It's a concert, people!

On Friday afternoon, two gals and I ditched work early and headed up the MGM Grand Casino at Foxwoods for the Donna Summer concert.

If I were on twitter (which I'm not, because I don't GET it), the 140 characters I would use to sum up Friday night were:

Traffic, booze, private limo, donna, grandpa, dancing, booze, yummy food, martinis, hiccups, gambling, dancing, shady videotaping, bed

A few highlights:

TRAFFIC
Every element of the equation was working against us: Friday afternoon, Interstate 95 South through 3 counties littered with accidents, plus rain from Hurricane Bill. Total trip time: 3 hours.

BOOZE
we went total Old School here, pounding a beer while getting dolled up at lightning speed, then taking a second beer in a "to-go" cup to the casino.

PRIVATE LIMO
We were staying at a hotel a few minutes away from the casino, and they offered limo service – a very nice perk. The Hummer limo was full, so we got the "over flow" limo, which was a stretchie right out of your high school prom, equipped with changing neon lights. We had this baby all to ourselves (and our beer in styrofoam cups). We entertained ourselves by taking glamour shots of us lounging across the leather seats.

DONNA
Oh, Donna! She sounded amazing and sang all of our favorites, ending with a medley of everything from "Hot Stuff" to "Bad Girls" and, of course, ending with "Last Dance". It was like the Oscars: she did 4 outfit changes during her short 75 minute show.

GRANDPA
The last thing I expected was to get in a scuffle with a 75 year old geezer. Our seats were in row JJ (not awful, straight shot of the stage) and we had the last 3 seats. Behind us were 2 women with their father, who looked less than thrilled with our arrival. Between our beers and pre-show drinks, we were ready to do some dancing. We were grooving while SITTING IN OUR SEATS, bopping up an down and singing along with Donna, when an usher tapped my friend on the shoulder.

USHER: Can you girls settle down? There are complaints that you're being too rowdy."

Gee, I wonder who could be complaining.

FRIEND: "It's a CONCERT!"

USHER: "I know, I know. But you're moving around too much. If you could just tone it down a bit..."

At this point my friend turns to the 3 stooges behind us. "It's a concert, people!"

GRANDPA: "You're not sitting still. It's very distracting. I'm trying to watch the show, not you."

FRIEND: "Hey, who don't we switch seats!?!"

They heartily agree, so in the middle of the show, the three of us get up and switch seats with the 3 people behind us. Annoying, but we ended up in Row "KK", which made it all better.

DANCING
Finally! We were able to cut a rug. Once we got up and started dancing, the guy behind us did the same. Also behind us was a girl and her boyfriend. I could totally tell she wanted to get up and groove, but he was not that into it.

KK: "Come on!" I say to her, "Get up and dance! You know you want to!"

She hesitates and I say to her boyfriend, "Come on! NOBODY knows you here!"

Upon hearing that, she grabbed his arm and they stood up and joined in the fun. I love when people listed to my drunken peer pressure.

MARTINIS

We went to the restaurant that has my favorite Hot & Dirty Martini and it was no longer on the menu! The nice bartender made me one anyway, probably just to shut me up.

HICCUPS

worst. hiccups. ever.

GAMBLING

When in Rome, right? Plus, there's nothing better than being in charge of your money when you're been drinking all night long and your inhibitions are down near non-existent. The roulette wheel was kind to me, and I walked away winning $100.

VIDEOTAPING

We refused to pay the $20 cover charge to go to Shrine (even though John Gosslin was just there on Tuesday, so obviously it's super cool), so instead we headed to the bar in the center of the casino, which conveniently had a DJ! There we were, cutting and rug and taking over the place. Once again we got in trouble, this time for taking pictures facing the casino (no photos in the casinos!) and for invading the DJs personal space. Whatever.

There was this guy there, I called him the Creepah, who wouldn't leave us along. We'd try to shake him and then he'd creep up on us out of nowhere. The freaky part was he kept videotaping us on his phone. At one point, I was so pissed (and drunk!) that I grabbed his phone out of his hand.

KK: "Stop f*cking taping us!"

The Creepah did not like this. I made the Creepah mad. He took his phone back and we made ourselves scarce.

BED

Finally, at 2am (after another private limo ride home!), we collapsed into bed.

What a fun night!

Now I'm going to search Youtube for "drunk girls dancing at MGM Grand wearing 70's garb".

It's Award Season!

On this blog, anyway!

I have received not one, not two, but THREE awesome awards from my bloggy friends, and I couldn't feel more honored.
(NOTE: My tardiness in posting said awards does not detract from my joy)

Let the awards show begin!

First, a big thank you to Jules over at Weekly Jules, for bestowing upon me the "Superior Scribbler Award"!


Here are the rules:

Here are the rules:

1. Each Superior Scribbler, must in turn, pass the Award on to 5 most-deserving bloggy buds.

2. Each Superior Scribbler must link to the author and name of the blog from whom he/she has received the Award.

3. Each Superior Scribbler must display the Award on his/her blog and link to this post which explains the Award.

4. Each blogger who wins the Award must visit this post and add his or her name to the Mr. Linky List at the Scholastic-Scribe's blog. That way, we'll be able to keep up-to-date on everyone who wins this prestigious Award!

5. Each Superior Scribbler must post these rules on his/her blog.

And the recipients are:

Stereos and Souffles
Jess Riley
Fermented Fur
Biology Gal
Miss Rosa

Next, thank you to Little Ms. Blogger for the "Love Ya!" award!


The rules:

"This award is bestowed on to blogs that are exceedingly charming. These kind bloggers aim to find and be friends. They are not interested in self-aggrandizement. Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated. Please give more attention to these writers. Deliver this award to bloggers who must choose more bloggers and include this cleverly-written text into the body of their award."

And this award goes to...

Funny Gals
The Sorority
Swishy

And last, but definitely not least, edder has given me the "Give Good Blog" award!

The rules are to make a cocktail and send this award to four of your favorite bloggers, telling us/them why they give good blog. Considering it's not even 11am and I'm at work, I'll have to save my drink for later, as drinking before noon is highly frowned upon at the office.




Who is Mich? because she's got moxie and a funny blog to boot!
On the Rhodes of Life because she's a dog-lover too and has a fun doggie giveaway going on right now!

Phew!

Congrats to the award winners – go blog and be fabulous!

couldn't let this one go

Conversation on the phone with Mom on Sunday night:

MOM: "I took your grandmother to the movies today. We saw 'The Time Traveler's Wife'."

KK: "Ooh! How was it?"

MOM: "Awful!"

KK: "Really? I heard such great things about it."

MOM: "Well, it was okaaay. But I didn't like that the husband kept leaving her and traveling through time."

*****

I am off to a meeting, just wanted to leave you with that lovely gem.

Two wonderful awards have been bestowed uponth me, and i will be posting those later on tonight – but a big THANK YOU to both edder and Little Ms. Blogger!

The Special K Challenge: discuss amongst yourselves

Have any of you ever done the Special K Challenge? Kelloggs promises that if you follow this cereal diet you will lose up to 6 pounds or 1 inch in 2 weeks.

I have done the Challenge. I did it before I went to Philly, because I figured I'd be eating like crap and I wanted to be pro-active and try and combat some of the weight gain. I had never had Special K cereal before that, and I ended up really liking the cereal. So much so, that I still eat it every day for breakfast (and I even measure it out...because I'm crazy like that).

The Challenge is also a good way for me to combat against late nights at work when we constantly order unhealthy takeout.

I was curious if any of you had done it, and if it worked.

Have a great (cereal-free) weekend!

i'm not sure if i should be flattered, or offended

Big news: we didn't win Powerball.

As if that wasn't depressing enough, i had this extremely disturbing conversation with my boss this morning:

My boss comes in, sits down, and asks for a piece of paper.

I pick up my Post-it pad and rip off the top piece of paper.

KK: "You don't want this piece, ha ha, it has the Powerball numbers on it. Obviously I didn't win, because I'm here today."

BOSS: "Come on, KK! Even if you did win, you'd still come to work every day."

Um...riiiiight.

an itchy palm means money, right???

Every week Mr. KK and I have the same conversation on Powerball drawing evenings:

MR. KK: "I'm feeling like a millionaire."

ME: "Do we have the chance to be millionaires?"

And then Mr. KK produces a Powerball ticket.

Corny, but tradition.

NOTE: we are yet to be millionaires.

However, I have requested one extra ticket for tonight's drawing, which is for $250 million big ones.

I mean, of course we won't win, for a variety of reasons:

1. We're not a middle-aged bowling team from Minnesota
2. Our "house" does not have wheels
3. We don't live in a town called "Winner, North Dakota", "Lucky, Texas" or "Shot In Hell, Tennessee"
4. We're not on our very last dollar
5. We're not a union of factory workers looking to escape carbon monoxide poisoning
6. We have all of our teeth
7. We don't use the underside of our mattress to stash our savings
8. We are not both married AND related to one another
9. We are not purchasing our tickets with the spare coins we found in the seat of our beat-up Ford pick-up
10. We don't own a shotgun

I love those post-drawing interviews with the winners, who assure the world that the money isn't going to change them, that they're going to wake up every day just like any other, get dressed and head off to their very same job.

I have two words for those people: What-ever!

If (when) I win, my life will change drastically:

I would quit my job
I would give away millions to family and friends
I would avoid the paparazzi
I would "work" as a writer, and finally have the time to write my novel
I would build my dream house, with my dream kitchen
I would buy a house in Boston
I would buy a house in Napa
I would travel for a whole year: Fiji, Italy, Machu Picchu, Mexico
I would pay for a cancer wing at Dana Farber in Boston

How about you guys? What would you do with $250 million dollars???

Dust off those DVRs!

Summer sucks for TV. I don't think Mr. KK and I have sat down to watch an actual episode of a weekly television show since May. Instead we've bee watching Food Network (because of me), the Red Sox (because of him) and Property Virgins and House Hunters (because there's nothing else on).

But all that is about to change.

This week is the start of not one, not two but THREE of my favorite shows! (I know, exciting stuff, right???)

In anticipation of the big week, I cleaned out the DVR. Which means I deleted an entire season of The Hills without watching a single episode, erased every episode of Samantha Who? except the season finale, which by watching I got the gist of the whole season, and skimmed through Giada at Home for interesting recipes (saw mostly Giada in tight shirts showing off her tiny waist and impressive rack).

The fun starts Tuesday with Flipping Out (Tuesdays at 10pm on Bravo). My favorite OCD house flipper returns for another season, with his lazy-broken-english-speaking maid, Zoila; his holy-cow-she-kinda-looks-like-me assistant, Jenni; plus a group of assistants (including his ex, house-flipping partner in crime, Ryan) that round out the show. From his confrontations with Zoila – who'd much rather rest than dust, to assistants screwing up his lunch orders – even I know how he likes his take-out Mexican, I can't wait for the antics to begin. I'm sure this season will be interesting for Jeff, who I believe has to turn to other means of work in an unfriendly economy, where people are just not spending $2 million on a house.

Wednesday brings the season premier of Top Chef (Wednesdays at 9pm on Bravo)...in LAS VEGAS! What could be better than watching contestants cook in the best eating city in the country??? Last year was my first season watching, but being the wannabe-chef and food-lover that I am, I was instantly hooked. Plus, as Mr. KK suffers through this season with me, I'm hoping the sights and sounds of Sin City wear him down to the point where he can't wait to book a trip back to The Strip!

And last, but not least, is the return my two favorite ladies: Heidi Klum and Tim Gunn! Project Runway is FINALLY back...but this time on Lifetime (Thursdays at 10pm). The season was taped forever ago, just waiting for a network to pick it up and give it a home. I am giddy with anticipation of hearing Tim hold his chin, shaking his head at a designer's creating and uttering, "I'm concerned", or seeing top American Designer Michael Kors give a little wave and say "Hey, Guys!" to the contestants. And of course, who doesn't love Heidi – all legs and hair and beauty – chirping away at the designers in her clipped German accent?

Oh, it's going to be a GOOD week.

If time permits – and I'm able to watch these shows in a timely manner! – I'll try to do a recap each week of one of them...

Oh the drama!

time sure flies

Four years ago today, Mr. KK and I said our vows on the hottest day of the century...in an unairconditioned chapel!

But that didn't stop the celebration!

Happy Anniversary, Mr. KK!

((writer's block))

the only thing worse than blog block is eulogy block!

between family time and work, i haven't had time to sit down and write my eulogy yet.

the funeral is friday morning.

time's a tickin'!

Just call me eulogy girl

My parents still think I'm 7 years old. They will shield me from bad news or wait to tell me things because they don't want to worry me. So this past weekend, they waited until we got home from Boston on Sunday night to tell us that my Aunt Mary wasn't doing well. By then, it was too late to visit her, so we had to wait until Monday night when I got home from work.

Monday

I get home to get ready to go and visit my Aunt Mary. According to my dad – and my entire family who was able to go and visit her when this happened because they knew about it and no one shielded them from the information – she wasn't doing well. In fact, he said it wouldn't be a good idea for ME to go. But it was up to me. Thanks, Dad, for letting me, I don't know, make a decision for myself.

Before we make it out the door, the phone rings. It's my Grandmother, Aunt Mary's sister.

GRAM: "KK, I was wondering if you would do a eulogy at Aunt Mary's funeral? You did such a good job at Mr. KK's grandmother's funeral."

Don't get me wrong, I am flattered, but my Aunt Mary is still alive.

When we arrived at the nursing home, one of the nurses was sitting by Aunt Mary's bedside. If you knew my Aunt Mary, you knew she was less than politically correct when it came to others' race and religion. Her mouth could put many to shame. But we ignored it because, hey! she was old.

My Aunt was never an easy patient, and the the African American nurse sitting there was the only that she liked. She had brought a little stuffed dog with her, and had tucked it under my aunt's arm. When we got there she got up to leave. "Mary's my girl," she told me.

And then she bent down and gave my Aunt Mary a kiss on the head. There was something about seeing this large woman's dark face next to my Aunt's pale cheek, that small gesture, that instantly brought tears to my eyes. My poor Aunt Mary. As spunky as she was, she still had fans.

Tuesday

Maybe it was my grandmother's sixth sense, but my Aunt Mary passed away last night, shortly after midnight.

I'm so happy that Mr. KK and I got to see her.

I'm not super religious, but I almost feel like she had seen everyone else and was just waiting until we got there – the last ones, of course – to finally give up.

I hope I'm able to write and speak at the funeral, but I don't want to disappoint my grandmother.

I have a lot from which to draw, as my Aunt Mary was quite a character. And even at the very end, when she really wasn't eating or feeling all that well, when I opened up her nightstand drawer last night, it was filled with packets of Sweet 'n Low.

We'll miss you, Aunt Mary.

August is my January

I'm never good with New Year's resolutions.

For example, we are 8 months into this year, and I'm yet to lose any weight, eat any better, drink any less or be any more organized.

So I was thinking maybe I'd be better off making "life changes" now, at the beginning of August. I wouldn't call them resolutions, because then I probably wouldn't do them. But with everything that has gone on in my life lately, it seemed like the perfect time to start making some changes.

So they are, in no particular order:

• start my novel. I've actually already done this (yes, Lori, I swear I have!). I have only 3 pages written, but it's something. and something is better than nothing.

• back my shit up. yes, you'd think I would have done this a year ago, but I didn't. I'm going to do it this month. Promise.

• make more time for me (and Mr. KK). that means spending more time at home, which means maybe saying "no" once or twice at work.

• be more organized. I say I will do it every year. but I'm going to be late with one of my best friend's birthday card, and that's a no-no. I try to NEVER be late with stuff like that. it's too important. but here I am, mailing it the day of. I'm so ashamed.

• revamp my ipod. well, i'm going to try. I will resurrect an old library that I have on my home computer (that has only like 300 songs, but it's better than nothing...). plus, my work buddies have promised to share all of their songs...so that should get me rockin' in no time.

• be a better blogger. I WILL do this. Whatever it takes: novel excerpts, rants about coworkers, grocery lists...

• keep up with my google reader. just because i don't comment, or am a "follower", that doesn't mean I'm not reading and keeping up. think of me as the small, silent type.

• maybe...MAYBE...maybe submit a video for The Next Food Network Star. No pressure and no promises.

Those are the big ones...I'll keep you posted and look forward to your encouragement along with way.

Happy New...August!