return to ca part 2

our gorgeous birthday girl "pank me!!"
on friday afternoon, smac and i said goodbye to glendale (and the dave) and went to santa monica to hang out with sarah on her big 3-0 birthday day!! we got there late afternoon and decided to be girly and get pampered so we walked down to sarah's nail place on main street and all got manis and pedis. we then walked back and opened up a celebratory bottle of wine and got ready for a fun dinner out. because i am such a talented make up artist, i did sarah's eye make up and my own. please see pictures and let me know if i have a future in make up!! once we were ready, we drove to katsuya on san vicente in brentwood for some yummy cocktails and sushi. we sat at the sushi bar and enjoyed all kinds of delicious food! at one point, i got up to go to the bathroom and on my way back, this woman grabbed my arm and asked me if i was american... hunh?! to which i said yes, and she told me that the guy she was with and her thought i was beautiful. ummm, thanks?! i told the girls and we decided they were weird and possibly swingers! haha.

at katsuya... YUM!

after a lovely meal, we headed back to sarah's where we started to watch a movie but i fell asleep. whereupon i unknowingly drove smac crazy with my tossing/turning/finger cracking which i had no idea. i felt so bad in the morning when she told me!!

so on sat, while smac caught up on some much needed sleep, sarah and i went to spin. i hadn't been to spin in years and i really enjoyed that class!! so much so i am now addicted... but that's another story. after spin, we picked up bagels and headed back to relax for a bit. smac went to starbucks and graded some papers and then we all went in the early afternoon to find a hot new outfit for sarah and to all get our make up done by mac. i LOVE getting my make up done there... i always feel so pretty! sarah will most likely insert that i almost got run over by a bus here so i'll just tell everyone that we were crossing the street on the promenade when we ran in to kathryn johnson and the light changed. i didn't even realize i was still in the street... well apparently the stupid santa monica bus was barreling down the street and not willing to slow down for me! sarah was there and luckily pulled me out of the street just in time! thank you!

in any case, after getting our make up done and finding a fabulous top for sarah to wear, we went back to sarah's grabbed our stuff and headed over to the shangri-la hotel in santa monica where there was a room and where the par-tay would be held. liz, jess, and catherine had all checked in to the hotel so we went up to their room and opened a beverage! duh... it was then time to start getting ready for dinner and then i realized i forgot my stupid belt. grrrr... i needed the belt for the outfit! so smac was sweet enough to run back with me to sarah's to get it and luckily we made it back to the hotel in time to walk to dinner with the girls. to be honest, i don't remember where the heck we went to dinner, but it wasn't far from the hotel. we were joined at dinner by kathryn johnson, michelle cleveland and her hubby.









the scrippsies in front of the restaurant

dinner was tapas style, but kind of italian tapas. none of us were really sure how much to order, but we tried to figure it out and it turned out to be pretty good. after dinner, we headed back to the hotel and went to the pool/bar area where the party for everyone would be.

sarah and most of the other girls ran up to the room and i went with sarah and a couple others to the bar area where the hostess told me we had a table area... oh cool! i had no idea what the girls had planned... and then she told me she had to go check with her manager and i was all ok. so the manager comes over and says, who told you you have a table and who are you?! as soon as he said it he realized how rude it came out... and i told him look. we are here for sarah's party, i was told by that woman we apparently have a table, i didn't make the reservations, i'm just trying to get everything in order before she came down from her room. he was all oh. and then i said, how would you like to make it up to me and buy me a glass of wine. he said fine which was nice b/c apparently i picked a 20/glass of wine! holy expensiveness!! i think i just asked for a pinot noir. whatever... anyways, sarah and the other girls came down and eventually the rest of the others joined us for the festivities... her coworkers, tori and another girl were there, her asst lance and his buddy, chad and his gf and a friend of theirs.... tim, matt (the hubbies of liz and catherine)... ummm... can't really remember... please refer to pics!!

no idea what these shots were, but they were yucky!!


cheers!


oh no monkey face and silly face have made an appearance!! this one cracks me up!! love it...


wish this wasn't so blurry!


cheers! we love sarah!!


this silver ball got plucked out of the pool... management was not happy with us!!

in any case, the night ended up being really fun! the pool bar was not very crowded so i'm pretty sure the manager shouldn't have been such a jerk... the bartender, i remember as being fairly cute... at the end of the night smac and i went back to sarah's place and slept there. in the morning, we walked to get bagels and coffee and then the little more than a mile or so to the hotel to get her car from valet. it was then time to go to the burbank airport and head home.

bucktown 5k & 'football'

on sat, oct 5th i ran the bucktown 5k! it was the first real time back in the game of running and my foot held up! alice and i met devs at the little loft and then walked over to the start together. we met up with mark and a couple of his friends and also one of alice's coworkers, kyle (this kyle is a boy). i had planned on going super slow and doing a lot of run/walk. i meant to do 2 mins run/1 min walk. however, i couldn't make my stupid garmin watch work... i've since figured it out... but anyways, dev and alice being the speed demons they are left me in the dust! kyle and one of mark's buddies, ben, were also much faster and the back of the pack was led by me, mark and his buddy trevor who i had met out on the boat before. trevor soon left us even tho he never runs and had never done a race before (apparently he was hurting the rest of the day) and mark insisted on staying with me. ok, but i kept telling him i wasn't going to push it and he could go ahead if he wanted. at the very end with like 2 tenths to go he finally left me.... he kept saying he didn't want to let me run by myself in case i got hurt. sweet, but.... anyways, after i ran my slow arse across the finish line, dev, alice, kyle and i set off for brunch. we were going to go to toast, but thought the wait might be too long so we went to feast which is a bigger restaurant. i think all of us were disappointed in our food. oh well! on the walk over, dev and i discussed how cute mark's buddy ben was... mark had invited me to watch football at the cubby bear to which i said maybe... thinking ooooh maybe ben'll be there! so if you guys saw on fb where dev was asking about 'football' that was the reference. i didn't end up making it to watch the game as i decided a nap was a better use of time!

this is my not so cute picture....with the big fat guy behind me who probably beat me. the cool thing is if you look, both of my feet are off the ground! weeee fun!

CA... again!

while in LA the first time, Catherine told me about all the fun planned for sarah's big 3-0 and i started thinking... wouldn't that be fun to come back and be there for it?! and so for fun i looked up tickets... and they were cheap! so i decided to take smac up on her earlier offer of letting me stay with her and the dave and while in SF i bought my ticket back to LA. and then i realized that i would leave ca and be back in literally like a week and a half! yessssssss!!

so i flew in to burbank, where miss...no dr mrs.... macschwendy picked me up on a tuesday evening (oct 6th). my bag had not made the connection as i knew would happen since i had literally run through the denver airport in my new boots from one end to the other to catch my flight. i had 10 minutes to do that and the only reason i made it was b/c they were waiting on a wheel chair person to get to the plane. lucky i made it since it was the last flight out to burbank that evening!! so with my airline lost bag kit in hand, sarah and i went for some sushi for dinner and then we went back to her house where i got to see the dave.

doesn't she look awesomely scholarly behind the desk?!?!

on wednesday, i had the absolute privelege to hang out with sarah at her school, glendale community college. it is such a pretty campus! it is all spanish and mediterranean styled in the hills of glendale. we stopped by sarah's office and while she doesn't have a window, she does have a great space that is superbly decorated! it was then time for her first class of the day. i didn't want to disturb the class so i took a seat in the back. it was a 2 hour english class (right sarah? i get the two confused, but i think it was english 102??). anyways, she's got a lot of students and they were learning about dehumanization. we looked at several paragraphs from the class' reading and then analyzed them. and then they broke in to small groups and sarah will say she caught me texting... i say they were working in small groups, of which i was observing so i discretely (i thought!) checked my email. and then before i knew it the class was over and sarah and i headed across the bridge to get some coffee and prepare for her next class.

see?! told you she has superb decorating tastes!!


her next class, humanities 120?? again, i forget exactly is team taught though this class sarah did much of the teaching. it totally reminded me of core! dr sarah macschwendy was super duper professional up there in the front of the room discussing sterotypes of men/women and then we discussed (well, really they discussed) mary wollstonecraft and i really felt like i was back in core circa 1997! it really brought me back and it was fun to relearn some of the things that i hadn't thought about in so long. after class, once everyone left the room, i made our beloved dr sarah macschwendy pretend to teach class so that i could get some pics of her in action for everyone! i tried to take them during class, but i had to turn off the flash and be very covert about it b/c i didn't want to embarrass her in front of the students so those pics weren't too good.

at the podium...

from the back of the class... my covert action shot!

i found a school paper and found our sarah in it!

i love this picture of the two of them!

on thursday, sarah let me borrow her car and i went to san clemente to visit courtney, alex, and jessica! i was hoping to meet anthony, but jessica had her aunt in town who was babysitting and so we only had one child at lunch. sad! i got down to OC in fine time and got to see one of my favorite munchkins - alex! it had been almost a year since i'd seen him, but it really didn't seem like that much time had passed... so weird! once i got there, we got alex ready and slowly walked over to the lunch place in the shopping center by courtney's house. alex was very spirited and running around in circles and all over the place... so much energy! at lunch, we found a corner where we could sit and alex could wander around and play and not get in too much trouble. it was so nice to catch up with jess and courtney! it'd been forever since i'd seen jess! for those of you who don't know, i introduced the two of them since they both live in talega and have blond haired little boys just a few months apart in age and are both stay at home moms. i had a feeling they'd get along and i was right! they are now bfs! after a couple glasses of wine, it was time to go and it was time for alex's nap. he ended up sleeping for quite awhile while c & i ate reese's pieces, she baked these blonde brownie goodies, and chatted. then alex awoke enough to come downstairs and sleep on mom for a couple more hours on the couch. so cute.

mr sleepyhead, lola, and alex's mommy

once we woke up, he was mister jumping on cushions and running around. i wish i had his energy!! eventually pete came home... we said hello for a bit and then it was time for me to head back to glendale.

this is the end of part 1. part 2 coming! this blog was getting rather long...

kyle's *ahem* 29th birthday party

For kyle’s *ahem* 29th birthday, we had a day o’fun planned. Starting with brunch at stanley’s. leigh and I joined kyle for some yummy brunch and then we went to the wine festival on wells street. We had wanted to stomp the grapes, but we got there too late. We bought our tickets and got our souvenir wine glass and set out to do our tastings. Ellen joined us too after awhile. Once we’d spent all of out tickets on the tastings – I think we got 10? We left the festival and headed over to a bar to meet devon. Devon, Patrick, her brother and a couple other people were sitting outside enjoying some drinks and then heading over to the U2 concert. We were stopping by to say hi and pick up kyle’s birthday headpiece. Devon did a wonderful job creating a fun pink hair clip for our birthday gal. she also supplied us with fun spongey numbers 2 & 9.

We then headed home for a rest & a shower and then met back up at kyle’s house for some pizza and more wine prior to going out. Alice, trish, megan, leigh, and another one of kyle’s friends – blair met up there and hung out on the roof deck with cocktails in hand. Somehow we convinced alice who was dressed cutely, but in flip flops to join us at the club. Kyle apparently stockpiles shoes b/c she happened to have a pair in alice’s size! Shoes changed, we all headed out the door for manor, a club in river north. Trish’s bf, john, has a friend that used to work there so he hooked us up for getting in without a cover or waiting in line.

At manor, we ordered a bottle of goose and some mixers. Alice stayed for a bit and then left. Katie, sonny and some of kyle’s other guy friends – johan and two others whose names I forget (maybe chad was one of them??) also joined the table. At one point, another bottle of the goose was brought to the table. Everyone was having fun and making fun of some of the heftier, should not be dancing on the tables girls that were at the next table over. Kyle was thoroughly drunk and having a great time! I was rather drunk from all of the wine so I nursed my vodka/cranberry and then moved on to water. Since the week before had been the incident with connor and the puking, I was trying to lay off the mixing and getting too drunk!

And then the bill came. And the fun stopped. Leigh and I had put our cards down b/c someone had to and then nobody would pony up the money to pay for the drinks/table. We both started to freak out because nobody was caring/paying attention and then Katie freaked out. Katie freaked out and went to talk to megan and told her she never would have come if she’d known it’d cost this much. Um, it was 60 bucks. And we were at a trendy club with table service… wtf did she expect?! I’d budgeted 100 bucks for the night. Anyways, she went on to basically say that she makes no money (true) and that I made more than her on unemployment. Uh, none of your business and if that is true, then so what, my unemployment covers half my monthly mortgage and that’s it… So that didn’t do anything but tick me off. She left without even giving any money! Then kyle’s friend (blair) gave me and leigh 40 each which was awesome. She ended up being the only one to give me any money that night. Oh, did I mention the total bill including tax/tip was 700 bucks?? 350 to me, 350 to leigh. Sweet. 350 for one f’ing drink… well, 310 (350 minus that 40). So then I got super upset, almost started crying and realized that while I had been talking to Katie, megan, trish and john, drunk kyle and leigh and those guys had left and gone to another bar. Great. So then the tears were about to come as I realized people weren’t forking over the money and I just had to leave. So I got home and wrote and email. Hmmm. One should generally not write emails at 3am drunk, but I think I wrote a very good one. Here is what I wrote:

hi all, i can say with a definite certainty that i officially resign from any and all future party planning. while i love each and everyone one of you and enjoy spending my time with you, i just can't afford it monetarily or friendship-wise. i don't want anyone mad at me... i don't want anyone to feel like they have to pay more than they feel they owe. i don't want anyone mad at me for what the table cost or the bottle service. i hate when people are mad or upset with me... i don't deal well with that. so here's the deal. pay me what you can. pay leigh what you can. it was a total of 700 bucks for 2 bottles. leigh and i split the bill evenly. i have no idea how many people were drinking. i wasn't paying attention to be perfectly honest. i'll tell you what i had. 1 vodka with cranberry and seven. after that i had ice/water. i made a conscious effort not to be too drunk as i am still mad at myself for how drunk i was last weekend. no matter, i still planned to share in the cost equally. i had budgeted up to a hundred bucks and i thought that was on the high side... so i guess at the end of the night, whatever is whatever. but just so you guys all know, i don't have 350 bucks for one drink or for everyone else's drinks. i haven't worked in almost a year and i'm living off my savings.... which won't last forever. not any of y'alls problem, just stating the facts. i know it's tough on everyone economically and i'm not saying i'm any less fortunate or more fortunate than the rest of you. i'm merely pointing out how i feel which is pretty freaking shitty right now.... so.... here it is: pay me what you can, i'll eat the rest and i'll see you guys in 2010 when i can once again spend money to go out. if you find a cheap happy hour or want to have drinks at a house party, count me in. otherwise, i'm out. i'll just be the lame-o hanging out at my house saving money. feel free to come watch a dvd with me.... i would like to say thank you blair, for giving both leigh and me some money ... it is much appreciated! so in closing... please don't take offense to this email... i needed to get a few things off my chest so there it all is... i hated leaving manor upset... i hated being upset at all. i am off to take an ambien and hopefully go to sleep so i can forget about all this... at least til the credit card bill comes.... night everyone.

Ultimately, I got 30 bucks in the mail from trish and 40 from sonny. Alice didn’t owe money b/c she didn’t drink. Kyle didn’t owe b/c it was her birthday. I’m still annoyed at Katie for her reaction and lack of paying and megan can be excused as I haven’t seen her lately and she’s been busy moving. Next time I see her, I’ll broach the subject. Which I hate. I hate the whole disastrous money thing as it has been known to ruin more than one of my friendships which I guess weren’t really friends in the first place if something so stupid could ruin it. But then again, that is one of the top reasons people get divorced! So anyways… what started as a fantastically fun day ended up going rather awry. And that one drink cost me 240 bucks.

the fam reunion...

right after i flew back from SF, i got to go home for a night and then get up and drive to egg harbor (door county), wi to meet my parents, brother, aunts/uncles, cousins on my mom's side. to say i was looking forward to it was a bit of a stretch, but that's ok. with my night home, i snuggled otis, reassured him i didn't abandon him and made a bunch of cds for the 5ish hour drive. i needed sing along music...

i woke up fairly early and was on the road by 815ish... i got there about 1230ish. i made pretty good time and there wasn't much traffic. i drank an energy drink, ate the red hots leslie had given me, and sang at the top of my lungs to pass the time. it wasn't horrible, but i was so ready to get out of the car.

upon getting to the resort, i found i had no cell reception. awesome. so i went to the front desk and asked them to ring my parents' room hoping they'd be there. i got mom and she and my dad walked up to the front to get me since there were several buildings and it was rather confusing to explain. we got to the room where my mom promptly told me that the room was, um, interesting and she was not happy about how much this crappy resort was costing us. my aunt had booked it and my mom was definitely not thrilled. they were all condos that individuals had decorated themselves and they were all different sizes. ours happen to be old looking and decorated with crappy fugly furniture. and while it had 1.5 bathrooms, they were quite interestingly arranged. as in, the toilets faced eachother. i have a picture to show you guys b/c well, hunh?! who the f designed this thing. as my mom said, we could go to the pot together and open the sliding door and chat instead of reading a magazine solo. really?! yes, that's my mom's sense of humor! there was a view of the lake, but mom was disappointed b/c the lake was so far away and we couldn't walk to it. oh well.

who the heck designed this place?! it was hard to photograph, but there you go... you can tell there are two potties facing each other. awesome!
my aunts & cousin (my aunt anne and her partner, sue, and anne's son, vinney, had a much bigger and nicer room although they had a view of the parking lot. pretty much we used this room as home base for breakfast, dessert, and hanging out. my aunt rita, my uncle, tim, and their daughter, erica, also had their own room. my uncle, john, and his wife couldn't make it as he had been super sick and in the hospital that week before. i must admit i am not a fan of sue anne his wife b/c she talks. a lot. about herself. and repeats stories. and she is fat and has diabetes and still eats like shit and refuses to exercise. her diabetes is causing her to go blind and yet she won't do anything about it which i just don't understand. and john... well, john is an interesting guy. as in he has a lot of issues. he isn't my favorite either. should i be writing this?! just being honest... anyways... back to the reunion.

mom, dad and i headed over to anne & sue's room and met up with everyone there for some lunch. after lunch, we went in to town and fish creek to do some shopping and looking around. mom bought stuff, i did not. we saw lots of errrr, interesting things there. this here, is just for you sarah!! and i LOVED this license plate... really?! it's so midwest...

cute scene from fish creek

that evening i took a quick (ok, long) nap. and then we all got ready to go to dinner. i think it was called the lodge or something. it was huge. and a wedding reception was going on. only the room was wide open and not private and we could hear their music. i thought that was a crappy place... sorry, i don't want random people eating dinner just across the way staring at my party! weird. before going to dinner, my mom had come back and told me that all the women were going to wear these plastic pumpkin necklaces that flashed and lite up. oh dear lord. yes, they wore them all thru dinner. i refused to wear mine. sorry... i just don't wear those tacky things. but all the rest of the girls did.

everyone at dinner: it's a shame you can't see those necklaces!

anyways, long story short that night ended in tears and anger between me and mom b/c she accused me of embarrassing her in front of her sisters and then i accused her of making me feel like i was too good to be part of the family and so then we both felt like shit and by the end of it we both apologized and said we'd try harder. apparently her sister, rita, had said something to her about my eye rolling and apparent rude tone with my mother. maybe i was. i dunno. i did roll my eyes but not b/c i was embarrassed b/c they were being so freaking hokey and it was driving me crazy. and the way my mom reacted was to make me feel like i thought i was better than everyone else and didn't want to be a part of things. my mom's side of the family is just, well, not sure how to say this without sounding terrible - it's just they are very midwest... very liberal, loud, and large. i don't think i am better than them, but that's the way i felt my mom was trying to make me feel. sorry if i'm more country club and they are more square dance... i can square dance too. it's just in all honesty, i don't know them that well. last time i saw them was my grandpa's funeral 3 years before. and before that, who knows. so that was a greeeeeeeeeat night. sorry, i was tired. and had driven/flown too much without much sleep.

so. the next day. we went over to washington island which is what rita wanted to do. so we all drove over... it was about 30 mins there and then a 30ish min ferry ride. once on the very remote island, we went to this replica church from the vikings. it was lovely. then we drove to this beach. wow, this was gorgeous. the sun was out, the water was crystal clear, and it was entirely flat rocks. apparently there are only 4 beaches in the entire world with this type of rock beach. so that was cool. we all tried skipping rocks. only my dad and tim were any good at it. from there we all went to lunch. i forget the name of the place, but it was hoppin... probably b/c it was about the only place in town to eat! by then, the weather had picked up with wind and rain and so we headed back to the ferry b/c we definitely did not want to get stuck on the island. rita was apparently mad b/c she had wanted to go to the ostrich farm and we hadn't had the time. oh well. the ferry ride back was rather bumpy so i stayed in the car, laid down, and closed the eyes and prayed for the ride to end quickly. finally got to the other side and started the drive home. we made a couple of stops at antique stores which is a favorite thing of my parents to do, but we didn't find anything worth buying. we then all headed back to the resort where we had dinner at the room and then a delicious raspberry pie. yum. and then it was time for bed, a quick breakfast in the morning, and then goodbye. my parents to the airport and me on my 5 hour drive home. i was exhausted when i got home, but i still managed to make it to my body pump class! talk about dedication... or maybe b/c i ate way too much crap over the weekend and past week of travel....

rita, her daughter erica, my brother andrew, and & anne on the ferry

me and my momma

me and my dad

mom's attempt at skipping a rock...

hanging out on the rock beach. so pretty!

the replica viking church: my aunt anne & her son: my cousin vinney (yes, i really do have a cousin vinney!)

the brave folks who sat on top of the ferry for the ride home. they were all trying to get a signal on their iphones. ohhhh technology!

culver outing: connor's in town.

sunday, sept 6th

lux bar
cedar hotel for 2 secs - walked out and continued to...
the hang up on elm

ok, so this took place last month... so behind... maybe i'll catch up this week... only a few to go...





me, the boot & connor before the vodka...

so my friend from high school, connor, was in town from dubai. he grew up in winnetka which is a northern suburb where my aunt and uncle live. he's a piece of work. and by piece of work, i cannot adequately do this guy justice in describing him. he's the sort of guy who feels entitled to just about everything, thinks he's god's gift to women, and is incredibly cocky. so in other words completely and totally undateable and yet a fun friend to have.

earlier in the night i went to a bbq over at sonny's. yum. and a bottle of wine later... the bbq wrapped and i headed to luxbar to meet up with connor, angie (another h.s. culver friend), her friend lindsey, and his friend kevin. eventually another one of their friends met up with us too. we sat outside until luxbar closed the patio and made us go inside. we drank wine. a lot of it.
can't remember this guy's name, connor, & kevin

lindsey (she had the same bag as me - great taste!), angie, and me

and then we decided to head out to the cedar hotel bar - but it was too crowded and outside wasn't open and we were not in the mood to hang out there since connor wanted to be the only douchy guy in the establishment (my commentary, not his!). anyways, we then headed to the hang up on elm in the rush st area. oh wow, now... this was fun! at least what i remember... here's what someone on city search had to say:

After 2am, it's a throbbing protoplasm of wall-to-wall people--scoping, jostling, gawking and working on their seventh nightcap. Order only what can be transferred directly from a tap or bottle in an arcing stream into your gullet--but don't even waste your time if you're not fond of raucous crowds. For meeting and greeting other attractive young people, or as your last stop before the drunk tank, it's ideal.

and someone else said:

This was a great way to end our night - cheap drinks, loud music, everyone just having a good time. The music upstairs was mainstream dance/rap, downstairs 80's and classics - what more could you ask for very very late on a Saturday night? Of course there are some creepy people there but mostly it's just a mix of younger and older having a good time. Open late so you know where to go to end the night.

kevin, connor, me, and angie

kevin held lindsey's bag for awhile...see? isn't her bag great?!

ohhhhhhhhh, drunkeness....

ummm... i hope we weren't part of the creepy crowd... haha, i don't think so. anyways, we were mostly downstairs and the music was so much fun! however, i kept being handed vodka drinks and well, wasted would be an understatement. connor decides to leave and i don't know how/why/what was said, but i left with him. it was just us. we went back to my house. oh, i think he was tired or something and since he was staying in the suburbs i told him he could crash at my house... so i gave him the spare set of keys i had. and then i somehow joined him. anyways, in the cab he tells me he's allergic to cats. i tell him to suck it up and i'd give him an allergy pill. then at one point i puked out the cab window. yep, sure did. oh lord. then we get to my house, connor orders pizza... tries to make me eat it, but it makes me sick. then he tries to make me drink water, only he gives me sparkling flavored water which i dont care for sober and that just made me sicker. he gave me my trash can and i sat on the edge of the bed feeling miserable. he kept trying to make me lie down but the room would spin and it was horrible. then i start to hear him wheeze, but i don't really hear it - it's kind of like it's there, but not really since i'm rather out of it... and i hear him call a cab, he says goodbye, i pass out at some point. i hear the next day that he had to go to the hospital b/c he couldn't breathe - he was at 30% oxygen levels!! whoops, guess he really is that allergic to otis!! most people just have semi allergies - like me... nothing like that! so all in all it was a super fun night, til the end of it... and the next day!!

help!

ladies, i need some ideas. me and my friend, laura, are going to make a tape for our application to the amazing race. only neither of us are very creative and we need to do something that stands out! so that is where you guys come in... creative friends: help me plan a video that will get us on the show!!

here are some things about me and laura that might help you know more about why we kick ass:

*we met in boarding school as juniors
*we are both tall and while she's thinner than me i think we are both adorable :)
*she lives in IN with her husband and golden retriever
*she's super bubbly and fashionable
*we know a lot about each other, but haven't spent tons of quality time together since high school since we haven't lived in the same place since, but we've always kept in touch and get together whenever poss.
*she's lived in almost as many places as me: DC, NYC, IN
* we are both well traveled

we thought it might be kinda cute to put on our old uniforms: kilts, white shirts, loafers, knee socks... for at least part of the video... the thing has to be 3 mins or so long so it's pretty short... now, ideas please....

me and laura at our 5 year reunion: 2002 - cannot believe that was 7 years ago already!!!!!!

our senior year of high school

senior year

SF!

sarah and i drove up to SF on wed, the 23rd. i of course had to document the journey even tho sarah was less than thrilled to have her picture taken! we got to leslie & jamie's place around 7ish. what an awesome place they have (i expected nothing less!!). i'm so jealous of les' decorating skills! i got to sleep in the kitchen bedroom on a very comfy blow up mattress with the most thoughtful and fun shelf full of cute stuff: a spot for a water glass, hot tamales, magazines, and a journal. loved it! and will try to steal such idea for my spare room! we talked and talked and eventually went to get some food and wine to enjoy. and we died of laughter at sarah's nightshirt... see picture... but it was so ridiculously funny!! what does this make you think?! i don't even think i could do the story justice...i think you had to have been there...
awwwww....look at that mug!!!


how welcoming!! sarah and i did bring presents too: a big long 3 foot thing of jerky, pie, big sugar sticks, and a baby pumpkin and some pumpkin jam.


then on thurs, sarah and i walked around the marina area and met a very interesting guy, martin, who is french but has lived in the area for 40 years. he shared some of his great stories about the people who live around the palace of fine arts (that's what it's called, right??). he had been a landscaper for years and years and so he knew tons of stories!
eventually, we found cupcakes and i had the most delicious coconut cupcake. yum!! it was gone in 2.2 seconds.

me & sarah, the palace of fine arts, martin, my car with the license plate "itabtme".

close up of plate that isn't fuzzy. stupid collage.

later that afternoon, sarah went to dinner with her family friends and les, jamie, and i went to the doggy park with hudson. so many cute dogs there and hudson wasn't afraid of any of them!! and then les and i wandered around some of the shops on union and waited for holly to drive in. over on union at jest jewels, me and les had to climb on the rocking animals: that evening, all of us including holly headed over to the thirsty pig for some drinks and to meet up with lauren wildberger. food and drinks and fantastic company!




on fri, i just had the morning since i had to fly home early that afternoon. les had heard of the 'best brunch in all of sf' on a tv show and we all decided we had to try it! i can't remember the name of it, but we got there and on a fri morn, had just over an hour wait. can you imagine on a weekend?! anyways, while we were in line we met a group of 4 girls who were from chicago of all places! and one of the girls literally lives above my starbucks! how crazy! one of the other girls works in corporate sales for att&t and i jokingly asked if they were hiring and she said, actually yes there is a division in sales hiring. so she emailed me and when i got home i emailed her my resume! how funny... i hope something comes of that - how cool would that be?! we finally made it inside and OMG, how to choose what to get?! well, given my love of pancakes... i just had to have the cornmeal blueberry special pancakes. and they were delicious!!! yum!!! yum!! definitely worth the wait... but then we realized that i needed to leave for the airport so it was all a little rushed, but that's ok... i did make it to the airport with just the perfect amount of time to get on a take a snoozer...