We went to the open house at West Valley Alpacas. We got to see them put an alpaca onto a 'shearing table' that looked (to me) like a roasting spit.

I've decided that alpacas are the cutest creatures around. They also produce wonderful yarn.

This is alpaca yarn I bought on May 1. I'll knit an afghan for a friend with a difficult pregnancy. She doesn't read this site so I'm not spoiling any suprise here.

This was a special edition Dive Bar gathering. We went to Toxic Tire Beach and 'tested' various bad liquors. I'll point you at Mr. Squid's Flickr site for the full set of photos.

The City thinks this place is called Warm Water Cove Park. We know better. This is actually called Toxic Tire Beach.

This is yet-another picture from my garden.

Some people do cat-blogging. While I would call this web site more of a personal web site than a blog, I do 'garden-blogging.' This is kinda like watching paint dry, but slower. The plants grow more slowly than paint dries. Still, these photos are really for me. I don't think I'm writing for any big audience. Then again, I really have no idea how many people, if any, look at this site. I don't get bored with my garden photos. It is interesting to me to be able to see the garden grow over time. Since I've been doing a daily photo thing since 2001, I have some history here.

Happy 05/05/05, another arbitrary holiday.

This is the cat who likes to sit in drawers.

I just saw this in the news. The surgeon who put my hand back together is in trouble for being too liberal with the pain pills. This came back into the news because this is the same surgeon who is working on Barry Bonds. When I had the surgery, I hardly took any drugs. The drugs made me throw up. I took about two and realized I was having a very bad reaction to them. I'd much rather deal with pain than nausea so I threw away the rest of them.

My evening activity involved a girl's night & a lot of plaster. I think most of the plaster will come out of the towels & table cloth. I'll find out.

In the afternoon, I did another scouting walk for a photo scavenger hunt we're hosting on May 22.

This is a sculpture in my neighborhood.

I have a green tomato in my garden! This tomato is the size of a large pea but hey, I've got a green tomato. I'm turning into a tomato snob. I won't buy or eat tomatoes from the grocery store. I only eat home grown tomatoes. This is one food where it really does make a difference.

I will eat bread that I didn't bake, although I don't eat very much of it. Today's bread is whole wheat sourdough with a touch of rye.

I have a deaf friend who called me today using a relay service where the deaf person types and the relay operator reads the typing and types my spoken response. I've used the service before. The voyeaur in me wonders about the conversations that happen over the relay service. Tonight, the relay operator got to hear about some plaster cast and missing brakes on a cart.

Tonight, we're going to the airport to welcome Sandwich home.

We tried to go to the Bernal Hill Soapbox Derby but the weather didn't cooperate. With the rain, turnout was pretty much just our group. We still took a few runs.

Looks like I have yellow columbine in my garden. I never quite know what is going to show up. I'm not so good at keeping track of what I planted.

In the evening, we went to 'Storm Watcher' training at City Hall. We got a poster of cloud types and watched a PowerPoint presentation. I guess we learned something.

This is the cat in the bathtub. I do not know why she seems to like sitting here.

We did a final scouting walk for the Mission Dolores Photo Scavenger hunt. We found these flying pigs on a mural.

My garden has one ripe rasberry. This is something I remember planting.

I baked bread. This time it was whole wheat with lots of seeds: millet, flax & sunflower.

In the evening, I went to my knitting group and the Dr. Hal show. This was the last-minus-one show. I got a shot of Fernet for my question about why heaven is something I should want to go to. If I'd been thinking, I would have delegated my shot to Jesus. Then I wouldn't have had to drink it. I seem to be at about a 50% shot rate at the show.

This is my hand, complete with scar from when I broke it at rugby practice in 1993.

I baked more bread today. This was a rye bread with only a touch of whole wheat. It ended up being too sweet. I was worried about the yeast having enough to eat so I added some sugar. I added too much sugar and the bread took a turn towards wonderbread. I started wondering if bread making is going to get trendy like knitting

In the evening, we went to a pre-wedding BBQ at Baker Beach where I took this classic image of the Golden Gate Bridge. Somehow, there was no fog.

We went to the wedding. This was the mansion after the ceremony.

We did Bay to Breakers (or Breakers to Bay as we do it as salmon going upstream to spawn).

San Francisco has a 'Hooker Alley' on Nob Hill. The alley is now a community garden. I'd heard about this place. Today, I finally went to go find it.

We went in search of the site of the Broderick-Terry duel. We found the spot. Those two stone markers are supposed to indicate where the men stood.

In the evening, we did another Dive Bar activity.

This is a small blanket/afghan that I'm making. This is made from alpaca wool. I realized I missed part of a cable here and I will need to rip part of this back. The error is fairly obvious in this picture.

In the evening, we went to the last Dr. Hal show. So did a lot of other people. The bar was packed. Fortunately, I got ther early (=first) so I got my pick of seats. The bar ended up about as crowded as I have ever seen it.

When I lookd at the time stamp for this image, I realized it was actually taken on May 19, not May 18. The show ran late which I had expected. This was a late night. This is Dr. Hal doing what he does (or did) on Wednesday nights.

My run of Fernet shots didn't hold although I did get a response from Chicken ("This is fucked up") in response to my question claiming to be from Hal's fictional wife, Edith.

I wanted a shot of Fernet so that I could delegate my shot to Jesus. JC was there. I was going to ask JC to take a shot for me but, alas, none of my questions were deemed 'Fernet-worthy.' My run has ended - along with the show.

We watched SuperSize Me with refreshments from the three fast food restaurants down the street. This is after I read Fast Food Nation this week. I think I will never eat fast food again. I feel ill.

I still feel ill after yesterday's experiment with fast food. Fortunately, today's activity involves walking. This photo is from our walk. We walked the route for Sunday's photo scavenger hunt and added this item to the list.

I'm doing more garden blogging, except I don't think of this site as a real blog.

This is a sweet pea in my garden.

We skipped the last call at the Odeon in order to go watch fireworks. We went to the 22nd floor of a downtown office building.

We organized the photo scavenger hunt around Mission Dolores. As expected, the game turned out to be other than what we had expected. I don't believe there is a way to predict what people will do with something like this. There will always be some new interpretation that hadn't been anticipated.

So far, my garden is holding at six green tomatoes. Later in the summer, I'll have dozens. For now, I can just watch and anticipate.

This is Priest Street, a dead-end staircase. The path goes on for a bit at the top of the stair but there is a fence at the end. There isn't a clear path to the other side of the block.

I enjoy finding things like this in the City. This stairway also is NOT in the Stairway Walks in San Francisco book, probably because it doesn't go through and it's a small, but significant, distance from the other walks.

Once again, I learned the lesson of the dangers of knitting cables while watching a movie with subtitles. While I haven't figured out the error yet, I don't think the damage is too great. I should be able to recover pretty easily. This picture was taken before I started cabling-while-reading-subtitles.

I like going back and seeing what I was doing a year ago. Last year, about this time, I was doing battle with the Northern Mockingbird and baking rye bread. Coincidentally, I'm baking more rye bread today.

My approach to baking (and cooking in general) is more casual then most. I use measuring cups as conveniently sized scoops,not actual measureing devices. Bread making depends on the weather so much that I think a fixed recipe doesn't work very well. I never follow a recipe exactly. I might look to it for guidance but especially with bread, I rely on how it looks or feels. So far, today's rye loaf looks pretty good. This afternoon, I'll find out how it tastes.

We did some exploring of San Francisco today. I had heard about this building but never seen it. This is the Vedanta Temple at Webster & Fillmore.

Then we visited the National Cemetary in the Presidio. There are only two real cemetaries in San Francisco. There are two people-cemetaries: this one and the oldest one at Mission Dolores. The Presidio also has a pet cemetary. There is a tomb for Thomas King on Cathedral Hill. There is a columbarium out in the Richmond. Other than that, all the dead people get shipped to Colma.

We went to watch the Kinetic Sculpture Race in Arcata-Eureka-Ferndale.

This is Extreme Makeover coming across the dunes.

This is Scare-dy Cat, another sculpture.

The sculptures also had to float.

We took the long way home. This included a visit to a pioneer cemetery. Actually, the pioneer cemetery was washed away in a flood. This cemetary contains descendents of people who had been buried in the original cemetery.

This is the cat.

I have a new favorite bad movie: Amar, Akbar, Anthony. This is a 70s Bollywood movie. Remember the joke about the Catholic priest, the Muslim singer and the Hindu cop who walk into a bar? Well, that's this movie except they are three brothers separated as young children and they walk into a wedding instead of a bar. My favorite scene involves Anthony dressing in a formal black suit with monocole, top hat and cane, then jumping out of a giant Easter Egg while singing a song. This movie is just a little bit bizarre.

We went to see Ted, the stinky flower. This is a corpse flower, blooming for the first time in two years. We heard it was blooming so we ran down to Goldn Gate Park to see and smell it.