Meet the Cast Monday #2: Yoga Master

Today you all get to meet my friend Yoga Master. She and I worked together in San Francisco when I spent the summer of 2008 at a law firm there. Yoga Master grew up in southern California but then got the good sense to flee north to San Francisco! :) She seriously is one of the funniest people in the entire world and I am so excited that she agreed to do Meet the Cast Monday!

Introducing.....Yoga Master!

I named you Yoga Master because you went to a yoga teacher's retreat. Tell us about it!

A few months after taking the CA bar exam, I was lucky enough to spend a month in Denver, CO learning how to teach yoga from a master yoga instructor named Ana Forrest. We would meet at the studio at 4:45 am every morning. I was staying around 30 minutes away from the studio which meant I got up before 4 am every day! We would meditate and chant for about an hour, practice for roughly three hours and then around 9am we would break (aka nap). Then we would start to learn how to actually teach yoga until around 8 at night. It was an amazing challenge. Eventually we taught a few classes to some beginners and then had to watch a video of ourselves teaching. It was a very humbling experience and a much needed departure from learning law. {I had to share this picture....seriously....how cool is she?}

What is your favorite part about living in San Francisco?

It's hard to say what my favorite part of San Francisco is because there are so many things I love. But, if I really have to pick I would say the food. As a quasi-vegetarian (aka picky eater), I love that almost everywhere has something seasonal, vegetarian and delicious for me to chow down on. And as much as people here emphasize healthy eating, its more of an emphasis on fresh food rather than the low-fat, low-carb food you'd be more likely to find in LA.

Tell us how you met your boyfriend.

Sigh, just starting to think about Sam brought a smile to my face. About 2 and a half years ago I decided to join a kickball team to meet new people and have some fun. Everyone on the team was really nice and super laid back. I already had a boyfriend, but was immediately attracted to a silver fox on the team named Sam. He was super funny and sweet. He even wrote me a poem that to this day is the funniest thing anyone has ever written to me. A few months later, I finally decided to break up with my boyfriend after a kickball game. I didn't waste any time and rushed to the local bar to meet the rest of the team. When I got there I made sure to tell my friend Kate, as loud as I could yell, so Sam could hear, "Yes!! I broke up with my boyfriend!" Needless to say, about 24 hours later, Sam, who I had been calling my "kickball crush," asked me out to dinner. About a week later my "kickball crush" became my boyfriend. Two and a half years later and I am more in love than I ever thought I would be. {And this story has officially solidified his name as "Kickball Boy" to me for the rest of his life.}

What is your favorite food?

My favorite style/type of food is thai food (any fried tofu noodle dish). But my favorite food of all time would have to be olives. Mmmmm. Olives. {I set her up to admit that even as a quasi-vegaterian, she LOVES bacon....but she didn't bite!}

Where is the best place you have ever traveled to?

When I was in college I participated in Semester at Sea where I was on a cruise ship around the world for 4 months. I was able to see a huge part of the world - South America, Asia, Africa, India. However, I think my favorite place I ever visited is Mt. Rushmore. I was totally shocked to see the scale of the sculpture and felt more patriotic than I ever felt before. It is really a wonderful thing to see.

Where do you want to be in 10 years?

In ten years, I would like to own some property (fingers crossed if I stay in San Francisco),own have a dog, maybe go back to school, learn how to cook better, have published a book or made a documentary and have opened a yoga studio. No biggie!

What is one (or more) item(s) on your bucket list?

I would like to perform a stand-up comedy routine. {When you get ready to do this, you call me because I'll be there!}

Family Farm Friday #20: More Bragging on California

"Right now we have three gnerations living and working here together, and so a lot of our family life and the farming kind of mesh." ~Kathie Brown

A couple weeks ago I posted a blog about these great advertisements about California family dairy farmers. I promised then that I had another California blog in the works, so here it is!

When I was in San Francisco last month for Bay to Breakers, I met up with my friend Gonzaga at the Ferry Building for the Farmer's Market on Saturday morning. I was so excited when she wanted to go, because this was one of my favorite things to do when I lived in San Francisco. I tried to go just about every weekend and took a lot of my summer visitors there as well.

The Ferry Building area is packed with vendors--selling everything you can imagine--fresh fruits, veggies, flowers, honey, cheese, baked goods, nuts....I'm telling you, it's phenominal. There is nothing like the fruit they have at this market---we're talking strawberries the size of your head (okay maybe I'm a little exaggerating...) that you can honestly smell from like 3 booths away (that part is true!). People who live in California take this stuff for granted. I'll assure you that in middle America, we don't get strawberries like that!

Anyway, at the market, there were all kinds of signs advertising products from family farms. I, of course, thought of the blog! They also have some great boards the discuss issues related to farming like land use and the importance of preserving farm land.

You might not think of San Francisco as being an ag-friendly place, but it really is. There are farmers markets all over the city, in just about every neighborhood, and they are always packed with people. As I've mentioned before, Yoga Master made dinner just about entirely from the Noe Valley farmer's market one night of my trip.

Sometimes we don't take the time to thank the "city folk" for supporting agriculture. We should do better--so way to go San Francisco! My only complaint is that they don't ship those strawberries to me!

Roof Friends

"Some people go to priests; others to poetry; I to my friends." ~Virginia Woolf

It's sort of interesting being a young female lawyer. The girls in our generation grew up being told that we could be anything we wanted to be and do anything we wanted to do. Now that we're doing and being....sometimes its hard! Trying to figure out our place and find a balance in our lives and decide what our priorities are going to be can be really stressful. Sometimes its just nice to chat with other people who understand what's going on in my work life!

Last weekend in San Francisco, I got to hang out with two other first year attorneys that I worked with as a summer associate. Gonzaga and Yoga Master both accepted positions with the firm we were at in San Francisco.

We met up at Yoga Master's adorable apartment in Noe Valley. Gonzaga and I took the train down and walked through the Castro to get to the apartment. This is a total aside, but I have to say walking through the Castro was really funny--we were literally the only girls on the street and none of the guys gave a rats about us being there. Yoga Master says she likes walking through that area because she never has to worry about anyone bothering her or attacking her. Unless she was wearing really cute shoes that someone was jealous of.....

Anyway, we had a great night catching up on work stuff and talking about our jobs and projects and lives. Yoga Master made an excellent dinner including fresh fruit and veggies from the Farmer's Market (talk about a reason to miss San Francisco!). It was so great to hear that all o f us are dealing with similar issues as we try and figure out how the heck this job thing is supposed to be working out. Of course, we are twenty-something girls, so there was a little boy talk thrown in the mix as well.

I am blessed with a lot of non-attorney friends who put up with me talking about law stuff probably far more than they have ever cared to hear! But it's really great to have friends who understand what you're dealing with and talking about and why things that don't sound so bad--like drafting a summary judgment motion--can just about make you want to jump off the roof of your building.
For me, Gonzaga and Yoga Master are those friends so thanks, girls, for keeping me on the roof!