One of the great things about living in LA -- if you have the patience for waiting in lines and then waiting in seats for things that never start on time -- is the opportunity to see television show tapings or attend panels with celebrities hocking their movies and television shows/specials for free. And this weekend, I did both!
Saturday morning, I got up WAY TOO early and headed to Hollywood for the taping of the May 8th episode of Katie Couric's show, Katie. The daytime talk show normally tapes in New York City, but this weekend Katie took over Jimmy Kimmel's studio to tape a week of shows in three days. The taping we attended (their first of two on Saturday) required us to be in line at 7:30am for our priority seating... which then took place around 8:30. The taping then started around 9:15 and taped totally out of order until around 10:45 with guests will.i.am (who taped first due to his performance, but will appear last when it airs) and Zooey Deschanel.
I love Zooey so it was fun to see her talking about New Girl, her band She & Him, and her awesome website for young girls, HelloGiggles.com. (And as it turns out, I'll see her again tonight when I attend FOX's New Girl finale screening and panel at the TV Academy.)
As for will.i.am, after the Black Eyed Peas opened for U2 on the U2360 tour, I feel like I've seen enough of him and his bandmates to last a lifetime. (Not a BEP fan. Sorry.) But it was interesting to hear him chat with Katie about his philanthropic work to get kids interested in science and technology. I had no idea he was doing that and have a newfound respect for the guy... even if he is the person responsible for "I Gotta Feeling."
And I am now able to verify that when TV hosts say "And everyone in our studio audience is going home with a copy of _____'s new [cd/book/whatever] ______ " they are actually telling the truth! I left the show with a copy of the new She & Him Volume 3 cd, and will.i.am's new #Willpower cd... one of which I will actually listen to.
Then on Sunday night, I headed to Westwood's Wadsworth Theatre for an official TV Academy event: An Evening with Michael Buble'. Michael, his manager and the executive producers of his 2012 holiday special are hoping for an Emmy nomination, so they came to schmooze and entertain Academy voters (hi... that's me and some of my TV biz friends :). The panel was interesting, especially hearing how they used technology to allow Michael to sing with Bing Crosby (via a clip of Bing's holiday special from the '70s). But the best part of the night was getting a free three-song concert from the adorable Mr. Buble. He's just so fun in concert. I never cared about him till a friend dragged me to see him in concert four or five years ago. Now I heart him :)
Oh, and to top it off, we got a free copy of his brand new cd To Be Loved as we exited the theatre... at the same time his bodyguards were trying to get Michael to his car. Yes, a mob scene ensued. But I was not part of it.... which isn't to say a certain friend of mine who really loves Michael Buble was not ;)
April 26th is National Pretzel Day and to celebrate, I'm going to tell you about the best pretzels in the world, Trader Joe's Pretzel Slims.
These are the world's most awesome pretzels because...
They are slim, crunchy and slightly salty, so eating them is like eating potato chips, but healthier.
They are only 110 calories per serving.
A serving is a whopping 23 pretzels!
They are delicious by themselves
They are also perfect for dipping (which kinda kills the 100 calories/serving thing... oh well!)
Some of them have little air bubbles in the pretzel crust you can pop with your teeth (Yes, I know I'm weird. I also bite all the caramel and chocolate off my Twix bars before eating the cookie inside last.)
Other fun (and not-so-fun) pretzel facts in honor of Pretzel Day:
The first pretzel was created in 610 A.D. by an Italian monk using up leftover bread dough.
Because of its religious roots, the pretzel has long been considered a good-luck symbol.
Hard pretzels were "invented" in the late 1600s, when a snoozing apprentice in a Pennsylvania bakery accidentally overbaked his pretzels, creating crunchy, seemingly inedible, knots. (I suppose I somehow have him to thank for my TJ pretzel slims ;)
In 1861, pretzel twisting was the second highest-paying job in the Philadelphia region.
The average American eats up to two pounds of pretzels each year.
A cinnamon Wetzel's Pretzel has more calories (470) in it than a McDonald's quarter pounder (420). I learned this sad fact when Staples Center started posting calories at all the food stands last season. Said calorie counts have since mysteriously disappeared from the posted menus. Hmmm...
If you are a U2 fan (which I am) this seems unimaginable. I can't see Bono ever hiring a session musician to "fill in" for The Edge in concert... or Adam or Larry for that matter. Probably because U2 is a BAND with all four members signed to the record contract, not just Bono and his rock god ego.
But if you are a Bon Jovi fan (which I also am) and you have tickets for the current leg of their North American tour, then this is what you are being subjected to: A Bon Jovi concert without Richie Sambora. See, Jon Bon Jovi (and his rock god ego) is the only member of Bon Jovi signed to a record contract. The other three members -- Richie, David Bryan and Tico Torres -- are his employees. It's been this way since 1984, which I've always found odd. However, now I also find it sad because this apparently means anyone but Jon is replaceable.
This also angers me because last Friday night at Staples Center I had probably the third best seats I've ever had for the who-knows-how-many Bon Jovi concerts I've been to since April 1989: 5th row on Richie's side of the stage. But Richie wasn't there. (See photo at right of Jon, that could've/should've been of Richie.)
And as I sat through almost three hours of Bon Jovi (or as I now refer to this incarnation, "75% of Bon Jovi") all I could think was, "This isn't right." "This isn't the same without Richie." and "If I'd wanted to see a Jon Bon Jovi solo concert, I would've gone to Vegas a month ago and seen him at the Hard Rock for half this ticket price."
You see, without Richie there, there is no one for Jon to perform with. He has a band playing music for him to sing to, but it's just Jon out there running around the stage. Normally it's Jon AND Richie -- the (their quote, not mine) "two brothers from another mother" -- running around together, playing to the two sides of the arena.
But on Friday, it was just Jon at center stage, with Dave and Tico behind him, glued to their respective instrument set ups. Then there was poor Hugh McDonald (who hasn't been an official band member for going on 20 years now) on bass and Bobby Bandiera (who has been playing rhythm guitar at Bon Jovi's live shows since 2005), both relegated to specific spots on the riser next to Tico and Dave. The only musician not in a delegated area of the riser behind Jon was Phil X, the Richie Sambora fill-in, who, while an excellent guitar player, is not Richie Sambora. And -- probably smartly given the situation he's been placed in -- stayed pretty much glued in place too, in front of Tico's drums.
Now, I'm not saying it wasn't a good concert. It was. It just wasn't the Bon Jovi concert I've come to love attending over the last 24 years since I first saw them live at The Forum on The Jersey Syndicate tour, three days before Jon and Dorothea eloped to Vegas. (Yes, I remember that fact. It was very traumatizing to my teen-self at the time :P)
As he always does, Jon worked his 51-year-old ass off Friday at Staples. He even looked close to bursting a blood vessel in his neck while trying to hit the high notes on Always during the second encore. But Richie's presence was noticeably absent, especially on songs I love like Born to Be My Baby, Livin' on a Prayer, and -- of course -- Wanted Dead or Alive, where his backing vocals are engrained in my brain as essential parts of the songs.
The only song I didn't miss him on was "Bed of Roses," because that's the song Jon came out on the catwalk for and ended up standing right in front of me to sing. It was awesome. Don't believe me? Click play below. I had awesome seats. (And yes, that is my video on YouTube.)
But once that song was over, and Jon started singing "I'll Be There For You" my sadness returned -- Richie normally sings that song in concert to give Jon a vocal break. (And he actually sings it better than Jon these days. Witness Richie's solo concert at the Fonda Theatre in Hollywood last November. Yeah, I had a good spot for that one too ;)
Whatever "personal issues" are keeping Richie from performing with the band -- rumors range from him falling off the wagon (which I don't really believe), to Richie being ticked at Jon for telling him to stop promoting his solo album now that the new Bon Jovi album is out (which seems more likely to me) -- need to get worked out... and quickly.
Jon told the first audience to miss Richie in Calgary that he had two choices upon learning three hours before showtime that Richie wasn't going to be there (which makes the "Richie's ticked at Jon" theory more plausible): postpone the show or play with a fill-in guitarist. He chose to play.
As a fan of the BAND, I kinda wish he had chosen to postpone.
That puts more pressure on whoever is having "issues" to get said issues resolved as quickly as possible. (Of course that assumes the issues are actually one of the two rumored issues above and not something else that's entirely out of anyone's control, which is also totally possible.) It also doesn't punish fans who believe Bon Jovi is more than Jon and his rock god-self. I know it's obviously much harder to replace a singer/frontman, but U2 postponed their tour for a year when Bono had his back injury. Just sayin'...
Okay, I'm done venting... for now.
PS: Here's the setlist from the 75% of Bon Jovi concert at Staples Center on April 19th. Note: They only played three songs off the new album. Just sayin'...
That's What the Water Made Me (What About Now)
You Give Love a Bad Name (Slippery When Wet)
Born to Be My Baby (New Jersey)
Raise Your Hands (Slippery When Wet)
Lost Highway (Lost Highway)
Whole Lot Of Leavin’ (Lost Highway)
It’s My Life (Crush)
Because We Can (What About Now)
What About Now (What About Now)
Work For The Working Man (The Circle)
We Got It Going On (Lost Highway)
Keep The Faith (Keep The Faith)
(You Want to ) Make A Memory (Lost Highway)
Bed Of Roses (Keep The Faith)
I’ll Be There For You (New Jersey)
Have A Nice Day (Have A Nice Day)
We Weren’t Born To Follow (The Circle)
Who Says You Can’t Go Home (Have A Nice Day)
I'll Sleep When I’m Dead w/ Start Me Up (Keep The Faith/cover)
Today was the San Fernando Valley Walk MS 2013. Our team "Walk Hearts for Lockhart" (honoring my mom, who was diagnosed with MS three years ago) has to date, raised $5,840 for the National MS Society that will support life-changing programs and cutting-edge MS research. (We raised so much this year we earned a shady tent at the walk -- whoo-hoo!)
HUGE THANKS to everyone who supported our team this year!! And if you'd like to make a donation, it's not too late. Just click here.
After four days of work, item #3 -- clean up back corner of yard near the shed -- is 99.9% complete so I'm calling it DONE!!
All that remains is driving to Home Depot in the a.m. for two more bags of rocks (which will bring the total to 22 bags of rocks at 45 pounds each that I carried from the car to the back of my yard one... at... a... time. My biceps better be awesome soon :p ) and then dumping them in front of the gate. YAY! I now have a landscaped side-yard few people will ever see, but I like it.
Next week, I work on the inside-the-house to-do list items.
I will also spend some time enjoying my pretty back yard ... maybe I'll even start reading one of those classic novels I'm supposed to read in 2013 (since I never did in 2012 ;).
Today I started off with indoor to-do's because I had a lunch with a friend and I actually got four things accomplished on my list (which is now up to 21 items):
-- Made a hair appointment for next week
-- Made a doctor's appointment for my annual checkup... at the end of friggin' May (I need a new doctor; the availability the last few years is insane and the service hasn't been all that awesome to make up for it.)
-- Officially signed up for my LA Kings playoff ticket activation... and renewed my full season seats for next year. This means I really need the "sabbatical" to end before July when they start charging me. (Although if the Kings blow it in the playoffs -- no whammies, no jinxes -- then my lockout credit will cover me for a while.) And before people start chastising me for spending that crazy cash, please note two things:
1) There's a waiting list for Kings season tickets. And as a long-suffering season ticket holder, I'm not giving up my seats to some bandwagon fan who just discovered that hockey existed 10 months ago! However, I will let them buy 75% of my tickets off the fan ticket exchange site once I choose the 10-15 games I actually want to go to ;)
2) I'm doing the 10-installments payment plan, so after my lockout credit is gone, I will have manageable payments.
Then once I got home from lunch, I accomplished one more full item -- uncovering, cleaning and setting up the patio furniture and grill. Yay!
Then I went back to the bane of my existence, the back of the house by the shed.
I finally got done raking up the leaves, sprayed the walls (and the cracks in them) with massive amounts of bug spray, dropped bug killer pellets all over the ground and behind the shed, and sprayed the entire area with Round Up to kill the grassy weeds' roots. Tomorrow, I will lay the weed blocker and start the fun part -- putting down the stepping stones, decorative rocks and rubber mulch ground cover.
These two photos may look like ugly, empty patches of dirt to you. But they are three days of hard labor to me. There were anywhere from 1-5 inches of leaves + grassy weeds covering these two sides of the shed, not to mention the massive brick pile, most of which is now far away from these areas in the leafy danger zone.
The evil leaves filled up the black can and black bag to the left, and the green bin and 2/3 of the black bin on the right. My gardener is gonna be SOL tomorrow when it comes to disposing of my mowed grass... oh well. Just as long as he doesn't dump them in my recycling bin.
And now, because I made you look at dirt and trash cans so I can feel a sense of accomplishment, here's a pretty picture of my first blooming red rose of the season that opened up overnight. This isn't even from the soon-to-be 6+-feet-tall plant that grows the ginormous red roses, but this one is pretty close to ginormous. Happy to see my pruning and feeding three months ago is paying off :)
I hate leaves. Realizing that factoid is my only complete accomplishment today. Because leaves, lots and lots of leaves, are preventing me from accomplishing anything else this week.
Today, as part of my continuing attempt to check item #3 (clean up back corner and side of yard near the shed, which I started yesterday) off my to-do list, I spent three hours raking and shoveling leaves into my just-empited green bin. I filled it up to the brim and there is still a giant pile of leaves left. So I've now gone to Home Depot to buy a "back up" trash can that I will be filling with leaves tomorrow and holding till next Wednesday when the green bin gets emptied again. (Special note: I bought other stuff at Home Depot too, and spent exactly $100.00... on the dot. Who does that?)
I also relocated what's left of a big brick pile so it's now out of reach of the evil falling leaves. Hopefully, this will make next spring's leaf-a-palooza easier to clean up.
In the middle of my leaf-induced delirium, I also decided to create more work for myself by psuedo landscaping this hidden area of the yard that only I and like four other people ever see. I have a ton of stepping stones that were part of the brick pile. So now I'm going to lay down black weed blocker fabric, arrange stepping stones to the shed and paved side of the house on top of it, then add pretty gravel/rocks around them because my smart mom says it will be really easy to use a leaf blower to get the leaves off of rocks. This new plan should take me at least two more days... if I'm lucky. Ugh.
I was also thinking, as I shoveled scoop after scoop of leaves into the green bin, that if I had a composting bin, I'd have some awesome free fertilizer in a few months. Does anyone out there compost? Is it worth doing? What composting bins are good for starters? Leave a comment below if you have any advice. Thanks!
I spent a lot of time outside today, and have a packed-to-the-brim green bin out by the curb to prove it.
First off, welcoming the Food Forward volunteer to my backyard to harvest all my ripe citrus. He tackled the giant orange tree, pulling down 2.5 boxes (or what he estimated to be 100 pounds) of oranges.
While he was climbing up in and around my orange tree, I spent 2.5 hours picking the evil kumquats. Most of them -- except for those at the very tip top of the tree -- are now gone, off to a food pantry that will use them wisely. Yet they're so small, they didn't even fill one fruit box, which was kind of disappointing. The last four summers have made it seem like I could've filled 20 boxes with all the kumquats that fall off that tree.
Here's the less-orange "after" shot of the tree, also now missing a lot of dead branches that were on it. While I was climbing up in it, I realized I haven't even thought about trimming that tree once since I moved in. It really needed it.
Once the harvesting was done, I took a lunch break while waiting for the sun to move to the other side of the house / the backyard to get shady. Then I finished item #1 on the to-do list and started #3:
1) Finish weeding, cleaning and mulching final two gardens
-- DONE! And I have one bag of mulch left to throw into the rose garden once the gardeners use the leaf blowers a few weeks in a row and half of that mulch is blown into the yard.
3) Clean up back corner and side of house near the shed
-- Half done. I raked up the thousands and thousands of leaves that have fallen off my neighbor's tree into my yard, cut off the branches of said tree that are hanging over the wall in my yard and left them in piles to go into the green bin tomorrow after it gets emptied. Tomorrow, I need to migrate the brick pile to the side of the house out of the path of falling leaves, spray Round Up to kill the grass and weeds growing crazy back there, put weed blocker cloth down as a back-up to the Round Up, and arrange stepping stones to the shed and paved side of the house. Once that's done, I'm pulling the patio furniture out of the shed / its winter home, and putting up the umbrellas so I can enjoy all my hard yard work :)
I decided late last week, after talking about how bored I've been in 2013 and learning that I have at least "a couple of weeks" more on my "sabbatical," that this is the week I am going to start accomplishing things again, at the one-big-task-per-day-rate that I was accomplishing things at back in September and October before I went to Italy and learned to love siestas.
So this morning, I set the alarm for no reason other than I made myself, and got up and out of the house to run errands and start tackling tasks on my new 18 item to-do list. The first three items on the list involve my backyard and today I accomplished 1.5 of them.
1) Finish weeding, cleaning and mulching final two gardens.
-- I finished one of the two gardens today, after going to Home Depot for more mulch.
2) Replant herb garden.
-- DONE! I had just two herbs that survived the winter: my sage and peppermint. So at Home Depot I restocked on sweet basil (for pizza and italian food), sweet mint (for mojitos) and cilantro (for guacamole). I also decided to attempt growing chili peppers this year: jalepeno and serrano (both for guacamole... my neighbors have an avocado tree :)
Cilantro, Sage and Sweet Basil
Sweet Mint
Peppermint
Jalepeno and Serrano Chili Pepper Plants. Should see peppers in about two months.
And tomorrow, Food Forward is coming to harvest ALL my kumquats and oranges to donate to local food pantries and organizations serving those in need. (So I don't have to worry about them falling all over my yard and rose garden and ending up in my green recycling bin.) This is a hold-over from my February to-do list, when I started the process with Food Forward. Even though it's taken a while, it's remarkably easy -- just sign up online, they contact you and send a "scout" to see your trees, then schedule the date for volunteers to come harvest. And then you get a tax deduction for the donation!
Here's the "before" shot of the kumquat tree... the "after will look much less orange :)
The first of my large roses have started to bloom! And shockingly -- considering how many boring white roses I have -- all of those that have bloomed thus far are pretty colors.. pink, pink and white, and peach. Once my ginormous red roses bloom (they're just starting to bud now), it will officially be spring to me!
