A summary

Since Christmas, there has been a lot going on for us. We visited Kansas City to have a “second Christmas” with the Lincolns.



We took time to test out some of our new Christmas gifts. We treated a couple of friends in our neighborhood to tangerine sorbet, blackberry sorbet, and homemade waffle cones. The ice cream maker and waffle cone maker worked perfectly. We can’t wait to experiment some more!



We also took advantage of our time off and trips to the Peninsula to go to my favorite taqueria. My favorite tacos are found at El Grullense #3 in Redwood City. They cost $1.15 each and they are delicious. El Grullense has many taquerias in Redwood City, but #3 is the most, um, rustic. There isn’t anywhere to sit down (it is a taco stand after all -- the tradition is to take your tacos back to your car and use your trunk as a table. This is not everyone’s tradition, but it is the way my friends and I have always done it, so that’s the tradition I carry forward.

We have also been making pizzas from the Cheeseboard cookbook. We have mastered one particular pizza and now need to branch out a bit.
Cilantro, tomatoes, lemon zest, garlic oil, feta and mozzarella cheese. It is truly wonderful. This particular pizza below had too much cheese for my liking, but it was still darned good.


On Martin Luther King Jr. day we decided to hit the coastline and drove down Highway 1 from San Francisco to Santa Cruz. It was a gorgeous day and we stopped at many different beaches to explore. We tried to see the elephant seals, but it turns out that you need to make a reservation, so we’ll wait for next winter.



January 20th was the inauguration and we went to Sproul Plaza on the UC Berkeley campus to watch the proceedings on big screens. It was special to watch the inauguration at Sproul Plaza because it is the location which began the Free Speech Movement at Berkeley back in the 1960s. The large screen was set near the front of the Administration building where, during the beginning of the movement, Mario Savio and countless others stood on top of a police car shouting out their frustrations and concerns about the UC Berkeley Administration. The police had come to arrest the protestors, but, there were too many to be squished into the car.

I had to go to a school to sub for a teacher so we did leave early, but we were able to catch Obama’s speech. I must admit that I was a little disappointed by some of the Obama supporters at Sproul Plaza. I had an expectation that they would always be quiet and courteous, even if they didn’t like what someone had to say. During the campaign I believed that Obama was time and again, raising the bar in so many areas of American life. I had believed that his supporters would rise to the occasion, but they didn’t always do that during the proceedings. In my opinion at least.
Speaking of substitute teaching...I have been subbing at Cornell Elementary School in a "long term" position over the last few weeks. I've been teaching second grade and I have to say that the kids are pretty darn fun. I'm exhausted at the end of the day, but subbing in the same class every day is much better than getting a phone call at 6 AM asking you to go somewhere new and to try and organize 20-30 kids for 6 hours.

I try to put a good face on the random subbing jobs by saying that "at least I'm on my toes and doing new things every day." Honestly though, doing that every day makes me feel old because I am just so wiped out and crabby afterward. But I am collecting some seriously funny stories, and perhaps some fodder for that children's book people have been pushing me to craft.

On my first day subbing in this particular classroom, the first thing scheduled for the day was to cook "teem gok" which turns out to be a deep friend wonton cookie. Great. Classroom full of 20 kids waiting to make their very own fried cookies and I don't even know any of their names. Thankfully the classroom aide demonstrated the recipe and stood by the electric fryer for the entire lesson.

On the second day subbing we took a walking field trip to the local library. Wonderful....field trips were my least favorite thing when I taught before and I get to take one on just my SECOND DAY with this new group of kids. Needless to say, I am learning how to "go with the flow."

During my first full week teaching this we celebrated the schools 100th birthday...and all the second grade teachers tried to dress up as if it were 1909. I made a very good attempt and looked the part. I just wished I'd had some sort of bonnet. Wondering why there is no picture here? Read below.

Last weekend we found out that we could get a garden plot in our student housing! We labored for about 2 hours trying to clear the plot from its 2 foot high weeds. We were sore. Since then we have purchased some things to plant but because of the rain we haven't been able to rototill or plant. It is hard to be patient. I really want to plant all our new produce.

I somehow managed, for the very first time in all 3.5 years of owning this digital camera, managed to delete all of the photos showing our garden plot AND my 1909 costume. Woe is me. More to come when we plant.