Tea, Brownies, and Album Parties

Past few days have been busy... and tiring. We made pizza on Thursday...

Mmm. Many things on pizza...

Friday was a HUGELY busy day. I walked in to the restaurant before my shift so I could read for a little bit, settle into the groove, get a handle on how busy we were... I needed to clock in early to make sandwiches. We were out of everything. Everything, I tell you. It was a little ridiculous. Then there was this war in which everyone was trying to get Junior to do different things. Sandwiches first guys, we're not "The American Lemonade Kitchen"... although that would be pretty hysterical. But when we reopened for the ball game shift, I was on register. Hooooorah. While working register, people tend to ask for beer recommendations. Being under the age of 21, I can't really do that. I told someone that and he said, "NO. You can't be that young!" It honestly took 3 minutes of me responding, "But I am. But I really am." I don't think he took me seriously. Later that evening, after we closed, there were a couple of young woman still sitting at the bar, finishing their sandos. It was one of their birthdays, so I decided to do something nice, but I needed to make sure they were over 21 first... sensible, right? I asked for their IDs and they said, "Only if you show us yours!" ... "I'm 18, I'm not going to show you my ID." It was another five minutes before they believed me. (They were over 21, I split a pint of beer (on me) between them. They were very excited.) They proceeded to ask me all sorts of questions, delighting in my youth and the fact they could call me "Junior". I think she had a good birthday.

Today, I decided that I needed to get out and about on my last day off... see the world through tourists' eyes. So I went to the Japanese Tea Garden in Golden Gate Park. I made a friend on the bus and we talked about the bus lines we hated most, the token crazies (on the bus), and camp counselors going absolutely wild after the campers leave. 

Shakespeare Garden -- Every Plant He Mentions in His Works 

I think this sign of the ground explains the above...

BUDDHA -- In The Tea Garden 

Very Pretty

Doesn't it look hella zen?

Totally zen.

The pond.

HUGE KOI. HE WAS SO HUGE. HUUUUGE

I had a lovely time walking around the garden. I eventually went to lunch at their tourist tea house, but I didn't mind. I read a book and drank my tea quietly. (I hate going out to eat alone... I never feel right reading a book in a restaurant.) From the tea house, I decided it was time to walk back so I could take the dogs for walkies! Yayyy walkies.

Walked by the Conservatory of Flowers on my way back.

I finally got to Panhandle Park and I see some familiar dogs in the distance. Heidi had gotten back from her class early and decided to take the girlies for a jog. Stella was very excited to see me so I said all the hellos to her and Tilly. Heidi and I talked about work and she made to continue her jog. Stella gave me a painful look and decided she wouldn't go anywhere without me. I was very touched, actually. She really used to not care if I went on walks or not, but she came trotting up to me, insisting I kill myself jogging with her. Every time I go for a jog with Stella I'm wearing jeans. Jogging in jeans suck, but Heidi and I had a good time. After our outing, I was left alone with the puppies and decided to bake some brownies, because brownies rock. I actually used the bailey's brownie recipe from an earlier post (no, I don't know which one). and substituted Godiva White Chocolate Liqueur for the Baileys. They turns out much, much better this time. 

We had a party tonight because Sex With No Hands finally finished their album! Hooray! We listened to it all the way through and had a raucous time. I was told that I must eventually have children in order to perpetuate my awesomeness. I think it was meant as a compliment. And on such a compliment, I must head to bed before I die opening tomorrow.

Love,

Henna

Not Your Bubbe's Matzoballs

I slept late for the first time in a while. It was incredibly nice. Aaaah, sleep. I've missed you. You know, a good night sleep can be hard to find. You get all restless, fidget-y... thirsty... but I digress. A little bit.

I hitched a ride into the Mission with Heidi so I could wander around a bit. Valencia has some interesting little stores and a great Italian deli, Lucca's. Heidi and I are planning on making pizza tomorrow night, so I had to pick up a few things. Mainly, whole canned tomatoes, pecorino cheese and fresh mozzarella. I also got anchovies because we love each other. Mmmm.... little dead fishies. But I got a little distracted on my walk by a comic book store... *sigh*... I love comic books. I bought Neil Gaiman's Sandman #1 and proceeded to read it in a coffee place called La Boheme. I might have read all of it in one go. It's so fantastic... Gaiman has such style.

So I sat in the cafe for a good hour and a half. Reading a book. I'm so adventurous in this city. (I should really go to museums or something... but that takes a little planning, no?)

Early in the day, we decided that we were going to meet at Wise Sons Deli for lunch. Oh my god. It was delicious. I had an egg cream, their club sandwich and I tried pickles for the first time. Noooot bad. Not bad at all. I could get used to it. And did I mention the babka? Straight out of my childhood, seriously. We stuffed ourselves and had massive food comas on the way back to the car. (We found more 'poisonfruit trees', which I scaled to retrieve the treasures (aka poisonfruit) at the tippy-top.

We assembled some pretty fabulous pizza dough tonight while Nate was at band practice. After throwing it in the fridge to rise, we put on True Romance. The cast was fantastic, the whole thing was great. I love Christian Slater. I'm loving everything today... I'm so stuffed with food.

Love,
Henna

Traffic Falafel & Dead Birds

Monday night, traffic out of the restaurant was terrible. Absolutely terrible. Nate and I drove four blocks and suddenly we were caught in standstill, bumper-to-bumper traffic. So we did the obvious thing and called the falafel place, Oasis Grill, a block away and placed a take-out order. I called, jumped out of the car (unmoving traffic, remember) and sprinted the block to the falafel place. By the time I got back with our two orders of Deluxe Falafel, we had barely moved... but I had learned the cause. We were in four lanes of traffic, which were reduced to two lanes then one without warning. Damn subway construction. But we finally got home and decided to set up the new surround sound stereo system Nate had gotten. It was, of course, 11:30 at night. We didn't go to bed until 12:30 because stereo systems are that much cooler than sleep.

Yesterday was pretty chill. I stayed in back during the lunch rush and made sandwiches. During the ball game rush, someone asked me to recommend a beer. "Sorry, I'm under 21, I have no idea what it tastes like." He winked and me and said, "But I bet you do..." I had no response. Nate and I skedaddled out of there when he got back from a catering event and we decided to cook dinner for Heidi. So I made a salad and roasted a whole chicken. An entire chicken.

Everyone had gone to bed by the time it came out of the oven. So I managed to wrangle it into a couple of tupperware containers and went to bed myself. So the dinner became breakfast.

*sigh*

Love,
Henna

ps. I realize all I do is eat, work and walk dogs... but all I want to do after work is eat. and sleep. pttthhhbt.

Psychosomatic Love and Puppies

Hooboy. I'm sleepy. I'm always sleepy. Work was pretty typical, I gave people food... there were a lot of gluten free orders today. etc. And one dad brought his two year old (I'm guessing on age here) to order a mousetrap sandwich. She had a huge gash on her face and the women sitting behind him looked very concerned. One woman leaned over and asked, "Excuse me, what happened to her face?" She turned right around and explained, "I fell out of my stroller!" She talked to me for a bit about the scab on her face, falling out of the stroller, being hungry for her sandwich... then she knocked over her cup of water. So I gave her a to-go cup and she thanked me. I enjoyed her very much.

I went over to Jeremy's because they were having a 70% off sale on swim suits. Isn't that nice? So I got half of a swim suit for 1.80. COOL RIGHT? MONEY SAVED AND STUFF. After I got back to the restaurant to wait for a ride home, I decided to sit outside to cool off. One of the people who live in the park walked by with their dogs. He had a beautiful white snowball that was probably still a puppy. She stopped her owner and came over to look at me. I moved to pet her, so she jumped a foot in the air. "Would you mind terribly if I let her get to know you? I want to her to meet more people." How am I supposed to turn down an offer to meet a puppy? So I sat there as she tried to eat all of the cheese off my clothes until she put her paw in my hand, sat down, and insisted I pet her. It was adorable.

Heidi and I came home to some dogs desperate for walkies. So we took them down to the BofA and Divisadero. As we were walking, there was a massive crashing noise. I have no idea what happened, but two cars were absolutely decimated... one was thrown back on the sidewalk. No one seemed hurt, but they blocked traffic for a good couple of hours. So we trotted around the spectators (and the thousands of dogs stopped to watch) and plodded up Divisadero. (Do you like my adjectives for "walk"? I'm trying to practice being a thesaurus.) We had a grand ol' time avoiding snack sized pups until we walked into a group of four people.

First of all, one was English. From London.

"Oh. My. God. I love pitbulls! Can I pet her?" As he bent down to pet Stella, the two ladies and the other gentleman descended upon us to shower love upon the dogs. Stella gave everyone's face a thorough cleaning as the girls squealed and took pictures to send to their friends. They wanted to know Tilly's breed ("dog") and were thrilled that they were both rescues, which led to more doggie kisses. Right in the middle of this dog love fest, a man walked up to all of us and asked for a bit of our time (that's a bad way to start any story). He entered a contest for KMEL106 R&B Radio for their Home Turf competition. He was one of the finalists and if his song wins, they play it on the radio on Friday. He showed me how I could vote on my phone. (Link here. Vote for "Psychosomatic Love" by Alejandro Adam) I hope he wins. He was very earnest.

The dog loving crew continued to thank us for adopting the dogs and letting them shower Tilly and Stella with love after Alejandro walked off.. I assume they were bartenders/waiters at the bar we were standing in front of. "Just so you guys know, this bar is very dog friendly, sometimes we have more dogs than people!" Of course, dog friendly means we can't bring ours near there. Shoot. But the British bartender hugged both of us and there was another round of thank yous.

Lots of hugging and dog love tonight.

Love,
Henna

Donuts, Glitter and Visas, OH MY

MY VISA ARRIVED HOME TODAY. YAY! I'm all ready to go to new places and such. HOORAH.

Today was another day off for me, so I decided to do what my mother has been suggesting. I went to Dynamo Donut & Coffee for fun times! It was an adventure because I took two new buses (24 and 48) and went to a part of town I was ENTIRELY unfamiliar with. Which was pretty cool. I almost walked right past Dynamo... but doubled around quickly when I realized I was leaving fantastic donuts behind me. There were happy birthday signs everywhere! I came on the right day for their 4th anniversary/birthday thingymajigger. I ordered two donuts (Maple-Bacon-Apple and Ginger-Orange) and was pleasantly surprised when the guy gave me an extra (Apricot Cardamom) to celebrate their birthday. He told me I should go enjoy this beautiful day on the patio so I did.

It was absolutely charming on their back porch/patio/garden. And I paced myself, so it wouldn't feel like I ate three donuts by myself (even though I did, but whatever). SO I DECIDED TO BRING MORE DONUTS HOME.
I asked the guy to pick me an assortment of four. He gave me six. I love birthdays. (I also bought Tilly and Stella a doggie donut. OM NOM NOM)

When I came home, we gave the dogs their donut and I walked them down Page until Golden Gate Park. There were SO MANY DOGS. It was kind of annoying because Stella and Tilly do not play well with others. It was an ordeal.

We decided that we needed to get out. Except everywhere fun in San Francisco (apparently) is 21+. Ptthhhhbt. But we got an invite to go play some dominos out in the Richmond District with some of Nate's friends. SO AWAY WE WENT. We stopped to get dinner first at Tia Margarita, which was yummy. Then we walked over to Nate's friend's house. (His name is Nate as well.)

Heidi and I found the best thing ever. Well, things to be precise.

Sitting on the sidewalk were never before worn gold flats. GLITTER. SO MUCH GLITTER. And they were sitting next to a book entitled "The New Feminist Agenda". Score. They were just my size. How freakishly awesome is that?

I suck at Dominos.


TODAAAAY (Saturday) was a slow day. It was very slow. But at least I wore my pretty new shoes. Heidi made risotto (corn, zucchini & asparagus) and I prepared the salad (mango, butter lettuce, radicchio, avocado and cucumber). We watched The Artist. It was absolutely lovely. After, we noshed on the plum-cardamom upside-down cake Heidi made.

A good night.

Love,
Henna

Del Popolo!

PIZZZAAAAA. OM NOMNOMNOMONOM.

Last night, THE AMERICAN had a special event, "Pitchers & Pizzas" with the Del Popolo food truck. It was insane. We were in charge of drinks and the truck was in charge of food. But just to show you how crazy things were. Del Popolo had a line wrapped around the corner for almost the ENTIRE four hours. We sold almost ALL of the beer we had (12 kegs). In four hours. I was manning the inside taps and non-alcoholic beverages. So much beer.

The pizza is fantastic. Eat it up. We finished cleaning up inside the restaurant around 10:30 and Nate and I drove Melanie home to Sunset. Then we got Micky D's. It was surprisingly awesome at 12:30 in the morning.

I woke up late. I was so tired.

Love,
Henna

I'll Dream of You

Heidi and Nate got back all safe and sound last night. I was very worried because I hadn't gotten any texts from them (turns out my phone had been hoarding 30-odd texts and send them tonight). So I was getting a bit worried and decided to stay up, cook dinner, and furiously read my book (1Q84).

I made catfish.

Mmm. Chewy.

Today was a typical day at work. Food. Served it and all that jazz. Until 2:53 (or something)... anyway. Hella close to when we close.

A couple of dudes, older dudes. They ordered their food and the younger dude (still old) told me I was beautiful. Whatever, that's cool and all. He comes in later to bus some cups from his table and called me "a beautiful thing". Ooooh, thank you. I'm a creature now. 

THEN. AND THEN. He brought one last thing in, told me I was so beautiful (third time's the charm, I guess...) and then told me that he'd dream of me. (eyaaaaaaaagh). Then he gave me twenty dollars. "This is just for you sweetheart, for you and your smile."

Well, first thought was ew. But hey, money is money.

Heidi and I ordered take out from the new Chinese place in the Lower Haight, Wonderland. It was some pretty decent food.

And now we're watching True Blood. Hoorah

Love,

Henna