Paso Robles sunset

Music - 2008 favorites

So, as I mentioned, I really don't make best of/top 10 lists. But this year, why the hell not right? I listened to a lot of new music this year and these were the ones I found myself constantly returning to. Here it is.

The Black Keys, Attack & Release
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!
Gnarls Barkley, The Odd Couple
Gossip, Live in Liverpool
The Kills, Midnight Boom
King Khan and The Shrines, The Supreme Genius…
Mudhoney, The Lucky Ones
Jay Reatard, Matador Singles '08
Times New Viking, Rip It Off
TV on the Radio, Dear Science

These came out in 07 but I am lovin em in 08. It's my list, I make the rules.
The Black Lips, Good Bad Not Evil
Kanye West, Graduation

There were a few songs that I absolutely COULD NOT get enough of this year:
Gnarls Barkley - "Little Better" from The Odd Couple (some day I will write about how this song totally and completely describes me)
Magnetic Fields - "California Girls" from Distortion
Jay Reatard - "An Ugly Death" from Matador Singles '08
Tilly and the Wall - "Too Excited" from O

live favorites:
Black Lips @ Detour fest
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds @ The Hollywood Bowl.
Ray Lamontagne @ The Wiltern (have never been to a show in LA at a venue so big that stayed so quiet)
Jay Reatard @ Echo
Spiritualized @ The Hollywood Bowl (technically this was the same show as Nick but they were so.fucking.amazing that they get a separate listing)
TV on the Radio @ the Wiltern
Kanye West @ Nokia

2009 To Do List

ok, so I didn't exactly complete everything on my '08 to do list. But I did not do too bad either. So, I have a lot that needs to be done, might as well make a list for '09 right?

• Finish the living room. (buy a chair, rug and do up the south wall)
• Complete 4 classes (I've already signed up for 3, now I just need to take and finish them plus one more)
  
• Photo Albums (need to do one per month)
  
• Finish the dining room (get a new hutch dealy and west wall)
• Start the bedroom (everything - if you want to donate anything let me know)
• 12 new restaurants
• 12 books (that sounds easy but it's been really difficult to get much read the last couple of years) (or I guess you could think that sounds really hard in which case I love you)
• Find myself Los Angeles print or t-shirt (this is left over from my old list and I don't have any room for anymore t-shirts so I think it needs to be a print)
• new tattoo.
• not gain back any of the weight I lost, if you don't count the last two weeks of '08.
• hydrate
  

It's kind of a daunting list actually. Will have to baby step it . No problem!

Before I die:
Have some will power and say no to things that I know are bad for me - it's a long slow process

Stop multitasking and just do things one at a time - I actually think I am making some improvements here

Heading home

Waiting to board at DFW.

Wild life at the mall in Dallas

Ducks




Turtles




Unsupervised children

Road trip

We're in the car and heading to Dallas

Home made beer

Christmas breakfast of champions

Guy makes the family pancakes. His mother documents it. I document both

Merry Christmas, please print this.

Dear dear friends / acquaintances* / work friends* / parents of kids we really like a lot / family / significant others of the aforementioned* / randoms,

In our ongoing effort to not do shit this year save global resources we will not be mailing Holiday cards but would like to wish you a very:

Merry Christmas / Joyous Thursday / Happy Hanukkah / Merry Oatmeal Muffin Day / Happy New Year / Happy Birthday to Tiger Woods / Merry Kwanzaa / insert your reason to drink here / Jubilant Write to a friend month.

Seriously though - Hope you and your family have a great holiday, no matter which you choose to celebrate, and a safe New Year and a fantastic 2009!

with love and sass,

Cindy, Guy, Boris, Caesar, Eva.

*but we still really like you

Guy wins.

Guy Vaughn had a huge come from behind win in the late rounds to overtake his sister and dominate his parents and loving wife. These actions will not be rewarded come Christmas morning when Guy finds coal in his stocking.

Chicken foot

Passed the pigs before dinner and now we're satisfying the Chicken Foot

Pass the Pigs!

A Christmas Eve pre-dinner game of Pass the Pigs

Duck party!

Soon this will be dinner

Michael and Claire

Claire gets some Christmas Eve Eve belly rubs and poses for the camera

Claire

Guy and Claire share a moment before we go out for dinner.

When in Rome

Err, Texas - do as Texans do and go to Walmart!

Guy loves me

Guy wraps his own gift to help me stay sane.

Merry Christmas to me

Thanks to Gloria "the master wrapper" Vaughn for taking care of wrapping my gifts to Guy. It's the best gift she could give me.

Houla leaves me for a man

APPARENTLY my lap and a glass of wine isn't enough to keep a dog happy. She leaves me to share a red couch with Guy

There's a Houla on my lap

Houla Vaughn loves to sleep on a lap, especially in front of the Christmas tree with a glass of wine. Oh wait, that's me!

The Vaughn family and friends are engaged in a serious card game with serious drinking and I chose to be a dog bed instead of card player tonight.

Landed!

The view from the plane.

Holiday travels - the airport

Waiting at LAX with a few hundred strangers. Everyone is wearing their patient hats though. Lots of runny noses. Ew, germs.

Sweet sweet 405

You can always count on the 405 to be crowded. The rule in the Vaughn household is that you can't be upset if there IS traffic you can only be pleasantly surprised if there isn't.

It actually isn't too bad tonight, we're averaging about 30 (yeh I know that sucks but not for the 405). I just wanted to test out a new blogging app.

Target has its own definition of "well"

In case you can't read the sign it says "eat well, pay less" and in
case you can't see the food below it - hot dogs and some other frozen
"food"

Now. I try not to judge when I see people buying this stuff at grocery
stores and feeding it to their growing children, really I do. I mean
people have their reasons for doing what they do (and sincere
apologies if you happen to be feeding this stuff to your kids or your
selves) but Target suggesting that eating this food product nonsense
is eating "well" is totally ridiculous. I mean what in fuck's name
could they mean by well in this case? A LOT? "well" as in you're fat
and your gut is well off?

I'm just sayin. I don't like the sign.

Full disclosure. I eat hot dogs. I eat hot dogs at appropriate hot dog eating occasions (baseball games, holiday BBQs, with Bobby "likes hot dogs" Sherman.) I would never claim eating hot dogs is a good idea if you care about your health and eating "well."

this blog in happies

ok, so I just spent 45 minutes writing down some things that bug the shit out of me, and there's nothing wrong with that, I felt like it needed to be said. BUT - I do feel like I should balance it with some things that I like

- red cars (wee little red cars that fit in a pocket)
- babies that eat carne asada
- TiVo
- Organization
- Our bed. (soooo comfy)
- Kittens
- Google Reader
- texting - so convenient
- laughing
- keyboard shortcuts
- going to bed freshly showered which is what I am going to do RIGHT NOW. good night

This blog in peeves - you say I'm anal like it's a bad thing?

I was listening to Adam Carolla the other day and he was doing his This Week in Rage segment and it got me thinking about how some of the fabulous girls I work with have (half-jokingly?) requested a list of things I don't like. So I figured why the hell not. I actually started writing this today in meeting while some little weasely motherfucker was bugging me. Surprisingly, I couldn't really think of that many things. Email me if you can think of anything that I left off. (if you don't have my email address then you obviously don't know enough about me to suggest something for the list).

- Little paperclips. I can.not stand little paper clips. Unless they are on YOUR desk. YOU can use little paperclips all day long and I couldn't care less. I really don't mind the ones that are coated and colored but then what the fuck am I am gonna do with ONE little cute coated paperclip. No thanks. Use them to cheer up YOUR desk.

- Size Medium without a large or a small. - Note to restaurants worldwide - you CANNOT have a medium if you don't have a small and a large to go with it. We were at a place the other day and the person in front of me ordered a small and the cashier said "Our small is medium sized" - WHAT?? NO! impossible. If you only have two sizes they are small and large. If you have three sizes they are not medium, large and extra large (and BTW no one needs to be ordering an extra large ANYTHING)

- People that judge others for being "different" - ok, this was the one that drove me over the edge with weasely guy. He works in a creative environment and is talking about someone we work with and how she has a screw loose and she's "definitely different" snicker snicker chuckle chuckle. I just replied with "Thank God" - I mean if you're going to judge at least save it for something worthwhile. So that was just a vent, not really a peeve. Thanks for indulging.

- 20 different fonts or styles in one email. Ok, sometimes shit gets fucked up in the whole Rich Text to HTML to whatever email conversion, but in general, your emails should be one font, same size. OH - and no overuse of italics and underlining or "emphasizing" words with quotes. Especially professional emails for crying out loud. I'm also not a huge fan of daily quotes in your signature but it's not enough to make the peeve list. Oh wait. I guess it just did. how 'bout that.

- People that walk into a room and ask "are we having fun yet" - same weasel, different day.

- Not being observant enough to know how to correctly spell the name of the people you work with every single day. Like if you HAPPEN to work with a Kristen AND a Kirstin don't call them both Kirsten or Kristin. Pay attention. Really is that too much to ask? It's a matter of respect really. OH and I don't work for Mattle. Or Hotwheels. and I don't work with Warners Brothers. I work for Hot Wheels at Mattel with Warner Bros. Fucking hell, Joe Regis would be proud. Oh and Sheila is Sheila, NOT Shelia (every single time Shelia?).

- Random work things that are purely for the girls I work with - per their request ;)
---clean out your keyboards - don't leave evidence of your lunch for the next person who has to use your keyboard
---make sure your papers are stacked all together before you staple - don't staple shit all out of whack.
--- be on time. to meetings. with deadlines. be on time.
--- have fun, don't take shit too seriously or personally.

- Mail. I hate mail. Man, I do not ever need to walk to the mailbox again. I would so be down with just a weekly mail delivery.

Firsts - a doggy

I am constantly reminded of my first dog because his name is one of the random security passwords for a site that I frequent. Yapper. I probably shouldn't tell you that, now my security could be breached. Damn. His name was Yapper. You know why? He yapped. He was a little dog. Black. Brown maybe. I really don't remember very much about him. I remember that my mother gave him to me and that was the last time I ever saw her. I remember he wasn't housebroken. I remember being 4/5 years old and thinking it SUCKS to wake up in the middle of the night to get a snack and step in dog shit. I remember being thankful that it was just a little dogshit - because after all, he was just a little dog. What I don't remember is kind of disturbing. I don't remember ever walking him, or watching my father walk him. I don't think he EVER got housebroken. I don't remember him ever not yapping. Mostly though I don't remember what happened to him. I remember moving and he didn't come with us. But I really don't remember if I was upset about it. Weird. I wonder what happened to him. I would like to think Yapper was adopted by our neighbors, given a yard and a nice house with soundproof walls for his new family and a Kong that was half the size of his body and he wasn't intimidated AT ALL by it. Hopefully he bit someone if they were mean to him. Hopefully he got a better name, like Gus or Rocky. I wonder if he fathered little Gusorrockys? For sure we didn't get him fixed if we couldn't even walk the little fucker. Man, I hope he was a he. Yapper would be a terrible name for a girl.

baby steps update

Update - ok it's been two months since I made my baby steps list. And one of my problems is that I do things for now. I have a hard time committing things to memory and actually acting on my goals. So, in other words, I made the list and forgot all about it. Let's recap the list and see if I got anything done.

Before Dec 31 2008
Finish the living room art project - CHECK! and I love the way it looks. Bought most of the items on Etsy and received one donation from a friend. thanks friend.

Go to the gym for 11 straight days - no. BUT. I am THINKING about going tomorrow.

Go 3 weeks without coffee (hah! only 4 more days and I am there!) - check. more or less. It's been like 3 months since I officially gave up coffee and have 2 -3 cups a week now. better!

Maintain or improve my current weight. (ok, obs I want that number to be lower. baby steps) - That's a CHECK motherfuckers! hah.


Before Sep 28 2009
Find an awesome Los Angeles TShirt or Print - hmmm.. man so glad that I gave myself a year for that one. It's not easy.

Get a new tattoo - working on some ideas and stashing away a dollar here and a dollar there so when the time comes it won't seem like a major expense.


Before I die
Have some will power and say no to things that I know are bad for me - it's a long slow process

Stop multitasking and just do things one at a time - I actually think I am making some improvements here

not too bad.

Waiting

Waiting. Waiting. Waiting. Lately I feel like I'm always waiting for something. A friend that is late. A friend that goes to a totally different place entirely so is really late. Lunch.

Right now I'm waiting for a doctor. I was early but she's late. What's crazy is that she's doing a c-section that as of 2:45 had not started yet and they said she would be here by 3:30 which is just crazy to me. I guess they don't take very long?

In a couple of hours I will be waiting for my chiropractor.

I really think one of the best ways to show you respect someone is to show up on time. Yeh yeh we're all busy and maybe there was some random act of nature or unusually bad accident that made you late but in general you should know how long a drive will take (assume there's traffic) or how long the shuttle will take from one building to another or what time you'll need to feed the dog.

I am ridiculously far from perfect but you can count on me to be on time. Sometimes I even TRY to be late and I still seem to get places early. Maybe there's some universal understanding that says when it's acceptable to be late and I just didn't get that email? I think the only time is when there is a party and you don't care about finding a seat. I happen to dislike parties so I like to get places early enough to find a good seat for the whole night. Just another example of my laziness I guess.

Yeh right now I'm just killing time and exercising my thumbs while I watch my BlackBerry fill up with emails I can't do anything about.

Speaking of being far from perfect I am really tired of narcissisists. Get over yourself. When you have to constantly tell the world how hip or cool or hot you are it just reminds everyone that you're not.

I don't know what song is playing on the Muzak but I kind of like it. It's some weird artist that has probably performed on the View but it was kind of catchy.

Now it's Madonna on the Muzak, there's a Kabbalah center down the street from my dr's office do you think Madonna is there right now?

Once I had a gyno appt (annually, get over it) and the dr had to rush TO a c-section and I didn't like that so much either.

Waiting.

Michael Jackson telling me it don't matter if I'm black or white. Thanks Mike.

Don't know this song but this guy loves me just the way I am.

Yay!

Traffic is most definitely the lamest thing about my great city. It's
eightafreakinclock at night and we're going 3 miles an hour

I'm not judging, but

Ok I guess I am judging. But with the economy being in the shitter and
the media talking about a recession is it really a good idea for the
credit union to suggest taking out a loan for (mostly) cosmetic
medical procedures. More power to you if these are the things that
are important to you but why don't you try saving a nickel or two in
your piggy bank for your facial rejuvenation instead of taking out a
freaking bank loan.

Firsts - a beginning

hey I know! I'll start another list. I do like lists. What OCDADDDYSLEXICEASILYDISTRACTED35YEAROLDWOMAN doesn't? This one will also help the problem of not being motivated (I would think). It's actually something I started a long time ago. And by started I mean I wrote two entries, never posted them then forgot all about them.

The first time I ever thought about writing:
I was sitting on the floor (facing the tv, much like now)
My grandmother's typewriter was on the coffee table (much like now)
I was probably 7, MAYBE 8.
Writing an autobiography.

I can literally remember wanting to write, getting excited, turning on the tv, setting up the typewriter, sitting down and not having a single clue what to write. (much like....)
I do remember that I wrote something about my dad not being able to keep a job and my Uncle Al being an alcoholic. I think I got maybe 3 sentences in before giving up. Or maybe Solid Gold was about to start. Either way, that autobiography never happened. It's never too late to write about your family's failures though right? Maybe tomorrow.