Riding the love train...

...actually riding the Caltrain.

As I could not read my book going backwards (trainsick!). I decided to take pics of the sights (for this composition c pic) on the way back from San Francisco to home. I like the graffiti on the chair 'So listen up!' it would be cool for an activist tee.

Anyone who has caught the Caltrain might recognise some of the sights... a tree in Autumn, the cat's inn (whether it is a cat store, I dunno??!!), gum trees in Burlingame, dude travelling the Bart in SFO, street lamp in San Mateo & Yo this is not a through street man!

The cat is in the bag...

Finally made a visit to Bloomingdales - I rate it as a department store. Customer service is top notch & people there are willing to help you if you look lost :) Lost in a department store - how convenient! These bags are an example of some classic branding - very 70s & very cool! Here is Mack relaxing after a day out in the garden chasing squirrels in the sunshine.

Knit it & knit it good!

On Sunday I took off all on my lonesome out to the big city! It was a mission but well worth it as I had a knitting class to go to at artfibers http://www.artfibers.com/index.php. It was cool to catch the Caltrain most of the way, then hop onto the Bart that travels through some great sights on the way, but the windows are filthy and it is mostly underground.

It was a 3 hour workshop where I learnt how to knit, purl, cast on & cast off. So my new project (c pic) is a pair of fingerless gloves. Hopefully they turn out, as I was a bit over making scarves as I have made a couple in Melbourne. I loved the day out & James stayed home with Ashwin & they did the farmers market shopping. I am off again this Sunday to learn some advanced knitting moves which I am looking forward to. The store where the workshop was held was just amazing - they have the most incredible selection of fibres to choose from, so it was very hard to choose a ball to go... I ended up buying this beautiful fine merino & silk blend & it is great to work with.

As Autumn leaves start to fall

I miss you most of all, my darling, when Autumn leaves start to fall - a classic Coldcut track...

Here we are enjoying a picnic down at a park nearby - Magnolia Park. Hence the pic of one of the first magnolias to bloom. The grass is so green & lush everywhere you go & it so soft to lie on. It is now Fall here in America but I cannot bring myself to say Fall when it really is Autumn. The colours of Autumn - red, orange, yellow, green & brown are just divine against a blue sky. Ashwin is loving the outdoors and most of all - the fibrous leaves that are very crunchy.

We wandered down to get some peace & quiet but unfortunately it was the day of the lawnmower man & his pal the leafblower were out & about. Ashwin was trying to get their attention with his antics. Strange how the footpaths are leaf free most of the time, whoever does the landscaping around here is 'raking it in' this time of year :)

When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie...

...that's amore.

And here is a pic of our first home delivery pizza - man it wasn't cheap $15 but it was a big 13 inches! Cannot beat the ol' Pizza Express in Coburg at $6.50 a pie, but this pizza was yummy. We had the Greek Isle Pizza with feta, mozzarella, artichoke hearts & sun-dried tomatoes. It was tagged as New York style, so it had a thin, crispy crust, we were very happy with our pizza so we topped it off with some New York cheesecake - whoa!

Parklife

Ashwin & I have been loving the ventures out to the park in the beautiful sunshine. The weather is just too gorgeous to stay inside, so we go out for a picnic down the park. I really have to keep my eyes on Ashwin as he sees a squirrel & off he goes... Here he is having leaves for lunch, he had managed to take off in just a few seconds!

Numbers...

Man this country has numbers coming out of it's rear end... and you cannot do anything unless you have a specific number to quote to get past GO! What I am referring to now is the Medical Record Number that you need to get any sort of medical assistance at all & how many times do I have to spell my name & really it is English I am speaking here - you eeeediots!!!!

Whew that feels better - just felt like I had to expell a little frustration with this joint :)

The joys of letterboxing...

In between writing my blog, entertaining Ashwin & general house stuff, I am editing some video for a family DVD to send to the folks & family back in Australia. I cannot wait to get my mits on Final Cut Express - it will be soooo much fun!! Anyhow for now I am editing in iMovie, it is OK but I am looking for more in a video editing package. So my whinge here is that my camera records in widescreen mode but when I import the footage it takes ages to letterbox so here I am on the IBM updating my blog as my mac is out of action until it finishes it's thing. I am getting there (as I had no time to do it in Melbourne) I am using my time here to sort out the movies. Thing is that I am shooting more footage to send as well, so it seems like these will never be done... It is hard when the sun is shining & there is a pool nearby. Hopefully I will just have to say 'CUT' & complete the project before it gets out of control!

Please please tell me now, is there something I should know...

We come to the great invention of voice recognition systems & the confusion of what button to press to find a human being to talk to! Nearly every number for a service in this great country is on an automated phone answering system... great you might say! Well the tricky thing is to finding the right area to go through to in the first place, which is difficult as there are strange names for services here. The best is when I rang UPS & try to notify them to deliver my package to the right address, an easy task maybe, but no everything here is designed to drive you nuts! The number I rang had no "human" option so it felt I was in this maze of trying to find the right way out. In the end I rang a store & they said to me when u hear the options just dial zero twice to get through to an operator... man the secrets of telephone systems! James tells me there is a site where there is a list of 'codes' to get through to a human being - ah here it is http://gethuman.com/tips.html - some handy hints indeed!

The best one so far is to get through to your health service provider - the one we chose is Kaiser Permante! I ring the Paed section for some advice & after I have explained myself the woman says "what is the childs name & date of birth" & then she goes on to say "Oh I am sorry he doesn't have a patient record" Oh der lady, I just told you we are potential patients of yours & you didn't listen to me, grrrr!! Well what can you do when you get "patched through" to another answering system that goes to nowhere. Think we will just have to get our member number to get any serious bizness happening!

Pic is of another great American mystery - poodle trees?? (Does take some skill though)

Library tales... as fun as your A B C

I am a member of the local library now & I am very excited as it seems the sanest place to be! Well almost?! First time I went to borrow books out for Ashwin I went to ask one question to the librarian about the Mem Fox books and she got all excited about books & gave me this massive pile of DVDs, CDs & books to take away with me. Of course I couldn't carry them all away, I just took a few but Ashwin was thrilled about having some new books to look at or close depending on his mood. The highlight for him was the DVDs & he has this thing now where he'll look at the iMac & see if there is anything on! Oh oh maybe we introduced that powerful media all too soon??!!

Now I remember, the librarian also gave me some info on the American Paediatric Association & the introduction of DVD's & TV into their space too early. She mentioned that the kids don't focus on things well & get distracted easily - don't know if that is genes or the intro of the TV? Anyway he just loves Sesame Street - it is educational at least. His favourite character is Oscar the grouch, he has a cool demeanour about him even though might stink!! Oh & how can we forget Elmo, he is a bit of a cutie & Ashwin loves him too! Everything in moderation, so he'll only watch it in the morning or evening & the rest of the time is left to adventuring in the apartment & out & about...

Our shipment arrived by sea, sea, sea...

Finally our shipment of crap arrived on Wednesday! We thought yippee some of our beloved stuff to find but alas, most of our beloved stuff & the things we care about (like our hard drive with all our music on it!!) is missing in the air shipment that mysteriously disappeared. Well the thing is that we had 16 boxes of stuff sent by air & 8 of the boxes just didn't show up... these are boxes that have the baby car seat, designer clothes from Melbourne - places like BODY & The Cats Meow, my wedding dress, a scanner, bedding & the best thing of all - the hard drive with our movies & music on it. I am so hanging out for some a Wong Kar Wai flick! We have been watching episodes of the Simmos (we haven't seen in Australia) but it just ain't the same as a good arthouse film.

Anyway, I digress from the shipment of 46 boxes that arrived. The un-packers just emptied the boxes to the closest flat surface in the house which meant the bed in our room & the floor in Ashwins room & the countertops in the kitchen. You don't realise how much stuff you have accumulated until you have to reconfigure them to a new home - the kitchen stuff especially, the apartment kitchen is a third of the size of the our kitchen at home! I pretty much had to throw most of the stuff away or back in storage it will go. Our rooms are looking very cluttered at the moment but the stuff that did arrive doesn't thrill me too much as most of it will go to the goodwill shop anyway! I do hope the insurance money comes through as there is a lot to replace but unfortunately some of it will be irreplaceable e.g. the wedding dress & shoes! I am thankful though that my mac made it here though, I would be very upset if that went missing...

Pic is of Ashwin at Redcliffe in Queensland - nice beach pic, aaaaah :)

The 101 of addressing a letter in the US of A

Well all my mail was addressed & ready to go, except for the customs forms of course - which I dread as there is so much to fill out! Anyway I take my mail in & they say "You have no return address on the envelope" & I say "Yeah man it is on the back". He says "Sorry ma'am but you will have to write your address on the front left hand corner". So I was like, where am I?? another planet I am sure!! This is a place all to itself the grand ol' world of the US of A. So if anyone sees my address scrawled messily in a corner of the envelope, that is why I had enough of filling out forms & writing my address everywhere. I think I might invest in an address stamp... to think I was laughing at the thought the other day, but now I can completely understand :)

The pic is of a waiting room at the Caltrain station in San Jose - God Bless America!

Those big ol' pumpkins!

Halloween is just around the corner and halloween bits & bobs have been in the stores for a few weeks now (c the big pumpkin, it is the land of the BIG). So it is nearly time to get on your costume & start trick or treating. We have a pumpkin door mat & I think that will be the extent of our halloween celebrations. I did see a cool pumpkin costume for Ashwin but he would have been way too tiny for it & all you would see is his feet popping out of the bottom & his hands popping out of the side - would look cute though :) James is keen that I get a saucy halloween costume as that is all the costumes that he has seen so far - man what has he been reading??!! No just kidding, there are full page ads in the local street press of busty girls wearing outfits with mini skirts in the form of witches, cheerleaders, devils, vampires and the rest - just leave it to your imagination, the possibilities are endless!!

Speaking of freaks, I have dealt with my fair share for the moment, while ordering simple things like stationery & linen online. There was a problem with my credit card - no I hadn't maxed it! It was just that the bank forgot to change my address of our joint bank account so my billing address didn't match the shipping address, grrrrr... So how did I discover this - someone rang re my stationery order & said it had been rejected due to a problem with the address. So I rang the bank & they said "oh we still have your old address on file" OMG what does it take to change an address on a joint bank account??!! Then they said it will take 24 hours to verify, man this place is driving me bananas with their antiquated processes. I will explain the stationery... you see over here you have special places to buy things so you can't just buy envelopes at a supermarket, you have to go to a place called Office Depot, say it with me this time with an American accent Office Depot (forget the t at the end OK!) Well we have managed to accumulate a bunch of paperwork to send back to Australia but we didn't have any envelopes to send them in, then I thought how about ordering online?? Great idea till my card is rejected & then I have to call customer service hotline to order over the phone. Man I am sure I speak in another language as the invoice read some crazy name that sounded like mine but wasn't my name at all & to top it off it was spelt differently on the same page?? go figure?? Then I am tracking this package & the UPS guy realises there is no apartment number on the address & it takes a week to get to me!

Ashwins explores many wonders...

Saturday came around & it was Ashwin's day to celebrate his birthday with his mum (mom) & dad. We were going to go to the zoo in San Fran but we abandoned that plan as it would have taken us 2 & a half hours to get there. It is on the other side of the city, near the Pacific Ocean :) A familiar place to us! We then scanned through the parent mags & thought maybe a pumpkin festival, had a look online - it looked pretty boring... so then we found the Childrens Discovery Museum http://www.cdm.org/viewPage.asp?mlid=189 & they have a place called The Wonder Cabinet a place designed for 0-5 year olds. There was a great spot in there for Ashwin called The Crawl Space where he could explore a 3 way mirror, hang out with some puppets or wander up some stairs designed for little ones. He had an excellent time in there & so did we! The highlight of the "Cabinet" was the 'Duck in Kaliedoscope' where there was a rotating carosel of horses within a lightbox that rotated - it was very psychedelic indeed & Ashwin just loved watching the coloured lights. Before we knew it Ashwin was getting into tired mode & it was time to go, oh well there is always next time as it is such a place where kids can experience new things each time they visit.

Oh the pic with the six legged tiger is taken on the way to the CDM at a train station - there was a whole family of them, freaky!

Let them eat cake :)

As we have been a bit unorganised as far as days are concerned we thought - man we have to get Ashwin some birthday cake, sure you can buy a cake online but at a crazy price & they are all so ugly as well. I was looking for a yummy looking cake just like the cakes we find on Lygon St.

As I couldn't find any decent cake shops in the area I found this at the Asian supermarket. Angel Cake - a product of Malaysia. It is not just one cake but 7 individually packaged morsels full of sugar, enough to make you hyper for a while. Anyway this was the cake for the moment - my plan was to make a cake & have friends & family over to our place for a birthday party in Melbourne. Oh well the plan was foiled & it was just Mum & Dad at the party with a cake that wasn't very cool at all! Hopefully once the rest of our kitchen stuff comes - maybe next week (fingers crossed!!) I can bake Ashwin a cake & decorate it as well. As u can see from the pic Ashwin wasn't too phased, he seemed very excited at the prospect of the crinkly sounding packaging!

Happy 1st birthday little muffin!

It was Ashwins 1st birthday on the 11th, here he is with his prezzies! It was a fun day as we spent the day out & about downtown & going to the park for lunch. Finally a beautiful memorial park with established trees to enjoy. It was great as there were signs with botanical names of the trees, so I know what to call them. The liquid amber is just divine at the moment with the colours of the leaves as it is fall (autumn). Here is anohter pic of Ashwin with a huge oak tree in the backgroud. It is a lovely spot to hang out as the library is close by as well as the arts centre & the bank! We will have to go back again to take a wander around. After Ashwins lunch & photo shoot I went to have a japanese feast for lunch. Man cannot get enough of Japanese food and I found out why California rolls are called as such - it is because they have avocado in them, yum!! Also had some delicious sashimi with tempura that I shared with Ashwin, this all came with miso, a tasty salad & rice for just $9.95 plus taxes & tips. BTW tips being 20% the total was $13 which is excellent for a satisfying meal.

Winds in the Willows

Here is a pic of Ashwin in amongst an amazing grove of Willow trees. We were just wandering around in the beautiful Californian sunshine when we stumbled across this abandoned office block just near the light rail station. It was a huge building and there were chairs & tables for the ex office folk to enjoy on their breaks. What a great place just to hang around for a while.

Wandering across the tracks and then we saw a few magnolia giganti trees awaiting their blooms and beneath this concrete archway a beautiful grove of trees and lush green grass. Willows are a beautiful tree to soak in the shade as they seem to have this air of coolness from their branches. After Ashwins lunch we went for a little walk around the building to find a luscious rose garden, well what a waste of flowers, why not pick them for decoration :) a bit thorny without any scissors! It was a lovely find in amongst the residential mecca.

Eggs on yer face...

Check this out - I was making eggs for breakfast on the weekend & this is what appeared in the frypan! To me it looks like a map of Australia & it even has Tasmania there (my favourite place to visit!). Well I was impressed so it deserves a place on our blog. James ended up scoffing down Australia in minutes.

And yes I am homesick & there are days when these nice as pie Americans test my patience! Well I am talking about the annoying telemarketers who can't stop once they have their spiel running. Things will only get better in time, hey it has just been a month & I am still coming to terms to how backward the people here are! The technology is advanced - there is a gadget for everything but when it comes to processes anything you apply for will take forever. Australia is leaps & bounds ahead of America with their processes.

Just cancelled the phonebook directory listing for 28 cents per month - a small price to pay to keep your sanity. Funny thing is that the Americans will only accept NO & you have to really be straighforward with your answers otherwise they will just ring you again and again. One guy today said 'how about a donation for our schools' and my answer was 'sorry I am not interested' so he said 'how about i ring your husband later' - sure dude and I am sure he will say the same. It ain't our problem that the education system here is in a bad shape! There is no way I am sending my son to school in this crazy place...

Home is where the Heart is...

Well we have finally moved into our new pad & what a lovely pad it is. We have the minimalist look at the moment as we don't have much except for our beds, cot and the cool couch that we bought. Of course Ashwin has a highchair & play yard (aka Portacot in Aust). It is a beautiful place and the cats have been going crazy - esp Mack, he even caught a butterfly the other day :( and tormented it to it's death (I do not agree with this behaviour, but cats will be cats!) The removalists managed to loose a box of our stuff so we have to file an insurance claim! I am just a bit pi##ed off because my wedding dress was in that shipment as well as some very gorgeous shoes that I will dearly miss. Hopefully the rest of our shipment is coming this week & let us hope it doesn't get caught up in customs for 10 days like the last lot!!

Oh yeah - this pic of Ashwin is taken when I heard some strange sucking noises coming from the kitchen & I was wondering what he was eating & then I discovered that he was trying to eat the sponge he had found in the bottom drawer - very nutritious indeed!

What cocktail are you??

Speaking of alcohol - let us speak of my favourite drink, vodka. This is an ad I found in SF weekly. I thought this drink would be perfect for dapeaches - I have found heaven, Apeach flavoured vodka. Just have to track it down now - on our travels we saw this store called BevMo! (Beverages & more) so we had better make a mission to check it out - yep it is there for only 21 bucks, sorted! Don't even have to leave the house I can order it online...

Oh yeah I found out what broil means on the stove. I thought it was grill but nope it means burn your tortilla. Well I was making a wrap for lunch & doing other things at the same time when there was smoke coming out of the stove - oops keep an eye on the broil!

Spill the wine

Oh we have found a lovely red from safeway! Yep you can buy alcohol here when you go to the supermarket & even when u go down to the sev (7-eleven) you can buy booze too! Not that we are hanging out for a drink all the time, we just are enjoying what the local wineries have to offer. I mean you can see where this bottle came from & I have to say that it was a lovely bottle of red and very comparable to our reds back home in Australia. I have heard the Sonoma region is very good too & we found a Sauv Blanc from there which we scoffed down with some popcorn on our first night at our new pad - yeah stylin' microwave popcorn & wine??!! Oh well it was late & the "fridge deli" wasn't open for bizness. Anyway back to the red - we had it with a lovely curry and rice with curry paste from the farmers market, mmmmm delicious!

Down at fraggle rock!

As Ashwins 1st birthday is coming up soon we got him some birthday prezzies. One very exciting present is the complete first season of Fraggle Rock & he loves watching them! He also scored a Sesame st DVD which he enjoys also - it is so cool as DVDs are so cheap here! Here is a pic of him enjoying a tune by the fraggle dudes. I remember it when I used to come home from school & watch it on the teev - now I am reliving it with my little one! Hehehe any excuse to (as Kylie says) 'Step back in time'.

Home sweet home...

Finally we are in our new apartment/pad in Mountain View. It is just the coolest spot with beautiful green grass outside with loads of established trees. We have a 1950's couch (that u can turn into a bed) that we found on craigslist and it is so cool! The pic doesn't do it justice. So our weekend consisted of trekking around finding stuff so we could move to our new pad. We had to hang out & wait for the couch to be delivered most of Sat but hey it was well worth it. So we ended up getting bits & pieces in the afternoon & by the end of all that we came back home to do some research online. You see that here in the US of A there is sooo much out there that you don't know what to choose when u r buying stuff e.g. a vacuum cleaner. The options are just too many!! So I am hoping we will find one soon, esp now that the cats are here with us & they are enjoying the great outdoors. We are so happy to have moved to the place we will stay for the next few months, it is great to finally feel like we have a home again.

The farmers market was the way to go on the weekend again & it was just excellent! I have to learn to do as others do - for example waiting in line to get some food when the server guy says "Who's next?" you just have to say what u want before anyone else says anything. Well the thing is that if you don't get in there first - it doesn't matter if you were there first, you just have to get in there & order before someone pushes in. It is funny as I have seen such extreme behaviour with people here, where there are really nice folk but then there are people that are so rude & arrogant (hey that is what I have thought all along!). We'll see if my outlook towards these Americans change - my husband says it could be that we are living in the suburbs of SFO but still there is no excuse for rudeness!