Kit's uncle: I mean, why buy her flowers? They're pretty for a few days but then they just die and you throw them away. Just think, all those flowers, all that money, what's the point?

Kit's cousin Ann: (to her boyfriend) No no no don't listen to him don't listen to him!

Kit's uncle: I mean, you could always save that money for something else that will last. Like a diamond.

Ann: Okay now you can listen to him.

Kit: See, he's very practical.

Ann: Sometimes too practical.

*rolls eyes*

Me, Ape, XL (thanks for putting the rooms on your card :D), Maria Tortilla, and as of Saturday, Steph (flying down from Davis!) and as of yesterday, Christy!

i so excited.

Anyone know of any good clubs in Vegas that spin hip-hop?

the two silhouettes would be me and april

April has a good buddy Aaron who is working for Boeing. Boeing has a display in the Aquarium of the Pacific so all Boeing empolyees are allowed free admission into the aquarium (with guests!) for a limited time. Since April knows I love aquariums, she invited me to go with them.

We ended up getting there at around five-thirty because of our schedules + traffic (the aquarium closes at 6) so we only got to spend about thirty minutes inside the aquarium itself. The outdoor exhibit (sharks and rays) was open until nine, so after we got kicked out of the aquarium we went outside to go touch some rays and sharks.

And then we got a churro to share and watched a bunch of over the hill-ers (including one older asian man on drums) play rock/countryish music.

After leaving the aquarium we went to Rainforest Cafe in South Coast Plaza where April had a couple of drinks. The first one was good. The second was a cosmopolitan that I think was 95% vodka. Towards the end of the meal April and I got balloon corsages because we're retarded like that.

that's right.

Since Aaron picked up the dinner tab, April and I paid for drinks. April won the cherry stem contest so we had to take shots :( I only took a half because I'm not hardcore like April. We had a good time :) Thanks Aaron and April.

Him: I slept with D last night.

Me: Was it fun?

Him: Nah, it was pretty boring.

Once at a conference for Jr. YBA I heard about a group of four guys that were so adamant about not sleeping with eachother that two of them took the double beds, one of them slept in a chair, and the last one slept in the bathtub. The best part was that none of the other guys knew that he was sleeping in the bathtub, so when one of them woke up in the morning and went to the bathroom, in the middle of doing his business he heard the guy in the bathtub breathing, turned to look at where it was coming from, and saw him in the tub fast asleep (haha).

Silly boys.

Aquarium photos coming up soon. I'm all caught up to Friday :)

badass jellyfish

The original plan was to leave for Santa Clara early Friday morning and stop by the aquarium on our way up. Then we discovered that the rest of Kit's family wanted to see the aquarium too, so the plan changed to we head up late Thursday and go to the aquarium on Sunday. Then we discovered that two of Kit's cousins would not be able to make the barbeque on Sunday so the plan changed to we go to the aquarium on Saturday and have the barbeque on Sunday.

So yeah, we went to the aquarium on Saturday. We got to Monterey at around 12 and hooooly crap was it crowded. Parking was awful. Kit and I paid for about 6 dollars worth of metered parking (after driving around in circles trying to find curb space) and then waited in line to get into the aquarium.

It was fun. What can I say? I like fish.

built by a berkeley engineer

That evening we drove up to Berkeley to visit my little brother at his apartment. I called him and he came down to get us. Turns out, he needed help with his Java program. Berkeley makes their students use emacs, which is a pain in the ass. Anyway, after we finished fixing his program (Kit played video games) we went to go look for a restaurant to eat dinner. We walked down Shattuck (I think) and tried going to Mel's (the ORIGINAL Mel's) but as it turns out the entire length of that side of the block had a power outage and it was closed. So we went to Manga Sushi (or Manga something or other) for some Japanese food.

After dinner we went back to the apartment. Kit played more video games and Brady and I tackled the remainder of his homework, which we finished very quickly because I am brilliant. And then Brady played video games and we threw a beach ball around. Word.

koi pond

We got to Kit's uncle's place at around 1am and went right to bed. We woke up before nine because his three year old cousin Amber was running around making noise. That plus the sun was shining directly through our window.

We went to the Japanese Friendship Garden after we showered and dressed. We took Amber with us. After struggling with the buckle on her car seat, we left. It took us a while to find the place since the last time he had gone there he was about 8--he told me he threw his dad's watch into some plants and they never found it. Anyway, we walked around and bought some koi food (25 cents for a small handful) and discovered that Amber was afraid of puddles. And bridges. And dirt. And squirrels.

After we left the garden we went to Tung Kee Noodle (Amber insisted on it) for lunch and then headed over to Valley Fair where some woman outside of Build-A-Bear asked if my daughter would like a balloon.

Um, hello.

We went back to the house to take a nap but when we got there there was no one home which meant we had to put Amber to sleep. First she turned on the TV and rolled around on the bed saying that her stomach hurt and then got off the bed and walked to the other side of the room. At this point Kit (who was watching her from another room) yelled "Amber why are your pants pulled down?!" and indeed her pants were pulled halfway down her butt. She told me she wanted to change so I changed her clothes for her and then finally got to go to sleep.

Kids are great. Right.

I wish I could register for my own class.

on the 5 heading north

Photos from Santa Clara/Monterey/Berkeley coming soon...

me, maria and ape

Our former roommate Maria (the non-evil one) interns at a Santa Monica gallery that does some pretty risqué stuff. When Maria told April about a gallery benefit she was going to be assisting with, April and I decided that we should broaden our horizons and take a look. The theme was GWM 10x8 Uncut, photos inspired by personal ads. The exhibit was (clearly) geared towards gay males and I was a bit thrown when I saw that the invite said "fetish attire encouraged" but we went late Friday night and had a good time.

april and maria

April and I arrived fashionably late (actually we're always running late) and discovered that most of the food was gone. We also discovered that we were the only females present that were not employees of the gallery. Anyway, we ate some bread and hummus and made our rounds of the exhibit. The attendees were almost as interesting as the photos. We saw a black Peter Pan-ish looking guy (black man in black tights, pointed shoes, tight black shirt and bowl haircut), a shirtless (very buff and very tan) long-haired guy in khakis with lots of shell necklaces, and of course some leather here, some retro there, etc.

The exhibits were very graphic. Photos of extreme piercings, BDSM, and tattoos. Oh, and I learned a new term: blood play. There were photos of that too =0. We met a photographer whose exhibit consisted entirely of Asian males. I believe that his were probably the most conservative. My favorite was probably the one called "Adam and Steve", a photograph of two men in a garden.

april losing her ocular virginity

After the benefit, April, Maria and I went to Mel's diner on...okay I forgot which street...to eat. We dropped Maria off at home (she lives around that area) and then headed back home. All I have to say is...you should've been there ;) Fantastic.

we met at april's place

Steph rarely comes back down south so the fact that she was there meant that we absolutely had to get together and do something. Unfortunately, Sar was in Japan and Ra was in Santa Cruz so it was just the four of us.

We went to Old Town Pasadena to revisit the Crocoldile Cafe we used to frequent around our senior year in high school and the summer after we graduated. Sometime during our first years of college we decided we were going there way too often and somehow ended up never going there again. Sometime in the past two years, that particular branch closed down. We didn't know this, so when we got there there was no Croc Cafe. Instead we went to the one on Lake (also in Pasadena) which took us a while to find.

steph and ape, hoho and me

I got the usual turkey ham avocado sandwich (I believe Ape did too) and HoHo got a tuna sandwich that ended up being seared tuna and not tuna salad.

HoHo had to go home early, so she went home and the three of us went to go get boba someplace on Garvey (that really narrows it down). We stayed there and caught up with eachother's lives until about 12:30.

Oh yeah...there was this group that came in while we were at the restaurant. Three adults and two kids. The kids were clearly exhausted and fell asleep immediately. They didn't even eat. So I took a picture.

steph and i leaned in to make it look like ape was photographing us and not them. i had to adjust the brightness quite a bit before you could even tell what we were photographin.