Happy Anniversary to Me

i celebrated TWO big anniversaries this month, one of which produces money while the other just sucks it out of me. if you guessed the anniversaries of 1) being employed at my current job and 2) buying my house, award yourself 10 points.

i’m still in disbelief that i really have spent five whole years working at my job — a job i was sure i’d hold for just two or three years when i started. i’m glad i stayed, however. by all measures, it is a good job at a good company. i don’t love my work but i don’t hate it either. i like my coworkers alright, but not enough to hang out with them outside of work (with the exception of a select few). i love my boss very much.

at the end of the day, it’s a job. i don’t think about it much on weekends and i never feel compelled to write about it here. it’s neither my dream job nor my nightmare. i’m fairly neutral on the whole thing, which is odd considering that i have strong opinions on pretty much everything else in the world. but i think i’ve managed to compartmentalize my day job as just my day job because i have enough things happening on the side to avoid turning the 40 hours i spend in the office every week into the centerpiece of my life.

still, 40 hours is a lot of time and i probably should be spending it “furthering my goals,” whatever that means. the more i think about it, the more simpler my goals become: to live a comfortable life while surrounded by the people i love and enjoying the things that interest me. thankfully, my current job allows me to do just that (more or less). and though i don’t intend to retire from my company in 30 years, i’m content to float in it for the foreseeable future.

then there is the house anniversary. two years have passed since i closed escrow and began my adventures as a homeowner. if i’ve learned anything at all in that time is that it helps to love your house like a spouse, because when it starts acting up and driving you crazy, the love alone stops you from dousing it in kerosene and setting it on fire for the insurance money.

beyond that, i’ve learned that i actually like being a homeowner. it suits me well. i don’t mind having to pour my paychecks into my house, and i don’t mind being the one responsible when things start breaking down because i know i won’t shortchange my home like a landlord might. i want my house to host my friends and create holiday memories for my family. i find zen in pulling out the weeds in my yard. i love waking up in it every morning and coming home to it every evening. it’s truly my sanctuary.

so happy anniversary, house and job. you are both the wind beneath my wings, the apples of my eye, the springs in my step and, sometimes, the banes of my existence. but mostly, you are lovely backdrops for my days.

The Home-Improvement Chronicles: The Coffee Station Revisited

the before shot: the original coffee station consisted of one of Mo’s old bookshelves that was repurposed to hold the mugs. it was simple and functional, and i was happy with it. though Mo felt it didn’t match the rest of the kitchen, which was more stylized. he thought the area needed some pizzazz.


did i just write “pizzazz”? we went to our home away from home, Ikea, to get some ideas. Mo quickly zeroed in on this plant pot, which was super cheap (just $3.99!), so we bought a bunch and Mo got to staining them in the garage.


paper towel pizzazz: i’m not sure where we found this paper-towel dispenser, but it’s pretty hot and matches the chrome in the rest of the kitchen nicely. plus, it frees up the space that was once occupied by the countertop dispenser we used to have.


hot countertop: Mo built this part of the countertop by fusing together pieces of walnut wood, sanding them down to make them smooth and then staining the whole thing before installing. he even built the backsplash. the result is one gorgeous countertop — but one that was also very expensive, which is why the rest of the countertops are white laminate from Ikea.


the artist and his work: Mo’s next project is building a dining room table that will serve double duty as a kitchen island. it will extend from this countertop, also be made of wood, be portable and fit barstools underneath. and then there is the wine rack, the laundry room shelves — all sorts of fun items from my honey-do list.


the vase: we found it in some random pottery studio when we were in San Francisco last year. it has been situated in a few other places around the house before finding its permanent home as part of the coffee station. we try to fill it with fresh flowers once a week.


the after shot: and yes, we do make coffee here every day. would you like a cup?

Still Counting

right after i blogged about my seasonal battle with insomnia — an entry the universe surely read — i was subject to a string of restful nights of sleep, plus a weekend full of naps. yes, you read that right: NAPS! they weren’t particularly long naps, averaging maybe half an hour, but they did plenty to replenish my sleepy self. so yay for NAPS! my new band name is NAPS! did i mention i took NAPS! over the weekend?

these restful nights lasted exactly one week before evaporating, so if you’re still reading this, universe, please come back and perform the insomnia exorcism again. we didn’t expunge the demon all the way last time. he’s still lingering in my bed, eating crackers unapologetically and demanding that we watch all-night marathons of Tales From the Crypt together. i think he’s even possessed Mo, who now also complains each morning of “sleeping like shit last night.” i see some midnight scrabble tournaments in our future.

but this insomnia is different and doubly antagonistic because it has as much to do with anxiety as it does with the weather. this is not unusual for me, as stress has ruined many a night of sleep for me in the past. and thankfully this time isn’t as bad as that one winter i spent “being a freelancer” (read: unemployed), when i was grinding my teeth each night and had to get a mouth guard. so no need to cart me off to the sleep clinic just yet.

but there are a few things occupying that usually empty space three feet above my ass, and because the universe has proved itself to be a Milla Times reader in the recent past, i’m hoping that disclosing my list of stressors here might invite another exorcism, one that brings satisfying sleep to my bed and bags of money to my doorstep. here’s hoping:

• money: duh! this is an obvious, enduring concern for me, as it is for almost everyone, but it’s been more bothersome lately for a multitude of reasons. home loan notwithstanding, this was supposed to be the Year of Paying Down Debt, which i have indeed done, but not to the point of eradicating it as i had hoped, only reducing. i realize that reducing is better than nothing, certainly better than accruing, but the dent should have been much bigger. though given the fact that my company fell on hard times and forwent raises this year, it couldn’t be.



• home repairs: this goes hand-in-hand with money worries and has the unfortunate side effect of accruing debt instead of eradicating it, but i’m comfortable with this because 1) home improvements typically increase a home’s value, which will come in handy when i sell many years from now; 2) many of these improvements will increase the house’s energy efficiency, which will ultimately save me money and also qualify for all sorts of tax credits and consumer rebates; and 3) a pleasant home environment will impact my mental health in positive ways. when i try to explain all this to the myriad lenders i’ve called in search of a HELOC, i’m met with testy brokers who say, “if you bought your house last year, you’re probably ‘underwater,’ so unless the house appraises for more than you paid for it, you’ll never qualify for a loan. call us once the market turns around.”



• work: just days after last month’s layoff came to decimate 10% of my company’s staff, the rumor mill starting churning again, predicting evil tidings for the fall. as with all rumors, i take these with a grain of salt, whatever that means. seriously, though, why would we take uncertain news with a grain of salt? vicodin and cocktails i can understand, but why salt? i don’t get it. in any case, i’m too sleepy to react in any meaningful way to these rumors, but because i’m not dead, i can’t say that they haven’t unnerved me.



• technology: now five years old, my iBook is beginning to act like a menopausal woman with hot flashes who overheats when three applications are running. and whenever i try to watch a video online, out comes a curmudgeonly old man who’s apparently never heard of streaming video and says, “what is this YouTube website you kids like? i don’t have the bandwidth for that. let’s freeze up your screen instead and maybe you’ll use this time to call your mother.”



• ants: please spare me the obvious advice because i’ve tried everything: ant traps filled with poison, spray bottles filled with vinegar, sealing the openings with caulk, dousing the area with cinnamon and cayenne, eliminating all food and water from the premises and so on. these methods have been effective and i haven’t seen an adult ant in weeks, but now the babies have hatched and come for revenge. these are so tiny that they managed to wiggle into the (supposedly) air-tight container i bought to store the dog food, which now makes TWO 40-lbs bags of dog food ruined by ants. even my dreams are populated by ants lately. when i open my tired eyes each morning, ants are my first thought and usually the first thing i see when i step into the kitchen. i wonder if they can be trained to make me a cup of coffee. it’s the least they could do.

okay, universe. your turn.

The Home Improvement Chronicles: The Tree Stump Removal

stump and stumper: if there’s one thing the former owners of my house did right, it’s cutting down the two palm trees that once stood in the front yard. but of course we’re talking about the same owners who used staples to attach door trim, so their good work had to stop at the halfway done and mostly decent point.


some of my best friends are palm trees: i have nothing against palm trees, but i don’t want them on my property. they look awesome on tree—lined streets and near the beach, but on my little piece of earth, they block the view and are just too damn imposing. their stumps are no better. so i called in the reinforcements who began the stump removal with a little chainsaw action to the jugular.


stump and a half: the current state of the yard is pretty pathetic. i call it the "dirt pile." the idea behind removing the stumps was to bring Mo and i one step closer to being able to landscape the front yard, which we plan to do right after step two: winning the lottery.


do i make a sisyphus joke here? that’s too obvious, right? ok, pretend i never mentioned it.


the stump grinder: being a homeowner has exposed me to tons of gangly machinery i never understood before, and the stump grinder ranks at the top of my list of Gangly Machinery That Is Damn Sexy. after seeing it in action, i couldn’t help but rub up against Mo and whisper illogical yet dirty puns about stump grinders in his ear, to which he replied, “that’s almost as bad as your sisyphus joke.”


stump and stumper never stood a chance: that thing whittled them away in minutes, leaving a massive pile of sawdust in their place, which prompted me to rename the front yard the "dirt-dust pile."


danger! not only can the stump grinder pulverize you with its blade, the sawdust it produces can kill you by asphyxiation.


meanwhile: the other two stumps stayed safely tucked away on the deck, eager to descend into the yard and explore all the new space they could pee on.


more stumps: these were at the north side of the house, near the detached garage. nine dead cypress tree stumps that were once beautiful and thriving hedges before the former owners started depositing used motor oil in the soil.


not art: and before the owners’ jackass kids used them as a canvas for their tagging.


Mike to the rescue: you might remember Mike the Tree Guy from that time he pruned the overgrown Chinese Elm in the front yard. he’s simply the best tree guy in LA and you should call him immediately: Mike @ Eagle Tree Service: 626.353.3186.


timber: some of the cypress stumps were so dry that they could be pulled up from the root with just a few strong tugs. so with a little grunting and a long rope, Mike pulled them out one at a time while i yelled “go hercules” from the sidelines.


eight to go: after pulling them up, Mike chopped the wood into small "cedar" blocks that i put into every closet in the house. the leftovers were handed out to neighbors who also did the same. and the street smelled delicious.


stumpless: with the stumps removed, the front yard actually looked less awful, or maybe it looked a different kind of awful in the same way that chunky peanut butter and regular peanut butter are two different types of awful-looking. or maybe not. have i told you my sisyphus joke yet?

The Home-Improvement Chronicles: The Kitchen Completed!!

behold the new kitchen! it looks a lot like the old kitchen. only this kitchen is sans leaky fridge from hell, which has been replaced by the super sexy Nutid fridge from Ikea.


the hotness: the bamboo floors, which were damaged by the mold spawned by the leak, were also replaced after much waiting for a shipment from china. thankfully these boards matched the old flooring perfectly, except for the dog scratches, which were conspicuously absent.


the sexy fridge: i looked at a lot of fridges before landing on this one — at sears, best buy, frys, even a used appliance store. they were all decent and dull, as good as any other fridge. truthfully i didn’t know what i was looking for in a fridge beyond the basics of being able to refrigerate my food and not leak. then i saw this Ikea fridge, with its sexy silver pulls, and suddenly believed in love at first sight. i was smitten immediately and had to resist the urge to rub up against inappropriately in front of the sales clerk.


so i waited until i got it home: where i rubbed it, caressed it, cuddled it and put it in my will, especially after i saw how beautifully its pulls matched the silver pulls on the existing ikea cabinetry.


other fridges do, too: the new fridge, however, has done a great job not ruining the kitchen or anything else. welcome home, fridge!

The Home-Improvement Chronicles: The Doorway

the before shot: this doorway, with its obnoxious geometric shape, is another one of the inexplicable uglies my beautiful house suffered from. the previous owner seemed to be trim-averse — despite living in a 1920s bungalow — with only a handful of doors and windows having any sort of molding, most of which was attached with staples. love that Chuy.


Mo says hi: we were going to fix the doorway during the house gutting and fix-up that was done prior to move-in, but vetoed it in favor of replacing the rotted subflooring. Mo and i have quietly endured the eyesore for a year, smiling politely when friends have come over and said, “oh, it’s not so bad the way it is. i kind of like it.” thanks, guys, but we know it looks like shit.


enter Leaky Fridge Drama: the drama, which is 95% resolved, provided the perfect opportunity to finally fix this hot mess of a doorway. thankfully we had some trim left over, so the extra expense was reasonable and the extra mess blended in seamlessly with the kitchen disaster just around the corner.


the after shot: for the first time, the four doorways in this area looked cohesive, symmetrical and even happy. or maybe it was just Mo and i who were happy to finally see the kids wearing matching outfits and looking alike. no more red-headed stepchild of a doorway to endure.


aren’t they cute? the twins in the corner even befriended their brother, or at least stopped calling him Hexagon Head. then they all ran out to the yard and played kickball.


the deck door agrees: a little trim does a house good.

The Home-Improvement Chronicles: The Kitchen Revisited

how it started: who knew a little discoloration could wreak so much havoc? i feel dumb for not noticing it sooner. rather, i feel dumb for not doing anything about it sooner. i noticed the floorboard changing color months ago, but chalked it up to sun damage. little did i know the evil that lurked beneath.


then the paint chipped: it fell right off the baseboard. i couldn’t blame the dogs for scratching it off as there were no scratch marks nearby (nor are they particularly destructive). more unsettling was the fact that the area behind the paint appeared pitch black, a far stretch from the blond-colored MDF it once was. that’s when Mo let out a big sigh and crawled under the house.


satan’s fridge: what he discovered was a leak that appeared as a big watermark underneath the house. a plumber came over and further uncovered that the leak was many months old, caused by a faulty water line running from the wall to the fridge. i know it seems the water line is to blame, but i’m positive this leak is the fault of the used maytag fridge that has been the source of endless trouble since it arrived. the evil fridge that had blown out two outlets in the house. the fridge that, for months, needed to be defrosted every three weeks for some inexplicable reason, a monumental pain in the ass that miraculously stopped being an issue about six months ago, the time when the leak probably began. this realization caused me to etch a very important NOTE TO SELF in my head: Never buy a used fridge from a used appliance store again, because the appliances in those stores are discarded by previous owners for being broken pieces of shit.


the damage: this is what we saw when we pulled the fridge away from the wall. clearly, water had been seeping onto the flooring behind the fridge and cabinets for months, causing the floorboards to warp as they swelled with water, the paint to chip off in huge chunks and mold to form.


the nasty: the area stank like mildew and i worried that super toxic black mold had begun to grow, a worry perpetuated by the fact that the mold looked pretty damn black. then i started making phone calls.


my contractor to the rescue: he was one of the first people i called, and as he has before, he came through like a champ. he showed up the next day, assuring me that i didn’t have to go through one of the pricey mold remediation agencies i had been calling for estimates. instead, he and his guys could handle the mold removal and treat the area with bleach once it had dried. and that’s what they did. (call him for all your home improvement needs: Platon Markarian, 818.279.3118. he’s the best!)


gutted: sadly, some of the plywood subflooring that was less than a year old didn’t make it and had to be replaced. this hole in the kitchen, which stayed for a few days, caused all sorts of fun as the dogs kept trying to dig into it and mosquitoes kept flying up from the basement. my solution: vodka.


meanwhile: Mo and i were living in this kitchen nightmare, with cabinets, counters, canned goods, utensils and dishes everywhere. the only cooking the kitchen could actually support involved making coffee. i never thought i’d say this, but i actually got tired of the tacos from La Estrella, which we ate about five times a week.


this is Miguel: who was prompt as hell, arriving each morning at 7am to work the drywall while i sauntered around in my bathrobe, coffee in hand, rubbing my eyes. sleep was elusive during construction, and i found myself waking up every morning on the proverbial wrong side of the bed, pissed off, irritable and covered in this nasty layer of construction soot that seemed to line everything in the house.


then came bad news: as if things weren’t bad already, the espresso flooring, manufactured by Teragren, was out of stock. all i needed were five measly boxes, totaling 100 square feet, but every warehouse in the country was dry. Teragren reps said a shipment was coming in from China in two or three weeks, which meant Mo and i had to endure a protracted construction and still dysfunctional kitchen. i was livid. i tried arguing with them, then bargaining, then begging but was repeatedly told OUT OF STOCK, to which i finally said, “ok, i’ll wait.”


waiting: once the drywall was finished and painted— a process that took about two weeks — we pushed the cabinets against the wall and are making due with half a kitchen floor. this is the kitchen as it currently looks. ETA for flooring is sometime in April.

A Year in Highland Park

i can barely believe that at this time last year i was deep in the throes of The Escrow From Hell, a painfully disorienting six weeks that would turn me into a broke but happy homeowner in Highland Park, California. to be honest, i hadn’t spent extended amounts of time in the area save for a few parties and meetups with friends. i liked the area well enough every time i did visit, probably because it reminded me of Van Nuys, the little neighborhood in the San Fernando Valley where i grew up, which was also full of taco trucks, carnicerias and cute little houses.

when it came time to buy my cute little house, i wanted to move to Silver Lake but knew i could never afford it so i set my sights farther east. i had heard rumblings that Highland Park was supposed to be the next “it” neighborhood as other aging hipsters, also priced out of Silver Lake, were moving in and gentrifying, lured by its affordable houses and proximity to the Gold Line.

i had also heard about problems in the area, particularly with the Avenues Gang, with some people even advising me to “stay out of that ghetto.” it made me wonder whether Highland Park really was a ghetto, whether i would be shot at daily when stepping out to gather my mail. i knew that it didn’t seem ghetto during the many weekends i spent house hunting in the area. i didn’t see anyone brandishing a gun or shooting up in the street, nor did i see any homeless people. i saw working-class families mostly, having cookouts and birthday parties for the kids with those inflatable ball pits in their front yards.

sure, i did notice the graffiti and an unsavory-looking character or two, but didn’t think much of that as i see graffiti and unsavory characters everywhere in Los Angeles. to be safe, i drove through the area at night several times, waiting for bullets to whiz by my head. but all that whizzed was ranchera music. definitely not my favorite but after having spent four years living in west hollywood, where techno is blasted out of every apartment, i figured ranchera might be a nice change. still, i saw no chalk marks in the street, not even a panhandler or a prostitute.

but of course living in an area is the only way to know it, and now, after having lived here for almost a year, i’d like to say i understand why people would think Highland Park is a ghetto, but the truth is i don’t understand. i’m sure there are headlines people can point to, but it’s easy (and lazy) to find a headline that can damn pretty much every part of Los Angeles because bad shit happens all over the city, even in the “good” parts where people are quick to tell you that “these things don’t happen in this neighborhood” when they are interviewed on the evening news about the fucked up shit that just happened in their neighborhood.

i saw these people countless times in the coverage of my friend Alexander Merman’s murder in his (north of Montana) Santa Monica condo last year. and in the supposedly nice part of West Hollywood where i last lived, a man was stabbed to death at the park i took my dogs to every weekend. and Highland Park is not without its problems. indeed, there are nights when i see the ghetto bird circling overhead and copper cabs whizzing down the boulevard, presumably after the unsavory characters, whom i still see. but i accept this as the reality of living in a metropolis like Los Angeles, where safety just isn’t a guarantee.

as far as i can figure, the people who badmouth Highland Park and drive through it nervously with windows rolled up and doors locked are just petrified of Mexicans, which is stupid considering that LA is half Latino. personally, i’d rather live in an all Mexican neighborhood than all anything else, including white. my Mexican neighbors don’t knock on my door asking me to turn down my music, nor do they hassle me whenever a leaf from my tree falls into their yard. as a homeowner, the thing i want most from my neighbors is this type of healthy distance, where we respect each other’s space and stay out of each other’s business. here, i have that.

but Highland Park is more than Mexicans and taco trucks. in fact, most of the homeowners on my block are white. there’s a married couple the same age as Mo and i, middle-aged hippies who host barbecues and blast Jefferson Airplane, a retired UCLA professor and the widow of novelist Hubert Selby Jr. (she rocks). and in the blocks surrounding my house, i see black families, asian families and even gays.

it’s this kind of diversity that attracted me to the area. there is a real sense of community here, with folks looking out for one another, looking after one of another in a way i had never experienced as a renter. there are neighborhood councils and clubs, local weeklies devoted to covering the happenings in just Northeast LA, and cool events like monthly art walks and annual festivals.

plus, it’s populated by cozy mom-and-pop eateries, which means better food and no ugly strip malls full of Red Lobsters, Gaps and Applebee’s. (though the cheddar biscuits at Red Lobster are pretty good.) and for those times when i do need to pop into the Gap to buy some tank tops or hit up Crate & Barrel to buy a proper patio set, Old Town Pasadena shops are just a hop and skip away.

Highland Park is also super duper old — 123 years and counting — so it’s not uncommon to find 100-year-old craftsman houses that are just stunning. Edwardian, Victorian, Queen Anne and Eastlake styles are all represented here. this is a historic district after all, so it’s full of landmarks galore: Judson Studios, the Lummis House, the Southwest Museum (the first museum in Los Angeles), the oldest freeway in California (the 110), even soda-pop stop Galco’s (founded in 1897), which sells such hard-to-find, novelty sodas as Fukola Cola.

not as old, but equally as cool is the Audobon Center in gorgeous 400-acre Debs Park, which is the only building in Los Angeles to function fully off the grid. Mo and i took a tour of it after we first moved and i must say that their countertops, crafted entirely from sunflower seeds, were quite cool. and of course there’s the wonderful Gold Line that stops in Highland Park — a farmers market held in its parking lot every tuesday — which has changed my entire outlook on being a commuter in Los Angeles.

there are plenty of things to love about this area, and each day i live here i am thankful that i do. it’s a neighborhood that suits my sensibilities perfectly, unlike a gross place such as Brentwood, which still tops my list of LA neighborhoods i would never want to live in. (beverly hills is pretty ungodly, too.) i suppose those towns suit some people — the type who would call Highland Park a ghetto? — but for me, they are just vapid capitals with zero culture that give LA its ugly reputation as a city full of plastic and pretense, a reputation any local will tell you is unfair and untrue, simply because of the existence of neighborhoods like mine, where you'll see street vendors selling hot dogs and fresh fruit instead of anorexic pill poppers with fake tits and inflated lips.

so when an opportunity to document my beloved area arose, courtesy of a local blogger (Walter) who conducts a Highland Park photo survey each year, which he kindly opened to readers like me, i jumped at the chance and spent the last week of 2008 armed with my trusty G10, snapping away at everything i saw. the result can be seen in the flickr slideshow below. or you can view it with captions and commentary via my flickr photostream.

also worth checking out are the 555 photos Walter took for the survey. his informative captions provide insight into the area that is unmatched. reading them will make you smarter.

for me, doing this survey was fantastic, not only because it gave me a great reason to shove my camera into people’s faces and blind them with my flash, but also because it allowed me to explore my new community in a more thorough way. after doing so, i can conclusively say that Highland Park is where i plan to live for many more years, if not forever. it possesses just the right blend of flavor, quirks and grit that, when taken together, are the very definition of what Los Angeles means (to me). plus, the tacos are kick-ass. (hullo, La Estrella!)

the graffiti i can do without, but i hear it used to be far worse and that the whole area has been turning cleaner, kinder and gentler over the years. a stronger police presence is helping it move away from being the gang and graffiti stronghold that gave it its ghetto reputation. everyone who’s lived here longer than i have has confirmed that Highland Park is changing. it’s gentrifying. cute shops and bars are starting to pepper the main boulevards, with more slated to open in the coming year. i feel like i’ve moved here at just the right time — after the first starbucks but before the first yoga studio.

i see great potential in this neighborhood and only hope that i can contribute to its growth in some small way, even if it’s just by standing on the sidelines, beaming with pride, my heart at ease with the knowledge that i’ve found the right home for it. but if the day comes that i step onto the boulevard and see street vendors with fake tits and inflated lips, i will move in a heartbeat.

I’m All Growed Up!

holidays at my house: i hosted thanksgiving this year like a real grown-up person with a house that can host holidays. i wrestled away the honor from both my mom and sister, who seemed all too eager to pass it onto me. this was my first time doing such a thing and i surprised myself with how badly i wanted to host the holiday — a wholly stressful experience i wish NOT to repeat next year — but since this was the inaugural thanksgiving in the new house, i was hellbent on creating a happy family memory inside it.


the good crystal: thankfully, Mo had his mother’s china stored in boxes in the basement, saving us from having to eat off paper plates. but because we don’t really have a dining area — with most dining taking place on the deck — my pops bought us a foldable table, which we supplemented with bright yellow chairs from Ikea. with a few maneuvers and a striped purple tablecloth, we had a dining room in the center of the living room.


my pops! he performed his usual holiday activity of sitting on the couch and watching a football game while asking intermittently, “is food wready yet? hungry man ovur here.”


my moms! she was there, too, hounding me with her digital camera.


i put her to work: making the rosemary roasted potatoes.


my sister! she was busy making her buttery garlic shrimp and stir-fried asparagus. i stayed busy sorta supervising and savoring the chaos that usually ensues when my family gets together. you’d be surprised how much noise three jewish women in a kitchen can make. and this time we were in my kitchen making noise while preparing the feast, and that felt pretty cool.


my nephew! i can’t believe i used to change this kid’s diaper. Derek’s 7 now, smiley and cute as hell.


the cousins! they played beautifully and shared all their toys.


dinner’s ready: for thanksgivings with my family, there are a few things you can count on: 1) there will be vodka on the table (note the bottle of Level I in the background); 2) there will be no turkey on the table (we all hate it); 3) there will be russian cold cuts, cheese, and smoked sausage and fish plates on the table (because that’s how we roll in the old world).


the “turkey”: my folks brought over cooked meat from an armenian deli near their house. inside that hollowed-out super loaf of bread are about 12 pounds of pork chops, grilled chicken and beef kabobs. this meant we had an abundance of food (another thing you can count on), and i was instructed not to prepare the stuffed chicken, wild rice and butternut squash i had sitting in the fridge. that was cooked a few nights later when Mo and i had friends over to consume what was left of the meat pile.


i made the salad: tossed with delectable homemade dressing! ok, it was just oil and vinegar, but still.


yes, dad, the food is ready: “is vodtka on table?”


then we ate: and laughed and rejoiced and toasted to many things, including the house. my pops got particularly sentimental (after a few shots), saying how proud he was of his baby girl (me!) and how happy he felt to be eating thanksgiving in my house. i told him i was happy, too, and that i couldn’t have done it without his support. with that, a holiday memory was created and the house hosted it beautifully.


meanwhile: my nephew was still playing with the dogs, stopping to ask intermittently, “is dessert ready? i’d like some ice cream, please!”


it was ready: four-flavor cheesecake, apple pie a la mode and the best flan in the whole damn universe, bought from a highland park bakery. it was deliciously sinful, and because i didn’t want to offend the house i made sure to sample everything.


Mo said yes to cheesecake: and the flan, too.


we look nothing alike: my darling sister, Tatyana, had never been to the house before and decided that her housewarming gift would be washing all the dishes after dinner. because she tortured me regularly during our childhood, i made sure to add a few extra dishes to the stack. just kidding! i helped dry them.


Juice on the loose: the holiday meal ended the same way all other meals at the house end — with Juice surveying every inch of the floor in search of food crumbs. beyond that, the leftovers were split three ways, goodbyes were exchanged and i marveled for a moment at hosting my first thanksgiving before proceeding to collapse, exhausted, into bed.