The Daily Sabs

this afternoon a gang of us headed down to k9 playtime for jesusita's quinceanera. jesusita is burger's 15 year old teeny tiny chihuahua, and to help her celebrate her ripe old age, burger threw her a bash. that's right, we went to a dog party.

there were quite a few pups there, and proud pup owners. there were even a few impostors there (like ourselves, and annie and dylan who also do not own a dog). we watched puppies play, ate cake and sang happy birthday. chris even ate some of the dog cake (peanut butter and carrots or something like that. he said it was dry. and for the record he didn't realize it was dog cake). we also got to meet new pups like gene's dog squeegee (sorry gene for not making the illustration, i ran out of space - but if it's any consolation, your dog is the one randall wanted to steal the most).

burger's invite said to dress to impress, so randall put on his professor outfit (the long hair combed over and the beard solidifed the look), and i wore this ridiculous skirt that is normally reserved for holiday parties). some of the other folks were dressed up (not as many as i hoped) and some of the pups also were in outfits. sadly, because of a junk filter fiasco, sushi was not one of them. i was going to make her a skirt, but i thought samshrew never emailed me size restrictions. guess the internet didn't want any dog showing up the quinceañera queen.

afterwards randall and i went to a so-so open house and then ran to target. yes we were still in our ridiculous outfits.

There was nothing planned today (except a few last minute gift purchases) so I made samshrew and chris come have lunch with us. We were originally going to go to woodhouse over on market, but the wait was longer than we wanted, so we headed over to chilango instead. We said feliz navidad and chowed down on delicious food.

Afterwards we stopped for coffee and the last minute gifts (I love that I can stop at the local shops and avoid all the last minute madness). With our prizes in tow, we headed back to our house where it turned into a candy-eating nerd party. At some point Chris, samshrew, and Randall all ended up gathering around the laptop to laugh and point at things on the Internet. It was sort of a magic moment that made me smile.

This morning Randall and I woke up crazy early. Well maybe not crazy,
but earlier than normal for a Saturday and a little crazy for us. We
decided to capitalize on our earliness by heading out to brunch. We
originally wanted to checkout mama's, but the line was already too
long. So we changed gears and headed to canteen instead. I didn't
realize that they opened that early for breakfast and was pleased to
check it out (no wait at that time of day!). One word: delicious. Even
breakfast hater Randall really enjoyed it.

Afterwards we headed home where we lazed about and tried to figure out
what to do next. That's when samshrew and chris helped us form a plan.
It was pretty gender stereotyped, samshrew and I went shoe shopping
and chris and Randall stayed home and played some super secret video
games. On our way home samshrew and I stopped by red wings Korean
fried chicken to grab dinner. It's no bonchan, or kyochan, but it made
for a pretty delicious dinner. We definitely enjoyed it with a tear of
spicy.

Finally we rounded out the day with a never-ending round of Simpsons
themed monopoly. Samshrew was knocked out early and Randall gave up a
while after, leaving chris and I to duke it out. It was a long battle
but I won. We played by the official rules too and that was actually
wacky. But it worked towards my favor so yay!

This afternoon erin, julie, chris, Kristy, Kristen, and I headed down
to union square for some professor Layton fun. There were red british
telephone booths and a couple of actors dressed up as game characters.
I was really hoping to see the professor, but the gal playing flora
told us he was on his lunch break. Randall said he wasn't there this
morning either so I smell a puzzle that's unsolved.

Speaking of puzzles, they had a booth for the girls and one for the
boys and are pitting the sexes against each other to see who can solve
puzzles better. I don't know which will prevail, but I do know that I
will win! I heart puzzles and can't wait for the third nerd
installment of the professor!

geoloc

geoloc

geoloc

geoloc

geoloc

I woke up this morning to a ringing telephone; it was morm calling for
no reason. We talked for nearly four hours. Afterwards it was time for
some open houses (one pretty good but not a wow), then back home to
talk to my dad. And then it was time for hot pot. We owed samshrew and
chris a dinner and chris wanted to cash in with hot pot. All you can
eat and drink for $29.99, nom nom nom.

Ps. Chris ate so much he's going to be ill all over samshrew. See?

today was an action-packed, not to mention snack-packed, day full of samshrew birthday fun. first off samshrew, chris, and sushi dog picked randall and i up for a jaunt across the bay. the east bay spca is putting on these special events all summer long, and today was a free kayaking with your puppins day. randall and i sadly don't have a puppins, so we paid our dues and rented a kayak.

afterwards (and before) we gorged on tasty treats from the jack london farmer's market (the fish tacos there = awesome). and then we headed back to the city where chris picked up a cake from his pals at Sugar Beat Sweets. we got stuck in a little bit of pride traffic (fun fact, i witnessed a cop break up a fight, and then take down a dude who wouldn't cooperate -- come on, he took a swing at the cop!), but eventually ended up at samshrew & chris's house.

we had many hours to kill (dinner reservations weren't until 8), so we snacked, played a round of life -- randall won, also it's pretty different to the version i had when i was growing up -- drank wine, and ate birthday cake. for the record, it was a vegan cake, was vanilla with strawberry, and even randall -- who is skeptical of anything vegan and normally only eats chocolate cake -- asked for a full slice. translation: it was tasty.

finally, after goofing about for a while more, we hopped into the car, miraculously found parking in the castro on pride weekend, and headed to frances for dinner. folks, i made these reservations weeks (maybe months) ago. it is the hot new must-eat at place in the city and after eating there, i can totally see why. the food was delicious, the service friendly and on top of it, and they even seated us 15 minutes early. plus, they knew it was samshrew's birthday, so they brought us out the most fantastic housemade salted chocolate cookies with humphry slocombe ice cream sandwiches in the end. oh and did i mention? they serve the house wine by the ounce. they bring a small pitcher that has ounce markings on the side, and they only charge you for what you drink. simply amazing. i can't wait to go back.

happy birthday samshrew!

Today is the world premiere of Victor Yang, chris's short film that's
screening at the la Asian pacific film festival. This is what we came
down to la for, but it doesn't screen until 10pm (with a bunch of
other shorts in a program called in the valley of love and betrayal).

This meant we had the afternoon to kill time. I had originally planned
on eating all around town, but a giant funnel cake French toast
breakfast killed that idea. So I dragged Randall to the moca instead.
They're having a retrospective of their first 30 years, and while it
was a comprehensive look, I found it somewhat lacking/boring. Maybe
I'm just hard to please. However it wasn't a total bust, we did get
this sweet photo out of it.

Speaking of sweet photos, at the pre-movie screening party, chris
showed us how delicious kyochon chicken is. Kyochon catered the party
and we frigging went nuts. We ate so much chicken, I can barely move.
Can someone explain to me why there's not one of these in San francisco?

Okay, well movie time. That's the cast and crew in the photo below.
Break a leg! (Or whatever it is you say when a movie screens for the
first time.)

Ps. I took the first photo with my regular camera but didn't have
Internet access so I took a pic of the back of the camera. Ghettostyle.

this morning samshrew texted to see what we were up to. since the only thing for the afternoon agenda was laundry, i told her that we had nothing planned. amazingly she also had nothing planned, so we decided to all meet up and go to the beach. that sushi dog entertained us for a while, but when we got bored we left and had joe's ice cream - for the record, root beer swirl ice cream is delicious.

speaking of delicious, after beach time, randall and i came home and got ready for an early 5:30 dinner seating at baumé in palo alto. tonight was the quarterly scheelbarrow dinner (aka pitstop) and we decided to go all out and order the 15-course tasting plus wine pairing. it wasn't the most amazing meal i'd ever had, but it was definitely worth it. while i've had bits of pieces of molecular gastronomy infused meals, i'd never had one where it was the focus. i can't remember the last time i had so much fun at fancy dinner (even if it initially felt weird, stuffy, and with colorful plates out of 1997. sure it's gimmicky, but it was a blast, and luckily for us the gimmick tasted great too. plus they get bonus points for bringing us an extra dish just for photos/videos (they wanted to make sure we all ate ours right away). if it wasn't for that we never would have proof of randall the magic dragon - it was better the first time he ate it, but its still awesome, see for yourself:

okay. if i didn't make it clear earlier, i just had a 15 course menu with a wine pairing. it's time for a nap before bedtime.

but first, some random photos from today:

as you might know, i dislike washing my hair. but like all chores you dislike, it has to be done. so this morning, i washed and dried, which i also hate doing. it's not so bad now that my hair is shorter, but when it was long it would take forever, 20+ minutes forever. speaking of minutes. yes it was 8:50 when i dried my hair. i'm not proud of that, but what are you gonna do?

after work i headed down to the castro theatre for the opening of the asian american film festival. tonight they were screening today's special, a film written by Aasif Mandvi (you may know him from oh, perhaps the daily show). the movie was a light-hearted comedy with a bit of romance, a bunch of parental relationship, and a lot of food. i left the restaurant craving indian food like you wouldn't believe. the movie doesn't open until this fall, and while i wouldn't say it's a drop everything and see it, i would say that it was worth seeing. sure there were some plot holes, and sure it was formulaic and predictable, but it was sincere, and heartfelt. plus the background extras are fabulous, if not scenestealers at time. and if you're into food, you're going to want to see it. indian food porn galore.

thanks chris for the movie tickets!!

ps. if you haven't seen it yet, please do check out the brand new OnSugar homepage!