Beautiful weekends

Last night I went to "mix tape club" for the first time. Mix tape club meets about once a month in an art gallery/studio in South Philly. The members of mix tape club put together a themed mix of songs on a CD and make 10 copies to share. When I arrived at 7:30pm with Emma who knows the girl who started the group, there were about 20 interesting-looking individuals scattered around the cozy studio chatting drinking beer and wine and snacking on an assortment of pot-luck style food including a big bag of muddy buddies. One of the mix CDs was playing. Most of the people there were artists with relatively boring day-jobs. I met several comedians, a stained glass artist (it was his studio), a record store owner, an aspiring singer, and a smattering of students and other visual arts people. Discussions on movies and music were way over my head but I felt warmly welcomed and had an awesome time. Later in the evening after everyone had done the brief presentations of their mixes, people migrated toward the back of the studio. I saw someone with an intricate chinese stamp and we decided to find some ink and proceeded to go around giving people acrylic-paint tatoos which were fun but didn't last very long.

I can't wait for next month.


This is part of the "secret garden" made of glass, concrete and found objects on south street.
This is me in my carrot costume at work :)

Cat and sister united

Cat drove down to Santa Barbara, where her treasured sis lives. We ate salads with lettuce we picked from the garden and then through a huge amount of gear in the SUV and headed out to Red Rocks national park.

It sure feels good to be in California...

We went hiking and camping. However, I was severely injured which trying to break off a cat-tail...
Cat posing with horned melon late at night at the campsite
Alex "slack lining"...it is about as easy as it looks

Alex and I made oatmeal with walnuts and raisins and sat on the porch overlooking their vegetable garden.

California...my spirit's home

The trip home to SF was filled with time outside with family...here is me doing a little yoga on Treasure Island after running around the perimeter with spectacular views of the city while my dad read and my mom walked.

We also went for an 7 mi roundtrip hike with a mid-point at the ocean where we played jump-rope with giant pieces of seaweed.
Have you ever wondered what it would feel like to pick up a 2lb dead jellyfish...I used to wonder that too...
Here is dad by the waterfall that drops onto the beach where we played seaweed jump-rope and "get the frisbee out of the ocean after Catherine makes a horrible pass"
View toward golden gate park from Ocean beach.
We visited the new Science Museum in GG park. It has a LIVING ROOF!!! (SF is so awesome)
Here is the scuba diver taking about the fish he is in a tank with in the science museum.
Catherine and grand-dad enjoying each other's company.
Cat at home
Great grandfather Revered Herbert Tweedie's grave in Oakland
Beautiful lilly-pad pond
My family like sky and rocks
and waterfalls and empty beaches
...and being generally awesome

Cat goes to resort

View from the Atlantis hotelroom
Cat and favorite DC buddies on the beach.

In the "personal underwater submarine" that feels like a ridiculously slow underwater scooter. Several of the other fellow submariners got pretty sick and were puking off the side of the boat or dry heaving while floating in the ocean....I however got quite hungy and made friends with an Iranian guy who had a big chocolate chip cookie.
Julia and Frankki looking darn cute.
Cat rushing through the hotel hall to get to dinner
More DC buddies...

Shot of hotel and what I like to call the "wasp temple" - home of several fantastic water slides
Two of the Atlantis resort towers...what a machine
Kirk quote~ "Its amazing how so many trees and fish can result in something so unnatural"...however, I am a huge fan of giant Manta Rays! They are smart and can move their little horns if you feed them fish.
Cat has returned to California after completing study in NY...stay tuned for family awesomeness

Things look up (despite the distinct sound of falling in NY)

if the US financial market crashes in the middle of a forest
and no one understands what happened
did anything really fall?


Meanwhile...in the real world, there was music, profanity, community and laughter. I went to a "living room concert" with a crowd of friends in a lovely house in the south end. Both Adam and Steph sang songs of heartbreak, betrayal, and crazy but hot women - a good time was had by all.
Rayna (b-day girl) and Cara looking glamerous in the foreground, while Nate, Adele and everyone else pay attention to the performers.
A special sing-along with the ladies of the night ends in smootches.
News flash: Catherine's suitcase has continued to shifts its portfolio toward traveling gym equipment, putting less emphasis on "work clothes"
Princess Julie visited Catamaran and there were birds and pitchers of sangria.

...and then I went for a bikeride with Rohit and came upon a big Indian festival with a life-size poster of Barak2 days left of working in the concrete jungle, then back to Philly, and then fly away on a chartered flight to the Bahamas with several hundred coworkers (the next post should be good!). Then back to Philly for a week of doing random work before I head out to San Francisco and SantaBarbara until late October.....wooooooooshhhhh! (imagine a big cape and fading out into a glittery mist)

Cats like old and new friends

Cat and Rayna leaving for morning in Harvard square.

Shopping "underground" to feed Rayna's most recent obsession...ain't she cute!
We saw a player piano in Harvard square (a piano that plays songs by itself when you pump a foot pedal). I hear that a Tea for Two remix is rising in the top-20 dance hits in Europe.
...the sign on the player piano read: "Its a great workout"...haha
Fabulous...
Cat celebrates newest life achievement: GONADS medal winner 2008
....much later...
...and later...
RayRay and Bry!!!
And turkey-taco finale on the roof deck at sunset!

3 days in Minnesota

Last weekend I visited the land of 1000 lakes to see Monica. Monica volunteers at the Humane society and so we got backstage passes to playing with puppies. Here is me with Ellie - a St. Bernard mix.We lucked out and also got to see the beginning of bunny agility class...yes, those are real bunny-jumps in the background....this is a subculture I did not know about.

Little bear at the zoo
Big bear
Monicle and catrabat
Here are Mike and Monica playing "Amy ball" - in which they hit a tennis ball back and forth with tennis rackets in a field and then hit the ball really hard when they want Amy to run after it.
And then, in a surprising turn of events... Its a giant carrot!!!
...that flies...