city mouse/country mouse

When the lights - go down - in the city
and the sun shines on the bay
oh I want to be there, in my city
oooh - oooh - ohohoh

Many thanks to Carolyn for reminding me of this song as we cut out of the AGU meeting last Tuesday and drove out to Point Reyes. I tried to counter her curse by chiming in "Do you know the way to San Jose" but it backfired and I ended up with BOTH of those silly songs running through my head all week.



And just to prove I was there, here I am. You can't tell from the picture because I'm wearing a jacket, but I ate so much this last week in San Francisco that I gained 50 pounds. It's mostly because of Gao. He took us out several times for Chinese food and would order for us all (in Chinese). I'm not 100% positive what I ate, but it was good - even the Chicken tongue (that's a joke).



Can I just say - I love San Francisco? If I could go back in time and relive some of my younger (i.e. pre-children) days, I would live there in downtown SF. Or New York. I'm a dichotomy, I know - on one hand loving the natural environment and the peace of the country or coastlines like California or Maine, but on the other hand, there is something about a big city downtown that resonates with me. I'd love to walk down to get some Chaz's coffee on the corner every morning, and pick up some flowers from the vendor on the way. Or pop over to Chinatown for lunch on a whim.

Speaking of which - here are J., Gao and Chieko from last night (?...I haven't slept since then so it feels off to say that) when we popped over to Chinatown for dinner before our flights out. We crazy NASA scientists. (heh)



I haven't seen my sweeties yet. They are all down the peninsula - the two small ones at a science camp and the larger one putting in some extra hours at work. They'll all be back home in a few hours. This is when I should be trying to get some sleep, but I can never sleep during the day. I am going with DH to his office christmas party tonight, so I know I will be miserably tired. Ah well.

One more picture before I go. This is where we had lunch on Tuesday.
(and I did go to the meeting a little bit this week - really, I did)