Sh&t that drives me crazy – Event Planning Edition

Guest post! RD is back and I’m here for it….

– Overly scented florals (in general) but especially at food and wine events.  If I see hyacinths at Le Bernardin, I will smack you with them.

– A panel event that has no stage.  Why?  Are we in your living room?  Will Uncle Ed be treating us to his Richard Nixon impersonation?  Just because people are in the back of the room, doesn’t mean they don’t want to see.

– A podium with no podium sign, or a podium that is branded with the hotel logo.  Unless your speaker is actually from The Ritz-Carlton, you need to cover that mess up.

– Rude staff.  I’m giving you money.  Act like you work here.  Better yet, act like you work for me!  Because at least for the next few hours, you do.

– Columns.  No one wants to “work around” you.  We’re not in Greece.  This isn’t The Parthenon.  Time to find a new venue.

– Uninformed folks who refer to an event as “a party.”  If it was a party, I’d be having fun… Not running around like a crazy person trying to make sure nothing goes wrong.

– Wired microphones.  Bob Barker called.   He told me to tell you that this is the 21st century.  

And finally….It costs what it costs.  I don’t work on commission.  

Hot Date

Well not really that hot, but my husband and I did sneak out to a movie last night. On a Sunday night. Aren’t we crazy? We’ve always loved movies. When we first met we went to a movie every Friday night. This was pre-Rotten Tomatoes so you really didn’t know what you were getting. It was great. We would see whatever was out. Action. Love story. Horror. We just loved going. We saw really good movies and really bad ones too. The only governing factors were the time of the show and the theater we saw it in. Now we need all of the internet to tell us it’s good before we deem to see it.

Things slowed down when we had kids – we saw fewer and fewer movies. Babysitters were hard to get – and it just seemed easier to just stay home. As the kids got older we started taking them to the movies with us, which meant most of what we saw involved princesses, action hero’s and toys. That was fun too.

We passed on our love of movies to them – actually just to my daughter. My son is a good sport but there’s a lot of other things he’d always rather be doing (although 2 summers ago we watched the entire Harry Potter Series together and he still talks about it). Kera on the other hand, loves movies like we do. She loves a good scary movie equally as much as she likes a good indie. And because she grew up in a world with YouTube, she loves documentaries too. My husband and I were secretly delighted to hear that she may want to focus on film production in college (or music. or something else). We acted all cool like, “oh that’s nice…”, when in reality we were both more like,” omg! omg! that’s what we should have done!”. What’s wrong with us? We need to calm down.

Where was I? We love movies. Now that the kids are older we have lots of opportunities to sneak out on our own, and we do. We love Oscar season and try to see everything nominated that we can get our hands on. We love the summer fluff movies and the fall serious moves (ok I love the fluff, my husband takes a nice nap). Our local theater just installed all recliner seats. If they start serving wine I’m moving in.

We come from a long line of movie lovers. My mother-in-law used to take my husband and his sister to the movies all the time. My family loved the movies too – hooray for Bollywood! When we meet people who don’t like the movies we are immediately suspect. Not like movies? Do you hate America too?

Long story long – we went, we ate popcorn, we had fun. Happy Monday!

(forgot to mention that we saw the The Gift. We give it two thumbs up and a very red ripe tomato)

Spice of life 

All those who love me know my devotion to heat. Not heat as in temperature, what I’m talking about is the burn of a good pepper. For most of my life I’ve ordered my pasta, curry, and Chinese food extra spicy. My go-to condiment is crushed red pepper. I almost cried when I realized that our pizza place offered fried hot peppers as a side. Anyway my point is… I like spicy. I like spicy very much. Well I’m not the only one! There’s more freaks like me.

Here’s the segment that came on the news tonight that proves it!  Apparently very spicy peppers have the power to lower cholesterol, keep blood cells healthy, and make you more interesting as a person. I may have made up that last one – but I believe it to be true. 

Guess what I was eating when the segment came on… I’m a genius!  Based on my pepper consumption amounts, my blood cells should be doing the mambo. So go out there and have a pepper people. Or don’t. I’m not the boss of you. 

Chicken Wings vs. Vick’s

Oh what a week! Our whole family has been fighting a cold/allergy/tuberculosis type of cough. This post could have easily been called Phlegm Tales but that’s just gross.
IF I were to write about phlegm I’d tell you that after hacking up a lunge for a couple of days your entire face gets congested. The whole thing.
My baby girl was totally covered in it all weekend. Usually I sequester my kids in their rooms like prisoners when they’re sick, but I felt so bad for her. Nothing can really help you, you have to let it run its course. But I did what my mom would have done for me. I ignored all the warnings on the jar of Vick’s and put some in boiling water and let her steam it in. Does it help? Yes. Is it toxic? Maybe. But you get a good nights sleep – so there’s that.

My baby boy has a bit of a cough thing too, but his cure is much different. See photos below of both for proof. His healing comes from a pile of chicken wings. People are different. What can you say.

And I know that talking about how busy you are is the new black, but I’ve been really busy!!

I did however take time to marvel at this woman who I’ve never seen before on my commute. She got on. Found a seat. Put away her 4 bags/coats etc. and then took out a full-on make-up bag. Not a travel bag, no no, a folding tri-fold bag with all her essentials in it. She then spent the next 65 minutes applying make-up. I had kind of noticed it the other day, but I was dozing in and out of reality trying to stay awake. Today I noticed. Today I was alert. Today I set a timer on my phone. 3 different concealers before the base coat even went on. 3! Then there was a highlighter type thing around her eyes and corners of her mouth. Followed by powder (loose applied with a big brush). The actual color portion of the application was really cool too. I couldn’t see all the little details, but I did see the dark liner, bronzer used as blush and hot pink lipstick. Hot pink lipstick! It totally inspired me to put on more lip gloss. I’m not embarrassed to say that I took a small pic of her. Pretend it’s not creepy that I did that and take a look below.

To round off the strange pictures I thought you’d like to see what I had for dinner on Tuesday night. Deconstructed taco. Which is basically like all the stuff that falls out of your taco at the end and, if you are like me, you think it tastes so much better than the actual taco. If you don’t agree, no worries, go on with your whole, intact taco you communist.

Just kidding. Communists don’t eat tacos. Happy almost Friday to you all.

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I wore my pants inside out. Merry Christmas!

When I got home from going to the grocery store, the dry cleaners, the gas station (where I ran into a neighbor and had a convo), and the bank – I walked into the kitchen and both my kids said,” Mom, your pants are inside out.”
Come on 2015!