HD and I met at work in September of 2006; his manager was showing him the kitchen around the corner from my office where the sodas were. It was his first day. I walked in to rinse out my coffee cup and his back was to me; he was picking out a bottle of orange juice. His manager said, "Sheri, this is HD, our new API technical writer." HD turned around and was smiling so warmly, the kind of smile that only works because the eyes are cooperating with the whole operation. He held his hand out to shake mine and did that head tilt that says, "I'm truly glad to meet you!"; I gave him a firm shake. This was work. I promptly ignored him for two months, like a schoolgirl.

We had the same sense of humor; this was huge. I didn't think a guy like that existed. Our offices shared a wall, and he listened to what he now calls my "evil laughter" when my other coworkers came into my office with their wacky, ridiculous, hilarious ideas. I invited him to my family's property in the Sierra Foothills for Thanksgiving because I thought he had nowhere else to go - he did, but cancelled. We flirted and avoided each other for 4 days like 14-year-olds. I adored him. He adored how much I loved my family, how we all actually LIKE one another.

We were officially - though secretly - dating 3 weeks later.

Our first official date was at My Thai restaurant in San Rafael. I was going to Seattle for the weekend to visit my dear friend the next day; he offered to pick me up when I returned in Oakland. On the way back to Marin from the airport, he took me to dinner at some little Italian restaurant on Columbus Ave. in San Francisco; the waiter could tell we were on an early date and brought us each a small glass of limoncello to put us at ease. We drove around Pacific Heights afterward, laughing and looking at Christmas lights.

I could go on and on about our adventures; the funny stories, the sad stories, the trips, the dinners, the trips to the laundromat. We're both in 100%.

Move forward to the evening of February 16, 2010. I was dishing up rotelle pasta with red sauce. I had the saucepan of sauce in my hands and I was leaning over the table in the kitchen, pouring it on the pasta, shouting at HD to come in and put his plate together. He didn't come; I repeated myself, annoyed that he seemed to be ignoring me for whatever he was looking at on his laptop. Then he was standing next to me, flatly saying, "D____ just scheduled a 1-1 meeting with me for tomorrow at 9:30 for a half hour."

D____ was his skip-level manager, and no matter how you swung it, that meeting meant the rumors we'd been hearing from various people were true: there were going to be cuts in that group. HD was getting laid off in 12 hours.

The thing that made this so awful and sent me to bed crying without eating a bite was that HD is in this country on a work visa. If he loses his job, he loses his visa, and he has to go back to India. He wasted no more than 10 minutes before he was online searching for new jobs, submitting his resume for critiques by resume experts to increase his chances. He did this until 2:00 AM, woke up, and drove to San Rafael to get fired. I went to my office in downtown San Francisco and walked through my day in a fog; I barely remember what happened, who I talked to.

The next month was more of the same; he would wake up, apply for jobs, eat something, apply for jobs again until 1:00 or 2:00 AM, and then repeat. April 18 was his last official date of employment, so he had 2 months. This was the time that we learned that the people you least expect to come through, do. 3 weeks later, HD had several interviews lined up, one of which was for a large company in Seattle.

You know what I love besides HD? I love Seattle. I first came to Seattle on a school trip in 1998 when I was 16; I have never felt so at home immediately after arriving in a city I'd never been to. It was green and clean and clear and I was in love. In 2005, my friend and her then-boyfriend-now-husband moved to Seattle when he started grad school, so I came up every time I found a cheap air ticket.

Back to this past March. HD went through the phone interviews with this company and did so well. Honest to God, I'd never heard him speak so intelligently and with such certainty. I do not envy him the interviews he has to go through; he had to explain algorithms over the phone for scenarios I will never understand. They asked him to come to Seattle to meet with a team of interviewers in person. Once his ticket was confirmed, I bought one, too.

We checked into the hotel and went to bed; his interviews started at 9:00 and would be finished when they decided they were done with him. I didn't hear from him all day. I wandered around the city in my friend's car, at one point parking next to Greenlake and staring at the choppy waves from the sudden storm and contemplating the contrast of the green grass and trees and gray rainy sky. I visited another friend and drove back to the hotel to wait for HD; I wanted to be sure to be there when he got back. This couldn't go longer than 6 hours.

5:30 rolled around and I started to get sleepy, so I lay down. I woke up at 6:15 when my friend called; we were expected at their house for dinner after HD was finished, and I couldn't believe he wasn't back yet. "WHAT DO YOU MEAN HE'S NOT THERE YET?! THIS IS CRAZY!" she said. "I know!" I shouted, staring out the sliding glass door. "He HAS to call soon, this can't go on much..." I heard the door unlocking.

"Wait!" I said. "He just walked in!" HD was walking quickly toward me, smiling wildly.

"I got it."
Me: "Whaa?"
Him: "I got the job. They told me I got the job."
Me: "What the f&%@?!"
Friend, still on the phone: "WHAT?! AAAAAAH! HE GOT IT?!"
Me: "We're moving to Seattle!"
Friend: "WE HAVE CHAMPAGNE! COME OVER!"
Me: "We'll be there in 20 minutes!"

There was a lot of hurrying up and waiting in between then and 2 weeks ago when we watched strangers pack all of the contents of our tiny 350-square-foot studio apartment in San Francisco. Transferring a work visa is not a quick process. It's a process that involves the Department of Homeland Security, and I don't think I need to say much more about that. But eventually it was all done and we cancelled the cable and the electricity and booked one-way plane tickets. That is a strange thing to do; I think everyone should buy a one-way ticket sometime. It's so final.

We have a lot of friends in San Francisco, and they all made an effort to say goodbye. It was truly touching. The weekend before we left, we had three going away parties. I thought I would cry at each of them, but I was just so happy to be around all the people I love. We both were.

The last night in San Francisco was amazing. HD's new company got us a room at the Westin St. Francis in Union Square; I had never been in such a beautiful hotel room in my life. Hell, I had actually never stayed in a hotel room in San Francisco before, and I always lived within 100 miles of that beautiful city I have loved for as long as I can remember. We slept soundly and woke up to drive to the empty apartment and let the cleaners in, and then ate breakfast at Bechelli's around the corner. We lived in that apartment for a year and never had trouble finding a parking spot; suddenly, the day we were moving out for good and flying to a new city, we had to circle around for 15 minutes to find a parking spot. We were now visitors to our old neighborhood.

I didn't cry until we were on 101 South heading for the airport. All of the billboards we passed had to do with San Francisco; they advertised The Giants, UCSF, The San Francisco Zoo. Suddenly, there was a soundtrack in my head:

There are places I remember/All my life, though some have changed/Some forever, not for better/Some have gone, and some remain/All these places have their moments/Of people and friends that went before/I know I'll often stop and think about them/In my life, I've loved them all...

HD looked over at me in the passenger seat of our rental car and put his hand over mine. I smiled through my tears, comforted that he was the one thing that would remain constant between today and tomorrow when I woke up as the newest resident of Seattle.

Maybe he should do some work for Planned Parenthood?

Scene: Watching this funny video by Merlin Mann.

Me: Haha! It's things like this that make me see how it would be fun to have a baby.
HD: Yeah, but that's not the point of having a baby.

Shilling

Scene: Hanging out, surfing the net.

HD: Have you ever thought the text in Firefox was too small?
Me: Uhhh...
HD: There's an add-on for that.
Me: Uh....
HD: Please use my add-ons! Be my add-on buddyyyyyy!
Me:

Making Something from Nothing

Why is it that my kitchen cupboards are so full that I have to buy organizers so that I can stuff more in, yet I'm at the grocery store what seems like every other day?

That convenience food... man, I'll tell you. Trader Joes may be inexpensive and convenient, but they are chock full of crap you never knew you needed. Like simmer sauces (all of which are delicious, don't get me wrong) and instant pudding. Don't get me started on that instant pudding.

HD and I were out shopping for clothes most of the day (there are some deals to be had at Banana Republic, The Gap, and Anthropologie if you need some season-ending goodies; we really made out). We were really tired afterward. I had been thinking all morning that we would get to Trader Joes for the week's shopping, but the thought of it was making me want to pass out from exhaustion.

"Hey, wanna see if we can go the whole week without going to the store?" I asked.
"Uh, yeah..." he said, never one to argue with frugality or avoiding Bay St.

As a little backstory, we haven't eaten out once this weekend. This is not a minor feat; we at least eat breakfast or lunch out each Saturday and Sunday. But this weekend we've been good:

• Grilled cheese and hashbrown sandwiches for lunch yesterday
• HD made yellow daal and rice for dinner last night (I highly recommend scoring a live-in Indian man who can cook)
• I've been saving up overripe bananas in the freezer for weeks now, and finally had enough to make a banana bread last night, which we had warm for dessert with ice cream
• This morning I was starving, but I'd used the last egg in the house for the banana bread. I woke up and walked to the store for eggs and a honeydew melon while HD fried up some potatoes and onions. Scrambled eggs with peppers and toast made for the perfect Sunday breakfast

So we've been on a roll; it wasn't too difficult to picture creating more "something out of nothing".

Tonight's dinner, made entirely of ingredients we already had:

Sweet Corn Quiche

The quiche is a forgiving dish; use egg substitute if you have it, use heavy cream instead of milk, use smoked gouda instead of parmesan, whatever. These proportions of the base - eggs, milk, cheese, flour, and salt - all work great for me, but sometimes I only have 3/4 cups of milk left, or I only have 1/2 cup of cheese. Trust me, the quiche does not care.

4 large eggs
1 1/2 cups milk (I used 2%)
1 cup finely grated Irish parmesan cheese
1 cup frozen sweet corn
1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp salt
1 9-inch pie crust (I know how to make them from scratch but I just didn't, so leamme alone)

1. Preheat the oven to 425. Unroll the pie crust and put into a pie dish. Pinch the edges the way grandma taught you.
2. Whisk the eggs, milk, cheese, corn, and flour, and salt in a bowl. It's easier to do it in that order, but do it all at once. Who cares.
3. Pour the egg mixture into the pie crust and put it in the oven for 15 minutes, and then bring the temp down to 350 and continue baking for 15 or so minutes, or until the center is puffy and set (my oven took 20 minutes, but my old oven took 15).
4. Take the quiche out of the oven. Let it cool for about 15 minutes, or until the annoying Indian starts grazing in the fridge for snacks, asking, "Is this still good? How about this? Why don't you throw it away then, Babeeeeee?"
5. Serve with a little sour cream and Cholula hot sauce (Tabasco has been verboten in this house for a couple of years now; long live the wooden cap! And Pepcid!) if you so desire.

I'll let you know how the Week of No Groceries comes along.

Thriller

Scene: Last night, driving back from dinner in Point Reyes Station. HD is telling me about his upcoming trip to visit his brother on the East Coast.

HD: So my brother asked me, um... <LONG AWKWARD PAUSE> ... what time I'm getting in on Friday.
Me: Uh, what did he really ask you?
HD: Nothing.
Me: He did not ask you when you're getting in on Friday, so out with it.
HD: Well, he asked me if I'm bringing my new camera, but I didn't think you'd be interested in that.
Me: Let me tell you, that's way more interesting than what time you're getting in on Friday.
HD: Touche.

Cookin'

We're having an Inaugural Potluck at work tomorrow (my instigation). I'm bringing quiches.

HD got a new camera, so he was playing with it while I cooked. Here are a couple of shots. I'll post the recipe tomorrow, if I find out it turned out well.

Gratuitous hiking shots

So, my group at work has an annual summit to discuss what we're going to work on in the coming year. We brainstorm, we laugh, we get to see a couple of our remote employees who work at home in other timezones, we compliment the size of each others' dictionaries. It's a geeky good time. I look forward to it every year.

Well, we do this summit for 3 days, with the 3rd day set aside for an "offsite", which is just a teambuilding day. In the past we've taken a cooking class, taken a merlot blending course in the wine caves at Rutherford Hill, and had a generally drunken hilarious time playing Hyperbowl in the arcade at the Metreon (sadly, this great arcade has been replaced with I don't know what, but it sure ain't what it used to be).

Given the economic climate, we decided it might be a better idea to do some volunteer work and then have lunch together. I contacted the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy and we're going to be doing some trail maintenance at Muir Woods, followed by lunch at a restaurant not yet determined because seriously, have you ever tried to get 13 people to agree on somewhere to eat a lunch they're not paying for?

Well. This is turning out to be a long story.

So, after I arranged that, I started clicking around on the GGNPC website. The page for Muir Woods listed another suggested place to hike that has redwoods and is nowhere near as congested as Muir Woods: the Phleger Estate in San Mateo County.

The Phleger Estate is in Woodside, actually, home of Neil Young and Steve Jobs. The house itself is still a private residence, so you can't go there. However, the woods around it are absolutely wildly beautiful. You enter the national park from a hiking trail in Huddart County Park, which is really cool as well.

Anyway, here are some shots from the iPhone.

Mmmm... puddingy.

I'm baking. This is why I love weekends... it's Saturday night, 9 pm; I'm sharing a very boozy hot chocolate with HD (Bailey's Irish Cream: The Reason For the Season), and I'm concocting dessert when we didn't even eat dinner (lunch at 3:00, don't worry, Dad).

Yesterday was the 2 year anniversary of HD and my first date at My Thai in San Rafael. To celebrate, I made reservations at Pesce in Russian Hill. Our seafood dinner was delicious, and for dessert we had a limoncello tiramisu and some kind of amazing apricot bread pudding. I was inspired; at any given time, we have 2-3 partial loaves of extremely stale bread in the fridge. We always have eggs and milk. So after decorating the tree, I got to work.

Step 1: Nearly sever fingers by trying to cube a 2-week-old loaf of sourdough batard from Bovine Bakery. Put cubes in casserole.

Step 2: Dice some dried apricots, sprinkle in casserole with dried cranberries and golden raisins. When HD is sufficiently engrossed in a rerun of Reno 911, sneak some Ghirardelli white chocolate chips out of the pantry and sprinkle right in there. Go ahead, he can't hear you over his disturbing laughter.

Step 3: Basically make french toast batter, but add some extra fun: a teaspoon of allspice, a teaspoon of Madagascar vanilla bean paste, some organic sugar, a quarter cup of pure maple syrup, and last but definitely not least, a tablespoon of Jack Daniel's. Mmmmmm. More booze. Definitely not driving anymore tonight.

Step 4: Combine the batter with the bread mixture, let sit in the fridge, covered, for 40 minutes. Preheat the oven to 400.

Step 5: Bake.

Treeeeeee!

After I got my hair cut today (shorter than it's ever been), HD helped me pick out a Christmas tree. I had that sucker in the tree stand and strung with lights in 10 minutes flat. I think it's a new record.

My cabin smells amazing right now. There's really nothing like the smell of a noble fir. It warms even the most grinchy of hearts.

The plan tomorrow is to put up the outdoor lights, and maybe make a wreath of some kind out of pinecones. Also, bake cookies.

I don't even know who you ARE

Scene: This morning, driving to work on 5th street in San Rafael. HD is in the passenger seat of my car. Someone from Guide Dogs for the Blind is doing some training with a cute yellow lab. There's a dump truck parked on the right side of the road just ahead of the woman and dog.

Me: Look at the dog!
HD: Don't hit that truck.
Me: I was nowhere near that truck.
HD: You almost hit that truck. That's a bad example for that dog; how will he ever learn?
Me: Learn to drive?
HD: Yes.
Me: He's a dog. I hope I've deterred him from ever driving a motor vehicle.
HD: Now you're just being speciest*.
Me: Give me a break.
HD: I don't even want to talk to you right now. Just drive.

* speciest (noun, adj.): 1. A person** prejudiced against an entire species, such as canines or trees. 2. Being prejudiced against an entire species, such as canines or trees.
** Is it speciest of me to define a speciest as a person?

Give me that yellow jersey

IM conversation with HD, in which he recommends a bike for me:

HD:

http://www.specialized.com/bc/SBCBkModel.jsp?spid=39271&eid=121

something like this
Me:

I like it!

No disc brakes on that one

Good price though
HD:
yes road style comfort bikes don't have discs
Me:

WHAAA?!

As a rule?
HD:
as a weight saving step and lack of requirement
Me:
Does Lance go without disc brakes? I think not!
HD:
Lance who?
Me:
There is only one Lance, my friend.
HD:
yes. Lance goes without discs. and believe me you will not be at a disadvantage when racing him without discs
Me:
lol
Touche.

Fleet Week

Just posting a few pictures from Fleet Week '08, as viewed from the Warming Hut at Chrissy Field. Well, mostly. HD and I walked from there down to the Yacht Club at the Marina to watch the Blue Angels.

My mom and dad did the same thing the next day, and from what I hear, they had as great a time as we did!

Pardon my lack of posts the last few days, I've been down with a nasty, head-spinning cold (I spoke too soon, Sue!). HD has been a spectacularly kind nurse; IMing me from work to see how I'm doing and cooking spicy kidney bean masala and rice for dinner.

He also prepared lots and lots of tea, as when I'm sick, coffee sounds disgusting to me. That's how I knew I was getting pretty sick on Monday; when I got into the office, I went to the kitchen to prepare my usual super-delicious cup of coffee from the super expensive espresso machine. It did not smell or look appetizing at all, so I put in two "creams". I put that in quotes because it's not really normal to store half & half in bins on the counter, unrefrigerated, and still call it half & half. Unless it's half petroleum product, half, oh, I don't know, hair conditioner? Whatever, it tastes just about as good as it sounds.

Woah, if I were on the debate team, I would get a total digression for that weird rant. Forgive me, I'm still not up-to-snuff.

Poppin' fresh

I went to Sacramento for a family dinner last night, and had a great time (and great food; my dad made homemade corn tortillas for chicken tostadas, and my Aunt Pat's apple cake is always a hit). I was telling my mom and sister about a video HD and I took a while ago, so I'm going to post it here for your viewing pleasure.

Peer pressure

Scene: Thursday afternoon, in the hallway at work. Hindude, another iPhone user and I are trying to persuade my friend Britt to buy an iPhone. She played with mine earlier in the week and fell in love.

iPhone Friend: Britt, when are you getting your iPhone?
Me: Yeah, Britt, when?
Britt: Shut up you guys!
iPhone Friend: What's the matter? Don't you want to be cool like us?
Me: Yeah, everybody's doing it...
(HD just laughs in the background)
Britt: I have this little thing called property taxes...
iPhone Friend: Awww, that's no fun.
Me (note, not a homeowner): Property taxes, schmoperty taxes.
Britt: How much are they?
iPhone Friend: Are you on AT&T?
Britt: Yeah...
Me: $199 for the 8GB, $299 for the 16GB
Britt: Are you serious? I sneeze $200 every time I go to Safeway!

Our work here is done... pushers, you could learn something from me.

People who brunch

Hindude and I made brunch, set the table on the deck, and ate like civilized adults this morning.

Table settings courtesy of my Aunt Pat and Uncle Ed. They gave me the adorable blue floral placemats and plates for my 27th birthday.

Menu:

Biscuits, made with Alton Brown's "Instant" Pancake Mix, cold butter, and nonfat milk (I made these bad boys), topped with butter and blackberry preserves OR gooseberry preserves

Omlettes with fresh basil and cilantro (from our herb garden), and a little blue cheese (HD made these puppies)

Blatantly obvious

Scene: Stinson Beach, last Sunday. I'm laying on the beach towel, Hindude is sitting in his sand chair. I get up, stretch, and start walking toward the water to look for non-existent seashells.

HD: Where are you going?
Me: Uh... Japan?
HD: Ok.

(3 minutes later, I walk back to the towel, wet up to my knees from an overachieving wave)

HD: Japan's wet, huh?