Why America is ruining my Halloween

Happy Halloween! 

 Charles and I have been taking advantage of the nice fall weather and have been doing nice fall things! We carved pumpkins a few weeks ago and baked the seeds, which was a really great way to spend a Saturday, and then we set them out for the whole neighborhood to enjoy!  Charles's is growing some sort of fungus by now (his is the winking one, mine is the scary one!) but mine has held up pretty well. I think we'll light some candles in them tonight and then figure out how to dispose of them.  We bought some packaged fruit snacks to give away, but this far back in the valley, with few street lights and a large fence around our house, I'm not sure we'll be getting any trick-or-treaters.  

I love Halloween, and I really miss the way it used to just be fun and innocent. I heard from a friend in Morristown that the mayor had declared that Saturday was Halloween because Sunday is the "lord's day" (which completely disregards the fact that Saturday is the holy day for some religions).  I just don't see the problem with having Halloween on a Sunday.  The holiday used to be about being a kid, dressing up, and getting candy.  Now it seems that people are too afraid (of the dark, of cars, of pedophiles) to let children go out and have fun.  When I was a child, my father carved pumpkins, my mother made great costumes, and then she took us out to go door-to-door and she WATCHED us.  She didn't have to know how many registered sex offenders lived in the area because she was always with us and knew we would be safe.  I think that Halloween is one of my favorite holidays because of that.  I worry that by the time I have kids, our only option will be to go to the local elementary school or community center because door-to-door is "unsafe" and no one does it.  I want to give my kids the memories that I had of running around the neighborhood, feeling safe because I knew someone was there for me.  I want Halloween to be more than a college excuse to dress slutty and get drunk, I want to be able to celebrate it on a Sunday if it falls on one, and I want to make my own costume without Target making fun of it.  

Okay, this was supposed to be a catch-up post to let everyone know how things are going, but obviously I was feeling like ranting.  I just love Halloween.  What would the Great Pumpkin think if he could see it now?

The Golden Coast

So Katy Perry has it pretty much right, although if you wear Daisy Dukes and a bikini in Northern Cali, you're gonna get pretty chilly.  Here are some of my favorite things about our newest home.

1.  The roads are so curvy that I literally cannot drive over 25 most of the time, meaning that I can't speed.
2.  Every musician I want to see will probably eventually come Oakland, so no more driving to Atlanta or Nashville!
3.  I get to cross the Golden Gate every day on my way to work.
4.  The Beach.
5.  Not having anyone under us, so Duke can run as much as he wants in the house.
6.  My internship.
7.  The awesome frozen yogurt place.
8.  Marin County Public Library
9.  Farmers Markets every day
10. GreenFest and getting to work the Tiki booth in the kids section

Things that I'm not too down with yet.
1. Earthquakes.  I just want to get one over with so they don't freak me out.
2. The fog.  It looks like this every other day and its creepy.   
3. There is something living in the wall next to my bed, and Charles never hears it.  I am not crazy though.
4. While the buses are nice and plush, I miss the ease of the Metro. But definitely not the trains themselves.
5. California does not share a border with Tennessee. I think it should.

Wordless Wednesday from Appalachia

(this is the best picture i could find. please please please go to The Beehive Collective to see better ones. just saw it in person with a narrated explanation... amazing.)

A Major Victory in Minneapolis

For those who don't know, when we moved out to San Francisco a month (?!) ago, I had an internship lined up with the Rainforest Action Network. I'm now on my third week here, and I really love it.  One of the really cool things is that the team that I'm on, the Palm Oil Campaign,  just had a major victory in Minneapolis with one of our target companies, General Mills. 

Basically, the problem with palm oil is this: "Grown on massive plantations in tropical nations, mainly Malaysia and Indonesia, palm oil has been associated with rainforest destruction; threatened extinctions of animals, including orangutans; huge increases in greenhouse gas emissions; and gross human rights and labor violations." 

Recently, General Mills, one of the US's largest Palm Oil importers, has publicly decided to stop Rainforest Destruction by ending contracts with any supplier that does not produce palm oil in socially and environmentally sustainable ways.  You can read their full press report here!  Really, this is super exciting to me because A.) General Mills has promised to buy completely sustainable palm oil only by 2015.  This goal is great because its impossible, there isn't enough sustainable palm oil grown right now, meaning that they will have to become advocates in order to get what they need for production, and becoming an aid to us.  B.) Charles and I found a really great frozen yogurt place in town, and this makes me feel better about putting Cap'n Crunch on mine!

This is definitely not an Official RAN blog and I don't want to preach too much, but I'm really proud to be on a team that can accomplish this and I'm pretty impressed by General Mills for taking this big step.  Mostly, I realize that no one really knows what I'm doing out here, so I just want to update everyone on what I'm working on out here!

I heart San Francisco!

(I may be running out of ways to title these posts with a name of a city or state.  We'll see how creative I can get.)

I've been taking the bus into the city every day this week to get to my internship at the Rainforest Action Network and so far, I have no complaints except that my legs are a bit sore (and even that's getting better!).  Because our house is set back into a valley, in a very beautiful, wooded neighborhood, the bus that runs from Mill Valley into the city is a mile away.  In the morning, the walk is downhill, which is nice, but of course, in the evening, its uphill. Its not very steep, though, so for now, I'm actually enjoying the walk home!

The office I'm in is in the financial district of San Fran, so its in the middle of all of the big buildings and good lunch restaurants, which is a really cool change of pace from the secluded woods-y-ness of home. I get to cross the Golden Gate Bridge every day, and I have to say, with the awesome view of the fog over the bay, its a better view than the capitol building from the metro (not that that view wasn't neat too!).One of the first things I like to do in a new city is check out the shopping (of course!) just in case I ever need something, so it was really great that the other two interns, Lindsay and Rachel, and I decided to do some shopping (all window though, I didn't find anything I needed, although now I'm thinking about a new jacket, its cold sometimes!) on Monday!  They're both from the are, so they were able to show me around quite a bit, which I really appreciated.

Like I said, I haven't found anything to complain about yet, because everyone at RAN is really nice and helpful, and I'm really excited about the outline we have of the projects we'll work on this fall. One is with some Girl Scouts, about getting palm oil out of their cookies, and being a former Girl Scout, I can't wait to start working with them! I've already started a few cool things too, and its good to be keeping busy.

Charles is still in Davis, and although he's enjoying his time there, I know that we're both ready for him to get home.  We've got a lot of work to do on the house that I know we'd both like to start.  Plus, it would be a little sad if I did a wine tasting by myself, so I need my partner back! Good thing he's done on Saturday...

Sunny Mill Valley

We've been in Mill Valley for about a week, and I've been in the house since Friday.  Charles is in Davis at his class, although he calls at least once a day and came home on Saturday to handle the movers with me. Which, by the way, has taught us a lot about moving.  This company , Infinity Moving, doubled the price of the move, was late, hard to communicate with, and broke too many of our things to be worth it.  3 of our hand-made plates  (the ones from Jim and Teresa) 2 of my wine glasses, cracked my lamp, and dented both of our pots and the crock pot. Really unprofessional, although the guy who came to the house with the movers was nice.

Anyway, we spent some time at the beaches, which are really great (and allow dogs!) and checking out the town and neighborhood.  The house needs some work, but nothing major, and its bigger than the pictures made it look.  I really love it, and I'm enjoying unpacking our boxes!

I'll have more to say once we have our own internet and I'm not at the library! Off to Whole Foods to get some lunch!

Nevermind Nevada

Since the post this morning was so rushed towards the end (although we really did do that much driving), I decided I'd better finish one for the day tonight.
We drove through Bryce Canyon this morning, and even though it was freezing and blowing tornado-like winds, we made it out of the car to see most of the over-looks. It was pretty cool, even if it was really really cold.  (Also, I finished Pet Sematary! Creeepppyyy)
After Bryce Canyon, we made it to the Grand Canyon and walked out to Bright Angel Point (on the North Rim).  It wasn't as crowded as I expected it to be, so we had a good time climbing rocks and taking pictures.  I think the Grand Canyon has been my favorite stop so far.  I usually like to add pictures that I find online of a place that we've been since we don't have a digital yet, but we took so many good ones today (hopefully) that I just want to wait until we can get those up.
Other than our stop in the Grand Canyon, we've just been driving all day.  We had dinner at a Panda Express in Hurricane, Utah, and now we're in Mesquite, Nevada (and Charles is right, Nevada already seems a little too crowded and we just got here).  So, since this is my shortest post yet, here is a link to some pictures that Charles and I laughed at a lot.  Apparently this guy decided all of a sudden that he really likes cats and wanted to build them a town to live in.  It looks like he has at least a hundred now.  We laughed because they're cats... cats don't care about anything... especially having a church with stained-glass windows.