Couch Potato Season

Now that it is mid-September, it's the season of the couch potato and I am unfortunately succumbing. There's a lot of good TV on this season and a lot of guilty pleasures. Here are the ones I can't resisit:

TUESDAY: Nip/Tuck. A new season of naughtiness has commenced. My friend Heather got Mike and I into it, and now we can't get out. We kind of backed into this show----the first episode we ever saw was the season two finale last year and then we caught up on the reruns on FX every Saturday night. It's filled in the blanks and now we're up-to-date. It's addicting and a must see, from trying to figure out the identity of the Carver to watching hot Dr. Christian Troy (Julian McMahon) and everything else in between.

WEDNESDAY: Lost. I love it! I also sadly obsess about it like a trekkie obsesses about Star Trek. It drives me crazy because I just want to know all the answers and every show just makes me ask more questions. What do the numbers mean? Who's the dude in the hatch? Will the castaways on the raft survive? Will they find Walt? And the most important question of all: WHERE THE HELL ARE THEY??????

THURSDAY: O.C. It's not high-brow, but it has sucked me into it, from the very first episode two summers ago. I usually don't have much good to say about FOX, but they are smart for beginning new series in the summer when there is nothing else on the tube. Who doesn't think Sandy Cohen is a great dad? Who doesn't find Seth hysterical? Who doesn't hate Marissa for being so damn gorgeous? California............California.............

There's other shows that fill in some of the gaps in the week, like Laguna Beach (shhhhhhhh....don't tell anyone...that's really a guilty pleasure) and C.S.I. (the original, of course.....the other ones completely suck). However, the ones above are ones that I just won't miss. So if you call me on those nights during those shows, know that you WILL get the answering machine because I'm not budging off the couch.

White Stripes Were Red Hot

Mike and I drove directly to Cleveland from work on Wednesday night. We did not pass GO, we did not collect $200, but we did stop for a quick bite at Quiznos (mmmmmmm....toasty) before hitting the road. Our destination was the State Theatre in downtown Cleveland where we saw the White Stripes, who was even more amazing than the last time we had the opportunity to see them 2 years ago.

Their opening act this time around was a band from Cincinnati called the Greenhornes who were infinitely better than their last opening band, Whirlwind Heat. When we saw Whirlwind Heat, I literally kept wiping the side of my face to check to see if my ears had been bleeding. The Greenhornes looked really young but had a good, bluesy, roadhouse sound and were overall a good warm up.

After an excruciatingly long intermission, the White Stripes came on and tore right into "Blue Orchid". "Brother and sister" barrelled from song to song with great energy. Some of the highlights of the night were the sing-a-long "Hotel Yorba", the haunting "As Ugly As I Seem", and the suprisingly electrifying "I'm Lonely (But I Ain't That Lonely Yet). I was a little disappointed that they did not play "Little Ghost" and Mike was a little disappointed that they did not play "We're Going To Be Friends", two of our favorites. However, there is no way that we could have even thought about complaining, especially when they came out and ripped through a six song encore that was more like a second set. With all of the instruments that were laid out on stage (four guitars, a mandolin, a drum set, bongos, marimbas, piano) it's hard to believe that only two people play it all and make all that big sound, but they do and they do it well.

Eastcoasters Rolled Hard In AZ

I'm going to finally blog about the trip I took to Arizona over Labor Day weekend with my friend Heather to visit our other friend, Diana. It was total girls weekend and soooooooo much fun, aside from the horrific drive from the Phoenix airport to Flagstaff on Friday night. The drive should have taken two hours, but because of the holiday traffic and the terrible rain (Diana said it's monsoon season), it took four hours. Most of the four hours, I spent trying not to throw up, since I was jetlagged and carsick from the stop and go of the congested highway.

Saturday, I was feeling much better and we went for coffee at a cute little coffeeshop in downtown Flagstaff called Late for the Train. We spent the rest of the afternoon shopping and going to lunch. That night, we drank a bottle of wine while we got ready and did each other's hair and makeup. It sounds silly, but it was a lot of fun to get ready to go out with a bunch of girls, it's something I haven't done since college and that guys just probably wouldn't understand why it would be so much fun to do. After we were ready, we went to dinner with a bunch of Diana's friends and then out to the bars. They have a strange, but cool bar called the Pay and Take. It's basically a souped up six-pack shop. It's really weird to just buy a six pack and then sit at the bar and drink it at a table amongst racks of Pringles and Cheetos, but the place was packed!

Sunday, we went for a brunch of breakfast burritos, homemade waffles w/ fresh picked blackberries, and Bloody Mary's at Diana's boyfriend's house. After brunch, Neil took us hiking in some really scenic areas that he knew in the desert near Sedona and then we took a drive through Sedona. Sedona was really breathtaking, I've never seen a landscape quite like it. After our adventurous day, one of Diana's lovely sisters, Julie, had us over for a relaxing dinner at her house. Afterwards, we met some of Diana's friends at a bar called the Wine Loft. It was aesthetically really mellow, with some great landscape photography on the walls and a chill atmosphere. Patrons can buy a bottle of wine and play boardgames. It was a nice way to wind down the weekend.

29 Down, 1 To Go!

This post is just some birthday shouties to my husband, Mike. Twenty-nine years down and only one to go before he hits the big three-oh. I asked him how many candles he wants me to put on his birthday cake and he told me to put on one to remind him of the one year he has left in his twenties.