We're living wonderful West Coast Lives

Carol and I are big fans of Sedge Thomson's weekly radio show, West Coast Live... and it made us realize how lucky we are to be living West Coast Lives!


We always try to make the show when it's at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SF MOMA)... two hours of "hand crafted radio" which matches our Berkeley "Hand Crafted Real Estate Services" and an amazing assortment of guests.

Why the SFMOMA Show? Because the West Coast Live admission also gets us into the museum for free.. and ahead of the big line to see the Picasso Exhibit which just opened!

Whenever possible, we take BART in and walk over from the North Berkeley to the Montgomery Street BART Station.. but we were running late today so drove in. The parking garage on 3rd Street a block below the museum always seems to have room.. and the rates are reasonable (for San Francisco that is)

My favorite Architecture and Design bookstore in the San Francisco Bay Area is William Strout Architectural Books on Montgomery Street; SFMOMA and Berkeley's Builder's Booksource are also superb


More West Coast Living Adventures... we came home from dinner at the Kensington Pub the other night... and in the night sky was a beautiful silver slipper of a crescent moon, probably about a day after conjunction with Venus!

Berkeley Rocks.. in more way than one!



Rocks? In Berkeley?

For Valentine's Day Carol bought me a beautiful book "Berkeley Rocks" I've blogged about it earlier... but we happened to be showing a home near Indian Rock Park.. so took some photos. Yes.. that's really San Francisco in the background!


Still life with Seltzer!

Most of our clients are referred to us from other clients, their Realtors, or come to us from our BerkeleyHomes.com web site.

We were showing a Rockridge Home to one of our buyers... and I realized I was near Genova Deli in Temescal. Genova is one of those old fashioned delis.. now in much larger quarters than they had been in when I first came to Berkeley in 1974.

Genova is the Italian Deli which most reminds me of the New York Delis of my youth (born in Manhattan, grew up in The Bronx).

Genova has changed since 1974, when everyone behind the counter wore a clean white starched apron and a tie. And everyone behind the counter was an older Italian man.. or so it seemed

Now everyone behind the counter wears a clean white starched apron and a tie. And everyone behind the counter is now male or female, young or old, and reflects the diverse makeup of the wonderful East Bay.

Still Life With Seltzer


But I digress (or perhaps, I should say, I digest?)

I ordered a bunch of food to take home (delighting Carol when I arrived home)... and one of our first feasts was gallantina, mortadella, red peppers, beans, archichoke tort... and seltzer from the Seltzer Sisters.

Carol agreed with me.. the composition looks vaguely Japanese!

But there's more to our West Coast Lives. We've wonderful clients, so have had an extraordinary real estate week.

Our real estate week - helping wonderful people sell and buy homes in (and near) Berkeley

On Friday we closed escrow on 138 Behrens, a home which we originally sold to our client about 20 years ago as part of their IRC 1031 Tax Deferred Exchange.

Our Sobrante Road sellers signed their closing papers at the nearby Montclair Village Title Office.. and I rushed back home to take Carol to see Jersey Boys for her Birthday Wednesday

We saw some magnificent homes on Berkeley Real Estate Brokers' Tour Thursday (our clients receive extraordinary information each week on the homes we see)

Tuesday? A lender who heard my speak many years ago referred us to two sisters; we showed them homes on Tuesday, and ratified their purchase contract on a Piedmont Avenue home this afternoon (it's 11:40 pm so it's still Saturday).

That's not all we did on Tuesday.. our two IRC 1031 Tax Deferred Exchange offers were accepted on two 4 bedroom homes in Raleigh NC (we're diversifying the location of our Real Estate investments so it's not all in Berkeley)

Oh... did I mention that we listed a beautiful North Berkeley home on Thursday afternoon? It's about a 3 minute walk to Saul's Deli.

And there I am again, talking about corned beef, egg creams, matzoh ball soup, and seltzer.

Bookstores and food and Carol... some of the great loves of my life.

And for Carol's birthday this week we went to see Jersey Boys at the Curran Theater. It was WONDERFUL!

We also started work our front yard landscaping!

We truly are living wonderful West Coast Lives!

Ira