it was bound to happen

a couple of weeks ago i took a long weekend to see my sister's new little baby, nico. THE sweetest thing ever.

bille and her husband, mike, live right down town in san francisco so, like most of the trips i take, the routs of all of our outings were dictated by food.
oh, such great food.

we picked up some sandwiches from a deli in a little specialty grocery store (jenni, i kept thinking how much you would love this store) with the friendliest sandwich makers i've ever encountered.
the guy who made mine kept smiling at me funny and then instead of calling my name when my sandwich was done he walked out from behind the counter into the store and handed it to me saying,
"here's your sandwich, elizabeth"
i tried not to laugh.
it was COLD and WINDY so we walked our sandwiches down the street to tartine and ordered desert and hot chocolate and sat to consume our feast.
oh my! oh my!
The most delicious lemon cream tart with a candied kumquat atop.

and the bread pudding. oh, i'm getting flashbacks.

the sandwiches were amazing. we took turns trading back and forth.

then there was the giant bowl of hot bittersweet chocolate. if hot chocolate is too sweet for your taste, then this is the stuff for you. the perfect combination of sweet and bitter. amazing to the very end.
i will say, we did encounter an iffy food item in japan town when we were forced to scramble for a compromise after we discovered the pizza place we'd made a special outing to was closed to prepare for dinner. bille and i were starving, okay i was starving and we saw a crepe place that looked popular (this was after we found plan B - a great sushi place- was also closed. don't people realize that eating happens at all hours of the day?).
anywho, ordered pesto chicken crepes and i was thoroughly enjoying mine until about two third into my crepe when bille observed,
"this kind of tastes like a hot dog."
dang it. i was so hungry it just tasted good. after that it was ruined to me.
don't get me wrong. i like hot dogs just as much as the next guy, maybe even more, but i don't like hot dog flavored pesto chicken. that's just a mean trick.
a couple of days later my mom came up and it was, you guessed it, more food, mingled with shopping and having makeup done at bloomingdale's by a drag queen, a fact which my mom was totally oblivious to. she said she though a couple of times, "this woman isn't very attractive, but she does herself up nice."
we just laughed at her (my mom).


saturday i went with my dad to his office so he could get some plans and check his email on his dinosaur of a computer.
i made fun of it. but his typing skills have improved. he uses more than two fingers now.



did you know my dad designed the temple grounds at the oakland temple? he's talent.

during a lovely visit with my dear friends bill and toni, whom i've known well since high school, i got a call from wade.

max broke his leg skiing. yikes! it was bound to happen.

so this is what i came home to the next day. he now has a real cast all the way up to his butt, but he's getting around really well on his own now and has done zero complaining. pretty amazing considering how bad the break was.


thanks for the trip, nico. can't wait ot see you again.