How I honored the memory of our fallen soldiers

Friday
For lunch, John, Keith and I went down to the Cleveland Rib Cook Off for two hours because I am just that dedicated to my job. We ate yummy food and then Keith and I got our asses handed to us playing John at cornhole. John and I then played some game and won free t-shirts and lip balm. After taking such a long lunch, I went back to the office to put my nose to the grindstone and crank out some quality work. But I ended up just leaving and going to Diane's house. Seriously why do they pay me.

When I got there, Tony and Meg were already there and Meg was making vodka slushes. This is why I hang out with these people. Slowly more and more people started showing up-an excellent display of our group's work ethic. Then we had an impromptu cook out and got wasted and played with Gordo's Wii. Ahem, Gordo's Wii video gaming system-not Gordo's wee. Pervs.

Anyway, I was a Wii virgin (a virgin to Gordo's Wii gaming system-not a virgin to Gordo's wee. Hey-oh!!!) and was sure I would only be mildly impressed. Let me just say, it is a good thing I don't have one of these at home. I would literally never leave my house it is so awesome.

Gordo accidentally broke one of his remotes while we were playing, and he turned the Wii off and then on again. Then this started:

Tony: "You guys, he just had to wiiset it."
Aloyd: "Gordo, I think maybe you're just wiitarded."

And so on. The bad puns have not stopped, and hopefully they will never stop.

Saturday
Diane, Meg and I drank on the rooftop deck of Meg's apartment building downtown. It was glorious. Shannon and Gerbs joined us and we made Gerbs drink wine coolers, and it was fantastic. Especially when we gave him a Pomegranate one, and he was like, "I prefer the strawberry."

After that we went downstairs to a bar to drink with Brian and Anita. All of us except Meg were going over to the Kenny Chesney concert which was like 10 hours long. Seriously-the first act was at 2:30. Shannon hadn't really drank in a year and half after having a baby, and she was ready to do it up. She was drinking long islands, and then goes, "Hey before we leave, do you guys want to do a shot?" Here are the shots we did:

Me, Meg, Diane and Anita: Sex on the Beach
Gerbs and Brian: Washington Apple
Shannon: Goldschlager

Yeah that's right. The mom did a real shot. Her husband and the rest of us did pussy shots. As if to underscore that fact, the bartender put our shots in plastic cups and Shannon's in a real glass shotglass.

The concert itself was amazing. Sammy Hagar was there and he was wearing man capris, and he sang "Why Can't This Be Love" and I peed. By the way, Sammy Hagar wins over David Lee Roth every single time, without hesitation, without a doubt so don't even try to pretend DLR was better unless you love being wrong. Team Van Hagar!

The highlight of the concert for me was Keith Urban. I love that man. I have said it a million times, and I will keep saying it: he is a hitmaker. An honest to goodness hitmaker. Every song is good. Every song is a hit. He sounded amazing live. Also he was HOT. Not once have I ever seen a picture or video of Keith Urban and thought he was cute so I don't know what happened, but at this concert the man was freaking gorgeous. I really never wanted him to leave the stage.

After that was Kenny Chesney who is also great and sounded really good live. I had no idea he was as popular as he is. When he came out, the place went absolutely batshit insane. It was like the SuperBowl. I'm not exaggerating. He's a one-man industry.

Besides the music, my favorite part of the night was people-watching. Pink cowboy hats and mullets and inappropriately dressed (and behaving) mothers. It was fantastic. Let me give you an idea of what we were dealing with. Diane went to the bathroom and came out and told me that there was fighting in the women's room because people were forming their own lines and cutting in front of each other. Tensions were high. Then one lady walked up to the sink to wash her hands. Then this:

Lady washing her hands apparently not seeing the soap 1 inch to the right of her hands: "Oh nice-they don't even have any fucking soap in here!?"

Worker lady in the bathroom: "It's right in front of you."

Yelling lady: "Oh nice customer service!!"

Worker lady: "Bitch, get out of my bathroom!"

AWESOME.

Sunday
Sunday I played with Kennedy, Steph's dog. Yes, that's his real name. Are you surprised? She drives homeless people to the polls. Politics is her life. Anyway, I was watching him while she was out of town so we hung out, and he helped me plant all my flowers. And by helped I mean he rolled around in mulch so when Steph came to pick him up I said, "Here you go! Oh sorry he's covered in dirt. Have fun with that."

Then that night we went to a bar where I drank martinis and our waiter simultaneously hit on all 7 of us girls at once. This is how it started. We were all sitting outside. The boys were inside playing bocce ball. Our waiter came up and said, "How are you ladies doing? Solving any world problems? Anything I can help with? I am single and available for dating." Then he walked away. Amazing.

Monday
Monday we went over to Tony's place for a cookout. By Tony's place I mean Drew and Diane's place, but when Tony's in town it's his place. Plus it was his idea, and he invited everyone over and when we walked in he said, "Thanks for coming to my first annual cookout." By the way, there are a lot of things I love about Tony being in town, not the least of which is that sometimes he gets naked, but this is how he comes into town:

"Oh hey, Drew, I'm coming to your house tomorrow to stay for a week or so."

Yeah. He just calls someone up-whoever he picks-and tells them he's on his way and will be staying at their house. Is that not totally fantastic?

The rest of the day was filled with way too much food and alcohol, cornhole, singing, laughing and Wii puns. It was almost a perfect day to be honest. Tony, I can't wait to go to next year's cookout.

Oh also I poured one out for all my homies lost during military service because I'm not a heartless wench who only uses that holiday as an excuse to drink and eat corn on the cob. Okay fine maybe I am, but so are you. Especially you (you know who you are).

Give it to me baby

So this wedding we went to a couple weeks ago was for our friends Mark and Mariella. It was lovely, and they both looked so happy, you'd have to have been dead inside not to feel excited. I didn't drink at all. During the ceremony I mean. Obviously I was doublefisting at the reception. There was a lot of dancing and drinking and wasted-off-her-ass Christy without shoes on telling me how tired she was but she literally couldn't stop her body from dancing. Maybe the greatest part of the reception besides the station they had set up where you could do shots of liquor in chocolate shot glasses (how cool are Mark and Mariella) was the bouquet toss. It's no secret that I absolutely loathe the bouquet toss. I have threatened my sister with disownment if she does it at her wedding. Luckily we share the same DNA so we have similar thoughts on this tradition. I can understand the appeal for the bride, but everyone needs to understand the lack of appeal for any single woman over the age of 25. It's horrible.

Anyway, during the bouquet toss Christy shoved us out onto the floor. Mariella threw the bouquet over the entire crowd, and we all just turned around and looked at it laying on the floor behind us. Suddenly from out of NOWHERE we saw a flash of color from our left and there was some chick sliding on the floor on both knees and in one fluid movement she scooped up the bouquet as she slid past. Then she jumped up in the ready position to fight anyone who tried to take it from her. No one even moved. I can't even explain to you how awesome this was. I have no idea where this girl even came from. But suddenly she was just there, and she was completely freaking out even though she took the bouquet completely uncontested. Diane, Meg, Sharda and I looked at each other just utterly speechless. We walked off the floor and were unable to speak for a good minute because we were laughing too hard. I was thisclose to peeing my pants. Drew was like, "Why are you guys not able to talk right now?" It was so effing great. I honestly have never wished so hard that you guys could've been there to see what I saw. There's always one at every wedding, you guys.

After the wedding we went back to our hotel, which did not have its own bar, so we went to the hotel bar next door. When we walked in, there were about 6 people just sitting around the bar. It almost looked closed, but it wasn't. We walked in and this one black guy was like, "Lord have mercy! Look at all these beautiful ladies! How'd you three gentlemen end up with all these beautiful ladies?" Awesome. So obviously we ordered drinks and started dancing. There was a headshot of some guy behind the bar. It turns out that was the guy who was yelling about the beautiful ladies. He was the entertainment there. I will call him JC. His act consisted of basically a giant karaoke machine, a flute and a guitar.

Aloyd did an awesome chair dance (which he doesn't remember), and I was dancing and JC came up and said, "I'm gonna sing for you guys." Then he pointed to me and goes, "I'm going to sing a song for you." Then he pressed play on his karaoke machine and sang "Give it To Me Baby" by Rick James. Drew, not surprisingly, knows every word of that song. After that one was over he walked into "the audience" (me and my friends on the dance floor) and said, "Now this one's for you." and pointed at me. Then he played "Superfreak". Superfreak!! That's the song he dedicated to me. Just like the traitors they are, my friends immediately left the dance floor, and I had to stand out there by myself and dance with JC to the longest version of Superfreak I have ever heard. He made me take off my cardigan, too. So I did, and I twirled it above my head and threw it on the floor. Because if I'm going to play a part, I'm going to commit to it dammit.

When the song ended he said, "Okay now everyone close their eyes for a minute." Everyone laughed, and I, again playing the part, said, "Only a minute??" And then he had a hernia laughing because I just have that effect on middle aged lounge singers. I then walked over to my drink and bent over a little to get it and he said, "Oh honey-don't bend over in front of me." Yeah. He's that guy. After that, wasted Aloyd requested that he sing some Chicago. Let me just say, this guy clearly doesn't usually sing Chicago. But he did for us, and then he was done. As he walked back to his seat, he started rubbing my sister's back and saying, "You have a nice back." And Diane's like, "Thanks. Yeah the dress is open back there." because she didn't know what to say. Then he goes, "It's nice." and kept rubbing it like a creepazoid. That's when Aloyd said, "Okay-it's time to go!" As we walked out, they locked the door behind us. We sure know how to make an impression.

Weddings are awesome.

Reason #752 why I'm a dork

My mom told me a story about myself this weekend of which I had absolutely no recollection. When I was in 6th grade my friends and I wanted to get our ears double pierced. My mom said no. So apparently what we did was organized a petition. It said, "We the undersigned moms think our daughters should be allowed to get double pierced ears" then we got the moms who said it was okay to sign it. Then for the girls whose moms said no, we took the petition to them basically explaining that now they had to let us get another set of piercings because look at the 5 or 6 other mothers that said it was okay. My mom said she called my friend Kelly's mother and said, "Did you see this? I'm still saying no, but this is hilarious."

Some comments:

1. My mom is mean.

2. See, Steph? At one time I believed in something so much I actually rallied for the cause and sponsored a petition to bring about change.

3. It's pretty clear why I erased this whole incident from my mind. See, when you reach levels of dorkiness that unbelievably high, your mind protects itself by repressing those memories.

4. I ended up getting my ears double pierced when I was 19, and my parents promptly told me I would never get a job. Awesome.

I wish I was always drinking wine

So last night 7 of us girls went to Flight School. It's not flight school in the traditional sense where we learn how to fly planes and have sex with Maverick to Berlin's "Take My Breath Away". It was a wine tasting at a local wine bar. They gave us 6 wines and paired them up with a 6 course meal. Of course it wasn't the size of an actual meal, but it was still a lot of food, and it. was. delicious. The lady who was presenting the wine to us and telling us all about them was explaining why the food was paired with each wine, and can I just say that I simply do not get it at all. I will never be someone who can pair food with wine. But it's a real science, and it was so interesting hearing about why the food was chosen with that particular wine. I think the hardest part for me was that they sat the wine in front of us for a full 15 minutes before we could drink it. Every 10 seconds or so I would reach out to drink and then remember it wasn't time. It was like being a 7 year old on Christmas and looking at all your presents and not being allowed to open them. In a word: excruciating.

I was thinking about how I would do if I tried to have my own Flight School where I paired wine and food. I think it would go something like this:

Course 1: Franzia Sunset Blush paired with honey roasted peanuts

Course 2: Target Wine Cube Pinot Grigio paired with Spaghetti-o's and Meatballs

Course 3: Boone's Farm Strawberry Hill paired with Cheez-Its

Course 4: Arbor Mist Blackberry Merlot paired with Cocoa Puffs

Course 5: That riesling that's been in my fridge since last summer paired with Salt and Vinegar Pringles

Course 6: John Christ Special Blend paired with me passing out on my face in the backyard

Who's in?

Are you kidding me

I was just presented with a pin at work for 10 years of service. So I'm gonna go jump off the roof. If you see me laying on the sidewalk just make sure I'm not laying in pigeon poop.

Ouch

I wanted to post about my weekend this morning, but I was too busy getting raped at the gas station. Seriously what is going on? I have never cared about the price of gas. You know those people who are like, "Gas went up two tenths of a cent today so I went 7 miles away because it's four tenths of a cent less.". Yeah I don't like those people. I never even paid any attention to it because I need gas no matter what so why get my panties all in a bunch (yeah I just said panties in a bunch). But now that I need to take out a home equity loan to pay for it, I'm paying attention. And I'll tell you what: my ass hurts.

Weekend post to come. It includes a wedding and a lounge singer. That's all I'm saying.

A multiple choice question for you

Last Wednesday I did which of the following things:

A. Went to the mall and bought 5 new dresses.
B. Went home and watched TV while eating Salt & Vinegar Pringles.
C. Got up out of bed and immediately fell over.
D. Went to get a drink with Diane, Matt, Steph and Meg before the Cavs game, decided to go to a bar with a bunch of people to watch the Cavs game, got sloppy drunk, went to Keith's house, proceeded to kick John and Keith's ass, along with my teammate Dan, at Shout About Movies and then talked about "The Hills"-with 2 men-until midnight.

If you guessed D, you are absolutely right and know me pretty well. I had every intention of getting one drink with Diane and going home. But dammit-John told me to go to Old Angle, and I just couldn't say no. Some things you should know:

1. Dan and I are awesome at Shout About Movies. Like sickenly awesome. Keith and John weren't even close to catching up to us the whole time. We will own anyone who challenges us.

2. I hate "The Hills". I hate it. But after the game Keith was like, "Oh I know what we should do now." and then put on "The Hills" and Dan yelled, "Oh my God is this the new one!?" and then they both morphed into 14 year old girls-or my sister and Steph. Also we watched Heidi's music video on YouTube and Spencer raps in it, and it was so bad, I felt violated after watching it.

3. I did A on Saturday. You know what people who are in debt should do? Buy 5 dresses in one day.

4. I did B...pretty much every day of my life.

5. I did C Thursday morning following D. Obviously.

Just no, Ryan Reynolds

We need to talk about the entertainment world, folks. First of all, go see "Forgetting Sarah Marshall". It was so funny and charming and gross in the best possible way. I couldn't love Jason Segel more if he was just a giant Sour Patch Kid. He's my favorite character on How I Met Your Mother, he's obviously a talented writer, he's cute, funny and self deprecating and he's writing the next Muppets movie. I'm pretty sure he should be my boyfriend.

Um...I don't want to even address the Ryan Reynolds-Scarlett Johansson engagement. What are you doing, Ryan? I'm just going to assume this will be a repeat of the Alanis engagement. How many girls will you propose to until you realize I am the one for you? I know that one paragraph ago, I had another boyfriend. But don't let that scare you off. I can handle both of you.

Now...we need to talk about Lost because I am finally caught up. *Spoilers ahead* So I'm just not sure where to start. First of all, Sawyer doesn't get off the island? What!? And it was his choice? What is going on! Plus how cute was he when he was all protective of Hurley and Claire. SO cute. When he saved Claire from the explosion and then she woke up he was like, "Are you okay, sweetheart?" and I was like, "I think I would pay good money just to have him call me 'sweetheart'."

The beginning of the last episode with Jack and Kate was AMAZING. I was so happy I was squealing with delight. First he was shirtless. Then he was all in hot dad mode. Then he was making out with Kate. It was fantastic. But, of course, just like every other episode of this show, no one is allowed to just be happy. By the end of the episode they had taken it all away from me. Sometimes I really hate you, writers! Oh but obviously Jack knew Aaron was related to him so when will he find out that he and Claire are brother and sister!? I want to see it!! Plus seriously what is the deal between Ben and Penny's dad? Is this just a game to them or something? And if Ben kills Penny and takes her away from Desmond, I will personally smack each of the writers right in the face. Damn you, Lost. Why are you so awesome.

Please don't be mad I posted this, JV

My favorite recipe ever. Sent to me by Johnnie Virgil Friday night (this is verbatim):

Recipep

4oz valilla vodka
3ozcocnuts rum
2 oz pineappl juce
1oz rose slime juice
Shakeit up and garnish slice of lime
Drink alotof the%m
Relly good and superrnaturl was good too

Drunk texting is maybe my favorite thing in the universe.

No...effing...way

I think my favorite part of The Office last night was when my DVR cut out after 7 minutes. I literally didn't know what to do when it stopped. It was during the scene when Dwight and Andy were in the parking lot and Dwight was trying to buy Andy's car I think. I was still laughing uncontrollably about this line that had just happened:

Michael to Toby: You're so white.

Then it just stopped, and I was frozen in uncertainty about my next step.

Is this really happening? How do I...? What do I...? Someone help me!

But alas there was no help. I saw 7 minutes of The Office. Luckily my sister and Drew are like me and save the episodes so I will be immediately going to their house to watch it. Diane and Drew, if you for some unknown reason deleted this episode, we are no longer family.

P.S. Billboard seen on my way into work today: "Toilet water vs. Ice cubes. Get the dirty details tonight at 6."