What Are The Odds?

What are the odds that two of the girls I visit teach have seriously dated the same guy in the last year (and are SO unbelievably different)? And that that guy is the ex-husband of a good friend of mine? And that one of the said ladies I visit teach--and absolutely adore--saw some wedding announcements on the fridge and knew them (she knew Holly's fiancee and Rachel Terribilini)? And was in Kath's ward (of Page 17 fame)? What are the odds?

Liz Week! Part I

I'm finally getting around to posting about Liz's stay here since, you know, I've drafted two complaints this week that total somewhere around 300 pages. My brain hurts.

I LOVED having Liz visit; in fact, I think she should come back asap! Please? A gal after my own food-loving, Lab-loving, TV-show-obsessed heart.

Some highlights. For whatever reason, we watched a few minutes of Family Feud. One of the families was a group of young-ish men (teens to thirties, I'd say), each with some colored shirt and a matching, mono-chromatic tie, if I'm remembering correctly. One of the men seemed a little effeminate to me--and it wasn't just the peach-colored shirt and tie; his posture and diction were too good for a straighty--and I said something like, "Is he gay?"

He was then given the question, "Name one thing that people have a hard time walking away from."

He shouted out ever-so-enthusiastically, "BOYFRIEND!"

We just about died.

We went to La Sirena Grill in Laguna Beach one day (LOVE that place!), and as we were eating, we noticed a very intriguing seagull who apparently didn't like to get his little webbed feet on the filthy ground; he merely hopped from the top of one car to the next. It was awesome.

The new macaroni and cheese at BJ's is really good. Not Fleming's Chipotle Macaroni and Cheese good, but pretty dang good, especially for the $3.95 price tag. I'm a fan.

Liz apparently likes to make eye contact with other drivers to create fun and/or awkward situations. I pointed out that one guy in a car next to us was picking his nose, she looked over, and they made eye contact. AWKWARD! Or there was the couple waiting in their car in the parking structure at the Orange County Performing Arts Center, Liz looked over, said, "Oh, they looked at me," looked over again, apparently made eye contact again, and squealed (no joke) "He was looking again!" "Liz, these doors and windows aren't soundproof--they totally heard you squeal!" "Luckily, it was mostly unintelligible."

One of Liz's classic phrases, used multiple times during the trip, was, "As we learned in 2012 . . ."

More later . . .

I'm Hooked

This happens every time I get sick: I get hooked on a new show.

Castle. I LOVE IT. Have you seen it? What do you think?

Icky and Ew

Dear Spiders,

I don't love all of God's creations. If I see one itty bit of your ick-y and ew-y selves, your life expectancy will be drastically reduced.

Thanks,
Laura

Las Brisas, Every Time

Every time Fred comes into town, we do Las Brisas. No, really. EVERY time.

You might have seen a new profile picture on Facebook, which happens every time he comes into town and immediately following their fantastic all-you-can-eat brunch. And why not--he's such a handsome guy! (not to mention hilarious and one of my best friends ever--love him! Thank the high heavens he mentioned St. Anthony in his Sacrament Meeting talk all those years ago, the tiny town in Idaho where his mom grew up, and where my mom grew up, too--that started this whole friendship)

Books, DVDs, and More Books--Oh My!

Given my love for books, DVDs, and even more books, Amazon Prime might just be the DEATH of me. Anyone else have it? Love it? Overuse it? Ahem.

Yay!

And it came to pass, that The Gardeners came today, and there was much rejoicing in Kobe's land.

YAY!

Last week was just too sad.

iSick

I've been sick since Sunday. Not so much fun. So, in an effort to make healing as easy on my body as possible, I've essentially been vegan since Saturday night: green smoothies, Living Fuel (powdered super food, not unlike green smoothies, that you blend with water, the stuff Brooke once said she wanted to try when we were roommates, but couldn't bring herself to--I never had to worry about roommates taking my food), and apples and tangerines are really all I've eaten.

While I'm really craving some Chipotle, I gotta say it's not all bad. Heaven knows I won't maintain this one bit when I'm over this blasted cold, but good to know I won't shrivel up and die if I don't eat my beloved barbacoa or pepperjack cheese or something else yummy for four days.

Thursdays

Dear Gardeners,

My dog looks forward to your visits every week--he thinks you come for him, not the yard!--and every time a truck parks anywhere near our house on a Thursday (yes, he knows which day Thursday is) morning or afternoon before you've come, he runs outside and starts talking, I mean, barking, hoping the truck is yours.

You know how much he loves you guys; he has a special bark reserved just for you. You guys are awesome and play with him every week, and have for over a decade now.

You haven't come yet today, and he's beside himself. SUPER sad. Please come soon.

Thanks,
Kobe's Mom

Black Labs are Fun!

I love it when the neighbor's black Lab, Scoot, randomly meanders up four houses to our house, scooches in the gate, squeezes through an open door, and finds us upstairs. At first we're like, Wait, Kobe, get on your place! Only to realize we're not talking to Kobe.

I love it!

I Get Attached

I got an email from my boss this week, with this post-script:

"P.S. You've adopted the Graham school of voicemail box management -- it's full."

Very true. Full, and has been full for over a week.

See, here's the thing. I have wonderful friends who leave me voice messages that range anywhere from hilarious to sweet to insightful to blog-worthy, and sometimes all in the same message. So I save messages.

What am I doing right now? Recording the saved messages with my digital voice recorder so I can finally delete some messages and make room for some more fantastically awesome voice messages in the near future.

So please, feel free to call and leave funny messages if I don't pick up. I'll love you all the more for it. 

Thanks, Jillian!

 

Last week one of my uncle's came to LA for the day, meeting with Jillian Michaels. She's endorsed some of his company's products for a while now, and I'm personally grateful to her because I got to see my uncle for an evening! We grabbed some food in his hotel's restaurant and chatted it up until 11pm. My uncle is SO much fun that your cheeks end up being sore from all the laughing when you're with him.

One of my favorite things he shared? He hardly packed a thing. The only things in his luggage were products to show Ms. Michaels. Once he'd shown her the products and given them to her, he collapsed all the boxes in his rental car and had empty bags. What *did* he pack, you ask? 

Everything he has in his bathroom at his house in UT. 

A toothbrush.

Yep. That's ALL he has. He's so low-maintenance that it's ridiculous--props, Jace!

Holy Yum. II.

Went to Las Brisas today for brunch with Christa and Emily this morning and it was YUM. Omelets, waffles, bacon (the national food in my world), etc. etc. Beautiful weather, really good food, fun friends, and the fourth fun thing? Music. I heard at least two Sarah McLachlan songs and a Dido song,

Perfection.

Holy Yum.

I tried a yoga class today at Core Power Yoga in Aliso Viejo. If you've never been there before, you get a free week to try it out, so I went today, taking a break from work. I learned a couple of things.

1. Holy cow, I'm going to be so sore tomorrow. The class I did today was a heated yoga class; I've never done heated yoga before but I LOVED it. But it was hard.

2. People in the yoga community are super nice. I've been to quite a few yoga classes at different 24 Hours over the years, but this is the first time I've been to one at a dedicated yoga studio.

3. I had the most amazing view. A guy in front of me, maybe my age-ish or several years older, had what I consider to be the most perfect body I've ever seen.

I was in heaven. And he was nice enough to come up and introduce himself after the class!

Holy yum.

Brooke Classics

I caught up with my old roommate, Brooke, on the phone tonight. She's called me a couple times lately and has left hilarious messages, but I've been a complete slacker and didn't call her back until tonight.

Luckily for me, she'd taken a Tylenol Cold Nighttime about 20 minutes before I called her, so I got some golden material.

She and some friends got together to watch what was apparently a really crappy chick flick the other night. Her invite list, according to her? "Only girls and gay guys can come."

"Someday I'll go to Cirque du Soleil, and by someday, I mean when a boy will take me and pay for me."

Then, after hearing a friend drop an f-bomb this week, I realized the only time in my life where I ever found that word not incredibly painful to my ears and kind of hilarious was when Brooke launched it. About our other roommate's boyfriend (and now husband). In front of that roommate. It was wildly inappropriate (she did apologize the next day!), but oh, man, at the time it was absolutely hilarious to the two of us.

I love Brooke. (she's in the middle in the pic)

Check!

Anyone else been "home taught" by Facebook? You know, where your home teacher sends you a message with the link to the lesson on the Church's website?

Or "home taught" by text, asking if you can come to Institute so they can count that?

These are both firsts for me . . .

My Friend's "List"

I have to point you to this blog post I just read because it's midnight and I'm in bed, laughing hysterically. Thanks to my friend, Nicole, I might have trouble falling asleep tonight because of the constant laughing.

As a quick little teaser, here's my new favorite quote:

"See, only good things would come from me marrying someone who is illiterate."

Maybe L.A. Doesn't Suck, Too!

Thanks to some fantastic musicals/feats-of-"His-Legs-Flail-About-As-If-Independent-From-His-Body" moments. Mary Poppins one weekend, and Riverdance the next.


Some awesome ladies who were awesome company to an awesome play. Can we also talk about how much I loved our dinner before the show at Pete's Cafe? The blue cheese fries were seriously good, as was the mac and cheese. How Rayna manages to look that incredible in a yoga outfit is beyond me. Can I be her? Please? Thanks.


You can't help but smile when being around Rayna and Brieg. So that's what Brittany and I did.


The next weekend, Riverdance! I have to admit that I had a loop of FRIENDS running throughout my head for pretty much the whole night. "What scares the bejeezus out of Chandler?" "Michael Flatley, Lord of the Dance!" "The Irish Jig guy?" "What? His legs flail about as if independent from his body!" (yes, that's memorized) Highlights included the Russian folk dancers, the Pantages, and Allison's "I think I'm autistic."



Not autistic. Awesome.

Vegas doesn't suck anymore!

Who knew? I've always hated Vegas. Both driving through (too much traffic!) and staying there (smelly, trashy, and more smelly). But what I learned on this recent trip for work is that it's not always smelly, trashy, and more smelly! I hooked us up with some pretty sweet rooms at the Trump hotel thanks to Hotwire. It's a non-smoking, non-gaming slice of heaven. Check out my room!


That bathroom you see on the left? One of the two bathrooms my suite had. How fantastic is that? The bathroom off the bedroom was HUGE--way bigger than my bedroom here at home.


I didn't spend too much time on this couch, but it was a cool room with a cool TV.


Would have been a great picture if I hadn't closed my eyes. So nerdy that I had to post it.


Paris at night. Or at least, the closest I'll probably ever get to Paris at night.


I stood in front of many statues on this trip (a huge Buddha at TAO, for example). This is just the one in the Bellagio. We'd already done our conferencing for the day, and we were on our way to wait 2.5 hours in line for standby tickets for "O". Considering we ended up with 10th row seats . . . totally worth it! The most spectacular thing I've ever seen--can't wait to see it again!


Fred, buying the most ridiculous sweats I've ever seen. But I love that he loves them so much that this is his second pair! And I love that I got to see him thrice on my trip--yay!


Waiting for the Bellagio water fountain show--super cool! I'd never seen it before, but it's pretty fun. Got a mini show during the picture. And by mini, I mean, the tiniest.


Tiger at Bellagio. Pretty cool, huh?

Funny How Things Work Out

Last month when I was in Utah, my best friend mentioned something that her husband had said to her about me recently. Something along the lines of how, when they first started dating, he figured he had the least in common with me out of all her friends. Now, five years later, apparently I'm the only friend of hers he really talks to or with whom he has anything in common.

It's hilarious to me because, when they first started dating, he didn't talk all that much and I didn't get to know him all that well. But over the years, we found out we had a mutual love of old-school Nintendo. They would come over, he would play, and my best friend and I would scratch each other's backs while catching up ("Oh hey, that joke's still funny," she would say while not moving her hand scratching my back, knowing I love a soft-and-slow back-scratch).

Recently we discovered that we have a similar love for (obsession with?) basketball, and specifically, the Jazz and Lakers. Yes, the Jazz AND Lakers. Fandom of the two does not have to be mutually exclusive. Turns out we both love motion offenses, and those two teams are rare in a league filled with isolation plays and no set systems.

It's funny how things work out. I never would have guessed, when they first started dating, that I would so enjoy getting to know this guy, and that I would come to love him for how much he loves her, how much he adores her and how well he treats her--they could not be a more perfect match. I was super excited when it worked out that he'd be the one picking me up from the SLC airport since he was finishing up with his KSL sports gig late that night anyway--we'd have a whole hour to talk Jazz on the way to their place! It was fantastic.

You like to think when your friends are starting to date someone that they're making a good choice and that they're seeing everything with eyes wide open, that they're picking someone with whom they can have a really great, healthy, fulfilling relationship. Sometimes it turns out that way, and sometimes it doesn't. In this case, I had no idea how much she was rocking the choosing-your-eternal-companion concept, but she nailed it.