Now, I like a good keyboard cat video as much as the next person (well, maybe not as much as Harold), but my favorite thing about YouTube is the ability to just watch the best scene of a movie -- the part when the characters break into song and/or dance.  Whether the rest of the movie is good or bad, these clips get me every time: "Fame," "Love Actually," "13 Going on 30," "Dirty Dancing," "Almost Famous," and "500 Days of Summer," below.
 

 
I got a prescription last week for zolpidem tartrate (generic for Ambien) sleeping pills last week, and apparently these are the side effects:

After taking zolpidem tartrate tablets, you may get up out of bed while not being fully awake and do an activity that you do not know you are doing.  Reported activities include:

• talking on the phone
• having sex
• making and eating food
• sleep-walking
• driving a car ("sleep-driving")

The best part is The next morning, you may not remember that you did anything in the night.  I luckily have insomnia only rarely, but when I do: look out.  And please allow me to apologize in advance.

Last weekend Andrea, David, Hal, Holly, Jodie, Pam, Tara, Therese, Thom and I rented a house in Russian River to celebrate Pam and Hal's birthdays.  In many ways, it went exactly as expected: amazing meals, fun games (Knock and Taboo) and lots of reading (for me: Juliet, Naked -- good, but please someone else read it because I'm confused about the ending).

Our rental was 2 doors down from a DIY car wash, something I didn't know existed.  I thought either you did it in your driveway or paid someone else to do everything.  This was a place that exchanged water guns and soapy brushes for quarters, and it was, as advertised, fun!  Jodie and Hal and I even got into the spirit by wearing our bathing suits and having a short bubbles fight.

Some photos from the weekend here.

 
  
Today's the last day of Birthday Week, that special time in October when I have 6 birthdays to celebrate in 7 days.  On Tuesday, a bunch of us went to the Latin American Club to toast Jen (10/20), Ed (10/22), Pam (10/16) and Hal (10/21).  Kiko (10/17) had 2 family parties this week, but Harold (10/18) is on a tropical cruise so it's all worked out.  Whew.  Nothing on the calendar until Naomi (11/29).

My neighborhood was without a supermarket since February, and it was a long seven months!  Most of my friends don't live very near big supermarkets, actually, but I've gotten really spoiled having one a block from my house.  The new one is a Whole Foods, which has its ups (yum!) and it's downs ($).  By the time of the grand opening on Wednesday, I was counting the hours until I could get there after work.  Then the minutes.  Then the blocks.

I was happy to see a multi-bike rack outside -- the old store didn't have one and I had to park on the handicapped parking sign.  Almost never saw another bike in the parking lot.  But the new rack was completely full at 8:30 am this morning with hardly any shoppers in the store -- an employee (who couldn't find a space herself) confirmed that all the bikes were employee bikes.  So -- great, but not really great at all.  

Lunch today: brown rice salmon sushi.   Tonight: Who knows?  But surely something organic, free range, probiotic, fair trade, and cruelty-free.

Even cooler is that when the billboard comes down at the end of October, the material is going to be used to make vinyl tote bags, designed by Anna Sui.  They are already all sold out, which will make mine (set to ship in January) a real collector's item.

Yay, Josh!  Hopefully he will get big, but not so big that he won't have time to take me and my friends on bike tours when we visit New York.