more cribbage please... sans the gurney.

Words cannot describe how wonderful the friends are that I have in my life... truly, they cannot... but perhaps these photographs speak for themselves, in a way that doesn't need adjectives to do the describing.

... just the best of friends, reading damnyouautocorrect, cracking jokes, dominating board games... completely forgetting that blood is being drawn, IVs are being inserted, diagnostic tests are running...

... a special kind of love that fills the room + drowns out the chaos to make for a very, peaceful emergency... + allows you to keep calm + carry on {smiling} in a sacred-kinship-kind-of-way.
No fever spike or attack of anxiety could ever disturb it. 

Here's to many more cribbage tournaments together... sans the gurney. MALYTAB

i heart my bike.

the preferred mode of transportation in santa monica.

beach cruiser.

When Carly + I lived in LA together, we lived in "the valley"... yes, just like in Clueless. In fact, the liquor store with the clown where she gets held up at gunpoint was a few blocks away from our apartment. Living in Studio City was super convenient for both of us because we both had routes to work that didn't involve sitting in traffic + we quite liked the location but everyone told us that we would have to get out of the valley eventually... so when Carly moved back to LA last January, that is exactly what she did. She now lives on "the West side" in Santa Monica, a fabulous eleven blocks from the beach. There are so many great eateries + streets lined with little boutiques + the 22-mile boardwalk along the beach called "The Strand" that it was practically imperative that Carly bought a bike when she moved here 

i can the feel the sunrise....

I can feel the sun rise when I close my eyes... 

-Venice

Tight rope walker practicing between two palm trees in Santa Monica at sunset.

venice.

Carly + I went to see a hip hop musical entitled Venice that TIME magazine (love me some TIME) named "The Best Musical of the Year!" It is a loose adaptation of Shakespeare's play Othello + it! was! phenomenal! The music is amazing + the story is really moving! For the rest of the week, all my blog posts will reference this play because it just made my heart beat something incredible! It is not on Broadway yet but when it makes it to Broadway, I highly recommend you go see it! =)

peace out, reality.

I really tried to be an adult this week but when the realization that my heart strings were tied in a horrendous knot that I wasn't quite strong enough to detangle (yet) sent me in to a full-blown anxiety attack, I drove my panic-stricken self straight to the airport + booked an upright seat on the next flight out... Where could I go to get out of the balmy weather + gale force winds of Winnipeg? What is the one place that it's okay to put off adult responsibilities for a week + shift my every focus to constructing the perfect costume to celebrate Halloween for the next 3 nights in a row? Where could I find the tastiest lattes paired with the most enlightening coffee talk? No other than my happy place ... L.A.! Nothing calmed my heart like flying out of Chicago at sunset + flew west in to a perpetual orange sky before landing amidst the traffic + lights surrounding LAX which has always been ironically appeasing for me. This morning, Carly + I walked to her fave coffee shop to gush about life over these delish lattes made by 3 adorable baristas. Off to find suspenders, loafers, + horn-rimmed glasses. Peace out, reality. See you, Tuesday.

california dreamin'

I know I was just there three weeks ago but I can't help but spend my days off daydreaming of being back on Hermosa Beach whale watching with the surfers along the Pacific Ocean...

trash the dress.

One of Carly's last days in LA we spent "trashing the dress". We had a lot of fun galavanting around the metro station, in a fountain, down train tracks, etc. with our friend/photographer Mindy.

act globally, eat locally.

Today, Carly and I walked (roughly four miles round trip) to Studio City's Sunday Farmer's Market to indulge in all the super delicious locally grown fruits and vegetables! We sampled about ten different kind of pluots (in the photo above) before picking out a few to take home! It's really cute how everyone tells you to "Have a great week!" rightfully assuming we'll be back next weekend for more delightfulness.

los olivos.

Yesterday Carly and I took a day trip up the 101 to the Santa Barbara area for a day of wine tasting! We weren't really sure where we were headed and even packed a bag just in case we decided we wanted to spend the night. We put the address for Bridlewood, a vineyard with great reviews on yelp!, into our GPS and started to drive North along the most gorgeous coastline with the ocean on our left and rolling mountains to our right! The vineyard we went to had the most delectable cheese and scrumptious wine! =) From there (we actually ran into a girl that I work with) and she recommended going to Los Olivos (the quaint town pictured above)! It was incredible!! There was one street that had about ten tasting rooms in a row and fabulous wine-infused cupcakes (we tried four different kinds!) After our afternoon of awesomeness, we drove back down to Santa Barbara where we enjoyed the Spanish ambiance strolling along State Street before heading back to LA! It was a perfect day.

la jolla.

l.y.t.a.b.

My best friend Megalina was here for an entire week and these select snapshots don't even begin to explain the week we had! From the moment she got off the plane we didn't stop moving... From biking down the Strand in Hermosa, to having drinks with Lauren in San Diego, to going to the SD Zoo, to sea kayaking thru caves in La Jolla, to eating seafood in Malibu, to going to Opening Night! at Improv Olympic, to shopping in Santa Monica, to hiking through hills, to seeing Octomom the Musical, to watching Austin Hartley-Leonard at Hotel cafe, to touring my NICCU, to seeing the Beatles! Cirque de Soleil in Vegas, to watching sunset at the Griffith Observatory ... it was a whirlwind week! =) Amidst the crazy agenda planned to the minute so she could get a feel for my (sur)real life in LA and the endless conversations about our pasts, presents, and futures over sushi, bottles of vodka, thai food, jugs of water, Indian food and on our daily road trips... Megalina taught me a few things about my life I've meaning to figure out... She helped me realize why statues of Greek Gods at the Getty Villa make me blush. She pointed out that the anxiety I associate with LA may just be in my head as she never quite reached the level of angst I constantly felt/feel. She graciously suggested that going off the beaten path isn't always rewarding when the same steep path is the only way back down and highly recommended me staying on the trail when hiking alone. She reminded me that just because I'll be in LA by myself starting next month doesn't mean that I'll be alone. She agreed that despite the glam you generally associate with Hollywood, it's really an overrated sea of fake people where the cost of living is too high and the traffic is not worth the drive...anywhere. She just smiled and sang along when I insisted on playing the same three songs the entire time she was here. She enabled me to compartmentalize my options for where to go from here. She assured me that the movie in my head will one day be a reality. She talked me through the post-childhood fear I developed at the top of the ferris wheel on the Santa Monica Pier. She showed me that no matter how much distance is between us, we will never grow apart.

l.y.t.a.b.

dirty dancing.

Carly, Paige and I had the time of our lives when we went to see the classic Dirty Dancing in an interesting musical/play/dancing stage show at the Pantages Theatre a couple of weeks ago! =)

spirit of adventure.

Weather in the valley has been extremely overcast recently and to beat the June gloom on my weekend off, Carly and I donned some super cool 3D glasses Saturday afternoon and headed to the ultra-touristy Hollywood/Highland to watch Up! at El Capitan. It was amazing! Not only was the movie super cute (it had a hot air balloon, my fave!) but the whole theatre palace experience was indescribable... there was a stage show with Disney characters and an organist who played all the clasic Disney songs!! NBC/Universal offers free screening of two movies a month to their employees in their private theatres on the Universal backlots. From the heart of Hollywood, we headed over to Universal Studios in Burbank to watch a screening of Away We Go before spending the day in Santa Monica Sunday to watch Angels & Demons with our book club. This weekend has me still feeling like a tourist in my "hometown"...

s.y.t.y.c.d.

Yay!! So You Think You Can Dance has started again!! The one show I make a point to watch is back on FOX Wednesday and Thursday nights for the entire summer! Watching this season brings about a whole new feeling of familiarity now that we have met My Nigel and all the judges/choreographers at the all access party after the LA show of their tour last October!! I was completely enamored by C and I's first "SO LA" experience and this is still one of my favorite memories living in LA!! =) 

lifelong learners.

While I don't often blog about our Society of Promoting Intellectualism (mainly because it's impossible to put the enlighting meeting into words) Carly, Lindsay, Angie and I do meet at local coffee shops about twice a month to discuss fabulous topics/current events to further our learning. We recently chose to present an artist by taking a field trip to a local art museum to see their art. Last Sunday, we went to the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena and I selected the French artist, Henri Matisse, whose illustrations of love poems are currently on display. It was a lot of fun to look at the art and walk around the sculpture garden. My favorite part (and most blogworthy aspect) of our meetings are the reaction we get from the spectators eavesdropping around us. "Oh, honey, look... it's a self-help group." "Wow, I really learned a lot from listening in on your meeting." The best reaction we got was from a man who offered to take a picture of us in the sculpture garden. "Oh, are you guys art majors?" and without hesitation (or pretentiousness) Lindsay responded "No, we're just lifelong learners." I am currently researching the Galileo Affair for my next assignment when me and my fellow literati meet to watch and review Angels & Demons next Sunday! =)

acqua al 2.

When Carly and I studied abroad at the Apicius Culinary Institute of Florence in Italy a few summers ago, one of our favorite meals was a blueberry steak from a local favorite, Acqua al 2, in Florence. Only a few days after trying this amazing entree, the man who prepared the steak showed up as a guest professor in my cooking class! I never really knew what happened to our original chef but I wasn't complaining when Stefano, the adorable executive chef who owned Acqua al 2, would greet us each morning not only adding his own flare to our traditional textbook recipes but also preparing things completely separate from our course... including this amazing fruit tart he taught us how to make using extra supplies in our kitchen! Before leaving Florence, he insisted we come try his seafood restaurant for our last meal where he brought us out all kinds of things to try... including octupus that still had it's tentacles! I was so excited to try his restaurant in the Gaslamp district of San Diego while we were there! The ambience was the same. The menu was the same... and the blueberry steak was just as amazing as I remember! The only thing missing was my Italian amore. I dream of the day I'll return to Firenza to find him again...

san diego zoo.

As you can see by this map, the SD Zoo is huge!! There are so many exhibits and so many different animals, it was awesome! We saw elephants, monkeys, chimps, gorillas, polar bears, otters, pandas, koala bears, zebras, giraffes, rhinos... we spent the entire morning looking at the different species and left around 2:00 when all the children in the park were ready for their naps! 

san diego.

Because I have spent my time home from San Diego working 2 22-hour shifts, 2 12-hour shifts, falling in love, survived one killer hangover (maybe I'm not as mature as I thought!) at an art museum and concluded my crazy weekend with a 24 hour nap (that's right... I lost an entire day of my life to sleep!) before heading over to Last Call's studio to watch a Greenday concert with Vanessa Minello yesterday, I have neglected blogging the past few days... Here's the highlights of our heart-healthy weekend away to San Diego for Memorial Weekend...

learning a lot by the pool...

twenty-two and still find the carousel incredibly invigorating...

our extra ordinary dessert

The Shout House - where I have to credit my Canadian citizenship card (where I am 5 y/o in the picture) to getting me in!

the view of our pool from our balcony

waiting in line at Extraordinary desserts.

the view of the bay from twenty-one floors up

taking Sydney's Eos for her first (of many to come!) road trip!