Once upon a time, when we were all young and carefree and had too much time on our hands, Mike used to play video games.  He played a LOT of video games- along with his brothers and the rest of their strange clan of nerdy friends, they would have parties where everybody would bring their computer- their DESKTOP computer, because laptops weren’t good enough to play the good games- and they would play these games (Halo, Alice, Starcraft, Counterstrike and lots of other games that I don’t have any recollection of) until the wee hours of the night, and sometimes until the morning, and they didn’t think this was strange or particularly nerdy or anything at all.

I was rarely present for these dorkfests- usually I used the time to go out with MY friends and do things that didn’t bore me to tears.  Sometimes though, I would be a good sport and hang out while the boys played.  I would read a book, or browse the internet, or wander around aimlessly looking for somebody who wasn’t playing a game who would talk to me.  One time (I think shortly after World of Warcraft came out) during a particularly epic session that was taking place at our house, I drank an entire bottle of wine out of boredom and sat in the middle of our living room (which was filled with 7 or 8 temporary desks) calling my best friend Mary to complain that nobody was talking to me.  I only remember this episode because, according to Mary, it was one of the saddest and most entertaining conversations of our entire friendship.

Now that we live in Seattle and Mike works entirely too much, the days of marathon video game sessions are a distant memory.  Well, they were until yesterday, when we got a new addition to our family- the iPad.

(At this point, I hope nobody is surprised that Mike got an iPad the first day it came out.  I mean, you’ve met him, right?  He might as well have “Early Adopter” tattooed on his forehead.)

The iPad has a bunch of theoretically awesome features- you can watch your Netflix OnDemand queue right on it and play Scrabble.  We even used the ABC instant streaming app to watch the iPad-themed episode of Modern Family on the iPad- talk about meta-awesomeness.  Or at least meta-novelty.

Anyway, as cool as those things are, what I think we all underestimated about the iPad’s appeal was the game-play factor- evidently this is the perfect platform for low-commitment, wonderfully amusing and epidsodic video games.  As a result, this is what the last 36 hours of my life have looked like:

Ben, who had no interest in an iPad until Mike talked him into it on Friday, is here and got one too.

As annoying as it can be, it does kind of make me feel young again.

Also, with the boys distracted, I had time to get a lot done today.  I got some writing done for an all-new secret project I’m working on (details coming soon).  I tasted a ridiculous number of cupcakes during a cupcake tasting that Barrie organized yesterday.  I then found out that I am way too old to eat a bunch of cupcakes and not become a total narcoleptic.  I had a massage to work a wicked knot out of my back (my self-diagnosis of piriformis or sciatica was incorrect- I just worked out too much last week).  I made a whole bunch of food for the next week, including a pretty decent pork and lamb ragu that took about 6 hours to make.  There was so much that I canned a jar for my friend Cristina, who just had surgery after falling off her bike and shattering her elbow.  She has to spend the next 6 weeks wearing a sling.  I know how that feels.

Injuries are bad.  Thankfully, friends, cupcakes, lazy days and moments of recaptured youth are good.

Arg- so much to blog about, so little time to actually blog.  I suck.  I’m sorry.

But I have lots of excuses for not dutifully updating you on our lives!

1. Our household grew- Ben came up for an extended visit!  (He’s working on a project with Mike for the next two months at Microsoft.)
2. Our household grew again- Amy flew up last Wednesday, followed by her friend Allison on Thursday.  They left Saturday morning (and took the white Mini with them- ::sniffle::).  We’re down to one car- let’s see how this adventure goes.
3. I caught a nasty cold, and therefore was a rather crappy host.
4. I got better- yay!
5. Mike turned 29!

Out of all of these fascinating goings-on, Mike’s birthday serves as the best overall blog posting topic- not only is it the only thing I really took pictures of, but it also included both Ben and Amy.  Amy was originally supposed to fly in late Wednesday night, but when she heard about the gala we had planned to celebrate, she changed her flight.

I know you’re wondering what kind of fine dining experience warrants going to that kind of trouble- well, remember that this was Mike’s birthday, so it was his choice.

Diggity Dawg!

Yup, I’m married to somebody who really loves his hot dogs.

Diggity Dawg might be Mike’s favorite restaurant in Seattle right now.  Not only do they have hot dogs with a pleasing dog-to-bun-ratio-

but they also have a million topping options and a wide selection of dog options.  I still don’t eat beef, so I had linguica.

They even have Field Roast sausages, which are vegetarian and don’t any soy, which I dig, since soy now scares me.

Amy and Ben ate real hot dogs, and ate them like men.

We had some other wonderful friends show up and celebrate with us.  Because everybody loves Mike.

(Dominic, Ange, Miles, Mike)

(Shaun and Daphne)

(Barrie, Daphne, and beer.  Because babies with beer are always amusing.)

The other freaking awesometastic thing about Diggity Dawg?

YOGURT!

Also, the walls feature some pretty awesome artwork:

Kid art always makes my day.

But you know what really makes my day?

That guy.

Happy Birthday Mike!

There are few things in the world that make me as happy as visitors, especially really old friends whom I love bunches and bunches.  And bunches.  So when Elizabeth emailed me last week saying her husband had a job interview in Tacoma and she was going to be tagging along, I immediately made plans to hang out.  Well, first I squealed and clapped (yes, I’m part seal), and then started making plans.

Elizabeth and John arrived yesterday afternoon.  As a bonus, Shaina (Elizabeth’s childhood friend and my birthday twin), drove down from Vancouver with her brand-new fiance, Kevin.  It was like getting a two-for-one coupon for chocolate or something.

As usual, I had spent hours thinking of ways to entertain everybody and had made absolutely no actual decisions.  Thankfully, Shaina had told them about the Experience Music Project.  John and Elizabeth are both music nerds (back in California, John was in a punk band and played at their wedding reception last year), so the decision was made.  (I LOVE visitors who come armed with interests.)

We found street parking (VERY valuable anywhere near Seattle Center) and wandered around.  We were able to point out all the major attractions, like the Space Needle, the Key Arena and the giant fountain where crazy Seattlites let their children play in whenever the temperature is above freezing.

This time though, besides the normal teenage skateboarders and precious toddlers risking pneumonia, there was also this chick:

Evidently, she was in the middle of her very own photo shoot.  And she was workin’ it.

Keep in mind, we may be in the middle of a “warm spell” up here, but for Seattle in January, that means it’s about 55 degrees outside.

Mike was obviously more than a little amused by the show.  The rest of us..  well, I think our faces say it best.

Yeah.

We finally made it to the EMP.

Bad news: It was 4:15 and the place was closing at 5:00- not nearly enough time to make it worth the cost of admission.

Good news: The staff took pity on us and let us check out some of the exhibits for free.  Score!

(Yeah, I look cross-eyed in this picture, but Elizabeth looks cute, so what the hell.)

Once we got kicked out of the museum, we headed to Green Leaf for some pho and further catching up.  I ADORE Elizabeth and John and was super happy to see them again- keep your fingers crossed that the interview goes well and they end up in Tacoma.  It’s not quite as good as them being our neighbors or anything, but it would be really nice to have some old friends near by.  (Actually, the idea of Elizabeth living 40 miles away from me in a slightly more industrial and smelly town will be extra comforting, considering that pretty much describes exactly how it was back in high school, when she made the commute to Orange County every day from Chino Hills.)

It’s normal for couples to split up responsibilities.  One person cooks, one does the dishes (sometimes).  One person takes out the trash and the other vacuums (actually, in our case, Mike does both of these).  In our case, Mike is in charge of things like having an iota of common sense, while I generally handle important things like scheduling social activities and forcing him to leave his cave/office.

Well, it’s good to switch it up sometimes.  So the weekend before last, we switched things up and had HIS friends over for dinner.  YAY!  Mike has friends.

Unfortunately, now that I’ve actually looked at the pictures we took that night, we didn’t really take any pictures OF these friends.  Instead, I only have a picture of half of his friend Anees, a bunch of pictures of the food I made, several shots of his friend Scott’s freaking adorable kids, and one picture of me that is so horrific that I am going to post it just because it makes me laugh.

Mike, Scott and Anees met each other while working in the same group at Microsoft.  They became friends because they are all a bit… brutally honest with their opinions.  Vocal + blunt = instant friends.

Our awesome table with ORANGE placemats, yummy samosas that Anees and Tricia brought us and half of Anees.  We did get a picture of his wife though- I totally love this photo.

The food:

I made a LOT of food.  Brussel sprouts with figs and bacon (awesome, but only Scott’s wife Belinda and I ate them), a big ass salad, 2 racks of Alton Brown’s oven-braised ribs, garlicky mashed potatoes, Ina’s mac and cheese, and a roast chicken that you can’t see because of the angle.  Why so much food?  Well, Mike asked me to make ribs several days before the dinner, but then told me that Anees and his wife didn’t eat pork at about 8:00 pm the night before.  Considering that even the vegetables had bacon in them, I had to sprint to the store to get a chicken.

This is Scott and Belinda’s son, Corey.  Corey is awesome for several reasons: a) I LOVE kids with glasses; b) he (like the rest of his family, duh) is Australian and therefore has an awesome accent- especially when you tell him you’ll sneak him ice cream if he repeats “It tastes like it’s got buttah’ inside” over and over again; and c) he SHOVELED down at least 3 full bowls of my mac and cheese.  If you EVER want to get on my good side, tell me you like my food.

While Corey is a carb fiend, their daughter Emily is obviously partial to pork.  I was endlessly amused watching her eat ribs bigger than her head.  And then I was even more enchanted when she settled down to watch some Tinkerbell movie wrapped up in my ancient rainbow blanket, which I’ve had since I was a baby.  My mom claims she sewed it.  I refuse to believe that- my mom is totally lacking the craft gene.

So effing cute.

Considerably less cute is this picture of me- I swear to god, I only had 2 glasses of wine that night.  But you take one exhausted hostess (me), one photographer who loves candid shots a little too much (mike), and somebody who favors overly dramatic facial expressions (me), and you get this:

Hehehe.  This amuses me to no end.

There are certain people in the world who are more than just people- they’re home.  For me, it’s Mary and Scott:

I know it’s odd to describe people as “home,” but it really is the only word that really makes sense.  It doesn’t matter how long it’s been since we last talked, it doesn’t matter where we meet up, nor does it matter what we’re doing when we’re together- as soon as I see Scott and Mary, I’m instantly happy.

And when you’re that comfortable with people, you can find sheer bliss in spending a Friday evening drinking cheap pinot, eating whatever hors devours you can find in the nearest refrigerator (in this case it was a salami of questionable age and raw almonds) and finding Scott the GREATEST GOOGLE VOICE NUMBER in the history of the world.  Obviously he wouldn’t appreciate me giving out the number here, but trust me, it’s awesome.  Just look at his excitement when he found it was available:

Love.

On Friday night we had dinner at Poppy, a really great restaurant in Capitol Hill that does platters of vaguely Indian-inspired platters of small plates called thalis.

The steak was cooked perfectly (everyone said).  Everything comes with naan.  They have little pots of pickled burdock root, which immediately made Scott squeal with joy because it reminded him of his grandma.  Evidently, it also makes you very gassy.  Yum.

The next day, I decided to give them another taste of the Pacific Northwest and took them hiking.  But not before I made an overly ambitious pre-hike breakfast.

After getting some nourishment, we drove to Wallace Falls State Park for the hike.

Scott was a big fan of the mushrooms, but chickened out when it came to actually sampling any.  He did, however, take 3,000 pictures of mushrooms with Mary’s camera.  This was my favorite.

We saw crazy trees.

And then we hid behind them.

And in them.

Oh, and there were waterfalls too.

And some amazing views.

But most importantly, this hike really demonstrates what it’s like when Californians go hiking.

First of all, the outfits: giant sunglasses, neon green pashminas, and white jackets (which are GREAT for hiding dirt and grass stains).

Mike didn’t want to commit to wearing jeans even though it was freezing outside, so he rocked the bodysuit he normally wears under his race leathers with cargo shorts.  The result was effectively leggings.  My heart was literally swollen with pride.

Have you noticed how unusually happy Mike has looked in all of these pictures?  I mean, he’s outside, it’s cold, he’s being forced to walk uphill and there are people around him talking constantly.  What could possibly put him in such a good mood?

There was cell phone reception throughout the entire hike.  While we communed with nature, Scott changed his flight reservation and Mike checked his email every 15 minutes.  And every time I bitched about it, all three of them told me to shut up.

This is how I stay my version of grounded, people.

Even though Millie may have stolen the show, our trip to Portland had even more goodness to offer.  It was all a little random, so I think it’s time to whip out the bullet list again.

• After we arrived at the Hostess House, Dominic, Miles and I decided we needed to decompress and eat some dinner.  (We didn’t leave until 9:30, which is wayyyy past Barrie’s bedtime, so she opted to stay in and get some sleep.)  Most of the week prior to our trip had centered around an email chain planning out all the places where we would eat while in Oregon so we decided not to waste any time and made our way to Pok Pok, a hipster-Thai-fusion restaurant in Portland that is super famous for the Fish Sauce wings- chicken wings marinated in fish sauce and cane sugar for 24 hours and fried, then doused with a generous splash of chili sauce.  When we sat down and were greeted by our stereotypical Portland waiter (thick horn-rimmed glasses, fixed-gear-bicycle-ready capri pants, willing to talk about the pandan-infused tap water with the same gusto that a sommelier would describe a bottle of Rothschild), I was a little leery, but I was wrong.  I generally don’t like chicken wings, fried meat or chicken skin, but I wanted to eat the shit out of those wings- especially the skin.  Yum.  (The $4 a piece prawns were less impressive though.)  I am so sad I didn’t take a picture of those.
• We spent Saturday wandering around Portland proper- a visit to the Saturday market, some quality time at Powell’s, lunch at a  Lebanese place where the waiter may or may not have been an actual employee (he didn’t know the bathroom required a key even though there was a HUGE sign declaring so right behind him, and when Barrie ordered lebneh and eggs, he asked her if she really needed the eggs.  Huh?) and some afternoon art appreciation.

I was sad that I was still too full from breakfast to try the Wedge Fries- mostly because the sign said they are “tossed with happiness.”  How can you NOT want to eat something that positive?

Miles was NOT too full for a 2nd breakfast, obviously.

Miles, Dominic and I spent the afternoon at the Portland Art Museum, where we had some stereotypical discussions about the nature of art and checked out the really awesome China Design Now exhibit.  I wanted to take pictures of the Ju Jin models, but I got caught by a 120-year-old docent and had to delete them.

Barrie wanted something a little more kitschy so she went to check out what she thought was an Elvis museum, but was actually the 24 Hour Church of Elvis.  After seeing the “exhibit” (which took about 4 minutes), she wandered down the street for some sipping chocolate at Cacao, which got her sipping-chocolate-obsessed-self’s seal of approval.

The four of us reunited near Cacao.  The boys headed to an arcade, I called my mom and Barrie took a nap in the car.

I shouldn’t make fun.  I was asleep in the front seat 20 minutes after I took this picture.

• For dinner, we went to Mother’s Bistro and Bar, where we ate the best effing biscuits in the history of the world.  Our friend Brooke first raved about these biscuits a year ago, and she is totally right about them.  They are like giant clouds of butter with a little flour thrown in for good measure.  You throw some strawberry freezer jam on these babies and you basically have the best strawberry shortcake ever- and all this before you even start dinner.  (Note: Mother’s has a cookbook coming out next month.  I can’t bake, but if there is a biscuit recipe in there and you promise to make them for me, I will preorder this book for you today.)
• The next day, after another breakfast lovingly prepared by Millie, we set out to do what we came to Portland for in the first place- run an 8k.  You may have seen my earlier posts about other races I’ve run, but this one was a bit different- there were only about 20 participants.  Maybe.  We actually drove past the race once because we thought it was a family setting up for their kid’s birthday party- it was that small.  However, we did discover that really tiny races have one distinct advantage- it makes it a LOT easier to win.

Barrie and Dominic rocked it out and both won blue ribbons for their age groups.  Go team winner!

Um, I was still feeling kind of crappy thanks to last week’s brush with the swine flu combined with 45 degree weather that morning, so I stopped running after mile 3.  Miles walked the rest of the race with me because he hadn’t actually trained at all.  We were not winners.  (Technically Miles still got a ribbon because he was the only guy in his age range.  I think I was the only person in the entire race to not win a ribbon at all- I like to think that this was a victory in it’s own way.)

I DO think I had the best hat there though.

• Post race, we decided to reward ourselves with brunch at Kenny and Zuke’s.

Barrie feasted on a TONGUE sandwich.  When she showed me the gigantic tastebud in her sandwich, I finally remembered to document a meal.

Barrie nearly peed with joy when she saw that they had Celery soda on the menu- evidently, nothing compliments tongue like celery-flavored soda.  I don’t get it, but it made her incredibly happy.

Finally, Miles couldn’t decide whether he wanted to go the savory or sweet route, so he did what any real man would do- he ordered both.  Pastrami Eggs Benedict AND Berry Blintzes.  Impressive.  (Can you tell that Miles likes food?  I cannot wait to introduce him to Scott next weekend!)

• After brunch, it was time to head home.  But we had one more VERY CRUCIAL stop to make before we called the weekend a true success.

Dave’s Killer Bread IS the greatest effing bread in the history of the world, and the factory is located right outside of Portland.  Once we found out that you can buy day-old bread at half price (each loaf usually runs almost $6!), we knew we had to make a pit stop.

Dave wasn’t actually there that day, so we had to settle for a cardboard version.

So that was Portland.  I hope that this keeps you entertained for a few days, because tomorrow at midnight Mike and I are heading out for 5 days in Tulum, Mexico.  90 degree weather, sun, ocean and margaritas- here we come!  I’m so excited to go on a real vacation that I won’t even complain when Mike orders his margaritas blended.  Cheers!

Since I’ve already committed to posting everything about our trip home totally out of order, I’m having a hard time deciding what to recap first.  Since we flew down for a wedding, I figure I can start with that.

We were super excited about Ryan and Moina’s wedding as soon as Ryan proposed.  Mike met Ryan back when he was interning at Crisp Design Agency, circa 2002ish.  They stayed in touch thanks to a couple of shared passions- they were both designers, obviously, and they were both completely obsessed with fast things- cars, motorcycles, you name it.  Well, when Mike finally got a motorcycle (I stumbled across the finance paperwork in about 2005, so I think he got it then), he started seeing Ryan at track days and I finally got to meet Ryan’s girlfriend Moina.  Whereas I would show up to the occasional track day and knit, occasionally with a bottle of wine to help pass the time while the boys spent ALL FREAKIN’ DAY riding in circles around a track in the desert, Moina was a GOOD girlfriend- she would take pictures, record time splits, prep Ryan’s bike and even change tires.  She basically made me look like a terrible person.  But she was so sweet and nice that I didn’t hate her.  In fact, I quickly decreed that I wanted them to be our “couple friends.”

Well, they finally tied the knot last weekend in a big traditional ceremony.

They are a ridiculously attractive couple.

Between the ceremony and the reception, I remembered that I had left their card behind.  And when I say “left their card behind,” I mean that I never bought one.  Well, we couldn’t very well just drop a check into the card box, so I rounded up Mike and An (who was also at the wedding) and made them head out with me to a card.  Should be easy, right?

After walking for 30 minutes around Burbank in 90 degree heat and too-tall shoes, I was starting to get frustrated.  Evidently cards are not sold in as many places as I had assumed.  We even got desperate and stopped in a gas station to see if THEY had “congratulations on getting married, here’s some cash” cards.

They didn’t.  But they did have Doritos and beef jerky, to the boys’ relief.

These are my people, people.

We eventually found a card (thank god for the one Florist shop that was actually open late on a Saturday afternoon) and made it back in time for the reception.

Awww, they like each other.

That’s me SUBTLY dropping the card in.

This is us with the happy couple.  (Note: I SERIOUSLY hate this picture of me and didn’t want to post it- not only am I sweaty and shiny and it’s the worst angle ever, but my beloved 4″ heels + standing next to a beautiful, PETITE bride makes me look like one of the Gorgs hanging out with the Fraggles.  But a) you can see how beautiful Moina is and b) you can see how awesomely shiny Mike’s silver pants are in this picture.  I love shiny things, so the picture stays.)

Congratulations Moina and Ryan!

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.

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.