night fires

I was invited to a beach bonfire on Saturday by a dear friend at work.

I haven’t been to Ocean Beach in YEARS.  If you don’t count trips to the zoo then the last time I went to Ocean Beach… it was for Jeff’s Memorial.  Donuts, champagne and goodbyes.

This was not about goodbyes.  It was a party with someone else’s family.  There’s something fantastic about a party where you only know one person.  It’s so open to interpretation.  The only downside is that Jim’s wife Carol wasn’t there.  I so wanted to meet her… maybe next time.  Momma Collins invited me back for next year!

After I walked down to the beach and said another goodbye to Jeff, I hung out with Jim and was introduced to all kinds of awesome people, family and otherwise.  One of Jim’s brothers brews beer and soda.  I tried his root beer and ginger beer.  I must admit.  He’s good!

For dinner there was cioppino.  And seriously… words cannot describe how amazing this seafood stew was.  I want more.  I want it now.  You should be jealous of the mere IDEA of this cioppino.

But I must say the coolest thing was the fire.  And that’s not just the pyromaniac that lives inside by juvenile heart of hearts.

It’s been so long since I’ve had the chance to sit in front of an open fire.

The warmth, the crackle, the light.  It was amazing.  And I enjoyed every single second of it.

But then there was the extra added, vaguely, not exactly legal bonus of this…

It is illegal to burn a Christmas tree.  I’m not exactly sure why but I think it has something to do with the sparks.  Anyway you look at it, burning Christmas trees are insanely cool.  And maybe even more so when they don’t act like a torch like you want them too.

I’ve got to get out to the beach more often.  I love it there.  And it’s so beautiful.

Note to self… more trips to Ocean Beach in the new year.

Gung Hay Fat Choy

Finding narative in the journey

I walked to El Cerrito today.  When I woke up I just thought it would be a good thing to walk instead of taking BART or a bus.

When I first left the apartment I noticed the clouds and the moisture in the air.  It was the feeling you get before it might rain.  (It didn’t rain but the feeling of hope in the possibility of rain was so perfect that it made the start of the day feel so fresh.)

On my way up Shattuck I saw a sign in a window…

I thought it was a great sign.  I took a picture and I continued on my way.

Then, as I walked through the Northbrae Tunnel, I began to see things in a different way.  It was as though I was seeing scenes from a story.  But no story I knew.  Maybe as story I will write.  Or perhaps one that will only ever exist in my head.  Or even a story that lives only for today and tomorrow it is gone forever like a dream you can’t hold on to.  But I was seeing the places that inspired the story from every angle.

Since I had my camera I took pictures.  That is no guarantee of a story.

But here are some of the photographs.

I’m telling you… there’s a story in there.  I just have to write it down.

night

Adventures with Fabric Stores

I’m not sure why but I got the idea in my head that I needed to go to the fabric stores of San Francisco … well the fabric stores that aren’t Britex because I know Britex and I am not prepared for that price point in silk and wool at this time.

I did a little research and came up with 2 shops in the Mission District and 2 on Clement Street.  There’s a Discount Fabrics in San Francisco but I’ve got one on my side of the bay so I skipped that.

Starting in the Mission I went to Fabric Outlet, which was very fun and lovely.  I got 4 cones of black thread for my wondrous new serger.  I didn’t get any fabric because honestly between Discount Fabric on San Pablo and Stone Mountain and Daughter there wasn’t anything I felt I needed to drag home.  Then I walked over to Sal Beressi Fabrics.  Great place but I didn’t find anything I absolutely had to have.  I have enough upholstery fabrics, thank you very much.

While there I did get a chance to really look at and think about the idea I had about sewing actual cowhide and I now know that there is no way my machine could handle the thickness involved.  Good thing I didn’t spend $250 on one.

I saw this lovely piece of street art on my way back to Mission Street.

Back on Mission I picked up the 33 and headed to Clement Street.  While winding up and over the city I was struck again by two very strong feelings.  One that San Francisco is TRULY stunning and two I have no desire to ever live there.  Give me my nice little town and gown suburb any day of the week and twice on Sundays.

Fabrix on Clement was an experience.  Bolts of fabric tucked everywhere with only the vaguest of signs.  Great prices on grab bag baskets of zippers.  A small shop, chock-a-block with a little of this and a little of that.  Great prices but hard to find anything if you were looking for something specific.  I did get three different fabrics – one poly satin in green with brown animal print, a deco patterned silver fabric, and a vanilla ice cream colored textured knit.  What got me was the fact that the woman doing the measuring let every piece of fabric drop to the floor.  Two of these fabrics aren’t going to be washed because I don’t think they could take it.  But I consider them dirty because of the way the shop handled them.  That leaves enough of a sour in my mouth that I will not be back.

Finally I wandered into Satin Moon.  It’s a lovely if expensive little jewel box of a fabric store.  The fabrics are lovely and cost true market price which is a bit hard when you’ve been shopping on the discount floor.  But I did walk out with a lovely Vogue Pattern from the sale pile.  I paid more for this one pattern than I’ve bad for any other pattern.  It’s a little daunting but look at the funnel neck on that jacket.

All in all it was a great adventure and I’m glad I did it.  But in the end the thing I learned is that I don’t need to cross the bay to do my fabric shopping.  I have the best fabric stores for me right in my own backyard.  Thank goodness.

And with that I will bid you goodnight.  See you next week.

Fabric project envelopes

In the hopes and dreams of being uber-organized in 2012 I made these very simple fabric envelopes to hold my sewing projects.

I started with these 15 inches by 23 inches pieces of fabric that got from eBay and didn’t really have a project for… until now.

I also had some clear vinyl from a project that never happened… that came in very handy.

I just folded the fabric and cut a clear vinyl pocket and I got this…

The pattern goes in the clear front pocket and the materials and notions go in the fabric pouch.

I’m thinking about adding buttons and button holes but I can do that later if I want.

For now I’m just making small, medium and large envelopes so I can keep my projects together.  Hooray for organization.

Happy New Year to everyone!

And finally a little house keeping.  In 2012 I want to focus on completing more projects and to encourage that I am going to post once a week.

So I hope you have a fantastic week and I’ll be back next Saturday.

night

Nothing has exploded yet

I am very grateful to say that nothing has exploded yet.  But I have learned some interesting things.

One – Champagne yeast fizzes up very slowly so it’s not like bread that doubles up in a few hours.  This is good because it means no explosions… yet.

Two – It’s yeast, so there is a bread-y taste to the root beer.  That’s just how these things are.  Apparently there is some kind of liquid yeast that has a cleaner taste but I’d have to track that down.

Three – There is a great deal to be said for small batches while you are finding your feet.  If things go south you really don’t want to have to dump a whole lot and it’s not like there’s all that much work involved… although sterilizing things takes a very long time.

Four – Ginger Beer, Ginger Beer, Ginger Beer…. that’s what is on tap next.

Five – If I scale down to smaller batches then I’m going to need a smaller bucket for mixing.

That’s the report from the home soda shop.

night

Are we taking bets?

I’m bottling my first batch of root beer tonight.  Anyone want to place a bet that something explodes before this is all over?  Because I’m pretty sure something is going to go horribly awry.

I made a 2.5 gallon batch with my Gnome extract and all my kits from More Beer.  That’s 24 bottles of root beer.  I’m going old school.  Glass bottles, champagne yeast… this is dangerous stuff.

I even made labels…

So everyone keep your fingers crossed.  Otherwise I’m going to be cleaning for months!

night

another failed experiment

On the 19th of December I noticed that my finger nails were fraying.  I figured it would be a good idea to get a very simple manicure to protect my nails a little bit.  Since I am horrid at painting my nails I went to a little salon near work.  They asked if I wanted a gel manicure instead.  I said sure.  I’d give it a shot.  I had heard great things about them.  Immediately dry, long-lasting, it sounded great.  And it worked.  My nails were perfectly dry before I made it out of the chair.

I didn’t even come close to chipping or hurting the polish in any way over the next week.  It was actually a little unnerving.

And then, yesterday afternoon, I did something that chipped one of the nails.  So I thought… that’s it.  This stuff has to come off.  And being me, it had to come off immediately.

Only you really can’t take this stuff off yourself.  The girl said if I really wanted to I could soak a cotton ball in nail polish remover and then put the cotton ball on your nail and wrap the whole finger in aluminum foil.  Do this for all fingernails.  Then wait 30 plus minutes and the polish should come off.

Except it doesn’t really work that way.  After 45 minutes I still had to scrap the polish and gel off and I didn’t get all of the base coat.  But it was enough that I could wait for tomorrow and go into the salon to get the rest off.

Yeah – so I go in and the girl tells me that I wasn’t supposed to try to take it off.  She even said that the top two layers of my nails are coming off.

She then used her Dremel file on my nails to file off the last of the junk that was on them.

I get that I did not have the soak off gel.  I get that I had a knock off manicure.  But I learned a lot of lessons.

I do not want to have any kind of manicure that has that many steps to take off at home.  I should not have to go to a salon to remove my nail polish.  I’m too obsessive compulsive about it.

I would get one of these again after researching someone who is doing the real thing, not someone who is just jumping on the bandwagon.  But I would only get it for a special occasion and I would get it taken off no more than three days after the event.  I can’t deal with the change to my natural nails.  It was like acrylic nails all over again.

So there’s my tail…  It’s going to take a while to grow back nails that haven’t been filed down repeatedly.

Live and learn.

night

How many do you need?

I’ve spent the last few days reading through my cooking magazines and I’ve got a question… how many meatball recipes do you need?

Once you have a base recipes for anything, do you need to keep collecting them?

I did tear out a recipe for Swedish meatballs but only because I know my recipe for Italian meatballs like the back of my hand.

Because I have a recipe for macaroni and cheese I didn’t bother to pull any of them… even though there are many.

Maybe that’s why cooking magazines are so popular.  Because you need to find that one recipe that will see you through all the times to come.  And once you find that one recipe you don’t need any others.

These days, I don’t think I need that many cooking magazines.  I’ve got most of the basic recipes.

Everything else is gravy.

night

A setting for murder

I’ve spent the weekend watching Midsomer Murders… season after season of it on Netflix instant.  It’s amazing.  Each episode has 3 or so murders.  Year after year all these murders in these tiny towns and villages in the county of Midsomer.  (Which is fictional by the way… I looked it up.)

It reminds me of Cabot Cove and that old joke about how murder just follows Jessica Fletcher around.  If you saw Jessica Fletcher, wouldn’t you run in the other direction?

I can’t help but think that the amount of murder happening in Midsomer, it must be hard to sell real estate there.  I mean, I live near Oakland… which could be considered a rather large city and also a place where a lot of murders occur.  It’s something that’s talked about constantly.  So I can’t help but think that small places like Midsomer and Cabot Cove must be the constant talk of their regions in terms of violent / suspicious deaths.

But we suspend disbelief.  We think that each murder is the first murder.  That there is no internet or wide-spread news.  So everything that happens, happens in its own little cocoon, fresh for our enjoyment.

And that’s what I’m going to go on believing through all 14 plus seasons.

It’s an addiction.  It’s genetic because I got it from my mother.

We can’t be helped.  The BBC is at fault.

night

spending too much time with Kickstarter

Have you wandered around Kickstarter yet?  If you haven’t I should warn you before you click over.  It’s dangerous.  You will find things that you want to support.  You will figure out how important it is that you get prototypes that are just coming off the assembly line, art that is just being created, etc etc etc.

For me, it started with Neil Gaiman talking about his Evening with Neil Gaiman and Amanda Palmer.

From there I got involved in art projects, movies, technology prototypes… and I can’t seem to stop.

Right now I’m trying to figure out if I should fund a new Espresso Machine prototype in order to get one of the first machines…  I like my espresso machine.  I don’t need a new one but they’ve created a new thermoblock…  and … I feel the tug.

This is an addiction.  It’s particularly bad for the art projects.  I want them.  I just have them.  How do you say no to a Monster Alphabet Book written in iambic heptameter?

Written by Darren J. Gendron and illustrated by Obsidian Abnormal!

I need to stop poking about on this website.  I need to stop clicking on links to Kickstarter projects.

But I won’t because that’s who I am.

night