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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