Christmas came early this year!

Well the past 3 days have been truly enyoyable to the max.

Friday: Gingerbread house party
Guys, this was actually super fun, like more fun than i even imagined, and trust, me i had really high hopes for this. Cathy of course got too drunk to actually build a house and ended up passing out but ivan and i blazed on thusssssssly. Our theme? Christmas with Jane Austen. I made a Tudor style cottage with thatched roof while ivan made the town vicarage. Basically we were trying to recreate Sense and Sensibility meets Little Women, which was not at all british but i wanted an excuse to make a gazebo in which Meg March could get married.

candy cane gazebo! dah!!pretzel cross! double dahhh!! note the archway under which Marianne and Colonel Brandon can walk under after their wedding!!
favorite quote of the night, Ivan's response to someone accidentally kicking the table: "My Vicarage is not tectonically sound!!"

Then we decided to watch "just friends" which is not a great movie but is an enjoyable movie if not for this scene alone


We all passed out and woke up with coconut shavings on our asses, and then went to eat In n out. so in conclusion...good times!

Saturday night, family christmas party (2 days before actual christmas, stupid yes, but fun):
My uncle has like a totally pimped out game room with a pool table, gigantic tv, monster sound system, chordless magic mic (with 2 mic's for harmonizing!!) and guitar hero with 3 dueling guitars! like HELLO!! Anyways all this technology made me feel really old since i had to do super easy mode to "hit me with your best shot" while my cousin was doing like the highest level wiht some Green Day song that she thought was "a classic." i was all like "what are all these buttons?!" We did some karaoke where i dazzled these kids with some Celine. ummph! But then my cousin's friend started singing that five for fighting song about living to be 100 and being 53 or something. i was like...laaaamee! It irks me how some people just don't understand karaoke. the point is to sing fun silly songs not real songs! Then Alix and i did a rocking rendition of My Sharona where we went so crazy with the dancing that i think i lost 10 lbs. Then everyone left and my other gay cousin and I just sang this really heartfelt version of "i wanna know what love is" by foreigner with full on harmonies. It was so intense that we didn't even have to stand up. We just sat on the couch and just rolled around while belting it out. i looked at him after and i was like "ok seriously, that was kind of amazing." He agreed. We turned around to see a group of 15 year olds staring at us like we were crazy.

us singing Whitney "greatest love of all" which we both agreed was a ridiculously dramatic song. look at the words and you will understand. Can you feel our eeeemotions!??! I'm wearing skinny black jeans and a flowy top AND my bangs are out of control. Seriously, who am i.

me and my nephew and my mom in the corner who is probably saying something philosophical.
dahh!! what is it about baby onesies and trumpette socks that just makes me want to romp around
Sunday Annual movie marathon:
so my cousin and my mom and i usually take a day during christmas daycation to just be gluttonous and go see like 3 movies. We don't sneak in, we actually pay, because my mom thinks it would be sad for a 57 year old to get caught sneaking into a movie. She says we'll understand someday. Anyways yesterday we decided to include my aunt, who i worried wouldn't have enough stamina to hold out the whole day, and my other cousin Fanny. people, we seriously BLAZED like we have never BLAZED before!! we saw 4 movies!$#!

1. The Savages: an altogether depressing movie, but well acted. Oscar worthy but not like the best movie ever. But like i said...totally depressing

2. Juno: awesome and really cute and makes me love Michael Cera even more even though i think he might be underage or like 18 or something. Movies like this make me dream but also make me pissed because guys didn't care about girls like this in real life high school so stop FUCKING WITH WOMEN'S YOUNG MINDS AND MAKING THEM THINK SHIT LIKE THIS HAPPENS!! Anyways it was reeeeeaaaal good

3. I am Legend - my cousin wanted to see it so we had to appease him since we had made him watch two female oriented movies. It was enjoyable and a blockbuster. obviously not gonna change the world but you know...it was will smith

4. Atonement: guys this surprisingly awesome. I had seen the preview and kept thinking, either this is the lamest preview ever or this movie is actually lame. But it was not! It was really really good. We all agreed it was the best one we had seen all day, which says a lot. And I think that the love scene in the library was quite possibly the hottest love scene i have ever seen. I mean you can't just fast forward to the love scene because what makes it hot is the sexual tension and build up of the first hour or so of the movie. They didn't even show much skin or like titty or anything. but seriously...i don't fantasize much about things like that but, man, it made me think!

All in all we only lost one soldier in the whole battle, and that was because she had a baby she had to go home to. legit reason. Also another reason why you should not have children for a long time because then you can't go see 4 movies in a day, because you have like, responsibilities and stuff. how sad. 4 of us went to dinner afterwards and i was like "guys i feel like i just got off of a night of binge drinking and now i have the munchies." because that was what it felt liek! i was tired and incoherent, but laughing at everything and i was soooo hungry. so we feasted and then drove home.

The most awesome part of the night, and perhaps the weekend, though occurred during our drive home. I looked at the moon which was surprisingly bright for an LA night and noted that there was a weird star like dot like a thumbs distance to the right of the moon. Seriously it was right on the moon. I let everyone know and because i had been watching too much Battlestar i was like "do you think the cylons have found us!" my cousin responded "maybe it's Galactica and they have finally discovered the lost 13th colony of kobol!!!" then my aunt said "guys, maybe it's santa!" We all were a little weirded out, but agreed that if it was indeed some kind of alien spacecraft of a meteor or something that was sent to destroy us at least we knew how to survive as the last people on earth after watching Legend. We all got silent...and fanny goes "hey guys, that's kind of freaky." my imagination started to get the better of me and we all started worrying that maybe while we were off watching movies the world was somehow going to end in 13 hours or something. I told my mom to turn on the radio station to see if like...maybe this was something bad, but the raeggaeton was blazing on so i assumed that it was not the apocolypse.

We got home and quickly googled "astronomy" where low and behold we discovered that this red dot was actually Mars. I guess every 10 to 20 years it hits a spot on its orbit where it reflects off the sun and then you can see it right next to the moon! I mean I don’t really know if this is how it works but this is the dumbed down version of what my 13 year old astronomy geek cousin explained to me.

Anyways the whole moment was really very magicarrr and i'm glad i go got to share it with the ones i love. And now i share it with all 4 of my readers. If you look up tonight you will not regret it because tonight is when it's supposed to be the brightest.

Peace out, merry christmas, and xoxo.

christmastime is here...

so i'm in la which means that i've been listening to american and spanish top 40, NON STOP. it's kind of ridiculous. I just love how in LA you can shamelessly listen to this shit. Anywhere else people would mock you, but here it's like "you don't know the new Kanye song?" and i don't!! But i do know that i love the enrique iglesias "ping pong song" love it! i mean it literally has ping pongs hitting a table in teh background. waht the fuck! and yet, so catchy. Or that one about apple-bottom jeans and fur boots. And dont' even get me started on Fergie. She i like my herpes. I can't get rid of her. She just makes me want to dance while drunk.

So since i'm here i spend a majority of my day in a car. I miss walking down the street in the snow. what is wrong with me! anyways in between all this shit music i've been listening to the christmas music station which just really bums me out. I have decided that 2 singers who can make me weep no matter what the song content is are Karen Carpenter and James Taylor. Seriously how they have this effect on me, i do not know. I used to think the carpenters were happy but after seeing the behind the music on karen carpenter i just hear such sadness in her voice. Adn james taylor....just very pure, too pure, like tears pure.

the point of this post was to inform you all that in between my bouts of traffic and shopping malls i have been watching battlestar galactica NON STOP! seriously i started like 4 days ago and i'm already pretty much done with season 2. that's liek over 20 hours of television. But it's so good! It's like star wars with really hot people and contemporary topics.

no just to end this i leave you with my all time favorite christmas song. wham! why do you sing to my soul??? That synthesizer is just so good. Cathy once said that if she has kids she won't make them learn violin or anything. She's just gonna have them take synthesizer lessons so they can play wham! songs for her.

my favorite parts: 1. when he whispers (time stamp 1:29) "merry christmas...I wrapped it up and sent it!"

also when he says "crowded room...friends with tired eyes." I just feel like he paints a picture of an awesome party that i totally want to be at.



cathy and i plan to recreate this party on Friday night when we host our first annual "the christmas i never had as a child" party. We're gonna make gingerbread houses and listen to this song on repeat and as she puts its "once we get drunk, we can sway to that depressing charlie brown christmas tune where the children go "la la la, la la laaaa..." this is the plan

thingssss

so i have good news and bad news. The good news is I GOT A NEW CAMERA so consider this the official return of the photo blog. the bad news is i'm back in LA which means i have done nothing but go to malls which means this post is gonna be all about my buys.

A few observations. Forever 21 is taking over the world...and i love it!! So if you all didn't know they have this new spin off store called "heritage 1981." it's like the american eagle version of forever 21, so like retro preppy. it's very cool and a few of us discovered it in michigan. V. random that we would be that our malls would include such a store but they do. But today i discovered something even more awesome. They have another spin off store called "forever love 21" which is all accesories. EEEEEMAGINE!! how many times have you said "god i love that i can just run into forever 21 and buy $2 earings or a $5 necklace." Now imagine a whole store of that. you would die. I died. So this all leads to my observations

1. Fish are the new owls of jewelry. And i'm talking like really cool greek looking fish.
2. African jewelry is the new plastic jewelry. What i mean is that the way big plastic things were in for a while, wooden and raw metallic tribal things are in now.

All of this excites me immensely.

So the purpose of these shopping trips was two fold. I needed to a) buy a few things for thailand. woo! and b) buy some cutish winter clothes for when i go back to hell.

a couple of sweaters i bought. They have some angora in them and have that really worn, comfy look. perfect for my exploration of jcrew prep, sans the actual jcrew brand. I love jcrew's ideas and i often model outfits after what i see in their catalogue, but let's keep it real for a second here. I am not a 5'10 nordic blonde girl, and their clothes just does not fit me. so i have to blaze on to more petite pastures.
let me set the scene for this next pic. I'm walking down the beach in phuket looking fabulous.. that is it. that is the scene. Speaking of which i am not going to be able to do my hair so i have decided i am going to just wear lots of head scarves and it will be awesome.
dress print up close
new lacoste tennis shoes. I have been a big fan of their shoes since i bought my first pair when i was studying in florence. they are way awesome and more comfortable than all stars but same style. Also they were 40% off. bonus!!

this is the print on the thermal bottoms i bought. cute and a half
sweater. it has pearl buttons
now bare with me on this next one. I was planning on wearing it with my skinny black jeans since i need a bit of flowiness on the top area to compliment the tight bottom. yes, it's a bit school teacher meets my mom in 1986, but i'm ok with that cuz my mom was hella in style.
now here is something i have been wanting for a while. There are so many days when i walk outside and think "this is perfect puffy vest weather. if only i had one!" They tend to be so expensive and i just can't commit to paying that much for something that i will probably regret buying so i opted for the cheap version. But i dig it cuz i'ts kind of shiny retroish and it has a detachable hood with sheerling lining!
now for the jewels
awesome purple earings i plan on rocking
see what i mean by the tribal inspired necklaces
this has shalacked on sequin. love it!
don't know how i will wear this yet since i haven't envisioned it but i'm excited nonetheless
the fish i spoke of earlier. I like it because it has movement.

ps, i love the macro function on my camera. thanks cathy, for introducing me to it a while back.
and finally, in conclusion, "Hi, i am ridiculous!"

American! fuck yeah!!

Guys! i have such good news and i have to share it with the blogosphere, ie my 4 friends who read this! ok drumroll....

MY DAD JUST PASSED HIS CITIZENSHIP TEST!!!

yes, my father is officially a US citizen!! finally just 6 days after this 58th birthday, after exactly 40 years in this country he can officially call himself an American. these are things that people with American roots never understand. LIke talking about politics is kind weird because you can't really say "who are you voting for" since they can't vote. And when you go on vacation your family has to split into the citizens and non citizen and you say "we'll meet you in baggage claim." I think my father has always had this romantic view of Mexico as being like his real homeland. I mean, this is not to say that he doesn't love the US because he might love it more than your average middle class American. But people often don't think about what they would do in those situations. They criticize and say "well just go back to (fill in blank for original birth country) if you love it so much! how ungrateful!" The truth is though, that if i moved somewhere else, no matter how much i loved it i would still have a really special place in my heart for the United States. And i'd probably dream of someday movign back when i get old. And i'd have a really hard time giving up my citizenship because that's like giving up your name or something. So when he finally decided to apply for citizenship early this year I asked him waht had made me change his mind. He said that he was driving by the Staples Center one day on his lunch route and they were having a swearing in ceremony. He said he saw all of these people who looked really, basically fresh off the boat, and i mean like they looked real foreign. He said he looked at them and thought to himself "i am more american than these people! this is silly." And he decided to go apply the next day.

and now i just feel so happy that he passed. I also feel really sad that i wasn't there to take him to his test, or to help him study. I didn't even remember to call him for his birthday! i feel like a terrible daughter.

necessity is the mother of invention

guys, confession. i tend to eat really weird, bland shit. I mean like i will just throw wahtever is there in a pot and MAKE IT WORK! well today i was quite surprised to find that i made something decent. I have this goal to not buy food but rather just use up all the shit that is currently in my freezer or pantry until it all runs out. aside from buying a few bananas, apples, and soymilk weekly i have been doing this for a month. Yes, i had that much food in my pantry. gross. Well I'm hitting the bottom of the barrel now so i was pleasantly pleased to have made something edible tonight.

so it started with some boiling water. I looked in the fridge for some flavoring and found some miso paste, a surprisingly good thing to have in your fridge...Also found an egg, that was probably old but still edible. don't judge me. threw it all the pot to hard boil. Added some chicken broth for flavoring. Then went through the pantry for some sort of protein base like a noodle or something. Soba noodles. done! And then i went into the freezer for some veggies. spinach and soy beans, check. at this point i just let it all sit for a few more minutes and put that shit in a bowl and bam! delicious! The only thing that would have made it better would have been some tofu.

so i have a few recommendations to the single ladies out there who want flavor but not fat and who don't really want to cook. These are excellent things to have lying around your fridge. as mentioned before, miso paste. useful in many ways for fishes and stews. stalk obviously, but this is something i discovered liek 2 years ago since I didn't really grow up in a stalk using house so i wil ljust throw it out there for peopel who have not used this product. Frozen edamame beans are liek SO AWESOME! i throw them in some boiling water for liek 3 minutes and throw them in a tupperware, throw some salt on it and BAM, delicious snack for later in the day. Frozen spinach has also turned out to be surprisingly good. I mean i feel like i eat the way that parents feed their babies, where it's not about flavor but about getting all of their nutrients in. So sometimes i'll just boil some veggies and throw them atop some rice. Tofu. Seriously throw that shit in some boiling chicken stalk and in like 2 minutes you have something that is healthful and edible. serioulsy guys, try this shit out. My soup would have been awesome with some real asian spinach based ramen and not soba.

so i guess the saying really is true. necessity truly is the mother of invention. Now what to do wiht the left over eggs, shallots, and can of garbanzos