Have You Met Doctor Fun?

Have you met this Man? This is Jim, King Jimehameha, Our Old Man. Here is Jim at his 60th Birthday Party.

Jim is the master of all things fun. When asked why he has so many kids (8), his response is, "To have playmates."

As soon as you could walk, you were in ski lessons.

As soon as you could fly (as young as 3 weeks) you were off to Hawaii.

(Below, Dx and Mimi at the Honolulu airport. Mimi 3 weeks)

As soon as you could drive, you were meeting him for sushi.

If you are going somewhere, Jim wants to come. It doesn't matter if it's to the dump or to the Olympics in China, Jim is game.

Jim is the reason we all go so many fun places and do so many fun things. From the time we were all tiny, weekends were spent with dad skiing in Tahoe, riding bikes on Angel Island, eating at Ghirardelli Square, going to baseball games, taking trips anywhere you could imagine. I think that because of Jim, every one of us wakes up on Saturday morning and thinks, what fun and unusual thing am I going to do today? Every summer and holiday season was punctuated by vacations, large or small. Now, as adults, this is ingrained in our psyches. We cannot imagine a weekend without an activity, nor a summer without a change of scenery.

For Father's Day this year, Ellie orchestrated a program called "Saturday, Daddurday." Every kid was responsible for overseeing Jim's fun on their designated Saturday. This could mean a bike ride, going to see a play in SF, dining al fresco, or whatever else. The requirements were that Jim had to be entertained ALL DAY and ALL NIGHT, which meant two or three activities at least.

One of Jim's features is that when he's on the activity with you, he must make phone calls to other people telling them about how much fun he is having and probably planning his next fun activity.

I highly recommend adopting the lifestyle of fun. Get a fun idea, plan ahead, and force the fun on everybody. Remember, you never remember how much you spent, you only remember how much fun you had.

I admit it. I've inherited the Jim Gene.

Here is Jim at my wedding, doing some kind of turkey dance. Ever seen Steve Martin in 'Father of the Bride?' Similar tux story on display here. But he got in it!

Sites Maybe You Should Know About

Admit it. Sometimes you get a little bored with the old blogs. Take some time and peruse these amusing sites. Perhaps you will find the perfect unconventional gift. http://www.day-lab.com/: unusual cheap accessories, odd gifts (like the Holy Toaster), and cute jewelry.

http://www.minimus.biz/: Personal sized mini packages of food, salad dressing, personal care items. You know the tantalizing basket section of Target full of all those mini products? This is where you can buy tons more. Surely you need some hotel sized deodorant?

http://www.yesstyle.com/

Why do Asian girls always dress so cute? Because they have better cheap clothing over there. Yesstyle.com has all their low-priced labels for sale in American money.

http://www.truefaux.com/ High quality antique jewelry. Why buy antique? a) better design b) more bling for your money (the above necklace is only 150) c) you're wearing history

http://www.jbox.com/

Weird Japanese tchotchke that you never even imagined existed.

Favorite product so far: R2-D2 Pepper Mill and the hat that says "Looking for a Japanese Girlfriend."

http://www.curiosityshoppeonline.com/

Favorite product: Eggling. An herb garden in an egg. Just crack, water and viola! Mint or basil.

I also want their octopus necklace.

Tell me if you find something you bought, 'cause I'm curious. I bought that necklace from truefaux.com, I couldn't help myself.

Christmas, Years 1, 2, 3

Sometimes when you're married and stuff you can't remember what you did the year before this one. Where were we for Christmas for our first three years of mawidge?

Year 1, 2005: Florence, Christmas Eve. Rome on Christmas. Everything was closed and we were hungry, but we invented a great game that I recommend: Christmas Songs Charades. Dx is especially good at O' Tannenbaum, for which he does a goosestep.

For presents, I got two perfume lotions, a shopping spree in Venice (where stuff is cheaper) including a purse and sweaters.

Year 2, 2006: We're at the Nordstrom Cafe in this picture, but we left for Utah a day or two later. My whole fam was in Hawaii, but I couldn't go because I was too pregnant. Dx and I went to Utah to be with my Uncle Jay.

I got a VS cuddly robe and a Japanese Weekend Dress.

Year 3, 2007: This is our Thanksgiving shot. This year we're with my fam in the Bay Area.

I am getting a Shave Ice Machine. Or Else.

Merry Christmas to All and to All, all the presents that you really really want.

Double Anniversary, Double Birthday.

First, the tale of the double Birthday.

Ask me what my husband's birthday is. I don't know.

Sometimes he says it's the 13th. Sometimes he says it's the 14th. His mother calls to wish him a happy irthday on the 14th, and she would know, right? His passport says it's the 13th. He demands recognition and celebration on both days. If you dare neglect either day, you will be summarily punished.

Why does Dx not know his birthday? Well, he was born in Bangkok. In Thailand, it is good luck to be born on Friday the 13, opposite of our culture. Too bad Dx was born in the middle of the night, at like 2 am on the 14th.

But that was Thailand, folks.

His dad bribed the nurse to change the date to the 13th. All of Dx's legal documents say he was born on the 13th. But he wasn't.

Here is Dx in London at midnight between his birthdays. He is wearing pants.

And Now, the Tale of The Double Anniversary.

This one makes slightly more sense.

Dx and I wanted to have a New Year's Eve Party for our wedding reception. Unfortunately, the temple was closed on December 31. We got married on December 30, had a family dinner, then went to the fabuloso Westin St. Francis for our honeymoon.

The following day, everybody in our family prepared for our huge wedding reception to be held that night, New Year's Eve. We showed up five minutes before and the whole thing was ready to go. Everybody pitched in and slaved over our party and all we had to do is show up in our wedding costumes. The New Year's Eve party was fantastic.

When people ask when we were married, we say New Year's Eve because most non-LDS people don't understand how the wedding might be different than the party. But really, we were married on the 30th of December.

The Goat Goes, uh, Bleet?

Dx and I took Mims to the Oakland Zoo last weekend. Every single animal was out and crawling toward us. It was fun and Mimi was really into it. We brought her animal book to try to relate the real life to the cartoon animals. Yes, she's ten months, but I like to believe she understood what was going on. It was a fun family outing.

Mimi the beaver, a goat, and an elephant. I have a huge nose.There was a turtle in there. My asian husband will always look younger and hotter than me.

Photo op. The tortoise crawled right up to us.

I heard that some one from Mexico snuck an elephant over the boarder into America.

I Married Myself, Part 2

After YW's, Dx walked in an saw my grahamgerbread structure lovingly displayed.


He says, "Hey! It's the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain!" No, we've never been there. Not yet.
Way to go Ellie and Linds who guessed correctly, but honorable mention to Alex for the Disney Music Hall in LA, also by Ghery.

In his hand, Dx was carrying a Target bag.

He whipped out the first season of our favorite show. I'd just finished wrapping the exact same thing for him for Christmas. Thankfully, it was a gift for some friends.

I Married Myself Part 1

At Young Women's on Tuesday my girls were all making fun of my faux Gingerbread house. They said it looked like an earthquake had struck or some other natural disaster. They were wrong.

My gingerbread (or grahamgerbread) house is an intentional copy of a architectural work of art.

Can you guess which building this is supposed to be? Note the gummy bear line.

Apparently Those Pictures were Not Cute Enough

Last Baby Blooms post for at least a few days.

Celia, arbiter of all things blog, said that the pictures of the Baby Blooms did not do their cuteness justice. She helped me with a photo shoot today. Here are our spoils:

Proof that Baby Blooms work for those lacking hair handfuls of hair. Alice is a great model.
Sparkly, pretty purples.

Side view with prop.

Close up yellow

Reds, whites and blacks.In just 24 hours, there are already some updates:

1) You can buy them straight from the site thanks to paypal and Becky.

2) People have already bought them and that makes me happy! The world needs Baby Blooms.

3) If you want extra adhesives, we'll add 20 more for an extra $1 just lemme know in your emails babyblooms@gmail.com

4) Statement of purpose clarification. This is not necessarily a money making get rich quick endeavor. We'd give them away just to spread cuteness, but we have to cover costs. I didn't ask for this project, it happened to me. I am generally against mother marketing (isn't that awful? I'm sorry!) and marketing in general (see book). I'm an ideas girl. If you need a project, I'm a good project thinker upper. I delegate well. I'd rather be reading and shopping, but if people need cute hair things for their babies, who am I to deprive them?

Today at Celia's, I offered Paige and Celia this new hobby: making Baby Blooms. They scoffed and said, "Why do people always think I want more jobs to do? I don't!" Really, neither do I. I already do Pam's choreography, and I teach at two schools now. Again, my sisters are probably right when they said, "Teaching? I give it a year." So consider this a sacrifice, people. I don't want more jobs, I just want people to have cute baby hair things so that their girl babies don't look like boys.

SPREAD THE CUTE.

Chichi Sheesh

Saturday night Dx took me out to the Michael Mina restaurant in San Francisco. Ever heard of it? Me neither. It's located at the Westin St. Francis in Union Square.

Dx and I aren't foodies, but we like really good gourmet food sometimes. So we gave this joint a whirl because all of our other choices were having private work parties.

When you get there, the waiter has to introduce you to the "Portfolio" otherwise known as a menu. I was already in a fit of giggles. You can either do the prix fix with first, seconds and dessert or a taster thing with 6 courses. Ordering from appetizer and then main course? I think NOT.

You do get to choose from 5 things in each course. But it's not just five ordinary dishes, oh no. This is more like that Chef show were they choose one particularly vomitous ingredient and then prepare it 3 different ways. I had the rabbit three ways (not a vomitous ingredient) and Dx had the jackfish (never heard of it. It's really just tuna.)

The dishes come in threes. You're pretty much guaranteed that you will like one, and perhaps two "preparations" but the third is probably disgusting. I'm plugging through my rabbit and all of the weird ways to serve it "Rabbit stuffed with stuff" was pretty good. "Rabbit in a crazy little pot" was really good. "Rabbit some other way was a little weird."

The main course comes out the exact same way as the first. Do not say to the waiter "Where's the beef?" because they don't think that joke is funny.

Number two course was Duck three weird ways. "Orangy duck" was delish. "Middle section ducky" was pretty good. There I was eating along and BAM. The worst foie gras that had ever passed my lips. (Yah, I'm spoiled.) Ever had foie gras? Yes, it's duck liver. It's delicious and buttery cold on bread, but this was seared warm gelatinous foie gras. In it went and out it nearly came. I panicked.

"Dx, I'm going to barf this up."

Thankfully, there were some REAL foodies sitting next to us. These people were by far the highlight of the evening. A) They took pictures of every course. B) They watched us eat. C) They were unidentifyably foreign. D) Every sip of wine was the subject of debate with the waiter. That poor waiter. At one point I heard the guy sneer "The fruit aroma in the 1993 is sinking to the bottom." He needed a swift punch in the business. One more comment and I would have slammed his wine glasses into his face.

Dx recommended that I vomit on them.

I muscled through. Dx had pork three ways and he wolfed it. Of course, as a true Greenbaum wife, I offered him tastes of everything INCLUDING trying to slip in the hideous pus-like foie gras. He's much to smart to fall for that. I had to get him to try it on the basis of future reference, so when I recounted it's gag-inducing qualities, he would know what I was talking about.

For dessert, chocolate three different ways. How can they screw up chocolate? The first was a smores cake thing that was green because it was somehow made from basil. Weird, but delish. Then some kind of ice cream with a side of paste. Last, the smallest piece of chocolate cake you ever did see. Sees candy small. It was an insult, but I managed to eat it nonetheless because it was divine.

The night was memorable and hilarious. We're counting it as our anniversary (which is really Dec. 30/31).

You should try gourmet food. Some is yummy and some is great for a good laugh.

Spice Up My Life

Dear Victoria, Et Al,
We feel betrayed.
The year was 1996 and we were your biggest 'Wannabes'. If you remember correctly, your following was smaller in the U.S. than you apparently think. You had ONE hit song. ONE song, wildly known to be severely annoying. This was no deterrent for real fans like us. Few of us saw your lame attempt at a movie. Few people bought your second album soundtrack featuring such blips on the radio waves as "2 Become 1" and "Spice Up Your Life."
Spice Girls, I know every lyric to every song.
Herein lies my beef: how could you turn on your original American fan base by charging so much for tickets? Sure, I'm ten year's older, but my taste in music has not improved and I feel slighted because you never even sent me a ticket! Who goes to your shows? Teenagers? Gay men? People with expendable income?
Emma, Mel B., Geri, Victoria, you are all mothers. Do you not understand that most of your fans would come and see you if they weren't spending money on diapers and formula? I assume you are out of touch with reality because of your access to nannies, but you must consider the masses. We made you famous. You owe us.
I've included two photographs circa the release of the first album and then Spiceworld, The Movie in 1998.
Here are Val Greebaum as Scary, Camille as Baby (typical) me as Posh and, yes, that's Phil as Sporty.
P.S, I am still that skinny.

And lastly, here are the former offenders including Cathryn Gustafson. Apparently Phil learned his lesson.

Despite the fact that we are not coming to your concert, I want you to know I'm following your "careers" closely. If you ever need a hand looking after for Brooklyn, Cruz, Romeo, Beau, Bluebell, or Angel Iris let me know. Furthermore, if you have any extra tickets, send them my way.
Viva Forever,
Nortorious

100th Post

I dedicate this, my 100th post to my readers and anyone who drove Vasco Road, circa 1998-2000.


Yes, I am that Nor.



It aint love if there aint vandalism.

The Accidental Crafter

Working on a new project. Mimi inspires adorable crafts, despite the fact that I'm patently uncrafty.

Had to go to Joann's.

Just like Fry's is the seventh circle of hell for me, Joann's is toture for Dx. I decided to drag him along.

My favorite moment was when he turned to me and said, "Man, they have a lot of stamps. Maybe I should stamp 'thank you' on my client's paperwork."

It was hilarious. My husband is considering becoming a Stamper. I told him I'd sign him up for Stamping Up.

P.S., patent pending on the .

Is There Anybody Out There?

Sure, stat counter tells us where our readers are, but do you ever wonder who is reading your silly little blog? Comments are informative for our regulars, but who else is looking at this?

I've had old friends, religious associates, extended family, parents of old friends, employers, students, and strangers let me know that they look at my blog. This makes me feel good and worried at the same time.

If a blog is like a journal, then how do you decide what to publish and what to not publish? I think mean is funny. I also think inappropriate is funny. How can I be funny and not set myself up for real-life drama?

How public is a public blog? How do you find other people's blogs? Do you stumble upon them by following other people's links? Do you google them? Are they linked to particular webpages?

I've recently gotten a second teaching gig, (barely part-time, you bossy mommies) and again I'm thinking about taking my blog down. Yes, most posts are about my baby, but do I really want my students to know that I'm completely preoccupied with celebrities and that I have cut the word "jerk" into my loved one's clothes?

Perhaps not.

Case in point:

Famous Celia Fae writes comment about Thanksgiving being torture on her friend's blog. Mom, who hosted Thanksgiving, calls Celia and gets on her case about how hard she worked to prepare for Thanksgiving and how Celia's comments made her feel bad. Celia a) wrote that before Thanksgiving b) was probably exaggerating as she is prone to do c) perhaps meant that Thanksgiving was/would be torture for reasons other than those mom thought (i.e. packing everyone and driving or whatever).

Here are my questions:

Have you had any bad blogging run-ins? What are the consequences in the real world of keeping a blog and writing comments? Do you stress about this half as much as I do? Does it limit what you write?

Unrelated Alice, Mimi and Gramma Pamma picture.