Goodbye Summer

Fall is here already, and I realize that I have not updated the blog nearly often enough over the summer.  Even though in San Francisco, our real summer is the Fall, when temperatures occasionally break 70, I am sad to see summer go.  Despite the fog and the wind and bundling up in winter coats at the playground, I love how the days are long and how the most delicious fruits and vegetables are in season.  Almost every Saturday this summer we have made it over to the farmer's market at the Ferry Building, which is quite possibly my favorite place on Earth.  I could live there and just roll around in the endless aisles of beautiful produce, not to mention the rows of gourmet food trucks.  I'm sure this type of thing exists in other parts of the world as well, but I feel like I had never really tasted food until I started eating at farmer's markets in San Francisco.  Over the years, I have developed a pretty costly farmer's market habit, and I'm sorry to say that Ruby has started hers at a much younger age.

Every week when we arrive at the market, Ruby dons what is basically a full-body poncho so that we may avoid scrubbing out the stains from her clothes after she gorges herself on fistful after fistful of free samples.  As we make our way through the sea of vendors, Ruby eats oranges, peaches, nectarines, pluots, strawberries, grapes, apples, pears, ju-ju-be's, sugar snap peas, heirloom tomatoes, figs, and anything else anyone puts in front of her face.  A couple of weeks ago, we even found fresh baby corn that was so tender that it could be eaten raw along with the inner husks.  After we make our purchases and Ruby covers herself in a layer of sticky purple sweetness, we pick up lunch from one of the food vendors and eat on the pier, looking out into the bay.  Before we leave, Ruby likes to stop in front of one of the many street performers and dance along with the music.  It takes a lot of prodding before we finally leave and head home with our bountiful loot.  Pathetically, the food usually only lasts us about half the week, and I have to find a mid-week farmer's market to replenish.

This summer seemed particularly cold to me, as there were very few heat waves or fluke sunny days to punctuate the summer fog.  The only bits of real summer that we got was when we left the city, like when we took our trip to the Pacific Northwest, or the times when we traveled to the North or South Bay for a pool day.



Only in the last week or so were we given the first taste of our Indian Summer, and we have been taking full advantage by swimming in the pool at our new apartment and taking Ruby's first trip to Ocean Beach (where we had a good half hour of partial sunshine before the fog creeped back in).

















Fortunately for us, Ruby does not experience any feeling of loss for the lack of warm weather.  As a true San Francisco native, she prefers the fog and wind.  On those rare warm and sunny days, I endure a lot complaining about how it's "too hot" and "too sunny."

There is still so much to write about little Ruby, who is not just two, but two and a quarter years old now and becoming less of a toddler and more of a "big girl" each day.  But to commemorate the changing of the season, I will leave you with this video of Ruby tasting mooncake for the first time on the eve of the Autumn Moon Festival.  More to come ...

Demo

Over the last couple of weeks we have settled into our temporary home in the Diamond Heights Avalon Apartments. It turns out I did not need to worry about Ruby being homesick, as she LOVES our new place and has not once asked about our house. I don't know if it was the thrill of unpacking all of her toys or the fact that our building has an elevator, but anytime we are out, she asks to go back to "Ruby's new house." 

Not a week after we moved in, we took a trip up to the Pacific Northwest to visit Steve's parents and to accompany Steve on a business trip to Seattle. For having slept in so many different places over the past few weeks, Ruby has done surprisingly well. She has been excited to explore each new place and loves to narrate and recount her new experiences. 

In the meantime, construction has begun on our house. The first phase of construction is demolition, the part that goes the fastest as entropy is on our side. Even in the first few days of the demo, our home was in an almost unrecognizable state. However, when we returned from our trip, having not seen the house in a full week, we were greeted by a truly jaw-dropping state of affairs. Here are some photos that chronicle the first two weeks of destruction, er construction.

 
 
  Office before:
 
 

Office as storage unit:
 
 
 
 

Office boarded up Day 1:
 
 

Stairway before:
 
 

Stairway Day 3:
 
 

Back of house Day 4:
 
 

Back of house Day 13:
 
 

View from front of house to back Day 13:
 
 

Living room before:
 
 

Living room Day 13:
 
 

Family room before:
 
 

Family room Day 13 (that's our contractor's dog):
 
 

Ruby's bedroom before:
 
 

Ruby's bedroom Day 13:
 
 

Our bedroom before:
 
 

Our bedroom Day 13:
 
 

Playroom before:
 
 

Playroom Day 13:
 
 

I probably would have passed out had I not been in danger of falling off of the second story of the house. Our contractor promises that he can fix this, and we have no choice but to believe him.