so's your face

i'm thrilled to have a major part of my home improvements finally completed, the kitchen & entry way flooring, but several things still remain... regardless, here is the photo essay.

the original plan was to just have my new laminate flooring put on top of the ugly existing floor (right) BUT when the installer arrived, he discovered that my front door wouldn't work if the floor got any higher (unbeknownst to me, there were already 4 layers of flooring down). so i had him install the flooring in the kitchen only. then i had to pay for the entry way to be abated because there was undoubtedly asbestos under there. above is a shot from the beginning of the abatement, below is the tent he put up to safely remove it all.

after the flooring was removed in the entry way, this is what i lived with for a month - the beautiful floorboards. i had to wait for different laminate to arrive and had my trip out west, so the final install was delayed.

the entry way install was finally done last monday. yay!

and yay for my 50th entry on this blog...

magic mustache ride

my final week included buckets of margaritas, two seasons of Dexter (SO damn good), "top of the park" happy hour, and our landing party. dexter filled our evenings with silly drama and wine giggles. top of the park is this bizarre bar that is only a bar one night a week, every other day it is an unfrequented restaurant. but on friday nights, the gays come out strong. we watched the sunset from the rooftop near Balboa Park. my final night there, we had a small gathering of b's friends on this strange landing area which lies slightly hidden and below the parking lot of his building. it has a lovely view of a thorny valley.

as i wrote about before, we took several trips to the dog park and made it to the dog beach once. micah loved it, and hopefully will learn to live in peace with other dogs when he's on a walk.

part la

for this installment, i'll jump to my quick day trip up to LA to visit drea, one of my most favorite people in the world. i rode the train up saturday afternoon -- no doubt the best way to get to LA, no driving and it's beautiful...until you get near LA.

this photo was taken from the train, i couldn't believe how close we got to the ocean. we also passed several beaches which were fat with weekend families; most of them busy with sandy cracks and boogie boards, it was funny to see people (usually the dad of the family) standing there watching the train whiz by.

when drea picked me up, our first stop was for a lil treat -- aaaaaaa-freaking-mazing cupcakes. my red velvet cupcake was spectacular. behold...

my time in LA was beyond perfect. after our delicious sweet treat, we drove around the strip to see the walk of fame (from the car was enough) and the mobs of people. the street "performers" are so terrifically bad. seriously, the spiderman was a guy in his pajamas. yet people pay these idiots so they can have their picture taken with them. hilarious. then we drove thru beverly hills just to see. we got take out and went back to drea's where i met her roomate, saucy brown -- a new favorite that the universe apparently doesn't want me to play with very much.

then we went to a gathering of friends for a game night and played "celebrity" a very fun game with fabulous group of queers. afterwards we went to a dance club and shook booties like mad. then we passed out, waking up just in time for a coffee run on my way to the train station.

the trip in briefs, part one

my two weeks in san diego with my boys was amazing. we shared the perfect mix of adventure and lazy. i had debated what to do about renting a car, and decided to rent one for one week. but at the last minute, a friend of brandon's was "unable to drive his car" for about 6 weeks, so we paid him the amount i was going to spend on one week, and we got his car for two. it was our first experience driving a hybrid; made me feel like my parents learning a VCR... the Prius is a super space car. the electric motor is nearly silent, gets 50 mpg, and a fun nerdy part -- to unlock the doors, you just keep the key in your pocket and touch the door handle and boom, you're in.

the first week highlights included: going to a fabulous pretentious little gay bar where having a good sashay is a job requirement, yawning our way 2/3 of the way thru "Watchmen,"celebrating micah's 9th birthday, meeting several of b's new friends (9 of 10 were awesome to be around), went to Cabrillo National Monument, and saw "Julie & Julia" and then were forced to find as many old episodes of the French Chef as possible. if you haven't seen it, you must -- julia child is mesmerizing to watch.

note the delicate sailboats playing chicken with the nuclear submarine...

also have to mention something that happened before i went to california -- the incredible dinner i had with the shio parents. before going, i had a wet dream about mama making ratatouille but assumed frenchies have that all the time. but hold up! when i got there, i found an even more glorious meal before me -- ratatouille with sausage... needless to say, i hurt my belly that night.

my favorite sights

there are many things in san diego that really make me feel away from home. the palm trees, of course, but perhaps my favorite sight upon returning there was seeing so many hummingbirds in the mornings. i cannot take credit for this shot, those lil mothers are way too fast for my camera.

my second favorite sight has to be that of margaritas coming to our table after a long day of whatever. in old town, we wandered for a while before needing a couple margie's. these enormous glasses are as big as your face.

he smiles at the moon like he knows her

in a recent rant, i explained annoyance with professional swimmers new high-tech suits. seemingly as a rebuttal to my post, American swimmer Ricky Berens showed us the potential good in this evil. while stretching for his relay at the world championships, he split his suit down the back, revealing, well...

i think a fantastic article on the washington post website (found here) may have said it best --

The tear exposes a significant portion of Berens's backside anatomy. Suffice it to say that the rear end of a championship swimmer is a magnificent example of how glorious the human body can be. In an era when so many of this country's backsides have gone wide, flat and flabby from too much couch-sitting and cupcake-eating, the Berens buttocks were a visual rebuke of Americans' deep-fried bad habits.

perhaps the ban on these suits will actually spell the unitard's demise. there is hope.

a slide show of the race here

must get closer...

since i did such a poor job of blogging while in san diego, i will slowly start from the end and work my way to the beginning. my flight home was uneventful (most importantly, direct, and not thru LAX). one cool moment was flying over the grand canyon. i really need to get there some day.

i'm not sure why the captain refused to swoop the plane down a bit so we could get a closer look. ass.

i had two weeks with b & m; not long enough. as my departure drew closer, i so badly wished i had a staff of assistants who could just fetch my things in minnesota and move me out there. no staff yet... long distance love...sucks...

pleased is pooch

Several of our adventures this trip have been Micah-centered. his one minor (?) neurosis is that he usually flips his freaking mind at the sight of other dogs, whether he's safely indoors or out on a walk. But we tried taking him to a dog park for the first time and he loved it! This pic is from after we took him to the dog beach. If you can't tell, he loved that too. some might say he is just panting, but i know he is smiling.

hazy view & delicious yellows

Monday brought a rare cloudy day to San Diego. Of course it was the day we went to Cabrillo National Monument, a lighthouse sits atop Point Loma 450 feet above the shore and has gorgeous panoramic views of the city, mountains in he backgorund, and the ocean -- when the sky is clear. Despite less than perfect conditions, we had a beautiful time. Stared at the busy sailboats below, ignored screaming kids (wondered why *they* aren't banned from the park like dogs are), and saw the military flexing in the bay.

After Cabrillo, I used the 'around me' app on my delightful toy to find us nearby margaritas. It worked like a charm, finding Miguel's, a fabulous authentic spot that filled us with salty yellows. Freakin nummy.

when dominoes fall...

very, very early thursday i flew to san diego. this was the first time i actually had accrued enough miles to use for a flight, so i used some for the first part of this trip. which meant i had to fly thru LAX. i am not the first person to say this, and will no doubt not be the last, but - LAX is perhaps the most fucked place on earth. we all have had the annoying experience of it taking "forever" after landing to actually being able to deplane, but at this nightmare airport, it literally took over 45 minutes to finally get to the gate after we landed. if we had arrived on time, i only had 50 minutes to get to my next plane (in another terminal) -- the landing to gate delay seemed to guarantee i would miss my flight.

as i was leaving the plane, i realized i had lost my ring. this is the only piece of jewelry i ever wear or care about. i got it at a trippy hippie festival in barcelona on 2004 and so it has huge sentimental value -- it was my first trip abroad to see some of my favorite people in the world. the ring was gorgeous - a cutout vine curled around it, why didn't i ever take a picture of it? on the flight, i had taken it off to wash my hands, put it in my pocket, and it must have fallen out. so, there i stand, pissed about the ring, freaking about missing my flight, and annoying the flight crew because i wouldn't leave the plane. i didn't find it, which i think has to mean someone found it and kept it. grrrrrrr

i finally leave the plane fuming. my ticket said my next flight left from terminal 4, i had no idea which terminal we landed at (the flight attendant said, "i think it's A-1..?"). as i walked into the airport and could just feel the shitbags falling on me. with no idea where to go, and no clear signs about how to get to another terminal, i just turned in circles. finally i saw a sign at the very next gate that said "shuttle to american eagle" (which is what i needed). the guy working there asked where i was going, i said "terminal 4" which is what my ticket said. he basically shooed me away saying something about "go outside and go left" puzzled i wandered for a bit, but not trusting that idiot, i asked someone else. they told me that the guy was wrong and that was where i needed to be.

at this point, amazingly, it was actually still possible for me to make my flight. can you guess what happened when i got back to the dumbass who sent me away? the shuttle was just leaving as i got there, so i thanked him for making me miss my flight and he actually tried to tell me again to go outside. fortunately someone with a brain who worked there, overheard my frustration and asked me. turns out there is a terminal 4 you can walk to, but the "terminal 4" american eagle departs from is actually a separate building in the middle of nowhere that you HAVE to take a shuttle to. in the end i had to wait 20 minutes for the next shuttle bus (i had 15 minutes until my plane left).

i arrive at this mystical barn in the middle of the runway and ask when i can get on another flight. i was put on standby for the flight one hour later...not bad, until i see the list of 9 other people trying to get on this little plane that only holds about 35 people. somehow i was moved up on the standby list, and so was called to get on the plane. i literally was sitting in my cramped seat on the plane, when the ticket bitch came running and told me to get off the plane because there was a "problem with my ticket." so i followed her, watched her type retardedly and scowl at her monitor, assuming she was fixing my problem. she wasn't.

she sent the plane with my seat empty. needless to say the other people on standby were pissed that they didn't get my seat if i wasn't going to get it. within a few minutes, the "problem" that she couldn't explain had disappeared and i had a ticket for the 12:30 flight. after almost getting bumped from that plane because of it being overweight, i got sat and the door closed. i expected to see the ticket b come running after the plane. because enough shit hadn't gone wrong yet, we sat on the runway until 1:30 then finally took off. it took me 4 hours to complete a 23 minute flight.

never NEVER again.

the happy end to the story is that i made it here and have a direct flight home.

funny lip shape

on monday, i went to the music & movie in loring park. when i returned home, i noticed my front door was messed up. it seems clear that someone must have tried to break in while i was gone. there were no marks on the outside of the door, so the idiot must have tried to break the door open with his shoulder. all he succeeded in doing was cracking my door frame and making me paranoid...

then wednesday night i saw tori amos play at the state theater. i have seen her so many times, but this was the first time i had a front row seat. the fabulous part was that when she was playing the harpsichord or organ, her gaze was right at me. swear to god she gave me MILF eyes more than once. the annoying part of being up front was that i was surrounded by the true tori freaks (if there is a scale 1-10, i would be probably a 4, but the elevens all gather up front) they are a unique breed indeed.

my favorites that she played - silent all these years, carbon, doughnut song, & talula

Testing

This is a test. If it were an actual blog post, these sentences would have been followed by pithy insights and humorous anecdotes. I love my new iPhone.

also had to see how posting photos works. This was done by a new app that I love called camerabag. This filter is 1974.