So, we get there and it’s closed. But not “hey, we’re closed for a private party” or “due to the economy, we’re now closed on Sundays”. Just… closed. The “dark, silent, not answering the phone” kind of closed. Very odd.  We decided to go to another place down the street in Little Italy called The Glass Door, which was at the top of the Porto Villa hotel.  Lovely little place, but still pretty new. Great view of the bay and sunset, but the martini glasses were those kind without the stem — just this big clunky chunky glass. It kind of takes away from the martini-drinking experience if you ask me, but the martini itself did that in spades. It was way too ‘dirty’ and mine had large bits of olive floating in it. I declared, “Mine’s got flotsam!” I don’t know if Richard was so lucky to get chunks in his drink. Daniel smartly ordered an appletini which was apparently good.

We decided to go over to Bing Crosby’s where the blue-hairs were hoppin’ last night!  It was wall-to-wall Geritol, but they were having so much fun it was more like American Bandstand. There was a guy playing Nat King Cole on the piano and singing when we came in. But then he kicked on a backup track and played along to My Heart Will Go On with a soprano sax. I swear, I thought my ear drums were going to burst from my ears. It was like a Kenny G singalong.

The man was talented, don’t get me wrong, but there was something really cruise-shippy about his whole schtick. After that he busted out an alto sax and played along to At Last. And then it was Robert Plant and the Honeydrippers version of Sea of Love.  Lots of Billy Joel and then came the Creedence Clearwater Revival.  :|  Seriously?

The place is called Bing Crosby’s, for pete’s sake. I don’t deny the man had chutzpah and clearly was a gifted musician, but it felt more like one of those dueling pianos places instead of a fine dining lounge.  But the crowd was salivating over him. Some old guy got up and rained dollars on the performer’s head at one point.  He was hocking his CD on top of the piano… it was just… surreal.

Of course, that didn’t stop us from joining in on the rousing chorus of “Sweet Caroline”.  We’re no fools.

A woman on the prowl sauntered up to our table at one point and asked, “Do you smoke?”  We all responded that no, we don’t.  She looked incredulous, “NONE of you smoke?”  When we shook our heads, she said, “Well, that’s uh… very good.” and walked away. She trolled every table, it seemed like. Then later, another older cougar-y type in a big fur coat stopped by our table to tell us to “have fun, kids”.   I’m telling you, the people-watching was ripe last night.

When we ordered our drinks, our server — a very perky, perky, perky woman I’ll call “Sunny” — informed us she was not only out of Grey Goose, but Kettle One, too.  Very strange, considering the lounge is known for it’s martinis. But whatever, we got Belvedere and moved on with our lives.  Then they ran out of blue cheese olives.  Now, I realize this may be one of the most pretentious statement on earth, but you can’t offer blue cheese olives and then run out. Every single time I’ve been in there, I get one drink with blue cheese olives and then they tell me they’ve run out.  You’d think if they always ran out, they’d plan accordingly.

I realize people are starving and there are holes in the ozone and gas prices are creeping up and it’s been like, a whole month since Lindsey Lohan did anything gossip-worthy, but if you’re going to offer fancy olives, don’t jerk a girl around.

One thing I’ve always been aware of, though, is that I snap. You heard it here first… unless you’ve ever danced in my vicinity.  And in that case, I can only hope whatever you heard was drowned out by the music.  Every so often, for no reason whatsoever, while dancing to upbeat music… I’ll snap.

I’m not talking about a “hey-girl-drag-queen-oh-no-she-di’int-3-in-a-Z”  kind of snap  or even the timeless ‘When you’re a Jet, you’re a Jet all the way” style.  This is just your garden-variety “I dance like a tool” sort of snap. I try not to call attention to it because whenever I do it, I immediately wonder if I dance like an old white dad.

I’m not a belly dancer. I don’t flamenco. There is absolutely no reason on this earth — other than the fact that I find freestyle dancing somewhat socially awkward and an act I do only after several somethings with rum in it — that I should snap.

You may be picturing some sort of Elaine Benes snap-kick-thumbjerk dance move, but I assure you it’s nothing so grotesque.  It’s usually just a passing movement, generally when my hands are “down low” and it’s totally involuntary.

It could be worse. There was that time I may or may not have walked like an Egyptian.

Clearly, I’m doing some housecleaning. In the meantime, enjoy this little video I made of Lulu’s first Christmas. The light was low, so the quality was iffy in some spots, but I think it lends a certain nostalgic charm.

Happy Christmas!

p.s. I’m also running all my feeds through Feedburner now. While I’ve switched platforms and will be redirecting my old link to the new link, in the meantime, it would be great if you could update your feed. Thanks!

Of course, no travel is complete without a little drama. As soon as I landed last night, I received a metric ton of emails from a client panicking because his site was displaying the Wordpress install screen.  I *just* finished his site and signed off completely on it yesterday. It was beautiful, perfect even. In fact, I was pretty impressed with myself!  That’ll teach me. I go away one day and the sky falls.

Normally, I don’t totally freak out about such things because that’s just the nature of the Internet. Things happen. You put in a support ticket and hash it out. But the poor client was at his wit’s end. He’s great, though, I really like the client… he’s just not jaded by the wonky workings of the Internet yet and is new to blogging so it sent him into a multi, multi, *multi* email tailspin.  I had to call Hostmonster and Troy, who is the most patient man on Earth, listened to me rant and carry on. I think there were tears at one point. I explained that I’d been up all night, that I’d been traveling for 7 hours and that I just got off a plane and asked him for forgive me my temporary psychosis.  He was so gracious about it. Kudos to you, Troy at Hostmonster. 

Anyway, Troy said he couldn’t help me technically because they don’t support Wordpress, but he said he would “take a peek”. I submitted an official ticket to support and told the client that what can be done is being done and that if nothing was resolved by this morning that I would call again.  Well, this morning I was greated with an email from the client that the site was back online, nothing was lost and hallelujah, I can stop drinking antacids.  Thank you, Hostmonster! (Seriously, I love Hosting Matters — we’ve hosted with them for years and years, but I must say that Hostmonster deserves epic accolades.)

Ok, Kathy is back from putting Reilly down for a nap and now we’re off to the movies to see Twilight.  I could go for some popcorn….

Anyway, I’ve been seeing a lot of these Leapfrog books advertised lately. I’m not really sure what I think about it. I’m not an education expert or a teacher or a children’s development specialist, so I don’t know how to measure scientifically the impact these books have on reading. But, and correct me if I’m wrong here, I kind of think if you drag a pen over the word and hear the word read to you, that ceases to be reading. I’d say that’s listening. 

I don’t entirely get it. Sure, it seems cool and fun and how exciting that the book talks!  I see the appeal.  I was a little old for them, but I had step-sisters, so I remember those books with the buttons down the side that added sound effects to your story. It’s not like the concept of sound in books is new or unusual. I’d go as far as fun. But, I don’t really see how dragging the pen over a word and hearing it said for you teaches you to read it, but maybe it does.  What happened to sounding things out? What about recognizing the letters and learning what sounds those letters make and what happens when you string them together?  Maybe I’m just old school.

I know people learn other languages that way. Rosetta Stone uses an visual/audio connection to teach you to speak a foreign language, so I suppose the same principle applies here.  Perhaps the combination of using both hearing and seeing helps solidify the information. I’ve always been more an auditory learner, was never one for much note-taking in school. I spent too much time writing things down and I’d miss the next thing the lecturer was saying, so I just paid attention unless it was imperative I take note.  So I can understand how hearing the words read would help drive the point home.

I guess I just wonder where the line is drawn between reading and storytime. Or maybe its teaching that reading is play… and I agree it can be. Reading is awesome and as a child, I was a voracious reader.  Adding the voices of the characters and hearing the story told for them robs the child of a piece of their imagination, part of the joys of reading.  The ability to create your own scenario when you read is part of the fun of it, not having it spoon fed to you in the voice of Jack Black.

I have mixed feelings. What do you think?

But, I refuse to give it up. I just can’t bring myself to do it.  Sure, I write a lot more on Yelp and Twitter lately and of course, sometimes on Moxie Design Studios, but this is my blog… so much of my current existence is wrapped up in blogs that not having one of my own would be like separating Linus from his blanket. Sure, I’ve changed the name twice, but I eventually came back to where I started.

Blogging is a weird thing… it’s changed so much and I think one’s expectations regarding blogging have changed. A lot of us have been blogging since ads were considered “sell-out”, when the idea of a fancy design was having some celebrity photo slapped in your banner, when people actually commented in order to get traffic and everyone (including myself) didn’t lurk via RSS feed.  Now, while progress is good and I’m on board with it, I get a little nostalgic for those times… when blogging didn’t feel so cliquey and I met some of the best people I’ve ever known.

I love blogging. I am a blogger. I cannot separate myself from that label, despite my recent waning of interest in writing about myself.  There’s a certain element of “people pleasing” that happens when you blog and while I’ve never been a balls-out, emotional blogger sharing intimate details, I do feel myself holding back sometimes, feeling the need to keep up “appearances”… though I’m not sure what appearances those would be. And because I find that’s disingenuous, I just choose to not blog at all.  I’d rather shoot my mouth off in 140 characters or less.

My focus has been work lately. I’m determined to stay on schedule if it kills me. I want to take the holidays off for once.  I want to bake things and go to parties and travel to see friends… so if that means I have to bust ass 12-14 hours a day to make that happen, so be it.  Next up!  4-day work weeks… but we’ll save that experiment for 2009.

I’m also working on some side projects that I’ve wanted to do for a long time… Put Down the Donut is one and finally it’s starting to take shape (and it’s so cute, if I do say so myself). I wish I’d never shut it down in 2005, but I think having it back will be good for me. It might inspire me to write more. Plus, I’m going to have a great ratings database for exercise DVDs and products, so that should keep my ass moving at the very least. Kathy’s been busy working on SafeMama and now Lovely Safemama (and loving it!), so it’ll be nice to have a side-project or two to keep me inspired.

I’m also starting another site called Lulubun which is still in the creative development stage, but will be a one-stop resource for stylish urban buns and their owners.  I had such preconceived notions about owning rabbits, for some reason.  I pictured big wooden hutches outside, bales of hay and poop akimbo.  But that’s really not the case.  Having a new bunny has really opened my eyes to how much fugly and/or poorly thought out stuff there is in the marketplace for rabbits and other small animals. House bunnies are so much cleaner than I thought they were, but the products DO make everyone look a little ‘country’.  What if that’s not your taste? Should you not benefit from having a house bun? They’re a great alternative if you’re allergic to cats and/or your landlord won’t let you have a dog, plus… well, just look at her.  Bunny!

Using a little ingenuity and design sense, there are ways to create an environment that isn’t an eyesore and is actually cute.  Just because you have a rabbit, there’s no reason to live like it’s a hoe-down, for pete’s sake.  I’m also working on design and manufacturing concepts for products that I feel that could be new to the pet market as well as improvements upon existing products.

I also feel that there’s so much misinformation online about rabbit care.  There’s a lot of great info, too, especially from the House Rabbit Society. But there’s a lot more out there, everyone has an opinion and not all of them are reliable.  I’m going to be interviewing my vet (and possibly others) about basic rabbit care, what to expect when you get your first bun, reading their behaviors and other stuff all in one pleasant place, like I wish I had when I was trying to figure it all out.  Yes you can find this information online, but sometimes it’s scattered, not clearly organized or just plain inaccurate.

I’m not sure how I got on that tangent.  But look, I blogged!

But I do it when I talk and I have no idea why. Is it because I sing? It’s not like I try. Should I have been a writer? I guess I already am. Should I have been a rapper?  I don’t have big enough pants.

Ok, that last one was a stretch.

But I guess I really do rhyme when I talk and now I can’t stop hearing it.  I have to acknowledge when I rhyme now… “I was rhyming.” like anyone else gives a shit.  But I guess people do, who knew? It’s not like I notice when others rhyme, it’s not my business. I don’t have the time.

See? Right then I wasn’t even trying.  *sigh*

I’ve also been consumed with bunny-rearing.  There have been many new developments since I last posted about Lulu.  Firstly, she wasn’t 8 weeks old when I got her from the breeder.  After having her 2 weeks, (so 10 weeks old by my count), I took her to the vet for a well-bunny check-up, to make sure she didn’t need any shots, confirm her age, weight and general health.  I found out that she likes to ride in the car (the vibrations put her to sleep), she doesn’t like the sound of parrots (my vet is an avian and exotic animal vet) and she was still under a pound in weight (she was weighed in a tupperware container!). 

The doctor checked her out and said she appeared to be healthy. I told him, somewhat ashamed, since I know how many rabbits need adopting out there, that I got Lulu from a breeder at the swap meet.  (This is something I’m also kind of embarrassed about, since seriously… what kind of naive doofus gets their bunny from the swap meet, no questions asked? What, am I eleven-years-old?) Anyway, the nurse and the doctor exchanged looks and I felt extra silly. But that didn’t stop them from cooing over her cuteness.

So I asked two questions:  1) what kind of rabbit is she? (The breeder told me a Netherland Dwarf, which only grow to 3 lbs or so.) and 2) how old is she really? (Because I just had this feeling about it…) Well, the vet openly laughed when I said the words “dwarf rabbit”.  He apologized, but said that it’s a “thing” with this guy at the swap meet.  I guess the breeder pulls the bunnies at 4-6 weeks (when 8 weeks is the minimum age to wean from a mama rabbit), then tells everyone they’re 8 week old dwarf bunnies because they’re so tiny.  The vet said he thought based on the size and weight of her, that Lulu was only 6-7 weeks old (a little over 7-8 weeks, as I type this).

Apparently this breeder also has been known to sell bunnies with intestinal parasites and the vet told me that they’ve even lost a couple of this guy’s bunnies (lost as in dead, muerto, bunny heaven), which didn’t do much for my new bunny owner anxiety.  So we ran some tests on her poop (which I delivered in a Ziploc bag… how glamorous! Where’s my Cosmo?) and she’s fortunately just fine.  He also said it was unlikely she’s a Netherland Dwarf.  There’s a chance she might be a dwarf mix of some kind, but he’s fairly certain she’s just a garden-variety bunny, of which there are many, many varieties. It won’t be until she’s older that we’ll be able to really tell.  So there’s that.

To say I was angry about the breeder is an understatement. I was furious, not for me (though a 6- or 7-pound rabbit isn’t what I had in mind), but for Lulu.  She should never have been taken from her mama rabbit so young. She didn’t have enough time to develop all the immunities she needs, which can be a cause of the parasites, the vet said.  It made me sad for her.  And I felt stupid and duped and naive and generally pissed off.

But, I love Lulu and I’m committed to her. I went to BunnyFest on Saturday and saw rabbits on leashes. Leashes! And they were loving the grass, hopping all around and investigating all the goings-on.  I didn’t take Lulu, she’s still too young yet, but next year I may. (I know, I can’t believe these words are coming out of my mouth either.)

She has, however, almost outgrown her little bunny condo. It won’t be long now… one more growth spurt and that’ll be Craigslisted.  I went out this weekend and got her a gate-like pet pen which will eventually become her new home.  Watching her run around and sprint and do hoppity bunny dances made me so happy, which was the weirdest thing. I was just so happy I could give her what she needed. Watching her try to run around and play in that cage was killing me. She needed more space… and now she has it.  I sacrificed my dining area, storing my World Market table and chairs under my bed and replacing it with a moderate eyesore, but she’s happy, so strangely, I am, too. It’s ain’t stylish, but it’s worth it.

And she hasn’t peed on my green bamboo mat from Thailand yet, so hey… there’s that, too.