One of My Least Favorite Things About California...

...You can get personalized license plates with a heart symbol. They're everywhere. I do not <3 them.

The Glasses Menagerie

Editor's note: This is a follow-up to my latest post, in which I explain the reason why I need new glasses, just in case you wanted to read that one first.

I first got glasses in January 1999, and though the lenses have changed semi-regularly through the years, I have only had one pair of frames. Those frames were with me through many chapters of my life - my last semester of high school, my mission, my bachelor's and master's degrees, my move to Michigan and my doctorate. For years I had thought about updating my look, but I never had the impetus until now. I'm sad that my poor old frames are gone, but it seems appropriate that the need for new glasses should correspond with the beginning of a new life chapter.*

The idea of mixing things up with a new look is exciting on paper, but in reality, I find choosing a new pair of frames from off of the giant wall o' glasses to be overwhelming. And while I feel like I have a refined sense of taste in many other areas, when it comes to clothes/hair/general appearance, I have always felt like I had a distinct lack of style. The show 'Ambush Makeover' used to come on TV every morning right at the time when I was eating breakfast before my first class and I used to wish that the people from that show would swoop me up and help me get a clue. Whenever I need to buy clothes I try to take a trusted and stylish friend with me to help me pick out something that doesn't look stupid.

While I was trying on a bunch of different styles, I thought about the people I'd like to have with me to help pick out frames and it occurred to me that most of them are followers of my blog. So I'm going to ask for your help:

1) Look at the image below (Blogger won't let me make it any bigger - click on it to open the full size picture in another window) and decide which frames you like (if any).

2) Vote for up to three of your favorites on the poll on the right sidebar of the blog. (Those who use readers to look at my blog, please come to the actual page so you can vote. Thanks.)

3) Leave me a comment explaining which ones you like and why. (Optional, but I'd appreciate it.)


The dude behind the counter gave me a curious look as I shot all these self-takes, so I explained my voting scheme. "I see," he said. "The 'American Idol' approach." More like, 'American Eyewear.' Anyways, I appreciate your input and I will post pictures after the decision has been made and the glasses have been fashioned.

*Emerging Adulthood? I recommend this interesting article from the New York Times.

Santa Monica Double Misfortune

I've spent the last two Saturdays down on Santa Monica Beach with some new friends from the Santa Monica singles ward. And although I had fun both times, in both cases it was slightly mitigated by an odd turn of events.

I got invited to the first beach party after I became Facebook friends with the sister of one of my sister's friends (got it?). However, when I got to the beach on Saturday morning and called her to find out where the party was, she told me that she wasn't coming after all. So I was essentially crashing a beach party full of people I had never met, but when I finally found the group they had been alerted about my arrival and they were all super-welcoming. We played much volleyball and just hung out for hours, and just before leaving I decided that I wanted to take a quick dip in the ocean. So a new friend of mine and I walked down towards the crashing waves, stopping unexpectedly about ten feet before the water due to a sudden flash of pain emanating from my left foot.

My first thought was that I had stepped on a jellyfish or some broken glass, but after dropping to the ground and inspecting my foot I couldn't find any apparent cause for the rush of pain. I had my friend examine my foot and he found buried in between my second and third toes the entire back half of a bee. He pulled it out and then spied the front half the selfsame bee flailing around on the sand. In the vast expanse of coastline stretching up and down Santa Monica, I happened to locate and step in the one square inch with a bee in it.

Back when I was on my mission I got a freak bee sting inside a grocery store when I grabbed a payphone receiver with an unsuspecting bee sitting on it (and had a similar, albeit much more extroverted "where did this blinding flash of pain come from?" moment). My hand swelled up so badly that it looked like an inflated doctor's glove for about two weeks. I was afraid that my foot would swell up similarly, but I reasoned that I was at least an hour drive away from home and since I was mere inches from the ocean it wouldn't hurt to stroll into the water for a minute or two. The icy blast of Pacific Ocean water actually made me forget the pain in my foot, and I stayed in and swam around for a good 20 minutes. After I got out it didn't seem swollen and it wasn't hurting, so I went out to dinner with my new friends and then took a long stroll down around Venice Beach (which I found to be a filthy magnet for the scuzziest people from all corners of the earth) before finally heading home.

However, when I woke up the next morning my second toe (index toe?) was crazy swollen and it really hurt to walk on it. (Later that evening I also had some serious chills and a fever, which may or may not have been related to the bee sting - any doctors out there want to chime in?) I spent most of the week with a subtle limp, but the toe was finally back to normal just in time for the next beach trip.

So last Saturday I rolled down Ocean Park Blvd, turned off on 2nd Street, and slid straight into a rockstar parking spot. I gathered up my beach accoutrements and marched down towards the beach. However, after a few steps I realized that I ought to have put in my contacts before engaging in swimming, volleyball, etc. So I grabbed my contacts from my bag and, using the roof of my car as a makeshift table, made the eyewear switch.

After the drive home I once again gathered up my accoutrements before going inside, but I realized one thing was missing: my glasses. I searched for them in my bag and under the seats of my car, but I knew exactly where I had last left them - on the roof of my car. The next day was Sunday, so I popped in my contacts and went to the local singles ward in Thousand Oaks, but ten minutes into the meeting it occurred to me that if I left right then I would have time to drive the 45 miles to the street where I lost my glasses and still make it on time to attend the ward with my new Santa Monica beach friends.

I knew it was highly unlikely that I would find my glasses at all and even less likely that they would be intact, but these were the very first and only pair of glasses I had ever owned and I wanted some closure with them. So about an hour later I pulled onto 2nd Street and crawled up and down the curb looking for them, like a soldier returning to the battlefield to retrieve the battered corpse of a fallen friend. After about five minutes I found my sad glasses lying in the gutter about twenty feet down from where I had parked, smashed flat with the lenses nowhere to be found.

I went through three stages pretty quickly: amazement that I had actually managed to find them at all, sadness at their pathetic condition, and acceptance, since I had been thinking for years that I should try out a new look after wearing the same frames for almost twelve years.

So what do you think - is Santa Monica Beach the new Sports Night? Will misfortune strike again if I dare return? This is California, after all, and there are plenty of other beaches to choose from.

The Adventures of Uncle Brian

As I Michigan resident I rarely had a chance to see my eleven (soon to be twelve) nephews and/or nieces, since all of them live along the Pacific coast, from L.A. to Portland* to Seattle. However, now that I'm living in a house with three (soon to be four) nephews and/or nieces, I tend to see a whole lot more of them. So I thought I'd post a few videos of what my life is like when I don the mantle of Uncle Brian.

Last weekend I went to the L.A. Zoo with three (soon to be four) nephews and/or nieces in tow, and one of the highlights of the trip was a visit to the serval cage ("a medium-sized African wild cat," quoth Wikipedia). We arrived just as the zookeeper had thrown the serval a dead rabbit to eat, and just like a cat he wanted to fling it around and play with it before eating. I shot this video, during which my 2 1/2 year-old nephew Gideon ascertained that the serval must have been dancing, and that it's "Dancing Time!" (in this funny quasi-Cookie Monster voice that he sometimes adopts when he's excited). Allison and Gideon then showed me their best Serval Dance:



Even before I left Michigan, I had a rare chance to see my Seattle nieces and nephew. They took a family vacation to Palmyra/Kirtland and I cut across Canada to meet up with them. The video below was taken in the Palmyra Inn, where my niece Ashley came down first thing in the morning to tell me about her dream featuring a printer that can turn into a shop full of earrings, among other things. She recounted the dream, after which I said she should also tell Grandma (a.k.a. my mom) about it, since she has an extended cameo. Ashley said no - it's just too draining to explain a dream a second time. I said it was a shame that I hadn't filmed the first telling. A few minutes later she sheepishly approached me that she might be able to muster up the strength for one more telling of the dream if I were to make a movie out of it. (Note: I received no good nor services from Honey Bunches of Oats for the product placement in the following video.)



(Maybe I should illustrate that dream for my dream blog. Remember that thing? Yeah, me neither.)

*The Portland nephews (they're a strict no-niece family) formerly lived in Minnesota, and I did make it up there a few times during my Michigan tenure.

SST: Homemade Popsicles

SESAME STREET TUESDAY

Greetings from my new digs in Moorpark, California. I got here Thursday night and for the time being I'm staying with my sister and her family:

Right after I got here they ran out of popsicles. My sister told me that they used to make homemade popsicles but they have fallen out of the habit. I suggested getting a box of Otter Pops, which is what transpired. Not a very interesting story, but it did make me think of this old Sesame Street clip:

P.S. - I consider myself to be an expert on all things related to Otter Pops - there were a few summers in recent memory where they were my primary source of nutrition. I find there to be a lamentable amount of misinformation in the world concerning the best methods of preparing and consuming them, so last summer I began a blog post called "Otter Pop FAQ" to pass along my wisdom. However, as I conducted my preliminary research for the post I realized that my Otter Pop affection had already made me the butt of many a joke among the Hill Street crowd, so I left the post unfinished and unpublished.