Transcripts, Pt. 1

Backstory - I was supposed to have a date Saturday night and my girlfriends had been talking about it all week (What are you wearing? How are you doing you hair? Where are you going? You know the drill) Anyway, by Saturday I was SERIOUSLY ill and canceled the date. Here is the phone exchange from THURSDAY:

Jennifer: Hey, are you psyched about you date?

Me: Dude, I'm sick.

J: NOOOOOOOOOOO!!! You are going on the date!

Me: Did not not just hear me say I am sick?

J: (mumbles something inaudible)

Me: Oh my God, Did you just say "So, your vagina still works"?

J: (laughs) No, I said your boobs will still look good. But it is true, the vagina still works, right?

This is the e-mail exchange from this morning:

J: How was the date????? i called you on saturday .... what's up? :-)
Me: Dude, I have bronchitis.
J: So I guess the real question is, does HE have bronchitis now too? Or did you skip out on the date because of infectious lung disease?

I love my friends. It is especially endearing that they are always looking out for my best interests.

Damn you Grey's Anatomy!

I cry during every single episode of Grey's Anatomy. I don't know why and I wish someone would explain it to me.

4 weeks ago I cried. No, not when Cristina lost her baby, but at the end of the episode when Burke crawls into bed with her and holds her so that she can FINALLY cry and fall apart a little. That was a rough episode for me. I just curled up with the tissues on that one.

Then you had the ep where the 2 people are impaled on the pole and the woman asks the guys she is impaled onto to tell her fiance that she loves him because she's gonna die any minute. Total tearjerker.

Last week Meredith pulled a TOTAL Nadine move and told McDreamy she missed him. Oh, Meredith, did you learn nothing from my trials? Nothing at all? I told my McDreamy because I wanted to clear the air and finally just let it go, whereas you clearly just wanted him back. I felt so sad and embarassed for you. I know you heard me yelling at the TV because his reaction was just too painful to watch.

I'm not even gonna talk about last night but the guy waking up after 17 years was BRUTAL, too.

Grey's Anatomy: please stop. I am not a crier and you are literally making me emotional every single week. I don't like it. Hell, I generally don't like soap operas (mainly because I get enough in my everyday life, but damn). This just can not continue.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

I have been meaning to write about the new Harry Potter movie since the day it came out, but I wanted to give the viewing a second thought (and subsequent third and fourth thoughts) because my initial opinion was that the movie disappointed. There were 4 less Weasleys than there should have been, no Veela, no S.P.E.W., no Winky or Dobby, 1 scene with Sirius (and he was only in the fire), no Dursleys, no Ludo Bagman, and the list goes on.

The book was very long and I do understand that in order to make it work as a film they had to cut alot of things out. The problem was that the movie just felt a little choppy because of all of the things that were missing. I do understand that there are certain time constraints, but these books build upon one another so if you cut things or characters out of this movie then you'll have to cut subsequent plot points out of future films. It would have worked better as 2 movies.

Also, my friend Kat and I are having an ongoing discussion about the length of time between the movies which is generally 2 years. These kids are already looking older than their characters so in my opinion they need to speed up the movie making in order to keep it believable (seriously, in 1 scene I turned to Kat and said, "Dude, Ron Weasley is buff"....so wrong. Ron Weasley is NOT supposed to be buff).

That said, the movie highlighted mainly the events during the tournament. And they did a great job of that. I did jump a couple of times and I found myself cringing. It just was not what I expected. Books will always be better than movies, but I just expected more.

Gifts From Far Away Places

Dear CV,

Had a shitty, shitty, crappy day at work. When I finally made it home I found a package on my doorstep. A package from Japan. A package from you! How completely psyched was I? I totally appreciated the fact that you wrote "ceramic vase" on the US Customs declaration in a effort to thwart the local authorities and/or me. You should have written sake in ceramic vase, just to see if anyone noticed.

Thank you for always thinking of me on your travels and for being a great friend. I miss you terribly and look forward to seeing YOU instead of gifts from far away places.

Love,
Nadine

Vacation Delays

Mr. Little Man and I have been planning our Christmas vacation for quite a while. We had every intention of laying on a tropical beach and collecting some shells and generally lolling about for a few days. Well, of course, this isn't happening. There are a couple of things going on over the holidays that I don't want to put off. I figure if I stay here and get them out of the way I will be able to take an even longer vacation in FEBRUARY. When it will be freezing in New Jersey. During which time we will enjoy the Costa Rican sun even more.

That leaves us several days over Christmas break where I will not have to work and Mr. Little Man will not have to go to school. We've decided to go toboganning. My brother (who still wants all the "ladies" to call him his "stripper name" of Caramel Thunder.....even though as far as I know he isn't a stripper) will be here with us for the holiday, so I will be taking 2 children on the trip with me instead of 1. Should be fun.

A weekend with the family

Mr. Little Man and I had one of the best weekends ever. I spent all last week feverishly cleaning the house so that we could enjoy one of the last nice weekends before it got too cold for us to do anything outdoors.

Saturday morning we went to the beach to fly kites and on our way home we stopped to have lunch. This in and of itself is HUGE because Mr. Little Man generally does not do well in "public", but he seemed to enjoy it so I am hopeful that it will be the first of many public adventures. Saturday afternoon he had his first swim and gym class of the season. He loves to swim and this is a program exclusively for autistic children which is a huge relief for me because I am not always having to explain my sons quirks to the other parents. They swim for an hour and then they do gross motor activities for an hour. The great thing is that everything they do during these 2 hours is essentially adaptive physical therapy cleverly disguised as fun instead of work.

Sunday I had my first gingerbread latte of the season (in the red cup!)....it is truly sad that it takes so little to make me happy.

We spent the morning in the park and we raked some leaves in the backyard. We went to see Wallace and Grommet (which was cute but even the claymation characters make arguements for universal dental care, which killed me because I couldn't stop staring at their teeth). Then we went home and played with Legos before he abandoned me to do his own thing (he wanted to color and listen to some music. He was dancing along to Elmo's Silly Songs which was cute. I was really starting to worry that he had inherited his father's sense of rhythm and I am happy to report that that is not the case).

It is just nice to be able to relax and go places and not feel stressed about running from one activity to another. And I get to really enjoy my son and see how fast he is growing up and how much progress he is making. And most importantly I have to take my time with him where I can get it because I know that in a few years he will be too cool to hang out with his mom.

Dear Beer

Dear Beer,

I am not sure what happened to us or even why we drifted apart. I am German so you would think that we would be together forever, like BFFs. I had noticed that the last couple of years you haven't been making as many appearances in my life, but last night you came through in the form of a black and tan. God Bless You.

I didn't think that I missed you at all but your appearance has made me question my judgement. Clearly, neither the 12 year Lagavulin nor the remainder of my grandfather's wine collection have anything on you. You know that I am a social drinker and it was nice that Woody invited you along on Chinese food and movie night.

Lets make it a point to get together more often. I have missed you.

Love,
Nadine

It's Fall Ya'll

Fall really kind of snuck up on me this year. I am not exactly sure how it happened, but all of a sudden I am in complete fall mode. Things I am excited about:

1. It is almost time for the Starbucks Gingerbread Latte (Seriously, I could drink these by the gallon).

2. Basketball season has officially started. I am strangely drawn to Gonzaga and Wisconsin. I don’t think that either of these 2 will win the championship, but I’ll be watching them this year.

3. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire....I can NOT explain my excitement over this movie or any of the other movies in the franchise, however, it is easily the movie I am looking most forward to seeing this season.

4. Ice skating. Our local rink has opened up for the season and I couldn't be happier. I think that Mr. Little Man is finally coordinated and balanced enough to go skating. We are going to give it a try to see if he likes it

5. Roasted vegetables, duck, chestnut polenta and glühwein.

6. St Martin’s Day. I know that no one in the US celebrates the feast of St. Martin, but I want to introduce Mr. Little Man to all of the holidays I grew up with so we will be doing the lantern walk through our neighborhood and singing St. Martin's songs.

7. Thanksgiving. I always have a large Thanksgiving dinner at my house; usually we end up with 8 or so people. This year I expect 12 -14. I am completely psyched about this. Menu details and possibly even pictures will follow.

8. I am taking Mr. Little Man to the Christmas Spectacular at Radio City Music Hall. We will see the tree at Rockefeller Center and maybe (if he likes it) we’ll go skating in Central Park.

iPod Update

Damn, am I glad that I did not get the Nano. I currently have 896 songs on my iPod and I am still in the process of loading up my CD collection. The Nano only holds 1000 songs, so I guess I dodged a bullet on that one.

I also came to the conclusion that just putting the iPod on shuffle is a bad idea because you come up with this mix:

1. Hella Good – No Doubt
2. Flamenco Sketches – Miles Davis
3. Long Time Coming – Delays
4. Bobby James – N.E.R.D.
5. Many Men - Fifty Cent
6. Speed Dial No. 2 – Zero7
7. America – Simon & Garfunkel
8. Stars Fell on Alabama – Ella Fitzgerald & Louis Armstrong
9. Shockbody – Talib Kweli
10. Mining for Gold – Cowboy Junkies

Clearly it is time to figure out the playlist option. I need my morning Motown mix.

The Condensed Version

Many, many, many moons ago I met the love of my life. And it scared the living shit out of me, so, of course, as I am wont to do in those situations I completely ruined everything and left him. For the sake of this story let us call him McDreamy.

At that time I knew I was making a huge mistake but I did it anyway because I always took for granted that sometime in the future we would be able to just pick up where we left off. And by "sometime" I mean when I had completed working through all of my issues and became comfortable in my own skin. In my completely screwed up mind it made total sense to me that McDreamy would never love anyone as much as he loved me and would wait for me until the end of time. Clearly that isn't happening.

This morning I had my first encounter with McDreamy in almost 4 years. Damn, I have known this man for almost half of my life and it finally hit home today that the damage I did can not be undone. That as much as I want to fix the situation I can't do it alone; he has to be on board. He clearly is not. The funny thing is that it isn't even about getting back together at this point. More than anything I just want him to be a part of my life because of all of the good things that came along with him being a part of my life.

Can I blame him? No. If I were in his shoes would I do the same thing? Probably. Do I think I will ever get over my past mistakes? No. Do I think that this pain is justice? I think that I am getting back what I dished out tenfold. Karma will always come back around.