blaugra

I'm pretty sure my kneecaps are about to pop off.

Oy! It's so damp, and my knees haven't recovered from my weekend escapades. And as a friend pointed out today, there's no time to recover before we go down to New Orleans.  I'm feeling it. I'm feeling it all.  I've been hungover for three days now.

Didn't help, I suppose, that I wore these shoes. 

And had all these pins holding my hair up. (quick, RainMan, how many?)

And I had to slouch in my seat while driving to the festivities so as not to look like Marge Simpson in the car.

And I was so drunk at this classy wedding that the following conversations took place.

Me: Oh My God!  I LOOOOVE this song!

(Don't Stop Believin'. I started jumping and flailing my arms in an effort to "dance.") 

Me, to some guy standing on the edge of the dance floor: Are you here with anyone tonite?

Guy:  No.

Me:  Oh, well, I am.  But do you want to dance to this song with me?

Guy:  Yeah!  (we proceed to flail our arms around in the sweaty throng while screaming all the words.)

After the song, the one single girl in the entire room comes over to talk to me.  I say, "Oh, Guy, I forgot to introduce myself.  My name is Laura. What's yours?"  Guy says "I'm Guy," and I introduce Guy to Single Girl.  Single Girl's like, "Yeah. We met."  But I leave the two of them alone anyway so I can get yet another glass of vodka, because, OMYGOD I AM SOOOO THIRSTY!  But then Poison's Talk Dirty To Me starts up and there's just no time for a trip to the bar.  Is this an appropriate song for a wedding with lots of elderly people?  But I was right there, "behind the bushes..." 

Following the reception, we went to an after-party at another bar, because after an open bar, it makes sense to pay to drink even more.  Jeeeezus.  I staggered up the street, and standing outside the bar was an actor I used to work with who had left town a few years back.  Totally random. 

"BraaaaaaAAAAAAAAAddddddd!"  I flung myself at him.  "Itths stho good to stheeeeee youuuuu!" 

"Yeah, I just came back to town today." 

"You did????" I said, "I didn't know that!!!"

"Well, that's because I JUST told you."  he said, dryly. 

"Oh yeah!  I have to go to my friend'ths wedding party now" I ran away.   

Inside the bar, I hopped around drinking espresso martinis (always a good choice at 1 am.  Right.) and the bride's cousin offered to buy the bar some more shots.  YEEEAHH!!! 

Now, you may think I have a drinking problem, but I do not.  Do not send me the number of my local A.A., that's one support group I don't need. I just get a little out of control once in a while.  D. was drinking Coke as the D.D.

We threw back a shot of Kahlua or something that looked like chocolate milk, and the cousin said to D, who was calmly sitting at the bar:  "Dude, no offense, but, I would totally do your wife."   D. shrugged his shoulders. "Yeah, yeah."  Then he asked if we swing. What is it with people asking that question?  Are there a lot more swingers in the world than I think there are? 

On the other side of D. sat the groom. "You guys have been married for a long time.  What's the secret to a long marriage?"  he asked.  In all seriousness.

D. replied, "That's easy. See my wife?  She's a social butterfly, and I hate everyone. So it balances out really well."

The groom said, "I don't think you hate everyone.  You're just really selective."   

I don't know how Paris Hilton does it...

Two major parties in one weekend and I'm a complete wreck.  I don't know which was more exhausting, the off-the-hook bar mitzvah with a paid party crew leading the pubescents in every single organized dance possible, really loudly, or the wedding where we shut down the reception and then the after party. 

While I'm gathering my photos and other thoughts in order to tell what I think are hilARious stories about my life (ha......ha....) here's a QUIZ!!

All but TWO of the following songs were on the DJ's playlists at the wedding AND the bar mitzvah. 

Which song was not played at the wedding, and which song was not played at the bar mitzvah? 

• Don't Stop Believin'
• You Shook Me All Night Long
• I Wanna Be Sedated
• Cha-Cha Slide
• Livin' on a Prayer
• What is Love (the song that the Roxbury Night Club guys bob their heads to)
• Electric Slide
• Paradise by the Dashboard Light
• Old Time Rock 'n Roll

One song was not heard at the wedding, an all-adult event soaked in alcohol.  One song was not heard at the bar mitzvah, with 40 13-year-olds writhing on the dance floor with inflatable guitars and glow sticks.

Answer this correctly (not that high of a difficulty rating because I'm still really hungover. From Friday night.) and you will win only the reputation of having been to too many DJ'ed functions. 

The higher the hair, the closer to God

Right now I'm pretty close. 

My hair is the biggest, the highest, it's ever been. 

On my way to a Friday afternoon wedding and I just realized, just now, that I'm dressing like a 16 year old girl going to a prom.  It's like Jennifer Garner in 13-going-on-30.   Oh, my.

Pictures to come. 

p.s. here's a picture. Guess which one is me, and which one is the stone cold fox makeup artist:

N'awlins

I'm going to New Orleans next week.  Yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!!!

It's been on the calendar for so long, it seems, and I didn't realize how quickly it was coming up!!

I'll be there on Halloween. 

We have reservations at Antoine's and Commander's Palace. 

I have a short list of other eating establishments and things to do, but as of now, I'm kinda wingin' it.  We'll be there for 3 whole days.

I will hopefully run into Angelina and her brood here in the French Quarter. 

Any advice or recommendations for N.O. fun?  Bring 'em on!

overload

Last week I got into a discussion with another blogger somewhere about Blog Action Day and why he thought it was a BAD idea and I don't feel like linking to him because, well, I lost his address. 

Anyway, his point was that the day was too much self-serving writing about poverty and not enough acting.  My argument was that the process of observing and thinking about poverty differently in order to write about it en masse was just as valuable as the tangible output.  He said, "That's nice, but hello, it's called blog ACTION day." and said that we should get off our butts and do something.

Whatever. I guess if people don't normally clean out their closets for charity thrift stores, or don't normally participate in food drives, then yeah, we should get off our butts and do something. 

Then I tried to forget the unfortunate and impoverished.  But, dammit!  I attended a luncheon with an organization that helps the poor.  The key speaker pissed some people off by talking about how rich the suburban municipalities are compared to the cities, and how all the people with problems use services in the cities [whether it's people becoming homeless, or falling on hard times and needing employment assistance, or being mentally disabled] but the suburban tax base doesn't support that stuff enough.  True??

That, combined with nationwide United Way refocusing too rapidly, federal and state funding cutbacks, and the whole economy thing, the poor are multiplying, and many people are just a few lost paychecks away from working poor. I again thought about how fucked up that is, and I think it's good that this guy was agitating people. 

Perhaps some township tax-payers could tell their commissioners to allocate more money to this stuff.  Doesn't take much.  One huge township gave this particular organization $12,000 last year, but couldn't allocate anything this year, and that caused yet another setback for the city's poor.

I was sitting at an almost-empty table with an 80-year-old woman named Gretchen.  Just me-n-Gretchen.  My new BFF.

As we talked, I realized that I kinda want to be like Gretchen in 40 years, God willing.  Gretchen is smart, with a smart wardrobe, and is still energized about changes she wants to see.  She works 4 days a month cooking and serving food at a drop-in soup kitchen. She works on the board of directors for an organization whose mission she's passionate about, and it's similar to an organization I work with. She and I are alumni of the same university and she told me what it was like to be there during WW2.  To Gretchen, not helping charities has never been an option.   

She wasn't babbling, I had to coax everything out of her.  Poor woman, stuck with me as a dining partner.  I wanted to ask her if the Greatest Generation could have pushed us in a different direction, but I didn't.

Our country wouldn't work without the millions of Gretchens, but there need to be a few million more, especially because Gretchen ain't no spring chicken.  And especially now.

Glorious

God, I love autumn!!  Really, God, good job!

A glorious autumn day in PA.  Started off with a massage, finally using a gift certificate I'd been saving for, I guess, when I reached maximum tension.  Level accomplished. Devouring a fancy scone at the tea shop, shopping for wedding gifts, sitting still in the sunshine for 5 minutes. 

Last night, we tried for the second time to go see The Express.  Movie theatres piss me off.  Why don't any movies start at 8:00 on a Friday night?  7:00 is too early, 10:00 is too late.  I found a theatre that started the show at 7:45 - perfect.  Grab a substandard pizza with cardboard crust, whatever, get to the theatre by 7:42, "Two, please"  and then, "You do know that the movie started at 7:20, right?"  WTF.  Shit.  Nothing else to see unless we want to sit through "Sex Drive."  Aaaaaand no.  D. said, "Well, let's just go home and do laundry." HOT. 

So, today, I'm still kind of jonesing to see a movie.  Salty D. is leaving for an overnight, and I was going to do something that I "should" do, like organize my sock drawer, or go to a friend's theatre performance, or phone a friend, but I don't feel like doing any of that.  No offense, but, I just want to be alone and not have to talk for a few hours.  And so, I think I'm going to see a movie this evening.  Glorious.

Plumber's crack

Isn't it convenient that Joe The Plumber's name is JOE, so that Sarah Palin actually looks clever for talking about Joe Six-pack?

And are you like me, every time I hear "Joe the plumber" I sing "like Sam the butcher bringing Alice the meat!"?   

And why is it that so many news people are having a hard time pronouncing Wurzelbacher?  That's a piece of pie to those of us born in Pennsylvania Dutch wonderland.

Defaced.

I lied to Facebook. 

I told it that my age was a few years younger than my real age.  None of its business when my real birthdate was, right?

Which makes the following even sadder to me. 

These are ads targeted to a 30-something woman listed as "in a relationship":

• Is your man unresponsive?
• Hormonally aging skin
• Try Oprah's acai berry diet
• Need an egg donor?
• Lifelike Baby Dolls, amazingly realistic, as seen on TV
• Play Mah-Jong online

OMG.

Blog Action Day YAAAAAAAAY!

The subject of 2008's blog action day = poverty.

The intention is to propose ideas and schemes and solutions to end global poverty in our lifetime.  I've been giving this a lot of thought over the past couple of weeks, what the hell do I think I could do to end poverty?   

I don't have any new ideas. 

I am deficient and creatively impoverished.

I am a follower.  Tell me what you want me to do to end poverty and if it makes sense, then by God, I'll do it. 

I am compassionate.  I have a very hard time ignoring people who are beaten down.   

But, I'm proud and am reluctant to help those who have become materially poor through their own poor choices.  Bailout, is the term, I believe. 

I'm super pissed at people who wallow in the trough of luxury and excess, who have cheated and schemed their way - I almost said, "to the top" but I don't believe that "the top" is defined by monetary wealth at all. 

If we flip our thinking and stop looking up to people who seem to "have it all" and stop ignoring people who "have nothing," imagine the global attitude shift.

Basic cable could stop producing shows like "My Super Sweet Sixteen,"  "Million Dollar Listing,"  "The Real Housewives of Atlanta," and "The Fabulous Life of Celebrity Pets."  I wouldn't miss those at all, really, I wouldn't.

We stop referring to ourselves as "lowly waitress" "corporate serf" or "just a peon."   

We realize that beluga caviar is just ugly fish eggs and champagne is just fizzy wine and are not something to dream about.   When asked our goal in life we don't say, "I want to be rich."

We use our money and energy to spread health and wellness, so that kids aren't watching their parents die of AIDS and left behind as flea-ridden malnourished orphans and we can stop part of that cycle.

Take responsibility for our community's health instead of shutting out or shutting down.  Be grateful, spread joy, don't be mean.  Get ourselves back to the garden.

Wow, have I turned this thing into a communist hippie rant or what?  Who knew?

         

Hey, blondie

I am currently obsessed with Meghan McCain.

Especially with her choice of hair adornment.   Seen here at the local airport.