Truer words have never been spoken

Scene: I'm telling Liz how I can't believe it's been almost a year since RB and I got together, how I was nervous we wouldn't last because we jumped into it so quickly. Her response: 

When it's right, it's right.

Too early in the morning for this topic? Yeah, probably.

Around this time last year, I was up to my eyeballs in the degrees of murder and grounds for divorce in New York. ("I don't want to be married to this douche" is apparently not one of them.) During a break from studying this crap really important legal stuff, I sent Liz the following email:

"For some reason, I thought of you when I came across this photo. For 2 reasons: (1) because he's hot and I thought you'd think so, too, and (2) because he's wearing bikini briefs while holding a butcher knife with a look on his face that says, "Oh. why Susan, you surprised me. What's that? You wanna know where John is? Well.. um..."

His name is Jason Mraz, he's some famous musician or something. Never heard of him. But he is damn hot."

Little did I know that I would later become obsessed this fine piece of hotness. Every song he makes, every video he puts out draws me deeper into his web of delightful sarcasm. And now I'm so tangled up that I can't escape.

So tangled, in fact, that when he recently blogged about toilet tips, all I did was smile and go, "Oooohhhh that's Just Jason Mraz being Jason Mraz. At least he's green!"

Oh, and did I mention the real reason for this post? The almost-naked picture of him? I didn't? Well shame on me!

Who knows what that tattoo on his arms says?

What I did on my San Diego vacation

I played (and won) a game that sounds suspiciously like a very naughty word.


I met the Mole.


I went to a Padres game and sat in All-You-Can-Eat seats for the very first time.


I walked through Balboa Park, possibly my new favorite place on earth.


I visited Stone Brewery and had beer that tasted like banana.


I went to a dance party with the fabulous creators of Gingers is the Watchword during which a giant purple die was tossed around.

I ate at Hodad's.


I drank from the moment I got to San Diego to the morning I left for New York. And it was fantastic.

Do you know what today is?

No Liz, it's not our anniversary*.

It's LOST Day!! Yay!!**

*Inside Boston University joke.

**I realize how obsessed I am with this show and I'm totally okay with that.

Shameless!

While I do enjoy talking about myself (and LOST), I will not hesitate to use this website to promote the interests of my friends. I've linked to Liz and Red over at Gingers Is the Watchword on more than one occasion, as I have with Z-man over at Death of the Courtesy Wave. [Side note: Why do my friends' blogs have such long names?] To prove to you that I have friends who are known for things other than blogging, it's someone else's turn to be shouted out on my website... a someone who just happens to be a filmmaker, and who just happens to have made a film recently.

Ladies and gentlemen, may I introduce to you Mr. Todd M. Jones.


Todd and I went to law school together, and humorously enough, ran against each other for President of the Student Bar Association. He was clearly the better candidate (because he won) and way more qualified to be President of the student government at a Jewish law school (because I have no patience and often make off-color Jewish jokes. [See: "Jewish jokes" tag]). Despite being the better man for the job, Todd remained courteous and kind and even asked me to be part of his cabinet as a representative. Todd, in other words, is good people. Which is why I'm plastering his likeness on my website without his permission. (Hi, Todd!)

Mr. Jones and his crew have just completed their latest feature-length film. It's called Throws of Passion and it looks hilarious. Here's what Todd himself has to say about the movie:

Its a "mockumentary," which means if you enjoy THE OFFICE, or RENO 911! or THIS IS SPINAL TAP, then you would dig the style in which this movie is made. It's about a failed cable TV station and the last program it worked on - a Rock, Paper, Scissors tournament.

I watched the trailer three times today and can't wait to see the movie. Check out the trailer for Throws of Passion!!



To Todd, his crew, and everyone in the film (some of whom I recognize), congratulations and much luck! You deserve it!!

Throws of Passion trailer

I probably would have shanked someone

I talk a good game about my travel nightmares, but I think we have a new winner. I'd like everyone to please read this post by Liz over at Gingers Is the Watchword. Afterward, I'd like you to either thank God/Allah/Buddha/Xenu that you don't have to travel during the holidays, or pray to your appropriate dude in the sky that you don't go through what Liz went through.

Liz, I take back every story I ever told about the Cincinnati-Northern Kentucky Airport. And the Mormons. They have nothing on your hellish experience. Glad you made it back to Bahston safe and sound.

My business class tickets to Europe may only cost $280, but I pay for them in so many other ways

Talking about airports this morning got me thinking about the many hours I've spent in them. Liz and Red over at Gingers Is The Watchword have both talked about their sometimes hellish travel experiences, and I realized that while I've commented on both of their posts, I've never shared my own travel nightmares on here. Well that ends right now.

I've done a fair amount of traveling. My mom works for Delta Airlines (up in the control tower at La Guardia, how cool is that?) so I've been trekking the globe since I was just a wee babe. While I flew free until I was 23 and still get ridiculous discounts on airfare, my travel experiences haven't always been pleasant. For one, I fly standby. That basically means I get a seat if there's one leftover after all the paying customers and Delta employees get on the plane. That means a lot of waiting around, and sometimes not making it on at all. On the plus side, I do get seated in first or business class if there's space. Which usually makes for a very comfy 8-hour flight to Europe for like 10% of the price of a first class ticket. But who's bragging?!

Seriously though, it's not all warm towelettes and champagne. I've had to spend the night in strange cities on more than one occasion and it's never fun. There are three travel experiences that will forever stand out in my mind as some of the worst days of my life.

#3: July 2006, coming home from Venice. My friends and I had spent two weeks in Europe and were flying home on buddy passes. Buddy pass passengers only get a seat after paying customers, Delta employees and anyone traveling with those employees gets on the plane. When we got to the airport, there were 5 of us and only 4 seats left. One of us had to stay. It made the most sense for me to give up my seat because my priority is higher; it would be much easier for me to get on the next day's flight than it would for one of them. Also, I had already called my boss at the time and his reaction was basically, "Shit happens, see you when I see you." My friends, on the other hand, were all afraid of getting fired. So after much arguing and insisting, they finally agreed that it made the most sense for me to stay behind. I put on a brave face, but inside I was scared. It was the first time I had ever spent the night alone in a strange city, let alone a European one. I had to get a hotel in Italy's most romantic city and eat pasta from room service all by my lonesome. It wasn't all that bad, though. I took a bath and slept for like 13 hours. And the next day at the airport, a gorgeous Italian man asked me why I was traveling alone--I lied and told him I worked for a fashion magazine and I was in Venice for a photo shoot. Best airport lie I have ever told.

#2: January 2007, coming home from Costa Rica. We were supposed to fly from San Jose to Atlanta to New York. Things started out great when I got an aisle seat across from a ridiculously hot Marine. He was 25 and had just spent 10 days surfing in South America. We talked throughout the entire flight until some random people from first class started coming back to coach. Shortly after that, the pilot announced that we would be making an emergency landing in Miami because a dude in first class got deathly ill and projectile vomited all over his fellow passengers. Because we couldn't set foot on American soil without going through customs, we couldn't get off the plane. We were grounded in Miami for about two hours while EMT personnel attended to the sick passenger and the Christian missionary sitting next to me read the Bible out loud. We arrived in Atlanta too late to catch a connecting flight to New York, so we had to spend the night. Without our luggage. Later that night at a hotel bar, a football game was on TV and I made the mistake of rooting for the wrong team. Several angry-looking Southern gentlemen schooled me on the superiority of the Atlanta Falcons or LA Saints and used vulgar curse words when referring to any team east of Ohio. The next morning, at 5am, we arrived back at the airport only to be told that snow in New York had grounded all flights until further notice. When we finally got on the plane 6 hours later, I caught a nasty ear infection and spent the entire flight crying in pain.

#1: August 2007, coming home from Lake Tahoe, CA. I had flown into San Francisco and lost my cell phone the second I got off the plane. I was supposed to fly out of Reno to Salt Lake City and then onto New York. I made it to Salt Lake without incident, but the second I set foot in Utah, shit went crazy. The 3o'clock flight to JFK was oversold. All the extra passengers were given priority for the 6 o'clock flight. By midnight there were so many people trying to get to NY that Delta was offering free hotel stays for anyone willing to give up their seat and fly out in the morning. (I was not eligible for that deal.) With no cell phone and my next shot at getting home in less than 6 hours, I felt like it was silly to waste time and money on a hotel room. Spend the night in the airport, I thought. People do it all the time, it'll be fine. WELL IT WAS NOT FINE. It was cold and uncomfortable and scary. I kept getting woken up by the cleaning crew. I had horrible dreams about being fired from my internship. The nice couple that was sleeping a few rows behind me disappeared in the middle of the night. I woke up the next morning to Mormon boys asking me if I'd heard the good news. After I brushed my teeth IN AN AIRPORT BATHROOM, I walked up to the gate counter at 6am with high hopes.... and was quickly shut down: first flight of the day, oversold. Not only did I have no chance of getting on this flight, but every flight to New York that day was just as bad. What about Atlanta, I asked? All full. Cincinnati? Looks good getting there, but you probably won't be able to get a flight out of Cinci to New York. Your best bet is flying to Pittsburgh. And from Pittsburgh? There's a commuter flight into La Guardia that's wide open. Sounds good to me, let's do it. So I flew to Pittsburgh at 10am and let me tell you: the Pittsburgh airport has a MALL. I'm talking Gap, Louis Vutton, a food court, the works. But as I was eating my chicken teryaki and thinking things were looking up, I got the news that all flights to New York were grounded because of severe thunderstorms. Once I actually did get on the plane 4 hours later, I remembered the gate agent in Salt Lake saying the words "commuter jet." The reality of those words hit me as I stared at my fellow passengers--all 20 of them. The only way to get through this flight was with a stiff drink. Which I spilled all over myself during turbulence. I left Lake Tahoe at 10am on Sunday morning and arrived in New York at 9:30pm on Monday night smelling like a homeless alcoholic. Such fun times!

Honorable mentions: lugging a 100lb suitcase onto a train from Berlin to Amsterdam. Traveling with friends I didn't speak to half the trip because they were acting a fool. Having a woman damn near give birth on a flight. Waiting for 5 hours at JFK with my 80-year old grandmother and cousin who doesn't drink and then sitting on the tarmac for another 3 hours. Hearing a horrible grinding metal sound 10 minutes after taking off in Hawaii, watching as the plane turns around twice over the Pacific Ocean with no mention of what's going on, then having the captain get on the intercom as he's making his 3rd loop over the ocean to tell us the landing gear won't go up and we have to make an emergency landing.

Your turn.

How I fell in love with San Diego (or the post wherein I link to 18 websites)

My first-ever post on this blog was about how much I love San Diego. (And I've definitely mentioned how great it is more than few times since then.) In that very first post, I promised to get back to just why I heart San Diego so much. Well here it is, kids: the story of how I fell in love with "America's Finest City." (If it were up to me, I'd call it "The City of Awesome.")

Way back in 2000, I moved onto the 13th floor of Warren Towers, Boston University's biggest, most prison-like dormitory. It was there that I met the uber-cool Liz. Liz and I always talked about moving out to California after college, but I up and abandoned her in 2002 when I transferred to a school back home in New York. Liz went ahead with our plan and drove across the country to San Diego, while I managed people twice my age at a department store and thought law school might be fun. (Not so much.)

Fast forward to the fall of 2007 when I was looking for post-grad jobs. I stumbled across the San Diego Public Defender's Office website and happened to notice a blurb about a winter internship program. With nothing better to do between semesters (and remembering that I hadn't seen Liz in, oh, 5 years) I thought, "Thirty degree weather, or spending a month on the beach...hmm...." A few months later, I was hauling my suitcase up to the second floor of this sweet house in Mission Beach, a block away from the ocean:

The house

A friend from school had also applied for the internship, so we joined forces and spent a month jogging on the beach, walking on the beach, doing cartwheels on the beach, and drinking on the beach. We also did things like drive to La Jolla and walk on the beach, and drive to Torrey Pines and walk on the beach there, too.

The beach by the house. (And the roommate. And the beers....on the beach)

The beach at Torrey Pines

But seriously... San Diego is wonderful for more than just its beaches and great weather. Having spent a lot of time in Europe, I'm very used to a laid back, relaxed culture. And people in San Diego exude nothing but that, as evidenced by the plethora of outdoor cafes and beach-side shops. New York City is so obviously the opposite of that culture, which may be the reason I keep looking to escape it. San Diego has exactly the kind of mellow atmosphere that's hard to find in my hometown.

Also... the food. Oh my God, THE FOOD. Not just the variety, but the freshness of it all. No wonder everyone wants to move to Southern California--you can get a fresh avocado year-round! Here are some of some my favorite local eateries:

• Ocean Beach Pier Cafe. Everyone I know kept raving about the lobster tacos at this place, so of course I had to try them. I mean, come on--a taco with LOBSTER in it Does it get any better? (Turns out, it does--when you eat three of them.) The lobster was so fresh, it practically melted in my mouth. There was just the right amount of cabbage, and the pico de gallo wasn't too overpowering. I'm not sure exactly how they make the cream sauce that gets drizzled on top, but it added just the right amount of lime to the meal. The tortillas ripped a bit too easily, but I think that can be attributed to the speed at which I devoured them. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: BEST. LOBSTER. TACOS. EVER.
  
• Every sushi place on Garnet Avenue in Pacific Beach. Not one place disappointed, and I'm pretty sure we tried them all. The Garnet Sunset Roll at Haiku was unbelievable--I had never before tried Jalapenos on sushi, and it blew my mind. The Volcano Roll at the same restaurant was the most elaborate sushi roll I've ever had, and trust me when I say I've had some elaborate rolls. They brought it out on fire. And the taste.... oh the taste. The heat caused the cream cheese to melt around the rice and crab in a smooth, creamy sauce, while the avocado gave it a cool element. While this was our most-frequented sushi spot, another good one is Kabuki Sushi. The prices were right, and the atmosphere was very laid back--one of those sushi bars where the boats of rolls float around a little river and you just pick up the plates you want.
• Speaking of Pacific Beach, no post about San Diego would be complete without mentioning PB Bar and Grill. This was probably the place where I spent the most time. The entire establishment is open to the outside, with heating lamps for the those freezing-cold 60-degree nights and umbrellas for the three times a year it rains. Happy hour is every day from 4 to 8, and there is always some sort of special on appetizers or beer. I recommend the sampler platters that include one of everything, and the 2-for-5 beers. With over 30 beers on tap and just as many flat screen TV's around the place (showing every single sports game on IN THE WORLD), I can honestly say this place has something for everyone.
  
• While we're talking about beer, we have to talk about the Karl Strauss Brewery in La Jolla. This microbrewery/restaurant not only has the best Ahi tuna I have ever tasted, but serves over 20 different kinds of their own beer. I ate there twice while in San Diego, and both times I ordered the beer sampler: six half-pint glasses of the beers of your choice. My personal favorite was a summer ale that tasted like banana.
  
• And Ralph's. Ah, Ralph's....only the best supermarket on the planet. I have never purchased better (or fresher) salsa and guacamole than in your store, Mr. Ralph. I salute your superior quality of produce and your ability to sell liquor and shampoo in the same establishment. Of all the venues I have named, I miss you the most.

I've covered the weather, the atmosphere, the beach and the food... I guess that leaves Shamu, the biggest zoo in the U.S., the 15 museums in Balboa Park, the surfing, and the seals in La Jolla.

They were pretty cool

So that's how I fell in love with San Diego: I spent a month there and saw everything. I drank coffee with brown sugar and watched the surfers on Mission Beach. I walked the piers in Ocean Beach and Pacific Beach and rode a bike from Mission to La Jolla. I smoked a hookah at Sinbad Cafe on Garnet Avenue and requested the best song of all time at The Shout! House in the Gaslamp District. And just a few months later, I went back for more: after my last semester of law school, I met a friend in my City of Awesome and we spent five days relaxing at his uncle's vineyard in Ramona. If that doesn't make you want to move there, you'd be hardpressed to find something that does.

And if all goes according to plan, I'll eventually end up living there. Hopefully somewhere close to here: