OakMonster's Den

When our beloved excuse themselves to disappear into their video games, we call that being a [insert game name here] Widow. For example, I was an World of Warcraft Widow, an EverQuest widow, and most recently a Fallen Earth and Fall Out Widow.

Now, the table is being turned around.  I’m making a widower out of Brandon for the next few months.

As in, a Italian Class Widower…

Nora and I are taking Italian lessons together in Irvine on Saturday mornings, starting this weekend on through January.

A USC Football Widower…

If you’ve read my blog long enough, you’d know that Brandon is not allowed to watch any USC game.  Not that he would to begin with, the boy’s no sports fan.  But anytime he actually sat down to watch, even a few minutes, it all went to hell.  It was entirely my fault to have him and his friend sat down to eat dinner and watch the USC-Texas game a few years ago.

A Thrill the World Widower…

It wasn’t supposed to be as big of an event this year with Thrill the World. But then Michael Jackson died.  So now we’re in 120% go for this year’s event.  I’m still leading the PR/Publicity campaign. And now also a dance instructor.  Oh crap, I have to freshen up!

A Big Gala Widower…

Oh yes. The giant work event. A lot of pressure to raise money in this economy. A lot is at stake for the people we serve and for, well, the wellbeing of our non-profit.

And finally, A Thanksgiving Widower…

I’m heading home to Thailand for Thanksgiving for a quick week.

On top of all of this, I have 3 blogs of mine, a Tweet Up social life, and, oh yeah, the monthly cooking challenge.

Thank GOD we are putting long camping trips on hold until spring.  With my Italian classes, we couldn’t go far. And with my crazy schedule, I won’t have time to train. I guess the timing works out.

However, the Mister has scheduled us some together time of date nights, our monthly massages at Massage Evny, and game nights.  Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 just came in the mail.  /rubs hands together…heeheeheehee…

Am I nuts do be doing all this stuff? Perhaps.

But am I having fun with all the madness? Oh fuck yeah.

This will be one of those years I’ll never forget.

But first, a shout out.

Gregg, HAPPY FATHER’S DAY!

Now. The coverage.

David brought wings from Hooters. I brought pasty pies from Pasty Kitchen. Gregg provided alcohol.

This past Friday, the Hooters & Pasties was born.

(Thank GOD, nobody taped me channeling Thom Yorke and Eddy Veddar…)

Proceed at your own risk of hearing loss.

The second session contains some truly frightening vocal performance. However, hilarity factor is REALLY high.

A lot has happened since last weekend. But most of them captured in photos.

First, last Saturday we had the photography meet up in Lancaster with #Phototwop (@captures) for the Poppy Reserve hike and the Poppy festival.  Unfortunately, we were much too late for the poppies except for a few patches on the side of the road.  We still had a great picnic and a maniacal hike up a VERY windy hill.

The next day, Brandon and I and his friends hit the Renaissance Faire as civilians.  Armed with our cameras, we got our Ren Faire photo bugs out of our system.  So when we returned this past Saturday all dressed up we didn’t have to fumble with the damn things.

The Civilian visit, we went with 3 people.  The Dressed Up visit, it was a huge group with Aurora, Justin, Olaina, Wyatt & Eli (@phraktyl & @phraklet), Annette (@dananner) and her two kids and a friend, AND Amy & Pete and the twins.  We had lunch together before dispersing through the Faire at our own pace.  Olaina was kind enough to take our pictures for the day.  (I think Annette has some too.)

And yes, after 4 years at the Faire, I finally figured out how to not get sick of dehydration the day after.  One mead, one water is the winning formula!  So yes, I consumed quite a bit of mead in the past week.

And somewhere in the middle there, I went to my final cooking class (which I will add to the series soon), had dinner with a couple of newly engaged friends, and hung out with Justin & Olaina.

The busy continues starting tonight with a drag show fundraiser for my friend Greg, office potluck tomorrow, one more cooking class (not part of the original series) on Wednesday, and then spacers being put in my teeth on Thursday followed by midnight show of Star Trek.

Fun!

Oh yeah. Friday was a HELL of a day.

It actually started Thursday night.

Thursday night

We had dinner and sampled ridiculous variety of beer with Paul and Lupe at Beachwood Barbecue. I finally had my Mac and Cheese, the BEST I’ve had and lord knows  how many sips of whats I had.  Nice and buzzed, I got home to a monstrous task of trying to watch most DVR’ed shows as I can before we get the box replaced on Friday.  And what a week to have the DVR taken away too!  Since I haven’t been home all week, Brandon practically didn’t even turn on the TV.  Everything we usually watched remain untouched all week.  I was up until 1 a.m. trying to catch up.  I got to watch the rest of House, Heroes, Lost and 2 sections of Castle before I crawled to bed.

Frakkin’ Friday

8:30 – Left the house for doctor’s office on Spring and Palo Verde in Long Beach.  Brandon was up starting to do some transfer of a week’s worth DVR’ed stuff before the cable guy gets in to replace the box.   He managed to grab NCIS, The Mentalist (Rigsby kissing the Red Head under hypnosis…AWESOME!!), and most of Top Gear Vietnam episode.

8:45 – Poked and prodded and got 2 huge tubes of blood drawn.

9:45 – Left doctor’s office. Stopped at Nick’s in Los Alamitos to pick up breakfast on the way home.

10:15 – Ran out to optometrist appointment over by the traffic circle in Long Beach.

10:30 – Air puffed into eyeballs and all that fun. Made appointment for eye dilation test and further investigation to see if I could be a candidate for laser eye surgery.

11:45 – Arrived early to Underground Salon on Stearns and Bellflower.  Brandon decided on purchasing the Samsung Omni, so I’d meet up with him at the Verizon store at 1. Kicked myself for not having thought of this before CA sales tax went up.

New hair cut

12:00 – It was decided. I was getting side-swept bang.  My stylist Shua is awesome and has fantastic sleeves.  It was kind of surreal when a blurry Elvis on her bicep was staring at me in the face.

12:45 – Walked into the Verizon store on Bellflower and Spring with 4 inches less of hair and a side-swept bang.

1:45 – Leaving Brandon alone at the Verizon store to wrap up the transfer to the Omni (with pink silicon case for me!)  to run to the dental appointment over on Paramount and Del Amo.

2:00 – Getting minor cavities fixed.

2:45 – Heading home to meet up with Brandon to go to the next appointment.

3:45 – Arrived at the next appointment at Pine and Ocean.

7:45 – Got back home.

8:00 – Wiped out.  Heard poor Wyatt was the only one at the Long Beach Tweet Up.  And we had to flake out on the pub crawl because we were too damn tired.

8:30 – Crawled into bed.

Saturday morning

…it continued.

9:00 – AIDS Ride benefit breakfast for our friend Greg at Rick & Brian’s Cafe on Redondo with James, Aurora, Lee and Dresden.

Behold, the cuteness.

11:00 – Grocery shopping. FINALLY! After weeks of not having anything in the fridge.

12:00 – Back at James & Aurora for Dresden’s delayed 1st birthday party.

4:30 – Left the party. Took a nap. Worked on some stuff.

7:30 – Left to Celeste’s birthday party.

11:00 – Crawled into bed.

Sunday

…we just hid from the world, getting ready for Monday.  Can you blame us?

Hi there.

I haven’t been home in the evening since Monday. And the trend is not stopping.  Sorry for the pauses in posting.

Monday night I was at Face2Face: Elton John and Billy Joel concert.  I treated James, my fellow piano man, to this as his belated birthday and early Christmas presents.  We enjoyed ourselves tremendously.  Billy Joel rocked my socks off and Elton John wowed me silly.  I got a few horrible cell phone video clips I’ll post later.

Yesterday, our former colleague Erin returned to the office to temp for a week while she’s on break from school.  I talked her into joining me for dinner with my social media friend Jeff (@jeff419) at Shiki (Dear GOD the sashimi plates were HUGE!), and then to learn about social media and branding at the Social Media Club LA event.  We had a great time with Jeff and at the SMCLA.  Much fun to watch the debate between the traditional branding ideas and the new social media way of thinking.

Seriously, I thought we were going to have a full out cage match out there at some point with between Rob Frankel (@brandingexpert) the Branding Expert and Babette Pepaj of BakeSpace (@bakespace).  Good points from both side though.  Read all about #smcla here.

Tonight, I have yoga.

Tomorrow, Brandon and I had something to do.

Friday, it’s Tweet Up Long Beach at Roscoe’s.  (At least the whole day is being taken off for various medical appointment.)

Saturday, more appointment and a birthday party.

Yeah. I’m busy.

St. Patty’s was a hit both at work and at home.  A great turn out at the office with everything from cookies to green deviled eggs.  9 people showed up at my doors for the Guinness Stew and a little bit of drinking.  The old gang hung out well with my new friends from Tweet Up, Annette @dananner and Wyatt @phraktyl.

A lesson we learned?  Don’t ever give Phraklet, Phraktyl’s son, a Mountain Dew. Ever. Again.  LOL.

I didn’t drink all that much at St. Patty’s.  Just an Irish Car Bomb I did with Annette and Wyatt and a couple more sips of Limoncello with Lee.  Everyone respectfully headed out at 10 p.m. sharp and since we were cleaning up as we go, we went to bed soon after that.

So, when I rolled out of bed at 5 a.m. the next day, it wasn’t that painful.  However, the Car Bomb and Limoncello still lingered in my system when I got to the meeting.  At 10 a.m., the hangover hit and I was dying for something nice and greasy for lunch.

I found that in the fresh cut fries at Rowdy Red in Downtown LA.  The black & blue burger was pale compared to that.  And it was that the lovely greasiness held me over for the next couple of hours before heading home.

As it turned out, the OC Register tweet led me to an article about President Obama’s arrival in Long Beach and how it might affect traffic that afternoon.  So I left work at 2 p.m. as to avoid any kind of traffic mayhem down there at 3 p.m.

By the time I settled in at home and got to open the windows, it was a few minutes before 3.  I spotted an airliner flying over Seal Beach.  How odd, I thought, I’ve never seen a jet going…WAIT A SECOND!

I ran and grab Brandon’s camera with super zoom lense.  It was really hard to focus past the screen, but I did caught a full glimpse of the Air Force One coming in to land.

Wow.  WOW!

Once AF1 was out of sight, I turned on the TV to confirm that it was what I just saw.  A few minutes later,  footage of the plane “parking” on TV.  Then the President stepping off…and whisked away into…Marine One.

Marine One?!?  Not a motorcade?!?

LOL.  I’m sure my boss is happy about that news.

Finally, I got to my nap.  A couple of hours I woke up to greet Brandon and headed out to yoga.

Good gosh. It’s been a crazy couple of days.

P.S. I’m going to start tagging the blog now.  Just FYI.