The Seven Year Hitch: "Two Rings to Bind Them"

We're not revealing the rings yet, but we will offer up our time line...

*FIRST ANNIVERSARY - We head to San Francisco and buy onyx rings at a tourist hut in Sausalito. Steve's breaks a month later when he hits his hand on the kitchen table. I get angry, then mine breaks a week later when I catch my car keys in my hand.

*A FEW MONTHS LATER - We go to Maya on Melrose Avenue in Los Angeles and buy cheap $5 silver rings that fit on our middle fingers (placed there because we've only been together a year and are not officially married). They're pictured centered.
*FOUR YEARS LATER - We go on a hiking into the jungles of Hawaii with then-girlfriends Meghan & Molly. After hiking 8 exhausting hours across the Big Island, traveling up and down hills from pine forest to rain forest climates, Steve starts shouting, "This is insane! We're like f-ing hobbits!" On the hike out it rains, the rivers swell, we almost die, but eventually make it to salvation for pizza and facials.

*MY FOLLOWING BIRTHDAY - Steve uses the silver rings to figure out my ring size and order us two One Rings from Lord of the Rings. Yes, they're official, with elvish writing on the inside. Yes, we're THAT geeky (in case you haven't figured that out yet). They're pictured on the left, above.

*LAST WEEKEND - We picked up our wedding rings from a certain store in Beverly Hills. Too nervous to leave them in their pretty red bag in our pretty red Mini Cooper, we decide to wear them for a couple hours while purchasing wedding clothes. We then put them back in their boxes and hid them until the big day.

*SEPTEMBER 20, 2008 - The rings will go on our hands for good.

We can't believe it's finally happening.

Steve's Geek Ink is Famous!

Steve was nabbed at Comic-Con by a reporter for Wired Magazine. He took a pic of Steve's Battlestar Galactica tattoo and did a quickie interview with him. We soon forgot about the incident.
Then on Monday the article appeared online! Neither Steve nor I knew about it. One of his co-workers saw it, told him about it, and he sent me the link. Then 5 minutes later, a straight co-worker of mine saw the tattoo image on his Yahoo page (linking to the article), thought it looked familiar, read the bit about Steve being an artist/designer for Disney and figured out it was my Steve.

Super cool. (And such a hunky arm, too!)

Las Vegas Part Three - One Last Thing to Cher

Steve and I aren't big on buying random souvenirs. We don't have the space or interest. But we do have an amazing Christmas tree, due in part to so many ornaments Steve designed and we've both collected. So this Vegas trip we purchased one of the gayest and greatest ornaments ever-- or as Steve and I call it, our "Chernament."
Yes, it might seem silly to some that we purchased a leopard print Christmas ornament with Cher's signature. It might seem frivolous. But when we've put it on our tree and look at it every year, we'll always remember that Christmas is a time for Cher-ing.

Las Vegas Part Two - A Cher-ably Fun Time

Sunday night in Las Vegas we attended the Cher concert at Caesar's Palace and it was amazing. Sort of a toned down version of her never-ending "Farewell Tour," it covered her entire career with rare footage and many costume changes.

After the opening number, however, Cher's high heel caught on her spangley dress and she dropped to one knee while the music continued playing and the backup singers continued singing.

For a moment we were Cher-ified she might be hurt. She wasn't. She got up, made some jokes, re-sang the end of her song and finished with class.

After the show, friend Sagiv who is one of her aerialists in the show (he and performance partner, Max, do some crazy aerial work that's just amazing), took us backstage. Alas, we did not meet the diva herself. However, since we had this awesome room at Caesar's and our friends BD, Rodney, Ronnie, Brian Hay (formerly of the gay dating show Boy Meets Boy) and Sammie were in town with us (and we'd bought vodka), we invited Sagiv to the room for drinks. Long night. Much fun.
The next day Steve and I (surprisingly sober) took a ride to the neon boneyard. It was closed but Steve was able to get some cool shots over and through the fence.
On our next trip out we hope to have an official tour.
From there we shot over to the Hilton where they have The Star Trek Experience. This has been a long-standing tradition for us to go to Quark's Bar, drink a "Warp Core Breach"-- which has juice and four kinds of rum in it-- and enjoy some good times among geeks.

Unfortunately, we'd heard a rumor and it proved true. The Hilton is closing Quark's Bar and ripping out all the Star Trek stuff. It's surprising since a Trek movie is coming out and they could re-purpose the location, but they probably don't want to pay the licensing fee to Paramount any longer.

It was kind of sad because this was such a neat space, but after ten years of being at the Hilton, and in a town that is always getting a makeover, I guess it was time for them to have a change. No word on what might be going in here, but I doubt it will be as cool or fun. And since the Hilton isn't really close to the main Strip hotels, it's doubtful Steve and I will be there again any time soon.


Unless, of course, we go see Barry Manilow who performs there. I know, you might think that's cheesey, but I've been a fan since my sisters hooked me on him years ago. And he did the songs in Foul Play (starring Goldie Hawn and Chevy Chase), which is one of my favorite movies.

So I love him and would totally go. Steve wants us to go backstage and meet him. We're fancy gay like that. Perhaps we need to investigate our connections and see what we can work. I mean, we may not have been able to meet Cher on this go-round, but Barry Manilow seems totally doable.

Still, I'm going to miss visiting Quark's Bar, looking up, and seeing this.
The real sucky part? Going to take a pee at the Hilton bathroom and seeing that they're destroying The Star Trek Experience but keeping this crap...
Seriously? You've GOT to be f-ing kidding me. People at the Hilton? Get your priorities straight!

Las Vegas Part One - The stay at Caesar's Palace

Sitting in the Las Vegas airport right now. We've had such a great time!


Here are some quick shots of the first part of our weekend.

Let's start with our hotel room at Caesar's Palace, which was incredible. The design firm Steve's brother works for designed the Augustus Tower where we stayed, and it was gorgeous.




Here's the bathroom, which was almost the size of our house.




And here's the view of our bed and living room area.


























The view was also amazing-- both during the day and night.
Should we have been creeped out by Donny & Marie being able to look right into our room?
The view at night!







More to Cher later.

Quick Wedding & Travel Updates

Hey Kids,

We're off to Las Vegas in a couple hours. First stop? A bar.

We're seeing Cher tonight. Super excited because our friends BD, Rodney and others will be in Vegas as well, which means a non-stop party for Steve's belated birthday. Could this also be an impromptu bachelor party? We'll have the camera and let you know.

SEVEN YEAR HITCH update

Yesterday we met with the flower guy and I think we're going to have some beautiful, simple arrangements for the restaurant. Steve is going through wedding magazines on the plane. I hope people ask us when the big day is...

Speaking of big days, yesterday we also BOUGHT THE WEDDING RINGS! Insane. It's thrilling and nerve-wracking all at the same time. It's also frustrating that you drop some serious change to buy them, but you need to get them engraved so you don't really "have" them yet, and even when you do get them you can't really wear them until the wedding day. So we celebrated last night with a bottle of the new Marilyn Merlot.

We'll pick them up next weekend, then hide them somewhere in the house so that we won't be tempted.

Have You Seen Ariel in the Sky?

Guess what we saw while registering for wedding gifts on Saturday...
Steve's artwork for The Little Mermaid: Ariel's Beginning up on a billboard. And then...
We saw it on Sunday at The Grove while registering there as well. Steve actually had to draw two slightly different variations because of the two different layouts. Super cool!

You know what else is cool? Cher is only 3 days away! God we need this week to end soon!

WORD OF THE WEEEEEKKKKKKK!!!!! (August 13, 2008)

The word of the week is: Passhole

Definition: Noun. A driver who will not allow you to pass them in traffic

In a scene:
Rick & Steve are riding with their friend BD in his car. BD tries to pass a person who is driving 55 MPH in the fast lane, but as we get close to going around the driver speeds up ahead of us at 80 MPH. We pull back into the fast lane behind him, and the driver proceeds to slow to 55 MPH again.

RICK: What is his problem?

BD: I don't know, but that dude is a passhole!

Thanks to BD for this week's word! And for more Words of the Week, visit the Archives!

The Seven-Year Hitch: Wedding Registry

PLEASE NOTE: To those of you who only know Steve and I through the blog and asked where we registered, don't rush out and buy us anything. We're going to be registering with a political action group and would prefer you focus your attention there. Now, onto the story...

Steve and I spent this weekend registering for wedding gifts.

This is both fun, and exhausting. Seriously exhausting. You have to think about what you need (not much since Steve and I moved into the our small house and simplified our lives) and what you want (plenty of things, but we feel quite wasteful when we don't NEED said item). And then you don't want to only ask for really expensive items because, well, not everyone who wants to get you a gift can afford an expensive one.

That didn't stop us from registering for a wine cooler (above). But it did motivate us to ask for a relatively inexpensive Calphalon indoor griddle.

But guess what we're NOT asking for...

Seriously. Do people really buy that?

An no, I don't even think buying two queens would have been funny. Just tacky.










Following our three hour trip through Bed Bath & Beyonce we had to take a break: quesadillas & cocktails in the middle of The Beverly Center. Good times!

We then hit Macy's where we hung out with our dear friend Martha Stewart. She makes lovely kitchen things. And if we get everything we ask for, then this will be the first time in our lives where everything in our kitchen matches.

As a side note, we also painted our house with Martha colors, adding one drop of vanilla to cut the paint smell (which we learned from her show) and using a nail to puncture a hole in the lid groove so excess paint drips back into the can keeping it clean and preventing lid stickage (which we learned on another of her shows). Don't just us for being gay. It's all VERY useful information. And if Martha can make our house a happier place, then so be it.

Sunday we finished up at Crate & Barrel for more kitchen things. We now have a fear of only getting wooden spoons and towels.

And the reamer. I'm SURE someone is going to get us that one right away.

Back in the Air

The Monday following my trapeze showcase, I woke up with a killer cramp in my left arm. I thought it started at my shoulder and worked it's way down to my fingers, but with Advil and ice it chilled out. Some. A few days later it was waking me up at night so I stopped hitting the gym and instead went to a holistic massage therapist. I quickly learned that all this was hurting...
I know how much of it happened. My right bicep was getting weak, strained, and so I compensated too much with the left side of my body. This caused my left forearm to seize up, and also added these strange crunchy noises in my shoulder.

I finally worked through that over three weeks and got back up in the air for a brief time last week. Then last night I was up for a full class, even learning a few new tricks.

I'm much weaker. It's stunning how quickly you lose strength and flexibility when you don't work out. But I'm doing really light curls to strengthen the right bicep, and I took yoga this morning to try and speed up the flexibility.

I love doing the aerial work, more so than any other fitness-type activity. But now I know I have to be smart about it, and if things are feeling week or compromised, I need to pay attention and fall back on proper form.

But let me tell you, even being weak, it was incredible to be in the air again. I can't wait to learn even more.

The Seven-Year Hitch: It's Pricey

Having been together for 7 years, Steve and I are now referring to our wedding as "The Seven-Year Hitch." While we've always known weddings are expensive, we thought our "get it done before the November elections" motivation would save us some money. And it has. But last night we had to drop some serious cash.

For example... we're flying Steve's mom out and putting both parents up in a downtown hotel. However, to make sure we were charged and not them when they checked in, and to get the discounted hotel rate (with complimentary breakfast, thank you very much) we paid online.

Then there's the honeymoon. We're not going on some grand trip-- neither of us have the cash or the paid vacation time. So once the family leaves on Sunday we're going to detox for a couple days, and last night Steve found an amazing deal at The Viceroy in Palm Springs.

We also like San Francisco but would want to stay longer than two days, and since this is really just a fast trip to recharge it all made sense.

Besides, the Viceroy is an amazing destination with a fantastic spa and restaurant. We also love the desert, which is close enough for a quick, easy drive.

But the big bonus? Steve found a villa for the same cost as staying in a deluxe room at other resorts.

The only problem? Yes, we had to pay for it all up front.

It's not that we're going to change our mind, it's just stings having all that on our credit card at one time. It gives a conservative spender in me a slight heart attack.
But this weekend we will be registering at stores, so that will be fun. And at the end of the day we did feel good about getting this all taken care of. We also know we won't have to pay for food and booze until after the event, which gives us some breathing room.

Then, just as we were about to fall asleep, Steve looked over and said, "You realize we haven't even bought our rings yet?"

Ugh...

Strange Saturday Night

"Oh my God!" Steve said as he grabbed my arm in shock. We'd just entered a fancy home in the Hollywood Hills, ready for a party with the other aerial tricksters I'd performed with at the showcase. "This is Herb Ritts' old house!"

What?
Yeah, in the list of many odd events Steve and I experience, it turns out that one of the trainers owns this house with her boyfriend. Insane. Steve's an architecture freak, and a photography freak, and an art freak, so he instantly recognized the home.
Of course, we didn't want to be rude and start asking about how the trainer got the place-- besides, we kind of needed to act cool, like this sort of thing happened to us every day-- but it was super neat. Steve took lots of pics.

We ate a marvelous potluck dinner with homemade turkey patties, delicious organic salads, tarts made with puff pastry, homemade French fries with garlic aioli, and wine... LOTS of wine. Steve and I brought four different kinds of cupcakes to test out possible wedding cake options. The red velvet won hands down, with the chocolate mousse cupcakes coming a close second. I think we'll be popping by the cake shop this week to lock in our order.

The evening continued with a viewing of the showcase, taking time to learn what we did right, wrong, and how to grow from the performance. After, we all went down to swim in the pool under the stars.

That's when drunken circus tricks began-- no photos, sorry. But let me say that I had more women stand on my shoulder than ever before in my life.

We were stunned when 1:30am rolled around, so we all headed home. It was such a wonderful, fun night and we were exhausted. As we drove home Steve and I realized it was also one of those, "Only in LA could we go to a potluck pool party at Herb Ritts' old house with a bunch of aerial arts students."

I mean, really! Where else could you hear something like that?