Monthly Archives: March 2006

Celebration

Well, by golly, it’s March 31st today. We’ve made it through the 3 worst months of the year, the months fit only for hibernation, tv viewing, and my couch. And to celebrate, it’s going to be 70 degrees today! I’m even wearing shoes with no socks. Whooo hoo!

It’s truly amazing how much weather can affect my mood. As I walked to work this week, the dread wasn’t quite so dreadful because the sun was shining and my coat was unbuttoned. Whatever else may have been ailing me this week (which incidently was quite a bit) could be overlooked as I let the rays hit me. I even found a parking spot this morning (alternate side street cleaning) in under 15 minutes.

That’s all. Life is good.

Ka-ching! Ka-ching!

I’m a winner!!!

After that bold proclamation, I’m sure you’re wondering, winner of what? Well, I didn’t win the lottery. For future reference, if I were to win the lottery, I’d be in the South of France looking for my villa and not updating my blog. So, you can rule that out.

Almost as good as winning millions of dollar, I won sweetney.com’s Oscar contest by picking the most Oscar winners. Who knew I’d be so good at something that involved celebrities since I never, ever read those gossip rags? Anyhow, this is very good news for 3 reasons:

1. I’m a very bad loser. Ask anyone who’s tried to play a board game with me.

2. This totally validates all the time I spend reading blogs. See kids, spending excessive amounts of time online CAN totally pay off.

3. Tracey (the fab writer behind sweetney.com) sent me this fun prize package complete with Pocket Ninja, voodoo doll, ring pop, lip smackers, and more! Thanks Tracey!

Sweetney_prize

Skills to pay da bills

On Saturday night, as we were driving up to Connecticut to visit some friends, I was in charge of the radio. We got the fancy new satellite radio for Christmas, so I got to flip through the zillion channels and try to find songs we like (which basically means finding something we already own on CD which I know is totally and utterly stupid).

So, anyhow as I was flipping and silently reading the little device that told me the artist and song, my husband started naming the bands based on the 3-second snippets. At first I thought he must be reading it off the screen, so I hid screen from him, but he kept going…

"Eric Clapton"
"Boston"
"Poison"
"BoyzIIMen"
"Indigo Girls"

I knew he had a cesspool of pop culture knowledge swirling in his head, but even I was surprised by the depths of this wisdom. Sometimes he’d throw in some trivia for me too.

Radio: " All I wanna do in the middle of the evening is hold you tight
Rosanna, Rosanna"

Husband: "Toto"

Me: "Holy Sh**"

Husband: "Did you know this song is about Rosanna Arquette?"

Me: "No, really?"

Husband: "Yep"

Me: "Show off"

So, of course, the game turned into Stump the Show Off. Staying within genre (rock or pop 1960-2000), I tried to find something, anything, he wouldn’t know. Early on, I thought I had him with Kansas, but he pulled it out in the end noting he knew it was either a "city or state band" from the beginning. I finally stumped him with Oingo Boingo and then The Sundays. Victory would have been sweeter had I actually known anything about these bands other than a fleeting recognition of their names.

Now that I have full disclosure about these crazy mad skills, I’m just waiting for the modern day version of Name That Tune to come on the air. This could totally be our ticket to early retirement.

TMI! TMI!

I was already feeling a bit queasy, so didn’t need to see this headline on my homepage. Bleh.

Star

PS – Yes, I admit. I clicked on it. But only because I hoped there was more to the story. Surely her plastic surgery alone couldn’t have warranted homepage placement. Oh, yes it could.

Marching By

The kids marching proudly. The old cars tooting their old horns. The baton twirlers twirling. Ah, the parade goes marching by.

This weekend we went to the Brooklyn St. Patrick’s Day Parade. Well, "went" is a strong word. It goes up our street, so really we just opened the door and stepped outside. We watched the Irish dancers, the bagpipers, the classic cars, roll past us. But mostly, we just waited. The band would start a song and start marching. Half a block later, they’d grind to a halt. Eventually we started walking up the street because it seemed like the most time-efficient way of seeing this slow-moving spectacle.

I’d like to propose that parades adopt this new viewing method. All the participants line up and start marching in place, playing their songs, and doing their dances. You avoid the logistics of trying to move all these cars and people around the parade route and the boring lulls for the audience. Instead, we, the parade watchers will walk the parade route, taking in the spectacles as we pass. Way less boring and I might actually enjoy a parade.

A Million Little Miles Away

As you know, I had the pleasure/pain of reading A Million Little Pieces this month for book club.

Well, there was an interesting update about our favorite lying author in today’s Page Six. I was wondering how long he could not crack under the heat of the inquisition. Though the South of France isn’t exactly purgatory.

Has mendacious memoirist James Frey shattered into "A Million Little
Pieces?" Despite selling millions of copies of his book, the faux
tough-guy writer who made up much of his supposedly nonfiction story
has quietly slipped off to the South of France for "a few months,"
tattles our gleeful spy. "It seems he’s starting to crack – unable to
meet the stares and steady murmur of ‘Oprah, Oprah, Oprah’ that follow
him everywhere in New York. His SoHo apartment sits empty. His
Amagansett beach house sits empty. Let’s just hope that there is a
church basement with hot coffee and an AA meeting over there for when
things get really bad.

It’s not easy being cheesy

Back in November, I attended an "Iron Chef"-themed dinner party. We contestants were challenged to cook an appetizer, entree, and dessert using the chosen ingredient: pumpkin. I am proud to report that I was victorious in the appetizer category with this delish soup.

It was all great fun (aside from the obvious digestive issues that ensue after eating 3 courses chock-full of such a fiber-rich vegetable), so we’re going to try for a repeat in April. This time the ingredient is cheese. Cottage cheese, string cheese, cream cheese, cheddar, brie – whatever – as long as it’s a main ingredient (no sprinkling of parmesan allowed).

Any recipe suggestions for me?