But I’m going to the Madonna concert in Denver on November 11th.
YEEEEEEEEEEEAH BABY!
It’s her “virgin” show in Denver so it’s gonna be a good time. I do believe I’ll be taking the following day off from work just so that I can really make a go of the evening…
And I should probably invest in some newer Madonna tunes so that I can be adequately prepared.
Is it November yet???
Friday Night. Sex & The City opening. Madness ensues.
5:15pm — leave work. it was a painfully long day. not only was it friday and the weekend upon us, but it was the ultimate girls night out. i really should have taken the whole day off just to watch the last season of SATC. but alas. i worked. by the time i arrive home, i have just enough time to re-do all my make-up and hair and throw on my fun and very “charlotte” party dress topped off with black satin strappy stilettos (with a bow on the back) and my pink satin trench coat. how fabulous i feel!
6:35pm — leave the house to go pick up Karla for the night’s festivities. she lives a mere 5 miles from me and yet it takes me nigh on a half hour to get to her house. stupid punishment lights!!!
7:00pm — Karla and i arrive at Park Central. we’re practically giddy at this point. okay okay…we’ve been giddy since two days before, but whatever. we’re both in fabulous shoes (Karla’s were black satin closed toed delights with crystal embellishments on the toes…woo!). we make our way the 5 city blocks to the movie theatre, all the while having multitudes of people tell us how fantastic we look (excellent!)..we spend the majority of the walk marveling at how many other hordes of women are heading the same direction we are…we of course know where they’re going and why they’re dressed so well :o)
7:15pm — arrive at the theatre to gawk at all the other get-ups. one in particular is fascinating and wonderful. she was in her early 20s (most likely) and wearing a black top with big big pearls but her skirt was the best part…knee-length cream tutu with sparkles and a hot pink and black polka dotted belt at the natural waistline! she completed the outfit with cream satin slippers. hot! laura and bryn get to the theatre and wait in line with us for a few minutes before deciding to go grab a quick dinner and some ice cream. karla and i are holding out for popcorn and soda during the movie. it should be noted that karla and i were about the 15th people in line so we were primed for the best seats in the theatre…go us!
7:30pm — Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Drunk stumble / run up to where karla and i are standing, having a fun conversation about whatever. Dee has a handful of bread she’s taken from the italian restaurant downstairs from the theatre and proceeds to tell us that she and her friend are going to stand in line with us. at this point, we can literally smell the booze ON THEIR SKIN. it was quite gross. Dee and Drunk ask if we’d like shots. No thanks, we’re good. we’d like to see this movie sober. after all, we’ve been waiting for four years for this. i’d quite like to remember it, thank you. the icing on the cake is when Dee decides to light up a cigarette IN LINE…rude! most people would kindly step out of line to a less populated area then come back. oh no. not her. and she was dangerously close to sparking my satin jacket. okay, now not only is this my favorite jacket i’ve ever owned, but i bought it specifically for my wedding. so had it gone up in flames, i would have promptly removed my 4″ stiletto shoe and stabbed her in the eye. i’m not one to throw down, especially not at THIS movie, but really. don’t mess with me when i’m wearing my favorite clothes. seriously. fortunately none of this came to fruition and both drinky-pants’ managed to make conversation with people further on down the line, thus securing that the would likely not be sitting in front of, beside or behind us (i was most frightened about the “behind” scenario as projectile vomit would have pissed me off in a similar was that igniting my jacket would have).
8:15pm — we’re escorted into the theatre to find our seats. i don’t think any of the four of us have ever run so quickly in heels. we get prime seats, right in the middle of the theatre. most excellent! Laura and Karla leave Bryn and me to protect our seats while they go to get snacks. pretty painless process. they return and Bryn and I go to get what would be the largest popcorn and sodas we’ve ever had. in fact, i think the soda i got held as much soda as i’ve ever ingested in the span of the last 28 years. it was a LOT. on our way back up the escalator to our seats, we pass Dee and Drunk and their seven other friends…on the floor in handcuffs outside the theatre. Dee was the only one in cuffs and she was hysterical and belligerent (shocking) while another friend was shaking her and yelling at her to “Calm the f**k down! Pull it together!” which was rather hilarious as i was party to the beginnings of this about an hour ago out in line. we get back to our seats and Karla and Laura inform us that someone had apparently called security on them and as all nine girls got hauled out of the theatre, 500 SATC fans erupted in applause….that’s right! i would have paid good money to see that! the whole incident made my $11 movie ticket TOTALLY worth it.
10:45pm — the movie ends and we all applaud and cheer (Todd is gagging and rolling his eyes as he reads this, guaranteed). time to head to Purple Martini for some after-Sex cosmos! the four of us meet up with Erin, Allison and Natalie and have a grand ol’ time for the next few hours. between 10:45pm and 1:25am the following things occur:
1:45am — Bryn and Laura head to their car to go home while Karla and I walk Erin the remainder of the way to her car. we stop outside the Cheesecake Factory for some more delightful conversation all while amusing ourselves with the incredibly drunk girls that continually stumble past us. oh and on the way out of the club, a very drunk 21-year-old tells me he loves me jacket so much, he could slap me. whatever. it was weird. he had on a sparkly shirt. i’m pretty sure i could take him.
2:00am — one very large, very drunk man walks up to us and starts the most bizarre conversation i think i’ve ever had, including arguing with Karla over platinum buildings (i have no idea what this means, but i think it means it’s the most environmentally sound building/materials you can possibly find). he argues that his brother-in-law built the ONLY platinum building in all of NYC, which even *I* can imagine is a total falsehood. his friend, who has since wandered up and is substantially less wasted, argues in Karla’s favor (oh btw, Karla works for an engineering and design firm in denver and has whatever designation is needed to be a pro at this whole platinum building thing). the drunk guy then asks where he can find young, attractive and green women (green meaning “environmentally aware” in this situation). we tell him to head to Boulder. throughout the next 22 minutes, this guy insults the three of us, our city, our clothes, the movie we’ve just watched, and our husbands. please refer to earlier paragraphs about stabbing people in the eye with my shoes. his friend kindly (mercifully) removes him from our presence and the three of us make our way home.
i cannot believe i was out till nearly 3:00am…and all for a MOVIE!
oh and in case you were wondering, i will not tell you the end or anything regarding Carrie and Big. but everyone dies.
HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!
There are things in life that I love and things that I most certainly do NOT love.
And the list changes quite frequently.
Here are today’s:
Thing that I love:
1. Cheetos
2. Busy, but not stressful, work days
3. New restaurants
4. When things work out
5. Salty foods, in general.
Things that I most certainly do NOT love:
1. Random senseless chatter
2. Airlines that are not helpful and won’t let me use my miles
3. Bi-polar landlords
4. General stress about stupid things
5. Messy, cluttery work-space
Anyway……..
Todd and I have somehow managed to work our vacations and holidays out so that we’re only working a full week every other week until after July 4th. How that happened, I have no idea. It wasn’t planned, but man is it nice!
Next week is a full work week and then we’ll be off to SLC for a few days. Always nice to get out of town…especially on a summer road trip. I hate road trips (this will never change from week to week. I hate them), but with Todd the trips are more exciting and frankly, far funnier. We laugh a whole bunch and take the most ridiculous pictures…my favorites on the trip from Denver to SLC always happen when we stop for ice cream at Little American in Wyoming. Except now there’s not the Sinclair dinosaur there, which is really stupid and I have no idea why it’s gone missing. But we’ll take funny pictures anyway.
The summer semester is upon me.
Eight weeks of school, one more time.
Thankfully, I’m only taking 3 credits this semester (which, in a summer semester, is more like 9)…this time last year, I was taking 5 credits. Do the math, kids…that’s like taking 15 credits. Oh the pain! So instead of going to school Mon/Tues/Wed/Thurs from 530pm until almost 9pm, I’ll be going only Mon/Wed from 530pm until 800pm, which isn’t bad at all. I just got done doing that and did it with relative ease. So there’s that.
The Art & Craft of Writing, whatever that means, is my one and only class for the semester. Good times. I have the sneaking suspicion that it will be remarkably easy for me. Looking forward to that.
In other news, my final grades for the spring semester were posted last Friday. I am not happy. Got a “B” in both Intro to Lit and Spanish level 2. What the frick?!?! I expected the B in Spanish…I struggled with it all semester, for no good reason. But c’mon. I definitely expected an A in Literature. It was a totally brainless class (for me). I have some ideas as to why I wound up with a B and I blame it almost entirely on my weird disorganization during the latter part of the semester. But still.
I’m a perfectionist when it comes to my grades. I will rarely (if ever) accept less than the best. Because I put into it only the best. Okay, sometimes I slack, but not often and not much. Todd could tell you oodles of stories about my insane pursuit of educational perfection. It would spin your head.
All I really want to do is graduate with honors. It will not be that hard for me.
My overall GPA is sitting pretty at a lame 3.43, which is down from the last few semesters. Ergh.
Long weekends are probably my favorite.
We were both still fighting off the tail end of the nasty bug we caught in Vegas, but other than that, it was a good weekend.
Friday, Todd made my ultimate favorite dinner…Fettuccine with Chicken & Red Pepper Cream Sauce…nice and SPICY! Then we went to the movies and saw Prince Caspian, where we “reached our weekly quota of thinly veiled Christian propaganda” (according to a funny ecard Chandra sent me hahaha!)…we even bought popcorn and a Slurpee, making it a very official date night. It was gads of fun!
Saturday, I bought a new dress for the Sex & The City opening on Friday…I’m going with Karla and Laura and then meeting up with a bunch of other girl friends after the show for cosmos (of course!)…the dress perfectly matches my pink jacket from the wedding, which was totally unintentional but works out famously as I’ll now look very “Charlotte” at the opening and that makes me giggle! :o)
We also bought new patio furniture and spent the better portion of the afternoon putting that together and grilling on Todd’s new grill (which was also an adventure to put together, but fun nonetheless).
Then it was off to the symphony! It’s probably one of our very favorite things to do in Denver. We should, at some point, really consider getting season tix. Anyway, this was a long-awaited show…I bought tickets back in February or something (maybe earlier). It was CSO presents The Music of Abbey Road. It was fricking fantastic! Topped off the evening with Blizzards from the ol’ DQ where we saw one of the funniest marquis I’VE ever seen (wish I’d have had the camera with me…)
Sunday was a l-o-n-g day at church, but only because I had to be there at 8am for a rehearsal so that I could be ready to sing at the 1030am service. But it was a good (albeit long) service and I got to sing a wicked awesome version of the Battle Hymn with two of my fave ladies, Glo and Terri. We spent most of the afternoon planting new plants in the yard, trimming back the insane weeds that have cropped up around our rose bushes and along the fence, took the puppies to Baker Street for some drinks in the afternoon and then got the house cleaned up to have some peeps over to watch some good old fashioned executive transvestite comedy! Eddie Izzard, that is. It was a rocking good time that included grilling and chocolate cake as well, so there’s that. Nothing bad can come of this combination, really.
Monday, we headed up the hill to play with Megan, Paul, Lotsie and Flanders (the last two being M&Ps crazy town puppies) Our little guys enjoyed themselves and even managed to bark Lotsie and Flanders off the porch a couple of times. This is most amusing if you know how small our dogs are and that Lotsie is a 70lb black lab-pit bull mix and that Flanders is a 50lb (??) terrier mix mutt thing. So it’s miraculous to me that Suki told Lotsie who was boss at LOTSIE’S house! It was HILARIOUS! Did some grilling and watched a couple movies before packing up the weirdos and heading back down the mountain in the weirdest rain storm ever. Aaaahhhh….Memorial Day. Wouldn’t quite be right without rain and 45F degree weather, right?
So this week, now that I’m healthy again, I’ll be able to start my education again. That’s right. I’m still in school. It’s kind of weird because a bunch of my friends graduated this spring. I’m pretty far behind, but whatever.
Only 8 weeks of school and then off to Boston we go!!!!!!!
Many many photos of our time in Vegas with our friends, Chandra & Heather…enjoy!
While I was in the midst of planning the wedding about a year ago now (gasp!), I was fighting with my mom and Todd about doing the garter and bouquet toss. I think they’re slightly antiquated traditions and I’ve almost come to hate them. I know this will come as shock to most of you that know how much I abide by the terms of tradition. But I really do hate these traditions. I have no idea why.
Mostly because it’s all myth and fancy, I suppose. It never actually works.
Until now.
Wouldn’t you know it, but the girl that caught the bouquet at our wedding is actually the next one of my family’s group of friends (and friends’ kids) that will be getting married!
Her name is Jenae and I used to be her baby-sitter. It’s kind of weird to see her all growed up like this now…
I couldn’t have been happier that she was the one that caught the bouquet…and at the time, I didn’t even know she’d been dating someone for the last umpteen years! She told me their story and it’s very sweet….young love is so perfect, so innocent.
I don’t know the story (and I stole this picture from her Facebook), but it’s pretty obvious he proposed to her at Disney World (which really is the most magical place on Earth, even if you don’t get engaged there)…
She deserves this….
much loves to Jenae!
Really, what business is it of theirs?
I used to be a big fan of FOTF…but lately, they’ve just gotten on my nerves, what with their over-critical analysis of various movies (The Golden Compass being the biggest one in recent history) and their mis-interpretation of music lyrics (specifically “Switch” by Will Smith…grossly mis-interpreted a line which is rather difficult to mis-interpret if you’re actually reading the lyrics which they pretty blatantly did not…but I’ve already blogged about this)…
Give me a break. Really.
My grandpa (on my dad’s side) died a year ago this past weekend. Puts a bit of an interesting spin on Mother’s Day for the family.
I’m apparently being forced to do some serious introspection regarding loss. Not necessarily just death (though that seems to be the big theme the last few months)….all kinds of loss.
Damn I love my family. The whole kit and kaboodle, man. Quirks and oddities. All of it. All of them. There’s nothing I can’t learn from anyone in my family.
I miss my grandpa. I miss his laugh, his cologne, his turkey gravy, his initial irritation when I didn’t know how to use a steak knife. I miss his stories and his music. He played the organ. Every evening, he’d jam out to some of the most amazing music you could possibly imagine. Visiting my grandparents house was always an adventure.
Grandpa loved to grill. I loved seeing him sitting on the back porch/patio/whatever, drinking a beer and grilling up something amazing (I’m pretty sure it’s where my dad learned to do all the awesome grilling he does). Except for the occasional dousing of MSG, everything grandpa cooked was delicious and wonderful.
He always had some new-fangled technological something-or-other in the house. One year, it was a thingy that you could edit home videos on, which my dad, grandpa and uncle Mike spent the entirety of Christmas afternoon trying to figure out.
And oh how he haaaaaaaaaaaaaated noise! Especially screaming little girls (me, my sister, my two cousins). He abhorred it and we knew it…and learned really quickly to be ever so quite while having our fun!
He loved the lake in Pennsylvania, loved to tinker in the garage, loved that old old Toyota truck of his.
But most of all he loved my grandma.
My very favorite memory of my grandpa is from when he was out in Denver for my brother’s high school graduation. He had fallen and broken his hip while he was here so their stay got extended (you could say). My grandma and I went one day to visit him in the home he was doing his initial rehab at in Denver…the dymensia had long since started setting in along with the Alzheimer’s which sucked all up and down the place (he’s such a great story teller…it made me sad when the stories started getting out of whack). Anyway, that particular day was when Reagan died. I was the one to break the news to him. He was pretty sad about it…he has tons of stories about Reagan. So he started telling me one of them. Grandma had to fill in a lot of holes, but grandpa did most of the story-telling…he finished the story with a great deal of flair, but missed what I think must have been a major point of the whole thing so grandma filled that part in too….and as soon as she finished, he squeezed her hand, looked at me and said “And that’s why she’s my girl!”
I want that kind of love…
It’s been a while since I’ve done this…
But for obvious reasons, last week I was (and continue to be) ever grateful for my mom…
It’s hard to list all the reasons for why I’m grateful for her so I’ll just mention the big ones:
1. She makes me laugh.
2. She is a GREAT conversationalist.
3. She gives me good fodder.
4. She has some of the funniest quirks (puzzles, Clarks shoes, etc.)
5. And this is probably the biggest one of all….she teaches me every single day how to be the best woman I can possibly be. She is strong, strong-willed, opinionated. She doesn’t let anyone walk all over her. She loves her kids without question. She has my dad pretty much wrapped around her finder (in all the best ways). She proves that it’s possible to both love and be good at your profession. She is a good wife and and even better mother. And on top of all that, she loves Jesus a whole bunch.
I love my mom….
Use. The. Clutch. 