Oh, You Make Me Weak

((Guess where I am at 9pm on a Thursday night? Did you guess work? Because if you did, then you win a prize. If you guessed 'at home on the couch watching The Office', then you just made me shed a tear of longing. If you guessed 'jail' then you obviously don't know about my aversion to group showers.))

There's nothing like being at work late and having the halls be as lively and filled as if it were the middle of the afternoon.

Of course late nights working mean ordering dinner in, which leads to KK eating food she shouldn't be eating.

Which brings me to the topic of ordering food (it's always about the food with me. i can't help it).

COWORKER: "I ordered the same thing you did – antipasto salad."

KK: "It's really yummy. Wait, I thought you didn't eat meat?"

COWORKER: "I don't. I'll take off the prosciutto [which should be a crime in itself] and the olives. Someone had this salad last night and once I saw the artichokes on it I was sold."

I am so guilty of this.

Except it's not artichoke hearts.

It's avocado. Or guacamole. Or avocado crema. Or anything made with that delicious, creamy green fruit.

I'm a sucker for anything on a menu with avocado on it. I could not like 3 other things in the dish, but once I see the word "avocado" in the description, I can't even read about any other menu items.

It makes me order things I normally wouldn't.

It makes me, more often than not, disappointed with my meal.

It's a sickness.

I need my very own form of AA.

I tried to get Kate Winslet but she was busy...

...so I guess I'll have to do my own award acceptance speech:

THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU!

(I would be an award's show dream come true with my brevity)

First, a big thank you to Jen At Work for not one, but TWO fabu awards:









And a big welcome back and thank you to The Sorority for this cool accolade:




Thanks, Gals!
Love your blogs!

(btw, it took me TWENTY MINUTES to put this post together, because I suck at uploading photos. They all upload to the beginning of the post, then I can't move them, then I accidentally delete them, then I need to re-upload...)

Weekend recap: a hairy Saturday, early bird tales and impeccable hearing

A hairy Saturday...

There are certain events in a woman's life for which she shaves her legs.

Some of these events are:

• she's getting lucky
• upcoming skirt in the outfit rotation
• trip to the gynecologist

There are also certain times in a woman's life, when she does NOT shave. For instance, I don't shave my legs when I'm sick. Maybe subconsciously I think all that hair will help keep me warm, or ward off more germs. But for whatever the reason, when I've been sick, chances are I haven't picked up a razor.

Such was the case last week. I felt crappy and looked crappy.

This past Saturday, while Mr. KK was away for the day and night with his college friends in NYC, I thought I'd treat myself to a facial and manicure.

I was in my little strapless snap-on terry robe, under the soft, warm covers on the bed, while the esthetician worked scrubs and lotion onto my face. As the steamer opened up every pore known to man, I felt her make her way to the bottom of the bed. Then she started untucking the covers. Then, she reached for my legs.

What the?

I've only had one other facial in my life, but I distinctly remember it taking place on my general head area.

KK: "Oh, I left my socks on."
(read: please don't touch my hairy legs, please don't touch my hair legs)

ESTHETICIAN: "That's okay, I can take them off for you."

She takes off my socks and starts rubbing lotion up and down my legs.

Oh, that poor, poor girl.

KK: "Um, I've been sick...and I haven't shaved...I didn't know you'd be touching my legs."

ESTHETICIAN: "Don't even worry about it."

Right.

KK: "Well, at least it's been a really long time since I've shaved them, so they not stubbly. The hair's longer and it's soft."

Yeah, I'm sure THAT made her feel better. I felt like I should reiterate to her that I have showered, even though my legs resembled a gorillas.

Early bird tales...

I mentioned my grandparents were going for "dinner" at The Olive Garden on Friday.

My grandfather told us he didn't want to tip the waitress because he thought the service was slow.

NOTE: They were back in their respective apartments at 5:15pm. The meal (including travel tiime) lasted exactly one hour. How slow could she have been???

And impeccable hearing...

Sunday we were at my parents' house for family dinner.

I still wasn't feeling well, with little energy and a constant wish to just be able to nap.

However, I wasn't too sick to hear my mother saying THIS: "You know KK's sick because she's not in here trying to tell me how to cook."

What I should tell my mother, is that her "whisper" voice? Is still a little loud.

and thus, the early bird special was born

Happily and luckily, longevity runs in my family, as I still have 3 living grandparents.

My grandparents and my grandmother live next door to each other in a retirement building. They go to bingo nights together, go grocery shopping together and share the newspapers. How frickin' cute is that?

My grandmothers – whom I just love to pieces – are these two little Italian ladies, who have shrunk down to about 4'9". Their hobbies include crocheting, reading and cooking. My grandfather's hobby is complaining.

Yesterday was my grandfather's 89th birthday, and today is my grandparents 60something anniversary.

To celebrate, my grandfather suggested that the three of them go out for dinner tonight to The Olive Garden, their favorite restaurant (they don't get out much).

Now, you have to understand a few things:
1. this is the first time in the 3 years that my grandparents have lived back here from California that my grandfather has suggested they go out to eat.
2. my grandfather wants to go out and celebrate HIS birthday, and use the gift card that I gave to my GRANDMOTHER for Christmas. Plus, he has a coupon.
3. my grandfather is cheap (see #2 above). I think I need to hide in the bushes so that when he leave his paltry tip for the waitress (whom he doesn't think EVER deserves a tip) I can swoop in and drop some cash on the table for her.

The best part of this whole birthday celebration, and what caused fits of laughter in my house last night, is that Grandmother 1 told Grandmother 2 to be ready to go at 4pm when they got back from the hairdresser!

4pm? That's like a late lunch!

Old people are just too cute.

To Quote Green Day: Good Riddance.

Tatiana was FINALLY booted from American Idol.

Now I can stop watching the show on mute.

(Well, most of the time, anyway)

It sucks to be married to me.

Being my better half is not always a walk in the park (shocking, I know).

You have to deal with my OCD when it comes to alarming the car, checking the alarm clock a gazillions times, and getting out of bed to re-check if you locked the front door (btw, I only freak out about this because I have woken up in the morning and come downstairs to the front door being wide open. Or returned home from work with the back door being wide open. Or come back from errands with the side door being wide open. Seriously, I have a reason for my paranoia!)

And I won't even go into how I throw really big things away into very small trash pails.

Or how I can't be in the kitchen if you're trying to cook. Because I will lower the stove, stir the pot and turn the meat.

I just can't help myself.

But if you can live with all of that, you'll have to accept the fact that I make it very difficult for you to get me gifts or plan anything fun.

And with my birthday in just a few short months, it's more frustrating than ever.

Case in point:

To: Mr. KK
From: KK

Hey!
I just saw that Joel McHale is coming to Connecticut for a show! We should get tix!

[SIDE NOTE: The Soup is one of my all-time favorite shows. Seriously.]

To: KK
From: Mr. KK

You are unbelievable.

Total surprise spoiler.

I had a feeling that you were going to remember…I thought I might be in the clear because we wouldn’t be watching The Soup tonight, and thought that maybe if you didn’t see him on TV then you wouldn’t remember. And then if you didn’t remember, my plan that I told you about would go into effect tomorrow. I’d get the tickets on the sly, and hoped that they’d sell out. That way, when we watched The Soup later on during the weekend and you did see him (at which point I knew you’d remember!!!), the tickets would be sold out and I would be in the clear….

But, alas, my wife’s memory foiled my plan…I’d say better luck next time to me, but I have a feeling that I don’t stand a chance against the steel trap known as kk’s mind!!

See? I'm awful.

BUT, we got the tix and it will be a joint birthday gift.

I may make it impossible to buy gifts, but I'm awesome at compromising!

whew!

blog is back.

not sure what happened, but factor in my technological idiocy and that may help determine the problem.

my blog is blank

so this is sort of a test.

it seems like i own a blank blog.

with no posts.

help?

anyone?

Recession For Dummies

The sad state of the economy is a hot topic right now. You can't turn on the TV or surf the web without hearing the words "recession" or "stimulus package" or "Jessica's mom jeans" (maybe that last one doesn't have to do with the economy. or maybe in some weird way the stars are helping the economy by trading in their Chip And Pepper jeans for Lee jeans.)

Anyway, I think everyone in one way or another is doing their part to cut back a little bit, and be a little bit smarter about how they spend their money.

I know that Mr. KK and I are definitely trying to spend less. We've replaced our luxurious (but deliciously wonderful) weekend dinners out with home-cooked meals and Yahtzee. At the grocery store we've been swapping out expensive cuts of steak for ground beef for tacos. And we've even stopped drinking during the week, a move that is both to feel a little healthier and save us some trips to the liquor store. (Of course now when we go to buy alcohol the guy behind the counter yells across the store, "Hey! You guys haven't been in here lately? Where have you been? You're usually in a few times a week???"

This past Saturday night instead of going out for Valentine's Day we thought we'd spend the holiday having dinner at a friends house. My friend was nice enough to offer to make dinner and I said I'd bring the dessert.

My thoughts: what a great way to NOT spend $150 on dinner! We're totally going to have a cheap, relaxing night!

Or not.

The breakdown:

$7.00 – ingredients to make molten lava cakes for dessert.
$20.00 – bottle of wine to bring because we just can't go empty-handed. plus, they brought wine to our house last time we hosted even though we, too, had said, "Just bring yourselves!"
$5.00 – pint of ice cream to go with lava cakes.
$15.00 – amount it will cost to replace my hand mixer after Mr. KK, who was doing a good deed helping make dessert – accidentally poured melted chocolate into the motor of the old mixer.
$5.00 – cost of second pint of ice cream (purchased 5 minutes from our friends' house) because I was an idiot and didn't factor in the fact that we would have to travel for 30 minutes with ice cream (melting) in the car.
$10.00 – bouquet of tulips for our hostess, whose birthday was just 2 days away.
$25.00 – of course the gas light was on.

Grand total of "cheap night in": $87.00

Next time? We're going out.

I'm not loving THIS about Valentine's Day

Hey, it's Valentine's Day!

Happy VD (hey, that's kinda funny. I wonder how many people get VD on VD...okay that's just gross.) to all of you who like the idea of Valentines Day. And to those of you haters when it comes to all things cupid: it's just a day like any other on the calendar. Yes, it's nice to get cards and flowers and all that crap, but it's just as nice to get all those thing on May 2. Or July 12. Or November 29.

So while most people are 100% loving everything there is to love about a day of love, I thought I'd share something I am NOT loving about today:

The geeky photo dude at CVS knowing my name.

A week ago I dropped off a recently-found disposable camera we had found when cleaning out a bookcase. For shits and giggles I brought the camera to be developed, just to see what could possible be on it. Then I forgot about it (again). The nice automated CVS photo voice left me a message that my pictures were ready. On my errand run today I stopped into CVS to get cards, more makeup that I don't need and the pictures. Unsurprisingly, my arms full of goodies, I was going to totally forget to pick up the pictures. Nerdy photo lab guy (decked out in a lab coat. I mean, really? a lab coat? with your name on it?) calls out, "Are you all set?"

Seeing him immediately reminds me of the photos, and I say, laughing at myself, "OH! Yes! And I totally need to pick up pictures. Thanks for reminding me."

And he says, "KK, right?"

I totally act cool and say, "That's me" instead of freaking out that this kid knew who I was. This guy could be some crazed serial killer who targets women through their photos and learns all about their lives.

CREEPY.

Did he know my name because he has a fondness for Yours Truly?

Did he remember me because no one in this day and age of digital everything drops off a disposable camera that has FILM in it?

I'm thinking the latter.

So after all this you're probably NOT concerned about the psycho photo lab killer and you're curious as to what was on the mystery camera.

Sadly, there were pictures of Francis, our cute little 10 pound dachshund whom we had to give away a few years ago when he started picking fights and torturing Vito for no reason at all. We couldn't stand watching Vito live in fear every day of his life that Francis was going to kill him.

Francis was a cutie, though. And he LOVED me. Loved me so much that it bordered on inappropriate.

I didn't show Vito the pictures, because I didn't want him to have nightmares. As it is, he practically poops himself whenever we mention Francis's name.

(As creepy as photo guy knowing my name was, don't think for a second that I am not wondering how I can get free photo prints out of this.)

On the phone with Mom.

MOM: "I think we're going to watch a movie tonight."
KK: "That sounds like a good plan. What movie?"
MOM: "I just read that the Richard Gere movie is coming out of DVD – The Notebook."
KK: "What? You mean Nights In Rodanthe?"
MOM: "No. I mean The Notebook."
KK: "Mom, The Notebook came out years ago. We saw it on the plane on the way home from our honeymoon. Ryan Reynolds? Rachel McAdams? I know you saw it."
MOM: "I'm pretty sure the paper said The Notebook."
KK: "MOM, The Notebook doesn't even have Richard Gere in it!"
MOM: "I could have sworn..."
KK: "I think you mean Nights In Rodanthe. Richard Gere. Diane Lane. Hooking up in that gorgeous house on the water. Got bad reviews..."
MOM (ruffling papers): "Here it is." ((silence)). "Oh. It IS Nights In Rodanthe. It's by the author of The Notebook. Oh well, whatever. Probably won't even be in stock."

Irony

I wanted to write a post saying how much I had going on and how busy I was and how I couldn't post, but I didn't have the time.

(be back soon!)

The worst word in the English language

Surprisingly, it doesn't begin with an "f", and it's not slang for a female body part.

Curious?

It's the word "actually".

The definition for this word should be "backhanded compliment". Because that's all it really is.

Let me explain further with some real-life examples:

KK: "What do you think?"
COWORKER: "It's actually a good idea."
Translation: "Wow, I like that idea. And I am shocked that you came up with it. Usually your ideas are crap."

KK: "This is the dress I bought."
MOM: "That actually looks good on you."
Translation: "Normally that color would totally wash you out and the empire waist would make your hips look big, but for some reason it's working."

Actually, I thought this post would be better.