Why must you mock me with your witty marketing and specifically designed font?

Stick a fork in me. I officially don't want to have to look at any more apartments to call me own. When the reports say this is a buyers/renters market this is no joke.

Trying to find an apartment to rent in Los Angeles right now is like trying to find a date in a sex-addicts support group. You score every time.

It's a free for all out here.

For now I will settle for a view.

For every listing that I find there are at least three or four signs posted along the way. I can afford to be picky even though I can't afford to pay the bloated housing prices of yore. The gravitational pull towards to ocean is a draw on the 'ol purse strings, if you know what I mean.

Refusing to settle is downright gluttonous. I can't even chose between detailed menu items or an extensive beer list, let alone a smorgasbord of housing units.

"More hardwood floors please and extra closet space if you have it. Oh, and definitely go easy on the security deposit, they never sit quite well with me."

This search is becoming an obsession. As a Scorpio, I need to be able to find security and comfort within my living quarters. This is an vendetta to find the perfect space for two, albiet tiring.

Two is the perfect number as it turns out. Listings are being thrown at us. Not only do I get to live with a rad chick who boasts a near complete wardrobe, but we get to save loads of money compared to the single chumps living in a closet.

Although I did almost sell my soul for a "two bedroom," or shall we say a glorified hotel room with a stow-away, for the closest I will get to an ocean-view for many years to come.

Somewhere my sanity is out there. Despite severe repulsion to haggling paired with an inability to commit, we will find a place to rest our weary heads. Persistence, my friends is key.

Thinking about what I will do once I strap myself into a lease without any furniture or plans for the future almost made me vomit in the middle of Anthropologie today.

Surrounded by a gaggle of stoneware mugs, clever wall hangings and decorative cutlery I realized that I couldn't afford to furnish the humble abode that I so dearly sought after. Curses.

Once I get the place, I can then agonize over each piece of furniture that enters the threshold. Since I don't anticipate any financial benefactors any time soon, the place will probably be complete by the time we move out. Eight months seems about right.

What's wrong with shacking-up with an air mattress for a while? I can create a nest in the corner with old newspaper and use cardboard for warm. I'll just wear an extra pair of socks to bed.

One thing at a time people, one thing at a time.

Trapped in a steal box of emotion

Trying to entertain my parents is like convincing a cat that bath time is a leisurely activity. I love those two, but if allowed they will sit inside a hotel room only to emerge for a short walk before bed.

Grandma Peach has a pacemaker and two bad knees and still has more chutzpah than these two.

Sister and I decide to plan activities for our parents' big California visit. If you organize a day then parents feel obligated to participate.

The Getty is a fine way to show the beauty of LA and cater to our parents' taste. Pops loves to look at static, yet historic monuments. Mama digs scenic walks and when pops is content. Perfect.

Thank you sister for swallowing your distaste for all things ancient and historical.

Poor thing got taken to the Getty Villa on some cruel joke. The place is chocked full of statues of men throwing discs with leaves covering their dainty junk. This person obviously had never met my sister.

This is also the perfect opportunity to play papa-paparazzi. I am in possession of a fantastic film SLR camera that has only been collecting dust.

So we pack ourselves into sister's car and Pops and I sing along to the Beatles while sister tries to ignore the vein pulsating in her forehead.

We wander around the grounds on the pristine day. The skyline was actually visible due to a surprising lack of smog. I shoot every inch of it pretending to know how to adjust the lens.

I haven't used a film camera since about 1995. Pops is a former professional photographer. Now he is just the most anal person to ever take a picture.

He helped me find the right aperture and didn't even make fun of me for loading my first spool of film wrong. So much for documenting my trip to the Japanese gardens.

The Getty is beautiful.

There are some solid impressionist pieces, my personal favorite. The traveling exhibit was phenomenal. Irving Penn is a rad dude. Anyone that can see a photographic opportunity with an overweight man selling chamois in the street is alright in my book.



Now that I set the scene for our lovely outing, let me say we tried to leave the Getty at 5:00 p.m. Sister wanted to jump on the 405 to get home.

For those of you who don't realize what this foolhardy attempt means, I would rather wait in line at the DMV all day than sit in bumper to bumper traffic with my darling family.

Driving with Pops as a passenger is like bringing a seven-year-old on a road trip.



This is where things go downhill.

I tell her to avoid the 405. Dad starts babbling about needing to find food as soon as possible. Sister yells that she doesn't know how else to get home and that we will be meeting her boyfriend in two hours for a nice meal. Dad informs her that he must eat something now. Mom backs him up talking about low-blood sugar and needing sustenance.

The pitch in sister's voice starts to escalate.

Jill the trusty BMW guide leads us to a closed entrance ramp for the 405. Sister has the navigation system, so she never bothered to learn the streets anywhere in the city.

Sister's voice starts to rise. I sense the tone.

sister: "I don't know where we are, so if you want to tell me side streets to get home, then tell me."

me: "Tell me where we are and I will tell you how to get home. I own a map."

sister: "I don't know where we are, Katee."

Dad (clicking away on his phone): "Hey, I found a Burger King nearby. We can get food there."

sister: "Dad, I need to figure out where we are going."

me: "Dad, not the time."

Mama tries to calmly explain that we will find food after we figure out how to get home.

We navigate through a quiet residential neighborhood. We maneuver through busy streets. Jill leads us into the thick of traffic. The flow of traffic gets denser. We pull onto the thick of traffic on Centinela. We are stopped.

Damn you, Jill.

Pops starts to complain about stopping anywhere, just any gas station for food. Mama warns sister to not make a turn around in this heavy of traffic, voice strained. I am looking at sister. Her voice is tense. I apologize for not telling sister to take Barrington as we sit in traffic. Sister tells me to fuck off. I hum to the Beatles. Dad gets antsy about his food choices. Mama goes on once again about low-blood sugar.

me: "I swear, if you two make her stroke out and we have to be in THAT car stopped in the middle of traffic, I am going to be more than pissed."

Sister stops at 7-eleven and we all evacuate the car. Sister dials boyfriend alone in the car.

me: "Hey dad, I want these chips okay?"

Pops (to the cashier): "How fresh is your hotdog?"

We made it home in about an hour and a half. Glad to say we made it home safely and in time for dinner.

sister: "Is that what you guys are wearing?"

Needless to say, there were no more excursions for this visit.

Dance little turkey, dance

The parents decided that this Thanksgiving they would grace us with their presence. Now that both of their lovely daughters are in the Golden State, the parents are willing to brave the airport and the pleasant SoCal weather.

While I have been calling sister’s couch home for only a few months, this would be the first time since sister moved here three years ago Papa Peach would make a trip out. Mama came to see her once. My parents rarely travel and opt for sending the prodigal daughter a plan ticket to the Midwest.

I of course, got very excited about the whole thing and started planning my first thanksgiving dinner. Sister broke out into a cold sweat.

Sister and I had very different approaches on how the Thanksgiving dinner would play out.

I wanted a traditional meal and the chance to see if I could produce an edible turkey without burning the house down. Sister wanted a fancy dining experience for a no muss, no fuss chance for her new man to meet our parents.

This conflict did not play-out nicely. We should have televised the brawl on pay-per-view as we shouted at each other over how to have the perfect, stress-free meal. Mike Tyson played a cleaner match.

In the end we both came to our senses, meaning years of training as the little sister made me apologize for yelling, but stubborn enough to get my way. Sister vowed to have nothing to do with the meal, except eat it and not be happy about the whole mess.

Victory is mine.

I turned into a regular Martha extraordinaire. Despite not having all the correct baking tools and no dining table to eat upon, we were going to have the best damn Thanksgiving meal I could muster and everyone better love it. Plus, mama said she would help me not fuck it up.

I fought through the crowds at Trader Joe’s to get the 14-lb. antibiotic free, vegetarian fed, free-range turkey of my dreams. They only had the kosher ones left, but I figured it could only be a bonus. To get out of the madness, I threw a few elbows and escaped with the turkey and my life.

I do want to say that even though I did the detox and claimed in the post previous to cut down on my meat consumption, in my book Thanksgiving doesn’t count. Especially, when I get to cook for my family that traveled so many miles just to see their daughters.

Plus, it’s kosher. That's got to count for something.

Warning: do not try to go out for one drink the night before Thanksgiving, even though it is the biggest bar night of the year, when there is a turkey brining-away in the fridge.

One drink turned into several and before I knew it I was jabbering away about my delicious dinner, while trying to beat some ass playing a video trivia game with fellow booze-hounds.

I did make it back to dump the brine after the allotted 6 to 8 hours. The turkey marinated in sea salt, molasses and cool water with crushed anise and cinnamon sticks for flavor.

This is after I let mama clean out the gizzards and I made its little body dance around for a while. Best. vegetarian. ever.

The best part about thanksgiving is not only preparing a delicious bird carcass for your family, but making after-thanksgiving sandwiches for weeks to come.

Each year I try to perfect the combination of white meat, cheddar cheese, cranberry sauce, toasted bread and mixed greens. This year I will incorporate cornbread stuffing as I recently became a fan.

I get weeks of turkey dinner leftovers to feast upon. Especially since, I spent all my grocery money on this free-range, loving life turkey. Lucky me.

The turkey turned out beautiful by the way. We did smoke-out the house and send the family running into the street for a bit of time. What’s a family gathering without a bit of excitement?

So what, if the rolls tasted a bit like smoke. Some people aim for that flame-kissed flavor.

I think it was gross negligence on the LAFD’s part who did nothing as smoke billowed out of the apartment. With a fire station just across the street, who are we to depend on for assistance in a real disaster?

Oh no, here come the meat sweats again.

Next year, I'll let someone else do the cooking. I'll bring the tofurkey.

Fraser, thank you for sneaking me a pumpkin treat when no one was looking. Sorry for causing that look of fear in your eyes.

After celebrating my birthday for two weeks, going to Vegas and eating more meat over the course of two days than this Veggie has eaten in months, I decided to go on a fast. This detox involves a regimen of lemons, cayenne pepper and molasses mixed in liter of water.

You drink this and only this for as long as you can survive it. I aimed for seven days.

Focusing on the positive aspects of removing toxins in my body, shedding any excess pounds, sleeping better and restarting a healthy eating plan at ground zero, kept me motivated for about three days. Then reality set in.

I work at the french bakery and cafe. My job entails making coffee and perfecting each drink to Intelligensia standards. Throughout the shift I must adjust the espresso grind and taste the shots pulled to get the optimal flavor. This is serious coffee.

This is not possible on a detox. A few sips of espresso make my hands shake and my heart beat against my ribcage like a trapped rabbit. Not to mention, the edge I already have from an addiction to caffeine that I am trying to kick.

Standing in a sea of pastel macaroons, hazelnut cream puffs and a variety of fruit muffins and croissants that melt in your mouth, I realized that I had made a grave mistake. Dear lord, it's like inviting a sex fiend into a brothel.


The jumbo cupcake people, this is what I'm dealing with. This is not the first time we have met cupcake, now you are now my foe.

It's not that I actually felt hungry in the sense of an empty stomach. I just wanted to consume every pastry in a five block radius. All I could think about was food while standing among temptation in every flavor.

We also get a free meal with every shift. I had to sit and pretend like I was making important memos with my phone for a half hour.

By day four, I had to resist the strong impulse to punch everyone near me in the face, especially children. My eye starting twitching uncontrollably and I was ready to burst into tears at any given moment. Don't worry this is a good sign that I'm making progress.

This detox would be no problem if I worked at an office where all I had to do was resist visiting food sites on the computer and empty the mini-fridge in my cubicle. Instead, my boss decided to break into the latest pastry creations for the holiday season to share with all of the employees. I tried to ignore the bead of sweat forming on the small of my back as my co-workers each grabbed for a slice of a pumpkin ganache tart.


"Oh my God, this is orgasmic." Commence the yummy noises.

Thoughts of grabbing the nearest pen and gouging out someone's eye out, made me realize that maybe this is not the right time in my life for this. Best excuse myself. I sucked down a cigarette in the back alley like a convict in a prison yard.

Five days seems like a legit time to flush out some of the deep friend animal carcass I enjoyed so damn much. Instead of food deprivation, I am sticking to a healthy eating plan to keep my skin clear and my thoughts less vicious. I even will allow a minimal amount of carbs to keep me sane.

"Oh! Glad to see you eating croissants again," said a co-worker yesterday. She was in the process of moving all the ballpoint pens from away my station.

Glad to be back.

I want to go out in blazing glory or in a freak carnival accident where I am flung into a large crowd injuring many

Drunk driving is an issue in L.A. I prefer to stay closer to home when possible and stumble my way back to the homestead. Not only do you work off some of the alcohol, but you can meet some really interesting bums on the way.

Keep in mind that over 1.4 million U.S. drivers were arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol or narcotics in 2007, according to the Centers for Disease Control. Yet, this is less than one percent of the 159 million self-reported episodes of alcohol-impaired driving each year.

There was about 197,000 DUI arrests in California, according to the state. This accounts for 14 percent of the entire barrage of arrests in the country for hitting the sauce a little too hard. That's a lot of drunk people in a concentrated area.

It’s just common fact in the city how to take the back roads and to avoid the cops at all cost. I mean racial profiling is also a major reason to avoid cops, but that’s another topic.

To even find that statistic I had to scroll through pages of defense attorney links promising release from the long arm of the law. That means a lot of people using their thumbs as sight checks to stay between the lines as they swerve down the road.

It’s like in Montana where everyone drives around sucking down drinks in hand. They speed down deserted highways trying to hit mountain goats with beer cans. I heard this boasted from a very reliable and drunken Montana resident.

It’s kind of like that in L.A., but the exact opposite. There are so many things to do in this sprawling city that one has to fight herds of traffic to get downtown to see the really cool shit. This means either an outrageous cab fee or attempting to be sober sally with the stern grimace planted on your face the entire night.

Of course, chicks really dig guys that arrive in B.M.Ws as well. It can’t hurt.

This tactic is about as well thought out as the time I bought rope shoes at a music festival. At the time, I just wanted more comfortable shoes than the plastic flops that I was wearing. Not really sure in what realm of reality I thought rope shoes would be the comfortable choice. Calluses formed almost instantly on my abused feet.

Never trust a hippie chick that tries to sell you shoes while on hallucinogens.

Sure, the $10,000 fine for driving under the influence does detour some of the wisest. Yet, I still have been subjected to white knuckles on the dashboard praying into my rosary. Just kidding, I don’t own a rosary.

I have experienced my fair share of road blocks that detour me on the way towards a happening Friday night. It delays my chance to get intoxicated, which is super annoying. Lucky for me I don’t drive drunk. Also I am a pleasant, little white girl driving a grandma Saturn with a damaged bumper.

If I can’t even fix my own car how am I going to pay their fines? I totally coast by under the radar.

I blame the celebrity tarts that make themselves infamous by getting D.U.Is and their names back into the news. This is not okay behavior. Lindsay Lohan has plenty of entourage to drive her drunk, fine ass wherever she pleases.

Most of the time, I just find another chump to drive. Which is why maybe I am having such issues with drunk driving, question mark?

In any case I am not judging, merely just speaking out of concern for the precious lives on the road. There are much cooler ways to die, anyway. Like saving a puppy from a burning building or turning into pink dust from an at home chemistry experiment gone horribly wrong.

Got to stay positive right?

While you're at it could you please solve hunger and give us all world peace?

My sister and I were born two years and three days apart. That means growing up we celebrated with joint parties, so my mother didn't have to deal with two days of screaming children hopped-up on sugar. Lucky for her.

Now living on the same side of this fine country, we get to repeat this tradition. I imagine it's the same treatment that people born around the holidays get. They cram their special day in with the rest of the hoopla and hope people don't try to make one gift stretch to cover two very separate occasions.

We planned to go to dinner with friends on my birthday. I was informed we would celebrate together since sister was going on a private dinner with her man on her actual birthday. Fabulous.

Being as I am new to LA and have no friends to speak of, I decided to buy myself a damn fine cake for my birthday. It's a lot less pathetic than it sounds. When it comes to birthdays, working at a delightful french patisserie has its perks.

Most of the eight mind-numbing hours I spend at work each day, I watch customers on the slick tile hoping for a sudden loss of traction ending in someone landing on their face for my entertainment. It's yet to happen, but one can dream.

Enter the jumbo red velvet cupcake, with delicate cream cheese frosting, covered in red sprinkles and large enough to feed ten. This is one serious cake and the perfect addition to my, excuse me our, dinner party.

Sister loves cupcakes. She loves them enough to ponder symmetrical cupcake tattoos on the nape of her neck. I can see the raining glory that I would receive once I arrived with said cake in tow. Plus, I get to devour delicious pastry for my birthday.

This is where I should mention sister's dream boyfriend. In reality, he is the perfect doormat that she has been waiting for. Boy did sister luck out on that one. Seriously though, he would go to the ends of the earth for her and I appreciate that. Plus, he has a gnarly mustache.

Through the grape vine I hear knight-in-shining-BMW may be preparing a cake for sister's big day. So I investigate. Meaning I text him asking politely if I should invest in a cake for our dinner.

He informs me that yes, he plans to bake for lovely sister. He wants to make something special for her, but don't worry there can never be too much cake.
I swoon a bit for her sake.

He goes on to say how he probably will make her a red velvet cake and maybe some cupcakes since she is such a big fan. Okay, hold the phone.

That's ironic, I tell him, that pretty much the same idea I had. I was going to buy a freaking jumbo red velvet cupcake for my birthday. Don't worry he says, he will make them for Monday and I can bring mine for Thursday.

Just great. After Martha Stewart here makes delicious homemade delights, I get to bring my store bought monstrosity to give everyone deja vu. Wow, I might be impressed, but boyfriend of the year got here first. Way to steal my thunder, bucko.

Where is Ashtin with his obnoxious trucker hat when you need him.

Then because he's such a nice guy, he offers to bake something extra for me since I am a loser who has no one to make such a gesture of baked goods. He even offers to scratch the idea and go with the jumbo. Dammit this guy is good.

Defeated, I admit that he must bake for sister since it's so cute I could vomit. I will come-up with something else. Why doesn't he just knit her a sweater while he's at it.

Turns out sister bought me a cake for the big dinner. I didn't see that coming.

She then brought home the most adorable little lovecakes that boyfriend created. The red velvet cupcakes were actually dyed purple, as it is her favorite color and sprinkled with gold pixie dust, since it's her golden birthday.

I tried to eat one, but I choked on all that they stand for.