I'm sitting here at the dining room table, and there are things to do (two bags of groceries to unpack, thank you notes to write, an overdue doctor's appointment to schedule, a 20-minute yoga video, a few emails, plus Babygirl is about to be on break from Zoom and she will want a snack and she will need to know what the PLAN is for the after-school hours...) but instead of tackling these items as I had intended, I'm kind of paralyzed. For one thing, it just started raining, unexpectedly, which is throwing a wrench in the aforementioned after-school planning (see : outdoor activities ... [READ MORE]
Please
December 21, 2017 by 1 Comment
To my readers, I present...a letter (this is a real letter, BTW. Real estate is EXACTLY this crazy-cakes in San Francisco). __________________ To: The Owners of our Future Home From: Us, the Hapless Desirers of Said Home Date: October 12, 2017 RE: Purchase Offer To Whom it Concerns: For the past eight years, we have been raising our son (9) and daughter (6) on the 15th floor of a high-rise just blocks from your condominium. They have grown up looking down at the buses, watching the commuters and tourists (and parrots!), marking the time by the Ferry Building clock. They ... [READ MORE]
Recipe Roundup No. 12: Monday Musing
March 20, 2017 by 1 Comment
The clouds rolled back in with a vengeance yesterday afternoon. The kids and I were caught unawares, having been at a gymnastics birthday party that worked everyone into a sweat, but we emerged from the ritual pizza-and-cake to find that our spring temperatures had dropped and our t-shirts weren't going to cut it. I have a good spot here on my living room couch on Mondays. Through the sliding door next to me, the deck looks bright and pretty despite a gray sky (and windows that need a cleaning if this rain EVER STOPS), the bridge soars above the choppy Bay waters, and through the rails of ... [READ MORE]
Recipe Roundup No. 10: Nostalgia, with a Side of Salmon
October 24, 2016 by 1 Comment
My husband and I established our evening routine of cooking together very early on, when we first moved in together back in 2001. We were barely out of college and interestingly, though we had already been together a long time, outside of our relationship we had very separate lives -- career-wise and socially -- so our time together on weeknights had a kind of self-conscious "coupled up" vibe: there was a little thrill in the otherwise mundane. Planning meals together, and then preparing them for ourselves and for company, cemented the grown-up status our shared lease seemed to have earned ... [READ MORE]
Recipe Roundup No. 9: Five Great Bean Dishes
August 19, 2016 by Leave a Comment
I just did the First Official Back-to-School Grocery Run and damn, it was a shop for the ages. Backup peanut butter! A pound of deli turkey! Chicken breast tenders for quicker cooking on busy afternoons! Hand sanitizer! Pencils! Scissors! ALL the Kleenex! Ketchup ketchup ketchup! Martini olives (which are LittleMan's preferred lunchbox "fruit", heaven help me)! And another jar of martini olives! For martinis! As has been well-documented here, we are home-cooking people. On the average day we prepare breakfast for three, two lunch boxes (for the kids) and a snack/provisions ... [READ MORE]
Wednesday Wishlist: Nest Studio Stylin’ Mama
August 17, 2016 by 4 Comments
In lieu of a dedicated Wednesday Wishlist post this week, I humbly direct your attention to my friend Jess Davis' lifestyle blog (and amazing home design site), Nest Studio. As some of you may recall, I used to write for Nest Studio on a fairly regular basis, but then I...stopped, actually. That was last year, which will officially go down in history as the year I said yes to everything and got myself more overextended than any sane human should. (Hence this year, when I've said no to everything and spend most days happily holed up at home, writing. Whee!) But now that I'm writing ... [READ MORE]
Spin. Stop.
August 3, 2016 by Leave a Comment
Driving through North Beach this morning, pondering the closure of the French-Italian bakery and what an olfactory loss that was for the neighborhood, wondering cynically what hipster cocktail cave will take its place, it occurred to me that I'm actively trying to make peace with my city. It's an old saw, how much San Francisco has changed -- is changing -- since the arrival of the Tech Set. It's not particularly new, even (hello, late '90s) but somehow the tiny basement-room ripples became penthouse-level waves, and things are shape-shifting so visibly now. I drive down streets I've ... [READ MORE]
