The Epitome of the Chick Flick

I rarely--VERY rarely--see movies on opening night, but tonight, I did. I just got home from seeing "Sex and the City" and it was totally wonderful. A few thoughts on seeing the ULTIMATE chick flick:

1. Sold out theater full of women = noisiest movie theater EVER. But, oh, so fun.

2. Must. Shop. More.

3. I love love. And this movie reiterated that, like, a lot. Made me yearn for my husband (who didn't decide he wanted to come until it was already sold out and who I found on the couch, asleep in his work clothes, when I got home at 9:50pm).

4. When you go to an action flick that's exciting, you can take a potty break with that giant-ass Pepsi hits your bladder half way through during a fight scene that you know will last a couple minutes, so you won't miss anything. When it's girly action where what people SAY and DO actually matters, you can not pee.

5. Unbuttoning your jeans and unzipping them halfway buys you, oh, a good 30 minutes in your quest to avoid missing any part of the movie to use the bathroom.

6. It's a little awkward if you don't get your pants done back up before the lights come up (do they usually turn them back on that FAST?).

7. Oh yeah, and us women? We ALL seem to hold it so we don't miss anything. I believe the line to the ladies room was a good 30 women long after it was over.

8. Go see it. It's good. Real good. :)

Hard Workin' Man.

Sometimes, Bryan gets REALLY dirty working at the power station. Like today.

I'm no Annie Duke.

So we spent a couple days in Atlantic City.

And we lost our money.

Do you know how freaking ANNOYING it is to play poker and either not get a freaking hand to play, or to get great cards and be winning all the way 'til the LAST CARD when some IDIOT has stayed in with a freaking 3-5 suited and catches his effing flush on the river?! UGH!!!

Yes, that's how the three days went for me, and I apologize to all you non-poker players, since you probably have no idea what the hell that means. The point is that Lady Luck was not standing behind me, or beside me, or sitting in my lap. Obviously she prefers the men, because they're the ones whose chip stacks kept growing and growing and growing... Bryan had better luck the first night, but after that we both just died a slow chip death.

The good news is that the Borgata is an awesome hotel to stay at, so we did at least enjoy the amenities a bit...

And besides, in just about three weeks, we'll be in Vegas, where we'll win it all back.

Reason #1247562 why I love my husband.

Last night, my husband actually did not complain about me watching American Idol. He let me sit there and watch the WHOLE thing without ONCE saying, "Can't we watch something else?!" I was entirely impressed and must admit I sort of sat there thinking, "Come on, Davids, hurry up and sing before Bryan thinks it's time to go to bed!" (Okay, that may make it sound like I have to jump as soon as Bryan says so, that's not the case. What is the case is we enjoy being together, and we have DVR to record our (my) shows, so if Bryan's in a tv-watching mood, I usually postpone viewing whatever I'd be watching otherwise because I'd rather find something we both enjoy and spend time together. Just wanted to clarify that. :) )

Anyway, American Idol was good, but I'm pretty sure Archie's going to win. He wanted it more if you just go by last night. David Cook will be bigger though. Mark. My. Words.

So, this post is NOT about American Idol. Let's get to the point, shall we?

About 10 minutes before Idol ended, Bryan called down to me from upstairs, "Do you want to come up here with me after that's done or should I come downstairs with you?" I debated... upstairs probably meant in the bed watching TV. I flipped through the guide on the tv, didn't see anything particularly exciting coming on at 9pm, then realized if he came downstairs I may be able to talk him into watching last week's episode of LOST (the one show we watch together all the time). "Come downstairs!" I told him.

So he waited until Idol was over, and came downstairs and headed straight to the DVD player. I asked what he was putting in, he said porn. Of course. He's a man. But don't worry, he was lying.

The DVD loaded and onto the screen came something I had never seen before. It was US! On our WEDDING DAY!!! On VIDEO!

Now, shortly after we got married (a year and eight months ago), Bryan made a photo slideshow onto DVD, but there were two friends who brought their video cameras to the ceremony and recorded it, but we had never figured out how to get the tiny camera tapes onto a DVD (we didn't pay a videographer, and never regretted it, for the record). (Now that I think about it, I think I was supposed to figure that out... oops.) The first Valentine's Day after we were married, Bryan borrowed the video camera of one of the guys who had recorded for us and brought it home so we could watch the tape for the first time, and that was the sweetest Valentine's Day gift ever. I have to say, I had sort of forgotten about those tapes even being here, so that DVD popping up was the most randomly romantic thing EVER.

What's even crazier is that I had not even an hour before this been reading Dear Abby and the letters were all about women who were writing because some other person had said her husband didn't buy her jewelry so he wasn't romantic. Yesterday's writers were giving examples of how their husbands were romantic and jewelry played no part in it. After I read those, my first thought was, "Oh, my husband is romantic! This makes me want to find our wedding vows and read them again with Bryan." And then, wouldn't you know, the man reads my mind and pulls out of thin air a DVD with us reading our wedding vows.

People, how did I get so lucky?

The greatest sports injury ever.

A few weeks ago, I began having horrible back pain... I talked about it a bit, I think. Well, on recommendation from my rheumatologist, I got an appointment with a physical therapist, and my first appointment was today.

So I have a sports injury. And yes, it is a BELLY DANCING INJURY.

What the hell. Only *I* could be injured by doing something as non-strenuous as BELLY DANCING.

Basically what appears to have happened is that when I moved up to the advanced class and my instructor started pointing out ways for me to sharpen my moves and do them more correctly, I overdid it a little bit. Muscles that I've never used were asked to not only work, but to do things they had never even CONSIDERED doing. And to retaliate, those muscles squinched themselves up in a little ball and have not un-squinched. So I basically have a tight ball of muscles on one side of my spine, which has also caused those joints to go all wonky. But the wonky joints can't get fixed until the tight ball of muscles gets undone.

And so... I get PT twice a week for several weeks, until it gets all straightened out. At the low low price of a $35 copay each visit. And I thought we were saving our "economic stimulus" check. Not anymore!

Well, we're going to Atlantic City on Wednesday for a couple nights, so I guess my new goal is to win enough money to pay for all my physical therapy.

Dominion Family Reunion

There are a few guys that Bryan works with that he has become close to, and for the past several years, we've gotten together with these guys and their wives/girlfriends/families every couple of months. Usually we sort of rotate houses, and sometimes we go out to a restaurant instead, but we haven't been the "hosts" since our wedding, which was September of 2006. Needless to say, it was our turn. So this past Saturday, we had everyone over to cook out and have a few beverages. We also invited a couple of our non-Dominion friends that we hadn't seen in a while... if you're having everyone over, might as well take full advantage of the socializing opportunity, right?

The weather was PERFECT for a party, and Bryan had even gotten off of work early the day before and cut our grass, so we actually got tons of compliments from our friends about how nice our yard was. HA! If only they knew that just over 24 hours before, it had been waist high! :) I love having people over... it gives me a great excuse to clean and cook. Ironically, the cleaning part I *hate* to do, but know it needs to be done. The cooking part I *love* to do, but it's sometimes ridiculous to cook things like buffalo chicken dip and a big batch of chocolate chip cookies for just Bryan and me.

So what I didn't stop to think about when I planned a nice afternoon get-together is that most of these guys had been working non-stop (like, 60-80 hour weeks) for the past several months, and they were ready to unwind, AKA drink. Luckily we had plenty of beer and margaritas to keep everyone's thirst quenched. And so by 9pm, we had a full blown party on our hands.

By 10pm or so, I convinced everyone to play Apples to Apples, a VERY fun board game. I love playing board games, but usually I can't talk people into playing them unless they're drunk. Apples to Apples is easy enough that it doesn't matter how many you've had, you can figure it out. I'd explain it to you, but, unless you're playing it, I'm sure you don't care. Just know that it can get pretty hilarious. Once we had a winner, well, then it was just crazy. By then the tequila had been opened, AND the Captain Morgan's, and then somehow a roll of paper towels became a dance partner, and... well, it was fun, that's the main point of all this. :)

NKOTB: Reunited and it feels so... weird.

Oh my god. I just watched New Kids On The Block's performance on the Today show this morning. God, this brings back some memories. I looked at the females in the audience and thought, "wow, look at those grown-ass women screaming like little girls." And then I realized, THEY'RE MY AGE! Holy hell.

It was my dad's birthday!

I got super behind on my blogging this week and didn't post the Mother's Day update 'til Tuesday, then Wednesday was crazy, then yesterday the Rita's incident, and somehow in there, I forgot to say HAPPY BIRTHDAY here to my dear ol' Dad!

Dad's birthday was Monday, and I stopped by for a little while to visit with him and Neener (my stepmom) after work. I had actually ordered his birthday present (and my Mom's Mother's Day present) online and was very careful to order them to be delievered in time for Mother's Day/Dad's birthday, but there was a big ol' snafu and I *still* don't have them. Arg!

Anyway, I just wanted to send birthday wishes to my Dad here, since I know he reads this nonsense. I love you, Daddy! Here's to, what is it, "39" more happy b-days! :)

One track mind.

Last night Bryan had softball at 6:30. Since my back is still all out of whack (especially after demonstrating the move I think caused it to a co-worker yesterday), I skipped belly dancing again, so I hopped off the bus, hauled it home to change clothes, and met Bryan at the movie theater so we could continue on to softball without being late.

The game was alright... they lost to some young dudes twice, but I got to chat with another wife that I like a lot. Afterwards, we decided that it was DEFINITELY a Rita's night, so we pointed our car in that direction.

If you aren't familiar with Rita's, I suggest you go to their website and find one near you and go there. They call it water ice, but I think that's kind of like italian ice. Really what it is is a thick slush of heaven. You can get just ice, or you can get a gelati, which is ice with custard. And you can get other concoctions, too, but those are the best. They come in all kinds of different flavors. Bryan introduced me to this glorious delicacy in Pennsylvania, as we never had Rita's where I'm from. But praise the lord, one opened up about a year and a half ago less than a mile from our house! We quickly became regular customers, eating Rita's like twice a week. Yes, it's that good. We've since slowed down our rate of consumption, because we both are getting to that age where when we eat something, it tends to put down roots somewhere in the region of our belly buttons.

All that said, it's been a few weeks since we had Rita's, and we were excited. So we got there and got our treats and headed home, shoveling colorful goodness in along the way.

We pull up to the stop sign across from our house and Bryan says, "Uh oh." To which I reply, in, like the dumbest tone of voice ever, "What?!" I look around trying to figure out what his problem is, and finally land on the driveway. I recognize something's off with the driveway, but it takes a few seconds for it to register...

We forgot about my car.

DUH!!!! We were so one-track-minded about Rita's that we both completely forgot we needed to pick up my car at the movie theater, a few miles back down the road. Of course, at that point all we wanted to do was go in the house and focus on finishing our Rita's, so we looked at each other and said, "Oh well!" And left it there. :) No worries, Bryan took me to the bus stop this morning (which happens to be the movie theater), and I'll just get my car when I get home!

Hooray for Moms!

Well, Moms, I apologize for not wishing you all a Happy Mother's Day on ACTUAL Mother's Day, but I was busy... with my mom! :) So, first and foremost, a belated Happy Mother's Day to all of you maternal types. You are all amazing and I hope you had a great day.

So, my Mother's Day was excellent. Except for one thing--I FORGOT MY CAMERA! Dumb. I had it in a pile with all the other things I needed to take with me, and somehow that was the only thing I didn't bring with me. And I'm pissed about that because me, my mom, my brother and my sister all looked HOT. Anyway.

My overworked husband had to work YET AGAIN Sunday morning, so I got up and headed up to the mountains by myself to meet up with my mom and siblings. Because we're scattered all over the place, we couldn't remember the last time all three of us were together on Mother's Day. I know, criminal. So we headed to Lexington (ooh, metropolis!) for lunch. None of us are too familiar with the town, and I hadn't done my research, so we drove through downtown, didn't see anything appealing, and ended up at Ruby Tuesday. Really, a pretty good spot for a Mom's Day lunch.

The thing about Ruby Tuesday, though, is that I used to work there. For two years in college, I was a hostess at the RT in Charlottesville. Believe it or not, I really liked that job, and I was damned good at it. I also luuuuuuved Ruby Tuesday food and soda--seriously the best fountain sodas anywhere... as a side note, we got free drinks while we worked, and I took advantage something serious... so seriously that I ended up with some DREADFUL kidney pain that I totally attributed to them being clogged up with Coke. But I digress... The thing about this Ruby Tuesday yesterday is that they had about five tables open in the bar area right behind the host stand, and about 40 people standing there waiting to be seated. BAD FORM. Obviously they didn't have a server in that section, but that's the sort of thing a good hostess fixes--put a server there so people don't get pissed they can't sit down when there are five open tables right in front of them. Bet you never knew there's an art to hostessing at a restaurant, did you? The other rant about Ruby Tuesday: the food was really good, but I was bummed that they've taken some of my old favorites off... they've exchanged fries and fried onion straws for mashed potatoes and broccoli. YAWN.

Anyway, once I reminded Vic & Zech that it was MOTHER'S DAY and perhaps they shouldn't BICKER like brothers and sisters apparently do all the time, we had a great lunch. We laughed and talked prom and school and all kinds of fun stuff. I sense that Zech kind of expects that next year he'll be Prom Prince, so let's all keep our fingers crossed for Mr. Blue Eyes.

After lunch, we came outside to torrential downpours. Ah, lovely. We had to go over to the Wal-Mart to pick up the photos Victoria had dropped off, and Vic & I dropped Mom & Zech off at the front door and parked the car. We had an umbrella thankfully, but Victoria still plastered herself to me like my Siamese Twin to try to shield herself from getting soaked. Unfortunately for both of us, there was no escaping the drowned rat look. Thank god we were going to Wal-Mart, where that look is the norm. (I kid! I kid!)

Anyway, we picked up the photos and did a little shopping, then it was time for everyone to head home. Or for me to drive everyone home, that is. First, though, a Mother's Day good deed (we held the umbrella over an older lady pushing another older lady in a wheelchair for them to get to their car) and then another drenching jaunt through the Wal-Mart parking lot with my little sister.

It was really a great afternoon, in spite of the monsoon. I love getting together with my mom and little sibs! Again, sorry I'm a moron and don't have any pictures!