Tuesday, February 27, 2007

A Bit Brighter

I'm back & feeling a bit better today. Thank you, Teeny, Sarah & Elisabeth, for the kind words! Seeing Nick for dinner & the long chat I had with my mum also did wonders for me. I'm feeling almost back to normal. :)

Also, I've just spent the last hour shoe-shopping online! Mostly window shopping for now (saving money for my upcoming trip to Scotland), but it's lovely all the same, isn't it? :)

Monday, February 26, 2007

Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

Well, my name is not Alexander, but I've had a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. :( I don't want to go into details, but three issues of concern conspired to have me in tears at my desk by 11:30am. Luckily, one of them is completely resolved, the other is mostly so, and the third will hopefully be by Wednesday.

The hot cocoa to which I treated myself around 1pm did its part to make things better. More importantly, when Nick heard I was having a bad day, he invited me over for dinner even though he has to be up at 2am tomorrow for work. Now - home, snuggled into pajamas, and writing about my yucky day - things feel a bit brighter. Thank goodness!

Wednesday, February 21, 2007

I love my new baubles

I owe you guys a post about Saturday's dinner at Cafe Polonia (which was yummy). However, DQ distracted me with a request for a picture of my new necklace. For Valentine's Day, I asked my co-worker, who's a really talented jewelry maker (check out her site), to create a necklace using a silver star bead & a British two-pound coin. Here it is:


Sunday, February 18, 2007

Lucky Girl

Am I a lucky girl or what? On Wednesday, my dear dad presented me with a single red rose, which now graces my desk at work:
And last night, when I arrived at Nick's apartment for our Valentine's/5 month anniversary dinner, I found this on the armchair:
A half dozen roses, interspersed with red berries & lush tropical leaves. As you can see, the bouquet was flanked by a card & chocolates (a portion of the cost of which went to the United Way). I don't know if you can see it, but the necklace I asked my co-worker to make (featuring a silver star-shaped bead and a British two-pound coin) is also hanging from the bouquet.
Here are the roses at home on my table. :) No matter what you can say about the commercialism of Valentine's Day, I feel pretty blessed right now.

Saturday, February 17, 2007

Baby's First Birthday!

I love this picture. :) I'm trying to show Thing 1 the play teepee I bought him for his first birthday & he's so much more interested in the ceiling fan.

I've uploaded the rest of the birthday weekend pics and you see them here. Once I get the videos formatted properly, I will post those up here as well. All in all, it was a very fun birthday weekend & I can hardly believe my little, premature nephew is a healthy, 24 lb. 1 year old!

Nick & I are out to dinner tonight for a belated Valentine's Day & our 5th "monthaversary." We're checking out a Polish restaurant in South Boston called Cafe Polonia.

Tuesday, February 13, 2007

I Can't Think of a Good Title

I've never been the kind of single person who disliked & badmouthed Valentine's Day. Nor was I the type to sit around in an orgy of self-pity, watch romantic movies, and eat chocolate alone. I generally spent past Valentine's Days hanging out with friends, going out to dinner, spending time with family, and generally not noticing the holiday. My father always bought my sister, mother & I some cute Valentine's thing & that was enough.

Still - I can't help but be excited that this is the first Valentine's Day I've spent with someone I care about. Tonight, we're actually going to lay low & watch a movie in our PJ's. On Saturday night, we're going out for dinner for both Valentine's & our 5-month anniversary. We're not fancy, so we'll probably go to someplace simple in Southie, like the L St. Tavern or the Playwright. Give me a good beer, a good burger & Nick and I'm fine, thanks.

This wasn't too sappy thus far, but prepare for it to get a tad more warm-fuzzy. Those of you who can't handle it might want to check out now. ;)

Being with Nick for the past five months has helped me understand, more than ever, how important the little things are. Yes, I like him because he will be giving me a Valentine's Day necklace that I commissioned from my co-worker. Yes, I like him because he makes me dinner more often than the other way around. But more than that, I like him because of the little things. Yesterday morning, as he was about to leave for work around 5:45am, I sneezed. He heard it through the bedroom door & said "Bless you!" on his way out the apartment door.

I guess the point of this rambling, disorganized post is that I'm spending my first Valentine's Day with a boyfriend & I'm happy. Bully for me. :)

(I didn't post about Valentine's Day specifically last year, but I did post this just after the holiday. I must have had love on the brain.)

Monday, February 12, 2007

Spoiled for Choice

So you know those days when you sit down to blog & simply cannot come up with a topic about which to post? Yeah, I'm not there now. ;) In fact, I have too many topics in mind right now. I'm not sure how to narrow things down.
  1. There's Thing 1's first birthday, which was on Sunday. I've posted one pic from dinner on Saturday - him with a napkin on his head. Cute, right? I get my camera back on Wednesday, so I think I'll wait on this one until I can post more pics.
  2. I'm mulling over two posts about Valentine's Day: a.) which is rather sweet & about how this is my first Valentine's Day with a boyfriend, ever. You might get that one tomorrow night.
  3. And b.) which is about how those "Jared, The Galleria of Jewelry," commercials make me want to stab my eyes out. Seriously, if I hear "He went to Jared" one more time, I might fire-bomb their stores. Whew - got that out of my system, guess I don't need to write that post after all.
  4. There's also one that I was contemplating on the way home from work tonight - something about a comparison of Nick and The Ex using their music choices, I think. In essence, The Ex loved NIN and was appropriately dark, angsty, and mentally unstable. Nick loves old-school rap & the blues and is both comfortable & surprising. :) There - put that one to bed, too.
So in the end, you got a post about posting. Sorry! I'll mull over the Valentine's Day post for tomorrow night & see how un-sappy I can make it.

Thursday, February 08, 2007

OMG, it's not like it's JFK

Breaking News - Anna Nicole Smith is dead.

More important breaking news - I could not care less.

Tuesday, February 06, 2007

"Meeting the Parents"

Well, it wasn't quite so bad as all that. ;) Just kidding - I met Nick's parents this weekend & it went pretty well! His parents are divorced, so I didn't have to encounter a couple with a unified front or anything like that.

I did have a couple to meet on Friday night, though. We started off for western MA (where Nick grew up) around 8pm, but the turnpike had gotten very slippery by 9:30. We had only made it as far as Springfield at that point, so we decided to crash with Nick's friends Ryan & Andrea. They very kindly took us in when we showed up, snow-covered, around 10pm. They gave us beer, made us little pizzas, and gave us a (ridiculously comfortable!) bed to sleep in. Plus, we got to meet their puppy Max, recently adopted from the shelter. He was so sweet & snuggly. :)

In the morning, we got up, showered, and had some coffee with corn muffins that Andrea made for us. While I was in the shower, Andrea told Nick that she really liked me. That's one down!

We got to Nick's mom's house around noon. I met her & her boyfriend, gave her the tulips I had bought for her, then we all went out for lunch. Lunch was yummy & I think I was able to bond with Nick's mom a little over the crazy stories her boyfriend told (he's more than a little nuts). I figured she was the one I really needed to impress, so I felt comfortable rolling my eyes at the same things she did.

After dinner out together (during which Ryan called & mentioned that he liked me, too), Nick & I stopped by his father's to visit for a bit. His dad is pretty shy, but we chatted pleasantly for a little while before we headed out.

On Sunday morning, we got up around 9 (late for us) & started getting ready to go. When I was in the shower, Nick's mom told him that she really liked me. I'm telling you - I need to shower more! People seem to say nice things about me when I'm in one!

On the whole, it was a nice weekend & I seem to have hit it off with Nick's friends & family. :)

Monday, February 05, 2007

"The second of February was covered with snow . . . "

"And so was the turnpike from Stockbridge to Boston . . ." I love that song (Sweet Baby James, by James Taylor). Nick & I spent the weekend in the Berkshires. With the snow we had on Friday night & the drive-by of Tanglewood on Sunday, that song seemed fitting. Here are some of the pictures, to go along with the audio extra. ;)

Yup, you're seeing correctly. Those are buffalo! Encountered at Eastover Resort in Lenox, where Nick had his 10-year high school reunion.

This fun, mustard-colored house is Arrowhead in Lenox, where Herman Melville lived while writing Moby Dick.

Searles Castle in Great Barrington

The Red Lion Inn in Stockbridge. Twenty years ago, my parents stayed here with friends & bought my sister & me T-shirts. I've wanted to visit the Inn ever since. A big thank you to my boyfriend for helping me fulfill that childhood dream!

The Yankee Candle shop in Stockbridge. Picture taken out of the car window, so please excuse the poor quality!

Us, at a pretty outlook on a mountain road in Lenox. Check out the rest of the pics here. I'll try to post tomorrow about what meeting Nick's parents was like!

Thursday, February 01, 2007

Prepare for a pride-obliterating bitch slap!

At this point, I think I may be the only blogger in Boston who hasn't posted about the recent debacle with the bomb scares & the Aqua Teen Hunger Force viral marketing. There have been a variety of opinions on whether this was a annoying, stupid hoax or a quirky marketing campaign that Boston police grossly misinterpreted. I'm leaning towards the latter opinion.

On one level, I do appreciate that the police took the threat of "suspicious packages" throughout the city seriously & took appropriate action. However, I find it so difficult to believe that NO ONE in the entire Boston police department was able to recognize the cartoon character depicted above ("Err" from ATHF) & realize that the whole thing was harmless. I read an article about a year ago (can't remember where) that said that Adult Swim's key demographic was males aged 18-30. Surely there a few of those on the Boston police force?

I've been watching Adult Swim, and particularly Aqua Teen, since about 2001. I own season one on DVD. The show has been around for something like seven years, people. If anyone had walked into a Newbury Comics or Virgin Records near the location of one of the alleged "bombs," they could have purchased a DVD showing Err, a smart-ass little alien, in action.

Maybe it's just because I'm Generation Y (or whatever they call us). But I find it a tad ridiculous that there was no one on the city of Boston's pay roll who couldn't spot a harmless marketing campaign when they saw one.