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Look at this wheelbarrow! Look at this giant cornucopia! Look at this epic pumpkin patch!

It’s all the magic of Farmer John’s pumpkin patch off of HWY 1 in Half Moon Bay. They sold us this whole wheelbarrow full of awesome stuff – including a wee precious bale of hay – for a mere $32. You honestly can’t beat that. They’ve got more varieties of pumpkins than I can even comprehend and it’s just a rock ‘n’ roll good time, folks.

Oh, deer. Shenanigans!

M hauling our booty, Kelly Alice pretending to love the beautiful California poppies when what she really wants is to brutally assault them, me on a big old tractor and more pinup-in-a-wheelbarrow-pushed-by-a-tomboy hotness. Let me just tell you that I’m right at home set up on that tractor. An old family friend used to put half a dozen of us kids up in the shovel of their tractor and drive us around a big old pond; the finale was when he pretended he was going to dunk us all in it. That was also where I crashed my first golf cart. WHOMP WHOMP. (That guy was a jerk. Obviously. Who does that?!)

Loverbird business in a giant cornucopia. You can kind of see how big it is up in the first collage. We took a sweet little family photo in there as well, and I bet you could fit like twice as many people in there if you really wanted to.

These were taken at the Harvest Festival in town. The cutie pie petting zoo was definitely a highlight of the day. I held two bunnies! All by myself! There were chickens and a wee baby rooster and chinchillas and goats and sweet little wonky tripod greyhounds for rescuin’. Our hearts all exploded and then mended themselves with every twitch of a bunny’s nose. Magical.

I can’t wait to go back this week! M’s playing hooky and we’re heading back to our usual pumpkin patches because we just can’t get enough.

Hope y’all had delightful weekends!

Love,

FFAF

We had a very nice weekend. It’s interesting the way the fog works down in the lower bits of California. It’s nothing like up here. We’d wake up, step out onto our private balcony in our fluffy shocking white terry cloth robes and slippers, bemoan that somehow the cold had tailed us all the way down the coast, and then BOOM! they’d dissipate into fluffy wisps and trail lazily while the sun blazed down on us, by God.

Our suite was bigger than our flat (but smaller than our old loft). It’s humbling to come home from.

Thus, I’ve informed M that I insist on getting a king-sized bed when we move.

Her response was, “Why? Even when we sleep in one we only use half of it.”

D R A T S.

How handsome and serious does M look here, all tucked into this nook? I think it’s a little bit amusing that we both brought such dire reading to our mini-break weekend: The Gift of Fear by Gavin de Becker and What Is the What by Dave Eggers.

I also brought with me four tiny vials filled with fragrance (which I haven’t mentioned in quite some time, to my own dismay and that of others). You newcomers may not know that I used to regularly write reviews of scents at FFAF. Sometimes M would, too (those would always be of the masculine variety – most of mine are feminine or unisex). I’m going to make a real effort to reintroduce that aspect here, because it’s a lot of fun and I think scent is an important part of one’s self-expression.

You can read about the four fragrances here (as well as get some “vintage” FFAF from early 2009!):

Pillow of Flowers from Parfums d’Armando Martinez
Coup de Fouet from Caron
Cuir Ambre from Prada
Un Lys from Serge Lutens

Outfits! I am wearing my Runaway Pony dress with a belt I snagged from Fred Flare, and I topped it all off with a vintage clutch and these super hot, sherbet-esque Enzo Angiolini strappy sandals.

M’s got on Calvin Klein slacks, an RVCA dress shirt and Zara shoes. Both the tie and tie clip are vintage.

I’d love to stick around, but ZOMG Gossip Girl starts in, like, ten minutes.

(M in “resort” wear and I am in sundry Liberty of London for Target bits.)

HELLO, KITTENS!

How the hell are you? It’s been a week! A whole week!

Before anything else: Thank you for voting for Fit For A Femme, even if we didn’t win a Lezzy Award this year, we stood up there with the big dogs and it was totally awesomesauce, and I lovelovelove y’all for voting day in and day out with all your might.

So, I got this mini whilst thrifting for, like, $2, NWT. It makes for a great casual, relaxed look, but where the hell does The Gap get off charging $50 for a tiny denim miniskirt? Not that it isn’t great. It is. It’s just that I wouldn’t dream of wearing this without leggings on underneath. It’s SCANDALOUSLY short. And tiny. And not worth that crazy sticker price, which makes finding it for next to nothing that much sweeter. I went BANANAS thrifting last week. It was a month-end clearance sale, and I got 15 super awesome pieces – from a beautiful azure blue sunhat with the most dramatic brim to an armful of calico sundresses for Spring to a soft chestnut brown shrunken velvet blazer (it screams equestrian) – for just under $35 and in less than 1.25 hours. SCORE. Shopping = femme sports.

What else? Oh, you know, not much. I completed my utterly life-changing self-defense training on Sunday, and new bruises are STILL popping up all over my body. Badges of honor, my instructor calls them. I had the privilege of fighting FIVE fights at my graduation ceremony (with M and the petite there to support and cheer me on), instead of the standard three. DO NOT MESS, Y’ALL.

I was just named a member of the Femme Collective, which is gearing up for Femme2010: No Restrictions this August. Femmes, mark your calendars (and reserve your spot on the infamous Skinny + M sofabed now if you’re an out-of-towner)! Speaking of M, she and I are headed across the Bay Bridge next week for a meeting with other legally wed California couples to discuss next steps as powerful advocates for marriage equality, which I’m really excited about. Writing checks and being visible and all that is well and good, but I never feel like I’m doing enough unless I’m doing.

I will be a busy girl. A busy, happy, girly girl!

Also, we just ordered her a pair of these dapper new shoes:

Confession: So, when M & I went to NYC (it was my first time there, ever) in 2007, we stopped at the H&M in Times Square. M bought two pairs of black pants – one sort of slim fit standard and a pair of pinstriped tux pants. Turns out they didn’t fit and M was probably going to continue letting them collect dust in the corner of our bedroom, or throw them away or donate them or something.

Today, H&M impressed me by letting me exchange them both for pretty femme stuff, at the same price M paid in 2007! Since I was a few doors down picking up her boots at Aldo anyway, I brought along the pants on a whim with very little hope of them even taking them back. I was hella wrong, and I got myself two dresses (the one here and a gorgeous black and white floral number for Spring). Since all that was “free,” I also picked up a standard grey boyfriend cardigan for $10 and a pretty blouse for $5 from the clearance racks. Whee!

PS. Jen! I’m wearing the stuff! The Cover Girl Outlast Lip stuff! There’s a bit of gloss layered over it, but it’s just sort of a brownish-plum color on me. Weird, no? And thanks!

PPS. If you look closely, some of the little flowers are BIRDIES. I loved that.

PPSS. Tomorrow is a big day for us. Think good thoughts, please, and wish us luck!

When: Tuesday, October 28th, 2008.

What: Black skirt from H&M, silk blouse by Chelsea Flowers (More Chelsea Flowers at Bloomie’s here). Satin t-strap pumps by Nine West.

Confession: Fuck this fucking ridiculous California heat. Thank God they’re predicting rain, even though (of course) it’s expected on Halloween. Having lived nowhere but the Bay Area my entire life, I suppose I should be used to this, but I have no tolerance for it this year. Maybe I’d feel differently if I still lived on the lake, but I’m right on the estuary next to the bloody bay, for chrissakes, and it’s demonic. Demonic and wrong. I know all you folks out there where it’s raining sideways (Brooklyn, holla) or snowing like mad (Bringle, Bowling) HATE me right now, but I envy you more than you can possibly imagine! Let’s trade places. As if anyone can say no to having M all to herself! (B, are you reading this? Hep me!)

PS. I totally wrecked this gorgeous, stupidly expensive shirt after wearing it just once. Instead of obediently taking it to the dry cleaner, I impatiently tossed it into the delicate cycle at home, thinking I’d get away with it. BLEED. Foul, bluish, sad bleeding into the oh-so-fragile silk. I almost tried to fix it with dye at home, but decided to, uh, give it another spin, so to speak. That’s right. Delicate cycle. Take II. IT WORKED! Am genius. Hurrah.

PPS. I realize that I look mighty friendly my confession photo, but really, I’m HELLA stabby right now.