Happy Thanksgiving to all you US of Americans! And happy belated Thanksgiving to all you Canadians!

Too manly for me

The girls had gotten me a bottle of Maker's Mark (among other things) for my birthday this year after Leanne and I had both expressed a desire to learn to appreciate (well, I wanted to learn the appreciate and she wanted to learn how to "handle") whiskey. Over lunch on Sunday I told Leanne that I'd given the whiskey a couple of tries since they had given it to me. "Wasn't it good?" she asked excitedly "It burns." I said. "It burns my whole face when I lift the glass to it!"

Because seriously, even though I'd cut it with water and ice, the fumes would burn my eyes and my nose even before I drank the whiskey. This is much like what happened with me and the Blanton's that she had given me some years earlier.

"What did you drink it with?"

"Just water and ice."

"You need to mix it with the juice!" They had also given me a bottle of pomegranate blueberry juice "It's so good that way!"

So, because I'm a wussy-pie...

Pomegranate-blueberry training wheels

It's much easier to drink this way, of course, and it doesn't do that whole face-burny thing when mixed with juice, but I'm still not sure that I'm going to be professing my whiskey-love any time soon. That doesn't mean I'm not going to keep trying, though!

I've been seriously out of sorts for the past two weeks or so. Trying to get myself back to the gym on a regular basis (successful so far) and trying to put myself on a semi-spending freeze for various reasons, one of which is xmas which is coming up frighteningly fast. I usually start shopping for gifts in September. I haven't gotten anything yet and it's already the end of November.

End of the year is always high stress. Can't wait for Dec 26th.

All sorts of thoughts and various post ideas jumbling around in my head, but I can't seem to get them together to form a coherent entry. My whole head has been kind of lackluster these past few weeks. Haven't been taking enough photos.

After the craziness of the Oktoberfest-themed birthday party a couple weeks earlier (read about it here if you missed it) we were kind of looking to keep Halloween kind of low-key, so Lina's boyfriend E graciously opened up his apartment to us and we spent the night eating pumpkin-based food (pumpkin dessert, pumpkin ziti, etc), making popcorn hands (see photos below), carving pumpkins, and drinking beer.

Quite a change from the previous year's festivities in Hollywood. So, no getting hit on by male strippers and tornado tongues (Leanne), no getting super-sandwiched (Denise) or bitten (me) by leather-clad gay men, and no psychotic traffic that turned what would normally be a 1 hour drive into a 4 hour drive.

And now...just a few more pictures.

Finally found the coffee presses I wanted last weekend so we can make ca phe sua da (well, and I guess ca phe sua nong too) at home! I don't know why I'm so excited, I don't even drink coffee anymore. Anyway, I came home with two of the presses (plus a squeeze bottle for the condensed milk) on Sunday and asked VV if he wanted coffee. He said "I just had coffee." So I went down to open up one of the boxes and took out the filter. And then I went back upstairs and asked him if he was sure he didn't want coffee and he said "I just had coffee!" so I asked "Do you want another one?" and he was like "What?" so I went downstairs and made coffee.

The next day, after work, I asked him "Do you want coffee?" and he was like "What? I'm not going to drink coffee at night!" so I went downstairs and made coffee.

The first attempt was kind of sad. It turned out okay, but the coffee wasn't as strong as I'd want it to be. Plus I got overexcited after I made it and put it over ice in a glass even though VV wasn't going to drink it until the next morning so it got all watered down. The second attempt was much better, but I'm pretty sure it took seriously 20 minutes for all the hot water to filter down into the cup. This time I put it over ice in VV's thermos in the fridge so the coffee would get watered down just enough to make it good.

Busy overdosing on Kirkland Signature chewable dinosaur vitamins right now. What? Don't judge me.

Spending a Thursday night waiting in line for some Kogi grub.

Updates coming soon. For real.

I did learn some things during my 2.5 year relationship with he-who-shall-not-be-named (aka the sort of not-very-nice boy I was with during college). Some things were important (what kind of relationship shit I shouldn't have to put up with) some things were unimportant but fun (how to catch hermit crabs at the beach) some things were utterly wtf (how much profit a dealer can turn selling acid tabs). One thing I learned, totally forgot I learned, but was happily reminded of after reading this entry on Monster Munching, is that kimbap is delicious. So I got some for lunch yesterday. And took pictures.

I like kimbap.

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I'm both horribly embarrassed and kind of relieved that Taylor Swift's "You Belong With Me" has kind of grown on me. Embarrassed because...it's embarrassing. Relieved because I think I'm starting to get to the point where I can't stand a good portion of the new music that's coming out and it makes me feel old so I'm kind of glad every time I realize that I actually like something that's new. It's all vanity.

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The next time any of my friends want to come down here and meet up with VV and I for dinner, we need to go to Santora's! Best buffalo wings ever! I wasn't a huge fan of wings until I ate there. Now I'm a fiend. Let's go go goooo

Hanging out on the balcony of VV's aunt and uncle's place in Texas. If I had a balcony and a view like this I'd be out there every evening. Probably drinking. I think a nice chilled white wine or ice cold beer in the summer and spiked hot cocoa in the winter. Mmm. Unfortunately, in any place in Southern California I'd want to live I'd need to be a bajillionaire to have a balcony and view like this. Oh well.

I've been really into food lately. I also haven't been to the gym in a couple of weeks. This does not bode well for me.