running down a dream
i've been running lately.
there. it's out in printed word. i guess i finally have to admit: i'm becoming a runner.
{melodramatic-think drew barrymore-sigh}
this is meaningful only to those who know me well. there are two things i detest: beets and running. and i'm not quiet on either of these opinions, nor respectful of those who differ from mine.
i used to think a lit bonfire in my pants {now don't get naughty, i'm talking a literal fire you scamps} would be the only thing to get these feet skipping faster than a 1.5 m.p.h. speed on a treadmonster. zero incline of course.
but something happened when i was in mexico this summer, in an effort to lose the rest of the world and its problems, i found my gait.
a stride which steadies my breath, narrows my focus, and reigns in my anxiety.
i can't run for very long. pain sets into my usual spots.
but those minutes are precious. preferably without distraction, just me, my headphones and my monster.
the music varies according to my mood and what i need, but without fail lissie is always somewhere on my playlist.
[vimeo http://www.vimeo.com/23470365http://www.vimeo.com/23470365 w=660 h=420]
wednesday happy to you m'loves.
weekend happy
i'm off to deer valley today. weather forecast calls for windy thunderstorms. i love it.
[youtube=http://youtu.be/zx4wvY-984E w=720 h=480 ]
hunter boots in tow, puddles here i come!
see you on the other side of sunday m'loves.
"Once I knew I was not magnificent....I could see for miles, miles miles.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWcyIpul8OE&feature=player_embedded#! w=640 h=480]
carbo load
sunday night hunkiest and i made our way over to balboa island for a stock, so-cal, summertime date night.
balboa island shines in the summer. dutch doors swing hello-to you wide; welcoming the wandering and strolling alike. an impromptu patio frolic is a common sight on every block. with beast in tow we ambled through the streets of houses and stores as she chased kitties and taste tested the various water bowls offered to her from shopkeeper to shopkeeper. the main avenue offers up colorful, seaside themed boutiques, non-chain restaurants, a killer candy store and ice cream shops offering the famous balboa bar.
for food we chose our favorite, red-checkered table-clothed, pop & mom, italian hideaway near the bay bridge. dark red cabernet for him, bubble water and lime for me, we cozied in a corner and imagined ourselves on a hot, sticky night in a roman trattoria.
perusing the menu of pastas, pizzas, calzones and secondi, i formulated my list of 4 acceptable items to order. i always choose four selections just in case my first choices aren't available. oh the miserable dining experiences i've had whence a panic order ensued following me not having a backup plan. miserable for me, and for those sharing said meal with me. such non-preparation has resulted in arctic dover sole, the bok choy salad, a watercress sandwich, ratatouille, and the dreaded steamed artichoke {hate those blasted things!}.
although it goes against the rules of etiquette, i almost always ask my man to order first, as if my order is the prize, the grand finale the table has all been waiting to hear, rather i'm still making up my indecisive, monkey mind.
and what will you be having for having for dinner? lisa, the waitress, finally asked me.
i was poised and ready with my 1 through 4: either the catch of the day, steamed mussels, steamed clams, or the caesar salad.
i'll have the fettucine alfredo, please.
!?!?!?!??!?!?!?!?
{stunning silence}
yep. i ordered the fettu-muthafuckin-cine al-fatto, otherwise known as heart attack on a plate, and i did with a tone that said if you question me, "lisa", i'll take this chianti shaped candle, and shove it down your, up till now, pleasant pipe. i'm quite sure lisa had to check with the chef to see if he still knew how to prepare the pasta; the notoriously unhealthy dish is ordered so rarely. and i can put money on the kitchen running out to the local market for more sticks of butter.
after we found his jaw, and picked up off the ground, hunkiest and i deconstructed the mystery of my tourette order. did i have a stroke? was i possessed by my inner 6-year-old? what on earth had caused me, an exercise professional, a typically healthy eater, someone who likes her pants loose {and her bass down low} to order the most clogging of arteries and highest of fat and calories on the menu; the one item that not only needs to have the price, but also the local cardiac sprecialist's number listed next to it?
my answer was simple: it was the first thing that caught my eye on the menu, and no matter what i tried to distract myself with in terms of taste and health, i kept coming back to that damned fettucine alfredo! i know myself. had i ordered the fish, i would have eaten without tasting it, finished the whole damn thing and not have been satisfied, because what i really wanted in the first place was that oooeey-gooey white mess on a plate.
the dish came. in i went. literally. coming up for air i looked like i had been in a face painting contest with a benjamin moore windsor cream shellac.
i think there was dinner conversation.....i don't remember, my hearing was stifled with alfredo sauce that had trickled into my eardrums.
feeling my once, flowy trapeze sundress morph into a tight-fitting, herve leger-like casing for a sausage, i responsibly pushed my plate away even though i could have easily continued to eat the rest of the buick sized plate. when our nosy waitress came back to "check on me" i made her take away my fork; not my plate, my fork. i wasn't going to begrudge my fellow diner from the six sticks of butter still remaining, but at least without a fork i could no longer partake in the madness. at least not with utensils. you see m'loves, i have zero self-control when it comes to food. torture me, tickle me, beat me down; i can take a lot. but put a plate of cheesy pasta in front of me: uncle!!!
i'm not ashamed. i had a delightful, delicious meal. there's something about fettuccine alfredo that makes me feel like a kid. i ordered it as a child. it's typically the go-to order when we're with others' children. it made my husband happy too. he gleefully slurped up the creamy noodles with abandon, free of care.
afterward, we kept this caution to the wind mood going with a walk down to the ice cream shop: mint chip for him, cotton candy for me.
yesterday it was back to my delicious regime of salads, fruit, and no regrets. you did not break me mr. alfredo!
tell me loves, what are your forbidden foods? do you give in?
tuesday happy m'loves!
drummer down
as i type this i have an ice pack in pretty much every nook & cranny of my person.
tuesday i got pound™-ed, and hard.
a new fitness class, using just 1lb drum sticks {ripstix™} and your own body weight, pound™ is a total body workout, designed to "put the fun back into fitness."
[vimeo http://vimeo.com/23228621 w=640 h=400]
the music, loud and heart-thumping, kicks you into a doable choreographed routine of banging floors, rapping ripstix™, shaking your bum, and oh yes.....lunging, squatting, bridging, twisting, and jumping {hello hamstrings!!!}.
created by drummers and fitness aficionados, kirsten potenza and cristina peerenboom, pound™ is a high energy, kick-ass class where you truly unleash your inner rock star. give the girl a set a sticks and our typically, yogic, bambi-eyed instructor, angela leigh, morphed into a rockin', groovin' gwen stefani looking for bambi's mother!
[vimeo http://vimeo.com/16084054 w=640 h=400]
i'm not lying. ten minutes into class, i was sheila-effing-E, glamorous life'ing all OVER that gym floor.
mmm. hmm. snap, SNAP bitches.
although today i feel more like sheila e's crippled grandmother. i'm not very big on the cross-training. spin, yoga, pilates, coreplay™, a little run here and there....those are my go-to's. pound™ definitely taught me i need to branch out of my exercise bucket.
pound™ is offered at the west hollywood equinox and starting this month will debut at the newport beach equinox.
the class will soon spread throughout the country.
keep updated on their happenings here.
thursday happy m'loves.
weather-a-stir
while our kin on the east are bracing for that nasty girl, irene, temperatures here in the west, are smoldering chaud.
the heat feels thick and heavy; like an invisible, clear fog has seeped in to bake us. skirts are short and skin is bare. hair is worn high to avoid sweaty necks and shoulders, stiff from an all night losing game of finding the cool in a un-air conditioned california king. last night a cold, wet washcloth provided a most heavenly pillow for me ...for the beast too.
yesterday my movements, my speech, my thoughts-they all carried a slight, sleepy slur. this heat wave washes in a gauzy net of slow-motion, almost tipsy-like air, of which i find myself breathing and walking around in.
this weekend i'm going to saturate in the sticky hot of the last of summer. i plan to roll my warm, languid friday, saturday and sunday nights out, like a kaleidoscopic rainbow of faces and places of the people i love most; a pot of gold at every port.
linger, linger, linger.
that will be my word of my weekend.
finding my slower back beat, i'll relish in summer's final, simple pleasures that too often go amiss in my interval driven world: the sound and sight of my backyard bees liquoring up on bushels of lavender, jasmine oil baths so heady with summer scent i'm perfume free all day, breakfast coffee in the yard: early enough so the moon's still out, but warm enough to be robe free. i will set my alarm a bit earlier so i can hang longer with the my garden friends.
losing my psycho, good girl, quick-to-wipe-away-the-first-sign-of-mess, disordered self, perhaps i'll let a dribble of our soon-to-be gone, gummi-bear sweet, local nectarine juice remain on my chin for a self-deprecating chuckle or two, before i whisk it away with a napkin. or maybe i'll finally eat those strawberries right off their stems, right out of the basket, after buying them from stand #14, like i've been wanting to all season.
how will you be soaking up these last bits of summer m'loves?
sending all my good vibes the east coast. miss irene sounds like quite the diva; which is ironic because we irene's {my middle name} mean peace.
oh, yeah....speaking of divas....priscilla would like to say "goodbye."
[vimeo http://www.vimeo.com/28177088 w=480, h=480]
scenes from a weekend
how do you do m'loves?
it was a weekend happy indeed. oh my goodness, i hope yours was too.
here's a glimpse of how mine went down:
i added a new rung to my wrist affair.
saturday night i had the honor of attending my lovely friend, jill grogg's, lululemon, ambassorship party. yoga, pilates, spin, boccaccini appetizers-you name it. the girl does it all! with incredible kindness, grace and beauty....it's amazing we're friends. in fact, i may have to drop her. there's just too much wonder woman going on in that tall-drink-a-water for me. and she really is that nice. i'm hoping, behind closed doors, she's a weirdo hoarder or wears the same socks for weeks.....but she always looks and smells fresh as april to me.
pfft.
on sunday morning david hockney returned to southern california. palm trees in jewel-toned green against a sky of bahamian blue, hunkiest and i brunched outdoors to soak it all in.
tea for him, coffee for me, and omelets of asparagus, artichokes, mushrooms & gruyère {mmm hmmm}.
post brunch binge, we walked off our glut with some shopping at one of our favorite stores.
new shoes for katie and hunkiest bought a shirt which brings out the golden in his eyes.
i must say, out of all the sunsets, shorelines and mountaintops in the world, this view beats them all for me.
okay, enough about me. tell me about YOU! how was your weekend? don't you KNOW how much i love hearing from you?
monday happy m'loves.
weekend happy and a message from the beast
priscilla was feeling a bit neglected from goodniteirene of late, and has a few things she'd like to say:
[vimeo http://vimeo.com/27314400 w =600 h=400]
there.
her voice has been heard.
satisfied, for now, she has retreated into her pocket of priestess where she plans her next business of monkey.
victories: priscilla= 367, mommy= 0.
signing off for the weekend m'loves.
the beast and i plan to shower hunkiest with kisses and .......errands.
what's in your filofax of fun?
see you on the other side of sunday.
love,
katie and priscilla
give me a beat boys and free my soul....
i'm in the center part of summer's sandy, beach blown hair.
today i'm going to dance down the middle like it's my own, free for all katie runway.
cartwheels, peace signs, booty-shakers-all need apply.
let's drift away m'loves.
steal away to the cinema
a couple of hot, steamy sundays ago, hunkiest and i stole away to a cool, air-conditioned movie theater to see "tree of life".
a stunning, heartbreaking, brain-swirling film-i adored it. my husband did not.
strokes different, folks different. marriage.
we do love a great, dramatic {me}, days on debate though, especially when it involves a movie we have seen.
i think that's a sign of fabulous movie. yes?
here are a three other movies i'm eager to see before summer's end.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IShjmWYuHZ0][youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3FFj-r3UK0][youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRpFKwJHQ7g&feature=relmfu]
i think hunkiest would like to hire "buck" for me sometimes.
"the devil's double" just looks sick scary. if 5% of it is actually true, that just makes it all the scarier.
and vera farmiga? so wonderful.
see you at the movies m'loves.
joy is
a grilled cheese sandwich.
hide nap and seek.
finally scratching that itchy lust to wander.
popsicles.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRUGvArWXLk]
this song over, and over, and over, and over again. and again.
dreamier live version with johnny depp here {oh! my! god!}
first bites.
laundry fresh.
dates with deliverance.
what's making you happy m'loves?
weekend happy
what a week m'loves?!
this morning i've officially cried "uncle buck".
i'm strapping on my skates, and grooving back into simpler times this weekend.
wanna join?
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6CK-rQuLTGY&feature=player_embedded#at=10]
we can chrissy snow and jack tripper ourselves down to the regal beagle where hijinks and clowning are king, rifts and wires-crossed pack the punch of a pillow case and family feuds last the length of a blink.
well, that's where hunkiest and i will be.
{to be honest, that's where we like to live}
see you on the other side of sunday.
les chanteuses de 60's
as the weather gets warmer my music taste definitely brightens with the california sunshine.
lately i've been diving back into my sixties french pop.
10th grade, madame jester's french class: i was a goner with just one play of françoise hardy's "tous les garçons et les filles du mon age."
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1Y_7XjkJ0g]
since then i've been in deep smit with the french lassies of the yė yė movement: a musical style lead by females {yee-haw}, mostly in europe, during the 1960's. heavily influenced by the french radio show "salut les copains" where each week a new sweetheart would debut her new song, these girls typically sang sweet lullabies to love lost, love longed for, and all with the innocence of pigtails. these debutantes typically soared straight to number 1.
christine delaroche {this entire video needs to be a 10-page, glossy, fall editorial}.
chantal kelly {love this song: watch it buddy!!: fragile heart here.}
mireille mathieu {less pop, more piaf, but packs a punch nonetheless...great for sunday morning coffee}.
even if you don't fancy the music, the style alone of these damsels françaiseis enough to get lost in you-tube land and google-image country.
wednesday happy m'loves
musical remembrance
i had a great day yesterday.
but even flying high above sunset blvd, hands still ashake from contract signing, stomach still a-knot from dream fulfilling, my mind is never far from our best and bravest.
i may not agree with the battle, but i do support the troop.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHb_tjNunL4&feature=related]
a sweet, somewhat hokey, homemade you-tube video of real life soldiers and vets, that has wrecked me each of the 7 times i've watched it...
{even the accidental footage of actor barry pepper from 'saving private ryan' ~2:55.....oops}.
one of my favorite 'chicks song.
come home please.
my cheap summer accessory
okay, so maybe freckles with a touch of melasma.
but it's still the least expensive, warm-weather accessory i've got going.
typically makeup artists and photographers have always covered my angel kisses {thank you auntie char};
but lately the concealer and photoshop is confined to my dark circles.
freckles are definitely surfacing in style.
here's a coolio video on the magic of retouching.
[vimeo http://vimeo.com/20270202 w =700 &h=602]
wednesday happy m'loves.
when we run
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQXQTTtSW98&fs=1&hl=en_US&hd=1]
lace up your sneakers m'loves.
my sweet friend julie, with the rosiest red ringlets you've ever seen, shared this fantastic trailer with me.
premiering this summer, 'when we run' documents run across ethiopia, a non-profit project bringing together u.s. and ethiopian runners, to traverse the 250 miles across the beautiful, african country.
they are hoping to raise $175,ooo.00 to build and sustain schools in the "fair trade growing coffee regions."
amazing cause, lovely people.
weekend happy to all.
my huckleberry friend
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubeFZwCR2lM&feature=player_embedded#at=50]
wednesday happy m'loves.
what's for dinner
[vimeo http://vimeo.com/21870705 w =700 &h=602]
saturday, i stumbled on this visual bouquet of blogosphere sweet.
always a sucker for quinoa, a video tutorial was just the inspiration i needed to get my stove out its dusty doldrums.
quinoa {pronounced keen-wah} is known as a 'super food'.
a favorite among vegetarians for its high protein and 8 amino acid content, a favorite among masses for its delicious taste and versatility.
high in fiber, quinoa scores very low on the glycemic index, provides 30% of daily magnesium {good for migraine sufferers and digestive disorders}, supplies 20% of daily folate, 15% iron, 18% copper {good for cell tissue rejuvenation and helps to fight infections}, 28% phosphorous {bone health}, and 60% manganese {free radical fighter}.
quinoa is also gluten and wheat free.
a 'super' food indeed.
happy cooking m'loves.