What I Learned on My MLK Day Vacation

As you know, Evanshine and I made the journey up to NYC to celebrate MLK Day a little bit ago. Actually, it was a long bit ago - one month ago from Monday, to be precise. We had a great time, even though I've put off blogging about it because the idea of e-mailing me iPhone pics to my computer has been a bit overwhelming, and because Evanshine has been commandeering my laptop at home to work on a trailer video for his March Madness pool. (More on that later, never fear). 

ANYway, I thought I'd write a little photo-essay on my assigned topic of The Top Five Things I Learned on My MLK Day Break:

1. Beware of booking hotels you've never heard of on Priceline; they may actually be brothels.

I found our hotel on Priceline and selected it because it met all of my criteria: 1. 4 stars!, 2. within walking distance of Times Square, and 3. not a chain so that my coupon code applied. I ended up really liking the hotel and the people that worked there ... however, I'm not 100% sure that we weren't staying in a brothel. The proof is in the pictures:

Hotel by day:

Pretty normal, right?

And, hotel by night:

CLUBBIN'

And our palatial hotel room:

Yes, that is the bed, shower, desk and bathroom sink all in one small area. Hey, it encouraged us to get out and explore!

Now here is where things start to get weird. Our "do not disturb" sign:

And finally, just a little hotel humor for you. The hotel bar was called "Haven." So here is the stairway up to the bar:

Hilarious.

2. I don't understand art.

Like classy adults do, we took a little tour of the Museum of Modern Art (or MoMA, as all you art snobs call it) on Friday afternoon. It just so happens that admission is free on Fridays at 4, so we technically earned $50 that afternoon in free admission. I then spent that $50 that we "earned" numerous times on other things the rest of the weekend, so this may have been a net loss.

Anyway, I just don't understand art. Again, see the photos below.

Ferris Bueller contemplates this lovely painting.

Astronaut over luggage display in the lobby... What does it all mean??

And my favorite. Art that the recipient is responsible for creating. Or something. I will be selling this type of art in my etsy shop soon.

I simply cannot wrap my head around this.

3. I am a trendsetter, and my influence reaches even to NYC.

If you happened to drive past my house this past Christmas season, you may have been blinded by our display of Christmas lights, and I apologize. Evan is INTO Christmas lights. It seems to run in the family. Before decorating the first year, he called his dad for advice. His dad's response? "However many lights you think you need, double it." And like a good son, Evan took this advice to heart.

Exhibit A:

 

 

And imagine my surprise when we got to NYC and found this eerily similar display:

I think our influence has reached the Big Apple.

Speaking of how our influence has reached the Big Apple, remember my sexy outfit from the Bengals game in December? If you recall, I was rocking some skinny jeans tucked into ug boots. (And by "ug," I mean ugly and not the popular Ugg brand).

Well, look who else is rocking this look. A total stranger!

 

 

And finally, I'm sure you aren't surprised that Mabel's likeness has made its way to Chinatown statues.



 

4. Don't wear your cute coat and leave your nice warm puffy coat at home when said cute coat is the thinnest and not-warm-est thing you own, and when you are traveling to a freezing cold city in the middle of a polar vortex.

 

 

If I can comfortably wear my coat buttoned up inside, imagine how uncomfortable I was outside!

 

Even the homeless dogs had to bundle up:

 

 

5. If you've seen it on SVU, steer clear.

Pictured above is Evan the crime victim in the Central Park tunnel where the SVU detectives find most of their victims. As you can see, he's been murdered. Kind of put a damper on our vacation.

And because my photo-dump is not yet complete, here are a few bonus pictures for you to peruse on your coffee break.

Ooh, graffiti! We don't have that in Kentucky!

NYC traffic jam. Ha ha ha.

Now here is where things get artsy. Close up of the SVU tunnel bricks.

And another for good measure.

Meatball sliders. I highly recommend.

What tourist post is complete without this kind of photo?

BOO!

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.

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!