Guy Eating Cereal - Episode 12 - "Halloween Costume Contest"

I was picked by Wit's End Productions to be an editor on the popular YouTube web series, "Guy Eating Cereal" this year, and my first episode is finished!  Check it out and Happy Halloween!!!  Also be sure to check out the previous episodes on http://guyeatingcereal.com/ !!!

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FALL

Is it officially Fall in Pasadena yet?  It certainly feels like it, smells like it, tastes like it and even sounds like it, but I’ve been fooled before.  The weather is convincing enough, but California’s two weather conditions of sun and rain can be interchangeable in any season.  I’m tempted to make the fall transition, but crossing over too early could mean some miserable conditions ahead in my apartment.

TRANSITIONS

Wheels are in motion; the leaves are changing color, the pumpkin spice lattes are at Starbucks, and I’m actually wearing socks!  It’s been two days since I turned off all 9 of my fans that I need to keep my apartment cool, and the next step is to put them away in my storage closet and take down the fan I have in my bedroom window (because it’s letting in the cold air).  But if I replace my cotton sheets with my jersey knit sheets and the heat comes back, I’ll be a sweaty mess of insomnia; so you can understand why I’m a little hesitant.  All of these changes also means cleaning out my storage closet –but hopefully I’ll find my portable space heater and a few other items that went missing this year. 

SMACKED IN THE FACE BY CHRISTMAS

You know what else is in my storage closet?  My beautiful 6ft, pre-lit Christmas tree and all of my Christmas decorations!  My gorgeous tree is going up A WHOLE WEEK before Thanksgiving this year because I’m going out of town, and I want the feeling of being smacked in the face by Christmas when I get back from visiting my sister in Florida.  Speaking of Thanksgiving –I’m so excited to visit Christine and Callum’s new place in Fort Lauderdale!  I haven’t seen it yet, and even though Thanksgiving in Palm Springs last year was fun, I’m never having a “store bought” Thanksgiving meal again!  Not if I’m fully capable of making the whole meal from scratch myself.   It always feels like a sitcom when Christine and I are in the kitchen, but damn; we do Thanksgiving right (maybe not as good as Mom’s, but she taught us well)!  The following day it’s tradition to shop the early bird Black Friday sales, make left-over turkey sandwiches for lunch, decorate the apartment for Christmas, bake Spritz cookies using my Grandmother’s recipe, and watch either “Christmas Vacation”, “Home Alone”, or “Scrooged”.  It’s going to be great; my mother makes sure we are never short on Christmas supplies each year.  Seriously though, it looks like Christmas threw up all over my apartment every season; I LOVE IT!  And this year I have requests to stay in SoCal to celebrate with my aunt and cousins, so I’m thinking of throwing a Christmas Eve fondue party for anyone who’s in town for the holidays!  Sorry condo in Mazatlan, Mexico –I’ll come visit for Christmas next year, but you know I’ll miss my Christmas morning massage on the beach.  *sad sigh*

FALL COOKING

I can hear my fall cooking appliances (that I bought on sale this summer) calling to me like eerie ghosts, “Use us, use us!  We’ve been waiting for you to unwrap us!”  -Soon, very soon I’ll break out my virgin Dutch Oven, Emulsion blender, Fondue sets (I own 3 sets now), and mini Soufflé dishes, but not just yet.  But oh how I’ve been waiting in agony to make beef stew, beer cheese soup, pumpkin soup, pot roast, Italian meatloaf, and cheese fondue!  Grilling in the summer is fun, but slow roasting a pot roast all day until your apartment smells like meat Christmas is nothing short of divine!  If next week is as chilly and rainy as this week has been so far, then I’ll have to celebrate with some hot, comforting meal that has an 8 hour+ cooking time, and invite friends over for dinner.  In the meantime, I’ll stick with ramen and carrot sticks until I can better gage this weekend’s grocery list. 

 

 Also, in 2 weeks my CutCo 7” Santoku knife with the ivory handle will be arriving in the mail!  Slicing squishy fruit and veggies will no longer be an issue, but keeping that sharp knife away from slicing open my fingers might; I’ll have to take it easy on my slicing speed. 

SOME STYLE

The rainy weather is a nice break from the hellish heat that the last few weeks brought down on us West Coast-ers, and even though I’m a year-round flip flop girl, my UGGS looked so lonely NOT to wear them!  Even though I didn’t get much use out of my winter wardrobe last year, I am still hanging onto a big armful of sweaters from living in Colorado.  Eventually I’ll have a big overhaul of my closet and retire a big percent to Good Will, but for now I’ll move my favorite long sleeved shirts to the front of the line.  My 8 year old Nike flip flops are getting ratty, but I don’t have the heart to throw them out….they are the only pair of shoes that have never hurt my feet.  I guess I can go back to Nordstroms and buy another pair, but it’s a nostalgia thing; like wearing my brown hoodie from my days on the Paramount Pictures lot, or my $5 “wall-street-suit-turned-hippie-made" silver ring from Tom’s Farms.  I’m not a style guru, I just like what I like….and this season I really like my gloves and my black and gray plaid beanie that I bought last year at the Guess outlet!  If this rain continues, I need to purchase another big black golf umbrella (I just like the style and how it wraps around me), because last season my golf umbrella fell victim to a tragic “dragged through the mud” accident on a film shoot. 

PUMPKIN SPICE AND EVERYTHING NICE

I love pumpkins.  I love pumpkin soup, I love pumpkin seeds, I love pumpkin spiced lattes, I love pumpkin bread, and I love carving pumpkins for Halloween!  But this year is the year that I’m going to attempt to grow MY OWN pumpkin in my big planter on my patio garden, so we’ll see how that goes.  I’ve been reading some articles and apparently pumpkins thrive well in containers, especially if you grow them vertically on a trellis, using cheesecloth hammocks to support the heavier pumpkins, so they won’t be as susceptible to pests, rot, mold, and diseases, like if you grow them on the ground.

I’m looking forward to the Fall/Winter/Slightly Colder season in Pasadena this year, and especially the holidays (Snow White for Halloween)!  Stay tuned for more reviews, reports, and Pumpkin Watch 2010!