A Busy Summer

What a crazy summer it's been, with mainly work making my life hectic, but managing to squeeze in fun here and there.  

I went to Chautauqua, New York, to visit with Reid's parents over the 4th of July.  It's an incredible literary, cultural, and art community, and I had a great time with them.

Reid and I went camping in Gold Country at the Yuba River.
"Come! take chances!"
Old gold claim



Visited Emily's new apartment
Went back to LA, stressed out, watched other people eat things with eyeballs.

Went white water rafting with the Jo-tel, the Fell-tel, and the Haigh-tel.

Went to Ghent, Belgium for work
Ate some Belgian food.
Met a Belgian in cowboy boots who flies to Texas to cook Italian food for a wealthy family.
Saw some very old buildings

Was lucky to travel with a very nice colleague

When we were both very tired and hangry we still managed to get along, Jose Luis putting up with some very corny jokes from me about cupcakes.
Saw some more amazing sights in Ghent while walking around.


Some wonderful old friends came to see me from Cambridge while I was there -- Haylie and Jim.
Drank some good beer here -- De Koningk and La Chouffe.

A clever way to get hold of the right person in a full house. (click to see)
Worked with some wonderful people, Tamara and Pascal.

Took a train for a day trip to see more friends in Amsterdam.


Ubiquitous snack stand in Amsterdam.  
My wonderful friend Jordi.
I rode a bike around Amsterdam with a very happy and adorable couple, Jordi and Jolly.
Went back to Ghent to finish up, celebrated a successful working relationship and our departure with beer in a garden.

The next morning we got up at 5 to catch a train to a train to Paris to catch a flight, as the Brussels airport was on strike (of course).

When we got back and launched, we toasted the team at Trattoria Contadina in North Beach.

Took a break over a weekend for another camping trip with Reid, and some early morning rope-swinging into Bass Lake.
And I'm turning 29 in a week.  Hard to believe.  

With all this crazy work stuff I did have to cancel two trips this summer, which makes me really sad.  One to visit my friends in England (two of whom instead came to visit me while I was in Europe) and one to go to Jackson Hole, Wyoming, with my mom.  I had such a wonderful time on my solo trip last year, just passing through. The other trips I've taken this summer only were for weekends. 

I have a bunch of vacation time and am trying to figure out what to do with it, all alone as no one else has time. Any ideas? 

You are so beautiful!!!! Tales from LA

I've been so busy!

I have a couple more stories from LA to share.

I wanted to post a photo of the rocket cone that was at the facility we shot at in Downey. A real Apollo rocket cap. I can't imagine being in space in that thing. It is not very big!


More photos from the facility. It was painted in a space theme.


Rocket-building gauges


Most mornings while in LA I ran or walked on the beach from Santa Monica to Venice, which was the best part of each day we were there since the time there was so stressful. There were lots of people out at 6 in the morning. Fully dressed people who looked like they'd been partying all night, some high school grads, lots of bums, runners and surfers, and a lot of eclectic bohemians who were hula hooping, or dancing their asses off in the water. It was a great way to start the day. People in LA are so happy!

One morning I was walking close to the waves and I walked past a middle-aged man doing crunches in the sand. He ran past me about five minutes later and said to me, with a heavy accent and a big grin: "You are SO beautiful!!!" and ran past. I think I teeheed. A little bit ahead of me he ran past a couple of middle-aged ladies and judging by their physical reaction, it looked like he said the same thing to them, too. And then to a young woman jogging a little later. What a nice thing! You can give a smile to people and make them happy, or tell them they're beautiful like this guy and start their day off nicely. So LA.

After we shot in Downey we shot some photography at a studio in Long Beach. I've shot there before, but didn't realize it is also the headquarters of that tequila whose bottles look extremely phallic.


We got to have a couple of calls in their conference room, which has a huge conference table made of plates of shattered glass, next to a bar with lots of custom-blown phallic tequila bottles. It was one of the cheesiest scenarios of my life. They also had pics and magazine spreads featuring the tequila on their walls. Like this one.


While in LA we stayed at a nice hotel where they left a little teddy bear on your pillow every night.


I was at a loss as to what to do with the bears as the night stand was overly crowded and it didn't seem right to throw the little bear on the floor because we are ingrained with the notion in childhood that stuffed animals have souls and feelings and would be upset by bad treatment. So I put them in the drawer.

By the end of my time staying there the drawer looked like a little bear graveyard or maybe an orgy. Or like a brazilian beach -- just a bunch of them laying there crowded together.


We went to a nice dinner at the end of the trip and it turned out it was truffle season. We shared fresh truffle shavings, which I've never had before and was AMAZING. I am a big lover of truffle oil thanks to my introduction from recipes by Marlena Spieler, and fresh truffles had a much more complex flavor and interesting texture. The next day we were sitting at the shoot quietly waiting around, focused in our own computers, and one of my creatives suddenly busted out with, "This morning, I took a poop, and it smelled like truffles." I think I died laughing. I couldn't stop repeating it the rest of the trip, and it would pop into my head while I was running or working or driving and I would burst out laughing. Here's a photo from the dinner. The stranger I handed my camera to cut me out of the photo!

Supersonic Rocket Ship... Facility

I've been in LA the last couple of days working on a shoot. No photos of the shoot to be posted here because that would be a big no no but I can tell you that we're working in a ginormous warehouse in a not so great neighborhood, and it's where they built at least one Apollo rocket. There's even an observation room in one of the walls where presidents and other government leaders would come to take a look at the enormous spaceships.

I'm lucky to be here with some really great people: the art director and his wife and baby. It's tough work times but at least we get a break for dinners.

Jose with little Santiago


Me, a different night, in Venice

Another great art director I've worked with, Slav, also on production

My old friend Andy who came to meet up. We like to take dramatic but blurry photos in LA restaurants.

A Tomales Bay Birthday Oystravaganza

When your loving lover has a birthday you want to make it as nice and fun and different and special as possible. When the camping trip we'd been trying to get together didn't work out, we went to Plan B, going to the farm at the Hog Island Oyster Company. We'd been thinking about also getting a bouncy castle or bouncy Twister game (inflated and everything) for the occasion, but ended up deciding that "bouncy" and "oysters" shouldn't go in the same sentence, much less in the same day.

A group of dear friends made the trek up to the Tomales Bay Oyster Company in Marshall. Although we weren't able to get a table there it was a blessing in disguise. Instead, we purchased 112 oysters and 20 clams, put them in bags full of ice, and took our party down the road to a secluded picnic table and grill overlooking a beach, which turned out to be much nicer.

Those friends initially timid of oysters came to embrace the pleasure of shucking and eating the fresh seafood, both raw and on the grill, much as I did on my first experience eating oysters straight from the sea farm.

The picnickers: Thrill, Rosie, Reid, me, Ross, Lindsay, Shannon and Johnny D.

Rosie brought an awesome Polaroid camera which captured the event in sweet style. You can see one of the photos here, at the Cabinet Shop blog.

Reid momentarily disappears in order to get the fire going.

Rosie eats a sausage.

Shannon and Johnny D.

This is your grill...

This is your grill a couple hours later, drunkity drunk drunk.

We ate all the oysters and most of the food we brought, and what we didn't get to the ravens took care of while we were away drunkenly frolicking on the beach.

The birthday boy. This photo is a visual metaphor for the events that next transpired, but ironically the beer was the only thing that the ravens didn't get to.

Johnny D.

Ross teasing Lindsay.

Lindsay's a happy girl in the sunshine.

Rosie and Shannon hanging out on the beach.

Brothers, Reid and Ross, wondering what happens next.

This was my second oyster picnic, (the first was our anniversary last year) and I think I'm starting to get a hang of what to bring to go with the oysters and make it a successful picnic.

List of what to bring:

• Crisp white wine
• Beer
• Lemons and Limes
• Hot Sauces (Tabasco and Tapatillo are my favorites)
• Worcestershire Sauce
• Red Wine Vinegar
• Chopped Shallots
• Salt and Pepper
• Brown bread
• Daddy Mack's Butter (see below)
• Pie
• Potato and Onion grill packets (if it's cold, it gives you something warm to eat. Chestnuts to roast were also good for that last time).
• Charcoal
• A Kitchen Towel and Shucking Knife

Both times I've made Daddy Mack's Oysters, a recipe from Allrecipes.com, which involves making a roll of seasoned butter in advance and putting a little slice of it on the oysters as they grill. It's been a big hit both times, for the oysters and for spreading on slices of bread. The birds seemed to really like it, too. It was all gone when we came back to the picnic table from the beach.

Mignonettes good for raw oysters:

• Minced shallots and red wine vinegar
• Lemon juice and Tabasco
• Lime juice and Tapatillo sauce
• Lime juice and black pepper

Toppings good for grilling oysters (don't shuck them first, grill til they open, then shuck and add seasonings):

• Daddy Mack's Butter
• Lemon juice, Worcestershire, Tabasco, salt
• Lime juice and black pepper.
  

But there are endless possibilities!

The day was a lot of fun and when it started to get later and drunker, we took our satiated and happy selves home.

Mark and Patsy Tie the Knot

A week ago Reid, me, and the Jo-tel + friends all traveled down to LA to see Mark and Patsy get married. Hip E, their roommate, was the minister. He was ordained by atheists online. It was very sweet, very them, and you could see that each word had been very carefully chosen. It was a short but lovely ceremony.

We arrived Friday night and to start off the weekend met up with the other travelers at 100-to-1, the bar near our hotel (which was across the street from the Santa Anita race track). We karaoked to Bohemian Rhapsody.

Then Reid and I decided to take a drunken walk to Denny's. Everything is funny on a drunken walk, so this was HILARIOUS.

The next day was the wedding. Reid woke up with a very painful foot/ankle so we went to the pharmacy and bought him a cane that kind of went with his seersucker suit. People thought it was an accessory, and didn't really believe he was hurt. Later in the night it became a party toy for people lifting up skirts. But we'll get to that.

The ceremony was very sweet and Patsy looked beautiful.

A handsome group standing around after the ceremony.

Southern gentleman plus lemon tree.

Reid is too tall for this photo.

Thrill and Rosie.

Reid wore a flower to match my dress.

First dance

Hip E having a dance off with a particularly talented kid.

After the reception ended we went to a nearby bar and people got pretty smashed. So did a few glasses.
Enter cane as skirt-lifting tool.

The next day we drove into Westwood to meet up with some of Reid's friends. We walked around Westwood and UCLA and saw the best theater ever, the Fox, where they hold lots of movie premieres. There aren't a lot of single-show movie houses anymore. It's too bad. It's so fun to see a movie that way.

We went up to the Sculpture Garden at UCLA and saw the new Richard Serra piece and Reid played with this kinetic sculpture.

Reid, meet kinetic sculpture.

Kinetic sculpture, meet Reid.

We drove around Westwood a bit more and I showed him my old turf. This is the Treehouse, an unusual building with circular apartments in Westwood. It has a waterfall that runs through the center of the building.

Later that day we hung out with Thrill and Rosie in Santa Monica, who made us delicious buffalo wings from scratch.

Finally, it was Monday morning and time for us to beat the traffic. We picked up our car companions bearing Stan's donuts, the best donuts ever. If you haven't had a peanut butter and banana filled donut, you are missing out on life. My dentist actually recommended Stan's to me. True story.