Tag Archives: wine

Cookies & Music

I made chocolate chip cookies today.  I had bought the necessary supplies to make them but could never muster up the energy to actually bake them.  So I of course wait to make them once it becomes 90+ degrees outside, as you wouldn’t want the oven’s heat to be comfortable inside would you?   Of course not.   They came out spectacularly, as per usual.  I finally have something for dessert.  Last time I made these was for Ken’s Oscar party back in January (?), which honestly feels like a decade ago.   Larry’s death is still so raw but it also feels insanely like it happened in another life.  Anyway, cookies!

Yoga status:  63 days straight!   For my own purposes, my first 30 days was Yoga w/ Adriene’s HOME program,  the second 30 days was her “30 Days of Yoga” program, and currently, I’ve embarked on her Yoga Camp program, and I like it a lot.  Can I straighten my legs yet while doing downward dog?  Nope, but it’s getting better.   And my back is feeling strong, and I love that.   I recognize I can probably add more to my daily routine, but having yoga to start it off every morning is nice.

The new Dyson vac is spectacular.   Stairs are clean, and the floors are also getting vacuumed much more often than before.

Video game status:  FF7R is simply superb, and I am loving it to death.   Of course, tragic events have occurred in the game and while those bummed me out, I’m still totally in awe of the game and can’t stop playing.   I think I’m finally in the home stretch, and it surprises me how well Square Enix was able to do in making this game.  So much fun.

Oh, and Wine.com has been a godsend.  I’ve become a charter member for the free shipping and then I’ve also gone and signed up for some virtual wine tastings – it’s something, right?   Last week, we had a Pinot Noir tasting between a California and a French one.   Definite differences.  Delicious.

Finally, music:  When I finish yoga in the morning, usually Youtube has recommendations for videos I should watch.   For some reason, the following video was waiting for me, and I couldn’t help but check it out:

It’s magical.  How have I not known about Postmodern Jukebox before?  Seriously, never heard of them, and their gimmick is totally up my alley.   The group’s main man, Scott Bradlee, is a master cover musician, but instead of decently straight-forward covers, he reworks the songs into various other retro styles.   The above, “Wannabe”, is done in 1940s style.   Not only that, but he has musicians and singers who just bring the charisma and talent to whatever it is they’re doing.  I think there are over 300 videos so far, and I think Postmodern Jukebox tours too (in pre-Corona times, obvs).  1940s style isn’t the only thing they do though – they do it all.  One of my other initial favorites is the following:

The tap dancer, on top of the Gatsby-esque rendition, is mesmerizing, not to mention I fucking love this song anyway and it fits this style so well.  I ended up watching/listening to a 1990s playlist they put together and oh man, it’s so good, and the Friends theme song “through the decades” is awesome.   One thing I’ll note is that the talent are all very attractive – the women are beautiful and striking, and the men are frequently distractingly handsome.   So yeah, fun music, hot guys, and entertaining videos?   Sure, why not.  The linked video below is for the 1990s playlist – it just happens to start again with “Wannabe”.

Other than that, it’s been an up and down week, emotionally.  I still can’t accurately predict when my mood turns south and I’m feeling utter despair or when I’m not really sad about much at all.   I typically get emotional going to sleep regardless of how the day went.   Still hard to believe Larry’s not sleeping next to me anymore.  I don’t like being alone.  Also having to manage my mom’s finances, and it’s definitely not easy to do much of anything with the Rona out there.   Anyway, I just wanted to get a post in while I had the energy.  I was going to make another of the pork chop recipe tonight, but after cookies today as well as waffles this morning, I’m kind of done with cooking for the day.

I did see the Guy Ritchie take on “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.” last night and oh man, it was soooo good.  Larry would have loved it, as it had all the 1960s Cold War style on a very fun spy movie, and jesus, Henry Cavill and Armie Hammer are hot as fuck in this thing.   It’s really surprising it didn’t do better in the theaters when it was out originally.

A Hell of a Weekend

We partied like we were 25, and damn, it was fun, but utterly exhausting.  I highly recommend doing this maybe once or twice a year.  Then go back to normal regular weekends.  🙂

Up first, we were invited to longtime friend Ken Basin’s wedding up at Saddlerock Ranch in the Malibu mountains.  Many of my good friends were also attending as obviously Mila is going to be at her brother’s wedding, as well as many others that I love.  We knew it would be a boozy affair, so we Uber’d there (and let’s just say, Uber drivers can be very good or very bad….), got promptly lost (Uber driver not so great today) as we got dropped off at the wrong location within the complex, and started walking around based on vague directions from staff who have no idea where weddings are held on the premises.  The pictures here are of that random walk, which happily ended when a car driven by some other guests had the unlucky happenstance of going where we were – but lucky for us.  We all found our way to the right place and we managed to get to seats just shortly before the ceremony began.  D’oh!

The wedding itself was absolutely beautiful.  The weather couldn’t have been better, what with it being mid-October.  But it’s of course been a ridiculously hot week for us with temps in the 100s this week, so our trend of having very late LA summers continues on.  Anyway, that wasn’t quite the case on Saturday, so it was great.

Highly recommend, if you can afford to, a wedding here.  Beautiful vistas, gorgeous lighting in the trees, good food, and just a spectacular venue.  It being a Jewish wedding, there was of course the hora to dance to, and of course, I did.  I also managed to roll my ankle at the very end of the dance as it was a packed dance floor with 300 guests, a hardwood dance floor that I managed to find the end of with my right foot and landed poorly.  Happily, it’s just rolled/sprained and not worse, because as of today, it’s mostly back to normal.

Lots to drink, lots of dancing with close friends and loved ones, some good food (not enough to keep me from getting hammered), and a great party all led to us not getting home until 1 in the morning.  LOOK OUT YOUNG FOLK!

Saturday, Oct 21, 2017 – Ken & Lisa’s Wedding @ Saddlerock Ranch

We were primed to be hurting on Sunday, and while it certainly wasn’t as bad as it could have been (I’ve been WAY HUNGOVER before, believe me – this past Sunday was nothing like that), it was certainly one of those days that could have been spent sleeping in a lot more and then do something lazy.  But we had more plans today, as we were going to celebrate Mom’s birthday with a lunch and then follow that up with a birthday celebration for Nicki & Carey in Silver Lake.

We got ourselves ready to go and off we went to Arcadia’s Westfield shopping center, which looks so freakin’ different than the Santa Anita Fashion Show mall I grew up with and had my first B Dalton Booksellers job at. Unrecognizable.  Anyway, there’s a Cheesecake Factory there now so we met up with Mom, Stacie, and Trent for a good lunch.  As much as I can sometimes look down on Cheesecake Factory for being ‘just a’ chain restaurant, they are always packed for a reason:  the food is pretty damn good and it’s not a bad price.  It was a nice lunch though catching up with everyone and slowly but surely feeling like a human again.  Happy Birthday, Mom!

Sunday, Oct 22, 2017 – Birthday Lunch w/ Mom

Larry & I then had to figure out just what we were up for in terms of the Silver Lake birthday fun.  We were both exhausted and the idea of wine at the time didn’t sound appealing, nor did the follow-up oysters restaurant.  But there wasn’t an option of not going, so we stopped at home first to take a sanity break, and then it was time to call an Uber to take us to Silver Lake.  God bless Uber – it makes going places where the parking is horrible not so awful.  The flip side is that the hesitancy to drink evaporates as there’s no reason to be cautious.  So while we didn’t just decide to get blitzed, we certainly did have rose while having a freakin’ blast at Silver Lake Wines.  It’s a fun place as while it is a wine store, you can also have them open the wines and serve it to you while hanging out.  And so yeah, we did that.  A few hours later, we all then went over to L&E Oyster Bar for some follow-up food.  I passed on oysters as ew, gross, but they did have cheese plates and bread and that was delicious.  It wasn’t enough for dinner though, and by around 7pm, I was starting to need more.  So with Nicki, Rekha, and Megan, we left the group and headed just a bit further south to Silver Lake Ramen, which OMG is so good.  We had to wait for about an hour though, and happily a bar is next door, The Thirsty Crow, so yeah, more alcohol.  Dude, we were rockstars this weekend.  No idea how we made it through it, although Monday admittedly was a rough day to wake up to!

Birthday Wine with Nicki & Carey in Silver Lake

And that was our weekend.  I’ve been remiss in showing the many pictures from our exciting other weekends…so I will endeavor to do that as well.  Let’s see if I’m more successful this time than every other time I say that!

MEANWHILE……!!!!!! (Twin Peaks returns in 2 days!!!)

25+ years dealing with the ending of Twin Peaks and thinking that was it, having to speculate wildly on what might happen next, and now?  Now, we actually will get to find out.  Will there be actual answers?  With 18 hours of Twin Peaks ahead of us, likely.  But almost without a doubt, this will be a journey of complete weirdness filled with disorienting visuals and themes.  I’m sure I’ll even be like, WTF.  But I eagerly await it regardless.

The World Premiere of this next season on Showtime is happening at the Ace Hotel in DTLA as we speak.

I didn’t make it to this world premiere like I did when the Missing Pieces ultimate blu-ray set had a premiere at the Vista:

Twin Peaks: Up Close and Personal

Talk about an amazing opportunity that was!  But yeah, I didn’t make it downtown this time as this time, the entire world is all about Twin Peaks excitement and the crowd that had assembled for what I saw in 2014 were a small group of diehards.  Can’t even imagine the excitement though at the venue – the pictures from inside look really cool.

I just can’t believe it’s happening.  It IS happening again!!!!

More to come in the next few days – I know I won’t be able to keep myself from writing about the first 4 hours.  Sunday will be insane:  the first 2 hours are getting released on Showtime on Sunday night, but then hours 3 & 4 will be available immediately via Showtime’s streaming apps….so yeah, I’ll be watching those too.  Can’t NOT.  Monday may be painful.

Visiting the Twin Peaks Pop-Up in DTLA

The premiere is being held at this same venue I visited as documented above – you can see my main picture above is from the marquee…only now it’s 2017!!!!!

Oh, and of course I ordered these Twin Peaks FunkoPOP bobbleheads:

Miscellaneous Picture time – because why not?

Larry & I enjoyed last Saturday afternoon’s beautiful temps and weather by finally visiting the outdoor wine bar at the Americana.  Wonderful way to have lunch.  Expensive way, also.

The next day we then went over to Mom’s for Mother’s Day!  Stister Stacie also was there and we had a great time playing Rack-O, drinking some wine, and having some good food.  Barbecued some burgers and hot dogs, Larry made his latest rendition of Blue Smoke-esque mac and cheese (I actually think he did it – no lie.  The secret:  champagne vinegar), I made cookies…it was a good day.

And I think that’s that for now.  Happy Friday and Cobol Wishes!

Visiting Silver Lake Wines, on a Monday!

Monday is totally the new Thursday! As I discovered when inviting people out on my birthday this year which was on a Monday, nobody had plans and can usually make it! Tonight we met up with the group at Silver Lake Wines where they have a great tasting of 3 wines and you can just hang out. It was a lot of fun, and I am ready to go again!

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In other news, some interviews coming up! Fingers crossed!

Our New Wine Decanter

I saw at Sur Le Table this pretty cool-looking wine decanter – you pour the wine bottle directly into the decanter yet it’s still affixed so you can then pour the wine right back into the bottle and you’ve got super-aerated wine.  Finally had the occasion to use it when we had some of our favorite Montepulciano wine tonight along with some homemade (by Larry) chicken parmigiana.  It was pretty awesome, and it puts on a pretty visual show watching the wine make its way into the decanter.  I took pictures, of course.