Sunday, August 21, 2016

heart of darkness

Deep in the heart of the east bay -- so far beyond the bay that one might be forgiven, when one is there, for forgetting that the bay exists* -- lies a place called Castro Valley. Castro Valley is, indeed, a valley, with housing developments stretching up the walls of the valley to give the houses views of the land below. They also enjoy a view of sunshine, which makes it preferable to San Francisco, where it's been all fog and gloom for days.

When I woke up this morning, I intended to stay in San Francisco and work - I'm feeling antsy about the book and it's past time to get cracking. But then Jess sent me an adorable photo of Ian wearing the raccoon vest that I got him, and so I decided to throw aside my productivity plans and go east to inspect a few members of the child army.

But first, I had to feed myself - so I made these sweet potato and zucchini latkes, and fried a couple of eggs to put on top, and it was fucking #winning. I might leave out the cumin next time, since I wasn't in the mood for cumin at ten a.m., but they could be great with a little bit of cayenne, perhaps. I will say that if I keep up with this Whole30ish plan, I'm going to be using my food processor a lot more than I usually do - I used it last night for cauliflower rice, and this morning to shred zucchini and sweet potatoes (something that I might do in bulk and freeze if I intend to make a lot of latkes), and I intend to make mayo and rouille tomorrow. But I'm kind of excited to cook again, so I'm going to embrace it while this feeling lasts.

After I ate, I showered, sent some emails, and then went to Books Inc to buy a birthday present for a member of the child army (my favorite Dr Seuss book, "If I Ran the Circus", and a book about the Summer Olympics). Then I made myself a snack and got in the car and ventured east, and then even farther east, until I reached Castro Valley.

Castro Valley is the home of a lot of identical houses, one of which is owned by Oniel (aka Fauxneil, aka Bill Crosby, although I suppose that nickname should now be retired since Oniel has never, to my knowledge, given anyone quaaludes) and Katie (who doesn't get a nickname because she didn't come to my 2008 Olympics party because she was boycotting China's human rights violations, which is admirable, but I mean, come on, there's cake!). Oniel's oldest kid, Cole, turned five, and so I went to say hi and wish him happy birthday even though he has no idea who I am. But he and his sister are super cute (and very very tall for their ages), and I got to see Folkman and Kristen and some other people whom I hadn't seen in ages (because they have all produced members of the child army). And hopefully now that Oniel and I have seen each other twice in a month, we'll get into a more steady rhythm than once every five years.

But all good things must end (or, rather, all east bay communities can eventually be escaped from), so I said my farewells and drove to Berkeley, which is a different part of the east bay, to say hi to John and Jess and Ian. Ian was being his usual adorable self, although he refused to nap today (not my problem!). And John and Jess seemed to be doing well - we hung out in the house, and then we ended up going to Cancun for tasty Mexican food (this was not at all Whole30ish approved - I avoided the legumes and rice, but I had the crispy corn tortilla and chips, which was probably a mistake). That turned into a super stressful outing because John and I were both having extreme social anxiety about the people around us who were trying to claim twenty seats before they'd ordered any food (which is such a ridiculous thing to say, but it was stressful to watch).

sssanyway. After dinner we went back to their house, and John and I had a drink (beer for him, water for me) and discussed going to Missouri in 2017 for the total solar eclipse (it's on!). Then I drove home, put on my jammies, and watched Olympics (and got super angry about Ryan Lochte, who is such a douchebag).

And now I need to sleep - I need to be productive in the morning because the Shedletskys are coming over in the late afternoon for our last chance to watch Olympics together this year. Goodnight!


*disclaimer: it is less than five miles as the crow flies from the bay. But with traffic, that's approximately eighteen hours**

**disclaimer 2: it took me less than an hour, with traffic, to get out of SF, cross the Bay Bridge, and reach Castro Valley. But still, it was a journey.

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