In Case You Weren't Sure You Were Buying A Chick Flick

Yikes, is this enough pink?

Vocab Day.

Scrub: What you know you are when you come into work with makeup on your face and your hair styled and the security guards do not know you.

Stress: When you make a point of stopping at the liquor store to buy two bottles of wine and walk the rest of the way home in the rain because the wine is more important than staying dry just then.

Phantasm: When you give the potatoes sitting in your kitchen the stink eye because they're taunting you about having cheese & crackers for dinner instead of actually cooking.

Lightweight: When you drink one glass of wine with dinner and feel tipsy.

Champ: When you drink two more glasses, to spite the potatoes.

Chump: When you wake up the next morning with a hangover.

Tuesday: When you're not sure the bottle and a half you still have will be enough.

Boredom is the Best Motivator

This weekend I was bored. It would be hard for me to properly explain to you how boring this weekend was. Suffice it to say that everyone I know was leading a more interesting existence than I was, and none of their plans involved me. This first led to a ridiculous amount of Sex and the City watching (like, shameful to the point that I watched most of the 2nd half of season 6 online because I did not want to wait for the last three DVDs to reach me, despite having received three non-viewed ones on Saturday, which translates to a total of like 20 episodes watched this weekend or something. Shameful). After watching that much Sex and the City it became necessary for me to switch to some Disney fare in order to maintain some balance and not become skewed by the SATC universe (ps - have you seen that Fergie is doing the theme song for the movie? I listened to it. It's gross, I'm so annoyed).

Round about 11pm on Saturday night I decided that my apartment needed to be cleaned. IMMEDIATELY. So I started going through my living room throwing away as much as possible, took two trips to the dumpster, scrubbed my bathroom AND started a new knitting project (I'm easily distracted, what can I tell you). I finally went to bed around 2am, woke up the next day and the cleaning continued. My apartment is (relatively speaking) completely spotless now. Every now and then I need a weekend like this to make up for all the weekends when I look around and think, "instead of cleaning this place I think I'll take a nap and then go drinking instead." (just kidding, I don't really drink that much. Mostly)

Anyway, it's another Monday here in paradise, and so far it's shaping up to be a 'stop on the way home and get a big bottle of wine' kind of day. Sounds like a good dinner, right?

doing my happy dance

...because Grey's Anatomy is coming back tonight. Yes!

And now a brief moment of lamenting the fact that I don't have a Tivo so I'll have to watch The Office online tomorrow. Stupid putting them on at the same time!

Anyway, yea I really don't have anything more interesting than that today. I slept like crap last night so today I'm in a cloud of tired. Should make for an interesting Thursday.

Word.

Another TV Post

So as it turns out, I'm pretty boring and I watch a lot of TV.

Anyway, one of my very favorite shows on television right now is How I Met Your Mother. This is a highly enjoyable show. Like, really great. And last night's episode was stupendous. I know there are a lot of times when I tell you that you need to go rent something and watch it immediately, or read something really good RIGHT NOW or what have you, so I'm going to do my best to refrain from that this time, but it's not going to be easy. Especially since CBS hasn't quite renewed it for next year and I will be a sad, sad girl if it's gone (and some of the things popping up here and there make it seem like they're gearing up for a big finish this season). But I know that this show has a definite target audience and if you're not in your 20's/early to mid 30's it might kind of miss the mark and not come off as all that funny to you. I will just put out there that you can rent the first two seasons on DVD and I'm pretty sure you can see all of this season's episodes at cbs online. You know, in case you're curious. I don't think you'll be disappointed. And if you are, it probably means you don't have a very good sense of humor and you need to lighten up.

I will send anyone who's interested on a little scavenger hunt for my top 5 episodes (in chronological order, oldest first):

1. The Pineapple Incident
2. Slap Bet
3. Spoiler Alert
4. Slapsgiving
5. Sandcastles in the Sand (last night's episode).

If watching any one of those 5 episodes doesn't make you want to see more, we probably can't be friends. Go check it out and get hooked if for no other reason than I need someone to be able to email after each episode for discussion purposes.

Thankyouverymuch.

I heart the office

Okay, seriously? That was a great episode of The Office last night. How adorable was Jim with that ring he bought a week after they started dating? It's so cute I can't stand it. All I'll say is she better say yes and no I don't think it's a problem that I get this involved with fictional characters, why do you ask?


Toni came over to watch with me last night and we made cookies! Yummy, delicious cookies! As it was the first time I've ever made cookies in my oven, they didn't turn out perfectly, but they were still edible and people at work seem to like them, considering 4 of the 12 I brought were gone before 9:30 this morning.


As an added bonus, I didn't even burn myself! And I only mildly set fire to my hot pad with no real harm done. Not too shabby!

Unbelievable

Dane Cook (despite being fairly annoying in general, is actually a pretty funny comedian. They should just stop letting him do movies, give interviews, appear at awards shows, etc) has this bit where he talks about the difference between men and women when they get angry. I don't remember the exact wording now, but he says that when men get angry about something, they tend to get a certain look on their face, shake their heads and mutter "unbeLIEVable..." under their breath. I can't say if this is true for mankind as a whole, but it's definitely true of every man in my family so for now we'll say he's right. I'm willing to bet that right now in your head you can see at least one of the men in your life (or yourself, if you are a man) doing this.

That brings me to this morning, when I was trying to get to work. It was a total fiasco, the result of which is that I've never before heard that many people doing the "unbelievable" utter at the same time in my life. Men and women, young and old, in English and I'm pretty sure in Spanish, Russian, Italian, etc. (I don't speak Spanish, Russian or Italian, but this is a kind of frustration that transcends language)

I knew there was a problem as soon as I got off the bus this morning. The sheer number of people standing on the platform with a train in the station was a clear indication that this would not be a good morning. The official word was there was a power problem at Aquarium station. An announcement said they were running trains to the airport and then busing people in to Government Center from there.

In reality, the trains were barely running to Airport, the shuttle bus situation was a joke, and people as far as the eye could see were calling their places of business to say they'd be late. I had to let two trains go by before there was one I could even get on, and then it took about 20 minutes to get the TWO stops to Airport. Once there, it was a fight with a ridiculous crowd of people to try and get to the other side of the platform and get on the bus. Only to find that what I originally thought was a ridiculous crowd of people was nothing compared to what I was in store for. Here is a picture I took this morning while waiting for the shuttle buses.

This many people waiting, and three little buses showed up. In the mass confusion, we learned that there were no shuttle buses running to Maverick, so if anyone had to go there, they had a nice walk to look forward to. The buses to the airport terminals were still trying to run their regular routes but people were so insane at this point they were trying to get on any kind of vehicle that pulled up, so the T employees were basically herding us like cattle. Eventually someone got smart and started routing Silver Line buses to us, because the Silver Line Runs from the airport to South Station and this way people could at least get into the city and get public transportation from there. So, my commute this morning ended up being Orient Heights to Airport to South Station to Park Street to Boylston. Blue to Silver to Red to Green. I got to work a full two hours after I left my apartment.

Unbelievable was really the only way to describe it.

Sunday, glorious Sunday

Sundays, as a rule, are bittersweet, obviously. It's a weekend day, you get to sleep in, but you know you have to go to work the next day.

Here is my recipe for a glorious Sunday:

1. Brunch with your friends. When I was little, brunch was a terrible thing. I didn't like breakfast food, more often than not I wanted a salad or cereal for breakfast and my family always went to my grandpa's Elks club so they never had what I wanted, I always had to be dressed up, and most of the people were really old (at least, that's how they seemed to me at age 8). Not fun. Now, however, brunch is a magical time full of delicious breakfastyness, yummy lunch items, and even dessert! Very few things are better than brunch.

2. Spontaneous shopping trip. After brunch I went shopping with Alisa to help her buy some gifts she needed. My role was solely to help her get ready for an upcoming trip but I ended up with these:

Macy's was having a big shoe sale, I found these on the clearance rack and an additional amount was taken off at the register, so you know what's better than cute shoes? Discounted cute shoes!

and these:

A nice summer dress to wear to at least one of the weddings I'm attending in July (the red) and this nice white top which I'm sure will get lots of use this summer.

3. Get home, pour a glass of this:

and enjoy while you sit on the couch and relax.

mmmm, good Sunday.

Also, look what I actually finished! I rock :)

sotto voce

I am, to use a phrase from back in the day, on struggle today. Yesterday I had a bit of a sore throat and was feeling under the weather in the morning, but it got better as the day went on. Last night I noticed the sore throat seemed to have come back but I just went to bed early, because that's pretty much my cure-all. Only to wake up in the morning without the ability to speak. I was sitting in on a phone call earlier and had to shout in order to make myself heard at all. I hate losing my voice. And because I'm about 7+ years younger than everyone else I work with, they automatically assume I've been out partying too much. So not the case.

Anyway.

Tonight is the return of The Office! Hooray! Is everyone as excited as I am? Because you should be. :)

- one more thing, the Tigers finally won yesterday! Hooray! I can't tell you how happy it makes me that they snapped the losing streak against the Red Sox. It gives that warm, fuzzy feeling.

please make me stop!

Yea. So.

About a year ago (holy crap that means my subscription is coming up again) I decided to take the plunge and sign up for Amazon Prime. I thought, hey I live far away from everyone now and I don't have a car so it would be smart to get free two day shipping on books and movies and gifts for people. Well, as you can imagine this has led to a shocking increase in the number of books and movies (etc) that I'm buying. And they have that little one-click feature where you just click a button and it automatically charges your card and sends your items in two days. Or you can preorder. And they learn what you like and suggest more things you probably want. It's kind of a problem. Particularly because I went there today thinking, "I wonder when the movie Penelope comes out on DVD, that was a great movie and one that I surely must own." I was just going to check. I swear.

And then Amazon Prime sidled up to me and said, 'oh hey did you know? 27 Dresses is coming out April 29 and Juno is coming out April 15!'

To which I replied, "Why no, Amazon, I DIDN'T know that, and thank you for convincing me without any persuasion at all that I needed to spend $30ish to own both of those as soon as they come out!" (30 total, not each, don't worry) Also, the release date for Penelope has not been set yet or you can pretty much bet that I would have also preordered that one.

Seriously, it all happened so fast! I had just been thinking to myself earlier in the day how I was going to be so good about saving money and rely on netflix for my movie watching needs (well, until they didn't get the movies I returned Monday back until today, putting me a day behind....unreliable $^#$#@) and buy my groceries and actually cook and blah blah blah blah blah. Yea. Anyway. Because you know, it's not like I have three weddings to go to in Michigan this year or anything. :) Alas, my resolve fails me so quickly.

At least I finished the socks I was knitting yesterday (but obviusly didn't take any pictures yet, because that would have been smart) so I have at least a residual sense of accomplishment to make me feel better about having absolutely no self control with the online shopping.

* given this post, doesn't it seem like the smart thing for me to do would be just not renew my amazon prime subscription? Yes, yes it does. And yet, the chances of that happening are slim to none. I NEED it. ha

Nothing in Particular

First, I would like to say Happy Anniversary to my parents, who are celebrating 36 years of wedded bliss today... probably while sitting by the pool sipping delicious umbrella drinks or something, because they're on vacation. I am insanely jealous of the whole concept of a "vacation". I vaguely remember what that is, and I hold out hope that someday I will get to experience the wonder of going to a completely random place and doing nothing for a week.

I'm sorry to tell you that today I'm feeling so uninteresting that I was actually looking up ideas for things to post about. The fact that I found several websites devoted to that particular problem was a little disconcerting. And they were full of helpful suggestions like, "review something. Make a list of something. Talk about something. Be funny." Thank you websites, that's very helpful. I don't know why I couldn't come up with that myself!

OK, yes, sorry for the bad attitude. It's a Tuesday, it's sunny outside and I'm at work, the Tigers are 0-6 and currently playing at Fenway so I'm watching gamecast on my computer all the while wishing it was 5:00 (surprisingly no one at work has taunted me yet about the Tigers, but I think that's because it's a one season at a time kind of thing and the Celtics are good so they're focused on that). Then I was trying to think of something to do after work only I realized that I had to go straight home to wait for my groceries to be delivered so that won't work either. Alas. The good news for today is that when I get home there's half a bottle of wine and some leftover cake waiting for me. :)

Also, maybe I should try and actually finish knitting something so there's stuff to take pictures of or something. Now there's a thought.

Sense and Nonsense: Part 2

Ugh. Hated it. I can't even go into it beyond that.

The Den of Laziness

Yesterday I had this whole list of things I was going to accomplish when I got home from work:

Do the dishes, finish up a project for a friend, email a recipe, prepare for the weekend, upload some photos to myspace, straighten up, do some vacuuming, etc.

Not one of the things on this list actually happened. What did happen is I got home, changed out of my work clothes, sat down on my couch to eat dinner and proceeded instead to watch three episodes of Sex and the City followed by an hour of Miss Guided and an hour of The Office. And then I went to sleep. I did manage to do some knitting on the socks I'm currently working on, but I didn't even do too much of that. It's a little bit shameful, to be perfectly honest.

I think my apartment is some kind of crazy alternate universe which sucks all the energy and motivation out of me as soon as I walk through the door. It's possible that the sounds of the ocean right outside my window (I know, you hate me) are just so soothing that all they make me want to do is sleep and I don't realize it when it's happening. I need to figure out how to counteract it these effects. Stuff must get done! Alas.

On a completely separate topic, in preparation for the awesomeness that is going to be the Sex and the City movie (May 30, 2008) I decided to watch the entire series in order through the glory of Netflix. I'm up to season 3 so far and I have to tell you that the difference of perspective that comes from having watched these the first time from the ages of 16-22 or so and watching them again at 26 is enormous. (I know, a lot of you don't think there's a huge difference between 22 and 26. There is. I promise) When I first saw this show (at 16-17) I would think to myself, "man, these ladies are so awesome, I hope I'm that cool at that age!" Now I watch it and I think to myself, "Man, you are one crazy bitch, no wonder he's running for his life!" along with (and this may just be my sheltered Midwestern upbringing) sheer wonder at the number of guys these chicks managed to sleep with. Don't get me wrong, I'm still enjoying these episodes and I'm still excited for the movie to come out, I just didn't realize the level of ridiculous reached by some of the things these characters in their mid-30's (and later) were doing. Although, ask me again when I'm in my mid 30's and still single and I'll let you know if I've changed my mind. :)

The other show I've been reliving on DVD is Moonlighting. I remembered liking it a lot when I was younger, and I'll be honest it's probably where I first fell in love with Bruce Willis, but I didn't really REMEMBER remember it. Last weekend I watched the first three episodes and I can tell you it's still a fantastic show. Bruce is the man. Was, is, will continue to be.

Tonight Toni is having a show opening, which we will all be attending the reception for. I'm looking forward to it, as I know I've previously stated she's ridiculously talented and who doesn't love a function that includes free wine? I can't think of anyone.

A smidge of randomness.

1. Yesterday I decided to brave it and went back to DD in my building and ordered my usual mutligrain bagel with butter. The guy saw me standing there and handed off my bagel to be given to me by another member of the staff. Whatever it was I did to this guy, he's holding a grudge. Yikes. I haven't been back.

2. While riding the train yesterday I saw 4 people I know. Let's be clear, I know approximately 10 total people in Massachusetts so to see 4 of them on the train was quite something. And to show you what a zone I'm in on the train, the first pair had to wave and say my name for me to notice them and I was standing right next to them while the second pair had to actually poke me in the back because I stepped right in front of them. And usually I'm so aware of my surroundings.

3. While saying my goodbyes to couple #2 on the train yesterday I was suddenly and inexplicably thrown backward and off the train much quicker than I had planned (and with far less of a handle on my balance). Turns out this was due to my sweater getting caught on a man's umbrella and when he walked out, I went with him. At an alarming speed (he was tall). It took me several steps to get his attention called to the fact that I was attached to him.

4. Somehow I have tricked everyone I work with into thinking that I'm a fantastic cook. I started them off slowly around Christmas 2006 when I brought in puppy chow. Apparently people in New England are completely unfamiliar with this and therefore don't know how easy it is to make, they just know it's delicious and new to them and therefore amazing. Next I made some calzone bread in the spring, also quite easy but definitely a crowd pleasah. I sealed the deal by making a big batch of the Stornant family tomato sauce in the fall/winter and now they all think I'm spectacular. So much so that today when I was eating leftover chicken marsala takeout from a few nights ago someone stopped in and said "oh that smells so good! Is it homemade?" and was actually surprised when I said it wasn't. Ha! Though this does make me want to try and make chicken marsala now.

I think that's about it. Oh, also I got completely fooled by just about every April Fool's thing that came across me yesterday. A blog I like reading said it was quitting and it never occurred to me that it was probably a joke, gmail said they were starting custom times for email where you could say you sent something like a year or whatever ago and I just thought 'hm, that's weird.'

Hello, I'm Gullible. It's nice to meet you :)