Nicole Tasker Woods

In August, I am flying to Manchester, NH to spend a few days at home in Northwood. Then my mom and I are flying from Boston to Paris, where we will meet up with Ryan and his mom where our EuroTrip 2010 will begin. After a week in Paris, we are picking up a rental car and heading to Bruge for a couple of days and then off to London.

I am excited to be in Paris again. I went for two weeks during the summer after my Junior year in high school and obviously did not appreciate it like I will when we go this year. In high school, I was young and stupid and all I thought about on that Paris trip was how much I missed my high school beau. I did, however, go with my best friend at the time and we had a blast. We made a lot of great memories and when I think back to it now, in all of those memories, we were rolling in laughter. It is a shame that growing up sometimes means growing apart.

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Burger King has added a glorious item to their menu…funnel cake sticks! They come with a side of frosting for dipping and were the perfect afternoon snack/dessert. After enjoying our low calorie, low fat soups and frozen dishes, we were still hungry and decided to head to Burger King to see if the rumor of funnel cake sticks was really true. And yes, yes it was. We walked in the doors, the smell of sugary fried dough hitting our faces and waking up our senses. We ordered three boxes and split them between the two of us. It was delightful!

For Christmas, my sister-in-law, Brady, got me Perfect Brownies–a kit that comes with everything you need to make perfectly cut brownies. Now, I’m not very adventurous when it comes to baked goods. I would rather hop in the car and head to the nearest grocery store and pick up a box of cookies or a cake from the bakery instead of baking something myself. But ever since the funnel-cake-maker was such a huge hit in the past few weeks, I had to give the brownies a go. When I was at the store picking up groceries for that week, I picked up the first package of brownie mix I saw that looked chocolaty enough to not suck even if I did screw it up. But I did not read the back of the mix where it called for an 8″ square baking pan and in retrospect, I should have used two packages instead of just one. However, I cut the baking time down by 10 minutes and the brownies I ended up with were near perfect.

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Turn over in warm sheets
Cali groans out a complaint to the
WAKE UP morning buzz

Numbly apply clothing
Tie shoelaces and plod to the rhythm of a
WAKE UP morning buzz

Over-cream my coffee
In a call-your-mother mug drinking
WAKE UP morning buzz

Copyright © 2010 N.E. Tasker

Last weekend I had dental work done so my mouth was numb for about 4 hours after the drilling stopped. Despite not being able to feel anything, I got a headache that grew more irritating the more the Novocaine wore off. By the time I got home, I went right to bed to sleep off the numbness in an attempt to forget about the ache in my jaw.

That day, Ryan and I had wanted to take Cali for a hike because the weather was perfect for such an outing, but I was quickly passed out so the two of them went without me. I woke up a few hours later to an empty house and used the time alone to take some pain meds and nurse myself back to normalcy. Then Ryan returned from the hike with a super excited basenji. I had never seen her so happy!

Apparently there was a laguna and small water fall at the end of the hiking trail called Wildwood. In addition to a big smile, Cali was also sporting patches of mud on her stomach and in between her toes, but she had so much fun jumping and splashing in the shallow water that she did not mind me dragging her into the shower to get cleaned off.

I look forward to Wildwood this weekend if the weather improves so that I can see our dog enjoying herself firsthand. If I remember a camera or flip, I’ll share the festivities online.

I think my career as paparazzi is not going to be a successful one. I do not enjoy standing for five hours straight in the cold and got sick of saying things like:

• You look wonderful tonight, who are you wearing?
• What a nice handbag!
• Are you here to play pool or just chill?
• Please come up and smile for the camera!
• Love it, own it, work it!

I arrived at 3:00pm yesterday to help get the rooms in the pool hall ready with the raffle prizes and tickets and then at 4:00pm, me and the rest of the paparazzi lined up on the red carpet to take pictures of the first guests to arrive. I was into it for the first 20 minutes, but it quickly turned into robotic motions that we were doing over and over again. However, I was happy to help out because 1) it got me out of work and 2) it was for a really great cause.

When the last radio personality guest star arrived at 8:00pm, me and four other paparazzi were cut loose to head inside and join the festivities which were hours from winding down.

Ryan had bought me 50 raffle tickets so we put all of them in the pot for the pair of Laker tickets and parking passes. We grabbed some food and watched our friends compete in the pool tournament but then were ready to leave at 10:00pm when the winners of the tournament were announced. However, we did not win the raffle but hey, it was for charity, right?!

Tonight I am volunteering at the Variety Children’s Charity Annual Pool Tournament. Variety is a charity that is heavily supported by people and companies in the film industry so I am always in the loop on these events, but this is my first year participating. I do hate pool, so I told the event planner that as long as I didn’t have to play pool or count money, I’d help out in any other way!

After a few back-and-forth emails, I was assigned as paparazzi at this event. I’m not exactly sure what that entails, but I was told there is a red carpet and that I will be given a camera–pretty self explanatory, huh? I’m actually pretty excited about doing it and look forward to getting there and helping out!

Three weeks ago I was rear-ended on the freeway because some 16-year-old idiot fell asleep at the wheel. You know how I know that? Because he told the Officer Hottie that during questioning and let’s be honest, if you were going to lie, you should have said something less stupid.

After the kid got squared away, the cops let him drive away in his little pick up truck because it was leaking fluids. I on the other hand had to hang out in the light drizzle at 5:30pm at night waiting for my mother-in-law to come pick me up. I was lucky to have four extremely good looking CHP officers attend to my accident. They were really nice and kept giving me and my mother-in-law updates on the status of the tow truck while we waiting in the warmth of her car.

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In the mornings on Monday thru Friday, Ryan and I have a very specific routine.

I get up at 5:50am and blindly shuffle from my alarm to the hallway and silently close the bedroom door behind me, leaving Ryan and Cali cuddling in the warm covers of a very warm bed.

I change into my workout clothes I have waiting for me in the guest bathroom and plod downstairs, slip on my sneakers, hoodie, ipod and headphones, beanie and gloves (it’s THAT cold). I do some basic stretches to loosen up the usual tight spots: legs, back, hamstrings. Then I open the front door, click on the outside light and start to jog, eyes still half closed. The cool air has woken me up by the time I exit our complex and head towards to streets surrounding Cal Lutheran University, which are always lit.

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My trip to Boston for my birthday weekend was a success! For those of you who do not know, Ryan surprised me with plane tickets to Boston for my birthday. I visited with friends and reserved Birthday-Sunday for my favorite cousin Carrie–we had a blast! We did lots of shopping and talking during the day (I finally got to see her awesome house!) and then we met up with the Wheaties (Ryan, Luke, Christina and Aubry) for dinner at the Melting Pot at the Providence Place Mall in Rhode Island.

This is probably my favorite restaurant. I just love the flavors and being able to leisurely cook my own food and make conversation. The cheese and chocolate are what I look forward to the most! The bartender made me a birthday-cake-martini to enjoy with my chocolate fondue and it had a candle on top so that I could make a wish before blowing it out.

The cold weather was a bit of a cold shock, but we survived it. Monday was the only bad weather day and it was like we were in a monsoon–we got so soaked! But that is the day we went to the Renaissance Hotel at Patriot Place for massages and some much needed relaxing time in the steam room.

The flights were pretty agreeable as well. We flew JetBlue so we had Direct TV there and back as well as near empty flights so we were able to stretch out.  I was excited to go to Boston for a quick birthday trip and while I had a great time, I was so happy to be home in Los Angeles cuddling with my Cali under the covers.