Wednesday, April 02, 2008
Well, okay, I did at least bother to wash. I just can’t resist a nice David Bowie reference. The dazed bit is accurate, though.
Dear friends, it is not only Deep Thoughts of the Future keeping me away from this space. There is still plenty of that, of course, but there is also a new spring ritual in my life, the phenomenon known as Deadline Knitting. Last March found me cranking out cotton dishcloths against the clock so that I might present them to Julie at her bridal shower. This March finds me still cranking out cottony goodness, brought to me by the swell gals at Mason-Dixon Knitting, for another richly-deserving recipient. Although the party in question is not until next week (and that’s all I’ll say here, lest she be reading), I have only a two-day window to finish everything. To say that I’m getting a little obsessive about all the knitting is to understate the case, truly.
In addition to knitting and deep thinking, there will be traveling, too. On Saturday I will be taking a day trip to Boston to attend Northeastern’s open house for admitted students, leaving New York at 3 in the morning - really—and arriving in Boston around 7:30, which should give me time for a nice breakfast and the tallest coffee known to man before I go meet some Future Lawyers of America, tour the campus, hobnob with the faculty at the Museum of Fine Arts, and then catch a late-afternoon train back to New York. At about the moment I finally recover from traveling to Penn Station in the middle of the night, specifically, on April 17, I will be flying to San Jose so that I can attend Law Preview Day at Santa Clara on the 19th. For that trip, though, I’ll be sticking around for the weekend and taking the redeye back to New York on Monday. Just writing that makes me tired. But happy. But still tired. I’ve never been able to sleep on airplanes, but this trip might be the one that teaches me to do it.
I will be back, though, as soon as I can. After all, Owen wants to talk about eggs and Juno wants to talk about fruit crisps. Who could stay away in the face of such promising conversation? 
Posted by
Bakerina at 11:38 AM in
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I’ve got gift deadlines too, but I’ve been dithering. Baby shower for twins in two weeks! I’ve got one kimono nearly done, but my wish to make a couple of teeny matching blankets is preventing me from getting busy with something I could actually finish, like a second kimono.
Let me know if you want a Bay Area knitting meetup.
I hope you aren’t too influenced by the look of the campuses you visit. I taught at Northeastern for 10 years and it’s a great school...but butt ugly. Better than it used to be, but it’s an urban commuter school and it isn’t pretty. But it does have it’s good parts, right on the T for instant access to the rest of the city, within walking distance to some interesting ethnic restaurants, right by the MFA and the Isabella Stuart Gardiner museum, and close to Fenway Park for a thrilling but expensive Red Sox game.
OTOH, Santa Clara is a beautiful campus, absolutely gorgeous, but in a crappy neighborhood filled with old canneries. It’s also near the light rail, but the light rail in Silicon Valley isn’t fabulous. It only runs an abbreviated schedule and it goes pretty much nowhere.
In other words, don’t judge a book by it’s cover!
And if you need anyone in SF to take you to Tartine for bread pudding, for example, or the Ferry Building, for oysters and white wine and Miette Bakery eclairs, you call me right up, ‘cause I’m on the Bring Bakerina to the Bay Area committee!
"but in a crappy neighborhood filled with old canneries.”
I had to laugh at this because it perfectly described the place when I went to school there about 15 years ago. But then they ripped all that stuff down and put in businesses and condos and a fancy-ass new police station and ... it’s still not really a “neighborhood” but it’s a universe away from the old abandonded and near-abandoned canneries. Oh, and Santa Clara is now significantly more beautiful than the beautiful it was 15 years ago. It is stunning and April CA will put on a show for our heroine.
If Bake comes here for school I’m going to make sure she has a car and learns where the real neighborhoods are nearby. She will be well taken care of. I promise.
I really love fruit crisps, but I want to talk about you coming to Boston. Is that so wrong? 
Market day in Little Italy, dude. Also? 24-hour bakeries. Also? Not so far from Vermont where there is a little place you might remember that has nice flour. Also? A hop, skip, and a jump from Montreal.
(Okay, so maybe the jump is sort of long. So sue me.)
(I just told a women who’s going to law school to sue me. Sigh...)
I can’t tell you just how tempted I am to buy a plane ticket to SJC for that weekend, so that I can participate in the Bring Bakerina to the Bay Area party.
‘mouse, if I don’t make it down there, you will make sure our Bakerina gets to at least one of the Sunday farmers’ markets around the Peninsula/South Bay, won’t you?
Are you still dazed? I’m anxious for updates from my favorite Bakerina!
if you can’t get up to san francisco while you’re at santa clara, I can suggest a couple good places to eat in the peninsula:
- cafe yulong, good szechuan hand-pulled noodles et al, 743 w dana st in downtown mountain view
- taqueria los charros, very very cheap and delicious a la carte tacos and burritos at 854 west dana, also downtown mountain view
- vive sol, for a little more upscale mexican food, 2020 W El Camino Real, mountain view. order off the back page of the menu.
or you could buy good cheese, bread, produce, and other food at the milk pail market, 2585 california at (at san antonio, a couple blocks off el camino), mountain view
(clearly I live in mountain view.)
the train isn’t that bad! the caltrain station is right there, is Not the light rail, and goes to the city. of course it’s only once an infuriating hour. still. there’s also a free sjc airport shuttle to santa clara station!
HAVE FUN.
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I’ve got gift deadlines too, but I’ve been dithering. Baby shower for twins in two weeks! I’ve got one kimono nearly done, but my wish to make a couple of teeny matching blankets is preventing me from getting busy with something I could actually finish, like a second kimono.
Let me know if you want a Bay Area knitting meetup.