DID YOU BOARD THE SHIP OF FUN?

You probably missed yesterday's birthday cruise (if you will), but you need only know this: it fucking rocked.

I came home to booze in the fridge, people cooking me dinner, a surprise cake in the freezer, gifts in my bedroom and a warm apartment full of awesome friends. Despite the fact that it was abundently clear that somebody had let the peanut gallery out and moved it onto the #6 and Haight Street.

Highlites of last night may or may not include the following:

note the creative use of tea candles as birthday candles. And yes, I did turn 4, thanks!

Also, the discovery that Andre Champagne has created a resealable champagne bottle. Good thing since I kept knocking it over...each time terrified that I'd wasted precious bubbles (MY BUBBLES!) on the floor but then elated with the surprise that resealable champagne can bring.

post-dinner and cake....

I WAS SUNG TO!!! In two part harmony....sorta.





Yesterday afternoon sort of sucked at work (low blood sugar, high stress) but after a certain little penguin sent me a birthday email and porn shots, I knew my day was only getting better...who could resist THIS stud?


Not I, not I!

Guess what else? SOMEONE is the new recipient of a RECORD PLAYER!! YES!! A RECORD PLAYER! Now I can fulfill my fantasy of prancing around my sunny apartment in a apron while listening to 1930s, 1940s and 1950s music, beer in hand! I can't wait!! I'm SO stoked!

But apparently that wasn't enough. I also scored a great cookbook and.....wait for it.....

EUROTRIP!

....anyone care to pay a visit to Bratislava? I don't think the ship of fun anchors there...

So, thanks to everyone who made my birthday evening so fucking fabulous, it might have to be an annual gig..




ps: these pictures were brought to you by Atman and the number 25....

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, K-SPOT!

CHILLYASS

Okay then. What's new in my overly caffinated and under-stimulated world? Nothing. Hence the under-stimulation of the previous sentence.

I'm currently at war with my cellphone carrier who so kindly turned off my phone without telling me. Why did they do this? Good question. They don't know. And because no one seems to know why it was turned off, they won't turn it back on. Seriously. I've called them every day this week. I've spoken with managers. What it's looking like I'm going to have to do is re-enroll. And, out of the kindness of their oh-so-confused hearts, they'll wave the re-enrollment fee. Gee, thanks guys. And even that won't go in effect until Monday.

Truth be told, I'm not really missing my cell phone all that much. I mean, I miss playing solitaire on it, and texting and occasionally leaving voicemails for others in an attempt to ease my boredom, but other than that, I don't really need it.

And, my colors are back! And my Outlook is back! I've had to check my work email indirectly, by going through a website and while it got the job done, I've been adrift without my color coordinated, friendly-pop-up-reminder-set, outlook calendar. Alex, our Russian computer technician cracked up when he heard my joyous exclamation of "MY COLORS ARE BACK!".

and that they are, my friends, that they are.

TEEHEE

At the exact same time, there are two 35 year old men on opposite sides of the earth:
One is walking a tight rope between two skyscrapers.

The other is getting a blow job from an 85 year old woman.

They are both thinking the exact same thing. What are they both thinking?










don't look down! don't look down!




I crack myself up.

YOU NEED DIRECTIONS? - courtesy of Toothpaste For Dinner

GIDDY UP JINGLE HORSE, PICK UP YOUR FEET

I leave in 8 days for Seattle - and I haven't bought a single mo-fo Christmas gift for anyone. Something tells me I might want to get crackin' on that one. And I would, if I had a single mo-fo IDEA what to buy ANYONE. Usually, I store up gift ideas all year long, occasionally buying them months in advance. Then there was the year I decided all my Christmas gifts would be wearing coordinated wrapping ensembles. Which looks GREAT when my gifts to everyone were under my tree, but the impact became slightly diluted upon dispersion.

My problem lies in the fact that whenever I try to consider gifts for others, all I see in my head is mixing bowls. I don't particularly want to give anyone mixing bowls, (not even my roommate, mutually beneficial though that might be) but it's all my brain will visualize. I'd kill for some sugarplums, but no. Mixing bowls. Go figure.

My office Christmas party was great, a veritable carnival ride of toasts, free-flowing booze and excellent food. Part of me wishes the booze hadn't been quite so free-flowing as I might've been able to remain concious past 10pm. Rumor has it, though, that passing out was probably the wisest choice as it kept me from pursuing a conversation about things that DON'T suck. It would've been nice to enjoy Hotel Palomar a bit more, but that just means next year I'll reserve two nights, not just one. Live and learn, ya know?

I LEFT MY SOUL THERE,
DOWN BY THE SEA
I LOST CONTROL HERE
LIVING FREE -- morcheeba

Redhaired Cohort and I were down in the old hood last night, seeing the Morcheeba show at the Fillmore. Things were conspiring to keep us away but despite our tickets' attemp to thwart us, we arrived just on time. And lets just say that they put on a DAMN FINE show. Even the little bit we caught of the opening act wasn't bad!

It was a bit of a random night, though. When the bartender called me Ms. Foster, I was totally lost. I tried to pull my usual sly helpless glance at the Cohort, figuring it was yet another random cinematic reference that 99% of the populous catches and she'd bail my confused self-out.

yeah, no backup there. She was just as lost as I was, and all I could think of was that it was some Mrs. Robinson thing. Or chickens. I thought of Foster's Chickens.

Care to know why we were so confused? (No, I did not ask YOU, Peanut Gallery) He was referencing Jody fucking Foster. And then acted surprised when R.C. and I were all "um, can you SEE?" since I couldn't look less like Jody Foster, if I were a 200 pound brunette.

That bar would prove to be another source of entertainment about 45 minutes later when we returned for refills and a very drunk, possibly Irish guy wanted to buy me a drink and whom I pretty much told was buying us both drinks. I guess it was kind of mean, since he probably couldn't see straight but it was more just entertaining since drunk or not, I'm so NOT the girl total random strangers with whom you've exchanged, literally, three words with, buy drinks for. Seriously - that may have been the first time ever.

The night was capped when we caught a cab within 2 minutes of waiting outside - it did involve running half a block from the theater waving rolled up posters above our head, but we also got to mentally stick our tongues out at the suckers who hadn't seen the cab. What is the color of drunken pride?




Here's an oh-so-sneaky picture I took of the show. Yeah, I'm crafty!

Christmas is barreling down upon us and I a) don't know what the hell to buy most people and
b)what I do know I'm buying I need to actually GO FUCKING BUY!

Procrasting: Served hot, 24hours a day.

ONLY IF I'M THE WORST TOMBOY EVER...

You Are a Tomboy

You're having too much fun to bother with nail polish and crazy diets. Guys are instead impressed by how much you know and do!

How Girlie Are You?

ESTEVAN



Meet Javier Ferdenand Estevan (estevan)....and sorry, I've forgotten his last name. Above is a picture of his sell-out cousin who was kidnapped and animated (the poor bastard) for the NY DOT. The Camp's personal traffic cone, Javier Ferdenant Estevan (estevan!).... was rescued on a dark and not-so-stormy yet rather chilly Friday night from his gulag labor at the Clayton Street Post. He now resides comfortably in our living room. I'm still working on his head shots - but they'll be coming soon.



One day, Javier Ferdenand Estevan (estevan!) hopes to return to his colony in the desert where he can mate with fraptious joy with his fellow cohorts. Ahh, to be a cone.


I've been feeling, ambitious, you might say, in regards to my culinary talent. Or, alternatively, I've been experiencing a fit of domesticity. Either way, Atman's the victim. Saturday's weapon of choice was chicken marsala from scratch and herbed butter pasta from a box (Pasta Roni, the San Francisco Treat! ding! ding!) which while extremely tasty, also resulted in two unfortunate events.

The first was a mini-explosion of marsala sauce the cause of which I've not yet identified and that resulted in marsala sauce mucking around in places that marsala sauce just doesn't belong.

Chicken marsala requires marsala sauce. I like my sauce a touch heavy on the marsala flavor. Really heavy. I like my marsala sauces. There are a number of conclusions one could draw from that previous statement, one being that I like the flavor of marsala. That said, when I reached to grab a long drink from my 40 while doing the dishes, I was less than pleasantly surprised to see that the bottle was not clear and full of a carmel liquid but in fact DARK and full of a MARSALA liquid.

And once again, there was marsala in places marsala just doesn't belong. That marsala....


Yesterday's weapon of choice in my war against Atman's tastebuds was chicken risotto with peas and mushrooms and shallots and garlic and oninions and lots of butter and olice oil and the faucet from the kitchen sink. Now, you'd think having just made a decent chicken marsala two nights prior that I'd do just fine with the chicken last night.

Again, the felacious reasoning.

I made the mistake of warming Atman that we might have to never speak of the chicken from last night, thusly resulting in insistance upon seeing the-chicken-that-must-not-be-mentioned. I'm not really sure what exactly was going on with those chicken tits but it didn't look promising.

At all.

I started with three chicken breasts, and made up my flour bowl and my egg bowl and got ready to cook me some poultry. Breast #1 - into each bowl and then into the pan. Breast #2 into the first bowl and oh holy fuck what amI doing. While Breast #1 continues to cook, Breast #2 is promptly taken to the sink and rinsed thoroughly. While Breast #1 sounds like it's cooking the way I'm intending it to, it looks like I'm trying to make a chunky salmonella scramble. See, while dipping a chicken breast in egg and then flour makes a nice little crusty-thing, dipping the breast in flour than EGG just results in uncooked chicken with chunky scrambled egg on top.


In an weak attempt to save face in the kitchen, I tried to hide Breast #1 in the oven sparing Atman the full extent of the chicken-that-must-not-be-mentioned. Which would've worked just GREAT, thank you, had I not asked him while doing dishes two hours later, to grab the cookie sheet and pan from the oven so I could wash them.

So much for saving face.


Tonight is ladies night with Special K, K-Spot, Redhaired Cohort and myself. We're going out festive style at Zazie and I'm almost positive you'll be able to hear us all the way in the TenderNob. Love me those ladies - something great about being 200% girlie girl for a night, ya know? I even sent out REAL, TANGIBLE, HANDWRITTEN AND ILLUSTATED INVITATIONS! (that's what K-Spot and I were referencing on Saturday, M. K knew about the invites but the Cohort didn't and I wanted it to be a surprise) There will be pictures, so don't worry your pretty, large, collective minds!

Tis the season!

COMING FROM SAN FRANCISCO TO WHERE-EVER YOU AT

Some Facts:

I slept for approximately 3.5-4 hours last night.

My nose was doing that thing where it's runny but also stuffy so that I lose control of my snot-snorting abilities and am forced to either find a tissue REAL FAST or lie on my back until it clears out.

I missed my bus this mornig waited 15 more minutes, broke down and cabbed it, but ended up
stuck in some GOD-awful traffic and didn't make any better time than if I'd just waited.

But, the holiday season is upon us - office christmas party is this Friday and I'm pretty stoaked about that. Too bad it's not dressier, I need an excuse for a new red dress!

This weekend went by WAY too fast. Did some crazy stuff that I'll elaborate on more when I wake up - say, tomorrow?

SHORT-SHOTTED BED

I'm STILL wet from coming in this morning - why the weather insists on opening its godforsaken mouth and vomiting water down upon the world RIGHT AFTER I GET OFF THE BUS I'll never know.

And I just remembered that Redhaired Cohort and I need to obtain a tree and likely some ornaments real soon, before this festive season is fully upon us. Mmm.....TREE. How we'll get that home, is another matter. Oooh....Jen has a 4Runner and i haven't seen THAT girl in ages (well, a month ago, but before that it was ages!). Can you even put a christmas tree on a jewish girl's car? Is that kosher?

[i hate that phrase, is that kosher. can not stand it]

maybe we'll just strap it to both of our backs and do a three-legged-lugging-a tree home sort of waddle. that'd be a good plan.