Willo O'Brien

A friend once said to me:

…keeping you under a veil of clothing and limited expression is like keeping the sun under a wet blanket behind the moon.

Tonite I had to look up what “IMHO” meant.

I had a nice hike this afternoon, came home, showered (finally) and went out shopping for kitty stuff and groceries around 7pm. After putting the groceries away I made myself some really yummy dinner: Thai sausage (made with chicken, lemongrass and cilantro) simmered in a curry vegetable sauce over brown rice. mmm.

I was gonna put in a DVD but by the time I ate, cleaned up and sat on the couch snuggling my kitty for awhile – I decided to work a few more hours.

Now I have – and now it’s time for bed! Night!

This morning I got up and walked to The Park Bench cafe for coffee. The older man there (family owned), is soo nice. He’s from Jordan I think he is Greek… (a shame I don’t know that, I’ll have to ask him) and he’s so sweet. Even though whenever he sees me I’ve usually just woken up about 15 minutes prior, thrown on some clothes and walked over there, he still makes me feel like I’m the most beautiful woman in the world every time.

update: I’ve now posted about George more here & here

Friday’s I work from home. It’s quite nice. My kitty starts to get the hint that the weekend is here. I can tell he knows, cuz he gets super playful and lovey. This morning while I sat at my desk I saw him leaping by, from the kitchen to the front door. So cute. Poor lil guy only has about 10 feet to go, but nothing quick little jaunt across the room to stretch the legs, eh? He also does this cute thing where he tries to race/chase me into a room and then when we get there he jumps up on my legs like “Gotcha!”.

I just made myself a delicious egg, mushroom and cheese scramble with turkey bacon and toast on the side. (all made and ready at the same time! which for my cooking skills is good! :) I’m streaming KEXP and working on a Flash music player for the site I’m working on. It’s a good day so far.

I wish I’d had my camera today to post a photo next to this. My trash can here at work mostly just gets my discarded coffee cup from my daily stop at the Jolt & Bolt downstairs… and today I tossed my cup in realizing that all you could see at the top of the wastebasket was 5 empty containers. Pretty funny… it looked like I had just had an all nighter and was pounding cup after cup.

My history with coffee is similar to the young teens who just drink wine coolers. I didn’t like coffee at all for a long time and would ONLY drink it if I mixed some hot cocoa in with it. (However, for the record, I have always liked Coffee Nips and Coffee Ice Cream.)

When chilled coffee’s like Mocha Frappuccino’s started hitting the market, I had those quite a bit and then that segued into having mocha coffee’s every once and awhile too (we’re talking maybe twice a month). It wasn’t till I was finally in a FT salary position, around 22, that I started to really want coffee to help me get going in the morning. And even then it was mocha’s just a couple times a week and never on the weekends.

My next job got me hooked on normal coffee’s with coffeemate and sugar. And then when I started dating Matt, he drank coffee so I started to drink it a little bit more.. even on the weekends. (but most of the time could go without it, too, with no problem.) However it wasn’t long that I was waking up in the morning, already thinking about that yummy warm cup.

Now I don’t drink mocha’s at all. In fact my favorite coffee drink isn’t any crazy complicated order like a “Nonfat no-foam Lightnote Misto”? (What is that?) Nope, my favorite every day now for years just happens to be a plain old cup of coffee: A dark roast preferably, with a spoonful of sugar (raw only, please) and a small bit of creamy half & half.

I mean, we’re talking I’ve NEVER ordered myself a latte, an espresso, an americana, none of those! But the thing is, I kind of want to! I want to have some fancy dreamy drink that’s a treat. PLUS if I go to Italy, you KNOW I’ll be sippin the espresso drinks!

Now, I’m sure there’s atleast a few of you who are gasping “you’re missing out!” when you just read the above. So YOU there – please help me decide what fancy coffee drink I should try next.

These are my preferences with my regular coffee to help you guide me:

– I love a dark roast

– I love cream and how the cold half & half makes my coffee almost cool enough to drink right away! (so I’ve never thought the steamed hot milk was a good idea – maybe it’s worth the wait once it cools down?)

– I like just a little sweet, but not too sweet.

Whattya think?

Note: I won’t keep a running tally on this, I just need help from you coffee connoisseurs.

p.s. yes, I know I need to get the comments feature for posts like this… MT here I come.

p.s.s. Sarah Hatter orders Nonfat no-foam Lightnote Mistos. She’s also an amazing writer.

*Tally updated 8/13 – 11:22pm – Conversations today have me dreaming of Greece and Paris strongly again….

Tally for my potential Europe trip is now:

Paris – 3

Dublin – 3.5

Italy – 5

Greece – .5

I’ve also gotten a few persuading discussions on Portugal and Prague, but I’m leaving them out of my choices this trip – there’s so many places to see, I’ve got to narrow it down!

Actually many people roll around several different spots they’ve visited and loved or heard about and want to visit – See! It’s a hard decision! But, it’s nice to hear a little bit from everyone – thank you!! Send in more votes! But try to be clear on what your official vote is! I actually had to write one person back and ask “so, was that a vote? if so, which of the 8 countries you mentioned are you actually voting for?” hahaa

Traveling is grand!!

FYI I just updated the list on the left.

I’m not a huge fan of all of these bands. A few of them I’m just curious about and have heard “of them” more than I’ve actually listened to them… (the few being: Daniel Lanois, Bob Schneider, Dashboard Confessional, Film School) so I put them on my list to possibly check em out.

How awesome is it that Dave Attell is coming!! Anyone want to ask me out on a date to that? Between all these other shows – Radiohead, Grandaddy and the obvious few more that I’ve got in my queue – I’d love someone to treat me to that night. What a great date to take someone to? He makes me laugh my ass off. (hmm, maybe my date wouldn’t want that) hahaa

Oh & so far the tally for my potential Europe trip is:

Paris – 1.5

Dublin – 1

Italy – 2

Greece – .5

*updated 5:48pm* Someone voted for 2 different places, so I split his votes up. I’d definitely like to see the islands of Greece. My friend (who’s in love with Paris) said she had some amazing times there.

Ashley really got me going on Italy… I told her as long as she gives me a pocket full of things to say to keep those flirty men at bay, I just may go there! It sounds so amazing.

What’s your vote?

aawww, I suck. I knew that her roomate had posted her happy birthday wishes, but then I just saw that someone else did. And now I feel bad that I didn’t! :( I’m a bad friend.

Well, maybe not so bad :) I did send a personal email/ecard to her and even refrained from the phone call subjecting her to my really bad singing voice! Isn’t that a gift in itself? hahaa…

Well sweet girl, while you still have a couple precious hours of this special day left, know that I’ve been thinking of you all day – and sorry I couldn’t be with you all tonite!

So I was thinking about going to Burning Man this year… thinking now is a great time in my life to experience it, everyone should go atleast once, etc. But I have also been thinking about taking a trip to Europe. Now is also a great time in my life for that, too. I plan to travel on my own… visiting new cities, learning about a different culture first hand, meeting new people and taking in the rich experience.

Just yesterday when I was telling someone my plan to go to Burning Man, they remarked how expensive it is now. It is? I didn’t know! Here I thought I could just go along w/ my friends… party, boppin around seeing all the people I know who are going. But $225 dollars!!? Well now that’s 1/2 my ticket to Europe! As as great as my new little home is, it’s also costing me a bit more moola than before – and it doesn’t have trees out back that are growing the type of green that can pay for all this luxury!!!

SO with that said – I’m NOT going to Burning Man. (which makes me sad, cuz I really did want to experience it) But I AM going to Europe! woohoo!!

I’ve been wanting to go somewhere for so long. I went to London (for a weekend) and Spain (for 2 weeks) back in 1998 and returned about 2 weeks prior to meeting Matt. (Wow! So much has happened in those 5 years!) Matt & I did some traveling, but Maui, Mexico and Seattle was about as exotic as we got. I’m really looking forward to exploring Europe more.

So now the big question – where to go!? I absolutely loved Spain, but I need to explore someplace new. My coworker thinks I should go to Paris (she’s lived there off and on and has a passionate love affair with that city). Personally, I have heard good and bad things about it. I don’t know a lick of French (not that that should stop me, I like the challenge of a new language), but I also can’t help but think that it being the “city of love” doesn’t sound as appealing for going single… still, it’s an option.

Other places I’m seriously rolling around:

Dublin, Ireland or Rome, Italy.

I’ve also always wanted to visit Greece, India, Japan, too – so many choices!!! What’s your vote?

Sorry if the page is looking all wacky with the font colors and links, etc. I’m (done) playing w/ my CSS hover links for the menu on the left. I think it’s stupid I have to put the class tag in the ‘a’ tag for the hover link to work (correct me if I’m wrong). You’d think having it in the ‘td’ or ‘span’ tag would be enough! But such is the problem when wanting to use both regular and hover links on a site. arg.

You also may notice, I added a list of upcoming SF shows over on the left. I’ll be posting live music, movies and events that I’m into seeing. Lemme know if you think I’m missing something good!

Check out Jane’s site for more music – and Jee’s for gallery events coming up.