The Daily Sabs

yesterday was the first day that i forgot the "daily" part of the dailysabs. i think i was just exhausted. it had been a lot of flying and walking and crying and flying, that when i woke up i just went into autopilot. unpack bags, do laundry (cry when laundry machine breaks down and you have to wring out clothes by hand), go to the optometrist, go to the dry cleaners, go grocery shopping, read two weeks worth of mail, make dinner (a delicious big game hen - aka size of small chicken - roasted with figs, garlic, and potatoes), watch some tv and then (my fave thing in the world) a pre-bed nap.

today is more of the same, chores (although all the laundry is apparently not going to get done) and more chores. if i'm feeling brave i'll start attempting the email cleanup.

in the meantime, to make up for my forgetfulness, here's some stuff to make you laugh (at me). first we have some natural history museum fun (i was going to post this earlier, but had to convert the file so booo on that), and then some ye olde college stuff that is popping up all over facebook. i can't believe i'm going to share these.

this morning samshrew texted to see what we were up to. since the only thing for the afternoon agenda was laundry, i told her that we had nothing planned. amazingly she also had nothing planned, so we decided to all meet up and go to the beach. that sushi dog entertained us for a while, but when we got bored we left and had joe's ice cream - for the record, root beer swirl ice cream is delicious.

speaking of delicious, after beach time, randall and i came home and got ready for an early 5:30 dinner seating at baumé in palo alto. tonight was the quarterly scheelbarrow dinner (aka pitstop) and we decided to go all out and order the 15-course tasting plus wine pairing. it wasn't the most amazing meal i'd ever had, but it was definitely worth it. while i've had bits of pieces of molecular gastronomy infused meals, i'd never had one where it was the focus. i can't remember the last time i had so much fun at fancy dinner (even if it initially felt weird, stuffy, and with colorful plates out of 1997. sure it's gimmicky, but it was a blast, and luckily for us the gimmick tasted great too. plus they get bonus points for bringing us an extra dish just for photos/videos (they wanted to make sure we all ate ours right away). if it wasn't for that we never would have proof of randall the magic dragon - it was better the first time he ate it, but its still awesome, see for yourself:

okay. if i didn't make it clear earlier, i just had a 15 course menu with a wine pairing. it's time for a nap before bedtime.

but first, some random photos from today:

I was sitting there minding my own business, and sort of enjoying the gray lowkey birthday, when all of a sudden i heard this loud horn. At first I thought it was a car from outside, when i realized it was too loud and besides, all the windows were closed. Then I thought that perhaps it was someone who had put their speakers on full blast. Then I realized it wasn't just a series of horn noises, it was actually the opening notes to Just a Gigalo, which as you might know is sort of my jam. So when the noise got closer, and a giant trumpet-playing chicken carrying balloons rounded the corner, i knew it was for me.

I don't embarass easy, but I am pretty sure I turned a nice shade of "have you been drinking wine?" red. Especially when he said it was time to do the chicken dance. I didn't think i was going to do it, but you know, there was a giant chicken, playing the chicken dance song, and a quickly amassed audience intrigued by the ridiculousness, and well, who am I to not oblige?

So I danced a chicken dance, hugged a chicken, received lots of weird gifts (really he had this homeless person mary poppins bag full of things like a rubber chicken, a jordache purse, stickers, plastic eggs, candy necklaces, and so on), and if that wasn't enough, the gals brought me treats too.

You see, the gals here are UNBELIEVEABLE. We've sort of made birthdays a big ta-do around here. And before the chicken arrived, I actually thought we were going to do just a nice lowkey thing with maybe cake at lunch. Which you know, would've been awesome, but they don't settle for just awesome. they go for BONKERS AMAZE. and they succeeded. In addition to the chicken, they also got a huge array of the desserts from the 7x7 must eat list. Now i can cross off 5 more things.

Like i said, these gals are the freaking best.

But, before I knew that there was a chicken, I had originally planned on sharing a little bit of vintage sabs with you. This is me at age 2. It's actually my 2nd birthday party and I'm surrounded by friends, family, a cake with candles, and yet that is the face I chose to make. It's like an immigrant child passport photo. I would like to point out a few things though (1) my head was always huge (2) my hair was always unkempt (3) my posture was always poor and (4) my dresses were even cooler back then.

Birthdays are weird you know, but so far, this one's been fun.

Oh and because i know you're waiting for it. Here's the chicken in action.
I know there were other videos, but this is the one i took while he arrived.

this evening my beginning improv class reached a graduation point, which meant we put on a show. it was a bit ridiculous. we'd only been practicing for five weeks, but it was fun. in fact it was way more fun than i anticipated, and not as painful as i thought it would be either. if you're wondering why i didn't remind you about the show, let's just say that i was worried it was going to be a flop.

but it wasn't. or at least it didn't feel like it. the folks that were there laughed, and for the most part it was a har har time. thanks for melissa, nicole, dk, and meegan who came out to point and mock. randall too, even if he did get in trouble for being on his iphone.

and for those of you who wish you were there, here you go. this is a wild lines game where we interact in a scene (in this case a funeral), but randomly have to say these lines we pull from our pockets. the lines are tweets our instructor put down for us, we had no idea what they were going to be.

there are a lot of reasons today's photo is late, but none of them are really worth going into.

tonight burger and i went to see jarvis cocker at the fillmore. while there we ran into chuckles, summer, blake, margaret, bean and his fiance stephanie. all of us aging britpoppers trying to keep the magic alive. the show itself was just so-so, i can't say i actually like anything but the cover of the new album, so it wasn't very captivating. the best part was actually the encore. probably because it featured an impromptu reading of bean and steph's wedding invitation, and a rendition of can't take my eyes off of you (see for yourself below!). and partly because it was just better.

ps. i just made a new rule, in a pinch, as long as the photo was taken that day it's still fine. it's a copout rule, but oh well. it's not like anyone knows all the crazy rules except me.

and now without further adieu, jarvis and the wedding invite: