The highlight of a wonderful evening…We have just moved to Oakland, CA, to a more working class neighborhood, and I was standing on the street waiting for my sweetie to pull out of the garage and pick me up and some cholo teenagers were coming down the street.  I thought “Oh no, they are going to embarrass me, the old fat lady, in a strapless ball gown”… And while they are walking by, one of them turned to me and said, “YOU LOOK LIKE A PRINCESS”.  I almost cried it made me so happy, we had a little moment and I smiled and my sweetie pulled up and I responded with, “Oh look, here is my Prince Charming now.”  I smiled and he smiled and the whole crew smiled at me. What could make my evening better than that?

The dress is from Sydney’s Closet, Size 30, although I wear a Size 26-28, and then altered to make make sure it fit. It is the dress in my “About Page” and I had it shortened to tea length because it is a lot of dress and the long length just felt too bulky and heavy to me.  I originally wore it with short dressy Ariat cowboy boots because I bought it for Joe Olivier’s  Cajun style birthday party.  But for the Gala I wore simple Lane Bryant Size 10 dressy flats.

Some of my favorite friends hosted us at the amazing Exploratorium
 Opening Gala, and when we arrived there were Rickshaws to take us from the car to the entrance to the Gala, and some guest rode on the Serpent Twins.

Here is a photo with my friend Jennifer Raiser, you can find her account of the evening here (Tom and I even get a little shout out in her fabulous narrative) in her online magazine that keeps up with all the social events in San Francisco, SFWire. My favorite line from her article is “The glee was palpable, one of the few things a scientific instrument wasn’t set up to measure.” And since it is an art and science museum, that amused me. Jennifer is a fairly new friend and I am just finding her to be a delight.  We both love connecting with people and have an interest in fashion and writing and Burning Man. That dress Jennifer is wearing is vintage Bill Blass from the early 80’s, matte sequins and aurora beads on silk mesh, purchased from Ricky’s Exceptional Treasures on eBay.

We had a wonderful supper club dinner with our friends Paul and April Buchheit and the rest of our fun dinner partners, and then there was time to explore the art and science exhibits and listen to the bands.

Paul and April’s friend Clare Dibble was here from Colorado for the event and she looked like spring.  Her dress was from Dress Barn and it looked great on her.  That was especially fun since like many women these days she only wears a dress occasionally.  Thanks for posing Clare.

Thanks to my sweet friends for one of my favorite evenings ever!

Here is the original photo so you can see more of the detail.

Peace…affinity

photo with Jennifer & Group: Drew Altizer Photography