You ride that bike like a possessed gorilla

I decided to hit up the gym after work today in my quest to get toned before I go to Aruba (23 days!) Since I've been under the spell of this ridiculously long lasting cold that seems to be going around, I decided to take it easy and go for a little ride on a stationary bike. 

Despite my sore bum, I was having a nice time reading my book (which is so good by the way...it's "American Wife" by Curtis Sittenfeld) and enjoying the fact the no one was on the bikes around me. 

And then this wannabe-exercise-guru guy sporting a sleeveless T-shirt (ew) came over and plopped down on the bike next to me. Now there were plenty of other bikes there, but he chose the one next to me...and the mirror (which I later realized). 

So I was still pedaling away when I started to notice that this guy seemed to be going at it on his bike. He was jumping up and down, thrusting forward, grunting, breathing heavily etc.. It was really awkward. I tried to ignore him, but then I noticed him moving his arms about as if he was fist pumping. Oh yes, he was dancing. On his bike. At he gym. While looking in the mirror. And it wasn't long before he started singing along with his iPod out loud while smiling at his own reflection.  

I didn't think it could get any better until he started flexing his muscles while he danced and gyrated on the bike. I burst out laughing. Luckily, I turned away before he noticed me looking (I didn't want to give him the attention he wanted). But then  I could feel his sweaty little face turned toward mine, and could see that he was still going at it. I refused to look at him. 

He started to sing louder and was practically flailing about on his bike, begging to be noticed. He looked like some kind of possessed beefed-up gorilla. I think he was about two seconds away from pounding his fists against his chest and letting out a Tarzan-like roar. Was he trying to mate with me? It sure seemed like it. (shudder)

As I was about to burst out laughing again, my bike beeped to let me know my time was up. I quickly hopped off and made a beeline for the mats in the back room before I could laugh in front of him.

Anyway, just had to share that. I love ridiculous people. Happy almost Friday, everyone!

Spread the love

Last week, I was SO excited to see that I got my second award. And  of course, I found out about this fabulous award during my sangria-induced haze (before passing out in the Snuggie), so I was extra excited. I believe I even gave a loud "whoop" when I read about it. James from On a Whim (love it!) gave me this little beauty:

So thank you, thank you, thank you a million times over. I love it! Getting these awards means so much to me. I love all my readers so much and the little comments you all leave always make my day. I still get so excited when I get the email telling me that someone has commented on a post. It's one of the best feelings in the world. So thank you. You guys are the best! (Yes, I know I seem excessively excited, but you'll have to excuse me. I've eaten my body weight in sugar today. Happy Fat Tuesday!)

So now I get to nominate ten blogs I love to receive the award. My ten (in no particular order) are:

and her heart it is in ireland

Confessions of a Twenty Something Year Old

average20something

rachieann.com

zentiment

Golightly

Life's A Beach

The Everyday Adventures of Me in the City

I Love You More Than Carrots

Working Girl

So now it's your turn to spread the love. You must nominate ten blogs, link their blogs, and mention my blog in order to get this fabulous award.

Now on to a completely unrelated topic...I need your help. The other day I noticed my blog post count as I was looking through my blogger account and realized that I am almost to my 100th post. 100. Can you believe it? I know I can't. 

So I feel like the 100th post is a big deal. When I started this blog, I thought I'd be lucky if I got to 20 before I gave up. But here I am, almost to 100. And I want to make it fun, exciting and  a bit special. Now I'm not going to pop out my brother's blogger triplets like in the 100th episode of Friends, but I want to do something cool (for lack of a better word).

So my question to you is...what should I do? What do people do for their 100th? I'm still relatively new to the blogging world, so I just wanted to see what you guys think. Anything you want to know about me? Pictures you want to see? Funny stories you want to hear? Or something else entirely? Please let me know! I'd love to hear your suggestions. Thanks a million!

Hark! My beating heart hath no love for the opera.

A few weeks ago, my friend and I decided on a whim to get tickets to the opera. We both had never been and had always wanted to go, so we decided to go to the show currently playing at the Lyric Opera House: Tristan und Isolde. Little did we know that it was a 5 hour show. Yes, 5 hours. And all in German (such a pretty language...or not).

Our big opera debut was last Friday night. I was excited, but also a bit scared. I was afraid I wouldn't like it and then be stuck there for the whole show. And my fears immediately came true as I quickly realized that opera is not for me. I was expecting it to be just like in Pretty Woman. I'd be Julia Roberts (minus the dazzling jewels, evening gown and studly date), and be caught up in the story, swept up in the beautiful words and bawl my eyes out over the power of the music. Yeah, not so much. 

The story was...okay. The singing was nice, yes, but very boring. My friend and I laughed out loud a few times as we read the English subtitles that scrolled across the top of the stage. They were singing things like:

My beating heart is thumping in exaltation!

Hark! Heed the wary night which covers thou in its gentle, deceptive beauty.

My heart will perish without my beloved near my bosom

Ok so those weren't exactly what they said, but pretty darn close. It was hilarious. And the same things were said over and over and over again...they could have told that story in 20 minutes, did a little song and dance, and be done with it.

The first act was okay. But then the second act nearly did me in. As I sat there listening to Tristan and Isolde singing about how they would surely die if the other person died because the word "and" connects them forever, I really thought I was going to die of boredom. As I realized my friend fell asleep and I was alone in my suffering, I became fixated on the girl next to me who kept scratching her arm over and over and over again. It was sick. So I tried to tune her out by leaning my head back and counting the decorative vents over our seats (we were in the back, no worries).

As soon as the lights went on for the second intermission, my friend and I took one look at each other and decided we had to leave right then and there. So with two hours left in the show, we packed up our belongings and proudly strutted out of the opera house. I felt like a total dropout, but at least I was a dropout who could go home, get in her pjs and watch Good Will Hunting on TBS.

It's not that I don't appreciate the arts, I just don't think opera is my thing. I know eventually I'll go back and try again (maybe), but I think I need to try one that's like Opera for Dummies. Eh, we'll see.

Outside of my little burst opera bubble, I just had to share my experience from Saturday night. After a long night I climbed into my cab...and immediately discovered that my driver was singing. Loudly. And not in English. It's not like he was singing along to the radio. He was belting out a slow, soulful, spiritual song. I felt like I was intruding on a personal moment, so I tried to sit there as quietly as possible

Until I realized that my driver was on the phone. And the man on the other end of the bluetooth was harmonizing with him, singing just as loudly on his end. I nearly burst out laughing. (It reminded me of The Office when Andy had the guys from Here Comes Treble singing with him over the speakerphones.) But then he started singing in English and it really was a beautiful song. It was very soothing. When he dropped me off, I complimented him on his nice singing voice and he seemed shocked that I had heard him singing. I don't know how that surprised him since I was sitting about 8 inches from him, but oh well. Just another interesting cab ride here in Chicago!

Words from a One Drink Wonder

Last night I went out for tapas and sangria with some of my friends. We had a fabulous time, but I accidentally drank a little too much. And by too much, I mean I had like 3 glasses of sangria. I am a total One Drink Wonder. One beer gets me buzzed. One glass of wine gets me drunk. One margarita makes me dance...A LOT (and not well). The only time I ever really had a decent tolerance was when I was in Ireland. Over there I drank Stella and Bulmers like they were going out of style. 

So anyway, I got home last night around 9:15 and was completely zonked. I immediately felt inspired to write a blog post, so I sat down at my computer and started typing away. Except I really had no point and no idea where I was going with the post. So I decided to take a break, threw on my super comfy Snuggie, put on Top Chef...and passed out. I fell into a deep, deep, deep sleep. 

I blame the Snuggie. It's just too damn snuggley and fuzzy. It's snuzzy.

So I woke up 4 hours later, rushed to get ready for bed and after chugging a gallon of water, I fell back to sleep. When I woke up this morning, I read over the attempted blog post and laughed out loud. I have no idea where I was going with it, but I thought I'd post it for you anyway:

Title: Sangria Tingles

After a lovely tapas dinner and two liters of fruitylicious sangria, my friend and I hit up the grocery store to pick up a few things. Corrrecton: She had to pick up a few things. I just stood there swaying in the breeze, giggling at the toilet paper and staring at the sparkly floor tiles. Did I mention that only two of us split the two liters of sangria? And that red wine gets me drunker than...ok well, really drunk. I can't even think of a metaphor right now. My mind keeps going to some kind of Dumbo/LSD reference, but that just doesn't seem right.

And besides, I'm super anti-drug. I mean, seriously, I was a finalist in the D.A.R.E. (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) essay contest at my grade school. How cool (and lame) am I? I got to read my super cool anti-drug essay in front of the whole school. Too bad 80% of my grade school classmates were/are addicted to drugs at some point. Way to go, kids. I actually don't talk to anyone from my grade school anymore...is that weird? I feel like I'm missing a chunk of my life sometimes.

Annnnnyway. As we were leaving out, this tall, skinny, bundled-up homeless man call out to us. He kept saying, "Miss, miss, please help me, I'm homeless."

Ok so yes, I felt bad, but we just kind of shuffled by him to the car. I get weird about that stuff...I just don't know what's real or not.

So as we walked by him, a guy came out of the store. The homeless man started chanting at him and the random man just said, "Oh man, the UFOs are going to get us! It's all the UFOs!"

The guy then walked by us, pointed right at us and said, "I hope you stay middle class."

Then he started mumbling about UFOs again and walked quickly toward his little Jetta. Yes, Jetta. How odd.

And that was where I stopped writing. I just found it amusing and thought you might, too. That grocery store thing really happened last night, but now it just feels like a dream. Weird.

Lying gets me all hot and bothered

And not in a good way.

I cannot tell a lie. It's like I'm George Washington, only without the cherry tree. And the fancy powdered wig.

When I try to lie, my voice gets all high-pitched, I start to sweat, my eyes dart back and forth, and I tend to ramble on and on and one without making any sense at all. 

Late yesterday morning I had a doctor's appointment in the suburbs. It was just an annual checkup, but one that I had to make 6 months in advance. She's like a celebrity doctor or something (Actually, she kind of is. A Chicago Bears player and his wife went into labor while I was there last time). You have to schedule appointments with her months and months in advance—it's crazy.

So my appointment was at 10:30am on a work day. I don't know what I was thinking when I scheduled it, but with really inconvenient train times back to the city, there was no way I was going to be able to make it in to work for even half a day. I had no personal days left and there was no way I was going to use a precious vacation day to sit in a waiting room...

I knew I had to take a sick day. I've never played hooky before, so I was pumped. I felt like such a badass. But as last week progressed, I got more and more nervous, especially after the dreaded layoffs. Starting on Tuesday afternoon, I had permanent knots in my stomach. I saw that I had projects due on Monday, I saw that everyone was super stressed and I kept trying to go over my "sick" excuse a million times. 

Should I say I had food poisoning? A cold? Lack of sleep? Black lung? The plague? Ulcer? Ingrown toenail? Cramps? I was freaking out. 

So when Friday rolled around, I was a wreck. I was SO nervous to tell a lie, especially to my boss. I felt like I was walking around with a huge dirty secret or something. My nerves kept building and building and building...

And before I knew was I was doing, I marched right into my boss's office late Friday afternoon and had an explosion of disgusting, nonsensical verbal vomit. In one long, run-on sentence, I told him that my doctor's office had just called to remind me of an appointment I had on Monday that I made 6 months ago and I just had to go to because I had to get something checked out and it's impossible to see her and I was going to call in sick and...

Yeah, that didn't sound sketchy at ALL. I was SO embarrassed. Luckily, he gave me the okay (along with a look that said, "why the hell didn't you just call in sick?") and I ran out of there like a scared little rabbit. And then I sat at my desk and hung my head in shame. Why the hell didn't I just tell a little white lie? It would have sounded better than the lame excuse (AKA the truth) that I came up with. God only knows what he thought I was really doing yesterday...

So I was out "sick" yesterday and when I came back today, every single person in my office asked how I was feeling. I forgot that people would notice my absence now that my office is tiny. And I didn't know what the heck to tell them. I told one girl I had to see my doctor, another guy I was too tired, a handful of people think I had a nasty cold and one guy is now wondering whether I had a run in with tainted peanut butter. Toward the end of the day, my reply was something like, "Oh you know...fine. Just one of those things, you know. Going around. Better now. Just the weekend, you know. Things like that." Completely vague. A total Michael Scott answer.

And that is why I completely suck at the game "Two Truths and a Lie". 

Snuggie Love

Ahh, sorry for being completely MIA for a while there. I spent all night Thursday making peanut butter bon-bons for my boyfriend, was up in Milwaukee all weekend and then was up at my parents' house last night and just got back a half hour ago....phew! I somehow managed to squeeze in two big shopping sprees (swimsuits, books, gym shoes, eek!), a trip to see Confessions of a Shopaholic, a Mariokart marathon, some quality time with the bf, another Marquette basketball game, a couple of crazy nights out, a plate of green eggs and ham, and a trip to the doctor. Yikes bikes.

And great news! As of this weekend, I am a very proud owner of a Snuggie (feel free to laugh). Yep, my boyfriend surprised me with a red Snuggie AND book light (free with purchase, of course) for Valentine's Day. He even bought himself one to match. Hilarious, right? I have to admit, they are ridiculously comfortable. I napped in mine on Saturday and it was probably the best nap of my life.

Over the last few days I've realized that I am absolutely incapable of telling a lie (a story for another time), I'm developing some kind of food allergy (not sure what though), I'm terrible at Mariokart on the Wii and that you guys have really interesting stories. So thanks for sharing! 

And is it sad that I love Mondays because of The Bachelor? It's such a terrible show, but I love

 every single overly-dramatic second. I can't even wait...

UPDATE:

I suppose I couldn't write about the Snuggie without posting some pictures. Silly me. So I tried to show off just how true some of the claims from the Snuggie infomercial really are:

Oh my goodness, you really can read a book and still keep your arms warm! Thank God.

Yes, it's true. You can use your hands to talk on the phone, use the computer, eat a snack, brush your hair, whatever AND still stay warm. Is there anything you can't do in a Snuggie? 

I think not.

If you haven't seen the infomercial, you need to watch it now:

You can even hold a baby? (gasp) It's a Snuggie miracle.

I'll show you mine if you show me yours

So out of a little bit of tiredness, a pinch of laziness and a whole lot of writer's block, I'm all about an interactive post tonight. Sounds fun, right? Basically, I'll tell you something interesting/odd/bizarre about myself, if you tell me something interesting about yourself. It could be something funny, a random fact, a little story, a tasty tidbit...anything. I always read your comments at work and it keeps me entertained throughout the day. And this week, I could definitely use some entertainment.

With that said, I now present to you:

My Opposable (Man) Thumb Toes

Check out those monstrosities. Aren't they glorious? Eh, not so much. These little beauties are constantly getting noticed, as in "Wow, Pam, your toes are HUGE!" Yes, I'm well aware, thank you. I used to be embarrassed about them because they really look like men's thumbs, but now I embrace them. Freshman year of college I realized that I could pick up a pen with my toes and write with them (My roommate and I were always looking for ways to procrastinate.) I soon discovered that I could give a double "thumbs up" with them, pick up beer mugs and bottles with them, and type with them. It was pretty cool.

Sure, they sometimes make buying shoes a bit difficult...they even reshaped a pair of round-toe shoes. Yep, now they're square-toed. Fun, huh?

Oddly enough, I HATE feet. I get soooo grossed out by them. But for some reason, my own big toes really fascinate me. I know I don't have "pretty" feet, but at least I have them. And they provide a nice big canvas for bright pink nail polish. And hey, my opposable thumb toes make for an interesting "hidden talent". 

Ok so there's my little tidbit. What's yours?