Guess who's back ... back again ...

I'm not even going to try and update you on my life on the left coast since August 2007 so I'll just start from this past weekend and do my best to update this at least every two weeks. I attended a trolley party on Saturday for two of my friends 30th birthdays. We're gettin old! It was a wig/mustache theme. I, of course, sported my red fro! Happy Belated Easter to everyone. After an Easter brunch with a group of friends, I watched the Easter Parade a block away from my apartment. It was interesting to say the least. This week is full of visitors. My old friend, Brian Jaskot and his wife Erin are visiting from Shanghai. They're in town for Erin's job. Work friends from the AOL VA office on Wed and Thurs and my good friend Dana, from high school, and her boyfriend arrive on Friday to celebrate her 30th birthday. This weekend will include a concert on Friday night, Sonoma wine tasting on Saturday and Muir Woods and Sausalito on Sunday. I have my interview at the University of Denver next Wednesday! It's a quick trip because I fly to Seattle on April 1st for work and leave straight for Denver from Seattle on April 2nd. I'm flying back to SF after my interview so I'll miss seeing Tracy, Stan, baby ward and Frisco. However, I'll see you all soon! Enjoy the pics from my trolley party : ) Till next time .....

From DC to the OC

I've been slackin on my entries due to some visitors from the East and South last weekend. They’re part of the original SF crew. Colley, who now lives in DC, flew in last Wed night and our friends Janelle and Dave drove up from Newport Beach on Thursday night. It was a week/weekend filled with constant activity. I think I’m still recovering. We started it off at Columbus Café for 2 for 1 happy hour. Happy Hour somehow ended up lasting 8 hours which ended at the Bus Stop. Unfortunately, I had to work on Friday and everyone else got to sleep in. Friday night was round two at the bus stop before heading to Bourbon and Branch where we missed our reservation for drinks at this speakeasy. Instead, we headed to Marcy, Stuart and Lily's favorite restaurant, Slanted Door. Janelle and Dave used to be regulars when they lived here so quite a few plates were given to us for free by the owner. We were also celebrating Janelle’s belated birthday. The company, food and celebration put Dave in such a good mood that he insisted on paying for the whole dinner! I'm sure he was kicking himself the next morning.

The next day, the four of us headed to Sonoma for a relaxing day of wine tasting. We were back in the city in time for our dinner reservation at my new favorite neighborhood restaurant, Umami. Sunday, Janelle and Dave headed back to the OC and Colley and I enjoyed some pool time at a multi millionaires house out in Atherton, CA. Our friend Kate was house-sitting. As our friend Patrick put it "This is why I'm a communist, distribute this stuff". The property included a pool, pool house, rock garden, horse stables, rose garden, statues, waterfalls and a vineyard. Ridiculous. I was sure we would find a pool boy roaming the property but the place was so big we never found him. Sunday night I was in bed by 9:30. Colley came to visit me at work on Monday and so I thought it was my duty to leave work early to keep her company J I tried to be stealth but it just so happens the elevators broke in our building and my cover was broken as we waited in the lobby for 15 minutes to leave the building. Colley and I became impatient so decided to take the stairs ... 23 flights down. I was sweating in my heels by the time we reached the bottom floor where we proceeded to leave the building and set off the alarm. This put everyone in a tizzy but at this point I couldn't have cared less. It was their fault for imprisoning us on the 23rd floor. Sadly, Colley left Monday night on a red eye but I'm sure she'll be back for another visit sometime soon!


This past week has been pretty uneventful. Joanna and I went to see Wilco play at the Greek Theater last night. Oh, the weekend of the 11th, Joanna and I went to go see Ozomatlli at the Greek Theater and ended up seeing something we shouldn’t have. We knew her CEO was going to be at the concert ... and as I was waiting for Joanna to go to the bathroom I was standing behind the back row of seats where I spotted her CEO with a woman. When all of the sudden they started to make out and dirty dance. I couldn't wait for Joanna's return. When she came back, I said "Jo, isn't that your CEO?" and she replied "YES! And that's my coworker!”. Now Joanna didn't realize at the time that they had been making out and was about to go say hello when I vetoed that idea. Instead, we left the concert and Joanna texted the girl and said "Um, are you making out with our CEO?" Scandalous. Needless to say, Joanna had some awkward 1:1's on Monday with the CEO and the coworker. Apparently it was a one time thing ... uh huh.

Update on the brows: 2 of my coworkers are now able to speak to me without laughing and another coworker has forever nicknamed me BERT. I've actually started to receive compliments. The color has faded a bit and they actually look ok. Question is ... will I dye them again once it fades completely? Until next week, I'll leave you with that question to ponder. Enjoy the Pics!

Colley and me outside Columbus Cafe

Happy hour crew

Me, Dave, Janelle and Colley

I had to include this picture. I swear, sometimes I feel like I'm being taped at work for an "office" episode. Our manager drew this thermometer and taped it up on the wall in front of my desk to help motivate our team to make our quarterly numbers ... hmmmmmm.

Joining the Bandwagon

I can't let Marcy and Tracy have all of the fun! I've decided to create my own blog so you don't forget about your favorite child, bebe sister and/or red headed friend that lives out on the left coast. After 5 years of living in a different time zone from most of my friends and all of my family members I figured it's time, no pun intended, to buck up and start a blog. Also because I'm not a big phone talker ... it's kind of like shopping, I have to be in the mood and most of the time i'm not in the mood. Or it's 9pm my time and midnight where the person I want to talk to lives.

So let's get right down to it ... I'll start with as far back as I can remember. Last week ... I joined the YMCA on Tuesday after work. Gotta love SF .. they gave me and my roommate a household membership. It's in the Presido, where my yellow grandma got married ; ) It's walking or biking distance from my apt and comes with a pool, tennis courts and lots of fun classes. I'm thinking of joining the masters swim program ... they have swim meets! Big D, maybe you can give me some tips since you're now the Madison High School Head Swim Coach!!! I'm still so proud :) Wed night I went to see some live music at The Independent with my roommate Joanna and friend Alison ... yea, we rocked it out on a school night. Went to see Bishop Allen .... you should check them out. Thursday did a little happy hour at the bar a block away from my apt because it was my Friday ... AOL gave me Friday off as a summer flex day. I wasn't going to argue. I took full advantage and slept in until 10 .. took Charley, my roommates dog, for a walk, ate brunch at Perry's with Chuck and my book (Eat Pray Love which I highly recommend) then headed to the spa for a massage and facial. I had a gift certificate ... just wanted to clarify that I am not made of money. Went on a run down by the marina, made myself dinner, rented the worst movie EVER (Because i said so) and was in bed by 10pm. Great day off :) Saturday was an interesting day ... it started out great with some cheesy grits, bacon and coffee. Then I decided to get my eyebrows waxed and eyelashes tinted ... just like I normally do every 6-8 weeks. Everytime I go they say "Do you want the trio?" Sounds mysterious doesn't it? Basically, it includes an eyelash tint, eyebrow wax AND an eyebrow tint. Redheads and blondes will understand ... not sure if you all remember what I look like but my eyebrows are basically white. Anyhoo, I always say "NO" to the trio because I don't want to dye my eyebrows even though the salon peeps assure me that most red heads choose the trio. For some reason I woke up on Saturday with an itch to try something new. So with a little encouragement from my roommate, I headed out to make Saturday the day of the Trio. I told the woman at the salon over and over how nervous I was to dye my eyebrows and to please not make them too dark. After the 5 min dye job ... the woman handed me the mirror and proudly said "Do you Loooove them?" ... I almost lost it ... my response was "WOW, it's so weird to see myself with eyebrows". Holding in my true feelings. At that moment, I knew there was no turning back and nothing I could do to fix it. This was no bad haircut or style where I could say to myself "Don't worry Kelly, it might look ugly now but once I wash it and blow dry it myself it will look fine". I've posted a pic of my new brows ... they actually look good in the pics. Pics can be deceiving. After I left the salon I called my toe headed friend Colley. First she laughed, then she asked why I would do such a thing and told me to wait for a friends reaction before I made the decision that I looked like a freak. So I went home and waited for my roommate. As soon as she walked through the door and saw the caterpillars sitting above my eyes she immediately started dying laughing. In her words, "You look SO different, kind of manly, a little brooke shields like ... ewwww, i don't like it!" "Wait, where's a picture of you so I can remember what you look like". I made her walk down to Sephora with me and the workers all said I looked great and to embrace it until Joanna showed them a pic of what I used to look like and their facial reactions said it all. I was conned into buying a facial oxygen peel from Sephora because they told me that it bleaches hair and to try it on my eyebrows. $50 later my brows looked almost darker! Luckily I didn't see anyone else until that night where I met up with a bunch of friends who were doing a time capsule at a bar. We all had throw away cameras and filled out a questionaire ... the night got kind of crazy with most people ending their night tattooed with a black sharpie. The cameras all went into our friend Alex's backpack and the film won't be developed for 10 years when the answers on the questionaire and the pics will be revealed. Should be interesting!

Woke up this morning to a cloudy day in SF ... drove out of the city to go to Chili's and Target. Now just sittin on my couch, makin my new blog and dreading the comments my coworkers are going to make tomorrow. For those of you who were wondering, I called the salon this morning to see if they could make them lighter and no luck ... instead I was instructed to put olive oil and then make-up remover on the brows to help lift the dye. Joanna told me not to come out of the bathroom until the dye was gone. Needless to say, it didn't help at all but I was allowed to come out of the bathroom. OH and Joanna didn't recognize me coming towards her down an aisle at Target this afternoon. Just want you to realize I'm not exaggerating. Ok, signing off for now ... enjoy the pics and I promise to not write so much next entry ... hope you all have a great week!

Sportin my new brows with my friend Joe on Sat night. Joanna in the background trying to get in on the pic ....

Oh My Gah!!! Sat night ... another view of the brows. Me, Joe, Kristin and Joanna

Sportin some foakleys to hide the brows. Those went into the timecapsule.