Carrie!

And I don't mean of the Stephen King sort. The polkadot beauty was the winner yesterday. One more whoo-hoo for the ladies at the mall. You are my party dress store forever more. Screw you BCBG - you make me feel fugly. Meh.

Hopefully I am not setting myself up for a six-story fall. Getting this excited about one evening usually has disasterous results (and have you noticed that the New Years anticipation implodes in a gargantuan let-down about eleven seconds after the ball drops?). I'm thrilled about the dress, the company, the venue, the city and the promise of the shoe shopping. Honestly, I'm not normally this girly - I don't know what's come over me...

Shopping for Self Esteem

I shopped last weekend looking for a fab dress for my New Year's party in NY (now THAT's a carrot!). I was ceremoniously defeated by Max Azria and the BCBG. What the hell? Every "fun" looking party dress in there looked like curtains when they were draped on me - pardon the pun. Maria made nicer looking duds for the von Trapp children. And I tried on a lot. In fact, the whole lot. To make matters worse, E, my brother and Ray were all in the store watching the runway show, simultaneously making the poo face and shaking their heads at each turn. I was instantly thrown into a deep depression. It's amazing how a bad experience in a badly lit dressing room can ruin your soul from the inside out.

Then...

I hit Luxe Cache last night at the mall - alone. I was totally having a Sex and the City moment. Every cocktail dress and gown I tried made me look like a million bucks. I could actually feel my self esteem crawling back up my legs, over my stomach and up my throat to explode with a "Hey! I'm BACK!" (beam of light shoots out the top of my head). The flirty polkadot poufy skirted number made me feel like Carrie, the rouched red body skimmer screamed Samantha and the demure, yet sexy, black swishy thing had Charlotte all over it. There were plenty of Mirandas in the store, but I was not into dress pants and a belted jacket for the big night.

So thank you ladies at the mall - you made my week. Now I just have to go back tonight with the crew (Ray, Mom and E) and make some serious decisions. I'm rooting for Carrie...

Back to the Weather

Scene:
Post Nutcracker performance, outside on the FAU campus theatre patio at the Gingerbread Ball where children gorge on candy canes, donuts, cookies and punch while meeting, taking pictures with, and getting autographs from the dancers in costume.

Build up to Holiday Spirit Ruining Moment:
I was holding my three year old niece who was clad in a slippery crushed velvet number. Me? I was wearing an easy breezy cotton dress and high heels, juggling the kid, her donut, the program we were having signed, and a bottle of water.

HSRM:
Sweat runnels from my serious case of swamp-ass started pouring down the back of my legs.

People, it is too hot here for Christmas trees and holiday lights. Hello, Canada? I need a cold front.

Really, Really Cold

Like, 45 degrees cold...I love it! It's putting me in the holiday mood, and I get to wear my sweaters and boots. I have my chocolate high heeled boots underneath my bootcut jeans, topped with a long sleeved T and a brown squishy hoodie! I'm even wearing a scarf!

Unfortunately, the weather is supposed to "improve" before Thanksgiving, thus ruining my holiday spirit and dashing my yearning to decorate the house.

*sigh*

It's Cold in Florida

I know...all you Northerners are like, hating me right now. But it is! It's cold here. Ray - missing the fall/winter in NY - decided unanimously amongst himself that we were going to sleep with the windows open and we can snuggle under the blankets won't it be fun?!

At 4 in the morning, also referred to as dark o'clock, I woke up from a dream that my head was encased in a block of ice and someone was blowing on my face to melt it. In reality, the cat, tired of her own extreme freezing, had snugged up on my side of the bed, under the covers, and laid her own face on mine and was breathing cold snorts on my nose. I was torn between it being kinda cute and feeling that my lips were about 4 mm away from committing beastiality - eww - disturbing.

I craned my neck away at that point and got into a really uncomfortable position for the next hour, as I lay there wondering why I couldn't get back to sleep. Oh yeah. Because it's too friggin' cold! Ray stirred at about 5:05, and I took the opportunity to ask him if he was awake (I know he's a light sleeper and even if he hadn't been awake, the question would have woken him up - hee hee!). Being the sweetheart that he is, he ran his ass out of bed when I told him I was freezing my ass off, got an extra blanket, closed the windows and apologized for keeping them open through the night.

When I pointed out to him how sweet he had been to do that for me in the middle of the night when I was the one who was cold he said, "Um yeah...why didn't you just get out of bed?"

I think I may have ruined the balance of our marriage. Crap.

Starf_cks

This is a little more than frustrating. Starbucks’ wireless is not working because of a new oven they put in yesterday. Umm, if you know the oven is going to knock out your system, you need to do one of two things Mr. Manager. 1) Put a sign on the door that says your wireless is out or b) upgrade your effing system. On top of that, I thought it was my connection to T-mobile, so now I have four day passes that I will never use in the 120 days I’m “allowed” to keep them.

I can’t believe I have to let go of my primo space (I’ve hogged the entire outlet for the laptop and the phone charger) and haul everything to 40^th and Lex.

Grrr.

Even my Tarragon Chicken Salad sandwich is not making me happy this morning.

Not for the Upper Crust

A delightful surprise, of either my husband’s or Julie’s doing (our travel agent), I found myself in Delta’s First Class on the flight to New York. We were delayed by an hour getting onto the plane, and then another 20 minutes on the runway. To appease the masses, they started the in-flight movie to whittle away the time while we waited to takeoff.

This was not to First Class’ approval. Why you ask?

The movie was Talledega Nights.

Will Farrell and the Nascar culture apparently don’t appeal to the jet-set crowd. They were upset that they had to endure the preview. A palpable disapproval blanketed the 16 seat curtained section. An audible murmur rippled through the Medallion Members when they realized they could hear the movie even when the PA system was turned off (the earphone system volume was so loud, you could actually hear it through the armrests). They were assured by the flight attendant that they wouldn’t be able to hear it once the engines got to max cap. A brief snort came from the seat behind me at this guarantee. “Nice choice of movie, Delta,” he said just loud enough for us (and her) to hear.

There was a smattering of applause when the movie was discontinued for takeoff.

I wonder if Farrell knows how unpopular he is with Buffy and Chad (said with clenched teeth and a slight underbite).

I felt alone in rows one though four. I kind of liked the movie when I saw it in the theatre. Every once and in a while, I glanced up at the monitor in secret and chuckled at what I knew to be the funny parts – silently of course. I didn’t want to shoulder the disdain of my seatmate Thurston for the next two hours.

Yay from a Canadian!

Thank you Americans! Senate is still up for grabs at the point of publication, but the House is ours (well, yours really, but ours in spirit).

Eat it Bush. Eat. It.

Donkey says, "Oh yeah."

Heart Disease to the Front, Obesity to the Back

Mmmkay. I went to Wal-Mart this evening to buy tights for NY.

I know it's election day, but I'm going to tell you what's really wrong with this country. Food.

Heart Disease personified was in line in front of me; a woman with two lovely, albeit grossly overweight, children. She was killing them (and herself) with preservatives and saturated fat. I swear to you, she bought boxed EVERYTHING, and fresh NOTHING - save a lonely bag of valencia oranges. Included in this melange of death were three, count 'em , THREE containers of iodized salt. What was she seasoning?! Everything was already prepared and laden with salt! I don't even want to go into the number of sausages she was purchasing. Okay, maybe I will. Bagged sausage, boxed sausage, even canned Vienna sausage, for real...Vienna sausage - who buys canned Vienna sausage anymore? Did I trip back into the 70s without noticing? I was looking hard for dried sausage, but alas, there was none. Maybe Wal-Mart ran out. And what is with the run on syrup in Southern Florida? She had three, again, count 'em, THREE squeezy bottles of syrup. (No, not real maple syrup - the cornsyrup kind of fake syrup.)

Segue to Obesity behind me in line.

Again, a woman with one lovely, albeit highly hyperactive, child. She also was participating in the run on fake syrup. Was Wal-Mart running a three fer? She has three bottles to compliment her seven (yep), seven boxes of assorted Aunt Jemima pancake products. Waffles, silver dollar, short stacks - I wanted to wring her sugary neck. I wanted to throw her ten pound bag of white refined sugar on the floor, but I would have had to reach over the mountain of bacon she was piling on the rolling countertop. Actually, I could've reached for the other ten pound bag of sugar in Heart Disease's pile - it was closer.

People, these children have no chance. They will either be left orphaned by their morbidly obese parents, or like the Surgeon General's report said (and I didn't believe at the time, but I do now), "Because of the increasing rates of obesity, unhealthy eating habits, and physical inactivity, we may see the first generation that will be less healthy and have a shorter life expectancy than their parents."

Chuh, I Hate the Blonde Ones

SO. This morning I found myself up on my couch, suppressing a squeal - no reason for a full fledged scream - it was just a lizard. A blonde one. I'm not sure why, but the blondies skeeve me out. No reptile should be that pale, unflavoured gelatin colour. The fact that they are trying to melt into the object they are planted on makes me distrust them.

And they skitter.

I tried to will it to morph through the front door. The door was only six paces away, but alas it was closed. No dice. So I sat and tried to burn a hole in it's back with my x-ray vision. Move! Move towards the door. Nada. Courage washed over me and I leaned over to it. I blew on in to see if it would get a move on.

Nothing.

I got closer and blew harder. It's tail just swung in the direction of the breeze. At this point, I'm thinking it encountered the cat, froze in fear (it did look like it was mid-stride), became apoplectic, and died of starvation in it's blonde, you-can't-see-me-on-this-tile state. I shrugged my shoulders, left it there and went to work this morning, vowing to get brave and remove it tonight if it was still there after work. Then I would be assured that it was most definitely dead, and would not skeeve me to death (in my own apopletic, brunette, I-can't-believe-a-lizard-is-threatening-my-life state) if it skittered.

I haven't checked it yet, and I'm going to do so now...

F_ck. It's gone. This means I was blowing on a live lizard, it could have moved and freaked me out, and worst of all, it is still skittering around my house! Can lizards climb carpeted stairs? I'm not sleeping tonight.

My Comment From Another Blog

[About the flick The Departed]

Oooh, we saw this last week and loved it. We walked away from the movie with almost no negative comments. I won't ruin it for those who haven't seen it, but it didn't end the normal "Hollywood" way - and I appreciated the shock.

The best bit for me was the vitriolic banter between Mark Wahlberg and Alec Baldwin. On the edge of forced, but just on the edge - I actually believed the conversations between the two characters were truly mean spirited, but on the cusp of playing, where a real fight could break out and someone's teeth were going to get broken. After which they'd go for a beer.

(aside: cK, Rays says to read Black Mass, an account of Whitey Bulger - that's who Nicholson was based on.)

Saw Running with Scissors last night. Recommended to all. Bening is just incredible; her drug-induced speech is some of the best slur ever.

The Queen was also just amazing - a must see. Helen Mirren can do no wrong (much like Judy Dench - she didn't even suck in The Chronicles of Riddick where she was surrounded by mediocrity and absurdity).

Testing

Something screwy going on here - I think I lost some stuff, but let's see if this works...

My Random Soundtrack

A blatant steal from the ck, who did the same thing to Mips.

Opening Credits: “Serenade For Strings, Op. 6 In E Flat Major: III. Adagio - Piu andante - Tempo I” - Joseph Suk

Waking Up: “Big Time” – Peter Gabriel

First Day At School: “Cry” – James Blunt

Falling In Love: “Well, Well” – Nelly Furtado

Fight Song: “That Lucky Old Sun (Just Rolls Around Heaven All Day)” – Ray Charles (I guess I fight slowtime)

Breaking Up: “Re-Introduction” – Wiseguys

Prom: “Remember the Tinman” - Tracy Chapman (Well, the guy I went with was tall, skinny and sensitive - he didn't cry though...or rust)

Life: “With Arms Wide Open” – Creed (I'll take that as a motto)

Mental Breakdown: “Clocks” – Coldplay (NO!!! This should have been the last one - in fact I think I'm one off on a few of these...)

Driving: "Your Love is Mine" – Corinne Bailey Rae

Flashback: “My Love Grows Deeper, Pt. 1” – Nelly Furtado

Getting Back Together: “Perfect Kiss" - New Order (YEAH)

Wedding: “Levitate Me” - Pixies (Same group as the cK on this one...interesting...)

Birth of Child: “Digging in the Dirt" - Peter Gabriel (umm...gross?)

Final Battle: “Lessons Learned” – Carrie Underwood (kind of embarrassed by this one, good title, but a friend gave me this album)

Death Scene: “Trouble” - Coldplay (Ooo. Perfect.)

Funeral Song: “Época" - Gotan Project” (Slow, but sexy/sad, okay we're back on track)

End Credits: “Josie” – Blink 182 (Perfect! Going out loud with hard guitar)

Mmm, Mmm, Good

Honestly, it could not be raining harder here. The puddles have puddles.

But I don't care.

I am sitting here, in my office, looking out the window enjoying homemade ham and pea soup in my Labrador mug. Cozy!

Holy B.O.

Good Christ!! I just left a Seinfeld episode. I went to the can at work and the bathroom as a whole smelled fine (well as fine as a public bathroom with three stalls can smell). I went to the usual - the last stall - because it normally has the most t.p.

I must have been breathing out when I went in and locked the door, because the moment I breathed in, I was accosted by an OVERWHELMING odor of B.O. It was too late to leave so I had to endure. After a quick self-pit-check (not me) I spent the entire 20 seconds while I was in there trying to figure out how this smell arrived in the stall. Did some chic come in here and wipe her pits on the wall? Was her workout so intense this morning that her poo stinks of it? Did a construction worker misread the WOMEN sign on the door? It was all encompassing...I worried that I would smell of it when I left. I just might need a shower. No...I'm pretty sure I need one.

I'm sure the power of the smell is equal to its endurance - it is never leaving the stall walls. Seinfeld had to sell the car, and well, you just can't do that with the can...I'm never going in there again. Hello, handi-crapper!