Moving on Up....

I have a confession. That last post was neglecting one little piece of information: we were in New York for me to interview with Blue Sky Animation (the makers of such great animated films as Ice Age and the up coming Horton Hears a Who) and check out our future apartment (yes, the one shown below with Joe trying to figure out how to arrange our furniture in it). Now I can tell everyone that we are, in fact, moving to New York! It's quite crazy, really. We have to give notice, well, basically by Wednesday and then start the packing, crating and preparation process for the move. I think both our brains are about to explode. So much to consider. So little time. We will officially be New York residents September 1! Making us an official Halloween destination (you have not done Halloween until you've done it in New York!).

We are certainly going to miss some special people we have met here. That's the hardest part of going. I couldn't ask for a better boss and friend in Dave Hartman. Every day working with him was a treat. And Joe so values his relationship with Kathy. Like I said, there are some amazing people here. But we're looking forward to seeing old friends in New York, working on new art, and really trying something new.



Our New Home (top floor)


Our New View (top notch!)

Humid days in New York

Guess who took a quick trip to NYC for the weekend? FUN FUN FUN! That said, the weather was hot and extremely humid. I found I could survive it.


Our first night in we met our friend Alexa (from previous posts) and her new "friend" from Italy, Marco (along with a few of his fantastic friends). Dinner at DuMont in Brooklyn (the same place we had the wedding party dinner for Anna's wedding). Great food. We followed it up with an evening of Dancing to bad music at a crappy bar down the street...and had loads of fun!


Next day was Lunch at Cafe Gitane' with Heather (one of our Hosts for the trip)...



..followed by a visit to our potential landing pad in the Wall street area. Joe sat around and tried to figure out the space while I took in the frightening idea of living in under 800 square feet (basically a large studio). Oh my. What are we thinking?


We met up with Jenny, Joe's best friend in NY (and another of our Hosts) for dinner and the evening.

The next day was my time to explore and Joe's to catch up on some client shopping. We ended the day with dinner at Diner in Brooklyn, and hopped a plane for home the next day. A whirlwind trip with some great friends!

William Blaze High

Today Blaze would have been 47 years old. I like to think he would have been celebrating his and Shawn's birthdays (who's birthday is Thursday) together, as they did for years. Since it's all wishing anyway, perhaps Joe and I would have met up with them this evening, and joined in celebration with our friends.

Ate at a lovely place here in town the other day called Luna, and it reminded me of the little place we used to go together in Seattle; Cafe Sophie. Dark, quiet with private booths and perfect service. The kind of place that makes you feel comfortable and special. With great drinks! And of course, being with Blaze meant being with celebrity. Every where we would go, someone knew him, someone would dote on us. It was all very fun. A bit of a rush really. I was such a small town kid back then, and he was the city boy with all the contacts and such a strong sense of himself. His living and his passing changed me, for the better I think. I wish I could thank him for giving me so much. Happy Birthday, Blaze.

XO

Kirk

9 years ago...

Alright, so this post is a few weeks behind. But the facts are still the same. On the weekend in question Joe and I attacked the front "yard" (read: dead ghetto grass) and with the help of 2 great Guatamalen brothers took our front yard from ugly, to nearly lovely. (We still have a few things left to do - including adding some crushed rock to the front of the yard, a few more bags of beauty bark and then to paint and plant the front planter). Still, it brings a nice feeling of pride to see the yard look nice and to be able to take care of such great plants.






Fortunately for us we received some of the major plants from a friend who had pulled them up out of her yard. That provided us the basis for our garden, and the impetus to get to planting. We planted some big spikey guys, some pampas grass, iris, blue fescue and even some succulent starts from our neighbor next door.

9 years ago that very weekend my father passed away. All my life he and my mother spent the weekends working in the yard. They always had an amazing flower garden wherever we lived.

It seemed like the perfect way to celebrate my father.

My Mother's Wisteria

...in all thier glory; cascading, dripping, filling the air with their fragrance, and the hum of busy bees working over every flower.





My Mother's Wisteria. My father and mother have...had the greenest thumbs of anyone I have ever met. Where ever we lived, they left the ground and explosion of life. They did that in their professions too. Then my father, and her father, both died 10 years ago. Her brother a few after that. She's pretty much alone. And as health issues have left her crippled and nearly blind and retired at far too early an age, she is having to sell her home in order to consolidate her funds. This means leaving the property where she shared her life with my dad, and raised my sister, myself and most of our friends. This will be her last year with the Wisteria, the pond and the birds that call her yard their home.

Meetin' AnDanna in SanFranna

Every fabulous couple deserves a condecending, snarky nickname. BrAngelina, TomKat, HillBillary...or at least that's the perception of those of us whose brains have been pulverized to mush by LA's mindless "newsertainment". (I know more about Celebrity Gossip than the average middle-american teenage girl, and I learned it all on the 10 o'clock news!). I only say this because I want to explain why I have an uncontrollable urge to refer to our friends Anna and Daniel by an adorable nickname like AnnaDanna (or perhaps BananaDana?). So, all tangents aside, guess who's in the states on a whirlwind tour? Yes, our good friends from Scotland, Dan and Anna. You may remember them from such previous posts as :Daniel and Anna's Wedding in New York. If you don't. Scroll down, or back, or whatever and check out the pix. They are adorable. And you'll find the "Joe meets food" pictures" strangely familiar!

OK - on to our tale. Bananadana were supposed to come stay with us last weekend, but due to some scheduling conflicts or outstanding warrents or something, they could only come as far South as San Fransico. So we decided to meet them for a lovely weekend in the city. And lovely it was!



We found a lovely B&B 2 blocks off of Market on Castro (that's the actual Gay center point of the United States) called the "Whelan House" (http://www.homeguest.com/) where Andy took great care of us. But Modernists, beware. This ode to excess is not for the faint of decor-heart. To say his Victorian is chock full of crap is an understatement. But somehow, it all works and makes for a lovely, homey place to stay.



Now, the real reason to stay in The Castro is because only a few stumbling blocks away are the best pancakes ever made...ever. We refer to them as Crack Pancakes. I know, not orignal, but aptly named. Crack Pancakes can be found at CrepeVine, which is just off Market on Church. 216 Church St, San Francisco, CA 94114, (415) 431-4646 ) Offically named the "Swedish Oatmeal Pancake", these little dollops of heaven are crispy on the outside and so moist on the inside that they are almost like pudding! They have to be tasted to be believed. They must use Oatmeal soaked in condensed milk. I have no idea how they do it, but they do and you should. Eat them, I mean. Droooooooool.



Alright, so before we get to Anna and Dan, let me say they are nothing if not generous. They flew all the way from Scotland, drove down from Seattle, and still thought to bring us gifts from the far north, including this unusual tin of canned Haggis! Incredients are as you can see. Mouthwatering!



To make a short story short, for once, it was great to see Anna and Dan, if only for a short time. While in SF we took in some food, a little shopping,