I Went On A Date The Other Night...

...with my brothers and 18 of their closest over 35 hockey team buddies! Sasha is one year older and Lexi is three years younger. Here's the poo on the sibs. Sash has been mistaken for Tom Cruise (in his non-crazy younger days) and Lex looks like a better, gentler not so conceited or steroided version of Fabio (at least he used to when his hair was long). This has nothing to do with my post, but I wanted you all to have a visual.

I knew this was going to be an interesting night when we loaded a chock full beer cooler into the car and no one, I repeat no one - besides me - including the cop who was driving dug into the consuming on the Turnpike. I wanted out of the car for a hot moment (umm, precious cargo, hello?) when I realized what was going down, but then for some reason I intuitively understood that this was par for the course and not particularly out of the ordinary. Would the cop get out of it if pulled over? Is this how things work in the brotherhood? I didn't know, but we got there safely.

Only after commenting about the "homeless" fat guy on the entrance to the Turnpike.
Tom the Cop: "Yep, that dude must be starving to death."

And laughing at the 6 people staring at their golf cart that had tipped into the canal.

We were only two minutes into the trip and I felt like I was a fly on the wall in a men's locker room. They seriously forgot I was there, until Bob berated Lexi for belching and possibly offending my sensibilities...until I answered him with a huge self induced burp of my own.

Anyway, we pulled into the VIP parking lot and I had to wait until all 5 of them had peed in the bushes before we could go in.

We arrived the Oilers/Panthers hockey game. When we lived in Edmonton, we were all die hard Oilers/Gretzky fans in the 80s, so there was no question as to where our loyalties lay. A friend of ours is with Budweiser, so we hung out and ate and drank in the Bud Suite and the four of us (3 + 1 neighbour Joey) were granted the 1st row seats, kissing the glass right next to the goalie!! Holy crap, were these awesome seats. I have never been so close to sweating, grunting, gargantuan men, intent on crushing the living snot out of each other while literally performing ballet moves on ice (with an added puck-seeking appendage).

15 seconds into the game, a Panther got smeared on the boards right in front of us. It was awesome. Not so awesome was the goal he scored not 45 seconds later. The long and short of it is that this was THE most exciting game Ive ever seen - on TV or in person. The Oilers were down 2 goals with just over two minutes to go and they tied it up. Lex jumped up at every opportunity and waved his Canadian flag all over the place. Joe was so excited that he was going to be able to see something he'd never seen before - a shootout - that he nearly knocked over the glass when the time ran out. We laughed and laughed until one of us was able to squeak out that we still had to get through 5 minutes of overtime before a shootout could happen. Poor guy was crushed, but that soon dissipated when it was still tied at the close of the 5.

Shootout commenced. Edmonton got two by the third round and it was all over but the glass banging! I have never had such a good time with my boys. It was great.

And, despite crawling up the ass of a State Trooper, we didn't get pulled over on the way home either!

12 Week Ultrasound

This is a better picture of the niblet - taken on Wednesday:



His/her hand is on the forehead as if to say, "Umm could you get out of here? I have a headache...sheesh."

The Cat is Now Sprawling Out of the Bag

Okay, so it's the 23rd, and I'm done waiting. Some of you may have already read this elsewhere, but here goes y'all:

I'm PREGNANT!



Holy Kegel it feels good to get that out. I feel like I've been pretty lame with the posts for the last three months and it's mainly because I've been:
a) obsessed with everything baby - from making to keeping, to learning and observing - feeling like everything else kind of came in a lame second
and
2) wanting to post about it, but needing to keep it on the down low
as well as
c) be too frigging tired to post anything at all.

No morning sickness at all, no cravings, no food aversions. If I didn't have these boobs and this little pooch, I wouldn't even know I was pregnant. Umm, that's a total lie. I'm also tired, starving all the time, enjoying water (WTF? I know!!), peeing in the middle of the night and farting up a storm.

Mom, baby (aka niblet) and I spent half an hour together today with the ultrasound tech - apparently the little one has inherited both parents' stubborn genes (Go Irish!) and was determined not to get into the desired position for measurements.

We're tossing names around right now (we're looking into both as we're not going to find out before he/she is born)...any suggestions?

You Can Never Be Too Rich or Too Thin

Well folks, I'm here to tell you that you can - on both counts.

I went to the opening night of the Joffery Ballet last night. In Palm Beach - well West Palm Beach really, but the Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous crossed the dreaded Intracoastal and slummed for the night on the other side of the tracks. Let me just say, there is nothing slummy about the Kravis Center - it is a stunning theatre.

Anyway.

So My Guy and I went to Ruth's Chris across the way and had a lovely, albeit slightly rushed meal (we thought the ballet started at 8, and when on a whim, we looked at the tickets and realized that it started at 7!). Petite Filet and the Bone in Ribeye! Stat! While we were sitting there, we started to notice several of the other patrons were quite well to do. We were surrounded by finely clad women, men in tuxes, and both were dripping with jewels. Outside, arm candies in fur (yes, even in the Florida heat) walked cozily with overly tanned, much older men. Bentleys, Jags and Porches abounded at the valet. Yep, this was High Palm Beach Society.

And the riper ladies, oh, the I Will Never Admit My Age Ladies. I've never seen so much young hair sitting on top of so many old women. Earring were perched in front of earlobes where multiple surgery scars were playing Hide and Please Don't Seek. Women who had to look down their noses because to lower the chin would be an invitation to expose sagging neck skin. We saw a socialite whose eyebrows had been lifted so many times she seriously looked like a scary clown. Why do these people want to constantly look surprised? I don't get it. And what the lady next to us didn't get was an ass. You know the back profile I'm talking about...affectionately referred to a Avalanche Ass - the one where the shoulder blades are the farthest protruding protuberance of the dorsal side of Homo Erectus Femalius. Palm Beach! Listen Up! We don't like that look! Eat a flippin' burger! Get some meat on your toucus, badonkadonk is in. Trust.

Why. Why?

Why is it that on the day I ask, and get permission, to go from 40 hours a week to 30 does one of our websites blowup and make me stay longer than I should be? Why?

Not Exactly As Planned

I wouldn't call it a bust, but the "day of love" took a hard left somewhere in the middle of the exhibit...or was it at the restaurant? Or the second restaurant? Or the did it do it because of the weather.

The turn in the romantic action happened in the third section of the Bodies exhibit. We were happily listening to the soothing voice of the audio tour when suddenly, between the respiratory showcase (lungs, hearts, alveoli, etc.) and the reproductive room (embryos, fetuses, breast tissue and uterine tumors of every size and shape - including one the size of a basketball that, yes, when invited to peek inside, involved teeth, hair and the beginnings of an eyeball!!), I started to feel a bit woozy. Did I not have enough to eat for breakfast, or was it just threatening to come back up? A black shroud encompassed my peripheral vision and I knew that I was about to do a face plant into the aorta display. Luckily, we were just passing the only bench in the entire joint, so I sat, took a few deep breaths and pulled out my emergency bag of trail mix. This always happens to me in museums! The last time was three years ago in Manhattan at the fashion exhibit of the maven who wore the big round black glasses and paired weirdly fabulous things together - oh crap, hr name is escaping me right now... anyway - I nearly hit the dirt there too. I think it's the dark rooms, the standing in one place for a while, the locked knees. I need to order a wheelchair the next time I plan to visit any sort of art display.

So, we got through that okay, after a brief rest. ps - the human body, when sliced into 100 separate pieces, really does resemble a ham steak. Just so you know.

We were done sooner than I thought we would be, so we headed to Blue Moon a little earlier than expected. At 12:15 our 1:45 reservation just could not be handled in any way shape or form until after the 1:30 people had been seated, so we'd have to come back. I just caught Ray in time before the valet dude stole away with the Mini, so we jumped back in a debated over what to do. Find a Barnes and Noble, read and hit the coffebar for a hot minute ? Couldn't find one nearby. Go for a drink at another waterside bar (couldn't find one either). Say screw it, head back in the direction of home and hit Oceans 234 for lunch? After I pouted briefly, I said ok.

We got a little turned around (read: lost) and finally found the place. We were seated immediately (relief) right next to the waiter station (hell no). The hostess hemmed and hawed about timing and waitresses and just could not understand that I didn't want to sit near the station and could she find another table (there were several around). She was dense. I eventually forewent my usual politeness, looked her dead in the eye and said "I don't want to sit here." She led us to a delightful table for two near the edge of the restaurant, a table that still had a really nice view, a said that we'd need to wait a bit for a server because she just sat two big tables in her section. Happily, she showed up immediately and we had a nice meal. Anniversary crisis averted.

Next crisis to avert was the weather. We made it through the meal no problem, but right before I mentioned going to the Morikami Gardens, a deluge dumped down on us like it was about to rain for 40 days ad 40 nights. I kept my mouth shut to avoid anymore disappointment and headed home.

So here we are, home in the middle of the day of love, me, downstairs on the green couch, fighting to stay awake to watch the gore and suspense of Seven, Ray, upstairs killing zombies on his new PS3.

Not exactly as I planned, but Happy Anniversary honey!

Holy Crap, Where Did The Time Go?

Tomorrow is our 2 year anniversary. I can't really believe that we've been hitched for that amount of time, but then, it feels like we've been together forever and it's just perfect that way. I've always guffawed at the concept of having a soulmate, it's like the ultimate sappy sentence..."He's my soulmate." Bleah. But I heard it again today on NPR when a muslim woman was talking about her husband on This American Life and I thought to myself, Dammit, Ray is my soulmate.

Because of circumstances beyond my control, our weekend of celebrating was kiboshed - today was kind of a crap, nothing day, so I hopped on the old laptop, made some inquiries and we are having a full day of fun in Ft Lauderdale tomorrow. First we head out bright and early (after I fix him breakfast in bed - very wifey, I know) to the Bodies exhibit - something we've been wanting to do for a while now. I just learned that the exhibit is of real, preserved bodies, not plastic replicas, so it should be a wonderful wind up to the all you can eat brunch at the Blue Moon Fish Company on the water at 1:45. Rare prime rib anyone? Then I thought if we had enough energy, we could hit The Morikami Gardens and check out the bonzai trees in the daylight (last time we were there was in the dead (no pun intended) of night when we were doing the lantern lighting for the Festival of the Dead. I'll cook something gorgeous for dinner (saucy and porky). I think that sounds like a lovely day. N'est pas?

Photo Log Catch Up

So I had a pantload of pictures in my old camera and quite another even larger pantload in my new non-ghetto no elastic holding the battery port shut camera.

Pictures and captions from the last few months:

T-shirt I painted for Hulles (I'm only linking you Hulles in the hope that you have updated your blog you busy man you).

Stockings and donuts in bed on Christmas morning - what could be better than that? Maybe a shot of Happy Birthday Jesus rum in a cup of coffee?

The very first picture taken with my new camera - Portrait of the Vampire Pedicure (not only is the red nearly black, but this hot-damn pedi is everlasting - I've had this for almost a month and it still looks fresh, no?! I wonder if the OPI colour I picked was called "The Undead"). Note the ghetto camera with the blue elastic band...

Think of me y'all on Wednesday night, Jan 16th - I'll be getting a dose of culture courtesy of My Guy and the Joffery Ballet.

(Just a quick aside...have any of you watched Rome? We just got through season one and are salivating for more. The last two episodes were mind blowing. Must See TV!! Yes, NBC, I am stealing your tagline - HBO rules!)

The Christmas dinner table before it was released to the hounds. Seriously, we demolished it. It had none of its former perkiness after the clan was done with it.

My fairly drunky Daddy. Look carefully at his left shirt string...somehow he managed to unknowingly dip it in his Cabernet. He's so cute.

My even cuter guy - I just love him when he's scruffy. Hmm, I just had a thought...do you think that's a Daddy thing? Eww.

This was the joint where we spent New Year's Eve in Tarrytown New York. The Castle on the Hudson was lovely - maybe a little bit old (PJ and Ray walked in to the place, checked out the clientele and said in unison, "Who died?"). But a good time was had by all - especially these two:

They started mackin' out right in front of our table at the drop of the ball, continued through the horns, streamers, kissing and shaking of hands, kept 'er going during Dick Clark's farewell and didn't come up for air until our band started, played through and finished "When the Saint's Come Marchin' In." The room was revolted. Particularly when he squeezed her ample ass for the last chorus.

Ugh.

I blew a kiss to the camera at just after midnight (and after kissing my husband).

And this was me at the stroke of 12:20, back at PJ and Barbara's in my J's ready for bed. I loved that they live around the corner!

Happy New Year!