Bishop Ranch, San Ramon

Lily and I had a small adventure this evening.  We went on a hike at the Bishop Ranch Regional Open Space Preserve (why do they have to give these places such long names??).  It was pretty...and very steep.  Pictures!

Beginning of hike

Middle of hike:

And end of hike...

Cows!

So that's where all that cow poop along the path was coming from...

Lily: "omg what are these things"

"MUST BARK AT THEM"

She had a moment with this cow.

This isn't the best quality picture but I wanted to show her running to bark at the next batch of cows.

Seriously, aren't cows awesome?  They just stood there and looked at her like, "wtf?"  At one point a couple started trotting towards her and I started thinking things like, "what if she freaks them out?  what if she gets kicked?"  but it all turned out fine.  I imagine they've been barked at before, they graze on park land where people can let their dogs off-leash.

And she exhausted herself.  I swear, solid barking for probably a good five minutes.  And lots of running.

View from the top

Please help rescue this dog

I rescued a dog this morning, and I want to splash her up all over the internet as best I can to help her try to find a home. I know most of the people who read this don't live in northern California, but I figure if this gets around, maybe somebody will see her and decide to save her life.



I dropped her off at the Berkeley Animal Shelter this morning. They said on October 23rd she'll become their property and then can be put up for adoption. They're a low-kill shelter, so she'll just live in a kennel until she either goes kennel-crazy (their phrase) or gets adopted.


She was really skinny but she let me pet her and she willingly got into my car (with food as incentive). She just seemed like she'd been really neglected, but by the time we got to the shelter, she had attached enough to me that she didn't want to leave me. She got closer to me as the guy was leading her into the dog area. I gave her some pets and told her it would be okay. I hope it will be. I would've kept her myself if we didn't already have a dog and a cat.


Please pass this along to anybody and everybody you know. I really want to help find her a home. She just needed a lot of TLC and someone to love her and I bet she'd be a great dog.

I'm not sure why that second picture is sideways, but if you probably copy and paste it into something else, or just save it on your computer, you can right-side-it-up.

Moments

I've had a couple of lovely moments (and one amusing one) this weekend and I want to record them.


First, on Friday, I attempted to take a nap and ended up laying on the bed sort of half-dozing for about an hour and a half.  Animal and traffic noise kept me awake, I think.  Eventually I shut the window but by then it was too late.  When I finally ended up bringing myself out of my half-slumber and listening with more intent to the whining dog and meowing cat outside my bedroom door, I found myself thinking, "I should go out there.  They're lonely.  I should get up and do something."  But I couldn't think of anything I'd rather do than lie there and look at the sky out my window.  There was something about that sky.  The moment (which ended up lasting about 15 minutes, which was lovely) reminded me of when I used to sit in my bedroom window seat in high school and look out over my mom's garden and our neighbor's backyard.  I would sit there for half an hour or an hour at a time sometimes, just thinking.  It was so peaceful and it was a space that was all mine.  A while ago I mentioned to Mark that I'd like to turn a corner of his dresser (which sits directly underneath our bedroom window) into a space like that for me again.  I haven't actually taken myself up on that suggestion yet, though.  And on Friday our bed turned into my 15-minute window seat.  There was just something...surreal? about the sky and all I wanted to do was lie there and look at it.

view from my bed

 Then, last night, after a shopping trip to Trader Joe's where the sample of the day was creamy tomato soup, I made this for dinner:

 Mmmm, just looking at it makes me want to make it again...it was very simple yet very good.  Trader Joe's Creamy Tomato Soup with basil on top, their Three Seed Sourdough Bread with white cheddar cheese, fried in butter.  

Yum.

Then tonight I had my amusing moment.  Grad school = cooking on top of homework:

I wish you could see better all the papers that are hidden under that foil, but you get the picture.  *sigh*  :)  

There's something about fall

Okay, I'm going to try to write a quick but interesting entry because I should've gone to sleep about half an hour ago.  This is me deciding to go to bed earlier than the last couple nights...*sigh*
But I've been thinking about this blog and wishing I could think of something to write about and then lo and behold, yesterday morning I was attempting to get dressed (which eventually happened but took longer than usual) and I found myself in one of my usual states of wishing I had things I don't have.  In this specific instance, booties and tights.  There's something about fall that makes me want to wear layers and jewelly, (I just made that a word) earthy tones.  I suppose that's not unique at all, that's exactly what all the magazines are telling me to do, but whatever.  I also want to eat chicken pot pie, but that's a whole different subject.
So!  Since I have a bit of extra money right now due to getting paid, I've been somewhat obsessively searching my favorite shopping sites for these items.  And...

Ta daaahhh!! (image from zappos.com)

I'm less nervous about buying them because Zappos has free shipping both ways, so if I hate them I can just return them, no skin off my back.  And if I love them, they were $45, which is not that much in the grand scheme of things.  I wanted faux fur, I wanted flat, and the universe answered.  Plus I think they're stylish.  :)

I also want to share what's on my newly created wishlists on all these sites (aside from Urban Outfitters - I've had a wishlist there for like 6 years) just for the helluvit.  Maybe at some point I'll make up my mind what to actually buy.

Francesca's Collections:

Ruche:

Urban Outfitters:

Okay, turns out they don't actually let you copy their images (bastards) so here's a link to my wishlist in case you're that interested: 

http://www.urbanoutfitters.com/urban/user/wishlistview.jsp?giftList=gl72525959

Bed time!