"Arctic Blast"

Yeah... so it's "cold" here in LA.  I'm not gonna lie, this is the coldest I have been since I moved here, but I'm not about to break out my parka and my gloves.  And it's extremely comical to see how everyone here is reacting:

 

Again, I'm not going to pretend I'm warm, but I certainly know how to handle a night where the temps drop to the 30s. I think that weather is one of the cultural phenomena here that is most interesting to me.  Any deviation for the standard 70 degrees is thought to be "so hot" or "so cold."  What is really funny is that I have never been able to feel the difference in a few degrees as much as I have since I have lived here.  70 and 75 degrees feel different to me out here. Anywhere else, the difference would be pretty moot. But out here, you get used to the relative lack of weather, seasons, and significant temperature changes.  A deviation from the norm can be a huge difference. In the Midwest  Colorado, almost everywhere else I've lived, deviation is the norm.

Though I can admit to feeling chilly in our mild temperature drop, one thing I'm not going to do is act like this is the end of the world. Yes, the temperatures are annoying and, quite frankly, my house is not insulated for weather like this. But, it is a little refreshing to snuggle up with a few extra blankets and feel the brisk air on my skin.  Also, the "cold snap" is a good reminder of how wonderful the weather is here most of the time. When things are too perfect, sometimes it's hard to appreciate it. In Chicago, everyone in the city was outside on the nice days, taking advantage of weather and enjoying it. Here, perfection is the expectation, and nice day can easily be brushed off as another is soon to follow. I hope if anything, our "freezing temps" can serve to remind LA residents how good they have it.  In the meantime, I am going to continue to laugh at everyone that dresses the way I would dress when the temperatures drop into the 'teens.  It is really unnecessary, and the day I "get soft" and ask for a parka in this weather is the day I need to move.  For sure.

Fa La LA-LA Land

Last night, as I drove home from work and up the Lincoln exit ramp off the 10, I noticed a a panhandler, which is pretty typical.  What was atypical was the sign he was holding. It was small and said simply, "Love."  It made me smile and almost give him a dollar.  Almost. I learned in St. Louis that you don't open your car to people on the street... anyway... the point I am actually trying to make is that his sign felt like a perfect way to sum up the holiday season that has just come to a close.

I've officially been in LA for over a year and it's crazy to think about how far I have come in that time. A year ago, I was lamenting the warm, snowless December and trying to navigate my new life.  This year, I was fully embracing the holiday spirit in my new home:

I found a more appropriate place to hang my stocking

I upgraded my tree from last year

And I even added a touch of Mistletoe

 I also embraced typical winter activities with a LA twist, like ice skating in 60 degree weather:

I tried (and kinda failed at...) some new holiday baking ideas:

It was too hard to frost his face...

And I enjoyed a winter bike ride that could only take place in LA:


Manhattan Beach Pier with Christmas Lights

Dreams DO come true!

This weekend I reached an epic milestone in not only my LA life, but my entire life as a whole.

I

FINALLY

used the Cupcake ATM!!!

If it were possible, I would be hugging the machine...

And my wonderful friend Emily was in town to share my special day with me.  After a weekend of fun, sun (perhaps a little too much...), and some quality time with one of my favorite college friends, we decided it was only appropriate to finish with dessert.

Since a picture is worth a thousand words, and since I do not have the words to justly describe my epic experience, please enjoy the following picture montage of my fourth attempt at cashing in some dough.

Bring on the Gloom...

Tomorrow is June. JUNE!  I have no idea where May went.  To jog my memory and catch everyone up (since I'm sure you have all been on the edge of your seats wondering where I am...) here is a photo recap of my Magnificent May:

First stop, SAN DIEGO for Joni's Junior League fundraiser gala and some quality time with her and Sean:

Island Divine

La Jolla Glider Port

Next, off to my favorite state, COLORADO, for Ms. Krystal's  mountain wedding:

Transplant Theory: Oxen and Chameleons

Along with palm tree and fake boobs, another thing LA is full of is transplants: people who have moved to LA from other places.  People who actually grew up in LA are about as rare as snowflakes.  I've met many a transplant over the last six months and have actually started to categorize them into two groups in my mind: oxen and chameleons.  Stay with me here, it's good I promise.

Oxen are the stubborn people.  The ones who move to LA and refuse to give up their customs and traditions from their old way of life.  They are often the ones who have moved to LA for a job or a relationship, not because they actually wanted to move to LA.  They tend to pick out the negative qualities of the city and claim that it's fake, plastic, and materialistic. They refuse to let the city change them.

Chameleons are eager to blend in and become "Hollywood." They are the people who have come out to LA to try and live the California lifestyle. They often have preset ideas about how living here will change their lives, and genuinely want to embrace change and absorb what LA has to offer. They may desire fame, fortune, or something else entirely, but they see LA as they key to their success. They want the city to make them.

Now, obviously not everyone fits into one of these two categories, and quite honestly, the people I gravitate towards and all of my friends out here have a healthy mix of both animals, perhaps we call them, oxeleons. They are open-minded, up for trying new things and having adventures, yet they are grounded and confident in who they are and where they come from.  They want the city to inspire them, but not define them.

The real question I have been asking myself lately is, which animal am I??

Gettin' Dough

I'm a big fan of cupcakes.  Big fan.  I'm one of those people for whom a completely terrible day can be totally turned around by someone handing me a red velvet cupcake. Seriously.  As intellectual as I can be, I'm really still as easily pleased as a small child.  I've earned me the nickname "The Little One" at work given that I'm the youngest and that things like my new business cards are the COOLEST thing ever even if they have my e-mail address wrong and I have to rip them from the Avery printable sheets myself. Anyway, I digress...

It's no surprise that receiving the following e-mail from my father on Sunday completely changed the focus of my week:

Sprinkles Announces 24-Hour-Cupcake Access

Maybe something that you guys should check out while Kendall is visiting.  It’s a 24 hour cupcake ATM in Beverly Hills. http://laist.com/2012/02/28/sprinkles_announces_24-hour-cupcake.php

Oh yeah, my sister is here.  That's pretty cool too, but I've had her for a little over 23 years.  A cupcake ATM is brand. spanking. new.  I'll write more about her visit later.  Right now- cupcakes.  Clearly, Ken and I made sure to jaunt over to BH on Sunday after dinner to check out the newest way to get your sugar fix.  The result:

FYI: Kendall's shirt is a brand new style
from Jill  Aiko Yee's upcoming spring line!

Yep.  The ATM was not yet up and running.  The article was extremely misleading.  And we were heartbroken, as you can probably tell by Kendall's expression.  Regardless, I began following the ATM on Facebook.  On Tuesday, the ATM updated it status and announced that it was open for business.  On Wednesday, Kendall and I again made our way to Beverly Hills after dinner to find this:

Psh.  Yeah.  Even I am not enough of a fat kid to wait in that line for a cupcake that may or may not even be fresh.  According to YouTube this is what my experience would have been like:

Chelsea Handler also had some comments about the new addition to our metropolis on her show (that I was not able to find on YouTube), namely recognizing that there are no drive-thrus in BH for a reason, the ATM is just asking for an "influx of drunk assholes" to the area and that they should really focus on a cupcake delivery service.  At this last point, my heart filled with pride and nostalgia, knowing that such a magic thing existed and that it was only in Boulder.

http://www.boulderbaked.com

Yes ladies and gentleman, Boulder,CO: Home of the Drunk Asshole has been doing delivery desserts since... well... at least since 2003 and probably for many, many years before that.  And they are fabulous.

In summary, the Cupcake ATM is exciting and seems awesome.  But like most over-hyped places in LA, there is no way that you can get near it for the time being and trying is going to be annoying as hell.  When they install one at the Jack in the Box I live next door to, life will be complete.  Mostly, I'm just bitter because I've failed at using the ATM.  Twice.  And because I drove down Rodeo Drive.  Twice.  In one week.  Wha wah.

Also, delivery deserts would be so clutch in LA and Boulder rules.

Make a list, check it twice...

Soon after I made my trek out West, Gnat gave me a list of things that would make me a true Angeleno and measure my assimilation to the Cali lifestyle.  Since receiving those items, I have accomplished getting stuck in traffic.  That's it.  It's quite clear that I belong here as much as an arctic penguin.

With that said, it's no surprise that Gnat sending me an e-mail link to 150 Things to do in LA a few weeks ago struck fear through to my very core.  I was already sucking at one list and now here was 150 more things for me to suck at.  Awesome.

Soooo... I took a deep breath and prepared to feel overwhelmed and hickish- yet determined to read the entire list and really see what I'm up against out here.  The result- pleasant surprise!  I've actually done a lot of things! And I got some great ideas for new things to try!  For the full list of 150 items, feel free to click the link above.  Otherwise, enjoy my highlights below...

Bedroom for One

One of the biggest decisions I made when moving out to LA was about my living situation.  Aside from deciding where I was going to live, I was also deciding between living alone and living with roommates.  After weighing the pros and cons and realizing that no matter what choice I made, there were going to be days that I would regret it, as you all probably know, I decided to take the plunge and live alone.

After three months in my current living situation I feel like I have had enough time to settle in and that I can now assess the situation with clear eyes and officially say that I LOVE LIVING ALONE!!!  Seriously, I can watch whatever I want on the TV, I don't have to share the bathroom and there is soooooo much room in the fridge!  Seriously- look at all the Lean Cuisines I can have!

And there is still sooooo much more room!  I have seriously never regretted my choice for even a second though there are a few tiny things that make me miss having another person around the house...

Urban Jungle

Moving from the 3rd largest city in the US to the 2nd largest, I expected that I would be getting more of a lot of things.  More traffic, more smog, more people, more money (earned and spent), more sunshine, more professional basketball teams, more celebrities, more homeless people, and well, you get the picture.  One thing I was not expecting more of was nature.  I was actually expecting to move to a larger city and get less nature to account for the more of everything else.  LA has pleasantly surprised me by being a place that is FULL of natural beauty and outdoorsy activities.  Who knew?

Naked Bonding

As a self-imposed condition of living alone out here, I promised that I would push myself to take advantage of social opportunities.  As an outgoing social person, you would think that would not be a tall order- however, you may be underestimating how much I like my new patio and how much I like my wine fridge.  Last night, I not only made good on my promise and hung out with a bunch of new people on my own, I also powered through a situation that was EXTREMELY out of my comfort zone with these new people and had a blast.  Let's start at the beginning...

I've known Steph since college.  She was good friends with one of my Senior year roommates, Tara and the three of us always had great fun hanging out together.  I saw Steph at Tara's wedding this summer; she had been living in LA for almost 4 year and graciously agreed to hang out with me when I moved out here.  Fast forward to last night...

Baby it's cold outside.

That's right, I said it.  It's in the 50s and I am freezing!  I could turn on my heater, but I don't want to because I feel like I should be better at this.  I just moved from Chicago where this would be a perfect fall day!  Gnat says this means that I'm assimilating- I say I'm getting soft.  Is feeling cold in mild weather on my Angeleno check list???

Regardless, since I was feeling chilly I decided that today would be the perfect day to cook my favorite Chicken Curry Soup from college.  This soup would appear about once a week or so in The Grill in the UMC where I worked.  When it was there, I would eat it regardless of what I had brought for lunch (or get it and save it if I had already eaten... or eat it anyway...).  For my graduation present from CU, Jan, one of the women I work with managed to snag the recipe for me.  It apparently took some effort to get the chef to release the recipe and because of this I'm going to keep it a secret.  I will post pictures of cooking it though.

Finished product, delish!

Soooo, the recipe is meant to be sold in a cafeteria-like atmosphere, and therefore, it makes 6 gallons.  I quarter it to make 1.5 gallons, which is still a lot.  Hopefully I can share some with my neighbors to try and make friends with them :)  Otherwise I guess I'm just eating it until January...ish...

No place like home.

Philosophically, there are multitudes of different opinions on what constitutes "home".  People, places, things, states of mind or combinations of these.  For me, it's difficult to describe how I view "home" because it's more of a feeling I get.  I feel a comfort, familiarity and warmth with floods of old memories and excitement for new ones.  For me, home is not necessarily where I live, though places I live do often become home.

I knew October in LA was going to be difficult for me- the weekend I moved into my apartment is the only weekend I have had and will have in the apartment all month.  To top that off, all of my weekends would be spent with many old friends in all of my favorite places.  This past weekend was the motherload.  First stop:

Blending in

Ever since we were little, my mother stressed blending in and not acting like tourists when were were on vacation.  Especially when we were in Colorado- Mom wanted everyone to think that we were locals.  Blending in was no easy task with my father aka Tourist Man taking pictures of EVERYTHING:

With his tiny camera backpack of power and the hat he only bought
yesterday, he dons his socks with sandals and sets off to experience
AUSTRALIA!

Yeah, ok.  We all kinda failed on this one...

Mom would fight the powers of Tourist Man by not letting us eat anywhere we could eat at home and making Ken and I keep walking when Dad jumped into a random bush to take a picture of a flower.  In Colorado, we were supposed to try to dress like locals (aka, wear our pajamas to breakfast- done and done!); the hallmark of fitting in was being asked for directions by some "lame tourist."

Stay classy San Diego

I'm not good with down time.  I am, in fact, so bad with down time that when I was in Australia I got a job, joined a gym, joined a club and made multiple "To Do" lists with different places, foods, activities and events to experience in order to minimize down time and maximize... well, my Type A personality...

When I was unemployed in Chicago, I baked.  A lot.  My roommates would come home to a kitchen full of literally hundreds of savory tartlets, various vegetable salads and dessert concoctions (ya know, for balance).  Packages of treats were sent to the neighbors.  It. was. obscene.

With my California  "To Do" list at a seemingly never ending standstill I really have no choice but to embrace the down time and learn how to relax and have some fun.  Not that I don't know how to have fun.  I'm really fun.  It's just usually... scheduled fun.  Earned fun.  At it's best and most wild, it's responsible spontaneity.

California here we come!

Greeting from a Starbucks in The Valley!  All I can think about right now is Cher from Clueless ("Eww!  The Valley!") so I'm not really sure how I am supposed to feel about his place...

There are about a million things I should be doing while I have internet access-- but I'm choosing to blog-- in a very cliche' manner non the less.  Courtesy of my sister's excellent Googling, I'll be relocating to Cabo Cantina in Santa Monica later this afternoon.  Free WiFi + Margs= win.  Also, much less cliche' and potentially less productive.  So let me get you up to speed on my cross-country trek and my first 36 hours on the coast:

After shoving my life into the U-Box:

Mom and I set off for our 28 hour drive--

Out with a bang

Alright, so you know when you were a kid and you would get a new toy and play with it all day, everyday for like a week and then never again??  I find that as an adult-ish person, I still have this quality though now it mostly applies to workout plans and guys I attempt to date.  I'm also concerned that this may happen to my blog.  So my first 5 posts were all consecutive (*cough* excited child) and then followed by about 5 days of radio silence however, I feel that I have a perfectly good excuse for my lapse: playing in Chicago!

Before I head out to California, I really wanted to make one more visit to the city I love enough to consider one of my three homes (Iowa and Colorado would be the other two) and soak in all of my favorite things.  It seems logical that I should have memories of having fun, knowing my way around a place and spending time with people I love before I'm lost, confused and friendless on the coast.

Are you ready for some football?

Photo courtesy of FX

I know I am.  Football is a sure sign of fall (I'll save my obsessive love of fall for another post) and the weather this past weekend in Iowa was a perfect match for the start of high school football and college football (even if Colorado's debut as a Pac-12 team was less than stellar). With the pro season kick-off rapidly approaching I must say that I'm excited for a new venture in the football arena this year.  No friends, I'm not talking about the new indoor football team in CR, I'm talking about fantasy football!  This year, in addition to manically cheering on my Buffs and my Bears, I will be managing and dominating my fantasy league with... wait for it.... Refrigerator of Sweetness.  Epic, I know.  If you don't get it, sorry you're not awesome.

I knew that fantasy football was for me after watching the first two seasons of The League on FX.  If you haven't seen the show, I recommend you watch it immediately; it's hilarious and takes place in Chicago.  I can only hope that my fantasy league incurs such debauchery and absurd competitiveness.  I must say, I was fairly disappointed when my draft order was doled out to me in an e-mail from ESPN as opposed to being determined in a manner such as this.

But in all seriousness, I cannot wait to start fantasy football- and the wait is almost over, my (autopick) draft is at 5am tomorrow morning!  I've spent the last several weeks participating in mock drafts, tinkering with my autopick strategy and reordering my pick preferences to ensure a championship combination of beefy and agile gentleman is delivered to my inbox much like a present under the Christmas tree.  I'm confident that my obsessive planning and organization coupled with my adorably competitive nature will pay off.  After all, I am going against a bunch of genetic counselors, most of whom are female and one of whom is a male that thinks football involves kicking a black and white ball into a net...

Wish me luck!  I'll post the roster tomorrow!

Also... it appears that the closest thing LA has to a professional football team is USC... who isn't even bowl eligible this year and has lower stadium attendance than Colorado (!?!?!)... here's to hoping I find a good Bears bar!