Lunch hour on Wednesdays is the highlight of my work week. A four minute train ride takes me to the farmers market that has the waffle truck. It is run by Belgians. Suposedly, they import the batter from Belgium and are the only US distributers. I have never had waffles in Belgium, so I can’t vouch for their authenticity, but I can vouch for their tastiness and transporting abilities. For just a few moments, I am wandering the streets of Belgium. Happy Hump Day!

Sometimes, I sneak out in the middle of the day to sit in the secret garden of the magic horses. It helps.

No, I didn’t.

Work was crazy this week and I am SO looking forward to the weekend. I promise to be back next week.

{Via Paper Schmaper, via Design Crush}

In anticipation of his version of Alice in Wonderland, I have Tim Burton on the brain. Loving this short animation from 1982. Happy Friday!

Today, I am day dreaming of sleeping under a glowing tutu.

I forget where I got this image. I believe it was Marie Claire Maison.

I hope everyone had a lovely holiday weekend. I didn’t have a very traditional 4th of July, but it was fun none the less. The 4th is funny in San Francisco. If you’ve been here in the summer, you know that it is actually quite cold and foggy. July is often one of the coldest months of the year. I have attended many a barbeque in Golden Gate Park while bundled up in a winter coat and scarf, clutching a hot latte to warm my poor frozen hands while fog rolls by like tumbleweeds. More often than not, the fireworks are cloaked in a veil of fog. You know they are there, the fog changes from blue to green to pink, but you cannot actually see them. When it is clear enough, the best places to see them (the waterfront and the bridge) are a nightmare. Crowds and crowds of people, no parking, and busses packed like tuna cans, full of drunks. So we usually end up finding a hill to climb and hope for the best. Having a small child makes most of this seem like more trouble than it is worth, so we haven’t done much to celebrate the 4th in the last few years, save for a lovely backyard barbecue in Oakland last year.
 
The weather turned out to be pretty nice – certainly not hot, but I don’t like hot, so it was perfect for me. We went to Japantown for lunch with a friend. Then we bought Japanese incense and browsed Kinokunia bookstore. My mom came up later in the afternoon and I did some cleaning and purging while she played with Pip. We decided to brave the waterfront because Pip is old enough to appreciate fireworks. It turns out there was tons of parking by the shop because it is on the opposite end of the waterfront from where the fireworks are. After a 20 minute walk, we were at the Ferry Building which was crowded, but not crazy and it was lovely to watch the fireworks surround the clock tower. Next year we will have to make some more formal plans.
 
Speaking of cleaning and purging, I have been bitten by the spring cleaning bug in the summer. In the last week, I have donated 6 garbage bags full of stuff and tossed another 3 bags. We haven’t done a proper purge since Pip came into the picture and, man, was it time. It’s still a work in progress, but already feels much better. I feel inspired to be much more mindful of the purchases I make and what I allow to enter my home. While my home will never be quite as spare as this one from Skona Hem – we all have the magpie gene in this family – I have been returning to it again and again for motivation and inspiration. I do love the crisp, clean white.
 
Lastly, this morning I realized that I forgot my wallet when I went to pay for my coffee. To make matters worse, this was at 5:45am and I didn’t go to sleep until 11pm last night so coffee was sorely needed. Luckily, I frequent this coffee shop and the cashier told me I could pay her tomorrow. I was happy to have my coffee but annoyed at the thought of being without cash, debit card, and ID for the entire day. I brought some food with me and we have some vendors visiting the office today that usually bring snacks, but I wanted to go to the farmers market. As I was leaving, I turned to the cashier to thank her again for letting me pay for my coffee tomorrow and she let me know that the woman behind me in line paid for my coffee! How lovely! It totally turned my morning around and now I’m not worried about the farmers market. There are, after all, three more markets within close proximity to my office this week. I’ll live. Thank you, kind stranger. Now, I have to remember to do something nice for someone today. What about you? Have you done any good deeds lately? Do tell.

1965:

1987:

·        When she plays telephone, she ends all her calls with “OK, I’ll buzz you up!”
·        When she plays with toy cars, she spends at least a few minutes “looking for parking”.
·        She points out all the empty parking spaces in any parking lot and cheers once we park.
·        She asks to go to brunch or downtown as often as she asks to go to the playground.
·        She knows the bus lines and says things like “Mama, we taking the 44 bus?”
·        She saw an illustration of an Italian sidewalk café in her Babar book and said “Mama, I want to go there.”
·        She occasionally says “Mama, I want to go to the liquor store”. (They have freeze dried fruit and fancy cheese — it’s pretty awesome, but perhaps I should start calling it “the corner store”.)
·        She knows that pennies, nickels and dimes are fair game for her piggy bank, but quarters are sacred.

Today, I am day dreaming of greener pastures. I have a recurring country fantasy. Once I saw this post (scroll all the way down), I added sheep to that fantasy. Imagine raising sheep to simply enjoy their beauty and to tend the pastures. Now, I just need to find pastures that need tending in San Francisco.
 
Happy Monday!

 On the topic of Alice in Wonderland, take a look at this stop motion version from 1949 by Lou Bunin. It wasn’t widely released in the US because of a lawsuit by Disney, who didn’t want it to compete with their animated version that was set to release two years later in 1951. Interesting.