‘Bye Uncle Billy

Wham’s brother Billy died today.  He just turned 66 years old last week.  Uncle Billy lived in Texas and to me he always seemed to be the epitomy of Texas - he was larger than life.  We’ll miss you Uncle Billy. 

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It’s our 1st Anniversary!!

Alex and I celebrated our 1st Anniversary this weekend.  He’d wanted to go away for the weekend, but Dodi’s Bridal shower was today, so we’re going to just take a mini-break some other weekend.  We might try and go to the NYC Food and Wine Festival that the Food Network is involved with in October.  There’s a Saturday night event that’s Chocolate, Champagne, and Vodka and it’s hosted by Chef Duff from Ace of Cakes (one of our favorite shows).  The tickets are expensive - and for all I know they may be sold out - but if we could make it happen it would be awesome.  I’ll be able to take more time off in the Fall and I’d rather take a mini-break on a weekend when I won’t feel so rushed.

So we celebrated locally this weekend.  Friday night we met up with friends at Ravenswood and then spent most of the day on Saturday running some errands.  We did have brunch at Peaches, which was nice because that was something that we used to do all the time but haven’t done in a while.  We had dinner out Saturday night at 677 Prime.  It’s known to be one of the nicest places in the area to go have a steak - or at least it’s known as the most expensive.  We figured that there wouldn’t be another occasion where we’d let ourselves go there, so we tried it out for our anniversary dinner.  The food was fantastic - but the service was just ‘great’ and not ‘phenomenal’ like we expected of a place with such a reputation (and such high prices).  We both had steak, since it’s called 677 ‘Prime’ because they are a ‘Prime’ steakhouse serving ‘Prime’ cuts of beef and apparently that’s very rare.  The steaks were probably the best steaks we’d ever had and the salad course was amazing as well (I had the beefsteak tomato and gorgonzola salad which was incredible).  Our calamari appetizer was a little chewy (the Pump Station still has the best calamari in the area) and our sides - blue cheese gnocchi, tempura fried asparagus, and broccoli rabe - were all great tasting, but they were on the chilly side of warm.  We had to wait until our meal was more than half over for water and we had to pour our own wine and the dining room was rather noisy.  Wow, after having written all that, it seems like I hated the place.  I didn’t.  I think that the food - for the most part - was outstanding and I think that had we had another waiter/busboy team we would have had a perfect meal.  We enjoyed ourselves very much - but probably won’t be going back again.  Especially since our bill was very near to $300 when all was said and done, and that was without dessert.

Alex surprised me with a cake from Villa Italia for our anniversary.  He knew that I was dying to have a slice of our wedding cake again and so he got a miniature version with our monogram on top and I have been in Chocolate Mocha Cream with Chocolate Buttercream frosting heaven all weekend.  Yumm!  He totally surprised me with the cake and I actually got tears in my eyes over it.  Crying over a cake… Hmmm…

Today was Dod’s Bridal shower - and Nora’s first birthday - as well.  :)  The shower went pretty well, I think.  It was a little hot and a little crowded, but I think that everyone had a great time.  :)  And Dodi didn’t seem too tortured by it.  ;)  Her wedding is coming up so quickly!  It’s going to be a great time.  Hair of the Dog is playing at the Pruyn House, where her wedding will be, in a couple of weeks.  I hope we go - it’d be great to see the place “in action” before her wedding day. 

Off to bed… I totally hate Sunday nights…

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They say it’s my Birthday…

Today’s my birthday!! Last birthday in my 20s. I’m 29 - I can’t actually believe I’m that old! I got up and did Wii Fit today and it wished me happy birthday. Adorable.

Alex gave me my birthday gift last night - the perfect geeky gift - a 1 TB Time Capsule (wireless HD with a built in 802.11n wireless router). It was perfect and unexpected. I totally wanted another Hard Drive and I really wanted another router. So yay!!!!

Must go get ready for work (blech. People should have free days off on their birthday…)

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Grr… Argh…

Should not go to gym so late at night. Am suffering this AM. Could not fall asleep last night because I was still all wired and now I feel like a zombie. Also I’m all sore. So I’m a stiff zombie. Oh, but that makes sense… Should be getting ready for work now… Work will probably blow today. At least it’s the last day of work this week…

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The Gym is Bizarre at Night…

I got to the gym late tonight. I didn’t mean to, but I got out of work really late - after 7:30 - and then was starving so I went to Panera, as I usually do when Alex is on a case. I ate my dinner and then went to Target out of habit to wonder around. When I left Target and it was already after 9 o’clock I was tempted to go right home, but I had my gym clothes and sneakers with me and the gym was basically literally on my way out of the parking lot so I figured I had no excuse.

I walked in the gym and immediately noticed the difference in the people who were at the gym that late at night compared to those who go to the gym earlier in the evening when we usually go. There were packs of 3 to 5 younger guys sauntering around the main weight floor, periodically lifting weights in between bragging to each other and staring at any female who was at least mildly attractive. There were a few terribly overweight and haggard looking women on cardio machines. There were a couple of really nerdy looking skinny middle aged men and a couple of white hairs. And then there were a few representatives of “the beautiful people” looking perfectly made up and sweat-free even as they worked twice as hard as most of the other people in the gym. It was a population of extremes.

I realized after I’d already started to change into my gym clothes that I’d forgotten my armband for my iPhone and also my bluetooth headphones - which meant that I couldn’t really listen to my iPhone while I did weights. I decided to just stick with cardio. I chose an elliptical machine at the back right of the cardio deck. One of the really fat women was already there, pedaling away on the elliptical machine closest to the wall right underneath where the air conditioning blew down. I picked a machine close by so that I could get the benefits of the air conditioning, leaving a machine empty between us so that I didn’t seem like a weirdo close-exerciser.

I was about a quarter of the way into my workout when I noticed a relatively normal looking blond girl on the elliptical machine at the end of the next row over. I noticed her because as soon as she started pedaling, the machine made a bunch of odd knocking sounds - almost like she’d dropped a bunch of ping pong balls onto it. She kept going, seemingly not noticing the weird sound. She looked kind of intense.

A few minutes later, I noticed some overly exuberant movements in my peripheral vision. I turned my head to look at the girl and almost fell off the machine. Blondy was holding herself ramrod straight on the machine. Her legs pedaled furiously while her arms, instead of holding onto the heart rate sensors to either side of her, were swinging wildly back and forth in time with the rhythm of her legs. One of her arms would swing all the way up past the top of her head, while the other arm swung way back behind her. She was moving so fast, it looked like she was going to take off. I had to turn my head quickly in the other direction so that no one would see me trying to stifle a laugh with not much success. I had to steal another glance in her direction to see if she was still exercising like a madwoman. She was. One of the white hairs came to the top of the cardio deck and just stood a few feet away from her machine, staring at her with his mouth open. Insanity.

I decided that I’d have to keep staring straightforward - maybe even a little bit to the left - so that I wouldn’t risk seeing Blondy. About halfway through my workout, a new freak made his debut. A lanky teenager mounted one of the treadmills two rows up from me. He was wearing a baggy red t-shirt and long, baggy silver mesh athletic shorts that went down to a little past his knees. His white socks were pulled up so high they almost met the bottom of his shorts and looked strange coming out of the top of his black uniform-appropriate sneakers. So far, his offenses weren’t really enough to earn him the “freak” title. No, it was his hair that really pushed him over the edge. The kid wore big, dorky looking glasses and his stringy brown hair fell down so far that it covered the very top of his glasses. His hair might not have done this if he didn’t have a red sweatband on his head, plastering his hair down. His expression made him look as if he was channeling Napoleon Dynamite. Next to him, an older guy who was probably his father walked slowly on his treadmill. He wore very close fitting warm-up pants with a gray T-shirt tucked in. They were quite a pair.

I was running out of safe places to focus on while I finished my workout. Every direction I turned my head I saw someone who made me want to giggle. I spent the rest of my time at the gym with a slightly suppressed smirk on my face.

I realize that I’m not exactly a normal person, but I think that my freakishness is only evident on the inside - at least, I hope so! I’m glad that Alex wasn’t along with me - if he was there, there is no way I would have been able to hold my giggles in.

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