It’s getting harder and harder to get together with the girls with 4 kids between us (none of which are my own 😅), work trips (Pammie just came back from SF, Christine is going to Belgium in a couple weeks, and Pammie has to go to Scottsdale and the Philippines next month), vacations (Jessie’s going to Hawaii next week and Pammie and I are going to Japan next month), and California being literally on fire. We’ve had dinner at Fort Oak on the books for a while, but my car has had this thing dragging under it since earlier this week, and I thought I should get it checked out before driving back to LA in the rain last night. So we had pizza at Jessie’s instead, while Abe and his head lamp fixed my car LOL, and we played with Baby Isaac and loved on her pups, Koda and Milo. I left with my tummy full, my car fixed, my heart full, and absolutely covered in dog fur.
We were talking about a friend who drinks to the point that they black out, and I’m like, ‘I’ve never drank so much that I blacked out,’ to which Jessie and Christine listed all the times I got black out drunk in my 20s 😅 Does it count if it happened over 20 years ago??? Apparently it does, and I could never play ‘Never Have I Ever’ with these B’s 😆 Are you even really friends if you don’t call each other out on your shit???
Since we were celebrating Pammie’s December birthday and Christine and my January birthdays, Jessie got us pizookies from BJ’s! 🍪
Jessie: Did you know you can get it raw at BJ’s? Everyone: 😳😳😳
If it wasn’t clear, I’m Team Justin (Baldoni, Timberlake, Bieber LOL).
I first saw him when I came across this post from Jane the Virgin‘s final table read, and I was like, ‘Who is this guy?!’ I binge-watched all five seasons and have watched everything Justin Baldoni has been in or directed since.
I’ve gotten bad vibes from Blake Lively since before Gossip Girl, when she was in TheSisterhood of the Traveling Pants (20 years ago!). Plus, how trustworthy can a person be who chooses Taylor Swift as the godmother to her children??? Like, have you not one closer friend? 😆
I switched my CVS Pharmacy from SD to LA to get all my prescriptions up here. The CVS closest to me is up the street inside a Target, and the line forms down the aisle that sells condoms and male incontinence diapers. Like, there isn’t a more uncomfortable aisle to wait for my antidepressants in 😅
I’d switch to another CVS, but I had a bad experience at the other one closest to me. Many, many, many years ago (in my wild youth), I was buying some Plan B. You have to get it at the pharmacy, but it’s over-the-counter, so they send you to the front to ring you up. While I’m up there, the guy gets on the intercom and was like, ‘Price check on Plan B? Price check on Plan B?’ I looked at him like, ‘Are you fucking serious right now? Is this a dream?’
Jessie was checking if I meant to follow Trump and Vance. I realized I was still following @potus and @vp from Biden and Kamala’s administration literally 3 days ago. You guys, I’m hardly on social media. So much so, that I tried to do the Top 9 once, and I couldn’t because I didn’t even have 9 posts that year 😅 Who knows how long it would’ve taken me to realize I was following those idiots.
Please check your social media accounts! And if you meant to follow these fools, why are we friends???
Dennis gave me these countdown blocks for my birthday, partly because he and my sister have this Harry Potter Block Calendar at their house and to remind me of them at home, but mostly because I didn’t wear pants a lot when I was staying with them for a year after the stroke 😅
I once accidentally ordered the ‘narrow calf’ version of these boots, and when I got them, they were super snug, so I wore them around the house to stretch out the leather. My sister’s husband walked in on me washing dishes in the kitchen only wearing these boots, a bathing suit bottom and a baby tee 😆 He was like, ‘What’s happening right now? Why do you look like Woody from Toy Story?’ 🤠
I think the last time I saw Deane was on a zoom happy hour during covid!
I had the stroke after that, and she was a digital nomad living out of the country last year when I came back to LA. Now she’s back in LA, too, and living in Koreatown. We both have January birthdays, so we celebrated with Nori at Soowon Galbi, followed by dessert at Sul & Beans near her new place in K-Town.
Who wore it better??? We used to work together, and we bonded over work trauma, our love of live music, good food and no dietary restrictions 😆
We used to go to Ocean Diner in Hermosa Beach for lunch all the time, but we started noticing people would get fired after we ate there. It happened three different times! So we haven’t eaten there in years 😅
One time, we were at the Hollywood Bowl, and she leaned over and was like, ‘Can we go eat after this?’ 😆
We would leave shows early all the time to go eat (@ Bootleg Theater)
Our favorite place ever was Ramekin in Los Feliz. It has since closed down, but our friendship has outlasted all the restos and music venues that have closed since I met her. She’s the coolest girl I know in LA ✌🏼
I spent my morning in urgent care to make sure my wound wasn’t serious and my leg isn’t going to fall off. I spent $50 and an hour in a waiting room full of sick, crying children (my worst nightmare!) for the doctor to tell me that my leg is healing properly. She also prescribed me some preventative antibiotics. I e-mailed my boss earlier to let her know I’d be out today and attached a picture of my bloody leg. She was like, ‘Why are our legs the same color? Work-from-home white!’ Way to kick me when I’m down 😂
Afterwards, I had lunch with Nori at Northern Cafe. We were supposed to go to Mendocino Cafe, but I missed a turn 🤪
Clearwater at South Bay is accepting donations to help those in need during the LA fires, and Torrance is much closer to me than where I was originally gonna drop off at the Y in Koreatown, so I dropped off my goods there. They were amazed at all the dog and cat food I gave. I felt like Cher in Clueless 😆
I’m also a monthly donor to the ASPCA. The animals need me!
On my way back home, I saw this guy in my rearview driving behind me smiling taking a picture of the back of my car. These bumper stickers make me laugh, and I love when they put a smile on other people’s faces 😊
I thought it was a made up # on the ‘How’s My Crying?’ bumper sticker, but I googled it and it’s the White House’s #. How apropos 😅
Get you a work bestie who makes you shrimp ceviche, gives you grain-free tortilla chips because she cares about your health, chops up celery because she knows you hate cutting vegetables or doing any meal prep, and makes you get hydrogen peroxide on your lunch break so you can properly clean your wounds 😆
My phone died last night after my sister and friends went back to San Diego, and I fell asleep at 8pm 👵🏻 Pammie can’t track me or get my blood sugar readings when my phone’s dead, so she thought I was dead when she couldn’t get any readings. To be fair, I lost a lot of blood after I fell at the beach LOL. She was about to call Nori to do a wellness check! 😅 Nori was the one who took me to the hospital after I had my stroke, and my sister is happy I have someone looking after me in LA. I’m lucky to have such a good friend ✨
Shi couldn’t celebrate my birthday with me this year, so she doordashed me some breakfast from King’s Hawaiian 😋🤙🏼
I like to spend my birthday surrounded by wieners, HBU? (@ Puppies & Yoga)
I live at least an hour south of any of the fires burning in LA right now. You can’t see the smoke from here, but you can smell it in the air, and my car’s covered in ash. We didn’t see any smoke on the way up to West Hollywood for puppy yoga, but we did see this injury lawyer billboard 😆
We ate at Food Network’s Brooke Williamson’s beachside restaurant, Playa Provisions. Proceeds from their fish tacos went to wildfire relief, so of course that’s what I ordered. It was delicious!
Pop-prosecco? Yes, please.
I hardly ever go to the beach, even though I live literally 2 miles from the ocean on Manhattan Beach Boulevard. Donna & David happened to be in town for a wedding this weekend, and as San Diegans who moved to the east coast after high school, they like to go to the beach whenever they’re back in California.
‘Go to the beach,’ they said. ‘It’ll be fun,’ they said.
Pardon my ashy white legs LOL, I had a little accident and slipped on some rocks 😅
Fun Fact: I’ve always wanted to be Miss Argentina from Beetlejuice for Halloween.
I instacarted some non-perishables and necessities for families and pets who have been displaced due to the fires. The YMCA in Koreatown is accepting donation drop-offs.
Pammie collected money from the girls and got me an awesome Moo Deng shirt that I wore to puppy yoga, and had leftover money, so I said to just donate it to one of these major organizations accepting monetary donations for the wildfires: LAFD, American Red Cross, Direct Relief, World Central Kitchen, or the Salvation Army. They need it more than I do. Please give what you can 🥺
I used to hear a simple song
That was until you came along
You took my broken melody
And now I hear a symphony
I was going to kick off my birthday weekend by crying downtown tonight (what else is new?), but the concert I was supposed to attend has been postponed due to the state of emergency in LA 🥺
I just got a Teams invite for a 1-on-1 performance review meeting with my new VP next week. Guys, I haven’t had a performance review in over 10 years. In the advertising department, they would just give us annual raises and bonuses without telling us. When I was on medical leave for 6 months after my stroke, I just happened to be looking at my bank account and I’m like, ‘Where did all this money come from?’ and it turns out I got a raise and a bonus and I didn’t even know. I just recently looked at my profile on Workday, and saw that my salary is way more than I thought it was, so I thought maybe I already got my raise? But doesn’t that usually happen after your performance review in the regular corporate world? I only met the VP once at a departmental meeting last year, so I’m nervous.
Also, a few of my coworkers are out because of the fires, and I just ate a Factor meal for dinner, but I doordashed some Pinkberry because I’m stress-eating.
Jeffrey’s dad was evacuated from Altadena (north of Pasadena) early in the morning yesterday. Luckily, he’s okay, but I can’t say the same about his neighborhood.
LA is huge and the most populous county in the United States (nearly 10 million people—its population is greater than that of 40 individual U.S. states!). I’m very far from any of the fires ripping through LA right now, so I’m okay. This is like when my mom asks me to bring home a dozen potato balls from Porto’s when I visit SD. She thinks that since I live in LA, I’m close to everything in LA. It takes me an hour to get to the closest Porto’s after work on a Friday night! She’s lucky I love potato balls her.
Actual footage of me driving through this ‘life-threatening’ wind storm in LA today:
Update: OK now I feel like an asshole because this wind storm is causing devastating fires across LA 😅 It’s a good thing Steve Guttenberg was in all those Police Academy movies 😆
Update: Thanks to everyone for checking on me… even just to make sure that I’m not secretly fucking someone in the Palisades 😅 You have a secret lover for five years once and no one ever lets you forget it ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
My old ass didn’t make it to midnight on NYE, so I didn’t see this until today. I immediately sent it to my friend and was like, ‘What in the default font is this bullshit?’
Earlier today, I just told one of our web designers to change the font they used on an email they designed, because it looked like a default font like Myriad. You never choose that font on purpose, it’s like it defaulted to Myriad because they didn’t have the font it was supposed to be instead.
I was catching up on my DMs, and saw that another friend of mine sent me this same video because they know I’m a typography nerd 🤓
After a relationship ends, even the most mundane objects can become painful reminders. At the Museum of Broken Relationships, everyday stuff was submitted anonymously and exhibited as art along with each object’s story of betrayal or loss. The result was a moving collection of heartbreak.
This guy met a girl in a graphic design class, and she used a ridiculous font, Davida, for her first project. He started seeing this same ridiculous font used everywhere from El Torito, to Café Du Monde packaging to a barbershop in Santa Monica. He couldn’t escape it. It became a game in their relationship, and they started collecting items they found using Davida font. They’ve since broken up, but he still sees Davida everywhere and knows all the streets he could drive down (or avoid) in LA to see signs using Davida font. He still thinks about that girl and what could’ve been.
It’s been nearly a decade, and I still think about this exhibit 💔
People at work kept messaging me ‘Happy Birthday’ today, because they have the date wrong on a department flyer that went out on Teams. It is not my birthday, but it is my 12-year work anniversary today 😵💫 Whoever made this flyer mixed up the dates. See the shit I’ve been dealing with for the past 12 years? 😆
During the pandemic, I got the squirrels in my parents’ backyard a little picnic table and set up a video camera so we could watch them eat the unsalted nuts we’d leave out for them. Aside from Tiger King, it was my quarantainment 😆
I got my dad a Birdbuddy (a smart bird feeder with a camera and solar roof) and a bag of bird seed for Christmas, and we set it up yesterday. We got our first visitor today 🥰
My sister’s husband heard me losing my shit over the bird videos, and he was like, ‘Please get a dog already!’ I applied to adopt this pup last week at The Labelle Foundation (a rescue in LA). His post has over 5,000 likes, so I was probably one of hundreds of applicants. I haven’t heard anything back 😔
My boss, Gaye, is on vacation, so I’m Gaye this week 😆 She always puts me in charge when she’s out because I’m the most senior designer after her.
One of our project managers had to ask the retouchers to do a small edit. Their director e-mails us back, and CC’s our boss, saying we need to include the original file in future requests. First of all, we had to do some digging for the original file, because the designer is also out today on bereavement leave. Second of all, give the project manager a little grace, it was her first time e-mailing you, and you didn’t need to CC her boss. Third of all, how dare you? 😆
Another time, the requestors were openly talking shit about one of our designers, and even though I agreed she was a horrible designer LOL (who no longer works here), it was like when someone talks shit about your family, like I’m allowed to, but you’re not! I will go mama bear on your ass. I ain’t the one 😆
Shi wants to spend her birthday sound bathing at the Integratron, so we’re gonna spend a wellness weekend in Joshua Tree next month. I haven’t been to this place in nearly 8 years, and I can’t wait to go back ✨