Category Archives: Friends: Family.

Cotugno Style: Rules to Live By

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Katie made some rules to live by.

Here are 10 of my own, reposted from her comments.

1. If you look at the phone, and you don’t want to answer it, don’t. Chances are if you answer it, you’ll be annoyed the rest of the day.

2. Unless it’s me. Then answer. (Because I usually have something important to tell you, about friends, family, Hanson, or a fruit/veggie I just discovered.)

3. Drink water. Often.

4. If you are in the bathroom in public, check to make sure there is toilet paper.

5. You will never read every magazine you want to cover to cover. Let it go.

6. Ditto to books.

7. If you find someone that makes a good sandwich, don’t move too far from them. That way, you always know a good sandwich is just a phone call away.

8. Ditto, to vodka sodas with lime.

9. Love your family.

10. If you get overwhelmed, write your worries down. Do it with a friend. With multi colored markers. Discuss them if need be. Rip them up. Breathe deep. Toss em.

What up, Kate? I think you're awesome.

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This is my friend Kate. And her bf Tom. And me.

That’s her 4 years ago.


This is her last summer.

That’s me and my bests. Last summer. I love them.

Anyways, back to Kate. This is the thing: she’s amazing. wonderful. She’ll watch an entire season of any TV show you want in one sitting, ice cream and snacks in hand. She’ll also finish an entire tub of hummus and celery sticks with you on her roof over a pitcher of sangria. She’ll also go to the museum with you, and have something intelligent to say about just about every artist there. And even artists who aren’t. She’ll watch Oscar-nominated films, indie films, and bad chick flicks with you, and enjoy them all. She’ll defend you to the death, cut someone with a shank for you, if she needs to, and makes sure to always say “please” and “thank you” and “Is there more coffee?” She’s pretty much my fave. And she, my friends, is also a ridiculously talented writer. (I know, you’re not surprised. I wasn’t, either.)

She has been published here. Go read it. I’ll wait.

SO good, right? I just love her. Check her blog out, here. She’s totally worth it. I promise. (Like an extra set of crunches, or that extra handful of cranberries on your morning cereal, or that last episode of Full House about the time they lose Comet.)

You can thank me later.

Melissa, and eating habits.

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I have this friend, her name is Melissa. She is splendid.

Here she is, with us, in Santa Monica. She’s very great. Also, she happens to have Celiac. This means she is, essentially, allergic to all things gluten. When she came to visit, we had to be pretty careful with what we ate, so that we wouldn’t accidentally contaminate her food, or anything we were eating. This meant being careful about utensils, (no wooden spoons, for example, which are porous) being careful with cookware (no cast iron) and generally being careful about what you buy. McCormick spices are good, but Trader Joe’s are not. Some rices are ok, others are not. Ralphs, our local grocery store, has a pretty good line of gluten-free products, whereas some of the TJ’s things that its website says are gluten free are still processed at the same places with wheat, so technically, M couldn’t eat them.

I learned a lot when she was here, including which restaurants lend themselves to gluten-free menus, and which don’t. PF Changs has a great menu, which was nice because everyone loves a little Chinese food. I also learned about identifying foods (label reading) that are gluten free, and how to practice safe kitchen techniques to keep gluten free food to be just that.

This is us, on our way to PF Changs.

Learning more about cooking practices was incredibly interesting, and helped me prepare for Jeff, and his doctor telling him he has high blood pressure. We’re working towards eating less sodium at home, although its been slow going. Jeff loves pizza, which has tons of cheese, which has tons of sodium. In another post, I will be sure to show you the low-sodium chicken parm that I made this week.

Andrew's birthday adventure

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Hi babies!
How are you? I miss each and everyone of my readers (even those I don’t know) and I am sorry I’ve been absent. I have to get better on work life balance, but for now, sporadic JP is better than none, yes?

So yesterday was Andrew’s birthday.

This is Andrew, Corelyn, and me at Corelyn’s birthday.

Andrew wanted Five Guys for his birthday, and so to Five Guys we went. It is in Carson, CA, so it was an adventure!

This is a Five Guys. Delicious.

Then we may or may not have search the area for a DQ, and found one in Redondo beach. Following that lovely ordeal (involving us laughing so hard I was worried one of us was going to bust) we got off the 405 at the nearest Best Buy, and Andrew and Jeff looked around while Corelyn and I ate our DQ and tried not to look suspicious.

Jeff got Andrew Mario Bros for Wii.

We played for a while, and since I was the only one who had played before, I kept explaining things, my favorite of which was, “Corelyn, just….hit ‘A’….BUBBLE….BUBBLE!”

Have you played? You’d know what I was talking about! If you are about to die, you put yourself in a bubble, and then float to your co-players, and they pop you out. It is excellent.

I must say, playing with Andrew, Corelyn, and Jeff is fun (and less stressful) than playing with Nikita and Jon and the rest of the Palluzzi clan (sorry guys!) because it is less stressful, and everyone waits for everyone else.

But, I must say, I missed a room full of yelling siblings last night.

Anyways, it was a pretty good birthday. Happy Birthday, Andrew. Rematch tonight.