At least I finished a sock

I think I need to join another exchange or something that requires me to post at least once a week so this doesn't follow in the tracks of many of my journals. Growing up, I loved the idea of keeping a journal. Oh yes, all self-importantly recording the vital thoughts of the moment. It's not that it would be very interesting to anyone else but I did and do have fun rereading the few journal entries I did write. Does take you back a bit (ah reminiscing of the good old days when the streets were paved with gold and man did they get worn down quickly). I never could keep up with journal writing so I have a lot of little books with one long entry in which I try to write my life history up until then ("I was born in Los Angeles in California in North America on planet Earth within our happy little solar system in the Millky Way galaxy...") then a date um three or four years later with an entry that goes something like "ok, well since I last wrote I've grown zero inches taller and developed a third arm which is an uncommon but heritable condition."

This blog was supposed to be different. It's public for one and not that anyone necessarily reads it, but IF I were doing an exchange and IF my exchange partner were to look for my weekly posting and it did not exist THEN the skies would rumble and there would be consequences. Maybe.

At any rate, not to give the impression that I need a something flogging my back to make me write, but since there are no hovering threats I've been happily thinking about writing more than actually doing it. Went to the Healdsburg Guitar Festival and fell in love. Meant to write something about the handsome Canadian I met, but since that guitar lives all the way in Ontario and I already have a guitar, actually three guitars--though one needs repair to return to its crappy old state and one is borrowed from my brother (G.A.S. runs in the family)--plus I don't really play guitar, I couldn't justify acquiring a new one even a beautiful one with mun ebony back and sides, beveled armrest and sweet ringing tone. But if you're looking for a guitar (or a really really really really expensive gift for me), check out my favorite luthier of the show, Beneteau Guitars. Actually his guitars are quite reasonably priced--especially compared to the $30,000 guitars we saw at the show--for their quality and if I were a real guitarist, I might have come home with a new guitar.

And I've been meaning to write about the gluten-free baking I've been doing. Gluten-free quiche, zucchini bread, peanut butter cookies, banana bread... And the disappointment of looking up GF recipes only to find the basic recipe with a call for Bob's Red Mill GF flour mix or some such commercial product. I've been mostly substituting a mix of white and brown rice flours plus a bit of xanthan gum but I wouldn't mind more recipes that named specific flours to use as substitutes.

Plus I've been trying to make the most of the end of summer with weekend escapes. For instance, we went to Point Reyes where I managed to pretty much miss photographing the ocean (it may have creeped into the corner of one pic). We left our bags to walk along the beach and the paranoid LA girl in me wondered just a bit if it were a good idea, you know, like someone could totally steal something. As we walked back, my newer Northern Cali-hangs-out-with-ecologists-and-outdoorsey-folks self realized humans weren't the real reason not to leave a bag unattended on the beach and sure enough, we came back to a site of carnage, apple juice container mercilessly ripped open and dragged, wool strewn in the sand (naturally I had wool in my bag), a bag of chips kidnapped never to be seen again. The unopened kipper snacks had a hole punched through the metal. And everywhere, footprints, leading here, there, around in circles in a virtual frenzy. The perpetrators hadn't gone far either...we spied two sitting 20 feet away hoping we'd open up the kipper snacks all the way for them and dump them.

So I've been meaning to write and had things to write about but haven't actually sat down to do it. And now that I've spent a bit of time typing away I don't really feel like writing about this past weekend, so I'll stop blabbing and just throw up some photos of our weekend at Earthdance. I had to go when I heard one of my favorite jazz groups, Medeski Martin and Wood was playing with John Scofield. I enjoyed them more when I last saw them in a smaller venue but it was a fun festival.

There were giants:

Dancers:
This girl was amazing, dancing in time while effortlessly spinning her hula hoop around her body and arms:
It was a little more effort for Aaron but he got it:And I finished a sock while watching the bands. Checking the fit:

Yay, new sock (sadly singular which doesn't bode well since I definitely suffer from second sock syndrome). This is some of my hand-dyed merino, handspun on a spindle.
Rows after rows of cars, but a very pretty sunset: