tell those turtledoves that I ain't ready

Oy.

Hard to believe that Christmas is a week away. I am yet to finish my shopping, have not even started wrapping, and need to spend tonight and tomorrow prepping for our annual family holiday cocktail party! (Because we just won't see each other enough over the next two weeks...)

I haven't eaten a meal in my house since lunch last Saturday, so I'm looking forward to spending some time at home. But not too much time, because I have to go out and finish the shopping!

A few funny things happened on the way to this weekend, and instead of making you read paragraph upon paragraph explaining every detail of my super-exciting life*, I thought a down-and-dirty "highlights only" kind of post was the way to go.

MONDAY

Had a great dinner out with a few friends from work and we did a mini grab bag. I put in this fabulous necklace that my coworker loved and proudly wore last night at our company holiday party (more on THAT later). In return I got some beautiful brightly-colored ornaments from Pier 1, which only reinforces that I need to break away from my anal-Martha-Stewartness of decorating the Christmas tree only in colors that match the living room (blue and silver. it only sounds like a Hanukkah tree. It looks super nice. really.)

TUESDAY

Client holiday party at a great Latino restaurant. Great food (I still couldn't eat) and yummy margaritas (I still couldn't drink). Throw in a sloppy drunk VP and you have yourself a par-tay!

WEDNESDAY

This evening, Mr. KK and I officially aged 40 years and gained 40 pounds. We were out buying a new grown-up camera (with a lens and everything!) and moseyed over to...wait for it...The Red Lobster. This is especially amusing because my grandparents like to go there for dinner...at 4pm. It was 8:30pm, so we pretty much had the place to ourselves.

The only way to watch your figure at that joint is to watch it grow, because there's NOTHING that's remotely healthy on that menu. After much debate, I ended up ordering: a half-order of (butter-covered) shrimp and lobster, with tomatoes and (buttery) asparagus in a white wine and butter sauce, served on a plate made of butter.

And – to put the icing on the cake – we paid with a coupon.

THURSDAY

Ah, the company holiday party.

Let's just say, I needed MANY drinks to get through the night. (In fact, you should go mix yourself a cocktail just to read about it)

A few notable nuggets:

• The party was at an aquarium down the road, and we had the run of the place, so it was pretty cool
• We were at an aquarium, so I felt the need to apologize to the tanks every time I ate a crab cake
• I didn't need that last beer
• And speaking of that last beer, why the hell did I choose beer? I started with cosmos, moved onto white wine...how did the word "beer" come out of my mouth at the end of the night?
• Someone brought their INFANT to the party. Now, Mr. KK, being the nice person that he is, says, "Maybe they couldn't find a baby sitter." Well, if they didn't have FOUR OTHER CHILDREN that needed watching, then I would have considered this fact. But those other kids had to be somewhere...why on earth would you bring a 6-month old to a party???
• When the party ended and I said, "Let's go with everyone to the bar!", Mr. KK should have responded, "Let's go home!"
• Did I mention the lack of food? And what food was there was bad? So that lead to the need to fill the belly with drinks. So the result was: empty belly, more drinkies.

So I'm operating at half-mast today. Which isn't good, because there's lots to do.

And those 12 drummers drumming are killing my headache.

*Okay, I lied. Even the short version is rather long. Hey, I'm a writer. I just can't.stop.writing.