My last month has been remarkably uneventful and, at times, crushingly boring. Work, work, and then–for good measure–some more work. The weather here has been gorgeous (sunny and warm nearly every day) but sometimes I go several days at a time without feeling the sun on my face for more than five minutes.

I arrive at work just after sunrise, and often leave after dark. Go home, eat, fall asleep. Repeat. Haven’t written. Haven’t drawn. Haven’t picked up my mandolin. My camera has been sitting in a desk drawer for three weeks.

“The only things they trust are the racing ships
Posiedon gave, to sail the deep blue sea
like white wings in the sky, or a flashing thought.” (The Odyssey)

One of the perks of working in a school is getting to hear children say all sorts of silly things. Students at AST (especially the kindergartners) are fond of exclaiming, “Oh my God!” at the drop of a hat, for instance. Talking about volcanoes? “Oh my God!” Finding out that a dinosaur in a book is too tall to fit on the page? “Oh my God!” Explaining that a tomato is a fruit? “Oh my God!” I suppose our students just have a flair for the dramatic.

I suppose this post should, logically, be preceded with another titled “How to Cook a Tagine”. But you know me- I don’t do anything half-assed. I’d never cooked a tagine before, so naturally I made my first one in the woods over twigs and stones. Mustapha and I surprised his sisters by whisking them away last Sunday for a picnic in a forested glen by the ocean. After arriving, we spread out a big carpet to sit on, piled up the containers of ingredients, turned on some music, and got to work.

We woke up at the crack o’ dawn on Sunday to drive down to Muir Woods as soon as the park opened, and before all the tourists arrived. Choosing the path less taken every time, we found ourselves on a beautiful two-hour hike through the woods, culminating in a spectacular view across the park. Mist was still blowing through the trees, so the landscape changed every couple of minutes.

Spotted some cute banana slugs, a gaggle of chipmunks, and a couple of hawks. I also made friends with a lizard and he allowed me to get within a few inches for some excellent reptile portraits. He was missing half his tail, so perhaps his amiable demeanor didn’t work with hungry foxes and birds.

As well as setting a really dangerous precedent of two blog posts in one week, I’m also getting into the bad habit of posting a lot of images and very little text. I’ll try to get better about that, though I secretly believe that people are, in general, too lazy to read lot of text anyway.

As promised, here are my four most recent paintings. They’re actually finished, which is more than I can usually say! We’ll see about continuing this trend.

I’m going to save up for a couple of canvases so next time I don’t have to paint on paper.

Second day of San Francisco trip. Started off with food from Boudin at Fisherman’s Wharf, then chocolate from Ghirardelli. Explored the city some more, ending up at Haight-Ashbury, where I purchased a delightful rainbow argyle sweatshirt. More photos on flickr.