Christmastime in the City

My brother got married on Christmas Eve in the beautiful old Westin St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco.

View of Union Square from our digs with the Powell Cable Car decked out in holiday finery passing by:

The Chairman Suite was a beautiful venue, but needed some prep work the day before the wedding.

Patrick (good friend of the bride and groom, also serving as their fabulous wedding officiant) and Steve marvel at the wonders of the secret room behind the paneling.

Everybody bustles about preparing decorations and lighting while I make sure the doughnut holes stay contained:

Jim, Patrick and I (standing in for Brooke) hold our places for the lighting check:

Finding two of the halogen pot lights too distractingly bright, my brother and father attempt to remove the bulbs using forks while balancing on top of chairs (to the horror of my husband, the safety professional):

Thankfully Brooke stepped in called maintenance to get them removed before anyone got injured or irreversibly damaged hotel property.

Stage now set for the wedding, Steve and I head out for the rehearsal dinner:

Christmas Eve arrived, the stage was set, and we were all dressed in our wedding finery. Once official photos arrive, I'll post more, but following are a few that we had on assorted cell phones.

Me and Steve beside the "fireplace" in front of one of Brooke's elaborate flower arrangements:

Me and the groom, also known as my little brother:

 

The wedding was lovely, but we were busy and didn't have our phones out, so you all will have to wait for the official pictures from the wedding photographer to see anything more.

After the wedding, my family stayed overnight in the hotel and opened presents in the room that had just the previous night hosted the grand event.

Brooke and Jim had been working on a gift for me for months and were anxious to see me open it. The anticipation was starting to get to me:

The surprise was delightful:

Star Wars terrariums!

They are beautifully detailed and the picture does not do them justice. Simply fabulous. 

Everybody looks as excited as I am about the awesomeness: 

I hope all of you had a wonderful Christmas!

Christmas Prep

The first Christmas cookies of the season ("ugly sweater" cookies which we decorated with my brother and Brooke on Thanksgiving):

Mine was supposed to be a flamingo with a hat. I couldn't quite get the proportions right (I'm not especially gifted with icing) so I'm gonna say it's a fat, red, Christmas duck. Sure, why not?

Christmas must be close at hand, as my family's traditional spritz cookies have also appeared.

Sprinkles go on the trees:

Finished cookie plate for the in-laws (with camels!):

On my request, Steve wandered all over a local tree farm with me to find our perfect tannenbaum.

Definitely a farm with a view:

Steve's phone says that we walked three miles before settling on...

... the first tree that I liked, which we spotted about five minutes after arrival. I promised Steve that next year we could limit our tree search to a smaller geographic area. Fortunately, he's a good sport.

Tree decorated and lit (accompanying penguin carolers my brother gave me on top of the secretary desk):

More decorations:

A sample of my micro-decorating, the golden armadillo dons a fur hat and stole (as one does), wire tree is decorated with tiny antique ornaments from my grandparents:

Traditional festive cardboard safari:

Not even R2 is safe from decorations:

Ah, Thanksgiving...

... the holiday on which I give thanks that my husband is an ambitious and talented cook, allowing me to do tasks commensurate with my skill, namely fetching measuring spoons from the drawer and ingredients from the fridge. 

Steve forms the pie crust:

This year Steve made a silk chocolate icebox pie. It's fairly elaborate. Here Steve improvises a double-boiler while whipping the egg mixture (into which chocolate and whipped cream are later added):

The beautiful, rich chocolate fudge-like result (leftovers being enjoyed by me back at home after Thanksgiving):

My brother and soon to be sister-in-law Brooke hosted us in their home for Thanksgiving this year. Brooke set an absolutely beautiful table and made a fantastic meal, none of which I managed to take a picture of. Oh well. Steve took some pictures later in the evening, at least.

The family that puzzles together:

Dad, Jim and Mom work on a puzzle, while we all assist Brooke with her crosswords... well, "assist" is perhaps too generous a word for our contributions but, hey, we tried.

My brother is a dork but I love him anyway:

Halloween 2015

Happy Halloween from the Santa Cruz Loveridges! This year we're going as...

... an old married couple that unintentionally dresses alike. 

My mother made fabulous costumes for me and my brother when we were kids, but somehow I never quite caught the costuming bug. I do, however, love to decorate. Some of my handiwork this year...

Overview of the kitchen decor:

Closeup of table decorations:

If you can't read them, the little tombstones say "Ben Better 1810-1900," "Here lies an atheist. All dressed up and no place to go," and "Here lies Myra Mains." I should also note that I stole all of those from other sources; I'm not that clever.

Skeletons lurking among my grandmother's (now my) pitcher collection:

Skeletons take over the fruit baskets:

On to the living room, bat lamp pull and dragon claws on the side table:

Giant spiders drape over the lamp and TV, stuffed bats perch in chairs, candles light a trio of black mouse votives and a ceramic pumpkin (which belonged to my grandparents), the glitter ghost glows in the gargoyle corner:

Closer view of entertainment center:

Skeletons on the porch under the pumpkin lights:

The one on the left's speech bubble says "You know, I don't let my injury hold me back. My potential really is limbitless."

I had a bit of fun with our skeletons this year, since they were sitting in the living room until it was time for them to go out on to the porch this evening. In an attempt to amuse Steve, I made new conversations for them every afternoon before he got home from work. I wasn't going to post them (since they're so silly) but Steve said I should, so here goes...

Last year, Steve accidentally broke off one of the skeleton's arms while posing him a tad too assertively, so many of the "conversations" revolved around the skeleton's injury.

"I ulna wanna be with you!"

I've named the skeleton on the left (with the detached limb) Gary and the skeleton on the right Merv. I figured posting pictures of all of their exchanges would get tedious, so here's what they looked like:

and here's what they said:

Day 1
Merv: "What happened to your arm?!"
Gary: "Well, after the guy grabbed me, I demanded that he unhand me and... well..."

Day 2
Merv: "So, you know, I consider myself a pacifist..."
Gary: "Me too! I'm way into disarmament."
Merv: "That's not funny, Gary."

Day 3
Gary: "So why didn't you ask her out?"
Merv: "I dunno, guess I didn't have the guts."

Day 4
Gary: "... so now I'm banned from Costco."
Merv: "What did you expect? You can't go around throwing your arm down on the counter and requesting a 'five finger discount'. It's rude."

Day 5
Gary: "What did the five fingers say to the face?"
Merv: "I'm not answering that, Gary."

(that last one's a Chappelle's Show reference, for those of my blog audience who aren't familiar)

Now, I know you're all thinking it, isn't Steve lucky to have such a funny (and beautiful and talented and so on and so forth) wife?

Yeah, I know I'm fortunate he tolerates me.

Fangirling

My favorite thing in the world is that exhilarating feeling of learning something (anything) new. As such, I watch a lot of random documentaries and click on any article I come across online that hints at the promise of novel information. It was this somewhat random casting about that, several years ago, led me to Ask a Mortician on YouTube. 

Said mortician, Caitlin Doughty, is a joy to watch and imparted some fascinating insights into the "death industry." I enjoyed learning from her so much that when her book, Smoke Gets In Your Eyes (& Other Lessons from the Crematory), came out last year, I went down to my local bookstore to pick it up and devoured it in one afternoon. I'm appreciative of her advocacy for the best possible death practices and her passion for educating the public about the death, burial and funeral processes. To sum up, I'm a huge fan. 

When I heard on the radio that the same local bookshop from which I had purchased her book last year was hosting her for a talk and signing session, I was excited to go. She gave a really lovely talk and answered people's questions for almost an hour (and probably would have continued had the bookstore employees not had a schedule to keep). Then it was time to get my book signed. 

Steve, with whom I had shared my favorite excerpts from the book as well as some of the YouTube videos, accompanied me and encouraged me to get a picture with the author. So, here I am, looking thoroughly embarrassed...

 ... because a few seconds before that picture was taken, I approached her table and, shyness and excitement simultaneously overcoming me, blurted out "I love everything you do!" And then I turned bright red. She was completely lovely to my dorky self and even wrote this in my book:

She even drew me a custom "Lisa" skull (the glasses are how you know it's me :-). 

She told the nice-sized crowd at her talk that she's working on another book, which I eagerly await. I'm grateful for her stories and the wonderful way she tells them, and I wish her all continued success. If only I could have said that. Oh well. 

An Aquarium Outing

Today my parents' California coastal cruise anchored in Monterey Bay. Audit season is really starting to rev up, which meant I was more than happy to take the day off, grab Steve and head out to meet my folks at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. 

I attempt to bond with the cuttlefish:

Cuttlefish are amazing creatures. They're clever and their camouflage skills are incredible. Really fascinating little guys. 

My mom and I wait for the penguin feeding show:  

(yay, penguins!)

Astounding population of 20,000 sardines fan out to catch every last food pellet during their feeding show:

Now time for the human feeding show...

I have designs on this insane "campfire cake" (toasted marshmallow fluff perched precariously atop chocolate cake):

This next picture cracked Steve up, so I'm including it. I appear to be reacting quite dramatically to the cake:

It was a lovely day outing. Certainly beats being at work.