Monday, April 30, 2007

French Dip Tuesday

Hey Everyone! Remember tomorrow is the first Tuesday of the month. Not only does Brigham finally get to shower, but it is French Dip Tuesday. I'm hoping to steal my camera back from Gnu so I can take a picture of me eating a French Dip Sandwich tomorrow night while blogging and watching Gilmore Girls. I invite all to join in the festivities. French Dip sandwiches are really good. I don't know where the best place to get one is. I did have one at Tillie's once. Even though I don't like Tillie's, I may have to go back for French Dip tomorrow. Hmmm, basically I've got a lot to think about and prepare before tomorrow night.

Let me know about your French Dip sandwiches tomorrow. Natalie, you live right by the Gateway and can go to the Doto, home of the most delicious French dip. If I find out that you don't participate in this event, I will cry. (I'm testing out using crying as a threat. I haven't been able to gather enough evidence yet to truly test its power, but I'm not about to stop the test. On a side note: I have gotten more laughs as a response than I had originally hypothesized.)

Happy Eating!

Sunday, April 29, 2007

Patience is divine

So, I'm sure several of you (mostly just Natalie) are wondering when I'm actually going to blog again and post pictures and tell classic anecdotes, well, right now is not that time. I'm sorry. Watch the news people. We've had exciting and dangerous happenings here. The freeway broke. Actually, this doesn't affect me all that much, but traffic is going to suck for the next several months. Really really sucky traffic.

The real reason I can't spend my Sunday afternoon blogging about my last few adventures is because Mr. Gnu has stolen my camera and is taking it hostage. He's such a jerk. Until I get that camera back I can't blog with pictures and tell you about stuff and try and be funny. Tell him you are upset by this recent event, it is all his fault.

Now, I have a real life problem. Our fridge stinks. Not smells a little, but stinks! Full blown stinky nasty so we never ever want to open it up. We have thrown away fresh, good food on the random chance that it could be bad. I have cleaned and sanitized every inch of both the fridge and freezer. All of this to no avail. We have become the stinky kids, and I'm not happy about. Not happy!!! How can I get rid of the smell? It's nasty. Nasty!

There you go, Natalie. Happy Monday morning to you. I can't blog with pictures because Gnu's a jerk and my house stinks because of my nasty fridge. On a happier note, Golden State just went into the half with a very nice half court shot tying it up. Well done local team, well done.

Monday, April 23, 2007

Every Member a Missionary

Sunday was ward conference and theme was missionary work. Missionary work is a great topic; something that I think we can all work on. It was great timing. Just last week, I walked into my office and found a pamphlet with Jesus on the cover and Plan of Salvation across the top. Right away I recognized the mormon stock art and was thrilled someone thought to leave me information about my church. I giggled inside assuming that Anita had left it for me. I don't know why I thought it was Anita. Anita is the greatest. She's this 40 year old lady that lives with her mom in San Francisco. She grew up going to Catholic School and gives up treats and chocolate every year for lent. I'm so proud of her. I'm also grateful that my religion doesn't participate in lent. Who wants to go without candy for 40 days--you Catholics are amazing!

Back to the story. The pamphlet is still sitting on my desk so I am constantly reminded that somebody else was being a good member missionary. Who do you ask was the good member missionary. A stranger on the BART. Anita got on the BART one night after work. There was a window seat available. She kindly asked the gentleman in the suit sitting on the aisle on his way home from work if she could sit there. He got up and let her in. She thanked him and sat down. He then reached into his briefcase, pulled out the Plan of Salvation pamphlet and handed it to Anita. No words were exchanged. The man got off of the BART a few stops later. Never to see Anita again.

Anita could not throw the pamphlet away because it talked about God. Therefore as a God fearing woman, she passed it on to me. Thank you Anita. And thank you Mr. Member Missionary. I'm always afraid to be bold and invite others to learn about my religion, however, your example inspires me. Thank you.

Wednesday, April 11, 2007

At Least I'm a Good Mother



You're Lorraine Baines McFly!


Take the Which Person from Back to the Future Are You? Quiz
Also try my other quizzes.

Breads of India...Delicious

It's a well known fact that my favorite restaurant in the bay area is Breads of India. I think that this restaurant is so great that it has pushed Indian to the top of my list of favorite foods. That is quite a feat because I love food. So, well done you amazing cooks at Breads of India. Okay, well done whoever came up with their chicken tikki masala recipe--yum.

This is one of my most favorite places that I like to take visitors. Courtney also shares a love for the tikki masala. The original Breads of India opened in Berkeley on Sacramento. It is the tiniest little restaurant and dining there allows you to dine with strangers at your table. It's great and very intimiate. Luckily for me, this was on my way home from the Bart stop every day after work when I lived in Berkeley. Unfortunately, when I moved to Alameda I didn't get to drive by as often. However, they expanded and opened a restaurant in Oakland which isn't far from our house at all. This one is much larger and decorated perfectly. You really all should come to Breads of India with us.

So, when Lynn, Drew and 63 were in town we of course went to Breads of India in Oakland. As usual, it was delicious. I am pretty sure that our guests loved it too.


Tuesday, April 10, 2007

Easter Egg Hunts are for Winners

According to Grant, Easter is one of the greatest holidays ever. I believe second only to Halloween--it's the costumes that really put that one to the top. After several moments of contemplation and talking to Amanda, I'm going to have to agree with him. Easter is eggs-cellent!

Apart from the obvious and most important reason we celebrate Easter, let's further discuss the secular blessings we get on this beloved day. The day is devoted to eating ham and candy, how can you not love it? I am pretty sure I've loved the holiday ever since I can remember. Easter morning we woke up early and hunted for our Easter baskets that the Easter bunny had hidden for us. Who doesn't love the adventure of finding prizes? Next, we put on our new Easter dresses and headed off to church. Who doesn't love a new fancy dress? Then we headed off to Grandma and Grandpa Lloyd's for the traditional Easter party. Grandma had been up all night the previous night stuffing chocolate covered marshmellows, pennies and nickels and candy that I have no idea where she bought into colored eggs that were used every year and taped together to prevent them from exploding and to hold them together. Grandpa would then hide them throughout the house. The younger kids' were all upstairs and the older kids' were downstairs. I remember the first year that my eggs were downstairs. I really felt like I had arrived. Every year one of the downstairs eggs would never be found (the older kids got harder hiding places). Every year we looked forward to this Easter egg hunt.

I just celebrated my first Easter in California (although I lived here last year, I was visiting Kellie, Brigham, Abbie and Grant over Easter last year). So, in the grand tradition of Easter, a hunt was inevitable. Gnu and I were in charge of the hunt portion of the Easter picnic festivites, and, I have to say, it was super classy! Probably the classiest. So classy that I am going to need to document this play-by-play style in order to replicate it in the future.

The egg hunt started on Saturday. It began with a pile of empty eggs and toys and candy. (Best toy award goes to the bouncy ball although the ninja came in a super super close second. The yo-yo's come in a dead last--so lame.)



Note that those are fun size candy bars. I said this was classy. Gnu was so happy he swam in the toys and candy.



The egg stuffing began. We worked like crazy trying to stuff as many toys and candies as possible into each tiny little egg. Eggs these days are not as great as they were when I was a child. The eggs that we had didn't click and lock closed. Instead they had this wavy thing that did not hold the egg together, seriously bad form egg making companies, bad form.



We stuffed eggs until we were tired and needed a break. Here we are on our Kit Kat break. Yum Kit Kats.



Look how pretty the Kit Kat is.



The stuffing of the eggs and the Kit Kat break wore me out. I had to make Gnu finish the eggs by himself.



After he was all done, we discovered that we got an extra egg bottom. Total bonus! Gnu enjoyed playing with it and admiring all of his leftover classy candy.





Gnu decided that it would be best to put the leftover candy in a bowl and place it on the bookshelf for all of our visitors. He carefully filled up the bowl and then walked it over to the bookshelf. I'm happy to report that no candy fell out of the bowl. Well done Gnu! Well done!




We then dyed Easter eggs. The best part was writing messages on the egg for Courtney to read when she put the dye on. She loved it. Day before preparations were done, and we just had to wait for the picnic to start.

Easter arrived and it was a beautiful sunny day. Hurray. Our prayers were answered there would be no rain ruining our Easter picnic. Friends came and picniced. I love friends, they really have a way of making awesome parties even better. Maybe they make them awesome in the first place? Who knows, but I totally love them.



Marcus helped Gnu and I hide the eggs. We were at a park so we found a grouping of trees and tall grass and went to work. Ordinarily the Easter bunny would hide the eggs, but we were helping him out.



We had to make the hunt fair so we were sure to get organized and provide everyone with equal opportunity to hunt. This is Courtney telling them all the rules.



Sean kept trying to cheat and get a head start. I am pretty sure that he did cheat because he got more eggs than anyone, by like a lot.



The race to the eggs was on. Some were much more enthusiastic than others. Check out Carl!







And the hunt began. Several strategies were used in egg hunting. Kevin examined each egg carefully before deciding which ones to put in his bag. Sean grabbed them as quickly as possible. There were a lot of eggs and a lot of hunting. I wouldn't be surprised if we even left a few eggs hidden in the park for future children, birds, squirrels and homeless people to find. We are so nice and sharing.














That last picture was Clark yo-yo-ing like a pro. Gnu had troubles when he tried. At first I thought that the problem lie in the 12 cent yo-yo, but based off of Clark's skill I've had to reconsider.



So, Easter was awesome thanks to friends, candy, potluck dinners and, most of all, Easter egg hunts! I hope to make these types of classy hunts a tradition that'll last forever. Thanks friends for making Easter awesome!

Monday, April 09, 2007

Alameda Bike Gang

Ever since I moved to Alameda and true to my "joiner" personality, Courtney and I have been recruiting people to be in our Alameda bike gang. Sarah was the only person truly excited about the gang and thus became our first recruit. (I'm super sad she's leaving us in a couple of month--the gang won't be the same without you.) I don't actually have a bike so I couldn't go out on any outings. This being said, I was still a vital player in the gang. Well, we successfully recruited Gnu and The Black Pearl into the gang. Awesome!

While Courtney was out of town, I rode her bike and when Gnu left his bike at our house, I rode his. Besides the obvious fact that I hadn't written a bike in a long time and crashed into the fence, riding a bike is fun. Plus, Gnu said I couldn't be in the gang without a bike. A Razor Scooter, a long board, roller skates, Hover board, red wagon: none of this would do, it had to be a bike. I'm therefore in the market for a beach cruiser. How sweet would I look on this beauty?

Thursday, April 05, 2007

Let's All Go to the Movies

1. Name a movie that you've seen more than 10 times.
A&E Pride and Prejudice

2. Name a movie that you've seen multiple times in a theater.
I saw Stranger than Fiction twice in the theater. I'm pretty sure I saw Titanic a couple of times in the theater as well.

3. Name an actor and actress that would make you more inclined to see a movie.
John Cusack and Sandra Bullock

4. Name an actor and actress that would make you less inclined to see a movie.
Billy Bob Thornton and Katie Holmes

5. Name a movie that you can do a quote from.
I can do quotes from several movies. I can quote all of Better off Dead and Clueless.

6. Name a movie musical to which you know all the lyrics (and dances) to all the songs.
This was basically the only movie genre I watched as a child: Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, Newsies, The Unsinkable Molly Brown, Calamity Jane, Moulin Rouge, Meet Me in St. Louis, Annie. Grandma would be so proud.

7. Name a movie that you have been known to sing along with.
I'm sure all of the above qualify.

8. Name a movie that you would recommend to everyone.
Say Anything

9. Name a movie that you own.
Anne of Green Gables

10. Name an actor/actress who launched his/her career in another medium but has surprised you with his/her acting.
Ludacris--he was awesome in Crash.

11. Have you ever seen a movie in a drive-in theater? If so, name the movie.
Yes, several. The first movie I saw at the drive-in was Honey, I Shrunk the Kids. But the best drive-in experience was a double feature: Batman Begins and Mr. and Mrs. Smith (hunk fest!)

12. Have you ever made out in a movie?
At the theater? No way!

13. Name a movie that you keep meaning to see but just haven't gotten around to.
There are a couple that keep lingering in my Netflix queue. An Inconvenient Truth and Spider Man 2

14. Have you ever walked out of a movie?
Slept thru? Yes. Walked out? No.

15. Name a movie that made you cry in the movie theater.
My Life.

16. Popcorn?
Rarely.

17. How often do you go to the movies?
Twice a month--sometimes more, sometimes less.

18. What was the last movie you saw in the theater?
I hate to admit it, but I saw Wild Hogs. I should have just lied.

19. What is your favorite movie genre?
ABC Family movies

20. What is the first movie you remember seeing in the theater?
Flight of the Navigator

21. What movie do you wish you had never seen?
I wasted 8 hours of my life watching the first two Lord of the Rings (I only saw them on unedited DVD) and still can't bring myself to watch the third.

22. What's the scariest movie you have ever seen?
Silence of the Lambs

23. What is the funniest movie you have ever seen?
Waiting for Guffman

Roommate Sing-a-long



Last Wednesday I had a meeting in Oakland and then came back to the house to work from home for the day. I got home to find a CD on top of my computer that read: a Wednesday morning gift for Alisa. I popped it into my CD player and the first song was Air Supply's Making Love out of Nothing at All. Genius! This is going to be the greatest CD mix ever. The song ended, and I anxiously awaited the next song. A familiar tune started again. That's right, she made me an entire CD of the wonderful Air Supply song repeated over and over again. I love Courtney.

Just wait, it doesn't end there. Courtney looked up the tabs to this magical song on the internet. We are on the verge of perfecting our harmonies and will be performing at open mic nights by the end of the month.

Thank you YouTube...check it out for your listening and viewing pleasure!

Wednesday, April 04, 2007

I Heart Clubs

If you were to describe me to someone else, I hope you would say something like this: Alisa? Let's see. She has brown hair and freckles. She's funny. And she's a joiner. That's right, I am a joiner. If there is a group of people that I can follow around and join, I'm there. Sign me up.

In fact, I joined a club today. The French Dip Day club. My sister Kellie has a friend from college named Cindy who writes a wonderful blog. She instigated that the first Tuesday of every month would be French Dip Day. Everyone was to eat a French Dip Sandwich for lunch, take a picure and then she would add the group to her blog.

What a brilliant idea! I love French Dip. So, I actually left my office today during lunch and went to Quizno's (the recommended French Dip sandwich place) and ordered myself a sandwich. I got back to my office, realized I didn't have a camera and couldn't document the event, but ate my sandwich nonetheless. I left a comment on Cindy's page saying I did eat a French Dip sandwich and hoped I could still be in the club without photographic proof. She let me in just because I participated in the joy of the day! I was so happy. I'm still so happy! Hurray. I'm in a new club.

If I remember I'll send out a reminder when French Dip Day comes again in May. You can all join too.

Blog Fodder

Today after institute I was building a relationship of trust with Marcus. Conversation soon turned to the blog. I didn't know that Marcus read my blog. I was honored and flattered and all of the things that you should be when you discover a new blog reader.

Now, I've always enjoyed writing. In college, I wouldn't stress out about papers and could easily whip them out in an evening after procrastinating a week or two (I hope my mom didn't read that, I was really studious and got good grades). I even think that after a year of emailing with Natalie, I've perfected the stream of conscious writing technique. I can easily interject my thoughts and side comments seamlessly into the storyline. Maybe not all of the time, but I proof the blog enough that I think I'm okay.

So, Marcus and I were discussing how it can be difficult to combine the right amount of wit and storyline to create the perfect email or blog post. It is a science. It truly is. I admit, some blogs/emails are better than others. Some days are better than others. It is the nature of the beast. For instance, today's blog, not so much! But we press forward.

Since I started the blog, I've discovered that I've become obsessed with it and, most importantly, the "blog fodder." I'm always thinking of what I should and shouldn't blog about. What will be funny and witty? What will provoke thought and discussion? Everyday events transpire and I'm categorizing them into blog worthy, Amy and Natalie email worthy, future story for the story game worthy or just a great moment for me to enjoy today. Everyday, I spend several seconds, minutes and/or hours (each day is a little different) preparing blog fodder. Is this the life of a stand up comedian or a columnist? I'm pretty sure that such a life would make me completely crazy. How can be people be expected to think as if they are constantly philosophizing to an imaginary audience? This is something I'm not ready for. I'm therefore happy to report that I will be maintaining my amateur status--plus, I like the thought of being able to compete in the Olympics. I don't plan on publishing or going professional allowing Marcus and the rest of my blog readers to enjoy the simple things I get out of life.

Monday, April 02, 2007

Tiny Dancer



Today on the bus I saw a man who looked just like Jason Lee in Almost Famous. As I sat there staring at him, I was tempted to break out into the Elton John classic, Tiny Dancer, but felt the power of the moment would be lost on my fellow commuters. Rather than allowing us to let go and forget about our problems while we grew tighter and stronger as a group, I fear my singing would have ostracized myself forcing me to find a new method of transportation every morning.

Has the world really come to a point when we can no longer sing in unison with strangers on the bus? I wonder what Isaiah would have said about this when he foresaw our generation.

Dating Advice Tip #1

I am of the general opinion that when asking someone out on a date you should ask him/her about 2-4 days before the said date. It is also nice to ask with a tentative plan in mind, however that is another dating tip and blog entirely.

This is a tried and true formula. Any detour from it can lead to confusion and awkwardness. For instance, about three weeks ago I was talking on the phone with an old friend of mine from the mission whom I recently became reacquainted with out here in East Bay. He's a nice guy and we've gone out a couple of times. We were chatting on the phone talking about my upcoming busy travel schedule and his travel plans. Anyway, he said that we should get together on the 30th and do something. This was over three weeks ago, so I said sure knowing full well that I had absolutely no clue what in the world I would be doing on the 30th, but I could probably do something...I would worry about it more when it was actually closer.

Now, at first I thought this was totally awesome. Never before had I been asked out 3 weeks in advance. It made me feel super busy and in high demand. Which, let's face it, I totally am. So, I made a mental note not to make other plans for the 30th.

I went about my life for the next two weeks traveling and working like crazy. This guy's birthday showed up in the middle of these two weeks so I called him to wish him a happy one. Ended up leaving a voicemail and then got the reply text the following day. Based off of the text tone I assumed we were still on for the 30th, and he'd be calling the following week to make finite plans.

The next week comes and work sucks! I'm crazy busy with projects and things and suddenly realize that it is Wednesday night and I haven't heard from him yet. Hmmm, I begin to wonder if we are still actually going to do something on Friday, but don't worry too much assuming he'll probably call on Thursday. Thursday comes and goes and no call. Plus, I begin getting weekend event offers on Thursday...what am I to do? I can't make plans in case he calls because then I'm a jerk, but I can't sit around all day and wait for a call. Friday morning I buy a ticket to the baseball game thinking that if he calls with an actual plan I can eat the $10 cost of the ticket.

Friday night comes along and no call. I froze at the baseball game but had an awesome time with my friends! (Wish I'd had a blanket though, Greg!)

So, let's recap: I got asked out for a date 3 weeks in advance and then stood up! My life rocks!