Loft Dweller Living

rapping it up

2010-12-20T23:02:00.001-08:00

2010-12-19T23:56:00.000-08:00

it will be great when it stops raining. we are going stir crazy and the dogs are collar-less because i don't want their wet leather neck gear hanging out on their already wet dog fur.

ahhh, but they look so cute naked, right?

and just for holiday fun

this held cookies from last night's soiree.

past tense.

holidaze

2010-12-19T00:24:00.000-08:00

rainy dayz

2010-12-17T23:41:00.001-08:00

2010-12-16T22:31:00.000-08:00

cosette's feeling left out. aw, 'sette.

my boyfurrend

2010-12-15T21:57:00.000-08:00

photoshoot with my furry boyfriend.

is that weird?

hazy shade

2010-12-14T22:58:00.000-08:00

the heat wave is gone and a bitter (as bitter as LA can get) cold has settled back in.

they're predicting rain for several days. seems appropriate.

i'm just... tired. thanks to a nice run, steam and massage tonight. and therefore, not much to say.

bah humbug

2010-12-13T20:38:00.000-08:00

fa la la la

2010-12-12T23:58:00.000-08:00

tonight i present the nokia live christmas tree.

fabulous, isn't it?

2010-12-11T23:52:00.000-08:00

just a few shots on my way to and at the gym...

beautiful LA day today, gotta love 80 degrees in december when minneapolis is under a pile of snow...

another lovely milestone

2010-12-11T01:50:00.001-08:00

happy 19-year dating anniversary, sweet face!

good.night.

2010-12-09T22:43:00.000-08:00

in some ways, the days are dragging on and taking forever. but most of the time i'm grasping at minutes, hours, wishing for

moretimeinmydaysoicangetitalldone.

today was pretty awesome, if you ignore clients that make your soul cry and other such things. we had our general company party today - and it was this: a screening of "the king's speech" followed by a 120-minute reception wherein WII GAMES WOULD BE PLAYED and CONTESTS WOULD BE EXECUTED and PEOPLE WOULD WIN PRIZES. and such. i skipped the movie part of the shindig and just went straight to the bar and made my team drink with me. and it was good. then i convinced myself and others to participate in the wii dance contest and then i completely SCHOOLED everyone with my dance skillz. seriously, i won the $100 first place prize! WHAT!? yes. i may have told you i had awesome dance skills before, but now?

$100 solidifies it.

i was a bit energized at precisley 6:29pm when the company party promptly ended. so i drove myself home and parked myself at the bar at arashi and proceeded to stuff my face full of AWESOME DELICIOUSNESS. and it was good. then i turned into a pumpkin, headed home, let the dogs out and found myself in my pajamas talking on the phone to the lovely aaron.

anyway, where was i? so i guess being this busy is definitely a blessing. but i still want more time. to clean, to pick out christmas gifts, to wrap and package the ones i have, to ship, to respond to emails, to respond to snail mail, to decorate the house, to check in with people i'm thinking about via phone or in person vs. email or facebook, to give the dirty dog a bath, to organize my closet, to figure out an outfit for my girl date tomorrow, to see BLACK SWAN already, before everyone f*cking ruins it for me, to clean out my dvr which is loaded with rotten nasty reality teevee shows, to finish all those random work requests that aren't urgent NOW but will be, to write my self evaluation, to edit it, to make it sexy, to go to the gym and have a meaningful workout, to get a facial, to buy new underpants, to buy new brassieres, to replace the bottle of wine i stole from our wine stash, to plan our 11-year anniversary trip, to balance my life, to figure out what i am doing to figure out what it all means to drink from the fountain of youth and to find the

f*cking holy grail.

but for now.

i will just put out THE FIRES because FIRES DEMAND attention but regular lifestuff. just keeps on waiting for me to happen to it.

and so we go.

i was told this purse was fierce tonight
mu wants to lick you

me, airbrushed, because i look better this way

halfway.

2010-12-08T20:06:00.000-08:00

11 days down, 10 to go (well, we think it's only 10 .. )

today, just like every day, i miss him

today is the 30th anniversary of john lennon's untimely death.

we danced to "love" for our first dance at our wedding.

that's all.

sleepytime

2010-12-07T22:20:00.000-08:00

i was on a work conference call this morning at 6a and i didn't really stop working until 9:30pish.

it's all about the sleepytime tea, my friends. because that's about all i can handle right now.

and this is the snuggler that makes it almost impossible to get out of bed in the morning. aw, cosette.

and this is just a rascal, plain and simple

/scene

magical massage monday

2010-12-06T21:31:00.000-08:00

i worked 12 hours today and this is what i looked like when i was done:

and here's what i looked like after a delighful massage:

can you see a difference?

aaaaaanyway...

that's my post for the day.

and off to sleep i go.

(ps. today was pajama monday, so i actually ONLY showered at 5p so i could shave my legs so my massage therapist didn't have to deal with a wooly mammoth and also so that there wasn't a pajama monday funk attached to my person, hence my awesome makeup and hair)

and here's a bonus "wtf" pic for your viewing pleasure

honestly, what the cuss is going on here?

furry pictorial

2010-12-05T23:31:00.000-08:00

i actually made it to the gym today, despite every fiber of my being wanting to imitate a corpse and lie in bed all day. i ran, i walked, i biked, i steamed. then i made a Big Girl trip to the grocery store and came SO close to buying chicken in an attempt to undo my fear of cooking poultry. but i chickened out and bought a pre-cooked juicy turkey breast thingie instead.

maybe next time.

and for today's photo post, you get so much sexiness and pitifulness all wrapped up into one pictorial that i honestly don't know how you will handle it.

go ahead.

check it out.

this is what happens when i'm left to my own devices.

:sigh:

only 13 days until aaron returns?

....

this is war

2010-12-05T01:29:00.000-08:00

i had a really lovely night, it was really heartwarming, but also, sad. a friend of mine recently discovered she has to deal with something that profoundly (negatively) affects her life and we had a really amazing heart to heart about it tonight and i'm so super sad for what she's going through, but equally inspired by how she is dealing with it. we found ourselves literally crying in our wine, which is 100% not our normal M.O.

ah. man.

so many things lately have me feeling so f*Cking grateful for everything i have. my husband, my friends, my family, my job, my LIFE. i'm so grateful for my ARMs, fingers, legs, feet, etc. you get the picture.

i'm lucky, i'm healthy and i'm so blessed. and i would be a giant a**hole if i didn't say THANK YOU universe!! for everything.

so thanks.

and btw, i heart YOU if you are reading this. thank YOU.

armed

2010-12-04T00:52:00.000-08:00

i'm really thankful for my arms.

sometimes i think they are too fat, sometimes i think they aren't strong enough (pushups ? pullups ? hellloo!?) and sometimes i just plain think they need to see the sun a bit more. but never have i been so grateful, so happy to have these arms. and the hands attached to them. and all those awesome fingers.

i saw 127 Hours tonight and thought it would be painful, yes. i also thought it would be intriguing and inspiring. and yes and yes. but i don't think i expected it to MOVE me so much. i definitely was in the perfect frame of mind to see a movie like that tonight. strangely, when i got home, the tv was on (that wasn't the strange part, i left it on for the puppies because i felt guilty for leaving them tonight). the weird part was that LENO was on (we never watch LENO) and the guy the movie is based on (aron ralston) was his guest, and he was just sitting down for his interview when i walked in the door.

what the cuss!

it was cool to hear his version of what i just saw. REALLY cool, actually.

anyway, you may have heard that almost two weeks ago when we first arrived in minneapolis, my mom had broken her hand. and she is coping with doing everything one-handed, but only temporarily. and to see her struggle, to watch her frustration with having to ask for help with totally mundane tasks (tying her shoe! chopping celery! etc.) was such an eye opener. WOW we use our hands for damn lot of things, and our arms are pretty awesome.

so if you haven't thanked your arms, hands and fingers yet today, why don't you go ahead and do that. give yourself a hug with those bad boys. because arms are awesome.

2010-12-02T22:50:00.001-08:00

today's picture post is something i can't WAIT to investigate once aaron gets back:

WINE!!

oh, i miss our wine nights. but now the countdown to his return has clicked down to 16 days. however countdown to wine nights... TBD.

and that's about all i have for tonight.

cheers, party people.

i'm obsessed. officially.

2010-12-01T15:43:00.000-08:00

that last entry was boring. i'm going to write something different now.

i'm obsessed with lemons at the moment. i remember reading somewhere that if you want to squeeze into your dress for the fancy awards shows, you should investigate lemon water. i believe it's because lemon is a diuretic. oh here, here's exactly what i was thinking about: lemon water is the shizz. so i'm not trying to fit into a dress for the fancy awards shows. in fact, in bummer news, the hollywood red carpet premiere of the movie aaron did with The Rock was the 22nd and we were frozen in minneapolis so we did not attend. that would have been effing cool though, right? except aaron gets muscle envy around The Rock and with his current body situation it may not have been a good situation. would have been a good excuse to squeeze into a fancy dress, though.

now? just trying to squeeeeeeeeeze into my pants.

so. we missed that red carpet action, but went ahead and slithered into a 10p screening of the film at the mall of america on friday night and watched it by ourselves, in the back row. and it was cool. i always wish there was more aaron in everything i see. but i enjoyed faster, anyway. and i enjoyed seeing aaron on the big screen. even if it was only for a few minutes.

i'm freshly obsessing over this: http://www.mashupbreakdown.com/ if you like mashups, and i know you do, you will want to check that crazy action out.

also? i'm obsessed with this:

because, see, i'm fending for myself these days, and hey, i'm a bit lazy. but i still want something delicious & healthy to eat and i don't want to spend $8,000 on sushi every night. or damn near that. so this is a really really tasty solution.

MMMM i think i'm going to make myself another, even though i just had one three hours ago. I KNOW! INSANITY!

totally obsessing over wanting a kinect but upon realizing that i've BARELY touched my wii in about a year (haha!!), i really have to ponder if the investment in body-scanning-laser technology is really a wise use of my dolla dolla billz.

BUT HOW FUN DOES THAT DANCING GAME LOOK?? :I DIE:

true story: i was super excited to see my seven-year old niece (below) play a wii game called "just dance" because i heard she was AWESOME at it. and i was excited to play it WITH her so i could show her a move or too. but, as it turns out, i was actually REALLY AWESOME at it and beat her twice, so we quit playing right as i was just really started to find my jam. because no one likes to get beat by THEIR AUNT in just dance. no, they don't.

so what i've learned is: although i can't sing or dance in real life, i am TOTALLY A RINGER when it comes to video games that allow me to dance or sing and wtf, man, why can't for real be a singer/dancer/etc? (the world can't handle that much awesome, is the answer.)

in other news, it is december post a photo a day challenge and what not and although i am a failure on all levels when it comes to such challenges, i'mma go ahead and try this out. here i am today! so happy to see you.

2010-11-30T20:11:00.001-08:00

ok, so, we're on day 3 of the solo project, and by my count, aaron will be home in 17 days. i was hoping it was going to "fly by" but so far it's kind of just been slithering slowly. work is busy, but haven't fully put myself back into yet. it's coming, i can feel it, but for now i'm still kind of just plod plod plodding along.

i started my 2010 self evaluation for werk and so far i have lots of sentences that start with:

"played an integral role in..."

"effectively transitioned..."

"expanded...."

etc.

it's such a weird process to map a whole year's worth of activities and accomplishments. january was SO long ago. i can barely remember what i did three months ago, ya know? but it's also weird to toot your own horn. it's interesting, for sure, to ponder the value of myself and sort of, justify my role in the company. then! i get to do the same thing for my four direct reports. eeps.

i decided that instead of dragging my fattish ass to the gym yesterday that i would instead do some jillian shred something or other thing from my time warner on demand library. it was only 25 minutes which was enough to feel like i did SOMETHING but didn't really feel like a lot. however, today i am all sorts of sore, so you know. how about that. way to go jillian. today i haven't done anything but i think i'm going to eat some pumpkin spice kisses anyway.

bam.

2010-11-28T18:40:00.000-08:00

welp, i'm back in lalaland after a blissfully grounding and recharging stint in the frrrrrozzzzen tundra. i know it was an epic fail on the blog a day efforts, but OH WELL. what can you do.

dear minneapolis friends: HOW DO YOU DO IT ? i cannot survive so many chapped lips and staticky hairs. omg. i was a HOT MESS in minneapolis, minnesota.

also: fat again. but the reason is this: I HAD TO KEEP WARM, see? but i will drop this fat in no time, because aaron will be back home in just 19 days. NINETEEN DAYS!? :stabs fork in eye: how will i survive that? chapped lips, dry skins, staticky hairs = nothing compared to being without my rock for nearly three weeks.

maybe i will be inspired to go to the gym yet today (it's only 6:25p for chrissakes) and start to stave off the layer of blubs that has accumulated above my waistband. maybe? maybe not. a few short minutes ago i was in snoozeville on the couch, strategically spooning cosette who had her cold little dog nose buried in my thunder thigh and i woke up, confused and startled as i realized if i slept NOW, sleeping later would probably be a situation. in the process, i confused and startled my dog and mass hysteria set in rather quickly. but there is also this: i have a sparkly clean house because my delicious cleaning elves came while i was gone but i also have a cold, empty fridge with nothing to fill my belly but (maybe) moldy string cheese and past due -date- lettuce.

BUT. i have lots of brain vomits to spill on these pages and they aren't going to spill themselves so how about this negotiation with myself:

dear self: write your stupid brain vomits and then go to the gym and then you can have a treat. love, yourself.

okay: here we go.

maybe we can start today, where i had to wake my frozen bones up at 5a in the crack of dawn morning so that i could be at the minneapolis/st paul airport by 6a so i could catch my 7a flight! which all went off without a hitch except i cried a little when i hugged aaron's skeleton body when he dropped me off because i already missed him and i wasn't even gone yet. then! my personal tv thing didn't work on my delta flight but my internet was free (thank you, google chrome) so i was happily skipping around the internets wondering when the hell the beverage service was going to start when they suddenly announced over the loud speaker that if anyone on the flight was a doctor, they should come to the back of the plane (never good).

and so i was like, well, whatever, back to the internets. then, still no beverage service and my tv still wasn't working and then! they said two people had fainted and there was a weird (unidentified) odor in the back and some flight attendants were feeling a bit dizzy and lightheaded... so... we were going to stop over in denver right quick and investigate.

so, of course, immediately i decided that I felt dizzy and light-headed (not really, but kind of) and then started getting a bit nervous, and then everyone started getting nervously chatty around me and we were all like haha this is funnyweirdscary but if we make fun of it all, then it SHOULD be ok?! right!?! so i sent off a nice little note to some of my immediate family members to say "HAHA FUNNY STORY , weird shit on our plane, if i die, love you guys long time! KTHXBAI!" and something about: ps thank goodness for inflight internet! right!? I mean...

well.... needless to say, everything ended up working out except a bunch of people missed their flights to japan or somesuch and were a bit sad faced about it, but clappped when we finally landed in LA after a three hour unplanned layover in denver.

whew.

there's more! stories! but i have to go to the gym now because i just sipped some sprite and now i feel like i am full of bubbles and the only cure is this:

1. 3 miles on the treadmill to burn off the blubb

2. 15 minutes in the steam room to introduce MOISTURE back into my lips, hair and skin

3. grocery shopping so that i don't have to eat a mixture of moldy cheese and other strange items growing in my (mostly) clean fridge

:sigh: do i really have to go back to work tomorrow? thank jeeeeesus for PAJAMA MONDAY. hallelujah. amen.

vacation, all i ever wanted

2010-11-21T20:38:00.000-08:00

so it's been pretty awesome so far. except! my mom broke her hand yesterday and then a bus crashed into her car while it was parked at the hotel valet (separate, unrelated freak incidents) and then! we went to the vikings/packers game today and they LOST IN AN EPIC FAIL fashion.

but other than that, so in love with minneapolis and my favorite peoples and aaron's been awesome even though he's sustatining himself on sashimi and sugar free red bull. i might not want to go back, mostly because i might not be able to because i'll be FROZEN solid and last i checked, they don't allow ice blocks to occupy seats on delta.

and back to vacation i go.

oh and we haven't had internets in our hotel because my stupid f*cking air card hasn't been working (eff you, at&t air card) and i FINALLY broke down and paid the W $12.95 so i could feed my internet addiction, but i also paid the W $60 for two egg white omelets, so you know, maybe i should just give the W my first born child as well.

i love you, the W. you're lucky i do.

:epic sigh:

:W oxygen shot followed by a W overpriced glass of wine:

and, scene.

me and my momma @ origami

my sister-in-law and i at the vikings game

aaron, josh and pat at the game.

normal.

FAILBLOPOMO

2010-11-19T14:31:00.001-08:00

i missed a day! fuqua.

oh well. guess i was a just too busy hanging with my man, who got back in town yesterday. whoop! he's a bit skinnier then when we parted ways, and his energy is a bit frenetic, but he's adorable as ever and GUESS WHAT? on vacation starting tonight at 6p. DOUBLE WHOOP!

did you EVER think it would get here? holy balls in pants.

yesterday was fabulous in many ways! in addition to getting aaron back for a week, i headed over to santa monica to do a joint presentation with my (new favorite) client of the research study thingie that owned my life since august and it was actually quite energizing talking about it and answering questions and blahblahblah. i was thinking, hey ! i did this thing, it's causing BUZZ in the INDUSTRY and i get to be the EXPERT on it. i'm so ego-fluffed right now its ridix. RIDIX i say. but i am lapping it up because mmm it's delicious to be done and to be able to say THAT WAS A SUCCESS.

in other news, the other project i was killing myself over looks like it's also done, and my boss forwarded the final deliverable to another team the other day and said "ruby put together this beautiful document, we should recommend doing a similar analysis for Big Important Client X as well" and the recieving party was all over it. "this IS a beatiful presentation, ruby!" commence ego fluffery.

so life is freaking fantastic and i'm exploding with excitement and anticipation and best of all... i get to turn my MONKEY BRAINS off for a week, party people. A WHOLE WEEK OF NO BRAINS.

:i die:

static noise

2010-11-17T13:10:00.000-08:00

excitement cackles in every action i take as the countdown clock ticks down. checking things off the checklist, click click click. things that seemed so tedious just a week ago are now a breeze and my brain is already less cloudy, and the cobwebs have started to dissipate.

it probably seems so benign, a trip to minneapolis for the holidays when EVERYONE is about to go on holiday. it's not like my situation is unique. but guys, i don't know how to express to you how incredibly draining and exhausting my life has been (albeit super rewarding, now, in hindsight) and i just have been SO homesick for so long. it's been over a year since i've been home, and it was only for a couple days as i passed through to kentucky for a big work meeting. i need and crave the grounding that minneapolis people give me, and right now i need it more than ever.

(normally, aaron and i try to get home twice a year. it's been nearly 18 months since he's been there, so he's even more homesick.)

anyway. i'm chugging through my day, actually tending to overgrown inboxes and grooming and purging unnecessary files so my computer doesn't choke on the clogged pipeline that has been slowing it down to a near dead halt in some cases. i've been in email jail so many times i feel like i live there. and my computer keeps sending me warning messages about deleting / backing up files even though i've recently had additional RAM installed.

it's as if to say LADY STOP. smell the roses! get off of me! i'm a computer, not your damn slave monkey! you have a LIFE to live. so do it.

plans are falling nicely into place for our trip. saturday is a celebration dinner with my parents - our anniversary/my mom's birthday. i've been researching all the good sushi restaurants in town so aaron can actually enjoy some evenings out. so far: origami, moto-i, chino latino. yum. we've also got the vikings/packers game on sunday, and even though the season's a bust, it will still be fun to take in the excitement the big rivalary on our home turf. i've got happy hour plans with my favorite ladies, and yoga/aveda shopping plans with another of my good friends. my mom scheduled massages for us, and we'll be spending turkey day with a whole slew of rapscallions. we'll also see various friends interspersed throughout the week, and reconnect with both sides of the family. i'll get to spend time with all four of my nieces, as well.

:sigh:

so i have a spring in my step as i go about the normal day to day .. just your average holiday vacation for some, but so so much more than that to me.

tonight, i believe i am going to enjoy happy hour with my mother-in-law, and tomorrow aaron returns from new mexico so he can unpack and repack for minnesota.

and so we go.

is it friday yet?

2010-11-16T21:33:00.001-08:00

so. we are now on the business end of nablopomo and WHEW is it ever exhausting. but i love this month because it always forces me to be a bit more introspective and it encourages word vomit, and who doesn't love that.

i've started the initial process of formulating a new casting video for the next season of survivor. this edition will include items such as me jumping out of a plane and crossing the finish line of my most recent race, and i'm hoping to embark on some sort of snowy adventure in MN to add to the viewing experience. maybe catch a fish with my bare hands and / or wrestle a bear as well. stay tuned on that item.

i made it to the gym tonight! it was a victory over the onset of laziness that has been clouding me lately. luckily, i've been eating less since aaron's been out of town, so i've actually maintained pretty well. but let's be honest. running clears my brain and tones my calves. sitting on the couch eating dark chocolate kit kats and watching real housewives of bevery hills does NOT. ya heard?

TV Break: can we discuss how adorable gwyneth paltrow was on glee? so adorable. i also watched the season finale of the big C tonight and ! my eyes leaked! a whole lot! was not expecting that. i actually ended up liking the season even though it got a bit itchy in the middle. laura linney is the cutest.

two days until i get to see aaron

four days until vacation begins.

happy is an understatement.

boogaloo

2010-11-15T21:16:00.000-08:00

oh hello! today is an extremely important day because it represents the 58th anniversary of the day my MOMMA was borned! and had she not been born, i would not have been born and then you would not be reading this (maybe you are sticking chopsticks in your eyes while reading because i'm boring the everliving shizz out of you, but whatevs)

what was i saying?

oh! happy birthday MOM!! i was talking to her on the phone tonight and i asked her if she had figured out what she was going to do for the big 6-0 since now it's precisely two years away. and no, she hadn't. but she's reconsidering getting the tattoo she was going to get at age 5-0 that she never did (chicken! bawk!) and i think maybe two years from today would be the time. or else, i said, you should jump out of a plane, like i did for the big 3-4. maybe, maybe not. but then my final suggestion was a CARNIVAL CRUISE. she choked on the end of her 3rd glass of wine when i said that. i'm hilarious.

anyway. i'm going to be in MN in 5 days and then we will celebrate her birfday in person. v. excited.

in other news. my sister is getting divorced and moving to australia to be with a guy she met on the internets. she just went to visit / meet him for the first time and was in australia for two weeks and then she came back and dropped the info just like that. i loved it there and i'm moving. kthxbai.

good for her, though. because she NEEDS to be selfish because she's been in a relationship that was unhealthy for her and it's time for her to carpe diem all over the place. may as well up and move all the way from BFE, MN to melbourne, AUSTRALIA, right? it's so crazy, but then, it's so awesome :i die:

i don't talk about my family much in here do i? they are a crazy bunch of rapscallions. i love them. but let's review, shall we? i am the 2nd oldest of five kidlings. here is the order:

rachel (of the moving to australia flavor), born 1974

ruth (that IS my real name, but i shortened it to ruby) born 1976

renee (she's the one with the fraternal twins, single mama) born 1978

ranon (my little broham that just came out to LA to run the half marathon with me) born 1980

ryan (the youngest, marches to the beat of another drummer) born 1982

there's actually more to everyone, but maybe another time, another place.

in other news.... i booked a post-xmas mini-getaway for aaron and i in santa barbara and we'll be staying in a two-story loft thing in solvang in a room with a fireplace and we will be conveniently located to many wineries and aaron will be able to eat AND drink and i can barely stand it, i'm so excited.

i have to say, as far as mondays go, it was a good day.

vacation commences in less than five days.

meep!

funky monkey

2010-11-14T23:37:00.001-08:00

so last night was a bit of an adventure, but mostly because i'm getting old and it's starting to become pretty damn clear.

we started out our adventure at OB Bear, which is a pretty traditional korean establishment in k-town. we were meeting our chinese friend there, but she was late, so we were totally confused about what to order. also, not sure how the chinese lady was going to halp us navigate the korean menu, but i didn't question anything since i was along for the ride. we did know that this particular place received rave reviews for their spicy chicken wings, and that maybe there was some sort of kim chee pankcake we should investigate, but that was about it.

so when we got there, we were ushered upstairs to the non-smoking section (didn't realize there was a choice anywhere in LA, but OK) and we noticed quickly that we were the only non-korean persons in the joint. a man with a headset came over shortly after we sat down while we were staring at the korean-language menu. he handed us the "english menus" which, gotta admit, was a relief. then asked what we'd like to drink and i, of course, asked if they had, um wine? and he was like.. yes, but not like cabarnet sauvignon or MERLOT or anything. well OK good, because i was actually in the mood for SAUV BLANC, mister. but no, not that either. so i settled on some sort of lemon soju something or other that just basically tasted like warm lemonade.

we started investigating the menu and while "pork feets" and "squid on a rock" sounded interesting, we settled on the spicy wings and the leek pancake. which actually, was SUPER yum. however, the spicy wings were WAY too spicy for me, so i sorted of just nibbled on teeny bits of it while my face started on fire.

EVENTUALLY our chinese friend arrived and was NO help at all, but decided to add a sweet and sour beef ? item? to the table. so that came out and it looked really weird, but again tasted really good, so that was that.

i was really glad, in hindsight, that i had made liana and tal come to happy hour with me and that i had indugled in the curry mussels and tuna tartare appetizer so i at least had something in my belly.

ANYWAY. soon we were off to the brass monkey and i haven't been in YEARS and mostly all of my experiences there were supreme drunken nights out when my friends and i had the endurance to stay up until 5a drinking vodka and doing gymnastics. last night was not that kind of night. i noticed immediately that everyone in the karaoke joint was probably already halfway to pass-out-ville and i most defintely was not. i sort of felt warm from my lemonade concoction, but it was barely even what one might consider to be a mild buzz. so had i been buzzed? maybe the drunktards wouldn't have been so obnoxious? but i wasn't and they were.

it was actually pretty entertaining in its own way, and it was fun to see the group who was there to celebrate a friend's birthday, but liana and i only toughed it out for two hours and when the clock struck midnight it was basically lights out tokyo.

better than staying home missing aaron, but i'm not sure if it was my most favorite adventure of all time.

today i slept off the few vanilla vodka sodas i had at the monkey, i hit the gym and did five miles, then i cleaned, worked and watched all my favorite sunday shows: dexter, walking dead and amazin race. and now? i'm ready to hit the business and get this week started.

the sooner this week ends, the faster relaxation comes.

less than 6 days until i can find a bit of RnR.

yeahhhh man.

2010-11-14T23:35:00.000-08:00

it's been a fantabulous day.. so far. woke up at 8ish? after passing the nuts out pretty early last night, as predicted. i leisurely hung out with the dogs for a few hours, cleaned the house a bit, did laundry etc etc. and then hit the gym for some cardio action for about an hour. then i sped over to beverly hills to get my hairs cut and i feel a thousand pounds lighter now. my hair was out.of.control. then i decided to ping liana and tal and see if they would be down for some happy hour shenanigans, and they were down. f yeah. so i had a beverage and some mussels and some tuna tartare and now i'm here!

in about 1 hour and 40 minutes, they will pick me up, we'll head to some korean food establishment in k-town and then we will hit the brass monkey and it will probably be 100% magical. i haven't done karaoke at the brass monkey in a million years. i wonder if i will even remember how to do it. we shall see.

anyway. i miss aaron, but it's only a few days until he comes home so we can head to MN, so i'm going to make the most of my alone time and clean and drink and work and sleep. and then.

hope everyone is having a great weekend.

cheers!~

:sighhhhh:

2010-11-12T19:26:00.001-08:00

today was just one big sighhhhhhh. i dropped my darling husbie off at the flyaway bus this morning at 8:30a and i thought i'd be sad, but really, i'm just so super excited for him and i can't wait for him to have this experience. he's been working so hard on his physical person and now he gets to flex his acting muscles in such a profound way... it's just super awesome for him.

i mean, i have a sad face, but it's powered by an excited soul. you know.

i worked from home today and wasn't as productive as i would have liked, so i'm sort of still working. but i have a lovely glass of sauv blanc by my side and my furry babies are flanking me and keeping me warm - even though it's warm outside, for some reason the cave is pretty chilly, so i need some furry warmth flanking me.

it's Mu's birthday! he's 3! which means he's 21! so he got to have BEER! but not just beer.. GOOD BEER. video evidence is attached. please watch both and waste just over 2 minutes of your life.

ahh. i'm exhausted. i knew i would sort of completely turn into a pile of mush on this day once all my projects were done and once aaron was gone.. but wow. i'm like, ultra bushed. i was chilling on the couch earlier click clicking away on a werk project when suddenly it was lights out, tokyo and i was like WTF did i just fall asleep? man alive. i wouldn't be surprised if i was completely passed the nuts out by 9p tonight. it would be a world record, but it wouldn't surprise me.

gosh, i'm relaxed.

wow, this feels weird.

oh! just found out that a trip to miami is on the books for january. additionally i'm planning a mini-getaway for aaron and i once he's all done with his movie, so there are many many many things to look forward to.

and right now? i'm going to be fully present in this moment that feels so foreign to me but so freaking amazing.

and, scene.

::SIGH::

11-11

2010-11-11T22:37:00.001-08:00

today we're celebrating our the 10th anniversary of our wedding day. it's been such an awesome day, for so many reasons, and i'm so very happy that aaron is actually here, right now, with me celebrating. he leaves tomorrow to start his film journey and i'm so excited for him. but today, i'm selfish and i'm glad i get to have him all to myself.

i woke up super early today to prepare for a big meeting. good thing, too, because i spent a good chunk of time posting pics on facebook and being nerdy about posting status updates about our anniversary. nerdy nerd nerd face. anyway, i got into work and cranked out the finishing touches on a presentation and then quickly tended to some housekeeping items and at 12:30p it was show time. and it went well. it was a weirdly exhausting and strange meeting, but the net effect was positive. and it was good.

then i was inspired to make a love song anniversary playlist and i proceeded to play it all day long and make myself extra nostalgic and sappy-faced and i was so emotional and just :sigh: feeling really relieved and really really good.

does this thing work?

http://www.playlist.com/playlist/20985197835

anyhoo.

it's strange how i get to FINALLY relax when aaron is about to get down to business. but i guess it's all kind of working out perfectly - he was here for me during all my recent meltdowns and was my rock, and now i get to do the same for him as he embarks on his own new adventure.

good stuff.

i got home EARLY for a change of pace (i even beat the darkness! lawdy, that was nice) and there were a dozen white roses waiting for me. i also got my very own pair of black christian louboutin heels and a stunning tiffany heart necklace. OMG. i'm normally not one for such showy material items, but i don't care. i felt great receiving some ridiculously awesome material items. : i die :

whee!

so then it was time for SUSHI IN OUR FACES and we just slithered out the door and over to the neighborhood sushi joint where they LOVE us and we LOVE them (holla, arashi!) and i stuffed my face with J's special roll (albacore and crab and jalapeno and YUM sauce), pete's japanese tostaditos (don't ask me to explain, but believe me when i say YUM IN THE FACE), the lemon roll (squee!) etc etc. and some sake that aaron had two baby sips of because he was LIVING IT UP ya'll! anyway, we rollled out of there with tons o' fish in our bellies and then it was time to reminisce, looking at pics and remembering significant moments and such and so on.

ahhh.

so relaxing, so lovely, and so happy-making.

i feel blessed.

2010-11-09T23:26:00.000-08:00

i'm going to try a new approach and NOT wait until i am in full zombie mode to write my entry o' the day and see that works out for all of us.

eff. damn. shite. it's 5:15p and it's pitch black outside. i had this vision/idea that i was going to quickly run over to the book store and grab an anniversary card for aaron since our 10 YEAR ANNIVERSARY is not tomorrow, but the next day. i need to really think about what i'm going to write in that card. this requires some time. but it's pitch black out and i'm a wuss a) because now it's cold out and b) hollywood is scary at night

10 YEARS YOU GUYS! can you stand it? i really wish i would have been writing in this here thingie 10 years ago so i would have had some electronic versioning of our happy happy day, but alas, no. but gosh. it's such a nice fat milestone, isn't it? next year, we will celebrate 11 years on 11-11-11 and i keep telling people it's going to be EPIC! !! and i think it will be. but i don't want to poo-poo celebrating 10 years on 11-11-10, because it is also quasi-epic in its own way. only, aaron can't eat or drink right now, so you know, it can only be SO EPIC without foods and drinks to indulge in. and such. but still. TEN YEARS. i don't think i'm old enough to have been married that long.

also of note this week:

1. two year anniversary at my current job = tomorrow

2. camus' third birthday (he is legal drinking age in dog years) = friday

3. aaron OFFICIALLY AND REALLY leaves for new mexico = friday (SAD FACE, DENIAL)

big week, right? yeah, i'll say.

ok so. aaron went to the doctor today and got "checked out" and even though the doctor said he is "skinny" and he could "feel all of his organs and they feel fine" there wasn't major concern over the fact that he's dropped from over 190lbs to less than 160. NBD. even though his bones are protruding and his jeans are falling off of his person, he's actually pretty darn healthy. well, good, then. relieved about that. i can't believe he's actually leaving in a few days. it's blowing my mind. but the weird thing is that he will fly back on the 18th, then we will zoom over to MN from the 20th-28th, and then he will leave me again for most of december. ahhhhhh. craziness.

guys! in 11 days i will be ON VACATION/HOLIDAY/WHATHAVEYOU. Zomg.

oh! also! i've become supremely good at kicking Sick's ass. the latest accomplishment was a cold sore that POPPED up friday after my ever-so-stressful week in NYC and today, it's almost completely gone. also? it never got big enough for anyone to really notice and that was a HUGE success story. f*cking cold sores. just NOT what i need at this moment in time, but whatever, i kicked it's ass.

NEXT.

gah

2010-11-09T00:07:00.000-08:00

oh weird. it's midnight and i'm.still.working. i have been since 7a this morning.shoot me. shoot me now.ONLY 11 DAYS UNTIL I LEAVE FOR MINNESOTA.pray for my survival.

fall back

2010-11-07T22:49:00.000-08:00

you would think with this extra hour and all i would have been able to gain some energy by sleeping in, but alas i am struggling to keep my eyes open once again and i'm just going to give the skeleton version of my last few days.

- saw due date
- much needed laffs
- caught up on most of my teevee
- met heather's new little girl, harper
- saw jamie's one month old, johnny jr, for the second time
- thought more about having a baby of my very own
- got exhausted by the thought
- worked a little
- ran a little
- drank a little wine
- generally enjoyed my weekend

that's pretty much that, for now.

oh sunday, why do you have to end?

FML

2010-11-06T23:30:00.000-07:00

no, not really.

i woke up early yesterday, maybe a bit hungover. but it was OK because really all i had to do for the first part of my day was get on a plane and fly home to los angeles.

but the events leading up to potentially being slightly hungover were as follows:

1. i was invited (last minute) to the super exclusive client dinner to celebrate the end of the project i've been KILLING myself over for the past few months

2. even though i was super f*cking exhaused and not wanting to do anything but zombie out in front of the teevee in my hotel room while mindlessly finishing some workstuffs, i comitted to rallying for said dinner

3. found out just as i was leaving the convention hall that OOPS just kidding, they were overbooked for the dinner and i could come for drinks, but unless someone cancelled, couldnt stay for dinner

4. hai, no thanks, bai.

5. i boarded some random shuttle at the convention center than seemed to be taking me more or less close to my hotel.

6. only, it was dropping me off on 47th and my hotel was on 42nd.

7. it was raining, did i mention this? and, i was carrying my laptop, but no umbrella. and i had a hooded coat on, but it was wool. since i'm allergic to wool anyway, there's only one thing worse than regular wool.

8. it's wet wool, case you was a wondering.

9. OK SO. i had to walk 5 blocks (NBD, but ugh) to my hotel in the rain with a wool coat on with nothing to protect my laptop.

10. oh, but before i forget, i had decided somewhere along this shuttle ride that i would text one of my favorite NY coworkers and take him up on his earlier offer of meeting up later in CASE i didn't end up at the client dinner

11. realized i had texted his old number when i got a call from "him" and it was someone random that said "please stop texting me! i'm not your friend"

12. and then.

13. i was like, this is probably a sign, i should just go to hotel and embark on plan A: zombie in front of teevee, doing workstuffs.

14. but the part of me that still has life in me, said EFF THAT NOISE YOU ARE GOING OUT TO CELEBRATE THE FACT THAT THIS PROJECT WAS INDEED A SUCCESS AND YOU ARE NOT GOING TO ZOMBIE!

15. so then i emailed aforementioned favorite coworker, and, within minutes, he had agreed to meet me in TIMES SQUARE of all places (he was in soho) and i was like, OK there we go. but moment after that, I got REINVITED to the super exclusive client dinner.

UM, NO.

16. so i met my fav coworker at chez josephine and had a THREE HOUR DINNER that was so much awesome and so delicious and i was SO GLAD i made that choice to go out vs. stay in.

16a. for posterity: dinner included sweet potato fries, lobster salad, steak tartar and (3) glasses of sauv blanc

17. we parted ways at 10p and i was still a little bit in the mood to hang out before calling it a night, so as i got to the hotel, i happened to ride up in the elevator to the lobby with a fun group of slightly rowdy people who were heading to the hotel bar.

18. so i headed to the bar "with" them after having a friendly chat in the elevator.

19. i bellied up to the bar by myself, but was soon surrounded by the aforementioned lively bunch of fun people, and soon they revealed that they were the cast of the new "spiderman" musical and drinks were on them.

20. OK!

21. so i had a few and had some fun conversations and then soon, i realized, HOLY SHIT, i'm F*CKING tired. so then i decided to call it a night at about midnightish and headed back to my hotel room.

22. whew.

23. then i called aaron, my sister and maybe my bank.

24. 1a-ish? i called it a night. but was up again at 6a-ish? and then 7a-ish? and then i was headed to the airport with a heavy head but a lighter soul.

and that was that.

tomorrow, you will probably hear the events of last night. to preview:

1. delicious dinner at arashi

2. private practice viewing with aaron and his momma

3. hereafter viewing at the regal (maybe i fell asleep for a second, don't tell anyone)

4. a glass of wine

5. FINALLY, somesweetsexysleep

actually, that was it.

so tomorrow, maybe i will talk about today? stay tuned FOR WAY MORE EXCITING ADVENTURES.!!!

!!!

2010-11-06T00:02:00.000-07:00

i'm totally and completely exhausted but so so happy to finally be home.

i know it's a lame excuse for an entry, but i'm a lame excuse for a human being at the moment.

so there you go.

happy weekend, ya'll

so much.

2010-11-04T22:06:00.000-07:00

i'm so proud of so many people in my life.

jamie, for giving birth to a beautiful baby boy and enduring so much pain within that process/

heather, for giving birth to a beautiful baby girl and i don't know the fully story yet, but YOU DID IT, and i can't wait to meet her

aaron, for all of his recent accomplishments and for what's to come. i'm truly blessed with one of the most amazing human beings in the universe as my husband.

kadee, for her work on private practice tonight. oh.my.god. i havent even seen the full episode yet, but i know that you did amazing work and i'm actually at a loss for words to describe the pride i feel in what you've done.

i, myself, i'm just so f*cking happy to be done with a project that nearly killed me, but didn't, so it made me stronger.

when my client, A, saw me today for the first time (we had only ever met via phone) she ran over and gave me a hug, and it was powerfully awesome.

today, i celebrate everyone, and all their accomplishments.. be proud of YOU today. you deserve it.

at present

2010-11-03T20:08:00.000-07:00

1. blood shot eyes.

-maybe because i'm so cold in my hotel room that i'm wearing my wool coat and i'm allergic to wool.
-maybe because i only slept 4.5 hours last night
-maybe because i am STILL staring at my computer and it feels like deja vu.

2. chapped lips.
-maybe because i spent the whole day talking my face off to random strangers and familar faces
-maybe because i walked a mile each way to the conference center and it was colder than i expected and the wind was whipping my face

3. sore/achy feet

-see aforementioned standing around talking all day and then walking to and fro to hotel/conference center in high-heeled boots that i thought were my "comfy boots"
-i thought wrong

4. fat belly

-french fries at lunch
-french fries at dinner
-lack of workouts as of lately due to ridiculous residual annoying pains from my race (SO LONG AGO! WTF!)

5. strained brains

-too much thinking
-too much typing
-not enough rest

that's about it.

here's to hoping tomorrow night is off the chain with celebration excitements for being DONE and/or just some sweet, sexy, deep sleep.

and so on.

new yorkin

2010-11-02T21:51:00.000-07:00

i guess if i have to be up until 1-sumthin in the morning working it's better to be by my lonesome in a hotel room 25 stories above the world click click clacking away basking in soft glowing lights and an accidental glass of pinot noir (i ordered sauv blanc, but felt too defeated to call room service back and tell them) than to be hunched in the dark illuminated by just the glow of my computer while the sleep sounds of my favorite human and dogs fill the air.

i guess.

so technically, it's 9:54p LA time, so technically, i'm not late with this entry for day 2 of the challenge. but here in chilly manhattan, it's technically 12:54a and so therefore one could argue i've already failed.

but let's not argue that, ok?

normally, when i step out of my cab at my NY hotel destination, i'm super excited to be back in the city surrounded by the amazing energy of the people here. but today? i'm just exhausted, frustrated and anxious.

one project that i've been tirelessly working on for over two months officially ends next week when i co-present a client webinar with our client partner. the other project will also soon be done and then i don't know. more items keep filling the pipeline and more custom work demands my attention, so even if i think there is light at the end of the tunnel, it might just be a mirage. more darkness. and more zombie-ruby filled nights.

but in all of this! super exciting things.

heather had her baby today. i think, from what i've gathered from the facebooking, that she named her harper. she was too tired to talk when i called, as she had been up all night delivering the little princess. i can't wait to meet her. i'm so very excited.

and then! my sister-in-law was on the view today and i've heard amazing things about it. she has a crazy week based on an episode of her tv show that airs thursday night, and this is one of the many things she's done to promote it. i can't wait to see it... but i just need to wait a few. more. days.

this too, shall pass. they say.

i'm still hopeful.

walking dead

2010-11-01T21:26:00.000-07:00

i suppose it's fitting that, as i write this, i'm watching the walking dead and i'm verging on the end of a project that has made me feel, at times, like a zombie.

this project reaches a fitting climax in just a couple days, on stage in new york. i'm pretty much packed and ready to go for my morning flight tomorrow. i just need to figure out how the hell i'm going to fit a winter jacket in my overstuffed carry-on suitcase. i'm an interesting mix of anxious and indifferent, excited and annoyed. more excited and anxious than the other two, but it's a strange mix.

for the fourth time in about in two weeks, i stuffed my facehole with raw fishstuffs from arashi. it's probably safe to say that i have a bit of an addiction problem with that place. my favorite roll at the present time is something they call the downtown roll. and how fitting is it that my most favorite downtown sushi place which is a stumble away from the back door of my downtown living box has a roll called the downtown roll and it's THE MOST DELICIOUS? i'd say it's: pretty fitting.

in other news, i am also cramming for the Big Vote tomorrow wherein we have to pick the lesser of a bunch of evils. we also have to decipher crytpic propositionings and try not to get tricked into voting "the wrong way." it's all simply too much for my little peabrain to handle right now. but like a good little zombie, i'm going to eat some brains (sauvignon blanc) and power through.

there is a light. it's coming. it will be documented here because i am attempting, once again, to write every single day in november. i think i probably lost all five (six?) of my readers by simply being a waste of cyberspace. but if you're still out there, stick around for a few won't you? it might just get interesting.

is this thing on?

2010-10-15T16:11:00.000-07:00

oh HI! randomly i have been getting comments and requests to update this blog lately, so i figured i'd dust off the old keyboard and see what happens. i'll probably be doing the november blog a day thingie again this year, so i may as well ease myself back into the habit of trying to entertain my five followers on this here thingie.

so where did we leave off? in march? what the cuss!? i guess nothing at all has happened to me or downtown since that time. huh. that's pretty spectacular. also? it's a big fat lie.

downtown is getting cooler by the minute, heck, even by the second. every day as i drive home and round the 110 curve and experience the familiar iconic downtown LA skyscrapers edging closer and closer, i sigh a little bit and think, this is HOME. i've never really felt so at HOME anywhere, and it's a weird tingly sensation that makes me very happy.

so here's the deal. my husband is currently starving himself for a movie role and my best downtown friend recently discovered she has a condition which requires her to temporarily abstain from alcohol. add to this my recent decision to train for the Rock and Roll Half Marathon and what you get is a whole lot of inaction on the mean streets of DTLA. however, it does not mean that i don't have loads to talk about regarding my experiences living, working and playing here.

but let's just start back slowly but surely shall we?

tonight, i am going to head home in a few shakes of a goat's tail, grab some nosh from either bottle rock or arashi, grab myself some sort of libation and park myself in front of the tv to take advantage of a rare aaron absence to catch up on GOSSIP GIRL all by my lonesome. it's going to be great and i know you are jealous.

stay tuned for more exciting adventures from this lofty loft dwelller.

2010-03-30T13:23:00.000-07:00

oh, hello there bloggy blog world! as i embark on almost one full year of living downtown los angeles, i think maybe it's finally time to start documenting the awesome that is downtown LA. for no other reason than i want more people to move there so that my property value skyrockets and then when we sell our loft we will have buckets of cash to roll around in and such. oh and- so far, so good. i think the new direction of this blog will also have to incorporate where i work, since the sunset & vine area is also pretty awesome and the surrounding area has a lot of cool things to offer. so from here-on-out, i plan to document new and old adventures from sunset&vine to 11thandFlower and i'm very excited for you to jump on this train and ride it to awesome town!

ps. you can also take the metro from where i work to where i live. so nuts. is this LA? or some weird parallel universe of LA??

nuts.

dear...

2009-11-09T12:24:00.001-08:00

dear my pants,

i'm so happy our relationship is back on track. i know i put you through some business here over the past, ohhh i don't know, 9 months or so. and you had every right to be angry with me. but i am back in the saddle now and i don't think i will be falling off the fit wagon anytime soon. i'm really excited about our future together. pants, you complete me. i just feel bad for the dresses & skirts who will now be getting a little less love. they were there for me when you weren't. but i told them this was just a rebound thing. they knew. so their tears are only sort of sad to me. my happiness to be back in you just outweighs their pitifulness. and now: the happy pants dance!

[insert dancing here]

~~

dear james mcavoy,

a classic actor move - a no-show at your own movie screening which was being billed as "an evening with james mcavoy." i know you SAID it was the swine flu that was keeping you away, but i don't know. you're an actor, you're supposed to be good at lying. so how can i be sure you weren't just ACTING sick? right? anyway, you did a great job in the movie, which doesn't surprise anyone. it would have been fun to ask you some jerk questions about your process just to be a douche, maybe next time, "jim." next. time.

~~

dear york peppermint patties,

you are so f*cking delicious to me. i'm starting to crave you more than my cowpals cheese items, of which i have not had ANY for two whole days. NUTS, right? here's the thing sweet little pattie, i like to eat you cold, i like to eat you frozen. i like to eat you slightly warm from sitting in my pants, i like to squish a bite of you between my tongue and the roof of my mouth and let your cool mintiness coupled with dark chocolateness ooze through my tastebuds. i just do. i know i might seem "creepy" or "obsessed" with you and i totally understand that restraining order threat. so i will try to tone it down a bit. but salivating is involuntary, you can't be mad at me for that.

~~

dear the packers and the bears,

it was awesome of both of you to lose the week my beloved vikings had a bye week. you guys our making this year so much fun for us. our position in the NFC North keeps getting better. and better. and better. so anyway, tough break for you (especially YOU packers mwahahahaha) but yay for us. and obviously i'm not getting my hopes up or anything because that would be the act of insane person. but if you guys could keep this type of tomfoolery up for the next.. let's say 8 weeks... that would be bloody brilliant of you. i would totally owe you, like for serious.

~~

dear viggo,

please don't pull a mcavoy and flake on our "date" tomorrow after the screening of the road. i'm really looking forward to hearing about your process and why you chose this script and etc. and then asking you some douchey questions about it. then i'm excited about going out for drinks with you afterwards and talking to you about hooking aaron up with a role wherein he stars alongside you as maybe your younger brother, or somesuch. i think it will be fun. if you show up. which you will. or else.

~~

dear monday,

can we just take a break from you this week? my schedule tomorrow has me in back to back to back to back meetings from 7:30a to 1p and i'd actually really just rather sleep in and then eat patties on the couch all day in my dayjamas. the good news, i will be eating patties on the couch in my dayjamas either way, because it's work from home monday! but the sleeping in part... well.... not so much. well just be kind to me this week, will ya? i know you get a bad rap and i know deep down you really do mean well, but sometimes you just have the undeniable ability to rub people the wrong way. so take it easy on me, yeah? i'll then do my part to help you better your image.

cool.

~~

2009-11-05T14:47:00.001-08:00

one of my favorite parts of the day, weirdly enough, is the morning. shortly after i rise in the morning i head to the bathroom to take care of some showering and getting ready business. camus takes note and jumps of the bed and clickety clacks his too-long nails across the wood floor to investigate. he's forever the most curious dog and his little face always looks like its questioning you. "why are you going in that place where the water runs on your head? why are you sticking that black thing in your your eye? why aren't you playing with me and this purple ball i put right here right by your feet? do you not see this purple ball? why don't you pick it up and throw it? why do you hate me?" and so on. usually i squat down and and he jumps up and puts his little paws around my neck and gives me a nice hug while he does his morning stretches.

once i've showered and gotten semi-ready, it's time to wake up little cosette who only stirs if if prodded. otherwise, she's usually moved into the space i've vacated and her face is snuggled into aaron's back and she's curled up into a little ball, snoring sweetly. i don't turn on the light so as not to disturb aaron and i feel around for her in the darkness, following her little noises that start to get a little louder as if to say, "five more minutes.... just five more minutes, pleeease." which is what i say to aaron several times a morning when the alarm starts to go off, coincidentally.

when i find her, i pick her up and cradle her in my arms, trying to keep her little body in its little fetal position because i feel like i'm picking up a warm little furry baby and i don't want to wake her up, too much. i carry her down the stairs where camus follows closely by my side. i keep holding her, because she's so infinitely snuggly and malleable at this moment that i don't even want to let go. not to mention that she doesn't "do" the stairs because she's a princess and because i'm an enabler, i don't ever make her.

today, for some reason, i was thinking about how far she's come in the past few months and how she's like a brand new doggie since all of her surgeries. her fur has almost completly grown back in on her back leg that used to be shaved, and her little face looks so great with her new little nose. she's going to be nine years old in a few short weeks and i'm honestly just so grateful that she's been in my life this long, because she's given us quite a few scares, and it often scares me how much i love her face off...

i leash them up after they do their morning downward dog stretches, and i pause briefly before i open the door into the blinding light of the outside world, and then away we go on our morning walk.

in some ways, it's a pain to walk them them all the time. they have to go out several times a day (tiny bladders! gah) and we walk them around the block almost every time, which means we have to encounter various people, dogs, weirdos, film shoots, lakers fans, USC students, FIDM students etc etc. our neighborhood can be crazy busy sometimes.

but, i cherish the morning walk so much because they are so sweet and adorable first thing in the morning when they are still groggy and waking up and usually the walk is relatively uneventful and they take care of business pretty fast rather than lolly-gagging around, which is what they do during most of the other walks.

and so today, i am thankful for the instant joy i get from the simple act of walking my two little f*ckers every morning. it's f*cking awesome.

2009-11-02T16:30:00.000-08:00

it's 4:18pm and i have yet to shower today. but this is a normal monday for me. i wake up two hours earlier than normal and work from home in the comfort of my sweats while i crank out our monday deliverables and by this time of the day i've already worked 9 hours and i'm ready to be done. and done. but yet, i still clickety click away, until the usual 6p end of day time and then i will finally turn my brains off after nearly 11 hours of work.

no big deal right? but, also, it FEELS like i'm cheating somehow because i'm at home, with my dogs, and sometimes i even get some aaron time. i don't hate mondays nearly as much as i should.

moving on.

a new 14-theater mulitplex situation has opened across the street and tonight they are showing a bunch of movies for FREE just because. the options range from district 9 to up to star trek to 500 days of summer. since we missed seeing star trek in the theater this past summer, we picked that one, because it's a) free and b) why not?

so in mere minutes, i will actually BE SHOWERING and getting ready to be seen in public and it's ever so awesome. fancy movie theater ACROSS THE STREET showing FREE MOVIES. i die of excitement.

oh and popcorn and soda are selling for $1, proceeds to benefit inner city arts. top that suckas.

right now, as the sun starts to set and the room starts changing colors through the slightly open blinds, the dogs are by my feet snoring sweetly i'm listening to regina spektor in surround sound and, you know what, i can get lost in eet forever and ever. so much.

2009-11-01T12:23:00.000-08:00

i weighed in yesterday at a somewhat satisfactory weight so immediately i knew: it was going to be a good day. then off to the gym to work on my fitness and then it was MISSION: complete our costumes. we ventured into santee alley for the first time ever, which is very surprising because we live like 6 blocks away from it and it's like FASHION FEVER everywhere and anyway, it was a little overwhelming. but after about an hour, we left with the following items: a mustard-colored ascot, long white gloves, fake pearls, a cute little red dress and a tiny revolver-shaped lighter. we spent less than $40 so we felt pretty awesome about the whole excursion.

then we hit up wokcano where aaron ordered three separate items off the menu and proceeded to eat himself into a happy stupor. his items were: spicy tuna tornado (hold the mayo), sashimi & seaweed salad and the sashimi sampler. i had the sashimi sampler and the salmon sashimi with ponzu and one giant glass of sauvignon blanc. NOM. aaron said it was the happiest he's been in quite some time, food-wise. it was highly exciting.

then we were high-steppin it home to get ready for the evening and i donned the look of miss scarlet whilst aaron transformed himself into colonel mustard. liana and tal opted out of the group costume thing, so cosette filled in as mrs. white, the french maid and camus put on a top hat and a bowtie to do his best professor plum.

i would have to call the overall effort a "success." you'll notice, please the mini revolver in aaron's hand and i'm sporting a candlestick. i think mrs white did it though, with the lead pipe in the study... you heard it here first.

the party at corkbar was WAY TOO MUCH fun, for sure. today i was feeling none too good as i remembered the deadly combination of wine, champagne and jello shots? that i did? but i definitely powered through a 5-mile run on the treadmill while i watched the NYC marathon and remembered that I DID THAT 2 years ago. i can't even IMAGINE doing it again, but so glad i did it back then when i was young and crazy and had no idea how ridiculously hard it would be to run for 4+ hours. GAH.

then we donned the lucky vikings jerseys and headed over to watch the game with jason and, even though i almost couldn't handle the up & downs of the game, we soldiered on to VICTORY AT LAMBEAU FIELD thusly making this the BEST HALLOWEEN WEEKEND EVER.

ya heard?

2009-10-29T12:21:00.000-07:00

it's the time of year where i start wearing more wool and therefore, because we all know i'm super allergic to wool, i am in a funk of stuffy head and runny nose-ness. oh, wool, you so silly. but i can't not wear a cashmere scarf on a day that has a low of 49 and a high of 70, right? i can't avoid throwing it on to warm my neckmeat when it's chilly, but then remove it when i inevitably get too hot. this time of year is so confusing for my parts.

yesterday was one of those kind of long drawn out days where i kept looking at the clock and kept thinking, really? only that time? but the reality is that when i was heading out, i was heading to the gym, so i was like, uhh, 6p don't come TOO fast. you know? but then when i was finally doing my sprint workout on the treadmill surrounded by all the gym rats and meatheads, i was like, OK, life is good. because it was just going to be a matter of time before i could go home and stuff my face with mini m&ms. and that i did.

the problem with this time of year is also the best part about this time of year; way too much awesome TV to watch. especially wed & thursday nights. my DVR dies a little each week at this time because we are SO DEMANDING. i think we record seven shows on thursday nights? some of which are doubled and tripled up so i have to tape them on the upstairs tv so that the main tv doesn't explode. super nuts, i tell you. at some point i think shows will HAVE to start dropping off, but since you asked, here are all the programs currently making the cut (in order of day of week)

amazing race, bored to death, dexter
heroes, gossip girl
biggest loser, so you think you can dance
modern family, cougar town, glee, so you think you can dance, america's next top model, top chef
survivor, flash forward, office, 30 rock, project runway, private practice, vampire diaries, fringe
the soup

also, every weeknight: daily show, letterman, conan, jimmy fallon

don't even get me started on the crap i watch while i'm on the treadmill. soul-sucking stuff, is what it is (*cough* the hills *cough* road rules real world challenge *cough* kardashians *cough* *cough* whatever real housewives is on *cough*)

it seems like a lot, yeah? i feel like i might even be missing some. still, i always like to say: IT IS MY JOB to know what's on TV. and actually, this is true.

i'm WAY too excited for the premiere of V on 11/3. i used to LOVE that show when it was on in the middle ages. i hope it holds up. but i guess OH WELL if it doesn't. am i right?

well now that i've thoroughly lost all of you as an audience, i bid you adieu.

BUT WAIT

so i need some votes on some group / couple costume ideas - you know you want to help.

1. CLUE characters (miss scarlet - me, colonol mustard - aaron, etc etc)
2. GILLIGAN'S ISLAND characters (ginger - me, professor - aaron, etc etc)
3. LES MISERABLES (jean valjean - aaron, eponine - me) we might add "Dead" or "Vampire" to these as well

**i don't want to affect your vote, but i really really really want to be miss scarlet and carry a rope around all night.**

kthxbai.

2009-10-28T17:16:00.001-07:00

i was just about to shut down at about 6p for the evening last night, when the lights started flickering in my office and before you knew it, BAM the lights were out all over the damn place. we had some crazy winds and a Wind Advisory all day yesterday, so it was interesting that the wind decided to eff with the power in my building RIGHT AS I WAS GETTING READY TO LEAVE. some people were stuck in the elevator for a bit (someone said they heard some screaming and panicked noises coming from the 'vator! yikes!), but soon the lights flickered and came back on, ... and then went out again. and then on... and then my boss and i were like, eff this noise and we walked down the stairs from the19th floor to 5th floor. i guess because i did not think yesterday was a good day to get stuck in an elevator 19 floors above the ground.

hey wind, thanks but no thanks, you weirdo.

anyway, you might have heard that my 'hood was all atwitter with activity last night with the MJ This is It premiere and the Lakers / Clippers opening & ring ceremony and then some concert was mixed in there somehere in LA Live, so all day the twitterverse and the LA blogs were like AVOID DOWNTOWN!! TRAFFIC DELAYS!!! ETC ETC. but after i finally got out of my parking structure (10 minutes) it only took me 15 glorious minutes to get home because the freeway was WEIRDLY EMPTY.

magical.

THANKS TWITTERVERSE AND LA BLOGS for clearing me a lovely path home by scaring everyone away from DTLA. loves you!

once i got home it was pure madness everywhere and we are pretty used to having heavy volumes of people in our hood for various events, but never has there been so many events all at once and there were new parking lots where parking lots did not exist before and they were charging $20 a pop for cars to park in our structure when normally they only charge $8-$10. nuts, right! i braved the crowds and the winds and walked a whole block to meet liana at corkbar, and we settled in for 2.5 large glasses of wine that were consumed in about 2.5 hours. we walked out of there warm, fuzzy and buzzy and even the wind couldn't squash our glow because eff you wind, eff you. like i said before.

by then it was like, late, but there was a 2 HOUR so you think you can dance episode waiting for me and aaron had been txting me for the past 1/2 hour such things like I AM HERE WAITING. THE GAME IS OVER. AND SYTYCD IS ON THE LIST. so instead of heading to bed like i should have, i watched every damn minute of that action. BUT THEN! they almost kicked off my favorite favorite and for a minute aaron and i were like IF HE GOES WE ARE SO DONE WITH SYTYCD but then, alas, he was spared and then all was right with the universe again. i think at that point the wind even died down and off to sleep i went in a foggy sauvignon-blanc induced haze.

eff you, wind!

YOU MUST BE THIS TALL TO ENTER! ________

2009-09-10T14:39:00.000-07:00

i guess in some ways i'm glad the summer is over. it was just so much PRESSURE to always be out there doing fun things JUST BECAUSE it was summer. but then again, DAMNIT, i want a summer re-do. but i don't. i mean, there was a lot of stressful things that happened, and a lot of worrying and a lot of sleepless nights, sure. BUT. now. cosette is kicking ass and taking names, and aaron's back in the land of the living after a brief stint in VicodinVille, so all is well. I can't REGRET that my summer was not as fun-filled and fancy free as I could have hoped, but hey, WELCOME TO THE RIDE OF LIFE, RUBY. that's just how it flows, yo.

the other night over a couple of cocktails, liana told me that she heard that in the state of california, people UNDER 5 FEET TALL qualify as handicapped, and, as such, i should try to score myself a sweet parking pass and take full advantage of my disability. but then later, someone else at the party said they recently changed that law, and actually, naw, that is not the case anymore. and i was like DAMN. why does The Man have to keep Shorty down? i mean seriously.

so i have just over a week left of my body-for-life challenge and i'm happy to report i weighed in this morning at NEGATIVE 5 pounds from my original weight. however! i'm totally over this eating 6x per day thing, as i cannot for the life of me figure out how to balance my meals and eat the correct portion sizes. and frankly? i would just rather eff the carbohydrates and power up on protein, because when i do that, i feel like i can rule the universe. The Carbs (much like The Man) just conspire to keep Shorty down. and i'm done with you, The Carbs, soooo done.

however, working out 6x per week is the shizz. i do feel proud of doing that much. because when i say it's the shizz, i mean, OMG ITS HARDER THAN A BASTARD TO WORKOUT THAT MANY TIMES A WEEK! OK!?

on a parallel path, aaron is in the midst of dropping a significant amount of pounds for an upcoming test shoot of his big feature film project that he's doing with eddie. to be exact, i do believe aaron is attempting to drop 20 lbs by 9/29/09. which means 1 lb+ per day. i mean, KAZOINKS! right? but the "good" news is - the less he eats, the less i eat. everyone wins.

ESPECIALLY, my pants.

this past weekend was a rather lovely end to the "summer" even though, who are we kidding, i live in LA. seasons? what? and actually, if we are splitting any hairs, autumn officially begins on 9/22 .. which means... we still have some summertime partying left to do my friends. at any rate, aaron and i got massages on saturday and hi, WTF, where have you been all my summer, Massage? so grrroooood. then sunday was just like, chilling. i don't think we did much more than watch 800 episodes of curb your enthusiasm? maybe i had some wine? who knows. then monday we hung out on the rooftop with a fun downtown crew and made new friends and drank too much wine for sure, beacause i had a hangover at 10pm.

but! when i rose for work the next day @ 630am - BAM! back in it to win it.

on the horizon: jamie's bacherlorette party(...), VIKINGS FOOTBALL, jamie & johnny's wedding, various visitors and birthday parties and eassssing myself into "fall".

word!

2009-08-20T12:31:00.000-07:00

another early morning for me, another solid workout. what the nuts is going on? i guess falling asleep at like, 947p while watching the new version of top chef probably enabled me to have enough energy to wake up at 630a again. but hi, i'm lame. aaron was like, reallllly? it's not even 10p, lady! ahhhh welllll. zzzzzzzzzz.

so cosette's new nickname is franken-leg, a la frankenstein. when they said they were going to remove "wide margins" of skin around the area where her little tumor was, they were not kidding. no joke. so her little leg is completely shaven, and there's a super long incision that's all bruised and gnarly with stitches. she looks half naked. poor little nunkin!! now her two front legs have little shave marks from all the IVs they've stuck in her, and now one whole leg + haunches is nakey. cosette is like, um, hi. can i please have some pants here? i feel naked. or maybe that is me talking. either way. DOG PANTS! i need them.

now... it's just a bit of a waiting game until we know our next move. hopefully we will hear good news tomorrow.

speaking of naked, there was this super awesome article in marie claire this past month about naked ladies in the gym locker room. i felt like it could have been written by ME because it was so exactly how i feel. how can we stop naked ladies from being completely disgusting in the locker room? how do we start this movement to eradicate ridiculous displays of gratuitous naked grooming?? i' being serious about this. i'm completely over the ladies who feel like its ok to treat a PUBLIC PLACE as a place to do things that you should ONLY DO IN PRIVATE. what the eff is wrong with these people? someone who grooms naked in public - I WANT YOUR SIDE OF THE STORY. WHAT THE NUTS ARE YOU THINKING?!?

oh look, i found the link: put your goddamn undies on for the love of sweet baby jesus

i think i'm going to take a half day tomorrow. i have one summer half day left to use before labor day weekend and hey, why not. then i can wake up super early again, pound out another 5-miler, go to work, sit in on a lunch meeting, and then go home and sleep until happy hour, go to happy hour, see 500 DAYS OF SUMMER already since it takes place IN MY HOOD. i can't believe i haven't seen it yet! and then who knows where the night will lead me. oh i know. i will fall alsleep around 10:59 ( later, since it's the weekend) whilst petting cosette's sad little frankenleg. i like sleep.

speaking of crazy people, what's the deal with people bringing fully loaded automatic weapons to obama's town halls to "exercise their right to bear arms?!" honestly, this makes no sense to me - the discussion is about HEALTH CARE AND INSURANCE REFORM. i can't imagine there is any sort of sane, reasonable logic going on inside the heads of those people. shit is scary, yo.

on that note, happy thursday party people.

not so bad.

2009-07-23T16:56:00.001-07:00

so i think we are temporarily out of the woods. after coming home on friday, cosette did well for a whole day before she started having issues again. so after a sleepless night, we brought her back in on sunday. they decided to give her a steroid shot to help her breathing, but wanted to observe her for a few hours just to make sure it was OK. so we headed to the gym and when we were done, we called to see if we could come get her. but apparently she had an episode where she turned blue and scared the shit out of them, so they decided to keep her overnight. and then she stayed ANOTHER day after that and i was basically like, OMG is this it. but the next day they said she had an amazing night and was ready to go, so aaron picked her up on Tuesday and since then she's been on the road to recovery with little incident. she has to be sedated a little, to keep her calm and comfortable, but she's doing so much better. we still have to bring her in to have the cancer removed, but we have to wait until she's got the green light on recovering from what ails her now. FINGERS CROSSED.

to complicate things a bit, we have a trip planned to MN a week from today. if all goes well over the next few days, we will be leaving her & the Mu with aaron's brother and then doing the surgery when we get back on the 6th or 7th. ::sigh::

so the good news is: i'm on a 10-day vaca/staycation in ONE WEEK. holy god, i need a break. the plan now is MN from the 30th-5th, and then a downtown la-based staycation from the 6th-9th. i really really really can't wait.

so far our minnesota agenda is action-packed with weddings, birthday parties, shenanigans etc. i'm really looking forward to it. there is a SLIGHT possibility that we will have to reschedule if anything pops up with our little c-monster in the next few days, but OPTIMIZM, I HAZ IT.

tonight is a farewell party for three temporary employees that i had the pleasure to manage over the past 5 months. they are doing a program where they rotate all around our company, learning and absorbing, and then they graduate and basically pick a place in the company to land. one of them is most likely going to come back to us in january, which is awesome. but as of next week, they are off to chicago and my group goes from 5 to 2. i cry.

saturday night is a hot celebrity-studded rooftop poolside party, and sunday is detox yoga in the same exact location.

aaron and i have basically given up wine ever since last monday, which means i think i've only had one night with alcohol in the past 10 days. as a result? LOOSER PANTS. hallelujah.

also? Body for Life is going well.. i've worked out 6 days per week for the past 4 weeks. and, I think, almost 4 weeks into it, that i've finally figured out how to balance my multiple mini meals. i'm hoping i'm bikini ready by the time i leave for MN. yeah suckas.

anyway.

as you were.

ohh, you know

2009-07-18T18:50:00.000-07:00

it was an exhausting week. monday night at 11p cosette started having one of her breathing epsiodes. usually they are triggered by allergies, which make her congested, which makes it hard for her to breathe, which makes her panic, which just is bad news bears. usually, we can calm her down after awhile and she sleeps through the night. however, i was never able to calm her down and by 6am after being awake with her all.night.long, i finally decided to bring her into the emergency vet.

when she got there they immediately put her on oxygen and sedated her a bit. her oxygen levels were around 90, and i was told it's best to be at 92 or above, so it was not good but it wasn't SO bad. but they recommened we do surgery on her nose and throat to correct the breathing problems that have plagued her her whole entire 8+ years of life.

i was terrified to do surgery - it's a known fact that french bulldogs and sijmilar breeds often have trouble going under anesthesia. but this was the place to go (animal specialty group) if we were going to go anywhere, we just needed to prepare to pay anywhere between 2200 and 3700. right? what a range.

we brought her home and at 130a she started having another episode so we were back in the car and on our way to the ER once again. once we got there, the vet was lovely enough to tell us she was fine and she didn't recommend oxygen or any other measures at that time, she also waived her fee and sent us home. seriously, so nice of her. this is a place that does NOT skimp on fees, but they're also some of the best specialty vets around, so they need to get paid.

anyway, the next day aaron begged and pleaded to get her surgery appointment moved up, and they gave us thursday @ noon, which was awesome. we made it through wednesday night without incident and brought her pitiful little butt in on thursday.

surgery happened at 5 or 6p, and then they called us once she was awake to let us know it had been a success. THANK GOD. however, they broke the news that a lump on her hind leg that we asked them to check was actually a cancerous mast celll tumor. they recommend removing it right away, but not until the swelling in her throat from this surgery goes down. AHHHH.

oh! and they only charged us 2200 (only!) which was the low end. thank GAWD.

now she's home and recovering rather well. i'm actually shocked at how well she's doing. and! she CAN BREATHE. her nose looks totally different and she still has some swelling in her throat, but it was a success and i'm so relieved. we'll deal with the next thing once we *can* but for now, it's just spoiling the dickens out of her and keeping her comfy.

anyway.

as you were.

2009-07-09T17:55:00.000-07:00

on days like today, my eyelids are heavy.   my eyeballs are dry and a little red.   i have a tendency to get late afternoon headaches and find myself nursing half cups of cold coffee to make through the rest of the day.   but, i must say, days like these i love. it was a trainer day.

but not just any trainer day, today was my last trainer day.   unless i buy another package, which i won't be able to do for a minute.   but hopefully soon.

i woke up before the alarm went off, a 5:52am.   i padded my tired bones into the bathroom and and crawled into my workout clothes i had laid out the night before.   i padded down the stairs and only turned on enough lights to make out shapes in the darkness. i measured 1.5 scoops of creamy vanilla protein powder and dropped it into a glass and added cold water. i stirred the living daylights out of the mixture and then chugged it down.   i grabbed an orange and peeled the mutha effing skin off that b*tch and savored every little tiny slice as orange juice dripped down my digits.   i pecked at my keyboard and probably answered some emails. i dont remember.   then i heard the THUMP, clickity clack coming from upstairs indicating that camus was awake and realized i was not in bed.   he clickety clacked down the stairs and scurrried over to me to get a hug.   i squatted down and he jumped up and put his little chubby arms around my neck and gave me some kisses.   and then, i said, farewell mu.   and i shuffled out the door and into the blinding white light of the day, off to get my butt kicked my a short Persian named Lara.

as much as i hate anticipating these days, i love it when i realize, now at 4:28pm, that I get to go home and do sweet nothing without an ounce of guilt because my workout is done for the day.     SWEET BABY JESUS, HALLELUJAH.

i started the Body For Life challenge on 6/27.   that was approximately 13 days ago.  since then, i have worked out every day except (1). because it was a free day.   !!!     right ??   !!!!   i've also consumed 6 meals per day, almost every day, even free days.   because i like to eat. it's not secret and i'm not ashamed. plus, it's the program.   SIX MEALS A DAY. perfectly balanced with 40% carbs, 40% protein and 20% fat.   bring on the fat.

anyway, it's going good.    it's hard in some ways, not so much in other ways, but i like it.   maybe more on that later. maybe not. i might be losing weight, but i might be gaining muscle. who knows.   my pants is still tight.   damnitall. oh well.   71 DAYS TO GO.

recently life has been a lot of downtown exploration. i made this list so i could remember all of it:

JUNE

26^th rooftop birthday party @ liana & tal’s

27^th birthday party @ must bar & broadway bar

28^th lunch with tenna @ panini cafe, rooftop poolside yoga, rooftop BBQ / Jacuzzi @ evo

JULY

2^nd – poolside beverage @ hote fig; sangria happy hour at must bar ; sushi, sushi and more sushi @ wokcano

3^rd – rivera cocktail party

4^th – hung out at Juliet’s rooftop pool @ evo;

5^th – local appreciation day @ corkbar - Juliet, Niles, Joy, Aaron

6th - late night nosh & beverages @ yard house

7th - Michael Jackson memorial craziness, test kitchen tuesday @ corkbar

whew.

so that's that. lots of eating working out drinking eating working out eating and drinking.

that's my life and i loves it.

oh, but also? i'm broke. no thanks to must bar; broadway bar; panini cafe; hote fig; wokcano; rivera ; corkbar ; yard house

oh well.

laters.

starting with the me in the mirror

2009-06-26T15:07:00.000-07:00

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

2009-06-11T15:58:00.001-07:00

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.

2009-05-21T18:03:00.001-07:00

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

2009-04-28T18:02:00.002-07:00

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!

2009-04-28T18:02:00.001-07:00

like donkey kong!

2009-04-22T17:42:00.000-07:00

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

2009-04-20T20:50:00.000-07:00

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!

and then!

2009-04-14T22:59:00.000-07:00

well! when we last left off i had THOUGHT so hard that i was d.o.n.e. our friends from MN called me as i was en route to the new place with the stuff from the old place and i was all like, "yeah dudes, imma jump in the shower and then i think it's bidness time circa da 8-spot!" and i came home and the cable guy was still hooking stuff up (note: this was 5p and he had been scheduled to appear at 12p... YEARGH!) and then i promptly sent aaron to finish up at the old place, because, remember, i was DUNZO.

but about a half hour later, i got a call and it was him saying "sorrry honeyyyy, one more load!!" and NOOOOOOO, but yes.

and then i was realizing i had had nothing to eat all the damn day long! and it was now starting to verge on 6p! and soon it would be 7p! and then i would still need to shower and was there anyway i would be showered, dressed, glossed and heeled by 8p? highly.doubtful.

ah well.

hither and yon, lickety split.

but when i returned i realized that i had no idea how to unlock my new door with my new key. call it mover's fatigue, call it sheer lack of coordination. all i knew is that i was locked out, it was 7:55pm and my friends were scheduled to arrive a 8p. HARUMPH.

within nanoseconds, magically, aaron appeared, unlocked the door, i showered, heeled, glossed, sparkly eyeshadowed, and waited downstairs while aaron finished his showering ritual upstairs.

somehow, it all worked out.

the rest of the weekend went like this:

dinner, bottles of wine and shmoozing with the owner of the corkbar
yoga at our *new* gym down the way
chicken boobs from ralphs fresh fare
rooftop BBQ at liana & tal's with our MN friends
SO MUCH FUN and FUN
thai food delivery
pass out at 10p on the couch
puddle of drool

then monday morning i took the METRO to werk. !! !!

and i took it again today.

both days i got off the train and aaron & the dogs were waiting for me. because, hallelujah, we live 1/2 a black from the metro stop.

booya.

lifestyles of the what and the what

2009-04-14T22:34:00.000-07:00

Hi!

So the last few days of my life have been some of the most awesome! And also! The hardest EVER!
Moving is a bitch, ya’ll. But you already knew that.
and so.

friday i spent most of the day at our old place, cleaning out what I could whilst the movers moved stuff. they arrived and 12:15 and we were headed to our first drop-off destination by 3:15. after that, we were headed to the new place where aaron had been spending the day with the cool dudes who were installing our surround sound, 52" TV, wii, PS3 & etc. only! the cable guy had come and wasn't able to reach our cable box (?!??) and so he had to reschedule for the next day. this will become important later.

so the movers did their thing and by 6:30p or so, all of our lovely stuff was now populating the new digs. AND IT LOOKED GRRROOOOD. we were totally excited. we had them place the majority of the boxes in the front, in aaron's "man cave" which left the main kitchen and living room area pretty much void of boxes, which was awesome. we arranged various items on the new entertainment center and removed all the clutter from the kitchen island and around 8p, jason and kadee arrived with FOOD! and WINE! yay! we toasted the new place, nommed on some noms and tried desperately to maintain our energy level to hold a conversation for the duration of their visit.

10p rolled around and they bid their adieus as we collapsed into the couch and listened to the subdued noises of the bustling city right outside our window. at that point, we decided to walk the dogs to the nearby ralph's and grab some provisions. two blocks later, we were there. We met so many frenchie admirers along the way! You would think these people had never seen such precious creatures! And lo and behold, at 10-something on a Friday night the Ralph’s Fresh Fare Market was BUMPIN’. So many people, super long lines. It all made me feel SO MUCH like I was in da NYC. Because that’s really all I can relate to on a downtown living level. I’ve never actually lived in, like, a real city before. Los Angeles, as a rule, is not a city. But downtown LA? Well, it’s trying it’s heart out to be one.

The next day I had to go back to the old place and clean all the damn day long. IT SUCKED with the suckage of 10 million babies sucking on pacifiers. SUPER SUCK! And, in the meanwhile, aaron “got” to wait for the cable guy back at the new ranch. SO LUCKY, that devil. After about 7 hours of pure hell and suckage, I finally threw in the towel and cried mercy. And then I filled up my car with about 1/3 of what was left to bring back, and matter of factly declared! “I’m D.O.N.E!”

To be continued…

THRESHOLD

2009-04-09T01:16:00.000-07:00

when i walked out of work at 6:27pm tonight i was in a state of reflux. maybe i'm excited that i'm not going to have to work in an office and show up at a pre-determined time, but MAKE NO MISTAKE ABOUT IT, i will be working for the next few days. like a damn dog.

so yes, i'm on vacation.

but this is SO NOT a vacation.

yes! it's exciting! YES!   but, also, the anxiety dreams this week have been k-i-l-l-i-n-g me softly. mostly, i was worried about the damn glassware.   all the fancy waterford crystal wine glasses (that PS we never use, but maaaybeeee someday!) and the memories of all the wineries that we visited on our honeymoon and all 7 martini glasses that will FOR SURE come in handy when i go through another "martini" phase.

anyway, i was having anxiety dreams that i think i can tie back to my fear of breaking the glasses. even though, hi, we never use them, really. because we are high-class trash and we drink our wine out of low ball glasses, kids.   don't be jellis.

anyhoo, so yesterday WE GOT OUR KEYS! TO OUR NEW HOME!   i got home from werk and aaron and i decided to move some stuff in, like, offically. not a lot, because the painters were coming today (and by were i mean, they did, but my tenses are all wonky now). and so! we moved in (3) boxes of breakable glasswares and (2) boxes of expensive wines. and then! we decided to wash them and dry them and put them away.

BUT before i really even got into it, i promptly DROPPED one martini glass for no apparent reason.   i guess? just to get it out of the way.   anxiety = gone.

OH!! most importante!   i had this mini-fantasy that aaron would carry me over the threshold since, this is our first house and all. and as well were walking towards the door, i said something to the effect of - so did you want to carry me over the threshold? and he was like omg, how did you know?   and i thought it was supah cute because, like a duh, that is just what you do when you have a new home, right?   but hi, it's been 8 years since we did the whole marriage thing.. so is it too late? heck no.

and, fyi, he did carry me over the threshold of our apartment waaaay back when.

BUT.   this. was. awesome.

a memory i must crystallize.   :: commencing crystalization ::

aaaaaand, well, scene.

housewarming flowers from good friends (aaron & kelly) in Minne:

aaron chillin in the window:

the view from upstairs:

sproing!

2009-04-05T09:13:00.000-07:00

had sort of kind of wanted to sleep in today, but the alarm clock did it's business at 8:00am and once that happened, as it turns out, there was going to be no more snoozing today. not today.

weird dreams are populating my brains lately. i wake up in the middle of the night sort of ready to take some sort of action as dictated in the dreams, only to realize the only action i need to take is to back to god damn sleep, already.

yesterday when we went to the gym, i started doing the dramatic exit dance and turned to aaron and quipped, "this will be my last saturday at this gym." which in fact, it may or may not be as we may or may not actually be staying in our current place on friday night. but in fact, this will INDEED be my last sunday at the gym. and then when/if i go any days this week, it will be the last monday, the last tuesday and so on. i know, it's very dramatic.

i am going to miss all the gym characters and the ambience that i've grown to love. i'm going to miss being able to say that McDreamy AND carrot top work out at my gym. i'm also going to miss 60-year old detective mike who's run 13 marathons giving aaron and i marriage tips that always included aaron putting me on a pedestal. that is one wise old man, that mike. i'm even going to miss anorexic-looking erin who's been kicking my arse in sculpt class for the past few weeks ever since she took over the saturday morning class.

but a new gym is on the horizon. this one actually has allll the amenities that a true gym rat requires: pool, steam, sauna, jacuzzi, salsa classes, aqua aerobics, pilates, hip hop and dance classes and so on and so on. it's also conveniently located at my transfer stop on my metro ride to and from work, so my excuse jar is going to be coming up pretty: EMPTY. i will be at the gym more often, oh yes, i will.

as the memories and experiences of living in this area continue to rise and bubble over in the brains, i am starting to anticipate all the new ones that will be coming in soon. first metro ride to the airport! first metro ride to the beach! first winebar experience downtown! first chicken wing experience downtown! and so on.

our first night in our new place is less than a week away.

sproing!

New condo pics: BEFORE

2009-04-02T16:01:00.001-07:00

mum mum mum mah

2009-03-25T21:50:00.001-07:00

where to start!!

my life is a crazy hodge podge of EVERYTHINGCOMINGATMEALLATONCE but the also a whole bunch OF HURRYUP and W ...A... I... T.

SO WE ARE OFFICIALLY CONDO-LOAN-BUYING-A HOME {APPROVED}. WE ARE APPROVED!

only, this: we are still waiting for the %&*(^ governments to send all pertinent documents because we are doing an FHA loan and (THE GOVERNMENT IS F*CKING SLOW) therefore STILL don't actually have an official close date. It was supposed to be March 27th, 2009. HOWEVER. it is now looking like April 3rd, 2009 or MAYBE even April 10th, 2009. WHO KNOWS. we were supposed to find out Monday. we were supposed to find out yesterday we were supposed to find out today. i mean, um, WTF, motha f*ckers. WTF.

the good news is that everything will happen, it's just that it's taking longer than planned.

boring condo talk, i know.

moving on.

TODAY. i confronted a MAJOR fear. i presented to a class full of 20-something young adult college students at USC. I went in with [my company] branded tote bags and water bottles and I had on my salmon pink shell with my short sleeve jacket and pin-striped black pants with my Bebe black mesh with salmon pink and assorted other embroidered flower 3" heels. AND. NEWS FLASH. i did not, per my normal MO, TURN BRIGHT RED, AKA into the RULK. i was calm, relaxed, somewhat articulate and even, in some parts of my presentation, FUNNY. i made some of those college kids laugh, even.

It was equal parts SCARY AS HELL and PRETTY AWESOME.

so.... yay! fear: confronted & conquered.

for posterity because i've been noticeably unable to string together an entry:

saturday night was liana's bday party DOWNTOWN. her new place is AWESOME and not that far from ours. as a test, we parked my car at my work parking lot and TOOK THE METRO (WHAT? YES!) and it was very nice. as a result of not driving, aaron and i were able to DRINK TOO MUCH. and then i was hungover on sunday. meh. but i still managed to pound out a 10 - mile run. 24 hours previous to that run, i was face down at the chiro getting a massage. only, this time i said: please, can you only focus on my back for 60 minutes (including heads, shoulders, neckmeats and glutes) and my massage guy said YES OF COURSE. and after that? i was pure mush. which was brills because EVEN PRIOR to that, i was getting my ass kicked by anorexic-looking erin at the gym in her "BODY SCULPT CLASS."

*sigh*

hours upon hours BEFORE THAT i was at a play called Womens of Manhatten or somesuch and it was fun and good and I lurved it. earlier in the week i had a GNO (GIRLS NIGHT OUT) with tenna, amanda and ryan. which was awesome even if Ryan isn't even a girl.

OK>

END POSTERITY ENTRY.

xo

I think i have a bit of a wine buzz and I also kind of feel like a drunk spaz.

XO.

i haz a birfday

2009-03-06T00:07:00.000-08:00

i dont really have a shitton to say ... except that...

my birfday was da bomb.

and it's NOT EVEN OVER YET. well. ok. it is.

BUT.

i still have plans this weekend, ya know. birfdays on thursdays linger.... on....

Aaron went BIG this year. bought me a WII, took me to the THE LITTLE DOOR, procured a DOZEN ROSES, let me watch AI, ABDC AND SURVIVOR.

i'm the luckiest grrl alive.

WE ARE ON THE BUSINESS END OF ESCROW.

holy OMG.

it took me 33 years to become an ADULT.

i'm overflowing with happy.

double double ya'll

2009-02-20T13:21:00.000-08:00

+ i just consumed a vanilla latte to which i added vanilla creamer and then i added an extra shot of espresso. vanilla vanilla espresso espresso = %$#&^@$&*(@^(! and i WONDER why mah pants is always tight. hmmmm. mysterious.

+ lately aaron and i have endless conversations about finances, boxes, selling stuff, moving, paining, decorating, FHAs, HOAs, the metro, aaaaand, ohhh yessss... OUR PENDING NEW HOME. it's all very adult, the fodder of conversation that used to put me to zzzzzzzzzzzzzz. BUT NOW!? so different. so very, very different.

+i'm sort of "not running" right now. it seems that i'm going to yoga, yoga booty ballet, power sculpt class and so on... instead. i asked for new running shoes (for my *AHEM* upcoming birthday). because i've blasted through two pairs in the last 4 months. I'M A RUNNING FOOL, well, normally.

so maybe i'll be back on the treadmill soon. but hey. maybe not. don't judge.

if i'd rather shake my big old booty, i'm fittin to shake that thang.

ya hearrrrrd.

+i am SO AFFECTED by the subway $5 dollah commercials. i have dreams about footlongs and crave them all day long. WTF. WTF, i say. last night i gave in to my cravings and got the following delicious creation for dinner:

1. wheat honey oat bread
2. chicken breast
3. lettuce
4. pickles, lots of
5. cucumbers
6. yellow peppers
7. deli mustard
8. cilantro

heavenly. then! when i got home, i slathered on some veganaise.

OMG HIGHWAY TO YUM.

seriously, my mouth is WATERING RIGHT NOW thinking about those pickles, peppers and mustard.

+mostly, aaron and i have been eating thai, indian and chinese food as of late. we're so asian dude.

what's happening in yo neck o the woods?

comparisonage.

2009-02-13T10:25:00.000-08:00

So here's how our actual place compares to what we originally wanted

-2BR, 2BA

YES

-Fitness center (on-site! Treadmills required!)

no - but there is one next door that we can use for free since as our friend owns it

-Pool (preferably roof-top)

no

-Jacuzzi (w/ a “no freaks allowed” rule)

no

-Fireplace (for those cold winter nights)

no

-Dog Park (w/ automatic dog poo removal! Haha! I’m kidding!)

um, no

-Washer/Dryer in unit (A MUST MUST MUST, we are DIRTY KIDS!)

YES!

-Dishwasher, Refrigerator, Stove (I know, we are such snobs!)

YES!

-Cool islandy-thingie in the kitchen (you know)

YES!

-Walk-in closets (one closet for just my shoes alone! No! Yes!)

KIND OF!

-Hardwood floors (two French bulldogs with vomit issues, hello)

YES!

-Vaulted ceilings with a huge wall for our upcoming giant flat screen TV (negotiable)

YES!

-Custom Mouldings (whoa! I’m just kidding! I don’t even know what that means)

I DONT THINK SO?

-Close promimity to the Metro Red Line

YES!

-And so on

We are across the street from the Staples Center/LA Live, next door to a friend of ours, a few blocks from one of my BFFs, and within two miles of another good friend of mine. YAY! Also, there is a wine bar less than a block away. OH yes.

we're going into escrow, whoa

2009-02-11T18:32:00.001-08:00

i'm so excited i can barely stand myself!

i'm writing the biggest check of my life tomorrow.

there's a small chance our FHA loan won't approve our HOA, which would nullify the deal.

but if it works, we are about to be homeowners.

well, downtown condo loft owners, anyway.

F*CKIN !(#^!)*(^)!^!^()!^*()#!^ OMG.

Pictures to come...

wheee

2009-02-06T13:40:00.000-08:00

it's an incredible process.

you fall in love,you make an offer, you wait, you hear back that your offer wasn't good enough, you crunch numbers, you make a new offer, you wait, you hear back that it still isn't good enough, your heart sags, you crunch more numbers, you push the limits of your finances, you try to get creative, you try to imagine yourself in the new space, you try NOT to imagine yourself in the new space, you google the surrounding neighborhood and fantasize about your new life in it, you crunch numbers, you wait, you almost cry, you squeal with delight, you pass out every night this week exhausted but excited.

you start over again in the morning.

and so it goes.

in other news.

aaron will be making a cameo on "without a trace" on tuesday, 2/10 on CBS at 10p EST
work is insane. i'm full of adrenaline from the aforementioned process, but when you couple it with the adrenaline from work-related items and the insane pressure to perform in these economic conditions. welp. the mind races
i'm eating healthier and i've decreased my wine consumption by 57%
i really like the combination of tights, tall boots and dresses at the moment. presently i have about 6 different combinations of this one outfit.
my hair is finally growing out and the color is fading. normally this might sound like a bad combination, but i actually had (2) good hair days this week
aaron and i are in a crazy zone together. as crazy as we both are, we are almost exactly on the same page on the most important fundamental life issues
it's totally raining in LA today. I love it so.

Best Video Ever

2009-02-03T21:35:00.001-08:00

seriously

Mailbag!

2009-02-03T17:52:00.000-08:00

dear The IRS,

I want to thank you for what looks to be my Biggest Refund Ever. yes, this is all contingent on actually closing a condo deal in the next.... ohhhh... 8 weeks... BUT! i am cautiously optimistic that this will happen and so therefore you and i will have some celebratin' to do. first order of business: paying you back for that little, um, 2007 tax "error." whoopsadaisy!

~~~

dear my sweet Qualified Performance Artist / husband,

i want to thank YOU for literally putting everything you do into your craft. it's amazing what a Qualified Performance Artist can legitimately write off. and by amazing, i mean AWESOME TOWN! OHHHHH AWESOME TOWN!! keep up the good work!

~~~

dear our realtor,

make it happen. oh please, make it happen. use the force, young jedi.

~~~

dear eyeballs,

i know we are spending too much time in front of computers staring at numbers and crunching and recrunching all of our options. BUT. this does not mean you can just dry out on me. hydrate yourselves, i'm all out of eyedrops, damnit.

~~~

dear massage therapist,

i miss you, long time. see you saturday!

~~~

2009-01-23T13:24:00.000-08:00

So it’s official. MISSION: CONDO is officially underway. I received a PRIORITY BUYER PRE-APPROVAL letter from my bank yesterday. They would have had it sooner, but I had to cook my books to make it look like I was running a legitimate business vs. running an illegal drug trade operation out of our 2nd floor duplex. You know, and provide “proof” of income an assets and whatnot. I mean, what? Why do you guys want to know what I make? How rude.

So anyway, let’s not belabor the details. We are officially searching and it is, um, SCARY. Only because, well… I think I may be biting off more than I can chew in terms of thinking a mortgage payment that essentially doubles what I’m paying in rent right now somehow “reasonable.”

But again, details shmetails.

We’re primarily focusing in on DOWNTOWN LA because we think it sounds cool to say “Oh, yeah, so we’re going to go look at a few condos downtown this weekend.” I mean. Right? How awesome are we? But in reality, downtown LA isn’t quite on the level of SUPER AWESOME … yet. But it will get there, oh yes, it will. We only have, like, a million requirements right now, but I’m told that this list will start to dwindle once we find places in the range that we can “afford.”

Here’s what we NEED, uh right now:

-2BR, 2BA
-Fitness center (on-site! Treadmills required!)
-Pool (preferably roof-top)
-Jacuzzi (w/ a “no freaks allowed” rule)
-Fireplace (for those cold winter nights)
-Dog Park (w/ automatic dog poo removal! Haha! I’m kidding!)
-Washer/Dryer in unit (A MUST MUST MUST, we are DIRTY KIDS!)
-Dishwasher, Refrigerator, Stove (I know, we are such snobs!)
-Cool islandy-thingie in the kitchen (you know)
-Walk-in closets (one closet for just my shoes alone! No! Yes!)
-Hardwood floors (two French bulldogs with vomit issues, hello)
-Vaulted ceilings with a huge wall for our upcoming giant flat screen TV (negotiable)
-Custom Mouldings (whoa! I’m just kidding! I don’t even know what that means)
-Close promimity to the Metro Red Line
-And so on

I'm willling to trade the jacuzzi for a sauna and/or steam room, obvsly, but I don't want to go too crazy.

SO. I think this should go well.

In other news… one of the boots I’m wearing today somehow creates a little pocket of air on the left side of the right boot. When I walk a certain way, the boot position aligns with my inner foot arch to make sort of a “farting” noise. While some might think, WHOA! How awesome!! I like to think it creates a bit of an issue when attending client meetings. Funny? OH YES. Classy & Professional? YEAH, NO.

As you were.

what the nuts!?

2009-01-09T14:29:00.000-08:00

Got this email from my stepdad yesterday!

Friday evening, January 9, the [name redacted] features a pro wrestling card. One of the matches pits the White Ninja against The Assassin. It seems Mr. Assassin has been less than dedicated to his assassin-type duties, so understudy [my little brother, Ryan] has gotten the nod to don the black Assassin outfit and take on the Ninja. Going forward, Ryan can develop his own character, outfit, entrance music and the like. Maybe one of us can be his ringside manager, messing up his opponents while Ryan distracts the ref. Career opportunities abound. I’ll let you all know how it goes. (I asked Ryan about medical insurance. He said he can be covered from his job at Dollar Bill’s if he’s there another couple weeks.) Happy New Year & Love – Steve “The Sandman” (Finishing move: Having opponents doze off from long-winded stories.)

and I was all like FOR REAL??

It’s real. The Assassin has been rehearsing all week and is at the Legion now going through his moves with The White Ninja. He should be first up on tonight’s card, as it’s an initiation match. He’s all high on the whole thing – feels he’s found his calling. His entrance music tonight will be Highway to the Danger Zone. Pictures for sure. I’ll update you on his new persona. The Assassin appreciates your support. Love, peace & enlightenment – “The Sandman”

like, whoa.

better luck next year, again.

2009-01-05T15:00:00.000-08:00

i guess i'll take the blame.

i didn't start the game yesterday with my lucky uggs on and i couldn't remember if we had Mu in his jersey last week when we eeked out a win or not. i wore my crisp new 69 - Allen jersey again, but i changed the leggings i paired with it. so, anyway, i'm sure one of the crucial ingredients for ensuring a vikings win was not perfectly in place. and for that, vikings fans, I AM SORRY.

but SERIOUSLY.

i don't even know why i let myself get invested again. i WARNED myself not to let myself get my hopes up. but did i listen? no, of course not. myself is a rebellious bastard who listens to NO ONE! ESPECIALLY NOT MYSELF.

fast forward to a deflated me, head in hands, sour look on face, woefully watching mcnabb excessively demonstrating his excitement to have beat the Mighty Vikqueens. nearby, aaron was typing swear words into his facebook status, and we sank further into misery as the Minnesota contingent all expressed their disappointment via their facebook statuses. then? we just WALLOWED in it.

but were we surprised? nah. were we hopeful? sure. and i guess at the end of the day there's a lesson to learn here.

hope sucks.

*hangs jersey up in the back of the closet*

2009-01-03T23:03:00.000-08:00

so far, in 2009 i've logged 10 treadmill miles, 4 elliptical miles, one level 2 yoga class and one power sculpt class. i ended 2008 with a 10-mile run, which felt good, you know. but at the same time, why come my pants is so tight, ya'll? salt. salty salt salt. i think the moment i remove salt and sauv blanc from my diet is the moment my pants and i become friends again. this experiment will have to wait one more day, however, so that i can partake in debaucherous behaviors during the big vikings game tomorrow.

in related news, today's actions involved going to Big Wang's to watch the playoff game(s), which naturally involved consumption of a bloody mary, 10 chipotle chicken wings and 1 cajun chicken wing. approximately at the stroke of halftime during the colts/chargers game, aaron and i slithered down the street and caught the 7:35pm showing of gran torino after enjoying a smallish glass of sauv blanc.

this was not my favorite movie of 2008. not even close. but it kept my interest and i didn't fall asleep, so there you go.

and it's hard, actually, lately for movies and me. because when i saw the wrestler i gave myself a tear facial* and when i saw the curious case of benjamin button i fell in love with brad pitt and cate blanchett all over again. not to mention i just recently saw wall-e and assorted other grand movies, so you know, it's hard to compete. even if you are "vintage" clint eastwood.

anyhoo.

i'm not really sure how i'm going to go back to work as a fully functional human being on monday. what with me waiting to shower every day until maaaaybe 5p. but you know, i'll do my best. i'm impressive that way.

* i heard once that tears are good for your skin. if that's the case, my skin got treated REAL WELL during this movie.
you know, because i cried. A LOT.

i haven't showered since last year

2009-01-01T17:13:00.000-08:00

well happy happy new year to you, you and especially YOU.

we spent our evening at my brother & sister-in-law's house - just the "four pack." we created our own sushi rolls and sipped from a giant bottle of sake and played numerous rounds of "imaginiff." it was lovely.

then, after we counted down (and celebrated the 10th anniversary of aaron proposing to me!) we took the gloves off and had a wii fest. we had so much fun that i could hardly believe it when jason put down his controller and declared it a night... at 6AM!

whee.

so today was kind of painful, but we dragged ourselves to the gym around 2p and I did 34 minutes on the elliptical and 56 minutes on the treadmill and i feel much better now, thank you.

somewhere in the back of the house there is a shower with my name all over it, and maybe after this entry i may just jump in it.

or not.

either way, hope this is the best year yet!!!

2008-12-20T23:59:00.000-08:00

busted!

2008-12-19T23:59:00.000-08:00

C-Monster

2008-12-18T20:52:00.000-08:00

NY bar scene

2008-12-16T23:59:00.000-08:00

my least favorite hotel in NYC

2008-12-15T20:43:00.000-08:00

cool sunset action

2008-12-14T22:30:00.000-08:00

rainy day in pasadena

2008-12-13T23:59:00.000-08:00

the tatt is raw

2008-12-12T17:48:00.000-08:00

ratt a tatt tatt

2008-12-11T22:33:00.000-08:00

bride's request

2008-12-10T23:44:00.000-08:00

i swear, after this last piggyback ride at heather's wedding back in september, the "rides" are going back into retirement. i totally swear.

12.9.08

2008-12-09T23:56:00.000-08:00

shiny things.

2008-12-08T23:13:00.000-08:00

you're welcome.

dephomo 12.6 & 12.7

2008-12-07T18:31:00.000-08:00

last night, sunset on the pacific design center

today, celebrating new personal records for the LA half marathon
good times, ya'll!

spies like us.

2008-12-05T23:09:00.000-08:00

one of these days i'm going to spin a tale about our alter ego spy identities.

for now, you just get a visual of that one night when we rocked the spy industry in the wabasha caves in st. paul, minnesota.

and yes, it's framed and placed strategically on our mantel, because that's just how we roll.

yep.

2008-12-04T22:49:00.000-08:00

just a long over-due girls night out with ladies i worked with at my last job and one awesome dude that showed up and taught us all how to rock the world. is all.

the pink one is a grey goose pomegranate margarita. right? *drool*

my boyz

2008-12-03T23:06:00.000-08:00

i mean, it's no secret that we are "those people" that dress our dogs up...in jerseys, halloween costumes, santa outfits...

but you know what? it never gets old (to us).

at any rate, here are the two most handsome men i know, wearing the best color in tha universe.

it's no accident our vikes are #1 in the NFC North, what with the collective awesome jersey power of these two? can you even go wrong?

ya hearrrrrrd.

yeah. i know.

old is new.

2008-12-02T22:53:00.000-08:00

today's dephomo theme is "something old," or some variation of that. i thought it would be appropriate to post a photo that was taken a few days ago when i was back home of some of my best friends - all of which were my best friends in high school.

it's been 14 years since we all graduated, but "magically" we've all remained in each other's lives. i'm proud of, amazed by and constantly in awe of these amazing ladies.

so, um, yay for girls that rock.

epic fail.

2008-12-01T17:12:00.000-08:00

so i pretty much failed at the nablomo challenge. i blame: laziness, lack of internet access whilst in minneapolis, not enough time etc.

but now that i'm back and settling in, i am going to attempt a new challenge:

DEPHOMO!

basically, a photo a day for the month of december. are you ready for it?

here's what happened when we took cosette to the park on a mild minneapolis winter day.

pretty much, she couldn't hack it. but aw, how cute is she in her hoodie?

and here's one i took today... you know. dephomo.

2008-11-22T21:55:00.001-08:00

today we experience a cool, sad and random event: an open-urn memorial service for a dog.
the dog being celebrated was jackie, the dog who belonged to the owner of our little mom 'n' pop pet store.

it was cool because it we got to know some of our dog-loving neighbors on a different level. it was cool because the pet store owner hasn't been "OK" in the two weeks since her best friend passed. but today, she was so full of gratitude and she felt so loved. it was cool because we UNDERSTOOD what it's like to lose a furry friend, and how important it is to celebrate that life.

it was sad, because, hello.

it was random because how many dog memorial services have you been to? i'm guessing none. also? she made gingerbread cookies in the shape of her dog, and she made them in the shape of a "J," for jackie. also? an open-urn? unreal, but she is so quirky and adorable that it was OK. she also served wine and cheese. chips and dip. and of course, treats for four-legged friends that she made herself. i died of teh cute.

and now? we are about to leave for the airport with our little furry friends. it's mu's first plane trip and for cosette, it's probably her 10th.

i'm really just SO grateful to have them.

conversations of late

2008-11-21T13:04:00.000-08:00

REGARDING THE POOP SAMPLE RESULTS

ruby (5:58:36 PM): camus has a F8cking parasite can you believe that?
tenna (5:58:49 PM): oh no.............
ruby (5:58:49 PM): fecal freak
tenna (5:59:28 PM): that is weird....so, on meds he goes?
ruby (5:59:32 PM): they are both going to take the special powder and 5 days from now poof it shall be gone
ruby (5:59:44 PM): i want a parasite, just for thanksgiving though
ruby (5:59:55 PM): i want to eat a shitton but not have to digest it
ruby (6:00:14 PM): know whutimsayin
tenna (6:00:23 PM): HAHAHAH! are you drunk?!?!?!?

~~~~

REGARDING ASHLEE SIMPSON & PETE WENTZ DECISION TO NAME THEIR SON BRONX MOWGLI

jason (10:33:58 AM): what the F is mogli anyway
ruby (10:34:07 AM): the guy from the jungle book
jason (10:34:11 AM): oh
ruby (10:34:14 AM): http://images.google.com/images?sa=N&tab=ni&q=mowgli
jason (10:34:14 AM): OMG
jason (10:34:25 AM): they named him after the guy from jungle book
jason (10:34:29 AM): or is it just coincidence
ruby (10:34:33 AM): um no
ruby (10:34:35 AM): they did that
jason (10:34:39 AM): geez
jason (10:34:48 AM): that could be the most ridiculous thing I've heard in quite some time
ruby (10:35:25 AM): indeed
jason (10:35:45 AM): i wish i was friends with them
jason (10:35:47 AM): I'd be like
jason (10:35:48 AM): ummm
jason (10:35:50 AM): what!?!
jason (10:36:13 AM): I don't think I could keep a straight face
ruby (10:36:34 AM): i wouldn't be friends with them
ruby (10:36:39 AM): that is some sick shit
jason (10:36:43 AM): hahah
jason (10:36:43 AM): yes
jason (10:36:44 AM): it is

this one is for my pants, ya'll

2008-11-20T17:48:00.001-08:00

dear my pants,

prepare to get yourselves ROCKED! normally you only have to deal with one Turkey Day per year. but this year, my tight little friends, you GET TWO! oh yes.

the traditional turkey day will take place, appropriately, in the midwest. it is there that i will dine on delectable midwestern fare which undoubtedly will have to include meat, potatoes, starch and fat.

THEN! we will whisk ourselves back to LA on friday and we will do part deux, courtesy of the wonderful in-laws. this feast will probably have less potatoes, starch and fat, but it will probably include more chocolate, wine and gamey animals than you can shake a fist at.

ahhh, my belly is growling in anxious anticipation.

so hey pants, i suggest you install a belly expansion panel. cuz, uh, you're going to need it to contain the beast formerly known as my belly. yeah, i said that.

stay strong!

love,
ruby

floating tidbits

2008-11-19T16:34:00.001-08:00

i keep forgetting that i'm going to MN on the red eye saturday night, and it's messing with me a bit. holy crap, i need a vacation. i don't think my brain is able to comprehend the fact that i will not have to work for nine days.

today aaron dropped off some poop samples for cosette and camus with the vet. he has a theory that they are upcharging people to do a parasite test by preying on our fears and insecurities. this test is $104 a pop. i think his sentiment about this was something along the lines of "dude, come on, just because cosette has a bit of the drizzly droo* or the ra-ra**, doesn't mean it's a parasite!!" but on the other hand, she has had the ra-ra for almost a week straight, and camus' ra-ra has come and gone, so i guess it's good to be more safe than sorry.

in other news, they are both vet-certified to fly on our aforementioned red-eye flight, which now sounds funny to me when i just got done talking about the brown-eye. i know, i'm gross. but! the one thing that IS worriesome is the fact that camus has to fly in the luggage area underneath, and if the temp is BELOW 10 DEGREES either on this side or that side, they cannot fly him. current temps for mpls are projected to be in the high 20s for the day we fly, but...i'm a little nervouse. and yes i wanted that e on the end of nervouse. it makes it seem french or somesuch.

today i had a meeting with some fancy talent agency research people who were not only smart, they were also some pretty hott ladies. they got in a three-way discussion with my boss about NANNIES which was where i promptly glossed over and started thinking about wine. this always happens when anything relating to babies comes up. i automatically think about wine or sushi.

currently, aaron is one half-hour into a 90-minute massage with the enviable zach t. i will be taking my turn with zach around 7:45pm tonight, and i wish i could communicate with typed words how UNCONTROLLABLY EXCITED I AM ABOUT THIS, but alas, you will just have to imagine my unbridled excitement for yourselves.

so there you have it.

18 nablopomo entries down, 11 mo' to go. (see, i skipped a day, because i suck)

* aka diarrhea
** aka diarrhea