Weekend Round-Up: Hurricane Elfa and Other Events

Oh my…this was a funny weekend. It all started when Rob and I rushed home on foot in the freezing cold Friday (the buses were all jammed up), stopping at Sunhee Moon to buy a birthday present. Just a few frantic minutes at home changing before we dashed over to Jill and Peter’s apartment for her birthday party.

We were rushing and a bit late, so Rob and I didn’t notice right away the odd look Peter gave us when he opened the door. Turns out that not only were we not late, we were actually 24 hours early! Jill and Peter invited us in anyway and we joined them and Peter’s brother for dinner of scrambled eggs, hash browns and cornbread in the kitchen. It’s nice to have friends that will invite you in for eggs when you accidentally show up a day early!

On Saturday morning, Rob and I did two weeks worth of laundry and then embarked on the great Elfa adventure. It was all gay couples and new parents in line with us at the Container Store to get free closet planning sessions. We were going to turn our living room closet into a super-organized entertainment center…doesn’t that sound exciting and easy!? After about an hour, we had ordered all our shelving and made the bad decision to carry it home via subway. My arms are still killing me! Here’s Rob goofing off in the empty space:

Rob and I spent the rest of the day pulling everything out of this closet and installing the hardware. This is about the point when I started to hyperventilate. I’m hardly a neat freak, but I do get overwhelmed by “significant” messes. For the sake of science and humbleness, here is a photo of the apartment during those dark hours:

7:00 rolled around very quickly with little improvement on the mess. Rob and I got dressed and grabbed a bottle of wine for our second attempt at Jill’s birthday party. What a fabulous time! I got to meet some of the LACers’ husbands and we were introduced to some great new people. Super, super fun event!

I woke up to face the mess with trepidation in my heart on Sunday morning. I was pretty sure that the whole Elfa thing was just hopeless. But Rob and I launched in and started putting things away. We got the TV installed in its new home and threw out a ton of junk we really didn’t need anymore. After a few hours, the closet (I’m calling it the “den”) was looking really sharp and my blood pressure was back down. We had a nice dinner at home with The Devil Wears Prada and ripe mangoes from Safeway. Here’s the new closet:

We got to sleep in late on Monday morning! And then once we were up, we had a leisurely breakfast of coffee, grapefruit and fig Newmans while watching The Guns of Navarone. Rob loved this movie because it involved World War II (he’s been fighting Nazis on xbox all week) and rock climbing. Around noon, we headed out in the cold to the Conservatory of Flowers. This is one of my favorite botanical gardens; coming in third after Dublin’s Palm House and Florence’s Giardino dei Semplici. On a cold day in the city, it is heaven to sit next to the lily pond in the steam.

After an hour of defrosting, Rob and I decided to walk back home from the park. We stopped at an antique store and a very, very cheap produce market on Divisidero and then Doe on Haight for a few treats. I peeled off for an impromptu pedicure and then joined Rob at home for a tofu stir fry, more mangoes and Jack Bauer in HD.

I told you it was a funny weekend!