And the days go by...

My only excuse for silence has been adapting to this early to bed, early to rise schedule that is then complicated by my attempts to continue having a life and look for another job. However, the time passes so quickly only because it's so good (we'll think on it that way).

Thanksgiving had me working in the morning, then heading to Oakland with Mike to celebrate at Harry and Michael's house with Nate, Alojzya even came down from Tahoe. We ate some excellent chicken (there were 3 of them, a decent ratio), enjoyed delicious sides and even apple pie (courtesy of Harry, a musician magician). The evening ended with a string jam session - ukulele, guitar, 12 string guitar, and bass, which kept the spirits up even as we got stuck in Bay Bridge traffic trying to get back to the city (I had to work at 6 a.m. the next morning). The next day Mike and I road tripped (so California) to North Hollywood to spent time with his folks. It was quite the adventure, our rental lady talked faster than I ever can imagine doing myself and warned us about cows equalling tickets and cops, that we'd need a tank down and a tank up. Overall she was right, though it made for a long day. The weekend was chill fun, Mike got a suit for interviewing, we all went out to dinner, I heard family lore. A very different kind of holiday cheer than the usual Qualls clan gathering, but a decent holiday nevertheless.

I am trying to stay culturally sensitive as people keep trying to convince me that it's cold. It's in the 40s as a low, damp, but still. There's no wind chill. I point this out not to flaunt but to give context - I've started asking where people come from before discussing the winter. Mike and I couldn't believe it the other week when we went on this nice long bike ride through Golden Gate Park all the way to the beach (where there's ocean!). And all this in December. We then biked up a HUGE hill to cut back into the city, went down Geary to find a yummy Chinese place with Dim Sum (he'd never had it) and restore the tissues. Yum. In total the loop was about 15 miles - that and my biking the Berkeley hills last weekend is making legs try to complain though it's a good kind of pain. Standing at work was a bit dodgy but one survives.

Espresso bar is a stressful job; I've been training and it wears me out. But I can now make delicious drinks, which is pretty exciting, and my colleagues have been great helping me out when I am trying not to flounder. I also have discovered the San Francisco Center for the Book, full of binding and printing classes, studio space, and various other amazing things. I've started volunteering there this week with an eye to get into a class (you can trade hours for workshops) and manned the front desk as well as sorted spacers for 24 pt font. I can now tell you the difference between a em and a en space (the first one is square, the second exactly half size), and loved getting my fingers dirty with type once again. Tomorrow there's a Holiday Craft Fair that I'm going to work at - it's been also a fun way meeting new people (like a conservator at one of Stanford's libraries and a woman who raises her own silk worms).

I can't believe it's almost mid-December.