Celebrity Sighting

When people hear you grew in up California, one of the first questions seems to be, "Have you met any celebrities?" But honestly, it doesn't happen as often as people expect. Not to say it never happens, since I've been lucky a few times, but its not the type of thing that happens on a monthly or even a once a year basis.

Except of course for when it does! The first celebrity I remember seeing was Steve Urkel (aka Jaleel White). I must have been in 1st grade, and we had just seen Beauty and the Beast at Disney's El Capitain theater in Hollywood. After the movie we (my family and my best friends') went out to dinner, and some burger place I believe. And who should we find at that place but Jaleel White! We really had no idea who it was, but my friend's dad went up to him to get us both an autograph. I remember bringing it to school to show it off, and I'm guess I lost it the same day.

Fast forwarding a quite a few years to high school. We had decided to hang out at Universal Citywalk outside Universal studios for the night. We this time is a bunch of friends, one of whom is actually the same friend I met Steve Urkel with. We were in a Best Buy (or some similar store), when someone noticed Devon Sawa. We weren't completely sure it was him, so we went through trying to find copies of Wild America or Casper to see if we could compare it to him. Right before he left the store with the 20 or so movies he was buying, I managed to walk up to him and ask if he truly was Devon Sawa. When he agreed, we asked if we could take a picture together and he agreed.
As I do look like a loser with my eyes closed in this picture, but still it's Devon Sawa!

We have to fast forward a few more years to get to my next celebrity sighting. This was summer 2006, just after I graduated college. We were going to see an outdoor screening of Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth, and were able to be in the VIP section before the screening. Who else was in the VIP section? Bon Jovi who was doing a small concert before the show. Since Jon Bon Jovi was just mingling I convinced my dad to get him to take a picture with me and my brother.
Thankfully I look a lot better in this picture! To the point that I have to admit I printed off a copy and I have it hanging up in my house. So when people walk by I can say something like, "O, that's just me and my good friend Jon."

I've never actually gone on a "See the Stars" tour, and made a point to stalk out celebrities. I've just been lucky enough to be at the right place at the right time. Although that might change since I've heard they will be filming Breaking Dawn in Louisiana! After all how can R. Patz fall in love with me if I never meet him?

What celebrities have you met? Have you ever gone someplace specifically looking to meet someone, or have you just been lucky? Or if you've never met anyone famous, who would you most want to meet?

~Shoshanah

Snacks for Dinner

Seriously this is why I should not be allowed to shop for groceries on my own. Although looking at it now there really isn't a lot of food. Which almost makes it worse since this was a triple digit purchase!
Let's see.. there's 3 kinds of cheeses (feta, brie with herbs, and halloumi). In the plastics bags are potatoes, a mango, white nectarines, carrots, and a sweet potato. Maybe I should have taken them out of plastics bags for the picture, but I would have had to put them right back. There's also a cut up package of watermelon in the back.

As for the packaged food there's hummus and pita chips, Asian noodle salad, an Amy's frozen black bean enchilada, chicken pot stickers, and chicken pesto empanadas. Then there's also olive oil and balsamic vinegar, a box of mini croissants, and a tomato and asiago foccacia. The hiding the the right corner of the is the only dessert I bought, a bag of chocolate covered berries.

Anyone else notice the problem with this spread? Its all pretty much snack food! There's not really a whole lot to build a meal upon. Which meals if I want to cook an actual meal, I'll have to buy more groceries. So instead I'll just make it easy on myself and eat a bunch of snacks for dinner.

Anyone else have an issue buying food to actually use for a meal when shopping and just wind up with a lot of snack food? Or let me know how you manage to actually shop and come up with a meal from what you buy!

~Shoshanah

Who Are These Guys

The Other Guys
To be honest, I really didn't enjoy this movie. Yes I did come into it with low expectations and I didn't really want to see it, but I was at least hoping to be proved wrong. Overall I'd say the movie just didn't really fit.

Of course there were funny moments, but there were far more moments where they tried to be funny and the joke fell flat. And the moments between the jokes weren't that great either. There was an extra scene after the credits which I always love, but again I didn't get the joke.

And then there was Mark Whalberg, who I like in most cases, but again here he didn't fit the movie.

The only real high points of the movie were Samuel Jackson and Dwayne Johnson. But (mild spoiler alert) they exited the movie FAR too earlier. Although they did have quite an exit.

I would say the movie isn't worth it, and I wouldn't even have the desire to watch the movie again while it aired on tv. (I know I'm not the only one since the couple sitting next to us left about 3/4 through the movie and didn't come back.) I would say wait till next weekend when they should hopefully be a more promising option.

~Shoshanah

Be Kind, Rewind

I've always loved rereading books, something friends of mine never seemed to get. "After all" they'd say, "You already know what's going to happen." And while yes, the mystery and surprise may be gone but the magic is still there. But rereading a book I'm able to relive a beloved story, and almost imagine myself in the world in the book.

During the summer especially is when I wound up rereading books, mainly due to the free time I had not being in school. While I'm no longer have a summer vacation, the heat still made me crave a some old time favorites. My parents have slowly been sending my mementos of my childhood some of which are my favorite books or book series. With them so accessible, I've decided this summer I'll be reading and somewhat reviewing some of my favorites, so hopefully I can inspired others not only to reread some of their favorites, but give them ideas of some new great reads.

Right now I'm in the middle of The Betsy-Tacy Series. Since I've already written about them, it seems silly to almost repost the same thing. (But if you missed it the first time, I'd highly recommend checking it out.) You'll notice in the weeks to come most of these books will be in a similar vein as most of these will be book series I loved growing up. I'm not sure how many I'll wind up posting, but I did want to get you excited for what's to come!

~Shoshanah

Back to the Vampires

All Together Dead by Charlaine Harris
It feels good to get back to the Sookie Stackhouse books! This one takes Sookie to Rhodes, Chicago for a vampire convention (and yes, that is as crazy as it sounds!). She goes as an employee as the Queen of Louisiana, in order to use her powers to find out how honest people are being. But of course things go wrong, and by the end it's all a little crazy.

One thing I thought was interesting about this book was that Hurricane Katrina was mentioned quite a bit. Interesting because the last book Definitely Dead had an author's note that it was written before the hurricane and so choose not to change the book. But if book #6 was written before the hurricane, then book #7 must have been written right afterwards. So much of the books seems to deal with the aftermath of the hurricane and it makes me wonder just how much of the book changed due to it.

I also loved that this book brought back Quinn, who I think might be my favorite guy for Sookie so far. Although I've heard rumors that Sookie winds up with Eric later on. (If you know please don't confirm or deny. I'm trying my best to avoid spoilers until I'm completely caught up in the books.)

I really did enjoy this book. While I wouldn't list it as my favorite of the series so far, it definitely lived up to the rest of the series. And like always I can wait to read the next!

~Shoshanah

Let's Go to Dinner

Dinner for Schmucks
From the previews I wasn't really looking forward to this one, but there wasn't really a lot of other options. (At least not other options we could agree on, because while I'd be happy to see Charlie St. Cloud other members of our two-some not so much.) But even with my hesitation, I was still able to really enjoy the movie, and was a little surprised at how much.

Based on the title and the movie's premise I was expecting most of the movie to take place at the dinner itself. But the actual dinner didn't occur till quite a ways through the movie. I was afraid that once the dinner scene happened that after waiting so long for it I'd be let down. But thankfully it didn't disappoint. It wound up being just the over the top ridiculousness I wanted to see. But even with one of the highlights of the movie toward the end, the rest of the movie was just as good.

One cute, though a little gruesome, bit of the movie was Steve Carrel's character's hobby of making dioramas out of dead mice. Some of them were so over the top, but even more I loved the little details that went into them. There's a bunch at the start of the credit, and if you're patients there's a final one at the end of all the credits.

Overall I'd say its definitely a movie that will hopefully exceed your expectations. You'll literally be laughing out loud the whole movie long.

~Shoshanah

It's a Birthday

Yesterday was the boy's niece's 3rd birthday party. The theme was Sponge Bob Square Pants, and almost as expected at a party with such a theme there were a bunch of water activities. There was a slip and slide, which I loved growing up. But if only I knew what my childhood was missing out on!
An inflatable water slide! Seriously where was this when I was growing up? There's a climbing wall in the center, and though its hard to see there's a second slide on the other slide. Its not even something that had to be rented from a party company, but its sold at a regular store by Little Tykes. If I had one of these growing up I probably would have played on it all summer!
For present the boy and I bought her a box of Disney Princess themed dress-up clothes, and the accompanying box of their shoes (which of course are sold separately). And how could we forget the books! I always have so much fun going through the children's section finding books I loved growing up that I want to introduce to her. I could easily by tons of books, but made myself stop at two. I can only imagine how many book I'll be buying for my future children.
First we went with Angelina Ballerina by Katharine Holabird, a book I remembered loving growing up. I actually wound up buying a 25th Anniversary edition, and since I'm also 25 it seems to make perfect sense that they would a part of my childhood. I was actually a little surprise to see the listing in the back of the book as to how many Angelina books there are now. If I remember there were almost 20 or so! I only remember owning 1 or 2 myself.

The second book we decided on was Julius Baby of the World by Kevin Henkes. This is actually a book I don't remember ever reading or owning. However I do remember having a few Kevin Henkes books that I really enjoyed, so given the them of the book I thought it was a perfect fit. In case you haven't guessed from the title, the books about an older sister who doesn't understand what's so great about her younger brother. That is until someone else decides they don't like her brother either, and she feels the need to stand up for him. Since she has a younger brother about 2 years younger, and there's normal sibling jealousy issues I thought it'd be almost perfect.

Overall it was a lot of fun, and while I might not be ready to have my own children right now, its still a good time being around other people's babies.

~Shoshanah