lacma

Last time we were down in L.A. I dragged Derek to LACMA. I like doing things like that, just going somewhere I've never been before and seeing something new. Some of the pieces in there were really neat, and now I'm even more eager to go to some of the amazing museums in San Francisco.

The only bad thing was that a lot of the exhibits were closed when we were there, and they had almost one whole building closed off for a Stanley Kubrick exhibit that you had to pay twice as much to get into.

But I did get to see the unnecessarily large amount of light poles outside, so all in all, not bad.

I really liked the collection of Japanese painted screens

it's right beside the La Brea tar pits, so you find random tar bubbling up here and there

sleepy bear

This is me today:

My sister is here visiting, and we had a really fun weekend, including a birthday party, a wedding, some power shopping, and a marathon binge session of "American Horror Story". Possibly as a direct result of that last activity, I didn't sleep very well last night, and I hit snooze for an entire hour before I managed to grudgingly drag myself out of bed.

 I talked to my sister at lunch and she was cuddled up watching TV on the couch. I don't want to be at work today, I want to stay home and bake cookies with her.

homesick

I met up with a new group of ladies last night, and we were getting to know each other and talking about where we are from. We started talking about winter and the leaves turning colours and it made me really homesick.

Then today I saw this:

"A Canadian can be English, or French, or Italian, Irish, German, Spanish, Polish, Russian or Greek. A Canadian can be Mexican, African, Indian, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Australian, Iranian, Asian, Arab, Pakistani or Afghan. A Canadian may also be a Cree, Metis, Mohawk, Blackfoot, Sioux, or one of the many other tribes known as native Canadians. A Canadian's religious beliefs range from Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, Hindu or none. 

In fact, there are more Muslims in Canada than in Afghanistan. The key difference is that in Canada they are free to worship as each of them chooses. Whether they have a religion or no religion, each Canadian ultimately answers only to God, not to the government, or to armed thugs claiming to speak for the government and for God.

A Canadian lives in one of the most prosperous lands in the history of the world. The root of that prosperity can be found in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms which recognize the right of each person to the pursuit of happiness.

A Canadian is generous and Canadians have helped out just about every other nation in the world in their time of need, never asking a thing in return. Canadians welcome the best of everything, the best products, the best books, the best music, the best food, the best services and the best minds. But they also welcome the least - the oppressed, the outcast and the rejected.

These are the people who built Canada. You can try to kill a Canadian if you must as other blood-thirsty tyrants in the world have tried but in doing so you could just be killing a relative or a neighbour. This is because Canadians are not a particular people from a particular place. They are the embodiment of the human spirit of freedom. Everyone who holds to that spirit, everywhere, can be a Canadian."

I can't find the original link where it's from, but I wanted to re-post it anyway. Obviously this is idealized, Canadians aren't perfect, but they are pretty great and I'm proud to be one of them.

Excuse me while I go sob in the corner and hum the national anthem in French. Humming is the same in every language (probably?).

eat all the things.

I have a friend coming in to town over Labour Day weekend from L.A., and she was wondering about the best places to eat in San Francisco for a truly delicious, unique experience. I asked my food-loving co-workers for suggestions, and I got a lot of feedback. It turned into a pretty impressive list, so I decided to share it.

I've been to the first few, and really enjoyed them, and I'm pretty excited to start eating my way through the rest of the list.

Tacolicious- The tacos here are really delicious, they have a bunch of different kinds, and they have really interesting margarita flavours to try as well.

Spruce- This place is a little more expensive but it's really funny because if you go in here, every.single. person. is eating a burger. Their burgers are amazing, their fries taste like potato chips, and they gave us a free giant cookie when we came in for being first time visitors, but I was already so full from eating everything else that I was like "I'll never be able to eat this cookie, I'll have to save it for tomorrow". And then I ate the whole thing before we even made it home.

Cafe Delucchi- In North Beach, the "Italian" part of the city, I went for dinner here a few weeks ago with my Italian girlfriend and it was so friggin good. Then we went across the street for hot chocolate and cannoli's, it was one of the best meals I've had in a long time.

Tartine- I've never been here but I've had food from here. It's pretty much an SF institution, and their flourless chocolate cake might be the best thing I've ever eaten.

Flour and Water- Pizza and pasta, came very highly recommended

Thanh Long- Vietnamese fusion cuisine

Burma Superstar- Apparently a very unique experience. 

Yank Sing- Deem Sum

State Bird Provisions- This place has a constantly evolving menu, and is apparently a cliche, but classic San Francisco suggestion

Golden Boy- People are pretty crazy about this pizza place.

Frances- A bit expensive but really good food-

AQ- Uses seasonal ingredients to make brand new

Mission Chinese- Life changingly good Chinese.

Swan Oyster Depot- A place to get very fresh seafood. I'll be taking my sister and brother-in-law here for sure.

Foreign Cinema- I've heard the food here is amazing, and the really cute thing is that they show movies on the wall of the court yard.

AsiaSF:  It's a bar and restaurant but the servers are really beautiful drag queens. It's apparently a must do for visitors to the city, I might take my sister there when she comes in to town tomorrow.

The Latin American Club: If you like margaritas as much as I do, and I'm not sure that it's possible to, you should check this place out.

And the final suggestion I was given: get a bacon wrapped hot dog in the mission. We used to go to Mazatlan all the time to see my Grandpa, and the bacon wrapped hot dogs they sell on the street at 2 a.m. are a thing of beauty, so we'll see. Big shoes to fill, and what not.

I'd love to get more suggestions, so if you have any for me, please leave them in the comments. :)

put your back into it

I've always been a big fan of backless shirts and dresses, probably because I've never been able to wear them. Well probably not never, but certainly not since the age of about 13. Sadly, having your entire bra hanging out of the back of your backless shirt somewhat destroys the look.

Gabi from Gabifresh kind of inspired me, she is a plus size model and she always says that if she really wants to wear something, she will find a way to make it work for her. I think that's great, and also really true. You can't do something the way someone else would do it, you have to do it the way that you would do it.

So this is how I would wear a backless dress. I got some pretty heavy duty elastic from Michael's, and my favourite bra. I cut off the back of the bra, leaving about an inch on each side of the cup to attach the elastic to, and sewed on 3 strips of the elastic on one side.

Then I awkwardly put it on/ figured out the delicate balance between having it stay up, and having it cut off all circulation. Once I decided on that, I sewed on the elastic to the other side at the right tightness, and voila.

It takes a bit of wiggling to get into it, but it's actually really comfortable, and I think it's pretty cute. I may not be able to go completely backless, but I figured out a way to wear what I wanted, and make it work for me.

back in the saddle

On Saturday night, I finally got to go to the Saddle Rack for the first time. The Saddle Rack is a country bar in Fremont, CA, complete with mechanical bull. There was a big group of us and it was really fun. My absolute favourite bar in the world is Nashville's in Waikiki, so I'm always trying to find somewhere in California that I like as much.

Nashville's is still better, but I'm definitely biased as I basically lived there for 3 years, people I didn't know would come up to me randomly on the street and by like "Oh hey, Nashville's! You work there, right?". I don't have any immediate plans to move into the Saddle Rack, but it was a great time. Often when you're really anticipating something for a long time, it can turn out to be a let down (every New Year's Eve ever) but this was just as much fun as I'd hoped.

such a happy couple

the boy on the bull, he did way better than me

hundreds and hundreds of goslings

My day just got a lot better. A genius woman web programmer designed a Google Chrome extension called "Hey Girl" that turns every image on your page into a photo of Ryan Gosling.

I was intrigued and downloaded it immediately, and found it to be just as amazing as it sounds. I would rather look at Ryan Gosling than almost anything else in the world. Also, he is Canadian. NBD. You can download it for yourself here.