I was happy to travel this weekend to the California Bay Area for the Art Deco Society hosted Gatsby picnic. Being a Berkeley/Oakland native, I had been to Gatsby once before years ago. Since I have few opportunities to dress up 1920’s I was excited to plan a trip back to the bay area, though somewhat hesitant.

For those who don’t know my history, I lived in Oakland for 7 years until the crime in my neighborhood got incredibly bad. I sensed what was coming to us and one sad day in July, someone broke into our house to rob it while I was home with my baby. I ran out the front door while the man came in the back door. I called my husband first and he rushed home. My husband Soren had a horrible confrontation with the guy in which my husband broke his foot in 100 pieces as was pinned down at gun point. Once the police came a half hour later, they refused to enter our house till the dog unit arrived, another half hour. In the meantime the doors were open and our kitties wandered away. (luckily to come back later in the day) Days after, a more horrendous crime happened a few houses down. It sealed the deal for us running far away. After that Soren and I basically picked a random place on earth to move away from and that was Portland. Needless to say I have many bitter feelings about coming back to Oakland for the first time since this happened.