OakMonster’s Den

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Originally uploaded by Oakmonster(TM).

I took a wine appreciation class at the Wine Country in Signal Hill last night. I was going to drive myself there but Brandon insisted that he drop me off and pick me up after.

And I was glad he did!

16 different wine to taste in the lesson, kids. And I actually held my own quite well for 15 of them.

It ended with a port. Delicious, lovely ruby port. Nectar of the gods.

That was tipped me over.

Just what I needed got get over hump day.

I LOVE Ren Faire.

Much fun and debauchery on Saturday. I mean, how can you not have debauchery when Greg M. is involved! We drank even before we left the house…you know where this is going, right?

I’ll put up the SLIDE show here later, but in the meantime, check out my Ren Faire flickr set.

I had 2.5 cups of mead. Would’ve been three but I didn’t drink the last one fast enough before we had to exit the Faire. Everyone else in our group other than Brandon surely had a LOT more than me.

Oh and we went to dinner in Seal Beach in our costumes (minus my headpiece because it hurt my head). Brandon protested a bit at first, but Greg and I were very persuasive. LOL.

Sunday, I ditched Nora (sorry girl!) and didn’t go to Patchwork arts fair as planned. I was beat. All the drinking and the axe throwing and arrow shooting and the heat and the sun didn’t allow me to want to do much else.

Other than going to see Iron Man.

I LOVE Iron Man. It was AWESOME! First 2008 movie I love so far. I am looking forward to Indiana Jones, The Dark Knight, and Hellboy this summer. Oh, and the Happening too.

And in sadness.

I still got to play with Athena this morning. Possibly the last. The girls are supposed to take her to the shelter by the time I get home tonight. No taker for our little girl. We really hope someone adopts her.

ETA: It breaks my heart that the girls had to dump Athena at Cal State Long Beach.  Apparently they have an effort to feed the feral  and the stray cats outside of their campus newspapers.  At least she will be fed.  Hopefully someone would try to make contact with our girl and at least she would have a few human playmates.  I hope.  I wish.  I pray.

It was good while it lasted.

Saturday at the El Dorado Nature Walk with the boys, Brandon and Erik.

We also got into a little bit of a public art project.

As I was coming home the past week, I noticed there were these flat, wooden stakes duct-taped to a few lamp posts along the road. I wondered what they were for so I asked Brandon when we drove by. The most logical explanation is that these were parts of political campaign signs. Folks just removed the paper part and not taking off the rest.

Brandon said jokingly, “Maybe somebody needs to protect themselves against vampires or something.”

Naturally, an art project was born: “Use in case of vampire attack”.

*

Today I went on with Nora to the Brewery Art Walk in Downtown LA. For those who are not familiar with the Brewery, it’s an art colony of over 500 artists, the largest live-work colony in the world. The Brewery is a 22-building complex on 23 acres, comprises a variety of structures, some dating back to 1888. This used to be the plant where they brewed Pabst. Twice a year, they open up their doors to the public, quite literally welcoming us to their homes.

And my god, how much I still would LOVE to live in a loft. And how much I would LOVE to really have space to CREATE without worrying about messing up my space. LOL.

Nora and I perused a lot of spaces with our main focus on photography. We didn’t have the energy to do them all, but we did what we can.

Afterward, since we parked right by it, Nora and I made a pit stop at the San Antonio Wineries. We walked out with some tasty sparkling white wine. Man, that place could totally be bad news for the wallets of a wayward alcoholic Asian and an adventurous wine drinking English-Irish. But we managed to escape with 2 and 1 bottle each respectively.

I put a little slide show for you here but I have all of my pictures over here.

Today was just like any other day. I parked my car in the parking lot behind my building. My spot is the closest one to the gate to the apartment, and I usually would be the 2nd or 3rd car in the lot when I get home. I got out, got my stuff out of the back seat, and walked around the car.

Athena was sitting in front of the gate. In the parking lot.

And no, she wasn’t there when I parked my car.

The cat has apparently learned to recognize the jingle jangle of my car keys. The same thing would happen in the morning. My key jangled, she would show up to say hi and walked me to my car. But this was the first time she crossed out of the gate.

Of course, as per the usual afternoon routine I have established with Athena this past week, I would run upstairs, kiss Brandon hello, grab a bag of kitty treats and head back down for some borrow kitty time. I’d spend a good 5-10 minutes down there talking to a “talkative” cat and feeding her a bit of treats.

Sometime Brandon would join me. Athena hasn’t quite warm up to him the way she does with me, but then again, I AM the one with the food.

This time, Brandon came armed with the camera. And with a bit of culinary persuasion, Athena finally got friendly with him, and actually found his legs to be the source of extra warmth she needs on these cold evenings.

Oh, only if that cat learns to come up our stairs. It would all be over for us. She would probably spend her night outside our door because the second floor is a LOT warmer than downstairs.

In any case, I am truly happy that Athena decides to keep us. I already see the calming effect she has on Brandon. We get the benefits of having a cat without actually having one. Athena gets the food and the love. We get to have a borrow cat.

Sweet deal for all.

Behold, the cuteness of the Cat That Is Not Ours But We Wish She Is.

Oh, and on that note, I started a new set on my Flickr called “Not our Cat(s)”.  Check it out. 

I clipped this cartoon out of the back of Real Simple magazine years ago by Monica Sheehan called “Be Happy”. (Now available as a book, among a few other of her books.) I had it framed back then and it was essentially buried deep into the pit of my den. Upon the recent discovery of the piece, I made copy and framed it for Olaina.

The frame is now sitting on my new desk; its twin sister on Olaina’s dresser and occasionally follows her around as she works. Since I am in support of Ms. Sheehan’s good work, I’m not going to reprint that piece here. But I am going to do my own interpretation: her words, my pictures. I hope this inspires you as much as it has for me.

ETA: OMGBBQ! The REAL Monica shows up here to leave a comment! I am truly honored. And thrilled!  It’s always an honor to have the people you speak of shows up to comment like last time.

(Yes, click on this little arrow here. I finally figured out that “jump” thing!)

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After a week of the baby watch, Dresden is finally here!

Brandon has just told me earlier that Aurora went into labor last night. I planned on calling James to say happy birthday anyway, so I gave him a ring. That was around 9:45.

“Hi, Oakley.”

“Happy birthday, James.”

“And guess whose birthday it is also?”

“Oh my god!”

“In fact, perfect timing.”

I heard a baby cry.

“OH MY GOD!”

“I gotta go.”

“Okay, bye.”

ETA: Dresden William “spawned” at 9:36 a.m. weighing in at 8 lbs. 3 oz. and 21.5 inches long with a head full of curly dark hair.

I may be the last person on the planet to realize this, but it just now occurred to me that Nemo is “omen” spelled backward.

Fun!

Since Erik has lost over 30 lbs. (so far), we can no longer call him Little Chris Farley.  So over the weekend, we went shopping with him at Kohl’s for new “skinny” pants.

Irony was not lost when we spot this lovely ensemble outside the men’s dressing room.

Yes. That is indeed a tuxedo for your belly with another set of red bow tie for your neck.  A dream in crush velvet.  Button fly, no less.

More disturbingly, we find THAT at a Kohl’s where families and old folks crossing in from Seal Beach Leisure World shop.

And even more disturbingly, there is this video.

…for…

Arrival of Peanut/Dresden. We have been on baby watch all weekend for Aurora and James’ first child. Or as James’ WoW gang would say, “We’re waiting for Dresden to spawn.” Apparently, Nan is on baby watch as well. Let’s see who’ll be here first!

Tuesday. Because Stargate SG-1 The Ark of Truth comes out on DVD. Now we can put the whole damn Ori crap to rest. AND hopefully give SG-1 a better sign-off than the stupid time traveling series finale.

March 19. The day I head to San Diego to hang with Olaina and Justin for 3 days. Hooray!

Summer. Because I just bought this dress at Target.

I HEART Jovovich-Hawk. Only if I can afford their regular collection too. Haha! I mean, I have been a fan since I heard of the line. Milla is my Goddess to begin with when it comes to being sexy without having any boobs. My mantra is, if Milla can wear THAT, so can I.

Now I have to figure out what I can top this off so it would be work appropriate.

April 19. Because that is when I find out if I win the local photography contest. I am submitting the following photos. Brandon decided that none of his is competition worthy this time around. Next year is a different story.

Memorial Day Weekend. Because we’re going to take a road trip to Red River, NM. The road trip we had to abandon because of last year’s Summer of Sorrow.

Me to finish organizing my office so I can actually sit in my chair and type this instead of kneeling on the floor, reaching up to the keyboard tray, and looking up at the screen. Why am I on the floor in such precarious position, you ask?

Well, I have been battling with the mess in my office for a while now, as you all know. Since I couldn’t locate our super old shredder anywhere, I went and bought a kick-ass confetti shredder so I can organize ALL of my files.

The problem is, I’m taking up all of the floor space in my office. The chair has to go away over there because there isn’t enough room to maneuver.

Oh, and here are what we bought for my “new office”. 90% of them Brandon put together.

But hey, my office is so much more efficient now. And all matchy-matchy with Ikea Birch! I will take a picture for you guys once I clean up all this mess.

Two images that capture the weekend:

This weekend flew by at warp speed. Well, as it should as I was on board the Enterprise. Hehe. I will put the picture of our group on the bridge of NC-1701-A…that’s the Kirk-Spock Enterprise to you…up as soon as I could clean all the specks off of my scan.

The Star Trek Tour was quite fun. The price is a little steep for the experience but yeah, it was really entertaining.

The group went to Gaffey Street Diner for a huge lunch. Then later on, Erik, Brandon, and I followed our inner 13-year-old’s lack of better sense and saw Meet the Spartans. It was exactly what you think it was going to be. It has its moments though. The pit of death was great. Could we have waited to rent this on DVD? Certainly. But, it was a fun escape.

Sunday morning, I went up to Mary Ann in Sierra Madre for my hair cut. It’s not really that far from my house on Sunday morning, really. And Mary Ann is worth driving to. She KNOWS my hair. And of course, the personal time you get to spend with a friend is always good.

And it’s not a Super Bowl unless we were at Brenda’s…now, Brenda and Jon’s. This is where I got a little happy with 3 pints of Jon’s home brews, two cider and one English Bitter. Had to sit around for another hour, somewhat watching House, before I could drive 2 miles home.

But need I say more about the Super Bowl? Holy schmoly! I was just there for the food, the beer, the ad and partly cheering for the underdog. (If the Trojans can’t have a perfect season, nobody else can!) But fo the last 2 minutes of that game, I suddenly became a die-hard Giants fan. LOL.

The weekend of activities set the tone for this week of work madness.

It’s like treading the field full of prairie dogs. You tip-toe out to work, and not two steps in, you fall into a hole. You dig yourself out of that hole and thought you are safe. Then you take two more steps and fall into another hole. That’s my work for the past 2 weeks. Lots and lots of holes to dig out off.