Slice of Pink

Gallery Going

On Friday night, we attended an art show where our friend Ken had six amazing photographs on display. I'm lucky enough to have four pieces by Ken in my office, all of beautiful central coast scenery. I got mine for free, but now they are going for $200 a pop. I'm Ken's agent (self-appointed) so if you want a Ken Brandstetter original, shoot me an email.

While we are here, let me introduce you to my SLO girls, Jenna and Stacey:

Our husbands play volleyball together once a week, so we get to use the time to have crafternoons or see chick flicks.

The guys all called each other ahead of time and decided to go with their plaid shirts for the evening. Isn't that so cute?

{Wait? So no new Keds or llamas or wigs or purple or a rental van? Hold tight, the answer is coming soon.}

Happiest

Here's a little link on the Oprah page:

America's Happiest City: Oprah Show correspondent Jenny McCarthy visits a town filled with charming streets and friendly faces—is it yours?

Um, yes, actually, as a matter of fact, IT IS.

Y'all should come for a visit. We're not just happy, we're the happiest.

The Legend of the Bar Pie

Jenny and Gavin came for a visit, along with their two darling daughters, and we had a fun-filled weekend in SLO. When we talked about them visiting this weekend--the weekend I got my Bar results--I was worried about what might happen if I failed. Jenny just said that, if I didn't pass, she would pack her dancing shoes and a case of wine and we would drown the failure in pinot noir and club music. That's friendship. Thankfully, I passed so there were no tears over bottles of wine (although there were bottles of wine, just no tears over them).

On Sunday, the guys went to look at televisions, and the girls took a trip to Avila Valley Barn to feed the goats, explore the gift shop, and pick up a pie. One thing you should know about our friendship, is that we all bicker over who is going to pay the check when we are out. The person with the best excuse always seems to win, and that person, somehow, is always Jenny. She'll say, "but there's four of us and only two of you!" or "but you bought the groceries for dinner!" or "but we wanted to take you out to say thanks for [insert something that we totally do not need to be thanked for]." She quick-thinking and persistent and incredibly generous and somehow she always gets away with paying for things, whether it be shots at a bar (she'll also treat the nice girls from Australia that we met in the line for the bathroom) or candy canes at the candy shoppe.

So, anyway, we are buying a pie and I say that I'm going to buy the pie.

And, of course, Jenny says that she is going to buy the pie.

And, I say, "no way, you bought lunch."

And she says, "yeah, but you just passed the Bar."

To which I say, skeptically, "...which means I need a pie?"

To which she says, "um, yes, a BAR PIE!"

We both laugh at how silly the exchange is getting, how silly the concept is of buying a pie to celebrate passing the Bar.

"Now," she points out, "I HAVE to buy the pie so we can always remember the celebratory Bar Pie."

I can't think of a better way to celebrate: good friends and big cherry pie.

Hey! If you passed the Bar, go have yourself a piece of pie, it's a must! For those of you taking the Bar Exam in the future, you'll know what to expect from me when you pass.

Blueberry Bee Bee

There's this little cat in the neighborhood, a black cat that I named Bee Bee because we met her on Bee Bee Street and then I added Blueberry to her name for reasons I can't now remember, except that I like cats named after foods, so maybe that's all there was to it. I haven't seen Blueberry Bee Bee for a few days, so I wasn't gonna tell this story at all, but I recently saw an article about writing things down so you'll remember them. Thus, a little blog about Blueberry Bee Bee.

Blueberry Bee Bee is an incredibly cute black cat. She's also incredibly annonying. She meoooooooooows at the door. If the door is open, she walks right into the house without being invited and then struts around like she pays the rent on the place. One day we were sitting upstairs, heard a meow, went down to investigate, and found her hanging out in our kitchen. She has an attention span of one-quarter of a second--unless she is meowing at the door, in which case she appears to be able to focus on a task for hours on end.

One night, she was meowing at the door and we made the decision to move upstairs, to fool Blueberry Bee Bee into thinking we were gone for the night. We turned off the lights and the meowing stopped for a few minutes. But then the meowing started again and it sounded like it was just outside the upstairs window. I peeked out and there was Blueberry Bee Bee sitting on the neighbor's roof, staring right into our loft! She's very persistent.

5 Browns, 50 Fingers

Last night, Will and I went to see The 5 Browns, five siblings who are Julliard-trained classical pianists. They were just wonderful, and they dress cute, too. Check out the preview for their PBS Special.

Sunset Drive In

Last Saturday night, we threw some blankets into the car and drove over to the drive-in theater. You guys, I am stoked about the drive-in. It's so much fun--you get to talk during the movie and throw your feet up on the dashboard and feel fabulously retro.

Plus, at $7 per person for TWO movies, it's a wonderful deal. We saw Easy A (I totally love Emma Stone) and The Town (fantastic). The concession stand goodies were reasonably priced, too, at least relative to other theater concession stands, and we had a huge things of nachos, popcorn, Raisinettes, and a jumbo soda for under $15 (what? we hadn't eaten dinner and it was a double-feature!).

A lot of people in SLO seem unimpressed by the fact that there is a drive-in theater right in town, but I loved the whole experience and plan to go back soon as soon as good movies are playing (this weekend not so much).

Caught in the Rain

Last night, Will and I got caught in a rainstorm on the walk back from the market. It started as a light sprinkling and quickly escalated into a downpour. As we were hurrying down our street, with still a quarter mile to go, we ran into a gentleman who was getting out of his car in front of his house.

"Got caught in the rain?" he asked. "It sure came on quickly."

"Yes!" we replied. "This was quite a surprise!"

"I have a giant umbrella in my car," he offered. "You can just drop it back by tomorrow."

Kind people are the best.

Lemon Coconut

I ordered Will's birthday cake from the Madonna Inn Bakery. When I called in the order, they asked how many people we would be serving and when I told them there would be 4 cake-eaters, they suggested the 6-inch cake. I scoffed at the idea of a measly 6-inches and went with the slightly larger 8-inch cake. I mean, there were going to be 3 MEN over plus cake-loving ME. We'd all probably want two slices.

It is an enormous cake. Although deeeelicious, we ate only maybe one-third of it. And not because we didn't try.

Cake for breakfast anyone?

Real American Heroes

Let me introduce to you to some Real American Heroes (or, in any event, two men I think Bud Light would deem Real American Heroes.)

Yes, those guys.

Heroes.

You see, on Saturday we took ourselves to the Morro Bay Avocado and Margaritas Festival. We were not about to miss out on the event because I am honestly not sure that life gets any better than margaritas and avocados.

So, we're at the festival and, although it's supposed to be about the margaritas, Will and Ken elect to get beer. This is something I cannot explain--why a person would go to a festival premised on the idea of a margarita and then get a Bud Light. But anyway, we are standing in the beer line, which has basically come to a standstill.

The problem? The kegs have all run out, with the exception of Shock Top. Nobody wants the Shock Top (another something I cannot explain--if I was getting beer, which I wasn't because I was getting a margarita, I would select the Shock Top).

There were other kegs available, but none of the festival volunteers seemed to know how to hook them up quite right. One of the volunteers finally yelled out to the crowd, "HEY! ANY FRAT BOYS IN THIS LINE THAT CAN HOOK UP SOME KEGS FOR US LITTLE OLD LADIES?"

And, swoop!

These guys had all five taps running in five minutes flat.

Some college skills are useless, some are useful, some make you a lot of money, and some? Some make you a hero.

Modern Inconvenience

Our new place didn't come with a microwave oven and, since our apartment in Davis provided a microwave for our use, we had long ago given ours away. So now we find ourselves microwaveless.

We could go buy one, sure, but there are more important things to buy right now. Things like rugs and rocking chairs and giant things of Rainbath for our guests. Also, things like nights at a bed and breakfast and new skirts and succulents for my little garden and chocolate candies from Trader Joe's. You know, important things.

And, anyway, we are kind of interested: can we survive without a microwave? Prior to the 1970s people survived without microwave ovens, so why can't we?

(Then again, people used to survive without the Internet. TOTALLY NOT POSSIBLE ANYMORE.)

I've been getting creative with tasks that I would normally assign to the microwave. Heating up the frozen berries for my oatmeal, for example. I guess I could defrost them by setting them out the night before, but I rarely plan that far in advance. Instead, I find that balancing the bowl of frozen berries over the steaming oatmeal for thirty minutes works just fine.

And wouldn't you know? You can heat water for tea in a kettle and pop popcorn in a frying pan. It's not even that terribly inconvenient.

Classic Rock

I've been searching Craigslist for furniture for our new place.

My first purchase: a rocking chair. We definitely didn't need a rocking chair. I wasn't even looking for a rocking chair, per se. But you know, there it was in the Craigslist furniture section, a teak rocking chair. Will was not really feeling the rocking chair idea, but I convinced him to go check it out anyway.

And now, would you look at that:

We have a rocking chair in our living room.

We bought it from a local photographer, Tony Hertz, who does beautiful landscape work in the surrounding area. If you need a reason to visit, other than my beautiful Bellagio shower, check out Tony's site. My friend Ken also takes some amazing photos of the area. And if all THAT doesn't convince you, I promise to let you rock in my new chair while I mix you a vodka basil gimlet using the fresh basil that Will has growing on the patio. The SLO Life is good, friends.

An Invitation to a Shower

Before I tell you anything else about our new place, I have to tell you about the guest shower. It's the main reason we decided to move into the place and maybe it's crazy to choose a place based on a shower, but whatever! Who cares about the neighborhood or the schools or the fact that there is no room for anything downstairs other than a tiny dining room table? We have a shower that could very well be in the Bellagio!

Behold!

Behold the travertine!

Behold the little window!

Behold the little step ceiling (because the stairs go over the shower)!

Behold the pebble floor! Behold the little seat! Behold the Costco-sized Neutrogena Rainbath that Will put in there for guests!

Come over and have a shower!