Tuesday, November 18, 2008

What makes me...me.

Per instructions from my husband's blog, here are a few things that make me unique (read: random

I'm incredibly selective about the music that I listen to because of the pretty drastic effects that it can have on me. I have (had?) CDs that I've actually tossed because one song on the disc brings back certain memories that I'm not okay with. So my personal taste in music is pretty quirky and well....juvenile. Britney and Christina are at the very top of my list. Every one of their albums has had zero adverse effect on me. I also love oldies more than a person my age should. I was born approximately four DECADES too early. Really. I was. Maybe even five. And my list of favorite songs changes quite rapidly, though there are two that will forever remain as the Top 2…

I have a knack for throwing a killer party…and LOVE doing it! Most people enjoy the actual “having” of the party whereas I definitely prefer the planning stages to just about anything else. Small or large, formal or casual, I love throwing parties. I’ve thrown … well… several in the years that I’ve known Todd. And I intend to thrown hundreds more. I like to make a big deal out of things. Birthdays, holidays, anniversaries, promotions, Saturdays, football games, Todd publishing his first book (that party yet to come, but definitely in the works), elections & inaugurations, you name it, I’ll find a theme and a place!

I also really hate wet paper. It makes me physically ill. I don’t like to talk about it.

I firmly believe that cars and computers should never break and should work all the time. Except for the standard maintenance required (changing the oil, rotating tires, etc.), I don’t believe that I should ever have to do anything to my car and get extremely upset (read: hysterical) when something goes wrong (timing belts snapping, clutch pedal coming loose, heads cracking, just to name a few…all of which have happened while the car is in motion at a fairly high rate of speed). When computers go bing-bong-boing on me, it’s not pretty either.

I live for holidays. Especially Christmas. There is nothing more exciting to me than the Christmas season. Holidays are second only to my husband and family in my heart. Truly. I love listening to Christmas music and indeed have a full CD collection that continues to grow (but will NOT listen to Christmas music prior to the day after Thanksgiving because each holiday deserves it’s own time). I like the twinkling lights and the smells. I love driving down I-70 between Denver West Blvd and Youngfield and enjoying the lights in the trees that line the highway. Even traffic doesn’t bother me…one direction is red (brake) lights and the other is white (head) lights. I love to bake all of my favorite Christmas cookies and learn how to make my grandmothers’ (plural) delicious cookies. I love decorating the house and going to holiday parties and generally relishing in the warmth and deliciousness. And I really love wrapping gifts…it’s a craft I learned from my mother and is famous in my family…my family can always expect to be “wowed” by the wrapping on their gifts from me. Anyone can expect that really. I was even designated the office gift wrapper last year J I also really love watching the holiday movies….Elf, A Christmas Carol (with George C. Scott), The Grinch (original and Jim Carrey), the Charlie Brown movies (because that scene with Linus telling the Christmas story will make me cry every time), all the weird quasi-claymation movies, the Muppet Christmas Carol, Scrooged, Love Actually, The Holiday, Miracle on 34th Street (the original with Maureen O’Hara), White Christmas, Holiday Inn…

Yeah, I love Christmas.

So there’s a quick smattering of my quirks. Now you go.

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

The Material Girl reigns supreme....

4:00pm - Sitting at the office, anxiously awaiting my departure from work to go home and quickly throw on my 80s garb and head down to Brooklyn's to grab a drink and wait for Laura to arrive.

5:15pm - FINALLY get to leave the office, sassy boots in hand (they've been at the office since October 30th when I brought them in as a potential pair for Nikki to borrow for Halloween). Hauled significant amounts of ass home and then ran into the house and just about jumped out of my work clothes and into my concert clothes. Outfit consisted of black leggings, grey tulle skirt and a purple sparkly 80s shirt. Topped off with aforementioned sassy black boots, giant hot pink beads, coral scarf and about 20 pink and silver bangles. Mmm....fantastic!

6:00pm - Make my way down to the Pepsi Center by way of Wadsworth to I-70 to I-25 to Speer to Auraria Parkway. I love that I can play that "Umm...I'm actually here for class" card and get to park on campus for $3.50 rather than $10...woot! Flash a smile and lie to the parking attendant and make my way rather effortlessly to Brooklyns at the Pepsi Center.

6:30pm - Inside Brooklyn's is an absolute madhouse. Alice 105.9 is there hosting a crazy Madonna pre-show party or whatever. I've never seen a DJ in real life, so it was kind of cool to see BJ and Howie + Mikey at the bar...BJ plowed into me at one point, but was apologetic and it was really no one's fault in particular...the place was packed, I was apparently standing in a major thoroughfare and he got bashed into by someone else, thereby bashing into me. Whatever. I had a double cape cod and was jamming to "Papa Don't Preach"...I really couldn't care less. Spent about a half hour dancing by myself waiting for Laura to make her arrival.

7:00pm - Laura arrives. Long Island Iced Teas all around, thank you! We head to the upper level of the bar and chatty-chat-chat for about 45mins before slamming the remainder of our drinks and heading downstairs to close out and go to the show. Closing out proved challenging so we just left. Meh, we were going to be coming back after the show anyway so it didn't really make any sense to close out only to open up again in 3 hours.

7:45pm - Leave Brooklyn's and make our way to the Pepsi Center. Once inside, the following occurs:
Receive drawing tickets for a new Blackberry (of which neither of us needs)
Don't get a free Blackberry, so receive a light up blue necklace thingy as consolation
Have our photo taken by a Blackberry rep which will be on their website later on
Take 6 ridiculous photos in the free photo booth
Go a little bonkers that we're ACTUALLY at the Madonna show
Laura loses her ticket. Thank GOD she was already in the venue.

8:00pm - Get to our seats and are actually astounded that a) the staging is so massive and b) there are so many empty seats still! Ah whatever. Our seats were perfection! Section 318, Row 12, Seats 13&14....smack in front of the stage and way at the top so we could see EVERYTHING. The only better seats I could imagine would be right against the stage. As it were, our seats were fantastic...and there were people who didn't show up next to us so we had tons of room to dance...yay!

9:00pm - Show has still not started even though our tickets definitely say that the show time is 8pm. But I guess when you're MADONNA, you get to do whatever you want to and everyone just kind of sits back and takes it. Oh to have that kind of power haha! At this point, Laura and I are jamming to some wacky mix of current pop nonsense when I stop and say, "Who the hell is smoking?!" and then immediately realize what I've just said and Laura and I both say "Um this is a non-smoking venue!" We turn around and see two girls right behind us lighting up. Laura immediately transistions into "No Bullshit" Laura and informs them that the Pepsi Center is indeed a non-smoking venue. They don't really care and continue to smoke. Then two girls behind the smokers start to get fiesty about it and eventually two security guards come up and inform Smoky McIdiot that they cannot in fact smoke and must stop immediately.

9:30pm - Lights go down and on with the show!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I have never been so excited about a show in all my life. It's friggin' MADONNA!!!!!!! Live and for real for the first time EVER in Denver. It was unbelievable. There is really no way for me to explain how fantastic the staging and lights and sound board and TWENTY dancers and clothes and lasers and everything actually was. Just imagine the most amazing thing you've ever seen...this was w-a-y better.

About four songs in, Smoky McIdiot lights up again and much to my own chagrin, I actually leave the concert to find another security guard. I hate people like that girl. HATE THEM. Once at the security guard, there is already someone there with the same complaint as me: I didn't pay this much money to have some bitch smoking behind me. Make it stop.

Security guard made them stop. Thank God.

Continue with the show.

I don't think I realized quite how late it was until I actually fell asleep during two songs...they were slow songs and very ambient so I blame Madonna for playing good sleeping music.

Interesting features of the show:
1. Madonna gets mad at the front-rowers for not clapping, saying "You're in the front fucking row and you're not clapping! How lame!" It's true. That's trés lame.
2. Madonna takes a request from a girl in the audience and we all sing Like A Virgin with the Material Girl...it was awesome!
3. Five giant screens display "the incomparable Britney Spears" saying "it's Britney, bitch" to which I proceed to lose my mind and concern Laura. What can I say....I [heart] Britney!
4. Other stars that make video appearances during the show: Pharrel, Kanye West, Puff Daddy (or whatever name he's going by now), Timbaland and Justin Timberlake. Woot!

The show ended abruptly, but very "Madonna" and it was off to Brooklyn's for fried food to fill our excited bellies. It wasn't until I dropped Laura off at her car that I realized it was freaking one o'clock in the morning. Definitely intended to get home around 11:30pm, but that was assuming the show would actually start at 8pm. But hey, two solid hours of all things Madonna isn't anything I'm going to complain about.

It's going to be a challenge to stay awake today though....that is for certain...

All said, Madonna has officially taken over the top spot on my "Best Show I've Ever Been To" list, which was previously held by the Beastie Boys....and next year, Britney will probably overtake the #2 spot, pushing the Boys down to #3,4,&5 (yes, I've seen them three times....woo hoo!)

Till next time...

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Because it's a good time...

This came from Amy's Blog....seemed like fun



If I were 7 again I would….
jump on the trampoline all the live long day

If their were an extra hour in the day…
I would sleep through it all the while knowing I should be using it to study.

my junk food indulgence of choice is…
jalepeño and cheddar kettle cooked potato chips

the color yellow makes me think of…
smiley faces

the most used item in my kitchen is…
The coffee maker.

Now, YOU go!

Friday, November 7, 2008

Brief update on the Obama Puppy

Sounds like they're leaning toward adopting a puppy from a shelter.

Way to go! There are plenty of puppies out there that need lovin'!
Just ask Leo and Suki...

Who is Barack Obama?

The last couple days have been pretty heavy around here. Cyber-space, I mean. I've been involved in a few different discussions regarding the recent election and they've gotten incredibly long and drawn out and occasionally feisty. Not that I mind any of it.

The country is changing, there's no doubt about that. And I'm quite looking forward to what is going to happen and what could happen. Whatever happens though, it's going to be different from we've been doing for the last little while. That's not good or bad. It just is.

And I think that's what's giving me this excruciating headache since Tuesday.

All the non-stop bickering about what has happened or what people perceive is going to happen.

The fact of the matter is that Tuesday, Election Day, has come and gone and what's done is done. Barack Obama is going to be our new president come January 20th (Inaguration Party anyone?) and really there's nothing that anyone can do to stop that now. The ballots have been cast and counted, the electoral votes have been dealt to their rightful owners and Barack Obama is it.

I'm just kind of over all the constant yammering, bickering, bitching and whining about the results. This is absolutely no reflection on the blogs that I've been reading and commenting on lately, but rather on the hateful and disrespectful things I keep reading on Facebook and hearing on the television.

Maybe I'm petty. Maybe I'm not smart enough for heated political discussions. Maybe a lot of things.
But right now, since it's the Obama's that are going to be living at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. and I have made my peace with that, I'm more interested in other things.

Things like what kind of puppy Sasha and Malia are going to get.
What is Michelle going to wear to the Inagural Ball?
What kind of china is the new family going to choose?
Who will be the new Secretary of State? The Press Secretary?
And because I live for all things Christmas, how is the House going to be decorated next year for the holidays?
Is Barack's jump shot really as good as "they" claim it is?

I know that a lot of that is trivial, but that's what I'm more interested in right now.
I've been so personally invested in this election that I feel like I have some kind of personal attachment to this fabulous new family. And I want to get to know them, just like so many other Americans out there.

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

Yes, we did!

Last night, we went to an election party at Karla and Phill's place, complete with some Chicago-style goodies (butter cookies, pizza and PBR) and spent more than 3 hours watching the races and the talking heads.

We've all worked pretty hard in the last year or so not only to get our candidate elected, but to educate ourselves and make sure that we felt he was, FOR SURE, the candidate for us. Never have I felt so sure about the decision that I made. Granted, this is only my third presidential election, but this one took a special place in my heart.

I am proud of America this morning.

At one point in the evening, we got sick of the talking heads and opted for "Indecision 08" with Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert. Good grief those guys are absolutely HILARIOUS. I watched them during the Bush-Kerry race and was just dying laughing.

Anyway, at one point in the evening, Jon Stewart announced that, by CNNs predictions, Barack Obama had just become the President -Elect of the United States.

I nearly started crying.

Shortly after that, Sen. McCain gave his concession speech out there in Arizona. It was gracious and impressive and I imagine very difficult. I believe that McCain worked very hard and he had (has) supporters that are just as passionate as any Obama supporter.

The question has been raised: What if your candidate DIDN'T win?

Honestly, that was something that I thought pretty heavily about. It was always a possibility. I mean, it IS an election so things can go any direction at any time. So yeah, I considered that. I have long stated that if McCain was who I believe would be the best choice, I'd have voted for him. I educated myself on BOTH candidates so I feel that I did make the right choice for ME. And on the same token, had McCain won and NOT been my choice, he would have my full support.

Why?

Because this man is the PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.

I should hope that people this morning feel the same way about Obama having won.

The man deserves our respect and our support.

And don't forget that last night, Americans both made and changed history.

It's a big deal.