Idol Gives Back

So I watched the 2-hour schmaltz-fest that was American Idol Gives Back, and I would be lying if I told you that I found the whole thing cheesy and unmoving. I was actually quite touched by it and did have to wipe away a few tears. I watched with H and T--they live such a privileged life that I think it's important for them to understand how truly lucky they are. I love that Ellen donated $100K and I love how she told kids that were watching to donate $1 each and have their parents donate $9 to match. H and T were all over that, and are each giving me $1 from their piggy banks tomorrow. Some random thoughts about the show: I loved the Simpsons skit and Jack Black. Kelly Clarkson's upper arms have ballooned. Speaking of balloons, what was up with Paula's boobs? Teri Hatcher has morphed into Michael Jackson. Annie Lennox rocked. So did Josh Groban. Why are the Appalachian kids fat?

Song lyrics

I read somewhere recently that someone thought the lyrics to Kiss's "Rock & Roll All Nite" were "I want to rock & roll all nite, and part of every day" instead of "party every day." I laughed, because I used to think the exact same thing. And I thought it was mainly because of my responsible geekiness. You know, if you're going to rock & roll all nite, you can do it part of the next day, but not the whole day. Then I heard AC/DC "Dirty Deeds" this morning and remembered how my friends and I thought the lyrics were "Dirty deeds and the Dunder Chief." Never mind that we had no clue who the Dunder Chief was and what he had to do with dirty deeds. I'm generally terrible with understanding lyrics. In the Cult's "She Sells Sanctuary," I was sure the singer was saying "paperback ride." Yes I know that doesn't make any sense, but maybe I had "Paperback Writer" on the brain. And one of my all time favorite mangled lyrics is courtesy of my friend Jane, who thought for sure that in "La Isla Bonita," Madonna was dreaming of bagels instead of San Pedro.

Reality TV Low

I hit a new low last night: Ultimate Coyote Ugly Search.

Vegas, baby!

So I'm just back from my first trip to Las Vegas. What a strange place. It was a fun trip and I'm definitely glad to have gone, but I can't imagine spending more than 2 days there, nor do I feel I need to go back anytime soon. It is like Disney World for adults and the scale and excess of everything was crazy. And the people-watching! Apparently, there were quite a few celebs there, not that we saw any. K-Fed (OK, so we're talking C-list celebs), Paris Hilton, Ricky Martin, Gwen Stefani, Jamie-Lynn Siegler, Robert Iler, Simon Cowell and Randy Jackson. We did see lots of overweight midwestern women wearing mom jeans and fanny packs. And I'm allowed to mock since I live in the midwest. That's probably the most striking thing about Vegas--the range of people it appeals to.

We had a couple great meals--at Fiamma on Friday night and Alex on Saturday night (G's bday dinner--the reason we were in Vegas). A won $50 playing blackjack, and I lost $10 playing roulette. I was up more than $50 at one point--should have quit while I was ahead! I know, we're such high rollers. Craps looks like fun, though it would weird me out that my chips are being moved around and I have no idea why! If I ever go back to Vegas, and I think I probably will, I'll learn how to play craps, first.

We flew United (Ted) and surprisingly had no problems with our flights! It would have been nice to get one of those Economy Plus seats. We had the option to purchase, but didn't want to shell out the extra $. I wonder how that works anyway--I find it unlikely that they fill up with people willing to pay and United elite fliers, so how do they get assigned? Would I be better off checking in late and hoping those are the only seats left to assign?

Virginia Tech

So how is it that I could so blithely write about toenail polish when the terrible tragedy was unfolding at VT? At that point, I don't think anyone really knew how serious it was. And now that a fuller picture of the tragic events has come to light, I'm obsessed with it. The potential of the lives lost is so sad. And what about the professor who survived the Holocaust only to be killed so senselessly like this? Too unfair to even ponder. In an eerie coincidence, I just started reading the book We Need To Talk About Kevin over the weekend. It's a fictional series of letters from a woman to her estranged husband--and they are the parents of a school shooter. So naturally, I start to think about the parents of Seung Cho. Even more so since he's Korean. What is it about being Korean that gives us such a sense of shame about this? If the shooter were black, would the entire African-American population feel ashamed? I'm going to completely over-generalize and stereotype and say that the national pride (and subsequent shame) is a Korean thing. Which also leads me to wonder more about his parents. Did they have any sense of how unhappy and unstable their son was? Did they encourage counseling or medication? It's not the "Korean" way to handle these types of problems, but look how this turned out. It also reminds me of a story I read in the NY Times a while back about a profoundly depressed Korean girl who self-immolated when she was at college. Korean parents--wake up and look at your own kids. The VT tragedy didn't have to happen. I am so deeply sorry for everyone who lost loved ones.

Little things

It's amazing how something so simple as a pedicure can have such a big impact. I haven't had a pedicure since before I went to Mexico in January. So, needless to say, my toes were looking pretty sorry. Especially the big toe on my left foot, which was still purplish from my lame-o skiing at Jackson Hole (I'm right-footed when I ski, so it's my right turns--using my left foot--that were sucking at JH). Plus I took all the chipped polish off last month, so my toes were bare and just not pleasant to look at. Anyway, got a pedicure today and the obvious immediate effect is that my toes look better. The secondary effects are that I feel better about my feet and now have more wardrobe options as well (I can wear open-toed shoes!) which will make me feel even better overall. Aah--the amazing effect of a pedicure.

Speaking of amazing, I finally caught a full episode of The Amazing Race last night. (Note: A DVR is a wonderful thing, and if you put it on your husband's to-do list, it will probably take over a year to actually get installed, and even then it will not be because you finally wore him down, but because you just decided to take care of the damn thing yourself.) Could Mirna be any more annoying? I seriously can't decide who I hate more: her or the annoying sanctimonious hypocrites that were on the Family Edition of TAR. I love the Beauty Queens--they play hard, but fair. And they're unfailingly polite and respectful to each other and the locals. I hope they win and Mirna gets left behind somewhere far, far, away.

More Reality TV

OK Haley, the hot shorts were awesome the first time you trotted them out, but the schtick is getting old. And pretty transparent, as Simon noted yesterday. I still love Melinda, though Jordin has definitely been encroaching on that love-fest. At the end, though, Blake is still my fave and my pick to win it all.

p.s. Is it just me or do Melinda, Jordin and LaKisha look like they've been losing weight? Or is it just the awesome stylists, who should get extra kudos for last night.

Target sucks a little less

I got resolution on my Target customer service issue last week. I got a note from a regional director apologizing for my poor "guest services" experience and enclosing a $25 gift card. The gift card was nice, but the bigger issue for me was that they train their customer service desk to actually treat their customers like "guests" (since that is what Target is so big on). I hope that the snotty kid I dealt with got a good corporate smackdown.

Random thought on Botox

I noticed that I have a tendency to raise my eyebrows (thereby causing lines in my forehead) a lot--and not just when I'm working or concentrating, but even when I'm doing something mundane like blow-drying my hair. Seriously, who does that? So as a random thought but also part of my general "take better care of me" philosophy, I'm going to have to consciously watch the facial maneuverings so as not to cause a premature need for Botox.

Time for me

As a working mom, it's pretty much inevitable that in between working my job and managing the house, taking care of myself gets lost in the mix. Not to say that I don't do anything for myself, because I do, but it's something I have to be extra conscious of and to be honest, the things I do for myself aren't really that exciting (working out in the basement is not exactly the stuff dreams are made of). So I have decided to make more of an effort to make my life interesting. The kids' lives are full of things like sports, theater and fun outings, so why shouldn't my life be the same? So my first step to a more interesting me was to schedule a visit to a law school friend in San Diego. She's going to play hooky from work one day, and we're going to take a surf lesson. My next step (which is really more like the first since it's a precursor to the surfing) is to take swim lessons here not only so I don't kill myself in La Jolla, but also to make myself a better swimmer overall. (My swimming is crap--I want to feel confident that if the kids ever got in danger in the water, I could actually help them.) I am also planning on resuming my golf lessons this summer with 2 good friends here (it's a little about the golf and a lot about getting together and having girlfriend time).

Random thought #2

Here's something that really bugs me: poor spelling, grammar or punctuation. One of my biggest pet peeves? Misuse of the apostrophe. I was reading a magazine last night (granted, a new, local, not very well-written magazine, but a legit publication nevertheless) and it was talking about a couple and referred to them as the "Decker's." Argh! And this same magazine spelled "restaurateur" as "restauranteur." I thought about writing a mocking letter to the editor, but I live in a pretty small community and didn't want to become a social pariah.

AI; random thoughts

So AI didn't bowl me over last night, mainly because I'm not a fan of that music genre. Technically, I think Melinda and Jordin are the strongest singers. But I don't see either of them as a musical superstar, especially Melinda. Don't get me wrong, I adore both of them, especially Melinda, but I don't think she'd ever be a Kelly Clarkson or Carrie Underwood, who are the only 2 Idols to go on to achieve widespread mainstream success. So that leaves me with Blake, who may not be as strong a singer, but who clearly has great musicality combined with the X factor. I was also kinda disappointed with the judges last night, who are turning into caricatures of themselves.

Now a complete non-sequitur: I often find myself consumed with random thoughts and blogging is the perfect outlet for them, so each time I have one, I'll post it. Here's my first: What's the deal with John Mayer? Dude is not attractive. He looks like Edward Scissorhands. No, not Johnny Depp, Edward Scissorhands.

Back to life, back to reality

Well, it's the second day back after a fabulous week of skiing over spring break last week. Luckily, work is not too crazy, so I can sneak away for a quick post. Let's see, how to summarize vacation? We got off to a rocky start because of our continuing bad luggage karma. We flew to Denver, but somehow, one of our ski bags flew to Steamboat Springs, and we didn't get it back until Tuesday. Of course I complained, and we got reimbursed 100% for A's ski rental and 50% for some gear that all four of us had to buy. Never fear, I will continue my complaints until I get reimbursed for the 50% balance for the gear. The vacation itself was great. We went with some friends of ours and 3 of their 4 kids (baby stayed home with grandma) and had an awesome time. And I'm not just saying that in case they read this (they don't know I blog).

H and T did great in ski school, and we skied 2 days with them ourselves. They're both skiing easy black runs--they will easily be outskiing me soon (not that it's hard to do!). We also hit the slalom race course, halfpipe and terrain park. We all medaled on the Nastar course--the boys got silvers and the girls got bronze. Of course, the only reason I even medaled is because I upped my age a little to get into a more favorable age bracket. Me, competitive? Unfortunately H inherited this from me, because she was majorly po'd that she missed the silver by 1 second, especially since T technically missed some gates on the course (but we cut him some slack--after all, he is only 4!).

We have bad luggage karma, but our friends have bad flight karma, which kicked in on our return flight--the plane had some mechanical issues and we were 3 hours delayed. But we all made it back in one piece and even all our bags showed up!

First order of business upon return to the office yesterday was to catch up on work. Second order of business was to catch up on all my TV shows that I missed last week (well, maybe I mixed up the order, but who knows, my boss may be reading this). One of my favorite websites is great for this: www.televisionwithoutpity.com. I got the lowdown on TAR, AI, ANTM and Grey's Anatomy. [Aside: How come only reality shows go by acronyms?] I had to get my Grease results elsewhere--congrats Max! Also had to catch up on media and Hollywood gossip: www.gawker.com and www.tmz.com; and check in with my fellow consumer advocates: consumerist.com. I read on consumerist that Target is tightening its return policy. Not that it matters since I'm still boycotting Target, but it's just further evidence of the decline of what was once one of my favorite stores.