pepito

Today is Andres’s birthday. When I first met pepito just over 10 years ago, it was at his place in Bordeaux. His roommate had invited me for a party they were throwing. He thought I was some aloof girl across the room and instantly disliked me. A few hours (and several bottles of wine) later, we were among a small circle of people talking, laughing and sharing war stories from our first few months of living in that bizarre land called France. He invited himself over the next day for a visit and we’ve been friends since.

We used to go grocery shopping together when we were students in Bordeaux. We’d bring his granny cart and backpacks and hike over to the nearest supermarket (Auchon). We’d fill our shopping cart with couscous, eggs, juice, coffee and other indispensible student staples. We had tiny kitchens and tinier budgets, but we managed to fill our carts to the brim. After checkout, we’d stand in the entry way off to the side, filling the granny cart and our backpacks with as much groceries as we could fit. Then we’d carry the rest of the bags in our hands and hike back to our apartments.

No matter what he’d always try to carry more than me. I always found this charming and amusing. Okay. He’s like half of my width, my height and with those long lashes around his pretty green eyes, you wouldn’t think he’d be capable of hauling bags and bags of groceries across town. But he’d always offer and when I’d decline, he’d sigh, shake his head and grab them from me anyways.

I miss his silly ways, how we’d spend hours gossiping and laughing, how he’d dole out a portion of his budget to always include a little “grignote” of chocolate or some other absurdly sugary treat.

He took off for art school in Paris 9 months after I met him and he’s been living there ever since. My latest ploy is to get him to move to the states to be closer, but the boy is stubborn. He just got his french citizenship so I can see why he might be hesitant.

Pepito is a darling boy. He is kind and funny and smart and quirky. He doesn’t like to eat fish, but he likes fish motifs (or at least he did when we lived in the same city all those years ago). He is artistic and creative and wonderfully, tenderly sensitive. He makes me laugh.

Happy birthday andresito-pepito! Hope the Paris skies are clear and beautiful for your birthday picnic at butte de Chaumont and that your friends there bring lots and lots of cauchonnerie to nibble on.

I miss you!

maman et papa

oday is the 37th anniversary of my French parents Jacqueline and Jean Beaumont.

I asked them once how they met. They were in Nantes where Jacqueline grew up. And Jean was a student who was renting a room in the house next door to Jacqueline’s parents home. He peeked over the stone wall because he wanted to get a better look at the charming and lovely lady he’d seen in the yard next door. If memory serves correctly, I want to say that she was hanging laundry to dry and he was spying on her. It was love.

Happy Anniversary chers parents francais! I wish you many more happy years to come!

gros bisous!

meathead reprise

So two Christmases ago, we gave our favorite meathead the following t-shirt (left) and his wife the other t-shirt (right):

Not to be outdone. My wiley father-in-law made some, er…alterations and met us at the airport last summer wearing this:

In this photo, he’s parading around in his altered meathead shirt the night before my wedding. My mother-in-law gladly gave up her shirt to anyone who was willing to wear it. There were quite a few contenders. And of course, they thought it would be hilarious to pose for a photo with my husband in the middle. Dad-in-law clearly thinks that the meathead title belongs to his son.

A few months ago, my mother-in-law let slip that they intended to wear the meathead shirts to the airport when they picked us up for our visit in July. My dad-in-law wanted to get as much mileage out of those shirts as possible.

A retaliation effort ensued:

(Pardon the kitty butt. Ocha wanted to test out the shirts for herself.)

We plan to arrive at the airport, wearing button down shirts over the blue meathead shirts. We’ll greet m’s parents and hug and kiss. We’ll laugh good-naturedly at the red meathead shirts that they will wear to greet us. Then, we will oh so casually take off the outer shirt to reveal the blue meathead shirts underneath.

Moral of the story: don’t cross a graphic designer with itchy craft fingers.

Bring it.

vacation in the rain

Are we crazy? Leaving this:

for this:

Though, upon further reflection…do we have a choice? We planned this months ago…

M and I are heading out to New England on a Thursday night redeye. On the east coast, we plan to do the following:

• attend a family wedding
• research the housing market and attend many, many open houses
• eat way too much
• spend time with m's family
  
• watch a lot of cable t.v.
• drink too much beer
• go to the beach with littles ones (pending weather)
• check out local yarn stores

Acutally, I’m really looking forward to it, rain or no rain. It will be nice to have a change of scenery, nice to not have to work for 11 days straight, nice to see my in-laws who are just about the nicest folks around, nice even to explore the greater Boston area with my husband who will be ready with black notebook and calculator in hand.

[WARNING: A bit of knitting talk to follow. And incidentally, have I told y’all how much I have been enjoying reading knitting blogs? It’s one of the reasons I have been inspired to teach myself to knit. In one of the knitting blogs I read, the blogger was asked if her family (whom she writes about quite frequently) know about her blog and mind that she writes about them so much? They don’t know about her blog (for various practical and personal reasons) and so can’t read about themselves. And it made her wonder if other bloggers shared their blogs with their friends and families. Interestingly, a large number of her readers who are also knitters and bloggers said that they do not share their knitting blog with their family and friends. Those who have tried to do so have not received the most positive responses. Some friends/family intentionally ignore the knitting blogs with the excuse that it’s boring, some laughed when told by the knitter/blogger: I have a knitting blog.

Well.

I could say a lot about these knitter/bloggers and their circle of friends/family and how it’s important to be supportive. I could also talk about how a lot of blogs out there are quite boring and not all of them are worth reading with regularity. And I could also say that if you are not a knitter nor interested in being a knitter, reading knitting blogs can be a bit of a chore. What with all of the technical mumbo-jumbo that even a knitter has to concentrate to follow. So I think I will spare you from this part of my life and only bring up knitting when it relates to something generally interesting. And if I think that maybe I will let you know if it might get a little mumbo-jumbo-y so that you can skip past that part and move on to more scintillating parts about my life. So. And so. The next paragraph is about knitting. Some of it a little technique-related.]

I plan to get a lot of knitting done. The socks of sucktion are nearly complete (again). I think I have more or less mastered the technique of knitting socks, though the heels still leave something to be desired by my meticulous eye. I now know how to knit a pair of socks starting from the toe and ending at the cuff. However, I have managed to make the socks too long at the foot for my tiny-footed recipient. So. And so, mad ripping of the sock will ensue. I will rip, er…shorten the length of the foot to where I need to start the heel for a much, much smaller foot and then recommence the heel. It’s mindless work, I actually don’t mind too much. And yes. There will be enough yarn for a pair of socks that match each other and fit much, much smaller feet than mine. Really tiny. I mean teeny! I can’t believe she doesn’t fall over from imbalance on such leetle, teeny feet! And the tiniest little toes. Pedicurists should really charge her half price because they are robbing her blind if they make her pay full rate for doing up such teensy little toenails.

While I am gone, I should be able to access a computer and internet and continue blogging. If I am not too exhausted from eating so much junk food and drinking so much beer and having so much freaking fun. There are t-shirts to share, after all. I planned to photograph them during the making of, but the batteries in my camera died so I had to wait. Perhaps when I am in Boston.

Well, my lovelies. Have a marvy week. I’ll probably be able to check in again before I leave. But if not, see you on the other side of the states!

WFK

Yesterday was Father’s Day in the U.S. and we sent these to my father-in-law as a little something to honor him by.

Forgive the blurry photo, I tried to tweak it in PhotoShop, but I think you can see that they are cotton hankerchiefs. Handmade. With hand-embroidered initials monogrammed in blue thread. That last hankie on the very bottom? It shows the backside with another embroidery in green. Also by hand. It says: MEATHEAD.

We called Meathead, I mean, my father-in-law yesterday to wish him a happy father’s day. He claims that one side of the hankie is for him and the other saved for his son.

to date

Somehow it has escaped the notice of my co-worker that the tuna-melt sandwich on toasted sourdough bread with a side of french fries that he orders for lunch nearly every day is, in fact, not a healthy lunch choice.

This came up in conversation because we were both agreeing on how tasty Italian sausage is. “But it’s so unhealthy,” he lamented. I comment that it’s funny to hear this coming from a guy who eats a tuna-melt with fries nearly every day at lunch.

But it’s fish. He says.
Mercury. I remind him.
The mercury levels are minimal. He counters.
How about those fries? I ask.
Aren’t they healthy? I thought they were baked. He makes a call to the restaurant and confirms that the fries are indeed fried. He looks a bit morose.

My boss enters the fray by reminding him of the mayonaise that goes in the tuna. And the cheese, I jump in again.

Mayo’s bad for you? He is genuinely surprised. He is thinking this over and remembers something.

Have you guys heard about how those styrofoam containers that your take-out food comes in, it’s bad to put that in the microwave?

I wonder without saying it out loud if perhaps the minimal amounts of mercury in his tuna-melt have something to do with this apparent lack of awareness of the contemporary world. I silently take bets on when he’s going to ask me about that crazy game of six degrees of separation with Kevin Bacon movies. Instead, I just nod.

As for lunch, he has decided to continue ordering the tuna-melt (I always figured I was getting a healthy lunch. I mean, it’s not fast food, right?). He’s going to order something else instead of the fries.

EDITED TO ADD:
I can hear him placing his lunch order now and he’s requested a different side (fresh fruit), and he did ask them to include some tomatos, lettuce…and bacon.

the suck-tion of socks

Okay. So I have a lot to say today. Diarrhea of the mouth.

I am now beginning to understand the plight of knitters.

Somewhat.

Have I mentioned that I have been teaching myself to knit? Well, I already know how to knit, but mostly rectanguloid stuff. And when you knit one scarf (in all the variations of knit, purl), you’ve knit them all. So I’ve only knit like two scarves and maybe a started a throw, but I figure it can’t be that hard, right?

So I’ve been surfing knitting blogs and I’ve been inspired. And there are so many cool and beautiful things to be knit out there and now I want them all. I WILL knit that beautiful lacey shawl, I WILL incorporate beads into a knit hat, I WILL knit a complex Aran (otherwise known as fisherman’s) sweater, I WILL delve into Fair Isle. But first, I will start with socks. Because, well, socks are great. I hear that hand-knit socks are particularly awesome for the wearer. They are a portable project that you can take with you since the finished product is relatively small and so easy to carry around. And they can be complex enough so that you have a small sample of new stitches and patterns to learn. A good learning tool.

Here’s what I’ve been working on:

Yep. It took a bunch of false starts, several rounds of knitting and unravelling, but I managed to finally complete a sock. Yay, you think. Look at that jean go. Check out that sock. And it looks like she’s working on sock number two. Zowie.

Yeah, well, maybe.

I wound my skein of yarn into a tidy little ball because it kept tangling while I worked on sock #1. When sock #1 was completed, I congratulated myself and figured I wouldn’t be able to start sock #2 until I purchased more yarn. Something I was a little hesitant to undertake since it’s not cheap yarn, but if I need more yarn, I need more yarn. I mean, what am I going to do with one sock? But hey, here’s a little left-over yarn, I’ll just start off the next sock and when I run out, I’ll buy more yarn and incorporate the second skein to continue and finish the sock. So I start sock #2 and as you can see, I’ve made some progress on something that looks like a sock and hey…wait a minute… that ball of yarn isn’t noticeably smaller…and it’s pretty dense…and now I’m wondering if maybe I’ll have ENOUGH YARN FOR A PAIR OF SOCKS?!

How exciting.

So I knit on and then it occurs to me: I’m knitting the sock starting from the cuff and working my way down to the heel, then curve around the heel and knit the foot then narrow it off and finish knitting to cover up the toes. This is an acceptable way of knitting socks. In fact most of the sock patterns I see out there start the sock at the cuff and end in the toe. But I have no way of knowing for sure if I have enough yarn left for sock #2. Am I going to knit and knit and knit until I have just an inch short of a full sock? And then have to stop because I’ve run out of yarn and can’t complete the toe? And then that would mean that I would have to run out and buy another skein of yarn? Just so I can use up a few yards of it to finish up this sock and then have almost a complete skein for god knows what? Handknit washcloths? How can I know for sure? Isn’t there a magical way I can figure this out before I’ve spent another 3 hours knitting the second sock before I’ve run out of yarn?

All that knitting surfing wasn’t for naught. I remembered that some of the crafty knitters would weigh their projects to determine such things. Aha! I have a digital postal scale at the office. I can use that! So when no one at the office was looking, I placed sock #1 on the scale and it weighed in at 1oz. I yanked the needles out of sock #2 and put that with the remaining yarn on the scale and it weighed in at .75 oz. Ugh.

So now what? Now my fears have been confirmed. I will have one complete sock and one sock with toes missing. Start a new fashion statement? Buy more yarn? Rip everything up and START ALL OVER AGAIN? Socks with a shorter cuff? Anklets? Why don’t people knit socks starting from the toe and ending at the cuff? So that if they run out of yarn, they can just fudge the cuff length, but at least then they’ll have a complete pair of socks. Varieted cuff length is not that big a deal. Socks with toes missing=not good. Actually, there are several existing methods of “toe-up” sock patterns out there. Silly me, that’s where I should have started. So now I have to find a website with toe-up instructions and learn how to knit toe-up.

So. And so. I have decided to rip what I have to shreds and start all over again. I know. Insanity.

I’m actually feeling pretty cheerful about it. It was a good learning experience, right? Now I know that I will always knit my socks toe up. Unless I am 100% sure that I have enough yarn. Or I get rich and can afford to buy as many awesome, beautiful fibers at like $20 a skein (not what I paid for this yarn, in case you are wondering).

Now the only other thing I’m wondering about is if I’m going to like these socks re-knit with a shorter cuff? Eh. Not really. Maybe I’ll have to give up being the wearer of these socks and make them for smaller feet. Now who do I know with smaller feet?… one of you out there may the the recipient of a pair of great hand knit socks … someone who is not so good about accepting gifts…even on her birthday…someone who thanks people after she’s done them a favor…someone who’s name begins with a “J” and ends with “-anet”…someone…

foodies are us

So I had a very foodie weekend. I was on some sort of a cooking frenzy, such was my zeal. Friday evening started off with a meal of pork strip stir fry with swiss chard and bow-tie noodles. We had some yummy tomatoes on the vine and a really nice hunk of fresh mozzerella that we added to the meal in a caprese salad. Yum, yum, YUM!

[No photos. Boo. I thought I took some. Alas, I did not.]

Saturday morning, I made french toast with some leftover cinnamon swirl bread. It’s been a long time since I’ve made french toast. We used to have it nearly every weekend when my nephew lived with us and now I’m rarely seen making breakfast anymore.

[No photos again. Boo.]

Lunch on Saturday consisted of an asian chicken salad using left-overs. Not as exciting, but still tasty. M particularly enjoys this lunch: cheap, easy and tasty.

[No photos again. Boo.]

Dinner on Saturday was chicken breast with a lemon caper sauce and lemon zest rice pilaf with grilled broccoli rabe.

And my happy husband digs in:

…leaving behind no crumbs

Breakfast Sunday morning consisted of blueberry pancakes (for moi) and chocolate chip pancakes (for my husband) with italian sausage. A light and airy recipe from food network. The chocolate chip pancakes were so rich and decadent, m didn’t even touch his sausage.

[I had photos, but my camera sucks and so they came out really blurry. The general quality of my photos are seriously lacking. Read the specs carefully when selecting a digital camera. I would not recommend one with a digital zoom.]

No lunch on Sunday due to the filling and decadent breakfast.

Dinner on Sunday was Osso Bucco with asparagus and mushroom risotto, sauteed kale and a green salad with the last of the fresh mozzerella and tomatoes.

The gremolata for the osso bucco and other prepwork:

I got so busy with the cooking, a lot of it simultaneous, so I only took a few photos. Here’s the osso bucco simmering in it’s own yummy goodness:

and a blurry comparison shot of what the cookbook says it
should look like at the end:

We had a special dinner guest over. Cousin Todd was in town! We had originally planned to take him to a Thai restaurant near the university dorms where he’s staying for a Jesuit conference, but at the last minute, we decided to invite him over for dinner instead. We had all the fixings for Osso Bucco and it’s just the kind of a meal you want to cook for a guest.

It was my first Osso Bucco. We’ve ordered it plenty of times at restaurants, but this was my first try at making it at home. I used a recipe from a big cookbook I bought years ago at Costco. One of those beautiful glossy photo filled numbers with a lot of text and not as many recipes. I was young and foolish. It’s been a pretty decent guide for some culinary basics and the photos are darned pretty. And to its credit, it has supplied me with a few of decent recipes (halibut with a mushroom and shallot sauce, saffron potatoes, quick and easy coffee cake and the osso bucco). I think it turned out pretty good, the osso bucco. I made a few notes on adjustments I’d make for the next time around (less saffron, cook the carrots a little longer, try it with the celery which I forgot to buy for this meal, brown the veal shanks just a touch longer and braise it on a lower heat for another half hour). The Osso Bucco was tender and tasty with the meat just falling off of the bone. The sauce was rich and just the right amount of tart and sweet.

The risotto. Ah, the risotto. There is an ongoing battle over risotto in my life. I love risotto. I could eat it every day but for the onset of heart disease from all that butter and oil and cream and cheese. YUM. I made risotto for my parents once years ago. I figured they would also enjoy it. I cooked it at their house and added baby squid, scallops, shrimp and lumps of white fish. Seafood risotto. Are you salivating yet?

Now risotto is supposed to be creamy and it’s supposed to have a bite. Like pasta cooked al dente. My parents however, thought I had made some delectable RICE dish instead of a delectable Italian classic. They oohed and aahed while they watched me stir. They savored the aroma from the bowls I served up. They dug in with their forks and with gusto. The verdict: they loved the seafood risotto. However, my father asked that I not undercook the rice next time. It would taste so much better if the rice was fully cooked.

Fastforward to present day. I cook risotto for my husband. Once I make it right, once I overcook it. He puts in a request that I overcook the risotto from now on. Sigh.

Anyways, I overcooked the risotto Sunday night. There are only so many things a girl can battle over. The Tofu Salad for one thing.

The foodies forge on. Last night I made calzones. Steak and cheese in one and spinach and sausage in the other. This one was supposed to be the healthy one. You know, it has spinach in it. Yumalicious.

Tonight it’s just fish. Okay maybe some of that left over lemon caper sauce drizzled over it, but that’s it. I’ve got logos to design, socks to re-knit, some sewing to start and t-shirts to make.

my boss rocks

Can I just take a moment here to talk about my boss?

My boss rocks.
She is the bomb.
She’s got it goin’ on, giiiiiiirl!

Okay, so first of all, she is way laid back. She doesn’t freak out. She doesn’t lose her temper, she is totally reasonable. Wait a minute. Is it totally strange that I am singing the praises of a boss because she is sane? I have been on a long losing streak of bad managers. Let it be known, the dues have been paid and I can now revel in the rewards.

When I first started working for her, she told me that sometimes (cough, cough, all the time) on Fridays, we close the office at 5 instead of 5:30. LOVE IT.

And then every once in a while, like every other week, say…she’ll tell us: let’s leave at 4:45. It’s such a quiet day.

And just now as she left (she works half an hour earlier and leaves half an hour earlier than we do), she told me that since her boss is out of town today, and it’s been so quiet I could leave early too.

Bless you mxxx for your sanity and coolness. May I have many more bosses like you in my professional future.

(takes so little to make me happy, right?)

also married in June

Back in 1969, that is…

My french dad, Jean Beaumont asked that I post this photo on my blog. I think he needed a safe place to keep the reminder. When I asked what day they were married, he confessed that he did not know. And now you all know.

On the 28th, they celebrate their 37th anniversary.

Papa-tu dois le publier sur ton blog toi-meme. Ce sera sympa.

movie night

So last night was movie night for the me and m. We subscribe to one of our local public radio stations. With our subscription, we get to attend (mostly) monthly screenings of yet to be released films under an event called Matt’s Movies. For free!

Matt Holzman is great. He is smart and articulate and he finds really good movies that he shares with his friends- the audience members who attend Matt’s Movies. Through him we have seen many awesome films in advance of the opening dates. We can pretty much guarantee that if Matt showcases a movie, it’s gonna be good. Real good. Case in point, we have seen the following at a Matt’s Movies screening: Capote, The Constant Gardener, The Squid and The Whale (actually, I think we rented this one on DVD, but it comes highly recommended by MH), In This World, Touching the Void, Whale Rider, Rabbit-Proof Fence, Brick, Syriana and many, many more. Often there are Q&A sessions with the director or writers and sometimes the actors of the film being screened.

Last night’s film was no exception. Wordplay was entertaining with an intriguing cast of characters (both famous and not) and just enough suspense to keep me interested, but not get sick. (Side note: I find that watching movies high in suspense makes me a little nauseated. I get so worked up over the suspense and tension and really, it takes so very little. Let’s remember that “high in suspense” is all relative here.) The tension was milder than that in Spellbound and Wordplay was a lot like Spellbound but with more celebrity faces and you know…crossword puzzles instead of a spelling bee.

Interesting facts I learned from this movie:

• Former President Bill Clinton is a crossword puzzle fan and has been known to do 3-5 puzzles in a day. In one instance (while still at the White House) he completed the New York Times puzzle in about 6 minutes while being interviewed by the NYT puzzle master and simultaneously taking a phone call for which one of his aides deemed important enough to interrupt the interview.
• There was one marriage proposal crossword puzzle in the NYT made by request from a New Yorker whose girlfriend was a NYT crossword puzzle fan. The now happily married couple send the NYT puzzle master a gift every January.
• There is a preponderance of competition-level crossword puzzle players who are left handed.
• On the morning of the 1996 presidential elections results, the NYT crossword puzzle had a results prediction clue where the answer could have been either C-L-I-N-T-O-N or B-O-B-D-O-L-E. Either answer would have completed a correct crossword puzzle. It was the first time in 16 years that presidential candidates had the same number of letters in their names. The first example was the 1980 presidential election between Carter and Reagan. Unfortunately, the puzzle maker did not submit this clever puzzle idea in time to publish it for the morning of those election results.

I believe the release date in the US for this film is June 23. Jenn: the Indigo Girls are featured in this movie and I believe you are back in the country by then. My pals overseas: I don’t know if this little gem will make it’s way to you. There are some things that just won’t translate well into other languages, but the stories are engaging all the same.

happy birthday RDM

wish I had a more recent photo of my godson/nephew RDM. Here he is at our wedding last summer. He had just turned one:

I’ll have to find a better one when I’m home with the complete files. Today he is two.

Happy birthday little one.

Also, isn’t this just the cutest funnest looking present ever??

I hope he likes it. If I were small enough, I certainly would.

heat wave weekend and another day of property management [Rated R for extreme language]

This post has been modified with a reader’s discretion rating. There are at least three instances of exreme language. Reader discretion is advised.

Um, can we say hot?

This weekend was so freaking hot I couldn’t convince myself to move. At all. My poor kitties were so hot, they just lay stretched out on their sides, with eyes half closed not quite asleep, not quite awake. Tough weekend to be a kitty with their plush fur coat.

So. Let’s check in, shall we? What did I say I wanted to accomplish? How much of it got done? Here’s the list (THE LIST) from last Saturday with the completed items crossed out:

Clean the toilet (yes, people, my favorite job of the week)
Clean the floors and dust
Groom my cats so that they stop swallowing so much cat hair which they then puke back up and leave for me in little pools of stomach acid to wipe up. (I prefer wiping it up right away to leaving it around and listening to them lap it back up. I don’t know, maybe ocha likes warm food or she likes the bite of stomach acid on her taste buds. Do cats even HAVE taste buds? These guys lick ass, you know. Ok. Seriously digressing)
Mop the kitchen floor (yes, yes, I could have just said: household chores for all of this, but then I couldn’t fully make you feel as sorry for me if I were so concise)
Unpack from the trip to the Bay Area last weekend
Tidy up
Work on my portfolio (actually, this is the best part of my weekend)
Finish up some sewing projects
Start some sewing projects
Sigh and moan many times to express how unjust is my life

Um. Yes. And okay. I admit. The unpacking and tidying was mostly my husband’s contribution. It was just too freaking hot! And to think the jenn and nathan are contemplating snow and cold rain.

Work has been very boring as well. Very. Boring.

And I must confess, I have not been a very good employee. I blame it all on one grumperina. Ms. Grumpy is funny, she is talented and smart and I am so addicted to her blog. I can’t stop reading. Plus work is so terribly boring that it is an easy excuse to putz around instead of being productive with busy work. I am trying to plow through her archives so that I can get caught up. If I don’t have a lot of archives to read, but just daily updates, maybe I can convince myself to be a better employee and use my job hours more effectively. Then again, I could really care less. Dude. If I was my own boss, I would so fire my ass right now.

In other news, I joined a gym. Yes! A gym! I know, I know. I tried to ride my bike to work being that I live like 4 miles from the office. But it just wasn’t a good experience folks. First of all, the motorists in L.A. are…how do you say?…assholes? I’ve had things thrown at me (okay, maybe not intentionally), I’ve had people honk and shout at me (there are only so many “FUCK YOU”s a girl can take in a day) and I just don’t care to be behind a car that decides it wants to use its windshield wipers with some wiper fluid spraying all around. On top of that, when I arrive at my destination (and also during the transit) I wipe my damp brow on my sleeve and see that my sweat is mixed with sooty grime that we call the L.A. air. Yep. That was probably the last straw. I just can’t sacrifice my clean pores for this. So my lovely little Trek that I got such a great price on when I bought it used just hangs a little lonely from un-use on my deck. I’ve taken it out for brief weekend rides to the beach and back. That’s fun, but I haven’t been a regular cyclist. It’s just not in me. Perhaps for another time.

So I don’t like gyms and all that, but I decided to join a mega-gym. Makes perfect sense to me. One that has like a pool and stuff. One that offers classes. Yoga, anyone? My new gym is just 10 minutes away by car. They are open 24 hours (truly). And they offer yoga every day off the week. Some days more than once. My new schedule is to go home after work. Dinner with my husband (sometimes I cook, sometimes we go out). An hour of fiddling around (movies, computer time, etc.) and then get ready for the gym for my 9pm yoga class Monday through Thursday.

Last night was business as usual. I got to my class a little early to warm up. There was another class in session in the room. It was street hip hop and they were hoppin it up (so to speak). The instructor, I was not as impressed with. He’s one of those who count out loud during the choreography but does not add helpful hints like indicating where the footwork changes or the part where the tricky stuff comes in. Useful hints in good choreography when you are trying to learn it. Instead he was all about shouting: “and five and six and seven and eight and one!”… Just over and over again. Did he need practice counting?

When my yogi arrived he was perturbed. He approached the hip hop instructor as the hip hop students were leaving. And I couldn’t hear every single word, but Raghavan was obviously upset because the Hip Hop class isn’t supposed to be using the yoga room and maybe demanding some answers from Mr. Hip Hop. Mr. HH’s response was pretty diplomatic. He said that it was beyond his control and that everyone just needed to work with it as best as they could because “We’re all part of the same family.” I didn’t look up, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he peaced Raghavan out.

Yogi’s aren’t usually the types to get wacked out. Raghavan is no exception, but he was still shaken by the situation. He muttered about it for a few good minutes even as we were starting our initial warm ups with him. Breathing in. “You know, you have the power. I have no power.” Breathing out. “They have a box out there called Suggestions. Fill out a form and tell them you are not happy about this.” Breathing in. And roll up. “How much does a…what do you call it…boombox? How much does a boombox cost? $40″ Breathing out. “You can’t just buy a boombox and take it down there?” More mutterings and the class went on.

Namaste, Raghavan. Surrender those feelings of discontent.

Hi from Brentwood

Just doesn’t have the same ring…

So jenn and nathan are in New Zealand enjoying their geeky honeymoon after their geeky wedding. Cool trip. They are going to be gone for three weeks. They rented an RV and plan to (more or less) aimlessly wander aroud New Zealand, exploring and soaking up the local culture. Okay, and hunt out sites where Lord of the Rings was filmed. Yesterday, for example, they visited the site where Bag End was filmed and had a tour and such.

Gosh I haven’t traveled in a long ole while. And by travel, I mean leave the country, go somewhere exotic (as in, not like my neighborhood). Going to Boston can sometimes be exotic. They use different words sometimes in their vernacular (anyone on the west coast ever heard of a packy store?) and there is nary a strip mall to be found. All the same…not the same, you know?

I was thinking once how much I enjoy travelling and writing about my experiences, even if the bulk of them involve merely observing and writing about the people around me. The everyday life, if you will. Well…what’s to say I can’t do that here in L.A.? Aren’t the chances of interesting things taking place just as likely to happen here as they would if I were elsewhere? Am I just blind to this fact because my senses are dulled from everyday living and seeing the same things over and over again? Am I taking my life for granted?

An-y-ways. If I were a traveler to the land of Brentwood, my online journal for today would read something like this:

Today. Sigh. I am just kind of in an emotional rut. I am a little cranky lately. Still haven’t adjusted well to the end of my vacation from last weekend and I have been carrying around this shroud of discontent. At work, I have accomplished about two hours of actual productive work at the office this week. The rest of it was spent not-working, i.e., surfing, reading blogs, researching knitting patterns and graphic design studios I want to work for one day. Not good. It’s as if my productivity lobe has been damaged and I need some physical therapy to get it back in order.

So. Today. Sigh. Today, I have a list of things to do. None of them appeal to me right now. Among my to-do items, I must:

Clean the toilet (yes, people, my favorite job of the week)
Clean the floors and dust
Groom my cats so that they stop swallowing so much cat hair which they then puke back up and leave for me in little pools of stomach acid to wipe up. (I prefer wiping it up right away to leaving it around and listening to them lap it back up. I don’t know, maybe ocha likes warm food or she likes the bite of stomach acid on her taste buds. Do cats even HAVE taste buds? These guys lick ass, you know. Ok. Seriously digressing)
Mop the kitchen floor (yes, yes, I could have just said: household chores for all of this, but then I couldn’t fully make you feel as sorry for me if I were so concise)
Unpack from the trip to the Bay Area last weekend
Tidy up
Work on my portfolio (actually, this is the best part of my weekend)
Finish up some sewing projects
Start some sewing projects
Sigh and moan many times to express how unjust is my life
Quit spending so much time on the computer to procrastinate

With that said. I leave you till the chores have been completed.