my turkey

have had a cold all thanksgiving + weekend, so i've seen a lot of pinky leon.
also watched all of orange is the new black. 

november so far

cookies, cat and truck. and fall light.
good books
beautiful art show by lisa s
dancing
and finally rain

also these links:
rachel kaye
johann kauth
kim eichler-messmer

and listening to lucius, new neko, and carolina wallin pérez singing kent songs (swedish)

fort collins farmers market

some of the many chairs at the great kirkland museum of fine and decorative art in denver. one could go many many times and not see everything.

colorado mountains. the landscapes are so spacious. even downtown fort collins is spacious.

sadly, i didn't have my phone/camera for the beautiful steamboat springs and surrounding aspens. glad i caught this moose though just before my battery died! two more bulls are behind him—the dark shapes in the trees.

halloween bird

 
in the work bathroom.   

being a blackbird meant having the beatles singing in my head all night. could be worse.  

sad i didn't get a photo with elissa, who was also a bird. 

legs masked

not a very advanced costume, but it was fun to get back in the spirit of halloween after several years of lacking the spirit.



    

petal packed

 top by lauren mcintosh

fall picnic

 
from our gourmet book club. not pictured: the eaters, delicious pumpkin bread, cheese and crackers, roasted tomatoes, mimosas with fresh squeezed OJ, espresso.  

greenery

storm colors

just more feet

enjoying mazzy star's does someone have your baby now. couldn't find to link. live version

fall arrived

with its bright smile, after a downpour.

(painting by mati rose)

saturday morning: pastel houses in the fog 

---------

 

saturday afternoon: j. and i biked the alameda "urban farm" tour. it spanned much of the island. 

on the old naval base end of the island, just as the fog was burning off, we arrived at the alameda point collaborative's csa. this farm 2 market project trains formerly homeless people (who live in alameda point's supportive housing community). all the residents of the supportive community get a 50% discount on the pesticide-free food produced at the farm. (we tried a passion fruit there. wow! so good.) 

over on the east end, at the hottest point in the day, and right when we were getting hungry, we found the tomato tasting spot, which was set up in someone's back yard. yum. all of the tomatoes being sampled were grown in alameda, and there was quite a range of flavors! 

 

concrete facts

colors

 
such good grey-blue-pink-coral-lavenders and jaw-dropping skies lately.

hopefully this skirt will turn an interesting shade of blue-lavender-grey too. i just tried the 3191 black bean dye technique, sans mordant.

boots

 
boots is winning hearts and minds. 

he lies in the middle of the sidewalk, moving for no one and offering up his sturdy plumpness for pets. all carefree and lazy-like. his tail is kind of short, and he has a black chin. try to not love him. impossible.

in b/w and in deep blue-purple

from the never-ending supply of nostalgia in alameda

1713 in berkeley

kitties

 
mine/not mine

weekend

it's the weekend, so i am eating sweets and taking walks. (started a new old cars in alameda set, in addition to the truck one.)

i also listened to this american life. the story this week is unbelievable and depressing. an estimated 7,000 eritreans have been held hostage and tortured, raped, and/or killed in the sinai peninsula in egypt. it is incredible that human trafficking on such a large scale has been allowed and continues to happen. and that people (other journalists, government officials, and police in various countries) were so reluctant/refused to help meron estefanos, the eritrean-swedish journalist, who was trying to publicize the story in 2011 and get help for the hostages. hostages that were eventually able to escape to israel, were given little or no assistance in israel, aside from the country letting the survivors live there. and now israel can indefinitely detain new eritrean arrivals and has begun sending them back to eritrea.

here's also a ny times article about it.

alameda

 
patched truck, patched fence
chevron

interview with severine von tscharner fleming
sugarhouse creamery  (scroll down page for sweet cow videos)
both found via the irrisistable fleet of bicycles

two in one

reversible

sun and flowers

top two from oona's friend chris' lovely oakland house. such a pretty garden and front yard, with lots of native plants, including a row of peeling manzanitas. (set)

good stuff
twin designer/photographers at the weaver house
an interview with artist/weaver hannah waldron
pretty video of willie nelson and sons for a fashion label  

last sweden bits: vattnet

sweden is a watery place with all that coastline and rivers threading through the land from the coast, the lakes, and the islands (30,000-ish in stockholm's archipelago alone). probably my favorite summertime activity there is swimming in the dark water—water that seems to contain all past swims while also waking me to the present with the initial chill, the mysterious feathery things (fish? reeds?) brushing by, and the soft, smooth mouth of the water. 

this year it wasn't that hot while i was in sweden (around 70 degrees most days). but i did manage to take a couple of swims in the stockholm archipelago (in addition to the quickest of midsummer dips at alnö). my last full day in sweden was the only really hot day of my trip, which only made me want to stay longer and swim more. 

above photos are from my aunt and uncle's house in spillersboda in the stockholm archipelago.

40

 
pre-festivities

good stuff:

lena corwin's fabric for the latest more & co collection.

christer strömholm's beautiful photos

planetary folklore

sweden bits 3: fejan

in sweden they now call facebook fejan (pronounced fay-ahn), fay is short for face and the an at the end is the article the. so fejan means the face in swedish, though the actual swedish word for face is ansikte. 

anyhow, occasionally i appreciate fejan. on this trip, because of re-connections made through FB, i stayed for several days in stockholm in inger's fantastic apartment. i hadn't seen inger in about 12 years. (somehow i did not take a photo of her and her beautiful kids, but here is some cool wallpaper in her apartment and us 12 years ago.) i also met up with ola, a friend i hadn't seen in 21 years. 

i met both inger and ola at a folkhögskola (similar to a trade school/community college) that i attended for a year after graduating from high school. because of sweden's generous education funding, it was basically free to attend and live at/be fed by (numerous times a day) the school. at that school, i shared a large dorm room with amelie, and we, with inger and 12 other women, attended weaving and cooking classes. 

amelie and i have kept in contact over the years, but we hadn't seen ola (our dorm room neighbor and friend), since we left school. ola, who studied music at the school, had saved, and shared with us, some incriminating evidence of the gentle torment/somewhat desperate affection amelie and i inflicted upon him. this psychedelic heart was just one piece in a series of strange communications from us to ola. 

ola, inger, amelie, and i agreed that the school we attended was like a year-long summer camp, and we reflected on how lucky/privileged we were to have had such an experience—a year to put off decisions about college/work and just make friends, engage in shenanigans, and learn (about ourselves mostly). pretty unreal.  

sweden bits 2: cousins

 
as an only child, i longed for siblings. when my mom and i spent time in sweden in the summers when i was a child, i loved being around my eight cousins. i have three—malin, tobbe, and daniel—that  are close to me in age, and i have many memories of playing with them—dance routines, neighborhood games, dress up, etc., and of being pushed to try things i probably wouldn't have otherwise—riding bicycles around malin and tobbe's neighborhood, braving roller coasters. 

one of my cousins, karin, came to live with us for a couple of months when she was 13 and i was 8. she attended the local so cal middle school. she was very sophisticated—she liked sitting at the dinner table and talking with the grown ups, while i just wanted to leave the table to play. i inflicted many hours of clappy games on karin, and i wished she'd stay longer as my temporary big sister.

karin is still sophisticated, and she can talk to and philosophize with just about anyone, deftly putting people at ease. she does this in her job too, as a radio host. karin has stayed with me in SF a couple of times, once with her husband peter (another philosopher and easygoing guy). on this visit to sweden, i stayed with them in sundsvall in their great apartment overlooking the water. the apartment is filled with color and grooviness, much like karin and peter. so much style and funk. karin has numerous collections (some seen above)—toy horses from her youth, toy cars, globe roses, plastic pearl necklaces, and more. together, they have loads of records and cds and great thrifted furniture and clothing. none of it is precious; it's playful. it seems like the two of them are having a good time, enjoying life and people and each other, which makes staying with them a good time. tack igen fin kusin o yuri.

after my mormor died in 2005, i thought i might not feel so connected to sweden anymore, or as inclined to visit. but it still feels like a second home in many ways, thanks in part to family and friends (with a particular heartfelt shout out to karin).

sweden bits 1: midsummer

aka, holding on to vacation—


 
i spent midsummer with my aunt ulrika, uncle kjell, cousin karin, and karin's man, peter. i was hoping to celebrate some midsummer traditions, and luckily they were all obliging. in the morning, karin and i spent a couple of hours collecting birch leaves in the woods and flowers along roads to create our midsommarstång. then karin and peter and i dressed the pole around noon and made ourselves some kransor. kjell and karin entertained with some singing. ulrika made lots of yummy traditional midsummer lunch, and we forced ourselves to drink snaps and sing drinking songs. karin and i cajoled the rest to dance some traditional dances around the pole (små grodorna, vi äro musikanter, karusellen, o raketen), which was pretty funny since my aunt and uncle were not altogether into it (or pretended not to be), and since we barely could reach around the pole to form a ring. challenging to sing and dance while laughing.

karin and i jumped into, and quickly out of, the baltic sea (which swedes do not call the baltic sea, but rather östersjön—since sweden isn't a baltic country). the water was extremely cold since we were up "north" in sweden, on the island alnö (technically it's in the middle, but like san francisco, it gets called northern). some of us lazed around and dried off in the sun.

later we enjoyed champagne and more yummy food made by my aunt, and then dessert—swedish strawberries and whipped cream. 

and the blue dusk light lasted all night.

love now

 

after watching some of the parade, elisa and scottie and i crashed the wedding of some friends who were getting married at city hall during Pride in SF. what a fantastic energy in city hall. while outside the building crowds of pride revelers were partying, inside the building it was a different kind of excitement. a nervous, reverent, brewing excitement, until couples were wed, and then  bursts of clapping and joyous hoots from various corners of the room when knots were tied. when the newlyweds left the upstairs marriage area, they passed folks in line downstairs waiting to get sent up. those in line cheered the newlyweds as they exited the building. whole lotta love in that building.

the man in the second photo above was waiting for his man to show, and meanwhile, he was the wedding band.

love now balloons

back in two

 
alameda snaps. 

i'll be back here in a couple of weeks. off to sverige (sweden) tomorrow!

some of what i will be eating in the next two weeks (not in this order, although maybe...):

chokladbollar
fil
knäckebröd
saft
princesstårta
lax
svenska jordgubbar
svenska potatis
88:an
midsommar snapps?

wedding day

 
from a wedding that was the perfect balance of tears and laughter. earnest heartfelt seriousness alongside lightness, humor, and grace. beautiful moving words, so much love, so much dancing silliness, and so much style (as apparent in above photos). what a happy day. congrats lisa and clay.

a few more

diana's of the brides

light stripes \ \\\\ \ \\ \\\

 
my workplace is near the construction of SF's new transbay terminal. one benefit of this forever construction zone, is that on sunny days, there is a beautiful stripey light show on my walk to work. i did not catch the best part in my short video. i realized upon reviewing it, that the show happens more on people's backs (see seconds 10–8) than on their feet. (i was feeling shy about filming.) must try again. when there are a lot of people walking, it's the best, because everyone has these light stripes going across them, and the walkway is filled with moving stripes. a daytime disco walk, but almost more surreal. so pretty.
 

pie ranch and swanton berry farm

outdoor kitchen at pie ranch—looking in/out and mobile chicken coop

at pie ranch some very new goat kids jumped spaztically about, pigs very eagerly scarfed their food (they will get to be 300 pounds!!!!!), cows grazed. at another farm, we saw a peacock in all his unfurled tail glory. the peahen (the white visible behind peacock) could have cared less about her penmate's display. even when he shook himself and all his feathers, and we oood and aahhhd, she went about pecking at the ground. crazy how iridescent his body is. we also picked berries at swanton's, and i made some sweet and sour strawberry rhubarb jam.

a new pattern

 
sewed my first top from a pattern yesterday. the lovely jennifer serr helped me make a pattern from another top i brought to class. (normally she doesn't teach pattern-making in this class, but because the top was pretty simple—and she seemed to like it—she made an exception.) i am so pleased with the result. i had briefly forgotten how satisfying it is to make something that turns out pretty close to how you had envisioned that thing. excited to try more designs. i am trying to only purchase thrift store clothing or clothing that is not made by companies that exploit people/nature. unfortunately, fabric itself is also made by such companies. it's very hard to find fabric that is made in the US and made using sustainable (or even just non-toxic) practices.

some inspiring sewing ladies: jen hewett, christine haynes and jenny of wiksten made.