Kudos and Boos

It's been a while so here we go for Kudos and Boos...

Kudos to Lady Di and all the moms out there (but most specifically Lady Di)! In case you live under a rock, today is Mother's Day. We actually celebrated all weekend because the prodigal son flew into town and Lady Di wanted to be with all the kids. So he flew in on Wednesday night and on Thursday 4 of the 5 Bonino's headed south so Christopher could take a Paramedic test at UCLA and we spent the weekend down there. And today Lady Di spent some QT with Lisa and I in the car for 5.5 hours while we drove back home. Then she spent the day watching her favorite HGTV shows. All in all, I'd say it was a perfect day - but I am not a mom, so what do I know :o)
Boos to Desperate Housewives ending tonight! It's been real Wisteria Lane.  Actually to all of my shows going away for the summer. Although I do love sweeps week.

Kudos to Claire! Today is her 17th birthday and she is celebrating it with all the other moms. Actually she's having a pretty solid day since she's been celebrating all weekend. On Friday night, Sarah cooked a awesome dinner for everyone where we celebrated Claire, then Saturday we had a surprise party for Claire at the park, and today she spent the day at the beach (a usual tradition for the SoCal Bonino's on Mother's Day).
Boos to all Snow White and the Huntsman...didn't we just have a movie come out about Snow White?

Kudos to celebrity sightings! That's right, I spotted a new celeb this weekend. Let me set the stage - we were stopping at the Coffee Bean bright and early Friday morning to conclude our walk - a Commonwealth tradition. So we are chilling in line and I see this guy (who's back is turned to me) and notice his huge arm tattoo. When he turns around I yell (to myself) David Silver! Now who is that you ask? Well Brian Austin Green that's who! And still nothing yet? Well he's married to Meghan Fox. And he was on Desperate Housewives this season (maybe or last?) Anywho, Lisa, Mom, and Sarah are all not paying attention and getting distracted by shiny things while I yelled at them to get their shit tight and realize we were in the midst of a celeb! And yes I spotted him and that never happens!
Boos to a full new week - I could go for another day.

Kudos and Boos...

Here we go for Kudos and Boos...

Kudos to Mud Run 2012. Well, it's official, I'm a badass and so are Carly and Kate. Yesterday we ran in the NorCal Mud Run in the scenic town of Lathrop. It was a 5K and our wave time was at 3:00 in the afternoon, oh did I mention it was 90 degrees? So with some 50 SPF on, we bolted into a series of mud pits and said adios to clean clothes. Just with the first mud pit, we all got mud in our eyes, were soaked in mud to our necks someone ripped her pants (the identity of that girl shall remain nameless). We all survived without a broken body part (unlike our fave OC housewives) but learned some valuable lessons like, hats are key, goggles are genius, those toe shoes although in the real world seem silly, could change lives on a run like this. And who knew there were so many consistencies of mud!? and
Boos to Jersey Housewives. We watched the season premier tonight and with confidence I can say that I can walk away from this show, cold turkey (although they will be in SF/the bay, so with loyalties I must watch) but the pettiness and walking in circles is a waste. Lisa said it best, it's going to be like New York Housewives, and it's going to self implode and they'll have to clean house. So here's my declaration...it's over Jersey,  I'll stick to OC and Bev Hills.

Kudos to this new fitness high after the Mud Run. And just in good time too since summer is around the corner. I've been falling off the radar but we're hoping to do some more Mud Runs so we got to stay in training. Let's hope this enthusiasm will stay with me when I need to get in the car to go to the gym tomorrow.
Boos to Kim Kardashian's latest adventure...the mayor of Glendale. Her plan is to buy a house and run in 4 years. God help us. I hope that if she does run, my favorite Glendale residents will do what they need to do and, in the words of Liz Lemon, shut it down.

I don't have two more, so mi dispiace. But here's to a new work week...let's hope it's quick and painless!

Recap - Easter

I feel like I've been doing a lot of recaps lately. Lo siento, but work's been a little crazy and I value my sleep. So let's play a little catch up...

Lisa and I flew to LA on Holy Thursday (Marko and Lady Di drove down that day) and were there for Easter. Saturday morning we went to see Sarah's tour at FIDM where we saw somecostumes from 2011 movies. Who knew there was so much to costume design? Not me,that's for sure. And my, that's a perfect segway to Sarah's blog post on the FIDM website. As the docent coordinator for FIDM, she wrote a blog post about the exhibit...so if you know what's good for you, you'll click here!!!

Also on Saturday, we celebrated Michael's 20th birthday with a trip to the Pantry (no not our own pantry for Bisquick mix, a restaurant in downtown where we waited in line for 40 minutes for what could be the best French Toast (and I am all about anything French Toast). Then after some manual labor at Nonni's and soaking up some Vitamin D, we had a delicious dinner, complete with included story time of our favorite Michael stories.

Marko telling his fave Michael story of when Michael was creaming Marko in tennis when he was probably 14. When Marko was bitching about it, Michael simply told him, "once you find your enemy's weakness, exploit it."

This is just a cute pic of me and Sarah

Everyone just so excited to hear more Michael story

And Michael with Claire's birthday gift...the MUPPETS! Complete with the 40% off and price tag still on...she really is Marko's god-daughter.

And then Sunday we went to Gina and Gary's for brunch and dinner and what a lovely day it was!

This seems to happen whenever we take photos. The parents all take the same photo at the same time and when we try to look at only one camera at a time, somehow we still end up with photos with wandering eyes.

And a group shot to conclude the holiday celebration

Sadly I had to hop on a plane bright and early Monday morning with all of the commuters and man was that a long day. And oh hey! I became a full-time employee! Woohoo! Monday's my first official day as a full-timer and today marked my last "work from home" Friday. Alas it was fun while it lasted...so let's see how this goes...

No Big Money Big Money

Well as I am sure you've guessed, I didn't win the lotto. I know, me and about a zillion other people. But I really thought I would win, I had a feeling! But alas, $11 in tickets and not even a megaball number. If only I was at those stores in Kansas, Massachusetts or Illinois.

But why dwell on something I really really wanted and didn't get it and focus on what's ahead, like a weekend in LA for Easter and you know what that means...the possibilities of more celebrity sightings. Although Kate has been racking up the celebrity sightings, with Icky from the fave radio station and then seeing the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills (with husbands no less). So send me your good thoughts and maybe I'll score an A-lister!

#thiswasbriefbutimtired

Trying My Luck at the Lotto!

With the lottery up to $640 million, I decided that now was asgood a time as any to try my luck at this game of chance. What could it hurt right? In fact, I see no bad side effects, only a $640 billion positive one.

So today I went to a hole-in-the-wall liquor store that I pass on a daily basis in Redwood City and bought my tickets. Now I know little to nothing about the lottery, so with $11 dollars and guidance from Lady Di (“I just do quick picks”), I walked into the store that will change my life forever (positive thinking--when has that ever been a bad thing?). I decided on $10 of quick picks and 1 “custom” ticket—I’m sure there’s a more precise name for it, but like I said, I know nothing about the lotto. And they weren't kidding with "quick picks" I think I was in there for 2 minutes total, spending 1.75 minutes picking my custom numbers and 15 seconds getting my quick picks. I was cautious to memorize the other faces of the people before and after me, you know, just in case they win the big money.

So with my fresh tickets in hand on my way home, I did think about all the things that $640 million will buy (well more like half when I go for the lump sum and after taxes). Here are my top 5, in no particular order...

1. Find a pilot with the best track record (most likely a former Air Force One Pilot) to be my personal pilot so I can travel. In fact, I might add a ballerific plane to the detail.

2. Invest in some property, although that sounds so boring, but it will help me roll in the dough later on. But I'll pick some sweet places like Maui, the Caribbean, Italy, someplace in California (I need a home base of course).

3. Hire a personal chef who will double as my grocery shopper--this could be perhaps my least favorite activity. Actually, just creating a personal entourage in general is acceptable.

4. Retire at the young age of 25 (I would continue to work for the next six months…just to stay grounded, but as soon as I turn 25, retirement, here I come).

5. Have my own talk show on Bravo, yes Bravo. While I wouldn't be techincally retired, this has been a dream of mine (and Kate's) since the Real Housewives franchise started with the reunion shows. To be honest, I'd be satisfied with doing just the reunion shows - sorry Andy Cohen, Kate and I will take it from here - and that way, I could still be in retirement.

I am not going to be stupid and tell you what numbers I picked, mainly because I don’t particularly want to share my winnings, but I promise I’ll explain my thought process when I’m interviewed for the news. Let's hope the 1 in 172 million odds are in my favor.

#ComeOnBigMoneyBigMoney!

A "Brief" Detour

Now this is a typical Carly/Julie adventure story. And it could have been prevented in so many ways.

On Sunday morning, fresh off our Disneyland high, we were heading north to get back to reality, but with a stop in Pasadena to see Julia's new apartment. She gave us directions from Disneyland (hop on the 57 N to the 210 W) and then we would reconvene and then get brunch. Simple right? WRONG. So Carly's in the driver's seat and we head onto the 57, debreifing the weekend and I didn't think to whip out my phone to look at the map since the directions were so basic. So there we go driving and driving and had a few dialouges sounding like:

25 minutes into the ride:

Carly: My sense of direction is so off, it feels like we're going just east.

Julie: I know, but we are supposed to take the 210 West so this makes sense. Oh look, Chino!

Probably 10 minutes later:

Carly: Oh, Indio, that's where I'm going for Stagecoach next month.

And about 5 minutes later:

Julie: Ontario Airport? That's where we fly into for Palm Springs. That's weird, there must be a smaller airport and then the larger one. That's so dumb, they should have picked another name, that's confusing.

(So I pulled out my phone)

Julie: Hold up. You're going to want to turn around

Carly: Now?

Julie: Yes, immediately.

Well turns out, we were well on ourway to Palm Springs. About 40 miles back, there was a 57 - 60 split and we unknowingly headed to the 60 (we blame being in the carpool lane). And it was probably three minutes after we were heading back in the right direction, that we got a call from Julia asking where the heck we were. Ooops sorry, we were almost in Palm Springs, we're going to be a while.

Yes, this is the route that we took on accident, and it took us about 1.5 hours. Not what we were really hoping for when we had a solid 6 hour drive ahead of us.

So what lessons were learned in this adventure?

1. ALWAYS look at a map

2. Be cautious of the Southern California carpool lanes

3. Southern california needs to think about relabeling some of their signage on their freeway.

#ImalwaysreadyforatriptoPalmSprings

An object at rest will stay at rest...

At approx 10:00 on Saturday night, we decided to wait in line for Autotopia, one of my favorite rides as a kid. Now let me set the stage, we're in our second set of clothes (thanks to our costume change earlier), but we're not completely dry since we went on Splash Mountain (not our smartest idea but it was fun) and when we got in line, you could actually see stars...the first time it wasn't cloudy all day.So we're in line and Julia whips out her phone and tells us that at 10:00 her hourly weather report says that there's supposed to be 100% chance of rain. And since it's clear, we all immediately start bashing Apple's technology...well Steve Jobs was getting us back because not 10 minutes later, as were about ready to tell the cast member that we need three cars, I fet a drop. Then, another, then it was a bonafide downpour.

So, immediately, cries break out for everyone to whip out their ponchos. Carly, Julia and I were trying to get our fresh plastic bags out and fumbling under pressure, while the mass amount of people behind us have already succeeded, and even had their children covered (another clue that I am not ready for children). It's now our turn to hop in our individual cars and the previous passengers are getting out to let us in, and they're soaked, since they're hip and cool convertibles. So I jump in, and start to go the speedy 6.5 miles per hour, holding my steering wheel through the plastic of my poncho...my hands were so cold...and realized that these cars were so much more comfortable as a child. But it could have been worse because others, mainly Carly, had to sit in a huge puddle.

So there we are cruising through the ride, and I approached an "overpass" and the car infront of the car in front of me was broken down so two cast members were trying to jump start the car. One guy was between the two cars and one was off to the side holding a flashlight. So I released my foot on the pedal (since there are no breaks) and stopped.Meanwhile Carly's driving her car (she's behind Julia) and she's not really having it. She's got one hand holding her hood cause mind you it's still raining cats and dogs, and the other peaking out of her sleeve in a claw-like fashion. So back to me, I was stopped waiting for traffic to start a flowing for maybe 15 seconds when I heard a crash! Then felt a bump, then went into the car in front of me.

While these noises were occuring, the cast member who was standing between the two cars heard this as well and talk about a drama queen, flipped out so he wasn't between the two cars and flailed his arms around. Then, the fool holding the flashlight yells out: PEOPLE PLEASE PAY ATTENTION! You could have killed us. I think all three of scoffed in unison. Really sir? A car that goes 6.5 miles per hour with a track between the it can kill someone? I think the most you could walk away with was a stubbed toe! Don't get mad at us since you're standing in the cold rain! Within seconds you could hear Julia laughing and yelling Carly's name, but poor Carly wasn't too impressed. And she was ready to kick this ride to the curb.

As soon as we got off of the ride (and it magically stopped pouring of course) the first thing she told us all she kept thinking was,"Why the *bleep* are we on this? We can drive and we all have our own cars!"

I suppose some people can't find the magic on every ride.