Red Light House

My Uncle Mike is the handiest person in my family. He’s been a contractor, electrician and anything under the sun that involves building things, drilling things or taking things apart. He’s a man’s man and can fix or make just about anything.

He and my Aunt love to garden and landscape their back yard; but above all they are big animal lovers. They have two little black toy poodles that follow them around constantly and will instantly jump up on their laps if they sit down. Uncle Mike looooves his little dogs but he gets totally embarrassed if you notice just how much he loves them. He’ll shoo them off his lap and say, “Damn critters” or something to that effect.

When we got to talking about all their animals and plants and being married to my Aunt (who will be the first to admit she’s a demanding spouse) he said, “Sometimes I lay in bed at night and realize I’m the only thing in that house that isn’t neutered, and so I always sleep with one eye open.”

We stopped over at the Orange Country airport on the way to Texas for turkey day (don’t ask, I bought stupid tickets) and little did we know but there was an honest to god Guitar Hero (two) on the plane with us!

Not only is it funny that he was strutting around with a fake guitar on his back, but it’s hilarious that he didn’t even have it in the case…perhaps to avoid the inevitable question, “Are you REALLY carrying around a video game controller in that case, or are you just a douche?”

Kevin and I were talking today about the plastic bag ban going into effect today in San Francisco. Along with our hopes that it reduces the city’s wasteful ways was an earnest plea that we will see a rebirth of the classic “flaming paper sack of dog shit on the front porch” gag.

It wasn’t a terribly eventful Halloween this year. The city crack-down on Halloween fun and good-natured shootings really put a damper on my spirit. Our new neighborhood isn’t big on trick-or-treating and we only had two kids come to our door. And the only reason they came up was because we just happened to open the door as they were walking by and they looked up at us and said, sweetly, “You got any candy?” We did indeed. Four bags of candy that are currently sitting almost completely full on our coffee table.

The rest of the night was spent in a very civilized manner, eating dinner at the BCs and looking out their window at all the cops walking up and down Market St., keeping the peace. The most terrifying thing that happened all night was when Ian showed up and demonstrated the latest trend in sugar delivery systems:

Though we teased him mercilessly at the time, he’s really showcasing two of the standard methods of the molecular gastronomy movement, using both foam and powder to create a taste explosion like no other. Good work, Ian! You’re ahead of your time, as always!  Picture by Laura.