Orange is not a colour, it's a state of mind

Can’t believe another year at Xero has rolled around – 4th December, my Xero anniversary – longest time I’ve worked in one place! Last year Jif & Larissa & I had morning tea together.

This year I made cupcakes for the office – my first cupcake baking experience here (they went down well with the office buddies, several of whom were Vend boys visiting from New Zealand who couldn’t resist Edmond’s banana cake in cupcake form) and I baked them in Santa Claus cupcake papers I’d been saving for a special occasion. I made The Mister stop work and have morning tea with me.

I was very surprised the next day to come out of a meeting to find a pink box on my desk, filled with mini cupcakes with orange frosting arranged by my boss in New Zealand – so lovely!

And finally, 5 years on with Xero and one of my dreams to be moved to an overseas post has come true! Very humbling to be trusted with such a core move for the company as we set about building a US team and breaking into such a big market. It’s pretty cool working here – I don’t get out of the office much (well, except for that rash of conferences in November) but with the 101 (freeway) just out the window and all the tech companies around San Francisco it certainly feels like we’re at the start of something big. It is strange not being in the Wellington office with all the people we’ve come to know over the last 5 years but we’re all so connected online and my job hasn’t really changed that much, that it just feels like carrying on as normal.

Now then, I wonder where I’ll be this time next year? New York perhaps?

Everything at this time of year is based around seasons and holidays and everything has a strict order. The minute Thanksgiving was over, Christmas started, although at least December 1 seems to be the big bang day. I was quite excited tonight after work to see this guy on his way home with a tree – Christmas in the city!!

There are loads of Christmas trees around town – in fact I’ve worked out there’s a whole lot of people employed in seasonal work to keep office block foyers around town trimmed and with a magnificent tree – white burglars’ vans spotted parked out front with a team in the foyer decorating the tree – each building trying to out-do the other. However the biggest tree in town has got to be the one in Union Square.

Everything is so pretty and sparkly.

Nice way to display all the Christmas wrapping paper!

While Sara was staying with us this weekend (over on a work trip) we took her to Napa Valley as she’d never been there. With information we’d learned on the previous trip about picnics being widely accepted The Mister investigated wineries that looked like they had good picnic spots before we left with a plan. We visited our new friend the Yountville Coffee Caboose for morning tea … much quieter this time as they weren’t having a parade!

Once we got into Napa Valley we headed straight for Deane & Deluca, the only one outside of New York, and got deli made sandwiches before heading to the first of the wineries that The Mister had picked and the one likely to have the best picnic spot. Jackpot! It was just perfect. Alpha Omega. The woman who greeted us noted our picnic and told us the best place to eat it and offered us a wine tasting outdoors. It was lovely – sitting under trees overlooking a pool and manicured gardens being served and entertained by a retired jet pilot, Bob, who had a very dry sense of humor and with a bit of sparring could be convinced to let us taste the good stuff not on the tasting menu! The chardonnay was fantastic – thick and buttery and Sara and The Mister raved over the reds they tried … desperately trying not to get hooked when they realized Bob was letting them sample from the $80 bottle!

On the last tasting he poured them full glasses … something to take down into the garden to enjoy with our lunch. We sat there for ages and didn’t go to another winery. Just lovely. And quiet as I think it’s nearing the end of the busy winery tour season.

Had the very amazing experience last weekend of meeting someone who we’ve made friends with on Twitter – @thenovicechef who’s cooking and cat tweets we’ve been following for a while. We even made a video for her once so we all know what each other looks like.

She and her husband were in San Francisco for the weekend and we saw a tweet that they were down at the Ferry Building – we were heading down anyway with Sara who had just arrived to stay for the week so I kept my eyes open. I spotted her husband, tall in a line of people waiting for pork sandwiches and rushed up to them – huge hugs – we knew who we were looking at right away!

It was great to meet Jessica and Jorge and we had a lovely lunch in the sun together.

I forgot I’d written down a list of things about my mother which I unearthed when we were packing up to move. When she turned 60 and had a big party at the local hall with friends and family we drove up and some part of me wondered if I’d get over my fear of speaking in front of people enough to say a few words, tell a few funny stories. As it happened my nerves couldn’t handle it and her friends had gone to a lot of trouble to put on a locally inspired opera so there was enough to see without me stuttering and stammering.

I never told her I wrote all this down – she’ll chuckle and probably be very embarrassed to read it! Just a random collection of things she’s done, can do and some random memories.

My mum:

• can pot – at some stage in my childhood she had a potting wheel and made lots of very good things, perfectly round and symmetrical although I seem to recall they never got fired so they dried into the most delicate of muds in the garage and Dad grumbled having to move them between a couple of houses.
• can fly a plane
• made lots and lots and lots of chocolate eclairs for birthdays, dinner parties, take-a-plates, school fairs, family treats and she still makes them now from time to time
• was a wild lady from the lupins once – my sister and I (probably about 7 and 9 (probably the last time I wore togs)) were building sand castles on the firm sand at the beach and Mum was doing what she loved best at the beach which was lying basking in the sun, on this occasion fairly hidden in the sand dunes. There was hardly anyone else about. The sand castles that we’d built were perfect and we were building roads to join them together in a castle town when a couple of naughty boys who’d wandered along the beach came up to us and said “stupid girls with stupid sand castles” and stomped all over all of them with their feet laughing – I can’t recall which of us, or perhaps both, burst into tears, loud enough for Mum to hear – next minute she came tearing out of the dunes through the lupins shrieking and waving her fist at the boys “get away you horrible boys – leave those girls alone – how would you like it if we smashed things you made?”. Her hair was all over the place, she’d been asleep, she was a bit pink, she was screaming and wearing delightful swirly whirly patterned black and white togs – a sight that scared them away. But she saved us 🙂
• has run/walked a few half marathons – all of them when she was over 50
• is an amazing cook – I remember a lot of dinner parties at our house in Woodlands Road. For birthdays she always made our faves, and would now were we ever at their house on our birthdays – roast chicken and lemon meringue pie for me, pork chops and berry cheesecake for my sister, sausage casserole and golden steamed pudding for Dad.
• can run a high school single-handedly
• made me some amazing birthday cakes – ones I remember most are a piano (with while chocolate and licorice keys) and a pink fairly castle (the cake tins she used for the turrets were cans from tinned goods, peaches she told us, but I’m sure they were from  the cats jellimeat, not because of any bad taste in the cake but because Mum never had tinned peaches or other fruit, she bottled everything!)
• would never give us luncheon and tomato sauce white bread sandwiches for our school lunches – oh no, always brown bread with left over cold roast meat and salad … usually had to find my school friend Natalie to switch for her luncheon sandwich and loved staying at her house on school nights because that’s what her Mum put in my lunch box! Kids just don’t appreciate the good ground work their parents put in – I’m sure my good teeth, nails, hair, weight and constitution are due to a decent helping of brown bread in my childhood diet!
• was very VERY mad with me when I ran away to Joanne Brown’s house on the orange school bus. I wasn’t actually running away from home. I don’t recall being angry or upset or particularly rebellious, I think I was about 9 or 10, I just wanted to go visit. I should’ve got suspicious when I got on the bus at the lady driver asked me if my mother knew I was going on the bus (small town, small bus, she knew every kid and I was a spare) “Oh yes, I’m going to visit with Joanne” … yes Joanne was there so the explanation was plausible. Got to Joanne’s house where I was greeted with a similar question “No, but Joanne invited me to your house.” Obviously Mrs Brown phoned my mother, I stayed and played for a while, then was driven home later. A rather frosty reception from my mother who questioned me repeatedly “do you know how worried I was?” with my sister looking smugly on, usually it was her that was in trouble. I was sent to my room and told “wait until your father gets home’. Hmmmm, I recall that dark night, he was home way after I’d gone to bed and sleep but the light went on, I was hauled out of bed, given a big explanation about how worried my mother had been and to never ever go anywhere without telling her again and I think that was the last time I got the wooden spoon … when the last of the decorative fruit got whacked off 🙁 I’m still scared of buses to this day …
• once sprayed fly spray on her hair instead of hair spray
• loves to dance and her and dad are great dancers together and sometimes, even fairly recently, well, certainly on The Mister’s first night with the family, we danced as a family to Boney M – crazy laughing arms-out-whirling family. (He just watched. And yes he still married me.)
• can smell berries, plums, pepper, spices and all sorts of things in wine.
• once left the car keys in the house when we were late for school and shouted out to me as she was rushing back in to the house  “you back the car out while I go and get the keys”!
• has been married for 38 years (at the time I originally wrote this)
• has worked her whole life, although as home after school for us and now wants to travel the world.

Feels like a bit of an abrupt end to the list, but had I actually made it into a speech I’m sure it would’ve had a more planned out ending.

When Jif visited us recently he told us about Muir Woods just out of San Francisco where the giant redwoods live. He’s been to San Francisco a few times before and we had to work so there wasn’t a lot of showing him the city we could, or needed to do. We managed to grab a couple of hours before going to Austin for the Sencha Conference to drive to the woods. Wow – pretty awesome. Very well travelled though, with paths and fences and lots of tourists making noise but beautiful nevertheless. The trees are huge and there was still a serene feel about the place.

(When I first saw this photo I could almost see Bella or Edward emerging from the trees!)

We walk past this every day on the way to work. Needless to say there’s usually an interesting collection of people hanging around outside waiting for it to open. San Francisco is turning out to be a crazy town!

It was nice having ice-cream in Santa Cruz and walking along the beach. About an hour and a half drive south. I think the warmest weather is over now so it wasn’t too crowded. However, not like a beach in New Zealand because running along the edge of it is a boardwalk with fair-ground rides and arcade games. A day at the seaside doesn’t necessarily mean sand in your togs.

After my New York girl time experiences I was all set to face similar issues when getting my eye lashes tinted here, however it seems it’s not such a rare occurrence and the first salon I saw in our neighbourhood does it. However they do it public style sitting up, just like New York – this time it was in a busy hair salon and really freaky.

It’s like taking some activity that’s totally private (oh I don’t know, perhaps stuff like cleaning your ears, pulling a wad of knickers from your butt, picking your nose, plucking/tweezing/waxing, bawling like a baby, picking your toenails) right out in to a public space. It took every ounce of will power (and I have a lot of that) and a whole lot of adrenaline (yuck clammy hands) to not open my eyes. Sounds simple right? Keep your eyes closed? I can’t even do that in a yoga class of 6 where I’ve been going for 3 years let alone in a busy salon, right by their waiting area, with my face pointing towards the people waiting and reflected in every mirror for people getting their hair cut to see! It’s not even that I wasn’t supposed to open my eyes, like yoga or eclipses or flashing epileptic rock band lights, it’s actually don’t open them in manner of Vampire Eric (my fav) going out into the sun light – searing burning pain the consequences of which would’ve been far more embarrassing than sitting there with eyes closed having a treatment that’s on their salon menu so everyone probably knew what was going on and was ignoring it anyway … well not that I could see!

The woman I had was very patient, she talked me through what she was doing, even though she knew I’d been doing this for quite a few years, and stayed nearby the whole time – I just bowed my head and squeezed each of my fingertips in turn in my lap and tried to visualise what each of my fingernails looked like (am not much of a visualizer either, way too practical, hence the choice of strange things to visualise) and it worked – after what felt like half an hour my eyelids stopped fluttering and I stopped sweating. I might not wear ridiculous high-heeled shoes or anything that causes blisters or stupid pinching clothes or scratchy zippers but in an act of vanity (and to stop all the comments about how tired I look) I’ll continue to put myself through this!