Sofa Sundays

I usually have a rule regarding my visits home during a semester. Ideally, I make it until the mid-semester break before I start randomly coming home, I rarely make it. I have been back at school for two weeks...I have randomly come home twice. Oh well, it was a good try. Originally I was going to stay at school for the Super Bowl. I assumed that as a college kid I would be spending the day at the bar, imbibing and having a grand old time. After the Eagles were eliminated, my excitement for the Super Bowl quickly faded to almost nothing. Earlier this week a friend asked if we had anything planned. One of us was going home, two of us were working, the rest couldn't care less. Screw this, I decided, I'm going home. Every Sunday of the playoffs I spent on the sofa with my mom in her recliner, fire blazing, dog on my lap, generally enjoying life. It only seemed fitting that I finish the season out on my sofa. After five minutes with my family I realized that they are hilarious and needed to be documented. So without their consent I recorded our entire afternoon/evening and present it to you as a play, 

"The Family That Watches Together, Never Sees Their Daughter Leave Home Even After College....Together"

3:00-Time for pregame show. I come downstairs to find mom chuckling along to America's Sweethearts. Hey, I'm pro anything John Cusack. We watch this instead.

4:00-Movie ends. Time for football? Or maybe Ice Princess, starring Joan Cusack. Mom marvels at the fact that every movie on today includes a Cusack. I'm confused that she was expecting to find a Sunday afternoon movie that DIDN'T include a Cusack.

4:10-Alright, time for some football. 

4:20-Mom and I discuss the possible Springsteen line up, really the only thing we're interested in during this game. We Google "betting websites" (hello viruses) to see what the most popular lineup is. We're hoping for Playlist E, Born to Run, Dancing in the Dark, Radio Nowhere and The Rising. Money seem to be favoring Playlist D, Born in the USA, Thunder Road, Rosalita and My Lucky Day. There is NO way this is going to be the lineup as Born to Run isn't on it and Rosalita is 500 minutes long. I should mention that I have no clue how betting works, so this might not be favored at all.

4:35-The pregame show turns to a feature on David Tyree, who caught the pass that doomed the Patriots last year. Mom insists we turn the channel. We watch Ice Princess instead.

4:42-I turn back to the pregame show just in time to see Eli Manning cock his arm back and throw a pass over the heads of Patriot defenders. Mom screams. Back to Ice Princess

4:40-6:00-Eating, lots of eating. I just DEVOURED a bowl of Sun Chips. 

6:10ish-Faith Hills version of America the Beautiful reduced Ben Rothlisberger to tears, this doesn't bode well. J Huds National Anthem was incredible. 

6:46-We just found out that Kurt Warner went to University of Northern Iowa, which elicited a "Northern Iowa?!?!?!?!" from all three people at this party. OMP wants to know why North Iowa deserved a university over South Iowa. I don't want to start rumors, but I think OMP is against Iowa as a state. Statist. 

6:53-Mom and I are ranking commercials. Mom has previewed some of the commercials on the internet. We just had an intense fight about whether or not that is ok. I claim she now has a base on which to judge other commercials off of whereas I have to judge as we go. 

7:02-

Me: I give it a 6 

Mom: I give it a four! Do you want to wager, Peter? Pick a number from 1 to...

OMP: No 

Mom: 10? 

OMP: No

7:07-I pull a Bryn Mawr and give a commercial a 1 based off of the fact that is was just footage of a woman showering. Sometimes I am a credit to my gender.

7:10-Mom is biased towards Budwiser clydesdale commercials. Its amazing how they ALWAYS get 10s.....

7:12-I should mention that Mom and I are rooting for Pittsburgh, OMP appears to be rooting for Arizona just to spite us.

7:14-"BEST CLYDESDALE COMMERCIAL EVER! 10+!" So much corruption in the commercial ranking system.

7:33-Dinner is gradually appearing on the coffee table. I clearly haven't eaten enough today. 

7:52-Coolest play ever! COOLEST EFFING PLAY EVER! 100 yard interception return FOR A TOUCHDOWN! A-MAZ-ING.

7:57-

Mom: "Oh! Here we go! 3-D! 3-D!" 

Me: Mom....we...don't have 3-D glasses. 

Mom: oh...

7:59-Something about Matt Light in a leotard. Mom gives it a 10 for "sheer guts" 

8:01-Halftime score: Steelers 17, Cards 7.....Bruce? Bruuuuuuuuuce? Bruuuuuuuuuucccccceeeee.....

8:03-Less Matt Millen, more Bruuuuuuuuuucccccccceeeeee

8:06-BRUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCCCCCCCCCCCCCEEEEE!!!!!!!!! 

OMP, who absolutely cannot stand Springsteen, removes himself from the room.

8:10-TRAMPS LIKE US! BABY WE WERE BOOOOORRRRRRRNNNNN TO RUNNNN

8:20-WOW! AWESOME. Mom and I scream MORE! MORE! MORE! Upstairs OMP finishes off a bottle of vodka hoping to dull the pain of living with us*. Says Mom: "It's like a woman that leads a man on then leaves him hanging at the last second" silence fills the room. OMP goes in search of some pills to chase the vodka with*. I begin to question whether or not I should return to school for my 10 am class tomorrow or if I should stay home for when Springsteen tickets go on sale at 10am. I've never denied that I am an advertisers dream. A monkey could sell me a broken microwave, I'm that easily convinced.

*-Lies

EDIT (2/3): OMP did reappear to coin the performance Bruceus Interruptus. I would personally like to term it "Bruce Balling". That is all.

8:33-Brodie "burys" his chewy under my moms chair and walks away. OMP grabs it so that Finn doesn't find it, leading to a dog fight of epic proportions. Brodie notices this shennanigan and is less than pleased. B gets his chewy back and sits down with it hanging out of his mouth like a cigarette. He's a real James Dean. 

8:37-Each of us heard a different piece of that last commercial. By sharing our different pieces of information we piece it together that Dennys is serving a free grand slam on either Tuesday or Friday of this week. ADHD riddled family fun.

8:41-This Clydesdale ad is full of holes. 

1. The horse has a "Scottish" accent, but they're clearly in Ireland. 

2. The horse still has an accent even though he is a third generation American. I've taken NUMEROUS (2, maybe even 3) classes on this subject, and I know that the accent should be gone by now. 

3. The relative immigrated in the late 19th, early 20th century, yet it claims three generations. A generation in the horse world is, what, 5 or 6 years? So three generations would have the great grandfather emigrating over in, assuming the current horse is 6, the late 1970s/early 1980s. FULL OF HOLES. I can't believe I just dissected that in detail.

9:13-OMP reemerges to give us crucial news that he is putting a new calculator into circulation. He asks that we kindly not throw it away as it looks identical to the last calculator, which I can only assume stopped working. Football game is apparently still going on.

9:18-We decline to rank Cash4Golds commercial as the thought of Ed McMahon hawking Cash4Gold was deemed "sad". 

9:22-"If your tv doesn't say "Vizio" then you probably paid too much!" 

OMP: "Well we didn't pay anything for this tv....so no".

I count at least 10 major features in this room that we got for free, including all furniture save for the sofa. Freeloading Family Fun. 

9:47-OH....MY...GOD.....The Cardinals...are....in....the lead? I can't handle this.

10:01-WHOAAAAAAAAA. Who knew this would turn into one of the best Super Bowls ever......

10:09-PITTSBURGH WINS! Excellent, excellent game. I did not expect to enjoy this game, but ended up enjoying it immensely.

Hopefully I will be on the PA Turnpike tomorrow before the 'rents discover this entry. 

Birthday Ride Exravaganza

*Editors Note: There are two entries today. I suggest you read the one below this first*

The Bogucki family has a ton of traditions. Setting a place for the Christ Child at the Christmas Eve dinner table, singing the Jack-O-Lantern song immediately after lighting our Halloween Jack-O-Lanterns, etc. The most honored tradition, however, is Mom's birthday ride. Every year, usually Superbowl Sunday, Mom picks a location that she would like for us all to go to. The birthday ride has strict and specific rules that are not to be broken. They are as follow.

1) Location must be out of state

2) Highways may be used to exit the state however once out of said state only backroads may be taken

3) Lunch will be in the form of an in-the-car picnic

4) Dinner must be something local or representative of the culture that we are visiting

5) Roads must twist and turn so as to make Marianna as nauseous as possible

Rule number 5 is unspoken, but I know its there. Past locations have included the Crayola Factory, West Point (I was 8, my parents threatened to leave me there...scarring), the Hopewell Iron Furnace, the Glassboro Glass Works (blatent disregard for rule number 1 on this one) and the Epharta Cloister (something about a cult) among other fabulous spots. We moved the birthday ride up to a Saturday this year for various reasons that I can't remember. Mom announced Lewes, DE as our destination and all was well. At 1 am this morning I opened my e-mail to find an urgent message that our location had changed and we would now be going to Strasborg, PA, to the Railroad Museum. Good choice, good choice. 

If you read the entry below this first, you'll see that waking up this morning was a bit difficult. I was up early, though, as I had to try and get Red Sox tickets which were going on sale at exactly 10. I pulled myself out of bed and made my way to my desk. I logged onto the Red Sox website, plugged in my iPod and spent a glorious hour just staring at my computer screen in a complete trance. I never made it out of the "virtual waiting room" and was unable to procure tickets. After failing at this task, I made my way downstairs as my parents had arrived and hopped in the car to begin our adventure. I now present a photo essay, 

"Birthday Ride: Views from the Backseat"

Let's start this off by looking at a map. We're off to a good start. I'm trying to prolong the inevitable plugging in of the GPS system as long as I can. I hate that thing so, so much.
A stop at the Chester County Visitors Center turns into our in the car picnic. Note that the GPS system has been put in place. 
Delicious sandwich if I do say so myself
Please.Turn.In.One.Point.Four.Miles. 
BLATANT DISREGARD OF RULE NUMBER TWO! 
That's better, this fits both rule number 2 and rule number 5
Well that's something you don't see in the Philadelphia Metropolitan Area!
Farm. In case you can't tell
The Strasborg Train Museum
OMP paced up and down between the museum and the car a couple times. Mom and I couldn't figure out what he was doing, I can only assume he was getting himself pumped for what would be the most epic adventure of his life.
This mannequin scared the hell out of me and actually caused me to duck and cover when I saw him.
OMP never refuses a good lecture opportunity. 
This looks like it would be nice, heated and cozy. It was two hours of bone chilling cold in there.
Mom drives model trains. The two nerdy men running this exhibit thought she was the coolest thing ever. One of them tried to fight my dad for her love. No lie, they got into a one upping contest about who owns more model trains. It was adorable. 
SEPTA, take note. I want velvet seats
If you thought it was cold INSIDE the museum....well outside was even colder. I guess that's not surprising, really that's to be expected.
It was one of the most beautiful days I've seen in awhile
I like to think that this photo is symbolic of my track to the future. 
BLATANT DISREGARD OF RULE NUMBER 2! AGAIN! You're on thin ice, OMP. Better study up on those rules for next year
And the sun sets on another Bogucki Birthday Ride

Old Habits Turn Into New Quasi-Related Habits

The Bogucki family has a hoarding problem. OMP saves everything he or a family member has ever owned, from his father's bowling shoes to a cowboy hat he bought in Montana when he was 8 (he will be chiming in with the correct age in 3...2...1....). Caroline hoards anything she can off of planes, such as napkins, salt packets and dinner rolls, only she refuses to hold them herself instead making her poor little sister who just wants the effing plane to land already pack them into her already packed carry on. She also will take any leftovers from weddings home. Even weddings in Mexico. I hoard....well I don't really hoard as much as I collect. Not collect like one would collect valuables or even have a hobby. I just pick stuff up and put it in my pocket more often than not. As a child this led to small collections of shells, rocks, pennies, a failed attempt by my aunt to interest me in stamp collecting (stamps could not be picked up off the street and thus did not interest me) and the subject of todays entry, bottlecaps. 

Mom, not being a Bogucki by blood, does not fall victim to the hoarding curse that has ruined the rest of us. She has in fact been spending the past 30 years trying to rid the family of the curse. She has failed. As the bottle cap collecting gradually turned from a disturbing habit into a possible hobby, she encouraged it, hoping that having a single focus would in turn encourage me to become organized. I made that last sentence up, I have no reason why I was discouraged from having a messy room filled with junk but yet encouraged to pick up trash off of the street and place it in a jar. Whatever the reason, I acquired quite a hefty bottle cap collection over my lifetime. I abruptly stopped collecting bottle caps probably once I started high school. I guess this is when I became popular and realized that my collecting was "freakish". Stop laughing, I had friends and I think they liked me, that means I was popular. I digress. 

I don't know how many bottle caps I have, I've never counted. I don't know what types I have, I've never researched them. The early bottle caps either came from off of the street or from the remnants of family parties. After my family picked up on my new hobby they began to bring them home from other places, which has led to my number of caps from Poland. Every summer my Dad, Poland's third most famous archaeologist (debatable), would leave my mother with two small children for three months while he excavated the Neolitic farming communities of central Poland. Stay with me, I promise this has a point. He would arrive back with various bottle caps of all sorts of colors and names such as "Coca Cola" and "Pepsi". That's right, Poland at that time still sold soda soley in glass bottles. This right here is what kept me going in my collection. I was fascinated that things other than beer came in glass bottles. Needless to say I sent my father back to Poland the next summer to bring me home some more. 

My collection was still fairly small. OMP would only bring home four or five bottle caps at a time (I know you drank more Coke than that!), there was a surprising lack of beer in the house, and, as it was the nineties, all other American beverages were coming with plastic twist off caps. My collection was looking grim. Then a chance visit to a German restaurant in the White Mountains of New Hampshire changed my fortune forever. 

I must have been around eight when we were vacationing up in North Conway, NH. We were dining at a German restaurant, as we are cultured people, when my parents both ordered beers. My mother asked if they could bring the cap out with the bottle, as I was somewhat of a bottle cap connoisseur (my words, not hers). The waitress was impressed that such a young child would have such driver and determination in life and said she would do us one better. No one knew what that meant and frankly when you're in a German restaurant in the middle of the woods "one better" could really mean anything. At the end of the meal the waitress appeared with a giant bag of bottle caps, at the time I assumed it had been all the bottle caps they had used that year, now that I am of age I realize it was probably all of the bottle caps from happy hour. These caps basically doubled my collection overnight and got me going bottle cap crazy. The power of the caps summed the courage in me to start asking for caps at parties, to pick up every and any cap I found on the ground, and to move my cap collection out of the bucket they had been sitting in and into a more fitting barrel that had been used to package wine. While I was already pleased with myself in general at the age of 8, this bottle cap triumph of mine really just further upped my image of myself. 

The caps began to control my life. I was quite the reader as a child and read many stories about the depression and WWII as seen through the eyes of precocious youngsters. All of these stories had a common thread, in each one the lead character would either sell scrap metal for money or collect scrap metal for the war effort. I was terrified. I listened intently to the news every night for two reasons, signs of incoming meteors (this fear was the result of a trip to the planetarium gone wrong) and signs of impending war. I didn't care about horrors of war, I just cared about my bottle cap collection. I knew that the government kept a secret database of all precocious and patriotic children who collected bottle caps and would immediately come to seize my prize collection should we go to war. As a precocious and very patriotic child, I knew it would be my duty to give it up, but much like a child who raises a seeing eye dog, it wouldn't be easy. Luckily, by the time we went to war technology had advanced enough that the government allowed me to keep my collection. 

Now my cap collection sits on my bookshelf in my room. It's neatly arranged by color in plastic baggies that are then stuffed in the wine cooler or whatever it's called. Every now and then I look over at it and think "when I get some free time, I'm going to go through that". As I have taken numerous 3 hour naps in the past two weeks, I realized that "hey! I have a lot of time!" and pulled out the collection. I still haven't counted it. I still haven't gone through all of them. But today begins my new series "Marianna's Bottle Caps" (better title to be determined later). Every so often I will profile one of my favorite bottle caps. I will include where it is from, roughly from when, how I think I got it and why I like it. 

Todays selection is

Squash

Made By: Thor Bryggeriene

Made In: Randers, Denmark

How I Think I Got It?: Most likely brought back from Denmark by OMP

How Old?: 11 years? 10 years? 

Fun Fact: Thor Bryggeriene brewery was a Danish brewery founded in 1856 that closed in 2003 (www.beerme.com)

Why I Like It: As prez of the BMC Squash club, the idea that there was a beer called Squash screamed "FUNDRAISING" to me. I though it was cute that it was one of the first ones I pulled out of my collection, considering all of the time I've put into squash over the past few years. Also, I like the color scheme, it's fun.

Why I Don't Like It: It reminds me that I have to find us a squash coach. Does anyone know any squash coaches in the Philadelphia area?

Highlights Post

Wow, I have so much to cover and cannot do it all justice. Two major holidays and a week of fun in between are just meshing together. I'm going to try and do the highlights of the past week, I might forget a bunch of stuff, I might lie a couple of times, but it should give you a good wrap up of my holiday festivities

Christmas

-The plague had hit me hard and left me unable to tell up from down. I stumbled downstairs on Christmas morning and sat in a chair staring at Christmas gifts for an hour while I waited for Caroline to get up. By an hour I mean 20 minutes max.

-Santa Claus was good to me. The recession is hitting him hard as he has had to take up a second job. He clearly moonlights at the Forbes College of Princeton University gift shop as I somehow received a sweatshirt, track jacket and knapsack from there. This is to be added to my collection of another sweatshirt and countless t-shirts from there. The new sweatshirt is indescribably comfy and has been worn for a week straight. Random....but usefull. 

-We had a secret Christmas brunch and a secret Christmas dinner. Holidays are more fun when you have secret parties and don't tell other people about them. That last sentence is a complete lie. 

-I got a beautiful new sweater and promptly spilled red wine all over it at dinner. Luckily Mom is a stain mastermind and got it out with a bottle of Perrier and a strong will to succeed. 

-I blacked out from the ick at around 7 on Christmas and don't really remember anything else from the night. I think it was a success, however.

Day after Christmas

-I think I went to the movies with Ch'nel and her sister. We went to three different theaters, each of which disappointed us in some way.

-I am now boycotting the Oxford Valley Mall theater. They tripped me with their obscenely large curb and rolled their eyes when I limped my way in. They also wanted 12.50 to see a movie. We did not stay.

-They also had a pothole outside their theater that broke my tire. Thumbs down.

-We ended up seeing Role Models which was surprisingly funny and adorable. I recommend.

-Ended the night by playing "How many donuts can I get for a dollar" at Dunken Donuts (or as the girl behind me on the train says, Dunkies). This game is the single reason I am glad that I was friends with Kelsey Cunningham at some point in my life. Hours of entertainment come from bringing a single dollar into a Donut shop and asking how many munchkins it could be traded for. Answers have ranged from 4 to 70. This night we had to play through the drive-thru, which added an extra challenge. We ended up with 20, a reasonable haul if you ask me. 

Dec 27-28

-Eh, stuff happened

Dec 29

-Went to Massachusetts

-Stopped at Wrenthem Premium Outlets on the way up

-I was still feeling sick and angry that my sister wanted to shop

-When we left she had no bags and I bought a 4 dollar shirt at White House Black Market and a 20 dollar dress at Barneys. I win!

-Got to my grandmothers house and was subjected to hours of Jon and Kate Plus 8. I hate that show. Hate it so much. Everyone in the room hated it, you could tell, but everyone thought someone else wanted to watch it so no one changed the channel. Bad move, family, bad move.

Dec 30

-Went to Marshalls, bought two dresses and a pair of boots. Apparently I think I have a social life that requires party clothes. Even the fact that I consider myself to have a social life is a stretch

-Went up to Boston to play trivia at this bar near my aunts house. We've been wanting to bring OMP for years as he is a human Wikipedia. We were convinced we were going to thrash the competition. Unfortunately the theme was 2008 and every answer had happened in 2008. He was good for the political ones but was unable to tell us that Katherine Heigl was the highest paid actress or identify a scene from Zack and Miri Make a Porno. The MVP of the night turned out to be my 11 (12?) year old cousin Will who pulled answers out of no where to score massive amounts of points. It helps that he does absolutely nothing but watch television. We came in at a respectable 4th out of 12 teams. We were in second for the whole game, but fell hard on the first final question (I am aware that that is a contradiction, let it go) and were too timid to wager enough points on the final final question (which we got right) to pull ourselves back. Oh well, we beat my cousin and her boyfriend who were awkwardly on a double date with another couple at the table next to us. Thats always awesome when your entire extended family shows up to play trivia at the table next to you when you're on a date. They claimed it wasn't a date, just a get together, but I claim any gathering of couples counts as a double date and want to portray this as an awkward adventure. My other cousin brought her boyfriend to sit with us and he had to sit next to her father and across from OMP and my mom. I'm going to reconsider this whole situation and name that the more awkward experience.

Dec 31

-NEW YEARS EVE!

-I was going to go into the city to meet two friends from school and go out with them at around 7. At 10 am I woke up to find my parents missing, along with the car and no note as to their whereabouts. They do this frequently when we're up in MA as they have a normal sleep schedule and my sister, grandmother and myself often sleep until the smell of lunch wakes us up. I went for a walk on the beach and carried on my merry way.

-I got home and at around 11 a phone call comes in from the parents "Get your stuff, you're going to the train station". Dammit, I thought, it's finally happened, they're finally fed up with me and are sending me away. I looked out the window and saw that it was snowing...heavily, white out conditions. The 'rents wanted to get me and my sister into Boston before we were snowed in. It was a very valiant gesture as, to be perfectly honest, I wouldn't drive my kids anywhere if there was snow like that. They would be s*** out of luck. (the snow didn't end up being too bad, but in the moment it was looking like we would be having a repeat of 1998 (year completely made up) when my mom, sister and I were snowed in my grandmothers cottage with downed trees and 4 foot high snowbanks blocking our every exit with no electricity or heat). 

-Train to the city was surprisingly scenic, but involved an hour of listening to the girl behind me brag about all the times she's driven drunk "not just drunk, but BLACKOUT, ahahahahah". Never, ever, go on the streets of suburban Massachusetts after dark.

-We got into the city and camped out at my aunts house until it was time to go on our merry way. My cousin, fresh of his all star trivia performance, taught us how to play Guitar Hero and Wii. Caroline is apparently quite the Wii expert, so she claimed, I schooled her in Wii Baseball. I'm going to need to get a Wii, maybe once my N64 breaks. 

-I went downtown at around 5 to meet up with my friends at our hotel. This was a last minute plan when we realized we had no way to get out of the city at 2ish and somehow we managed to get a swanky hotel room in downtown Boston on New Years Eve for 99 dollars. I'm going to take this moment to plug the Kendall hotel in Kendall Square. A converted firehouse that is absolutely charming and elegant. I miss the free champagne hour by 5 minutes, unfortunately, but the news that I was staying at a hotel that offered a free champagne hour delighted me. I cannot stress enough how fantastic this hotel was. 

-Got ready and went out to eat at Papa Razzi. Good food, good times, good friends, good.

-Realized it was 11 o clock already and scampered over to Harvard Square to ring in the new year at Tommy Doyles pub. It was fairly empty when we arrived, which concerned me. But about 15 minutes before midnight the place suddenly filled up to the brim. As the countdown began I got incredibly excited. With each ticking second I realized it was almost the new year. Almost 2009. The year I'm going to graduate. Only a few months until I complete college, I've almost made it. As the clock struck midnight I was filled with total glee, I made it to 2009, this end is in sight, I can do this. 

-Danced the night away for the next few hours. Not one but TWO women (both of whom came with boyfriend like characters) asked if I "swung" and wanted to make out. I'm very attractive to the closeted lesbians apparently. Maybe I'll use that as a pick up line next time I meet a cute guy "you know women find me extremely attractive.....". Nevermind, that will only attract a sketchy breed of male that i do not want.

-I left my ATM card at the bar. 

JANUARY 1st 2009!

-Swanky hotel offered a full breakfast. I love this hotel.

-Tried to get my ATM card, they said they put it in a safe and won't have access to that safe until 9 that night when the manager comes in. That's all well and good, except I'm heading for Jersey at 1. The Irish bartender shrugs. My friend agrees to pick it up and mail it to me once they call to say they've gotten it out of the safe. After numerous phone calls over the past two days, they keep telling me they've been too busy to get it out. Apparently the combination on this safe is not just numbers but an elaborate system of obstacles and challenges. Please, take your time.

-Drove down to Jerz. Car started making funny noises and shaking somewhere around Hartford. Spent the rest of the trip feeling like we were going to break down at any moment. While my plague had gone, Carolines was just starting. As the car struggled to move, she struggled to breathe. My iPod had minimal power left in it and I was unable to page through the songs as that would have killed the battery. So I had a shaking car, a snoring sister and Dane Cook yacking away in my ear as I hoped and prayed that if God really loved me he would make it so that shuffle would play a continuous hour of Bruce Springsteen after Mr. Cook finished describing his trip to the supermarket. I eventually gave up and listened to Harry Potter on tape that my mom was playing, gotta love the Potter. 

Now I'm spending my Friday night waiting for the bar to call me back and otherwise staring into space hoping someone isn't using my ATM card to buy something stupid like coffee. I should take this moment to say that anyone using an ATM card to buy a coffee or fast food item is at the top of my s*** list. If you don't have the cash to pay, then you are unable to get the food item. I will end this blog on that angry note. Happy 2009!!!!

Watching football with the family

We watch a lot of football in this house. Mom openly loves the Pats. OMP secretly loves the Eagles. Everyone hates the Jets. Today was a big day as all of these teams had big play-off hopes. This meant spending the afternoon in front of the television, fire in the fireplace (even though it was about 60 degrees outside) and yelling, nay, talking in elevated voices, at the television. I will outline the afternoon, through the help of youtube videos

I couldn't find a clip of this weeks game. So here's Wes Welker making a snow angel instead.

OMP: CHANGE IT! CHANGE THE CHANNEL!

Mom: CHANGE IT NOW! Your father can't handle this commercial!

 

I hate this commercial. I am of the belief that a car cannot be considered the best gift ever as it will be out of date within a year and you will be angry that you don't have the newest model.

Mom: I don't get it

Mom: I actually enjoy this commercial. I enjoyed it even more last year.

Mom: I like the Eagles when they play like this

Omp: E-A-G-L-E-S EAGLES

I'd also like to note that this video makes me crack up each time I watch it. I love youtube.

Mom:....*sigh* you really can't hate him, can you.

Final tally on the day? Pats played a great game and showed

that they deserve to be in the playoffs. Brett Favre couldn't pull

through, however, and thus by his losing, eliminated the Pats.

Mom can tell you how. I blame his 

pregame speech which, no lie, went like this:

"Alright, let's just go out there, if it works, it works, if it doesn't oh well. I love you guys."

DAMN YOU BRETT FAVRE!

Eagles played one of the coolest games ever

and won my full support for the playoffs. I could use another parade.

We made Caroline pick us up a pizza, the fire didn't stop burning all day,

and my plague is getting better. Apart from the Pats being left out, I say it's

a good day!

Once more with feeling!

E-A-G-L-E-S EAGLES!

I apologize for the crazy font sizes. Apparently adding youtube videos makes the html go crazy

and I don't know how to fix it. Sorry.

Aw hell, in the words of the Teletubbies, AGAIN! AGAIN!

God's way of saying "Merry Christmas, Marianna. Thanks for coming back!"

I made my last entry a bit prematurely. I had assumed that most of the noteworthy happenings had already, well, happened. Rookie mistake, I completely forgot that Christmas Eve mass always brings the crazy.

I'm not sure what it is, but I can never make it through Christmas Eve mass without cracking up or in some other way completely offending Jesus and fellow church-goers. When I was younger and more immature I usually spent the entire mass making faces at my friend who was inevitably sitting directly across the church from us. He, as a good Catholic, would not acknowledge my ridiculousness and remained stoic throughout church. This infuriated me and made me even more determined to crack him. This always ended with my mom giving me a quick smack to the arm and a stern look. On the rare occasions I did crack him I would have the added obstacle of fighting the urge to raise my arms in victory. 

Three years ago I had the glorious moment of sitting behind Joey McIntyre from New Kids on the Block. This was before they got back together and made music videos involving them macking on girls young enough to be their illegitimate daughters. If you thought I was going to pay attention with him sitting right in front of me, I'm sorry but you are sorely mistaken. You guys don't believe me, I can tell. I kid you not, Joey McIntyre, in front of me, church. December 24th, 2006. 

Two years ago I made the mistake of wearing my thick woolen socks with my new pair of Uggs. It was not that cold to begin with and the packed church was warm. Around the prayer of the faithful I found myself going down. I finished mass barefoot that night.

Last year was the most epic of the Christmas Eve Mass fiascos, or so I thought. We went to my grandmothers church which featured a choir of late middle aged/early senior singers and a very old priest. The choir got me giggling with their attempts at gospel music. Many tried to get into it and be perky while others were clearly offended that someone would mess with their traditional songs and responding by remaining completely emotionless during the song. Hard to describe, but trust me, hilarious to watch. Then the priest started talking and it was all downhill from there. Snails have moved faster than the man talked. Every. Word. Was. Given. Equal. Time. And. Emphasis. He really nailed it home when he asked us all to say the lords prayer, then paused and added "verrrrrrrrry slowwwwwwwly". I started shaking but tried to hold it in. Next to me I noticed my sister was falling down. I was shocked to see her cracking up as she's usually pretty reliable for being stoic. I had been banned from sitting next to OMP due to an unfortunate behavioral incident at a wedding earlier in the year, my mother apparently thought Caroline would be able to keep me in line. This plan backfired and the combination of the priests request and Caroline trying to hold in her laughter were too much. I dissolved into laughter and had to sit down with my head between my legs to cover up the tears streaming down my face. I didn't think it could be topped.

God has a sense of humor, it seems, as this year he gave me my own personal Christmas gift.

I honestly went into church being careful not to make a fool out of myself. I kept going over possible circumstances and how I would deal with them. If I went into a coughing fit I would excuse myself until I regained composure. If the priest made an unintended sexual innuendo during his homily I would not yell out "THAT'S WHAT SHE SAID" or even giggle. I would be allowed a small smile. Under no circumstances would I be allowed to make eye contact with OMP as that would undoubtably lead to a colossal failure of composure. I was going to make it through mass and make Jesus proud of me for once. 

We started mass with a sing-a-long of Christmas carols with the children's choir. Under Silent Night, the hymnal listed lyrics for English, Spanish and German translations. I asked OMP if he would like to sing the German version with me, we chuckled and began our off key howling in English. At precisely the same moment we both switched over to German, hoping to throw the other person off. Instead we just began the giggles. I thought this was the end. I panicked, the priest hadn't even walked down the aisle and I was already laughing. I regained composure and made it through the sing-a-long. The priest began his procession, swinging his incense dispenser the whole time. I spotted a problem, as you may have read I currently have the plague. As my asthmatic sister began to wheeze a bit, I realized this might spell doom for me and my injured lungs. I concentrated on not coughing, and succeeded, however I noticed that the room was really a lot smokier than usual. The people across the church were getting hazy, I was either going down again or the incense smoke was out of control. The choir began to sing again and I got my answer as the piano accompaniment was joined by the wail of the church fire alarm. I cracked up, openly, as I assumed this was a laughable moment. Lighthearted, ha ha ha, no harm done, right? Nope, the choir just sings louder, I assume they thought they could drown out the sound of the alarm. The congregation stares ahead, some joining in the song, others looking at the priest with looks of "now look what you've done!". Lots of hostility. OMP is shaking, trying not to laugh. Caroline is cracking up with me, thank you Caroline. Mom is smiling but worried about the feelings of the children's choir, so she joins the group that is singing loudly. The song, O Come All Ye Faithful if I remember correctly, is going on forever. They are making up verses, they have to be, there were at least 6 verses sung, only 3 listed in the hymnal. I wasn't laughing as hard as I wanted to be because I was hoping for one specific moment. You see the church is directly across from the fire station. I assumed that it was protocol to answer any alarms at any building. I was just waiting for the town alarm to go off and for the volunteer firemen who were in the church to run across the street to get their truck only to run back. I had an elaborate plan of how it was going to go, and it was going to be epic. My dreams were ruined, however, when the head priest, who was not saying mass, emerged from...somewhere...to the pulpit and with a perfectly straight face said "Don't panic, it's only the incense" before returning to his batcave.  Um, duh? No one was panicking. If I had to name all of the emotions in the room at that moment, panic would not even make the list. The choir keeps singing, we're on verse 24 by this point. The alarms are going off, I'm bitter that the fire department won't be coming, everyones getting a little testy...Caroline's still laughing. Finally the alarm stops, the mood lightens...THE CHOIR KEEPS SINGING, after verse 576 they finally stopped and allowed the priest to continue on his merry way. 

The rest of mass was conducted in a perfectly acceptable manner. I offended everyone around me by refusing to shake their hands during the offering of the sign of peace. Instead I offered "Merry Christmas, I have the plague, you don't want to shake my hand". I figured that the fact that I had been hacking into my hand all mass long would have warned them that they shouldn't shake it. Nope, they instead replied with "oh...well then...Merry Christmas?" before turning around in a huff. I'm sorry, I'm sick, you're elderly, I don't want this to end badly. Apparently it is in better taste to anonymously give someone the plague than it is to think about their health. My bad, next time I have some form of communicable disease I'll make sure to follow social standards rather than health standards. 

This entry was way longer than I thought it would be, this is only half of what I wanted to say. As I just took some Tylenol PM and am now in the process of passing out/wigging out, I'm going to save the rest for a later entry. I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas! Have a fun "week in between holidays"!

Pre-Christmas Fun

I have a lot to cover here, so I'm going to need to divide it into sections.

First of all, how have the first few days of break gone?

Excellent. Sort of. I seem to have contracted the plague (for those of you keeping count between the two blogs, this is probably the 7th time I've claimed to have contracted the plague) and am quite frankly miserable. I considered writing a goodbye entry on the blog at 2 am this morning because I was pretty sure my lung had exploded during one of my coughing fits. By some form of Chirstmas miracle, however, I still have two working lungs. 

People keep asking me how I'm spending my break, and I honestly can't remember. It's become a bit of a blur. Most of it involves my sofa. I had to venture out last night, however, in order to go get my sister from the airport. I hadn't realized I had the plague yet so I agreed to go along for some fun. Food was promised, I was in. We left about 3 hours early for the 45 minute drive in order to allow time for food and traffic. This was our first mistake. On the drive to South Jersey I began to feel a bit under the weather. I coughed a bit, I had a stuffy nose. "Man up!" I told myself "This is no time to be a woman and get sick!" I should mention that my inner dialogue is a total chauvinist. It's gets awkward when you go to a women's college and frequently find yourself telling people to "Stop being such a woman". 

*CENSORED awful, awful joke removed here*

I've really gotten off track. Long story short, I was getting sick. We pulled into Famous Daves BBQ, a chain that allows us to pretend we're eating real BBQ food while comfortably sitting on a commercial highway in Cherry Hill. Eating dinner with my mother and father is always interesting because it is impossible for us to have a normal family conversation. OMP has taken to being extra ridiculous in hopes that I will write about him on my blog (I have to assume, because it's the only explanation for his crazy) and so while everyone around us was discussing the Eagles or holiday plans, OMP was giving us a lecture on the anatomy of the deer antlers above our table. G-Dawg (we're going to try out nicknames for my mom this week) was having none of that and called him out on being an attention whore. I, meanwhile, was falling quickly into the seventh layer of sickness hell as breathing was becoming difficult. What OMP didn't know is that I was planning on writing about our pretentious conversations even before he gave his scripted speech. Why? Because the first half of the dinner was an arguement between the three of  us over whether the Germans were justified in bombing the Lusitania in 1915. OMP claims the Germans shot an unarmed cruise line with no intelligence otherwise. G-dawg claimed  that the Lusitania was recently found to have actually had munitions on it, and thus the Germans must have known something. I claimed that the Germans got lucky and were probably tipped off by some narc. So if you had been listening to the conversations in Famous Daves last night, you probably would have heard something like this:

"McNabb really needs to...Christmas shopping...THE GERMANS KILLED INNOCENT CIVILIANS....like my new pants....mmmmmmmm, pork....LUSITANIA......Merry Christmas!....E-A-G-L-E-S-EAGLES...UNDERWATER ARCHAEOLOGY IS NOT REALLY ARCHAEOLOGY...can I get another Diet Coke"

After settling our differences and moving on to the second article in this weeks "Archaeology" magazine, the food thankfully came and distracted us from our arrogance. As we got up to go I realized that standing was becoming difficult. I stumbled out to the car, and realized that we still had to stop at the Christmas Tree Shop in order to do some last minute Christmas Shopping. 

Note: Christmas Tree Shop is not a Christmas store. It is a store that sells all sorts of goods year round. It is an ironic coincidence that we were there two days before Christmas. I do not shop in Christmas themed stores on principle. 

We began our wandering of the store, as that is the only way to shop at CTS. You must meander at a slow and steady pace. Anyone who knows me well will understand that this kills me. I love CTS but cannot stand the slow meandering. As walking and breathing were becoming hard, it added an extra obstacle. Plus, there are a lot of breakable things in CTS, glassware and such. I had to be on top of my game for an hour simply reminding myself to keep moving and to avoid anything breakable. More than one person stopped to stare at me. I'm sure I looked ridiculous. 

We got out of there and continued on to Philadelphia to pick CaBo (we're trying nicknames for everyone) up at the airport. We had plenty of time to spare. We are not good time managers. We expected the place to be packed as it is Christmas...instead it was eerily empty. Apparently people don't love each other this year. Oh well. We collected Caroline and returned home. By this point my vision was getting blurry and I was coughing like a smoker. Caroline simply talked louder about her trip to Mexico City so as to cover up my dying. We got home around 11 and had a nice birthday celebration for the sister, only three days late. As sick as I felt, I was not giving up Bakery House cake, so I rallied and got my head in the game long enough to devour two pieces of delicious. 

Today I feel better, we'll see what tonight brings. I have a busy day of crafting ahead of me, so that's keeping me on my toes.

I look like death

That brings us to section 2, what have you crafted so far over break?

Only the most epic snowflakes ever

Oh, and this bad boy!

I put my soon to be completed Cities degree to work by designing the layout of our traditional New England village. Note my usage of books to create a hill in the background.

Finally, Section 3: Gift buying

I know I said I was making all of my gifts, but I did go out today and buy a few additions. Here I noticed a hilarious trend, the husband buying the wife a gift. I think you can divide it into three sections.

First is characterized by a certain someone I was talking to yesterday. This man was all excited because he had bought his wife jumper cables for Chirstmas. He claimed that she was always talking about how she needed them and that she would never expect them. I told him that this is true, no woman would ever expect to receive jumper cables for Christmas. I know this person reads my blog too, but he probably won't read this until February, so I think I'm safe.

The second husband is the guy that goes to the store and has no clue what to buy their wife but goes by what is "pretty". I was at Burlington Coat Factory today and there was an aisle of glass vases that was filled with panicked men. They clearly did not know each other but they all kept turning to the guy next to them and saying "what do you think of this one" and "is this ok"? I would like to tell all of those men that, no, I highly doubt all of your wives want three foot tall glass umbrella holders. 

The third is the husband that brings the angry 12 year old daughter along. This girl is ticked off because it's the first day of winter break and she's being lugged along to pick out a gift for her mother. The father is usually yelling about how she just needs to help him out for this ONE EFFING MOMENT or bribing her with ice cream. More often than not the poor mother in this situation ends up with a pink fuzzy pillow and the newest Jonas Brothers CD. 

Back to the wrapping and the crafting. 

Merry Christmas, everyone! Have a great day!