Operation Pink Herring

Worth smiling about

As all of my fellow flickr lovers know, every time you log into the world's best photo sharing site you're cheerfully greeted in a different language.  Taiwanese, Zulu, French, you name it.  But when I logged in this morning the greeting looked suspiciously familiar:

OH HAI operationpinkherring! Now you know how to greet people in Lolcat!

Lolcat is now officially a language, at least according to flickr. 

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My coworkers have taken to calling me "The Oracle" because of my ability to predict inclement weather closings, but I was thrown for a loop yesterday.  I'd predicted a "very good chance" of an early closing, and when we received a notice that Baltimore City schools had cancelled all after-school programs and evening classes, I thought we were golden.  "And so it begins...", I said in an email, sure that we'd get the green light to go home at any minute.  3:30 at the latest, I told them proudly.  What I didn't realize was that the cancellation of after-school programs precludes the cancellation of school itself, and the school closings are what we need to get out of work.  In other words: NOPE. 

I've got that out of my system now, and  I have a feeling that tomorrow's forecast will hold some very good news for us:

Fri, February 22

4am

Snow 29°F

21°F

70%

24°F

78%

From ESE 8 mph

5am

Snow 29°F

21°F

80%

25°F

82%

From ESE 8 mph

6am

Wintry Mix 28°F

19°F

80%

25°F

86%

From ESE 9 mph

The timing (starting just before the morning commute, but not so early that the city actually gets off its ass and sends out the one salt truck it owns), the chance of precipitation (needs to be over 50%, preferably over 70%) and those beautiful, all-important words ("wintry mix")... all the signs are there.  I'm predicting a delayed opening at the very least, with the strong possibility of a full-day closure, whether it be liberal leave of an all out office closure.   Wait and see, my pretties.  Wait and see.

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We watched the eclipse last night from our rooftop deck, and although none of my pictures came out very well, the actual sight was amazing.  I've never seen a full eclipse before, and I'm lucky this one was visible at all considering that we were getting snow with a 100% cloud cover just a few hours earlier. 

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But more exciting than the eclipse itself is what happened during: my brother and his lovely girlfriend fiance joined Joel and I in the engaged-but-no-date-set-thanks-for-asking club!  Congratulations, K and JAMIE!  So, when's the Big Day?  When do you think you'll have kids?  Have you bought your dress yet?  Who's the maid of honor?  WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU DON'T KNOW, IT'S BEEN ALMOST 24 HOURS!

PS - Pick a date for us too, while you're at it. 

A king sized bed to myself has never looked so good

Friday

6am: Jenny and I begrudgingly get out of bed, shower, and zip up our suitcases.

7am: We leave for the airport

9am: Fly from BWI to Hartford, CT

10:30am: Get picked up at Hartford

11am: Screw up the crafty bridal scrapbook we were asked to help on. 

11:30am: Run out of double-sided tape.

12noon: Run to crafts store.  Give up and go to bride's house for lunch.

2pm: Nails (note to self: get a freaking manicure every once in awhile, if only for the kick ass shoulder massage!)

5:30pm: Rehearsal

6pm: Rehearsal dinner

10pm: Karaoke in the hotel bar.  Drinks.  Shots.  Singing.  Until 3am.

Saturday

7am: Wake up, forced to shower by Jenny even though I just showered yesterday (and I washed my hair!) 

8am: Dunkin Donuts run

8:30am: Arrive at salon.  Beg hair and makeup stylists to be gentle with me.  Requests for a bobby-pinless 'do and foundation-less makeup are honored.  All is good.  Take a mini-nap in one of the hair washing station chairs to avoid messing up hair.

11:30am: Change into dresses

12noon: pictures in hotel, pictures in lobby, pictures picture pictures

2pm: arrive at church.  Realize we haven't eaten since 8am.  Shove a mangled South Beach Diet bar down my throat before walking down the aisle.  Manage not to trip.

2:30pm: Witness Clippy's MARRIAGE!! Make it through the ceremony without crying!

4pm: More pictures

6pm: Reception.  Much eating.  Much drinking.  More eating.  More drinking.  Dancing.  More eating and drinking. Some crying. 

1:30am: Fall into bed.

Sunday

7am: Wake up.  Shower, pack bags.  Meet car driver in the lobby, just as he is about to leave because he didn't find your name on the hotel registry.  Um, sir?   Maybe you were going to call my cell phone WHICH I GAVE YOU MYSELF before assuming I'd just up and left?  Because sometimes people stay with other people, and only give one name to the hotel?   It happens sometimes.  And you almost seriously screwed me.

7:30am: Drive to Boston Logan airport.

9:30am: Check in for flight.

10am: Go through security.

10:01am: Vomit in Logan bathroom. 

10:02: Vomit again.

10:05: More puking.

10:10: Purchase altoids, gum, and vitamin water.

10:15: Feeling much, much better.

10:55: Board plane.  Fly to San Francisco.

2:30pm (Pacific Time): Arrive in SFO.  Buy burrito.  Devour burrito.

3:30pm: Arrive at hotel.  Make out with king sized bed.  French kiss gigantic flatscreen TV.  Shove Bliss products in my toiletries bag.

4:00pm: Work meeting.  Many jokes about why I am not wearing my bridesmaid dress are made (har har, that's the last time I tell people about my recurring nightmares about forgetting to pack a work outfit)

6pm: Reacquaint myself with the internet after two and a half days of being completely offline.

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So, hello, internet!  I've missed you.  I'm so exhausted that I've moved from "tired" to "completely delirious" and I am looking forward to Tuesday, which will be devoted entirely to recovering from the Longest Weekend Ever, more than I can put into words.

Did I miss anything?

Weekend Recap, posted midweek. Leave me alone, it's been a rough couple of days.

This past weekend was a fun-filled extravaganza filled with bridal showers, bachelorette parties, drag queens, a whole lot of alcohol, kick-ass friends, freaky near-encounters with people from The Internet, and very little sleep.  My calendar says it's Wednesday, but my brain says DURRRRRR.

So, let's just pretend it's cool to post a weekend recap on a Wednesday, and while we're at it, let's also just pretend that I've been posting more often than twice a week.  Thanks, that would be great.

Anyway!  Weekend recap!  It was crazy, let me tell you.

On Friday night, my friend Jenny (there was a time when I decided to use fake names for all of my real life friends, but now I can't remember what all those names were, so... yeah) arrived at my house so that we could wake up in the pre-dawn hours on Saturday and drive to a SURPRISE bridal shower for our mutual friend's bridal shower.  In New Jersey.  I thought we should leave at 6am, but Jenny thought it would be fine to leave at 6:45 or later.  I reminded her that we would need to be stopping somewhere for breakfast and we should budget in some time for that, and she responded NOT TO WORRY, I brought granola bars.  I clarified that for me, breakfast means COFFEE and we would need to be stopping for my COFFEE.  The moral of the story is, we stopped for COFFEE and we still made it to NJ in time to stop at our friend's house to change out of our pajamas (PLEASE, as if we were going to drive 3.5 hours in the wee hours of the morning in our cute little dresses), and run my trusty flat iron that I've only used two other times through our hair.  We arrived at the shower, we stayed awake at the shower (thanks to more COFFEE) and then we headed into NYC to prepare for the real fun: the surprise bachelorette party.

This is my first time being a bridesmaid, and this was my first real bachelorette party (I have been to one other bachelorette party, technically, but since it involved going to crappy bars in PowerPlantLive! that even college sophomores are too cool for, I don't really think that counts).  There was a full agenda for the evening, and since we'd gotten up at 5:30am, we did the only sensible thing: started pounding back Mike's Hard Iced Teas while we decorated the hotel room with giant inflatable penises and pin-the-macho-on-the-man and waited for the Bride-to-Be to arrive.  Oh, and we changed into our matching tank tops, because everyone knows that it's not a real bachelorette party without matching tank tops.

Have I mentioned that I don't drink much anymore?  And that I had three Mike's Hard Lemonades before we left the hotel room?  And that I hadn't slept much the night before?  By the time we were ready to leave the hotel, I was feeling mighty good about life.

We ventured out into the city at large, and I had almost forgotten how much I love New York. 

There's just something magical about it. 

I mean, where else can you find sidewalk art like this:

Artist: Me, Medium: Broken pieces of a candy necklace and my foot, Text: "Clippy" (Bride-to-Be's nickname), as if you couldn't tell, Inspiration: Many, many Mike's Hard Iced Teas on an empty stomach.

We soldiered through a drag show that left me horrified and delighted, five bars, skeeball, a video game where I proved to be a kick-ass duck shooter (thanks to hundreds of hours of Nintendo Duck Hunt in my youth, I'm guessing).  During the evening, we ran into an old friend that one of the other bridesmaids used to work with AND a random person from high school.  New York is a big city, but it's a small world. 

And as if that weren't enough, on Monday I got a comment from LSass joking that she'd seen a crew of bachelorettes at the corner of Avenue B and 6th wearing matching tank tops on Saturday night, hahaha, maybe it was you.  I immediately pulled up the Google Map I'd made of our pub-crawling route and saw that we had been exactly at that corner, and I emailed Laurel a picture of our outfits, because NO WAY.  That's just not possible, right?

Oh, it's possible.  NYC is one freaky place sometimes.

The night and the weekend overall were just a blast.  I loved every sleep-deprived minute of laughing hysterically with the best friends in the world over a Chili's commercial for honey-dipped chicken (you had to be there), cheering our bachelorette to victory in a lap dance contest (again... sort of had to be there), ordering pizza at 3am and then sending it back because it was mangled, and driving on the New Jersey Turnpike the next morning suffering the effects of having been awake for nearly 48 hours and having consumed a wee bit of alcohol. 

Yes, I just said I enjoyed driving on the Turnpike.  Obviously there were a few brain cell casualties this weekend as well.

I am sick of this.

I am officially sick.  I thank a certain person who was coughing all over the place on Friday, who assured me "Don't worry!  I'm not contagious!".  He lied.  And I spent my weekend feeling like poop as a result.  My THREE DAY WEEKEND, people.  This is not OK, as Dr. Phil would say.

The weekend started out well enough.  I went to the gym on Friday, and guess who was at the desk.  Just guess.  He didn't even notice me come in and swipe my totally legal, paid for in full, ID card.  What a let-down.  And by let-down, I mean PHEW, I DIDN'T HAVE TO FACE HIM AGAIN.  I had an excellent run, all pumped up on the adrenaline of doing something wrong (still, even though now technically I'm not doing anything wrong at all!)  And then I snuck out the back entrance so I didn't have to walk past him on my way out.

All day Saturday was spent grouting the wall.  People, I wish I could tell you that this thing was done, but alas, I fear there is still much to do.  All the grout is officially ON THE DAMN WALL, but now I have to go over every tile with a scrubby sponge to get all the little bits of grout off the tiles.  And then I have to spray sealant on every square inch.  Jeebus.  I took a break at 6pm so I could go to a yoga class, and I'm pretty sure the instructor was high as a kite.  I mean, I accept that all yoga instructors are going to be a little fruitier than the general population (and I say that as a person who adores yoga and is considering becoming a yoga instructor herself), but this chick was just so... happy.  The sort of happy that screams "I just smoked a fat joint before I came in here".  Not that I would know anything about that.  Not that I was jealous of her, either, because by this point I was having trouble breathing through  my nose.  But I wasn't worried, since I "never get sick" and all.

By 2am, when I was still unable to breathe and my head had started to ache, the kind of ache where your teeth and hair hurt, I had to admit that I was sick.  And just in time to attend my first blogger meetup with bags under my eyes and the "I haven't slept in 48 hours" glazed look!  Excellent! 

Luckily I felt OK on Sunday morning, and Joel and I trekked to DC to meet Isabel, Janet, Erika, Lindsey, Lauren, and Sarah.   It was a lovely day in the capitol, and all of these ladies are even better (and prettier) (seriously) in person than they are on their blogs.  I've been reading Isabel and Janet's blog since before I even had my own site, and I started reading Erika's a few months ago when Isabel told me she'd be at this meetup.  I was not given sufficient warning to go back and read all of Lindsey, Lauren and Sarah's archives, and that is truly a tragedy because they seemed like my kind of peeps.  The whole experience was sort of surreal and wonderful, and as a bonus the pizza at Matchobox was divine.  So I've now officially met people from The Internet and lived to tell the tale. 

These picture stolen from Erika and  Lindsey because (SURPRISE!) I forgot to bring the camera cord with me today. 

The best part was possibly when we realized that we were all wearing some form of flip-flops.  And to think of all the time (um, maybe like 10 minutes?  But those were an excruciating 10 minutes) I spent fretting over what to wear.   These girls are awesome.

Ok, I lied, the best part was when Janet and Isabel re-enacted the Larry Craig scandal for us.  Dare I admit that I hadn't heard about this before?  Seriously, I need to stop living under a rock.  I'm going to get right on that.  (Link AND pictures stolen from Lindsey).

 

The rest of the weekend was spent feeling craptastic and hoping like hell that I didn't get any of my new blog real life friends sick.

I hope you all had fabulous long weekends, devoid of sneezing/headaches/stuffy noses.  Now pardon me while I go and my three new favorite blogs and snort some Afrin.

New to Me

Pardon me while I just plagiarize from the lovely New To Us blog, because I have a new thing that I simply must tell you about.

I baked cookies.  From scratch.  And they were edible!

This is big news.  I've come a long way in my quest to be a better chef, but baking is still my downfall.  It's just so precise.  It's so easy to ruin things.  And I still don't know what a jelly roll pan is.  However, since one of the simple pleasures in my neurotic life is using things up to make more space for new things (to be subsequently used up), I declared that I was going to bake some cookies.  We have a whole cabinet filled up with vanilla extract and sugar and spices that were bequeathed to us when all of our friends made the exodus out of Baltimore.  I've been using the sugar in my coffee on weekends (in lieu of Splenda packets covertly lifted from Starbucks), but that was just taking too long.   So I decided to bake. 

I found a pretty simple-looking recipe on the internet, and I made my first attempt a few weeks ago.   

(I actually had to go out and purchase flour because it turned out what I thought was flour was actually corn starch, and luckily I noticed this slight difference before I made Joel eat two dozen corn starch chocolate chip cookies.  I suppose that purchasing a bag of flour to use up a bag of sugar is really quite counterproductive, but you try telling that to the voices in my head.)

I burnt the bottoms of the first batch horribly (note to self: put on a damn oven mitt and move the rack up.  It's not that hard, really), but the second and third batch came out OK.  Not great, but not awful either.  I tried to get all fancy by purchasing a bag of chocolate AND peanut butter chips, and that just made the cookies taste salty.  Also, I thought it would be OK to use the Country Crock margarine stuff that we buy by the tub, but that made the cookies strangely fluffy.   Joel still ate every last one (or else he took them to work and threw them away, I'll never know), but I was not satisfied.  I went out to the store and bought a bag of plain chocolate chips and some real  butter. I even spent the extra $60 cents for brand name butter.  That's determination.

(And just in case you're keeping track, I've now purchased two bags of chocolate/peanut butter chips, one bag of flour, and butter in the interest of using up some sugar.  I realize this.  The voices, they're so stubborn sometimes.)

(I also had to buy more eggs.)

Behold the result:

Deliciously golden brown, perfectly sweet and not at all salty, chocolate chip cookies.

Maybe there is hope for me after all.  Let's all just cross our fingers that I can replicate this success in the future, because I now I have all this flour and butter sitting around, just begging to be used up.  But at least I've made a good dent in the sugar. 

Email is good because it doesn't require talking to people

You know what I love?  I love it when the phone rings, and unable to muster up the energy to actually talk to someone, I let it go to voicemail -- and then when I check the message immediately afterwards, there's nothing but a click. 

No, really.  I love it when someone calls me, and then hangs up on my voicemail.  It makes me feel like I've won.  Ha ha, caller person whose number I didn't recognize! (Or maybe I did recognize it, and I just really, really didn't want to talk to you, specifically!  You'll never know.) You wanted to talk to me, but I evaded you.  And instead of putting "Call Person Back" on my To Do List, I now am freed from the responsibility of taking any action at all.  I win.

Thank you, mystery caller with the 205 area code who just called me TWICE and hung up on my voicemail.  You just made my day.  Guess it wasn't all that important, huh?

Love and Hate, Copycat weekend edition

Operation Detox is going fairly well.  I have been Lunesta-free for one week, and totally off all sleep aids since Saturday.   I've decided that I need to give my body a break from all sleeping pills, even if it means a return of insomnia for awhile.  I have become completely dependent on the placebo effect of taking something to go to sleep every night, even though Benadryl/Tylenol PM stopped actually working for me ages ago.  I think I need to learn how to fall asleep on my own again, despite the fact that it may take awhile.   I also need to learn how to cope with insomnia when it arrives on my doorstep, since I will most probably be dealing with this affliction for as long as I'm a soldier in the 9-5 army.  I'm working on NOT going into a frustrated panic mode when I can't turn my brain off, and to instead look at it as extra time to read, write in my journal, do yoga, and watch Law and Order reruns.   Getting mad at the cats because they're asleep and I'm not and IT'S NOT FAIR BECAUSE THEY DON'T HAVE TO GO TO WORK TOMORROW really isn't doing anyone any good, sweetie.  Henry  has to get up early for his 6am chat with the pigeons, so he needs his sleep too.  Move over and let him have the pillow if you're not using it.

Anyway, since this little experiment in willpower (DO. NOT. TOUCH. TYLENOL PM. BOTTLE. DO. NOT. LOOK. AT. CLOCK.  DO. NOT. STRESS. OUT.) had me up until some point past 3am last night, I have given myself permission to abandon paragraphs for the rest of this entry, and also I have decided it's OK to plagarize Janet's trademarked Love/Hate entries.

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Love: Our day on Saturday.  We got up at an extremely respectable hour, drove to West Virgina, and went hiking on on the Appalachian Trail.

Hate: That we got lost, as usual, and didn't hike the trail we intended.

Love: It was still super fun.

Hate: That I screamed bloody murder when we saw a garter snake.  It's a visceral reaction, and I can't help but FREAK THE F OUT whenever I see a snake.   It's really pretty embarrassing, not that there was anyone around to see me shrieking like a fool and running off into the woods.

Love: The sign we saw when we crossed the state border, which read "Welcome to West Virginia: Open for Business".

Love: Getting up at a (slightly less) respectable hour AGAIN on Sunday and going to the movies for a matinee to see Ocean's 13. 

Hate: That I had to pee for the last hour of the movie, but was afraid I'd miss the big ending if I got up to go to the bathroom.

Hate: That it's Monday already.

Love: The coffee shop in my office building, which replaced my lost debit-coffee-card-thingy without my even having to ask.  I said "I lost my card, can I have a new one," gave them my name and handed over a $20 bill to put on the new card.  After I got my coffee, I saw that my balance was $26.65, meaning that the barista looked up my old card and transferred the remaining balance to my new one. 

Hate: That I didn't get any work done on The Wall or painting the remaining bathroom and bedroom this weekend.

Love: That Weds is a holiday next week, giving us a whole day to do house stuff that didn't get done on the weekend.

Hate: That the 4th of July is still over a week away.

Love: That Max was sleeping in his cat bed last night.  He likes to ignore the nice bed I bought him.

Hate: That I was up at 2:30am to see him sleeping in his cat bed.

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If you're lucky and behave like a good little internet, I might even bring the camera in tomorrow and post some pictures.  (Don't worry -- no pictures of Mr. Snake, I ran away too fast to even think of snapping his photo.)

Yet another weekend time warp

It's Monday again, and here I am again, wondering how the weekend is already over. AGAIN.

Does this ever end?  Ever?  God, retirement is so far away.  There are just so many things I want to do, and having to go to a job 5 days a week is killing my mojo.  I am trying to plot ways I can make it to the dry cleaner and the chiropractor this week, without sacrificing too many trips to the gym.  I don't think I can do it, and that just seems so... sad.

This weekend was (almost) a total bust as far as painting/wall-working is concerned.  I just couldn't bring myself to get out the painting gear on Friday night (I mean, I had a raging party to go to and then some clubs to hit, so of course I didn't have time to do something like painting my hallways on a Friday night!).  On Saturday I went to watch the IRA in Camden, NJ.  Sadly, Joel and I were probably the most Irish people at the whole event, and Joel proved this by getting a massive sunburn even though we were in the shade all day.  I had to teach him how to exfoliate just so he could try to fade the reverse-raccoon mask left by his sunglasses before his business trip this week.  Like a true Irishman, his sunburn is almost gone, and by next week he'll be back to pale.  I, on the other hand, have truly turned into an old person, such that I put sunscreen all over my body before we even got in the car at 9am.

The race was fun, it was mega-hot out and we were both a sweaty mess by the end, despite the fact that all I did was sit in a lawn chair and read the latest issue of Glamour (that's how you "watch a race," for those of your amateurs out there).  Then we got to drive the two hours home in my non-air conditioned, black vehicle.  Luckily I had some spare napkins in my glove compartment that I used to wipe the pooled sweat off my neck and face and then stuff in my bra to keep the Boob Sweat under control on the ride home.  Classy!  I remember now why I dream of getting a new car every summer.  Guess it's time to bring back The Sweat Towel, which is just that -- a towel I keep in my car to wipe off sweat.  I can't imagine why I haven't been voted Miss Mid-Atlantic yet.

Anyway, all that sun and magazine-reading and driving was very tiring, and I couldn't bring myself to paint when we got home on Saturday night either.  I felt like I was going to pass out a few times when I stood up off the couch. Hmmm, I wonder if going out in the sun all day and subsisting in iced coffee drinks might be sort of not good for you? 

And then it rained all day on Sunday, so I couldn't work on my wall at all.  We did paint one coat of primer on hallway #2.  We had to stop at one section of the wall, which is about 15 feet high and just happens to be over a turn in the stairs, so there is no way to position a ladder under it, which in turn makes it pretty much impossible to paint.   Any suggestions from the engineers/problem solvers out there?  Henry only jumped into the paint pan one time, so at least there's that.

I want a do-over.  I think that Monday should be the official rain-date for Sunday.  Let's start a petition. I don't know how I'm supposed to get anything done when there is water falling from the damned sky all day.  Honestly.

Belated weekend report

You'll all  be pleased to know that my IRS check arrived yesterday.  We threw a little party at my house, which consisted of putting the check in my purse followed by some tossing of a certain Aflac mascot.   It was a good time, but I think we pissed off the neighbors with all the quacking.

In other news, I am currently obsessed with the new (new to me, it's probably like weeks old) Kelly Clarkson song.  You know, the one that starts with "I hope the ring you gave to her turns her finger green."  Not that I think that about anyone, but it's the kind of thing I could totally see myself thinking.  I mean...  nevermind.   Kelly rocks.

I spent the weekend visiting some friends in Hershey, PA.  It was lots of low-key fun.  We went bowling, and for once I wasn't the worst bowler in the establishment.  Nor was I mocked for my patented between-the-legs bowling style, because as it turns out, my friend has an even funnier looking method.  We dubbed it the "dropped the baby" move, and you can just imagine what it would look like if someone were carrying a child in their arms and tripped over something on the ground, dropping the baby in slow motion.  Surprisingly, it worked pretty well.  I think she beat me.  Then again, I think my high score was something like 87, so that's not too difficult.

We made the obligatory visit to Chocolate World, which is a fantastic Willy-Wonka-esque tour of a replica chocolate factory.  Word on the street is that it used to be a tour of the actual factory, but then someone realized that letting thousands of people ride by within 5 feet of chocolate vats probably wasn't the safest idea in the world... or the most sanitary.  So now you get to ride through a fake factory, which is even better because the fake factory comes complete with mechanical cows.  Singing cows. 

Other than that, we watched a dog costume parade and stayed up until midnight reading amazing facts in our friend's medical textbooks.  My favorite at the dog parade was actually a goat, who was entered in the "Proud to be an American" category and was sporting an American flag cape and headband as he trotted along on a leash with the rest of the dogs.  My favorite part of the medical books was a patient counseling chart entitled "How to Choose a Boyfriend".  Either that, or the picture diagrams on how to perform a vasectomy.  I can't decide.

So, that's where I've been.  Out having fun and doing actual things, instead of wasting my time away.  I think that, quite possibly, the best part about the weekend was when I stepped on the scale at the gym yesterday, bracing myself to see the needle point to something really, really ugly after spending the weekend eating chocolate (which is absolutely required when you're in Hershey, PA) and remaining as sedentary as possible.  Instead of spinning around in circles, the scale told me that I'd actually lost a pound.  Ricky, is that you in there?  Keep up the good work, little guy, and I might just decide to keep you.

Miami, continued

One of the very few friends-in-real-life that reads this blog -- let's call her "Liz" since I am too tired to make up any more semi-clever fake friend names -- called me last night to tell me that she was very disappointed in me for saying that I was contemplating posting the worst picture ever taken of me, and then neglecting to actually post said portrait.  Internet, I must apologize if I misled you.  I am still going to post the picture.  We just haven't gotten to that part of the story yet -- the part where I drink an excessive amount of alcohol and bust a move with a rastafarian man on the dancefloor.   But we will.  Yes, we will.  And I'm quite sure that I will regret it, but that's what the "edit post" button is for, right? 

Right?

When we left off, my friends and I were napping/drinking/watching Pussycat Dolls: The Search for the Next Doll in our hotel room while it rained outside.  When the rain cleared, we headed out to the main strip of South Beach for our last night in Miami.  Our objectives were: 1. Find and consume Cuban food, 2. Dance, 3. Get as much Miami fla-vah as possible. 

(Side note: I haven't watched the PCD finale yet, but I did see that Asia won.  What?  Eff that.  Asia was such a passive aggressive drama queen.  I was rooting for Chelsea, but WHATEVER.  The Dolls can make it up to me in Season 2 -- which according to the CW's website, is currently auditioning)

We wandered around South Beach, and quickly settled on a place called Mango's for it's 110% Miami vibe.  The waitresses were dressed in the most horrific and yet wonderful outfits I've ever seen in.my.life.  Each one had a different version of an animal print body suit.  Some were see-through.  Some had strategic parts cut out of the fabric -- leaving their thighs covered, but their asses completely bare, for instance.  They were all wearing at least 4 inch heels, and when they weren't serving, they were dancing in the street or on the bar.  Oh, and the men?  Were all wearing leopard print vests with nothing underneath. 

Awesome.

They had the sort of drinks you'd imagine an outdoor Miami restaurant would have -- margaritas, mojitos, what have you.  As I perused the menu, one particular drink called the "South Beach Iced Tea" caught my eye.  You see, I have a sordid love affair with Long Island Iced Teas.  I'm a lady who love a bargain, and when it comes to getting the most bang for your drinking buck, LITs are the way to go.  When made well, they are delicious.  When made poorly, they taste like vodka.  Either way, they get the job done and they don't mess around.  And those are the qualities I look for in a man drink.  The description for the South Beach Iced Tea read Long Islands not strong enough for you?  Try our South Beach version!  Sign me up!

Now, when we were making the trip down, I told Jenny that I was not planning to get all-out wasted on this vacation, because I did not come to Miami to spend half the weekend hungover, wishing I were dead.  Which is what happens every time I partake in hard liquor nowadays.  My plan was to drink in moderation, have an awesome time, and then sleep it off on the beach sans headache.  That plan went out the window when I saw the words Ice Tea on the menu.  I'm in Miami!  Let's get wild!  Screw moderation!

Which is how I went from this:

to this:

in the space of an hour.

(That is my second South Beach Iced Tea, right there.  When it arrived, I knew I was in trouble, because it tasted to me like they'd forgotten to add the alcohol.  What!  Why are they trying to give me fruit punch and pretend it's a cocktail??  Does this restaurant thing I'm too drunk for a second drink or something? I had everyone else taste it to make sure I wasn't getting screwed out of my money's worth of liquor, and they confirmed that, in fact, it tasted like rubbing alcohol.  Sweet, sweet, goodness.

When we got up to leave, I realized that either there was plenty-o-alcohol in that last drink, or Miami was having a minor earthquake that no one else seemed to be noticing.   

A few minutes down the street, we spotted a restaurant with the word "Cuban" on it's awning, and in we went.  The food was great, and I'm sure my drink was too, but I can't really remember because I was mesmerized my the way Jenny and KP were killing off their 45-oz margaritas.  It was truly an amazing sight.

Wow is right.

With a little help, KP finished hers off as well, and at this point I'd say I was no longer the drunkest one of the group.

After this, we only had one thing left on our to-do list: dance.  And so we went into the first "club" we saw.  I put that in quotes because this was not the kind of club where you pay cover and bump elbows with celebrities.  It was more the type of club you find on the each in Cancun.  Which was awesome, because there was no cover.

The night deteriorated quickly from there.  I paid $7 for some kind of mixed drink that tasted mighty weak to me.  There was a guy we referred to as "scrunchy man", who was trying to seduce every woman who came within 10 feet of him with his off-white scrunchy and his flowing blonde curls.  There was an old guy who was dancing with what appeared to be his scantily clad wife and daughter... and then the two women started posing in sexual positions while the old man took pictures with a disposable camera.  There was a bachelor party of about 15 guys that were all wearing bright orange shirts with the groom-to-be's face screen printed on the front.

What I'm saying is, I think we fit right in.

Eventually, Melly and Jenny got "tired" and decided to go home, while Bethy, KP and I stayed.  Because, obviously, we hadn't gotten in enough fun yet.

We kept dancing.

And dancing.

And dancing.

And then this lovely man started trying to dance with us.  We told him "no thanks" about 27 different ways, ranging from just walking away to looking him in the eye and saying "I'm a lesbian, and these are my girlfriends, so back off", none of which worked. 

Here I am politely trying to tell him that I don't dance with men who wear rastafari hats.

And here he is not listening.

When I drink, I smile nonstop, but trust me: I was not pleased.   We tried several more times to get him to just LEAVE US ALONE, but he since he would not, we decided it was time to leave.

Honestly, it's easy to see why he was so persistent.  I mean, wouldn't you want to dance with someone who looked like this?

I cannot believe that I am allowing the internet to see this picture.  I almost died of embarrassment when I showed it to Joel, and he's seen that version of me live and in person many times.  But there's something about seeing photographic evidence of your sexiness that is a little... horrifying.  Joel's only comment?  "Your hair looks really good".  Seriously.  That's what he said.  I was too distracted by the vein popping out of my forehead, the tongue hanging out of my mouth, and the thoroughly disturbing pose THAT I WAS APPARENTLY DOING IN PUBLIC to notice my hair.  So it's a good thing he pointed that out.

And after that, we took a cab home, went to sleep, and the trip was over.   Thank goodness, because clearly Miami could not handle much more of me.

So, Lizzy, there it is.  The Worst Picture of Me Ever.  Are you happy now?  Do you promise not to mock me?   Will you still take Henry for a "vacation" when you move to your big new house?  Do you want me to never call you again?

Miami: The real deal

Here we are, another full twenty-four hours later, and I still don't have time to write a proper post about Miami.  That's what happens when you take a long weekend off to go lie on the beach and take pictures of giant, oily men in thongs: you get slammed at work when you come home.  It's the law of the universe.  Or something.

But!  In light of the fact that the picture I posted yesterday elicited a record number of comments for this site, I'm going to skip my lunch break today so I can write about Miami.  That's selflessness for you, internet.  You can thank me later.  I am partial to tulips and I take my hazelnut coffee with skim milk and splenda, just so you know.

So.  Let's begin.  I only have an hour here, and so very much to tell you (actually, not that much, as we did nothing but eat, sleep, and drink, but that doesn't sound as fun, does it?)  I suppose that I should first introduce you to the characters of this tale; the four fabulous friends that made this trip with me.  We have my friend who now lives in Richmond, Jenny, my friend who lives in NYC and has the cutest and trendiest wardrobe of anyone I know, Melly, the friend who is an Anthropology Grad Student, Bethy, and the friend who is an actual lawyer with an actual assistant in New York, KP.  God, that just took so much thinking, I'm not sure I can go on. 

But I will.  For you, internet.  Tulips, remember.

On Thursday night, Jenny drove from Richmond to Baltimore, and after spending the night listening to Henry cry at the inhumanity of his nocturnal confinement in the bathroom, we both dragged ourselves out of bed at 5:30am and drove to BWI for our 8am flight to Fort Lauderdale.  I'm not going to say the trip was easy because I am morally and ethically opposed to calling anything that involves getting up before 7am "easy", but it was not too bad.  I don't know about Jenny, because the lovely folks at Airtran Airways would not allow us to sit together, but I passed out the second we got on the plane and woke up what seemed like 5 minutes later in Florida.  After we claimed our bags, we made our way to the largest rental car facility I have ever seen in my life to pick up our Kia Rio or similar vehicle.  If you ever need to rent a car, please allow me to recommend that you NOT rent from Thrifty.  The idiocy of their counter staff was unbelievable.  They refused to let me put the car on my credit card unless I was going to be the driver (and, as we know, that wasn't going to happen).  They refused to let Jenny put it on her debit card without charging an extra fee.  They barraged us with pointless questions that were obviously for their marketing purposes only, because I don't see why they need to know what company I work for or my office phone number.  Jenny ended up yelling "I DON'T HAVE A JOB" (which is untrue, she is gainfully employed) just to get the Thrifty lady to stop asking for her company name, and finally we got the keys and sped off down 95 toward Miami.

When we arrived at the hotel, we encountered similar ineptitude.  We could not check in until 3pm (understandable), and we couldn't valet the car until we were checked in (huh?)  Since the only other option was meter parking that cost 25 cents per 15 minutes, we pooled our change, parked the car, and went to change in the lobby bathroom, only to find that it required a room key to open the door.  We didn't have a room key, of course, since we weren't allowed to check in.  At this point, Jenny's head exploded, a sympathetic employee slipped us a key card, and we put on our bathing suits and headed to the beach.  KP had arrived at the hotel at the same time as Jenny and I, and Melly was already waiting for us on the beach.

As soon as we got out there, everything was OK.

The weather was perfect and warm, the ocean was refreshing and clean, and it was joyous.  After lathering up on sunscreen (of course) we all stretched out on our towels and took a nap.  A few hours later, Bethy arrived and all was right in the world.

When we could take no more sun, we went back to the hotel, checked in (finally), showered off the sunscreen and headed out to the main drag of South Beach.  It took me about five minutes to realize that every single stereotype about South Beach is true.  We saw people walking down the street with giant snakes around their necks (I screamed), girls wearing outfits skimpier than my skimpiest underwear and shoes taller than I would have thought were humanly possible.  We saw people eating dinner at fancy restaurants in their bathing suits.  We saw 50-year-old men wearing nothing but booty shorts and big gold chains over their leathery tanned skin talking on their cell phones in thick Long Island accents about their Ferraris.  It was glorious.

The place we finally picked for dinner could not have been more perfect.  It could totally have been a set for Nip/Tuck.  In fact, I kept looking around Julian McMahon.  There was a guy playing a jazz flute walking around, club music playing in the background, flashing lights everywhere, and a girl was dressed like she was auditioning to be The Next Pussycat Doll dancing while twirling fire on a stage.  Although our dinner and drinks cost as much as I make in two weeks it was worth every penny.

Melly and Bethy with their dirty martinis.  Which, by the way, taste like rotten buttsweat.  I'll stick to my vodka and cranberry, thank you very much.

Is it totally lame to tell you that when we finished our (very long) dinner, we went home and passed out?   Because, um, what I really mean is that we went out clubbing until 7am.  Yeah.

The next day we headed out to the beach again, but we were forced to come back to the hotel around noon when it started to rain.  So instead of lying on the beach, we laid in our beds watching a marathon of The Pussycat Dolls: The Search for the Next Doll.  I suppose I should have been disappointed, but I was not.  At all.  I am embarrassed to admit this, but seeing as I think I'm going to post the most horrible picture ever taken of me ever later in this entry, here goes:  I love The Pussycat Dolls show.  It's like America's Next Top Model, but with choreographed dancing.  And I only got into it a few weeks ago, so this marathon allowed me to catch up on all the drama I'd  missed.  It was awesome. 

After several hours of napping, Pussycat Dolls reruns, and drinking in the room, we headed out for night #2.  I would like to pause for a moment here to let that ruminate: I went out two nights in a row.  I'm such a rockstar, maybe I should audition for The Pussycat Dolls!  (I seriously, really, love the show, in case you couldn't tell).

And, that's all I have time for today.  Miami: Part 2 will have to come tomorrow.  Stay tuned!

Adios, Miami

I m back from Miami.  It was awesome and fun an amazing and warm, but I have too much work to get done before I can write a real post about it.  So for now, let me just leave you with this:

Why, yes, that is a totally jacked, totally oiled man walking down the beach with his arms outstretched while wearing nothing but socks, sneakers, a black G-string and a visor.  Why do you ask? 

Welcome to Miami

Um, so I'm going to Miami in FOUR DAYS.  I can hardly believe it. 

My friends and I have been talking about going on a girls reunion for years, pretty much ever since we graduated from college and stopped having pre-determined Thanksgiving/Christmas/Spring Break times to see each other.  Sure, Christmas and Thanksgiving are still the same times every year, but now we've reached the stage where several of us (myself included) are coupled off and don't make it to our hometown for every holiday.  Also, we're now spread out across the eastern seaboard from Richmond to Connecticut (and for three years, one of us was living in New Mexico!  We saw her... never.  It was sad), so traffic makes the holiday schedule even more hectic.

So after years of talk about "we should plan a trip together!", we finally decided to do it, and all of a sudden we were all booked on flights from New York and Baltimore to Miami.  At the time, the trip was about eight weeks away, and I don't know what the hell happened in between, but now, all of a sudden, it's THIS WEEKEND.

And all of a sudden I also remembered that in the interest of saving a few hundred dollars, my friend Jenny and I decided to fly in to Ft. Lauderdale, thinking we'd figure out how to get from FLL airport to our hotel in South Beach later.  You know, when it got closer to the trip.

Luckily there's nothing I love better than a problem and a fast internet connection to solve it.  After spending the morning on Google and travel sites, I came to a disturbing conclusion:  we were going to have to rent a car. 

Shit. 

Well, we don't HAVE to, but it makes the most sense.  Shuttles run for $80 each way, which is about $10 short of what we paid for our flights, so that seems excessive.   Public transportation costs $1.50 each, but the estimated time is 113 minutes, it would require two bus transfers, and one travel site mentioned the stops being in "not the best areas".  Um, no thanks.  Renting an economy sized car, however, will cost us $100 total.   No waiting for shuttles at the airport, no worrying about finding a way back to the airport on Sunday afternoon.  Plus, now we'll have a way to get around if we need to leave South Beach for any reason.  Perfect, right?

Here's the thing: I am terrified of rental cars.  Actually, I am terrified of driving any car but my own.   I am so afraid that if something were to happen, whoever's car it was would never forgive me.  And/or I would never be able to pay for the damage. 

This probably stems from the fact that I have never had collision insurance on a car I've owned, and therefore every accident I've been in (three total) has resulted in a huge hit to my bank account.   Even still, it's just not worth it to pay for the insurance on a car as crappy as mine.  Don't get me wrong, I love my car.  But I only paid $5000 for it, so it doesn't make sense to pay for extra insurance on a car that was worth $5000 three years ago when I bought it, and is probably closer to $500 Kelly Blue Book value now.  So when I rear-ended a jackass taxi that TOTALLY CUT ME OFF a few years ago, my insurance happily paid for the Honda CRV in front of him to get a new spare tire cover (which cost all of $80 but still jacked up my insurance for three years), and I was left with the $1000 bill to fix my own car's smashed in front and get a new hood. 

Good times. But at least it was my own car!  And at least my car is not worth that much!  The great part of having a POS car is that you don't have to worry about it as much.  Like the time Joel was driving my car and put it into first gear instead of reverse on a giant hill and consequently smashed into the pickup in front of me?  I forgave him.  Even though it was the week after I got my brand-new hood put on.  It's a lot easier to do that when your car is a POS to begin with.  A little dent in the hood just keeps it in character with the rest of the car.

Plus, I am just not the greatest driver.  There, I'll admit it.  Driving stresses me out.  I am easily distracted.  I suck at directions and I freak out when I think I'm getting lost.   I freak out extra when I'm not used to the car I'm driving.  I know my car.  I know how far I can push it before it stalls (pretty damn far), how fast I can gun it to merge on the highway (not very fast at all, thank you v4 engine!), and that the little shaking it does when it goes over 80mph is just its way of saying "slow down, boss".  I know that the engine light coming on means nothing and that the left blinker only works every other Tuesday.   I do not know all these things about other people's cars. 

Even more scary to me than driving someone else's car is driving a rental car.  Why?  Because I fear the rental company suing the crap out of me if I wreck their car.  I always buy the optional rip-off insurance, but I"m still scared that it won't cover everything.  Come on, everyone knows insurance companies are the devil.

It probably doesn't help that back when I went to Arizona in January, my coworker and I rented a car to go to Sedona, which was hit by a freak snowstorm while we were there.  Driving back in said Freak Storm, I could not see a damn thing, missed a turn and then jumped a curb at 40mph trying to make an illegal U-turn to get back on the highway in the right direction.   Whoops!  The rental company didn't come after me.  I'm not even sure they noticed the nice dent I left in the wheel well.  So it worked out fine.  But that doesn't stop me from being afraid that next time I won't be so lucky.  God, I hate driving.

But I love going on fun trips with friends.  Here's to hoping that Jenny won't mind being the driver on this trip.  Which I'm sure she won't.  But does that make me the navigator?   How about I just man the radio instead?   Actually, I totally suck at being the DJ too.  I'll just lay down in the backseat and take a nap.  We are leaving for the airport at 6am, after all.

Pleasant Weekend

More pleasant topics were requested, so that's what you'll get... today.  I can't promise that there won't be more mention on the W-word (WORMS!) after I have myself tested (TODAY), because Ms. Hypochondriac Overreactor has convinced herself that she is positively, absolutely, infected with a parasite and she will not rest until the medical profession can show her proof to the contrary.  "Extremely unlikely" is just not good enough in this case.

But!  The pleasantness! 

I went down to Richmond this weekend to celebrate my friend's birthday.  The weather was lovely, the food was delish, and the punch was... strong.  I got to pick up my friend's sister in DC, and Friend's Sister just happens to be one of the funniest people on earth, so I had great company for most of the ride, and yet they were both all grateful that I "went out of my way" to pick her up.  My map skills are notoriously bad, but I'm pretty sure that Washington was directly in my line of travel.  So either it wasn't out of my way at all, or I have been going the looong way to Richmond all these years.  It's possible.  After all, I once flew to Montreal by way of Chicago and saw nothing amiss with that.

So we ate, we drank (A LOT) (OF PUNCH), and then we passed out.  I think some people also watched some basketball game; I can't really be sure because I was too busy getting more punch.  This punch allegedly contained half a handle of Southern Comfort, but I coulnd't smell anythasing.  it taastad realasy ggood!

Ahem. 

Luckily, I managed to get drunk without making a total fool of myself in front of Jenny's friends.  I mean, I have no problem making a total fool of myself normally (hence: this website), but I try not to reflect badly on the reputation of others.  It's a hard job, but someone's gotta do it.

The last time I went to visit Jenny, and I ended up drunk and passed out in her bed, I spent the entire next day on her couch, eating various snacks that magically emerged from her cupboards and watching movie after wonderful movie on her digital cable.  I had planned, that weekend, to drive home on Sunday so I could "get things done" on Monday, which we had off from work.  Instead, we stayed planted on her couch for about 30 straight hours, until I finally  had to pry myself free and drive home for work on Tuesday.  I would have given anything to have repeated that this last weekend, but sadly Martin Luther King Day only comes around once a year.  Someone should really do something about that.

I hope that was pleasant enough for you, internet.  Now I have to go have myself tested for you-know-what now, and don't worry.  I'll let you know the verdict.  I'm hoping very very strongly for a confirmation of the fact that I can convince myself that I have any disease if I try hard enough... and if it turns out that I am right, that I'm infected, could someone please just shoot me (a-la 28 Days Later?  I DON'T WANT TO BECOME ONE OF THEM)?  Because if you thought I was freaking out before... well, just you wait.  I don't think the world has ever seen the likes of what is going to happen if I find out I'm home to the W-word. 

But I will make this promise: once the verdict is in, I will never mention anything this gross again.  Ever.