Guess what, readers? Meghan and I did our favorite thing yesterday. We put up our christmas tree. And when I say Christmas tree, I mean Christmas trees. Yes, in our small NYC apartment, we have two christmas trees. If you measured the distance between the two trees I don’t think it would be more than 20 feet. How great is that? I know, you’re jealous.
As part of our decorating, Meghan was putting things out in the kitchen and dropped one behind the stove. Zak nicely pulled out the stove, jumped on top and used his lanky arms and some tongs to retrieve it. Thanks Zaie for taking one for the team.
I know I have a lot more to tell you about this week with the visitors, but today I am lamenting the fact that this is the last full Saturday of football. Yes, there are some conference championships next week and bowl games and the national championship game but none of those things compare to a full Saturday from 10am until that last west coast game finishes sometime after midnight. It’s glorious. All football, all the time and today is the end of that.
At least Saturday has decided to go big or go home this week. With Oregon-Oregon State to decide the Pac 10 championship and OU-OSU to possibly mix up the BCS even more than it already is, it’s going to be a great day. And that’s not to mention the mayhem that could ensue with Florida-Florida State and Auburn-Alabama! Football rocks! That’s all there is to it!
Thanks for a great year, college football. Thank you to Kirk for defending MIchigan and not gloating in Ohio States dominance. It was much appreciated.
And a final football shout-out to Meghan for powering through another season of my all-consuming love for a sport that she doesn’t all the way understand. You made great gains this year in terms of learning peoples names and associating teams with specific players and really locking in on the teams I love and the teams I hate. Well done, poops. And take heart, while there is still football to go, it won’t take over the house for a whole day until next September (oh, the pain of that long wait!)
The best has happened! After three years of not seeing a celebrity (as previously documented in this blog), Maren (and the rest of us) saw two celebrities in about 3 minutes on Wednesday night. We went to see the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade balloons get inflated the night before and saw Richard Kind (from Mad About You). You can’t see him, but he’s part of the dark background behind Maren below.
Then, not two minutes later, I nearly ran smack into catherine Zeta Jones! That’s my lesbian! That really is living the dream. We were walking down the street next to the balloons and I stopped to turn around and talk to Maren and standing next to me was her! Can you believe it? So, Lisa ran up this ramp so she could capture me in the picture with my lesbian! Thanks, LB. (that’s her in the pilgrim hat in front of me)
If you can believe it, this was only the beginning of the balloon fun. We actually saw balloons after these celebrity sightings and they were pretty cool, too.
Maren and Jeff, of course, took their photo with their favorite, Shrek.
We also struggled mightily to take this group photo ourselves rather than letting the woman who volunteered take it. Lisa was in charge and wasn’t having any help.
I’ll show you our Thanksgiving feast later. I just didn’t want you to miss out on our Thanksgiving Eve Fun!
Man alive, do I love Thanksgiving! Turkey, stuffing, mashed pot, green bean casserole, rolls, pumpkin pie, cranberry sauce from a can. Who could ask for anything more? But, even though you haven’t asked, you also get a kick-ass parade, football, Home Alone, drinking and the best nap of the year. I know Christmas gets all the hype, but Thanksgiving is the holiday with the most bang for your buck.
I also like that Thanksgiving in New York has become the default place for Brianne, Maren, Jeff, Zak and John. Maren, Jeff, Zak and I have spent 3 of the last 4 Thanksgivings together since I moved here. We certainly haven’t spent that many Christmases together since then.
I hope you all are having the fantastic Thanksgiving that I know we are and that you aren’t jealous of the fact that Zak is bringing only things that are orange. Or that we are having a “Thanksgiving slumber party” where Zak and Lisa are spending the night to make sure we enjoy every last waking moment of today.
Tuesday, Maren, Jeff, John and I went to Dinosaur BBQ. We did this last year and the return trip was definately spectacular. We also got to drive in Jeff’s new truck there rather than take the subway and you know how I love the chances to ride in cars when they come my way.
We then discovered that John has never been to my secret favorite place in the city, the top of Rockefeller Center so we headed that way. And I must say, like the the true friend of mine that he is, he loved it as well. And i think it goes without saying that Maren and Jeff were happy to get to see the Target Breezeway again.
Happy Thanksgiving Eve to one and all.
More from Tuesday and this week to follow. Just keeping you updated until I have time for more detailed info and videos….yeah, now I’ve got you hooked.
Monday, John and I had a super-prodctive day. We slept in late and then woke up watched Rocky 2 and Rocky 3. I took a nap after that, but John powered through Rocky 4.
The interesting thing about the Rocky movies is that there is the same soundtrack for each one. This includes two songs, The Eye of the Tiger and the Rocky theme for when he’s running and working out.
The only problem with this is that all day long The Eye of the Tiger has been in my head. This is not good. One, I hate this song for reasons related to someone I hated in college and LSU. In addition to this song being in my head, there is a starbucks commercial with a different version of this song and that song has been in my head as well. Watch out for The Eye of the Tiger, it’ll get you. One can only hope that it won’t be in my head all week as a song from the Chicago soundtrack was last week. Please enjoy the starbucks commercial and the funny song i’ve been singing all day.
Sucks to Montreals asmar on not winning the Grey Cup! However, we did have a good time in our get-together to watch the game.
Erica, Sean, Zak, Lisa, Meghan, John and I ate, drank and were merry for the most part in support of the team and cheered loudly for Jeff every time we saw him on screen.
Meghan impressively made the above football cake. Way to go, poops!
Even though Jeff didn’t win, we had a good time and after the loss, we drowned our sorrows in enough vodka to make Jeff proud. With Michigans 9th loss of the year and OU’s win and Montreal’s loss, it was a crappy football weekend all around. Here’s hoping to a better football weekend this week.
Hey, remember in September when John came to visit and I told stories about his visit but posted no photos, almost as if he wasn’t really here at all? Well, he’s back and I’ve made it my godish to take photos and I have already succeeded. Time to be impressed.
I picked up John at Penn Station and then we headed to meet Erica for some fish and chips and drinking. Who could ask for anything more? But then we got a call from Sean saying there was a party at the Natural History Museum and we realized that we could ask for more.
It was odd. There was a lot of argyle and even more techno music, but it was at the Natural History Museum and Erica and Sean were there so all in all, life was good.
However, life was not so good as we were walking home in the frickin’ cold. It was so so cold and that kind of windy where it just cuts through your lambswool lined coat and makes you rue the day you left the house. Welcome to New York, John.
And don’t forget, dear readers, to tune into the Versus Network (channel 122 in Manhattan) today at 5:30 for the Grey Cup. Go Allouettes!
P.S. I’d like to make a formal request that no one mention the Michigan game of Saturday or the worst season in Michigan history for at least one month. I don’t want to talk about it and am going to try my best not to think about it. Thank you.
Thursday night, I finished the Dark Tower Series by Stephen King. And I have no idea what to say. Even now, two days later, I am still not quite sure. I go through opinion changes every time I think about it. I am angry. I am happy. I am sad. I am satisfied. And I am still not sure. I need time to stew in it, I think. Luckily, the only other person I know reading these is Amber and she won’t be done for quite some time so I can take a while to make up my mind.
Moving on…
Thursday night I also read another book. It was called “The Devil’s Larder”. This is a book of 64 short stories about food. Some are funny, some are not. They were all great. And while I usually have a hard time with short story collections because I get so involved in one story and then it ends and I have to move on, that didn’t happen with this book. The stories are only a page or two or three long and were perfect length for me. Thanks for this book Erica. It was a great follow-up to the confusion of the end of the Dark Tower.
I was reading in home health this week this unfortunate news:
A Swedish institute conducted a study that showed that living with a significant other lowers your risk of dementia by 50%. Subjects who were never married were two times as likely to develop the condition while those who were divorced or widowed has triple the risk.
AHHH!!! This is such a bummer for me. I don’t want to live with a significant other. Boo! I am going to start playing that nintendo game that sharpens your wit and start doing crosswords so I don’t have to get married to prevent dementia. And I’m also not sure how true this is. Really, living with some crochety old man is going to keep my sanity intact? Somehow, Brianne thinks not!
