Where's Waldo?

Okay, here's a little guessing game. I took this photo this afternoon. Where was I?

Seems pretty appropriate for the Christmas season, doesn't it? Okay, did you guess yet?

Now here's a photo taken this morning at 9 a.m.

We were in a party "limo" in the office parking lot. The guys there are a couple of attorneys and our office manager, making sure we started the day off right. Fun, huh? Champagne at 9 a.m. on a Wednesday morning? I think the Girls Gone Wild videos were mentioned.

Each year an attorney organization holds its annual conference on either the first or second Thursday and Friday in San Francisco. Traditionally, the staff at our firm are treated to a day in San Francisco on the Wednesday of the annual conference--most of our attorneys don't work that day because they head to San Francisco too. When I first started working for the firm over 18 years ago, the tradition was that the staff shopped most of the day and then met up with the attorneys and clients at a S.F. restaurant for appetizers; afterward, we'd leave to head back to Sacramento and the attorneys would stay for dinner with the clients. The attorney conference and associated seminars began the next day. In recent years, though, we just go and shop; we no longer meet up with the attorneys or clients.

The party limo was a new thing this year--normally we go in three "standard" limos, divided up into groups depending on where each group wants to shop. This year, we still had three or four groups, but the party bus drove between the groups and ferried us around the city, and when the party bus was already busy, we'd grab a cab.

My group wanted to start out in the Hayes district and do a little shopping. Our first stop was this darling store. Can you see the Santa ornament in the window, kind of high up? I ended up buying one of those--it's kind of a circus Santa.

At 12:30, it was time for lunch at Absinthe, a popular and trendy restaurant known at least in part for its extensive specialty cocktail menu and artisanal cheeses.

We tried out a few of those specialty cocktails. If you ever go to Absinthe, the Casino is yummy. Kind of like a gin martini but with a cherry floating in the bottom. Just to make sure I liked it, I had two. I also enjoyed a chestnut and mushroom soup and a cheese platter of brie and grapes. Good stuff.

The Santa ornament was packed in a box with shredded purple and white paper; because my friend Teri likes purple, I let her wear the paper on her head. I'm nice like that. (She was drinking a Sacred Heart, or maybe it was a Bleeding Heart? Well, actually she was drinking two.)

Since San Francisco is so architecturally recognizable, I took a couple photos for you. After lunch, we headed to the Noe Valley area for more shopping, and that's where I took these photos. We were walking down a hill to the shopping area--the party bus let us out early because he was afraid of bottoming out on the hill.

Another cool shop--this was in Noe Valley and is called The Urban Nest. I was sorely tempted to buy more Christmas stuff like those snowmen, but I resisted.

More Noe Valley architecture. See the inflatables? See the Christmas decorations? And the sign? It said something like Happy Holidays, Noe Valley, and 2009. I'm not sure what that meant--if it was just something the owner put up or if it was some kind of award. I was sitting outside Starbucks at the time, drinking an iced latte, and freezing to death. An iced anything wasn't a good plan, especially since I realized after I ordered that there was no available seating inside and it was really, really cold outside. Brrrrr!

We ended the day at the Ferry Building down near the Bay. The Ferry Building is filled with all kinds of food-related shops. I would have LOVED to buy some exotic (to me!) mushrooms at the mushroom shop except I don't have much experience with exotic mushrooms--not even enough to have a clue about what to buy! We did a little cheese tasting at the cheese shop, and I came home with about a pound of cheese altogether--four different kinds. Yum! And boy was that shop FRAGRANT! All of us--the office staff--gathered at the Market Bar for some appetizers and then at 7 p.m., we boarded the party bus back to Sacramento.

Good-bye San Francisco! See you next year!