Santa Barbara baby

Erica and I went to Santa Barbara the other day. We woke up to it pouring outside but decided to still go because hey, it could be bright and sunny up there in S.B. Itttt wasn't. And it was raining pretty much the whole trip up there. White knuckles gripping the steering wheel for an hour and a half. So relaxing, I tell you. Oh! Also! It was cold. As in, freezing cold. Well, as freezing cold as southern California can get. My Christmas in Seattle should be quite a temperature shock...haha. But I got to wear my hat, so I was extremely happy. So anyway, Erica and I walked around for a while, up and down State Street, perusing different shops. Then we made our way down to the wharf and froze there. On our way out to the end of the pier, we passed a man setting up a picnic on the sand. Erica and I both automatically "aww"ed. So precious. He had little flowers in a vase and everything. Oh! We got cussed out by a homeless man there--so that was a great note to end on. And now after looking at photos from that day, I see that I have horrific posture.

I love Santa Barbara.

Erica captured this pretty well.

At Stearns Wharf

We ended the day with some bread bowl clam chowder. So fantastic. Why do piers always make me want chowder? But only in a bread bowl.

I've been really loving the Palm Pixi commercials because of the song they use. So, I did some sleuthing around and found out that it is called "Sleepyhead" by Passion Pit. I'm also loving all the Christmas music. I can now sing along to every store's music playlist. Mostly because they all consist of "Last Christmas" by Wham!, some version of "Carol of the Bells," "All I Want for Christmas is You," and every other Christmas cliche song you could think of. But it's just so great. I LOVE CHRISTMAS.

Happy birthday shout out to my sister, Alicia!!! Yay!!

And I was trying so hard to be consistent...

Sorry again guys. I left you stranded, without anything new from me for the past couple weeks. I know you all have been just dying to know what's going on my life. Sadly, I am not writing this from a Coffee Bean, but rather from my own apartment. Hooray! Well, I can honestly say that not much is new. We'll just do a short, quick fire-style recap, shall we? (That may or may not be the correct usage of "quick fire," but whatevs, it's my blog and I can make up my own grammar. Ahaha.)

Thanksgiving. Erica's cousins were in town so we had Thanksgiving at our apartment. It was tasty. We made lots of sides and had tons of food, of which I have been eating for the past couple of days. I think we had about 7 carb/starch dishes. Aahahah. It was perfect. I think in heaven, clouds will be made of different potato dishes. And it will be glorrrrrious.

Realllly should have taken "the spread" photo before we ate.

Okay, so. We had yams. Two different dishes actually. But only one of them has a dramatic background. We made the yam part of the dish and then put the marshmallows on top. And these were no ordinary marshmallows, they were giants because Erica and I decided to do our Thanksgiving grocery shopping on Thanksgiving day and there were absolutely no mini-marshmallows to be found. But hey, giant marshmallows just means more marshmallowy goodness in the end, right? And at Thanksgiving, isn't everyone wanting more marshmallows on their yams? Um, YES. So. That's beside the point. The dish was done, all that needed to happen was for them to get brown and crispy on top. We thought we could just pop the bowl in the broiler for a couple minutes and it would be done, no problem. But of course the dish was too tall for the broiler and pretty much touched the gas-y flames in our oven. Andddd, the bottom of the bowl said "No broiler." So that ended that conversation with the oven. Next idea--how about we put it in the toaster oven? Okay! So we did and were quite excited that it just barely fit. I put it on bake at about 350 degrees. I look over a couple minutes later and flames are licking out the toaster oven door. So after the initial screams, I open the little door and try to pull the bowl out while it's on fire. Almost feel like I blacked out due to adrenaline because I don't really remember how the fire went out...

So we just plucked all those marshmallows off and put new ones on and no one was the wiser. Except Erica and I, now knowing that we can't put a yam dish in the toaster oven. We ended up putting the newly-marshmallowed yams in the oven on a high heat, which got the job done. Who knew the best option would be the most basic? Hah.

Look what Erica brought back for me from San Francisco!! Such a cute piece of bread. Didn't want to eat it because it would be like eating a small friend.

Jess and I went on a hike a couple weeks ago to the M*A*S*H film site. It was a little anticlimactic, seeing as how neither of us have ever watched an episode. But they had great informational signs. And there was a guy there, wearing an aloha shirt and jeans, clipping some branches and making it look nice. And then he sat on a picnic table and drank a big gulp. Next to his car. Which made me slightly annoyed because Jess and I just hiked for an hour and a half to get there. Ridiculous.

We tried to reenact the poses on the photos. Needless to say, we got weird looks from the aloha shirt guy.

Past family pictures. Just because I missed them more than usual this past week.

Hard to believe it's been almost a whole year. Crazy.

Well, I'll end with my usual promise of posting more regularly. Ahahah.

Holla.

The line at Coffee Bean just got incredibly long. Out the door long.

Anddd I'm back at Coffee Bean, my second home. Ahahah. Just working on Alicia's site and it's actually not going so bad. I'm getting things done, figuring out how to fix things, dealing with CSS. Ahh, the sweet satisfaction of previewing a page after spending 15 minutes trying to figure out why the background won't show up. Or why the menu bar color is wrong. Or why the logo.jpg is a question mark box. I've been here a while...

Good news, I found out my costume for next year...now I just have to find a baby to borrow. A baby who's parents don't mind me dressing up their child and carrying it around in a pot.

I found something that I want to try, when I have the ability to do so. Sunprint fabrics. Alicia and I did some mini sunprints a couple summers ago and I love them.

I also discovered a new art love. Steven Meyers does X-Ray photography and it's awesome. I want huge prints of these so I can hang them all over my room/apartment and make Erica think I'm insane. Which she might think already.

Momma and baby bird

Well, I took my Mom to the airport this morning. She came in early early Saturday morning and we went back to my apartment and slept. After taking a little nap, we went to Fair Oaks Soda Fountain, on the corner of Fair Oaks and Mission, for lunch. It was cute. We thought it would be a quick sit down place to eat but we were wrong. Our waiter was...interesting--some memorable quotes were,

-Waiter: "I like the pasta salad more than the potato salad."

Me: "Oh, is it that much better?"

Waiter: "Well, I don't like potatoes."

Me: "Then I'll take the potato salad."

-Waiter: "The food's not that great." (or something to that effect)

After about sitting at an outside table for 2 hours (yes, we were there that long) and witnessing a fender bender, we let out a sigh of relief and drove to the Citadel outlets, which was a little anticlimactic--lots of stores, but not many interesting ones. Oh! But! Bonus, my Mom bought this for me. Whooohooooooo!

Sunday, we went to Mosaic, a church that has multiple locations throughout Los Angeles. It was cool--pretty chill, people wearing jeans, t-shirts, slippers. It was chillllay and Mom was cold. But so was I. Then we went to the Getty. And oh it was great. Great art, great gardens, I was in heaven.

Portrait of Jeanne Kefer by Fernand Khnopff

Sunrise by Monet

The weather has been so perfect. Brisk. Sunny. Wonderfullll. Monday we went to Hollywood so Mom could see the hands in the concrete and the stars in the sidewalk.

Mom and her American Idol

At Grauman's Chinese Theater

How festive.

After spending time in Hollywood, we went to Exposition Park and walked around a little bit. There was tons to do there but we just went to the Rose Garden and walked through the bottom lobby of the California Science Center. I had a not-so-secret ulterior motive for going to the Rose Garden. So I'm kind of a Bones fanatic. And once I found out that the opening shot for the lab was filmed in the Rose Garden, I had to go. Here it is. If you don't watch Bones, you should. That's all.

In the gift shop

Tuesday, we went to Griffith Observatory and just...observed. It is becoming one of my favorite places.

Mom on the roof

Mom with Einstein

Tuesday night, we went down to Huntington Beach and had dinner with my aunt and uncle and cousin that Erica and I stayed with when we first got to L.A. Thought we would be able to go to IKEA down there on the way back to Pasadena, but that was a no-go, on account of everyone being so talky-talky.

Mom left this morning and continued on her way to Oklahoma to visit with her mom, my Grandma Lolly.

And now my mini-vacation (as if what I've been doing for the past couple months doesn't count) is over. Hello freelance projects and job searching.

L.A. Day #tres - International Day

Thursday was another L.A. Day. It was great to get out and do something in the city. Started off the day by walking to the Metro station on Mission Street and dealt with some confusion on which side of the platform to go to. Hah. We almost went to inland Pasadena. Whooooops. But we made it and rode to Union Station. I guess we looked local (yay!) because a lady asked if the train we were on went to Pasadena. Erica told her that it was going into the city so she got off and then asked a train person. And then got back on our train. So that was our cue to get off. Whoooooops. Almost sent a lady to the wrong place. And we almost went to back home on accident. Hah. OH! I almost forgot. Got to the train platform, took out my camera, and found that my battery was dead. My love for documentation was sorely tested on L.A. Day #3. I had to resort to taking photos on my cell phone...and I don't remember how to get photos from my phone to my computer.

Moving on. We got to Union Station and walked to Little Tokyo, about 3 blocks down from the station. It. Was. Hot. It felt like I was walking in an oven, so stopping in at a Japanese place to eat was a welcome rest. Got some sushi, drank a Diet Coke, it was great. We walked around a bit and went in to some shops. It was like lots of little Shirokiyas everywhere. Then we walked back up to Union Station area and walked around Olvera Street. It was a fun street full of Mexican shops and kiosks selling trinkets and hats. Lots of hats. And leather shoes. Next time I go, I'm definitely buying a bunch of those eggs filled with confetti. {Insert picture of confetti eggs here--oh wait, nevermindddd}

Olvera Street (photos from when I came in March)

We headed back to Pasadena on the train with high school kids on their way home. After getting off the train on Mission Street, we stopped in at the Farmer's Market and I got a cucumber for 50 cents. Booya, nice.

If you want something new to listen to, definitely try out "Sweet Disposition" by the Temper Trap. They're an Australian band and ahhh, their album isn't being released in the U.S. till October 13th. Oh the anticipation. And! They are coming to L.A. October 14th at the Roxy. "Sweet Disposition" was on the (500) Days of Summer soundtrack, also an excellent album. Good for sunshine days in L.A.

Momma comes in one week from now!!! It's list time. Where to eat, where to go, what to do.

Back to the roots

Yesterday Erica and I went to Little Tokyo and it was quite an ordeal. Parking was a mess. We didn't want to pay for parking because we had just enough cash to buy two benches from someone in Koreatown off Craigslist. 10 bucks. For 2 benches. Dining table seating, check. Boooooya I love cheap furniture. But that's another story. Back to Little Tokyo. We walked around the "mall," but it really wasn't very interesting, aside from a flower shop and a 99cent-like store. We almost got run down by some very intent older Japanese men who just needed to get to the market. We left after about an hour and then got called over by the parking attendant when we tried to park somewhere else. So we left and decided to go back to Little Tokyo by way of the Metro, saving that for a big L.A. Day.

Paper-looking flowers

I have new bangs! This is what happens when I'm bored.

Also, I need to stop eating so much cheese. And bread. So I guess that means I have to not eat a grilled cheese sandwich everyday. Ughhhhh. The new season of Bones starts tonight. What a great day this is.

Catch up...or mustard?

New category, L.A. Day. It is now my goal for every weekend to do something quintessential "L.A." ("Wow, that is so L.A."). Not to put too much pressure on this new activity, but I have pretty high hopes.

This past weekend was the kick-off event. Erica and I journeyed to Griffith Park. Andddd it was great. We started at the Observatory. Bonus, it was free. When things are free, it makes them 10 times better. Instant interest. It really was pretty awesome. We went up to the roof, saw the telescope, walked around inside, went downstairs into the "depths" (really, that's what it was called), and sat on the lawn where I ate a Clif bar. Good times. Then we went down to the bottom of the park and spread out a blanket and chilled for a second. It's so tricky to find that shade spot that is just right. Let's call it "partial shade," where light still comes through the leaves, but you're not getting burned by the sun. I fell asleep. And then moved to sit under a different tree. Towards the end we enjoyed the band, Flogging Molly, doing their sound check at the Greek Theater. Regina Spektor is going to be there in October. Sounds like I'll be sleeping under a tree on that day as well...

Zooey D in Yes, Man? Anyone? Anyone?

Great roof

So that was Saturday. On Sunday, we went to the Rose Bowl Flea Market. It's on the second Sunday every month and it. Was. Huge. The antique section was about 3 or 4 times bigger than the actual normal "new" stuff. Ahhhh it was vintage overload but I loved it. I almost bought something every 5 minutes. Dangerous. I don't think I can allow myself to go back until I have a job. Good news is that I found where I am getting my Halloween costume.

Tiny shoes

Best dress of the day. Every time I try to take a sneak shot at any given time, the person always ends up looking at me. I need practice. Watch out.

Ohhh just a little breakfast sandwich I made. Sourdough bread, avacado, egg, and cheese. Mornin', glory.

More news. I got a ticket. A plane ticket. I am spending my first Christmas away from home this year. Sad sad sad face. Instead, I'll be in Seattle, with my Dad's brother and his family. I love Seattle. Maybe I'll move there next... I'm excited to be with my cousins (what's up Rachellllllll?!?!) and auntie and uncle but I'm a little afraid of how I'll feel come Christmas day. This is growing up, right?

More news. I went to the ER. Again. I tried to cut a frozen brussel sprout in half and cut my pointer finger in the process. Erica took me to the ER again and we got to revisit with some friends. The doctor that gave me 3 stitches also gave me a 4-piece set of medical tools as a "souvenir." He told me to make sure to wash with soap and water. Umm...yes. Not sure how many people were stitched up with those tools, but it was quite exciting to get rewarded for my dedication to making dinner.

More news (wow it's really been a while). My momma is coming to visit!!! Yes, yes she is. She will be here in a couple weeks and is going to stay for 4, 5 days? I'm excited!! Especially now knowing that I definitely won't be going home for Christmas. Now my Dad has to plan a trip out here...maybe I can promise going on a tour at Boeing. It'll be fun doing more sightseeing and exploring while she is here. On her list is a couple of fabric stores, Walk of Fame, and the science center. We'll add more...

Tomorrow - picking up two lamps from someone on Craigslist. We will finally have light in the living room. About time.

Snow Patrol is coming to L.A. next month and I want to go. Too bad Erica falls asleep when she hears them. That would be a fun concert.

Random stuff

I love having regular cable for the TV in my room. Now I can watch gems like It Could Happen to You, a movie that I think is highly underrated. For some reason, I now want to watch The American President.

I found this website for Prismera Design and go back to it every so often to look at the new pretty little things.

I want to do prints like this. Yes please.

Pretty little necklace

It looks little scary, but I think it's pretty.

I think today might be an In-N-Out day. It happens more than you would think.

Stalker-like tendencies

Okay, so. I have a confession. Erica and I were at Whole Foods the other day and I thought I saw John Krasinski order a coffee. I may or may not have stalker-followed him around for a second. Turns out that he was just a tall, scruffed up young guy wearing a baseball hat and sunglasses. Of course wearing sunglasses indoors is a sure sign that you are worthy of stalking. Great. I'm a creeper.

Does anyone else find it weird that Al showed up when I googled "John Krasinski"?

Well the birds aren't chirping outside my window tonight. But, they did send a replacement--in the form of a cricket. That sounds like he is perched right outside my window. I love nature...

Today was productive. I switched over car insurance, got renter's insurance, made friends with my State Farm peeps, passed the smog check, made friends with Heros at the car place where I was told that I must be Japanese because I was polite, got things rolling with getting my car registered in California, and discovered that I love Clif bars. Chocolate chip peanut crunch. Don't worry, I was able to make my daily trip to Trader Joe's. This time to see if they found our mailbox key--they didn't.

Tomorrow: getting cable in Erica and I's bedrooms. Schveet.