List 7

Love: My childhood memories of the 1970s. How epic is the wall-to-wall zebra carpeting in our living room? It was a great time to be a kid, not to mention a much less stressful time to be an adult - all the working parents on our block were home by 5:30 for dinner and never had to get back on email. When I want to ache with nostalgia, listening to The Virgin Suicides soundtrack, or even MGMT's '70s-sounding "Someone's Missing" and "Congratulations," helps set the mood.

Like: The early '70s Mercedes 350SL. One day...

Discovery: Rainbows always seem very '70s to me. Erich got me these cool glasses at Paul Smith for our anniversary - they feel at once modern and vintage.

Obsession: Movies from - and about - the 1970s. So many great ones, from Three Days of the Condor, The Parallax View and All the President's Men to The Godfather 1&2, from Saturday Night Fever (which aside from the whole disco thing is a fascinating portrait of class and the American Dream) to Star Wars. In the "about" category, The Virgin Suicides was pretty darn wonderful and stands up to repeat viewings. The scene where the girls and guys play songs for each other through the phone? Perfection.

Complaint: Much as I appreciate the digital-enabled instant gratification world we live in, it makes me sad that kids today will never know the exquisite anticipation of sitting by the boombox for hours, radio on, cassette tape ready, play-record-pause all pushed, just hoping your favorite song comes on so you can capture it.

List 6

Love: The color gray. It's rich and complex and comes in an incredible array of shades, and with different undertones - from pale dove gray to near-black charcoal. We've used it in several rooms, including a greenish gray called Osprey for our kitchen cabinets, against a gray slate floor, and a dark steel gray in one of the bathrooms. One thing that's great about gray is how colors pop against it - orange, teal, yellow, and in this case hot pink gerber daisies.

Like: This walnut and gray Crosley radio. You can hook your iPod to it too.
Discovery: We are in the long, painful process of permitting then building a guest studio in our backyard. We will be putting in gray hardwood floors (Mirage's charcoal-stained maple planks.)

Obsession: Clara, my first cat ever. She always wants to be near, but isn't much of a snuggler - which is hard to take after the on-demand, over-the-top Labrador love we got for 12 years from the late, great Zelda. But when Clara is in the mood, it's all the more wonderful for the wait.

Complaint: People who think it's weird to have gray as your favorite color. (Ahem, Stella.)

List 5

Love: Astrud Gilberto. Yes, she sang "The Girl from Ipanema," but she has a lot of other wonderful (better) songs. The Astrud Gilberto Album is a really nice background for a summer afternoon on the patio.

Like: Campari is a perennial favorite, but a couple of years ago we got turned onto Aperol, its slightly mellower cousin. A lovely summer cocktail (courtesy of GQ) is an Aperol-Orange Fizz: Mix equal parts Aperol and orange juice. Throw some ice in a glass and fill halfway with the Aperol-OJ mix, then top it off with Proseco.

Discovery: Foolproof Grilled Chicken. It's brined, then easily and perfectly grilled (if you follow the recipe's instructions), then tossed when it's hot off the grill with an Asian or Mediterranean vinaigrette.

http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Foolproof-Grilled-Chicken-108166

Obsession: Crostini. Acme bread plus toppings are hard to beat. When it's hot, an assortment of crostini and a simple arugula salad can be a great pretty much no-cook meal. My current favorites are one with a slice of fresh mozzerella, proscuitto and a dollop of tapenade and one with goat cheese and a spoonful of some kind of pepper-fruit jam.

Complaint: The Bay Area summer weather, naturally. We can see the fog roll right through the Golden Gate and head straight for us in the Berkeley Hills. For that reason, I think the long, decadent Sunday lunch is the way to go this time of year. (Plus entertaining for lunch rather than dinner means you can be sobered up and cleaned up in time for Mad Men and True Blood.)

List 4

A Mad Men and very-loosely-inspired-by Mad Men list:

Love: Our mid-century Draperesque desk, found at Klassiks by Lynne. Lynne is Danish, has a warehouse in Emeryville, and brings over several massive shipments from Denmark each year.

http://www.klassikbylynne.com/

Like: We have a pity subscription to The San Francisco Chronicle. Which means we rarely read it but feel the need to support a local newspaper. We're old school like that. But the Chronicle's TV critic, Tim Goodman, is really good. His blog, The Bastard Machine, has a good weekly analysis of each Mad Men episode. He will also be interviewing Matthew Weiner at the JCC in October.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/sfgate/indexn?blogid=24

Discovery: Jonathan Lethem was interviewed in Esquire or GQ a couple of years ago about books that he'd recommend. And from that we found out about James Salter's "Light Years," a book published in the early 1970s that tracks a marriage in the post-war decades. It's a wonderful book that should be more widely known and read.

http://www.powells.com/biblio/17-9780679740735-5

Obsession: We are haunted by the one that got away: Josef Muller-Brockmann's Swiss Auto Club safety poster with the motorcycle wheel. We saw it at the Art Deco show many years ago and it sold in the few minutes we were thinking about it while looking at the adjacent booth. We do have the Muller-Brockmann poster one with the car and the bicycle, but hope to one day find its sibling again.

Complaint: I hate to say this because the actor who plays the character is the son of family friends, but the part of Dr. Greg Harris, Joan's husband, was miscast. Greg is supposed to be heading to 'Nam though, right? So, perhaps, problem solved.

List 3

Love: Pizzaiolo's meatballs. (Now available at Boot & Shoe Service too!)

http://www.pizzaiolooakland.com/

http://bootandshoeservice.com/

Like: The new season of Top Chef.

Discovery: Pinterest.com is "a free service to share collections of things you love - whether that's food, art, clothing or books." I found it via sfgirlbythebay.com and regularly peruse/stalk her pinboards for ideas (especially the "come to my new house" one.)

http://pinterest.com/sfgirlbybay/

http://pinterest.com/home/

http://www.sfgirlbybay.com/

Obsession: Dioramas. I grew up in Milwaukee, and The Milwaukee Public Museum has 3 amazing floors of them. One day, I would love to make a massive coffee table book of animal dioramas from there, the New York's American Museum of Natural History, etc.

Complaint: When people with clipboards try to stop you with the line "Have you got one minute to save the earth/end child hunger/ensure equality for all?" That line is designed to make you feel like a dick even though you're just busy or late or you choose to give your money to the DCCC instead.

List 2

Love: Le Fumoir in Paris is just about my most favorite place to hang out in the world. I love the interior design and the overall vibe. It's dark and moody and men's clubby. If I ever had my own ad agency (or could design one), it would look and feel like this.

http://www.time.com/time/travel/cityguide/article/0,31489,1937013_1936990_1936848,00.html

Like: The "January" (as in Jones, as in Betty Draper) retro red nail polish from Julep.

http://myjulepshopping.com/catalog/january.html

Discovery: etsy is a love for sure, and one of my favorite sellers is girlscantell. She does these really cool diagrams of things - turntables, bicycles, holga cameras - and puts them on felt coasters, napkins, placemats and other housewares.

http://www.etsy.com/shop/girlscantell?ref=seller_info

Obsessions: I covet the Jean Luc Godard poster that's in Bar Jules' bathroom.

Complaint: Volkswagen, why haven't you reintroduced the Karmann Ghia?

List 1

Love: Stella, bien sur. Particularly her sense of humor.

Stella: "Mama, get me some apples."

Erich: "What do you say...?"

Stella (reluctantly): "Please."

Erich: "Say it in a nice sentence."

Stella: (smiling smugly) "Mama, would you please tell Papa to get me some apples."

Like: "OMG" by Cults

http://www.vbs.tv/blog/it-s-a-balloon-party-with-cults-omg

Discovery: Raw kale salads. You have to use Tuscan (Dinosaur) Kale. A kale caesar salad with a coddled egg in the dressing is amazing not to mention super healthy (or healthy-ish I guess depending on how much cheese and dressing you use).

Obsession: The Passage - 800 pages of awesomeness that I can't stop thinking about and already want to read again. I hope Justin Cronin is madly cranking on the second book.

http://www.powells.com/biblio/1-9780345504968-16

Complaint: The way Terry Gross pronounces "human" as "ewe-man"