Finally, someone addressed that whole “the Miss Bliss years were based in Indiana” issue

If you don’t watch Late Night with Jimmy Fallon (i.e. if you are like me and go to bed waaaaay too early to catch late night TV) then you probably missed this.

But if you are a Saved By The Bell fan (I’m looking at you Andy) then you don’t want to miss this.

Seriously.  Watch this right now.

I am so glad that someone finally addressed the fact that Zack, Screech, Lisa and their principal all moved from Indiana at the same time and ended up at the same school when they got to California.

But, I’ve got to be honest, I was bummed to hear that Zack and Kelly just couldn’t make it work.

Um, I may be a bad mother

I forgot to celebrate this blog’s birthday.

That’s right.  The strict shenaniganist turned 2 this Saturday.  And I’m such a bad mother that I forgot to post about it.

But not to worry, I did do a little non-Internet celebrating:

soooo pretty!

If you are counting correctly, that is 9 Cole Haan products.  5 purses, 3 wallets and a clutch.  All for less than the retail price of the little green clutch.

Ah, the benefits of employee pricing at sample sales.

So now the shenaniganist is all decked out in fabulous new leather goods.  There was no Cookie Monster cake to celebrate, but I can’t say that I’m feeling like I got the short end of the celebration straw on this one.

Happy 2nd birthday strict shenaniganist!!  And thanks so much to everyone who’s made it a pretty interesting 2 years!

False fire alarm da–wait a minute

I’m experiencing a serious rush of deja vu.  Just last summer I wrote about how the fire alarm in our building was going off incessantly.

Incessantly.

Ha.

I only thought last summer’s whoop whoops were incessant.  Enter this summer.  We bought another floor of our building and are in the process of renovating it to suit our purposes.  This has led to an increase in the number of cockroaches the building has seen and apparently to the weird air conditioning issues we’ve been having in the building.

And now, on top of the weird construction noises (it sounds like they are rolling cement logs around up there–don’t ask me what a cement log is, it just seems that if there WERE such a thing, the noise I’m hearing is the noise they would make), it seems that the ENTIRE building is undergoing fire alarm tests.  And has been for the past week.  What does this mean for me?  It means that I’ve been at work for about 2 hours now and the alarms have gone off about 9 times.  The whooping, which if you didn’t click the link I will remind you sounds like an air-raid siren.  And the strobe.  The freaking strobe.

Thank goodness I don’t suffer from epilepsy or take some really trippy drugs.  As it is, I spend hour after hour at my desk, under the harsh fluorescent lights, dealing with the effects of that.  And now I get to add an impossibly bright strobe that lasts for minutes at a time.  The strobe has gone off so many times this morning that I, and I’m being 100% honest and not exaggerating this for the sake of something interesting to say, can’t tell if the strobe is actually going off right now or not.  There just seems to always be this flash effect going on.  And it doesn’t help that my desk faces our photo room and they’re doing a shoot in there and it may very well be that that is the flash I think I’m seeing.

But building?  I’m gonna go ahead and say it.  The fire alarm works.  I don’t think you need to test it anymore.

Although this is a process that could drag on for many, many more days.  How do I know?  When I walked into the building this morning, the geniuses with the lap tops and the wires who are supposedly testing this thing out were saying “oh, well it’s much better now.  I remember how it was during the Great Depression.”  Which would have been fine if the guy who said that was upwards of 80.  But he was 26.  Max.

I think given the combination of a few too many wire shocks and that perpetually blinking strobe, our only hope of ending this testing is…well…I don’t anticipate an end any time soon.

Could someone please explain flan to me

Recently, I started reading some food blogs.  I am SUCH a housewife-in-training, storing the recipes I want to make once I own things like a food processor or a grill and have access to a grocery store that is not Gristede’s and therefore doesn’t charge me $8.99 for pesto.

My favorite food site happens to be foodgawker.  It pulls a bunch of recipes into my reader and from there I scroll through and see what looks good.  Granted, it’ll pull like, 100+ per day so when I skip a day or two (or 5) I end up with 689 unread items.  Whoops.

Anyway, I’ve noticed that it’ll pull in posts in trends.  One week every recipe seemed to have something to do with ramps (a green thing that I still couldn’t fully explain to you except that I think it’s like a leek–another green thing that I couldn’t fully explain to you).  Another week, fiddlehead ferns were in (and they are weirdly creepy and bug-looking if you ask me).  Just this morning I had 3 recipes for  “chipster-topped brownies” (which apparently are just brownies topped with cookies).

But there is one item that seems to be constant on the list.  And it’s one that I can’t, for the life of me, figure out.

Flan.

I just don’t understand how a food product that looks like this:

photo from here.

is supposed to taste good.  That is gelatinous and speckly and just creepy.  It looks like something you might pull from a person during surgery and need to take great care not to drop because eventually you’re going to need to put it back in.

I’ll admit right now that I’ve never eaten flan so I can’t say whether or not it tastes good.  I just don’t understand it.  Jell-O I get.  Jello is jiggly and sugary and brightly colored and doesn’t look like someone could have sneezed it out or coughed it up:

photo from here.

But flan is…well…the exact opposite of all of those things!

And look, I’m not trying to offend the flan-eaters of the world.  Or even the flan bakers (especially the flan bakers who I borrowed photos from–I swear, I’m not saying your flan doesn’t taste good, I’m just saying it doesn’t look all that appealing).

I’m just asking that someone, anyone, please explain flan to me.

Today is the start of something good

Today is Friday.  But to be more precise about it, today is the first Friday of “summer Fridays” in my office.

Life is good.

via someecards.com

Now let’s just hope that isn’t true all summer.

The Today Show Recap

*Skimmers (aka if you aren’t interested in the whole rundown of the day) should skip to the bottom for the picture/video.

Yesterday morning, I woke up, rolled over, looked at my clock and saw 4:32am.  Just one minute until my alarm was set to go off.

I got out of bed, threw on some comfy clothes and some concealer (b/c you KNOW I wasn’t showing up to The Today Show with NO makeup on) and made my way, zombie-style, down to the lobby of my building.  5:15, right on time.  The car that was scheduled to pick me up, however, was nowhere in sight.  Around 5:30 I started getting worried and called the stylist who called the publicist who called the producer who called the car service who eventually called me and by 5:45 I was in the car on my way to the studio.

We were set up in a makeshift green room.  It was actually just a big red curtain around some chairs and food (all I really need in life–a place to sit and something to eat!).  The Huxtables were in the green room.  All of the Huxtables.

We threw on our “before” outfits and headed up to the studio for the shoot.  Stand, smile, try to ignore how hideous you really look in that big muumuu.

After our shoot we were waiting for the elevator and Matt Lauer slid past us into wardrobe.  And yes, he’s pretty hunky in real life.  And no, surprisingly, not that tall.

So downstairs we got into hair and makeup which was a much longer process than necessary b/c we kept getting bumped, for example, by the scuba family who lost their boat and got rescued by some other sea-faring folk, but were scheduled to appear in the 7:20 spot–a full 3 hours before us.

When hair and makeup was done we had nothing to do but hang out and wait.  At some point, around 8:30 I think (I was watchless for the whole day and it was killing me!), we headed back up to the studio for our run-through.  They showed us where to stand, where to walk, where to look.  On our way back downstairs we passed Curtis Stone.  And he is, pardon the cooking pun, completely delicious.  He’s also about 6′ 4″.

Back in our little red room we were faced with a bit more down time.  No worries though because by this point it was nothing but Huxtables, in and out of the green room.  First Bill Cosby, then Phylicia Rashad, then Malcolm-Jamal Warner, then Keshia Knight Pulliam and even Raven (girrrrrrrl, she’s looking better than she has in months!  Orange is clearly her color).  So after I fan girl’d the gang for awhile it was time to get dressed for our segment–but not before a field trip to the bathroom.  (Seriously, 4 out of the 5 of us traipsed over there, in various combinations of our own clothes and our “before” outfits).

We ended up right behind some traffic jam to get into the hallway with the bathrooms.  After the commotion cleared we saw that we were following Bill Cosby through a door that was held open by Allison Janney (who I swear looks 10 years younger in person and is really sweet!!)

So Bill–that just doesn’t sound right–so Bill Cosby (and yes I will continue to first and last name him for the duration of the post) heads into the bathroom and we’re all forced to wait.  When he came out (it wasn’t more than 2 minutes later), Nikka (the “hippy” girl) headed in after him and he looked at her and said “were you waiting?” She said yes and scampered into the bathroom.  Then he looked at me and said “and you too?” And I squeaked a “yes” like a little dork and then Kimmie “small bust” said “look at the line you caused!” And Bill Cosby was like “oh man, if I’d have known I’d have hurried up!  I just took my time, I was making sandwiches….” And we all just laughed b/c, well, A) he’s funny and B) what else were we gonna do?

Okay, so finally we’re ready to go upstairs.  While we’re waiting for the elevator we see a TV with Mayor Bloomberg holding some press conference.  No good can come from that.

We get upstairs, do our segment and it’s over before we have a chance to get nervous.  Unfortunately, Bloomberg pre-empted us.  By the time we got downstairs half the girls had texts saying their friends hadn’t seem them.  It was Bloomberg for a bit and then Kathie Lee and Hoda were back with Curtis Stone.

But who can be bummed?  Everyone outside of NYC still saw us.  And thanks to the wonders of the Internet, everyone in NYC can see it too.

Right here:

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/26184891/vp/30825552#30825552

I’m not embedding the link b/c I just don’t feel like and I’m not embedding the video b/c quite frankly I’m not sure I can since it’s not on youtube  (and to clarify, by “can” I mean, I just don’t know how to).

So there it is–my big TV appearance (I’d say debut, but that was actually when I was about 7 years-old.  I was the center candle in a chorus of kids singing “This Little Light of Mine” for the Billy Graham Kids Crusade).

I shall now always be known as the “large bust.”

I’ll be playing the part of “the busty girl”*

I’m going to come right out and say it.

I have boobs.

Yes, I know, you’re all shocked to hear that I, a woman, would say that I have boobs.

But it’s true.

And if you’ve ever seen any pictures of me, you know this is no A-cup situation I’m working with here.

For years that was more of a curse than a blessing.  I can’t wear what’s in style b/c all of the models are flat girls.  Triangle bikinis in the summer?  Not unless I plan to enter a Lil’ Kim look-a-like contest.  Strapless dresses?  You’re joking, right?  (Thanks for that, by the way, Wedding Industry.)

Button down shirts always had to be purchased a size-up just to fit the girls in, leaving the rest of the shirt looking like I borrowed it from Boo’s closet.  And the cute little bras?  Forget it–they rarely make those in sizes bigger than 32A.

But finally, after years of hearing “I’ll trade you!  I’d love to have big boobs” and the subsequent laughter and “you’re so silly” when I respond with “Good! Take them!  I hate having big boobs!”; after years of feeling top heavy and looking bigger than I am because of my chest, my boobs are paying off (no, ew, not in a hooker-sense, stop that!).

I’m going to be “the busty girl” in a segment about wearing summer trends for your body type.

And it’s going to be on The Today Show.

Rebecca has been working as a stylist and when she needed a “busty” girl for this segment, she contacted me.  One of her former roommates will be the “hippy” girl and we’ll be joined by a few other body types (petite girl, probably a flat girl, you know the drill).

So me, Kathie Lee, Hoda and my girls are going to be kickin’ it, on air, May 19th.

Set your DVRs kiddos.

la

*I can only imagine the weird traffic this title is going to bring in….

The NY List

I’ve only got a few more months as an official NYC resident.  And you know what?  I’ve still got a surprising amount of shit that I want to do before I leave.

The problem with living in this city is that this “tourist attraction” is just your home.  Friends in other cities are all, “what’d you do this weekend?  Statue of Liberty?  The Met?” And you’re all “no, dude, I slept till 11, made a really greasy breakfast, took a nap, and then watched a movie b/c it was raining and I didn’t want to go outside.”  Because that is what you would do if you lived anywhere else.  But when you live in New York City people expect that you spend every weekend touring museums and eating at fabulous restaurants (which, in all fairness, is kind of true–even the crappy delis have some of the best sandwiches you’ve ever eaten).

That said, there is still a lot of stuff I need to do before I move.  A lot of stuff that, because I alternate my weekends b/w New York and CT, I haven’t gotten to yet.  I have done some stuff though.

I’ve seen the Rock Tree (TWO YEARS IN A ROW!) and been ice skating at the Natural History Museum.

I’ve seen David Blaine at Central Park.  I’ve seen Brooke Shields in SoHo.  I’ve shared a cab w/a Law & Order regular extra (you know the type I’m talking about–they play a killer at least once a season).

I’ve been to Chinatown and Brooklyn.  I’ve been to all of the villages.  I’ve hung out on the Upper West Side.  I’ve been to the Met. I’ve seen at least 3 shows on Broadway.

I’ve sunned myself in Central Park and had Sunday brunch on the sidewalks in front of some of my favorite cafes.

I’ve made friends with my doorman and half the staff at my regular breakfast joint.  I’ve run into old friends on subways and at airports (proving that this city really is just a really big small town).

But I still have a lot to do.  I decided to compile a list so I wouldn’t forget everything I wanted to get done before I packed up and headed to…um…someplace that Boo and I have yet to figure out.

• Have frozen hot chocolate at Serendipity.
• See the Statue of Liberty/Ellis Island (and find my family’s name!).
• Check out the view from the top of the Empire State Building.
• Visit Ground Zero.  I know it’s not really what it was but I can’t live here and NOT see it.  Boo saw it last year w/his brother so I need to make sure I see it too.
• Have my caricature drawn at Times Square.
• Go on the Double Decker Bus Tour.
• Buy something at Bloomingdale’s or Bendel’s.
• Go to a ballet (but somehow I feel we missed ballet season this year…whoops!).
• Visit the Bronx Zoo.
• Visit the Botanical Gardens.
• Hit up either the MoMA or the Guggenheim.

I know, I know.  It’s a super touristy list.  It’s all the stuff that non-New Yorkers think we do EVERY weekend.  But just b/c it’s touristy doesn’t mean I don’t want to experience it before I leave!

In fact, Boo and I crossed one thing off the list on Saturday:

Carriage Ride at Central Park

–

On a bummer of a side note, if you are expecting blogger meetup tales, you won’t find them here.  When Boo and I arrived at the bar we had to wait in line for 25 minutes (stupid Bulls/Celtics game).  We texted our whereabouts, never heard anything back and when we made it into Village Pour House it was blogger-less.  Definitely a shame, but Boo and I ran into a friend I haven’t seen since graduation (2 years–whoa!) and we got to visit our favorite UES bar so the night wasn’t a total bust for us.

I had a real post lined up but it’s Friday and no one likes reading on Friday so I’m just going to remind you guys of one really important thing*

If you are in NYC this weekend and you are a blogger (or if you happen to like bloggers) then you should get yourself over to the Village Pour House (3rd Ave and 11th St) at 9:30 Saturday night for the NYC/DC blogger meetup (the link has the full details).  It promises to be a good time, one complete with plenty of inappropriate photo ops and infinite blog fodder.

Hope to see you all there!

la

la

*Longest title ever right?  GOOD!  That’s what I was going for! HA!

Who’s laughing NOW gym?

In November, after over a year in the city, I joined the gym.  And I actually went to it.  For awhile I spent most of my time on the ellipticals, except for that one time when they were all filled and I had to use the bike.  That night SUCKED.  My butt was so numb by the end of that “workout” (b/c I don’t feel that sitting in a chair and peddling is strenuous) that I decided no more bike.  EVER.

Then, randomly, I bumped into this dude in the elevator who asked me if I had ever taken classes at the gym and who told me he was going to yoga.  I asked him if he’d think it was creepy if I tagged along.  (Yes, I really did say that and while he said “no” everyone else in the elevator was totally thinking “YES!!! RUN AWAY DUDE!”)  So Mike the Fireman and I went to yoga that night.  He never came back but since Boo had gotten me a yoga mat for Christmas I was happy to keep up w/my twice-weekly classes.  Then, in February, they shuffled around the schedule, leaving me with only 1 class that worked for my time frame.  (Yeah, like I’d skip Gossip Girl for the gym…psh!)

I was doing pretty well with the yoga until I threw my back out.  All of the bending and the twisting didn’t seem like the best idea b/c I had no idea what would piss my back off again.  So, while the stretching would have been super helpful, I gave up on the yoga.

I was feeling pretty blah about the whole gym thing.  I was at the point where I just KNEW that the girls who worked the front desk were laughing at me b/c I usually spent a grand total of 25 minutes there.  I felt like the machines themselves were laughing–they just KNEW that I was a slacker.

And then I got engaged.  And I kept getting email reminders (and yes, it’s on the checklist) about my “wedding workouts” and I started to wonder if perhaps now would be a good time to actually do more than spend 25 minutes reading People while on the machines.

So I started with the rowing machine.  I used to dig this machine in college and so I figured I’d try it again.  Guess what?  I still like it.  I can still do it.  So on the workout list it remains.  I’m too short for the pull-up machine (which is actually a shame b/c I really like doing those) and I can barely reach the pull-down bar on the other machine.  Those 2 are out.  But I’m hanging tough with my free weights (3 pounders baby, awww yeah) and I’m rocking out the situps/pushups/leg lifts/activities that I don’t need to be paying money to attend a gym for but do any way b/c I feel like I’m getting my money’s worth.

Then, after finding out that an old drinking buddy of mine is running in a half-marathon next weekend I thought I’d give running, er, jogging, another try.  Let me just say that I spent 7 years of school with “doctor’s” notes to get me out of the running units.  I even made up songs about how much I hated runnig the mile (and they were set to Hakuna Matata…I was SO cool!).  I have never, not once, EVER in my life run by choice.  I am a firm believer in “don’t run unless you think you’re going to die.”  Granted if my options were ever “run or die” I would start out running and end up dead, so, you know, there’s that.

So there I was, last Thursday night, standing on the treadmill.  I turned it on and upped the speed.  I started walking, got my blood flowing a little and I hit a quarter mile.  I upped the speed a little more and I started to jog.  I jogged for an entire quarter mile.  I did another walk/jog half mile and upped the speed incrementally for both before ending my night with a quarter-mile cooldown.

That’s right.  I jogged a whole half mile.  And no one had to threaten me with anything.

The worst thing about it?

I actually felt good afterward.  I felt like I could possibly do this again.

And last night–I did.

I’m mildly terrified that I may turn into a “runner,” you know, someone who actually ENJOYS panting and sweating and setting the speed on the treadmill faster than 3mph.

But if I can tone the tummy…and the arms…and the legs before the wedding–and if I can do it w/o Jillian Michaels scaring me into it–then I’ll be pretty happy.