Willo O'Brien

gah…it is just not my MONTH for computers.

I have been working all day on a logo…and Illustrator’s crashed a few times, so I learned early in the day to save often. And just now when I went to save, it crashed again, and guess what? When I try to open the file, it throws some wonky error and the entire layer with my illustrations on it won’t show up at all. I’ve tried opening & importing it into a couple different programs and there’s basically 1 little drawing out of about 20 I had on the page. *cries*

I lost a good 4 hours of work. I hate computers.

Haylie & I had such a fun rest of the weekend. I’m super sad she had to go! :( :(

I love my little sister so much. She always surprises me with her amazing patience, overflowing love and sweetness (she holds my hand all the time and gives me spontaneous hugs all day!! I love that!!!), and her respect for right and wrong. She’s such a good kid. She’s such a good sister and friend!

Saturday night we decided sushi was in order. Haylie had been craving it and I can personally never say no to sushi! :) I wanted to take her to Godzilla initially, but I looked online and found this new sushi place that caught my eye: Minako Organic Japanese Restaurant. Right on Mission, between 17th & 18th – so it was closer to us, too! So we showered, and headed out for a yummy dinner.

Luckily we got there before any rush & didn’t even have to wait! We ordered hot tea, miso & edamame right away. All 3 were delicious… the miso soup there is apparently all organic (I think everything is) and they make it there! It even had mushrooms in it, which I love, but I learned Haylie doesn’t… which meant more for me all weekend! :p

me, haylie & part 1 of our delicious sushi dinner! yummm!

Our dinner was AMAZING. The rolls are HUGE. You have to eat them with your hands. Huge chunks of delicious fresh fish, avocado, cucumber. YUMM. We were impressed! They have ton on their menu, too – I wanted to order everything! Also, apparently if you call about 2 hours in advance, you can request brown rice for your sushi! I’m SO doing that next time! The wait staff was really friendly and patient, even when it got busy. One of the main girls there (daughter of the owners?) was really nice and talked to us for a little bit about how the FedEx their fish from Japan, and how they’ve become popular all by word of mouth. I shouldn’t even be posting this here, as the rule is to keep the good places a secret in this town! :p But honestly I got such a warm fuzzy feeling from the place, and our meal was SO delicious, I can’t help but sing about it from the rooftops. Go check it out.

After dinner Haylie & I went to the video store and rented two “classics” that I insist she see: The Breakfast Club and Pump Up the Volume.

Hopefully I didn’t pollute her innocent mind too much. haha! Watching these two movies made me realize maybe I was more of a rebel growing up than Haylie is? :p Either way, they’re both such awesome movies about finding yourself in High School. Reminding yourself that everyone has issues with their parents at that age, and that if they can just hang on, it will get better! Watching Pump Up the Volume again after all these years was soooo fun!! I used to LOVE Christian Slater, and probably watched that movie 20+ times in HS with my friend Drew. It’s the movie that turned me onto the Descendants, The Pixies and more. SO RAD.

Sunday we got up, picked up Ali & headed over to Trevor’s in the East Bay! We went for breakfast at this Thai Buddhist Temple that serves every Sunday. You have to buy tokens and then they buy you helpings of curry, soup, mango sticky rice, etc. yummmmm! I was really happy Haylie liked it, and luckily it wasn’t toooo cold or rainy, cuz it made for a very unique experience. :)

cutie haylie at the thai temple breakfast

After breakfast we headed over to the Albany Flea Market, where we ended up walking away with 5 belts! 3 for me and 2 for Haylie! All for maybe $16? Awesome! I also got a cheapo car charger for my cell phone that I’m a little geeked about. I needed one.

Our flea market scores! (see more in Ali’s photos of the day)

Ana, Trevor, Ali, Haylie & me after grabbing coffee

After that we cruised over to Albany Bulb, one of the main reasons for our jaunt across the bay. See, it’s currently in danger of getting shut down & turned into some corporate place (see the link to the story above). And the bummer about that is, besides the obvious reasons, is that currently people can roam around this big open area, letting their dogs roam and play AND a bunch of artists have created all these amazing pieces there. Paintings, Rock and Wood Sculptures, Junk Art and more. I wanted to go before it got torn down, so I made it a point to have us take the field trip.

Luckily Trevor had been there before, so he was an awesome tour guide!

It was awesome to get out & walk, explore the art, see the views of the city and hang with my friends all day!

Ali, Haylie & I drove back to the city & decided we should finish the great day off with an ice cream cone. :) So we headed to Swensen’s, near Ali’s place, and indulged.

Sisters Rule!!

UPDATE: Ali posted her photos! And here’s her blog post about the day, too.

::::

Monday we did a few things around here & headed downtown for some power shopping. I got a new jacket I’m pretty excited about & Haylie scored a few jems, too! yay! Us O’Brien girls know how to shop! I have a few more photos on my camera from Monday that I need to download, but there’s a ton of new ones from Saturday night & Sunday in the photo album!

Yesterday I picked up my awesome little sister from the airport! She’s here visiting for the weekend & I’m so stoked. It’s been a year, which both of us can hardly believe… it’s been the longest we’ve ever been apart, so it’s about time we get a weekend to hang out!

Haylie’s had a lot go down in the last year. One biggie being that she’s now a Freshman in High School. oy! I remember those days, but she seems to be handling it pretty well. :) She’s a smart kid: 4.0 GPA – aww yaa, little sis! She’s also in Choir, French and Art. Oh & she’s started skiing more this year, too, which is cool.

So anyway, picked her up & the first thing we did was go grab lunch. I took her to Savor in Noe Valley, which is one of my favorite restaurants because they have such yummy salads. Well, yummy everything, and on nice days you can sit out back, too. But yesterday was rainy and cold, so we snuggled inside & enjoyed our lunch, and the opportunity to catch up!

After lunch we walked around 24th St. doing a little shopping. We went to Urban Nest, Noe Knit, Ambiance, Gallery of Jewels and Just for Fun, stopping only briefly for a soy latte for me & passion tazo tea for her @ Starbucks. :)

on the go girls in noe valley

Lastnight we met Mateo at Triptych for dinner and since it just happens to be Matt’s birthday today – Happy Birthday, Matt!! – we got to celebrate that with him and shower him with love, gifts and most importantly: eat a yummy chocolatey birthday dessert! heheee :p

sisters!

me w/ matt & haylie

I was pretty excited to try this new SOMA restaurant, too, and the service was top notch. They had a DJ that played good music and art all over the walls, and the food was really delicious! I highly recommend it and can’t wait to go back myself. Apparently there’s even an outdoor area that’s open for brunch! wahoo!

After Haylie & I got home, we got our jammies on, crawled in bed & watched Uptown Girls on Haylie’s Powerbook. Haylie dozed off, but I watched the whole thing. Very cute movie!

Today Haylie & I have been lounging around the house. We woke up & made a yummy scrambled egg breakfast & then settled in to our respective computers to geek out. :p Believe me, my little sister loves this just as much as I do. I got all my photos posted & blogging done that’s been way over due, and Haylie even took an afternoon cat nap! aaww yaa, vacation! :)

We had a quick lunch, played with Kazoobie here & there and now we may finally going to start working on a few of the crafty projects we meant to start a tad earlier in the day. Oh & mid-day we wanted a snack & I made us some deviled eggs! It was my first time making them… it was pretty exciting. :)

They were good!

Here’s the link to the Photo Album!

Tonite we don’t have too many plans. It’s pretty nice just to stay inside where it’s all warm & cozy. It’s been sooo frigid out the last few days! So we may watch a movie. I’m insisting we rent a few “classics” that Haylie’s never seen (which blows me away, since they were at the core of my youth!): Breakfast Club, Heathers, E.T., or Goonies. :)

Click here to read the post about the remainder of the weekend

Last Sunday I hit the We Are Invisible/Black Fiction/BarbaraSteele show at @ Cafe du Nord w/ Sam & Jem. Unfortunately I didn’t take any photos of the opening band, We Are Invisible, but if you’ve been reading long, you’ll know I LOVE them!! They were great.

Black Fiction is a new local band I’m digging. Their lead singer totally trimmed his beard & cut his hair off – he looks like a whole new guy! Their set was great. Jem & Sam liked them, too!

Jem couldn’t get into Barbara Steele & I could relate to her disdain. The music seemed cool, like maybe it’s great on CD or if we knew the songs already – but the lead singer seemed to be taking himself too seriously or something. All I know is coming off the rockin’ opener, We Are Invisible, & the playful 2nd act, Black Fiction – Barbara Steele just wasn’t feeling as fun. So Jem took off & Sam & I enjoyed one last drink at the bar. A very fun night.

View the photo album

:::

Tuesday night, after a long day of trying to revive my dead Powerbook and realizing it was just going to have to go to the Apple Doctor, I met Kristin, Michael and their new friend Marissa @ the Roxie Theatre for an SFIndieFest documentary called Danielson: a FAMILY Movie. It was SOOOO GOOD!! Very interesting, inspiring and surprisingly had a lot about Sufjan Stevens, too, who I love! Sooo good. I was bummed Ali missed it (she wasn’t feelin so hot).

Afterwards we all scurried over to Tokyo Go Go, drank hot sake (to warm up, it was freezing out that night!) & ate yummy sushi.

Then on Thursday, Kristin & Michael came over for a visit, and to help set me up on the G4 they’re graciously lending me temporarily (while my Powerbook’s in the shop). Thanks you two!!

View the photo album

:::

Wednesday night I went to BAM, and then bailed on going to a show w/ Ali because I really just needed to come home & chill. I had a tough beginning of my week dealing with all that computer crap! I needed to just come home & curl up in a ball. Instead I put away clothes & read a magazine in bed… and it was just what the doctor ordered.

Thursday night I finally had the G4 set up & my backup restored onto it, so I was back in business & was able to catch up on a ton of work.

Which leads us up to now! huzzah! Yesterday my little sister arrived! She’s visiting for the weekend, and I’m so excited she’s here. It’s been a year since we’ve seen eachother!! Probably the longest we’ve ever been apart in 14 years. I love my little sister so much!! I’ll upload those photos soon and post all about it. Man, this catching up takes forever! :p

So get this: Last week I finally met the other Willow O’Brien!

(shoot, there was a photo here, but it was on an old server – i’ll have to replace it at some point)

We met for coffee near my house & just had the best time talking and comparing lives. Oddly enough she is ALSO an O’Brien from her step-dad adopting her! And currently all her immediate family lives in Colorado. WILD.

The coolest part IMO though is that we’re both successful, creative business women! Willow is a clothing designer with a line called KitKitDodge, and she owns a store here in Hayes Valley called Ver Unica. She’s really fun, outgoing & loves animals. Sound familiar? :) It was one of those meetings where I felt like we only scratched the surface of what we have to talk about. It couldn’t have gone better, really, and we’re both looking forward to meeting up again. She moved to Portland recently (after 12 years here!), but still comes down about once a month to meet with her business partner and tend to the store.

We ended up having this wild adventure in our first two hours of meeting, that involved chasing an adorable (but poorly trained) stray dog, and me pulling out my Spanish 101 to get him home to his owners. A great story to tell over dinner that night!