Every year about this time, a neighbor down the block from M.C. Nugget’s beach palace throws an outdoor party.  You may already know this, but we live three blocks from the sand, so I know what you are thinking. You’re envisioning palm tree and cute little Cape-Cod style house-lined streets. I admit, it’s not far from that. We have a pretty great little neighborhood. But before you picture a lush patio landscape with golden-bodied beach babes and guys, let me school you on the REAL beach communities of Southern California. True, there are oodles of golden bodied surfers, sunbathers, and fitness buffs prancing up and down the block, and we love the show. But if you took a stroll down Main Street, you’d see a seriously different landscape.

Jeff Fest – the annual party thrown by, you guessed it, Jeff, who lives in a compound with several women… is the hard-core rock-n-roll party you never experienced.

UNTIL NOW.

LAMINATES. Because if you don’t have one, you are nobody at Jeff Fest. NOBODY. (A skull shirt might help, but without laminates… shhhh… no one).

The man himself, “JEFF” on the left. You probably can’t see this here, but he has his beard braided with beads. It’s his trademark. His band was actually one of my favorites. They played Red Hot Chile Peppers covers we could sing along to. At a party like “Jeff Fest” one needs to be able to sing along once in a while.

Yep.  This just happened…

One step into Jeff Fest and you are one step closer to meeting a real-live groupie from… I dunno…  Poison, White Snake, Metallica or even Slayer maybe?

But seriously, these musicians became my new fascination. I loved the Christopher Hawley Rollers (last picture), who sounded a little like Jack Johnson, but BETTER. Yes, I said that.

And the Freelance Horn Section accompanied the artists on a few songs…

they rivaled any New Orleans jazz brass…

We love Jeff Fest – for all the quirky people and Metallica shirts roaming around, it is loads of fun and always offers up some great tunes.

It’s turned out to be an Asian fusion kinda night for me on two fronts: I made stir fry (yummy stir fry, I might add), and then when M.C. Nugget was walking a friend of ours out to his car after feasting on my glorious delicacy, he called me outside to see something. I walked out and the sky was black as night. Sprinkled upward from somewhere on the beach beyond, were asian ceremonial lanterns (sky lanterns) lit with candles being launched. Every few seconds another one went up. It was incredibly peaceful after my long, packed-schedule day.

When I say packed, I mean wake up at four o’clock in the f-ing morning packed, from that very moment, packed.

I woke up, started working and left the house for various commitments at 10 AM. I didn’t get back home until about 8 PM.

As I drove home from teaching a 5PM and 6PM Pilates class (after my full day, I might add), I was craving stir fry.

Shit. 

It’s not the craving that is so bad. It’s the getting the kind of stir fry I like that presents a challenge.  If I’m really craving “it” – the it I love – then I must make it.  The only restaurants I know that make stir fry the way I like it, are Teppanyaki restaurants (like Benihana). Stir fry must be fresh and crisp. There shall be no soggy vegetables in my stir fry, PERIOD.

It was after an incredibly long day involving one short film festival (where a film Nuggie was in, screened — he was INCREDIBLE, thank you very much) at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre in Hollywood, and an ungodly amount of traffic. The CARS, people!  Oh, and the PEOPLE… the oodles and eons, and overflowing and shooting out in front of me like a shaken up bottle of diet coke, PEOPLE.

Today the friggin’ IDIOT drivers that were let out of their insane asylums for some reason, seemed to unleash an inordinate amount of hostility from deep within the recesses of my soul.  I was throwing F-Bombs around like a millionaire throwing twenty dollar bills in a strip bar. I was making it rain f-bombs.

So, there was that.

Then Pilates.

Then my craving.

Shit.

I stopped at the store for all of the ingredients to make the most fabulous stir fry known to man, and arrived at home to Nuggie and a friend watching football.  THAT – believe it or not – was the best part of my day.  Cocktails, football, Nuggie, me and a kitchen where I could make my stir fry – the way I like it… The sky lanterns (in celebration of someone’s nuptials) were just the icing on the cake.

Not a bad way to put an end to a hectic day, eh?

Image credit: http://cebulights.com/a-wedding-in-vista-mar/

I am allergic to bees, so in my world, bees are normally the enemy. Something sort of like “reaction-osmosis” occurs between me and other flying insects too, which makes them suffer as well. Poor bastards. I am programmed to squeal and dart like a bat out of hell, arms flailing any time a bee (or any other insect remotely resembling a bee (osmosis part)) flies within five feet of my personal space (which is quite large). Knowing this, you could say it would be a cold day in hell, the day I ask the question “Got bees, anyone?”

THAT DAY HAS ARRIVED.

Because I’ve changed. People do, you know. As a mother of two boys, I can attest to the fact that people do change.

Ever since I read about the Plight of the Honey Bee, I realized how in danger we REALLY ARE of becoming seriously deprived of very important foods (DO NOT take my avocados away. You do NOT want to be around if that day ever comes, because I will cut people). It could happen. And all because of this nifty little invention that infused pesticides into seeds – “genetically modified seeds” (and now soil).

Ever since reading about that, I’ve been worried about the little buggers (pun intended). I’ve been looking high and low for the black and yellow creepers…even hoping to see them. It’s been very scant this summer.

I’m more than a little disturbed (even angered) that this hasn’t been dealt with swiftly… that production of the genetically modified seeds hasn’t been brought to a screeching halt and all affected soil taken to some dump some place far from any threat to humans. Aside from taking my steel spiked stilettos and using them as a weapon to bang some sense into the heads of — well, anyone involved, I’m not sure what else to do!

Is anything being done about this? And more importantly… do you have any bees?

THIS IS WHEN WE ARE SUPPOSED TO ASK WHY THERE IS NOT A PERSON IN CHARGE OF THIS PROBLEM.

And here is something. Apparently congress introduced a bill just this July to address part of the problem in the form of H.R. 2692- Saving America’s Pollinators Act of 2013, and you can read about that here. Then tell your member of congress to DO SOMETHING. Would you?

I need my bees, people.  We all do.