2005-09-16 - 7:38 a.m.
Okay!
So we karaoke'd for my bachelorette party!
"I get lost (lost, lost!)
In your eyes (eyes, eyes!)
And I feeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeel
my spirits rise and soooooar like
the wiiiiiiiind. Is this looooove
that I am in?"
(See Sam, the girl on the right? Totally unimpressed with my mad skillz. K-dawgg, on the other hand, looks positively moon-y over my pop ballad prowess. Thanks, K-dawgg!)
Other hits of the night included:
Circle of Life (in 4 part harmony with sign language...because we are show choir geeks and we are unashamed.)
Bohemian Rhapsody (for, lo, what is a karaoke night w/out the bo rhap?)
Alone (K-dawgg wails on this one. I sang the high harmony in head voice.)
You Light Up My Life(another K-dawgg special, at my request since I love the way she sings it.)
My gems of the night included:
9 to 5
Be My Baby
Like a Virgin
If you were to click into my 101 list right now, you'd see that I was on a quest to find my perfect, most personal, awesome-ly go-to karaoke song. I am happy to say it is now one of those three, but I won't reveal which one. You'll have to go out singing with me to find out!
I will say this: K-dawgg and I found our perfect duet piece in Wilson Phillips "Hold On" -- replete with step-touch, step-touch and swaying hand motions. Oh, c'MON. You mock because you are JEALOUS or...whatever.
The funny thing is, we've been looking for a schmaltzy song to play straight-up for a really long time. While we were shopping at Bloomie's earlier in the day, "Hold On" piped it's way onto the second floor Lucky/Guess section of the store. K-dawgg and I gasped, looked at each other, had a total ESP moment, dropped our bags and started working out our choreography. The salespeople were highly amused and even gave us some applause. Thank you very much.
I don't know why we aren't on broadway yet.
Maybe it's because we are TOO fabulous. We'd distract from the crucial plot elements.
Yeah. That must be it.
"I know this pain.
Mmmmmmm - Why do you lock yourself up with these chains (these chains)?
No one can change your life except for you.
Don't ever let anyone step all over youuuuu!
Just open your heart and your miiiiiiind
MMMMMMM - is it really fair-air to feeel
this way insiiiiiide (Oh-ho-no-no!)"
I'll leave you with that -- I can't promise that I'll write next week, or the week after that or the week after that. I've got this whole wedding/honeymoon thing to do. I might be a little busy. But I promise PICTURES when I get back.
(No, not THOSE kinds of pictures. tsk...you're DIRTY.)
I'm talking about lovely pictures of the family, the dress (which now fits great, fyi - the final fitting was drama-free and yay! "I am a pretty girl, mama!"), the gorgeous cake that my friend Paula is making, the flower arrangments that my friend Audrey is designing, The Freddie, and the trip to Brazil.
Tune in in mid October for those goodies and more!
"Are you gonna let The Freddie smoosh the cake in your face?"
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2005-09-09 - 10:25 a.m.
The One in which Erin Kinda Loses It.
Okay...so when we left of heroine at last, she was not so much the picture of bridal loveliness, having been smooshed into an ill-fitting dress and told that she looked FINE.
More fun occurred when The Bride (me.) decided to once again point out the funny pucker of material at the front of her dress. This was noted at the first fitting and The Bride (once again, me...) was assured that steaming the front of the dress would fix the problem.
Erin: "This has been steamed, right?"
Lazy Seamstress: "yeah...I steamed it."
E: "Okay. No. This fabric is still puckering. It needs to be fixed."
LS: "No. That's just the way the dress is. Because of the gathers over here..."
E: "THIS random puckering is the result of THAT way over THERE? I'm sorry, but no. This is the result of bad sewing. It needs to be pulled apart and redraped. It destroys the line of the dress."
LS: "This is just the way the dress is."
E: "Not on the sample I tried on last March. I assure you, if I knew I would have a funny bit of fabric sticking out in my pelvic region a la PENIS -- I wouldn't have purchased the dress."
LS: "Weeeeelll...(folding the fabric in a quick fix way)...I can tack it like that."
E: "You COULD. Except you WON'T. Lady, I sew. I know this is just bad work right on the front of the dress and I need for it to be re-done. Folding the fabric over looks shoddy."
LS: "Oh, I don't know. I need to get my manager over here..."
So. Manager came over and Bride explained the graphic problem (pucker in the front of the dress makes Erin look like a Shemale. Sorry. Not on my watch.
Manager insisted on pulling the sample I initially tried on to PROVE that the pucker was a part of the dress. As IF any bride would want a big ol' gap in her nether regions.
Her plan was foiled when the sample showed no such puckering. (HA!)
Then she proceeded to inform me than "errors" are actually what makes each dress "Unique" and "One of a Kind".
The HELL?
E: "I understand that this is a lot like shoppiing for jeans. You take five pairs of Size 8's into the room and you get a totally different fit for each one - HOWEVER - this is a WEDDING dress. I paid A LOT of money for it. And I would like for it to be PERFECT when I pick it up on the 22nd. Not UNIQUE...PERFECT."
Manager: "Oh yes, well. we'll do everything we can to make sure you are fully satisfied."
So they are ripping out the front panel and I have a fitting for next Tuesday wherein they will actually drape the fabric properly and baste the front while I am in it, therefore assuring me of a proper fit.
But I had to go thru an awful lot of aggro just to get what I wanted. And I don't think any Bride wants to look like she has a penis, so why did I have
to fight so hard?
SO FAR - I have not been charged for the extra alterations. I will keep you updated on THAT, believe me.
Love and Kisses,
E
"Girl? That's NUTHIN! You should hear MY wedding trauma!"
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2005-09-07 - 5:34 p.m.
The dress was too big. Now it's too small.
Will the DRAMA never END, for pete's sake?
I have had two fittings for my wedding dress in the past week. With three weeks left to go, I was wondering why the salon initally booked so many fittings. Now I know why.
At the first fitting, my dress was too big. I expected that. I got pushed and poked into place and...
...voila! I figured I would be done with it. Steam it up and let me take it home!
Ah...but no. Yesterday I went in for the second fitting. I was a little over it because they were running way behind schedule...and I was running dangerously low in the blood sugar department by the time I got to try on my dress.
Now, I have a typical "hourglass" figure. If this was 1950? I'd be a supermodel. Anyway, the dress had to be taken in at the waist. Totally normal thing. I expected that. However, when I tried to put the dress on? I could barely get it over my butt and thighs. The seamstress saw the markings for nipping it in at the waist? aaaaaaand just decided to KEEP ON GOING SOUTH, ignoring the fact that I got a "trunk"...and it's got some "junk" in it.
Crazy Bride on the verge of tears (that would be ME): "Um...can you stop pulling at the dress, seamstress lady? Please? Nobody is going to be pulling at me while I am standing at the front of the church. And...this just looks BAD (swallowing a sob). It doesn't fit right."
Seamstress Lady: "This is fine, it just needs to be - urf - adjusted."
CBOTVOT: "Nope. It shouldn't be this hard to get me to look good...so it need to be FIXED, not PUFFED ABOUT."
Kdawgg the magnificent (my bridesmaid): "E? Would you like to get a glass of wine after this?"
CBOTVOT: "Uh...I would...except I'm afraid I'll have to go carb-free until the wedding, since this salon doesn't think I should have an ASS."
There's nothing that drives me crazier than something being obviously wrong and everybody's just standing around expecting it to fix itself.
Which leads to my next entry tomorrow:
THE GLARING FLAW in the front of my dress and how the salon staff tried to pass it off as "unique-ly one-of-a-kind"
Sweet Fancy Moses...
"I like BIG BUTTS and I cannot lie!"
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2005-09-01 - 8:21 a.m.
Whoa!
You can ride the Kingda Ka "virtual rollercoaster" by going HERE
"Shut up, Erin. it's totally not that scary!"
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2005-08-30 - 10:08 a.m.
A present? for ME? Awwww. you shouldn't have!
Okay. you should!
I love getting presents. And I got lots of them this past week because it was my birthday on August 29.
The best was that I got a trip to SIX FLAGS amusement park in New Jersey. And, oh yes, I was amused. It did live up to it's promise. Thank you, seven of my most darling friends, for shelling out $50 each to stand in the hot sun with me all day long just so I could scratch "Go to Six Flags" off my 101 list. You rock!
By the way: Ten hours at Six Flags =
1 ride on Batman (in which the birthday girl got stung by a wasp while waiting to return to the loading dock after the ride. She couldn't even swat at it, as she was all bolted into her seat...I mean, are you KIDDING ME? First ride of the day, too.)
2 rides on Nitro (actually, only 1 ride for the aforementioned birthday girl, as she was at the First Aid station while the rest of her party rode the ride the first time. We all felt, by the end of the day, that this was the best ride.)
1 ride on the Congo Rapids (in which birthday girl avoided getting drenched...YAY!...Rebecca got soaked and her cell phone died...BOO!)
1 ride on the Ferris wheel (okay. had we known the park was going to get SO crowded in the afternoon? we would have skipped the rapids and the ferris wheel.)
1 ride on the stupid Houdini Escape swing (which smeels like stinky feet. we would have skipped this one too.)
1 ride on Daredevil Dive for the boys (Basically, 150 foot free fall bungee situation. I have no comment other than "They are completely NUTS")
1 ride on Kingda Ka. (which is insanity. More on this later. I did not partake.)
1 ride on Superman (which is really poorly designed! See that picture of the people hanging from the rail? Okay. yeah. At the end of the ride, we just hung around for about ten minutes until the guys working the ride - p.s. their ages COMBINED probably didn't add up to the age I just became -- got around to lowering our car. Hey thanks, guys. Also? "not very Alexander Technique" as decided by Vanessa, our smarty friend who just got her MA in Theatre.)
So, over all we only hit nine rides for the entire day. Not great odds, but we still had a good time.
Man, that park gets CROWDED in the afternoon. Three hour wait just to ride THIS , which had to be closed down twice while my friends were in line.
It had to be closed down to have the rails inspected and the motor hosed down.
I'm sorry. When a ride needs to be "hosed down" and inspected on a regular basis thruout the day? It's probably not the smartest bet to hedge.
I'm just sayin'!
(I did, however, consume nearly an ENTIRE funnel cake all by myself. Because while I know my limits with scary roller coasters, I cannot be stopped when faced with piping hot fried dough items. Yummy!)
Happy Birthday, me!
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2005-08-24 - 2:57 p.m.
Sooooooooo BORED.
Oh mah GAH.So, hi. I am writing to you today from Banker Purgatory. It has been so so SO quiet at work. I sit here at my desk just watching the minutes tick by. I am totally drained. Dude? I am bored. And then, on top of that, bored by my own boredom...which makes me...bored squared?
It's only going to get even quieter next week when all the richy-rich banker dudes go off their last big summer whoop-dee-do out in the Hamptons.
The last two weeks of August are a friggin' graveyard around here, y'all. I had forgotton about that from all the temping I did here in years past. I mentioned it today to a coworker and she reminded me that it is always like this at this time of year and next week will be even slower.
Oh.
Mah.
GAH.
I am so bored. I have already read thru a People Magazine, Oprah Magazine, and a honkin' huge In Style. I am pleased to report that the romantic Victorian look is still "in" for fall. Also returning is the rounded toe 40's T-strap. Hurrah. Britney's arms look very, very fat in her baby shower pictures. I couldn't really get into the O magazine. I tried, but it is so boring today I can't even take on socially relevant articles about bettering myself. All I can handle right now is short blurbs about how to avoid getting creases in my eyeshow or 50 Hot New Hairstyles For Fall.
I've placed three personal calls.
I've eaten three pieces of candy.
I've written countless emails - and why hasn't anyone written me back yet? (Seriously, yo, chop chop. I'm DYIN' over here!)
I still have three more hours until I get to go homeand da-yum...It's only WEDNESDAY.
I am officially a stereotypical receptionist this week. All I need is a big wad of gum, a push up bra and an emery board.
I am turning into Mrs. Wiggins! Help!
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2005-08-19 - 3:22 p.m.
Hey, yeah! Did six things!
Per my 101 list, I have now completed six more things!
1) Find a general practioner - actually, thanks to a clogged up ear, I have a whole list of practioners I could go to. I haven't actually gone to the doctor yet, because my ear unclogged on its own. But if I ever need to go, I have lots of recommendations from friends. Fred wants us to hunker down and share a main doctor...but I don't like male doctors (generally) and when he asked me what exactly my problem with male doctors is, he sounded kind of tense and defensive. So I just dropped it. (To Fred: based on my experience, I feel my female doctors have taken more time to listen to me before scribbling out a diagnosis. That's what I have felt.)
2) Fix Freddie's coats - both of them needed buttons tightened and the peacoat had something funky going on with the insides of the pockets. I fixed em both because I love to sew.
3) Get brand new fluffy towels - and I threw out the old ratty ones. My linens shelf looks very tonal now. And that really works for a hyper type like me.
4) Get a couch for the living room - Actually, Freddie "funded" this, so I don't know if if should even be on my list...but a beautiful cocoa queen sofa bed is now in the living room and it looks fantastic.
5) Paint bedroom - hee. okay. Freddie did a lot of this one too. I facilitated, though! We now have a beautiful oasis in pale, pale (way paler than a Tiffany's box) tuquoise with white trim. It is very lovely.
6) Go to Shakespeare in the Park - YAY! We saw Two Gentlemen of Verona. It was GREAT. I want to put forth the effort every year from now on. It is such a wonderful experience!
What have you been doing this summer?
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