sfrevue

Also, Martyrs Motors in Richmond is a fun little place to stop

On days when we are particularly adventurous, Nations Hamburgers is always exciting, and I'm a vegeterian. I mean, I order the diet Coke, and still have a blast. Most of the time it's just sort of retro and spacy, but once two gold (teethed? Toothed?) gentlemen made an appearance, and goodness, their energetic disposition was pharmacutically enhanced.

We have a saying about the officers in Richmond: they are either going to pull you over, or not. Meaning, of course, that they are going to pull you over because you are a pleasant looking person and others in the vicinity are not, or they are not going to pull you over, because they are involved in other law enforcing activities. Like a car chase. Or a homicide investigation.

For sure, there are many lovely areas in the east bay, but I don't spend time there. Instead, my commute stops at the Marina Bay Parkway.

Well, it stops at the Marina Bay Parkway, but it gets interesting long before then. In general, I always find myself behind some class A screw up, on the 580 (with the exception of yesterday, when I found myself between a San Quentin prisoner transport van, and it's armed escort, and these two…these two were determined that neither heaven nor earth should separate them. You rarely see that kind of dedication these days, and it was all rather sweet. However)

However, this is not the usual order of things on the 580. No. Instead, I seem to find myself behind trucks loaded to the tippy-top with…well….junk. And not just loaded with junk. No, they are in fact held together by junk, including all manner of plywood and twine and, (I swear) electrical tape. Sometimes I get the standard gravel truck, but usually it's a gravel truck driven by a Joadesqe character, with distinct characteristic straight out of The Grapes of Wrath. Stay tuned for a picture, because I'm not going to post one. No, I'm putting up an entire authoritative guide.

The fun doesn't stay on the freeway (often, it bounces on the pavement, making a beeline for my car). Also, I've seen strange things on the shoulder and center islands. Today, most curiously, I spotted somewhere between 10-20 empty Heineken bottles, which leads me to wonder…were they on their way to a recycle facility? Returning from a late evening out? A party of many, drinking and driving in a roomy sedan?

All this, and I haven't even gotten to the office yet.

stitch lounge, where will you go?

sew, sew, sew sad am I. Stitch Lounge in San Francisco is, it appears going virtual. I'm not sure if that means that they are closing their physical location- the website message was a bit ambiguous, and I hope this means there is a chance they will stay put, however, although the message on the front page reads, "we're moving totally online," the tag on the webpage reads "/closure"/

Read for yourself.

A sad day indeed.

I wish it weren't sew.

Also, Note Animal Heads on the Wall

I have one very important thing to say about the chocolate mousse cake at Arams Café, in downtown Petaluma, is best with not one, but two dollops of whipped cream, and they don't even look at you funny. I prefer it with the Stella Grigio, but the cappaccunio is nice, too. If you can walk a straight line (or a semi straight line, or hold on to the side of the buildings and grope your way South, Andressen's is a great place for both aperetif and digestif, either or.) I've been in there three times, and one time the barkeep was very nice to me, the other time a different barkeep completley ignored me (and I actually like, sort of in fact admire, a place that does that, because this barkeep was both male and heterosexual, and also very gruff, and I am not that (gruff), and the third time…

The third time a guy on the barstool next to me actually peed in his pants.
So I'm three for three at Andressens.

Night Out, Mill Valley, With Flip Flops

First of all, I have to say. I can go from my house to downtown Mill Valley practically as the crow flies. That is, I can walk up Christmas Tree hill and take the fire road through the Camino Alto open space trail
-an excellent option for those who want to let their very (very, very, because what I am about to tell you is technically illegal) well behaved pooches off the leash (you are are on your own with regard to what you do with them when you actually get over the hill and into the city of Mill Valley)
-those who are drunk and are not seeking a DUI
-mountain bikers...but please...please...the pedestrians deserve to live too!
or, drive South on Magnolia. South Magnolia is a beautiful, pristine, country backroad. I think of it as Marin's answer to Mullholland drive. Also, it lets you avoid traffic. But beware that it has been taken over adopted by the mountain biking and race biking ilk. While many of these sportswomen and men are lovely people, I'm sure, the ugly reality is that there is not room on Magnolia for cars and bikes, and I mean...literally. Magnolia is replete with plunging hillsides, soft shoulders, and every turn is a blind one. If you have a reason for needing to go around a turn, and you have a bike in front of you, you're screwed. Your options are a. don't go around, or b. go around and risk a head on collision, in which one of you is likely going to go down the cliff.
I will add though, and I can't figure this out, other than that everyone in Marin drives the car that was driven in a certain Christmas episode of 90210, more than a decade ago (for those of you who don't remember, this car drove right through a school bus, thus avoiding mass death for Shannon Doherty and whoever else was in the cast, and dozens and dozens of schoolchildren.)

The final option is to take 101.
Once downtown, we stopped at Pharmaca, , a lovely pharmacy where you can buy your alternative herbs, chinese traditional medicine (organic form, of course, sans the lead and arsenic and cadmium that is ubiqitous in some of the more unregulated forms chinatown formulas), and, thank the lord, Bayer asprin. They also fill allopathic prescriptions. Because the Corte Madera Town Center Rite Aid pharmacist is now a great friend of mine, because I see him all the time, I'm not going to switch, but still.
I was pleased, and surprised, to find Provence fig soap.
A word about me and fig soap: for reasons I don't know and will never understand, fig fragrances have not made it big in the US. I find them everywhere in France, and try to stock up, but here the best I can do are combos (fig apple, fig grapefruit...and it's not the same). Fresh makes a great fig soap, but it's pricey.
If someone has a recipe for DIY fig soap...please...please....
We then headed downtown and had a coffee at Peets. There are some great other options, but I had a caffeine withdrawal headache and Peets is consistent. In the clinical case study of my headaches, the dosage makes the antitoxin.
After wandering around for awhile (it was too early for dinner) we decided to see Brideshead Revisited, at the Cinearts, on Sequoia Avenue.. As I pasted the link, I just realized, it's not quite an independent theatre, but it does a great job of keeping the look and feel of one, in addition to the sort of helpful staff, who contribute to the local feel. Not quite the Lark Theatre, but then, I feel about the Lark Theatre the way my freshman dormmate's boyfriend (oh, the tangled webs we weave) felt about modern art.
"I like knowing it's there, but I don't need to spend time with it."

More about Brideshead Revisited
I have to say...two hours of my life that I will never get back. Although I mostly wanted to see it for the costumes (and the scenes in Venice), the movie dragged in such a way that I feel like I could have actually gone to Venice and back, in coach, on an American airline, and the time still would have passed quicker.
There were so many problems with that movie, and for awhile, I was actually able to entertain myself by pointing them out.
Also my husband's flip flops were rotting, and I could smell them.
Also the guy behind us used an oxygen machine, or something that looked and sounded a lot like an oxygen machine (after "No Country for Old Men"), I suspect that we will never really be sure about what is a medical device and what isn't a creative and highly lethal killing machine, ever again.
Not that I think that people who use oxygen machines should not get to enjoy the cinema, even if it means bringing their machines in.
My Ranking for Bad Movies My Husband Has Either Made Us Watch, or Has Not Stopped Me From Suggesting That We Watch
-The Painted Veil (aka, I Loved Her But I Had To *try* to Kill Her By Infecting Her With Cholera, But Then I in Fact Got Cholera and Died, and Then Someone Decided to Market This as a freaking LOVE STORY?)
-There Will be Blood: some of the plotlines were good, alas, there were too many, and most were abandoned. I imagine them waiting in the dangling plotline orphanage, somewhere in a war ravaged country, chattering amongst themselves about Angeline Jolie.
or Mira Sorvino. I could totally see Mira Sorvino becoming the great adoptress of abandoned and displaced plotlines.

sew to SF I go

so it turns out my ad hoc home ec project is going to be a
green couture ballgown, both antebellum and avian, completion date slated for OCTOBER. I ruin all my tableclothes, and I need another pillowcase like I need a rash on my face.

So my immediate "research"

fabric: Britex, in San Francisco. Didn't even have to think about that one.

notions: Etsy

corsets: corsets? I'm toying with the idea, because old fashioned Protestant guilt dies hard. Jurnecka Corsets

because you never see Simplicity patterns on project runway.

Point Reyes Station

Point Reyes Books

If you make it a point to support one small business this weekend, do yourself a favor and head to Point Reyes Books, in the town of Point Reyes Station. You know the conundrum of the Cliff House  the restaurant with the can't miss view, and the thoroughly forgettable food? You won't find it here, just the quaintest, sweetest, literary bookstore with an intenventory that would do Robert B. Silvers proud. If you haven't spent a day in this town, a gem is being missed.
Stick Around
-Dairy Building (at the edge of town, you can't miss it.) See the sort of yucky process of cheesemaking in action, then pick up a bottle of good wine and sprawl on the lawn to drink it as a chaser. Glance across the street at the locals, taking in the weirdness of the bicycle weekend warriors.

-Point Reyes Station
Yum. Take your time at this eatery, and don't miss the chocolate ganache cake.

-Toby's Feedbarn (and yoga studio, and art gallery, and nursery)
Because admit it. You know you forgot to pick up that lavendar honey and gypsy kings CD.

And then, because you know you don't want to waste that gas money, hike out to Arch Rock, (Arch Rock Trail at the Bear Creek Ranger Station), and watch the end of the continent fall into the Pacific.

the Husband Stitch

I've decided to take a class at San Francisco's Stitch Lounge. Periodocially, I return to sewing the way some people try to stop smoking…lovely idea at the time, long on good intentions, short on motivation. And perserverence. And patience. But after spending nearly the entire summer at anthropologie, and after spending a near fortune on floaty tops with two bands of elastic, I became convinced that I could make these things with a roll of gauze and four martinis in, and because mom presented me with a Singer a year or so ago, during another DIY phase. I mean, I like gauzy tops with bluebirds and cherries as much as the next girl, but at $85 a pop?

Plus, if it saves my budget, it might save me grief with my husband.

Also, a super dear friend gave me the coolest green and gold avian Venetian Carnival mask, and it needs…no…it screams out for a ballgown that evokes turn of the century mystery, and….peacocks?

To the rescue

Stitch Lounge

Stay tuned...

Things You Might Do at The Bay Club Marin

Glossary

WGU: Weekend gym utilizer. For use in a sentence, see "Christmas Eve Service Christian" or "Easter Morning Service Catholic."

Things You Might Do
For reasons unknown to you, you might feel better if you put your (clean) hair tie in the plastic shampoo dispenser.

Marin Bay Club, Episode 345

one elliptical trainer. one silly bandana. one big jerkface.

tonight on episode 212 of the gym guy

Universal suffrage has arrived at the Women's Locker Room at the Bay Club.
Note to self: new non-profit project....give those marinites something to do besides iPhone Nazi rotation.
People: Maybe I never worry about illicit nude photos in the women's locker room, maybe it's because I have yet to come across the FREAKISHLY SMALL BOOBS WEBSITE. But this could, of course, be a predeliction that is unique to me.
The iPhone...tt's an IPOD, too. And a big unambiguous statement of fact to the portly woman with a bad dye job who stood behind me in the locker room: nobody, and I mean, nobody, wants photographic evidence of the fact that you should spend more time in the gym, rather than the locker room. I'd describe in more vivid detail, but it sounds catty, even though I really do think the mole is a sweet animal, with an interesting and not altogether regrettable face.

how not to not spread poison oak

Tecnu: good for stopping poison oak before it starts. Bad for use as an exfoliant. The girl who ODed on Ben Gay by putting it over too much surface area? I get that.
I totally get that.
Here's where you can get this: Tecnu