Sprawled Again

After a mysteriously long hiatus, I'm back! Was I in an iron lung or on a reality show? Or maybe it was a reality show about being in an iron lung?

Big news. As of this afternoon, we have signed on for another 10 months of sprawling in the South Bay, adding new life and purpose to this blog. This is a sort of last gasp before the confluence of a number of changes in summer '08: wedding, new apartment, new job (for me), and another six-hour exam (for me). Looks like we won't be making it to Beijing for the Olympics.

The decision to renew the lease happened to come on the same day I discovered that I have gained 15 pounds since leaving San Francisco. Despite being surrounded by nature here, it apparently takes more effort to go out and take advantage of it. The Fremont Older Open Space is something we just discovered recently. This is someone's random photo from Flickr, but it works for me. It's sort of a perfect cross between Rancho San Antonio, which is covered in nice shaded paths, and the Dish at Stanford, which gives you immediate gratification with a steep hill at the beginning and awesome views within five minutes. Interesting fact: this is not the older cousin of some lesser known Fremont Younger Open Space, but used to be owned by a San Francisco reporter named Fremont Older.

Still life with pepper and paranoia

I went to the farmers' market at Vallco Fashion Park (probably my favorite textbook example of a shortsighted branding decision) during my lunch break today for the first time. It only runs from 9am to 1pm on Fridays, so I never really would have been able to go if I wasn't working from home.

I got some tiny red bell peppers (one is pictured left, reclining on the stovetop), Japanese eggplants, a whole pint of blueberries, a portobello mushroom, a bag of fresh spinach, two white nectarines, and a pound of spectacular, sashimi-grade scallops... all for under $25. I had the portobello and some spinach for lunch, both pan-fried with a little olive oil, salt and pepper. For about an hour or so, I was super excited about this.

While I love farmers' markets and am always amazed to see the variety of stuff that is miraculously coaxed out of the ground in the Bay Area... by the middle of my blog post, the whole episode suddenly made me feel a little uncomfortable and oh-so-twenty-five-years-old and fast becoming some kind of monstrous housewife-y type ("in the morning I do my Pilates, and then I go to the farmers' market, pose and photograph an organic bell pepper, saute some vegetables, update my blog, go shopping with my girlfriends and head to yoga!").

So um, if you'll excuse me, I think I'm going to stop daydreaming about my vegetables and go back to being a results-oriented strategy professional. :-)

Simpsonified

This Simpsons avatar creator is so cool! Thanks for the tip, Caro.



















Wow, that's two posts with Simpsons references in a row...