birthday recap

Not a lot of it was digitally captured, but I had a great week long birthday celebration.
It began with a quest for a new bicycle helmet on Wednesday. Stacey tried to surprise me and took me to 5 different bike shops in Portland. We eventually found out that what I'm looking for doesn't exist (or at least, wouldn't be obtainable that day - a matte brown skate helmet), so we decided to give up. We walked to the bike shop near our new house to make a donation (Stacey's 15 year old bike) and it turns out - they had a great helmet there for cheaper than any of the other places we went. We Win! When we finally got home there was a letter in the mailbox addressed to me from Chicago. Stacey got me a cat from our friend Steve who wants to draw a cat for you.

Stacey then took me out to our favorite and tastiest eatery for a wonderful birthday dinner. Thank you Stacey and thank you Veritable Quandary. We ended the night teaching Level 2 improv class at the theater to a great collection of students!
Thursday was a great show at Mississippi Studios featuring SUCKERS and LOCAL NATIVES. My friend Alex bought me a ticket for my birthday and she, Stacey and myself saw an incredibly tight set by Local Natives. It is obvious to me that they have been touring this album for over a year, but it sounded amazing. See them if they come to your town. Along with the ticket, Alex also got me this boss coffee traveler. Thanks Alex!
On Friday, my friends Allegra and Kristian (who both live in Brooklyn now) had a wedding reception at the theater. It was woodland creature themed and the theater looked awesome. Even in the day! - So it was nice to be at the theater on a Friday night at a party for two great people and not have to do too much work. It was a wonderful wedding reception. Thanks for including us in your plans Legs and Kristian!
Saturday saw our good friend from Seattle, Joel (who's birthday was on the 28th) come to town and we asked him to play in our show. It's always fun to play with Joel. He's a great improvisor and a great person to be around. I can't believe I didn't piece it together as the evening progressed, but throughout the night many friends of mine kept showing up during the show/at intermission. I didn't know why... I guess I was focused on the show - we had a sold out crowd, so I wanted to make sure everything went well. Turns out, Stacey had organized a surprise party for me. I had no idea and it was a perfect way to see all (at least MOST) my Portland friends together for my birthday.
Thanks to everyone who came out to celebrate with me. I appreciate all the birthday wishes from my friends everywhere. I really needed it after a stressful couple of weeks. Things are really wonderful and I'm in a great place thanks to everyone around me!

fun.

I love it.

Brrrrthday

I had a great birthday. Thanks to all my friends, family and that girl I love, Stacey for helping me ring in my 33rd year. I'm one lucky fella.

still moving in

So we're slowly moving out of our old place and into the new one. There is a lot more room in our new home. It's pretty great. Boxes are slowly getting unpacked and things are getting put into place. It's a process, but it's nowhere near as stressful as every other move we've done. We're staying pretty happy, and Arlo is as cute as ever. He loves all the windows he gets to stare out of. He's a weirdo. As Stacey and I were getting ready this morning, I looked out our bedroom door to find this: Apparently, somebody's already been up for a while and would like to go outside... so hurry up.

Things at the theater have been up and down lately. Friday night was rough-times. A tough crowd and a show that wasn't very good. We tried, believe me we tried, it just wasn't right. Then Saturday night we had two different birthday parties and a full house. The shows were great, the audience was awesome and everyone was happy in the end. It felt a lot better than the previous night. Sometimes it's hard to remember that you can please all the people all the time. Live and learn, I suppose.

why do I do this?

Seriously, I've been watching this 21 second clip every day for a week - and forcing friends to watch it. I can't explain why I think it's the funniest thing in the world right now.

Furniture in

We have decided to allow ourselves to take a month to move instead of getting everything from one place to the other in a weekend. It's a wise move on our parts as we already have very little free time as it is, so the more time we have to move the better.
Last weekend we got some really great furniture (for our GREAT room) from City Liquidators... like this chair This matching loveseat and this wicked couch For real, check this sectional chaise out! We got this rug too, but it was a little small for the size of this great room, so we have since returned it and ordered another We have been watching a lot of MadMen lately, which is what I blame on our choice of style for the furniture. I wanted our livingroom to look like a place where a group of well dressed men could sip gin, smoke cigars and verbally abuse women like they did in the early 60's.

where the heart is

The papers were signed and keys were exchanged. Stacey and I are now officially HOMOwners. It's difficult to capture the whole "Great Room" of our space, but here are some photo attempts at doing just that... The whole place is pretty awesome. We're waiting for the carpet to be laid upstairs (the old carpet was ripped up as part of our purchase agreement). Walls have been painted to our liking and today the furnace was serviced (which is why I had so much time to take these pictures). It seems like a really great place we'll be happy in for a while. Minimum of five years I'm guessing. We even have a small backyard we'll have to learn how to take care of ourselves!