life – Page 4 – turtle + mole

Point Reyes Station with heavy clouds: 145km

We woke up to my alarm clock — still dark. The “festive 500” has become an international tradition to ride 500 kilometers between Christmas and New Year. We are trying to complete it this year, so on day one, we planned to bite off a big chunk of it.

Janeen opened the curtains: a bright horizontal crack was forming where the sun should be rising. Even Bella wasn’t up yet. Arwen had her purr turned up to maximum: early breakfast!

I usually don’t drink coffee before a bike ride; but today? I turned on the espresso machine while I filled our water bottles.

We’d expected it to be cold (by SF standards, that is), so bundled up in our warmest cycling clothes before setting out. Riding across the city was peaceful and warmer than expected, with few cars driving, and the streets cleared of many of the parked cars that typically choke our city. The streets felt so wide.

There was no sun, just a dull uniform grey light. The strobes of our headlights flashed the street signs far into the distance.

We rode around the Embarcadero, past the Marina green (where I snapped a selfie) and through Crissy Field. There’s a small sharp climb before getting to the bridge, and I always want to take a picture at the top.

As we rode across the Golden Gate bridge, we looked back over the city to see the sun (still mostly unsuccessfully) trying to seep through gaps in the clouds above. The route up through the towns of southern Marin county leads us through Larkspur — the town that my dad first moved to when he moved to the US. I remember the park at the bottom of the road, hiding below dark redwood trees: My brother and I played there with the neighbors when we came to visit in 1980. I now see it as a very convenient place to stop and use the restroom!

While climbing Camino Alto is quite a warmup, White hill is the first real climb of the day, and we took it at a nice and easy pace. Shortly before the top four cyclists passed us, only to stop in the same parking area we were planning to stop. Everyone was friendly, wishing happy holidays and just enjoying being out on our bikes.

There was almost no wind. As we rode past Nicasio reservoir, the reflections were so clear and smooth that I couldn’t resist stopping to take a photo. Janeen snapped a far better photo of me as I was trying to figure out how to capture the view.

We rode on to Point Reyes. In the summer, there are some nice benches out in the park at the town center and the bike racks filled to capacity; now it was just bare ground. Janeen huddled in a corner watching our bikes while I went into the store to buy burritos. Sadly, no burritos were in the offing, so the woman working at the deli made me a sandwich: “Merry Christmas” she said as she handed me an almost two pound work of art.

Rain started sprinkling around us as we sat shivering on the concrete steps eating our sandwich. Even a cup of coffee and hot chai tea barely took off the chill: Time to get moving. We had been hoping to see some friends who were also riding, but we’d not seen them yet, so we set off south on highway 1 towards Olema.

A steep hill waits right after the town of Olema, and then a fast descent before the cross marin trail — a bike and walking trail that leaves the main road for a few miles heading back towards Lagunitas. Then there’s a long slow climb back up White hill before retracing our tracks through Fairfax.

We stopped at the bottom of the Golden Gate bridge before heading back into the city. No matter the weather, the view here is beautiful. Merry Christmas.

This feels like progress

All of a sudden, work has slowed down a bit, so I’ve had some time to get things moving on the garden room.

I hadn’t quite finished putting the gypsum board on the wall here, because the stem wall bulged out at the base. So I used a concrete grinding wheel to grind it flush. Yes, brick foundations…

Above left is with the corner bead on and above right is after a couple of passes with joint compound.

Next is the project I’ve been procrastinating on for a few years. The window in the toilet room space is badly rotten. Plumbing pipes used to penetrate the wall directly above this window, and rainwater would run down the pipes and into the window. The upper sash has completely disintegrated, the lower one is too rotten to move, and the frame has rotted across the top and down one side. I went far enough to work out drawings and all the dimensions for the replacement window sash, but never made it. In retrospect, it would have probably been better to just buy a new complete replacement window. But this was an interesting challenge in joinery.

Here’s the wood I used: Old wood from the house some place.

Here I’m cutting some of the mortise and tenon joints. The joints at the bottom of the upper sash are a bit like finger joints.

I was quite happy with how it all fit together.

Above left is clamping during glue up. Above right is a detail at the connection of the center muntin to the top rail.

Here’s the fully assembled sash, with glass (don’t worry, I did not paint the sides where it slides.) I managed to save three of the original lites – the other was cracked so I had to use some new glass.

The window frame was also rotten, so I had to remove it and repair it too. It was at this point (after spending a full day making the new sash and another repairing the frame) that I was regretting not just buying a new window!

Well, here’s the window frame re-assembled and repaired (left), and weights and new cord going in. I had to buy two slightly heavier weights. Not sure if the new glass was slightly thicker and heavier, or if these windows were always slightly off balance before (would explain the nail holes in the frame). Anyway, they balance now!

After stripping the paint from the tracks, I waxed them, and hung both sashes in. Then primed and painted all the trim, and we have a completely repaired window. It’s the only remaining fully functioning double hung original window in the house. The previous owners had replaced all the other windows in the house before we bought it. Maybe it’s a good thing I saved it.

In the garden room, instead of veneer plaster, I’d decided to tape and use sandable joint compound. I probably was thinking it would be easier/faster/something than doing plastering. But it’s turned out to be very time consuming and messy. So I plastered the toilet room: One day and it’s done.

The toilet was a tricky space to plaster, because there are pipes sticking out of the wall. The photo above shows the gas pipe at the top left, and a water pipe in the middle.

Here’s how it looked as the plaster was drying the next day. I think I’m going to polish this little piece of pipe, and coat it with sealer.

Still working on the garden room. Here it is after sanding and feathering all the joints and screw locations. Note to self: Sanding overhead is much harder work than plastering.

Oh, and the guard railings for the deck: I stained them with a red-brown transparent stain to protect from UV – no paint. Here they are drying.

One of Bella’s favorite games is watch for water dripping

Mole was trying to dry her umbrella. I think the girls wanted us to turn on the shower.

Large bubble-wrap: fun with claws.

When your neighbor won’t lend you his truck: Tie it to your roof. The trusty ’82 Civic taking a chair to get re-upholstered.

Finishing up: Paint and a Bathroom

Finally: Paint.

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Painting the wood trim is always the hardest part. I tried (and failed) to use the airless sprayer to paint the walls and the trim. The result was sagging, dripping paint on the trim, because it puts far too much on. Had to wait a week, sand out all the sags, and repaint by hand.

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Paint colors are so difficult; even more so because when they mix them, it seems like the mixed colors just don’t match the samples. Luckily I have mole to pick colors. She picked the ‘november skies’ (medium blue on the card in the photo above). But when it was mixed, I put a bit on the wall and it was way too light – looked like the powder blue that old VW bugs were sometimes painted. My feeling: Hate is not too strong a word for that color. So I went back to the paint store and asked them to add pigment. I used the recipe for the darkest color on the sample card. They fought me, because they said that the darkest color used a different base. Eventually, they agreed, and we got the color that’s on the background. Not a standard color, but we like it more than either!

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Some painting action photos!

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All painted, before the washing machine went back in.

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Here’s the bathroom before the toilet. Actually, the sprayer worked well in here. The difference? I used cheap paint. Seems like cheap paint sprays better.

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Painting the wood wainscot and window trim was a lot of work.

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I bought the glass shower door very cheaply at overstock.com about a year or more ago. At the time I bought it, I hadn’t put the tile on yet, so I estimated the space. The door also allowed some adjustment for width, so I thought I was safe. Not! Once the tile was on, the space was one eighth inch less than I’d estimated. All the adjustment happens on the wall opposite the hinges, at a 12 inch wide fixed panel. I spent an entire day trying to grind down the aluminum adjustment piece so that it would fit. No luck.

Eventually the solution I came up with was to order some stainless steel brackets from China, and screwed them to the wall and to the aluminum edge piece on the glass. Instead of the supplied slotted aluminum piece that was supposed to close the gap at the wall, I just used silicone caulk. But it looks fine now, and I didn’t have to buy a new glass piece. Lesson learned: Order the glass after the tile is finished.

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The sink is tiny tiny. This room is so small, that there’s not much room for the sink, and to allow the shower door to open. When I laid out the tile, I put that diamond shaped decorative tile above where I thought the sink should go. But once the sink was attached there, it was obvious that it was much too close to the shower door (see the door handle relative to the sink edge, above). Very awkward.

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So I took it off the wall, and re-did it. That required some tricky plumbing for the waste line (which I had to redo three times.) The glass shelves are part of the shower door – quite a neat solution to bracing the fixed panel. The only sad part for me is that there is a hole in one of the tiles to the left of the sink. Maybe I can glue a decorative tile on top of it, or find some way to make not show. Suggestions welcomed!

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And now there’s a toilet. Now I just need a towel rail, a mirror, and to finish the lights.

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The sliding pocket door for the bathroom has a beautiful old-style lock. Unfortunately it’s impossible to find the correct keys for them now, so I bought a nice solid cast bronze key and filed it down to fit. Only problem is that traditionally, the key would have had a loop that could fold flat so the key wouldn’t get in the way when the door slides closed. We’ll just have to remember to take the key out before trying to slide the door into the pocket…

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So, trying to take a selfie while riding a bike is a bit dangerous, and doesn’t work very well. Here’s Janeen and me while riding the Primavera century in April. I think Janeen was suffering a bit from the headwinds at this point so I was trying to ride in front to block the wind. We had a great time, and also rode it with a couple of good friends (Kirk and his twin brother Derrick).

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England, the Garden, and Tile (plus kitties)

Well, one of the big things that happened last month is that I went to England with Misha. It was a short visit (the pictures are linked to a larger version).

On the way up to Mum’s house on the first day, we walked through the farmers market – I got a bit turned around, and didn’t realize which street we were on and assumed it was really small this time of year (above left in front of the only vege stand we found on this street). Above right: “Changed Priorities Ahead” (hopefully they are enjoying themselves more).

We went back to the farmers market with mum – a bit late as everything was getting closed down for the day. We still got some yummy flapjacks, though.

We went on a long hike to the Woolpack (famous because the author Lorrie Lee used to love this pub), had a pint and some “chips”, then continued the hike up Swift hill. On the way up the hill, we came across paintings of badgers in many different costumes on the fence posts. There must have been over thirty paintings. They were painted as part of a protest against the “badger cull“.

The weather was quite warm (for February), but drizzled on the day of our hike. This is the view from the top of Swift hill, looking down over the Stroud valley toward the river Severn (off in the haze somewhere…)

Mum and Misha sitting at the top of Swift hill (just before Misha pulled out some energy bars to share). The snowdrops were all out – couldn’t help trying to catch a photo on the way down (above right).

Here I’m trying to take a selfie with the black sheep. Who isn’t a black sheep in some way?

The flash made their eyes glow. Kinda creepy?

We rented a very little house in Stroud to stay in for the week. Here’s Misha locking the front door. Yes, we did have to duck to walk in. Fortunately, the ceilings were a little higher!

Above left: breakfast! Above right, a photo of Misha, Mia and me from about fifteen years ago. Maybe more.

We also took a trip up to Manchester to visit a family friend (our second mum Jaya, from when we lived in a house filled with eleven children and three single mums). I’d not seen her for over ten years – Misha probably more than 20!

Mum wanted us to break down a brick wall and do some hedge trimming while we were visiting. I refused to climb up a ladder on the sloping driveway to trim branches – so Misha did it!

Above left is a photo outside mum’s house. Above right: Does this product name look appetizing to you (Gü)?

One last photo before we took a train back to London.

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Hmm, so I also did some tile work. Actually, I finally finished the tile on the floor in the laundry room. This is the hexagon tile, with some black tiles used to create patterns. Initially, I was planning to do a border in this room. Then we decided to just do the same patterns as the bathroom, and also something in the middle. And then I added an extra little circle at the center of each wall line. And then (see later)…

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Above left, a detail of the pattern in the middle, and above right is one of the only cut edges (at the door).

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Above is how I looked all day. My knees hurt.

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Above left you can see why there was very little tile cutting. I could just continue the tile under the base boards, and didn’t need to finish them tight against the wall (actually, it’s much better not to, so there’s some expansion room).

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It’s hard to see in the photo, but instead of cutting the baseboards both at 45 degrees at the corner, I have butted them together, and hand-cut one of them so that the piece on the left fits into the grooves on the piece on the right. This is the way it was always done before power saws, and actually results in a joint that is less likely to open as the wood expands and contracts. It’s much more work (of course).

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Here’s the tile all in, and grouted. When I was installing the tile, I ran out of white tile (about half a square foot short), so tried adding even more patterns at the doorways with black tiles, so that I could stretch the remaining number of white tiles. In the end, I just had to buy more tile. Now it reminds me a bit of how some people’s tattoos look: Lots of different patterns strewn around. I think it’s about as permanent, too, because I can’t see myself wanting to do this again!

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Now the baseboards are all in, the floor is done. While I was putting the baseboards in, I stood on pieces of plywood because it’s a bit early to be walking on the tile (needs a week to cure). I’ll start painting next week.

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We had a few weeks of reprieve from the El Nino rains, so I rented a jack hammer and broke out more of the concrete in the back yard. Last year, the pear tree did very poorly in the location I’d put it (even though it did gallantly give us some fruit). The poor tree had almost no leaves, and was being crowded out by some aggressively drought tolerant plants. So I decided to move it. Hopefully the move doesn’t kill it, although the previous location would have anyway.

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Here’s after the concrete is all out, and I’ve added mulch. The pear tree used to be on the far left of the upper left photo. Now its at the far right of the same photo. More sun and space. Fingers crossed. Above right, you can see what remains of our peach tree after the tree-jumper incident. It blossomed this spring, and is looking very healthy right now, so I think it will recover.

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Mole was taking photos, so I think the texture of the pile of broken concrete appealed to her…

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Our garden grows nasturtiums!

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While I had the jack hammer, I also broke out some of the concrete in the room underneath the laundry room. We’re calling that room the ‘garden room’. I plan to make it into a place to brew beer 😉 But there’s a bunch of plumbing sticking out of the concrete that I need to remove.

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We didn’t get many crocuses this year – but here’s one!

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Bella sometimes likes to climb inside my shirts (when they are clean)…

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This time she fell asleep in it!

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Here’s Arwen looking blissful on a blanket that Mole knitted specially for her!

cats! cats!! cats!!!

there was some mild outrage 😉 at the lack of cat photos in the last post. i understand. and you don’t have to ask me twice, i have so many cat photos that never get shown!

mathew’s most recent catification. he took this cradle off the cat tree he made when the cats were babies. the cradle was at a lower level and never got used. now it’s up near the ceiling and they love it.

arwen enjoying the new perch. bella wondering how she can steal it from arwen.

it’s hard to know when they’re done loving a box. bella trying on my ALC sweatshirt.

a low-light photo of arwen. this is the face she gives when she wants something. usually food. sometimes she wants outside time. or a cuddle.

nap time.

arwen my cuddlebug. she is more cuddly when it’s cold. i call winter: cuddle season.

bella investigating my birthday donut. she decided it was disgusting. (plus chocolate is toxic to cats.) bella relaxing on her hand rail.

arwen “helping” with cutting out the pattern for my ALC red dress. bella in the sun. probably right after she kicked arwen out of this spot.

this is what it looks like right before a fight breaks out. bella is always trying to exert her dominance over arwen. plus bella eventually owns everything. she is the queen and we all live in bella-land.

more nap time. arwen on the left, bella on the right.

this is bella’s smelling face. 🙂 she just sniffed the table. bella also tells us when things need cleaning.

arwen was very sweetly looking out the window with her paws on the windowsill. she often leans in when i take photos, so this is the shot i got. 🙂

bella giving mathew a massage. or maybe just exerting her dominance. it’s hard to tell.

kauai 2014, finally!

so, it’s only taken me… FOUR months to post my photos from our family kauai trip.

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about 2 weeks after returning from our france river boat cruise, my mom and i were on another plane together, this time with mathew, my dad and brothers.

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we rented a beautiful house on the north side of the island, in princeville.

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there was a spacious lanai and beautiful views.

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we like to rent houses when we go on family vacations, so that we can cook our own meals and spend more time together. here’s my dad cooking breakfast.

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it was extremely hot and humid while we were there. and it rained A LOT. my mom was wishing we could have just a little of that rain back home in california.

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on our first full day in kauai we went snorkeling! for some reason i have no photos of us in snorkeling gear. it was a beautiful day at tunnels beach.

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guess what?! even in kauai we have a cat! my parents called him “kitty”, justin and i called him “bacon.”

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kitty/bacon was waiting outside for us every morning. this morning it was my mom’s birthday! i gave her a book i made of photos and memories from our france trip.

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days before leaving for kauai mathew and i celebrated our 12th wedding anniversary. for our honeymoon we stayed on the north shore of kauai and this was our semi-private beach across the street from our cottage.

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it was semi-private because there was nowhere to park to visit the beach by car. as you can see, it still remains semi-private.

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we went a little further around the island and hiked up to view ke’e beach.

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hiking back down.

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ke’e beach.

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during our 3.5 week honeymoon mathew and i visited the “wishing well shave ice” truck almost every day! one this trip we only visited once.

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for my mom’s birthday, i planned for us to go to a luau! here we are at smith’s tropical paradise.

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too much food! 😉

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the show!

the next day i took no photos. because it rained a lot. basically any time there was water or sand i took no photos. one of these days “the kids” went kayaking.

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and then the next day it was mathew’s birthday!

guess who was there taking a nap in the morning (above left.)

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taking selfies at waimea canyon.

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if you drive from the north shore, down and around to the other side of the island, you don’t meet up with the north shore again but you reach wai’ale’ale, which has the best dragonflies!

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my family waiting for the clouds to clear to see the view. this reminds me of waiting to see the view from the marin headlands.

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the clouds cleared!

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more shave ice. not as good as wishing well but definitely more fun! and there’s wild life! (above right.)

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that evening mathew and braved the mosquitoes to visit the beach near the house. beautiful and secluded.

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the morning of our departure, kitty/bacon was there to greet us and say goodbye.

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we thought he came around because of us, but maybe this was HIS hang out first.

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our last view before the airport.

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thanks mom and dad for a beautiful family vacation. xoxo

Green Eyes

The tile continues. Most of the tile is now on the wall – save the last fiddly bits.

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I put up all the whole tiles first, then fill in the cut pieces. I’m getting quite good at cutting out the tricky tiles that go around pipes and electrical boxes. In the upper two photos, I’ve got almost all the whole pieces of tile on. Just one more row at the top, and above the windows.

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Cutting the tile to fit around the windows is quite slow work. The tile at this window took all day. I’m standing on a ladder in the photo – Mole came downstairs to check on me, because it was past 9pm and we’d not had dinner!

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The next parts to finish: the difficult sloping cuts up close to the ceiling (left), and the other window (right). I just ordered the shower door: The price was so low at overstock.com that I just couldn’t resist (less than $600 including shipping for a frameless 3/8″ thick shower door with side panel.) Hopefully it’s not junk!

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I didn’t include any photos of cats in my last post, so here’s a close-up of Arwen.

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and Bella looking at her water fountain.

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Arwen taking a nap…

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If you were a small creature in our house, this would be the last thing you would see. Where do you think Mole got the idea for the tile color?

Tile progress (turtle pace)

At long last, we ordered the tile. We waited so long, that the original color was discontinued! So now, because we already have a couple of boxes of the discontinued color, we ordered three other close shades, and will be mixing them up. More on that in a later post. We also decided, since the Fireclay tile is so expensive ($28 per square foot!!), that we’d just use that tile on the wall that’s facing the door, and use white ceramic tile ($1.30 per square foot) on the other two walls. It also is in stock (we have to wait about a month for the fancy tile to be made). Value engineering!

So I got started on the white tile. I covered about half a wall before I realized I hadn’t been thinking.

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The white tile has special spacers built into the edges, so you can lay it out with very tight gaps. It’s almost perfectly uniform, too. So I thought “great, I’ll make the grout gaps as small as possible.” Then I realized that the Fireclay tile requires a minimum gap of 1/8″ because it’s hand made and dimensionally irregular. So I need to also space the white tile to match, if I want the grout lines to match up (of course I do — you know me). Luckily I realized this before the end of the day, so I spent the rest of the day pulling tile OFF the wall, and scraping thinset off the back. One day, and I’d have got just as far by going for a bike ride!

The next time I started I decided to start with the wall had has a niche (photo above right). I’m making the shelves out of a piece of stone back-splash.

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Above right, you can see one of the decorative Fireclay tiles we got at their “boneyard” (over-runs and imperfect pieces at discount). I’m adding it as an accent in the white tile.

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After three days tiling, above right is where I’m at. All the grout lines are 1/8″ and lining up. I have to make one more shelf, and continue the tile up to the ceiling…

And I have to include a picture of Arwen. I hope you’re keeping as cozy as she is:

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oops i’m in france!

well, i’m not actually in france, now. but i was recently. it was a trip that kind of fell in my lap… my mom had been planning this river boat cruise for about a year. and a month before the trip her roommate cancelled. the trip was transferred to my dad who wasn’t interested in traveling, so i gladly stepped in and flew to france with my mom, my aunt linda, uncle joel and their friends nancy and ben.

besides the food, people and sights, my favorite part of the trip was taking photos. while i was in france i was posting photos to my facebook account every day. some of my friends said my updates were the highlight of their day! putting together a blog post is much more labor intensive, so here is a pared down collection from the trip. enjoy!

arwen and bella were sad to see me go, they did their best to keep me from packing. but i finally made it to the airport! here i am with my mom, aunt and uncle. 🙂

and here we are in france, on the cruise ship on the seine river! my mom is testing out the library before we set sail.

the view from our room the next morning. i loved the fog, colors and reflections. the view from our window was always beautiful and/or interesting.

we visited monet’s house and garden. the light, fog, sky and clouds in giverny is magical. it makes sense why artists were/are so inspired there.

during dinner that night THIS was our magical view as we floated by beautiful little villages along the seine.

the next day we took a walking tour of rouen. (above left) when i’m traveling in older cities, i always notice how different the path beneath my feet feels, the texture is part of the experience. throughout the trip i took photos of what i was standing on, in rouen the stones were laid out in curving patterns and right at this spot when i looked down, there were red rose petals. (above right) i got to introduce my mom to french macarons! i’ve been craving them ever since. luckily we have shops in san francisco dedicated to only making macarons. 🙂

my favorite part of rouen was the jeanne d’arc (joan of arc) cathedral.

i wanted to spend more time here…

such modern stained glass!

i loved the contrast of materials. we also had an excellent tour guide that day, she was funny, interesting and articulate. she said her kids gave her a dvd of “desperate housewives” so she could work on her english. 🙂 her english was very good.

the food and service on the cruise were consistently excellent. we got spoiled by the entire experience. and as the youngest passenger on the cruise i got a lot of attention from the crew and other passengers. (above left) here i am acting as assistant to our waiter gary as he tells his “hungarian three bears” story/joke. every couple of nights he’d perform some sort of story/trick/game for our table. we were definitely the loudest table in the dining room and according to gary that was a good thing! (above right) the next morning we toured jumieges abbey.

during tours we have on these “whisper” headsets so we can hear our tour guide talking without having to be clustered around them. during these tours i’m the one wandering off taking photos of random stuff. 🙂 i love chairs. i love trees. i love fog…

st. wandrille abbey.

st. wandrille abbey, inside the chapel and outside.

the fog cleared and we had a beautiful afternoon at the alabaster coast. this is my favorite photo taken that day. 🙂 the photo was taken by lita and pete, our “asian connection” friends from indiana.

(above left) sisters! (above right) i make feline friends all over the world!

instead of sand there were pebbles on this beach! they are harder to walk on but make a beautiful sound when the waves come in and flow out.

that night was the captain’s welcome dinner. but everyone, not just at our table, was wondering who is the captain? shouldn’t he be here? why haven’t we met him?

(above left) it turns out we had met him! francois was the captain who looked too young to be a captain. (above right) here we are with our favorite khay, who called everyone darling but called me “miss janeen.” i stopped going to the daily port talks so i could be the first into the dining room to reserve our table with khay!

the next day we visited honfleur.

it was a very scenic little village.

the following day we visited an american cemetery and memorial at colleville-sur-mer.

while we were there they had a ceremony to honor the war veterans in our group. a lot of people said this day was the highlight and the reason they wanted to come on this cruise.

omaha beach memorial.

a selfie taken on my mom’s camera. i took a photo of her camera screen. see, it’s low on battery…

the notre dame cathedral in bayeux. one of our guides told us when in doubt, notre dame is a safe name guess for any cathedral.

beautiful hydrangeas outside the bayeux tapestry museum. inside we viewed a 225 foot embroidered scroll stitched in 1067 but were not allowed to take photos of it.

more lovely morning fog. traveling towards les andelys.

i ran into our travel companions, nancy and ben doing laps on the upper deck. we took a selfie!

i found our captain francois and got an impromptu river boat sailing lesson! when the river is this foggy and you can’t see much of anything, radar is used to guide the boat.

les andelys in the distance. there’s a castle hiding in the fog on the far right.

how quickly the fog clears! walking through les andelys…

walking through les andelys… (above right) our cruise director was impressed that 60 people (out of our 134 passengers) chose to walk up the hill to see the castle and view.

the view from the top! our cruise ship docked on the right.

(above left) selfie with mom. (above right) going into the castle, château-gaillard. the view was much more impressive than the castle. i’m afraid i started tuning out our tour guide’s voice…

walking back to our cruise ship for lunch. i looked forward to every meal on the ship!

after lunch i went on a bike ride with scott, “the other kid” passenger on the cruise (he was 54 and traveling with his dad.) the cruise ship has bikes and helmets we can borrow. all my training in san francisco made me fearless on les andelys streets!

we saw the church (not a cathedral) in the village. guess what it’s called… la collégiale notre-dame des andelys.

i was drawn to the amazing graffiti art on the front of this school.

we made it back from our bike ride in time for the galley tour. it’s impressive what these chefs could do in this kitchen downstairs. and every meal gets carried upstairs on giant trays by the wait staff.

and then we had tea time!

that evening we left the ship to have dinner on land. but first the tour buses stopped at the top of the hill so the other 74 passengers (who didn’t walk up) could see the view from the top. i thought it was interesting to watch as the senior passengers of 3 giant tour buses emptied out onto the hillside.

the view.

at la grand de bourgoult there were snobby cats! and a gorgeous view, which i didn’t get a good photo of because i was too busy trying to make feline friends.

the traditional entertainment at la grand de bourgoult. we started with drinks and appetizers outside.

the setting, inside and out, was beautiful and impressive but i found the food and service just slightly less than what we’d grown accustomed to on the ship!

earlier in the day a passenger had wondered if i was 16! someone at our dinner table thought i was engaged and this would make a lovely setting for my wedding. i had to break it to them that i’ll be celebrating my 12th wedding anniversary in october. 🙂

a dramatic morning sky as we sailed towards conflans-saints-honorine.

inside the chateau at versailles!

(above left) a versailles restoration. (above right) viewing the room through a mirror.

selfie in the versailles garden.

that night was the “secret” (they forgot to officially tell us) captain’s farewell dinner. the menu included a baked cheese salad, cauliflower soup, lobster and baked alaska for dessert.

a group photo of our table with our favorites, khay and gary! i enjoyed the company and every meal we shared in the dining room. we had some good laughs and conversations. and on the last few days ben (far left) started telling jokes and riddles!

after dinner that night i finally went to listen to music in the lounge. i’d never gone before because i’d been so sleep deprived adjusting to the time zone. the local visiting singer was cheesy but quite talented and entertaining. he liked to invite passengers to come up and dance and i eventually got dragged up there with scott and two other passengers to perform a tarantella, which none of us really knew how to do! around 10:30 we all headed out to the deck to sail into paris and catch a first night time glimpse of the eiffel tower with the mini statue of liberty.

and the next morning my mom got to see the eiffel tower up close for the first time in her life!

the notre dame cathedral in paris.

(above left) my mom told me to pick out a shirt for myself and i picked a kids shirt! “super parisien!” cute, huh? (above right) the pyramids downstairs at the louvre.

a selfie downstairs at the louvre with auntie linda and my mom! right after this, a couple of fellow passengers asked me how to set their phones to take selfies. 🙂 selfies definitely take some practice…

finally inside the louvre.

the nike of samothrace, the winged victory. i wrote an essay about this sculpture when i was an art student! our tour guide was talking about how “nike” means (goddess of) victory and how appropriate this was for an athletic shoe company. then she asked who was wearing nikes and my mom was the only one. victory for mom!

i love the contrast of this super clean, modern architecture with the super ornate rooms. i don’t know much about the louvre but it felt like a cleansing of the visual palette.

it’s mind blowing to think that people created every tiny detail.

during our tour of the louvre, we really only had time to see select highlights. this included the mona lisa. there was a huge crush of people taking photos of her. i pushed forward, quickly took my photo then walked away, wishing i could have spent just a few minutes with her. i’m pretty sure this is NOT how one should view and appreciate art…

because we had such limited time, i never got to see the louvre from the outside. (we were brought their by tour buses, deposited in the downstairs garage and began and ended our tour from there.) so this was my only glimpse of the famous pyramid outside. but maybe this isn’t such a bad perspective, knowing how much i like contrasting styles and materials. 😉

that night, our last dinner on the ship, we were feeling a bit sad that the trip was almost over. (above left) mom and me with igor the executive chef. (above right) one last photo with our favorites, khay and gary.

that night scott (the other “kid”) and i took a walk down the street to see the eiffel tower. it gets lit up and sparkly for 5 minutes every hour but i think i like it more this way. this is more classic, more calm, less spazzy.

the next morning we were up EARLY. our luggage was outside of our room at 5 am. we ate our last breakfast in the dining room at 5:30 and were on the shuttle bus to the airport at 6. once we were checked in for our flight we visited the rest room and i thought, “even the rest rooms are awesome in the charles de gaulle airport!!”

and here’s a photo looking down the uphill people mover. awesome, again! there’s definitely a beauty and style about paris and france that i will miss.

this was an amazing trip for me. and it was even more amazing that i could share it with my mom. now i’m wondering if we can go on more trips like this together?? these luxury river boat cruises have trips all over the world. i could easily get used to this kind of travel. 🙂

Restoring a door

A few months ago (in my last post) — well, that was six months! — I started restoring the door that I was planning to put into the laundry room. Hmm, so riding my bike got in the way, and I stopped working on the house for quite some time! Very enjoyable.

Back to work:

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Above left I’m clamping pieces of redwood (the door is old growth redwood) to the sides of the door to slightly increase the width and height. Above right, I’m test-fitting in the pocket door opening.

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I also bought an old, beautiful brass door lock from building resources. The old door hardware is more difficult to install than the new hardware. I had to hand carve out a mortice to fit the lock.

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And then July Fourth came along… Harrison street was again a war zone of fireworks: Exciting for humans, but terrifying for Arwen and Bella. We put their “thunder shirts” on. They look a bit peeved, but it did help to calm them down a bit.

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Not that they were totally calm… but at least they weren’t hiding under the couch!

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Here’s the door ready to be stained (left) and stained (right). Still need to put polyurethane on it.

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Right next to the door, in the laundry room, is a sink. I made a cabinet that will hold the sink, and be wall-hung. None of the walls are perpendicular, so it took some trial and error to get the cabinet the right shape. I stained it with the same stain used on the door. It came out close (a bit lighter) because it’s fir, not redwood.

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Janeen spent a day filling all the nail holes, sanding and priming the wainscot. I finally finished installing all the trim.

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And here’s the door on, and the sink in. The room just needs tile on the floor and paint.