The Fashionable Commute

only: 14days 9hours 35minutes 18seconds (or something VERY close to that...)

2008-04-28T23:54:00.000-07:00

ME & MB in VN!!!!!! so.excited!

short stories vs. novels...

2008-04-22T12:20:00.000-07:00

When I speak it seems that I can never tell a short, sweet, to-the-point story. There are all sorts of digressions, tangents, backstory, etc. That's why I sorta thought that blogging would be fun, I could hone in my stories and delete any unnecessesary words, ideas, background etc. But then I found much as I used to as a young diarist in the angst-years, that my mind works more quickly than I can write - or even type surprisingly enough... So blogging often is annoying and I lose steam.

Also - writing / typing out a story, I find I'm off topic before I've even got into it, because I'm always being reminded of other stories I want to tell.

long story short... NOT... all of this really gets down to the fact that twitter is the perfect thing right now... it's training me to be 140 characters short about everything I want to talk about - although, I think it's also exacerbating the ADD... oh well.

check me out on twitter... Jennieb!

HOPPY EASTER!!!

2008-03-21T11:22:00.000-07:00

first of all - i am obsessed with peeps... not *necessarily* eating them, but... definitely think that seeing them and sending them to Sarah in the mail each year to get her typical "sick." response is hilarious.

Thanks washingtonpost.com for reveling in the Peepness with me!!
(link)

Favorite Easter Memories:

Me at 4: in a really funny home movie (super 8! on a reel!) my bro and I - he would have been 2 or 3. We're looking for easter eggs hidden in the back yard... Branch is still getting used to walking around, so my dad is pointing them out to him. I feel this is totally unfair and when he's not looking, I reach around and sneak eggs out from the back of his basket. Guess who won *that* easter egg hunt ^-^

Me at 7: my mom trying to keep us out of her hair while preparing easter dinner for my grama (who was a total gourmet - Julia Childs was her idol - talk about pressure!) and the rest of our local extended family of oh about 15 or 20!... so she got us going on making easter bonnets out of scrap wrapping ribbons, colored tissue paper and paper plates. We finished and tied them on our heads running around showing off our easter bonnets. Yes, both me AND my 5 year old little brother. Poor kid didn't realize that the aunties were giggling because boys don't wear easter bonnets....

My favorite Man...

2008-03-16T20:40:00.000-07:00

When we made the HORRIBLE decision to become homeowners, the landlord was going to offer the unit we were renting to her ...son? nephew? grandson..? family. The couple came over. They lived in the North Bay had a 4 year old daughter and another kid on the way... as they walked through our home..(we haven't felt that at home since...) the four year old felt like chatting.. .she told me she was going to marry this boy Eric at her school. I asked her how she knew he was the one to marry, and in all of her beautiful 4-year-old wisdom, she told me.."because he's my favorite man..." followed by a sigh and an eye roll that melted my childless-by-choice heart. (don't tell!!!)

So from that point forward, even though, I knew we would never marry, MB was always 'My Favorite Man'... over 4 he might be...

Tonight I'm realizing a few more reasons why he's my favorite man....

sleeping in till noon and the only reason he got out of bed, was because I said I'd buy him Philz if he did...

once we got back from Philz, I got to play video games non-stop until he figured out what he was going to make for dinner & created the list and we went to rainbow.

he's making pizza from scratch!

and I'm only taking a break from videogames to brag about how lucky I am to have found My Favorite Man...

VACATION VIDEO!!!!

2008-03-15T23:35:00.000-07:00

dude. this is the link to the Charlie and Humphrey video where I posted my question about the channel 9 summer educational programming.

Manhizzy (!) answered - and my god - that was killing me - getting the answer, almost better than sex. Ok. I've now taken this nostalgia kick WAY too far...

(backs out of the room slowly...)

(waves) goodnight!!

DON'T kill your TV!

2008-03-13T14:02:00.001-07:00

(alternately titled: The Good Old Days.... of TV!~!)

I am the first to admit I love TV... good, bad and otherwise... If the internet wasn't so damn interesting I'd spend much more time in front of it. When I was single I used to have it on in the morning while getting ready for work, and as background noise while home at night. Oh.. long time companion, TeeVee....

Earlier this week I was remincing about public TV kids shows that me & my brother would watch during the summer. We would fight over the 2 PBS stations 9 and 54 because they both had great summer programming, and different shows on at different times... We would look at the schedule, that we had sent our SASE along for, (and I still can't remember what they called that 'programming block' during the summer... like "PBS summer splash" or something catchy like that), and decide whether to watch Newton's apple and Vegetable soup or watch 321 Contact and then the Secret City or Cover to cover... so great. such good old days. TV is just not the same.

The local stations had so many unique shows, and PSA's were a BIG thing in the 70's apparently... Then Evany's dog sitee inspired her to ask if anyone remembered "the bulldog in the leather S&M newsie cap and his...donkey?...sidekick, a puppet duo who made their fame doing commercial breaks during early afternoon television in the Bay Area in the 80s?" Which of course made me google it up since I was already skipping merrily down the nostalgia path... Charlie and Humphrey!

Which got me thinking about all the great local TV we used to have (like Home Turf) - and great franchised TV too (like People are Talking - did you know that Ann and Ross were specific to the bay area? But that different markets around the nation had different hosts?! Romper Room too!).

Needless to say this makes me want to 'go home sick' and watch Leave it to Beaver, and then wait impatiently - maybe kill time with some Electric company until Scooby Doo comes on, and then hope that Dad comes home late so we can watch Dance Party USA or maybe Growing Pains re-runs before TeeVee is corrupted by the evening news....

I'm not a parent and sorta a hater when it comes to baby blogs, but there is a category, in the SFGate parent validation of coolness blog thePoop, called gone but not forgotten, which is great for such trips down memory lane. Go to it - remember Frontier Village, buster & me, evening magazine, time for timer, etc. it's practically a time machine right there in your computer!

not Locks of Love....

2008-02-22T11:53:00.001-08:00

Love (pad)Locks...http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_padlocks

These photos were featured with the history of the Guambat's padlock-point in another blog written by the Scentofgreenbananas cooking blog-writer (http://scentofgreenbananas.blogspot.com/)

... Tales of the Guambat

I think I like the idea of the 'locking in your love'...I mostly like the idea that so much love energy lives in each of these padlock places...

Find a love padlock paddock near you! http://flickr.com/search/?q=love%20padlocks&w=all

you probably didn't know...

2008-01-23T11:28:00.000-08:00

(as inspired by today's post at thisfish.com)

Feet freak me out. Even mine if I think about them long enough. That kept me from wearing open toed shoes until I was 27. (also when I had my first pedicure)

I have a 'technically' incurable disease (that has been in remission for a long long time) that destroys the mechanism for allowing my muscles and brain to communicate.
(and I really hate the word disease.)

Sukoshi nihongo o hanashimasu (I speak a little Japanese), and love everything about Japan - especially the food, oh and the trains, oh and...and...and.

I have never skiied before even though I've lived in California my whole life - and finally drove through Yosemite for the first time last year.

Marie's Blue Cheese salad dressing nearly got me dumped.

I've been "stalked" via flickr.

It makes me sad that there are women out there who take a blanket position and hate all porn.

Guilty habit: watching the Girls Next Door.

The sound of TV in the background is comforting to me - even when I'm surfing the web, talking, falling asleep. It's a lot like those 'sound' machines for me.

There is something about pregnant women that makes me uncomfortable - like how their bodies becoming an incubator for another human that grosses me out. Plus it makes me have to think about how they got that way... TMI.

Movies about war and ones that have people destroying their lives with drugs, have a physical effect on me - I avoid them at all costs.

Travel is what I live for. This year I think that Vietnam or (and?!) India are on the agenda. But even when I can't go far - I love any travel - and love being in airports and on planes.

fun! take a turn...dare you.

All Day I Dream About...

2008-01-08T22:57:00.000-08:00

Silk?
Silver?
Shampoo?
Sinks?

noooooooooo silly - SEX!

well that's what we used to say ADIDAS meant when we were in grade school...

Today in an effort to kill 30 mins, and maybe solve my 'it's fucking cold at my house' issue, I popped into Adidas at the Westfield before my 7pm appt. I spent under $100 - the whole store is on sale and got 3 great tops ...

the cozy, blade blue (not Dark Space - oh how I wish they'd had it!)
adilibria Yoga Long Sleeve Tee...

now I was drawn in by the cozy cowl neck, but I also love that once I got it home, should I have actually wanted to wear it for yoga - S would have been the correct size... as it is, it's a little loose, cozy warm - Climate(tm) is not only good for wicking, but for keeping the warm in...
but the 50% off wasn't too shabby!
If only I could figure out what adilibria stands for

All Day I Lick IceCream But Really I'm Anorexic?

you give it a shot!

great minds...

2008-01-07T12:33:00.000-08:00

I wasn't the only one coveting woodgrain..

http://www.designspongeonline.com/2008/01/live-wire-farm.html

I wish I had the kind of place where woodgrain made sense...
these are all very very nice...

Resolutions!!

2008-01-04T17:27:00.000-08:00

At work today, the gang of assistants that plan all of the office activities a.k.a. the Party Patrol, was working on a new event The New Year's breakfast.

The event was designed to feed the office AND help us all focus on starting 2008 on the right foot. So, we are offering healthy food and a bowl of pre-printed resolutions for people to take inspiration from on the buffet table in case people forgot to make a resolution.

My job was to cut and fold about a 100 strips of paper with the resolutions printed on them. I had the opportunity to read each one multiple times.

Then I realized...

I hadn't made MY resolution yet...

In the batch there were two that I could easily benefit from adopting.

**Be calmer behind the wheel.
**Pay someone a earnest compliment every day.

Don't YOU look beeYOOteeful today?!?!?!?
done.

Feeling Blue - the good kind

2008-01-03T15:30:00.000-08:00

Often when I'm feeling blue, it helps to "feel blue".

Today after a walk around the block between rainshowers, I got blue and moped around the internets to avoid thinking about actually working on stuff... i mean honestly, don't they make deadlines for a reason... no where near dead on anything yet!

I found that I need to hone in on what is looking good to me, and find something creative to do with my free time. Drinking wine, playing video games, and keeping up on reality TV is NOT creative....

so, I'm delving into the world of 'design' & DIY, (i will refuse to use the word CRAFT... unless it causes money to come my way....) But, with some latent inspiration from my old classmate Jill Bliss, my affinity for letterpress and woodcut looking things, as well as anything that conjures that mod/antique combo that you get at Anthropologie, or Brocade Home. A bit more grrrly than my style has been lately, but hey, i've already started wearing more skirts as of Q4 2k7 and I just bet floral patterns will work their way into my wardrobe and (gasp) maybe even some lace... we'll see. It's going to be an interesting year kids!!

I started here: http://www.designspongeonline.com/ dare you not to get sucked in......

here's another one: http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/sf

my mind is now happily spinning with design-y goodness! yay.....

one of the things I thought looked esp. good today: wood & woodgrain

www.moderncritter.com

decor8.blogspot.com

decor8.blogspot.com

HNY!!!*

2008-01-02T10:50:00.000-08:00

*has anyone else but me noticed that *we* seemed to have acronymned 'Happy New Year!'???

I've decided that Daily Candy and Splendora are not enough BACN for me...and that the old bloglines needs some updatin'

I have been in a slump since October-ish and maybe I need some fresh new ideas sent my way... Here are the new sites that I've given my email address to / added to my bloglines so far this year... Ring in the designey creative inspiration, and pull new ideas from all new places!

Newbies on the List
BACN
http://www.tablehopper.com
http://www.thrillist.com/
http://www.todomonthly.com/ (this is the online version of the taxicab mag)

BLOGS
http://www.luxist.com
http://www.designspongeonline.com/
http://www.mightgoods.com

what I'm ditching
Yokozo - a japanese grammar email that I'd subscribed to
Gourmet Grrrrrrrrrrl - good thematic foodie buzz, but nothing inspiring!
I think I'm ditching Splendora... upgraded to luxist and thrillist
I got rid of Stephanie Klein
deleted Schnozzfest - It's much more fun to catch up with her in person ;)
I feel like Halcyon has found himself in a really nice place, and I should probably try to soak up some of his zen and positivity, but it's not the flavor I'm looking for right now.
I also let Mightygirl slip away (but note -added mighty goods...)

what I'm going to stick with - tried and true, and affirming if not inspiring...
www.dailycandy.com
www.postsecret.blogspot.com
can't seem to shake dooce.com
no one is funnier than mere
still loving hchamp's pics
don't want to miss what Evany or Moose & squarrel - i mean Bonfires is up to
a little Fish goes a long way - (ditching the travel fishy keeping the bikey one)

so none of this is much more than the results of a long hard day 'spring cleaning' my iLife

Hope you all have new inspirations and great changes and successes in the new year!

Great thing of the day: Grateful Palate(.com)

2007-12-31T09:33:00.000-08:00

There is a single website that has made Christmas dreams come true for many years now in my world... It has provided me with Bonus points for finding my boss' wife a gift, surprised my brother who thought that he knew everything about bacon, delivered gifts to far off locations just in the nick of time, and is always good for a surprise or two in the pork product arena.

The Grateful Palate, your one stop shop for all things bacon! (and all things generally Yum, as well).

And now - they have combo'd two of the best things on the planet - bacon and POPCORN! By now you probably know how much I HEART POPCORN, and the only thing that might take popcorn to a new level ~would be bacon!

YUM!

I'm not sure that I'm going to run right out and get a big ol' tub... but I just bought some great bacon from The Grateful Palate - and some Ham Dust - so I plan to spend a small part of New Year's Day Baconing and Corn-Poppin'!

Click here to find the easy path to salvation...
(photo from www.gratefulpalate.com)

no excuse!

2007-12-18T10:36:00.000-08:00

this title acutally was about what the gist of my posting was about... but actually - it can also address coming back from europe and not saying a word!

However, getting unpacked, unjetlagged, unburied with the work my boss 'held' for me, getting un-sick (MB came back with a whopper of a cold), I have only had one small deep breath before getting SLAMMED by the *oh-so-joyous* (NOT!) holidays.

anyway... we had a fantastic vacation in Brussels, Amsterdam, and Paris... and sadly for as much fun as we had, all I can do is keep slapping my forehead thinking THAT's where we forgot to stop in at! or THAT's what we didn't get to eat/drink/buy! it's all so very sad....

so I'm going to create a list of what we didn't do in Paris

The "We didn't" list:

forgot to visit THIS chocolatier

and speaking of Chocolate... we didn't visit this one - that was on recco. from my friends at Cacao Portland - L'Etoile D'Or... which top food bloggers apparently adore... and the only shop to sell Bernachon Chocolate other than Bernachon in Lyon. AND I MISSED IT!!!

couldn't drink nearly enough wine (it was SO cheap! and much more delicious than at home... and less alcohol content, so it was a fizzy nice buzz instead of a MAKE THE ROOM STOP buzz after many glasses!)

walked by the shop, but didn't eat or buy Poilâne butter cookies, called 'Punitions' - but thanks to Smitten - I'm trying to perfect the recipe - unfortunately our comparison to the original is based on MB's eating of them long ago....

Never got my mouth around any Berthillion Glace... partly because everytime MB said something about fitting in a visit to the Glass Store - I thought he meant real glass - not Glace!!!! GRRRR....

Never even HEARD of Pierre Hermé - until I got back...

and that's all only just the Food things...

Let's not forget:

the skipped trip to Muji (justified by - they have it in NY and tokyo - not a Parisian specific shop)

forgetting I wanted to shop at Kookai

missing an 'up-close' of the Eiffel Tower

no time for the Dali Museum

not shopping at or drinking any Mariage Freres

staying at the Hotel designed by Christian LaCroix

wishing there was time to take a cheesy boat tour on the Seine...

and I'm sure MB and I will add more....

WELCOME TO THE PARTY!!! (part 2 in a series...)

2007-12-04T16:30:00.000-08:00

JL! (a.k.a. Jean Luc Floresca "Sugar Baby" Uharriet)

Come on in - the water's FINE! btw - you picked some rock'n parents. Hope you like skewers, and lasagne, and soccer...

Born to Geraldine and Dan (SugarDanny) Uharriet - a.k.a. to their friends as DanGer.
Monday December 3rd @ 4:41 PM. He weighed in @ 7 lbs 13 oz and is 20.5"

not sure if those specs will make you a good soccer player or not, if not - there's always scrapbooking....but hey - we love you JUST the way you are JL.... can't wait to meet ya!

You thought I was kidding...

2007-11-20T01:22:00.000-08:00

...about thinking I might be destined to marry Tony Bourdain since I was fortunate enough to accidently run across him while poking around at the Ferry Building farmer's market last Saturday. However! Today's confirmacion, so to speak, was that while hunting around for gifts for our mini-hosts/hostesses in Amsterdam, I decided to go into Stacey's books while on lunchbreak to get some skater mags, and maybe some notecards, and who should be speaking starting at 12:30? (It was 12:39 when I walked by...) YES! Mon ami Tony!!! so i wandered upstairs and got to hear that accent! that voice! that laugh! while he told stories of sitting at Judges Table on Top Chef with Collechio... (sigh!)

CW + TB forever!!!

Now, I will be OK if I die...

2007-11-18T19:34:00.000-08:00

well, not really... but. I mean I still have to see Vietnam, Czechoslovakia, sleep in an Irish castle, drive on a racetrack, but, I have seen Tony Bourdin in person, and though there was NO interaction, I got to see his signature strut as he walked into book passage in the Ferry Building on Saturday morning.

... which I owe to my own impatience for the popularity of Blue bottle Coffee... the line! could the stuff be THAT good!?, and to MB for NEEDING coffee before anything else causing us to go to Peet's and seeing the wierd crowd in front of the bookstore...

Oh Tony....

What a happy accident to find you in my corner of the world.

and this was NOT the first celebrity chef that I've gawked at through a window...
Laura could tell you a great story about calling upstairs from her cell phone on a late lunchbreak screaming something about naked chefs in the One Market Restaurant... once she calmed, I realized that she meant THE Naked Chef~!

So I booked downstairs as quick as my pumps could carry me, and we sat outside of the restaurant giggling as we imagined his accent and what he might have been saying to the crowd that had assembled around his table.

aah....celebrity.

Feed Me Seymour....

2007-11-17T00:33:00.000-08:00

now you can grab my feed if you're not using 'point & shoot' feed readers like the very awesome bloglines.com - of which I am a HUGE fan.

if you have to manually add the RSS to your reader, click the link that says *atom* on the right sidebar above the NaBloMe- kitty and copy what's in the 'address bar' and paste it into your reader - click the 'add' button and VOILA!

enjoy!

cw

***Brought to you by MB who was curious what I have to say online... (hmmm... maybe to make sure I don't post about him? or maybe to make sure that I do!)
(....waving to theCute)

Addicted to Bliss

2007-11-16T08:39:00.000-08:00

That sounds much more hippy-esque than it should.... but honestly - I had no idea! and I blame a Moose and a Bonfire for getting me hooked.

on Bliss

Honestly, how could you not love a company that encourages rubbing caffeine infused lotion on your waistline to tame the jiggle?! Not that *I* have that problem.... (ok - I'm lying... I'm on my second bottle of Love Handler... and giving Fat Girl Slim a go -preventative maintenance!!)

Bonus for me - in our location here in SF - I found the brow waxer of my dreams - and their wax formula, besides being a gorgeous shade of deep blue, doesn't require the grimace of pain that most of us have experienced in the past when having our brows re-arched... seriously - no pain. I have very sensitive skin, and I have known me some wax-pain.

Last night however, while in for my pre-vacation brow treatment, it seemed silly not to throw in a ManiPedi - yes, definitely a splurge in the wallet dept. but how can you not scream "What a Deal!" when you have a plate full of cheese & crackers, cucumbers, and Brownies, waiting in your manicure station? Yes brownies, in a Spa!~ this is no ordinary spa, my friends... this is a fun, funny, true pampering type of spa. Not to mention a pair of noise reducing head phones - all the better to hear Sex And The City that is playing on the personal TV screen in front of me.

I think that if I could live in a Bliss Spa I would be oh so happy! Steam Showers, endless supplies of lemony body balm, soapy sap and shampoo! With brownies on top!? Whoo... what a life it would be.

join me in the cult of bliss...

if you sign up for their emails, they lure you with all sorts of freebies with each order.

and if I weren't a little bit bugetarily challenged .. I just came across a little item on their site that is nearly unbelievable... Chocolate that makes you lose weight... and you HAVE to eat 3 pieces a day.

That doesn't suck.

Oh, It's onnnnnn! (Runway Spoilers...)

2007-11-14T22:16:00.000-08:00

Project Runway *has* beGunn!

time to find out who is in and who is out...

I'm not as good as 'some people' with recapping shows... but I'm going to try - at least some juicy opinions and silliness for the first episode... I'll be in Europe for the next two... but will hopefully pick it up when I return in December....

So - already... the african american model and the korean chick - I think they're out. (27 min. into the show...)

commercial: Santino... oh, dramatic last season kid... miss ya! so sad that that punk-rock cheat Jeffrey won..., but dear Santino.. you were the Jay of your season... not good enough to land a guest spot on Tim Gunn's new show, but no one could kiss ass like Laura....

my guess for first off this season is:

hippie chick, or *straight* dude (only because they didn't show his process at all!)
it's really anyone's guess if you just go by the producer's edit of the action...

but I cannot not comment on the 21 year old hipster with the rich parents...(only braces could make teeth look like that...) he wishes he were a street urchin, but his oddly perfect teeth betray him... he will stay.

11:01pm....

So .. my instincts were wrong, Hippie Chick got to stay, and boring girl with bad construction got kicked.

I love to see the dopplegangers from previous seasons, and since blow-by-blow isn't my style - but I did create this for long standing runway fans... separated at birth:

I don't know that the successes of the previous season will translate - but I believe the personalities are fairly spot-on or at least the 'profiles'....

ooh who is off next week?

my prediction is of the following:

hippie chick or Ricky
and that Michael Kors is just the meanest guy EVER... why does he make such GREAT pants...

cw

when fantasy has no chance of happening in reality a.k.a 'obsession of the day' or 'why oh why can't I have a stylist?!

2007-11-13T22:13:00.000-08:00

I've been obsessed lately with mascara & eyeliner...
and I'm the worst candidate since i'm either constantly laughing causing the stuff to run, or rubbing at my eyes forgetting that I even have makeup on!

so today after pumping the brush of the current masacara enough to get a work out and still not be able to get a decent coat on my lashes....

I went and bought two bottles of drugstore mascara - not any drugstore mascara but the most popular mascara of all time

and though they offer great options - waterproof, straight brush, curvy brush, blackest black, very black, soft black and brownish black... didn't see brown, but sure they have it... but the natural look is not really in right now, so maybe not...

but what they didn't have was the PERFECT combo
blackest black, waterproof with the curvy brush!

so I bought blackest black with the curvy, and waterproof very black with the straight... and plan to frankenstein them together - ASAP!

hopefully yielding results something like this:

or this:

yeah, I'm laughing too....

ah well, c'est la vie

owning it is the first step....

cw

Oh My Truffled Laundry Cabinets.....

2007-11-11T23:37:00.000-08:00

So, Saturday's Bonny Doon Vineyard winemaker dinner in Santa Cruz was unbelievable -

Apertif Wine
2005 Gonzo Pinot Gris

First Course
Kampachi Crudo
Shaved matsutake mushrooms
Seared black truffle parsnip risotto cake
Micro celery
Quince Salt

2003 DEWN Ca'del Solo Galician/Ligurian Blend

Second Course
Truffle Injected duck egg
Bellesque endive
Lamb's tongue
Pig Ear Mushroom
Himalayan Truffle Vinagrette

2006 Le Cigare Volant

Third Course
Sycamore Farms Tuscan Rose eggplant and goat shoulder ravioli
Chanterelle Mushrooms
Sunchoke Sauce
White alba truffles shaved and melted atop

2006 Ca Del Solo Dolcetto

Fourth Course
Stopman Vineyard Nebbiolo-braised short ribs
Celery root porcini truffle puree

2004 Stolpman Vineyard Nebbiolo

Dessert
Blue Ballet Squash Flan
White Truffle Gelato
Barbera burgundy black truffle sauce

2004 Ca' del Solo Recioto of Barbera

this was the first time that I experienced (a'la Iron Chef) ice cream flavored with savory truffles! As in the musky mushroom kind, not the choco kind.....

Par for the (wine) course, we quaffed some very delicious wines - including a dessert-ish wine with a main course and a thick, savory "dessert" wine - that wasn't sweet at all, with the actual dessert. All very delicious, but soooo rich that the ohsogourmand MB was a little.... um... digestively overwhelmed. The poor thing tossed and turned and had very Alice In Wonderland-esque dream-mares of being chased by bulbous angry truffles that were in turn being chased by shiny sharp truffle shavers... and big pitchers of delicious saucy reductions of burgundy threatening to drown him with their goodness!~ oh my!

After driving in torrential rainstorms and experiencing short-of-time stressfulness on our path to the Bonny Doon dinner last night, and despite repeatedly ignoring the lovely woman who lives inside the navi in the new MINI, hoping she wouldn't reach right out and slap us one for diverting from her path and ignoring her pleas that we take a "u-turn at the next road to the right".... who knew what could happen with the features this car has!!!

We made it *just* in time to check in at the Bates Motel (why oh why do no reasonable chain hotels locate themselves to Santa Cruz!!!) and we made it *just* in time for a quick sip of the aperitif wine and in due time for the first course... still 'drying' out from the crazy downpour that chased us from SF.... got back to our hotel to discover no wireless (!) and then drifted off to a somewhat tumultuous sleep...

....we woke up to a gorgeous sunny day, not a cloud in the sky!!

Our morning began wandering over to Kelly's French Bakery for some lovely coffee and pastry before rushing downtown. We had only 30 minutes to browse the AnnieGlass store before having to hit the road and rush home, all the way begging the woman in my dashboard to get us home in time - rooting for the 'time to destination' to move closer to the appointed time to meet the gang downstairs to FINALLY install the cabinets in the Laundry room that have been in various states of existence over the last few months. From flat pack to partially built to built and empty to built and propped against the wall, to stacked as if they were useful to finally mounted by 3pm today - crooked floors and wavy walls be damned~! And miraculously - not a resident/owner murdered in the process!! MB was sent upstairs because powertools and the remainder of a sleepless night due to mild indigestion do not a pleasant situation make~!!!

photos to follow!!

with a well accessorized laundry room,

cw

Altering reality...

2007-11-10T21:51:00.000-08:00

You know how when you're on birth control, and you decide to skip the sugar pills, and it is like skipping a period. Well... thankfully blogger.com has a similar mechanism. Post Options.

So.... if the hotel in Santa Cruz had wireless (wow - so many REAL excuses for workin' the back-date....) then the actual post the part, after the intro here, saved to drafts... waiting to be finished after dinner, would have made it accurately into the NaBlo- lineup....

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Today I'm picking up my new car. Not that I *needed* a new car, but ... why not. And it's all Mere's fault. If she hadn't gotten me back on to the MINI site to see the car she built, I'd never have created the car that now sits in my driveway!!

Introducing Pimpy...

I'm not sure if that's going to be the car's lasting name.... I'm not sure yet if it's a girl or boy car.
She's astro-black. That means she is a preternatural glowing shade of black, and that besides being the 'little black dress' of cars, that she has a navy blue shimmer in the sunlight.
but.

the BEST possible thing... after walking into the showroom to this (sign hanging from her rear view mirror):

was that there were two features that I didn't even KNOW to look forward to and that may have eclipsed the prepaid lifetime subscription to SIRIUS Satellite radio/HD/premium sound package and the navigation system..

MOOD LIGHTING... 6 colors that bathe the cockpit in colored light at night pink, purple, turq., red, orange, and blue...

image from web (edmunds.com) - not my config.... but I tried to take pictures - they didn't come out....

woah.

and the voice activated stereo... you push a button on the steering wheel and tell it which section and track to play from the built in iPod interface....

We're off to dinner in Santa Cruz - a winemaker dinner put on by Bonny Doon, the rain is a little daunting - but my new 'baby' can handle the pressure - with all 6 speeds and much better rims than you see in the photo.... real photos to follow....

sometimes your best accessory is your car!

Twee!

2007-11-09T19:16:00.000-08:00

I am the happiest girl! A band I never thought I'd ever get to see live is coming to SF early next year and I have tickets!!! Yes it's loooonnnng after their heyday, and yes EVERYONE knows about them, but there is still something very exciting about getting to see a 'hero' live on stage. Something even more exciting than 'knowing about them first. (Truly, Buki... I swear).

My very first knowledge of Indiepop/Twee music was shared with me by the very talented Jill Bliss. We did fashion school together in Saratoga, CA and I still remember my amazement at the beautiful sounds that poured from her cassette player while we hung out at her apartment (!) that she shared with her boyfriend (!); both things ultimately exotic to me - having never had a real boyfriend and living at home while going to college. (...Catwalker waves to the other late bloomers!!^-^) The song that dripped tingly sparly moondrops all down my spine that first time was The Magnetic Fields "100,000 Fireflies" ~ soooooo beautiful!

As I continued on through life and school - thoroughly affected by constant replay of Twee songs like that one and "C is the heavenly option" by Heavenly and "Love is the Answer" by Even as we Speak. Most of the bands as are the newer up and coming ones, very talented, but very underground grass roots type bands, and did tiny club tours if any! Most twee music at that time was available on '45 (those are the small vinyl discs with the big hole...).

anyway... tonight checking email - I saw, thanks to Sonic Living, (sign up! we'll see shows!!) that Magnetic Fields were going to be coming! Apparently they have a new album out in January. So now I'm 80 bux more in debt and happily counting down the days before the concert.

Here's a YouTube of that famous song that someone paired up with oddly enough the firefly 'rolling' level of Katamari Damacy - oddly since it's my favorite ps2 game.