The "Lizzie Is An Adult" Holiday Wishlist

I had a conversation with my coworkers over lunch the other day about holiday wishlists, and what their kids are asking for, and what’s at the top of their lists these days. It got me thinking about what I wanted this year - I can’t believe Christmas is only a little over a month away, YIKES - and what I’ll be gifting…funny how the list shaped up very differently than this one from a few years back! (Also funny how I wanted silly things like Urban Meyer as ND’s football coach LOL LOL.)

This year, I’m gifting very practical things to the vast majority of people on my list…I think it’s very telling of my current state of exhaustion and the intensity of my caffeine addiction that the first thing I purchased was coffee mugs for my bosses/teams. I’m a huge fan of Anthropologie’s monogrammed collections, and they were a perfect purchase at 20% off this weekend (my favorite new offering is this Margot mug, which reminds me of the Paris Métro!). For work, I’ll stuff them with homemade peppermint bark, wrapped up prettily in cellophane with a bow. Couldn’t be easier!

My friends and family will be receiving a much more festive and fun assortment of gifts - my favorite thing to do is to pull together sentimental little items, either inside jokes or things I’ve noted they want over the course of the year. I think it’s always nicest when you know someone has put thought into what to get you and why, versus just buying something trendy and/or expensive. Of course, details on gifts for my loved ones can’t be revealed here - suffice it to say I’m GREAT at presents.

As for what I’d like to see under the tree, any of these would suit just fine in a perfect and pragmatic world:

• A really nice vacuum - we still haven’t purchased one and I’ve been making do with our Dust Buster hahahaha someone save me from myself PLEASE.

• A Coravin - I’m the only wine drinker in our little apartment of two, and I certainly can’t - er, shouldn’t - drink a whole bottle by myself every time I open wine. That said, a lot of my wine is high-end or rare, and I don’t want to run the risk of letting it spoil before I can enjoy it! A Coravin would be the perfect solution - a single serving of wine, without having to even remove the cork? Genius.

• A car wash and detail package - I’m very bad about keeping my car clean and have a horrid tendency to track in mess, and I would love to have an excuse to regularly go to the fancy car wash and have it hand-washed.

• New Clarisonic brush heads - for my annoyingly combination skin - and an electric toothbrush - because I’m very jealous of Dave’s.

• Pyrex glass food storage - we’ve been discussing wanting a set for months and have yet to pull the trigger, surviving instead on our mismatched and past-their-prime Tupperware.

• A ClassPass membership - 2019 WILL be the year that I actually commit to trying fitness studios in the Bay Area outside my Stanford-sponsored classes!

• A Kindle - I’m noticing my eyesight getting worse (must get to the opthalmologist) and attribute it to lots of time spent reading on my iPhone. Would love to see if Kindles are worth the hype.

• Pottery Barn’s ultra-cushy rug pad - we need one for under our living room rug, which wrinkles terribly without one.

• Starbucks/Philz gift cards and/or Nespresso cups - like I said, the caffeine dependency is ramping back up to its peak levels circa EY 2013.

And just because not EVERYTHING can be practical and utilitarian and utterly grown-up, I would legitimately die and go to heaven if someone bought me these:

HI. DEAD.

Happy almost-holidays loves!

Tuesday potpourri

I had the best intentions of having my shit really together this week, and failed utterly per usual. Starting to think adulthood is just going to perpetually be a to-do list with lingering items and hanging chads and endless reminders of the fact that I am a ridiculously ineffective person sometimes. Anyway, “BLOG!!!!!” (five exclamation points and all) has been hanging out on the list since the beginning of the month, and it’s the 13th, so hi MID-NOVEMBER. Here we go:

• First and foremost, guys, the NorCal (and SoCal) wildfires are horrifying and terrible. I woke up on Friday convinced Dave had burned something in our apartment (at 5am, clearly very much a functional morning person). I was devastated to hop online and see the news, let alone the thick smoke haze covering my South Peninsula suburb, over 150 miles from the fires themselves. Our air quality is terrible - I’ve been waking up with nosebleeds, itchy eyes, and a sore throat daily - and I can’t begin to imagine how awful it must be closer to the fires, let alone for the families that have lost homes, possessions and loved ones this close to the holiday season. If you’re feeling generous this Thanksgiving, the New York Times has a great list of resources on how to help victims - I’m partial to the Red Cross and United Way, personally.

• Fortunately, and on a much lighter note, I escaped to the mountains last weekend for a quick little getaway and missed a few days of smoke. While out of town, I discovered a ridiculous beer cocktail consisting of half dunkel, half milkshake IPA - the roastiness of a stout combined with the fruitiness and resin of an IPA was delightful. I also fell in love with a new bookstore, where I picked up “Cork Dork” by Bianca Bosker and bought Dave an ever-so-adult gift of “The Dogist: Puppies” - a must-own for those of us dying to get a pup (just me? No?)

• I leave for Italy on FRIDAY and am completely mind-fucked as to how this trip is already here. Badly need to figure out what I’m bringing, pack, and coordinate all the random logistical things I’ve left to the last minute, eek. Work’s a nuthouse this week and the light at the end of the tunnel is that in just three more workdays and 24 hours of travel, I’ve got pasta, gelato, espresso and wine for ten straight days to look forward to!

• In very exciting personal news, I was accepted to a finance program at Stanford that I applied to and thought I had zero shot of getting into, and I’m over the moon. The program kicks off in December and runs for eight months, and I already know it’s going to kick my ass in the best of ways. Looking forward to a major challenge and to diving deeper into this crazy institution I now not only get to work for, but study at - what a privilege!

• Per Facebook Memories (which I use to delete all the old bs I spewed all over FB as a youth, oh god), today marks the five-year anniversary of my last day at EY. I was ruminating a bit on my time there last weekend in conversation, and it’s crazy to take a step back, look at where I am now and think about how far I’ve come since that day. To this day, leaving remains one of the best decisions I’ve ever made, and especially in light of my acceptance to that program, it’s incredibly vindicating to see that I’ve succeeded way beyond what I had imagined as that stressed, angsty, audit-hating 24-year old.

• Finally, Dave and I watched the first Netflix/Hallmark Christmas movie of the season last night - “A Christmas With A View,” and it was abysmally bad and cheesy in all the best ways. Paired with a pine tree candle, it’s beginning to feel a lot like Christmas in our little apartment - plus, I’m thinking a roundup of our holiday movie-heckling extravaganza is going to have to happen in a few weeks here.

Happy Tuesday friends, have a fantastic day!

Fleet Week 2018

A slew of photos from one of my all-time favorite days I’ve had since moving here - my friend Kevin and I attended the Fleet Week Air Show a few Saturdays ago and it was outrageous!

San Francisco Fleet Week is an Event with a capital E, guys. Millions of people flood the cities - bars and restaurants and streets are filled with men in naval uniforms, there are countless parties and festivals, and it’s all capped off with a full weekend of air shows featuring the Blue Angels as the marquee performers. As I love few things more than parties, men in uniform, and unbelievable feats of daring aviation, this was right up my alley.

Kevin staked out a flawless viewing spot for us at the St. Francis Yacht Club’s beach…

Campers, I knew the minute we got there that this was going to be an outstanding day. I still get touristy shivers every time I see/cross the Golden Gate - it’s one of those things that I don’t think will ever cease to trigger wonder that I actually live here. I’ve spent fairly little time by the Bay, so sitting on the seawall watching kids and dogs play in the water, Alcatraz to my right, the skyline behind me and the Golden Gate looming on my left felt almost fairy tale-like.

We staked our spots out around noon, and the show started shortly after with trick flying by old planes, a “sky parade” of old WWII planes, a Coast Guard helicopter water rescue demonstration, and a super-low fly-by of a United 747 - they sponsor the air show, and were sure to get their bang for their buck! I felt like a kid in a candy store watching - the Bay at my feet, the sky as blue and fog-free as I’ve ever seen it here, kids and dogs all over the place…it was pretty heavenly.

Kevin, and Charlie and Tessa once they arrived, had a blast making fun of my excitement over the trick flyers. The pilot would kill the engine and death-spiral down toward the bay, so low that it looked inevitable that he’d hit the water, then pull up in a near-vertical rise. I clapped like a kid every time he’d reverse the fall - the novelty truly never wore off for me.

After several hours, it was finally time for the main event - the US Navy Blue Angels!

Guys, words and still images can’t do justice to how insanely cool it was to be where we were for this portion of the show. The six-man squadron looped the Golden Gate, spiraled all over the bay, and seemed sometimes to come truly out of nowhere. Every time they split up and went their separate ways for stunts, our crew would nearly dislocate our necks swiveling around and trying to spot them, yelling “THERE! Over there!” every time we saw a plane, or two, or four coming back over the ridge or around the coast.

The skytrail heart was one of my favorites…

As was this completely over-the-top (pun definitely intended) stunt - the photos don’t capture just how high they actually soared before flipping over, or the unfathomable synchronicity of the five planes. It truly boggles my mind, even now, to think about the precision, timing and sheer familiarity with each other these pilots must have mastered to be able to do this - in planes that are so high-octane that we had to hold onto the seawall to stand up straight as they buzzed our spot from a mere 100 yards overhead.

Their 45-minute show seemed like it went by in the blink of an eye - by the time it ended, I was hoarse from yelling, teary-eyed from staring straight up into a sunlit sky, and absolutely fried on the random patches I’d missed with sunscreen. It was beyond worth it - truly one of the most memorable experiences I’ve ever had in San Francisco, and one I’ll be repeating with just as much juvenile enthusiasm every year for as long as I live here!

Bookworm: September/October 2018

"Books, the good ones, the ones you hold on to and come back to, they never disappoint. They're the best kind of escape because, instead of leading you away from yourself, they end up circling you back to yourself, nice and easy, helping you see things not just as they are, but as you are too." - Sally Franson

Loved:

Everyone Brave is Forgiven, Chris Cleave: I first read Chris Cleave nearly a decade ago when I studied in London, and I remember being stricken to the core by the brutality and beauty with which he wrote. This latest offering is no exception - a gut-wrenchingly lovely, painful, breath-stealing World War II love/friendship/hate/endurance story that I could not put down, even through the haze of NyQuil. Absolutely gorgeous, a true must-read for anyone who appreciates being simultaneously warmed and burned by literature.

Dear Evan Hansen: The Novel, Val Emmich: Oh my god they turned one of my favorite musicals into a novel, and I adored it. Honestly, this isn’t writing that’s going to set the world on fire or win a Pulitzer - I loved it moreso for the expansion of the characters’ backstories, for the glimpses into the motivations, causes and effects that just can’t be illustrated in a musical. Definitely recommend for fans of the musical, for young adults, for anyone really. (Bonus: it’s an incredibly fast read - at under 300 pages, I finished it in about 3 hours with breaks!)

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, Taylor Jenkins Reid: This was SUCH a charming read - mashing up aspects of Marilyn Monroe’s film career and Liz Taylor’s myriad marriages, this story of Hollywood’s golden age and a movie star who played the game better than anyone was a quick, unique and delightful read.

Enjoyed:

To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before, Jenny Han: I had to read it after the Netflix movie-fication became the breakout hit of August. It was charming, sweet, undemanding young-adult chick lit, with a good female role model and well-drawn love interests and supporting characters. Sweet.

P.S. I Still Love You, Jenny Han: Who knew this was a trilogy? Pretty much more of the same - I would have loved this series a decade-plus ago.

Always and Forever, Lara Jean, Jenny Han: In which our characters finish senior year and prepare to go to college. Again - written SO for teenage Lizzie it’s not even funny.

Three Wishes, Liane Moriarty: I’ve always been a fan of Liane Moriarty’s particular universe of writing - it’s different and interesting while simultaneously unchallenging and quirky and kind of escapist good fun. This offering wasn’t my favorite of hers, but I enjoyed the story of three adult triplets seeking their own identities while dealing with myriad personal and familial demands and complications.

Wideacre, Philippa Gregory: A sort of Georgian horror/mystery/murder/insanity novel chronicling the lengths to which a young gentlewoman will go in order to inherit/keep her family’s estate. Lots of grisly incest-y murdery darkness - it fucked with my head quite intensely and I can’t say I loved it.

The Favored Child, Philippa Gregory: The next generation of the Wideacre story - again, more incest, murder, insanity, screwiness. A good suspenseful read, but it really messed with me.

Meridon, Philippa Gregory: I preferred this to the first two installments of the Wideacre trilogy - the third generation, and the only one with a happy ending.

A Simple Favor, Darcey Bell: I read this because I haven’t yet managed to see the Blake Lively-Anna Kendrick moviefication of the book, and it was DARK, campers. Twisty and rife with plot points I didn’t see coming, and yet at the same time, somehow not actually that well-written. I feel like it was kind of a cheap rip-off of “Gone Girl” and its ilk…hmm.

Tolerated:

The Confession of Katherine Howard, Suzannah Dunn: Eh - this was terribly insipid. I read it in the thick of my Tudor phase, and it hammered home how much more masterful Tudor experts like Philippa Gregory, Jean Plaidy, and Hilary Mantel are at painting a vivid (albeit slightly historically inaccurate) world.

Re-reads:

After my little delve into the world of well-written YA literature, I revisited a favorite YA writer, Emery Lord, who I’ve followed for nearly a decade (she used to write on a blog I read, and was one of the few original and lovely voices there). Her books are just beautiful YA lit - complex characters, unafraid to tackle weightier issues, and deeply textured and specific and place-aware, if that makes sense.

Open Road Summer, Emery Lord: Two best friends on a concert tour deal with their demons.

The Start of Me and You, Emery Lord: A junior in high school works her way back to being okay after her boyfriend’s death.

When We Collided, Emery Lord: Bipolar disorder and depression in a coastal town in Northern California - beautifully handed.

The Names They Gave Us, Emery Lord: Crises of faith and stage 4 cancer. I’m aware I’m making these books sound really uplifting, but I think that’s one of the really great things about YA lit - when it can take things that teenagers actually do face and deal with, and make them both relatable and…tolerably packaged? I always really did well when books captured and distilled a particular intersection of my angst and inability to express myself, essentially doing that work for me. I think Emery Lord is a master (mistress) of that and that’s why I would recommend her highly, whether you’re a young-adult reader or not.

I also continued on my binge of Philippa Gregory in chronological historical order and finished out:

The Boleyn Inheritance: Anne of Cleves, Catherine Howard, and nasty Jane Boleyn - one of my favorites.

The Taming of the Queen: Katherine Parr, and another of my favorites.

The Queen’s Fool: Judaism, the reign of Mary I, and the loss of Calais.

The Virgin’s Lover: the early years of Elizabeth I’s reign, very Robert Dudley-heavy.

The Last Tudor: Eh, I re-read it to complete the cycle and regret that - this story of the three Grey sisters is just as insipid the second time around.