Aging gracefully

I hope I'll be one of those women who ages gracefully -- someone who has great-looking wrinkles and just carries herself with elegance.

For example, Lisa Vanderpump-Todd. She's 50, and she knows it. There's no scary facelift, no trying to be young. She always dresses very classily.

And then there's Adrienne Maloof, who's 49, but dresses really young. She's got tons of makeup and sparkly stuff in her hair, and wears clothes that someone in her 30s or even 20s should wear. And I *think* she's gotten plastic surgery (I mean, her husband's a plastic surgeon... she's got to take advantage of that massive discount).

Case in point: the dinner party Camille threw on the show last week... On the right is Adrienne, in a tight pink shirt, huge earrings, and majorly highlighted hair. And on the left, we have the lovely Lisa, in a classy white shirt and pencil skirt, and sophisticated hair. I would definitely rather be a Lisa.

I don't think I would ever get plastic surgery. Would you?

Style transformation

Ever since I got to LA, I've been trying to up my style quotient. I feel like LA is a much dressier city than San Francisco and Seattle. SF is pretty dressy but since I was working from home for 6 months, most of my time in SF was spent in sweatpants on my sofa. I think people in Atlanta are actually well-dressed (something about Southern sensibilities I believe) but since I was a college student, and at Tech to boot, I think I was pretty insulated from all that. I mean, one summer I rotated through 4 pairs of sweatpants Monday through Thursday and then wore a skirt on Friday at a feeble attempt at not being hopeless.

Anyway, to amp up my style, I've been trying to modify outfits I would ordinarily wear to be a little more edgy or at the very least, put in a little more effort.

So for example, this is something I may have worn to work in the past:

It's not a bad outfit, but it's sort of plain. And I think the fact that the t-shirt is untucked makes my legs look short. And my shoes are a little to bright to wear with the tights, and match the skirt too much.

And here's how I modified it:

I tucked in the shirt and added a wide belt to define the waste. I also added shoes with a little more darkness to have less contrast between the shoes and the tights. I feel like the outfit is more put-together and I think my legs look a little longer -- which is important when you're all of 5 feet tall... I mean, 5'1" -- that's what my license says :)

I am still working on getting the fashion down, but what I am really struggling with is picking jewelry. Can anyone recommend jewelry that might work with the outfit?

Real Housewives of Atlanta

So I'm watching Sunday's episode of Real Housewives of Atlanta and Phaedra just said her baby weighed 7 pounds, 23 ounces. Ummm... does she mean 8 pounds, 7 ounces?

And Kim is actually a nurse! But she claims to be a registered nurse when she's actually a licensed practical nurse.

Ugh... weather

So I can't really complain about weather in LA, given that most of the country is facing temperatures about 20 degrees colder. But because it's LA and it is my right as a citizen of LA to enjoy sunny skies 365 days a year, I am going to complain.

It has been raining for about 7 days straight, and it will rain for another 5 days. And it's not thunderstorming or anytihng but it's enough rain to make running outside horrible and make it inconvenient to park far away from where you are trying to go. We are thinking about seeing Tron and our choice of movie theater was driven by where we could go where we would not need to go outside between a parking spot and the theater. Santa Monica Promenade was out because it's about a 15 minute walk. Even Century City was out because even though it has a covered parking garage, the mall itself is open air (although there might be an entrance to the parking garage from the theater... will have to look into that). So we're going to the semi-ghetto mall since the parking garage is covered and there is a covered walkway between the fully indoor mall and the movie theater. I've become such a wuss. How did I survive in the Atlanta thunderstorms, walking to class at Tech?

I remember one day when the rain in Atlanta was particularly bad, I thought wearing boots might solve the feet-getting-wet issues during the 15 minute walk to class. What I did not realize was that the area around the zipper was not waterproof, and so that small area was enough to let water in and leave me with wet, wrinkly feet for the next few hours. I have since bought rain boots (although I've only needed to wear them about 3 times in the last year since both San Francisco and LA are pretty dry cities).

On a good note, I did manage to get a few pretty cool pictures while my husband was driving in the rain. Speaking of the husband, it's his birthday!!






A post about my company's holiday party will follow shortly :)

Holiday Party

My husband's holiday party was this past weekend. It was a red carpet event only in that they laid out a red carpet from the parking garage to the entrance of the club, but as you can see, the pictures they took weren't against the red carpet and were instead on some green astroturf. It's okay... I got some practice posing for when I actually am accosted by paparazzi at next years Oscars. =P

Spaz-tic

So when I define myself as a spaz, I think of myself as the taking-corners-too-sharply-so-my-shoulder-hits-the-wall type of spaz or the not-knowing-where-my-arms-end-so-my-wrist-smacks-against-parking-meters type of spaz. Not really the fall-down-when-walk spaz, except for the occasional tripping in heels as I cross the road sort of thing. So three years ago when I lived in Cambridge (MA, not UK) for the summer, when I fell down while running, I felt like a really big spaz.

Let me explain. I got up almost every morning to run since I was trying to be diligent about being healthy. That and I was trying to offset the junk food that was available at the company I was interning at. Since I was worried about wearing contacts for too many hours a day, I decided to run without my contacts in, since I could see enough to avoid running into people and being run over by cars. This was fine for the first month or so. Keep in mind that this is on a dirt path, which is generally great for your knees and reducing impact. And then one morning, I was running along and suddenly I found myself on my hands and knees on the ground. I don't know how I fell or what I tripped on, but I somehow fell. I scraped up both knees pretty badly and scraped up my palms a little bit. Being a trooper (and being very stubborn) I continued on the rest of the 2 miles left in my run instead of heading straight home. I cleaned it up and headed to work. Later that day, my husband (my boyfriend at the time) made so much fun of me, saying that only little kids fall down while running/walking. I walked around with these huge bandaids on my knees for weeks, which by the way looked awesome with skirts.

Anyway, I thought I was a huge spaz for falling down, until a manager at work, who is a serious runner and personal trainer, said she falls down while running once every few years. That made me feel a little better.

So on Wednesday morning, about three years after my last fall, I went for my usual run. I was doing just fine, and then suddenly I tripped on an uneven section of sidewalk. At least, unlike in Cambridge, I knew I was falling and could try to react. I tried to roll into the fall, ninja-style, which sort of helped. I had only one major scrape on my knee, and my workout top sacrificed itself for the safety of my palm. Again, being stubborn, I finished my workout before going home and showing my husband my scraped up knee.

So now that I have this huge bandaid on my knee, I have to figure out how to wear dresses for my husband's work party, which is tonight, and my company's holiday party next week.

And I can throw caution to the wind during my runs... at least for the next 3 years.

My Southern roots are showing

My husband's company paid for us to spend a weekend in Vegas to celebrate the successful launch of one of their video games. I expected a fancy dinner and a fun party. I got more than I reckoned for.

As we were checking in to the hotel, my husband (M) ran into his coworker who invited us to hang out with a bunch of people on his team before dinner. So we dropped our stuff in our room and met them in the lobby.

A limo shows up... and I learn we're heading to a gun range. Interesting. The only time I've ever seen a gun range is on TV -- one of the Real Housewives goes to a gun range and lets out some anger. So I'm really not sure what to expect but I figure it will be an interesting experience. We selected a package that would let us shoot 4 guns - 2 automatics, a pistol, and a shotgun. It was the closest I've ever been to a gun except when I've been pulled over for an illegal U-turn. I hope not to have to get so close ever again. But back to the story...

So it's my turn to shoot the guns, so I put on my goggles and my protective ear muffs to dampen the sound of the shots. The first automatic gun seemed. Not too heavy, and it had a cool holographic sight for aim so I was less worried about accidentally hitting something I shouldn't. However, after I took the first shot, the recoil sent me staggering back a little. The kind gentleman demonstrating the guns was nice enough to prop me up for the subsequent shots so the recoil was not quite as intense. However, as I will explain later, the recoil still was an issue.

The second gun was some Swedish machine gun. It was so heavy, I had to rest it on the ammo tray to be able to shoot it.

The third gun was the pistol. I felt like a cop holding that gun. I was considering shooting it gangsta-style (for an explanation, see: http://croweitalia.altervista.org/NWB/NWBusgrande.jpg or http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GangstaStyle), but I have a reputation to maintain. Anyway, it was a light gun with low recoil so I could almost do it all by myself.

The last gun was the scary one -- the shotgun. I've only heard stories about sawed off shotguns -- and nothing good happens in those stories. Plus, the shotgun apparently has the most recoil. So with the gun gentleman propping me up, I fired off those last rounds.

Pictures coming soon :)

After the exhilaration of being a better shot than my husband, I realized my shoulder hurt. From the recoil. Ow. It was totally bruised from having the guns repeatedly bouncing off of it in the recoil. To get over that pain, I started looking at everyone else's paper targets, I realized I was actually pretty good. Except for the other people from the South (one from Atlanta, one from Birmingham), I was the best.

I think it's part of being Southern -- it's in my blood to be a good shot. Unfortunately, like my amazing bocce ball skills, it's a totally useless talent unless I'm in a fight and someone drops a fully loaded, cocked gun with the safety off. And gun has to be lightweight enough for me to actually lift.

My first celebrity sighting!

Ever since I've moved to LA a month ago, I've been waiting to see celebrities. Tonight was that fateful night where I saw my first celebrity.

After some friends and I went to an Indian restaurant in Culver City, we went to the nearby fro-yo place that has neon green and neon pink spoons. My husband noticed an older, distinguished Indian gentleman with gray hair that was combed back. He surreptitiously leaned in and said "I think I've seen that guy sitting behind us on TV." I turned around and stared. I recognized him from somewhere, but unfortunately I can't remember his name or what TV show he was from. Great... my first celebrity sighting and I don't even know who he is or why he is famous.

Welcome to Yuppievlle

So you know how there's always empty PBR cans on the side of the road in most places? Well, when I went running on San Vicente the other day, I saw an empty bottle of Johnny Walker Green on the side of the road. These people know how to party.

Surrounded by a sea of glamazons...

So the first weekend after my husband and I moved to LA, we thought we'd check out a sushi place in Brentwood called Katsuya -- what we thought would be our neighborhood sushi joint. Never mind that the yelp reviews said "dressy"... I just assumed every place in LA said dressy. So, I pulled on what I thought was a dressy outfit -- keep in mind, I spent 2 of the 3 last years in Seattle and the last year in San Francisco, where a dressy outfit is anything that isn't jeans. So I had on a pair of leggings and a sequined jersey tunic. I know you're thinking, that sounds dressy. But my practicality took over and I put on a pair of Cole Haan flats (that are not the most fashionable) for the walk over to the restaurant, and a J. Crew sweatshirt in case I got cold. You get the idea.

We walk over to Katsuya, and I think this will be fun. And then we get closer and I realize how trendy this place is. We walk in, and suddenly I realized I am way underdressed. I am surrounded by gorgeous women who are over 6 feet tall and wearing 6 inch heels. Needless to say, I feel very short. And these women are also wearing couture and have their hair blown out into elegant waves. Of course, my hair is in a ponytail. At least I blow dried my bangs. I also think we saw the girl who plays Georgina Sparks on Gossip Girl.

I later realized that Bruce Willis likes to hang out here. I guess I'll have to step up my A game here.