Kelly's Birthday

Kelly and I celebrated his 30th birthday on February 12th. I made Guinness chocolate cupcakes with cream cheese icing from scratch - awesome recipe - I will be making it again next year. Then we went to eat at a new place in Glendale called Palate. It is a full restaurant and wine bar with small plates - this means you get to taste a little bit of a lot of different things. Two of Kelly's friends, Brandon and Kyle, work in the wine bar and gace us lots of great suggestions on what to order. We got the porkfolio (an all pork charcuterie plate); potted berkshire pork; octopus a la plancha, cannellini beans, spicu salsiccia, and tomato fonduta; scallops, cauliflower, grapefruit, and mission olives; pork belly, sweet potato hash, savoy cabbage, and pancetta; and the gnocchi with pork cheeks, braising greens, and sugar snap peas. Wow! That's a lot of pork! Not the healthiest meal maybe but definitely unique and tasty.

Bay City is a Drag

I recently discovered that one of my favorite drag queens from the awesome LA group Chico's Angels is originally from Bay City, TX! Beth and I met for dinner with two of the guys from Chico's, Ray and Oscar and improv queen, Kimberly Lewis, to have dinner before seeing Glad Libs (an improvised musical theatre show). Somehow we got on the subject of being from Texas and Ray mentioned that he was from Bay City. Turns out his family owns and runs one of the few restaurants in Bay City, El Zarape. If you are from there, you will have eaten there at least once. It was fun to share memories of Matagorda beach and BCHS and the Rice Festival - a very rare thing to randomly meet someone specifically from Bay City out here.

The Wilshire Ebell Theatre

The Irish dance group I am part of Cairde na hEireann has officially booked a theatre for our performance on March 20th. It is the historic Wilshire Ebell. How exciting!

Rose Parade 08

Thanks to Leslie, the owner of Bodyscape (Pasadena studio where I work), and her friends, Johnny and Martha Mountain, I got to go backstage at the Rose Parade. Beth came along with me and we had an awesome time. I am so glad I decided to go despite my hesitation due to fear of traffic and having to wake up at 4 am.
The guards let us through the barricade to around 5:30 am. We were the first people to arrive and got to park in the spot to be the first car out after the parade. Being early was already paying off. Leslie showed up soon after and we walked a few blocks down to where the front of the parade to set up our chairs. A group of kind young people who had been sleeping on the ground all night agreed to watch our chairs for us while we walked around and looked at the floats. It was still quite dark out when we started to peruse and slowly got brighter until it was blinding during the actual parade. Much of the light in these photo is from the powerful street lamps along the route.





After our walk, we returned to the house to eat brunch and warm up before heading back to our chairs for the parade.


When we returned for the parade, our chairs had been moved forward and left open. Everyone was polite and friendly and really joyful with expectation. We got to sit in the second row of people with very little obstruction (aside from the super bright sun hitting us from the right side which threatened to burn only one side of my face). It was fun to see the floats in action and hilarious to see all the fake grins and overly stiff marching - marching is very serious! The many horses and burros were also a treat, the clydesdales were particularly impressive.

After the parade, we headed back to the house with Leslie and her husband, John, said thank you to our host, and hit the road. Yippee for the Rose Parade up close!

Merry Christmas!

We stayed in LA for the holidays this year and took it easy. As is tradition, Athena came to stay with us and added a bit of her energy to the festivities.
Kelly got to make music with his friend, Masa. Then he lounged around a bit with the puppies.
Our little treeMe just before opening presents.Prime rib on Christmas eveSnoops and Athena hoping for their share of dinnerAfter crying through the last 20 minutes of Benjamin Button Christmas dinner at Yang Chow in Chinatown

Dinner with Monica and Moopy

Last week we had a holiday dinner at our friend Monica's house. She cooked us an excellent meal and we got to visit with her and her little black bunny, Moopy. Snoops even got to come along. Surprisingly he was not very interested in Moopy. In fact, he didn't even notice the bunny was in the room until we pointed him out. Snoops gave him a sniff, they both looked a little confused, and that was it - thank goodness for no excitement or chasing.
Monica and Moopy

Kelly with Moopy (look closely-he blends in)
The end of a lovely evening!

Happy Holidaze

These clips make me happy (be sure to pause the music player before watching):