01-24-10 Sundance!

Today I am going to count the whole day as my "new thing". I had been to Sundance before but this time I met new people, went to new panels and also drove much further into Utah than I had ever been by car.

So yeah, today we arrived in Sundance! But first we had to get there from Cedar City. As usual, it took longer than planned. Because we got in so late the night before, we woke up later than we had wanted to and therefore got on the road later than we were supposed to. Again, there might be a lot of "pretty" or "interesting" around Cedar City, but on our way out on the 15 North all we saw were scenes like this:

But I would love to go back some day for the theater festival and also to see some other National Parks and stuff.

So we continued on through a lot of cow country and small rest stops. Our favorite little "stop" along that stretch is a "Flying J" in a town called something like "Ciscero", but it wasn't really "Ciscero" I just can't remember what it was and I think it sounded like that.

So then we went through Provo, Utah. We have video of all of this, and once I edit it all together I'll post it. But I have no photos of Provo. Sorry.

Then we went up onto the Mountain roads that lead us to Park City. It was beautiful.



We finally made it to Park City around 4 pm. 4 hours later than we had hoped. But that's okay.

This is what it looked like. So pretty. So cold. Apparently there had been a blizzard that had dropped 4 feet of snow for a few days before we got there!


Then we went to a panel about that site I mentioned a couple days ago Hitrecord.org given by the founder/director Joseph Gordon-Levitt. The panel was really neat. Very interactive with the audience. We got to help make some background noises for a short collaborative film that is being made from the site, we got a preview of the film, we were able to ask questions and Curtis even voiced a character for another little short! It was really fun and the idea behind hitrecord.org is pretty awesome!

This is a blurry photo of him and also a pic of me standing next to the "bed" he used to do a little filming during the panel! It was a very fun, unique and audience inclusive panel! Props to Joe!



Then we literally ran from that panel to the Fotokem Party which was a blast! We took a cab to the lodge where the party was and our cabbie told us he felt like "he should get into the entertainment business" because he'd been in it when he was younger. And then proceeded to tell us some very dirty jokes. I'd like to say this was rare for Park City cabbies, but actually over the few years we've been there we've had a lot of cabbies that have similar behaviors. The Fotokem Party has free massages and also free yummy food. It's a great party! We were there last year and it was a real honor to be invited back again!



We met up with people we were staying with Zeke, Ashleigh and James. I know Zeke very well but Ashleigh and James were new to me, so, there you go another new thing! Ashleigh and James are really great people! Aside from being awesome hardworking players in the entertainment biz, Ashleigh throws great parties and events and James is a great cook!




Then we got massages by a masseuse we met there last year named Amanda.

Then we mingled. We met some really awesome people including a guy named Bryan who is from the Brea, CA area and who told us a very good story about how the Saints won the playoff game that night(we had missed the last two minutes of overtime in that game) and his friend Gloria who is a great actress who has appeared in shows like Grey's Anatomy and Weeds and who was in a movie at Sundance called "Mother and Child" with Annette Benning. She was very nice and sweet.

All in all, it was a really fun party. I even snuck in one more free massage during the night! We also took some photobooth pictures! For some reason the awesome photobooth pictures won't upload correctly here though.

At the end of the night we had closed the party down and they kicked us out. We hopped on a shuttle down the hill to the condo and Curtis and I crashed on the living room floor. The end. :)

1-23-10 Road Trip!

This was the day that we left on our road trip to Sundance. I spent the day packing and getting last minute things done. The lesson learned was that everything takes longer than expected when it comes to me and Curtis.

As a result, we left later than planned. This wouldn't have been such a big deal, but, then there was unexpected Saturday night traffic. And detours. So many detours.
We stopped at a place in Barstow, CA called Quigleys for dinner. I had a giant veggie burger/fries and a salad to start. Curtis had a giant "California Burger". The food was delicious if not totally and completely fattening.


Then we stopped in Baker, CA for gas and coffee to stay awake. While we were there we took a photo with the "Giant Baker Thermometer". THAT will be my new thing today I think.



Then we continued on right through State Line and Vegas which was very hard to do. Vegas has a very strong Siren Song. We really wished we'd have had time to stop and play for a bit. But we kept on truckin.



We powered on through the rest of Nevada and then through the windy, dark, icky part of the 15 that passes through Arizona (no offense to Arizona but that part of the 15 is less than ideal) and then into Utah. We stopped in St. George so that I could pee. This was in the bathroom. Classy stuff. ;-)


As is usual in my experience with Utah, the moment we crossed the border one of my knuckles split open from the dryness and cold. I also developed a dry, red, painful skin patch near my eye. Fun times. What can I say? Utah weather hates me. Then we drove on until we got to Cedar City, Utah where we were staying the night. I hear it's beautiful around there and it's also the home of a Shakespeare Festival. I can not really vouch for either of these things. When we arrived it was 3 am. Pitch black and freezing cold. We checked into our little cheap hotel and got our stuff from the car to the room as fast as possible. While washing my face I noticed another red patch developing on my chin. Awesome. Nothing like arriving to Sundance looking like crap.

I fell asleep around 4 am. That was my day. Thanks for reading!

1-22-10 Photo Shoot Fun!

This day was insanely busy with me trying to get everything done for our roadtrip to Utah for the Sundance Film Festival and also squeezing in a photoshoot and dinner with friends after.

I've done photoshoots before. But I have never done one with friends or with Curtis. So this was new. It was fun! Our friends are in a really great band called 7K. They have merchandise and they wanted Curtis and I to model the merchandise, so we did.

This is one of the shots from the shoot of us being "cheesy". I think we nailed it right? ;-)


And this one is of Curtis dancing in between shots with the photographer's daughter.

1-21-10 A New Venture

This day was a Thursday and I had rehearsal. I tried rehearsing in some ridiculous high heels for my character and I found that they brought a new element to my character just by forcing her to walk different. This is part of why costume is important in developing a character. The rehearsal went well, but man, after a year of wearing mostly flats wearing heels is getting to be more and more painful for me. It's like my feet have adjusted to flats and now refuse to go back. I have to be a little more careful in heels now because I think I tweaked my knee a bit in rehearsal with the heels.

When I got home I saw a link about Joseph Gordon Levitt. He's an actor you might know him from "3rd Rock From the Sun" or "500 Days of Summer". He has started a collaborative production company called "Hitrecord.org". It's a site that lets writers, filmmakers, actors, and artists all come together to make collaborative projects. You can see him talking about it here. I thought it was a great idea so, I made my own profile on it. I have uploaded anything to collaborate with other than my initial "avatar/portrait" yet though. Still, I am very excited, it's a great idea! Very interesting and fun! So, that was my main "new thing" today!

01-19-10 through 01-20-10

Two more rainy days. It was hard to do something new on Tuesday. This week has been VERY busy and that day I had a rehearsal and then was babysitting my nieces. It was also pouring down rain all day. Did I mention there were also tornado warnings? The tornado warnings were new. Can that be my new thing? ;-) I have a list of "new things" for this project but most of them require me to be outside. This is not the weather for those things. Sorry.

Anyway so here is my pic. It's me at my brother and sis in law's house eating a stolen from my nieces' candy bucket gummy spider. I figured if i didn't have a new thing the least I could do was have an interesting pic.



Then on Wednesday the 20th I had a list as long as my arm of "to dos" to get done. I had also planned out that my "new thing" would be to go to Disneyland by myself in the rain. Never done that before and it sounded fun. However, by the time I got through most of my list of errands, it was raining so hard that I was pretty sure my cheap little leopard print Walgreen's umbrella might not last while traipsing through Disney and I didn't have my poncho with me. Also, it was getting dark. So, I headed home to take Frankie for a quick walk since the rain had let up a bit instead. So, my sort of new thing for the day was that I actually used my rain boots ALL DAY. They got me through my to do list in dry footed comfort and I looked cute doing it! ;-) This is gonna be my new thing because normally in weather like this I would have stayed home and just cut my list of things to do short. But this day I put on my boots, grabbed a coat and umbrella and went out into the storm. It was kind of nice actually, not nearly as many people out and about to deal with! And I do like the sound of rain on a car roof!


The walk with Frankie was interesting though. Normally I don't take him on walks on rainy days. But there was a little break in the rain so, I figured, why not. A quick walk would do him and I both some good.


Well, while we were out it started to rain lightly again. Frankie didn't seem to mind but I was already mentally cutting our walk short. Then, as we reached the corner, it started to rain HARD. Frankie was not happy. He started to dart about in what I assume was him trying to get "out" of the water falling. When he couldn't find a place where the water wasn't falling he looked at me kind of wild eyed and confused and then must have thought "Screw this I am out of here!" and he bolted back towards the house as fast as he could. It was pretty funny. I got him dried off and he spent the rest of the night under the covers where it was warm and dry. Normally he will get stubborn and not want to come in and pull on the leash if I try to stop his walk after anything less than 3 miles. This night we got about 1.25 miles and he was more than happy to stop the walk and go inside! Ha! Apparently, he does not like walks in the rain! ;-)

01-18-10 Rainy Day

It was rainy today. VERY rainy. I didn't really have the option of going out to do anything new because I was stuck at home waiting out the rain while making sure that my dog doesn't scratch at his ear. I've been peroxiding and neosporining all day. I did leave when the rain finally stopped at night to go get Frankie's food. But even that was a splash filled, jeans soaking journey. So, since I was stuck at home I tried something new at home that I have been wanting to try but had never gotten around to: Grapefruit with Honey. It's SO good. Very refreshing! It was a lovely little bright spot in what was a rather dark and gloomy day. A Small "new thing" to be sure, but it certainly made my day and i am glad that I finally tried it.

We'll Return After This Message!

If you don't follow my other blog, Rene's Revolution,please check it out if you get the chance! It's where I blog about body image and other problems with society and such. Sometimes I get up on my soapbox and sometimes I just talk about stuff that has affected me, sometimes I just try to get some discussions going and sometimes I talk about my wonderful dog who just happens to be one of millions of awesome but misunderstood pitbulls in the world.

As always, thanks for reading!

Rene

01-17-10~ Walk Along the "River"

So, this day was a nice, quiet Sunday. I woke up feeling a bit off though. Recent events had left me feeling a bit anguished about some stuff. It was nothing horribly serious but I felt the need to go someplace alone for a while to refresh my mood and clear my mind a bit. Add to that the fact that we were about to get a 10 day long storm system in Southern California and well, I knew I should get Frankie out for a bit too. He's been feeling a bit cooped up since his surgery and with all this rain heading our way I figured I should get him out on a bit of an adventure while I still could. So, we headed to the Santa Ana River Trail.

A while back I had taken him to my bank with me which is right near one of the entrances to the trail. So, while we were there I thought we would check it out. We took a short stroll and I thought it looked like a nice place to walk and vowed to take him there in the future for a longer more explorative walk. But I never did. Until today.

I am really loving this challenge to do more new things. It has really made me more open to doing things that I have been thinking about but not actually doing and also to doing things that I would've ordinarily turned down even though I didn't have a really good excuse to turn them down. And as a result I have had a lot more fun and some very interesting experiences. In short, it has accomplished it's goal of making my life a bit richer and the month is not even over! And now that I have a list of new things to do, it's only going to get better!

So, back to the river. It is almost hard to call it a river most of the year, it's quite dry and sandy most of the time. We had had a bit of rain last week so, there were a few little pools of water here and there, but for the most part it was still quite dry when we were there. As I am typing this it has been pouring rain for almost 24 hours so, I am sure it probably looks a little more river like by now and I am hoping to get there during the storms to take a photo or two of it with actual water in it. It's still a cement river though so, instead of the water seeping into the dry dessert land around it it just funnels out to the ocean. Sigh.... But that's not what this post is about.

Right where we started our walk there is a fireman training site. There is a 9/11 Memorial on the back wall that faces the riverbed. It's quite touching. A good reminder. It's the building to the left in this photo. You can also see the big "A" from Angel Stadium to the right.


The river runs mostly through cities all the way out to the pacific, so there are streets, freeways and buildings all around. It's right smack in the middle of concrete and cities and yet the smell near the river bed reminded me of the smell of the wetlands near the beach. The path itself has some pretty nature filled parts with trees and bushes and plants as well as a lot of concrete overpasses for the freeways and streets that cross it. As I said, it also runs right behind the baseball stadium for the Angels and The Honda Center which is home of the Anaheim Ducks Hockey team.


The river bed also seemed to be a nice meeting place for birds, particularly gulls.



We saw a LOT of gulls. Frankie was intrigued and I think a little scared by the sheer numbers of them. I also saw hoof prints in the sand of the bottom of the bed and lots of horse droppings but as much as I had hoped to see some horses (Frankie's never seen one and I wanted to see how he'd react since I hope to have one someday) we didn't see any real horses.



The trail is open to cyclists, pedestrians and equestrians because there is a horse stable very close to it as well. However, I noticed the the hard core "cyclists" (the ones in their spandex and aerodynamic gear) seemed to disregard the fact that the trail is open to many forms of transportation and would sneer down in disgust at the pedestrians when they had to go around them. I kind of wished they'd have run into a horse on the trail (who could smoosh them)to see how they reacted to THAT but unfortunately I didn't have that opportunity. "Arrogant jerks" is how I would best describe the worst offenders. There are places where yes, a pedestrian could maybe walk in the dirt alongside the paved path and therefore be totally out of the way of the cyclists, but there are also parts where you really have to kinda be on the path because there is nowhere else to walk. So, I tried to keep to the side since Frankie likes to sniff at the edge of the riverbed and the plants and flowers and such anyway and out of courtesy to the faster moving cyclists. That being said, I didn't HAVE to do that so their rudeness when I did have to be on the path was a bit unjustified. Especially since I always tried to stay to one side and kept Frankie to one side as well. I guess they feel they own it since this is one of the murals on the overpasses.


There were some nice cyclists as well, they were certainly not all bad, but we did have one particular rude man who put a damper on our walk. It was nice to see all the families out on casual family bike rides, other people walking, jogging, or biking and all in perfect harmony for the most part. At one point we saw a man jogging by in the opposite direction and he had two beautiful and happy pitbulls with him. He saw me and Frankie and a big grin spread across his face as he started to wave frantically and point at Frankie and then to his own dogs. I waved back and nodded and smiled and gave him a thumbs up and he gave me a thumbs up back and continued on his way. That was a nice moment towards the end of our walk and it was a nice way to end it. I think we walked a little over 2.5 miles. I would have liked to have walked more but it started to drizzle so I figured we'd get going before the real rain got there. Turned out to be a smart move since it did start to rain HARD shortly thereafter.

01-16-10~ Happy Early Birthday !

This day was a Saturday and one of those days where I just caught up on everything. We were having my mom's birthday party early because she will be out of town on her actual birthday. So, I did some cleaning, laundry and then shopping for my mom. There wasn't a whole lot of time for anything "new". I apologize for that. I did play a bit of the new Wii version of Super Mario Bros with my niece and sis in law after the party, and I hadn't really played that version before, but that was about it. So, if you think that counts then, that is my new thing. Otherwise, there was no new thing today. It was a busy day that at one point became fraught with tension due to some family stuff, but in the end, I think it ended up okay. This is my photo of the day. It's of me and Curtis and the fam.

1-15-10 Friday Funday

Wow. That's all I can say about this day. WOW. It was VERY Fun. But VERY packed. And it was an exhausting kinda day.

I woke up at about 7:30 am after being awake until about a little after 2 am. I checked my email, fed the dog and then had some much needed coffee. Once I was fully caffeinated I worked out. Then, I got ready for my job interview. Then I went to the job interview. The interview seemed to go well, but like most interviews these days, they know people need jobs and they seem to make you want to jump through flaming hoops to get them. It seems unlikely in my experience to be able to just have a nice basic sit down and ask questions type of interview these days. There's all kinds of papers and forms and questionnaires to fill out. And sometimes there are sneaky "tests" thrown in. And at one interview I pretty much had to take an SAT test and the strangest, longest personality test I'd ever seen. It's a jungle out there in the job hunt. Anyway, yeah, the interview went well. I think they liked me. They seem like a nice company. But really, I hate job interviews. They make me so nervous and they always ask stuff like "What's your worst quality?" as if there is any good way to answer that honestly! I hate that question. You either have to lie, or exaggerate something or just plain beat around the bush. There's no real straight forward answer to give and quite frankly, I find it rude. I tend to be an honest person but I don't like telling someone in a position of power over me that I JUST met, my worst qualities. Luckily the interview I had today didn't ask me that question.

I'm an actress and I am used to auditions. I don't like them, in fact I kind of hate them, but I am used to them. And, I DO like that I am generally not being "me" but a character and that it is all scripted. If I end up sounding stupid, I don't even have to blame my acting ability, I can just blame the writing and then I can salvage some self esteem if necessary. Not that you ever admit to sounding stupid or place blame on anything or anyone at an audition, cause you don't. I mean that I can blame it on the writing in my head. Or when I am venting about it to my friends afterward. Job interviews are like auditions but worse because they are unscripted. Well, at least somewhat unscripted. As much as I hate auditions, I think I would rather go on 10 auditions straight than one job interview. Though I do sometimes feel I am playing a part when I am being interviewed Hmmm....

So, after the interview I went home and took Frankie on a walk. We didn't go nearly as far because he is still technically recovering and because the interview had started a half an hour later than it was scheduled for so, I had less time than I had planned on before I had to get ready for my next thing on the agenda for the day. Frankie didn't seem to know that he is supposed to be resting and so, he was kinda upset that I ended the walk after 1.1 mile instead of 2.5-3.5 miles. Poor guy.

Then I got ready and went to lunch with Curtis and our friend Dempsey. Dempsey is hilarious. We even got a quotable moment out of the lunch that I am sure will keep us laughing for years to come. (I'd tell you but it wouldn't make sense out of context) Dempsey and Curtis have a favorite sushi place that Curtis had gift certificates for. So, that where we went. Sushi is not my favorite kind of food but there are a few things I like. So, while they chowed down on about 25 pounds of raw fish, I had a bowl of miso soup, some edamame and two veggie rolls with soy paper. I think that if I don't learn to like REAL Sushi more they might revoke my Californian status.




By the time we were done eating and talking it was almost 5 pm! So, we headed back into the hellishness that is 5pm traffic on a Friday and went back to my house so I could change and "freshen up" for that evening's events. We were meeting my cousin and her friend for dinner. We went to a place in Fullerton called "The Commonwealth Lounge". It is a neat little place and though I have been there for drinks and appetizers I have never been there to sit down and eat. So, it was a new thing. It was REALLY good. I love their food. And they have a very nice bar area and wine list. I recommend the "Layer Cake". Very good wine.


After dinner Curtis had to go to his rehearsal before his show that night so he left. My cousin, her friend and I walked down the street to "The Cellar" which is a neat restaurant and bar. We had some drinks and they really liked the place. It is underground and has neat cave-like yet gaudy decor. It reminds me a lot of something that would fit right in at The Madonna Inn in San Louis Obispo if you've ever been there.


Then it was time to go see Curtis in "Improv Shmimprov", the improv group that he's a part of. We had a great time and Curtis's team won! Woo-hoo!



After that we called it a night and headed home. I didn't get to sleep until after 2 am again, but it was a very fun night! I just home I don't have to wear heels again anytime soon. ;-)

1-14-10

Today my cousin got into town. She's here from Mississippi for a business trip but her friend came out with her too to spend a bit of time in sunny Southern California.

They got in tonight around 8 pm and after settling into their hotel room they headed to a restaurant near them called JT Schmid's. There is also a convention in town called NAMM. I believe that stands for National Association of Music Merchandisers.It's music based, that much I know for sure. NAMM occurs here every year. I knew NAMM was in town but I didn't know that JT Schmid's was one of the sponsors. So, imagine my surprise when I showed up at JT Schmid's on a Thursday night to find it totally packed!

It was great to see my cousin and to meet her friend. We had some drink's and conversation all while surrounded by men in the music industry. I am making a point about this because whenever we have seen large groups from NAMM (recognizable by the credentials around their necks) there is either no women, or very few women. But, that's maybe a subject for a different blog. Just something to think about for now.

Then Curtis came to meet up with us. He'd never met my cousin before so, it was great that they could finally meet. We had a lot of fun, talking, singing, and joking around. We closed the place down.




I am again, grateful for this challenge of taking photos and trying new things because, by the time they had called from their hotel room, I was kind of feeling tired and I wanted to go to bed early since I had a job interview the next morning and I wanted to keep up with my workouts and walking the dog and such. So, ordinarily, knowing that I was going to see them the next day I may have not gone out on this night. But, I needed something new, and while I had been to JT Schmid's before, I had only been a couple of times and I haven't been in YEARS so, it kind of seemed a bit new and also, I had NEVER met my cousin's friend before so, that was new and quite fun! I'd also never been in a restaurant invaded by the NAMM people before either since I usually avoid everything close to the convention center whenever a big convention is in town. ;-)

In the end, I was very happy that I went out. We had a great time and I even woke up pretty easily the next morning despite my lack of a full night's sleep! Those kind of nights are okay every once in a while, but I can't do them a lot. I'm a girl who needs her sleep!

01-13-10 My Baby Went Under the Knife!

So, this particular day was a Wednesday. I chose this day to take Frankie to the vet to get a quote on a surgery he needed to remove a rather icky, oozing, black growth on his ear that we fear might be cancerous. It was also a kind of chilly and rainy day but that's not why Frankie was shaking when we walked into the vet office. Frankie hates the vet. HATES it. He is terrified of the vet. But, much as it kills me to see Frankie upset, we had to be there. Well, a few minutes after they took Frankie back to re-examine his ear they came back out with a quote for me and said that they could do his surgery right then. I was not expecting this, but, when I thought about it I figured it might be best to get it over with as quickly as possible. Dogs and surgery are no fun what with cones and medicine and stuff like that to worry about.

So, I left Frankie at the vet and was only a little surprised by how I was instantly afraid that he wouldn't make it. All they were doing was cutting a little notch in his ear to remove the growth and then send it to be biopsied, but, he had to be put under for that and well, I am a bit scared of anesthesia. I was much more worried than I probably had a right to be, but I love Frankie so much it's ridiculous.

When I got home alone I walked in the door and surprised myself again by expecting him to come running up to the door. The house seemed so empty and sad without a wiggling, happy Frankie to greet me. I did some work on the computer and then did a workout video. I found that I missed the constant scratchings on my closed door to get in and out. Life without Frankie, even for a few hours was just not as good.

A few hours later they called and he was ready to be picked up! He made it through the surgery! I was very happy. Frankie was still very drugged up and a bit spacey though. And he had a huge cone collar on that he didn't know how to maneuver in.

Once home he moped about in the collar looking up at me as if to say "Why are you punishing me?" It broke my heart. A few hours later I had to go to my rehearsal so I left, but the second I got home I freed him from the collar for a while. I meant to just give him a little break but he instantly got on the couch and went to sleep, finally comfortable to stop moving now that he was free of the cone. I later moved him to my room where he continued to sleep soundly on my bed except for the constant shivering. My poor baby was shivering so badly. Apparently this is common after surgery but I found the need to bundle him in blankets. He stopped shivering and eventually I had to go to bed. I was afraid to not put the collar back on in case he accidentally scratched his ear, but, I also didn't have the heart to wake him and make him uncomfortable again. So, I didn't put the collar on but I was so nervous I woke up every two hours to check on him.




He did so well that we ended up leaving the cone collar off again today. If he starts to seem bothered by his ear we might have to put it on again, but for now he's doing alright and is supervised by someone at any given time.

This was the first time a dog that was MINE has had surgery under my care. It was probably more traumatic for me than it was for Frankie.

He's doing much better now. Thank goodness. Now, we just have to wait for the biopsy results.

01-12-10 Cotton and Snow

Today was, well, it was an emotional day. That is code for, I kinda didn't plan out my new thing very well because I was upset for a large portion of the day. I'm fine now, it's all good, but yeah, around 8pm I started to panic, what the hell did I do that was new?! Freaking out and being upset is definitely not new for me. Then Curtis called as I was stress eating a tub of cotton candy that really DID look remarkably like cotton and asked "Can you mapquest the drive from here to Sundance and see how long it would take?" See, we've gone to the Sundance Film Festival for the last two years and we have always met new people, learned a lot and have seen some great films. This year as I've mentioned, we are kinda broke so, it was looking like we couldn't go. I was bummed about this. Seriously bummed. (though that was not why I was upset today) But we had talked about maybe driving instead of flying and just going for a couple of days instead of our usual week. This request of Curtis's cheered me up and I found out it is only about a 10 hour drive. We're still not sure if we will have the time to go, but we're considering it. As I plotted out our as yet still not certain trip I ate the entire tub of cotton candy. And well, I've never planned a road trip to Utah before and I have never eaten an entire tub of (really GOOD) cotton candy before either. So, that's gonna have to suffice for my "new thing" for that day.

1-11-10 Save The Bonnie Hunt Show!

This day was Monday. Normally on a Monday I try to get down to whatever "business" needs to get done. I also try to eat very healthy and to get in a really good workout. I think I feel like if I do those things on a Monday I am starting a really good tone for the week.

But on Sunday, I saw a post on facebook from my friend Kristin. She had tickets to a taping of the Bonnie Hunt Show for Monday and her mom was supposed to go with her, but had the flu and couldn't go. Kristin was looking for someone to go with her. I said I might be able to go depending on the time, because, you know, I had my stuff to do in the morning. Well, I kind of hemmed and hawed about going until Sunday night at 1 am when I realized, this would be a NEW thing since I'd never been to the Bonnie Hunt Show and it would be a bit of an L.A. adventure to talk about. So, I decided to go. Luckily for me Kristin hadn't found anyone else to take the ticket so, it was on!

This is one of the great things about this project having monthly "themes", it forces me out of my comfort zone a bit. Even though there are a lot of things I would like to do, I often find that I am too lazy to do them or too preoccupied with keeping up with the status quo to really step out of my usual routine. So, instead of sticking to my usual routine of staying home in my pjs all day and perusing the Internet for jobs and documentary stuff, and constantly checking facebook, then working out and taking Frankie for a walk (man, I bored myself with that sentence), I went to the taping. I had to wake up, get ready and go on a bit of an adventure.

Sure, living in SoCal my whole life I have been to a television taping or two. And as an actress, I've visited some sets and studios. But, I had never been to the Culver Studios and I had never been to the Bonnie Hunt Show. And so, it was a new thing because I hadn't been to that show before and also a new thing because I broke out of my usual routine. Because, yeah, there was a time prior to this project where I wouldn't have said "Yes" to that invite because it conflicted with my "big plans" of starting Monday off in the way that I was accustomed.

Also, I learned a lesson, had I decided for sure to go before 1 am on Sunday night, I could have gone to bed at a decent hour, woken up early and still fit in a workout before I needed to head up to LA. So, the long decision making process should probably no longer be a part of my life. Just something for me to work on. ;-)

So, we got to the Studios and I dutifully left my cell phone and cameras in the trunk of the car because they are not allowed in the studio. We stood in line for about a little over an hour. This gave us time to chat and chat we did. We were also given numbers to wear that matched our place in line. Kristin and I were 50 and 51. Then they let us onto the studio grounds. We had to go through security. We then waited outside under a tent for a while until they lined us up numerically and let us into the studio. It's always surprising how much bigger these sets are in person. As you walk into the set they hand out complimentary Mug Rootbeer and Vienna Hotdogs! I took a Mug Rootbeer but not a hotdog, since, well, I don't eat them. However, if Curtis was there he'd have been totally stoked to have rootbeer and a hotdog. Even though I don't eat hotdogs I was still impressed by this little touch.

One of the other cool things about Bonnie's set is that once on the studio lot the staffers have their dogs with them at work. One girl that was corralling us in the beginning had a Shitzu type of dog, another guy laying down cables for the cameras had a big white pitbull/American Bulldog type of dog with him (I got to pet him!) and then during the show she talks about rescue dogs and the dogs the staffers have adopted. She is a big advocate for adopting and rescuing dogs who need homes and the world needs more people like her! What a great employer and advocate!

The show was fun and we had a good time. I was sad to learn at the very end that the show is supposed to be cancelled. I really like this show. It's a nice, fun, cute show that has some touching and inspiring moments without too much heaviness or drama. It's what talk shows used to be like. A fun and engaging host with a fun, warm set and some witty banter with the guests. Bonnie is a nice girl in what is often an ugly and mean industry. I was just having a discussion about whether or not nice girls can win in the entertainment industry and well, I'd like to see this nice girl win. So, if you like Bonnie, dogs, or just some good clean talk show fun, please call your NBC Affiliates and ask them to keep the show on.

After that we went back to the car to get the cameras and then we went and took photos in front of the studios. Which are the photos at the top and also the one below. :)


Our next stop was in Los Feliz at Fred's 62. (ANOTHER NEW THING!) It's a diner that is open 24 hours. They have a lot of veggiehead friendly food. I'd never been there (really, I was just an adventure failure when I lived in L.A.)but it's one of Kristin's favorite places. I now can see why. The food is great, the decor is fun and interesting (one side is like old cars and diner like, and kind of funky and the other side is a little more cozy) and the service was really good. My photos don't really do it justice.





We had fried macaroni and cheese and I had a salad with feta, cucumbers, tomatoes and falafal! I love falafal! Kristin also had some udon soup that looked amazing. I can't wait to go back. I had a hard time choosing what to eat because so many things looked good! And I'd like to point out that Fried Macaroni and Cheese is technically a splurge food that I save for weekends and holidays. But I ate it anyway because life is short, it was Kristin's birthday and well, it was a bit of a celebration. But it was another departure from my typical Monday behavior! ;-)





By the time we left it was dark and I had to get home to feed Frankie the Wonder Dog. But all in all it was a great day with a good friend and some great conversation and new things! I got home too late to work out or walk Frankie, but I was really glad that I went out for the day! It was a really fun and memorable experience!