The day it snowed in San Francisco

For the record, today was just gorgeous, with temps in the 70s and 80s.

I didn't go across town to see it, but I've been reading about this controversial event for the past month. I'm still not sure how I feel about the whole thing (sounds like a logistical nightmare), but I will say that it makes for some interesting photos!

Still don't know what I'm talking about?

read all about it here!

Cutest Dog Ever?

Dick's Uncle Gilbert just sent a photo of his new puppy: "Pompi Von Trixie"

We both think she may be the cutest pup we've ever seen.

You be the judge :)

A little punk rock, and a whole lotta leather...

Okay, first things first: the Green Day Concert ROCKED! (Hi, I'm 15 again) My sister and I had SO MUCH FUN! It had been 11 years since the Dookie Tour - when we saw Green Day 3 times in 1 year. I have to admit that I thought my concert-going days were over. I had all but hung up my concert-going hat. But when my sister called me in January telling me about the "American Idiot Tour", how could I say no?

A lot has changed over the past 11 years - including my wardrobe. 11 years ago, I was still in art school. I was certainly more conservative than most, but I still sported my Doc Martins, black tights, cut-off shorts and long shirts almost daily. Saturday's concert was outdoors at SBC Park. It had been a gorgeous day, but I figured it would be smart to do the San Francisco layer thing. My first instinct was to wear my light-weight down jacket. Until I realized that it's Pink. I can't wear pink to a Green Day concert! They wouldn't even let me through the gates! (I later found out that my sister had the same realization when she considered wearing a pink shirt). I eventually came to my senses, and threw on a black, long sleeved t-shirts, dug out one of my favorite old shirts (brown plaid) and strung up my old faithful Doc Martin boots. Now I was concert ready! ;)

This photo was taken at the Xbox Booth at the concert. Apparently, Xbox is Green Day Central - whatever that means. Anyhow, they had a photo booth to have your photo taken at the concert, and they'd post it up on the web for you within the next couple of days. I figured, "Xbox? Green Day? Photo from the concert? Why Not?!"

Our timing was impeccable. (well, impeccable if you're a mid-30's fan, who doesn't really have any interest in seeing the 2 opening bands) We were about 5 rows from our seats, when the lights went down, and Green Day started to blare through the speakers. The concert itself was very cool - especially since Green Day is a local band, and this was their homecoming show. The first few sets were off of American Idiot then they sprinkled through some older stuff from Dookie, Kerplunk, and Insomniac.

Some random thoughts about how concerts have changed since I've last been:

• It's been at least 8 years since I've been to a big-arena concert. People used to bring lighters, and hold them up and sway them during ballads. The lighters are still there, but now, people are also holding up their cell phones (glowing).
  
• Security checked our bags upon entering: no water bottles, outside food, or cameras. That certainly doesn't stop people from taking photos with their camera phones, though!
  
• As I said before, it's been 11 years since I last went to a Green Day concert. Back then, my sister and I noticed that they drew a very diverse crowd: families with small children, teens, 20-somethings, 30-somethings, and older. This year, I noticed the same thing - only we were "elevated" the to 30-something crowd that we used to talk about! (!)
  

So, that was Saturday night.

Yesterday (Sunday) we decided to get out and enjoy the sun, and trekked over to The Folsom Street Fair. It was a gorgeous day - mid to high 70s, and just perfect weather for walking around naked. (don't worry, Mom & Dad, I was not walking around naked) :)

We go to the Folsom Street Fair nearly every year, so I'd guess I've been at least 6-8 times by now. You know you've been too many times when nothing that you see phases you at all. Fully naked people, people performing sexual acts in public, "shocking" outfits, etc., whatever It's the Folsom Street Fair! What do you expect?

You also know that you've been too many times when Pete points out "masturbation man" and notices, "Oh- he's lost weight since last year".

And on that note, I'll leave you with a photo that I took yesterday, and one of Dick's favorite lines that he says every year at The Folsom Street Fair:

"Not a real cop."

Thanks, I needed that...

Okay, I admit it. I've been a little stressed lately, and feeling slightly overwhelmed by this wedding planning stuff. It's all good, and certainly all under control, but every once in a while I'm on edge more than I'd like to admit. We essentially have two weeks to go, and we're down to the nitty-gritty details. I'm very happy with all that we've done so far, and how organized it's all been, but now I find myself thinking about small details which I know in the end, won't matter at all. Let's face it: the important thing to remember is that a) we're getting married (yay), b) we'll be surrounded by most of our closest friends and families (who are coming from near and far!) and c) I'm absolutely positive that everyone, including Dick and me, will have a great day.

With that said, we took a HUGE walk this afternoon - we got out and enjoyed the sunshine, and got some great exercise. Today was another one of those perfect San Francisco Days (which we haven't had enough of lately - especially for this time of the year). It was crystal clear, and in the mid-70s. We walked from our house in the Castro, over 17th Street, up the Vulcan Steps, to the top of Buena Vista Park (gorgeous) down to Haight Street, had a slice of pizza at Escape from New York, then headed into Golden Gate Park, all the way to the Conservatory of Flowers. We admired the view there for a while, then walked back up Stanyon to Cole Street, and caught the N Judah train back to Dubuce and Noe. We actually had an SF Celebrity Sighting while waiting for the N Judah: A gentleman walked passed us, and Dick asked me "Do you know who that guy was?" I answered, "Was that Craig Newmark?". He was pretty impressed that I guessed correctly. I guess that was more of a "Geek Celebrity Sighting". :)

So we were out and about enjoying the fresh air and beautiful weather for about 4 hours today. I think I really needed that - I'm feeling much better now :)

Oh, and BTW, I'm going to the Green Day Concert tonight with my sister! Oh Yeah, baby!

Teeth Whitening Strips

Okay - here's my handy tip of the day:

Teeth Whitening Made Easy! :D

I had a routine dentist appintment earlier this month (cleaning) and they suggested that I try out teeth whitening strips before the wedding next month. Okay - why not? Over the last 3 weeks, I used two different teeth whitening products: Crest White Strips and Oral-B Rembrandt Whitening Strips. For the record, my dentist and her staff insisted that it was perfectly safe and fine to whiten your teeth (using strips) more than once within consecutive weeks.

I used the Crest Strips first. It was my first experience with whitening strips, so I didn't have anything to compare it to. You have to apply their strips twice a day for 30 minutes at a time. I found that it was a tiny bit of a hassle to do it twice a day, and that the strips were thin, and moved around in my mouth easily.

Next up was the Oral B Strips. I had actually bought a set from my dentist for Dick to use first, then bought another for myself. I was most impressed that you only had to apply them for 30 minutes once a day - that made a huge difference. I also much preferred the thickness and sturdyness of the Oral-B Rembrandt strips over the Crest Strips. They felt much more secure and it wasn't a bother at all to keep them in my mouth for more than 30 minutes.

And does it work?

Yes! I believe it does! Dick, Christopher and I all whitened our teeth last week, and we all saw good results. The house that whitens thier teeth together... My teeth are noticably whiter now. All-in-all, a great experience.

Watch for my dazzling smile to blind you the next time you see me :)

Houston, We Have LAUNCH!!!!!!!!!!!

At Last! We've launched the New Adler Gallery Site!

I'm thrilled that it can finally see the light of day. It's been more than 6 months in the making. Most of which was just little tweaks, here and there.

As I've mentioned before, I'm especially proud of the structure of the site, and how it was built. It's very, very cool. All formatting is done in CSS. That was a whole new thing to me a year ago, so I'm very proud of how elaborate the styling is. BTW, this could not have been accomplished without a whole lot of help, time and patience by my extraordinary boyfriend/fiance. He's the bomb, baby. There's also some nifty JavaScript that Dick wrote to do things like the roll-overs and non-refreshing windows.

We're still making changes here and there, and there's still more info/artists to be added. But it was about time that it got out to meet the world.

Check it out.

Happy Birthday, Andrew!

Happy Birthday to my good friend, Andrew :)

Andrew and I have a really neat and interesting history. Technically, we met in 1989. He is a HUGE Collector and Historian of Raggedy Ann and Andy. (You think I have a big Raggedy Ann collection? You should check out Andrew's Collection!) In 1989, Andrew currated a museum exhibit in honor of Raggedy Ann's 75 Birthday at the Oakland Museum. I was 18 or 19 at the time, and it was the first time I had ever heard of or seen anyone else's collection of Raggedy Ann & Andy. It had quite an impact on me. One weekend, during the exhibit, Andrew and the Museum hosted a "Sharing" Session in a theater for people to share their stories and dolls. I went, of course, and Andrew would tell me years later that he remembered me because: a) I was significantly younger than anyone else there (most people were adults/seniors) and b) I'm Chinese (Raggedy Ann is so very Americana..)

Anyhow, when I moved to San Francisco 10 years ago, Andrew had just published his first book about the history of Raggedy Ann & Andy and their Creator, Johnny Gruelle. He had advertised the book in "Rags Magazine, which I of course subscribed to. Because I was a "starving student" at the time, I asked if it would be possible for me to meet him somewhere to buy the book from him directly, rather than paying for shipping. As we spoke over the phone, I think he remembered me from the Museum Exhibit, and offered to have me meet him at his house. We got along so well immediately, and have been great friends ever since.

here's some neat "Trina Chow Trivia": My family and I bought "My Condo" from Andrew 7 years ago! He lived her for 10 years prior to selling it to us. The neighbors joked that as he moved his dolls out, I moved mine in :)

Do you know the Muffin Man?

It turns out that I *DO* Know the Muffin Man!

Christopher has been making banana nut muffins and bread all day!
The house smells amazing!

...and the best part?

He used the new heart-shaped muffin pans that we just received as a (early) wedding gift!

SO Cute! :)

Happy Birthday, Dick!

Today is Dick's Birthday!

A whole bunch of us are going out for a HUGE meal at The House of Prime Rib tonight to celebrate! Yum!

Pet Penguin, anyone?

My friend, Sheri, knows that my Mom has a penguin obsession.

She just sent this link to me.

It's pretty funny.

I sent it to my Mom, but I had to warn her that I didn't think it was real! ;)
I don't want for her to get her hopes up too high. Few things would make her happier than having a penguin of her own to take around for walks everyday on it's penguin leash!

SAK Warehouse Relief Effort Follow up

This is so cool.
Sometimes, the power of the web amazes me. The fact that random people can find seemingly random posts on my blog amazes me, and creeps me out.... all at the same time.

Remember this post?

Here's the follow-up.

I just received this email this afternoon:

Subject: I saw your website
Hi Trina,
We ended up raising $50,000 from our Warehouse Sale. Thanks for sharing us on your website!!!

Thank you,
Rachel Alegria
Director, Human Resources
& Organizational Development

THE SAK
Corporate Headquarters
400 Alabama Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
www.thesak.com

$50,000! That's amazing! Good for them.

Which Napoleon Dynamite Character are You?

Oh goodness. I think this officially makes me a geek...


You are Kip Dynamite and you love technology.

Which Napoleon Dynamite Character are You?

A little food, a little drink...

Today is one of those rare San Francisco perfect weather days. What a welcome surprise after a week of overcast skies and chances of rain.

We decided to take advantage of the weather, and went for a beautiful hike from The Cliff House around the bay, over to Sea Cliff. We had so many spectacular views along the way - it was a reminder of how much we love living in this city.

After our 2-hour hike, we went back to the Cliff House and indulged in Bloody Marys and The Cliff House's famous Pop-Overs! If you haven't been to the newly renovated Cliff House, you should check it out. Great views, interesting history, and most importantly, Pop-Overs.

After we left the Cliff House, and I was sufficiently intoxicated by my one cocktail, we took a drive over the Golden Gate Bridge. It was a perfect day to drive around in the convertible! We went up through the Marin Headlands, and took in the view looking across the Bay, into the City. Spectacular, Spectacular!

We payed our $5.00 entrance fee back into San Francico (also known as the toll), and drove around to the Palace of Fine Arts. Looks like they're doing some construction there- the whole thing was surrounded by wire fences. Not so pretty.

We drove around the City a bit more, and just came home.

another beautiful day in San Francisco. :)

Donate by Shopping

OMG. I'm such a sucker for a bargain.

This afternoon, just after Noon, I received an email from The Sak Warehouse. The Sak is a handbag company whose Warehouse is on Harrison Street in San Francisco.

Twice a year, the warehouse has a HUGE sale - 50-70% off regular prices. They have them in May and November (or something like that).

Anyhow, the email that I received today announced that The Sak Warehouse was having a one-day Sale to benefit the hurricane relief effort. 100% of sales would be donated to the American Red Cros Hurricane Katrina relief effort. 100%. That's impressive.

The sale is today only from 1:00-8:00pm.

I had a 2:00 meeting with one of my clients in Union Square today. I got out around 3:30, and drove over the Sak to look for some bargains.

...and many a bargain was found.

I found a few bags for myself, a few for my sister, and a few for gifts.

It's pretty hard to feel guilty about shopping when:

a) It's a warehouse sale, and purses start at $7.00
b) I'm getting a head-start on Xmas pressies
c) 100% of the sales go directly to the hurricane relief effort.

When I left around 5:00pm, I think they had already raised something like $12,000. I can't imagine how much they'll raise by the end of the sale tonight.

Happy Birthday, Raggedy Ann!

Today is Raggedy Ann's 90th Birthday!
(it's the anniversary of her patent date)

90 years! I think this makes her my "oldest friend" :)

Here's more information about Raggedy Ann's Birthday. Here's a little something on the History of Raggedy Ann & Andy, and their creator, Johnny Gruelle.

And finally, in case you haven't seen it already, here's my own Raggedy Ann Collection.

Happy Birthday, Raggedy Ann!

South Park Trina

This is so funny!
(Just got this off Willo's Blog - Thanks Willo!)

I guess this is what I would like as a South Park character.



This makes me laugh, because I think it actually kind of looks like me during my "art student" phase.
Dick has been teasing me lately that I don't wear black anymore.

I used to only wear black.
Black with Doc Martins.
Black with black tights with Doc Martins.

It's no wonder he misses that! :)

something you won't see at our wedding

Okay, I'm a fan of Raggedy Ann and all, and admittedly have more Raggedy Ann stuff than the next person...

But, I'd like to think that I know where to draw the line.
(even though some of you, including Dick, may beg to differ....)

My sister found this on the web.
Here's something you won't see at our wedding.
I promise.

If you do, feel free to shoot me.

Egads.
That's scary.

Five years of NOE!!!!!!!!

Today is the fifth anniversary of the day that we found Noe in our backyard on 23rd street!

As the story goes....

On the early morning of Sunday, September 3, 2000, there was a 5.2 magnitude earthquake centered near Napa. It jolted us both awake. After the earthquake subsided, we heard a little chirping noise outside the house. We figured it was a bird.

The next morning, Dick went into the backyard to investigate the chirping. At the time, the backyard was completely overgrown. Dick found a tiny baby kitten tucked away within some bushes. We now fondly refer to that bush as "the kitten bush". :) We decided to leave the baby kitten in the backyard, hoping that her momma cat would come back for her. We went out for the day to enjoy the Ala Carte Ala Park festival in Golden Gate Park (which used to be a Labor Day tradition with our friends)

When we came home, the tiny kitten was still there, and mewing her little head off. Poor little thing.

We realized that she probably wouldn't survive another night by herself, and decided to take her in. We brought her to a 24-hour vet on Fillmore Street. They gave her a quick physical, said she "should survive" and taught us how to feed her kitten milk-replacement (by bottle) every 4 hours.

The tiny kitten didn't have a name for her first few days with us. I later found out it was because Dick didn't think she would survive, and he was afraid that we would get too attached to her if we named her, and she didn't make it.

After we had her for a few days, Dick walked downstairs, and told me that he had thought of the perfect name for the kitten. He said, "Let's name her Noe. "

Dick used to live on Noe Street, in Noe Valley (he had just moved to 23rd in April 2000). I thought it was the perfect name!

After we adopted Noe, we found several more kittens in the backyard - (hence, "the kitten bush"). Noe's half-brother, Kazoo, lives with our friend Willo! We were eventually able to help our neighbor trap Noe's Mamma (the source of all of these kittens, of course) and she had her spayed at the San Francisco SPCA. After our neighbor brought her home after being spayed, Noe's poor Momma cat ran away, probably terrified. We never saw her again.

But then again, we never discovered any more kittens in the kitten bush, either.

It happened again!

I had just hopped in the shower (about 1:30), and started to wash my hair, when...

BUZZZZ!!!!!!!

Doorbell.

Delivery.

mailman.

Oy.

I had to quickly rinse out my hair, dry off, put on my robe, and run to answer the door.

How is it that this always happens?

MUNI fare increase

SF MUNI fares jump up to $1.50 today.

Here's a link showing all of the fare changes.
$5.00 to ride a cable car! Egads.

start saving those quarters.

Please donate

I'm overwhelmed by the amount of devestation, destruction and loss of lives caused by Hurricane Katrina.

I don't have any personal ties to anyone affected, but I do have several close friends with family in the South. As far as I know, they are all safe, but have all been evacuated.

Here's a link to the American Red Cross' Hurricane Relief donation page.