The Daily Sabs

The sun was shining, the breeze was perfect, and the backyard table made the perfect office desk. Why don't I work from home every gorgeous day?

and by portland style, i actually mean old man style thanks to randall and scottel. after a day of shopping, art checking out, and vintage video games, i kicked off the evening by predictably roasting up a chicken. we had a nice pals meal, and then tried to toast the new year's at scottel's house. sadly (or unsadly) the albero did us wrong (it was a flat bottle, wtf?), so we headed out to the victory.

victory indeed. we had hot toddies and the bar passed out free midnight champagne to everyone who was there. it was a nice mix between sabs style and old man style, and was the perfect way for this crew to ring in the new year.

happy new year all, the year in review will go up tomorrow, as it's too late and i'm far too sleepy to do that s now.

may 2011 treat you beyond well!

in just a few days, my pal jeff is saying farewell to the bay area. although he says he's done with the area, he wanted to make sure he checked out the pixar exhibit at the oakland museum. so a gang of us got together to have one last huzzah! the exhibit is really cool, there's loads of concept art, storyboards, colorboards, videos, and a helluva sweet 3d zoetrope. i was surprised by how extensive the exhibit was. as julie said, i wanted to steal almost everything.

as you can see, we were inspired by the animation portion of the afternoon and decided to create our own. go team!

afterwards the 11/6ers (our gang namesake) went for a bite to eat at oakland's Binh Manh Quan. then we headed back to the city and wondered why on earth we didn't take the bart. we didn't get home until 7, it was sort of ridiculous. I kind of thought we'd be home by 4:30.

Earlier in the day molly invited us over for an impromptu dinner party. Originally both randall and i said awesome, but when we got home, randall's socializing gas tank was running on empty. He opted out, but I was all in. I'm not one to turn down good food and great company (and did i mention good food?). Kjell made us his new signature recipe (Keller's simple roasted chicken) and there were a load of delicious sides to nom down on. It was a great way to spend an evening. Thanks for the invite!

And best of luck Jeff, we'll see you at the Christmas party!

after a pretty low-key afternoon, professor layton and his apprentice luke were attacked by zombies. normally this would suck, but they were heading to a zombie watching gathering (walking dead at julie's house), so it was okay. they figured their zombie selves would fit right in, and that there would be fresh brains to eat at the party. fortunately for julie and co, the duo are true gentlemen, so no brains were eaten.

ps. how sweet was walking dead? way more dramatic than the comic. amc has outdone themselves again.

pps. hope you all had a great halloween!

dk and i have stupid work ethics, meaning we work too much, and lately we've been in the office a lot. the other week we switched our desks around, and now we face each other. this may or may not be the best thing. we may or may not drive everyone around us insane. we may or may not finish each other's sentences.

so why are we working so much? retail therapy officially launches, check it!

randall's grandma clara turned 80 today. for someone her age, she's really quite vibrant and active (not to mention fashionable). to help her celebrate, randall's dad arranged a surprise lunch followed by poolside cake and ice cream with the entire meyercrew. it was, believe it or not, the first time the entire meyercrew had gotten together in over 10 years. (let's just say there was some rift that i don't really know the details of but hey looks like it's patched now).

it was fun to see everyone, their family dynamic is so different than mine and it's always interesting to compare the two. my family competes to talk over each other, while randall's has moments where no one says anything. body language is also different, but one thing is the same. i think they genuinely like seeing each other, even if they weren't 100% looking forward to it to begin with. you know, just like my crew.

happy 80th birthday clara! i hope to be nearly as vivacious as you at that age!

this morning i woke straight up at 3:45. i couldn't for the life of me get back to bed. i read, i facebooked, i watched bad tv, and even tried to do some work. nothing. i was wide awake. i was also freezing. (the nice summer weather is apparently also on holiday today.) so i pulled out the big socks, and because i decided to waste the day, i've had them on ever since.

they're seriously the warmest thing i own. you can't really tell from the photo, but they're like a quarter inch thick of knitted cabled goodness that go up to my knees (although i usually wear them scrunched). i randomly bought them in prague during one of the coldest, oddest vacations ever. i wish i had bought more than one pair.

oh and for the record, i don't recommend waking up that early, especially on a bonus day. it just really throws your whole day off, and sort of kills the motivation. that is unless you're motivated to sit around all day playing video games, and eating slowcooked ribs. in that case go on and wake up at 3:45. it worked for me and i'm sure it could work for you too.

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:

this evening randall and i headed over to baker and banker for a postponed birthday celebration. since we don't do fine dining much these days (thank you economy!), we decided to go ahead and splurge on the chef's tasting menu. i really enjoyed everything, and while it was all perfectly done, i actually thought it was a bit under seasoned. it didn't stop me from eating it though, it was definitely a great meal. the kicker though, was the dessert - a perfectly cooked (as in crispy on top, gooey on the bottom) peanut butter blondie, with bacon brittle ice cream and a stripe of chocolate. it was such a smile-inducing dessert, that it was sort of ridiculous that the dessert itself looked so unhappy. but then again, that made me smile doublyso.

ps. it took almost an hour to get home today. apparently someone was hit by a muni train at my station. the news is pretty unclear, i'm not sure if it was an accident or on purpose. either way pretty awful, i wonder how the scene will look in the morning.

pps. we were totally sat next to former mayor willie brown. i wasn't 100% sure (it was dark and i didn't really want to stare), but it was confirmed when he got up leave and put on a ridiculously fancy hat.

That awesome quote is from a gift bag I gave to Randall. The entire
quote reads, "True love is like Big Foot... Everybody talks about it,
But nobody has ever found it. Don't worry. I'm not gonna sell you to
an ear-duster. You are my Big Foot!" I have no idea what an ear-duster
is or why you'd sell big foot to one, but i thought it was awesome.
Awesome enough to use it for birthday treats.

His actual birthday is tomorrow, but I thought I'd surprise him by
celebrating today (also I had the day off so there was time for
cupcake baking). Unfortunately the cupcakes didn't come out as
expected, but they did come out delicious (see randall's choco face
for proof).

Also, can we talk about the weather? Last night was ridiculous. It
stormed all night (I know, I went to bed in the morning) and then
later it was off/on and then sort of peautiful. That's when I went out
for a drive with the windows open. I was looking for an ear-duster to
sell Randall to but had no such luck. Har!