stupid body

so my body is doing this new thing right now. it's deciding it only needs about 6 hours of sleep no matter what time i go to bed. last night i hit the sack around 10pm because i was sleepy and not feeling well and HELLO FOUR A.M.! i was wide awake and just laying there.

nextdoor to my bedroom is my neighbors fence and security light. every once in a while, at night, the light goes on for "no apparent reason." well i think last night i figured it out. it went off shortly after i woke up and when i peeked out the window there was a rat on the fence! eeeee! i love rats! they are the cutest things ever. he was hanging out on the fence just eating a little snack and he tripped the light. that makes me laugh for some reason.

then i did some internet research and tried very hard not to play on-line scrabble.

then i fell back asleep. (worst thing ever)

then i woke up at 8am and went to the gym. (feeling like ass)

do you know what? if you have your yahoo! photos accessible to "the world" on your photo page it really does mean THE WORLD. this morning i was doing a search on lake sonoma and the link to MY photo page came up. hmmm. interesting.

you know what else? i love when i find out that people read my blog and i had no idea. my most awesome, prior intern from the A.R.T., Lauren, IM'd me today and told me that i am a rockstar and that she makes all her friends read my blog and then says, why can't WE do fun things like that?!?! to which i replied, what? getting trashed every weekend? hahaha. (what about that other person you found out was reading your blog?--ed.) oh yeah! i also found out that my friend sandi's friend who lives in woodside is reading my shit too! yay for people who are easily distracted at work!

but then i seriously thought about it because misty has also gotten the "i hope that when i am your age i am having fun like you do" kinda blog comment too. (my former intern is 23) i think that we get to have so much fun now because we are no longer really concerned with what other people are thinking of us, we just go out and do whatever and have a great time. i guess a good example of that would be when lyne, kristen and i went to lake sonoma and did physical activity challanges all day in the water. or when misty, ethan and i blew off work to go to Six Flags...at 5 in the morning so we could get in for free. or when misty, jojo, stein and i went to LA to preview our Jem and the Holograms costumes for halloween and had a county fair party in scott's apartment (complete with deep frying everything we could get our hands on). or ya know, dancing in the bowling lane.

so that was my big poignant thought for the day.

then i took a nap.

and then i went to school and found out that the week that i am in boston for my dad's wedding (heh-heh-hello?) is my last class where we are supposed to give these big group presentations. the teacher was all:

teacher: where will you be?
hez: east coast
teacher: why?
hez: my dad's wedding
teacher: when is it?
hez: sunday
teacher: well class is on tuesday so it sounds like you have some wiggle room to be back here.
hez: blank stare
teacher: you should really consider coming back for class because the presentation is ONE THIRD of your grade
hez: blank stare
teacher: you really should
hez: ok, well i look into it and see what i can do [parenthetical statement] (mmm yeah, riiight)

and then she let us out early.
you dance in the lanes too, right?

all lyne all the time

thursday, negmeddin and i went to medjool for the first time. the food was sooooo good but the ambience left much to be desired. what is it with san francisco restaurants, man? they are always so loud. i understand that is probably unavoidable given the type of architecture here available to restauranters, but every yummy place i go to is in these huge, lofty type places that bounce the voices all around and throws them back at you. even my alltimefavorite restaurant, RNM has this problem.

friday i stayed home. i was just so exhausted all i wanted to do was lay on my couch and watch a movie and eat ice cream.

saturday lyne and i went to the boom boom room to see The Push play, negmeddin's band. i had never been there and was surprised that it was a yuppie/bridger crowd. who knew? the push was awesome! and i am not biased when i say this but, negmeddin kinda kicks ass on drums, especially since he is SINGING at the same time. unfortunatley, it was really hot and crowded so lyne and i left after my boy's band was done.

sunday lyne and i went to delores park to lay in the sun and play scrabble. i was totally kicking ass on the first game and then this big, giant dog came right onto our blanket, right between us and stomped all over the board with his big doggy paws. (lucky for lyne ;) lyne totally kicked ass the second game but we never finished because we were hungry, had to pee and there was some kind of native american/latino festival in the park and in between local hip-hop performers were screechy-voiced activists um, actively activating. heh.

we went back to lyne's and had some yummy minestrone soup that she made and made our way to zeitgeist for a beer or two (or three) and a tamale. yay! there we ran into mark and martha, friends' of lyne. we left as soon as the sun dipped behind the trees. brrr!

lyne won!

H&L at the zeigeist.

local hipsters in the smokey sunbeams.

today i went to the beach! yay! i LOVE rodeo beach and today it wasn't foggy over there, tho very windy. however, if i just stayed flat it wasn't too bad. as soon as i sat up the arctic wind hit me.

it's official

i don't like dogs. they smell, they drool and they lick other dogs pee off the sidewalk.

this week i have been dog-walking a weimaraner who belongs to a co-worker of a friend. i LOVE weimaraners, however jack (the dog) is CRAZY. he's a puller. even on his little pinch collar. its not a relaxing dog walking experieince. he's all over the place. i can't let him "off leash" (as dog owners say) and i am dying to take him to fort funston. it's not gonna happen.

today i went to the gym and while i was reading my new yorker on the eliptical trainer i read this comic that made me laugh out loud. the scene is at dog level of two police drug dogs sitting next to each other. you can see their handlers from the knees down. the dogs look at each other and one says, "you know, i'm starting to like the smell of cocaine." ha!

i was out working in my front garden today and my nextdoor neighbor came buy to tell me that she kicked a guy off my front steps this morning who was smoking a crackpipe. like at 10am. awesome. then she went on to tell me that a few years ago, in my side yard her and her partner found a stash of heroin and cocaine. i'm wondering how she actually knew that it was heroin AND cocaine but then she goes on to say that they did the "coke on your gums test" on both, flushed the heroin and DID the cocaine. i was like, you did drugs that you found ON THE STREET?!? she was all, "yeah, it was pretty good stuff, like grade two." uh...what the hell?

a little later my other neighbor tom came out to chat with me as i was working on the garden that borders his walkway. so i'm sitting on my little gardening stool with my back to the street and as we're talking, this guy pulls up in a car, stops in front of my house pulls out a camera and takes a picture. i was like, what the hell? and tom says, "well, he's either taking a picture of your house or of your ass." i love tom.

wednesdays are weird days for me. i'm usually depressed on wednesdays and i can't figure out why. i feel like just laying around on my couch and watching movies. today was no different but i managed to keep myself busy for a while (gym, dogwalking, gardening) before got i cozy to watch a flick. i fell immediately asleep and woke up at 5pm. awesome! then i went to meet my friend, june, for dinner and then went to get dragged around hayes valley by jack.

Cassanova, The Arrow, LAC, GAMH, The Hemlock and Being Crafty

Two Words: Rockstar Weekend

One thing that is really great about not working is that when you have a party weekend Monday isn’t that big a deal.

Friday I met Misty, Ted, JoJo, Steve and Scott and Lisa and we all went over to Cassanova’s where the party erupted. Where we drank waaaay too much. Where we suddenly had to go to Club 6 to see DJ Common at an after party. Once we got there the line was waaaay too long and the cover was waaaay too expensive. We moved it on over to the Arrow and continued to drink waaaay too much while we listened to obscure, late 70’s music. I decided that Bryce needed to come out so called him and boy! What a rockstar! He waltzed in at 1am, chugged 3 gin and tonics, did a shot and then we hit the dance floor and rocked the Sex Pistols', Road Runner. Then we all decided to go to the End Up which never quite happened. I woke up the next morning waaay too hungover. Pictures here.

Favorite quote of the night: I was telling Scott that the best part of driving for 9 hours was being able to listen to Queensryche and sing at the top of my lungs, to which Scott replied, “You listened to 9 hours of Queesnryche?!?!” Hell yeah!


Saturday I woke up waaaay too early but rallied and actually did some stuff and tried to prepare for my big night out to see the Ex-Boyfriends and Loquat at GAMH, which should’ve been me napping but instead it was me picking out my outfit like 800 times. I met Negmeddin at the LAC for a few pre-show cocktails, holy crap their drinks are strong! Willo, Lynnie and Lulu picked us up and off we went. Yay! to Bagel Ted for putting me on the list + one. The Ex-BF’s were so good! It was awesome to see them in such a large space! I didn’t really watch the middle band, Citizens Here and Abroad, but at one point I thought, did Loquat go on? I was excited to see Loquat live as I am so loving them right now (I just sounded like Willo). Darren has an excellent recount of an awesome conversation we had. After the show we all moved to the Hemlock to meet up with the Scott and Lisa crew and we drank waaaay too much (I see a theme). Pictures here.

Favorite Foggy Memory of the Night: I don’t even remember how we decided to leave but Willo informed me that when she asked if we were going I held up my hand in the sign language “C” and when she gave me a questioning look I said: CAB. HAHAHA.

Today Jem, Willo, Lyne, Lucia and Mai came over for craft day. I was SO hungover that I couldn’t focus on anything and was just jumping up and down between my serger and making a necklace and then doing nothing. We took a burrito break at La Corneta and awaited the imminent burrito coma while we watched the latest episode of Stella. This is the most boring blog ever.

So the last episode of Six Feet Under? So sad. I got all teary eyed at the montage during the end and felt a little suspicious at all the “closure” and understanding and accepting looks. You?

Motley Crue vs The Darkness

In repsonse to Misty's blog post (please read first)...Was Motley Crue a serious band? Yes they were. Though yes, in their later years they moved into the dangerous area of hair metal, but prior to that, Too Fast For Love and Shout at the Devil are two of the best, serious metal records out there. We can call it 80's metal but only because those two albums existed in the 80's and not because they are indicative of bands thought of as traditional 80's metal, i.e. Cinderella, Warrant and Poison, to name a few.

To put it in perspective you have to consider what was currently happening on Sunset Strip at the birth of the Crue. Punk and glam were dying out and heavier, dirtier bands were emerging and taking their cues from the bands that came before. Hence the make-up and giant hair, though the sound was anything but pretty. This was also the era of Guns n’ Roses, a more refined version of Motley Crue. What we don’t realize, twenty years later, is that prior to G n’R no metal/rock sound like that existed simultaneously with the costume aspects of glam . One could say that Motely Crue were pioneers in that time and that G n’R were their protégé, taking the best aspects of the Crue and leaving the schlock behind (leather boy outfits). Of course the argument can go one further to say that Motely Crue were just following in the footsteps of Kiss.

What is ironic about Tommy Lee’s interview on Rhapsody is that he is actually missing the point of The Darkness for The Darkness are not really poking fun at metal bands. They are borrowing all that is great from metal and creating a fresh, new metal sound for the millennia and the metal persona that they are borrowing from is not even American Metal. It’s English Metal. Hello? Saxon.

Tommy Lee perceives The Darkness to be making fun of [metal] rock, but in truth it is quite obvious that The Darkness is only honoring metal and their forbearers. They are reviving a dying art and bringing back the true nature of the rock, albeit they are doing it in stripped spandex, but one must realize had these boys grown up in the Midwest, they would be reviving this metal genre in pink, metallic spandex, not matte pink and white stripes. Here, The Darkness is fulfilling its past while taking cues from English metal culture and societal norms.

Perhaps Tommy Lee projects his distaste for this form of metal because he is not settled with his own hair-metal past? While the first two Crue albums were raw, gut-grinding, headbanging masterpieces worthy of serious reflection, we cannot ignore the beginning of the end of the band on Theatre of Pain and of course the final demise of true metal and its reception into full-fledged, hair-metal on Girls, Girls, Girls.

In conclusion, it is obvious that one cannot compare Motley Crue to The Darkness and the pictures included speak for themselves. Which one of these don't belong? Though they are both metal bands, they each come from competing genres within the metal spectrum. American vs. English. Heavy Metal vs. Schlock Metal and, finally, Hair-Metal vs. Working Class Metal.

For further information check out the entry in Wikipedia it’s pretty informative, however I do not agree with some of the bands they consider hair metal. Girlschool? Come on.

road trip!

Monday I drove to Corvallis, Oregon...completely hungover. You know what? That is not the way to drive 571 miles, 9 hours, with the sun beating down on you for 6 of those hours, with no a/c. I left at noon, which is also not a recommended time to leave when you have 9 hours to drive, but around 3pm my hangover wore off!

So I am cruising along in my totally manual car (no cruise control man!) and there is a minivan behind me for awhile. Then I take off my hoodie and all of a sudden the mini van speeds up and is driving along side of me on this two lane highway and I glance over and driving is this guy and in the passenger seat is probably a 13 year old boy. As I look in their direction, they both start waving at me.

I wave back and then they drop back behind me. A few minutes later they speed up again and I delay looking over, but I do and this is what I see:

In case you can't read that sign, it says "You're Hot!"

I totally cracked up and then zipped off (you know, after taking the picture) but I was thinking, who are these people? Like, is this a dad and his son? The rest of the drive was uneventful. No admirers.

When I lived in Cambridge, my next door neighbors were this woman Nikki and her husband Stephen. Nikki was probably my first “grown-up” friend. Someone I didn’t meet at a job or in school or something and it was cool because, believe it or not, I pretty much keep to myself, more so back then, and she was the first woman to actively pursue me as a friend. Naturally, I loved her for that! We figured out this week that we have been friends for ten years. That just floors me.

About 7 years ago they left Boston for Oregon because her husband got a job at OSU. Since then they bought a house, got a dog and had two kids! And since we are now both on the same side of the nation, I needed to visit.

Corvallis is um, nice. It’s small, which doesn’t bother me. I always entertain the idea of living in a small town, and it’s full of those Craftsman houses that I love so much. The problem with Corvallis is the fucking hippies. I saw actual tie-dyes in rotation AND Birkenstocks…TOGETHER! The other thing was every woman there either had a kid or two or was pregnant. It was really weird. And they were all so into it. They were kinda “in your face” about it. Kinda militia about it. No, not really but as an example we met up with Nikki’s friend who has a kid and is also pregnant. So Nikki’s kid and the woman’s kid are playing and something goes wrong and someone cries and mom’s yell/console and then the woman turns to me and says, “Doesn’t it make you want to procreate?!” In that total way which means either that she is envious that I haven’t yet procreated or that she recognizes that I am in their age group and don’t have kids. You know what I mean? It’s almost like a judgment thing. Because you know what? Yeah, I do want to procreate and you know what else? You have no idea what is going on with me. What if I couldn’t HAVE kids. How insensitive would THAT statement have been? Ugh. Ok rant? Done.

So, I have a new boyfriend now. His name is Corbin. He has the right amount of independence but still needs me. He loves to show me things he’s created. He tells me he loves me, often, and then he tells me how much. He makes sure I have everything I need like water or cookies. He wants to sit next to me all the time. He cuddles with me in the morning. He is three.

corbin and hez

Nikki’s two kids are the most beautiful children in the world and she is such a good mom! I was totally in awe of her and how she manages. Her kids are so well behaved, thoughtful and considerate. Her house was beautiful and funky and I am so proud of her! It was so nice to see her and we had some time to catch up amidst the swimming lessons and playing.

Nikki, Alden and Hez

Oregon actually has a summer and it was the best feeling in the world to be warm and to sleep with the window open and have a nice warm breeze on you (as I write this I have my heat on in my house) but it is really nice to be home. The older I get the more I realize that I really like my space and my stuff and it’s less fun to be thrown into someone else’s space and stuff. Ya dig? photos here.

Dear DJ iPod,

You got to play for a full 18 hours on my trip yet you chose to play the same 60 songs over and over again? Why DJ iPod? Are the rest of the songs not that fun to play? Are you such a big Clash fan that you have to pick a song from them every 3 songs? Are Jamiroqui, Helmet and Adam Ant your all time favorite bands? Is that why you played them 8 million times on my trip?

Love, Hez

berkeley, brunch and the LAC

i am currently in love with a pair of pants made by North Face. oh, they're just cute little canvas capri hiking pants, but i love them and i must have them. they proved to be pretty elusive in the city and at the largest shopping mall in the world, the internet -- so i drove out to the north face outlet in berekely. waste of time and a $3 toll. when i think outlet i don't think items priced at over $100.

on the way back i was in a comfort food mood and called misty to see if she wanted to come over for some johnsonville brats or get a burrito before we headed over to stein's "estate sale." lucky for me she was on her way to meet jojo for brunch at Home and invited me along. when i got there they both had two beautiful bloody mary's sitting in front of them and i immediately wanted one, even tho i don't really like bloody mary's and have never actually had one all my own. well Home has a "make your own bloody mary" bar. awesome! except, i wasn't really clear on how to make one great, like zeitgeist great. jojo ended up having a lot of bloody mary's to drink. derek and john ended up joining us towards the end and we hand over our table so they could eat and misty and i did a little shopping. ok misty shopped, i was like her clothing wingman.

we got to stein's and ate cookies and watched a Blind Date episode that contained a midget (awesome) and then watched last week's Stella. stein gave me some jew art which i just "had to have" and then we went to 24th street in noe. i've never actually walked that street and its so close to my house! i fell in love with a pair of Faryl Robin shoes that i must have (but haven't figured out how to pay for) for the two weddings i'll be attending in October and then we headed home.

do you remember Heavy Metal Parking Lot? (this website is awesome) well, the guy who made that gem, jeff krulik, has created a kind of Parking Lot series. trio, the cable channel, was having a marathon so i watched a few of those including, yanni parking lot, sci-fi convention parking lot, dollywood parking lot, WWE parking lot and cher. (on a side note, i'd actually like to see a "where are they now" heavy metal parking lot movie that features some of the kids in the original and what they are doing now. krulik, if you're reading -- get on that.)

then lyne called and we made our plans for a mini night out. we decided to go to doc's to have a beer or two but when we got there, doc's was closed for a private party so we landed at the LAC.
tonight i experienced something in SF that has never happened to me before: men actually coming up to two women and talking to them. i know that sounds totally silly to the rest of the world, but in this town (town: n. A population center that is larger than a village and smaller than a city.) it never happens. we had several incidences of this monumental occurance, including two (probably nice but totally irritating) english men. ok one was irish. they were just so overbearing and desperate. we were forced to use our bar names with them. actually i wasn't even prepared with my bar name (lulu) but when the engisher asked our names lyne busted out her bar name, lucy. i was so caught off guard and totally aware that lyne's bar name was similar to mine that i couldn't think of a proper back up that didn't feel like a fake name, i had to use lulu. i mean so obvious that we're using fake names, right? lucy and lulu. anyways, the englisher used a bogus story to talk to us. saying that his friend was down because his girlfriend left for finland today so they're out trying to cheer him up, could he bring him over to talk to two beatiful girls? turns out the girlfriend didn't belong to the irisher but to a friend of theirs. lame. (i love that i just called them lame for having a bar story when lyne and i used our bar names with them) we finally got them to leave and then we spotted a total cutey hanging out in the crowd and lyne somehow got him talking to us...Negmeddin, a totally hot, totally egyptian, funk drummer. i know! egyptian!?!? but yes, H.O.T. see?

also, please notice how hot lynnie is here. SMOKIN!

anyways, lyne chatted and i admired and all three of us totally rocked it.

.i love lyne.

egyptian boys are hott.

The Five Best Shows You Aren't Watching

I have five new comedy series to talk about which is really refreshing since we’ve been drowning in a sea of reality TV for a few years now. These are actual situation comedies, though none are filmed in front of a live audience, which I think is pretty daring. A few of these shows are following, what I predict to be, a new trend in TV where the writer/creator is one of the main characters in the show.

F/X is the star as it introduced two really funny series this summer. They are billing both of these shows as “the other side of comedy.”

Starved (Thursday 10pm) is about four friends who are all battling eating disorders. They attend AA-like meetings to discuss their failings that week and get yelled at by a drill sergeant-esque facilitator for their appalling eating-related behavior. The show focuses on each character as they go through their days dealing with binging, purging and obsessive weighing and measuring and how these actions interfere with their relationships. Though very funny, each show ends in a poignant moment of self-realization or self-ignorance as we watch the characters medicate themselves by various destructive behaviors.

What makes this show funny?
Though depicting people acting out serious eating disorders, most viewers will find the humor funny if not off beat. Sam, (lead character and creator, Eric Schaeffer) gets caught in embarrassing situations related to his habits. In moments of feeling worthless we witness him digging chocolate cake out of trash cans and eating it, and getting multiple colonics because he has discovered he looses about 3lbs per treatment. (A very funny scene happens when he accidentally insults his colonic facilitator and she leaves him on the table in mid-treatment. As he gets off the table he is crawling around the waiting room on all fours spewing water (and other stuff) out his ass.

OK this doesn’t sound funny, but trust me…it is.

The second show in F/X’s Thursday night line up is It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia (Thursdays 10:30pm). This show is created, written and executive produced by Rob McElhenney and Glenn Howerton, who star in the show with Charlie Day who is also a co-writer. A group of three men decide to buy a bar in Philly so that “they can meet women” and the sister of one completes the cast.

What makes this show funny?
While some of the story lines may seem run of the mill, what makes this show funny is the subtle humor of body language, facial expressions and interaction of the cast (along the lines of Arrested Development and Seinfeld). Think sarcasm. Think trying to pick up girls at an abortion protest and then switching sides because the girls are hotter on the pro-choice side.

Slings and Arrows is a comedy series on Sundance (Sundays 8pm). This series was created in 2003 and is about the inner workings of the New Burbage Theatre Festival, a Shakespearean theatre company.

What makes this show funny?
Two Words: It’s Canadian (which if you squint hard enough is almost like English comedy). Two more words: Mark McKinny of Kids in the Hall fame. Some more words: This may be funny only to viewers who have worked in a theatre. I did a few years ago and honest to god if they didn’t get it perfect, right down to the aging company star and the ambiguous sex of the artistic director. Watch it if you are, or have been, in any type of showbiz.

Showtime started a new series called Weeds (Mondays 10pm). Set in a suburban gated community called Agrestic, the lead character, Nancy Botwin (Mary Louise Parker), who lacks any marketable skills, is forced to deal pot to her neighbors in order to support her family after her husband has died. She balances between white suburban America (where she lives) and black inner city America (where she buys her pot) and wrestles with the morals and ethics of dealing.

Why this is funny.
It pokes fun at suburbia. The kid who plays Shane is pretty dang funny. When getting a run of insulting names spewed at him by a soccer teammate, Shane asks the kid to make up his mind…is it sissy boy, baby or vampire boy? (he was caught licking blood off his cut) and this request to clarify his insult only makes him more the outcast. Kevin Nealon is also in the cast as well as Elizabeth Perkins. And it turns out that everyone who lives at Agrestic are huge potheads. Funny!

If you haven’t done so already, please run to your TV right now and turn it on to Stella (Comedy Central, Tuesdays 10:30). Michael Ian Black, Michael Showalter and David Wain (all alumni from The State) play themselves in this Monkeys-esque comedy.

Why this is funny.
They wear suits – all the time. They stage musical numbers. They are not afraid to do anything. And I mean anything. Sometimes the story line is a little too kooky for me but I always laugh out loud at least twice during the half hour. Recently, they boys decided to go out on a Friday night to get dates. At the bar David Wain, the main loser of the bunch, used this line to pick up a woman. “You’re like fast food.” (to which the woman coos, why?) Wain follows up with, “because I want to take you out…and eat you in my car.” He didn't get the girl.

hot on-line action, ma'am.

dude, i am FINALLY getting some on-line dating email action from CREDIBLE (read: cute) boys. i guess you have to post a picture where you are basically calling yourself a bitch. guys dig that.

today at the gym, the college-aged student working the towel station called me MA'AM. my jaw totally dropped and i said, uh...did you just call me ma'am?!?! the poor kid, he did some backpeddling. then when i went to drop off my towel and get my ID back he said, have a nice day extremely young woman. HAHAHA.

i've been summoned to blogg

lake sonoma and LiPo



saturday lyne, kristin and i drove up to lake sonoma. on the way there we stopped off at mill valley for a little brekkie snack and because i had never been there. what a cute little place! we went to this coffee/bakery placed called the depot. as i ordered my $3 sugar coated croissant, lyne leans over and whispers, "a lot of stars come here!" and i said, "like who? SAMMY HAGAR!?!!?" how perfect would that be? lyne gave me a puzzled (or was it worried) look and then we sat in the sun and ate our treats.

i guess lake sonoma is about an hour and a half away. nothing notable happened on the way up there other than kristin's awesome dolphin/boyfriend story which was just, well, awesome AND disturbing.

the lake is huge and its sectioned off into boating and swimming. we made up our own directions and ended up on the boating half driving up up up and then down down down on windy roads. lyne and i were trying to keep our shit together and not be carsick. we stopped and asked directions from a teenage boy who was manning a parking lot and we have no idea where he might have been directing us, probably his house. wouldn't you if 3 hot babes pulled up in a car and said we want to be on a beach? i would. we then found a "park ranger" and he gave us a map and more credible directions.

the "beach" is a tiny little roped in swimming area with gravely sand and a wide expanse of picnic area, complete with picnic tables under individual pavillions and BBQ's! we flipflopped over to the "beach" and set up shop with blankets and scrabble and lots of food. immediately we were roasting so we ran into the water. it was amazingly hot there but the water was a great temperature. not to cold and not too warm. we played one scrabble game because every time we all 3 made a move we'd have to run back in the water because we were dying of heat-ness. it took us 4 hours tio finish the game.

kristin and lyne were great at coming up with challenges, so we spent all our time in the water seeing who could do an underwater handstand the longest, who could do a back flip into a handstand and stay underwater the longest, who could walk on the floaty-rope thing the longest, who could do a back flip over the floaty-rope which progressed into two backflips then three. we also met some guy who was vulnerable to our femine wile and he ended up running to his van to find us a frisbee or ball we could play with. hahaha. poor guy. but i think he was impressed with our never ending challanges (which i think turned to concern when we were all trying to see who could mount the buoy first).

on the drive home we stopped off at calistoga for a bit. the plan was to have a beer, maybe some food, but i think we were all out of it from so much sun and heat that we just hopped back into the car after hydrating and headed home on a secondary route. it was really cool to drive past all those wineries. i forget that they are not too far away. we even drove past the clos du bois winery which is kinda like, a popstar siting of the wine world. pics of the day are here

i got home at about 8pm and had to rush around to get ready for stein's going away party at LiPo. i was so exhausted that i really wanted to stay on my couch, but knew i would totally regret it. i got to LiPo around 10pm, which is right when misty got there. she handed me my tank top (see photo) and i immediately changed. it was really hard to get into party-mode, but i did my best and then headed out around 12:30am to go home.
misty, lisa and hez: we're too pretty to do math

sunday, i basically recovered from all of saturday's activities and then met up with misty, ted, stein, tanya, rob, lisa and scott for baby burittos at La Cornetta. they had spent a majority of the morning and Medjool drinking bloody marias and mimosas, so were quite a riotous site when i got to them. ok, it wasn't that bad. those peeps know how to hold the liquor!

this week i've just been spending a lot of time outside gardening. it hasn't been foggy at all in the mission and my front gardens are in desperate need of a makeover. yesterday i worked about 6-7 hours out front and when i was done, boy was i done! i grilled me up some sausages and busted open a budweiser and then fell asleep at 9pm. nice.