Bo-Gards with Maria and Ger

Went to the Missouri Botanical Garden (often referred to as "Shaw's Garden") the other week with my parents for their anniversary.  (It was very nice that I was invited along.)  We used to go to the Botanical Garden at Christmas to see the poinsettia display, which is inside thankfully, but you can't really take in the grounds at Christmastime.  And the grounds of the gardens are quite spectacular.  There is a 14-acre Japanese garden, as well as the original homes of Henry Shaw, the founder of the garden.  (What an incredible gift he bestowed on the city of St. Louis!  Thanks, Mr. Shaw!)  There is also a huge home gardening center, a children's garden, an herb garden, a maze, an Ottoman garden, the Climatron and lots of other stuff.

Anyway, our fair botanical garden is the oldest garden of its kind in continuous operation in the United States.  It was founded in 1859 and is a National Historic Landmark.

Here's an oldie of some folks carousing on the lily pads.  Cool!

These autumn trees are killing me!  So pretty!

The Climatron.

Pretty iPhone sun flares.  Oh, and flowers.

Mini lily pads.

There was a rad photo exhibit of frost flowers, which are the delicate, frozen extrusions of water from the stems of certain plants.  They are only formed when the conditions are just so and are really lovely.

Recent Wears

I have a few more weeks to make my suitcase full of clothes last.  As they say at the Intercon in HK, please enjoy:

Vintage jumper from Gap, amazing crocheted necklace by Lucy, bracelets vintage, l/s shirt ?, shoes Rachel Comey.

New fave washed silk jacket from the Goodwill in Chesterfield, vintage shantung scarf, tank ooooold Old Navy, shorts Levi's, bag APC Madras, shoes Opening Ceremony, lucite bangle from mom.

Purple peepers.

Recent Girl Times (and Balloons!)

One day Maura and I ran over some glass, went to the movies, then got a beverage at Kaldi's...

Where we ran into Barbara and two of her boys!  Yay!

I was lucky enough to be in town for the baby shower for Jey.  This is me waaaay over-shooting the girth of Jey's belly.  Look how cute Jey is!!!

This is Maura's vision.  I wish this is what my life was really like.  heh.

Balloons over Town & Country.

I leave you with Hilde hard at work.

Cake Pops... and more!

I had a week-long obsession with cake pops a bit ago.  Izzy came over and we dipped and decorated them, and it's quite a fun activity to do with a younger friend.  I can see how kids can go bananas for this shizz because I was pretty into it, too.

If you don't know about cake pops (or their cousin, the cake ball), then you probably don't pay attention to anything food-related on the interwebs.  All of the domestically inclined websites have been bonkers for these for a while.  Allow me to give you the gist of the cake pop.  It is cake mixed with icing (yes, the icing is already on the inside!  Holy moles!) that is rolled into a ball and dipped in chocolate.  It is some rich business.

I always was put off by them because 99.99% of the recipes are for boxed cake mix/store-bought icing and well, stuff that isn't made from scratch kinda makes my skin crawl.  But I got over it this time in order to have a fun project with our 11-year-old family friend.  I did find a from-scratch recipe here.  This is what I will use from now on.... and you should, too!  From scratch or bust!  Who's with me?!

 New soft-boiled egg holders from Pylones.  The spoon has a mallet on the end to crack the eggshell.  Cutes!  Man, Pylones used to be my special store in Paris... and then I realized that they'd opened stores in NYC.  I love the convenience of the NYC stores, but it seemed more special when it was only in Paris.

An awkward lean from Hilde.

The good, the bad, and the sticky

Favorite Tsumori Chisato octopus socks.  I loved them so much I bought them in another color, too.  It's stuff like this that made me freak out (in a good way, always in a good way!) my first time to Hong Kong.

Blursville.
Look, all I've got is an iPhone, people.  But witness the harlequin nature of my nails!  At least I like to think they have a harlequin flair.  I was really tempted to crap them up with a more lines and colors, but I left them well enough alone for now.  The cool thing is, from the sides, it looks like they are one color and then I move and hitcha with the TWO-TONE!  Yeah!



OK... brace yourself for the following.  Those with weak stomachs may want to pass altogether...

Too lazy to actually put legwarmers over your jeans???  Well, thankfully you don't have to bother with THAT because Macy's is here to help with their legwarmer jeans!  That's right, jeans to the knee, then POW!  Legwarmer!  I especially love the way the elastic gathers it all together where to two meet.  Must be ultra-flattering.

*barf*

And don't even get me started on the whiskering.  Sick, sick, sick.

I must have stood in front of the glue for 15 minutes today before finally going with the Aleene's Tacky, always a classic.  But, sheesh, the choices are overwhelming.

Seasonality

Boo!
So many things I want to make right now.  Like these mummy dogs:

And this meat(loaf) hand:

(Both via Ohdeedoh, which will provide you with the original links.) 

If you're coming over for dinner tonight, I hope I haven't ruined the surprise of your place holder.  My frightened cat looks more like a frightened mink, which I'm pretty into.  I bet minks can get nasty and arch and hiss, too!  I would if you were trying to "coat" me.

New friend.

A not-entirely-black cat.

Sunday BLOODBATH!

Of course it wasn't!  But thus is my way of protesting the phrase "Sunday Funday."  (Warning:  liberal use of quotes ahead to mask the guilty.)  An "acquaintance" of mine who is "years" behind on "everything" (yet considers him or herself quite the "trendsetter") has "recently" started using this "phrase."  Which means it's time to stab it with a garden stake or push it down some stairs.  (Hey!  There's your bloodbath!)  I may not be leading the charge to banish this dumb phrase, but I will certainly pick up a sign and march behind you. Let's just stop saying it already, hm?


Now on to the events:

What an action-packed day!  Mrs. Burkel stopped by in the afternoon, fresh from her 45th reunion from nursing school.  She was fetching in her hat and shawl!  She finished off the bottle of Veuve from the night before with my mom.  I sat there on my hands and did not have any.  Imagine--me sitting out a bottle of champs!  Oh, my resolve!

Then Alison, Gary, Jess, and Jenna came over for Sunday dinner avec petit kitty Lily.  Lily is a darling Russian blue kitteh.  She was so well-behaved for a tiny one!  Oh, kittens.  They always make me happy!

Tribal-ly black and white dining table.

Jenna and Lily.

And I finished off the evening with that crabby old puppet-mouth Andy Rooney.  Somehow that crank brings me such joy.

Love Letters from Denver

Took a last minute trip to Denver the other weekend to visit Britta and Jeremy.  It still takes some getting used to (for me) that they aren't in SF anymore, but I can see why they packed it up for Denver.  Boy, is it nice there.  Denver's a perfect blend of crunchy and cowboy.  The air is good (if relatively thin... so a cocktail goes farther!) and there is an emphasis on local meat (Colorado lamb = rad!) and produce and outdoors-y activities.  Much of the quality of life is based on enjoyment of the beautiful terrain.  There is also an underlying quaintness and flourishes of the Old West.

Growing up in Saint Louis, a city that has struggled with how to entice young people to move back downtown and create a vibrant city life, it was really inspiring to see how successful Denver was at it. I really favor reuse/revitalization of old buildings, so if there was one qualm I had with Denver it was that there were so many new residential buildings... BUT my old ideals quickly faded when I saw the quality and character of most of the new builds.  Denver is a city thriving on modern architecture.  And ultimately I found this as refreshing as the mountain air!  Good on ya, Denver!  (If I may address you directly, dear city.)  You're building these cool new buildings, and in many cases popping them between two older homes, and it all really WORKS.

Denver also didn't let things like highways stand in the way of walkability.  They have pedestrian crosswalks over the highway and over a river (which has been made into trails/parks below the crosswalk), connecting the Highlands neighborhood with Larimer/Riverfront area and then with Downtown.  And there's a cool skate park just near there, as well.  And the Rockies stadium and Invesco Field are also nearby.  (Btw, Invesco Field is COOL!  It sorta feels like a roller coaster stadium.  Puts our boring Edward Jones Dome to shame.  Besides, football should be played outside, St. Louis.  Hurumph!)  The best part is, there are people out and about in between all of these... walking and biking and hanging out.  Denver is alive!

The first thing I saw, the Denver International Airport, totally set the tone.  It is 15 acres of Teflon-coated, woven fiber glass designed by Curtis Fentress, who also designed the terminal of the Incheon Airport in Seoul, as well as Invesco Field.  Dude is good.  

Turns out there are tons of conspiracy theories surrounding the ol' DIA.  Follow the link for a quick run-through of the insanity.  It's everything from buried buildings to keeping contractors in the dark to Masonic rumblings to whacked out murals of dead kids to unexplained phenomena to a possible concentration camp underneath.  WHA?  Yeah, told you it's crazy.  Gotta hand it to 'em, whatever's really going on there, the building sure is cool!

Look who came to pick me up from the airport!  Ziggy Smalls!  I felt like a celebrity walking through the farmers' market with him.  Is he a Ridgeback?  What a pretty Ridgeback!  He looks just like so-and-so's dog!  Can I pet him?  Holy moly, it's like we had Brad Pitt on the leash, what with all of the attention!

This is the view of the city from Frit and Ger's apartment.  Cool, huh?

Exploring neighborhoods with the Fritter.  Can't remember which one this is, but the "Tamales" sign reminds me that there is also a strong undercurrent of Hispanic culture in Denver.  What's not to love?

This is the park underneath the walkway to downtown.  There is a "beach" on the river and people were laying out.  Plenty of less-lazies were walking the trails along the river.  Me, I took the middle ground and sat down to read for a bit.

And here's the walkway to downtown that spans the river.

We happened upon this renegade knittery on Saturday evening.

Me and the Fritter on a bike taxi.  Oh yeah, they have bike taxis there.  Reason #52 to love Denver.

Super-sizing this because (even though I was told the ice cream wasn't the best in town) this has GOT to be the cutest milk-jug shaped ice cream shop in the world!  Oh, and how cool is that Vegas-style Olinger Mortuaries sign?  Cause that's how *I* wanna go out!  Jingle jangle!


Some other shout outs to the amazing food to be had in Denver:  Saturday brunch at Duo, where the local Noosa yogurt with honey and granola was lip-smackingly good.  Dinner Saturday at TAG, where there is a most innovative menu.  (We enjoyed some hiramasa sashimi with jalapenos and Pop Rocks.  Yums!)  Then drinks at Forest Room 5, which quite reminded me of the Doug Fir in Portland.  Brunch Sunday at Root Down, which is in a converted service station and notably has Root liquor behind the bar.  Monday I lunched at The Squeaky Bean, where I had a phenomenal salad of roasted cauliflower with Medjool dates, smoked trout, curry vinaigrette, and parsley coulis.  I am still dreaming of that salad.  Must recreate.


Britta took me to Breckenridge on Sunday, so I could experience the mountains and the changing of the aspen trees.  I'm not much of a skier (make that, I've never skied), so the timing was perfect.  And the aspens!  Holy moly!  They were such an intense gold.  A beautiful sulfurous cadmium.  Much thicker than your run-of-mill yellow.

Aspen fever.

Beautiful scenery on the drive.

The Frit's shadow, me, and the aspens!

Magnificent taxidermy in Breckenridge.  Reach for your dreams, young snow leopard!

A tree o'pelts.
OK... don't hate me, but I snagged a pretty-pretty red fox tail as my souvenir from Breckenridge.  If they weren't selling them for upwards of $150 at Oak in NYC I may not have been so spurred, but alas, I can't wait to loop that thing onto my purse this fall.  I am a monster, I know.  (But you can totally borrow it....)

Does this not remind you of the Goltschman's dog Muffin?!  Maybe she's taken to the mountains and is running with a militia of little white fluffy things?

More aspen prettiness.

The runaway truck ramps on the drive to Breckenridge were one of my favorite things.  I guess it happens;  breaks cut out and, well, what's a giant truck to do?  Problem solved.  Also note my capture of the smoke monster just above the trees.  chik-chik-chik-chik-chik!