Just in time for the holidays, I have a new Christmas story to share. My dear friend, Suzanna, told it to me the other day and I couldn’t resist passing it along. It’s a story about two elves who attended a party at their friend Laurie’s house. I hope you enjoy!
Here’s a story about naughty elves…
Here they are up on arrival, they look nice enough…
But then they did a jig in front of the tree to celebrate the start of Christmas, which
made them very tired so they had to take a quick nap, which
made their armpits a little stinky and their hair really greasy so they took a shower and
were caught in the act!
Nature calls at odd times, you can’t help it. Good thing she has two toilets in her bathroom!
Elves love babies so they stopped to say hi to the one on the couch.
Posing with the Christmas activities is what elves do best!
Naughty elves, they took a trench coat, Monica Lewinsky photo. You have to keep an eye on them!
I wish this was going to be a story about a really cute drunk guy hitting on me in a bar, mumbling about how I stole this chair. But, it’s not. And it’s not going to be about the death penalty either. It’s about the dentist’s chair. What once was my beloved dentist’s chair has now become a memory of pain and awkwardness.
Let’s begin. It was a chilly Thursday afternoon in December when I went to see the wizard dentist. For just your run of the mill third nipple filling. I’m always late to the dentist and today was no exception. Upon arrival, I was escorted to the back, to a room I’ve never been in before. By a hygienist that is not my beloved hygienist. This lady assured me it would be a quick procedure and in my mind I was thinking 15 minutes tops. Surely the field of dentistry has made some strides in recent years and can fill a tooth with out obscene amounts of drilling. I was wrong.
When she hooked me up to the laughing gas, I thought things were looking up. She then did the routine blood pressure and pulse check, except this time she hooked me up to a machine. And I stayed hooked up the whole time. She worried a little when she felt my ice cold hands and she worried a little more when the pulse machine wouldn’t stop beeping because my pulse was in the 40’s. However, she kept on with her duties, sticking a larger than life piece of cotton/cloth in my mouth as she numbed my gums. As we waited for the stuff to kick in, she started talking about Bunko. I don’t recall how we got to talking about Bunko, I was already feeling the effects of my “afternoon cocktail”. But, what I do know is that it is extremely hard to fake laugh at someone’s “funny” story when you have a softball sized piece of cotton in your mouth.
About this time my dentist walks in. We exchange Merry Christmases and he says “This will take just a minute”. As he started peering into my mouth, I do my best to avoid eye contact and look straight up, at the overhead light thingy. Which always reminds me of John Ritter because the brand that makes it is called “Ritter”. Maybe it’s just because it’s the holiday season, but I realized that when I look at my dentist from the corner of my eye, he shares an awfully close resemblance to the Grinch. Minus being green, of course.
Things start getting a little more serious and he assures me that I shouldn’t feel any pain. And just to raise my hand (that’s still hooked up to the pulse monitor) if I do. The drilling begins. And a funny thing happens. Maybe it’s the “afternoon cocktail” again, but I got a major whiff of Cool Ranch Doritos when the drill was a-drillin’. That favorable smell went by the wayside as soon as he took a water break and the hygienist attempts to do me a favor by spraying some kind of breath spray in my mouth. Holy Batman, I think I just took a large bite of cinnamon potpourri! My eyes were already popped out of my head from the drilling, so I don’t think the hygienist caught on that I did. not. like. that. Lucky for me, she sprayed me twice more before I was done.
The dentist finally fills my molar and he tells me, “It’s time to cool off from the nitrous because we are wrapping up”. A) I’m a pro at the nitrous by now and it takes 3 seconds of standing up for me to sober up from it, and B) Unlike Lil Flip, I can’t drink one beer and be drunk (I can’t do that, I can’t do that). He and the hygienist make no effort to remove the nitrous belt from my nose, so I sit there and enjoy the scenery a little longer. He notices that the pulse machine is still beeping from my extremely low pulse and starts questioning me. Low pulse, low blood pressure, tiredness in the afternoon… why, I think she might be hypoglycemic. And then I go ahead and tell him I’m a runner. Why didn’t you just say so! He starts going on and on about his days when he was a runner and how good it used to make him feel.
A few more minutes go by and then comes the awkward starfish. He says, “Let me be your surrogate father for a minute, what kind of protection do you use”? SMACK. Praise the Lord that I fumbled around with what I was going to say for a minute, until he interjects, “My step-daughter is a runner and I bought her a stun gun to carry with her when she runs”. Hello, relief. So, we’re talkin’ ’bout that kind of protection. He used to teach self-defense classes and because I was so relieved, I let him carry on for another 10 minutes about protection.
An hour and 15 minutes later, I checked out. Still in such a state of relief, I gave the front desk receptionist a jolly, “See ya next year!” on the way out.
Last weekend was the annual pilgrimmage to visit Graceland Dan’s parents. We accomplished a lot this trip, including Corky’s, Graceland, the Lorraine Motel, Sun Studios and the Commissary. I definitely came back full of Elvis and BBQ. And I ain’t complainin’.
Christmas is a special time at Graceland. The nativity scene is in the front yard. Lights are strewn about. There are many Christmas trees within the mansion. It’s just a happy time of year. And my favorite time for visiting.
The famous peacocks in the living room. Remember these next time you visit my apartment.
My usual Jungle Room shot for Mary. Still no trace of Marilyn!
Believe it or not, this is the 14th time I’ve paid my respects to Elvis. My Mom, too. Although something tells me she isn’t as proud of this fact as I am. Thanks Mom, you’re such a trooper.
Once the tour was over, Suz and I schemed to get a shot of me on the webcam. Yes, there is a Graceland webcam. And yes, we are awesome. The tour guides were probably wondering why we were farting around in front of the mansion for 15 minutes, but it was well worth it. Do you see what I see?
Pretty much awesome. Thanks for being a nerd with me, Suz. Next stop was the Lorraine Motel where MLK was assassinated many years ago.
And what trip to Memphis would be complete without a stop by Sun Studios? Where Rock and Roll was born.
This morning I was planning on getting up uber early, getting to the gym, running and lifting and then grabbing a Starbucks on the way to the office. At 5:30, when my alarm went off, I decided it was best to snooze for 45 minutes and just run around the neighborhood. That way I could sleep in a bit longer, and maybe get to work a bit earlier. Being a chronic morning dilly-dally-er, I can tell you that only one of those goals was accomplished.
When my alloted snoozing time had passed, I checked my iPhone to see what the temperature was outside. Would it be a tights or shorts morning I wondered? Most definitely tights seeing as it was 39 degrees out. Have no fear, I love cold weather running. I got myself dressed and decided I should wear this new white slim fit running shirt underneath my long sleeve shirt, just for extra warmth.
About a block into the run I realized the under shirt was unnecessary. Not because I was hot, but because it was almost the same material as my tights and therefore continued to ride up above my belly button every half block or so. Annoying. Once I was a couple miles in and I was good and warm, I decided to maneuver the shirt off. I didn’t want to carry it the rest of the way, so I tucked it in the back of my rights, sorta like a cape. About a half mile later, I reached back to check on the cape, and realized it wasn’t there. Great. I turned around, retraced my steps thinking it had fallen out somewhere and I would have no trouble finding it.
Never saw the dang thing. And in my mind I was thinking, this figures because I just bought the shirt last week and this was it’s inaugural wear. After I crossed the point of where I took the shirt off, I gave up and headed back for the house. When I got there, I let Rocky out and did some crunches in the grass while he was releasing the two eggs I gave him for breakfast (because I was too lazy to get dog food at the store last night). After the crunching, I grabbed the hindside of my hamstrings in an attempt to pull myself up. Whoooaaaaaaaa, Nelly, why is my right hamstring HUGE?!?!?!
I guess my rear was so numb from the cold that it couldn’t feel the shirt slink its way down my tights to my leg. I only wonder how many people in cars I frightened today with my unusually enlarged hamstring?
I’m trying to get caught up on all my blog posts, luckily I have an entire Saturday, pretty much to myself, to get a few things done. I may or may not be putting up my Christmas tree later. Which I know goes against standard Graceland Christmas decoration rules, but this is a matter of it’s now or never. I will be gone the next 2 weekends and what’s the point in setting up Santa’s workshop halfway through December?
Sorry for the tangent, I’ll get back to the safari. I’m not really sure where to begin with this post, but I’ll begin by saying there’s a lot you can do with dried up cow patties. On the safari we went on, there was plenty of time for horsing around and since we’re a creative bunch, we came up with lots of games.
After a dinner in town Friday, we went back to FTR and the boys set up a little fire for us. After a couple hours of sitting around it, talking about who knows what, Laurie and I got a second wind around 1 am and came up with freestyle bonfire jumping. Maybe not your smartest game, but it’s not like the bonfire was that large.
Saturday morning, we took off in an attempt to see a falcon destroy a duck or two. Unfortunately, the falcon decided to fly 10 miles away and attack another bird. After an hour of standing around, we gave up and decided to move on.
We drove all around the ranch that afternoon, and at one point we saw a random cemetary, so we pulled over to get out and look. After taking a picture or two, we started throwing dried up cow patties at each other. Good times. I then saw a large branch on the ground, picked it up in attempt to use it as a baseball bat.
Unfortunately, the branch was pretty heavy and I choked up too much. So when I swung, the branch had more momentum than I could control, and the part underneath my hands swung around and scraped the crap out of my stomach and arms. And to make matters worse, I just about lost my balance and fell into a cactus patch. I looked up and saw just about everyone, especially Mary, wetting their pants. That could have been ugly and I have a feeling that if I had fallen into the patch, everyone only would have laughed harder. Including myself.
The cactus of course only made us think of a new game. Freestyle cactus jumping. And if that wasn’t enough… synchronized cactus hurdles. I mean, really, the possibilities of ranch style olympics are endless.
After the games had ended, we hauled butt to get happy hour supplies and make it to the top of Flat Top Mountain in order to see the sunset. Nothing says a classy Texas style happy hour better than wine in red plastic cups and brie cheese layed out on rock.
Sunday morning we got up and decided to go check on this mysterious creature that we found swimming around in the bottom of a well. Most likely it was just a frog, but we wondered how a frog could get down there. So, we went to the dump to get a bucked and some rope and then we lowered it into the well. When we tried to pull it back out, we realized we should have poked holes in the bottom so the water would drain. But, since we didn’t, we couldn’t lift the bucket back out of the water. We tried tying it to Patch’s hitch, but of course the rope snapped. Luckily, we had a fishing pole in the trunk, so we got it out in an attempt to fish for this mysterious frog. Of course that didn’t work either, but after an hour of starring down this well, we safely concluded that it was a frog.
In need of a little more exploration, we went to the horse barn and walked around. We went up the stairs where it was completely dark. I was definitely channeling Silence of The Lambs as we slowly walked through the hallway and rooms without really being able to see. We stumbled upon a few toilets and decided to pop a squat. The flash makes it look like it was light, but it so was not. Which is probably why Laurie couldn’t see Suz and I were being jacka$$es while she happily squatted and smiled.
I’m pretty sure this qualifies as Not Something Snow White Would Do (NSSWWD)…
Last weekend, my dear friend from the ATL came to visit the Big D. And I don’t think we were ready for her. No one is ever ready for Jamila. I was set to pick her up at the airport on Friday night and about 25 minutes before her flight was to take off, she sent me a text saying American had lost her reservation. I figure if there is anyone who can talk her way through check-in and security and get on the plane in time, it would be Jamila. Whatever it is, she has it.
The minute I saw her on the other side of the glass in bag claim, it was all laughs. We were standing there waiting for her bag, when we heard this loud squeaking noise coming from the rotating bag claim. We both did a double take when we saw a young guy, pulling off a PLASTIC LEOPARD PRINT suitcase, which was making the noise. Seriously, plastic? Leopard print? We felt bad, he definitely know we were cracking up at his luggage.
We then met Jen at the Oceanaire for old times sake. Our waitress was a mess and the bus boy made the mistake of asking us, “how’s it hanging tonight?”. Pretty sure you should never ask a group of girls that question, let alone at the Oceanaire. Dinner was delicious, we got the brownie dessert, and I almost asked the Executive Chef to refill my water. I just noticed a guy in all white clothes standing at the end of our table waiting for us to finish our conversation before he made his move in. Luckily, I read the words “EXECUTIVE CHEF” on his lapel before I asked for water.
Saturday night, Jen had a group of us over for dinner, drinks and many rounds of Rock Band. Jamila and I were born to play that game. We sang many duets and luckily I had introduced her to Fleetwood Mac way back in the Nortel day, so we could deliver a phenomenal version of “Go Your Own Way”. Not sure Jen’s neighbors thought it was that phenomenal, but we sure did.
The weekend, of course, wouldn’t be complete with out a Tina Turner legs shot.
The weekend also wouldn’t be complete without Jamila introducing us to some new vocab words. ”In your mist” and “cheesin’”. For example, Jen has a lot of guys in her mist right now. And also, Jarad was cheesin‘ when he was talking about his lack of body hair.
One more thing to note… it has been decided that I will venture to the ALT to visit Jam in the year 2010. She has promised me that we’ll go for chicken and waffles. I am not ready.
The concert was definitely the highlight of our trip to NYC, but of course we still had fun the rest of our time there.
Once I recovered from my music hangover on Friday, we hit up the Guggenheim and Met for a little culture. And took an hour walk through Central Park in the process. Which I don’t think either of us minded.
After the culture, we headed back to Chelsea, where we were staying, at did a little more shopping. That night we went to dinner at a cozy little spot called Commerce with Taylor. It was delicious!
I also note that I clocked in around 26,000 steps on the pedometer that day. Jam. Saturday, we got up and ventured down to Greenwich Village to shop and for me to buy a new NYU cap. The one I got a few years ago is pretty disgusting these days, since I only use it for running. Even washing it in the washer won’t take away the white salt rings around the top. I got a purple one this time, it’s super cute, and don’t worry, I won’t be using it for running. Gonna keep on trucking with the old one. Sorry, running buddy.
We also had a Magnolia Bakery meet up with Alyson. Not being a cupcake fan, I opted for some kind of “magic bar” filled with chocolate, coconut, nuts, graham crackers… yeah, it was amazing. Although we only got to hang for a few minutes, we had a classic laugh watching a bum sitting on a park bench having a grand old conversation with himself, breaking only to take large swigs from a bottle of red wine. Classic.
That night we headed to Times Square to catch John Stamos in Bye Bye Birdie. Love. He still looks like the same Uncle Jesse, post-mullet days of course. Afterwards, we grabbed a salad and some pizza and then made a 20ish block trek back to the hotel. The scenery that night was pretty spectacular with all of the Halloween costumes.
The next morning we woke up and headed to the Chelsea Market for a brunch and a little shopping. And of course a Fat Witch or two. It was tough to leave!
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is turning 25. And in honor of their birthday, they had a two night concert series which will air on HBO on November 29th. Note to self: become friends with an HBO subscriber between now and then. For the mere price of $200, my Mom and I got to be flies on the Madison Square Garden wall to witness a magically musical night. I’m not sure if that makes sense, but roll with it.
Crosby Stills and Nash, Bonnie Raitt, Jackson Browne, James Taylor, Paul Simon, Simon & Garfunkel, Stevie Wonder, Smokey Robinson, John Legend, Sting, B.B. King, Bruce Springsteen, John Fogerty, Darlene Love, Billy Joel… just to name a few. I will create a playlist of my favorite songs from the concert.
Highlights of the night included:
Tom Hanks being the host.
The energy from the crowd during “Love The One You’re With”. CSN, BR, JB and JT took it on together. Awesome.
Paul Simon performing “Here Comes The Sun” in honor of the quiet Beatle. This one made my Mom cry.
Getting 10 good minutes of Stevie Wonder’s back-and-forth head rock while the crew worked out his microphone issues.
Stevie Wonder and John Legend performing one of my favorite songs, “Mercy Mercy Me”. Followed by an MJ tribute in which Stevie broke down in tears halfway though.
Realizing how similar Sting and Stevie sound when they performed “Higher Ground” and “Roxanne”.
The couple that was sitting next to us, who had been standing up dancing all night long, dancing crazy but totally in sync. While the crew was setting up the stage for Bruce, they got into a Long-Island-Iced-Tea-induced argument. One of them even threatened to leave. Twice. But, when Bruce came on, they set their differences aside, put back on their dancing shoes and continued where they left off. Which brings me to my next highlight…
Bruce Springsteen. The E Street Band. Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band. All of whom played for 2 hours.
I think I fell in love with Bruce all over again as he sang such classic soul songs as “Hold On, I’m Coming” and “De Doo Ron Ron”. It was definitely a happy Bruce and the way he was dancing on stage… Oh girl, I think I have a crush.
Surprise guest #1: John Fogerty.
Surprise guest #2: BILLY FREAKING JOEL.
That last highlight is the point in which I was SURE I had died and gone to Heaven. My Mom and I casually joked all night about the gentleman sitting in front of us who looked identically to Billy. Maybe it was him. When Bruce brought Billy out I threw my hands up into the air like I had just won a Gold Medal. My Mom and I shared a hug and I declared that this was the best moment of my life.
NYSOM.
B2R.
And for the final encore, Bruce brought everyone back out for an incredible rendition of “(You’re Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher and Higher”. This song almost made my top songs list, and I’m pretty sure after this concert I’m going to have to add it and a couple of others.
The show started at 7:30pm. We walked out of the Garden around 1:30am. Grabbed a pretzel and walked back to the hotel. I was so exhausted (in a good way of course) that I felt hungover on Friday. 28 is starting to feel old.
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