somehow in my travels i have developed a rather dry cough. it started saturday before i went to bed and has gotten worse over the course of the day. :( cath has recommended i smear mustard all over my chest!$?# what what what? no way. how gross is that.. i'm thinking nyquil, or some other delicious liquid cough suppressant will be the best for me. does anyone else have a better idea than lubing up my body with condiments?
this picture sums up the great time we are having visiting with the hunts. cath gets so excited.. i will most likely be blowing this up and printing it out on canvas for my wall when i get my own house.
we had a fun day laughing our way through 2 houses and some of the historic sites of philadelphia and then the obligatory visit to ikea.
it was a tight fit all of us squeezing into the rav-4. we were all a little punchy most of the time, prompting MB to want to give all of us a 6 pack of shut the f up at one point or another.
i'm glad i had a philly cheese steak so that i can say i had one and never need to eat one again. i don't see what the big attraction is? it's grey/fatty chop steak smothered in cheez whiz, "wit" or "witout" onions in a sub roll. big deal, the meat doesn't even taste that good. and the people are kind of rude that make it for you. i wish i had gone to the mexican place next door to genos, or even the sandwich bar.. oh well. i saw ridiculously good looking restaurants on market street and around that i will surely like to visit in future trips. there was a tapas place, thai, sushi places.. yum!!! way better than cheesesteaks i'm sure.
i've taken more than 2 hundred pictures so far.. i've broken them up into a couple of categories so you can selectively look at the ones you want to see.
here are the 106 photos of the house the hunts are going to put an offer in on.
and here are the photos of our day in philly. if i take any more today i will post them to this album.
today immediately after work the roommates are picking me up and we are going to visit the PA hunts. the weather is supposed to be ideal for sightseeing in philly, so that is probably what we will do saturday. i think we are also going to do a little house shopping..
and in case you didn't see SHs blog, i am going to have a niece.... i knew it!! she better name it rebecca if its going to be born on my bday..
this morning i was listening to AC as i always do and he mentioned that you get to a certain age where you don't put ketchup on hot dogs anymore.. when did this become a rule? and why wasn't i notified. i like ketchup on my hotdogs, and thought it was just my dad that was strange in not liking ketchup on his hotdogs.
apparently it's not just a personal preference thing but a widely known faux pas...
how do you eat your hot dogs? ketchup or no?
i could get as excited about exercising as patty does. she just has to hear the word "walk" or see me putting on my sneakers and she gets all wiggly and starts panting and being all cute..
it's like christmas morning to her each time.. i wish there was some way i could get that excited about exercising.. any suggestions?
this weekend i went on a wine tour to some of the wineries on seneca lake. 
this is the whole lot of us.
here was one of the best wineries as far as ambiance.
so chill..
here are the pics from the wine tour.
this morning adam carolla did a "the week in rage" where he revisited his top 5 complaints of the week, and they are truly awesome this week. he is at his best when he gets complaining.. in case you are curious he complains about the following...his cheap ass family and their lack of dryers, the nations recent push towards health foods, oprah not reading OJs book, yet talking about it for an hour, appearing on tv in a t-shirt, and dragon movies. please listen, you will laugh, i promise..
panic is starting to set it. i check the mlb east standings through my fingers much like i watch scary movies. we're in the home stretch and it would seem the wheels are starting to come off the wagon. i can't even bear to figure out if they *gasp* loose the lead they've held all season, will they still be a front runner for the wild card? i'm getting that nervous feeling in the pit of my stomach that i had watching the games that led up to the pats winning their first superbowl. if i could go to sleep and wake up when its all over i would.
as promised, here is the file that cath sent to the DEC... you should be able to tell immediately what parts wFischer edited. :)
today is primary day, so i volunteered to work the late shift. i'm not going in till 2, but i can't leave till 11.
i was thinking that i could catch "mr woodcock" before work, but they don't have early shows on weekdays. :(
that's about it from here.
patty's favorite chore is mowing the lawn. she's not so good at emptying the bag though.
this afternoon i went to see the new clive owen movie. this movie, at the end of the day, was an anti-gun movie. clive owen was typical clive.. he used his british accent (which i love), ate carrots the whole movie, all his lines were puns. the woman/hooker that was the female lead was a horrible actress.
the movie was ridiculous, but i think that you pretty much knew that going in, and they recognized the absurdity of it and made it even more so. it was short, only 1.5 hours.
but clive was in pretty much every shot, and that's good enough for me. seeing that made me excited for sin city 2.
**update**
here are the fine photos i took last night.. with color commentary..
**end of update**
words can't describe the hate i feel for the yankees.
tonight KaW and i were at the italian fest. the weather people at work swore it wasn't going to rain. i should have know better. it rained most of the time i was there. good thing the wine kept us waterproof. by the end of the night KaW asked the police officers that were standing with us if she could take a picture with them. i'll add it to this post tomorrow.
i took plenty of italian hair pictures. i was unaware that italian women were so stuck in the 80's.. its alarming how many bottles of aquanet went into tonights festival.
as the festival was winding down we asked a bartender how to get to "the bull and bear". a young guy in a red sox hat pointed us in the right direction and told me the score was 2-7 red sox. i gloated as we wandered to the B&B in the rain. half way there we saw kelly coles improper (the old mcgregors) i ran into the ruby begonia guy and gave him my email address and he is supposed to email me the latest wine tour info. i might start going to beer club again.. KaW might go with me. i hope she does. anyway.. we're ordering drinks from the bar and i see all kinds of people i work with.. so we join the party. it was good times, seeing as i wear my headphones so often, i don't really get to talkk to anyone i work with. it's always nice to see people in an outside of work capacity..
oh. as we sat chatting with the work people the Yankees managed to come back in the house that williams built from 2-7 to 8-7.. those bastards.
yesterday i had 2 drs appts in the afternoon which worked out where i left for the day at 330.. i imagined meeting for a follow-up with my GI doctor at 345, then having enough time to buzz down to the valley and deposit my check from EH and still have time to make it to my 520 eye dr appointment... of course nothing works as perfectly as fantasy...
i was checking into the window at exactly 345, which was a feat i was especially proud of seeing as i left work in E Syracuse at 330. about 10 minutes in i was called to a prep room where the nurse took my vitals, after that i was sent back to the waiting room. i continued reading the People edition about Owen Wilsons failed suicide attempt. the old man next to me was snoring rather loudly. i should have taken that as an indication that i would have much looonger to wait.. i glance at the clock it's 410.. i'll make it, still plenty of time to be seen. i'm probably next.. so i continue reading people as i notice every single person in the waiting room slowly take their turn back in the office. pretty soon its 430, i make a pact with myself that i am going to leave at 5 regardless of being seen or not. then three nurses leave the office. great, noone is manning the sign in window now..i won't even have someone to tell i am leaving. the inevitable happens and i am the only one left in the waiting room and its 5pm. i notice a nurse milling about in the shelves of files, i grab her attention and tell her i have another appointment and i have to leave, "can i reschedule this?". she looks at me like this is the first time someone has ever been mad that they had to wait over an hour to be seen. she takes me back into the cubical area to schedule me because the secretary's computer is shut off cause she had left a half hour ago. back in cubicle land one of the nurses feet are propped up, she's kicking back shooting the breeze with who i have to assume is the doctor. (i forget what he looks like, but this guy looked italian) then the nurse helping me asks me if i want to come in on a monday or a thursday? i say, which ever day has an appointment after 6pm. again, i get that look of disbelief. apparently the good doctor only sees follow up patients between 2-345 on those 2 days. so i ask for a 2 appointment and ask if that "is his first appt after lunch? will there be a wait at 2? i only have an hour for lunch." disbelieving stare.. she said i can call and ask how far behind they are if i want.. i took whatever appt she wanted to give me (in october, btw) and have no intentions of going. i am so pissed that they have so little regard for peoples schedules. not everyone is 90 years old and has nothing better to do than rot in a waiting room watching fox news!!! ugh. i think i hate this doctor.. compound this horrific waiting room experience with the screaming before my procedure and i've seen enough. never again.
so i'm mad to the point of tears as i drive to my eye doctor appointment to get a prescription for new contacts. thank god for those people. they are so nice. the two secretary's couldn't have been nicer. the associate eye dr got my eye tests going right away, everyone in there complimented my frames and knew which brand they were immediately. the dr wasted no time in checking my prescription and told me about the new technology behind the new lenses with no BS. i put on the trial pair, made an appointment to come back in a week to let him know how they feel and i was on my way. i was walking in the door at 620. exactly 1 hour after my appointment.
i was glad that i at least had that good experience to balance out my mood for the Phantom that night.. it was the first time i had seen phantom and didn't realize it was mostly singing.. singing that i didn't understand. and the people tended to al sing over each other which made me focus on how they had done some of the special effects. SLI pointed out to me that in his "behind the scenes" specials about phantom the set director explains it all. in case you are curious, check out these clips.. another thing that distracted me was the oboe player that i could see kept reading a book in between his parts. he's play a little, set down his instrument, pick up his book, read read read, play a little.. kind of distracting. another thing was i wish we could have seen the faces of the characters. but SLI also pointed out that you can see what the phantom looks like without his mask in the special.. i posted those clips for the website, i should have watched more than just the first 5 secs and the last 5 secs. or maybe he should have edited the show better so that the best parts were in those 10 secs. word to the wise SLI...
this weekend brings a sox/yankees series. which reminds me that LD is still holding my favorite red sox shirt hostage. she refuses to give it to me despite many, many broken promises.. i might have to just show up at her house after work someday.
there is also an italian festival this weekend if i can find someone to go with me i might go down tonight.. i doubt it's as "festive" as the olean drunk italian fest though...
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this weekend was spent driving down to NJ with MV and OC. we spent more than 10 hours in the car driving to and fro.. you really learn a lot about a person when you take a road trip with them. this is what i learned...
1. MV seems to be mysteriously dialed into some sort of retail satellite. i feel like she pointed out every shopping opportunity within a 50 mile radius at all times.
2. OC is the opposite of me when it comes to talking on the phone and taking calls. maybe it's 2nd nature for her as a part of her line of work, but it seemed like she was on the phone more than a 411 operator.
3. unless MV or OC are driving they are extremely carsick. carsick to the point where we had to pull over on the side of 81, and MV practically jumped out of a moving car to quell the upset stomach.
4. another funny thing was when OC almost let her future step children (ages 11-12) go to see superbad.
seeing PW was great, i haven't seen her since her trip to boston many years ago where we ironically went out for mexican. her house is so cute and deceivingly large. she is so cute pregnant... i saw her scrapbooks in person and she makes EH look like a rookie..
when i grow up i want to travel as much as PW and DW do.. so jealous. they've been everywhere..
i was kind of alarmed at how different my life is compared to the three of theirs. they are all married or engaged and they all have children of some degree. i didn't really have much to contribute to the conversation. i don't have kids, i've never had an engagement ring, i don't work in a hospital.. i am wondering though if part of my silence was because when i type things into this blog, it's like i download it out of my memory.. one of the questions i dread most from people i don't see regularly is "what's new with you?". i never know how to respond... do they really want an answer? or is it a rhetorical question? then when i gauge that it's not rhetorical, i rack my brain thinking of "new things", only i can't quickly decide what is "new" with me. it sounds dumb and i think people hate hearing it, but they could get an overview of what is new with me by reading this blog. i think being more specific with a question like that would be more helpful to me... keep that in mind far away blog readers. :)
blogging sort of deletes events out of my mind, which sometimes has a sort of therapeutic effect on me, but it can also be a pain.. i wonder if its a real life affliction...
my car got scary great miles. i got nearly 400 out of my last tank of gas. we figured it out to be about 7mpg. go honda!
here are my pics from the weekend, and here are PWs.
morbid monday links coming tomorrow. (hopefully)
it's in the 9's and i'm finally where i need to be in the way of organizing myself for this weekend. you see i am going to NJ this weekend. Parlin to be exact. it's a "child free" getaway ironically brought on by a pregnancy. i'm sure that while there will be no young'uns present, there will be much talk of them... i am traveling with two high school friends that i live in the same general town as, but rarely see. one (MV) is a mother of 2 who has not had a weekend to herself since the babies were born, and the other (OC) is an intern i think at one or more of the local hospitals. actually, she might be a resident somewhere, i'm not sure, that is how little i see her. we're going to visit another class of '94-er (PW) who is with child.
in preparation for my drive i changed my oil today, bought a refill of my air freshener, programmed everyone's addresses into the Magellan, and now i am updating the blog. i was hoping to squeeze in the new Clive Owen movie tonight but working really late prohibited that from happening.. maybe if i get back in time on sunday i will go then.
i notice that someone i work with drinks Lipton Raspberry White Tea like it's going out of style, so when i saw it in Diet at the grocery store this evening i picked one up. they are not half bad.. very sweet, which makes me question the "tea" part of it.. i think they sell them in the vending machine at work, i might need to have them once and a while as a treat.
since cath is out at the casino tonight i have the tv to myself and am taking the opportunity to watch some of my netflix dvds.. i've probablly paid for 6 months of netflix and not watched a single dvd in that time.. latte, i'll never retire at that rate.
ooohhh. i love cirque shows... i wish it were my job to watch them all day long. if you've never seen a cirque show you are seriously missing out. it's not easy to describe what a show is like, i guarantee that you've never seen anything like it though. there are acrobatics, hand balancing, juggling, bicycle riding, swinging, trapeze, clowns, comedy and the most in-shape people you will ever see in your life, i don't think any one of the people in the show had even one percentage of body fat on them. the costumes are also visually stunning.
my absolute favorite part of the show was the twin brothers that did the hand balancing. rrrrrrrrrrr. crazy insane. they were chad-hot... :) this is them below. trust me, they look better when they don't have green facial hair.
things are not looking good for me and the speeding in the work zone ticket.. i sent in the letter that cath crafted and they sent me back a court date. i called the oh so nice ancient lady working as the clerks secretary and she remembers getting my letter and said that the DA only considers reductions if they are done in person. :( horrible news for me. i think i would rather plead guilty than go and stand in front of this guy and beg to have the violation reduced knowing that there is little to no chance he will reduce it. it's all about the rejection.. i can't handle it.. the *upside* is that it should only cost me in the $270 range.. i was expecting something more like $400+.
in lighter news, tonight i am going to see the traveling cirque du soliel show, saltimbanco, that is in syracuse for the next 5 days. woo who! i love cirque shows. too bad i was too impatient and went ahead and bought tix when i could have had them free from work. :(
did anyone else see that pam from the office (jenna fischer) is separating from her husband? :( i read her blog all the time. it always sounded like they were so happy.. but i guess it's not human nature to broadcast the reoccurring "bad times" you experience in your personal life.. cause who would publicly identify a problem and not take actions towards doing something about it.. i think kowign that will make "the office" that much better this season.. it starts soon, sept 27th. woot!
i must admit a smile crept into my face this morning when i woke up and saw a new post from wfischer in my rss reader.. i like reading what he has to say.
the way he salvages something so ridiculously mundane and boring with his little cultural references thrown in remind me of some of the "sports guys" posts..
okay... maybe that wasn't the best example..
but bill simmons can relate sports information into tangible pop cultural references so that even the most casual of fans can understand his "cobra-kai" or "real world/road rules challenge" parallels.. he's a delight, and if you don't already read him, you should. plus it doesn't hurt that he was born and raised in boston and of course follows all the boston teams.
alright, enough of this "ass-kiss rodeo"....
this weekend was a lot of fun, as i predicted. i had some drinks at bonefish friday night with TRoss. i had been dying to have some designer drinks over there for some time now. i was NOT disappointed. i had blueberry mojitos. yummmm. it was nice to catch up with her, it had been a long time..
KT showed up on saturday as SH and JrH were getting back from their day at the fair (sans my red sox shirt that LD assured me she wouldn't forget...grrrrr). sat evening the whole group of us took batting practice and hit some golf balls. then we hit mulligans to show KT some local fun. the highlight of the evening was when the TVs kept showing the red sox game, and i couldn't read the score from where i was sitting, and KT went over and saw that the score was "6-10, red sox". i wasn't really sure why they seemed to be celebrating so wildly the win... till later when we heard someone say that the red sox had pitched a no hitter. jeez. that would be something to celebrate, a no hitter with the score 6-10... yeah, i think KT needs to get some glasses, it was 0-10..
sat morning before the fair KT went for a run anticipating the fried food to be consumed at the fair... i told her we lived right on the erie canal, and how to get there. well. she didn't listen so good and ended up crawling through the brush and hopping across the creek to get to the path, rather than going around the right way. she came back all scratched up. super funny. :)
we spent a majority of our day yesterday at the fair. i'm glad the weather wasn't unbearable. we didn't really see all the "fair people" i expected to see. the highlight of he day was obviously seeing the american idols.
i'm mad cause i know i took video of KT feeding the giraffe and its not on my camera. :(
my favorite part of the concert was not the concert itself, it was the man with the 3 or more daughters sitting to the left of us. he looked like he was hating life throughout the whole 3 hour long ordeal. cath mentioned that he looked like he was sleeping with his eyes open.. or as if he was in some sort of coma. he sat with his mouth open staring blankly off into space about 90% of the time i looked at him. cath and i got laughing so hard we were crying.. i joked that someday that would be ryan, taking his daughters to a concert...
luckily our seats were on the fringe of the "obstructed view" section, so KT was able to sit next to us even though she didn't have a ticket in our area.
because the concert was sponsored by pop tarts they gave away free ones as we exited the stadium.. i was amazed to see how anyone had room left in their stomachs to consume the pop tarts immediately.. hadn't these people already had their fill of fried food?
another highlight of the show was lot of blake and chris richardson time.. and blakes beat boxing.. and i loved chris sligh's many outfit changes into CNY related clothes...
laKisha sang i will always love you by whitney houston perfectly.. it was breathtaking..
don't get me wrong, there were lowlights too. the main one being the horrifically uncomfortable metal bench seats with too little leg room (even for me).
another annoying thing was the camera people didn't really follow the performers around all that well. so being up super high in the stands, we really only saw the show on the jumbo screens, and there would be a close up for a few minutes, and then a shot of them running away.. i wish there were more close ups..
now that all the guests have gone home we are left here to clean up and take care of our new "borrowed" pet. ms. patty poo will be staying with us till st patricks day.. :) j/k hopefully E&R sell their house sooner than that.. i am not sure patty really knows what is going on yet.. but lucky for fatty, she isn't obsessed with her like linus is.. i hope they become friends like fatty and frankie are.. but something tells me patty isn't as social as frankie..
here are the pics from this weekend.
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