Celebrating Me

I started this post awhile back and am just now getting around to finishing it. Normally, I'd just let it go, but since it was my birthday weekend (June 6-8), I figured it's worth writing about.

Anyway, my birthday weekend had all the elements I wanted: fun, friends, family, and relaxation. It was also a wonderful way to kick off summer, which hadn't officially started yet, but I was pretending it was.

Friday:

Work as usual. My friend Jessica bought me a present (some candy, sunscreen, a candle, and a beautiful card) in this lovely blue bag:



Crazy Daisy featured me on her blog in a weekly meme she's doing called Pay It Forward Friday. She had some very nice things to say about me, which made a good pre-birthday gift for me. Thank you, Crazy Daisy!

A group of us went out to lunch at the Gourmet Pizza Shoppe. I took a few pictures with my point and shoot, but they are really bad quality due to the fact that I had to use the flash. I'm too lazy to edit them. So, here you are: really bad pictures of some of my unnameable homies from work.



After lunch, I got some bad news. I found out that the graduate committee had not passed my thesis proposal. Naturally, this did not make me very happy and thus warrants a hopefully short tangent.

Begin tangent.

Hearing the news that my thesis proposal needs revision really kind of blew me away. Yes, I did not put a lot of effort into it this past quarter, but a lot of work went into it in the quarter before. I am very disappointed in myself for not working on it continuously throughout the quarter, because by the time I submitted it to my readers, they only had a short time with it before they had to let me know whether or not it could be sent up to the committee.

However, I am trying to be too hard on myself, because I busted my ass each and every day this quarter in my internship and fairy tales class. It's not like I was just being a lazy mofo. I was giving 150% to other things, which caused me to neglect my proposal. And to be honest, my proposal was good. It really was. From what I understand, the committee wants me to approach my subject in a different way. And well, no amount of good writing can make up for the fact that I'm not a mind reader.

The worst part? Because of this, I will not be able to resubmit my proposal until the fall. (The committee doesn't meet during the summer.) That means that I won't graduate in December. This has been very hard for me to accept. A week and a half later, I am finally beginning to come to terms with it. But I won't lie - it's upsetting.

End tangent.

After work, I went to get a massage. My back, neck, and shoulders had been giving me issues all week, so I called up my massage therapist Reuven and had him fit me in. I hadn't been to see Reuven since the day before my wedding (almost a year ago), so it was good to catch up with him. I am supposed to get monthly massages because I have a mild case of scoliosis, but as insurance does not cover it, sometimes I have to skip them.

As usual, the massage was wonderful, and I drove home feeling all wiggly.

A little later on, Roy walked me to Mandy's for a night of Bunco. Bunco is this really fun dice game, and Mandy is a member of a couple of Bunco groups. She was hosting the get-together for the month of June and needed a replacement. That's where I came in.

The theme of the get-together was "The Honeymoon's Over," pretty appropriate considering Mandy's recent wedding. Mandy served "moldy" wedding cake for dessert and put pimple cream on her face. This photo whore took a lot of detail shots:








But once the game started, I put down the camera and joined the party. I had forgotten how loud and screechy a big group of women can be, but it was screechiness I enjoyed. I had a really great time playing. I even won a prize for being the second highest scorer!

Paul and Mandy walked me home after the game was over. Roy had gone out for the evening but returned soon after me with a bag full of birthday goodies. It was about 11:00 PM, so I was able to rationalize opening my gifts before my actual birthday.

I was absolutely thrilled to see that Roy had bought me a new iPod. My old iPod was a third generation dinosaur that hadn't held a charge on its own in a couple of years. Now I have a brand spanking new 80GB iPod classic that I have named Silver Bullet. Silver Bullet and I are already great friends.




Saturday (my birthday!)

We woke up early (as usual) and went to the Farmer's Market with Mandy and Paul later on that morning.



I found a cool box from 1955 at an antique shop nearby.



After we were done, we went to Mandy and Paul's to see the dog they found.



Our original plans for the day were to spend the afternoon at the Huntington Gardens, but as we had plans for that night, we decided to stay local. I had developed a headache, so I spent the afternoon resting and watching our recent Netflix acquisitions.

Later that night, we all (me, Roy, Mandy, Paul, and Jake) piled into my mother-in-law's van and drove out to Orange County for murder mystery dinner theatre. I have been wanting to go to one of these events for quite awhile. It was loads of fun. On the way there, this was our soundtrack. (Just click it. You won't be sorry.)

We hung out in the bar for awhile before they let us into the dining area.



I noticed this man's very interesting hairdo.



I didn't take many good pictures during the dinner production. I was preoccupied with all that was going on, but here are a few shots (including the best one I got of one of the cast members):




All in all, I really enjoyed the performance and would recommend that others go and enjoy themselves. The dinner was good, too, but they piled all of the food together, which made me kind of lose my appetite. (Food phobias will do that to a person.) It was a really great way to celebrate my birthday, though. We even got to take a picture with the cast members.



I already have forgotten what we did on Sunday, but I seem to recall that it involved my being very, very lazy.

So that was my birthday weekend. It was a really great time - and a wonderful way to ring in the last year of my 20s.

I've got mail. Really cool mail!

Last week was an awesome mail week, but I just haven't had time to blog about it until now. Here's why I love the postman right now:

1) Claire sent me two CDs (sorry, her blog is private). We have very similar taste in music and decided to do a music swap awhile back. So I got some awesome music for free. What's not to like about that? Thank you, Claire!

2) I got four packages of Polaroid film in and got to bust it out for Mandy's wedding.

3) My Desperate Housewives swap partner Robyn sent me some awesome stuff! She really did go above and beyond the call of the swap. We were only required to send three things, but she sent way more than that. And all of it is stuff to feed my creative soul. Thanks so much, Robyn! You are incredibly thoughtful.



It's hard to see everything in the picture above, but she sent four post-it pads, a sketch pad, a journal, modeling clay, and Stardust on DVD. Thanks to Kimberly for graciously hosting the swap!

I'm thinking of hosting a music swap this summer. I think it would be awesome to trade music with a stranger. What do you guys think? Is this something you'd participate in?

For the Mind and the Eye

Today Roy and I went to the Riverside International Film Festival. This has been going on since last weekend, and I found out about it earlier this week. Due to current time constraints, we could only attend for a little while, so we decided to go see a selection of surrealistic short films.

I am a huge fan of Surrealism, so this felt like it was right up my alley. We started off with Dislandia, which was by far the weirdest of the bunch. It was a 29-minute film starring a young girl wearing an insanely poofy dress, a brace on one leg, and a papier-mache (or some similar-looking material) mask on her face. This film made no sense whatsoever. It was, however, a very jarring assault on the senses, with loud screechy music, jumpy editing, and a rambling plotline. There were a couple of times during this film when I felt nauseated. If the film was meant to be an experience, it definitely was. On the whole, I enjoyed it, despite its utter strangeness. I did feel that it was weird for the sake of being weird, but I appreciated its uniqueness anyway. The creator was actually there, and we got to ask him some questions and hear some interesting trivia about the movie (like the mask the little girl wore is actually made of pig intestines!).

The second film we watched was a very short, calming film featuring all sorts of bodies of water as its main (and only) characters. It was called Tirol - Land of Water, and it was a nice reprieve from the strange world of Dislandia. The song that accompanied the six-minute film was very soothing and beautiful.

After that, we watched Folly of Two, a funny and engaging film that was obviously inspired by the works of great playwrights Samuel Beckett and Harold Pinter. The film features a foul-mouthed old man named Ben, who meets up with young(er) Ben, and as they argue about poo, circumcision, and the guy who sent Ben a mysterious note, they wake up in some other place. This new place contains a baby crib, a mural of the Last Supper, some fake-looking birds in a cage, and some sort of strange elevator that moves from floor to floor at random. Eventually, after several different plot twists, Ben and Gus escape the strange place by using the elevator as a means to transport themselves to freedom.

The fourth movie was called Glimpse, and like Tirol - Land of Water, it was very short. This one was actually animated, and it reminded me of one of those books where you flip through the pages and watch a story unfold. Glimpse was very colorful, though, and didn't really have a plot.

Lastly, we watched a really cool movie called Outsource. It was basically a commentary on the human-machine relationship, and it presented the audience with a world in which human beings act as the hub of machines. As human beings on the outside world grow frustrated with their different machines, they push the reset button - and the person who is controlling the offending machine is violently shocked. It was a really interesting take on artificial intelligence, power, and the future - and definitely my favorite of the bunch.

I'm really glad we went to the festival. I was really hoping for that festival experience - watching really different movies in really old/historic theatres, but no such luck. The festival was held in a regular old movie theatre, but at least we got some exposure to new films. I'm always on the lookout for interesting and creative endeavors, and these five shorts definitely fit the bill.

What Desperation Can Do to a Woman

I signed up for a Desperate Housewives Swap. The idea is to send items to another desperate housewife to help make her life less desperate. I'm not a housewife, but it still sounds good to me!



The last swap I participated in was tons of fun, and I think this one will be just as fun. I could use some good mail. If anyone wants to join in, go here for details!

Romance is in the air...

We had an amazing weekend, and one of the best parts of it is that it's a 3 day weekend (for me, but not for Roy). We kicked off Saturday by attending Roy's aunt Ruth's 50th birthday party. Ruth is a Valentine baby, so the theme of the party was, of course, all things Valentiney.




We convinced everyone to have cake before lunch, because we couldn't stay long, and once I found out it was red velvet cake, I was dying to have some. It was so good that I had 2 pieces! Then we had some lunch, and with our tummies full, we drove out to the Morey Mansion Inn for our romantic night of Victorian decadence.

As I said before, I have been admiring this house from afar for years. It proved to be even more amazing once we got there and went exploring. (I ended up taking about 400 pictures of the house and grounds, and I will be sharing some of them in future posts.) After a couple of hours of wandering around and then resting, we got ready to go to dinner at Les Rendezvous. I felt very stylish and stuff in my special ensemble.



Les Rendezvous is a French restaurant that Roy and I have gone to together a couple of times, all for special occasions (the last time we went was almost 2 years ago on the night we got engaged). The food is excellent, the prices are high (to us), and I have never left unsatisfied. We ordered a bottle of Riesling, and I really enjoyed it. I am not a wine person, so I'm always happy to find something I like.



We started off with the scampi au pernod on toast, which is what we always get for an appetizer when we go there. It is so amazing! I don't have any pictures of the scampi, because we just dove right in, like this:



Finally, I came to my senses and took tons of pictures through the rest of the meal. I had my big ass camera with its big ass lens out, and hopefully everyone thought I was a food critic. We were both transfixed by one server who was constantly playing with fire, as he prepared a spinach salad dressing tableside.



Before dinner, I had a salad with the incredibly tasty house dressing (some kind of vinaigrette), and Roy had the vichyssoise, which was also incredibly tasty. And then it was time for the main course. I had ostrich a la echalotte (ostrich in a shallot and brandy sauce), and Roy had filet mingon with bernaise sauce.



I'd never had ostrich before, and I was pleasantly surprised to find out how yummy it was. Roy's filet was amazing as well. We took our time eating and savored every morsel, and of course we saved room for dessert. I had chocolate mousse, and Roy had chocolate creme brulee.



Was it awesome? Hellz yeah!



One of the waitstaff members took this picture of us.



And we took these pictures of each other. I think they are so cute.



At this point, I was so totally stuffed, but I was cold also. So we went through the Starbucks drive thru and got a white chocolate mocha for me. It pretty much sent me over the edge, and after I drank it, I was uncomfortably full, almost to the point of nausea. We laid in the uber comfortable bed in our room and talked for awhile and then decided to go to sleep. I did not sleep well at all. I had forgotten about the train that runs through the canyon near the inn, and so I was awakened at least once every couple of hours by a train whistle. I also think the late-night coffee had a lot of do with my not sleeping well too.

We woke up early and went downstairs for breakfast. Janet, the inn's proprieter, made us pancakes and fruit.



Her dog, Lady, was so cute and totally knew it.



Janet was a very gracious host, and she spent a lot of time talking with us about the history of the Morey Mansion. I so wished my uncle Charles (who is an architect) could have been with us, because the house was truly amazing. Everywhere we looked, there were breathtaking details, stunning woodwork, and charming knick knacks. Staying there was worth every single expensive penny. It's amazing how one night out of our element really helped us reconnect, slow down, and appreciate the basics: good food, relaxation, and love.



Now we are back home with the cats, the laundry that needs to be done, the dishes that need to be washed, the homework that needs to be completed, but we are better people for having done this for ourselves. Further posts (full of pictures) will prove this, I promise.