The Doing Stuff Blog

A More Restful Bedroom

2012-01-05T20:52:00.000-08:00

Oh hi. Happy New Year and welcome back. If anyone thought the lag in posting was owing to my having given birth, I'm sad to report that this is not the case. I'm still lumbering around impatiently.

I've already started my leave from work, which is probably a good thing since I'm so distracted, but it's really exaggerating how slowly time is passing. This would be a good opportunity for me to rest, but I can't sit still. I've read that during the very end of pregnancy one can either be overwhelmed by fatigue or fueled by inexplicable surges of energy. I'm surprised to find myself amongst the latter grouping. For the last few weeks I've been positively bouncing off the walls, on the lookout for something I can clean, reorganize, or store in a Ziploc bag (a strange new compulsion).

With all of this energy and free time, I've come up with an ever-growing list of projects, but most of them are not worth writing about. Unless you want to read about organizing the food storage in the kitchen? See, told you so.

But here's a project worth bringing up: the bedroom. It was the last room requiring our attention before I could finally consider us "moved in."

Unfortunately, this is going to be a room makeover post without Before pictures. Why have I failed you? Well, it's really not my fault. I actually took several pictures during the rejuvenation process, but they were all taken on my phone. And recently my phone turned into an a-hole and I had to do a factory reset which deleted all of my pictures, not to mention my phone numbers. At the time, I was assured this info was all suitably backed up, but it just goes to show you shouldn't blindly trust someone because he's wearing a Verizon Wireless sweater vest. Especially if that someone also pronounces texts as "texes."

Anyway, here is the bedroom.

Now, if you want a before picture, imagine the walls are the color of the Before bathroom.

Like literally I think they used the same can of paint. Have I mentioned how much I love yellow?

Now the walls are a deep smokey brownish gray, which is pretty much the exact same color as the accent wall from the previous bedroom, seen here.

I didn't exactly mean to match it, but I have a tendency to inadvertently pick out the same paint colors repeatedly. This is why Oscar's room is the same color as the second bathroom in the old house, which was the same color as the kitchen cabinets in the apartment before that.

Regarding the curtains and the fabric panels behind the bed from the old bedroom, there's been some discussion about hanging those in the new one. The discussions usually take place on a weekend morning when Devin enthusiastically suggests we tackle it after breakfast, and I respond with a noise that sounds like a sick goat and change the subject. I love how the old bedroom turned out and still love those pieces. I just can't deal.

I'm also into the high contrast of the white blinds with the dark paint, and this inspired me to decorate in a black & white theme. By the bed I hung some black and white pictures of us that we've had for years.

Then on the opposite wall, I gave myself a little project.

I ordered this black and white poster of Hollywood online. It was something like $10. Then, we had this large, framed piece of crumby Ikea art sitting around. The frame was too big for the new poster, but fortunately the blank edges of the artwork served perfectly as a matte. All it took was a little double sided tape.

The frame itself was natural wood, so I painted it with some white acrylic paint kicking around in my craft bin. There was a little bit of a finish on the wood before I painted so it didn't go on totally smooth, but I liked the messy effect I wound up with.

There were pictures of all of this. Oh well. Thanks a lot, Texes.

Now things are sufficiently cozy. But there are two areas that need work, and may not get them for a while.

One is the closet.

It's just too cramped for two people and I haven't given much thought to organizing it or maximizing space. And it's only going to get worse because right now much of my regular wardrobe is stored away and I primarily just have my maternity clothes hanging up.

The other problem is this wall of broken Ikea dressers.

The two birch colored ones Devin and I have had for years. They were holding up okay, but recently the drawers have started to give out. The espresso colored dresser in the middle is one I bought from Craigslist and was originally intended for Oscar's room before I realized it didn't match the crib and was also a rapidly deteriorating hunk of crap. What? Second-hand Ikea furniture isn't standing the test of time? Shocker. Since purchasing it a whole piece has fallen off the front and the bottom drawer has come apart and won't close all the way.

Anyway this just looks cumbersome and awful, but I also don't know how to downsize into something daintier. We've both gone through several rounds of trimming down our wardrobe and still we are busting at the seams. Ideas?

Ignoring those two eye sores, I think the bedroom is good enough to sleep in. Now, if only I could actually sleep...

His First Room

2011-12-14T13:44:00.000-08:00

As I mentioned previously, around about the time I painted the bathroom, I was having something of a mental/emotional breakdown about the baby's room. I knew there was plenty of time to take care of it, I knew he wouldn't have a clue what he was looking at in there anyway, and I knew there was no reason to get bent out of shape. I knew all of this, and yet the unfinishedness of it was just eating away at me. You know how they say pregnant women can sometimes be a tad irrational? Yeah, that's a thing.

In the weeks following our move into the apartment, the room was reduced to a storage unit. Naturally, the room we had no everyday need for was the best place to shove anything we didn't have the patience to deal with.

So long as we kept the door closed, I remained in stable condition. But whenever I opened the door and saw this:

...I wanted to cry.

It took time, but eventually we managed to make our way through all of the clutter and get the rest of the apartment in working order. Then Devin took the time to Tetris all the boxes of brand new baby gear into the closet, where they could be temporarily out of sight and mind. And then, we worked together to assemble the crib with only minimal arguing and with only one "extra" screw that we may or may not have failed to put in.

Ah, ok. That's better.

Now I could at least think of things like layout and furniture and color schemes and decor. You know, the fun stuff. Or what could've been the fun stuff if hormones weren't rotting my brain.

Instead, I spent all of my free time at work looking at dressers, changing tables, cute lamps, wall decals, animal themes, sea themes, space themes, bold colors, pastel colors, neutral colors. Whenever I thought I was onto something I would email Devin pictures and links, and then he'd counter with something else that I'd also like and it'd undo all my progress.

There was one point where I was going to leave the walls the dark green color they were when we moved in just because it wasn't a horrible color and it would save some effort. But then I realized another way to save myself the trouble was just to have Devin do it. So when he was on a break from work he carefully transformed the room to baby blue. Classic.

Once that was taken care of, things started to fall into place. I realized there was no way I was ever going to get everything to match as one perfect scheme, so I concluded that the room's theme would be "stuff I wanted."

And, here 'tis!

There are a few elephants dotting the room, and they match the elephant bedding set (still in its box) that was all going to be a part of the elephant themed nursery that existed in my mind at some stage along the way.

But then I wanted to add this decal.

So the elephant thing got sort of displaced. Isn't that darling though?

The bookshelves were the cheapest thing ever, from Target. Only $30! They came with instructions someone should have paid me $30 for having to work through, however. These shelves were all we needed to start making sense of the piles of baby supplies crammed into the closet.

On the wall there is a trio of canvas prints with stenciled robots that Devin made himself as decor for our hallway in the old house. I liked the colors and decided I'd throw them into the mix. Then R2D2 wanted in on the action as well. And since he literally is a toy chest, it made sense for him to live in a kid's room and not in the dining room.

The futon is still a subject of contention. It doesn't really belong here and it's taking up space I would otherwise be able to use for a rocking chair. But we didn't buy it that long ago and it is the only place we can give guests to sleep and when unfolded it can be a good place for lounging around and naptime. So I'll just make some new pillowcases (sewing project!) and make peace with it.

I'm incredibly excited about the changing table/dresser combo.

These can be quite pricey and I really wasn't sure how we'd fit it into our budget. But clearly, it was necessary. I was on the Babies R Us website admiring this one and thinking it would match our other furniture. Then, on a whim, I turned to Craigslist and did a search for nursery furniture.

And wouldn't you know it? There was the very same dresser! $100 cheaper and already assembled. I immediately sent a possibly psychotic-seeming email to the seller and by that night it was mine! Mine! I mean, Oscar's!

The closet is still stuffed, but now appropriately so. If you're wondering about that contraption on the left, don't worry it's got nothing to do with infant care. It's actually made for the much bigger baby who hangs upside down on it for spine alignment... or something.

Last night I hung up the final touch, this print that Devin ordered of a picture he'd seen somewhere around the interwebs. Since we're naming our little guy Oscar, he may as well have a pic of someone who shares the name. Isn't Devin so cute and clever for thinking of that?

And now *deep breath* the blue-green-owl-robot-elephant-tree-droid themed room is complete.

Oh, except for the baby. :)

Christmas Barrettes

2011-12-12T11:01:00.000-08:00

I don't know why, but this year I'm more into Christmas than usual. Nevermind the fact that I haven't really done any shopping and I worry friends and family are only going to get rain checks and apologies from me. I'm into it, damn it.

I even did some crafting in the form of poinsettia barrettes to add a little festive touch to any old outfit.

There weren't any instructions to follow, but in my head I had a good plan. I set out to Michael's on my lunch break one day, bringing Meg and Michelle from work for the ride. They ended up being a huge asset because my goal to "quickly pick out a few fake poinsettias," completely underestimated the gargantuan variety and quantity Michael's would offer. The three of us wandered between aisles, picking out and dismissing contenders until we finally had a few different kinds. I also picked up some alligator clips and a packet of little glittery gold discs that I guess are normally intended for scrapbooking (?).

With those supplies and a hot glue gun, it was time to get to work one Saturday afternoon.

The first step is to yank the flower off its stem.

Then remove the green plastic piece on the back that holds the whole thing together.

Just like that, you get two flat layers that are much easier to work with. I threw out the gold bit from the center because I just didn't like the look of it.

Next, it was time to add in a little extra kick with a dose of these beauties.

I cut off a few petals and glued them to the larger of the 2 layers.

Once those were in place, I glued the smaller layer on top, taking care to place it in the right position to see maximum red glitter peaking out. Then I secured one of the gold dots in the center with more hot glue.

By this point I'd burned my fingers several times and there were strings of glue draping over everything like spider webs. But other than that, it was all rather simple.

Now, onto the alligator clip. I began by removing one of the green leaves from the original flowers and gluing that to the top of the clip.

Once it had time to dry, I then glued that to the back of the flower and my work was done.

Some seasonal snazziness for the holiday party circuit. They also make great gifts for the host.

What Happened In Vegas

2011-11-27T08:25:00.000-08:00

As we count down the weeks 'til the arrival of this highly-anticipated baby boy, one thing's for sure: I'm stressed the hell out. I'm happy. I'm excited. And I'm stressed out.

Fortunately, the weekend before Thanksgiving, I had the opportunity to give myself a break and get away for a few days in Vegas. Of course, this destination wasn't exactly my first choice since, in this phase of my life, I can't drink, smoke, stay up late, make irresponsible choices with money, or successfully wear slutty outfits. However, I had a pass for a 2 night stay at The Cosmopolitan that I'd been hanging onto since January... and I can't say no to free. And the hotel has a spa, so.

We made the drive on Friday after work, fought a little traffic, and arrived around 11. As we walked through the crowd in the glittering lobby, all I dreamed of was checking out the room's private terrace, soaking in the bathtub, then crawling into the king size bed for some shut eye. This room may have been free, but it promised some sweet features.

It seemed to be taking a long while to pull up our reservation as we stood at the desk. I always get nervous checking in at hotels. I sighed and shifted my weight from leg to leg. I was starting to have to pee. Finally, the guy looked up from his computer screen, but didn't quite make eye contact.

"Okay, this is the situation right now."

Here we go...

"Your room isn't actually available."

I furrowed my brow, signaling that he was going to need to offer a better explanation.

"What's going on is some of the rooms are still being cleaned... and so it may be ready in an hour or two. You can check back. I can offer you a different room. It doesn't have a terrace. It's 2 queen beds."

And what of the bathtub?! I was having trouble speaking with him because I didn't process anything he was saying as logical. How could they still be cleaning the rooms twelve hours after check out? Holiday Inn can get the room turnover schedule down. How could a major operation like this fail to get it right? And even if it was being cleaned, which I was certain was a lie, how could it maybe be ready when the cleaning was done? If the cleaning was all that was standing in the way, shouldn't the completion of said cleaning put an end to the problem?

Since I couldn't manage to move the conversation forward outside of my head, Devin chimed in.

"But we reserved that room so how can it not be available?"

"Well," the man explained. "The reservation you had was for a style of room." Um. Yes, exactly. His answer just supported our point. All I could envision was the car rental reservation scene from Seinfeld.

Clearly we weren't going to get anywhere with this putz. "Fine," I offered. "Will we be able to move into our room tomorrow?"

"I can't say for sure. You'd have to check in the morning." Sigh.

"So we MAY be able to move into it in the next hour or else we MAY be able to move into it tomorrow. Or maybe not at all."

"If you just call the desk in an hour--"

"Yeah yeah."

In our subpar room, Devin took a shower while I paced around uneasily. I couldn't unpack. I couldn't go to bed. This was stupid.

So we marched back downstairs and found someone else to talk to. "Wait... who told you the rooms were being cleaned? They aren't available and won't be tonight."

"I knew it!"

She was apologetic and set us up to move into an even better room than the one we reserved. We'd just have to stick to our subpar room for tonight.

The thing is, the room wasn't actually bad. Under normal circumstances I would've probably raved about it. Sure, there was no tub. But the shower had a feature I'd never seen before -- a floor to ceiling window that faced out to the bedroom. There was a curtain for privacy, but it was controlled from outside the shower so my advice to anyone staying at The Cosmopolitan is to know and trust your roommate.

And it may have lacked a private terrace, but it did have this view of a wall.

There were also fun touches here and there, like colored pencils. I didn't have any illustrating needs at the time, but I liked the idea of it.

After taking a quick spin through the casino floor to see what it had to offer (answer: the usual), we tucked in for an okay night's sleep. Even though we have a queen bed at home, I swear this bed was too small. At one point in the night I moved over to the other bed to try to spread out a little. How's that for a romantic weekend?

The trip was not off to an amazing start, but it all changed the next morning when we switched rooms.

Now we're talking.

Look at all this extra space we don't need and won't use!

And the king size bed!

And the tub! Not only did it have its own window...

But it also faced out to the bedroom so no one would ever be lonely while bathing.

Finally, the vacation could begin. We spent the day eating lunch and laying around the room. It was possibly the least exciting Vegas story ever and I loved it. In the late afternoon I wandered down to the enormous spa for a massage, then reported back to our room for more lounging around until it was time to leave for The Mirage to see Love.

I hadn't seen a Cirque Du Soleil show yet, but most people seem to lose their minds about them so I had high hopes. Our seats were in the very front row, which turned out to be seriously overstimulating once the show started...and not in a bad way. I didn't know where to look as approximately 200 different things happen during any given moment, sometimes directly over my head or just a few feet from my face.

Aside from the room stupidity, The Cosmopolitan was worth checking out. It has a cool aesthetic about it. Also, a secret pizza place down an unmarked hallway.

See in there?

I may have been the only pregnant lady in the city. I know it sounds paranoid to say this, but it really really felt like a lot of people were looking at me. They were probably thinking exactly what I thought the one time I saw a very pregnant lady in Vegas, "That would suck."

But you know what? I was definitely looking at people funny too. Have you ever been on the outside of thousands of drunk people stumbling around? Barefoot girls carrying their shoes while still trying to convey the sexy vibe they probably had just hours earlier. Guys chomping on cigarettes and loudly failing to complete sentences with their friends "No, but you know what bro? You know what? Bro, you know what though?" I'm never getting drunk again. It's just too humiliating.

Anyway, we made great time on the drive home Sunday and I was feeling SO well rested that I was desperate to launch into some projects around the house and we even managed to put together (however precariously) a book shelf for the baby's room (don't worry... we'll get to a post about that eventually).

Now that we've had our last vacation together as a couple -- for at least the foreseeable future -- there's REALLY nothing left to do but wait.

Bathroom Break

2011-11-17T17:23:00.000-08:00

One room I really should be delving into with great excitement is the baby's room. So far, we've acquired and assembled furniture, and Devin spent 3 days painting. It sounds like it's all coming along, but actually I'm going a little crazypants about it. I'm crippled with indecision. And I can't figure out how to nicely arrange the approximately one million new things we have.

To avoid losing my mind, I decided to give myself a break and work on something I knew I could handle: Painting the bathroom.

This is how it was.

You're probably thinking, "Can we get a better angle? I can't see very well what's going on here."

No, you can't because this is the smallest bathroom in the world. This is me standing in the doorway and there is nowhere else to go.

You may also be asking yourself, "Where is the toilet?" Trust me, there is one. It's to the left, in its own dark little nook that gets blocked off whenever the door is open.

While I can't really do anything to increase the size of the bathroom, I could at least do something about the color. Its original combination of narrow and bright yellow gave one the impression of what standing in a stick of butter might feel like.

It also needed some help beyond paint color because it has no counter space. Only this:

I had to stand in the bathtub to take that picture, by the way. To solve this surface area problem, I obtained a little 3-shelf cart from Target that was easy to assemble and fit close to everything I needed. It's not ideal, but it would suffice.

On painting day, which was 2 Sundays ago and did not turn into painting day until about 15 minutes after I woke up and nominated it as such, I started off by giving the bathroom the kind of thorough cleaning I suspect it didn't receive before we moved in. The floorboards were grimy, the tiles were caked with black and pink mildew, there were hairs stuck to the ceiling (?).

There, that's better. Don't look at the floors. They're beyond hope. No, I said DON'T LOOK and then you looked. Jerks.

Now that the room was sparkling clean, it was time to run out to the paint store. I wanted to find a color that was more soothing, but the trick would be finding something to complement these darling gold flecked tiles. Aren't they a treat?

I had a feeling navy blue would be the answer and I tried to conjure up an image of how I'd perhaps decorate the guest bathroom in my house on the Cape. It seemed to make sense. Devin came along to the store to assist my color picking because I never seem to get it quite right. Turns out, all of this interior decorating is rubbing off on him and he was able to carefully consider each swatch and offer up analysis like, "That one's going to turn out more blue than navy. You need to go darker."

We settled on Patriot Blue. How could a name with so much promise ever lead us astray?

Once home, I spent an hour and a half and a full roll of blue tape prepping all of the edges. I also remembered a tip my sister told me for covering the toilet. It can be hard to paint the wall behind the toilet, with limited space and awkward angles. And my particular situation was further complicated by my big ol' belly. So, if you just remove the top and pull a garbage bag over the tank, you're free to just mash blindly around back there with a paint brush.

Finally, with only about 2 hours to go before I needed to leave for our childbirth class, it was time to get to work. Luckily, the actual painting part never takes much time. The first coat looked like complete crap with lots of yellow speckling through. But later that night, the second coat went on nicely.

And, with the addition of a window shade, a new toothbrush holder, and a shower curtain, we have the finished product:

It's certainly dark, but I'll take it over that cheery yellow any day. The shade on the window is not only a nice way to complete the room, but it was also necessary as the sun came in severely and at an intense angle every morning when I tried to do my makeup for work and highlighted every peak and valley on my face. It wasn't a good confidence boosty way to begin one's day.

Here's a secret though... the paint won't exactly dry. I mean, for all intents and purposes, it's "dry." You can't really tell unless you touch it, but over a week later it's still slightly tacky. I think after I wiped down the walls to remove years of messy neglect, I didn't let them dry out enough. I'm hoping it'll dry eventually... right?

Anyway whatever. I'm checking this room off my list!

Further Adventures In Space Saving

2011-11-02T09:47:00.000-07:00

I've got good news and bad news. Let's start with the bad news.

Space bags? More like space drags. I take back any endorsement I may have offered up in my post about them because they are ruining my life. Seriously, they're the pits. I can't think of enough ways to express that.

Here's why: They don't stay vacuum sealed. Give em a few days -- or in some cases, a few minutes -- and air starts leaking in from some mysterious opening and filling them up like balloons. Every single one that I'd tucked so neatly and proudly into a closet or under the bed has puffed right up.

In a move that really speaks to my confidence level, I assumed surely the bags couldn't be failing me; I must be failing the bags. And so I opened them all up, repositioned everything inside them, sealed them meticulously, and revacuumed them. But again, bag puffery. I'm so disappointed!

In response to my original post, I received a comment from someone actually affiliated with space bags -- true story! The correspondent thanked me for my in depth look at space bags and suggested I join the online space bag community for tips. I guess this means I should log on and see if any fellow space baggers have found this product to be a let down. Correspondent, if you're reading this, help!

Now for the good news. In the home entertainment sector, I'm a space saving genius.

This story goes back many many years, to when I first moved in with Devin and his shelves full of DVDs.

Here they are in the background of a picture of me and his sister, looking our best. (Hey, it was St. Patrick's Day)

I wasn't sure how he'd managed to acquire so many DVDs, but over years of observing him and his behaviors, I reached a better understanding. It seemed he was fond of buying movies he'd never seen before, assuming he'd probably like them and then, bonus, he'd already own the DVD. And if he didn't like the movie, oh well. Or, he'd see an older movie on sale for $5.99 at the grocery store checkout, feel nostalgic, overstate its greatest, and we'd wind up with Mr. Mom.

And so the collection grew and grew, and it didn't really bother me until we moved into the house in Pasadena and there wasn't a good place to put the shelves in the living room. Instead, they got put nicely out of site and out of mind in Devin's play room.

You can probably see where this is going. When it came time to pack up and ship out again, I instantaneously despised the DVD shelves and all of their cumbersomeness. Knowing what we were working with in the new place, it was clear they were going to have to go. The solution, quite obviously, was to move all of the DVDs into binders.

Back when I was packing up to move into the dorms for my freshman year of college, I took all of my CDs and put them in a big, zip-up Case Logic binder. I did this for two reasons: 1) To save space. 2) Because all of my friends were doing it.

But I had a weak spot for all of the CD cases. They had nice artwork... and lyrics... and what if when I'm out of college and living in my very hip downtown loft I wanted to proudly display all of my CDs in a tower? This was back when CD towers were still in fashion, mind you. So I saved all of my cases, and continued to do so for every CD I bought over the next 4 years.

Now jump back to when I'm moving out of the old apartment and into the house, and I uncover a bag of CD cases under the bed. Wait a minute... had I actually personally driven these empty cases all the way across the country, then held onto them through 3 moves into 3 different apartments? What was wrong with me? I threw them out immediately and didn't look back. (In fact, I don't even think I've unzipped the CD binder itself in a good two years. Must not be so into The Cranberries anymore.)

You could say I'd learned my lesson. And since showing off one's DVD collection is about as cool these days as showing off one's CD collection, I could see we'd have no problem moving into binder land. Plus, I fully intend to get on the movie downloading/saving movies on my computer/somehow figuring out how to play computer movies on TV bandwagon.

By the time I'd decided all this, there wasn't time to act on it, so I boxed up all of the DVDs -- over 300, many of them box sets or whole series of shows -- and we lugged them to the new place.

I sold the shelves on Craigslist and later learned that Devin had never paid anything for them in the first place because he found them in the trash (ew). Nothing but profit so far!

Then, after some online research and mental calculations, I concluded we'd need 2 of the biggest storage binders I could find.

And finally, after the binders arrived in the mail, I set to work removing all of the DVDs from their packaging and putting them in the sleeves of the binder pages, alphabetically. Simultaneously, I catalogued them all on an excel spreadsheet for easier browsing in the future. I toyed with the idea of trying to put in key words on the spreadsheet like "comedy" or "Naomi Watts," but then I remembered the K.I.S.S. principle and kept on trucking with my simplistic approach.

All the while, I let the DVD cases pile up in a very obnoxious fashion to encourage Devin to see my point that they should be all thrown away.

He didn't have the benefit of my empty CD case experience and hadn't learned the thrill of detachment. I told him he could hold onto all the cases if he wanted, for when we're living in a mansion with a home theater and can have these all displayed on shelves. But, by the way, I'll be damned if I'm the one who winds up putting all of the DVDs back into their cases. In the end, he decided to part with them and now I love him even more.

The whole binder assembly process only took... oh... 7 hours. But it was 7 hours well spent.

Because look at our DVD collection now!

Wait, are you having trouble finding it? It's right here!

Isn't it marvelously little?

Now if I could just find a way to put our extra bedding into binders, I'll be all set.

Evil Gourds

2011-10-31T08:00:00.000-07:00

Now that Halloween weekend is over with and pictures of costumes and shenanigans are going up on Facebook, I'm really feeling like I just sucked this year. It definitely didn't help matters that I've had a cold for the last 9 DAYS and I may never recover.

But I'm not going down without a fight. I bought a bag of candy "in case we get trick or treaters."

I baked a delicious pumpkin bread...

From a boxed mix at Trader Joe's.

And I sat down for a little crafting. Presenting, Martha Stewart's Fanged Pumpkins:

Yeah, those are hers. Mine will come later. And I'm renaming them Evil Gourds.

I saw this idea back before I got sick and generally meh, and hurried out to buy a few gourds.

Then, on my next stop at the drug store, I looked for a few sets of Dracula teeth. Weirdly, all I could find in the seasonal aisle was a sack of 15 sets of RED teeth.

I could've kept looking for some less odd ones, but they were on clearance and came to about $2. You can't pass up a deal like that.

The instructions for fanged pumpkins call for map pins to hold the teeth in place and to create the beady little eyes on these suckers. In an uncharacteristic stroke of luck, I already had a set of red pins from a sewing project. Score!

My materials sat around for days and days until finally I realized I was running out of time. Devin ran out to the store to get me a pumpkin carving kit so I could get started. He came home with a motorized one that seemed pretty bad ass.

Time to get to work! Step 1: Draw a mouth.

Step 2: Cut the mouth hole.

Done and done. What? That's totally the same gourd from before. Ok, you got me. I had a little trouble, even with my power saw. Turns out gourds are hard as rocks. It broke my little poking tool. Evil gourd! I switched to this mini pumpkin and the knife went through like butter.

Step 3: Scoop out the guts.

Step 4: Adhere the little teeth to the mouth hole with pins.
Since I kept the holes kind of small, the teeth mainly stayed in on their own.

Step 5: Shove in 2 more pins for eyes. And behold...

EVIL GOURD!

I was going to give up after this one, but then I decided to try another.

Again, it was hard as a rock, but poking holes along the cutting line helped a bit. Although I nearly broke my fork.

Once I conquered that one, I had the confidence to go back and try the original gourd and in the end I wound up with quite a spooky trio.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Paranormal Apathy

2011-10-28T20:11:00.000-07:00

I always think I can't handle horror movies so I avoid them at all costs. But every now and then, I'll give in and give one a shot and find that I'm completely disappointed. There are a few moments of tension, sure. And the occasional something popping out from a closet and making me jump out of my skin. But the rest is usually bad dialogue, fake blood, and obvious plot points.

Now here we are in Halloween season and I'm still trying to find ways to get me into the swing of things. So why not try watching a horror flick? And why not pick the low budget phenomenon that launched two sequels (and counting)?

I'm going to watch Paranormal Activity.

Oh, and I'm going to live blog it. Here goes nothing.

1:10 - Wait. This is supposed to be their house? Oh I'm sure. That's a reasonable home for two 20 somethings in San Diego.
8:56 - Katie discovers her keys in the middle of the kitchen floor. My first thought: the cat did it. Then I remember not everyone lives in a house full of unruly animals like I do.
21:12 - A door opened and closed a little. Getting kinda bored here.
22:40 - A terrible scream from the other room!
22:47 - It's just a spider. It IS a really gross spider though.
27:00 - We have a nightmare. Katie wakes up and is out of breath. I had a nightmare last night. Devin said I was making frightened noises. She wasn't even making noises.
27:30 - A clomping noise downstairs. Let's go investigate. Better be murder. Oh, nope nothing.
28:40 - Why don't they have to go to work?
30:02 - Micah promises not to buy a Ouija board. Do you think he will? I think he will.
31:42 - A loud horrible monster scream! And then nothing.
33:40 - Micah keeps asking Katie "Do you hear that?" I hear nothing. Maybe it's one of those sounds that only younger people can hear. You know, like how they have those ring tones that you can only hear if you're a tween and adults can't hear them so tweens can get secret phone calls?
34:45 - Crap I haven't been paying attention and now we have a microphone involved to pick up ghost noises.
38:30 - Katie got out of bed and stood around for a while. Then she wandered downstairs. I thought maybe the ghost demon was going to throw her down the stairs. It didn't.
39:40 - She's on a swing and she doesn't want to go inside. Wait, Micah! Don't go back inside to get blankets.
41:08 - Or else the ghost demon will turn the TV on in the bedroom and play static...
44:04 - Oh snap! He bought the Ouija board! I called it.
46:05 - Katie got mad and they stormed out of the house, leaving the ghost demon to start moving around the little Ouija thingy. And THEN the board caught on fire.
47:57 - Now they're back home and they're fighting. This is awkward.
52:40 - Micah baby powders the floor.
54:38 - Monkey foot prints in the baby powder!
56:19 - An open crawl space!
57:20 - A mystery object in the crawl space intrigues Micah and he goes in to investigate. Now we're getting somewhere!
58:00 - No, we're not. It's a picture of Katie as a kid that's all burned around the edges. So this demon ghost collects pictures. Maybe it's into scrapbooking too.
1:00:02 - The light just came on downstairs and now there are a lot of banging noises and the door slammed closed. There are only about 20 minutes left in the movie so this must be the exciting conclusion!
1:00:04 - They made it through the night. Damn it.
1:07:30 - Ghost demon broke a picture of Micah and Katie. Then it breathed in Katie's hair.
1:10:02 - Ghost demon came into the bedroom and pulled back the sheet, exposing one of Katie's feet. Now her foot is going to get so cold! She's done for.
1:12:25 - I have to pee. Let's wrap it up, folks.
1:15:32 - Katie is mysteriously a crying heap on floor. And... I guess it's just going to stay a mystery because that was the end of that scene.
1:16:50 - Ghost demon yanks Katie from bed and pulls her across floor!
1:18:13 - Katie is alive but with a bite mark on her back.
1:19:00 - Katie is now catatonic, holding a cross, which is making her hand bleed.
1:19:36 - Hideous leopard print rug they have in the living room.
1:21:29 - Katie is sleep walking again. Now she's head downstairs.
1:23:00 - Horrible scream from downstairs. Micah runs to help Katie.
1:24:29 - Ohhh... So that's how it ends. Hmph.

LAME. 2 minutes of minor fright, 10 minutes of spookiness.

Ghostbusters on the Big Screen

2011-10-21T15:55:00.000-07:00

Fair warning: you're going to be disappointed by this post. It's a brief interlude, but I felt it important to prove to you that YES I still get out of the house. Regularly. Honestly.

This year my favorite holiday, Halloween, is getting buried under the new apartment shuffle and the general distraction of pregnancy. I don't have a costume underway... I don't even have an idea! But last night I managed to do something that was Halloweenish, however tangentially. Devin and I went to the movies to see Ghostbusters.

I don't know why, but I thought this screening would be more of an event. Something like Rocky Horror Picture Show, although no one gave me any information that should've led me to this conclusion. I thought there'd be people in costumes, a packed theater, maybe someone selling merchandise. But it was just kinda like going to any other movie, any other night. There weren't even many people there.

Still, I think there's benefit in seeing something in theaters that you've seen 100 times before on TV. There were moments and jokes I'd completely missed before like, "Listen! Do you smell something?" and "I recorded a 20 minute work out and played it back and high speed so it only took me 10 minutes."

There wasn't a whole lot to take pictures of to document this little outing. I tried snapping a few from our seats but it seemed to be embarrassing Devin so I stopped.

It may not have been a big to-do, but it was a nice night out. If this ho hum post in some way made you want to check it out, there's one more chance to see it next Thursday!

First K.I.S.S.

2011-10-17T13:27:00.000-07:00

If there's one lesson I've learned from moving in and out of our house in about 18 months, it's that it doesn't pay to be awesome. By this I mean that I was so fueled by a desire to be awesome that during our time there I made-over nearly every single room AND the backyard so it could really be our own and reflect our style. But as we were packing up and I was yanking down wall decals and window treatments, I asked myself, "What was the point?" Perhaps it's because I'm seeing this all in crystal clear Pregnancy Vision, through which even making my own sandwich seems like too much work.

So now that we've dug deep and pulled together enough stamina to get the new apartment mostly unpacked and settled, it's time to think about how to dress up the place. And I've decided, this time around, to adhere to the K.I.S.S. principle. As you may know, K.I.S.S. stands for Keep It Simple So-I-don't-drive-myself-crazy-and-spend-money-I-don't-have-on-an-apartment-I-already-know-we-won't-live-in-forever, stupid.

Allow me to offer up the dining room windows as a case study.

Notice the light pouring in, illuminating the clutter. Welcome to my nightmare.

All of the other windows in the house are covered with blinds. And not vertical blinds that I hate. Nice blinds. Phew. But these dining room windows are bare.

My first instinct was to repurpose the cherry wood blinds from the spare bedroom in the old house. This would be preferable to curtains, as the blinds could stay raised halfway to steer clear of the air conditioner.

At the time this thought occurred, we still had possession of the old house and I took a moment to measure the blinds... only to discover that actually the windows they covered were two different sizes and thus, so were the pair of blinds. I guess I'd forgotten all about that. This would mean I'd need to make a trip to Ikea to buy another set in either of the two sizes, then take down the blinds from the old place, then take down the curtain rod already in the new dining room, and then install the old blinds.

But that was the old me. Applying the K.I.S.S. method, I said "eff that" and left the wood blinds hanging in their place, telling the old landlords they could keep them. And I decided to just take advantage of the perfectly good, already installed curtain rod hanging over the windows when we moved in.

Luckily I still had the curtains from the old living room. So after about 10 minutes, our sunlight and privacy problems were solved.

Ok, I took this picture several days later after I'd had more time to clean. I WISH that part had only taken 10 minutes too.

"But wait!" you exclaim as you closely study this picture. "What about the air conditioner? The curtains are blocking it and if you open them, you're back to being exposed."

Very astute observation. You know what I'm gonna do to solve that problem? Absolutely nothing!

The Moving Update

2011-09-29T11:48:00.000-07:00

Ok, so we're in the new place. There are still some stragglers and bastard boxes left at the old house that I cannot for the life of me get motivated to deal with... but we have til Saturday so I'm just counting on some form of divine intervention to relocate them and then do a light cleaning.

The main event took place on Saturday. Most of our belongings were boxed up and ready to go when our movers showed up. I should point out that our movers this time around were Becca and Ross. Last time, we hired a moving company because I insisted that asking friends to help wasn't en vogue for people of our age. And while having professional movers was fine, it ended up costing about 3 times as much as we'd planned and I just wasn't prepared for that kind of expense again.

So for the price of a Uhaul, bagels, beer and pizza... we got some much needed assistance. It was actually way more fun having them around -- I'm sure they just had a blast shlepping things in and out of the truck -- and they moved just about as quickly and efficiently as the "real" movers. I, on the other hand, was completely useless owing to the very publicized rule that pregnant ladies should not be lifting heavy objects and moving furniture around. I tried to busy myself but scooting around the house like a fat crab, gathering loose ends, tv cables, and whatnot.

Within a few hours we had the Uhaul absolutely stuffed and left behind a heap of things to be moved via car in future shuttles back and forth. At the new place, unloading went even faster, particularly since we had reinforcements -- Ryan and Steve (just in time for lunch... clever).

It was at this point that I realized the carrying stuff around part of moving is perhaps the most physically grueling, but it's all the peripheral stuff that really crushes your soul. Packing, unpacking, organizing, searching around in boxes for your belongings, closing up old utility accounts, setting up new ones. Movers don't help with all of that. I don't doubt there are people you can pay to do it for you, but I'm sure they're out of my price range.

I spent the rest of the weekend being depressed and irritable because I was living in what I considered to be a hell hole, or what most people would consider to be a new apartment that just needs to be set up. In response to my frequent sighing, whining, groaning, and yelling, Devin kept reminding me that everything was going to be fine. My stance was more, "Shut up and let me be miserable because this sucks."

Monday night, Katie and Becca came over to help me arrange and clear out the living room. It was then that we established there is absolutely no logical place to put the television (pictures to come later). The apartment was built in the 1950s before every home needed spots to clearly place a couch and TV. We eventually reached a conclusion that involved improvising a TV stand out of one of those $10 Lack Ikea tables that everyone has at least one of. What really would've come in handy as a temporary solution is the TV stand I JUST FREAKING SOLD during my craigslist fury. Sigh.

Anyway that's been the only major disappointment now that I've calmed down and am settling in. That, and the fact that we -- for whatever reason -- don't get cell service in our apartment. We'd planned on getting a land line anyway, so I suppose in this phase of our lives we'll be kicking it old school on a cordless phone. Or maybe one of those ones that mounts on the wall in the kitchen and has a really, really long spiral cord. You know, the ones you don't ever want to be on because texting is so much simpler. Devin says it'll be nice not to be reachable all the time. Yeah, we'll see.

More to come!

Space Bags to the Rescue!

2011-09-22T09:47:00.000-07:00

I've already started complaining about my spatial concerns for the new apartment. So in keeping with that theme, let's move on to my worries about closet storage, shall we?

In our current living situation, we have 2 full size bedroom closets, each with their own wall of cavernous built-in cabinets, shelves and drawers that we've managed to pack to the gills with clothes, luggage, old paperwork and god knows what else. We also have 2 hall closets, also filled with odds and ends -- extra bedding, camping supplies, Christmas decorations, Halloween costumes.

In the new apartment, we'll be confined to one small bedroom closet, no built-in anythings, and one ok-sized closet in the living room. Technically there is a lovely-sized closet in the baby's new room and since his clothes are tiny and he has no clue what's going on in the world, we could take over his closet. Right?

This is what I thought until gifts started showing up by mail off our registry and are now cascading throughout the living room, hallway, and half the spare bedroom. Apparently babies require a disproportionally massive amount of stuff in order to exist. (Or so Babies R Us would have me believe...)

I was dwelling on all of this back on my sick day the other week, as I launched my Craigslist venture (btw - I've sold or gotten rid of everything but the desk!). Then, as luck would have it, I saw this lengthy commercial for Space Bags.

I actually saw it about 15 times while watching a marathon of Snapped on Oxygen. But it only took til the second viewing for me to hop online and order me up some space saving technology!

Then, 400 other things happened in my life and took up all of my attention and by the time the bags were delivered to my office on Monday, I'd kind of forgotten all about them. But their arrival renewed my vigor for sucking the life out of everything in my closets and I spent the rest of the day showing off my new purchase to anyone who would listen. Actually, I didn't bother opening the shipping container, so really I was just marching around the office, cradling a cardboard box and shoving it in coworkers' faces. Look what I've got! Jealous?

When I got home, it was time to get to work. Starting with the "cube" bags, which are meant to be ideal for bedding. Here's a heap of stuff.

Into the bag it goes. Don't worry, Midge the Cat was not included.

Presto, sucko and...

Ta-da! A rock hard sack... that isn't exactly cube like.

A little disappointing, but moving on... old Halloween costumes, including this little number. These were taking up a whole box in the closet. Totally unnecessary.

Give em hell, vacuum hose attachment!

Oooo. Now I've got a pallet of Halloween fun.

Time to try the cube again. They're supposed to fit in the little zip-up organizer included with the bags. Looks at those neat little cubes!

An illustration on the bag says to put the cube bag in a box, and then I guess it takes the box's shape as you vacuum seal it. Fine, I'll try anything. Into the box it goes.

What's that you say? You also have no life and get excited by storage solutions? You'd actually like to spend time watching the air be removed from a bag o' bedding? Well, I aim to please. (See what happens when I don't drink?)

And we have... another not-cube to put with the lumpy pile. Oh well.

Here I stopped, unsure of what I could bag up next. All of my non-maternity, normal human clothes are a good candidate, but they've already been brought to the new place. I'm tempted to seal up things that we need on a regular basis, like towels, just for kicks. I've still got 6 bags left! I'm sure there's loads more pointless air in our house that I can get rid of!

My Friend Craig

2011-09-11T13:45:00.000-07:00

Much the same way it's said that a goldfish will grow larger depending on the size of its tank, Devin and I have a habit of spreading out and obtaining as many belongings as are necessary to fill our current home. And in all of the years we've lived together, we've always had two bedrooms that we could really fill up to our hearts' content.

Now we're getting ready to move into our new apartment, but this time our home will be smaller. And, for the first time, we're going to have to confine ourselves to one of the two bedrooms so that our brand new baby can have a place of his own.

But what can we get rid of? I'm no hoarder but I want all of my things.

After humming and hawing, breaking out the tape measure, and weighing our options, I came up with a list of stuff that had to go. And then it was time to embark on my biggest Craigslist venture ever.

The patio furniture, office furniture, pub table, tv stand, the fridge, old air conditioners, gardening supplies... everything must go! As hard as it was to think of parting with some of this stuff, once I started posting things, I turned into Crazy Gideon. Asking prices got lower, my sales pitches got pushier, and I tore feverishly through the house seeing what else I could get rid of.

Once everything was put out there into the internet universe, I waited impatiently. By coincidence (or maybe as a result of overexerting myself), I came down with a nasty cold and stayed home sick the day after I went live with my moving sale. I spent the whole day on my couch, next to my laptop and surrounded by used tissues. By late morning, the first few emails came in.

And they were dismal. Confusing sentence fragments, spam, and my personal favorite, an email that just read "Joe" with a phone number. I responded to everyone anyway. But once I'd answered questions or placed calls, the trail went cold. No one went any further. New emails would come in and I'd answer them psychotically quickly, but there was no promise.

By early evening I'd given up hope. I know, I'm quick to throw in the towel. But I was sick so everything in life just seemed worse than it was. Then, between my 86th and 87th attempts to clear a particularly difficult level in Super Mario 3 for Wii, a glimmer of hope appeared in my inbox. A perfectly constructed email from a woman who wanted the patio furniture set. I sent my desperate response in about 4 seconds. YES YOU COME HERE AND BUY NOW PLEASE I NEED HAPPINESS. To my delight, she wrote back again within a few minutes and we set plans for her to come by and get it that night.

She, her roommate, and some guy they'd coerced into using his truck and carrying things, showed up at my doorstep after dark. They quickly decided they wanted the table. Then, admiring the string of lanterns I had hanging around the backyard, one of them commented they'd need to get some for their own patio. "OH! Take them!" I blurted out.

"How much?"

"Oh, you can just have them. Do you need other stuff for your apartment? I have so many things."

"Um... mostly just outdoor stuff. Like a fire pit..."

"I have that! It's yours. 10 bucks. And here, take this firewood too."

By the time they pulled away with a truckload of backyard stuff, precariously tetris-ed in and tied down, I had the feeling things would turn around.

Since then, I've sold off the pub table, an office organizer, TV stand, and the old fridge (I think... if she actually comes to pick it up.) I gave away the grill for free since I felt ridiculous asking anyone to pay for that beat up old thing. Of course, when the girl came to pick it up and remarked "Oh! It looks great!" I wondered if perhaps I'd cheated myself out of a few extra bucks.

With a few items remaining, I've so far earned $280 (More if the fridge works out). Enough to be a big help paying for all the new stuff I'll need to fill every nook and cranny of the new apartment.

Notes From the Pregnant Kitchen

2011-08-24T10:37:00.000-07:00

One of the reasons I love my midwives is because they are so very attentive to my diet and nutrition. In my first trimester, before I switched over to their care, I felt pretty queasy most of the time and seemed to only be able to eat ramen noodles, cereal, peaches, and nothing. Then, when my appetite eventually returned, I was all out of whack. During an appointment, the midwives (There are 2, if you're wondering. It's not a giant team or anything.) asked me about my usual diet. Most of my answers were met with polite responses, though I could see the concern in their eyes. They had me keep a food journal for two weeks, then come back for another visit.

When it came time to review my journal, there was a great deal of silence, punctuated by brief comments or questions. "Not a lot of protein at breakfast... What's a McFlurry?...Oh dear what happened Saturday?"

The conclusion was that I wasn't way off, but I definitely needed some help. One of the biggest problems was that it took me 5 days to get one day's worth of vegetables. I didn't think this could possibly be right, but that's because I didn't know just how many vegetables they were expecting me to eat.

6 servings A DAY. Not fruits AND vegetables. Just vegetables.

Do you know that commercial for a fiber supplement where a woman sets her alarm to wake up and gnaw on a broccoli crown while sitting in bed? I pictured me doing that to fit in these 6 servings. But challenges are good. And I don't want an unhealthy, fat baby. So I was going to need to find a way to get into it.

The remedy: weekly trips to the farmers market. Whereas I'd casually dabbled before -- picking up a few odd items for somehow $55 and letting them all rot in my fridge for a week -- now, I'm a pro. I can be in and out of there in 15 minutes, and only spend about $20.

The produce all tastes better. And the farmers seem so kind. And for the last two weeks I've gone after a yoga class that concludes with 15 minutes of meditation so it makes for a whole mother earth, space case morning. In short, it's all much more exciting this way.

So here is what I've been most excited about eating lately: Heirloom tomato bruschetta and sauteed kale.

For the bruschetta, I chop up 2 - 3 large tomatoes of various colors. Then I add 3 cloves of garlic (which is slightly nuts; 2 is plenty but I just love garlic), then a sprinkle of kosher salt and a drizzle of olive oil. It's so easy and so flavorful. In this batch I threw in a little fresh basil, but I have to say I think I preferred an earlier batch without it. Basil may be one of those random flavors that makes me gag these days.

I bought some sourdough bread at the market too since they were out of Italian. I think it added a nice flavor. I toasted the slices in the oven under the broiler.

The kale, admittedly, came from Vons. I think it's not locally in season right now. It IS extremely trendy, however. I didn't think vegetables could be "in" but kale so is. I'm reminded of a line from Modern Family. Mitchell comes home from the farmers market and says to Cam, "Guess what the new spinach is. Kale" "(Gasp) No!" "I know, it's not ready to anchor a meal."

I sauté mine in some sesame dressing to make it taste not terrible. The nice thing about this is the little ridgey edges get crisp. This was a vegetable the midwives mentioned about 400 times for all of its benefits so FINE I'm eating it. As well as the even-lamer swiss chard.

But hey, it's all for a good cause. And by that, I mean of course to counteract my astounding new addictions to both candy and ice cream.

Movies + Food Trucks

2011-08-18T11:30:00.000-07:00

If you're like me and you enjoy watching movies outdoors, but the thought of going to Cinespia at Hollywood Forever Cemetery makes you want to strangle someone, then fear not... there is still hope! It comes in the form of Outdoor Cinema Food Fest.

Setting up in parks around the city all summer long, OCFF screens favorite movies on a massive inflatable screen and charges only $10 admission. The best part about this is that you can buy your tickets online in advance. Then, the night of the screening, advanced ticket holders are given a one hour head start to get in and grab space on the lawn. This means that even if you do need to wait in a line for a little while to get a good space, you have a ticket that guarantees you WILL get in. Take that, Cinespia.

Oh, AND dogs are allowed to come with. We nearly brought Seamus, but worried he'd be all restless and get in the way.

In addition to the movie, there is also a band. And although I never much care for local bands I've never heard of, I appreciate the effort to up the night's entertainment factor.

The more important bonus is the collection of food trucks at the event. While you're also allowed to bring in your own food and drink (booze included), it never hurts to supplement your pretzel thins and pub cheese (my favorite snack lately) with some greasy food truck fair.

We checked out OCFF on Saturday. The movie was Fight Club, and the location was Exposition Park, over by the Coliseum and USC. Devin and I arrived shortly before the gates opened at 5:30. There was plenty of parking. The $10 fee was a bummer, but pretty standard. We spotted our friends Elizabeth and Jamie in line, just as people started filing in. We pulled a chat and cut to join them, but I don't feel THAT bad because we all had tickets and even if they got in before us they would've saved us a space.

The lawn was just barely filling up so we set up camp, spreading out blankets to ensure space for the 4 remaining folks in our group. Then there was nothing to do but wait... for three hours.

May as well eat stuff!

Food trucks

Tater tots with cheese sauce from Dogtown Dogs

Liz with mashed potatoes and spicy pork from Jose O'Malley's

Don't be fooled, he really did enjoy his hot dog

My companions cracked open beers and bottles of red wine, but you KNOW all the cool kids are really drinking root beer these days.

Sigh.

As the sun started to get low in the sky, I took note that the place had really filled up.

But even so, the lines at the port o potties never got to be completely hopeless. This is how I evaluate the abilities of an event's organizers. Good work, guys.

By the time the movie started I was already getting a little uncomfortable from sitting on the blanket. About 2/3 of the way through, I decided it was easier to lay completely flat and just listen instead of watching. Then, I kind of dozed off. I just can't do late nights these days! But a nap in the cool night air is nothing to complain about.

Leaving the event meant dealing with a little congestion in the parking lot, but not the worst I've ever encountered.

There are still a few screenings left for the summer so if you're trying to plan a movie/picnic night with friends, do yourself a favor and stay the heck outta the cemetery!

iMovie: iThink iM Doing It Right

2011-07-25T16:27:00.000-07:00

This post is a twofer because not only is it about stuff I did, it's also about stuff I did after I did stuff. So there!

Way back in April I was a very busy bee. I threw my very first bridal shower, along with Miriam and Lauren, for our friend Anne. There were paper cranes.

And balloons.

And cupcakes.

And watermelon mojitos.

And a DVD that I made for power hour. It was a 60 minute collection of wedding or true love related moments from movies and TV, all with a countdown clock letting viewers know when a minute had passed and it was time to take another sip of beer/mojito/champagne/whatever. This idea came up somewhere into the party planning committee's second bottle of wine, and it didn't occur to any of us that we had no idea how to pull it off.

Fortunately, I got crafty and decided if I was ever going to figure out how to learn (the free trial version of ) iMovie, this was it! So I set about downloading clips from movies and TV. Memorable moments like this one:

And this one:

And even this one:

And, just for kicks, "Part of Your World" from The Little Mermaid.

If you're wondering why, then I guess you've never seen its effects on a group of a dozen drunk chicks before. It's really something else. Turns out, no one forgets the words. It's like "Shoop" in that way.

Then I set about futzing around, moving the clips in the timeline in iMovie until I got it to precisely 60 minutes. I even figured out how to add a title that came on at each minute.

It took me probably 20 hours to do it because I was still learning, and tended to delete clips by accident or make other rookie mistakes. But anyway, I did it. And it was a hit at the party.

For my next trick, I decided to rip off an idea from an old friend. Whenever he had parties, he'd set up his Mac laptop in a corner, and let all the guests take pictures of themselves with the photo booth application. Then, he'd string them all together to music and make a little video. It was a great way to remember the night... even the parts you might not actually remember.

So again back in April, my friend Delara hosted a Royal Wedding Party, for which we all had to dress "fancy" and/or "royal" and show up to watch the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton. She set up her laptop. We took about 500 pictures (somehow)... and then I never got around to figuring out how to edit them together. Until now!

First I loaded all of the pics, then went through and got rid of bad ones. Then, I set the duration of each to be .25 seconds. I fussed around with the brightness and movement on them, and then imported a music track.

Now, here's where either iMovie sucks or I do, but if you edit a music track, you can only put a start and an end. So if you want to take the beginning of a song, then jump to somewhere later, you have to cut the first piece, then import the song again, then cut the part that you want out of that one. And then if you want to get one more piece of the song, you have to import it a third time and cut that part out. It seems like it would be easier if the audio editor just let you extract pieces of a track... and maybe it does in the pro version. Who knows.

In the end, I got the music edit good enough. I retimed a few of the pictures to be longer than .25 seconds so they'd mix it up a little to the beat. And here's the finished product:

BTW, apologies to my unborn child who, unbeknownst to me, had just recently taken up residency in my belly when I helped myself to many glasses of white wine at the party. Mommy promises to lay off the sauce from now on. But once you make it outta there, all bets are off.

If you're wondering, yes I also used iMovie to edit the timelapse video of the weekend bedroom makeover. Now that I've got the editing bug, I'll have to see what else I can create. Ideas?

Being Pregnant Is Weird

2011-07-11T11:32:00.000-07:00

Admittedly the Doing Stuff Blog has been a little dismal lately. Avid readers may wonder what's become of the Doing Stuff Club. And why I haven't gone back to further explore the Old Zoo. And you don't even know that I didn't write a post on the return to Tribute Fest. What gives?

Will it impress you at all to say that I'm 14 weeks pregnant? I'd say this is proof that I've been doing something. If ya know what I mean. Wink wink. Nudge nudge.

Now that I'm meandering into my second trimester, things are looking up. I no longer feel like the walking dead, suspicious that someone's swapped my prenatal vitamins for Ambien. And I don't want to barf in your face any more. Not that morning sickness was ever as bad as I feared it would be. I believe everything I see on TV and movies, and what I saw of pregnant ladies is that they uncontrollably projectile vomit. But I'm happy to report that this is not the case. At least it wasn't for me. I was queasy constantly and found everything to be wholly disgusting, but I can live with that.

For those of you keeping score at home, yes I was pregnant while on the trip to Venice, and yes this is likely why I barfed on the plane. And, more importantly, why I couldn't stand the site of any food and why the whole city made my skin crawl. So if anyone had been planning a trip to Italy and my horrid reviews of the place lead you to rearrange your plans, let me assure you that Venice is, in fact, lovely... so long as your future child isn't forming in the depths of your gut, ruining your cheery outlook.

Aside from the physical lameness, being pregnant has been fine. I have a mile long list of things I can't do, eat, or drink, but it's not so bad. I'm rather enjoying the reprieve from drinking and it's been a good excuse for being a lazy homebody. Also, my boobs are bigger, which is fun.

I know some women absolutely love the whole pregnancy experience and gush about it. I don't think I will do this. I hope it isn't misinterpreted as being anything less than thrilled about my impending first born, who I'm sure will be seriously awesome and who I can't wait to meet.

What does all this mean for the blog? Nothing really. Probably just more stuff about babies. Oh, and we have to move AGAIN. The thought makes me want to bang my head against the nearest locker --if only I could find one. And this means undoing all of that work I documented on the blog, like my wall decals and my window treatments , and (heartbreak of all heartbreaks), my weekend bedroom makeover. So stay tuned for moving related posts and of course an adorable nursery decorating extravaganza.

That's all for now!

Doing Venetian Stuff: Part Three

2011-06-14T11:04:00.001-07:00

And now for the exciting (if completely overdue) conclusion of my Venetian adventures.

View of the Grand Canal from the Rialto Bridge

The Doge's Palace

The entire island of Venice is one big tourist scene, but the most touristy part is the Piazza San Marco.

I didn't take any pictures of this place because the whole thing was covered in scaffolding and no matter how I tried to angle my camera to set up a picture, it all looked like crap. The last time I was in Venice, about nine years earlier, there was scaffolding everywhere as well. Get it together, Venice.

So here is a mediocre picture from Wikipedia. It's about as good as mine would be.

Okay, so see that building with the little domes in the background? That's a cathedral, and to the right of it, behind the brown tower, is the former palace of the Doge, the king of Venice (I think).

Inside is where all of the important meetings and war plans and conspiratorial plotting took place. We met up with the wedding gang to have a look around.

More scaffolding. I want a refund.

I don't think I've ever before purchased those little audio tours available at museums. You know, the ones where you get to a certain point in the exhibit and press a number to dial up the corresponding info on the little hand held thingy. But I'm just a wild card these days. Living on the edge.

I went to get us each an audio tour, but then the woman at the desk asked if I wanted two tours at 6 Euro each, or pay 8 for the shared one. When I inquired about that, I was told two people share the same audio tour, using the hand set and headphones. Suddenly interpreting the audio tour set up as indicative of the security of our marriage, I felt obligated to get the couples' audio tour.

The result was being tethered to Devin by 16 inches of wire for the next two hours. So that worked out well. It felt like some manner of corporate team building exercise.

I blame the impracticality and discomfort of the couples' tour as the reason I learned precisely squat about Doge's Palace, aside from a few odd facts. For instance, the Great Room (I may have made up that name) where the Congress (or whatever the old Venetian equivalent called themselves) met was destroyed in some year by "a fire caused by carelessness." That was exactly how it was described in the tour and I found the wording so funny that I stopped listening to the rest of the explanation.

Oh, and one other fun fact: One of the rooms was for the super secret cabinet to the king. There was the cabinet the public knew about, and then there were the other guys. And in the wall of their super secret room is a tiny mailbox-looking thing, where citizens could file anonymous complaints and accusations against anyone else in Venice and the super secret cabinet would read them and decide how to administer justice. It's like the comment card box at Denny's, but deadly!

No photography was allowed inside the palace and since I'm a stickler for rules, I have no more pictures to show you of this excursion. But if I could've taken pictures of anything, it would've been of the graffiti from the prisons. Centuries and centuries of words and drawings carved into the stone walls of the dungeon. You know what prisoners really seem to like? Boobs, mostly. And penises. Yep. Just lots and lots of anatomical doodles. They looked like something done by a middle schooler in detention. But no, they were the work of a 17th century political prisoner. Fascinating.

Pics from the Wedding

The whole fam

Frolicking in the street outside our apartment

The Cemetery

One of the islands in the Venice area is entirely surrounded by a tall stone wall. Inside is the city's only cemetery. (That's a guess. There may be another one.) In contains graves both new and old, and some of well known people, including, said Meghan, the final resting place of Ezra Pound. I didn't really know who that was, so I didn't look for that grave when Devin and I took the water bus to cemetery island for a look around.

The Food

I'm afraid to say that this is the portion of the vacation recap when I turn into Karl Pilkington.

Before the trip and after my return, food was the topic of much discussion with my friends. All that yummy pasta! Right? In fact, I planned to pretty much eat constantly and with reckless abandon, hoping all that marching around the streets of Venice would burn off at least a few calories.

But here's the thing. I don't love Italian food. It's good, but not my favorite. I only make spaghetti at home so much because it's cheap and I'm lazy. When it's time to pick a restaurant for dinner, an Italian place will probably be last on my list. I'm sure I'm making a few enemies with these statements.

The first thing we ate when we arrived in Venice was pizza. It was pretty good. For dinner that night, I ordered gnocchi, but I was given an incorrect translation from the menu of the dish's ingredients and wound up with a plate of gnocchi heaping with ham. The whole thing smelled like hot dogs and butter. I wanted to vomit. The waiter was nice enough to fetch me a pesto gnocchi instead, but by then my appetite wasn't so great. I couldn't eat, or even think about, gnocchi for the rest of the week.

On Monday I gorged myself on fried calamari. Little did I know, this was one of the main dishes served all over Venice, and unfortunately by the end of the week, it was another food I couldn't stand the site of.

On Tuesday afternoon, after waking up ridiculously late, Devin and I sought out some lunch in one of the city's eight million cafes. These cute little places were exact replicas of one another, with a menu of pizzas and pastas, and a display case by the register filled with sickly looking pre-made sandwiches. I was hungry, but by this point already burnt out on Venetian cuisine, so I ordered nothing. I soon gave in and ate half of Devin's sandwich, removing the prosciutto (side note: Venice is all but drowning in prosciutto), which left me with a sandwich of stale bread, spinach, canned mushrooms, and some kind of tasteless cheese.

If I wasn't at my limit before, I was now. But what was I going to do? I was stuck on this island where the only things to do are shop and eat, and the only thing to eat is Italian food. To be specific, Venetian food. It's made up of lots and lots of pork (which I don't eat) and seafood (which I enjoy, but a person can only take so much). Some of the most popular items I encountered were this white fish paste stuff that looks vaguely like tuna and tastes like gefilte fish, and "black spaghetti," which is called something else and is actually spaghetti cooked in squid ink. Look, I'm an adventurous eater. I really am. But I was just done. And I still had 4 days to go.

So I made it through the rest of my stay eating Italian corn flakes with whatever marvelous whole or 200% milk I bought at the store because I couldn't read the label.

Also, gelato.

Italian Ice.

And banana nutella crepes (not pictured). (Not Italian).

When we made it back to the US, specifically the Philadelphia airport, I went psychotic on some Wendy's.

It's been nearly a month since we got back, and I haven't been able to eat any Italian food. Pizza, yes, because I could never turn down pizza. But everything else? Gag. I'm hoping this eventually passes because I have no clue what else to cook.

Lido

As you can probably judge, I got a little cranky toward the end of our trip. Say what you will about how I should just appreciate that I got the chance to travel and all that, but Venice for a full week is challenging. It's glorious for 1-3 days.

Being on an island of narrow streets is claustrophobic. There isn't really all that much to do. And there aren't any parks (or grass anywhere), to just sit out and relax for a few hours. I don't need to be entertained every moment of every day; I just need someplace to sit.

So on Thursday afternoon, feeling like we might explode if we didn't find something else to do, Devin and I ventured to Lido, another island in the Venice area. This is where wealthy Europeans buy vacation homes and play golf. It was worth a shot.

Lido was like magic. There were trees! And grass! And sunshine! And cars! And wide streets! And you could see the sky! And breathe the air! I can't even tell you how, by comparison, actual Venice now seemed like a prison.

We merrily strolled along the main road, which had something else I hadn't seen all week: stores that offered stuff people needed. A drug store, a salon, something that looked like an Italian Pac Sun. At the end of the road, we found a public beach with miles of sand and calm, pale blue water. Finally! Some place to sit!

On Friday we returned, dragging the family along with us.

The End

For all the complaining I did (hey, that's just me), it was wonderful to have a chance to get out, hop across the ocean, and do something different. And I bought a cool watch.

Doing Venetian Stuff: Part Two

2011-06-02T09:15:00.000-07:00

Home Sweet Apartment

Rather than staying at a hotel for the week -- and really I think there are only a handful of hotels in Venice anyway -- we stayed in a two bedroom apartment. Me, Devin, his parents, his sister Meghan and her boyfriend Dave. Yes all 6 of us snuggly stowed away.

Even though the apartment building, and all the buildings in Venice, are about a million years old and look it... the inside of the apartment was modern and had everything we needed. Including an army of friendly Italian ants. They were all, "Ciao! We justa wanna eata your crumbs. Prego!"

The whole look of the place reminded me of every friend's apartment in the first three years after college. In a good way.

The balcony off the kitchen overlooked one of the smaller canals.

This was nice, most of the time, but in the morning it was sort of like being plunked next to a major highway. Or shipyard. There were loud boats, and loud voices, and loud clanging construction noises. This was a nice dose of cultural immersion, though less than ideal for a group of people attempting to sleep as best they could with a huge time difference.

But the apartment had a working shower and cute tiny tea cups, so I can't really complain.

Over Two Bridges, Then Take A Right

All of the wedding guests received a giant packet about Venice that included maps, directions and assorted tips. One such tip was, "You will get lost. A lot." This didn't worry me as I figured I couldn't get too lost, and even if I did, I was bound to encounter one of the other 90 wedding guests eventually, and hopefully they'd be able to save me.

And of course we did get lost. A lot. Sometimes in the rain (because I'd managed not to carry with me the umbrella I bought and packed especially for this trip). Sometimes at night, while fighting with one another and eating pizza. Sometimes we stumbled upon something new and interesting. Often we passed the same exact thing 6 times in 20 minutes and realized we were really screwed.

But if you're reading this and wondering, "What? Are you too proud to stop and ask for directions?" Allow me to clarify.

Within the very first few hours of arriving in Venice I asked for directions to a pay phone (side note: being without a cellphone is more horrendous than you'd even imagine). I was told by the man behind the counter of a little shop, "It's over two bridges, then take a right." Everyone in Venice speaks near perfect English, btw. Since, at that moment, we were trying to meet up with the landlord of the apartment, we didn't want to wander too far so I didn't follow his directions. But as I came to be more familiar with the lay of the land over the next few days, I realized that had I actually gone two bridges and taken a right, I wouldn't have found a payphone.

Hmmph. Interesting.

In a separate conversation, Meghan explained her and Dave's experience of being lost and asking for directions and she was told by the Venetian she asked for help, "Go over two bridges, then take a right." They followed the directions, which didn't place them anywhere specifically more helpful, but they eventually found their way home.

I was getting to be suspicious about the reliability of these locals.

Then, when walking with Devin's mom to find a grocery store, we spotted a woman carrying a plastic bag from the precise store we were trying to locate. I suggested we just keep looking on our own, but Kathy thought there was no harm in asking. I waited a few feet away as she went up to ask the woman with the bag. When she came back and announced, "She said it's over two bridges, then we take a right," I was not the least bit surprised.

"I don't think that's going to get us anywhere."

We tried anyway. No grocery store. Only resentment.

So here's my tip for you, should you find yourself in Venice in future travels: Don't ask for directions.

Murano

Our first day trip was to the island of Murano, which is part of Venice and only a quick boat ride away. This is where they make all of the Venetian glass doodads to fill the hundreds and hundreds of glass shops in Murano and Venice. We even got to see a demonstration of a glass blower making a little horse. The demo and the product were cool, but the guy himself was the main attraction. Smoking a cigarette, drinking a beer, picking his nose. This guy has it all figured out.

Afterwards, we wandered around (Venice is for wanderers), checking out the island, which somehow looked more like a fishing town than the main island.

Then we had some lunch to kill time (Venice is for eating... and time killing) and made our way back by Vaparetto (water bus), which is the main form of public transportation in Venice. See how I picked up some local lingo?

Doing Venetian Stuff: Part One

2011-05-31T14:56:00.000-07:00

Technically I've accidentally skipped over a few smaller things that have happened between the bedroom makeover and today, but going to Italy seemed like the most doing stuff I done did all year. So without further delay...

Random Beginnings

You know how you'll have AOL IM up and running all day at work and occasionally you'll step away from your desk, and then return to an IM from someone that reads "OH MY GOD THIS IS HORRIBLE!" or "YOU WON'T BELIEVE WHAT HAPPENED!" And right away you'll reply, "WHAT!? WHAT? OMG!" Except that the person who sent the IM sent it about 25 minutes earlier and has since wandered off, so you're left pondering what's got them so worked up. And then by the time they finally do respond, it's sort of a let down because the major news event is actually pretty minor. You know, that whole thing?

Well this trip began with something like that. In March, Devin IMed me with "Can you take a week off work in May?" When I saw the message and asked why, there was the inevitable delay. Naturally, during that time, I thought the worst. Someone was dying and we'd have to pay a visit to their bedside. We're being kicked out of our house and we'll need time to pack up and move. Why do I think such bad thoughts? Because spur of the moment Italian getaways do not typically fall in my lap.

But huzzah! The week off would be to fly to Venice and attend a friend's wedding. This wasn't the first time I'd heard of the wedding. We'd received a very elaborate invitation (more like a small book) in the mail months earlier. I'd promptly put it in the "Yeah right" pile along with a giant medical bill and a fundraising letter from my college.

And now suddenly it was being discussed as an actual possibility, thanks to a generous offer from the in laws to pretty much sponsor our trip. The whole family would be going and, well, what family trip would be complete without us?!

Immediately I decided this was happening, even as Devin attempted to fuel the conversation with questions about potential work opportunities on the horizon, expenses, dog care. To all this I could only respond: We are going. The end.

Venice, Here We Come!

In the weeks that followed, we renewed our passports, made arrangements for the pets, shopped, packed, and all that other pre-vacation stuff that makes you all the more relieved you're about to rest up for a week..

The total flight time from LA to Philly to Venice was something like 14 hours. I completely dreaded this as somewhere around hour 3 on any given plane ride I start to get claustrophobic and restless. Fortunately, however, in my old age I've gotten over my inability to fall asleep on planes and now I manage to conk out almost immediately, and proceed to sleep fitfully for the duration of the flight.

The first leg of the trip was uneventful. Then, the layover in Philadelphia, during which we met up with Devin's parents, went from being 2 hours to something like 5. Most of that time was spent sitting in the McDonald's by our gate, listening to wholly unsolicited updates on the loudspeaker about our plane. "We'll be off the ground shortly. Just had to switch out one of the windows. It was cracked and falling out." "Now we're just testing the window to make sure it holds under pressure. If that goes well, it should only be another twenty minutes before we board." "The test didn't quite work so we're trying something else, should just be another hour... or so."

By the time we finally boarded, I was much happier to enter the plane of doom than spend another minute in that McDonald's. I slept almost the whole flight.

Then, as we descended into Venice, disaster struck. No, the newly-repaired window did not come loose again.

I threw up.

I blame the turbulence and the long, long day of traveling and bad food. Also, I'm not sure what this says about me, but as I was about to blow and rummaging around in the seat pocket for the air sick bag, I paused for a moment and thought, "Wait, do people actually use these? I've never seen anyone do it." Heaven forbid I look lame while I'm publicly barfing in an enclosed space.

I like to think I was discreet. After we landed safely, I realized Devin hadn't even noticed, as he was looking out the window. "I threw up."
"Where?"
"The air sick bag."
"Huh. I didn't think people actually used those."

And so we arrived, groggy and nauseated, at the Marco Polo airport. Things could only get better from here!

The Weekend Bedroom Makeover

2011-03-28T11:23:00.000-07:00

As I've mentioned before, I never much liked the aesthetics of our old apartment. The place was just run down and bleh, but I still did whatever I could to make it presentable and not a total embarrassment. I painted the living room, the dining room, the kitchen cabinets. We got new furniture. We hung pictures. The bathroom got a pretty wall decal and a snazzy new shower curtain. But I never put in any effort in the bedroom (that's what she said?).

Seriously, that room was horrendous. For the whole time I lived there it looked exactly the same as the day I moved in, put my stuff wherever I could, and said, "I'll deal with this later." It was just dingy, and uncoordinated and uncozy. At least at night it was dark and I didn't have to look at it. But sometimes in the mornings I'd wake up, look around and just think "UGH."

So when we moved into the new house a year ago, I vowed to make the bedroom my first priority. I hurried to pick out everything I'd need to assemble the perfect sanctuary/love nest.

Turns out, rushing to decorate a room produces only marginally better results than not decorating at all. And for the past year, I've been suffering with this:

The gray paint didn't really turn out to be the right color. I wanted something richer.

And speaking of the wrong color... how about those curtains? They didn't seem that bad when I bought them, but even as I was hanging them up I was having second thoughts. By the following morning, when the sun was shining through them and the whole room was bathed in a lime green glow, I concluded they might have been a mistake. To add insult to injury, one of the curtain rods is bent and partially ripped out from the wall from the time someone locked himself out and had to climb in through the window.

That wall decal hanging above the bed does absolutely nothing for me. It was an impulse purchase at Ikea that I thought would serve as a placeholder until I could find something better.

The mattress and box spring are on a metal frame with wheels that, even when locked, roll around on the hardwood floor to such an extent that when I wake up in the morning I'll find I'm not in the same place in the room as I was when I fell asleep. Also, because there's no headboard, two dark gray splotches have appeared on the wall, one on either side, above our pillows. Apparently we produce a great deal of soot while sleeping.

About the only things I like in this picture are the duvet cover, the bedside tables, and the cats (and even one of them is on thin ice).

Even though this room was meant to be my pride and joy, it received less care and attention than literally every other room in the house... and this includes the second bathroom which is used almost exclusively to house litter boxes.

And so in the spirit of spring cleaning and adhering to my New Year's resolution to generally be better in 2011, it was time to do something about this monstrosity. After some online perusing and a reconnoissance mission to Ikea, I finally had a perfect plan.

On Thursday after work, I drove to Ikea and picked out everything I needed. A bed, new curtains and curtain rods, some closet organizers, and a Kvartal panel system to hang some textured fabric on the wall behind the bed. Saturday morning I went to the Do It Center (my favorite place) to pick up some paint. And also back to Ikea to pick up some Kvartal pieces I forgot to get on Thursday. Whoops.

By the time I got started on the project, it was already 3pm. But I promised myself I would get it all done by Sunday night, come hell or high water.

Ready... set... go!

Bedroom Redo In A Weekend from Briana Mahoney on Vimeo.

For those of you playing at home, take a drink every time you catch a frame with a cat, an inadvertent close up shot of my butt, or a look of total despair on my face.

This is actually my favorite frame from the whole thing:

No, that's not a ghost. It's me, delirious on Sunday night, getting tangled in the duvet cover while making the bed.

The process went smoothly enough, I guess, though not without random small cuts on my fingers, extraneous holes in the wall, and a bed which may spontaneously collapse in the middle of the night.

And although it's cliché to point out that assembling crap from Ikea can lead to insanity, self-loathing and divorce, I still feel the need to complain about the Kvartal curtain rod, which came with no instructions. And the regular curtain rod, which came with instructions that started out all, "Yeah you should just have some screws laying around if you're going to do this." And the bed, which had holes too small for the screws it came with. I definitely had my moments when I wanted to claw at my face with an allen wrench.

Shut up, Ikea instruction booklet guy. Your illustrations are ridiculous.

Hey! Uncalled for!

NEVER!!!

By Sunday evening, I had finished nearly everything I'd set out to do. I meant to also organize my closet and hang some pictures, but enough is enough!

Bring on the before and after pics!

Here's closer look at the curtains and new paint color:

It's hard to tell in the picture, but the paint is really closer to black. It's actually called chalkboard black. I only painted that one wall, and I think it makes a nice complement to the lighter gray walls.

And a blurry look at the panels behind the bed.

Of course last night as I lay in bed, I noticed we could really use some shelves on the opposite wall. But I think that can wait.

Monkey Ghosts?

2011-02-22T09:05:00.000-08:00

It seems we've stumbled onto a bit of a theme here at The Doing Stuff Blog. And that would be Hidden L.A., the secret places we hear about but seldom see. Or, really, never hear about and then don't believe exist when someone brings them up in conversation. The phenomenon is well documented on the aptly named blog, Hidden Los Angeles. Its delectable tagline: Embrace the deep beneath the shallow.

So last week I found a waterfall. Now it was time to find the Old Zoo, which I'd read about in a magazine article. This brings us to Griffith Park, which isn't hiding from anybody. Covering over 4100 acres of land, it's the largest urban wilderness area in the US. But within all that space and among all of the outdoor activities, there are nooks and crannies that go unnoticed. And in one of those nooks, there's rumored to be the relics of Los Angeles's abandoned zoo.

From 1902 to 1965 it was of course just known as THE zoo, but then it closed down (not for intriguing reasons like an escaped lion eating a family). The new sprawling facility opened in a different area of the park and the old animal enclosures were just left behind. This fact surprises me, as most cities don't leave old zoos sitting around, but hey when you've got 4100 acres to play with I guess it's easy to let things slide.

Devin's parents were visiting this weekend, and were up for anything, so it was time to drag them into this quest as well. I prepared by looking up the Old Zoo on Yelp. If I may take a moment to review the Yelp reviewers regarding this topic... I give them one star. Sure, they were all happy to tell me how awesome it was. How it was a great place to bring a joint and/or a camera. But would anyone offer up some insight on its locale? That's a big fat sarcastic, "Noooooo."

Somewhere in one of their sentence fragments, one yelper mentioned it was near the carousel. That was exactly the area of the park where I'd once gotten Devin and I severely lost while searching for our friend's kid's party by the pony rides. (Now I know the pony rides are immediately obvious from the Los Feliz entrance. You live, you learn.)

As we drove through the park, I directed Devin to the carousel.

"Wasn't that where you got us lost?"

Shoot. I was hoping he wouldn't remember. Meanwhile, I'd unconsciously fooled myself into "remembering" that "come to think of it, I did see a bunch of signs for the old zoo while we were snooping around that area looking for the ponies."

We arrived at the carousel and circled around. Of course there were no signs for the Old Zoo. There were no zoo-like structures. And, owing to the miserable rainy weather, there were no people in sight, so I couldn't even ask for a little guidance. Okay, there was one guy cleaning hamster cages on the trunk of his car in the parking lot, but I didn't want to get involved with him.

Now what? We drove along until, whoops, we drove clear out of the park. No matter. We'd just go around and enter again by the Greek Theater. On our way, we saw signs for the Griffith Observatory, so decided to make a stop.

Nothing much to report here. We saw a show at the planetarium and I played around with the panorama setting on my camera.

Okay well that was fun. But everybody knows where to find the observatory. It isn't hidden L.A. and definitely not a haunted zoo!

[Note: No one ever claimed the zoo was haunted, I just started presuming that at some point during the day.]

So we drove back to the carousel area of the park and set out on foot. We walked up a path that quickly dead ended at a heap of dirt. No zoo. Frantic, I turned to the useless yelpers, referring again to their drivel courtesy of the Yelp mobile app.

I found another clue in the form of one yelper's tip that "It's only marked by one brown sign that's easy to miss."

Where is this sign?

What does it say?

WHY ARE YOU LIKE THIS?

We wandered aimlessly through the picnic area for a few minutes before I spotted, in the distance, a brown sign (gasp!) nestled in some plants. In the next ten minutes, there would be three instances where I'd jump up and down, screaming and waving my arms around like a small child at Disney World.

The first instance occurred when I ran across the grass to have a better look at the sign.

Me: WAHHH THIS IS IT THIS IS IT!

Ahead were three paths. Oh, great. But I had a good feeling about one, and volunteered to run up ahead to spare everyone another dead end. (Really I just wanted to run because I couldn't contain my excitement.)

As I got closer, I saw...

Me: WAHHH THIS IS IT THIS IS IT!

We'd found it. The Old Zoo and all its marvelous ruins.

The third instance of stupid elation came when I noticed a ghost right in my field of vision in a picture Devin's mom snapped.

Me: DEVIN, WE HAVE A PICTURE OF A GHOST! WAHHH!!

He took one look at it and dismissed it as a rain drop. This from mister "There's an alien base under the Denver Airport."

Okay, it's rain. Obviously it's rain. But that's not the point.

Wanting him to find this all as creepy as I did, I was pleased when up the hill we found...

A SPOOKY SHED!!!

The cages out front may have once held birds or... worse... monkeys. Little turn-of-the-century monkeys that, without the benefit of modern day laws to protect them, were outfitted in tiny waistcoats and put on display. Now, they haunt the Old Zoo, fishing around in our pockets for change.

Sadly, the rain was really pouring down by this point and the others were eager to head back to the car. I resisted, until my camera was getting soaked.

Stay tuned for part II, when I make my way back to the Old Zoo for further explorations.

The Search For The Hidden Waterfall

2011-02-15T10:23:00.000-08:00

Shortly after Devin and I moved to Pasadena, we had the following conversation:

Devin: I read online there's supposed to be a waterfall around here. Back in the mountains.

Me: Yeah?

Devin: Yeah.

Me: That's cool.

Devin: Yeah.

And that was that.

Cut to Super Bowl Sunday, we're having a party, and my friend Tara enters the kitchen while I'm whipping up a pitcher of margaritas.

Tara: So I was just talking to Devin and he mentioned there's some waterfall around here.

Me: Oh yeah. I forgot about that.

Tara: We should check it out some time.

Me: Agreed.

A little backstory here. While I'm not, and never was, what you'd call "outdoorsy," growing up I did enjoy hiking the trails along the waterfalls and gorges of nearby Ithaca. I think it was a combination of the misty air and the fun of clambering around on rocks that drew me in. It'd been years and years since I'd done this, so I got a little microthrill at the thought of something similar in my own backyard.

And because 2011 is the year I don't get lazy and forget about stuff, I decided not to put off The Search For The Hidden Waterfall any longer. So on Saturday, Tara and I got dolled up in our best hiking attire, I asked Seamus the dog "Do you wanna go to the park?! Do you wanna go to the park?!" about 10 times in a high pitched voice until he went bananas, and then we made the drive to Eaton Canyon, home of the alleged waterfall.

The park was alarmingly close to my house. Maybe even close enough to walk to if I was ever feeling super adventurous. But let's not get ahead of ourselves.

As we left the parking lot and made our way to the park entrance we looked for signs or a map... how would we know which way to go?

Hey hows about we follow this crowd?

We'd (mostly Tara) read on Yelp that the hike required much sloshing through water and maneuvering over makeshift bridges at trail crossings. I didn't expect the first such instance to be at the absolute start of the trail.

Seamus was all, "Yeah I don't do stepping stones." Too bad. Be a good boy and come with me.

We don't have a picture of this first attempt, but imagine me, balancing on that wobbly log in the pic here, holding up traffic, nearly knocking a small child into the water, arguing with a severely irritated woman (btw who wears lipstick on a hike?), all while Seamus stands between my legs, refusing to budge.

Eventually I just yanked the leash and dragged him to the other side. Back on dry land, we set out for the first leg of the journey, which was hot and sunny and uneventful.

After about fifteen minutes we encountered a fork in the trail. Up ahead, a bridge. Down below, a mystery. "I think Yelp said to go under the bridge for the waterfall," Tara announced. Two passersby nodded in agreement. How helpful. The low road it is!

Soon we found the stream again, the scenery improved, and the hike got more hikey.

Along the way we found evidence of the waterfall ahead, in the form of mini waterfalls.

Seamus did not like where this was going.

Sure enough we'd entered the wet sneakers portion of the hike. I was all about fearlessly leaping from rock to rock. The stream was only about one foot deep and not exactly white water rapids.

Most of the other dogs on the trail were elated to splash around and get their paws wet. But Seamus is a special dog. He doesn't like new things, and this was just too much of a departure from his usual Saturday spent digging in the backyard. So when confronted with a crossing, he did a lot of stopping and starting, a lot of wobbling and whining. And being tethered to him made for an absurd experience.

All the while, Tara, unencumbered by an eighty-pound furry crybaby, traipsed across the rocks with the greatest of ease.

After what was starting to feel like several hours, I grew worried we'd never find the Hidden Waterfall. We just seemed to be getting deeper and deeper into the canyon.

Yet reassurance came in the form of oncoming hikers, who looked as though they were on their way back from a swim.

Then at one point I heard the unmistakeable sound of a waterfall, we rounded the bend and...

TA - DA!

The temperature dropped about ten degrees and I felt the familiar mist in the air. I debated wading around in the pool, but instead we sat and rested for a short while, relieved not only to have made it, but to discover the waterfall was actually worth the trek.

Then there was nowhere to go but back again. Luckily Seamus had warmed up to the notion of wading, and I could at least get him to walk through the water if he didn't want to climb the rocks.

As is always the way, the trip back felt like it took about a third of the time, and before long we were back to where we'd started. Just before we reached the parking lot, a shoeless gypsy child tried to lure us off the path, toward his village, under the pretense that he'd lost his father. Or, at least that's what my imagination would have me believe. In reality we tried to help this scared looking kid who, it turns out, was just some dope who was only about ten yards away from his dozen siblings and totally disinterested mother. There's my good deed for the year.

The hike took up a full afternoon, so it's definitely suited for something to do sporadically or to occupy visitors, rather than replacing the reliability of a quick trip around Runyon Canyon. Then again, we never did see what happens if you walk on the bridge instead of under it...

I guess another adventure awaits us!

To Seattle... and Beyond!

2011-02-10T12:07:00.000-08:00

The Vacation Equation goes a little something like:

Free Time + Money = Travel

Right? But as we all know, free time and money rarely overlap in a blessed eclipse. It's usually something like:

2 Days + 25 Loads Of Laundry = Weekend

Rent + Utility Bills + Completely Unfair Parking Ticket + Dear God Why Is The Verizon Bill So High = Whole Paycheck

And this explains why, in the 7 years between my college semester abroad and our honeymoon, I'd taken zero vacations.

While on said honeymoon, I recall many moments when, bathed in sunlight and half in the bag from morning mai tais, I'd look over to Devin and gurgle, "We should do this more often."

Yes, yes we should.

And then we didn't. We returned home to our routines and yet another year flew by with my luggage gathering dust. Determined not to continue with this disappointing trend, I decided it was time to book a flight to someplace. Why not Seattle? I'd only been meaning to visit my friend Courtney and her husband Matt for... oh.. 6 years. And now, as a bonus, she had a baby for me to meet.

So one morning in late October, Devin and I woke up at some terrible hour to take the early flight from LA to Seattle, flying Virgin America for the first time. I hate to admit I can be won over by purple cabin lighting and shiny white plastic seat backs, but, yeah it was like flying in a spaceship. Weeee!

Once we landed, we took a bus from the airport to Court's house. We're not frequent bus riders, so our getting on the correct bus was something to celebrate. As our hosts were at work, we let ourselves into their home, snooped through their personal effects, regrouped and then set out to explore downtown Seattle.

Again, we successfully landed the right bus and made our way to the tourist traps. We spent some time meandering about in the public market, where an endless line up of attractive hippy-types offered samples of apples and pears.

After lunching on clam chowder, fried fish sandwiches, and beer, we were about ready for a nap. But just in the nick of time, Courtney got out of work to meet up with us and breathe some new life into our trip. Hopeless tourist portion was over. Now it was time for some locals to show us around.

I should mention that because I'm as prolific a photographer as I am a traveler, I have a limited amount of photos to document the trip. And because they were all taken by Courtney, she's not in any of them. Whoops.

One of my favorite things to do in a new place is to drive and walk around for hours on end. Fortunately, our hosts were happy to oblige and we toured various neighborhoods and landmarks.

Here we are at Gas Works Park, a recreation area made on the site of a crude oil and natural gas manufacturing plant.

It was situated right on the edge of the water. Some cool things about this - sea planes just dive right in and land here, though when they're incoming it feels as though they might totally miss their marks and crash. Also, there are floating homes lining the shores. Matt pointed out which one he thought was the house in Sleepless In Seattle.

If you look just beyond the ham in the foreground of this picture here, you'll see some of the floating homes.

We also checked out Ballard Locks, where underwater viewing stations let you check out the salmon trying desperately to swim up stream.

It made me sad to think that after all this struggle they're just going to mate and die. Sort of symbolic of our own journeys as people. Huh? Am I bumming you out or what?

How about we just play with some puppets in the gift shop?

At the end of our busy day it was time to unwind at the Elliot Bay Brewery in Matt & Courtney's neighborhood, West Seattle. Here, I was allowed to hold baby Leo after my first beer (but before my next three glasses of white wine). I think he liked me.

Before flying back to LA, we stopped by the Experience Music Project, a music museum. In the center of the whole thing was this installation of hundreds and hundreds of guitars, with mechanical arms that plucked and strummed the strings to perform a live song.

In another exhibit, guests are invited to step into a recording booth, pick up guitars and drum sticks, and make up their own songs. This picture is the perfect visual representation of what our song sounded like.

I was sad to wrap up the trip after only two days. But I think it did its job of reminding me that the only thing really standing in the way of a vacation isn't time or money, it's my own initiative. Lesson learned. I don't want to miss out on the good stuff any more!

Christmas Cheer In A Little Doughy Pillow, Smothered In Butter

2011-01-17T09:18:00.000-08:00

When you're younger, you rely on your parents (chiefly your mother) to handle all communication and planning with relatives. Holidays, birthdays, weddings, graduation parties. Parents tell you where you need to be, explain your absence if you don't show, and sign your name to cards you had no idea were being sent. They are the keepers of traditions, the deliverers of news, the reminders to send thank you notes, and the passers of the phone during long distance calls. "Here, Briana wants to say hi now... here you go just passing the phone over... love you bye!"

And little by little, as we grow older, we become responsible for handling some of these tasks on our own. I mean, not all of these tasks. Not by a long shot. But still, we have to start holding our own. I'm reminded of a line from one of my favorite things ever, The Thanksgiving Letter:

"Lisa as a married woman you are now required to contribute at the adult level."

I think that about sums up the mentality... even if it's just in my own head and not really imposed on me by anyone in the fam.

Anyway, so this year, since Katie and I were not flying back east to spend Christmas with the 'rents, and were apparently uncomfortable with having a totally relaxing holiday, we took it upon ourselves to uphold the tradition of our late grandma by making pierogies for Christmas Eve dinner.

We have fond memories of spending the morning of Christmas Eve in Grandma's kitchen, rolling out dough, mixing up potato filling, and working for hours to assemble what seemed like thousands (but was probably at least a hundred) pierogies for that night's dinner. When complete, we'd line them all up on "pierogie boards," which were just big planks of wood resting on the washing machine in the corner, where they'd sit until being boiled and fried up. Then served with gallons of butter and onions.

So, in the days before Christmas, I got the recipe and instructions from my Aunt Mary, read them over, panicked at their complexity, and wondered if I really wanted to go through with it.

But no, there's no backing out. Grandma would be proud of our efforts.

On the morning of the culinary adventure, I went to the store and bought potatoes, onions, flour, cottage cheese, butter and more butter. The grocery store crowd was just as horrendous as I thought it would be. But I made it out in one piece... though later in the day than planned.

Back at home I prepped the potato filling. Katie showed up just in time to start the dough disaster. The doughsaster, if you will.

Add water and egg to flour.

Then stir, while holding your Blackberry displaying the recipe in your other hand, because printing out the email with the directions would've been too simple. Also, note beer in background. The recipe calls for beer to be consumed during pierogie-making. Namely Budweiser, but I was in a Blue Moon mood.

What you wind up with is a doughy blob with the consistency of pudding and the stickiness of chewing gum. It seemed wrong, and probably was. But as we added more flour and kneaded the dough for a bit, it wound up seeming more like what dough is meant to be.

Next, roll out the dough. Get frustrated, wad the dough back into a ball. Roll again. Defend your crappy rolling pin against criticism from sister and husband. It got the job done, after all.

Then add a spoonful of potato filling and pinch the pierogie shut, praying it's sealed well enough to hold onto its contents during boiling.

Next, move completed pierogie over to... oh crap, we don't have a pierogie board. Hmm. This bamboo tray will have to do.

Keep assembling pierogies all through the afternoon, making them progressively larger and sloppier as patience wears thin.

Then, it's time to switch up the clothing and the cocktail, and get cooking! Boiling the pierogies first, then transferring them to a frying pan with chopped onions and an absurd amount of butter -- Your guests will look at the pan and ask, "Seriously?" At least, ours did.

But the results are spectacular.

Look at all these happy faces. The pierogies were a hit!

And that, Lisa, is how you contribute at the adult level.

I Mean COME ON Pull Yourself Together Woman

2011-01-03T09:21:00.000-08:00

I'll begin by saying, I don't even know where to begin. This post is long overdue. My last was November freaking 1oth. And now, considering the timing, I've decided this is going to be a New Year's resolution, reflection/projection sort of thing. Also, because I watched a season and a half of Skins over the weekend, I've adopted the narrative voice of an English teenager. In my head this all sounds so cheeky. Cheers.

While many of you enjoyed some time off surrounding the holidays, I was working somehow even more than usual. As a result, I'm back in this morning feeling remarkably unrefreshed.

They say "Life is what happens when you're busy making other plans." I know this is meant to be something of a warning... but I see it as an aspiration. If only I had nothing to do but sit around making plans. Currently, it's more like "Plans are what you cancel when you're busy working." Or, "Life is what happens to other people, who document it on Facebook for me to see." Bollocks.

And in the meantime, while I'm just trying to get to the stage where I can make plans, my house is a mess, I've got a heap of unopened mail and bills to deal with (Exhibit A), and my car is filthy and smells, oddly, of wet towels (Exhibit B).

Exhibit A

Exhibit B

It's not that I mean to suggest my work schedule is the sole reason for my inability to handle my day to day affairs. I've been plagued with this ineptitude for all of my adult life and whine about it frequently. Which is what got me thinking about patterns of personal behavior and, thus, New Year's resolutions.

I thought it might be useful to reflect on the goals of years past. This brought me to my old blog, Hollywood Sucker. A full year ago, I started The Doing Stuff Blog with the aim of, you know, doing stuff. And let's just say, it hasn't gone so well.

But Hollywood Sucker.... ah that was a place where I was free to sweat the small stuff, make fun of celebrities who could give a hoot what I thought of them and their elective surgeries, and present problems with no real intention of solving them.

Anyway, I found amongst the posts several well-meaning lists of resolutions. And can I just say how alarming it is to see how I have totally not stuck to anything? Like, really?

So, for instance, here is my list of published resolutions from January 2009, with my notes on their outcome thus far. Where's my list from 2010? I didn't make one. Yeah. That's commitment, folks.

1. Lose weight before my wedding.

I didn't. At least not really. But it's not my fault. Everyone told me I'd just magically lose ten pounds because I'd be so stressed out. Then I didn't. But still I was stressed. What gives?

2. Save at least SOMETHING from each paycheck.

I wrote out the SOMETHING in all caps like that because I think I knew saving mere pennies would be an accomplishment. Ask me how this turned out. Go ahead. No, don't. There's no point. You know what I'm gonna say.

3. Cook more meals at home.

This I did. Though somewhere during 2009 I wrote a post about how I wanted to vary my meals and try new recipes more often. And that didn't happen.

4. Run another race.

Yes. This happened! And I ran and ran and ran. And then I stopped.

5. Finish a screenplay.

Maybe I'll revisit this after meeting my new goal: Invent a time machine.

6. De-flab my arms.

You know, they might be marginally better, but I wouldn't know why.

7. I just ate a slice of American cheese.

God, look at how I gave up even in my resolutions list.

8. Keep a clean house.

Okay not vastly improved but I did learn the value of paying someone to clean for me!

9. Get organized.

Vague and completely absurd. May as well have written "speak Mandarin" or "bionic arm." Jeesh.

10. Watch classic movies.

This actually did happen. Not like by the hundreds, but I've made some progress. I hesitate to take pride in this accomplishment, as all it takes to achieve success is sitting around watching TV, which I already know is one of my only talents.

Back in 2008 my resolutions list was just precious. It had things like "learn to play poker" and "read Ulysses." How adorable was I? (Also, WTH?)

By the way, you may be wondering how things are coming along with all of the coupon-using I vowed to do in my last post. Well, I'll tell ya, I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHERE MY ENTERTAINMENT BOOK IS.

Anyway I think what I can take away from this is the only resolution I will make for 2011:

Be better. Just be better.

And with that, well, lunch break is over and back to work.

Quit Wasting Time and Start Saving Money

2010-11-10T19:47:00.000-08:00

The other day a coworker was selling Entertainment coupon books for his kid's school fundraiser. It took all of 25 seconds for him to talk me into buying one, as the moment I looked at the 2-inch thick tome of savings I recalled childhood memories of the Entertainment book we'd buy each year and my dad's reverence for its pages of half-price, buy one get one free, bargain bliss. Anywhere we went, it seemed the Entertainment book went with us and we consulted it regularly for discounts on anything from Arby's classic roast beef sandwiches to matinee movie tickets. The cover touted over $10,000 in savings and we were going to hit that number come hell or high water.

Perhaps you've never encountered the Entertainment book, and I myself had pretty much forgotten its existence until the very moment I was handing over a check for $25 on this fateful afternoon. Immediately I retreated to my desk with my prized purchase and, practically drooling, thumbed through its pages. I may be putting too much stock in this thing when I say the following: it's going to change my life.

You see, I have an aspiration to be The Kind Of Person Who Uses Coupons. It's just one personality descriptor on a nearly infinite list I've been steadily accumulating over the years. Also on that list: The Kind Of Person Who Prefers Herbal Tea To A Stiff Drink, The Kind Of Person Who Donates To Public Radio, and The Kind Of Person Who Owns A Collection Of Classic Rock and Jazz LPs. That last item, I realize, runs the risk of being douchey but I swear I wouldn't be all "mP3s are sucking the soul out of music, man" about it. I would just like to casually put on a record during a dinner party, once the table has been cleared and my guests sip brandy while sitting by the fire. I suppose this would also mean I need to be The Kind Of Person Who Serves Brandy After Dinner Parties, a goal I could potentially achieve since I own a decanter and a fancy silver serving tray. More urgently, to have such dinner parties, I should say I need to be The Kind Of Person Who Has A Dining Room Table, instead of an empty dining room that currently serves as a combination cat lounge and depository for groceries, kicked-off shoes, Target bags stuffed with nonsense, and whatever else I drag in from the car on any given evening.

Perhaps being The Kind Of Person Who Uses Coupons shouldn't be so difficult, but I've been failing miserably for the whole of my (admittedly new-ish) adult life. You know how when your receipt prints out at the grocery store, with it come two or three coupons specifically geared for your taste in products? "Oh, we see you bought cat litter, perhaps you'd also be interested in Activia and Betty Crocker Warm Delights single-serve microwavable chocolate cakes, as you're obviously a spinster." Well every time I get a handful of those bonus coupons at checkout, I bring them home, stick them in the junk drawer in the kitchen or atop the microwave, and abandon them until well past their expiration dates. Whoops.

And I've been equally useless in the world of newspaper's glossy coupon sections. I remember clipping coupons as a kid, "helping" my mom while secretly taking great joy in the activity. Occasionally I'd slip into the stack a coupon for some sugar-ridden product she'd never buy for me just to see if it would make its way into the shopping cart on her next trip to the store (it never did).

So when Devin signed us up for a subscription to the Los Angeles Times on a trip to the Rose Bowl Flea Market --you cannot let him out of your sight for one second, I tell ya-- I thought this might just be my chance to reap the benefits of its coupon section. I bet you can imagine the actual outcome. Yes, the papers arrived daily in plastic bags on our front lawn, and there they sat, bathing in the sprinklers for days on end until one of us would round them up and toss them in the recycling bin. The coupon section was never perused. Not even once. And then we cancelled the subscription... or just didn't pay our bill. Details.

And now here we are and I have this new Entertainment book with so many deals that my head is spinning with the possibilities of penny-pinching and personal growth. Free weekend day car rental with Alamo? Now I can be The Kind Of Person Who Frequently Goes On Fun Weekend Trips. Two for one games at the bowling alley? Maybe I'll be on my way to The Kind Of Person Who Participates In A Bowling League (a new aim of mine following the rush/fluke of winning the highest score in a game during an after work outing). Buy one get one free entrees at The Melting Pot is a two-fer: The Kind Of Person Who Goes To Fondue Restaurants AND The Kind Of Person Who Can Go Out For A Nice Dinner That Doesn't Result In An Anxiety Attack When The Check Comes And She Realizes All That Money Should've Gone To So Many Other Bills.

Plane tickets, sporting events, amusement parks, pizza places I've never heard of but could have fun seeking out... this book is like a promise of an eventful 2011. Sometimes I think all it takes to shake things up is a 2" x 3" scrap of paper offering you a bargain and daring you to try something new.

How To Make A Halloween Costume With Minimal Disaster

2010-10-29T11:43:00.000-07:00

Call me a crazy, but I thoroughly enjoy making my own Halloween costumes, rather than purchasing one of those bagged ones from the ubiquitous Halloween stores that pop up mid-September in pretty much every recently-vacated storefront. In previous years I've constructed a margarita costume, a space girl, and Devin's Max costume (from Where the Wild Things Are). Once I get going on the project, there's no stopping me. And I make few compromises in quality and accuracy (until it's like 2 am the night before I have to wear it, I'm sleepy and my fingers are covered in hot glue gun burns).

This year, however, we're not throwing a Halloween party so I'm kind of sort of not sure what the point really is as we have yet to nail down plans. Oh well.

The standard for ladies costumes seems to be to take something ordinary and slut it up. Slutty school girl, slutty nurse, slutty mechanic (why?), slutty Harry Potter (why? why?), and slutty Spongebob Squarepants (why? why? why?). And, y'know, I get the appeal of dressing like a slut. I really do. It's just never been my thing. I'd rather look like an idiot.

This year, I'm trying to start a new trend in ladies costumewear. Instead of the slutty version of everything, why not the sweatsuit version? Shouldn't we be warm and comfortable? It's practically November, after all.

Hence, my endeavor to make a sweatsuit Kermit the frog.

I wasn't without inspiration. Does this kid look cozy or what?

After a brief search it became quite obvious I was not going to find all pieces of my ensemble in a matching, Kermit-green. So, I decided I would purchase everything in white, and then dye it so they'd all be uniform.

Now, we begin.

Day 1:

First, we have a white hoodie. I cut the bulky arms off, with the intention of layering a tighter shirt underneath, because Kermit has such scrawny little arms.

Then, the pants. You might be asking, but doesn't Kermit also have scrawny legs? Shouldn't you wear leggings? Probably, but there ain't nothing scawny about my legs and I'll be damned if I'm going to walk around in leggings without rear coverage.

Lastly, a wrinkled, discolored, food-stained long sleeve shirt I yanked out of the bottom of my hamper. Also, 2 curious pets.

I threw all three items into the washing machine, as per the instructions of the package of Amazon Green dye.

With 30-40 minutes to kill, I could've started on the other parts of the costume. Instead I made some mozzarella sticks and watched the first episode of the new season of 16 and Pregnant. Did you see it? Who gets married in a freaking racing uniform? Or, I guess I mean, who lets a guy get married in a freaking racing uniform? And why live in a barn for the same price as rent in a normal apartment?

Aaand we're back. Time to mix up the dye. In a step I didn't quite understand, I was supposed to mix the dye powder in 4 cups of water. Expecting the solution to turn a pleasing kiwi green, I was alarmed when I instead whipped up a batch of swamp water.

Oh well, no turning back now. I then added the dye to a sink full of warm water + salt, and pushed in the clothes.

With 60 more minutes on the clock, it was time to get the rest of the costume pieces in order.

First, Kermit's eyes. This took some inventive thinking as I wandered the aisles at Michael's craft store. Eventually I purchased a clear Christmas tree ornament that came as two halves --meant to be filled with I don't know what. glitter? Realizing, however, that their thin rims might not be substantial enough to stay on the hood with glue, I also gathered some styrofoam balls to mush in.

Then I painted them white, which took a few coats, and cut the pupil shapes out of black paper.

To adhere the pupils to the eyes, and to give everything a uniform, shiny finish, I applied a generous coat of Modge Podge.

All the while, as I worked away, my assistant sat clear across the room, contributing nothing.

On to the neck triangles! Who knows what the heck these are meant to be, but they are totally necessary to distinguish a Kermit costume from a regular ol' frog costume.

Some snippy snips at a few sheets of felt, and we're in business.

The dying timer went off and I was relieved to discover that my clothes were exactly the right shade of kermit green! So, as per the dye package instructions, I rinsed them and then washed them in warm water.

40 more minutes of waiting, and it was time to throw them in the dryer.

Aw shark farts. They're the color of mint chip ice cream, but paler. This picture doesn't truly do justice to the level of failure. Now what?

Day 2:

Frustrated that 80% of my costume was all wrong, I vented to some coworkers, who all concluded that you cannot follow the package's instructions and wash the dyed clothes in warm water. I've been swindled!

After work I went to Joanne fabrics to "quickly" pick up another package of dye and try again. Apparently everyone else decided to go to the store at the same time. After fighting for parking spaces for 15 minutes, I found a spot on the street about a block away. Inside the store was a madhouse, and I wound up waiting in the kind of checkout line that has no business being in a craft supply store.

Having wasted 45 minutes, I got home feeling the kind of pressure I normally experience the night before I take a trip and I haven't done laundry or packed.

When I walked in the door, before doing anything else, I mixed up another sink full o' dye and added the clothes again. Here's what's weird. This was the exact same shade, but the color was now wrong. Oh well.

There are no pictures of this because I was distracted baking cookies, drinking Pumpkin Ale, and supervising Devin's pumpkin carving. (Domestic goddess that I am.) So we'll skip ahead to the final product:

This doesn't rank as my favorite costume I've ever made, but it sure is the snuggliest. Happy Halloween!

The Pasadena Wine Festival

2010-10-26T10:11:00.000-07:00

A few weekends ago, Devin's sister Meghan came to visit. And because, as a hostess, I'm tragically incapable of planning activities that don't involve drinking, I bought us all tickets to the Pasadena Wine Festival.

When a coworker mentioned this event to me I was instantly giddy as the name boasted Pasadena (where I live), wine (which I live on), and festivals (which I live for).

The set up of the event was simple enough. For the price of admission and an all-you-can-drink bracelet, you spend the day sampling, then re-sampling, then re-sampling, all of the various kinds of wine offered at each winery's booth. In between sips, participants can purchase snacks from food trucks, play badminton and horseshoes, or sit back and listen to live entertainment.

In addition to trying new things, I'm also trying to take advantage of L.A. area public transportation. Yes, it does exist. So I did a little research and found a metro bus that would pick us up down the street from our house and drop us off at the Los Angeles County Arboretum (in Arcadia, bordering on Pasadena), where the festival would take place. How perfect is that?

Shortly after 2pm we got our act together and headed for the bus stop. The bus ride over was relaxing and gave me a chance to see other parts of Pasadena I'd yet to explore. It was sort of like being on a tour. When we arrived at the arboretum I found that, as an added bonus, taking the bus meant avoiding the crowded parking lot and $13 parking fee. Huzzah!

The entrance. Promising.

Forgoing the food trucks, olive oil samples, and assorted other vendors, our first order of business was to get our drink on --- in the most sophisticated manner possible, of course. This is the Pasadena Wine Festival, after all.

We approached the wine garden (which may or may not have actually been called that) where booths were set up in a square, with the middle area left open for tables (and later in the day, long lines... but we'll get to that.)

The booth at the front handed each of us a wine glass --ours to keep, if we ever wanted to pour ourselves tiny glasses of wine at home-- and we were on our way.

Devin and Meg

We started off with some crisp white wines, and then tried to find a shady area to sit down and escape the ever-increasing heat. By the time we found a patch near the stage, I was out of wine, and then just had to march back over to the wine garden. I quickly concluded that trying to relax was a pointless task until later, when the sun went down and we could buy ourselves a bottle of our fave of the day.

While sipping on an Australian pinot blend, I noticed several people crouching through a small opening in the wooded area beyond the booths. Was this allowable? Were they in danger? What was in those woods?! I had to find out. Immediately.

Or, well, after we filled our glasses yet again.

So then we marched off toward the trees and, following another group of wanderers, we ducked through a branch archway and uncovered a lush Ferngully rainforest, complete with ponds, tropical looking plants, and adorable wild life. Who knew this was here?

The only way to hike

Just a buncha turtles, sittin on a log

As the day went on, we met up with friends, chilled out on the lawn for a while and continued our tastings. Sadly, with the much-anticipated nightfall came the should've-been-expected crowds. Instead of meandering from booth to booth, now everyone had to wait in lines for their pours. We'd get ourselves a sample, then immediately enter a new line so that by the time we'd finished sipping, we were at the table for the next pour. There was no time for careful consideration of the flavors, or musing "Yes I do detect the chocolate undertones... I think." It no longer felt like wine tasting, but more like a pub crawl.

By 6 or 7, I was completely starving and, having put off food all day ("I'll wait until I'm ravenous, then it'll be even more delicious!" Idiot.), I was desperate to buy a Korean taco or grilled cheese from one of the various food trucks. But guess who else wanted to grab a bite? The entire population of southern California. Lines stretched on and on. Someone toward the back of one of them claimed she'd already been waiting 35 minutes. She'd be lucky to get served before dawn.

So, that was out. And then set in the familiar "Why do I even bother leaving the house?" feeling. At this point all I wanted was to have something to eat while sitting outside and enjoying the cool night air. Seems like I could do this somewhere like, oh, my backyard.

Within an hour of reaching this conclusion, we'd left, stopped at the store for provisions (frozen pizzas), and were resting comfortably at the patio table.

There's no place like home. There's no place like home.

But that forest was pretty sweet.

Late Summer Activity Extravaganza MegaPost

2010-10-01T09:44:00.000-07:00

Whoops. I have a blog. Nearly forgot for a second. (And by "a second" I mean 2 months.)

Even though I may not have been writing about doing stuff, trust me I've been doing stuff. Loads of it. And when I haven't been doing stuff, I've been working too much. So how can I find the time to write about doing stuff if I'm so busy doing the stuff I want to write about? Looks like I've stumbled onto something of a "catch 22" (believe me, I hate using that term as much as you hated reading it).

So to try to get you caught up, I will now tell you the stuff that's kept me busy. And to prevent this post from getting too fat, I'll keep each activity's description to 100 words or less.

If you want to read a lengthier explanation on any of the below, let me know and I'll write another post with more details.

Item 1: A Return to the Rose Bowl Flea Market

This time, my friend Rachael was visiting, but Devin couldn’t come along because our dog got mysteriously sick so they went to the vet. I felt bad for Devin because the flea market is his favorite thing ever, so I spent the whole time shopping for a fun gift to cheer him. I wound up with an R2D2 toy chest that was the envy of everyone we passed on our way back to the car. People would ask, “Where’d you get that?!” Really?

Rachael, R2, and Me

Item 2: Adventures In Scrunch Butting

Splash Sundays market themselves as a “Vegas style pool party” at the Woodland Hills Marriott. The party atmosphere seemed a little forced, but I suppose it could be fun if you like pounding house music and 22-year-old girls dancing in bikinis. Apparently the trend now is the “scrunch butt” look, which sounds like a joke. The last thing my butt needs is a questionable adjective. Overall, it’s fun for a few hours of loudly judging other people while sipping cocktails. But I felt really old and out of place.

Item 3: The Mud Run

The L.A. Mud Run seemed like it was going to be a lot of fun, as everyone dresses up in costumes and then runs around in a muddy obstacle course. In actuality, the first 10 minutes of the run were spent being hosed off by race personnel who were yelling insults at us (WHY?), while we crawled through a slushy pit of muddy water and gravel (ow my knees). This was followed by a 4 mile run in complete silence (can’t bring ipod in mud water). As one fellow participant described it, “A lot of run, not much mud.”

I looked super gross in the Mud Run pics, so here's a picture of Sarge

Item 4: It's Gettin' Hot In Here

Because I like to approach my fitness regimen in a series of fits and starts, I stopped running and instead got really into Bikram Yoga. The idea of a 90 minute workout in a 105 degree room might sound awful to some people, and to those people I’d say, “You’re right, it is kinda awful.” BUT you don’t really notice how hot you are as most of the class is spent trying not to fall over and wondering how it’s possible for the human body to produce so much sweat. After every class I feel like I’ve lost 10 pounds.

Item 5: The Thing They Say About Riding Bikes Is True

Went on a Sunday excursion to Venice with Katie and Becca. After being in L.A. for 6 years I had yet to find the canals or ride a bike along the beach. This day, I did both. Riding a bike was surprisingly fun, and I didn’t collide with any tourists or small children! Afterward we had some beers on the deck at The Whaler, and this day drinking may have contributed to our being entirely too fascinated with the crabs we saw in the canal on our walk back to the car.

It's a good look for me

Who gets to live here?

Item 6: No, The Malibu Campsite Didn't Have A Starbucks

I really hate camping in tents. But this last trip wound up being a lot of fun. Maybe owing to the margaritas. Maybe it was because there were bathrooms with running water (huzzah!). Me and the other ladies on the trip set up the whole campsite ourselves, including 4 tents. As a bonus, our hippy campsite neighbors helped us start a fire and made us egg sandwiches for breakfast. Saw a shooting star. Stayed up really late.

Item 7: Tents Are Cool, But "Camping" In A Cabin Always Wins

Two weekends later, a bunch of us rented a sweet cabin in Big Bear for a weekend of something that can loosely be called “camping.” I brought along a bunch of tie-dye supplies and we had an artistic afternoon. Dying shirts is a lot like dying Easter eggs. You get all caught up in the fun of it without considering the product. Who wants 4 dozen hardboiled eggs? Hello pink-tinted egg salad sandwiches for a week straight! Also sat in the hot tub for several hours each night and ate entirely too much.

Nice automatic timer action, Barry

Jeesh, Seamus. You need to learn how to relax.

Doing Stuff: The OC Fair

2010-08-03T12:04:00.000-07:00

Growing up, the New York State Fair was all that and a bag of chips. It took place every year right at the end of summer and even if I try to explain why it was so awesome you still won't understand my infatuation because all of my memories are polished with a heaping dose of nostalgia.

But I can try to get you in my mind-set by telling you about the giant buildings filled with farm animals, and a butter sculpture, and a sand sculpture, and fried dough, and baked potatoes, and curly fries. And rides, rides, rides!

Hmm. Well forget it. It just ruled, okay?

Since I no longer live in New York State I haven't been in probably 6 or 7 years. So I thought maybe, just maybe, I could start a new west coast tradition for myself by visiting the O.C. Fair. And so last Sunday I went with Katie (fellow fair enthusiast) and Devin (reluctant skeptic) on a little road trip to visit our neighbors to the south in Orange County.

First off, this sounds stupid but I kind of didn't really know Orange County was so far away. I mean I knew where it was... kind of. And I'd been to it. But in my head I thought it took like 30 minutes to get there. Really, it was an hour and a half. At any rate, we made it and found free (free!) parking in a nearby business park with a shuttle bus to the site.

After waiting in a really long line at the fair's entrance (Minus points. NYS fair never has lines to get in!), we paid just $10 for a ticket. (This would be the only bargain of the day.)

As we walked in, immediately up ahead I spotted a petting zoo. Ding ding ding!

Would you just look at the teeneh tineh bebeh goats?

And this wooly calf?

The OC Fair may have had the cutest petting zoo ever, but these were some of the only animals on the premises. Later we saw oxen, some shorn sheep, and Alaskan racing pigs (yes, they run a race and yes it's amazing), but the animal display was nothing compared to the NYS fair. Although, I guess this was just the county's supply of prize winning livestock, and not the whole state's. And are there even farms in Orange County? (Knott's Berry Farm doesn't count.)

Enough about animals. One of the other big attractions of fairs is the food. The disgusting, greasy, delicious food. Although, I think in the last decade it's gotten even more disturbing. I'd heard tales of fried chicken nestled between Krispy Kreme donuts. And deep fried Snickers bars. Deep fried ice cream (how?). In a way, it's tempting to try these fat wads. You think, "Well it's not going to kill me to have a bite."

It's one thing to imagine trying such stuff. It's a whole other experience to see something like this.

That's right. Deep fried butter. Chocolate covered bacon. We couldn't even bring ourselves to get any closer for fear of absorbing air born lard particles.

But you know what we were more than happy to sample? Beers. Obviously this was the one part of the fair I never got to take part in as a kid. There were beer tents and-- if memory serves -- wine slushies. Grown ups seemed to be wasted.

And now I got to be a grown up too. Though, no, I didn't get wasted. At $10 a cup I couldn't afford to. Still, any outdoor activity improves immensely when one is allowed to walk around with an ice cold beer.

Now onto the buyable crap! And the OC Fair had plenty. In addition to vendors lining the walkways, there was also The Parade of Products, The Carnival of Products, The Festival of Products and The Product Promenade. Each of these was a warehouse-looking structure packed full of the kind of junk sold on infomercials or SkyMall. As Katie remarked while we walked through, "They've invented everything." Yes, they have. And I don't really want any of it.

Though I did join in on the purchase of designer knock-off sunglasses.

I know, I look adorable. But these are the darkest sunglasses on earth. I really couldn't read anything up close... or far away... or clearly make out facial expressions. And I nearly walked into stuff. It was as if the lenses had been tinted on both sides.

It wasn't long before we'd pretty much seen everything the fair had to offer except for the rides. When I was younger I would devote an entire day to going on the rides at the fair. I didn't care that the people who operated them had no teeth and were super creepy and seemed like they might snap and intentionally loosen one of the bolts holding the structure together. Aside from the tilt-a-whirl, which has ALWAYS been barftastic, I was up for trying anything.

Now, as an older, wiser, lamer version of myself, you couldn't pay me to go on those things. Every single ride seemed to shoot up into the air, upside down, backwards and inside out. They made me woozy just looking at them.

The one ride I would've considered was the ski lift that runs the length of the fairgrounds. These stuffed animals had the right idea.

But my companions were not so eager and I didn't care enough to pester. So, having decided to skip the rides, and having spent entirely too much money on beverages, we were out of things to do in about 3 hours. We dawdled around a short while longer and then hopped the bus back to our parking lot to head home.

While it doesn't hold a candle to the New York State Fair -- and really, what could? -- the OC Fair was a fun little outing. If I can get over my fear of artery-wrecking food and hastily assembled roller coasters, I could probably enjoy it even more.

I might even check it out next year.

New York State of Mind: Part Three - In Which I Run 9 Miles And Nearly Throw Up - OR - The Things I'll Do For Free Beer

2010-07-28T12:22:00.000-07:00

The plan was for me and Rachael to hit the road by 11am. Then that Julia Roberts movie came on TV -- the one where she fakes her own death to escape her abusive husband. I got sucked in, then Rachael got sucked in and then some how we didn't leave New York until 3:30. Whoops.

We were heading to Utica on Saturday to run the Boilermaker 15k on Sunday morning. The race attracts about 12,000 runners each year, perhaps because it ends at the Utica Club Brewery, where racers are rewarded with unlimited free beer.

Last year we'd both run the 5k version of the race, along with my mother and sister. This course is less popular and less celebrated. I felt great when I got to the finish line and joined the post-race party. But then as the 15k runners started arriving, I got the feeling that maybe I was second rate. I should have - could have - tried harder and run the big race.

So this year I was determined to make it happen. For months I'd been training, usually running 6 - 7 miles at a time, though pushing myself to 8 on occasion. And twice I'd come just shy of running the full race distance of 9.2 miles, but I wanted to save that accomplishment for the race itself.

I felt really confident that I'd kick the boilermaker's ass because whenever I ran in training it was a breeze. Well, not totally a breeze, but I could keep a good pace and keep my energy up.

Of course, there was the matter of my bad foot. Two weeks before the race, while I was at a friend's house, I was making my way to the fridge for a beer (hey, we all have our pre-race diets) and halfway there my foot started to ache. I shook it out, rotated my ankle a bit and kept going. Throughout the rest of the night my foot would feel fine one moment, and absolutely terrible the next. The following morning, when I got out of bed and first put weight on it, I nearly collapsed because it hurt so badly. I presumed I must have hurt it while running and it took a while for the full effect to kick in.

I decided to stay off it until the race and fortunately, in that time, whatever I'd done to it reversed itself and I was no longer limping and hobbling through life. However, this meant I hadn't run in two weeks and I wasn't sure if I'd messed up my endurance.

The day before the race I was well behaved. I ate good food and drank plenty of water. Too much water, perhaps, as I had to get up and pee like 5 times during the course of the night and as a result I missed out on some valuable sleep.

The following morning, the house --Devin's parents' house in Utica -- was abuzz with runners: me, Rachael, Devin's sister's friend, Devin's mom, my mom (who planned to run the 5k again because "9 miles? What am I gonna do that for?"). I honestly didn't feel nervous. Rachael was anxious, but I kept saying, "Just do whatever. Walk if you have to, but you've been training so I'm sure you'll be fine."

Here we are before the race.

And here we are after, at the post race party.

I know, we look sort of the same. But what you can't tell from these pictures is that for the hour and a half between them I was dying.

I started off doing ok. I felt like I always do. Hotter than usual, and not used to the humidity, but otherwise nothing unusual. It was around mile 4 that I started to feel barfy, sluggish and dizzy. This was unexpected. At this point in my training 4 miles was a piece of cake. And I never felt ill when I ran. What was happening to me?

I kept on, ignoring how I felt. At about 6 miles, I got the attention of Rachael, who was running near me, and told her I was going to fall back for a bit to see if I could regroup. She trotted ahead and I slowed my pace. Sadly, it didn't really help. I was willing my legs not to stop, and yet they seemed to have a mind of their own. They were ready to walk. I was not. I kept going.

By the time I got to mile 8 I'm pretty sure I was nearing total meltdown. I was so furious with my body for failing me. For months I'd been running several times a week, waking up early to fit in 7 miles before work in the morning, sacrificing a Sunday of sleeping in to make sure I completed a long run before it got too hot outside. And now here I was, at the main event, and I could barely put one foot in front of the other.

The problem with wanting to give up during a race is that you actually can't. Even if I just walked off the road and sat in a shady patch of grass, I'd still have to some how get to the finish line to meet up with everyone else. So I walked for a minute, then ran a little more, then walked a little more, then ran a little more. It was heartbreaking to be at my worst when everyone else whizzing by me was thinking "Almost there! I'll just give it my all!"

Anyway, I made it to the end. My time sucked. I felt awful. I was really proud of everyone else, and sorry for myself. But such is life. After a few minutes of standing still, a bottle of water, and a cold beer I was feeling good again.

Now the question remains -- do I try again next year?

Following the race I rode with my parents to their house, where I spent 2 days doing nothing. Really. Nothing. It was great. Of course, my relaxed state of being was destroyed by my spontaneously canceled return flight home and the panicked rescheduling that followed.

But I won't get into that here. I'll end on a happy note: At least the race is done.

New York State of Mind: Part Two - In Which I Am Obsessed With Dinosaurs

2010-07-26T10:48:00.001-07:00

Day 2 of my trip to New York meant making my way into Manhattan to meet up with Yasi --on her birthday!-- for some more good ol' wanderin' around.

We began by heading to High Line Park. Starting somewhere around W 12th street, this park is the transformation of an unused elevated railway into a little slice of nature reminiscent of a marsh.

We walked the existing length of it, which ended at a chain link fence sealing off the still-in-progress part two of the park. Then we made our way down the steps to ground level, fighting an onslaught of tourists who emptied out from a nearby bus.

From there we stopped for a quick bite, then on to the American Museum of Natural History. This was my idea, suggested in a casual "well if we have the time it might be cool" manner, though what I meant was "I want to see the dinosaurs now!!!" I have this ongoing fascination with paleontology and prehistoric things, leftover from the dinosaur chapter in 3rd grade science class. From what I can tell, there isn't much your average grown woman can do to make such an interest a hobby, unless it's super dorky -- dinosaur models?-- or completely impractical -- take a leave of absence from work and join an excavation in Hungary? So I'll get my kicks from museum exhibits.

And this one was awesome. Here, I took too many pictures:

This creeper is some kind of prehistoric tiny deer. Look at his stick legs.

And the ancestor of the elephant, my favorite living creature.

After the dinosaur wing we searched for 20 minutes to find the display of living reptiles, only to discover that there was an additional fee for the exhibit. Peh.

And so we retired to Yasi's apartment where we fitfully tried to get ready for her birthday party. I hated the choice of clothes I brought to change into and felt fat and sweaty from the day of walking around in the heat. So I stomped around, changing in and out of my dress like 6 times before realizing there simply wasn't enough time to lose 15 pounds and shop for an entirely different wardrobe.

Off to the party! (In a cab that made me really really car sick.)

The cool night air was just barely starting to role in as we arrived at the bar with an outdoor "beer garden," a loosely used term meaning "picnic tables out back." I was starving and thirsty by this point and plowed my way through some nachos and a beer before most of the guests even arrived.

We had a lovely evening and in addition to spending more time with Yasi, Rachael and Anne, I was also reunited with several other college friends who live in the city.

Yasi and I were simply thrilled with the green wall. I swear this pose made sense at the time.

For the after party we walked a few blocks west (east? north?) to another bar, but I was still fantastically hungry and forced Rachael to stop at a pizza place with me. Really, if I lived in New York I'd gain 30 pounds from pizza alone. There's a pizza place on every corner and they are so inviting.

After our slices, we had some Fruit Stripe gum from this pack I'd impulsively bought earlier in the day. I remembered the included temporary tattoos being more impressive. Or maybe they were just better made when we were kids?

Then after the after party, Rachael, boyfriend Joey and I took a cab back to their place. We crossed the bridge to Brooklyn --which bridge? I don't remember, and that's a shame because Joey did a terrific job explaining the various bridges and their histories-- and then we were asleep within 2 minutes of walking in their front door.

Coming up next, the exciting conclusion, Part Three: In Which I Run 9 Miles and Nearly Throw Up -OR- The Things I'll Do For Free Beer.

New York State of Mind: Part One - In Which I Practically Move In To A Bar in Brooklyn

2010-07-23T12:32:00.001-07:00

Whoops. Wandered off there for a bit. Where have I been? Why, I've been traveling the world! Well, the east coast. Or really New York State. Some of it.

This excursion to New York was an idea that came to me a few months ago during a particularly difficult morning at work. At times like these, I find myself zoning out and unconsciously browsing travel websites. Must. Get. Away.

My plan was to fly into the city to spend time with my friends, then head upstate to Utica to run The Boilermaker 15k, then to Liverpool to spend a few days with my parents.

Because Devin never knows his work schedule, we always hesitate to plan trips. And then we never end up going anywhere. So when I presented him with my brilliant Tour de NY idea, and he replied "Sounds good but I don't know if I'll be working," I flipped out and bought myself a plane ticket anyway. This is how much I needed to go somewhere. Anywhere.

And so I'd go it alone. I couldn't actually remember the last time I'd traveled solo and in a way I looked forward to it.

I arrived at JFK at 5:30 am on a Thursday, feeling that nauseated zombie feeling that accompanies being awake at the crack of dawn, or really 2:30 am by my internal clock, following a 3 hour snooze sitting upright. I made my way to the AirTrain, which I'd take to the subway and wind up at my friend Rachael's place. I swear I once figured out that whole train system by myself just years earlier, equally bleary following a redeye. But this time I was an idiot.

I got on a train. I got off at the next stop, convinced I had gotten on the wrong train. I wandered. I followed other people that seemed like maybe they lived in NY and knew what they were doing. Oh shoot, they are following me to see what I'm doing. I don't know what happened but by the grace of god, the skin of my teeth, and the assistance of a particularly jolly transportation employee, I found my way to Brooklyn and Rachael's apartment.

Once there, she hurried off to work, and I hurried to her couch where I slept for several hours.

It was later that morning, while I was getting ready, that I found The Spoon nestled in between some folded clothes in my suitcase.

Seeing as I had not packed The Spoon, and because I could not imagine the use of a utensil with this particular shape and with a hole in the middle, I was troubled by its appearance. I carried it into the kitchen, where I asked Rachael's boyfriend what the heck it was.

Me: What is this?
Him: A spoon
Me: I know but what is it for?
Him: Spoon things
Me: But why does it look like this?
Him: Maybe it's a tuning spoon.
Me (hitting spoon on counter as one would a tuning fork) No that's not it.
Him: Don't hit my counter.
Me: Sorry.
Him: I'm kidding.
Me: Right.
Him: But seriously.
Me: What is this doing in my bag?
Him: It's not yours?
Me: No.
Him: I don't know.
Me: Crap.
Him: Were my directions helpful this morning?
Me: What directions?
Him: On how to take the train from the airport.
Me: I didn't get any directions.
Him: I sent them.
Me: Shoot. Those would've been good.

Later in the day I would apologize for this immensely weird conversation on what was only my second instance of meeting him. Also, I discovered that I had in fact received an email with extremely detailed directions on how not to be an idiot when traveling from the airport. Oh well.

Since everyone was at work I actually had nothing to do. I set out on food to explore Brooklyn. This was amusing for about 20 minutes, and then I was hot and had to pee. I kept marching down the street, thinking perhaps I would encounter something like a Starbucks or a Walgreens, but darn these hip people and their resistance to franchises with semi public bathrooms.

An hour later I was nearly limping and so I ducked into a bar/restaurant. To justify my being there, I ordered a drink at the bar and then hurried off to the bathroom. I meant to finish my drink and then leave, but it was really really delicious and refreshing. Something with gin and mint and cucumbers and fizzy water. The whole street-facing wall of the bar was made up of doors that pulled open, giving the illusion of sitting in the fresh air, while enjoying the air conditioning.

I decided to stay for another drink.

I had plans to meet Kat from Pink India Ink at 4. It was about 3 at this point, so I thought, why try to do anything else? I will just sit here.

So that's how I spent the better part of my afternoon sitting alone at a bar drinking fizzy ginnys. That's not what they were called.

Kat arrived and I gave what was probably a very loud first impression, owing to my pair of fizzy ginnys. NICE TO MEET YOU BLAHHHHH I'M FALLING OFF MY BARSTOOL!!! CUTE DRESS! HAVE A COCKTAIL!

That can't be what I was actually like, but it sure felt that way. After chatting about husbands, writing, work, and sharing some snacks, it was time for the rest of my friends to get out of work. Thus commenced a great flurry of texts and phone calls that made me look super important.

It appeared that the simplest plan, since I had 3 friends coming from different directions, was to just stay put. And so as I waited for my other friends -- and as Kat departed for other less staying-in-one-placey plans -- the hours passed. All in all I spent 7 hours on the same darn bar stool while people came and went. Fortunately the bartender and waitstaff changed shifts so none of them knew how long I actually sat there. I'm really quite the inactive tourist.

The evening wound down as I grabbed some dinner with Rachael, Yasi and Anne, followed by a giggle-filled screening of Wet Hot American Summer for the umpteenth time.

Stay tuned for Part 2 - In Which I Am Obsessed With Dinosaurs

Make Music Pasadena: WTF?

2010-06-30T09:16:00.000-07:00

Okay I let my lazy/busy-ness get the best of me and now I'm a week behind again. So let's back the truck up to last Saturday -the 19th - when I decided to check out the Make Music Pasadena Festival. A one day event that promised a big line up on several stages as well as "hundreds of spontaneous musical performances," whatever that means. And it's all FOR FREE. And free stuff is never bad... right?

Now keep in mind this is the Saturday that followed the ill-fated outing to the movie at the cemetery and while I was ready to curse the outside world and become a shut-in forever, I let my pointless optimism get the best of me and instead elected to give this a shot. How do you think it turned out?

Oh, wait, did you read the title of this post yet? Yeah. So you know where I'm going with this.

I'd recruited my sister Katie and Becca to tag along with me. Devin intended to come along, but wasn't feeling great and needed to rest up for the Iron Maiden concert he'd randomly decided to attend later that evening. (This from the man who listens to Band of Horses and Connor Oberst.)

When we arrived in Old Town Pasadena I noticed some crowds, but nothing more spectacular than any other Saturday. Shouldn't there be... I don't know... some stages set up some place? Or tents, perhaps?

I thought about this one weekend when Devin and I went to a bar for his cousin's birthday party, only to find the place totally empty, and after waiting around for 20 minutes realized that we'd (I'd) mixed up the dates and we were actually a full week early. I wondered if maybe I'd made the same error once again. Maybe this was all taking place tomorrow?

Then we drove passed a street and I noticed a modest stage and a smattering of people. It wasn't what I'd anticipated, but it showed some promise. And hey, it was still early.

Little did I realize this would be the only real evidence of this alleged festival that I'd see for the next 3 hours.

As we wandered the streets, feet hurting, thirsty, hot, I couldn't find a single event. There was no music in the air. No plastic cups of beer. At one point I saw a large crowd inside a bar and thought perhaps there was something happening inside, but I think they were all just watching a World Cup game. A few people we passed were referring to pieces of paper that appeared to be maps and a schedule of events. I stopped to ask (or perhaps confronted) a young couple to find out where they'd obtained their map. The boy and girl looked at one another in silence, then back at me, then at one another. It was as if they were getting in trouble, or I'd asked them a trick question. Eventually one of them said he'd gotten the map from a local security person. Ok, noted. Thank you, nerd.

I was getting a bit crabby so we decided to grab lunch. As we neared the restaurant, I spotted one of the security people with the coveted maps and ran up to him. He was busy directing a long line of cars into one of the public parking structures. How could there be this many cars showing up but so few festival goers in action? What was I missing?! Or, what was going on in this parking garage?

After lunch, we used the map to try to locate one of the stages. Try being the key word here. Sure enough, when we arrived at the location where music was promised, we found nothing. NOTHING!

Seriously, was this a joke? Looking at the map (the map of lies!) I saw at least 20 sponsor logos. What could the sponsors' money possibly have been put toward? Besides printing the maps themselves. It was as if the festival was conceived by 3 music enthusiasts during a night of heavy drinking and they all were like "Yeah man, we should totally put on a festival. It's gonna be awesome!" And Guy 1 promised to book the bands, Guy 2 promised to set up the stages, and Guy 3 promised to do the web page and map. Then when Saturday rolled around, Guy 3 was like "WTF? guys?" And Guys 1 and 2 were like, "Oh, sorry dude. I didn't know you were serious. Nice map."

We made our way to another bar to formulate our plan. As we sipped on white wine sangria, we lamented what a waste the festival had turned out to be. Coming from upstate/central New York, where it snows and is cloudy 11 months out of the year, we'll take any excuse to be outside in the summer, drunk on sunshine and Coors Light. Every weekend there is some kind of festival to attend and we know how to do them right. Close off the streets, put up massive beer tents, turn up the music, provide assorted fried foods. Could Make Music Pasadena not figure out ANY of these winning factors?

The one band I wanted to see all day was Matt & Kim. And actually, I wanted to see them so badly that I refused to give up and go home. We concluded that we'd make our way to where the stage was supposed to be, and if the whole thing was just a catastrophe we would leave.

When we arrived at that street, however, we discovered a big stage, a decent sized crowd, and some food stands. "A festival!" Becca shouted out. She was right. So this is where it had been hiding.

Now don't get too excited. It was only 1 block long, there wasn't anything to do besides the stage, and there was NO BEER. I know, super fun. And as if they wanted to end all fun, they were actually handing out nicorette samples. Sigh.

Matt & Kim came on about 30 minutes later and their show was terrific. So full of energy. And balloons. And dancing on chairs. It almost made the whole day worth it. Almost. Really I wished I'd just come down only to see their show, and spent the rest of my day doing something (anything) else.

To summarize:

Matt & Kim - Cheers
Make Music Pasadena - Jeers
Future Attempts to Enjoy Society - Inconclusive

The Trouble With Doing Stuff

2010-06-14T11:36:00.000-07:00

I'm going to take a break from my usual, more or less positive outlook on life to discuss a major roadblock I frequently encounter in my quest to experience all this world has to offer. You see, it would appear that LEAVING MY HOUSE IS A FREAKING NIGHTMARE AND STAYING IN MY HOUSE IS AWESOME.

I like being a homebody. Very much. And I'm married to a homebody, thereby increasing our homebodiness exponentially. Sure, in a perfect world I could be talked out of feeling this way and become one of those freaks who "can't sit still." But the fact of the matter is sitting on my couch rules, as does ordering food and having it delivered to my house, then eating it on my couch, and then sitting on my couch some more. There. I said it.

However, I realize that other people find this behavior unacceptable, if a little gross, so I really do put in a valiant effort to be the sort of individual who takes friends up on party invitations and the like. And still, more often than not, no matter what I'm doing, there comes a certain point in the day's or night's activity when it occurs to me that it would be just as remarkably wonderful to be at home, not doing said activity. Case in point: a trip to Vegas during which Devin and I were back at our hotel room by 11:30 each night, having tacitly reached an agreement that the casino floor was too loud and involved too much standing.

The bottom line is I've tried to Do Stuff. I even made a blog about it. See? I want to be like you people, with your sun-kissed cheeks and your tales to tell your children. Unfortunately, it's ill-fated events like Saturday's that force me to wonder if perhaps I'm wasting my time.

Allow me to elaborate. It all began with a visit to a friend's house to watch the US vs England World Cup match. Have I told you guys how I'm a huge soccer fan? No, just kidding. I could care less, but I DO love an excuse to get together and, if forced to leave my house, a friend's house is my favorite place to be. If not my couch, then yours. It seems like a perfectly fair policy.

So the game ended after what seemed like 20 minutes, and we proceeded to sip on beers and Pimm's until the late afternoon. At this point, I noticed Devin frequently checking the clock on his cellphone and took note that we would need to get going for our second set of plans for the day. We were due to meet up with some other friends to watch Beetlejuice at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery. That sounds very goth, but it's actually very hip. For those of you nonlocal readers, the cemetery screenings are a summer tradition in which modern classics are projected onto the side of a building, while people gather on the lawn with picnics. I'd gone last summer to see Dazed and Confused, and it was a lot of fun to sit amongst the crowd, sipping red wine, surrounded by ornate graves of old Hollywood movie stars I've never heard of.

Here's what isn't fun about it: the fact that everyone else wants to be there too. Two huge lines form hours before the gates open. One is a line of people that winds around and down several blocks. The other is a line of cars. Last time I think we lucked out in our timing, and may have inadvertently slipped into the cheaters car line of people cutting the regular line and we wound up getting in. Some of our friends were not so lucky, and waited in the people line for 2 hours only to be told that there was no more available seating.

Now, back to Saturday afternoon. Devin is saying we need to make our move and soon. And as keen as I am on sitting in the cool night air and watching a movie I already know I like, I was not so hot on the idea of driving to the store for snacks, then across town, and then fighting thousands of good citizens for a measly plot of lawn. Daydrinking had taken its toll and I sort of just wanted to, well, be home.

But the truth was we'd already made these plans. And I didn't want to be the sort of last minute canceling flakes that I detest, so we got off our butts and started hurrying to get there. As a bonus, we recruited our drunk hosts to come along.

When we arrived on the street outside the cemetery, we got in the car line just as we had last time. It didn't seem to be that long, and we still had plenty of time. Twenty minutes later, we'd eeked our way up to the gates, where a security person told us that, oh by the way, as of today, you can't enter from this direction. We'd need to drive ahead and get in the line around the block. Marvelous.

So ahead we went, and joined the more lengthy, proper car line. Having been told that 400 cars would be allowed in to park, and doing some really really careless counting, we figured we couldn't have been more that 200 cars back. Sure we'd wasted some time, but okay, we could make this happen.

And then we sat there for 2 hours. This was my view.

The cars did not move, even as the gates opened. Craning our necks and looking way up yonder where the car line turned right at the street light, cheating cars coming straight were slipping their way in. Our friends squeezed in the back seat seemed to be of good spirits, but I was growing cranky and headachy and I worried that Devin's shouting at people trying to cut in line would maybe get us all stabbed.

My mind wandered, and I imagined being at home, submerged in a bubble bath, listening to the sounds of Devin practicing guitar in the other room and Seamus's claws clickety clacking across the hard woods in the living room as he looked for the cats.

Then Devin honked the horn in frustration, and suddenly I was jolted back to reality, steeping in car exhaust and staring unapologetically at the ridiculously outfitted hipsters moving along in the people line next to us.

By the time it was dark, and with minutes to go before the movie started, we made it to the entrance. Of course, we should have noticed the cars ahead of us all leaving and speeding off down the road, but we were dizzy with hope that we hadn't wasted our entire evening sitting in a line of cars.

As we pulled up, the same security guy as before leaned into my passenger window and asked -- get this -- "Can I help you?"

I was so dumbfounded by this statement that I couldn't respond, and just sort of pointed toward the entrance. I wish I'd thought to respond with, "Yeah, what are all these people waiting in line for?" or "Can I get directions to the cemetery?" or "Yes, I'm here to pay my respects to my great grandmother."

I mean, really. Sir, let me into the god damn movie. I have to pee and I'm going completely stir crazy in this hatchback. I may punch my husband. Let me in!

Of course, then he reveals that they weren't taking any more cars unless we were "on the list." Did you know you have to be on a list to see a free movie at a cemetery now?

Could he perhaps have sent some other employee down into the car line to let everyone know that, in fact, it was full and save us all a good chunk of our only time here on this planet?

As we pulled away, we called our other friends driving behind us. I felt responsible for misleading them into the wrong line in the first place, perhaps effectively ruining our chances. Though I think it was all a lost cause from the moment we arrived. There was some brief discussion about whether we should regroup and attempt to do something else, but really all I wanted was to be at my favorite place: home.

40 minutes later, we walked in our back door and I felt the same sense of relief that normally follows a particularly horrid travel experience filled with flight delays and turbulence and some ordeal with security. Oh, home. Home sweet home. Where there is water, and Advil, and ramen noodles, and my couch, and a Netflix envelope with season 1, disc 2 of Damages.

I was so exhausted by Saturday's catastrophe that on Sunday I didn't go to the roller derby as I'd planned. I know, this would've made for some good blog fodder, but I'm easily traumatized.

I guess now I just have to figure out how to experience the rest of the world without leaving home. Any ideas? No?

Crap.

Tokyo Delve's

2010-06-08T12:38:00.001-07:00

First off - please excuse my blog absence as of late. It's not owing to a lack of Doing Stuff. On the contrary, I think I done did too much stuff, and apparently it's easy for me to feel overwhelmed and incapable of documenting these events. So I'll try to get caught up. This will take us back a few weeks, to a birthday celebration at Tokyo Delve's.

[Pictures for today's post provided by Barry. You're very lucky, you know. Because my pictures were simply awful.]

Tokyo Delve's sushi restaurant is an experience like no other. Well, I'm sure similar establishments exist, but this is the only sushi place I've ever been to that's resulted in me punching an ice cream cake, later being kicked out of a karaoke bar Jazzy-Jeff-on-Fresh-Prince-of-Bel-Air-style (you know what I mean), and winding up hosting an after party with my friends and 5 randos my sister acquired from the local grocery store at 1 am. And this was just what happened one of the times I went. There are other horror stories for other visits. But more on that later.

Actually, no. No more on that later. I think you get the picture and I'd really rather save myself the embarrassment. Suffice it to say this place effs your s up.

Whenever asked for advice on what someone should do for an upcoming birthday or to entertain an out of town visitor, Tokyo Delve's is always my recommendation. Of course, the moment I say the name I feel a little queasy. It is not for the faint of heart. Or the regrettably old at heart 20 somethings like me.

In order to go to this place, you must make a reservation for one of 3 nightly seatings. It's pretty much like dinner theater. Like Medieval Times but better. When you arrive at the restaurant, you check in with clipboard-holding security personnel who check you off the list, give you a wrist band (you know nothing civilized ever comes from something requiring wrist bands), and ask you to wait in line until it's time for your show.

There's Barry holding the camera. Can you find me?

The line outside is one of my favorite parts of the evening because it's only a matter of time before the doors open and unleash the crowd from the previous show. When this happens, a group of screaming maniacs comes spilling out, all of them about to face-plant into the side walk, or perhaps wander carelessly into traffic. The women, dressed in outfits that were probably sexy at one point in the evening, now have mini skirts riding up to terrible heights. Their strapless tops sag dangerously low. They are either stumbling around in their platform heels, or barefoot, having given up and elected to carry their shoes (or having some how lost them completely).

And the outpouring of the drunks was as entertaining as ever on our recent trip to TD's for Becca and Shannon's birthday excitement. One man walked out still chowing on sushi rolls. Another guy stood in the street, quietly trying to take pictures, while nearly being hit by a bus. I couldn't look away. The hands-down highlight was the fighting couple. The woman, a raving, near-barfing lunatic. The man, calmly trying to stop her from stabbing him with a stiletto. I'm not sure what they were fighting about, but as we stood at the back of the line we had a good view of the chaos. She pushed him away; he approached, trying to make amends. She threatened to dive into the street; he and their friends restrained her. She screamed in his face; he decided he'd had enough and began to walk away. This of course only worked to anger her further. Then came the slapping and clawing. I know, it should have made me feel bad for the both of them, but our show was about 1 hour late to start and something had to keep us busy.

Finally it was time to enter. While walking in the front door, the waitstaff greeted us with high fives and fist bumps.

The decor of the restaurant is exactly right. Picture a banquet hall, with rows and rows of tables, tightly packed in so that your back pretty much touches the back of the person sitting directly behind you. The walls of this place are painted black and the lighting is provided by strings of Christmas lights hung haphazardly, giving the room the feel of a party in a frat house basement.

But it's not the look of the place that encourages the excessive drinking. It's the mini kegs and bottles of sake placed in front of customers within seconds. And mere seconds after that, the waiter instructs everyone on how to assemble a sake bomb. Fill your beer glass about half way, balance your chopsticks atop the glass, and teeter the little sake cup between the chopsticks. Ready?

Now it's time for the shouting by the waitstaff. Oh, the shouting.
"When I yell sake, you say bomb. Sake!"
"Bomb!"
"Sake!"
"Bomb!"
Then you pound your fists madly on the table until the little sake cup lands in your beer, at which point the entire table is soaked, and you and your friends chug the whole terrible concoction. Lather, rinse, repeat.

You see how things are about the get out of hand.

The rest of the dinner consists of average tasting sushi served in waves on large trays to your table. Then there is much standing on chairs and dancing. Then the waitstaff performs a few dance numbers.

And lastly, there is the Splitting of the Check, which is always the worst point in the evening for 3 reasons. 1. It turns out to be horrendously expensive. 2. Everyone is too drunk to pay attention to the math. 3. No one wants to pay for anything and believes somehow they owe $20.

The Splitting of the Check has lead to serious fights on more than one of my visits. My advice for anyone planning a night out to TD's is to force everyone to agree to split the check evenly, no matter what, or prepare to spend 45 minutes arguing with your friends while the restaurant empties out.

Thankfully, on this visit we had agreed to split everything evenly between everyone, so the process was rather painless. Well, it still made me die a little inside to hand over all that money, but at least no one was punching anyone else.

I had fun. I always do. But this visit came well over 2 years after the one before it. And I think that in that time I managed to calm down a little, so I kept the sake bombing under control. If there's one thing I've learned, it's that I simply cannot handle hangovers anymore, and I can't sacrifice a Saturday to feeling like hell. There's too much housework to be done, errands to run. It's a sad reality, but a comfortable one.

In conclusion, as much as I sincerely urge everyone to try this place, it's definitely something you only need to do once. Or, in my case, 6 times but the 6th time is the last. Really.

Huntington Museum and Gardens

2010-05-10T12:06:00.000-07:00

Since moving to Pasadena, I've had every intention of visiting the Huntington Gardens because they are only a 5 minute drive from my house and I've heard nothing but rave reviews. Thankfully I saved this event for when my parents came to stay with us. It turned out to be the perfect answer to "What should I do when my parents are here?" And as a bonus, it was Mothers Day weekend.

Not much to say, so I'll let the pictures do most of the talking. Photography is not one of my hobbies, nor one of my strong suits, but there were so many beautiful sites that I couldn't help but be inspired.

Here's the conservatory. Inside was a rain forest garden, cloud forest garden, a bog and a plant lab.

Moving on, we stumbled our way towards the Chinese Garden. I use the word stumble because even with the help of signs and a map, it's actually really hard to figure out exactly where you're going. Or to know, for sure, when you've arrived.

Well, then I saw this and I figured we were there.

I was particularly fond of the enormous koi fish swimming throughout the pond.

Koi at Huntington Gardens, Pasadena from Briana Mahoney on Vimeo.

I could've watched them for hours.

Quick story: this video was taken from a vantage point of a flat rock about 4 inches off the ground. While I quietly observed the fish, a pair of children to my right prodded them with sticks. After a few moments, a museum guard wearing a uniform reminiscent of the Maytag repairman walked over and asked me to get down from the rock. Never one to make a fuss, I rolled my eyes and began to walk away. Thankfully, Devin said precisely what I was thinking. "So she can't stand on that rock, but it's okay for kids to poke the fish with sticks?" The guard turned his attention to the kids and offered a half-hearted, "Oh yeah, stop poking the fish."

Peh.

Next we drifted over to the Japanese Gardens.

And then found the Rose Garden. For reasons I have yet to discern, Pasadena is just wild about roses. So it's only fitting that they have like 5 billion roses in this garden.

Each variety of rose had its own clever name. I liked this one best.

Here I am, posing with my own Sexy Rexy.

Lastly, we hurried through the Australian Garden (having just returned from a 3 week trip to Australia, my parents were not overly interested in the re-creation of this particular habitat), and then to the Desert Garden.

The Desert Garden was as interesting as it was massive.

I didn't really get to spend a lot of time closely examining the plants, and I'd really like to take the free tour on my next visit. Additionally, there were at least 5 museum buildings I didn't even step inside. Certainly I'll have to make a second trip... and maybe a third... and a fourth.

Tributefest

2010-05-03T10:36:00.000-07:00

Let me begin this post with Devin's quote from the end of the night at Tributefest. "Of all the stuff you've gotten the Doing Stuff Club to do, this was by far the best...but no one wanted to do it." It's true, I couldn't round up a crowd but I didn't let that stop me. And it's a good thing, because Tributefest rocked.

Held in Santa Clarita, a suburban type city about 30 minutes north of LA, Tributefest is a day long concert of cover bands, beer tents and food trucks. How could I only manage to rally 2 people (Devin and Becca) to go with me? I have no idea. People are crazy.

This was the inaugural Tributefest, and while my spidey senses tell me not to attend the first-ever anything because it's bound to be a logistical nightmare with overflowing port-o-potties, insufficient parking, and a whole mess of cranky staff, I was delighted to discover the entire day was perfection.

After a scenic drive we arrived at Santa Clarita's central park, which oddly had NO signs of any kind like "Concert - This Way." Even more peculiar was the abundance of parking --- and that it was free. FREE, bwa ha ha.

When we picked up our tickets at will-call, the trio of fresh-faced young ladies working at the table asked, "Do you want to buy an all you can drink pass for $25?" Um, yes please! We quickly did the math -- each beer costs $5 (already astoundingly cheap for a concert), so to get our money's worth we'd have to drink 5 beers. Then our 6th would be free. With 30 beers on tap, spread out over various tents, taking advantage of all-you-can-drink seemed like an easy enough task.

It was still early when we arrived. Doing a quick survey of the area, I saw much promise in the day ahead. For instance, there was a giant line of popular food trucks.

And, by the way, even as the concert filled up, the lines were minimal at each of them, and so it was easy to sample as much food as my heart desired. So SUCK IT, Street Food Festival!

We quickly met up with our old neighbor, Micah, who coincidentally was there with a few friends. We decided to join forces and set up our camp of 3 blankets toward the back of the crowd. The event's website recommended you bring something to sit on, which we interpreted as meaning "bring an old sheet," but which a good deal of the other festival-goers read as "set up a shanty town."

Seriousy, some of these people had everything: pop-up shelters, lawn chairs, coolers. Some people brought their own activities like a Frisbee or a football. We even saw a bocce ball set and, at the camp next to ours, a freaking bean bag toss.

We may not have had all that, but we were still comfy and relaxed.

While the Sublime cover band gave a sluggish performance on stage, we made our way through our first few beers. I decided to try all of them. So I started off with Shock Top, then moved on to Summer Ale (my favorite), then pear cider, then some kind of Hefeweizen...And then, I'll be honest, I sort of lost track.

Also once I realized I'd made it to my 6th beer I stopped counting. I wish I'd done what the folks at a nearby compound did and amassed an impressive stack to keep a tally.

But I was trying to be all environmentally conscious, so I'd approach the beer tents with my empty cup and ask for a refill. None of the event staff seemed to like this touch and I think I gave up on that after a few dirty looks.

The second best part of the day was the food. There were so many trucks to choose from, though I decided to stay away from Tastymeat and The Greasy Weiner. I think the best truck name was Crepe'n Around, because it was hilarious to say with a botched French accent.

Here's a run down of the food we sampled:

First there was Don Chow's mexican-chinese food. I had a ridiculously delicious soy-ginger tofu burrito. Only $5!

Then there was Frysmith, where I sampled the veggie chilli fries and Devin had Raja's Fries, a dish that claimed to have french fries but looked like a giant bowl of steak. Each fry platter was $4-$6. Where are the pictures? Oh yeah, we ate everything before I could get the camera.

Next up was a $4 banana nutella crepe from Crepe'n Around. Again, devoured by the group before I could snap a picture.

Lastly, there were a variety of dumplings from the Dim Sum Truck. Each $2-$3. While powering through this bunch of food I managed to get a quick picture, but as you can see, we'd already had most of it. Whoops.

I really wish I'd had more to eat, and with the prices and variety I could have! Darn it. Missed opportunity.

As for the music, most of the cover bands were pretty decent, though I couldn't bother to get my lazy, beer-bloated self off the blanket and up front to check them out.

Here's a picture from our vantage point of Paperback Writer, the Beatles tribute band in their brightly colored Sgt. Pepper costumes.

When The Who's tribute band made their way to stage, I had to get up front to take a look because there seemed to be a great deal of microphone and drumstick choreography happening. Also, I needed to get a better look at this magnificent fringed vest.

While Becca and I made our way through the maze of lawn chairs and toward the standing crowd at the front, she remarked, "It's like a while different world up here!" And she was right! This whole time we'd been sitting in the land of 40-somethings who were chatting and mom-dancing. But meanwhile, up by the stage there were severely drunk 40-somethings singing at the top of their lungs with such enthusiasm you'd think the actual Roger Daltry was shimmying around up there. One very enthused gentleman would punch the air and yell "Come on! Yeah!" every time fake Keith Moon hit the cymbals. It was hard not to have a serious amount of fun standing up front.

And at the end of the night, that's exactly where I found myself for Wanted, the Bon Jovi tribute. Although I could care less about actual Bon Jovi on any given day, I was seriously jazzed about rocking out to some Bon Jovi covers.

And they didn't disappoint. They also managed to draw to the front all of the festival attendees in my age group. We were a minority, but a very excitable one!

Devin was fist pumping.

And here I am, apparently singing into Becca's face.

Throughout the day I kept saying aloud, Why isn't everything this well done? Good cheap food, good cheap beer, clean bathrooms. Even the usually-surly event security were friendly and seemed to let people just do whatever they wanted. "You can't smoke here. Well, actually, go ahead whatever." While the name Tributefest was meant to reflect the line up of tribute bands, I like to think of it as really a tribute to festivals. Lounging around in the sunshine and fresh air, listening to good music and drinking cold beer out of plastic cups.

How to Try To Make White Sangria -or- A Very Poorly Photographed Housewarming Party

2010-04-27T09:16:00.000-07:00

For as long as we've been getting settled in the new house, I've been planning our housewarming party. I was highly motivated by the knowledge that on the horizon was an event where people would come over to our house, wander through its rooms and offer praise.

With the date of the party set for this past Saturday, I spent much of the last 2 weeks scrambling to finish the remaining projects in the house, namely trying to turn the second bathroom into something I would stop calling "the ugly bathroom." I succeeded in doing so, by the way, but I've neglected to take pictures of it.

In fact, a lack of pictures will be the theme of this post. I did have my camera out and about for the duration of the party, but it spent most of that time sitting on the table. I can't even say I had a good excuse like "I was busy cooking" because I wasn't and, in fact, through most of the day the kitchen was filled with men, frying bacon and slathering bbq sauce on various meats that were then sent outside to the grill. I'd gotten my share of the food prep completed before the guests arrived. I baked chocolate chips cookies, jalapeno cheddar corn bread, and made my first ever attempt at macaroni and cheese.

Oh, and the night before the party I made some jugs of white sangria. And I managed to take plenty of pictures of that process, so allow me to present you with a sangria (trial and error) tutorial.

I've made traditional (red) sangria a number of times; the most notable and sizable batch was the one I prepared for my wedding and it was a big hit at the reception. Not wanting to be the woman who makes sangria for every single party (replace "sangria" with "margaritas" and you have me 2 summers ago), I decided to try making something new.

Oh, hey, what about the same thing but with different wine and slightly different fruits? Sure!

I printed out Rachael Ray's white sangria recipe, decided to quadruple it, and went to the grocery store to buy ingredients during my lunch break on Friday.

• 3 tablespoons sugar
• 3 shots Calvados or other apple liquor
• 1 lime, sliced
• 1 lemon, sliced
• 2 ripe peaches, cut into wedges
• 3 ripe green apples seeded and cut into wedges
• 1 bottle white Rioja Spanish wine or other dry white wine
• 1 pint raspberries
• Sparkling soda water, for topping off glasses of sangria at table

At the store, I paced up and down the wine aisles, unable to find Rioja Spanish wine. So I was forced to make my first of many substitutions. I bought two 1.5 liter bottles of Chardonnay and hoped for the best.

Moving onto the liquor section, I didn't find Calvados. I hadn't actually ever seen a bottle of this stuff before, so I examined the labels closely. But no, no dice. Again, I'd have to make a substitution. This one bothered me even more because instead of purchasing Calvados French apple brandy, I'd be forced to use... DeKuyper's Apple Pucker, a product with a cartoon drawing of green lips on its label.

And I wasn't going to fair much better in the produce section. After pushing my cart in circles for a few minutes, no peaches in sight, I flagged down a store employee who was restocking some vegetables. I asked him where I could find the peaches and he pointed out that they were not yet in season. SO not in season, in fact, that they didn't even have some over priced imported ones from South America or something. No, no peaches whatsoever. I gathered up my lemons, limes and green apples. Then decided to make up for the lack of peaches with grapes instead. Sure, why not?

Then, since I was clearly just inventing an all new recipe at this point, I decided to buy canned peaches and use some of the syrup to flavor the drink. And to forgo the fresh raspberries, and opt for frozen ones. I pictured them working as yummy little ice cubes.

With my motley crew of ingredients assembled, I set to work preparing the pitchers that evening. Fortunately I had the help and encouragement from Devin's mom, Kathy, who was certain everything was going to turn out just fine. I had two pitchers so my plan was to double the recipe for each.

I began by mixing the wine with the sugar and the (sigh) apple pucker. Alarmingly, the whole thing turned Ecto-Cooler green. Classy.

Next we threw in the fruit. The recipe called for 3 apples, which meant I'd need to add 6, but that seemed like entirely too many apples. I think I wound up only using 2. Then I dumped in half the large can of peaches and about half of the available syrup. 2 lemons, 2 limes, a large bunch of grapes, sliced in halves.

I stirred it all together then poured some into a glass to sample. It tasted...well.. wrong. Kathy tasted it and, trying to stay positive, paused for thought then said, "Oh, um, it's nice. Well, it's tart. Maybe it's supposed to be." Devin wandered in at just that moment. I pushed the glass in his direction and, for some reason, he recoiled in horror. "Why won't you taste it!?"
After an unnecessary protest, he tried it, made a face and said something like "Well if that's your kinda thing."

Okay, great. So then I dumped in some more sugar and even more apple pucker. For those of you keeping score at home, I think we're up to about 9 tablespoons of sugar and 8 or 9 shots of apple pucker. The whole thing still tasted too tart but I gave up, and put it in the fridge, hoping the fruit would sweeten it over night. Then I set to work on the next disastrous batch.

When it came time for the party, I set out one of the pitchers along with cups, club soda, and the raspberry garnishes. The frozen raspberries didn't really work as I'd planned, since they come out of their package congealed into a frozen brick, and not as individual, delightful little berries like I'd hoped.

As for the sangria, unfortunately it wasn't that much sweeter than the night before so I tossed in even more apple pucker.

Even though I'm not totally sold on the outcome of this concoction, I will say that we made our way through both pitchers in a matter of hours. So clearly it was more refreshing than I'd thought. I don't know if I'll attempt this again, but now you have the how-to, in case you're ever in the mood to give it a shot.

Now to wrap things up with 2 more pictures. First, my flea market mirror in its new home in the living room, dressed up with flowers for the party.

Then, a picture of the party at night. Since this is blurry, and the only picture I have, allow me to explain what you're looking at.

- The last few guests. Most people left at about 5:30 or 6. Oddly enough their departure coincided with the first few rounds of karaoke. Weird, right? (Remind me to tell you more about my karaoke machine some time.)
- Devin's father and Ryan are playing guitar and singing.
- New fabulous lanterns illuminating the backyard. They were hung with love and care that very morning by Devin and his mother.

That was just the first of the summer barbecue series. In the months to come perhaps there will be more drink experiments, more karaoke, and (if I get my act together) more pictures.

Infrared Body Wraps

2010-04-20T10:02:00.000-07:00

Having lived in L.A. for a number of years, I've heard of just about every kind of treatment and holistic remedy for weight, skin, pain, whatever. So when a coworker, in a fit of pre-wedding pampering and preparation, told me she'd been getting regular infrared body wraps, I barely batted an eyelash. These treatments, done at spas and tanning salons, involve little more than being wrapped up in silicone strips, which heat up, and over the course of a 50 minute session, increase circulation, decrease water weight, relax muscles and burn calories.

While I was intrigued, the nearly $100 per session fee pretty much guaranteed I would never give it a shot.

But then Groupon, which I love love love, advertised a special of only $25 for one session at On The Beach in Toluca Lake. For $25 would I wrap myself up like a sweaty burrito? Heck yeah! And because I'm now roping Devin into all of my experiments, I bought him a session too.

So on Sunday morning we made our way to the salon for our back to back sessions. It was decided Devin would go first, and so he was provided with a navy blue sweatsuit to change into. The outfit made him look very cozy, and also sort of like he was in a cult.

Then Logan, the very helpful and very friendly woman working there, strapped Devin in. I was relieved to find there were only a few bands involved, and that the bands weren't also attached to the bed. I'd sort of envisioned being covered from neck to ankle, unable to move, but as it turns out there was just one around each thigh, around the butt, waist, and both arms.

While getting Devin set up, Logan explained some of the benefits and mentioned that we'd burn 900-1200 calories. This pleased me because just that very morning I'd been fretting over the discovery that although I've been running 20 miles a week, I appear to be getting somehow flabbier. [My whole life older women have always warned me that one day, suddenly, my metabolism would grind to a halt, I'd lose all muscle mass, and that I would have to go to Curves and never so much as look at a french fry and be on Weight Watchers until I died. I've recently wondered if, at 27, I've finally landed on the other side of that fence.]

Leaving Devin to roast, I walked down the street to Coffee Bean to work on my laptop and judge all of the other people working on their laptops. When I returned, I peered into Devin's room.
"How you doing in here?"
"I'm ready to be done."
"Well that doesn't sound enjoyable. Did you find anything to watch on TV?" I gestured to the small television mounted near the ceiling, hospital room style.
"It only gets local channels. I've been watching Power Rangers."

Now that I was far less enthused about the whole process, it was my turn. I changed into my gray sweatsuit and lay awkwardly on the bed while I was wrapped up. The bands were still warm from Devin's session and I was informed that overall I'd experience more heat than him since they hadn't had a chance to cool. "But that means more benefits," I was reassured. Huzzah! Say goodbye, recently discovered fat over my shoulder blades.

For the first 10 minutes the warmth was relaxing, like a nice bath. I felt sleepy. Minutes 10-20 went by incredibly slowly and I soon grew restless. Oh, and hot. Really hot. Trying to take my mind off the toastiness, I shifted my attention between the Spanish language infomercial on the TV and the novel I'd brought, but which I couldn't really hold at a suitable angle for reading anything on the lower half of the page. With about 15 minutes remaining, I felt like my butt was burning. I called Logan in and said I could put up with it as long as there wasn't really a risk of burning myself. She assured me this would not happen, but adjusted the strap anyway. This helped. I thought about how, even if I had the potential to burn 1200 calories, sweating away in this room was harder than the 7 mile run I'd completed the day before.

Then Devin appeared.
"How is it?"
"I'm ready to be done."
"Yeah."

As you can tell from this picture, I'm having a blast. Also, point of note, this may be just about the worst possible angle to have one's picture taken.

By the time the whole thing was over I felt calm, sleepy and light. I can't say for sure that I noticed any other results, and no one promised that I would without completing multiple sessions, but I like to pretend that it flattened my stomach.

In conclusion, not really my cup of tea. I could actually see committing to it if, like my coworker, I was prepping for The Big Day. But since I've got nothing on the horizon but getting older and fatter, I might as well save my money for the impending membership to Curves.

The Pasadena Flea Market

2010-04-12T09:57:00.000-07:00

Devin and I discovered our love for flea markets in December. Desperate for unique Christmas gifts and running out of time, we visited the weekly flea market at Fairfax High School. Initially, we were overwhelmed by the size and variety. But soon we were sucked in. I rummaged around through boxes of costume jewelry and old postcards. I walked through the tents of vintage clothing, wishing I had the imagination and patience to be the sort of person who could support such a wardrobe. Devin took a liking to any and all hideous items that he could proudly display in our home. Because we were on a mission for gifts, we denied ourselves, stayed focused and promised to return on a selfish pilgrimage on a later date.

When I heard the Pasadena Flea Market was several times more massive than the one at Fairfax, I knew I'd have to see it. The catch is that this event only happens once a month, and for the last 6 months I've managed to forget to make a note of the correct date so have consistently missed out.

Then this weekend, while my friend Shannon was visiting, the stars finally aligned. It was Saturday and we were sipping Bloody Marys in the living room while we both yammered on about our decorating endeavors --she's also recently moved into a new place-- and I mentioned that the blank space on the wall by the door is where I would put a cool antique mirror, whenever I got around to finding one at a flea market. The Pasadena Flea Market came up, prompting me to get online and see when the next one would be hold and lo! it was scheduled for the following morning. We made plans to get up early and head over.

On Sunday I woke up at 9, then 9:30, then 10:15. By 11:15 Devin, Shannon and I were finally leaving the house. By 11:45, we'd managed to go to the bank for cash and Starbucks for caffeine boost. I was fully aware that flea markets are the sort of events one is meant to wake up early to attend, but I simply could not see the urgency. It isn't as though the vendors would be selling iPads or Justin Bieber concert tickets. There would certainly be a million random knick knacks and I sincerely doubted that any 2 people would possibly want the same one.

As we arrived at the Rose Bowl (only a 5 minute drive), I realized why arriving early would have been beneficial: the parking lot was a madhouse. We drove and drove and drove. Finally, we arrived at an outer lawn, where a series of attendants in orange vests directed us into one of the dozen remaining spots.

It was a chilly, cloudy day, but that didn't seem to deter the crowds. Once we made our way through the front entrance I processed the enormity of the market. We'd be lucky to make it through 1/4 of it in the hours before it closed. After about 5 minutes, the 3 of us succeeded in losing one another, and the rest of the day would be like herding ants. No one wanted to look at the same things or stay in the same place for the same length of time.

After snaking our way through the first chunk of vendor booths, I had yet to find the cool mirror of my dreams. Devin, on the other hand, had managed to buy a bedazzled LA Dodgers belt buckle, a creepy doll wearing a hat (torso only, legs missing), a giant pipe made out of a log, and this terrible guitar lamp.

Because the guest room/office is essentially his room to outfit however he pleases, I didn't put up too much resistance to his items. I made faces and sighed a great deal, but that's about it. I wonder, however, what will happen if, in the future, we do not have a spare room. These things will certainly not make their way into the main living area, so I suppose we'll have to open our own booth at a flea market and sell this all back.

Anyway, then it was time for a snack break. Shannon and Devin grabbed hot dogs. There didn't appear to be anything meatless in sight, so I was SOL.

Soon after, Devin got a call that he needed to head home and do something for work, so his shopping spree was cut short. He agreed to come back and retrieve me and Shannon at closing time and so I helped Devin carry his bounty out to the parking lot. Of course, in our earlier excitement to have finally parked we didn't take note of where we'd wound up and so wandered around for some time looking for the car. Eventually I found it, but had since lost Devin. I called out for him, but there was no answer. Thankfully he was carrying the guitar lamp so I was able to locate him by the lampshade bopping its way through the maze of cars.

Right after Devin left, it became clear that it would rain at any minute, and that we were now trapped at the flea market with no transportation and no immediate shelter. To make matters worse, vendors began packing up their wares to protect them from the drizzle, so finding what I'd came for became even more difficult.

With about 30 minutes to closing time, I encountered a vendor who sold old window frames that he'd transformed into mirrors. I gave them a once over, but didn't commit. I walked away, then came back. Away, then back again. At last, I concluded my repeated returns must be a sign that I was a fan and so I impressed myself by bargaining, and got the window/mirror for a lower price.

Here I am posing with it, while freezing my butt off and eating greasy egg rolls.

All in all, a successful adventure. I fully intend on going back to the flea market next month. I feel like I barely scratched the surface and there are so many peculiar gems just waiting to be discovered.

If You Can't Stand The Heat, Get Out Of The Kitchen, and Stop Reading The Nest

2010-04-05T15:16:00.001-07:00

At some point, without my knowledge, I wound up subscribed to The Nest's email list. I suppose it had something to do with my membership to The Knot's website, during the first two weeks of my engagement, before I realized that I absolutely hated the site and wanted nothing to do with it. The people who run The Knot (a site for wedding planning) also run The Nest (a site for Newlyweds settling into their new home and lifestyle), and also The Bump (a site for --you guessed it -- pregnancy). I suppose next comes The Minivan, followed by The Hot Flash, and lastly The Grave.

The whole thing just gives me anxiety.

Anyway, so a few times a week I get these emails with presumptuous subject lines like "Spice Up Your Sex Life" and "Is Baby On The Brain?" I should just unsubscribe but I have to admit the sincerity of these articles makes me giggle. Case in point, an excerpt from today's article "Is Your Guy Masturbating Too Much?"

"Lately, everywhere we turn, there's another article warning us about the dangers of too much masturbation. Ever worry about playing second fiddle to your man's solo missions? Maybe you should."

I mean, REALLY.

Call me old fashioned, but my idea of nesting involves decorating, reorganizing, and cooking. And since we've moved I've done just about all the nesting I can, short of actually fashioning a shelter from twigs.

But for most of this time, the kitchen has been off limits due to ongoing (and seemingly endless) renovations. When we first looked at the place, the owners told us they were behind on their plans to redo the kitchen, and were somewhat apologetic about its current state. Looking around the room as she said this, I wasn't sure quite why they were going to bother remodeling, but I wasn't about to talk myself out of a brand new kitchen.

When it came time for us to move in weeks later, the kitchen was still not complete. In fact, we didn't have countertops. There were cabinets (nice new ones!), but no countertops. Just holes. I'm sure I don't need to tell you how impossible it is to prepare a meal without, um, a surface. Additional kitchen renovations included a new sink, electrical work and tiles.

And now, everything is complete. Saturday was a thrilling day in my nest because I could finally put the kitchen and all of my snazzy cooking and baking supplies (wedding gifts that had yet to see the light of day) to good use!

Also, I got to wear my cat apron.

I started off by making a pineapple upside down cake to bring with me to Easter brunch. Okay, to be accurate, I started off by sending Devin to the store to fetch me the right kind of pineapple because I'd some how bought crushed instead of sliced. THEN I made a cake. Normally I can follow any recipe and get a relatively perfect product. So I was surprised when half way through baking I peered into the oven to see the cake about to overflow from the pan, nearly burnt but still entirely wobbly in the center. Worried, I called my mother, who'd just given me the recipe hours earlier and now sounded a bit exhausted by my unnecessary panic.

In the end, the cake turned out just fine. While flipping it out of the pan for the "upside down" part I sort of missed my mark and so you can see it's not exactly centered.

While the cake cooled, I moved onto dinner. My mom's celebrated pasta salad, with tomatoes, brocolli, mozzarella and olives.

And then a green salad that I made up from, coincidentally, small veggies: micro greens, baby greens and those little Persian cucumbers.

Devin was delighted --and a little perplexed-- by my culinary adventures.

The rest of the weekend was all about going out -- date night, a birthday party at a bar, Easter brunch. But I have to say, the highlight was the time spent alone, zen-like, cooking (and drinking wine) in the kitchen.

One Foot In Front Of The Other

2010-03-29T20:49:00.000-07:00

Those of you who've followed me over here from Hollywood Sucker (all 8 of you) might recall that I have an on and off love affair with running. I've always imagined that I am the sort of person who runs great distances with great ease, but my attempts to go from fantasy to reality have always fallen short. A while back I set out to run a half marathon, training with a charity organization to raise money. But long before race day I became irritated with the charity and quit, only to regroup and instead run a 10k a few months later. Unfortunately I didn't keep the momentum going, and by that summer I opted out of the 15k I'd planned to run, instead running the 5k option. Just when I thought I couldn't let myself down any more, I tried to run a 5k again about 5 months later (having failed to exercise in any way for a very long time) and thought I was going to die.

I wondered if perhaps I just wasn't cut out for such a hobby. Yet in spite of my own failures, I'd some how managed to inspire my mother to start running. Now she's running 3 miles a day, as skinny as I've ever seen her, and repeatedly running races --often winning them in her age group.

Her success and energy made me realize I needed to give this dream of mine one more chance. And 2 months after that realization, I actually got started. So I dug up the nike+ for my iPod that Devin bought me, ordered myself a brand new pair of Nikes, and went to Target to stock up on clothes to make me look like a real runner.

Then, because I'm clearly obsessed with Nike, I signed up for a training program through their website. Every week I get a new schedule that tells me how far I have to run on each day, and when I get much appreciated days off.

I started out running 3 miles, then I was up to 4, then 5, and this passed Saturday I ran 6 miles. 6 whole miles! And I have no idea if it's my determination or my fancy new wardrobe, but it isn't even that difficult. And for some crazy reason I actually look forward to waking up at 7 to run 5 miles before going to work.

Now, like anyone who's recently jumped into a new hobby, I'm becoming really annoying. Ask me what I've been up to lately, and I just might tell you. I've been running. Yaddi yadda, yaddi yadda. I can't imagine how fed up my friends are going to get. (Though it can't be as bad as my wedding planning verbal diarrhea.)

I tried to avoid overextending myself when setting new running goals, but I've already outlined a plan to re-try the 15k this summer, then run a half marathon in October, and then by next March, the LA marathon. Yes, I said it. The marathon! Who knows if I'll ever get that far, but I like to think it's possible.

And just for a bonus, I'll include the little Nike avatar I made of myself. I don't know... I just think she's snazzy.

The Random Roundup

2010-03-23T21:12:00.000-07:00

I'll start off this mish-mash of a post by going back a week to St. Patrick's Day. You've already forgotten all about it, haven't you? And that's because it's a day with much promise and little payoff. I've had 2 good St. Patrick's Days in my life. Once, my senior of college, when everyone skipped class and spent the entire day drinking green beer at a bar. The last thing I remember is getting into a cab to go home (it was still daylight), then ordering Chinese food with my 5 roommates, before we all passed out in the living room. The second instance was a few years ago, when the holiday fell on a Saturday, and Devin and I held a St. Patrick's Day bbq of epic proportions.

Since then I've been chasing the dragon. Last year I wound up waiting in line for about 20 minutes to get into an insanely packed bar, where my one and only beer was ruined by some little floosy with a bottle of green food coloring. Then we bailed and went to a second bar, which seemed to have been some private function with 50 empty bottles of booze and a cover band singing Randy Newman's "I Love L.A." By the time we got to the third bar I just wanted to go to bed, but I already felt like enough of a failure so I forced myself to stay out til 1am.

As you can imagine, I didn't have high hopes for this year. So when I arrived early at the bar where I was to meet friends and discovered it was full of middle-aged couples eating corned beef sandwiches on tables with green paper table cloths, I wasn't hugely surprised. While waiting for my sister and Becca to meet me, I wandered a block east to The Snug, the scene of the previous year's cramped, green food coloring madness.

Since it was still early, there was no line. Inside I found the usual scene, but then discovered that the back door was open and it led to a giant beer tent filled with people in charming green outfits. Could it be? Was I to have a successful St. Patrick's Day at last?!

Yes! Look I even had a Guinness.

Ok, to be honest, we only had 2 beers a piece and spent the better part of the second one standing near the jukebox debating if going out to bars is even fun any more. But that isn't the point.

In other news, it's fun getting to know the new neighborhood. I've got a list of necessary places to locate. Where's my Starbucks? My gym? My Trader Joes? My weekend breakfast place? On Saturday, Devin, my sister and I went to find my go-to Mexican restaurant.

And we may have found it at El Portal. The food was tasty, the margaritas were giant, and the service was lovely (if a little awkward and overabundant).

Then on Sunday we found another key item on the list: the local dog park. A giant stretch of dying grass, full of big friendly dogs.

I may have been the only dog-mom with a camera, but I can't help myself. He's just so photogenic!

My Windows Get A Makeover (Hey! I want one too!)

2010-03-17T13:36:00.000-07:00

Have your weekends felt a little too relaxing lately? Well then I suggest you try hanging new curtains. Spend the entirety of your Sunday afternoon on a stepladder!

I don't care for white vertical blinds (really, who does?), but I can usually tolerate them if it means saving the money and time it takes to replace them. But our new house came with floor-length vertical blinds, which were driving me particularly crazy and needed to be removed as soon as possible.

So new window treatments made it to the top of my list of home projects.

The first thing that went wrong is that I only found ONE kind of curtain that I liked. It turns out the world is simply overrun with velour, olive and gold curtains. Bed, Bath and Beyond finally came through with a nice normal taupe linen.

The second thing that went wrong is that I didn't really do the math in my head. You see, each panel is sold separately, and I'd need at least 6 panels to cover all of the windows in the living room. And then I'd need to buy 5 sets of curtain rods. And, well, several hundred dollars later, Devin wasn't speaking to me.

Realizing that we could've treated ourselves to a fun weekend in Vegas for the price of these practical window treatments, I decided to return all of the curtain rods and attempt to find something cheaper. But I simply had to keep the curtains because, as I mentioned, they were the only acceptable ones on the planet.

At the advice of my sister, I went to Big Lots to see what they had to offer. I wound up buying the rods there, and saved $200! Sounds great, right?

Well you haven't seen what I wound up with.

I know, fugly. Of the two, Devin hated the leaf version more. I actually preferred them. They made me think of a hotel room at Caesar's Palace. However, I had no intention of keeping either of these little end pieces.

So I set to work taking down the blinds, a task that involved a great deal of swearing and clanking around, none of which provoked even the slightest response from Devin, who was rendered mute and immobile by season 3 of Lost from Netflix. Next, I opened each of the packages of single-wrapped curtains to discover the contents were severely wrinkled and creased. Having already been at work on the curtain project for nearly 2 hours, I was tempted to just hang them as they were and allow gravity to eventually (maybe) remove the wrinkles. But then I could just hear my mother saying, "Oh come on, give them a quick iron. It'll take 2 minutes and they'll look so much better!" Fine, Mom. You win.

And to snazz up this post I even had Devin take action shots of me ironing. See what I do for you people?

An hour and a half (yes, really) later, the ironing was complete.

And so I hung the curtains, realized I'd put the wall mounts too close to the ceiling, took the curtains down, moved the wall mounts, hung the curtains again and...

voila!

Ok, in the interest of full disclosure I should tell you that the curtain rods look a little lame without end thingies and so I still need to solve that problem. But otherwise, much better, no?

One of my domestic dreams is to put an antique round table in the center of a big front window like this. And on that wood table I will put a single vase of fresh cut flowers that I'll change out weekly, and that will be purchased from a local market where the florist knows me by name and says things like "I saved this bouquet of tulips just for you!"

But for now that dream will have to wait because we already plopped the dog bed there and Seamus seems really comfy.