Birthday Lunch at the Spa

 

 

HOw lovely is it to sit around a long white table decked in attractive flower arrangements, sprinkled chocolates, Martha Stewart place settings with chargers (!)at a fancy-schmancy SPA (in the women only section, no less) along with ladies in robes, eating the cheese plate with apricots and Gorgonzola, then Chinese Chicken Salads, Mediterranean pizzas and telapia tacos while sipping diet cokes? It is super lovely. Uber lovely. And having hardly left the house since the Seattle January snain set in last week, i have to say it was worth the effort. Seeing the birthday gal surrounded by her posse of friends, balloons tied to her chair, gifts at her place setting, just back from a trip to New Orleans with hubby, happily in her element was worth the effort to shower, dress, primp and allow K to drive me all the way out the driveway to a completely different suburb to a health club all my Microsoft friends belong to for the pool and spa. Lovely, civilized, informative, entertaining are some of the words that come to mind. Just the smell of the steamy, eucalyptus oil-filled air at the Spa felt decadent. Today I am not getting back into my robe, i will not lie down for my January afternoon snooze and I am now more able to tackle last night's dinner dishes than i was before being treated by a queen at the lunch table. Thanks ladies for knowing that we need these moments in order to do the awesome work we do.

Stumbling Acceptance Speeches

I know i'm a week late on this one but when the trio known to the world as Edward, Bella and Jacob got up at the People's Choice Awards and giggled, shoulder punched and fiddled with their clothes (and each other's clothes) while accepting a coveted award for best movie of 2010, don't you think someone off camera could have looked at them sternly and told them to straighten up? They are after all in their twenties. Or at least the first two are and all three actors should know better than to slouch, guffaw and look genuinely embarassed to be seen on TV. They are movie actors of international proportions. Could they not have prepared a few lines about being grateful? According to a teasing Robert Pattinson, his co-workers had prepared speeches so where were they? Taylor Lautner was the only one of three who put full sentences together, looked in the camera and said a genuine thank you, giving a shout out to deserving people, between jokes about who got to go first. The other two looked like eight year olds caught on camera, shuffling their feet and daring each other to say something silly.
It was embarassing and i'll tell you, when i win my People's Choice Award for something, i will stand poised, encompass eloquence along with gratefullness and the People will remember that in the years to come when they vote for me again and again just because my acceptances speeches are not full of teenaged embarassment and snort laughs.

Missed Hasselbeck Meeting

Last night my gals met Mark (or is it Mike?) Hasselbeck- the quarterback (or is it quarterbeck?) for the SEattle Seahawks. They were supposedly out for dinner and ran into him and now have posted on Facebook their iphone pictures. I"m jealous not because i even watch football but because they did something out of the ordinary while i sat home watching America's Funniest Videos with my family. True, it's nice to have family time but last night was the latest in a long string of staying home with everyone to snuggle up in the big chair with a dog and a kid and watch TV. Going out for dinner with my friends to watch their excitement at meeting a celebrity would have been fun. It isn't that they didn't try to pry me from the house, knowing i haven't gotten out of my robe for days. They called at 4 to give me the option but i was just getting ready to take my pre-TV nap and i couldn' imagine leaving the house on such a cold day. Even when E told me we could talk about Maui and the possibility of selling something of mine to get me there. That sounded like a good plan but Maui talk could wait until the next day when i needed a reason to get out of my robe. I was already dressed and was already dreaming of getting into jammies for the night at 4. So everyone went out, met Hasselbeck and now i have nothing to write on facebook except how dreary Seattle is in January. If someone phones me today i think i'll pick up and agree to meet them at an invitingly warm, cozy place that harbors approachable celebrities.

The Christmas Tree is Down - Almost

Two trees - one down and curbside, one almost down. Creating a blog seemed more important that finishing the job as i composed a diatribe in my head about my job as the sole Christmas tree designer and executer. That's not to say i'm killing Christmas trees, only that i do all the work and i'm sick of it.
This year i went into the crawlspace, lugged up all the tubs of red and green paraphernalia, pulled everything out , hung and decorated all over our house and sat back to enjoy my work. Are there more people than me in the family, you ask? Yes and they tell me they love Christmas and well they should. It's a time of year when things magically transform, appear, bake, visit and no one has to lift a finger - except me. And now that it is the first week of January I'm exhausted.
In the last hour since i started dismantling tree number two I made plans to only have one tree next year, throw the ornaments anywhere they land and dispose of anything from previous years that does not make the cut. The voices in my head told me i must scale back - only non- bake 'cookies' made from breakfast cereals and marshmallows with red sprinkles), use inflatable lawn ornaments, thereby eliminating the need for hunreds of lights, twelve extension cords and a crying fit. Garlands will not be strung everywhere with twinkling lights, Stuffed Santa Clauses might take a year off and artwork will not be replaced by photos of my children on Santa's lap at the nearby mall. Even though my children are 8 and 14, i will start to scale back in anticipation of the day when the people at the old folks home will do all the decorating for me to enjoy from my rocking chair.