starting with the me in the mirror

i'm starting the body for life challenge tomorrow!

omg. i already took my fat "before" pics and i'm so excited to see if i can actually stick to this long enough to see visible results.

wish me luck, and LUCK.

~~

in other news..

went to breadbar last night to sample "ludo bites." my friend jen is good friends with ludo's wife so I met her there and a few of her friends. sadly, aaron couldn't join us, but i brought him a little treat home and he died a thousand duck fat deaths over it.


anyway, i can't even do it justice in words, it was so much yum. ludo was on top chef masters a few nights ago (crazy french guy) and after watching i was super excited to check it out. and, well, anyway, yum.


ludo bites menu


so.. we tried the following:

heirloom tomato salad red onions feta mousse oregano
king red salmon cubes watermelon mint orange confit seasme oil
shrimp sweet and sour emulsion rosemary*
pork belly pea wasabi passion fruits soy sauce
creamy polenta cantal cheese and oxtail beef
fried chicken in duck fat herns de provence*
marinated grilled hanger steak kobe style yuzu radish white asparagus
cod spiced butter fresh porcini fresh almonds tonnato style
chocolate mousse ganache chantilly*



*the shrimp, fried chicken and chocolate mousse were amazing. everything was great, but those were AMAZING. breadbar doesn't have a liqour license so it was bring your own wine and we indulged in some trader's joes sauv blancs just to balance out the decadence of the french french french food. so so good.

anyway, i think he's there until august so if you have the chance, check it out!!

~~

this weekend is shaping up to be another awesome downtown weekend, complete with rooftop jacuzzi and pool parties and bar hopping adventures. woot.

~~

in reflection of all of the michael jackson madness, i am experiencing extreme nostalgia for a person who USED to bring me so much happiness. i vividly remember purchasing the thriller album and bringing it with me to show & tell and being so obsessed with MJ. i loved making up dances to billie jean and beat it, just like everyone.

over the years i still had mad love, but as his skin colored changed and his actions became more and more bizzarre, i lost respect and came to see him as a shallow, frail shell of himself. and, frankly, for many years, he horrified and disgusted me. but there was always a shroud of mystery, and there was always hope that someday he would get better. i never really wanted to believe he did what they said he did. but he made it nearly impossible not to.

i had the opportunity to visit neverland ranch when he opened it to the public to raise money years ago, and i was stunned by the numerous statues of naked children, and was equally amused and horrified by the alluring nature of all of the whimsical attractions that existed to titillate the desires of young children. ice cream stands, candy dispensers, rides, animals, train that toured the ground. but then there was sad, haunting music coming from the speakers that echoed through the vast empty estate. it was surreal. and it made my heart hurt. for him, for anyone who had been traumtized by his behaviors. the night ended with a weird onstage birthday cake fight between michael jackson, mike tyson and aaron and nick carter. i'll never forget the fans that were CRYING a thousand tears when he threw cake into the crowd and THEY CAUGHT IT. it was like jesus himself had just tossed them wine he had just created from water. truly a sight to behold.



and now as i look back, i feel so sorry for him. the michael jackson that I loved died so long ago. but it's true, the memories i have of how his music affected me growing up will never change. i hope he's resting, finally, in peace.

spicy spicy sweet sweet

before we get started here, let's just put it out there that i ate some REALLY FREAKING HOT SPICY GREEN CURRY just a bit ago and for some moments while i was shoveling it into my piehole, my nose was super, super runny and my throat sort of almost totally closed up a bit due to the XTREME nature of the spicy spice and it was ONLY THEN, that i took pause and thought about the chances that someone could DIE from curry asphyxiation.



what do you think, possible? not possible?



and after i paused, i continued shoveling. because that's just how i do. that's what happens when you subsist on PURE ADRENALINE that you acquired to due the successful nature of your early morning client meeting (wherein your stomach was purring, nay, GROWLING) and then when you get back into the office, you realize that you will be jumping on a conference call RIGHT WHEN rainbow gourmet* shows up in the lobby, and since you didn't plan ahead, you will hear the hunger growls getting louder and then you will be using up all your remaining brain power to formulate intelligent-sounding strings of words that include such words as "preclude" and "amortize" and "metrics" and so on and so forth and you will chuckle to yourself because you will think, hey! is that ME talking? i almost sound SMART. and then the call will end and you will stare at the computer screen. blankly.



but then you will pull it together and order some food and then it will arrive and then you will shovel it and then you will die.





in other news, i am having an internal debate with myself about what i should do tonight: explore the artwalk or watch the lakers game. so far, i think it's going to end up being a hybrid. but i think the night MAY end up at loftseven which is a rooftop with some art and most importantly, a hosted bar and that party rocks well past the regular artwalk hours until midnight o'clock. everything else shuts down at 9ish, which is probably when the lakers game will end. see? it's a dilemma, kinda. because i could just go meet some friends and brave some of the streets by my lonesome, or i could wait for aaron. because that man is a LAKERS WHORE.



anyway.



i have tomorrow off and we are thinking about going to california adventure and using the flip side of our twofer tickets. see, we went to disneyland one day, and we can go to calif adventure another, but it expires next weekend!! zoinks! so we might just zip on over, take a twirl on the TOWER OF TERROR and then zip on back, lickety split.



oh ! before i forget. coolest thing- the wine bar on the corner has implemented a "test kitchen tuesday" wherein they sell potential menu items for $2 to brave testers. this week it was crab cakes and it was the best $2 i ever spent. plus, then, the bartender served us up a bunch of free samples of wines she was going to dump. it was pretty much: SWEET.



this weekend we have the following items on the docket:



- 60-minute massages

- rooftop / poolside yoga

- rooftop / poolside bbq

- exploration of little tokyo

- sushi?

- run

- swim

- california adventure

- hangover: the movie

- hangover: the ruby

- sleep

- sweet sleep







cheers!~







* rainbow gourmet is like, the dude who shows up in our lobby every day with an assortment of breakfast and lunch meals and snacks for sale. rainbow gourmet makes a chinese chicken salad with a dressing that has STRAIGHT UP CRACK in it because i am like a FIEND, a FIEND I SAY and i die when i can't have it because i'm addicted to crack.



which reminds me! i used to have a friend name janine (in junior high, mindya) and we called her JANINE, JANINE THE DICK FIEND. haha. nice friends we were.

oh, you know.

ro recap may 5- may 20 and beyond...





may 5-9

josh and jesse came to town and we went to:











&











may 10-14



then, we had a little break and then I:

























may 15-17

then! my parents came to town and then it was:

may 18-20

then! my sisters & nieces joined the party and then it was:







&











and then they all left yesterday.





in the midst of all this, i also









i am counting down the moments to the long weekend where i will:















then! on tuesday i leave for







for a week.







mercy.

crack

i don't know if the mini sirloin burger commercial in my previous post is running nationally? but if you haven't seen it? please watch. it's my flavorite commercial, almost, like, ever. it's highly addicting though. BE WARNED.

my favorite part is that aaron sings "minnesota" instead of "mini sirloin." hilarious, hilarious stuff. the commercial airs pretty much non-stop these days. and every single time, i stop what i'm doing and sing along. freaking brilliant.


anyway.


so remember gerald, my "trainer?" well it turns out once i signed up he's passing me off to some "dimitri" character. DIMITRI? really. i have my first session this friday at the ungodly hour of 7am. which means i am up at 6am to prepare and walk over there. GERSH! MERGH! WHAT THE! NARDS!

should be fun, i bet you can't wait to hear all about it.


here's the upcoming plans for the weekend and beyond. it's going to get loco up in our crib, ya'll.


thursday: aaron's momma in town for a night, crashing at our place
saturday: cooking dinner for heather & brian, crashing at our place? (if we feed them enough alcohol!)
sunday: sarah b. is coming to town for a night, from NYC, crashing at our place
tuesday: josh & jesse arrive from MN, LUCHA VA VOOM is on the menu for cinco de mayo, crashing at our place until.... saturday? i think? in addition to the LUCHA MADNESS they will be attending the lebowski fest and generally getting into some shenanigans.

then! a week after that! my mom and stepdad will be in town along with my sister and my nieces! we're going to disneyland! and other assorted tomfoolery will ensue.

yippee kay yay! MINNESOTA BURGERSSSS!

Minnesota BURGERSSSS!

like donkey kong!

after that last entry you would think that by now i would have signed in blood on the dotted line with gerald to ensure that i would be in rooftop pool & jacuzzi shape, like pronto.



but alas, n'yet. i don't know what is holding me back. scurred, prolly.



the good news is that downtown living has forced me to walk all the time. walk the dogs, walk to the happy hour place, walk to another happy place, walk to the gym (concept!), walk to the grocery store, walk up and down the stairs in our unit, walk to the parking structure and on and on it goes.



then, mostly, i have been checking in with my mii. we've lost 2lbs since we were first introduced last friday, so heyo, success. my goal is 2 lbs a week for 5 weeks(of pure unadulterated fat) and then we will work on adding some muscle mass back into the mix. additionally, i have been sort of put on calorie restrictions on the suggestion of my trainer and this is my first day and i am DYING OF THE HUNGER. Mostly, because today I have consumed the following:



crab leg eggwhite omelet surprise = 160 cals

chicken fiesta healthy choice meal = 230 cals



TOTAL = 390 cals. I still "get" to have 800 more cals, but I was supposed to have broken my meals into five sort of equally sized portions and eaten them throughout the day... and, well, yeah. not so much.



BORING!



i moreso want to talk about how FUN it is to live downtown during the LAKERS PLAYOFFS. and i'm not even a basketball fan, but it's still fun to get caught up in the excitement of the crowds of people wearing their laker colors loudly and proudly.



we walked over to LA LIVE last night for happy hour #1 at rock'n fish. consumed: one glass chardonnay, shrimp cocktail, crab cake, spicy tuna roll. then we headed over to magnolia for happy hour #2 consumed: two glasses of chardonnay, pita & hummus, chicken satay



it was fun!



then we walked home with not enough food (believe it or not) to balance the wines and then so i had fake crab legs (mmm fish protein) and watched harper's island with a nice little buzz.



before i forget, i want to recap my weekend:



thursday - dodger game with co-workers

friday - stayed in, hooked up the wii fit, WENT TO TOWN

saturday - dinner at panini cafe, free wine, fun times

sunday - drinks @ corkbar with jason & kadee @ 5p, returned home for dinner; drinks @ corkbar with Luis & Mariana @ 8p



fun weekend!!





tonight liana & tal are probably going to stop by to see the new digs and MAYBE you will see me at the gym later on, working on my fitness and steaming the hell out of my pores.



latersssss.

wiiiiiiii

on friday night, approximately 42 days after receiving the little gem for my birthday, we FINALLY hooked up the mutha effin wii and! wii fit!! and went to TOWN on that bad boy.

oh em gee, i'm in love.

i've already, like, played with the wii and the wii fit at various other people's houses, but there's something pretty awesome about creating your mii and having the luxury of checking in on it every day. hey there, little mii, are you getting any less fat? i heart you little mii!!!

then, on saturday i had my first (real life) training session at my new gym. the first session is free so they can make you feel fat and make you feel like you HAVE to buy 8 million of their proprietary supplements and buy at least 100 hundred training sessions so you can go 3x per week so you can ACHEIVE YOUR GOALS! BECAUSE EVERYONE KNOWS IF YOU HAVE A GOAL, you are 1000% more likely to get your fat arse in shape!

and guess what? i was sold! however, i haven't actually signed up yet because i'm, like, negotiating.

anyway, during my first session Gerald asked me how long it had been since i had consumed foodstuffs. this was at 10a on saturday morning. i pondered... um... 7:30p last night? so he refused to do a "real" workout because you need to have food in your belly at least 1.5 -2 hours prior to working out and i was
a) a little hungover due to some wii sessions that lasted until 1a enhanced by wine and
b) my stomach was a little bit growling right there in his office, like, pretty loudly

however! he still weighed me and let me test my body fat (so nice of him!) but before that he was like, let me guess! your body fat is probably in the teens. and i laffed pretty hard, because, yeah, NO.

so then when it came back as definitely NOT in the teens, he was like ruh roh. so it turns out that my whole starving-myself-before-working-out scheme has actually burned more MUSCLE than FAT and so therefore my body fat/muscle ratio is all kitty wompus.

you heard me.

so my BMI (height/weight ratio) is healthy, but my body fat % leaves much to be desired. MUCH.

awesome.


but i knew there was a reason i felt uncomfies in my skin. and now i know. and now i know how to fix it!

so he still gave me a "fitness assessement" and let me know that he was "going easy on me" due to the whole "no food in da belly" sitch. but yeah, that was a hard workout even if he was going "easy" on me. and then he offered a free session the next day so he could show me what it would really be like.

cut to the next day where i died whilst getting trained. because.so.hard.it.was.

it actually hurts to do most everything today. good lord.

but i think i'm ready? to be trained? YEAH I AM READY!

between the wii mii telling me my fit age is 10 years older than my actual age and then my gold's trainer saying my muscles were in some dire shape (he actually used the term muscle atrophy... )

i think, it's time for me to get back to being mii. (i know! huge nerd!)


it's time to get myself in downtown-rooftop pool & jacuzzi- bikini shape, my friends.

and it's ON!