The Gurly Life

Elephant seals

After the obligatory visit to Hearst Castle, we headed over to Piedras Blancas to check out the elephant seals. It's mating/calving season, apparently, so my friend Alison (or was it her dog Brennan?) suggested we check them out. They were just up the street. In case you're wondering why they're called elephant seals, it's because they're about the size of the average year old elephant and they have this proboscis-y flappy upper lip.

They are blobby, floppy, wobbly, jiggly, googly and blubbery. When we first walked up to the beach with all the seals (the elephant seal main drag, if you will)

we were taken aback by their enormous size, their numbers, and one of the mommies had literally just given birth and we got to watch seagulls descend upon and gobble up the afterbirth. Gag! I will never look at seagulls the same way again. Yes, yes, circle of life and all that shit, but really, we had just eaten lunch for heaven's sake.

Mostly they lie around. The males (about a 1 male to 15 female ratio, it seems) spend their time fighting each other, presumably for the females. They can get more aggressive than this, but this is what I got:

So they fight, one wins and the other goes off somewhere else looking like he had something to do anyway. Then the winner first takes a breather, then he figures he'll get his just desserts, and he'll wobble over to one of the females and try to mount her. She will turn around and bark at him, with the most obvious "Are you kidding me with this?!? I JUST GAVE BIRTH, for Pete's sake!" look on her face you can imagine. He will gallantly give up, and go on the next one of his conquests, who will turn on him yelling, "Seriously? Do you NOT SEE THE BABY? I have a headache anyway." He will try another time or two, after which he will just lie down and rest. It's not at all clear to me what the heck he fought for in the first place.

Hippo surprise

The only thing more awesome than this cute little hippo doodad (courtesy of Ms. Willow)

Is that it's actually useful.

Form *and* substance.

 

More iPhone fun

Now that I'm doing a lot of litigation, I'm finding that I'm just not as creatively inspired as I would like. I spend all my creative juices drafting briefs. Which are usually long. Whatever.

This is a photo I took on my phone and played around with, and then turned into a Polaroid. I wonder if over time the ePolaroids will turn yellow and/or fade.

This is me and Wendy, under the fluorescent lights. We look like ghosts. Kinda cool.

This is my friend/colleague, Kathya. She's getting married next weekend. Awwww!

This is Cricket. If you don't know this is Cricket, welcome to my blog!

Here is Maliboo Kitty, photographed with the Hipstamatic app. I don't know, I kind dig it. Note that I have the gall to tag this post with "art." Hah. Who's going to prove me wrong?

OHMYGOD THEY HAVE A DEPARTMENT OF FUN!!!!!!!!!!!

Recently my excellent and brilliant friend, Deirdre, emailed me this link from The Puget Sound Business Journal, about the Socius Law Group PLLC, founded by who I can now definitively anoint my favorite person EVER, Jeanette Adams Gorman, Esq.

Adams Gorman is no slacker. She’s a co-founder of the Socius Law Group, a Seattle firm that’s serious about maintaining work-life balance. How serious?

The firm has a Department of FUN (Frivolous and Unproductive Nonsense) [squeeee!] that orchestrates various morale-boosting activities — including annual three-day retreats attended by everybody who works at the firm and their families.

“We’re trying to create that sense of excitement that’s often lost in a firm just plugging away every day,” says Adams Gorman, a member of the three-member executive committee and the go-to person for human resources.

I think Ms. Adams Gorman might be my sister-by-diferent-parents, or perhaps we were separated at birth. Hey mom, dad, guess what? I found your long-lost other daughter!

Somewhere out there...

...a wicked witch is nursing one hell of a hangover.

Hot monkey love!

Ok, not really, but I thought I'd get you to look at this post if I gave it a steamy, titillating title.

Ivy the Monkey Goddess and I have new shirts. I'll let the pictures tell a thousand words. Or just these words:

You cannot beat this

Monday, July 11, is my birthday.

Machu Picchu? Really?

Or: Well, that just bloody figures.

A few weeks ago, my good friend Ms. Ranty Pants suggested we enter a drawing by these fine people, Global Base Camps, for a 4 day Inca Trail trek to Machu Picchu in Peru. I never win much of anything, so as a lark, I said, sure, let's enter.

I had a niggling feeling that it was very likely one of us would win because neither one of us is even remotely equipped to undertake such a trip. By not equipped, I mean that with hip injuries, SI joint stuff, and back issues, we are barely one healthy person between us. I shrugged it off and thought no more of it. We both have hip issues, and we're not the roughing it types (don't deny it, Ms. Pants) - left to our own devices, this is not perhaps the trip we would organize for ourselves. I distinctly remember saying, as we giggled on Facebook, watch how we're going to win this thing because we so would just die on the trail. I mean, seriously, I get excited when I can hike for 2 hours without collapsing in pain in Griffith Park, trekking across the Andes was not even a glimmer in the apple of my eye.

I further point out that Machu Pichu hikers have oxygen bottles with them. OXYGEN, PEOPLE, OXYGEN! Yeah. I mean, it's only 8,000 feet in altitude, so I'm thinking it's a precaution rather than a necessity. Cusco, however, where we start, is at 11,000+ feet, so that's a little trickier.

I think you know where this is going. Apparently, I won said trek. Natch, I'm going, and I'm dragging Ms. Pants - I immediately called her and told her so. If I go down, I'm taking her down with me (linky to her perspective on this madness). This is going to be a tale of overcoming hardship - the two "disabled" ladies make it to Machu Picchu, and strike it off their bucket list. Incidentally, it's not even on my bucket list, but whatever. In light of the photo ops that this presents, we'll be going, even if we have to strap on one of those newfangled exoskeletons to get us up that mountain.

Of course there's a small part of me that thinks this is a scam of some sort, but it so absurd and ironic that it can only be legit. I will of course do my due diligence, my hopes having been dashed of being alternatively a Nigerian princess who inherits vast sums of money, or being trusted by one and the only human on the planet who can save her and her inheritance. I thus approach windfalls with a leery eye.

The tour includes [my comments/questions are in square brackets, in case the sheer stupidity is not enough to tip you off]

Camping Equipment: spacious North Face [<--merchandising!] tents, dining tent, toilet tent [a. I should bloody hope so, b. toilet paper will be provided, yes?] tables and chairs, oxygen bottle [wait - what?] and cooking equipment [which, presumably, I will not need to use - see below]. Trekkers need only bring sleeping bags. A licensed, well-trained, English-speaking guide, who visits the clients the evening before departure to explain the trek and answer any questions [my question: is the guide coming with us, or just visiting us the night before and then is all, see ya, suckers!?] Chef and Assistant Chef [because what if the Chef twists an ankle? Who would cook? Not me!] preparing healthy, hearty meals cooked with fresh, local ingredients. Well-paid and well-treated porters [ohmygod porters! How colonial, I love it. No, really, I love it - I don't like carrying things]. We supply the appropriate duffel for you to pack and them to carry [again: LOVE IT]. You carry only a light daypack [my purse probably weighs more than this daypack they speak of]. [One last question: what's the shower situation?]

I am compelled to point out how much I do not like to travel, and how somehow the universe is insisting that I travel. I mean, I love visiting new places, but the actual traveling, with the suitcase and the food issues, and those god-awful plane rides, I do not like. Yet somehow I am always traveling. Either visiting friends or family, or being treated to an awesome Egypt trip by my dad (and it's awesome, wait till you hear about it), or planning a trip to Turkey with Ms. Pants, or being dragged up an Andean mountain kicking and screaming.

I'm a lucky bastard.

No, I'm not embarrassed -- why do you ask?

Maliboo Kitty, bless her little furry heart, is a crazy cat who I think suffers from anxiety. I am actually considering some form of homeopathic kitty prozac remedy, but that's a subject for another post. Yesterday afternoon, our neighbor Jill's kitty, Howie, dropped in for a visit. Howie is an amiable, chatty kitty, who likes to hang out on the landing on our floor and go visit his neighbors.

Unfortunately, when he comes here, Maliboo Kitty freaks the hell out. She doesn't attack him, she's not physically aggressive, but she growls and hisses like she's going to kill him and everyone else within reach. She really is frightening. When she freaks out like that, I shoo her into the closet and let her cool off. Or I give her a treat to distract her, that seems to help, but I don't like to encourage such behavior so I only do it when she's inconsolable and wonders around growling and hissing for a long time.

Howie has dicovered that he likes the dry food we provide, which is just sitting out in a bowl for the girls to munch on. Last night we opened the front door to get some air moving through the condo, and Howie ran in and made a bee line for the dry food and started crunching. Maliboo Kitty immediately started hissing and freaking out, so I got up to send Howie home. But since he was gorging himself, I decided the easiest way to get him out was to take the food out, which I did. For a couple of minutes, he sat on my doormat crunching away.

Then Jill showed up, and so did my mom. Howie got distracted and started running off, so I grabbed the bowl with the treats and started following him along the landing. Imagine, if you will, the outfit: I'm in my flannel pj's, the bright red winter ones that Willow gave me, nap socks (also gifted by Willow) and a pink (I kid you not) fleece robe, and I'm making silly noises as I meander down the hall. My neighbor is wearing comfortable clothes, and my mom is in her pink flannel pj's that have kitty cats on them. We're all standing on the landing more or less.

And at that moment, of course, my young, hot, soap-star neighbor of underwear fame walks up, surveys the scene and can hardly stifle laughter as his eyebrows shoot so high up on his forehead that they are practically suspended in the air above his head, like in the cartoons.

As he's snickering at us, I am still walking after Howie with a bowl of dry food in my hand and at the same time I say to my neighbor, "Oh don't mind us, just some cat drama, nothing to see here."

I'm still giggling.

You're old, you're not dead

Yesterday was our annual firm Christmas party. It's my seventh one. Each year it's a little bit of a bigger group, and this year it was very well attended. I mean, it usually is, but this year in particular. We did dinner and a show. Or rather, a show, then dinner.

The show was The Palm Springs Follies, which is a musical revue show whose cast members are between the ages of 56 and 81. Then we had dinner at an excellent Italian restaurant called Sammy G's Tuscan Grill.

Before I say anything else about the Follies, I will say this: GO SEE IT!! It is hilarious, and the performers are not only talented but also the spriest bunch of seniors you'll ever see. Actually, they're a lot more athletic and energetic than most poeple I know half their age. They are all very accomplished performers who have had illustrious careers on Broadway, Vegas and tv. The show was MC'd by Riff Markowitz, who was very Jewish and completely hilarious.

I loved the Chanukah Bear, one of the cast members in a white bear suit who pranced around during some of the Christmas numbers, and in particular during one of those carols that talk about how Christ is our savior and so on and so forth. Nevermind that Christ was not in fact born on Chrstmas at all, and that it was a pagan holiday taken over by the Christians, but that's a whole other story. Point is, the Chanukah bear rocked it.

You can go here for some short videos, though they do not do the show justice AT ALL. The costumes were incredible and very sparkly. In the first half hour or so, the cast members introduced themselves, and the women came out in increasingly gorgeous and elaborate costumes, with gigantic headdresses. I was really hoping for good photos of some of those amazing costumes on their website, but alas they are not. I can think of at least one photographer in my circle of friends who could do a fantastic job for this company and really spruce up the images on the website.

In other words, it irks the heck out of me that they do not have pictures worthy of their show. Arggh.

Ok, moving on.

The show is bright, colorful, a bit bawdy, and totally over the top. Lots of jokes, some of which are mildly offensive, and Markowitz picked some people in the front row and had his fun with them on and off throughout the show. They were excellent sports. One of the people he picked on briefly was a judge from Contra Costa county, who said she does not date, even though she's single. Frankly, I so get that. It's hard enough as an attorney because just the J.D., by itself, is a like giant pair of testicle shears for most men. I can't even imagine what it must be like for her as a judge.

The superfancy costumes showed off the performers' pretty impressive figures. But some of these costumes had a particular feature that was, well, a little awkward. And distracting. Like, I could not tear my eyes away no matter what. I think this is best explained with --

you guessed it --

A PICTORIAL REPRESENTATION!

And I think with that there is really nothing left to say except go see the show, it's the closest you'll get to an acid trip without the actual acid.