My bike got stolen tonight. This would be the same bike whose back tire got stolen about a month ago. I parked it outside of 19th Street Bart in Oakland this afternoon at around 4:45. When I got back at around 10, it was gone. There’s no evidence that I even left my bike there except that the plastic bag I was using to cover my bike seat in the rain was on the ground.
When I parked my bike, there were three other bikes parked at the same spot. There were also bikes parked across the street. When I got back, every single one of them was gone. I don’t know if that means anything, but it was sort of weird.
I have no idea what I’m going to do for transportation now. I don’t have the money to buy a nice folding bike. I could replace the bike with some used beater, but I don’t really want to have that one get stolen a month from now, you know? Plus I don’t want to spend what little money I have on some crappy bike that I don’t even like.
Bah. Total bullshit.
Saturday 11am @ The Mills Chapel.
There will be a reception after at the Student Union. Everyone is asked to bring food to share. Everyone loves a potluck.
Flowers can be delivered to the Mills Chapel between 8am and 10am the day of the service.
T’s sister Norah wanted me to make sure to emphasize that this is intended to be a celebration of Timanna’s life. Bring your best Timanna stories.
We’re trying to get together photos of T and a play list of music that she loved. If you have photos of T that you really like or have a song that always makes you think of her, you can send them to me and I’ll pass it along.
Also, people are getting together at The White Horse tomorrow night for drinks and music in honor of Timanna.
It’s crazy when I think about it. With the exception of a few people here and there, all of my very closest friends are people that I met between August and October of 1996. My friendships with these people have waxed and waned. We’ve shared apartments, helped each other move, cried on shoulders. We’ve fought and made up. I grew up with these friends and they’ve made me the person I am now.
Timanna was one of these people. She was one of the most amazing, insightful and funny people I’ve ever know. She died last night, surrounded by friends and family. She’ll be missed deeply. I was lucky to have known her.
Last Tuesday Sarah Doty came up to Berkeley to have dinner with Les and me. She brought with her a four day old sour dough starter as a gift for me. I was really pleased.
The starter was bubbly and smelled foul, which is perfect. I got it home the next day (via bike since we’d spent the night in Les’s loft) and fed it. And then it started acting funny. I blamed the Oakland tap water, which smells of chlorine. Chlorinated water can’t be a good base for growing bacteria, right? So I went an purchased a gallon of distilled water and hoped that wold fix it.
By Friday, I figured hope was lost. I’d followed the directions in The Bread Bible, but the starter was was too solid and didn’t look active at all. So I fed it again, adding a little more water and told myself that I’d just toss it on Saturday if it didn’t look more active.
Saturday came around and what do you know? I’ve got a ridiculously active starter on my hands! It smells foul, it bubbles like an almost flat soda, and it grows to twice its original size in a matter of hours! Truly it is a wonder of creation.
My starter’s name is Henry. I have no idea why, but that’s is its name. I’m eating some bread leavened entirely from a wild stater as I type this. It is the awesome.
Thanks Sarah!
I’d really like to see Persepolis. It is playing at the Parkway this week ad 7 and 9:15. Would anyone be up in seeing it with me?
I seem to only get things done if I’m all Go!Go!Go! within an hour of waking up in the mornings. This morning I left the house before ten and managed to bike from my place in Oakland all the way to Solano Ave to pick up the cover for one of my futons. On the way there I also stopped and did some errands. Now I’m back home. This all didn’t actually take me very long considering that I’m on a rather slow, extremely heavy bike. People with cars must be able to get a million things done in a day, right?
I feel better about having accomplished a little something today. I have a ton of homework to catch up on. Hopefully I’ll manage that today as well.
It is rainy out and I have not felt like leaving the house all day. I could totally go for some hot chocolate, too. But I don’t have any vanilla here so I’d have to go brave the afterwork rush at Trader Joe’s to get some, I think. Bah.
Les left yesterday morning. I haven’t gotten any panicked calls from detention yet, so I guess immigration went ok. I hope that the bag I made held up to the plane ride.
Yesterday after I got home from the airport, Theresa and I went through the fridge and the cupboards and threw out everything we didn’t recognize. It was sort of odd that it was the two of us doing it since we’ve lived in that place the least amount of time. I ended up with three bags of groceries to take over to my place in Oakland. I only had room on my bike for two bag, though. So I’ll have to go back tomorrow and get the rest.
After cleaning out the kitchen, I sat down to look at what my readings are for the week. Between Les’s birthday and all the last-time-I’ll-see-you social stuff, and being busy with sewing that bag I made for him, I didn’t have much time for my classes. I made sure to do the biographical write up that was due for one of them and I’d sort of scanned the websites for my other classes a little but for the most part I just sort of skipped out on the week figuring that I could make up the readings and I’d be ok.
Turns out this was a bad idea. Apparently I had a seven page paper due in one of may classes last night. I totally didn’t realize that I had anything to do until around 4pm yesterday. I hadn’t done any research or thought about my topic! Ak!
I raced over to my place in Oakland and started working on the paper. I just barely finished with just about 6 1/4 pages written at 11:30pm. The paper was due at midnight. Phew.
I really need better time management skills. I’m having serious trouble getting motivated to do my homework in these classes. I’m finding the online format to be really difficult to get a handle on. Without interaction with my professors face to face and other students, I’m finding it to be really difficult to figure out what each professor really expects out of me. Also, I find text books to be deeply boring so it’s hard to stay focused. I knew there was a reason I was reluctant about taking any classes after I finished my BA. Bah.
Finally!
I moved out of my storage unit several weeks ago but I haven’t spent a single night in my apartment because I didn’t have a proper bed. When I moved out of the country in 2005, I got rid of the box spring of my mattress and moved the mattress into Les’s loft. It didn’t make any sense for me to move that mattress again because it would just mean that Les had to buy a new mattress for a bed that would probably not be used much. Plus we’d have to move the older mattress up and down all those stairs ourselves. If I just got a new bed, delivery people would do my heavy lifting for me.
Les and I talked over what would be reasonable. I didn’t want to buy another queen sized mattress because if we moved in together again, there’s be a redundant bed problem. Plus while I loved having a nice big bed, I didn’t really *need* anything that large. Then one of our friends was talking about how japanese futons get rolled up and stuck in closets and it dawned on me that a good quality futon might be what I wanted.
So today I went over to Matsu on Solano to look at a futon. Matsu is great, by the way. They’re happy to go over the different futon options and help you pick out something that’s just right. I’d started out thinking that I’d get a low bed frame that would hold a tatami mat and then a thick futon with the intention of folding up the futon when people came over and having a raised platform for seating. I ended up ditching the frame and getting a queen-sized tatami mat and a set of two full-sized futons. Having two makes for nice padding but they’re still easy to fold up and move around. One of the futons is 100% cotton and the other is a wool cotton mix. The cotton futon is very firm and the wool/cotton futon is sort of pleasantly squishy.
I’m excited. They should arrive in about two weeks.
So now I have a bed and I’m still thinking about dining room tables. I have a bar table and two stools right now and while that’s sort of OK for just me, it would be really nice to be able to have people over for dinner and have them actually sit at a table. So I’m thinking of something like this. I like that the table folds up tiny. I could get two and stick one in the closet. Or get rid of the table I have now and use one in the main room for eating on and one in the little dining room area for crafts and whatnot. Really, I think my only issue is that I’d rather buy something from a smaller store than Ikea. Hrm.
Yesterday as I was unpacking my dishes I had a memory of once owning mugs that matched my plates and bowls. I went through all my boxes and couldn’t find them. Les says he doesn’t remember them at all. I could have sworn that I owned them just to have matching mugs but that I hardly ever used them day to day because I had lots of other mugs that I liked more.
Did I give them to someone?
I’m also missing my madeleine pan, a shallow glass bowl I used for floating candles, and my Next machine. If anyone knows where these things are, please let me know. :)
On the other hand, I appear to have possession of a food processor that I don’t recall ever having owned. Weird! (I assume it once belonged to either Sophie or the Lagoys at some point and I just got it when they moved? I don’t know…)
I’m Moved!
Thank You again Timanna, Danica, and Annie! And my biggest thanks to Les who put up with me being a stress case way out of proportion to anything reasonable.
My new address:
607 Beacon Street #12′
Oakland, CA 94610
USA
Moving me from my storage unit into my apartment took about three and a half hours including a lunch break in the middle. Apparently I did an OK job of getting rid of crap because that’s a pretty good amount of time.
I’m back in Berkeley now. I have not started unpacking my boxes or moving my furniture yet because we needed to return the truck right away. I also do not own a bed. I moved my bed into the loft when I moved last time and it doesn’t make any sense to move it out and then buy a new mattress for here. So I’ll be spending nights in Berkeley for a while yet.
I’m looking forward to getting unpacked and setting up shop. I don’t remember what all I even still own. I’m also looking forward to having my own space again. I really like the loft but I always feel like I’m going to be bothersome I leave my things lying around.
So yay! I’m moved!