No further evidence needed: we've been extremely busy this fall. Interior paint, shoe molding, lighting fixtures, electrical upgrade, seismic retrofit and an ongoing list of odds and ends has kept us energized and occupied. Now I get it - "pride of ownership" -- you want people to understand the extraordinary amount of work you had to do to whip the tiny house into shape! Well, we are proud -- it's the best (as long as it doesn't rain -- we have yet to test those 81-year-old window seals).

The jack-o-lanterns on the front porch are all the evidence we need to realize we are truly suburbanite old people now. Some of the kids who came to the door last night were at least as old as I am (in my head) and I know they thought Akhil and I were twelve. The teenagers did not even bother to dress up. That's pretty rude, I thought, but I gave them their Willy Wonka Nerds and Sweettarts like the nice old lady that I am.

Heather comes this week to break in the new "guest room" and then, my mom comes out solo next week. Todd already made it out to visit last month -- and we got in a trip to SeaWorld. Does anyone else find it odd that the place is sponsored by Anheuser-Busch? I mean, they have a Budweiser pavilion and a fleet of Clydesdales. Beer and whales. Hmmm... Whatever.

Congrats to Caroline who welcomed baby James last Monday! I get to see him tomorrow since I am off all this week. And THAT's because...

On top of all this good stuff, I report to duty at a fabulous new job at Disney this month. The choice of company is coincidental, and nothing more - Akhil and I will NOT be carpooling - as we are in different divisions, buildings, towns. But everyone has asked.

Needless to say, Carmel provided a blissful getaway and we had to wear long pants and closed shoes for the first time in months since it was only in the 60s - nice change. We had a great dinner at an Italian place (Nico) with John and Kendra and managed to go the wrong, long way on a bike ride out to 17-mile drive, but I probably needed the kick to push me off my duff.

Now we're back -- actually that was all 3 weeks ago now -- and finding that Pasadena tends to trap us on the weekends which makes me miss the freeway-close Glendale location of our old apt. somewhat (what?!) Akhil's old friend Vasan came up over Labor Day weekend from Irvine -- he is a professorial type down there -- and gave us an excuse to go to one of the best restaurants I've been to in a long time: La Maschera on Fair Oaks in Pasadena. I'd been looking for an excuse to go there, esp. after I heard Paul McCartney likes it too, and yep, it's good, with a hip bar area, great wine list and service, and amazing food. Go. When you go, visit us beforehand -- we're just out the way now and people don't make the drive -- come on, we've got all this Ketel One to drink! Somehow it's fall again ... we've almost got all the doors and windows back on just in time for our neighborhood block party next weekend. Suburbia, suburbia, we are entering Adulthood zone.

Goodbye, popcorn ceilings, goodbye.

As reward for our diligence, we're off to Carmel tomorrow, for the annual Kimbell-Tanouye fest, otherwise known as, the Kimbells' rental of a house in the village neighborhood for the month of August, which we like to crash each year (well, we do stay in a hotel, of course).

Congrats to MariCris who gave birth to 9-pound Avery last week! Now Connor has a sister. Happy birthday to Regina, Craig, Tarek, and soon, John, Heather and Katie too.

We're in! And the hot water works! Stay tuned...

Guilty break... from packing our mountains and mountains of stuff! How did we fit all this into 900 square feet? Beats me, but over 9 years it all seemed to find its place. Now, it's a mishmosh of small, separate piles of dusty, musty, not-quite-junk, and somehow we've got to get it all organized before next Saturday. Akhil alone has nearly 30 file boxes full of papers and files from grad school and beyond. Human beings are not terribly efficient, that's for sure.

A week to go before we vacate California Ave. for good. Bittersweet...

The tremendous subculture that exists around the restoration of older homes has revealed itself to us in more ways than we'd ever wanted to know about -- it starts with Restoration Hardware and goes deep into the painting and stripping biz of Pasadena, not to mention specialty hardware stores from Crown City Hardware nearby on Allen St., to Liz's Hardware on La Brea. It's madness! And you never know or feel terribly confident if you're doing "it," whatever it happens to be, right.

Next steps in the overhaul are in progress but we won't be able move in until at least the middle of August. We hemmed and hawed and picked paint colors, brands and finishes over two weeks and 200 dollars of sample paint and even after all that work it doesn't make much difference -- we still don't know what the right combination really should be. We'll know in a week if our coordination is passable. On a brighter note, Akhil dipped and scrubbed and polished up all the house hardware, and the leaded glass doorknobs and brass window latches are beautifully shiny and looking new after nearly a century of wear and tear and multiple paint-loving owners.

Meanwhile, the heat wave has timed itself perfectly with the buzz surrounding Gore's "Inconvenient Truth" documentary. We've been cranking up the AC more than usual this summer and in a blink it's more than half over already. The annual Brand Blvd. car show celebration was hotter and stickier than ever but hey, they had the Kingsmen, and we got Argentinian food al fresco with Tony and Angel and actually had a kickin' good old Glendale time! We missed Sha Na Na though, if they even showed. Tomorrow we get our first weekend away from it all in months - a jaunt up to Woodside for Gunther's wedding reception. In the midst of all this, we got word that Nick is scheduled to fly on the space shuttle on deck for Dec. 13. The solid Discovery landing this week is a good sign that it'll actually happen this time. We plan to be right there for the launch thanks to his personal invitation.

BBQ season's in full swing - first at Lance's two weeks ago, one last week at Leslie's in Manhattan Beach, and a gourmet version at Caroline's tomorrow night. If we were to start paying back on all the BBQ invites we've had these last few years, we'd be BBQ'ing until December. Better get started, since we now have a backyard -- at least a little one. HowEVER, that would mean we'd have to actually go ahead and purchase a grill.

That entails yet another techno research project though, and now they've got entire Web portals and multimedia presentations and slews of consumer reviews on these things which results in an unsurmountable information overload -- but, no grill.

Maybe we'll just get a hibachi.

Happy Third Anniversary to Us! Three years ago in Malibu at the beautiful Adamson House, we became a family, officially, and here we are, getting ready to move out of our Glendale apt. into a real house, with lots of lessons, tribulations, travels and experiences behind us -- but we know the best is yet to come!

We have been hitting the car shows lately as Akhil feeds his latest obsession: the Shelby Cobra. I plan to post a photo of him with Hank Williams (no, not that Hank Williams) and his original 289, as soon as I can find some editing software on this new hard drive...

Car shows in SoCal -- a phenomenon like no other to be sure. We went to Van Nuys last week (to see the Cobra) where they held a Mustang competition in Balboa Park -- it all calls to mind Tom Wolfe's 'Kandy-Colored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby' -- and now I get what he was talking about. These people get real excited when someone offers to pop open the hood. Hank opened up his hood for us, and started that baby up for the onlookers too. There's something about how an engine sounds that can get you respect but I haven't quite figured out the "language" yet.

While we were up there we discovered they've got cricket fields -- in Van Nuys! At least three cricket games were in progress, with the all-white uniforms and everything. Never ceases to amaze.

We certainly DO live in L.A. now, now that we've made the big purchase: a teeny tiny house! That's pretty much what's consumed our lives these last two months, but since we closed escrow two weeks ago, the hiring of fix-it contractors is intermittent, and I seem to have more time to think of things other than houses for a change, ironic but true.

The house -- well, it's not a mansion but the fact is, it's ours, and that's a real milestone, for each of us individually, and as a family unit too. Strangely it does put us instantly into a whole new club -- the club of SoCal homebuyers-who-bought-during-the-so-called-bubble club. What a distinction! Well, we're learning so much, by the firehose method, with this 80-year-old "project." Some helpful things we've learned include:

1. "Your" agent works for the seller, at all times, keep that in mind.
2. Houses older than 50 years involve a ton of repair and restoration, no matter how good they look.
3. HIRE YOUR OWN INSPECTORS, and heed his/her advice when the advice is to bring additional inspectors in.
4. Closing escrow may be achieved just about entirely by mail, with like, no human interaction.
5. After escrow closes, you will never hear from "your" agent ever again, even if you still have a gazillion questions.
6. Old plaster cracks and sags and flakes -- a lot.
7. Insurance companies do not like knob-and-tube wiring, at all.
8. Painting over wallpaper, not to mention plastering over wallpaper, in multiple layers even, is a BAD IDEA.
9. Chimney repair is wicked expensive.
10. Revel in the printing of your new address labels.

That's just a few tidbits - we have a million of 'em.

So, since I was last here, I've been to visit Regina in Bill in Cary, N.C.; Akhil and I went to his cousin Ami's wedding in Chicago and managed to sneak in an overnight visit with Carolyn and Rob, as well as special guest Khanh; Gunter and Margaret announced they are a married couple (we think, well soon, if not yet); Todd got promoted; Heather and John shacked up; John and Kendra had us over for Dylan's first birthday; Akhil celebrated his 38th; we watched the Mariners beat the Dodgers; finally tried (and loved) Le Petit Beaujolais in Eagle Rock; and got some baby-on-the-way news from Regina and Bill just last week! We also managed to eat at the Toasted Bun at least 4 times in the last month, and went to about five car shows as Akhil feeds his latest obsession.

That's quite a lot for two months, which means an exciting summer must be in store as well.

Stay tuned.

It's fairly unbelieveable that it is April 10, already, for I'm still trying to remember that we're in 2006, not 2004. As proof, I totally blew my poor father's 60th birthday two weeks ago by assuming it was his 59th, and that is an irresponsible, inexcusable mistake. How can he be 60? I think this feeling of shock must be similar to how parents feel when they see their kid start driving, or graduate from high school - like, wasn't he just a pup yesterday? The passage of time really does get faster, warp speed-faster, seriously.

Life is full of ups and downs, so maybe this means the downs pass more quickly - in that case, fine by me. Heather visited post-business trip last week and we were able to indulge in a spirits-lifting weekend jaunt to Santa Barbara with Kendra, who left Dylan at home with John for an overnight with the "girls" -- nothing too crazy, just dinner and margaritas, a beachy hotel and day of shopping and fruit stands along the 126 out through Santa Rosa. Yet another part of SoCal I'd never seen - so far the farms remain out there - with plenty of roadside fruits and veggies! It was great to see that since the 101 through Camarillo is getting scary looking - condo complexes galore.

As Akhil and I try to get our game back on, including tennis, may we recommend a restaurant that's given us comfort in the last month in the form of giant, fattening, delicious Italian food: Greco's on Union Street in Pasadena - try it, it's crazy good, and expect leftovers. We ate ours from our first trip for 3 consecutive nights.

One more thing: Happy Birthday Carolyn Read!

We haven't evaporated from the face of the L.A. earth, no, that's not it. It's just that we're deliberating -- something -- and it's not been fun, nor blog-friendly. Hello out there -- how's the world been? Since the hiatus began we both got hit by crazy drivers who inflicted minor but annoying harm to our Hondas; Heather became an aunt, again, to Joaquin; Todd went to Puerto Rico on business; Dad got a cellphone, Mom got a DVD player; and I got a haircut! That's about it, really -- oh, except wait one minute, that's not true. After 8 years of driving by it every single day on the way out to the freeways, this morning, we finally, yes finally, made our way up the block to eat breakfast at the illustrious local diner known as The Toasted Bun.

We went for breakfast with the Schneider family, and really liked the place, esp. the extra-kind wait staff. Why oh why did we wait so long? Gotta go back soon, because every lunch entree and soup and salad comes with -- what else, a toasted bun. This afternoon we're Valencia-bound to see the new digs that are the Tanouyes' new home. More to come, as normalcy returns to the Pea-dhani homestead.

Well, yup, another year older, that's me. But the Santa Barbara weekend, Cafe Bizous dinner, Porto's carrot cake and chocolate bundt at the office helped ease the pain somewhat as I eased into what is definitely "mid-30s" territory this week. Where does the time, the life, the youth go? I tell ya! This is the first year I've said "Wow I'm getting old" and my parents have not disagreed with me. They're more like, "Yeah, you're getting up there, whoa."

Well, none of us escapes it. That's the comfort. Things I've learned this week: Montecito, where Oprah lives on her days off, is paradisical. And it has some nice bike lanes. Too much cake doesn't sit well in your mid-30s, but it tastes pretty good going down. Having an excuse not to be home to watch George Bush speak to the nation is almost worth getting another year older. Almost. And you can never have too many flowers in your living room.

Happy 2006! Not that it's off to a very happy start with the mining tragedy in W. Virginia and Ariel Sharon's stroke and such, but hopes are high among most folks I know for a more peaceful, inspiring and energizing year for all.

For Akhil and me, the holidays were a wonderful whirlwind. We packed a ton into this trip, with two days in CT with my family for Christmas; including a walk on the beach at Watch Hill where they were in the midst of tearing down the old 125-year-old Ocean House; a day with Carolyn, Rob, Inge, Gary, and Tarek in New Hampshire; some QT with Laurel in Cambridge (including a superb and overly indulgent dinner at Maurizio's in the North End); and New Years Eve with Heather, Jon, Katie and Andrew in Boston, first at the Oak Bar at Copley, then at LaLaRoque in Beacon Hill, then at the Sevens on Charles Street. Akhil and I slipped in a two-day jaunt to Waitsfield, Vermont, as well, where we stayed at a B&B, skiied at Sugarbush and found that ski equipment looks different than it did five years ago - has it been that long? Geez - they don't even have points anymore. En route we managed to see the Morrell family in Manchester and had we only driven over the border to Maine we'd have hit all six New England states this trip.


How we got ourselves to Lexington, Concord, AND to Walden Pond in addition to seeing "King Kong," making crepes with caramelized apples, brunching at the Paramount and cleverly retrieving Akhil's lost cellphone from a homeless man named "Ed" in Porter Square somehow I have no idea. All I know is that we got back here Monday at noon and dashed out to do some gift returning, rather than napping, which is what I WISH I'd done that day. Well, we got to see The Grove's tree one last time, buy some more Farmer's Market pork chops and catch the Mayor himself (Villaraigosa) shopping at Banana Republic. Am I the only one who thinks he resembles Tony Shalhoub? New Years resolutions are in the works, but staying cheerful is on the list. 2005 was exhausting -- here's to a much more joyful and uplifting year!

How do I have time to blog -- with Christmas cards, gift shopping, travel to pack for, people to dine with, dustbunnies to vacuum and prose to write for pay? Super-efficiency, that's right! Or maybe some last-minute procrastination. I have just a few things left to do before we take off next Saturday, and only at Christmas would I be looking forward to cold, snowy weather and a crowded airplane trip with transfers. Kendra and John are here this weekend to shop for homes up in Valencia. We had dinner with them last night and it's surreal and wonderful that they'll be living here again in just 3 weeks. Time has passed so quickly since Kendra left for Boston four years ago -- now they'll be back with Bogart (dog) and Dylan (baby) - as SoCal continues to attract despite the housing/traffic situtation. What is it about this place?

Maybe it's Manhattan Beach, where Leslie had her first-ever MB holiday gathering last Sunday. The fireworks went off at 7 p.m. and all the MB locals had prepared by doing up their beach mansions and cottages in lights. The effect was ethereal and beautiful and I thought to myself, it does not get better than this. Akhil and I agreed that if we hit the windfall one day wherever we are, we'll come back and live there and be smug. That said, we have it pretty good. Happy holidays!

December is turning out to be a rather bustling and festive month after all, with cool "winter" temperatures here in L.A. and snow to look forward to in the east when we take off on Christmas Eve for a ten-day break out there -- marking our third visit to New England this fall. Impressive! If the shopping crowd is any indication, the economy is doing pretty darn well - this year it seems the hoards are out in full force, myself included, but as of this afternoon I think I'll be pretty much done with gift buying -- and two weeks early too. Also impressive! What did we do before the Internet?

We're doing pretty well keeping up with friends too: Julie was here from Houston for a wedding last weekend so I got a long overdue visit with her and Joel at the decked-out Ritz Carlton in Pasadena. Afterwards Akhil and I took Joy and Paul up on an invitation to the annual Castle Green open house tour. She and the other tenants in that building, which is a striking, enormous former hotel built in 1899, are serious about their decor. The place has become somewhat of a house of style, with prices to match, these days. Joy always provides an amazing spread of Japanese food and wine and desserts, that this year included these cream puffs from a place called Beard & Papas in Hollywood. Run, don't walk: you must try these things. They are 100 times dreamier than Krispy Kremes.

That kicked off a week that included our big office move to spacious digs-with-a-view in Encino, dinner at the Huntley Hotel with Tony and Angel last night in Santa Monica, and tonight, holiday fireworks chez Leslie (who's serving chili and beer) in Manhattan Beach. The restaurant at the Huntley is on the top floor (it's called "Toppers") so we got a view of last night's Marina del Rey fireworks during dinner last night, too, which was an unexpected bonus. No time for a tree in our place this year, but we do have stockings, lights and the requisite poinsettia, of course. What I need to do next is get the New Years Resolutions list going. It will be a tome. 2006 will be the year of taking control of our destiny.

I was reading the "Heathervescent" blog mentioned over the weekend in the L.A. Times piece on Los Angeles blogs and took away a real appreciation for what Heather, the blogger does so wonderfully -- she frames everything just right to ensure that life is what it is if you make it that way: a continually exciting and satisfying adventure. Such a great way to look at things! I love the Heathervescent blog. Here are the Thanksgiving Day Seattle participants -- we didn't take much time to appreciate things that day, but you can see we should have.

December starts tomorrow - how frightening. Time is not just flying. It's hurling toward infinity at light-speed these days. Last week, Seattle kindly gave us two sunny days, one with a view of the elusive Mt. Rainier, so my family got to see that it does exist after all. From the Bainbridge ferry to Pike Place Market to multiple museums, the Chittenden Locks, Nordstrom's, Microsoft and the Space Needle, we covered a lot of ground up there. A "Meet the Fockers" situation was avoided and the families together enjoyed a great deal of turkey, salmon and sugary sweets. Nice to be spoiled as always - and then, ah, back to work here in stringy old L.A. I already have the stockings up by the stairs and the holiday CD is playing. All we want for Xmas is -- a housing crash. Yes, Virginia, there really is a bubble.

Happy Turkey to anyone still checking in on this blog from time to time! Akhil and I are packing up this weekend for our east-meets-west Thanksgiving extravaganza in Seattle, departing Tuesday night. My parents, my brother, Akhil's brother and wife, all of us descending on Medina, Wash. for our first-ever blended holiday, Pacific Northwest-style. A momentous event!

We just got back from doing our regular househunting chores -- and I'm slightly happy to report that it's true, the prices seem to have capped out for the moment, as you've seen the media report for most of the country. BUT, here on the "affordable" east side, they still managed to jump up according to the "six-months-ago-plus-10-percent" formula these slimy agents are using into the $720-750k echelon for 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom homes -- in bad school districts. So, we are seeing a lot of one-bathroom offerings just under the 700k mark (we refer to this as the "pain threshold"), though nothing yet has tempted us to make any offers. The interest rate plus holiday slump would make it seem likely that we'd find something next month SOMEwhere, but we'll see. You'll be sure to hear if we make any headway. And you'll certainly be happy to hear the end of this rather LONG story, for sure! Two years ago this weekend we were just getting into our Round-the-World trip, having landed in Auckland as our first stop. Two years later -- here we are, same old digs! Pushing on.

Post-hunting we had an amazing chicken and mozzarella with sundried tomato spread on ciabatta sandwich at this fairly new gourmet deli, wine and cheese shop in Montrose that I have to recommend. It's called Gouda and Vines, on Honolulu Ave. They've got some tasty-looking stuff in there. We'd love to see the place succeed so give it a shot. That's all from the SoCal trenches for this week. We're Seattle-bound.

Here's a helpful tip, just in time for the Thanksgiving holiday: Don't put potato peels down the garbage disposal. I found this out the hard way this week. Lo and behold, there were posts galore all over the Web to this effect as we scrambled to the computer to find out what to do about the glutenous particles spouting out of our sink. What did we do before the Web?

I must express my excitement at the news this week that Kendra and John have announced that they are coming back to the left coast! More details to come later lest I let the cat out of the bag too soon. For now all Akhil and I can say is, Yippee!

My friend Mark's book "Edison and the Electric Chair" came out in paperback this month (hardcover came out last year) and I saw it for the first time today at B&N. Check it out -- good gift idea for those with morbid fascinations, perhaps? We're proud of you, Mark!

Not only is it voting day, it's also Todd's 32nd - happy BDay Toad! That time of year already, is it? Amazing. I'll miss all the calls from John McCain, Dick Reardon, Ahhnold, of course, etc. as we move past another set of props, another ballot. They certainly keep you on your toes out here.

Heather's back in Calif., so last night we took her to a weird French restaurant called "Taix" on Sunset Blvd. The food was good, don't get me wrong, but the decor was that curious, old, art-deco-ey, your great-great-great-aunt-born-in-1897's-parlor-kind of style, dark, with flowery carpet, flowery wallpaper and flowerly sconces, old black and white photographs and renaissance paintings, with long windy hallways. Plus it might be haunted. We liked the roast chicken with burgundy sauce and the steak-frites, but I bet Heather will ask us not to take her there next time.

Sooo, yes, it seems, the housing crash is upon us -- it may be slow moving, but we can smell it coming, in the air underneath the "shady trees" in the "easy-care yards" of the "perfect starter carports" with the "loads of potential." House-gazing was among the weekend's slew of activities, which included two movies with short, yellow-haired, bespectacled, notorious and charismatic title characters: "Chicken Little" and "Capote." Capote is mesmerizing. Philip Seymour Hoffman is superhuman in this movie. It may give you nightmares, but it is a fantastic film -- flaw-free. Chicken Little? Well, kids only. Nice animation and some funny creatures, but the story's not for people under seven.