Saw Eva Longoria at her new restaurant last night!
Dark decor, flickering candles, gorgeous chandeliers, beautiful food, beautiful people, paparazzi outside, great cocktails, L.A. city lights, and Eva Longoria.
Now that was a Hollywood dinner.
(Beso, 6350 Hollywood Blvd.)
(Now I need to, um, get back to laundry and making my kids turkey sandwiches for school and vacuuming the carpet with the broken hose attachment. …)
Our Friday nights for the past couple of months have been looking like this: a misty haze cast from stadium lights … the moon between the goal posts … hot chocolate in styrofoam cups … cold bleachers and wool blankets … cheers from the ponytailed squad in blue-and-white (“Hoooold ’em back, Defense; hoooold ’em back…”) … the sudden eruption of the band at the good parts (always heavy on the bass, always), and sudden cheers from the crowd while you try to warm your nose and face by blowing into your palms. …
Ricky on the field at the Estancia game
We’re playing our last game this weekend. And it’s a BIG one: The CIF championship. We’re playing at Angel Stadium.
I get so happy when I see my son out there. He doesn’t play that much, but he loves it when he does. Mostly I’m happy to see him being part of a team and something that’s bigger than him. I feel happy when I see the boys all high-fiving and fist-bumping at an amazing play for 40 yards that brings them all a little closer and brings them to the next level of championship. I get happy when I see the kids drift to the sidelines at the end of the game to stand at the ready while the band strikes up the fight song for them, and the players put their arms around each other and hold their fingers in a victory “V” and sway while their school song is played.
I love that he’s having this quintessential high school experience. …
What about you? What are your biggest memories of high school football?
If you want to hear how the game (and story) ends, click here.
Our little stucco house in Orange County has been home to many loveys. All three of my kids had them. My last has had his the longest.
Our journey with extra family members began in about 1993, when my husband and I had Ricky and fallaciously considered ourselves a family of three. We signed three names on the birth announcements, took three deductions at tax time, hung three stockings by the chimney with care. And, when restaurant hostesses called our name to be seated, we were Sanchez, Party of Three.
It wasn’t much math to keep track of.
But a few months later, when Ricky was about to turn 1, things got … well … a little complicated. A package arrived from Grandma, brightly wrapped in red, blue and yellow tissue paper, oddly hinting at what was inside. I unwrapped the tissue slowly, in front of Ricky, and we both laughed when a small tuft of black hair popped out.
“It’s Ernie,” I said, surprised.
And right at that moment — inexplicably and without fanfare — we became, I realized later, a family of four. Continue reading
So how many of you ventured out on Black Friday or spent some online hours on Cyber Monday?
I was happy to do a little shopping so far, mostly on Friday — happy because I was able to do it right in my town (not many crowds here up against the foothills), happy to be able to do it with Superman (a rare adventure for us, really, to shop together!), happy to include lunch in the process, and especially happy to do it in flip-flops. (Black Friday in flip-flops … yup, that’s the ticket … )
I was also happy to have my little “Christmas fund” to shop with. You know, I’ve made a lot of stupid financial decisions in my life, but one thing I did that I’m actually really happy about was setting up a “Christmas fund” years and years ago. I think I was still at The Register — it must have been the mid-90s — and the company allowed us to divert our direct deposit into any variety of accounts. Continue reading
