Fridays are wonderful because they lead to the weekend.

Last Friday, I stayed at work late, making progress on projects I had let slip in lieu of Hawaiian holiday planning last week. We enjoyed a lovely Vietnamese dinner I picked up on the way home. Despite some extra flab I've put on lately, I was extraordinarily hungry, so we had an appetizer sampler before heading out for a walk through Golden Gate Park. We enjoyed the rest of our meal, then finished Sense and Sensibility before heading off to bed.

Saturday morning, I made it to the Marina Green in time for my run. Having to arrive by 7:15AM is a challenge. I didn't have time to grab breakfast, but I knew a bagel would be waiting for me at the end of my run. Anyone who watched my Food Network appearance knows of my appreciation for peanut butter Oreo cookies. The good people at Nabisco have recently introduced peanut butter double stuff, without the chocolate creme portion that for these past years, I have endured in order to enjoy the peanut butter. While whizzing me down the hills to the Marina, Gordon produced not one but two Oreo cookie delights from the pocket of his fleece jacket, fueling my morning.

I've been getting assigned the cheap miles, only running 6 when others get to lead 14. Mind you, I'm not exactly in shape to run 14, but I won't really get there unless I get to do more than 6. Come on! I stuck around to help clean up, since Gordon was windsurfing all day. Walked home, through the hills of Pac Heights, to add some mileage and as a means of free transportation, since I'm not that familiar with the bus lines in that area of town.

I washed out my running outfit so it would be ready for Wednesday, spilling a huge amount of Woolite in the process. I used our dirty clothes to clean up the spill, and I ended up strengthening my forearms by hand washing dozens of items in the sink, bit by bit. At least the couple of square feet of floor in the bedroom are now fresh as a daisy.

We enjoyed a lovely homemade dinner on Saturday and got sleepy while watching a dvd and drinking wine.

It was so nice not to have to wake up at any particular time on Sunday. After consuming a traditional Hawaiian breakfast and baking a cake from scratch, we headed off to shop and check out some houses. My clutch got a work out as Gordon got used to my gear box climbing the hills in San Carlos and Belmont. Looking at a few houses gave us a better idea of what we like and don't like. I want a house where I can entertain outside as well as indoors. I like the bedrooms to be separate from the rest of the home. And, I would love to be able to fit a bed inside of a bedroom. Apparently, architects designing homes in the mid-1900s didn't hear that last request very often. While no home-buying plans are imminent, with my friends taking 6 - 12 months to find homes, I figured I should start now, in hopes that next year's bonus will be nice enough for the tax benefit of a mortgage to be a good reason to grow up and finally buy real estate... after all of these years of simply telling myself this is something I should probably do.

Dinner at Torsten's was phenomenal. I grew up eating a lot of meat, and I would relish the bit of marrow that I was sometimes lucky enough to find trapped in some bone joint. Gordon made a special request that Torsten cook us some marrow. Being the wonderful host that he is, Torsten went to his local butcher, and through his German as a first language English and the butcher's Spanish as a first language English, Torsten was able to emerge, half an hour later, with some beef bones in hand. Wanting to present us with a dramatic presentation, he used a saw to cut the bones into long chunks. He baked them and served them on toast with a touch of fresh parsley. We salted them ourselves. My God, I was in heaven. Pure bliss. The marrow is better than butter. The oil had an amazing flavor. And paired with a lovely champagne, I was in heaven. Gordon is going to saw bones for me in the future. I am a lucky woman.

Manfred, a German accountant visiting the US for the first time, was a bit surprised at the gleem in my eye as Torsten showed me the saw he had used to cut the bones. As dinner conversation turned to talk of eating pig's ears, chicken feet, and duck tongues, Manfred was at once intrigued and seemingly disgusted. He likes ground meat, not ever wanting to know the source of the protein he is ingesting. He will return to Germany with some excellent stories, preserving the reputations that Gordon and Torsten have already developed for their non-mainstream eating habits.

The entree of venison stew with parsnips was also delightful.

We surprised our host with a spice and fruit birthday cake cut into a T shape. OK. So it wasn't all for decoration. It also allowed us to take bits of cake to work today. I am impressed with Gordon's ability to throw ingredients together and make them taste amazing.

Despite Gordon's disdain for cheese, odd given his culinary palette for other fine foods (like marrow), the rest of us enjoyed some of my favorite parmesan. I swear it has a fruity nuttiness, though Torsten said he wouldn't call it fruity. I taste the fruit notes, I swear. It was delightful paired with port.

Four alcoholic pairings and thousands of calories later, we emerged fat and happy.

Waking up at 5 something this morning to head to the office was tough, but we've got just five more days to go before the weekend!

Yesterday marked my first completely public laundromat experience. I have used coin-operated machines in school, but that was ages ago, and the machines were restricted to student use, so they weren't entirely public. Yesterday, I made my way down the hill to the fancy, premium-priced laundromat. It took forever to feed single dollar bills into the quater machine. We only had a $50, $20s, and a bunch of singles, and we didn't want to carry piles of quarters home, so I fed the singles in, one at a time.

We idled time away at the crepe joint. It's suprisingly difficult to find an enticing crepe when you're hoping to share with your dining partner, and he detests cheese. Finally settled on ordering with cheese on the side, we enjoyed each other's company and people-watched while our laundry got clean and relatively dry.

Thankfully for me, Gordon's ability to run with me on his shoulders came in handy for carrying our four loads of wash back up the hill. I was pooped, having run 6 miles in the morning and walked over 3, including a challenging hill, in the evening (somehow managing to gain another pound, despite my faintness from planned food restritions during the day in an aim to shed this unbearable extra weight).

Laundry day isn't so bad.

The upside of finding a great rental deal on craigslist that lists "unusual circumstances" as part of its description, is that sometimes, unusual circumstances arise.

I love my apartment, despite the recent car break-in problem. It's swank. It's convenient. It's new. It's plush.

And it used to be my apartment. I found out moments ago that I'm being evicted, despite the 30 day agreement that we had. The owner's parents have just learned that she's been dating a fabulous guy - someone they embraced and welcomed as a friend of one of their sons, but as a romantic companion for their daughter, they've gone over the deep end, calling her a "white trash whore" with whom they will never speak again and telling him that he is no longer welcome in their home. His crime? Being born of non-Pakistani origins. Never mind that he treats his girlfriend with love and respect, and he's really a great guy. But now I'm meddling. Bottom line is that I have a great deal of empathy for my landlord's situation, and somehow, my concern for them seems to be overshadowing my own dilemna of where I will hang my many handbags.

I arrived in San Francisco years ago, having taken a road trip across the country. On the first evening in town, my then boyfriend's car was broken into while parked outside of my home. AMong the items taken were thousands of dollars worth of CDs - I remember - I attempted to catalogue them for the insurance claim.

Last week, someone stole a light bulb, car manual, and satellite radio car adapter from my boyfriend's car when it was parked outside of my apartment as we were watching a movie. The next evening, while his car was parked in front of his home located in a quaint neighborhood, someone went through his car again.

This weekend, we had a glorious time in the gold country, yet I could barely understand our conversation in the car because the wind noise from the roof having been slashed in a break-in months before detracted from Gordon's charming Liverpool accent.

Arriving home on Monday evening, we thought it odd that the front door was unlocked. I distinctly remember we double locked the door. We didn't think too much of it. The front gate was closed.

After settling in a bit, Gordon noticed his mountain bike was gone and the back door was unlocked as well. Someone likely lifted the bike and walked it through the house, leaving from the front door and not having the ability to lock it from the outside. Then I noticed that a couple of hundred dollars was also missing. Gordon preferred not to dwell on it, hoping he had taken it and spent it during our trip. My memory betrayed his optimism.

I think it's time to move to the burbs.

On a near daily basis for the past week, at least one friend or colleague has asked, "Have you heard yet?"

And I would answer, "Not yet. They said 7 - 10 days. I'll given them to the end of the week."

It was a stretch, obviously. I felt fairly prepared going in. I had memorized in depth statistics for three companies and basic statistics for 10 that were to represent my personal account.

I bought a new suit. I got enough rest. I ate breakfast. I emerged feeling like I had done pretty well. I likely could have done a little better, but in all, I felt as though I had been me. For better or for worse.

Apparently, I was viewed more on the "for worse" side.

While "everyone to a person" enjoyed meeting me, "there just wasn't enough there" to continue on in the process. Given my desire to cross to the buyside, I wanted more specific feedback. I was told that I "shouldn't change anything." They all saw portions of capability required to execute the job, but "just not enough across the board."

Damn. Not enough across the board. In no one particular area did I stand out. And, the advice not to change anything basically means that I am inherently not bad, but also inherently not quite good enough. Sadly, a feeling with which I am all too familiar, in a way. I've been fairly successful, but often just shy of achieving greater success.

Perhaps this was my destiny. I was always the kid who cut corners. I liked to think that I was just really good at the 80/20 concept of getting 80% of the results with 20% of the effort. I grew up hearing that I would never get anywhere in life with my lazy disposition. Being the person with potential is tough. Perhaps I should relish the feedback that actually, I just don't quite have enough potential, across the board, to make it to the big leagues.

In fairness, this is one of few places that can get away with such piercing remarks and in the end still have masses of people dying to work there. As others have commented, when I've told them the few places where I've interviewed - I've really started at the top. I suppose if my lazy disposition wasn't going to get me anywhere, perhaps my aspiration and imagination might.

Thankfully, I continue to "capital"ize on being plenty enough across the board with my beau. And really, that's what matters most.