Friday, April 28, 2006

Blogiversary

Today is my one year Blog-iversary! I’ve made commitments to JOBS that haven’t lasted this long! So to my 4 readers… thanks for coming back day after day. But who am I kidding? I’d probably be writing here even if no one was reading. Cheaper than therapy and I find myself very amusing! Heh.

Not much time for a real post today because the girls and I are heading up to Donner Lake for some much needed R&R this weekend… Am counting down the hours y’all! T-Minus 4 and counting…

I’m sure there will be stories when we return! Have a good weekend!

Thursday, April 27, 2006

Happy Birthday Michele!

It's Michele's Birthday today so if there's still anyone out there reading this go on over and wish her a happy day!

And cause I did it to embarrass her brother I figure it's only fair...

Michele and Cate - I really like this picture of you guys!


And this is sadly the only picture I have of the two of us on this computer...


See you tonight darlin!

Peanut Gallery

A Thursday Funny courtesy of TheBoy…

Our lovely Prez Dubya was in Silicon Valley last week meeting with the Governator and apparently some intern or another needed some work done by TheBoy’s company. So picture two stressed out presidential aides running into TheBoy’s already very busy store and asking for their jobs to be done right now this very minute. TheBoy’s sales person comes over to where he’s working and tells him that there is a new rush job.

TheBoy: “No way. Turn around is 48 hours.”

SalesPerson: “umm… it’s for the President”

TB: (silence)

SP: “so we can have it by 5:00?”

TB: “fine”

TB: (under his breath) “What if I don’t like the President?”

Apparently TheBoy was not as quiet as he thought because the intern who was still standing at the counter piped in with:

“That’s not going to matter sir. We still need it by 5:00”

Heh.

Wednesday, April 26, 2006

Almost Famous

Yesterday I may have come as close as I ever will to my 5 minutes of TV related fame. Unless you count those local cable stations and their “High School Sports Focus” shows from 10 years ago. Which I don’t. TheBoy and I traveled down to Burbank with his mom and mom’s bf to be in the guest audience of the Ellen DeGeneres show.

Why you ask? Yeah. Because TheBoy’s mom is a fan, had free tickets and paid for our flight down. Also, apparently TheBoy hates his job so much he is willing to do anything to get out of going to work for a day! Now let me preface this little story by saying that I embarrass easily so I don’t know what possessed me to agree to going on this show where I might actually BE ON TV!

Seriously y’all the first birthday that TheBoy and I were dating we’d been together… Slightly less than a year. And he took me and my parents to Max’s Opera Café. All the servers at Max’s are singers. Good singers. There is a piano and they do numbers inbetween waiting on their customers. TheBoy thought it would be great to have them sing Happy Birthday to me, you know because it was my birthday and all. So when I got up to use the restroom he mentioned it to our waitress and… Let’s just say that was the most beautiful rendition of Happy Birthday I have ever heard… from UNDERNEATH the table. Where I was crying. And maybe a very attractive shade of magenta. I do NOT like to be the center of attention y’all.

“But Tiffany”, you might say, “didn’t you used to sing and dance and do musical theater?” To that question I offer only one explanation – when I am onstage and the stage lights are up and the house lights are down I. CAN. NOT. SEE. YOU. Therefore, you do not exist.

Anyway, back to yesterday’s story. I had been joking around with the girls about how going to the Ellen show was really all TheBoy’s idea when someone said that maybe it was all a ruse to get me on Jerry Springer! Needless to say on the flight down I was amusing myself with all sorts of possible titles for the Jerry Springer episode I could potentially be in store for…

“The reason I don’t want to get married is because… I’m already married!”

or

“Meet my gay lover” (TheBoy’s suggestion – not mine!)

It did help pass the time on our short flight to So Cal but I will admit I did breathe a HUGE sigh of relief when we got to the lot and all the signs did in fact say “Welcome to the Ellen DeGeneres Show”. Not that TheBoy” would EVER do that to me. And live. But you know.

Of course no sooner did I breathe THAT sigh of relief did this perky little assistant come over and pass out a questionnaire letting us know that there was a “psychic” on the show that day and asking us to write down a question. Heh. No way Jose. Of course TheBoy’s mom thought this was HYSTERICAL! I managed to throw my paper into the nearest trash bin but TheBoy got his paper turned in with his question reading “Will I marry my love?” or something close. Luckily for him (and me) it wasn’t chosen for air time!

Also, the psychic? Roseanne Barr. Freaking hysterical! She was offensive but she was offending everyone I think so it’s okay. Like equal opportunity offensiveness? Really she was SO funny. I guess she’s doing puppet musical things for kids now? That kind of strikes me as wrong… Kind of like the dad from Full House and his potty mouth stand up routine. I’m just saying…

Oh oh oh! And ladies! The other guest worth mentioning?? Angel from Buffy! That’s right – David Boreanaz. Unfortunately he is supremely boring. I mean I know he’s married to a Playboy bunny and stuff. But he went on and on (and on) about his 4 year-old’s birthday party and mud on the carpets and Power Rangers and yeah. It kind of ruined it for me. I just wanted to run up there and put my finger to his lips and be like “Ssshhhh sweetie it’s okay. Just sit there and look pretty for me. K?” But I think they frown on that.

And it might have helped if I had actually WATCHED the show once before I went to it because OH THE DANCING! Y’all have no idea! Even those of you who have seen it have no idea! Every commercial break they make the audience get up and dance. So while you at home are sitting there hearing about Pampers or feminine itch cream? The poor audience members are being subjected to dance contests! Yeah. Just thought you should know. It’s supposed to “keep the energy” or something.

All in all it was a fun day. We did get to have a fantastic dinner at Morton’s Steakhouse after the show which was truly the highlight of the day as far as I’m concerned. And I got my good deed in as I saved this woman from walking out of the bathroom with her skirt tucked in to her panties. Just call me St. Tiffy. Seriously isn’t that every woman’s worst nightmare?

Friday, April 21, 2006

Finally Friday!

Michele sent me this link for mini champagne in a can! to go with my mini boxed wines! Because she is an awesome friend and knows how happy these things make me! So cute!

“I carried a watermelon?!?!”* - Yeah yesterday was one of those days where I really wished I had a rewind button for my life just for the sole purpose of rewinding conversations so I could have them again. Not that I said anything too outlandish or crazy… Just I wish I could have the conversations over you know? I’d handle them differently. And while I’m sure the other people have long since forgotten the conversations in question I’m still obsessing. Welcome to my life. Crazy - party of 1.

I was going through my closet hunting for something to wear this morning because I haven’t done any ironing in like 3 months and the only things I have clean AND ironed are skirts (and if you’ll recall my last post you’ll know that I am leper girl and can not be seen in public in anything that shows my legs) and I came to the following conclusion. I’m a freaking soccer mom in training!!!

But I will say that I have branched out nicely from the all black I was wearing a few years ago so the situation is improving. “Pink is my signature color!”** But it’s been baby steps y’all. Perhaps my goal for my 27th year will be accessories? To wear something other than jeans every possible moment I am not at work? Or in pajamas? Maybe I’ll branch out on the skirt angle…

TheBoy and I are off to Lake Shasta this weekend in the fine, fine rainy weather to de-winterize our boat and dream of warmer sunny days when we can actually wake board! So Exciting! And actually the trip to the lake would be a lot of fun if we weren’t missing lots of fun stuff! So bummed… And really how often can you say that you were invited to not 1 but 3 birthday parties in one weekend?



*Name the movie quote? Anyone?

**I am full of the movie quotes today! 2 for 2?

Wednesday, April 19, 2006

Feet first?

My “hypothetical” boss at the job that I will neither confirm nor deny having is out of town. Granted he’s only been gone for 3 days and he’s back tomorrow but it’s been a particularly stressful 3 days and I find myself feeling extremely unmotivated for the rest of my life.

However, I stumbled upon this on one of my favorite blogs and it made my day. Now I just need to figure out where I can buy some!

It doesn’t help that after finally breaking the stupid weight loss plateau and losing an additional 7.5 pounds that I seem to find myself stranded firmly on another. Grrr… And I totally know why too! Remember the Big Sur backpacking trip? And the blood blisters someone got on her baby toes because she was lame and hiked in 10 year old hiking boots? Yeah. Well 4 weeks have gone by and I’ve still got them and they STILL hurt!

Last night I was discussing this with Best Friend Liz:

BFL: Um… Maybe you should pop them or something

Me: Ew… No!

BFL: No seriously. Go look it up on WebMD

Me: (yelling to TheBoy) Babe? Will you look up on WebMD and see whether I should pop the blood blisters?

TheBoy: Ew… No!

Me: (to BFL) See?

But we did look it up and they said definitely DO NOT pop a blood blister UNLESS it’s causing extreme pain (check) and appears inflamed and swollen (double check). Also, on a side note it said that they should heal themselves in a few days or sometimes up to a week. ONE WEEK! Grrr…

I won’t gross y’all out with the details but… Popping blood blisters is indeed disgusting. Especially if they are infected. Yep. Didn’t know things that are entirely internal could get infected but they can. Learn something new everyday. And no, I didn’t do it myself. First of all – ew! I had to chug down a beer, close my eyes and hug the cat to just work up the nerve to let TheBoy get near me! And second of all – what kind of girlfriend would I be if I robbed TheBoy of this fun! exciting! thing!

Good times last night at Chez Ghetto y’all!

Also? I might have mentioned before that I’m allergic to bug bites? I mean we’re ALL allergic right? I get it – that is why they itch. But I’m a little MORE allergic than the average bear. Seriously. I don’t get little red itchy bumps. I get massive red welts that burn and turn into blisters and then become black/purple scabby looking bruises. It’s very attractive. But usually not a problem. Because see… I’ve always been like this. So I carry bug spray when I know there is potential for mosquito bites. I take precautions.

But you know where I don’t expect to encounter a mosquito problem? My work place! (hypothetical of course) We have this standing water problem every year at this time. I had forgotten because, you know it’s been a year, and I swear this year is worse because we’ve had 12,741 days of rain! But yeah – I look like a freaking leaper! I counted 18 bites on my lower legs from Monday. Wonderful. Add that to the blood blisters and it’s no wonder I’m limping around the office!

*sigh*

Also, might be a leading contributor to my lack of motivation as far as the gym goes?

Monday, April 17, 2006

I can see clearly now...

I have the best friends. Generally the days surrounding my birthday include such things as darkened rooms, lots of introspection, random bouts of crying and binge drinking. And while I’ll admit I did try to submit to these things in the early days of the month, all in all I’ll have to say that this was the best birthday I’ve had in years.

And it’s all thanks to my wonderful wonderful friends! You guys rock!

For some reason I can’t upload photos right now but Liz has a bunch up on her site so those of you who want to see that the 80’s were in fact alive and well this weekend can go check them out here. I’ll try to post some of mine later tonight. We had such an awesome time.

Michele and I ran wedding related errands all day Saturday which ended up being a lot of fun! Even if I did give her a hard time about doing a bouquet toss… (I have slightly strong feelings about it… And I maybe am loud) It was still fun to hang out and I’m certainly glad she didn’t have to go alone! Although if one more person asked me when *my* wedding was going to be I was going to have to hurt someone.

Easter Sunday we ended up having an impromptu brunch at our friend Cate’s complete with adult themed egg hunt. Anything involving food is always fun! And mimosas are yummy… Apparently we hadn’t gotten off of our 80’s kick because we ended up watching Flight of the Navigator after eating. I love that movie!

All in all it was a good weekend. The sun is out today and the weather person promises it’s supposed to stay out for awhile! I feel like everything is soggy so I’m ready for a little sun! Sorry for all the haphazard posts lately. I do have several in the works based on some other topics floating around the blogosphere so stay tuned.

Thursday, April 13, 2006

Birthday Weekend Recap

Can I legitimately call this a “Weekend Recap” if I’m writing it on a Thursday? I don’t know y’all. This week just somehow got away from me! I mean there was the matter of taking Monday off because… Well… I just don’t believe in getting out of bed on my birthday much less coming in to work. And then I ended up with a migraine which I successfully fended off Monday but ended up sidelined with all of Tuesday and most of Wednesday.

So yeah. Thursday. And my Birthday Weekend Recap.

Shockingly this ended up being a pretty fun birthday weekend. Despite all efforts on my part to stay home and hibernate I ended up out – and out late – every single night! Crazy! So here’s a brief weekend recap and some photos. Photos of this weekend! As in a few days ago! Look at me being all timely and stuff… Well except for the above explanation about the Weekend Recap being posted on a Thursday. Shut up.

Good Lord this post is already really long and I haven’t told y’all anything yet!

Friday night TheBoy and I had three main objectives… 1) Feed Mouse - Christine’s cat who is just too cute for words, 2) buy a bottle of tequila for TheBoy’s sister because it was her birthday on the 6th and 3) drink. I’m happy to report that we accomplished all 3! Go us! After objectives 1 & 2 were accomplished we headed over to have a Hot Pot dinner with Michele, Mary and Trevor which included mass quantities of sake and beer. (also laughter! a new job! cat vomit! good times!)





Afterwards Michele and I simultaneously bribed each other… I didn’t want to watch Jarhead alone with Ryan (total boy movie) but I had wine! She had some complicated invitations to put together and luckily for her I’m just anal retentive enough to loooove that sort of thing… It was a match made in heaven. And half naked Jake Gyllenhaal! Wahoo!

Saturday morning I got up way too early and spent the day shopping with my mom. So fun! A bonus of all this dieting and exercising is that I get to buy new clothes in smaller sizes! Wee! Fun! AND I got a totally rocking 80’s outfit for the party this weekend! Y’all know you’re jealous. Also, some super cute stuff for vacation… And silver shoes for the wedding… VERY productive day! Of course if it would ever STOP EFFING RAINING I could maybe wear some of the cute clothes I bought.

I’m just saying.

Saturday night TheBoy’s family threw an impromptu birthday party for me and TheBoy’s sister whose birthday was the 6th. I love his family. There was wine drinking. Tequila shots (courtesy of the present we brought). Pool. Dancing. Dice games. Drama. The drama, coincidentally, was not brought by the two 18 year olds present but was instead courtesy of one 40-something year old woman… Good Lord we apparently never grow out of it! And in the morning? TheBoy’s dad made breakfast! Love them! Also? There was much commenting on how wonderful I looked so… y’all know… these people clearly are my new favorites!









Sunday, after driving home and showering, we decided to head over to Carmel and listen to the bagpipes at Spanish Bay. TheBoy took me to do this on one of our first dates (oh so many many years ago…) and I just loved it. We were a little concerned about the rain. Because it has been raining for 12,438 days straight. Roughly. But it was only slightly misty! So we wandered around a few shops in Carmel where we can’t really afford to even walk in the door and drooled over the cars (him) and dogs (me). Before heading over to 17 mile drive to listen the bagpipes and drink Bloody Mary’s.









Afterwards the plan was to find a cute place to have dinner and then go to have bananas foster for desert. Maybe it was the veggies from the Bloody Marys? Or the spiced nuts they had sitting out by the fire pits while we were watching the bagpiper? Who knows but neither TheBoy nor I were very hungry… So we found this cute little Italian place in town and ordered a bottle of wine and some appetizers and that was about it.

So damn it I STILL haven’t had bananas fosters!!! Does anyone else see the injustice in this?!?!? Bananas are only like my FAVORITE desert thing ever!!! Well I suppose TheBoy’s dad DID make them for me once… But I have a feeling it’s not quite the same as in a restaurant, you know? *sigh* Maybe next year.

I apparently forgot to mention to people that I was taking my birthday off of work – though I do it every year – however in my friend’s and family’s defense the last two years my birthday has been on a weekend so I’ll let it slide… So you can imagine that Monday morning my phone started ringing at 7:45 am. Normally I’d be up and showered and made-up with at least one cup of coffee in my system and quite possibly food. As it was I was lying in bed trying to pretend it was NOT April 10th.

TheBoy’s best friend and his wife were in Capitola with their kid and family… Yeah the kid who screamed when I held him? Yeah well that was several months ago now. He’s 9 months old y’all! Time flies… Anywho. We made a pit stop at Margaritaville and would y’all believe it? The SUN CAME OUT! I swear. For like one whole afternoon there was sun. It was awesome. And did worlds of good for my birthday blues. So we ran over to the liquor store and grabbed some beers and went and sat on the beach. It was – quite possibly – the perfect birthday.











Wednesday, April 12, 2006

How to silence an entire room of bankers...

And also ensure I never get invited to join the lunch group again.


Perfectly nice co-worker: "Tiffany, you have a cat. Would you chose your cat over true love?"

Me (laughing): "What? Why?"

Perfectly nice co-worker: "Other co-worker's new girlfriend is allergic to his dog and wants him to get rid of it. We think he should if he's truly in love with the girl."

Me: "No way in hell. If it were true love she'd love the dog."


**crickets**

Tuesday, April 11, 2006

Enough Said

Another year older*




*With an appreciative nod to Kris at Not Yet a Wino - whose sidebar photo I have always loved - for the drunken inspiration.

Heh.

Your 80s Heartthrob Is

Scott Baio

Friday, April 07, 2006

Happy Birthday to... Me. :(

Your Birthdate: April 10

Independent and dominant, you tend to be the alpha dog in most situations.
You're very confident, and hardly anything ever shakes you.
Mundane tasks tend to drain you - you prefer to be making great plans.
You are quite original. When people don't "get" you, it bothers you a lot.

Your strength: Your ability to gain respect

Your weakness: Caring too much what others think

Your power color: Orange-red

Your power symbol: Letter X

Your power month: October


That weakness? SO EFFING TRUE! Now how do I quit that?!?!

So I don’t have any exciting news to report. I generally don’t handle my birthdays well so I try to hibernate through them in the hopes that, you know, if I pretend it isn’t happening… But having said that, I seem to have quite a lot of plans!

Doesn’t help that I know a lot of April babies! Tomorrow night I’m going to a birthday party for TheBoy’s sister. Should be fun. Lots of tequila… You know me! Also, my mom is taking me shopping beforehand and we’re having dinner at one of my favorite Mexican food places. All in all, not a bad day!

Tonight I plan on going to visit Christine’s kitty Mouse who is so aptly named it’s not even funny. And then I believe I’ve managed to talk TheBoy in to Hot Pot for dinner! Mmmm… Hot Pot! Any friends of Tiffy interested in a Hot Pot dinner? Sake? Fried banana? I suppose I should call you instead of issuing vague e-mail invitations through my blog huh? I’ll do that this afternoon I promise!

Also, those of you who read Liz’s blog know that we’re having an 80’s themed party for my birthday next weekend. So on the way to work this morning I heard that Screech is performing at a local comedy club!



How funny is that?!?!? And I totally have free tickets to this comedy club for my birthday but I can’t go any of the times that are free! SO. LIKE. TOTALLY. BUMMED! To the max. Y’all.

Umm… And remember the backpacking? So this is what I get for deciding to go hiking in 10 year old hiking boots… Blood blisters! On BOTH baby toes! Seriously y’all. You wouldn’t think that baby toes could ruin your day. But I’m here to tell you they can. I’ve resorted to wearing flip flops to work. Thank goodness for my understanding boss!

It stopped raining yesterday. YAY!

It’s supposed to start raining again any minute now. And continue at least until Tuesday.

(I can’t think of how to type any appropriate negative sounds… But I am NOT AMUSED.)

Okay that’s it for me guys. Drinking will commence promptly at 5:00pm hopefully will not end until the birthday is well past. I hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

Cheers!

Thursday, April 06, 2006

Engagement Party Pics...

I'm going to save you the "better late than never" speech... Y'all should know by now that I'm horrible with this crap.

These are some of the group shots...



















































Wednesday, April 05, 2006

Jackson on my mind

Do you ever wonder if, when you find yourself thinking about someone, they’re somewhere thinking about you too? I don’t know what is going on with all this dreaming about all these men from my past lately. The other night I had a dream about my father. Not Al but my real father. The biological one. Jim.

I dreamt I was getting married and my mother and I had this long conversation about whether or not I should invite him. Whether or not I should at least tell him. She, of course being the saintly woman that she is, favored the side of inviting him. I did not.

I know what brought this on. I tend to wax nostalgic about these things every year around my birthday. Does he miss me? Does he remember me? Remember he even has a kid? With a spring birthday? All of those questions are foolish really since it was ultimately my decision to end communication between us and yet… I still wonder.

I wonder and I remember.

I remember one summer I flew out to visit and we went straight from the airport to this church picnic on one of the hottest days of the summer. It was one of those Mississippi summer days that you can only relate to if you’ve experienced, right before a thunderstorm. Unbearably hot. Overwhelmingly humid. Still. I was miserable and yet… I didn’t want to complain because I was so happy to just be with my daddy, you know? And then finally the rain broke. Big fat raindrops. Raindrops so big that he joked that if one of them hit me square on, it’d knock me down.

I remember Rapids on the Reservoir. Shoney’s. Po’ Folks. Sunday dresses and big lunches afterwards followed by naps. Dipped soft-serve cones at DQ for dinner. Sweet tea. I remember I used to try and give him “massages” while he sat in the hot tub after playing with me in the pool all afternoon long. That the grass was always too long when I came to visit. The laundry and other chores never done.

I remember a trip to Florida. We went into the ocean and he wore his glasses. We got knocked down by a wave and when he got up his glasses were gone. We looked and looked but we never found them. His wife at the time (Connie?) was so angry with him but I didn’t care – it was like we were conspirators together. We talked the whole way home about how some fish at the bottom of the ocean could now see clearer.

I remember running around the church where Jim was a Deacon? Elder? Something. I would just run and run and run and play ducking under pews and the piano or organ. There were praying mantis. (mantises? manti?) Mississippi has cool bugs y’all. One year when I came out I found out the hard way I was too tall too run under the organ. I still have that scar under my left eyebrow.

I wish that these things were all that I remembered. I wish that I could choose my memories sometimes. Erase the others? Is that naïve?

Happy Birthday Shawn!

Today is Shawn's Birthday... And if he's going to call me "Crazy Lady" well then... I'm going to act crazy! And announce his birthday to the blogosphere!

And also post pictures!

*ahem*

So here we have Shawn acting like a typical mature older brother...



And here we have him demonstrating his Jenga Master skills... Notice the sunburn? He actually WANTED that sunburn and WORKED darn hard I hear at getting it. Yeah. Crazy east coast folk.



And well... Okay that's it. Cause well y'all know. I don't REALLY want to be mean or anything... Just maybe a little embarrassing. :)

So... Happy Birthday Shawn!

And also?

August ain't that far away buddy.

I'm just saying is all...