karen's story

(karen, correct me if i'm wrong) but i had to get this in here before i forget, one day when shawn was a little kid, he got dressed up to go hunting for bears, and he was so young, his hair was still blond and long. so he tells everyone he's going bear hunting, and walks down this long dark hallway, and they could all hear him growling like a bear, and moments later, shawn came running out from the hallway, his eyes wide with fear, and telling them all how he found a bear. hahahah!!!

happy holidays!

the first picture is really for my mother who's afraid i'm not eating anything. but shawn could attest that i'm eating everything. hence the fat arms.

the emmy's & edward murrow awards are mine of course. ;) they belong to someone shawn & i just met over the holidays. won't put his name here to spare a google hit.

christmas eve was spent at loew's hotel restaurant where we had a 4 course dinner with really terrific friends and family. because i love to eat, i have to describe my meal. cocktails consisted of a belvedere dirty martini & red wine. 1st course: blue cheese stuffed figs wth broiled sugar on top & beef carpaccio (paper thin rare beef with roasted garlic and garlic bread). 2nd: sunflower sprout salad (containing toasted walnuts, sliced persimmons, & pomegranite seeds) in a sunflower vinagrette. 3rd: lobster flan (cooked with lobster claw meat) with grilled filet mignon (served with asparaus, mashed potatoes). 4th: coffee liquor cheesecake with white chocolate sauce (also had a cup of coffee -- the smoothest ever).

when i woke up christmas morning, i was still full from dinner. then for christmas dinner, we were invited to a spectacular home in the hancock park area. for those of you in the know, we were within blocks of jg's house. aaaaa!! christmas dinner consisted of spinach salad, turkey, sausage stuffing, brussel sprouts, mashed potatoes, mashed sweet potatoes, gravy, cranberry sauce. after dinner, yes of course we drove by jg's house (with great reluctance from shawn). then after that, we went to the frolic room and had cocktails. (a scene in the movie "l.a. confidential" where russel crowe grabbed and twisted some guy's balls was shot at the frolic room.) the last photo was shot right outside the bar.

a perfect birthday

after unpacking all but a few boxes, the apt looks more like home and my internal unrest is appeased. then we had some better than sex cake, cooked up some beef salad which was AWESOME!, then opened up the most coveted bottle of 2004 rochioli which we've been saving for six months for a special occasion. a most delicious wine, but in my opinion, not quite as good as in-and-out fries. oh! they make my eyes cross!

apt explosion

this is basically it. there's a dressing room with a vanity area, and then the bathroom. since moving here, we've had 12 hours of sleep every night with 3 hour naps during the day. i think we've caught up on all our sleep but we're both still sick and coughing. where's the left over turkey noodle soup when you want it!

might not be able to tell from these pictures, but there's tons of storage space in this apt.

bag of oranges (and pineapple in background) from the parking lot at home depot. we're about halfway through it and getting plenty of vitamin c and whatever vitamin it is that's coming out our faucets that's yellow in color.

today we went to venice beach and walked through the shopping strip with all kinds of street entertainment including a woman (i think it was a woman) with a blond wig, a leopard-patterned coat, and a headset mic who was telling someone, "i could do j-lo, i could do britney spears, i could do madonna, anything you want."

then we had lunch at naked sushi where we saw the most ungrateful, expressionless woman with black-dyed hair and pinched lips, repeatedly ordering something different every time the waitress came by. at one point we overheard her saying, "and i'm not paying for this" and she pulled what i think was hair from her plate and threw it on the floor. the guy with her was eating too but on his cell phone half the time.

baked a better than sex cake tonight and realized i was probably baking my own birthday cake! shawn says he has something planned but that it'd have to wait until the end of the day. . .

a moment to post

we fled columbus 11/30 around 10pm when we were finally packed and loaded. (a shout out to cq for saving our asses at the last minute, holy crap, we didn't see that snafu coming!) i guess you could say we didn't expect the packing & loading would take so long. it was 10 degrees and blistering cold when we left. there wasn't spare room in that van for anything else. we threw away a lot of stuff, and we had to push the van doors closed. exhausted, we drove for only 2 hours and spent the night in cozad, ne, where we had to unload all the plants (jasmines, yucca, cacti, hot pepper, herbs) out of the freezing cold van to the hotel room.

the following day, we woke up with full blown colds and drove all the way to van nuys and viewed the apartment around 1pm. i was sort of disappointed, and after unloading the van, we slept for what we had planned on being only 5 hours, but turned into 12. woke up around 5am with the cargo van pimped out in the back for sleeping. we were SO tired, driving and sleeping in shifts for the next 26 hours. arrived at omaha around noon 12/4. khamphy had a little party for us, and we made spring rolls and sang some kick-ass karaoke. then we slept like dead people that night.

during our third 26-hour trip back to california with a fever and stuffy nose, it finally dawned on me that perhaps this method of moving (though it was cheaper than all the other alternatives) was definitely NOT reasonable. it would've been cheaper to buy new furniture here than to do what we did. and MUCH less exhausting.

after 4 days of unpacking, buying cleaning supplies, and scrubbing, the apt is starting to come together, and it's kind of neat seeing our stuff in a new place. it wasn't exactly filthy. shawn said that if he were living here by himself, he wouldn't have scrubbed the place down at all. but my bare feet turned black after walking across the kitchen floor! blech!

on 12/7, we were out shopping for cleaning supplies when we witnessed an accident. i didn't hear it, but all the sudden saw a cloud of glass shards and a black mercedes in the median. shawn said, "park the car, we gotta see if they're alright!" before i even put the car in park, shawn was already out and running across the street helping out the woman who struck the mercedes. apparently, the mercedes had run the red light at that intersection. the hispanic woman was leaning back in her chair, crying and in shock. hate to admit it but i did notice how nicely she had drawn in her eyebrows.

shawn called 911 on her cell phone. the guy in mercedes stumbled out and sort of staggered as we began walking away. a crowd of people were there by this time and a few of them followed the driver of the mercedes until he got as far as half a block, then the witnesses told him he had to come back. when he did, he walked right to where i was standing and by this time, the fire dept & lapd arrived and when they identified him as the other driver, they told him to sit down in the patch of grass in front of me. he didn't want to be transported to the hospital. but when he saw that the other woman was being hauled away in a gurney, he started to wince and moan in pain and laid down in the grass rolling around as if in pain. so the emt's hauled him off in a gurney too and put him in the same vehicle as the woman he hit! can you imagine the conversation going on during the ride to the hospital!

later that night, we went to the home depot for bolts, and shawn saw a short japanese man trying to load a huge box containing a new toilet into this tiny little car. so he hurried over and helped the guy. dang, i think he may have used up all his good samaritan points for the year. when we left the home depot, 2 hispanic guys carved a piece of pineapple and cut up some oranges for us and we bought a 20 lb bag of oranges and 2 sweet pineapples, both for $12.

at ralph's grocery yesterday, avocadoes and pineapples are $1/each. the swiss chard is crisp and fresh. i actually heard a woman on her cell phone exclaim, "can you believe i'm here doing my own shopping!" it was a ralph's that was close to the hills, and i had my hair in a bun with sweatpants on. i told shawn that we spotted jg, that he was required to let me run away.

yesterday, i took the written driver's exam for a CA license and while i was in there taking the exam, the examiner kicked out 2 korean guys who were apparently cheating. the older korean kept saying "dao!" i think that might be "no". the both of them kept coming back wanting to finish their exams but the examiner kept saying, "get out of here, i ain't in any kind of mood for cheaters. can't stand for no cheaters." it was hilarious!

we still have loads of stuff to unpack but it's coming together slowly. we're going to ikea and then to the beach today. hopefully it wont be too cold. hah! i can't believe that i'm thinking 60 degrees is too cold!