Lost In Pacific Time

People Magazine: We can’t wait for…

“Decking Out Tinseltown with Ambrosia Li” to come back on the air, it’s only been several weeks since Amber informed us that she and her staff were taking a little hiatus for a much needed vacation but rumours are already swirling about a rumoured feud between her employees. The worker bees of Ambrosia Li’s Design Firm are remaining tight lipped but several insiders claim that the now-iconic red bricked building in Beverly Hills can’t contain all the egos. Hopefully the cast can settle their disputes and get back to filming the show that is has been deemed this generation’s Friends only better looking and with more money. In the meantime you can catch Amber putting her writing skills to work in the latest issue of Maxim Magazine. [“Decking Out Tinseltown with Ambrosia Li” comes back onto the air 7 pm Tuesday, September 6th on Bravo]
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“I was thinking we’d start with the walls,” I tell Milan as I walk him around his house using double stick tape to stick paint chips onto the wall. After my visit to the house yesterday I had spent the rest of the afternoon at Home Depot looking through paint chips and shopping for wallpaper at this boutique in Yaletown.

Milan just bobs his head approvingly as I walk his up the stairs. I get a lot of that these days. People just assume I know what I’m going. I do, it’s just nice sometimes to get challenged by a client, I always was very good at arguing. Maybe I just enjoy being difficult. “I was thinking making the black and yellow color scheme work throughout all the rooms by mixing modern with vintage and adding some white and grey into the mix. As for the mood it evicts I was thinking some rooms would have a more regal, refined feel while the other rooms would have more of a laid back, contemporary feel.” I ramble on while pointing at various elements in the room with my pen.

If this were any client I would convince them to change the color scheme. I could convince them to change the color scheme but Milan is different. Somehow it doesn’t feel right to be deceiving him especially if this is what he really wants. There’s something fanatical about wanting a black and yellow house, like it’s something you would say as a child but have no intention following through with. Next thing you’d know he’d be telling me to hollow out a taxi van and turn it into a king sized bed frame.

It could be worse, I tell myself, imagining a Kelly green and royal blue room makes me shiver. Honestly, I consider myself a pretty good colorologist, I could revamp the Canucks’ color scheme but something tells me not everyone pulls off mint green, pastel yellow, and lavender the way I do. Sad but true.

“Tomorrow, I’m going to have the people come to paint the walls and put the wall paper up. And about three days after that the furniture from my showroom in LA is getting sent up.” I explain, remembering my phone call with the inventory manager and telling him to send up every black and yellow item I had in stock. I kind of like working alone, it brings me back to my first couple of months as an interior designer in LA when I was working solo.

“Wow,” Milan says looking at me wide eyed.

“What?” I asked him, pulling up my hair in a messy bun and tying it with a silly band from my wrist.

“You’ve practically finished decorating my house in a week.” He replies as I unwrinkle a small square of black and white damask wallpaper and stick it onto the wall in the master bedroom.

“We still have a lot of stuff to do Milan before this house becomes a home.” I say looking out the window in his master bedroom. I can see part of the garden, which is really nothing more than green grass at the moment, and cars driving down the busy road. “Clients usually aren’t so…involved in the whole process.”

“Do you want me to leave?” Milan asks with one of his eyebrows raised.

“No,” I answer automatically, dusting off my coral knee-length Versace skirt. My clients usually leave me and my staff alone but I like having Milan here it makes me feel like there’s less of a chance that it’ll screw up. I usually assume that if I screw up and the client doesn’t like their home they just hire another decorator and have them redo it. All the interior designers of our caliber run in the same circles in LA, it’s weird because we have to compete for the same jobs but we see each other so often that we become friends.

“Good, because I was going to make you lunch,” Milan says and we walk back downstairs into the kitchen. All that’s in the kitchen is a mini fridge and several boxes of protein bars, all the cabinets have been ripped out so that the new ones can get installed. I was thinking we’d go to IKEA sometime this week and pick them out.

“What are you making me?” I ask Milan, the kitchen has no appliances necessary for any kind of cooking and last time I checked Milan wasn’t on the raw food diet.

Milan looks just about as confused as I feel. Like he was running into his kitchen expecting to see a fully stocked fridge and a working stove “Okay… I lied but only because I wanted to impress you.” He says with a smile.

I shake my head at him “Honey, I’ve never seen you cook anything in your life.”
“Nuh uh,” he says as he munches on a protein bar “I made you soup when you were sick, remember?”

“You poured a packet of soup mix into a cup and poured some hot water into it. That wasn’t really cooking.” I grab a protein bar myself, it’s supposed to be s’mores flavored but something tells me it’s going to taste like stale chocolate with the texture of soggy cardboard.

“Hey, I nearly burned my hand trying to make you that soup.” Milan jokes popping the last bit of the chocolate covered bar in his mouth.

I roll my eyes remembering how Milan picked up the cup and spilt some on his hand while doing so. I read the shiny wrapper of the protein bar “Why the hell does this have 460 calories?” I ask Milan frowning at the numbers. That’s like six Oreos, I could’ve eaten six Oreos for lunch, (probably a bad idea) but instead I had a weird tasting protein bar with 20 grams of protein.

“Are we watching the waistline there Amber?” Milan asks with a smirk, eyeing my stomach. Milan weighs more than twice as much as I do but it’s probably all solid muscle thanks to those gross protein bars.

“I can list like five things I would’ve rather eaten than that protein bar with equal or lesser value calorie wise.”

“Let’s hear it.” Milan says sitting down onto the wood floors.

I flip through my visual rolodex of food “a California roll, a grilled cheese sandwich, a Krispy Kreme doughnut, four cans of Arizona Green Tea, a red velvet cupcake…” I could think of fifteen more but we’d be here all day.

“You forgot a BLT,” Milan says looking over at me.

“Oh my god, yes!” I love BLTs there is no better sandwich, never has been never will be. “A BLT with ketchup”

“Of course,” Milan says as I dig through my purse.

“Anyway Milan, I have to get going, I will meet you tomorrow at Pier One Imports.” I say handing Milan their business card.

“Going off to answer more fan mail?” Milan mocks, and I wished I had just lied when he asked me about the sack of letters in my Louis Vuitton hat box.

“Tomorrow. My house. Be there Milan.” I say, trying and failing at intimidating him.

“Okay, Amber” he says with a laugh “I’ll be there” he says ruffling my hair before closing the door.

When I’m halfway down the driveway I see Milan leave his house. It didn’t take him long before he realized there was nothing in his house except for those protein bars and the mini fridge. He and I exchange looks of fake disappointment which causes both of us to break out into laughter and keeps me laughing while I drive home.