waiting game

Dan and Carmen's baby was due during week 25, and we spent a lot of that time wondering when Carmen would go into labor. Meanwhile, I used the time to get some of the necessary "before" pictures while it was still possible.

That Saturday, we went out to lunch (Vietnamese) with the parents and Dan and Carmen. (It was my first pho.) In the afternoon, I stopped downstairs and took pictures of the take-home dress that Carmen had made for the baby. She had it paired with some ruffle-bottomed pants, a cardigan with antique baby pins, and some monster socks. Unfortunately, when it was actually time to bring the baby home from the hospital a week and a half later, Carmen discovered that the outfit was too big for baby. A sleeper had to suffice. It will be a little while before she's big enough to wear this.

169/365 baby fashion

Another thing I wanted to do before the baby came was to get a good picture of Dan and Carmen together. I had a few shots from the shower, but I wanted some that didn't include the baby tiara and "baby daddy" ribbon. So we did some pictures in the alley and the park before they went out to the pinball place with Bruce and Bonnie that afternoon. It also happened to be Fathers Day, so Steve made us all dinner that night: prime rib, mashed potatoes & parsnips, roasted carrots, mushrooms, and some honey roasted peaches with mascarpone. I didn't take pictures of any of it, but the peach dessert deserves a shot one of these days.

170/365 parents-to-be

It was hot on Monday, but Bruce and Bonnie came to work on the house for a few hours that day. By dinner time, I had decided that something cold sounded good. And since I had no pictures for the day yet, something new and cold sounded even better. We settled on a cold avocado soup from Gerald Hirigoyen's Pintxos and a couple dessert soups—strawberry soup and white chocolate with mango & coconut—from Tartelette. The avocado soup wasn't quite right, but the dessert soups were good together. Nice use for our little bottles too.

171/365 dessert soups

Since Tuesday was the summer solstice, I suggested a walk up to Bernal Hill, like Steve and I did two years before. It was another warm day, so no work on the house. Bruce and Bonnie just came for a dinner of leftover roast beef—in sandwich form—and joined us for the walk. When we reached the top, the sun was starting to get lower, the fog was rolling in, and it was getting chillier. If you were to zoom in on the picture below, you could see our house. (It's near the lower right corner.)

172/365 solstice

It was supposed to be warm again on Wednesday, prompting Bruce and Bonnie to stay in Pacifica for the day. It never did get hot, but the day off from work on the hallway gave me a chance to do some more planning for our Europe trip. Since I had gotten our plane tickets and figured out our general itinerary already, it was time to start looking at what to do and where to stay in Barcelona—our first stop.

173/365 spain-ly 2011

Thursday was June 23, Carmen's due date. No sign of the baby, though. After washing the walls in the hallway, Bonnie and I cleaned up and went over to Hayes Valley. I didn't find many things to photograph, but we did see a little stuffed bunny at one of the stores. We convinced ourselves that the baby needed it, and I decided that it would make a good picture for the day. Carmen was kind enough to model it on her "shelf" when we arrived home.

174/365 due date

Then, we got a text on Friday morning, saying that Carmen's water had broken. After a trip to the hospital to get checked out, she and Dan spent most of the day at home, waiting until 6pm to go back. (Bruce, Bonnie, and I primed everything in the hallway while we were waiting for further news.) Around 8:30pm, we went to visit Carmen and Dan at the hospital, even though it looked like the baby would not be making an appearance that evening. In any case, I shot a few pictures in the labor/delivery room, including the empty baby bed, and we wished Carmen luck before heading home.

175/365 no baby yet

In the next post: a baby!
  

keeping busy

With the arrival of Steve's parents on June 8th, things got busier. We started off the new week that Saturday with a visit to the Ferry Building farmers market—one of the more memorable things we did with Bruce and Bonnie the year before. Like last time, the four of us went over to the Ferry Building around 10:30am and waded through the crowds to buy some things for our lunch, which we ate at home. Unlike last time, I actually remembered to take a picture of our spread before we started eating. We had goat cheese, white cheddar (not pictured), meat sticks, bread, pate, roasted almonds, Queen Anne and Bing cherries, strawberries, nectarines, and pluots. I love this kind of meal, especially when the fruit is good like this. And I don't hate our kitchen table in this shot as much as I usually do! (I wish I could nudge the container of strawberries down a bit, though.)

162/365 indoor picnic

I took more food pictures on Sunday at lunch, but it was just Steve and me that day. At my request, Steve made an Indian Carrot Salad from Jamie at Home. It was certainly pretty, but the recipe could have used some adjustments. The "spicy" ground lamb wasn't very spicy or particularly Indian-flavored; it needed some more spices and some onions or something to round out the flavors. The salad was also kind of difficult to eat, with the long slices raw of carrots. Despite those things, it wasn't a complete failure. It just wasn't as good as the Roast Carrot Salad or the Lamb Kofta Kebabs.

163/365 indian carrot salad

On Monday, Bruce and Bonnie started to help me with the sanding and plaster repair work in the hallway. It was the last main part of the house that still hadn't been painted. (The entry stairway, utility room, and half bath are a bit lower on the to-do list.) I had done some sanding around a few of the doors earlier in the year, but I had run out of steam pretty quickly. Anyway, Bruce got to work fixing the many cracks in the plaster walls, while Bonnie and I sanded more of the door trim. Since my day was filled with dust, I didn't take any (acceptable) pictures until after dinner. We all went to SouthEnd for burgers, and we saw a few of the neighborhood cats on the way back.

164/365 kitty-palooza

Steve and I had tickets to see Tales of the City at ACT on Tuesday night, so we went out to dinner at Fifth Floor before the show. I had been wanting to try the place, since it had gotten good reviews after switching chefs. The new chef used to be at Chez Papa Resto, and we had liked his food there. It turned out, we liked his food even more at Fifth Floor. The menu was divided into options for three courses; so we shared two first courses, one second, one third, and a dessert. (That was more than enough.) Everything was fabulous, but the beet salad with its various flavors and temperatures was one of my favorites. For dessert, the almond beignets with cherry jam were a very close second, but the beet salad was more colorful and innovative.

165/365 fifth floor beets

We had another night out on Wednesday, when we went to see Stephen Sondheim's Company at the Embarcadero movie theater. This was the production with Neil Patrick Harris, Stephen Colbert, Patti LuPone, Christina Hendricks, etc., along with the NY Philharmonic. It was great, and it was nice to see a really well written—and well acted—musical. (I felt that Tales of the City the night before was in need of some more work.) Since movies aren't very good for photo ops, I took a picture of dinner again. Or rather, I took a picture of waiting for dinner to arrive. We ate at Mijita in the Ferry Building and sat outside, watching the people and the ferries.

166/365 el venado

We were back to work on the house for a full day on Thursday, having taken Tuesday off and only working in the morning on Wednesday. Before the parents arrived for the day, I took a picture of the hallway from the top of the stairs. We'll call it a "before" picture, even though some work had already been done. As you can see, that's a lot of doorways to sand, and 1.5 doorways on each side aren't even visible in the foreground here.

167/365 before

Friday's picture also ended up being taken before the parents arrived for the day. (This time, they came just for the afternoon to work.) Steve had made some pickles out of the little multicolored farmers market carrots, so I just got those out and shot some of the purple ones. We ended up eating them with roast beef sandwiches the next week, but they would have been good with our farmers market picnic the previous Saturday.

168/365 carrot pickles

End of week 24. Moving right along...
 

arrival of the in-laws

Time to continue with the 365 pictures (and dispense with the introductory paragraph).

Despite photographing our lunch of cauliflower soup on Saturday, June 4, I didn't really have anything I wanted to use for the picture of the day. To remedy that, I joined Steve for the walk to the butcher shop that afternoon. But rather than going inside with him, I continued down Church St., where the fruit outside the corner store drew my eye. It was more colorful than the cauliflower soup, at least.

155/365 fruit stand

Sunday was a day of meetings and a few early auditions for the summer show. When I got home, I took pictures of the dinner that Steve made for us: Fettucine with Dried Tomatoes, Cream and Prawns from What Katie Ate. We really liked it, and I managed to style it such that I was happy with the picture. I think the recipe is a keeper!

156/365 shrimpy pasta

On Monday, I was feeling like it was time to actually read through my Thoroughly Modern Millie script, since we would be starting auditions and rehearsals three weeks later. Rather than sitting on my own couch, I went to Fiore Caffe and found a spot to drink my mocha and read my script in style. I also snapped a couple pictures when the opportunity presented itself. The owner of the laptop in the picture below had gotten up to use the bathroom, opening up my view of the entrance and the chalk open/closed sign.

157/365 fiore caffe

We had a few more early auditions on Tuesday afternoon—kids who would be missing the actual audition week. I took the long way around the block to the car to see about getting a picture before I left, and I passed these fuzzy purple flowers next to the park. Mission accomplished.

158/365 the fuzzy purple ones

Then, the parents arrived in town on Wednesday. And by "town," I mean the RV park in Pacifica. Steve's parents had left home in their RV not long after taking us to the airport, and it took them about a week and a half to get here. As we do every year, we went down to see them at their RV that evening with Dan and Carmen. I made sure we left early enough to get there while it was still light out, and I snuck out for a picture of the coastline shortly after we arrived. Unfortunately, the place seems to be crumbling into the ocean; they keep moving the lines back.

159/365 sharp dropoff

The next day, Carmen and I had a little photo shoot. We wanted to get a few more belly shots before her due date, and Carmen had some ideas she wanted to try. When we went into the nursery, I saw Gloria the Goose on the rocking chair and decided that that would be a cute picture with the jingly bunny in there too. I took a few pictures of Carmen with the bunny after that, but I only decided to post a few pictures from that day. (The ones of Carmen and the bunny didn't make the cut.)

160/365 some bunny

For Friday, I thought Bonnie might like to join me for a walk down to Bi-Rite Market when they came into SF for the afternoon/evening. On the way, I took a picture of some horsetails in front of the new-ish condo buildings on Guerrero. We saw horsetails on my family's farm when we were in IL, but these reminded me of the ones that used to be in front of Stem, not far from Bi-Rite (next to the creamery).

161/365 horsetails

And that was week 23. On to writing the next!