip to urgent care in nearly 20 years, when I went to the center in Madison the morning after developing an unbelievably painful sinus infection. They gave me antibiotics and told me to go home and sleep. I felt more equivocal about going this time, since it was more a combination of milder symptoms that was making me worried rather than feeling clearly sick. Yet the potential outcome if I was right to worry made me decide to go.

The wait was almost exactly the advertised 1 hour, and I saw a very nice doctor (actually all the doctors I’ve ever met at PAMF are friendly and personable) who ordered some blood tests and took an EKG (the first one I can recall having, but honestly I expect I had at least one EKG and some other similar tests when I was a kid, but I just don’t remember them). We talked about various things that could be happening, but ultimately none of them were borne out by the tests, all of which came back within normal ranges. Here are some of the possibilities:

  • I could simply have an infection, but am not exhibiting any of the primary symptoms for some reason.
  • I could be under stress and it’s throwing off my body chemistry. Given what we’ve been dealing with in house-hunting and Blackjack’s cancer, this is plausible. Plus of course worrying that I’m, developing a really serious problem is just going to increase my stress level.
  • I could be under stress and it caused my thyroid to go out of whack. (The thyroid test came back normal.)
  • I could be developing an irregular heartbeat. The EKG didn’t show anything, but of course if it’s irregular then it could just have not shown up at that particular time. The doctor suggested I contact my primary physician and see about getting a 24-hour heart monitor to see if it happens in a longer span of time.
  • I could have developed a blood clot. I guess they did a blood test which indicated that this isn’t so.
  • It could be neurological. They didn’t have a way to test for this at urgent care. The doctor said they could do an MRI or even sample my spinal fluid (!) to test some theories in this direction, but also that these are much more invasive tests.

The blood tests said my liver, kidney and thyroid functions all appeared normal.

So, as the doctor said, we’re left with a puzzle. He suggested I go home, make sure I eat and drink enough (“Eat a banana” he said, in case I’m low on potassium – I did that), and get enough rest. So we spent the evening lying around at home, watching Harry Potter films and cartoons, and got take-out for dinner.

Today I feel better. So I’m starting to think it was either or both an infection or stress. I do stress out often and easily, I just don’t show it on the outside (I’m much less laid-back inside my head than it appears). But I will still call my doctor tomorrow and see what he thinks. But it’s encouraging that it seems I’m not about to have a heart attack.