It's Been a Hard Day's Night

I had a crazy amount of work to catch up on today, so today’s random rantings will be very few.

I do have a Blog of the Week to share, since I was not around on Friday. Drink at Work.com (http://www.drinkatwork.com/) is an awesome blog done by Francesco Marciuliano. “Who the heck is he?” you may ask. He’s the writer and illustrator who does the syndicated comic, Sally Forth, which he took over from the original cartoonist, Greg Howard. Get a glimpse into the world of a cartoonist who is hamstrung by the strictures of the guy who went before him. (Imagine if someone took over Peanuts after Charles Schultz died.) “Ces” also does his own comic strip, Medium Large, and has his pulse on the New York comedy, music and theater scenes. He makes me wish I lived there. He also has a wicked sense of humor.

Had a fabulous time with my sister this weekend. Went out to Tyson’s Corner Center on Friday, where she did a wicked amount of shopping, while I just looked at beautiful things wistfully. Well, I did buy some nice lip gloss at Sephora and a couple of dirt cheap “pashmina” scarves from one of the carts at the mall, but my outlay was quite meager. She does inspire me to buy more girly-type things. The last time I bought nail polish I was with her too. I now also have passport pictures! However, I have to wait to get paid again to actually submit the application. Baby steps, people!

Saturday, we had an early dinner with my parents at the local buffet place and then we went to Barnes & Noble to get reading material for her plane trip and then to Target so she could buy an IPod mini. Did you know that IPods aren’t real big in Europe? Who knew? Cell phones are the big thing overseas.

The buffet place was . . . gross. I know that when I was little, it was a big treat to go somewhere like that, with all of the choices and the array of different desserts . . . But now that I am older, and am agog over Asian food, and have been trying to watch what I eat, those places have lost all of their appeal. Mostly everything was either fried, or cooked in fat, or smothered in a cream sauce, or was carb-heavy. I thought I’d make myself a big salad, but the salad pickings were quite palty. I mean, all you can eat for $9.99 is quite commendable, but you know, would it kill them to throw a few healthy choices out there? I only had one plate of entrees – a small salad, some rice with small pieces of barbecued chicken, some plain corn, some greens and some macaroni and cheese (because I’m no saint.) Then I had part of a piece of cheesecake (which was rather tasteless, so I stopped after a few bites) and a bowl of vanilla soft serve w/some blandish chocolate pudding. My dad had FOUR plates of food, not counting dessert. And he’s supposed to be watching his cholesterol and blood pressure! My mom says he was just splurging, but he does tend to make some questionable diet choices. He’s not fat at all . . . in fact, he exercises a lot, but high blood pressure, diabetes, and high cholesterol run in our family and lots of exercise often doesn’t quite cut it. I know, I’m just being a worrywart daughter again . . .

My sister’s plane left at 11 AM yesterday morning, which meant we had to be at the airport at 9, which meant that we had to be at IHOP for breakfast at 7. I am not a morning person, at all . . . thus the copious amounts of IHOP hi-test coffee. Went straight to church and did my choir thing and coffee hour afterwards. When we got home, I was exhausted and napped during the rest of the day, pausing only to read the papers and watch the Gold Cup Final, in which the US beat Panama in a shootout. Yay!

More to tell tomorrow. Don’t have a song or poem today either . . . but please insert fitting verse of your choice here. :-)