visiting my lil bro

went to visit my little brother who is in the Army in Fort Bragg, NC.

i took family pics for them while i was there (seth, his beautiful wife alexandra, and their bundle of joy, jayden):
we went to a haunted airplane one night.
i got to watch jayden while her parents entered the haunted dungeons...

the lil nugget of love slept! while goblins and ghouls howled around us...
(here's the haunted "hercules" which also happens to be the type of plane my bro jumps out of (he's airborne)
me trying on his ridiculously heavy "body armor" - seriously like 3 inches thick of metal - what i wish i had when my my dad used to spank me...

The new mid-october

As a kid growing up in upstate ny, mid-october always meant things like hot-spiced cider, raking leaves & jumping in them, grape-picking, apple-picking & going to the cider press, and maybe, if i was real lucky, my mom's home-made potato donuts. but not-no-more. (for more details on mid-october activities in upstate, check-out my sister's blog, where she's doing such a fine job keeping these traditions alive, i feel home-sick every time i read her blog)

this is california. i miss the old mid-october, but it's also pretty nice going to beach in swimwear rather than donning a scarf and gloves.

this is what we did this past weekend to ring-in the autumn season:

santa cruz...
rode our bikes along west cliff drive...
took-in the seascape...

definitely not better than eating fresh-grown concord grapes, wrapping my lil fingers around a mug of hot fresh-pressed cider, and sinking my teeth into a just-made donut, but it was calorie-free, and pretty amazing to let my skin feel the hot sun in mid-october.

Goodbye Garden

one of our favorite things about this new apartment we moved into is that we have a (small but much appreciated) back patio/garden area. we pulled up some of the ground bricks and built two small gardens:

we planted mostly seedlings
and they grew! this is our first tomato, which we gave to marley because squirrels had taken a big bite out of it.
the squash plants (yellow crookneck and zucchini) produced more flowers than anything else.
i used them to make a salad. delicious, delicate flavor. yum.

it was a learning experience. here were our results:

7 cucumber plants from seed - yield: 1 cucumber (total)

10 pepper plants from seedling - yield: about 3 small shriveled peppers

4 zucchini plants from seedling - yield: about 5 zucchini.

4 yellow squash from seedling - yield: about 3 small squash.

2 basil plants from seedling - yield: 2 off-the-hook basil plants that are still producing (despite a recent bug infestation)

4 tomato plants from young plant - yield: dozens of juicy delicious tomatoes.

10 attempted chard plants from seed - yield: 3 resurrected chard plants that have just begun to really grow

so far, we would only do basil and tomatoes again. we think we packed the garden way too much, and the plants choked each other out. next time we will try the less-is-more approach.

this morning i planted more chard, to see if we can get it going this time. we'll see!

Left Coast Live

Last year we went to this concert, which is hosted in downtown San Jo. It only cost $15 and we got to see The Neon Trees and Ok Go. And since it was pretty poorly attended, we were about 3 feet from the stage. It was also just a few blocks from our apartment at that time. It was awesome.

We decided to go again this year, and it was fun, but not nearly as good as last year. First, freezing cold. Second, not as good of bands. The Postelles were good even though the sound system was pretty messed-up, and The Limousines were good, but we decided they're a little too techno for us (though brett does love their song "internet killed the video star" - it is pretty good).

the limousines:

brett was approached by some guys during the concert and asked for some joint-rolling paper. this is not the first time this has happened. lil do those poor boys know how ironic that is...

anyway, i still love going to concerts with brett. i think it makes us feel like there's still a lil bit of teen punk lingering inside us. church-going, law-abiding, boring teen punks. but still punk-rock...