Great Design Change Folly 2010

So, I don’t know if any of you checked in earlier today but I was in the midst of The Great Design Change Folly of 2010 and you may have caught the blog mid-change. What you see here now is – I think – what I’m sticking with until The Great Design Change Folly of 2011. My frustration and rage level with the whole thing is quite high – think Hera finding Zeus in bed with a mortal high and I just can’t be bothered to tweak it any further. I realize that the font is ENORMOUS. After struggling with removing the RSS Feed links (which I have no problem admitting that I have no idea what the hell is even AFTER looking it up), I spent quite a while looking for the great big Font Adjuster button with no avail. I’m tired people. I guess to put a great big American bright side spin on it, a least those near blind people can comfortably read my blog sitting across the room without having to have their Seeing Eye dog bark out the words for them.

Andy and I were watching ‘House’ last night and it happened to be the episode where the fabulous Donna Pinciotti, er, Laura Prepon played a woman who had some disease that definitely wasn’t lupus, but also was a blogger who blogged about every single detail of her life. At some point during the show Andy asked me to pause the show to ask me if I read any blogs like that. I had to admit that I have and do read blogs like that (I would link to these blogs but I’m honestly terrified that it will somehow come back to haunt me). I think Andy might have also asked why it was that I blogged, but that might be a figment of my imagination. I do remember telling him, though poorly, as it was later on in the evening and my brain had shut off and I was really interested in seeing what disease Donna, er, Laura had that definitely wasn’t lupus. Or cancer.

Why do I blog? That’s a fine question really. So fine of a question that I’ve just sat here for 5 minutes looking at that question. Why do I blog? I’ve been writing in journals and diaries and such since I was 8 years old. I’ve been writing short stories since before that. I really enjoy writing. That isn’t to say that I’m any good at it, in fact I’m rather crap (a creative writing class in my short stint in college was proof to that statement), I just enjoy it.

Blogging is such a natural step in the journal writing process. It benefits me two-fold. One, I get to catalog my life so I don’t have to physically remember it (everyone who knows me knows how bad my memory is). Two, because a blog’s natural existence is PUBLIC, I benefit from laying down my personal thoughts in an edit mode. Stay with me here – when I still wrote in paper journals, you wouldn’t believe the shit I was putting down to record. The whole “I feel ugly today” or “I don’t think he loves me anymore” and “I think so-in-so is a fat, back stabbing bitch!” While it might be what I was feeling on that particular day, there would always be an entry two pages away with a “I feel fantastically pretty today” and “He DOES love me!” and “So-n-so apologized, she’s such a good friend!”. When I go through those old journals I just roll my eyes and cringe.

You could argue and say that writing is therapeutic. If you did, then I agree with you. Nowadays I tend to write out my frustrations in a Word document, save it to my hard drive, and when if in 3 days later I think its emotional crap, I delete it. All the benefits without the wasted trees and the possibility of some curious 10 year old child stumbling upon my anxieties 100 years from now thinking that people from the 20th Century were crazy whiney.

The last thing I want to mention is the audience aspect. Bloggers would be damn liars if they told you that they didn’t enjoy the audience aspect. We like to know people are reading what we’re writing just like you enjoy knowing that people listen when you talk. We’re addicted to stats logs. We’re addicted to comments. We don’t expect millions of readers, we don’t expect book deals (though, c’mon, how cool would that be?), we just want to know people are reading.

I just realized I’m getting too serious. Here’s a picture of a hermit crab wearing a hat that I got off the internet. FACT: I wrote ‘hermit crab wearing a hat’ BEFORE I looked to see if such a thing existed. Because I know the internet has everything, I wasn’t too worried.

I seriously cannot believe how easy that was.

It's come to that I'm afraid.

Well HELLO.

Best comment wins...well, I have no idea what you would win.  I guess nothing.  I'm just interested to see what my fine readers can come up with.

Speaking of which, Ed told me that I need to pimp my blog because everyone else does it.  While I don't like to think that I'm of the herded cow variety, I know that I am so here I go.  If you are here and you check in more than once, how about be a Facebook Follower?  That's right, that little annoying box on the right that says "Follow Badgers with Knives on Facebook", click 'Follow This Blog' please.  It really doesn't do anything besides put your little pretty profile picture in that box making me look more popular than I already am.   Go on, you know you want to.  Because you know, having our cat as one of my Facebook followers is a bit sad.

I will completely ignore the sadness of having a Facebook page for the cat by the way.

Honeymoon in New Orleans: All the Rest

So Andy finally got around to reading my most recent blog posts. When I asked him what he thought he replied, “They were really long and you talked about food…A LOT.” I was a little put off by his comments (I may have “hrumphed”) but vowed not to talk about food once in this final wrap up post. I’m afraid the length of it all will be about the same – some things, like my rambling nature, never change – but at least the honeymoon will be properly documented and put to bed. Oh hey, semi-pun. Look at me go.

On Thursday, the day after Official Eating and Dive Bar Day, Andy and I woke up early to get ready for an 8 AM pick-up from the Louisiana Tour Company. As mentioned in my last post, neither of us likes being a tourist and neither of us enjoy tours but I had wanted to see one of Louisiana’s many plantations and we were both very interested in taking a ride on the air boat through the swampy Bayou. While we could have rented a car and taken ourselves, it was cheaper and what we thought would be more convenient to do a combined tour package. If we knew then what we know now, I think both of us would be very happy paying the extra $50 to never have to go through that pain again.

We happened to be the first people to get on the bus that was first headed out to the Laura Plantation in Vacherie, about an hour away from New Orleans. This would have been fine, but before we took that hour drive, we had to sit on the bus for over an hour while it went around to all the hotels in the French Quarter picking up passengers. By the time we got to the Laura Plantation it was nearing 10:30 AM and both Andy and I were very cranky sitting on a small hot bus with a bunch of old ladies and French tourists. Because of this, neither of us enjoyed the plantation tour that much. It was interesting enough, but drawn out and the tour guide (who also happened to be the owner) had to mention at every opportunity that 1. He owned the place. 2. He wrote a book about it. 3. The book was available for sale in the gift shop and he’d be more than happy to sign said book for us. It was nearing 11:30 AM when we finally boarded the bus again, exhausted, hungry, and ready to shove a signed autographed copy of the History of the Laura Plantation book up the owner’s tight backside.

 

Can't you just see the happiness on Andy's face after being on a bus for two hours?

We had hopes that the bus would take us directly from the plantation to the air boats. Jaysus, if I had known what was ahead of us before we got to the air boats, I would have gotten off the bus and walked back to New Orleans. First there was the 40 minutes at the 2nd plantation while we waited for the other group to join us. Then 20 minutes pulled to the side of the road so the tourists could take pictures of trees (TREES! C’MON PEOPLE!). Then the hour ride back to some dinky town to wait for the 2nd tour bus to transfer the swamp tour tourists away. Then the 40 minutes on the bus before we got to the air boats. Then the 30 minute wait before we actually boarded the air boats.

 

Weeeeeee!

The only redeeming point in the entire day was the air boat ride itself. We opted for the slightly more expensive 6 seater air boat (opposed to 12). It was more personal and the tour guide, Ragin’ Cajun Captain Ernie, was eager to answer our questions and made sure we got a bit of a speed thrill when we weren’t cruising slowly looking for gators. Besides the huge tool of a man who sat in front of me who had to ask the cringe worthy Hurricane Katrina question, it was loads of fun.

 

Cute, sleeping little baby gator.  Man, I wish I could sleep with my eyes open, it would be really useful in meetings.

Which I guess is a good time as any to go into the Katrina Thing. I don’t mean to belittle hurricane Katrina by calling it a ‘thing’ by the way. I don’t know how else to describe it. Hurricane Katrina happened 4 ½ years ago. It was horrible and awful and the City of New Orleans went through some horrors that I don’t think the rest of us could even imagine. BUT, that was 4 ½ years ago. New Orleans took a hard hit and it’s working to come back. It’s going to take a long time to get New Orleans back to what it was before but that city has so much heart, it will come back. With that said, we didn’t witness much damage, or that we noticed. On our air boat tour we saw the effects of the hurricane on the native cypress trees, which are fresh water trees but are dying as there is so much salt water left in the soil that the trees have barnacles on them. But that’s about it. (You can take a Hurricane Katrina damage tour, btw, but personally I think that does more harm than good). The people that you talk to in New Orleans don’t like to talk about Katrina; they’re tired of talking about Katrina. What they do want to talk about is how the city is coming back, slowly but surely. They want to talk about the hope and the determination of the people left there. Most of all, they want to talk about how the Saints won this year’s Super Bowl. If you go to New Orleans, please keep that with you. I know you’re curious, we all are – but that’s what the books written about the subject are for. Respect the people and keep your curiosities to yourself.

So yes! The air boat! Even though it was winter time and alligators hibernate when it’s cold, we managed to see a bunch of baby gators. Sadly, the Ragin’ Cajun wasn’t able to grab the baby 1 footer for us to hold. That was probably the only bummer of the afternoon. Oh wait, yes…the hour and half it took us to get back to the French Quarter after the tour was a huge bummer. Never have I loathed a form of transportation as much as I loathed that damn 16 seat tour bus. Even though Andy and I were both absolutely exhausted after 9 hours of busses and tours, we bee lined to the next dive bar in our Quarter Rat book in an effort to erase the memory of the day.

On Friday, our last full day in New Orleans, while we were walking around looking for somewhere to eat we happened to run into a place that rented 3-wheeled motorcycle type buggies. I could tell from the start that Andy wasn’t interested (i.e. being a wet blanket) but because Andy loves me and sometimes lets me get what I want (operative word there being “sometimes”) he agreed – as long as we only did the hour rental instead of the special priced 2 hour rental. Andy drove as he has a motorcycle license (not required, but definitely helpful for operation) and I sat as a passenger with a shit eating grin on my face, giggling and taking pictures. We basically cruised around the French Quarter and pissed off delivery trucks (the 3 wheeler just didn’t go that fast) while people took our picture and asked where they could rent one for themselves. The hour went way too quickly and as you can see in the picture, we looked like dorks, but it was well worth the $55.

 

For Beth, who loves pictures of me looking like a dork.

Afterwards we walked around some more, did a few more dive bar locations, and as night fell, headed over to Frenchman Street to catch some live music. There are places in the Quarter that have live music, Preservation Hall being the main one, but having now been, I would hands down recommend Frenchman Street for live music, especially after 8 PM on a Friday night. Every place had music and all the music was good. I was absolutely chuffed (English slang, I’m sorry, means “thrilled”) that we managed to catch both a man who played two guitars at one time while playing the bass guitar with his feet, and Chaz, the washboard man, and his band. It was a perfect end to a near perfect honeymoon (tour bus, I’m looking at you!) and I was a bit sad Saturday morning having to say good-bye to it all.

 

Chaz!

The only other thing to note is that I was an absolute pill (how old am I, seriously?) on the plane ride back home. I was tired and cranky and quite a bit sad to be leaving New Orleans and irritated that we had two toddlers sitting next to us that wouldn’t shut up and a friendly but creepy born again Christian in our row with us and we were at the very last row on the plane and we didn’t have time to have a cigarette on our layover in Houston. Once we landed I may have (can’t say for sure, my mind had gone into Crazy Lady mode) grabbed my bags and pushed ahead 3 rows in an effort to avoid having to wait for the toddler family. I also may have sighed loudly and then exclaimed loudly, “What is your problem people? MOVE” and “Anyone from Irvine, please step aside and let the normal speed people go.” I was obnoxious and once I was outside smoking, I refused to go back inside for the baggage as I was quite embarrassed about my actions. Nicotine addiction isn’t pretty. I’m not proud.

 

The happy couple still happy in New Orleans.  We tend to frown when not on vacation.

NEXT…my normal mundane blog!

Honeymoon in New Orleans: Fat Wednesday

So the day after Fat Tuesday in New Orleans was in my head, the official Eating Day. Call it Fat Wednesday if you will. You can’t go to New Orleans and not try their well known dishes. On my list for the trip was gumbo, jambalaya, red beans and rice, muffaletta, po’boy and a beignet. Thankfully I don’t eat fish\seafood or that list would be even longer. The first time I was in New Orleans in 2002, I did not have one bad meal. I think I tried to have a bad meal just to see if it was possible, but it never happened. I was truly convinced that New Orleans simply didn’t know how to make bad food. Sadly, I have come to find out that during my 2002 trip, I happened to be extremely lucky. It’s not to say everything we had this time around was bad, but quite a bit was.

We started out at the Gumbo Shop on St. Peter Street in the French Quarter. I specifically choose this place because they served vegetarian gumbo and I wanted to make sure that Andy got a taste of some Cajun food. While we had to wait 15 minutes for them to open at 11 AM, the wait was well worth it. The food was fantastic. My only regret is that we didn’t go back here again.

 

Waiting outside of the Gumbo Shop.  Hurry up Gumbo Shop!

After lunch, we spent some time wandering around the Quarter. After a spell (how old am I?), we found ourselves at Molly’s at the Market on Decatur Street for an afternoon cocktail. I had been to Molly’s in 2002 and it was hands down my favorite bar during that trip. When we wandered in, the place was pretty dead and we ended up striking up a conversation with the bartender. His name was Louie Crowder and he told us about his play, ‘The Disaster 1604 Series’ that he wrote and that was starting to show in England. I’m being specific about this information as I’m urging all those in the UK to see it. Sadly I failed to remember if it was being shown on television (which I’m thinking is the case) or it was being put on the stage, but please, check it out. It’s all about the Hurricane Katrina Disaster and it was written by a very nice albeit cool about collar fellow (how old am I?) from N’awlins.

Two other very important things occurred at Molly’s that afternoon. The first being that I feel in love – with the Molly’s bar cat. According to Louie, his name was Mr. Woo and he wandered in Molly’s during Katrina and never left. He was big and grey and he liked sleeping on the bench near the door soaking in the fresh air and sunshine. Since the bench also held all the local newspapers, I went over there frequently to “get another paper” which really meant, “to stroke Mr. Woo some more.” I didn’t get a picture of Mr. Woo as much as I wanted to as I was trying to hold up my aura of “yes, I’m a tourist, but I’m a cool tourist” in front of Louie. I’m so lame just for admitting that.

The 2nd important thing that happened at Molly’s was that Andy and I picked up this very small unassuming local magazine called the Quarter Rat. The Quarter Rat is written for the locals, by the locals, mostly bartenders. It has articles such as “Drinking in the French Quarter – It’s Not a Sport, it’s a Deathmatch” and “Le Route de Pussois! Where to find some late night random hook-ups!” The article we found most useful for the entirety of the trip was, “Off the Beaten Path – Dive Bars of the French Quarter” which not only listed said bars, but also contained a map and a short warning, “All locations are approximate. I did this by memory, and I was really drunk when I did it…REALLY drunk.” Without ever verbalizing it (which is why Andy and I are really good together) we both silently decided to challenge ourselves to hit as many dive bars on the list as we could. Everyone loves a challenge after all. Official Eating Day quickly turned into Official Eating and Dive Bar Searching Day. And it was a blast.

 

Get your "prescriptions" here folks!

I can’t possibly get into all the places that we went that day. I can tell you that having the Quarter Rat magazine is a quick way for your bartender to take notice of you and start a conversation. If I was feeling a bit outgoing at a particular spot, I’d open up the magazine and say to the bartender, “It says here that I’m suppose to ask you if you have beer and how much are your $3 shots” (Taken from the article, ‘Questions That Drive Your Bartender Crazy’). If I wasn’t feeling outgoing, I’d simply open the magazine up, turn to the Dive Bar page and start writing notes. If not the bartender, then someone sitting near us would mention the Quarter Rat and blam!- conversation with another local.

 

Our challenge for the week.  No, we didn't hit all of these in one day - we're not that good.

Andy and I thankfully have a similar mind set when traveling. While sometimes we want to see things that are considered ‘touristy’, most of the time, we want to experience a place like a local would. Neither one of us likes being a ‘tourist’; we don’t like hanging out with other tourists, we don’t like tours that tourists do, places that tourists go, food that tourists eat. Sometimes it’s unavoidable, but we do try to stay clear of it as much as possible. We have also found that the easiest way to do as the locals do is to drink where the locals drink. A lubricated local is more wealth of useful information than what TripAdvisor or Lonely Planet can ever offer. A local at Boondock Saints (a cop bar – which we wouldn’t have known if it wasn’t for a local) will let us know that Coop’s is the best place for jambalaya (though I disagreed once I had it), or that the best place for live music is on Frenchman Street off of the Quarter (absolutely true), or who has the best breakfast if you are up early enough to get there (we never were). The locals we talked to gave us their thoughts on how they think tourists should behave (always take note of this, it will go far!), their love lives, how New Orleans is still so far behind after Katrina (I’ll get into this more later), what it’s like working there, living there, partying there. Talking to locals while traveling reveals a bit of a place’s soul that you’d never get to see sitting on a tour bus or marveling at a statue.

By the way, to the bartender from Wisconsin working at Ruby Fruit Jungle – thank you for telling me to give Coop’s another try but have the fried chicken, it was absolutely fantastic. As well, I still haven’t seen the ‘Land of the Lost’ remake and I’m still a bit weary, but I trust you and will put it on my Netflix list since you were so right about that chicken. Oh hey! Also totally didn't notice that this was a gay bar by the way.

 

Andy loves $2.00 beers so much he tries to eat it.

Oh yes! It was also Official Food Day, wasn’t it? In between all our dive bar hopping, we had plenty of food. We had muffaletta and po’boys at Frank’s Restaurant on Decatur which I am ashamed to admit I preferred over the muffaletta at Central Grocery, jambalaya at Coop’s (mushy rice, hardly any meat), coffee and beignets at Café Du Monde (classic), and I think some sort of burger from the very last dive bar -can’t be too sure on that, it was a very long dive bar day.

 

The beignets make Andy a bit wonky.

 

I'm so hungry right now.

NEXT…Andy and I become the thing we hate the most just to see some gators.

(I didn’t intend this honeymoon post to be stretched out into so many parts, but apparently I have a lot to say)

Honeymoon in New Orleans: Mardi Gras

So, after an exhausting 7 hours in the car, a manic rush to pack, a half assed chat with my dad who was staying at our house while we were away, and a horrible night’s sleep, we jumped on the plane to New Orleans. We managed to get into New Orleans by 2:30 PM on Tuesday, FAT Tuesday, but because it was the last day of Mardi Gras, it took us a little over an hour to get from the airport to our hotel in the French Quarter. The French Quarter was jumping. People were everywhere. Everyone was wearing beads, everyone had a cocktail (or two) in their paws, and almost everyone was in costume. It’s so hard to describe the vibe of Mardi Gras in the French Quarter. All I can say is that if doesn’t put a smile on your face at first sight, something is seriously wrong with you.

We checked into our hotel on Canal, dropped off our bags, and set off immediately. At 4 PM, it was incredibly hard to find a sober person (even behind the bar) and I set off on a mission to get us some beads. Most people I talk to about this trip always ask if I had to show my girls to get some beads. Nope, not once. How it works is that you walk along the street and on the balconies above if you see someone giving out beads you hold up your hand and say, “Hey! Beads please!” If they give them to you, you say thanks. That’s the entire effort taken to get a string of colored plastic balls. Of course, some people make it a bit harder. One balcony of people were tossing out Superballs. If you were able to bounce the Superball from the ground into their cup on the balcony, you got beads. Sure, it was a lot of work, but they had really decent beads and it was fun. The ONLY time I was asked to show my girls was to a lone guy who had a balcony of feather boas. If the guy wasn’t so creepy and if I wasn’t as sober as I was at the time, I may have done it. But at the time, it didn’t seem worth it to me.

Mardi Gras in the French Quarter

The majority of our Mardi Gras was spent like that. Walking around, seeing the costumes, listening to the music, taking pictures, getting beads, and drinking. I made sure Andy got the world’s biggest hurricane and a cute hand grenade with a smiley face on the glass. I think we were in need of a short rest when we pulled up at stool at Sneaky Pete’s by our hotel. I had to use the bathroom there but found that the Women’s room was closed. I dragged Andy over to watch the door to the Men’s as it didn’t have a lock. It also didn’t have toilet paper or a toilet seat which is really where I draw the line when it comes to peeing – or not peeing as was the case. I persuaded Andy to take me somewhere else with a toilet but not before turning around and asking this guy in costume if I could take his picture. He agreed and afterward, he and his girlfriend struck up a conversation with us. His name was TJ from Portland, hers Debra from Shreveport, Louisiana, and this was their annual outing to Mardi Gras. I don’t think we could have been any luckier running into these two as they knew exactly where to go and who to talk to once we got there. The first stop on our TJ and Debra tour was to the absinthe bar. I had never had absinthe and was curious about the Green Fairy. All I can say is that the Green Fairy tastes like Grandpa’s old jar of hard black licorice and that any affects that it might have had went down the drain as that where I poured this vial drink when no one was looking. The 2nd stop on the TJ\Debra tour was to the tequila bar. TJ found that we were on our honeymoon and told us to get the $25 shot of tequila. We gently pointed out that we couldn’t afford $25 a shot and since TJ was drunk and obviously wealthy enough to afford it, bought us the shots instead. Again, it was nasty – though I reckon if you like cognac, then this is the tequila for you. Being a little put out that we didn’t like the drinks they were suggesting so far, they dragged us on to yet another place that required that we walk through Bourbon Street.

Andy with hand grenade and an awesome hat that I wish hadn't been so expensive to buy.

TJ, Debra and myself at the tequila bar.

I really haven’t touched on Bourbon Street thus far and I think it’s about time that I did. Bourbon Street is like Fort Lauderdale on Spring Break compressed to a single street. The bars are of the open, no seat variety, with hip-hop music blaring and flashing neon lights. The street itself is packed – and is ALWAYS packed (not just on Mardi Gras, but ALWAYS) – and typically the average age is around 22 years old. Bourbon Street might as well be called Young Drunk Tourist Street for all intensive purposes. Even when it’s not Fat Tuesday, you run the risk of stepping into beer, pee, puke or worse when you walk Bourbon Street. We tended to avoid Bourbon at all costs, except to do a quick cross over to another street. Which is a smart move, really, considering when TJ and Debra took us down Bourbon, we had to all hold hands Ferris Bueller in the Chicago Art Museum style, and I managed to step in a foot deep puddle of beer. A foot! Of beer! With both feet! Ugh! Thankfully I wasn’t sober enough to realize my folly of this until the next morning.

At the next bar, and also our last of the evening, there was a man with a blue face dressed up as George Washington. We never got his real name but instead called him George the entire time. George was great. George was also really kissy. And every time George kissed he left a lovely blue kissy mark on our cheeks.

Kissy George

I don’t know what time it was when Andy and I finally decided to throw in the Mardi Gras towel. It was pretty early by New Orleans standards, which I’m a bit embarrassed about. All I know is that we grabbed some sort of food substance and went back to the hotel to sleep. The next morning I woke up and wondered what the hell happened to my pants. Seeing as the dirt and grime went up to the knees and they could practically stand on their own the leg bottoms were so stiff, I reckon that they had a pretty good time.

Next….Honeymoon in New Orleans (part three)

Honeymoon in Las Vegas

So, the honeymoon (part one)…

We started out our honeymoon (or as we started to joke – the jam-star or marmalade-sun) by driving to Las Vegas early Saturday morning to go see the USA Rugby Sevens. It might seem like an odd honeymoon location\event, but seeing as our first ever vacation together was the year previously for the USA Rugby Sevens in San Diego, it just sort of made sense. What I didn’t know when we attended the event last year, was that people tend to dress up in costumes for Sevens. Some costumes make sense but more often than not, they don’t. Last year I saw a guy with a fake ‘stach, 70’s hot shorts, and a pair of fairy wings. It makes no sense, but it’s fun, so what the hell? I knew I wanted us to dress up for this year’s event but we had a hard time decided what to go as. I really wanted to go as garden gnomes, but the outfit required sewing skills which I just don’t have. At the last minute, we finally decided to go as kings as we already had the beards and it kind of correlated to our support for England (hey! I have family there now!). Of course, once we got dressed up and attached said beards, I realized mine was just too damn itchy and I took it off claiming I was simply a queen. No big deal though it was a pain to navigate around a big bushy beard while rummaging around in my purse for things. Our costumes were a huge hit (more due to Andy’s awesome beard then the costumes in general) and we got asked to pose for many pictures.

Tom Boyd Stadium

King and Queen with their cheesy subjects

The first day at USA Rugby Sevens went pretty quick. We met up with my buddy, Tom, and his group of rugby cheeseheads, watched the matches, posed for pictures, and drank beer. Around 4 o’clock, Andy and I both made the mistake of ordering a Pina Colada alcoholic smoothie thing. I ended up getting the World’s Worst Heartburn and Andy developed symptoms of heat stroke. Boy, aren’t we fun? We hopped on the shuttle back to the Hotel from Hell, and rested for a few hours. By 7 PM we were feeling better and ventured out for some gambling. We went next door to the Tropicana and Andy taught me how to play craps Vegas style (versus company Christmas party style which I found is much more lenient). In my version of Craps Vegas Style, I order a new beer anytime the waitress comes around even if I’m not done with my last one (or one before that), I ask the craps dealer every time I lay down a chip if I’m doing it correctly, talk 18 levels more loudly than normal, continue to gamble even though the table is cold, and make people who I think are “lucky” stay at the table for “one more roll”. All in all, Andy lost $150 and I lost $40, which isn’t that bad considering we were there for almost two hours.

Valentine's Day King and Queen, sadly sans beards.

The next morning we slept in, got something to eat, and then headed back over to the USA Rugby Sevens. It was more of the same from the day previous but we managed to drink water in between beers and not get sick, and Andy (the awesome husband that he is) bought me a necklace and earring set from one of the vendors in honor of Valentine’s Day (he probably doesn’t want me telling you what a softie he is (sorry!)). At the end, we left and got the world’s worst meal at some English pub on Tropicana and then gambled at craps a bit more at the Hotel from Hell. I managed to win $80 off the Hotel from Hell, so I feel a bit good about that. I was tempted to throw my $80 on the floor and roll around in it chanting, “Suck it Hooters” but that would have been both highly inappropriate and really unsanitary.

We left Vegas on Monday morning around 11 AM. Most of the time, if you live in California and you go to Vegas, you will leave on Sunday. This is a fine except that you have to remember that EVERYONE is leaving Vegas on Sunday. If you don’t leave before 10 AM, fully expect that 4 hour drive to turn into 7 hours. As it was Monday, I honestly thought we were impervious to this. It’s Monday! Everyone will be back at work already! No problems! Yeah, except it was President’s Day…and we got stuck in Baker. And it took us over an hour to pass through Victorville…and Corona. When you are a bit partied out and incredibly tired, the last thing you want is to sit in traffic for 7 hours. But that’s exactly what we did.

Watch Andy try to be nice about his fellow drivers after exclaiming moments previously that he wanted to pull everyone out of their cars, beat them with a dirty badger and eat their livers.

NEXT...Honeymoon in New Orleans.

Hooters Hotel and Casino : The Vegas Hotel from Hell

So we’re back from our liver wrecking honeymoon. Hope you all had a good week at work whilst we were cheering for England at the USA Rugby 7’s in Vegas, and grabbing for beads and riding air boats in New Orleans. I’ll get into the fun stuff later, but since my review of Hooters Hotel and Casino at Trip Advisor is on my mind, I thought I would get that out of the way so I’m not as bitter when I write the rest. Basically, I want to put this warning out there for anyone who might stumble upon this post looking for a review of the Hooters Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas.

While staying at Hooters Hotel wasn’t exactly my idea of a romantic honeymoon location, Hooters affiliated themselves with the USA Rugby 7’s, offering a lowered room rate and a free shuttle to Tom Boyd Stadium (a good 20 minutes away from the Strip) for the matches. Andy and I are frugal enough for this to be appealing, so we went ahead and booked it.

We left on Saturday morning at 8 AM and by 12:30 PM, were pulling into Hooter’s Hotel parking garage. Hooters is actually nicely situated a mere block off the Strip on Tropicana, next to (what else) the Tropicana Hotel. While 12:30 is a bit early to check in, most hotels (especially in Vegas) allow an earlier check in. The latest check in I’ve ever had in all the hotels I’ve been was 3 PM, but many have allowed me to check in as early at 11 AM if rooms are available. After waiting at the front desk while one hotel clerk handled the line (this is Vegas people!), we finally got up to the counter only to be told check in wasn’t until 4 PM. Since the rugby games had already started and only went to 7 PM, we agreed to have the concierge hold our bags until we got back. That is, WHEN we saw the concierge, which wasn’t for another 20 minutes. We were quite grumpy by then and it didn’t help that we ended up shelling out $12 for two bottles of Amstel Light at the Hooter’s Hotel Bar.

With our bags stored, we went to the matches (another post for another day). Shuttle to and from the stadium was fine. We finally checked into our room at 7 PM, well exhausted. At first the room doesn’t seem too bad. This is what I’d like to call Effective Decorating. What we didn't see right away was:

• Lumpy pillows
  
• Dirt on the floor and shower in bathroom
  
• TV that occasionally decides not to work
  
• Broken patio door lock
  
• Ridiculously small and ineffective mini-disks of soap
• BLOOD (yes, blood) smeared on the bathroom door frame

We were tired, a bit hungry, and just wanted to get out to play some craps. This would be our undoing.

Not wanted to spend the evening at Hooters, we walked over to the Tropicana where we had an excellent time. We strolled back to Hooters at 10 PM and tried very unsuccessfully, to get some sleep. This is never an easy task when your head is lying on what feels like 18 pieces of broken foam.

The next day we woke up early and took our showers. At 8 AM, with the hot water tap turned to the highest setting and the cold tap completely turned off, we got two cold showers. It was cold enough that I caught my breath when I first stepped in. We were in a hurry to get something to eat and get to the rugby matches, so again, we didn’t complain. It was only after we got back later that night and I may have drank a bit too much that I remembered that I wanted to speak to the manager. This was also my fault. The barely 20 year old manager on duty wanted nothing to do with me. When I tried to explain as best I could about the room – the blood, the pillows, the cold water – I was told a very dismissive “sorry” and “I can’t do anything about it if you are going to decide to complain 30 hours later.” Fair enough but I’m still put off about it so I’m telling you all. You want a disgusting room for cheap off the Strip with bad customer service, by all means, stay at Hooters Hotel and Casino.

Not that this would come as any surprise, but the morning we left, we decided to get room service. I know, I know, we should have known better. If you call in for room service at Hooter’s Hotel and Casino expect your food to come “an hour to an hour 45 minutes” later and to be cold and tasteless.

NEXT…a happy tale about our honeymoon.

That's the way it is.

It's amazing the power of 24 Crayola crayons-brand new out of the box with all their shiny waxy pointy tips-when you're having a rough day.

Vegetarian Jambalaya

Ah, New Orleans, how I love you.  Congratulations on your Super Bowl win.  I look forward to celebrating Mardi Gras with you next week when Andy and I are there for our honeymoon.   I understand, New Orleans, that you love your shrimp, andouille sausage, and chicken.  Save the shrimp, I'm right there with you New Orleans.   Bring it on.  I do have a little problem though.   New Orleans, my husband is a vegetarian.  And not a eat fish and chicken vegetarian - one of those real vegetarians who can't have Worcestershire sauce because it's partially made from anchovies (did you know that?  I totally didn't know that).   What's a girl to do, New Orleans?  Your food is soooo good - so flavorful, so spicy, so....it's just so good New Orleans.   I really don't see you offering one of your best - jambalaya - to a vegetarian.  It's all meat you know.  I had to make it myself so he would know what it's like.   Oh New Orleans, you won't believe this either...he is a vegetarian that doesn't like vegetables.  No squash or eggplant.  The internet was no help with all their okra and zucchini and minced shallots.  No, I would have to forge ahead and make a meat Jambalaya, without the meat.  Here's what I came up with...what do you think?   Thankfully there's a market near our house that serves a wide variety of pseudo meat or else this would have been a lost cause.

Ingredients

• 2 teaspoons olive oil
• 1 onion, diced
• 1 green bell pepper, diced
• 1/2 cup diced celery
• 2 tablespoons chopped garlic
• 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon onion powder
• 1/2 teaspoon Creole seasoning
• salt and ground black pepper to taste
• 3-4 cups cooked white rice
• 4 cups vegetable stock
• 3 bay leaves
• 1 teaspoon hot pepper sauce
• 1 package Vegetarian sausage (Field Roast makes these) cut into pieces
• 2 package Vegetarian chicken cut into pieces

Directions

1. Heat oil in a large pot over medium high heat. Stir in onion, bell pepper, celery and garlic. Season with cayenne, onion powder, Creole seasoning, salt and pepper. Cook 5 minutes, or until onion is tender and translucent. Stir in vegetable stock, vegetarian sausage, vegetarian chicken and bay leaves. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat, cover, and simmer 20 minutes. Stir in the hot pepper sauce. Serve over rice.  Makes about 6-8 servings

Proof that I have done things in Hollywood besides drink

I'm a blogging fool again today. Not to mention that I started a new blog covering my pub quizzes over at Moe's Pub Quiz. It either rains or pours here people.

Anyhow, here are some shots from this past weekend. Andy, Dave, Maggie and I went up to Hollywood to see Eddie Izzard in concert on Saturday night. While the show was awesome, it wasn't 4th row awesome and the full moon seemed to be reeking havoc on the group collectively. But the next day Andy and I went out to see a few things I've always wanted to see and it was a good time...until 9 o'clock that night when we got a call from Dave and Maggie saying they were in a car accident...but that's a story for another day (they are alright in case you were concerned).

The first place I've always wanted to see was the Hollywood Bowl. I'll give you a hint of why I've always wanted to see the Hollywood Bowl:

Recognize it? If you don't, then you were never a pre-teen girl in the 1980's. It's a scene from 'Some Kind of Wonderful' when Keith takes Amanda to the Hollywood Bowl to give her the diamond earrings. As you can see from the next picture (a.k.a. real life) movies are always better left in the movies. I was so bummed the big white balls were missing. (ha! big white balls)

Not to be deterred, the next place I wanted to go was Griffith Park to see the Griffith Observatory. You know why?

That's right. 'Rebel Without a Cause' bitches. Thankfully the Griffith Observatory did not disappoint. The views were gorgeous, the Observatory was Art Deco cool and best of all, it was all free.

I'm feeling rebel-y already.

On the roof of the observatory with the Hollywood sign in the background.

Andy's favorite picture as it makes no sense. Right up his alley.

After all that sightseeing, Andy and I were tired and retired to the relaxation which is Saddle Ranch on Sunset where they have a mechanical bull in the middle of the bar and they aren't afraid to use it. Sorry, too dark to get a picture of the bull, but here was outside.

Alright kiddies, I think I've done enough blogging damage on this blog for today.

4 Bux

Another ditty gathered from Andy's iPhone. This was a sign at Johnny's Saloon in Huntington Beach that I took a picture of and forgot to post. I wasted 5 months and a visit from Bux to let him know that there's a place in Huntington Beach where he can get Wild Turkey and Coke and PBR tall cans for free. As Bux would say, "D'oh."

Soulless

So last night I had this horrible dream that everyone hated me. It wasn't just one dream, I woke up once and when I feel back to sleep I had another dream where everyone hated me. Vivid dreams like that can fuck with you. You can wake up and still feel lousy for whatever it was that disturbed you while you were sleeping. A bit like that 'Friends' episode where Phoebe announces she's not talking to Ross anymore because of what he said to her in her dream. In my case I woke up and went downstairs and looked at the cat. "Chloe hates me" ran through my brain. Then there was Andy sitting on the couch already hard at work and I frowned and thought, "he hates me too." It took awhile to snap out of it until...

...I went to the DMV. Talk about people who hate you.

Everyone knows the DMV can suck the soul out of anybody. The California DMV takes Soul Sucking to a brand new level, it really does. The California DMV asks (not politely I might mention)that you make an appointment on their website. That is all fine and good if you don't mind waiting over a month for your appointment. (Oh hey, are dentists and the DMV in league with each other?) In the case where you need whatever it is right away, you are forced to become DMV scum and be one of the throngs Without an Appointment. I was one of those scums.

I'm not going to get into waiting in line and all that crap because anybody with a license in any of the US States knows what it's like at the DMV. What I do want to mention is two things:

1) Why are people rude to the DMV employees? I mean, I know WHY, but what's the purpose? I would think the one perk of being a DMV employee is denying anyone the right to drive if that person is being a dick. If I was a DMV employee and the person was being a dick but still had all the proper paperwork to get his driver's license renewed, I'd make shit up.

"No sir, you'll need the 1056-YZQ form filled out, signed and certified by a notary. According to our database, it looks like you might have to get your 2nd cousin in here for fingerprints as he has a lien on your license. I'm sorry sir, there's nothing I can do. If you have a complaint, please write to your local Congressman."

I try to be as polite and clever (no one likes speaking to a dumb ass) as possible when dealing with a DMV employee. This really doesn't get me much except a no conversation, no 'you still need to do this' attitude, and I get processed without problems.

2) After being at the DMV for an hour and a half, I am honestly afraid to drive now. The people that they were issuing licenses to willy nilly was mind boggling. There was a man around 112 years old with an eye patch, half a leg, a speech impediment (I suspect 7 AM gin drinking!), and had his pants on backwards issued a driver's license without a thought. I could only surmise he was very polite.

Is that a turkey on your head or are you just happy to see me?

Andy just sent over some photos from his iPhone. I have no idea when these were taken, but ha ha!

Me, on marriage

Earlier today Andy was at the County Clerk's office desperately trying to get a new original marriage license as our old original marriage license has seemingly been lost in the mail. We suspect that our officiator failed to put on the correct postage and\or place a return label on the original mailing which sadly could be a common oversight for a man of his age and nose hair length.

This puts me in a strange state of mind in the sense that if the original document stating our holy matrimony is lost (in my head I see it clinging precariously to the side of a letter bin screaming, "NOOOOO, I don't want to go to grandma's house!") then technically, really, until I and everyone that needs to sign the new document signs the new marriage license, we're not married. Well, we are, but we aren't, and it's very confusing and brings into light what it means to be married. Some may state that we are married in the eyes of the Lord, but since neither Andy and I believe in that sort of malarkey, it really falls on the legal side of married. Now legally speaking one would assume that the minute all parties sign the marriage license then the marriage is valid. But what if that document doesn't exist anymore? Part of me feels that at this point in time, if I wanted, I could refuse to sign the new marriage license and walk away never having been married. Not that I would do this, or even have the slightest urge or consideration to do that, but it's just one of those "what ifs" that I enjoy playing around with*.

It really puts in perspective some people's philosophy that marriage is just a piece of paper, doesn't it? I tend not to think this way. I am one of those hopeless lot that thinks of marriage as something a bit bigger. But that's just me. I can completely see the piece of paper side of things.

What I really wanted to bring up is this overwhelming need for anyone who approaches a newly married couple to ask them, "how's married life?" Before I say anything, up until 3 weeks ago I have uttered that question - quite a lot actually. Never again.

What I hate about this question (as a newly married) is that I don't know how to respond. My humor side and my honest side compete a lot over this inquiry and my honest side always wins out (much to my dismay). Nothing is different being married. Everything is exactly the same as it has always been except I sign my name different and call someone my husband. It's not like every morning since we got married a flock of white doves invade our bedroom singing a happy married people morning song. Not only would that piss off the cat but I'm sure even singing white doves leave a mess. What do singing doves even eat? Do you have to tip them like a mariachi band? Now that would be cool....a happy married people morning song by a mariachi band - but only if they had fabulous mustaches.

You know, I am lying just a wee bit. And I've been lying a wee bit as I'm a bit embarrassed about admitting this. Truth be known, I do feel different sometimes. It doesn't happen too often and when it does I'm usually ticked off about something else and its my way of making myself feel better. OK, here it is....sometimes I get a bit smug. It's terrible, I know. I pretty much yell at myself anytime the smugness comes up for being such a tool.

So what about you all? All 5 people who read my blog (who I happen to know are all married)...how's married life (ha!)? Did you expect it to feel different? Does it feel different over time? Do you know a good mariachi band?


*Another "what if" that I always think about is if everyone in the entire nation wrote in a vote to have Mickey Mouse as President, what would happen? I honestly hope Mickey Mouse would really become president.

Poladroid...cool!

Just because I like posting back to back then disappear for a month, here's just something I stumbled on. Poladroid takes your digital pictures and converts them into Polaroid type pictures. Golly, even Justin Timberlake likes using it, it must be good!

What I like is that it takes forever and a day for the picture to 'develop', just like a real Polaroid.



Hey, wedding picture!:

But I've already switched to decaf.

So this morning I'm driving to work and I notice that the driver in front of me has, from what I can tell from the angle and squintyness of early morning, a huge mop of frizzy, curly, grey hair on which on top he has placed the most comical little black bowler hat. I know this is hard to describe and I really did attempt to draw you a picture in Paintbrush but it really didn't do it justice so you'll just have to bear with me here...but just imagine. Normal sized man with really big, I mean like Carrot Top big, curly grey hair and the world's smallest bowler hat.

Look, it's like this:



On this:



But this color:



It was one of those things that I stared at in disbelief wondering what the hell a man wearing a tiny little bowler hat on his enormously huge noggin of old man hair would be doing at this time of morning. He couldn't possibly be going to work unless his work was part of a Three Stooges Come Back Tour. Was he going shopping for a new hat? Was he on his way to the barber's and wanted to show the barber how he would like his hat to fit? It was a mystery.

Of course, when I pulled over to the side of his car I realized man with small bowler hat on big head of hair was really a tall woman with Very Unfortunate Bangs.

Well hello 2010!

So much for my plan to document my days in England! I had that first day there where I was just sort of bumming around not doing much of any consequence and the next thing I know I’m sitting on the plane home wondering where the hell the time went. Such is life I suppose. To give you a very short recap (as it’s over a month gone now and all my memory will please me with is recaps):

ENGLAND WEEK ONE: While Andy slaved away at work (sometimes working well into the midnight hours) I did a solo trip to Leeds where I managed to strain my foot, spent a day with Andy’s sister exploring pretty (albeit touristy) Bronte landscapes and 4 floors of the Bradford media museum, did an overnight trip to York where I fell in love with a pub called the Priory (only to find out later on it was a chain), spent another evening in Leeds, and finally headed back to Crosby with Andy in tow.

Beautiful but touristy Hayworth

ENGLAND WEEK TWO: Andy and I spent two days in Liverpool city centre where we ventured around Albert Dock, stalked the Go Penguins, saw his friend in a Christmas play called ‘Merry Ding Dong’, and danced and sang with the older crowd at the American Irish Pub. The rest was Christmas week in Crosby where we spent a lot of time in Stamps stealing their internet, going to pub quizzes and wearing silly but awesome Christmas hats.

Beatles Go Penguins

SuperLambanana!

ENGLAND WEEK THREE: More family Christmas time, but managed to fit in a Liverpool vs. the Wolves match at the Kop, another day trip into Liverpool city centre, and a two day trip to Llandudno in Northern Wales.

Freezing our tits off in Llandudno!

The weather…well, the weather was shit. I don’t suppose you can’t expect much else from England in December. I did get to see snow for the first time in 5 years. I soon realized that I didn’t miss snow one bit though we did have 15 minutes of fun throwing snowballs one evening on the walk home from the pub.

Things I love about England:

• 1 & 2 Pound coins
  
• The public transit system, mainly trains
  
• Food such as: Quavers, sausage rolls, Hob Nobs, never having to ask to mayo on your sandwich as it’s always already there, awesome chocolate, ‘irish’ bacon, meat pasties and pies, and great beer.
  
• Food & Beer deals – for example, most places offered a lunch meal with beer special for 4 pounds ($6.00).
  
• Lack of stigma for actually having a beer with your lunch!
  
• Friendly people (and I love when they mention that they thought they noticed an American ‘twang’ in my voice)
  
• British television, including the commercials – funny stuff! Also, nakedness and swear words, oh my!
  
• The accent of course…when I could understand them.

Things I didn’t really care for about England:

• The lack of dryers – everything is hung on the radiators to dry, including your ‘knickers’
  
• Trains and just about any other business that doesn’t run\isn’t open on holidays, or around a holiday, or just because they just don’t feel like it.
  
• Food: No ranch dressing, peas and\or carrots being the only vegetable side served with meals, and lack of decaf coffee, tea, and soda.
  
• Never having a good hair day because it was always damp in some shape or form.
  
• Bathrooms: Piss poor water pressure in showers if lucky enough to have a shower, toilets that aren’t in the same room as the shower\bath, taps that are separated out into hot and cold so either you burn your hands or freeze them to death, and general lack of paper towel dispensers in public restrooms (would be alright if the hand dryers actually blew hot air).

And that was England, and it was good. Of course, the week after we got back from England, Andy and I got married, and that was good too. We had Andy’s mum and sister staying with us for about a week before\during the wedding and all my family and friends from Wisconsin showed up the weekend of. It was busy and hectic and a wee bit stressful and I came down with a cold, but I married a wonderful man (even giggling through the entire ceremony forgetting my lines) and I’m very happy.

The bachelor and bachelorette

Next month Andy and I leave for our honeymoon. We’re doing 3 days in Vegas for the Rugby 7’s tournament, then 5 days in New Orleans to catch the end of Mardi Gras.
So that’s 2010 so far. Sheesh! I’m exhausted.

Guiseley, England

I’m currently sitting in a place called the Cellar V in Guiesely, England. There is supposedly free Wi-Fi here (with a passcode of ‘splendid’…how very English) but I’ve yet to get it connected properly. No worries, I’ll be headed over to the Regent (how very English) soon for lunch and a pint – and more free Wi-Fi – hopefully though with a valid connection.

So yes! I made it here. Here being England, a place I never thought I would get to see again unless I spent a week on a train and 6 days on an ocean liner. The flight, or flights, turned out OK. Although queasy at the John Wayne airport, I managed not to puke and by the time we were up in the air with the seatbelt sign off, I was fine. I even managed about an hour and ½ of sleep on the flight from Jersey to Manchester. At this point I’d like to call Andy a big ole liar who stated, “there’s never turbulence over the ocean” as there was, and badly so. I will forgive Andy though as without him, I wouldn’t be sitting here at the Cellar V in Guiselely, England. Thank you sweetheart.

The first 24 hours here have been great. We got in at about 7:30 in the morning and were picked up by Andy’s cousin, Julia, and her 5-year old daughter, Eliska. Julia drove us to Andy’s mom’s house (sorry, mum’s house) where I had not less than 3 cups of tea and a plate full of biscuits while discussing Dr. Who and other British programming. Andy’s mum recently got a DVR so according to all the shows we circled in the TV guide for recording, we will be watching tellie for approximately 4 days full stop.

By the way, yes, I will be using British verbiage for now as I have already been scolded\corrected too many times for my American English to go back right now. I used ‘potato chips’! I know they are ‘crisps’ dammit, the word just didn’t escape my mouth in time!

After chatting with Andy’s mum and then a roast dinner, Julia took Andy and I to Anfield, the home of the Liverpool Football Club. There was a match on between Arsenal and Liverpool and Julia and had tickets for her and Andy. I did not mind not going to the game as it was fucking freezing out and I much preferred to sit in a warm pub…well, that was the plan anyhow. I had no idea how crazy the pubs around Anfield would be. Standing room only, lots of Liverpool chant songs, smells of meat pies and cigarettes, loads of “excuse me, love” while being elbowed out of the way. When the match started the pub was left like a State Fair at closing time. Only a few unlucky non-ticket holders remained, broken glass and beer littered the floor. On every available surface there were bottles and pints of beer, some empty but mostly not. I wondered at the fact that there weren’t a few kids or homeless folk chugging the beer leftovers on the tables. I am not kidding in any way when I state that a person could get drunk 3 times over for what was left. Andy and I parted ways and I went up for a pint. With no TV to watch the match on, I ended up just sitting in one of the side rooms by myself honestly wondering what I was going to do for the next 2 hours. I need not worry. I wasn’t there for more than 5 minutes when this Scouse (term for a person from Liverpool) girl came up and asked me if I was alone. After saying I was she said, “Come’n join us then, we’re all Liverpool Football widows.”

The next two hours passed in a daze. I was jet lagged, and with no sleep, managed to get myself rather drunk rather quickly. I heard of the widows love lives and their jobs, truthfully missing half of what was said (if I’m not concentrating well enough (read: drunk), I have a hard time with accents). Not that I was alone. I have the accent here. Carrie, the girl who invited me over, never could understand that I was from California, instead introducing me to everyone as the girl from Canada. Close enough, right? I was laughing up a storm and having a grand time when Andy finally found me. He seemed a bit shocked at my new band of friends. I may or may not have introduced him as my husband from Canada.

Andy and Julia dragged me away finally and we grabbed what I imagine is the best meat pie and chips I’ve ever had the pleasure of eating (but this opinion might be lager based) and put me in the back seat of the car. Apparently I was in the back seat of the car for about 3 hours…not that I remember as I was dead asleep, only waking when we got back to Julia’s. Two cups of tea later and I was in bed where I slept for 9 hours straight without waking up once. Thank you beer and jet lag.

Today Andy had to go to work in Leeds so Julia’s husband, Lokash, took me about Guiseley. We had a full English breakfast for 3 pounds and then Lokash showed me around town. The town isn’t that big but for me, I’m finding plenty to do. Hell, I could spend an hour at the grocery store just looking about.

Sorry I don’t have any pictures to show you right now. Andy took the camera cord into work with him. Maybe I’ll give you a webcam shot of the Cellar V. Oh hey, that worked. Cool.



A group of teenagers just walked past. They are all wearing uniforms and for an American, one can’t help but think that one just stepped into a Harry Potter film.

A bit about the rain

I moved to Southern California for a reason. Well, to be fair, I moved to Southern California for loads of reasons, but the biggest one being the weather. After spending many a chilly winter growing up in Wisconsin, the yearlong 70+ degree weather of Southern California was a godsend. Every year I’m so grateful that I’m not breaking my back shoveling the walk or being white knuckled and panic stricken trying to drive to work during a blizzard. I haven’t seen snow in 6 years and I’m very comfortable about that. That being said, Southern California has this nasty habit of being sunny ALL THE TIME. I’m sure a lot of you are reading this from the warm comfort of your living rooms looking at the snow outside and sneering at me for thinking such a thing, but let’s be honest…too much of anything will start to wear on you. I love the weather here, don’t get me wrong. But every now and again, you just wish for a cloudy day. Or rain! I love rain.

Today is one of those very rare rainy days. And not just a morning sprinkle with the sun doing it’s jolly “dum dee dum dum, let’s brighten the people’s day” in the afternoon. No, this is a proper cold rain with proper clouds and proper need for an umbrella. Because rain doesn’t happen very often, when it does, it’s absolutely awesome. I went to Starbucks this morning. I was wearing a scarf. I had buttoned my jacket all the way up. I ordered a latte and was completely buzzing about it. It was that whole “it’s cold and wet out there but it’s warm and cozy in here” sort of feeling. Trust me when I say that I don’t like Starbucks that much normally. I’m really looking forward to going home tonight and getting under a blanket and watching a crap movie with a cup of tea. I like doing that usually, but when it’s raining, I don’t feel so guilty about it.

We’re leaving for England in 5 days and I will get my lion’s share of rain there. I’m sure by the end of three weeks I’ll be moaning about wet jeans, frizzy hair, destroyed cigarettes. But for right now, I’m digging it- rain away.

I feel I have myself to blame...

In September last year I wrote an entry about Shishmaref, Alaska. It was basically a piss take:

Shishmaref Piss Take

Now I find out today that poor seal oil loving Shishmaref is falling into the sea:

Shishmaref Suicide Watch

Community of Shishmaref, I was only joking. No need to fling yourself into the ocean! I'm sure you are all really lovely people who aren't cannibals.

So what have YOU been up to?

Sorry to be absent for so long. I have been meaning to throw something out for a couple weeks now but as usual time got away from me and most everything I have to say is Old News. Ach well, I think you’ll live.

The entry I was going to write about but never did was about Andy’s birthday over two weeks ago. His birthday was on November 19th, but I surprised him with a trip up to LA on the Saturday after. It was a pretty good surprise if I do say so myself.

At 2 o’clock on that Saturday, I handed him an envelope with a task in it. The first task was to use the enclosed directions to get us to the hotel in Beverly Hills. The 2nd envelope directed us to a restaurant, the 3rd a bar, so on and so forth. I had 9 envelopes in total, each with a time to open the envelope and instructions on what we’d be doing next. I sent us to the restaurant, quite a few bars, an improve show, on the LA subway system, a bar that was run by a Russian lady who tried to overfeed us, a long walk through Echo Park, more bars. Andy got to have an old man’s drink in the Dresden, a fruity cocktail at Tiki Ti, a not so great showing of Beer Shark Mice. It turned out really well. When I ran out of envelopes we just hopped in a cab – which was the story of us asking our cab driver to take us to a dive bar in Beverly Hills and him dropping us off at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel with $17 cocktails and the most beautiful Christmas tree I’ve ever seen. I might have tried to steal one of the posh cloth towels in the Ladies room. Andy definitely stole a pen and very cheekily asked that our complimentary snacks be boxed up (just on principle).

So that was two weeks ago…

This past weekend, Thanksgiving weekend, which seems like a virtual lifetime ago was also very busy.

Thanksgiving Day we invited Maggie, Dave, and Cousin Tony to have dinner with us. All was going well until an unfortunate argument over the proper method to make Pillsbury Crescent Rolls. Not wanting to get into it, let’s just say that the argument had me storming out of the house and driving off to Mutt Lynch’s. I stayed at Mutt’s for hours (having forgotten my phone) and was taken care of by Sarah and her friend via free food, drinks and fruity shots. I also pet a horse. Yes, a horse. I’m just sitting there and the woman next to me looks over and says, “Would you like to pet my horse?” Already knowing that there was a trailer outside that had a horse in it and not worrying that this woman was offering me drugs or worse, I said, “Yes.” It was a very nice horse. I got a hold of Andy later and we spent the rest of the night on the peninsula.

The Saturday after, we had the Harp Golf Tournament. I’ve never played golf before but Mari wanted to play and needed a team. The Harp hosts this tournament every year and it’s a pretty sweet deal. For $100 you get 18 holes of golf (including golf cart), a swag bag (read: a bunch of promotional crap that the Harp got for free and wanted to get rid of), a cold lunch, and a bag of beer. A bag of beer! What’s not to like? Overall I did very very poorly until about the 13th or 14th hole when I was standing in the way of Andy’s drive shot and got hit in the knee. While incredibly painful (still), you have to admit it’s funny. I think it’s funny and everyone (except Andy who feels dreadful about it) thinks it funny. It’s hard to imagine without the proper sound effects but just imagine the crack of the driver hitting golf ball, the thunck of said ball hitting my knee, and the thud of me hitting the ground like a shot. Anyhow, because my knee hit and I couldn’t really move it without some pain, I ended up playing OK the last few rounds as my whole initial problem was that I was moving around too much. I’m not sure I want to play golf again if I have to be injured to play decently. After golf was the free steak dinner at the Harp and my award for Best Female Golfer. Ironic, no?

Sunday Andy and I went out on Patrick and Michele’s new boat for a Harbor Cruise but there’s not much to say about it except that it was relaxing as all get out.

So that’s about it I think, you’re all caught up. Andy and I leave for our 3 week England vacation, sorry, holiday soon so I’ve mostly been running around trying to get everything taken care of for the trip and last minute things for the wedding which is all of 8 days after we get back. Oh, and the Pub Quiz is tonight if you feel like coming down.