DECEMBER '09 ARCHIVES

these were two dogs on their way to go hunting, peering out of their little cage at all the drivers on sepulveda. SO cute!



just when you think you've seen every possible misspelling of "connie"... the only letters she got right were the N's.



a HUGE slug me and lynn stumbled across a few nights ago. i wanted to poke it but didn't want a bucket of slime on my hands. that's a regular size slug next to him/her. lynn thinks the larger slug was nursing the smaller one but i think the larger one was slowly absorbing the smaller one into its body to become even bigger - kinda like the blob, you know? residents of torrance, if you see a 10 foot slug coming your way one night, run like hell before it swallows you up too. gross.



my love.

12:38 AM 12/14/2009

back from EY training in orlando. i flew out sunday and came back wednesday night. major achievement of the year alert: i almost made it through almost all my classes without falling asleep! i gave up on wednesday afternoon though. the jet lag finally caught up with me, i guess. also, apparently deloitte, KPMG, BDO and grant thorton were having tax training in orlando at the same time (maybe hotel rates were ridiculously cheap?). i'm sure the locals were thrilled with the sudden influx of nerds to the area. EY put us up at the gaylord palms, which was about 50000% better than the last dump we were at a few years ago. BOOO CARIBE ROYALE. the palms, for those of you who have never seen it, is HUGE. it's over the top and a little cheesy and has a gator pond with real live alligators. i ate dinner at a steakhouse that looked like a shack in the everglades and had drinks on a bar in a boat overlooking the key west section of the resort. my bedspread (i really should have taken a picture) had little monkeys playing cymbals all over it. weeeeeeeird. i liked it though. gaylord palms, two thumbs up. the only time i left the place was to meet tom for dinner at a cuban restaurant a few miles away. you can never have enough sweet plantains, i tell you.

in other work-related news, EY's holiday party was last saturday night at LA live's conga room. i had all these cute dresses picked out but it ended up being butt-cold that night so for once i actually sacrificed vanity for comfort (i must be getting old). the official dress code was "dressy casual," which apparently meant "cocktail attire" for most girls such as myself, "stuff you would wear to a client" for some of the more conservative ladies, "early 90's prom attire" for a handful of poor souls who got their hair done and stuffed themselves into knee-length, red-sequined taffeta nightmares, and last but certainly not least, "skanky slut wear" for some of the girls straight out of college. one girl's dress was so short i could totally see up it even though i was taller than her. not that i really wanted to stare, but i was beyond mystified at how she was managing to dance without having a major wardrobe malfunction. i went to the restroom to pee around 10 and there was puke in nearly every other stall. a few girls were still crammed into the handicapped stall, trying to comfort their friend who was praying to the porcelain gods while sprawled out all over the wet floor. call me crazy, but the thought of wallowing around in somebody else's half-digested food/stomach acid on the floor of a public bathroom seriously grosses me out. which reminds me, i need to lysol the hell out of my stilettos.



none of these girls puked in the bathroom, in case you're wondering.

came back to work on thursday to find my desk covered in packages. mostly from my own online shopping, haha. i bought a beautiful pair of suede valentino heels from neiman marcus and all the girls sighed when i opened up the red box to examine the shoes. just when i thought nothing would trump the happiness of valentino, i opened up a package from amazon and saw that jack sent me a new GPS unit (tom-tom was starting to turn on me by either not charging properly or sending me to bad places in the middle of nowhere) and a kindle. both are freaking awesome. i bought my first book (the help, by kathryn stockett) on the kindle last night and started reading it this morning and could not put it down until i finished. I WILL NEVER HAVE TO PHYSICALLY TURN A PAGE EVER AGAIN! i even took it with me to the gym, where i pedaled furiously on the bike for 35 minutes without really noticing the pain. dude, i'm gonna be so in shape and so well read in about six months, i can hardly wait. haha. if only it were that easy.

okay, time to go. work begins tomorrow again. woe is me. won't somebody do my x-mas shopping for me?

11:38 PM 12/26/2009

merry christmas, everybody! i cannot believe another holiday season has come and gone. last year i wished for my mom's health and what do you know? i got exactly what i asked for. next year i would like a porsche, please. tying my mom's health for #1 christmas present was jack's phone call from iraq a few nights ago. speaking of which, i just finished up a book called dear john, by nicholas sparks. it's about a guy named john who falls in love with a girl while he's on leave and then has to go to iraq for the war and they break up and she moves on without him and he comes back from his tour to find her married and then they are both heartbroken for the rest of their lives. the end. this book was stupid. i mean, REALLY stupid. i don't even know why i read it. oh fine, i know exactly why i read it, it's because channing tatum plays john in the upcoming movie and hello, channing tatum is my boyfriend #2 (#3 is keanu reeves from his speed days). in any case, i think i was rolling my eyes throughout the entire book. it was slightly better than the twilight series but then again, what isn't better than the story of bella-the-selfish-whiny-loser-who-gives-up-everything-and-anything-for-her-pasty-white-boyfriend-and-then-proceeds-to-have-unsteamy-disappointing-vampire-sex-after-years-and-years-of-built-up-sexual-tension? YAWN. but back to dear john. i am making jack read it too, not because i think it's super romantic or anything, but because i feel like i have to spread the misery of a lame story with the love of my life so that he, too, can read it and roll his eyes and then think to himself, "man, that was a colossal waste of my time." i am an awesome girlfriend like that.

i saw a few movies a few days ago...we watched up in the air first, and it was hands down one of the best movies i can remember seeing in a long time. i like movies that make you think long and hard after you exit the movie theater (dear john probably won't be the same, but i will still be there on opening night to dutifully support boyfriend #2). i also saw nine, with penelope cruz, fergie, nicole kidman, judi dench, sophia loren, daniel day lewis, kate hudson and marion cotillard. you'd think with a cast like that, the movie would practically write, direct and shoot itself and be totally awesome. nope. the girls were nice to look at, though. kate hudson cannot sing or dance worth a damn. i mean, neither can i, but then again nobody is paying me big bucks to strut my stuff on the big screen and belt out musical lyrics.

let's see, what else.... yesterday i made the unfortunate error of hitting up the after christmas sales at cabazon. oh, the agony. my mom and i jumped on the road around 11:30 and didn't pull into the parking lot until after 3:30. that's right, i spent FOUR stinking hours of my life sitting on the god-awful freeways of southern california. needless to say, i was not a happy camper by the time i got to the outlets. then i had to deal with battling the billions of bargain-hungry shoppers everywhere, and is it just me or is there some sort of direct correlation between fobbiness and rudeness? people! there are lines for a reason! and if you don't like it, THEN GO BACK TO YOUR OWN COUNTRY AND CUT IN FRONT OF PEOPLE THERE! you can take our jobs and take our research but dammit, you CANNOT take our place in line. arghghghgh. on a positive note, i scored a nice pair of black suede jimmy choo boots for 60% off. they are quite lovely - almost made the four hour drive worth it. ALMOST.



my cousins.



me stealing randy's automatic shoe polisher in our family white elephant exchange. i look happy here but five minutes later it was stolen from me by my uncle in a blatant display of white-elephant friendzies. NO FAIR!



callie, playing peek-a-boo while sitting in a big macy's box. she is SO cute! too bad i am terrified of her.

lastly, today was officially the first time i visited din tai fung in arcasia, after an hour long drive and a thirty minute wait in front of the restaurant. verdict: AWESOME. the xiao long baos were good (i like 'em drowning in soy sauce and vinegar) but the best part were the red bean buns at the very end. i could eat 20 by myself. not sure if it's the best i've ever had but it's definitely up there. if anybody wants to go try them out, call me up. the drive isn't too bad from downtown LA. haha. all right, i gotta run - have a crazy week at work ahead of me. if i don't update again before the end of 2009, i hope everybody has a happy and safe new year's. 2010! crazy. adios, kids.