Bad blogger, BAD!

Good gravy! I haven't posted anything since the Day of Essure™? Wow.

Ok. In a nutshell:

I finally stopped bleeding. What a pain in the ass that was too. God I hate pads. (Sorry about the TMI, but some things just need to be said.) Now all I have to do is wait until the three months are up and go see if my tubes are all nice and blocked. I sure hope so - birth control pills are expensive!

Koroneburg Faire: It was a good time as always. We dressed as Gypsys and it was a whole lot more comfortable - and cooler! - than dressed as Pirates.

Nicky and Carlo came with us and that was fun. I almost had a heart attack when I didn't see the Pickle Lady where she usually is though! Fortunately, she had only changed location. Whew! Koroneburg would just not be the same without my pickle! I also found a sunscreen that is acceptable to me this year (That is, not sticky feeling or beach smelling) so for the first time in oh I don't know...EVER, I came home from faire without sunburned shoulders. So YAY! for that too.

Aquarium of the Pacific: We went there! We had an awesome time there too. I touched everything they would let me touch. Rays, sea anemones, starfishes, sea cucumbers, sharks......fricking LORIKEETS! (We got to feed them too! SWEET!)

It really was a lovely day. We watched a seal and sea lion presentation also which was really neat though not quite as exciting as the two seals we saw earlier in the day which were "hugging" LOL. Yea..."hugging".

Well, what else are ya gonna say when kids are present? HA!

THEN...Weasels Exist. At the Big Bear Lodge. Fun show. I was completely inappropriately dressed however. Note to self: hippy/semi-faire attire not good at a club full of people dressed all in black with sleeved arms and tattoos on their necks - and those were the girls!

Weasels also played recently at The Hyperion Tavern in Silverlake. By far my favorite club they have played in. The crowd was laid back and sorta artsy. Loved the chandeliers and legal encyclopedia stuffed bookshelves lining the walls. Neat. Note to self: Hoegaarden = YES.

Fun, fun, fun!

The last week has been somewhat of a blur. Dennis's family from Oregon came down to southern California and my sweetie has spent much of the week at The Disneyland Resort with them.

His dad is a high school band leader and his kids were performing at California Adventure so he spent a portion of the time wrangling teenagers which is always exciting but he had a fantastic time so the exhaustion was well worth the efforts. He even got to go swimming at their hotel pool which was a good time which was has by all as we has a very lovely and warm week.

I even got to join in the festivities on this past Friday. I took the whole day off at work to spend the day at the Land of Disney and at California Adventure - a place which I have really not been to except for a short jaunt through it a couple of weeks ago when I had the bejesus scared out of me on Sorin' Over California.

YIKES! that ride was just too much for the very afraid of heights me.

It was odd really. As I hung there on the hang glider apparatus with my eyes shut tight (except for the occasional peek) and my fingernails digging into Dennis's hand all I could think about was "What if my shoe falls off!!! Will I be able to retrieve it from the river/mountain top/field/etc.???"

Fear is an unusual and odd thing, that is for certain - especially an irrational one!

This time I stayed off of that ride and all was well. The surprise jewel of the afternoon (besides the high school band performance which I thought was very nice) was the Turtle Talk with Crush experience that Dennis's little brother Nate wanted to go on. It was totally interactive and hilarious! Must make note to go on that again the next time we visit the park! Dude!

All in all it was a fantastic day. I am not usually one to stop and watch the street performers but as we were with a very musical bunch we stopped and watched a number of them. It was very fun. We even managed to go on the Pirates ride twice which is always a good thing!

We ended the evening with dinner at the Rainforest Cafe in Downtown Disney. My mahi mahi and coconut shrimp was divine (albeit a bit pricey)! We even managed to squeeze in a quick Cha Cha when the performers outside the restaurant broke into an appropriate tune while we were on our way in to be seated. Yay!

I was doing pretty good there with the blogging but then *poof* it was gone...

Sue me, I've been busy. HA!

But I have been busy. Very. Despite the fact that we are entirely broke, there has been a fair amount of fun going on - mostly stemming from the fact that two of our very best friends just recently announced their engagement.

Huzzah!

I swear, last weekend N. and I must have poured for hours over flowers and dresses and menus and OMG all things wedding, etc. Dennis didn't mind or even notice really because he and C., the groom-to-be, were busy playing Grand Theft Auto or something. (Nope, not a video game person. At. All.) But that was all good because neither one of them were terribly interested in the Girlie™ which was exploding accross the room as N. and I did our thing.

*Squee!!* Wedding Stuffs®!

In addition to all that happy madness, Dennis and I celebrated our three-year aniversary on the 24th so yay for us! Well, we didn't actually celebrate it until tonight since my sweetie has not been home for a few days. He has been off at school, preparing to take his 100 Ton Masters test so that he can become a captain, purchase us a house and buy me a beautiful ring.

He says he plans to make an honest woman out of me at some point...if it's ok with my dad. LOL

(Heh. I said "LOL". I do that in speaking sometimes too. Such is the Intarweb inspired Brave New World that we live in now-a-days.)

But we DID celebrate tonight in high style at our most favorite eating establishment, Beach City Grill. Mmmmmmmm, YUMMY! Honestly, Larry (the owner, who was waiting tables this evening - YAY! He is so fun!) makes the best most flavorful dishes ever. EVER! We even had the pleasure of enjoying some of his famous Cajun Sweet Potato Fries with feta dip, homemade katsup and the always giggle-inspiring "Panty Ripper" hot sauce in addition to our main courses. Tee hee!

So all in all, it has been busy and happy (and delicious) and more busy and yet even more happy. Life is good.

Island adventure!

I've been meaning to post about our most recent Catalina trip so since I have a minute here while my sweetie is doing the dishes, here ya go:

Last weekend, Dennis and I didn't have anything planned for Sunday so I suggested that we take a day trip to the island and see those Botanical Gardens we didn't make it to the last time we were in Avalon.

Remember that trip? The Great Drunken Disaster of 2008?

So anyways, I spent Saturday at work and then afterwards we went to a lovely birthday party for my nephew. My brother and his wife throw the best parties. Honestly, I can only hope to aspire to someday throwing parties as well as they do. I have no idea how they manage to pull of the shindigs they do, all the while wrangling children and mingling with guests. But they do, and it looks effortless. Amazing.

But back to Catalina...

On Sunday we had planned to hop on the 10:30 boat out of The Landing to Avalon which we would have been able to do without a problem, if there had in fact been a 10:30 boat! Turns out it was a 10:00 boat and by the time we got there at 10:10, it had already left. But no problem, we just got handed plenty of time to enjoy breakfast at the deli Dennis is always raving about. And he was right! Breakfast was delicious!

Fast forward a couple of hours...

The boat ride was wonderful. We saw a bunch of dolphins and even a couple of whales. Neat! Dennis got me some hot chocolate (since coffee is the Nectar of Satan™, according to my bladder lately) and we arrived on the island before we knew it.

We consulted our map to determine the way to the Gardens and set off. I'd walked it before in my younger days and did not recall the road being so long. Long it was though, miles even! Still, it was a lovely hike and there were nice things to look at along the way like The Nature Center at Avalon Canyon where we got to take a little rest and learn a little bit about The Catalina Island Conservancy's conservation efforts and native flora and fauna.

So after a long walk, we finally reached the Gardens, only to find out that they only take cash for admissions and alas, we had no cash! Only a debit card. D'oh! But the trolly bus guy who arrived not long after we did was kind enough to take us on a ride down to front street where we could use an ATM and procure our admission fee. He then took us back up to the Garden so we could get back to the business of visiting it, at long last.

It was beautiful. Even more so than I remembered when I'd first visited it previously. Of course, the day was colored by love.

We took a number of pictures, mostly of us in various places because hello! Vain like that!

After spending a terriffic afternoon walking about, we decided to get some dinner before boarding the boat back home. After careful consideration of the few places open for business (it is Winter, you know. Totally off-season!) we decided upon Topless Tacos where I think I had the best shrimp tacos EVER.

We then made our way back to the dock and boarded our boat back home. We even got to sit up in the Captain's Lounge as no one had booked it which was The Awesome since neither one of us was all that keen on watching to Superbowl and that was what was being watched on all of the other televisions on board.

We watched CSI: New York, I had more hot chocolate (damn evil bladder! Grrr!) and we got back to Long Beach in a flash. We then hopped on a bus and made our way back to our car over at The Queen Mary (free parking over there, yay!).

All in all, it was a lovely day with my sweetie. One of future thousands though, I am quite sure. ♥

Happiest of holidays

Well. This past two weeks have been a bit of a blur, where to start...

First off I suppose I ought to mention Dennis and myself taking a trip to Oregon. We drove and actually had very little trouble with the trip despite the snow, ice and freezing rain which was in and of itself amazing considering that we chose the weekend of the worst winter storm in 5 years to take it! My little car was quite the trooper (YAY! Hyundai!) and we only required chains for a small stretch of time on our way out of Oregon.

It was gorgeous. And Dennis’s first meeting with his dad and paternal family went beautifully. Honestly, I think I may have felt more at home at first then he did as that side of his family is as loud and huge as mine is. And everyone was so lovely and friendly - and musical! There was even a jam session at one point in the evening with Dennis on bass, a cousin and younger brother on guitar and alternately his dad and youngest brother on drums. It was amazing. And grandma makes quite the Divinity and homemade caramels! Yum! We even had opportunity to taste a locally brewed holiday beer too, complements of another cousin I believe, which was delicious.

We also made it out to the Spruce Goose. It was in California for a while and Dennis has been wanting to see it for ages but as soon as he was old enough to go and see it himself, it was moved out of Long Beach and up to Oregon. D’oh! But now, finally, he has seen it. And TOUCHED IT! I’ve got proof - I took pictures!

And speaking of pictures, I have a ton of ‘em, period. I took more pictures of snow and us in it than are probably necessary but what the hell. You only go on your first vacation together once. ♥

A couple of road trip stories of note:

Olives!

On the way up, we saw a sign for The Olive Pit which advertised free olive tasting but we were in a bit of a rush to get to our hotel in Stockton and neither of us were very hungry, we decided not to stop and check it out however, seeing as it was dinnertime on the way back when we passed it, we stopped. The olives were delicious! And the garden burger I had topped with olive tapanade was scrumptious. We even purchased a magnet which says "Olive you" on it while we were there.

Sacramento. Oh, woe is you.

We were running out of gas and figured that Sacramento would be a great place to stop because it is a big city and ought to have Chevrons galore. Well, not so much. In fact, it took more than a mile of driving to come across a gas station, period and it was a Shell station. We filled up anyways though because we really needed the gas and then spent another 15-20 minutes trying to find an on ramp. Dennis says that the only reason Sacramento is our state capital is because people stopped there on their way to somewhere else and never figured out how to leave and he very probably may be right!

The saving grace of Sacramento turned out to be the Shell station attendant. He gave Dennis a free cup of coffee which was very nice because even though it was an old pot which was due to be dumped out soon, he still could have charged for it and we’d still have paid for it so it was very nice of him to be so generous. Way to go Shell station attendant! You single-handedly saved the capital city’s reputation in our minds.

Moving along to Christmas...

It was lovely. We spent the Eve at my brother’s house and after the initial shock of finding out that the meal prepared was seafood, my sweetie was a bit relieved to find out that swordfish was on the menu. After having such a great experience with it at The Express holiday party, he felt confident enough to try it again and found that it was not just a fluke - he really does like swordfish. Huzzah!

It was also fantastic to have Katina at our holiday celebration. She got a number of lovely gifts including my favorite which she received from my cousin. It was a bracelet with cinibar and other interesting beads interspersed with Chinese coins. It was a very thoughtful gift.

Dennis and I also got a number of gift cards to our favorite restaurants and movie passes for the local theater from my parents and my brother and sister-in-law. Sweet! And the cards were made out to both of us which was very nice. It would seem that they truly like him a lot.

Christmas day was spent with Dennis’s family and it was also very nice. We had the traditional brunch at Grandma’s house and also the traditional opening of the "what is it" gift. Sadly (for everyone else), Dennis guessed the first one before anyone else even had a chance to take a good look at it. I do believe that HE enjoyed it though!

Later, we had dinner at Dennis’s mom’s house. She was very sweet and prepared a tomato and mozzarella salad with basil in it for me as the rest of them were having prime rib. It was delicious (the tomato salad!) and we even got to take some of it home to enjoy the next day. Yay!

All in all, I must say that this was probably the best Christmas I can remember. The last few with Dennis have been lovely of course - he makes me so, so happy - but it was so wonderful to have Katina home and she was just the icing on the already beautiful and perfect cake.

Randomness and stuffs...

HUGE JOY!

And I can't believe that I didn't post anything about it until right this second!

The Daughter™ got PAROLED!

It's been a wild week since she got let out. First there was the hearing. Man, was that a nail-biter. Fortunately, that evil woman from the Board was not there. Thank the stars! Still, when the New and Improved Board recommended her release, I was still in a bit of shock. We'd been waiting for so long and it didn't feel real for a minute...

It sure felt real five hours later when they finally had her paperwork together and had finally reached the placement home though, because when she walked out the door to the facility she screamed a happy scream. WHEEE!

So she's been in the placement home since the 17th (she will be there for maybe 45 to 90 days?)and is doing really well. All of the ladies there are really nice and they seem to be looking out for her. Most of them are my age (or older) in fact which I guess is kinda good. Older people tend to be more mature and less apt to be unable to control themselves. Anyways, they all seem very nice. They even have the Internets which is very cool. I get emails frequently and I like that a lot. :-)

Awesomeness!

On the heels of The Daughter™'s release comes another very good thing:

Dennis and I can finally start planning our handfasting!

We are looking at Spring Ojai for the date and toying with the possibility of asking Gryphon to let us have it performed at their encampment. We are also thinking about colors and theme. I like the notion of using different blues and blue-greens and an ocean-esque/beach-y theme.

Calm. Peaceful. Serene. Loyalty. Fidelity. Truth. Openness. Endlessness. Romance. Forever. Blue says all of those things to me.

And the ocean is very important to my love - and to me too, really. While I don't necessarily desire to be on it like he does, I do enjoy being next to it and being able to see it, especially at sunrise and sunset or to be able to sit beside it on a warm evening and listen to the waves crash.

So much to do, not very much time to do it and even less money to do it with! Thank the gods that LOVE is free!

Good riddance.

The sweathog neighbor I was bitching and whining about a bunch of months ago? GONE! No more leaving her clothes in the washer for six hours, no more hanging out in the laundry room smoking, no more hanging with questionable people (mostly of the male persuasion) on the porch into the wee hours of the morning, no more piles of cigarette butts EVERYWHERE. YAY!!

Supposedly she left to go live with her boyfriend. I wonder how he's gonna feel when her other boyfriends are still calling her 24/7 for some Horizontal Lambada Action™? Oh well! Not my problem! *Squee!*

Because, you know, writing reviews for hot "new" nightspots is what I do.

Well, maybe not.

And the hot "new" nightspot isn't even new.

In fact? it's positively OLD. But nonetheless HOT.

So we finally made it out to The Sky Room and wow did we have a nice time. As expected, the food was super expensive (which would be why we didn't order any) but the drinks at the bar really weren't all that bad. They did have a $25 minimum - which upon closer inspection was not the actual bar minimum but the minimum if you were using a credit/debit card* and not actually a strait minimum - but for the two of us, that turned out to be four Guinness (served in tall pilsner glasses. Ooooh...CLASSY!) which really, is the expected on a night out anyways.

From the minute you enter the building, it is as though you have stepped back into a different era. The Art Deco decor is classic and lovely and the staff is attentive and pleasent. You are greeted at the elevator by a gentlemen in a top hat (and tails, if memory serves me - there was so much to take in, including Humphrey Bogart in a classic Casablanca stance standing guard in the ladies room!) who escorts you to the dining/dancing room and/or rooftop bar. We didn't actually make it to the rooftop bar on this particular foray but we fully intend to next time.

But on to the best part...

THE DANCING!

They've got a house band which plays "An Eclectic mix of Swing, Salsa, Rock, and Jazz" and play they do! It's definitely an adult establishment. You won't be blasted by any hip-hop nonsense there or be visually assaulted by a bunch of guys in pants slung at half mast (buisiness casual is the dresscode) and it is absolutely all about the dancing. Tables are situated so that you can watch the band and dance floor while you eat - or not eat, as was our case since we sat at a small table near the edge of the floor and sipped our Guinness instead. I think we cut a dozen and a half rugs last night and did a pretty accomplished job of it if I do say so my not all that unbiased self!

We even met a few people who go there regularly for dancing so next time, we may even be greeted by friends!

*Because since I filed for Bankrupcy last June, I no longer have any credit cards. *SIGH*

WHEW.

Well, the gods were certainly smiling on me this weekend because I just got off the phone with my mom and the whole drunken disaster is already a funny story that "we will all laugh heartily about in a few years if you two are still together".

She even said that of all the guys I've brought around over the years, Dennis is the nicest one yet.

In other words: THEY LIKE HIM!

*squee!*

Face-Melting!

We had a glorious time last night out at the Verity Room watching our friends (can we call them that? I mean, they know who we are -- though at first there was a moment of "huh?" when we walked up not dressed in Faire garb* -- and get a hug or handshake every time we see them so... friends? right??) The Pirates Charles perform.

Damn, can those guys PLAY**.

Amazingly, it didn't even take us all that long to get out to Canoga Park***. Especially considering that Los Angeles is on Fire again. Gah. Can we stop it with the fires for five seconds, please? But I digress. The drive was quick and we arrived just in time to say our hellos, receive aformentioned hugs/handshakes & a handfull of "thank you for coming" and to watch the soundcheck.

Sweet.

Honestly, if you think they are something else at Faire unplugged, you really need to see them all electrified. The kick-ass version of "Talderoy", two of my personal favorites: "Master and Commander, Sebastian Blast" and "Raise the Whiskey High" AND the best all time cover of "Psychokiller" (ever, in the history of all covers. EVER.) made all the tiredness which assaulted my mind and body today entirely and completely worthwhile, justifiable and down-right necessary.

And the rest of their all-request set rocked too!

Harle!

(And from what I understand, they may be putting some of the evenings renditions on their MySpace at some point in the future also. So "Huzzah!" for that as well!)

*Heh. I wonder what it says about us that people have to think a minute before they recognize us when they see us NOT in garb.

**And I mean EVERYTHING. I don't think there is anyone in that group that doesn't play at least 10 instruments each.

***We thought that we had made quite the drive by the way but were outdone by a guy we met at faire last season who drove up from the Escondido area to attend the show. Yup. He won.

Epic.

One upon a time there was The Hookah™.

It was much loved and many great and wondrous things were perpetrated while in the midst of it. (One of which would be the partnering of Dennis and myself *loves*, behind the very back of Evil, no less!) She was indeed, a grand and magnificent Hookah.

And then, alas, she was gone.

And Melissa was left without a hookah at her home (where pretty much everything happens) to fire up at gatherings, celebrations and parties.

It was truly a sad, sad, situation.

*weep*

BUT THEN!

Dennis had and Idea, and Nicky quickly lit a fire under it (like usual - it's what she does) and the next thing I knew we were off on a quest to procure a new and improved The Hookah™, of which Dennis was to be the "Master", Melissa was to be the "Keeper" and the rest of us were to be the "partakers of a vast and sundry Good Times™"...

And all would again, be right with the world.

So we went and picked it up and while we were there, we marveled at all the other hookah and shishas and hoses and other fantastic things (like a *make a hookah out of anything* kit!) that we may be able to sell at our up and coming booth which will at the very least, hopefully and quickly, become a great and fun way to feed our Faire habits!

HUZZAH!

The End...

...Or is it!