D life

The day was Christmas Eve. The place: Disneyland.

We decided to go early. Like setting the alarm before the crack dawn so we can arrive by the time they first open those doors early. We anticipated some fights, some freak outs and giving up and leaving before the sunset. We were ready, because, come on, Kieran is 2 1/2. Waiting in a 2 minute line could be asking for too much patience. Any food we give him could be spit out. Every character or every ride could scare the pants off him. We kissed goodbye that outrageous entrance fee and said, lets just make the best of it. Maybe it will turn out ok.

I don’t know if I’ve ever been more amazed at the behavior of my toddler. He only freaked out at our very first stop to see Mickey Mouse. But then, 15 minutes later, he gave Pluto a kiss on his big doggy nose. Suddenly he was running every where to check out everything. We took him on It’s A Small World, and that was it. He wasn’t afraid to ride anything with us. The lines ranged from 10 to almost 25 minutes long and he never caused trouble. Not a single line did we have to leave because he was impatient, wanted to run off, or threw a tantrum.

When it came time for lunch, and food is always a battle with us, we threw him a kids meal of a hot dog and chips, and he ate everything. (Back off, it was a special day and that included junk food) I was afraid he wouldn’t eat anything we gave him and would whine and cry all afternoon about his stomach. He wanted to see everything, try everything. It was the most awesome time!

My favorite ride has to be the Haunted Mansion, and at this time of year, it’s all decked out in Nightmare Before Christmas. After shaking in terror over the initial elevator room, Kieran calmed down and actually waved to all the ghosts and monsters. I hope I haven’t damaged him by giving him nightmares because I HAD to go on this ride. I hate to say it, but it was cute how he was sort of trembling while sitting on my lap for the entire ride. That’s my trooper!

One highlight: we went to ride the huge Mark Twain SteamBoat and we got picked to sit in the Captains Quarters, with Kieran steering and ringing the bell. He got a certificate as well. He may not have known what was going on, but it was cool to be chosen.

After all the rides and walking around, it finally came time for the parade, and on top of daddy’s shoulders, Kieran got to see Mickey, Minnie, and Santa Claus. We thought we might actually make it for the fireworks, but next thing we knew, his head was hanging limply to one side, and he was fast asleep.

Mission accomplished.

It was a wonderful Christmas Eve.

Never much been a lover of craft fairs, until now. This is how to do it. THIS is fun, kitchy, cool and trendy all wrapped up into one. This is young and vibrant not old and…..stained wood name carvings and needlepoint Jesus sayings.

Sorry Mom, Sorry God.

Kiki and I ended up here by first deciding to go to the Swap-O-Rama. This was an event held upstairs at the Shrine where you bring a bag of old clothes, clothes you’ve never worn, and any scraps of material. Then you go through other people’s cast-offs, pick some out and try to come up with ways to fancy it up for yourself. They had seamstresses galore here to help, embroiderers and one little lone guy doing screen printing. It looked like everyone was having a ball sifting through clothing, and patching things together to make something unique. Since it takes awhile to sew, screen print or embroider, the wait for these stations could take awhile, which is why Kiki and I only got some items screen-printed and one item each embroidered.

I think I had my hopes up for something a little bit more for the swap, but I was quickly overwhelmed with glee when we went downstairs to the Bazaar Bizarre. There was an insane number of booths where funky crafters displayed their inexpensive wares. They had everything from clothing, to jewlery, to wall art. When was the last time you went to a craft fair that had Ghetto Sock Monkeys, HellaGood Bath products, This is not your Grandma’s Quilt, and a booth called Cunt Factory with T’s that celebrate the vulva?

Sorry Mom. Sorry God.

(Well, sorry Mom, anyway.)

This party was like Prom.

Prom in this sense: that it felt like forever til the date finally rolled around, and you were so excited to go and went out and bought a new dress and new shoes and were fortunate to have a date and were hoping there’d be some great after-party to get drunk and maybe lucky.

This was my adult Prom. At first I didn’t even want to go. The logistics of how to get Kieran to bed and then get myself out to Hollywood on a traffic clogged Friday night just didn’t seem worth it. But then, Trailer Park threw out the Taxi Vouchers. With no stipulations on distance. Well, shoot, they want to drive us to and from the party for FREE? Yeah, okay.

So then we found ourselves a babysitter (THANKS ALEX!!!!) and my excitement started to build. I tried to play it off, the whole, yeah I don’t care, if something comes up and we can’t go, ooohhhh weellllll. It was all a lie. I looked in my closet and wasn’t satisfied with anything. Yay! I got to go shopping for an “out-fit”. Something me, something casual enough for all the boozing it up I could do with Rice, since none of us would be driving, but yet fun and dressy. I like different. So I opted for a turquoise blousy number that had these open panels of see thru material so I could show off the back tatts, to go with wide legged black trousers and some cute new black shoes. Oooooh, yeah I was getting excited!

With the babysitter situation under control, we got our free ride to the shinding. You even have to walk down this long, red mirrored hallway that opens into the place, so it really felt like making an entrance. The place was even my-kind-of-decorated-love-palace: Asian, red, modern, dim, with lots of little nooks and crannies to seat yourselves, 2 stories and you can look down on the bottom floor from the top. They have 2 bars, one right at the entrance, and one in the “open air room” on the second floor (that’s where we spent most of the evening). There were servers passing around delectible snacks, a huge buffet that everyone was raving about which we totally overlooked downstairs, and a table full of sushi upstairs. Sushi! OMG, how did they know? And everything was pretty good too!

I knew many people I love were going to be there, so I knew I would have a great time drinking and chatting and not feel uncomfortable at all to be at my finacé’s office christmas party. Office Christmas Party? This was no definition of those words my people, this was nothing awkward and stuffy where you make an appearance and hang with people you don’t like while glancing at your watch for the moment when you can finally exit. A vodka martini, a manhattan, a Geisha Kiss, and 2, maybe 3 jack and cokes and I was having a ball. This was a real par-tay!

I mean, they had freakin’ Guitar Hero set up!

*sniff* This was my adult prom.

View Geisha House  
Party Photos 

so·cial·ite (sō’shə-līt’)
n. One prominent in fashionable society.

That’s our Kieran, the mingler. Last night at a party for Kiersten and Andre’s engagement/moving to San Francisco, Kieran had a boogie in his step as he made the rounds. This was quite the social event of the season thrown by the domestic queen supreme, Robyn and her charming hubby who adores my child, Charlie.

Neither the crowd of people that kept growing nor the big bowl of potato chips kept our little man about town from winning the affections of a good majority of party. How could he be missed? The only one shorter than he was Cali the cat, but she spent the night in the bedroom, being decidedly anti-social. Mario the pooch made an appearance however, captivating Kieran as much as the Wii sports on the large screen and everyone tickling his stomach to make him giggle.

Kiersten finally got her ring from Andre (after some sizing troubles) and how fitting that it was at the engagement party! It was like we all witnessed the proposal…..he had it stuffed into a teddy bear. Cute! They received many other cute gifts as well as lots of wine and champagne to celebrate. Rice mixed up some Pomegranate Martini’s (yeah, I had two. But hey, I wasn’t driving) and we let the little schmoozer hang out with all us cool adults until we made our exit around 10pm.

Man, it’s a good thing we aren’t so well off that when he grows up, gets seen around town at all the fabulous parties and social events, people will be asking the question, “but what is it that he does?”, like they do about Nicole Richie.

You never know if it’s going to be a knock-down drag-out fightin’ kind of day at Home Depot or an everything-falls-into-place, we’re in, we’re out, we’re done! Thank goodness this past weekend’s hunt for the annual Christmas Tree was the latter. I never dreamed it could ever happen this way!

We pull into the insane parking lot and get ready for a long drawn out afternoon at the Depot, and whatta ya know! There’s a spot right by the entrance to the trees, and we’ve got our blinker on, so every car turning down the aisle better back the hell up! We mosey on over to the trees, shake out 2, maybe three, and as the third one looked fine to me, we go find the checkout line. Incredible! The line has like 5 people in it, a RECORD right there, and Kieran is being an absolute charmer to the people behind us. Could this day get any better?

We pay, we get the trim job, and I wait while Rice goes for the car. Now here is where I anticipated a snag. They can get maybe 4 cars loaded up with trees at a time, it’s by the front entrance where other cars are trying to get by just to park, and they’ve only got 2 people helping out. But, what is that I see? Can that be Rice’s car pulling up already? I swear I didn’t even get halfway through humming Come Sail Away. This is HOME DEPOT, right?

With so much time left on our hands, once we get the tree up and the lights strung (kieran just couldn’t wait on that) we headed down to the beach to watch the sunset. Totally loving how life was going that day—sane hardware stores and the fact that we live so close to the ocean—Kieran and I get a little closer to the water to check out some washed up kelp. Suddenly, the seawater is coming right for us and I have just enough time to grab onto the kid so he doesn’t get washed away. Laughing hysterically to my child’s cries of “No water! waaa! No water mommy! No ocean! waaaaa” I look to find Rice, hoping he’s documenting this moment, but apparently he was too busy playing with the camera settings he missed the entire incident!

But we’re far from being incident-free, so maybe we’ll get some good photos next time.

December 2nd was the day! 9am sharp I go in for the invisalign. Get home, gather up the troops and drive on out to Chatsworth for a birthday party. Kids running around everywhere, jumping in the jumper, hoped up on greasy pizza, capri-sun and chocolate cake. All of this set to the theme of Superman, and it’s not just the kid, Daniel who’s obsessed with the man of steel. I’ve seen Daniel’s father maybe 3 times in the last year, and EVERY SINGLE TIME, he was wearing his sleeveless superman shirt—what does that tell you?

2 moms who I used to work with who escaped Creative Age Publications were there, and we got to catch up on all kinds of gossip and CAP trashing. Good times. Though I love them telling me how I’ve got to get out of my workplace, A) I cannot afford to not work like the first gal and B) I cannot afford to take a pay cut like the second gal. So, we’ll just be seeing how it goes.

Later, after getting windblown on this warm winter’s day in the valley, we drove back to meet our babysitters for the evening. Thanks so much to Steve and Marissa, who didn’t have to do much more than eat chinese food and watch TV while Kieran snoozed! Sometimes, he’s just that easy!

Rice and I headed out to North Hollywood to check out Kendra’s new house and celebrate her 30th. Since we don’t often get to eat out just the two of us, we decided to check out The Eclectic Cafe on Lankershim. While the decor was certainly the definition of eclectic, the menu was not. It’s freaking italian food! It was good, and the prices weren’t too bad. We each tried a wine sampler, which was fun when we chose our favorite and switched with eachother. The place was dead for 9pm on a Saturday night, and we had to endure hearing the waitstaff’s conversations by the bar.

Kendra’s house was so very very cute! I wanted to kick her out and move right in! She did a fine job painting the living room and adding many retro touches. The back patio was nice and she even had a nice swatch of back yard. I’d say the downfall was that you could see and hear the freeway from the back, but really, the place was rockin’. She had made tater tots, corn dogs and other snacky’s while Kevin brought a delicious chocolate cake. I think she made out pretty darn good with the presents too, and lots more people were showing up as we said our farewells. I wasn’t even the one drinking but felt like a total fool when I must have been the 50th person to ask Wayne where AnnMarie was. Sorry Wayne, she’s just better looking!

And then we drove home, sent the sitters on their way and I got to have a drink. That there’s THE END.

Finally the invisalign is here! And my big mouth is sore!

It seemed to take forever, but I finally got the trays. My teeth are gonna be fixed this time, damnit. Sorry parents for all I put you through, and now I have to do dental work all over again. What a rotten child I was.

For the price I’m paying, I would have preferred to get my eye’s lasered. But since I can fix my vision problem with glasses or contacts, I had to go for the teeth fix or pay the consequences when I’m old. And all I keep hearing from my older co-workers and family is “keep your teeth healthy. TRUST ME.” I decided to listen to my dentist and go for the invisalign, atleast I didn’t have to become a metal mouth again!

Kieran’s already got to be embarrassed of me. I mean, how would he feel if I were a BRACE FACE? Gosh.

Rock on, Thanksgiving this year was pretty much just another day in the life. With the exception of a little toddler who had a cold and didn’t really want to eat, it was rather non-stress. Not a bad way to spend a day that can sometimes be chock full of craziness when travel and extended family is involved.

This year, Rice, Kieran and I went downtown to Chinatown for some Dim Sum. So, rather than cook up a turkey dinner with all the fixins, or attend someone else’s, we opted to pick yummy food stuffs off of carts. We took Sheila’s suggestion, and checked out Ocean Seafood. We weren’t even settled and  they were already pushing the goods on us!

Kieran wanted nothing to do with food that day, and I’m blaming it on his cold and the cereal bar we stuffed into him earlier,  because he had no problems eating Dim Sum at Empress Pavilion last time. We grabbed puffs stuffed with sweet pork, beef,  steamed shrimp wraps, and Chinese broccoli. (come on, one needs a vegetable, right?) While Kieran had fun sloshing sweet tofu back and forth from a bowl to a tea cup, we chowed on mini pork rolls and gosh, who knows what else. But it was all delicious, and very inexpensive! We were stuffed! We had to turn so much away, as this was not the insane place the Empress Pavilion was. No problem getting service here.

Afterward and for the rest of the 4 day weekend, we played around at the parks in the area. We also met up with some of the gang to play mini golf in Sherman Oaks. Is every mini golf park some kind of castle? It was Kieran’s first time, and apparently the key to keeping him happy is to just get him a club and a ball. That way, he wont keep trying to steal everyone elses. Plus, 2 parents are needed so that one can golf and the other can keep the kid occupied. Rice and I played as a team and took turns. Even as a team, we sucked and came in next to last! Oh well. Congrats go to the Emde’s for getting 1st and 2nd while Adrienne came in 3rd. I tip my hat to you fabulous mini-golfers!

And, we did absolutely NO shopping. There’s not way I could have set foot into a mall that weekend. I’m just not the bargain shopper, what can I say?  Sorry to everyone who is just getting a card.