fitforafemme.com

Howdy, kittens! This day was strange. It began shrouded in fog and sadly, a local tragedy. When we woke up this morning, we could hear the non-stop fog horns on all the cargo ships out in the bay, coming and going from the Port of Oakland, under the Golden Gate Bridge. We’re pretty far from the water, so it was kind of spooky and magical. M got the alert about the power being down as she dropped me off at the office (wearing a sweater!), and headed back home to wait it out while I worked.

Fast-forward four or so hours. 30 minutes south a town and company on the cusp of their IPO and surely the family of the crash victims began to pick up the pieces. The lethal fog had lifted completely, leaving the sweet, warm sun to shine down on the city. It lapped it up. M picked me up. We lapped it up! She and I decided a day this spectacular didn’t deserve squandering, and so we packed up and headed out into the world for a reading date. Our first thought was Atlas Cafe – they have such a great little back patio. Then, I remembered Pilsner Inn’s lovely little courtyard and we decided reading over beers at 3PM was far superior to reading over iced mochas. Alas, Pilsner Inn had workers toiling away back there, with loud machines and sawdust (and carting in, I think, a Creature from the Black Lagoon arcade game!), so we bid the bartender adieu and made our way down the street.

After snapping a few pics of intriguing local scenery (cherry blossoms, painted deer (above, being air-shot by M), scooters with giant wooden boxes affixed to the rear), I remembered Cafe Flore in the Castro! It was perfect. We quickly took up a carafe of margaritas and a small table. Nouvelle Vague played quietly in the back of my mind. The sky shone blue, blue, blue and it was heavenly.

Two more days until Flourish’s one-year anniversary party! It’s going to be fabulous. We can’t wait.

PS. I know. I pegged my jeans. I couldn’t help it. I felt a gripping need to show some ankle.

I braved the drizzle to nail this FFAF post today, you guys! Drizzle and a steep, steep grade, not to mention this lingering head cold. Cloud cover mutes the otherwise dreamy view of the bay in the background, but maybe you can make it out just a little bit. When I took out my gloves to put them on this afternoon, I noticed a faint emerald green print on the inside. Upon closer inspection, the left glove shows the no. 7, and Lionel Le Grand beneath it. Inside of the right, Made In France Expressly for I. Magnin & Co.! I don’t know how I missed that before. I found them at an old Lutheran thrift shop in the East Bay, of all places. Years ago.

Anyway, this magical, high-waisted, uber-tight, red hot miniskirt. Unfortunately, it’s all sold out at modcloth.com, but I love it. They had another of its kind – the Da Vinci skirt – in a pretty purple shade, but that’s all gone, too! Next time I wear it, I’ll try more color, but I couldn’t help but femme fatale it up a bit for the first go-r0und.

C’mon, folks, we’re taking a stroll. This outfit really isn’t anything special, but it’s been awhile since the sun has shone on a wintry Sunday here in San Francisco, so we’re going to wander through the Mission into the Castro for M’s haircut (it’s been about six weeks and she was starting to get all ornery about it), and you can enjoy the sights, sounds and tastes with us along the way.

We found this pink house around the corner from M’s barber shop on Market. It has a fantastic little mail slot for the post, above.

Unionmade is an incredible, incredible men’s store on Sanchez. I’ve been wanting to wander in for some time now, and I’m so glad we finally did. The boys at the counter were good-natured and adorable about M & I threatening to move in, joking that it was open concept and cheaper than our current flat. Everything they carry is gorgeous, from the heaviest, highest quality wool sweaters, handmade and signed for in Denmark, to tees so soft and wafer-thin they catch your breath, and lots and lots of leather goods and manly, officious nautical instruments and things to admire. See M peeking through their store window down there?

To the right of the store, the Victorian that M would like us to move into. Below left, the J heading out of Dolores Park, where hipsters were out in full effect, crawling out of their tobacco- and PBR-stained ratholes to undulate feverishly in the light of day, neon sunglasses at the ready. Sigh. Fortunately, the line at Bi-Rite Creamery wasn’t too bad (and I got to pop into Joy O Designs next door and drool at all the jewelry and clutches) and M & I both got single scoops with two flavors each: vanilla malt with peanut brittle and chocolate bits, roasted banana, honey lavender and mint chip. Everything was good except the honey lavender, which tasted like “eating a stick of laundry detergent” according to M, but Humphry’s still beats out Bi-Rite and Mitchell’s, we’ve decided. IT IS WHAT IT IS, KIDS. Deal with it. I will say that my ice cream cone lasted me from 18th & Dolores all the way to Paxton Gate, which is fairly impressive.

Clockwise from top left:

• The Smile, You’re In SF! hidden camera art in an abandoned gas station, with a homeless guy napping in a pile of trash next to it.
• Open House sign for a ridiculously overpriced flat in our neighborhood. See below for up close awesomeness.
• This lady was standing at the corner of 22nd & Valencia holding a sign that said “You Are Perfect” for no apparent reason.
• The Marsh doing some sort of weird taping – “What Is A Wife?” and “Faces, Feelings & Lies”.
• Try French Kiss! Don’t mind if I do! Thanks, bossy street graffiti!
• Bi-Rite’s flavor sign and ice cream tubs. Mm.

We walked over three miles! It was a lovely way to spend an afternoon, after sleeping in and dilly-dallying over coffee and Grey’s Anatomy for the Wii all morning. Tonight, M made her delicious secret recipe burgers and I made my fantastic homemade french fries, and we baked a batch of chocolate thumbprint cookies with a vanilla bean & chocolate ganache. They’re still setting, so the verdict is out still on their deliciousness!

Hope y’all had a fantastic weekend and HAPPY FEBRUARY! It’s the month of love, y’all. In eleven days we’ll mark the 5th year of our very first meeting, and February 2006 was the month we became real “girlfriends”, too, if you can believe it. Even if you haven’t got a loverbird, I believe firmly in loving on yourself, so you’d better! XOXO.

PS. If you like my shirt and / or want to see others like it, check out Lola Starr’s online boutique. I bought mine after attending one of her super amazing, outdoor, nighttime, themed roller skating parties on Coney Island in 2008.

PPS. Wanna live here?

HA! HA! HA!

This week has flown by and dragged on at the same time, hasn’t it? In any case, it’s just about Friday and I can get down with that. Today, I saw a man just hanging out with his chicken (like, an actual living chicken) on Van Ness Avenue, leaning against a street sign wanting money or something and catching some of the fleeting sunshine we had today after days and days of rain or drizzle or haze or fog or slick, slick wet.

It was especially strange because I am in the middle of a short story collection called Instant City (it’s Issue No. 6 and I picked it up from one of my favorite vintage / antique shops, Gypsy Honeymoon – the black dress in the back would fit me perfectly, I can tell just by looking at it and it is a DREAM made of wondrous elegance and vaporous black chiffon. The lady who owns or runs it or both has little birdies in there chirping happily and she is a very sweet sort of flower child – Stevie Nicks type), by and about San Francisco writers, and most of the vignettes feature these sort of random, only-in-San-Francisco scenes and stolen moments. So much so that before I told this story I had to really think about whether or not I read it or truly saw them, but I promise you that I saw them with my own eyes.

On that note, I would like to know if it’s wrong of me to have zero desire to eat at that Tommy’s Sandwich Joint (Joynt?).

BACK TO THE CLOTHES. I love these shoes. I love these socks. They serve no practical purpose, in fact, they’re kind of scratchy and that irritates me, but they’re so damn sassy. Here’s the modcloth.com Crewel scarf again, this time paired with a kicky little suede + fringe Lonesome Dove pendant in a forest green, and this amazing black satchel that I am newly in love with. My new bangs and I got into a bit of a tussle this morning, clearly, and they went all Peggy from Mad Men on me (damn cowlick), but I am mostly pleased!

So, who’s got big plans this weekend? We have none, nada, which is spectacular as we’re going to need lots of R&R before our next round of fabulous house guests arrive next weekend. It will be epic.

Last night, M & I went to a party at an aviation museum and the dress code was “business casual”. I realize that one might not consider sequins or an aviator cap meeting-appropriate, per se, but we felt the leeway was acceptable given the occasion (a party). It was awesome!

Life-sized models of the very first man-powered aircraft (successful or not) were laid out in all their rudimentary glory, all the way up to Boeing cockpits from the passenger jets of today. Of course, our favorites were the helicopters and airplanes from the 1940s and 1950s, and they had these amazing, fancily clad mannequins of yesteryear for a more genuine effect. Adorable.

We crashed every last flight simulator we got into – including an old hovercraft prototype – and it was just a lot of silly fun. Of course, M wore her vintage wings and leather aviator cap. (Poor thing fully expected to get a ride in a plane and I wanted to, too, alas.) Yes, in that photo above we are “flying”.

It was amazing to see miniatures of futuristic models, too, like the vertical landing and takeoff joint heavy lift rotorcraft:

In other news , holy macaroni and cheese, kittens, I got bangs! Soft, whispery, no-biggie bangs. I haven’t had truly serious bangs since early 2007, and they were VERY serious:

In short, too hard. Too much work, a bitch to keep up, grow out, etc. I loved them, but they totally traumatized me. I am not a girl who blow dries her hair. Curlers, sure. Curling irons I have down to a perfect science, but bangs this serious require rigorous styling and training almost constantly, which I am not for at this time. (Maybe later, though. I’m seriously considering a bob in the future. OK, jaw-length. Like in 2004, but modified for 2010.)

Let’s hope these are a bit easier to manage. I am rather fond of them!

Saturday began innocently enough. We woke up, put a batch of cinnamon rolls into the oven for breakfast, watched a bit of BBC’s Pride & Prejudice and set out for the East Bay to find M some skater shoes. While I found an excellent new jacket and an adorable ski cap with hearts on it, M ran into one dead end after another with the shoes. To add insult to injury, Buffalo Exchange sent her into a homo panic and some persnickety baby dyke with no manners and a lot of attitude looked me up and down obscenely (and repeatedly) enough to solicit M’s wrath. It wasn’t pretty, but no blows were exchanged. Having had it with Oakland, we returned to SF and freshened up for our date.

Contigo Kitchen + Cava, a cozy tapas restaurant in Noe Valley with a strangely appealing lime green and firewood motif, didn’t open until 5:30PM, so we popped into a few shops and grabbed a warm-up round of pleasant enough cocktails at Bliss bar. DINNER WAS AMAZING. We had the pork belly, lamb shoulder and patatas bravas, and M & I both tried hazelnuts for the first time. They were delicious, as well as the cheese plate and prosciutto (the sheep’s milk was my favorite). It began to rain and as we wrapped up dinner, a few friends invited us out for drinks at a lesbian party at a gay club in the Castro. Much debauchery ensued, and I almost immediately stripped off the cardigan, leggings and coat when we walked in, it was that hot.

Strangely, we seemed to know everyone there. It was like one big, unending jovial reunion of sorts, and boozy texts to have even more friends join us were successful, making everything that much more epic. We woke up in relatively little pain this morning, but were USELESS in our attempt to gather coffee and other supplies, and yet managed to procure M some skater shoes. FINALLY. They are Vox (and from an awesome skate shop called Cruz on Mission) and she is pleased, so I am pleased. As promised, after lunch (desert fries, yum) she took me to see Nine at the Castro Theater. Neither of us had ever been there before, so it was extra-dreamy and romantical. (I wish I could say the same for the movie!)

The storms kept us from a spontaneous trip to the snow, but hopefully y’all have had equally exciting holiday weekends. One more day to go! Whee!

I’d talk about how abhorrent The Lovely Bones is, but I prefer to discuss pleasant things. Like the fact that we’ve all kicked off a three-day weekend. Like the fact that I came home to a cheeky tomboy with a gorgeous bouquet of blush roses just for me, and lasagna baking in the oven, and an array of tiny Haagen-Dazs cups of ice cream in the freezer, bottles of bubbly chilling in the fridge and fat, happy cinnamon rolls waiting to be baked in the morning for breakfast. Very pleasant things.

I’m going to curl up with my newest collection of locally penned shorts (Instant City, Issue No. 6, snagged at Gypsy Honeymoon in the Mission) in bed, with a brand new sparkling cocktail that is so, so good: splash of spiced pear vodka (ours is crafted by Hangar One, of course), splash of raspberry pink lemonade, topped with your sparkling beverage of choice. Not-too-sweet, perfectly crisp and refreshing!