More Parties?!?!

I'm still recovering from the massive amounts of partying I did this weekend. Just like Paris and Kim Kardi, I'm a must-have if you want your event to be the hit of the century.

Saturday night was Grant's bday party. It was at Candelight in Ventura and he and Pris reserved a cabana because we're all high-profile celebs. I'd never been there before, even in it's former glory as Landmark 78, partly because I heard it's haunted. Also partly because no one had ever taken me there.

The history of this place goes something like this: Carlo Hahn built this beautiful house in the early 1900's. Rosa, a young, Italian immigrant who lives at the house, is forced into a loveless marriage to an older man. Rosa is unhappy and falls in love with a young Italian man. She shits herself when she finds out she's pregnant, and pulls a switcharoo by hanging herself. Word on the street is, she has been seen staring out a second story window, walking in the stairwell, and in the ladies room. (Oh shit... I was in the ladies room... that bitch better not have followed me home.)

Anyway, it was a great location for Grant's party. The outside had several cabanas and ultra-mod white pleather sofas. :::drool::: Each cabana had it's own chandelier (fancy!) and heat lamp.

The birthday boy and his laydeh.

This place has a smallish menu, but it had a pretty good representative sample to choose from. I ordered the Three Cheese Flatbread Pizza. Grant had ordered this pizza as an appetizer and based on the one slice I had, it seemed pretty good. Unfortunately, it kind of lost its appeal once it was served as a meal. Don't get me wrong, it was still good, it was just a liiiittle too garlicky and would have been better off as a smaller portion. Other than that, it was a good pizza. The thickness of the flatbread was just the right amount of crust to avoid disintegrating like a saltine when I bit into it. And the flavor on the cheeses was great combination- slightly tangy, maybe like a parmasan or something. Really, if they had gone a little easier on the garlic, it would have been perfect.

I would like to revisit this place someday. An inside source says this place tends to lean more towards le douche side on a regular Fri/ Sat night. And to those of you thinking "Ok, how douchey are we talking...?", I have one word: Afflictionwear. But just because I'm a sucker for a beautiful building with badazz decor, I may brave the wilderness.

The outside bar area. It was pretty early when we left so the cougs weren't out on patrol yet.

Sunday was back-to-back baby fiestas. Now, we all know I'm not really down with les enfants, but these ones happen to belong to lifelong friends so I guess we're cool. First was Gabe's Fantastic-Circus-Themed-One-Year-Bday.

Happy birthday, babeh boy!

Since it was mostly babies, there's not much exciting banter to report. But I will share with you some of the photo highlights.

These cupcakes were DEE.LISH.US. Too bad my sister doesn't check her cell phone when I call 500 times, telling her to bring me another. By the way, these dreamy/ creepy clown cupcake sets can be found here. (I couldn't find the exact ones on the website, so you'll have to deal with just knowing they exist in-store.)

This is what happens when I'm put in charge of facepaint. Anyone else want to look like John Wayne Gacy...?

Nate and one of the baby toys.

Hogan- er... I mean, Zorro, going to town on his beloved watermelon.


My plate. All the major food groups are covered.

So the final party of the weekend was Alys' 6th Birthday ala Sweet Sixteen style. This girl got all the necessities any young debutant could think of. This season's swimwear with matching pool smock- check. Juicy Couture bracelet to make all the other kindergartner's jealous- check. I have to admit, I thought my gift was going to be outdown when she opened up a tiny gold ring and was so in love she didn't even want to put it on out of fear of losing it. But when she opened my gift, the Heavens opened up and the angels sang and this picky little diva loved my gift. As she should. You see, when I went shopping for this mystery prize, I thought to myself "What would TILTE as a six year old like...? Alys IS pretty mature for her age... What would TILTE as a 30 year old like...?" And then I saw it. The gift to oust all other gifts.











THE HANNAH MONTANA WIG.

Friends, feast your eyes on Alys as Hannah Badass Montana...

(Click the photo for true appreciation.)

So there you have it, my weekend in a blog nutshell. I'll throw in one more pic of me and Mel, otherwise known as Hannah Montana's mom.

We go way back. Shout out to high school Mat Stats!

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Hate: It's What's for Dinner.

There's been some unpleasantness going on lately, and as I'm sure you can tell, it's about to get ugly in here. I've been stressed the fuck out and *may* need to do some harmless venting about things I hate to preoccupy myself from the real sadness at hand. Before I begin, let's get the food portion of this entry out of the way.

Last night, Keith and I decided to go with Daphne's for dinner. It's one of the few places we can both agree on and doesn't have the possibility of turning into a sky's the limit bill (ahem- take note, Cheesecake Factory...). I went with a top secret, CIA style option that's not even offered on their website. The only reason I know about it is because I am an internet celeb and I get perks left and right*

*I saw it advertised in-store.

This fantastic deal is called the Three Course Dinner. You get to create your own meal and have several appetizers, main dishes, and two desserts to choose from. I went with my usual fav- the Original Hummus with pita, Street Gyros, and Baklava. As if that weren't enough, it also comes with two sides- I went with the french fries and salad. Salad because I'm on a diet. ALLLLLLL this for only $7.99!!! I know, friends, I was pretty amazed too when I made this discovery. Daphne's gets 5 out of 5 chins, not so much because it's the best food ever, but because it's a really great deal and you get a lot for your money. To the three course dinner, I say Yasou.

Okay, let's get this show on the road. I think the cleanest, fairest way to do this is to list items that really get on my fucking nerves. These items can then have a chance to rebuttal in my comments section below. Let the hate commence.

-I hate when I go into the ladies room and there's a GD sorority pledge going on in there. Ladies, move your house elsewhere. I go in there to take care of business, not talk about which bikinis are in style and braid each other's hair. SCRAM. (This also applies to stall cell-phone-talkers. Pigs.)

-I hate when people try to get shit for free. I was standing in line at Coffee Bean the other day, and the woman in front of me was taking all damn day trying to decide what she wanted. Then she wanted to have tasters of everything. Then- the icing on the cake- she was trying to get the CB associate to offer her a free anything-she-wants if she doesn't like her muffin. Lady, get real. He didn't actually bake your muffin and he doesn't actually care if you like it.

-I hate it when my dogs act like jerks and clobber people out of unrestrained happiness. I know it's my fault for not playing jedi mind tricks with them like Cesar has taught me, but I'm telling you, these two are buck wild. They're total dream dogs when we're just sitting around watching TV. But the second we walk in the house from a hard day at work, those two cujos start hopping around like they're on crystal meth. Yesterday, Kosmo's giant sabertooth got me right on my elbow bone, which immediately made me see red. Did you know there's a connection between your elbow and eyeballs? Me neither.

-I hate it when I order food and somehow it comes not exaaaactly how my mouth had envisioned it. Since my lunch at CPK the other day was so good, I decided to go back yesterday. BAD IDEA. The CPK chef thought he'd be a real wisecracker and put about 5,000 scallions in my salad, resulting in not only my inability to whisper secrets for the rest of the day, but also a debilitating case of the heartburns. Hey chef, if I wanted a lunch based solely on the plant genus Allium, I would have gone to Outback and ordered myself 20 Bloomin' Onions.

-I hate when all my jeans keep shrinking everytime I wash them. Same thing goes for my shorts. And my underwear. -Eventhough I actually hang dry anything that has the potentional to lose .00001% of it's original size. I guess my real fear on this one is that my waist/ belly/ chins just keep multiplying as I sleep and one day I will wake up looking like the mother from What's Eating Gilbert Grape.

-I hate when people have no manners. If you're at the cashier/ hostess/ counter and someone is expected to give you some sort of service, get off your ridiculous looking Calabasas bedazzled phone and act like a normal human being. Have some respek.

Alright, that's it for now. I know there's a shazload more where that came from, but right now I have too many things going on to really concentrate. Stay tuned, friends. I'm sure this list will have many more updated versions to come. If you really need more hate, visit this youtuber. (Warning, mom- it is filled with f-bombs and your ears may bleed after listening to it. But it's still funny and totally blogworthy.)

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CPKizzle in the Hizzle!

For those of you not down with the cool kids, CPK stands for California Pizza Kitchen. That's where Chrystal, Guy and I went for lunch today. My stomach has been a real jerkoff lately so I thought it would be best to stear clear of my usual M.O. (anything smothered in 4 lbs of butter and/or cheese). Instead, I opted for the the Original Chopped Salad (I know- salad- wtf?!?!) Trust me, this is a salad for non-salad eaters. According to the CPK menu it has the following items: chopped iceberg, salami, basil, roasted turkey breast, tomatoes, mozzarella, and garbanzo beans tossed in an herb-mustard parmesan vinaigrette. Long story short, it tasts like a Subway Cold Cut Trio minus the bun... and with a lot more lettuce. It's the perfect thing to order on a warm day or when you want to try a salad but don't want your stomach to get all sadfaced. I used to work at a CPK when I was in college and can pretty much tell you the pros and cons of every item on the menu- circa 2005, that is.


So this CPK in particular has something very creepy going on. No, it's not the manager who always reminds me of Borat. It's the mural on the second story. Allow me to explain. In the waiting area, the ceilings are extra high, but there's no actual second story. It's just wall. This is what you see when you look up............



(Click to maximize creepiness.)

Aside from the night terrors I'll be having tonight, CPK was just what The Doctor ordered (remember I call my belly The Doctor...? I know- I'm hilare.)

So yesterday, there was a bit of a shit-my-pants moment in the TILTE house. While I was getting ready for work, I got a call on my cell, but didn't answer because I figured it was something non-important, like my boss or something. So I continued getting ready- brushed my teeth, dried my hair, etc. Finally, I went over to check my voicemail. It was a number I didn't recognize... and a voice I didn't recognize... saying "Hi, I have your dog, Kosmo..." WHAT.THE.FRAG. How the hizzell did wonder pup escape my mental deathgrip??? I called the number back right away and made arrangements to meet them in 10 minutes. So 10 min later, I grabbed my purse and went into the livingroom and noticed the front door was wide open! Shit, now I have TWO wonder pups running rampant around the neighborhood. Luckily, Biscuit loves me too much and could never stray. Instead, she chose to use her moment of freedom to run through the bushes, covering her head with a doile of spider webs.

I drove down to meet the couple who found Kosmo and hoped they wouldn't decide to hold him for ransom. Thankfully, they came walking up a minute later. It was a young couple and they were SO nice! They fed him water with milk in it because they "didn't have anything for puppies". (Soooo cute- they thought Kosmo was a pup!) I thanked them a bazillion times and much to Kosmo's dismay, brought him back home.

Welcome back, dream dog.

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Graduates, Pub Scouts, and Mothers.

Welcome back, friends! I hope you had a great weekend- I know I did. Before I go on to brag about my celebrity lifestyle, I want to raise the roof for all my mom-readers and say Happy Belated Mother's Day! Let me say major "thank yous" to all the moms out there on behalf of the following people:

-Children who hated going to swimming lessons every summer so much, they would cry the whole way to the pool and then give themselves diarrhea and/or constipation by the time the lessons actually started. (Sorry about that, Mom.)

-Children who were constantly late to first period classes due to having meltdowns because "I DON'T HAVE ANYTHING TO WEAR!!!" (Sorry about that, Mom.)

-Children who invited 30 second-graders over to their house for their birthday "party" the day before said "party", despite there not actually being a "party" and whose mothers had to scramble around the night before the "party" to accomodate 30 wild kids. (lolz... I'm not really sorry about this one, that was the best party ever.)

Alright, onto this weekend's events. Saturday was Danielle's graduation party- the day my freshly tanned hamhocks had been looking forward to all week. The party was held at Malibu Family Wines and it was the perfect location, with the perfect weather, for a perfect party. There were tons of people all throughout the location, there was live music, and there were even areas for recreational fun like horseshoes and bocce ball.

The event was catered by Blue Table (Mmmm...). There was a variety of sandwiches to choose from- I went with the Caprese since that was something I'd been eyeing on the menu the last time I was there. The mozzarella cheese was so fresh and had such a light flavor, I've been dreaming of it ever since.

There was also an impressive spread of cheeses to dazzle the palette.

And for dessert, cupcakes from the most legit cupcake shop in all the world* (*Southern California), Lark. Seriously, folks. These cupcakes are OFF.THE.CHAIN.RIDICULOUS. I can testify that these are without a doubt the best cupcakes in the area because Danielle and I conducted major scientific research for about two weeks straight on this exact subject.

(I know, this isn't the best picture, but it was the best I could do considering I was blinded by the hearts in my eyes.) This is the Berry Cupcake. It consists of a light, airy vanilla cake, with a little custard filling, and topped with a light and airy, non-greasy whipped cream. These blow all other cupcakes out of the water because they are super light and airy (are you catching on yet?), the cake itself is very moist, and the frosting isn't very sugary. The best part is that they are only like $2.50 each. TOTALLY worth it.

There were tons of photo opps at Danielle's party, so I'll just post some of the highlights:

The fresh fruit was deelishus.

Grant and Pris.


A pitcher with chalkboard on it for easy labeling. (Ingenius!)


Chrystal and Jason.


Bao and Emily.


The graduate with sister and mum.

And yours truly.


Saturday night, Rawnie and I met up for our monthly meeting of the Pub Scouts. These meetings usually consist of us eating and drinking our way through downtown Ventura like we just turned 21. And usually ends with me being slightly handicapped the next morning. This time around, we went to El Rey and Dargan's. I'd only been to El Rey once before and I loved it and wanted to see if the magic was still there. It wasn't. The carne asada quesadilla was still definitely worth the $9, but overall, it wasn't that great this time around. Much to my expectation, Dargan's wasn't much better.

Geeeev me a quarter, I'll tell you your fooooortune...


Diiiiiiitto.....

At least we met this hunk.

So yesterday, mom made lunch for me and The Doyles. She made a real staple (and treasure) in the TILTE household- tuna noodle casserole. You know how you always like certain foods just because you're used to them and they're something you've grown up eating? In our house, it's tuna noodle casserole. I didn't get a pic of it because it pretty much doesn't look all that tasty and I wouldn't want to give you the wrong untasty idea. We all went over to my grandma's house so we could say our happy mother's day and so grandma could spit hate all over the place. Mom and Tanya both made desserts and both desserts made my day.

Mom's cherry fluff pie.


Tanya's coconut pineapple rice pudding. (Usually, Tanya's recipes are questionnable because one of her kids had MAJOR food allergies so she used to replace all the eggs/ dairy/ nuts/ soy/ ingredients with other MUCH LESS glamorous substitutes. But even I had to admit, this rice pudding was so good, I brought extras home for dessert tonight.)

In closing, I will leave you with a magical poem penned by my nephew, Wyatt. As you can see, we put butter on a high pedestal 'round these parts.

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Happy Seis de Mayo!!!

So, yesterday I got a call from Danielle asking if I wanted to join her for dinner with Grant, Priscilla, and Danielle's friend Scott. Luckily, I didn't have any other plans and was actually very interested in going out, so I took her up on her offer.

I met them at Los Agaves in Thousand Oaks in honor of Cinco de Mayo. I ordered the nachos sans meat and a pomegranate margarita. The nachos were okaaaaaaay, nothing to write home about. It may have been because they were so busy and not up to their usual standars. Whatever, they were totally edible, just not the best I've had. The beans were more like bean flavored sauce, the cheese wasn't completely melted, and there wasn't nearly enough sour cream to make me forget about the other two issues. The margarita was a disappointment too. Priscilla tasted my marg and said it tasted just like hers. Her drink was a regular marg. I have a feeling they put a splash of this secret ingredient in there as the pomegranate flavoring. So all in all, I wasn't too impressed with Los Agaves this time around. I'd probably give it 2 out of 5 chins.

However, there was one VERY tasty treat to come out of this visit. Pris shared with us the best app iPhone has ever had the pleasure of being associated with. It's called.... CatPaint. If you've never heard of it, good. You will love me long time for introducing this to you. It does very cool things like this:

Watch out- KAT IN YO' DRINK!!!

aaaaaand this:

PAWS OFF MAH DRINK, KAT!!!

aaaaand this:

"HEY GUYTH, MAKE ROOM FOR ME!!!"

So that's pretty much the wrap-up of my night. While I have Cinco de Mayo on the brain, I will leave you with a latin inspired video. Thanks to Michael, I've had this song stuck in my head all day.

P.S. I want to be friends with these kids.

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Big Exciting Changes!!!

As you may have already not noticed, I added a new widget thing on the bottom righthand side of my blog. It tells me when I have a visitor and what part of the world that visitor is from. This is the best thing ever invented and without it I would never be able to stalk myself. High five, internet gods!

So with this new addition (the widget, not the R&B music group featuring Bobby Brown) I saw that I had TWO INTERNATIONAL VISITORS!!!!! I know, it's like I've become an internet sensation. Don't worry friends, we're still total BFF's and I will still ask to borrow money everytime we go out. I just want to say Major Thanks to my current international readers (Big ups, David in CaNaDa! and Kate in AuStRaLiA!) and Major Welcomes to my new friends of the world.

I should have known something magical was going to happen today when I heard two totally radical songs by Beck this morning- THE SAME SONG TWICE WITHIN ONE HOUR. Magic. Granted, the second time was because I was listening to the Beck station on Pandora, but it was still the SAME song. I lovelovelove Beck and can easily listen to his music on loop for the rest of my life. This is my fav song at the moment. The little girl is the best part because 1) she reminds me of my little friend Mouche, and 2) she stole my moves. You can thank me later for sharing that gem with you.

For lunch today, I decided to go with a local favorite: Woodranch. For those of you not in the Southern California area, WR is a barbeque type place that serves meat and meat with a side of meat. Since they have huge portions and I have a tiny belly (lolz.), I ordered the kids Tri-tip sandwiches.

I'm not really a big meat-and-potatoes kind of person, partly because I can't handle the thought of biting into something that has the consistency of a tendon/ vein/ beak/ claw. Luckily, I've never had that problem here. This is a great deal because you get two tri-tip sliders and a large side order (I chose the Smashed Sweet Potatoes) for $7.

These sweet potatoes are seriously where the money's at. I think they're whipped up with cream cheese and brown sugar and a bunch of other golden tickets. I think next time, I might bypass the sliders and go straight for the SP.

Like any classy restaurant, they also give you garlic rolls with your order.

At first, I wasn't crazy about these rolls and I didn't really get the hype. But the more and more I tried them, the more they grew on me. They're super greaseball oily, which my chins will thank me for later, but they're also super addicting. (The box is steamed up from me staring at them on the drive back to the office.)

Since summer is quickly upon us, I decided to work my way back into normal, living-person skin color and went to a tanning bed today. I've been to this tanning place a few times before and knew about the student discount. And since I'm a weasel, I whipped out my old student ID card and proceded to get my tan on. Hopefully, I can get some color going on before Saturday because Danielle is having a graduation party and I don't want her family to think she's friends with a real life corpse.

With tanning beds on the mind, I leave you with this hilare video from Little Britain. It's not exactly safe for work, but you might get away with it if your boss is cool with you watching a man running around in a naked woman fat suit.

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Garage Sailing

Welcome back, new friends!!! I had a very busy weekend and have lots to report back to you. Much to my stomach's dismay, it's easy on the food, heavy on the nonsense.

On Friday, Melissa and her little roommate Nate came over. Nate is a dream toddler and total chillaxer. Despite attempts made by my two baby-eaters (Biscuit and Kosmo), Nate remained cool as a cucumber. Since my mutts can jump sky high, they are not allowed near small people and/or delicate objects and were locked outside during their visit.

Welcome to the jungle, baby. You're gonna dieeeeeee.

Everything went according to plan until I went to the bathroom and Melissa fell for the Sarah-McLachlan-starved-innocent-helpless-"We are soooo cuddly and innocent!" eyes B & K gave her. Melissa cracked the door to say hi to these two clowns and that's when they made a run for it. Unfortunately, I wasn't around when this took place, but I could hear the hoofsteps of two wild Clydesdale ponies running amok in the livingroom. Chillaxer Nate knew exactly what to do and tossed his peanut butter-cheese crackers aside to send them off his tracks. He is a genius.

On Saturday my neighborhood had a block sale. A garage sale junkfest extravaganza, if you will. I didn't have too much to sell, no big ticket items, but the stuff I did have was in good shape and I figured I might have a chance at making $20. And getting a tan on my corpse legs.

Chrystal and Sarah came over and shared in the treasure-selling. With all of our stuff combined, we actually had a pretty solid sale going on. It was by far the girliest house on the block and if I had been shopping I would have made an offer on the whole lot. All in all, I think we had a great turnout and my $60 earnings blew the lid off my wallet. Seriously, I felt like I just won the Mega Millions.

On Sunday, I went up to my mom's for my brother-in-law's birthday meal (Happy Late Birthday, Kenny. You are now internetz famous.) She made this Mexican soup that could have landed her a spot on Food Network's Friday night lineup.

As good as this soup was, it was trumped by my weak spot of all weak spots. A pie. A blackberry pie a la mode. (Did you know a la mode means in fashion? If ice cream doens't mean in fashion, I don't know what does.) Sorry, I didn't get a chance to take a pic of the [2 slices of] pie because I had inhaled it before I had a chance to reason with myself about photo opps. Just know that it was goooood. And healthy too. Berries = healthy.

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