A snippet of a typical conversation between 2 computer geeks. Well maybe 3.

Michael: You’re right. Maybe HTML is not good afterall. It so easy to be dirty
Scott: hahah
Michael: It takes alot of planning and patience to do it right
Scott: Too much patience. My only beef with HTML/JS is the programmatic art that it takes
Michael: Yeah, it’s a true skill.l It’s like painting with fat ass brush and painting Mona Lisa. When you see the Mona Lisa, it is a work of art, but it is rare as heck
Scott: The painting is beautiful, but Mona Lisa her self is ugly
Michael: lol. No man. Fine. A painting of Heidi Klum then. Which by the way I think she is robot, and the model template god used to create women.
Scott: hahah, Dude you are failwhale today. It’s like watching Aliens part 4.
Michael: Obviously not when she is pregnant. Fine, Megan Fox
HTML/CSS programmatic poetry is Mega Fox
Scott: She’s an aussie
Michael: Game Over.
Scott: Yeah she is tidy

Ben: Heidi Klum pregnant is still domination.

So far I’ve been able to knock quite a few items off my list of awesome things to do while in California for the (longish) weekend.  Fortunately, it’s been a pretty entertaining trip.  Unfortunately, you’re getting the news out of order.  Eh, you’ll live.

Anyway, do you remember the high tea I went to last month to celebrate (or mourn) Rita’s escape from Seattle?  There were tiny sandwiches, pastries that looked like things my grandma used to bake, LOTS of contrasting floral wallpaper and a drink menu that featured, well, mostly tea.  Well, I liked that tea experience, so when my bff Mary suggested that we do tea while I was in LA, I jumped at the idea.

This tea, however, promised to be VERY different.

First of all, it wasn’t being held in a traditional tea house manned by middle-aged women with a penchant for collecting stuffed animals.  It took place at the uber-stylish Bazaar at the SLS Hotel in Beverly Hills.  Instead of crazy mismatched floral prints and fuzzy forest creatures, Bazaar is a professionally lit, super-modern lounge/restaurant/bar/marketplace that looks like it was decorated by Alice in Wonderland’s really hip brother who works as a professional shopper at Bendel’s in Manhattan.

Just like the name implies, everything behind glass is for sale.  And it’s all crazy expensive.  Because naturally, when I go to tea, I often feel like dropping a couple hundred dollars on some weirdly awesome teddy bear that looks like it could kill me.

After some browsing, we settled down for some tea.  But first, we had to wait for our two other guests- Elizabeth and Kim!

They, of course, were both late.  Which was okay because Mary and I were running late anyway.  That is one thing I love about Southern California- punctuality is an added bonus, not a requirement.

Tea service began with tea and scones.

See the scone?  It looked and tasted more like a tiny muffin, but it was delish. You’ll quickly see that “tiny” was a definite theme here.  Partially because tiny generally equals good, and partially because we’re in freaking LA- nobody eats.

Each of us got a different tea, and they all had fabulous names and descriptions.  I opted for the White Darjeeling “Champagne of teas,” Elizabeth chose the “Iron Goddess of Mercy” green blend, Mary picked the “SLS Beverly Hills Blend” black and Kim chose a classic, yet tasteful, Orange Pekoe.  All were as enjoyable to drink as they were to order.

First our savory course came out.  This is where all similarities to a traditional high tea ended.

Top left: Cucumber, yogurt and tomato caviar (delicious), fois gras sandwich on toasted brioche bun (my first time eating fois gras- it was yummy but I haven’t fully embraced that kind of texture yet.  We made the mistake of telling Kim where fois gras comes from and she couldn’t finish hers.)

Middle: a deconstructed bagel and lox- salmon roe, cream cheese in a “bagel skin” nori cone (good, but salty- better to eat all in one bite)

Bottom: beet meringue with goat cheese filling (super delicious but weird- you know what a meringue should feel like in your mouth, and you know that it’s a beet meringue, but you bite into it and you are still amazed that you are eating a meringue that tastes like beets), caviar with steamed bun (basically a tiny, Westernized bau or fluffy steamed bun you see at dim sum- yummy, with a tiny bit of kind of marscapone or something inside)

Honestly, the best part of this whole tea (besides spending time with three of my absolute favorite people in the universe) was the fact that we all felt a little “Top Chef” eating this food.  Some of it was a little intimidating- see Elizabeth’s look of trepidation as she is about to try the bagel and lox:

She puts on a brave face.

There was no trepidation, however, when it came to trying the champagne.  It was pink and bubbly- what’s NOT to love?

A dessert course followed, but by this time my camera had run out of space on the memory card and it took me way too long to figure out how to delete pictures.  So no pictures of that.  Everything was yummy though, except maybe the saffron jelly candy- Kim isn’t down with jiggly food and couldn’t do it.  (In case you haven’t noticed, Kim is the only person in the world who makes me and MY food issues look sane.  She joins me in general abhorrence for all white food but takes it to the next level- the girl is afraid of bananas.  AFRAID.  i LOVE kim.)

By the time we finished eating though, I did manage to clear out a few crap pictures so we could get a group shot outside.  In front of the hotel, we saw a nice couple who offered to take a picture of us- we’re so cute:

Then the male half of said couple decided he wanted to be in the picture with us.

And then, Mr. Man, who, if you couldn’t tell by the sunburn and ruddy face was probably a drunk tourist, tried to kiss me.  That was weird.  Notice how Elizabeth, who could have protected me, obviously failed in her role as my bodyguard.

Thankfully this, and my accompanying look of fear and attempt at fleeing, was not caught on camera.  It was, however, a good example of the fact that LA is filled with crazy, self-entitled people who need to wear more sunscreen.

PS- in case you are worried about the stability of our marriage because some crazy stranger tried to kiss me, don’t.  When I told Mike about it, he laughed.  When I asked him why he reacts so coolly to weird things like this, he compared it to somebody complimenting his car.

Such is my life.

More California recaps to come as I get pictures uploaded.

After a semi-craptastic flight- (beloved JetBlue, you totally failed me today with your lack of volume control that made the pilots’ announcements SO LOUD that I was jarred awake every time I started to drift off to sleep- not even the sedatives could lull me)- we arrived in Long Beach.  Notes:

• It was warm.  I love warm.  I hate cold.
• It was smoggy though.  It was weird when I realized that the dark shadows off in the distance were actually moutains.
• My family is incapable of communication but always happy to see us- BOTH of my parents showed up at the airport thinking the other wouldn’t make it.  Too many fossil fuels were consumed in operation “give mike and aubrey a ride home from the airport.”
• We ate at a seafood restaurant that listed Red Snapper as their special of the night and also had Thrasher Shark on their market price menu.  It was a very “I don’t think we’re in Seattle anymore” moment.  I had halibut.
• Sometimes I feel like I am becoming my mother, and sometimes I feel like she is becoming me.  Or some version of me.  As soon as I got in her car I chided her for having plastic water bottles strewn in her car and then chided her AGAIN when I realized that she leaves them in the car and lets them get hot.  Drinking out of hot plastic water bottles??!!!  Oh dear god.

We’re here until Tuesday.  Here is my to-do list (so far):

1. Wake up early tomorrow and run Peter’s Canyon so I can justify the rest of the crap I will eat this weekend.
2. Visit Yogurtland.  Dance with glee.  Take a picture of yogurt awesomeness and send it to Mike’s friend Muneeb.
3. Get a new driver’s license so I can stop using my ugly “Aubrey West” one.  DO NOT get a facial before I take this picture.
4. Take my mom to the doctor.
5. Get a $20 mani/pedi.
6. Visit Mike’s mom at her office.  Refill my prescription stash while I’m there.  Say hi to old co-workers.
7. Prep for tomorrow’s BBQ with Amy.  If you are in Southern California and know me, come to Fullerton and eat with us tomorrow night!  Email or text me for her address, etc.
8. BBQ!  Eat food.  Drink wine.  Catch up with friends.  Be really really happy that one can BBQ outdoors successfully in September and not wear a jacket.
9. Watch our friends Ryan and Moina get married.  Catch up with Mike’s best friend An.  Wear my favorite brown dress and shoes that are so awesome that my friend Scott refers to them as my “tranny boots.”
10. Go on a long hike with my BFF Mary Sunday morning.  Decide where her career is going and which coast she will live on for the next 12 months.  Solve various other life problems while we walk up hills and sweat.
11. Buy new bras.  Seriously, I need them.
12. Have fancy high tea at a fancy hotel in Beverly Hills with Mary, Kim and Elizabeth.  Eat tiny sandwiches and drink tea and champagne.  Revel.
13. Catch up with knitting friends and tell Gigi, my friend Zona’s 7 year old daughter, that she really was right about bacon being awesome and I should have listened to her a long time ago.
14. Work from parents’ home Monday and Tuesday.  (Boo.)
15. Eat more frozen yogurt.
16. Absorb as much Vitamin D as possible to get me through the next month.

So this is a lot to do in a short time, but I think I can make it happen.  I’m hardcore like that after all.  If you are around, call me or text me or communicate with me somehow so we can hang out.

Yay California!

One thing that I have gotten a lot better about since moving to Seattle is getting out and actually seeing some of the sights in the city.  When I think about all the stuff in California that I still haven’t seen, I get kind of sad.  But up here, I’ve at least made an effort to see SOME of the cool stuff Seattle has to offer.

I think that there are two main reasons that I’ve actually been seeing stuff around here.  First, I don’t entirely feel like Seattle is home, so I want to see as much as I can while we’re here.  Not that we have any plans to leave anytime soon, but when you ask me where I live, my first inclination is still to say “California.”  Eh, we’ll see how it turns out.

The second reason is my friend Barrie.  I have NEVER met anybody who does more stuff than Barrie.  Seriously, she is like a machine.  Not only is she a complete genius at knowing EVERYTHING that goes on within a 50-mile radius of Seattle, once she decides she wants to do something, she sets a date for it, puts it on her calendar and invites people to do said stuff with her.  For somebody as indecisive and lazy as myself, it’s all pretty damn impressive.

My knitting group has an ongoing list of stuff we want to do.  About a month ago, somebody mentioned that they wanted to ride the new Light Rail and visit the Japanese Gardens in Columbia City.  So Barrie worked her magic- she picked a date and we went.

As it turned out, not a lot of us went.  It ended up just being Barrie, myself and a new addition to our group named Elizabeth.  Still, it was a successful trip- successful in the sense that I actually found the light rail station, was only 10 minutes late getting there, and we managed to avoid buying a ticket- SCORE!

The gardens were a short 20 minute ride away and totally gorgeous.

We wandered around the garden a little longer than we intended, and realized it was starting to get a little dark by the time we headed back to the light rail.  Then we got a little bit lost trying to find the trail back to the rail (haha, that rhymed).  Now, the gardens are beautiful, but they aren’t in the best neighborhood in the city.  Pretty soon, it was 8:15, pretty damn dark outside, and we were all starting to get a little on edge.

Thankfully, just as my tension peaked, Barrie and I saw an awesome little Mexican tienda and got distracted by the colors.  We went inside and I took more pictures there than I did at the gardens.

They sold yarn!  Sure, it was super crappy acrylic shit yarn, but it was yarn none the less.

They also sold these extremely colorful cowboy boots.

Barrie pondered the refrigerated offerings and debated the differences between cotija and queso fresco.

I had to seriously talk myself out of buying this pig.  Now I kind of regret NOT getting it.  I really think that if I positioned this little darlin’ where it was the first thing I saw every morning, it would be at least as affective in combating Seasonal Affective Disorder as one of those expensive UV light therapy devices.

Once we had our fill of the tienda, we tore ourselves away and successfully made it back to the light rail unharmed.  It was an extremely entertaining way to spend a Thursday evening.

Well, Jimmy isn’t the only video star in the Bach family.  Just yesterday, Mike sent me this:

If you are a friend of the Bachs, you may recognize the skinny guy with the hipster glasses-

Yeah, the one making the creepy sexy face.

That’s Tony!  My middle brother in law.

Sexy?  Ummmm… I’m not the right person to pass judgement on that.  I still picture Tony as a quiet 16 year old who made stop-motion movies with his Lord of the Rings action figures in the family room and wore the same pair of blue sweatpants for the entirety of his junior year.

I love the Bachs.  Random stuff like this is why I’m so happy to be seeing everybody again next weekend.

Mike has a product launch next Wednesday.  As a result, he has been working crazy hours- staying up until 4:00 am some days and waking up at 8.  It’s not pretty.

Of course, even a crazy workaholic has to find some time to do something other than work.  Mike’s favorite way to relieve stress is to cuddle up on the couch with the most important person in his life and ponder his relationship with said individual.

Oh, you thought I was referring to myself?  That’s cute.

In addition to being consumed by work currently, he is also deep in the clutches of a major OCD attack.  You know how manic depressives experience phases of wildly oscillating moods?  Mike doesn’t really ever get particularly manic, or depressed for that matter, but he does have his own special mental problem- sometimes, when he has to make a decision, even a completely hypothetical one, he finds himself at an impass and experiences total mental paralysis.

We’re in the midst of one of those phases right now.

And before you go and get worried, let me assure you that you shouldn’t.  We’re fine.  We aren’t in the middle of any crisis or even any major life decision.  There is no life-altering issue threatening to turn our lives upside-down.  We don’t even really have any REAL decisions coming up at all.

So what is Mike stressing about?

m3 vs gtr

Mike is trying to decide which of these two cars he likes better.

Are we currently looking at buying a car?  No.  Are we helping somebody else make a decision about these cars?  No.  Mike is simply trying to reconcile WHICH EFFING CAR HE LIKES BETTER THAN THE OTHER.

We’ve been through this before.  Every couple of months Mike gets so obsessed about some random detail of life that he totally shuts down.  Sometimes it’s something we are actually going to use, like when he had to decide whether to order a matte or glossy screen on his Macbook Pro.  Sometimes it’s totally random, like when he can’t decide whether he thinks a celebrity is attractive.  This is definitely more team Random, but it’s just as consuming as if it was actually important.

For example, on Friday night we went out for ramen at Samurai Noodle.  The ramen was fantastic- thick, porky, salty brothy goodness.

But I don’t think Mike really appreciated it, because he spent most of the meal doing this:

important internet research

Ugh.

So maybe if I post it here and some of you weigh in, Mike will actually be able to make a decision about which of these stupid cars he likes better.  Because I don’t really care.  I drive a Mini with a passenger door you can’t open from the inside.

Please comment, if only for the sake of my sanity.  Please help my severely OCD husband decide which car HE LIKES BETTER:

m3

gtr

Please.

I spent the first week of September entertaining my father-in-law and then flying to Salt Lake City, where I sat in a dark room for 2 days, ate too many chicken salads because I didn’t trust anything else on the chain restaurant menus we had to choose from and gave my boss parenting advice on how to deal with an underachieving 18 year old son (because I’ve kind of been there).

Needless to say, this past week has been MUCH better.  Here are some of the things that have made me happy since I got back.

• Rita stayed with us!  My good friend Rita, who (is/may be) moving to San Francisco, needed a place to crash after the movers took all of her stuff, so we opened up our house.  And since it was Rita, we cooked.

We had a particularly successful trip to the farmer’s market on Saturday, so we decided it was time for me to lose my canning virginity.

• I still don’t have a dog (Mike still insists that he’s allergic- liar), but our landlord does, and I get to hang out with him.

Tigger loves me

• Speaking of our landlord, sometimes she makes us dinner.  And it’s good.  This is what she fed us on Sunday.

bbq-ed rainbow trout, couscous, corn on the cob and potato salad (by me) (no mayo)

• We’re finally having a housewarming party this Saturday!  I am a sucker for themes, so I’m doing a make-your-own panini bar and calling it a Sandwich Warming Party.  While it isn’t the most original idea ever- I’m blatantly ripping off the Quesadilla-bar I did for my friend Elizabeth’s engagement party a few years ago- it has allowed me to make the best shopping list ever-

yum.

This doesn’t even include the veggies.  Or the fruit and nutella combinations for dessert paninis.  Happy.

• Finally, I’m almost finished with a knitting project- elfin baby hats for my co-worker whose partner just gave birth to twins.  I may not be the biggest baby person in the world, but I am definitely a sucker for elves.  How could I not be?  Aubrey means “Ruler of the Elves.”  It’s fate.

• Finally, I’m REALLY looking forward to our trip back home next week.  We get to see family, watch two of our friends get married, and catch up with our nearest and dearest.  Not to mention, it will (probably) be sunny.  And that is a very good thing, considering it looked like this outside when I walked to get coffee:

I am so not ready for winter.

Last weekend, Mike’s dad, Chat, came to visit us.

chat!

Hehehe.  This makes me laugh.

Prior to his arrival, we were both kind of stressing about what we could do to entertain him.  Mike and his dad don’t really excel at verbal communication- they try, but when the subject strays from real estate or investment ideas, the conversation tends to lag a little.  Since both Mike and his dad are pretty cut and dry introverts, they are okay with this.  I, on the other hand, am really only satisfied when people are holding hands and singing to each other about how much they love one another, so I wanted to try and fill the conversation gaps with as many activities as possible.

So we packed in the tourism goodness.

We went to the market, where I didn’t take any pictures, but we ate croissants.  Happy.

It was POURING rain- monsoon style- that day, so we did what Bachs do best- we headed to the aquarium.

coral

a cool starfish. i forgot it's real name though.

this is the face mike made after i told him he should talk to his dad more

giant coral

father and son, bonding at last

Post Aquarium, we headed to Bainbridge Island to look at the pretty-ness.  Too bad it was such a crap day.  Driftwood beaches are always pretty though.

That night, after dinner, Mike’s dad wanted to go dancing.  Since Mike and I aren’t big on the Vietnamese dance scene up here, we didn’t have any good suggestions and had to let Chat inquire in a local noodle shop for dance suggestions.  He went dancing, we caught up on some television watching.  (Note to my readers: if you are ever in Seattle and want to hit up the Viet dance scene, Mike’s dad gave Maxim a big thumbs down.  Evidently Yelp agreed.)

The next day, we hit up The Museum of Flight.  THIS was a big success- Mike and his dad both fed their engineer souls.  We spent 6 hours there.

planes!

more planes!

a flying car! (that doesn't work)

yeah you are, big boy

kind-of a plane

OMGwe'vebeenherefor5hoursalreadyandi'mkindofoverplanes

plane.

I should clarify- the Museum of Flight was actually really badass and I was entertained (for the first 4 hours).  And I will be eternally thankful to the Museum of Flight for occupying a sizable chunk of Chat’s visit.

After the museum, we had a delicious lunch at Tamarind Tree.  We didn’t have dinner together, because Chat did some research this time and had heard that Muckleshoot Casino was a good place to get your groove on, even if it was a 30 mile drive from our house.  Evidently, this was good advice because he stayed out way past my bedtime.

It’s a weird moment in life when you tell your father-in-law that he can borrow your car so he can go out dancing and to call you if he gets lost or will be home late.

Chat left the next day while I was at work, but it was nice to have him visit.  We’ll see him again when we’re back in California for our friend Ryan and Moina’s wedding, and hopefully we’ll have much better weather there.

The last couple posts have made it painfully obvious that there have been some serious changes in our lives since we moved to Seattle.  Since I’m stuck in Utah right now and don’t have access to pictures from this past weekend’s adventures with Mike’s dad- yeah, I know, you’re sad that you have to wait for that recap, but don’t worry, I assure you it’s coming- I’ll take this time to update you on one major paradigm shift that has occurred during the last 13 months.

Before: Hi.  My name is Aubrey and I was a Diet Coke addict.

After: Diet Coke free since about 4 months ago.

Background: Some people can go out, enjoy a nice Pinot and still be normal, functioning members of society.  Other people walk by a liquor store and all of a sudden they are vomiting on themselves in an alley somewhere with an empty bottle of Boone’s Farm rolling around at their feet.  Those people are addicts.  And while I can (usually) handle alcohol, I had no control when it came to Diet Coke.  If you met me, you know.  My car was littered with empty 32 oz McDonalds cups.  On more than one occasion, servers at restaurants would get so tired of bringing me refills that they would sometimes bring me pitchers.  My 2008 New Year’s resoultion was “No Diet Coke before noon,” and that was HARD to keep.  (For the record, I only broke it 7 times that year.  And at least 3 of those times were because my co-worker’s car’s clock was a few minutes off.  Not that I was counting down the minutes until 12:00 pm or anything.)

The burden of an all-out addiction was covered by the ever-increasing amount of reading I’d been doing about artificial sweeteners (thanks Mary) and the fact that since moving to Seattle I’ve found myself surrounded by hippies who eat real food (thanks Barrie.)  I tried to cut down and drink a “normal” amount of Diet Coke, but honestly, that wasn’t going to happen.  So one day, a little over 4 months ago, I woke up and went cold turkey.  I don’t even remember the date.  Which is sad, because I like having a reason to celebrate things, no matter how inane.

I’ve been clean ever since.  It hasn’t been easy- the first 3 months were TORTURE.  I still get mad cravings when I engage in behaviors that I associate with the crisp, cool refreshment that is sipping a giant bubbly fountain-fresh Diet Coke- mostly things like setting out on a road trip (aka a drive more than 5 miles), experiencing any amount of stress in the morning, or afternoon, or evening, or passing by any Diet Coke friendly eating establishment (I am sadly still proud that if you name any chain restaurant from Southern California, I can a) tell you if they are a Coke or Pepsi restaurant and b) rate their carbonation level).  But I know that no matter how badly I want one, I can’t allow myself even one sip of bubbly, delicious DC, because it’s the first step down a slippery slope that will almost immediately result in me going on a drive thru spree and drowning in a pool of my own acidic bile.

The weekend started out swell.

I woke up Saturday morning expecting rain, but was very happy to see it clear up just in time to go meet my friend Miles for breakfast at 35th Street Bistro and a bike ride.  Yay clear weather!

Miles tried to avoid being photographed, but I didn’t let that happen.

Breakfast started with tiny muffins.  All things tiny make me happy.  This will be a recurring theme in this post.

The food was very good- good enough to make up for the slightly snooty service.  This was the big winner of the meal- they called it a flambe, but let’s be honest.  It’s a tortilla (good), with lardons (very good), potatoes & carmelized onions (carbs on carbs = extra good), a fried egg (super good) and a side of olives (mega good.  all food should include olives.)  We split this and were very happy campers.

Then, because we had to work off said lardons, we hopped on our bikes and went for a ride.

Miles is a superstar rider who is doing a 150 mile ride for MS next weekend.  I am a mediocre rider whose front wheel is so bent that the local bike shop told me it would be a waste of time to try and true it.  But Miles didn’t seem to be too annoyed by my lack of power and we made decent time.  We stopped at Matthews Beach so I could pee.

There I saw this sign, which nicely sums up proper swimming ettiquette:

The fact that they even have to include a “no communicable diseases” rule makes me NEVER want to go in that water.  EVER.

Even though we had just finished a 20 mile or so ride, I was still able to ride all the way up our bitch of a hill on the way back!  Yay strong quads!  (Clarification: I rode up the slightly pussier 3rd street side of Queen Anne, not the uber-steep Queen Anne hill itself.  That’s next year’s goal.)

After I got back, I went and got my much needed haircut with Shaun at Intermezzo Salon.  I totally loved him.  I no longer look like a frog!  Unfortunately, I forgot to take a picture until it was already dark and we were at the airport.  Here is the shit-tastic picture though for you to laugh at:

Nothing revolutionary, but i feel a lot cleaner.  I’ll go back to get my color futzed with in a couple of weeks.  Suggestions, as always, are welcome.

We spent the rest of the weekend with Mike’s dad, who flew up to visit us.  But, dear readers, these adventures deserve a post of their own, so you’ll have to hold on for that.  I will, however, leave you with pictures of carrots that made me giggle when I got them in my CSA bin.

Carrots in love:

And the consequences of their illicit carrot love:

Those are cherry tomatoes!  The baby carrot was soooooo tiny.  I squealed.

Miles, bike ride, lardons, haircut and lustful carrots summarized the high points of my weekend.