Things You Don't Expect to Hear in the Same Sentence...

Catherine Zeta-Jones, $5,000 and Pier One Imports

Advice

You could probably use to get your house in order, don't you think?

Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH

is one of my favorites from childhood (that and Watership Down)... I found a first edition today at the Franklin Park book sale. It's a library discard and doesn't have a jacket, but it's still cool.

Observations

Ever drive a 6-speed manual through the urban safari in a mini dress while wearing one four-inch heel and one flip flop? I'll just say it's not easy.

In other news, it is starting to really turn Fall-ish and we seem to quickly be approaching that time of year when you've gone from wearing summer clothes right past fall clothes and now you have to start wearing a coat. Damn.

Next item? Book sales galore. The Franklin Park book sale concludes tomorrow and next weekend is Princeton and South Brunswick. Do I splurge and pay a $10 admission fee to get into the Princeton sale's preview? I probably won't, but I'll think about it.

SnAKs Cafe at Saks on the fifth floor really has good little sandwiches. You should try it.

Brendan Fraser is coming to Broadway in November. Okay, so Broadway is kind of hitting the bottom of the barrel when Encino Man makes his debut, but I like Brendan and might be interested in seeing the show... Do I have any takers? There's also Driving Miss Daisy, A Life in the Theater, Time Stands Still, The Merchant of Venice and Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown. Yes, Pacino is in Merchant. Why haven't I bought my tickets already?

I finally watched The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, my impression? It's amazing how people in Swedish films look like regular people (i.e. wrinkles and bad skin don't seem to be barriers to entry into the Swedish film industry, unlike in Hollywood) that being said, I liked it. It certainly seemed like they had to cut out a lot/slim down the story... But given how dense the book was its not really a surprise. It is definitely a movie where you should read the book first so you know what's going on. If you have, I think you'd enjoy it. Now, here's to The Girl Who Played with Fire... Hoping it will be out on DVD or iTunes soon!

That's all I have to report.

I lied. Three more things. Saturday we're doing tea at the St. Regis. Miss Leda, we'll have a scone in your honor.

Thrift store score? Tweed Marc Jacobs pants: $7.00

And a question. As between Dolce, Cavalli, DVF and Nicole Miller, Who would you pick?

Gabba-Gate and Ticket Karma

Last week I saw a message from a friend on Facebook that she had three tickets to sell to the upcoming Yo Gabba Gabba Live! Show at Radio City Music Hall. Miss B. likes the show and has some Yo Gabba goodies, so I thought it might be a fun thing to go to, especially since the tickets came with access to the "After Party" (yes, who knew that a children's show would have an "after party"!?!) But I had checked out what the "VIP" party included and you got to mingle with the characters, have your photo taken with them and have snacks/entertainment, etc. so it sounded like a lot of fun.

I commit to buy the tickets. I mail out a check to my friend. My friend e-mails me her e-tickets. All is right in Gabbaland, until... I get a message from my friend saying that the tickets had been cancelled. You see, my friend's sister had bought these tickets as a birthday gift for my friend's daughter earlier in the year. Since purchasing the tickets, my friend's sister scheduled her wedding for the same day as the show. Instead of first trying to sell the tickets, they had approached American Express (who they had purchased the tickets through) to see if they would take them back. Apparently, Amex did agree to finally take them back, but only after they had already been sold to me.

So, Amex then offers to replace the tickets with the same "or better" seats. Okay. Then the Amex rep lets us know that the "VIP Party" is sold out. So, while they could get us tickets to the show, they couldn't get us tickets to the party. They called the party promoter, they called Radio City. No dice. So, I called not only the party promoter but the two companies who were actually putting on the entire production. I also canvased friends for contacts at Nickelodeon (thanks, Thisbe!) Days go by, and while I did get new tickets (in the first row), I heard no word on the status of the party.

Meanwhile, while this was going on, I had noticed that a piece of mail for my nextdoor neighbor had been mistakenly delivered to me. When I first noticed it, I had set it aside, meaning to drop it off at their house, but I had been busy with work and it had gotten shuffled back in with the rest of the mail. On Thursday night, at 2am I'm sorting through junk mail in an effort to clean up the manse before the arrival of my mom and dad and what do I come across? My neighbor's envelope. I noticed that it was from Rutgers and I figured it was just alumni stuff. The envelope was partly opened and out of curiosity I decided to look inside... what was in there? Tickets to the Rutgers/Army Football game on Oct. 16th. I immediately thought: "Oh, Shit! I have to get these tickets back NOW!"

It was ticket karma.

I vaguely remembered that the mis-delivered mail came around about the time I heard from my friend that our tickets had been cancelled.

So, despite it being 2am and raining outside, I got in the car and drove over to the neighbor's house and popped the envelope into their mailbox.

Then, at around 11:30am the next morning I received an email from Donna at Wild Brain Entertainment. She had secured us a place at the VIP Party! (Thank you, Donna!!!)

Of course, since my new tickets were procured through a broker, the entire time up until we were actually inside Radio City I was completely expecting them not to be valid. But, our tickets worked, our VIP passes were at the box office and we were sitting smack dab at center stage, front row.

Unfortunately, we hadn't anticipated that the 73rd Annual Pulaski Day Parade was happening today, so we didn't expect that the Husband would have to spend over an hour and a half just trying to park the car (all the while missing the entirety of the show and most of the after party), but Miss B. had fun, so that's all that matters, right?

Oh, but I also have to mention, that the night before the show I was up till like 4am making a "Muno" hat for Miss B. to wear. It was pretty cool because during the show, we got to have the Muno character give B a hug and then after the show, the person who was inside the Muno costume came up to us at the after party and said they recognized us from earlier and wanted to say how much they loved her hat! (Not to mention, that the official Yo Gabba photographer took B's photo with her hat on) ;)

AngelRox

Thisbe told me about this and it is just totally cool! Have to get me one of those!

Alpha and Omega.

Was so bad and inappropriate for Miss B. That we actually walked out and I got our money refunded.

While this was certainly not as bad as the time that the Dad and I walked out of Q & A, it was pretty bad. The husband summed it up when he said it was a movie about horny wolves... And let's not forget the graphic descriptions of animal violence... I mean I know they're predators and everything but come on.

Ever

give someone the benefit of the doubt for fifteen or so years and then realize you've been wrong?

In other news, I have one random co-worker who continues to surprise me with hidden coolness.

And I also have some really wonderful friends who know how to put things into perspective and make me laugh.

To Buble or not to Buble...

I got a Ticketmaster email about a pre-sale notification for Michael Buble's next concert... it's at MSG in November. Now a few years back he played MSG on my birthday (let's not even get started with how Barbra Streisand had her "farewell" concert on my birthday too...) and that would have been a cool show to go to... but am I motivated enough to see Michael Buble on a random Sunday in November? That is the question.

One of those days...

My t-shirt is on backwards and my total day's sustenance so far has been tater tots.

On the upside, I did get Jenn-Air to confirm that they will pay parts and labor to repair my trash compactor.

Someone Save My Life Tonight....

(okay, so the title of this post is solely a nod to the fact that my iPod has shuffled its way to vintage Elton John... btw, love that random Elton video with Robert Downey, Jr. but I digress....)

So a friend from high school is 3 1/2 weeks away from her due date. She looks great and she's been posting some baby stuff on her blog recently.

One of her last posts was about how she's been doing research on using cloth diapers.

Yes. Cloth Diapers.

Hey, you know, more power to you for all of you green-planet, hybrid driving, hippie gypsy folks out there, but what I found most funny about my friend's post was that she made a statement to the effect that she thinks she's got enough of a starter stash of cloth diapers so that she can accomodate doing laundry every 2-3 days and is allowing for 10-12 diaper changes per day.

I had to laugh at the idea of anyone with a baby, let alone anyone with a baby using cloth diapers only doing laundry every 2-3 days. I don't know about you, but with my fam I'm usually doing 2-3 loads of laundry PER DAY, and hell we've only got three people!

All I can say to my soon-to-be cloth diaper using friend? Godspeed and peace be with you. (Oh and ps. invest in that covered bucket with bleach solution from now).

(Oh, one more thing-- one reason why I'm stuck doing so much laundry is because my goofy Whirpool Duets take at least 90 minutes per dryer cycle to dry anything. Hence, I'm doing multiple smaller loads, but at the end of the day I still have a phenomenal amount of stuff to wash. Little people will do that to you.)

Quilt-tastic...

Check out these quilts that I've made recently...

This one was made with Kaffe Fassett fabric...

This quilt has been made for a friend's new baby with various fabrics including some from the "In the Beginning" line of fabrics.

It's 1:55am

and I'm watching a Duran Duran concert from 2004. Why? I saw these guys live in 1993 and we were all much younger and spryer then.

(And even then, they were past their prime, but still entertaining).

The Latest Fashion Trends?

There's such a fine line between stupid and clever.

Steel Magnolias...

If you can't think of anything nice to say, come sit by me.

How to Really Take the Wind Out of the Sails of an Apology...

Received this evening from a former colleague who, together with another former colleague, decided to go Medieval on me over the phone this evening in connection with a transaction I'm working on:

"I want to apologize again for your misperception that the volume control on my voice indicated yelling"

Spoken like a true lawyer.

By the way, I can't help but mention how at one point during the call the woman associate involved started screaming something to the effect of "DON'T EVEN GO THERE!" (Hello, are we going to start snapping our fingers next and saying "Oh No you Din't!?!" What is this an episode of the Real Housewives franchise?)

Yankees and Hooters

I've lately been doing some genealogical research with the help of Ancestry.com. So far, I've been impressed with their resources and excited about most of my findings. Certainly the upside to this search has been finding two Civil War veterans in my background (including one relative who fought at Gettysburg), the downside? Finding out that my cousin's 23 year old daughter is some sort of former Hooters girl bikini model who's life aspiration is to "live off her looks" and her self-description is "natural 34D and 'baby's got back". Let's not even discuss how her "thing she'd want to bring on a deserted isle" is Steve-O from MTV's Jackass.

It's times like this when I really value raising my daughter to be a sci-fi geek.

More from the "Things We Love" Category.

Dennis Quaid. Sure he's kind of aging into a bit of "WC Fields" but I'm watching
The Right Stuff. We love Dennis Quaid, the younger years. Texas Jack, back me up on this.

Other things we love? Ritz Crackers. Preferably with tuna.

Pulp Fiction.

The new Bluefly Commercial featuring Bethenny Frankel.

That Martin Short is the voice of The Cat in the Hat on the new series The Cat and the Hat Knows a Lot About That on PBS.

Just Cavalli.

Personality Goes a Long Way.

I love

Opera. That's all I have to say.

(Okay, one more thing: I'm listening to the Barber of Seville and its just fun.)