Cacti Claus in AZ

Ornaments Old & New

Thanks to Rock Mama, Papa M and Rosebud for our new tubular Christmas ornament. We love it! Note that the tiny spoon must have fallen off at some point on the journey, so we reattached it near the top.
This is one of my favorite ornaments from the Frau family tree -- glitter gnome's specially-abled pipe cleaner arm just adds to his holiday magic.

Celebrity Barman

Savoy Cocktail Night @ the Alembic, SF -- with surprise Underhill Lounge bartender!

Gingerbread Slide

Before

After.

Holding it all together.

Note: I did not participate in the making of this gingerbread house as I am um, inept. However, I shouted encouragements whilst eating gumdrops, shouting "huzzah" to the 3 o'clockers + kidlings. That's something, right?

Yule Tree

I forgot how much I love the smell of tree in the house. This is the first time in ages we've gotten out the hatchet and hiked up Mount Shasta to harvest a California Christmas tree. Or maybe we just went to the traditional Delancey Street outpost to support a good cause. Tonight I search for my John Denver & the Muppets Christmas Album and string up the lights. Holiday spirit here I come!

Hangar One Tour

It's just across the bridge.

Searching for Santa in NYC

My mother's response to my grumbles of having to travel to NYC on business the weekend after Thanksgiving? "Oh well. Santa will be at Macys!" Reason #723,834 of why I love her so.

In A Nutshell

"My work self is suffocating my life me" -- Liz Lemon to Oprah

Clementine Bitters

Local expert has been "toying with such concoctions" for several years!
hic. more mentions in the press. will it end?
Speaking of bitters, I feel a double dare challenge coming on.....! Is there any gentian root in Pardeeville?

Faux Thanksgiving Eve

The Chef & I are celebrating Thanksgiving....tomorrow...so that all the usual suspects may attend. We thought it would be a lark to postpone the turkeytime, but today we are feeling a little melancholy and lost. We substituted the family drama by going to a matinee showing of "Rachel Getting Married" and just when we thought that the recorded voice of Kaiser Permanente was our only holiday pal, a good friend rang to say hello. Still, thankful no matter what day we celebrate!

The Big Show

Stage Peek

Julia's UKE

Magic Moments

Thanks to the recent visit of M&N from the UK -- the past few weeks have been a blur of activity. Halloween, the historic election *yay*, dining at neighborhood restaurants, Speakeasy Brewery open house, walking on beaches and a trip up the coast to Point Reyes National Seashore. Oh, and we finally made it to the new California Academy of Sciences -- is it ever amazing! We are in search of the next visitors who will accompany us there. There even is a penguin cam!

this is a "frog fish"

Star of the Academy -- the albino alligator.

Halloween Bus Ride

Wedded Bliss

A happy (second) wedding day was celebrated earlier this week -- congratulations to Rodeo Queen and the Great & Powerful Oz on their shotgun nuptials. Those resourceful longtime sweethearts wanted to make a historic broom jump (again) and now their bliss is of the wedded sort. Again.

As they stated so beautifully in their announcement of this occasion to celebrate: As we have often repeated: if we needed legal & societal approval in order to sustain our commitment to each other, we would certainly have broken up long ago. So our wedding marks a different kind of tipping point: a moment of political & cultural significance-nothing less than a watershed between love and hate. The fact of our marriage signals this moment in history, when the State of California has reached a new level of commitment to us, the moment at which we are no longer seen as second-class citizens or as perverted, threatening monsters, but as legitimate, adult human beings capable of true love & deserving of equality under the law.

Our wedding, then, is a celebration not just of our relationship with each other, but of our evolving relationship to society, culture, and our home state of California. We would like to believe that we are entering a new era of love.

...and don't forget to vote No on the Hate, that's a No on Proposition Eight. It's a love vote.

p.s. we look forward to the cake.

Northern California Autumn

We drove north to Sebastopol on our color hunt. Do grape leaves count?

Bix Birthday

Yesterday my favorite person (the Chef!) sailed through another year -- this past one full of his amazing alphabetical booze adventures. It was just last Saturday afternoon he was sitting on a bar stool drinking a series of "M" drinks here. That includes "the Minnehaha" Cocktail, which reminds me of visiting the Librarian in St. Paul, and "The Millionaire" which makes me sing the Mekons chorus. I hope the N-Z cocktails summon equally good memories. That is, if we remember anything after another year of cocktails. hic. Happy Birthday to The Chef!

We celebrated with our first trip to 40's style SF restaurant Bix. Naturally, there were cocktails.

Special thanks to Mrs. Virus, who directed us to the right alleyway when we were wandering the streets of San Francisco trying to find this tucked-away-in-an-alley restaurant. We made it!

Eighteen Years

We celebrated appropriately by watching a depressing movie about prostitution and teenage abortion. (It was a toss up between this indie film or another episode of Mad Men Season One - a television program of nastiness that never fails to leave me feeling hollow inside.) Although it must be 2008 -- viewing was on a lap top whilst sitting on the couch and certainly not at the Majestic Theatre, which now has, huh? crappy concerts? Just like the Pinkney Street Hideaway (now a parking lot!) and O'Cayz Corral (burned to the ground!) the majority of our early dating landmarks are gone gone gone. Except for the Plaza Tavern.

No matter, we're still here. Tra la la.

Royal Stories

"Many amusing anecdotes to share after this, my favourite being when X was enthusing about The R*yal Channel to Prince Ph*lip. His retort? "I haven't got a clue what you're talking about..." At which point he turned his back and swept off, without even bidding him farewell..."

"I told the Queen that my job was to help as many people around the world view her content from the R*yal Channel, to which she replied "does it go overseas?""

Prince Ph*lip also said to X "Is there sport on this YT caper? Hmph. There should be more."

the Queen!

You can bet we didn't quite believe it when we heard that one of our co-workers met the Queen yesterday in the London office. Here he is with one of the people who uploads videos on the right, and ahem, on the left -- THE QUEEN! The hat! She is interested in "the place"!

Garden Spider

Now I can't go back to the garden because I am afraid.
It's a Golden Garden Banded Spider!

Chicken Hat

They do not like to wear the chicken hat.

Burning Down The House

Everyone loves David Byrne SO MUCH that the crowd gave him a standing ovation when he WALKED OUT ON STAGE?! Harumph! Shouldn't he have to sing first? "Oh yeah" said the chef, "I guess the Talking Heads were played on the radio." It's hard to pay attention surrounded by that kind of eager enthusiasm. I'm a tough sell on ovations, they must be earned. Unless you are Johnny Cash and say, "Hello, I'm Johnny Cash."

However, all grumping was forgotten when the Extra-Action Marching Band came out for the encore -- what a welcome surprise, their edgy pom-pom-strippers-plus-horns skank completely balancing out the happy Up With People cheerleaders dressed in white. I won't brag about our seats, but we were closer than the person who took this video from the rafters.

Hardly Strictly

The schedule:

11:00: Jon Langford's Skull Orchard f/ Sally Timms
and the Burlington Welsh Male Chorus
12:20: Hazel Dickens
1:00: Ben Kweller
2:30: Elvis Costello's High Whines & Spirits
3:25: Iron & Wine
4:40: Justin Townes Earle

Welshmen

Jon Langford and the Burlington Welsh Male Chorus.

Garden Blooms

The random bloom explosion. Orderly rows? Nope.

So fancy -- Formosa Lilies

Spotted Bee Balm

Remember the "green zinnia" sprout? A few months ago I misidentified it amidst the "volunteer" Cosmos that are now taking over the plot (plus the one next to ours and the pathway, oops.) There is no sign of green zinnia blooms. sniff. Don't care for hot pink cosmos, but the bees are having a good time, but why are they not on the spotted bee balm?

Tunnock's Caramel Wafer Biscuits

It is very hard to find a bar of unscented soap. That is why it was with great sadness (and much anxiety) that Hausfrau realized that longtime favorite "Pure & Natural" unscented soap, made by the Dial (TM) corporation, was being discontinued. Note that this soap was far from "Pure & Natural" -- it even had "fragrance" it was just not super perfumed. It was only being carried at ONE store in town (Andronico's) requiring a specific destination shopping trip to replenish the supply. No more. Desperate, the first thing Hausfrau did was check online. Could this special smell-less soap be delivered to the door? At drugstore.com there was only one case available. That's 72 bars of soap for $130. The thought of a giant case of soap sitting in the garage was too much for Hausfrau - depleting one bar at a time over a period of just how long? Hausfrau hates change, but it was time to find a new soap.

That's how she ended up at a grocery store in San Bruno on a desperate soap hunt. The closest thing was "Simply Ivory" with "just a little scent" -- oh yeah, how about NO SCENT, JUST SOAP dammit. Is that so IMPOSSIBLE? No Mountain Fresh, Sport Scent, Almond Honey, nothing! just SOAP. Frustrated, Haus Frau turned the corner and spotted the special British Foods section in this particular grocery store...and a smiling face. The "famous cheeky face of the Tunnock's Boy." Hausfrau was relieved that this was not a wasted trip.
Tunnock's wafer biscuits! Turns out along with a police station, traditional main street shops, pubs and rail station, there is one big biscuit factory in Uddingston, Scotland.

Even better, each wafer biscuit was individually wrapped and the shiny wrapper boasted "4,000,000 of these biscuits made and sold every week? How was this possible? Who is buying all these Carmel Wafer Biscuits?

Interesting Facts:

• The Chocolate used on the caramel wafer is made from condensed milk (that must be why they are so chewy)
  
• An individual Tunnock's Caramel is devoid of a sell-by date, though the multipacks do have one. (another reason why they are so chewy).
  
• St. Andrews University has a Tunnock's Caramel Wafer Appreciation Society (a college cookie club that attempts to cover up obvious cookie nerdness by raising money for "charity". Sure, charity. They even have a "constitution". Unfortunately, there are no photos of the members, but the President is an Astrophysics major and there are links to "Lord of the Rings" and uh, the cartoon "Pearls Before Swine"? I would love to attend one of their meetings. Please add pictures Appreciation Society!
• This is the best, from "begining" spelled wrong to the "Rustic Maiden Fair" who says things like "I come hither bearing you a wondrous gift of Tunnock's Caramel Wafers." Warning: Biscuit Porn.
  

Note, Dial has just re-branded their unscented soap in a much smaller bar (unlike Tunnock's which is "still original size.") It's called "BASICS - Hypoallergenic" tested by Dermatologists even when all Hausfrau requires is NOT to smell "Mountain Fresh". Hausfrau may be obsessed with unscented soap, but she has yet to form an appreciation society.

Nick's Birthday Party

Happy Birthday today to Nick Cave, who is still a spry blur at fifty-one. The Chef & I (plus geek girls PVC and Usher Supreme on the floor) were lucky to see NC & the Bad Seeds a few days ago where he leaped about the stage, knocking things over in his furious path with well-timed high kicks to prove that he is still the same ol' punk -- even more so off the smack! We were exhausted just watching him in the sauna seats up in the rafters. Along with the sonic rants from "Dig, Lazerus, Dig!" we were thrilled to hear a few oldies, "Tupelo", "Deanna" even "Stagger Lee". All the classic Murder Ballads rolled out to cheers from the crowd.
p.s. there is no better mountain man on the violin than recent Bad Seed (and Dirty Three leader) Warren Ellis.