iHockey

David put Air Hockey on my iPhone. It's the greatest thing ever.
I can play the computer, or someone who's hanging out with me, or I can play against him while he's on his phone. It's a tiny world of fun. Air hockey is the best!

Isla

This last weekend we drove to Las Vegas to hang out with Mark and Tiffany as she was there working in a trade show (sadly, she had to work most of the time we were there, but I'm hoping they got to have some fun on Sunday after we'd left). On Saturday, I enjoyed laying by the pool all day, and in the evening, David took us out for a fancy dinner at Isla with his gambling winnings. Yes, I was in Las Vegas all weekend, and all I took pictures of was food - that's what really excites me. Beautiful, delicious food. Levan & Heather turned us on to this place, Isla, in the Treasure Island hotel, and I was excited to go back and plunge into the mojitos! I had a blackberry and a cucumber, and both were scrumptious and minty fresh! We were next in line after a couple with 2 kids in strollers, and the hostess told them she could seat them in another hour, so they left, then she promptly seated us without hesitation, so we felt fabulous for not having children that kept us from being excluded from nice fancy restaurants.



I want to eat it all over again! I had tasty prawns in red sauce with stuffed tortilla, David got the steak pyramid and Mark enjoyed carnitas. Dinner was followed by some craps at Excalibur, and then back to bed. Back to 2 beds actually, because our room had 2 double beds instead of one big one, but we somehow made do. Oh Riviera, we won't be staying at you again!

OwlBees

It's doesn't get any better!
Love the meeting of bees and owls in these paintings by Kathleen Lolley, these are when Agata and I have a baby together :)

The Kingpin

This weekend we went to Lompoc to play dominoes with my grandparents. This is my Grandpa Johnie, who I'll now forth on call The Kingpin. He's the keeper of the rules and the score, the keeper of the game. We played from the in the afternoon to eight at night, dinner in the middle, and had a great time.

I decided to bring Elwood this time, so he could meet my grandma, and he did pretty well on the car trip there, I learned if I just open his travel box door, or hold him on my lap he's quiet. But don't let him stand on the on the way home, after your family has been feeding him salmon bits and treats all weekend, on the blanket folded in the backseat, 'cause he doesn't have sealegs, and he just might puke all over David's backpack. Poor little fluffnug. We tried to show him the backyard but he didn't like it, and spend most of the weekend in the guest room, sitting in his litterbox, even if he didn't have to use it, looking vulnerable.


Saturday I got to visit with Courtney over coffee at Southside which was delightful, and we went to the Printed Matter bookstore next door which I'm sad to say is going out of business. I bought some books at 40% off, and was delighted by many things I found there. That night Laurel and David and I went to the local bars, and had a lot of fun. I spotted this lady, who was strutting it all over in black body suit under her jeans, but pulling the body suit way way up in a scary fashion. She was getting lots of attention though, which I believe was the desired effect. My sister proudly wore her Obama for progress shirt, and that also attracted attention. Upon leaving we got roped into a 20 minute debate outside with a guy who worked on Base and was at one point in Iraq who was younger than all of us & is a Republican. It was kind of cool though, because I always think of that bar as a hangout for Human Wastelands and this guy was intelligent and interested in having open exchange. By the end of the conversation, I felt really really proud of David, I felt great that he was my husband, as he started pouring out his observations and political views that we never really talk about that much. Often enough my words fail me when I'm trying to fight for my side, but he has the words and the ability to draw on information he's collected inside him to illustrate these points sharply and stunningly sometimes. Good times in Lompoc.

Tilapia!

Last night I went to the gym and ran 4 1/2 miles, and it felt really good, but exhausting. And I made a quick round of the weight room, to reintroduce my little muscles to the memory of it, to their displeasure. Today I feel much better though, it's amazing how some good hard exercise revitalizes me, and I have to remember that feeling when I just want to home instead. I was pooped when I got home, but HUNGRY. I had to share this meal because I was so so so pleased with it. It was extremely flavorful and delicous but stupid fast and easy to make, healthy, and cheap! I got 2 massive fillets of Tilapia at Trader Joes for $4. These days, meat is so expensive and it makes me happy that our dinner was about 2$ each in that department. You boil 1/2 cup of water in a big skillet, toss in 1 tablespoon of red pepper flakes, about a cup of halved cherry tomatoes, then lay the fish on top of the tomatoes, salt & pepper it. Cover it and let it steam about 3-5 minutes and bing! Remove to a plate then in the same skillet spend 2 more minutes and you've got sauce: melt 2 tablespoons of butter in 2 tablespoons of lemon juice and toss in 2 tablespoons capers, more salt and pepper and bing! Pour your sauce over the fish. My recipe called for 2 bunches of aregula to serve on the side, but I substituted spinich, pour sauce on everything and you have fancy greatness in about 15 minutes total of prep and cooking. Sigh, it was lovely. PS. I did not end up drinking that white wine, because, Amanda, as you can see, there is debris in the bottom of the glass that scared me.

Last night I met Amanda, Erin, William, Ryan and Dan at Mozza for the first night of their Teadebris dinner parties, and it was delightful. I'd never met William or Ryan, and Amanda, Erin and Dan are friends I don't hang out with all the time, and it made for such a lovely dinner - new conversations can be refreshing! I also realized how close Amanda and I live to one another, and how we should be having weekend tea time and Culver City hangouts. Also, the glorious glorious food. The beautiful winelist. I had the Funghi misti, fontina, taleggio & thyme pizza, and for wine I tried the Montepulciano “Quattro Mani” {Abruzzo}. I didn't know how to say it, three seasons of The Sopranos trying to help me fake the pronunciation of Italian words, but the waitress was kind to me. Also, I went out on a limb for trying new things, and tried a slice of Erin's anchovy pizza. I don't think I'd order it for myself, but it was ok, and the important thing is to try. I had the lovliest time, and I will watch for the other restauraunts they select to dine at, even if I can't get in on the reservation for 6, maybe I'll learn something new about this city with it's endless fine dining options :)

The Edison : 2001

Last night we met Agata and some friends at The Edison, this ulta swanky club hidden in an alley down town, themed like an old timey steampunk electrical company / nightclub. They have a dress code so you aren't supposed to just wear jeans and tennis shoes. David wore his suit and I wore my new feather headband. The night was special, it was part of a Jules Verne festival, celebrating the 40th anniversary of 2001: a space odyssey, directed by Stanley Kubrick. Daughter Vivian Kubrick was there for Q & A along with the star of the movie, Keir Duella who plays Dave. Also, especially exciting, Malcolm McDowell appeared (from A Clockwork Orange) and told spoke a little. I couldn't really get much closer for all the fans with cameras, but you can see them there, very tiny. The guy on the far left is Dan Richter, he choreographed the opening sequence of monkeys, and is the monkey who threw the famous bone. Too fancy.

The real treat is the Edison itself, it's so cool inside you feel like you've gone back in time to a much fancier Los Angeles - wish we could have got better photos but it was so very dark in there. There's a grand stair case you decend to enter the place, and as we did music from the movie was welling up, Strauss's on the Beautiful Blue Danube, and I felt like we where entering some grand ballroom to waltz all night. It was really really fun for the setting, otherwise i might have fallen asleep, - I love the movie and it's spectacular, but this is the first time when I didn't fall asleep while watching it. It just has that effect, what with all the silence and slow moving space scenes. There were sceens all over the place in different rooms with leather couches and armchairs set up, and it was the funniest thing to walk around this huge bar with rooms of people in total silence, captivated by the film. Also, I had a delicious pretzel :)

I would like to go back for some of the upcoming screenings, especially Planet of the Apes and Terminator 2.

Rambling day

Woke up today at 9 and had a leisurely breakfast with Christine at La Dijonaise, haven't seen her for a while and had a lovely time. Yay for nice tea and blueberry muffins and a little Goodwill perusal after. I am putting wedding stuff in my guest/scrap/photo book today before we head over to The Edison to meet Agata for the 2001 Space Odyssey screening. Last night I felt Fall in the air, as it's time to put more blankets on the bed, and it's chilly indoors. Broke out my slipper booties and am drinking more tea than usual, I love it.

Tiny Misses Tiny!

Tiny has been working so much at her great job, that that other Tiny is going though withdrawls! Like from crack coccaine! Wandering around the apartment muttering "bun diddley bun bun!"

Awesome

I got my 401K retirement fund statement in the mail today. I was thrilled to read the following calculation, based on the ending balance of my current statement:

Based on the assumed 6% annual investment return and 3% annual rate of inflation, my projected monthly income will be $37.55 when I retire at age 90.

Welcome to the new American Dream, or as I am starting to think of it, Poop On A Stick.

Nothin But Love For You, Barack

Watching the debate right now, and realized I've never been excited about a candidate ever, not really. This time I am. For months I've been listening all day long to National Public Radio as I work and drive. Every analysis, every debate, every report confirms my choice. I'm holding my breath for election day.

Cafe Crepe

On Saturday, David and I had breakfast at Cafe Crepe in Santa Monica, most beloved place. I ordered hot tea and a crepe with raspberry jam and bacon and eggs. My most favorite thing is when one orders hot tea and it arrives in a beautiful cafe style glass, mug or cup, on a saucer with a spoon. I don't want my tea in a cardboard or paper cup, I don't want crappy tea either - most American restaurants just give you a clunky coffee mug at best, with a basket of Lipton and Celestial Seasonings to choose from, which are horrible. Cafe Crepe serves Mighty Leaf whichis organic and comes in a silken bag. It’s positively lovely. I will always adore the French for the gift of the Crepe, in it's many forms, my favorite I think, being stuffed with bananas and Nutella.

Guest DJ Me

I have been listening regularly to the KCRW Guest DJ Project installments as they come out every week, and enjoying them immensly. If you haven't had the pleasure, check it out! You can get them as free podcasts on iTunes or listen on KCRW's website. Basically they get people who are considered cultural icons and ask them to pick a handful of songs they love, or that have some special meaning to them, and they talk about why they like this music or why the song is special to them in some way. It's a really hard thing to do if you're a music lover, select 4 or 5 songs that you find the most important in your life out of all the hundreds of songs you love dearly. I've especially enjoyed the sessions with Janeane Garofalo, Jason Schwartzman, Matthew McConaughey, and Jeff "The Dude" Dowd (as in the REAL Big Lebowski).

Today, David took me to the apple store and got me an iPhone to my great excitement! Especially cause I've never had an iPod and never planned on really getting myself one, so besides having an awesome new phone, I finally have an iPod in a way! Tonight I've been going through old CDs and picking out what to download to my new Tiny Phone, and it's inspired me to make my own playlist! I've got over 2,000 songs on my laptop right now, and it's not even all the music I own, so picking out 5 songs is a bit of a trick. So I'm focusing on the time in my life when I bought my first little CD collection that I played to death, on repeat in my bedroom for hours and hours, when I didn't have any real responsibilites in life and unlimited time to squander. That's right, Jr High - High School. Back when I memorized the names of all the songs on the CD, and spent a good hour picking which one to spend my $$ on, and it was a huge event at the used record store.

It would be nice if I could play the songs for you, but oh well, it's just a blog :) Maybe you can find them and listen for free on YouTube, or hear clips for free on iTunes.


1. Silent All These Years - Tori Amos
I listened to this song maybe 5 thousand times, until the disc barely plays now. I don't know, it just fit me perfectly at that time of my life where I felt like I was this dreamy little person trying to form a unique personality seprate from my family and the friends who knew me for so long that there were no more suprises. I wanted to be curious, grown up, lovely, and elegant as the music felt, and I wanted be be like the strange pronuciation that she sung words with, changing them into something at once mysterious but familiar. I loved the lyrics, "But what if I'm a mermaid in these jeans of his with her name still on it" - pleasingly visual and letting you create your own story because the words are so open to interpritation.


2. Thief - Belly
Eventually this song got put on the Tank Girl Soundtrack, but I try not to let that ruin it for me. I think this originally appealed to me just cause it's very pretty and melodic, and breaks into a nice strong ending, but it became an anthem to be because of these lyrics, "Because of you I came, because of you I leave." Sung over and over and growing in steangth as the sound fills out. I think I those formative years in a small town made me starving for interesting experiences and intense friendships, but it also slammed you up the wall with dissapointment in people. (I'm not talking about my good friends that I still keep in contact with now from home - I'm talking about people I never spoke to again after I moved away.) The song isn't bitter though, and that's why I like it; for me it was about getting dumped or used or dissapointed in someone but walking away still liking yourself and not losing your self esteem that was so so so fragile back then.

3. 1979 - The Smashing Pumpkins
Yeah, I'm talking about when Billy hair. I think I was nostalgic for this song the first time I heard it. The Smashing Pumpkins where a great, in fact, I really miss Melancholy and the Infinate Sadness. It was so epic and romantic; also, Adore was a great album. This particular song though was all good feeling, that careless 90's feeling of my teenage years, just driving no where in cars with your friends for hours, with no where really to go, hand out the window feeling the wind, just desperately wishing we had somewhere cool to be, somewhere where something was happening. Parties, night swimming, parking lots and music, great great times.

4.Blue - Joni Mitchell
"Blue- songs are like tatoos" do I need to say more? This is a song that's grown with me, and I have a million new heartaches to go with it since then, but even at 16 I felt connected to the pain and stipped down aching of this song, even if I had no real context for it yet :) Oh, the booding poetry I wrote. So so terrible. But this song, so so beautiful.


5. Round Here - Counting Crows
I'm talking about the live version of this song on the 2 disc collection. It's just so emotional and honest and pleasingly dramatic in an authentically sad way. It felt like it was about wandering aimlessly and hurting for your friends and not knowing where you were headed, but shaped to the environment you occupied, even if you didn't like it. It made me feel connected where I felt disconnected and I liked that.

Funny, looking back, I listened to so much sad sad music at one of the easiest times of my life. Now that life is harder, goes by faster, and I have to do things I don't want to and have a minimal amount of my own pleasure time to hear some music - I now listen to the happiest warmest things I can find. I just realized that and it cracks me up.

BlacknWhite

I just got a photo montage of our professional wedding pics, and I am so happy with them. If anyone needs a photographer, I highly reccomend Richard of Studio TLC. He not only got gorgeous color shots of the outdoor ceremony, but he really did justice to the dance party that happed after dinner. I have to post here some of my favorites, they are magical to me and I feel like I'll get to keep living that party every time I get out my photo album.




All images copyright ©Studio TLC 2008

Rocknrolla

Last night David took me to the Cinema Tuesday at the Montalban Theater in Hollywood. It's been taken over by Nike, and they host these free movie nights with free candy and drinks. Last night was a screening of Rockenrolla, Guy Ritchie's new movie (Snatch, Lock Stock and 2 Smoking Barrels if you don't know who he is). The theater is really cool, it has these huge black and while illustrated murals on the sides that I'm sad I didn't get a picture of cause I forgot my camera. The movie it better than I expected, as I read a bad review of it online last week. It was pretty funny, but the sound wasn't very good in the theater, making it a little hard for me to get though the heavy brit accents. I have my favorite new name for a character, Mr. Onetwo.
We had fun, I got free candy, and David ate 4 small buckets of popcorn.