Na zdorovje. (God bless you.)

"Na zdorovje" is my new favorite word. It means "to your health!" in Russian (a la "Cheers!"), and I can't stop saying it. (Pronounced like "Nastarovia." Kind of.) We got our make-up done on Saturday, and my lady was a Russkie. I showed off the three words I already knew in Russian (words for "thank you," "no" and "goodbye"), and she taught me "cheers." I think this should be enough to get me by if I ever find myself in Moscow. Oh - and VODKA, of course.

A spring in my step

A co-worker told me about some place called "Jump Street" (no, NOT 21 Jump Street) which is apparently a huge warehouse full of trampolines. You go and just bounce around. An adult bouncy house, if you will. And I will. I am sooo booking a visit there, with or without Richard Greico.

Growing up, we had a big trampoline in the backyard. Hours and hours were spent double-bouncing friends off the side, doing seat drops, working up to front and back handsprings and flips. Friends and I even made up routines to music - thank you, little lavender boombox from 1986. Then in high school at one of my infamous parties, I heard rumors that people were making out on the tramp(oline - ha). And a couple drunk dudes even spent the night out there. (Sorry, mom)

I do miss the trampoline era - which is why this Jump Street place sounds amazeballs. Although I will most likely stick to seat drops. If I tried a back handspring I would most definitely wind up hospitalized.

It's the Great Halloween Costume Reveal, Charlie Brown

My candy corn sugar high indicates that Halloween is upon us once again. This year, I have the opportunity to wear three costumes in a span of two days.

I give you...


Costume #1 (at work): Super Mario Brothers. I am Luigi, apparently. (And yes, my obsession with fake mustaches continues)


Costume #2: Run DMC. Illin'.

And costume #3: Black Swan. Although I don't think I'm going to commit to the crazytown make-up. (So will sadly just look like a black-clad ballerina. Sigh.)

If I had enough time, I would have bought this guy. I think in a sea of slutty Cinderellas and Little Bo Peeps, a Gumby costume would have really stood out. Probably wouldn't land me a guy, but then again maybe it would. Halloween 2012, you have been warned.

One of the scariest sights this time of year

...is the costume aisle at Target, five days before Halloween. Unless you want to be a Ghostbuster (which would actually be awesome) or Elmo, good luck peeps. It's a bloodbath out there.

Play ball. Any kind of ball.

Aside from the Cowboys, Dallas sports are pretty much off the charts right now: the Mavericks are the reigning NBA champs, and the Rangers are a game away from winning the World Series. Love the fair weather fans who are all of a sudden die-hards (myself included) - everyone is wearing team t-shirts and hats (yes, I bought one), updating their Facebook status with sports-related posts (guilty), and just all-around jumping on the bandwagon (done).

With that said, GO RANGERS. Because in all honesty, the sooner baseball is over, the sooner college basketball is here. And that is all that really matters to me. Sorry sports fans.

G'day? G'night? Who the hell knows.

It's hard enough to schedule meetings between Dallas and Sydney on a regular basis. But I finally got it through my head that they are 15 hours ahead of us, so after doing some pretty tough math, can usually figure something out.

HOWEVER. Now they are on Daylight Savings Time and have freaking sprung forward, so it's a 16 hour difference. And as of November 6 when we go on Daylight Savings and fall back, it will be 17 hours. For the love of Pete. How in the hell am I supposed to remember this crap. Thank god for those time zone converter websites. Freaking other side of the world - literally.

It's Jerry's World, we're just living in it

Went to the Cowboys game yesterday - so freaking fun. I had only been to the new stadium once before, and that was for a basketball game. And I wasn't in a suite. Which might be how I roll from now on. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

We got to Arlington super early, for a few reasons. 1. we were stupid excited. 2. the Rangers were playing as well, so we were super-nervous about traffic. 3. we didn't really know where we were going. We passed a few parking lots that were $80(!) and decided to move farther away from the stadium. Which was a good call - $20 lot! Much more my speed. I should also add that there were so. Many. People. Just crowds and crowds on every corner, all pretty much wearing the same outfit (Cowboys jersey and jeans). Which I of course was NOT wearing.

We hoofed it over to the stadium and hit the Legends Club before even finding our suite. Because we could. They slapped on our wristbands and we headed to the bar. Free food and drinks all day? You betcha. Then we found our suite - with a private bathroom! - and settled in for some football action.

At halftime we went down to the "event level" (aka the field, which I accidentally called "the court" at one point) to watch the players run back out. Pretty cool. But even cooler was seeing a glimpse of Chace Crawford...sigh.

The good guys won, which was thrilling, and we started placing bets for how long it would take to get home, considering World Series traffic. I was down for an hour and a half, my friend said two hours. As it turned out, the only semi-nightmare came when walking to my car - we passed by these shady apartments and these guys were beating on the gate screaming at us. Thank god it was still light outside - I would have been sprinting if it was dark. There was oddly zero traffic, and we were home in like 20 minutes.

All in all, an awesome day. Really put the "funday" in Sunday. And yes, my wristband is still on. In case I can still access free drinks somewhere.

Just call me Sporty Spice

Sports-tastic weekend coming up. Top Golf tonight, watching the UNC football game tomorrow, then watching the Rangers, and topping it off with tickets to the Cowboys game on Sunday. (Make that luxury SUITE tickets. Thanks to my office.) All I need is to squeeze in a tennis date and the majority of sports will be represented.

I used to joke that the trunk of my car was like an Oshman's - I had tennis rackets, tennis balls, a soccer ball (?), shin guards (??), a field hockey stick (seriously) and Rollerblades back there at one point. (I am proud to say I now just ride around with the tennis gear. Much more likely to come upon a court than a field hockey game that needs an extra player.)

And I wonder why guys I go out with often put me in the "sporty friend zone" instead of safely in "girlfriend material zone." Argh. Now I want to go punch something. See?? More sports!!

Take a whiff of this

Found these awesome smelly markers at the office - dang they smell good. And totally bring back memories. Brown=best, if anyone is keeping score.


But these markers made me think of something ELSE awesome from the 80s...

Scratch n sniff stickers! I would collect these bad boys on my Trapper Keeper. Or trade them at lunch. And no one wanted the skunk sticker. Who are the ad wizards that came up with that one.
(And looking at these again - the boot one probably doesn't smell all that great, either. Random.)

An ego boost bust

We sent a survey to our company's global employees yesterday, requesting feedback about a recent quarterly meeting. One of the questions is open-ended, asking for additional comments. And one of the answers that came back was "I love you." Now, the three girls on my team were just giddy (yes, myself included) - WHO has a secret admirer?! We all fessed up that none of US wrote it, so that just left a myriad of cute boys (or girls, I suppose) in the office to be the culprit.

Unfortunately, the surveys are anonymous and all we had to go on was an IP address. But one girl I work with is a super-sleuth, and we soon came to the sobering discovery that the love note came from none other than our Shanghai office. Where they probably didn't even understand the question.

Sigh.

Na na na na hey hey hey goodbye

Signing off of Match. Again. And a month early. Just can't take it anymore. Sorry to all you dudes who I sent clever emails to and who never responded - you missed your chance. (Yeah, that's it.) And for those of you who I lamely winked at and didn't respond - that wasn't just dirt in my eye. I was interested. Key word being "was." Suck it, losers. This should really free up my time for more worthy pursuits like re-learning the Thriller dance. Just in time for Halloween.

Yet another show about singledom. Score!

VH1 has a new show, "Why am I Still Single?" - which is basically a poor man's "Millionaire Matchmaker." On this week's premiere episode, one of the singles the matchmaker was trying to help was a 25-year-old girl. I'm sorry - do you want to know why you're still single? BECAUSE YOU'RE 25!!! There should be an age restriction on these shows - no one under 30. Sheesh.

"Why am I Still Single?" Perhaps the better question is, Why am I Still Watching??

Love me some trips

Have some fun trips coming up - and some that I hope to be able to make happen...

Florida - Thanksgiving
Colorado - Christmas
Vegas - girls' weekend
Colorado - girls' ski trip
New Orleans - FINAL FOUR, BITCHES

And then possibly a trip to NC to see a game (conveniently scheduled around a work conference to get the airfare paid for) and another trip with a friend in the coming weeks. Mama needs a day off. Or five.

Death by lettuce

Only I could give myself food poisoning. Pretty impressive stuff, I have to say. Can't blame it on bad sushi or uncooked meat from the hole-in-the-wall Mexican place...nope, I get sick from a bag of freaking lettuce. Sigh. Maybe this healthy eating thing has got to go. Although I would probably get a whole OTHER kind of sick from eating chili cheese fries. Ew.

Just Desserts

My mom always says I embarrass too easily. Plus I'm a blusher, which makes things even MORE embarrassing. And apparently now I can humiliate myself without anyone else's help. Exhibit A: On Wednesday, we had a bake sale fundraiser for Susan G Komen for the Cure. (why do I write "Race for the CUTE" every time?!) I volunteered to bake cupcakes, and was thrilled to note that a guy I have a crush on was also bringing baked goods. (All together now: Awwwwww.)

So I'm working my little bake sale shift, and noticed the table with pies/cakes up for auction. One of them was a tiramisu, made by the Office Crush. Fancy. No one had bid anything yet, so I decided to take one for the team (who are we kidding here - it was for MYSELF. Screw the team) and placed the opening bid on his tiramisu. $20. And had to include my name and phone number. Right after I did it, I realized how embarrassing this could be. I was basically PAYING him (ok, via charitable donation) to notice me. Plus- would I have to return the lovely dish it came in and strike up some random and likely embarrassing convo? Oh the humanity.

Thank god someone bid $25 and took home the tiramisu. My head doesn't need the stress, and my waistline doesn't need the calories. So it's a win-win.

It's Pat.

Watched an old episode of SNL over the weekend. Circa 1998.

Host: Ben Affleck. Pre-veneers and tanning.

Special guest: his girlfriend, Gwyneth Paltrow (!).

Weekend Update: Colin Quinn (!!).

Sample sketch: Mango.



I guess 1998 was longer ago than I thought. Sure makes me miss the SNL cast I grew up with - Mike Myers, Dana Carvey, Chris Farley, Adam Sandler, David Spade...

M is for Muppet

Could I BE more excited about the new Muppet movie? No, I could not. I have always held a particular fondness for these felt and fur puppets - in fact, that used to be my dream job, to be the voice of a Muppet. (Still is, actually.)

I personally like Beaker the best, but also have a soft spot for Miss Piggy (duh). And then there's the Swedish Chef...damn you Jim Henson and your evil genius.

The Muppets starred in a theater ad I saw over the weekend about shutting off your phone during the movie, and the entire audience was laughing. See? Still funny.

I leave you with this super-random quote from The Great Muppet Caper, in which the Muppets are going down a check-list of the weirdo things they are bringing on their mission.

"Rubber chicken?"

"Check."
"Wax lips?"
"I left 'em in my other pants."
"You don't GOT no other pants."

Still gets me every time.

I hope my mom (er, Santa) reads this

I am only slightly embarrassed to announce what I want for Christmas this year.

Yep. An electric keyboard. Which ironically I already got for Christmas. In 1986. But lameness be damned - I will rock it. The iPad app that turns the screen into a piano has me hooked, and since it will only allow me to play like three notes at a time, I need something bigger. Something better. Something...CASIO.

Either that or a keytar. Or Keytar Hero. Now I'm just talking crazy.

I blame Bobby Brown for this

Writing up an important email for my new boss about the hiring of a new executive. Accidentally wrote "pleased to announce a new EDITION to our team..." Um what. New Edition? Really. Sad. Thank god I read it over before sending...

What's next - a Very Kardashian Kristmas??

Watched the two-hour Kim Kardashian wedding special last night. And since that didn't even get us to the wedding day, of course there is a part two, which is ANOTHER two hours. Four hours of this?? That's longer than I thought the marriage would last. (Ba dum bum)

My thoughts thus far:

Kris Humphries is a complete douchebag. What an immature moron. Plus he looks like a neanderthal. (I know, why don't I tell you what I really think, right??)

Bruce Jenner needs to get rid of the earring, stat.

Hermes dishes? Seriously???

And finally, Rob Kardashian is a total waste of space. The only thing they have him doing is binge eating? Get a job, my man.

Alright. Now my palate is klean (see what I did there?) and I'm ready for round two. Sigh.

Final tennis score: Love Love. (aka double zero.)

Yep, not a match with the tennis date. We started hitting and he immediately came over and gave me unsolicited tennis tips. I am freakishly competitive when it comes to sports, and that just annoyed the CRAP out of me. Sent me into a downward spiral that it was hard to get out of. Even more so when he started hitting the ball as hard as he could - I just stood there most of the time, staring at him. Like I'm supposed to return that? I'm a girl, dude. Then he served like 5 balls in rapid succession, and one hit me square in the back. Hard. And the final dealbreaker came when he pulled me aside and said that his shorts with the built-in underwear felt "weird." I believe my exact response was, "mmm-kay...."

You can't make this stuff up! (Sometimes I wish you could.)

You know, that OTHER asteroid movie

For some random reason, the Aerosmith "I Don't Wanna Miss a Thing" video was on vH1 at the gym this morning. Ah, Armageddon. Ah, 1998. I remember the summer that movie came out - I was living in Jackson Hole with three (sometimes four) friends from high school. In a one-bedroom apartment. Seriously. I shared a bed, one girl slept in the closet...yet it was sheer awesomeness. And then Armageddon came out. For some reason it affected us on a deeper level - so deep that we bought not one, but TWO Ben Affleck posters (posters. seriously?!) of him in his orange flight suit and put them up in the apartment. Wow.

And then on the drive back to Dallas, we named our cars "Freedom" and "Independence" after the two shuttles in the movie. This was before the dawn of the cell phone (yep, I'm that old), and for some (awesome) reason we had Sony My First Walkie-talkies. So that's how we kept in touch between cars. "Freedom? This is Independence. Pull over at the next exit." (Of course, it only worked when we were literally right in front of each other on the highway, but still. We thought we were pretty cool.) Ah, the 90s. Such simpler times.

I even got a souvenir lanyard

Had to attend a conference on Tuesday and Wednesday. I say "had to" - some might say it's better than being at work...heard keynotes from the CEO of Southwest Airlines and the CEO of Zappos, plus, you know, an astronaut. (Who talked about tweeting from space - nice. And was totally cute - double nice.) So it didn't suck. And totally made me want to work for either Southwest or Zappos. Probably not the end result my boss was hoping for when she paid for my registration...

But Zappos has a Chief Happiness Officer! I could sooo do that job.

ironically, "love" means zero in tennis

i have yet another first date tonight, and it's the third tennis date i've been on in a month. not sure why this has become a trend - okay, yes i do. perhaps i mentioned that i like all sports in my online profile, and perhaps one of those was tennis. which is true. but perhaps i'm somehow giving off the impression that i'm actually good at tennis. which i actually might be if i played more than twice a year.

so there's the silver lining here: even if these dates don't go anywhere, at least my tennis game will improve...(and i get to wear my cute tennis outfits. bonus.)

The Name Game

Why I like to name inanimate objects around the house, I don't know. Maybe it's because I don't have a baby or a pet to name, so something's gotta give. Having said that, I am proud to present...

HARRY ELEFANTE (please tell me someone has heard of Harry Belefonte. If not, please disregard.)



COW BELLA (as opposed to "ciao, bella"...)




...and my personal favorite, STING RAY CHARLES. (You know, like Ray Charles? But it's a sting ray?!)

You know, if I have to explain these things, it's a serious problem. Although the fact that I've GIVEN these names out already qualifies as a serious problem, so no worries.

Smartypants

Dear driver of the Smart car:

Bad news. The car isn't that smart. It's freakishly small and I'm sure eco-friendly, but it cannot solve calculus equations (neither can I), nor can it actually drive for you. I speak from experience, having almost had a head-on collision with one yesterday. Pardon me, sir - do you think because your Smart car is so small, no one else can SEE you? It's not an invisible car. You're not Wonder Woman. (I know, it was an invisible jet - but I'm on a roll.)

So you in that teensy tiny car - it may say "Smart" on the engine (or maybe not - I do not know anything about auto mechanics. BUSTED.), but you still have to actually abide by the laws of the road.

Ironically, my smart PHONE is truly smarter than me. Although after reading this blog post, that's not saying much.

And now I'm craving Smarties. Thank goodness it's Halloween candy season.

This little piggie...

So exciting news, folks. After 2 months of being a lovely navy/black color (all on its own, no nail polish needed), my poor toenail finally said sayonara over the weekend. Losing a toenail is pretty gross. I won't go into any details, but I'm just left with the question - what do I do now? Paint on the skin? For now, it's band-aid city. Luckily, it's finally cool enough to start wearing closed-toe (close-toed? hmmm) shoes. Maybe by spring this little piggie won't be too embarrassed to appear naked. IN SANDALS, people. Get your minds out of the gutter.

And sadly, this was the most exciting thing that happened to me this weekend. Oink.