On the heels of the best (40th) birthday party of my life I am sad to say that I had to put my cat Caesar down this morning. I know he intentionally waited until after the festivities to make it clear he was really really tired of fighting off anemia and kidney disease. He has always gone more than the distance for me.

I’m not in the right space to blog much right now, but I did want to post a little tribute to my beloved cat, who was a greater companion than I ever could have imagined.

Caesar has always been one of life’s most miraculous gifts to me. So much more than a pet, he has shared virtually every adult experience I’ve had, from college to my L.A stint to Napa life to marriage and child rearing. He has helped me though the best and the roughest times, never ran out of hugs and kisses, and even literally let me know that my husband Colie was the one for me. When I got pregnant, he shared in my excitement, regularly draping himself across or hugging my bulging tummy, and when our new baby finally arrived, he acted like a proud parent and dashed into my lap to meet Viva the second we got home from the hospital. He also raced to her room whenever she cried just to make sure she was okay and grinned and beared it when she’d clumsily hug and kiss him.

After 20 years together I hardly know what life is like without him. I wish I didn’t have to find out. Fortunately I have half a lifetime of love, memories, and the knowledge that he had a wonderful life to get me through.

RIP Caesar, my most beloved and spectacular friend.

Erika Lenkert

Love This Story? Buzz It Up Here!

Stumble It! Save to del.icio.us Digg Email Facebook

Know the difference between a very successful person and a dreamer? Execution.

I remind myself of this all the time when I see ideas I once had brought to fruition by someone else. During the first Gulf War I wrote down a book idea. Six years later the same concept received a Best Sceenplay Oscar nomination under the movie title “Wag the Dog.”

Striptease aerobics? Mine, too. In 1997, I blew the lid off of L.A.’s underground celebrity topless-club hangouts Crazy Girls and Cheetahs (the latter once featured topless Pussycat Dolls–long before they went PG-13). After noticing their popularity among female customers I approached a strip club manager about creating a ladies’-only night during which women could come and drink cocktails, dress up in stripperwear, and learn how to pole dance from pros as their peers cheered them on. At 9pm the doors would swing open to male guests, and you’d have a club full of very buzzed, confident, sexually charged people. What could be more L.A.?

I guess technically the idea was more like strip karaoke, but WHATEVER. I’m still convinced it’d be a very viable business. But alas, I couldn’t envision myself as an executive of exotic affairs.

But here’s a wild freshly executed idea that came to me…today via press release. It’s kooky fun and something I never would have thought of in a million years: the hula hoop work out.

Called “Hoopnotica,” it integrates electronic music and matching groovy dance moves with a fad that was resurrected by the Burning Man crowd in 2003.

You really must watch this video:

Word is there are wait lists for Hoopnotic Hoopdance classes in L.A., Vogue called it one of the “25 new obsessions for 2007,” and celebrity hoopers include Beyonce, Kate Moss and Sandra Oh.

But if you’re not in L.A. and want to join in on the hoopla, an instructional DVD provides home hoop therapy and the nifty new pack-and-go TravelHoop allows you to take your show on the road this summer.

I can hardly wait for the US Weekly spreads of Matthew McConaughey caught by paparazzi while getting his hoop on along the Santa Monica shore.

Who’d have thunk the next core body strengthening exercise regime would come from an act usually reserved for the circus or play date? Certainly not me, but it’s quite possible that life in the NorCal ‘burbs has me a touch out of the hoop.

Erika Lenkert

Technorati Tags: exercise, lose weight, tip, hula hoop, hoopnotic, celebrities, trends, Beyonce, Kate Moss and Sandra Oh, pussycat dolls, Matthew McConaughey

Love This Story? Buzz It Up Here!

Stumble It! Save to del.icio.us Digg Email Facebook

So, I finished my pregnancy book last week. It was due on April 1, but my editor kindly gave me some slack since she pushed up the deadline by two months because halfway through my writing it she got pregnant and she’s about to embark on maternity leave. (You go, Anja!)

I say, “I finished” because I turned in all the chapters. But there’s still the matter of the introduction, acknowledgements, and bibliography—and at this point I’d rather hand wash the wall-to-wall carpeting than write another word. So, I’ve come up with the day’s favorite modes of procrastination. If you’ve got something you should be doing, perhaps you too can consider these fun festivities instead:

1. Play around on Funny Or Die, a site forwarded to me by my brother-in-law where you watch videos and vote on their humor level. Highlights include “Masturbation”—a five-second flick sure to make you chuckle—”The Landlord” featuring Will Farrell and an unlikely co-star, and the following “Perry Hilton with Jeremy Piven” where you will see Los Angeles intellect at its most, like, totally awesome. Because, DUDE!, life is tasty.

2. Browse my friend Bonnie’s new well-edited Mother’s Day gift selection on violet.com.

3. Consider where I will escape to write now that I have a freak stalker at my local Starbucks.

4. Ponder which of my talented up-and-coming designer friends I can encourage to enter Glam.com’s just-launched Be Discovered contest in conjunction with Marie Claire magazine. Participants submit a sketch of their own handbag desing, finalists get their bags created, and the winner heads to NYC to act as guest accessories editor for the day at Marie Claire. Cooool.

5. Take a Domaine Ott Chateau de Selle Rosé break to entertain my friends Hiro Sone and Lissa Doumani, the owners of San Francisco’s Ame and St. Helena’s Terra restaurants, who dropped by to give me my birthday present. (Who says rosé is solely for summer?!)

6. Rock some Skynyrd (yes, I’m a closet rocker) on the aforementioned personalized gift, a Fender Squier Mini, which has got to be the best 40-year-old christening ever. It’s second in the midlife crisis category only to a red Ferrari. (The latter wouldn’t have worked for me, since it doesn’t accommodate a baby seat in the back.) Check it:

Can’t you almost hear it screaming through your computer? Sooooooo coooool.

7. Feel faintly guilty that my husband is again eating Morning Os for dinner–and then make him a chicken quesadilla after his second bowl.

8. Proudly pass over “American Idol” now that it is sayonara to Sanjaya. He may have sucked but he was the only truly amusing part of this year’s ho-hum show. (Bring back Buckey! He was hit and miss, but at least he satisfied my clandestine southern rock craving.)

9. Browse my sister site GlamScene for the latest Hollywood dirt.

10. Write a blog.

Technorati Tags: celebrities, electric guitar, Jeremy Piven, wine, domaine ott, funny or die, Will Farrell, American Idol

Love This Story? Buzz It Up Here!

Stumble It! Save to del.icio.us Digg Email Facebook

So I was thumbing through this month’s issue of Every Day with Rachael Ray to see my “Dress Up Dinner” article. It’s one of my favorite ongoing assignments because it takes a real-life approach to entertaining rather than the aspirational and generally unrealistic propositions that plague most entertaining magazines today.

It also forces me to get into the kitchen and be creative rather than wolf down a quick salad in the afternoon and leave my kitchen-challenged hubby no choice but to eat Morning Os (organic Cheerios) for dinner for the eighth time this month.

May’s Dress Up Dinner showcases fun ways to transform a weeknight meal (a basic Mexican burrito, salad, and hot chocolate) into a Cinco de Mayo fiesta complete with quesadillas, black bean cakes, chips and mango salsa, and Mexican chocolate fondue. (All the recipes are available on the website.)

Mexican Chocolate Fondue

Tasty tips include fast and fab decor tricks, my favorite of which is a luminaria made from a carved bell pepper. Coming up with ideas such as this actually keeps me up at night. (Wait until you see the August issue! It showcases my alltime favorite creative use of popcorn.)

ANYWAY, I was thumbing through the magazine when I stumbled upon an absolutely genius floral arrangement submitted by maternity fashion designer Liz Lange. Feast your eyes on this:

Steal this idea for your next brunch. All you need to do is top a teacup and saucer with another saucer and then top that with a teapot filled with flowers.

This, which appeared in a past issue, is kinda cool too.

By the way, whether you’re a Rach fan or not, check out her magazine. It’s run by a crackerjack New York team–with lots of input and recipes from the Yum-O queen herself as well as lots of expert contributors. It may be the cleverest, approachable, and fun food rag on the racks today. (And yes, I would still think that was the case if I weren’t a contributor. One of my all-time favorite editors, James Beard Award-winning Maile Carpenter, is there and the girl is a food and wine rock star.)

Technorati Tags: Rachael Ray, recipes, cooking, party, tips, entertaining, food, flowers

Love This Story? Buzz It Up Here!

Stumble It! Save to del.icio.us Digg Email Facebook

So people have recently started asking me to list my favorite blogs. Thing is, I’ve been finishing a book/writing magazine articles/editing someone else’s book/picking up baby poop off of the deep green thick-pile carpet because Viva was commando and decided it would be fun to drop the kids off at the park rather than the pool/focusing on getting to know my husband who I met a mere six months before I got pregnant/paying bills/answering an average of 60 e-mails per day/taking my 20-year-old cat to the vet twice a week/freaking out because I owe the IRS money I don’t have.

In other words, I haven’t been getting a daily dose of Dooce or much else—other than my guiltiest blogging pleasure PerezHilton—for a loooooong time.

So, I set out to find some new favorites and revisit some old ones and quickly found one hour turned into two and three and four as I blogscotched from one great rant or rave to the next.

Now when someone asks me for a few of my favorite blogs, I’ll point them to these for starters:

StyleHive really is abuzz with all of the fashionable online happenings. I couldn’t help but linger in the Hot Designer section to ogle ceramics by Zeita Scott. Check ‘em:

CoolMomPicks drew me in with chatter about regretful children’s-room art purchases and tasteful alternatives. It also reminded me about Etsy.com, the fabulous handmade goods co-op site where I bought a lot of the work hanging in my daughter’s room. But it really wooed me with these booties, which are so sweet I am trying to think of someone to buy them for.

Absolutelybeautifulthings lives up to its name by showcasing items most of us can only dream about, such as this FIERCE ride.

Still, the Aussie designer behind the blog does give mere mortals glimmers of attainable greatness with the genius idea of using wallpaper to create a fashionable headboard.

Image courtesy of Living Etc. and Marie Claire Maison

How cute is that!?

Apartment Therapy always has inspiring ideas and products that don’t require spending my daughter’s college fund.

IkeaHacker shows how to trick out Ikea furniture. It me feel like I can style out my house and not worry if my daughter clandestinely goes Crayon crazy on the TV console–and that is a very cool thing.

Alrighty then. Time to force feed my cat chicken baby food and Pedialyte and hit the sack. More coming soon to a GlamNest near you.

Technorati Tags: design, interiors, baby gifts, ikea, apartment, best, coolest, blogs, ceramics

Love This Story? Buzz It Up Here!

Stumble It! Save to del.icio.us Digg Email Facebook