The smallest of updates

I'm afraid I am really only writing this post so that I can convince myself I am not completely being too lazy to maintain my own blog. There haven't been things I really think are worth sharing to say. I've been cleaning out, cookie baking and shampooing the carpets this week while spending most of my weekends doing chores and christmas shopping during the day and my nights at Disneyland. If you follow me on Instagram @Damfino you know I spend my fair share of time at The Mad T Party, which still totally alludes me. I think it reminds me of my old Hollywood days. Maybe even my pre-Hollywood days when all I needed to worry about was where I was going to get money to go to my next show. I still can't believe how many bands I saw and how music used to really be everything to me. Anywho, this is all a bit la-di-dah trivial but I think I've had too much coffee today accompanied by too many giggles and now I'm feeling a tad nostalgic. I don't know when I got so old and how I managed to acquire so many memories to look back on. Next post will be more exciting, promise. Xx

We all have Guilty Pleasures

Now that it's November I have decided to work my way up to Thanksgiving by being a little more introspective about not only what I am thankful for but things I wish to change, or re-evaluating exactly what I think it means to be me and what I want to continue to hold important. It's probably just a part of that 'quarter-life crisis' I seems to have come down with.

Anywho, in this post I thought I'd share my top 5 'guilty pleasures'. I wouldn't say I actually feel 'guilty' about them, it's more along the lines that I think of them as 'time killers' The activities that I find myself spending much longer then I had intended on and wondering where my day has gone.

5. Saved eBay Searches
As I'm sure most of us do on our search for those one-of-a-kind vintage items I can blow quite a the many hours just re-searching through my top saved searches. Some of my go-to's are: vintage 30's dress, vintage charm bracelet and Howard Keel. :)


4. Old Disneyland/Disney World photos.


Now This is a pretty obvious one. Of course I would love this because it's two of my greatest interests put together! But it's amazing how many hours can vanish when I really get to digging through the online archives of strangers and their old Disney memories. And when I say old I mean from it's inception up to the mid 90's, I can get sucked into all of it. Throw Aladdin or Snow White in there and I could be gone for days. Although I love the old professional shots and concept art my favorites are peoples' personal snapshots. It's funny how we can pose the same places in nearly the same fashion now and it can look exactly the same and entirely different at the same time.

3. Podcasts

Since I spend a lot of time at home or near an iphone or ipad and I happen to harbor quite a fear of a thing called silence I have really grown attached to listening to podcasts. Since there are now so many different genres you can find a podcast for nearly anything under the sky. It all started for me with This American Life & Uhh Yeah Dude, but I've become quite the fan of giving just about anything a shot.

My current most listened to shows are: (A countdown within a countdown!)
5. The Smartest Man in the World
4. Dead Authors
3. Inside the Magic
2. Big Band Serenade
1. Comedy Bang Bang

2. Instagram

Enough said. Even with all the spam now I just can't keep myself off it. It's a problem.

1. Wedding Videos.


yeah, I know. I can't not love it. & I am talking all of them.

My first stop is always to check for new Disney related proposals first and foremost, but I genuinely watch them ALL. I love the moment when the girl knows it's real and something clicks and you can see that she knows what's happening and it's so magnetic.

I've spent so many hours on vimeo because it's chock-full of wedding related films and I'm obsessed with the HD quality. For a girl who's never even had a real relationship, and basically never had the slightest interest in marriage at all at some point I just became obsessed with them. I can be a real critic about them too and I end up giggling to myself about the ridiculousness of me and what I would change or what I thought was best.

A beautiful wedding trailer can bring me to tears in the very best of ways. See, I'm not so cynical after all.


What do you find yourself wasting time on & feeling a bit guilty about?

A very snowy Halloween

Halloween is my favorite holiday. 

Well that's what I always say, and I think I mean it. 

But what I've finally come to realize is what I truly love is the month of October, the month long 'celebration' and build up to the thirty-first. 

I love dressing up in a costume, that should be obvious, I love an excuse to eat candy, I love my little annual Halloween traditions like watching Thriller & The Lost Boys, carving my pumpkin and making carmel corn with my mother. 

When it comes to my costumes for the past 8 years or so I've tried to either find something vintage that is spectacular or make something myself. My first thought this year was a robot, I tend to gravitate towards costumes that allow me to do make-up I can't get away with on the average day. However, the outfit I had just didn't look the way I planned it out in my head and I had to come up with something new.

So, being the Snow White enthusiast I am and not wanting to repeat or look like everyone else in the traditional red, blue and yellow gown I decided to put together my own version of Snow's rags dress in the beginning of the film.

Now, since I had already bought items for a first costume I had to keep to a pretty small budget. I made the top in one night from a vintage brown top & an old pillowcase. 

I however did have to whip out ye olde credit card to buy the fabric and supplies to make the skirt, bow and poison apple. 

For the poison apple I found an amazingly easy blog post (that I will link right here when I find it again!) which was a very fun one night project. The skirt and bow took a few hours, mostly because my sewing machine's tension got all messed up and I had to resort to no-sew methods for a few bits and pieces. 

Anywho, it's not perfect but considering I completed the whole bit in a few days and only spent $19 I'm rather pleased.

what do ya' think?

I won't even start with the lack of costume cooperation from the pups this year. WHY can't they love dressing up as much as I do?! such disappointments ;)

Until next year Halloween. I'll start planning my costume now.

My introduction into waist training

So as many of us ladies all do I've always had some problems with my body. Years of dieting, and being a vegetarian/pescatarian and different workout trends and all of that have done me some good and bad here and there but I have finally decided to venture into something that I've been wanting to do for ages, which is waist training. I've never had as much of a waist as I desire for my pinup style dresses and such so here I am.Now I've been taking it real easy. I have been keeping my corset on anywhere from one or two hours somedays, to 8 or 10 others. I am doing my best to take it slow, and keep from inciting any tears or pain.

I've had a lot of questions on instagram and a few emails asking questions about what I'm doing, my goals and where I got my corsets and what have you so I'm going to try to be more diligent about posting on here and keeping you all updated.

Now I'm only a novice, so don't take my word for anything at all. I'm certainly not a doctor.

I'll get to more in later posts but for today I'll stick to the corsets.

So, about the corsets. I was given a few suggestions a while back on what I should be looking for in a beginners corset and brands that were a good bet if I didn't want to invest too much to start off with. Of course I'd love to jump right into having a lovely custom corset but right now that's just not something I can afford. So I had to zero in on my basics. For waist training I knew I wanted something under-bust, and foremost needed something fully steel boned, which is surprisingly more difficult to find than you'd think. I had to pull out my glasses to really read the fine print on some descriptions, it's shocking the amount of plastic boned corsets, but hey - don't let me digress into my distaste for the lack of quality in the majority of modern clothing. Besides, I suppose not everyone is looking for a bit of body modification.



The one on the left here I've had a few years. I bought it for my annual trips to the renaissance faire, and being me I made sure to buy something relatively authentic that I could invest in for years to come. I found it on amazon,  i know there are a few other similar looking ones on there as well so be forewarned to investigate the product details because those are not real leather or steel boned. I used this corset for the first few days of my waist training, only for a few hours a day because god, it is not breathable. You cannot see it in this photo either but it is actually a halter style and it just makes longer wear far more uncomfortable than it should be. Although if you are only going to wear it a few hours, it's pretty swell I however would highly suggest skipping this one if you're in the market for a waist training corset.

You can find this first corset here: Click Click


Now the one on the right is my new corset, a much smaller number by Playgirl White Label. After reading loads of reviews and online blogs and on and on I decided this one would be a good next step for me and my budget. I first saw it on another 'boutique' website for quite a bit more, but rejoiced when I found this one on Amazon as well. Now I've only had this one two days so I can't fully elaborate but so far this corset is rather comfortable and I've had little discomfort besides the normal awkwardness that comes with corsets in general.

You can find this second corset here: Click Click


At this point I haven't had any noticeable results yet, but I haven't been wearing a corset the majority of the day by any means up to this point. Like I said earlier, I'm taking it a little slow. I'd rather ease myself into it and take my time. I keep reading it over and over that corseting should not be an overnight endeavor so I'm going to do my best to be patient and remember that.

Ticket to the Twenties

One weekend every year in September is set aside for one of my favorite small, quaint and very fun events themed in one of my favorite decades. The Ticket to the Twenties festival takes place on a few afternoon hours on Saturday and Sunday, on the beautiful historic grounds of the Homestead Museum in City of  Industry, California, and is an event I look forward to all year.

Now unlike your Gatsby Afternoon, or 'costume/theme required' events Ticket to the Twenties is not themed to a T, and most of the attendants are not only not in appropriate attire but you can buy food from food trucks and they use modern microphones, but that doesn't stop me from just scrunching my eyes and still pretending I've gone back in my time machine.

The event consists of two different areas for live music on different ends of the grounds, a theatre for viewing short silent films with live accompaniment, outdoor areas for vintage fashion shows, buying and perusing vintage goods and beautiful old automobiles, spots for learning mah-jong or to play the ukulele not to mention tours of the two homes on the premises, the gorgeous old gazebo and the gift shop full of cute, vintage inspired goods.
This year it was unfortunate that they weekend the festival fell on was a very, very uncomfortably hot weekend and therefore the outfit I had planned to wear would just not do. (certainly too warm to pull out my fur) So although my fashion suffered a blow, the day was still so fun.


Ticket to the Twenties is one of the few themed things my mother even enjoys, so it's always interesting dragging her along. This year she saw her very first Buster Keaton short! It almost felt like I was introducing my mum to my new boyfriend... well in my dreams I suppose.

Besides the Buster Keaton short (which we happened to see by chance, so I felt very lucky to have accidentally chosen it!) my favorite part of the event is always sitting on my vintage oriental silk mat on the grass and listening to Dean Mora's band. They really encompass the style and tone of the old days that I long for, though I never experienced it. I cannot stress how I long to see them more, and that anyone who enjoys old tunes really should check them out.

So until I find my time machine, or find friends who long for the old days as much as I do I will just keep looking forward to these weekends that are my tickets to the twenties.





Find out more about what I mentioned in this post at:
Homestead Museum
Mora's Modern Music

A very dapper evening at Disneyland

Yes, I've been away from the old blog for a good, long month. After all the chaos I just needed to not document how I feel and just try to shake things off & reload.

There's much to be said, however it will all have to wait because this post is about two very fun words: Dapper Day. Now that I've finally caved and bought a Disneyland pass again I could attend! (Although I didn't have as much time as I would have liked to plan my whole evening out.)

I ended up getting to Disneyland rather late (parking was an absolute nightmare) but what festivities I did take part in were fun indeed.

I was excited to find an excuse to wear my grandmother's stole, it's hard to get away with fur almost anywhere in Southern California. I ended up being a bit too much of a sleepy mess, but now I cannot wait till Spring!







Dapper Day is a bi-annual event that takes place at both Disneyland, California and Walt Disney World, Florida.
To find out more about Dapper Day, click here!

The Worst Day of My Life.

I realize this is dark. Don't feel obligated to read this. This is for me, this is for my pain.


I'm sitting awake at 3:16 in the morning, this is the only thing that is not strange in any particular way about this moment.

I have been crying my eyes out for seven hours, my sweet Gidget is gone.

I don't even know how to process this evening, it all happened in a flash and before I knew it it seemed like my whole world had collapsed in on me.

I don't know if I'm ready to talk about this, it's all so fresh. However I can't bring myself to do anything else. I've tried my usual comedy podcasts, old romance films, texting with a few of my closest friends, calming music and trying to meditate and clear my mind. None of those things have worked, the only thing that seems to keep me from crying is writing about her. Maybe I feel like if I keep thinking about her this whole night won't have happened. If I cry enough tears maybe a magic spell from one of my beloved fairytales could bring her back to me.

Without going into any details I cannot dare to relive other than in my mind from where I cannot erase them, my dog was attacked by another dog in our own cul-de-sac tonight. I was inside the house, my mother and I were watching some awful film she rented and my father had taken both the dogs out for a walk.  It all was so normal. All of a sudden from outside I hear yelling, yelling again but I cannot make out the words. I look out the window and through blurred vision I see my father out on the cement but I cannot make out anything else. My mother throws on shoes and I throw on a dress instead of my robe and we run out. The next thing I hear from my father's mouth is him yelling "call the cops, my dog is dying. Blood is everywhere." As I get closer I realize that it is not his dog, but mine. My sweet little, cheerful angel. And things start to get hazy.

I am trying to soothe her and pet her as she is trying her hardest to breathe, the whole thing is burned in my brain and I cannot seem to shake it free. After a few moments of panic and yelling and calling were realize we must take her ourselves to the emergency clinic. They say things don't look good but she can stay overnight and they will try to do everything.

Two hours later, the phone rings. They tell me my worst nightmare. They ask me how I wish to proceed and if I want her ashes.

I cannot deal.

I have never lost anyone. That is not true, I lost two of my grandparents before but for one I was only two and the other we had lots of warning and I had much more time to adjust.

This was sudden. This was unwarranted. This I saw with my eyes, and I feel like I cannot breathe.


All I want is for her to come back and that's the one thing I cannot have. Lying in my bed feels wrong without her curling up near me and I just want to throw up.

I'm not only sad but I'm angry. I'm angry that some untrained, unleashed dog could do this. I want to scream and yell. I want to tell them that their excuses and their apologies will never be enough. I want them to understand that their mistakes have ruined my life. That their stupid lack of judgment has taken away the worlds most loving, kind and cheerful dog and absolutely crushed my family.

I cannot look out my window now, because there lies the spot where my dog was attacked. Her blood is still on the pavement. I want to go scrub it off and cry and yell. I want the whole neighborhood to hear me.

It's hard enough to lose someone you love. But to have to see it happening, to have to see someone you love so dearly in that state. I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy. Someone perfectly healthy, young, and has a life ahead of them. It's killing me.

I need to stop.

I don't know how to handle with this. I'm so entirely broken.

I would never have been ready to lose her, but certainly never like this.

SDCC: My Comic Con week in Retrospect

I wish I would have had a moment to really sit down and write something enthusiastic and committed to this year's pilgrimage down to San Diego for Comic Con, however this year I'm just feeling a little disconnected. I had a good deal of fun and met a group of great girls(817 girls are Hiddleston lovers, and full-on brilliant) but I've had to jump back into the day to day stuff so quickly that I just don't feel like getting too deeply into a list of all the crazy things I did and saw. I probably couldn't even if I tried, so I'll keep it simply focused on a few important things.

What I will say is, I survived on two beverages. 

Coffee & Vodka. (more than sometimes together)

A lovely room can gain clutter in only hours when you add 6 ladies to it.

The Manchester Grand Hyatt can give you a beautiful view of the world.

Sometimes you can have fun at the end of a long day, during the short trip to the lobby.

(always underdressed & always to pick-up food.)

Sometimes Thursday is just the beginning of your week,

Sometimes your roommate will ask you to turn them into a member of the walking dead!

Ladies who love Superman can also take photos with Rebels frozen in carbonite.

Spock is and always will be... a hero. ;)

The time just got away from me this year and I am choosing to remember it as a very sloppy, happy blur of chaotic yet perfectly special events. 

I cannot wait for my nerd vacation again next year, if it allows. 

It's the only time I get to wear my t-shirts! ;p

Nightcap: a Hollywood pilot taping

Yesterday one of my favorite dames Monica & I headed to Hollywood for a pilot taping for one of our most favorite comedians Paul F Tompkins.  The pilot is called Nightcap, a weekly evening half-hour program with a panel of guests comically discussing current matters of the day. 

We've got our fingers crossed that the pilot gets picked up, we could all use more PFT in our lives. To see more about Paul and his amazing comedy go here: PaulFTompkins.com

The taping was at Hollywood Center Studios, where I had actually never been before so it was a fun new adventure for me to experience. Hollywood Center Studios was built in 1919, and at it's inception silent films were made there including films starring Mae West and Harold Llyod. I was surprised to find out Jean Harlow's first starring film, "Hell's Angels" was filmed there in the twenties. "Pennies from Heaven"with Bing Crosby, and "The Howards of Virginia"(with one of the most dashing men of all time, Cary Grant), and The television show "Ozzie & Harriet" (Ricky Nelson <3) are also on the lot's list of credits along with Shirley Temple's film debut. There are even stories of the Studios being haunted by a studio electrician who fell from the rafters at a wrap party in the forties!

Most personally meaningful to me, the first two seasons of "I Love Lucy" were taped at Hollywood Center Studios on Stage 2. Sometimes it's hard for me to comprehend walking in the same spaces that some of my most admired stars once did, especially when it comes to Lucille.


Incase that does not impress you, some more recent films that were filmed at the lot include: Inventing the Abbots, The X-Men, Zoolander, I Love You Man, High Fidelity, Dumb and Dumber, A Walk in the Clouds, When Harry Met Sally, Con-Air and Shampoo! (Oh my, Warren Beatty!) True Blood even shot their first season there.

So although the taping was so very fun, I even more thoroughly enjoyed learning more about the studio itself and some of the history behind it.

Days of Sweet Tooths & Cinemas

So I'm generally a salty foods gal, my go to snack is popcorn & it is my absolute favorite! However, sometimes I get in moods where all I want to eat is something fantastically sweet!

The last two days have been really dominated by my raging sweet tooth, yesterday all I could bring myself to eat in this hot hot heat, was a bowl of ice cream filled with strawberries! What a perfect start of summer treat. Of course I took some time to lay around with my dogs till my friend Monica and I ended up at the cheap theatre so that we could finally see 21 Jump Street.

Today I got to sleep in real late. (I did stay out late at the movies!) Than I dragged my mom out to the cinema to see Rock of Ages. I know it's getting awful revues but I found it pretty fun and gosh darn enjoyable. However I love most musicals, so maybe I'm not the best judge.

The best part was after the movie we went over to Merely Sweets so that I could drool over all the pretty treats. I left with a red velvet cupcake and two macaroons: salted caramel & lemon. So amazing, I could eat a million macaroons!

I might be dreaming of macaroons dancing to 80's tunes tonight.