Breathing Pretty

So I just got back from a glorious weekend in Palm Springs.

These are my peeps. Aren't they gorgeous?

Well - Indian Wells to be be precise. Its a little bit past Palm Springs but just as cool.

Another dahhhh-ling friend of mine, Lauren (in the navy), had a birthday this week and when we were contemplating birthday celebrationess a few things were mentioned. She lives in Phoenix and has this international job type thing so she was in Hong Kong for my birthday but since we'd both be in the same hemisphere for hers, we decided to make a whoop-de-doo about it.

I suggested me coming out to Phoenix where she lives. My amazing cousin Rich (the shorter red head) and his equally amazing and lovable wife Janelle (bright blue shirt) are out there, I wouldn't mind going a'tall. But I got a vehement NO at that idea because, and I quote Lauren "I HATE Phoenix". She went to school in DC, I'd hate Phoenix too if I was coming from that.

So we decided to meet half way in Palm Springs, find a pool and a smoothie and a magazine and lounge as extravagantly as possible.

We were excited and the only thing that could perfect the idea would be the addition of Rich and Janelle and, of course, Patrick, if he wasn't jet setting himself.

We were determined to have a grand time, and let me tell ya - we did.

Laur scored us this amazing room at this Italian inspired resort called MiraMonte . It was just amazing with all theses sprawling gardens and fountains everywhere and I thought it was quite fitting because Lauren and I have a pact. If neither one of us isn't at least dating someone we think we can marry by the time she turns 30 (that's in 2 years) we're going to move to Italy and chase Italian men till it gets boring. Mom said we wouldn't have to do much chasing, and she's right. We're pretty dang gorgeous.

I was going to drive out Friday night after work and so I went home and finished packing, drove into Hollywood to get the Patrick-miester, we grabbed some veggie burgers at Astro Burger (which I HIGHLY recommend btw. Corner of Melrose and Gower) and headed out into the great brown open.

Patrick intended on working on the way out but Patrick is one of those few people in my life that I can just pour out whatever I'm thinking in my brain and not only does he get it, keep up, understand my ridiculous connections, but he appreciates it all so when I actually get time with him I just start ohmygoodnesssoIjustlistenedtothefinancialreport andthey'resayingitstheendofthefreemarketand theladyatChevronthoughtmynewglasseslookedlikeSarahPalin's andIinstantlylikedherlessandandandandandand-ing
So he didn't get much work done at all but we had fun.

We got through traffic and to Indian Wells by 10. That's kind of late but it didn't matter because the whole goal was to get there before Lauren, Rich and Janelle did and we DID! HA! But only by like a minute and 20 seconds. It was fantastic. We were both in the car circle at the same time and had this big reunion through car windows with Rich's foot still on the break and about 3 other carloads of people just watching and waiting. We were ecstatic to see each other. Lauren is basically getting adopted into our family. Shes bff with all of us and she loves us as much so it works out really well.

For those who read this blog but haven't heard me describe Rich or Janelle to you, lemme give you a snap shot -

Rich is what would happen if a Jedi Knight a Ninja Turtle, Robin Williams and the best kind of Missionary all ran at each other really fast. Essentially he's one of the funniest people on the planet but made completely out of love. I seriously don't know why he isn't fantastically famous. He's just a brilliant and physically expressive guy. A purple belt in ninjitzu and a lot of energy usually leads there. He's awesome. Most of my memories growing up with him are wrestling matches or playing Cloverball. Clover was the name of their very stupid dog. It's a very regular thing to be in an intense spiritual conversation with him and he'll just take a step back, never breaking eye contact or missing a syllable, do some crazy karate combination and just come back like nothing happened. That's Rich in a paragraph.

His wife Janelle is just as much made of love but the quiet kind. She's what would happen if April from the Ninja Turtles, R2D2, Jean Grey, and Marjory Hinkley all ran at each other really fast. I love her. Lovelovelovelove her. I'm SOOO glad Rich brought her into the circle. I met her for the first time in front of the temple on their wedding day and had absolutely no qualms about it or her. This is how buff she is; on her way down to the temple in Mesa from Tucson the night before she got into a horrific car accident, Like, she flipped her car. A couple of times. Broke every window. Everything flew. Wedding dress, shoes, temple recommend. She got whisked off to the ER but was fine, everything got recovered and she was at the temple, on time and ready for pictures the next day.

That's my family *puff* :D

So the first thing that happened once we got to the room was Rich dove in, found some of the bathrobes and took in the luggage like so.

Rich brought Rockband and we played till about 3am.

I brought tennis rackets, Patrick brought his laptop and rapier wit, and Laur brought this ambrosial trail mix from Trader Joe's "Nuts over Raspberry and Chocolate". She, Patrick and I killed the bag in about 10 minutes and I went out today and bought a bag for me and one to send to my best friend. It's that good.

The next morning we were properly introduced to the resort and I realized that it wasn't just plesant and comfortable, it was gorgeous. We all drove in at night so we didn't see the amazing scenery. When Lauren and I were at the pool I just couldn't stop starring.

We went and had lunch at this fantastic place called Pierro's Acqua Pazza at this grouping of shops and restaurants called The River. It was huge and essentially surrounded by this gorgeous moat. That's where the first picture was from. A river. Well, "river". In the middle of the desert. With fantastic curry chicken. And your favorite people. Can life get better?

After that we went outlet shopping and had dinner at this euphoric wood fired pizza/tapas place at El Paseo called Sammy's Woodfired Pizza. I highly recommend that too.

When we were getting ready to go Rich was showing us his version of this new Xbox 360 game Castle Crashers.



Yup. That is a 30 second representation of the entire weekend.

I can't tell you how refreshed and relaxed I am and how much of a love of pool side dining I've developed and how riveting The Economist is and how grateful I am for my family and the fact that they're my best friends too.

It's just what I needed and I'll definitely be back.

Cartoon Motion

So I think I still have the mind of a seven year old.

Maybe that's why I still love Hello Kitty and I still thrill a bit and feel the need to bolt when I hear the ice cream truck coming down the street and can remember every word to the theme song from the Gummy Bear, and cry at The Goonies (every single freaking time).

"This is OUR time!! These are OUR wishes!!"

I became aware of this on Tuesday this week when I went down to Seal Beach to visit my dahling friend Molly. We had been planning birthday festivities for weeks and weeks and I finally made it down there to go see Mamma Mia and dine and all that fun stuff.

Now lemme 'asplain a bit about Seal Beach in case you haven't ever been there before:

Seal Beach is awesome. Probably my favorite beach community in Los Angeles/OC. It's this little strip of city nestled right in between Huntington Beach and Long Beach and its really really unique. It's small, quiet and unassuming. Everything closes up at about 10 and the average age of a resident is like 55. Ok - so its an unofficial retirement community, but its the beach and rents are low and Molly is brilliant for moving there. Its kind of the beach town time forgot. People actually stop and chat with each other downtown. Downtown consists of a strip of stores about 4 blocks long that dead ends into the pier and they're all little places like "O'Mally's Irish Pub" and the hippie produce store. It's wonderful and old school and I just adore it.

So Mamma Mia had been a movie Molly and I had been trying to see forever and it was playing at the singular movie theater down there along with The Maltese Falcon (Yes. This place is that cool). But this theater was still the 1920's singular screen, singular house, movie theater with a stage kind of movie house. But not all glammed up like The El Capitan or The Chinese. It showed its age. Nothing was automated about this place. Our tickets were those Costco raffle tickets sold to us from a person speaking through a hole in a window, not a speaker. Every door handle and inch of paint showed its age and, lemme tell ya, it was tired. I didn't know it was a single house theater so I walked in and there were two doors, one on either side of the singular refreshment stand and was only set back about 2' from the outside door. I asked which theater it was and the very annoyed and pierced refreshment girl just said "Take your pick."

Once we settled in the very not stadium seating I took a look around. There were these attempts at modernizing on the walls of the theater that looked somewhat like a drunk 70's housewife's vision of modernism but not enough for every panel in the house, but that gave us a fantastic view of the fabric panelling that I'm positive probably saw Eisenhower win and Kennedy get shot.

Needless to say - I was instantly in love with the place. There was a covered organ off to the side of the stage with a good amount of dust on the cover and the remains of a basketball hoop above it.

It was awesome. AND we were the only ones in the theater for a long time. It was only 8 at night and as I was looking around and drinking in this rare authentic and honest establishment my stream of consciousness went a bit like this:

Oh man!!!! OhManOhManOhManOhManOhManOhManOhManOhManOhManOhMan. This place is awesome. Lookiet that!!! andthatandthatandthatandthatandthatandthatandthatandthat. I don't know why that girl looked so annoyed to work here. We are the only ones here and that ever super cooler!!!!!! Man. This place is old. I wonder whats happened here. How many people have made out in this seat?! And in how many decades! I bet they wore 3D glasses at one time too here. I bet a lot of things have happened here.

Then my glances of the place started going from wonder to slightly paranoid suspicion...

You know - old quiet places like this have histories. Kind of like old people. But quieter. ANd without so many medical needs. What if someone was killed here?! What if it happened right there on the corner of the stage??! Like what if he hit his head on the corner mid sentence and never got to finish what he was saying and now hes still here trying to finish his thought???!!! What if he comes out in the middle of the movie and we're the only ones in here??! Its going to be dark soon and this is a big room. What would I do? I think this is how scary movies start. Old movie house, only people there....

And right then this guy comes in the door. Like, there is no noise whatsoever in the room, Molly and I are talking and stuff but there are no previews, no other people, not even the sound of traffic is drifting in. Mostly because there is no traffic, but that's not my point. My point is a door opening might as well have been an atomic bomb. He was a young fit very straight looking dude. By himself. In a leather jacket. Going to go see Mamma Mia. On a Tuesday night. In Seal Beach. And he sat in the back right by the door. So it was us and Guido in the theater. Just us 3.

Oh man. Is he lost? What on earth is a guy like that doing here. Maybe hes European. European straight guys have license to like ABBA and leather jackets at the same time. Yeah, that's it. Hes not a rapist or anything. Nope. Not at all....

So the then movie started and everything was totally fine. No scary murdering rapist, no apparitions of any kind. Just wholesome awesome ABBA wonderfulness.

So yeah - my little brain managed to turn a simple movie outing into an episode of Scooby Doo in vast expanse of - oh - about 3 seconds.

So there you have it, a snap shot into my crepe papered, My Little Pony adorned interior.

But seriously, I want to go see the Maltese Falcon there. Whose in?

Wednesday Giggles

The Muppets really do make life worth living.

"MODULATE!"



And I'm fairly sure this skit inspired the army of programmers and designers who gave us the glorious mental refuge that is Yeti Sports. Orca slap rocks my socks.

"Aloha!!"



Happy Wednesday ALL!

Expansion

So I talk about media stuff a lot.

I like movies

And books

And music

And concerts

A lot

So I decided to put them all into one place and not let them clog up my gears here.

So if you're looking or wondering why I'm down scaling over here that's why.

Trying to balance my chi.

Enjoy loves :D