Look! It’s me as a Simpsons character!
Now my life is complete.
(If you want to do this to yourself, click here)
Archive for July, 2007
The lovely Stacie has tagged me to do this meme where I tell you eight weird/random things about myself. Here goes:
1.) We have to post these rules before we give you the facts.
2.) Players start with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
3.) People who are tagged write their own blog post about their eight things and include these rules.
4.) At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged and they should read your blog.
1) When I was growing up I was always doing impressions and voices and sounds and stuff and became quite adept at crying like a baby. It’s a bit of a parlor trick and everyone who hears it (mainly at parties after I’ve had a few) gets really creeped out.
2) I have this little stuffed cat that I got in Hong Kong that has become sort of my mascot and good luck charm. His name is Puffy Kitty. In our family, Puffy Kitty is omniscient AND omnipotent, and is always taken on airplane flights for safety reasons. I’m sort of obsessed with Puffy Kitty to the point where for a while he had his own website (www.puffykitty.com), and I just ordered license plates for my car that say PFYKITY. The “name” of my iPod is “Le Chat Boursoufle”, which means Puffy Kitty in french.
3) I have an obsession with bath products and have twelve different kinds of lovely smelling shower gel in my shower right now.
4) Melon (all kinds) gives me the heebie-jeebies because when you cut one open and see all the seeds inside, I think it looks like a swarm of bugs.
5) My favorite book in the world is To Kill A Mockingbird. Since I was ten years old I have read it at least twenty times. I can practically recite it at this point.
6) I quote The Simpsons in everyday situations. A lot.
7) I have five tattoos, including the same one my mom has, in the same place she has it.
The sound of footsteps on pavement is a total pet peeve of mine. Drives me nuts.
Now I’m supposed to tag eight people but I’m not that cool and don’t have that many blog friends yet. Ha! So here’s seven: hawk, kate, neil, christine, megan, sari, melany.
Sorry for the lack of posts - last week was a busy one and my folks were in town over the weekend which didn’t leave much time for blogging.
Not a whole lot going on - I did go see Ryan Adams & The Cardinals last Thursday at the Wilshire Theatre, which was AWESOME. I love his music but had never seen him live. I come kind of late to the game on the Ryan Adams bandwagon, only having been introduced to his music last year by a friend of mine, but it has become like comfort food to me. There’s a lyric from his song “Magnolia Mountain” that says “steady my soul and ease my worries” and that’s what it feels like when I listen to his songs.
I didn’t think it could get any better from the albums I love so much (Cold Roses and Easy Tiger), but boy was I wrong. They brought the house down. Played twenty three songs over about two hours, and my favorite songs were ones I had never heard before. I have now become obsessed with finding live recordings of their performances, and luckily I have found a bunch. If you’ve never listened to him, I really recommend it. His voice is so strong and so pure, the songwriting so honest and raw, the band as a whole is so tight. Awesome, just awesome.
I also got the new Harry Potter book over the weekend but since my folks were here haven’t finished it yet (I know, what’s wrong with me??). But so far it’s very good - super intense and not at all a children’s book. Serious shit goes down, with some very relevant themes. Jo Rowling is quite a writer.
We resolved things with the pet sitting service that was responsible for Maggie’s death. Hawk met with the owner and for the first five minutes of the meeting, just told him about Maggie, what an amazing dog she was, how sweet and playful and full of life. He made him look at pictures, too. In the end, they agreed to pay her vet bills and to make a one thousand dollar donation to the East Valley Animal Shelter here in Van Nuys. It’s where we got Daisy, as well as Millie and Jethro, so it’s near and dear to our hearts. I guess that’s the best resolution we could have hoped for. Nothing is going to bring her back, but maybe some good can come out of it for the animals at the shelter.
We also decided to take another month off from the babymaking. We were supposed to do an insemination cycle this month, but what with the stress from traveling and the grief from losing Maggie, we decided to wait. And I’m glad we did. I really haven’t even been thinking about it that much. I don’t know if that’s because I’ve just had other stuff on my mind or if I’m feeling more confident about it so I’m worrying less. I hope it’s the latter but in reality it’s more likely the former.
I’m going to try to be better about writing more regularly. I miss it when I don’t, it’s such a good outlet for my thoughts, even when I’m not being “deep” or particularly thought provoking, even when I don’t feel like I have that much to say. Putting stuff onto virtual paper just makes it more real. It makes more sense. Now that we are back into our routine, and are getting used to the quiet of a slightly-less-dog-filled house, I think I’ll be able to get back into it.
My 30th birthday party was the best ever. Stacie catered the event and she was amazing. So professional, and the food was unbelievable. This is the menu:
Caramelized Onion and Goat cheese tartlets
Parmesan Cheese Straws
Rosemary Cashews
Brie baked with Brown Sugar, Sauteed Apples and toasted almonds with breads, crackers and champagne grapes
Watercress soup shooters with creme fraiche
Polenta Squares with Mushroom Ragout
Vegan Stuffed Mushrooms
Vegan Chocolate Mousse in crispy ginger curls
Cognac Vanilla pastry tarts with organic raspberries
The pastis and champagne flowed freely, and we made kir royales (champagne and creme de cassis). Num!
So many wonderful people came and celebrated with us. I feel so lucky to have such dear friends.
A good start to my 31st year!
The harbor in Monte Carlo, Monaco
We’re home. Got in last night, woke up absurdly early this morning.
We picked Daisy up from the family that took her in after Maggie’s accident, and they could not have been sweeter. When we pulled up, Lynn, her husband Mark, and a couple of their neighbors were outside waiting for us, and there was a homemade sign stuck in the front lawn that read “Daisy’s Place”. They took her for walks like five times a day, put ice in her water dish when it was hot, and stuffed her full of chewies and treats. We are extremely blessed that Lynn happened to be there and was kind enough to take Daisy home with her. Daisy loved them too, gave Lynn lots of goodbye kisses, but then was happy to jump in the car and come home.
When we got home, she ran straight for the front door. I went with her out into the backyard and she did three laps around it, sniffing and smelling and she kept looking at me, quizzically. I hated telling her that Maggie just wasn’t coming home. I sat down in the middle of the backyard and wept.
But there’s no place like home, and we are so happy to be back. The cats have not left our laps since we walked in the door, our bed is so soft, the smells so familiar and comforting.
It’s just so quiet here now. Maggie was always running through the house, making wookie sounds, panting, licking, all up in yo’ grill. And now it’s so quiet.
Thank you to everyone who has extended warm feelings and sympathy to Hawk and I the past couple days. It really does help. Maggie was a wonderful dog and we will miss her terribly, but we were lucky for every minute we got to spend with her. We went out to dinner just the two of us on Saturday night and reminisced about all the funny sweet things she used to do.
Daisy is well taken care of with the woman who took her home after the accident. Our friends Michael and Christine went to visit her yesterday and brought her her dog bed and gave her love. They sent us pictures so we could actually see our lovey girl and see that she is OK. We fired the pet sitting service and our other friend Maija is taking care of the cats until we get home.
We have a couple days left on our trip, and yesterday we had a wonderful day with Hawk’s parents and his brother Jeremy. Nick left in the morning to fly back home, but the rest of us went into Cannes and indulged in a bit of food and retail therapy. By which I mean we had a three hour lunch on the waterfront including two bottles of wine, and then spent way too much money on sunglasses. But, as Nick would say, they are totally “baller” (translation: really fucking cool).
Today we are going to Monaco, into Monte Carlo, where we are going to go to the Oceanographic Museum and Aquarium and try to sneak into the Grand Casino without them figuring out that we are impostors with no money to actually gamble.
Look how damn cute Maggie was when she was a pup. It kills me. We had this sweet sweet girl as a part of our family for nearly five years, and I am thankful for every minute.
Such a good natured dog, so smart and brave. A wonderful watch dog, who would walk from room to room making sure the whole family was accounted for. An energizer bunny with an insatiable hunger for playing fetch. She loved to play with the hose, she loved the beach. She gave sloppy sticky kisses and would bend herself in half wagging her tail so hard, making wookie sounds in greeting when we came home.
I can’t believe she’s gone.
Maggie died last night. A blood clot formed from the bruising in her lungs and went to her brain and they couldn’t save her.
My poor, poor baby girl.
Checked messages this morning when we woke up and had a slew of them from two different animal hospitals and a woman we don’t know - because the pet sitting service that was supposed to be taking care of our animals didn’t lock the gate properly, our dogs got out and Maggie was hit by a car. She’s OK - no internal bleeding, but a fractured pelvis and a pulmonary contusion. She won’t need surgery, but will need physical therapy. The lady we don’t know, a very nice woman, took Daisy home with her.
Since it’s the middle of the night at home, we can’t call and talk to anyone. I left an hysterical message on the voicemail of the pet sitters, who, by the way, HAVE NOT CALLED US OR OUR EMERGENCY CONTACTS YET, even though I’m sure they showed up to feed the dogs last night and found them missing. I can’t even express how livid I am or what hell we are going to bring down on these people.
My poor babies 
Maggie is alone and hurting and we can’t go comfort her. Daisy is in a strange house (but thank god for this wonderful woman who called and took Daisy into her home) and I’m sure she’s scared. It’s so hard to be here and feel so helpless.
Edited later to add:
We’ve spoken to the vet now - Maggie is OK but WILL need surgery to repair her pelvis, after four or five days to allow her bruised lungs to heal. We spoke to the poor sweet woman who hit her, who, after she knew who we were on the phone, burst into tears and assured us that she would visit Maggie and bring her blankets. Daisy will stay with the nice family who brought her home. And The Pet Staff is saying that they don’t know how this could have happened, because they never opened the gate. Liars. But they will keep going to our house to feed and care for the cats. So, for the time being, everyone is taken care of and safe.
