Texas Two Step

I've been lucky to have had not one but two trips to la patria in the past month.  The first trip was strictly a ladies weekend, full of wine drinking, outfit changing, and artistic photos.

The second visit was to celebrate the wedding of two of Jared's MBA pals: Sam Brown and Melissa Sprinkle.  Being an MBA event, the party wouldn't have been complete without a theme and corresponding costumes.

 

The Texas-themed rehearsal dinner had more than a few interpretations of what a "Texan" might wear, but I still feel pretty confident about our choice to go dressed as the "Jean King and Queen."

 

Down yonder in Texas town, we ran into few familiar faces and had a few laughs.

Sometimes Willie just puts it best, so to Texas we say: if you've got the money, honey, we've always got the time...

Uh Oh...Surprise Visitor

This little hellraiser just slid under our back door and decided to camp out in our kitchen yesterday.  Anybody have any suggestions?  Really could use Tsunami's assassin skills about now.

Concentrate on the clouds....

... and the pretty morning sky.... not on the fact that we have been bad bloggers.... pretty clouds, yes, pretty clouds....

Problematic Produce

Do you feel confident that you could identify all of the above types of salad greens?  If so, could you then describe the flavor qualities of each and rank them on a scale of preferability (readers from Central Texas Specialty Growers excluded)?  Although I myself am an avid salad eater, I have usually been pretty amiable to whatever type of green the chef feels is most appropriate and haven't spent too much time pondering the desirability of each.  As we approach the date of the luncheon I am planning, I have learned that not only are there people in this world with more refined salad palates than mine, but the answer to the question "do you have any special dietary restrictions that we should be aware of when planning our luncheon menu?" can get quite specific.  Here is a response from one guest:

Hi Lindsay.

Patty cannot tolerate anything very spicy. She also doesn’t care for “mixed greens” in a salad, she prefers romaine or spinach but that is much less of a problem. I think Bill is pretty open.

Thank you for checking!
Cynthia

Cynthia Wilson
Assistant to Patty Davis

It frightens one to think about what type of greens could end up in your salad without the intervention of personal assistants, doesn't it?

Dinner and a Movie

Although we had always known it was pretty awesome to live right on one of the most popular parks in town, the stars aligned on Saturday night and its awesomeness was skyrocketed to a whole new level.  To make a perfect San Francisco evening follow the following recipe:

Add 1 brand new mini-grill

 A very excited and often well prepared crowd

An awesome movie

and a handful of good pals

Mix well with a generous portion of alcohol and voila! a perfect Indian Summer night!

Looking Westward

Sometimes its easy to forget that we once again live in a seaside city facing West.  Theoretically, we should have 365 days of glorious sunsets over the ocean.  But then add one hefty dollop of the notiorious San Francisco fog that creeps into town late in the afternoon and add a healthy palette of grey to the gloomy Pacific beaches and you don't  usually get crowds of people clamoring to watch the sun sink down over the Western horizon.


Enter Indian Summer and a week of fog-free afternoons and you have a mad dash westward to catch big orange retire for the evening.

Our trip to Baker's Beach not only allowed us to discover a gleeful nude beach but also gave us a glimpse of one of our most popular, yet elusive residents: the Golden Gate bridge.  For those of you that have visted SF, you probably saw this ole gal covered in her traditional white shroud.

Never ones to feel constrained by traditional definitions of how things "should" be done, our sunset picnic for that evening consisted of Vietnamese banh mi sandwiches from the questionably sanitary Saigon Sandwich in the Tenderloin. Top that off with a little rice-banana-dessert-suprise, and you have a pretty perfect little Monday night.

Weird Frozen Goodness



Almost six months into our tenure here in San Francisco, and we have finally made it to one of the city's alternative food meccas.  Like most cities, there are a number of ice cream parlors that vie for the title of the city's best.  This particular title was not of concern to us- we were more interested in the city's weirdest.  And weird it was.

With rotating flavors such as foie gras, strawberry black olive, and boccalone proscuitto, Humphrey Slocombe's is certainly a unique place.  My personal favorite choice thus far is the Secret Breakfast- a mix of bourbon and cornflakes.  So next time you are in San Francisco, seeking a refreshing frozen treat, but just wish that there was more than a hint goose liver in your dessert, you know exactly where to turn...

Look Who's Here!

Libby, looked in a cell in Alcatraz

..and Tara, rocking an unknown 21 year old Californian's ID

Gotta Know When to Throw Down

Well one thing that's for sure is that San Franciscans don't really mind throwing down air-tight dance moves whenever and wherever the need arises.  Here are a pair of unsung local superstars caught in action:

PINK PANTHER

Dolores Park (a.k.a. Our Front Yard)

LITTLE GENERAL

China Town

King of the World on a Boat Like Leo

Pop Quiz:  What is the deepest lake in the U.S.and the 9th deepest in the world?  If you answered Lake Tahoe that would be incorrect.  But good guess.  Crater Lake in Oregon at 1,949 ft is the winner.  Tahoe is pretty weak at 1,644 ft deep, good for the silver medal in the U.S. but a loser-esque 16th place in the global rankings.  Despite its depth lameness, we decided to give it a whirl for Labor Day weekend at our friend Ali's place.  Turned out to be a pretty solid gamble.

The Host

The House

The Crew

The Bartender  

The Badass

Stay Tuned...

Hello faithful blog readers!  We have to apologize for our lack of writing lately, but we have been a bit busy.  I have found a contract position planning a fundraising event for the Bay Area office of KIPP charter schools, which has been very stressful, time consuming, and sometimes hilarious as I deal with lots of demanding personalities.  Here's an excerpt of a Monday morning email I received:

I mailed my invitations yesterday except for "Sally's." I told someone that she can't come but somehow her name was still on the list. Also, fyi, there were two sets of handwriting on the invitations, one was really nice the other looked like a child's, was that intentional? If not, you might want to check your staff/volunteers' handwriting before you have them address invitations. If it was intentional, that's another story.

Pretty standard stuff.

In addition to dealing with the random impulses of rich 70 year-olds, we have been doing quite a bit of traveling around our new home state.  While California is not as big as Texas (actual size comparison, pictured right), it is still quite a big state...  more posts to come on some of those travels in the very near future, I promise.

 

So, please stay tuned in as we work to post some new adventures of your two favorite traveling Texans!

 

Phantastic Voyage

Oh Yeah.  After all these years, all it took was moving to California to have Phish come out to visit.   Three shows at the Greek Theater in Berkeley and Lindsay was kind enough to invite me to all three nights!  What a catch.

So despite the fact that nobody is looking at the camera, these were our friends and concert companions over the three-day adventure.  You faithful blog-readers out there (assuming you still exist), may recognize Paul and Addie as our good pals from Cape Town.  For these two, 10,000 miles is not too far to travel for some good times.

Now I can't claim this guy, but I was impressed by his love for Quincy.

No my camera didn't improve mid-concert.  This comes compliments of some talented photographer that showed off some fine smuggling skills by sneaking in what must have been some truly fancy optical equipment.

What an awesome and action-packed three nights.  Most people would say that three nights is surely enough to get one's fill, but not the case.  Less than 24 hours after the third Greek show ended I was boarding this beautiful prop jet on my way out to Colorado for two more nights of music in Telluride.

Unable to afford a $1,000+ ticket to fly directly into Telluride's legendary and horrifically scary mountain-top airport, I had to fly into nearby Durango and catch a ride the rest of the way.  Luckily, Steve was there to save the day. And not only did he get us to the Sunshine Campgrounds right outside of Telluride, but he treated us to a free display of his outdoorsmans skills and crafted a top flight Colorado campfire.
   

Meanwhile, Chad was camping out with all the Phishies littering Telluride High School after catching a seven hour ride from Denver.  Not to shabby of a place to pitch a tent, but Steve had hooked us all up with a place to stay for the next two nights that was a touch nicer.

We headed up the mountain via the local gondola commute to Mountain Villiage.

Steve cashed in on his local ties and hooked us up with this beautiful mountain sanctuary.

What a group and what a balcony view. 

Not too shabby .  A big thanks to our wonderful hosts and former Telluride residents, Ali and Kevin.

So as nice as it was, our mountain house wasn't where the action was.   Back down the gondola...

 ...and into downtown Telluride.

Free Karl Denson show to get things started.

Great show but soon enough it was time to call it quits with the free music.  In the words of one of my favorite redheads (who may or may not be pictured above): "why get something free when you can pay for it".  Yeah I know that doesn't normally make sense, but in this instance it was the right move. 

What a place to pre-game.  Yes Rocky is wearing a tie...but not just any tie, a limited release from one of America's top designers at Pearl Southern Couture.  If you haven't heard about it before, check it out.  Girl's got talent.

And yes that is a feather in Steve's hat.  In short, he lost a bet, but became a legend.

And finally the music...not a bad week in the life.