I Declare...

I officially declare this month (October) California Natural Disaster Month…between the fires in LA and in San Diego and the 5.6 earthquake last night, California may actually break off and land in the Pacific…

So last night Marc and I were sitting in the living room watching a very depressing movie with Sally Field (we are obsessed with her because we LOVE Brothers and Sisters). Homer was happily snoring next to us. At 8:04 the house shook, Marc and I both looked at each other and I said "Earthquake." He said yeah and we thought that was the end of it. Then it started to shake again and harder. Marc jumped up, got in his surfers position and said "What do I do, What do I do?" I grabbed Homer off the couch and yelled "Get in a doorway." Marc looked around for a doorway so I told him again to get in the kitchen doorway. He actually wanted to stop, drop and roll which I later told him was for fires and not earthquakes. After the quake was said and done California girl gave New Jersey boy a lesson on earthquake survival techniques, including going to a doorway or duck and cover. We got to the doorway, Homer in my arms and looked around as the house continued to shake for about 30 seconds. Our pot rack was swaying (but I am happy to say that Matt and Marc did a superb job hanging it because it is still in tack) and our chandelier swayed as well. Both pieces continued to sway for a few minutes after the quake. Marc went outside and the trees in the neighborhood were all swaying as well. It was definitely the biggest quake I can remember so I went to the US Geological website to see how big it measured, about 15 minutes after the quake they had it recorded as a 5.6 and it was centered just outside of San Jose.

Now, they say dogs (and animals) can sense when a quake is about to happen and they are supposed to act funny. Our lab, Espresso, used to cry or get worked up before earthquakes, not my little Homer. He would have snored right through it had I not scooped him up and brought him to the doorway with me. He was a little agitated after the quake, but we already knew about so he was virtually of no use to us.

Fortunately there was no damage or injuries as a result of the quake but they say it was the biggest quake the Bay Area has had since 1989. Good thing for California, October ends today!

San Diego, etc...

Brace yourself, this turned out to be a long one...

Last Friday Marc and I flew down to San Diego for my 10 year high school reunion. The trip down was pretty uneventful; we were able to see the Witch Fire and another fire on our approach into San Diego. It was a pretty amazing site (and I don't mean in a good way). Red flames were clearly visible from about 15,000 feet in the air. It was night time so it was hard to determine on our approach how the quality of the air was. The only thing I can think of to describe what it looked like to is when we cruised around the backside of the Big Island on our honeymoon and saw the flowing lava making its way down the mountainside. It was very surreal seeing the fires. On that note, I want to thank everyone who checked in to see how my family was doing. I am super happy to report that my parents and Marc's Aunt, Uncle and Cousin made it through the fires unharmed. Aunt Sandy and Uncle Michael had a bit of a scare and were evacuated for a few days but they are back home and everyone and everything is safe. My mom did her mitzvah for the year (Hebrew for good deed) and brought diapers and other supplies to the evacuees at Qualcomm Stadium (I'm so proud of her) and she also put up family friends who were evacuated from Ramona and last I heard are still living in a hotel due to their neighborhood having no running water. My parents nor my brother and sister-in-law were never in any danger so we were all relieved. It's very sad what happened down there but with all of the destruction, San Diego truly demonstrated what a wonderful city it really was.

So back on track, we landed late Friday. San Diego cancelled all sports events for the weekend so the reunion activity at my high school was cancelled, we didn't plan on going and since our flight was late it all worked out.

Saturday we got up and Marc headed north to see his cousin while I went with my mom to visit Sheila (a close family friend) and her daughters and granddaughters. Lori is remodeling her house and it was gorgeous, the baby was sleeping most of the time but I got to hang out with her, her sister Dana, Sheila, and Dana's daughter Mackenzie (who is cute as can be). Lexi woke up and I got to play with her a bit and see her nursery which is super cute and decorated in pink and brown and really belongs in a catalog. I was very happy because last time I saw Lexi she was about 3 months old and she cried the whole time I held her, she is about 10 months now and she spent the morning smiling up at me while she played. After we visited we headed to meet Ed and Lauren for lunch at the Corner Bakery which just opened up in San Diego. I always love going there in Chicago so I was very excited it opened down the street from my parents. Poor Lauren and my mom ate their 2 days in a row! Good thing it's gooood! But we hung out for a while and had a good time.

Around 4:00 Marc and I headed downtown to check into our luxurious Holiday Inn room - we pricelined and pretty much got screwed. In all reality the room wasn't too bad we are just used to getting Hyatt's, Intercontinental's, and Omni's on priceline so we are a little spoiled. This particular Holiday Inn happened to have a Ruth Chris Steakhouse attached which I thought rather strange. We got ready and headed over to my high school friend Erika's hotel room.

Now for the good stuff (the previous stuff was just filler)….

So Erika and I were very close in high school. We lost touch after freshman year of college, the drunk emails kind of died off after freshman year. She went to University of Arizona and then studied abroad in Israel, so we kind of fell out of the loop with each other. We reconnected a little over a month ago and have been emailing. In fact, last week when I was in Chicago I got together with her sister, Jennifer, who is a year younger than us and I played softball with. So anyway, we headed to Erika's hotel room and had a few drinks with her and another friend Michelle. It was good times, Erika and Michelle both look awesome and it's like we picked up where we left off 10 years ago! So we had a few drinks and then we headed to the The Field, an Irish Pub in the Gaslamp. There were about 30 people there that we used to hang out with, including my friend Mollie, who I reconnected with a few months ago and now lives in London. It was amazing seeing her and of course everyone else. The drinks were flowing plentifully and we all had an awesome time at the bar catching up. In fact no one wanted to leave but we all paid $80 a head to go to the reunion so we all headed out to the reunion which was at a event hall down the street, at a place called the Witherby.
We arrived and checked in and got our beverages and started to make our rounds. The first person I saw was my friend Robyn who I played basketball with. I met her husband and we caught up. Congrats to Robyn and Drew because they are expecting their second baby in April! I also saw Wendy Drake who I was in Girl Scouts with and she is also expecting. The classic line of the night was in the bathroom, Erika and I went to take care of business and as I was leaving my stall, Rachelle Sachs stopped me, read my name tag and said "Allie Wilensky Zimmerman, the name sounds so familiar and you look so familiar, why?" Me, in my drunken glory, replied "Call me crazy but perhaps we went to high school together." To further affirm she was either that drunk or that stupid, she replied "Yeah, maybe that is it." The laugh Erika and I got was worth the $80. The rest of the night was pretty uneventful. There were lots of old faces. For the most part people looked the same. Based on the two people I described above, most people were pregnant, already had kids or were married, or all three. I was a little surprised at how quickly my class got started on families but everyone seemed happy and doing well. It really was a great time hanging out with everyone again and catching up.
The evening ended around 2:30 with 4 large pizza pies and 5 people.

Then the shenanigans started, Mollie, Ros (another friend who actually lives in San Francisco), and Liza (a friend who I used to carpool to school with) were adults and went to bed and Marc and I attempted to grab a cab. Marc actually wanted to go to another bar but I insisted on a cab, it was 2:30, most nights I would have been sleeping for like 4 hours already! The Gaslamp was crazy that night because everyone was celebrating Halloween. So we finally get in a cab and we are heading to the hotel and all of a sudden the cab driver pulls over and wants to pick up 2 other guys. I was on the street side of the cab so I didn't really see what was going on but Marc immediately locked his door and was like no way. The cab driver tried to tell us they were his buddies and they were bartenders at the restaurant and were good guys. We were like we don't care, so at the next stop light Marc unlocked his door and told me to get out after the guy next to me was probing me for information (I was in between Marc and one of the guys). I am seriously surprised they did not get out of the cab and attack us but eventually sped away after cursing at us. So here we were at 2:45 in the morning in downtown San Diego in a part that had no traffic on the weekends. So we start walking and a guy starts following us, I saw a 7-11 that was open so we went in to ask for a cab number, I figured we could hang out there until the cab came. The guy working the store was completely unhelpful and meanwhile the guy who was following us had come in, looked around and left. There was no way I was going back outside. So finally some security guards (who Marc thought were police officers) came in and we asked them for a cab number. They didn't have one but they said the W was right around the corner and they would have one. So we ventured out, against my will, and walked down darker alleys to the W. Our friend was about a half block away when a cab turned the corner by the W and Marc jumped in front of it. Luckily he was for hire (because all night they pretended they weren't for hire unless you were a scantily clad group of girls) and we headed back to the Holiday Inn, rather than the morgue where I thought we were headed - luckily in one piece.

Sunday morning (albeit rough) we met up with Mollie and Ros and their families for brunch in Hillcrest. I hadn't seen Mollie's parents (Mollie's mom used to be my Girl Scout Leader) in over 10 years so it was great seeing them. Then Marc and I headed home to pick up Homer and try to recover from the weekend.

All in all it was a great weekend, so much better than I had expected and I hope to continue to keep in touch with Erika, Mollie, and Ros just to name a few.

Here are some pictures from the reunion (backwards because I am hungry and too lazy to reorder them):


Marc's name tag was funny:


We could see the boat we were on for our honeymoon from our room...fun!



Kelly Murphy and I:

Tomer Sachar decided to buy Marc shots:

Sean Green & I:

Michelle Merino & I:

DeWayne Patmon & I (he's my claim to fame, he played 2 seasons in the NFL & we used to play basketball together and I would drive him to school...nicest guy ever!)

Mollie Hamlin & I (she flew in from London for the reunion):

Mollie, Michelle, Me, & Erika:

Me & Erika:

Me, Michelle, & Erika at our little pre-pre-party:

Shhh...It's a surprise!

On November 2nd we are going out to Florida to surprise my grandpa for his 95th birthday (which isn't until late November) but we are beating the Thanksgiving traffic (and air fares) and going a few weeks early. Five years ago, when he turned 90 we promised him that we would have another family party when he turned 95 and then 100. He doesn't know that Marc, Ed, Lauren, and myself are flying out for the weekend. All he knows is that my parents will be there because my dad has a high school reunion that week. The timing is actually perfect because he decided to move into an Independent Living home after 20 something years in his condo. He moves on October 22 and we will be out the following weekend.

For his birthday and to remind him of his family and everyone who loves him, I decided to share my new hobby with him and I created a couple of picture pages of him and all of his grandkids (minus my cousin Blake who couldn't make it to the wedding because he couldn't take off from college). The only picture I have of Blake, who is now in his 20s, is of him as an infant being held by our late grandmother, I didn't think he would appreciate the baby picture so we will have to add him at a later point. :) The pictures on the first page are of course of me and Poppa, my cousins Travis and Jason, and my brother, Ed and Poppa as Ed helped him down the aisle at the wedding. The other page is his entire immediate family at our wedding, including my Aunt and Uncle. I am going to have them framed before we go out to Florida so that he can hang them on his wall. Hopefully it will cheer him up and make his move a little easier and make him a little less homesick. Here's a couple snapshots of what I am going to give him:

The Princess and the Pea....

Homer took his morning nap buy aligning the pillows on our bed just right...

My Homer's Back and He's Better than Ever!

As many of you know, Marc and I have been having behavioral problems with Homer. For the last 2 years he has been on phenobarbital to control seizures and it has made him crazy, he's done everything from constantly peeing in the house to being obsessed with food. We are happy to say that the peeing seems to be a thing of the past (knock on wood). We don't know if it's because he is completely off his phenobarb and on another anti-seizure medication that we have specially formulated for him at the Medicine Shoppe or because of his "happy juice." (aka Comfort Zone plug-in, which we buy at the pet store and it releases pheronomes and reduces his separation anxiety). We don't really care, all we know is we don't have pee or poop to clean up off of the kitchen every night after work. He still falls off of the wagon every so often, but generally only after a weekend at the "hotel" (aka kennel) when he is mad at us.

But the real reason I write, is that last night I thought I had latched his crate when I put him "sleep sleeps" (we don't like to say "to sleep" because to a dog that is a bad thing) but this morning when I woke up the door to his "house" was slightly ajar. I immediately thought the worst because after all, Homer is the king of shenanigans (he fits into the family nicely). Our bedroom door was open so I could only imagine what he had done to the house and I was ever going to find it, because the Homer of the past would have found the last place I would look for trouble and creat it there. But much to my own personal shock, Homer was in his crate sound asleep. The Homer I knew even 6 months ago would have wrecked havic on my house. The Homer that I know and love though, he was tucked into his house, sound asleep, snorring away. I am sure I am giving him more credit than he deserves, since he is not the brightest crayon in the box, I am sure he didn't even realize his door was open. But still, I am proud of my boy for being good!

As Marc and I like to say "Homer's back and he's better than ever!"

Little Blue Box...A Girl's Best Friend

On Saturday Marc and I went up to Walnut Creek to do some shopping and check out furniture. Of course we got ourselves into a few shenanigans. But that's a story for another day.

3 1/2 years ago when Marc and I started dating he went to visit his sister who was living in DC at the time. We had been dating about 3 weeks but he bought me back a heart shaped necklace that was a knock off of a Tiffany's necklace. I thought it was very sweet that he even brought something back for me so I didn't even really realize it was a knockoff. Then for my birthday that year he bought me a ring in the same design, this time it was real Tiffany's. When he gave it to me he told me that we would continue to add to the collection as the years went on, that they had pieces with diamonds in it too, and we would upgrade to the real Tiffany's necklace someday. So this weekend we were in Walnut Creek where they have a Tiffany's of course. We had a gift card there from the wedding so we strolled in to check out their homeware, well everything we liked we already had so Marc mentioned "jewels." We went straight to the heart necklace collection and right then and there he upgraded my necklace. (Which, anyone who knows Marc knows he doesn't make decisions just like that). It was fun to have Tiffany's around my neck but we were both kind of wondering about the original necklace that started it all. So we decided one day when we have a daugther we will give her the necklace and tell her that it was the first gift her dad ever bought me (I'll leave out the part that it is fake Tiffany's). :)

So needless to say, I am very excited about my new necklace and everytime I catch a glimpse of it in the mirror it makes me smile, even if it does look exactly like the first one he gave me.

Bridge to Bridge Run

A few weeks ago (actually after our 5K Homerun Run - see posting below), Marc and I got talked into doing the Bridge to Bridge Run by Jenny. We had the choice of doing the 7K or 12K and we decided to sign up for the 12K and then if we didn't feel like we could do the 12K the day of the race we would just do the 7K. We got to the city at 7:30 AM on Sunday morning and met Jenny, Josh, Lyndsay, and Greg near the Bay Bridge for the run. It was an absolutely beautiful day for a run, there was no sign of fog and there were no clouds in the sky. Marc and I got all caught up in the moment and decided to start with the 12K runners. We started off great, it was nice and flat along the Embarcadero and we ran together for the first 2 miles or so but then we transitioned to the Presidio side of the city just past Fisherman's Wharf. We rounded a corner and saw in front of us a hill that gave us both flashbacks from the Nike half marathon we did 2 years ago (don't ask me how we ran 13 miles!). I was slightly ahead of Marc and I turned around to check on him and his jaw was dropped and he was staring at the hill. I just put my head down and got up the hill, I actually tried to walk but my legs had the momentum going and I couldn't stop running! Luckily it was a very short hill, though it was basically vertical. This is where Marc and I got seperated and I was running alone the rest of the race (lucky for him because I was miserable).

After that hill it was fairly flat, we got to the split between the 12K and the 7K and I was feeling ok so I decided to do the 12K, and not cheat on the rest of the group. Stupid move...the next mile or so was on sand!!! I was already about 5 miles into the run and running on sand after running 5 miles and being completely out of shape is no picnic, plus there was no shade so we were just baking in the sun. After the dirt, I saw the Golden Gate bridge and I got a little burst of energy. After all it was the Bridge to Bridge run, so surely I was done since I was at the other bridge. WRONG! At the Golden Gate bridge, they decided to do a turn around and we had another 1.5 - 2 miles until the finish line. At this point I was so annoyed, my legs were extremely fatigued and I tried to walk for a while but then I got even madder that this thing was going to beat me so I ran some more. I reached like mile 6.5 and there was a white arch (which they used as mile markers from miles 1-3 but then stopped marking the miles after that, another thing that made me mad about the race because I need those psychologically to keep going) and a radio station was set up playing, so I thought, surely this has to be the end, I have been running forever, wrong AGAIN. At this point they loop you around again and you have another 1/2 mile UPHILL! I was so annoyed so I started to walk because at this point I didn't think I had feet anymore! Then I was like, there is no way after running 6.75 miles I am going to walk over the finish line, plus I saw people walking the other direction with their bag of goodies so I picked up the pace and ran across the finish line. I am not sure what my time was (they didn't have a clock up, which was weird) but all I know I was instantly sore! Sunday night I was so sore I couldn't sleep because it hurt to breath. I don't even remember being this sore after the 1/2 Marathon we did and it was a lot more hilly than this particular run. Now part of my problem was I had been fighting a flu/cold all weekend and took some Dayquil Sunday before we left for the race so I was feeling fine even though I was still sick. After the race we all met up and went to breakfast. It was a fun day after all was said and done. I will never do that particular run again but I am glad I did it once.

Here are some pictures that Lyndsay took (she didn't run because she is just over 5 months pregnant but she supported us):

The first bridge:

The Running Gang:

Pre-Race Marc & Allie:

Are we really doing this?

And we're off:

We have no idea what we are in for...

Finally, the end (notice how far away the Golden Gate Bridge is, we ran to it and then away from it!)...

Jenny & Josh:

Greg & Lyndsay (she looks great, doesn't she?):

I'm so tired...but I made a new friend:

Overdue Update

Wow, I have gotten so far behind on my blogging! I don’t know where the time goes. I can hardly believe that Marc and I have been married for 5 1/2 months!

So what have we been up too….well be both have been enjoying our new jobs, we are working a lot but are both very happy with where we are so it makes getting up in the morning a whole lot easier. We are headed down to San Diego a few weekends ago for Yom Kippur and we got to see Shannon and Jonathan's new house and meet their new dog Charlie (hopefully Charlie and Homer can meet soon). Their house is so cute and they are doing some great stuff to it.

About a month ago (yes I am so far behind) we went to our friends, Matt and Kristen’s wedding. We decided to stay in the city that night so we didn’t have to worry about driving home so we pricelined a hotel room and got a great little room at a boutique hotel called The Galleria Park Hotel. It is actually owned by the same company that owns the Hotel Vitale and it was the cutest little hotel (since it is in the city, I literally mean little)! It was right by Union Square but on the Financial District side and not the Tenderloin side. They just did a multi-million dollar remodel and it is so cute. Every night they also have a complementary wine tasting so we had a nice glass of wine before heading to the wedding.

The wedding was at the Hotel Vitale in San Francisco. The Hotel Vitale is a relatively new boutique hotel, built in the last 5 years, and it is gorgeous. The wedding was on a rooftop patio overlooking the Embarcadero and Treasure Island. The weather was perfect and the ceremony was so full of meaning. Matt and Kristen passed around their wedding bands for everyone there to touch for good luck before they said their vows. Which I thought was a really neat thing to do, I had never heard of that tradition before. After the ceremony, the reception was held downstairs in one of the ballrooms, it was good times. The food was awesome and it was a fun crowd. We got to catch up with some people we haven’t seen in over a year so it was a great time.

Here are some pictures from the wedding (some of them are small because I got them off of Snapfish):

Greg & Lyndsay:

Marc & Allie:

Marc & Greg:

Kristen and her dad:

Ring bearer (he was soooo cute!):

Newlyweds:

The cake: