Marzipan Moments and More

Sigh.

I'm back from Santa Barbara. I got back last night and discovered that Universal Studios isn't the only thing that got a bit burned.

Yes, I forgot to apply sunscreen to myself first thing in the morning yesterday. Seeing as how I walked around in downtown Santa Barbara and on Stearn's Wharf -- all before heading to Butterfly Beach -- I am now a nice lobstery color.

It hurts and I firmly believe that sunburns make my brain stop functioning so here's some highlights from my trip in list form because I'm so exhausted that all I can think of is lists.

1) Beaches in Santa Barbara are beautiful and much cleaner than the ones in LA. I already knew that but both El Capitan and Butterfly Beaches took my breath away. If you haven't been, you should go. Butterfly Beach is a little more chi-chi than El Capitan. Butterfly is technically in Montecito (home of Oprah and a bunch of other celebrities.) But, folks are still very mellow and nice.

2) Speaking of nice people... Yesterday I chatted with an ageless looking woman laying out in an American flag bikini on the blanket next to me. She told me how her family's been in Santa Barbara for five generations. She grew up super rich, married a guy who was also super rich. And then she got most of his money in their super expensive divorce. He cheated, but she said it was ultimately a good thing because the experience made her grow up and start living in the real world.

We went to Arlington West and I talked for a long time with the veteran volunteer there. She was a wonderful woman and gave me a nice hug when talking about the war made me cry. There are 3,000 crosses laid out even though the death count is over 4,000. 3,000 crosses covers an acre and so the organizers ran out of allocated space. My sons spent some time looking at all the little pictures of soldiers who have died in the Iraq War. It broke my heart last time I was there. It breaks my heart again.

Oh, and on a totally shallow note, there were some flirtatious Italian guys at Butterfly Beach who blew me kisses and told me I looked like some sort of flower. They were hot and nice and disappointed I'm not single. My ego grew considerably because of it.

3) I got offered some weed by a hippie at Stearn's Wharf. Dude said, "Here, smell it. It smells great. You won't be disappointed."

When I politely declined, he tried to hold his handful of weed under my nose again and told me it's a shame I'm discriminating against weed since it was created by God and isn't a bad thing.

Um, sure.

Dude, that's such faulty logic. God created boa constrictors but I'm not gonna snuggle all up in the bed with one.

His van is pretty cool though. Every single surface of it is decorated. He's lived in it since his divorce in the mid '90s. He said his wife got the house so he decided to check out of the rat race. Now he lives in it and told me how he hasn't paid taxes in 14 years and is totally off the "grid".

Hmm... What if he's the ex-husband of the divorced woman I met on the beach?

4) I seriously OD'd on marzipan. I went to The Andersen's, a Danish bakery and restaurant, on both Friday and Saturday night. They have a lot of delicious marzipan desserts there. It's the only place I ever eat the stuff because it's sort of hard to find here in LA. But, it's sooo super good.

You can only eat a little bit because it's incredibly sweet and I ate it two nights in a row. Gosh, I love that marzipan at Andersen's. I can't wait to go back. And by the way, if you've never had marzipan, you should try some. It's a really old-school sort of sweet and you'll feel like you're in the Renaissance while eating it.

5) I'm actually sort of happy to be back in LA. Yes, I'll admit that I did get a little happy yesterday at around 7PM when I rounded that curve on the southbound 101, just past Cahuenga, where you suddenly can see all of Downtown LA, the Capitol Records building and the rest of Hollywood. Home is home, after all.

Actually, I got even happier after I flopped down on the couch and slathered some aloe vera gel on my sunburn.

Now I'm going to go run at the park. I need to work off some of that marzipan!

Santa Barbara Adventures

I've made up my mind. Starting today, I'm no longer a Los Angeles resident. Buh-bye Prius-driving hipsters that cut you off and then give you the finger! I'm done with all y'all because I'm moving up the coast to Santa Barbara.

Yes, I know. I need to work out the long term details (note to self: buy lottery ticket) but in the meantime I might just refuse to vacate my hotel.

And why should I leave? This room has got a super comfortable bed. The shower has fantastic water pressure and one of those awesome massaging shower heads. There's free breakfast, and when I walk outside, my hotel is somewhere in the picture you see above, so clearly, it's breathtakingly gorgeous. Thank you for borrowing money from China giving me a tax rebate check, U.S. Government!

Seriously though, I can't tell you how much I've been looking forward to this weekend. It feels really good to be here. I've blogged several times about how much I adore Santa Barbara, but as I drove up the coast this afternoon, I realized that this trip is the very first time I'm coming here just to relax. For the very first time, I'm not here primarily for a conference or for work. I'm just here to have a little getaway with la famille.

Although the beaches here are incredibly picturesque, I've never done more than stick my feet in the water. Truth be told, even when I go to the beach in LA, I never get in the water. Heck, I'm not even one to lounge around on a blanket in the sand. And it's all because I put on a swimsuit and say, "There is no way in hell that I am going out in public looking like a fat cow, especially when Halle Berry might jog by."

However, I decided at around 5 AM this morning that I'm over it and it's all because of my kids. I overheard them chatting in their room last night about how excited they were to come here and how they really wanted to go to the beach but probably wouldn't get to, "Because Mommy thinks she's too fat to go."

I felt really bad when I heard that because I try to be really positive about my body around them. They see me sweating like a maniac to that Jillan Michaels DVD and they know I go and run at the park almost every day. I don't say, "Mommy's exercising because she's fat." Nope, I tell them it's because exercising is what healthy people do and because I want to have more energy to keep up with them. Clearly though, my sons are no dummies and they know me better than I think they do.

With all this in mind, this morning I said, eff it, I'm going to the beach and instead of wearing shorts and a t-shirt, I'm gonna wear a swimsuit!

At first I tried to track down my old swimsuit but I seriously could not find it. The poor thing probably disintegrated from lack of use. Sooo, I had no choice but to take myself swimsuit shopping. EEK!

I don't have to tell you how traumatizing the lighting in the dressing room is. It makes you want to cut to the front of Hollywood liposuction line! But, I persevered through trying on about two dozen different swimsuits and I finally decided on a very cute RED number. I'm still shocked that I picked something that's not so-called "slimming" black, but I figured if I was going to go for it, I'd be damned if I was gonna do the stereotypical black swimsuit with slimming tummy panels that fits so tight you can barely breath.

In the morning the plan is to go check out the Santa Barbara Mission -- I'm pretty excited because I've never been to a California Mission and this one is old-school, founded in 1786! After that, we're heading to the Rose Cafe for lunch. Any die-hard Depeche Mode fan will certainly recognize this place. (Hint: look at your Exciter CD and then look at the back of this photo on the right side.)

Then, in the afternoon we're going to either Butterfly Beach or El Capitan Beach and my new red swimsuit will make it's debut! I already bought a trashy beach book to read and if the writing gets too tedious, I can work on my list of things I want.

Trust me, "I want to move to Santa Barbara," is going to be somewhere near the top!

Tax Day Public Service Announcements

Ah, Tax Day is here again.

I hope you're already filed and planning how you're going to spend save your forthcoming return or rebate check. However, if you're on track to be one of those poor souls we all see sweating bullets at the post-office on tonight's 11:00 news, stop reading right now and step away from blog addiction.

Now that we have that all cleared up, if you are finished with your taxes, you deserve to keep reading. I have some public service announcements (PSA) for you!

PSA #1: Be Bitter AND Elite
The words "bitter" and "elite" are not mutually exclusive.

I'm a little bitter that gas is about to hit $4 a gallon here in El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles de Porciúncula.

I'm also elite because when I head to the 'Bux, I order a soy chai with a shot of sugar free vanilla, extra hot. Oh, and I went to some super prestigious universities and got a great educmakasion. And, I have lots of student loan debt to show for it! -- Oops, forget about that little mention of student loan debt because we weren't talking about bitterness anymore, were we? Hmm, now I know why people love Jon Stewart.

Could you possibly be bitter and elite, too?

PSA #2: Free Iced Coffee
I don't drink coffee anymore but I know you probably do. So, if you live in driving distance of a Southern California McDonald's, today's your lucky day! Here's a coupon for you to enjoy a FREE iced coffee at Mickey D's! I'm sure it'll be loaded up with sugar because it is McDonald's and the sprinkle sugar on everything over there, (watch Supersize Me if you don't believe me) but heck, it's free and you might like it. And did I mention it's free till May 5th? You could print out a bunch of these coupons and go to a different Mickey D's every day of the week!

If you don't live in Southern California, bummer. Maybe you should move here -- and bring your kids so the enrollment at our schools will stop going down. Plus, where else in the country can you get...

PSA #3: Free Trees:
I know. You were hoping I was going to type "Free Winning Lottery Tickets". Sorry. I don't have a hook-up like that. But, if you live in LA, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power will give you free trees to plant in your yard. Never mind that they're gonna jack up your light bill 23% and your water bill by 10%. At least you'll have a nice shady tree to plant in your yard as a gift for forking even more of your hard earned moolah!

To get the tree, all you have to do is take a 20 minute online tree care class. Seriously easy, so go get yourself some trees.

And since you're already in the mood to save something...

PSA #4: Go Clean a Beach
I promise that after you do it, you will want to slap the next person you see throwing a cigarette butt on the ground. I know from personal experience because I've done three beach clean-ups. They were sponsored by Heal the Bay and I took my 3rd graders out to Dockweiler State Beach to pick up trash. When you do stuff like that, you think about the environment in a totally different way. So now, every third Saturday, Heal the Bay picks the dirtiest area beach and sponsors a clean up. You can head out to Redondo Beach this Saturday and put in some time. They provide all the supplies for you so all you have to do is put your back into it from 10 am to noon.

You say you're into saving something but afraid of upping your skin cancer ante?

PSA #4: Save the Los Angeles Public Library
While our mayor, Mr. Villaraigosa has been hamming it up in the national media and getting out the Latino vote with Hillary Clinton, our city budget has been going to hell in a hand basket.

Case in point, the Los Angeles Public Library is so cash-strapped that they stopped buying new books back in February and they started canceling periodicals and database subscriptions. Oh, and say your local neighborhood branch in the hood is craptastic and doesn't have half the books that the nice branch in Los Feliz does, on July 1st you'll have to pay a dollar a book to get the tome you need sent to your branch. (See, I use words like "tome". I really am elite, n'est-ce pas?)

What can you do to stop this travesty of literary justice? At the very least, go to the Save the LAPL website and click on the link there to send a letter to Mayor Villaraigosa. We need to let him and the rest of his city hall buddies know that this ain't gonna fly. Plus, you'll feel like a rock star because you'll be contributing to literacy and preventing the masses from obtaining hair weaves, kissing trashy looking women and wearing Ed Hardy t-shirts all the time!

I seriously would love to get Bret Michaels a different hairstylist and makeup artist but unfortunately, I can't pay it forward like that. Instead, I'll participate in the...

PSA #5: Pay It Forward Exchange
Okay, okay. All you non-Southern California peeps are feeling left out. Sooo, I have to give you the opportunity to get a nice gift from me, courtesy of the Pay It Forward Exchange. I read about it on Anali's awesome blog like three weeks ago and signed up to participate. Here's the way it works:

"I will send a handmade gift to the first 3 people who leave a comment on my blog requesting to join this PIF exchange. I don’t know what that gift will be yet and you may not receive it tomorrow or next week, but you will receive it within 365 days, that is my promise! The only thing you have to do in return is pay it forward by making the same promise on your blog."

Unfortunately, I don't know how to make much of anything. I'm just not very crafty like that. That means I know what the handmade gift from me will probably be.

Hint: Put "Depeche Mode" + "my favorite songs" + "burned onto a CD" + "just for you" together into a sentence.

And that's about it for our Tax Day edition of Public Service Announcements. Earth Day is coming up so I have even more PSAs for you (and a cool giveaway from these lovely folks) coming up!

Why Can't My Sister Live Here?

My sister and I have been having more fun than should be legally allowed. As you can see, we've been out and about, spending tons of time climbing and hugging trees. Isn't she a hot tree-hugger? And despite my worries about her type A, neat freak tendencies, she's doing very well and is only threatening to reorganize the bookcases!

My solution has been to keep her out of the house pretty much all day. Since we've been running around though, I haven't been home to come over and read your blogs or write something new on mine. As much as I miss y'all, that's the way it should be. I don't get to see her too often so it's well worth it to step away from Blog Land for a hot second and have a great time with her.

We first had a grand scheme to go to Santa Barbara over the weekend but instead decided to stay local. My sister had never been over to Venice Beach so on Saturday we headed out that way and strolled the insanity that is the Boardwalk. There were the usual sage and incense sellers, drummers, henna tattoo artists and folks hawking wind chimes made out of colanders and forks. We also dodged waves and frolicked a bit in the sand. Unfortunately though, we ran into some tar that had washed up onto the beach (the surfers said it's oil from ships). I couldn't see it because it was under the sand, so I stepped all in it.

Before I knew it, the bottoms of my feet were covered with tar and it wasn't coming off! The surfers told me they frequently have the problem of getting tar on their boards. They told me to just rub cooking oil on the tar and then it would gradually wipe off. Thankfully, we soon wandered over to the Sidewalk Cafe for a late lunch. The waiter was really nice when I asked him for a cup of cooking oil so I could get the tar off my feet. It took me 20 minutes in the bathroom but thank goodness it worked! But I feel horrible thinking about all the animals that probably get some of that tar on their fins or fur and have no one to rub cooking oil on them to remove it.

What else? We go work out hardcore every morning. My sister is used to running five or six miles a day so I've been going to limp along run with her. Thankfully she gave me a bit of a break today and we only hiked four miles on Mount Hollywood.

The last time my sister was here was pre Griffith Park fire. Parts of the trail are starting to regrow, but this section still only has scorched palm trees. It's amazing that these palm trees survived and are still green on the tops despite the charred bottoms. Whew, the power of nature, you know?

Anyway, she leaves Saturday morning so I only have a couple more days with her. Sob! Trust me, I will continue to both somehow survive her tough workouts and run her all over the city. I love my sister so much. She's really a lot of fun and such a sweet and generous woman.

Gosh I wish she lived here in California. She needs to make it happen! But in the meantime, we've got another full day lined up for tomorrow.

Blog Action Day: The Environment According to Los Angelista



It's Blog Action Day and I've pledged to devote my post today to some topic related to the environment. I hope next year they pick an action day around promoting racial unity, but I'm down for making changes on behalf of the environment too.

If you've read this blog over the past couple of weeks, you know I've been on a crusade to get the trash in my neighborhood cleaned up. It's terrible to think that there are grown adults that think nothing of throwing their In-and-Out Burger wrapper on the ground after they've eaten it. Adults who have no problem tossing soiled diapers and cigarettes out their car windows. Adults who drink beers and then leave the cans in the street. Oh, and let's not forget all the people who throw broken furniture out on the curb and leave dead, discarded mattress out for animals to urinate on and homeless people to sleep on.

We always think someone else is going to clean up after us. After all, how many of us leave the half-eaten bucket of popcorn, the empty box of Junior Mints and the soda container on the floor of the movie theatre? Or are you one of the few who actually tosses your stuff in the trash?

Of course, here in LA, all that trash tossed away sits on the ground until the rain comes and washes it into the storm drains. The flood channels and the LA River fill up with tons of rushing trash...all floating into the Pacific Ocean. You can't swim in the ocean for a couple of days after it rains here. It's too toxic. Even when it hasn't rained, everyone I know who swims in the ocean eventually gets sick: ear infection, strep throat, weird skin rashes that doctors have never seen before.

Some people might wonder why I should care when I'm not a beach goer. I don't know how to swim and I'm not a fan of my rear in a swimsuit. But, I'm always reminded of my childhood and the one and only time my family went to the beach.

My brother and sister had a class trip to the shores of Lake Michigan. I don't know all the details, all the whys and hows of the trip, and how exactly my family ended up tagging along, but I do know that we ended up at the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore.

It's a beautiful place. Sand dunes that rise over 100 feet in the air and rare species of butterflies. All that was pretty, but I really remember marveling at the beautiful smoke coming from the steel mills and other factories directly west of the dunes. Sure, the air smelled horrible when driving through Gary and Hammond, but from a distance, the billowing clouds of white and yellow smoke that poured from those factories were pretty. They were only a nuisance because they blotted out parts of the Chicago skyline. And I thought nothing of the possible pollution provided by the NIPSCO power plant on the eastern side of the dunes in Michigan City.

I didn't connect either the factories or the smoke to the dead fish floating in the water as I bounced in the waves. I threw one of those dead fish at my brother. He screamed in terror and rushed from the water to tell my mother. I was promptly sentenced to spending the rest of the afternoon sitting on a blanket next to her.

It was only years later when I lived in China that I really began thinking about the environment. If I didn't cover my nose with a scarf or an oxygen mask while I was out riding my bike, I'd develop nasal irritation. The snot that came out of my nose was black from inhaling the pollution. In China, I never saw a blue sky with the sun glowing like a ball of flame. Instead, the sun was obscured behind a thick haze of coal smoke and other nameless pollutants.

I know a lot of people who hate environmentalists. They say environmental activists care more about saving trees than saving people. They say being an environmentalist is a pastime for middle class white folks who need a cause to latch onto. They say that the same environmentalists that fight illegal toxic waste dumping by corporations would be horrified if their child had to go to school with black folks. Or, they say that Al Gore is a fraud who presents misinformation and has the public believing things about the environment that aren't even true.

Maybe. But it's still important work. I can't imagine what the air in LA would be like if environmental activists didn't do what they do. And, when I walk my two sons to school and I see the amount of trash that my fellow Angelenos throw on the ground, I know that it's not just CEOs at power plants that need to change the way they think about the environment.

We all have to do our part, including me. Thanks to blogger Sundry, I'm taking October and pledging to break the bottled water habit. I'm once more best friends with a Brita filter instead. If you want to join us, then go to this site and find out how you can make small changes too.


Every little bit we do counts.

A Day At The Beach

I'm generally not a beach person. Even though I live in sunny Southern California, I rarely go to the beach.

Why?

Well, I've never looked that hot in a swimsuit, I'm concerned about skin cancer and I'm scared I'm going to catch something from polluted water. The Pacific Ocean is cold, even in summertime. Plus, I'm not going to ruin the hair I just spent three tedious hours getting done.

My aversion to the beach changes when I drive up the coast to Santa Barbara. There's something about the views of the mountains to my right and crashing waves to my left that makes me want to just jump in the water. I'm here for work for a couple of days, and yesterday I pulled off the freeway at Carpinteria State Beach. The sign at the beach said that parking was $8. I told the attendant I just wanted to put my feet in the water for 15 minutes and she let me through.

Just me and the water. It was a bit chilly, but not the artic freeze you'd be getting in Lake Michigan at this time of year. Something about the waves crashing over me makes me forget about people who steal parking spots and talk on their cell phone too loud. It makes me forget about how Barack Obama is getting the, "Is he black enough?" litmus test. It makes me just think about...higher things. You know, world peace, the meaning of life, what is true love and what does it really mean to pursue happiness.

Fifteen minutes, that's all it took to come down from all the drama and all the worries and all the little things I stress out about. Hmm...Maybe I should come to the beach more often.