Our first Tsunami, a little bit of a let down.

There is something about the weather service and their list of warnings, watches, bulletins and special reports that send people into a huge downward spiral. Last evening, I moved my car and instructed Ben to do the same. Then I went outside and secured Haddie and Old Yeller (our boats). Granted Old Yeller is now actually tied up to the house because I did not know what else to do for him. Then we sat and waited.

I felt like we had a lot of warning time. Growing up with tornadoes you get at least 30-60 mins of warning time. Earthquakes you get nothing. Yesterday was a bit strange because we had over 4 hours to get "prepared." And the content of the warnings seemed a bit dire. I get it that they need to prepare people for the worst, but still it sends people into a tailspin.

At 9:35 last night there was a huge gust of wind out of nowhere. Ben and I looked at each other, and of course did what all humans should do when faced with strange natural occurrence. We went outside and stood on the deck. It should be noted that if things were really bad we would have heard the warning sirens, and trust me they are loud here. The tide was not as high as the high tide picture I posted on Sept 18th. The waves were more defined and maybe 7 inches tall, which stood out to us because it is usually flat in our canal. Then that was it.

This morning all people and property are fine! The Chronicle doesn't even have any coverage of the Great San Francisco Tsunami of 2009. Their main focus is of course the beginning of it all in Somoa, which is no joke. The tsunami wasn't the 60 foot wall of waves that I had envisioned! I guess after traveling thousands of miles, like any traveler it was a bit too tired to rage on another town.

Tsunami, We're Ready! Um, Sort of . . .

It is that time in the afternoon when I log into the Chronicle for the Daily Dish, which is the gossip column. Today I was greeted with a headline of "Tsunami Advisory Issued for West Coast". Ok. Alright. Should I freak out now? So I click.

And begin to read. Apparently waves will hit between this evening at about 9pm to tomorrow morning. The waves sizes are going to be between 12 and 26 inches. Wait, so that is it? We should look out for waves between the size of 1 and 3 feet. By definition a tsunami is a giant wave produced by an earthquake. I am not sure if I would classifly 1-3 feet giant. MMmmmm.

Usually when I think about tsunamis I think about a huge 60 foot wave coming toward us, not an extra three feet. Does an extra three feet concern me, well no not really. I am lying. Yes I have a concern. It revolves around the parking lot and if it is going to flood. I will now head outside and move my car. That is about it. High tide is at 9:16pm and is at 5.1, ok so let's do some math. If the tsunami hits, the new tide line will be 8.1 feet. Doable, wont be the highest high tide we've seen, nor the lowest.

How about this, if anything amazing happens I will let you know, but I have a feeling it is going to be an normal evening around here. (I hope!) Ok time to go and move my car!

Lord, I miss you child . . .

One of the most popular questions that our friends ask us is "Do you miss the city?" As of right now, the answer is no. I think we were ready for our move to Marin, even way before it happened. Let's face our days of going out in the city late night and other stuff like were slowly coming to a close. (Sorry Ben!)

There is one thing that I just cannot get over. I miss the Video Nook. Holy Crap, I miss the Video Nook! For a long time we have resisted the Netflix deal, because the Video Nook was so close. I mean we could see their front door from our old deck. Every Sunday we'd head down to the Nook and pick out a video. The employees would help us if we had no idea what to rent. They would also ask for our opinions after we watched movies. On several occasions when a new movie would be released, it would be gone from the shelves. All we had to do was ask and we'd get the special "under the counter" videos that the employees would hide for people like us. They didn't even have to ask our names when we checked out. They knew us. Now we don't have a local video store, and I just cannot become a member to Netflix. This is due to the fact that for years Netflix was the evil corporate machine putting the places like the Video Nook out of business. The Video Nook is still too fresh in the brain to emotionally destroy them by becoming a member of Netflix. Instead of a local video store, we solved this issue by getting HBO.

I miss the human interaction of the Video Nook; the commentary of the movies we were about to rent, the selection of indie, documentaries and foreign films, and the secret hidden new release movies. Video Nook, I miss you!

Recap of the Tour!

Yesterday was a great day! The organizers of the tour believe about 1500 people came. There were 20 homes on the tour. I am still not sure how your home gets to be on the tour, but moving on.

The home I was a docent on was only letting 12 people in at a time, so there was usually a line outside. For a while I was inside the home directing people and pointing out some great accents. For example, upstairs there was a personal sized sauna. The portholes in the home were originally from a Liberty Ship. (There is a liberty ship in san francisco that you can tour, the glorious Jeremiah O'Brien.) The living space was split between two levels so people find that interesting. Overall, a good day, and I learned something about how El Nino is doing something to the seals in the bay. Then I went outside and held people in the line and was able to chat and answer questions. As we all stood in the sun on the dock.

I wanted to share some questions and tidbits from yesterday.

Visitor #1: Do you live on the dock?

Ann: Yes, I do, just down the way. My husband and I moved here about a month ago

Visitor #1: Can I see it?

Ann: Ah, no. It isn't open today.

Visitor #1: Why?

Ann: (Seriously, are you asking me this?)

Visitor #2: Can you feel the homes move?

Ann: Sometimes you can see them move at high tide, but not really. (I know how to tackle this one)

Visitor #3: Where do the children go to school?

Ann: WHAT? ARE YOU KIDDING ME? We have a small one room school house at the end of each dock where the children learn the ways of the world together. I should mention that the teachers are seals.

Ann's Real Answer: Since we are apart of school district I would say they go to school there.

Visitor #3: Oh yea, that makes sense.

Visitor #4: Does the money raised today go to fight the city?

Ann: I assume you are referring the houseboat wars of the 1960s and 70s. These days, we and the city and the neighbors all get along. In fact the money raised today will be put back into our housing association. (Yea, I am not really sure what the money raise for today was going to be used for, and that seemed like a good answer.)

Tidbits:

I got to talk to a really intoxicated lady from Europe. Let's just say I am glad 1) that she wasn't driving and 2) when she left the house.

Some people who did not have tickets tried to sneak on, I had to stop them. Now if they would have just walked right on like they should have been there, then they would have gotten to see it!

No one stole anything, not on my watch!

Do you have $40 and live in the Bay Area?

And you have no plans today?

Come and check out the Floating Home Tour. You get to see about 20 homes, but not ours. We are not opening it to the public! Also who wants to come and look at all of our stuff?

I am volunteering today as a docent. I will pass along helpful information and make sure no one steals anything from the house I am stationed at.

It should be a beautiful day up here in Marin, no fog here.

Stuff in the Water

Off of our floating dock there is a thing in the water. After heavy investigation I have discovered that this is probably part of an old dock, but it is just the plastic floatation part. Several days ago, I found that it is still tied to a rope that is connected somewhere on the rocks on the other side of our yard. This thing is covered in plant life! Since I do not know a ton about marine plant life, I am unsure how long it has in fact been there. All I want to do at low tide is poke and play at this thing, knowing that I would need a couple more set of hands to deal with it.

Ben and I had a conversation about it while I was poking it and lifting it halfway out of the water with a boat hook. He has no real interest in this old dock which is stuck in the ground. He would really like me to stop messing with it. Then he went inside, and then my trials began. I was on the not so floating dock at low tide, because then it becomes a sitting dock. The house was up to my shoulders. Needless to say it took a couple of tries, but I was able to lift myself onto our house off of our dock. I am glad that no one was watching this go down.

The mix of only seeing this old dock and the fact that our floating dock is sitting on the bottom during low tide make it really hard to mess with this thing with any real commitment. Well I guess I could mess with it until the tide comes back up.

Noises

For a long time, we have slept with a fan on. It drowns out the noise of the city, which during our stay there included a frat house across the street, buses, trains, firetrucks, and everything else that comes with living in a city. The fan is still here, but the noises have changed.

Granted, life around here is usually really quiet, besides the lovely call of the seagull (sarcasm is hard to write, seagulls do NOT have a pretty bird call). And as it has been stated the homes in our neighborhood move. We go up and down, albeit slowly with the tide. Therefore our house moves against everything it is attached to, and so do the other houses. This makes really eerie creeks. The kind that wakes you up in the night and you second guess yourself what you just heard. Last night was particularly loud in the neighborhood. Many creeks, cracks, pops, and squeaks. I would imagine we hear it more at night because our bedroom is very close to the dock, and our windows open up to that side.

Remember if you stay here, keep your ears open, and remember it is just the glory of the fact that yes, we are in motion!