June 2007 Archives

I got the bad news on Friday: I won't be a Bunnette after all. Despite the fact that the competition seemed to be about finding the most awesome ladies to represent on the 4th, I got the word that Nathan's is going with professional models instead. I have a feeling the competition didn't go as planned (as of now there are only five videos posted) and the sponsor went a different route. While I'm sure the professional models will be hott, and adequate card flippers, there's no way they want to don that sparkly vest more than I do. I mean, my big goal was to count some hot dogs and I got de-nied. I can't say it doesn't hurt a little. The good news is that I've been promised VIP status, whatever that means. I think I get to be very close to the stage. Which could be a good thing for getting in on the action and taking some sweet pics, but I'll certainly be in what Crazy Legs refers to as the "spray zone." We'll just see. Maybe they rigged some floating sky boxes with air conditioning and champagne. Now that would be VIP. Nathan's? You listening? Some delicious pre-game snacks would be nice, too.

I'm rushing around like crazy trying to get ready for the New York trip. I fly out at 1 am on Tuesday morning, so I'll be running around on the 3rd with an awesome four hours of airplane sleep. If anyone tries to feed me alcohol I might just pass out right into the glass. Not that you shouldn't try to feed me alcohol. I'm just saying there's a good possibility you'll have to carry my sleepy ass home.

J discovered a mystery mushroom in our backyard. Any mycologists out there?

Denver is right on time with the summer heat. In fact, it came on so quickly, we haven't had the chance to install our window air conditioner. Let me tell you that it is possibly the stupidest thing to procrastinate doing. You put off mopping the floor, it gets a little grungy. You put off installing your air conditioner, you pay for it every second you're lying there wide awake at 3 am because it is 80-degrees and your pillowtop mattress is baking your back while your feather pillows are cooking your head and the fan is basically keeping the hot air circulating like you're in a lovely convection oven. In fact, you are baking some cookies right over there on your nightstand because you MAY AS WELL.

It is too hot for the cats. While Pinky deals with this by staying perfectly still on the linoleum in the kitchen for the entire night, Max deals with this like a Ft. Lauderdale retiree, by constantly complaining about it. He likes to tell me how hot it is about seven times a night, mostly by jumping on my stomach and meowing loudly like, "LIZ, OMG DID YOU NOTICE IT IS HOT! WHAT IS THAT ABOUT?" He is also alarmed/excited about the bedroom window being open and likes to go sit in the sill, and then run over and tell me about it like, "LIZ, OMG DID YOU SEE THE WINDOW IS OPEN? I CAN SEE STUFF AND HEAR STUFF AND THE WINDOW IS OPEN! I'M GOING TO GO SIT IN IT AGAIN!"

Even though it is sweltering here, in my heart of hearts I know it is 100% better than anything going on with humidity mixed in. I am excited I'll be in New York in a week and a half, but I am trying not to remember how seriously awful the humidity makes the weather. I am pretending it will be a lovely week in the low 70s with no moisture in the air and a nice breeze going. That's feasible, right? Right??

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Mom talking to my cousin, who is applying to colleges, about CU:

"I think with a school like CU you have to find a clique to be in. My niece went there. I think during her first year she was in the drinking clique."

I spent Father's Day morning sitting with my dad and J on the side of the road in 90-degree heat waiting for a tow truck driver. But it was okay because it's not like I was completely hung over and dying silently of dehydration from a bachelorette party the night before. Oh wait...

Midnight:

10:00 am:

I had gone to pick up J from work Saturday evening and he noticed the "Volt" sign was lit up on the dashboard. We knew that wasn't good, but I was steadily not looking at it in hopes that if I ignored it it would cease to exist. I'm such a good car owner! I'm like one step away from, "I didn't know you had to ADD oil to the car. So how do you unlock the engine?" After a brief consultation of the manual (which helpfully told us to drive to a Buick dealership as soon as possible), J correctly assessed the problem as a non-functioning alternator.

I promised my brother I would stop by a store for him to pick up a gift certificate, but as we drove slowly past, we realized it was closed and drove home instead. That's an important part of the story because as soon as we pulled into our driveway the car up and died. (And nowhere near the Buick dealership. Shit!) So the upside is that we weren't stranded in a parking lot in Cherry Creek, but of course we were now stranded at our house. To complicate matters, I was on my way to the bachelorette party and J had volunteered to be one of the chauffeurs for the evening. After some panicked phone calls and a loaner car, we eventually made it and the night went off splendidly (splendidly = full of delicious martinis).

The next day, it was back to dealing with poor Big Red. My dad came over--because what better way to celebrate Father's Day than by doing dad stuff like messing with broken cars--and after a failed attempt to charge the battery enough to make it to the shop, we called the tow truck. Here's a fun fact: if you're with someone who has AAA, they can activate their super AAA powers to help you and your car! Who knew! AAA is my new BFF.

The prognosis is bad: Big Red needs a new battery, a new alternator, and to top of the exciting bag of surprises, new brakes. I knew the day would come when I'd miss those cramped subway cars.

J finally got his dream job! It only took eight months, but he got the job he had imagined he'd get way back when we were picturing this whole living in Denver thing in our heads. He's at a university again, which is great. We figure he only needs to stay there for the next twenty four years or so, so our future kids can go to college for free. Man, we've got this future business under control. He felt pretty good after the interview because the woman interviewing him gave him a thumbs up on his way out. He figured either he was in, or it was an unfortunate nervous tic, in which case all the candidates left feeling like they nailed it. Fortunately it was the former and we can all breathe a collective sigh of relief at no more job hunting.

My parents had a pool in their backyard for all my high school and college years. It got used a lot during that time period, and I think it's fair to say my friends and I not once took it for granted. After I moved to New York, they decided to fill in the pool, as no one used it much anymore and it was expensive and time consuming to keep up. I understood their decision, but don't think I completely grasped the fact that there would be no more pool. Forever. And now I'm here and it's summer and all I want to do is do flips off diving boards and float around on a raft in a private pool and I CAN'T. It's really too sad to think about.

I love the water. Whenever we pass a motor boat hitched to a truck on the highway and my dad catches me pining after it silently, he always says, "You know what that is, right? A hole in the water you dump your money into." Despite the odd metaphor ("hole in the water?") I understand that he's saying there are a million better things to spend one's non-existent money on than a vehicle that's only good for a select part of the year in select areas, requiring lots of transportation and gas and planning and vacation time. Also we live in a landlocked state and there are only so many boating options immediately available to us. But there's still a part of me that knows how sweet it is to get pulled on an tube behind a skilled driver (not just some guy friend who thinks it's hilarious to try to constantly flip you), how your arms and legs feel nice and sore after an afternoon water skiing, how relaxing it is to camp out by the water and wake up to pre-made breakfast burritos and more tubing and skiing.

I think the only solution here is to win a boat. And to find some friends with a pool.

Pilates instructor: Mmmm, nothing is yummier than stretching the connective tissue in your joints.

(pause)

Except maybe cheese.

It's been windy here recently. Windy enough that yesterday, as I was carrying a huge stack of booklets I'd just picked up from the copy store, the receipt was ripped off the top of the boxes and sent tumbling across a very busy street. Normally, I would just let it go. Yes, blatant littering is one of the things that makes me want to jam sticks in people's eyes, but I was standing in the middle of said busy street at the time (jaywalking in a pause between an onslaught of cars) and carrying a 30 pound box. But the copies were pricey and I need the receipt for reimbursement. I dashed back into the copy store and plopped the box on the counter, hurriedly babbling about the receipt, and dashed back outside and across the street where I could see the paper fluttering near the gutter. Only, as soon as I crossed, the paper wasn't there any more. I was about to panic, when a very nice woman at the nearby bus stop walked over and handed me my receipt, covered in tire marks. "It looked like this was important, so I grabbed it for you!" she said. People in Denver are nice. Maybe people in New York are nice, too, but I don't think any of them would be standing around in one place long enough help in this sort of situation.

I've been watching the auditions for So You Think You Can Dance. Don't jude me! Besides Twin Peaks night, its the only television I have to look forward to all week now. And you know I have to look forward to something. Last week there was a contestant who was overweight, and they kept using him as a teaser in the commercial breaks like, "Get ready for some hilarity!" So the guy goes on and he's...fine. Like, he's nothing spectacular or anything, but he doesn't embarrass himself. In fact, he's rather graceful for how large he is. The dancers in the audience also seem surprised and give him a loud round of applause, which totally pissed off Nigel. He stops them and says to the contestant, "That's condescending. You know they're only cheering for you because you're fat. You know that right?" The guy nods, somewhat tearfully. Nigel just keeps going on about how the guy isn't a good dancer and it makes him mad that people would react that way because they are just making fun of him because he's so fat.

It was terrible! I mean, I understand what he is getting at, but why be so blatantly mean? Not judge mean, personally mean. Plus, I don't think it's entirely true. I think people clapped because they expected the contestant to be a joke. They saw his size and thought he would be really bad. But when he was a little graceful and actually did some nice leaps and stuff, their expectations were blown and that excited them. Sure, it had to do with his size, but they wouldn't have applauded like that if he had merely been predictably shitty. It made me furious. When this guy came out, I noticed Nigel didn't say, "You know they're only cheering because you're wearing a gold mask and doing a made up dance, right? It's insulting is what it is." No, he put him though to the choreography stage. (Which, to be fair, was really funny.)

This week, there was a tiny man with scoliosis, and everyone LOVED him. He did a dance like a little windup robot and the way the judges reacted, you would have thought they'd never seen those silver spray painted statue people in Times Square. He was novel, but of course didn't pass through to the Vegas stage. But when he came out for judging, Shane told him he was working on a movie and wanted him to be in it and said there was a 95% chance that he could get the guy in the movie with a featured dancing part. Wha? Did this guy just win the entire competition? Because I'm pretty sure a starring dancing part in a Hollywood movie is about the highest level you can achieve as a dancer. I mean what's Benji doing? Accompanying his sister to auditions? Man. I'd take the movie deal and then sit back with my pina colada watching all those suckers who did make it through. And then I'd be all, "Man, sorry you got 4th place, but it's all cool at least we have movie deals, right? Oh, yeah I guess that's just me. Honestly, I haven't even been watching the show because I've been busy with the movie I'm in. That they're paying me for. As a dancer."

Okay, I know most of you out there sort of just humor my competitive eating interest, but I have to share this with you because history was made on Saturday. During an Arizona qualifier, our American champ, Joey Chestnut, ate 59.5 hot dogs and buns in 12 minutes, breaking the world record by about 6 units. This means he has eaten more than the reining title-holder Kobayashi, something no American has been able to do before now. The last time an American held the hot dog title was in 1997. I don't get patriotic about much, but damn. Joey: bring us home the Mustard Belt!

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I know I'm behind on this news, but I was psyched to realized the second season of Twin Peaks was finally out of DVD. There was some long, complicated reason why it took them so long, but I've been eagerly awaiting this day for awhile now. Among the assorting nerding out Heather and I did, watching Twin Peaks start to finish numerous times was one of the more lasting activities. I'd since bought the first season on DVD and made J watch it all, but then were were at a standstill, since I couldn't bring myself to purchase the second season on VHS. But now! I emailed Heather and she said they were having a big viewing party, with stacks of donuts and lots of black coffee. Since she lives in Massachusetts, all I could do was be jealous. But it turns out Denver has its own Twin Peaks nerds! I shamelessly begged was graciously invited by Becca to join their party. I could not have been happier. Though the viewing room is now a little cramped with us in there, I think I won them over with cherry pie.

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We did an insanely hard pub quiz on Saturday (Team Up Up Down Down Left Right Left Right B A Start). Here are the answers I was able to supply: Nicole Ritchie, "The Office," and Snoop Dogg. It wasn't our best night.