As my roomies and I began discussing the impending necessity of dismantling our Christmas decorations, I suddenly realized how quickly the holidays flew by this year, and how untraditional my own Christmas is in general. I think the holidays take on a different meaning for me than most since 1) I live in southern California where we get exited by hail because snow isn't even part of our vocabulary (sometimes I think sunshine just isn't as conducive to holiday cheer as a good snowstorm), and 2) I was raised Jewish.
Let me qualify that last statement. When I say I was raised Jewish, I mostly mean we had a menorah instead of a Christmas tree once a year. And thats about it. We tried going to temple for a year or two, but I was deathly afraid of the old woman who tried to teach me Hebrew in Sunday school and I guess my parents weren't sold either, so we peaced out. Yet we still continued to light the candles and sing the only prayer I ever learned every Hanukkah. Now that I've been living on my own for a few years, my traditions have slowly shifted. First it was adoption of the "Hanukkah bush". Later, I gave in and started hanging Christmas decorations and buying Christmas gift wrap to be consistent with my non-Jewish roommates and because I personally think there is a severe lack of creativity when it comes to stylish Hanukkah wrapping paper. This year our apartment was quite festive. While we didn't have space for a full size tree, we made up for it with multiple mini trees, though the cats have knocked off most of the ornaments and batted them under the couches by now. I also hung ornaments from the fake palm tree in our living room. Nothing says Christmas in LA like an adorned palm tree. Jackie decorated stockings for our family (cats included) and appropriately decked mine out with a Jewish star.
On the home front, Chanukkah and its endless spelling permutations has faded as well. Maybe its because my parents, being empty nesters now aren't really concerned with continuity, I'm not really sure. But since my sister and I have gone, they too have suddenly gone over to the green and red side, leaving behind gelt and latkes for a large pine tree.
I'm not complaining though. In my mind, the holidays are just about being with the people you love, enjoying the season, and of course giving/getting gifts. How you go about that doesn't really make a difference, as long as the reason behind it is the same. I love the holidays no matter how I celebrate it. I love how Starbucks uses those festive red coffee cups and adds peppermint to everything, and how you can't escape Christmas music no matter how hard you try, and how even in SoCal, you can sometimes walk outside in the morning and see your breath. This is what I look forward to every year and am sad to see disappear so quickly. Goodbye merry wreath on our door. See you next year.
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
apt. 3745 1/2's take on life
This is why I love my roomies:
Ma: So Jackie and I were thinking, lets not get presents for each other this year because, well, we're poor.
Me: Yeah, I totally agree. But we should do something fun together instead. Hey, how about we go for all-you-can-eat sushi together and pay for one another's meal?
Ma: Haha. Perf!*
This conversation would pretty tidily sum up my apartment's motto on life. Or at least our motto for this particular stage in life. The stage when we really have no clue where our lives are really heading, so to make up for the stress of uncertainty, we focus all of our attention on living in the now. Now, truly living it up requires a fair amount of time and monetary resources, which aren't quite in abundance lately. But not to worry, in developing our creed, we took this into account.
To address the time issue, spontaneity is key. We don't waste time sitting around deliberating over whether or not to do something (unless it involves working up the energy to go to the gym). When we have an idea (like to plan a celebration in honor of 11-11), we just pounce on it. For example: Last night, we accidentally missed the newest episode of How I Met Your Mother (HIMYM or "How I Did Your Mom" from now on). Mary Anne immediately texted the nearest DVR owner and fellow HIMYM fan, ensured said tv show was recorded, and proceeded to invite ourselves over to his house to get caught up. But naturally, before we left, the three of us changed into our sweats and matching UCLA sweatshirts. That particular decision doesn't really have any purpose. My roomies and I are just kind of obsessed with each other. Anyway, we jumped in the car, drove on over, and managed to see our show only an hour after it aired... and a half hour after we realized we'd missed it. Score!
Method two for maximizing your time is really quite simple. Forgo sleep. But for more detail on how we accomplish this, you'll have to read Mary Anne's blog.
The other limiting factor to our go-getter attitudes is money. Lets face it. We won't be making bank anytime soon. But seriously? Who cares? Whats the point in worrying? When else are we going to be our age again? Never! So in response to that, we've decided that since we truly don't have that many other expenses in our lives yet, we are going to go out. A lot. L.A. probably has some of the best food from pretty much any country you can identify on GeoChallange (you can google it under "annoying but addictive facebook games"), and probably some of the coolest nightlife on the west coast. Just a block away from our place are at least six or seven restaurants boasting different 'authentic (insert country)-ian food' signs. Who knows how long we'll be here, so we plan to make the most of it. Basically, as long as we have enough money for rent, gas, and catfood, the rest is game for having fun on the westside (and perhaps the occasional adventures to Sunset or Hollywood). What have we decided to call our lifestyle and motto? We dub it "Living the Dream".
Live it up. We certainly will.
*"perf" is an newly coined abbreviated slang term referring to the word "perfect". Expect to encounter many more "abbrev" words coming out of our "apt".
Ma: So Jackie and I were thinking, lets not get presents for each other this year because, well, we're poor.
Me: Yeah, I totally agree. But we should do something fun together instead. Hey, how about we go for all-you-can-eat sushi together and pay for one another's meal?
Ma: Haha. Perf!*
This conversation would pretty tidily sum up my apartment's motto on life. Or at least our motto for this particular stage in life. The stage when we really have no clue where our lives are really heading, so to make up for the stress of uncertainty, we focus all of our attention on living in the now. Now, truly living it up requires a fair amount of time and monetary resources, which aren't quite in abundance lately. But not to worry, in developing our creed, we took this into account.
To address the time issue, spontaneity is key. We don't waste time sitting around deliberating over whether or not to do something (unless it involves working up the energy to go to the gym). When we have an idea (like to plan a celebration in honor of 11-11), we just pounce on it. For example: Last night, we accidentally missed the newest episode of How I Met Your Mother (HIMYM or "How I Did Your Mom" from now on). Mary Anne immediately texted the nearest DVR owner and fellow HIMYM fan, ensured said tv show was recorded, and proceeded to invite ourselves over to his house to get caught up. But naturally, before we left, the three of us changed into our sweats and matching UCLA sweatshirts. That particular decision doesn't really have any purpose. My roomies and I are just kind of obsessed with each other. Anyway, we jumped in the car, drove on over, and managed to see our show only an hour after it aired... and a half hour after we realized we'd missed it. Score!
Method two for maximizing your time is really quite simple. Forgo sleep. But for more detail on how we accomplish this, you'll have to read Mary Anne's blog.
The other limiting factor to our go-getter attitudes is money. Lets face it. We won't be making bank anytime soon. But seriously? Who cares? Whats the point in worrying? When else are we going to be our age again? Never! So in response to that, we've decided that since we truly don't have that many other expenses in our lives yet, we are going to go out. A lot. L.A. probably has some of the best food from pretty much any country you can identify on GeoChallange (you can google it under "annoying but addictive facebook games"), and probably some of the coolest nightlife on the west coast. Just a block away from our place are at least six or seven restaurants boasting different 'authentic (insert country)-ian food' signs. Who knows how long we'll be here, so we plan to make the most of it. Basically, as long as we have enough money for rent, gas, and catfood, the rest is game for having fun on the westside (and perhaps the occasional adventures to Sunset or Hollywood). What have we decided to call our lifestyle and motto? We dub it "Living the Dream".
Live it up. We certainly will.
*"perf" is an newly coined abbreviated slang term referring to the word "perfect". Expect to encounter many more "abbrev" words coming out of our "apt".
Monday, December 8, 2008
our cats the escape artists.
Between my room and Jackie's is a door that blocks access from the living room to our bedrooms. We've started to close it at night to keep the kittens from disturbing our slumber (ie pouncing on our faces) but as of late there have been some peculiar occurrences straight out of the twilight zone.
Yesterday morning after hitting the snooze button on my alarm at least five times, I heard a crash. I jumped out of bed and ran out into the hallway and opened the door into the living room. All seemed peaceful and serene. No movement, no scattered remnants of tabletop decor on the floor... wait. No movement. Where are the cats? Whatever. I'm going back to sleep. I still have a good five minutes before I need to even start considering getting ready for work (I began convincing myself I could probably be ready to go in 5 minutes if it meant sleeping in even longer). At this point I turned around, about to return to my room when I nearly tripped over two small furry creatures sitting attentively about 3 inches from my toes. Huh? How did you get here?
Now I know my memory is not at its best early in the morning, but I swear I shut those cats out in the living room last night. And they most certainly didn't slip past me in the past 10 seconds. I was sure. But then, as I turned back towards my room, I noticed the counter top in the bathroom looked a little barren. Upon inspection, it became clear that someone, or a pair of someones had knocked my toiletry bag off the counter and straight into the neighboring trash can. Ew, gross. I turned around and glared at the culprits, eying me innocently from the hallway. "How the hell did you guys get in here?"
I quickly ushered the two misfits back out into the living room and shut the door. Crazy cats... mmm bed.
Fast forward to work later that day (I did wake up in time by the way). Jackie and I are chatting about our weekend when suddenly she gets this serious look on her face and tells me "ok, we have a problem". Uh oh. Whats wrong? I ask. She starts by telling me a similar story to my own this morning.
Apparently, after some mysterious cat sightings in the hallway, Jackie finally spotted the source of their interroom apparrating abilities. We have an old school heater in our apartment that happens to span the wall between our hallway and the living room. So far we haven't needed to use it. Actually, we probably couldn't if we wanted to since we'd need to get our gas company out here to manually light the pilot light. The kittens however had done their share of exploring and discovered that the bottom of this narrow, boxy apparatus is actually completely open. A few days ago, while I was out of town, Jackie finally caught them red-pawed, as they tumbled out of the heater into our hallway. Cats, you really are ridiculous. Now normally I would just laugh hysterically at the absurdity of the situation (actually, I did do that). But the biggest problem with this discovery is the fact that when we do finally get that heater working, any time the cats decide to take a stroll through the wall, they'll find themselves in a FURNACE. So besides trying to teach them to not jump on the table and eat our food, now we have to figure out how to keep them from making fried kitten of themselves. Fantastic.
Oh children, what are we going to do with you.
Yesterday morning after hitting the snooze button on my alarm at least five times, I heard a crash. I jumped out of bed and ran out into the hallway and opened the door into the living room. All seemed peaceful and serene. No movement, no scattered remnants of tabletop decor on the floor... wait. No movement. Where are the cats? Whatever. I'm going back to sleep. I still have a good five minutes before I need to even start considering getting ready for work (I began convincing myself I could probably be ready to go in 5 minutes if it meant sleeping in even longer). At this point I turned around, about to return to my room when I nearly tripped over two small furry creatures sitting attentively about 3 inches from my toes. Huh? How did you get here?
Now I know my memory is not at its best early in the morning, but I swear I shut those cats out in the living room last night. And they most certainly didn't slip past me in the past 10 seconds. I was sure. But then, as I turned back towards my room, I noticed the counter top in the bathroom looked a little barren. Upon inspection, it became clear that someone, or a pair of someones had knocked my toiletry bag off the counter and straight into the neighboring trash can. Ew, gross. I turned around and glared at the culprits, eying me innocently from the hallway. "How the hell did you guys get in here?"
I quickly ushered the two misfits back out into the living room and shut the door. Crazy cats... mmm bed.
Fast forward to work later that day (I did wake up in time by the way). Jackie and I are chatting about our weekend when suddenly she gets this serious look on her face and tells me "ok, we have a problem". Uh oh. Whats wrong? I ask. She starts by telling me a similar story to my own this morning.
Apparently, after some mysterious cat sightings in the hallway, Jackie finally spotted the source of their interroom apparrating abilities. We have an old school heater in our apartment that happens to span the wall between our hallway and the living room. So far we haven't needed to use it. Actually, we probably couldn't if we wanted to since we'd need to get our gas company out here to manually light the pilot light. The kittens however had done their share of exploring and discovered that the bottom of this narrow, boxy apparatus is actually completely open. A few days ago, while I was out of town, Jackie finally caught them red-pawed, as they tumbled out of the heater into our hallway. Cats, you really are ridiculous. Now normally I would just laugh hysterically at the absurdity of the situation (actually, I did do that). But the biggest problem with this discovery is the fact that when we do finally get that heater working, any time the cats decide to take a stroll through the wall, they'll find themselves in a FURNACE. So besides trying to teach them to not jump on the table and eat our food, now we have to figure out how to keep them from making fried kitten of themselves. Fantastic.
Oh children, what are we going to do with you.
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