booties!

on the left, these booties are grey, stretchy and have a 4 ⅛" heel. the other pair have an open toe and are in plum. the heel is 3 ½". they were both 70% off!

birthday goodies!!!

as i have in previous years, i spent my birthday with my dear sister. she took the day off to go to the city with me.

the rings above are from her. they represent us and our birthstones, in the form of diamonds. they are cognac diamonds on yellow gold (topaz for november) and blue diamonds on white gold (turquoise for december).

i picked up this pair of shoes for such a bargain! i picked up some other goodies too. we finished our day in the city with a birthday dinner at the house.

the monday i returned from my birthday week off, my office staff surprised me with these flowers. this was the first year that my staff has done something like this for me. they are too sweet.

and this was my 3rd year taking all of thanksgiving week off. i'm hoping to make it a tradition.

ugh, i have to go on a diet

today, i saw my endocrinologist for a follow up after getting a not-so-normal lab result from my annual visit with him 3 months ago. i think i have mentioned my admiration for him previously. but i need to say it again. i ♥ dr. bruhn. he is the best. every time i see him, no matter how fat i feel, he always tells me that i am beautiful.

apparently, it is time for me to get my i-131 body scan again. in 2008, when i was declared cured, i was told that i would only need a body scan every 3-5 years. it's been 3 years so i suppose it's time. when i get scheduled for the body scan, i must go on this 10-day low iodine diet. this year, however, it's 2-weeks. 4 more days than usual! trust me, this is really hard. basically, i can't eat anything processed, which is good for cleansing but still not easy to do. one year, i lost 6 lbs in 10 days!

when the nurse asked me when i wanted to start the diet, i responded, after thanksgiving, please? so she scheduled my diet to start the day after thanksgiving. that means, no leftovers for me. :( wish me luck!

diana's 30th

me with my dear dear cousins at xanh restaurant

happy 30th, diana! ♥

black swan

for halloween this year, my good friend invited me to a party in the city. i haven't dressed up in years.

in early october, as i looked around my apartment for costume ideas, i found an old dress i bought in high school. for my senior prom, i made my dress but i bought a back up dress at guinne sax. see the top image of the dresses below. when i put it on, i thought... dark ballerina! which then lead to black swan. this was actually an idea my cousin gave me this summer while traveling together in new york. she had planned on being black swan. thanks debbie!

this dress is almost 20 years old and finally worn! it was very exciting.

as you can see, i first removed the horrendous long sleeves. then i moved the petticoat up and cut the dress in half. i added feathers and gems to the bust of the dress. i bought a tiara and basically colored it black with sharpies. now, i had to figure out the make up. and thanks to a youtube tutorial, i was able to get the make up done myself. i walked in 6-inch heels for over 3 hours and the make up lasted about 8 hours. i was pretty impressed with myself.

dear wedges,

how do i love thee,
let me count the ways
one pair, two pairs...

♥ from kip

venue: slim's
artist: pains of being pure at heart (pobpah) & twin sister
who: joe
when: 7 october 2011 (friday)
doors open at 7p

joe was visiting for about 5 days which is always nice. we got a work out in there, a couple trips to the city and of course, shopping! we also had tickets to see peter bjorn & john (pb&j) the weekend he was in the area. unfortunately, they cancelled. and in an effort to make the most of his stay, i got us tickets to see pobpah. coincidentally, at the same venue that pb&j were going to play.

we got there early enough to get a prime parking spot, something to eat and seats upstairs. from our seats, we could see the merch table and who was manning it. for a good period of time, it was kip berman, the lead vocalist for pobpah. i decided that i would check out the merch and maybe add some vinyl to my growing collection. i have a record that is white vinyl and another one (from the recent jens show) that is clear vinyl. so i wanted to get a record that is special. i have their second album, belong but only a couple of songs off of the first album. kip mentioned that the record has a marble pattern to it. this of course is the exact type of thing i wanted. to top it off, kip signed it for me (see image above). he was also very nice.

the opening band, twin sister was horrible. all due to their singer. her vocals had potential, however, she did not. the look she was sporting was terrible. it was some sort of homely-yet-slutty look. the two do not go together. it was dreadful. as far as their music, i clearly forgot because i needed to. nothing special.

for some reason and perhaps it was because of twin sister, but i liked pobpah much better when ro and i saw them at gamh back in april. i still enjoyed them, just not as much.

rating: ♥ ♥ ♥

you should wear rubber, always wear rubber

go put
your rubber boots on,
your rubber boots on,
stand up
walk on.

my shoe corner...

because everyone should have one. :)at the end of september, my sister moved out. with her, so did a large piece of furniture that previously occupied a corner of my room. since it was now empty, i thought i'd make good use of the space. i've always wanted a wall of shoes, however, i have so much crap that it was pretty impossible. so, rather than have a wall 'o shoes, i have a shoe corner. and this does not hold all of my shoes, mind you. it does conveniently remind me of the shoes i used to forget about that were formerly stored under my bed.

orchestral manoeuvres in the dark

that's right, as in the band who wrote if you leave.

venue: the warfield
band: omd with washington
who: my brother and sister (our dentist, her brother, my friend thao and her friend)
when: 3 october 2011 (monday)
doors open at 7p

this was the first concert that three of us siblings went to together. i thought we'd gone to see the cure together in 1992 but no one seems to remember that far back. omd has a new album out called history of modern. usually, when bands go on tour, their playlist consists mostly of new music in order to promote the new album. not quite the case at this show. in fact, they played most of their classics. more than they did at their show at the fox theatre earlier in the year, apparently.

the opening band was washington as in megan washington, an artist from australia. her vocals are upbeat, a little bit sexy and very lovely. we all thought her set was quite good for an opening. i want to get her album.

omd was one of the few bands i hadn't seen live, that i really wanted to see. they toured during my senior year in high school but i was only 17 and couldn't get into the 18+ venues they were playing. that cd, sugar tax, is a good one. that was really the last album i listened to. andy mccluskey has a voice to swoon to. i remember listening to them when i was in middle school and just falling in lust with him. believe it or not, he's still got it. even at 52. he still gets down like it's 1990 but like i said before, he's still got it. i was quite impressed.

also impressive is the song, electricity. mccluskey said he wrote it in 1976, when he was 17! it's still a really great song. they played most of our favorites, all of the classics that we could remember. towards the end, everyone in the audience (even us on the balcony floor) got up and danced like it was 1999. for the most part, everyone there was around our age. however, there were people much older (white hair and/or no hair) getting down to omd. it was so much fun. i would definitely see them again.

rating: ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

nearly caught up! i'm in october now...

jens lekman at nightlife

venue: california academy of sciences
artist: jens lekman
who: ro
when: 29 september 2011 (thursday)
doors open at 6:30p

it has been two years since we last saw jens. plus, it was twice in 2009 and twice in 2008. he's spoiled us! he is still so so adorable! he has a new ep out and plans to release the new album sometime in the near future. which hopefully means, we'll get another double dose of him. i can't wait!

for more on jens and how i heart him, please click on his name below in the "labels" section.

rating: ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

nestldown wedding

at the end of august, my sister-in-law's sister, jade got married at nestldown. it was gorgeous, as you can see from the images above and below. it's amazing what floral design can do. my sister-in-law's mother did all the floral arrangements. she is a genius.
after the wedding, i realize i didn't take enough pictures. the ones i did take enough of were the flowers. nestldown is a park located in the middle of nowhere along highway 17 on the way to santa cruz. it took some effort to get there, thanks to my navigation system. we were told to wear comfortable shoes as it is basically surrounded by forests and on dirt roads. i didn't really listen and decided to wear my nearly 5" heels. there were many times where i almost fell. and i wasn't the only one, quite a few of the ladies at the reception tripped and nearly ate dirt. the image at the bottom was at the reception. i took it from my seat. the best thing about this wedding was a surprise performance by my niece and nephew. she was at the mic doing the vocals and he was on the drums doing back up. this is what happens when you hire their music teacher's band to play. it was the sweetest thing.

new york food!

after lewiston, debbie and i flew to jfk to hang out in new york city. we stayed in midtown close to hell's kitchen, i thought it would be a fun area for a first timer (my cousin's). we were there for a couple of days for shopping and eating. despite the sweltering heat (high 90's), we survived.

the first day, we came across some issues. baggage issues. apparently, our bags did not get transferred and were stuck in boston. they were not due to be delivered until the next morning. for dinner, we decided to go to becco for some italian which was conveniently located about two blocks away. they had this great prix fixe deal, all you can eat pasta, and $25 bottles of wine. we thought we were hungry enough but we were wrong. at least i was wrong. i could barely have a second helping. there were three different types, all but one was edible. the other two were bland and plain. honestly, we have much better italian food in north beach.

the next day, we ventured out for some shopping in the soho area. it was a lot of walking and a lot of sweating but hardly any buying. i was sorely disappointed. however, we coincidentally ran into debbie's friend, fred and his girlfriend kate, whom we were planning to meet up with anyway. after shopping, we met up with an old friend of mine, avi at barcelona bar in midtown. we had harry potter shots there. when avi asked what was in it, the bartender who was dressed as harry potter, answered 'magic.' for dinner, my cousin was in the mood for ramen. luckily, totto ramen was on the way back to our hotel. it was an hour wait but definitely worth it. as you can see below (in the center image), i had my ramen with avocado. it was mmm good.

clockwise from center: totto ramen in midtown; spring rolls, egg rolls, phở bánh mì and phở, all from nhà tôi in williamsburg.

on our last day, i thought it might be interesting to do something touristy, for debbie. we decided on going to the empire state building. i went to the empire state building previously in 2003 during my first trip to new york city. it was in february and freezing. i seem to only go during extreme weather. when i was there back in 2003, we went right before closing so there was really no line. this time, i was not so lucky. the wait was at least an hour and it was pretty packed. we managed to get some good pictures anyway. see my empire state building collage below. afterwards, we headed over to williamsburg in brooklyn to check fred's place, nhà tôi. as you can see in the food collage above, we had quite the feast. his specialty is the phở bánh mì. bascially, he puts the ingredients that you get in phở sans the noodles. it was quite delicious. so much so that i ate the entire thing plus some of the other dishes. the phở was quite hot to have in the heat we endured. his place is tiny and like an open stand, quite authentic feeling if you ask me. very good for people watching. we stayed for several hours hanging out with carl, the brooklyn artist and drinking margarita/mojito drinks. it was a tuesday during the summer and his shop was consistently busy. the next day, we left new york with a full stomach and money in my pocket from the lack of shopping!

new york... finally!

sorry for the delay... i've been quite busy.

this past summer (specifically at the end of july), i actually went on a summer vacation. it was the first real one since 2009. i went to new york for a wedding and a summer break. new york is not ideal for a summer vacation as it is excruciatingly hot. definitely not the weather for two spoiled, girly californians. i had a wedding to go to in lewiston, upstate new york. my dear dear muffin was getting hitched. and my lovely cousin came as my date.
lewiston is next to niagara falls. and we were very excited about seeing the falls. it was quite humid and cloudy at first, but the sun eventually came out and it was beautiful. we went on one of the tours and our bus broke down in the middle of the tour even though they promised we'd be through with the tour in time to get to the hotel and get ready for the rehearsal dinner. during the tour, we ran into ness and tahu who i haven't seen in ages! they too were coming for the wedding. if you look closely (or just click on the image with the terrapin point horseshoe falls sign) at the picture on the left, you'll see ness with her little ones and tahu walking along.
we eventually left the tour before it was over. at least we saw most of the sights.
the wedding was fabulous and conveniently located across the street from the hotel we were staying at. the after party was also a lot of fun. it was at a bar outside of the reception and next to the lake. the next day, debbie and i left for new york city. and the lovely bride and groom left for france very soon after.

hello! is it me you're looking for?

i can see it in my eyes
i can see it in my smile
you're all i've ever wanted... i ♥ you

my baby's first concert!

venue: great american music hall
artist: thao & mirah, bobby & led to sea
who: chunky & ashley
when: 23 june 2011 (thursday)
doors open at 7p

i finally got the opportunity to take my niece to her first concert. we've been talking about it for a while and honestly, i think i was more excited than she was. we went to tommy's joynt (my usual place w/ ro) for dinner. i got the combo corned beef and pastrami sandwich on a roll au jus. i told my niece that we could share the sandwich and then have dessert at the concert. initially, she wasn't too sure about the "jus de viande" served on the side but tried a little. before i knew it, she was dipping her fingers in it to eat without any meat to go with. needless to say, she liked it.

i tried to get her to take a short nap in the car before the show, however, she didn't. we got there early, before the doors opened. i wanted to make sure we got the best seats, not just for her to be able to see. the first opening was led to sea, a solo violinist from seattle. she was fantastic. i was pretty impressed and happy that i was able to expose this type of talent to my niece. she used the loop machine and was able to create various types of sounds with her violin. she also had an amazing voice. the next band, bobby was not as impressive. there were two lead vocalists, one male and one female. the guy also played guitar. he was over to the right. the woman was center stage but frankly, was more like a side-show back up singer. she was a pretty terrible dancer and had vocals to match. even my niece didn't like them.
i've seen thao perform live with the get down stay down twice. i was really excited about seeing mirah live. and seeing them together is like 3 shows in one. unfortunately though, they didn't get on stage until 10:30p and that's when my niece began to fade. she lasted about 20 mins and i decided to take her home. that gave me about 5 songs which i was pretty happy about. i hope my niece was too.

rating: ♥ ♥ ♥ ½

and then there were two (pairs, that is)

these might look familiar and that's because i just bought them in black. the difference is not only in the color but also in price. they were about $30 cheaper. i am a big fan of getting the same pair in different colors, especially when they are super sexy and comfy. this is shoe #6, a break from all of the black pairs.

the nordies half-yearly

believe it or not, i only got two pairs at the sale. this is shoe #5 this year and the 5th black pair. they are strappy and sexy, with a 3 ¼" heel.

gimme some

venue: great american music hall
artist: peter bjorn and john & the bachelorette (sold out!)
who: ro (& ashley!)
when: 13 may 2011 (friday)
doors open at 8p

when young folks came out in 2007, i fell in love. i don't think i was the only one. that album, writer's block was their best. i can't believe i have never seen them live before. i love love peter's voice. there is something about it that makes me melt. the bachelorette opened up for the trio. she makes full use of the loop machine as she is a one-woman band. she is surrounded by cool equipment that includes at least two laptops. it was really cool to watch and hear her put the songs together.

peter bjorn and john were awesome. so much that i wanted to see them again the next night in la at the el rey since i was going to be in the area. unfortunately, that show was sold out too. they are coming back in the fall and i am definitely planning to see them again. i can't wait...

during the show, peter made his way down to the audience (twice!) and that is when i spotted my dear friend, ashley, who was wearing a matching horizontal stripped long-sleeve with peter! she was right behind him at one point. it made the experience even more fun. the vibe on stage and in the audience were so incredible, i almost wished i was down there. but i was stuck sitting next to the couple on their first date, talking loudly the entire time! grrrr...

rating: ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ gimme more

belong

venue: great american music hall (sold out!)
artist: pains of being pure at heart (pobpah) with catwalk & twin shadow
who: ro
when: 19 april 2011 (tuesday)
doors open at 7p

ro and i headed up to the city at 5p so we could have dinner at tommy's joynt. we got there so early, we had prime parking. this is rare in the tenderloin district of the city. i had the corned beef and pastrami sandwich. it is the most tasty meaty sandwich, ever. that is my default item there. we finished in time to make it into the great american music hall just after the doors opened and scored prime seats in the balcony. as we looked around, we saw others filling up the balcony seats in the same situation we were in. we were now too old to stand at concerts. so we get there early to get these seats. previously, in my days with my former partner in crime, betty, we barely made the show as she was always late. i am so glad those days are over.

the first time i saw pobpah, i was sort of on this blind date but not really. it was when i met my ex, john, through a college friend of mine. she asked for a favor, to take her friend out during his first trip to san francisco. he and i ended up at the pobpah show in the fall of 2009. i spent the whole time chatting with john that i didn't get a chance to see what the band looked like. if i had, i might have freaked out. ro warned me that when he saw them at sxsw, he thought the lead singer (kip) looked a lot like my ex, ted. i didn't believe ro at first but when they came on, i had to get over the initial reaction that kip looked so much like emo-ted. i couldn't watch him for a bit.

for once, the opening bands were pretty good. catwalk was surprising. and then twin shadow came on and it was as if he was headlining. i have an inkling that the show sold out because of him. the crowd below went wild when he came on. his music was reminiscent of 80's new wave with a hint of rock and roll. it was very catchy and a bit too pop for my taste but i'll have to give him another listen before i can make a proper decision.

when pobpah was preparing to get on stage, i noticed this large gap of space between the mic stands and the drummer. i mean, he was way back there. i'd never seen bands set up this way. then i found out why. kip, the guitarist and bassist all use this space to dance (sometimes in unison) or stretch out their legs. i wasn't sure which. they do this one step back thing. kip's vocals are soft and almost feminine. i should say dreamy but it is more fem than dreamy. they are clearly influenced by the shoegazer genre. their songs are romantic and some are on the edge of cheesiness. their latest cd, belong, is quite good. i am still enjoying it in its entirety.

rating: ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ heart in your heartbreak