Often times, after a visit with Mike’s parents, my mother-in-law would send us home with bunches of fresh herbs from her garden. Thyme, parsley, and always rosemary. Her bush was thriving and robust, and had been there for a very long time. Most of the time, I would make rosemary roasted potatoes– adding copious amounts of chopped fresh rosemary to olive oil dressed potatoes, and a good shake of sea salt and a grind of black pepper.

About a year ago, I was sent home with some rosemary cuttings. Most of them were stripped and used to make roasted potatoes, but i took one of the cuttings and rooted it. I remember doing this a little before our annual trip up north to visit my parents for a week. I wasn’t sure if it would survive, but it did, growing from a spindly little thing to a robust plant after I transferred it to a planter on my balcony, where it thrives next some unidentified sprouting bulbs that my mother-in-law gave me once upon a time. Where they tulip bulbs? I honestly don’t recall, but I’m glad to see them so happy and green. I think Ellen would be happy about it too.

Note: not a picture of zach at work.

The other day we went for a local hike with Jules’ parents and family friends and once we we past the treeline it was like we were in another world. The trees and foliage were dense for most of the hikes, but some parts thinned out and you could see a hundred yards or so of foresty goodness.

Jules and I took the featured picture after the hike when we were waiting for everyone to catch up. More pictures soon perhaps!

I told my mom over the weekend that starting very soon I won’t be working in the city anymore. I’m going to triple my commute time and start working in the South Bay. So she asked if I knew the Monty Python song “Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life.” I said it seemed familiar. Yesterday I went out and saw her again. This time she had the Monty Python album for me.

She just had her 60th birthday last week on Monday. It’s not something I think about very often, how old my mom is. But when I do it’s very strange for me. Sixty seems so old in my head but when I look at her I see a peppy little lady. She made me a sandwich when I was home. I miss her sandwiches.

Unfortunately, my sis will be studying for her LEED exam (unless she decides to postpone it) this weekend. Alas. But hopefully I’ll get some good oyster and crab eating in with the siblings. Mmmmm… oysters. I’ll also be visiting a high school friend that I haven’t seen in years! We first met during swimming class at the YMCA when I was in elementary school. I proceeded to kick her sister in the face while swimming the front crawl. I swear I didn’t know anyone was behind me! And I didn’t even know their names. In high school orchestra, we met once again. Her first words to me were, “Oh, I remember you! You’re the one who kicked my sister in the face!” So not a great first introduction. Haha… but it will be good seeing her again. Good times, good times.

Hopefully I shall also be working on my grant proposal for fellowship applications this year. I really need to get cracking on that, because the applications are due early november! I’d like to have a good working draft by sunday so that I can bring it in and get it torn to shred by the profs that be. It’s nice that I have some preliminary data to include though~ it makes this proposal seem slightly more feasible when you actually have something to go by.

I went to see the San Francisco Symphony play in the park on Friday at my mom’s invitation. While we were sitting on the grass straining to hear the music, I noticed my mom’s shoes. I’ve known her to wear some pretty interesting shoes in the past, like rainbow ones, and ones that look like clown shoes, and leopard print ones. This time she was wearing the shoes pictured above. I couldn’t help but compare them to my own generic running shoes that I was wearing. I wonder how many other mothers out there are more stylish than their kids. She has also been known to wear cat ears to keep her hair back while she’s cooking. I guess that’s the difference between art major and plant biology major. >_>