New Years Eve: A Chili Party

The day before the chili party, we had to go see King Kong one more time. That's Paul and Jason outside of the Arclight.

That's (clockwise from lower right) Jessica, Aaron, Laura, Susanna and Jason.

Paul and I had some fireworks left over from driving across the country!

The poison...

Paul and Aaron - too bad they're not dancing.

The crafts table for making party hats.

craftmaking....

Jason and a paper sculpture.

2006, yes.

And in the New Year rain we saw a rainbow.

Christmas in Los Angeles

Our Christmas tree at night>

Christmas eve we went to see some jazz at Charlie O's, where we also had delicious ribs and chicken wings.

And we dressed like harlots and sailors.

And posed for pictures...

....and some more.

The band: The John Heard Trio.

When we got home we found the trepanned dog discussing the color red with the bristle skunk.

Our Christmas tree during the day, on Christmas.

Breakfast!

This was peeking out of my stocking.

Santa brought wild tigers.

Thanks Ted and Ta!

Thanks Mom!

Thanks Mr. and Mrs. Gachot!

Thanks Mom!

The gift carnage.

Then we went for a walk around the neighborhood.

We saw the devil dogs, Marble and Mango.

And ended up at Jonathan and Julias to see their new baby boy for the first time.

He's a cute peanut.

Mom Moved Back to Philadelphia

Shira and Marina at a Vox Populi benefit in Northern Liberties.

A painting of my mom, by my dad.

MOM.

The sisters Johnson: Marianna Baker, Josephine Williams and Sarah Mueller.

Me and mom.

Me and mom and dad.

From the plane.

Ice Skating!

The skates weren't great, and the ice was kind of bumpy....

But it was great skating at Pershing Square.

Paul's very good.

Dinner at Johannes'

I have to remember to see this movie: "Mama Roma." We were sleepy and so left after the credits.

Breakfast with Buddha

One of the many times Paul says we're going somewhere and he won't tell me where....

We ended up at the Hacienda Heights Buddhist Temple at 8:30AM on a Sunday Morning.

It was the Buddha's birthday.

On The Road to Xmas

The first christmas party: we tagged along with Shana Ting to a writer's soiree.

It was at the HMS Bounty.

I got tipsy as a ship.

In the festive spirit, we re-instituted Margarita Fridays at work. I spearheaded the effort, as I'm pretty sure no one can make margaritas as good as me in that office....

I keep seeing this empty bag of circus peanuts in the elevator when we have to park at 9100 Wilshire instead of the regular AMPAS garage.

Holiday decor.

Santa flying through Beverly Hills.

This was the second christmas party.

A very fun Krampus with the Maddens. Here Hank is trying to blow up a sausage casing. He made a couple of hundred sausages for us to eat.

Johannes and his friend Veronica were my Austrian dates, as Paul was recovering from a cold.

The most wonderful art of John Geary at the Maddens.

Paul chatting up Dan Mirvish at a Paper party.

Paul and Shana Ting at the same party.

Anne Magnuson's band at the very same party.

LA has more lights than the east coast.

At Machine Project, we saw a great play acted out by lighting fixtures. Paul is feeding money to the donation pneumatic tube

Delicious Thanksgiving 2005

The pumpkin pie.

The crepes for the thousand layer cake.

The trussed turkey.

Ted Gachot and Paul on the porch.

Paul and Bob's electric knife.

For dinner: Paul Francis, Ted and Ta and Paul at the head of the table.

After dinner we had more friends over for dessert. Here's Laurel and Eric.

Ta and Ted.

Johannes and Paul.

Paul, Laura, Hank and Paul.

And we watched Tod Browning's "Freaks" by the fire.

Halloween 2005 - we were The Yachtsman & First Mate:

Johannes and Jon Benet, who took us to a party.

Paul and a very small piano.

We got in some good games of PING PONG.

The band played a lot of Rocky Horror Picture Show songs

The host (as nurse), K.K., and his birthday cake.

Earlier in the day we went to the Day of the Dead celebration at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery:

Families and art students dressed up the graves and built elaborate displays for the deceased.

Dioramas of those left behind when a father died.

Jayne Mansfield's poodle.

Waiting for tacos for dinner.

A Track 16 art show and party for the LA Weekly's 1st Annual Biennial:

Paul and a robot.

"Crowns and Witch Heads" by David Walton.

Elliot Hundley's work.

Work by Brian Bress in the background.

The elephant....

Some random shots:

The San Pedro Maritime Museum - research for the upcoming Halloween outfits.

An anchor made out of woven human hair.

A trip to Philadelphia in September to celebrate Becky & Matt's wedding:

I got a new camera, which takes nice pictures...

And it has this feature.

We went to Philadelphia for Becky and Matt's wedding celebration 9/24/2005. We stayed at my dad's. Here's Hanna at the sushi restaurant the night we arrived.

We went with Shira to the Academy of Fine Art's galleries.

Paul and Shira at Max's installation exhibit at Vox.

The bride! Buying beer! (For the wedding party, of course)

Becky and I bought lots of flowers for the tables. They were pretty.

And, of course, the bachelorette party. When we were teenagers we did this sort of thing pretty much all the time.

And wedding party day! Here's Shira talking to Kyra and Jason in front.

The bride, with Michelle and friend.

Our wedding gifts.

Javier, Kyra and friend.

Sandy, mom-of-bride, and Matt-groom.

Ahh, the next morning... Paul almost got tackled by the Oakland Raiders in the lobby of the Marriott getting us this coffee.

What's a trip to Philly without visiting the Mutter Museum?

Last day, hanging out at dad's. Here's Hanna.

And Dad.

Meta, Hanna, Dad, me and Duchess.

Hanna & me.

The plane ride home.

A weekend up north in King City, Salinas, Monterey, San Francico and Sausalito:

We visited peTE and Lisa in King City mid-September and brought them the wedding gift Mr. Gachot had given us to deliver to them.

Here's peTE with his painting in the Monetrey Art Museum's Biennial Exhibition(!).

Oh my god!!!! I'm sitting with a real monkey.

After Monterey we went to San Francisco. Here, we're wandering through Chinatown.

The next day we took the ferry to Sausalito.

We saw the floating homes of Sausalito.

We met a real pirate! Penny Woodstock.

And then we went to the SF Moma. Here's Lisa just over the scary bridge.

Ted and Tatiana moved to Santa Barbara, they came and visited us on the way:

Some pictures from the Getty in September...

We went to some art openings.

Then dinner at Pho Cafe: the gals.

The guys.

And the next day we visited the Cheech with a small eggplant that sort of looked like her.

Notice we buried her close enough to the Hollywood sign so that she always remembers she's a stahhhr.

The annual trip east to NYC, Shelter Island and Jamestown, August:

East in August! Here's me, Becky and the wee Dorfman in her belly in NYC.

Mr. Dorfman and Paul on Matt & Becky's roof (now former roof after they moved to Park Slope).

I finally met Ted and Tatiana on this trip, who are great. We're at the Maritime here.

Shira behind my ravenous chopsticks.

Then we went to Shelter Island and Paul had orchestrated it that I should meet my favorite painter, Eric Fischl, in Sag Harbor.

Here's peTE and some budgies.

Mr. Gachot.

And the Mrs. Gachot.

I love that evening sunset.

Tatiana and Mrs. Gachot at dinner.

And THEN we went to Jamestown. Here I am with Aunt Sara Lee, for whose poise Paul developed a mad crush.

Cousins George and Tabby.

Cousins Josie and Harry flanking my mom with me on the right.

MOM and PAUL.

ME and MOM.

Captain guy who captained the Madeleine sunset cruise.

The moon in Jamestown.

In July Paul took me to Mexico for my birthday...:

Hmmm... we might should have turned back when we saw 19 of these on the 30 mile long washboard road to the Mexican hot springs campsite Paul took me to for my birthday in July.

By this point, we were a bit delirious - too late to turn back, despite the head-sized boulders in the last mile.....

We set up camp (we were the only campers), cooked steaks and drank enough wine to knock us out.

By the end of the evening, when it had gone down to 110 degrees, it was all we could to play made-up-word Scrabble.

So the next day we left Mexico to go cool off in Desert Hot Springs, where we met a shaved Persian cat named Puss Puss.

That's me on the phone with some nice person who was probably calling to say happy birthday.

Early summer days:

At some point we went to Home Depot to buy staples. We were also, that night, on our way to see Sufijin... Sujuifin.... SuFjina... the fellow who sings albums about different states at the El Rey.

This was after the show. Paul was very moved and had lots to say to everyone.

Fourth of July:

Margareta and sister Hanna came to visit over July 4th-ish. Here we are having crepes.

We took them to the roof of the downtown Standard. It's LA all over but quite nice during the day during the week.

Meta and Hanna self-realizing how damn good looking they are at the Self Realization Center in the pacific palisades.

In March Paul and I drove across the country:

TO NYC AND BACK (March 2005) CLICK HERE MAP OF ABOVE TRIP A Memorial Day party at our house: End of May - Memorial Day fun at chez Bob's. Here's a looker: the mighty Paul Francis. Elizabeth (who works with the Ligers! See below) and Peter. Barry. Two upstanding chaps: Tim and Hank. Ahh, beauty.... Rachel and Deanna. SUMO: In March we attended the 2005 Fifth Annual U.S. Sumo Open downtown at the convention center. Shambala: Paul with a Liger at Shambala, big cat preserve, in February. Zeus, the Lion with the best hair. Cousin George and Anne's wedding in Florida: My cousin George got married in Miami Beach. This is he and his lovely bride, Anne. Mom, Aunt Sarah and cousin Anna. The banyan trees outside. Aunt Marianna getting the last of the crowd, including cousin Joanna (middle), seated for dinner. Late January: In late January we climbed to the roof of the Biltmore Hotel and found their helicopter pad. Ocean Seafood, downtown. BIRTHDAY!: Paul's birthday! January 24th. Smoked salmon and champagne. January: Searching fruitlessly for a park in Los Angeles one of those days where it almost starts to seem summer-warm, we ended up in this paltry orange grove north somewhere. There were a few things to discuss with Jake immediately in the new year. Here, Rachel listens carefully. And I, Sarah, make my case....