I just can't help myself!

How frickin' cute is my neice, Bella? She's got cheeks for days and I just want to eat her like a sun ripened peach!!!

Our little travels...

I've been called many things in my day, but never a "Blogger-slacker". Now that the cold wind of shame has pricked up the hairs on my neck, I will blog. BLOG dammit BLOG. I have no good excuse for my absentia except to say that I have felt a bit uninspired, even to write and, as I think anyone who blogs feels sometimes...is anyone reading anyway? But, since December was full of unemployed adventures, I shall blog. Anna and I went to Las Vegas for 4 days to spend time with two of our dearest NY friends, Randy & Roger and to see spectacular theater. We had no idea such exciting things were happening in Vegas. I used to travel there as a kid - my dad was producing Circus of the Stars which took place in a circus tent pitched on the grounds of Caesar's Palace and my mom and brother and I would take a week every summer to swim and run around this lavish hotel while my dad worked. My Vegas memories are good ones, but they are very limited in scope. This time, my first time back on about 17 years, I realized that Vegas is truly Disneyland for adults. We ate incredible food, saw 5 beautiful productions and spent endless hours watching the choreographed fountains outside our Bellagio room. The four of us fell in love with this...installation and caught it as often as we could. We would plan our meeting times around the fountain schedule and would run back to the lake from the street every time we heard the heavily piped music kick in. We had a great escape and enjoyed our time with the gracious gents immensely.

The following weekend we drove up to Cambria to visit Anna's dad and his wife, Margaret. They are retired and have built a lovely home on a cliff in the Cambria hills and have turned the lower two rooms into a B & B. Which means that whenever we stay we get to have the cute little guest room with the fireplace and special breakfasts made for us. Can't beat that. The next day Anna's sister, Sandy and 4 of her 6 children came over. Anna and I have always adored the Rivera kids (who range in age from 11-28) and have watched them grow up in our 16 years together. Venus, the oldest, is now married and 8 months pregnant! We are still not sure how that happened, considering she's only 15 in our heads, but it sure did. We got to meet the adorable hubby and Galaxia's boyfriend as well. All good people. We played silly board games, ate pizza and sundaes and had a great time taking over The Frog Palace as if it were our own.

BECKETT was born!!!

Two of our very dearest friends had their baby yesterday - Beckett Theodore Austin Lopez! How great is this picture of happy mommies and their adorable little guy? I'm jealous of this one...I want to be raised by B & G! How fun would that be? He's bound to be the smartest, funniest, most sensitive and creative little guy EVER!

Namaste

As you all know, yoga has been a pivotal part of Banana's life for many months now, but it's just now becoming so for me. My dear friend, Emily, is a wonderful yoga teacher and sublets a little studio with a fellow teacher a few days a week. Every Monday I attend her evening class and have loved every minute of it. The studio is very serene, replete with fountain and calming sage colored walls. The atmosphere is intimate and refreshingly casual and there is always a nice group of people to get sweaty with. I've realized what an incredibly therapeutic experience yoga can be and I look forward to Em's class every week. I always leave feeling physically strong and mentally rested. She is seriously fierce, by the way, check out this shot...

WeHo a go-go

Today we decided to get out and enjoy West Hollywood a bit. I took a yoga class (I've been doing an obscene amount of yoga lately...I guess it helps assuage the guilt of not working because I'm "working" on my mind and body :)) at City Yoga down the street. Anna picked me up so we could head over to the Melrose Trading Post, which is a fancy name for a big flea market that takes place every Sunday at Fairfax High School. A few weeks back we went with Anna's mom and had a great time. We found a few treasures that day, like a fabulously refurbished dining table, a few side tables and a lamp (all bartered for under $100, thank you) and were hoping to have the same luck with a much needed dresser for me. No such luck, but we still had fun looking at all of the odd relics and even odder people. We left empty handed and decided to walk down too-hip-for-these-broads Melrose a bit. We saw some great graffiti and Anna found a top on sale that is a total work of art. She's looking forward to premiering it in Las Vegas in a few weeks! We ate at a delish little spot called I Love Sushi that had the best pizza...no, just kidding :)

On our way back we stopped off at our neighborhood Whole Foods, which is always a treat. There's nothing we do better than spending ridiculous amounts of money on organic goodies. Back home for a nice, home-cooked dinner. Nice.

Just now we heard what sounded like a serious shoot out, but we quickly realized (when we saw the glowing sky) that it was a massive fireworks display from the treelighting ceremony at the Grove. The irony is that I was at that same event with the AG Ambassadors (who were singing for it) two years back...when I used to work there. Now I just live nearby. Huh.

It has taken me awhile to feel ready for blogness, but, alas, here I am. Feeling ready. Anna and I have been in lala land for 6 weeks now and are still a little unclear about what has happened to our lives. We had such busy, bustling lives in NYC- full of routine, favorites, usuals. Here, we spend our days trying to figure out what we're supposed to do to feel like we've had a productive day. Today, for instance, was a typical 88 degree day in November. We're so tired of wearing t-shirts and capris and just want to put a hand-knit scarf or cute little boots on... not yet, says, LA, it's only November. Sheesh. We did some organizing around our place, which is a our greatest routine these days. There are endless projects and we spend at least a few hours a day focusing on those. I'm still baffled how two jobless people can be in an apartment for one month and still have pictures leaning against walls instead of on them, but somehow that's where we're at. Slow but sure. We have had many a hearty laugh over this blatant realization that we are people with lots of stuff. We keep things and, as unpacking boxes taught us, we've kept things. Lots and lots of things. In fact, we made dozens of trips to the 96th street church to donate bags of clothing and what-nots and yet we still had 40 boxes to unpack. Incredible. This is what 16 years of shared life and experience gets you. After we did our daily dose of finding spots for things we headed out to Burbank to go to Ikea. We always find trips to Ikea fun and fruitful... we always need at least a few things that they're selling and we managed to get some necessities like a lamp, some bins for the closet, some hooks...necessities. As we drive through Burbank to Los Feliz to Hollywood to West Hollywood we marvel at the endless blue sky, the boring and squat architecture and the endless sea of cars. We are not in love with LA...we are not even sure we're in-like with it, but we're trying hard to give it a chance. We know this is where we need to be if we want to keep pursuing the business of show and, at least for now, we really do. I have enjoyed seeing my family more often and having less painful goodbyes. My mom has been up a few times, I've been down a few...it's really that simple when only an hour separates us. We appreciate many things about our new apartment. Starting with the rent, which is $500 less a month than we paid in NYC. We have more space, lots of nice sunshine and a balcony full of happily blooming plants, a little table and chairs and my gorgeous new bicycle. We also have plants throughout the apartment which are thriving. We never had any luck with live flora in NYC, so this is really a treat. We also had some pretty great vegetarian Thai food yesterday, so that was a check in the plus column.

Our friends who have moved here from NYC all seem to love it. I keep trying to get to the bottom of what exactly it is they love about it and the same points keeping being made - the weather (boring!), the big open sky (yeah, that's filled with smog) and the easier pace (as in, hard to get motivated and inspired?) and none of the arguments have really won us over. We've heard time and again that we need to give it time and clearly that is very true. So we will. We will wait until the fairy dust washes over us, but in the meantime, we just really miss that overwhelming, slap in the face, smelly and downright amazing Big Apple.