Girl's Day (A/K/A I have no friends in Orange County)

Here's the thing about living in Orange County; you're perfectly situated between San Diego and Los Angeles, making it the idea locale. HOWEVER, traffic is so heinous you never see either.

This is problematic when the only friends you have live in one of the two places, and instead of making new friends after work, you prefer to lay on the couch watching reruns of Keeping Up With the Kardashians or reading about knights and dragons whilst simultaneously perusing sample sales online (I'm a remarkable multi-tasker).

But last weekend, I took a dive and drove to--wait for it--Burbank. Nothing against Burbank, but it has one major flaw -- it's even FURTHER than LA. Luckily my friend Julia made the trek with me, wherein after 2 hours in traffic we started to wonder how much we really liked our LA friends.

Not to worry; these fabulous chicas were easily worth the traffic time (and the lack of exits on the 405 north of the 10 when you've both had large diet cokes).

After seeing Erika's and Emily's rad new places (and texting RP to remind him that I hate our apartment), we had a girl's lunch in Hollywood, which would have been followed by shopping had we not had a two-hour trek home.

Now I understand why the pioneers didn't have more girls' shopping days.

Aside from some QT with old friends, I made a wonderful discovery; leaving RP alone for the day makes him uber productive. Not only did he bunny-proof the shed (ever noticed how you never get around to bunny-proofing?), but he even cleaned up the back patio AND got some work done. AND he only texted twice to see where I was.

Maybe I should leave him more often.

Upsurd Updates: July Edition

Not worthy of posts in and of themselves, I thought I'd regale you with the recent inconsequential happenings at the Price household:

#1:

RP and I are in escrow on an apartment building right now. Good news: all the apartments dwarf our current one, and the building is seven houses from the San Clemente sand.

Bad news: it’s a short sale and I’ve been hearing “We should hear something definite early next week” since early February.

Due to the fact that I’m about to go all Sylvia Plath and stick my head in our (very old and very small and very dirty) oven, RP went about “improving” our standard of living last weekend, by hiring a maid and then deciding that “we” should go through “our” things to de-junk.

Interpretation:  He’ll open all of my boxes so we can decide which of my life’s possessions are worth keeping. Which, apparently, is about 20 percent of them.

KP: “But those are Theory!”

RP: “So they go in the “sell” pile and not the “giveaway” pile?”

The maid thing rocks though.

#2:

The bunny-moon is over. RP is constantly at odds with our long-eared friend. And now that she’s shedding, she’s just added dander to injury. We frequently have the following conversation:

RP: “That’s it. I’m done with this rabbit!”

KP: “What happened now?”

RP: “She ran away from me. I was just trying to pet her. She’s just a bad rabbit.”

KP: “No, she’s a bad dog. She’s a perfectly normal rabbit.”

RP: “We’re done.”

#3

I am ashamed to say that on top of working a full-time job, working out, and keeping up my—ahem—household, I have also managed in the past six weeks to read 3,000 pages of (wait for it) fantasy fiction. I’m completely obsessed with Game of Thrones, which, much to RP’s dismay makes me act strangely here and there: like waking from nightmares wherein I am being attacked by the white walkers, or referring to him as “blood of my blood” and “my sun and stars.” Not to mention that I get bummed out whenever a character dies, which happens to be every chapter or so. Thanks George RR Martin, you’ve taught me that it is true folly to care for anyone.

#4

As I’ve entered the home stretch to my 30^th birthday, RP is getting slightly worried about my biological clock. This Sunday we had the following conversation:

KP: “What boy names do you like?”

RP: “Oh no.”

KP: “What? We’re just talking about kids.”

RP: “I know. But it’s Sunday. Usually after we teach primary you stop wanting children for at least a few days. This is more serious than I thought.”

#5

After being labeled as loco by most of our family, RP and I are still planning on spending Christmas at Everest basecamp. One small hiccup was me learning about the flight we have to take to and from Lukla, Nepal (for some fun, go ahead and google “Lukla airport"). Oh, and the fact that apparently no one showers for 14 days while on the trek. And I thought Alaska tested our marital vows…

War and Peace and Independence

There’s a couple things you may not know about RP and me: one is that we’re creatures of habit. The other is that we like to fight on the 4^th of July. I tell you the former only to impress you with the fact that we got through this Independence Day still friends (with benefits).

I don’t know what it is about celebrating freedom, but it seems to spur RP and I into fightin moods. Take for instance the year we met; two months into our “casual dating” relationship, he casually invited me to spend the 4^th with him. I casually agreed, and then casually stood him up for a party in Newport. Thus ensued not only our first fight, but our first 4^th of July fight.

Independence argument #2 came when we were again separated for our Nation’s birthday and I was hopped up on painkillers. That should be enough said. Then last year, as our first married Independence Day, we had a little tiff over a text he had sent to a friend wherein he referred to his wife as “cranky.”

That is why I’m pleased to report that RP and I have officially broken our Independence Day fighting tradition.

Not to say I didn’t try to keep it alive.

For instance, I came home with yet another “necessary” kitchen gadget that I found wondrous and all but mystified RP. Am I really expected to dry my salad with paper towels?

Then I poured too much ice cream into the machine, thus requiring RP to stand by and eat the (totally delicious) soft serve as it expanded and threatened to overflow.

Not to mention that San Clemente itself tried to grate on our nerves. Not only did the inclement weather keep us from our scheduled day of basking on the beach, but the crowds and cars and lack of parking spaces made it so we couldn’t leave either.

But we made amends where we could. For instance, I faced my fear of pastry-making and baked this strawberry pie from scratch – much to RP’s delight.

He pitched in as well, by wearing his short-shorts for my viewing pleasure and demonstrating his grill-master abilities.

Oh, and bringing me 4^th of July flowers. Sadie also received a carnation. But she ate hers and I preferred to look at mine.

We ended the day with fireworks on the beach with the rest of the English-speaking (and Spanish – who am I kidding?) world. SC put up a good show, and I even stayed up past 10 on a work night.

Here’s to peace (and independence).

 (Sadly, this was the BEST photo to come out of our efforts at self-photography)