Lightweight Eats

August 18th was all set to be a spectacular Sunday. After squeezing in an erg session in the morning, Dan and I headed out to San Francisco with our bicycles. We both meant to grab our iPads for reading in a café, but forgot in our rush to get out the door.

We spent the morning cycling over to the Fort Mason farmer's market, where we chowed on tasty hummus, bread and veggies, met up with a friend and even caught one of the sailboat races in the Louis Vuitton cup. We cycled around the city, and made our way over to the Ferry Building, where we sat for a while with our feet up and enjoyed the view.

It was brilliant.

Hungry, we hopped on BART and headed back across the bay and up the hill home. That's when things started to get weird. Our gate was unlocked and open. (It turns out, it was having trouble latching properly.) Ever the optimist, we walked around back and started to lock up our bikes.

Then I hear, "Ho-ly fuck."

I looked over towards Dan to see our back window in pieces, shards of glass everywhere. We called the police and my mom and went inside to survey the house.

They took a lot. (We know it was a pair, because our neighbors saw two random people come scout our house.) They took our computers, our iPads, Dan's camera, and more. The list is really just depressing, and frustrating, and disappointing.

And parts of it are amusing, too. They ripped the two dollar mirrors off of the walls, presumably in the hopes of finding a hidden safe or some sort of secret stash. They took a bowl that can't have been worth more than $25 brand new (and certainly was not worth the weight of carrying it.) Clearly, these guys were stealing things for a reason—it seems they may not have been clever enough to do much else.

Insurance will help us recover most of the financial loss, although dealing with insurance companies is never fun. What we definitely can't get back is the feeling of safety.

The whole break-in really made us consider our situation. We are living in this beautiful area with so many great opportunities and things to enjoy, but it's too expensive to live someplace safe and we don't make enough money to enjoy many of the opportunities. Money is definitely a source of stress. And flying across the country multiple times a year for racing is not making the situation much better. Within hours, it became clear that Oakland was no longer our home—it was time to move on.

And so, Dan and I are starting the next phase of our lives. We've called Oakland home for two years now, and made some great memories here. But, on November 1st, we are packing our bags and starting out on a great adventure. Our route hasn't been decided yet, although we have a date for the Oregon-Oregon State Civil War game in Oregon on Thanksgiving weekend. And ultimately, we will make our way out to the great state of Connecticut, out on the right coast of the good ol' US of A.

There are a lot of things we will miss: mild winters, seeing family, diving in Monterey (ok, only Dan will miss that one), bountiful organic produce, vegan options in restaurants, and much more. But there are also a lot of things we won't miss: getting cat called every time I walk outside, crowded neighborhoods and sidewalks, bone dry summers, TV spoilers on Twitter (just kidding!), to name a few.