Tales from La La Land

The blog is suffering. I guess I can attribute it to writers block. There’s also a small part of me that rebelled after finishing the marathon. For months, I had to be diligent about running. The training became another thing in a never-ending to-do list.

Blogging is not necessarily a “to-do”. Obviously, if I don’t want to write, no one makes me. But, I do feel a little guilty when I leave it for weeks on end. Like I’m letting the domain go to waste. I mean, what is the point of owning the domain or having a blog if you never write on it?

This past weekend, Laef and I drove to the Bay Area to visit my family. If nothing else, I wanted to put something up for my sister and Art, who claim to check everyday.

So, here’s a brief history of what’s been going on post-marathon.

The weekend after the race, I went to San Diego for a girls night with Erin, Debbie and Kristen. It was exactly what I needed to get me out of my funk. I hadn’t been able to run the whole week, and I definitely felt “off”. Maybe it’s because my feet looked like they went through the woodchipper Fargo style. Seriously, my feet were a hot mess, and my girl Erin either didn’t want to be seen with me in flip flops, or she’s just a sweet girl (all signs point to all of the above) so she treated me to a pedicure in San Diego before the start of girls night.

It is amazing how far a little pampering can go. I didn’t even know my toes could look that cute. I ventured way out of my comfort zone (I’m usually a black nail polish kind of girl) and got bright pink toes with little white flowers. Again. WHO am I? It was so fun to sit with a friend, read trashy magazines and have my feet rubbed.

Debbie sent us a message the morning of girls night and warned “Make sure you carb load for lunch. You’re going to need a solid base for tonight.”

Erin and I decided that wine and sushi were a perfectly acceptable base.

Girls night was, um, goofy. Pictures have been deleted to protect everyone. You know, in the event they decide to run for public office.  Let’s just say that there were multiple costume changes, wigs, sunglasses, bright red lipstick, and a lot of vodka. We capped the evening by watching Betty White on SNL. I may or may not have passed out on the couch in full makeup and a sparkly blue tank top I stole out of Kristen’s closet. (I wanted my girls night clothes to be as cute as Debbie’s, and felt very un-girly in my UCLA sweatshirt).

This past weekend, Laef and I headed North to visit family. What it boiled down to was the usual – my sister and Neil did a lot of cooking (I made the mimosas so I did contribute something); my sister stole from her younger baby brother; I dominated everyone at Wii table tennis (wakeboarding is a totally different story); Laef, Neil and Mike actually combined to drink 5 beers; I somehow convinced Neil to allow the TV to be on collegiate softball; I gave Sophie candy at 10 a.m. which is apparently a big no-no for kids; and I left my cell phone sitting on a park bench only to realize it once we made it all the way back home. (Surprisingly, it was still sitting there when I went back. Damn. Kind of wanted an excuse for an iPhone).

Hanging out with the family is complete and total chaos BLISS. I actually love the madness and wouldn’t have it any other way. On Sunday before Laef and I headed back home, I took Sophie to a yogurt shop that lets you do everything by yourself. You serve your yogurt and then you get to put whatever toppings on that you see fit. In the end, you are charged by weight. Of course, being  the aunty (and being that I got to leave before her sugar high hit), I let Sophie get whatever toppings she wanted. I can tell you that she opted for: Gummy worms, chocolate sprinkles, Reeses Pieces, Reeses peanut butter cups, chocolate syrup and M&Ms. All on top of rasberry yogurt. Who would of thought chocolate syrup and gummy worms go together?

We are back home now, and because I don’t have running to keep me occupied, I am focusing my time on moving. Sadly, we will be vacating our little beach bungalow in July. It is definitely bittersweet as we have so many great memories from living in Manhattan Beach. However, we have outgrown the place and are tired of commuting to work everyday. So, on the bright side, we will be living closer to UCLA to avoid the madness of the 405 freeway, and we will finally have a guest bedroom!

Because of my excitement re: more space, I may or may not have already starting packing. This type of behavior makes Laef insane. I’m just trying to avoid one of those 13-hour moving days where you do everything in one day – pack, load the car, unpack. Those days SUCK. I’m pretty sure I will see the Longeteig’s on my doorstep in July since I think I’ve helped them move once. Or 9 times.

For starters, I would like to call bullshit on The Hangover and Swingers. Both of these Vegas-related movies revolve around dudes road-tripping to Vegas. In The Hangover,  said dudes rush back in time for a wedding after spending the weekend in Vegas. In Swingers, the dudes are shown stopping along a desolate highway on their way back to LA.

I am here to let you know that if you drive to Vegas you will not be able to 1) rush back in time for anything and 2) there is nothing desolate about the insane amount of cars jockeying for position on the 2-lane highway between Las Vegas and Los Angeles.

We drove because we weren’t sure if we’d be able to go this weekend until the last minute and flights were not cheap. We decided to suck it up and drive so that we’d have extra money for gambling. While it is awesome that we can hop in the car and go to Vegas on a whim, I vote for flying if at all possible.

Anyway.

We arrived on Friday around 1 p.m. This gave me time to place a few bets on the Friday evening games. I won’t even get into how stressful it is to watch games when you have money riding on it. Nor will I go into just how hard it is to pick games. It’s one thing to pick your bracket. It’s an entirely different thing to navigate the spread.

I can tell you that I made 4 bets for my brother, one for my mom, 2 for a friend in Eugene and 8 different bets for myself. That’s 15 bets on games. I won on 3 tickets. THREE.

Part of it is my fault in that I went ballsy by only betting parlays, meaning that I placed a bet on 3 different teams and all 3 would have to be right for me to win.

Unfortunately, after the Friday games were over I somehow convinced Laef that we should go to the club. Let’s talk about how NOT fun a Vegas club is for a sober married couple. First of all, there’s no way that it wasn’t some kind of fire hazard. Once we got inside we were unable to move. We managed to get a drink and then stood awkardly on the dance floor wondering why we were there.

We left around 2 a.m. and decided to play blackjack. Because there were only $15 tables, Laef went out quickly. I went up about $60 and decided to put all of my money on one hand.

FAIL. Luckily we left our Saturday money in the room.

Before going to bed though, I made my bets for Saturday’s round of basketball games.

We headed to the pool on Saturday morning. The highlight of the trip was my Saturday parlay of Saint Mary’s, Baylor and Kansas State. While at the pool, I watched Saint Mary’s beat Villanova. My parlay was intact (I can’t tell you how fucking annoying and frustrating it is to have the first game of your parlay fail. At that point your ticket is meaningless and you are left watching the games for…fun? No. Not fun, which means you bet more on the games. Sigh.) Later that afternoon, Baylor won so my parlay was now riding on Kansas State.

K State won, I collected my money and per my brother’s recommendation, we went to the fine establishment Ellis Island. There’s no way to really describe it other than to tell you that it’s one block OFF the strip, it’s connected to a Super 8 Motel and it sells $1 hot dogs.

However, they have $5 blackjack and craps. Laef started at the blackjack table with me, but after losing $40 in about 2 minutes he disappeared. About an hour later I became somewhat worried so I did a quick glance around the casino. I saw him high-fiving a random guy in a Michigan shirt at the craps table. At that point I figured things were going well.

We were both up, and despite several beers each, we made the smart decision to walk away and head back home. Between my parlay victory and the success at Ellis Island, Saturday was a lot better than Friday.

However, on Sunday, I decided to do one last parlay with Cornell and Maryland. Thank you to Cornell for following through. And, a big fat F YOU to Maryland for sending me home on a low note.

But, here’s the thing. The bookmakers had Maryland favored by 1 point. The bookmakers know their shit. So even when Maryland was down by as much as 15 points, I figured they’d have to make some kind of run. With about 6 seconds left in the game, Maryland went ahead by ONE POINT. Michigan State and one last shot, and as we all know, the Spartans made it to win. If Michigan State had missed that last shot, Maryland would have won by 1 point despite trailing the entire game. I thought about it the whole way home. The fact that the bookmakers are so spot on is absolutely baffling to me.

Today is Monday and we are back home. I have been trying to figure out a way to get back to Vegas for the games next weekend.

After Laef and I got married we went to New York City to celebrate our honeymoon.

Shortly after we returned, Laef started working with UCLA basketball and the honeymoon was over. Real life set in real quick. Overall, the season didn’t go that well and the Bruins are not a part of the NCAA tourney this year. As much as I’m happy that Laef is done traveling and basketball season is over, it would have been nice for him to experience the NCAA Tourney with a group of guys that he enjoys working with. The tourney is the goal of any basketball program, so it’s a bummer that they didn’t make it.

For me, the NCAA tournament is a very close second to college football Saturday’s. It’s fun. A lot of fun. And frustrating. Very frustrating. I struggled a lot with my bracket this year. I tried not to read too much or be swayed by all the chatter – Kentucky is too young; Duke has a free pass to the final four; Siena is ripe for an upset over an injured Purdue team; Cornell is the new George Mason.

I have switched my picks several times over the past few days, and it didn’t help when I watched Obama fill out his bracket on ESPN yesterday. Everytime I hear something, it’s different than what I heard someone else say, and I start second-guessing myself. Which is stupid because at the end of the day, it’s all a crap shoot anyway.

However, I had picked Florida State over Gonzaga in the first round because the ‘Zags have broken my heart (and my bracket) one too many times. And then yesterday, Laef and I went to Target and were in the checkout line behind Adam Morrison. !!! What. The. Fuck. It’s a clear sign – along with our brand new issue of Sports Illustrated with Gonzaga on the cover – that I needed rush home and switch that pick IMMEDIATELY.

Yes. This is what happens to me in March. I am a crazy person who freaks out over Villanova’s national defense ranking. It’s exhausting.

And so much fun.

We’re heading to Vegas tomorrow. We are staying at New York New York to try and relive our honeymoon. There will be relaxing pool time, but there will also be things like “parlays” (I totally just learned that word) and “betting the moneyline” (I totally just learned that term) and drinks before noon.

Today should be holiday.

Hi.

I know I haven’t written, called or come by in a while, but I thought I should let you know that I’ll be coming your way next week. In the past, things have been kind of up and down with us so I thought I’d write in advance to ask a few favors.

You see, I started to get excited about the upcoming trip and decided to go through my old Vegas photos. When I opened the folder, this is the first photo that appeared:

I know what your thinking, Vegas. I know you’re saying, “Why the long face? It’s me. Vegas, baby!”

Well, I’ll tell you. The long face is because on that particular trip you let a certain BYU team destroy my Oregon Duckies in my last-ever Oregon sporting event.

The time before that, you graced me with all sorts of luck at the blackjack table. You turned my $20 into over $300. I had never had so many chips, so I snuck into the bathroom, pulling chips out all over the place, counting them and recounting them. In my excitement, my cell phone jumped out of my pocket and into your fancy toilet. Yes, the kind that automatically flushes when anything touches the water. So, I watched as my $300 worth of chips washed down the toilet…yes, Vegas, buying a new phone is almost that much these days.

This other time, you were nice enough to get me VIP at a really fancy club. But, then, you threw this buffet thing at me and I ate not one, not two, but THREE Subway breakfast sandwiches. Vegas, do you know that I couldn’t eat three Subway breakfast sandwiches if not for your spell?

So, Vegas. I need your help next week. I need some kind of a sign when the sun is starting to come up. Remember that time I was visiting you, and I was with the softball team? Yeah. The time that I had no idea what time it was because you don’t allow windows anywhere and I realized it was 6 a.m. and had a 9 a.m. softball game?

Christmas is coming and mommy needs a new purse. How about you swing me a little $300 profit and I’ll encourage Ben to throw down $500 on one hand of blackjack?

Work with me, Vegas. Work with me. Don’t allow Laef and I to pull some Britney bullshit and get married. Don’t take me for all I’m worth, and DON’T give me cotton candy from the Wynn buffet.

I want nothing but smiley pictures all the way.

XOXO

Your pal,

A-Ross

There are so many stories to share from the wedding and I have no idea where to start. Nothing compares to hanging out with your best friends for three days, eating amazing food, drinking champagne and making up immature phrases. Rather than try to cram everything into one blog, I will likely blog out a few separate entries.

Because I’m still struggling to find my brain cells, I figured I’d write a blog about how we can find humor in the most inane ways.

At Amy and Andrew’s wedding in 2004, it was referring to York, Maine as Taint, Maine. Again. I never claimed we were mature. But we still laugh about it to this day.

I have to point out that it was THE Sean Lara who came up with the Like My Johnson gem. Sean is one of those super smart people who uses giant words to make jokes. Giant words like: My Johnson.

Anyway, I was not there for it’s inception and only heard a handful of conversations that took place, but it brought us much joy. Sean had finally come to the conclusion that the phrase, “That’s What She Said” was played out and that a proper replacement would be: “Like My Johnson.”

Fuck. I hope this isn’t one of those blogs where you had to be there. If so, I implore you to insert it when a sentence ends that it could fit.

(A brief disclaimer to those who were there. I might have names and exact phrases wrong. Please comment with the other conversations I may have missed).

Rob: “Man, I almost tripped over that mat.”
Sean: Mumbling quickly…”like my johnson”
Rob: “I love how you just slipped that in right there.”
Erin: “Like my Johnson”

Erin: “It smells like something is burning.
Natalie: “Yeah. Like weed.”
Allison: “Ew. Yeah. That’s really stinky.”
Erin: “Like My Johnson.”

Tim: “I got this beer because it’s pretty dark and thick.”
Rob: “Like My Johnson”

At one point during the rehersal dinner, one of Ben’s frineds asked me about my blog and he said, “So, do you blog about things going on in the world? Like, important things?”

Me: Trying to figure out a way to make Dirty Sanchez’s sound important: “Um. You know. If you’re trying to get smarter, I don’t suggest reading my blog.”

I will leave you with an image from the wedding and will post pics over the next few days as I recall certain details.

It provided me a lot of pleasure and fun times.

Laef: “Like My Johnson.”

Because it was college football Saturday, Laef and Rob spent a LOT of time checking their blackberries.

Well, here we are at Ben and Annett’s wedding weekend.

And it got off to a rather interesting start. We are staying with friends – Erin and Sean – in San Diego. We had a fun night of hanging out, drinking wine, eating cheese, proclaiming to stay sober and discussing important topics like The Hills, Gossip Girl and how ridiculously skinny the girls on the new 90210 are.

As the night was winding down, we were sitting in the living room browsing facebook and realizing that it was after 2 a.m. and we needed to sleep.

Then it happened.

It was as if Dane Cook’s skit came to life. A car not only crashed right outside, it CRASHED INTO SEAN AND ERIN’S HOUSE. Right outside of the living room where we were sitting. The house shook, a tree fell and silence befell the room.

We then scattered, looking for our shoes, looking out the window, running to the balcony and just generally trying to figure out what the fuck just happened.

And through it all, Sean never budged one inch.

I felt like an asshole taking a picture, but thankfully all passengers were OK besides some mental sketchiness.

This photo was taken from their living room window.

Taking the photo prompted the following from Erin: “Fuck you and your blog. You brought this shit with you.”

But, it was more that I couldn’t believe that Dane Cook has previously detailed this exact scene.

Remember the blog about Laef and I budgeting?

Remember how I said that when Laef is out of town, I tend to go out to eat sushi or grilled artichokes? And that typically those meals run me about $40?

Well, I was gone this weekend and I came home to this:

Let’s just say that it was more than $40.

We are officially one year this weekend away from the wedding. Now it seems a little more normal to talk about and plan the wedding. We headed to northern California this weekend so that Laef could meet Brady R. for the first time and so that my mom could invite some family and neighbors over to celebrate the engagement.

I have only met Brady one other time and he was still a tiny baby. Today, he is a four-month old grown up.

We arrived on Friday evening exhausted from a long week of work (see the gum blog) and the drive. Headed to bed shortly thereafter. Woke up even shortly thereafter that. We were sharing a room with Avery and she was very excited about guests!

So, by about 7 a.m., I had already painted her nails and given her a ponytail.

By 8:30 a.m. I had gone down for my first nap. To all the moms out there: Props to you. The thing I’m most nervous about when having kids (let alone two) is how I’m going to adjust to being tired. Sleep doesn’t seem to be a common thing when raising kids.

Anyway, later that day, we headed to Bobbi and Art’s to begin the celebration. When we pulled into the driveway, it seemed that the blog had already started to write itself.

1. My mother has this flag in the front yard:

2. They must have known Laef and his size 15s were coming because they have the world’s largest welcome mat:

3. Art must have vacuumed 418 times right before we got there because this is what I saw upon walking in the door (I think he has a problem):

My sister Steph arrived shortly thereafter. I was wondering how long it would take Sophie to warm up to me and if she was going to play shy. My questions were quickly answered when she came running up and said, “Um. My nails are messed up.”

That’s code for: Paint my nails.

Of course I obliged.

I then proceeded to take a million pictures of her and each time she eagerly yelled “Chheeeeese!” The thing is, our timing was off because she was mid cheese in every photo.

After Avery and Sophie matched the adults beer for beer with their Capri Sun, we sat down to a dee-lish dinner of tri-tip, sloughouse corn and baked beans. As you can see, we broke out (no pun intended) the fine china and silverware for the occasion. By the way, if your fork breaks, just roll with it.

Our old next door neighbors arrived shortly after that. It should be noted that I’m officially an old hag. When I was a junior in high school, I babysat the boys next door and the boy across the street. They were 1 (if that). One is now going to Oregon State (holler Heather!) on a baseball scholarship. I could not believe that these kids are going to be seniors in high school. All I can say is whew. It was close that they were going to be married before me!

Thanks again to everyone who came and all the fun times! Neil and Laef had a particularly fun time playing in the grass.

And now the official countdown begins! 363 days. Yay us!

During our visit to the bay area this past weekend, I was talking to Benji’s brother, Dan, and mentioned something about grilling.

Before I could even finish the sentence, he interrupted me and said, “Wait. YOU grill?” He then looks at Laef with a look that says something along the lines of: “are your balls still attached to your body?”

Laef also let this slip at work once and the guys gave him a lot of shit for it.

The thing is, it’s not like grilling is this once a week big event. I usually am the one who cooks dinner and because our house heats up to 172 degrees when I turn on the stove, I choose to use the grill. So, by default, I’m grilling four or five nights a week. My preferred method of cooking is outside, which, yes is grilling, but it’s not really considered a weekend cookout where we’re standing over the grill with 30 items cooking and a beer in our hands. You know, the guy type of grilling.

Anyway, I have been made aware of the fact that I need to relinquish control of some things so that when I am hungover and can not make breakfast, Laef is not in the kitchen asking where the toaster is.

We drove back home from the Bay and got in around 5 p.m. Sunday night My plan was to grill some chicken breasts to make a ceasar salad and have a few left over so that I don’t have to cook tonight.

We had not been in the door for more than 60 seconds and Laef was already stripped down to his boxers and lying on the couch with the remote in hand and the Cubs game on the TV. Thinking of Dan’s look I ask Laef if he wants to grill the chicken while I unpack and start laundry. I would just like the record to show that I was fully prepared to hand over the grilling duties and the look on Laef’s face said something like, ‘that does not sound like something I can do in my boxers or from the couch…’

We have friends coming this weekend for the 4th of July and that is totally dude grill time so I will document this event and share how it goes for both of us. Probably totally shitty because I’ll be back-seat grilling and Laef will be annoyed with me by the time the coals are red.

If you are related to Laef or to me, then maybe you don’t want to read. Don’t worry, I’m not divulging the details of our sex life, but this blog does pertain to sex.

As you are aware, Laef and I just got back from St. Louis. We stayed in a smoking room at the Econo Lodge in downtown St. Louis. Needless to say, it was hardly a sensual, romantic backdrop. Unless you consider a view of a casino and bird-poop covered alley’s romantic.

Apparently, we did.

Again, I won’t give you the details, but I can tell you that there was something about being away from work, traffic, laundry, shopping, making dinner, waking up at 6:30 a.m. and basically being tired all the time that helped us rekindle our relationship. It felt like the days of early days of dating. You know, where things just happen all the time.

I used to scoff at people who would say “marriage is a lot of work.” Or, “you have to work at it to make it last.” I was a naive little bird that basically thought: “No way. Love conquers all. When you love someone, there’s no work involved. It’s just easy.”

Well, as I’m sure many of you know, that’s true in a sense. Love can conquer all, but if you don’t work towards that love, it will surely shrivel into a small ball of lint in the corner overcome with life’s daily responsibilities. Laef and I have said often that we need to work hard to stay connected. Because, let’s be honest, sometimes we would rather do things like: write a blog, browse wedding sites, watch Top Chef, reorganize the closet, play WoW than say…other things.

But, we make the effort. Granted we sometimes race to the bed to see who gets to be on bottom. Being on bottom is less work. I believe we have even ro-sham-bowed for the bottom. Nothing like keeping the closeness alive!

Anyway, there was no ro-sham-bowing in the dingy Econo Lodge because neither of us wanted to touch the sheets. It was so nice to be void of all responsibility and just get to hang out. It made a big difference. And, there’s evidence to back up this theory.

By Monday we were back home unpacking, making lunches for work, doing laundry, watching TiVO and scheduling alone time. Funny how that works.

I wonder if a trip to Compton would work also.