Steve and I are now officially married. After a trip down to the Los Angeles Hall of Records in Norwalk, where Marty (our officiant) and I waited...in lines, at windows and on the Group W bench, I now have the paperwork to prove it.

In our first line (green line) of the morning, we were behind a woman who was clearly a Meth addict. Her story, which she told us loudly and at breakneck speed, was that the safe that she had kept all of her important papers in had been stolen right out of her house, so she needed to replace everything. I was fascinated by the ring of open lesions around her mouth and just how much energy she had so early in the morning. She looked like not too long ago, she was somebody's mom in a lower middle class suburb, perhaps in her early 40's. I didn't get a gander at her teeth, but they made Marty roll his eyes upon discussion later, while we waited in line at Window B.

I wonder what she would have done if I had flat out asked her, "Are you on Meth?" I'm guessing that question isn't very polite. You don't just ask strangers, "So, do you like cocaine? Smoke the wacky tabacky?" unless you are going to offer some up to them. She was just blurping out all of this personal information, that I think she would have just rambled on about the wonders of meth for at least 30 seconds before her brain could have caught up to her mouth. Maybe the key would have been to flatter her. "You have so much energy this morning! That's so great! I had to get up so early to get here I didn't even get coffee. What's your secret?" Would she have just spun a bullshit tale of exercise and vitamins?

We rewarded ourselves with a side trip across the street to the Norwalk City Library, which is quite impressive. It is built in the very modern style of the early 1960's. It reminds one of the promise of the space program, the Johnson Administration and reform synagogues. Inside, they had a display of models of missions made by local schoolchildren. My favorite was the one that incorporated uncooked lasagna noodles painted red as the tile roof of the mission.

Having a great Thanksgiving weekend so far. It is as if the planets are aligned for the weekend, or perhaps we have suffered enough for a while and the universe sees fit to give us just a little break from the shitstorm of life.

All the food I made came out great and I managed to get it done in plenty of time to not feel rushed in the morning. I broke out my new 11 cup Cuisinart and used it for the first time. OMG. I hate to get all crazy about a product, but this is another one of those items that is worth the hype. I have had some kind of food processor/chopper thingy for all of my adult life, but nothing has worked like this thing. Fast, powerful, and everything was chopped to uniform size. In four seconds. It made the lights dim, it sucked so much power.

I had a funny star sighting on Wednesday while shopping for food in Silverlake. I was in line right behind Booger at the supermarket, then as I was pulling out of my excellent street parking spot on Hyperion, Booger and his dad were the lucky ones to snag it.

The gathering at the Thran's was the biggest so far and super fun. Marty wrote more about it on his blog and posted a cool group photo.

Friday afternoon we went with beloved nephew Finn, Carolyn and Betty to the Natural History Museum here in LA. Finn is crazy about dinosaurs, and we like to facilitate the use of words like Pteradon and exoskeleton by 4 year olds in conversation.

Later today, I will be witness to the Hollywood Christmas parade. Steve and I got into a deep philosophical discussion about parades. Here is my viewpoint. Check his blog for the counterpoint.

I love parades, of all kinds. Small town patriotic holiday, Gay Pride, Rosebowl, bring 'em on. It is an ancient form of entertainment and pagentry, and represent a good time. You can be drunk or retarded and still enjoy it. I love marching bands, especially the brass section. You can only truly enjoy that blaring brass outside. All the bands, from the small town junior high to the high steppin' southern black university band have somethng to offer, and if they suck, they'll be moving on in 2 minutes. Floats are always cool, and I love the ecclectic marching teams. I saw a syncronized shopping cart team dressed as Christmas trees in the Macy's parade this year, and they have some sort of briefcased business man drill team in the Pasadena Doo-Dah parade, which I once again missed. It's goofy fun, and a chance to get dressed up in costumes or sit in a lawn chair and drink cocktails out of a thermos.

Steve has decided to join us this afternoon, but he is not allowed to impede our enjoyment.

First, an Ernest update. Took him to the vet yesterday afternoon, and he had the same poop shoot problem he has had in the past, but managed to hide it longer so it got very infected. He's now doing a round of antibiotics and doing just fine. The vet does want me to finally "do the bloodwork" I have been putting off. The one that will finally tell us all the hidden old kitty ailments he may be suffering from, and decide what to do about it. Happy Holidays!

Somewhat amusing and frustrating Mom story. So my mother finally took a trip down to my Aunt Anna's house for a couple of weeks, and has been calling me from her house, but not leaving the phone number. My aunt has lived in the same house for 45 years, but I've never been that close to her. I have the address, but not the phone number. My mom has had it memorized for so long, I'm sure when she think of it, the first 2 digits are letters, like NP4-7890. My aunt has been a widow since the early 60's, and has always had an unlisted number, you know, for protection from strangers. Strangers with phone books. In her mind, everybody she knows she has known for long enough they have the number, and she certainly doesn't need to know anybody new at this age!

So these two old biddies have been leaving me increasingly agitated voice mail messages asking me to call them back. It's almost funny. They think they've hung up, and still keep talking to each other. "Will she call us tonight?" "She didn't say. She wasn't there."

I have changed our outgoing phone message for the weekend to implore them to leave the phone number. But will they? Most people I know would be grateful not to have to talk to them. I would actually like to.

The Swan Song is at hand...

I think Ernest the Cat is finally dying. He's acting a bit strange this morning. He's got that staring off into space thing going on, and I just watched him take an eternity to lay down. Maybe it's just the cool morning, but it seems like something more. Will he make to New Year's?

I think I will have him cremated. I had a roommate for a semester in college who had an entire not so little shrine by her bed for her departed dog, complete with a little metal box containing the ashes, his blanket, photos, and toys. It seemed odd at the time. Really, she was a bit weird about it. In addition, she could only eat with plastic utensils because she could "taste the metal." To me at 21, this all came across as a bit affected and strange. I was glad Wendy had to share a room with her and not me. I lucked out with a single for an entire month, until the "problem student" had to be moved from whatever quad she had been in to our apartment. I ended up sharing a room with a tiny little gymnast who literally looked like a troll doll. Cute, but with a tan, squishy face and a shock of hair that stood on end. Her boyfriend, whom she gave BJ's to while he drove them around Boston (Hello! TMI...I said TMI!!!!!!!) would actually call her Troll Doll. We would then have to say, "No!!! You don't look like a troll doll at all! He's just teasing you!" But she did.

All because I wouldn't share a room with the pretty, quiet blond girl with the Dog Shrine a foot from her head when she slept.

15 years later, I'm contemplating little metal boxes to store the ashes of my ancient cat. We have also talked about a Viking Funeral at the beach for Ernest, but didn't think we could get the fire hot enough to truly cremate him, instead of just roasting his carcass. Perhaps we will go up to the beach in Malibu or Ventura and scatter his ashes.

I just bought a new bag of cat food. I usually buy the giant 18 pound bag that last for months. They only had the 8 pound bag in stock. Prophetic? We shall see.

Check out this new Beck video for his song, Hell Yes. Oooh! Dancing toy robots!

The video is totally cool. I wonder how many times one of the robots fell over by mistake and ruined the take.

You think we had a DIY wedding? Check out this entirely knitted wedding.

Earlier this year, Steve and I got way into watching this season's Project Greenlight. This time around it centered around a horror movie called "Feast." We really liked the director they chose, John Gulager. He is a relatively older guy, driving a beater and living in Silverlake. He had been doing his own movies on the cheap for 20 years, so he thought the budget was gigantic. Of course, turns out, he had a hard time managing a larger crew, dealing with pushy "Hollywood" types, and staying on a 10 day shooting schedule which didn't allow for the creativity that got him the job in the first place. All of which made for great teevee. If they had picked the little 25 year old USC grad, he would have rolled over and done everything right, but that would have made for a boring Greenlight series.

The season ended with the movie finishing and getting such good freedback, the studio gave them more money and time to make it even better. We never got to see the finished product, and then it Went Away, never to be heard of again.

In the past week, I have had two Project Greenlight "Feast" encounters, and I'm here to report in. Last week, Lisa and I were having lunch at the (duck your head, Name Dropping) Kings Road Cafe which is next to the good fabric store. The two writers and one of the two producers walked right past us. "Hey! You're the Project Greenlight guys! Where's the movie? We loved the show!" They joked that we were the only ones who watched it, and said the movie was doing the festival circuit right now. Yesterday, Mike at Chiodo's was wearing a "Feast" stunt guy t-shirt. He said he had worked on the movie, and that he'd heard a theatrical release of March.

I'm killing time on the computer waiting for the Gas Company to come light the pilot in the furnace thingy. So far, I have devoted 7 hours and two mornings to this project. The irony of it all is that we are expecting a heat wave over the weekend. It will be in the high 80's this weekend and early next week. It's chilly enough at night so that we have been watching teevee curled up in blankets. I know, boo hoo. But the house is made of balsa wood and stucco, with no insulation in the walls.

Here's an interesting link for you to enjoy. The Tin foil hats do not work, and MIT has proven it.

BTW, the old abandoned house next door is on the market for $545,000. For that price, you are basically getting the lot, because you will have to tear down the house and the garage behind it. You might be able to kick out the rats and squirrels, but the termites, mold and water have done their damage. It's in the really great "up and coming" Echo Park neighborhood, if you'd like to live next door to us. I wish we could buy the lot and put up this:

check this pre-fab house out

I just finished a week of costume work on a pilot for my friend Lisa as her assistant. It was good to just be the worker bee for a week. The project is called "Saul of the Mole Men," and it is a pilot for Adult Swim on Cartoon Network. The crazy part is that it's actually live action, considering it's for the Cartoon Network. It is a homage to all of those Sid and Marty Krofft shows, in particular Land of the Lost. We had a great time with it. A lot of the people involved had worked on Crank Yankers, so it was nice to see those folks again.

Name that 70's kid show cliche, it was crammed into this 15 minute show. Rock band? Little people in various costumes? Chase sequence? Trippy puppets? Space? Prehistoric earth? Catchy theme music? Spirit of '76? Got it, got it, got it. The only things missing were a talking dog and a groovy van.

The talent involved was super funny. One guy plays most of the lead roles. His name is Josh Gardner, and he's a writer on Mad TV. Cracked the crew up all day. Another guy, Gary, we just saw in a musical improv show of Marty Barrett's and does voices on the new Boondock's cartoon. One of his characters doesn't even have his face on camera, just his torso, but he still made hanging up the phone a brilliant bit. The big ticket player for me was this super nerdy guy, Dana. He plays a super nerdy NASA guy on this show, and they also had him as a terrible backup dancer. In costume, he looked like Hair Bear. Hilarious as everyone else, though.

Turns out, Dana is Master Shake. From Aquateen. I had a total goofball fan meltdown. I don't think Voiceover guys get recognized too much, so he was flattered enough to agree to leave a funny phone message for Steve.

I don't usually get all jazzed up about working on pilots. It's work for a week on a project to be tolerated thru and then forgotten about as soon as the check clears. It was nice to be on something fun for a change. The only downside? Not union, and though more $$ than I would have made on unemployment, it will average out to less than half my rate. Sometimes, you just take those projects anyway, because good things come from them.

I went with Angela to Ross yesterday, in her 'hood, the dreaded Westside. I managed to get into an altercation with an old woman, who angrily and repeatedly told me she had just gotten out of the hospital. I had walked too close into her personal space, you see, and an "excuse me, sorry" would not suffice. Finally, I said to her, "you should wear a sign then" and she yelled, "Fuck you! You are rude!" at me. If you don't want anyone to bump into you, (which I didn't) don't go shopping at the Ross on National at noon on a Saturday. Or you could use a cane, which indicates to the public at large that you have some sort of medical problem. That's what the old lady who cut in front of a checkout line of 20 people was doing. She "only had one thing" and just pushed her way into the line. But you know what? She had a cane, and people cut her a little slack! I was way back at #11. I don't know if I would have let her in...perhaps only "back cuts", but I had steered clear of her in the aisle when I saw her before, hobbling around with her cane.

Aimlessly wandering around the shoe department may not have been a wise choice for Ex-Hospital Biddy. Angela pointed out that she probably doesn't have a job, and could have wandered around Ross on a Tuesday morning when it was less crowded. I know all the woman wanted from me was some kind of sympathy, some petting. But angrily lashing out at strangers is not going to solicit sympathy from them. I am not on your payroll, I'm not a nurse at the hospital and I'm not your daughter. I'm generally far kinder to strangers than I need to, but I don't have to be. She was wearing some kind of paisley sheet toga ensemble, so perhaps she did not have all her wits about her.

The Ross itself was having a bit of a problem. It resembled a Third World airport, minus the goats. They only had 2 1/2 working registers, and the poor ladies running the show seemed overwhelmed, but determined to get through it. They looked like all they wanted to do was kick everyone out and close the store for 15 minutes, so they could just solve the computer register problems in peace, but that was not happening. Instead, lines stretched to the back of the store, lines of folks with carts piled high and credit cards that would not scan.

But damn it, I was going to hunt and kill the Tommy Hilfiger kiltie wedge clogs in brown with the pink contrast stitching marked down to $15.99. Rebecca had them in red, and told me to get to Ross ASAP. She was right, and it was worth it.

Halloween Fun

Even though we got back that morning, Steve and I were determined to have a little Halloween fun, so we had a sceance after all. I picked up a Ouija board at Toys-R-Us and Carla and Andrew joined us in trying to get in touch the spirit world.
Earlier in the evening, we passed out so much candy to the local kids we had to run out and get another bag at the store. This neighborhood still has plenty of groups of kids with parents trailing behind, and it warmed our hearts. We put candles in the windows, had spooky music on the stereo and Steve threw together a scary robe outfit to pass out candy. I provided the "good cop" contrast so that the adults didn't think we were putting poison in the candy, and the real little ones didn't run from the porch. Ernest perched on his foot stool in the doorway posing with a skull, like a good black cat, providing ambiance that was not lost on the smallest children, as he was in their eye line. "Kitty!" they all said. The most popular costumes were princesses for girls and Spiderman for boys with ninjas a close second. The photo winners for our fridge art project were the devil girl with a matching outfit for her chihuahua and the little pair of mummies.

Andrew brought over a beautiful Cartman from South Park jack o'lantern, complete with chin wrinkles.

Our sceance results as follows. This house is not haunted. Ian's apartment is, but we couldn't get a straight answer about by a good or bad spirit. And Steve cheats at the Ouija board, throwing it all off. The spirit world did not take kindly to his quips, and abruptly said "good bye." After that, he had to resort to pushing the guide around while Carla and I had our eyes closed.

We are finally, finally home. We returned victoriously yesterday morning from Sibling Wedding #2 Epic October Journey, also known as Honeymoon Part Deux, The Search for Curly's Gold.

This time our travels took us to the Hawaiian island of Kaua'i. Everything great you have ever heard about Hawaii is absolutely true. I have no idea why I have never been before, and the only reason we even came home at all was for Ernest and Schmedly. We stayed at these adorable "old school" Hawaiian cottages called Koloa Landing Cottages in the village of Koloa, across the street from the beach. The whole island smells amazing, and it's lush, green beauty takes your breath away. Steve and I had an adventure vacation (at least for us) snorkelling and swimming every day, and doing things like a kayak river trip and Catamaran boat tour along the Na Pali coast. The rest of the family hit the island by Thursday and then the wedding festivities began.

We weren't staying at a resort, so we experienced a bit less sticker shock than the usual tourists. The best food deals on the island was the giant Shave Ice we got at Jo Jo's in Waimea for $2, and the bag of fruit and vegtables I bought at Banana Joe's roadside stand for a whopping $2.49. This bag included the most perfectly ripe star fruit I have ever had, and a small bunch of varietal bananas called Apple Bananas. we had a full kitchen at the cottage, and I shopped at the local Big Save every evening for fresh sushi and poke, which was a delicious sashimi fish salad.

The locals were the nicest people I have ever met it all my travels, and that is saying something, since I talk to everybody. I'm going to try and remember to have the Aloha Spirit back here in my regular life, and not let things get to me so much. I think that will last about three days or until I start my next job, but I can try!