a beautiful day in the neighborhood

here is a picture from my birthday party at cha cha. in silver lake. clockwise from top: jeanie, me, paula and bettina. i love how all of the major haircolors are represented here (again clockwise from top): red, blonde, black, brown. jeanie is always very good at documenting her trips to visit me. she took many pictures of neighborhood things i have said i was going to photograph, and never have, such as...

this murial by the artist shepard fairey.

here is a murial of chickens in love!! down the street is another chicken murial too. i like them!

this is the park of echo park. i've started walking around it to get a little exercise and to see the ducks and the downtown skyline. one day, god as my witness, i promise i will paddle boat!

and finally this is my new home. sorry, i'm joking! i wish it was though. one day... i love walking past this place though. beside it is a blue victorian home that has been sanctioned into apartments similar to this. the two together remind me of san francisco. thanks for taking all these great pictures jeanie!!

the birthday miracle: close, closer, closest

a month ago, while i was unpacking, the cats kept jumping in and out of the empty boxes to investigate and take the odd nap. so i decided to keep one around for a while, since they seemed to enjoy it so much.

as many of you know, my cat sara is not fond of (HATES) my other cat prudence. however, since we've moved she's become 'tolerant' of her. recently they have even been in the same room together with nary a scuffle. that hasn't happened since they met each other three years ago!! this was the closest i've ever seen them together (even though they can't really tell the other is right there. only i can). readers, can you feel the tension??

well last saturday, on my birthday, i was coming home after picking jeanie up at the airport and as we entered the house both cats met each other in the hall and, in a second of solidarity, touched faces!! and didn't immediately hiss!!!as a matter of fact, they didn't hiss at all! i almost had a heart attack and was so grateful that jeanie was there to witness the spectacle. i can only refer to it as the 'birthday miracle' and one of the few wishes that has come true for me in quite a few years!! the next morning, as i was heading out to take a walk to the grocery store, i discovered them in this pose: the upper chair/under chair...

friends of the furry-beasts, please help me keep up the good feline vibe going on here in echo park! at the rate we're going, one day soon i may just catch them snuggling. am i too old to handle it? will it be the big one for me?

they're back!!!

once upon a time, years ago, before i ever, ever thought i would have a blog of my own, i checked christine's blog la vida lila every week to read about her shenanigans with josh and lila. a few months ago, she put it aside and we couldn't figure out why, especially since she was so good at it! turns out she was in her first trimester of pregnancy and feeling like crap. well, she's over that hump (but gaining another one - har har!) and back to posting! this must be my first official birthday present. yes, i'm sure she had that in mind when she started posting again. thanks christine! it's just what i wanted!

in these pictures little lila is modeling a cape i bought for another friend's daughter. doesn't she look like the tiny superhero who could care less ('what? fire? UGH!')? the look on her face is priceless. the mess in my former apartment, showing up in the picture, is priceless.

p.s. back to writing for the site: the most recent post was about an event sponsored by 'seventeen' magazine, because some girls from america's next top model were going to be there. well, the event was what it was, but i did make two new friends there, kelly and mel (who actually lives in my old stomping ground in williamsburg brooklyn). bringing independent, strong minded girls together - isn't that just the 'seventeen' way!?

p.s.s. i missed the details of the great lorelai/luke kiss on the gilmore girls series finale tonight because i was so distracted by the mighty lemon drops playing in the background. resurgence of the song 'inside out' YAY! end of 'gilmore girls' BOO!!

p.s.s.s. since i am what is known as blogger nouveau, blogger verte, etc. i have some questions for you who have been doing this much longer than i.
#1 is it common to contstantly re-edit and update past posts? i do it all of the time. does this make me blogger obsessed?
#2 why doesn't my 'older posts' link work? you have to click on the months to see anything else i posted that isn't on the first page. RUDE!

i wish and i wish and i wish

every year leading up to my birthday when i imagine what the perfect birthday would be like, it would look something like this. and it would include me wandering around a spa, wearing nothing but a soft white robe, getting every treatment on the menu, drinking lots of champagne, eating amazing food and maybe a little marc jacobs something in a box. oh and i'd be enjoying all of that with someone who vaguely resembles this guy:
at this point, my approaching birthday is offering up nothing close to that fancy pants, dreamy scenario. but it's important to dream, right? realistically, i'm simply hoping for some gift cards from home depot and itunes, a decent bottle of wine and at least one good friend to 'celebrate' with.

TRUE CONFESSION TIME: recently the weekends have found me sucked into bad cable tv marathons and today is no exception. there are about a million things i should be doing, but instead i'm couched, blogging and watching episode after episode of this:
i would not consider 'ab fab' bad television (after all those two combined remind me of my dearly missed mother and it is mother's day), it's just bad that i'm allowing myself to do nothing again. last weekend was the most embarrassing of them all. i spent a day watching 'tori and dean: inn love'. and i LIKED it!

p.s. isn't this the best jim moment ever? sigh...

my friend josh wolk is about to be book famous!! perhaps he is talented friend #2

this is my friend josh's publicity image for his book cabin pressure that is coming out in about three weeks. josh has been a friend of mine for almost a decade and although the critics keep saying that his book is 'hilarious' i have been a pawn of josh's 'funny' pranks for quite a while now. please read the following document that josh sent as his first official office haha aimed at me. i discovered it on the ew.com server in my folder (yes, the folder named FOR KATY) i believe the year was 1999 and i was the ew.com rookie. it was well known in those parts that i loved (er, love) beck:

KATY --

I AM THE SERVER AND I DON'T USUALLY WRITE TO THE PEOPLE WHO USE ME, BECAUSE IT'S NOT REALLY GOOD FOR ME TO PLAY AGAINST THE WHOLE "NO INDEPENDENT THOUGHT" IMAGE THAT I USUALLY GO FOR. BUT YOU PUSHED ME INTO BREAKING CHARACTER.

ANYWAY: STOP CLOGGING ME WITH YOUR PICTURES OF BECK. I KNOW WHAT YOU'RE DOING WITH THEM AND THE WHOLE THING MAKES ME FEEL DIRTY INSIDE. WHY CAN'T YOU SPEND YOUR WORK HOURS DOING WORK LIKE EVERYONE ELSE?

SINCERELY,
EW.COM SERVER

the second prank involved josh getting an instant messenger account using the name of a former boss, who was pushed out of ew.com, and pretending to need urgent weekend photo help with her new post at a porn site. if you really want to read the banter, i'm sure i can track it down and publish it here. i finally caught on to josh's antics after his third online attempt to get me (this time he was pretending to be a sassy black girl from the bronx or queens or somewhere else we would have never been welcome at the time).

anyway, josh grew up and fell in love with a talented woman named christine, who became a close friend of mine, and they had a daughter they named lila. here we are having fun just last summer at their home in beverly hills.

these are picture i took right after miss lila was born about 4 years ago. i remember thinking that their l.a. lives were so great and i couldn't wait to join them here. but oh how things have changed!!

this is one of my favorite pictures of christine. she was so tired yet so fascinated by her life with her new child and josh. and to this day i love to watch how content she is with her family life. the way she looks at josh gives me hope that one day i may be just as smitten with a family of my own. by the way, they have since moved back to brooklyn and i understand lila has a sibling on the way... chris, we need to catch up!!

you can read all about josh wolk here. and that site was put together by our other talented friend stella, who has her own business, hairy legs and co., building websites for nyc and philly's finest!