Browse Month: November 2007

Holiday Time!

dsc_9414.jpg

I made mulled cider a couple nights ago and was tempted to pull out my Christmas mugs. But I resisted in order to keep Christmas from stealing Thanksgiving’s thunder. Unfortunately, the rest of the U.S. is starting to pull out their decorations and celebrations earlier and earlier each year.

p1000701a.jpg

On Friday, I met up with some co-workers for Happy Hour and to watch the lights turn on at Embarcadero Center. There’s an ice rink and they had a big lighting ceremony with fireworks galore. Right after the lights came on, we headed over to the Hyatt for the tree lighting in the hotel. They had a huge tree and gazillion lights hanging from above. It was pretty cool!

p1000702.jpg

In the spirit of giving Thanksgiving a fighting chance, Jes and I made butternut squash risotto last night and I made butternut squash soup and apple galettes tonight. I’m also in the midst of making plans for the long holiday weekend. Lots of people will be in Cerritos (including me) and I’ve gotta make sure to see everyone in a matter of days. How exciting!!

Karma

Whaddup whaddup?! I’m still alive…sorry for the lack of posts this week. I’ve just been chuggin’ along in my day-to-day activities.

On Sunday morning, I went for a little run and ended up losing my house keys. Ack! I didn’t realize it until I was done so I ended up having to run the entire route a second time. It’s amazing what fear and adrenaline can do for your performance. I ran so fast that I was passing even the skinniest, tallest guys out there. In a panic, I searched everywhere for my keys with no luck. I was so bummed out. Not only did I lose my key but it was so early in the morning that I’d have to face the wrath of the sleeping bear. After convincing the maintenance guy to let me into the building, I stood at my front door for at least 5 minutes before ringing the doorbell. *Ding Dong!* No answer. Crap! I paced the hall for another 5 minutes before ringing the doorbell again. The sleeping bear finally woke up and opened the door to find out what I had done. I think you can all guess how the rest of my day went after that.

Fast forward to Monday when I emailed the building manager for a new set of keys… At work, I got a phone call from the manager with the good news that someone found my keys at the park and turned it in to the office. Wow!! I always thought I was a little gullible thinking that someone would do a good deed in my favor but this is ridiculous. I must have done something good last week to make this happen.

Don’t forget to do your good deed for the week! It could pay off later when you least expect it!!

crap on the wall

art.jpg

Last weekend we had some more crappy art installed on our building. If any of you have been here, you can’t really miss all the crappy art that is everywhere – in the halls, in the lobby, on my side of the building, and now on the other side of the building. When it was all done on Sunday, it looked like an alien had crapped on the side of the building. It should say something when in the article written about this installment stated that the artist paused, laughed, and said “I should have thought this through better.” Fan-f’ing-tastic.

rested

It’s 6:15 am and I’ve been up since 5:45. It’s completely dark outside and I’m wide awake. I was exhausted yesterday from a combination of not sleeping well the night before and having a really long day at work yesterday. So, I ate some dinner, took a hot shower, and jumped into bed at around 7:30 with my laptop and got caught up on my TiVo recordings. It was great. I was asleep by 10:00 and I feel completely rested now.

I forgot how nice it can be to wake up before your alarm goes off and you’re ready to face another day. I not only beat the alarm but also beat the coffee maker and Pasqual, who is usually rambling about the weather and news by the time I get out of bed. I’m usually hitting the snooze button once or twice before dragging myself out of bed and getting on the train in a zombie-like state. I’m going to see if I can keep this up because it’s kinda nice to have some quiet, el relaxo time in the morning. Perhaps I can even start going to the gym in the morning too!! Ok Ok, time to get a hold of myself now…I don’t want to get TOO crazy yet.

Have a great day!! 🙂

boobs and flan

p1000681.jpg

It’s Michelle’s birthday today and we went over to their place this evening for some birthday cake. Ryan made Michelle’s cake into two boobs since that’s been the center of her life these past few days. We also shared the flan (actually creme caramels) that Jes made for them yesterday. Despite having given birth just 4 days ago, it’s nice to see that Michelle can still have a good ol’ fashioned birthday cake party with friends.

Here are photos from the celebration.

home alone

dsc_9196a.jpg

We celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary this weekend by going to Monterey. We planned to stay overnight so the big question was “What will we do with Koa?” Well, Susie was nice enough to check on him so we actually got to leave him at home alone for a little over a day.

In Monterey, we got a package that included a 2-day pass to the aquarium. So, when we arrived in the afternoon, we went to the aquarium for about an hour before close and then back again on Saturday morning. The crowds are smaller at closing time and in the morning so it worked out great! I also got the chance to take some practice photos, check them on my laptop over the evening, and go back and re-take anything that didn’t quite work. Another cool thing that I discovered on my new camera was the “underwater” setting, which takes out that funny blue tint to aquarium photos. Excellent.

We had dinner at Passionfish, which was as good as I remembered it to be. I really enjoyed the crab salad and my scallops main course. The next morning, we had breakfast at Duck Club, which was a real treat. I got to watch the otters roll around in the kelp as I ate my eggs benedict. We also splurged on a room with a view and balcony, which came with binoculars for watching the otters play just outside my window/balcony. How fun!

We got back on Saturday afternoon and the house was in one piece. Nice job, dog! Thanks for taking care of Koa, Susie!!

Here are the photos.