Keep It Loose, Keep It Tight

A Few Good Engagement Pictures

2009-04-23T13:00:00.000-07:00

Last night Tobin and I went to do our engagement pictures with our photographer. It's part of our package and we figured it would get us ready for all the pictures on the big day. We went to Elfreth's Alley and as soon as we did our save-the-date pics, it started to pour. We literally had a rain delay for our pictures. We did a few more shots before heading to 30th Street Station for some indoor pics. We got a few more off there before being "talked to" by a few Amtrak workers. We've rescheduled to do part deux when the weather is better since the point was to get some good shots around the city of brotherly love. But check out Tony's blog from the link below to see three pictures he posted today.

http://hofferphotography.com/blog/

Dancin' in the Street

2009-04-23T12:12:00.000-07:00

On April 8th, I headed to New Orleans to meet up with Emily and Krista, my college roommates from Syracuse. Emily and I were paired up together in Flint Hall, 284C freshman year. Krista lived across the hall. So many memories were made together 12 years ago: stalking Coach P, the stairs to The Mount, JAVI, Harry's Bar with our fake IDs (so cool), King K Day, DNABB5, "Happy Tapping," the mardi gras party...the list goes on.

We planned this trip to celebrate our 30th birthdays this year (although Emily is the only one that is over the hill at time of publication). Emily lives in Charlotte, NC and Krista lives in Los Angeles, CA and even though thousands of miles are between us, they are two of my bestest friends in the world. We try to meet every year and this year, we rocked New Orleans. My favorite part of the trip was dinner at Antoine's Restaurant (http://www.antoines.com/), which is a French-Creole restaurant that opened in 1840. Definitely the highlight of the trip. Below are some other highlights. Enjoy!

You can't tell but that green neon sign reads, "1000 Beautiful Girls & 3 Ugly Ones"

"F You Mirror!"

Krista and Emily on someone's stoop.

At Antoine's. One of the best meals I've ever eaten.

Emily and Krista rocking the Tobin Face.

Emily is obviously upset the the wine won't come out...but all she has to do is twist the cap.

The infamous Commander's Palace in the Garden District.

Oooooooooooooooohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Who are these lovely ladies?

My girls at 4am.

Irish dancing lessons on Bourbon Street.

We are the Champions

2009-04-16T12:10:00.000-07:00

In a feeble attempt to catch up with the blog, I am going to tell you about the Phillies home opener that we went to on Sunday, April 5th. The Phillies are the WORLD F-ING Champions! We met up with our friends John and Cathy (it seems like they are our only friends according to this blog) before the game for some (literally) pregaming.

It was our first home opener and we couldn't of picked a better one since we all received 2008 World Series flags, watched Charlie Manuel raise the flag in Ashburn Alley, and cheered the Phillies onto the field to start the 2009 season. John and Cathy's seats were in our section too so we were able to sit together for the welcoming parade and the pre-game festivities. Bonus.

My Mom and Henry were also at the game with Henry's friend and his son. My Mom worked all day and brought a change of clothes for the game. Imagine Henry's surprise when...

Let me introduce you to Monkey. He was definitely an impulse buy but was the best $20 I spent the entire night. Here he is chilling, watching the game.

After the Phillies loss to the Braves that night, we met up with the Hanna's again and went over to Front Street for some postgaming, which is where the Man in the Mirror video came from. The best part was when John went in front of the parked car to take a leak and well, I'll let the picture below tell the story. Monday morning was not pretty. Hungover and purseless.

Man In The Mirror

2009-04-15T13:52:00.000-07:00

I haven't updated this blog in a while. There is much going on. I will be more vigilant and write about the Phillies Home Opener, my girl's trip to New Orleans, Easter, and other craziness that has ensued in recent weeks. In the meantime, please enjoy this hysterical video of Cathy and Monkey.

Amazing Grace: The Remix

2009-04-03T10:37:00.000-07:00

This is a follow up to yesterday's Amazing Grace post. Last night, I called Tobin's Mom and she mentioned that JG stopped by her house early Thursday evening to thank her for the leftover pulled pork and rolls. He told her he was able to make four sandwiches from the food and it's been a long time since he had a home-cooked meal. He also caught up with Tobin's brother, who he grew up with, and told him that he recently lost his job and has been down on his luck. He is a polite forest dweller and I am happy that he dwells in my neighborhood. Now that I know who he is, I hope to see him more.

Amazing Grace

2009-04-02T05:47:00.000-07:00

Today I'm going to give you a little glimpse into the craziness that is my mind. Lucky you.

When Tobin and I moved into his grandmother's house, our neighbor who has lived next door for at least 30 years, told me about a guy, JG, who is only a few years older than we are and grew up in the neighborhood. He was actually friends of Dan's older brother. Our neighbors mentioned that as far as they knew, JG lived in the woods directly behind our houses. For a while this scared me a bit. I imagined some crazy homeless monster living in the woods, riding deer and stalking me from the comfort of his hidden tree fort. I thought that he might break in while we were at work or that he was waiting for us to go to sleep so he could sleep in our shed.

For a while, this quasi tormented me but after we got Blue, I started to rethink the JG situations and imagined that he was a kind person who enjoyed mother nature. When I would walk Blue late at night or early in the morning, when it was still dark, I would imagine that JG was watching me, protecting me from the harmful Northeast predators. I often imagined that if anyone was breaking into the house, he would rescue us. In my warped mind, he was like my own private batman. And until last night, he was one of the nameless, faceless many.

April Fools Day is Tobin's Dad's birthday so we went to his parents' house for dinner. They live around the corner from us and their house backs up to the same woods ours does. After dinner and cleaning up, Tobin's brother, sister-in-law, and niece left to go home. A few minutes later, there was a soft knock on the screen door. We couldn't pretend we weren't there as you could see right into the house. I was closest and when I opened the door, I was staring right at JG (although I didn't know it yet). He quietly introduced himself and mentioned that he used to be Tobin's brother's friend. He asked for a few dollars for double cheeseburgers at McDonald's. In all honesty, none of us had cash on us so Tobin's Mom gave him tupperware filled with leftover pulled pork and some fresh rolls and plates. He was so polite and nice, it broke my heart.

I have probably thought about him every day since I first heard that he was living in the woods behind the house. Meeting him was nothing like I imagined it would be, it was just sad and it made me feel helpless. But I won't lie, when I turned off the lights last night to fall asleep, I felt a little comfort thinking about JG, full from his pulled pork sanwiches, watching over our house.

Paint It Black

2009-03-27T11:55:00.000-07:00

Last night, our dear friends Cathy and John Hanna came to the house for movie night. And while this is the 6th or 7th time we've gotten together for such a special occasion, there were a few things that happened last night that are worth noting.

1.) I ordered Domino's Pizza online and realized that A.) they still have the 5-5-5 deal (which for you people that are not in-the-know, that means three medium 1-topping pizzas for $5 each), B.) when you order online and select your toppings, they actually add the image to your "web" pizza which I was mesmerized by, and C.) they have a "Pizza Tracker" which will track the five steps of your order from "Order Placed" through "Bake" onto "Delivery." John actually thinks that there's a person at the store that pushes a big, red button to update the website so that status indicated online is completely accurate. As it turns out, the rest of were right.

2.) We watched RocknRolla from Madonna's ex, Guy Ritchie. It was ok. The guys liked it much better than the ladies. Lots of mumbling about a missing painting. But it has Gerard Butler and surprising guest appearances by Luda and Jeremy Piven. But obviously if you're reading this and haven't seen the movie, you will not be surprised by their appearances.

3.) Tobin poured the most perfect Guinness pour (as indicated in this picture: Guinness glass and Hanna's faux Guinness polo shirt).

4.) Later, Tobin knocked Hanna's beer all over Hanna and the screened-in porch out back (which our dog, Blue, was thankful for...since he's an alcoholic).

5.) The ShamWow can be used to clean up ANYTHING!

6.) We also realized that when Hanna and Blue drink the same beer, it leads to some crazy shit.

One More Drink

2009-03-26T07:51:00.000-07:00

I think this blog title is appropriate for Wednesday night out with people from work as I kept hearing Luda and T-Pain every time I ordered another glass of wine. Kim1 and I have been trying to go out for happy hour for weeks. We finally accomplished this lofty goal last night. She suggested we try a new place around the corner from the hotel, YakatoriBoy. It wasn't ridic last night because hey, it was Wednesday but YB is a little gem in Chinatown. They have drink and appetizer specials and there are nine rooms upstairs that you can rent and can hold from 6-20 people each and you can do private karaoke with your friends while ordering your drinks from one of the karate-kid-bandana wearing servers. Very cool. We didn't sing karaoke last night. wah, wah. I had plentry of wine and shrimp tempura rolls (which were delicious) before hitching a ride with my Mom back to the Northeast just in time for Lost with Tobin and Blue. Check out the pics below...

Kim1 and Kim2
Val, my real estate broker, and me.

Kim1 and her rape whistle.

Jamie, BWest's friend "Roots", and Chef

BWest and me attempting Tobin Face.

Celebration

2009-03-25T13:03:00.000-07:00

Today I had the rare opportunity to experience greatness. I was invited to an awards ceremony/reception at my work recognizing outstanding associates and managers that have gone above and beyond for customers, guests, clients, etc. A friend of mine from our department, Kim1 (since she is lucky enough to share my name but she was here first so...), received one of the highest honors bestowed to an employee. No, not being seen in public with me. :) But rather the Spirit of Excellence Award for her "exemplary commitment to quality service and customer satisfaction." I wanted to give Kim1 a shout out here for being such an inspiration to our sales department. Bravo Kim1. Bravo.

Old Brown Shoe

2009-03-25T07:24:00.000-07:00

Something interesting happened this morning. I usually wear sneakers into work and either bring work-appropriate shoes or select from the stash I keep hidden under my desk. I have two pairs of flat shoes that I keep under my desk. They are the exact same pair, only one is brown and one is black. Today, I pulled off my sneakers and socks, put on my work-mandated knee highs, and slid my feet into my flat shoes. I got sidetracked with phone calls and e-mails and it wasn't until I walked past a half a dozen people on my way to the copy machine and someone laughed and told me to look down, that I noticed my gaffe.

Cute shoes, right? This reminded me of the time when I was interning at the Tierney Group and would meet Soska at Saladworks every week. One time, we were forced to skip Saladworks because we had to take the green line back to Drexel so that she could change her shoes because she actually left the house and spent the entire morning wearing a one brown shoe and one black one. It was on that day that I swore that would never happen to me. Obviously I was wrong. Deja vu.

It's Not Me, It's You

2009-03-25T05:36:00.000-07:00

Chrissy, Christine, my Mom, and I went to David's Bridal this past Sunday to start the bridesmaid dress selection process. This reminded me of the time that Chrissy and I went to David's Bridal the summer after senior year b/c we had no money and it was air-conditioned. What better way to spend a day? We made up some (very realistic) story about how we were marrying twins in a dual wedding and that we needed to try on dresses. It was during the week and the lady that helped us then was much more attentive, either b/c our story was so believeable or because she had nothing better to do and knew that based on her excellent customer service, we would be back 12 years later.

But I digress. I called ahead to make an appointment (since I was told this needed to be done). We picked DB because most of the nicer places weren't open on Sundays and we really just wanted to get an idea of a style or a color since I didn't really have a clue what I was looking for. We met there at 12:40pm. The display dresses in the window were hideous, mostly pastels and very sparkly and mostly prom dresses. Nonetheless we entered the madness. It opened at 12pm but you would have thought it was open for 24 hours with the amount of people that were there (again, mostly looking for prom dresses) and the dresses strewn about the store. We checked in with the receptionist who asked my Mom to throw away her tea (I guess so she wouldn't spill it on all of the gorgeous, sparkly, pastel things they call dresses) and she questioned me whether my wedding would be a "trick or a treat". So friggin' clever. The receptionist paged someone and told us to start looking around and our consultant would find us and help us out.

Enter Shaniquah. I will only descibe her as missing a few key teeth and wearing dark tinted glasses. [Bridesmaids, Mom, and I start to exchange awkward glances.] She was excited to hear that the wedding was on Halloween because we would OBVIOUSLY pick orange as the bridesmaid's color. Less work for her! Before taking us over to a wall that had a poster stuck to it with 16-20 girls modeling dresses and color chart, she made sure to point out the section of the store with dye-able shoes (do people really still do this?) and mentioned the amazing 15% discount we would get off the shoes if we purchased the dresses. Ok, back to the chart, Shaniquah explained that we would probably pick a tangerine, coral, saffron, terracotta, or persimmon since they are varying shades of orange. I told her we were definitely going to do a fall palette but not really orange. She answered by telling me that we could do anything since it's a Halloween wedding and we could all be "queens." She told us to look at the poster and to walk around the store and "feel the dresses to experience" them and she would be back to help us. She walked away and we couldn't help but laugh and start to plan our escape route. It was at this juncture that we all agreed that it was necessary that we have a drink after this incredible bonding experience.

We navigated our way through a few aisles filled with prom dress shopping teenagers and other bridesmaids/brides before picking a bunch of dresses and placing them on a hook for when we entered the dressing room. When we had about 12, we went out in search of Shaniquah to get us settled in the dressing room. Are you picking up that we didn't see Shaniquah the entire time we were picking out dresses? We were left to fend for ourselves amoung the estrogen-enriched wolves. Finally, she took us back to the dressing rooms and even though I didn't think this was possible, it was even more chaotic. She found two dressing rooms side by side for Chrissy and Christine. Shaniquah asked them their bra and shoe size so they could look the part of beautiful bridesmaid. Christine stunned Shaniquah when she told her that she would need a size 8 shoe. Shaniquah shockingly said that she had big feet for such a small, tiny, little body. Awesome. Hey Shaniquah, do you have any dyeable clown shoes that my maid-of-honor can try? Idiot. We sifted through the dresses and tried not to get in the way of the other ladies (and I use that term loosely here) trying on bridal gowns and prom dresses.

At this point, we all agree that we are not getting anything from DB but in an effort to get something out of this experience, Chrissy and Christine tried on (I think) four dresses each. Shaniquah came back twice to tell Christine that the dress she had on was too big but did not offer to go get her another size. What she did offer was clips with hangers on them to tighten the dress around her, which I ended up doing anyway. There were a few dresses that were ok. We all liked one style but we really liked it in this color called "fern" which was a beautiful fall green that I think will look great on everyone (and make Soska's eyes just POP).

After the girls tried on their last dresses, my Mom asked if we should go back and look for more to try on. We all quickly agreed, much to my Mom's satisfaction, that we would rather just go and get a couple (many) drinks. We had accomplished something that day. We know NEVER to go back to DB and that we really liked the color "FERN" (which Chrissy is wearing in one of the pictures below). We packed up our things and left the dresses, bras, hanger clips, and Christine's size 8 shoes strewn about the dressing room and made our way to the exit, all the while dodging Shaniquah. We escaped and decided to go to Three Monkeys for drinks and apps and laugh about our follies of the day.

I guess there isn't much more to say. I've already said too much.

Chrissy doing her best Jackie O.

Are we having fun yet? Obviously not Christine.

Chrissy's wearing the Fern color I like...