important service

I just wanted to compile all the important work that a friend and I did yesterday. It all started with an email from her....


Tag, you're it



To which I cleverly responded:

Hee!!



Her:
The hockey season is over, what's a guy to do...




Me:
There's always tennis!




Her:
Or, should the weather be fine, a swim?




Me:
Ah yes, swimming! But don't forget to bring a change of clothes for when it's time to get back to business.


I want extra credit for refraining from sending buff Daniel in the ocean while you're at work.



Her:
Yes, tho' (there's a rumour going around that) it's almost summer, so no one will mind if you want to undo a couple of buttons and let your hair down. ;-)




Me:
Well heck, if it's summer, that means it's time for frolicking in the great outdoors!





Her:
...and soaking up some rays...





Me:
Go for a spin with the top down!





Her:
Enjoy an evening out with a friend.


There are, obviously, many fabulous pics of Gerry out there but this one made me laugh. Plus, this means Gerry is taller than me, so I'm happy. ;-)


Me:
And since we're among friends, you can just kick back and relax.





Her:
...and let it all hang out...


(LOL, I'm so sorry, but I couldn't resist!)



Me:
But be careful! Idleness can lead to a life of crime!





Her:
So consider the consequences of your actions. Behave accordingly--and look damn fine doing it.





Me:
Because even in the midst of peril, it's important to accessorize.






Her:
But, remember, when working with accessories one should rigorously apply a liberal dose of caution and good taste. As Coco Chanel famously said, "A woman should always take one item off before leaving the house"--an adage that is doubly true for men.





L!O!L!

in memoriam

After seeing Singing in the Rain, I wanted to be Cyd Charisse when I grew up. She was the most beautiful woman I'd ever seen (and, really, still is).

order your t-shirts now

I’m stealing from myself, so that doesn’t count as plagiarism, right?

There are many campaigns going on in the world. Save the Earth (because it’s the only planet with chocolate). End This War. Obama ’08. Race for the Cure. The One Campaign. Fund Our Schools. French Cuisine Kills Bunnies.

But it seems to me that the world is missing a very important activist cause right now. That would be the Undoing Seriously Unenlightened Coffee Klutzes campaign. U-SUCK for short.

Okay, so maybe I need to work on the name a little bit, but the purpose of U-SUCK would be to put an end to the people in line at Starbucks who order a venti six shot banana meringue mocha 3/4 full with half-whip, half-yak foam.

Over. Done with.

Granted, it’s Starbucks’ fault for catering to this milkshake population to begin with, but I can’t stand in another line for eleventy billion years while the moron in front of me has to read her drink order off a parchment scroll so she can actually remember how stupid her order is, let alone the poor barista trying to write 6x M BaM ¾ ½ wh + ½ yf on the paper cup.

The 1st stage of my campaign would involve simple shoving those people out of line. If they try to get back in line, we haul them off to a coffee reprogramming center in Guatamala.

The 2nd stage of my campaign would be directed at the person who gets in line at 7 am with a drink list for her entire office because she thinks it’ll make her popular to bring all 458 of her co-workers coffee (who all happen to drink venti breve macchiatos with extra whip). She then must proceed to tell the barista fascinating details about each of those co-workers while the overtaxed barista is trying to make 458 venti breve macchiatos.

The solution for this would be a swift kick to the back of her knees, followed by intensive psychiatric care until she understands that holding up the line in Starbucks at 7 am for her 458 ungrateful coworkers will not make her more valued or more loved. It just makes her a sucker who annoys the crap out of everybody else in line at Starbucks.

I know this may sound somewhat violent and snobby, but I believe it’s really for everyone’s good. You won’t find me sniffing and swishing coffee and remarking on the undernotes like a seasoned sommelier. (Actually, I wouldn’t do that with wine either. Spit out wine? Are you CRAZY?) But this is simply a practical matter and will improve everyone’s standing in the world. Any remaining persons who desired a caffeinated milkshake would then be forced to go to Dunkin Donuts, and my mornings would be much happier. A nice by-product of this would be that Starbucks would eventually get rid of the caffeinated milkshake beverages (well, except for the coffee frappuccino; I’m not a Puritan, people!). We could then return the good ol’ days of streamlined coffee ordering where the only decision was between a latte and a cappuccino.

Another excellent by-product of this campaign would be that McDonald’s would have to stop running their inane ads that imply that going to Starbucks is way too posh for the general public, so we should go to McD’s and order a “latte” made from powdered coffee and powdered milk in a 7-11 machine. Please. Any troglodyte can (and does!) hang out at Starbucks. And Sanka isn’t espresso. Ever.

All I need now are some U-SUCK wrist bands, and I’ll be in business.

ma vie en rose

My car is dead. As in D – E – A – D. As in had to be towed to the dealer dead. As in there shouldn’t be a damn thing wrong with it because it’s only four years old, and I drove it all day yesterday without incident, but apparently it has PMS, so it refused to start and wouldn’t even go into gear to move it out of the garage kind of dead.

And this, my friends (my vast readership), is because my life is awesome.

But I am wearing new shoes, and it’s above 70 degrees for the first time in an era, so yay me.

You know what would be even more awesome is if they can’t fix my car today, and I have to ride into work with my husband tomorrow morning. My husband who leaves for work at SIX FREAKING A.M.

BlargaBlargaBlarga

And I forgot my iPod at home. I was rushing so much once the tow truck left in order to get my silly arse together before a friend came to pick me up for work that I forgot the iPod. How am I supposed to get through the workday without my tunes, yo!

So I’m streaming KCRW. They’re super cool when one lacks an iPod.

Oh Sweet Jesus, my car will be ready this afternoon. I’m sure this is a greater relief to my husband than to me. He knows how incredibly well I function in the morning (something on par with a Kraken), and I’m sure he was really looking forward to commuting with me.

So there goes $290 to the Nissan dealer. That’s an awfully expensive car wash.

Viva Las Vegas, baby!!

My sister (aka Cursing in Heels) and I are going to Vegas, baby! I can't even begin to describe how fabulously excited I am about this.

True, we don't go until the end of September, but so what! Bellagio awaits. I know many people think Vegas is incredibly cheeseball. But those people simply have never stayed at Bellagio.

When you can't afford to fly to and/or stay at a true luxury resort beyond the continental U.S., you go to Bellagio (if you're smart). Plus, I scored us a free night at the Westin to start the trip so we don't have to pay crazy-ass Saturday night rates! And I even figured out how to find the cheaper Bellagio rates. They hide them, silly bastages. But I know their tricks.

Yes, that would be me who rocks.

And combined with my favorite cheap-eats locales, we'll be set! We can be posh without spending a lot of dosh. And, most importantly, lounge in the best pool area evah whilst reading trashing magazines, gossiping, and refusing to do anything remotely productive.

Sweet! I can feel the sun already (well, sort of...it may take a while for my frozen, vampiric skin to remember what that big ball of fire in the sky actually is)

Plus, this meets one item on my Celebrate the Last Year of My Thirties list. Vacation! (Okay, so that's always on my annual agenda, but I think I should do something extra-special in recognition of the last year of my 30's. Like go into Christian Louboutin in Vegas and . . . well, all I can actually do is try something on, but that's sporting.)

save me

Today's headline in the Seattle Times:

Seattle Weather: Colder than Siberia!

And to depress us even more, they showed a map with temps from Siberia, Alaska, and Seattle. Thanks, dudes. That rocks.

So my movie marathonage continues in order to keep myself distracted from eating everything in the house and/or beating myself with a shoe until sufficient brain damage occurs so I don't even notice the weather anymore.

Last night I watched Fin Août, Début Septembre. I found it to be a fairly typical French character piece with some questionable editing, but since Mathieu Amalric was a very cute pup 10 years ago, it was worth the viewing for me. He was excellent in it, but it could possibly be wearing on anyone else who doesn't share my penchant for offbeat acteurs français.

Tonight I watched Look Both Ways. LOVED THIS FILM. I'm not even sure how it ended up on my queue, if by Netflix rec or if I found it in the paper during the year-end Best Of movie lists. It's a wonderful little film. I wasn't too sure about it at first because it's basically about people with various problems, and I typically don't like wah-wah-kvetching movies, but this wasn't like that all. And it's an Australian film, so the bonus is that you don't get a subtitle headache from it! It's one of those films that makes you lament that more films aren't made like it.

And now I must finish laundry. Oh yes, turn green with your envy of me!

to be seen or unseen?

I was pondering blogging. More specifically, the visual portion of blogging.

When I first started using the internet (back when the Earth was cooling), you only got to know people through their words. Those ancient bulletin boards barely supported formatted text, let alone graphics or user photos. The only thing you could glean about a person was by deciphering their user name. Even when Prodigy and AOL first hit the scene, your first impression of someone was their email address. If CUTIEPIE4YOU posted, you could easily suss out her focus. But if AMARIEM posted (that was me), it was all very ambiguous until the emails really started flowing.

With MySpace, Facebook, et al, it’s pretty much the How Ho Can You Go school of representation.

I choose not to use a real photo for my blogging life, but then somebody said to me the other day “You can always tell the ugly chicks when they don’t use a real photo.”

Err, wha?? I aint no damn ugly chick!

In the several years I’ve been online, I’ve met some freaky-ass people. Super crazy stalker people. As a result, I don’t publicly post any personal details about myself. True, it’s not like any of the super crazy stalker people I inadvertently befriended ever showed up on my doorstep, and I’ve met far more normal, lovely people than crazy harpies, but I find it’s just better to keep the personal stuff between friends. Nor do I feel the need to publicly share all the details of my daily life (mostly because you can’t ever take it back once it’s in print!)

I just found his comment amusing, though. It did come from a younger person who wasn’t around when the Earth was cooling, so I suppose the “if you don’t post who you really are, you must be a hermaphrodite with three eyes” mentality is just part of the evolution (for good or bad) of internet life.

When I objected to this attitude, I received the following response: “But you should post a photo of yourself. You actually look good for your age.”

To which I responded: “Oh thanks! That’s so nice of—wait…what do you mean for my age??”

My only consolation is that he will likely have much less hair and much more beer gut by the time he’s this age!

curses!

Whilst groggily driving to work this morning, I dared look at the temperature gauge.

FORTY-SEVEN degrees. In June. It is dumping buckets on us as it is. The rain is bad enough, but 47 degrees?? We don’t expect it to be sunny all the time in June. It’s usually a fairly wet month. But it’s at least 70-ish. Somebody please send in the Marines. I need to be evacuated to Vegas.

And to top it off, our cable has been out for two days. It doesn’t matter that there’s nothing to watch now. It’s merely the principle of the thing. It’s in the 40’s, it’s pouring rain, and we have no cable.

Hello, this is America. Isn’t it my birth right to be a couch potato between the hours of 7 and 10 pm when it looks like November in June? I’m sure it must be in the Constitution. Life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, and cable TV. No, wait. Life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, cable TV, and Target. Look it up.

I am swiftly running through my Netflix queue as a result. But sometimes you really don’t want anything more than America’s Next Top Model reruns while you surf the Nordstrom semi-annual sale.

Anyone who knows us (meaning our vast – and I mean VAST – fanbase) will note that my sister is blogging about running a 5k this weekend whilst I am blogging about couch potato’ing. Kindly keep the compare/contrast comments to yourselves. I’m having lentil soup and baby carrots for lunch, and I declined a donut this morning. What more do you want from me?

Nerd Alert!
In other news, I discovered last night that the Alliance Francaise in the U District has Scrabble parties every Friday and alternating Sundays. SWEET. I can easily geek out over Scrabble in English, but Scrabble in French has me in geek nirvaaahhhnnnaaahhh.

apparently I'm bionic, too

I smell something weird today, but I don't know what it is. I can't even describe what it smells like. It's just...different. I thought it might be my sweater, so I had to smell the collar while sitting here at my desk, which only resulted in getting lipstick on my sweater. Hello, I'm a moron.

Perhaps this has something to do with being dragged underwater by the ankle. Some residual olfactory pseudo-trauma?

In other news, I have decided that I don't feel like working anymore this afternoon. C'est vrai. Believe it or not, I am experiencing a profound lack of motivation at 2:30 in the afternoon. Shocking, I know. This never happens.

Yep....

how we roll in the burbs

In driving around the neighborhood today, I could see that the stop signs had been graffiti'd. Great. Just what we need.

When I came to the actual stop, I could see that the graffiti was spray painted in white so the sign reads:

STOP
HAMMER TIME!

I about died. Half the signs in the neighborhood look like this. And it wasn't just freehand paint. The HAMMER TIME! is stenciled!

Hi.Larious.

The visual I'm getting of some mid-to-late thirty-something running through the neighborhood with a stencil and a can of spray paint is priceless.