Weekends: Balance

This weekend was pretty ideal! I started Friday night with the black tie dinner for the Bay Area Tumor Institute. It was held at the Ritz-Carlton ballroom, so fancy.  A very elegant affair with my company's table easily coming in at 40 years below the average guest age.

I love award ceremonies in all forms. This one combined excellent food, live music, dancing, speeches and really pretty flowers:

Our group walked up the hill to the Tonga Room at the Fairmont Hotel after the dinner ended. This famous (infamous?) tiki bar is centered around the hotel's former swimming pool, barely disguised as a "lagoon" complete with tropical rain storms and a band floating on a tiny raft. It's pure camp and classic San Francisco.  Cab home at midnight.

It was cold and rainy on Saturday morning - perfect for a very lazy day. I really needed to take a "sick day" after the busy-ness of last weekend and a tough week at work.  Breakfast in pajamas, lunch at the neighborhood sushi restaurant with Rob. I proceeded to nothing but nap, watch episodes of Cheers on demand and have a hot bath while he ventured out in the afternoon for some mountain biking - and came home caked in mud from head to toe:

Casual home cooked dinner. My favorite broccoli pasta:

At 9:30, we took a taxi over to the inner richmond for a friend's birthday party. The bar, Buckshot, was a far cry from the Ritz. It's full of arcade games and taxidermy animal heads!  Cheap drinks and good conversation around a picnic table:

Slept in a bit on Sunday morning. Rob brought me the paper, tea and cereal in bed - my favorite!  Determined to not have another very lazy day - Rob and I drove across town for a hike on Mt. Davidson.  It was a lovely, moorish hike in the heavy mist and fog, surrounded by wildflowers and ferns:

We explored all the tiny trails and muddy hills for a couple hours. Amazing that this is right inside the city!

Back at home, I made a pot of pozole chili for the busy week ahead.

In the late afternoon, Rob and I took the car over to Seth and Amy's house for Sunday supper.  Hung out with their girls and enjoyed a delicious meal of steak, brussels sprouts and quinoa. Their two year old adorably thinks that my name is "Robinemly" since we're always referred to together.  We ended the evening with the world's most amazing pie:

It may look a little rough, but the country peach and berry pie with creme fraiche from Chile Pies blew our minds. We couldn't help ourselves and ate the whole thing! Back home in the rain.