Today my little sister turns 28. I remember 28. I made a vow that day that I would never work on my birthday again. I get way too emotional and sad when I think about the coil of my mortal life unraveling.
On my 28th, I was getting a divorce and my ex was suing me for alimony. I was bitter, lost and unhappy. For my actual birthday a friend, my Dean Moriarty, took me to a dive bar where she hooked up with a drugged out limo driver living in the dim hotel side of the Brass Elephant in Monrovia. The most memorable moment up to midnight was taking this drugged out limo driver to another bar and on the way, the limo driver telling me that if things didn't work out with him and my friend, he might be able to date me.
I did end that night well, I went over to a man that I liked and he kissed me good night. This man had also called me at midnight, at the beginning of my 28th, to be sure that he was the first to wish me a happy birthday.
In a few months I'll be 36 years old, closer to 40 than 30 and 16 years from 20. These are scary thoughts. Mentally I don't feel much older than 25. Physically, maybe due to my fat, I still get carded most places. For this year's birthday we're going to be low key. Go out to dinner someplace nice, maybe go up to Santa Barbara for a long weekend. I'm not sure. Most of my current life I would never want to give up. I'm stable, my husband is a rock and I'm so lucky to have him, but maybe it's the fact that my life is so structured that there are times when I would like to go back, to re experience some moments that were raw. I'm sure if my wish came true, I would regret the decision immediately.

I hate to bitch... but

Why are men so... I don't even know the words to finish this sentence. I work with men all day, and at times I love that there's so little conflict or emotional issues, but the knee jerk reactions and blanket statements to get me to do something are ridiculous.
Just now, I was just told that I have to follow a process for something that I don't even do. No. Not going to happen. If you do this for yourself, great just don't imply that I'm going to agree to your nonsense. Another 'boss' responded to an e-mail I sent, letting him and our telecom guy know that his phone was out. The 'boss' insisted that I call every executive to see if their lines were also down. Again, no. Not going to happen. The problem seems to be just one phone and I'm not going to waste my time and energy on this nonsense.
I even have 'non bosses' asking me to research items from 04 and 05 - NOT GOING TO HAPPEN. I have one boss. This one boss is my saviour and I platonically love and respect him. If he were to ask me to do any of the above it would have been done as soon as humanly possible. But, because I have such an amazing boss, he would never have asked for any of the nonsense that I get littered with daily.

Well, that wasn't what I was planning on griping about, but there you have it.

I have a friend, and I'm sure almost everyone has someone like this. Who constantly tells me what I need to do to fix/improve my house/life, so almost every conversation is more like an argument, where I'm defending myself and my choices.
We're going to put carpeting in our den this year. It's a third cheaper than hardwood linoleum floors, I won't have to clean as much (the carpet will be in the brown family) and will hopefully last the life of our dogs, which are destroying the current carpeting. I feel, like I'm giving information about my life out, to her, I'm telling her that she should correct me and the ways of my poor choice in flooring. Fortunately, this was an IM conversation and after 5 minutes I gave up and put myself as busy so I didn't have to argue with her as to what I want.
The reason why I feel a need to bitch right now is cause I'm seeing her tonight for a 'girl's night' where all of her 'friends' have decided to cancel so it was just going to be me and her. I didn't want that, so I've invited my best friend and his... boyfriend(?) to join us so I don't have to have another argument on what kind of flooring would be best for me. If I want to paint the walls black and make it a sex den emporium, she should just smile and tell me that it sounds festive.

An almost perfect weekend

Well this weekend was wonderful. I got to see lots of friends and also got to see some people that I have nothing in common with and I'm grateful for that.
Friday night Dan and I went out with Mason and Isabelle. Mason has been one of my best friends since high school and my husband's best friends since college and Isabelle is just wonderful and is his live-in girlfriend, though is girlfriend really the term if you're over 40?
We had dinner, wine and went and saw Sweeney Todd - one of my favorite musicals/operettas ever. I have seen it performed in Los Angeles and in London and loved every version. Visually it was perfect. Truly captured the look that Sondheim was going for. There were a few scenes that I didn't agree with, but then I know this story backwards and forwards so I don't feel that I can be very objective.
Saturday was dog park then my brother came over to help return and install a new security screen door. When we returned, Dan was on his hands and knees scrubbing the kitchen floor. He had already stripped the sheets, a load of laundry was in the wash, dishes were done and he was going to do the bathrooms and vacuum - which he did. And why? Because he wanted to. I so love him it's silly. While Dan was doing manual labor I discovered (I was tiding up the place, dusting, etc) that I was invited to my friend's baby shower the next day, so off I went to Vroman's the best bookstore in Pasadena where I bought $100.00 in children's books and bought for myself You Suck by Christopher Moore - a very funny book and also a good reference for my vampire novel that I'm currently writing.
Sunday Dan and I did the dog park again, dropped the dogs at home and went out to breakfast and then went on a date to Target. Love Target. It's lowbrow enough that no one can brag about it, and yet nice enough that if you admit you're wearing clothing from there no one really can raise an eyebrow, cause everyone has at least a bra or pj's from there.
Got home and got pretty for the shower. When I arrived there were two sets of people, Trish's friends outside of the church and the church people. Now, I've been an atheist for around 3 years, agnostic for a dozen or so and had no idea what I believe the 15 years before that, so I have never really felt comfortable with these people. In addition, most of the people in the church that I grew up with had MONEY. My family is far from poor but the kids there, their parents were the heads of companies, lawyers to presidents and the dean to USC. Growing up I guess I felt more intimidated by them. Yesterday however, it was different. These church woman talked about the same people, same gossip as when I was growing up. I am so glad and proud of myself for not sitting with them, but to sit at a table with women that I didn't know. It was great meeting new people and bonding, instead of being snide and rehashing the same lame stories over and over again.
So after the shower, I was almost next door to my best friend Chris, so I drove over to his house and he followed me to my house where Dan, Chris and I took the dogs for a walk, then watched Waitress while eating leftovers - a great end to an almost perfect weekend.

First of hopefully many

Well, I have blogged before, infact several times I've started, then forgotten my password or the site died and so did all my ramblings so here I am, I think the 5th time I've started to blog. I hope it won't be sporatic, but more of a weekly musing on my life, co-workers, friends and family.

Things to know about me. I'm female. 35 years old. Married to a rocket scientist. I myself work in the 'entertainment industry', about as far removed from the actual industry as you can get, but I still have a SAG visa so that might be something... but I doubt it.

We have two golden retrievers that we just celebrated a one year anniversary with this week. They got to go to doggie day camp twice because of it. The wonderful thing about doggie day camp are the lumps of brown carpet we get to bring home. They usually go on Fridays, cause Dan (that's my husband) and I tend to go out and feel guilt if we've left the dogs alone all day and then don't spend anytime with them in the evenings.

Most of the time we see plays on Friday nights, tonight we're going on a double date. Again, nothing there is really that exciting. If you're reading this I promise I'll mention celebrities that I see in the hallway or give out some good gossip if I happen upon it.

There are two big things happening in my life this week. The first is my grandma, a lovely woman who I lived with a few years back and recently bought her house, so it's in the family. She found out on 12/27 that she has colon cancer. She's already had the surgery to remove, but since she's 91, the dr's don't feel like she can handle the chemo pills to keep the cancer from spreading - already it's in her liver and lympnods. This is weird, knowing what will probably kill her and also knowing that there's little to stop it. The only bright spot is not knowing how much longer she has. She's strong and usually positive so I hope that there will be many years still.

I may be innocent in my thinking.

The other thing is my sister's wedding. I am not in the party (I'm a size 24 and shouldn't be in ANYTHING strapless) but I am hosting her shower. Now my first and second marriages were a fraction of the cost of this event. So far I've spent almost $1,000.00 and still haven't gotten anywhere near all the rentals taken care of. It will be interesting to see where my limit for this minor event will cost me, cause I'm near done already.

Well I don't want to bore everyone with all the minutia that's in my brain on the first blog so off with me for now. As a little gift to my stranger friends here is a pic of the doggies their first day with us. Enjoy