Safe

Well, I am safe. I still have a job to go to. It was a very hard day. People I grew close to were let go. I feel very thankful to still have a job that I love. It is weird being on this side of layoff/budget cuts. The last two did not go so well.

It was a very stressful four months of waiting and I hope to get back to normal soon.

Speaking of normal, what is acting abnormal is my computer. I will be taking it in to apple tomorrow. I hope the problem is this fluke thing that they are going to cover and not just another story of modern appliance planned obsolescence.

I my laptop is still hobbling along and if my computer and I are separated, I hope to keep you updated somehow.

Amazing Mandu's blog

You may notice some technical difficulties with the Amazing Mandu's blog. I guess after seeing an episode of Oprah about child predators, she decided to make her blog for family and friends only. Which is smart.

You should be able to see it soon.

cross your fingers

Layoffs are this Tuesday at work. Keep your fingers crossed that I am not one of those people.

my eyelids are sweaty

It has been 100 degrees here for the last couple days. We beat a record on Monday.

Hard to be a Californian

Los Angeles has become a strange place since the beginning of this year. It seems like there are a lot less people around.

This is because contrary to past statistics, this is the first time that people are leaving. U-Haul rental in LA is up 30%.

2 Million people are unemployed today in California and they are leaving to find work.

It seems like every other store front on Melrose has a for lease or going out of business sign. Traffic has become lighter.

A lot of people I know are laid off or in danger of being laid off.

It is hard to be a California these days.

what I have been up to

Things have been hectic lately and I haven't had the chance to blog as much as I would like.

Hot Hot Heat:
It has been a strange weather week in LA. Today it was 94 but I also had to turn the heat on Tuesday night.

Stars:
You can't see stars in the sky, but you certainly can on the street. I saw:
Peter Deluise-of 21 Jumpstreet fame-I loved that show
Rachel Harris
Kate Walsh

Tourism:
We had guests in town and did Santa Monica, I missed the sunset while I was in line for the bathroom.

What I am reading:
John Stienbeck's "Travels with Charley". It was my first Stienbeck, and although it ended up not being my favorite, I would love to read more. I was recommended "East of Eden" What do you think?

Coey and I were talking about how at our high school we never were made to read a lot of the classics that all the other high schools did. I am not sure why. I am not sure if that was a disadvantage or not. I would like to go back and read some of them. If you could build a list of must read classics what would be on that list?

So that is what I have been up to lately.

Happy Easter

I hope everyone is having a Happy Easter.

et vous?

To prepare for my France trip I am learning a bit of French via Podcast. I figured that I didn't want to go there and just expect that everyone speaks English, because they hate that I am told. Or speak English loudly and annunciate, like that makes all the difference.

I also do not want to sound like the women in the "Southern Gals in Paris" sketch from Saturday Night Live. "Do y'all have Cinq Alive"

I tried to find that sketch online so that you would get the reference, but I can't. I think only Coey will get that one.

I am doing Coffee Break French a show on radio lingua by a Scottish couple. I have to admit though that I am also practicing my Scottish accent as well.

I have some help at work. Between all of the people in my office we speak 20 different languages. One girl is helping me w/ phrases I shouldn't say. The same with Spanish, you should avoid saying "I am hot" because depending on which sentence structure you use, you would be talking to a complete stranger and revealing something very personal about yourself.

Learning French is going okay, pronunciation is hard going. The glottal r is killing me and I practice saying "merci" all of the time.

So wish me luck or bon chance!

Status on We are Here

If you notice, We Are Here has not been posting for a bit. That is because the Amazing Mandu fractured her foot and Evan has croup. So, she hasn't been up to it. I hope that she gets to it soon, but be patient.

into thin air

It is hard to play sports and run around when the air is thinner. While I was in Denver I tried really hard to play the game Evan and I invented called soccasketball, but I just got tired out so we had air hockey tournaments.



Then the winner would play coey.

80

It is 80 degrees here today. I just got back from the farmers market and loaded up on fruit. No one of interest was sighted.

Did you know that the birds in Los Angeles mimic the sounds of car alarms as part of their mating calls? You should listen it is funny.

The gangs all here

A lot of work people and friends asked me that since I was going to Denver, if my family and I were going skiing. I said nope, that we aren't really outdoorsy and mainly we eat and stare at each other. Which they thought was strange, but that is what we did.

(Go ahead and imagine me skiing, you can laugh, I do)

Evan was excited for us to be there and told us that "Tomorrow I am going to show you my whole town" He was a good tour guide. Here is a tour of gumball machines at a local restaurant.



Here he is modeling the fine sunglasses his "whole town" has to offer.



The "whole town" is very cute and very picturesque. Evan is a good tour guide.

That was the staring, now for the eating.

I had my second pizza experience since becoming "nutritionally traumatized". It was good and worth it.

What we were all excited for though was for a burger at the Counter. You may remember the Counter, from either visiting me in Los Angeles or from a past post of mine. (There is one in Chicago now by the way.) I think it has to be the best burger joint on the planet, the sweet potato fries and chocolate, peanut butter shake is so good.



The weekend was all together too short, but it was great seeing family.

I made it

I did end up making it to Denver last weekend. After calling the airline twice and getting frustrated , going to the airport, going home, sleeping, calling the airline at 4:00 in the morning to see if they were flying, getting up, hardly able to stay awake in the car, seeing a Big Blue Bus on fire, waiting for 40 minutes in security, not being able to get on plane 1, being able to get on plane 2 but not knowing if I would be stranded in Vegas and finally getting and plane 3. I made friends with some of the 15 of us waiting. I hope Pam made it in time for her son's college graduation.

This was my first standby experience and it wasn't my idea of a good time. I have never had a bad experience with Southwest, but now know why so many people call it SouthWorst.

I wanted to keep you posted via my blog on my ipod, but it isn't exactly compatible with blogger. I am glad I found this out before my trip to Europe. I will be keeping you up to date with Twitter.

Next stop Denver.....

:(

my flight was canceled.

tomorrow

Cross your fingers that our flights to Denver are not canceled tomorrow due to snow. Keep track of our adventures at ajeindenver.blogspot.com

LACMABCAM

One of the things I wanted to accomplish while I was unemployed was a visit to LACMA/BCAM. I didn't get there though and decided that it would be one of the stops on my tourist re-birth tour of Los Angeles.

I was very excited to see the Vanity Fair portraits show. (Sorry this show ended March 1st, so you are unable to see it) It was interesting to learn the history of this ahead of its time magazine. Dorothy Parker! I had no idea.

BCAM:
The new wing of LACMA opened last year and this was my first visit. It is all modern art. Some of it is strange, but a great collection. Yes even th gigantic balloon animal.

I hope to see more of Los Angeles, but before I do that I am off to Denver.

Traveling is Nice-catch up 2

I am so excited, I bought my plane ticket to join Asher in Cannes. I will be joining him later in the festival since I do not have the credentials to go to a lot of the events. Even if you do have credentials, you have to be invited to premiers to go.

I will go to the last 3 days and then travel down the Riviera and off to Rome. It is a lot to accomplish in 8 days. I will try to keep you posted on my comings and goings as much as I can. I will probably do that via twitter. I will have my ipod, which is hard to type with even with my minuscule hands so big blog posts will be hard to do.

Shockingly this will be my first trip to Europe. Do you have any tips for me? You know my email eyemheer2 at yahoo dot com.

catch up-1

Things have been crazy lately and I haven't had the chance to type it all out in a blog.

Las Vegas:
I just fly back from Vegas and boy are my arms tired.

I am very honored to be the Maid of Honor in my friend's wedding. I flew to Las Vegas to help her make sense of the nonsensical world of weddings. It was a lot of appointments and a lot of running around. Weddings are expensive.

The thing I like about going to Vegas with my friend is that I get to experience the Vegas of locals. It just isn't "The Strip", there is a more laid back, come as you are Vegas. I went to the newest casino called "M" The people watching was great.

The one lame thing though is that there isn't a lot of Non-chain places to eat. It is a vast sea of IHOP, McDonald's, Jack in the Box or the ever popular buffet. If you are really hungry, like you just got back from being stranded on a deserted island, I would strongly recommend eating at Hash House a Go Go. The food is great, but it sure is big. I watched a nine year old girl struggle with pancakes as big as a hubcap.

Pistol Packin'Mama:
One of the highlights of the trip was going out to Sloan Canyon and shooting guns in the desert. What a great stress reliever and I guess after all of these years of not shooting a gun I am still a pretty good shot.

I didn't take a single picture. I can't believe it. I was assured that I will be sent pictures of my Annie Oakley day.

nothing is that funny

Although I did not see him, Mick Jagger visited where I work last week. I just heard about it, even in doors word travels fast.

If you are not sure why I titled my blog "nothing is that funny" my dad has a great joke for you. If you haven't heard it yet or more than five times.

golden laurel

Some of you might have heard, but Asher's short film Piece(s) was accepted into the Short Film Corner of CANNES. It is very great news since he has been working so hard for so long on his films. We do not have too many details about when it will be showing, but this is what I do know:

• His film will be shown as part of the festival. Out of those films shown (not sure how many) the top 10 or so will be shown as part of a contest/awards show.
• Cannes is May 13-24th this year

Maybe there will be blog posts from there?

If you feel like sending him a congratulatory note, send him an email at asherglaser@yahoo.com