Musings from the Beginning of 2011

2010 has come and gone (for my attempts at being a consistent blogger:). What have the beginning months of 2011 brought me?

- Another Sundance - 6 to be specific about it
- Another year of meeting amazing, cool, creative people that follow their dreams

- Lovely, lovely romantic fling with a longtime crush

- Getting to bring one of my best friends to experience the Festival with me. Angi's cheery outlook on life is wonderfully contagious. Last year I got to bring my mom and as a volunteer. I'm lucky.

- Hawaii! Probably another post on this so I can remember all the places I'd like to return to again.

- Grandpa McGee's sudden death at 93, and funeral in Missouri. Maybe another post when I'm ready to process it.

- SXSW - Love Austin, and that Festival, and the food.

- Oh, right, and I turned 34. Holy crap! Rang in year with good friends, good bubbly, and pretty happy about the whole thing.

Sundance Film Festival: Downtown and Dirty Shorts

I'm very excited about our upcoming event - Sundance Film Festival Presents: Downtown and Dirty Shorts. It's a screening of short films from filmmakers including James Franco (with Michael Shannon), Jody Hill (Observe & Report), David Gordon Green, Todd Rohal, etc. It's a screening, then a party on the roof of the theater. Great films, a great space and the price is right (free!). We wanted to reach out to our LA audiences, and have a little fun before Festival season really hits. Come!

Sundance Film Festival Presents: Downtown and Dirty Shorts
Friday, August 21st
Downtown Independent
251 S. Main Street
8PM - Screenings
10 PM - After party (on the rooftop!)
Midnight - After, after party (at 5 Star next door)

Crawfish & Cinespia

It is definitely summertime. Cullen threw a crawfish boil in his new house in Echo Park, which is beautiful. He flew in tons of crawfish from Louisiana and boiled them with corn, onions, artichokes and potatoes. It was amazing. I couldn’t stop eating the crawfish even after my lips started burning from all the Cajun seasoning…it was that good. I didn’t grow up eating crawfish - in my neck of the woods, we called them crawdads, and we would catch them in the creek for fun. Late May also marked the beginning of my absolute favorite summer activity - Cinespia (movies in Hollywood Forever Cemetery). The first film was Paul Newman’s Cool Hand Luke, which I’d never seen. The place was packed, and I’m looking forward to spending a lot of time at the cemetery this summer.:) BSE.

Beginning of BSE

My friend Whitney started using the phrase BSE "Best Summer Ever" a few months ago. One thing that's great about LA is that it's basically summer all year round. So, our BSE started mid-March. BSE started with us (Jennifer, Siobhan, Hollie and me) making it to the bowling finals (see above). It was a great season and we met a bunch of cool people. Unfortunately, our team name was "Don't Look at Our Mole While We Bowl" which Siobhan submitted as a joke. Obviously, no one knew what this meant, and our team name was mis-entered into the system as "Don't Look at My Moke", which even less people understood. This confusion may have worked in our favor, distracting the other teams and helping the Mokes land in the finals. While ultimately we choked under the pressure and lost to Cobra Kai in the first round, we were the only all-girl team to make it to the finals. Go Team Moke!

Green Thumbs

So, I have managed to keep my aloe vera and Christmas catcus plants alive, but they aren't exactly flourishing. The aloe vera plant on the bottom is Jessica's...because I am the meanest sister-in-law in the world! (hahaahahah -evil laughter). I'd love to figure out how to make my plants happy - maybe repotting them? Or separating them into two plants? Also, I've been dying for a salad garden, or even just tomatoes. I used to love grandma and grandpa's garden with all of the watermelons. Sigh. Is it fair to want to go off and do whatever crazy things you want, but for NOTHING at home to change at all? For it to always stay the exact same? Thank g-d my parents haven't turned my childhood bedroom into a homegym or something. And happy birthday this month to four of my dearest friends - Annie, Tate, Sherisse and Laura. Much love...I miss you...

More Easter Weekend

Baby gorilla!
Smiling hippo

Flamingos

World-famous panda

We went to the San Diego Zoo on Saturday. The best was the baby gorilla - so cute - and the pandas. There's big line that wraps around so everyone can see the panda eating bamboo. Apparently, there's a baby panda that likes to eat watermelon, but I didn't see it. We also saw people waiting in a huge line to feed giraffes, koala bears sleeping in trees and an elephent that held a stick in its trunk, so that it could scratch its legs. The San Diego Zoo is much better than Springfield's Exotic Animal Paradise, which mainly has llamas. It's also better than the Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago, but only slightly. And that's mainly b/c of the gorillas and pandas. The Lincoln Park Zoo is great b/c it's free; the San Diego Zoo is pretty expensive. Pandas are not cheap.

After the zoo, we met Jessica Heinz and Cedar out for Mexican food and then went to a dive bar with a REALLY LOUND band. We played beer pong and some guy offered me a one-day marriage certificate. I did not accept it.

Easter Sunday

Spent Easter Sunday in San Diego. We went hiking and Jessica made lamb, asparagus, scalloped potatoes. We drank mimosas and I made a fruit (peach, blackberry, blueberry) cobbler and Jess made homemade vanilla ice cream. Yum! I think my first attempt at a cobbler turned out pretty well. We also watched Clue and part of the U.S. Open. I like to think if you're going to skip church on Easter, Jesus would still approve of hiking with your family in Southern California. The coastline and the mountains are beautiful and it makes me more thankful than most sermans ever have in my lifetime.