Our Egg-Cellent Discovery

The other morning, I opened up the fridge, took out the carton of eggs and made myself an egg white omelet. I had the carton open, next to me by the stove the entire time and didn't notice anything strange. About a half an hour later, Anthony decided that he wanted to make an omelet as well, so he opened up the fridge and got out the carton of eggs.

He immediately started laughing and asked me why I didn't tell him that there was something strange about one of the eggs in the carton. I looked at him puzzled as he picked up one of the eggs, held it up and started laughing again. I had no idea what he was talking about, so I walked over to the carton of eggs, looked at them and busted up. One of the eggs was ridiculously bigger than the others. How I didn't notice it blows my mind. Duh!!!! One of these things does not belong here...

Adventures With Stella

About 7 years ago, Alicia, Ryan and I decided to leave Los Angeles and begin a new chapter in Boston. But in order to do that, we had to sell/give away/pack all of our crap and drive across the country with our pets Stella and Sampson. Alicia's English Mastiff, Sampson (God rest his soul) had quite the setup in the back of her Jeep with his dog bed sprawled out for him to rest the entire trip back. But my cat, Stella was not so lucky and had to ride in her crate in the front seat of my car all the way back to the East Coast. We stopped frequently to feed them and let them do their business but when we spent the night at various hotels across the country, they hated us. First of all, both of them had no clue what was going on for the entire week it took us to get back home and second of all, they were MISERABLE. Poor babies. At least Stella didn't do the extremely loud, "MMRREEOOWWW" that cats in stress love to vocalize for the entire ride back. Anyone who has a cat knows exactly that type of meow I am referring to. It usually occurs when the cat is in the car, bathtub, or on the way to the vet. It is freakishly loud and you never thought that type of sound would come from their body! But she did stay up all night when we were trying to get some much needed sleep, jumping from my bed to Alicia and Ryan's bed driving all of us nuts. And then when we did attempt to lock her in the bathroom she would "MMRREEOOWWW" all night long. When we checked into the hotels, we told them that we didn't have any pets as Stella's crate was easy to sneak in, but sneaking Sampson in? That was another story. Don't ask me how we managed to get a 150 lb. Mastiff in and out of tiny motel rooms all across the country without anyone noticing, but we did. It was quite an adventure that we endured with our pets and I don't think they ever forgot it.

Although I miss her every day, Stella now lives with my parents in Maine, as I didn't want to risk putting her on a plane when I decided to move back to Los Angeles in 2010. I would have been that girl that everyone hated while my cat was "MMRREEOOWWW-ing" the entire flight. But lucky for me, Stella never lets me forget that I 'gave her up for adoption' or that I made her ride shotgun cross country with me for an entire week. I swear, she is seeking a kitty revenge on me. Last time I was home, I woke up to her on my head chewing my hair....

Baby Jesus...

When I was little, I adored my Cabbage Patch Kid my mom went to such trouble to get for me. This was in the 80's when people actually killed each other over those silly dolls! If I remember correctly, my older sister, Amber and I would do anything to get our hands on one of those dolls for our Christmas gifts one year and I believe my mom ordered a generic Cabbage Patch Kid doll out of the J.C. Penney catalog (I used to love that catalog!). We would have no idea what the doll would look like or what sex it would be until we tore into that brown paper bag that it came in on Christmas morning. They were the real deal with Xavier Roberts' signature on the butt and the green and white birth certificate from the cabbage patch but they just wouldn't come in the yellow and green boxes for some reason. Amber opened hers up to reveal a boy with light brown hair named Paul, who she immediately renamed Paula and dressed only in girl clothes. It was basically a quick, easy and painless sex change operation. I opened my bundle of joy to find a bald boy with some name I clearly didn't like because I promptly renamed my new best friend 'Baby Jesus.'

If you remember anything about the Cabbage Patch Kid dolls, some of them came with a small hole in their mouths so they could suck on the bright yellow plastic pacifiers that came with them. Well 'Baby Jesus' apparently didn't like his pacifier because I would only feed him peas and Kix cereal, making for a very messy cleanup for my mom. I would take 'Baby Jesus' everywhere with me! He even accompanied me to my first day of Nursery School. But I especially liked to take him to the store with me when I would go shopping with my mom. The only downfall? There were a few times when I would drop him on the floor at the supermarket and I would yell 'JESUS!' so my mom would stop the cart to pick him up. My poor mom, mortified and red in the face would have to explain to the other shoppers who stared at my outburst, that I was just yelling for my doll, 'Baby Jesus.' They just didn't get it...

I'm Going To Be Rich!

It seemed like when my friend Alicia and I lived in our apartment in Hollywood, weird things always happened around us. Maybe it was the area we were in or the company we were surrounded by, but Hollywood was (and still is) a strange place. I swear there was about sixteen people living in the two bedroom apartment to our right and our landlord drove a Bentley and a Range Rover and was once threatened by our upstairs neighbor with a machete. Alicia and I were clearly on the patio spying on that drunken shenanigan. We were also on the patio spying on our neighbor across the street one night when his girlfriend busted in yelling at him, threatening to tell his wife about their relationship until he picked her up and threw her over the fence. The neighbors to our left were always throwing crazy Quinceaneras every weekend with flashing neon lights and such loud music that Alicia and I had to scream to talk to each other in our living room. Every morning a guy would sell tamales on the street out of the back of his pick up truck, and one day I came home from work to find a quarter of our living room carpet covered in termites....but the best thing that ever happened in that place was when I thought I discovered a new type of bug.

Alicia and I were out on our patio one night when I saw something moving around on the ground. I turned on the patio light to find a giant bee/ant like creature about two inches in size. Of course I screamed and called Alicia over to check it out. I'm pretty sure we had both been drinking which heightened the excitement of this whole experience but we had never seen anything like the critter we were staring at. I immediately grabbed a Tupperware from the cabinet and captured it, convinced that I had just discovered a new species. I honestly started to look up different museums that may be looking for new types of insects and was already planning out how I would spend my millions after I received some prestigious, scientific award.  Not knowing what to do with my little moneymaker, I stuck it in the freezer to preserve it like any great scientist would do. I even called over our friend Brian to inspect him and ensure me that I had in fact uncovered something fabulous. He agreed and told me I needed to get that thing into the National History Museum or something. I was so proud that I snapped a picture and sent it to my friend, Beth. Of course that girl knows every time of flower, tree, bird, cat and bug and wrote back, "that's a Potato Bug (also known as a Jerusalem Cricket) you dummy!" So I Googled 'Potato Bug' and sure enough that stinking bug was all over the Internet already. Obviously we had never seen such a bug being from Maine because they are native to Western United States and Mexico. I'm actually glad Beth was the one who called me a dummy and not the editor of the scientific journal whom I was already drafting a letter to....

Damn You, 'Parenthood!'

My mom and I are the biggest fans of NBC's 'Parenthood' but we are usually on different coasts while we watch it every Thursday night. Last weekend, I had a chance to watch it with her for the first time and as any other fan of the show knows, we cry every time. This time was no different. Enjoy! 

Oh Honey, Put Those Glasses Back On!

Anyone who knows me knows that I love Halloween......and that I also have extremely sensitive skin. (Thanks, Mom!) For the most part, those two don't mix well together, especially when it comes to my love for the holiday and my desire to go all out when it comes to my costumes every year. So, it made me really sad  a few weeks ago when my eyes started to get a little red whenever I used a certain eye makeup remover. So I switched to using Coconut Oil as an eye makeup remover because I had heard so many great things about it! You can eat it, slather it all over your body and whiten your teeth with it...You can pretty much swim in it and it will transform your life. After the first few days of using it to take off my eye makeup, my skin was looking fantastic!

And then I woke up one morning and my eyelids were bright red. Although it hurt to put on makeup, I had to so I wouldn't scare off my co-workers. Then the redness spread to under my eyes and it started to get dry and itchy. I immediately made an appointment with my dermatologist knowing that Halloween was around the corner and my Miss Argentina (from Beetlejuice) costume required a full sea foam green/blue face and body paint and heavy dark makeup around my eyes. What was I going to do? I then started to do some research on the Internet thinking that it had to be the coconut oil. I read an interesting article that said if you are of European descent, DO NOT USE COCONUT OIL ON YOUR FACE. There it was, practically shouting at me! I was of European descent and I was using coconut oil on my face. BINGO and CRAP! So I stopped using it and canceled my dermatologist appointment, apparently thinking that I was now a doctor who could solve this herself by slopping on a mask of cucumber, yogurt, honey and oatmeal every night and it would go away. Although, it was getting a little better around my eyes, the redness was not completely gone. Mind you, I was getting a lot of compliments of how great my skin looked!


But then Halloween night came around and there was no backing down- I was painting my face no matter what! I had two parties to go to that weekend and both involved face paint. It was a chance I was willing to take! After the weekend was over and Sunday night came around, I scrubbed the crap out of my face, moisturized like crazy and put a few tea bags on my eyes before bed. But when I woke up on Monday morning, I was horrified! I looked like Quasimodo from the Hunchback of Notre-Dame wearing the red Ninja Turtle's eye mask. 

There was no way I was going to work looking like this! I put on a pair of sunglasses and drove to my dermatologist's office....Although I didn't have an appointment, the receptionist told me that the Doctor would be able to see me right away. Actually, I took off my sunglasses to show her my face and she gasped and said, "Oh honey, put those glasses back on!" When my dermatologist came in to see me, I told her what I had done to myself and she just kept saying, "poor thing!" I wanted to whip out the pictures of my Halloween costume and show her that it was well worth it but I thought it would be a tad inappropriate. She gave me some cream and pills and that was that. The next day when I woke up, the swelling was completely gone and the redness had certainly subdued a bit but it was still obvious that my eyes were not normal. I wished I could have worn my sunglasses to work but I sucked it up and for the first time ever I didn't wear a stitch of eye makeup that day. I am now almost completely healed and I have to say the best part about those pills are that they make your skin so dry that it feels as though I had a face lift. I may be on to something here....

We're at Broadway Gymnastics!

When I was single and a newbie to L.A., my friends and I loved to go out, party and meet new people. Now I'm an old lady who enjoys her Friday nights on the couch with Dateline. But the other day, I passed a sign that read 'Broadway Gymnastics' and it made me laugh out loud because I thought of the time that my friend Jeri and I got stranded in Playa Del Rey and got saved by that damn sign.

If I remember correctly, Jeri, Alicia and I all went out somewhere and Alicia drove home and left Jeri and I with our other friend in Playa Del Rey. At the time we were fine and figured we would take a cab or something...you know, one of those drunken decisions? So we stayed out late and ended up crashing at our friend's apartment. The next morning when we woke up (in the same clothes we wore the night before, makeup smeared and teeth not brushed mind you), we wanted to get the hell out of there immediately. We didn't want to wake up our friends and figured it wouldn't be that hard to hail a cab out on the street. So there we were- Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee looking like the walk of shame rejects out on the corner at 7:00 AM, trying to catch a cab. We tried calling Alicia to come pick us up but even after we bribed her with a delicious McDonald's breakfast, she said there was no way she was going to come get us idiots. Dammit! So we tried calling a cab but the cab company wouldn't come get us without an exact address. We tried telling him that we were outside of the 'So-and-So' apartment building but without an address, they couldn't help us. So we walked about a half a mile down the street until we spotted the first address we could see- 'Broadway Gymnastics'. We called the cab company back and told the dispatcher that we were in fact at 'Broadway Gymnastics' and they sent the cab to pick us up. The driver looked extremely confused when he picked up two girls dressed in going out clothes, reeking of booze and sitting in front of this random gymnastics center on a park bench but he didn't say a word and drove us home...