Category Archive

Sad news to report.  The name Emily has finally been overthrown from being the top baby name.  That is… after a 12 year reign.  Best of luck, Emma.

Also to note… Elvis is still in the top 1,000 names. Thank ya, thank ya very much.

Clearly, it doesn’t take a holiday for me to wear my favorite color. I love green and all it’s glory. And I also love that I am part Irish. I think it means that I am a funny person, I know how to have a good time and I believe in luck…

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again.  I love Bruce Springsteen.  

He totally rocked the halftime show of the game tonight.  I’m especially happy because he did B2R.  Which is probably my most favorite song ever.  When I die, I’d like to have “Born To Run” played at my memorial service, as well as have my ashes scattered over the grounds of Graceland.  

Bruce is coming to Austin and Houston in April and I am determined to see at least one of the shows.  I’m even willing to take off work to make it happen.  I’m so energized right now by his performance that I’m even going to consider going to Boston, New Jersey or Europe to see him.  How amazing would that be?  Don’t put it past me… Mom and I travelled to Chicago last year to catch one of his shows. Worth every dime.

I think it’s safe to say that on Saturday, I was the wind beneath my sister’s wings.  We had gone down to New Braunfels early in the day to start setting up for Gamma’s 90th birthday party.  Since we’d be climbing ladders, untangling balloons and playing with asbestos, we deemed it appropriate to wear sweats down there and change into our party clothes once the work was done.  Which was a great idea in theory, until Crystal realizes, an hour before party time, that she forgot her skirt.  Never mind that she brought two pair of underwear and multiple outfits for Halle, she still forgot a missing ingredient in her attire. 

Dad suggested she wear the extra pair of velour pants that happened to be laying around, but I knew that with a sweater and boots, she wasn’t going to have any of that.  Being the supergirl that I am, I volunteered to run out and get her an outfit since it only takes me 5 minutes to get ready.

Walmart and Ross were my options and I had all of 25 minutes to get there, get something and get back.  I managed to find a ghetto skirt and a semi-cute dress.  Of all the times a Ross could actually be picked over, this was the time.  She liked the dress when we got back and with her black knee high boots we thought we were good to go. 

That is until we each go into our respective stalls in the bathroom to put our dresses on.  About 30 seconds later I hear… “FFFFFFF*********CCCCCCCCKKKKK”.

“F*CK.”

“F*CK.”

“F*CK.”

Obviously, something was wrong.  Turns out, the zipper on one of her boots was gone.  The train was not on the track.  Therefore the flaps of the boot hung agape like my Dad’s mouth does when he’s catching flies on an airplane.

Being the eternal optimist (at least for one day) I told her there was no mountain we couldn’t climb.  Tape!  Bobby pins!  Safety pins!  We could make this boot work.  Turns out no one had any of those, nor were they going to work. 

Light bulb!  Let me get out every single hair rubber band I have and we can wrap them around the boot.  I even used the large head rubber band I have for working out to keep my bangs back.  Of course it was still sweaty from my workout that morning.  Glorious.  But, it worked!  And no one seemed to notice the new style.  Well, maybe they did when she got up in front of everyone to give Gamma a toast.

One of my favorite childhood movies was on TV yesterday.  A League Of Their Own.  My friend, Sarah, and I used to quote this movie back and forth all day, every day in 5th grade.  I remember passing notes to each other in class where we would just quote the movie the whole time.  A typical exchange would look like this…

Sarah: Lay off the high ones!
Emily: I like the high ones!
Sarah: Mule!
Emily: Nag!

[Giggling]

Sarah: Did you promise the cows you’d write?
Emily: Hey cowgirls, see the grass?  Don’t eat it.
Sarah: Hey, no skin off my ashtabula. You want to stay here plucking cows, that’s your business.
Emily: Let’s make like a bread truck and haul buns ladies.
Sarah: Gracefully and grandly, gracefully and grandly.
Emily: Yeah, I’m just going home, grab a shower and a shave, give the wife a little pickle-tickle and I’m on my way.

[Uncontrollable giggling]

Sarah was the queen of note writing.  Everyone traded notes with her and so she was constantly busy scrambling off responses to everyone.  I attribute this to the fact that she was like the Kelly Taylor of our class.  She used to “go out” with a Dylan-esque guy, she had white-blonde hair and she knew all the gossip.  I’m pretty sure one time I got upset with her because everyone else was getting notes with juicy gossip, whereas I was stuck with A League Of Their Own quotes.  Such is life.

It wasn’t until high school that we came across probably our most favorite line from that movie.  And out of context it’s not really that funny.  But when you watch it, it’s pretty darn goofy.  Dottie and Kit are in the middle of an argument when Helen, all proper-like, comes around the corner, where everyone has gathered to listen to the fight, and asks with a giddy excitement…

Helen: Has anyone seen my new red hat?
Dottie: Oh piss on your hat.
Helen: Well, that was uncalled for.

I tried to find a clip of this exchange on youtube, but was out of luck.  If you want to see an impersonation sometime, just ask me.

Suz sent over this website today where you can upload a picture of yourself and it will show you what your high school yearbook picture might have looked like through the years.  Here’s four of my favorites.  I see some celebrity resemblances… don’t you?

1. 1976 – Donna Summer?                      2. 1984 -Belinda Carlisle?

3. 1986 – Michael Jackson?                       4. 1994 – DJ Tanner?

… for inventing Post It’s.  I don’t know what it is, but I have a serious obsession with writing anything and everything down on these little guys.  It all started at Handango when I used to keep track of account numbers and product ID’s that I would use for my beloved Featured Products.  Smalls used to make fun of me for them, but its no question I was the best intern she’ll ever have.  I think when I quit my job there, I had an estimated 50+ Post It’s? 

So, it comes as no surprise that my desk here at Archon is usually filled with stacks of Post It’s.  I’ve got the standard yellow ones, but also fancy blue ones.  Yesterday, as I began hitting a wall similar to the one I hit at about mile 22 of my marathon, I decided to take a break and be delirious.   This included counting the number of Post It’s I had on my desk and in my drawer (the ones on the desk are recent additions, the ones in the drawer are ones I can’t part with each time I “Spring Clean” my Post It’s stack), as well as arrange them into my initials.  The grand tally is………..

44 on the dot.  You’d think I should join Post It’s Anonymous or something.

I was informed by Maria today that my blog needs updating.  I guess the days of me writing everyday have flown out the window.  You’d think with my controller being gone this week things would have been a bit calmer on the work front.  But, oh contrare my friends, they’ve haven’t. 

I think I can muster up a few stories from the week, which I’ll share in bullet point style.  Because its my blog and I’ll cry if I want to.

*Recently I’ve been reading up on a dieting/lifestyle approach called Intermittent Fasting.  Sounds old school, doesn’t it?  Its the practice of fasting 2-3 days a week.  You can do a 14-24 hour fast.  I’m not sure I could handle a 24 hours of not eating, but I’ve knocked out a couple of 14′s and 16′s this week.  And I’m still standing.  Its not as hard or bad as it sounds.  For example, I’ll finish up dinner on a Tuesday night at 8:30 and then I won’t eat again until lunch time the next day.  It’s an approach that goes back to the way humans used to eat many many moons ago.  The hunter and gatherer lifestyle.  Since breakfast is my favorite meal of the day, its hard for me to want to skip it everyday, but a couple times a week?  Not a problem.  It’s amazing how you can survive and still have mental clarity without eating for a few hours.  Read up on it if you are interested… there are lots of other health benefits but I don’t feel like delving into them right now.

*Its just about that time for TV season premiere’s.  I’ve got a pretty busy schedule this Fall:
Monday – How I Met Your Mother/The Hills
Tuesday – Biggest Loser/90210
Wednesday - Nothing comes to mind
Thursday – Grey’s/The Office
Friday – Swingtown?
Saturday – Nothing comes to mind
Sunday – Desperate Housewives/Brother’s & Sisters

*I’ve really got to stop using the word a-hole.  Its becoming a regular part of my vocab, which is fine when I know when and where its appropriate to use it (i.e. with myself or other a-holes).  Yesterday I was arriving home from work after spending 50 minutes in traffic,  and when I was pulling into my garage I had to stop because there was a line of cars waiting to get out of the garage and it was blocking me from getting to the gate.  I came to a complete stop and looked back to see that the car in front of the line was pulling out onto the street, but the car behind it wasn’t moving up to take its place because the driver was oblivious on his cell phone.  In an annoyance I loudly stated, “scoot up, a-hole!”.  Only to realize after I’d uttered the words that not only were my windows down, but so were the windows of the person I was yelling at.  Along with the car behind it.  Who was about 5 feet from me.  Nice job, a-hole.

I guess thats all I got for right now.  A little randomness for you.  But, hey its better than nothing.