Post-Christmas Boasts

Welcome back, my dearest readers. I hope you had a great Christmas, full of cat naps, gossip mags, and napping cats. Oh, and family time, and most importantly of all, gifts.

I did. After spending Christmas Eve gorging myself on a feast from the land and the sea, I worried that I would not be able to partake in the Christmas Day meals my and Evan's families had in store. Not to worry. I rose above the full stomach and nausea to conquer all of those meals, too.

Before I get to bragging about my Christmas gifts, let me tell you about yet another similarity between Kate and myself (me? I don't even know. It's late. I've spent the last 4 hours creating my new blog header ... please tell me you noticed?). Kate was not allowed to bring sweet Lupe with her to Christmas with the Royals, apparently because the Queen's little corgis are total jerks and would have eaten him alive had he shown up. In a similar snub, my own mother barred Mabel from our family's Christmas celebrations.

Why, you ask?

Like the Queen, my parents have a dog with a bad-itude. Meet Buddy Jr.:

Who, me?

Buddy is not welcoming of guests in his home. He is particularly averse to small children, my brother, and Mabel. The last (and only!) time he was invited into the tudor house, he snuck out of my mom's eyesight and chased Mabel all over the place, causing a serious relapse in anxiety and leading her to move into the bathroom sink temporarily:

If it weren't 12:24 a.m., I would have made a hilarious speech bubble on this photo. Sorry.

Anyhoo, my dear mother refused to let her own grand-cat attend Christmas, which certainly put a damper on things. Like Kate, I am quite fond of my furry child, and I couldn't enjoy the days as much without her on my lap, biting my wrists, etc.

And poor Mabel was forced to stay home, drowning her sorrows under the empty tree.

On a lighter note, I am proud to brag that for Christmas I received a flying pig, permission from Evanshine to buy myself a pet hedgehog*, and my favorite gift of all:

No, your eyes are not deceiving you! My own piece of Royal Wedding Commemorative China!

 

Despite the Queen's my mother's best attempts to spoil my Christmas spirit, it was a wonderful mid-week holiday made even brighter by the fact that approximately everyone I work with took Thursday and Friday off! Now I'd better get to coming up with a list of resolutions before tonight at midnight...

See you next year!

* Technically, I have not received this gift...  Yet. 

Merry Christmas!

Meow-wy Christmas from Mabel, Guest Blogger Extraordinaire

With the holidays coming up, I’ve decided to take the day off from blogging. I’ve got a lot of Christmas shopping and baking and wrapping to do. I know how many loyal readers out there get upset when I am not available online … so I’ve asked my best friend, Mabel, to step in as a guest blogger. I hope you all are preparing for a MEOW-wy Christmas this year! 

---

Of course she did. I would have bet you $100 that the Lady ended her introduction with some play on “meow.” She is truly predictable, just like this blog. I’m just shocked that she didn’t find a way to mention her beloved Kate Middleton. I’m so glad the Lady had my toenails ripped out of my tender paws at a young age, just because that means I’m not allowed to go outside and be embarrassed by the Lady in front of the neighborhood cats.

Well, if you want my real feelings, I must first say that my Christmas season has not been very “meow-wy” so far. Gross. I’m sorry about that ridiculous pun. The Lady’s wearing off on me. I also must say I’m not sure where she gets off, telling you I’m her “best friend.” This is the same lady who dresses me in an embarrassing elf t-shirt at Christmastime, discusses my most personal problems and medications on the World Wide Web (are they still calling it that these days?) and finds it hilarious that I may have been (mistakenly, by a new vet that I believe may be afraid of cats) diagnosed with Herpes. And she wonders why I won’t wear my half of the BFF necklace she bought us.

Anyhoo, for some reason, the Lady and Man brought me home a giant tree this year. I love it, which is really saying something, since I hate most things and people. To further please me, they hung cat toys all over the tree and placed a giant water bowl at the base, and I LOVE IT. I spend most of my time under the tree staring up at its glorious branches, or peering on its beauty from afar.

I haven’t decided if I’ll try to climb it or not; I’m generally exercise-averse, but the thought of ruining the Lady’s day by knocking it over and hopefully breaking some of their toys does excite me. However, I would run the risk of them getting rid of the tree, which would ultimately hurt me. So I haven’t decided my plan.

But, being the Lady, she of course put the tree in the most inconvenient spot: directly in front of my window, and she took my chair and stuck it in the office. This is complete BS. They leave me at home all day with nothing to do but look out the window, then they take away the only way I can actually get to the window. Typical.

Also, after they noticed that I enjoy spending time under the tree, they started putting random boxes under it and taking up my space. I demanded that they move them, and they cleared me out a little empty spot to enjoy myself in, but the whole thing is just so predictable. They see I like something, and they take it away. I would run away, if they hadn’t taken my claws, deprived me of any real cat skills, and injected a tracker under my fur.

Well, I’ve had enough of this “blogging.” It seems to take up quite a bit of the Lady’s time, so I thought it would be more enjoyable. I guess I was wrong, just like she was when she recently told someone I haven’t been peeing on stuff lately. Sucker!

Back to staring off into space.

 xoxo

P.S. I hate the Ugly Angel.

Let the Wedding Planning Begin!

It's been reported that Pippa Middleton's boyfriend, Nico, a stockbroker from London, popped the question while the two were on holiday at the beginning of this month! This is great news, both because I'm happy for Pipps, and because this means a few trips to London for wedding showers, hen parties, and the wedding itself are in my future! As you know, Pippa was a bridesmaid in my own wedding earlier this year (standing in for Kate, who was with child and didn't want to risk leaving me high and dry on my wedding day), so I can only assume that I will be getting the request any day now, as she starts to plan her big day.

Me, Pippa and Nico hanging out one night recently. We're the three 

best friends that anyone could have.

You probably remember that Pippa was kind of inconsiderate and wore white to my wedding. I have forgiven her and will wear whatever dress she asks me to wear. Evanshine may not be able to attend as my +1, so I've decided to take Mabel if he can't make it. She, however, hasn't forgiven Pippa and just may wear some wedding-themed attire to Pippa's nuptials.

To get ourselves psyched up for Pippa's big day, and to help Mabel pick out her outfit, Mabel and I had a fully voluntary bridal inspired photoshoot this weekend. We will probably get one of these images blown up on a 20x30 canvas to give Pippa and Nico as a wedding gift. If you'd like to order one for your personal use, leave me a message in the comments section below and I'll send you the high-res version of the image you'd like.

As you can see, Mabel makes a truly radiant bride. You can see the love she has for me and for her future husband clear as day in her eyes.

Does that lace look familiar to you? It was leftover from my Ugly Angel's dress.

And this is where things started to fall apart.

Like any great model, Mabel is a bit temperamental, and when she was done having her picture taken, she was ready to get outta the studio. So this is a very limited set of photos. But instant classics, I think you will agree.

The Year of the Ugly Angel

I searched high and low (okay, at one Marshall’s and one T.J. Maxx…but with the insane amount of holiday traffic in this town, it felt like I went high and low) for a beautiful angel for our Christmas tree this year and did not find any that were quite up to my high standards. After one too many trips to cute little boutiques where they sell adorable handmade stuff, and after about ten too many perusals of Pinterest, I convinced myself that I could make a better angel than the stores – and at a better price! Being the fru-gal that I am, I immediately started scheming. 

The obvious medium for the angel’s head? Paper mache. (I’m not French, so I did not call it papier machée, thank you). I knew I’d need to make the head easily attach-able to the angel’s body, so I used a wire coat hanger. (Side note: This was right after I threw away all of the wire hangers in my house in a fit of rage and replaced them with fuzzy hangers bought with wedding gift cards at Bed Bath and Beyond. So I had to push back my start date till we got a batch of shirts back from the drycleaner.)

The first stage was…frightening at best:

Never fear, I told myself, I will make her much more beautiful. NBD. So I took a little trip to Michael’s, where I spent $8.50 on paints and a paintbrush for her pretty little head and another $4 on assorted fake feathers for her pretty little wings. Please get out your calculators and let’s keep track of how many hard earned dollars I spent on this cheap and easy project.

Came home, slapped on another layer of paper towels (uh, hello, who gets the newspaper anymore?). Let her dry. She now looked like a horror movie character suffocating under a wet blanket. So I got out my paints to try and cover that up.

This was probably the best she ever looked.

Next, I took a little trip to my local fabric store, where I purchased felt, silk, lace, gold sequined ric-rack, tiny fake pearls. None of my coupons worked, so this cost me another $24. Plus I got a free bunch of coupons to use next week when I will hopefully not be sewing anything else. Totally worth it.  I then returned to Michael’s in search of doll hair, which you’d think would be readily available but is not.

After gathering my strength for a few days, I set out to Hobby Lobby, which is only about 20 minutes away – but lies on the dreaded Other Side of the Mall.  So I spent approximately 45 minutes inching my way through mall traffic one sleety Saturday. Upon arriving at Hobby Lobby, I quickly dropped another $8 on a piece of poster board and a packet of creepy doll hair. A fun 45 more minutes followed in which I sang all the way through my new a cappella Christmas CD twice. 

At home, the real fun began. I started to assemble my little lady:

For those of you keeping track at home, I have now spent $44.50 on materials for my new friend. And this is what those $44 bought:

So far, I’ve received the following compliments on my talents:
 - “Oh!  She’s kind of…creepy.”
 - “She looks kind of young for an angel.”
 - “Yeah, she sort of looks like RuPaul.”

Sad, but true.

Evan tells me that, after spending so much time and money on this masterpiece, I have to spend at least this year with her atop our tree. He’s so domineering. So that, children, is how this came to be the Year of the Ugly Angel.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

How Many Days Till Juan-uary?

I was recently told by a co-worker that Juan-uary is upon us! I would love it if we could just skip the Christmas season and jump right into the thick of the new season of the Bachelor, you know? It's going to be that good. I'm sure you've heard, but ABC has kindly posted the bios of the 25 lucky senoritas that get to compete. And no, surprisingly, ABC is not paying me for the many Juan Pablo-themed posts I am sure to write between now and the Most Dramatic Rose Ceremony Ever. Though if you want to, ABC, please get in touch with my agent. Gracias.

Anyway, in order to get you pumped up, I would like to share with you Juan-Go, the patented game that I have developed which will allow you to pick a favorite bachelorette and then beat all of your friends in friendly competition from week to week. De nada.

The Rules:

1.  Print off your Juan-Go card from my website. It took me approximately 4 hours to develop this card, figure out how to save it as an image, and upload it to zee blog. So unfortunately, you get this freebie but you'll have to develop the rest of your cards yourself.

Please note that instead of a free space, there is a "Not Here for the Right Reasons" space. I think it's pretty much the same thing.

2.  Select your favorite contestant. See the link above for more information. I suggest you study the bios, which are hilarious.

3. Press play on the DVR. Each time your bachelorette does one of the things on the card, draw a heart on that square and/or take a long swig of wine or your other alcoholic beverage of choice. If you are pregnant, you may think you need to skip this step, but I've heard that binge drinking is okay for babies,* so go ahead and play.

*Technically, I haven't heard this from a reputable source. Expectant mothers and DDs may want to substitute sparkling grape juice.

4. Whoever gets a Juan-Go first wins and/or is feeling pretty good from all of the drinking. Congrats!

So now, you're probably wondering how to go about picking your contestant of choice. Well, don't worry, because I have a couple of suggestions for you! I have studied all of the girls' bios and my patented Juan-Go cards, and I have a few suggestions:

1.  Amy L

Picking Amy L pretty much guarantees you a Juan-Go. Amy hails from Florida, says that her favorite television show is Modern Family, looks like Gloria from that show, and has not one, but two ragdoll cats, whatever those are. As long as they're cats, I don't really care. Her favorite author, she says, is Dr. Seuss. Based on this, I predict that Amy either speaks Spanish or thinks she speaks Spanish. It is likely that she will have cat hair on her dress due to all the cats she keeps at her house, and she'll probably have written a Dr. Seuss-inspired poem to win Juan Pablo over. Check the Juan-Go card. You're guaranteed victory.

2. Lucy

Lucy is also going to be a solid contestant this year. Lucy claims that her occupation is "free spirit." That is awesome work if you can get it. I am not sure how well it pays, though. She also says she admires her "best friend Kate Upton" for her thick skin. I wonder if she's "best friends" with Kate Upton like I am with Kate Middleton? (In other words, in real life). She also says "I like to be the center of attention because I deserve to be." She is going to be awesome, and I predict a Juan-Go straight across the middle of the board.

3.  Victoria

And my final pick is Victoria, the legal assistant from Brazil. This seems extremely unfair to me to let a native Spanish speaker compete against all these poor English speakers. It's kind of like when one of my fellow Spanish majors in college was a native Spanish speaker. But I predict Victoria will go far solely because of her answer to the question, "What is the most romantic gift you have ever received, and why?" was "A kitten, because I love cats." Fellow cat lady, I am on your team!

Anyway, please feel free to contact me with your questions about how to play Juan-Go. Or you could contact Lucy, since she says that the most outrageous thing she's ever done is to organize a fully nude 50 person beach party in Mexico. Sounds like she has some serious organizational skillz.

Who Dey

What did you do this weekend? In addition to buying all of the milk at my local Kroger, I went to the Bengals game. You might have heard, but this friendly little winter storm named Cleon visited Kentucky and half the rest of the United States this past weekend, making travel a little … shall we say, dangerous. But a little wintry mix couldn’t stop me, Evanshine, and our friends Courtney (after whom poor Courtney, Jr., may he rest in peace, was named) and Mike from making the trek to cheer our Bengals on to victory. I know of several things worth risking life and limb in a treacherous car ride, and Bengals games are clearly at the top of that list.

If you’ve had the pleasure of attending a Bengals game or marrying one of their superfans, you have heard their ridiculous “fight song.” I think that a Barney (as in the purple dinosaur) employee may have been fired for writing dumb lyrics and then hired on by the Bengals to pen this little ditty. It’s truly silly, as you will see. No offense to Evanshine, who sings this song around the house from time to time. But maybe that songwriter did have a little musical genius in him, because as I lived the life of a dedicated Bengals fan yesterday, I realized that the lyrics actually described my day! Or should I say, my who-Dey. See what I mean:

Hear that Bengal growlin',

This would be me. I was growlin’ as soon as I woke up and heard the freezing rain on my roof. I growled some more when I looked at the temperature (24°) and then the forecast high for the day (27°). Me no like cold weather.

  

Mean and ang-a-ree,

Still me. I tend to get mean and ang-a-ree when I’m cold. We picked up quite a few hand and food warmers, but my toe warmers malfunctioned when they got wedged too tight inside my weird and ugly “hiking boots” that I was lucky enough to find in my basement left over from my middle school Girl Scout Camp experiences. I use the term “hiking boots” loosely because they are Candie’s brand. See?

  

By the way, when you decide to pull your middle school fashion mistakes out of storage, I highly suggest pairing them with skinny jeans. Great look if I do say so myself. 

Here he comes a prowlin',

We were pretty much prowlin’ as we drove up I-75 to Cincinnati. If by prowlin’ you mean going 45 and sometimes being momentarily blinded by the disgusting goop flying off of maniac truckers passing you in the slow lane. I think I’ve discovered a new anxiety of mine – death by snowstorm. I hereby apologize to my fellow passengers for screaming “TRUCK! EVERYBODY FOCUS!” when truckers tried to pass us.  But hello, haven’t you seen the terrifying results of a wreck with a semi? No thanks.

Please note the ice on the sunroof.

Lean and hung-a-ree,

I was pretty hung-a-ree all day long. I ate approximately 25 donut holes on the drive up, then two “chili wieners” as the Skyline employee pleasantly called them when she delivered them to my table, then some cheese fries at Cheddar’s back in Lexington as a celebration of surviving the game.

We were not, however, looking our leanest with approximately all of our clothes on under our puffy coats. You see?

An offensive brute,

These would be the fans sitting directly behind us. They did not care for me and Courtney, who they said “acted like we just came from church.” I wonder if they would have changed their minds about us if we’d taken them up on a sip from their colostomy bags filled with Buffalo Trace? They were kind of offensive, but I also kind of loved them. They went to a strip club after the game. Too bad they didn’t invite us to join.

They did like Evan, though, because of his sweet ‘fit:

Somebody still has stage fright about being shown on my blog. 

Run, pass, or boot,

Boot? Did I mention my boots?

And defensively he's rough! Tough!

You know what else was tough? Scraping the sludge off my car at a gas station on the way up. Thanks, Evanshine. You’re a peach.

Cincinnati Bengals,
That's the team we're gonna cheer to vic-to-ry!

Touchdown Bengals!
Get some points up on that board
and win a game for Cincinnati!

Indeed we did. The Bengals defeated the Colts and solidified Evan’s place at the top of his fantasy league for another week. Sorry, colts. I do wish Cincinnati would take after you and build an indoor stadium, though. I might be a better, less ang-a-ree fan if they did.

Trendsetting Like Princess Kate

As you all know, my good friend Kate Middleton is a trendsetter. Her latest fashion statement appears to be wearing sheer tights (http://stylenews.peoplestylewatch.com/2013/11/20/kim-kardashian-revealing-sheer-top-kate-middleton-tights/) – to the sheer (haha!) delight of stuffy lady lawyers worldwide. [It’s so confusing when something that was out of style comes back in … did Kate start the trend, or will the people still clinging on to their sheer hosiery claim that THEY started the trend? I guarantee my mother will say that sheer tights were never out of style. Fashion is so confusing.]

Photo from people.com. Ignore Kim. We have nothing in common.

Anyhoo, count this as another chapter in the “Proof that Allison is just the same as Kate” book I’m working on, because I, too, have started a trend: the phrase “Turtle Up!,” which came to me in a dream, is really catching on. 

As proof, please refer to this commercial for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and listen carefully around the 0:02 mark.  Pay no attention to the fact that Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were popular a number of years ago. The fact that you are watching this commercial now and caring about the TMNT (do people call them that?) makes me a trendsetter. After all, sheer tights were probably popular right around the time the turtles first debuted. Also pay no attention to the fact that they are not using the phrase correctly. I'll get in touch with whoever makes these toys and clear that up.

Hat tip to my dear cat-holding brother Ross, who brought this little gem to my attention.

I apologize for the brevity of this post, but I think I’ve said all I need to say. And I’d bet that this is the first time the words “Princess Kate” and “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” have been used in the same blog. Trendsetting is what I do best!



MISSING: Mama Bear

Welcome back, dear readers. I hope you had a Happy Thanksgiving. I'm pretty sure you will all be thankful for the many excellent blog posts to come here at the tudor house the rest of this year, but since Thanksgiving has come and gone, we can all quit worrying about what we already have and are thankful for and start focusing on what we WANT for Christmas, the most joyful time of the year. I'm pretty sure that's the meaning of the holiday season....right?

I can only imagine your joy on Thanksgiving week was dampened a bit by my infrequent posting, but as I tried to explain on Thursday, my illness (self-diagnosed cat scratch fever, courtesy of the cat) slowed me down a bit prior to Turkey Day. I would have been back to posting on Friday, had a precious member of my family not gone missing.

Yes, Mama Bear, the giant teddy who lives with my parents, appears to have been kidnapped from her home on Thanksgiving night. She was last seen sitting in her favorite armchair, having devoured an entire pumpkin pie. I guess none of us saw the crime in our turkey comas. We are not supposed to involve the police, but the ransom note didn't say anything about blogging, so I think this is okay. (I'm a bit offended at how the kidnappers have referred to her as "it." Don't they know she's a real part of our family?)

Mama Bear, if your kidnappers let you have Internet access, I'm sure you're reading this post. We miss you, and we will do whatever it takes to get you back home where you belong. Just don't fall into the whole Stockholm Syndrome thing.

I suspect my cousins. Which cousins, I'm not sure - there were a bunch of them at the house on Thursday night. But kidnappings are something of a family tradition in my life, you see. Your family has a secret recipe for pecan pie, maybe, but mine has a strong tradition of low-level crime. It all started years ago when Mama Bear was taken from our house and sent us photos of herself kayaking, climbing trees, and generally having a ball. She eventually returned, but then one of those Taco Bell bobble-head dogs showed up in our Christmas white elephant exchange...only to be stolen at the end of the night. Our families went back and forth for years, kidnapping various toys and sending each other ransom notes. One of the high points (low points?) was when one family brought a bowling ball to the white elephant exchange and it ended up in  our toilet when everyone left the house. This is normal, right?

Anyway, we all thought the fun was over until this summer, when Mama Bear snuck out and came to my wedding:

She is such a party animal. Of course she'd be in the photo booth.

And now she's gone again. Mama Bear, come home to us. Then help my family plan our revenge.

I hope you all had a Thanksgiving just as eventful as mine. Other than dealing with the kidnapping, mine mainly involved watching movies from the Redbox, watching movies at the theater, catching up on a bit of TV on the old DVR and doing a teensy bit of Black Friday shopping from the comfort of my couch. I could really get used to four-day weekends.