Slept late after post-birthday drinks for Tori last night downtown. I've never seen a girl so happy to receive scratcher lottery tickets. We had no idea she had a prior addiction. I hope we haven't contributed to a relapse.

Below are some photos of the last Third Thursday party at the gallery downstairs. It was a great turn out with over 50 people showing up. Next month's anniversary event is going to be bigger and better.
Sweet Rob went down to capture what David and I worked on all week as I hid upstairs with my one funny front tooth. I am less self conscious of it this week and get the permanent crown on October 2nd. I'm really looking forward to this improvement to my smile.
If I feel really brave I'll post the tell-all photo that Rob took of my missing upper right tooth (extraction + titanium implant) that will take five months to heal before a crown can be put in. I affectionately call this my hillbilly tooth. I don't smile with the right side of my face right now so it looks like I am smirking all the time. Really, I'm not. I feel like Jean Chretien who could only smile with the left side of his face. See...











Anyhoo, enough about my dental saga that will be over before the end of this year (merry Christmas to me). On to some of the event photos...










































The courtyard is being completely redecorated again today by another business (bridal shop/wedding planning) downstairs that shares the courtyard. Tonight is their grand opening and we are looking forward to checking out the look of the place. If the food looks good we may crash it and introduce ourselves to the newest tenants in our complex.

This weekend my friend Dan AKA Danimal Prowel is arriving from London. He is in town for a week long visit and a wedding for a very happy couple at the tail end of the trip.
Dan is dangerous. Dan will talk you into doing things you know you shouldn't do because you are old enough to know better but you do them anyway because he is convincing and stubborn (two qualities I can admire).
I have already warned him that I retain complete creative control over the photos that will be posted of him after his visit and that only the best of the worst will be forwarded to his co-workers in the UK.

October is looking like it is going to be busy; a wedding, another international visitor, a wedding anniversary, Las Vegas, San Francisco for Pete's pre-birthday, avoiding the Wild Cat on Halloween. Somewhere in there I'll start working again.

Hi. My name is Adi.

Amber asked me to guest blog on Melhouse Place this morning since we both happen to be awake bright and early in her sunny living room after an evening of hanging out and playing poker. To no one's surprise, I won... a whopping fifteen bucks. Thanks a lot, big spenders. I already spent half of that on my morning coffee.

I think a good thing for me to write about in here is how I met Amber and wormed my way into her daily life. About 4 years ago, my boyfriend, Peter, and I were entertaining a visiting friend from NY and were playing pool at Old King's Road, a local Santa Barbara bar when I was approached by a tall, thin redhaired man. We chatted briefly about the joys of being a redhead and the inevitable global takeover, when I decided I needed to give him the obligatory "yeah, I'm just here with my boyfriend... he's right over there..." you know, just in case he thought I was hanging out playing pool by myself looking for a cool redhead to "party" with. It was then that he casually returned my comment with "Cool, let me introduce to my beautiful wife, Amber." Nice. We talked all night about living in Santa Barbara, jobs, our former cities, families, etc. It turns out that they had moved from Seattle to Santa Barbara several months before and had had a hard time meeting new people. We could relate having recently relocated to Santa Barbara from New York. I guess I could go and on, but in the interest of not making this sound like a love story, we all became fast friends and are more like family at this point. Aaawwww.

I personally love blogs with photos, so I would like to share a few more photos of our camping trip to Big Sur last weekend.

I get all nostalgic every time Pete and I set up a tent together because it reminds of our first magical weekend together. Look at my face here - I'm so happy, just reminiscing abut old times, feeling all warm and fuzzy. Alternatively, Peter gets crazy face when we set up a tent together.
And since it takes so @%$*-ing long to upload photos, I think that concludes my first guest blogging spot on this blog. The sun is out and it's time to go out to breakfast and enjoy the day with the rest of the Santa Barbarians. Thanks Amber! Oh, and by the way, your Miss Arkansas tooth looks simply gorgeous.

Foggy day in Santa Barbara today. I know you folks in colder climates won't have much sympathy but I had to put on a sweatshirt! Brrr.
David and I worked on installing some of our ideas in the art gallery's courtyard last night in preparation for tomorrow's monthly event.

Swept up about a pound of ash that had blown in over the past week from a wild fire burning south of Santa Barbara. We moved some heavy furniture and installed stained shelves so folks have a place to put their drinks. We also installed a constellation of paper lanterns above the DJ's area of the courtyard that look really great at night. OK, David installed and I said things like 'to the left a little more, no not that left, more to the right, almost, ya perfect'.

Waited all day for a dreaded dentist appointment. For those of you who know me, you know about my poor mouth. Today I topped off two years of dental work with a reward; my front tooth repair. Don't pretend you didn't notice it was messed up. I told my dentist this afternoon that I felt like Bella Lugosi. He answered that I could run for Miss Arkansas. Being a Canadian I don't really know what he meant by that I think it was a Zing!

As I do when all things good or bad happen, I called my friend Adi to tell her I was walking home with bloody gums and thick white temporary front tooth. I look like Jim Carrey in The Mask. We laughed. She said she'd like to see it so here you go Adi, this one is for you...

Just back from our first trip to Big Sur, California. Camping with our friends Pete & Adi.
Two days of sunshine, cruising the coastline on Pacific Coast Highway, a hike to the beach, a hike to Pfeiffer Falls, a clever plan to cook a tri-tip over a campfire and endless laughter. If you are going camping anytime soon or want to get some great deals on camping gear for next summer check out Backcountry.com. My North Face shell kept me cozy in the evenings around the fire. Rob took a ton of silly video of our trip. I claim editing rights before posting any here. I seem to recall Pete saying something about how funny we think we all our after a bottle of wine.














This Thursday is the monthly party downstairs from us at Caruso Woods - Art Gallery. The owners David and Christi are really cool and we have been helping them out with some new additions to their monthly Third Thursday parties in downtown Santa Barbara. Rob provided a powerful projector to display artists or cool movies above the gallery (see below).


I've been helping David do some shopping for new lighting for the event. We agreed the Christmas lights weren't quite giving the ambiance we thought the event deserved.
It is a really great free gathering that we invite our friends over to enjoy. Our apartment sits on top of the gallery's courtyard so we get a prime view of the folks below. We like to call it the VIP Room. Vino, snacks, DJs and sometimes live music. I'll post some photos from this month's event later in the week.