Posts under ‘Oakland’

Here’s the thing about wine barrels. Even when they’re empty (and oh, how sad that they were empty…), they are quite awkward and heavy. The photo you see here may indicate that one person can hold these, and they can, but you may notice the photo is a bit more blurry than I might have [...]

It should be noted that the wine barrels came with instructions.
“Have you ever planted in these before?” asked the guy who sold them to me.
I admitted I had not. I did not tell him the kind of jackass arrangements in which I had planted before.
“Well, you’re definitely going to want to drill holes in the [...]

Here’s the thing about container gardening: You have to have containers.
Luckily, when I least expected it, an opportunity arose to drive to East Oakland and acquire a pair of half wine barrels. I pulled into a dead-end street just after dark next to two stacks of the barrels and, as a BART train roared overhead [...]

Before I was able to add myself to the lease for the new apartment, I had to meet with the property manager, a wonderful woman from Alabama who met me for coffee. “What is it that you do?” she asked, and I told her all about the job that brings in the money.
Later, I mentioned [...]

Just before Christmas, I was having a conversation with a guy who flitted in—then out—of my life like a strange and beautiful moth. “I am done with roommates,” I said. “Never again.”
“Absolutely,” he said. “The only roommate I’ll ever have again will be the one that’s sharing my bed.”
It was in the same vein of [...]

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 a [...]

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 row, my [...]

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 [...]