By The People: The Election of Barack Obama

Two posts in one day...crazy!

I just had to recommend the new documentary by Edward Norton called "By The People: The Election of Barack Obama". It was very well done and totally made me cry, again. (Seriously, I never used to cry, what is up with this??)

Edward Norton and his crew were given unprecedented access to the entire campaign, it shows the behind the scenes stuff we have never seen before. I especially loved the vigor and emotion from all of his young staffers around the country. Another cool moment? A glimpse into Obama's hotel room when the election was called for him and the reactions of all of his staff at that moment as well. (Including Plouffe, Axelrod, Favreau ect.)

It premiered on HBO last night, so catch it on re-runs if you didn't see it the first time around. Well worth it.

A Long Time Coming

So I have been a huge blog slacker. I know I said that LAST time I posted, but I couldn't help it. life has been busy as heck fire. For the most part it has been "good busy" though.

We have done a ton in the last few weeks lots of movies, a couple concerts, some awesome day trips and great family time.

The Husband and I went to see Rufus Wainwright with Lucy Wainwright Roche a few weeks ago. It was awesome! The House of Blues in Anaheim is a great little venue and the performances were great. Plus the people in the audience were a blast as well. We were really excited to see Rufus, but we were even MORE excited when we realized that his dad, Louden Wainwright, was there as well. We are big fans! Here are a couple really crappy cell phone pics from the night.

The other concert was Jimmy Buffet last night. Shannon, my Dad, the Husband and I gave the tickets to my Mom for mothers day this year, and we had a great time. How can you not at a JB concert? :) We had a real "girls night out" too, it was just my Mom, Shannon and myself. I do have to say that the parking lot looked like a tornado had gone though when we left. I do not envy whoever has to clean up the following day...

Here are a couple pics from the concert:

We went to the Nixon Library last weekend. What an amazing place! I can't believe we had lived so close to it an never been.  My husband and I aren't exactly big Nixon fans, but it didn't matter. All the history that they had there appeals to anyone who enjoys history (and politics!). Here are a few pics from the Library:

My Grandma (Mom's Mom) had major surgery this week, and I am happy to report that she came through with flying colors. She exceeded all the doctors expectations! For a 84 year old, that is amazing. The doctors were able to remove all of her cancer, so we are so relived that we will be able to have her around for hopefully many many many more years to come. A couple days before her surgery The Husband and I went to brunch with my family at Las Brisas in Laguna Beach. YUM.

We also saw Wolverine (blech) and Star Trek (Awesome!), had a trip to the Grove up in LA and spent some great time with friends. Whew!

OK, so I think I am basically caught up. I swear to try and update more often!

Frustrating, Upsetting friday

This past Friday was a really crappy day.  There were more layoffs at work and unfortunately my closest "work friend" was let go along with one of our most productive title officers. I am heartbroken and upset for my friend, as she was one of the best employees that we had. It is always sad when someone is let go, but when it is someone that excels at their job and is a huge asset to the company, it is even harder. We were already slammed at work due to all the cutbacks, and this is just going to make it that much worse. I was approved to work overtime, which is great, but also stressful. I know that it is going to be pretty much a necessity now. 

I am venting, but I have to say, I feel incredibly lucky to still be employed in the industry I work in. It is really rough out there right now, and I need to make sure I take a moment to count my blessings. Work may be stressful, but at least it is work.

Since Friday was such a craptastic day, I said screw my diet and The Husband and I went out for Italian food and drinks at Peppino's. Peppino's is a locally owned Italian restaurant that is spectacular. I dinned on some Pizza Margherita and The Husband had veal, lobster, shrimp and pasta.  The owner's father was even there checking on the customers and chatting with people, which was a great personal touch, esp. since he is an elderly Italian man, complete with accent and boisterous personality.

After dinner we went and saw Adventureland, which was great. It was sweet and heartwarming while also being very very funny. Plus it had a great soundtrack of 80's hits, which really makes any movie that much more fun. So I would definitely recommend Adventureland :)

As far as my diet is concerned, I have lost 7lbs so far, so that scale is moving in the right direction. As my Mom likes to say, I will get in that thong bathing suit yet!

Movies, Friends and Food

I had a fantastic weekend! It was just one of those weekends you really really do not want to end. I had a date night with The Husband, a day with friends, brunch with family and got a lot done around the house to boot! Plus I have stayed on track with my diet and have lost 4lbs so far. I am feeling pretty good right about now.

Friday night The Husband and I went to Red Robin for dinner (don't judge us, we had a coupon and they have awesome veggie burgers) and then out to see I Love You Man, which was fabulous. I needed a good, solid, funny movie, and this delivered. I think I have a little Paul Rudd crush blooming ;) (Sorry Husband!) I highly recommend this movie to anyone looking for a great comedy. As a fair warning there are some raunchy parts, but nothing over the top. Plus a little potty humor never hurt anyone, right? I happen to find it quite funny (because I am apparently a 13 year old girl).

Saturday The Husband was out of town, so I spent the day with my best girl friend, her kids and family. We headed out to the swap meet at the Orange County Fair Grounds and had a blast checking out all the fun, random stuff you find there. They were even having a karaoke contest, which is ALWAYS amusing. We got to have some good girl talk, which is always nice, and I love being able to see the kids. Her boys are the cutest (and biggest!) babies in the world. (I am not biased or anything) I am so lucky to have such great friends!


I was also able to get grocery shopping done on Saturday which included spending a lot of time in Whole Foods. I love the store. I wish I could afford to do all my shopping there and eat completely organic, but that is not feasible at this time. Right now I am trying to buy organic dairy and certain produce, which is a good start. I also picked up a little bit of fish for my non-veggie husband. He was stoked, I usually won't buy meat for him ;)Sunday we went to brunch with my Mom and Sister at Marmalade Cafe which just opened at The District in Tustin. We had eaten at the Grove location last year and LOVED it, so we were all very excited that there was a new, local location. The food there is superb! It is all organic as well, which is always nice. I had scrambled eggs with cheese and avocado, breakfast potatoes and 1/2 half a bottle of champagne. My mom and I finished a bottle by ourselves. Lets just say we were both plenty giggly after that! The Husband and my sister were certainly getting a kick out of us. Champagne or no champagne, I highly recommend Marmalade Cafe to those who enjoy a good Sunday brunch. I have not eaten lunch or dinner there, but I am sure that the food is awesome for those meals as well.
Sunday afternoon was productive and Sunday night relaxing. It was the perfect weekend and just what the Dr. ordered. Hope everyone else had great weekends as well!

Surgery Recovery (Fun with Drugs!)

So I am mostly recovered from my surgery, thank goodness. I don't do well when I am trapped inside on a couch for extended periods of time. I am even back at work today!

The first day was rough. I felt like crap, I was in pain and the anesthesia stole my brain and my energy. I slept all day and all night. The Husband kept coming in and checking on me, I am sure he wanted to make sure I was still alive. All I can say is thank goodness for drugs. Norco and IBUPROFEN, you were my best friends that day. Plus the Norco not only helped with pain, it made me go to my happy, sleepy place every time I took it. The next day I felt much better, but my brain was really fuzzy. I had a hard time processing thoughts and a REALLY hard time speaking. My sentences never came out like they sounded in my head. Anesthesia is a weird weird thing. By Thursday I was going stir crazy, so I decided to drive myself to the store and buy cake mix and make a cake. (?????????? I'm telling you, it was the drugs) That turned out to not be the best plan as I was pretty sore afterwards, but I was so happy to have left the house I really didn't care. I made my cake and didn't eat it since I had no appetite. I'm a freak I tell you. Finally on Friday my Momma came and took me to the movies. Escape!

We went and saw Race to Witch Mountain (yes we are nerds, don't judge us). I had loved the original growing up (called Escape to Witch Mountain) so I was actually really excited to see the remake. I also think The Rock is awesome. The movie was nothing spectacular, but it was entertaining and that is really all I wanted and was looking for at that point. I would probably not recommend that you see this in the theaters unless you were a big fan of the original. The original was better, but it was fun to see a modern interpretation of the story. After the movie we went to lunch at Islands which was wonderful. Thanks Mom!
Saturday I spent the day relaxing again. We watched some movies, one of which was Death at a Funeral. AWESOME movie. It was hilarious. It is British humor which I adore, but be forewarned that it is not a typical American comedy. It hurts to laugh still, so this movie was very very painful, but worth it. It made me look at Valium and little people in a whole new way. We also watched Samantha Brown in Ireland and dreamed about going there. Sigh. Is there any place on earth full of such happy, drunk people surrounded by such beautiful landscape? I think not.
We also went out and saw Coraline in 3D, and I HIGHLY recommend this movie. It is hard to find in 3D, but I can't imagine it being nearly as amazing without that aspect. The 3D was done so well. The story was also very very very good, and actually really suspenseful for an animated film. It is definitely not for young children...probably kids over 10. So if you can find it playing in a theater it is worth spending the money on.

Sunday we were fortunate to have tickets to the Laker game. I was feeling pretty good, so The Husband and I headed up to LA. Unfortunately, we got a ticket on the way. We were a little lost and arguing about directions and I told The Husband to turn. To make the turn he had to quickly get over into the left hand lane and in doing that cut someone off on accident. Cop saw it and gave us a ticket. Sigh. I take the blame, unfortunately I cannot take the traffic school. At least the game was a blast and the Lakers won! WOO HOO! I even had a beer since I was completely off my medication (just taking IBUPROFEN on occasion). We also walked around the new Nokia Theater complex. Looks like it is going to be really neat when it is completed.
Another amazing thing happened while I was stuck inside, it seems like the economy finally made a turn for the better. Apparently all that needed to happen was for me to have my cysts removed! (Yes, I am totally taking credit for single handedly turning the economy around). I am knocking on every single thing I have that is wood, but we finally had some good news. Madoff is going to jail, the stock market rebounded a bit, retail sales did much better than economists had predicted and CitiGroup actually recorded profits. Hallelujah! I know that it will be a long long road to economic recovery, but my only hope is that we have reached the bottom. If we have reached the bottom I may actually stay employed and I am hoping I won't have to watch any more of my friends lose their jobs. My fingers are permanently crossed.

So, back to work and reality for me. I have my post op appointment next week, so hopefully I can get back to my normal activities then. (And get the heck off pelvic rest! he he)

Milk - My Pick for Best Picture of the Year (Spoilers)

Bear with me. This is going to be a long post and it is going to involve my soapbox, because Harvey Milk loved his soapbox and wanted us all to use ours.

First, the movie itself was phenomenal. I knew who Harvey Milk was, but not all the details of his story. The story is powerful, inspirational and heartbreaking. Sean Penn fully and completely became Harvey Milk in this film. The rest of the cast was also superb, including James Franco, Emile Hirsche and Josh Brolin. (And on a side note, this movie made me want to get back up to San Francisco). The love story between Milk and Scott Smith was also inspirational. Although tumultuous, their love for each other never ended, even when they were no longer together. The role of Scott was played amazingly well by James Franco.

The other person I fell in love with was Cleve Jones. Emile Hirsche did a great job in this role, I love the picture above of Emile with the real Cleve Jones. The most poignant scene of the whole movie came after his death, when tens of thousands of people marched to city hall, all carrying candles. The streets were FULL of people. This is where the tears started coming. I really appreciated that they showed us original footage of this march so we could see the enormity of the outpouring of love for Harvey. He was not just loved by the GLBT community, but by many groups in San Francisco because he was always championing the rights of the little people. I also really give a lot of credit to Josh Brolin for his portrayal of Dan White, the assassin of Harvey Milk and Mayor Moscone. It can't have been an easy role to take on, and he played it fabulously. It was understated, but you could really see the hate beginning to brew within him because he didn't receive the acclaim and power that Milk received.

Now for my soapbox. The parallels to what is happening today in the struggle for equal rights are obvious and abundant. Harvey Milk campaigned tirelessly for the end of discrimination and made huge strides in San Francisco, California and the United States. He inspired a generation of people to come out of the closet and embrace their identity. During Milk's service as Supervisor he had to fight a proposition aimed at taking away gay rights. Prop 6 was sponsored by an assemblyman from Orange County (shocker!) and was majorly funded my church groups, specifically evangelical Christians. (Sound familiar?). This prop would have taken away the right for an openly gay person or anyone that supported them to teach in public schools. It was basically a witch hunt bill. At first the bill was shown to win, but through Milk and thousands like him our state ended up voting no on that prop and many other anti-gay initiatives that followed. That is until Prop 22 passed banning gay marriage and now of course Prop 8, banning gay marriage in our constitution.

I am also disgusted that the story of Harvey Milk is not taught in public schools nationwide. His story is not just about gay rights, but about the struggle in this country for civil rights for all people. Leaving out the history of the first openly gay man elected to public office is inexcusable. There was a bill passed in our state legislature last year to create a Harvey Milk day where schools would teach about Milk and we could celebrate his life, but it was vetoed. The Evangelical/Mormon movement came out against it in full force, calling it a "Gay Day". Our Governor bowed under the pressure. Shame on him.

Why are we regressing? Why are we again listening to the hateful rants of a few religious people instead of overwhelming message of love? What this movie taught me is that we did not fight hard enough. When people forget history we are doomed to repeat it, and we did not remind people enough of the history of gay rights in this country. We didn't promote love and banish hate enough. I blame myself for not being more active. I could have given more money than I did. I could have passed out campaign literature. I could have attended rallies. My small monetary donations and painting No on 8 on my car were not nearly enough, and I know that now. If the current lawsuits do not overturn Prop 8 you can bet your life that I will be campaigning long and hard to overturn this amendment during the next election. Harvey Milk was and is an inspiration to all people, not just GLBT Americans. He taught us that you have to fight for Civil Rights and that the fight is worth it. He taught us that love always wins over hate and that all people really truly are created equal.

Last night at the Oscar's, a young openly gay Dustin Lance Black won for best Original Screenplay and his speech made me tear up. The producers, director, Sean Penn and Black all wore white knots symbolizing the struggle for gay rights. I loved that he said:

"When I was 13 years old, my beautiful mother and my father moved me from a
conservative Mormon home in San Antonio, Texas, to California, and I heard the
story of Harvey Milk. And it gave me hope. It gave me the hope to live my life;
it gave me the hope that one day I could live my life openly as who I am and
that maybe even I could fall in love and one day get married. . . .
Most of all, if Harvey had not been taken from us 30 years ago, I think he’d want me to say to all of the gay and lesbian kids out there tonight who have been told they
are less than by their churches, or by the government, or by their families,
that you are beautiful, wonderful creatures of value. And that no matter what
everyone tells you, God does love you, and that very soon, I promise you, you
will have equal rights federally across this great nation of ours."

And of course Sean Penn won for His amazing acting job. Those "commie homo loving sons of guns" did the right thing and gave the most deserving man the Oscar. Penn joked that it is not always easy to appreciate him, which is true LOL I think he has a huge heart and sometimes his good intentions are a little, well, over the top and actually have the opposite effect. His speech last night hit the perfect note though, and I am very very happy about his win.

I think Harvey Milk would have been proud and ready to continue fight for marriage equality and equal rights in this country. And I truly believe that in my lifetime gay marriage will be legal in all 50 states.

A Weekend Getaway

Last weekend The Husband and I decided to splurge on a quick one night trip down to San Diego to celebrate Valentine's Day and our tax return. We are so lucky to live so close to such great destinations.

So Sunday afternoon we made the hour and half long journey down to SD and arrived in the gaslamp district. We had never stayed in this area before (we usually stay in the Mission Bay area), so it was a new experience. I found a great deal on Hotels.com for a small boutique hotel called The Ivy. Let me just say this hotel was AWESOME. The location was perfect, service great, and the rooms/views were fantastic. The room had a huge bathtub and shower, a great view with 2 huge windows with window seats, a good size flat screen TV and a great mini-bar. The rooms were small, but we knew that when we booked a boutique hotel. The only complaint we had was that the toilet started making random noises in the middle of the night and the nightclub across the street apparently had some issues since the police were there in for at about 1:30am. This of course wasn't the hotels fault, but it did wake up The Husband.

When we booked the room we also received a $25 credit to the restaurant that they have on site, The Quarter Kitchen, so we decided to have dinner there. The food was excellent! The Husband had the Rack of Lamb, which came with Ratatouille (we were really excited about that being huge Disney nerds), and I had garlic cream of spinach and macaroni and cheese which was to die for. I would highly recommend this restaurant even if you are not staying at the Ivy. It was on the pricey side, but not over the top.

After dinner we walked around and explored the gaslamp district, stopping briefly at TGI Fridays to have a drink. The whole area is really fun, full of little shops, pubs and bars. There is also Horton Plaza, which is huge! We spent a little time there as well.


After returning to our room we discovered that the bar across the street had a mechanical bull that we could see from our wonderful window seats. We sent probably way too much time watching drunk people try and stay on that thing, but it was hilarious.

Monday morning it was pouring, so we decided to head home in the morning. It was a great trip and a much needed escape from reality.

A Weekend of Movies and Family

The husband and I had a great, full weekend. My Aunt, Uncle and cousins were in town from Reno, NV. and we were able to spend some great quality time with them. We had a great family game night at my parents house on Friday night with pizza, Wii and Scategories. My family always has a blast when we get together, and Friday night was no exception. We are all officially addicted to Raving Rabbids TV Party on the Wii, that game is a BLAST. I highly recommend it.Saturday was rainy and gloomy, so we decided to see a movie with my family. The kids wanted to see Paul Blart: Mall Cop so we tagged along. The movie was actually better than I had expected. I think I was still twitching from the awfulness that was I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry and wasn't ready to see Kevin James in another movie. I wouldn't actually recommend you go and spend money to see this movie, but it might be fun for a brainless rental. The kids all loved it. (By kids I mean 14 and 16 LOL)

We then went to a fabulous dinner at The Cheesecake Factory. Its one of my favorite restaurants and I scarfed down a cheese quesidilla and a side salad. YUM.

Sunday was a day of laundry, grocery shopping and cleaning. We did manage to find a few hours to go and see The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. I will be honest, I wasn't very excited by this movie. I wanted to see it because it was nominated, but I wasn't enthusiastic about it. I was pleasantly surprised. This movie was actually fabulous! I didn't like it more than Slumdog Millionaire, but I really really liked it. The acting was good but the real stars were the special effects. I cannot believe how realistic the aging process was. Both Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett looked amazing as they grew younger and older, respectively. It did remind me quite a bit of Forrest Gump and I could tell that the two movies shared a screenwriter, but it didn't bother me as the story itself was so original. I think this is one worth seeing on the big screen because of the special effects, sets and overall feel.

The only snag in the perfect weekend was a flat tire on the husband's car. Sigh. Not sure if it was just something he ran over or if it was intentional. We have Obama stickers on our cars, so I can never quite get it out of my mind that someone was pissed off about it and slashed his tire. At least it was a tire that needed to be replaced anyway!

LOST is back!

The LOST addicts of this world have been waiting for almost 8 months for a new episode. EIGHT MONTHS! I think that is a new form of torture.

Wednesday night we finally got 2 new episodes, "Because You Left" and "The Lie". They were awesome! I am not going to post any spoilers, but lets just say that this could be the best season of LOST yet. We might actually get some answers to our questions and tie up some loose ends. Watching Sawyer walk around with no shirt on for most of both episodes certainly didn't hurt the episodes, either :)

If you have never had the pleasure of watching this show, I would highly recommend picking up Season 1 and starting up. But be warned...you may end up addicted. With that addiction comes the chance you will watch the entire first season in one week, meaning little sleep and crazy looks from anyone that you share this information with.