ich mag mush!

17 is the best number. And 17 May 007 was an amazing day. It began with pre-work bike rides to REI with Cap'n Sparklepants, followed by breakfast at Jinky's with D.Ax (uh, 2 breakfasts there, if you were me, but who's counting?), followed by a fairly normal and productive day of work.

At 17:37, though, things took a magical turn. I got a call on my newly-returned cellular device from...MUSH, who was, at that very moment, downstairs and waiting for me to buzz her into my office. Huzzah! With a little time off work, she'd decided to come down to LA for the night for some long-overdue sisterly bonding action. After meeting my coworkers and checking out some Zantar-ific music videos while I finished up my work, we took off. We were headed on foot to the very very edge of the continent! En route, we may have stopped at my favorite British store to buy four European chocolate bar faves (Aero, Kinder Bueno, Toffy Crunch, and Yorkie) and then eaten them in rapid succession.

After the arduous seven block journey, we had arrived. Gloves and baseball in hand, we found a clear spot on the beach near the boardwalk and began to throw, catch, throw, catch, throw, catch, dive in the dirt (in work clothes)! Funny how we've both developed great desires for athleticism and sport prowess after a childhood fairly devoid of them (uh, see dancing photos below to better understand). This game of catch ended as twilight turned to night, and we relocated ourselves to the rings and bars and ropes. Good times and many hijinx ensued; I flipped on the rings for the first time ever, Mush did tricks, I climbed the tall rope, we pranced around on the high balance beam, and basically tumbled and cartwheeled about with abandon.






An amazing dinner at Fritto Misto was followed by hilarious music sharing, show and tell at my apartment, youtube videos of Mojave Viper, stimulating conversation, and as usual, too little sleep.

This morning, I woke Mush by standing, towel-clad, over her sleeping body and serenading her on my guitar with my debut performance of Every Rose Has Its Thorn. And before grabbing breakfast at Panera, I got a tutorial from her on how to jump over walls. The 4.5' wall in our alley that I had, most embarrasingly, never been able to hop over - suddenly, I was able to conquer it, and the 5.5' wall nearby too! Few things have brought such a smile to my face as watching her do it, then attempting to imitate, failing, hearing the nearby construction workers shout words of encouragement, trying again...and succeeding! Oh, blessed day.

Mush rules.