The Pseudo Rebels Breakthrough Performance

i could also say the pseudo rebels only performance but so not as impressive. on saturday night at the mai tai bar in long beach, B Nyce and DPIII hit the stage and spit mad grooves. okay i think that is about as hip hop as i get, but needless to say i was pretty darn proud of them. it took a lot of guts to get up there with the crowd that was there and if you ask me my opinion - they killed it! donny...i mean DPIII pleasantly surprised me with his energy and i knew B Nyce would bring it, but he really pulled it off without seeming nervous at all. If you want to here more psuedo rebels lovin - join the party here

The Road

this morning in a rare moment of reading, i finally finished, The Road, by Cormac McCarthy. this book has seriously taken me over a year to finish. although i am somewhat glad to have finished it, because i truly think Cormac is an amazing writer, i must say that his views are just so bleak and hopeless at times, which is the reason the book drudged on for me. i love his style of writing and the dialogue between the boy and man sort of looming in the book - not hindered by grammer or quotation marks and at times there is confusion between who is talking to whom. i love the mystery behind the plot that the author never truly answers, which beats behind every breath of the character begging the question of what happened. all this to say is that i get it. i get that it won the pulitzer - but seriously...did it have to be so freakin depressing? from what i gather his themes are pretty similar throughout his other works. i haven't read any other McCarthy novels, i did watch No Country for Old Men - in fact, we own it, but it didnt surprise me. i think what intrigued me is that in most books - i guess atheistic books, which aren't necessarily atheistic, but lets just say deprived of any religion - authors tend to emphasize love as the saving aspect of humankind - they blow it up and at the end of the day love will save all of us. love becomes the hope and religion for a lot of authors with depressing themes. i think that His Dark Materials series by Pullman did this and some of Steinbeck (what with the whole breastfeeding a stranger in Grapes of Wrath for instance). anyway - i guess all this to say that McCarthy doesnt really go there with love - he kind of makes love a statement - much like - hey - its all we got in this crappy place. i dont agree with him there - i think it is more transformative than that. he chose the example of a father and son - one of the purest forms of love to kind of expound on and i think that he does admit that in a way, but never does he exaggerate it or even hype it - it is survival love. i am super glad to have finished it. did it change my life? certainly not - i think it was a beautiful piece of work, but certainly not "transformative". would i recommend it to you? i am not sure...i guess that depends on how this review made you feel...i did hear that it is being made into a movie and viggo mortenson is playing the father...seriously i couldn't think of a more boring movie...i will so wait for that to come out on DVD - i am sure they will most likely do amazing things with it, but it will probably battle Old Man and the Sea for most boring movie plot ever...

4 months

our 4 month pregnant bellies - bryson must have couvade's!

anniversary fishing

this is late...but bryan and i celebrated 7 years on the 6th and used a sport fishing certificate. i had never been before and had wanted to, so i was very excited to spend the day with my favorite fishing buddy and enjoy a beautiful boat ride off of newport harbor. the experience was lovely. i am well aware that pretty soon before we know it our lives will become tumultuous once again, so it was lovely to have the day alone staring at the ocean in a contemplative state. it was almost too quiet - too much outside our norm. from the time bryson wakes up to the time he actually stops fighting sleep, he is a constant stream of words and noise. we adore the booger, but quiet is not a part of our lives. anyway, we first fished for barracuda, and i was quite happy not to catch any...they seem rather ugly and i hear they dont taste well to boot. after the barracuda we ended up fishing for bass - i caught a rockfish and bryan caught two striped sea bass. he then cooked me a fabulous anniversary dinner and we dined on shrimp and sea bass freshly caught and he also cooked up a sculpin that someone on the boat gave to him - which was also delicious! i am very fortunate to have such an amazing husband, who consequently is amazing looking and also an amazing cook to boot!

Kentucky Chili

i made the kentucky chili with the help of Dee and her cousin Stephanie last wednesday. i was a little nervous about it - it didnt seem like it would come out too chili-ish...the ingredients included: okra, lima beans, corn, lamb, pork sausage, chicken, chipotle and ancho chilis, tomatoes, and i can't seem to remember what else and the cookbook is all the way in my kitchen and yes i really am that lazy...anyway - you serve the chili over rice and i was quite pleased at how it turned out - just the right amount of spice and despite the 3 meats it wasnt overwhelmingly meaty - and oh yeah...it had bar-b-que sauce in it - duh - that is why i liked it so much! i made it as an homage since we visited bryan's family in kentucky exactly a year ago - i was quite upset visiting because we didnt have any good ol' kentucky cooking - we went out to a chinese buffet one night, we had japanese food another night and his family out there was italian so we had italian pretty much the rest of the time...next time it will be different...i know more about kentucky cooking...i do have to say i finally spoke up and complained the last night and so they indulged me by going to cracker barrel the next morning for breakfast...i know it is like the denny's of the south, but it was GOOD! so there...

anyway - i would cook this chili again - the picture is kinda lame - you can't see the rice and the different colors, but anyway...

4th of July

bike parade, block party, bar-b-que, way too many sweets, balloon madness, bounce house madness, red white and blue everything, friends, family, fireworks, sun, leaving with the firework residue smell - what a great 4th of July!