Thunder from down under

I finally decided to give up ear plugs. This has been something I've wanted to do for a long time. No, Mario has not stopped snoring like a bear with a chainsaw. This decision was made because I found something else to stick in my ears while sleeping. Yeah that just sounds weird, but I found some wonderful earphones that perfectly fit my petite little ears...and they were cheap.

This means that I can fall sleep listening to the sultry sounds of the rain (or in Mario's case Al Jarreau or Michael Jackson). I started downloading apps. Turns out I'm picky when it comes to my rain, I decided I needed a fairly realistic rain...let me tell you some of these free rain sound apps are just junk. I'm sorry dropping water in a tin can, does not sound like a realistic rainstorm on a tin roof. I want it to actually sound like it's raining outside! After a a good ten downloads, I finally found a good rain sound with Thunder. I love it.

It's relaxing and I sleep really deeply...once I get to sleep that is. For the most part this thunder storm sound board is just a nice rolling sound. The thunder works itself up to a nice roll, then it fades out and you can hear more of the rain. But I asked for realistic right? Well, sometimes just as the thunder is rolling out, and the sound of the rain is lulling me into that spot where I am just about to fall asleep...a very realistic and loud thunder clap cracks and scares the shit out of me making me jump and in turn waking up the dog and both cats....Of course the Bear sleeps through it. It's very similar feeling to the falling in your sleep and waking up mid fall. You know that embarrassing unmistakable convulsion...yeah you know.

It happens to be a long enough loop that it catches me just as I am at the point of falling asleep...every night. Luckily, I am at that sleepy point that I actually fall asleep before it cracks again. The first night was rough though. The first time I jolted up knowing what it was because I heard the crack. However, every time it would loop to that thunder bolt, I'd wake up and couldn't exactly figure out why I would wake up...I smartened up and figured it out by the next morning.

Have I stopped listening to it though? Noooo, of course not. Because of the Bear and his chainsaw, I have to wear the earplugs if I want any sleep. What does this mean? No real life sound of rain to fall asleep to!  So, I don't want to give up on my fake rain sounds. I do actually sleep really deeply now and haven't been waking up at all at night. Besides, I think I have this contest with myself to really fall asleep before the thunder cracks and I jump...and it makes me laugh when it makes me jump.

A message to Mario from the Kittens

laura616

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https://www.onlinefilefolder.com/2sATOfs70uSkEyKMUUUUU77777777777777

Mario

WTF.......

Sent at 7:35 PM on Thursday

Calling Mario D'Anna at 7:38 PM on Thursday

laura616

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/|0L+

wow have the cats been typing you all morning?

there were 23 emails to you open...like they were going to write an email

guess they missed you

Mario

junk mail. from my own family!

Guess they had a lot to say. Not only had they typed and sent this to Mario. They called him and tried to send 23 emails to him...luckily they didn't get those to send. I love his reaction in the middle of the message.

A Moment of Silence Please

Mario just came to me to break the news of the untimely death of our toilet paper holder. Yeah, yeah, we can just go buy another toilet paper holder. The thing is, this one looks like the original toilet paper holder from when this building was built in the 40s!

It's a cute little wooden guy with a small carved peg at one end and a spring and carved wooden peg that inserts at the other end. It was well built and did it's job like no other. The cool part of it was also the problem...the spring. That spring could launch that peg across the room at the most inappropriate times! Especially if you were in a hurry. I can't tell you how many times I've lost the peg and spring behind the toilet or in the bath tub. It was really a pain in the butt. However, it was original and we loved it.

Now, I'm sure you're curious how it met it's end. I was curious myself. Well, Mario has amazing timing. He had run out of toilet paper while he was in there. I came to his rescue and got him another roll. Because of the placement of the wall mount, he decided he'd wait until he was finished with his business to put the roll in the holder.

So, he finished his business, stood, pulled up his shorts, flushed the toilet and promptly launched that bitch straight in to the flushing toilet! Apparently there was no diving after the peg and spring. They were in the depths before he had a chance to even react.

I guess that's why I always replaced the toilet paper before I stood up. I must have recognized the dangers of loosing that peg and spring in the toilet...and used my butt to block their route into the toilet.

We are both really bummed. I wonder if the neighbors still have the original toilet paper holders. I'm going to have to get invited over and see if I can't "replace" ours...with their original holder.  Changing the toilet paper roll will never be the same!

Conversation with the Mister

Mario from the bathroom "...blah blah....which brush..blah blah"

Me trying to figure out what the hell he was talking about, and then just taking a guess, I yell "which ever brush I grab first..." deciding he was asking about our hair brushes. Why, after 6 years of sharing hair brushes, he was asking which brush I use...I have no idea.

I hear him brush his teeth. Then he came into the bedroom.

Mario "Huh? No, which tooth brush do you use?"

Is he serious? 

Me "Are you serious? Which tooth brush did you use?"

Mario "I used the green one"

Me "Yours is the blue tooth brush. Since we moved here in December, your tooth brush has been on the right. The green one was on the left."

Mario "well, I thought the green one was mine"

Me "The tooth brush before this was blue also."

Mario "Hmm..."

Me "Mario, you sleep on the right side of the bed. Your towel is always on the right side of the door. Your tooth brush is on the right. You are a right side man. You put all your stuff on the right. Why would your tooth brush suddenly be on the left."

Mario "Interesting. I didn't notice that. I just thought my tooth brush was green."

Me "You confuse me...Wait...how come you are only asking today? I changed the tooth brushes over a week ago! You've been using my tooth brush for a week!"

Mario "I kept forgetting to ask. Well, I guess the blue tooth brush is mine!"

Me "You're crazy."

I only changed the tooth brushes, because mine was still in the car from when I went camping the weekend before. So, I grabbed a new brush for me and I figured, if I was getting a new tooth brush, I should change Mario's also. I actually planned how I would change the tooth brush out, because I knew that even though this should be a simple thing...it could possibly confuse the man! However, I figured since his tooth brush was blue already, if I gave him another blue tooth brush, he'd just go with it...plus I'll be honest, I wanted the pretty green tooth brush. Well, I guess he wanted the pretty green tooth brush also. He just couldn't keep his hands off it!

The man totally baffles me! 

Texting with my Mother

This morning I was reading a very reputable news site Perez Hilton, when all of a sudden my phone said my mom was calling. Of course 6am is the worst time to get a call. So, I immediately panicked and picked up. Mom wasn't responding but I could hear here talking to the dogs...non emergency pocket dial.

I let her know this afternoon when she texted me about something else...


Me "You know you called me before 6am this morning...small heart attack!"

Mom "Really??? Was trying to turn off the phone alarm. Sorry. It woke me. And I could not get to it in the phone menu."

Me "Well I can't give you a guilt trip for waking me up...cause I was awake. I did think it was funny after I realized it wasn't an emergency"

Mom "I didn't realize that I did."

For some reason, I decided to take a look at what time she called and realized my mistake...

Me "Oh my god it looks like I called you! But I was reading the news! Well that would explain why your alarm was going off!"

Mom "Ur such a shit."

I'm not sure how it happened. I was reading one minute and answering the next. Good thing it was my mom though and not anyone else! I do kind of think it's funny that she thought it was the alarm and not the phone ringing...I do the same thing when people call early.

How I Pick Up Women

Today, I caught a nice lunch with a friend and her daughter. After too many chips, salad, and appetizers, we headed out to the car. As we slowly rounded the corner, we stopped in our tracks. Lounging under my car was a cute little cat. Of course, she picked the one car in the lot that belonged to the three biggest suckers. 

The immediate response between the three of us was "aww how cute...oh man, not another cat!" Jeanna is a kitten rescuer extraordinaire and her daughter is right there with her. Of course, I am trying hard to foster two kittens and failing miserably at not falling in love with them. Luckily, miss cute cat cut us a break. She popped right up and slowly meandered out from under the car. We all breathed a sigh of relief and continued towards the car. As I walked to the drivers side, little miss kitty was walking with me. 

Of course, I can't not talk to animals, so I said "Hey pretty mama!" The cat didn't even look back. However, I turned and saw that I was getting a great big smile from the woman sitting in the car right next to me! 

Me "Oh hi! Sorry, I was talking to the cat"

Pretty mama "Oh, I was wondering if you were saying that to me. I thought it was nice!"

Me "Well, you're a pretty mama too!"

Pretty mama "Thank you!" There was more conversation about her having lost 100 pounds, this being her favorite restaurant, this being her cheat day and her hiding out in her car waiting for happy hour, etc.

Let me tell you, she was very gorgeous. What I'm upset about, is that I never thought I would use such a cheesy way to pick up a woman! Hey pretty mama! Really! I could totally do better! I have always thought that those men that drive by and yell "Hey baby! You're hot!" and all those crappy lines like that were awful! They can do far better! I also never thought that women would ever go for that. I guess I hoped that when I inadvertently hit on someone, it would be far better than me yelling "Hey Pretty Mama!" I'm obviously not nearly as classy or as smooth as I thought I was...However, I must be pretty good, cause the cheesy pick up line totally worked! I guess after being married to Mario for 4 years I've still got it! Maybe I'll try a cheesy line on Mario...

Cute and Talented

If you are one of my facebook friends, you probably know that Mario and I are fostering two trouble-makers kittens. They were on a shelter list to be killed the next day and we couldn't let that happen. It's something I have wanted to do for a while and this seemed like a perfect time to give it a try. So, far it's proving pretty good. With the exception of the mess they make, they are pretty adorable, feisty, and are becoming more loving every day. 

Mario and I take turns spending time with the cats and Tula. Tula was living with a bunch of cats when we got her. However, these kittens are still pretty small. She plays rough and I don't want anything to happen to these girls under our care. So, we switch back and forth, making sure everyone is getting enough attention and are very slowly trying to introduce them. 

After two days, we decided to upgrade these little boogers from the bathroom to our bedroom. More space for them and a much less adventurous bathroom experience for us. Plus the smaller little booger loved to bolt from the bathroom as soon as we opened the door to explore the rest of the house. Which is why I've been calling her Scout. I've also been calling her Bossy, cause she's a bossy little shit. Chewy or Sage is the other little girl. Mellow and far more relaxed, she could care less where she's sleeping and eating. Which is why we call her Chewy. First because she's a furry girl like Chewbacca and second because she always has her face in her food. And Sage because I felt like she needed a second name also...why not.

This is Bossy/Scout. She is the ringleader. She's small, but will bitch you out if she doesn't like how something is going down. However, she makes up for it with her all her love.

Chewy/Sage is the bigger more mellow sister. A little more standoffish, but is becoming more of a lover every day.

On their third night here, they've become far more ballsy and fearless. Mario and I had been out to dinner. We came home and made sure everyone was fed. First we spent time with Tula and then we both made our way in to play with the kittens. After hanging out for a while, I came back out into the living room to finish a little work. I could hear the television on in the bedroom, the kittens tearing my clothes off the hangers in the closet...then I heard the Roomba vacuum turn on in the bedroom. It's a little late for vacuuming, but it's really not too loud so I didn't think to much of it. Then it occurred to me that I could hear Mario snoring and objects hitting the floor.

I walked in to the bedroom. Mario was passed out and there were two guilty looking kittens sitting next to him. The roomba was under the bed going crazy. Those two little boogers had somehow turned on the power and hit the go button. Then they were clearing everything off the bed that they could. Mario was still passed out.

I woke Mario up and he was totally confused with all the noise in the room. Then he asked me why I had turned on the Roomba. I told him to look at the guilty looks on the kittens' faces. I fished the Roomba out from underneath the bed. Those little weasels went right back to their tackling and wrestling. I can't believe Mario slept through all of this. 


I have a feeling that this is only the beginning. There are only two of these girls and they are pure trouble! So, I made sure to tell my sister what she has to look forward to. She has a young mama and three kittens. The babies are only about 4 weeks old. I told her to get ready for the pure chaos when they hit 8 or 10 weeks old. I can only imagine the trouble she'll have on her hands. Now, if I can get my kittens to learn how to clean the rest of the house, this situation might really work out for us! 

Logos

One of the many things that is on my to-do list is a new logo design. The last logo I had designed, I didn't love...at all. I have used it a little, but not really.

Of course, last week I ended up in a situation where I needed a logo immediately. It was late night and I needed a watermark for a set of images. I tried just using some text with my company name, but it just wasn't working for me. So, I pulled out the not-so-loved logo and tried to make it work for me.

Because it was going on an image with many different backgrounds, the logo itself needed to have a light background. So, I adjusted, played and came up with this...

Do you see it? Yes, it's totally a feminine pad with wings. This wasn't going to work at all. So, I came up with this little diddy.  

Which I later found out had the same background as a beer company or something. Plus my sister and mario were totally unimpressed. It was last minute though and I needed to get a damn watermark on my photos. At least it didn't look like a pad and it looked kind of cute on my photos. Anyway, it's back to the drawing board...

This is one of the beautiful families that just moved into one of the homes I photographed.

They were doing a news piece on the project and interviewing the new homeowner.

An interview with the realtor about how the program works. 

So far this project has kept me busy, but it's fun to shoot stuff like this once in a while. ps...I still keep the pad with wings logo on my desktop because it makes me laugh every time I see it.

No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

A few weeks ago, a friend asked me to come to the airport with her family. They pick me up, we drop them off, I take their car and keep it at my place for the few weeks they are out of town. It was easy peasy. I found the one area where there is no street sweeping parking restrictions. I parked it and pretty much just checked on it when I went out to my car.

Tonight was the night I was supposed to pick them up from the airport. Between sitting on the street for two weeks and its normal three young male passengers...it was a mess. So, Mario took the van down to his favorite car wash for a quick wash and vacuum. It looked great. I was pretty excited to pick them up, see my boys real quick and send them home with a clean van.

The timing was perfect. I pulled up as they finished picking up all their luggage. Nick came out to start loading up the luggage. I left the car running and hopped out to help. As I rounded the back he asked me to unlock the back hatch. I turned around headed back to the drivers door and my heart sank...I had locked us out of the car with it running!!!

I felt awful! 11 o'clock at night, two exhausted adults, and three crying exhausted boys! What a jerk! Nick immediately decided he should just break a window...driving home with a broken window and three crying boys sounded even worse! Luckily Mario was following right behind me and could call AAA for a locksmith. I didn't want to hear the crap I would get from Mario...although nothing could beat the guilt I was feeling for my friends who had just spent 5 hours on a plane, dealing with three boys far past their bedtime. They now had to wait for a locksmith and then drive an hour home! Jerk isn't a strong enough name for me!

I stood there looking down and kicking the curb, wondering how long it would take to get this car unlocked. I had lost Mario before we even got on the freeway, when I ran through a yellow light and he was now no where in site! I looked up to see my best friend staring at me through the window and I just shook my head. She smiled...not what I was expecting. Why was she smiling? Well, because Katie is a super mom and had packed a spare key in their luggage! Woo hoo! Until Nick broke my hopes by telling me it was the key to their other van! This was an emotional roller coaster! And Mario still wasn't there to call AAA.

Luckily Nick was wrong and she did have the spare key to the van! Mario pulled up just as we unlocked the can. Car unlocked, luggage thrown in, 2.5 crying kids seat-belted in, and four adults happy to be heading home!

I still can't figure out how I locked the car. Most cars now a days have a security feature that makes the car unable to lock, if the car is running and there is no one in the drivers seat. My oldish car does at least, and I think it's the bestest feature ever! I got out of the car, but I never hit any of the lock buttons. I just hopped out and ran back! I specifically didn't hit any buttons. I personally think the door can be opened without unlocking it...which means I didn't unlock it in the first place.  Either way...dip shit move!

I got a text from Katie as we all drove away saying she owed me for picking them up, washing the car, and putting gas in the car...I told her I took it down a notch and a half with the locking us out stunt. I thought it was the stupidest thing I've done in a long time. Being a great best friend, she made sure to remind me of her top two favorite dip shit things I've done. First, was somehow tying my feet together with my sister's purse straps, trying to exit the car and flinging myself face first into the pavement on our first day of vacation and injuring myself pretty good. Second, was on our last day of a cruise we were on. Flip flops + freshly swabbed deck = me slipping and falling two or three times. It was like one of those cartoons where they are slipping on oil and can't stand up...this was me in front of a crap load of other passengers.

True, these were two stellar dip shit moves. However, neither were exactly my fault. They mostly played off of my ability to be a clutz. Locking us out of the car was definitely my fault! At least it worked out in the end but still. Karma sure knows how to put a girl in her place!

Just when I thought I was blogging again...

I got a very time consuming gig. I'm pretty excited about it. I'm photographing rehabbed homes for a non-profit and, I guess, the city of LA. Their website goes live next month, so I've spent pretty much the last three weeks shooting a crap load of homes.When I'm not shooting, I'm editing. The only reason I have time to write this, is because I'm waiting for photos to export.

I had just enough time to run away for my birthday...very fun, but very inconvenient! That really cut into my editing time...not to mention how distracting my mother and sister are! despite the inconvenience of my birthday, it was exactly what I needed. My mini-birthday-weekend was far too short and I was back to work far too soon.

Luckily, I've had Colleen to help with the shooting. She's been my assistant, stager, prepper, closer, and key holder...she's also been a form of entertainment. Her job starts when we get to a property. She hops out of the car and unlocks the gate. Then she has to go on a hunt for the lock box containing the keys to the house. Generally, if the instructions say the box is on the front porch...it's most likely on the back porch. They're never quite where they say they'll be. In most cases, we just search around the entire house.

At one of the houses, the instructions said the keys were on the back porch. She headed to the back and I started to photograph the front exterior. I got one shot off before she came back around the corner mumbling about how tall people need to appreciate that there are short people in this world. Interesting. She then told me that she was going to need to use the step stool, because the builder is obviously 6'4'' and built the fence too high for anyone to reach over and unlock. So, I went to the car, pulled out the step stool, handed it to her, and got back to shooting.


Another minute went by and I figured she had gotten through the gate. Until she came back around the corner and asked me to come look at something. Some of these houses are not in the best neighborhoods. Honestly most of these houses are in South Central...which turns out isn't as bad as they say. Watts, however, is as bad as they say. So, I followed her around the corner not knowing what to expect.


I did see exactly how tall that damn fence was...I completely understood why she was grumbling. The fence was tall. I was actually about to ask her if the step stool was tall enough, when I saw that she had gotten the gate open. Cool. Then she pointed out the problem.

While there was a gate, there was actually no fence attached to the gate or between the two houses. HA! She was so focused on the gate being tall that she missed the fact that she could have just walked around it! I'm still giggling about that!

My next favorite thing has been her staging aesthetic...always classy! She tried this one out to see if I actually pay attention when I'm photographing. I'm happy to know that I pay a bit more attention than I thought I did, cause I caught it pretty quickly.

Anyway, it's been busier than crap for me. Hopefully, after July 1st, I'll be a bit more relaxed and more into a routine for this company. It's a two year contract, we're just in a real push to get what they have online. Not to mention that I have a client that keeps sending me referrals...it's yay and wait hold on, I'm too busy, all at the same time. I love it though!