Yo, crickets... take five!

Chirp, chirp... chirp chirp... yep, that's about how quiet it's been here in Blue Sky Blogland for the past two months or so. I've seriously missed writing on here, but if you recall from my last post, school has been taking up much more of my time this semester. Fortunately, I'm down to my last week of that... one more paper due, one more assignment, and then I'm free for a month. Woo-hoo!

So let's see... last time I wrote back in September, Eric & Tommy were about to visit us from San Antonio. We had a royal blast with those two! Although I always end up in the same predicament with out-of-town visitors: where do we take them? When Steve & I are out by ourselves or with local friends, when we find a cool new place to eat or drink I say to myself, "Self, remember this place for when people visit from elsewhere". Do I remember? Of course not. But after strolling around Fisherman's Wharf, we ended up making one of our many beverage stops at the Buena Vista Cafe for their famous Irish coffee. (Eric had seen the place on Food Network and really wanted to go.) I'm ashamed to admit that I had never been there in 13 years of living in San Francisco! Yes, I have been back since.

After that we got wrapped up in Giants playoff fever, and we all know how that turned out! With the dismal economy and all-around gloominess around here, San Francisco needed that World Series win bigtime. It brought the city together like nothing I've ever seen before. And it was a little disconcerting but totally thrilling to be part of a crowd of over a million people to celebrate the win at the Giants' victory parade. I still get chills thinking about the whole experience, and I'm counting down the days until spring training starts so we can hopefully do it all over again!

In October, I was very pleased to track down my long-lost cousin Marijo on Facebook. She and I hadn't been in contact with each other for something like 15 years due to some old family drama that I won't get into here...not the fault of either of us, just the way that it went down. Considering how little of my side of the family I've maintained ties with, it's been really great to reconnect... and to remember that not everybody in our family was crazy. ;-) Love ya, Marijo!

Thanksgiving sneaked (snuck?) up on me before I knew it, and Steve & I continued our holiday tradition of spending the day with our great friends Bill & Kim and John & Sharon. It's been, what... five Turkey Days together now? This year was a nice, low-key celebration at McCormick & Kuleto's restaurant in Ghirardelli Square (followed by a stop at the afore-mentioned Buena Vista Cafe). The good news: no leftovers. The bad news: no leftovers.

And that brings us pretty much up-to-date. Assuming that I finish my last paper in time, Steve & I will go out this Sunday to buy our Christmas tree and do our holiday decorating. Since we've got two cats (one of whom, Jojo, is the devil incarnate), we'll get a small tabletop tree so there will be no ornaments dangling tantalizingly toward the floor. A few Christmas carols, Charlie Brown & Rudolph on DVD, a little holiday bubbly and some fresh-baked chocolate chip cookies... ahh, it's a wonderful life. (We won't watch that movie until Christmas Eve, but you get the idea.)

Until next time... which hopefully will be a lot sooner than last time... ciao! :-)

P.S. We've booked our reservations for our trip back to Penn State for my graduation in August... wow, this is really happening!