• Paris,  party party

    Post Post Post Paris Post

    Post Post Post Paris Post

    The fuss about Paris is finally over. I’ve officially taken down my six foot Paris map. I’ve washed and dried and boxed the last wine glass from last night’s party. With a sense of bittersweet conclusion, I am wrapping up my obsession with all thing Parisian and bidding the creative movement a respectful au revoir.

    So how was the Post Paris Party? It was great! I think I scored an A- in ambience (the red light bulbs totally worked!!! Thanks dayment), a B+ in food (actually my mom gets an A+ in food because the Croque Monsieurs were delicious! But I scored a D- in kitchen clean up and that brought the overall food grade down a bit) and maybe a C in guest attendance. I would have gotten a D in guest attendance because about four people turned up MIA, but one of my very most favorite bloggers drove here ALL THE WAY FROM NORTHERN CALIFORNIA!!! Now that’s dedication.

    She not only gave me extra credit points in guest attendance but she totally made up for the people who just dropped off the planet after they rsvp’d. (Isn’t that weird when that happens? I hope they are okay.) Normally, I wouldn’t notice but it was a smallish party and I didn’t want Leah to drive all this way and then think I’m socially retarded. But I didn’t have to worry because there were just enough people to fill every chair and at one point, all join into the same conversation at once. That was cool. Plus, Toby was way more comfortable with the crowd issue being under control. He and I differ on the whole “the more the merrier” thing. It was perfect actually.

    It was such an honor and a privilege to finally meet Leah! My first impression? She is so tall! Like model! And drop dead gorgeous too. I mean, I knew she was pretty but I never expected a super model to come to my party. I gotta say it: she’s smart AND pretty! I think her ex-fiance needs his head examined. I should probably stop going on and on because I know she’s going to read this and then she’ll feel obligated to write something really complimentary about me. As it is I’m waiting for her blog post as if were an opening night restaurant review. We’ll see if she’s honest and reports on the cat puke.

    I think I pulled it off though. It was a bit sketchy in the beginning. How is it that no matter how much you plan and no matter how early you start preparing, guests will always arrive before you’re ready? Nobody was early early or anything but I just didn’t have my sh– together. I really got ambushed with the whole setting up of the projector. Which is totally my fault because I could have been planning out the cord issue and such, so many days ago. The Things (the kids I babysit) came over exactly at the same time I was setting up the very expensive borrowed projector. It was scary. There were cord issues and instability issues and add little feet running and jumping… I nearly had a heart attack.

    Earlier, when my trusty Audio/Video friend came over with the projector, he gave me very specific instructions to make sure no one bumped it or the table it was on OR spilled anything anywhere near it. He told me that if I broke it, I would have to replace it because it belonged to a friend of his and apparently it was the best on the market AND it cost two grand. Yikes! No pressure!

    The projector was the best though. Without it, the party would have been snoresville. It was really fun to see all 677 of my Paris pictures up there on my wall while my very own sound track played. Maybe I’m being partial, but it was my dream Paris Party come true. Outside of hiring my own squeeze box player from the metro, it was as close as I could possibly come to bringing Paris into my living room. With the red lights and the cool summer breezes coming through our wide open windows, I was temporarily a French girl again.

    After I got the projector safely tacked down and cords covered with a durable rug, I was able to focus properly on the Things. They were adorable, the darlings of the party really. Thing One drew me a picture of the Eiffel Tower and greeted me with a hearty “Bonjour Mademoiselle!” that nearly cracked the cute-o-meter in sweetness. She must have been practicing in the car ride over. Thing Two loved his toy Twingo car that I got him and made himself quite comfortable with the girls on the patio. He’s a little flirt. When the Things left, Thing One kissed me on both cheeks, properly Parisian style. I love those Things. I totally forgave them for all the running and jumping and yelling and helping a little more with lighting of the candles than was probably safe for a four and three year old.

    The sad thing is: I was so busy being hostess and party girl, talking my head off about Paris, that I didn’t take any pictures! Stupid me! I insisted on using real dishes and not paper and plastic (cause that’s so disgustingly American) so there were several times where I was a bad hostess doing dishes in the kitchen instead of mingling like I should have been. We did bring out the polaroid camera and played around with that, but most of the guests took their snap shots home with them so all I have left to post are the rejects. Thank goodness my mom took a minute away from sweating over the stove in the kitchen and snapped a quick shot of me and Leah. See she really was here! How cool is that?!!!

    I took some shots this morning of the left overs.

    Until next time Paris!

  • The Hood

    Chapter Two in Boresville

    Chapter Two in Boresville

    I swore I wouldn’t let this happen. I’ve got a trillion things lined up in the future to be so excited about. Really, I do. Lets see, there’s my party TOMORROW!!!! Wooo Hooo!!!! A good friend’s crazy three day wedding extravaganza in Cambria the weekend after that and then…….. (drum roll here) I’m off to CHICAGO again to see my nieces for a few days and help throw the BEST TEA PARTY EVER for Rapunzel’s seventh birthday!!! So why am I glum and dumb? Why can’t I get back into the swing of things? The jet lag is over. I can’t use that as an excuse any more.

    I really hate to say this, it goes against everything in my core but…. I kinda wish I had my old corporate job back just for a week or two (no longer!!!) just so I could sit at my desk and stare at my screen and work on autopilot. I really just want to zone out right now. Typing some mindless coupon mouse type sounds so appealing. What is wrong with me?!!!

    It could be a few things. First off our house is getting painted! How about that! First day we wake up to water guns and a generator reverberating our teeth right out of our skull, the next day we wake up to metal ladders being lodged against the house and… HELLO! There’s a man looking at me not three inches away from my second story window! They taped up all the windows and cut off all our supply of fresh air. This was fine until about 3 pm in the afternoon WHEN OUR HOUSE TURNS INTO AN AFTERNOON SAUNA!!! We don’t have air conditioning of course. Oh my goodness I was so hot and sweaty and claustrophobic! Why oh why did I decide to stay inside when I had that last chance to go outside before they taped up our sliding glass door that is our only exit to the outside world!!!!???? I was going nuts.

    Secondly my car has been in the shop. There is nothing like being trapped in your house AND knowing that if you did get out you couldn’t really go anywhere besides where you could walk. Which I did, believe me. As soon as the painters cut a little opening for me to escape, I was a bat out of hell. I tip toed down the stairs on the “not wet” side, clutching my new French flouncy skirt to my legs so it didn’t brush the banister and off I trotted to the… Library! (Oooh the excitement!)

    Snore. I sat in the library chair reading a book I’ve wanted to catch up on and what do you know, I’m in direct eye view of the bank of computers that they offer the internet on. It’s a very small local library so really there was no where else to sit other than the tiny baby chairs in the kid’s section. Everything was fine until this creepy old man started looking at porn. Even though I coughed and tried to turn my pages loudly, he didn’t seem to care that I was RIGHT THERE LOOKING AT HIS PORN TOO! It’s not that the porn really bothered me but I kept thinking that maybe he was getting aroused and where were his hands and EWWWWW! This is gross! No matter how hard I tried to concentrate on my book, I kept thinking about the creepy man and how he might be a horny rapist and follow me home. I know, I’m paranoid but sometimes you gotta trust your fear.

    So I got up and sat in one of the tiny baby chairs in the kid’s section until they closed. It wasn’t that comfortable but it was better than porn and the creepy man. The library was only open for another 15 minutes anyway so I probably only sat in the small chairs for 10, making sure to leave long before the creepy old man. So that was that! How exciting! I wandered around my neighborhood and then finally returned to my freshly painted house. Guess what color it is? I didn’t know until yesterday either. Isn’t that funny to be inside your house and listening to all the ruckus of painting going on the walls around you and NOT KNOW what color they are painting!!!

    It’s beige.

    From a distance it looks kind of nice with our old white trim, BUT… we stopped to talk to our neighbors (they are getting the same kamikaze paint job too), to discuss our crazy landlady and how many times she has violated our privacy, and they informed us that she intends to paint our trim RED!!!!!! I love red. I do! But on my house!!!??!! A red door maybe. But red stairs and red window trim!!!! I’m freaking out! I can’t live in a house that looks like a candy bar wrapping! It’s also not a real red. I have no idea what kind of red it is but our neighbor said it’s not red red. So maybe it’s brick red or mauve or I don’t know… the possibilities are endless! The lengths my landlady goes to be completely unpredictable are boggling! If you could see her house (she only lives a few blocks away) it would explain some things. Remember the parent’s house in “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” with all the statues and stuff? It’s a little like that. And she’s not even Greek. Oh yeah, and I’m having a party on Saturday and Leah is coming (!!!) and I really want to make a good impression!

    Oh well. Love me, love my beige and red house, right? I shouldn’t get so caught up in appearances. Who knows, maybe it will be so wacky it will be fun. I am the one with the red refrigerator after all.

    So that’s been my day. Not wanting to work. Hot sweaty claustrophobia. Porn paranoia at the Library. And then shock by color. Oh yeah and throw in some grocery shopping with the MIL (Mother-in-law not the nor-cal mother-in-law I went to Paris with. See my new cast of characters block at right and down a bit.) and finally getting my car out of the shop.

    Snore.