tulokyn | Entries tagged with california

It's been really hot here the last weekish (hot by my Atlantic Canadian standards, anyway), and this morning I woke up to the words "It's going to be 20 degrees cooler today than it was yesterday." After I got over the celcius conversion shock, I was very pleased. It's going to be 23 here today (instead of 33). Good times.

California is a straaaaange place.

It is currently 18.6 degrees C outside. Shamus and I just got back from a bikeride and put on some shorts in his case, and a light summer dress in mine. We are mildly considering going up to have a swim in a little bit.

We went out to the farmer's market. They still have mostly winter produce, but there are starting to be more strawberries, as well as a stall that wasn't there two weeks ago: a baby plant/herb shop.

I am certainly not complaining one bit, but biking around in a t-shirt on Feb 4, and looking at all the new blooming flowers everywhere gets a little surreal for us Northerners.

Shamus and I woke up to the weather this morning, on the radio. The guy was talking about how he is so sick of all this rain we've been having...

...

It has rained during _one_ of the days since... oh... last Wednesday or so. It's been raining most nights, for sure, but we have had all of one rainy day.

Coming from Halifax, all I really have to say to that is "awww, muffin!" in the most condescending voice I can muster. Seriously, since we moved here in May, it has rained about half a dozen times before last week, IN TOTAL.

I don't mind the cooler weather though; it gives me all kinds of excuses to drink tasty hot tea all day long. :)

Oh jeez you guys, it is raining out there. Like.. a lot. And I don't have any kind of rain appropriate footwear.

What is this, I don't even:
oh god, the wettening

Guys.

Guys.

Why is there a pollen rating of 4 out of 12 in the MIDDLE OF DECEMBER?

I noticed a weird thing last week. A patch of dandelions. I haven't seen a dandelion all summer. I don't think they're suited to the weather here. I hadn't even noticed that I wasn't seeing them around until I saw the patch of them, and was like "hey wait, I haven't seen those in months!"

Meanwhile, the leaves on the tree outside of our balcony are finally starting to turn colour. Most trees around here are still green, or looking sunburnt, but there are a few that are beginning to turn. SO strange, it feels like it's still a week in early September here, not at all the end of October. The kids around here won't be bundled up in parkas and mittens to do their trick or treating, for sure. We finally got our Halloween candy for them, and I may be doing a little sampling before we hand things out. Wouldn't want to give them crappy candy, you know.

I also have plans to make candy corn tonight. I live for candy corn at Halloween. The problem with this is that most candy corn nowadays is made with gelatin, which is not vegetarian, let alone vegan. I found a recipe for how to make them, so I am going to enlist Shamus's help with that sometime this weekend, I hope. I also have the ingredients for making homemade Larabars, which pleases me greatly, since a Larabar costs more than a dollar for a thing that's 1 inch by 2 inches, and it only has 4 or 5 ingredients.

In the "holy crap that's cheap!" grocery report, I got some avocados today for $0.49 each, as well as a pound of asparagus (the thin spring kind) for $1.49. I got Shamus some mild cheddar cheese for $2.99 a pound, and two litres of milk for $1.50 (seriously! Milk was just over $4 for 2 litres in Halifax when we left!).

I also found a pretty great vegan recipe blog the other day, called The Vegan Stoner. I was looking for "lazy vegan recipe" on google, because I was home for the evening by myself, and I couldn't be arsed to make dinner properly. I made the chickpea curry, and reduced prep work by using our FANTASTIC BLENDER to cut up the onion, red pepper, and carrot for me. Hot tip: don't try to cut up a giant onion and a giant red pepper in the blender at the same time. It's not less work than just cutting the damned things on a cutting board. We also made the oat shake, which was good, but not especially lasting, and kinda thick towards the end. It's really weird, but it tastes great. It just has a texture that need some tweaking, I think.

Anyway, that's about all I got for right now. Let me know if there's anything you want to know about or whatever. Since I'm living here and getting used to it somewhat, I am seeing a lot less that is like "I don't think we're in Halifax anymore, Toto." Though I still think it's ridiculous that I needed to get a prescription for a bottle of Robaxin here. The FDA hasn't approved it for over-the-counter sale. >:c

So California has not killed me, despite its best efforts. I have developed some reasonably frequent migraines, and I fell off my bike the other day, but aside from that, I'm doing alright.
( groceries, vitamix, seasons... )

This will be short, because I have comics to draw and ink before we begin the potential travesty that is twice a week comic updates on Monday.

Shamus and I went to the library today, and discovered that not only does the Sunnyvale Public Library have a magical checkout/checkin system, but they also have TWO sections full of comics to take home and read.

I may be a while.

So I went to the doctor this morning, spurred by a sharply dwindling supply of my daily medications. The insurance plan we chose through Shamus' work has a fairly low incidence of doctors near Sunnyvale. The one I chose was one of the closest I found (though if I could have been arsed to pick up the phone, I bet I could have found someone closer) and she was still 3.3 miles away, according to googlemaps. Even so, that's only half the distance I traveled yesterday in search of cat little and specially ordered cat food for my babies.

( more on doctors and too much about cat litter... )

In lieu of an actual blog post, I am going to make a list instead. Because it's 11pm, and I am waiting for a pizza.

( education awaits! )

Current Mood: hungry

So when I left you on Monday, we were waiting to hear back from IKEA within 24-48 hours from Sunday morning. Well, Tuesday came and went, and that evening, while Shamus was finishing up with making dinner, I called them to find out what was happening. First off, turns out that the person that Shamus was talking to on Sunday had recited the reference number wrong, so the poor girl on the other side of the country (she was in Eastern Time) had to take about 8 minutes to track down my case. She gave me the correct number, and then, after trying to figure out what was going on, she transferred me to the actual East Palo Alto store since it seemed that the case had been sent there. She had originally told me that SHE was going to call them, so I was a bit shocked to find myself talking to someone there and explaining what was happening, especially when I was told "well, I'm not in front of a computer now. I'll have to see what's going on when I get downstairs. I probably have an availability Wednesday evening between 5 and 9, but we may not even have the item in stock" I responded that as soon as possible was great, and I just needed to know when to be home. She confirmed that she'd call me back in about an hour, and that I should expect a "drop pick" for it, which meant that they would take our old couch, and just give us a brand new one.

Yeah.. no phone call...
( what else can go wrong? )

Shamus and I took an ill advised trip to IKEA on our bikes on Friday night, to go procure a couch for delivery.The same trip got us two end tables, a recycling container, a laundry hamper, some kitchen storage things, and a mixing bowl. We left the end tables and couch there for delivery, and took everything else home on our bikes. The round trip ended up being 35km, the route there was entirely cycling into a headwind, and we didn't get home until after 10pm after including a "shortcut" through the parking lot of Synopsis that essentially made up bike in a huge circle around our apartment.

( nothing is simple )

I am sitting on the floor of my balcony, enjoying the shade and breeze. It's supposed to get up to 28 degrees here today, which means that I either stay inside all day, or I go only to the pool. However, we have a north facing apartment, so the sun never touches most of our balcony which means that even on the hottest days, the balcony is lovely and temperate. I generally sit out here at least once a day (pining for patio furniture), and often one or both of the cats will accompany me. We have harnesses and leads from their airplane trip down here, so I figured I'd put them to good use while soothing my anxieties that they'd be stupid enough to jump for a bird.

( a whole lot of nothin' )

I just got back from an unplanned little jaunt up to Mountain View. Shamus texted me shortly after leaving work, because his back tire had gone flat. He went back inside to figure out what to do, since his phone died in the midst of our frantic texting back and forth. Turns out there's a bike shop a short distance away from his workplace, so I offered to bike up and meet him there. He only had half an hour to get there before they closed, so away we both went.

I took the time to scribble down the directions, pack a "cheer up" cookie for Shamus, and spray my exposed skin with a light coat of sunscreen, since I had scrubbed all the day's earlier stuff off in the shower after I went for a swim. I ran out the door, then ran back in after going down a floor, since I realized I would probably need my bike gloves. Unfortunately, I was downstairs on the sidewalk before I realized I needed my sunglasses, but I decided to forgo them in the interest of rushing to my husband's side.

( and onward... )

I just checked the weather forecast on my phone, and discovered that the UV index right now is 12 out of 16. I had been wondering how bad it would be to go up to the grocery store for the milk we desperately need, and sunscreen and so on. It seems that if I go now, I will char to a crisp. The UV is insane here. I have been tanning despite liberal application of sunscreen most days, and only going out for short periods if I am unprotected. Turns out those days that it says your skin will burn in minutes with the UV index actually exist here. Still, I have been lucky and I've only gotten one minor sunburn since my arrival, so I'm doing alright.

( thinking about the place )

So, I've got very little else to do (I know, I should be working on the comic but I don't have a table or a chair yet), and my Sims 2 game that I reinstalled ended up bugged fives ways from Sunday. Last night I tried to play, and when I finally forced a quit and restarted, something happened such that the character I had just moved into an empty lot just stood next to the mail box and spun around spastically in circles as her portrait flipped through all its possible moods. Very bizarre. I tried again this morning, and ended up with a similar thing happening, though I haven't restarted to see if Tessa Testing spins around in front of her mailbox as well. So I'm writing another entry to post when we get internet.

Shamus tried calling AT&T yesterday for a connection appointment, but then ended up getting shunted to "no one there" hell after waiting on hold for a while. His phone was dying in a bad way, so he couldn't try again, the phones closed at 6, and he was out until 9:30 or 10 last night playing D&D with his coworkers. I had asked him if he would see if someone could offer a drive to Target for us, but he ended up walking there himself instead to buy a lovely grey king sized quilt (HUGE!), two bright coloured dishtowels, a chocolate brown bath mat and hand towel, the shower curtain hooks we so desperately needed, and a pair of kitchen scissors. I was especially pleased with the quilt, as I am not a huge fan of puffy comforters, but I figured I wouldn't nag him about it since he was walking there himself in the dark. He seemed mildly baffled by my delight at the quilt, since he knew I hated comforters, so why would he get one? I was happily much warmer last night, as we slept on the floor, though I am still waiting in anticipation for our mattress to arrive this morning.

( mostly about the kitties... )

There's been a a fair bit happening the last couple days, and I barely know where to start. I suppose I'll work backwards to give me more time to remember.

Shamus left to walk to the Caltrain station this morning with his fingers crossed. Regretably, when we were preparing to move in to our new apartment, the internet connection setup got a little overlooked, so we couldn't check the schedule. He didn't bike today, since he has his D&D group tonight, so hopefully he'll be getting a drive home. Maybe he can find a schedule to note for tomorrow. I've asked him to call the cable company on his lunch break, so hopefully we will have internet soon.

( so much rambling continues )

Shamus and I went out early this morning, and ate breakfast with a couple of his friends in Menlo Park. The restaurant was called Stacks, and we were not warned about the size of the pancakes we would be served, so we foolishly did not specify a "short stack" when we ordered. I only ate about half of my Lumberjack Pancakes (ordered with no walnuts), despite them being quite tasty and them having been slathered in hot blueberry compote. So tasty. It's within biking distance, so we could go again if we wanted to.

( the rest of the day... )

So it's been a while since I played Sims2. It's kinda been a while since I did much of anything, aside from focus on moving to California. People keep telling me that I should have some sort of journal about moving here, and what it's been like and whatnot, and I'm avoiding doing the things I actually need to do right now, so here we go.

On April 29th, I went through customs in Nova Scotia, Canada, and ended up apartment hunting in Silicon Valley, California, USA. This all started about 3 months previous, when my then fiance finally caved into years of pressure from a friend to apply at the company he worked for. A month later, he was flying down to interview in person, and a week after that, he was accepting a job offer and speaking to immigration lawyers. Oh, and a week after the application, our apartment started to flood again. It was well timed, to say the least.

( the story so far... )