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I really enjoyed Libkitty's visit. It was the best of all worlds - a kick in the butt to work on the house and yard, fun roommate teamwork cooking and baking for the brunch, and good company trekking to the Stinson Beach cottage and the usual hanging out the beach house entails. (Most of the furniture was replaced after Jan. 1 '06 flood, and it's nice stuff. FAB new bed and couch. The town is always fun and hearing the ocean? priceless)  We drove around West Marin, visting my sister's house, Libkitty's childhood home, and the small local library that I'd always intended to stop and see, but didn't, until then. 

Brunch was great. I have to write down the receipe. That's the best frittata I've ever made. Katerian, Freya, Frida and I had a blast walking around San Rafael. Good food, good exercise, good company, good conversation. Fun! I think this will be a summer of more social stuff at my house. I' m quite pleased with the house and yard lately, even though my house to-do list is still quite  long.

In my veggie garden - only tomatoes have survived. Peas, bean, and cukes have all been consumed down to stems. It's a postage-stamp-sized veg garden. I want climbing peas or beans, but don't have the oomph to fight whatever it is that's eating everything (probably snails; the ingrates).

It's official - we have coyotes. The county sent a form letter full of advice on vexing them but coexisting, too. They want me to take up my constant outdoor  waterbowls. I've had them out for "my" skunks and opposums since forever... But I don't want either cat to be eaten.

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I'm managing some moderation in my obession with Six Feet Under thanks to the time it takes for each DVD to arrive from the library request queue.  I love the characters, how screwed up they are, but  there for each other when it counts.  The ending was so brilliant... I rewatched it several times, with and without commentary, and started over, to see it on DVD instead of Tivo'd cable, in case I missed anything before. Knowing how it really ends, how it always ends, for everyone, makes me appreciate the characters even more. Grief and death were close companions of mine for a long time, also, and I love this media experience that show death, points out the naturalness of it, well, Nate does, anyway.

I went sniffing around info on Alan Ball, creator of the series, and he has a vampire tv show coming up sometime this year. Interesting!

http://televisionary.blogspot.com/2007/02/casting-couch-anna-paquin-bites-into.html
Anna Paquin will play Sookie Stackhouse, an innocent waitress who can read people's minds. In a small Louisana town, she comes into contact with the burgeoning underworld... which isn't quite so underground now that vampires can buy Japanese-made synthetic blood and mingle with the living. The vampires' emergence into everyday society throws Sookie into the arms of one of the undead and a love story (writ large by Ball) begins.

Other links: http://www.movieweb.com/tv/news/68/18968.php,    http://reelfanatic.blogspot.com/2006/07/hbo-sopranos-true-blood-and-spike-lee.html

From the latter, quoting Alan Ball:  Having shed one of their more antisocial habits, the vampires "decide to make their presence known, hire PR firms, and sort of ... come out of the coffin. A lot of churches are horribly against them, but they are very wealthy, and contribute a lot of money to Republican politicians so that they can legitimise their holdings." He had fun with subtexts: "Vampires are a great metaphor for minority groups that struggle for rights and recognition, but also for Republicans, in that they’re vicious and bloodthirsty and will destroy anything that gets in their way."