Li'l Momma's Rant-O-Rama

last night i had another one of my recurring dreams. it's been a long while since i've had this one, always a variation of driving uphill. in this one i was driving somewhere, and came upon a highway that had just been completed in philly... the road was at a steep incline, so steep that in my dream i thought to myself, "how did the workers and the equipment manage to hang on while it was under construction?". i had to turn onto the road to get where i was going, and i had the gas pedal all the way down to try to make it up the hill... it felt like i was driving straight up. i was hanging onto the steering wheel for dear life, because it felt like the car was going to lose its grip on the road and just tumble backwards. it was such a sickening feeling. i hate that dream.

i have a whole night open tonight, with nothing on my to-do list. w00t! i'm thinking i should head to the mall to return one of those cocktail dresses i bought last week. i tried them on for jack over the weekend, and he agreed with me on the one that should go back. i'm going to keep the other two -- one of them will be great for the cruise and the first few weddings we go to... and then the other, if i can lose another 10 pounds before the weddings we have in the fall, will be a little less tight on me and will be HAWT. i love that dress so much. :)

i ended up spending 3 hours at the mall last night shopping for cocktail dresses. whew. i was exhausted when i got home. it was a good experience, though -- out of maybe 100 dresses i tried on (seriously), there were only a few that didn't fit. of course, a lot of the ones that fit would need some sort of tailoring... but at least i can actually get them ON now. it's nice to be able to say "i like this dress best because it looks good" instead of "i guess i'll buy this one, it's the only one that fit".

and funny thing is, i now have a dilemma -- i ended up buying 3 dresses. oops! one of the three can definitely go, but i love the other two. and two dresses have to go back, so somehow i have to choose. i'll try them on for jack tonight and get his opinion, he's always brutally honest.

it was a shame, the mall was really empty last night. at first i didn't think anything of it, then it hit me that two days before valentine's day the stores should have been packed. not to mention that it's the biggest mall on the east coast, it's always packed. so while it was nice to have all those stores and gowns to myself, i felt bad for the retailers who had to post massive sales to get people in the door, and the salespeople who weren't making their commissions. [the sales girl in white house/black market was really giving it her all, though -- followed me around trying to complement me, ("i love your coat! your hair is so cute!") and trying to sell whatever she could ("what shoe size are you? i'll bring you shoes to go with that dress you're trying on"). i hate salespeople like that, but i hope it worked for her with other customers.]

before i went to the mall, i promised myself that i'd go in every store that had dresses and at least look... and i'd try on every dress that looked cute, even if i thought it wouldn't work for me. i went in a lot of stores i wouldn't normally go in, and it was an eye-opener. nordstrom, which i figured would have a ton of uber-expensive gowns, only had maybe 15-20 choices and they were all reasonably priced. bloomingdales, which i never go into because it's above my price range, was packed to the gills with gorgeous dresses and the one i picked up there was actually cheaper than the one i got at macy's. who knew!

i'm hoping i lose a lot more weight before the weddings i'm going to this summer... it'd be fun to have to shop for a new (smaller) dress. :)

65-86-degree temps expected today. w00t! i couldn't be any more excited, i really really need this weather. not sure why it took me so long, but i have finally plunged into the depths of S.A.D. usually it happens in the late fall, and when i still felt ok in november i thought i was off the hook. nope. in the last couple of weeks, my energy has plummeted... i haven't done a single bit of exercise in all that time. yes, i know exercise gives you energy... but when you get home from work and want to go right to bed, it's pretty impossible to rally yourself to break a sweat instead.

so today will be a huge help. i took the afternoon off, so being outside in the warmer air with the top down on the car will be just glorious. winter's winding down, and i can't wait for it to be over.

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speaking of nice weather... counting down the weeks until our cruise. yay! i've been reading the cruisecritic.com boards a lot, and the ridiculous questions that people ask always have me shaking my head in disbelief. i just hope none of these people are on our ship! one guy posted that he wanted to book a cruise for 2 months after his wife gave birth, and wanted to figure out how to forge the cruise documents so that they could bring the baby on the ship with them (minimum age is 6 months). i grabbed a bucket of popcorn and sat back to watch the fireworks. :) guy got blasted from every angle -- how dare you expect that your wife will have any energy to enjoy a vacation with a 2-month-old... how dare you subject the other passengers to a 2-month-old screaming in the middle of the night... hee. another person asked about bringing a giant beach umbrella to use by the pool. then there's the person who asked last night about bringing booze on board (it's a no-no) -- "we're going to try to sneak a box of wine on the ship, do you think it'll be safe in my luggage?" sigh.

last night jack and i went to a friend's birthday party. i like going to her birthday thing every year, because she knows such an interesting group of people... she's very involved/known in the philly arts and improv scene, so her parties are usually a mix of musicians, comedians, and artists... some of them a few fries short of a full happy meal. always makes for a colorful evening. B (the friend) started taking a samba drumming class a year ago, and her class performed at the party... totally awesome. i love brazilian music, especially the big boomy drums (whatever they're called)... if only i lived closer to the city, i'd totally suck up more of my free time by trying to learn.

one thing struck me this morning after the party though. it was billed as a potluck, with a request to bring booze and/or snacks to share with everyone... there were easily 30 or 40 people in attendance at this party, and the food offerings were as follows: one person brought 2 loaves of pepperoni bread, with a warmer to keep them toasty... two people brought hame baked brownies... one person brought an enormous tray of beautiful cheeses and crackers... and one person brought a bowl of homemade pasta salad. everyone else, out of 40 people, brought some permutation of chips and hummus. potato chips, pita chips, hummus with garlic, hummus with sundried tomatoes... i've never seen so many containers of store-bought hummus in one place in my life.

so i was just struck by what we've become as a society... that someone spends a nice chunk of money to rent a giant loft in philly to throw a party, and invites the people she loves to celebrate with her... she asks her music class to attend and perform for everyone... and we all respond by swinging by the supermarket on the way and picking up $6 worth of chips and dip. what happened to the days when "potluck" meant that you took the time the night before to make an actual dish to share with everyone? the days when people had a couple of "signature recipes" that they'd bust out at times like this, and they were happy to make the effort to actually cook? can you imagine if, in the 1960s, someone brought anything to a potluck that came in a box, bag, or tub? the shame! are we all really that busy? not to mention the fact that the birthday girl doesn't eat anything with sugar or refined flour... and so the only thing in the entire party that she could eat was some cubes of cheese from that cheese platter.

speaking of food -- i must learn to not watch the food network when i'm hungry, because i am very suggestible. jack and i didn't eat breakfast this morning, so when we were flipping channels and saw a food network show all about pizza, we had an instant violent craving for it. we went to a local pizza joint we'd been wanting to try, and ordered a death bomb covered in sausage, pepperoni, ground beef, and bacon. urk. i had 3 slices, and 5 hours later my body still doesn't know what to do with it.

the rest of my workday was rough... more brain-ouchy data analysis that kept me in the office until 7pm trying to make sense of it all.

i got home to find my mailbox literally stuffed to bursting with magazines. half my subscriptions all came in at the same time. AND i turned on the tv to discover that bravo is showing reruns of all the top chef episodes i've missed so far this season.

magazines, top chef, a mug of cocoa, and an especially snorgly kitty next to me... the day just got a million times better.

i got into the office about an hour late, but so did everyone else. :) now i'm sitting here with my door closed, catching up on work... i'm dressed in stretchy pants, a big squishy sweater, and my doc martens (yes, i'm taking "business casual" to the far end of "casual", but it's a snow day)... i just brewed a hot mug of english breakfast tea, and my candle warmer is wafting the scent of my "sun and sand" candle (smells like suntan lotion). if i have to be in the office today, this is the way to go. :)

and i have something to look forward to when i get home -- "lost" is on tonight!!!!!!! *bounce, bounce*

had an all-day meeting today that i wasn't 100% looking forward to... hard to come back from a snow day and vacation day back-to-back and then sit all day in a meeting room getting "powerpoint poisoning". we were told there'd be a guest speaker, but when i saw who it was i almost fainted -- jack, one of the designers from season 4 of "project runway"!!!!!!! i absolutely loved him, this is the designer who had to leave the show because he got a MRSA infection on his face and needed medical treatment.

it took all of my earthly effort to not turn into a little fangirl in fron tof a room full of senior leaders from my company. during the break, though, i did get up the nerve (with some encouragement from *my* jack) to go over and introduce myself. he was such a sweetie, and when i told him i was friends with Star from season 1, he was all "OMG i love her!" i'm kicking myself for not getting a cell phone photo of us, but just meeting him when i'm such a massive fan of the show was thrill enough. :)

oh "lost", how i love you. if you keep making my brain go explodey like you did last night, i'm going to stage a sit-in at your writer's offices so you never go off the air ever.

last week was my quarterly exterminator visit. my exterminator guy, B, is awesome and has been spraying my home for about a year and a half now.

last week when he was doing his thing, he was like, "hey, i do your mom's house too!"

me: "really?"
B: "yep, she's in [name of my mom's townhouse complex], right?"
me: "yep!"
B: "i was in there recently, and saw your photo on the hutch when you first walk in the door... and was like "hey, i know her!"

small world. so when i saw mom yesterday, i told her the story. her reply: "no, my exterminator's name is S. i've had him for years, he's never sent a replacement."

um. i'm trying to figure out what's wrong here. perhaps someone in my mom's complex has my photo in their house? :)

yeah, i'm one of the millions of people who are all starry-eyed over the beginning of the obama presidency. i think of it like dating someone new -- enjoy the glow, and then hope it works out in the long run. :) what's certainly fueling the flame, though, are the photos that have just been released by the new white house photographer -- have you seen these? they're amazing. the one that's absolutely killing me is one from inauguration night -- barack and michelle are in a freight elevator, heading up to their umpteenth ball of the evening, with a handful of men in tux jackets... barack and michelle are off to the side in the elevator, and she's wearing his tux jacket over her gown to keep warm, and they're standing forehead-to-forehead and grinning. they look like two teenagers in love at the prom.

STOP BEING SO COOL AND IN LOVE, YOU GUYS, MY HEART CAN'T TAKE IT.

pix are under the "change takes office" link on the today show website .