A stupid study, a patch of white, and my ensuing quarter life crisis

It seemed as though the world was trying to tell me something yesterday. Everything looked a little bleaker, a little darker, a little more morbid. Everywhere I looked there were signs. SIGNS OF IMPENDING DOOM. Clearly someone had a message to send and was not being the least bit subtle about it. 

The first sign was sent my way at the gym. I was minding my own business, huffing and puffing away at my elliptical (aka holding on for dear life), when the super fit sixty year old on the machine next to me requests a channel change. It irritated me to no end that he sounded ABSOLUTELY FINE while I was practically wheezing and had to carefully and deliberately choose between breathing and talking. Also, why anyone wants to watch anything but mouth-watering cupcakes, donuts, and pastries being made and waved temptingly in your face as you strive to run off the two cookies you already ate today is completely beyond me? Watching all those yummy delights is the closest thing to a contact sugar high you can get! But what do I know. Anyways, the channel is changed to the local news station, and you see a banner fly across the giant flat screen "Were you born in October?" Yes, I think gleefully! Yes, I was. What wonderful things are they going to announce about people born in October. Perhaps we October-ites have been deemed the most successful of all the months? Or the kindest? Or the most beautiful (wishful thinking)?

But no. That would have been too easy. Instead, my heart sinks as I discover that a recent study done by Columbia University has identified October as the unhealthiest month to be born in. WHYYYYYYY?!? According to this study, people born in October have the overall highest risk for the 55 diseases that were studied including asthma, heart disease, and ADHD. WHY ME?! I have so much to live for: there are still hundreds of desserts I haven't tasted and thousands of restaurants I still need to try. Don't you dare try and take that away from me. After dropping this awful bombshell on a grief-stricken, heartbroken ol me, the reporter casually mentions as an afterthought that Dr. Tatonetti says "It's important not to get overly nervous about these results because even though we found significant associations the overall disease risk is not that great." THANKS! That was very comforting! NOT.

So I was already midway to a full blown panic attack as I was driving home from the gym. As soon as I got home, I haphazardly flung my sneakers into the living room, dropped my gym bag on the dining table (who cares if I make a mess, my days are numbered anyways) and went upstairs to take a shower. As I was combing out my hair, I noticed a little white hair. I quickly looked around (to make sure no weird spirits/ghosts was watching me in my own bathroom of course) and plucked it out. Phewww, I thought. This had been happening every 4 or 5 months since I had turned 21. I would find a white hair while combing or straightening my hair, pluck it out real quick, and pretend like it never happened. That was just the way I chose to live my life. Happily, and white hair-lessly.

Little did I know that my life would never be the same again. I was mere seconds away from entering a focal turning point: I would officially become OLD in about 8 seconds. I kept combing, and as I was pushing away hair, I noticed a suspicious shimmer. Now my hair is naturally fairly shiny, but this particular strand of hair had caught the light and had a distrustful air about it. Keeping the ensuing panic attack at bay, I decided that further exploration was necessary before any decisions were made (time to throw away my savings on that red convertible?) or conclusions drawn. I parted my hair and was going through it inch by inch, when I discovered IT. IT was a patch of FOUR white hairs located 3 centimeters to the left of my part. I will remember IT for the rest of my life. IT had officially plunged me into old age. Before I know it, my hair will all be white, I'll be stooped over a cane and screaming like a banshee at my deaf husband (assuming I find someone crazy enough to willingly enter the last legal form of slavery with me). It will all go downhill from here on out, I thought. This is it, I'm officially past my peak, my prime. It was with those sad thoughts that I went to bed. 

When I woke up today, I was completely fine. I looked in the mirror and thought, I'm young, I still have plenty time. Who cares what Columbia University or my evil hair follicles think. And then I spotted it. The evil, white, glinting, silvery 3 inch piece of hair that was marshaling in my inevitable doom lying oh so innocently on the bathroom counter...

Book Review: The Best of Me

Wow, I really apologize for the super long hiatus. I just checked my last post and noticed it was in January! Holy crap, time flies fast! So I kinda went to India for a month-long vacation, and I guess time really got away from me before and after that. Anyways, a million apologies, and here's a new book review!

In tune with my out-of-the-closet Nicholas Sparks book and movie obsession, I decided to read "The Best of Me" in preparation for the release of the movie. Four or five hours after picking it up at the local bookstore, I put down the completed novel, and was not at all covered in the typical afterglow I get after a good, cheesy Nicholas Sparks read. The story felt like a conglomerate of all previous Nicholas Sparks' novels, particularly The Notebook and Dear John. It lacked originality and creativity, and felt like someone had just combined all the "proper" elements of an "epic love story". Lots of cheesy, lovey-dovey moments, a splash of separation, a pinch of family drama, and a dash of sacrifice. Needless to say, I was not impressed.

Teenagers Dawson Cole and Amanda Collier are from complete opposite sides of the track. Despite the world being against them, and their radically different socioeconomic backgrounds, Dawson and Amanda fall head over heels in love until the tragic events of one night send them reeling and onto different paths. Nearly twenty-five years later, the death of Dawson's mentor, Tuck Hostetler, re-unites the two former lovers. As they carry out Tuck's last wishes, Dawson and Amanda are pitched head first into the countless memories from their past, their regrets, and their long lost love for one another. Can their love ever be re-kindled or has too much transpired in the last twenty-five years for them to be those two people that were once crazy about each other?

I suppose it's worth a read, especially if you want to watch the movie, but I wouldn't expect too much of it (I stopped watching the movie twenty minutes in....what can I say, I get bored easily). Nicholas Sparks really needs to up his game and come up with some new material instead of recycling his usual "tear-jerker" material.

Dear Wheezing Asshole

Dear Wheezing Asshole from the Gym,

GO HOME! Don't come to the gym when you're covered head to toe in disgusting flu germs and are hacking your lungs out on the elliptical. The gym is a safe haven for healthy people TRYING TO STAY HEALTHY. By coughing out your lungs every 2 minutes (and NOT COVERING YOUR MOUTH while doing so), you are kindly endangering the health (and lives) of the 100 or so other people sharing the same sweaty, not-very-well-ventilated room as you. 

It truly baffles me as to what you were thinking earlier on in the day. "Hmm...I can barely breathe without coughing or sneezing, I look like complete shit, and I see fit to wear A SCARF TO THE FUCKING GYM, but I really want to get a good workout in today?" WTF asshole?!! First sign that you don't belong in the gym today: wearing a woolen scarf to the gym in June in Southern California. OR wearing a scarf to the gym in general, anywhere! GO HOME!

Thanks to your incredible thoughtfulness, I can feel the same disgusting sickness that has clearly debilitated your mental faculties crawling up through my lungs and into my throat. Apparently the packets of disgustingly fizzy Vitamin C I was willing to trade an arm or a kidney for made no difference to my immune system, who decided to waive the white flag and surrender moments into being accosted by your nasty germ-soldiers.

If and when I see you at the gym tomorrow, I'm going to cough in your face and smear my germs all over your sad little scarf. OH WAIT...I don't go to the gym when I'm sick because I would rather embrace all my fat cells than endanger the lives of hundreds of innocent bystanders. But you better watch your back next week. I do have a reputation for attempting to lift and then "accidentally" drop heavy weights on people that annoy me. Oops..

Sincerely yours,

Your No-Longer-Healthy Elliptical Neighbor

SoCal Girl Goes on the Paradise Falls Hike

SORRY I've been so MIA lately. Work, family, vacation, and Vegas caught up with me and I was out of town for the holidays, so there was that too.

Since I haven't posted anything in so long, I guess I'll start where I left off, around Thanksgiving Break. My sister, M, and I decided to go on a hike Thanksgiving morning in order to get our appetites up and going. We wanted something short but interesting, and so we decided on a popular SoCal waterfall hike called Paradise Falls.

Paradise Falls is gorgeous 40-ft waterfall located about a mile into the canyons of Wildwood Park. M and I were so excited to see a real waterfall at the end of the hike, especially after our disappointment at Escondido Falls. We checked Yelp the week before and the night before to make sure there was still water (we were paranoid because of the SoCal drought and all), and left early in the morning to avoid the heat.

Within twenty minutes into the hike, we came across a giant Native American teepee and after a quick mini-photo shoot, we continued on our merry way.

The hike is perfectly suitable for most ages, its fairly easy, on steady ground, and not long at all (maybe 2 miles round trip but that's probably even pushing it). We got to the Falls within 15 minutes of the teepees and then spent a half hour or so exploring the nearby area.

It was a lovely hike (probably a bit too short for my taste) and I'm so glad we finally got around to doing it! M and I are definitely planning on coming back and exploring the other trails in Wildwood Canyons.

SoCal Girl Goes to a Product Launch Party

                            

So last week, we had a product launch party at work, and since our launch parties are so much fun, I thought I'd share a few pictures. I won't go into detail about the product itself, for confidential reasons of course, but whenever our company launches a new product, we throw a launch party for all the employees to celebrate. They're usually themed and involve lots of yummy food and games and photo booths.

This time, our theme was a luau, and we celebrated with lots of yummy snacks, pastries, candied applies, and sweets as well as costume competitions (best Hawaiian shirt), leis, hula skirts, and a shark attack photo booth. My coworkers and I had such a great time munching on all the delicious goodies and posing for ridiculous shark attack photos (see below). It's so nice to celebrate something the entire company worked towards in such a fun and memorable way. 

Book Review: The Book Thief

So I recently finished Markus Zusak's "The Book Thief" after numerous gym sessions/car readings/and cuddle sessions with my stuffed elephant. It was probably the most uniquely written modern novel that I've read so far this year, perhaps ever. Zusak did a beautiful job with the novel, making it simple enough for kids/teenagers to read and understand, yet meaningful and poignant enough to capture the hearts of adults. One of my coworkers actually mentioned that her kids were reading this as part of their high school English curriculum, which I found surprising. Back in my high school days (aka 6 years ago), we very rarely read recently released bestsellers. The majority of our reading material was derived from ancient texts or modern classics, but never the NY Times Bestsellers list, so I thought that was kind of cool.

Our narrator for this tale is Death himself, and we listen as he recounts the remarkable tale of young Liesel Meminger as she grows up in and survives Nazi Germany during WWII. In a tale of innocence, whimsical childhoods, book thievery, Hitler Germany, and heartbreak, little Liesel commits her first act of book thievery at the graveside of her brother, hours before her impoverished mother drops her off with a working-class foster family. Her new accordion-playing, cigarette-smoking foster father teaches her how to read as a means of getting rid of the nightmares that plague Liesel nightly. As Liesel grows, the nightmares disappear but her love of words and books continues, and she commits more daring acts of book thievery, stealing from Nazi-book burnings, the mayor's personal library, etc. She also makes friends with an eclectic combination of people, from the young Jewish man hiding in her basement to the neighborhood scallywag with whom she steals food and books. We read as Liesel, her beloved father, bad-mouthed mother, and odd mix of friends help each other out and work hard to survive the difficult times, lack of food, and constant bombings. Zusak crafts a truly spectacular tale of innocence in the face of agonizing human cruelty.

I think the most intriguing element of this novel was the perspective from which it was told. Never have I had Death as a narrator, and I found it so very interesting and different. It took me a few pages to realize who was narrating, and even after I realized who was telling the story, it took me a while to confirm that it was indeed Death. I also found Markus Zusak's style of story-telling rather refreshing and unique. Death tells us who will survive and who won't very early on into the tale, thereby eliminating any chance of suspense, and yet it still breaks our heart when a character dies, which I thought was strange. The fact that I knew what was coming, made me dread it all the more, which I suppose could be a metaphor for what people felt during the war. The simple act of reading the novel left me anxious and dreadful; I can't even imagine what it must have been like to actually live during those times. Yet I absolutely loved the novel itself, and think it's a great recommendation for teens and grown ups alike!

Restaurant Review: Finch and Fork

As promised in Suburban SoCal Girl Goes to Santa Barbara, here is the restaurant review for Finch and Fork. After multiple attempts at going here for brunch on Saturday and failing epically, we finally dragged our exhausted selves here on Sunday around noon, eager to try all the dishes Yelp was raving about. The interior of the restaurant was beautiful with lots of large wood pieces, plenty of lighting, and a bustling yet peaceful ambiance. 

We didn't have to make a reservation and were seated promptly, which was awesome. Our waiter even added a few extra chairs to our giant table so we could all eat together, instead of splitting into two tables. After a thorough perusal of the menu (despite the majority of us having Yelped it prior to coming), my friend G and I decided to split two dishes and try the House Chai Tea Latte. We ordered the House Made Granola with Greek yogurt and macerated berries and the house cured lox and bagel, which was accompanied by crispy capers, tomato jam, and caramelized onion cream cheese. 

The house made granola with yogurt and berries was refreshing, light, and delicious, but my favorite was definitely the house cured lox and bagel. I'm a huge fan of smoked salmon, and I loved the unique, yet complementary accompaniments to it. The tomato jam was sweet, tangy and delicious and the caramelized onion cream cheese was very yummy. The capers were a bit salty for my taste, but I enjoyed them nonetheless.

I really wish we were given a bread basket for the table, because a slice of buttered toast would have been a perfect addition to this meal! However, we still had a great time at Finch and Fork, both food and service wise and I'm definitely glad we made the time to come and have a sit down brunch here.