Tuesday, June 5, 2012

a small precursor of bigger changes to come...

 Thursday 5/24/12
the night before "I have a loose tooth!"


Tuesday 6/5/12
moments after "My tooth fell out!"

Sunday, June 3, 2012

The Black and White Ball


 Thank you KDFC, for the free party passes to the San Francisco Symphony's Black and White Ball!  Happy 100 years to them and long live music education in public schools!



What a PARTY it was!

We were starving when we arrived but that was taken care of immediately, as there was copious amounts of food everywhere.  There were booths overflowing with prawns, chow mein, veggies, steak, sausages, pork, sushi, taquitos, dim sum dumplings, you name it.  There was never a wait for drinks, either.

There was a giant mirror ball spinning and lighting up City Hall, the War Memorial Veterans Building and Davies Symphony Hall.


The fashion was fantastic - people were seriously decked out and almost everyone was in black and white.

My favorites were the fabulous identically dressed drag queens
(terribly dark and blurry photos from my phone camera)


this dapper couple
 she made this hat, folks.  The cables of the bridge are beaded.  Unreal.

 There was a man in full kilt,



 there were top hats & gloves, furs & sequins, and an endless parade of impossibly chic cocktail dresses, quirky/fun dressy outfits, and truly remarkable, gorgeous gowns.





 I didn't get nearly enough photos, so I'm going to hunt for some online and try to share them.

The staff were all totally friendly, professional and fun.  These guys hammed it up (pun intended) for this shot:


This Peachy's Puffs gal (who must have been positively freezing!)


casually began explaining the Tragedy of the Commons to me by way of an apology/explanation for not having any more LED flashing jelly rings left.  She said people had begun grabbing fistfuls out of her tray.  Boo hoo.  Sadie and Lilah would have loved those.

Here was a lady I just had to get a photo of:

Check her out in her sparkly top, flashing jelly ring, perusing her smart phone!  Love it.
The mixed demographic of the crowd was one of my favorite aspects of the entire night.  Andrew commented later that he had forgotten what a people-watcher I am.  I seriously could have just wandered around all night telling people how fabulous they looked.  I love doing that.

Maybe I'll do it again someday...

I haven't even mentioned the entertainment.  Excellent!  We wandered around to try to get a sampling of each but didn't hear it all, I don't think.
Here was the line up:
The Wallflowers sounded great, the Bobby Rodriguez Latin Jazz band had people tearing it up,
Janelle Monae & her band were excellent;


 she covered Prince's "Take Me With You" and Charlie Chaplin's iconic "Smile" which was really lovely...

We had to leave before the "Midnight Surprise" (fireworks? confetti cannon?) while the one and only Cyndi Lauper was still performing in order to get home to our sweet 17 year old babysitter (on loan on crazy short notice from my friend Melissa) by 12:30 as promised.  Her father was picking her up - I was not about to be late!

Here are my parting shots.



 If someone had told me when I was 12 that I'd be at a ball in San Francisco near the stroke of midnight wearing a floor length strapless satin dress with my husband listening to her, I would have never believed it...

*sigh*

What a night.