Happy Birthday, baby!

Happy b-day to the Wife! happy being 41...er...ah.. i mean 25!!!!

bullits, please

the life is waaay crazy busy right now so i'm only going to note the highlights as bullited items

• I'm sick. nothing new but it's why i have time to sit in one place and write right now
• Thanksgiving was delightful. The A-Beane totally saved the day by going to pick up our turkey for us whilst i sat in unbelievable amounts of traffic. Then we had the co-rents over and had waaaay too much to eat and sat around and it was great.
• CP and the Other Pretty Co-Rent are preggos!! Yay! Couldn't happen to a nicer set of folks. Spark is beside herself excited. The Boo is pretty anticipatory as well. (Just between you and i, i happen to know for a fact that they're having a girl because i had a dream and my dreams are NEVER wrong. Except the ones where i'm flying and that just may be something that just hasn't happened yet....!) 
• Went to and came back from Israel. Amazing. I loved it. The trip was exhausting but so very lovely and inspirational and mind-expanding, blah, blah, blah but really -- soooooo glad i got to go and so glad i went.
• X-mas = also lovely. Felt a bit rushed due to the fact that I got back second before the actual day but the tree The Spark picked out was grand and i do love breaking out the x-mas decorations!
• Got the best boots for my B-Day from the Angel and the D-Boy in the Tex of As. They. are. beautiful.
• Heard from DB that they may be close to re-locating the babies and the grandparents back to Japan soonish. (Everyone is in NM right now homesteading whilst DB and the Little Lady work on making Tokoyo a more conducive place to grow up in/not die of radiation poisoning. Fingers crossed for them. i imagine it's hard to be apart for so long.
• The Teenager is going to her first High School Dance social thing and she has a FANTASTIC dress! Really quite spectacular that she selected herself and was sashaying around in just a little bit ago.
• I had a really serendipitous opportunity present itself over the last few days about which i am wildly excited but am not going to say much so as not to go jinxing anything (!!) {squeal}
• Dogs escaped from the backyard and somehow made it all the way to the tiny island-city next to ours before being brought to justice. Thinking of changing their names to Bonnie and Clyde.
• Adam Ant, who i was going to see in just a few weeks has re-scheduled his show for October making me sad but strangely o.k. with it.
• Pretty Boy is engaged to be married to his very lovely lady-friend, which is awesome
• My OTHER long-lost roomie buddy, R-Pick just recently wed his long-time GF as well -- also spectacularly awesome (although he announced it by changing his status on Facebook which does give me a rather slight pause/shiver vis a vis the world today but whatev...)
• Family is doing well in gen. Everyone is healthy and growing. (Basically i plan on being the shortest member of our little group by the year 2014)
• My and the Wife seem to be getting along. Not a bunch of time to actually see each other but when we do find it, it tends to be sweet. :-)
• Work, kind of a lot but predictably so. {sigh} Hopefully we'll get things a little more sorted out over there so everything doesn't have to be so silly all the time but regardless, LOVE, LOVE, LOVE my new team. they = awesome.

K. that's it for now. i'm feeling the strain of being upright/need to be in a more fit shape later today to go pick up some childrens so.... Ta til later.

two weeks and counting

You know what's cute?? A crate full of pit bull puppies that's what!

Me and the Little Big Girl just got back from taking the kitten (and friend) to the vet clinic over on Broadway (which I LOVE, BTW) and in addiction to all the randomly just sort of generically cute dogs/cats that were there, some man rolled in with a crate full of Pit puppies - about nine of them, all about 4-6 weeks old! Seriously, there ought to be a law.

{sigh} So, we're getting closer and closer to that magical Nov. 29 trip to the land of the Israel and i'm getting a little panicky about having everything as sorted out as possible. I mean I know everything will be fine, but i'm also kind of a mess right now (inside, where you can't see it as opposed to my usual external squalor which i totally own/think is kind of cute!) ...

also just realized that i've not really sat down to document the life in a REALLY long time so feeling a little lacking on that front as well. Not lacking in the sense that i plan to do anything about it, just like maybe i should. :-)

broke my toof!

Doh! i cracked my tooth last night (chewing gum. that's right. gum. i am officially a mess.) and now it's all jagged and annoying and my dentist can't fit me in until monday. Probably need a root-canal crown. Blah.

Plus, i'm already all stressed out about money (or lack thereof). Double blah!  

the good the bad and the just plain sucky

This week-end was intense. All our bikes were stolen. This is less about me because i am a slug from way back but the Wife and the Big Big Girl and to some significant extent, the Little Big Girl LOVE their bikes. And they had really nice bikes. Sad. We do have renter's insurance and the Wife is busily looking into getting things documented and sorted through and eventually, i feel like we'll get replacement bikes but still...A weirdly annoying counterpoint to an otherwise normal Friday.

We also got a kitten. A little orange stripey one. it came from a semi-feral mom who produces litters every couple of months and this time she popped out a few orange ones which is like CRACK to my Wife so... The Boo and her buddy went and rounded one up and here we are! Cute coming out of our ears!

Then, I got to go on this nifty "three-hour cruise" thing with my buddy IHOEL which was fabulous. Really, the cruise itself was a vendor relation thing but the vendors happen to be adorable/super nice, the food was tasty (the big sized food at least. I wouldn't go near the tiny stuff with a ten-foot-pole but my erstwhile partner in crime assured me it was by and large "fine"), the view was insane/amazing and i met some other folks who were "in IT" but who also managed to not have soul-sucking careers so.... all very refreshing.

Also spent the week-end driving the Little Big Girl around to various parties which was good practice for me as it is what i will no doubt be doing all day every week-end from the point at which she turns 12 to the point at which she gets her license.

All in all, a busy, action-packed, kind of chaotic week-end. some good, some bad, not so much sucky really just lots of "lots"!!

Art and Soul

You know what i love? I love brown people. Seriously, this may be one of those "I can say it because i am it" but really, a BIG part of why I am so stupid in love with Oakland is, in large part due to the fact that it does things like host Art and Soul where large groups of fabulous folks sportin' myriad shades of brown skin, show up to just hang the heck out. I mean, there's singers, artists, community organizations, families, teens, hawkers, assorted 20-30 somethings with their screechey observations -- it's just loud and fantastic and cute as hell. Plus the ladies are BEAUTIFUL. All "done" hair and berry-red lipstick; pretty clothes, and sunglasses and smiles.... Man. Fun too. we went on rides (and by we i mean the Little Big Girl and her friend), had some garlic fires, watched some amazing dancing (Dance-A-Vision - i'm writing that in here because it's an awesome all-ages-dance company and i'm sure my Little Big Girl will someday own it!); ran into old friends (what up, AEG and O-GVers!) made some new ones - LaLaGirl, you know we're meant to be BFFs! cawl me! The weather was great as well. {sigh} Why can't every street party be like this?

Holy be-jezus!

Whew. K. so just back from a fantastic Hollywood vacay (Universal Studios, Madame Tussaud Wax Museum, Book Soup book store, World's Biggest reptile Show, oh my! Stay tuned for pics!); the Big Big Girl has started high school (eek!); the Little Big Girl had her Musical theater camp show (Honk, Jr.) (awesome-pants); we got to visit the Mistah L-L's (to help celebrate the King's 2nd birthday and finally get to meet his Little Princess month-old sister "Pea"!) and most recently, we just attended a super lovely last-bash-before-the-big-shoulder-surgery dinner party at the BBQ's where i, once again, was reminded why i love hanging out with my best-est and closest buddies soooooo much.

It's crazy that the life is so crazy but it's going so well i think it's probably worth the exhaustion!