Turkeys in my house!

Yup, it's true, Charleen, Jerry and Brian came up from Southern CA for Thanksgiving! I hosted about 9 people last Thursday. It was definitely the best alternative to being home with the family. Everyone chipped in and there was a ton of food to eat. I got a 14 lb turkey to cook, and with the thoughtfulness of my mom I had all the recipes and ingredients to make herb roasted turkey, stuffing, beer bread and pumpkin pie! So I did.

This is me holding the turkey and bagging it, and Brian peeling cukes:


Once all the prep was done, we got to relax with some cranberry mimosa's. Jerry doing the honors of opening the champagne

Then, tada! Look at all this food!
slowing down...

Here's everyone around the table

Then of course, per tradition at least in my household - cleaning every last bit off the turkey for leftovers! If this isn't enough to make you go vegetarian, not sure what is.

We took a little break and watched the Big Lebowski, at least till the second dream sequence, then had some pie!
helping myself, of course
yum!

I had so many leftovers! We tried to do a re-thanksgiving dinner on Saturday night. I think we finished off the candied yams and mashed potatoes but still had tons left. I had to toss everything out this week. There are still 3 flavors of pie left, thankfully I got roommates to help out with that! Just yesterday Mari had 4 pieces!

Thanks again for everyone that came and made food - you made this one of the best Thanksgivings ever!

zee Apartment

Drum roll please...
Apartment pictures!!!

So, let's start with the exterior. Here is 95 Hancock St. It is a 3 story house, broken up into 3 separate apartments. The landlords live on the top floor. The people on the middle floor, I haven't met, but someone snores pretty loudly and I can hear it sometimes at night!
From there we move on into the house. To the direct left is Mari's room. Mari is one of my roommates. She's been in SF for about 10 years from what I gather and she recently sold her half of her dog walking/pet sitting business to her partner. She's from Sweden, and totally looks it too!

To the right and up a couple steps is the living room.

It's fully equipped with a fold out couch, TV, bookshelves, chairs and a view. I like it because it's cozy. That's Amanda, my other roommate sitting on the couch studying for her license exam. She's a therapist/social worker who's been in SF for about 4 years now. She's originally from NJ and she also owns a Bianchi! (we rode bikes today). The only strange thing about the living room is that our windows are at street level, really really really close to street level. One side of the house is on a hill, so literally it is about 6 inches from the tar.

If you walk into the living room, to your direct left is the 'blue' bathroom. What you can't see is a mirrored double closet opposite the sink.


Ok, so the other direction after you walk in the door, past Mari's room on the left is the hallway which takes you down to the two hallway closets (on the right) 2nd bathroom (on the right), my room (on the left), Amanda's room (straight) and kitchen (all way down on the right).


Here's the "pink/brown" bathroom with claw foot tub!
Seriously with all the bathroom space, I sometimes feel a little cheated with my 10x10 room.
Here's my room...I painted the walls Victorian yellow, or so it was called, and it has a nice golden tone to it. I think I spent a full hour at the paint store hemming and hawing over what color I wanted to go with, but it was worth it because I am pleased.

So this is looking into my room from the hallway. You can see my bedspread and queen sized bed that I acquired. I got it off craigslist and got a deal. Basically paid half of what I would of had to pay for a brand new full sized bed. It does take up a lot of room, but I think it's worth it, and it's so much more comfortable then my old IKEA mattress! You can also see my green bureau find, also off craigslist. The woman I bought it from is pretty sure it was hand built, and it definitely looks like it. It has really fun lion face handles and I lined it with some vintage inspired black and white flower vinyl stuff.
On the other side is my desk, some shelves I just put up this weekend and a little cabinet thing. All from IKEA.

This one is looking back into the hallway
Then there's the eat-in kitchen, which I think is a decent size with good counter space.
That little door on the right is just a mini storage area with the hot water heater. Then if you walk through the kitchen to the left there's the laundry area.

Then....the backyard zen garden! This one is looking out from under the deck stairs at the cottage out back. We share our laundry facilities with the woman who lives there.

Our landlords own a flower shop I believe so they like to take care of this area. It's basically for everyone to enjoy that lives in the house.

Well, that's all I got. I hope you enjoyed your little tour! Come visit soon :)

Gallery 16 Rex Ray Exhibit

Yesterday I had a few minutes to squeeze in an art gallery exhibit opening for Rex Ray. It was held at Gallery 16, which I thought was a cool little art space. I find his artwork really colorful and fun to look at. It is hard to tell from the pictures but it is collage work, layered paper over paper and probably some painting, I'm not too sure.
Here are some pictures for your enjoyment.

These were my favorite, I like the long shape and they had a gloss overlay. I think it could make a really funky coffee table.



I really liked the choice of brown in this one:


And here are some others:


While I was there, I noticed they also have a custom letterpress print shop there as well called One Heart Press. I liked the name.

Hallow's Eve 2x

So, I sort of got to celebrate Halloween twice, once this weekend (would have been twice if the Two Gallants show got out earlier!) and then tonight.

This weekend I was in sort of a dilemma, not having time to prepare, find a costume, shop around, etc... The thing is, I always feel I need to 'be' something, but honestly, half the people who dress up, just dress up all crazy, and they aren't necessarily anything in particular.
Anyways, my Halloween shopping consisted of me leaving work early and hitting up one store before my Friday night began. I bought a whistle.
I got invited to a party through a coworker I don't know all that well. He actually picked us up in his Element or something like that, which didn't have seats in the back so Jeremy and I were sitting on the floor of the car getting tossed around. Anyways, here's an overview of the party scene:

It's a good thing I bought that whistle. As you can see, or not see, I'm some sort of gym teacher/camp counselor. Still haven't really decided. Probably more like a gym teacher though.

After they ran out of booze, we wandered out, and found the inner mission. complete with pinball. so we played.

Then we snagged two stella artois goblets. oh ya, we are the COOL-est kids around.

Tonight was a little different. When I got home from work I placed my carved pumpkin and Andy's (since he left it here) out on the stoop for festiveness. Please notice the pumpkin banner thing on the front door, that's from my parent's Boo package!

Then after sitting on my ass watching Crazy Love and not really knowing what to think, I wandered out onto the streets, using some gear Amanda had lying around in her Halloween costume container. She dubbed me little dead riding hood.

I met up with Ferris, Ashely and some of her friends at Transfer. But I saw this guy first when I was crossing Market. He honestly stopped and posed for me for about 5 seconds while I tried frantically to get my camera to take a picture

Ashely, her friend and Sharkhead
ooo, scary!
meep!

NOTHING was really going on. There were tons of cops out patrolling the streets, which Ferris noted probably made the rest of SF scary to be in.

At least we saw these costumes!
This was probably the scariest.
front
and back


I apparently handed my camera to some stranger on the street and told him to take my picture. I honestly thought it was Ferris, but it wasn't. I swear I didn't have one drink! At least he took a decent photo.


So, after wandering up Market and down Castro I made my way home, satisfied with myself for at least getting out of the house for a little while. Plus I got to see about 6 cops taking a picture with a black and white spotted great dane that was wearing a fireman's cap. Priceless.