Today is Spiros’ 36th birthday. He won’t be happy I put that on here for everyone to read in print, but I think we can all agree he is aging phenomenally well. (Even the dental hygienist we both recently saw thinks so too.) Last year Spiros got his first taste of my tendency to REALLY get into birthdays. He wasn’t much of a celebrator before I came into the picture, but this time around he realizes he doesn’t have much of a choice in the matter .

Spiros is working from home today so we celebrated this morning with homemade blueberry and banana crepes. Tonight we’re trying Baco Mercat, one of last year’s best new restaurants in the country. Tomorrow we’re headed to Newport with some of our favorite pals to do some whale watching and fish eating. And the rest of the weekend is packed with fun stuff too! Hooray holiday weekends coinciding with birthday festivities! Hooray!

Does anyone remember Beekman’s World? Kind of like Bill Nye? On Saturday mornings? Doesn’t Spiros’ hair kind of look like that? Aka isn’t it amazing?

His present. (Which I made help build BUT I paid for it with my own recently earned money so hooray for legit gift giving.)

New favorite place. (Except Ive already managed to flip myself out of it :-/)

This is what your birthday’s supposed to be like!

And a little Franklin Friday in case you needed a fix

Even the outtakes are adorable.

Happy birthday, babe! Hope it’s the best one yet!!!!!

The most unreal peony ever.

In an effort to capture and record the beauty around me, I’ve repurposed my never-used Tumblr and created a page called Making Martha Proud (Because My Boyfriend Doesn’t Care). Here I’ve been putting up pictures of my weekly Trader Joe flower arrangements, the botanical insanity that is our neighborhood, and random other pretty shit (well, not shit shit, obviously) that I come across. (For the record, the title is just an attempt at being clever. Spiros is incredibly sweet and tells me – unprovoked – that he loves the flower arrangements. Best guy ever.)

So..I assume you reading this have the same reaction one might have upon hearing that a neglectful parent is having another baby. “You don’t need ANOTHER ONE!” I know, I know. And I doubt I will get better about updating either more frequently. Two friends with blogs – Lauren and Elizabeth – have both randomly asked me for blogging advice lately. Ironic considering I often feel like the worst blogger ever. (Correction: That’s how I used to feel. Now I just don’t care.)

I started the ghost of this blog – ye’ old Guide to Menhattan – almost four years ago. I was miserable in so many areas of my life (crap job, crap apartment full of crap roommates, crap love life, etc) that I needed an outlet. (The only thing going for me was that I was SKINNY. That was not crap! That was awesome.) Blogging became a fairly important part of my identity, one that I’m so grateful I found. But now things are different. While I still love going back over posts to remind myself what the heck I did with my time, I just don’t have the motivation to sit down and write thoughtful post after thoughtful post.

That energy has since been repurposed into screen writing. (Hooray for finishing projects! Now if only I could figure out how to SELL something!) So in case you come by here and I’m not around, go check out Tumblr or Twitter. Perhaps something exciting is going on there. Or if you are so so so bored and want to read some early drafts of TV pilots and a GIANT SQUID MOVIE let me know

So…cool story huh?

Things That Have Made Me PMS Cry Just Thinking About Them Today:

• How happy I am Spiros is home from his week-long work trip
• How sad I am for the people of Oklahoma
• How beautiful Paris is and how much I want to visit again
• How upset I am over these recent homophobic hate crimes in NYC
• How snuggly Franklin still is even though he’s not that much of a puppy anymore
• Babies, everything about them

I’ll take Babies for $800, Alex.

Franklin is way more into TV than any other dog I’ve seen. Granted we have pretty different taste so he doesn’t watch everything I have on. Not into sitcoms. His loss! But the other night he was GLUED to this dinosaur documentary! (Luckily for him he has really cool parents who choose to spend their time watching things like this.)

We recently switched from evil, loathsome Time Warner to Netflix streaming on the TV. We stumbled on this awesome quasi-documentary narrated by Werner Herzog (from my beloved Grizzly Man). It was mostly these dinosaur cartoons (the people who made it would probably die if they knew I called their precious technology “cartoons” but whatever) with these inter-connected stories of baby T-Rexes and brontosauruses growing up. Basically it was like Land Before Time without the sentimentality. Aka it was awesome.

And, as you can see, Spiros and I weren’t the only ones who thought so. Take a look…these are over the course of like an hour and a half!

Such majestic creatures.

You’re mistaken. I actually don’t care.

Just kidding! I care so much!

What ARE those things?

I love them.

Is this normal?

(Also, is it normal if I start leaving this on while I’m gone to entertain him? I worry he’s bored! He needs intellectual stimulation!)

((I answered my own question. None of it is normal.) )

Here we are on a boat. In case this doesn’t make you think of the greatest (I think at least) SNL Digital Short of all time, it should. Next time we go, I will definitely be bringing my nautical themed printed afghan. (OMG you can buy them? This is why America is the greatest country. USA! USA!)

Anyway, here are the best pictures of our sailboat to date. Thanks, Mom! Our sailing adventure with my parents went well, although it started out a little stressful. A million things to remember, tricky wind, etc! But we survived! Hooray!

First few steps of a multi-step launching process. Is this what my face always looks like? gah, sorry folks.

(sorry this photo is so small) – but look closely on the left – I’m operating the crane holding the boat! eek!

Aww, new sailing buddies.

Solo High Five. Alternate title: Enthusiasm, Party of One.

The view of Santa Monica Pier from the water. Also known as “the place that sells Ice Cream of the Future” aka Dip n’ Dots. (Spiros has only been introduced to the finer things in this country.)

Creature alert! So I have a confession to make. Spiros and I took Franklin down to the marina last weekend when he wanted to fix a few things on the boat, the weather wasn’t good for sailing. We went OUT ON THE PIER right next to the sea elephants and it was AWESOME! Franklin was not into it, but whatever. It was great. And I left my stupid phone in the car. So instead you can admire these hilarious beasts from this horrible photo.

Also, when we were watching them up close, one jumped up from out of the water onto like 1 square inch of space, and watching the other fat ones bark in her face – totally bitching at her, obviously – was the highlight of my day. NEXT TIME I WILL RECORD IT! (because if you read this blog, you have to care a little, right?)

Hooray for the best excuse to be outside on beautiful days!

Nautical 4 Life,

Rachel Upshaw

(My new salutation)

My mom has taught me a lot of things, but the most important is that the best excuse to clean your house is to invite people over. Another one is to make sure to invite someone to stay with you when you host a party so they can be your slave. My poor grandmother has had to do it way more than me, but we still love to commiserate together about my mom taking advantage of us.

So as a hilarious prank – slash good opportunity for my parents to see the California friends who they know from back in the day as well as meet some of our new pals – I decided to throw an afternoon backyard bbq for the Saturday that they were here. The party was also a half-assed surprise birthday party for my mother, a nod to the time she invited all her girlfriends over and told them it was for Dolo’s birthday even though it was technically my mom’s birthday and Dolo’s is four months later. (My mom’s birthday was only two weeks prior so I win.)

We lucked out with the best weather. We cooked the perfect amount of food. Tons of friends from different pockets of our life showed up and got to know each other. It was wonderful. Franklin, as you can imagine, was in heaven.

In addition to our own buddies, my mom’s roommate from when she lived in LA 25 years ago came with her husband and son. Although they have been Facebook friends for years and exchanged Christmas cards for decades, they hadn’t seen each other since their wild and crazy days when they’d go to the Playboy Mansion parties together. (Um, yeah.) Her roommate was Miss Texas the year before she moved out to LA, but was originally from Chicago where she knew Hef. Even after all this time, she and her family still go to the New Years Eve Party at the Mansion every year. Crazy. (I asked her son how that was. He said the Girls Next Door were nice. Aww I miss them!)

Anyway, it was a wonderful, wonderful (exhausting) day. And somehow, we mustered up the energy that night to go see our friends Mandla and Claire perform with their band The Ugly Sweaters. (If you like good music, you should check them out!)

Here are a few photos!

With an elementary school friend who also moved here from New York (reminiscing about our love for the city but intolerable hatred for winter)

My mom bought this nautical (“ugly”) sweater for Spiros. Perfect minus the fact it was 75 degrees.

The first guests to arrive, including another childhood friend K, her husband, and our rock star friends!

The spread!

Our menu included homemade basil green onion sliders on mini Hawaiian sweet rolls, Greek potato salad, Smitten Kitchen broccoli slaw,  tzatziki, homemade chocolate cupcakes with orange cream cheese icing, fruit salad, and grilled veggie skewers. Thanks to my helpers in the kitchen, it all got made! (And after my “professional” event planning experience, seemed to be easier to pull off than before. Hooray.)

My parents came to visit for the better part of six days and I wasn’t a bitch to my mom once!  Dare say I might be growing up? Or maybe it was the fact that after spending so much time at home last year, I missed my roommates! Either way, it was perfect, wonderful trip. It would have been sadder to say goodbye, but I’ll see them in a month when I head back to Austin for a Friendship Reunion with my college pals.

We had such a good time while they were here doing a million things – all our PLANNING paid off! – that by the time I got home from dropping them at the airport yesterday, I was dead tired. (Also, so many qualities shows were patiently waiting on my DVR, what was I supposed to do??). Even just trying to recall everything to write a recap was too exhausting!

Then I realized that I might as well space it out a bit… I mean, when else do I do cool, picture-worthy things with my own personal paparazzi? (Speaking of, I remarked to Spiros how much his facial shape has changed since meeting my mother. His smile has doubled! And his patience with posing is pretty impressive too!) So starting tomorrow I’ll post everything like a real blogger would do! How exciting!

It was wonderful to have my parents finally get a glimpse of my life as a quasi-adult. They appreciated my new-found aggressive driving, enjoyed my cooking, and were proud of my skills as a mother. (Although I was again accused of wasting my ‘good parenting’ on Franklin.) Of course they couldn’t help but fall in love with him too. (Also, we spent a good deal of time brainstorming and discussing their ‘grandparent names’ because we’re all a bunch of crazy people. Even my dad got into it!)

So far the winning Grandpa name is “Pop Up” (kind of like Pop-Pop but with the Up- from Upshaw). Pretty solid, huh?

We’re still working on my mom’s. So far, “Gran Ma Ma” said in Downton Abbey accent is the frontrunner.

Franklin misses his new friends already! Come back soon!

On Friday, Spiros was sweet enough to take the day off to join my parents and me on our adventures. We started off at the Getty Villa located on the Pacific Coast Highway in Pacific Palisades/Malibu. I’d heard it was beautiful – my Greek teacher is actually an archeologist there – so I’ve been wanting to go for months.

Unfortunately I failed to detect the differentiating magnificence of the antiquities, as endlessly described by my teacher. To my untrained eye they all looked equally cool and old. It was especially interesting to see all the ancient Greek stuff. As my dining room decor will tell you, I’m having no trouble adopting the Greek culture as my own. Sorry, but we are a wee bit culturally vanilla in my lineage. I’m digging the history! Because of my newfound interest, my dad was impressed with my museum stamina. I definitely have childhood memories of sitting on a museum bench sneaking bites of a smuggled-in Snickers bar while my dad read every word of every plaque. Also now I’m not a pouty teenager – I’m an ADULT who needs to lead to take care of her baby – so we could leave when I’d had my fill. (FYI a puppy is the perfect excuse to cut things short when you are ready to leave. Just another reason to get a dog.)

Another bonus was that the building itself is super beautiful, built as the replica of an ancient Italian country home that was destroyed by the volcano on Mount Vesuvius (I will never not think of Zoolander when I hear that name).  It was the perfect place to spend a beautiful afternoon.

That night we went to a Greek restaurant (Le Petit Greek on Larchmont) with one of my mom’s clients who lives in LA. It was nice to meet him after hearing so much about him (he’s a screenwriter so I was trying to glean as much insight as possible) plus it was great for Spiros and I to meet some more Greeks. Everyone was mildly impressed with my Greek (that is a lie, but I could recall at least a few vocab words to throw out!) I feel like wine helps. (Note to self: DRINK UP IN GREECE FOR LEARNING PURPOSES!)

Anyway, it was a wonderful day of playing tourist in our own city. Here are a few photos if you’re interested!

You are ENCOURAGED to touch this statue

Even though you totally felt like you were breaking the rules

One of my mom’s FB friends left the comment “sorry we were gone when you guys stopped by our place”. Haha but seriously. People live like this. Crazy.

Is my hair “creepy” long? Or is it okay?

Oh buddy, this is only the first five minutes of picture taking. You best change that attitude! (He did

Someday I’m going to recreate this with stained concrete!

During our multi-course Greek feast with Greek Matthew McConnaghey

My parents are here visiting so they’ve finally got to meet this little nugget of adorableness. 

Obviously they love him. I mean, how can you not? We’re off to do some exploring of new places, visiting of old friends, and plenty of eating. Have a good weekend!

Like over a month ago, I wrote a post about our first sailing experience, but then I kept waiting to put it up as I held out for pictures that had been taken. (Waiting on others’ pictures is so annoying, right?) Anyway, we never got them, and I was too lazy to make the post less whiney so I just left it in perma-draft mode. (Recap: It was cold! It was a lot of information at once! Attempting to race the first time you’re on the boat is kind of a bad idea! We got 3rd place….out of three boats…and technically we quit before it was over…but we had places to be, and a 6 month old puppy who needed to be let out. Justification! The end.)

Then we blinked our eyes and a month had gone by without us making it back out on the boat. (Mid-day weekend commitments, traveling, below-average weather, laziness, blah blah blah.) So this is to say, here are a few pictures from our second time out.

Both times we’ve had Nick, a guy who works at the boat company, on board with us to give me some lessons and help us get to know this specific type of boat. Oh, and also, how to operate THE CRANE you have to use to put the boat in the water. A little scary, won’t lie. Luckily this time it was the most beautiful day that included this awesome moment with these beautiful birds flying by in formation right next to us (Me: “OMG IT’S JUST LIKE THE END OF JURASSIC PARK WHEN THEY’RE IN THE HELICOPTER!”) Clearly my only frame of reference for anything.

We will be taking it out our own this coming weekend when my parents are here. Fingers crossed the weather stays beautiful … and we manage to impress my father with all of our sailing/boat knowledge… (much like with all activities, he obviously knows everything about it….)

Anyway, with that will – surely – come more pictures of what the actual boat looks like (it’s red, you’d never guess from these!) plus HOPEFULLY some better ones of sea elephants. Because, let’s be honest, that might be the most exciting thing (to me) about sailing.

The most amazing yacht – complete with helicopter – that I spent 30 minutes brainstorming WHO COULD POSSIBLY AFFORD TO OWN THIS. Oprah? IS THIS BOAT TOO EXPENSIVE FOR OPRAH?

Look closely!