Tag Archives: happy hour

Happy Hour Inspiration (or Just Having Fun After Work)

Posted on April 16, 2015 | Comments Off

It’s been a while since I had a happy hour outing with my friend Rayshell, so I’m glad that we got to do one this week. We met at Westside Tavern which is pretty close to my house. The last time I was there was with my parents, so I was happy to go back.

As always, it was fun to catch up with Rayshell. We’ve both had some big things happening in our lives and sometimes just seeing news on social media isn’t enough.

We talked about my grandpa some as well as my workouts and new medication. And she talked about some stuff going on in her life like her acting career.

While we were talking about our acting careers, Rayshell said something to me that really inspired me. There’s something that we are hoping to do. And while I can’t share much now, I think that we are getting some really great people interested in this and hopefully our idea will become a reality soon.

I love that just hanging out with a friend and talking about life can inspire something so big in my head. The rest of the dinner, we just talked about this idea and it kind of revitalized me after a kind of crazy day at my day job (it was a day where all the customers were asking questions that either I didn’t know the answers to or could only be answered by the producers at each location).

It was also nice to have something fun in my day when things have been stressful for about 2 weeks. Besides everything with my grandpa, I’m still worried about my grandma and that hasn’t been resolved yet (and probably won’t be for another month or two). Even though it’s important to focus on family and make sure that everyone is taken care of, I need to remember to take time out for myself so I don’t lose myself in worrying about everyone else.

Dinner itself was nice and relaxing. I had been careful what I ate earlier in the day so I could enjoy my meal. And I did make a decent choice (there were definitely much worse entrees I could have chosen) and I enjoyed what I ate. Having meals like this make my boring meals most of the time totally worth it. And those boring meals are necessary if I want to be able to go out for meals and not worry too much about it (although in my head I was still feeling a little guilty because I could have chosen something healthier).

Since Rayshell had to a farther drive home than I did, we didn’t stay at dinner too long. But it really was a perfect hangout to help get me out of the house and back to feeling more normal than I have been.

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Posted in Food, Fun Stuff

Tagged acting, dinner, friends, happy hour, inspiration, meal planning

Having Water At A Wine Bar (or Getting A Temporary Job)

Posted on January 28, 2015 | 1 comment

Continuing my attempts to not become a hermit during the cleanse, I went out to Bottle Rock, one of my favorite wine bars this week.

While everything on the menu is amazing (I love their mac and cheese), because of my limitations on the cleanse, all I could have was water. While staring at the menu drinking my water, I did decide that Bottle Rock will be a place I go to for happy hour soon after my cleanse ends.

My reason for going to Bottle Rock was a good one (not just to drink water). I was meeting my old boss from my last telesales job. He is now working at a new theater company and had something to discuss with me.

It turns out, they need someone to work for a few weeks to help sell tickets for their gala this year. It’s a similar job to what I did for this boss before, but instead of selling show tickets, it would be gala tickets. And I would be the only person doing this, so all the commissions would be mine!

Of course, I said I’d take the job! It should start in a week or two and the job will probably only last a few weeks, but anything for extra money is great right now! And since it’s another commission job, there’s no limit to how much I can make in those few weeks.

And if I do a good job selling gala tickets (which I think I will) there might be another opportunity for me toward the end of spring to work for that theater company again and help them work on their renewals for their ticket holders.

The best thing about this new job is that since I am the only person working and it’s my old boss running things, he’s super cool about my current schedule. I’m probably going to work for him in the evening when I don’t work my current box office job and only on evenings when I don’t go to Orangetheory.

This is exactly what I need right now. While I wish that it was a longer job than a few weeks, anything that I can get right now will help. I feel so grateful that of all the telesales staff that worked at that old job with me, my boss chose me to come and work with him on this campaign. It proves to me that I am a good salesperson and that I will always be able to use this boss as a job reference if needed.

Since it doesn’t start for a few weeks, I’m still looking for other jobs that I can do either while I’m working my box office job or outside of my work and workout hours. I’m going to meet someone who is a friend of a friend who needs some organizing work done in their house. That might turn into something, but they are about an hour drive away from my house, so I have to see if I can devote enough time to it to make a 2 hour commute each time worth it.

I don’t want to get too optimistic and think that my job situation is getting to where I need it to be, because it isn’t. But these are all steps in the right direction and gives me hope that it won’t be long until it all works out.

1 Comment

Posted in Food, Fun Stuff, Work

Tagged happy hour, job, wine, work

Happy Hour and Happiness (or I’m On Another Blog Now)

Posted on September 26, 2014 | 4 comments

After working my at-home job yesterday, I headed over to the valley to meet my friend Rayshell for Happy Hour. I hadn’t seen Rayshell since my birthday party and we both had a lot of catching up to do.

It was a super fun happy hour. We were able to get drinks and food for $5 each. And of course, I had a Dirty Shirley.

Sometimes the stress of working and trying to find more work makes me forget to go out and have fun with my friends. And this was the perfect chance to have a relaxing Happy Hour with an awesome friend.

We were catching up on my new job and Rayshell’s current job when my phone alerted me that someone @replied me on twitter. I glanced at my phone and saw that casting director Marci Liroff had included me in a tweet.

A little backstory.

Last month, Marci sent me an email asking about my tips and tricks for preparing for the fall tv season. I was more than happy to share my advice as well and send her the links to all the posts that I’ve written about the subject.

Marci thanked me and told me that she was working on an article for Backstage on the topic and asked what she could share of my advice. I told her that she could share everything that she wanted to. I feel like sharing my knowledge won’t hurt my career, so why not?

The article hadn’t gone up by the time the fall tv season started, so I thought maybe she changed her mind on the article. But at Happy Hour yesterday, that tweet was Marci sharing that the article had gone live and that it included advice (or as she put it “golden nuggets”) from me!

Of course, as soon as I saw that, I had to look at the article on my phone (Rayshell wanted to see it to).

And it’s awesome.

A lot of my advice in the article is stuff that I’ve shared on here before. But by having it in Backstage, the advice is reaching much bigger audience than I get here.

I was so excited to be a part of this article and honored and a little surprised that I was the only actor who Marci used for advice. I really feel like this means that I am doing the right things when it comes to research. And all this research will eventually lead to a great acting job for me.

I just have to be patient and be grateful that my advice is respected in this industry.

4 Comments

Posted in Acting, Celebrations, Food, Fun Stuff

Tagged acting, blogging, casting director, friends, happy hour

Happy Hour Party (or Getting To See Co-Workers Again)

Posted on June 19, 2014 | Comments Off

This week was the end of the year party for the theater I work at. We had a party last year at the end of the season, but that was when I was still working in telesales and I was working 6 days a week.

Now that I’m in the box office, I’m lucky if I’m there 1 day a week. And even though I’ve been back for a while, some people didn’t know that I was back until a staff meeting that we had last month. Everyone works in an office building across the street from the theater except for the box office staff. We, obviously, work in the box office that is attached to the theater. So unless someone is coming over to the box office for some reason, they never see us.

I’m still getting used to being back. It’s weird to work in a job that is so similar yet so different from what I’m used to doing. While I do know some things, there are so many things that in telesales we couldn’t do. So I’m still learning a lot every day.

Also, I’m used to this time being the busiest (and most profitable for me) time of the year. But in the box office, we maybe get 1 phone call over a 3 hour shift. We don’t have tickets on sale yet to the public, so we don’t have a ton of work we have to do.

Anyway, back to the party.

Before the party, there was a staff meeting and then we all headed over to Bodega (yes, where my 30th birthday party was last year). Bodega is only about 3 blocks from the theater, so it’s super convenient. I used to go to Bodega all the time. But that was also when I worked in telesales until 5:30 on Wednesdays and wanted to wait out rush hour traffic. Since being laid off from telesales, I haven’t been back.

It was free food and drinks for everyone, which made it pretty fun. I only had 1 cocktail since it was only 2pm and I knew I had work to do at my house later.

We played some random games like get-to-know-you BINGO where it turns out I’m the only person who works at the theater who has been to Africa. But honestly, it was just a nice time to get to chat with people who I don’t really get to see at work. Again, some people forgot that I had been brought back to work in the box office. I’m the only person from the telesales team who is back.

After 3 hours of hanging out with everyone, I headed back home. It’s nice to be social with co-workers and I feel like the fact that I was social before is one of the reasons that I was asked to come back to work. Building relationships with people always helps and I’m glad that when I was let go I had left a positive enough impression for them to want me back.

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Posted in Celebrations, Food, Fun Stuff, Work

Tagged happy hour, job, party, theater, work

Bar Food Hangout (or A Quick Friend Catch Up)

Posted on April 8, 2014 | Comments Off

As I mentioned before on here, my friend Kate moved back up to Northern California for an awesome job. It sucked that she moved away, but I understand having to do something for a job that you love.

She finally got a new apartment and she had to come down to LA to get the rest of her stuff. The plan for me originally was to go and help her move things into a van after doing the 5K, but since I was in so much pain (and she had enough help), I decided to just join in for the dinner portion of the day.

I have to say that I totally forgot to take photos of my meal, so I’m sorry. But, as always, I ordered a Dirty Shirley. We also ordered some food for the table and I got some mac and cheese.

But the highlight of the evening wasn’t the good food, it was the good company. Kate’s boyfriend also made the trip down so it was great to get to chat with him some more. And everyone else at the table was someone who I had already met, so that was awesome as well. In fact, two of the girls at the table and I all got season tickets for the Pantages Theater together.

We were at Bar Food for several hours just chatting about everything and nothing at the same time. The food was all great, but I’m sad to say that the service kind of stunk. People who ordered non-alcoholic drinks were charged for alcoholic drinks (and the manager claimed that she put alcohol in them). We also had things we ordered not come to the table until we prompted the waitress and the wrong dessert was brought over to the table as well. And when it came time for the bill, the waitress made it so much more complicated than it needed to be.

I joked that the service was a sign that this was the end of the good times at Bar Food. I’m sure some of the other people will go again (since they live super close to it), but I think unless I’m doing something in that neighborhood I probably won’t be going back.

Now that Kate’s getting settled in her new apartment, I’m getting excited to visit her in the future. I’m not sure when I’ll be going up, but my summer is starting to get filled with fun weekend adventures so I hope I’ll be planning that soon.

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Posted in Celebrations, Food, Fun Stuff

Tagged alcohol, bar, dinner, friends, happy hour, moving

One More Outing To Bar Food (or A Friend Leaving LA)

Posted on February 28, 2014 | Comments Off

After my training at the new job, I headed back over to my side of town to go see my friend Kate. Kate is moving away from LA today and I wanted to go and hang out with her before she left.

It’s been a fun novelty to have my best friend living in the same city as me. We grew up living close to each other. When we went to college, I moved here to LA and she moved to Minnesota. While I’ve been in LA for 12 1/2 years (wow, I’ve been here a long time!), Kate has moved around. She’s lived in Minnesota, Ireland, Missouri, Alabama, and Washington State. I’ve visited her over the years (only to Minnesota and Washington) but when she moved here about a year an a half ago, it was awesome!

It had been so long since we lived an easy driving distance away from each other (or in the same state). We’ve had some awesome adventures and I got to show Kate why I think that LA is the most amazing place to live.

But Kate’s boyfriend lives up in the Bay Area and she got a job offer up there, so she has to leave. When I went over to her apartment, I kept her company while she did some packing. We also spent a while reminiscing about funny stories that happened in high school. It was a pretty fun afternoon.

Once Kate got most of her packing for that day done, we headed out for dinner. Kate’s roommate, Beth, joined us as well. We just walked across the street to go to Bar Food. They don’t have free happy hour hot dogs anymore (they are now $2 each), but we all wanted to get some real dinner.

We started off with getting some drinks, where of course I ordered a Dirty Shirley.

We ordered some spicy edamame to share for the table (I forgot to take a picture but it was really yummy!) and for my dinner, I ordered mac and cheese.

It was the perfect dinner for a rainy evening. We also got some bread pudding for dessert, but of course I forgot to get a picture of that too.

While I’m sad that my best friend is moving out-of-town, I’m happy for her. She’s moving closer to her boyfriend and her new job is really amazing. She’s going to kick butt there. Plus, it’s only a short flight to the Bay Area and I go up there anyway to see my parents. So hopefully we will hang out more than we did when she lived in another state.

So if you are reading this in the morning, please think good driving thoughts for Kate. She’s driving up north with 2 cats in the backseat, one of whom is a good traveler and one that she’s not too sure of yet.

And I’m sure that the next time that Kate and I hang out, it will be another amazing adventure!

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Posted in Celebrations, Family, Food, Fun Stuff, Tough Stuff

Tagged dinner, friends, happy hour, Santa Monica

One Last Work Happy Hour (or I Guess I Really Am Unemployed Now)

Posted on January 31, 2014 | 1 comment

To be perfectly honest, it didn’t hit me that I’m actually unemployed until yesterday. Before then, it just felt like one of our usual breaks from work. But it’s now sinking it that I don’t have a job to go back to in a few weeks.

It’s actually been a while since I was really unemployed. In 2011 I started working at a credit card dispute company. I worked there until I got my telesales job in May of 2012. I’ve had plenty of times that I’ve been out of work, but this time feels so different because I had been working pretty steadily for a while.

Part of the reason the unemployment is starting to sink in is because I only have one more show shift at work. I’m working tonight, and then after that, they might not have any people working a member table at shows anymore. If they do bring it back, it won’t be for a few months. I’m still trying to see if there is another position open for me at my old work, but it’s not looking too good.

Another reason this is all hitting me now is because yesterday was the goodbye happy hour for my boss. Everyone in telesales was invited as well, but I was the only one who could make it.

Everyone else at my work is still pretty much in shock that our entire department was let go. All through happy hour people kept asking me what I knew about the lay offs and what my plan was to do next. I wish I had a plan, but right now, I’m just trying to get my cover letters and resumes in order and start going crazy with applying for jobs.

Happy hour was fun, but it definitely had a somber vibe to it. I think that with so many people being let go at once, everyone is feeling a little insecure about their jobs.

After most of the people left happy hour, there were still a few of us who wanted to hang out and get some dinner. We had a great time just chatting about crazy things that have happened at work and random facts about our lives.

It’s a little sad that most of the people I worked with I didn’t know too well. The trailer that the telesales team was in was a little isolated, but I always tried to make an effort to get to know people. But I have to say that at the dinner part of the happy hour hangout, I got to know my co-workers better than I had in the entire time I worked there.

Eventually, we all had to head home. Everyone else had to be at work early the next morning and I just wanted to get home (it’s a bit drizzly out and my hip was killing me).

Tonight will probably be my final goodbye to my workplace. I know that I’m going to see some of my co-workers again (we are trying to organize a monthly get together even if we are all working in different places), but it does feel like I’m closing a chapter on my life. Hopefully the next chapter just gets better from here.

1 Comment

Posted in Celebrations, Food, Fun Stuff, Work

Tagged happy hour, job, laid off, unemployment

M Street Kitchen (or A Happy Hour Adventure At Lunchtime)

Posted on May 28, 2013 | 1 comment

I used to go on a bunch of happy hour adventures with my friend Kate. It just happened to work out that she and I both had Wednesday evenings free. But Kate’s schedule changed recently and we can’t do happy hour adventures any more.

But we were able to meet up for lunch this past Friday and catch up (it was the first time I had seen her since the horrible 5K). We decided to check out M Street Kitchen. I had actually never heard of it before, but Kate’s sister had gone there this month and loved it. Plus, it was close to my work so I didn’t have to go far for lunch.

I had checked out the menu online before, but I was still a bit undecided when we got there.

But I did know pretty quickly what I wanted to drink. I’m still diet soda free (with the exception of the calorie-free sparkling flavored water I get every once in a while). I’ve been trying to find drink that I like that aren’t sodas, and one that I’ve re-discovered is iced chai lattes. I get a non-fat one from Starbucks maybe once a week or so. I need to start keeping milk in my house so that I can make them at home.

But I will say, the iced chai latte (even though it wasn’t non-fat) was pretty yummy at M Street Kitchen.

For my lunch, I got the BBQ turkey sandwich. It was good, but it wasn’t quite what I was expecting. First of all, it was a bit spicier than I thought it would be. Also, somehow in my mind, I thought the turkey would be ground turkey (like a turkey burger). This was sliced. But it was still a filling sandwich.

Over lunch, Kate and I discussed our plan for the 5K that we are doing this Friday. Since it’s a nighttime 5K (my first evening one), we wanted some glow-sticks. So I made a stop at Party City to pick some up, along with a few other items for me which you will see in my recap post next week.

Even though I miss my happy hour adventures, lunchtime adventures are pretty much just as good!

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Posted in Food, Fun Stuff

Tagged adventure, happy hour, lunch, Santa Monica

Having Something To Celebrate (or Another Bodega Happy Hour)

Posted on February 21, 2013 | Comments Off

Yesterday, my friend Rayshell and I had a happy hour hangout. We hadn’t seen each other in forever (I’m pretty sure the last time was at her New Year’s party). And since it was my early day at work, a happy hour adventure fit in perfectly with our schedules.

We met at Bodega, which is right down the street from my work and one of my favorite happy hour spots.

And it worked out perfectly to meet up today, because I had something to celebrate.

After all the craziness at my work with not shutting down like we thought we would, it was finally decided that we were going to have a temporary shut down in March. So as of right now (and this will probably change 100 times), next Thursday is my last day at my current day job until possibly sometime in April.

I’m so beyond excited for this! I will be filing for unemployment benefits so I will have a little money to get me through this time, and I’m hoping to get some substitute teaching jobs next month as well.

So after I told Rayshell my fun news, we got down to ordering some great happy hour foods!

We had the bruschetta (which is one of my favorite things at Bodega).

And we also split the grilled cheese and bbq sliders based on the recommendation of our server, Wade. He was totally right on the recommendations (and decided to be in this picture of our food).

Overall, it was another wonderful happy hour adventure with a wonderful friend.

Now I get to spend the next week preparing for my unemployment. This includes getting my paperwork filed for my benefits, trying to see if there are any substitute teaching jobs at my old job for me, and cleaning out my desk at work (I am a post-it fiend and need to start tossing some out).

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Posted in Celebrations, Food, Fun Stuff, Work

Tagged happy hour, job, unemployment, work

Bar Chloe (or How Being A Blogger Got Me A Free Drink)

Posted on January 16, 2013 | Comments Off

Since Monday was my one real day off this week, after I recovered from spinning class, I went out for happy hour.

A friend of mine had suggested Bar Chloe. She had been there before and liked it, although she had mentioned that it wasn’t the cheapest happy hour in town. We decided to carpool since the parking structures in Santa Monica are only free for 90 minutes now.

As I got to my friend’s house to pick her up at 5:30, I looked at the website for the bar and realized that it didn’t open until 6pm. We took our time getting to the bar (and the fact that many lights were out at intersections helped kill some time), and ended up getting to the bar just a few minutes after 6pm.

When we got there, the place was totally empty. But it allowed us to chat with the bartender a lot (I never got his name). The bartender mentioned that he had dreamed up a drink the night before. He wanted to make a Hot Toddy with cherries and brandy and asked us if we’d like to try one. We both agreed.

While we were waiting for the drinks to be mixed up, I took a look around and got a couple of pictures of the place (sorry I only had my iPhone with me).

The bartender was looking at me strangely as I took the pictures, so I explained that I was a blogger and wanted to write a post about my happy hour adventure there. He asked me about the blog a bit, and then my friend and I decided to check out the food options with happy hour prices.

$5 bites! Not too bad. I had a grilled cheese (I earned it from burning so many calories at Soul Cycle), and my friend had calamari. And just before we ordered, the bartender brought over our specialty drinks.

It was pretty yummy and reminded me of a cherry Lifesaver. I had never had brandy before, and it turns out I don’t totally love it, so I only had about 1/5 of that glass (but it was sure nice to have something to warm me up!).

When the bartender handed us our drinks, he looked at me and said that mine was on the house since I was going to blog about them (I feel like I need to disclose that fact).

That was totally unexpected but appreciated.

Overall, I have to say that Bar Chloe was a pretty fun night out. I think the next time I go I’ll order a drink that I know I’ll like (like a Dirty Shirley), and maybe try some food off of the regular menu.

But I will totally be back, but not before 6pm for happy hour!

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Posted in Food, Fun Stuff

Tagged drinks, food, happy hour, Santa Monica

Tag Archives: happy hour

Happy Hour Inspiration (or Just Having Fun After Work)

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Having Water At A Wine Bar (or Getting A Temporary Job)

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Happy Hour and Happiness (or I’m On Another Blog Now)

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Happy Hour Party (or Getting To See Co-Workers Again)

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Bar Food Hangout (or A Quick Friend Catch Up)

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One More Outing To Bar Food (or A Friend Leaving LA)

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One Last Work Happy Hour (or I Guess I Really Am Unemployed Now)

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M Street Kitchen (or A Happy Hour Adventure At Lunchtime)

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Having Something To Celebrate (or Another Bodega Happy Hour)

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Bar Chloe (or How Being A Blogger Got Me A Free Drink)

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