OJ

I like visiting new places but I’m really disliking the act of traveling more and more. Maybe it’s because I’ve been spending more and more of my time in planes. On my 2-hour flight from Chicago down to Jackson today, my seat-mate spilled his entire cup of ice-cold orange juice onto my lap! B*st*rd! He kept apologizing and even offered to give me money to pay for my dry-cleaning. I don’t care about the money! I had to sit for nearly 2 hours in my wet, sticky wool pants that smelled like orange juice (for those of you who know me, you know that I don’t even DRINK oj) and then I had to go to my client meeting wearing the same pants.

Why didn’t I change, you ask?! Because it was just a one-day trip…I was supposed to just fly in for the 1-hour meeting and then be home before it was time for the late news. I didn’t bring any change of clothing because I wasn’t anticipating sitting in a pool of cold orange juice!! ACKKKKK! I hate flying!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Here's the pink care bear that rocketDOG talks about in the previous post. I can't remember...is the Christmas Hello Kitty yours too, rocketDOG?

Anyway, Mr. Moc and I are off for our vacation and won't be back home until after Thanksgiving. Hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving! Eat lots of turkey!! --MM

care bears

Since MocMoc took a picture of an old care bear piggy bank of mine, I am now inspired to write about care bears. I used to LOVE care bears, but I never had a REAL one. I remember I had a small plastic one that moved at the limbs and mom bought me a like cloudly playland for it, but we ended up returning it I think.

Anyways, I remember mocmoc made me one when I was little. It was funshine bear or maybe a friendship bear. Or maybe it was a yellow friendship bear. Anyways, she never finished it so it had no face. And THEN the arms fell off. It was the faceless, armless care bear. Quite scary, but it was a nice thought =)

I think my favorite one growin up was Grumpy Bear cause he wasn't so damn peppy all the time. Plus I always wanted to cheer him up. Which one is your favorite care bear?

tear...

OMG did you watch tonight's Gilmore Girls?! It was so good! I ALMOST shed a tear, mind you I don't cry in movies/tv/books whatever. Ok MM if you watched it comment, if you didn't WATCH IT!
--RD

winter is here

Ok winter's not exactly here in southern california, because its always sunny and warm but obviously according to mocmoc its winter in cleveland! Anyways, I went to starbucks today and ordered a peppermint mocha! It was so fun ordering winter drinks. Tommorow I shall try a winter drink from coffe bean. oh wait, no I won't its going to be 77 tomorrow and 79 the following day. It's kind of fnuny how they promote winter drinks here. I miss Caribou - they have fire places in their stores! Ooh I want a turtle mocha.

p.s. I am a English Toffee Bar - Toffee commands respect. Stalwart and unapologetic, toffee shows a determined and rugged face. Toffee can't be devoured, but those jagged shards insist that we approach carefully, take small, tentative, and respectful bites. And toffee rewards that respect with rich, buttery flavor, satisfying crunch, and a[n, starbucks needs someone to proof read their website] indulgent and smooth chocolate and cookie finish.
www.therecup.com nov 3 quiz

I have come to realize I like winter, but only in small doses. I like drinking coffee, tea or hot cocoa on a cold day. I like curling up in bed under my comforter not wanting to get out of bed in the morning because it is too cold. I like sweaters. But I don't like winter to stay around so damn long - good luck in cleveland this winter mr moc and mocmoc. i don't envy you.

--RD

Birds

Do you know Alfred Hitchcock's movie, "The Birds"? If not, let me refresh your memory. Taken from www.imdb.com, "Birds of all kinds suddenly begin to attack people, in increasing numbers and with increasing viciousness." To read more about "Birds", click the link in the title of this blog.

While waiting for Mr. Moc to pick me up from the airport after my trip last week, I heard all this "cawing" and looked up to see thousands and thousands of birds. Do you see all the black spots in the picture - each one is a friggin' bird! Yikes! Take cover! --MM

Sleet?

This stuff came down on us on Thursday morning. I call it little ice balls. The locals call it sleet and then they laugh and tell me, "you haven't seen anything yet! Just wait til the snow comes...then you'll be in for a real treat...a real COLD treat. Muahahahaha."

We went to our first HOA meeting on Thursday night and it turns out that one of our neighbors is from California too - San Diego (I'm calling her "Brandy"). So Mr. Moc, Brandy and I have been labeled as "the Californians". Everyone has been told to keep an eye out for us when it gets really cold and snows. The Sales Director, Bebe, from the model home told me she would give me "snow lessons" and that she'd come by occasionally with hot chocolate to warm me up and to make I hadn't frozen to death or gotten stuck under a snowbank. Of course, everyone thinks it's hilarious that we're from California. Hardy har har. --MM

Josh Kelley

So none of you played the guessing game but in case you're wondering. The singer in the picture below is of Josh Kelley. Maybe you've heard of his song, "Amazing"? It's been played a lot on the radios and some of his other songs have been played on various WB shows. Also, a bit of Hollywood gossip for you - his girlfriend is the beautiful Katherine Heigl who plays Izzy on Grey's Anatomy.

Mr. Moc, Island Girl, Social Butterfly and I saw Josh Kelley and his band perform at this local music venue called the Beachland Ballroom and Tavern. Pretty small place so there weren't a lot of people which was fine by me. We were able to get pretty close to the stage. Afterwards, we got to meet Josh Kelley and the other band members. In addition, I got their autographs (as you can see) and I got my picture taken with each of the band members. If you know my website URL then you can see those pictures there.

Pretty cool, huh? Like I've been saying, this never would have happened in LA. Guess that's one benefit of being in Cleveland! --MM

FAT

This is going to sound rude and very politically incorrect but I just have to vent. Extremely overweight or obese people should not be allowed to fly. Wait - let me rephrase. Extremely overweight or obese people who cannot fit into a single plane seat should not be allowed to fly or should pay for 2 seats and be allowed to use the 2 seats!

On my flight home last night, I sat next to a obese woman. She didn't fit in her seat...in otherwords, the armrest was raised so that she could sit down in her seat and spill her excess into my seat. So instead of getting the whole seat that I paid for, I got about 2/3 of it. I'm sorry for all you obese people who read my blog but don't you think you'd be more comfortable and less embarrassed if you didn't have to impose yourself on a complete stranger?

In addition to taking up 1/3 of my seat (the seat for which I paid!), she also had her left foot/cankle in my half of the space under the seats in front of us. This means that I got a tiny sliver of space to stow my carry-on and no where for me to stretch my legs. As it turns out, part of the reason she needed part of my leg space was because of all her carry-ons and bags. This included one big paper bag which contained her snacks! Before we'd even pulled away from the gate, she'd already had 6 Oreo's and a soda. Then she starts dipping into her snack bag for chips as we pulled away from the gate. We were in a holding pattern on the tarmack for an additional 20 minutes before taking off so that gave the woman extra time to scarf down some more oreos and chips.

Get a clue, Lady! You're already spilling into MY seat and now you're stuffing yourself with more fat and crap that is only going to make you expand even more?!?! Unfortunately, I've been squished next to these big people many times before and usually on a fully-booked flight so that there's no possibility to switch to another seat. Raise your hand if this has happened to you!

Thanks for letting me vent. --MM

venice beach

One of my favorite places to go in LA is Venice Beach. There's always so much to look at and its right by the water. Here are some pics from when roomie, mr.clean and i took a walk there on saturday. its literally down the street from us =)

things we haven't blogged about in a while

So..... since we seem to have blogged a lot about random things, i thought i would bring it back to two basic staples of mocmoc and rocketdog.

#1. gilmore girls. I am still unbelievable shocked that Jess is going to make an appearance on the show. I don't know what it means! It's funny how the real life Rory and the real life Jess are dating, in real life. haha. I still think my favorite match for Rory was Dean. But Dean left and is in that scary show - Supernatural. Speaking of which, a lot of people who use to be on the show are now big time.. let's see... the bully kid in high school (can't remember his name) is now on One Tree Hill and we know him as Chad Michael Murray. And then there's David, Laine's boyfriend from high school who conveniently went to California (of all places) for college is now in the O.C.

Anyways, I also really dig Rory's pool house, it looks like such a nice crib. It doesn't even look like the same place that grandma and grandpa gilmore used to have. I wish my place could look like that with a nice pool to go with it. oh yah and maid service would be nice too. i mean do you remember that episode where the maid was putting away rory's summer clothes for her?! wow. Oh and what's going on with Laine? Her and Rory don't really hang out anymore but yet, she's still in the story line. Slightly strange. Anyways, I hope that Rory and Lorelai patch up soon. I can't take this much longer..it's gilmore girls..plural!!

#2. Coffee. I don't think i can live without coffee. I am becoming dependent on it and its not healthy. Every day I have coffee. In college I never drank it except to keep warm in those Michigan winters while walking around campus. Even then a lot of the times it was either hot chocolate or tea. And then i started working, while I was working in my first office I never drank it because there was no coffee place by our office. Then when we moved downtown there was a Showmars right across the street, so I started to have some because my boss would drink like 2 giant cups in the morning and it just smelled so good. Plus he always offered to buy me a cup. Then later on he provided us with a "change cup" where we were free to grab change for drinks and snacks. Yup.... thats when the coffee addiction started.

Now I just go every day whether its to study or what. Actually last week I was at Starbucks and guess who I saw...Superman, yup dean cain. Anywhoooo.... i'm finding i like starbucks' plain coffee and CoffeeBeans specialty drinks. Oh and today I went to coffee bean and they are coming out with the winter drinks. I'm so addicted I no longer notice that my pee smells like coffee.. man, i need help

--RD

Do you know what this is?

Mr. Moc and I went to the Westside Market and stocked up on some great produce and meats: chorizo sausage, oxtail and pancetta. Hmmm, what should I make? Anyway, we saw this litte piggie at the market today and I couldn't resist taking a picture. Can I get an "oink oink"??!

Amazing Singer

Do you know who this guy is?! Sorry - RocketDog, Mr. Moc, Social Butterfly and Island Girl are not allowed to play this guessing game.

The Holiday Drinks are here!

YAY! Starbucks' Holiday drinks have arrived! Gingerbread Latte, Peppermint Mocha, and Eggnog Latte...which one is your favorite?! -MM

cookie moster?

I also made peanut butter cookies per the request of Mr Clean. I am taking cookie requests so get them in while you can! They even have the fork marks =) Now that we bought a cake pan (for the meatloaf) i can start baking breads and cakes and stuff. yum!
--RD

wednesday night dinner

So Roomie, MR. Clean and I decided that Wednesdays we would try to have "dinners" together. Since wednesday is my day off I have time to cook. So after we picked up roomie from work, we all stopped by the supermarket. With Roomie as my sou chef I made meatloaf. It was a very easy recipe but it takes a long time to cook. It was my first time ever making meatloaf, in fact I hardly ever eat meatloaf, but it was damn good. Then Mr Clean made roasted garlic mashed potatoes and I made lemon butter asparagus. It was so yum!! I think Mr Clean made a lot of mashed potatoes I thikn we still have like 3 pounds left. haha. What else goes with mashed potatoes?
--RD

Pork chop and fried egg with rice

As I mentioned in my previous post, I like to mix it up when I go to Pho#1. Since it's the only Vietnamese restaurant in town that we go to, I don't want to burn myself out on chicken pho. Last night, Island Girl and I both got this dish while Social Butterfly and Mr. Moc both got the pho. The boys never veer off their pho path. Except for last night, we usually always order appetizers too - like spring rolls, meatball/grilled shrimp rolls, crispy crepe, etc. I'll have to remember to take pictures of the appetizers and the coffee with condensed milk next time we go. --MM

Pho anyone?

There's one Vietnamese restaurant in town...called Pho #1. Actually, there's another Vietnamese restaurant but the broth from their pho just tastes like water (no flavor). So anyway, back to Pho#1...they have various pho flavors (i.e. different cuts of beef, tendons, etc and chicken). Mr. Moc always gets the one in the picture (beef & tripe) while Social Butterfly always gets cooked beef. If I get pho, I always get chicken pho however I like to mix it up when I go there. See above picture of pork chop and rice.

Orange & Black

Apparently, people here really get into Halloween. This was taken in front of a house about 1/2 mile from our house in one of the older neighborhoods. Check it out - they even have a grim reaper! I can't wait to see what everyone does for Christmas. --MM