2007-04-29 - 9:42 p.m.

Can I tell you how wrong it feels to wake up and see a beautiful sunshiny day here in Los Angeles and remain cooped indoors studying wills and trusts? The exam is one week away. I haven�t hated the class (because it�s been taught by a tiny, gentle man who apologizes for the grimness of it all), and I�m only studying wills and trusts because it will be on the Bar. Nonetheless, the course should really be called either �Helping Rich People Avoid Paying Taxes� or �Helping Rich People Control Their Loved Ones from the Grave.� Or some clever mix of the two. Perhaps with alliteration? To punch up the death-planning? Olay!

So, you know how when you move to a new place, you lay out all kinds of plans about how you will totally take advantage of living in that new place? For example, when we moved to Long Beach a thousand years ago, I swore that I would go jogging on the beach every morning. Did I? No, not really. I did occasionally jog on the bike path until I learned there�s apparently an off-shore coal deposit in the LB waters. And then I watched an episode of that Morgan Spurlock show filmed in San Pedro (aka LB north), calling San Pedro the �DIESEL DEATH ZONE.� So jogging along the harbor lost its allure.

Anyway, what I mean to say is that I actually have been doing the things I thought I might do if we moved here: jogging around the Silverlake Reservoir, walking to places I like, such as el beergarden of Red Lion Tavern, patronizing the hell out of the gelato place and the Silverlake Cheese Store, and many more. Oh yes, many more.

We�re going to do my sister-in-law�s baby shower here at our new place. I realize we�ve already been here a few months�but it takes a while to be shower-ready! We possess massive amounts of crap to push around. Despite the studying of the death tax, our homestead has been a flurry of painting and shuffling and whatnot. I could not be more excited about the room that has been termed �my office.� Erik has his own tiny nook that can somehow house his 7,000 instruments, recording devices, and computer, so that�s his office. I get this other cute room that has a slanty ceiling, which�I believe�enhances the you-might-be-in-the-mountains quality I so enjoy in this apartment. I painted my office the lightest pale blue you can imagine. I swore it was white as I slapped it on the wall, but once the crown molding received stark white paint (name: Polar Bear), you could see a difference. Then, in a moment of reckless DIY euphoria, I decided to spray paint the chandelier fluorescent pink. I feel it is a winning match, and now the baby shower is sure to kick ass.

Still, I�m nervous about the shower. It�s co-ed, as many of sister-in-law�s favorite friends are gay men, so the games can�t be the usual boring �don�t say �baby�� business. I believe I�ve devised a few crowd-pleasers:

1. Everyone gets a photo of a celebrity mom affixed to his/her back upon arrival and must ask yes/no questions to determine which celebrity mom he/she is. Bonus points given for naming all spawn of assigned celebrity mom. Problem: how does one win this game? I�m still working on it.

2. Group hears snippets of songs that have the word �baby� in the title. Person who can identify the most correct song titles and artists wins an exciting treat. Problem: Everyone sister-in-law knows works in the music industry. They will probably know all of them. Potential solution: Erik, quite keen on underground hip-hop, believes he can come up with some stumpers.

OK, so that's only two games. That�s probably not enough. Well, we can always resort to a beer-drinking contest, the only �baby shower� element being that the beer is served in baby bottles.

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