Monarchs
Hi,
Yesterday, after living here over a year, we finally saw the monarchs everyone has been talking about. There is a monarch migration reserve a couple miles from our house at Natural Bridges beach. The monarchs come there in about October and leave in Feb. or Jan., not sure when. However, when we went late last year, there was not a monarch to be found. That was not the case yesterday. The reserve is in a small eucalyptus grove (the grove is small, the trees are huge) and it was full of butterflies. They filled the air and lined the branches together all bunched up. Very beautiful. Here’s a link to what monarchs look like in case you don’t remember. http://www.adobeongreen.com/284Monarchs.jpg
This weekend was a good one. Friday night P and I caught up over veggie burgers at the only Irish pub in town (that I know of). Saturday we went to the west side farmers market, grabbed a coffee and went through the paper to find open houses. It was a cold rainy day and we spent most of it going from house to house. We found two very nice ones, however, in the end we decided we still think the one near the university is the one for us. However, we’re still playing the waiting game. I did some research and found out that when buying a house from an REO in Califonia, it can take much longer than it normally would because the flow of information has to travel through a number of people in the bank. We’ll see what happens but I’m hoping we’ll be able to move while P is on break from teaching. Maybe I should write Santa and let him know that all I want for Christmas is this house (after we get positive inspection reports of course).
Saturday night, we had the privilege of going to a wonderful dinner party. We were kind of sleepy and cold that night, however, once we arrived they had a big fire going, sat us in front of it with some delicious wine and cheese. We met some really great people, the conversations were really interesting.
Sunday we went to SF to meet up with some new friends and P’s brother and his girlfriend at this hole in the wall indian restaurant. We all agreed the food was not that great but it was it was nice to hang out with everyone. After eating, we walked around and ended up spending the afternoon in Union Square having coffee and pastries outside. They were putting up the Christmas tree. After leaving SF, we stopped in Palo Alto to have dinner with P’s sister and her husband (who is an amazing cook). Dinner was great, went home and worked the rest of the night.
Monday was spent working unfortunately for both of us, except for the monarch tour which was mentioned above.
Other news…my bike is broken. I took it to get fixed and the people there were like no way man because the cost of fixing it far exceeds what the bike is worth. I beat on the bike pretty hard in Boston and then the move kind of did it in it seems. So, I’m on the hunt for a new cheap bike.
Hobbes is good although I had to call the vet yesterday due some odd behavior. Often when he jumps lately he is missing his target and hitting walls or barely making it and he hangs onto the ledge with his front paws trying to make it up. Yes, it’s true that he is not the most graceful cat but this was excessive even for him. They said it could be that he’s getting older (he just turned 9) or he may have some kind of ear infection throwing off his balance. We will be watching him the next couple weeks to see if it gets worse.
Work is good, P has four weeks left in his quarter and I think that makes him very happy since he’s working like 50-60 hours a week. Work is good for me. Also, I finished my CASA training, got sworn in by the judge on Friday and will be getting my first case this Thursday. I’m looking forward to it.
As for the holidays, we’re not sure what we’re doing for Thanksgiving, yet. However, we unfortunately will not be making it out to the east coast this season. With the purchase of the house, funds are extremely tight. However, feel free to drop on by. Today was sunny and high 70s and I went to the beach when I took a lunch break.
Hope you are all doing well!
- N.
