GO AMERICA! WOOOOO!

As I'm sure many of you are, I'm getting ready for a relaxing Memorial Day Weekend. My little brother is graduating from high school (Go Brad!), the pool is calling my name, and Boyfriend and I might play a little golf (which is actually means he'll play golf, and I'll expand on the pool lounging as previously mentioned).

So, yes, rainbows and puppies all around. Memorial Day Weekend is fulfilling my dreams already.

(Image from a site who's URL is not made up of very nice words, ironically, so I'll just link it here.)

That being said, one of my biggest pet peeves is when people gorge themselves on hot dogs and brownies in the name of something they don't know or understand. Memorial Day sometimes falls under this category, and in that spirit...

A BRIEF (AND SASSY) HISTORY LESSON:
Created soon after the American Civil War, Memorial Day (nee Decoration Day, which I slightly prefer because it reminds me of streamers) is a federal holiday that was created to honor those who have given their lives in service as members of the U.S. Military. Another fun fact, you ask? The first Memorial Day, according to Yale Professor David Blight, was celebrated by formerly enslaved African Americans at Washington Race Course in South Carolina. According to Wikipedia, "The race course had been used as a temporary Confederate prison camp for captured Union soldiers in 1865, as well as a mass grave for Union soldiers who died there. Immediately after the cessation of hostilities, formerly enslaved people exhumed the bodies from the mass grave and interred them properly with individual graves. They built a fence around the graveyard with an entry arch and declared it a Union graveyard. The work was completed in only ten days. On May 1, 1865, the Charleston newspaper reported that a crowd of up to ten thousand, mainly black residents, including 2800 children, proceeded to the location for included sermons, singing, and a picnic on the grounds, thereby creating the first Decoration Day."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memorial_Day

There.

Now you know.





p.s. Can we talk about how ridiculous that rainbow and puppy picture is?

UPDATE: Monday Total Hotties

American Psycho Hottie: Christian Bale

Please enjoy this entirely gratuitous set of Christian Bale photos.
Update: I have updated these photos to reflect what I believe Bale is tying to express in these photos.

Christian Bale.

A conservationist.

A thinker.

An angst-y teen.



Happy Monday!

Rants and Raves (mostly rants)

One of my greatest joys in life is pointing out the ridiculous.

Ranging from the mildly absurd to the wildly incorrect and vaguely inappropriate, I enjoy a certain smug satisfaction from discovering that I am right about something, and whoever committed the offense is wrong.

It's actually not unlike the "Really with Seth and Amy" skits on Saturday Night Live (except most of the time it's mental dialogue and Boyfriend never laughs hard enough).



(Did that work? HTML isn't really my thing... if it didn't, here's the link: http://www.hulu.com/watch/13828/saturday-night-live-really-with-seth-and-amy)

Anyway, this morning's very-similar-to-really-with-seth-and-amy-but-not-exactly-the-same rant (please don't sue me SNL, I do not make enough money to fight you in the courts) is directed towards my local coffee chain (who I love unconditionally, but this just goes to show that the ones you love can sometimes hurt you the most).

Seriously, coffee shop I refuse to name because I fear legal retaliation? When you say "eight flavors; endless combinations" on your menu, do you not realize that those two statements are completely incongruent? That if, in fact, you have eight flavors, the maximum number of combinations you can have is 64? And that's only if someone wants to be a real pain in the butt... with eight flavors, what you really have is EIGHT combinations. Because nobody wants a hazelnut-raspberry-coconut iced coffee. And while we're on that subject, nobody really wants a raspberry iced coffee, either. You lured me in with that one a while ago, and tasted like broken promises.

Who really wants endless coffee combinations, anyway? When I stumble into your brightly colored shop in the morning, all I want is something that will keep me moving for the next few hours until I can substitute Diet Coke in for my caffeine fix. I can barely choose between vanilla and caramel, let alone endless possibilities. Who are you trying to capture with your menu marketing? Who is the guy that says, "Gah?! Only 64 choices?! This is COMPLETELY unacceptable! I want to know that I could be here for years choosing my bean-based beverage... with 64 options, I will only have but a few shorts hours."

You know what? I don't even want to know that guy. Please just take the "endless" off your signage, and we'll go back to back to the way we were. Thank you.

End rant.

Now, go to hulu.com and make them money, and watch SNL this weekend (so neither of them come after the sassy b's).

Classroom Haiku

Oh, little children
Why do you like Hot Cheetos
The world is orange

Little girl in class
You say “You look really weird”
I lack mascara

Classroom grammar book
I’m not sure you understand
What synonym means

Please, no more Red Bull
Or Monster Energy Drinks
Your heart will explode

You ask me my age
You ask if I am eighty
Yes, I say, I am

Don’t pick your nose here
Even though I am reading
I can still see you

J'adore Cape Cod.

I love Cape Cod. I love it in ways that are normally reserved for children, spouses, and really excellent jewelry. I love it with my whole being, my entire core. I love. love. love. the cape.

When the weather starts getting nicer (anywhere above 60 degrees, really), my mind starts wandering down 6A and towards the beach. Today's temperatures will allegedly reach the high seventies, and so my brain is firmly planted in Harwichport.

I think the reason I love the cape so much has less to do with its geographical location, and more to do with what I do there. Which is to practice my lounging and lolling about.

Have you ever lolled? Southern and I are big fans of the Sweet Potato Queens, and they introduced me to the concept. Lolling about is a combination of lying around, drinking cool beverages, and convincing people to amuse you while you recline on some sort of cushioned surface. It's my activity of choice.

Tanning while lolling is an excellent way to spend the day. Add a book (perhaps a Red Dress Novel?) and you've created the single most perfect situation in existence.

There are only a few short days left in May, and then June (and lolling, and cape season) is upon us. I'm ready. Are you?

The Most Spectacular of Photo-Bombs.

The events that led to this photograph were quite serendipitous indeed.
They came together to create a really quite scenic and perfectly executed photo bomb. Northern and I decided it really provided a quite telling picture of our fabled sassy-ness.

Northern and Southern B's photobombing Boyfriend (Southern's) while Fly-Fishing.

For more photo bombs, please visit:
Photo Bomb
Some can be slightly (or completely) distasteful or NSFW.

Monday Total Hotties

West Wing Hottie: Rob Lowe

Now:

Then:

(far left)

Doesn't he just have the most beautiful prep hair? Yes. YES he does.

I am not very interesting today.

This is my desk:


Please ignore the crappy photo; I took it with my phone (+2 life points for using a semi-colon in a blog post).

That's all I have for you today.

I was searching for inspiration and I just couldn't see past the blue fabric of my "walls." And then I realized that before I joined the 9-5 crowd, I was actually fascinated by the idea of cubicles. And so, in the event that any of you are as lame as I was/am, here's a post about my cube.

SIDE STORY: When I started dating Boyfriend, he was already out of college, and I had all sorts of crazy ideas about what was in his cube (whimsical pictures of us! stacks of paper labeled important! a constantly ringing phone!). What he actually had was a Kirby Puckett bobble head. I should have known.

Anyway.

In the photo above, you'll notice two of my four calendars. Why do I have four? Because I start to go into a blind panic if I can't see exactly what date and time it is from any given angle at my desk. So I'll keep them all, thank you, and add another if I get a chair that has better swiveling capabilities.

You'll also notice a campy mug with hearts on it. Purchased at T.J. Maxx for five dollars, it gets the job done and makes students think I'm older than I am, because seriously, who has patterned mugs? I want to replace it with this. Incidentally, my birthday is August 9th. No reason. Just saying.

That pink, sea anemone-type thing? I have no idea. It was novel for a while and now its home is right in front of the green water bottle that gets no use.

Boyfriend's Official C League softball schedule. A given. Remember the Kirby Puckett bobble head?

White Out to amend the four calendars I have at my desk.

Post-it notes in a color I dislike. I prefer the classic yellow, with black pen. But sometimes, you just have to suffer through.

White organizer that has a notebook I have used once and then found too cumbersome to bring around with me, assorted pens of which I actually only use two, business cards, a cute note from Boyfriend that I thought would be lame to pin up but now am actually considering (in the time it took to type that, I've already reconsidered). A ruler because I flip out if things aren't level. Spoons because I like to eat my yogurt from something that isn't plastic and designed to cut up my mouth. And a lone cough drop left over from my mysterious illness.

And that's it. I won't even get into the other side of my desk.

I'm sure all nine of you really enjoyed this.




It is absolutely no wonder that we do not have more followers.

In which I remember I have a blog...

So, as we all know, I'm an avid reader of the mommy blogs. My mornings are not complete without ogling pictures of their cute children and staring at their adorable monogrammed walls (they exist! why didn't my mother love me enough to give me monogrammed walls?!). I am one unhappy lady if someone has forgotten to post that morning, and often spend the rest of the day fuming that these strangers I've emotionally attached myself to didn't care enough to share a bit of their lives with me.

Except then I forgot to post for, oh, about three weeks. And realized maybe I can be a little bit critical of those who are sometimes too busy to get on blogger.

So, whoops.

A brief recap of what has gone on in my life:

1) I visited Southern B and our third amigo, whose name begins with an A and therefore does not fit into our Southern/Northern nickname constituency, in New Mexico.

Exhibit A:


Exhibit B:


Exhibit C:


2) I all but abandoned running due to said vacation above and a mysterious illness that robbed me of my voice and will to live. My training schedule says I should be doing about 4 miles by now, and I'm at about 2.5.

This road race should be interesting.

(Also, the boyfriend is averaging EIGHT miles on his run. EIGHT. I'm not bitter though.)

3) I planned a trip to Africa!

That's actually not entirely accurate. My parents planned a trip to Africa, and I begged to be allowed to tag on. They complied because they love me and didn't want to hear me complain for the next three months.

Come August, I'm Kenya bound. Imagine the blog posts, people. They're going to be epic.

If I remember to post, that is.

Medieval War Puggle.

Ask and ye shall receive.

So after the last "Pugs of War" post, I sent my little sister the picture. She saw it and texted me: "You are so weird. That is an awesome picture."

My mom saw it and said "What is wrong with you?"

I showed Boyfriend, and he said I should have made one with Medieval armor and weapons. I tried to put something on his back like a giant shield or something, but it didn't look right. If anyone has any suggestions for future Puggles of War let me know.

May I present Henry, Medieval War Puggle.