the new home!

300 congress street, quincy. the new home...a work in progress.

sleepily content

after a week of halloween, it's difficult to fathom that the actual holiday has yet to happen...but here it is. and secretly, i'm thankful that i'll have a chance to stay home and do my laundry. i managed to build an office-safe outfit revolving around some cleverly designed sweatpants this morning if that's any indicator of how the weekend went.

in summary, the little mermaid (kathryn) and i made an immense amount of rounds resulting in many good times had by all. yes, she made her entire costume, yes those are real seashells, and her top weighed about 25 pounds. no, i am not actually a bride, i am the runaway bride. clearly my eyeballs were not buggy enough for most people to understand this, or i needed to accessorize with a striped towel to thrown over my head. regardless, good times.

saw hal (my first grade lockermate turned good bud) last night before the big move to SF. good luck, dear, you'll be missed tremendously!

copping out of this entry by adding visuals (mostly taken by my dad and tipsy gals - don't judge our skills, please) and getting back to work...ha, work. i think maybe it's time. before i go, i'd just like to add in a quick shot of the illustrious fartman, who is actually the coach of the rugby team. you're impressed, right? we were.

sidenote: according to the fun fact of the day featured on my favorite internet comic (able and baker by jim burgess)...

What is called a "French kiss" in the English speaking world is known as an "English kiss" in France.

who knew? goodness.

happy hallerween, kids

this really doesn't feel like a friday, mainly because monday was a disabling shit show (but fun, very fun). allow me to share:

preface: i'm very fortunate. my boss, mara, thinks of me as "friend" before employee. in any other world, all of this would've been what my friend manning refers to as a CEM, or career ending move.

sunday afternoon, mara's husband mike calls, all excited. he's managed to procure tickets to the patriots karaoke benefit event at the avalon. great birthday surprise for mara, would i like to go. of course! can he invite his friend steve, whom i know and have hung out with? sure! great idea!

monday afternoon around 4:00 a limo rolls up the front of the building, and mike and i appear dressed and ready to go at mara's office door, much to her confusion. we all get rolling toward boston, however, and wind up at tapeo, a tapas bar on newbury street. (delicious, by the way.) steve joins us. several pitchers of sangria make an appearance. we eat a random assortment of wee dishes including my own choice, squid served in its own ink. throughly sloshed, we move on to the avalon, where mara wets her pants in excitement, and surprise, we keep drinking.

surprisingly, some of the pats (light, vrable, cassel, brady) can actually sing! grand time was had by all, the drinks kept appearing, and mara and i managed to spot matt cassel (23 year old back up QB) sneaking out to the bar. we attack, pin him down with drunken PR chatter, and i make steve hold my purse while i distribute my number to cassel and several of his teammates (of COURSE this was a good idea...sigh). unfortunately, i don't forget much, and i clearly recollect petting the poor man's face several times.

there was dancing, there was singing, there was rejoicing. 'twas fun. the limo arrived to take us home around 11:30 and in the three blocks before we all began to part ways, i also managed to molest my date for the evening (craaaaap), pass out, and then later throw up in mara's car. that's right. i vomited in the car belonging to my boss. the lovely woman and her husband returned me to my home, where my parents found me passed out on the bathroom floor buried by a flurry of toilet paper (nesting instinct?). i spent the entirety of tuesday in my bed, from whcih vantage point i found myself able to elevate my head and speak a tiny bit by early evening. i managed to call everyone i'd been with the night before and apologize, but they were strangely more amused than anything else. lucky girl i am.

regardless, my brain cells are returning slowly to life. i think i did some permanent damage, because in the past three days i've forgotten my car keys twice, one riding lesson, drinks with friends, and one round of dog feeding (the natives sought revenge by eating my pillow).

as if that's not enough for one week, it's halloweeeeeen! kathryn, my life sized dress me barbie, will be making several appearances this weekend dressed as a lovely mermaid (we actually MADE the costume. you'll all be impressed. pictures will follow). i purchased a white dress, blinging "rock", veil, and will be wearing my new balances - runaway bride. if only i can manage to make my eyes bug out for six parties? onward and upward. here's to a speedy recovery, kids. have fun.

RANT!

i don't claim to have flawless grammar. i'm not a fabulous speller. i'm even lazy about checking. my working vocabulary is decent at best. however, i'd just like to throw it out there as a PSA:

ORIENTATED is not a word.

i can't believe the staggering number of professionals who do NOT know this. it's one of those sad cases where the faux word was introduced into conversation by so many people that it had to be made acceptable by the kind, meek, (and i'd imagine, boring) neologists who write the dictionaries.the worst part? this verbal affront comes mainly from people who deal with the media on a regular basis. it makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up like the scruff of a rabid dog. if someone sends me a WRITTEN QUOTE with "orientated" in it one more time i will grab my red pen and have at them like a drunken viking. (for the record, the only other word that sends me into a viking-like frenzy is "panties". ugh. shudder. just sounds nauseating.)

done now.

d-day!

contract is signed, new company is up and running as of november 1. ::exhale:: let the games begin.

genius roundup!

google image search for "the far side". yes. :)

sitting here wiggling around in my chair to kanye's workout plan...but if you checked my itunes, you'd find that i was just listening to no cars go by the arcade fire, nth degree by morningwood, don't you worry about a thing by john legend, and electric by tristan prettyman. these songs have NOTHING in the way of commonalities. it's too bad that there isn't some sort of product that will break down and analyze the rhythms, instrumentation, and lyrics of your favorite songs, come up with some common denominators, and be able to recommend new music for you...

a resounding, fatty "meh".

office move + start of new quarter = chaos. home (mondo yard sale next weekend) = chaos (we're eating off our knees while perched on boxes). barn-as-work = not chaos, but requiring a ton of sunshiney energy. alannah = tired. seeking respite. at least i have clean ears and am successfully eating my oatmeal today.

i just burned the shit out of my tongue on some oatmeal that i microwaved myself. that's the worst - you just want to take the spoon and scrape the crispiness off, but it just leaves you feeling even more toasted. duh. you think i'd be more experienced with this microwave phenom. techtard.

if you haven't heard her yet, i'd highly recommend tristan prettyman, jason mraz's girlfriend. try "love love love" and "electric" to start out. i can send them to you if you'd like.

horse people: i am a little bit stuck. most of my regular riders are very young (ages five to nine) and very green around the gills (mainly just starting out), but here's the thing - many of the moms are sort of horsey themselves. by "sort of horsey", i mean that maybe they started taking lessons five years ago, bought a big honking warmblood and the top of the line tack/apparel (OH the outfits - one woman sends her six year old to the barn in a burberry poncho), and they can't really ride/show the beast. faux horsey, you see? but in the meantime, they think their children are the most naturally gifted riders ever - reality being that the kid can barely trot. so here i am with these mothers watching like hawks while i think of creative things to do with kids who mainly ride at a walk for forty-five minutes. problem: i don't remember HOW i learned this stuff. we do lots of balancing and stretching, lots of games to work on stopping/moving forward/organizing yourself in the saddle...but i'm running low. riders, any thoughts/suggestions?

eep. just like that.

as it tends to do, life kind of exploded. i find myself kicking furiously to stay afloat. we're moving the company next week and each one of us is at least doing the job of two people. this is more difficult when you're not quite at the proficiency level of ONE person yet. everyone is fried, tired, frustated - universally, it seems. the office is tense. my mother chose this week to have a yard sale, so i come home to more chaos. my father had proposed the purchase of a condo in southie, but that is turning out to be a later rather than sooner thing. with the impending corporate move to quincy, however, i am beginning to look at renting in the area. any insight/suggestions would be helpful. may propose a corporate nap. (the slow demise of the red sox isn't helping to boost morale. damn baseball town.)