Parents, Puppies and Palo Alto.

This weekend Chris and I headed up to San Jose to log in some quality time with the rents and some friends...unfortunately I didn't take too many pictures...especially of the family time...:( but there were definitely some picts worth sharing.

Saturday we headed over to Meg and Rusty's to BBQ, catch up and watch the doggies play.

Indy finally met his cousins!!!! I call this photo, "It's too hot to play".





That night we took the train into Palo Alto...turns out Rusty was wrong about the train schedule...so we got to hang out in the car for a good half an hour...turns out it's fun to give Rusty a hard time about being wrong.



Once we were finally in Palo Alto we met up with Katie at a terrible bar called Old Pro...on the plus side, Katie had already had a few drinks (always fun to watch) and the bar had a mechanical bull. Good times ensued. :)








On the train ride back rusty wanted to make sure we all knew who was right about the return train schedule.


The rest of the weekend was spent relaxing with my parents. We walked around Saratoga and had a nice lunch at Max's...where I was pleased to note their eclairs have DOUBLED in size. I still have yet to ever tackle one of these beasts...I think I'd need to set aside a week to handle one of those suckers.

Before I left though I promised my dad I would blog about his most astonishing accomplishment to date. His most excellent....wait for it....sock tan. He's convinced it's a sign of his athleticism and golfing skills. I'm sure it's a sign that he needs a bottle of self tanner...or maybe some flip flops.

Behold.



And here...are just some cute photos from the ride home.


Weekends are never long enough. I propose a standard four day work week.

Cough...cough....HACK!

There is nothing worse than spending a gorgeous summer weekend with body aches and golf balls in your throat. The golf balls were my fault though...thought it would be a fun experiment.

We had our first kickball game of the season on Monday and despite still not feeling well I couldn't bail on my Nuts & Honeys. We played the reigning champions "Awesome Helicopter Ninjas". They're a great team and the first inning saw a score of 2-1 in their favor...unfortunately it stayed that way and couldn't claim a "W". I didn't see much action in the outfield (did catch some mean fireflies though) but I did kick a nice bunt that got me on base...and tore up my quad muscle in the meantime. A combination of four days of body aches, a weakened immune system and just generally being out of shape led me to pull my right quad BIG TIME as I sprinted to first. I felt like a giant sissy as I limped to the dugout with legs that felt like they engulfed in flames. The leg's feeling better now, a little stretching and some time off will have me up and running for our next game on Monday. I think it's going to be a good season.



GO NUTZ!!

PTizzle South Sizzle

So today is a big day...and a bit of a sad day...we moved our office for Secrets That Sell from the main Pie Town building into the outcast stepchild office of Pie Town South....which has now been dubbed Pie Town South Central. It's actually ON the opposite side of the tracks...ok..the opposite side of the metro line, but STILL! Our new office is far too small for four desks and we are all LITERALLY squished into our respective corners. My poor boss' new office is still attached to ours, but resembles the offices from "Joe vs The Volcano" with no windows and only one flickering fluorescent light...it's just so depressing. The only upside is that the parking is better and I now face into the office rather than having people passing behind me all the time. Hopefully it's only temporary.

The summer season of kickball officially starts on Monday and we had our first practice yesterday. For those of you who don't know...I played on a kickball team last season called The Wonderballz. It was made up of Pie Town employees and some extras, but it wasn't all it should have been. No one really cared about the games or had any kind of team spirit. So this season I've joined the Nuts and Honeys. The official name is: Sofa King Nuts and Honeys: Your Mom Edition. The "your mom edition" was unintentionally spawned by yours truly...who has a tendency to respond to comments with phrases like, "your mom" and "your face". Our first game is this Monday and after practice it's become even more evident that I need to start working out again....i'm actually sore from all the lunges! Anyway...I'll be sure to keep everyone informed about the season....GO NUTS!....and honeys!

P.S. I was saddened to read in a comment on my page that two people who are very important to me felt left out by my previous post about friendships and appreciating the people that matter. Especially since these people are like my second parents...well...they're my godparents. So Dave and Jackie...I want you to know that you weren't left out of my post because you don't matter....I actually looked for a picture of you both, but don't have one on my computer. However, because I do want to make sure you feel loved...I've created an artist's rendering of a picture of the three of us.



I'm truly pleased at how Dave's hair turned out.

A Little Perspective

"Be courteous to all, but intimate with few, and let those few be well tried before you give them your confidence. True friendship is a plant of slow growth, and must undergo and withstand the shocks of adversity before it is entitled to the appellation. " -George Washington

It's hard to keep perspective sometimes when living in a town like LA. You forget sometimes that having only a few true friends is better than having a hundred acquaintances and that the people who will help you move (four times) or take you to the airport (at 6am) are the people that really matter. Working short term freelance jobs makes it easy to make friends, but so hard to keep them around. In LA everyone seems to be too busy or have so many side projects that it's hard to get quality time in with the people you want to be closer to. It makes me miss high school and my friends who would sneak into my locker to clean it or living in the dorms and getting surprise visits from friends at all hours of the night just to talk. I've been in one of those funks lately and just as I was filling the balloons and hanging streamers for my own private pity party I got an e mail from my best friend and went out on a date with a handsome boy....it keeps things in perspective...I have it pretty good...although that probably won't stop me from complaining from time to time.....but anyway...here's to the people that matter. :)

Turns out...Nate IS great.

After reading Nate's blog about his organic produce delivery, Chris and I went online and did a little research. We found a company called ParadiseO that delivers fresh and organic fruits and vegetables weekly to our doorstep!!! How can you not love this idea????? Seriously, it's been awesome and has changed a lot of the way we eat. We're actually making salads for dinner-something I love to do, but find to be hard to arrange on a weeknight. Today we got our third delivery- kiwis, peaches, bananas, grapes, celery, cherry tomatoes, spinach and lettuce!!! THANKS FOR THE GREAT IDEA NATE!!!! maybe next is large quanities of frozen beef.......maybe we'll hold off on that.



Indy update: after a month long bout with.....wait for it....mange (eek!), Indy was diagnosed as mange free on Thursday and will now be called our mangy mutt as a term of endearment and not as an actual fact. As a celebratory gift I bought him a kiddy pool for the backyard. We'll have him swimming the English Channel in no time!

The Update

Since a lot has happened in the last few months before I decided to start this blog (still not sure if this is a good idea) I should probably bring us all up to speed on what's been going on. Chris and I moved into a house that we are renting in Reseda. It's a great place for us to be right now and despite the ridiculous cost of rent and paying for our own trash and sewer, I am happier in this house than I have been anywhere in LA. It's wonderful to not share walls with anyone and to be able to pull into my own driveway...not to mention how much I've been missing a backyard!!

Chris is still working at the Ant Farm as an assistant editor for movie trailers and TV spots. I think he likes it but is antsy and chomping at the bit to become an editor. As of December 2006 I have been working for Pie Town Productions as a Casting Associate Producer for an HGTV real estate show. It's been decent work and most importantly a steady paycheck and as of a couple weeks ago found out I'm being promoted to Segment Producer! I'm a little nervous about all the new details I'll be responsible for, but am excited for the challenge...and even more excited about the new paycheck!

The biggest news in the last few months has been the addition of a new member to our family...or as my godfather would say...the addition of our first freeloader. A big reason Chris and I both wanted to move into a house was our desire to get a puppy!! On May 2nd Chris sent me pictures of the cutest puppy ever!!!





I immediately filled out the application for the little sucker and got a phone call from the rescue agency. That Saturday Chris and I went to meet the scruffers and instantly fell in love. After what seemed like a lengthy process, including a home visit where they checked out our 'situation', we finally were able to pick up our bundle of love a week after first seeing his picture online. We've named him Indy.....short for Indiana. He's a boxer mix and when we got him he was probably less 13 or 14 weeks old and weighed about 20 pounds. 2 months later he weighs between 45 and 50lbs. He's enormous!! Check out his pictures!


This was the first day we met him at a Petco in West Hollywood!








Our first night at home with him!









About a month later...he just curled up in my lap and fell asleep...what a snuggle bug!



We've had our crazy moments where I just don't think I can handle it anymore...the teething, the digging, the chewing, but I love this dog so much and I can't imagine coming home and not seeing him peeking around the corner wagging his tail so excited to see me. He's incredibly smart and already knows how to sit, lay down, shake hands, give high five, crawl, stay and can even box! That's our boy!!

First Blog (aka "ashamed")

So I'm not even really sure how this works. This is my first posting to my first blog...and I'm ashamed. I'm not even sure what the draw to doing this is...but I've started to enjoy reading the blogs of my family (thanks meg) and like that I feel somehow connected to people that I can't see and talk to as often as I'd like. So here goes. My first attempt. We'll see how it goes.