The Golden Blog

Savi moves to Joan Baez's encore song.

Joan Baez at Stern Grove with friends

What a memorable day for Savannah and I. My little wing-woman and I left for the Bay Area at 0930 this morning, and didn't get home to rest our weary feet until midnight tonight. The slide show below shows us at Stern Grove watching an American icon of folk music, Joan Baez, preceded by the local band "Blame Sally". Each gave an excellent show to a crowd of thousands who came out with their elaborate picnics for this free event.

We sat in the 'meadow' adjacent to the pavilion stage. We heard the music perfectly although we did not visually see what was happening on stage. The point was to have a space where the kids could be free to run around while we listened. Sarah and Saam live several blocks away from the park and Sarah took one for the team by trudging over early to get us a good spot.  Soul and I parked at their house and strolled Savannah on over with Saam and their 3 little boys.

Savannah and I had dropped by Amy's for a visit on our way to pick up Soul in Alameda before getting into SF, and she ended up joining us with little Skye and Orion an hour later which was fun for everybody. We were one big happy family for several hours.

There was such a sea of humanity at this concert, all the folks breathing easy with the winning combination of fine weather, picnic food, and dulcet sounds emanating from the stage. It could not have been better if I had paid for a ticket.

Savannah and I hoofed it over to the main audience area twice, as we were lucky to get there early enough to get a coveted 'hand stamp' which afforded us access. I took a few clicks with the camera before being instructed to stow it away. I kept telling Savannah that we were seeing Joan Baez, yessir, that's Joan Baez. Do you know who that is? That's Joan Baez. She loved the mommy and me time too. Well, mommy and me and the over 10,000 people surrounding us. I recognized two of Joan's classic songs, "Joe Hill" and "Forever Young". How does she keep looking so good?

I picked early girl tomatoes and basil in the garden this morning and so for 5 hrs we picnicked on Baguette/tomato/basil/fresh mozzarella/tapanade appetizers, chips and salsa, pb & j sandwiches, grapes, and adult-tasty-beverages.

After the concert, we made our way back through the lake-lined park and back to Saam and Sarah's home there in the Sunset district. We let Savannah get a good nap on one of the bunk beds as Soul and I chatted with our hosts and ate yummy cheese and crackers. We had to leave only too soon as we had another engagement over in Alameda. We said our goodbye's and had an uneventful traverse back across the bay bridge and met up with good friend Zoe and two of her children, Addair and Emma for pizza. They are moving to Virginia with Zoe's Coast Guard hubby next week, and I certainly wanted the chance for Savi and I to say our farewells. We got to know them over the past two years and they are family to us. We topped off the visit with a stroll down Park Ave to the famous Tuckers Ice Creamery for a cone.

Savi and I dropped Soul back at her boat, and made an easy journey back home to the delta, and warmer climate. This was certainly a memorable day for me, and I hope for Savannah as well. I will ask her tomorrow who we saw in concert. I did ask her what her favorite part of the day was, and she answered "having pink ice cream with Addair". She always mentions marrying Addair when his name comes up? He's only a year older. I guess she'll eventually open her own Facebook account and keep in touch with him.?

Running shoes, Joan Baez and the summer of Celtic Love

Somebody stole my awesome running shoes out of the locker room last month. That's so gross and desperate. Guess someone has *really* fallen on hard times. Yesterday I received their (also used) replacement through ebay. I took them on a 4 mile jog today and they felt good. I let the wind out of my own sails of exercise motivation when those road warriors went missing, each day feeling the endorphins lessen overall and increasing the desire to become sedate stared to consume my somewhat healthy soul. I did cycling or lap swimming every few days, but it was not the commitment level of what I liked doing. Blah blah, all I want to say about that is I am back in business now.

We are harvesting a crazy amount of tomatoes every day. We have early girls, pear and cherry tomatoes. Also growing are watermellon, pumpkin, rhubarb, carrots, grapes, green pepper, cucumber, squash and two varieties of lemon, ooh and a dwarf orange too.

Savi and I dropped John off at the BART train station this evening, as he is flying to Atlanta to help his mom on a landscaping project. She bought 5 pristine acres of land and wants to do something with it. John packed light, just enough not to have to check any baggage under the plane. That is smart since he changes planes in Chicago in the middle of the night. Savi and I miss him already. When I put Savannah down for bed tonight, I mentioned that John would not be there in our bed if she came over in the middle of the night. She said in her best fishwife voice, "well, I'm not going to be happy about that".
I said I understood.

Trimming and clippings: For the first time since 1998, I cut a thin row of bangs on my forehead. I just had to see if it's a change I'd like. I think they make me look younger. Ok, I'll keep them for now.
We clipped Dana's fingernails today, after over 2 years of letting them grow very long and sharp. If we knew how she could have carved us up with one pinkie all that time, we would have fed her more expensive cat food.

Sunday hello's and farewells: Savi and I are meeting with friends in SF to see Joan Baez, free at the Stern Grove festival. This will be my first time seeing her. Will I get to say hello? Will she sing "Love is just a four-letter word" or "Diamonds and Rust"?? We will get there in the morning for a good picnic space, and the show starts at 2pm.

Sunday evening Savi and I go to Alameda to say goodbye to friends moving to the east coast. Zoe, her new hubby, and her 3 children are pulling up stakes and transferring with Zoe's hubby to his new post at the Coast Guard on that other ocean. We all lived next door to each other in Alameda, and got to be quite close. Savannah and Zoe's youngest boy Addair always say they want to marry each other. Can you say that when you are 3 and 4?

Golden Bough update: Our new cd "Celtic Love Songs' had been a success so far. Lots of sales at concerts and online. I love to perform the new material as we have some good arrangements. Our biggest crowd this summer was last Sunday in Lake Oswego, OR. Everyone was in such a good mood too, so it really fed us on stage. Incidentally we drove back home to the bay area that night. Paul drove from 8-12, and I took the 12-6 am shift where I pulled into our driveway on the dot. I listened to 3 or 4 movies, and it kept my mind quite busy. Paul and Margie took off for Bulgaria a couple days later to meet their new in-laws, so it was good they had the time to keep normal sleep patterns going. The day they get back, I meet them in SF and drive up to Enumclaw Washington for the annual Enumclaw Highland Games. It's a huge gathering, but nothing is as enormous as the Pleasanton Highland Games we do in October. It's the largest in the galaxy, or at least the world.

Until the next gig, I will continue to work on my tan, beg to teach little children how to play the beautiful violin, and sip on Peets coffee, my only lasting affordable luxury.

The Sierras spend a beautiful and perfect day in San Francisco on 7/2.

We try to steal our friend's boy, Truman at the Palace of Fine Arts. He's so yummy!!

She's got bangs as of 7/9/09!

Hope, but no plan yet.

I am doing ad-hock training for a Sprint-Triathlon on Aug 9 in Santa Cruz. I'm good at the running part, and it goes south from there with biking/swimming. Yesterday afternoon I would have much rather snoozed than run, but John stuck a gifted chocolate peanut butter cup in my mouth and sent me out the door. I got 4 miles in before I got chaffing on my right thigh. It stung, and I had another mile to go. When no one was looking, I jogged like a bowlegged cowboy, and gingerly walked otherwise, holding my soccer shorts tight around my leg so it wouldn't rub. It still sings. The lesson here is to wear either tights or running shorts on longer runs. A friend counseled me on using vasoline, another recommended 'Glide' for athletes.

I know I can get up to speed with biking and running if I get with a program, several of which can be found online for free (www.active.com). I am working loosley with a triathlete named Tina whom I met at the sports club, and at the Brentwood Bike club ride. She has 7 other people in the area who want to train for a sprint triathlon, so we're going to see how we can coordinate.  She lives on the delta, and goes swimming off of her dock. That will be good open-water training, as the SC triathlon is in the ocean. I'm looking to borrow at triathlon wetsuit, as they are designed for dexterity in the water.

My workout routine is varied, as I change up what event I am working towards almost every time I exercise. John is doing a ride with the Brentwood Bike club tomorrow morning, so I will take Savi to the club and do my swim workout. The heartrate monitor is still working grand, and I highly recommend it to folks who want to get their endurance at a higher level and not feel like they are about to burst their heart open because they over-worked it.

Hopefully the plan will come about with conversations with Tina and the others who want to do the 8/6 Tri. Otherwise I will do my own thing and just go for it.

Grubby hands, cherry picking, wearing down the tread on the road and in Quicken.

These last few days have been quite beautiful weather-wise. I was inspired on Thursday to don my running shoes, leave my front door and surpass my personal best record of 5.5 miles, and found that I went 7 miles without ever begging God to strike me dead on the pavement. My sister Kirsten is training for a Marathon next month, and she gave me good counsel on the physics of running efficiently. Furthermore I picked up a heart-rate monitor on a good sale, and was delighted to find out that I can go much, much further than I thought I could. My mind gives out way before my body does, turns out. More than any other training technique for running/biking/swimming these days, that reinforcement from the Polar F6 has sent me much further in workouts than ever before. 

I am working towards a mini or 'sprint' triathlon in August. That means a 1/2 mile swim in murky open water, 15-20 mile bike, and a 3-4 mile run. I got up at 6:30 am on Saturday morning, stopped at Peet's for a coffee, and joined a local bike club on their 26 mile ride through the flats of Oakely/Brentwood. I was the only person on a hybrid bike, but nevertheless I kept up my speed. I was especially grateful for the wider tires since we passed over many cracks in the road. A road bike is not in the picture for me or John, but I'm no pro anyway. Just doing this for health and fun.

 
Today the family went swimming at the sports club. I wore a swim cap for the first time since 3rd grade, and my heartrate monitor of course. I thought I was going to peak out of my personal heart-rate zone in the water because I felt I was working hard, but before I could do that, my arms got terribly tired. Duh, swimming is all about upper body strength. I think swimming a 1/2 mile translates to be about 16 laps. I did almost that today, and plan to be adding more swim sessions ala Michael Phelps this month.
...pause...
Just realized I left a popcicle behind my laptop here in hopes that Savi wouldn't see me eating it when she ran over there. It's totally melting, but mostly in it's plastic wrapper. Yummy melted sugar goodness!

Ok I'm back to writing about the sports club. After watching John get totally sunburned as we watched Savi play in the water, we headed over to the U-pick Cherry Farm owned/run by my first cousin-sometime-removed, Bud Laird. It was nice to meet family we had never met before, and they were very nice to us, pointing out the best picking trees on the property. This was John and my first time picking our own cherries, and we plan to go back soon, as cherry picking ends in 2 weeks.

Savannah fell asleep on the 20 min ride home, and I headed out back to handle a nasty mess in the worm composter. Somehow a legion of grub worms took up residence alongside the red worms, and I spent an hour sifting through the compost to extricate those little white squatters. John came along to tag-in, and spent the same amount of time sorting. He even set the grubs out on a large tarp in the yard for the blue birds to find, but alas they did not come and he placed them all in a sealed container until trash day on Tuesday.

Now what could be funner than finishing the grub sorting, getting dinner ready, having a cold glass of tasty water and rubbing aloe on John's back and face? How about plugging the family's modest summer budget into Quicken? Nothing beats that and I am so jealous, you reply emphatically. 

Other interesting additions:
1. John's school closed for summer last Friday.
2. Golden Bough's new cd will be released on 6/19, called "Celtic Love Songs"
3. Our tomato plant is over 7 ft tall!