A Ham Shame

Raise your hand if you can tell me why this is funny: An upscale food store in Greenwich Village this week got caught in a food snafu when they advertised hams for sale with a sign that declared them "Delicious for Hanukkah"

2 Blogs about ham in a month... what are the odds of that??

Pink is the new red

Like the Charlie Brown kids sing, Christmastime is here. I celebrated by getting all festive in my cubicle yesterday, much to the delight to all my coworkers. The gauntlet has been thrown. I dare them to find cuter Christmas decorations and be more festive than me (of course you will understand that this is the office alternative to the traditional trying-to-
outdo- the- Jones' with ones neighborhood Christmas lights).

I am loving that pink Christmas decorations are in abundance now- a few years ago when I was on the hunt for such things as a pink stocking, they were nowhere to be found, so Momma B sewed this little creation for me, c omplete with my name in sparkles like I requested! Now you can go to Target and buy a fushia stocking already assembled. Oh well- once again, I was ahead of my time in the fashion world.


Finally, here's my favorite pink decoration- my very own sparkley pink Christmas tree! Don't be jealous.

Corigliano is for the birds

My stint with American composer John Corigliano's Dylan Thomas Trilogy is finally over. And not a moment too soon. I am now free as a bird from atonal, "quasi 5/4" time signatures (and I quote from the piece), and random hissing and bird calls, and have never been so excited to move onto some straightforward Handel as I am now! We birds of a feather flocked together as members of the Nashville Symphony Chorus, committing to 9 nights in a row of rehearsing, performing, then recording Corigliano's work, and in between singing we would all discuss how much we hated the music. Recall back to the Phillip Glass piece we premiered last year... that music was a stretch, yet by the end of the final concert I was sad to see it go. Not so with Corigliano. I have at most grown to appreciate the work, but if I never sing it again it will be too soon. According to the Tennessean, At least one person liked it.

We finished recording early last night, and as they say, the early bird gets the worm, and she also gets to go home and decorate her pink Christmas tree!

Bowl Bound

Yes, well, it's about time I bring up the elephant in the room... no, not that one... the other one. The fact that my beloved Kentucky Wildcats could not finish strong after having a terrific start to their season. (The one time we were top ten ranked, I wasn't even in the country to gloat and enjoy it while it lasted!) Well, we ended our season with a disappointing loss to UT... all 5 hours and 4 overtimes of it, and got rewarded with the same bowl game we went to last year.

Granted, I'm happy Kentucky gets to represent the SEC in the Music City Bowl, but I wish we had been awarded a more prestigious bowl. Tickets sold out for the game last night so I suppose I'll be watching the Cats whoop up on Florida State (that's right Rhonda & George!) on tv instead of the nose bleed section of LP field.

In the very least, UK has now proven that they are no longer one of the ugly stepsisters in the football powerhouse SEC conference. We are now able to compete within our conference, and yes, we even beat LSU who is now going on to play for the BCS national title, much to Missouri's chagrin. So there's always next year. Now it's onto a lackluster start to a Kentucky basketball season! let the games, um, continue!!!

the miracle balloon

My birthday balloon at my desk has finally begun to deflate. Unless you and I work together, you would have no idea, but I have had a balloon looming over my desk for the past month. I have never seen such a thing- but the Happy Birthday mylar balloon that was left at my desk over a month ago on November 2nd remained floating, the ribbon remained taut, for a solid month! The irony of course, is that I typically don't look forward to birthdays, and then I was given the birthday balloon that would not die, as a daily reminder! But miraculously, a month to the day later, the birthday balloon is finally dropping, and will soon go to the happy place where all balloons go to die. How did the balloon know that it is now December, and no longer warranting a birthday celebration? I'm baffled.

Come out with your hams up!

Pre-Thanksgiving post number two:

I just went and picked up the ham from the Honey Baked Ham Store in Cool Springs for my mom. It was my first experience in doing so- and let me recommend that if you must make this trip, go at 2 o'clock in the afternoon like I did, because I was able to walk in and walk right back out. I was prepared for much worse, and the velvet ropes that guide you through the store suggest lines might be worse at a later point in the day as well.

Anyways, they have picking up hams down to a science, and as I was led through the small store, following the path marked out by the ropes, I glanced around while I waited for my turn at the next available register, and was shocked by what I saw. There by the door, sitting unobtrusively was a security guard! A security guard in the Honey Baked Ham Store! I made small talk with the cashier and inquired about the need for the added security, and he laughed and made the comment that he thought it was more for the employees' protection than the customers. I can just see it now. Some cheapskate comes in and tries to steal a Thanksgiving ham. Or worse... some wenchy Brentwood soccer mom pitches a fit because she waited til the last minute and expected to waltz in and buy a ham on the spot and gets irate when there is no pork to be had.

I'll see your 5000, and raise you 500

I was on the phone with one of my customers earlier and she asked me if I had seen the Today Show this morning. When I answered no, she told me they had a special report on Thanksgiving and said the Average American consumes a whopping 5,000 calories throughout the day!! And that's just the average! Yikes!

That statistic made me think twice, but I'll probably just do what I normally do in times like these- put whatever I want on my plate and try to keep the portions small. I have a habit of finishing whatever is on my plate so even if I'm full I press on and consume it all, and then of course have desert to fill the notorious "desert pocket" that always needs to be filled. So if I can do damage control up front and not let my eyes get bigger than my stomach I don't have to feel guilty on indulging in whatever I want. For those who'd like to see the Today Show article on how to pare down the hidden calories, and a listing of typical calories in Turkey Day dishes, be my guest. They give you helpful hints like trimming 100 calories off your dish by cutting off the pie crust. I say, why ruin a perfectly good piece of pie by cutting off the best part (and then skipping the whipped cream... Riiiight)! So read at your own risk of feeling guilty, and wanting to tell them to take their reduced calorie Thanksgiving tips and shove them up their turkey

Manly Men

So a group of us had this conversation yesterday and I'd like to open up the floor for discussion. It started off with me recounting to Ariana a recently-viewed FRIENDS episode where Monica is dating Tom Sellick. Bart chimes in that Tom Sellick is such a manly man- a guy's guy. To this Ari & I heartily agreed. So then we proceeded to come up with a short list of other "manly men."

• Brett Favre
• Bruce Willis
• Will Smith
• Wesley Snipes
• Robert DeNiro
• Al Pacino
• Babe Ruth

Up for debate: Robert Redford, Richard Simmons (just kidding), George Clooney

So I'd like to hear from the peanut gallery. Who do you think qualifies as a manly man? (by definition, a man whom women adore, and guys admire) Do you agree with our choices?

An Opera Opportunity not to be missed

Ugh... Friday afternoons are the worst! The weekend is so close, yet so far away. I should be making calls, but I'd rather blog and tell you what I'm doing this weekend. You the reader will glean more from my blogging than my calling out anyways, so I think the choice is a no-brainer!

Tonight I'm treating myself to an evening of culture. The Nashville Opera is premiering a brand-new opera, never done by another company before, called Elmer Gantry. Based on the novel by the same title, it's an American opera (sung in English) about an early 20th century evangelist named (you guessed it) Elmer Gantry and his rise to fame in rural America. The opera promises to mix classical styles with gospel and hymns for a distinct American flavor. I'm excited too, because Tadders has a small solo role as a member of a gospel quartet. Another interesting thing about this opera is that the male and female leads are a baritone and a mezzo-soprano, instead of your typical wimpy tenor and shrieking soprano. If you're a Nashvillian and you choose to go, click here or here for more info!

Tomorrow's schedule proves to be a busy one: yoga, followed by a breakfast with 2 of my favorite gals, MA & Emmy Sue. The UK game comes on at 11:30, and then tomorrow night we're celebrating Lana & Siebe's birthdays at the ever-trendy Cabana. Mix in some boxing and packing and moving, and you've got yourself and action-packed weekend!

Change: You can bank on it.

I'm a self-proclaimed Change hater. Moving is never fun for me. I'm still figuring out how to stay caught up on Grey's Anatomy when it comes on at the same time as The Office on Thursday nights (why did you switch from Sundays to Thursdays ABC?! A curse upon you!) And a few months ago when Regions Bank took over AmSouth I put off activating my new Green card as long as possible in a feeble attempt to hang onto my trusty royal blue Amsouth card as long as I could. Change is inevitable in life, and it's happening all around me. I just was made aware of it this morning as I finally heaved a sigh of reluctant acceptance, and decided to bite the bullet and update my bookmarks on my yahoo homepage.

I have all of my important and highly used web pages bookmarked on my yahoo home page so that they're all easily accessible. So I resolved to update them all this morning.
"Amsouth" became "Regions Bank."
"Cingular" became "AT&T."
"MBNA" became "Bank of America."
And as I stared at my now unrecognizable list of bookmarked pages I felt as though I had stepped into an alternate universe! What is going on in our society of conglomerates and corporate buy-outs? What happened to stability and a company name you can trust? I don't adjust easily to this. Mentally I still think "cingular bill" for my cell phone, and if I'd wanted an account with Bank of America instead of MBNA I would have signed up for one with them in the first place! Don't settle too much, because a bigger and better company will come along and buy out your trusted business before you know it.

Rascal Just Flat Can't Sing

I have been scouring the Internet in the days that followed Wednesday night's CMA award show to find articles critiquing the show's musical performances, and there are none to be found! Please send them my way, or include links to them in your comments if you find them (Mark Kelly Hall, I'm talking to you) because I am baffled no one else has taken this opportunity to laugh at the atrocity that ended the CMA's.

Here's my beef: I admit, I missed most of the televised broadcast, but managed to see Kellie Pickler sing (great dress, bad, bad helmet hair- she channeled Lori Morgan!). Everyone has seemingly overlooked her mediocre vocals for the dramatic, choked-up performance, where she finished the autobiographical song about her mom in tears. I also got to see Brad Paisley win male vocalist of the year and couldn't have been more thrilled. Kenny won entertainer of the year (again) in a category dominated (again) by males. But here was my favorite part- so bad, it was good: the collaboration between Rascal Flats and Jaime Foxx.

Apparently ABC prepped you for this bit of entertainment all night, using every commercial break to announce the upcoming performance. And it lived up to the hype alright, if entertainment is what you were going for. The lead singer of this pop- I mean country- band tried to demonstrate vocal acrobatics usually reserved for the likes of Beyonce (or Jaime Foxx!), and apparently, his voice was shot, and this just did not bode well for him. I am not kidding you when I say something was Not Right, as the duo singing were not even in the same key, and I was laughing too much to be able to listen well! I have no problem with artists of different genres collaborating, but poor Jaime just embarrassed himself in the r&b world by showing his face on stage with those clowns. I am guilty of listening to Rascal Flatts and yes, owning an album or two, but it always amuses me to hear artists live and then realize how much work and production goes into an album to dupe the general public and make us think they can really sing when they can't. Apparently Rascal Flat's first performance of the night (yes, they got two!) was just as bad, but for political reasons, the TV producers decided they warranted 2 songs, when poor Tracy Lawrence lost his performance spot altogether!

My theory as to why there have been no negative articles regarding the CMA performances is that Rascal Flats is a big time act in Nashville and no one wants to piss them off. Well I have no qualms making my opinions known here, and if the county muzik mafia wants to censor my blog and come and get me for saying anything negative towards the golden boys and their gelled hair, I invite the challenge! And remember, send me those articles that discuss the awards show because I am eager to re-live the vocal monstrosity all over again by reading it in print!

Blindsighted with this song... and lint

Today was a very sad day for me. I had to bust out the wool winter coat for the first time this year. It also was the first day for my winter staple wardrobe to emerge: the jeans and turtleneck combo. Today's choice: Black- slimming, and sheik. It's also a recipe for a lint disaster with black clothes and long blonde hairs that show up on everything. My personal favorite quote of the day occurred during an impromptu Panera lunch with fellow DIVA Ari regarding said lint:

"Me and my lint brush are going to spend some quality time together when I get back to the office."

In other bits of random news surrounding the blogging-neglectful-DIVA, the 80's song Blinded By the Light has been following me everywhere. I heard it 3 times on my way down to Florida this weekend, and it popped up again last night in a movie I was watching. What's so funny about this, is that for the life of me I could not understand the words to the chorus of the song. Here's what I thought they were saying:

Blinded by the light. Wrapped up like a duschon in the rumor of the night. (I know, right? What's a duschon? Well, it's kind of like an Ex-pecks-a-pounder.)

I texted Ari on Saturday morning when the song came on the radio for the second time, knowing she'd be awake, and knowing that she'd have the answer. Turns out, the lyrics are actually:

Blinded by the light. Revved up like a duce, another runner in the night. Yeah... cause that makes SO much more sense! But really, the important question is, who's excited about the return of the random afternoon blogging?

happy birthday to me!

Yes, it's true... I can no longer in good conscience claim to be in my "mid-twenties." So I am embracing my late twenties, for what it's worth! Though about 40 degrees too cool in my book (a chilly 38 degrees on my way to work this morning!), I was greeted to my frost-covered car by the beaming sunshine, and a nice suprise of already-scraped-car-windows (thanks to one of my kind & considerate roommates)! And this was after the traditional birthday chocolate chip pancake breakfast prepared by chefs Natalie, Emily, and Mary Anna.

The pancakes were yummy, but it caused me to run slightly late for work- about 17 minutes late approximately! I got an unexpected hug from my dad in the Brentwood Benson parking lot, as he was waiting on me to say happy birthday on his way to work. Once I got up to my cubicle, completely flustered about being late, I was greeted with a balloon and some chocolate covered strawberries left by my dad! He had been upstairs waiting on me, but finally gave up on me and was leaving, when I saw him in the parking lot! It was really sweet, and all my coworkers got to hang out with my dad this morning. Apparently he showed up at 10 till 8 and my friend Mark asked my dad, do you Know your daughter?! Implying of course that I am Never here that early! ha

I feel showered with love from my family and friends, as is evident from the grand gestures, and all the emails, e-cards, phone calls, and Myspace/Facebook comments. It's so funny how the "friends" you never talk to for the rest of the year will take the time to post birthday comments! Thanks to you all, both genuine and fake e-friends, for your birthday well-wishes.

The rest of the day's plans to celebrate my 27th year include lunch with coworkers at Moe's, and a low-key family dinner at Bonefish Grill, where Laura promised to cut the skin off my trout so that I'm not face to face with any "fish scales." I know... I'm so weird!

Howl-oween costumes

Click HERE to see some chosen CNN viewers' pets dressed up in their Halloween costumes. And of course, as our favorite man about town used to always say, there's always a Nashville connection (Brad About You, we miss you in the Tennesseean! Please come back- Heather Byrd doesn't know what she's talking about) - anyways, Number 6 is Archer J, the dog-nephew of my BF Heather. I must admit though, Number 2 dressed up like Don King is my favorite. I feel sorry for the animals, but boy are they cute!

a diva halloween

I enjoyed the lovely fall weather today (yes, that's right, I said it ... it was a gorgeous fall day in TN) by carving pumpkins over at the Franklin branch of Chateau Bradley with Laura.

I had planned carefully what I wanted to carve this year- a sassy diva pumpkin with full lips, and eyes sculpted with arched brows and big lashes- a pumpkin worthy of her picture to be posted on this blog. (Hey, if a girl can't spend all year planning what she wants to be for Halloween anymore, at least she can map out the details of her prospective jack-o-lantern in advance!)











Laura haphazardly created and carved, and came up with a delightfully silly creation, complete with protruding nose! Here we are with our finished products, that will likely get smashed by the mischievous children of Franklin on all Hallow's Eve.

meal mix-up

After my shopping stint last night I headed over to Basil, an Asian bistro where I was meeting Natalie, Em, and some of their visiting college friends for dinner. I am hardly ever on time anywhere, and almost never early, but at 6:55 I decided to head on inside to meet my friends for our 7 o'clock dinner. It's not a big restaurant, but I did glance around the bistro before approaching the hostess, just to make sure the others hadn't arrived yet. "I'm meeting a group of people," I said, and the hostess acknowledged that we already had a table, and asked would I like to go ahead and sit down? "Sure," I replied, as she led me to an open 8-person table in the corner of the restaurant. I engrossed myself in the menu, reading all about the different kinds of sake. A few minutes later, the other 5 girls showed up.

As we were settling in, talking about our days, Emily announced that a few other people who were 'maybes' for dinner weren't coming after all, so we had 2 extra seats at our table. Then one of the girls thanked me for getting us a table so we didn't have to wait. I had a sinking feeling as I responded, I didn't get us a table, I thought you did, looking at Natalie. I had assumed, incorrectly, that someone from our group had called ahead, and the Basil hostess had been more than accommodating to make me think that as well.

We started to laugh as we realized our mistake, and as I was the first one to arrive, I felt responsible for the mix-up. We couldn't in good conscience just waltz in and take someone else's table, so I headed back up to the hostess stand to straighten things out. As she confirmed the last name of the table's party, and it didn't match with any one of ours, she gawked helplessly at me as I explained the misunderstanding. What ensued made me speechless though. Not only were we expected to give up our table, for a party of 8 that hadn't even arrived (and it was well after 7 o'clock at this time), I was told there were no other tables and the wait would be "a long time." That's all she would tell me. Miss Basil hostess wasn't accommodating to us at all! I couldn't believe she would rather a party of 6 walk out of the restaurant after doing the honest thing and confessing our mistake, rather than finding a solution to an embarrassing situation. So be it. We 6 gals humbly gathered up our belongings and proceeded down the road for a lovely dinner at Jasmine, a nearby Thai restaurant.

the price Gap

I had some time to kill last night before dinner, and I had a Gap $20 gift certificate to use that expires at the end of this month, so I drove Warren over to the Galleria and meandered through the Gap with money to burn. To me Gap has never the place to go to buy trendy clothes- that would be Express, or H&M (if Nashville were blessed to have one) but I'm okay with that. I rely on Gap for old standards- jeans, fitted t-shirts, basic sweaters, and such. But somewhere along the way they've fallen out of the basics and hopped onto the trendy train, bringing their skyrocketing prices with them. A pair of jeans looked like a reasonable purchase enough yesterday, but at the $60 price tag, I'd rather spend a little extra and buy another pair of the Lucky Jeans that I Love. A classic dress to wear to work and church is no longer a smart buy at $80 a pop, and my favorite, the stretchy gold ballet flats that were probably made for under $2 in a sweatshop, were marked up to a ridiculous $40.

I settled on 4 basic long sleeved fitted ts, my old fall and winter layering standby, and paid $43 dollars for the lot, and was still disgusted. Gap, I have loved you for a long time, but when did it become shameful to sell basic (but not necessarily boring) clothes at prices the average American can afford?

Slightly deflated but never deterred

It's taken me a few days to gather my pride and get over last week's loss after all the hype. I can't believe I'm saying this, but I'd rather beat Florida than Tennessee. The rivalry has grown to something huge in football and basketball among Kentucky & Florida, and it stinks that even though we were ranked higher and had home field advantage, we were still predicted to lose, and what's worse, the predictions were right.

Never fear, Wildcat fans. Our QB is still in Heisman contention, and we have the possibility of winning out the rest of the season (and that shining chance to finish the year beating the Vols!)

Tune in this Saturday to see the Kentucky Wildcats dominate Miss. St.

ESPN College Game Day

Verbatim from my alumni email: ESPN’s College GameDay will be on Kentucky’s campus this weekend for the matchup between seventh-ranked Kentucky and 15th-ranked Florida. It is the first time the network has sent its signature college football show to Lexington. ESPN has chosen the northwest side of the William T. Young Library (facing Rose Street) for its College GameDay set location. ESPN will go live from Lexington Friday for a short segment around 5 p.m. College GameDay is scheduled for Saturday from 10 a.m.-noon.
Kentucky and Florida square off Saturday at 3:30 p.m., in a nationally-televised contest on CBS. It is Kentucky’s second-straight week on CBS, following the Cats’ 43-37, triple-overtime win over then-No. 1 LSU last Saturday.
Fans with Commonwealth Stadium parking permits are encouraged to walk to the library from the stadium. Fans without stadium parking permits may park in Parking Structure #2, which is accessed from Hilltop Avenue.ESPN’s College GameDay Built by The Home Depot is hosted by Chris Fowler with analysis from Lee Corso, Kirk Herbstreit and Desmond Howard. This year will mark the 21st season of college football coverage by College GameDay with 14 of those years being on the campus of college football's top game of the week.

Studio for Sale

Please sir, won't you come and buy my (dad's) studio? There is room for all; ample space to record. Please sir, for just tuppins you can buy a little piece of history in Nashville's recording business. Why would you continue to record your albums in home studios when you can have the real deal? Come now and buy, and enjoy the professional atmosphere so many before you have enjoyed. Do not continue to starve yourself on low-quality, low-budget music. We will wait. There is room for you. In fact, there are 2 rooms for you, studios A & B. Extra, extra, read all about it in the city paper.