February 26, 27, 28 2010

Chris and Rich had invited me to go to Big Bear for the weekend with a bunch of Rich’s friends from work.  About 2 weeks prior I was chatting with 818 on gchat and asked him if he wanted to go with us. He didn’t give me a definitive answer. Like most men, he has a hard time committing to things even 8 hours out.  I think they fear saying yes just in case the Swedish bikini team calls and wants to stop by for an orgy. You never know when an opportunity like that might happen so they better not commit to plans of such mediocrity.  Anyways, after our delicious omelet last weekend I looked him in the eye and said “Are you coming to Big Bear with me next weekend?” and was pleasantly shocked when he pretended to look at his calendar on his iphone and gave me a YES and it was still 5 days away. Whoa.

There were 11 of us total but I had only met 3 of them aside from Chris and Rich… that is always a little bit of anxiety, ya know? Being trapped in a cabin in the woods with strangers who might behave like imbeciles or might just be royal assholes. Luckily this was a great group of people and we had a blast! We played board games, ate, drank, ate more, argued about Pictionary, went sledding, drank, ate and some of them went snowboarding/skiing.

Candace and Rich love to have dance parties. I have some hilarious shots of them that I am going to attempt to make into a little movie. Like those flip books you had as a kid.

Please explain to me how ANYONE would think that this was a cow?

Tranny, yes I got it in 2 seconds.

Candace wanted to make sure we didn’t run out of cheese so she brought 18 pounds of it.

I love this pic!

It was snowing for the better part of the day on Saturday so in the early evening a bunch of us went outside to the makeshift mountain in the backyard created out of the snowdrifts on the stairs that lead from the house to the edge of the lawn.  There was a little circular sled and they had set up a mini obstacle course where you had to touch the lawn gnome and hit the tree at the end. Naturally I wanted to do a helmet cam type thing and film the journey but while holding the camera I totally lost my balance on the sled, flipped completely upside down and then as if that wasn’t enough, the sled came and whacked me in the cranium. Check it out.

Here is the version from my camera, which you can see goes to white pretty quickly and all you can hear is laughter. Good thing these Canon’s are like disposables. I go through 2 or 3 every year.

This is precisely the moment that I hurt myself

And this is what the bruise looks like days later. Ouch. Oh yeah, that’s real attractive.

This is pretty funny too. 818 attempting a run.

On Saturday night some of them went into the hot tub outside despite my warnings of a flesh eating virus that might be lurking in there. (One time while shooting a wedding in Yosemite the entire wedding party got some nasty rash from the spa at the cabin we stayed at. For whatever reason that trip, I did not go in and I was the only one who escaped the disgusting  skin disease.) I think they are all safe… I haven’t heard anything.

Of course Rich and I had a food fight and I end up looking like Cameron Diaz from “Something About Mary” with frosting in my hair. I was pretty buzzed and every time I kept throwing stuff at him it was like slo-mo for me and he would duck and the goo would land on the cabinet or the floor. I tried to nail him 3 times and finally realized that I was sucking at this today and should give up. I called “truce” three times and then went right back at it. Rich learned that truce doesn’t mean shit to me until the 3^rd or 4^th time.

I had big plans to make white truffle popcorn on Saturday night but got drunk and forgot so I made it on Sunday morning for a snack after our breakfast. Kevin stopped by the stove and was eyeballing my supplies and asked if I always traveled with truffle oil, truffle salt, truffle butter and rendered duck fat.  I was like “Yeah Kevin, I NEVER go to Big Bear without rendered duck fat!” It was pretty funny, but I guess you had to be there.

Awkward moment #1 of the weekend was when 818 and I forgot that the walls were paper thin and everyone in the house heard us going at it.  Awkward moment #2 was when Josh asked me if my hip was swollen from my tumble on the stairs and me telling him that no, that was just my fat.

Here is Candace with a paper airplane stuck in her hair.

The drive home was beautiful! The sun was shining and it was melting the snow and it was so pretty to look and see it falling off the trees.

It was a wonderful relaxing weekend.