Be Our Guest

Figure I: You know New Yorkers hated seeing this in the middle of Times Square. (That's for you, MH!)
Figure II: RW's first visit to the Big Apple.
Figure III: Come visit! We may not having singing candlesticks, but we can make a mean grilled cheese.

Here I find myself yet again with the RCN cable service man, in our usual three-hour window, waiting to hear the sweet sound of voices coming through the airwaves of our T.V. Fourth time’s a charm. We only have so many DVDs we can watch, only a one season of “Felicity” to keep us at bay before we die for lack of entertainment.

In other news, we just enjoyed our first weekend in our new apartment! We had three friends in town, SK, a friend from college and KR’s old roommate from junior year; my partner-in-crime since 1993, RW; and the notorious RM, who I made friends with freshman year of high school because he played tennis with all of my closest pals.

He once planned a Spring Break trip to New York that included himself and four girls our freshman year of college. He got us great tickets to shows, put up with our shopping and we even got to watch him in his element on Canal Street, haggling with illegal immigrants for illegal knock-off purses. It was the best trip ever. He and MK shared an apartment in Brooklyn last summer when they were both here for internships, and as RM now works for the same company as MK’s father, he is now known as the guy that lived with Mr. K’s daughter in New York.

Much to the delight of everyone involved, we ran into Heath Ledger in a rustic antique store that we wandered into in SoHo on Saturday morning. We saw Cyrano de Bergerac on Saturday night, which I really enjoyed. Kevin Kline played Cyrano, and he was phenomenal. RM spotted America Ferrera afterward, waiting to go backstage to pay her compliments to the cast, and she was successfully flying under the radar until RM yelled out: “America! We love you! We love Ugly Betty!”

She was terrified, poor America.

She smiled nervously and was then ushered inside quickly before anyone else realized what the commotion was about.

I have to take a moment to commend AV on her ability to handle anyone we throw her way. Homegirl was half asleep at midnight last night when RM breezed through the door, making a dramatic entrance as usual and ensuing in a festival of laughter with KR and I about two feet from her head. What a good sport.

We returned home with hot chocolate because KR had discovered her wallet to be missing* (it was later found to be left in a cab and was returned to her) after a work event that she had been helping with on Saturday, and had not attended the play. We chose to walk home to see all of the crazies who were out in full force for Halloween parties, and we concluded that you could make any costume inappropriate. KR and RM even spotted a scantily clad bumblebee at Penn Station when she went to greet him on Friday night. “We’ll talk about this later” he said to KR, “horizontal stripes are the least of her problems right now."

I don’t care what the old saying goes about how girls can get away with wearing anything on Halloween. I’m sure a guy made that up. Let’s just say if you are wearing lingerie outside- regardless of the holiday or event- it’s not okay, in fact, it’s decidedly a bad idea. You will surely find attention, but not respect.

I’ll get off of my modesty soapbox now.

We went to see Dan In Real Life on Sunday morning, which was surprisingly better than expected. When it comes to movies that almost never happens. Whoever wrote the movie definitely has had teenage daughters at some point in his life. The drama, the fury, the stomping of the feet and the rolling of the eyes- it was all there. I would recommend it- especially if you liked ‘The Family Stone’ and if you are a Steve Carell fan. (And who DOESN’T watch ‘The Office’)?

I’m thinking I need some grammar and punctuation refreshers. My education has not failed me- I’m just tired because I returned home a few minutes ago from a job interview. Yes, my New York Unemployment Saga continues. I actually had a great interview with a great company last week, today’s went well, and I was asked back for a second interview with yet another company for the end of this week.

Throw in a cliché about everything panning out or something about half-full glasses and you have the rest of my afternoon.

I’ll be meeting up with the girls later to go to the Target in Brooklyn. God help us, we were all lucky to get out with all of our limbs intact the last time.

"The most beautiful discovery true friends make is that they can grow separately without growing apart."
- Elizabeth Foley

Tying Of The Knot

We woke up bright and early Saturday morning at Dr. & Mrs. S’s home to begin our day. We got out of bed a little after 7:00am, and her parents were already gone to attend to other wedding-related business.

I had stayed in a room with my old roommate KW, and we were waking up to shower when our friends from the house party burst in, wound-up from a fiasco at the Holiday Inn. Before they told me anything, they made sure it would be covered in the New(York)Comer. I assured them it would, and they proceeded to explain to KW and I an animated story of their evening, which included but was not limited to; shattered glass and banging noises in the room above them, an uninformed hotel desk clerk, and the four of them holding hands for dear life in the same bed. My head hadn’t even stopped spinning from all of them talking with such elaborate hand gestures, and I turned around and they were asleep in the bed I had just got out of. (All four of them, obviously.)

In the midst of our morning, the doorbell rang, and there stood a woman from the local bakery carrying fresh pastries, for which we abandoned our preparations and stopped to eat. J gave each of us gifts, which included personalized stationary. If you know anything about me at all, it’s that I love a good letterhead.

After the breakfasting and gift-receiving, we made our way across town to get our hair done. At one point my friend BF pointed out that watching J get her hair done was like watching that scene at Trudy’s salon in Steel Magnolias where Shelby talks about her wedding while her hair is teased in all directions. We may have been born in the 80’s, but thank goodness we didn’t have to get married in the same decade as poofy bangs and stirrup pants. Some of Mrs. S’s friends had prepared lunch for us, so we got to sit, chat and eat for hours amidst the hairspray and bobby-pinning.

Somewhere in the middle of the day we commented on the fact that the groom and his male friends and family had been playing golf all morning and would only have to shower and put on their suits to get ready for the wedding. They have no idea, do they?

We went back to the S’s house in the early afternoon to do our make-up and put on our dresses. We had all made a new friend- JA, who was a friend of the groom’s from college, and she became our make-up artist for the afternoon. I think one of the primary reasons women plan formal events is just for the occasion of dressing-up.

We finally made it back to the farm for the fourth and final stage of wedding-day preparations: the dressing of the bride. JS is no stranger to the limelight- she once ate a yard of conies from Sonic in front of a captivated audience. At her bachelorette party she entertained an entire restaurant while leading a Conga line with a tambourine through the tables and dancing on stage with the Mariachi band. This is only a small part of her charm- trust me. Anyway- we watched her slip on her beautiful lace gown and got to sit with her through all her pre-wedding emotions.

The ceremony was beautiful and as bridesmaids we were fortunate enough to have the sun on our backs- whenever I found myself getting sentimental during the ceremony I would just watch the groomsmen, who were playing a squinting game of hiding behind each others’ heads to avoid the sun’s glare. We took pictures afterward, and ate barbeque under the stars while table-hopping to get a chance to see our old pals.

JS, being no stranger to the dance floor, had a costume change before the musical portion of the evening started. She traded her lace gown for a short, strapless little white number and a pair of cowboy boots, and we spent the rest of the night in a scene reminiscent to most of our college date parties: girls dancing, guys elsewhere. We sent the happy couple off in a whirlwind of sparklers and an old Mustang convertible, and since most of my friends are now part of the workforce, everyone was exhausted by 10:00pm. We don’t get out much.

A few of us stayed the night with the S’s and woke up early Sunday morning to the smell of breakfast cooking downstairs. We stumbled (gracefully) downstairs with squinty faces to see who on earth was awake, and found JS’s parents in the kitchen, her mother frying bacon and eggs and her father reading the paper and entertaining their 14-month-old granddaughter. It seemed just like any other morning- as if they were just getting up to go to church like any other Sunday. They were chipper and eager to get us fed and caffeinated for our drive home, so we ate and drank and wondered how on earth they could rebound so quickly from such a huge event. I need to find out what kind of vitamins they take.

It was quite the weekend, obviously. I arrived home Sunday, went to Dripping Springs, Texas with my Mom, her friends and sisters, to enjoy a quiet girls’ night away and take a cooking class. I love to cook, and had never taken a class before so I thought it was a blast. Give me a food processor and well-sharpened knives and I’m one happy camper. I also never get to spend that much time with my mom and her entourage, so I got to listen in on their chatting, which was not (shockingly) all about their kids, as I think we all selfishly assume. I love the little things we get from our mothers, like the way SR and her mother have the same sparkling blue eyes and say “salsa” with the same soft “z”, how MK and her mother ask the same introspective questions with the same concerned countenance, how RW has the same killer smile as her mother and how my cousin KH has the same laugh and sweet disposition as my aunt.

Needless to say, it was a great, long weekend. There’s so much still to report…

We’ll get to that later

“What are you doing the rest of your life? North and South and East and West of your life, I have only one request of your life, that you spend it with me.”
- Alan & Marilyn Bergman

Practice Makes Perfect

Figure I: Blushing bride
Figure II: The happy couple
Figure III: The Association of Former 2%ers

I met up with AV at her office Thursday afternoon and we caught a cab to La Guardia. The Ikea guys were late with our delivery, which added to the stress of getting to the airport. We ended up rushing around, only to find that we were about two hours early. Our flight was not full, and both Alyssa and I were the only people in our rows, so I moved before we took off. The guy behind me had said something, which I didn’t realize was directed towards me until I sat next to Alyssa and she told me how oblivious I was for overlooking the nice looking man sitting in 23F. 'Figures,' I thought. Then I ascertained from the thin gold band on his hand that he was married…which also figures.

I wasted no time after arriving at home with my parents. They had picked up fajitas from La Hacienda Ranch, and I completely disregarded the fact that it was midnight and bee-lined for the chips and salsa. I asked my mom to wake me up at 7:30am so that we could spend some time together before I left for Paris. As promised, my mom (accompanied by her faithful dog Lucy) found me in my bed, dead to the world at 7:30. I asked for it.

I made my way to Paris on Friday to meet up with JS (now JP), the bride. You know you are back in Texas when the landmarks used to guide you are Cavender’s Boots and Beall’s. After getting turned around by some sign that looked more like a tied shoelace than highway directions, I made it to J’s family’s house just in time to walk back out the door and look for shoes for her dress rehearsal. The best part of it was that J’s mom drives a gray Astro van with a sliding door, so she would literally pull up to a curb and leave us to search for red patent leather Mary Janes, and I would slide open the door after each trip, only to find myself getting slowly boxed out after each of her errands by the programs, bridal portraits and glass hurricanes.

After arriving back at Dr. & Mrs. S’s home, we had to shower and get ready for the rehearsal. We set off and I finally got to see the wedding site for the first time. You know when you have a preconceived idea of what something is going to look like before you see it? I have no idea what I thought the farm was going to look like- I only know that I was wrong.

We drove up to the most picturesque, Pottery Barn catalogue scene that I have ever seen with my own eyes. Texas really is God’s country. A friend in Bible study yesterday mentioned that she had never seen a state flag flown more often than in Texas- and she’s absolutely right. I probably appreciated the view more considering the fact that I don’t actually see grass everyday. Needless to say- it was the perfect location for the wedding.

We practiced our entrances and exits, made polite introductions with the San Diego groomsmen in the midst of our college gal pal reunion and watched the sunset over lake. The night was already perfect- and we hadn’t even eaten yet. The chicken fried steak and bread pudding at Hole In The Wall (actual name of the restaurant) were superb, but not as good as the company or the slide show.

I just scrolled up to see how long this is, and I have not even gotten to the day-of. I’ll have to update tomorrow as well, before this novel turns epic.

"The best mirror is an old friend."
-Peter Nivio Zarlenga

Put It On My Tab

Pictures from top left:
Figure I: Irony at Ikea
Figure II: "Do it yourself"
Figure III: The perfect place for our DVR: in the middle of the hall on the floor.

Remember that time I fell getting off the bus and skinned my knee? Now I have a lovely scab/bruise to show for it… just in time for the bridesmaid’s dress I will be wearing in 48 hours.

I am currently sitting at our new apartment waiting for the delivery guys from Ikea to show up. The time frame they gave me was 11:00am-3:00pm. That’s quite a large frame, especially when it’s just me, three twin beds and an empty refrigerator. We do have the Internet connection set up, and DVR for that matter. There’s no T.V. yet, but maybe one day soon since we are all in desperate need of Giada and Paula. There is only so much you can do in six days, if you catch my drift ($$$$$).

I had two more interviews this week, and actually got calls from many of the other people I have met/corresponded with since I have been in New York. It’s like everyone woke up on Monday and suddenly decided they needed a new assistant. I’m certainly not complaining, but there has been such variety in the jobs I have applied for, that it will be interesting to see which opportunity I am given and where I end up working.

As inferred above, KR, AV and I will be returning to the Texas tonight for our friend JS’s wedding weekend. She will be tying the knot on a ranch in Paris, Texas at what promises to be quite the party, and moving to San Diego (discovered by the Germans). We will get to see family, our friends and I’m pretty sure there is chicken fried steak involved. Since this is my eighth and final wedding of 2007, and since JS is such a dear friend and devoted blog-follower, I’ll be sure to provide full coverage upon my return.

I will also be home to celebrate my mother’s 50th birthday on Sunday, and I will be going on an overnight girl’s trip to the Hill Country with her entourage. My family has had a milestone year: I graduated college, my parents celebrated their 25th anniversary and both turned 50, my brother turned 21, and we moved into a new house. What this really translates to is all of us sitting on the porch, drinking a beer, talking about how old we are and going to bed early. I love it!

Now it’s time to unpack the bags in my room and re-pack for this weekend. I have put it off as long as possible, and the window of delivery time is waning; yet there is still much to be done. I can’t check the overhead compartments for baggage that may have moved during the flight if there is no baggage to begin with, now can I?

"The beginnings of all things are small."
- Cicero

Moving Weekend Installment II: Exhaustaleeza Rice

We woke up Sunday and hurried to get ready for church, since the morning service was meeting at 10:30am in the Southwest corner of the Great Lawn of Central Park. We found ourselves on the Southwest-ish area of Sheep’s Meadow (note: different from the Great Lawn) at 11:15am. Needless to say: church did not happen.

After we got off to such a great start, we ascertained that we were in the neighborhood of our new apartment and set off to the West Side. After viewing the selection of sleeper couches that Jennifer Convertibles had to offer, we made a decision that had been imminent since the day we decided to move to New York.

That’s right, we went to Ikea.

We bit the bullet, boarded a New Jersey-bound bus at the Port Authority and headed to the Swedish home conglomerate. Ikea has a very specific organization to it, which was nice because everything was organized (in a controlled-chaos type of way) but made it difficult to try and retrace our steps. Armed with an Ikea-issued list, yellow bag, a golf cart pencil and a text from MK that read “Godspeed”, we ascended the escalator and into the madness.

We made sure to carefully mark each item we wanted on our list, and eventually accumulated two other yellow bags full of inexpensive kitchen goods. It was not until we reached the end of the labyrinth and found ourselves in the midst of the get-it-yourself warehouse when we were told that we were supposed to be ordering the items we wanted from each individual department as we went. Deflated, AV and I left KR with all the bags in the middle of the dining table showroom.

Once our major items had been reserved, we made it through the zoo known as the children’s section and back to the self-serve furniture warehouse. I say self-serve as if it where as easy as grabbing a cone of frozen yogurt at Jason’s Deli, but Weak Girl Arms prevailed and KR and I had a brief debacle that included a broken glass jar and a near-incident involving a coffee table. The eye-level boxes on the shelf were black, but the ones about a foot and a half above our heads were black-brown, which seemed worth it at the time. The coffee table somehow made it onto the cart, and no necks were broken.

Luckily, the delivery guy at Ikea was very accommodating and we got to leave the bulk of our load with him to deal with. We managed to make it to our new apartment without breaking anything else and were ultimately pleased with our weekend productivity.

I also skinned my knee tonight…I’m fairly confident that hadn’t happened in 16 years.

Just when I was starting to feel like a grown-up.

“Only with laughter can you win.”
-Rosie Thomas

Moving Weekend Installment I: Rookie Mistakes

This has been the most expensive weekend of our lives.

One lease, three beds, a couch, various other items and delivery fees, 48 hours and roughly $10,000 later, we have our apartment. We also have stuff- and lots of it. Our lease officially starts tomorrow- which means this is our farewell night to the Murray Hill Air Mattress Club. It does not so much feel like a teary good-bye yet- probably since I will still be here daily to use the Internet and do laundry. Not to mention the fact that there is no way all of our junk is getting out of here in one day. Not a chance.

After the lease signing on Friday night, we ate at Au Bon Pain and decided to buy some pastries for breakfast on Saturday. The clerk informed us that if we waited 15 minutes, we could get them for half-price, so we shamelessly watched the clock to get our bargain croissants while we mapped out our weekend schedule. We made it down to Sleepy’s to get our mattresses before they closed, and bee-lined for the back to find the best deals on twin mattresses. That’s right, we are 22-year-olds investing in twin beds. I am fairly confident that the only time in my life that has been spent in a twin bed was my freshman year of college, as well as the time I spent at camp and studying abroad.

Saturday morning AV and I woke up and headed to this Saturday/Sunday event on W. 25th called the Antiques Garage. I plan to go back for decorative items eventually, but we were not in the market for paintings or . We met up with KR and took the train to Brooklyn to check out some second-hand furniture stores. Brooklyn, for all of you Texans reading this, is across the East River from Manhattan.

Brooklyn Heights is a particularly nice area, but I would compare the rest of Brooklyn to the former Soviet region of Eastern Europe. By that I mean one minute you’re walking down a beautiful cobblestone street, and the next you’re on an abandoned ghetto sidewalk covered in graffiti with weeds growing through the cracks in the cement. But it’s charming- seriously.

And then we got ambitious and decided to go to Target. Target sounds easy in theory, it really does. It seemed like familiar territory until we remembered that Target stores are few and far-between here, and there are about eight million people who need cheap house-ware items just as much as we do.

We knew we were in a whole different ball game when we walked in to see the escalator in the middle of the store, and something none of us had ever seen before: a cart escalator. That’s right, you literally push your red buggy onto a ramp that drags it up next to you to the second floor. This was a Target of advanced technology, it was a Saturday afternoon in New York, and our eyes were bigger than our arm muscles. At one point we even looked at a T.V. stand for a space that we had yet to measure and a T.V. we did not yet own. We had to draw the line somewhere.

After several hazy hours which included selecting an accent color for our black and white bathroom (KR wanted to make it look more “warm” and less “Beetlejuice”), vague directions about the unavailability of a certain black coffee maker from incompetent Target team members and managing to get a full-sized ironing board on and off the subway at Grand Central- we were defeated. Target: 1, Weak Girl Arms: 0.

Once we returned home and regaled MK with our tales, we ate supper at a place with guacamole worth mentioning, and went to see the new “Elizabeth” movie. Cate Blanchett was at her finest- and the costumes were amazing. I usually know I’ll enjoy a movie when the previews give me chills, and I wasn’t disappointed.

So that was Saturday, and today was a whole different adventure for which I will open a different can of worms tomorrow.

“You can see only as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.”
- E.L. Doctorow

It's Official

We are no longer homeless! Well… as of Monday that is, but don't worry, we are still mooching until then. As long as everything goes swimmingly Friday when the lease is signed- we are good to go for a Monday move-in! Since there is already a line of people booking flights and planning visits, I suggest you run your travel plans by us to make sure our air mattress calendar is not booked up.

We get to spend the weekend shopping for mattresses and a couch, among other things. We will be returning home next weekend for our dear friend JS’s wedding, and I fully plan on packing a suitcase that will accommodate my blender and food processor… since I’m pretty sure those don’t qualify as safe carry-on items. I guess I will grab some cold weather clothes to brace myself for this “brisk New York fall” I keep hearing so much about.

I am still on the job search. Just an FYI: I’ll keep talking about it until I have one. It’s so elusive, and if I have learned anything from this whole experience, it is that timing is everything. Case and point, AV got an e-mail today from THE company she would have hand-picked to work for upon arriving in the city, a week and a half after beginning her new job. THE company contacted her to let her know that they had some job opportunities they thought she would be interested in. Stab and twist.

I neglected to mention the shopping fiasco KR and I had last week. MK had found some good buys at this place near her office, and so we thought we would venture down and see for ourselves. I should have known better when I Googled it to get the cross-streets that the tagline on the website for Century 21 store was: “Fashion worth fighting for.”

I should have, but I didn’t.

I fell prey to the Financial District’s discount fashion powerhouse under the pretense of paying less for my favorite brands. Was it worth it? I’ve been to the mall the day after Christmas, I’ve been to Neiman’s on the first weekend of the Last Call sale, and I even dabbled on tax-free weekend once. None of those could hold a stick to the madness that was Century 21. I enjoy shopping. I know there are women who see it as a chore- I’m not one of them. I even met with the carpenter of my parents’ new house to discuss the maximization of space in my new closet because by some odd twist of fate I lived in the room with the smallest closet in our old house for 15 years. I eventually took over the other two closets upstairs, but that is neither here nor there.

Don’t worry, there thousands (literally) of great places to shop here. We will cover as many as possible when you come to visit.

“Dwell in possibility.”
– Emily Dickinson

Give The People What They Want

I cannot even begin to explain these pictures. There is a pair of roller/figure-skaters in Central Park training for the 2010 Winter Olympics, there is a tiny (and sadly typical) New York apartment and the aftermath of a Texas-sized supper (for the record that is barbeque sauce, not blood).

We had a busy week around here- but what else is new? AV’s sister-in-law is currently in labor back in Texas with AV’s soon-to-be second nephew! They were planning on inducing labor when AV comes home in two weeks, but the baby beat everyone to the punch and decided today was the day.

AV started her new job and KR prepared for her new life in the working world. She already warned us that she might cry tonight. She apparently has cried on the eve of the first day of school her entire life. It’s the same way some girls cry every time they get their haircut. Or at any other time in life when emotions are conflicted or coincide, come to think of it. Happy and tired, excited and hesitant, relieved and thankful… all perfect recipes for tears.

Wow, I’m a girl surrounded by girls. Onward.

Hill Country Barbeque: three beautiful words. KR went to baby-sit for another British family, so AV, MK and I took off to the highly recommended Chelsea hot spot of the same name. Once the intoxicating aroma of smoked goodness reached our noses, we were content to grab a drink and wait for an hour and a half to get a table. We joked none of us should ever attempt to eat barbeque on a date- there’s something primal about eating meat with your hands off of a bone. It’s also delicious.

There were a few random Texans hanging around, and a large group of mid-thirties New York men dressed like they had just returned from a hunting trip. They might have looked more believable to a less discerning eye, but I saw no five’ o’clock shadows or cowboy boots, and lots of hair gel and tucked-in shirts. Someone is getting short-changed on his cowboy lessons.

I should also mention that we looked at a few more places this week. In the interest of saving about $5,600, we pursued alternatives to using a real estate broker. We got connected with a management company, and KR and I ended up in the 80’s of the Upper East Side yesterday looking at a place. It had all the charm you would want from a New York apartment with an exposed brick wall, new kitchen appliances, good windows and hardwood floors, etc., but we could not get over the second “bedroom”, which was roughly 8x5. I literally lay down on the floor to get a more realistic idea of the actual width, and I could not rest my head on the floor.

I’m 5’6.

I could do a deep lunge in there while finding appliances to plug into the superfluous four electrical outlets, and that’s about it. We were seriously thinking of bed alternatives like dog pillows and bean bags (a twin would not have fit in the space), or the possibility of bunk beds in the bigger bedroom. These were actual options, until today.

Today we ventured to the 60’s of the Upper West Side, and got to see two places, across the hall from each other, that are currently having their floors redone. We fell in love with the second of the two, and made friends with the super, who gave us an application and said she would put in a good word for us with the management company. Cross your fingers people, this is in your best interest too, you know. I know once we get a place many of you will be on our doorstep quicker than we can say “Ikea”.

In honor of Columbus Day, which is kind of a big deal up here:

"We cannot discover new oceans until we have the courage to lose sight of the shore."
-Muriel Chen

*A special congrats to AV’s family on the birth of the new baby! Welcome to the world Baby H!

The Cheese Stands Alone

That’s right folks, we’re 66.7% of the way there! KR received an official offer yesterday afternoon from a publication she has been interviewing with, and trained today with the girl she will be replacing before she starts on Monday. AV started her job yesterday- we even got an e-mail from her in the afternoon with the little e-mail signature from her company, which seems to make everything more official. I’m bringing up the rear on the job front, so we’ll see how this week pans out (after much diligent and proactive work on my part- I mean).

My first day of solitude was actually great because I came down with a self-diagnosed cold or something equally tragic over the weekend. It started with a scratchy throat, then progressed to a stuffy nose and now a hacking cough. I’ve certainly complained about it enough! I bought some community hand-sanitizer for all of us- since we live within a three-foot radius of each other most of the time. KR seems to be coming down with the same thing, which means we’ll get to commiserate together for the rest of the week.

I was at the apartment post-cleaning lady and pre-sugar mamas returning home, and I did not realize how eerily quiet it was until my phone rang. The T.V. was off, there was no hair on the ground (four girls=considerable shedding), and there were no clothes visible the naked eye. I sat there on the couch with full knowledge that the remote was broken, that there would be hair on the ground as soon as one of us so much as plugged in a curling iron, and that if I peeked in any cabinet door I would be covered by a barrage of shoes. KR and I use the cabinet under the T.V. for our shoes; it’s a very tedious, Jenga-like game.

(whining, coughing, looking for a Kleenex)

Last night, after many seasons of carefully watching The Bachelor, I concluded once and for all that Chris Harrison has the easiest job in television. All he does is tap a champagne glass with a fork, do a few voice-overs about the most dramatic rose ceremony ever, and say “take a moment and say your good-bye’s” at the end of every episode. That’s it. He flies to posh destinations all over the world, acts as a pseudo-sounding board for guys who should never have had that many girls to choose from in the first place, and pick up a dozen red roses on his way to work. Are these jobs listed on Monster or what?

(more whining, more coughing)

I finally downloaded that pesky Ingrid Michaelson song on the Old Navy commercial that airs every five minutes. I was annoyed with only knowing one stanza, and I actually like the song, but seeing that unfortunate sweater has not gotten any easier. MK came home with some snazzy new turtlenecks from Ann Taylor today, though. Funny how quickly we pass up the trendy jeans and short Mod dresses for well-tailored pants and knit sweaters.

On a different note, I think I have neglected to mention how much I love quotes. You learn something new everyday. From now on, I’ll be ending every entry with a quote. Happy Tuesday, all.

“Not all who wander are lost.” –J.R.R. Tolkien.