Len's Day

I think Len had a good birthday. He seemed to really enjoy his lamb meatballs ( I had sesame crusted tofu, yum!). And I think he liked his presents,( he's very excited about the vinegar). We went to see David Sedaris, who was hilarious. One thing that surprised me, was that Len was unfamiliar with the concept of free dessert on your birthday (it was SO good, chcocolate pot de creme), so please, help me out, tell him I did not make this up and it was not some kind of mistake on the bill. I would really appreciate as much backup on this that I can get. Thanks!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY LEN!!!!

Happy Birthday Len!
Happy Birthday Candice!
I hope it's a great day and a great year and all of your wishes come true.
Love, Mel

Let Them Eat Cake

I know, she didn't really say that. But there were a lot of beautiful pastries in the movie, and of course even more beautiful dresses. For me, it was worth watching for that alone, for Len, I think he would have been happier just listening to the soundtrack. And for my mah jong friends, I've baked carrot cupcakes with yummy cream cheese frosting.

Have You Ever

Seen calamari like this before? We went to the Hash House for dinner last night. J's mother was visiting from Michigan, and very enthusiastic about the world series (we're still sad about the Mets). And we decided that from now on we would take all visitors to the Hash House, it is SO good. And also fun, with the big plates and sharing. We enjoyed great salads (sorry no photos), the complimentary (and most incredible) biscuits, and then best of all was the grilled halibut served with 'crispy cornmeal rock shrimp, fresh tomato roof and served with basil pesto mashed potatoes', yum! And this time I made sure to save room for their 'famous' bread pudding, luckily I had a little help, it was huge (although with 4 of us, we barely made a dent).

Weekend Highlights, So Far

A truly awesome sunset. Having friends over and making chocolate cupcakes with cream cheese frosting. Please feel free to share your highlights.

And the Oscar Goes To...

I want to recommend three great movies that I have seen in the last week. I am not going to write reviews but I will link to metacritic, where they all got great scores, 70 , 87 and 91 and you can read the reviews there if you want. The first one is the Science of Sleep, a quirky, beautiful film by Michel Gondry. This movie is worth seeing just for the visuals and the craftiness. The second is The Departed by Martin Scorsese. It's a little on the violent side but I loved it. This film is a remake of Infernal Affairs, and I don't generally understand why people remake films but this one is as great as the original, you should see both. Lastly, The Queen by Stephen Frears. Helen Mirren is so amazing in the title role, it is worth seeing this movie just for her performance. This is such a great time of year for seeing movies. Let me know if you have any recommendations.

The Real Laguna Beach

After Len picked me up from the mall, we decided to go to Laguna Beach, to have dinner at the thai restaurant that we ate at the night we first arrived in southern california (2 years ago June). Before we went to the restaurant, we got to the beach just in time to see the most beautiful sunset. Then off to Royal Thai, which lived up to our memory of being very delicious and very vegetarian friendly. They have some of the best veggie meat I have ever tasted, yum. Sorry, no pictures of it, we ate it too fast. You'll just have to come and see for yourself.

ps - Happy Thanksgiving to everyone in Canada!

Mall Rat

Yesterday Len was working in (the) OC, in the afternoon and offered to drop me at my favorite mall (it was only my second time there!). It is an outdoor mall and has some of my favorite stores, soon it will have all of my favorite stores, I just have to wait till spring 2007 (it'll be hard, but I'll wait). Forever21, is a great store, it's similar to H&M with very trendy affordable clothes, but I kind of have a love/hate relationship with this store. I resent a store where a large sometimes doesn't fit me and therefore I feel like I am too old to be shopping in that store, but most of the time I get one or two good finds. Anthropologie, the store that most of us are in love with, happened to be celebrating their anniversary yesterday and offered champagne, fruit and 10 percent off any and all purchases (wish you'd been there with me!). And then the icing on the delicious cake, that is the Irvine Spectrum Mall, signs for the great swedish import H&M. Spring 2007 promises to be an exciting time!