All the cool kids are doing it

Didja know about this cool new site called Flickr? All the kids are usin' it. So here I am...like 2 years after everyone else. Installment no. 1...Wedding Pics stolen from my Uncle's camera. I've used all of my space for this month so I'll upload my pics next month...hopefully that'll be in 2 days. :-)

Welcome to Lovely Pismo Beach

In all of my California traveling glory, I've never been to the Central Coast before. I've covered San Diego, Orange County, Los Angeles, Oxnard and Santa Barbara then jumped to San Francisco. I sort of considered the Central Coast a sort of wasteland...well, actually I never thought of it much since no one in L.A. even acknowledges that its there.

Well color me surprised...it was just lovely. We stayed at the Shore Cliff Lodge which is a really nice Best Western property. Oddly enough, if you look at the hotel on the website, that's exactly how it looks. The location and views are absolutely stunning. The wedding location could not have been prettier.

Our room was spendy but with the size and ocean view, I'm sure we got a deal as part of the wedding being held at the hotel. The staff was quite nice and the only thing I can complain about was the jacuzzi...it was icky & dirty whereas the pool was absolutely perfect. I'm sure the hot tub was broken, but still, it should have been drained, or a note posted or something. The look of the icky hot tub was, well, icky.

We ventured to the downtown area and had a nice lunch of pizza and antipasto salad at Giovanni's. We chose Giovanni's for two reasons: 1. my Grandfather announced that he wanted pizza for lunch and 2. we found parking right outside. The review: The pizza I had was FAR better than anything I've had in L.A. I was very excited. And, the salad was an actual Italian antipasto. After we sat down we learned that Giovanni's has this take-out counter place (well, there are 4 tables, but that's it) and a sit-down restaurant. Based on this experience I would definitely recommend both.

Later in the day, we headed back down to town for postcards & ice cream. I spotted The Scoop when we were looking for pizza. I'm so glad I did. Its a mom'n'pop ice cream parlor in an odd little strip mall with great ice cream, generous servings and GREAT people watching.

The rest of the trip was wedding related. I'm not posting that here so if you're interested in the recap, let me know. I'm always happy to share.

Going, going, gone.

So I haven't blogged in awhile. Duh, you can tell by the lack of posts. But, I don't like to complain when I blog unless its funny, then its fine. And I've had much to complain about and not in a funny ha-ha way. But I think I can find the humor now.

We'll start with the hair.

A guy with metal spikes in his head took all my hair away. Seriously. Its short. Super short. Short like I've never had it before. Short to the point where I burst out crying at the hair salon. Short where I was crying to the person who referred me to the hair salon. Short to where I cried to my boyfriend. Short to where I cried to my mom and one of her best friends. Short to where I own nothing that matches the haircut.

Here's what happened:

I love W. She's the best hairdresser ever. Seriously, she's an artist. I'll refer anyone and I've been trying to get my own mother to go to her. But, she's an artist who likes me with long hair. Its summer, I'm traveling to places with humidity and long hair just isn't what I want. So I went to the hairdressers of one of the women at work.

Salon by Maxime is really nice. They just got a well-deserved write-up in I think Lucky magazine. The salon has a great feel and the people there know what they're doing. M was kind enough to cut off my hair. And, I liked my haircut but I didn't love my haircut. So, for the price, I was going to keep trying new people. Then, I find out that W just moved to that salon. That's really cool. But triple digits for a haircut just isn't where I'm at right now.

One of my other friends at work, who's hair I really like, referred me to her hairdresser who litterally has metal spikes in his head. I have no issue with that....usually the more odd the tatoos and piercings the more seriously a hairdresser takes their "art." And, they're usually really nice too so all that works for me.

I brought in pictures of exactly what I wanted, had a full conversation with the guy, had the whole I'm-here-because-my-usual-hairdresser-won't-listen-to-me speech...we were good to go. Or so I thought. He cut & cut & cut, something I'm quite accustomed to. When he blew it dry the first time, it was perfect. He was checking the cut, I was pleased. So, when he raised scissors to thin out a bit more, I was calm and relaxed...until he cut 3 inches off the front.

My jaw dropped. We went from chin-length perfect to above-the-ear-oh-my-doG in 1 split second. I let him do the otherside (like I had a choice) and that was the end of the cut.

"Judging by the look on your face, you're not happy"

I was silent.

He rinsed out all the loose hair & wanted me to style it to make sure I was happy.

Happy? ALL of my hair is gone. Its not even close to the picture sitting right next to you while you were cutting. What part is there to be happy about?

Luckily I have three things going for me and those three things have calmed me down:

1. It is a cute haircut, not the haircut I wanted, but cute nonetheless.
2. I'm so fabulous that I can carry off hair this short.
3. The significant other likes short hair so he reassures me that if he doesn't love the cut, he'll just really like it.

So yeah, that's the drama of this past week. And yes Mark, there will be pictures as my cousin is getting married on Saturday and my family is flying in tomorrow. This hair will be well-documented.

Its all about me

Well, of course it is...this is a vanity site complete with pictures of me and a blog all about what I think. But, of course all of this can be blamed on someone else. Everything is always someone else's faut. This blog wouldn't exist if it weren't for a certain unnamed person. And in the spirit of not naming names, I've "borrowed" the idea for this link (which is also on the main page of this blog under Lets talk about me) from the same certain unnamed person mentioned above.

Just wanted to give credit where credit is due, without naming names of course.

The Surreal Live - Part IV

I really don't live the most glamourous life. I live what I consider an "L.A" sort of life filled with expensive hair cuts (althought I'll let you know how this new one goes which should be at least half of what I've been paying) and sample sales. So, at Jonathan Salon or Hollywood Yard Sale, I would expect to see celebrities. But, in the rest of my quiet existance, knitting most weekend nights and running errands, I don't expect to see the beautiful people because I don't spend time in those areas. I guess that's why it amuses me so when celebrities cross my path. But, enough about me, lets talk about what I did yesterday.

So, Surfas had a HUGE parking lot sale (Bedlam, I tell you). Following some oddly good deals and un petit dejeuner, I headed over to what was supposed to be a killer yarn sale. Although I didn't find anything, a celebrity very quietly donated some very cool baby items she and her mom had made. It was such a nice moment.

It struck me so because I can't say most of my experiences with celebrities have been nice...interesting perhaps, but not usually nice. I was once threatened when ringing up two pairs of jeans, told I wasn't moving fast enough (for the record, I was the fasted cashier at the store), and been the attempted butt of a dirty joke (don't mess with a 17 year old with an attitude). Nice isn't usually a word associated with Los Angeles. Minneapolis is a nice town. Los Angeles, is well, LA. I guess that's why nice was such an unusual moment.