April 8th, 2010 by Anitale

It’s been a few days that I haven’t seen this homeless guy kneeing just next to the entry of a fancy store.

I noticed that he was gone. But I didn’t really care. I always walked by without stopping.

But today he was back. And I noticed that, as well.

Which made me wonder. Why did I never stop? If I notice that there is this guy kneeing every day begging for money, why did I never stop and just ask how he is doing? Well, we all know that we can’t stop at each homeless guy. I know.

But well, today I stopped. I asked him where he has been. And he told me that he was in the hospital.

I could see that. He was all clean and shiny.
I want him to stay clean and shiny. That’s the first time I gave him money. It’s almost nothing but if no one helps him staying that way, he will just get dirty again and feel even worse than his situation already is.

March 16th, 2010 by Anitale

Is a week end walk done by thousands of women and a few men. 39 Miles or 63 kilometers. A marathon on Saturday and a half marathon on Sunday.

AvonWalk means walking all together to demonstrate that Breast Cancer still exists but we are all here to do something about this terrible disease.

Prior to this symbolic walk, which is marvelously well organized, months and months of fundraising drives your days.

Each day you wonder, where will I get at least $1800 from? Donating just for donating and getting nothing in return is so difficult.

Girls Scout is selling cookies, so people get something for their money. And I could see how much money people can spend on cookies.

But Breast Cancer? If you haven’t experienced breast cancer in your family you simply are not interested. And I understand.

So why donating money for nothing in return?

I don’t know.

I don’t know how to explain that one day you might experience this disease.

Approximately 180.000 women and also some men will be diagnosed with Breast Cancer this year. And 40.000 will die from this disease.

I don’t know how to make clear that without all those women walking for years now we wouldn’t have raised over $265 Million - funds that are directly saving lives.

This money is not just for research but also for supporting those who can’t afford a Health Insurance.

The last point makes me almost not wanting to collect money because this is the result of years and years of monetizing disease. I truly hope that the Health Care reform will change that.

Wouldn’t it be better to spend $265 Million just in research and not in financial help for those who can not afford to survive?

But this is a different cause. I can fight only one at a time.

So please help me. Donate!

You can donate on my Avon Walk page!

March 12th, 2010 by Anitale

Au Pif, originally uploaded by anitation.

Since ever I have this deep love for manufacture. It starts with simple things like assembling the Billy IKEA shelf instead of watching TV. Well, I have no TV but it expresses exactly what I am.

I can’t just sit and NOT create.
And all those who know me well can confirm that there are only few things that I haven’t touched. I paint, I build picture frames, I develop black and white, I restore vintage furniture, I build furniture, I decorate, I made a lamp, I design birthday invitation cards and well right now I am totally into sewing.

I have not much time to create but I had enough pieces to open my sweet little Etsy Shop: Au Pif.

Au Pif is how I cook, bake and create. Au Pif describes doing by not following the “How to”. I just do and we will see what happens.

March 11th, 2010 by Anitale

Kiss at Ocean Beach, originally uploaded by anitation.

I actually took a day off.
And it was totally worth it.
Make the day special by just doing normal stuff. Breakfast in a nice cafe. Visiting a museum. Lunch, well lunch at a nice spot with a beautiful view on the Pacific and for dinner a Calvados in a cigar bar. Very relaxing.

I thought I might be able to put some words on my mariage. But I don’t know what to say. No philosophy or advice. I feel more than all right. I feel great. It feels all right, and I guess it will feel that way tomorrow and surely the day after. I love being in love, still, after all those years of being a couple.
But my view on life is much more “French movie” than “American Hollywood”: Let’s put in some naked people, even if no one wants to see it. Because that’s how it is.

So, I appreciate what I have now. And that’s how I see it for my future but the future is to come.
I am happy and that is all I need to know and feel. May it last.

May it truly last.

December 3rd, 2009 by Anitale

Ce sont des questions qu’on se pose tous les jours.

L’argent et les moyens, c’est un argument. Il faut réfléchir avant réagir.

Aujourd’hui, demain, un jour. La vie est rempli de devoir et loisir… attend non, pas trop de loisir… sinon je me sentirais coupable.

Je ne peux pas regarder ce SDF et en même temps tenir dans ma main un sac avec mes derniers achats. Trois boulotte de laine cachemire pour tricoter une écharpe qui coute probablement plus cher que d’offrir une nuit d’hôtel à ce Monsieur…. qui me regard, qui me rend coupable, je tourne mon regard, je consacre encore 15 mètres de pensée a son malheur et mes solutions. Des solutions que j’en ai pleines la tête mais j’en fais rien.

Ce n’est pas mon devoir, je ne peux pas donner à tout le monde… attend, je crois toutes mes pensées sont trop négatives… mais bon, je vais en réfléchir… et oublier.

Jusqu’à je croise le prochain SDF dans la rue, que je regarde, qui me rend coupable, je tourne mon regard, je consacre encore 15 mètres de pensée a son malheur et mes solutions. Des solutions que j’en ai pleines la tête mais j’en fais rien.

Et un jour on tombe sur un tweet qui me mène à lire un article sur un blog, qui me mène à réfléchir… et bien: c’est à moi de réagir.
Un sac de couchage pour ceux qui en rêvent

November 16th, 2009 by Anitale

Tradition is important. Tradition is what rules our lives. Tradition is global, local or just family and friends. Tradition is just something you do and mostly you don’t even perceive it as tradition.

It’s just something that melts into your habits of life. Year after year you repeat what your parents already did and before that your grandparents and your grand grandparents and so on.
Most of the time you don’t even know why you do it.
It might be, that you attach great value because of your sweet childhood memories, or because you love reuniting your beloved ones.

One of my favorite traditions is Christmas baking. I love baking, I love it even more with friends and if I would have the chance with family, I love baking German cookies and I love sharing them.

November 13th, 2009 by Anitale

which is totally fine… BUT (there is a but) on the other side that makes me sad.

I haven’t been to my mothers in 17 months. That is such a long time. That sounds like I would be a political refugee. Being banned for lifetime. It’s the 21st century. I can fly to Europe back and forth 15 times a month… if I could afford it.
I haven’t visited her in 17 months because it’s always the reason that wins when it comes to my professional life. Instead of enjoying the free time while looking for a job I stay immobile. I can’t do a step left or right, no, I am stuck on the “looking for a job” road.
The day I find a job I feel so relieved, happy to finally be able to do what I want… but wait, I am in the US! The French days of 36 holidays are gone.

FOREVER GONE!

Might sound as if I would complain - probably - but that’s just because I think it is insane to not having visited your family in 17 months.

October 13th, 2009 by Anitale

English: It’s raining cats and dogs.

French: Il pleut des cordes.

German: Es schüttet wie aus Eimern.

The French say: It is raining ropes/wires.
Wondering why it should rain ropes. But I kind of get it. That’s what you see when it’s really pouring and the raindrops seem to join together to long ropes.

The German say: It is pouring out of buckets.
I think this is kind of exaggerated but at least it does not make up some weird stuff falling from the sky.

Why would someone come up with this strange idea and let cats and dogs fall from the sky.

Although wikipedia explains why it rains animals from time to time, it couldn’t help much witch the cats and dogs.

Which leaves me with an open question: Where do the cats and dogs come from?

October 13th, 2009 by Anitale

I surprised myself this morning.

I considered working from home just because it’s raining. Something I would never ever have considered in my old days back in Paris.

I love rain. I am Miss Rain!

But somehow after 1 year of rainless living I kind of got used to dry shoes. So I took my green little umbrella and walked over to the office.

I had to battle 20 long minutes. The wind just comes from everywhere. My umbrella survived but many didn’t.

September 29th, 2009 by Anitale

Having friends having babies is a good reason to start quilting. And I enjoyed every step. Choosing fabrics, cutting it, sewing all together, sewing even more, sewing, sewing, sewing and at the end quilting.

It was my first time and I made a lot of mistakes but I don’t care. This quilt is right now traveling over the Atlantic and will very soon become little Sophie’s Baby Quilt.

September 25th, 2009 by Anitale

It’s like an idea born under a shower drain. To bring this idea on 3 pages of a Moleskine you have to take a huge step. It’s the first and most important one. And to tell your best friend about it is the next big step. Step by step it moves on. And one day this whole idea has so much grown that it needs space.
And here we are. UserVoice made it to the top floor of a nice little building in downtown San Francisco. I have not picked my desk yet but I can’t wait to do so.

May 24th, 2009 by Anitale

The best thing about arriving somewhere in the middle of the night is the wonderful surprise you have the next morning when you first open your eyes.
So, this is the view we have lying in our bed.
What a lovely place. Blue water, snow on the top of the mountains, blooming trees and some beautiful blue birds that I've never seen before.
I really love lake tahoe in winter and summer.

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May 8th, 2009 by Anitale

Tea time for me means Mariage Freres.
And Mariage Freres means Paris and its beautiful Mariage Freres stores. Something that I definitely miss here in San Francisco.

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May 1st, 2009 by Anitale

Here are some thoughts on customer care, triggered by a bad experience that happened to me.
Customer care includes technical support, several kind of inquiries, shipping statuses, billing, feedback and much more. Customer care can literally make or break your business. Of course, the type of customer care your Website offers depends on the product or service you sell. Satisfy and help the customer before and after the sale/service and you will attract new customers to your website, and keep them coming back for more.

So, that leads me to…
…that bad experience I had with Eurostar. Couldn’t buy my ticket online because one of the address lines didn’t accept my address or any other address. Without address no ticket. And you know, if you don’t buy your ticket way in advance you can pay 5 times the price.
So I decided to call the Customer Care: A robot told me, that the number is no longer valid and gave me another one. The other number does not work at all.
There is that option to send an email. But you know how that ends. You will get an answer when the cheapest ticket is no longer available.
Since I am a twitter user I twitted a big HELP! No reaction. I thought a big company like Eurostar would perhaps track their name. But it seems that I am wrong.
And I kind of understand why they don’t track their name.
There is only one train going from Paris to London. That means there is no competitor. Flying is not an option. It would take so much longer and is more expensive.

Lucky Eurostar!

But what if there would be a competitor?
What if my tweets would have an influence on my followers and their followers?
What if all these people would turn to the competitor?

Customer Care means they should care about what people say.
Every company holds a statistic about incoming complaints. But most of the time people do not complain that way.
They complain on their blog, twitter, in their online community. That’s how they spread their discontent.
And so many companies can’t afford to destroy their brand’s reputation.

To make it short, I would have liked to get feedback and help. Lucky Eurostar! No competitor and I have very few followers on twitter.

I had to buy my ticket on my old Eurostar account. That means my billing address (that I couldn’t change) is my old address in Paris and I had to pay the ticket in Euro. Which means I’ll have to pay a percentage on my Visa card purchase.

April 30th, 2009 by Anitale

What is a community?
Am I part of one community or am I part of several communities?
Is a network a community? Are my friends my community?
Is it important to be recognized as a member of a community? And why?

My first step in a social network was my subscription to orkut.com. That was so many years ago that I cannot remember when exactly that was.
My first blog I wrote in winter 2002/2003 to document my New Zealand trip.

Over the years I subscribed to hundreds of social platforms. Global, national and local, private, leisure, professional, photo, blog, discussion, video, forum and groups. Did I forget something?

Whatever is important (or even not important) to me I can share it online in my social network, in my community. Sharing is easy. Most of my networks are connected to each other. It must be easy and quick.

I know, I did not answer my questions above. I think I have no wise answer.
I think I am part of several online communities. Big ones and small ones and micro communities within a big community. Sometimes I am more active and sometimes less. I noticed that a community becomes my network when I stay active.
The word “friends” need to be redefined. Or we need a new word for “real-they-care-about-me-friends”.
So, are my friends my community? Probably.
And yes it is important to be recognized as a member of a community as long as I share and contribute, I need feedback. I need to know that people care about what I share. It can be positive or negative, but I wouldn’t share if I didn’t seek for recognition.

April 11th, 2009 by Anitale

…most of the time. And I love my Chemex coffeemaker.
Does coffee taste better in a design coffee maker? Yes, it does. Because the pleasure preparing the coffee already releases all the happy chemicals in my body and drinking this coffee makes the chemicals last.

April 8th, 2009 by Anitale

It’s been a while that we were looking for “the” coffee table.
We had several tables in mind. I really like the Gae Aulenti glass table. But very expensive and needs daily cleaning.
I also love the Eames Elliptical Table. It should be an authentic one. But we never really looked for one. I don’t know why. Perhaps it was just my fantasy but not his.
What we had in mind was a factory cart. We saw it first at Anthropologie. Yes, they do sell furniture. Really old furniture. But so expensive. Abusively expensive.
But there is Alameda Flee Market. A great flee market. Miles and miles of beautiful furniture and old stuff and ONE factory cart, less then half the price of what we’ve seen at Anthropologie.
And there it is; industrial and old and I love it.

Posted via email from Anitale’s life in pictures

April 3rd, 2009 by Anitale

After hours and hours painting tiny circles I eventually came to an end.
I could have bought a painting but at this size it’s difficult to find something affordable and I would have disrespected my motto: “Do it yourself.”

See and download the full gallery on posterous

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April 2nd, 2009 by Anitale

No in fact it’s more an evening dolce.

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March 28th, 2009 by Anitale

Diamond Heights in San Francisco somewhere on a stairway is this snake enjoying the sun… or just waiting for us. I don’t know. I have no idea if this snake is dangerous or not. I just thought let’s take a picture as close as possible. I’ve never seen a snake outside a zoo or animal store. Oh not true. I had this neighbor in Munich who actually walked his snake in our neighborhood. It was a boa. 2 or 3 meters long. He fed it with small rabbits. Wondering if his boa is still alive. And also wondering if it’s allowed to have a boa at home. 20 years ago nobody cared.

Posted via email from Anitale’s life in pictures