Your Girlfriend is Ugly

Life changes and how they will effect my TV time.

In case you don't stalk me on Twitter or are not privvy to my insane amount of Facebook updates then you might not know that I'm moving to New York in about two weeks.

Iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii know.

It happened kind of fast. But it's good; it's exactly the change I need.

So the fact that I'm moving and having this major life change isn't really bothering me so much. I mean do I worry about packing up all of my shit in two weeks? Sure. Am I bummed that I probably can't have a proper going away party? Well, yeah. But I can have a welcome to New York party so that's fine.

What I am most freaking out about is how in the world am I going to watch all of my DVR in time before the big move?!???!!!!

Seriously the thought gives me agida. I've only downloaded 4 episodes of 24 on my iPod and the rest are all on my precious Digital Video Recorder. Plus, all of those Millionaire Match Makers and One Tree Hill's that I save for a rainy day! GAH! How am I going to pull this one off???

I'm not tech-savvy so if anyone knows a way to transfer DVR to your iPod then please let me know because quite frankly I don't think I can pull this one off.

Boxed in

Let me ask you something. Do you know anyone who has more boxes than I do? No seriously. Can you name a person who has a wall of boxes in his/her office? Someone other than a box maker?

All boxed up. Dunno what to do...

If you do let me know. I will challenge them to a box off.

Shopping spree here I come!

You know how people always say that if your palm is itchy it means you have money coming your way? Well I never understood this because my palms are itchy all the time and all that comes my way in the form of money is a ten cent Euro coin laying at the bottom of my bra drawer.

But last night I was trying to suppress an itch in my left hand when I came across a mint green pouch in my DVD basket. Inside contained about 10 gift cards given to me back in Christmas of 2007. The first thing that came to my mind was "Wow, I'm such a gracious gift recipient." The second thing was "I hope these puppies have some moola left on them!"

So this morning (at work) I called up the 1-800 numbers on the back of my cards and punched in all of the account numbers. Turns out I had $50 on a Shaw's card, $100 on a Macy's card , $7 left on an H&M card and $15 on a gas card.

This is fantastic. My shopping these days consists of the essentials: tampons, deodorant, gum. You know, the usual stuff a girl needs to get by when she's on a budget. Now I can go to Shaw's and get the expensive cereal I love and not break down on the way because my car has been running on E for the past five days.

It's almost like hitting Mega-millions.

My iPod shuffles up some amazingness.

Two summers ago I purchased a little $17.00 iPod docking station from the Christmas Tree Shop in Hyannis. It's some silly no name brand thing and it's lasted longer than the lip treatment I purchased at Clinique last Friday. (For the record I have no recollection of losing the lip product and I am very disappointed with myself for having lost it. SAD FACE.)

Anyway, for obvious reasons the iPod and docking station are fabulous to have at work. You get to listen to your own music and you can drown out strange, shitty music that your coworkers are playing.

The shuffle option on the iPod is my personal favorite. For the purpose of making this blog even more fabulous than it already is I will now list the last 10 songs that have come blasting out of the speakers:  

1. Heart - "All I wanna Do is Make Love To You." How do you not heart Heart?!Seen them live and they're amazing.
2. I don't know why my numbers are messed up but...meh.
3. P. Diddy - "Bad Boys For life." Wasn't Ben Stiller in this video?
4. Chicago - "If You Leave Me Now." Gotta love the "ooooooooOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO" part of the song.
5. Red Hot Chili Peppers - "Wet Sand." Summer 2007. Nantucket. That is all.
6. Ashlee Simpson - "Boyfriend." Whatever. I still like to dance around in my underwear to this song.
7. Citizen Cope - "Pablo Picasso." All of his songs have such a good vibe. .
8. Buffalo Tom - "Late at Night." I downloaded this when I was watching episodes of My So Called Life. This song plays when Jordan Catalano grabs hold of Angela's hand at school after saying, "Can we, uh, go somewhere?" He finally acknowledges they are couple! Why did that show go off the air???
9. Buck Cherry - "I Love the Cocaine." Good party mix song!
10. Janis Joplin - "Piece of my Heart." TAKE IT!
11. Notorious BIG - "Mo Money Mo Problems." RIP Biggie, RIP.

Headlights.

The weather in New England is shitty. There are rivers of slush, sheets of ice and dense fog from the rain fall melting the snow. I feel like I'm in a Harry Potter book when the Dementors come into town.

When the weather is like this do you think people would be smart and put on their headlights? Answer: No.

So when I'm pulling out of the parking lot this morning from getting my Dunkin's and almost collide with a Ford Taurus because I can't see the WHITE CAR through the curtain of FOG due to no headlights being turned on I kind of freak out. Thank God Suzi is reliable in all weather conditions. The Ford screeched to a halt and missed my driver's side door by inches.

After my heart race slowed to normal, I continued down RT 140 and prepared to make my way to I-495. As I passed Great Woods (some of you may know it as Tweeter Center or Comcast Center but it will always be Great Woods to me) the driver of the Taurus sidled alongside me honking their horn and flashing their high-beams.

Crazy.

I glanced to my left and saw the passenger, an old man probably in his 70's giving me the double finger. That's right, not one but two wrinkly, arthritis riddled fingers stared back at me. I looked at the man who was shaking his head and said "Seriously??" to myself.

I don't mind when someone gives me the finger if I do something stupidslashaggressive while driving, like flash someone the brights because they are driving too slow in the left lane, but come on! At least put your headlights on! THEN if I still almost collide into you, give me the finger.

I VOTED

Did everyone go out and vote??? I did and I'm pumped about it.

My voting location was about a three minute walk so I strolled over this morning at around 8:30. The place was line free. I was looking forward to voting for the obvious reason but more importantly I wanted one of those chic I VOTED stickers.

After the old Southie clams took my address and handed me my ballot I circled in the little ovals as adroitly as I could. I gave it a once over and then sauntered to the Check Out station where the Boston Police officer was waiting.

"Address?"

"405 K Street."

"Name?"

"Lisa Gradie."

pause pause

"You're listed as Lisa Anne Gradie."

"Yes. My middle name is Anne."

"Ok. Just want to make sure. We don't want to screw anything up!"

"Uh huh.."

I put my ballot into the machine and then asked the woman where I can get a sticker.

"What sticker?"

"The I VOTED stickers."

"I don't think we have those dear."

"What?! Really???"

"Well I don't know..."

I turned on my heel and went to the guy at the front with the curly hair and classes who was informing people that precinct 1 was on your left and precinct 2 was on your right. "Hi. Are you in possession of I VOTED stickers?"

"Excuse  me?"

"The I VOTED stickers. Do you have any?"

"No. We haven't given any out all day."

"OH MAAAAAAAAAAAN!!!"

I was bummed, I'm not gonna lie. It's like a rite of passage to rock one of those. You see someone else with an I VOTEDsticker and you give a small smile or a respectful head nod. It's like being in a secret society and I wanted to be a part of it! I guess I'll just have to settle for an I VOTED blog.

Presents!!

I received a package from my good friend Jennifer Hill. She is an uber talented designer and owner of JHill Design. She also writes the blog Places I Have Never Been. Like I said she's totally talented. Oh and I'm going to her wedding in Costa Rica in February. Hollerrrrrrrrrrrr.

Anyway so I received a little prezzykins from her. I opened up the manila envelope after tearing through her lovely JHill Design stickers inside were custom pencils:

Can you see what they say? They say I AM SORRY FOR THIS BLOG.

AAHAHAHAHA!!! How amazing?! They are from a company called the Yellow Owl Workshop and I really wish I had a supply of these a few weeks ago when I was pissing everyone off with all of the blogs I was writing. I'm totally going to call up this company and see about getting YGIU pencils!

Thanks for the prezzy JHill!!

Xx
Lisa

p.s..how totally kinda Melissa C. Morriswas this blog? GAH!

Sports Sidebar.

How wonderful. Jason Varitek, his glorious thighs and the rest of the Red Sox are in 1st place as they head into the All-Star break.

Even more wonderful? The All-Star game is at Spankee Stadium! Boooo hissss....

This blog may come back to bite me in the ass. After all the Red Sox do have a tendency to blow it in the fall baseball months (September swan song anyone?) but as long as they stay strong and Kevin Youkilis stays crazy I think they have one hell of a chance to make it to the World Series. And win!

What I'm not looking forward to? Joe Buck's mug (along with his ever changing eye wear) and his constant back handed remarks about the Sox and how they are never worthy enough to beat their opponent. Find a new team to torture Joe.

If this post-season was anything like last post-season I'll need to reserve a room at the Betty Ford come November.

Play ball!

A little trivia for all you trivia fans:

What are the only two days when there are no professional sports being played?

The days before and after the All-Star Game!

I saw Sex and the City tonight but this is not what the blog is about.

So yeah me and like every other woman on the PLANET saw Sex and the City: THE MOVIE tonight. And yes for those of you who love the series and were quivering in your Louboutins just waiting for the fab foursome to hit the big screen, you were not disappointed. It was fabulous and fun and perfect. Exclamation point.

But this is not what I'm writing about.

After the movie ended Plus One, myself, my boss, her two daughters and Lilli Gordon decided to go to the Ritz for a drink (drinkS for me) I knocked back two vodka sodas and a chicken quesedilla and talked about how I have my entire wedding already planned (*cringe* what can I say? vodka makes me crazy).

After dissecting the entire movie and having a few laughs we decided to head out. As we lingered in front of the Ritz I noticed a black car pull up and two guys who appeared to be in their early 20's running up to the car with pens and paper. Obviously they wanted the autograph of whomever was in that car.

Um. It was Martin Scorsese.




Yeah. That guy.

"Holy shit. That's Martin Scorsese," I murmured. And yes, very short in real life in case you were wondering.

I was staring at the Academy Award winning/worked with Matt Damon/cute as a button director when I looked up and saw my friends Iggy and Aisha right in front of me.

"IGGY!'

We hugged and all commented how Martin Scorsese was standing mmmmmaybe five feet from us.

I looked over and saw that he was walking into the Ritz. Lilli Gordon sauntered over and started talking to him. Apparently she knows a brother's cousin's uncle's nephew who is his Godson...? I was watching the entire thing go down. I sort of leaned trying to get in on the action and to make eye contact with Marty. I said in a loud whisper, "CONGRATULATIONS ON YOUR OSCAR!!"

He, um, didn't notice.

Stay sexy UBS

I was sitting in my office this afternoon, happily munching on my $2.99 stale trail mix from The Christmas Tree Shoppe (which features the discontinued tan M&M's) when Jack and Mak came strolling by. They asked if they could try some of the mix and then we got to chatting.

"OMG," Mak exclaimed, "So I got a phone call this afternoon..."

I immediately looked at her sideways and cringed. Whenever Mak says she got a phone call it usually means it was from someone in our New Jersey office telling us how we fucked something up and how everything is our fault.

Jack saw my face and said, "No, this is good."

"Ok yeah so I got a phone call from my friend Crystal at UBS... (Mak used to work at UBS in Manhattan before joining us here. You guys know UBS. You see the commercials for them all the time during golf...You & Us...then the ampersand morphs into a B and you're left with this logo:)

...and she goes, 'UM Thanks for telling me you got engaged!!' And I was so surprised because I just didn't get the chance to tell anyone yet about the engagement. So I said to her, 'How did you find out?' and Crystal goes to me,'I was reading YGIU!' "

Mak looked at me all expectant and for a second I thought to myself, "What the hell is YGIU?" 

Then it, uh, like tooooooootally dawned on me.

"OHMIGOD! That is so awesome! HA!"

"Yeah! I guess everyone at UBS reads YGIU!" she exclaimed.

(In case you guys were wondering where, on YGIU, you can read about MAK's engagement that would be the blog right below this one entitled BALLS!!! About the plastic testicles. Just read it. You'll see.)

How very cool! I don't know much about the financial world, basically because I have no finances to speak of really, but from what I can imagine and what Mak tells me it's a lot of work and you have to wear suits. All the time. So even though I don't know Crystal or anyone else at UBS I'm so glad I can provide you all with some entertainment!! Keep reading and pass it along to your friends at Merrill Lynch. They might need a good laugh too.