Bart Art

I am absolutely loving the new advertisements for BART at the stations. It's all by Mick Wiggins. I love seeing the California flora and fauna in a Bart Station.

New Book.

I haven't been able to put this book down. Read it. It is strange in so many ways, but fascinating and incredibly well written. I am always amazed by the ability of translators. 

Saturday Grey Day

Not only did I eat a lot of sweets yesterday, but I bought a pair of shoes and a marc jacobs' hoodie. Both items were grey.

Saturday Sweet Day

I spent part of the morning in Hayes Valley. We had lunch at Frjtz's and then had dessert at miette and paulette. We got some great caramels at meitte's and some malt balls of course. 

We also bought a couple macarons at miette so we could compare them to paulette's macarons. 

The larger lumpier brown (chocolate ones) are from miette. They were way too chewy. The beautiful smooth ones are from Paulette. They were much tastier. Although as much as I love the aesthetic of macarons they always seem like they would taste better than they actually do. They are tasty, but I just always expect more. 

I also got a new pair of shoes in Hayes Valley but I will post about those later. 

This American Life

I got introduced to "This American Life" (and NPR) about 4 years ago when I first moved to the USA. My friend who had a lab across from mine would always be listening to it while he sorted ants. He would always tell me I would love it. I figured I would, since I was a diehard CBC fan in Canada. While I listened to NPR in my car, I just never got in the habit of listening to TAL. 
I'm not a huge fan of cutting fabric. I would find it tedious, but not anymore. I now cut fabric in one hour segments while listening to a TAL podcast. My one problem is that I need an order to everything. I decided that I would listen to every episode. I started with the newest one and continued. This would screw up a week later when a new one was added. I'd listen to the new one again and if I had time to listen to more than one a week I would jump down to where I left off. This was a little confusing. I started keeping track of the episodes in a notebook. Sometimes the "new" one was actually a rerun. My system was clearly flawed... well not exactly flawed, just not efficient or logical. I needed my system to be efficient and logical. I finally changed my system. Today I started at the very beginning. Episode One. I was wary of starting from the beginning because I thought they might not be as good, but so far I am happy with them. I don't know if I will ever catch up. I should make a point of listening to at least two a week. To get started with my new system on the right foot I'm going to listen to Episode Two today!

Coraline

I finally got to see Coraline this weekend. I was really excited to see a 3D movie, because I never have before. The theatre said it would be in 3D, but when we got there it wasn't! Turns out a 5:45 show on Saturday isn't in 3D. Thanks for letting me know internet. We didn't want to wait around until 7:00 to see it in 3D. Anyways, the movie was still amazing. I am most blown away by how it was made. There are tons of great videos on youtube that show the artists making all the crazy stuff. Did you know the cherry blossoms are actually popcorn? Watch this talented lady make miniature sweaters:

And this woman poke on every single piece of hair(!):

Boreal Birch Syrup

My visiting friend brought me a Boreal Birch Syrup from her hometown, Thunder Bay, Ontario. This is a syrup made in her town by a couple of friends of her.
Thunder Bay is here:


Boreal birch syrup is produced much like maple syrup. This is a great video showing how they make it:


It has a more molasses-y taste than maple syrup. I really like it. I'm looking forward to trying some of the recipes on their website. I think I'll try to butternut squash one first!

Happy Square Root Day

I love days like this! This is probably more exciting the a palindromic year (1991, 2002). I couldn't believe I got to live through two of those!

Celebrate today by eating root vegetables cut into squares!


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New Music

I don't keep up with music nearly as much as I used to. Mainly due to lack of time and money. In the good ole days I probably bought a CD a week, now I am lucky if I can fine one new CD to get every couple of months. For the past few years the only way I have been finding new music has been through friends. My most recent visitor introduced me to Thao Nguyen and she may just be my next music obsession.

New Stuff

Last weekend I was shopping downtown with my friend who was visiting. I hadn't been to h&m in months, as I had gotten kinda sick of every store downtown except Bloomingdale's. I was quite pleased with what they had and got this coat.

It also matches my new Orla Kiely bag perfectly!