Feelin' de love

Allow me to embarrass my in-laws for but a brief moment. The Jacobsen side women have decided to start a book club. We read a book and discuss it the next time we're together. The inaugural meeting of Le Book Club was the same weekend Brandon and I were in San Francisco - sadly I could not attend. The girlies went to dinner to discus Catcher in the Rye. Ever the thoughtful women, they send this pic to show their love and longing for me at the Club. And although I appreciate the gesture let me interpret the true meanings here.


Left to Right: Alyssa, Crystal, Erin, Susan (matriarch), Anne

Alyssa's mood: Sassy. "Are you kidding me? I don't do kisses."
Crystal's mood: Confident. "Love me dahling, I am fierce."
Erin's mood: Frightened. "Ok... I don't love this...is he going to throw that camera at us?"
Susan's mood: Defeated. "I hate Natalia, but I'm still posing for this picture."
Anne's mood: Hammy. "Jazz-kiss!"

I really did luck out with a great mother-in-law and great sisters-in-law. Thanks girls!!!

We left our hearts (and monies) in San Francisco...

"...If you're going to San Francisco, be sure and wear a flower in your hair..."

As some of you know, Brandon and I had the opportunity to go to San Francisco this past weekend. All of the California division of Kimley-Horn got together for a conference and it is tradition that wives come and everyone makes a trip out of it. Enter me. I was offered by another wife to spend the day with them (since the employees were going to be at the conference all of Friday) but I decided not to. I had never been to San Francisco and the last thing I wanted was women I don't really know, dictating what I was going to do all day. So I explored solo. I wish we would have taken more pictures but oh well. Here are a few to serve as a guide for a 'Frisco trip.
Disclaimer: We're not terribly touristy, so if you're looking for pics of the Golden Gate bridge, you won't find them here.
Disclaimer 2: Our plan of attack when confronted with an unknown city is to eat our way through it.

Friday (Nat on the town)

This is the DeYoung concert hall/museum of American Art. And a cool statue. After dropping Brandon off at the conference hotel I high-tailed it to see the sights. A 20 min bus ride later I was at Golden Gate Park. It was really beautiful. And it reminds me a lot of Balboa Park. Historical Bonus: my in-laws got engaged there.


..... this was at Golden Gate Park...stil not quite sure what to make of it...


This is about as close as I got to the bridge. If I had it to do again, I would have rented a kayak and gone under it. Anyway, it looked cool. From Golden Gate Park I took the bus and started my pilgrimage toward Haight Ashbury to pay homage to my hippie-peace-loving ideals. Also to find the house where the Dead jammed.


Almost there!! I could sense (and smell) dissenters already.


I thought this was hilarious. An army surplus store on Haight. Big Brother hits again!


Victory!!!! Word to the wise. Don't go to Haight Ashbury. Well go, it's worth seeing. But I couldn't help but be very disapointed in my generation. The 60/70's were about change and about standing up to the establishment. It seems like those people (yes, they might have been plain lazy) really believed in what they were doing. They were there to make a change, they were involved in the politics and were knowledgeable on their issues and that's why they were taking a stand. Now most young kids at Haight Ashbury live off drugs, are homeless by choice and force and they aren't even pretending to better the world.


I left my deep thoughts at Haight Ashbury and mosied on. I heart Chinatown. This was a litte nod towards my hometown of Hacienda Heights. Easily, my favorite district in SF.


This is where I ate lunch. You enter through the kitchen and go upstairs to eat. $6! You can't beat that. The first of our culinary adventures.

(Not pictured) We went to an Italian restaurant in Little Italy that was fabulous! Best Italian food since Italy. Oh my.... and it was so small and cute and perfect. We kicked ourselves for not taking pictures. My mouth still waters for my homemade fusili with Italian sausage.


After lunch I did some shopping. I found a shirt I really liked and asked to try it on. This was my dressing room. It extened farther to my left into a dark, dirty abyss but I didn't dare go further than a few inches from the door.

Day 2 (Brandon joins the fun)

We decided to start our day at the Ferry Building Farmer's Market. I would move to SF solely for the market. Sigh... I miss it already. In the back right above/right to my head is a contestant from Next Iron Chef! Doing shopping for his restaurant.


The breakfast of champions. Fresh baguette, fresh chevre, and water (I couldn't find tea for the life of me). Also this is Baguette 1. Baguette 1 was given away to a homeless woman by Brandon about 10 min after this picture was taken. Baguette 2 (pictured later) replaced Baguette 1.


The Bay Bridge. Filling our bridge picture quota.


After the market we headed over to Fisherman's Warf via the Embarcadero. Apparently Pier 15 had been colonized by short people.


Baguette 2 and I enjoy watching the sea lions fight over a place to lay at Pier 39. Stunning realization: Pier 39 and Fisherman's Wharf aren't as cool as they might have been back in the day. While they have cool individual things in them, as a whole Fisherman's Wharf reminded me of Santa Monica Blvd right around the dirty part of Hollywood and Pier 39 had all the stores that Universal City Walk has. I do have to say that the sea lions were super cool and I really liked all the fresh crab being sold on the street. Plus you get a view of the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz, so that was pretty cool. Not all bad.


I really liked touring the Boudin factory. There was a tasting room at the end of the tour and we got to learn really cool things about how people came to be in San Francisco and cool San Franciscans. I like all the history behind San Francisco, it's much cooler than LA in that sense.


Sanity amidst the craziness of Fisherman's Wharf.


Brandon being his super cool self at the trolley stop right by Ghirardelli Square. Before we got going the driver kept saying "The San Francisco Treat!" and ringing the bell. We had a really fun crew. And got great seats.


The cable car museum was really cool. Here are all the cable lines. Who would have thunk?


Here Brandon sits among his great-grandfather's handy work. Historical bonus: Great-grandpa Soren helped rebuild the Fairmont Hotel after the earthquake of 1906. This was a much needed rest after the whole day of walking.


This was dinner! Well, we had a lot to eat before this, this was the last course of a 5 previous tapas plates. All very yummy. We found an alley in the Financial District full of restaurants and we settled for this Spanish one. After this meal we headed straight for bed.

All in all SF was a very successful treat. We had a lot of yummy food (we decided to skip the clam chowder as we had had some recently at Boudin San Diego, but I'm still kicking myself for not trying the crab) and had a good time discovering all the historical sites of San Francisco. I also learned that SF was the original cool California city before Hollywood exploded, and in it's classy understated way, it still is.

Holiday Fun

I would have posted earlier but our life has been so boring that there isn't all that much to talk about. Although recently for the holidays we did run a hotel. Always fun. Anne, Evan and Cameron 2 came to visit and we had a blast, at least I did. My mom did warn me, "If you move to San Diego everyone's going to come a visit." Which is true, but thankfully we like everyone who has come so far.

 

 

 

 

End of Cold War

Two bearded super-powers have finally collided. Santa Claus and Maggie. Last week I took Maggie to get her picture taken with Santa. There was initial tension as both parties eyed each other with curiosity and contempt but in the end an amicable agreement was made. Much like the Gorbachev v. Reagan summits at the UN. The result follows.

Some people might think that it's a silly waste of time to pay $9 to have your dog take a picture with Santa Claus. Well I say screw you. Five those dollars went to charity and I got a cute frame.

 

Racism: The World's Oldest Companion

I heard that prostitution was the oldest career in the world once, so at least prostitutes have a claim to fame.

This past weekend was spent in LA, land of my youth. My dad's birthday was the 1st but we couldn't go so it was celebrated on the 8th. And for it, out came the "LA characters" as I like to call them. Ever since I could remember my parents have entertained fun and interesting people. Fine by me, being an only child amongst adults with no children made it so that I was given a very rounded and diversified view of the world. I've known these people since forever. They're family.

There's Rudolf, the racist Romanian.
"Thees Koreans, thees are veird guys. Everee time I drive through Koreatown, sometheeng happens. I tell you, thees are vierd guys. They always keelling each other, eating dogs... Veird guys..."
He's really a good guy, just particular about his views of Koreans. He's had an interesting life, having to escape Communist Romania, being forced to join the Israeli army at 29, migrating to Germany, 8 months in Greece, and finally New York. Eventually he made it to LA where he works designing my dad's new line of jewelry. He calls me "baby" (in a paternal sense).

Leah, his wife.
"I veel argue for hours, vhether or not extraterrestrials exist. Of course they do!"
And she will. Leah has two volumes, loud and louder. She makes my mom look tame. She works for Baby Phat, as a programmer. But she makes the best cookies ever. Period. She's gotten so famous that every year she has to make about 2,000 to fill the order of people begging her to send them some. After much begging this year, I get my own batch! She and Rudolf speak 4 languages fluently.

Bruno, the slick one.
"Let me tell you guy, these new Rolex, out of this world."
No one really knows much about Bruno except that he likes the finer foods in life like wine, cheese, balsamic and anything ethnic. Come to think of it, Bruno has a lot to do with the way I eat. Forever introducing me to new restaurants Downtown. He and my dad have been friends 35 years and I've known him my whole life, and no one has ever seen his supposed wife. He works with my dad as sort of editor for Rudolf's designs, and the diamond guy. But man, he's slick.

Zared, the transcendentalist (and the only white one).
Zareb is actually my mom's friend. He's the newest in the fold. Zareb is his chosen name, I don't know what the real one is. He's actually LDS, he just doesn't know it yet. He believes everything we do, just adds on reincarnation and some other beliefs. He's a really cool guy and my mom's guru. Easily the easiest to like.

I've learned a lot over the years from these people. When you get them together it makes for a really fun night. I really admire how after hardships like divorce, separations, death of children, and economic difficulty, they can still smile. We all get together and have a really good time. Like time has never passed, nothing bad has happened and we all saw each other yesterday.

Not my best idea.

So. I promised myself I wouldn't be one of those people that all only blog about their children, but this one is necessary.

Ok, so since we got Maggie we've been living at PetSmart. We always need something more, if it's not this it's that. So I decided to ask how much the Salon at PetSmart is. $37 for trim and $47 for a cut for a Wheaten. Not too bad for the sake of convenience. I'm already having to brush her all the time, I don't want to cut her hair. That is, until I saw the PetSmart Christmas flier. On one side it details information about when Santa is coming to PetSmart (and you better believe I'm taking Maggie) and the other side is a coupon for a bath, cut, little bow, and even a tooth cleaning. So that sounded like a good deal. Except took a closer look at the dog in the coupon picture and realized that that hideously cut, rather butchered, dog was a Wheaten. Then and there I resolved never to let PetSmart Salon get within 20 feet of my dog. We've been called elitist because we're so particular about Maggie's appearance. And yes, we may or may not ridicule the Wheaten down the street because it looks like a modified lemur but we are good dog parents and want Maggie to look her best. It's the same reason parents comb their child's hair before they go to school. Good grooming is important.

Except that's not the worst part. The worst part is I decided to cut her hair myself. I read the SCWT website about hair cuts. I even read the Wheaten owner's manual thingie about hair cuts. I was ready. Except I wasn't. And what has resulted (two hours later) is a slightly butchered dog. However, I'm proud to say that her face still looks like a Wheaten. And damn it! That's the most important part.

Maggie post trimming odyssey.

"I think I have something to say to you!"

As a lot of you know, Maggielicious has arrived. She's a Soft-coated Wheaten Terrier and her official name is Ch. Andover Magic Maid. So far she's doing quite well, although she's still not eating as much as I would like her to. I can tell her Wheaten temperament is starting to poke through, this morning I was greeted with more kisses than I was prepared for. Also, she's bonding to me a lot more as opposed to Brandon since Brandon works, but I can see her make progress with him too.
I have to say she's the doggiest dog we know. She didn't know how to climb stairs, she didn't know how to climb on furniture, and she doesn't know what to do with toys, although I have an idea as to how to remedy that. She doesn't even know how to play with other dogs. Hopefully the Gunderson's dogs will teach her how to play, when she stops growling at them. I'm not happy about the growling thing at all, and we're teaching her that it's not ok to growl, I'm just hoping it passes when she becomes more secure. Right now she's lazily laying in bed staring at me. All in all, we're really happy we got her.

 
This is Maggie at the dog park by the Temple, which is by our house
 
On the way to the dog park, deciding what you do with grass
 
She's so cute!
 
I love this thing. "Bring it, dog"