Random art that hung for a few days on a light pole on a corner that I bike past almost every day.

And where has your little munakins been these last few weeks? I’ve been obsessing about a little project I’m working on, that’s where I’ve been.  And besides this almost constant obsession (and the therapeutic making of quick pickles to recuperate from the trauma of said obsession) I’ve been trying to make time to get out and exercise.  I’ve taken long runs on treadmills at the gym, meandered across Alameda and Bay Farm Island on my granny bike, and have returned to bike-commuting to my volunteer gig at St. Vincent de Paul’s downtown campus.

While those runs and bike rides have been perfectly lovely, what better way to exercise in the freakishly lovely weather that the Bay Area is getting these days than to take a long hike with Mum-of-Mine in the startlingly bright green East Bay hills?  And last Friday that’s what I did.  It was one of my monthly hiking dates with M-o-M, the routes of which are carefully planned by herself.  This time she selected a long hike in Sibley Volcanic Regional Preserve (which, according to the East Bay Regional Park District’s excellent website, is one of the district’s original parks).  Lemme tell you, you ain’t seen pretty until you’ve hiked the hills around the Bay Area in our often heartrendingly brief green season.

The hike was so lovely that I informed Edna Louise that she and I had to go to Sibley for our hike next week, if next week’s promised rain doesn’t come too late in the week and turn the trails into an slog-fest through adobe mud hell.  If the rains threaten to make the trails mud-slicks, then she and I will take a stair walk in San Francisco that she says will both kick our rumps AND provide awesome views.  Oh man, between the hikes Mum-of-Mine comes up with and the ones that Edna Louise devises, I’m one happy hiker.

Alameda has a couple of these little free libraries. This one’s at the end of Central, right by the estuary.

Now if only I could get the top of my Marketing Tote to do what I want it to do…  I will keep obsessing about the design until I think it’s just right, and until then I will keep taking breaks for fresh air (in between volunteer gigs and pickling sessions).  Take care, my pets – and if you live in the Bay Area, take a hike and enjoy the green hills while we’ve got ’em!

Until next week, your little munakins, aka me.