Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Baby Baby, Fallin' in... huh?!

Hamilton, Joe Frank, & ... Dennison?! Who the fuck is Dennison?! What happened to Reynolds?!

I turned to the Great Wikipedia for answers... and found an MST3K reference to boot. Pretty gnarly.

Don't pull your love out on me, Baby.



Monday, February 22, 2010

Another Furlough Monday! w00t

Another furlough Monday!

Today, it was just me & Mr. Siegel, enjoying some much-needed mommy/daddy free time. We always try to think of something fun to do, that The Boy would hate. This is not difficult. LOL!

So today, after breakfast at Mimi's, we headed over the hill to Culver City, to a restaurant supply place we'd heard about called Surfas. I'm happy to say, it was even cooler than I'd imagined. It is FULL of restaurant equipment -- everything imaginable, from cocktail parasols to pizza stones to commercial-grade coffeemakers. But in addition to that, they have all manner of gourmet foodstuffs: sugars, salts, sauces, oils, vinegars, and chocolate. Need a giant drum of maraschino cherries? They've got it. Need a rack of boar ribs? They've got it. It's WILD. And FUN.

After that, we bopped over to the nearby landmark Johnnie's Pastrami. It's a nifty little diner that's been there for like half a century. As you'll see in the pix, we did not order the pastrami, which I understand to be some sort of food travesty.

Our final stop of the day was at Mr. Siegel's favorite record store, Record Surplus on Pico. We spent a LONG time here, perusing all the awesome inventory. If you're looking for ANY album, chances are very good you'll find it at this place.

View my entire Flickr set from Record Surplus here.















Sunday, February 21, 2010

This girl likes to swing.

Since we got the Labrador, she's pretty much taken over my backyard swing. When she was a baby, she liked to chew and dig on the cushions, so they got pretty thrashed.

Today, we finally found some decent replacement cushions at Target!

Here, we see Miss Kelsey enjoying the new merchandise.



Monday, February 15, 2010

Furlough Monday activities!

I always spend money on my furlough days. I wonder how many other furloughed peeps spend their days off contributing to the local economies?!

Today, my boys were off too, so I made them take me down to the Skechers outlet in Tarzana. Ah gots me some new kix! They are as comfy as they are gorgeous.

Ev also got 2 new pairs! AND, everything in the store was BOGO half-off! w00t #WIN

After our shopping excursion, we lunched at The Habit in Encino. All in all, a delightful & productive Furlough Monday!

Sunday, February 14, 2010

Valentine's Day

Our Valentine's Day... in pictures, because I don't feel like typing a narrative. LOL! What can ya do?! Sometimes, you just don't have it in ya.

I will however provide links to the following:

a) Eaton Canyon Park, where we took our Valentine's Day hike. This is an absolutely lovely park in the hills above Pasadena. As you will see, there are many trails, and, in a good water year like we're having now, a beautiful stream! Perhaps the best part for us? Our puppeh was more than welcome to join us!

b) Tops Restaurant, where we had lunch. This place has the most AMAZING gyros and fried zucchini! They have outdoor seating, so we were able to keep the pup closeby.

A lovely day was had by all (altho The Boy was not wild about the hike).















Friday, February 12, 2010

Euro-traffic

I love ALL my blog visitors.

But I am particularly fascinated by what people are looking at, in which parts of the world.

The Europeans are by far the most interested in my Stealers Wheel post. Funny! They also like the tattoo posts, but those are my most popular everywhere. I think people just generally do a lot of searching for tattoo ideas.

Interesting stuff!


Wednesday, February 10, 2010

New Blog Masthead!

So, whaddya think of the new blog masthead?!

I'd been wanting to change it for some time, but it's kind of a pain to do... for me, anyway. But when I saw this photo in one of my favorite Flickr collections, I KNEW I wanted to use it. Check out how gorgeous the original is:



Thanks so much to Justin at The Windy Pixel for giving me permission to use his photo!

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Honor Roll

The Boy is once again rockin' the Honor Roll at Pinecrest Middle School! ::proudz::

Sunday, February 7, 2010

They. Might. Be. GIANTS. !!!

As y'all know, Mr. Siegel and I don't get out real often.

But when I heard that They Might Be Giants were coming back to town this month, I really wanted us to be able to go. Mr. Siegel LOVES the Giants! And I like 'em too! Altho we loved the "Kid's Show" we took Ev to in November at Royce Hall, we thought it'd be nice to go to a big-people show. The show was last night at the Largo at the Coronet. Evan's Auntie Kathie was kind enough to come all the way up from San Diego (in the torrential rain) to babysit!

Ev took our picture before we left.



The Largo is in the old Coronet Theatre, at LaCienega & Oakwood. Also at this corner is a store called Trashy Lingerie, which has a captivating window display. This is good cuz it entertains you while you stand in line waiting to pick up your tickets.





After retrieving our tickets, we decided to go find some dinner while we waited for showtime. Mr. Siegel found a cute little Italian place called Pane e Vino that was within walking distance of the theatre.


I ordered the lovely capellini pomodoro, but they had a kasquillion beautiful things on their menu... I would for sure love to go back and try one of their other dishes, and maybe a fabu dessert!


After dinner, we bopped around the Beverly Center for a bit... We haven't been there since before The Ev was born!


And then, it was time to return to the theatre and take our seats. Did I mention we were 6 rows back from the stage?! Pretty awesome seats. I think a high-school gymnasium is bigger than this place! Made for a fantastic show, as you will learn if you go to the TMBG wiki to read Mr. Siegel's (a.k.a. MrQuizzical's) review. (Don't miss the amazing setlist, in the right-hand column of the reviews page.)

We will definitely go back to the Largo at the Coronet!


Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Katerz = Celeb Magnet

Y'all know how I love it when the celebs tolerate my lame ass on social networking. It causes me to SQUEEEEE, and, on occasion, *plotz*. What can I say?! I'm accustomed to hangin' with the dead celebs, not the alive ones.

My latest acquisitions are: 1) the always delightful Kevin Murphy, of MST3K and Rifftrax fame, who I Facebook-stalked after months of Twit-stalking; and 2) Uncle Joe Benson, long-time L.A. radio staple, who I found on Twitter!

Thanks, guys! Y'all are a delight.



Monday, February 1, 2010

The Getty Center

For Mr. Siegel's birthday, we decided to go to The Getty Center. We hadn't been there since shortly after it opened, and we'd NEVER taken The Boy!

I must say, the museum is much improved from when it first opened. (For starters, the tram was working this time, so we didn't have to walk down the hill on our way back to the parking garage. HA!) Not only is the collection more impressive now, but the facility and gardens are just breathtaking. The buildings, the exhibits, the grounds, the views, the cafes
... Everything was really wonderful!

Thank you, J. Paul Getty!