twenty twelve

Happy New Year, blog that nobody reads!!

holidaze

I still like the idea that this blog exists, even if "we" aren't actually using it. happy merry days!

some people know me so well

attached to an email (at work) the other day came this photo, which I promptly printed out to live next to my nameplate/chalkboard outside my cube. it makes me happy, and those who are old enough/cool enough to know who Kojak is are equally as entertained. really, who loves ya, baby?

PS, I love you...

Even in 111 degree heat, Palm Springs never lets me down. Dawn and I stayed hydrated, happy and relaxed for a couple of really nice days in the desert. Wish all the girls could have been there, we must plan that one of these days.

I thought "Dawn, go stand behind the sign! So cute!" And then as the picture developed on my iPhone... I realized I placed her smack behind the "Short Bus" sign. Funny, but not exactly what I had imagined for the breezy ps photo...

I admit, we laughed extra hard while taking this one in the reflection of the mirror over the registration area. I'm fairly certain people thought we were just a little desert crazy.

LOVE my new hat. It didn't actually make it's debut this trip, as we didn't hit the pool until the sun was nearly down... but love it, I still do.

ahhhhhhhhhhh.

dwell on design

I got to do a rare work field trip today to see Dwell on Design at the LA Convention Center. I love these three things: work field trips, free entry passes and good design. I can probably think of more things I love even more than that, but today that was a good dose of stuff I heart.

I saw many many things I'd like to buy for my 20 million dollar home of the future, but a few of them could actually be realized in my lifetime such as...

A Super Moderne Chicken Coop! I tell you what, with real grass under their feet and an airy wooden home, they were two happy chicks. There was another plastique style one behind it called the Co-Op, but this one struck my fancy right away.

I have also, maybe not so secretly, always loved trailers/airstreams/teardrops. I think if I could I would live in one and travel the open road for awhile. The one they had here was so tricked out I'd move in tomorrow.

A company called Molo was there, they appear to specialize in all paper structures. Think yert style without the roofs, made of some paper between the strengths of heavy duty construction paper and cardboard. They were really cool, and they had everything from stools (surprisingly sturdy with really cool felt seat pads) to little igloo type things with window cut out. I'm not sure how one would use them (the white reflected light so beautifully, maybe as a room partition/dressing screen?) but I liked them. The actual light fixtures were cool until I decided they looked like mushrooms and then I was done wanting one.

Here's a small fraction of the magazine library they had hanging in one corner. It was hard not to five finger discount a couple of them...

There were also chandeliers made of 3 miles of chain (think necklace chain), made in Italy, only 14K... very shiny and also practical.

And lastly (we won't talk about the Remodelista shop outside where I dropped some cash), there was an artist there who was "painting your heartbeat" as a fundraiser for Japan/tsunami relief. I donated and had my co-worker sit in the chair while they hooked her up to broadcast her heartbeat while he spray painted on a canvas wall. Add in some dj-beats and it was sort of a live art installation for a good cause. I like good causes, heartbeats and artists who spray paint while wearing shiny silver suits.

the end.

The Ladies In Red

Hello ladies...

In the year (or so) since I've posted anything here, I have made two major transportation-type purchases, both happen to be in the color red. So, obviously red is a thing (always been a thing). This is my newest two-wheeled baby, and I love her. I tried to have a naming contest, but in the end I came up with the name on my own as it occurred to me a Linus bike needed a Lucy name. So, she's Lucy. It suits her, she's cool with it. We're totally best friends. She's not jealous of Ruby, my shiny red Prius, for all the quality time that we get to spend together making our way to and from work everyday.

Both of my new red lady-friends make me think of sunny days and summer, which is finally here. Though I hate to be super hot all the time, I love the fun and friend time that summer usually brings along with it. BRING IT summer, I say!

So here's to bike rides and picnics and palm springs and friend time. To outdoor concerts, large and small and of course, summer summer fruits it wouldn't be suummmer withouuuut them...

I'm determined to be back on the blog wagon. We shouldn't be so lame, we all agree reading them is fun, let's just do it! :)

xoxoRg

Ferocious Snow

Okay, so today I walked to the gym as usual. It was drizzling lightly and there was light hail, but otherwise no major weather conditions happening.

A couple of hours later, I was in the locker room getting dressed to leave and saw snow falling through the tops of the frosted glass windows. So I decided to check it out and opened the window to see HUGE SNOWFLAKES coming down hard and an ankle deep blanket of snow already on the ground. SHIT!! Of all the days I chose NOT to wear my cute new Sorel waterproof boots! :(

I got all bundled up and hit the road. Luckily, I'd worn knee socks under my workout pants and I had a hooded jacket! They had closed the intersection and there were two empty buses right in the middle of the street where I guess they'd made everyone get off and hoof it. They let a couple of cars go by but they were trying to plow the snow and throw down the salt. The snow on the street was at the same level as the sidewalk so it was all just one big street of white. I stopped to take a photo with the Blackberry of the same spot that I posted just last week. You can't see the super crazy snow coming down but it was nuts!

It was kinda fun to make tracks through the fresh powder but after 10 minutes, I was done with that. Got home and took a ton of pics of our back terrace covered in snow. Then I went out and made a snowman complete with a carrot nose. But he fell over and is dead now. oh well. JP got home around 9:30pm (terrible traffic) and told me that they haven't had a snow storm like this since 1996. crazy.

Our tree 2010

I forgot to post the picture of our new fake xmas tree. It's cute, right? (sorry, I didn't rotate the photo)

We decided to go faux for a few reasons:

1) JP says that we saved one tree from being killed in the forest
2) I still found dried pine needles from last year's tree up 'til a couple of months ago
3) I won't be going back to France until mid-January and I didn't want to come home to find a dried up Charlie Brown tree with all our ornaments dangerously sagging on it. (cuz you know boys don't clean up and put away glass ornaments, etc like girls do)

Anyhoo...je present notre sapin de Noel! ta-da!

Oh sapin de Noel, oh sapin de Noel...how lovely are your (stiff plastic) branches (that smell like nothing)....lalalalalala :)

December snow!

Ding-Dong December is finally here!

The fall leaves of November were really nice, and yeah, experiencing "real sweater weather" was cool. But now, the bitter cold has begun to set in and me no likey the weather so much.

I've been walking to the gym almost everyday, because cold weather equals hungry carb eating Grace, which in turn equals 10 lb heavier Grace. (Don't get me started on how it sucks that you can workout super hard and lose 2 lbs and then gain 10 lbs in like a week! ARGH.) Anyhoo, It's a 20 minute partial up-hill trudge where I play the "dodge the fresh smashed dog shit on the sidewalk" game. Incredibly fun and good for foot-eye coordination. I decided to show you part of my walk but have chosen to omit the scary post-workout pic of me in my not-so-sexy winter walking gear. You know how the internet is...it lives forever.
So, at the top of the hill yesterday, even though it was the coldest day yet, I decided to take a different (and longer) path home and look what I found! Giraffe's artful cousins! (reference to my first post with Fontenay street art) Unfortunately little giraffe has been paved over by some rock work and no longer exists. All that's left is a single heart on the sidewalk in front of the wall he used to be on. Hopefully, you'll enjoy some of these in his honor. R.I.P. little giraffe.

I think I wanna be a performance artist

NUIT BLANCHE happens once a year in Paris. I asked the hubs why is it called "white night?"


Apparently, when you work all day, stay up all night then go to work again the next day, it's called a "white night." I, for one, who am borderline narcoleptic, will possibly never experience the delirium of such sleep deprivation, but it was fun trying. ("Try" being the key word. When the metro stops running at 1am but the event lasts 'til 7am, how ya gonna make that work? eh?)
It was Sandy Halloran's first night in gay Paree so we met up in the Marais and had dinner at an old school brasserie, then headed out into the night. Queues were long for every art installation, so we roamed the night with the gazillion others. We saw a purple car with a cassette player strapped to the hood playing a random radio recording, ghost busters in a church playing experimental music, and a really cool architectural cube structure on a bridge that had lights synchronized to music. (none of which I have photos of)

I wanna be a ghost buster with a Bose speaker strapped to my back, pulling a mini vacuum cleaner with blue xmas lights on it...or...NOT.