Jen Frazier and Kate Saunders from Memphis came out to visit last week, and we showed them some good, old-fashioned southern california hospitality...starting, of course, with karaoke in Little Tokyo!
and then a gorgeous afternoon touring hollywood, with Jef as our guide extraordinnaire...
At the weekly pre-Bible study dinner at the Pikes, Caid and Reid wore uncannily similar shirts!! So of course i had to document it. Caid was feeling camera shy/resentful and kind of refused to cooperate for a picture. this was the best one i was able to take...which i actually really like just the way it is so it's all okay :)
there were four little blue-grey caterpillars crawling around the wall where the ivy grows...much to Caid's intense fascination...here is a video i took of him...i love how when i ask him what he has, he begins to say "a caterpillar..." but corrects himself and decides he needs to be more specific: "A grey caterpillar".
some awesome emo guys at Chipotle.
i wish you could see their faces...lip and eyebrow piercings scattered evenly between them, the guy on the far right had a cloud of hot pink eyeshadow around each eye (and eyeliner on top of that, of course). i would also like to draw attention to the teal american apparel breifs. Sarah and i were talking about how they were basically just all slightly varying versions of each other. kind of like if you were asked to design a character with the description of "young, emo punk", you would draw these 3 dudes.
Saturday evening found my family celebrating the 25th anniversary of Anna's birth. As the evening winded down we all gathered in Wren's living room and watched a DVD Sarah and i made for her for her 20th birthday. When it was over and we were all sitting there tired from laughing, Caid and Joey began to sing songs together... (sorry for some of the weird noises on the first one, it's my hand brushing against the input mic. i need to be careful about that...)
Sunday night Jeff and i went to Pataya on Loz Feliz for Thai food. The karaoke there was some of the worst i ever heard (not the singing...the music itself) which just made it amazing. here is Jeff singing.
and here is jeff showing the guy how to use his karaoke program...the little man who ran the music and played along on the keyboard with every song deserves a mention... after Jeff and i bumbled our way through a few songs and he did a few himself, he came and sat down and we realized that 1-the little man didn't know any of the songs he was playing to and 2-the keyboard wasn't even on. he sat up there and faked accompaniment to every single song, sometimes playing completely off-beat and occassionally stopping and waving to people walking in...right in the middle of a track. it made me so happy.
oh, here is a video of Cam and Reid from last week (see below)...
i think it's safe to say that things are overwhelming right now. just not enough hours in the day...but things keep right on going.
Thursday night was the opening of the Fairhaven Show that i am in. it is the most beautiful collection i have ever been honored to be a part of... there's my painting, down at the end... gwen. she's pretty great. here's a video of Wren and Anna singing to her...
oh yeah, and California is on fire again. i have a sore throat and headache from the smoke and ash clogging the air. fun!
i drove to Santa Ana this evening to pick up my painting from the show, and while passing through the area of Yorba Linda, even with the inside air on, i had to cover my face with a sweatshirt. The smoke was so thick. aaand it's 90 degrees. in november. sigh. oh what i wouldn't give for some real fall...! a mere few days in a row is all i ask!
oh, and i've been painting, too. which is just smashing.
amy and i picked out surprise songs for each other. in the video below, you will see what i was sweet enough to choose for her. sorry it's so dark...but the sound is all that matters, really. priceless. listen to the applause she receives at the end... i love my cousin.
my friend Tonya's good-bye party at the Yard House...she went back to Russia on Friday... saturday..."practicing" for Pip's show... i haven't taken cloud pictures in a while... aaand Pip's show. at the El Cid last night...
it's starting to be warm and lovely the first raspberry of summer... feet. and my favorite shoes. Alec and Sarah got home from Texas today... we ate and shopped at this crazy place in Glendale where they have a trolley, and a big fancy fountain, and just about every kind of shop and venue you can imagine. i didn't even know it existed before today... at 16:00 there was a water show that was choreographed to Louis Armstrong's "it's a wonderful world". a few feet away from me a little girl was standing with her dad, was enthralled by the spurting, swirling jets of water. she remained in rapt attention through the whole song, a smile on her glowing little face, the afternoon breeze picking up strands of her hair in a halo around her head... it made me really happy.
weird thing: i can't find my ipod, so yesterday i was rifling through the cds in my car and found a blank disk in an unlabeled case. i remembered that one of my friends gave me a mix cd a few weeks ago! so i popped it in...and it is beyond fantastic. problem is, i can't remember who gave it to me. so i'm very frustrated. "wow colleen!" you're saying..."if that was the pique of my frustrations, i would be so happy!" and to that, i reply, "well, you're right. unfortunately, it is not the foremost frustration in my life. i have just decided to focus in it instead of, for example...my anxiety about getting a job...and the fact that my knees don't work anymore..."
ok. all jesting aside, the Lord has been really good this week, in the midst of frustration. so i just want to thank Him for that.
oh if only i could just draw people for the rest of my life. sigh.
here is a video i took of him...i love how when i ask him what he has, he begins to say "a caterpillar..." but corrects himself and decides he needs to be more specific: "A grey caterpillar".
i wish you could see their faces...lip and eyebrow piercings scattered evenly between them, the guy on the far right had a cloud of hot pink eyeshadow around each eye (and eyeliner on top of that, of course). i would also like to draw attention to the teal american apparel breifs. Sarah and i were talking about how they were basically just all slightly varying versions of each other. kind of like if you were asked to design a character with the description of "young, emo punk", you would draw these 3 dudes.
and here is jeff showing the guy how to use his karaoke program...
the little man who ran the music and played along on the keyboard with every song deserves a mention... after Jeff and i bumbled our way through a few songs and he did a few himself, he came and sat down and we realized that 1-the little man didn't know any of the songs he was playing to and 2-the keyboard wasn't even on. he sat up there and faked accompaniment to every single song, sometimes playing completely off-beat and occassionally stopping and waving to people walking in...right in the middle of a track.
