Posts under ‘Oakland’

Yesterday afternoon, I got an email from Seed Savers Exchange announcing it’s time to put in transplant orders. Since I moved to Oakland, I’ve been deleting most messages from SSE, although, it should be noted, not actually getting off the mailing list. Just deleting, and ignoring. Until yesterday afternoon. Though it’s not yet time for [...]

I have so very many favorite places in this world, places that I hold in my heart along with the stories that go with them, but added a new one to the list in 2009: the patio at Heinold’s First and Last Chance Saloon in Jack London Square, preferably during the Sunday farmers’ market, preferably [...]

If you’re reading this, I survived the run-up to Thanksgiving. Oh, I know. First-world problems, really. I MUST CLEAN. I MUST BUY CRAZY AMOUNTS OF LOCALLY-SOURCED FOOD. I MUST TEAR MY HAIR OUT AND RANT AND ROAR AND WHINE. So, enough already. Here’s the sunny side of the street. For the second year in a [...]

About six months before I moved to Iowa, long before I had any idea I’d be gardening, Steve and I were on the phone talking about our future living situation. We’d determined his first-year graduate school apartment wasn’t big enough for the two of us, and he’d been looking for another place for us to [...]

I stopped at Whole Foods in Oakland this evening just to see how much cash I could drop at one time in one place (KIDDING WHOLE FOODS HA HA HA ALSO YOU CAN BE MY SPONSOR NOW!!!), and noticed at the checkout counter that they are current funneling money like a laundering operation to Oakland [...]

Back in July, I attended The Crucible’s Fire Arts Festival, an event that gave me just the tiniest taste of what Burning Man might be like. In an empty lot in an industrial section of Oakland, a number of artists had installed pieces of varying sizes, all of which featured some form of interaction with [...]

I want to preface this story by assuring you that, in my normal life, I do not make it obvious to the naked eye that I bear an unabashed adoration for the perfect tomato. I have a tattoo, but it’s not visible unless you know where to look, and it is not a design of [...]

The building I live in has an interior courtyard, a very controlled interior courtyard with potted trees and flowers and nary a nanosecond of wildness. It’s peaceful and reserved in a soothing, managed sort of way. It’s the kind of courtyard you might find, for example, in a very expensive hospital. Occasionally, kids play out [...]

I could tell you that I’m not doggedly stubborn, but that would be a lie that my parents would loudly and happily debunk. Most of my friends would happily join them in said debunking. And although I know a ton of people who would gladly attempt to debunk this particular statement as well, I’m going [...]

A year ago today, I steered my aging Camry into Oakland, loaded down with Asahi Cat and everything I deemed critical until I could actually get the rest of my possessions moved out to California from Iowa. It’s been an amazing year since I moved into my new apartment, filled with countless adventures, food discoveries [...]