Here comes the champagne

(Bess Arnaud Young - soon to be B.A. Friday)

There’s nothing better than finding out one of your dearest friends is going to be married; married to the right guy.

(Bess and I a few years back, after we were college roommates at Pepperdine)

Of course I had to see her, so I joined a few girlfriends this weekend in San Francisco to hug her and celebrate, which we did with gusto, and with more than one glass in hand :

(Stephanie & Kelia lounging at Chateau St. Jean, 2010)

a champagne flute to toast, a mug of dark coffee from her corner roaster, more than one cocktail glass, and a plastic wine glass in Napa:

(Bess pouring a fabulous Syrah from Chateau St. Jean, 2010)

Her fiancée, the talented Peter Friday, set up a family game of Corn Hole, and we spent the afternoon training for the next summer Olympics.

(Corn bags: so close, 2010)

The best friends are ones who don’t require a plan or activity; in fact, you would rather plan nothing to make as much space as possible to talk about each others lives. However, those friends tend to be explorers; they reach for life like a drunkards for a bottle of Jack, and you typically find yourself exploring electrifying nether-regions of the world together.

(Napa Valley, 2010)

Together, you breath loudly at yoga:

(Bess and her yoga studio, 2010)

You pile pulled pork onto your plate at a place called “The Bounty Hunter,”

(Photo compliments of this blogger)

You sample James Beard Award Winning grugeres at not-so-quaint bakeries,

You find yourself in old 1910 saloons with bowls of Green Chartruese punch,

(At the Barrelhouse, 2010)

You notice water droplets on the faucet,

(Rain on the roof of the B.A.Y. flat, 2010)

And you get to share an umbrella with the bride-to-be.

(Bess, Blake, Kelia, Stephanie, 2010)

A Good Man...

You know you’ve married a great man when he takes you on dates to Earthwise and the Restore, actually makes stuff out of potential you find there. A man like this has no reason to desperately resort to bad milk chocolate and roses on Valentine's Day.

Earthwise and the Restore: these two places are like monasteries. They are sacred, religious places in Seattle because of their eco-responsibility. I, however, like a pilgrim, journey there to be revived and inspired; to rest on one of the pews for sale...wishing I had more than 425 square feet so this could be part of my dining room...

(Fir bench, Earthwise, 2010)

In these cloisters search our souls; we find broken and discarded leftovers of the world, the hidden beauties, the one-of-a-kind design. Each piece has a powerful story to tell, and with a little imagination can become new again.

We have pulled butcher-block kitchen islands, blown glass lamps, tables, and art out of what we've found there.

This is a lamp in my window cut from a forgotten jar:

This is a coffee table The Non-Scotsman restored from a discarded factory cart left in the basement of a building by the Alaska Way Viaduct: we have seen them sold for 10x what we paid)...

(Factory Cart coffee table, 2009)

(Beautiful details)

This discarded mailbox is happily hanging in our entry-way:

These are two tall tabletops in Epulo Bistro that we built out of massive discarded doors (I apologize that this photo is difficult to see):

(Epulo Bistro, 2009)