Tuesday, December 30, 2008

A Day Spent Surfing the Internet

Last night was an unintentionally late night. I had to work, and so The Funasaurus was on his own with the T.V. Unfortunately, he wasn’t able to watch anything on the DVR, knowing that I’d just make him re-watch it later, and the same goes for watching season 2 of The Wire, which we’ve recently gotten into.

So while I slaved away at work (read: minesweeper) The Funasaurus rented himself the first couple episodes of Heroes. Does anyone out there watch it? I don’t know what I was expecting, but it is turning out to kind of be like X-Men, without the awesome costumes, hairdos, and bat-mobile-type vehicles, but with more graphic sex. I got sucked in soon enough, and then *BLAM* it’s midnight, and I am a sliding down the slippery slope of cranky-pants-in-the-morning.

Is it worth renting the next couple of episodes tonight?

In other news, Mike Shanahan is gone. It’s probably time for a change, but it's sad because he’s the only coach I’ve known since I moved to Broncos territory. Hopefully this’ll be a good thing for the team.



That’s about all the energy I could muster for football. Anyone want to talk about something more pink and/or sparkly? I heard YOU got engaged, congratulations!

Monday, December 29, 2008

I Couldn't Write; I Was Busy Doing Not Much

A blog. I has one. I forgot about it, but then I was reading through other blogs I like and thinking, “They really need to update more often,” and then I was like, Oh. Hai. Has it really been two weeks or so since I last wrote anything? Oopsie.

So Christmas was a success, merry holidays to you and yours, etc. I hope you drank some alcohol. I know I did. Every day for the last week or so in some form or other. I tried to moderate it but then I’d get called “weak” and, well, we can’t stand for that, can we? Yoga kicked my ass this morning. Between the alcohol, red meat, and copious amounts of sugar I’ve subsisted on this past week, I’m basically a lumpish bag of toxins emitting a vague stench of hangover. For some reason The Funasaurus was un-inclined to wake up to my kisses this morning.

Speaking of waking up. Sugar has developed this intensely annoying habit of trying to wake us up around 4:30-5:00 AM every day. She thinks it’s funny to paw on our blinds or scrape plastic bags around making the most godawful noises that I cannot possibly ignore. I think it’s funny to punt her like an angry little feline football right out of our room. But she has caught on to my semi-conscious crazed punting maneuvers, and has taken to hiding under our bed the second I make a move to get up, and then she’ll wait until I’m back asleep and start the whole racket all over again. I have always, always let Sugar sleep cuddled up with me in bed. And The Funasaurus is a good sport about letting her stay there. However, she is getting dangerously close to a being-locked-out-of-the-room-all-night precipice. And that would suck for everyone, including Tatum, who actually sleeps like a sound little monkey right up until Sugar gets up. And if she leaves the room, he follows her, dedicated to his goal of gnawing on her mercilessly, even when he is exhausted. Nor rain nor sleet nor hail… he’s kind of like an old-fashioned postman. Who delivers bits of Sugar fur and faux mice.

I saw The Curious Case of Benjamin Button over the holiday. I am still unsure as to how I feel about it. It was long, but not painfully so. The premise is clever, and the CGI effects are amazing. Like, unbelievable. The acting’s o.k., and the music is pretty. I know there are people (ahemmysister-in-lawahem) who vehemently disagree with me on this point, but it reminded me quite a bit of The Notebook. I predict that people who liked The Notebook (or The Titanic, for that matter) will like Benjamin Button. Granted, the ultimate points are completely opposite, everything in life and love is ephemeral vs. love can overcome and outlast everything; but the feel is the same. If you like romance crammed down your throat to pretty music in an idealized southern Americana setting, this movie is for you!

That said, I think I liked it. What can I say? I’m a sucker for violins and Brad Pitt and grits.

Monday, December 22, 2008

Keeping Busy

I spent my weekend not shopping for others and sharing the Christmas spirit so much as getting pampered and meditating at super awesome spa in Santa Fe. It was really fabulous. I got a facial and promptly a new zit, as facials are apt to cause. I sat in a overheated hot tub, sautéing my skin to a lovely bright pink with some girlfriends. We were joined by Naked Guy, who was allowed to be naked seeing as how it was bathing suit optional. But still. He was like, “traveling with my dog blah blah blah” and all I could think was “PENIS”!

After a bit of conversation with naked guy, we left to go sit in the meditation room. I was all into my om mani padme hums when Naked Guy made a reappearance, though this time cloaked in his kimono. He settled into a corner apart from us, and immediately reclined. The snoring started about thirty seconds later. The hot tub had apparently exhausted Naked Guy. I took that as the universe excusing me from further meditation. We left and packed for our ridiculously long drive home.

Tonight we went to the Nuggets game. Our friends won tickets in a contest, and the only caveat was that one of them had to appear on the Jumbotron wearing a t-shirt of the sponsor while rooting for the Nuggets to wine six points in the first minute of the fourth quarter so that they could win $10,000. Selfishly, the Nuggets did not have my friend’s financial interest in mind and they only managed to score one point. At least she got to keep the sponsor’s t-shirt. And the Nuggets won.

Now it’s almost midnight and I have work to do. Goodnight.

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

'Tis the Season for Lowering Expectations

The Muppets Christmas special was tonight. I raced home, my eyes all a-glow, to see what Santa brought tonight. Truthfully? I was… underwhelmed. There was so much potential. They had some good guests, but Uma Thurman? For shame. You are given a choice character called Oh! Joy and the best you could do was fan yourself with a bit of blue paper and make weird, googly eyes over your frosty pink lipstick? Blegh.

The best bit was the shrimp with his Guido black turtleneck and gold chain. And stalkerish picture of Halle Berry in his pocket. Awesome.

Animal was missing completely, and the big Muppet monster is supposed to eat Kermit, not deliver mail and Christmas trees. The new writers are pansies compared to the originals.

That said, I’m still in the holiday mood, despite the fact that it looks like our Christmas tree threw up all over our living room, what with the wide array of ornaments strewn about amongst the packing paper and outdoor lights, which are not, as yet, outdoors.

If you haven’t gotten a Christmas card from us yet, it’s probably because we haven’t sent them. We’re aiming for Easter at this point. Ho ho, no one will be expecting one then! Especially one with a sparkly snowman on it! (Yes, we’re totally those people. The ones who send you a card filled with glitter that you must then vacuum up after reading our generic greeting. Merry holidays to you!)

But that’s o.k. I’m forgiving our seasonal delinquence. We’ve been busy seeing friends and having fun and occasionally working when we can squeeze it into our busy schedule. I feel like anymore, getting to hang out in person is a better gift than most of the crap I can afford, anyway. And less wrapping paper! Huzzah! I am filled with holiday cheer and spirit, if not motivation and organization.

Thursday, December 11, 2008

Christmas Miracle

OH JOY!

Christmas has come early this year!

http://www.nbc.com/Movies_Specials_More/Happy_Holidays/video/clips/muppets-christmas-north-pole/861542/

Thank you, Santa, from the bottom of my weirdly-obsessed little Kermit heart.

Christmas Conundrum

We typically decorate for Christmas. Not that you would know, seeing as how we’re well into December and I just threw out some orange and yellow flowers leftover from Thanksgiving, yesterday. That’s about all the decoration we had going on. This weekend, though. This weekend there will be mulled wine and Christmas carols and tree trimmings and The Funasaurus can just suck it up and because I know it’s not his thing but rest assured, darling, your life will be so much pleasanter if you just let me drink my hot spicy wine and pierce your ears with my rendition of “Deck the Halls.” No, seriously.

Also, I have an outdoor problem, and this is where I am hoping to garner advice from the dear internets. We have these lovely white columns outside our house. And last year I found this awesome wide red velvet ribbon that I wrapped around the columns to create a candy cane-ish effect. Unfortunately, the columns are made of plastic or something (read: not wood) and are not so easy to attach things to. Like winding bands of red velvet ribbon. So I, being well into the mulled wine by that point last year, decided that the best way to stick them on the columns was to literally stick them. With tape. With Scotch tape. Because apparently Christmas decorations fall somewhere between grade school art class and Mailboxes Etc. in my world.

Needless to say, they did not last the night. So I added more tape the next day, and they stayed... sort of. We had very droopy candy cane columns. I’m sure our neighbors were thrilled with our addition to the neighborhood adornments. So my question to you is, do you have any brilliant ideas for sticking ribbon to hard, plastic-y columns? I mean, besides Scotch tape? Because that really didn’t work so well. And the columns are white, so I don’t really want to go with duct tape, as wonderful as it is, because it doesn’t blend so well.

Or should I just dip back into the eggnog/hot toddies/mulled wine and forget about the dumb columns, already?

Tuesday, December 09, 2008

Why I Miss the East Coast

The east coast totally blows the rest of the country away when it comes to autumn.

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You just don't get these kinds of colors in Colorado, as pretty as the aspen are.

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I spent a lot of time being nostalgic for these places, they feel like home in a deep part of my (albeit wine-soaked) heart.

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Happily, I had a Funasaurus calling from Colorado, reminding me that the snow was coming. (I love snow.) And that I had a family to come home to, complete with kitties who needed dental work, stat. Nothing I love more than driving hateful cats to the vet thirty miles away in a snowstorm!

I did miss them, and I am glad to be home. And we have gotten quite a bit of snow recently.

But I still think the fall on the east coast is one of the most magical combinations of time and place.

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Thursday, December 04, 2008

Dirty. And Awesome.

You'll never look at Teletubbies the same way. (Not that I really think you were looking at Teletubbies all that much to begin with.)

http://unrealitymag.com/index.php/2008/12/03/12-of-the-best-kids-showrap-mash-ups/

Monday, December 01, 2008

Lap of Creepy Luxury

The Funasaurus and I spent a decadent weekend at a fancy hotel in Colorado Springs. We had received a gift certificate for two nights there as a wedding present, and for whatever idiotic reason, had not managed to find a weekend to properly enjoy it. Me, postpone free luxury and room service? Obviously, my princess skeelz have gotten rusty.

We actually took a little vacation from TV, which was just divine. We each had a good book (grammar issues overlooked) and spent a day just cuddling and reading and watching the flurries come down over Pike’s Peak. We were there for the lighting of an oversized Christmas tree, and spent a lot of time pondering the intricacies of what, at first glance, appeared to be a darling gingerbread village. But upon further inspection turned out to be kind of ghoulish and creepy. It was all Nightmare Before Christmas-y, complete with mortuary, coffins, monks with gremlin-y pointy ears, and a gothic church on a cloud. It was awesome, but a somewhat risqué choice for the conservative older patronage that place gets. Props to the Broadmoor for their icing-encrusted shout out to Tim Burton. I’m just sorry I only got pictures of a corner of it. The creepier stuff wasn’t even documented, sadly.

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To make the weekend perfect, we got the news that one of our dearest friends finally had her baby. And she picked the prettiest name ever. And the baby is one of the prettiest babies ever, but we are so not surprised, given who her parents are. I’m really, really happy for them. And I’m in complete awe that people my age are intentionally getting knocked up. When did we get so…responsible? Want to hear what I had for dinner tonight? EGGNOG.

So it was a good weekend, with only a minor blip on the radar of happiness. That blip being a huge fucking snowstorm that caused a normally hour-and-a-half drive to turn into three and a half hours of snow-packed misery. But, hey! ‘Tis the season.

It is now winter, thus the universe spake.