Tucked in amidst the medical buildings on Pill Hill in the KoreaTown-Northgate District, Oasis Food Market opened earlier this fall as a combination restaurant/grocery store. I’d had my eye on it for months since I frequently catch the 1R bus across the street and had been admiring the beautiful tilework they were restoring on their building—but little did I know what was in store for me once they finally opened!

Oasis is divided into two halves: restaurant on one side, grocery on the other. It’s worth noting that the grocery is remarkably complete—they carry a nice selection of produce, all sorts of Middle Eastern and British specialties (canned, boxed, prepared, and frozen), and organic coffee beans. There’s even a halal meat counter hidden way in the back. This is important since they’re open until 10 pm, providing a nice late-night alternative to Whole Foods and the 24-hour Safeway. There’s also an impressive selection of Middle Eastern spices.

But what you really want to head to Oasis for is the Middle Eastern/Mediterranean restaurant that occupies the other half of the (huge!) storefront. First, there’s the deli counter, lined above and below with fresh Middle Eastern breads. You can get all sorts of spreads, salads, and other goodness here (including, of course, hummus and baba ghanoush—very reasonably priced!) The last time we visited, they had started to label the dishes, which is good since one of the major challenges is figuring out what each dish is. But all of them are tasty, and there’s a huge selection of fetas and other cheeses to go alongside. The house-made pita bread is excellent, as are the stuffed breads. The Afghan bread also looks like it has a lot of potential, though I have yet to try it.

Then there are the sandwiches. From the street, you can see the lamb and chicken shawarma roasting on spits, and both are good, though I thought the lamb was a notch above. We’ve tried them both as wraps (my pick) and as a plate with rice and salad. The falafel offers a good option for vegetarians (or for anybody who appreciates a good falafel sandwich!) The lines can sometimes be long—the neighborhood has definitely discovered this spot!—but it’s well worth the wait. There are still a few holes to fill—the coffee bar (or what looks like it will be the coffee bar?) isn’t quite set up yet, and the staff are still getting into the swing of things as they get through opening kinks like what to do when the restaurant’s credit card machine goes down and takes the grocery store’s computer system with it. But all of that will sort itself out in time, and the staff are good-natured and patient. (They’re also very willing to help; on one visit, the owner wanted to know what else he could stock for someone, even with the impressive array they already have!)  It’s a great addition to the neighborhood, and will definitely have us heading over to that stretch of Telegraph a lot more often.

Grade: A−
Cost: $

This is a long overdue review, since it’s been close to six weeks since we had a terrific dinner at Bocanova, one of the newest spots in Jack London Square. But I finally have a little time to write today, so here’s a quick rundown.

Bocanova had been on our list to try ever since the Eat Real Festival, when I poked my head into their almost-open space and was excited to see what they’d have to offer. D. also liked the idea that it had a tapas-ish menu with a lot of Spanish/Latin inspiration. We finally made it there in mid-October when we headed to Jack London Square for dinner and a movie—the perfect combination.

I knew it was promising when D. took a look at the menu and announced that he wanted “pretty much everything.” After a little debate, we settled on an avocado, endive, and heart of palm salad; fried yuca; smashed roasted beets;  and the day’s special, mahi mahi crusted in roasted plaintains. (I was also supposed to order the fried padrone peppers, but forgot; they’re on the list for our next visit.) For the most part, we enjoyed everything we tried; the salad was the one weak point since it was mostly endive (normally that wouldn’t be something to complain about, but we wanted a bit more balance!) The yuca, which had been a spur-of-the-moment order because it’s one of my favorite foods, was terrific, as was the fish special. I liked the beets, though they were less up D.’s alley; in retrospect we would have swapped them out for something a little less starchy, though. We rounded out the meal with a Bocanova Manhattan, which was excellent (and even prompted the people at the next table to lean over and ask, “What is that? It looks amazing!”), and a Drake’s IPA for D.

While we didn’t get to sample a huge chunk of the menu (which has a sea of small dishes to choose from), the ones we did try got points for being creative (in the case of the fish and the salad) and just plain old well-prepared (in the case of the yuca, which was prepared in a pretty traditional style, but was fried to perfection—soft and moist inside, crispy outside, with just the right amount of sauce). I was sorry to see that the mahi mahi wasn’t on the regular menu, so we may not have another chance to try it—ah, well, more room to taste something else!

For dessert, we tried another daily special: tiny doughnuts with pumpkin cream filling. These were excellent—D. rated them as “not quite as good as Marzano’s” (our gold standard, although sadly you can no longer get these now that they’ve stopped serving brunch!) and better than everywhere else we’ve tried them (which is quite a lot of places, since we’ve been on a doughnut kick lately; we still need to make it to Flora for brunch to round out the Oakland variations). The dessert menu had several other items that are on my list for next time, too, including a flan and a banana cake that sound tasty.

Overall, we had a wonderful first experience with Bocanova—I’m excited to add this to the growing list of Jack London Square destinations! We’ll definitely be back for more.

Grade: A
Cost: $$-$$$

The day after Thanksgiving traditionally marks the official start of the holiday season! Here’s the 2009 run-down of things to do in town to celebrate. (Is something missing? Let me know and I’ll add it to the list!)

Jack London Square/Downtown:

• Oakland City Holiday Tree Lighting (Thurs., December 3, 5-6:30 pm)
• Full Vision Arts Foundation’s “Another Kind of Christmas” (Fri. & Sat., December 4-5, 7 pm)
• Jack London Square Lights Up for the Holidays (Fri., December 4, 5:30-7:30 pm)
• 10th Annual Oakland Children’s Holiday Parade (Sat., December 5, 2 pm)
• Jack London Square Lighted Yacht Parade (Sat., December 5, 5:30-9 pm)
• Holiday BUY Night at Jack London Square (Thurs. & Fri., December 10-11, 5-10 pm)
• 24th Annual Holiday Kwanzaa & Christmas Gift Show (Sat. & Sun., December 12-13, 11 am-7 pm)
• City Center Holiday Music Performances (Ongoing through December on the Plaza and in the lobby of 1111 Broadway)

Uptown/Lake Merritt/Piedmont Avenue:

• Feria Urbana December Art Fair at the New Parish (Thur., December 3, 6-10 pm)
• 1st Annual Piedmont Avenue Tree Lighting Ceremony & Holiday Stroll (Sat., December 5, 5 pm)
• Oakland Interfaith Gospel Choir’s 24th Annual Holiday Concert at the Paramount (Sat., December 5, 7:30 pm)
• Scottish Rite Center’s California Revels: A Celebration of the Winter Solstice (Weekends from December 11-20, various times)
• Fairy Winterland at Children’s Fairyland (December 11-20, 12-7 pm)
• Oakland East Bay Symphony’s Holiday Concert at the Paramount (Sun., December 13, 4 pm)
• Oakland Ballet’s Nutcracker at the Paramount (December 24, 26 & 27, various times)

Rockridge/Temescal:

• Rockridge in the Snow (Sat., November 28, 3-6 pm)
• Temescal Holiday Skate & Stroll (Sat. & Sun., December 12-13, 1-5 pm)
• Local Love Holiday Celebrations on the 40th Street Corridor (Sat., December 12, 6-9 pm)

West Oakland/Golden Gate:

• Holidayland Gift Sale (November 27-December 20, varying hours; open late for Plaid Friday and First Friday)
• The Crucible Holiday Gifty Art Sale & Open House (Sat. & Sun., December 12-13, 10 am-4 pm)

Montclair/Oakland Hills

• Montclair Village Holiday Stroll (Thur., December 3, 6-9 pm)
• ZooLights at the Oakland Zoo (December 4-January 3, 5:30-9 pm; open till 9:30 on weekends)
• Fungus Fair—being held this year at Lawrence Hall of Science in Berkeley while the Oakland Museum is renovated! (Sat. & Sun., December 5-6, 10 am-5 pm)
• Holiday Celebrations at the Dunsmuir Hellman Historic Estate (Weekends from December 5-20, 11 am-5 pm)
• Paws & Claus at the Oakland Zoo (Sat. & Sun., December 19-20,  10 am-3 pm)
• Chabot Space & Science Center 10th Annual New Year’s Eve Balloon Drop (Thur., December 31, various times)

Fruitvale/Jingletown:

• Jingletown Holiday Art Walk (Sat. & Sun., December 5-6, 11 am-6 pm)
• Cohen-Bray House Holiday Tea & Tour (January 3, 1-3 pm; reservations required)

Last year about this time, I was desperately trying to pawn off persimmons on anyone who looked like they might have the slightest interest in them. You see, we have two persimmon trees, and every fall they have bumper crops of Hachiya and Fuyu persimmons that ripen and (if we don’t pick them first) fall to the ground with the leaves in the space of about two weeks. It’s a race to try to get enough of the off the trees that the raccoons don’t go to town—last year they got three big branches off the Hachiya tree, leaving it pretty raggedy looking. (This year after the last leaves fall, it’s getting hacked way, way back by a professional so that it’s a little more under control next year.)

This year, though, when the trees started getting the telltale orange tinge, I was prepared. The first bags went to the neighbors. We piled them into the kitchen to get ready for cooking and canning. I dumped a bunch of Fuyus into the California cooler, where they should hopefully last for a month or two. Forage Oakland came out and took a bunch off of our hands. We took some to a birthday party and gave them out to trick-or-treaters (I know, I know, the little girl across the street probably hates me now!) And amazingly, the persimmon season was beautifully under control this year.

I also collected persimmon recipes all year long and had the luxury of grabbing a stack off the refrigerator to see what I should make. Without further ado, here are two of our favorite ways to eat persimmons—and I’ll follow up soon with a few more I’ve collected that sound good, though I haven’t had a chance to try them yet. These recipes are both from Deborah Madison’s Local Flavors cookbook, which is excellent and well worth owning.

Persimmon Tea Cake
This is my very favorite persimmon recipe. I made it the first month we lived in our house with our very first persimmon crop, and have made it several times a year since then. It’s fabulous and flexible—you can mix up the spices and add-ins in pretty much any combination and end up with a tasty cake. I serve this with fresh cream whipped with creme fraiche; it would also be great with powdered sugar or a light cream cheese frosting.

2 large Hachiyas (very ripe!) to make 1 cup of puree
2 tsp. baking soda
1 1/2 c. flour
1/2  tsp. salt
1 tsp. cinnnamon
1/4 tsp. allspice
1/8 tsp. cloves
1/2 c. (1 stick) unsalted butter at room temperature
1 c. light brown sugar, packed
1 egg at room temperature
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 c. walnuts, chopped
grated zest of 1 lemon or 1/3 c. candied citrus peel
1/2 c. raisins (optional)
1/2 c. chopped dates (optional)

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter and flour an 8-inch springform pan.
2. Open the persimmons, seed, and scrape pulp into measuring cup. Puree (an immersion blender works well for this if you have one). Mix in baking soda and set aside. Combine the flour, salt, and spices in a bowl.
3. Cream the butter and sugar till smooth and then beat in the egg, followed by the vanilla and persimmon puree. Add the flour mixture and then fold in the nuts, fruit, and citrus zest.
4. Scrape the batter into the pan and place in the middle of the oven. Reduce the heat to 325 degrees and bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes (or until the cake tests clean). Let cool for 10 minutes before removing rim.

Steamed Persimmon Pudding
I love this one too, but D. is not a steamed pudding fan so we make do with just one of these a year. We don’t have a pudding mold so I just make it in a Pyrex bowl, which seems to work fine. The recipe has accompanying whipped cream and silky persimmon puree recipes, but we rarely make those so you’ll have to hunt the cookbook down for them. I serve this with either hard sauce or brandied whipped cream, depending on how much energy I have.

1/2 c. (1 stick) unsalted butter
2-3 Hachiyas, enough for 1 cup puree
1 c. sugar
1 egg, beaten
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1/2 c. milk
1/2 tsp. salt
1 c. flour
2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. cinnamon

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Find a pan that works for a pudding. You will need one 6-to-8-cup bowl or tin for the pudding itself, a second to place upside down underneath it to elevate it, and a third to set the whole shebang in that you can fill up with water. (You want the pudding to essentially cook in a hot water bath.)
2. Melt the butter. Generously brush some of it over the pudding dish and set aside the rest.  Put the buttered mold on the inverted bowl.  Bring a kettle of water to a boil.
3. Put the puree in a bowl with the remaining melted butter, sugar, egg, vanilla, milk, and salt.  Whisk until well combined.  Stir the dry ingredients together, then whisk them into the wet ingredients.
4. Pour the batter into the mold.  Add the boiling water in the water bath pan to come 2/3 of the way up the sides, then cover the pan and cook gently for 1-1/2 hours.  When the pudding is done, a cake tester inserted will come out clean.  Remove it from the pan, then invert it onto a serving plate.  If you’re not ready to serve, leave the mold resting on the pudding so that it will retain its heat.
5. Serve with whipped cream or whatever other accompaniment you’d like.

Yep, it’s that time of year again—and as usual I haven’t even started thinking about holiday shopping yet. Luckily, though, this Friday is Plaid Friday in the East Bay—which means it’s time for indie holiday shopping! “Plaid Friday” is a concept created by two independent East Bay businesses to help encourage Bay Area shoppers to go local on the Friday after Thanksgiving, traditionally the biggest shopping day of the year.What you need to do to participate:

1. Wear plaid on Friday, November 27, 2009 in support of local independent businesses.
2. Look for plaid placards in shop windows or visit the Plaid Friday website to find independent East Bay businesses near you that are offering special discounts or hours.
3. Buy stuff from local independent businesses on Plaid Friday and in the weeks to come!

There are dozens of independent businesses participating in the day of festivities, so here’s a quick sampling of just a few near my ‘hood. Check the website for their special Plaid Friday discounts and hours.

• 1-2-3-4 Go! Records (423 40th St. in Temescal)
• 17 jewels salon + spa (4801 Telegraph in Temescal)
• Bella Ceramica (3982 Piedmont)
• East Bay Depot for Creative Reuse (4695 Telegraph in Temescal)
• Farley’s East (33 Grand in Uptown)
• The Hat Library (1946 Broadway in Uptown)
• Issues (20 Glen near Piedmont)
• It’s Your Move Game & Hobbies (4920 Telegraph in Temescal)
• Johansson Projects (2300 Telegraph in Uptown)
• Kuhl Frames + Art (412 22nd St. in Uptown)
• Little Luxuries Bath and Body Boutique (391 17th St. in Uptown)
• Manifesto Bicycles (421 40th St. in Temescal)
• Mercury 20 Gallery (25 Grand in Uptown)
• The Moon (447 25th St. in Uptown)
• Oaklandish (Plaid Friday mobile opps at Piedmont and Pleasant Valley!)
• oo la la! gift & accessories lounge (386 17th Street in Uptown)
• Rowan Morrison (330 40th St. in Temescal)
• Rock Paper Scissors Collective (2278 Telegraph in Uptown)
• Ruby’s Garden Local-Grown Kidwear (5095 Telegraph in Temescal)
• Sagrada (4926 Telegraph in Temescal)
• SubRosa Coffee (419 40th St. in Temescal)
• WE artspace (768 40th St. in Longfellow)

And don’t miss the after-party:

Penelope Bar and La Borinquena Mex-icatessen
Corner of 11th & Clay, Oakland | Plaid Friday Hours: 6-11pm

Penelope Bar and Tina Tamale of La Borinquena are joining forces for a Plaid Friday afterparty. Once everyone is worn out from shopping at fine indie businesses, we are inviting everyone to quench their thirst and fill their bellies with us.

$3 Plaid Friday Shots | $6 Select Signature Drinks | 1 cent Indie Special shot if you wear plaid | $6 Tamale Plate with tortilla chips & salsa

I ♥ Shan Dong. That’s really the long and the short of it. The last few months have been extraordinarily busy on all fronts, and last weekend, I just did not want to cook (or clean, or paint, or weed, or do any of the other things I was supposed to be doing around the house). So when seven o’clock rolled around and D. started wondering what we could eat for dinner, I tried for a bye. “Umm, takeout?” Now I should note that 99.9 percent of the time when I try this, I get resistance. For the most part, we either cook at home or we eat out, and the money we save by cooking simple meals at home finances the next cocktails we get out. It’s a good little system—but every now and then, there’s a day when I just don’t have the energy to cook, let alone to motivate enough to go out somewhere. This was one of those days.

And this time, magically, it worked! We’re fortunate to have lots of great options nearby for takeout. But Saturday, I didn’t just want takeout—I wanted delivery. I wanted to be incredibly lame and lazy and curl up on the couch, watch a movie, and have someone bring me dinner. This limited our options considerably; there are only a handful of decent restaurants that deliver to our house (plethora of flyers that get left on the porch notwithstanding). There’s pizza: Lanesplitter, Rustica, or Pizza Pazza. There’s Indian from Raj on Piedmont. There’s Japanese from Sushiya on Broadway.

And then there’s Shan Dong. Shan Dong is a little restaurant in the heart of Oakland Chinatown that’s well worth a visit in person—over the years I’ve steered lots of friends in that direction and no one’s ever come back disappointed. But they also have a great delivery gig running if you’re lucky enough to live within a mile and a half of Chinatown (and we squeak in just under the wire with a tenth of a mile to spare!)

Officially, Shan Dong serves Northern Chinese (or Shandong) cuisine. In my mind, this is code for noodles and dumplings, since in northern China, wheat is the staple crop, rather than rice. The flavors and mix of vegetables are a bit different than in other Chinese cuisines more common in the United States, and there’s a much bigger fish presence on the menu. But the absolute best parts of Northern Chinese cuisine are the fried, steamed, and boiled breads in all their forms.

First: you want the handmade noodles. Just factor the dollar surcharge into the cost of the noodle dishes. You WANT them. I almost always get sesame noodles, but really any noodle dish on the menu turns into wonderful goodness when you add the handmade noodles. Shan Dong is also known for their dumplings. These are a bit better when you eat at the restaurant—steamed food in general doesn’t travel super well—but we always get the vegetarian dumplings anyway, because yum! (I also have friends who rave about the house special pork dumplings, though I have yet to try them.) I also often get mu shu vegetables because I have a mu shu obsession, and their version is especially tasty. (Mu shu is rumored to have originated in the Shandong region, and I think the pancakes Shan Dong serves put others to shame.) And they never forget the special sauces for each dish, always carefully packaged.

Since all that plus some stir-fried green beans or Chinese broccoli usually fills us up and then some, that’s generally my delivery order of choice. But when I’ve eaten with larger groups at the restaurant, I’ve also had sizzling rice soup, pot stickers, onion pancake (mmm…but no good for delivery, as I discovered once), fish in various forms, and assorted chicken dishes.

They’re not perfect. When we put our order in this time, we got an estimated wait time of 40 minutes, but the food didn’t actually show up for well over an hour. How easy it is to place an order depends very much on who answers the phone (and on how well you speak Mandarin!) But for a grand total of $40 including tax and tip, we got enough deliciousness for two big dinners with enough left over for four work lunches; you really can’t beat that. They also get points for our last order, when the woman asked me what kind of Chinese broccoli I wanted. I was at a loss, since usually I just order Chinese broccoli and something tasty shows up. “Umm, steamed?” I asked, guessing. “No, no, no, stir-fried,” she corrected. “Much better.” Okay. Stir-fried it was! (When I recounted the story to D. afterwards, he cringed. Apparently everyone knows that Chinese broccoli is supposed to be stir-fried…)

Shan Dong is also open for Chinese breakfast on the weekends, and one of these days I’ll make it there for that, because if the steamed buns and fry bread are as good as the dumplings and noodles, it’s going to be a treat. Until then, though, they remain my go-to rainy-day don’t-wanna-cook partner-in-crime.

Grade: A
Cost: $-$$

Okay, I know I have no business posting about tomatoes in late November….but this one’s been waiting for a few free minutes for a while now, and in a fit of confusion, the only tomato plant we have left in the ground burst into flower this week, so that reminded me that I should wrap this up. (Yes, that would be this week when there was actually frost in the forecast and temps dropped to the low 40s—this is one mixed up tomato! I’m leaving it there to see how that pans out, though….)

But I wanted to get a post-season garden recap in nonetheless. This year, we planted:

• Taxi (from Ace Garden Center)
• Yellow brandywine (from Kassenhoff Growers)
• Cherry of unknown variety (from a Forage Oakland gathering)
• Paul Robeson (from Kassenhoff Growers)
• Glacier (from Kassenhoff Growers)
• Carmello (from Kassenhoff Growers)

Kassenhoff sells an amazing selection of heirloom plants at both the Temescal and Grand Lake Farmers Markets—it was all I could do to stop buying them after we’d filled up our beds! Theoretically these six were chosen to bear early, mid, and late season crops that would keep us up to our ears in tomatoes all summer long. In practice they all produced a little bit all season long, but nobody was prolific. (More on that below…)

Tomatoes! Clockwise from top: Glacier, Yellow Brandywine, Carmello, and a rather sad looking Taxi.

The Paul Robeson died of unknown causes early in the season, and I never did figure out if it was due to disease or to the fact that the Labradane tried to dig it up the weekend after we planted it. The others put on a good show, though—we didn’t have a huge number of tomatoes, but definitely more than last summer (and with pretty mild temps to boot).

By early August, though, it was clear that something was up with the plants. Huge swaths of leaves would turn yellow and wilt, and the stems I cut off were hollow with a soft white fuzz inside. From the outside, they looked waterlogged, although I’d been watering pretty conservatively. The potatoes that were sharing a planter with three of the tomatoes also fell victim. My online searches didn’t turn up a clear culprit, but either verticillium or fusarium wilt seemed like the prime contenders. Both are soil-borne, unfortunately, which means that we can’t plant tomatoes or other relatives in those two plots for the next several years. (We left this year’s plants in the ground on the advice of one book that pretty much summed it up as “ah, well—might as well enjoy the tomatoes you do get,” and we did indeed get some good ones, in spite of everything. So maybe there’s hope…)

So it’s back to the pots for the tomatoes next year—and I need to think of another good sun-lovin’ vegetable to plant in the big new planter with prime southern exposure instead. (Eggplants are too closely related to tomatoes, sadly, as are peppers—but squash may be an option.) For right now, we have fava bean cover crop planted there to try to build the soil up a bit.

In other garden news, most of our winter crops are planted now—although the carrots and parsnips hit an unfortunate glitch when a big hole appeared in that bed. I filled it in, and the next day it reappeared—and the Labradane showed up in the kitchen smelling like fresh soil. At first we thought he’d been digging in there trying to get to a critter. But then a few days later, D. came out to find him curled up in the garden, enjoying the warm little nest he’d made for himself. Time to get a garden fence, I guess!

So, as a lot of people already know, we recently decided to get married (because clearly that is a smart thing to do when you’re about to blow $15K on a kitchen remodel…) We thought picking a nice place nearby would be a relatively simple endeavor, especially since D. was set on avoiding the Wedding Industrial Complex at all costs. Turns out not so much—so this has consequently been consuming way too many free evenings and weekends over the last six weeks (one of several reasons I haven’t been posting much lately!)

We’ve finally settled on a place, but now I have  a ridiculous amount of research on wedding venues in the East Bay. So, with apologies to people who read this blog because they like houses, gardens, Oakland, or our dog, I’m going to take a quick side trip to Wedding Land so that the next person to go venue hunting in Oakland and Berkeley won’t have to dedicate quite so many hours to it. (I promise this will be just about the only wedding-related post!)

This list of venues focuses on Oakland and Berkeley, mostly because we figured if we were going to have to drive over the hill to Lamorinda, we might as well head further afield and go to Marin or Sonoma. I thought it was important to keep our festivities local in spaces that were meaningful to us—there are some gorgeous destination spots across the Bay Area, but I wasn’t thrilled with the idea of visiting someplace for the first time to have a wedding there.

Prices listed here are current as of October 2009. Except where noted, all venues were priced for eight hours on a summer Saturday evening for a group of 100 with kitchen use; many venues offer discounts for other days of the week or for winter events. Some park spaces also allow you to mix and match rooms and charge accordingly. Prices do not include liability insurance or sound and alcohol permits, which many of these venues require. Asterisks indicate that the venue has catering restrictions, usually a list of approved caterers.

OUTDOOR PARKS & GARDENS

Dimond Park (Dimond): Tucked between the Glenview and Dimond Districts, Dimond Park offers two large picnic areas, Redwood Grove and Sequoia. Both can be reserved for events.
Cost: $75 per day per picnic area

Estuary Park (Oakland Estuary): A waterfront park near Jack London Aquatic Center, this spot offers gorgeous views and more grassy lawns for picnics.
Cost: Varies by number of guests ($50 to $250)

Joaquin Miller Park (Oakland hills): Beautiful WPA-era park with several popular wedding sites and some picnic grounds available as well. Owned by the City of Oakland, but very close to the EBRPD parks; I have trouble keeping track of which parks OPR runs and which parks EBRPD runs! Alcohol and amplified sound require permits. Picnics must be done by 10 pm.
Cost: Varies by specific site ($100 to $200)

Lakeside Park (Lake Merritt): Ringing the north end of the lake, Lakeside Park offers both grassy lawns (once the construction is finished!) and a bandstand that’s popular for ceremonies. Both can be reserved.
Cost: Varies by number of guests ($50 to $250); additional fee to reserve bandstand

Martin Luther King, Jr. Regional Shoreline (Oakland Estuary): Beautiful views at another EBRPD park. My main hang-up there was that I’ve run community meetings there, and right off the bat I ruled out any place work-related (as did D., which was somewhat sad because he actually works at one of the more popular wedding spots in Berkeley!) Picnics must be done by 6 pm.
Cost: Varies by site capacity ($100 to $200)

Morcom Rose Garden (Piedmont Avenue): This is a gorgeous spot for a wedding ceremony. Unfortunately for us, we’re doing a pretty low-key ceremony and there’s no place near the Rose Garden to host a reception outdoors, so it didn’t make a lot of sense as a location. But if you’re doing a larger ceremony, it would be among my top picks. (Notably, it is walking distance to Camino, and they do buy-outs for large receptions, which could be a pretty tasty affair!)
Cost: $115 per hour for residents/$135 per hour for non-residents

Mountain View Cemetery (Piedmont Avenue): A little weird, yes. But the Olmsted-designed space was originally intended to be “churchyard, graveyard, park, and garden”—and they rent their chapels for wedding ceremonies and allow receptions on the open lawns in their beautiful historic space. Plus, a lot of cool people are buried here—who wouldn’t want the likes of Julia Morgan, Samuel Merritt, Bernard Maybeck, Henry Kaiser, and more as witnesses?

Redwood & Roberts Regional Parks (Oakland hills): Two more pretty EBRPD Oakland hills spaces. A little warmer than the Berkeley hills, but still a bit unpredictable on the weather front. Most EBRPD group picnic grounds allow alcohol with permits. Picnics must be done by 6 pm.
Cost: Varies by site capacity ($100 to $200)

Snow Park (Lake Merritt): Just across from Lake Merritt, Snow Park has huge grassy lawns that can be reserved for events.
Cost: Varies by number of guests ($50 to $250)

Tilden Park (Berkeley hills): Tilden Park, owned by the East Bay Regional Parks District, has a number of picnic sites throughout the park. Four of them can accommodate large groups: Willows (100), Padre (150),  Laurel (150), and Mineral Springs (200). This is my top pick for picnic spaces because Tilden is such a phenomenal park, with the Botanical Garden, Merry-Go-Round, Little Farm, Steam Train (that allows dogs to ride!), Lake Anza, and more. Picnics must be done by 6 pm.
Cost: Varies by site capacity ($100 to $200)

COMMUNITY CENTERS & INDOOR PARK SPACES
There are a ridiculous number of these in Oakland and Berkeley, and many of them are gorgeous. Unfortunately, the gorgeous ones tend to be a) expensive (well, at least relatively speaking!) and b) booked well in advance. The sites owned by the East Bay Regional Parks District (EBRPD) also have catering restrictions, which was almost the dealbreaker for us. (Many of the caterers get stellar reviews from people who’ve used them, though, and so far our experiences with the ones we’ve talked to have been good.) Also, at most of the park sites, you can’t serve hard alcohol, if that’s a factor.

*Brazilian Room, Tilden Park (Berkeley hills): Gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous—its reputation is well-deserved. The Brazilian Room was originally built as the Brazilian Pavilion for the 1939 World’s Fair on Treasure Island. When the exposition ended, the country of Brazil presented it to the East Bay Regional Park District as a gift of friendship. However, because it’s so amazing, it also falls into the booked-way-in-advance category. So, a no go for us. (Notably, EBRPD opens its spaces to residents of Alameda and Contra Costa Counties before opening them to the general public, so if you’re looking for a venue for 2011 and you’re a resident, you can reserve the Brazilian Room beginning this week. Reservations open to the general public after the new year.)
Cost: $2,150 resident/$2,580 non-resident for seven hours; $3,800 resident/$4,560 non-resident for twelve hours

Jack London Aquatic Center (Oakland Estuary): Lovely waterfront views, though the banquet room itself is rather utilitarian (because, after all, this is an aquatic center!)
Cost: $1,800

Joaquin Miller Community Center (Oakland hills): This is a huge community center up in Joaquin Miller Park; it wasn’t really my style, but does provide plenty of space and a nice connected deck with a view. Additional rooms can be added to expand the capacity well beyond 100.
Cost: $1,530 resident/$1,874 non-resident

Lake Merritt Sailboat House (Lake Merritt): Not to be confused with the Lake Merritt Boat House, which now houses Lake Chalet, the Sailboat House is a 1960s-era facility used most of the time for boat rentals of various types. The upstairs features a large banquet-style room with a deck that overlooks the lake, though. It’s beautiful, but the space itself has a very 1960s-vibe, and on the day I visited it, was also very damp and sailboat-smelling. (In fairness, it was right after the massive rains, though.) I think you could spin that into a great nautical theme of some sort, though, and the view at night has got to be incredible.
Cost: $750 resident/$870 non-resident

*Lake Temescal Beach House, Temescal Regional Park (Upper Rockridge): For some reason, this lower-key EBRPD facility is off of people’s radar, even though it’s lovely in its own right. That’s nice, though, because it means it’s easy to book! The beach house overlooks Lake Temescal and has a terrace behind it, and there are pathways leading up to a small waterfall and down to the lake itself. Like the Brazilian Room, though, the Beach House has caterer restrictions and a few other idiosyncrasies. This ended up being our pick.
Cost: $1,500 resident/$1,800 non-resident

Lakeside Garden Center (Lake Merritt): The Garden Center, another Lakeside Park gem, has a mix of rooms that have a pretty typical community center feel. Like most of Oakland’s community centers, this is another 1960s-esque building—but it has a beautiful Japanese garden behind it, and the Garden Room has a wall of windows and doors that open up into the garden itself, allowing events to flow between indoor and outdoor areas seamlessly. The major caveat: Oakland garden clubs get preference for this venue and don’t schedule super far in advance, so you can’t book this space until six months before your event. For larger events or banquets there are multiple rooms that can be combined.
Cost: $1,170 resident/$1,350 non-resident for Garden Room with Japanese Garden

Leona Lodge (Montclair): In the end I didn’t look at this one in person, but I did find out that it’s newly-renovated, and they’ve stripped the wood back to natural so it’s apparently much lighter inside than Sequoia is. Leona also has an outdoor BBQ pit, which could be a nice plus. It also holds a slightly larger crowd than Sequoia.
Cost: $750 resident/$870 non-resident

Oakland Asian Cultural Center (Chinatown): Another spot we’ve used for work….ah well! Huge and good for large banquets, though.
Cost: $1,650 plus $550 for kitchen access

Piedmont Community Hall (Piedmont proper): Wonderful—and crazy expensive unless you’re a Piedmont resident. Has a sweet little tea house that can be rented for an additional fee. (Maybe I can take all our misaddressed mail—we share a zip code with Piedmont and frequently get junk mail listing Piedmont as the city—and pretend?!?) Actually it’s pretty expensive even if you do live there.
Cost: $2,400 resident/$3,500 non-resident

Piedmont Veterans Hall (Piedmont proper): As Piedmont venues go, this one is a bit more reasonably priced, but it just didn’t strike me in the same way the Community Hall did. (I imagine that’s the case for others, too, which explains the big discrepancy in price!)
Cost: $1,545 resident/$1,900 non-resident

Sequoia Lodge (Montclair): I love this little lodge, tucked up in Montclair. It’s a very rustic space under the redwoods, complete with a stone fireplace and conversation circle inside. It fell off the list only because it was so dark and we’re getting married in June, so it didn’t seem like a good fit. Outdoor space was also really important to D., and the extensive deck at Sequoia is all covered by a wood overhang, making it dark and not especially outdoorsy. I’d do a winter wedding (or a winter anything!) here in a heartbeat, though. All City-owned Oakland venues provide tables and chairs and rent linens, which was a big plus.
Cost: $750 resident/$870 non-resident

Studio One Art Center (Temescal): This is another newly-renovated facility (Oakland tax dollars at work!), but the only outdoor space is the courtyard out front, which is very, very public. Not quite what we wanted. Studio One also requires more extensive permits for special events (probably because it is located in a residential neighborhood), although they do at least seem to have a fairly streamlined process for getting these. This seems like a great spot for fundraisers, though—they even have a theater.
Cost: $1,260 resident/$1,700 non-resident

*UC Botanical Garden (Berkeley hills): Beautiful, but a little close to work for D.’s taste. A wide range of spaces for rent, though; on Saturday you must book the center in its entirety, but on other days of the week you can opt to book smaller rooms and gardens, so it would be perfect for a wedding of 30 or so.
Cost: $2,200 plus $250 for Redwood Grove and Amphitheatre; $250 buyout to use outside caterer

Assorted other Oakland community centers: Most of the recreation centers in the city can be reserved for a fee. Since I’ve never been to most of them, it seemed silly to write anything much about them….but some popular picks include Dimond Recreation Center, Redwood Heights Recreation Center, and the Malonga Casquelourd Center for the Arts, among others.
Cost: Varies by number of guests ($75 to $250)

HISTORIC HOUSES & MUSEUMS
Again, lots of local options here, many of them beautiful. A constraint with some of the more popular museum venues is the catering restriction, though.

Camron-Stanford House (Lake Merritt): I thought this would be a top contender, but it turns out that it’s much better suited to an all-indoor or all-outdoor event, because the spaces are not especially well connected to one another. This house museum has a formal dining room, a veranda, and a backyard that are all lovely—but we wanted the three to be connected so that people could flow. Another sticking point was that this used to be one of the least costly venues, but prices have gone way up. At $1,500, it was hard to justify—especially since this is also the only venue we looked at that doesn’t provide chairs and tables, so renting those would be an additional cost. You must also get your own alcohol permits.
Cost: $1,500

*Chabot Space & Science Center (Oakland hills): Another City-owned venue. This is a good time to pause and say I think it is really pretty astoundingly cool that my city owns so many phenomenal spaces, from Children’s Fairyland (which, by the way, you can also rent for weddings) to Feather River Camp up in the Sierras. Generally, I forget to appreciate this. Anyway, this one was a cool idea, but again, blew our budget out of the water. Although $1,600 gets you a planetarium show, which is pretty awesome! (This is another venue that can take a lot of people—up to 1,000.)
Cost: Varies by space. Caterer buyout is $1,000.

Children’s Fairyland (Lake Merritt): Yes, you too can get married (or have another fun event) in Old Mother Hubbard’s shoe, with Cinderella looking on. This Oakland classic, which is coming up on its 60th birthday next year and purportedly inspired Disneyland, makes an exception to its “no unaccompanied adults!” policy for after-hours weddings. (They also do birthday parties with catering from Loard’s and other kid-related festivities like campouts, which I would have loved as a kid!)
Cost: Varies depending on spaces reserved

*Dunsmuir-Hellman Historic Estate (Oakland hills): City-owned historic home and grounds that are operated by a nonprofit. Gorgeous. And priced accordingly—we would have blown half our budget on the site alone! Plus, they have catering restrictions, too. This is one of the few venues in the area that accommodates very large groups, though—they can take up to 600—so it’s a good option if that’s what you need. They also get points for a much more diverse catering list than most spots, with options for barbeque, Indian food, and Southern cuisine in addition to the usual suspects.
Cost: $4,275 resident/$4,500 resident for South Pond Lawn and Garden Pavilion (up to 200 guests); $2,375 resident /$2,500 non-resident for Historic Carriage House and Lawn (up to 80 guests); $800 buyout to use outside caterer “for religious or ethnic situations only”

Lawrence Hall of Science (Berkeley hills): Can’t beat the view of the Bay Area, but this was off the list before we even started because D. could not imagine getting married here (although he did contemplate trying to negotiate a trade with the Exploratorium!) It was way too expensive anyway, though, even with the discount.
Cost: $3,500 with a $500 discount for UC affiliates (campus departments, UCOP, and LBL) and a $250 discount for “Friends of LHS” (UCB staff, students, and alumni; LHS members at the sponsor level)

Oakland Museum of California (Downtown Oakland): I love this (also City-owned!) space—the grounds are expansive and the museum is coming off a multi-million-dollar renovation—but D. wasn’t such a fan. They have an open catering policy and allow hard alcohol, though, which makes them particularly unique among East Bay venues. Update: When the museum reopens in June 2010, they will have a single exclusive caterer for all spaces, a big departure from their old policy. You will be able to buy out the caterer for $1,000.
Cost: $1,800 for four hours; new rates beginning in January 2010

*Oakland Zoo (Oakland hills): The Snow Building is pretty, but it was a bit of a haul from our neck of the woods. I didn’t go look at it, but the photos are lovely and the views must be stellar.
Cost: $1,720 for the Snow Room or $250 for a group picnic site (picnic area fee does not include zoo admission)

*Preservation Park (Downtown Oakland): This restored Victorian neighborhood in the heart of Downtown Oakland was a top contender since the buildings and grounds are gorgeous, but in the end it was just too expensive for us. It’s an amazing space, though!
Cost: $2,650 for Bandstand, Fountain Circle, and Nile Hall; $500 buyout to use outside caterer

COUNTRY CLUBS & OTHER PRIVATE VENUES

*Bellevue Club (Lake Merritt): We didn’t look at this space because you have to use their in-house chef and we wanted a little more control over the food, but it’s an intriguing option given its stellar location right on the lake, particularly because guests can stay overnight at the club as well. It’s also been an institution on the lake for generations, which is pretty cool.

*Berkeley City Club (Downtown Berkeley): A beautiful Julia Morgan-designed space in Downtown Berkeley. Like the Bellevue Club, this one is all-inclusive so the catering is in-house. Guests can stay here, as well.

*Berkeley Faculty Club (Downtown Berkeley): The Faculty Club has one large room and a number of smaller spaces, including outdoor areas and terraces. You must use their in-house catering team for everything except the wedding cake.
Cost: $800 for the Heyns Room and Patio; $2,000 for the Great Hall and associated spaces

Gaia Arts Center (Downtown Berkeley): A relatively new space in Downtown Berkeley, the Gaia Center has a rooftop deck that is pretty amazing for parties. (I went to a fundraiser there a few years ago and was wowed by the views!) Notably, their fees are significantly less on Friday nights than on Saturdays, so this could be an inexpensive option for a weekday wedding or event.
Cost: $2,600 including access to the rooftop terrace, plus $320 for required Gaia staff representative

*Montclair Women’s Cultural Arts Club (Montclair): Beautiful space—but, again, priced accordingly. They had a helpful little section of their website telling us that basic amenities for a party of 100 would run us $10K. Oy—that’s our entire budget before the caterer is even in the mix! So goodbye, beautiful building…
Cost: $3,500, plus extra for tables, chairs, tents, etc.

*Rotunda Building (Downtown Oakland): I’ve been to some receptions here in the past, and it’s a gorgeous building. However, it’s way too big (and consequently too expensive) for many weddings, ours included. It holds 500, though, so perfect for something large.
Cost: $5,600 (based on $700/hour for eight hours)

*Sequoyah Country Club (Oakland hills): As with every spot in the hills, this one has a beautiful view. Downsides are that you must use their in-house catering, and there are a lot of additional charges for just about everything, from chairs to screens to cake cutting. On the upside, they are pretty much all-inclusive. We didn’t go look at this in person either.
Cost: $1,950 for a five-hour event

Other private venues offering wedding spaces:

• California Ballroom (Uptown/Lake Merritt)
• Highlands Country Club (Upper Rockridge)
• MLK Student Union at Cal (Downtown Berkeley)
• Wedgewood Banquet Center, Metropolitan Golf Links (Oakland Airport)

WINERIES
Wineries in the city? Yep, surprisingly there are a number of wineries with tasting rooms nearby, and a couple can be rented for events. They don’t grow the grapes in the city (yet!) so you’ll get more of an urban vibe than a vineyard vibe, but you don’t have to make the trek up to Wine Country, either.

JC Cellars (Jack London Square): This artisan winery provides tables and chairs plus access to a prep kitchen. You must purchase all of your wine from the winery; there’s a 10 percent discount for 12 bottles or more.
Cost: $500 for the evening plus wine

Periscope Cellars (Emeryville): Periscope offers urban space with tables, chairs, A/V equipment, and more. They’re next-door to a caterer, too (though you can use anyone you like). Plus, as with JC Cellars, you can’t beat the price.
Cost: $600 for eight hours plus wine

CHURCHES & OTHER RELIGIOUS SITES
There are several churches in Oakland and Berkeley that rent their event halls (and in some cases chapels or sanctuaries) to anyone, regardless of creed. We didn’t vet these options since we aren’t planning a formal ceremony, but some of them are lovely. Here Comes the Guide has a solid list of them. Note that in a several cases, they do not permit alcohol.

HOTELS
Not really our speed so I didn’t actually price any of these, but they offer ceremony and reception space that looks reasonable.

• Bancroft Hotel (Downtown Berkeley)
• Claremont Resort & Spa (Claremont in Oakland—despite its Berkeley address!)
• Hotel Durant (Downtown Berkeley)
• Hotel Shattuck Plaza (Downtown Berkeley)
• Rose Garden Inn (Southside Berkeley)
• Waterfront Hotel (Jack London Square in Oakland)

ART GALLERIES
A good option if you’re going for the cocktail reception feel. We didn’t price any since in the end I didn’t find any with outdoor space or gardens, but I imagine they’re generally pretty reasonable. One challenge is that you have to get the single-day alcohol permit on your own, though. (For park spaces and City-owned facilities, they handle the process and you just pay a fee.) The Art Murmur list is probably a good place to start if you’re looking for a gallery to rent.

RESTAURANTS
A number of local restaurants have spaces to host large groups, or will arrange buyouts at the right price. Here are a few that we considered. Our main criteria were 1) really good food and 2) nice outdoor patio, which limited us significantly. (Even so, I’m sure there are some spots missing from this list that we just didn’t think of!)

À Côté (Rockridge): À Côté is one of our favorite restaurants, so I figured I had to give them a call. The good news was that their prices were very reasonable. The bad news is that the biggest group they can accommodate is 55 since they don’t do full buyouts, and that was too small for us. However, they’re now on my list for the next time I need to organize a large dinner! (And I secretly like that they don’t do full buyouts, just as I like that they reserve many of their tables for walk-ins…that’s what a good neighborhood spot should do!)

Bocanova (Jack London Square): This spot is brand-new and overlooks the Oakland Estuary at Jack London Square. The outdoor space is lovely but not especially private. We’ve only eaten here once (though it was excellent!) so that was another concern.

Doña Tomás (Temescal): Doña Tomás has a great patio behind the restaurant with yummy food; we’ve been to some nice group dinners there in the past. They also have a back room beyond the patio that would work well for smaller dinners, too. They came off our list for some reason that I can’t remember now.

Lake Chalet (Lake Merritt): Another amazing location. They have two spaces that can accommodate large groups: the Gondola Room, which is inside but has three walls of windows that overlook the lake (and open!), and the outdoor patio, which has its own bar and grill. They’re also relatively reasonably priced, with a $3K minimum and no room fee. (Menus to choose from ranged from $24-$52 a head, which isn’t bad.) We weren’t wowed by their food the one time we ate there, though, and the alcohol is pricey and charged per drink, so it had the potential to add up quickly. However, this would be my top pick if we were having a traditional “ceremony-followed-by-reception” wedding. You could even get married on the lake at the bandstand in Lakeside Park and head to the Chalet afterwards.

La Note (Downtown Berkeley): Again, neither of us has had dinner there, though we love their brunch, so it seemed like a gamble to try something out for the first time. But they do take large groups, and they do have a patio.

Pizzaiolo (Temescal): This was actually my top pick because they have a sweet little garden (with chickens!) in the back that was perfect for the ceremony. They’ve hosted weddings before, and had a pretty clear vision for how to make it all work, which was great. We’d also been to a friend’s birthday party here, so we knew they could do a large event well. The main downside was the price, which is a set fee (it is, after all, a buyout) and was way more than we had budgeted (but, granted, still less than the average cost of a Bay Area wedding these days!) As you can see, this was a running theme in our search….

Other restaurants with large event spaces:

• Café Zeste (West Berkeley)
• Caffé Verbena (Downtown Oakland)
• Le Bateau Ivre Restaurant (Southside Berkeley)
• Montclair Bistro (Montclair)
• Pyramid Brewery & Alehouse (West Berkeley)
• Scott’s Seafood (Jack London Square)
• Spenger’s Fresh Fish Grotto (West Berkeley)
• The Terrace Room at the Lake Merritt Hotel (Lake Merritt)

FURTHER AFIELD
Our search was pretty focused on Oakland and Berkeley, but if you go a little further afield, there are some nice spots to discover. I’m not going to get into them because Here Comes the Guide gets paid to do that, but it’s definitely worth checking out city parks (San Francisco and Marin have a lot of great spots, and EBRPD has several venues in other nearby cities) and various museums. Also, boats! Several cruise lines run out of San Francisco, Oakland, Berkeley, Sausalito, and beyond, and you can host events there, too. Generally, there was a markup if you crossed the Bay Bridge (and an even bigger one if you kept going over the Golden Gate!) which is one of many reasons we decided to stay East Bay. (The flip side of that is that the rates keep dropping if you head through the Caldecott or up into Contra Costa County, though!)

Another quick post, because as a lot of you know, we have been extremely busy the last few weeks with a number of things! (Updates coming soon…)

But I did receive this incredible photograph today from a great-granddaughter of the Kiedaisch family, who lived in our house from 1921 to 1927. She found my house history post earlier this year and, astoundingly, dug up a photograph taken of our house sometime in the mid-1920s by her great-grandfather Walter Kiedaisch, who was a Bay Area photographer.

Our house circa mid-1920s (courtesy of the Kiedaisch family)

Even the small snapshot yields a lot of intriguing information:

The garage. We now know our garage is at least 80 years old! We’d talked to the City about this at one point since they had no record of the permits to build it; now I know why (and can conclusively prove that yes, it was definitely there when we moved in…) We’re pretty sure it isn’t original since it’s built up against the house and you can see where the doorways were modified at some point, but this means it was probably built by either the Kiedaisches themselves or by Joseph Smith, who owned the house from 1919 to 1921 after buying it from the original owners (who built it in 1915). The garage does have something of a 1920s vibe going on, too, so that would make sense. (Sadly, that look is almost gone today after the previous owner ditched the original garage doors and replaced them with a generic automatic door to get the house ready for sale. Convenient, but man, I wish she’d kept them…you can even still see them in the Google Street View photos of our block, which is just cruel!)

The adjacent rear lots. You can see the buildings on the lots behind us pretty clearly in this photo, which is interesting because both lots were redeveloped in the 1960s into apartment complexes. (The houses to either side of us, in contrast, look pretty much the same today.) I had envisioned cute little bungalows on these lots, and have often griped about how close to the lot line the 1960s developments were built. (Trying to figure out ownership of a shared fence last year, I even found a Planning Commission memo from the 1960s chiding one of the property owners for violating the property line setback rules; he was fined a relatively small amount and the building was unchanged.) As it turns out, though, even the original buildings must have been pretty close to the lot lines to be visible in this photo. (The one on the right looks like it’s practically in our next-door neighbor’s backyard—the condos there today have a bit of a buffer, at least!)

The front steps. We had wooden steps originally! (Our next-door neighbor still does and it’s pretty traditional for a California bungalow, so this isn’t totally surprising—but today the steps are concrete.) I am a little bummed, though, because when we had the foundation inspected recently in preparation for the kitchen remodel, the inspector oohed and ahhed over our concrete steps, noting that ours were in better shape than those of almost any other house its age that he’d seen. D’oh! Now I know why…

Otherwise, though, the house looks strikingly similar today, right down to the curves on the sidewalk. (Even the sidewalk itself looks like it might be the same…guess that really is due for replacement!) The front yard has since been terraced and landscaped, but we knew the previous owner had done a lot of that work, and from what our neighbor says, before then the yard looked, well, basically the same as it did in the 1920s. It’s very likely that this was the original paint job on the house, too, since it would have been barely ten years old (if that) when this photograph was taken. Hard to tell what the colors actually were, but it gives a sense of the aesthetic, at least. (The stucco on the side of the house behind the garage wall is cream, though, so that may have been the original color; in later years it appears to have been painted light green at some point.)

Anyway, just a very cool find! A huge thanks to Michelle for sharing this great piece of our home’s history!

The first snows fell in the Northern Sierras last week—and this week, winter arrived in the Bay Area with a bang, shattering the rain records as the remnants of a Pacific typhoon swept in.

This is happy news for our garden and our fruit trees, which have been gasping for water the past few weeks. (I’ve been holding off on any big watering efforts because our clay soil stays moist for a few weeks, and, well, the rains were coming!)

This is less happy news for other members of the family:

You're serious? Umm, that's okay, I'm good here, thanks.

And even less happy news for:

• Our rain barrels. Yeah, they’re still in the garage. We just need to build them a platform, but unfortunately neither of us knows how to build a platform. Bleh.
• Our rafters. Umm. A few of them have been Bondo’ed where the knob-and-tube electrical wiring used to be attached….but the rest still need to be patched and painted. Maybe this weekend, if things dry out enough before then (and we finally find a ladder that’s tall enough!) We lose major points on this one since it’s actually a leftover project from last summer….augh! (We replaced the wiring right after we moved in to placate our insurance company.)
• Our bedroom windows. We still have not replaced these because I haven’t had time to go debate the whole permit issue with the City. (I did finally talk to people there, but got two completely contradictory, mutually exclusive answers from the two departments that are ostensibly supposed to approve our window replacement permit. Ugh. I hate bureaucracy!)
• Our baseboard gravity registers. I took these apart three months ago to try to strip the paint off of them. Then I discovered that they’re actually broken (from being forced open and shut, I think). Then I discovered that when the heat was installed, someone creatively stacked a bunch of wood together to “frame” the register, and when I took the register off, the wood moulding fell apart. Then I ordered new registers only to discover that the size is off by half an inch. Argh. Somehow this needs to get fixed before we have to turn the heat on…

So I guess a busy work weekend lies ahead!