Korean barbeque

Last night Michael finally had the opportunity to go out for Korean barbeque with Bart, Ben and me. Finally because he has been dying to eat this barbeque since we moved in the apartment in Koreatown last July. You can't walk to the end of the block without passing 3 bbq restaurants (well that and 3 Salvadorean restuarants and 2 taco trucks, but the point is meat.) Michael has been desperate to spend an evening cooking and eating all you can eat meat. This is not my idea of a great time at a restaurant with the just the two of us. So it was perfect to go with the boys to help plow through the platter of meat, and then the unfortunate second platter of meat. For the second platter, I actually had enough soju and an overly full stomach so I did the cooking, yay me! The service was all in Korean and we had Ben who knew to order the A platter sans tongue, thus we avoided the tripe and other intestinal goodies. Except then we met Susan the Korean mommy type from the table next to us. She adopted us for the evening and made sure the waiter kept our barbeque clean so we weren't completely smoked out. Then she ordered us an even tastier bottle of soju. Then she ordered us soup (that I know was full of questionable meat products and yet with a belly of other meat, kimchi and soju I ate the spicy yummy soup and tried not to think about questionable meat content.) Susan was incredibly sweet and told us about her daughter's English husband and ordered more and more food for us "I pay, I pay!". All around a good evening. We went, we ate, we came home and some of us showered to remove the meat smell from our clothes and hair. Others sat and basked in the continued smell of meat. A bunch of the other boys came over for beer and Back to the Future watching. It was a great Saturday.

"Man they do all sorts of crazy things in LA"*

Michael came home from work the other day with some wonderful news
At the house of the composer he is working for they have the coolest tree. He says "It is a limon tree!, It grows both lemons and limes." How innovative we think, hmm.

And then I ask him,

"Michael so you were looking at the tree and there were plump, juicy lemons, and hard small green fruits?"

"Yeah, sorry to tell you that those were not limes, just small unripe lemons."

So sad. Maybe by the time we can buy or rent a house there will be limon trees.


*thank you to Kate and Syrah

Lexus parallel parking

I always wondered about about the new Lexus that self parallel parks. Having lived for three years in a city apartment with no off street parking I perfected the skill of parallel parking in a spot only inches larger than my four door Honda Civic. I thought it was a sham so when I read the NY Times article by Calvin Trillin I was redeemed.

"Then I got behind the wheel and we set out to find a beautiful spot. Well, not exactly a beautiful spot. A spot that is worthy of that name — a truly satisfying spot, a spot good enough to spin yarns about in bars where parkers gather — requires some skill to get into. The Advanced Parking Guidance System works only if the spot is six and a half feet longer than the car — the sort of spot, in other words, that the average Manhattan parker comes upon about once every 14 or 15 years. The only parker who might need help from a guidance system to get into such a spot is a parker who is driving himself home from rotator cuff surgery. For Lexus to offer a self-parking system for a spot that size is the equivalent of some high-end kitchen-equipment manufacturer offering a self-carving system that only works on meatloaf."

via kottke

Now I am in L.A. and I am so happy I have a place to park my car. Though the lot is so small I spent the first 3 months scraping the side of my car against the house trying to manuever out of the driveway. Its 2007, still no flying cars.

the exciting weekend recap

When I am not stressing out about things I cannot humanly take care of with school and my little guys; I am hanging out at home and watching bad cable, and sometimes actually going out and doing interesting things. This Saturday I went to a shmancy restaurant in Hollywood called Geisha House. I stuffed myself with expensive sushi and hung out with Michael's classmates, while surreptitiously looking around to see who in fact could afford this food and if maybe they were famous (no I didn't really do that, it was the type of restaurant where I should have. Hip and fancy with a DJ and an expensive wine and drink list). Then we went dancing at a club that had 3 DJ's in 3 rooms; 80's, hip-hop and what I was calling the 90's room that was in fact the inde rock room. I was leaning towards hanging out in the large inde room with all of the young gothy crowd and the depressing music but my crowd leaned hip-hop and so I found myself shaking my ass to the likes of Britney and Paris along with some random Madonna, Prince and I like big butts. A totally strange night but it is definitely fantastic to have found friends that like to dance as much as Michael does. This is something we occasionally talked about but never did in Cincinnati (besides the rare Salsa night). We wandered later through 90's/inde or what I thought of as my first two years of college and into 80's. 80's was small and also full of strange hipster gothy kids but unfortunately also full of the smoke from the outside smokers cage (I mean lounge), not nearly as bad as a bar in Philadelphia but the idea of having to wash my hair 16 times to get the smoke smell out made me ready to leave. This was the first time I went out in Hollywood and it was odd. We took the train 3 stops too far on our way there (reminder to self, mapquest directions even when Michael seems to know what he is doing) and then when we actually got to where we needed to be it was like being on another planet. Clots of people with cameras filled the star lined sidewalks and street performers and street preachers were everywhere, along with the scary attack asian lady that was selling flowers in a sort of yelly aggressive ready to walk right into me sort of way. The sidewalk outside of one theater was closed (making me irritable about security scams and being made to feel like a peon to walk a block out of the way and across the street so that the "famous" Tara Reid could avoid the masses (Of course that is just me being me because Jerome was all poetic about how he loved living in a city that has movie premieres). My memorable nice and human part of the night was talking to the asian convenience store old guy. I chose to forsake the silly girly high heels since the last time I went dancing my feet hurt for three days. Unfortunately, my comfy black flats don't actually fit. Old guy said, "Blister?" When I got to the counter, in a prophetic I worked here forever sort of way. Then said something about the people who come here think Hollywood is a little place where they need to look fancy and won’t actually have to walk anywhere. I showed him my comfy (yet blister forming) shoes, and he agreed that they did look comfy.
Tonight I return to school stress, and tomorrow to little snotty ones and what I hope will be successful meetings.

thoughts on L.A.2

So on the way home tonight I was stopped at a red light and there was a guy (next to the usual fruit guys) and he was selling stories for a dollar. There was a handmade cardboard sign tied around his neck that said so. And there were the stories themselves. I didn't have a dollar (seriously not even in change because I bought a Coke at work). So you can't see one. But they had colored pencil drawings of planes and things. hmm.


Also,
I am getting married on Saturday. in new jersey.

the deal

What is the deal with L.A. and helicopters? Sure, on the beach you know people are being shuttled from a shwanky house in Malibu to their private jet at the airport. And standing on a friends deck in Silverlake you can see the helicopter downtown with its shining beam of light, cops, police car chases? But when I am trying to watch a movie in my living room and a helicopter continues to circle over my house, I really have no idea what is going on. More police? I know better than to try to find out through the media. Living in Cincinnati there was a night where armed gunmen robbed a bank and were roaming the neighborhood, streets were blocked for hours and a friend (and another friend of a friend) said there were tanks driving up the street. The news? nothing. Continually check through the rest of the week...nothing. (--by the way as I type the helicopter continues to circle, seriously it has been about an 1/2 hour)*. Cincinnati's only reporting was on the bank robbery that occurred around 10am, however a friend driving home from my apartment around midnight was stopped by the police and reprimanded for being out, when armed gunmen were about....news....nada...she had to return to my place because the streets were barricaded leading the 4 blocks to her place. That helps you sleep at night doesn't it? Ah the ghetto, will I ever miss it?

*Michael's helicopter comment "It's kind of weird, cause its right above our house”.


p.s. Kate wants me to tell the story about the time I Bruce Lee kicked down the door to our bedroom. I think she could tell it better as the more rational sibling in the situation. You should ask her to guest post it here.

thoughts on L.A.

There is something in the water that makes all dogs purse sized. (or punt sized)

unreal expectations

I'm one of those annoying creative types that never actually gets anything done while waiting for some semblance of perfection to occur. I have been writing daily posts in my head for at least the last week. But my brain expects beautifully, long pictorial view of my late June road trip. Well, maybe someday, but until then...I am in LA now and mostly freaking out.

The apartment is good (there will be pictures of that too, mmmhmm whenever my lazy butt gets off the bed and finds the camera cord), the neighborhood is bad (but comparable to our Cincinnati 'hood and therefore we have made a very expensive lateral move, albeit one that added in a teenytiny parking space). I got my wedding dress and many boxes of invitations to print which will sit on my desk until I go buy cyan, magenta and yellow ink, because my idiotic (or maybe crazy smart in a bad steal my money sort of way) Epson, will not print in black without also having full cyan, magenta and yellow cartridges. We have lots of fancy kitchen gadgets in our ittybitty kitchen with an oven so tiny I can fit one cookie tray. I put together lots more furniture with allen wrenches. (I cannot wait to be able to buy furniture with no assembly required.) When I go places here I kind of know my way around. I can drive around town and back home without getting lost, and I can even take different roads home every time.

Yesterday, at long last I went to the HR department of my school district to complete my becoming a teacher in what appears to be the Country of California, things were going extremely well, I was making kind chit chat with the HR lady, things were nearly completed when...She saw her supervisor on the way to the copy machine and they both puzzled over my new Ohio teaching certification. A two-year provisional certification. (Hmmm, to my knowledge the only kind you can get in Ohio unless you began a program in the late 1980's and have been grandfathered into to the old teacher for life system.) The two-year provisional certification is a problem, they have never seen one before, this may, in HR lady words, "condemn" my job offer. I think the word provisional is scaring them away. I tried unsuccessfully to explain that this is the the norm for Ohio. *Ohio and California have no reciprocity with teaching and California has its own set of tests and requirements. My job offer was always contingent on the ability to get a CA state license or certificate or whatever, this was always part of the deal. But the shock and confusion of the HR ladies and the word condemn really ruined my Friday. So now I am in limbo again, I must wait to hear from the state. In the meantime, do I attend the unpaid training sessions for math and reading? Do I continue to worry and plan for the 13 little kids I may or may not be in charge of educating this September. Should I really be looking for another source of income before I completely max out my credit card? Also I understand the States rights but really how is it possible to receive a masters degree in education from an NCATE credited university, to do a YEAR of student teaching, to pay repeatedly for FBI background checks because each state requires their own version and won't share, pay hundreds of dollars to each state's teaching certification people and still not be granted the license/certificate? Can they give me the time and money back? I hate not being in control. --end rant--

Really though, I am living in Southern California. I just bought 4 new bikinis (I practically never wear two piece bathing suits, but I was tanning/burning a big X shape in my back with my cool 40 style black one piece, which by my October wedding may look like some type of crazy tattoo or scar, thus the bandeau swim top to the rescue) I am going to the beach today, and hell maybe tomorrow too, because I can! I don't have a job. Oh and I am very fair skinned the tanning/burning in small unsuncreened areas occurs through my use of 30SPF or sometimes when I am feeling super neurotic KIDS 55 SPF. I blame Michael for the burn marks on my back, his ability to spray apply sunscreen is poor. I am thinking of purchasing a cream variety to see if that works better for him. Unfortunately for all my long armedness I cannot apply sunscreen to that one spot on the middle of my back.

3 reasons why I am happy to no longer be in Ohio

1. 6:30 am phone call 513 area code (when I called the west coast --or for that matter anywhere out of my time zone I did some quick math. EST --> PST = -3 hours, dumbass) I scramble around and find my phone ringing in my bag from the beach yesterday ( the beach, woo hoo I went to the beach) moving on.
2. ME-recognize Cinci area code in haze of sleep answer the phone formally, "Hello, this is formal first name I never actually use, (but I was expecting this woman to return my phone call yesterday)" HER "This is _____ from U of C. You are one of those special ed people." ME-"?" "um, no, I don't think..." "You were in a special program" ME-again "?" "No, I was in the master's in special ed..." HER-"Whatever, Doesn't matter." ME thinking (then why did you ask?) HER-"Anyway, you want this sent to this address?"
3. um my 6:30 am physic abilities must be subpar..."I would like the certificate sent to my NEW address at 123 SPANISH name (pronounced phonetically in English) STREET in LA" HER-"Is that how you say that name?" Me-(thinking)-no, actually, that's how I say that name but anyone else would roll an R or an N or something like that.

It is still so early in the morning I can't believe I had this conversation. I wanted to ask her to expedite the damn papers that she should have mailed to my old address (and which would have been forwarded by the post office with all of my other mail to my new address), but I feared change to what already seemed like her unsettling job of mailing out teaching certificates might send her over the edge and then I would never see the document.

UPDATE --I finally received the certificate it only took 12 DAYS!!! 12 days is that like 3rd class mail or a really lazy university adminstrator.

santa monica

We've been in Santa Monica since Friday evening.
The apartment search sucks.
Michael's uncle is super nice and took us to the movies.
I am stealing wireless internet from somewhere in his apartment building.