Never been so glad

Monday's bentos
Originally uploaded by riblet.

Whenever I visit other parts of the country, I'm always relieved to come back to California. Our recent trip to Palm Springs had me feeling a little home sick. It's so far from here and the culture and terrain so different. Coming back to Northern California was as relieving as if we had returned from a different country. I was so glad to have cold, fresh produce and a more forgiving climate for toting Ira's string cheese. This week's visit to the Sunday Farmer's Market was never sweeter. We picked up some delicious Casselman plums, which we've been snacking on all week. Red and yellow on the outside and sweet and peach-like in the center. I'm bummed not to have tried these earlier!

Ira and I hit some parks this week. That kid needs to be run like a dog and I like taking him to the park behind Sierra II to do this. It's mostly fenced in and the large soccer field area is a good place to let him run bonkers. The playground offers some good, challenging equipment for him too. It has swings, slides, ladders and sand. I was watching Ira play in the sand when I noticed another mother encourage her toddler to pull down her pants and pee in the grass. I was totally grossed out by this! Peeing in public is not okay for anyone! Even little tykes. Who wants to cozy up on a nice patch of grass that some little kid peed on? Ewww. Further, no one wants to smell this as it's happening. Some moms drive me crazy, but you know what? It's a bad example to call someone out in front of their kid.

Making some things

I've been feeling pretty productive the last two days. I'm unstoppable! Here's what is keeping me busy (including sifting through all kinds of jobs on craigslist):

1. Making gorp for Leon's hike on Sunday - count me out! I'm still recovering from the Loch Leven Lakes hike last weekend.

2. Cooking tons of tiny, little tofu nut balls for Ira. He loves these and they are very nutritious.

3. Toddler lounge wear. Check out these pants I made!

4. Making fantastic progress on my 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle which is titled "The Gift." It pictures a mystical lady, a white buffalo, a majestic eagle and other creatures hidden in a snow scene. One problem, I'm missing a piece and I think Ira ate it or stuffed it down one of the floor vents.

The cutest thing is finally seeing Ira getting attached to certain toys. We got him this cute Brobee plush and the Plex plush. He carries them all around the house and asks me to help them hug. I take one and wrap it's arms around the other and Ira grabs them in delight and hugs them both. He loves to make them "high five." He slams them together and says "psssh! high fieeee!" The best was when he pretended to take a snack out of Plex's tummy compartment and offered it to me. "Nack? A try, like it!"



We had the greatest time at Sabrina and Randall's wedding a couple of weekends ago. The ceremony was sweet. The reception was super fun and the food was great. We had popcorn popped in truffle oil, risotto balls, sweet corn soup shooters with bacon (I indulged), deep fried portobellos and fennel, and deliciously buttery mini grilled cheese sandwiches.



We later partied all over North Beach and Chinatown. It was all a blur after a while but I distinctly remember whiskey shots, crashing a show at the Lipo Lounge, admiring a tiled wall and eating some gross nachos.


Let's see, what else has been going on? Oh! I became obsessed with making this potato pizza.




And, big news here. I applied for work. Yes!

Funny things babies say

We are waiting for a new The Wire disc from Netflix, so in the meantime we're finally whittling through season 6 of Curb Your Enthusiasm. We sat down to watch a couple of episodes last night and Ira was still awake so he caught a few minutes of it. "Gran-paaa!" he says. "Da-da!" Oh no. Ira thinks that Larry David and Jeff Garlin are Leon and his dad.