HI.

I’ve been in a Hunger Games trance for the past week or so, burning through the entire trilogy as if my life depended on it. Let me tell you how tricky it is to become so engrossed in something at the precise time of the year you’re supposed to be focused on holiday nonsense! Very tricky! I only just finished the final book, Mockingjay, earlier tonight, and I’m still in a stunned daze. The petite has only just gotten through half of the second book, and the tomboy has pledged to at least read the first one. Do you know what that means? My lips must be sealed in the comfort of my own home (for the time being, anyway) – I can’t talk about it all! It’s brutal! I have so many feelings!

We did have a really wonderful weekend, though, when my nose wasn’t deep in a book. On Friday night, M took me on a low-key secret date. She warned me beforehand – “it’s just a casual one, Jonesey, don’t go getting all fancy now!” and so I threw this outfit on. We had dinner with gorgeous vintage motorcycles floating over our heads, and antique toy train sets circling the perimeter of the entire place. They had tasty, old-fashioned sours, too!

On Saturday, we headed over the bridge and under the estuary to Alameda, where some dear friends were hosting a holiday soirée at their home. We’ve been meaning to get together for beer can chicken for months but you know how it is, and we finally got around to it!

Lord have mercy, did they ever feed us! Fresh veggies with homemade ranch, and some sort of mysterious and delicious cave-aged cheese for nibbles. Baked brie with caramelized brown sugar and soft, fresh chunk bits of baguette for scooping up the sweet, warm cheese, bacon-wrapped brussels sprouts, their incredible beer can chicken, roasted pork tenderloin, and freshly baked coconut macaroons for dessert. All the Kentucky bourbon in the world, which M sloshed into her eggnog and I with a splash of ginger ale.

It was amazing, their home is lovely and warm, and we just talked and talked until it was time to take a stroll down Christmas Tree Lane to see all the houses lit up in their holiday finest. We had the incredible good fortune to catch both the Dancing Christmas Tree Ladies and the festively lit motorcycle brigade, too! Afterward, we all had coffee or tea and a light, layered chocolate mousse before presents were opened and we parted ways. It was a fantastic evening!

Of course, we came and collapsed and stayed that way all Sunday long, watching holiday movies like The Family Stone and Love Actually, and It Happened on Fifth Avenue for good, old-timey measure, all snuggled in and nursing a small fire for hours.

Now here we are, five days ’til Christmas and just twelve until the New Year! The other day I said that parting ways with 2011 will be like saying goodbye to an old friend, though I know there are lots of you who can’t wait to kick the old bugger to the curb. 2012 is bound to one hell of an adventure for my girls and I, and I’m so excited to roll up my sleeves and get in there already.

411 on the duds:

Corduroy Skinny Jeans: Levi’s
Silk Geometric Print Blouse: Laila & Savannah
Foil “Tantra” Cardigan: Vena Cava
Studded Suede Ankle Boots: Trouvé
Patent Clutch: Alice + Olivia for Payless
Braided Necklace: Tilly’s
Earrings: Silver Crane Sterling
Bracelets: Made Her Think (cuff) and Juniper Tree (beaded)
Rings (L to R): Made Her Think, BCBG, vintage

November. A new month. Nine weeks left in the year. The headlong plunge into another holiday season, and when I think it might be our last here for awhile…well, the pressure’s on. Which of course means the only way to guarantee a lovely wrap to the year is to totally let go and come what may, isn’t it?

I describe this beach-friendly look of the tomboy’s as “good old American beachy good times fella”. Just rolling up all the sleeves and all the cuffs and squinting into the horizon, plucking all the gross stuff out of the sea (and/or putting it on top of your head).

It’s an odd thing to be filled with longing for something even as your toes are warming in the sand of it, and when that happens I just look at M’s infectious grin and imagine us exploring the Cape the same we do here on our own (home) coast, and then I’m calm again. Did you know that you can’t take driftwood of our own damn beaches? Pfft.

The tide seemed to be going out, creating this intricate pattern of veins in the sand. The waved moved strangely, too, coming from all directions and crashing together from opposite directions. You could be standing in the water looking straight out west and have waves coming at you from either side and of course from the front. It’s probably got to do with the tiny, uneven sandbars scattered about. In some spots the water was barely an inch deep, and the next step you took would land you in a spot with it up to your knees! Odd little beach.

I hate seaweed so much! M yanked this out and decided to fashion a sort of lasso out of it. Too bad there were no sea calves around for wrassling. She was so intent on finding a crab that she gleefully picked up dozens of their carcasses and was very disappointed when they were dead, dead, dead, guts trailing around – so gross! She also found this curious sea palm tree looking thing.

Nitty gritty: Levi’s jeans, FYASKO plaid shirt, H&M sweater with elbow patches.

She’s SO ANGRY that I might get to see a shark at Rip Curl Pro this week, if I go to the beach without her. It’s a super huge surfing competition something or other happening at Ocean Beach, and it’s likely just a rumor, but there was a lot of buzz about a shark sighting this morning. It goes through the 12th, so if you’re around you should pop by, and maybe we’ll see you there this weekend (as I am sure M will want to do nothing other than try to catch up to my pretty, pretty tan).

THIS FACE. Look, I realized that I have all these fantastic photos of M from the summer and probably people should see them. I mean, she’s handsome and do we really need a reason beyond that? No. No, we don’t. I’ll give you little details here and there, but consider this a break from the usual format to sit back and enjoy a little friendly tomboy action.

Top: At the beach house in Dillon Beach. This was actually quite early in the morning, while we waited for coffee to brew. You can’t see the striped pajama pants under the table! The sweater is ancient Express for Men, she says.

Bottom left: Dillon Beach Cafe. There’s a Mike’s Hard Lemonade sitting in front of her (she wasn’t feeling the wine or beer choices) and she’s wearing a shirt from Macy’s.

Bottom right: Dillon Beach! H&M striped t-shirt, awesome captain hat with a Colonel pin.

Dillon Beach and the pups. We’d gone out for a morning walk to explore the beach with the dogs. We discovered the epic sand dunes and did a preliminary search for dead stuff on the shore.

She’s wearing cargo pants, which I hate, and which replaced the ones she threw away last month when they became a health hazard during our Habitat for Humanity outing. Fiberglass bits and such. Had to go. Bye. Then she popped out to pick up a few things for our weekend trip, and came back with these. GREAT. Now she wears them to spite me. She’s wearing them now, actually.

There was something going on at work when chose this ensemble. The weather had cooled a bit – it was probably before our Indian Summer – and she paired jeans with this Kenneth Cole cardigan, a Nautica shirt (obviously one of her favorites) and a new bow tie to dress things up a little bit.

You’ll recognize this dress from my last post, but M has her own thing going on. Levi’s slacks, a Ben Sherman shirt and a polka dot bow tie that we found on Etsy. Her scruffy Aldo shoes. Bird! We’d just come home from Hard French. She required a stiff drink.

This one is here for the beerish smirk and hair, obviously.

Well, I enjoyed that, I hope you did too. Sometimes you just need a mega-dose of tomboy, you know? Mm hmm. I bet you do.

Love,

FFAF

WHAT A WEEK.

Jesus Christ. It’s like this wussy little 4-day work week was so slighted by how completely and totally amazing our magical holiday weekend was that it decided to be the biggest shit in the history of the universe. So.

When I think of the last weekend, a warm, cozy glow washes over me and I nearly wince against the memory of the sun hitting so much white, can almost hear and feel the slushy crunch of snow under my boots, can feel M’s big, warm, fingerless-gloved paws against my torso as she catches me when I slip on an unsteady swath of ice (and her smile when it happens), the delicious bite of big mountain wind in my hair as I soar float down a tree-lined, twisting run, trying to catch up with her. The work week is all but washed away, and my mind sets on plotting how long before we can go back (21 days exactly).

Here is a wood we came across. Tahoe City has some nifty little walking bridge, and that’s where we were trying to get but stumbled instead into a park-like area with a Gatekeeper’s Museum and a little red shack to show you where the Original Fire House once stood, with ominous black bear painted cut-outs from particle board placed here and there.

It was beautiful. Even though footsteps had worn a clear path out to the clearing of soft, untouched snow that had fallen over the rocks or sand or both of the Lake Tahoe shores, only a few imprints were visible past a certain point. First I ran and then trotted and then walked briskly out toward the water, turning back often to check on M, who kept snapping photos and gingerly stepped through the snow, laughing.

I found a snowman missing its face, and tried to give some of it back. A long, skinny finger of land or dock stretched way out into the freezing cold water, and I wanted to walk to the end of it, but M hollered at me not to. Too dangerous. I stopped and flopped down into the snow, sunk down half a foot, and began to flail around the way I imagine people do when making snow angels (which I have never done), to make a snow angel.

M caught up with me and doubled over like she was having a fit and then told me my snow angel was the worst one she’s ever seen, so I threw some snow at her and made a beeline for the trees.

Anyway, you can’t imagine how beautiful it was there, unspoiled and hushed and lovely. These pictures of the scenery hardly do it justice. If we weren’t expected back at the cabin, we probably would have found somewhere to nap like real bears.

When I woke up today and peered through my blurry Valentino glasses to search for my contact lens case, panic set in. I knew I only had one lens left, and if anything happened to my last pair, scarcely hanging on by a thread, I was screwed. I hate wearing glasses, I hate the loss of peripheral vision, I hate how wobbly and unsteady I feel in them. I ran my hands over the bathroom counter, over sticks of eyeliner and tubes of lipstick and sundry palettes, and gasped as they met the little cage that is supposed to sit immersed in some sort of fizzing disinfectant solution overnight, every night. It hit me.

WHILE TAKING MY CONTACTS OUT LAST NIGHT, I GOT DISTRACTED BY LASH SERUM AND GIDDILY APPLIED THE LASH SERUM AND ABANDONED THE PROCESS ENTIRELY.

My eyelashes might be longer and thicker and darker, but I was stuck in my glasses half the day today because by morning the contacts had shriveled and dried into a cloudy, brittle mess. I had to make an emergency eye exam appointment (as it turned out my old prescription expired last September) and sweet talk them into giving me a trial contact lens (to go with the orphan lens) on the spot, and praise Dolly they did.

So the rest of the day went. The free lunch at work was so-so, but a coworker gave me some Tcho chocolates. I ended up working very late, but scored $300 of Banana Republic goodies for less than $50 at their last chance sale. The sitter was late picking up the petite, but we had delicious Italian delivered and I carried my stinky fathead puppy around for awhile, like a baby. There might be two suns in 2012, but Mexican CNN has naked chicks, so it’s all evened itself out, hasn’t it?

Corduroys: Levi’s
Sweater: Target
Boots: Vintage
Foxtail: Dollywood
Bag: Freebird by The Sak
Cocktail Ring: Banana Republic

Now that, friends and lovers, is a sky scrubbed clean by all the storms we had this weekend. By Sunday morning it didn’t look it, as you can see, but we had some serious weather; sheets of rain pitched about by volatile wind, hail, a touch of flooding, loads of thunder and lightning.

The papers went balls to the wall over them, using words like “violent”, “theatrical” and “wallop”, which is my personal favorite.

W A L L O P.

On Saturday during the very worst best of it we ran around the new house hollering and squealing and flinging doors wide open like fools, standing wide-eyed counting one-one-thousand, two-one-thousand, three-one-thousand whilst waiting for the thunder to come crashing down around us, giggling madly.

We’re spoiled Bay Area girls; we get excited when Mother Nature pitches a fit. Even a wee one!

I am very much still in my nude-beige-flesh-blush tone phase. I love that this bag is a taupe-y mushroom shade, has just the right dash of sparkle and is a perfect match for my Dollywood foxtail. The earrings are a touch heavier than I can deal with for very long, but have gorgeous earth tones – red clay, cream, soft olive green, the same taupe as the bag, and the floral silhouette is etched on the backs – a nice touch for big earrings that are easily turned around!

In home decorating news, we went thrifting Saturday and scored a beautiful dusty rose velvet armchair for the living room, two sets of antique lamps for an absolute steal (just $39 for both sets), and another antique lamp as we’ve got quite a bit of space to illuminate. Our new couch arrived dry by some miracle on Friday, and yesterday – just after these pics were taken! – we all set off post-brunch for an afternoon at the pet store acquiring supplies for the petite’s new fish tank.

Here are the little guys we’re starting her out with:

There are ghost-y, creamy white versions of these guys, with the same glow-in-the-dark blue eyes. She’s getting those, too.

Denim: Levi’s
Blouse: Ultra Pink
Mini Crossbody Bag: Freebird by The Sak
Boots: Rock ‘N Rose
Earrings: Claire’s

Haunts.

On Friday night, I attended my work’s Halloween party. I helped to organize it (of course). I dressed as Amelia Earhart. I snuck away before anyone had had too much delicious, frothy, ice cream-y rum punch, took a train underwater and met my girls at MacArthur BART in Oakland.

I piled in as they cheerfully recounted the contents of the party supplies underfoot, and we drove to a pumpkin-carving party with four pumpkins rolling around in the trunk of the car. We carved kittens, queers, Rocky Horror smiles, childhood icons, and creepy grins into a diverse crop of hapless, multicolored gourds. While it rained outside, the air in their flat was filled with the scent of delicious spiced rum and pumpkin guts, and happy laughter.

On Saturday night, M & I snuck away to do the monster mash at a Halloween Ball thrown by Les Beaux, where we got too hot, shed layers, drank too much and were charmed by a costume contest almost as intense as the Giants vs. Rangers rivalry. In the end, these guys basically won it:

On Sunday, we trekked out to one of SF’s most popular neighborhoods for Halloween, Cole Valley, and it did not disappoint. While the petite (dressed as a sailor) demurred any notion of trick-or-treating at her age (um, twelve), we strolled up and down the streets, paused every now and then for a performance or to watch the Giants game on someone’s bedsheet (tricked out with a projector of some sort) or spider-webbed television set. My favorite part was the tiny dance floor for toddlers only. They were grooving their little hearts out and I almost died of cute. It was a great Halloween!

…and then the San Francisco Giants won the World Series! And it was amazing! And I honked my horn and we celebrated over a delicious dinner and I high-fived perfect strangers and we took a stroll through our neighborhood (the Mission) – set safely back from where the mayhem was taking place, and it was good until it was bad. My feelings about it all can be summed up cleanly with this question:

Why can’t we just have nice things?

Right, testosterone. Silly me.

Still, I told myself consolingly, most people were peaceful and non-destructive.

…and then we voted.

M & I researched and debated and voted our little hearts out, and stomped to our polling place, proudly scribbled in every last last line and smashed our stickers onto our chests, and I suppose it isn’t all bad, it could certainly be worse, but it could be much better and it’s not. Also? Some maniac polling place worker has broken into a machine, stolen the ballots and the memory box, some poor teenager’s cell phone, and run off with it all. Sigh.

Earlier tonight folks were reveling not far from us, celebrating Dias de los Muertos, and we walked through the clouds of incense and giddy crowds with skull-painted faces. Tomorrow the SF Giants will get a perfectly Norman Rockwellian homecoming parade downtown, and I’m sure I’ll be able to steal away from work to pop over and take a look, and then all of the city will be spent and exhausted and we will move out of it, but only just.

Bless it.

FEMME: RVCA slacks, Banana Republic shirt, Zara bomber. Vintage scarf, tomboy’s aviator hat, Dolce Vita for Target boots. HARRY FUCKING POTTER QUIDDITCH GOGGLES for $16.99. (In case you didn’t know, steampunk has made vintage goggles of any cool sort totally unaffordable.)

BUTCH (CASSIDY): RSQ denim (NY and London cuts), Red Level Nine cowboy shirt and vintage gun holster. Harley Davidson boots and Maverick straw cowboy hat. Bandana by Levi’s.

O C E A N!

H I G H W A Y 1!

H A L F M O O N B A Y!

M fawning over seaside Pampas Grass like she’s never seen it before in all her life. Watching surfers take to the waves at Moss Beach.

Lunch and window-shopping in Half Moon Bay. Gawking at the 1,535 lb. pumpkin that won the Safeway World Championship Pumpkin Weigh-Off this year. Antiques at our favorite spot. Finding gold-flecked vintage ski pants and an equestrian scarf for pennies. Picking up fancy unpasteurized Manchego cheese and Spanish Marcona almonds to nibble on with a fresh loaf of artisan French bread.

Hayrides, haunted houses and petting zoos at the pumpkin patches. Frolicking about at Montara Beach, where the waves offshore got so big and so tall that they’d briefly block out the horizon, and where it was so clean that not even the seagulls bothered with it. A giggly sunset at Rockaway Beach.

There is nothing like being towed around a pumpkin patch by your flannel-clad, big-ass-boot wearing, grinning tomboy, is there, femmes? It’s one of those rare joys in life. M picked out 10 little tiny baby pumpkins, and each of us picked out one big one for carving at Halloween. The weather was perfect. A pinch too warm, in fact, but M remedied her woolly issues by taking a shard of glass off the floor of the antique shop yard and cutting off the sleeves of her shirt.

Do I need to say it?

I guess so.

H O T.

The teenage boys who were studying maths in between scaring the daylights out of total strangers asked us if we wanted it “really scary” or just “a little scary”, and of course I trilled “EXTRA S U P E R SCARY!” and we all walked through the wooden doors into total darkness, clinging to M.

We counted to fifteen as directed, and blew out poor M’s eardrums as we screamed our way through 1,000 square feet or so of perfectly hokey, old-fashioned haunted house horror.

In the petting zoo of RADNESS there were piglets, bunnies, lambs, goats, ducks, chickens, and of course, tiny human beings. One of the bunnies bit me three times. The llamas were off limits and the ponies too miniature for me to ride (though believe you me, I tried). I’ve never held a piglet before.

EVERYONE SHOULD HOLD A PIGLET.

It’s amazing. Check out my awesome piglet-bunny-chicken video, filmed by M, by clicking here!

FEMME: Levi’s skinny jeans, Full Tilt plaid shirt, vintage Gucci scarf, boots from Buffalo Exchange, vintage Dooney & Bourke All-Weather Leather bag.

TOMBOY: RSQ London jeans, Mossimo t-shirt, vintage Pendleton flannel shirt, Harley Davidson boots, leather cuff.

Said big-ass pumpkin, behind my head: