Bad Things Happen in Threes

1. Venus starts peeing blood because I happened to have an as yet unallocated $300, which won't even begin to actually treat her.

2. Mack dislocates his foot during judo practice because there's no time like a couple weeks before vacation to get on crutches.

3. Communication breakdown with wedding coordinator creates question as to time of wedding and a bit of panic.

Today I wanted to punch life in the face.

Wedding Bellz

I knew Will was a catch for Kristin long before Mack discovered them making out in the backyard four years ago. I had the sense that he was just a downright good guy, an easy going, smooth smoothy the first time I met him, but my gut feelings were confirmed during one ski trip when members of Hot Tub Talk voted him Best Boyfriend. I think it's only fair that Will is Best Boyfriend since Kristin is easily Sweetest, Funnest, Prettiest, Most Entertaining Girlfriend Ever.

Well, this weekend one of my favorite duos became the Slatontons. And this will go down in my elephantine memory as one of the best weddings ever. Everything from the little fans for the ladies to the food was courtesy of Kristin's admirable attention to detail. And apparently I like to dance a lot more than I ever thought I did, making sandwiches out of everyone from Julio to my toddler lover Conner. I usually hate to dance, so if a wedding gets me out there to cut a rug for more than one song, things are going better than anyone expected. At this wedding I was out there the ENTIRE NIGHT, spinning Sarah in circles, grabbing Ryan's necktie and even starting a train! I don't start trains. I don't even really know how to start trains.

I can't detail it as well as the photos, so here we go.
























I had a blast with everyone I spent time with, especially Sarah, Ruble, Steve, Jen, Mike and even Kristin. Most importantly, I had a great time meeting Will's family, seeing one of my best friends start down the path to happily ever after, and finally, after almost a decade, meeting Granny Stapleton.

Movers & Shakers

We moved a few weeks ago, and because we're so busy (read: lazy) and important (read: willing to balk on chores if slighty tempted by any degree of social interaction), we're still not completely settled. Like we have this whole second bedroom with no idea what to do with it. And the walls are white like a hospital. But I know how much Jennifer is dying to know about where we live (probably not really), and I did happen to take video of the place when I first looked at it so I could show it to Mack since he wasn't with me, so here it is... our latest home.

What It Means to Worship

The adoration that Kitty has for Mack is reaching new, ever ridiculous levels lately. I used to think the saying, "Cats were once worshipped and they haven't forgotten it," epitomized the way they act, but Ms. Kitty is trying to convince me otherwise. She worships Mack and goes to great lengths to be close to him... great, often uncomfortable and shamefully cute lengths.

WWF-LA

Hello, my name is Amber, and for some reason when I've had too much to drink, I like to wrestle. Arm wrestle, leg wrestle, full on floor wrestle. Since we've been in LA it's been mostly contained because I didn't know anyone well enough to hit or wrestle them. That's officially changed.

A few months ago some friends from work and I went out to grab a pint at the Irish pub, and after celebrating happy hour priced Guiness, a full-on arm wrestling match broke out. I was undefeated against the girls, but to be fair, they're all about 5'2" and 115 pounds. Mack went undefeated against the boys, even causing an unexplainable shoulder ache in my friend Joe. That means we were the official power couple... physically speaking.

I wrote that off as an isolated incident and assumed that since I was undefeated against my friends that my liquid love of wrasslin' could be contained. Then Gio and Whitney had a party a couple months later, which meant girls I hadn't met before and an endless supply of decorative tequila. Which meant incident number two involving arm wrestling. I left that party still undefeated... and grateful that I hadn't taken it up a notch and brought out the leg wrestling.

And then on Friday, Guitar Hero night rolled around. And somehow, with the aid of margaritas, I ended up rolling around on the floor taking Mack's judo moves, trying to choke out Gio, and trying to take down Jay. Luckily no one was "hurt," even though the bruises give evidence to the contrary. My good friend Amy, who trades licks with me when my liquid alter ego gets a little punchy, once suggested I go to Beaters Anonymous to keep my aggression in check. Who needs Beaters Anonymous when you've got friends?

Dulywed: What's Beneath All Those Vows (a series)

Me: "It's a good thing I got you in Kentucky, because if we met in LA I wouldn't have had a chance with you. Luckily, you don't realize how cute you really are."

Him, shouting out the window of the car: "Ladies, I now realize how cute I really am. You can all come out of your homes."

Wanted: The Tooth Fairy

Laila started losing teeth earlier this year. She's lost the bottom two, and the four drops of blood that followed the exit of each tooth was so terrifying to her that she is no longer consenting to losing teeth. She tried it, it doesn't suit her, she's done with it. Unfortunately, her teeth don't agree, so those of us who love her and spend time with her get to stare at this all day long.
I used to love pulling out my teeth because it meant I got money. One entire dollar. That I could use to buy candy. When I got to the age where teeth didn't fall out very easily or very often, I started pulling Leiah's teeth out. By twisting them. With a Kleenex in my hand. In retrospect I have no idea why she let me rip her teeth out of her mouth, but I bet she needed money to buy candy too.

Maybe the OCD Taurus in me just likes things neat and tidy, and snaggly teeth are too distracting for me to relax. Laila has had her tooth protruding like this for weeks now, and every time I see her I think, "oh, it can't hang on another week, her other tooth has got to be on the verge of evicting this one," and every time I see her that dang tooth is still there, hanging on for dear life. Last weekend I told her I couldn't see her again until she lost the tooth. It wasn't quite as good a motivator as ripping her tooth from her jaw, but I'm hoping it works.

Dulywed: What's Beneath All Those Vows (a series)

Me, while watching The Fast and the Furious: "Wow. Look at his triceps. Do you want to be Vin Diesel's size?"

Him: "No. I will be bigger than him or smaller than him, because he is a fag."

Unpacking the Boxes

We moved. I don't actually mind moving, especially when it means we get two bedrooms and more cabinet space than we really know what to do with for less than we were paying. I guess I should qualify that -- I don't mind packing and unpacking boxes. I hate the heavy lifting part of moving.

Because we have extra closet space, I've decided now is the time to go through all my crap and get rid of some of it. Some of it is just too good to throw out without one more laugh, so, my fine friends, be on the lookout for some of my purged crap to come your way.

I'm one box in so far, and I just opened the big red trunk that is officially so heavy I can no longer lift it. Right on top, front and center, floating above everything else was my Youth Walk Devotional Bible... with strips of paper referencing specific scriptures tucked in between pages... looking like I used the thing all the time. I went through what Shannon calls a Jesus, Goodie Goodie phase when I was about 13. Here's my take on it. Church was where my friends and I hung out. A church retreat was a good excuse to spend the weekend with friends, even if it did mean we had to watch videos of aborted babies in buckets. Church was the organization that took me to concerts where I could hold hands with boys. Shannon remembers it differently. According to her, I was all Ms. Perfect and completely Jesused out, and she has shared her version of reality with Mack. He mostly believed me until I popped the top on the red trunk tonight and there was my nicely worn devotional bible. And if that wasn't bad enough, it had one of those spin the wheel to the way you're feeling and get some suggested scripture to read thingies. And if that wasn't bad enough, it also had this:
That's right, personalized Jesus notes. I still feel like it was more of a social thing than a religion thing, but there is evidence to the contrary now. And when I discovered this next gem, I really started to wonder if I'm not a little mental:
That's right. It's a calendar. A calendar from 1992. A calendar that my dear friend Heather, who was one of the friends I went to lock ins with and at whose church I probably still hold the record for most Papa John's pepperocinis consumed in a contest, gave me Christmas of 1991. When I was 13. When I didn't really need a calendar to plan anything. I'm sure I loved this calendar because it had lions on it and I was in a lion phase when I was in my Jesus phase, but I know I loved it more because Heather had touched it and had given it to me and anything she touched and gave to me, I worshipped. Maybe it wasn't Jesus I was on fire for, after all. Either way, I have lugged that damn calendar around with me for FIFTEEN YEARS now. That calendar has been with me from Louisville to Lake Charles to my parents' house in Lexington to my college in Lexington to my first apartment in Lexington to my first rental house in Lexington to my first purchased house to my storage unit to my first Los Angeles apartment and now to my second Los Angeles apartment. I'm officially throwing it out. If I've managed to keep Heather this long, I don't need to hang on to this calendar anymore.

I also kept these dumb things, my nametag from Heather's bachelorette party because someday she and I are going to be in the same room with my 300 pound red trunk and I'm going to remember I have this and pull it out and she will chuckle for one second and it will have been worth hauling it around for the last decade and a sign I flashed at cars when Heather and I were driving to Daytona Beach for Spring Break. The other side said SHOW YOUR TITS, but I figured since I was already showing a penis I'd tone it down, in case Jesus reads my blog and he's mad about what I said earlier.

Oh, lookey here. A Polly Pocket world without any Polly Pockets. Thank god I have this since I am 29!
I also found an entire bag weighing about 8 pounds of stuff from a friendship with a girl I knew named Leslie Smith. Leslie was my best friend before I fell in love with Heather and she stole me away (because her church was cooler). Leslie moved to Texas about the same time I moved to Louisiana. We stayed in touch until the end of high school. Last I heard she was valedictorian and a bonified genius. She was fun, but I remember we used to fight like cats and dogs. And we ate pickles until we were sick. And her brother played basketball and when I cheered for him, he would get furious and tell his parents to make me stop. They were larger people and I remember they used to lock the doors on Saturday morning because that was when they had sex. They were very nice to me though. They always took me to Chinese for lunch after church, and since it was my first exposure to Chinese, I decided to keep a menu remnant and a fortune cookie wrapper for the next 19 years.
(It reads, "My Year, 1990, Sesame with Leslie and Smith's," just like that with bad apostrophes and everything.)

Leslie had this video game where you dissected bodies and I always killed the patients because I wasn't good at the mouse scalpel. We played light as a feather, stiff as a board during one of her slumber parties and it actually worked, probably because her older brother was able to lift the girl up. She was the girl I made puff paint shirts with, the girl who gave me the nickname Ammi and she was Lesi, even though both nicknames sound dumb.
She was the girl I went to the mall with and ate at the Great Steak and Fry with. Regardless of my fond memories, I do not need to keep the gift bag with irises that she gave me anymore. I have no idea where Leslie is or what she is doing, and this bag of junk doesn't reveal either. I will only keep the photos... because we seem so small and yet so confident... and the letters... because letter writing is a dying art. I will throw away the clay pigeon I dropped at camp one summer with Leslie and then told everyone I shot it.

Luckily the stuff I have from my friendship with Erica Herren is limited to a self-laminated frumpy award, which I earned by virtue of being a slob with her. I also have a button from a trip to Disney World with my family in 1996, I think. More than 10 years ago. A button that says, "I Had a Blast." I, in fact, did not have a blast. We ate breakfast with Goofy and went on a ride that forever etched "There's a great big beautiful tomorrow, shining at the end of every day" into the memories of all my family members, and the whole trip cost so much that I had to finance my college education. I have the button, and I still have the student loan. (Did I mention I also kept the guide book and the claim check for the luggage?!!!)

Here is some crap I am keeping, because I'm not to that point yet with these things.

My Little League baseball cap. This season changed my life. I learned how to bunt AND take teasing from my peers and coaches. I also caught my first fly ball.
My Toys R Us name badge. As long as I have this, I have a job waiting for me.

Lame Excuses and a Peace Offering

Here's the deal. I have a lot of posts to put up. But since we moved, our internet went up and then went down. So I'm sans net except when I'm at work. Which means you are sans blog. But, since you deserve some goodness, check out Shannon's sweet baby renee blog. Be warned, you will fall in love.

Drawing Blanks

I feel like blogging but I have no idea what to blog about. So, I present random thoughts.

We're looking for a new place to live. Not that we haven't enjoyed threats from the neighbors about our dog's barking and a field of dirt for a backyard during our time at our little Mexican Jail in the Alley, but, it's time to move on, and move closer to the beach.

We've found a place we both really like, still in Santa Monica, but on 4th Street, which, if you can count, makes you four blocks from the beach. We're meeting with the landlady on Thursday to present ourselves as respectable people with good credit, and after that, hopefully, we'll start packing boxes. It's a one bedroom with hardwood floors, blah blah blah on the inside, but it comes with a sliding patio door that opens onto a little patio and a decent yard WITH GRASS. I have missed having an outside living space and natural lighting so much. Sometimes it gets hotter in the house than outside during the day, and we can't hang outside because, well, we have no place to hang. The alley smells like garbage and the backyard makes you feel like you're in a desert. Another perk of the new place is that it's on a hill, so if you walk out to the street and look West, you can actually see the big Pacific Ocean right there. And that's pretty cool.

Work is going good, ridiculously busy with irrational demands, but good. I actually just did a shoot in New York City, which was a blast. I love that city. It was a literal pain getting around on the subway with all of our production gear, but I just counted it as exercise. I wish we had a subway (one that wasn't a joke) here because I would totally take it everywhere. It's so fast and efficient, and it forces you to interact with people, which seems to make you a little nicer. I gotta say though, at some parts when you're two levels below the ground in the ultra humid parts that only smell like electric train track, if you let that "What if" train of thought take hold, it can make you realize claustrophobia you never knew you had.

Let's see, what else? We recently got a membership at the Co-opportunity, which is a healthy food store that is actually cheaper than the grocery store. In New York, we interviewed a really cool woman who runs an amazing vegan restaurant called Candle 79, and her food was so delicious and beautiful -- and some of it so meatlike -- that I bought her cookbook (totally endorsed by me, but some of the recipes you gotta do once and then figure out what you'd do differently next time to make the better suited to you) and made four recipes in three days after I got home. Some of the stuff she's mastered include seitan, which is wheat gluten that I swear is just like meat; tofu, which has so many textures it's great for everything from making creamy desserts to making barbecue patties; and tempeh, which she says is the hardest to learn how to make but is ultra versatile. I made a smokey tempeh potato salad (vegan) from my friend Jordan's website VeganRobot, and it tasted just like potato salad with bacon in it. I feel like there's so much food I never knew about before becoming a vegetarian, and the wierdest thing about it is that when you eat vegan or vegetarian meals, and I mean eat as in pig out on seven dishes like we did at Candle 79, you actually leave the table with energy. Most of the times when I pig out I immediately need a nap, but with this kind of food, you pig out and have a spring in your step as you walk away from the table.

Speaking of foods I never knew about, and how clever these little vegans have become, I discovered something called Cactus Jerky at the Co-op the last time we went. It's a little weird at first, cactus being turned into jerky, but it's actually pretty good, maybe even better than most of the beff jerky I've had (not Dave's though, his is the best). It's got the right texture, it sticks to your teeth the right amount, it's the right amount of salty and sweet. It looks a little like dried kelp, but it's the same color as beef jerky, so it's pretty convincing.

What else??? Oh, I'm studying for the GRE. Don't know what I might go to grad school for, maybe creative writing, maybe journalism, maybe something totally unrelated to anything I've ever done. Studying has been interesting. I'm relearning geometry and arithmetic and theorems and properties. I haven't made it into the verbal part or the logic part yet, but I'm not too worried about verbal and I'm desperately worried about logic. Logic is hard. It makes no sense to me, and it makes perfect sense to Mack, and I get frustrated that it's so easy for him and then I want to stab him in his glowingly brilliant brain with my number two pencil but I can't because I love him and being a widow would be just depressing. So I study, and I will hopefully be taking this thing before the end of the year.

Today is Mack's Dad's birthday, so we are going out to lunch with the Thomases, and it is also the 4th of July, so this afternoon we are going to a cookout at a friend of a friend's house. Hopefully there will be fireworks. I love fireworks.