It’s been awhile since I’ve written but that’s because I haven’t had much to say. However, in the course of living my life a couple of things have come up.

I went to a slammin’ house party over the weekend! It was one of those that was so good you stayed to the bitter end and then some and were still reluctant to leave. So good you leave asking when’s the next one? Well I’ve gone to a few of this person’s parties this year and each one has been better than the last. I actually started thinking about it and here are some tips that I think are universal for a good party (BTW : these are not in order of importance): 1. An adequate supply of food and beverages. It’s obvious why you don’t want to have too little but you don’t want to have too much either. Nobody likes wasting food and by “running out of drinks” at the appropriate time your party can end at a decent hour without your guests leaving your house and ending up in “the big house” on a DUI charge. I say this because I notice that when the alcohol stops flowing people tend to slow down from a “roar” to a “chatter” and then ease off into the night.  2. Ambiance. This can be through a theme and decorations or just lighting and seating. Dim lights are great, (no one wants to feel like they’re being interrogated ) but not so dark I can’t recognize you on the street. Hey what’s the point of meeting new people if you can’t pick them out of a lineup later? 3. The guest list. The perfect party guest list includes enough people that know each other so that they feel comfortable enough to let loose a little, enough people that don’t know each other to make things interesting and one suprise guest. The surprise guest is just that, someone you did not expect to be there. It can be a friend you and some of your guests haven’t seen in awhile, a celebrity (who knew you knew Brad and Angie?) or a fun friend who said no then shows up unexpectedly. The purpose of the surprise guest? They re-energize the gathering and take it to the next level and give people a reason to tell others how great it was the next day ”you’ll never guess who showed up last night!” A word about the surprise guest…it will also work if it’s someone negative (ie: someone’s ex, mistress etc) but it’s not a move for the faint of heart, you may end up with more action than you bargained for. Anyway, mix these three and in my opinion you have the recipe for a successful soiree.

The second thing I wanted to mention is that after months of wanting to, I finally made it to a yoga class. Ouch! I have never sweat so much standing, sitting and laying around. Probably because I have never spent so much time standing on one foot, sitting without a chair and laying on one side and looking in the opposite direction. I am feeling muscles I did not know I have but I like it and plan to try it again. Madonna-arms here I come!

I have a friend named Joe. He’s an attorney and a damned good one. He’s got a beautiful, wife and a wonderful son. They live in a breathtaking house and I could go on and on counting Joe’s blessings. However, as a friend I’d say Joe’s biggest blessing is a good heart. He likes to help and encourage people. I would go so far as to say that the other blessings I’ve mentioned Joe having are somehow a result of his amazing heart.

 Joe and I met on his birthday a few years ago. I was the date of a guest at his birthday party. Now this party happened to be a “golf tournament” with various friends and family drawing straws to make foursomes and heading off for 18-holes of fun. This was not exactly what I signed on for. At the time I had never played 18-holes of golf in my life and now I was being asked to play in front of a course full of strangers. Add to that the fact my straw put me in Joe’s foursome. All I’m thinking at this point is how do I get out of this? I’m gonna ruin this guy’s birthday, slow down the game, embarass myself and the friend that invited me. I tried to trade places but Joe wouldn’t have it.  I could give you every detail about this story but suffice it to say that not only was Joe a patient and gracious host. He gave me a love for golf that endures to this day. He encouraged me when he could have ridiculed me and was my biggest cheerleader when I was able to incorporate his instruction and get anything close to a positive result.  Not may people would use their birthday golf tourney to help some newbie stranger learn the game.  Near the end of the course Joe took me aside to help me work on a particularly difficult maneuver.  There was no way I was going to get this shot but he wanted me to know the proper technique. I started gushing about how I’m sorry I didn’t play better and thank-you for the instruction and I hope I didn’t ruin your special day…etc. Joe laughed and told me to take a deep breath and look around. He said ” this is a snapshot day, a day you take a picture of in your mind and remember everything about it, where you were how you felt… I love playing golf and I love being able to share that. This is a day I will remember forever.”

It was a snapshot day for me too.  I’ve had a few snapshot days since then and I still thank Joe for pointing out the concept to me. This past weekend was Al’s birthday. I rented a Harley touring bike with all the bells and whistles to surprise him. Truthfully that present was just as much for me as for him. Riding is something we both love, it’s this love that brought us together. Anytime I can spend on a bike especially with Al is the best time ever. It’s a snapshot day. Any time I can spend with Al I feel like I’m living a charmed life. Having him around makes colors brighter and food taste better.  Al left yesterday and I was so sad at the thought I could barely enjoy the time we had left together. So many times we can’t appreciate what we have because we are agonizing over what we don’t.

I bring this up because when I got to work today I found out that Randy Pausch had died. He’s the Carnegie Mellon professor that was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and gave a “last lecture” that became a You Tube sensation, then wrote a book on it and landed on Oprah. If you haven’t I would reccomend that you find his lecture on you Tube and watch it. It’s inspiring. It reminds us to take joy in what we have and what we can do for others with the time that we have.

I’m guilty of forgetting how good my life is. I’m going home to look through some of my “snapshots” today and remind myself to appreciate what I’ve had, take joy in what I have and to keep hope alive for the future. If you’re like me I reccomend you do the same. Chances are we’ll both wake up the better for it tomorrow and use that better part of ourselves to inspire others to be better too.

That’s what this has been so far. I LOVE Aisha Tyler! She is everything I ever wanted to be: Smart, Funny, Tall and Gorgeous.  (Hey it’s not a total wash, I figure I got two out of four!) If you missed her interview this morning, check it out on the podcast at movin997.com. Her comments about Flava Flav are priceless!

Mike Epps dropped by sporting a brand new look….freshly cropped hair..Tasty! He was in great spirits talking about his new projects. I love when he’s on too because he always listens to the show on his way to the station so he busted us on our Flava Flav - Obama conversation. He’ll be at Cobbs Comedy Club all weekend for tickets and show times hit up cobbscomedy.com

Finally, Charlie Murphy stopped by. He looked like a dime and was in a great place. I could feel that in his energy. He said it was because he had fruit for breakfast ( now that could be part of it but I ate a giant nectarine this morning and my spirit wasn’t as light as his.)  I’ve met him on a few occasions over the years and I’d have to say this is the happiest I’ve seen him. The first time I met him, oh about five years back during the run of the Dave Chappelle show, he seemed angry and a bit dark. I don’t know why but that was my perception. Since moving here we’ve had him on twice and in my opinion he’s a lighter, happier person. This brother sure knows how to bling! If the studio had metal detectors you would’ve heard them all go off this morning.

I’m excited about making my first trip to the Gilroy Garlic Festival. I’ve heard all types of mixed reviews including “you’ve got to try the Garlic Ice Cream!” I don’t know about that, I think I’ll stick to the fries.   Hopefully I’ll see you out there, otherwise whatever you do have fun!

What up y’all? Interesting things came up on the show today. First the whole pre-nup conversation. The question: Pre-nups, yes or no? The overwhelming response was “Yes!” Those that did disagree used the argument that you are expecting your marriage to fail and that it’s the wrong mindset to use when entering into a marriage. Baltazar is against them and his reasoning is that he believes in romance and love being the reason for marriage and pre-nups  go against that.

My take: first I go either way about marriage. I’ve never been married and don’t feel it’s necessary for a committed loving relationship to exist. The exception for me would be if I chose to have children with someone. This does not mean I’m against marriage, I’m just more about the relationship than the party and papers that celebrate it. That being said I think our attitude (and by our I mean Americans) about marriage is a bit naive.  We like to think we will honor and live out those vows but the truth of the matter is only about half of us do. You would be hard pressed to find anyone on their wedding day with the flush of love in their cheeks, sparkle of love in their eyes breathlessly repeating their vows in front of God, State and everyone of their closest relatives and friends to even entertain the thought they won’t feel this way forever but the the reality is: half of them won’t.

Of that half, some will be mature and split things fairly and move on, others depending on why they are splitting will have the knock down drag out fight of their lives on their hands. We all like to think that the people we choose to be in a relationship with are incapable of hurting or betraying us on purpose but that happens when we are just dating  and most of us didn’t see it coming.  Add some assets to the mix and you are asking for trouble.

I’m not saying every couple needs a pre-nup. If you are on equal footing (close in age, accomplishments and finances) it’s probably not necessary but if one of you is significantly older, or wealthier or more accomplished in life, I would at least consider it. For those of you who say it’s predicting the marriage will fail or taking the love and romance out of things let me remind you that marriage is a legally binding contract already. You have to sign a license in order to do it and get divorced in order to legally be un-married so the government already knows there is a chance things will go south otherwise we would be married without the government’s involvement. That being said, I don’t see anything wrong with going one step further and letting me and my husband to-be decide on the allocation of our assets should our marriage fail rather than letting the government do it.

Now to the issue of “manscaping”, most callers said it’s a “Do” and that’s men and women. I’m fine if you do fine if you don’t but a bit of trimming would be preferred. However, the only bald areas I want to see on a man are above the waist and if you’re going to make me “rumble in the jungle” you better use some conditioner and a comb there Tarzan or no safari!

I haven’t blogged for awhile because I haven’t had anything I really wanted to write about and I’m generally not a person to do something just to do it, or I’m just lazy. Actually it really is the first but when I say that it sounds like the second.

I’ve been traveling a bit lately so I have some observations.  1. The best “middle” ( the person sitting between the people in the aisle and window seats) to have on a plane is no middle. Unless you’re madly in love or at least in like with the person next to you it’s weird at best and if you are sandwiched between two strangers it just plain sucks. You can’t lean so it’s hard to sleep and your fighting for an armrest the whole time. I once had to sit “middle” on the very back row on a coast-to-coast daytime flight. 6 1/2 hours of torture!

2. I am not a fan of all the post 9/11 carry-on restrictions ( the whole striptease to get through the checkpoint is annoying) but I must say that it has made for more uniformity as far as the luggage is concerned. I remember in years past seeing people carry-on everything from carnival midway sized stuffed animals to table leafs, boom boxes and potato chips and stash them in the overhead compartment.

3. Is it me or are more flights late these days? The past two weeks I have taken the same flight back to San Francisco and both times it’s been close to two hours late. No big deal but it was the last flight out so when all was said and done I finally crawled into bed at 1:30 this morning only to have my alarm clock go off two hours later at 3:30 am. Ugh!

Finally, ladies thanks for calling in on the “Hairanoia” Ladies Room. Special thanks to Angela Gardner who e-mailed with some curly hair product reccomendations. I placed an order today and will product test these myself. If I agree with Angela, I’ll post the link on the blog.  Angela says she surfs and swims and these products keep her hair nice despite the salt and chlorine. She also reccomends the Medusa Salon in San Francisco which she reports specializes in curly hair. I haven’t tried the salon so if you do, make sure you ask about any concerns. That’s it, have a fabulous hair day!

There’s very little sun. The word “hazy” sounds romantic until you realize it’s because Cali is burning! There is nothing romantic about an open fire in a forest. Okay, at the risk of sounding like somebody’s grandmother again…we can put a man on the moon so why can’t we can find a way to harness all that flood water in the Midwest and get it on these fires out here?! I’m just saying.  Of course if I was so smucking fart I’d have already invented a system to do so instead of crabbing about the obvious.

I guess part of my concern comes from the fact that this is one of the few weekends I’ve chosen to do something outdoors. Al’s coming into town and I’ve promised to take him fishing. It’s something we both like and we’ve both done, just never together. I hope we can enjoy it without coughing up a lung first.

Here’s the thing, even though I’m relatively new to the area, I’m very proud to live here and I don’t take it for granted.  Much of the charm of the Bay Area for me (besides the people) are the natural surroundings. I love the majestic mountains and the sparkling waters and the rich land that produces  the delicious fruits, vegetables etc. and until recently the fresh air. I’ve never considered myself an enviromentalist. I would say I’m aware of the environment but until moving here I didn’t feel really strongly about protecting it. However over the months I’ve become more conscious and in my little ways I try to do my part. I use totes for my groceries and recycle my garbage. I actually look at the packaging of the products I use and try to buy brands that are biodegradable. I walk and use public transit whenever possible and unplug appliances when I’m not using them. I guess the point is that I think every person lucky enough to dwell or visit the Bay Area should be able to enjoy all it’s beauty clearly and not through a haze of smoke. If these fires are from natural causes then so be it, it’s an unfortunate occurence. If however, there are some idiots out there playing pyromaniac, may they burn in the inferno they created.  You don’t have to love the nature here but I think we should at least respect it.

That’s it. I’m (cough!) gone fishing.

Swingtown (Thursdays 10p CBS) is one of my favorite shows of this summer. First let me state that I have no interest in trying what the title suggests. However, I like a number of things about the show: 1. It’s set in the ’70’s so lots of groovy clothes and settings (The Playboy Club for one), 2. Grant Show (Jake from 90’s soaper Melrose Place who is still pretty hot!) and his “porn ’stache” and 3. The carefree attitudes…this was the “me decade”, do it ’till you’re satisfied, love the one you’re with, pre-AIDS,  pill-popping and sex without consequence was the rule of the day.

It’s not the easy sex and prescription drugs I enjoy looking back on, it’s the timeframe. The economy was good, sex was fun and not life-threatening and we weren’t looking for terrorists around every corner. I for one am tired of life being at a constant orange-alert between child predators, internet stalkers, road rage, drive by’s, rising oil prices, collapsing housing markets… it’s a wonder I can sleep at night. I long for the days when you could sit on the front porch talking with friends until the wee hours and the only danger was a complaint from the neighbors. I miss seeing kids playing in the front yard and old people talking an evening stroll and everyone watching out for everyone. I miss being able to expect the best from people instead of the worst. I miss feeling safe. At this point, I sound like somebody’s grandma the only phrase missing is “back in my day” but the point is I miss the simpler times. I know they are long gone and not coming back but once a week, I can go to Swingtown and break open a bottle of sangria and savor the safety.

Whatever happened to “the coldest winter I ever spent was summer in San Francisco”? I’m not complaining, the weather is beautiful even though sweat-inducing I’m just a bit surprised.  I’m hanging out at work late so I can suck up the last of the air-conditioning since there isn’t any in my apartment.

Right now there’s a bunch of tourists chewing out friends back home that told them to bring jackets to our part of the world because “it’s not So-Cal, it gets chilly there”. I’m glad we’re not So-Cal, it’s like 100+ degrees there! Of course that’s nothing to a Marine friend of mine who lives down in those parts. I was talking to him about the heat and he said it was cool compared to his hitch in Djubuti (hope I’m spelling that right) in Africa. He said it was 130 degrees when you woke up, of course that’s factoring in the humidity. That’s one thing I can say about the Bay Area, so far no matter how hot it’s been, it hasn’t been humid.

One great thing about this week’s heat wave has been watching adults eat ice cream cones. There’s a Baskin- Robbins near work so it’s been fun watching people walking by with those cool, sticky confections. They turn everybody into 8-year olds. You see grown men in business suits licking like their life depends on it so as not to get any on their tie or heaven forbid their suit. It makes me smile.

The other morning, Baltazar, Chunk and I were talking about ice cream with them professing their love for all kinds of ice cream, generally full of “stuff”: nuts, chocolate chips, marshmallows etc. and they laughed at me when I said my favorite flavor was vanilla. It’s true. I generally like my ice cream “stuff-free”, unless it’s a mix-in or sundae otherwise vanilla it is. Why? Because to me vanilla is the most versatile flavor. You can dress it up in a sundae or split, it’s the base for all types of shakes and floats and goes great on top of pie, between cookies or next to birthday cake. But even by it’s lonesome, for me nothing can beat a couple of scoops of vanilla on a day like today.  Matter of fact I’m headed to Baskin-Robbins on my way home. Oh, don’t be too hard on the guy with the ice cream on his tie because somewhere there’s a woman with ice cream on her nose and I’d really appreciate it if you just smiled.

I’m sitting here eating a blueberry Pop Tart just as happy as can be.  This is not part of my New Year’s health kick pledge and it’s probably not reccomended in any nutritional manual but this little bit of “bad for you” goodness has put a smile on my face.

Speaking of things smile-worthy in my world: John Witherspoon. He’ll be at Tommy T’s all weekend  so if you haven’t figured out something for Dad yet I reccomend this. Tommy’s has a great menu (father-friendly: meat, potatos, fried stuff) so you guys can have dinner first and then laugh it off.  You know John from the Wayans Bros. TV Show and the Friday movies and Boomerang with Eddie Murphy and countless other things but just hanging in the studio he is a kind and humble man and look forward to his visits.

I have a question- when are you officially old? 40’s, 50’s, retirement at 65? The reason I ask is that no one I talk too classifies themself as old. Even AARP card carrying senior citizens don’t call themselves “old”. I hear all this “60 is the new 40, 40 is the new 20″ talk which I have some choice comments about but those will come another time. The reason I even bring it up is that story on the news about the 84 year old woman who drove the wrong way down the Muni tunnel. Long story short, officials were able to stop the trains so there was not an accident. However police “evaluated” her , decided she was okay and let her drive herself home (they followed her). We can all make driving errors but shouldn’t you have restrictions on your liscense after a certain age? Let’s face it, as we age things change…eyesight dims, reflexes get slower. I just said I plan to voluntarily stop driving when I get 75 (God Bless me to live that long). Of course when the time comes…will I think I’m to old to drive?  I don’t have an answer about the age question it’s just something I think about as I get older. I know this, I am too old for some things because my body has told me so despite what my mind says. I also know, when I decide I’m too old for too many things I’ll be dead because I at least plan to “think young” forever.

To take a bit of liscense with Shakespeare, a Rose by any other name may still smell sweet but she’ll answer to Pumpkin, Wonder Woman, Sunshine, Boopsy, Sweet Thing or some other nickname according to the phone calls we got this morning. Meanwhile on the men’s side we got everything from Delicious and Papi Chulo to Hubba Bubba. Both lists go on but the point is what do these nicknames say about us.

Our real names, the ones our parents gave us are something we grow into. Many of us are named for relatives or friends who passed away, celebrities our parents admired or characters in a book or a movie. We’re given these names as infants when our looks and personality aren’t even formed. Nicknames are born from something specific about us (I’m not talking about the shortening of our given name) and are more descriptive like some physical trait or facet of our personality. They can also be the exact opposite of those. They can be terms of endearment, funny like an inside joke or downright cruel. Luckily most of us outgrow them and lay them to rest of course they always rear their ugly heads at the most embarassing moments.

After Al and I had been dating awhile we began meeting each others friends and relatives. He always threatened his people not to call him by his nickname in front of me. Now had he not made such a big deal out of it I would never have known he had a nickname or even been curious about it. The more he threatened anyone who might tell me, the more I wanted to know.  Sadly, Al’s father passed away before I could meet him but I accompanied him to the funeral to show my support. His cousin gave a touching eulogy full of candor, religion and just enough humor. Included in that eulogy were the names of all the “kids” and their nicknames. When he was through, the only thing redder than Al’s face were the flowers on his Dad’s casket. The nickname itself wasn’t bad, it was just more suited to a mischievous round-cheeked little boy than a salt-and-pepper haired grown man.

I didn’t ride him about it- much. However, when he gets on his high-horse with me I’ll pull it out to take him down a peg. He has since found out my middle name which he usually shoots back with on these occasions and we both have a good laugh. So I guess what’s in a name at the end of the day is a good laugh, some good memories and a great deal of love.