sing, drink & spray pink

I woke up on Saturday afternoon to a sea of pink.

Adrienne and Vince hosted a fabulous karaoke / bday party on Friday, where the theme was to "Sing, Drink and Wear Pink." Of course, being formerly of pastel hair, I decided to (temporarily) dye my hair hot pink.

So I headed to Hot Topic and bought some spray on temp paint, which managed to get all over my bathroom, in my eyes, my nose, and on every surface within reach. I even ended up wearing my glasses out - which I never do - as I got pink spray in my contacts. Since I didn't have any peripheral vision, I figured I might as well get drunk.

Which might explain the truly terrifying rendition of "Love Shack", followed by a drunken "I Will Survive", that we all belted out to an audience who luckily will have no recollection of it the next day.


The birthday girl looks fabulous in pink.


Vince plants one on Eric's hot and very gay lips...


... even Vijay can't resist the pink seashells shirt and the neon plastic purse.


Um, I can't see that the hell I'm drinking.


TIN ROOF RUSTED! Miriam, Patricia, Steve and I prep for "The Love Shack"...


Who knew that Steve could channel Fred Schneider?


Apparently Howard Stern made an appearance. Maybe we'll get discovered.


Yes, Jeremie is singing into a lamp.


Um.

I think I'm really too old to do shots and get wasted... dancing for 3 hours when you're hung over was a serious challenge. Which is why I did it all over again on Saturday night.

a go-go to tokyo-yo

After hearing people rave about Tokyo Go-Go for so long, I finally had to try it. Someone even dared say to me that the sushi there was better than that of Chin's, my absolute favorite sushi place in the city. Yeah, its stuck between a liquor store and a dry cleaner, in the middle of nowhere (6th and California), and the lights flash whenever a bus rolls by, but the sushi there is heavenly. Try the salmon sashimi, toro if its in season, the Dragon Roll, and absolutely the Sembei Roll if you go there.

So Brian and I headed there - by bus of all things! - last night for dinner. We were worried that it was going to be packed because its the Mission on Cinco de Mayo, but it was surprisingly mellow.

Before I go on, let me just say that Tokyo Go-Go is not your typical sushi house. Its like fusion-nouveau-schmancy sushi "dining". To make sure we got the entire Go-Go experience, we ordered food off of every section on the menu - Curry Calamari with Raita for our "Shared Plate", Truffle Hamachi for the "Specialty Sashimi", and this roll with seared asaparagus, grilled avocado, and kobe beef. We also got some wakame salad and nigiri, of course.

The Curry Calamari was pretty damn tasty, although Brian said he preferred regular calamari. But the Truffle Hamachi was disappointing - and expensive. Basically, its thinner slices of hamachi than your standard sashimi, drizzled with truffle oil and caviar. It tasted sort of like soy sauce, though, so I wasn't really impressed. Brian said he couldn't taste anything, but he also has a sinus infection and was on drugs.

The kobe beef roll - whose name escapes me - was pretty good, but I still am not a fan of meat in rolls. I don't know, its like too chewy or something. From the sushi standpoint, the hiragama (Australian yellow tail) was pretty good, and the salmon was tender, but not Chin-level impressive.

The best part of the evening was when I got Brian to try amaebi, the raw sweet shrimp. Personally, I love it because I think regular ebi is just too bland.

Brian started chewing it, making a funny/squishy face. Thinking he was finished, I told him how its prepared.

"So, the shrimp are still alive when they prepare the amaebi. What they do is they take off the heads and throw them in the deep fryer, and then clean and push the shrimp onto the rice. The shrimp is still squirming when it first goes on the rice."

Well, he wasn't finished chewing. No, he didn't like it, and apparently, "the story didn't help." I felt tremendously guilty as I watched him chew for the next 10 minutes, as he couldn't bear to swallow it. Finally he washed it down with some crab legs, and we bolted out of there.

Oops.

All in all, Tokyo Go-Go - ok, but, as with most nice restaurants I try, not worth the price. Sitting next to a table of hipsters didn't help, either. If you're jonesing for some good sushi, head to Chin's. And say hi to Herman for me while you're at it.

stupid doggie, silly mommy.

My dog is so stupid.

Apparently, Bennie - our mini daschund who just turned 1 last month - now believes that she's some sort of watch dog, even though she's like a foot long, and still really tiny. She sits by our window and barks at strangers who pass by. No one can hear her, of course, but she doesn't know that.

So one day, she was sitting on the back of our couch by the window, minding other people's business and barking at passerbys. At one point, she got so excited when a big group of people walked by, she started barking so enthusiastically that she fell off of the couch and got stuck between the couch and the wall.

Luckily, my mom was in the room to rescue her.

My mom then tells me that Bennie is just like me. Small, with a big butt. (To which I replied, "This is what happens when you feed the dog pepperoni and cheese, Mom.") Aggressive. And dumb, all at the same time. I told my mom that its got to be her, since she's the only thing we have in common.

Case in point: I recently bought Mommy a cell phone, and programmed mine and Dad's number into the address book. Mom couldn't figure out how to make a call to a number that wasn't already stored.

I told her to try dialing. She said, "Oh."

vegas

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Quit nagging. Vegas pictures are coming soon...

clenching & thrusting - a.k.a. hip hop workshop begins!

I don't get embarassed easily. I think I've just done too many stupid things, walked into too many walls, to really bother anymore. Falling out of a chair everytime a boy I like walks by? Check. Being caught in the laundry room in my underwear b/c my pants weren't dry yet? Whatever. Tripping on the mic cord and banging my head into the microphone in front of 300 people? Yeah, happened more than once.

And yet I managed to completely mortify myself this weekend at the first session of our hip hop workshop.

For those of you who don't know, my dance instructor - Micaya - runs this hip hop performance workshop every year for beginners to perform in. Its a ton of fun, especially for those of us (i.e., me) who are really not good enough dancers to perform anywhere besides a back alley. I was super excited this year, because I knew a bunch of people, and I hadn't seen them in a while.

Well, we're doing this kind of whipping motion with our hands, and we're supposed to be thrusting our hips as well. I don't know what crack I was smoking, but I just couldn't get it. So of course, I raise my hand and ask:

"Micaya, how do you thrust?"

Micaya gives me this look, and is like, "Serena, just how old are you?"

To which I reply, "I don't know what I'm doing wrong. I think I'm clenching too much."

Of course, the entire class of 25 people just lose it laughing. As soon as the words come out of my mouth, my face bursts into flames of embarassment. I even managed to make Monty - who regularly cracks sexual innuendo jokes - turn red.

I did get a couple of offers from people to help me practice my thrusting, though. What nice boys they are.

*** To see my perfected thrusting technique, and more hella tight dance moves, make sure you come to Mission in the Mix, performing at Dance Mission Theatre on June 10, 11, 17, 18, and 19!! More info coming soon... ***