I’ve totally slacked in updating my Star Sightings. Two in the last couple of weeks.
Kirstie was having lunch at Chin Chin in Studio City. She came in with a bunch of teenage boys and was met by a friend. I’m here to tell you, she looked fabulous! And she used chopsticks to eat her Chinese Chicken Salad.
And less than a week later I was sitting on Vine at the stop light at Sunset, and who do I see getting into a black Maserati????
…the man who broke up with Carrie Bradshaw on a Post-it Note.
Over the last week or so we’ve had a number of people traipsing through our house en route to our freshly cleaned out garage to inspect the fridge we have for sale.
A woman and her son came by this evening to have a look at the fridge. To get to the garage, which is in the back, they went through our living room. While passing through, the livingroom we passed our new couch, a lovely deep red (tomato according to the fabric swatch) sectional. She said she loved the couch, and particularly the color because, she said,
“We’re doing our living room in NASCAR and that couch would go perfectly!”
Indeed…
So it’s been more than a month since I’ve posted an entry. It’s not that I haven’t sat down and starting writing one (or two or three or four), but they don’t seem to make it up here. And since I’m all about avoiding what’s on my laptop at the other end of this room, I thought I’d fill you in on the goings on here chez Atkins.
1. Middle School. Yup, the princess is in 6th grade and has officially started Middle School. The first week was a bit rocky, with 5+ hours of homework a night, but things have settled down and we’re in a groove now. This is her first year with actual letter and number grades (no more smiley face stickers in Middle School). And with the exception of math (the continued bane of our existence) the grades have been excellent. Even Latin (so those early years of reinforcing those neural pathways seem to have paid off, though right now I wish I’d focused on some math skills too).
2. Work continues to be excellent. Huge sigh of relief. We had a bit of a rough patch at the beginning of the summer but things have smoothed out and I’m once again a happy clam (except for now when I’m avoiding the drama on the laptop and writing this entry instead).
3. Chuck continues to travel to all the glamour spots of the world. This week: St. Louis.
4. I spent this past weekend in New York attending my 30 year high school reunion. Actually not my high school and not my year. Allow me to explain: I moved to Los Angeles to finish my senior year of high school out here. The reunion was from the high school I attended when I lived in Brooklyn. And technically it was the official reunion of the class of 76 (I was the class of 77) but then it turned into a multi-year reunion thing so I went. Most of the people I went to high school with I started going to school with in kindergarten, and many of them were there. And I have not seen these people in the 30 years it has been since I lived in Brookyn. But the odd thing is, I have not actually aged 30 years (although there’s a picture in my attic that is very very old.)
I anticipated a lot of really big hair, long fingernails, and sequins. I was disappointed on the hair issue, but there were enough sequins to choke a horse (which I don’t guess is many sequins actually cuz they’re likely to get stuck in your throat), and a lot of really long, really dark red, painted fingernails. Ladies of leisure I suppose. I did not wear sequins, thankyouverymuch, but instead chose a lovely black knit jersey wrap dress that packed really well.
I stayed on Long Island with the woman who was my best friend in high school. I saw her last about 19 years ago. We spent most of my time there (with the exception of the reunion) catching up, and that was nice. Her mom was staying with her for the Jewish holidays. Terri’s mom was old when we were in high school, so now, 30 years later, she’s positively ancient. But her mom looked exactly the same as she did back then. Go figure.
4. This summer I enrolled Zoe in Cotillion and she started last night. Party dresses, tights, appropriate shoes, white gloves and all. She is going with Katie and they’re both absolutely thrilled about this (as you can well imagine). Katie’s mom and I watched for the first half hour or so and then left. We were there long enough to see the girls do their first waltzes. When I returned to do pickup detail they were on to the foxtrot. Chuck left me the digital camera to immortilize the moment, but naturally when I went to take a pic last night it was out of batteries and he has the charger with him in St. Louis. I’ll get better pix at our next outing, but here’s one courtesy of my camera phone:
That’s all for now.
If someone with apparent bad taste compliments an article of clothing you are wearing, should you be concerned?
People who are Starbux regulars: Buckies.
Seen on a plumbing truck:
Bob’s Plumbing
Where a flush beats a full house every time.
If you own a restaurant and do a lot of delivery/take out business, may I suggest that the people who take your phone orders are not hard of hearing. Also a passing familiarity with the English language would be great too.
Most people have a “List”. Ross made the concept of “The List” famous in that episode of Friends where he ran into Isabella Rossellini, who, as I recall had been on his list and he bumped her, and then foolishly told her that. Comedy ensued.
I too have a list. And probably #1 with a bullet (tied with Colin Firth) is Goran Visnjic. Every Thursday night I get to gaze into his eyes and admire his crooked smile. I positively swoon. Well, it’s Tuesday night and imagine my surprise when I had the opportunity to swoon at him live and in person at the vet’s office.
Please bear with me as a have a personal moment now.
I will be the first to admit that there was mainly one reason I wanted to buy the house that has been our home for the last 7+ years: the master suite.
There were two things about our master suite that made it a must have: a huge walk-in closet with tons of drawers, cubby holes, shelves, and other assorted storage; and our bathroom. We have a totally luxe master bath with a jacuzzi tub, huge shower, double sinks, tons of drawers, and a dressing table.
Our bathroom is a thing of beauty, a joy to behold — especially since our old house had 1 1/2 baths, and basically it was one, with a single sink, and no storage.
And over the fabulous double sink/dressing table area there are ten light fixtures. Each fixture has two bulbs. It’s almost like one of those old fashioned Hollywood dressing room tables.
Anyway…over the course of the 7+ years that we’ve lived here a number of bulbs in the 10 continuous light fixtures have gone out and been replaced. Others of the light bulbs have dimmed with age. Not quite out but not as bright as they once were.
So last Saturday I decided it was time to replace 20 bulbs in all ten fixtures so that they’re all spanky and new and the same amount of bright and all together beautiful. Off I trundled to OSH and picked up the bulbs. I came home and dragged the step ladder into the bathroom and immediately replaced all the old bulbs with brand spankin new 60 watt bulbs. Naturally all the work was done with the lights turned off…for safety reasons.
The project took me about 15 minutes and as I finished and turned on the switch I was looking forward to a nice, clean, even, warm glow. Instead I got 1200 watts of blinding brightness — not a cozy place to dry my hair and put on makeup.
So, in keeping with the Atkins’ motto that no home improvement project can be done with only one trip to the hardware store, I will trundle back off to OSH and pick up some lower wattage bulbs–before that Southwest Airlines flight from Vegas makes a wrong turn on its approach to Burbank Airport and lands in my master bath.
Among my co-workers we joke, “Be a Project Manager, see the world. . .or at least the far reaches of Los Angeles, Orange, and Ventura Counties”. Because being a project manager you go where the project is.
So I spend a lot of time in my car.
Because I now travel to places that are far outside of my former regular path of travel I spend a fair amount of time being lost. Not Donner Party lost, but I miss a freeway exit, go a mile or two out of my way, or overshoot my destination on a regular basis. My car is basically an extension of my office. This, of course, was the rationale for absolutely needing a new car.
And one of the must haves for my new car was a navigation system. I’m still working out whether I can write that off as a business expense (any CPA’s out there feel free to chime in on that one).
The thing about the navigation system is that it’s not all that intuitive to use. So not intuitive, in fact, that it comes with an informational DVD, a 12 page “quick guide” and a 150 page manual. And me being me, I’m not all that keen on reading directions. But I chose to make an exception here and poured over the informational DVD and the 12 page “quick guide”. Alas, that was after the family went out for our maiden voyage.
And because we’re all about gadgets, and Chuck is less of a direction reader than I am, he was programming something into the navi and it started to take us there. Alas, it was no where near the direction of where we were intending to go. In fact, it was in the complete opposite direction of where we wanted to go.
There we were, tooling along, traveling west and vaguely north. My navigation system, however, believed that we were meant to be traveling east and south. So at every possible opportunity (read about every 1/4 mile), the navigation system was telling me to turn left to head back to the freeway. We did not want to go to back to the freeway. As we’d approach a possible turning point you’d hear a lovely *ding*, and the cool, calm, collected voice would say turn left at the next intersection. We’d zoom right by. A few minutes later you’d hear *ding* again and the same cool, calm, collected voice would remind us to turn left at the upcoming intersection.
In the meantime, because we have not read the directions, we have no idea how to turn the system off. It’s voice activated so I tried yelling SHUT UP but apparently the system is not familiar with that command. In case you’re wondering, I fared no better with OFF.
So I lost my cool with my navigation system, but despite the fact that I failed to follow the directions provided repeatedly, not once did the lady who lives inside my navigation system lose her cool and yell at me, “Turn left, bitch!”
