In all honesty, when I was watching the round-the-clock Blizzard of 2010 coverage on Friday night and I saw Bob Garbacz’s title of “Ice and Snow Commander” I laughed out loud. We had our friends Kevin and Michelle over for drinks and when we saw this segment on Fox 5 we all rolled on the floor for a good 30 minutes giggling. I’m sure the five bottles of wine we drank contributed to our hysteria, but like me, Kevin and Michelle are from the mid-west and used to massive amounts of accumulation.
Everything was fun until Michelle cut her hand on our ceiling while lunging at the skies yelling, “Back off snow! I COMMAND you!” Then, in my cold weather commanding frenzy I threw beer at Grey who in turn retaliated by dousing our clean-no-longer basement in Sierra Nevada. We hadn’t even been stuck in the house for five hours and already we were stricken with cabin fever!
When we all calmed down we began discussing the implications of this Mr. Garbacz’s title. What’s next? A global “Just Say No to Frozen Vapor” campaign? Obama’s appointment of an Ice & Snow Czar? That remains to be seen. In the meantime, I think we all can rest a little easier knowing there are men like Bob are on our side in the War Against Precipitation.
Despite dating a football obsessed man, I still have no idea how to play the game. This is actually starting to get embarrassing. I watch the show “Friday Night Lights” religiously, now attempt to watch college football with Craig, and cheer like I know what’s happening in sports bars. I like to shout things like, “first and ten do it again” to bartenders because it makes me sound like I know what that means.
Tonight I really had to try hard to pretend to understand the sport because it was this mysterious day called the Super Bowl. Craig just happens to loooove Peyton Manning and likes to tell me what a stand up guy he is and how good he is at “reading the defense.” I just nod and check Perez Hilton or the Sartorialist on my iphone and cheer when everyone else starts hootin’ and hollerin.’
But tonight I really did learn a few things. Like did you know that the quarterback doesn’t play when their team is on defense? Who knew! I figured they just kind of stayed off to the side and tried not to get hurt. I also learned that Craig played against Peyton in the NCAA National Championship and beat him. Why he doesn’t tattoo “I crushed Peyton Manning” on his arm, I do not know.
So you could say tonight was a learning experience. Along with those aforementioned lessons, I discovered that $7 Riesling is drinkable when you’ve had several glasses, that cowboy boots have no traction when walking home in the snow, and that Craig gets sad when Peyton Manning is sad. But hell, the government is closed tomorrow, we’re still rather buzzed from that horrible wine, and I have 364 days to enjoy before I have to pretend to like the Super Bowl again. Colts 2011!
I also appreciate his skill! of course. But you know, when the game is slow and the booze are gone, I'm very thankful for these tight pants.
If you work in media, you get press releases. I don’t care if you are an obit writer or a Pulitzer Prize winner, if you are involved with a publication, you’re going to get spammed by places like The House of Magnets (these people send me five emails a week), the united onion lobbyists, and a whole series of others who you don’t want to hear from. But sometimes, in the heap, there is a little gem. My favorite press release of the month came to my inbox on Friday from the Switzerland Tourism Bureau and was titled “Swiss Olympics – Disciplines you have never heard of.”
How could I not open this email? I absolutely love the Olympics and I am always open to new and improved winter sports. The velogemel certainly counts as a sport that should be considered for the next Olympics. In fact perhaps the powers that be should attend the velogemel world championship in Grindelwald , which happen to take place today, and assess if the sport is something the world could get behind. Personally, I see myself excelling at the velogemel. I am best at things where you can just sit there and fly down a mountain with no common sense.
I saw about a half million rugrats on sleds today, but I guarantee you that when I have kids, they will have velogemels. Imagine how incredibly popular they would be on a day like today when two feet of snow blanket our city. If only all Americans had wooden snow bicycles, there would probably have been fewer tears over this snowpalloza hoopla. It’s just frozen water my friends!
Thank goodness there are the Swiss to remind us frightened folks below the Mason Dixon line that blizzards inspire ridiculous sports with names that sound like diseases. Yeah!!
This is the velogemel. I could have really used one today in Washington turned Anchorage.
As you probably know, the DC area has been slammed with more than two feet of snow. To an Erie gal like me, this is merely a light dusting, but to those unaccustomed to blizzards in September, this snow storm has been serious business.
For days, all the news stations talked about was “Snowpocalypse 2010.” Consequently, I think everyone in the city had the same idea: buy a crap ton of food — just in case. So our Thursday night trip to the Fort Myer Commissary to get a few groceries turned into the craziest food buying excursion I’ve ever had.
Long story short: the place was an absolute madhouse. You would have thought people were stocking up for a 6 month homebound hibernation. We saw people pushing two carts at a time! Grey and I even caught the fever and began loading our cart with all sorts of junk food as though economy size bags of Cheez balls were the antidote to cabin fever. It was nuts!
At one point, we overheard a few baggers say sarcastically, “Gee, I hope no one starves over the weekend…” as they watched a man who weighed about 400 pounds pack three dozen frozen Tony’s pizzas into his jumbo shopping cart. Grey and I laughed, but then grabbed a few Tony’s too — because, you know, one can’t be too careful.
Happy Snowpocalypse!
The dairy section of the grocery store. Apparently the only thing to do during a "Flurricane" is to stuff your face.
Grey and I have never had a cleaning lady before, but we finally broke down. I’ve always been able to stay on top of the house chores no problem, and actually, felt almost too proud to hire someone to help me.
However, lately I’ve realized, as I watch Ollie stash Cheerios in the heating vents and dump the contents of his bottle into the DVD player, I need some assistance staying on top of this mess. Not that I work full time, but even writing my column for Washington Life, keeps me busy enough that I’ve had to turn a blind eye to the pig pen we call home. Not to mention the fact that we’re moving and I’m sure prospective buyers wouldn’t look kindly upon hardwood floor that are as sticky as fly paper. Yeah, something tells me that won’t help resale value.
So we hired Monica to come in and tidy up the place. I thought she’d be done in an hour or two since we live in a cozy little townhouse, but no. Monica and her co-worker arrived at 2pm and the two of them cleaned straight through until 7pm! Five hours — of two people cleaning! Either we are even more disgusting hogs than I thought — and our house is just that dirty — or else they are REALLY thorough!
But when I met Genuine, thanks to my wonderful friends Dannia and Sherry who rep him through MoKi Media, he was not what I expected. First off, I had no idea that he hailed from our fair capital and that he still lived just around the bend in Maryland. No one famous ever stays here unless they have presidential aspirations. Secondly, he was so genuinely (haha!) friendly that it kind of threw me. Famous people are never nice.
I had a drink on Thursday with my friend Cynthia who is a big shot at Essence Magazine. We had a grand old time sharing stories of all the famous people who have brushed us off. She just interviewed POTUS himself, so I feel like all that’s behind her now, but I’m pretty sure Ben Affleck is going to yell at me again in my future. We also talked about nice celebs, and I brought up Ginuwine. Often my workday consists of being heckled by the Washington Ballet, but one perk of my gig is getting to meet a lot of famous people. For instance, Richard Gere is a very close talker. Like my nose almost touched his. I probably could have just stuck out my tongue and licked him we were so damn close during our interview. But when we were done he addressed me like a six year old and told me I hadn’t asked any stupid questions. Grand.
Ginuwine brought back my faith in the famous. Just because America knows your name does not mean you instantly become a huge asshole, you can even be really really nice.
Ginuwine and I were both born in Washington D.C. As almost no children are born in this fair city, or it feels like that anyway, I feel like we just have SO much in common. This dashing photo is from Ginuwine's new album. We have this picture on our wall of fame at work and Kelly always mentions how she feels his eyes on her as she updates our internal calendar.
After receiving Stacey’s thank-you note to him for his sexy, surfer-dude sounding voice (which is always able to make money news sound hot), American Public Media’s “Marketplace” host, Kai Ryssdal, sent Stacey a message on Facebook! Â It’s short, but hey, we’ll take it.
Hey Stacey –
Got your card yesterday…
Thanks.
– Kai
Yep. Â We’re guessing he might just be a tad creeped out to get a letter in the mail from two naked girls covering their privates with typewriters and stationary saying they “thank” him. Â He’s probably thinking, “Ugh….another stalker.” But honestly, Stacey’s interest in him is purely innocent — Â if you don’t count that lock of hair of his she keeps under her pillow…
They’re calling for two feet of snow in Washington starting tomorrow. I absolutely love the snow. Really really love it. I could live in Alaska and be happy as a clam. The one and only thing I don’t like about snow is running in it. It is so darn hard to run on a wet frozen ground. It’s cold, your feet are soaked within seconds, you slip, and you have to look down the entire time to not break every bone in your body. In short, it sucks. According to the marathon training guide taped to my fridge, I have to do a 12 mile run tomorrow and I don’t waaaaaannnnnna. But when I feel really sorry for myself and start pouting like a pudgy little child, I think of the late, and extremely great Terry Fox.
Even though I’ve been running for years, I had never heard of Terry Fox until I read an article about him in Runner’s World. This is a tad embarrassing as Wikipedia just told me that he was voted the most famous Canadian of the 20th century and number two on The Greatest Canadian list. Whoops!
Fox, a Canadian of course, lost his leg to osteosarcoma (that’s a type of unpronounceable cancer) at 19 and decided to run from the east coast of Canada to the west. His hope was to raise money for cancer research by running 26.2 miles a day. That’s an entire marathon a day…on one leg. Before he was forced to stop because his cancer had metastasized to his lungs, he had run 3,339 miles (distance between Miami and Seattle) in 143 days. He died less than a year later.
Terry Fox’s mother Betty is among the finalists to light the Olympic flame in Vancouver, and my fingers and toes are crossed that she is the one picked. Until then, I am going to get my butt out of bed, put on my sneakers and run 12 miles in that blizzard on my two good legs.
Terry Fox on his marathon of hope. He is inspiration personified.
Get out the hankies. This video will give you a new lease on life.
Sometimes I think Karin and I are on the same wavelength with our posts. Â Today, I guess it’s all about the men that can inspire us to get out there and run — or the ones that brighten our day while running.
Finally, after three months of not being able to jog (or walk for that matter), my feet are getting better. Not sure if I wrote about this or not, but back in October, I broke my right foot. And left. Simultaneously. Yep, I’m lucky like that. Â Not anything near the plight of Terry Fox, but it did make me appreciate being able to walk. Â Long story short, I’ve been hobbling around for the last 100+ days, neglecting to wear my orthopaedic boot as often as I should.
So yesterday, I decided to put my newly healthy feet to use and take Ollie for a stroll around the ‘hood. The walk was pretty hum-drum except when I toddled by some construction workers in Shirlington who greeted me with shouts and whistles. I pretty much jiggled past (the Night Before Christmas phrase “like a bowl full of jelly” comes to mind) due to the fact that I’ve been sedentary for the last few months, with nothing but the ab-roller and water pills keeping me from breaking my bathroom scale). Despite that, these men didn’t seem to care. Â And neither did I. Â When someone calls you a MILF — you go with it.
Maybe they were just released from prison, or maybe just maybe, they wanted to make the world a nicer place by being so flattering. I’m opting to believe the latter.
Because it was 40 degrees, the workers I encountered were not shirtless.
Besides the film, Witchboard (about a possessed Ouija board), one of my favorite flicks as a kid was Heathers. If you haven’t seen it, it’s like a balls-to-the-wall version of Mean Girls, and probably one of the best dark comedies of all time.
Back in the summer of 1991, pretty much all I did was sit on the couch with my friends Julie, Katie, and Sarah, eat Flavor-Ices, prank call our Principal, and repeat the filthy lines of this movie until our tongues bled.
I recently watched the film for the first time in probably 15 years and it blew my mind. Still so good, but SOOOO bad. I mean, I wasn’t even allowed to watch Dirty Dancing, but my parents thought nothing of letting us rent this warped movie about high school kids murdering one another for all my slumber parties. I’m sure they wondered why I began talking like a truck driver, but never guessed it was from the cute teeny-boppers on the cover of the Heathers VHS tape.
Now that I’m a parent I keep thinking, “Boy, I hope Ollie is Captain of the Chess Club.” I pray that he’s state champ at the science fair. In fact, I can’t wait to buy him a rock tumbler and really cultivate his geeky side. Hopefully this will assure that he will spend his summers doing more constructive things than just sitting around all day, playing MASH and practicing ways to incorporate the word “douchebag” into his vocabulary. But then again, is that really so bad? I turned out to be an almost fully functioning member of society. Right?
Here's one of our favorite sections of dialogue from the movie. I remember my friend Katie actually wrote it out and passed it to me as a note in Sister Carol Ann's spelling class. Sounds funny, but these are the kind of mementos from my childhood that I cherish; wrinkled scraps like this with swearwords and smut are worth more to me than gold.
Besides the psychotic repartee the characters exchanged, my friends and I liked that there were four of them -- and four of us. The movie also peaked our interest in the croquet and opaque tights.
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