Category Archives: friends

It’s Friday, Let’s Get Random

No matter how long you try to be good, you can’t keep a bad girl down.

Man, I’m exhausted. I mean too exhausted to even try to be a bad girl (but I’m lovin’ Gossip Girl and I love Kristin Bell’s narration on there and well, that’s just a great quote). So let the randomness begin…

Man, I was in a bad mood when I wrote that last post. Sorry, didn’t mean to be quite so pissy, but damn, freeway construction sucks!
Why is it that whenever we leave the kitkat home alone the entire house gets covered in cat hair? I mean clumps of it on the floor when normally this doesn’t happen. Weird.
My hands are crazy dry and I can’t seem to find the right hand lotion to magically fix me all up.
I’m tired of crappy restaurant or fast food. This week had way too much crappy food eaten at horrible hours.
We’re (unfortunately) doing a family Thanksgiving with my hubby’s family. I only say unfortunately because 1) the host home can’t cook – and they’re in charge of the turkey, 2) the rest of the family is expected to bring the side dishes but no one has created any sort of plan (and I have up on planning any and all family gatherings last big get together – for reasons explained here), 3) they’re rarely on time so you can bet that what food is around is now overcooked, cold or whatever else – this also screws with the order of things when the person that supposed to bring the appetizers shows up 2-4 hours later than the rest of the family, and 4) the family isn’t willing to try anything new or creative so that leaves some pretty standard, sub-par food selections.
That said, I actually enjoy visiting with my in-laws. They’re good people and can be tons of fun.
So now I need to come up with side dishes that 1) won’t be duplicated (see lack of planning above), 2) will be something that’s not too strange or creative so others will actually try it and 3) that travels well since we’ll have to drive about an hour or so and who knows what access I’ll have to cooking/reheating options. The hubby wants me to try some cornbread stuffing, I’d like to bring a salad and some veggies and maybe make some rolls or something.
Man, I’m so behind on reading everyone’s blogs AND on the DVR. Not to mention that I have multiple blogs to write for my site and I have less than two weeks to read The History of Love.
Dude, I was running around today with somewhere between $100K – $200K of engagement rings (and a diamond tennis bracelet) in my purse. Don’t be too impressed, I was just running an errand for a friend and returning some stuff to her friendly jeweler (as she was doing a favor for another friend looking for engagement rings).

And now I must get off the computer for a bit and find some lunch. And oh yeah, I still need to unpack and vacuum up all that cat hair. And open a week’s worth of mail. You know…get back to life and all that.

Later y’all!

Tonight We Fly Out a Weekend of Wine & Jazz

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First stop, two days in Healdsburg drinking yummy wine and eating awesome food. Hopefully we’ll pop on in to Sonoma since there are a couple of vineyards there that we really like (Kunde, Valley of the Moon, etc).

We’ll be staying in Petaluma (just a short drive away) on the marina. The rooms are gorgeous and comfortable and there’s a marsh right near by with walking trails. Last time it was crazy windy, so this time I’ll be sure to bring warmer clothes – and a hat.

From there we head back into San Francisco for Herbie’s show at the Masonic. The hubby will be shooting the show and we’ll have plenty of backstage access so this time I hope to get some great shots myself. The photo above was taken backstage after the Sonoma Jazz Festival but I wasn’t using my flash since it would have messed up the hubby’s pro shots. Sonia Kitchell will be performing with the band and I’m pretty excited abut that (she’s the blond above).

Then we drive down to Santa Barbara for the last night of Herbie’s mini-tour. Again, the hubby will be shooting the show so I should again be able to get some fun shots. We won’t be staying in Santa Barbara this time around though, we’ll be staying in Ventura instead – gotta save some money considering what we’ll probably be spending in wine – so who knows how much sightseeing we might get to do.

I’ll be back on Monday (and hope to post a photo or two while I’m gone).

Back to the Land of Enchantment

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Last night I went looking through all my digital photos looking for something that represented Albuquerque to me. I remember all those years of taking photos in Old Town and during Balloon Fiesta. Well, turns out all I have digitally are my going away party pictures, my moving truck pictures and a batch from the last roadtrip that my roomie and I took before I left. Notice a theme here?

This photo above is what’s left of the army post at Fort Union on the Santa Fe Trail. We headed out there because I’ve always wanted to see wheel ruts from the Calistoga wagons. So we drove the couple of hours to get there and started taking pictures of what we thought were the wheel ruts. Turns out they were wheel ruts alrighty…from a pickup truck (see below). Yeah, disappointing.

On our way back to the freeway, we stopped at the museum and asked them where the damn ruts were. Turns out, they’re right along side of both the road and the freeway. Um…but they look just like every other natural arroyo (as evidenced below). Which of course makes me wonder if it’s arroyo or ruts over on the Turquoise Trail into Madrid.

So while I may not have many digital photos of New Mexico in my arsenal, I do hope to get a couple good shots will visiting this weekend. That is if I can find the time between the margaritas, the green chile and the sopapillas!! Yum! New Mexico, here I come!

Gone Daddy Gone

NaBloPoMo: Two Notes to Self

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Don’t forget to thank the nice folks that stop in and leave comments or they might never comment again (and reciprocate).

Don’t forget to visit other blogs and comment, comment, comment.

* I will catch up on just these very thing first moment I get (after I pack & run my errands, that is)

Tramps Like Us (and other random thoughts)

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I have so much to say, but no real desire to sit down and say it. So instead, I’ll torment you with a slew of random thoughts…

* Having to go to a laundromat is bad enough (stupid rentals in SoCal with no laundry facilities!). But to have the damn machines rip you off is just wrong! So very wrong. It cost me $8 to do two (super) loads of laundry that normally only cost $4. And of course, the owner wasn’t around *grr*

* I put the Halloween shirt on the pupster today, you know, to get him in the spirit and all that jazz…but he’s just not happy about it. Instead, he keeps rubbing up against things to try to remove it.

* I’m one of those wives…you know, the ones that shop for their husbands. Well, my hubby is famous for deciding that he doesn’t like something long after the return period. I do my best to hang onto the receipts, but this doesn’t always work. In fact, I got blackballed from Mervyn’s my first year living with him because I returned too many (of his) things without receipts. And now, I can’t seem to find the receipt for the damn backpack he made me buy for him. I’ll just have to keep looking, but at least it was on clearance for only $12.

* I was really, really hoping for a new camera before my trip to Albuquerque this weekend. My little Canon Powershot A520 has been quite good to me, but lately, the lens cap thingie doesn’t always want to open. So I mentioned it to the hubby, and I kinda had the okay to get a new one. But then, well, the lens cap thingie started working just fine. So I’ve decided to give up my dream of a new camera. Maybe he’ll get me one for Christmas (though if he had his way, I’d just use his original Nikon D70 – but it’s not small enough to fit in my purse and sometimes, that’s what matters!)

* I still can’t get over how weird Sting looked at Herbie’s tribute. I mean really, who in the world wears brown casual shoes with a black jacket and pants (no, not a suit)? And why in the world is Chris Botti’s jacket so damn shiny??? Herbie looks good, no?

* And speaking of Sting and Chris Botti…rumor has it there might be a three way going on with wife Trudie. Strange youtube video as support of said rumor.

* And on the topic of the Herbie/Monk thing…I just don’t get Joni Mitchell. Am I missing something? Or am I just too young? She tells these stories through songs, but really, they’re not like songs at all. When I hear her name, all I can think of is the Emma Thompson character in Love Actually.

* And speaking of Love Actually, I still have no idea where that damn movie disappeared to. I’ve torn the house apart and it’s just not here. I guess I’ll need to trade in some CDs so I can get a new copy. Let’s face it, it’s a good movie.

* My medication is kicking in and I feel a thousand times better. Believe it or not, I can actually drive over the hill and not get totally clogged up.

In closing…the Bruce show was a little disappointing. Keep in mind, I’m not a big fan, so the older, more obscure stuff was lost on me. It looked like the fans really loved the show – lots of singing, lots of dancing and lots of fist pumping (my shoulder still hurts from Bad Lands) – and things sounded great. It’s just hard to get so pumped for a show where out of 2.5 hours of music, I only knew like 6 songs! Kind of sad. I loved the Rising tour (saw him twice) and I really enjoyed his folksy stuff from last summer, but this show just didn’t do it for me. So much so that both M & I decided that neither of us wanted to go again tonight (we thought we’d have to fight it out between the two of us to see who got to go tonight). The hubby was able to get rid of the ticket though, so no worries.

The Day After

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Well, I had hoped to do a bit of a recap on the Monk Institute/Herbie Hancock tribute show from last night (well, beyond my um…drunken post, that is), but I just don’t feel like it. I guess the lesson here is that drinking lots (and lots) of wine in a pretty short amount of time makes for a lazy day after. Luckily, as the hubby likes to say, good wine doesn’t give you a hangover, only bad wine. So no, I’m not hung over, I’m just feeling lazy.

What I will post about is how beautiful the skies have been lately. After all the smoke and smog from the past couple weeks, it’s just the most amazingly clear blue sky. You know, complete with the wispy, billowy kind of clouds (that I believe are classified as cirrus). Sadly, the city itself is engulfed in smog (the view from Mulholland is just nasty). But over here in the SFV, I’m telling you, it’s just beautiful.

Tonight I have night one of Bruuuuce. We’ll be heading over with our friends (that we hung out with last night as well). They were able to get us tickets, but we’re not sure where the seats are. Tomorrow it’s just the hubby and I hanging out in general admission. Can’t say that I’m a fan of GA seats, but then again, I doubt we’d spend all that much time sitting to begin with.

That said, who knows what tomorrow’s blog will bring. But that’s half the fun, right?

Can You NaBloPoMo?

Flickr Rocks (and other random thoughts)

I’m Doing It…

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I’m learning to knit. I broke down and ran out to not one, but three different stores today to pick up knitting supplies. The first store (Joann’s) I picked up large, chunky yarn and big’ol needles, but sadly it was too dark and chunky for me to see what I was doing.

Then I ran out to a local little shop hoping to get some different yarn and an opinion on what I was doing. I was doing it wrong, was what I was doing. So I picked up some $7 wool (nothing inexpensive in this store, boy howdy – at least it was on sale) and practice with the gal helping. Then I decided that chunky was still too difficult for me to see clearly since it’s all uneven, so I packed up and headed out again.

This time I hit up Michael’s. I decided I just wanted basic, inexpensive yarn. So I picked up a heathered oatmeal, medium worsted skein and a new set of size 8 needles (as the wrapper suggested). And now, I seem to be doing much better with my double cast-on. It moves smoother and I can definitely see my stitches more clearly.

I’ll just keep practicing with this. I have a feeling I might be pulling things too tight though, we’ll see once I learn the knit stitch. I also found someone local (gotta love MeetUp) that is up for meeting with me tomorrow to work with me a bit. I’ll use my chunky stuff for when I’m ready to finally break down and knit a scarf.

I’m quite excited. Thankfully, an online friend pointing me in the direction of KnittingHelp.com where they have how-to videos. For some reason, I find watching how to be much easier than reading how. I do have to say, a friend told me to start cheap, but um, I’m not so sure this is much of an inexpensive beginning.

Okay, off to cast-on some more and then try my hand at knitting and then maybe purling. This is just so freakin’ cool!

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Life & Ramblings of an LA Blogger Gal