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Sorry I haven’t posted in a while. My week has gone like this: show up Monday morning, publish document, go home and relax. Show up Tuesday morning, find out that there is a ton of work to finish between then and Thursday, get crackin, go home, fall asleep on couch. Wednesday, get to work, workity work work, come home, pass out on bed around 8 after quicky cheap-chinese food dinner. Today…well, publish document again, come home, have dinner with Danny, and pack. Needless to say, I’ve been a busy person this week. My job is typically not that insane. I don’t mind though; it makes the week go by faster.

Tomorrow, I leave for Austin. I’ll be there visiting my family and seeing some work buddies. Danny will stay behind and watch the cats.

I’m feeling sluggy today. Not sluggish. I feel like I am a slug. I cannot move. For some reason, I am pathetically tired today. No, I didn’t do anything strenuous last night unless you consider washing dishes strenuous. Disgusting yes, strenuous no.

I’ve ridden my bike to work for the last three days. I think all of the fresh air would perk me up, but the energy wears off shortly after getting to work. I think caffeine is the only way to go.
Regarding exercise, Dannky and I went hiking on Sunday.

Dannky? I guess that’s his Scandinavian name now. For the purposes of this post, I will refer to him as Dannky, my Sveedish mountain man.

Anyway, I wanted to get out of the house since the weather was so nice. We drove up to Mt. Tamalpais state park to do some sightseeing and hiking. The park was about a 1 hour drive from our home and it took another 30 or so minutes to get up the peak. Once we were there, we realized that the long drive had paid off. The scenery was amazing. From the top of a grassy peak, we looked down on the bay and the city. The towers of the golden gate bridge were tiny below. To the right, we gazed out over the pacific. Aside from a little haze, the view was clear.

We hiked around a little bit and discovered some small paths leading through the woods. Even though there were other hikers nearby, I was amazed at how quiet everything was. We were too far from the city and the shore to hear anything except the wind in the trees.

At sunset, we walked back up to the mountaintop to watch the sun sink behind the clouds on the horizon. I can’t say that the sunset was the most spectacular I’ve ever seen, but I felt extremely peaceful at that moment. We’ve posted some pictures of our trip in the latest cat photo album, but there will be more in a separate album soon.

I’ve been cooking up a storm lately. I cooked a bit before Christmas but got back into it last week. One meal I make that Danny loves is my baked chicken, fettucini alfredo, and a green vegetable such as broccoli. The noodles are really easy. The chicken takes a little while but I cook enough so we have leftovers for a day or so. I also wanted to cook a good steak. I have no prowess with cooking meat unless it’s covered in butter and baked (the chicken). My friend Matt gave me an easy preparation method to try. I cooked a nice strip steak last week and it was fantastic! Ever since then, I’ve been thinking of other beef based dishes I can try.

Another thing I made was risotto with parmesan cheese and sauteed shrimp. I also picked up a couple of nice bottles of wine. Okay, they weren’t NICE nice, but they did the trick.

If you have any tasty/easy/somewhat healthy recipes you’d like to share, just shoot me an email. I also love soups and this is definitely soup season.

Here is another cat pic to keep you entertained while I think of something interesting to write about. Click the image for more cat pics.

Oh how I wish I had visitors coming in January! I just found out that this month is San Francisco’s Dine About Town 2005. Many very nice restaurants are offering three-course prix fixe dinners and lunches at affordable prices. I’m a food fanatic and I am always looking for that perfect little affordable bistro. I get to try places near my office, but they are mostly sandwich and salad joints in the $5-10 range. I bring my lunch most of the time. I guess Danny will just have to “suffer through” eating some new cuisine with me. So sad….

Although I’m trying to save money, there are too many sales going on for me not to buy something. I thought about what I wanted and what I really needed and I decided that Danny and I desperately need a new sofa. We have an old old loveseat that I inherited from my mom. How old is it you ask? I remember sitting on it watching cartoons when I was very young. We also have a futon. Now, the futon mattress is comfortable for sleeping, but it sucks as a couch. The mattress shifts with you when you move and you constantly feel like you’re going to ooze off onto the floor. I don’t want to give up the futon though since it is where guests sleep when they come to visit. Hence, I decided to ditch the old loveseat.

With this in mind, Danny and I set out to find a nice new sofa. I had a price limit set in my head, but, after shopping for a while, I decided that finding anything I liked that was close to my budget was going to be tough. Fortunately though, we found the discount furniture outlet by our home and bought a nice, cushy, new sofa for just a little over our budget. Score. It will be delivered next weekend. As Danny says, now we have a new scratching post for our cats. I hope not.

How have I been? I’m doing well and as you can see, a new couch is the highlight of my weekend. After the holiday madness, it is a pleasant respite.

The weather this morning is pretty nasty. It is chilly and raining. It isn’t raining hard now, but there are plenty of puddles and slippery spots. I was walking to the train this morning when I heard a horn blow. Thinking it was my train, I broke into a trot. I stepped over a chain barrier to go through a parking lot, and my right foot got snagged. Down I went into the puddle. I hit my knee, but didn’t fall too hard because I stopped the fall with my hand. My jeans got wet too. I was annoyed more than hurt. When I got to the train station, I realized that the horn I heard was not for my train, so I waited another three or so minutes waiting for my train to show up and assessing the damage to my jeans. I was tempted to go home and go back to bed, but it is Friday and I wanted to go in and end the week on a good note.

When I got to work, I showed the damage to one of my coworkers. He grinned, bent over, hitched up the leg of his pants to show me the cut on his knee from when he busted early this morning. We pitied our wounds, but then acknowledged that the bruises would heal and that no permanent damage had been done.

The kitties are doing well. When I left for work early Tuesday morning, I felt guilty for about a split second. The cats wouldn’t suffer just lounging around the apartment all day. Plus, Danny would be home around 5:30. The great thing about having two cats that get along is that they can entertain each other. Most of the neurotic cats I’ve known have been single cats left at home on their own everyday. I’m no expert on raising cats, but they seem to scratch you a lot less if they have a buddy to attack instead.

Boomer’s name suits him well. He has no inhibitions. He will fall off the couch onto his back if it means catching his toy. Boris is the quieter one. He’ll play with his brother, but he’s more prone to sit back and watch the action than participate. Boomer will be the first to walk up to you for petting. Boris sometimes starts purring the moment you look at him. He doesn’t mind being held or picked up, whereas Boomer will wriggle free if he gets distracted, which usually only takes a second or two.

When I get home, the cats are either at their food dishes or curled up together on Danny’s footrest. I’d like for them to learn to sleep on our bed, but they get really wound up at night. They also have the ability to jump on the bed and land exactly on my head. Daniel says that they sound like “headcrabs” in his computer game, only much cuter of course.

New Year’s Eve was a lot of fun…for me. Danny said he had a good time, but he was the designated driver and had to put up with all of us crazies, so I’ve been really sweet to him all weekend. Aasma was in town visiting her boyfriend, so she and her friend Jamie arranged the festivities. Danny and I picked up Greg, Aasma, and their friend Quinn at Greg’s parents house then drove down to a Korean restaurant on Geary to meet Jamie and her boyfriend. The restaurant was small, cool, and not too terribly trendy. We had a dinner reservation at 9:30, but got seated around 10. The DJ had a good mix of hiphop and R&B classics playing and we began our long night of drinking mystery sake or champagne drinks. The food was really good in my opinion, but they were really slow in serving us. Also, there wasn’t much to it. It was a couple’s dinner, but there was probably enough food for one person. To make up for the lack of food, I took Danny out to eat pizza the next night.

Anyway, we had a champagne toast at midnight and I think everyone had a good time.

Although going out for NYE was fun, staying home with the kitties is nearly as exciting. They have discovered their toys and attack them when they’re not busy attacking each other.

Danny and I both had today off, so we took them to the vet for their “free first exam.” Since they’d already been vaccinated, neutered, and all of that other good stuff, the vet just gave them a once over and said that she probably wouldn’t need to see them anytime soon. After getting home from their exciting trip, we all took a short nap on the bed together. Awwww….