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Join us for mediation in the Little Room every Monday in March at 9:30. We'll have 5 minutes of settling in, followed by a 15-minute recorded meditation selected by Ruby Karen Leibowitz.
Tarot isn't only about fortune-telling or divination; it can also be used as a tool for intuition, reflection, growth, and creative projects.
Ruby members Helen Tseng and Melissa Graeber, the co-hosts of Astral Projection Radio Hour, a weekly witch-themed radio show on BFF.fm, are two friends who have been meeting once a month for the past year to lightly study tarot and eat noodles. They call it "Decks and Noods," and we're bringing a version of it to The Ruby! Every month, we'll gather for thoughtful discussion and practice, and the occasional guest reader.
At this first gathering, Helen and Melissa will give an introductory overview to tarot and the many ways to use it, including — but not limited to — self-reflection, creative ritual, DIY therapy, agency, and more. Helen and Melissa will also share non-patriarchal decks and modern tarot resources they're fans of (Jessa Crispin, Michelle Tea, Many Moons, and various online resources). We'll choose one card as a group to interpret/think about, then break into smaller groups to be in conversation about the ways to interpret a card or spread. breaking into pairs or small groups and being in conversation about the ways to interpret a card or spread.
BYO Tarot Deck if you have one (and extra decks if you own multiple decks!); Helen and Melissa will also bring decks for the deckless. No prior knowledge of Tarot is assumed! We'll provide noodles of course!
BYOL (lunch) and BYOBJ (bullet journal) and hang out with your fellow Rubies to plan out the upcoming month of April in your journal. We can share washi tape (or not), chat about journaling strategies (or not), and, most importantly, spend time together as we identify goals and tasks and work out schedules for the month ahead. New bullet journal enthusiasts and seasoned journal-lovers are all welcome!
Every last Wednesday of the month, join us for mahjong, knitting, and/or art! Whatever your fancy, we've got you covered.
Come play Mahjong at The Ruby's Mahjong night. (6 to 6:30 p.m. will be a quick refresher in how to play mahjong, taught by Ruby member Mimi Lok. Come at 6:30 to play!)
Or come join our circle of knitters and crafters led by Ruby member Jourdan Abel. Crocheters, embroiderers, darners... all are welcome!
Or come join our Ruby visual artists! Art Night at The Ruby is led by Ruby Reina Takahashi. Please bring whatever supplies you’d like to work with (we have some available as well). After a round of intros, we’ll doodle and draw, and snack and chat.
Join us for an evening of figure drawing at The Ruby! We'll be working with a live nude female model. Bring your own art supplies and paper pad (any tools will do --pencil, paint, pen). We'll also have some extra supplies if you forget. This will be a relaxed event without instruction. We'll have a chance to practice drawing the human form in a variety of poses.
PLEASE NOTE: For Ruby members, there is a model fee of $10 payable at the start of class!
Join us for Happy Hour (And A Half) with Tess Bryant of Tess Bryant Selections.
Tess Bryant Selections is an import company working with winemakers from Australia, France and California who share the common goals of respecting the earth and nourishing our bodies with natural wine: organic or biodynamically grown grapes, minimal intervention in the cellar, and little or no added preservatives.
Tess Bryant Selections was started in 2018 in Oakland, California, and is owned and operated by Tess Bryant. We sell direct in California, New York, New Jersey, Illinois, and through our partner distributors in other states.
Join us to celebrate the release of Ruby member Namwali Serpell's new novel, THE OLD DRIFT. Namwali will read from her book, followed by a conversation with fellow Ruby Aku Ammah-Tagoe. Books will be for sale at The Ruby.
About The Old Drift
An electrifying debut from the winner of the 2015 Caine Prize for African writing, The Old Drift is the Great Zambian Novel you didn’t know you were waiting for ----
On the banks of the Zambezi River, a few miles from the majestic Victoria Falls, there was once a colonial settlement called The Old Drift. Here begins the epic story of a small African nation, told by a mysterious swarm-like chorus that calls itself man’s greatest nemesis. The tale? A playful panorama of history, fairytale, romance and science fiction. The moral? To err is human.
In 1904, in a smoky room at the hotel across the river, an Old Drifter named Percy M. Clark, foggy with fever, makes a mistake that entangles the fates of an Italian hotelier and an African busboy. This sets off a cycle of unwitting retribution between three Zambian families (black, white, brown) as they collide and converge over the course of the century, into the present and beyond. As the generations pass, their lives – their triumphs, errors, losses and hopes – form a symphony about what it means to be human.
From a woman covered with hair and another plagued with endless tears, to forbidden love affairs and fiery political ones, to homegrown technological marvels like Afronauts, microdrones and viral vaccines – this gripping, unforgettable novel sweeps over the years and the globe, subverting expectations along the way. Exploding with color and energy, The Old Drift is a testament to our yearning to create and cross borders, and a meditation on the slow, grand passage of time.
About Namwali Serpell
NAMWALI SERPELL is a Zambian writer who teaches at the University of California, Berkeley. She received a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers’ Award for women writers in 2011 and was selected for the Africa 39, a 2014 Hay Festival project to identify the best African writers under 40. She won the 2015 Caine Prize for African Writing. The Old Drift is her first novel.
Join author Lucy Tan at The Ruby to read and discuss her novel, What We Were Promised, followed by an audience Q&A. Lucy will be sharing about her road to publication, and her leap from her job as a project manager to a writer.
Lucy Tan is the author of What We Were Promised, which was long listed for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize and named a Best Book of 2018 by The Washington Post, Refinery 29, and Amazon. Lucy received her M.F.A. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she was awarded the 2016 August Derleth Prize and currently serves as the James C. McCreight Fiction Fellow. Her work is published or forthcoming in journals such as McSweeney’s, Asia Literary Review and Ploughshares.
About What We Were Promised
After years of chasing the American dream, the Zhen family has moved back to China. Settling into a luxurious serviced apartment in Shanghai, Wei, Lina, and their daughter, Karen, join an elite community of Chinese-born, Western-educated professionals who have returned to a radically transformed city.
One morning, in the eighth tower of Lanson Suites, Lina discovers that a childhood keepsake, an ivory bracelet, has gone missing. The incident contributes to a wave of unease that has begun to settle throughout the Zhen household. Wei, a marketing strategist, bows under the guilt of not having engaged in nobler work. Meanwhile, Lina, lonely in her new life of leisure, assumes the modern moniker taitai--a housewife who does no housework at all. She spends her days haunted by the circumstances surrounding her arranged marriage to Wei and her lingering feelings for his brother, Qiang. Lina and Wei take pains to hide their anxieties, but their housekeeper, Sunny, a hardworking girl with secrets of her own, bears witness to their struggles. When Qiang reappears in Shanghai after decades on the run with a local gang, the family must finally come to terms with the past.
From a silk-producing village in rural China, up the corporate ladder in suburban America, and back again to the post-Maoist nouveau riche of modern Shanghai, WHAT WE WERE PROMISED explores the question of what we owe to our country, our families, and ourselves.
Join us for a reading and Q&A with Kim Shuck, the poet laureate of San Francisco. She'll read from her work and be in conversation with Ruby member and poet Thea Matthews.
About Kim Shuck
Kim Shuck embraces the fool and jester qualities of being a modern poet and artist. She is a devotee of San Francisco, whose hills she wanders nearly always on foot. Her maternal grandparents met at the Polish Hall on Shotwell and she spent many hours with her mother and grandmother wandering the Mission St. Miracle Mile, taking books out of the Mission Branch library and watching aquarium fish on the ground floor of what used to be Hale’s. She firmly believes in carrying a bubble wand, keys, pen and notebook and cat’s cradle string at all times.
Shuck is widely published in journals, anthologies and a couple of solo books. She enjoys volunteering in SFUSD elementary school classrooms to share her loves of origami, poetry and basket making… in other words, math of various kinds. Kim currently also works with students at the California College of Art in the Diversity Department.
The Ruby’s Cookbook Club is a combination potluck and book club. Each month, we’ll discuss a new cookbook. Participants should cook a dish from the book (at least 6 servings).
This month, we'll be cooking from and discussing Vietnamese Food Any Day: Simple Recipes for True, Fresh Flavors by Andrea Nguyen. The author, Andrea Nguyen, will be joining us!
PLEASE NOTE: Cookbooks are free for Ruby cookbook club participants. If you are not ultimately able to attend the potluck, you will be charged $22 for the book.
About Vietnamese Food Any Day
Delicious, fresh Vietnamese food is achievable any night of the week with this cookbook's 80 accessible, easy recipes.
Drawing on decades of experience, as well as the cooking hacks her mom adopted after fleeing from Vietnam to America, award-winning author Andrea Nguyen shows you how to use easy-to-find ingredients to create true Vietnamese flavors at home—fast. With Nguyen as your guide, there’s no need to take a trip to a specialty grocer for favorites such as banh mi, rice paper rolls, and pho, as well as recipes for Honey-Glazed Pork Riblets, Chile Garlic Chicken Wings, Vibrant Turmeric Coconut Rice, and No-Churn Vietnamese Coffee Ice Cream. Nguyen’s tips and tricks for creating Viet food from ingredients at national supermarkets are indispensable, liberating home cooks and making everyday cooking easier.
About Andrea Nguyen
Andrea Nguyen is an award-wining author, editor, teacher and consultant based in the San Francisco Bay Area. Born in Vietnam, she came to the United States at the age of six. Her first book publication was "Trip to Freedom," a short children's book on how her family came to America. Andrea's food writing has appeared in the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Lucky Peach, Saveur, Rachel Ray Everyday, Sunset, and Cooking Light, where she has been a columnist since fall 2017.
Her first cookbook, "Into the Vietnamese Kitchen" was nominated for three 2007 James Beard and International Association of Culinary Professionals cookbook awards. "Asian Dumplings" was her second cookbook with award-winning publisher Ten Speed Press. In March 2012, Cooking Light magazine selected both books for their Best 100 Cookbooks of the Past 25 Years award. Andrea's works comprised two of the seven cookbooks in the Asian category.
Andrea's third cookbook, "Asian Tofu" (2012) is an exciting work loaded with techniques and recipes, as well as personal stories of artisans, cooks, and chefs for whom tofu is a vital part of their lives; the book was a finalist for a 2013 IACP award. To bring Vietnamese food to a mainstream audience, Andrea wrote "The Banh Mi Handbook" (2014), which National Public Radio named one of the best cookbooks of the year.
Her latest work, "The Pho Cookbook" (2017) and won a 2018 James Beard Foundation Award of Excellence and also recognized by IACP and NPR as one of the best single subject books. It's pho-nomenal that people are getting into the pho spirit!
She also edited "Unforgettable", biography cookbook by culinary legend Paula Wolfert. The unique IACP award-winning book was crowdfunded via Kickstarter and published in April 2017. A new edition releases in October 2017 from Grand Central Life & Style.
Andrea's new book, "Vietnamese Food Any Day", comes out on February 5, 2019!
Regardless of topic, Andrea unlocks the cuisines of Asia for home cooks to explore, master, and savor.
We all have an idea of how we want to feel when we're at our best — we know who we can be, because we've already experienced it! (Sometimes serendipitously, and sometimes through a lot of effort.) Likewise, we know how we want others to perceive us in our ideal world. But how can we turn our sometimes-best versions of ourselves into more-often-than-not best versions?
Cultivating personal presence can feel hit-or-miss when that process isn't paired with intentional investment in behavioral, physical, and verbal techniques to build the characteristics that matter to us. In this workshop, we'll brainstorm how you want to feel and be perceived when you're at the top of your game. Then we'll identify and practice some actionable techniques you can use to make progress on these qualities so you feel and do your best more often.
PLEASE NOTE: Space is limited to 12 attendees; sign up early, and please do your fellow Rubies the courtesy of canceling early if you cannot make the workshop!
About Kara Levy
For the past ten years, Kara Levy has provided communication and leadership coaching to hundreds of Bay area tech, design, academic, and business leaders to help them connect with audiences and maximize personal leadership presence. Within the world of communication, her great love is storytelling: a fiction writer with an MFA from Columbia University, she’s taught writing at a number of universities and mentored best-selling writers of fiction, memoir, and academia in crafting their narratives. She lives in San Francisco with her daughter.
Moms of kids of all ages! New and soon-to-be parents! Nonparents and the parenting-curious!:
Join us for a Ruby kids' clothing and toy swap and discussion on parenting. Bring clothes, toys, and books that your children have grown out of and swap them for new-to-you items!
Drop in any time is convenient for you. We'll be screening animated films in our little meeting room for any small attendees (a signed waiver is required).
At 2 p.m., we'll be hosting a roundtable discussion among attendees about parenting in the Bay Area: we'll discuss everything from mindfulness and joy, identity and creativity, to practical matters like money, school, and waste. The discussion will be led by author, Ruby, and mom Shruti Swamy.
There will be Health-Ade Kombucha!
Join Kim Zitzow for a guided meditation, followed by a nourishing herbal tea made from a locally available herb.
Combining geologic and place-based research, movement and visualization, Kim leads guided meditations that connect our bodies deeper to the land we are on and the spaces we share.
Beginning with light movement and then shifting into a candle-lit guided meditation, Kim offers an embodied experience specific to a place and the entangled relationships within. At some point in the evening, a local plant ally will be introduced in the form of a tea, live plant, tonic, essence, or oxymel and we will explore their healing, energetic and spiritual properties.
$10 suggested donation. Bring a yoga mat and comfortable clothes for light movement. All levels, all abilities welcome. No prior experience with movement practices or meditation necessary.
About Kim Zitzow
In her art practice, Kim’s multimedia projects are guided by the understanding that we are our relations of responsibility to other, both human and nonhuman. In her community-based healing practice, Kimexplores this notion of interconnectivity through mediation: between the city and the natural world; between inner experience and outer; between our living, breathing human bodies, and our living, breathing Earth body home. Kim’s work is inspired by a web of teachers, artists, herbalists, farmers, activists, and folk healers who have taught her in various ways the same thing: that the healing of the self is inseparable from healing in community, and that community extends beyond the human and includes the natural world.
studio collective: @mutualstores
Join us for a talk by Windy Chien on finding one’s artist voice and the life-transforming power of daily practice. In 2016, Windy learned and made one new knot every day in 2016: The Year of Knots. The work unfolded over the course of the calendar year and daily photo documentation was posted to social media. Among the many rich things the performance of the Year of Knots provided were a daily ritual, an art school, a history lesson, and a new language. Windy's talk will be followed by a group discussion, and Windy will teach everyone to tie a knot!
About Windy Chien
Windy Chien makes art that activates space and elevates the vernacular. She is best known for her 2016 work, The Year of Knots, in which she learned a new knot every day for a year. Her work ranges in size from a knot that can fit in the palm of a child's hand to majestic, room-sized installations that are sought after by private collectors. Following long careers at Apple and in the music industry, she launched her studio in 2015. Her work has been covered by Wired, The New York Times and Martha Stewart Living. Windy’s book about her work will be published by Abrams in 2019.
Every last Wednesday of the month, join us for mahjong, knitting, and/or art! Whatever your fancy, we've got you covered.
Come play Mahjong at The Ruby's Mahjong night. (6 to 6:30 p.m. will be a quick refresher in how to play mahjong, taught by Ruby member Mimi Lok. Come at 6:30 to play!)
Or come join our circle of knitters and crafters led by Ruby member Jourdan Abel. Crocheters, embroiderers, darners... all are welcome!
Or come join our Ruby visual artists! Art Night at The Ruby is co-led by Rubies Reina Takahashi & Anastasia Tumanova. Please bring whatever supplies you’d like to work with (we have some available as well). After a round of intros, we’ll doodle and draw, and snack and chat.
What is a short story? What gives a fictional work life and meaning and originality? In this workshop, we'll explore the various forms a written story can take, along with various styles, modes, and sensibilities of diverse women writers. We'll ditch the traditional workshop notion that there is one set of rules for writing a successful story, attempting instead to survey a range of aesthetic possibilities, deepening our understanding of the short story by following what is mysterious and inimitable in each work. Participants will read one story a week and submit an original work inspired by some essential element of the assigned story. In our weekly meetings, we'll discuss the assigned story and workshop participants' submissions in an effort to discover and nurture the mysterious and inimitable in our own work.
This workshop is generative in nature and meant for writers of all levels, whether you're a beginner hoping to explore a new form, an experienced writer trying to shake up your practice, or a stuck writer looking for new approaches to a difficult project.
NOTE: To participate in this workshop, you must commit to 1) attending every session to the best of your ability (April 25, May 2, May 9, May 16, May 23, May 30), 2) reading one assigned story each week along with fellow workshoppers' submissions (up to 50 pgs/week), and 3) submitting up to 1000 words of original writing per week. We'll be sharing original, unfinished work, so consistent attendance and participation is crucial to fostering an atmosphere of trust and respect.
About Meng Jin
Meng Jin's debut novel, Little Gods, is forthcoming from HarperCollins. Her short fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in The Threepenny Review, Ploughshares, The Bare Life Review, and elsewhere. A Kundiman Fellow, she has received fellowships and grants from Hedgebrook, Vermont Studio Center, M on the Bund Shanghai, the Elizabeth George Foundation, the David TK Wong Fellowship, and the Steinbeck Fellowship. www.mengj.in
Curious about where your clothes come from? Curious about the sheep-shearing life? Join us for a reading and discussion with Stephany Wilkes, a sheep shearer and President of the Northern California Fibershed Cooperative. She’s the author of Raw Material: Working Wool In The West. Stephany will read from her book, and discuss natural and local fiber sourcing, carbon farming practices (and sequestration, how we can actually take CO2 out of the air), and humane sheep shearing and animal handling. She’ll be sharing local fiber samples in forms from raw to finished fabric.
Her book, Raw Materials, features numerous Northern California women involved in farming, ranching, carbon sequestration, and natural fibers.
About Stephany Wilkes
Stephany Wilkes is a writer, knitter, spinner, sewist, sheep shearer, wool classer, and President of the Northern California Fibershed Cooperative. Her writing is forthcoming in the North American Review and has appeared in The Billfold, The Ag Mag, Hobby Farms, Midwestern Gothic, and other publications. Stephany speaks about sheep and wool terroir at numerous yarn shops, fiber festivals, guild meetings, schools, and events. She lives (somewhat begrudgingly, at times) in San Francisco, where she dreams of a dog, a truck, and a horse, in that order. She is passionate about soil's ability to sequester carbon and the role that farmers, ranchers, sheep, and textiles can play in mitigating climate change. www.stephanywilkes.com
If you're a writer or anyone working on a long project, you probably know how hard it is to find the undivided time to work on the thing, between taking care of all the people you’re supposed to take care of, doing other jobs to make ends meet, and simply feeding yourself properly! Though retreats and artist residencies are ideal, they aren’t always possible when life is hectic (and they don’t necessarily come cheap).
This Spring, join us at The Ruby for a weekend writing/making retreat — a chance to “get away” while staying in San Francisco. Let The Ruby take care of you while you work on your project! The Ruby will be open from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday. Meals and snacks will be provided.
If you are a nonmember who can't afford the retreat rate, we have The Leonore Peyser Davis Writing Fellowship available, and it provides a free retreat to someone in financial need. Please email a resumé and cover letter, including the description of the project you would like to work on during our weekend retreat, to staff@therubysf.com.
Only 30 percent of people have an AHCD (Advance Health Care Directive). Far fewer have had meaningful discussions with loved ones about their wishes if they become incapacitated. These decisions are important ones that all of us make, but they are especially important for older adults. A study in 2014 showed that among people 65 and over who were hospitalized, 48 percent needed a major medical decision made on their behalf within 48 hours of admission. Most of the "deciders" were women. Having these discussions early results in better care, less family stress and maybe even longer life. Join us for a talk by Ruby member Dr. Jennifer Brokaw followed by a discussion.
Topics we'll cover:
The difference between AHCD and Living Will
The importance of choosing the right health care proxy/surrogate
Common decisions made during serious illness or at end of life
The case for Advance Care Planning, which is a medically directed living will discussion
How to get started on creating these documents for yourself and asking your loved ones to complete them as well.
About Dr. Jennifer Brokaw
Dr. Jennifer Brokaw practiced emergency medicine for fifteen years before leaving to start a patient and family consulting practice called Good Medicine. Good Medicine specialized in Advance Care Planning, completing Advance Care Plans for over one hundred individuals. Although Good Medicine closed in 2014, Dr. Brokaw has continued her work as a solo practitioner and as a consultant for the SF Fire Department Cancer Prevention Foundation. She blogs about medical issues affecting older adults and their caregivers at JenniferBrokaw.com and is active on Twitter about a variety of topics @JenniferBrokaw.
Join Kim Zitzow for a guided meditation, followed by a nourishing herbal tea made from a locally available herb.
Combining geologic and place-based research, movement and visualization, Kim leads guided meditations that connect our bodies deeper to the land we are on and the spaces we share.
Beginning with light movement and then shifting into a candle-lit guided meditation, Kim offers an embodied experience specific to a place and the entangled relationships within. At some point in the evening, a local plant ally will be introduced in the form of a tea, live plant, tonic, essence, or oxymel and we will explore their healing, energetic and spiritual properties.
$10 suggested donation. Bring a yoga mat and comfortable clothes for light movement. All levels, all abilities welcome. No prior experience with movement practices or meditation necessary.
About Kim Zitzow
In her art practice, Kim’s multimedia projects are guided by the understanding that we are our relations of responsibility to other, both human and nonhuman. In her community-based healing practice, Kimexplores this notion of interconnectivity through mediation: between the city and the natural world; between inner experience and outer; between our living, breathing human bodies, and our living, breathing Earth body home. Kim’s work is inspired by a web of teachers, artists, herbalists, farmers, activists, and folk healers who have taught her in various ways the same thing: that the healing of the self is inseparable from healing in community, and that community extends beyond the human and includes the natural world.
studio collective: @mutualstores
If you're a writer or anyone working on a long project, you probably know how hard it is to find the undivided time to work on the thing, between taking care of all the people you’re supposed to take care of, doing other jobs to make ends meet, and simply feeding yourself properly! Though retreats and artist residencies are ideal, they aren’t always possible when life is hectic (and they don’t necessarily come cheap).
This Summer, join us at The Ruby for a weekend writing/making retreat — a chance to “get away” while staying in San Francisco. Let The Ruby take care of you while you work on your project! The Ruby will be open from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday. Meals and snacks will be provided.
If you are a nonmember who can't afford the retreat rate, we have The Leonore Peyser Davis Writing Fellowship available, and it provides a free retreat to someone in financial need. Please email a resumé and cover letter, including the description of the project you would like to work on during our weekend retreat, to staff@therubysf.com.
If you're a writer or anyone working on a long project, you probably know how hard it is to find the undivided time to work on the thing, between taking care of all the people you’re supposed to take care of, doing other jobs to make ends meet, and simply feeding yourself properly! Though retreats and artist residencies are ideal, they aren’t always possible when life is hectic (and they don’t necessarily come cheap).
This Fall, join us at The Ruby for a weekend writing/making retreat — a chance to “get away” while staying in San Francisco. Let The Ruby take care of you while you work on your project! The Ruby will be open from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday. Meals and snacks will be provided.
If you are a nonmember who can't afford the retreat rate, we have The Leonore Peyser Davis Writing Fellowship available, and it provides a free retreat to someone in financial need. Please email a resumé and cover letter, including the description of the project you would like to work on during our weekend retreat, to staff@therubysf.com.
Let's celebrate more sunlight with "Porch Swing at Sundown," a pitcher cocktail recipe from Chicago bartender Julia Momose. This recipe comes from Ruby member Maggie Hoffman's new book, Batch Cocktails: Make Ahead Pitcher Drinks for Every Occasion (available wherever books are sold! Buy it from Powell's here.)
Join Kim Zitzow for a guided meditation, followed by a nourishing herbal tea made from a locally available herb.
Combining geologic and place-based research, movement and visualization, Kim leads guided meditations that connect our bodies deeper to the land we are on and the spaces we share.
Beginning with light movement and then shifting into a candle-lit guided meditation, Kim offers an embodied experience specific to a place and the entangled relationships within. At some point in the evening, a local plant ally will be introduced in the form of a tea, live plant, tonic, essence, or oxymel and we will explore their healing, energetic and spiritual properties.
$10 suggested donation. Bring a yoga mat and comfortable clothes for light movement. All levels, all abilities welcome. No prior experience with movement practices or meditation necessary.
About Kim Zitzow
In her art practice, Kim’s multimedia projects are guided by the understanding that we are our relations of responsibility to other, both human and nonhuman. In her community-based healing practice, Kimexplores this notion of interconnectivity through mediation: between the city and the natural world; between inner experience and outer; between our living, breathing human bodies, and our living, breathing Earth body home. Kim’s work is inspired by a web of teachers, artists, herbalists, farmers, activists, and folk healers who have taught her in various ways the same thing: that the healing of the self is inseparable from healing in community, and that community extends beyond the human and includes the natural world.
studio collective: @mutualstores
Join us for a potluck lunch and conversation with the actress and writer Brit Marling, visiting San Francisco in support of the new season of her Netflix TV series, The OA, which she co-created, wrote, and stars in. According toThe Globe and Mail: "The OA is Netflix's strongest and strangest original production since Stranger Things. In terms of substantive, original drama, it transcends it. Mind you, it is unclassifiable in the context of drama, mystery, science-fiction and fantasy, since it is straddling all sorts of lines and blurring them. It is outright astounding and brilliant, too." This new season is filmed partly in San Francisco, and involves puzzles, among other things!
The Q&A and discussion will be led by Ruby member Natalie So, story and art director of Epic magazine and a researcher/consultant on The OA.
PLEASE NOTE: This is a potluck! Please bring a taco fixing to share!
Let's celebrate the release of Ruby member Maggie Hoffman's new book, BATCH COCKTAILS! Come drink cocktails and get your book signed, and be entered in a raffle to win extra treats from Jacobsen salt. The first 25 Rubies to RSVP will receive a free copy of the book. And this is a co-ed event, so come one, come all!
For guests, the cocktail hour is the highlight of any dinner party, but hosts can find it stressful to keep the drinks flowing. The solution is simple: batch it! In Batch Cocktails: Make-Ahead Pitcher Drinks for Every OccasionMaggieoffers 65 delicious, modern pitcher cocktails that don’t require a shaker or any last-minute prep.
Organized by flavor profile – herbal, boozy, bitter, spicy, fruity and tart, and so on, Batch Cocktails makes it easy to find your new signature drink and have it ready long before the doorbell rings. Imagine that: with Batch Cocktails as your guide, you’ll enjoy cocktail hour as much as your guests.
Jean Rhys said that "reading makes immigrants of us all," that "it takes us away from home, but more important, it finds homes for us everywhere." Now more than ever, it's vital—and heartening—to read, and read widely. We'll read thrilling, mind-blowing, intriguing, heartbreaking, comic, strange, and/or provocative books by women of color—and, each month, we'll gather to talk about what we've read! When possible, we'll also have the writer join us.
Our spring book is FRUIT OF THE DRUNKEN TREE by Ingrid Rojas Contreras. Ingrid is a local author, and will be joining the book club's meeting! We'll have copies of the book available by February 8 at the front desk. Fifteen copies are available to the first fifteen people who sign up. By picking up a copy of the book, you are committed to attending the book club (if you cannot ultimately attend, you will be charged $20 for the book!).
About Fruit of The Drunken Tree
A mesmerizing debut set in Colombia at the height Pablo Escobar's violent reign about a sheltered young girl and a teenage maid who strike an unlikely friendship that threatens to undo them both
Seven-year-old Chula and her older sister Cassandra enjoy carefree lives thanks to their gated community in Bogotá, but the threat of kidnappings, car bombs, and assassinations hover just outside the neighborhood walls, where the godlike drug lord Pablo Escobar continues to elude authorities and capture the attention of the nation.
When their mother hires Petrona, a live-in-maid from the city's guerrilla-occupied slum, Chula makes it her mission to understand Petrona's mysterious ways. But Petrona's unusual behavior belies more than shyness. She is a young woman crumbling under the burden of providing for her family as the rip tide of first love pulls her in the opposite direction. As both girls' families scramble to maintain stability amidst the rapidly escalating conflict, Petrona and Chula find themselves entangled in a web of secrecy that will force them both to choose between sacrifice and betrayal.
Inspired by the author's own life, and told through the alternating perspectives of the willful Chula and the achingly hopeful Petrona, Fruit of the Drunken Tree contrasts two very different, but inextricably linked coming-of-age stories. In lush prose, Rojas Contreras has written a powerful testament to the impossible choices women are often forced to make in the face of violence and the unexpected connections that can blossom out of desperation.
Usher in the Spring by joining us for a special happy hour workshop led by Heather Rader of Spirit Horse Vineyards, combining wine-drinking with meditation, yoga, and discussion.
In Spring, grapevines are awakening, getting ready to express themselves through their fruit. In this Guided Wine Meditation, we teach you to apply the sensuality of wine (taste, smell, mouth feel, touch, temperature) to your own body. We'll consider the thousands of things that had to happen to get this wine to your glass in the here and now, from the vineyard workers whose hands picked the grapes, the oak tree that grew in the groves of France, to the gorgeous sunshine. We channel the energy of the wine to become fully present in our bodies and get in tune with our own sensuality.
Sarah Baker will lead us in light yoga, designed to wake up our bodies and awaken our creativity and sensuality. And sex and dating coach, Myisha Battle, will lead a discussion on the connection between spring and the seasonal awakening we experience in our bodies. We’ll discuss techniques that will clarify how to use this energy productively in our sex lives, to live more fully in the present and accept what our bodies tell us from season to season.
Get a new headshot taken by Ruby member Sana Javeri Kadri! Come looking your best and leave with a new profile pic, author photo, or just something to get printed on a mug for your mom! See some of Sana's work at sanajaverikadri.com.
And arrive half an hour before your headshot slot to have your makeup done by Ruby member Julie Dy. juliedy.com
Space is limited! Sign up now; we'll follow up to schedule your headshot. Headshots will take place between 4 and 6 p.m.
About Sana Javeri Kadri
Sana Javeri Kadri is a sometimes salty, permanently hungry, rather creative human.
She was raised in post-colonial Bombay, wound up in the produce aisles of California and can be currently found @sanajaverikadri on Instagram or in person wherever there are vegetables to be found.
She is also schemer-in-chief for Diaspora Co., which you should be very excited about.
About Julie Dy
Fashion, beauty, music, art and entertainment have always been worlds of intrigue for Julie Dy. She stumbled into a career in makeup artistry after graduating with a degree in Psychology from UC Berkeley, and found it was a perfect avenue to utilize and develop her creative flair. As a freelance makeup artist for over a 15 years, she has built an ever-growing business in bridal services, editorial and commercial work, print, video, film and television. Her experience as a Regional Makeup Artist for Laura Mercier Cosmetics trained her to give clients a flawless complexion and an amazing glow—makeup that looks natural but still makes an impact. Her work has appeared in The Knot, Destination Wedding, 7x7, StyleMePretty, Marie Claire Magazine, Wired Magazine, FastCompany, and Vanity Fair. Regular clients include Pixar Studios, Disney, and AirBnb. Julie's work has allowed her to indulge in her love for color and beauty, as well as the concepts of transformation and personal expression.
More side projects than you know what to do with? Want to apply to that thing but can’t bring yourself to press “send”? That’s where this group comes in! We’ll check in with each other about projects we're working on, offer resources and encouragement, and then get to work on anything we want to do outside of the things we have to do.
Whether it’s a business, creative outlet, application, or something in-between, come get time, space, and support for it.
PLEASE NOTE: We've set this at 3 hours to make sure you have enough time to make a meaningful dent in whatever you're working on.
Learn to solve a Rubik’s cube (*ahem* Rubyk’s cube) with fellow Ruby Helen Shewolfe Tseng! We’re accustomed to thinking of solving Rubik’s cubes as a daunting, impenetrable tests of intelligence, but this simply isn’t true! Rubik’s cube–solving is a parlor trick that can be learned. Brains are amazing! Learn how to be a “genius” and wow your friends!
In this workshop, Helen will breaking down the cryptic mystery surrounding the cube with a quick overview of its anatomy and mechanics. The 3x3 Rubik's cube can be scrambled into 43 quintillion permutations! But Helen will walk you through solving any and all of them with a simple algorithm.
Did you know? The most commonly used solving algorithm was developed by a woman, systems engineering professor Jessica Fridrich, who is also considered a speedcubing pioneer.
PLEASE NOTE: There is a Rubyk’s cube fee of $6, payable at the start of class. You’ll get a budget Rubik’s cube in customized hand-picked-by-Helen Ruby colors! (Or BYO Cube and save the $6!)
About Helen Shewolfe Tseng
Helen Shewolfe Tseng is an interdisciplinary artist and designer living and working in an expanding universe. She co-hosts Astral Projection Radio Hour on BFF.fm and is the co-author and illustrator of The Astrological Grimoire (Chronicle Books, April 2019). Helen is currently a YBCA Fellow and a Designer in Residence at the Headlands Center for the Arts. http://shewolfe.co @wolfchirp
Jade Chang, author of Wangs vs. the World is The Ruby's March Writer in Residence. The Ruby is an arts & letters–focused work and gathering space for creative Bay Area women of all definitions. The Ruby's Writer in Residence program seeks to support the best writers writing, and to bring writers from outside the Bay Area to The Ruby to read. Writers in residence stay in our upstairs writers loft. Join us for a reading and casual conversation.
About The Wangs Vs. The World
For fans of Crazy Rich Asians: Meet the Wangs, the unforgettable immigrant family whose spectacular fall from glorious riches to (still name-brand) rags brings them together in a way money never could.
Charles Wang, a brash, lovable businessman who built a cosmetics empire and made a fortune, has just lost everything in the financial crisis. So he rounds up two of his children from schools that he can no longer afford and packs them into the only car that wasn’t repossessed. Together with their wealth-addicted stepmother, Barbra, they head on a cross-country journey from their foreclosed Bel-Air home to the Upstate New York retreat of the eldest Wang daughter, Saina.
About Jade Chang
Jade Chang is the author of The Wangs vs. the World, published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. The Wangs has been named a New York Times Editors Choice as well as a Best Book of the Year by Amazon, Buzzfeed, Elle, NPR, and others, and was the winner of the VCU Cabell First Novel Award. She has appeared on national programs (Late Night with Seth Meyers, Morning Edition) and spoken to audiences at universities (Yale, UT Austin), corporations (Google, Amazon) and book festivals. The Wangs will be published in 12 countries and NPR said this: "Her book is unrelentingly fun, but it is also raw and profane—a story of fierce pride, fierce anger, and even fiercer love."
The Ruby's Poetry Book Club focuses on poetry, experimental genres, and hybrid forms that make their way into the world through independent, mostly small presses operating outside mainstream publishing. With a bias for writers of color, we will read and discuss an eclectic body of work by female authors. This group will make space for writers who are looking to expand their own practice, and non-writers: anyone with the desire to explore and support books that are unpredictable, subversive, idiosyncratic, and often overlooked.
Our first meeting will take place on the Thursday following the two-part Introduction to Loving Poetry workshop with Jennifer S. Cheng on February 21 and 28. We welcome you to sign up for both!
Our inaugural book will be the poetry-prose hybrid, CITIZEN: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine, the first book to be nominated in both poetry and criticism for the National Book Critics Circle Award. We'll have a copy available for checkout from The Ruby library, and we encourage you to purchase the book from a local bookstore: Alley Cat and Dog-Eared are two neighborhood favorites.
About CITIZEN
Claudia Rankine's bold new book recounts mounting racial aggressions in ongoing encounters in twenty-first-century daily life and in the media. Some of these encounters are slights, seeming slips of the tongue, and some are intentional offensives in the classroom, at the supermarket, at home, on the tennis court with Serena Williams and the soccer field with Zinedine Zidane, online, on TV-everywhere, all the time. The accumulative stresses come to bear on a person's ability to speak, perform, and stay alive. Our addressability is tied to the state of our belonging, Rankine argues, as are our assumptions and expectations of citizenship. In essay, image, and poetry, Citizen is a powerful testament to the individual and collective effects of racism in our contemporary, often named "post-race" society.
We know it's coming, so let's prepare for the next Big One together, potluck style! We'll each bring an essential earthquake kit supply. Together we'll assemble earthquake kits for ourselves, and for The Ruby itself. Bring a backpack (or two) for filling. We'll also talk through what to do when disaster strikes.
Register by 2/25 so we can divvy up the supplies to purchase.
Working with wax blocks and carving tools, you will learn how to sculpt and size an original ring design. After the session, Anna will cast your rings into bronze or sterling silver and polish them up to a nice shine. No prior sculpture or jewelry-making experience is required. Come open minded and maybe armed with a few ideas (if the ring is a gift, ask his/her ring size in advance!)
PLEASE NOTE: There is a materials fee of $40, payable at the start of class (for nonmembers, this is included in the price of your ticket.
About Anna Furman
I'm a writer and sculptor based in a studio in the Mission. Drawn to unusual textures found in nature, I incorporate nectarine pits, tamarind shells, and bark into jewelry designs and art objects. Using the lost wax casting process, I capture organic material in metal before it decays, dissolves, or otherwise morphs in form. Luna, my line of wearable and functional sculptures, is experimental at its core.
Join us! This week Happy Hour doubles as a Jewelry Swap! Bring jewelry that you never wear (all kinds!) and swap them for new items. We'll swap our baubles over wine and snacks.
Join fellow Rubies for Thursday yoga! Every other Thursday, Laura Bubackwill lead Rubies through a gentle 60 minute hatha yoga session. We will breathe, move, balance, and flow to awaken our creative juices and inner intuition. The yoga is designed for all levels, those with no experience welcome! Laura is a Yoga Alliance Certified 200 Hour Registered Yoga Teacher who loves sharing the joy and benefits of yoga with others, especially those new to yoga. She hopes to give Rubies some skills and inspiration to develop their own yoga practice to integrate into their daily creative lives. She is open to the requests and interests of Rubies in different styles and poses, so feel free to contact Laura with any questions or interests, and let her know of any injuries or pregnancy before coming to practice.
Bring your own mat or borrow one of the Ruby’s fresh new mats (just remember to clean it after!). Any comfortable clothes to move around in will work! We will not sweat too much!
BYOL (lunch) and BYOBJ (bullet journal) and hang out with your fellow Rubies to plan out your upcoming month in your journal. We can share washi tape (or not), chat about journaling strategies (or not), and, most importantly, spend time together as we identify goals and tasks and work out schedules for the month ahead. New bullet journal enthusiasts and seasoned journal-lovers are all welcome!
Every last Wednesday of the month, join us for mahjong, knitting, and/or art! Whatever your fancy, we've got you covered.
Come play Mahjong at The Ruby's Mahjong night. (6 to 6:30 p.m. will be a quick refresher in how to play mahjong, taught by Ruby member Mimi Lok. Come at 6:30 to play!)
Or come join our circle of knitters and crafters led by Ruby member Jourdan Abel. Crocheters, embroiderers, darners... all are welcome!
Or come join our Ruby visual artists! Art Night at The Ruby is led by Ruby Reina Takahashi. Please bring whatever supplies you’d like to work with (we have some available as well). After a round of intros, we’ll doodle and draw, and snack and chat.
Come learn how to make effective, all-natural cleaning products with simple ingredients from your kitchen and medicine cabinet. After making your own, you probably won’t see the cleaning aisle at Target and Walgreens the same way. This is the first in an environmentalism event series at The Ruby called Green Rubies.
After this 2-hour class, you’ll walk away with:
countertop spray
all-purpose cleaner
dishwashing detergent (recipe and demo)
glass cleaner
toilet bowl cleaner
shower and sink scrub (recipe and demo)
We’ll begin with a 10-minute guided earth meditation. Lavender and eucalyptus essential oils will be available for infusing your cleaners with scent, but feel free to bring your favorites!
PLEASE NOTE: Materials fee is $10, payable at the start of class. Non-members, this cost is included in your ticket.
About Kat Koh
Kat Koh loves impactful environmentalism. She's been dedicated to “voting with her dollar” as much as possible after learning that earth-friendly purchases, the sharing economy, and adopting a DIY lifestyle send a powerful signal to the market. She started making her own household cleaners, de-odorizers and laundry solutions after re-connecting with the magical powers of vinegar, baking soda, lemon, and salt.
Brilliant friends! This February we're watching MY BRILLIANT FRIEND together, the HBO series based on the Elena Ferrante books.
Every Monday in February we'll be screening 2 episodes each night. Paired with themed snacks: Neapolitan wine and cheese and salami. Join us!
Join us! This week Happy Hour is extra alliterative because we'll be talking about Housing over Health-Ade this Happy Hour (And A Half)!
We'll have cocktails and mocktails featuring Health-Ade kombucha.
Simultaneously, Ruby Megan Orpwood-Russell will be giving a talk on affordable housing. Yes to Affordable Housing offers the chance to learn the history of San Francisco's housing crisis, and how we're going to fix it.
This two-part series will meet February 21 and February 28, and is for anyone who is interested in reading, discussing, and/or writing poetry but is perhaps uncertain how to approach it. In “Poetry Is Not A Luxury,” Audre Lorde describes poetry as the essential “quality of light by which we scrutinize our lives,” and in Why Poetry, Matthew Zapruder says it is “getting close to the unsayable and feeling it.” In the first exploratory session, we will dip our toes by becoming familiar with various poetic and aesthetic concepts (such as duende, bewilderment, and negative capability) and discussing together what poetry is and why we read/write it. Then, in a second session, we will continue our conversation and experiment wildly with writing our own poems through non-intimidating guided exercises! By the end of our time, you will have discovered how poetry is a way of being and thinking that is inside all of us.
About Jennifer S. Cheng
Jennifer S. Cheng’s work includes poetry, lyric essay, and image-text forms. Her book MOON: Letters, Maps, Poems was selected by Bhanu Kapil for the Tarpaulin Sky Book Award and was named one of the Best Books of 2018 by Publishers Weekly. She is also the author of House A, selected by Claudia Rankine for the Omnidawn Poetry Book Prize and Invocation: An Essay, an image-text chapbook published by New Michigan Press. She received fellowships and awards from Brown University, the University of Iowa, the U.S. Fulbright program, Kundiman, Bread Loaf, and the Academy of American Poets. Having grown up in Texas and Hong Kong, she lives in San Francisco. www.jenniferscheng.com
“Each molecule between places may be full of gaps, discontinuities allowing us to slip through landscape more easily.”
—Mei-mei Berssenbrugge
Are you mixed race, parenting someone who is mixed race, or in a mixed-race relationship? Join other Rubies and friends of the Ruby in making space for the mixed-race experience. What does it mean to live at the intersection of identities, cultures, races, nations--or parent someone who does? How does this color the way you think about yourself and experience the world, the way you approach public spaces and human interaction, the way others see you and your loved ones?
Multiple racial categories were included in the 2000 census measures; the mixed experience is very much an American experience. What are the benefits of liminality, of not fitting neatly into traditional frameworks? How can we embrace multiplicity and diversity within ourselves and our intimate relationships? How can we leverage fluidity and flexibility as a social advantage in our increasingly inter-connected and fast-changing world?
And, in an era of increased polarization around race, how can we protect ourselves and our offspring from intrusive curiosity, prejudice, and hostility (sometimes from within our own family or ethnic and racial group)? What are you? How did you meet him? Are those your children?What is the collective impact of these individual incidents, how do they impact identity formation in young people, and how are they experienced differently by women?
Join Kim Zitzow for a guided meditation, followed by a nourishing herbal tea made from a locally available herb.
Combining geologic and place-based research, movement and visualization, Kim leads guided meditations that connect our bodies deeper to the land we are on and the spaces we share.
Beginning with light movement and then shifting into a candle-lit guided meditation, Kim offers an embodied experience specific to a place and the entangled relationships within. At some point in the evening, a local plant ally will be introduced in the form of a tea, live plant, tonic, essence, or oxymel and we will explore their healing, energetic and spiritual properties.
$10 suggested donation. Bring a yoga mat and comfortable clothes for light movement. All levels, all abilities welcome. No prior experience with movement practices or meditation necessary.
About Kim Zitzow
In her art practice, Kim’s multimedia projects are guided by the understanding that we are our relations of responsibility to other, both human and nonhuman. In her community-based healing practice, Kimexplores this notion of interconnectivity through mediation: between the city and the natural world; between inner experience and outer; between our living, breathing human bodies, and our living, breathing Earth body home. Kim’s work is inspired by a web of teachers, artists, herbalists, farmers, activists, and folk healers who have taught her in various ways the same thing: that the healing of the self is inseparable from healing in community, and that community extends beyond the human and includes the natural world.
studio collective: @mutualstores
Brilliant friends! This February we're watching MY BRILLIANT FRIEND together, the HBO series based on the Elena Ferrante books.
Every Monday in February we'll be screening 2 episodes each night. Paired with themed snacks: Neapolitan wine and cheese and salami. Join us!
Join us! This week Happy Hour is extra alliterative because we'll be talking about (Affordable) Housing over Health-Ade this Happy Hour (And A Half)!
We'll have cocktails and mocktails featuring Health-Ade kombucha.
Simultaneously, Ruby Megan Orpwood-Russell will be giving a talk on affordable housing. Yes to Affordable Housing offers the chance to learn the history of San Francisco's housing crisis, and how we're going to fix it.
Singles, ready to mingle! Writers, artists, photographers, and people with opinions!
Need some help with your online dating profile? We can help! Come get friendly, intelligent, yet firm feedback on your online dating profile, on this ordinary Thursday evening!
Join fellow Rubies for Thursday yoga! Every other Thursday, Laura Bubackwill lead Rubies through a gentle 60 minute hatha yoga session. We will breathe, move, balance, and flow to awaken our creative juices and inner intuition. The yoga is designed for all levels, those with no experience welcome! Laura is a Yoga Alliance Certified 200 Hour Registered Yoga Teacher who loves sharing the joy and benefits of yoga with others, especially those new to yoga. She hopes to give Rubies some skills and inspiration to develop their own yoga practice to integrate into their daily creative lives. She is open to the requests and interests of Rubies in different styles and poses, so feel free to contact Laura with any questions or interests, and let her know of any injuries or pregnancy before coming to practice.
Bring your own mat or borrow one of the Ruby’s fresh new mats (just remember to clean it after!). Any comfortable clothes to move around in will work! We will not sweat too much!
More side projects than you know what to do with? Want to apply to that thing but can’t bring yourself to press “send”? That’s where this group comes in! We’ll check in with each other about projects we're working on, offer resources and encouragement, and then get to work on anything we want to do outside of the things we have to do.
Whether it’s a business, creative outlet, application, or something in-between, come get time, space, and support for it.
PLEASE NOTE: We've set this at 3 hours to make sure you have enough time to make a meaningful dent in whatever you're working on.
Come learn how to sharpen your knives and keep them sharp! This is an introductory class on whetstone sharpening. No prior knowledge is necessary.
Students will learn the core techniques of sharpening a chef knife with whetstones. Whetstones and knives will be provided; bring yourselves. Whetstone sets will be available for sale on the day of.
We have two subsidized nonmember tickets available for those with financial need.
About Kelly Kozak
Ruby member Kelly Kozak is the co-owner of Bernal Cutlery, nutrition educator, a food justice activist, and mother of three. Having a big passion for food justice, Kelly works as a community nutrition educator and healthy food access advocate and is a UOP Food Studies graduate student in seat foucusing on decolonizing nutrition education. Kelly was a 2009, 2010, and 2011 recipient of the First Five Family Grant, where she worked together with a group of five neighborhood families to execute a kindergarten readiness curriculum based on gardening and nutrition. She is currently researching food insecurity and mothers as a graduate intern at the San Francisco Homeless Prenatal Program. Her favorite quote is Marion Nestle at a lectern, announcing that “if one wanted to be truly radical, then they should teach a kid to cook."
Brilliant friends! This February we're watching MY BRILLIANT FRIEND together, the HBO series based on the Elena Ferrante books.
Every Monday in February we'll be screening 2 episodes each night. Paired with themed snacks: Neapolitan wine and cheese and salami. Join us!
San Francisco, CA