Life is Beautiful, 1

So, so far beyond behind my updates... My apologies.  With no further adieu, I will resume as though no time has passed... although, I must say it's been a lovely few months.  Days, weeks, and then months became occupied by new friends, a newfound (or reborn, rather) photography interest, as well as creative spirit poured into a new professional endeavor at Bay Area start-up, www.DITTO.com.  A relocation to the towering heights of the SF cityscape has provided me with visual inspiration and sensory stimuli to begin each morning as though it's my first and last day on Earth.  No longer do I struggle to rise in the mornings, though I cannot help but dilly-dally long enough to have to sprint down the block to the bus stop each morning.  In my haste, with hands full of phone, keys, and glasses while frantically trying to wrap my scarf, I never fail to take a solid m-i-s-s-i-s-s-i-p-p-i to look down the street, into the morning sun shining across the urban paradise beneath the hill of my abode.  Un-f-ing-believable... Every. Single. Day.  

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Up and down, up and down, winding through the metropolitan mountain range I ride the bus, taking in the diversity of faces that populate the streets around me, and the encyclopedia of flora that flourishes at arm's reach of just about everything, living or non-.  Just as I pass the neon coral house on the top of the hill as we approach Portrero, I look across the street to find our route reaching the edge of a massive cliffside overlooking the southernmost parts of San Francisco, the East Bay in the distance, and shipyards galore.  


Part Une of my daily mecca to Mountain View ends as I step into the adorably quaint Caffé La Stazione at 22nd and Pennsylvania for some form of breakfastly indulgence à la almond latté, a bran-blueberry muffin of otherworldly proportions, a banana, or something spontaneous.  Well, each choice started out as spontaneous, I guess.  Better to try new things in a new place than remain a creature of old-habit... better to give a chance for new habits to form every now and again. 

"And those without an alternative mode of transit shall im/patiently wait until the coroner clears the scene." http://instagr.am/p/JfDHa0nwX2/

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"Bored Here," my commuter-friend jokes, but in fact there's quite a bit on which the eyes can feast.  The concrete monstrosity of the 101 towers over and provides shelter to the commuters awaiting arrival of the Southbound Caltrain.  Dry we remain in the case of occasional rain, and warm is she who stands close enough to the tracks to bask in the gleaming sunlight of morning.  Even on a brisk day, the sun warms.  First through junkyards of crushed vehicles, graffitied freight cars, and mangled stems of iron, then flying trees, cascading topography, water like glass, and an ever-changing sky, we barrel into the south bay.  

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The mornings are quieter... Eyes rest.  Thoughts drift.  We coexist in a cocktail of anticipation for the events of the day ahead, and reflection on the night's sleep that preceded.  Any given car is a perfect embodiment of what one could imagine a Silicon Valley commuter train to be... Laptops, tablets, a dizzying list of smartphone WiFi networks available for toggling, and an alphabetic rainbow of tech-company branded apparel.  This is just one piece of the constituency that's creating, manufacturing, and running the technologies, softwares, hardwares, products, and services that have become an integral part of our world and cultures.  Nearly every single person around me is an active and contributing piece of what's becoming.

Please note that the wood chips are nearly in focus, along with the flower.  In other words, please notice how f-ing GIGANTIC this rose really is. http://instagr.am/p/JxQqIQnwSJ/

Mountain View greets me, flowered and bright.  The two block walk from the train station to the office takes me past microcosms of world cultures in the form of independently owned restaurants and eateries... Turkish, Japanese, Chinese DimSum, Indian, Italian, Thai, Korean, Peruvian, Jewish, Mexican, and Greek.  I arrive at DITTO and meet my team that's similarly diverse.  Our brand color palette may be a minimal white and grey with pops of red, but we hail from Spain, India, Russia, Czech Republic, England, and not least, Midwestern America. 

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Light casts from between the blinds, illuminating an open space full of large white desks, enough computer parts lying around to make a head spin, and whiteboards tattooed with everything from webpage layout sketches, to packaging diagrams, brainstorming word webs, and what appears to me as ancient scrawls of scientific gibberish, equations, and formulas.  This space is home to a constant creative process; no voice is unheard and no stone unturned.

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This is what I look forward to each day, and I couldn't be more grateful for it.  More to come on DITTO's schtick and the rest of the day later this week.  Until then, you must patiently...

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Love.

Louis Vuitton // FruitStripe Zebra

While getting my dose of Vogue Daily, I came across a pair of shoes for which I swooned:

I am enamored by the sense of levity exuded by these jaunty numbers - not to mention the prospect of mirthfully stepping out of a cab in these lovelies. Needless to say, these Fruit Striped Zebras from Louis Vuitton SS11 now grace the wallpaper of my BlackBerry.  You can see more of Phil Oh's street style snaps from summer market for Resort 2012 collections in the Vogue Gallery.  Also consider checking out his street style blog, Street Peeper.

Wait, back up a second... "Fruit Striped Zebras," you say?  Yea.  Remember this?

 If you don't remember Fruit Stripe gum, it is either because you weren't a kid, or didn't have kids, or grandkids, or didn't babysit, and maybe just didn't own a television, in the mid '80s and through the '90s.  It was fruitier and more sickeningly sweet than Juicy Fruit, and the time for which it took the gum to loose all its malleability and feel like a rubber ball in your mouth was about a tenth of what would be considered the norm in sugar-loaded gum.  But damn, that gum was sexy.  The pack was tantalizingly multi-colored, the gum itself had colored Zebra stripes corresponding to the flavor of the stick, and best of all, it came with tattoos.  From what I can remember, these lasted about as long as the flavor of the gum.  Oh memories...

Back on track, these Louis Vuitton Zebra heels are available for sale in a gold/deep red/merlot color palette, as seen on Emma Watson.  However, as much as I do enjoy the stylings of Miss Watson, I personally prefer the heels in the FruitStripe "magenta" color combo.  And, unlike the quickly fading flavor of FruitStripe gum, I could enjoy these here and there for years to come.  Throwback thrown forward.