Perhaps it makes me a bit naive, but I never realized until after I moved to California that this tradition isn’t really practiced (by immigrants and locals alike) outside of the large cities throughout Midwest.

For the uninitiated, the pączki is a Polish donut. Made from fried dough, filled with fruit preservatives or sweet cream, then topped with powdered sugar or glaze, each pastry contains about 420 calories. The traditional reason for making pączkis is based on Catholic Lent practices: because no sweets cannot be eaten during the 40- period, people would use up all of the eggs, lard, sugar and fruit that they had in the home.

In Hamtramck, there’s an annual parade and two day festival dedicated to the confection. Pączki are so popular all over Metro Detroit (and some other areas throughout Michigan) that local supermarkets carry them. I have memories of people lining up to buy these.

There were a few locally owned Polish bakeries near my house growing up, so my mom would always have them at the house. Usually, she’d pick up an assorted bakers dozen with custard, strawberry, apple, blueberry and raspberry. For some weirdo reason, there would also always be a prune filled one. Because it was impossible to tell which pastry had which filling, it was kind of like playing Russian Roulette. Often, I would be the one to end up accidentally eating the prune one.

This city is a cultural mecca, but for some reason, the Polish are pretty under represented here. It looks like I would have to truck out to Santa Monica if I wanted to indulge myself.

My mom called me this afternoon to tell me that she and my dad finally had to put down Junior, our family’s pet cat of 14 years. He had an invasive, aggressive and inoperable tumor in his mouth that made life difficult for him. My parents monitored him closely so as to give him the longest life that he deserved. He died peacefully without pain and mom said he behaved as if he knew it was his time to go.

Junior, wearing the tie collar I bought him

When I was last home for a visit, this past November, I noticed that the little guy was missing one of his front canine teeth and had some swelling along his gum line. Later, when my dad took him to the vet, the doctor’s informed him of Junior’s tumor, a fairly common condition in older cats, and gave him a month to live.

During that time, he ate the best of moist cat food, tuna and pate. When he could no longer close his mouth and had difficulty eating, that’s when my parents made the decision to take him in.

Mom and dad are taking him up north to bury him at the family cottage. A friend of my dad’s made him a coffin from wood and each of us wrote a few words of love that he is being buried with. This is my contribution:

To Junior Boy

Childhood meant I had all the time in the world to cultivate meaningful bonds with my pets. The white cats I grew up came when I called their names, slept at my feet at night and left dead chipmunk “presents” on the front porch.

You were never my kitty cat, though.

I was 12 when we brought you home and it was clear from the first few days that we weren’t ever going to be best friends. When I tried to hold you in my arms, you violently squirmed away and slashed my skin with your claws.

When I shared my warm bed with you, you woke me from a sound sleep by piercing the tender parts of my arm with your baby teeth.

I tried to charm you with treats, toys and cans of tuna. It took years before I accepted the fact that you couldn’t be bought and I gave up trying.

Some may say that you belonged to no one in particular, wandering from one neighbor’s yard to the next, and cycling through a rotation of sleeping in front of vents, empty beds and warm laps.

You were my dog’s best friend, my mom’s little boy and you kept my dad company when he would read in his blue recliner.

You were a loyal pet and a key part of our family for 14 years. I’ll miss you, but I’m so happy that you’re no longer suffering. Rest in peace, little man.

They don’t make tiny versions of the drugs for animals. This is the same stuff that people take, only it’s in a much smaller dosage: the vet broke up her pills into smaller pieces.

A few days ago, a Facebook friend from high school joked: “just couldn’t take all the pressure of laying around, eating out of a bowl, and shitting in a box?”

She is a pretty high maintenance little cat, but it is a bit more complicated than that.

A few weeks ago, I noticed that Kiwi had an accident on our love seat. Fearing a urinary tract infection, I took her to the vet right away.

Other than a pretty nasty case of fleas (which she picked up from my friend Jeannette’s cat) the vet found that Kiwi had cat crystals, which are essentially kidney stones in cats. These crystals block her up and hurt her when she tries to pee so she goes where she’s most comfortable: on our furniture.

Believed to be caused by her food–which has high levels of protein in it–I was recommended a more appropriate and rather expensive brand of food. Because she had a negative association with her box, I also had to buy her a new litter box and a new type of litter.

(Also expensive was the 9 months of Frontline, flea powder for carpet and the urine removal cleaner.)

Because I don’t want my little baby to be uncomfortable, I don’t want her to ruin our furniture and I don’t want to stress Phil, I knew I had to do all I could to make this stop immediately.

After two weeks, the accidents started happening again. I took her back in and the lab techs found that she had a whole lot of bacteria in her urine: she was prone to making these crystals.

Two visits later, for a total of three vet visits, the doctor ruled out a whole lot of conditions, leaving Feline Idiopathic Cystitis as the remaining cause for her problem. Kiwi gets stressed out, it irritates her bladder and she makes these crystals.

She’s already pretty skiddish and has been that way since she’s been little–she was taken from her mom too early. It took some process of elimination, but we were able to determine exactly what was causing her so much unrest: the cat who lives across from us, a huge, male tuxedo cat named Achilles is making her anxious. He sits outside atop his carpet covered cat tree, howling, sometimes for hours at a time.

She hasn’t had any accidents since she went on the medication, but the vet said it will take a few weeks to fully have an effect on her.

In the meantime, we’re doing our best to reduce her stress –we got rid of her fleas and we’re keeping the blinds closed when Achilles is outside– and just hoping that that Prozac helps. Keep your fingers crossed, all.

Can you think of three people you’d like to have a dinner party with, from any period, dead or alive?

I could go so far as to tell you the single person who I’d like to spend an evening with. Hands down, it’s Audrey Hepburn.

One Hollywood’s greatest actresses, Hepburn was also easily one of the most loved. Sabrina Fairchild, Holly Golightly, Jo Stockton – even in 2012, these characters are relevant as authentic, interesting, strong and witty women. Audrey Hepburn was an incredibly talented actress who carried her sharp, yet sweet personality into every role she played.

Audrey was a style and fashion icon (and old photos of her still inspire the way I put outfits together), but she could have pulled off wearing a burlap potato sack. She was just so beautiful, no matter how many times I’ve seen “Roman Holiday,” I can’t take my eyes off of her whenever she’s on screen.

More amazing is the fact that interview after interview with the people she knew and worked with allude to the fact that she never fully realized just how beautiful she was–that, or she was very humble. When she died in her 60s, most women even half her age couldn’t touch her beauty and class.

A humanitarian, Hepburn spent her life working with UNICEF, working for the rights of children in third world countries, their survival, development and protection. She wasn’t inviting cameras along for the ride and, I think, most people didn’t realize the work she was doing until after she passed away.

In short, she’s a beautiful role model.

My boss, Juan-Carlos Costano knows how much I admire her. I don’t remember how it came up, exactly, but the two of us like to make mention of our favorite Golden Hollywood starlets–mine is Audrey and he loves Rita Hayworth. For Christmas he gave me a DVD copy of “Funny Face” and later burned me a copy of the home invasion thriller “Wait Until Dark.”

I was really thrown through the ringer, though, when I came into work one morning and there was an actual Kodak photo of her sitting on my desk and a sticky note that read “Have an Audrey Day!”

Apparently, he came upon it while he was sifting through some boxes from a time when he used to actively collect antiques and Hollywood memorabilia.

I gasped when I saw it. After he insisted that I have it, I gave him a huge hug and bought a frame for it on my lunch break at a nearby Bed Bath & Beyond. The photo sits on my desk at work and it’s one of my favorite possessions in the world.

As fate would have it, that’s not quite how things are done at traditional Korean spas.

A few months ago, my friend Holly bought us a Groupon to a day spa: an afternoon of soaking in a jacuzzi tub, drying off in a sauna and a relaxing massage and body scrub. Time got away from us, though, and this offer was scheduled to expire within days. We made the decision to head over late one Saturday afternoon.

I met Holly inside the lobby of the huge building and we followed a series of hallways and elevators to the area of the spa designated for women. (Fun Fact: There’s a separate spa for men.)

At the front desk, we struggled a bit with the language barrier as we checked in for our body scrub and massage appointments. After they found our names in their appointment book, we were each handed a key with a number on it (mine was #9) and a corresponding numbered plastic container that closely resembled the bins you put your carry-on luggage and shoes into when you go through airport security. These bins each contained two towels and a bathrobe.

Because we experienced some difficulty with even basic communication, other than a woman pointing her finger in the direction opposite of where we can in, we had no idea where to go.

We shuffled down a narrow hallway, just completely captivated by how brand new and immaculately clean everything looked. I remember mentioning aloud how I thought that this spa might be a nice place to take my mom and sister when they came to visit.

We found the locker room and numbered storage locker’s without issue, put robes on over bathing suits and started looking for the massage rooms. Right away, we both noticed that there were a lot of people wandering around the locker room stark naked, without a care in the world. I smiled to myself, thinking about how my Michigan upbringing included lockers room full of teenage girls going to great lengths to ensure that we fully covered ourselves up as we changed after gym class and swim practice. (Man, the Midwest is prude!)

While looking for these private rooms, we noticed that the sign on the door leading out to the spa mentioned that no clothing of any kind was allowed. It wasn’t until another we talked to another English-speaking white girl (an ethnic spa veteran, it turns out) that we really understood what Naturaspa was all about.

It boiled down to this: We were at a naked spa. If we wanted to use any of the spa’s amenities: Jacuzzi tubs, steam sauna, dry sauna or any of the number of “Jade” and “Clay” rooms, we would have to go in our birthday suits. Because we were signed up for massages and body scrubs, that meant that we would again have to be completely naked AND share a room with other naked people who would also be receiving massages. Those bathing suits and bathrobes were gonna have to come off.

At this point I realized that it’s a good thing that 1.) I’m open-minded, 2.) I’m secure with myself, and 3.) Holly and I are such good friends.

We ventured into the spa area, wearing nothing but our flip flops, passing other naked bodies as we walked, and acted like this was the most natural thing in the world for us to be doing.

As we entered, we noticed the small enclosure, where there were at least two dozen people lying on massage tables. Each was being aggressively rubbed down and massaged by chubby Korean women, all of whom were wearing matching black bras and panties.

We presumed that we needed to wait our turn and stood nearby, trying not to make eye contact or awkwardly stare at anyone in the massage area. After a few moments, one woman in the standard issue black bra/panty uniform came over and pointed at the showers to convey that we would first have to rinse off.

So we wandered over, washed with soap and water, and a few minutes later were back in position one: waiting for our massages.

Another Korean spa employee came over to us and indicated that we weren’t getting it. We needed to back over to the showers and stay there until we were called. Embarrassed, we walked back over to the bathing area and each obediently took a hand-held shower head off the hook.

After several minutes, I was pretending to be cleaning myself (I had finished earlier!), when I heard someone yell “NUMBER 9!” with a heavy Korean accent. My locker number! So, it was… my turn? I stepped apprehensively in the direction of the massage area and stuttered something about how I was the number 9 that they were looking for. A member of the spa’s staff, her stomach exploding over her black bottoms, grabbed my by the arm, lead me into the massage enclosure and then pointed to the table where I was supposed to lay down.

As soon as I got situated, she dumped a bucket of warm water on me and started forcefully scrubbing my body with a sharp sponge. I winced in pain. This was not the gentle body exfoliation I had imagined when I forked over my $40. I didn’t feel relaxed or warm and fuzzy inside. When fully analyzing my situation, I felt like this was what showering in prison might be like.

It took a little while for me to phase out my surroundings and to just enjoy the scrub and massage; to just completely let go.

When the scrub was over, some 25 minutes later, the massage began. It was overall much more comfortable and relaxing– I just had to adapt to the buckets of water being dumped across my body every few minutes (to get rid of excess oil) and the fact that the masseuse would slap my leg whenever she wanted me to turn over. She was really good at what she did as she managed to work out my muscle knots and every bit of tension in my body.

After about a half hour, she put a green cucumber mask on my face (this was very cold, as though it had just come out of the fridge), washed my hair and then said something in Korean to let me know that she was finished.

I sat up feeling light headed and a bit high. She was clearly used to this reaction and gave me her hand in order to help me pull myself to my feet. With a goofy smile on my face, I wobbled my way back over the showers. I liked the tingly feeling on my skin and how smooth my arms felt– It made any pain I felt earlier completely worth it. I felt like a new woman.

We spent another hour or so hitting the hot tubs, (avoiding the ice baths) socializing with other naked people, and exploring the spa’s dry and steam saunas (both of which I found to be way too hot to tolerate) before we grabbed our towels and hit the locker room.

Overall, I view my visit to Naturaspa (AKA: The Naked Spa) as a truly cultural experience and a unique way to relax and bond with my friend Holly. Aside from a pretty gnarly yeast infection (oils are always a risky business), I regret nothing.

Finally, from this experience I learned that when buying a daily deal spa day pass for a friend or family member, you should make sure you Google it first. Your best friend, Mom or grandma might not be into getting naked with a bunch of strangers.

The calender was a collection of German pop artist Heiner Meyer’s “glamour” portraits of 1950s movie starlets. Meyer works with iconic photographs and pictures of Audrey Hepburn, Marilyn Monroe, Grace Kelly and Elizabeth Taylor (to name a few) paints over and modifies these images to integrate them into the totality of the work. The end result is totally unique and beautiful.

I kept the calender hanging on my wall until yesterday, when I decided it was finally time to order a new one.
(NOTE: I still do the whole archaic, paper wall calender thing because I love the satisfaction of crossing off days as they pass and seeing the whole month ahead of me at an immediate glance.)

I couldn’t bring myself to throw the calender away, so I set it aside in case I decided to get crafty with it later. It turns out that urge came to me today.

There were some small holiday cookie tins collecting dust in one my kitchen cupboards, and they inspired me to make some decorative gift boxes. This was the end result:

I almost don’t want to give them away.

We usually spent the holiday with some of my parent’s friends, a group of people who I’ve spent some holidays with as long as I’ve been alive. When it gets right down to it, though, we don’t know anything real about one another: only the most superficial stuff. My parents would discuss with these people what kinds of activities we’ve been up to, what kind of grades we’d received and pass around photos of how we looked on picture day and at the homecoming dance the previous year. We don’t know anything about each other as people.

We’d all sit in our assigned seats around the dinner table and eat our dinner at 1 p.m. Our accolades were shared, compared, quietly judged. Afterward, the children were instructed to go down to the basement for the remainder of the party while our parents drank and talked about the good old days, the times before we all were born. It never strayed from this formula.

I remember one year that the topic of marriage came up during dinner. A man who is a sort of faux-uncle to my sister and me asked the table what age we all thought was the ideal time to get married.

My “cousin” spent a few minutes describing her dream “Tiffany & Co. wedding.” Everyone else didn’t seem to give it a whole lot of thought, and one by one, revealed what age they considered to be the perfect time to get married.

When it came to be my turn, I admitted that I thought the question was silly. “You shouldn’t force the concept of marriage by pinning down an age that you must to be married by,” I said. It shouldn’t be a question of age, because if you truly live your life as its meant to be lived, you’ll never know when you fall in love. Whether you’re 30 or 90, you should get married when you’re ready to–and if you aren’t ever married, it shouldn’t be frowned upon. My sister nodded in agreement. Otherwise, I collected a bunch of blank stares and the subject was quickly changed as though I’d said nothing at all.

Holiday tradition resentment aside, marriage has never been part of my plan.

I didn’t spent my childhood dreaming about what my wedding day would be like. I didn’t play wedding with my Barbie dolls, make crayon drawings of my dream dress or include a bridesmaid dress color palette in my MASH games.

In adolescence, this turned into a full on: “I don’t want to ever get married,” which didn’t seem set well with a lot of people I knew. But, did they have the right to be surprised? Gays weren’t legally allowed to marry–and everywhere I looked I saw unhappy straight couples, my parents included. It seemed that whatever these couples had at one time loved about one another, it had completely disappeared.

People just didn’t seem to take marriage seriously, either. I would hear all the time about celebrities and reality TV stars becoming divorced within a year of their wedding day. Even “real life” people didn’t seem to fully grasp what it meant to be married. When I worked grocery retail just a few years ago, a guy who was 15 years my senior had recently become engaged. I remember him saying “and if it doesn’t work out, I’ll divorce her. Just like I did the last one.”

Why should the idea of and word “marriage” ever mean anything when its lumped into the same category as the above listed relationships?

When Phil first asked how I felt about marriage, he got an earful. He didn’t disagree with me at all, but I do think that my opinions made him sad. Even with divorced parents and similar life experiences, marriage was important as a symbol to him.

Marriage as a word and concept doesn’t mean much to me even now, years later. The only thing that matters, though, is how I feel about my relationship with Phil. Through thick and thin, we’re there for each other. Even if he got into a car accident and became a Paraplegic, I would be there for him, whether or not there’s a ring on my finger.

Phil’s an optimist and he’s opened my eyes to a world of happiness unlike anything I’ve ever experienced before. He’s my best friend, my soul mate. We take care of each other.

Every morning I wake up, happy that he’s there. Every evening, I come home from work excited to tell him about my day. My love for him only grows stronger with every passing week and month. He colors my world and I couldn’t live life without him.

I have always felt that marriage is society’s attempt to lump us all into the same category. While there’s just no way to compare what I have to what others have, I’ve decided to stop caring so much about this. All that matters is Phil’s and my happiness.

It was my idea to go on a getaway to Big Bear Lake.

A small city nestled high up in the San Bernadino Mountains, I first heard of the beautiful ski resort town soon after we moved to Southern California.

A few weeks back I mentioned to Phil that I wanted to get out of the city for a weekend. We haven’t yet had the time or the means to really explore outside of Los Angeles, so there are still a ton of places I’d like to visit throughout California. Because of the time of year, I thought it would be good for us to get some crisp, fresh air and be out in nature. Because it’s just two and a half hours away, this would also be really convenient.

Earlier this week, I pulled the trigger and made the arrangements for us to stay up in Big Bear Lake for a night. The thought of hiking, horseback riding and shopping in the villages small boutiques all sounded fun to me, but if we just hung out in the hotel room’s jacuzzi tub and sat near the fire, that would also be perfectly fine with me.

We woke up early Saturday morning, grabbed some coffee, hopped in the car and headed east for the mountains. After an hour into our car ride, Phil clued me in to the fact that he had a “couple of surprises” planned for us. Since he’s kind of horrible at keeping secrets, he told me that their first of my surprises was a couples’ massage in Big Bear Village. It just so happened that it was exactly what I wanted to hear.

The winding drive up to Big Bear was stunningly beautiful: We were surrounded by mountains covered in massive pine trees. Because the sky was clear and it was sunny, it was all that you could see for miles.

On the way up to Big Bear Lake

See the snow?

When we reached Big Bear, we had an hour before our massage appointment, so we had some hot soup and sandwiches at a small pizzeria and then explored The Village. There was a lot of touristy shops, but there were some gems in the mix. Inside of an old fashioned candy store, I found Cinnamon Bears, a vegan friendly gummy that I haven’t come across since I’ve left Michigan. I also got myself a dress at a small boutique.

Our massage was at The Village Spa and Wellness Center, one of the most beautiful facilities that I have ever been to. (Ahem…I’ve had my fair share of massages in the last year.) The staff asked which areas were troubling me most (shoulders, neck and back) and spent most of the time working out all of my knots and stress. All of the while, Native American flute music played. I was in heaven for a full 90 minutes.

Afterward, in a bit of a daze, we wandered around the village more and got ourselves cider chai lattes at one of the local coffee shops.

Because it was pretty cold in Big Bear (in the 20s!) we soon checked into our hotel and took full advantage of the hot tub and fireplace.

When the sun began to set, Phil encouraged me to get my winter gear back on so we could head out for my next surprise: a horse-drawn carriage ride around the lake. The white carriage was a classic Victorian coach that had been decked out for the holidays, detailed with holly and brass bells. The driver took us for a 45 minute ride around the lake, drove us by some of the multi-million dollar log cabin homes and throughout the village. The best part was that we could see stars twinkling across the crystal clear winter night sky as well as all of the Christmas lights throughout Big Bear. We probably would have been freezing if it weren’t for the huge furry blanket that we cuddled up beneath.

Afterward, Phil took me to dinner at a small, charming little restaurant a stone’s throw away from our hotel. It wasn’t a long walk from the carriages, but we were still freezing when we arrived. To get warm, we sipped ginger ale and whiskey cocktails and sat close to each other in our booth. For dinner, Phil had stuffed salmon and I had a garlic veggie pasta.

When we were finished eating, Phil wanted to take me somewhere up higher, he said, so we could get a closer look at the stars and a better view of the mountains. We spent an hour driving around and unfortunately, we never found a scenic vantage point that worked well in the dark. I took note of his persistence, thought it was strange, but didn’t dwell on it.

We headed back to the hotel so that we could warm up by the fire. It was some time later, after we had enjoyed each others company and sipped on some champagne, that Phil told me had something to give me. I assumed it was a special early Christmas gift and sat down on the edge of the bed.

He asked me if I remembered the first present that I ever gave him. I did–a notebook that I decoupaged for him back when he was my editor at CM-Life. It’s an item that he has told me many times meant the world to him–he still has it and uses it.

I made this for Phil six years ago

That’s when he pulled out a notebook that he had decoupaged especially for me, something that he had never done before. It had my picture on it and words and images that reminded him of how he felt about me. I opened it up and on the first page he had hand written “I love you with everything that I am.”

The notebook

I tried to turn the page to flip through the rest of the journal, but it was stuck. When I realized that the pages had been taped shut, I pulled it open. There was a diamond ring wedged inside of a shallow hole that had been cut into the paper.

Where the ring was hidden

That’s when Phil went down on his knee and asked me to marry him. When we talk about it now, Phil said that I screamed “WHAT!?”, but I only remember saying “yes” before bursting into tears and sobbing into his shoulder.

Phil and I had discussed our engagement with my parents while we were home in Michigan this past November, so it’s not like I didn’t know that this would happen. I just didn’t expect it to happen so soon. Phil told me it probably wasn’t going to happen until after his book came out this Spring.

I had accidentally destroyed my phone earlier this week and so I kept using his to text friends and make calls. He was very weird about this at times–and I just assumed he was concerned about potentially spoiling a Christmas gift. Looking back, he was behaving strangely, but again, I just assumed he was freaking out between work and the holidays.

I’m still just kind of speechless about the whole thing.

Beautiful mountains, my beautiful ring