Thelma and Louise Come to San Francisco

They arrived! Relyn and Robin (AKA Thelma and Louise) came to San Francisco to visit tangobaby and me. They started on their road trip early this morning in Oregon and arrived around dinner time. It looks like they had a roaring good time:

I can’t wait to share this beautiful city with them!

Tangobaby Crowned Princess of the Blogosphere

Yesterday überblogger tangobaby was bestowed a great honor: her blog was named Blog of Note by Google's Blogger team. I don't know anyone more deserving. This is a huge deal, she was named right there on the same page as Linus Torvalds’ blog. Linus Torvalds is a rock star in the geek world; he is the founder and chief architect of Linux. He gathered no less than 1656 followers since his first post on October 2nd.

I met tangobaby 3 years ago when she still lived here in Palo Alto. She started her blog when she moved to San Francisco, a few months after she discovered the world of tango down here at Stanford. I knew nothing about the blogging world, I just loved the engaging way she shared her passion for dance:

her unabashed love for food, even if it's not the most nutritious:

her passion for classic movies:

and how she recounted all her San Francisco adventures with her beautiful photos:

It didn't take long for me to get reeled into tb's world. We share a lot of the same passions so the inevitable time came when I wanted to come out of the shadows of lurkerdom and leave a comment. When faced with the option of using my real name (thanks, but no thanks), an anonymous note (too cowardly), or a pseudonym (interesting idea), I had to come up with a name. I looked at the top of the comment screen and saw the tangobaby heading. Hm, that might work. I'm only one fourth Dutch but I liked the dutchbaby pun. I had no idea that this moniker would stick!

After a while leaving comments wasn't enough, I started feeding tb ideas for her blog and the inescapable time came when tb put her foot down and said: "Get your own damn blog!" She was right of course. So on June 4th of this year, I took the plunge . Then was faced with the next challenge: what should I use for my profile photo? Fortunately, I remembered that tb posted a very cute photo on my birthday last year. Perfect!

I feel so grateful to have been introduced to the fantastic world of blogging, which is so brilliant at bringing like-minded folks together, and to become part of this community of kindred spirits, all because of my friend tb!

I congratulate and thank you, tangobaby! You have been more than an inspiration to me, you opened up a whole new world for me!

A Defining Moment in History

Oh what a night!

The ever-gracious Mor Mor Kris hosted the historic election night in her beautiful home. We ate gourmet cheeses, delicious chili, and Obama cookies:

We shared our voting stories. One guest drove a colleague to her precinct in East Palo Alto yesterday. The precinct worker told the colleage that she could not vote because she did not speak enough English. Fortunately, our friend was able to reach an attorney on his cell phone and within a half hour, the colleague was able to vote and the precinct worker was ejected. YES! Obama’s campaign had a pool of 5,000 lawyers available for all voters. Evidence of another stone that was not left unturned in Obama’s amazing campaign!

It was a long, hard campaign, but now victory was ours, fair and square. There were tears of joy, shouts of triumph, clenched fists of victory, and lots of champagne!

I am thrilled that I can travel abroad now without having to apologize for our administration. I wish Barack Obama wisdom and strength as he embarks on this historic journey.

Speaking of the future, I am honored to be nominated to run alongside tangobaby in her administration of 2012. I am looking forward to making lots of patriotic arrangements and bouquets and readying the compost bin ;-)