Ice Skating and Pumpkin Carving

Me on thin blades traveling on ice was highly entertaining for all observers. People: I can only walk with my feet as the good lord intended! I tip toed around the edge of the rink while Pete and Sam wizzed by at 60 mph. Adam, Ian, and Greg were a bit slower but by no means did they suck compared to me. Marcus refused to go on the ice (this was about the best decision anyone made that evening). We wore our scarves and mittens even though it was a brisk 70 degrees outside. I must say, my favorite part of the evening was getting back on solid ground. Here's a picture of Pete taunting me from the rink...

After our ice capades at Culver Arena, we all went to carve pumpkins. Fran(k) had dirty thoughts as he poked around inside the pumpkin with his hand. He had to excuse himself to have a moment. Kidding! I was a skeptic but his cat pumpkin turned out great. Adam's was by far the scariest. It took him the longest to complete and he is quite the perfectionist when it comes to fruit art. And, Virginia's... well... it was... a sad styrofoam pumpkin. At least her's will be around forever as it will never biodegrade. Mine only lasted for 3 days in the Southern California sun before melting into a pool of water and mold. It was pretty gross. Here is a picture of the pumpkin line-up for 2006 lit up at night for all to enjoy:
Greg made pumpkin seeds (from nine pumpkins!) in the oven the following day.

Being a burglar

So I woke up at 5:30am to go for a 3 mile run. It felt great since I have been super lazy lately. So I ran my little bit and came back to my house and poof... my house key had disappeared from my running pants. So I ran the 3 miles again and looked on the sidewalk for the key since I assumed it fell out. It vanished completely... no sign anywhere for the damn thing. Greg is out of town and I am completely locked out. Oh, and I have to be at work at 7:45am and it is now 6:55am. It takes me 20 minutes to drive to work. Luckily my neighbor was out sweeping his sidewalk and he offered to "spot" me while I climbed onto the roof to let myself in through an open window. The most frightening thing is no one on the busy street even did a double take while my ghetto ass was hanging out of the window while falling half way into our bedroom as the older latino man was coaching me.... Hmmm... It was fun burglarizing my own apartment.

Ring of hair around the toilet

So arrived here on Wednesday night. The Super Shuttle dropped me off and of course I had no keys to get into the place I was subletting. The sky was ominous and it looked like tornadoes were going to drop down at any moment and I actually thought for a brief moment I would be sleeping under the small bridge that leads to the entrance of the apartments. Luckily, someone came and gave me keys.

Let's discuss this apartment. First off, Thursday was a GORGEOUS day. Bright, sunny, birds churping, etc. Okay, at least I have a roof over my head. But I quickly discovered that the inside of this place is a black cavern in the middle of the day. Very few windows... and they don't open. I have to run the air conditioner constantly because it gets stuffy. It's the anti-fresh apartment.

I found dirty dishes in the sink that have been sitting there since the END OF APRIL. There was a huge spider hanging out on one of the plates and unfortunately Greg was not here to take care of it. I had to wash it down into the food disposal while screaming like a girl... After murdering the not-so-itsy bitsy spider, I loaded the dishes into the dishwasher. I turned it on and it started smoking and hissing. Hmmmm.

Then I journeyed into the bathroom where I found the most disgusting hair and piss encrusted toilet. It looked like someone had opened a pubic hair barber shop. I was gagging but managed to deal with the mess. Oh, and there was no shower curtain. And I have no car. And the apartment is nowhere near a Target.

Luckily, I have met some nice people with cars.

LAXative

Thank god I just checked my 8000 pound suitcase. I am usually a pretty light packer... only taking either a bookbag or small duffle bag... but for this little adventure I loaded up a suit case the size of a small home. By the way, I absolutely hate going through those security lines because you have to take off your shoes, put your laptop in one of those gray bins while you walk through the beeping door frame in your socks holding just your ID and a crinkled plane ticket. Then, you have to retrieve all of your stuff while it flies out of the x ray tunnel and put on your shoes as quickly as possible. All while some guy says, "keep moving folks"

So I am sitting here at LAX watching the people sitting around me. On the right, a couple is existing in utter misery... She says, "There must be water in this airport.... I have not seen any fresh fruit". She goes to wipe crumbs off his lap. She says, "Is my cell phone ringing or is that yours?" She gets up to use the restroom. She comes back and says "I think grandpa prays, do you think he prays?" The husband just sits there saying nothing. In front of me, the line for Burger King is a little longer than it should be and there are people in line that should not be breaking their diets. There's a family of eight traveling together to my left. Around me: a few lonely souls as myself sitting around typing on their computers. Maybe they are closing business deals or maybe they are on myspace?

Will I ever wash the suit?

So I leave for Michigan on Wednesday and I am really excited yet sad to leave all of my wonderful friends in Los Angeles for the summer. I am especially going to miss Greg! Ugh... I am going to miss the beach!!! I really do not know how I survived this past week: conducting a lot of 8,9 and 10 year olds in a hot gym in a hot stinky suit (that I still need to dry clean). Then all of the pizza parties at school to celebrate. I need a 4-6 week sabatical from any Pizza Hut smell. Just so you know, that smell lurks in a classroom for a long time...epecially when it is 80 degress outside. ICK!

I am also really going to miss Dawn, my coworker. She has been an absolute insipiration for me in rejuvinating my love and motivation for teaching. Plus, she has been become one of my closest friends in such a short amount of time.

Outback Steakhouse + Burbank = Hell on earth

Well, maybe I am being a little extreme in my assessment of last night's activity. I went to the house of dead cows in the queen of all suburbs (didn't suburban culture originate in the Valley?) and I was only expecting the worst. I was doing this so I could partake in our friend Tim's birthday and hang out with his wonderful friends. How can a vegetarian/wannabe-hipster survive such an outing you may ask? It wasn't as bad as I expected. I got some emergency advice from my vegetarian/real-hipster friend Nick on how to survive in such a mysterious and frightening place. He told me the soup is really good (and homemade) and the salad was amazing. So, even though Outback Steakhouse may not have a vegetarian friendly name, you can find good food there. And Burbank was not as bad as I imagined.

Earlier in the day, Greg and I went to Topanga Canyon State Park (just north of Santa Monica, 20 minutes from our apartment) yesterday and I had a wonderful time with him as always. The weather was perfect: not too cold and not too hot. The scenery and quietness of the place was very refreshing. It was really great because we only saw about ten people for the three hours that we were hiking. We had lunch at the top of this steep hill we climbed up. We were on a mission to find this waterfall on the map (which we never found because we left the map in the car). The trail was poorly marked... arrg. See the photo album for some pictures of the scenery.

Sam, Ian, Tim, Chris, and Melissa came over over for drinks later in the evening. Melissa made pumpkin vodka drinks...oh my, they were good. Sam, Tim, and I decided that in gay heaven they have all-you-can-drink pumpkin vodka milkshakes. We ended the day by pissing off the downstairs neighbor by being too loud at 2 in the morning. She arrived in her nightgown and I arrived in my "I feel so guilty I want to go to bed" place. Greg left an apology note downstairs on her door this morning.

Giving thanks 2005

So I leave this post "untitled" to make an artistic statement. Mostly this has to do with photos I have uploaded. I would hate for words to take away from the art or to place in your mind an idea about what is to come. Anyway, I had a wonderful Thanksgiving with all of my new friends here in Smogville. This holiday is by far my favorite and this year did not change that one bit. Greg and I went to a little get-together over by USC and then drove to Sam and Pete's apartment to have Thanksgiving dinner. Sam and Pete were wonderful hosts, lighting candles, putting on holiday music, and having the table set just right. Oh, and the meal was delicious. It felt like I was having dinner with a close family. The above photo shows how we used Ian and Rachel's apartment to make the rolls and the creamed corn. We left dirty notes on their to-do list in the kitchen. Sam had banned me from his kitchen because I asked too many questions. It was quieter at Ian and Rachel's anyway.

I passed on the flesh but Pete cooked a 20 pound bird for everyone. "Only a half pound per person" says Pete "Martha Stewart" Brophy. That thing looked perfect (see left). Pete will now work at the Butterball hotline. Too bad the job only lasts one day.

We ate....

...and we drank...

...and played Dance, Dance Revolution... Some people were better than others...but I do not judge.

...and we all harmonized to Greg's snoring (someone had a little "too many" martinis). Yeah, it's cliche but I will say it anyway: I am pretty thankful for all of the wonderful people that have come into my life recently and I would not have it any other way.