Tales from La La Land

OK everyone. Last day to comment/tweet/blog about the giveaway. I will
be using Random.org to determine the winner. If AJ doesn’t win, it’s a
shame because she was the most dedicated.

Happy Holidays!

Wow.

Someone actually wrote that lyric. I didn’t realize how, um,
grammatically incorrect it was until I just typed it.

So, anyway, it’s the holiday season, which means three things:
cooking, drinking and eating.

OK, four things.

Presents!

I love presents, and I’m terrible at secrets. The minute I buy
anything, I am able to hold off for about 17 minutes before telling
the person what I got them.

While I do love receiving presents, I’m also one of those people who
really, really loves giving presents.

I also love cooking and baking so it is with great excitement that I
am able to give one of my 12 readers a phenomenal early Christmas
gift!

AND! I get to tell you what it is RIGHT AWAY!

My first ever giveaway will be a West Bend 6-Quart Everyday Slow
Cooker w/Roasting Rack from Cookware.com.

I should point out that this isn’t a review blog and unless it
involves Patron or Hot Pockets no one is really asking for my opinion.

I can tell you that when we got engaged and started building our
registry, I obsessed over cookware sets, which only prompted Laef to
question why I needed 12 different sizes of pans. And that, five
months later, he still complains about how many dishes I use to
prepare one meal.

So, he is a BIG fan of the slow cooker meals. One pot. One dish to wash. Done.

He is also the person who thought I misspoke when I said I might give
away a dutch oven.

Laef: “Um. A dutch oven is something completely different.”
Me: “Yes, honey, I KNOW what a dutch oven is. The one that you’re
referring to is actually derived from the pot – you put a lid on it
to keep all the “flavor” in.
Laef: “OHHHHHH….that totally makes sense.”

And then I patted myself on the back for still being married to this person.

Anyways…

The giveaway will run for one week. You can enter by leaving a comment
on my blog with some kind of one-pot recipe. (Once a day only)

You can tweet about the giveaway and then leave a link to the tweet in
the comment section of this blog. (Once a day only)

Finally, you can a write a blog about the giveaway and post the link here.

Comments will close on Monday, December 7 at 10:00 p.m. PST.

Happy Holidays!

We all go through things. We all vent, complain, lament the shitty things in our life.

For me, it’s work, the commute, being broke.

But, those are small, small, small things.

They really are.

As you have probably read, the founder of AimingLow, Anissa, suffered a stroke yesterday. Updates are being posted here and here.

I haven’t met Anissa in person. But she is someone who encouraged me to write at AimingLow. She is the person who signed her emails with XXOO. She made me believe that I was good enough to write on a site that she built from nothing.

I took a break from AimingLow because I couldn’t keep up. I lost confidence in myself. I didn’t think I belonged.

Anissa told me I was crazy, built me back up and welcomed me right back.

That’s just my little story.

Anissa has stories with hundreds of people.

She is one person that has made SO many people laugh. One person who inspires SO many people. One person who made every single person she encountered feel loved and appreciated.

She is needed and that is why she will be OK.

Seeing as we all know about my exciting social life down here – Scrabble, Sex and the City Reruns and endless hours in traffic – it should come as no surprise that I watched six movies over the course of the weekend. Some of them were old school and some were very recent. But, all inspired me to drop a note.

In honor of my marathon movie weekend, I would also like to give a shout out to Jason Bellamy’s movie blog, The Cooler.

I’ve known Jason for about eight years and among his biggest passions are movies and writing. He has this amazing project called The Bellamy Awards in which he watches, reviews, writes about and eventually picks “Bellamy Award Winners”. I really can’t do The Bellamy Awards justice in this blog, but it began in 1998. He saw 24 eligible films the first year and it has grown over the years. In 2006 he saw 86 movies and wrote about every single one! He nominates his favorites and has little envelopes that you get to open to see who he picked. Again, I’m not doing this thing justice whatsover, but he’ll gladly email you the pdf version of it so you can enjoy it. (jasonbellamy@yahoo.com).

His blog won’t have anything to do with The Bellamy Awards, but it’s a fun site to talk about movies in a passionate way.

So, on to my weekend escapades.

On Friday I watched 16 Candles. What can you really say about it? It’s a classic. Jake Ryan is so dreamy. Anthony Michael Hall is so clean and sober. It’s a little piece of candy anytime it’s on.

Saturday I was on a roll. I watched Beautiful Girls while Laef was at work. He thinks it’s creepy because Natalie Portman is young, but she acts flirty. But, I love this movie. And, I don’t see the Natalie Portman storyline as creepy. It’s much more than that. And, it’s a lot more emotional than physical.

And besides, look at Natalie Portman now.

So anyhow, that prompted me to watch Garden State. This is seriously one of my top movies of all time. Zach Braff can be somewhat annoying to me nowadays, but when Garden State came out, he was still fairly under the radar and I gave him a lot of props for writing the movie. I know for some people there’s not enough going on or it’s kind of a downer, but I enjoy Braff’s character’s growth from beginning to end. And Portman as his guide leads to one of those perfectly gift-wrapped endings. What can I say? I’m a sucker for tortured souls who find love in the end (see my love for Secretary).

After that, American Beauty was on HBO. I’ve watched this movie several times, but was drawn in by Annett Benning’s performance. I really can’t get over how perfectly she and Kevin Spacey play their roles. I love when she says, “Joyless? I am not joyless. There happens to be alotta ’bout me that you don’t know Mr. Smarty pants.” She says it so kickass! Not such a tidy ending, but happy if you look at it from a strange perspective.

We watched Last King of Scotland on Saturday night. It was really good. I wasn’t totally excited about watching it, but was then sucked in and pleasantly surprised. Great performances and the fact that it’s based on a true story, made it educational and more interesting.

I’m sort of lying. The sixth movie is 3:10 to Yuma. I only made it half way through. But was really enjoying the story. The last movie I watched with Christian Bale was American Psycho. Which is creepy, but enjoyable. Plus his body is a 10 in that movie.

OK, enough of my crappy movie ramble. Go to Jason’s site.

I’m not claiming to be on the up and up with this post. I realize it’s been floating around for a couple of weeks, but if you haven’t seen it, it’s a must-watch. I go back and forth with Sarah Silverman. Sometimes she’s funny, sometimes she kind of annoys me. But what I love about this video is how much Matt Damon owns it. It’s awesome.

So, Bobbi and Art made a trip down south. It’s the first time my mom has seen the Manhattan Beach pad and the first time Art has been back since helping us move in. The day he helped us move in, he vowed he wouldn’t be back because the 405 completely shattered him. But, he sucked it up and they decided to come stay with us for a night.

The last time we went to visit my parents was at Christmas. So, I haven’t seen them since. I never really chronicled our time as two couples hitting the town, so here’s a recap:

We arrived Thursday, Dec. 22 at 2:30 a.m.

On Friday morning we were at the Buena Vista saloon by noon. That’s been Art’s hangout two decades (probably more) and I wanted to pay my respects to the Rennies of Art’s world. Laef and I aren’t exactly used to hammering beers at this hour (I prefer a Mimosa), but we rallied, played darts and met Art’s peeps.

Later that night my mom invited us to a cocktail party at her friend Susie’s. My siblings have questioned me as to why I would subject myself to this. I mean, we were the youngest people in the house by 40 years. But, I’ve learned as I’ve gotten older that a parent’s greatest accomplishment is their children and when they have a chance to show that said children actually exist, one should show up. Meaning, I did it for my momma. Not that she should be excited to flaunt child No. 3, but she is. Also, my mom exaggerates quite a bit and tends to make certain things up, so I’m always excited to hear what I’m doing.

Blue Hair No. 1: “Your mom says that you are anchoring the leading news program at Fox in LA.”

Me: “Well… I mean…Well, I … well, yep. That’s right, I work at Fox.

Blue Hair No. 2: “That Laef sure is a looker. Your mom said he plays college basketball.”

Me: “Um, yeah, well…Um…Yeah, he’s cute. um…yeah, he works at a college.”

So, the night went something like that and then my mom decided to take us to the country club bar. Now, I was skeptical from the beginning, but she assured me that the median age at the club is now 45.7. Well, it was 7:30. Which equates to 4:30 p.m. at Dennies. The median age at that hour is 73.4.

My mother proceeded to dance her ass off to karoke before feeling up one of her friends. One of her girl friends. I guess I am my mothers daughter.

On Saturday, I went to get my hair done in downtown Sacramento and that took three hours. Which means I left Laef alone with Art. They played cribbage. By the time I got home, Laef was 84. But, he was beating Art and enjoying his time. Then they started playing for money and suddenly Laef wasn’t winning. I knew something was fishy, but wanted to believe that Laef was really winning. Now I’m pretty sure Art sharked him and took our roll of quarters. If you know Laef, then you know losing 50 cents is like losing 50 dollars. He does not enjoy it.

By Sunday, the rest of the family started rolling in and I believe I chronicled that in a family Christmas blog.

Fast forward to last night. I haven’t seen them since Christmas so it was good to catch up and hear all of my mother’s political views. It was also good trying to teach her to use a Mac without a mouse and how to do the dishes without a dishwasher. She was not a fan.

Art made huge artichokes and a tri tip so Laef and I were super pumped for a good home-cooked meal that neither one of us had to make.

Art and Laef then played cards until bed time and my mom read her book. Just like old times.

Ladies,
I recently purchased some Spanx. If you have not already jumped on this bandwagon, you should do so immediately. This shit works. And really well.

http://www.spanx.com/pls/enetrixp/!stmenu_template.main?complex_id_in=477024.479040..479040.cat

If only I had been the one to invent them. She’s a gagillionare ten times over. If you are uncertain about dropping $35 on something no one will actually see, try dresses on without spanx and try them on with spanx. You will be sold! Without ever doing one sit up you will look much more fit.

Happy Friday!

As I mentioned before, my job at Fox was temp. so I’ve been looking for jobs for about a month. I had my third and final interview at www.leaderenterprises.com yesterday and today was offered the job.

It’s been a long year since leaving Oregon, particularly professionally. UC Davis was not the right fit, nor was that stint at the Hyatt. Fox was cool and I met some really fun people, but booking travel and answering phones is hardly what I went to college for.

So, it is with great excitement that I get to venture back into an industry that I have missed. I feel really lucky to have a job in sports. I think those of us that do work in sports can agree that it never feels like working in the real world. You meet really cool people, travel to exciting events and generally work in a wonderful atmosphere.

It sounds like I’ll be traveling here and there, but not every weekend like with softball. And, to think, I’m working sports, but the job is M-F. I absolutely can not stress how wonderful it has been to have weekends off. And, the weekends that I will be traveling will be to major sporting events or charity events that the company does to generate PR for it’s many clients.

It’s going to be a new learning experience as they have found a way to merge sports companies with companies like General Mills. I’m excited (and curious) to see how they marry the two.

Here’s to starting ‘08 with a great new job. Late.