Poker Night!

Poker Night is slowly but surely becoming a regular routine for us here in our little world. I use the term “us” loosely though, as I’m not really a big card player, nor I ever have been when I think about it. I’d much rather sit there and look decorative. The only card-related games that I can remember playing whilst growing up were things like Snap! or Pairs (do picture card games count?), or maybe a couple of rounds of Patience if I found myself with time to kill, with *absolutely* nothing else whatsoever to do in the whole wide world. Cards just never really featured in our family entertainment. I think the first time I ever really played a proper card game wasn’t until I was about 21. An ex-boyfriend of mine invited me on holiday with his parents and his grandparents and his uncles and his sister, not to mention an old second cousin who was going to drop in one afternoon for a tea, none of whom I had properly met before (WHAT ON EARTH WAS I THINKING SAYING YES?), and in a family tradition that was completely alien to me, we all sat down to play cards every night. The game of choice was usually Newmarket, which I actually got quite into in the end, but I can’t for the life of me remember how to play it now.

That’s my problem with card games, I can never remember all the rules, and so I’m never really any good at playing them. Last night before the games began, I asked in all sincerity to confirm that this was the game where I wasn’t allowed to go over a score of 21. But apparently that’s Blackjack, so they informed me. You see it’s not through lack of trying, I’m just card game dyslexic. Ask me to tell you the name of any shade of MAC eyeshadow, or to tell you how many times Lindsey Lohan has been to rehab in the past 18 months, and I have no problem telling you, but recalling the rules of card games? Not a chance. So when SoonToBeMrNin announced that we would be playing for money, I was quite happy to pull out altogether. He should have listened to me, as I successfully managed to relieve myself of the bulk of my chips about ten minutes into the game. I did manage to win quite a big pile back by going all in at one point, but then I began to lose interest (another problem of mine with card games…I have a ridiculously short attention span) and then ended up practically giving them away again just to get out. I didn’t mind though, that was my intention as I wanted a chance to take some more pics and learn a bit more about my camera.

I suppose I didn’t do too badly in the end. Out of the seven of us who were playing, I was down the the final four, and I got to watch through my camera as SoonToBeMrNin lost all his chips to FilmChris, hee hee!

FilmChris has a very serious poker face. Here he is just about to up the stakes….

On the other hand, SoonToBeMrNin doesn’t have quite such a good poker face….

Which ended up costing him dearly…hehehe

As much as I would really like to take credit for this photo of Obi, regretfully I can’t. It was taken by my friend Natasha, and I hate her for it because it’s a great shot, it’s on my camera, and I didn’t take it. And what makes it worse, is that it was completely accidental. Here’s me, slowly working my way through photography books and instruction manuals, trying to learn how to make the perfect shot, and there’s Natasha, randomly pointing and clicking, and she makes the perfect photo. Ok, so the camera was set to fully automatic so theoretically no technical skill was actually required, but UGH! check out the composition, it’s awesome! So do you want to hear the real stinger in the tail? Thanks to a couple of rather fierce ‘adult’ lemonades by the pool, she doesn’t ever remember taking it, which means she probably wasn’t even aware of taking it either. GAAAAAH!!!!

But Natasha has great hair, and I’m shallow, so in my shallow girlie world this makes up for everything. And she provided me with the subject of my own accidentally interesting shot that afternoon, so I can’t stay mad at her for that. Here’s Accidental Natasha. It’s accidental because I was trying to set the aperture so that it would focus most of her face. Clearly I didn’t get that bit right, but the shot turned out rather interesting nonetheless. Well I think so anyway, and I’m fully aware that I’m highly biased in my opinions of my own personal capabilities, who isn’t? Didn’t I mention yesterday that I was an excellent navigator? Well, I’m a fabulous singer too, you know, not to mention a master painter and a gourmet chef…and now a fabulous accidental photographer.

OK, fine, it’s not as good as Natasha’s photo of Obi. Fine. What ever. But I did manage to get this shot of Obi that made me feel quite proud. And this one was entirely intentional, which makes me even more extra pleased…

By the way, Obi isn’t our dog, neither is he Natasha’s. Natasha’s dog is PooFoot, but more about him another time. Obi is the son of FilmChris and Sandra. FilmChris has his own website, but he hasn’t put anything on it yet (maybe this post will push him into it, tee hee!). He’s also a big StarWars fan. SoonToBeMrNin and I are currently dogless, but we (kind of) share two cats with C2, our room mate. More about that later too, probably.

Despite being a little over two months shy of entering into my fourth decade (wow, that's a hit with the proverbial reality stick if ever there was one), SoonToBeMrNin regularly claims to be under the impression that I am in fact nine years old. That's what he likes to tell me anyway, and I must point out that he disregards anything that that might actually say about him, A GROWN MAN WANTING TO MARRY A NINE YEAR OLD. Eeeeuw. I'm sure he doesn't mean it that way though. At least I hope not anyway. But back to the point, he usually tells me this at least a couple of times a month, sometimes twice a week if I'm lucky. Usually it's when I squeal with glee when he suggests we go to Cheesecake Factory, or when I jump up and down in Williams Sonoma because it's sooooo exciting making a registry and getting to play with the barcode zapper gun thing, or when I freak out and think I'm going to die when we're camping and sitting by the campfire getting dive-bombed by bats and flying beetles, or when I can't settle down and sleep at night because I can't find Rufus (he's cuddly and smells of home, and I've slept with him or one of his predecessors every night since I came out of the womb, it's a comfort thing), or when we're in See's Candies eating our free samples, and he says "yes ok, you can buy some" and it's the bestest thing EVER, or when C2 laughs and tells him that he came home to find me spatula in one had, new cake proudly held in the other, and with chocolate frosting unbeknowingly smeared round my grin from ear to ear, or when we're in the car and he makes a stinker, so I get back at him by blowing smell burps in his face…ok then, maybe I am nine. Or make that six….but that's not the point.

Anyway, this weekend he sighed that he was with a nine year old when we unexpectedly stumbled upon a miniature steam train, complete with miniature town, miniature station, AND miniature ticket office. I mean how could you *not* get excited about that??!!?! What made it even better was that it all happened completely by accident. We had got up in the morning intending to do something, but didn't know what. We wondered what to do until about 3 o'clock in the afternoon, at which point we just decided to get into the car and just go somewhere, via a stop for pastries and coffee as we hadn't yet had either breakfast or lunch yet, and we resolved to do something about that first. After that, we had the intention of going for a walk in the hills near to where we live, but my excellent navigational skills directed us onto the wrong freeway, and through the tunnel that leads out of the cool, hip, happening, all singing, all dancing urban bubble of where we live into the area known as the Rest Of America. My navigation skills are in fact excellent, I hasten to add- I knew *exactly* where I wanted us to go, but it turns out that the freeway I call one thing is in fact called something else. So it was more an error of nomenclature than my directional incompetence. But one swift turn onto an exit ramp, and SoonToBeMrNin soon had us heading back toward the bosom of our comfort zone. And oh what a lucky turn of events that was!

Instead of going back through the tunnel, we decided instead to go back OVER the hills, along this really really twisty windy road, that would have had really pretty views had the fog not been rolling in. That was pretty weird in itself actually, as you could see it all swirling up the sides of the hill and over the road- I hadn't ever seen fog like that before. Once over the top, the fog cleared and revealed a whole area at the world that was completely new for us. Plus, there was not one, but TWO state parks to choose from. Our homing instincts took us in one direction and made the choice of park for us as at this point, we were still trying to head back to the original park, but all of that went completely out of the window when I saw the sign for the steam trains and positively *squeaked* with excitement. I love steamtrains. I don't know why, I don't know how, I don't know since when, but I have always LOVED them. It was a little disappointing at first when we discovered that they were miniature, but when we saw the little miniature station with the little miniature ticket office, it was obvious that there was only one thing that we were meant to do that afternoon. That's when SoonToBeMrNin accused me of being nine.

This was the miniature ticket office at the miniature station (note the enthusiasts, grown up and miniature with their matching seersucker trainmaster hats):

Our miniature tickets:

Our miniature ride:

SoonToBeMrNin in the miniature carriage. He enjoyed it in the end though. And it was one of my favourite outings in a long, long time. Anyway, so what if he thinks I'm nine- he got to ride a steam train because of it!

….then I most definitely am. Not only am I a poor, unemployed-because-of-my-visa person who is saving for a wedding, I am also a poor, unemployed-because-of-my-visa and saving for a wedding person in need of a GREAT photography fix. Behold, the ridiculously inexpensive Nikon Nikkor 50mm 1.8D lens, that will not only give me a hugely shallower depth of field than my other lens (check out the background blur above) , but it will also let me take photos in much, much lower light. I already have a feeling that this is going to be my new favourite lens. Out of the two that I currently own. Well, it’s a start… (plus it was a lot cheaper than the Wii that I almost had)

It happens every year about this time- he starts to scratch and scratch, and lick and scratch so that eventually he has these little sore spots under his chin, and over his back. Thank goodness he's an indoor cat, otherwise who knows what other people would be thinking about our kitty parenting skills. Poor little thing, he looks completely pathetic, but it's understandable why he can't help not scratching those itches. I got bitten by a mosquito last year and literally got to the stage where I wanted to chew my arm off. You can just about see one of the sore spots under his chin in this picture.

Awww, he's so cute!! We think it's hayfever of sorts- definitely some form of pollen allergy anyway. So C2 took the afternoon off work to take him to the vet. I of course would have taken him myself, but California law states that any person riding a Vespa needs to wear a helmet, and I just didn't have one to fit his ears. And until I get my full license, I can't take passengers. Thirty minutes and a $20 cortisone shot later, and all was fine again. He spent the next hour or so flying around the apartment, but then completely passed out with exhaustion. Again he looked pathetic, but pathetic in a getting better way.

And once again we had our happy kitty back. There's nothing like a nice little cuddle with your sister to make you feel all better again.

Yesterday I did something that I haven’t been inclined to do for a while. Yes Siree, I baked a cake! And not just any old cake, it was the full schebang, rich vanilla sponge, with a decadent dark chocolate mint frosting. Cool, huh? Behold, the fruits of my yesterday’s labour….

Quite why I suddenly decided to bake, I’m not altogether sure, but it might be to do with the fact that we had a bit of news yesterday afternoon (relayed to me on the phone from a rather excited SoonToBeMrNin) about the whole job situation. You can read about that here and here (although I should probably remove those links ultimately in case I get dooced). The news that he called to tell me was that we might be staying in the same area after all, which has done nothing but fill me with absolute glee. Why wouldn’t it? I mean I’m just beginning to feel settled here, I’m passionately in love with the city that I’ve been able to call home for the past 15 months, and above all else, we have some really amazing friends close by, with whom I know we’ll be friends for life. So it’s an understatement to say that I’d be devastated to leave. I’m still not allowing myself to get completely excited about it just yet, just in case it all falls through, as that could still happen, although I’m told that that’s unlikely. They very much want him apparently….*mustkeepcalm, mustkeepcalm*. But if it all works out we might even be able to buy a house *breathe, breathe* and actually settle down properly *mustkeepcalm, mustkeepcalm, breathe, mustkeepcalm*. Oh the excitement! Anyway, we’re hoping that this will all be sorted out within the next week or so *YAY!*. So maybe there’ll be more cakes upon the horizon? I hope so. Speaking of which, writing this post has somehow made me roaring wih hunger, so I’m going to dig in to a nice big chunk and get the day off to a good start (hey, I’m allowed, it’s Friday!)