The only photo of the entire Norton Gang. (L-R: Coco, Megan, Aaron, Ari, Amy, and Tristan. Bottom row: Chips and Maybelle.)
Since my last blog was about the possibility of moving, I thought I’d talk about a couple that actually made it out of the Norton building and moved on to bigger and better things. My best friend since I was two-years-old, Amy, and her husband Ari took off last week to move to THEIR NEW HOME in South Carolina! Yup, those two crazy kids bought themselves a home. If anything makes you hate Los Angeles real estate, it’s seeing what your friends and family can buy in any other state for a home price that DOESN’T EVEN EXIST here.
Anywhoo. The thing is, Amy and I have never lived more than an hour (or two in traffic) away from each other in our lives. Now she’s on the other side of the country. My heart is broken. Every day I have to walk by the empty apartment that used to be mine and then theirs, and I feel like crying. The painters came the other day to re-paint it and now it doesn’t even smell like them anymore. I feel sad and lonely and… well… jealous.
Family dog pile: Ari, Amy, Maybelle, and Chips.
I have dreams of grabbing my husband and our pets, packing up all our shit and driving off together into the future (and out of LA), just as Amy and Ari did. But that doesn’t keep me from being happy for them! I do miss my childhood-to-adulthood friend and her awesome husband. But, as my friend Lisa put it, “You know they are just making the country a smaller place by going.” And that made both Amy and me feel a bit better about the preveiously-unexperienced miles between us.
And now here are some photos just make this blog post a little more sappy and sad…
This is my favorite booth at Wertz Bros, it’s usually filled with awesome mid-century modern furniture like this dining room table I wanted so bad. But it was gone today (not that I could afford it anyway).
But I did end up getting these funky hand-blown glasses from the booth instead — 7 of them for $45!
Wetz Bros deals with a lot of antique home-goods, so I often run into things I recognize from my own family — My mom has that same pewter duck tureen, it’s been in every one of our kitchens for as long as I can remember, and that china was my parent’s pattern when I was a kid.
This Thanksgiving I chose my outfit according to maximum eating potential — jeggings (elastic waist band ftw!) with an empire waisted flowy top that was ALREADY stained, so I didn’t have to worry about spilling anything. I am a total winner.
This is a crappy cell phone photo of (from L – R) Ari, Aaron, Amy and Stephanie, actually using the room that NEVER gets used at the Wolf’s. Crazy times.
And here is just a super cute photo of my boys on Thanksgiving morning.
