5gts: in your ocean, ankle deep

It’s Friday before July 4th. Rebecca is here from London! So here are some good things floating around my lovely life:

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  1. We got kittens! Two cuties named Cosmo and Izzy. Izzy (above, left) is our little girl, and Cosmo (above, right) is our shy guy. They are very fun and we’re having a blast watching people (read: Becca and Ana’s) reactions to these fur balls.
  2. As I mentioned above, Becca is here and she’s staying with us – lucky people we are! I’ve missed her so I am glad to have her settling in for a long stay and can’t wait to celebrate the Fourth with her.
  3. My first podcast with Traci is up! It’s called “That’s Our Jam” and we talk about everything from holidays to hot dogs to history. It has been a super fun project to work on and I’m glad to finally share it with you guys.
  4. Three Day Weekend! Patio furniture is coming this weekend to lounge on for the holiday. And we have a new grill. How lucky are we? I can’t wait for hot dogs & watermelon salad & blended margs.
  5. My garden is coming along nicely, and we might have spaghetti squash by the end of the season if we’re good to the plants. What a great summer this already has been.

Happy July, kids!

bowling and Dustin Hoffman

Last night I went bowling with Becca and some co-workers. Becca and I walked from my house, and went the more populated route, through Hollywood and Highland, where most tourists head in Los Angeles. (Along the way I said to Becca, “I smell daffodils!” to which she said, “Well it’s almost spring.” Yes, yes it is, in LA.)

On the way, there were tons of people out and some kind of premiere happening at the Chinese Theater. Turns out it was actually for Luck, with Dustin Hoffman, who happened to be standing across the street. I resisted my urge to pull out my phone and snap a shot, as dozens of other people were doing, because I so wanted to disguise myself as someone from LA who doesn’t care about that type of thing. But boy, do I love Dustin Hoffman.

Then we headed to the alley, where I became forever known as “Bossy.” Are we surprised? After all, it is my boss’s nickname for me.

 After bowling, we walked home (as I joked about the fact that I had earlier said I needed to stop home for a coat, only to get out of the car and realize it was 70 degrees…) Becca and I stopped at the shoe store to see if they had anything cute. (In the shoe store, we stopped to look at some neon shoes, to which Becca said, “Well it’s almost summer!” Yes, that’s true in LA, too.)

Only in LA, I guess, do you see Dustin Hoffman, go bowling, and go shoe shopping in one night…

24, please.

Hey folks. It’s Friday, thank goodness, and the day of Harry Potter 7.2. And the last day of my first week at my new job. So far, so good. It’s weird awesome working somewhere on the 24th floor of a building, in a cubicle, with people my age. And Rebecca. Also awesome.

This weekend is a busy one: HP7.2, B’s back staying with us for the weekend, Cricket’s move, Court’s party, San Diego on Sunday, and Carmageddon. For those of you not from LA, let me explain.

Do you see that part of the highway that’s red? That whole highway is going to be shut down for two days. Which may or may not wreak havoc upon the entirety of Los Angeles. People seem to be nervous that the entire world will be off kilter for the weekend, and meanwhile I’m just hoping that I can get to San Diego. Other people are stocking up food in their houses and not going anywhere – Rebecca’s trying to travel every where by bike! Luckily, I live pretty far from that highway, so I am hoping this will help me stay away from any major traffic jams.

Anyone in LA have opinions about the traffic? Anyone from not LA heard about this in the news?

71 and Sunny.

This, my friends, is why I love living in Los Angeles. Despite the fact that today it is pretty cloudy and I am still waiting for the afternoon sun to kick in, I am looking forward to a perfect week. During this perfect week I plan to dive into my running again, make a recipe for the Garlic, My Soul blog, finish my book club book and attend a meeting in which we will speak minimally about the book, and more about boys, friends, and Glee (some things never change.)

This weekend was quite relaxing, including an entire afternoon lounging in Malibu.

“So what are you doing?” My dad asked.

“I’m at a winery in Malibu, drinking wine and hanging out,” I told him.

“Of course you are,” he said.

Mary, thanks for making another birthday event awesome! I love your May birthday, what a great excuse to drink wine! Here are some choice photographs.

Mary and her red velvet cupcakes!

 

A group shot of everyone who came (minus Megan and Ryan!)

 

Present time!

Jeff and Rebecca hiding away.

Jeff obviously goofing off...

I have no idea what is happening in this photograph, but I love it anyways.

 

Jen so excited about her wine. Note the men at the birthday party behind her...

Check out more photos from the day here!

Whatcha doin’ for the rest of your life?

Hey folks. This day is proving to be a stellar one. Although, I haven’t run my yet — first to be outside, three miles, today. So talk to me after that.

Meanwhile, I now have a shirt to wear for the 5k this weekend, Mat Kearney’s new single is out, tonight (after my run, eek) I am watching Babies with Jen T., and we received a water cooler in my office. (It’s the small things, folks.)

Last night Rebecca came over. I lured her over with tofu and veggies, a la stir fry with Thai Red Curry sauce. (Which by the way, is all I ever feed Rebecca. She’s a vegetarian, and I just am not good at feeding her. I sometimes switch it up with a pasta dish, but I get sick of pasta, since as Italians we eat it so much, and I take opportunities to eat tofu very seriously. Anyways, if you have any veggie friends you cook for, send recipes my way!)

Anyways, so after I basically had Rebecca make us dinner and then ate it with her, I gave her a beer, and said, “We need to work on this craft project.” Which, as it turns out, took us until 11 pm. Luckily we had Jeff, Rebecca, and I, so I think the t-shirts are much better looking than they would have been had I did it on my own.

There was a hilarious moment right before we started ironing on letters where Jeff thought one side was down, whereas Rebecca interpreted the other side as being down. He tried to prove himself by taking a spare letter and affixing it to a white t-shirt he had lying around. He ended up affixing it to the shirt he was using as the shield (so the letter doesn’t melt) and now my Ben and Jerry’s shirt (Lauren remember when I got that shirt in Rhode Island, circa 1999ish?) has a nice “S” on the back. Rebecca and I laughed, laughed, and laughed, and it was Becca, 1, Jeff 0. Now, onto the iron-on letters.

We laid the letters out then ironed them on one at a time, while Jeff dealt with printing the design onto the iron-on paper.

Now I was carefully turning the shirt inside out, so we could iron from the other side.

The reveal. Did they stick? Will they stay??

Success.

Now we moved on to placement for the front and back iron-on papers.

*Time lapse.* My shirt is magically done, too!

 

Don’t let these pictures fool you. I did not do much of the work. I merely ironed. Rebecca helped with the placement of the letters and patches, Jeff printed the patches, and they both read the directions and just told me how to iron. Oh, how I love having creative people around me. And a big shout out to Jess, who designed the patch for me in the first place!

Jeff helping me figure out how to get the front patch on. We marked ’em, but I don’t have an eye for straight lines, as it turns out.

Here we come, 5k!