Anyone Got Recipes For Figs?

Well, my last request for help from all two of my readers didn’t work out so well, but I can’t resist trying again. As mentioned, as a wedding present, Audris put together a really cool cookbook with recipes (and stories and well wishes) from all our friends and relatives. We’ve actually been using some of those recipes (thanks!) but now we could use some more help. We moved into our new house and have discovered it has a cool fig tree in the front. So, for a couple of weeks, we’ve been eating fresh figs. But, plain old figs are starting to get boring… so, anyone got some good fig recipes?

Quick Question…

I recognize this sounds like a Steven Wright bit or something, but… uh… how do you throw out a garbage can?

Skunks and Cats Living Together! Mass Hysteria!

One of the things I enjoyed most back when I lived in Foster City was that I was like a block away from the Foster City Bay Trail and could bike along the Bay up to the airport and back. These days, I tend to (when I get the chance) drive down to Oracle and pick up the trail there (just south of Foster City). Over the years, if you bike that portion of the Bay Trail, one thing you learn about is the feral cat population. Foster City has a feral cat problem with probably hundreds of wild cats living along approximately a two mile portion of the Bay Trail surrounding the San Mateo Bridge. If you’re out around twilight, you can’t miss the cats. They’re everywhere. About six months ago, as I was biking that section in the evening, marveling at the number of cats, I noticed that one of the cats wasn’t a cat at all, but was clearly a skunk, hanging out with the cats. I thought that was odd, but pretty much forgot about it…. until Friday night.

We went out to dinner in Foster City Friday night, and at the last minute, figured we’d bring Sugar along, so we could take her for a walk along the Bay Trail afterwards. She likes walking there, and if there are a few cats around she can chase, all the better. Dinner was slower than expected, and we didn’t get out to the trail until well past 10pm. Immediately, we noticed two cats on the rocks watching us carefully, but Sugar (surprisingly) wasn’t paying any attention to them, preferring to sniff the grass along the opposite edge. We walked along and saw a few more cats along the way. As we got to about 100 yards of the bridge, I noticed a “cat” off in the distance, and realized it didn’t move like a cat, but looked like a skunk. I point this out, but we continued onwards. Sugar finally spotted some of the cats, but didn’t seem all that interested. Then, all of a sudden, she took off to chase a “cat” and it took us all of about two seconds to realize it wasn’t a cat… but yet another skunk, and it had already turned to raise its tail. We screamed, and amazingly, Sugar stopped and the skunk left us alone (phew).

We kept walking, getting closer to the bridge, when I saw two more skunks wander by. Then, I saw yet another skunk walking along the pier towards us, rather than away from us. Sugar blissfully was sniffing away, in the shrubs, and eventually scared out a couple more cats… but it began to occur to us that she could just as easily have been going after skunks in the underbrush as well. So, despite being told I was overreacting, we put Sugar back on leash and decided to walk the back and away from the bridge, where we hoped there were fewer skunks. Of course, as we walked along, we ended up seeing a few more skunks — and we began to realize that there are an awful lot of them living amongst the cats — and they seem a lot braver than the cats, who scamper off pretty quickly. It didn’t take us long to ditch the Bay Trail altogether and head in-land to walk around some of the nearby residential streets before heading back home.

So… amazingly, despite seeing at least a dozen skunks in about a half-mile trek (and probably an equal number of cats), and having a dog interested in chasing a few of the skunks… we didn’t get sprayed. Yeah, the story would have been better if we had… but I’m rather pleased it ended in the boring way.

In the meantime, though, man, who knew that skunks and cats liked living together so much?

Other People’s Weddings…

So I really do plan to write more about our wedding, but time is seriously lacking. Maybe I’ll get to it by our first anniversary. In the meantime, we went to two great weddings this past weekend, so I wanted to share my photos.

• Mike & Thu
• Tom & Joann

Lots of photos at those links, but in the meantime:

So That Happened…

Yeah, so there’s lots to write about the wedding and everything, and I really intend to do it, but I don’t know when. Just got back from the honeymoon, swamped with catching up on work and about to head out again on a business trip (internet access on the airplane would be really useful here). Overall, though, the wedding, the honeymoon and married life have been pretty damn awesome so far. Everyone warned that the wedding would go by in a blur, but it didn’t really. However, perhaps as we get further away from the day it will feel more and more like a blur.

There was some panic leading up to the wedding (not over getting married, but the logistics of the event, forest fires, missing place cards, flying chuppahs, breakable glass, missing hotel rooms and other such stuff), but everything (as it tends to do) worked out in the end.

Contrary to popular opinion (or a rumor spread by a bride who shall remain nameless), I did not forget to say “I do” or get nervous about saying it. I simply missed the cue. I thought the whole vow stuff would go on for a lot longer than it did and the rabbi had to tell me to say “I do” which I did gladly. Also, my nose started running in the middle of the ceremony, which was kind of weird (and a little gross, I guess), but my brain covered it up by then getting me to cry so I could then sniffle. I did forget to kiss the bride at the end — but made up for it after everyone started helpfully yelling. That’s what we get for not actually rehearsing or anything.

Dennis put up a nice blog post about the wedding as well.

We’ll put together an online album at some point with some of the best photos, but if you want to see some of the random collections of photos, we’ve got:

• Paul’s set, with the bowtie and the light diffuser (I mean, seriously?) everyone thought he was the professional photographer.
• Korby’s huge set which also includes a pictorial description of how he and Audris nearly couldn’t make it due to flooding in Texas, and how they got around that to arrive at 4am. Korby’s collection also includes a video snippet of the first dance, but not me almost getting my head chopped off by fans.
• Dan & Anne’s photos which capture the harrowing chuppah set up process and also have a bunch of nice sunset shots.
• Merideth’s photos which includes some great people shots and some cool photos of the cup cakes.
• Amy’s photos, which include plenty of family shots (and some behind the scenes shots as well).
• Bob & Sylvia have some fantastic photos.
• Prash’s set, which includes some good “from the tram” shots, as well as a neat action photo of the first dance
• MikeHo & Thu’s photos, which is a huge set of pictures, full of fantastic images, including both some “getting ready” shots and some shots from the brunch the next day, including the reaction shots of us opening up the infamous “cookbook” (more on that below).
• Will’s photos. There are a ton of really good photos here.
• Rushan got tons of people shots, and a few good ones of the first dance. She really likes the slanted angle pictures, but they look fantastic.

That’s all I’ve seen so far (if anyone else has more, let me know). And, of course, at some point, we’ll get the professional photos as well — of which there were a ton. We knew that it would take some time to do photos, but we didn’t expect how much time, especially once we decided to do some scenic photos at sunset.

Oh yeah, by the way, if you’re doing a wedding at Heavenly and the photographer decides to do scenic photos sitting on the rocks, it’ll look really awesome, but you’ll get your wedding attire totally covered in tree sap. The rest of the night every time I got up from sitting on a seat, I would stick to the seat thanks to the sap. It took the dry cleaners 3 tries to get it all out. Yay.

Anyway, separate from the pictures, also wanted to include a separate link to the insanely awesome “cookbook” that Audris put together that includes great recipes, well wishes and amazing old stories from a ton of family and friends (I have no clue how Audris got in touch with all of them or how she found the time to put together such a fantastic book). She gave us two copies — a signed one for treasuring, and a second one for actually using in the kitchen. It’s really amazing, so a special additional thank you to everyone who participated and again to Audris for coming up with the idea and putting it together.

Wait, this was just supposed to be a short post…