Gma's 85th.

My Gma turned 85 on May 18th. Her first choice for celebrating was at the nearest casino but since my three-year old niece and some of my cousins would not be able to get in, we settled for her second choice, a restaurant called the Country Inn, which is a complete haven for snowcap heads. Please enjoy the following pictures. As you can tell, my family and I have some trouble behaving in public places.

Yup, that's Santa Claus. He was sitting at the table across from us which was basically the best thing EVER. I am obsessed with Christmas. I think I was more nervous to meet him than I was to meet Mark Wahlberg. Also, my Aunt Kathy and I may have thrown some napkins at a point. Since there is no pictures of that, let's say it didn't happen....

Rod Stuart, Phil Collins=Nostalgia at Age 8.

June 6th marked my 29th year of blessing this here Earth. Holla! As usual, I had around five minutes this past week dedicated to having my parents assure me that 29 is still a young and vibrant age. This is something, I feel, that is sort of common for people to start worrying about once they hit, oh, 26 or so.  Creeping up on thirty-how in the world?! They wonder! Here are two truths though: 1. Thirty is NOT old. Nor is 100, as long as you find the joys of being alive, stay active, and healthy. 2. I've felt simultaneously old and also young since the age of 7 or 8. Dead serious. This has something to do with

Birthday dinner #1. Birthdays=food=stomach ache=worth it.

Best cake ever courtesy of my amazing mom. 

Phil Collins, Rod Stewart,and Don Henley, as well as a few other popular songsters. I have vivid memories of driving around in my parents' station wagon at age seven wondering if I was old as Phil or Rod or Don blared through the radio, making me feel super nostalgic.  I would think about who exactly  is this Maggie May?, what exactly is in the air tonight? hold on!, and how I remembered when I heard the "Boys of Summer" the previous summer, at age six.

And TMI but when I finally got my period I cried all day, making my mom assure me that she still loved me even though I was officially old. I was in like sixth grade.

I guess there is a fear that life will just pass by, another year of thinking about Maggie, but this really is not the case. Every day in every year is worth living. Every day is a brand new start. So with that in mind, I try to really value my life. I am pretty lucky after-all! And I think most of us are pretty lucky if we start focusing on what really matters and living life to the fullest.

Now this has somehow gotten way too preachy and for that I apologize. But go forth people! Truly enjoy your days! Get low! Stay young! Feel vibrant! Life is for living!

Disgruntled from a long day of hunting mice, Rags turns to his vices...

Sheep Butt.

I try to let go of things that I can't control. I make an effort not to have any regrets. You gotta learn from your mistakes. Everything happens for a reason. But, I can't get past the fact that I did not stop my car to take a picture of a glorious sheep butt this past week.

 So, there is a very excellent flock that live on my street. They're often grazing, bah-ing, being cool, rockin' their woolly selves, doing the great stuff you would expect. But, the other day, I legit saw a sheep standing on his hind legs, his front legs grabbing onto a bush infront of him, his head full in it. So much sheep butt going on. I really dig how this fellow defied his usual stance and just went for what he waned, no qualms about showing off his fine rump for the rest of the flock. And here I am, an idiot in the car, too caught up in watching that I didn't even think to pull over to take a picture to capture the moment. I guess this is a prime example of life just happening before your eyes and truly being caught up in the moment.

Thankfully, I did at least capture some cats straight chillen. I take a lot of "I Spy" photos. There are four cats in this picture. Squint and you shall see.

Speaking of animals, man gets swallowed by a hippo and lives to talk about it?! Are you dead serious?! Best line ever: "Time passes very slowly when you're in a hippo's mouth."

Passing Notes.

More tales from the dramas of school!!

Lunch this week was spent listening to a teacher read notes that she had confiscated from her fourth grade students. Classic to say the least.

The first note was from one girl to another and it described their to-do list for an upcoming sleepover party. The list went something like this:

1. Spa Treatment
2. Prank call the boys
3. Go to Orange Leaf
4. Work on dance moves
5. Work on tan
6. Think of what to say to the boys
7. Watch a movie

One of the girls also confessed to having a huge crush on one of the boys in the class. She plans to tell him on Carnival Day. She's so nervous! He's so cute! She is going to work on her tan as a means to prepare for the big revelation.

Another note was from one boy to another. This note had absolutely nothing to do with girls. It was really sweet an innocent. It went something like this:

Dear John,

How are you? You're my best friend. I know you have a lot of other friends but I think you're my best friend. We should hang out soon. I played a great game of tetherball yesterday. Do you like tetherball?
                                       
-Zack


Zack, 

Tetherball is awesome! Let's play! We should hang out soon. We would have to tell our moms though because they would need to know what we are doing. Do you know what extreme couponing is? My aunt is an extreme couponer. She has coupons everywhere! Anyway, let's hang out.

-John

These notes are an excellent example of how girls' minds work and how boys' minds work. While girls are worrying themselves about professing their feelings, the guys are obliviously thinking about tetherball. Ladies of all ages, while you're sitting at home wondering if you should text blah blah blah and wondering why blah blah blah isn't texting you, remember it ISN'T you! He is just thinking about tetherball or something of equal importance.

Anyway, so Carnival was great because I learned that I am really excellent at obstacle courses. There were four blow-up bouncy obstacle course stations set up. And I ran around barefoot with the kids, telling them that they were in fact, "going down" and then proceeded to dive head first into inflatable barrels and climb a wall and slide down with much vigor! The bruises on my leg were definitely worth the glory of it all.

Lunch with Hilda.

Monday afternoon found me at my Gma's assisted living room having lunch with her and her people. She told me to show up at her place at 11:30 am. Lunch would start at 12 noon, but we would need to head down by ten of because of the fact that we would be walking at the pace of one mile an hour. Gma warned me that we would be sitting with a woman named Hilda, who is a bit off her rocker, and another lady (who is sweet but her name escapes me), who is completely deaf. My Gma thinks that seeing someone with a tattoo is wild, so I didn't put much stock in what she said about Hilda. That is, until I met Hilda. Lady is off her rocker, but I found her to be amazingly entertaining with a great spirit!

Hilda is this cute little lady with eyes that twinkle with life, as well as with a bit of something-is-missing-here. She was so accommodating and friendly with me. As soon as I sat down, she started off about how she loves men and is getting married in June, right here at the assisted living home. Would I want to be her maid of honor? The man she is marrying lives at another residential home, they love to dance together, and he is an excellent guitar player. "He's in a band! Do you have a boyfriend? There are other guys in the band. I bet they would marry you!" Hilda, oh Hilda, how did you know that I have a weakness for musicians?! Granted, I generally try to go a wee bit (see: a lot bit) lower than age 80. Hilda became obsessed with finding me a boyfriend. She literally asked EVERY SINGLE RESIDENT LIVING THERE for me. To the fellas, she would yell across the room, YELL!!!!, "Hey! She needs a boyfriend! Will you date her? Do you know anyone?" And she asked all of the women if they had any boys they could share. One resident said that he may be too old for me, but that he can set me up with guys ages 4-18. I informed him that that is definitely too young and then he broke into song. He was great. He's going back to Europe this summer where, where, as he informed me, it is very difficult not to stare at all of the beautiful women's legs. When it appeared that none of the residents could help me find love, Hilda then asked all of the workers, many of who were like teenagers. 

 Hilda also kept yelling across the room telling different guys how she can't wait to dance with them again. "I'm a huge flirt. I love to shake it." Hilda told me that she lost both her husband and son and then decided to just have fun and be happy, that nothing else matters. So now,she dances with everyone and flirts like mad. Though, she is quite the flirt herself, she did admit to me that she had to press her emergency button when she caught one male resident sneaking into the bedroom of the lady who lives next door to her. Hilda said that she asked him what he was doing and he answered that he wanted to sleep next to his girlfriend. Hilda had to press her emergency button because it was simply against the rules. The man she was referring to had three workers helping him into his seat, as he could barely walk by himself. It probably took the poor chap a good hour to get to his girlfriend's room.

Naturally, after such an exciting lunch, it made sense that my Gma and I would cap it off at one of her favorite places, CVS. She has so many coupons she was very excited to use! On the way out, Hilda saw me and stood up and danced with me a little, exclaiming again, just how much she loves to shake it, shake it!

Wedding, bam!

Okay, Sunday Funday Wedding Time finally here! What! I woke up feeling like complete hell, voice totally gone, IBS actin' a fool. Jess and I got brunch at this cute little French joint in the West Village where I pounded orange juice after orange juice served in a wine glass. I now only drink orange juice this way. For food, I had a most amazing oatmeal skillet concoction. I'm still thinking about it two weeks later. Oatmeal with herb potatoes and cheddar cheese and turkey bacon and beans! It sounds crazy! But oh the taste!! SO GOOD.

Post food, I got ready for the wedding at Jess'. God bless the girl. She doesn't have a full length mirror in the joint. It's decidedly hard to get ready without a full length mirror, while feeling like shit, in someone else's place. I put on nude tights because even though I'm usually all about fun tights, I was attempting to be classy. Nude tights plus knee length red overcoat definitely made me feel kind of stripper-ish. And the tights weren't the comfy sort. They were doing the slide down all night making me feel like a stuffed sausage. I kept trying to slyly pull them up as I was simultaneously getting low. Whoa. A whole paragraph dedicated to nude tights. Are you surprised?!

I had to head back and drop off my stuff at Bird's before heading to the wedding. On the train, I naturally made a new friend; a girl from Australia who is on holiday and is moving to London soon. She was going to participate in a ballroom dance contest that night. She was lovely and we had a lovely conversation and an older woman who was listening was very excited by all of the loveliness and we all wished each other well.

Somehow, I arrived at the venue, Freebrook Academy, 45 minutes early, so I made my way to a bodega where I bought cough drops and pet a cat. Always a great time! So, the wedding!!! Okay, I should probably state at some point that the bride is a dear, dear friend, Michelle, and the groom, an awfully lovely chap, Rustun. Michelle and I met working at Mercury Lounge and became fast friends. Just a few months into our friendship, we dressed up as Axl (her) and Slash (I) for Halloween, completely solidifying the bond. Since then, we have done a lot of other exciting things, like playing Ms. Pacman, petting cats, listening to Sinatra, and eating chocolate chip cookies. Michelle and Rustun are a really classy couple and their wedding totally represented this. Freebrook Academy is a totally charming mansion in Bed-Stuy built in the 1900s. It now serves as the space for a progressive school and also is where Boardwalk Empire shoots. AKA it's pretty amazing. I walked into the grandness and am immediately swept into a different era; vintage beauty swirling all around me, and jazz music filling the air. It was a great scene. To the left, there is a room where you can serve yourself wine and beer,and where a few people mingle. I make some new friends and wonder why I wasn't friends with these people before. As more people arrive and the time slips on, we are all ushered upstairs to a balcony where we would look down on the wedding. How badass is that?! Looking down on a wedding? None of that stuffy sitting pew business. Of course, I was completely terrified I would knock my wine over the ledge the entire time, but still, it was great. The wedding itself was really touching. It seemed that Michelle and Rustun were not sure where their vows were, but they said some very sweet stuff about each other. The speeches later went on the same theme. Literally no one could find (or wrote) a speech, but they were all funny and wonderful in their own rights. Michelle compared Rustun to a cat which I really liked because I really like cats. They like cats pretty much as much as me, which was evident in the fact that they had cats (along with a bride and groom) on their cake, and gave out pins with their cats' faces on them. I wore my pin so proudly let me tell you.

Amazing pins featuring amazing cats/amazing couple

Confessional: I had the very important job of clearing the plates throughout the night. I had every intention to do this and to do this well, but I must admit, there was not one plate that I cleared. Everyone around me was clearing plates. At one point, someone came to take my plate and I said that he is doing my job. He didn't seem to care, and he took the plate from my hands. I feel kind of bad about this. I'm sorry I did not clear a plate....

I was very happy to mingle and dance the night away,to catch up with old friends, and make new ones. I commented on how a couple of the ladies I'm friends with from work looked so different; they all had grown out and dyed their hair. In response, one of them told me, "You look exactly the same." Um, thanks?? I wasn't quite sure how to take that. The catching up with the peeps proved to be quite difficult after around an hour in because it was at this time that I could no longer speak. At all. I tried to  convey my thoughts through my body aka by dancing nonstop. I do feel like my dancing would have been better if it wasn't for that nude tight situation I had previously mentioned. Also, this happened: A dead sober, classic jam the finger in the door. A blood blister promptly formed which was (is) totally disgusting, but by which I was admittedly kind of fascinated by. So, yeah, I basically was a hot mess: blood blister, sausage nude tights, can't talk. At one point, Michelle came up to chat with me and I literally could not get a word out. I think she just thought I was speechless and I'm going to let her believe that. But despite this, it was wonderful and I'm so, so happy for them!!! Oh, did I mention that Pies and Thights (AKA to-die-for fried chicken, biscuits, and mac'n'cheese) catered the wedding?! HOLLA!!!