Lunch with Clay and Michael in London!!

How utterly delightful to meet up with our neighbors from San Francisco, Clay and Michael, while we are all in London at the same time! Clay and I only realized a couple of days ago that we'd be overlapping.

Ironically, between all of our busy schedules, we haven't even had a chance to visit each other in San Francisco yet.

Thank you, Clay and Michael, for squeezing us into your schedule, and for treating us to a delicious lunch!!

Paddington Bear!!

Just pulled into Paddington Station (on the Heathrow Express) and met up with my little buddy, Paddington! :)

London from Above

We flew into London around 7:00am. As we were arriving, our captain told us that we were in a holding pattern and that we needed to circle for an extra five minutes. We were super lucky, as it's a clear morning, and we sat on the side of the plane with an amazing view of Central London!!

Hello, Dreamliner!!

We're off to London!!

We're flying on a Boeing Dreamliner for the first time! We're very excited. Dick has been wanting to fly on one of these planes since they first came out a couple of years ago. We've been looking forward to this trip since we planned it back in the Fall.

See you on the other side of the pond!

Today's Birthday Meals!!

What a lucky girl I am!! Dick treated me to two amazing meals for my Birthday today!!

For lunch, we went to Burma Super Star for their incredible tea leaf salad and soup.

For dinner, we went to L'Ardoise, our favorite French Bistro in SF. As luck would have it, we saw Andrew and Barry dining there, too!!

Two really delicious and special meals in one day. What a nice Birthday!

Oscar de la Renta Show at the De Young Museum

Dick and I went to the Oscar de la Renta show at the De Young Museum tidy. It is a beautiful show, and was a fun Birthday treat for me!

I am an artist on artnet.com!!

I'm absolutely honored and thrilled to share that my oil paintings can now be found on artnet.com. Grateful to Adler&Co. gallery for including me in their list of esteemed artists that they represent.

Dinner with Jud and Melissa

We had a really nice time catching up with Jud and Melissa tonight!! Thank you both for making the drive up during traffic!!

It had been years since we've spent time with them, and it was so great to catch up!

Dinner at Barry & Andrew's!!

Our dear friends, Barry and Andrew had us over for an extraordinary meal tonight. A delicious salad, the most incredible cioppino we've ever had, and an equally amazing home made lemon tart!! Barry, you outdid yourself!!

We had the most fun conversations that lasted through the night.

Kimi had gifted me a pair of Moomin-print lounge pants as an early birthday gift yesterday. I knew Andrew is a HUGE Moomin fan, so I wore them to his place tonight. He was shocked to see them, and they were a huge hit! Poor Dick had no idea what was happening, so Andrew had to explain the Moomins to him.

Good times.

Thank you, Barry & Andrew!!! xo

Kimi!!!

Our got to spend a luxurious five hours with one of my dearest friends today!!

Kimi and I got together for an early celebration of both of our birthdays, which are only 15 days apart. It was so wonderful to spend so much time with her.

Happy early Birthday, Kimi!! I love you!!! xo

Fun evening with longtime friends

I had a great night last night with some old color guard friends! What a fun crowd this is. We laughed the entire time.

Today's Deal of the Day

I've been missing buying tulips since we moved from Bellevue. I used to buy 6 stems for $4 at our Whole Foods. Tulips are more pricy here, so I hadn't treated myself this tulip season yet.

This afternoon, I was walking along the 100 block of Noe street, near Duboce park. I noticed a gentleman selling flowers, and recognized him from the documentary, "We Were Here". In the documentary, he spoke of how he has sold flowers on this block for over 30 years, and what it was like to live here in our neighborhood during the early days of the AIDS epidemic.

Today, he had a gorgeous assortment of tulips, so I felt compelled to buy some. He told me the prices for the regular bunches (I think around $8 for 5 stems) or he offered me the rest of his slightly older bunches for $1 each, or all of them for $3!!

The older bunches were still in great shape, so I took them all!! For the record, I bought 6 small bouquets of 5 stems each, so 30 tulips in all!! Actually, I gave him $5, as it is still a steal for the bounty of flowers he had offered me.

I thanked him, introduced myself, and we talked about the documentary a bit.

If you are in the area, head over to the 100 block of Noe Street and look for Guy selling his flowers. Somehow I managed to not take a photo of Guy and his flower stand!

Great conversation with a neighborhood fixture, and a gorgeous bouquet of tulips. All for $5. It's another good day in San Francisco.

A walk around Sutro Heights

After our late lunch at the Cliff House, we took a nice walk around Sutro Heights, Land's End and the old Sutro Bath ruins.

It was raining when we left our house today, so we weren't expecting such a pretty day for a walk! Worked out well!

San Francisco Bliss

A Bloody Mary (or a Virgin Mary, in my case) and a basket of hot popovers.

Happy (early) Birthday, Grandma!!

I'm spending the day in Milpitas with my Grandma Chan. She turns 90 years old this Saturday!

Up on the Roof

We had a representative from our solar panel company come out yesterday to replace a faulty microinverter that was offline for a few months.

Once he was on the roof, he discovered that the microinverter failed in some way that caused it to expand and leave a scorched mark in the back of one of the panels. The rep said he'd never seen anything like it and was going to take it back to the shop to inspect. Luckily, there was no other damage.

While he was up on our roof, Dick and I both climbed to the top of the ladder to see the roof, the solar panel configuration and to take a few pictures. Turns out, the view from our roof is really amazing!!

AT&T Park

The most beautiful stadium anywhere.

Let's Go, Giants!!!

Another gorgeous evening for a ballgame !!!