It’s so simple and so delicious!

• 1 cup Greek yogurt
• 1/2 cup  Whipping Cream or Milk (depending on if you are controlling carbs or calories)
• Mustard Powder to taste (or yellow or dijon mustard, if you don’t have mustard powder – just make adjustments with the yogurt and milk to get the right consistency)
• Splenda to taste (I use two packets)
• Various optional seasonings: Pepper, Dried Onion Flakes, Paprika, Garlic Powder.   I wouldn’t suggest using them all together! LOL

Whisk it all together.

I store mine in a mason jar!

In case you don’t know who Tristan Prettyman is, or the song to which I’m referring, here’s a link: Love Love Love.

I love this picture that she posted this morning, a thank you note from a couple who met at one of her concerts. Life  is all about connecting people and making lives better. Good job, T$!!!

T$ = <3

I admit it. I love Kristen Bell. I don’t know if it’s her adorable little pixie blonde cute charm, or just leftover Veronica Mars affection (which will NEVER fade), but I frickin’ LOVE HER!

So, Kristin has a fiance, Dax. Oldies like moi will remember Dax from Punk’d days, but others might recognize him from his current gig, which is Crosby on Parenthood. Or, as I like to refer to the character – Jabbar’s Dad.

Well, anyway, Kristen is a huge animal lover, and has always wanted to interact with a sloth. A “Sloth Encounter” if you will.

Check out the A-DOR-A-BLE clip of her recounting on Elllen the story of how her honey made that shit happen!

I was up at Tahoe this weekend, and – since I always prefer to keep Mr. Hercules with me given the choice, I set about looking for a cool dog friendly restaurant in South Lake Tahoe.  I found a great one!

First of all, if you’re not familiar with Lake Tahoe, permit me to school you.   It’s the most awesome place in the history of ever.  It’s so gorgeous!

Mark Twain wrote this about it in 1861:

“At last the lake burst upon us–a noble sheet of blue water lifted six thousand three hundred feet above the level of the sea, and walled in by a rim of snow-clad mountain peaks that towered aloft three thousand feet higher still! As it lay there with the shadows of the mountains brilliantly photographed upon its still surface, I thought it must surely be the fairest picture the whole world affords.”

The View from My Room in South Lake Tahoe

So, as I was driving around, I noticed that the Bear Beach Cafe on Highway 50 sets out tables on the lawn in front of the building, and I saw some people with dogs laying under their tables.  Excellent!  Views of the lake and hang time with my puppy?  No question!  It was time for me and Hercy to give it a try!

The Bear Beach Cafe in South Lake Tahoe

The first thing that struck me was how easy it was to get seated.  This sounds like a small thing, but you’d be surprised what a pain in the neck the logistics are at some places to get seating outside when you’re alone with a dog.  Well, at The Bear Beach Cafe, I simply walked in and asked the hostess if I could grab a table outside with my dog.  She said that would be no problem, and we settled on which table it would be.  I told her I was heading back to my car to get my dog – and what do you think I found when I arrived at the table just moments later?  A water bowl, all laid out for Hercules!

My Table at the Bear Beach Cafe, With Water Bowl Laid Out for Hercy

As you can see, the view is awesome, being so close to the Lake!

The View From My Table

The Rest of The View From My Table

The food was absolutely delicious.  I ordered the Lakeview Omlette, which was delicious!

Lakeview Omelette

Herc obviously liked it – he enjoyed looking out at the view, as well as chillin’ on the grass!

Hercules by His Water Bowl

Happy Hercy!

Hercules....Chillaxin'

Next time we are back in Tahoe, we will definitely be hitting up the Bear Beach Cafe!

Don’t ask me how I came across this as I was researching something for a client…sometimes click trails are just extremely convoluted.  But I did. I came across an article in the Cheboygan News about the Cheboygan County Fair Queen. And it BLEW. ME. THE. F*#&$. AWAY!

So, here’s the deal. Six chicks competed for the apparently illustrious title of Cheboygan County Fair Queen in Cheboygan, Michigan last Sunday. Here are the four that placed:

Cheboygan County Fair Queen Court

Cheboygan County Fair Queen Winners

OK, so, fair enough…I live in Los Angeles, not Michigan, so maybe I have a skewed sense of physical beauty.  Maybe there’s just not a huge pool of talent in good ole Cheboygan?  Right?  Am I right?

WRONG!

This is one of the two girls that DID NOT MAKE THE TOP FOUR.  Out of SIX!

Cheboygan County Fair Queen Wannabe

I’m sorry, but in what universe does that girl not beat those four other girls by a galactic effing MILE in a beauty competition???

Is Cheboygan, like, BIZARRO world or something?

Hello, Newman.

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PS – Before anyone starts to berate me for being mean to the sensitive little kiddies, let’s remember that these girls entered themselves, of their own free will, into a competition where they *asked* people to evaluate, judge, and rank them on their physical attributes.  I’m merely taking them up on that request!

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PPS – Apparently someone from this town is spreading this post like wildfire. Opinions are a mixed bag, from those that are “appauled” that I somehow got the idea that the concept of “pagent” somehow relates to beauty (go figure), to those who feel I’ve merely given voice to opinions secretly held by many. Who would have thought this would have become such a hot-button issue, like, five months after the fact??

At any rate, apparently (according to a couple of commenters), this “pagent” is all about inner beauty, and character, and charity work, and whatnot…which apparently is best judged in ballgowns and tiaras. My mistake!

I think this comparison could have easily been avoided with a little bit more careful consideration with regards to personal style…

It's Chaplin! It's Hitler! No....It's KANYE!!!!

So, this happened today. I walked down to Starbuck’s for my iced coffee fix. And one unusual and amazing thing was, they spelled my name right! But that was not all.

Also getting their coffee on were Stamie Karakasidis and Tracy Ryerson from season one of The Real L Word.

Me With Stamie Karakasidis and Tracy Ryerson

They were SO, SO nice when I imposed on them for a photo. I got all nervous and fumbly – I do this weird thing where it doesn’t freak me out to see/meet celebrities unless *I* really like them, and then I’m a nervous wreck. I mean, I used to live in Malibu, for God’s sake. I’ve met Tom Hanks, Mel Gibson (before he was crazy), Cindy Crawford, David Duchovny, John Cusack, Cher…I could go on and on. They registered a big NOTHING on the nervousness scale.

However, I meet Paul Giamatti (and this was a 2001 Paul Giamatti, immediately following “Duets” – he was NOT that famous yet!) and I lose my religion. I meet Stamie and Tracy and can’t even manage to operate my camera (and then phone) without fumbling all over the place.

Anyway, like I said, they were absolutely gracious and friendly and completely as nice and fun as they seemed to be on the show.

Check out the pic above, and make sure you check out their website – Our Fifteen Minutes!

Here’s a pretty awesome photo that was recently posted by David Vanderveen.

It was captioned as follows:

Rob Bell and I are headed to Montreal for a project to meet an Irish sage and who would you guess we bumped into at our gate? Francis Chan…one of Rob’s more dedicated critics. Things don’t just happen.

I loved Cathleen Falsani‘s comment: “rob has the best laugh. i recognize that one.”

And this comment from Troy McIntosh made me laugh: “While the picture itself is definitely interesting, what is really intersting is that you are traveling to Montreal to meet an Irish sage.’ ?!?!?!!”

But, I think the comment that takes the cake, for me, when it comes to really capturing the spirit of what is special about this photo is the following, from Jack Boeve: “It’s a blessing when brothers dwell together in unity…even if they do happen to disagree respectfully with each other at times.”

For those unfamiliar with the ideas of Francis Chan and Rob Bell, here’s a little breakdown:

Mainstream, traditional Christian theology teaches that a certain subset of people will go to heaven. Rob Bell teaches that more people than that will ultimately go to heaven. Francis Chan teaches that not even that many people will ultimately go to heaven.

For visual learners –

There are obviously nuances to both of their arguments that aren’t expressed here – what I’ve posted was a vast oversimplification. Still, it’s a jumping off point.

For those on my Facebook, you will be aware that I, personally, am firmly Team Rob. I was so deeply moved by Love Wins, and it really changed the way I look at life, spirituality, and the afterlife. Or, I should say, it affirmed the way I’ve always instinctually viewed those things, and gave me permission to stop feeling ashamed and scared for those views. If you weren’t raised in a fundamentalist church, you can’t understand why feeling like a loving God wouldn’t, for instance, send a 10 year old leukemia victim to Hell for not having had the good fortune to “get saved” yet is a terrifyingly subversive view, but it is.

Or that a loving God wouldn’t…you know…send ME to Hell for thinking that way!

For years I felt like it wasn’t right to call myself a Christian, to pray, to go to church, to believe in God, etc – if I wasn’t going to accept the whole shebang…lock, stock, and brimstone-smoking barrels. After all, one of the main tenets of Christianity is that you believe all of it or none of it. So I felt, if I could not force myself to swallow the parts of it that were abhorrent to me (and don’t think I didn’t spend years trying to force myself to!), then letting the whole thing go would be the only non-hypocritical thing to do.

Still, though, I missed it! For all those years, it was a constant back and forth.

STEP 1 – Missing church, missing God, missing “being a Christian”

STEP 2 – Going back to church, getting fed up with the hatefulness, the misogyny, and the elitism

STEP 3 – Realizing the only spiritually honest thing to do would be to abandon it

STEP 4 – Return to Step 1, Rinse and Repeat

And throughout every step, of course, I was internally tortured, being torn between what I actually believed and what I was supposed to believe in order to make it into Heaven.

Then came Love Wins.

When I read it, it was like the sun came out, or a light bulb came on. For the first time, I heard someone describe a Heaven that made sense to me, and criteria for getting there that made sense to me as well! And the funny thing was, it was all so simple, all so clearly laid out in the Bible, that I couldn’t believe I’d never actually seen it there myself before. It’s amazing how fear can filter information so that you can’t see what’s been right in front of you all along.

And, also, for the first time, it actually started to *feel* real to me. All those years of trying to force myself to believe in something that didn’t fit, and now *poof* – it just clicked in my head, and it instantly felt real. It was honestly, more than anything, just such a giant relief.

So, back when I was posting all of that on Facebook, during the first rush of excitement and new discovery from having read the book, my youth pastor from when I was a teenager (or maybe his wife? I don’t know, they share a Facebook account), commented on one of my status updates, recommending Chan’s book Crazy Love – which I took as a sweeter, less confrontational way of saying, “Don’t be seduced by the hipster’s loosey-goosey theology! You can’t actually get into Heaven that way! Heathen!” LOL

And that’s great, I LOVE that! I love being surrounded on Facebook by a group of friends and family that can all have divergent and passionately-held views, and can all feel comfortable to express them on my Facebook wall, even if they are different from mine, without fear of being disrespected or discounted.

That’s why I love this photo, ultimately! I love it for the fact that it shows two people who could not be further apart ideologically on the points where they diverge and yet – when they run into each other – they laugh and smile. That’s how it should be!

I also wanted to post this because I like the idea that, in the future, people will Google “Rob Bell” and “Francis Chan” in concert, expecting to come across criticisms and snipes – and will actually come across a photo of those two guys, their arms around each others’ shoulders, smiling and respectful of one another.

That’s how it should be.

It’s really interesting to me that this genuinely seems to be that way that the majority of Starbucks baristas think you spell the name “Melanie”

Have they never possessed brand new pair of roller skates, nor had a friend that, by virtue of serendipity, just happened to have a brand new key???

Sadly.