It's spreading like a disease in the blogosphere!

Stole this little gem from Barbara, who stole it from someone else, who I'm sure stole it from someone else....

Go to your page and list the last fifteen people who have commented you. If someone has commented twice, skip to the next new commenter.
1. Barbara
2. Ashlee
3. Melissa
4. Steve
5. Dave
6. Clint
7. Wendy
8. Noreen
9. Sarah
10. Nathan
11. Dan
12. O'Brien
13. Eric
14. Kimberly Rose
15. Dave S.

Have you ever kissed 4? Uh, he's my brother, so I guess so.... at some point...

What's the best memory you have of 10? Wow, there are way too many. I guess anything from our wedding day. Or the day I first thought I might marry him, which was ten years ago now, when I was at his parents' house and he was making taquitos and offered me one.

Why are you friends with 9? I'm not, really. I like her blog, it's pretty funny sometimes.

When's the next time you're gonna see 6? Whenever he deems California worthy of his presence, I suppose. Or when we brave the wilds of Colorado again.

Tell something juicy about number 15: I don't have anything really juicy on him! But I will say that he has spectacular taste in music.

What do you like about 8? She is always encouraging and excited to hear how things are going for me.

Is number 1 attractive? She's SMOKIN' HOT!

What was your first impression of 7? Nice girl. Quiet, but worth getting to know.

How did you meet 3? Long story. Here's the nutshell version: she was dating a guy I'd been friends with for years, who was living with the guy I was dating.

Do you think 13 could kill someone? Maybe. Being a 911 operator probably provides enough motivation for at least one murder.

Is 11 your best friend? No. Coincidentally, Barbara, my best friend doesn't read my blog, either. What's up with that?

Do you think 2 has a crush on you? Something tells me no. Brian would probably be upset.

Who do you spend the most time with? Definitely #10. That happens when you share a home.

What is the last thing you did with #1? New Year's Eve, Book Lover's Trivial Pursuit, 80s movies, lots of food, etc.

Have you ever been to 3's house? Nope.

Would you ever kiss 5? Weird. Both the kissing questions fell on my BROTHERS! Saving me some other embarrassing admissions, no doubt.

How do you know 4? We grew up together.

Have you ever slept with 5? Once again....

Do you think 6 is sexy? Uhhh..... I guess I did at one time...

Have you ever liked 7? Not like THAT!

Where is the last place you went with 8? We hung out at my dad's office. She was his secretary. :)

Are you real close to 9? Nope.

What kind of relationship do you have with 10? The best! He's my better half.

Have you ever kissed 11? No, but I almost landed in his lap accidentally one time, because of our evil Shakespeare prof who made me try to find my seat in a pitch dark room. Maybe he was mad that I was late for the 15th or 16th time...

Have you ever been to the movies with 12? No, but we went to a Mexican taco stand together once. Kind of the same thing, if you look at it right.

Have you ever gotten in trouble with 13? No, seeing as how he's stranded up there in Alaska.

Would you ever make a move on 14? No. Not even if I wasn't married. :)

What do you and 15 talk about the most? We don't talk much anymore. :( But we used to talk about music. He was the only other person I ever found who'd heard of Squarepusher.

London calling

We think that our summer vacation plans have finally been set in stone. And I think it's gonna be good, though not what I'd anticipated. We started talking about going to London this summer a while back, figuring that Judah will be old enough to stay here with relatives and if we wait until next year we'll probably have another baby too little to leave. So it would have been the perfect time. Unfortunately, it looks like that isn't going to work out. There are a lot of good things about Nathan being self-employed: he can set his own hours, take vacations whenever he wants, and there's really no ceiling on how much money he can make, it just depends on how many patients he can drum up. Here's the down side: when we take a vacation, we not only have to save the money the trip will cost, we also have to save what Nathan would have made by working the time we're gone. So basically we have to save up about two times the cost of the trip. Which, for London, would mean about $4,000 or so. At least. And we just can't pull it off this year. Plus, we've been advised that leaving an eighteen month old baby at home with others for a week or ten days is a bad idea. So.... London's calling, and I have to hang up. I can't pretend that I'm not really sad. I haven't been there in a long, long time, and I'm dying to go back.

However, we do have other plans. Our church is doing a church-wide camping trip to Mammoth at the beginning of August, and we think we'll go. It should be fun. We love to camp (where there's indoor plumbing - I know, I'm a wuss) and Mammoth is a beautiful area with lots to do. And Judah will be at a great age for it. Our church is just coming out the other side of a really long, really hard time in our history (50+ years), and we're rebuilding sort of, so we think it's gonna be a good time to get to know people in our church a little better and build some good relationships. Also, you can't really beat $15 a night! So, Mammoth, here we come! And London.... someday I will see you again.

Sorry this post's not very witty or funny or anything. It's more therapy for me and less entertainment for you. I solemnly swear to do better next time.

Mimi's Cafe, Yorba Linda: Where Satan keeps his Minions

Mimi's, again! Today we went to Mimi's for brunch. Nathan had waffles, I had an omelette, Judah ate fruit puffs and pieces of avocado. It was a nice meal. We ran into a friend, chatted with her for a minute, and were waiting for our bill. And then they seated three Yorba Lindans in the booth behind us. Judah, in his boredom, was tapping a spoon on our table. We let him do it, in order to keep him from turning it up to eleven with the screaming. He was being quiet and angelic otherwise, not even babbling. And the spoon tapping was less noise than the waiters banging plates together as they cleared tables. So the lady at the booth behind us looks over, and then the guy looks around the side and goes, "Is he doing construction?" And Nathan goes, "Yeah, he's jackhammering." The guy gets up and goes to the hostess. Meanwhile, his wife goes, "Be quiet!" and their daughter (typical Yorba Linda housewife wearing a track suit from Versace) goes, "Control your child!" Neither of them, of course, looking at us, but choosing the cowardly method of making loud comments that weren't TO us, but AT us. And then they moved tables.

Really. Was it necessary? Couldn't they just have moved tables without the thoroughly low-class, indirect comments? And seriously, a baby tapping a spoon? Call the press! Call Homeland Security! Who cares who Bush is giving the ports to! There's a BABY! With a SPOON! In YORBA LINDA! Isn't this one of the signs of the apocolypse?

And if it's really bothering you that much, geezers, TURN DOWN YOUR HEARING AIDS!

Through the miracles of modern technology....

I can show you my bedroom without showing you the mess!

Nathan's dad, Ken, has set up a tradition in his family. He's a master wood worker, and every time one of his kids got married he made them a beautiful piece of furniture of their choosing and design. When Jenna and John got married he made them a sleigh bed. Brian and Ashlee chose a dining room table and chairs, the chairs of which were built to Ashlee's exact comfort specifications. Later he added a matching high chair for Eszter. Jeff also chose a dining room table and chairs. Nathan and I decided on a bed, and showed Ken our preferred design, which was a sort of Craftsman/Mission combo. He looked at it, said, "But that's so easy! Would you like a dresser as well?" Being the smart people we are, we took him up on it. The dresser was in the same style, really simple with straight lines and no fuss. Well, what started out simple turned into extremely detailed, and we ended up with two gorgeous peices that have all the extras: cloud lifts, piercings, inlay, copper pulls made and patinaed by Ken. And now they're online! Here are our bed and dresser.






You can check out more of Ken's work here, as well as see a close-up of the vine inlay.

The playlist of a recovering Goth

If you ask my brothers and their wives, they'll tell you that when I was in highschool I wore a lot of black and a lot of dark eyeliner. I honestly don't think that I looked that goth, but to hear them tell it I was one step away from being the princess of darkness. They didn't see what my friends looked like, or else they would have realized that I wasn't really that hard core. There was one time, however, that Steve refused to take me to the mall until I removed my black nail polish. These days my music tastes run more to the pop side of things, though I still claim the Cure as my favorite group of all time. They own a huge portion of the space on my iPod, but don't show up in my playlists very much because I mostly use my iPod when I'm exercising, and it's pretty hard to work out to a song like Pictures of You. Here's my current playlist. You'll notice that I voluntarily sacrifice any street cred that I ever had immediately by including John Mayer in the list. But I always hated that whole "street cred" thing anyway. Who cares what you like and if it's "cool" or not? Unless you like Britney Spears. Then you're hopeless.

83 - John Mayer
Brad and Suzy - Jude
Cities in Dust - Siouxsie and the Banshees
Dancing Barefoot - U2
Even After All - Finley Quaye
Heart - Pet Shop Boys
Here's Where the Story Ends - the Sundays
O Baby - Siouxsie and the Banshees
On a High - Duncan Sheik
Rick James - Jude
The Three Sunrises - U2
You're Not the Only One - The Sundays
You Blew Me Off - Bare Jr.
Witchi Tai To - Harpers Bizarre

The part where I talk about living near Movieland, USA

I was talking to someone the other day and commenting that it's interesting to live in this area because almost everyone you meet is related to or has met someone who's famous. So you start collecting these interesting stories about the famous and their behavior. Some of the best stories I ever heard were from a friend who worked as a personal shopper at Fred Segal. If you read any celeb rags at all, you know that the rich and famous practically LIVE at Fred Segal. My friend was the guy who used to gather up clothes he thought particular people would like and take them to their houses for the people to check out. He had interesting things to say about the Pitt/Aniston house, and also about Winona Ryder, Minnie Driver, etc.

So anyway, here are my few stories about the famous and infamous that I've met around here. Starting with the biggest.

--When I was 14 Arnold Schwarze....you know, the governor, was directing a movie called Christmas in Connecticut. They were using a Friends church in Arcadia for some of the scenes, and my dad took me up to watch the filming. We ended up being extras in the movie, and I got Arnold's autograph. He's short.
--My friend Elisa went to USC, and I visited her at her dorm once. She shared a suite with that kid from Growing Pains, the blonde one. Jeremy something. He wandered in when we were hanging out and seemed pretty cool.
--I have a great uncle who has an Oscar, earned for sound editting on Star Wars.
--Nathan and I happened to be hanging out at the Kodak Pavillion in Hollywood the night that Freaky Friday opened across the street at the El Capitan and Lindsay Lohan was escorted past us as she fled the paparazzi.
--I was shopping in Santa Monica one day and in one of the shops I saw Chad Lowe, who used to play Jesse on Life Goes On, but is really most famous for being married to Hilary Swank. He saw me recognize him and gave me a look like, "Please don't blow my cover." So I didn't.
--And the numerous friends over the years who have been in commercials.

So I haven't REALLY gotten to meet anyone super famous. But living around here is fun because there's always the possibility that you might. And one of my favorite things is running across movie sets around town. People film on Greenleaf in Uptown Whittier a lot, and on Third Street in Santa Monica. The best one I've seen was a night in Whittier when they were filming Father of the Bride 2, the scene where they're driving to the hospital. They had Steve Martin, Diane Keaton, Martin Short, Kimberly Williams, and that Culkin kid stuffed in an SUV on the back of a flatbed truck and were driving up and down Greenleaf over and over and over...

So, what famous people have y'all met? I want your stories to add to the collection....

P.S. Oh, and my grandma dated Mickey Rooney back in the 30s. Pretty cool, huh?

I want a parrot

I have long looked forward to having a child, simply because there is a particular age, when the child has begun to learn to talk, at which you can teach them to say ANYTHING YOU WANT. How fun is that? And when it's my kid, I can teach him to say the things I wasn't allowed to teach my nieces ("shake your booty" got me in a lot of trouble).

Morgan was almost 2 years old when 9/11 happened. She was quickly taught to say that she "didn't like bin Laden" and that the bad guy was "Mohammed Atta." At that age her favorite baseball team was the Dodgers, her favorite car was a Ferrari, her favorite group was U2, and her favorite building was Library Tower. And she would sometimes tell you that "My name is Maximus Decimus Meridius!"

Tonight we had dinner at Brian and Ashlee's. Eszter is at that magic age. She calls her parents Daddy-o and Mamacita, and when we showed up she was wearing a pair of gloves on her feet. She sometimes says "Hijo le!" and has been known to use the Spanish words for near and far. She knows that men don't carry purses, they carry man bags, and today she informed her mother that "Eszter is a woman!" I'm trying to teach her the term fashion victim (I have high hopes). Tonight we were forbidden to mention that we were drinking Sprite, because Eszter would want some. So we decided to call it beer. Brian said, "Eszter, can you say Cerveza?" And she joyfully answered back, "Cerveza!!" She may or may not have been holding a shot glass at the time. I can't wait until this one comes up in the church nursery.

And I can't wait until next year!

Clearly, my readers are geniuses. Or genii. Whatever.

I asked some unanswerable questions, and voila (WAH-LAA!), I got answers. You guys are the best! I had never thought that Bedrock was in the heart of England, but it all makes sense to me now. Clint, were you and Fred friends? Did you collaborate?

So here's the story of our first date. Figure it out if you can, we can't.

Nathan was in practice in an office down in Anaheim. I had recently taken a friend to get adjusted by him, then decided a few weeks later that I also needed chiropractic care. Just an excuse, really. The first time I went in we were talking about movies we'd seen recently. I asked if he'd seen Titanic and he said no. I'd seen it an embarrassing number of times (I'll discuss my addiction in another post) and couldn't believe that there was one living, breathing person in the country that wasn't in love with it. The next time I went to Nathan's office I mentioned that I'd bought Titanic on video, and we should get together and watch it sometime. Nathan's contribution was to say, "Cool. How about Tuesday?" That's my version. Nathan says that all I said was that I bought Titanic on video, and HE was the one that said, "We should watch it sometime. How about Tuesday?" So, my dear readers, I don't think there's any way that you can really figure out what happened. You would have to have been there. Nathan says he has a witness, one of his patients was standing nearby during the whole exchange. I guess it will always be a mystery. We've agreed to disagree.

P.S. That encounter was more than eight years ago, and here we are, happily married for three and a half years. A lot happened between the first date and the wedding, but it all worked out well. And only recently did I learn that Nathan HATES Titanic, and did from the opening scene. And yet, he endured almost four hours of slop for me. Is that love, or what? Recently, he endured The Aviator, Sense and Sensibility, and The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants for me. What a guy!

I think about

We just got back from an overnight trip to Tulare. It was for a sad reason: Nathan's grandfather passed away a few weeks ago, and the memorial service was this afternoon in Tulare, where he lived most of his life. It's always sad to lose a loved one, but this loss happened very peacefully and in God's (as ever) perfect timing. Grandpa lived a long, full life, and was getting to the point where he was really restricted in his actions by his health. The thing that Grandpa feared maybe the most was having to live in a "home" for old folks, and he passed away right before that would have had to happen. He spent the last six or seven years of his life living in the guest house at Nathan's parents' place, just 10 steps from them. We will miss him, and "Spike" (as he called Judah) will never know him. But the service today was nice, and was more a celebration of his life than a mourning of his passing. He is in heaven today, having accepted Jesus through "that Billy Graham thing," as he told Ken.

Although the reason for the trip was sad, Nathan and I used the opportunity as a little get-away for ourselves, as well. We left Judah at home in good hands with Grammy and Papa and drove up yesterday afternoon. We got to Exeter, where we were staying, in time to check out a couple of antique stores. In one of them I found a really cool old avocado crate label from the 40s. The brand was O'Don, and they were grown in La Habra. Yay! We also stopped for a few minutes in the town of Lindsay, where my mom was born, and checked out the church my grandpa used to pastor. Later on we went to Visalia for dinner and a movie: Curious George! GO SEE IT. It's awesome. And the music (Jack Johnson) is the best part. George reminded us of Judah. :)

After the service today we drove home through the Central Valley. It's so ridiculously flat that it's hard to believe. All those hills all around, and then suddenly a perfectly flat floor for thousands and thousands of acres. The sun was setting and it was so clear and beautiful. And on long drives I always think about stupid things. I have a list of questions that I want to ask God when I get to heaven. Nathan says that when I get there I probably won't care about those things anymore, but I hope I do. They're interesting to me! Here are some of my questions. If you have the answers, let me know!

Who built Stonehenge?
Has there been a single day in the last 100 years on which no babies have been born?
Who has to shuck the miniature corn for salad bars?
If the world stopped spinning for just one second, would we all go flying into space?
Is time linear or cyclical?
Who initiated our first date: me or Nathan? (He swears it was him, I think it was me...)
Who WOULD win in a fight: Mighty Mouse or Superman?

Another manifestation of Murphy's Law

How come people who blare music never blare GOOD music? It's always something horrible with way too much bass. I thought we'd escaped this when we left Brea for the yuppie paradise of Yorba Linda. Back in Brea we lived on the one ghetto street in the city. Our complex was usually okay, but across the street was the barrio, and they blared ranchera music at truly ungodly hours. You know, it's that music that always has the same beat, it goes, bomp-BOMP-bomp-BOMP and there's always an accordian. So anyway, we thought we'd escaped it out here, and then the new people moved into apartment three. They like to party. And while it isn't ranchera music, it's possibly worse. Rap. And then tonight. Tonight it was Meatloaf. I'm not kidding. And the only song anyone knows of his is "Anything for Love," and that was the only one they blared. Not once, not twice, but FIVE TIMES IN A ROW. Judah woke up crying during the fifth playing, along with another baby we could hear down the way. I don't blame them. I almost cried too.

Meatloaf. Honestly.