November 2007 Archives
Hello! This is Zoe. Aka Owner of the Computer That Ate Liz's Final NaBloMo (is that it?) Entry. Perhaps the computer was angry with us because as soon as Liz stepped over my threshhold, we mixed up delicious frozen margaritas. Something to think about when you are a blogger making frozen margaritas: Offer some to your electronics. You need them, and if left out of your fun, they may retaliate.
Liz is in New York City for the weekend--did she tell you?--and I get the honor of hosting dear Liz on my tiny loveseat sofa bed. Add in a Jenny and a Tom, gourmet pizza, fresh ravioli, and karaoke, and you may be able to imagine our Friday night. Specifically, think of Flashdance, Straight Up, That Bryan Adams Song From Robin Hood, Tainted Love, and Something Tom Sang That Was Awesome But I Can't Remember What.
Jealisssss?
At happy hour, we shared a fried green tomato appetizer, which came stacked up in a pool of red tomato sauce. We decided this was the vegetarian version of a chicken omelette.
As we are getting ready to leave the bar, Heather, Aubrey, and I are putting our coats on and getting our bags together. There are two girls in the booth next to us and one of them notices a scarf near our stuff.
Girl 1: *pointing* Oh, a scarf! Someone left their scarf! Scarf!
Me: [to Aubrey and Heather, who aren't paying attention] Uh oh, whose scarf is it?
Girl 2: *takes scarf and puts it on*
Me: [jokingly] Oh no, she's got your scarf now! Ha ha, you'll have to pay her for it.
Everyone: *stares at me*
Heather: That's not mine; is it yours?
Aubrey: No, it's not mine.
Girl 1 and 2: [continue to stare]
Me: Ooooh....it's yours.
Which is what happens when Girl 1 and 2 have some sort of conversation after the initial confusion that they don't share with you. You accuse them of trying to blackmail your friends.
I think it's clear that this whole NaBloPoMo thing has been an experience of quantity over quality for me. I know I wasn't writing epic, must-read posts, but I have to think a few of those is better than this smattering of whatever comes out of my brain right before I head to bed and realize I haven't written anything and run down to the computer trying to think of hilarious anecdotes. Clearly, the world has been conspiring against me and keeping all the hilarious anecdotes to itself during this November. Where are the crazy bus people? The weirdos at the supermarket? The bizarre sign on my way to work? Nowhere, that's where. It's a cruel joke on me.
I'm sure I wouldn't share this tidbit of news with you until it reached a later stage, but as you can tell, I'm a little starved for material. So, here you go: J and I are starting to look at houses to buy. Aren't we very adult? We've spoken to a realtor and brokers and are narrowing down neighborhoods and house desires. It's all very exciting. I know I am done with renting because I can't get myself excited to do anything with our place. It's very cute and all, and I had big dreams for the garden and paint schemes and such. We have done exactly zero of that. We never planted a garden, because why spend all that time and money on something that's not ours? We never painted over the ugly green in our bedroom because it was time consuming and, eh, we weren't there permanently. (Consequently, we never hung pictures in the bedroom because we were waiting until after we repainted.) In any case, I'm ready to care about a place. I'm ready to own it and do nice things to it because it's ours and we'll be there a long time. That's no guarantee we won't procrastinate buying lawn furniture, but now you know what to get us for a housewarming gift.
I'm not good at teh blogs. Oh man, you don't have to spell like me either. Don't...don't do that. I'm not saying anything! I'm outta here. You can't be typing what I'm saying.
Just when you think Max has run out of ways to be bad, he thinks up a new one. And this one is very clever because it is entirely self-contained; that is, there's nothing to take away from him to make him stop.
Imagine you are fast asleep. But then, there is a distant noise that starts pulling you awake. It isn't a particularly loud noise, but it is particularly annoying. Imagine wet bristles brushing a piece of fabric. *Theck, theck theck* When you are fully awake, you realize that the noise is coming from Max and what he is doing is licking your book cover. You push him off your nightstand, but he is undeterred. He goes over to the waste basket and starts licking the trash bag. You throw a sock at him and he leaves the room long enough for you to start to drift back to sleep. *Theck, theck theck* Now you're really annoyed. You take the trash out to the living room, you stuff all your books and magazines away, you remove anything that might look deliciously lickable. But it's only a matter of time. *Theck, theck theck* He's found your lampshade.
Zoe didn't believe that Max could be bad; she believes he gets a bad rap and that he's really a misunderstood sweetie. I think someone's getting an early Christmas present when I come to visit on Friday.
Drank tea, moved a mattress, ate first piece of toffee of the season, saw The Dajeeling Limited for a second time, ate pizza with fig sauce and sun dried tomatoes, watched terrible movie on TV starring Julia Roberts as a liberal professor at Wellesley in the 1950s, exerted myself not at all and felt pretty good about it.
Weekend lethargy.
1. Influenced by: Princess and the Pea. I placed two AA batteries under my parents' mattress to see if they would be able to pick up on the small objects buried beneath them while they slept. They did not.
2. Influenced by: an old Snickers commercial that showed a hand closing over a bunch of peanuts and opening to reveal a Snickers bar in their place. I woke up my mom in the middle of the night and handed her a fistful of pennies. My mom lay there sleepily while I instructed her to close her hand over the pennies and when she opened it again, it would be a penny bar. She dutifully closed and opened her hand. No penny bar.
It's official: I cannot move my arms. Thank god I have motivation in the form of mashed potatoes and cashew gravy, which should get them in motion. Otherwise, I'm pretty much the Molly Shannon Seinfeld character.
It snowed a little last night; not enough to cause panic, but enough to put the chill of impending winter in the air. I think I've pinpointed my hatred of winter to a fear of being cold. I sort of want one of those puffy long coats that are basically sleeping bags with arms, knowing that I couldn't wear a coat like that and be the slightest bit cold. J, however, pretty much hates them and is trying to appeal to my fashion sense. I guess his tactics are working somewhat, because I'm having doubts whether a short person can pull off this coat without looking like a waddling pillow.
Speaking of fashion, what does one wear to an afternoon winter wedding in New York?
After being thoroughly ruined by many sopapillas, take out dinners, a happy hour involving many cheeses, and a Denver's Next Top Model party fueled by a champagne bar, I decided I should probably hit the gym. I've been going to these especially hard classes lately because the teacher is insane with the fitness and you can't really be around someone like that without some of it rubbing off on you, right? She is constantly demonstrating ridiculously difficult things and then just as I'm starting to think I might die from jumping up and down onto a step doing squats, she'll be all, "Double time, let's go!" At that point, I have to fight the urge to pass out while she becomes a blur of tanned muscles and enthusiasm. Today was no exception, and the torture came in the form of holding the bosu ball above our heads...while running in place. Let's just say I don't expect to have full use of my arms again any time soon.
Back to the Denver's Next Top Model party for a second: that shit was fun. I basically invited all my friends over to play models, and they did it. I am apparently 8-years-old. One of the best parts was getting to wear the fake hair and waist-cinching belt that Zoe brought so I could properly mimic Tyra's look. Max wouldn't wear the belt, but he rocked the hair pretty good.
I had an idea that Casa Bonita would be a big letdown after not visiting there for probably 20 years, but it is almost exactly the same as I remember it. The only real differences are that the waitresses now ask you if you're there because you saw the South Park episode and the food is noticeably disgusting. I think as a child you have a much higher tolerance level for gross Mexican food. Or maybe you just don't notice it because you're too pumped up about Black Bart's cave and the cliff divers to notice that the shredded cheese seems to be made out of some sort of compressed powder. And the sopapillas? The sopapillas are still delicious.
More sopapillas, please.
Happy Birthday, Krista!
It's become clear that if anything ever happens to me and J, Zoe will have to take our cats. She's a self-proclaimed "Maxist" and joins the ranks of Mike as people who genuinely love Max. So now the cat has allies on both coasts, should we ever need to send him away for a summer.
The Denver's Next Top Model party is tonight, so we're spending the day preparing. This involves a trip to Super Target, the picking out of awesome outfits, the attachment of fake hair, the arrangement of a runway, the purchasing of a doll head for a trophy, and the signing of some Liz Mail. I wish you lived here so you could come because, oh, this is going to be good.
Zoe got into town today! I took her pronto to my favorite happy hour with their $5 menu (everything $5: martinis, champagne cocktails, mac and cheese, baked brie), where we proceeded to consume much alcohol and cheese. I took her to the local hipster bar so she could see what Denverites consider to be the hipster scene, which is entertaining if you live in New York and know anything about the nightlife on the lower east side or Williamsburg. Like, aw, they think they're being pretentious!
Heather now lives here and joined us for the tromp down Broadway, where we stopped in front of the new Goodwill store that looks more like an American Apparel than any Goodwill store I've ever seen: very brightly lit and spacious, with clothes neatly hung and big displays in the window. A giant standing globe had caught our eye. J has wanted a globe for a very long time, but those globes, they are expensive. There was a price tag on the base, but we couldn't see it very well from the street. Zoe whipped out her camera and tried to zoom in on it so we could see it better, but it wasn't working. We probably stood there for a good three minutes trying to read the price tag before it occurred to me that there were people moving around inside and the store was in fact open.
But that's what happens when it gets dark super early and you have a guest on east coast time and you start happy hour at 4:00 in the afternoon.
We are now the proud owners of a $29.99 globe, and if we ever want to point out exactly where the U.S.S.R is, we'll have the perfect tool.
There's a big bagel kerfuffle at work. Usually there are bagels on Wednesday, but lately there haven't been enough for everyone, which has sparked a debate over who pays for the bagels and who is entitled to eat them. It ended badly and we've been alerted that the bagels will no longer be served in the common kitchen, but instead squirreled away somewhere closer to the deserving parties.
Turns out if you really want to see feathers fly in an office, messing with people's free weekly treat is the surest path.
The whole thing is obviously ridiculous, but inspires some mean little part of me that wants to bake up some incredibly awesome non-bagel treats next Wednesday, but only for the non-bagel getting part of the office. Then there will be some Seussian Sneetch action when the bagel people want to cross over. Ha ha ha.
My plan for the day had involved going to the gym at some point, but instead turned into lunch at a Mexican restaurant, which included giant sopapillas. Running on the treadmill, eating gargantuan portions of fried dough slathered in honey...basically the same thing. One of my favorite columnists was in town, thus the occasion for a work lunch.
Tonight we're hitting the double dose of awesome with ANTM and the premiere of Project Runway. Did I tell you about my model party this weekend? That will be like ANTM, but in my house and with much smaller prizes and much more drinking? Well. It should be something, let me tell you. Zoe is bringing me a waist-cinching belt and some hair extensions so I can more properly and with more glamor approximate Ms. Tyra.
Krista sent me this story, and you should probably read it, as it involves a British cat named Sgt. Podge who has taken to being chauffeured.
Do you ever get part of a memory stuck in your brain, but lose the surrounding information that would give it context? In the house where I grew up, we had square heater grates that were mounted on the walls. As a little kid, I used to wake up early in the morning, turn the heat up, and then sit by the heater with a blanket around my shoulders to capture all the warmth. I very distinctly remember that as a treat, I would pour chocolate chips into a bowl before getting in front of the heater, then would sit there and let the chips melt, eating it all with a spoon. That memory is all good and fine, but I can't for the life of me reconstruct the circumstances leading up to me doing that. I mostly remember heating myself up in the mornings; did I secretly get the chips and just chow on a bowl of chocolate before my parents got up? Did my mom give me a bowl of chips and allow me to bake myself and eat melted chocolate? Neither of those seems entirely likely, and seem like they would come along with accompanying memories of sneakiness or extreme indulgence. I guess everyone must have a sprinkling of weird childhood memories that lack detail we as adults wouldn't think to exclude.
It's dark, cloudy, and cold. I tried to swim up and order a peach margarita, but it turns out that area over by my desk isn't a bar at all, but a fax machine. I probably shouldn't have worn my bikini to work.
I don't remember the specifics of booking this flight, but I guess the return trip I picked was the only one available. That's the only conceivable reason I can see why we flew in the totally wrong direction for two hours to Miami before enduring a four hour layover in the worst airport I've ever been in before--at last--heading to Denver. Our only food options during this whole ordeal were some non-vegetarian sandwiches in the terminal or some $3.00 Lays chips on the plane, both of which we passed on. Even though it was late when we got in, we drove to a diner and had a fantastic spread of food.
There's no pool outside our window, and certainly no coral reef-filled ocean, but there is nothing better in the world than collapsing into your own delicious bed at the end of a vacation.
Wedding! We made our way to the fancy resort bright an early, thinking if we had to spend money on a day pass, we may as well make the best of it. It turned out the bride and groom had already taken care of the day passes for today, so we felt a little more red-faced about last night's drama. Of course, if we'd known we wouldn't have to pay for the day passes today, we would have just bit the bullet and paid the money last night. But there was nothing to be done about it at this point.
We quickly found J's mom, dad, and step-mother and commenced to relaxing. The appeal of the all-inclusive resort was apparent immediately: there were restaurants and bars spread out over the whole resort and you simply had to desire something before it was placed in front of you. J and I went off to eat a fancy little breakfast and then joined his family on the beach. His step-mother and I lasted until about 11:00 am before ordering tropical drinks from the swim up bar in one of the pools. There was white linen fluttering in the breeze of beach cabanas everywhere you looked. It was exactly like how you'd imagine it from a movie or commercial or any internet ad for a tropical vacation.
The wedding ceremony was short and sweet. Though it hadn't rained all week, little flashes of lightening were in the distance. The clouds parted just as they were saying their vows and it was very cinematic.
After stuffing ourselves with food and drinks, we stumbled back to the hotel and collapsed into bed a very tired and sun-soaked couple.
I will fill out questionnaires, write exhaustive secret shopper reports, and drive out of my way to attend market research panels, but it turns out my limit for what I'll endure for free stuff ends right at time share pitches. It sucks enough you're being toured around to hear about stuff you could never afford, but then there's the added pressure of trying to put up the facade that you're the type of person that might be interested in this, but you just happen to not be interested. To make things harder, the woman giving the spiel was young, funny and well-traveled. I think we would have had fun hanging out together under different circumstances.
Once the 90 minutes was up, we had our rental car and headed straight down to Tulum to check out some ruins.
We forgot our swimsuits, which was unfortunate because it was very hot and the beach there was incredibly beautiful. I don't know how I caught sight of it, but there was the tiniest lizard ever scurrying around on the ground.
Back in town that evening, we prepared for a dinner with the family and the bride-and-groom-to-be. We drove to the super fancy resort and were struck a little numb with the sheer immensity of it. Fountains, chandeliers, champagne, cushy lounges, marble floors...and this was just the lobby.
We told the front desk we were meeting family for a dinner and they were less than impressed. Since the resort was all-inclusive, they asked if we intended to buy a day pass. Being that it was already close to 6 at night, we said we hadn't planned on it. They insisted that the only way we would get inside would be by paying for a day pass: $80 each.
We knew we'd have to buy day passes for the wedding, so it was a bit of a shock to get it the night before, too. We eventually found J's brother, who tried to get them to waive the fee, but they wouldn't budge. It was terrible having something like this come down to money. On one hand, we came all this way just for this. On the other hand, we'd budgeted and spent a lot of money coming all the way down for this. Could we really throw down another $160 just to see the family for a couple hours?
In the end, we left without going to dinner and it was awful. I felt disappointed, and somewhat humiliated. I wished we didn't have to worry about money and that we could throw $300 around and have it not be a big deal. I wished we could have afforded to stay in the resort with the other guests. I wished we had just paid the money and then I'd be worried about something dumb like money instead of something heartbreaking like missing a rehearsal dinner.
We ate at a funny Chinese/Italian restaurant in town and I drank some beer, which helped. A family in a van full of pastries pulled up and we bought a bag full of donuts and sweet bread. That helped, too. Who doesn't like a van full of pastries?
We sat outside our room and listened to the waves lap up; J ran down to the beach to chase some dark sea bird. Things would surely look up in the morning.
We arrived in Cancun last night, and after escaping an attempted time share offer, we made our way outside the airport to catch the van we'd reserved to our hotel. Though it was supposed to be a shared ride, it turns out we were the only people heading to Puerto Morelos instead of Cancun or Playa del Carmen. We swept past the palm trees and road signs in the dark and I asked the driver if many people stayed in the town we were heading to. He said no. But he went on to say that personally, he liked it a lot. He went on about the amazing reef right off the coast and then said the town was quiet. "It's nice and relaxing. You can feed the pigs." What? Oh, feel the peace. Yes, well.
The hotel is a bit on the rustic side. Generally nice, but lacking a few niceties like a telephone, washcloths, and a bed that is pleasant to sleep on. But you can't beat the view out the back door.
This morning we went snorkeling off the coast. Our guide was a tiny man named Charlie Brown, who turned out to be somewhat of a local celebrity. The closest I've come to anything like that was scuba diving off the Puget Sound. But it was raining and cold, and the water was silty. I remember only a lone sea cucumber. This snorkeling, however, was amazing. Little blue glittery fish, giant barracudas, a buried sting ray, schools of silver fish.
The town is small, but we found a cafe that serves mango smoothies, coconut bread, and one of the best lattes I've ever had. We weren't hungry at lunch, and I opted instead for a beer by the pool. I swear to god I was in a Corona commercial.
In the afternoon, we made our way to Playa del Carmen on a bus. I don't know quite what I was expecting from the bus, but it was luxury all the way. For $4, we sat on plush seats in air conditioning and watched "Brother Bear" in Spanish. Playa del Carmen was teeming with people, a stark contrast to our little town, but fun for shopping and eating. At dinner I ordered a margarita that looked and tasted normal, but was apparently a glass of tequila topped off with some flavoring. I can hold my tequila, but that drink threatened to punch me in the face. It may be the first time in my life I left half of a first margarita sitting there abandoned.
The information booth in town is run by a couple, who are immediately likeable and gave us all kinds of tips on what to see and do. The husband got us a great deal on a rental car for the next day, and then the wife got excited and said we could get the car for free if we attended a simple 90 minute tour...
I wouldn't say we were suckered, because we knew from the beginning she was talking about a timeshare pitch, but she promised it would be painless and it would be a huge favor to her if we went. In exchange, they would arrange to have the rental car paid for. Though we really didn't want to listen to a 90 minute sales pitch, we are suckers for free things. In the end, we agreed and the couple then spent the next 10 minutes coaching us on how to act uninterested and giving us phrases to use so we could avoid any traps.
The stars, predictably, are amazing. I could get used to the ocean outside my window.
Uh, I totally ran out of time and have no plan for making posts appear here for the next few days. I will keep some sort of blog journal and post-date entries to match the Mexico vaca. So...don't check in until Monday and then it will magically be like I was never gone!
I'll drink a margarita for you.
We're packing and shopping and cleaning like crazy, all so that by the end of the week we'll be relaxing on the beach with cocktails in hand. Or I'll be relaxing on the beach with a cocktail; J might be under an umbrella with a book, but all the same: vacation time! I don't think we've taken a real vacation together since our honeymoon, so as you might imagine I'm looking forward to this quite a bit. I'm not as prepared as I should be, I think. I don't know what time the wedding is at, and only have a vague idea of where it is in relation to where we'll be staying. I think there's some sort of cocktail reception on Friday. And we might need to buy day passes to get into the fancy resort everyone but us is staying at.
We'll be in a little town just south of the fancy resort and it is unbelievably cute (or so the internet says). I feel a little bumpkin-y because every single other person going to the wedding is staying at the fancy resort. But seriously? One night at the fancy resort costs more that what we'll spend on our entire trip's lodging. And there's a two night minimum. I can't deny that the fancy resort looks awfully nice (of course it does), but I'm pretty happy about the arrangements we've made.
I haven't quite figured out what I'm doing about the post-a-day thing while I'll be gone, but I'll figure something out. Keep checking in, I'll entertain you somehow.
Did you see Brian Williams on SNL? I thought it was pretty good, way better than Seth Rogen. I had such high hopes for Seth Rogen on SNL and was so disappointed, he's become my measuring stick of suckiness for hosts.
Out of nowhere, J has suddenly become afraid that my arms are going to overextend to the point of snapping. Yes. I don't know where this came from, but he now gets freaked out if I throw my arms open too quickly and too straight, like one would do if giving a hug or cheerleading. Next time you see J, internet, can you please remind him that arms can't be broken by using their full range of motion? Thanks.
I am off to trivia, but will post the visual round here later so you can play along, too. Look at me live-blogging this NaBloPoMo shiz.
UPDATE:
It was an easy one. This one, plus a killer last couple of rounds jumped our team from 8th place to 1st at the very last second. There were a lot of TV questions.
While at a red light, J noticed the limo sitting in front of us. It was white and had a bumper sticker that said "Property of Playboy. Not for private rental." But who wouldn't put that on a bumper sticker if they owned a white limo? Just as the light turned, J noticed the license plate: HEFNER. I whipped out my camera phone, but it was too late. It was a Colorado license plate, so does Hef have limos in all the states? Was it Hef? Moreover, was it Holly? Because I love Holly.
You can't get Peanut Chews in Denver. Apparently, they are an east coast thing, even though they are distributed by Just Born, which runs the Peep empire and thus shouldn't have any problems shipping candy nationwide. It could be that unlike Peeps, which have a loyal following, nobody much cares for Peanut Chews. I like them okay, but most people would not go out of their way to purchase them. Upon tasting them for the first time, Willow pronounced them gross. "Like some health candy my hippie mom would try to trick me into eating when I was little." But J--he loves them.
So there were a mixture of emotions when we left New York and arrived in Denver: first sadness at having left the land of a million Peanut Chews, and then euphoria at discovering an unlikely stock of them in our local grocery store. They depleted with each visit, until they were all gone. J contends that he was not the one to eat them all, but let's be honest here.
This sinking knowledge that Peanut Chews are not to be had in the Rocky Mountains does not dissuade us from looking for them everywhere we go. The originals have a distinctive red packaging that catches your eye, but then the packaging looks similar to Take 5 bars or Bit-O-Honey (which, by the way, he also loves. And Mary Janes. He is also a 95-year old Florida retiree), so we are mostly unsuccessful.
Awhile ago, we were in 7-11, in search of the elusive banana Runts. Even though we were on a specific, banana-candy mission, I couldn't help but look for the red packaging I'm now programmed to target. My eye caught something at the bottom, but it was just a box of some gross sounding cookie/candy monstrosity. The name was so gross (something like SmashRidicuCrunch) that I told J he should get one. He played along, bending down and sticking his hand in the box. He emerged with a Peanut Chew in his hand. There were no other signs of the Peanut Chews anywhere in the store.
The only conclusion I could come up with was that time travel will indeed be invented. And when I have access to it, apparently the best trick I will come up with will be to venture back to that exact moment and plant a Peanut Chew for J to discover. Just ordering some online is way too predictable.
It is November and you are lucky because my guilt about non-blogging has driven me to NaBloPoMo once again. That means I'll be here every day in November, so you can settle in for the long haul. You'll notice this is a particularly ridiculous month for me to attempt this because I'll be in Mexico for a wedding most of next week and then head to New York at the end of the month. Also, one Ms. Zoe will be in town visiting for a few days in the middle of the month, so you see November will be full to the brim of exciting fun. And blogging. Blogging for you.
Chattanooga went really well. I'm actually glad all the November madness is launching because it keeps me from getting too sad about the close to another big competitive eating season. You can read a brief re-cap on the Krystal Lover blog. and there will inevitably be a much longer post on True Fan by Monday. But to be very brief, I got to live out some long suppressed cheerleading fantasies, Joey Chestnut ate 103 Krystals for a new world record, and my diet for the weekend was milkshakes, french fries, coffee, and beer.
I was angry that my "very special Halloween ANTM" was just some crap recap show. Can you even have a recap show when you're only a third of the way through the season? Lame. We then watched "Kujo," which turns out not to be a horror movie as much as a sad movie about the effects of rabies. Was the book more specific about them being demon rabies or something or was it always run-of-the-mill super rabies?
We only got one trick-or-treater the entire night. I sent J to the door with the bag of candy and heard a cackling laugh as he opened the screen. J's face sort of froze into an uneasy grin and he didn't move his eyes as he grabbed a handful of candy and dumped it into the trick-or-treater's bag before quickly shutting the door. Instead of cute kids in costume, we got a crazy homeless lady in a mask with a grubby grocery bag. Happy Halloween!