Movie Madness - Morning Glory

Rise and Shine! A sweet, fresh squeezed bit of Morning Glory with the girls. Great cast, a few too many cliches, but another fun Movie Madness at the always amazing Harkins Theater (Dan, Dan, where for art thou, Dan? I'm thirsty).

Tempe Festival of the Arts

Sunny Sunday strolling through the Tempe Festival of the Arts with Jo, who seemed to love everything little thing that I did, especially the Arizona wine tasting fest, getting to know all of the creative wine makers, sitting under an umbrella, listening to a great jazz band and planning a January Diva trip to Arizona wine country in Jerome - who knew we had such good wines here!

Tea Party

Upcoming - Carefree Christmas party down on Easy Street in Carefree. Holiday tea . Cucumber sandwiches. Scones. Funny hats. Wine-ing at the bars. Ho, ho, ho-ing on Santa's lap. Snow. Just get up to Carefree, it's always worth the trip.

Totally Bananas

The Weight Watchers meeting this morning was a friggin' zoo. The new PointsPLUS system is here and the line was out the door, people stessed out, anxious, shaking. Counting calories is now out, carbs are in. Fruit's free, have as many bananas as you want, go for it, but guacamole and that second glass of wine? Better just push it away. And it wasn't just crazy in little 'ol Scottsdale, either. Big fancy NYC is freaking out, too. We all got new books, new points allowances, new iphone apps and new calculators. Our fearless leader, Stephanie, explained it all, walked us through slowly, asked for some patience (even Mr. Chatty Cathy guy in his up front teacher's pet seat kept his mouth shut the whole time). We figured it out. We were sent home to read up on the changes, but first, buy all the new WW paraphernalia and lose, lose, lose.

So...as Stephanie always says, "See ya'll lighter next week!"

Ole!

The stars were out at the Scottsdale Waterfront tonight as the Flamenco dancers clicked their fingers to the guitars and drums and the tapas and paella and flan and sangria and a coconut filled with white chocolate mousse just kept coming at the long overdue Sullivan/Spence double date extravaganza. I don't know the whole story, but one of our old faves Tapas Papa Frita shut down years ago and has reopened in the 'hood. The food was so amazing that Shawn fell off the vegetarian-only, eat for your blood type diet wagon and partook of some incredible red snapper and crab. I can't believe he sat this close to some juicy looking lamb without diving in as the rest of us dove in to stories about paratroopering and saving the world from the enemies and leaving the childhood bubbles and venturing into strange new lands and the traveling and the Monte Carlo cars and gambling and famous last words and don't forget the kids and closer to home adventures like what would life be like without our morning caffeine. Probably pretty boring, just like life without fun friends. Ole!

Holidaze

I used to believe in Santa...

thx Amy, so much more to come!

There she is! Amy Silverman (or in my family, known as Amy Si., since our own Amy has the whole Amy S. thing taken). She's an incredible writer and editor and she must be having withdrawal symptoms from a recently ended Mothers Who Write class and is doing it again. Tonight at the awesome Changing Hands. Writing about the holidays. Daze, what a daze.

With friends like these...

Married to a weenie? Guest house is all yours. Got boob problems? Picking you up at noon. Need anything else? We've got you covered. Got your back. Call in the troops. Let go of the rope and it won't hurt so much. No fear. You think who's normal? Nobody's normal. Have another glass of wine. Meet at The Vig. Dark, cozy, warm little neighborhood joint (not above, but aren't we cute?) - just like the gang - dark, cozy, warm. Squish in for some good advice.

PointsPLUS

Just when I thought I figured out Weight Watchers, they went and changed everything. A whole new program based on all new scientific evidence starts this week. I made it through Thanksgiving unscathed, even with all of the holiday meals and company and pie. So starting Saturday it's new points, new carb counting, something about free fruits, plus, plus, plus. Same short-term goal ('cuz that's all I can handle right now) - make it to 1/1/11 at the same weight then long-term (fingers crossed, point calculator in hand) move down some more, lighten the load, head toward new goal, lifetime member. No more PLUSes, minus sounds better.

STFU

I learned what stfu* means the other day from Willow Palin. Seems that she uses it frequently when chatting on Facebook. Oh...kids these days, so cute. But I was reminded that maybe I shouldn't bitch so much about the weather. I try so hard to get through the summers here, you would think that the winters would be a piece of cake. At least I don't live in Palinville, Alaska. Seems like whining that my poor feet got cold, vowing to stay indoors, tempted the fates in some way. I woke up snuggled in flannel sheets to a freezing cold house. Broken heater. No complaining anymore, Lisa. Zip it. Put on some socks and STFU.



*shut the f--- up

Peace (and quiet), Man

"I'm glad to have you all to myself again," said poor Shawn. There's only so much of me to go around (and I didn't even tell him about the upcoming Tuesday night full house mah jongg and Wednesday night circle the wagons Lipstick Call and Thursday night quit dropping out of stuff writing workshop). After a week of take-over-the-house, Amy (in a post-Landmark happy days are here again) visit, a week of Shana The Great and all of her friends, out to all hours, never knowing who is spending the night, even had a boy, no, Mom, he's not my boyfriend (but I'm pretty sure he is), here last night after a midnight arrival at Sky Harbor, family dinner, family lunch, family dinner, family lunch, followed by a three hour rip apart the rock star motor home yesterday in order to get the Dish Network TV working in the snowbird RV park so QVC doesn't send out the National Guard to find out why Nana stopped shopping, followed by a last night at home and we're not complaining Sunday night Pita Jungle take-out double feature and a morning Shana send-off breakfast at Chompies before work, work, work until we were down to two again and it was finally quiet. So Shawn, deep breath, smiling at dinner, "I'm glad to have you all to myself again."

Me too :)