Cheryl Katz

I met John Oliver!

Originally uploaded by cinediva

I’m not usually a celebrity stalker, and I don’t usually get excited by the prospect of meeting a celebrity. But John Oliver is my absolute favorite from the Daily Show.

He was exceptionally nice, especially considering that Sami wrecked a shot by suddenly shouting from the eaves at fairly close range. He didn’t seem offended when I went on and on about her – though he did ask, I’m not *that* bad.

Story to come later.

I’m sitting on my sofa right now, surfing the internet, resisting the box of Thin Mints that Ben left on the table behind the sofa.

It’s easy to appreciate why I need to lose weight, when the only reason I’m lemming those cookies is because I’m bored.

The sad part of my tale of woe is that I do have things I want to do; I want to spin, I want to knit, I want to finish up a project for work. These last few days after the Daylight Savings change have taken their pound of flesh, and unfortunately it was a pound straight out of my brains. I am too bored to do the things that would kick me out of my boredom.

I made quinoa and baked tofu for dinner. I used store bought baked tofu, teriyaki marinated. Yummy. Sami loves both quinoa and baked tofu (couldn’t care less for fresh tofu, but bake it and she’s on it.) After we ate, I baked a slab of tofu on my own – I made a home made honey-soy glaze with jalapeño and chipotle peppers. I had a nibble though it was after dinner so I am saving this particular project for tomorrow’s lunch. It’s got a spicy kick, therefore I love it.

I need to have an apple now, as I seem to have worked myself up a mental appetite.

How do you get yourself off the couch when you find yourself settling in an unwelcome groove?

I am feeling a little bit betrayed at the moment.  Eliot Spitzer was my shining ideal of what a politician should be – not perfect by any means, but certainly upright, honest and direct.

Imagine my shock and disillusionment to find out that he is involved with a prostitution ring, after knowing him to be a crusader for the people, and knowing him to have busted up a small handful of prostitution rings in his time as NY attorney general?

I know that trust and belief in political leaders is hard-earned at best, and certainly not something I should expect, but Spitzer had been one of my few exceptions.  I’ll certainly go on voting and participating in politics, no one figure is going to break me.  But it’ll take a little time for the shock of this to wear off.

For those who didn’t know of Spitzer before today, let me put it this way.  If it came out tomorrow that Barack Obama had ties to a prostitution ring, well, this would be a parallel.

This raises so many uncertainties: will he resign?  Who will replace him as NY Governor?  If Hillary is elected, his replacement will be appointing an interim Senator for her seat.  What happens if he doesn’t resign?  What implications will this scandal have for the Democratic party at large (if any?)  Grr.

Happy Hikers!
Originally uploaded by cinediva

Here is Sami being carried on Lucas’s back up the canyon toward an oasis in Anza Borrego. (He was much stronger than Ben or I for the hike up; I carried her down.)

More pictures from the hike are in my Flickr!

New Hair!

Originally uploaded by cinediva

I got my hair cut today. It was a pretty customized hack job – I took some pictures to my amazing hairdresser and she explored my head to make it work for me.

We’ll see how it weathers a shower and shampoo, but I kinda love it.

LATimes link here.

The California State Appellate Court has ruled that anyone teaching children in private must have credentials.

I’ve never planned to home school Sami, but I have to say that this doesn’t seem incredibly fair to conscientious parents.  Not all parents are religious wackos like the ones in the article, and there are plenty of reasons to choose to teach a child at home.

I imagine there will be an appeal process, and I’d be surprised if this ruling survives it.

So here’s something I’m miffed about but deep down actually is a good thing:  I ordered Sami a new pair of shoes.  They were bigger than the pairs that don’t fit her and smaller than the pair she’s wearing now, which I thought were Way Too Big.

The new shoes arrive, and they are cute and pink and trainery and arrived in a teeny tiny child-size shoe box.  And they don’t fit her one bit.  I was able to wiggle her foot in there with no socks, but only just.  So, back to Piperlime they go, for a size exchange, and back to school Sami goes in the gold maryjane sneakers she’s been wearing.

So I’m miffed because now it’s more time before she can wear her pink sneaker cuteness, but deep down it’s a good thing because she is growing like a string bean and her feet are keeping up!

In other news… Sami has so much fun at school that she doesn’t want to come home.  I couldn’t even get her to come near me for a hug when I arrived to pick her up; she was waaaaaay too busy climbing up and sliding down the big slide in the big-kid playground.  I let her do this 8 times before I finally snatched her up at the bottom of the slide and made away with her.  She threw five full-on tantrums between her classroom and our car.

I think she likes her new school!

• Sami is doing extremely well at her new school, and is even eating the lunches I pack for her!
• I’ve lost eleven (11!) pounds since mid-january.  The first 4 without even realizing it.  I never considered one or two pounds significant progress before, however I am encouraged by every small step.
• Hillary Clinton won Texas and Ohio last night (more or less).  I was surprised to find myself feeling relieved about this, and also came to a concrete realization: I am not a fan of lofty rhetoric.
• I am so kicking this cold’s butt.  I’ll have my voice back, in full, soon.
• I had a good conversation with our Rabbi this morning.

It has come to my attention that my daughter’s nickname is regrettably identical to the name of a character on Days of Our Lives.

Please don’t ask me how I know this.

80s-tastic

Originally uploaded by cinediva

Lizsybarite brought this link to my attention:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXyOjAluCAs&eurl=http://lj-toys.com/?journalid=405523&moduleid=6&auth_token=sessionless:1204416000:embedcontent:405523%266iurl=http://i.ytimg.com/vi/cXyOjAluCAs/default.jpg

It is an instructional video featuring Donna Mills (??) explaining how to “turn heads” and “feel sexy” through the power of perfectly applied makeup.

Not only were these hilarious (her “bare” face included eyeliner! Her “business” attire was a gold satin dress with padded shoulders!) but they were quite instructional. More or less what to not EVER do – with the exception of her one rational mantra: “Blend, blend, blend.” Great advice, even today. Dark eyeliner on a “natural make-up” day, not so much.

Elusion and I took it as a challenge. We followed her instructions to see if we looked and felt as sexy as she said we would. I followed them step for step, word for word, and you can see my results.

Truthfully, I think I’ve failed to recreate the 80s on my face. To even get close, I had to pull out the big guns (the giant pigtails.) Either people have genetically mutated away from the 80s, or the actual problem wasn’t makeup application, back then, it was the quality of actual cosmetic products available at the time.

Anyway, despite feeling as though I failed Donna Mills, I have nonetheless scared my husband. And entertained Nicole. (I think that if we had gone to high school together, we probably would have been voted “Most Likely to Have a Virtual Slumber Party Doing 80s Makeup at Age 30.” But only because… well, we kind of actually have done it now.)

I think the expression in this last photo was most 80s out of everything I did.