my seester is awesome

Because she procured this picture for me when I didn't have the time nor the patience to figure it out for myself.

Damn, Cedric Diggory done grown up good!!!

chubsicle

It is flippin' cold in our office suite today. It has been on and off for the past week or so, but today, the temperature just seems extra brutal. Hence I have given myself the moniker that is the title of the post. I give you my evidence.

Exhibit A:

This is today's work outfit. Granted, I've got a little more exposed boobage than I probably need to have at the beginning of fall, but ya know what? My cleavage is one of my few physical assets, so more often than not lately, I feel compelled to put the girls out there. Now I know that my exposed chest is partly to blame for the chill in my bones today, but its not the main contributor. It is frigid. For real. I keep expecting to step out of my office and see sides of beef hanging from the ceiling in the reception area.

Exhibits B & C:

Yes, folks, this is what I have been reduced to. Without having a space heater (the one we bought had to be returned and I never got around to getting another one), my only response to dealing with the cold is to take the sweater that I leave in my office for chilly days and wear it....backwards. It wears like a cross between an art smock and a straight jacket. But you gotta do what you gotta do. I'm thinking that a stop at Target is in my near future to find myself a heater...right about now, I'm ready to make a bum fire in my garbage can.

On the random tip:

• you may or may not be able to notice from the pics that I got some more streaks put in my hair this past weekend. Saturday was crammed full of tasks, and my hair appointment was one of them. My hair takes color re-heely fast....Claire wasn't even finished applying my foils before we had to go rinse the first ones out.
• the Fall TV schedule is back into full swing, so my dvr is getting a workout. the schedule had a trickling start since the beginning of September (Bones, True Blood, Fringe), but last week is when a lot of the biggies kicked in (How I Met Your Mother, Criminal Minds, Greys)...my three biggies of the past week have been: Heroes, Brothers & Sisters and Dexter. I'm holding judgment on Heroes to see how things progress. It just seems like since the Level 5 escape, there are a lot more people to pay attention to. Brothers & Sisters was good for me, but I can't say I have yet to be disappointed in the show since it started. If they cast who I have been reading about as the missing Walker brother, I will squee with excitement. And Dexter....Rita's bombshell in the last 5 minutes? HOLY CRAP! BTW, any other Dex watchers, do you get the feeling they were laying the ground work for a potential love connection between Deb & Angel? I can't exactly pinpoint why I have that suspicion.
• I have been (insert sarcasm here) enjoying playing the DMV game for the past couple of weeks. I swear I'm never moving out of state again. Between insurance and motor vehicles, I am out of my mind. The only bright spot in all this is that I spoke with a very helpful woman at NJ DMV yesterday who gave me good answers about re-registering my car. Right now, I am carrying insurance on three cars across two states because my NY insurance company won't let me drop any cars from my policy without the receipt number for my turned-in NY plates. I don't have my NJ plates yet, so I can't turn them in....and besides that, I have to go back to NY DMV to turn in the plates. Would you be at all surprised if I told you that NY DMV does not have Saturday hours, so I have to get there on a work day? I could just go in late, but I've pretty much already decided that I am going to take a day off work and take a little Long Island road trip. Jen wants to start teaching on the island, so I told her I'd show her around a couple of the stores.

I think that's all I've got right now. I have a birthday coming in the next week but I'm trying to block that out. I think I'd like to stay 35 for a little while longer.....not that 35 is so special, but 36 just puts me closer to 40 and that's just yucky!!

I've got a golden ticket...

...but this one did not come wrapped in a Wonka bar. This was the highlight (lowlight?) of last week. I guess it is a highlight, because even though I was pulled over for doing 18 over the speed limit, the cop decided to keep my record clean, and gave me a citation for "obstructed view" which is a $54 fine, but thankfully, no points. I have never gotten out of a ticket. I have PBA & FOP cards and tend not to use them, because I don't want the cops to think that I am purposefully breaking the law thinking I will automatically get away with it. So instead, I tell cops the truth, don't turn on any tears or sob stories, and take my tickets like a sucker. And yes, I said ticketS, plural. I got my first ticket 5 months after I got my driver's license, and seem to average a ticket every few years, just so that my record never stays clean for long. The majority of my offenses are for speeding, with a couple parking violations thrown in for good measure. Yeah, I'm not really a good poster child for those who work with (and have families involved in) the law and law enforcement.

hooky

Since our Labor Day vacation didn't come to fruition, I decided to take the day off this past Tuesday. I don't know about you, but I get these grandiose ideas of everything that I am going to accomplish on days that I deliberately take off from work....how much stuff I can jam-pack into a day where everyone else is at work. Blah, yeah, whatever. That usually just means that I come up with all these great things to do and either (a) don't leave the house that day for whatever reason, or (b) I book myself within an inch of my life with lists and appointments and my day turns into something from the Amazing Race. Tuesday was much closer to the latter than the former.

In order to guarantee that I would not laze away my day in the house, I scheduled the service appointment for my car at 9 am. So I had to set my alarm and get up like I was going to work. Can someone explain to me how I am late to work every single day, yet I can get to the Saturn dealer early? Actually, I can answer that myself...I opted to forgo the Dunkin Donuts stop, which I would come to regret later. Anyhow, I brought a new book with me and planned to wait around for my car. There were only two other people waiting, so I thought I had a good chance of not spending my whole morning there, especially when the one guy was finished almost as soon as I sat down. That just left me and the weirdo.

I tend to be a little too casual in my use of that term on a day to day basis, but there is no other way to describe him. At first, I thought he was just a frequent customer, as he said some form of hello to every Saturn employee who walked past him. Then I caught a fragment of a conversation wherein he was trying to sell one of the employees a book of some sort. As the employees got busy (or else just steered clear of him, I couldn't tell) and he didn't have anyone to talk to, he started to pace around. I could hear his shoes clicking on the tile, but made the assumption that they were cowboy boots or something......until his pacing took him in front of my chair and into my line of sight. He was wearing ladies' flats.

I shit you not. Picture these in gray/taupe, and that's what this man had on his feet, with jeans and a washed out black t-shirt. So I spent a good portion of my remaining time at the dealer trying to figure out if he was a cross-dresser. Moving on....

My next stop was to pick up Megan, since she was going to accompany me on the rest of the excursion. After the much-needed caffeine jolt from Dunkin Donuts on the way, I got her and we headed to Paramus. The original plan was that we were going to go to lunch with Gina and then go shopping at the Christmas Tree Shop, since Gina's office and CTS are almost within sight distance of each other. But Gina couldn't go to lunch, so M&I made a quick run through the store, skipping lunch altogether. Visits to Christmas Tree Shops are very hit-or-miss....sometimes you find all this great stuff and other times you find crap. It was a crap day, but that was actually okay with me, because it was kinder to my wallet and also better for our timing. Megan and I had toyed around with the idea of going to the movies, and we got it in our heads that we wanted to see two movies in one day. So with that goal in mind, we headed back to Rockaway, to the relatively spanking new AMC 12 that was literally across from where Megan lives.

Hence that first picture. We couldn't believe it, but there were actually more people in the theater for Stepbrothers than there was for Tropic Thunder. Okay, so it was 8 people versus 6 people, but still. Stepbrothers was okay, but for me, I thought the Will Ferrell/John C. Reilly combo was funnier in Talladega Nights. Tropic Thunder was pretty good. They had fake previews before the movie started, of fake movies starring the characters in the movie. I kept hearing about the Tom Cruise cameo, but it was not anything close to what I expecting. It was more a supporting role than a cameo. And strangely enough, he can actually deliver comedic lines when he's not jumping on couches or bogged down in Scientology.

After the last movie, we went for a quick dinner at the diner, and by the time I got home, it was almost as if I had worked all day after all!

Come one, come all!

Why I am asking you, on this dreary Monday morning, to make me use my brain is beyond me, but here it goes!! If you post your name in the comment section, I will do the following: 1. I'll respond with something random about you. 2. I'll tell you which song or movie you remind me of. 3. I'll pick a kind of beverage or goodie to share with you. 4. I'll say something that only makes sense to you and me. 5. I'll tell you my first memory of you. 6. I'll tell you what famous person you remind me of. 7. I'll ask you something I've always wondered about you. 8. If you play, you MUST post this on your blog. Heidi had this on her blog, so I am playing along. Check back to my comments section for my answers!!