The post-Thanksgiving post

Gratitude is one of those ubiquitous topics at this time of year, and it probably should be more common, for me at least, on regular basis.  Also, I'm always a bit late with my Thanksgiving post (see last year) and the beginning of December is such a fun time as well with Michael's birthday, so a later gratitude/Thanksgiving post seems appropriate.

But I do have so much to be thankful for right now, and it's nice to remember that and take stock. First of all, we had a fabulous Thanksgiving break.  It was low-key, but just what we needed, a mix of social outings (we went out for Mexican food twice - how is that not a major win?!), plenty of fun activities and also some down-time.  Thanksgiving day was busy early on, as I went and "oversaw" students who were making food that we then delivered to The Midnight Mission, an organization in Downtown LA that helps homeless families and individuals.  I hate to admit this, but I was a bit grumbly before, not nearly as excited about helping out as I should have been.  However, once I arrived on Thursday morning and the kids came, something *clicked* and I realized that I was so lucky to be able to help out in this very small way.  Also, the kids really do most of the work - they just need an adult around in case there's an issue, like someone cuts off a finger (hasn't happened yet, knock on wood).

Once I returned home, we had a low-key Thanksgiving dinner, just the two of us, but then met at some friends' for dessert which was fantastic - a nice buffet of pies, bread pudding, cookies and we brought a pear and apple crisp with whipped cream.  We followed up Thursday with a trip to West LA, looking for bike gear for me and finishing that outing at LACMA.  We really enjoyed the two exhibits we saw - Samurai: Japanese Armor and Pierre Huyghe (I'd never heard of the latter, but apparently he is a big deal, at least according to the NYTimes, and so is this exhibit;  I must admit that I looked up information about Pierre Huyghe after the exhibit, but maybe that's the point of going to a museum?).

Returning to work this week was a bit brutal, but knowing that we have Christmas break right around the corner has helped!  Also, celebrating Michael's birthday gave us both something to look forward to. It was pretty low-key in terms of gift-giving, but we went out to dinner on Saturday at a new place that, as they say, knocked our socks off.  I'd read good reviews of Bäco Mercat, but really had no idea what to expect.  It's funny, when we lived in Silverlake, we rarely ate at places in Downtown and usually headed further west for a "fancy" night out.  Now that we are further east, the idea of going so much further west seems ridiculous.  Fortunately, a lot of great restaurants have opened up Downtown, so we are happy to explore at least one of those new, hip and happening places.  And, holy crap, it was amazing - one of the best meals I've had.  EVER, I think.  It was that good.  I don't even know what kind of food I would call it because some dishes had a Middle Eastern tang, like the fried squash blossoms and the sunchoke dish that we ordered (sunchokes are amazing, by the way, as I discovered last night), but then other dishes definitely leaned to Asian influences, like the peppers and kale and the duck confit, which I could only describe with superlative after superlative.  And I don't mean to forget about the drinks and desserts.  The drinks feature "shrub", which Jonathan Gold, the LA Times and LAWeekly food critic, describes here:  "Shrub is an artisanal thing, the bartender's equivalent of the array of jams and preserves flooding Etsy at the moment."  I also loved that it was a very casual place - and fantastic for people watching!

The other major gratitude this week?  RAIN!  Yes, it rained in Southern CA, like a real storm.  While it certainly doesn't solve the drought, it came as welcome relief and we might even get some more rain this week (please, please, please).  The best thing about the rain?  Going for a run in the days following the storm.  Southern CA is at its best following a storm.

And, finally, a nice social ride today.  I've been trying to amp up training a bit, but haven't wanted to be TOO focused at this point about 2015.  An easy, 90-minute ride just for fun was perfect.

So, lots of small moments to enjoy and take in and appreciate.

Cause for celebration

I'm not much of a valentine's day fan, which shouldn't come as much of a surprise since we've even started to not celebrate birthdays around here - at least not with gifts.  But this week did bring me/us several reasons to celebrate, so we obliged rather happily!

First of all, I had a knee appointment on Thursday morning - a very romantic way to start the day, I know.  The good and pretty damn good-looking doctor prodded, poked and groped my knee, commenting that it felt "great!"(I love that a knee can become a point of admiration).  I exhaled a sigh of relief that I have yet to ruin his handicraft!  My last cortisone shot was back in June, so making it 8 months between shots is pretty significant, and the shots seem to continue to work - fingers crossed!  Not that I'm dealing with great pain, but it starts to build up and do more than just "nag".  If the doctor approves the shots as a course of action, who am I to protest, especially if it keeps me on my feet and moving.

While we swore off any 'romantic' celebrations on Thursday, we actually did have dinner plans for Friday due to a Groupon that was about to expire.  As it turned out, we ended up with more than just a three-day weekend and a belated fake holiday to toast.  After work yesterday, we drove to the Valley (amazing when I go to a part of LA and I ask myself or whoever I'm with "Where the hell are we?"; that was definitely my experience yesterday afternoon - not that I haven't been to the Valley, but not to that part of it) and signed what seemed to be our life away in the form of loans and deeds and titles and so much other paperwork.  We also got a date to close on the house that we almost own - a real date and a real house: March 7.  HOLY CRAP!  We are now officially entering adulthood in the form of "Home Ownership"!  Like all major ventures, this is both exciting and terrifying, and we can't quite believe that it's happening.

I've kept mum about the house search - even in real life, as much as possible - because it seemed like such a fragile possibility and because it has been a somewhat emotional process.  After years of vacillating between our dream of moving to another city or state and the idea of buying a house in the LA area, we  finally decided back in October to get serious with the house business.  Redfin.com became not a fun little escape but an important source of information that we scoured weekly and even daily at times.  In October and November, house hunting took over our weekends as we spent hours on Saturday and Sundays at open houses, often feeling deflated because we didn't like the places or equally deflated because we did like them but knew that we would probably be outbid (which did happen - someone put down an all-cash offer on one of the houses we bid on, so how could we compete with that?).  In this process, we learned quite a bit about ourselves and what we wanted/needed in a house and some of our expectations were different from what we thought they would be.  First of all, because of our two larger dogs, we really couldn't be in a tiny place (under 1,000 square foot - believe me, we saw plenty of those!).  Also, a yard was key.  Ditto for a two-car garage.  And decent closet space.  And a logical floor plan.  And a decent neighborhood where I could go for a run.  And not too much work to make it liveable.  And we didn't want to be house poor.  This all seems fairly basic, but we couldn't believe some of the places that we saw (too small, weird neighbors, a nice big pitbull next door, zero closet space, no yard...).  We initially locked into the house back in December, but it did not seem real until the past few weeks when we had the inspection, the appraisal and all sorts of documents come through that indicated that it was ours if we wanted it and if we signed on all the dotted lines!

And now, after all the waiting and looking, we have a closing date and we know when we'll be moving, give or take a day.  Excited and kind of overwhelmed, we definitely celebrated last night at Bashan, indulging in one of the best meals that we've had lately.  We hadn't planned the timing, but it worked out well to eat some amazing food and drink excellent wine after signing away our lives and before the giddy excitement could wear away.  Soon we'll have to face the hard work that comes along with home buying, but for now, I'm content to just enjoy the moment!