Back in April, I spent almost a week in Northern California with friends. I managed to get a nice photo of all of us with my camera on a timer! View full photo set on Flickr
Tag Archives: friends
Ah, Mexico
The place to go when it’s cold, dark, and rainy here in Seattle. We had a great vacation – stayed in a house in Sayulita, Mexico (just north of Puerto Vallarta).
You can see more photos over here.
Pumpkins 2010
For Halloween this year, we carved pumpkins with our friends Lee and Sachi. Here are some photos, for your enjoyment!
My pumpkin, post carving (photo taken by Lee):
Jay’s pumpkin, lit up (it was actually quite scary, and funny too!):
My pumpkin, lit up:
All of our pumpkins, lit up:
My 2009 Favorites List
On this eve of a new decade / year, here’s a retrospective of 2009 with some of my favorite things. (This is a personal post; check out this blog post for our 2009 biz/Juxtaprose thanks!)
places visited:
- Myvatn Nature Baths, Myvatn, Iceland
- the chocolate stores, galleries, and museums of Paris, France
- wandering through London on a beautiful fall day
concerts / live performances:
- Leonard Cohen (Coachella)
- The Flaming Lips (Marymoor Park)
- Akron/Family (Bumbershoot)
album(s) (in no particular order):
- The Avett Brothers: I and Love and You
- Bill Callahan: Sometimes I Wish We Were An Eagle
- Amadou & Miriam: Welcome to Mali
- Built to Spill: There Is No Enemy
- Yo La Tengo: Popular Songs
- Wilco: Wilco
- The Flaming Lips: Embryonic
- St. Vincent: Actor
- Rodrigo y Gabriel: 11:11
- Mr. Smolin: Bring Back the Real Don Steele
- Akron/Family: Set ‘em Wild, Set ‘em Free
- Taken By Trees: East of Eden
- Animal Collective: Merriweather Post Pavilion
- Neko Case: Middle Cyclone
- Grizzly Bear: Veckatimest
- Leonard Cohen: Live in London
movies (note: I didn’t check the dates; I think these were all 2009; or at least I saw them in 2009):
- Inglorious Basterds
- Man on Wire
- Up
- The Fantastic Mr. Fox
- Extract (just saw this last night; so funny!)
tv (basically didn’t watch any live tv this year; all tv shows were via web streaming / DVD; we’re still 1-2 seasons behind on some of these; shhh):
- Dollhouse
- Damages
- Mad Men
- Battlestar Gallactica (maybe not the ending, but the rest of it was very enjoyable)
books I read this year (not all from 2009; I rarely read books when they first come out):
- Revenge of the Spellmans: Lisa Lutz (the exception to the 2009 pub date; I also read the first draft of The Spellmans Strike Again (coming March 2010!)
- The Girl who Fell from the Sky: Heidi W. Durrow (one of our clients, I got a manuscript version of her book, coming February 2010—definitely keep an eye out)
- What the Dead Know: Laura Lippman
- The Maisie Dobbs series: Jacqueline Winspear
- Innocent Blood: P.D. James (I picked this up at an “English Pub” in Paris, where they had a wall full of English language books)
- The Road: Cormac McCarthy (I don’t think I’m going to ruin the book by seeing the movie)
food / dining:
- Chez Omar, Paris
- all the fresh food from our garden!
- weekly fresh salmon from the Farmer’s Market during the summer, grilled on our grill with freshly picked corn, and a bottle of wine
- John Henry’s, Palm Springs
chocolate (yes, it gets its own category):
- La Chocolaterie de Jacques Genin, Paris (no website, but check out this article)
- Chocolate Mussy, Paris (8 rue du Bourg Tibourg, Marais)
art:
- André Kertéz photography exhibit at the Reykjavik Library (Iceland)
- Ara Güler photography exhibit, Paris
- Ferdinando Scianna photography exhibit, Paris
- Photoquai 2009, Paris
- visiting the Louvre, the Rodin Museum, and seeing all the amazing art in Paris
chance meeting:
- meeting and talking with the fine art photographer Tim Rudman and his wife, Ingrid Rudman, at Lake Myvatn in Iceland; then running into them again, two days later, in a totally different part of Iceland and having another great conversation
spa experience(s):
- Olympus Spa (Lynnwood, WA) – where I spent 6 hours of my 38th birthday!
- all the hot pools of Iceland: Myvatn Nature Baths and the “swimming pools” of Husavik and Reykjavik
None of these things would have been the same had I not shared them with friends, family, a cranky cat, and “strangers” met along the way. Mostly none would have been the same without Jay (I love you!). Looking forward to more adventures in 2010 and beyond.
Coachella 2009
We had a great time in Palm Springs and at our first time at the Coachella Festival! We saw lots of good bands and had fun with our friends.
Here are some photos from the festival:
Tahquitz Canyon, Palm Springs
On our recent trip to Palm Springs, we visited Tahquitz Canyon, just at the end of Palm Springs. Tahquitz Canyonis owned by the Agua Caliente band of Cahuilla Indians and there’s a couple mile hike you can take through the rocks and desert landscape. We (Jay, Lee, & Sachi) hiked to the 60 foot waterfall – and it was a coolish day for April in the desert, but still hot! More photos from the Coachella festival coming soon….
Here are some photos from the hike:
Curtis gingerbreads Venice’s Santa Maria della Salute
A little late, but over the holidays, my friend Curtis sent me this video of the gingerbread house he made this year. And, by gingerbread house, I of course mean: intricate recreation of a famous architectural wonder in gingerbread. This year’s is the beautiful Santa Maria della Salute in Venice, which Anastasia and I had the great fortune to visit when we were there in 2000:
You may recall that, last year, Curtis’ gingerbread house was a similarly stunning recreation of l’Opéra national de Paris – in gingerbread!
OK, extra bonus feature this year: after visiting his family in Salt Lake City, Curtis also made this video called “Holiday Horrors!” It’s super awesomely holiday horror hilarious! A perfect way to say goodbye to the 2008 holidays.
Mad-P Planted
After being on the waiting list for 3 years, we finally got a plot! Here I am pictured in our newly acquired community garden plot. The garden is part of Seattle’s P-Patch gardens, and our garden is named the “Mad-P”. This was just when I was trying to figure out how we might be able to plant some more food / veges in our yard. So we’re really excited to have this space, and it is literally just down the street (2 minute walk).
So on Sunday our friend Jeanine offered to help plant, as she knows something about gardening, and doesn’t have her own garden at the moment. So we bought seeds and hopefully picked some things out that will still grow (we’re getting a bit of a late start). Plantings include: carrots, radishes, snap peas, zucchinis, tomatoes (these in plant form from the farmer’s market), a couple lettuce starts (also from the farmer’s market) and some flowers (marigolds and I think they were called ‘paper flowers’ or something like that).
We’ll keep you posted on how things grow!
Photo by Jeanine Anderson. (Check out her photos, they’re really interesting!)
The best burger ever?
So while we were in New Zealand we found out from Eve’s husband Lynn that she has been raving about this “incredible burger” she had over 10 years ago when she last traveled to the south island in NZ. So while driving down the coast, we HAD to stop for the burger. Is it as good as she remembers? Here’s what Eve has to say:
Curtis gingerbreads l’Opéra national de Paris
Over the past couple December holidays, one of the things I’ve started looking forward to is getting the photos of my friend Curtis’ annual gingerbread house. This year, things have stepped up a notch, as I just received a video of Curtis making this year’s model: the Paris Opera House. Check this out!