Ah, the snow and the sea...

Those moments when I can go up to the top of the Berkeley Hills and look one way and see the ocean, and then look the other way to see the snow-capped Sierra never cease to delight me. Yesterday we went up to the Sibley Volcanic Preserve (along with, apparently, half of the Bay Area, as we have never seen it so crowded up there - and if you are the woman who we had to talk to about your stinking, frothing, nasty, barking, menacing dogs, the more I think about it, the more I think I should have called animal control on you. Consider yourself lucky, and sell the filthy curs to one of the 10th St. meat markets before you really get in trouble with them).

Something that happens every time we go for a hike: first Amalia says, "no, yuck, I don't want to go for a walk. That's boring." Then we say, "just get your shoes on and get in the car." And we get there, and Amalia runs ahead and runs back and pretends to be a deer, and the smile never leaves (well, usually there are two obligatory falls, where the smile vanishes for a well-timed 45 second cry, only to return). Every time. The encounter with the nasty dogs almost wrecked the trip for her, but the silver lining to the cloud is that the more she sees the true nature of canines, the less she will desire to live with one in the house (yes, I am pretty much a dog hater who sees them as useful only as food, weapons, and beasts of burden. I find the notion of a "canine companion" to be perverse, at best. Unfortunately Amalia wants a puppy. Oh joy).

And, no, I have not yet eaten dog (horse, oh yes, good stuff, that). I am very keen to try it, and not because I find them foolish pets, but because I am always curious to sample different meats. I would rather have a horse for a pet. Or a pig, as far as that goes. And, yes, I would have no problem having a pig for a pet for a couple of years, and then having pork chops and ham (and headcheese and bacon and pancetta and trotters and...) when it got older. People really need to get over the sentimentalization of animals.

So speaking of Volcanic Preserves and things seismic, we had a water main explode on our street. It was quite dramatic yet(I think) it did not do any damage to anyone or anything (besides the street itself). When the Water People were working on it last night, I asked them what caused it, and one of the guys said that they have been really busy recently, and that he suspects that it has to do with the series of small earthquakes we have had recently.

Ah, the fun of living in seismicly active areas!

Nothing beats being rocked to sleep by the earth itself.

And no, this has nothing to do with the fact that every earthquake, no matter how small, drives some carpet-bagging foreigners back to New Jersey where they came from. No. Nothing at all. Bye bye!