There are very few times in life when you can see someone's pure, unfettered joy in their face. Saturday was one of those times. We went to the Chinese New Year Symphony and when it began, these lion dancers came down the aisles shaking and dancing and generally being fantastically awesome. Ry turned to look at us several times with a look I wish I had the right words to describe.....awe, wonder, joy, happiness, surprise.....I just wish I had a picture of his face. Si enjoyed it too....but the look on Ry's face was priceless. We also saw Melody of China play with the symphony and they totally rocked! In a strictly far east sort of way, of course. I highly recommend seeing them if you get the opportunity.

Feast your eyes on this Cupcake Courier. This product is on the top of my wishlist. Another great invention by a mom. Not only can you take 36 cupcakes in this thing, but you can also remove the trays and take a cake. I finally got a round cake transporter a couple of years ago, but have been longing for something that would transport cupcakes. This was fueled by discovering the Cupcake Blog a year or two ago when the Chronicle published some recipes from the blog. It's amazing how on fire cupcakes have been for the past couple of years. Another cool website is Cupcakes take the Cake which bills itself as "all cupcakes all the time" and it really holds true. At Bay Street in Emeryville, the Teacake Bake Shop opened last year and, while they sell cookies as well, it's their cupcakes that stand out and they seem to do a really good business. And San Francisco has countless cupcake venues, including Kara’s Cupcakes and Citizen Cupcake.

I took these photos today on the Filbert steps. If you have not yet seen The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill, you really must. It is a wonderful documentary about these beautiful birds living in this lovely neighborhood. We went to see the Amgen Tour of California bike race prologue. We BART'd to the Embarcadero, wandered through the booths set up at Justin Herman Plaza, watched a little BMX bike demonstration, then walked to Coit Tower via the Filbert steps. In case you were wondering, the steps were MY ultimate destination, but the rest of the family also wanted to see Levi Leipheimer and George Hincapie do this 5-ish minute uphill time trial. So we did that, but we also got to hang around for the birds. The documentary watches them hang out in trees at the Greenwich steps one block over, but the whole area is their playground. Si and I snuck down from Coit Tower a little early to watch them some more, but just as we were getting some good photos, Si spotted a hawk right about the same time the parrots did, and boy did they scatter. Mr. Hawk decided to stick around awhile, so that was the end of our parrot-watching for the day.

If you're interested in going to see the parrots, plan to spend some time just chillin' and waiting around. If you're interested in going to the Amgen Tour, on Monday it goes from Sausalito to Santa Rosa, Tuesday Santa Rosa to Sacramento, and Wednesday Stockton to San Jose. Then it moves on to central and southern California.

I've decided to provide a public service announcement for an event even though I'm not entirely convinced it's something I want to participate in. This event is a fundraiser for the United Way's campaign to increase funding for their 211 services. If you don't know what 211 is, you should. It's a service much like 911, but you dial it to get information and access to community (social) services in your area. It's a subject that is near and dear to my heart, and I think it's an extremely valuable tool for everyone....especially those who have never accessed community services before. In the bay area, it's presently only available in San Francisco, and they're raising money to expand to the rest of the bay area. 211 currently exists in parts of 41 states, serving 196 million people - over 65% of the US population.


Okay, so the issue is the event - it's called Hands Across the Bridge and the idea is that 3,000 people get the opportunity to pay a fee to hold hands across the bridge on April 22. The bridge will not be closed for traffic, so the event will take place on the west sidewalk. There will also be a Community Festival at Crissy Field immediately afterward, and I do have to say that we always enjoy spending time there ever since it was completely redone. Here's my issue - do I really want to pay to stand with 3,000 people on the bridge? What if I just give them the equivalent fee and go stand on the bridge with the family some other time when there's not so many people? But will that take away from teaching Ry and Si about sense of community....doing something for the greater good in a communal atmosphere, something bigger than themselves? And gee, might it actually be fun? Scott went to the 50th Anniversary of the bridge and said it was a nightmare......4 hours to get from one side to the other.....they had actually closed the thing down so anyone who could get on the bridge did - all 250,000 of them. This will definitely be more manageable than that was, but still....3,000 people? I'm completely torn. If anyone has any thoughts, now would be the time to share. It's never too late to start posting comments, you know......

Check out this beautiful children's bedding. You can find it at KuKunest which is a new bedding line introduced by two local women......one of whom I actually know. For the month of February, if you enter BPN25 at checkout, you can get a $25 discount. Si and Ry would love any of their beautiful patterns, in case there are any gift-giving patrons looking for ideas out there. There's really nothing I like better than high-quality bedding......if I could I would dress my bed differently each day. Fortunately, twin bedding is much more affordable than California King bedding, so I guess my children get to reap the benefits of my bedding desires. And don't even get me started on thread-count. My dream is to reach a 600-threadcount, although I know that one could go higher.....or how about some Frette linens which start around $200 for a single sheet? Ah well, I digress.....back to the practical world.....

I've been racking my brain on how to have some kind of easy access for my necklaces. I've looked in catalogues, stores, online.......but those of you who know me know that I would prefer to repurpose something! So I finally found it. This is formerly a photo holder from Pottery Barn. It had four 4x6 photos in glass, but one of the glass parts broke and then it just looked kind of funny. I could never quite throw it away because I knew I would eventually think of something. It works very nicely for lots of jewelry baubles and bits, and I added some hanging clips that I had leftover from Ikea. Nothing revolutionary here, just satisfaction in not buying something new....Reduce, Reuse, Recycle!