Sailor Soldier of Love and Justice

My weekend culinary ambitions:

- Curry rice
- Curry pan
- Waffles
- Wheat bread

( Rambles )

Two consecutive days of exercise and my muscles cry out for vengeance. I am always so out of shape.

I had trouble getting out of bed this morning because my arms hurt so much. I hope they feel better by this evening so I can do my push ups and sit ups. I am determined to keep this up. Go vanity!

In other news, the bread I made last night was delicious. I had some for breakfast. It was such a good bread, I didn't even need to put butter or jam on it. I think the trick was that I added extra soymilk. It mas too dry during the first kneading so I dribbled more milk in until the dough looked right.

Only problem was that it cooked off center in the pan, so it is lopsided. I wasn't careful while making my sandwich this morning and the tall and short sides were mismatched.

The farmer's market had a lot of people this morning. And some camera crew was interviewing the vendors. It was pretty busy.

While there I bought potatoes, peas, and strawberries. The strawberries are kind bland. That's disappointing.

I also picked up Woad to Wuin at the used bookstore. That's the second book in the Sir Apropos series. Not sure when I'll have time to read it though... :P

After that, I went to the grocery store to pick up a few things like dog food and cream cheese, plus any veggies I wanted that I couldn't find at the market.

I am baking bread now. I am thinking of making curry tonight, so that will go well with it. (Provided I didn't mess up and it actually comes out tasty.)

Ben comes home in an hour. I am so excited, I think I might throw up.

Continued from here.

Golden Gate Bridge
So the next morning we were up bright and early (Still not used to the time difference) to head out to Muir Woods. We got to drive over the Golden Gate Bridge! Ben took some pretty nifty pictures while I drove.
( It's sorta reddish orange )

Muir Woods
Muir Woods wasn't too far after that, but it was STRAIGHT UP. So scary! We had to take this tiny wiggly road up into the mountains because it was too steep to make a straight road. I thought I was going to die. Seriously. I've never been so scared before in my entire life. I could see off the side of the mountain and I was not happy about it.

I was a shaking nervous wreck by the time we got to the parking lot. I nearly threw up. :P But the park was pretty and we had fun there. I was able to distract myself from the evil wiggly road for a good couple of hours.

Muir Woods is an old-growth redwoods forest. That means most of the trees are as old as 500-800 years old, with some of them being over 1,000 years old! As you can imagine, these are some BIG trees.
( Into the woods )

We took a different road back down the mountain which was thankfully slightly less wiggly. After cleaning up a little, we drove out to Davis to meet with Kelly, a friend of mine from college. We got a little lost, but Kelly was able to guide us via cell phone.
( Me and Kelly! )

We went out to eat and learned that Kelly is one the the leading experts on furries. Then we went back to her place and talked until it was late and I had to drive home.

Fisherman's Wharf
The next morning with very sore feet we made our way to Fisherman's Wharf. We took the famous San Francisco streetcars, an interesting experience. No one told me that these things frequently lose their grip on the track and roll BACKWARDS down the hills. Yeah.... not so cool.

But we survived the streetcars and made it to the Wharf where a creepy man promptly jumped out at me. It was kinda scary. Later in the day we found a crowd around the guy watching him scare others.

We first stopped at the Ghirardelli Square for some free chocolate. Mmmm, tasty! Then we headed over to the water to be tourists.
( The sights of Fisherman's Wharf )

Then we started walking towards the Aquarium of the Bay. But first I had to stop at Pier 39!
( Sea lions! )

So we eventually made it to the Aquarium which was short but pretty cool. They have two giant tanks, one to show the shallow areas of the bay and one for the deep areas of the bay. You walk through a long tube that goes right through the tanks! All the fish swim around you!

There were also divers in the tanks that could answer questions. I didn't know it was possible to talk while diving. So that was pretty cool too! Divers and sharks and schools of fish!

After the fish tanks, they take you upstairs to a touch tank room.I got to touch starfish, stingrays, and sharks. Unfortunately I upset the shark I touched because it later attacked Ben when he was touching the other shark. H was ok, it only bumped him, but it was still kinda scary.

The Aquarium was good but short. It didn't take long to go through at all. We ate some lunch and then went to find other forms of entertainment. This was found in the form of a bread bakery tour. That was really interesting and surprisingly fun. We even got to try some of the breads! :)

Then we wandered around a bit more until we discovered a coin-op museum. Admission was free and you only paid to see the exhibits in action.
( Fear Laughing Sal! )

We made a quick escape from the evil that was Laughing Sal and drove back to the airport to return the rental car. Ben's sister picked us up and drove us to her place. We stayed with her for the rest of the vacation.

Ben bought me peanut butter cups after work because I was starving. He's making bread now. He's adorably paranoid about the bread, determined to make sure it comes out right. When he put it in the bread machine, he ended up watching half the knead cycle until he was sure it was done being sticky. When I make bread I just toss it in the machine and go about my business.

Now he's playing with the ds. I feel so left out.

Last night I made pizza. Almost perfect, but I forgot to cook the crust a bit before putting the sauce on. Also, the dough stuck to the pan really badly. Ben suggested I dust the pizza pan with flour next time. I think that's a very good idea.

I watched the last ep of Paradise Kiss. I was rather unimpressed by how they went about ending it. I am kinda upset that they neglected to mention who Caroline's fiance was. Poor guy gets left out.... And I prefer him over George so much. (If you want to know, it's in the manga.)

I didn't get to bed until like, 1:30. Ben had a really long game. He barely got any sleep. But at least he's not playing any game tonight, so he can get his much needed rest.

I'm baking bread right now so that when I wake up (I am going back to bed in only a moment) I can have hot, fresh bread for breakfast.

Thought that makes me seem like a conspiracy nut: Just after it's revealed that Bush has illegally been spying on Americans, and just as people are starting to react, and just as politicians are starting to discuss how to deal with this..... OMG!BinLadenTape!!! I am horribly suspicious of this tape. First there's the timing of it. It comes out right now? At this moment? When there are so many scandals and hearings and stuff in politics? Sounds like a distraction to me. Second of all, it's audio only. Obviously voices can never be impersonated, right? :P And the common person is so familiar with Bin Laden's voice to begin with... So yeah, I'm a nut. But stuff like this makes me nervous. The may I pay attention, the less comfortable I am with the world.

New Yakitate! *explodes* I want to watch and eat bread!