The Blonde Excuse: June 2006 Archives

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June 30, 2006

Madonna Concert

Last night, Jocelyn, Jill, Andy, Kim and I went to a Madonna concert at Madison Square Garden and it was AMAZING! Andy drove me to the city from Greenwich and after a lot of traffic we made it to the Barbie Dream Loft where we had some delicious Barbie Dream Punch.

Jill, Andy, and Jocelyn:

Jill, Jocelyn, and Me:

After finishing our drinks, we went to DuMont Burger for their world famous hamburgers...yummmmm:

We got to Madison Square Garden, got to our seats, and the show began! Madonna played a lot of her old songs like "Like A Virgin," "Ray of Light," and "Lucky Star" and it was definitely one of the best concerts I have EVER been to. Here are a bunch of pictures:

Madonna's grand entrance coming out of a disco ball:

"Like A Virgin":

Nice shot:

NYC:

"Ray of Light":

"Lucky Star":

Check out how high Madonna can get her leg in the air:

Gold balloons fell from the ceiling:

Time goes by so slowly:

Confessions Tour -- "Have You Confessed?":

We drove Jocelyn and Jill back to the Barbie Dream Loft where Tom was picking Kim up. Here's an adorable family portrait of Tom, Kim, and their dog, Jenna Bush:

Posted by lauren at 04:27 PM | Comments (2)

June 28, 2006

A Very Busy Weekend

This past weekend was EXTREMELY busy for me and included a trip to New London to see Cathy's new apartment that she'll live in during the school year, an amazing Red Sox game that Geoff took my dad, Brent, and me to, and a wonderful trip to Martha's Vineyard to visit Brent and his family. There are loads of pictures, so don't scroll too fast!

First, a couple pictures of the beach:

Isn't it beautiful? I love Greenwich.

Friday night after work, Cathy and I drove up to New London to see her new apartment and hang out with some of her friends from school. Cathy's apartment is about 300x the size of my dorm room next year and I'm very jealous. Her roommates, Meghan and Aliza, are both really nice too, and thanks everyone for having me up for a night!!

The living room (they haven't gotten furniture yet):

Beirut:

Aliza and her boyfriend Pat:

Cathy and Pat (a different Pat, obviously):

Cathy and I re-enacted our ghetto dance from our Senior show in high school which included an odd variation of the "booty shake" that we modified for this amazing picture:

The roommates!

By a crazy coincidence, Meghan actually went to elementary school with Brent and sold him his dog, Gruffy, which bit him in the butt and got returned.

More pictures:

Cathy cut her toe:

More beirut:

We signed the table:

Aliza, Cathy, and Meghan:

Meghan and Me:

Beer tower:

Cathy and me right before going to bed, setting up our stuff to sleep in her room:

The next morning I woke up at 5:26am to get ready and drive to New Bedford to pick up Brent at the Martha's Vineyard Fast Ferry port. It was a long drive after a late night, but Brent is worth it! After I picked up Brent, we drove to Boston to see the Red Sox game against the Phillies. I didn't actually print out directions to Fenway Park because I'm stupid, but I found it by looking for the famous Citgo sign! I'm so clever.

Brent at the Citgo sign:

Bubbles:

Brent and me in our Red Sox gear:

Right outside Fenway:

Tickets:

My dad in his new Red Sox hat:

Tall man:

Little green monsters:

Davey getting hot dogs:

Geoff with the shirt he got Brady:

Hot dogs (so typical of the kind of pictures I take):

Fenway-- The Disney World of Boston:

Geoff and Dad:

Brent and Me:

Some little kid left his beloved Red Sox lunch box in the seat next to Brent and asked him to look after it for him:

Me looking awkward and making a weird face as I try to take pictures through the hood of my super-cool poncho:

Me later discovering that my poncho does, in fact, have sleeves:

Time to roll the tarp up and get the game started!

Brent watching the game:

The one and only Green Monster:

Fenway is a glorious place:

What a fan:

All right, for all you Red Sox fans, here are a ton of pictures from the game. I'm sharing credit for these with Brent since we switched on and off with my camera. Check it out:

Trot:

"Rapid-shot" Batting:

Where's Manny going?

"Rapid-Shot" Pitching:

"Rapid-Shot" Batting:

It was the bottom of the tenth inning (we went into extra innings) and the score was tied 3-3... David Ortiz steps up to the plate and...

Red Sox win!

Sweet Caroline (whoa whoa whoa):

It was just such an amazing game! Thanks again Geoff for an amazing birthday present!

After the game, Brent and I got lost in a place we've concluded was "Southie." We made it out and found our way back to the highway and headed to the ferry in Cape Cod to go out to Martha's Vineyard. We didn't get in until very late and went to bed early.

After one day of light rain, the weather was beautiful and I had a lovely weekend, as always. I got to meet Brent's cousin, Jenny, who I unfortunately do not have a picture of to put up on The Blonde Excuse, but she's really nice and it was great getting to meet her. She's working at the beach club by Brent's house and spends a lot of time with Brent and his family. Brent's mom also had a couple friends visiting from Trumbull, where they used to live, and it was very nice meeting them, as well. Here are some pictures from the Vineyard.

My amazingly handsome boyfriend:

"Large Balls" For Sale (We're immature and very easily entertained):

While at the Vineyard, Brent and I saw a couple movies together. We saw The Lake House and An Inconvenient Truth. I looooooved The Lake House. In the tradition of the movie, The Lake House is to 2006 as The Notebook is to 2004. Go see it! I'm undecided on my feelings about An Inconvenient Truth. I do think global warming is an important issue, but I don't think Al Gore is all that important. If you go see it, you'll know what I mean. It could probably be re-titled "Al Gore for a Better America 2008" aka we're all paying to see his lengthy campaign commercial (even though he claims to not be running). Anyway, it is an interesting movie about an important issue... polar bears drowning because their icebergs are breaking up. Do it for the polar bears, people.

After one of our movies, Brent and I went to "Back Door Donuts" which was perhaps one of the most ingenious ideas ever. Late at night, people can walk up to the back door of the bakery and pay $1 for a warm, fresh out of the oven doughnut. Brent and I both had chocolate... mmm....

The next day, Brent and I got sushi for lunch at The Net Result which has really delicious fresh fish... and lobsters.

I loved the sign "Beware of Attack Lobster:"

Back at Brent's house, we took a couple more pictures:

"Do I have anything in my teeth?"

Back in town... Make up your minds! Is it 24 hour parking or a tow-away zone? We decided to park there despite the confusion:

On the Vineyard, there's an area of really adorable brightly colored houses called "The Cottages." They're all so cute but I especially liked this rainbow one:

Seagull in the harbor:

Brent's mom on the left with her two friends from Trumbull:

After an amazingly fun trip, I had to go home. I was sorry to leave, but I had to get back to work. Here's my adorable boyfriend waving goodbye to me as the boat left:

Goodbye Vineyard!

Clouds over Cape Cod:

What a great weekend with awesome people. A quick sidenote... Lindsay Lohan was on Greenwich Ave. today and walked right past the boutique I work at! No, I didn't stalk her for the blog, although I wish I had. Oh well, next time....

Posted by lauren at 08:47 PM | Comments (4)

June 22, 2006

Frisky

As I'm sure you all know, Frisky is just the best little kitty in the whole world so I decided to dedicate this entry to her. She's an ex-pageant queen living the good life as a very much loved housecat. Well, she's always been a housecat I guess, but she did win Best in Show in the one cat show I entered her in a number of years ago. Anyway, here she is:

Drunk off of catnip:

She ate the whole catnip plant in the window:

Chloe got jealous of all the attention Frisky was getting:

So she rolled over like the cat so that she'd blend into the picture:

Frisky enjoying the dangling camera strap:

More catnip?

Reading Star magazine:

So cute:

Frisky likes Marc Jacobs bags too:

Well that's all. Isn't she gorgeous? I'm off to my golf lesson now, wish me luck!

Posted by lauren at 02:15 PM | Comments (3)

June 21, 2006

Father's Day

Happy 100th Entry to The Blonde Excuse! Wow, 100 entries of nonsense. Anyway, this past Sunday was Father's Day so the whole family got together for family brunch at Mackenzie's in Old Greenwich. I took a ton of pictures so let me get right to it.

Poppy and Grandma:

Mom and Me:

Me, Mom, and Jocelyn:

Jocelyn and Andy:

Geoff and Kari:

Brady and Dad:

Brady loves his books!

Yummy eggs benedict:

And my favorites... here's my "in-action" series:

I love catching people off-guard. Anyway, we came back to our house for some more celebrating and dessert after our delicious brunch.

Brady playing in the living room:

Look at that big puppy!

Yum:

Davey loved his Jimmy Buffet's Greatest Hits CD from me:

Kari and Brady:

Brady looking slightly displeased with his Aunt Lauren:

Geoff and Brady on Geoff's first Father's Day:

The Richart chocolates Jocelyn brought Dad:

How beautiful... and tasty:

I'm not sure how I feel about chocolate calling me fat:

And lastly, we bought a bag of seemingly normal Snyder's pretzels, and about every tenth pretzel was VERY suggestive:

Hmm.... Anyway, that's all! It was a great day for everyone and I'm STILL behind on blog entries but I have a couple days off work so hopefully I'll be able to catch up a bit.

Posted by lauren at 12:02 PM | Comments (3)

June 19, 2006

!Feliz Cumpleanos Alberto!

Happy Birthday Alberto! That's what the title says for those of you who aren't EXTREMELY fluent in Spanish, like myself. I actually only remember a few select phrases from my middle school slash high school education in Espanol. I remember "Siga el sendero, hasta el volcan" which translates to something along the lines of "Follow the path, but stop when you get to the volcano" and "tomaduras de pelo" which I thought was the Spanish equivalent of "I'm pulling your leg / just kidding" but Alberto told me it actually just means "pulling hair" and doesn't make any sense as a phrase... at all. Oh well. Anyway, here are some pictures from Alberto's birthday this past Saturday (although his actual birthday isn't until the 21st -- don't forget to wish him a happy birthday on Wednesday!).

Alberto, Cathy, and Alex:

Otrebla the birthday boy!

I think "Otrebla" was Alberto's bowling name (it's Alberto spelled backwards for those of you who are stupid like me and didn't figure that out immediately). My bowling name was "Hot Pants" and I think Cathy's was "Fat Albert" but I don't remember the rest. Wow, I'm good at getting off track.

Alberto's mom made so much delicious food for all of us! We had all different kinds of tacos and tostadas I think. I don't remember if Alberto's mom actually called them tostadas, I don't really know what a tostada is, but I thought it would be a good name to use for the yummy food here even if it's not correct:

Alex and Spencer:

Alberto with his cousin and Alex (the three birthday boys for the end of June) and Alberto's mom on the right:

The guys blowing out the candles:

Alan (Alberto's brother), Alberto's cousin (sorry, I don't remember his name), Spencer, Alberto, and Alex:

Cathy and I had birthday cake and then tried some flan:

Me, Cathy, Alberto, Spencer, and Alex:

Alberto and Spencer attempting an "in-action" pose:

After celebrating Alberto's birthday (although I hear we missed the after-party) Cathy and I went home... well, to Cathy's home. I actually went to my house to find it empty and figured my parent's were having a playdate with Cathy's parents (which they were) so I went over to join in the fun. When we got there, everyone was playing cards:

That's the back of Davey's head, Mike, and Cathy & Mike's grandma.

Mike makes really funny t-shirts:

Cathy, Jake, and I took a "family portrait." I was the Dad:

Jake humped me a lot and left me feeling abused. He apparently really liked my beaded bracelet... what a little freak. I still love him and think he's ADORABLE.

Jake and Me:

That's all. I have Father's Day pictures coming up soon, but until then you can check out Jocelyn's Father's Day Pictures here!

Posted by lauren at 10:27 PM | Comments (1)

June 18, 2006

Road Trip

All right, I'm still trying to catch up on my blog. You'd think I wouldn't have a problem keeping up when I'm on summer vacation, but I've been working 9 hour days (sort of) and I get home too tired to think. Anyway, on Wednesday I took Brent to the Rhode Island Fast Ferry early in the morning to get him back to the Vineyard in time for work. It was a long drive but we made it a lot of fun with Spice Girls singalongs. Oh... should I not have said that? Sorry Brent. We make a good Spice Girls team. Anyway, here are a couple pictures of Brent leaving on the ferry =(

Barbed wire and the ferry:

Southland:

Star:

I was very sad to see Brent leave, but we're going to see each other soon. On the ride home, I got stuck waiting for the traffic director to let my side of the road go by a construction site for probably 7 minutes which was well past my patience limit, so I entertained myself by taking a bunch of totally random pictures. I'll only bore you with one:

On the way home, I got a little bit lost because I forgot that there was a difference between North and South. I thought this picture (taken in some random town where I tried to turn around) represented my trip home:

I stopped at McDonald's to get some french fries to keep me awake since I had been up since 5am and took these pictures of the pipes I liked:

When I finally got home, I took this gross picture of a fly:

Lastly, Mike called me on the phone and told me to listen to Z100, a NYC radio station, because he was going to be on it. He gave a shout-out to the graduating class at Greenwich High School (where he is a senior) and requested a Beyonce song. He said that he had actually requested Country Grammar but the radio DJ told him to say Beyonce instead. Oh well. Here's the video:

Posted by lauren at 09:04 PM | Comments (1)

June 16, 2006

Lazy Days

I'm up to last Tuesday now, getting closer to being finally caught up on my blog. Tuesday morning, Brent and I started our day in the afternoon (as all college kids do) and went out to lunch at Route 22 (as seen in A New Restaurant and A New Dog). Brent and I split a delicious steak and cheese sandwich and took a bunch of pictures.

Brent and Me:

Then I got him to smile:

Brent's milkshake:

All right... not to be mean, but we saw the funniest Asian woman ever. She and her husband were actually a really cute couple so this isn't meant to be making fun of her... just pointing out her interesting attire and habits. She was wearing a really "cute" pink outfit with pigtails and she was eating her pizza with... chopsticks. She brought a tote bag with her to the restaurant with tea in a coffee travel mug and chopsticks to use on her pizza. What an interesting combination of East and West. Anyway, I pretended to be taking some pictures of Brent but actually zoomed in on the woman behind him.

Woman we were photo-stalking:

By the way, it wasn't raining, I guess that's just a sun parisol.

Anyway, after lunch we saw this sign for the BEST CAMP EVER!!! Hooray for Bible camp!

Brent and I were on our way to get ice cream and Brent took some very unflattering pictures of me:

Brent:

When we got home, we took Chloe on the trampoline. Look how happy she is:

Chloe is so fat she has to sit on people because she topples over when she sits like a normal dog:

Brent:

Chloe and Brent:

So anyway, before I put up the next picture and video, I want to put them into context. Brent knows that I have a small-ish fear of birds getting close to me, so he decided it was about time I saw The Birds. He started freaking me out before we even watched the movie by jumping at me on the trampoline making bird noises:

All right... here's the video. I'm definitely going to get in trouble with my boyfriend for putting this up but he's just so cute!

After dinner and trampolining, Brent and I went to get ice cream (again) with Eric followed by even more trampolining, and then chocolate covered strawberries!

A strawberry caught on fire:

And then I made a mess...

...which my wonderful boyfriend helped me clean up! All right, that's all for now... more soon!

Posted by lauren at 02:59 PM | Comments (4)

June 15, 2006

Car Accident

We left off last time at the end of Sunday night's BBQ if you don't remember. Right after everyone drove off, I got a call from Molly saying that we had to get down to Binney Park STAT (saying "stat" makes me feel cool like the people on "ER"). Anyway, Brent and I walked down the street to the park where we found a huge lineup of emergency vehicles:

As it turns out, someone flipped her Mercedes SUV on the road next to the park! The crash looked awful, but we saw the girl leave in an ambulance and she was completely fine, just a little shaken up. Obviously, I took a ton of pictures to put up.... Brent said I'd be a good photojournalist because I'm opportunistic and shameless, haha. Anyway...

Here's what we think happened.... There was a broken sign, a lot of glass, a bush and some lawn ripped up, and a boulder in the middle of the street:

What you can't see in the picture is that there were also tire tracks going through the park and leading up to the boulder. We think that the girl hit the street sign, lost control, crashed into the bush/lawn, overcompensated into the park, quickly tried to turn back to the road, hit a boulder and flipped over a few times, dragging the boulder into the middle of the road with her.

Moving on...

Monday, Brent and I hung out around my house playing on the trampoline and running a couple errands. We went to Sephora on Greenwich Ave. because I needed a new foundation. Don't I have a great boyfriend to come makeup shopping with me? When we got there, Brent thought he heard someone shouting to us and then got a phone call from Alberto who had driven past and stopped to come say hello. We saw him come running up the street, jumping, waving his arms and screaming "Over here! I'm over here guys!" from all the way down the avenue. That's why we love him:

After talking with Alberto for a little while, Brent and I went to see Over the Hedge which was really cute. Brent had sorta wanted to see Cars but he let me pick and obviously I chose the one with cute fuzzy animals. After the movie, there was more trampolining followed by... more trampolining.

Brent on the trampoline:

All tired out:

My boyfriend is so easily entertained... and so talented too!

The inch-worm we befriended:

I was trying to take a video of the inch-worm... but Brent didn't like having to share my attention. "Look at me! Look at me!"

And lastly, the giant blimp that flew over my house:

Posted by lauren at 05:20 PM | Comments (0)

June 14, 2006

Sunday BBQ

Well, Brent had to go back to Martha's Vineyard this morning... at 6am. I miss him already =( Anyway, I have some time now to catch up on my blog and I have a LOT of pictures, but for now I'm just starting with Sunday's BBQ.

Sunday night, I had a BBQ and invited a bunch of my friends and Brent's friend Eric and Eric's girlfriend Suzanne (both of whom I include in "my friends" but I thought Brent would want credit for knowing them first). We had just gotten a new fire pit for our backyard so we got to break it in. Anyway, here are the pictures!

Lots of food:

Sitting out on the deck:

Suzanne, Brent, Spencer, and Eric:

Brent and Eric on the trampoline:

Spencer and Vanessa BBQing:

I'd like to thank Spencer for doing ALL the BBQ-ing by the way. Without him, we would have starved.

Julie, Me, and Cathy:

Vanessa and Ali:

New Fire Pit:

Roasting marshmallows to make s'mores:

Melting candle:

Cathy and Me:

By the fire:

Cathy and Molly:

Molly, Vanessa, and Julie on the trampoline:

Cathy and Me on the trampoline:

Sparklers:

Awkward picture of Eric and Brent:

Boys always find a way to have sword fights with things:

Cathy and Brent:

Funny progression of Brent and Eric's "slap fight":

Suzanne and Molly:

BBQing is always a lot of fun so we should all plan to do it agian sometime soon... maybe on the island next time? Anyway, I have SO MANY pictures left to put up so keep checking back. Goodnight!

Posted by lauren at 08:33 PM | Comments (2)

June 13, 2006

A New Restaurant and A New Dog!

No, not a new dog for me. I just thought I'd clarify that before starting. Anyway, my parents, my grandparents, and I tried a new restaurant in Stamford called Route 22. It's in the new strip mall slash shopping center that has our Blockbuster. As Cathy and Mike pointed out to me, it's actually the perfect shopping center. Blockbuster is right across from Carvel, Cinnabon, and Subway. We're going to have to make a few trips that include Cinnabon for breakfast followed by Blockbuster to rent a video, then Subway to pick up lunch, and after watching the movie, we'll return it and have ice cream at Carvel! I love being a fat kid.

Anyway, Route 22 was a lot like the Florida strip mall restaurants we go to sometimes on vacation (think Outback Steakhouse). It was really really good food and very busy, so I think they'll do great. Anyway, I ordered the steak sandwich and it was absolutely, by far, the best steak sandwich I have ever had in my whole entire life. The steak had so much flavor... it tasted like it had just come off a BBQ grill and it wasn't shredded steak like the steak sandwiches I'm used to at school, it was big thick slices of real steak...mmm.... Be sure to try it if you go, which you should.

Davey walking into Route 22:

Menu:

Around the restaurant:

The walls are covered in plasma screen TVs playing all sorts of different things, but one of them is actually live video from the game room:

My grandma's beer in the prettiest beer bottle I've ever seen:

Anyway, definitely try out Route 22 sometime.

So, Cathy's family got a new dog!! His name is Jake and he's an ex-stray Yorkie. Cathy's boyfriend Pat's sister found Jake abandoned and starving on the side of the road and took him home. Pat's family already has two dogs so Pat gave him to Cathy's family where he'll have a wonderful new home. Cathy said I can be his aunt by the way!

Pictures of Jake being adorable:

Video fo Jake playing:

Well, that's all for now. I'm way behind on blog entries because Brent has been visiting, but I have lots of fun pictures to put up so keep checking back!

Posted by lauren at 10:35 AM | Comments (3)

June 10, 2006

Old Excuse, New Excuse

Before you read this, I have to warn everyone that this is one of the most pointlessly long entries I have ever written, and if you don't feel like reading a lot... then don't.

As some of you may know, this actually isn't the first Blonde Excuse blog I've had. A long time ago, Mike (Cathy's brother) made a Live Journal for me and named it "The Blonde Excuse." At first, I had no idea what to do with it, but after a while I started putting up funny stories about things that had happened for personal entertainment and also for friends (so that I wouldn't have to repeat stories 50x for people). I didn't write often or for very long, but when I stumbled across it today it had me cracking up so I thought I'd share some of my favorite excerpts starting with the most recent (the summer before college) and ending with the oldest (February of Junior year).

From a night in NYC...
Later that night at like 3:30am this random guy on drugs comes up to us and starts telling the most ridiculous stories about the mayor of his street and having some sort of... something odd...with two Dominican girls in the bathroom...? Jocelyn and Jacquelyn's friend Steve was there and we were all laughing hysterically at this guy and Steve goes "Yeah, well what guy hasn't been there, right?"

During our Cape Cod trip that my friends and I went on after graduation...
Later, we went to this tattoo parlor where Kristina got her belly button pierced. All 7 of us packed into the back room. The guy who was doing it was funny, especially when he caught Jackie "posing" for the camera... She was standing in front of the mirror with Molly behind her holding the camera, and she was bending over in her really short skirt in a slutty kind of way and the guy looks up and Jackie jumps and he just goes "Uh....wow...ok."

About the weird townie guy who licked my face and totally grossed me out...
This guy was really smart... he's going to buy 1000 items at the dollar store and sell them at the flea market for $5 over the course of the year, so assuming people would actually pay $5 for that crap, he'd make a whopping $4000 a year! Wow, if only I had come up with such a successful get rich quick scheme I could buy about 1/8 of a new car! Oh, and I love how he questioned MY intelligence. I nearly killed him. He started talking about politics and he was making up facts assuming the dumb blonde girl wouldn't figure it out. I could have let it go, but instead I totally called him out on it. Cathy started laughing because she likes to make fun of me for any academic thing I do as I'm screaming at this guy, "Do you even know what that word MEANS?? Let me give you a definition."

From a random survey...
13. do you know how to play poker?
Yeah, my friends taught me... "I have a 9 a 2 a king and a 5, Yahtzee!"

39. what's one of the "funniest" things you've ever done?
So many.... how about the time I thought i had a spider on my shirt, lifted it up over my head, got it tangled in my arms, had NO BRA ON, and started running around in circles unable to see, trying to get my shirt off. Turned out there was no spider...

At my weather internship at News 12 Connecticut...
Moving on... so that afternoon I had to fill in for when they were setting up the cameras for a TV show they do so I was sitting next to David Smith (one of the news anchors and the guy who does this particular show) and he was pretending to interview me and, of course, asked about the breathalizers at prom. This led to him asking what I was going to do after graduation and I said "Well, there are a lot of parties." Then Roberto (another person who works there and was in the studio) said "Oh, where do you guys party? The Hamptons?" And David then said "No Roberto, don't be ridiculous. She's from Greenwich, they have no use for the Hamptons."

About another intern at News 12...
I kept wondering how this other guy knew my name since he kept calling me Lauren but I figured Paul had told him at some point or something. I seriously don't remember him at all and thought I had never met him before so when Paul said "So, do you guys know each other well?" I said "Actually, we go to the same school but I don't think we've ever even met." and the other guy turns to me and goes, "Lauren.. we've been in the same homeroom for the last 4 years." Oops...

Self-explanatory...
For those of you who don't remember, I got stuck making cotton candy at this kids' fair and accidentally cotton candied myself and had some kid come up to me and start eating off my arm.

In constant competition with the other weather intern for Paul (the weatherman)'s attention...
The two of us were talking to Paul and he was saying that he wants to specialize in hurricanes someday and that he's particularly interested in the eyes of hurricanes and knows all there is to know about them. I suspected that he didn't know anything, so I decided to be my sneaky, manipulative self and test him out. I was really polite and not rude in any way when I let my inner-nerd come out on this one lol. Anyway, here's our convo:

ME: "Oh, so you want to focus on hurricanes? That's so interesting. You must have been so excited about Isabel."

HIM: "Uh.....what?"

ME: "Isabel... as in Hurricane Isabel"

HIM: "Oh yeah, that was cool."

ME: "Having an interest in the hurricane's eye, you must have been fascinated by the mesovortices. The satellite images really picked up that pentagonal structure, don't you think?"

(Paul agreed)

HIM: "Uh...ok.....what?"

Mr. Anderson being the greatest teacher ever...
Anyway... today was my last day of English class with Mr. Anderson. I loved that class, I had him sophomore year too. Today we had our one last "read around" which is when we get an article that he picks out (usually something amusing) and we have to go around the classroom reading out loud and whenever someone screws up they have to stop and we point and laugh. Anyway, he hands out the article today entitled "The One Hour Orgasm" and makes us read aloud the most ridiculous article about a book that teaches people step by step how to give a one hour orgasm. I think this may have been the highlight of the day, just watching everyone read the most obscene things out loud in English class. That's Mr. Anderson for you... he also gave us some parting advice since it's our last year and his as well (he's retiring). He said "Some day everyone has to come to the realization there's more to life than sex.....there's drinking too!" I'm going to miss high school.

So, today in my English class we got another piece of random advice from Mr. Anderson... I believe the comment was something like "When you go to Mardi Gras girls, don't accept the beads. They don't come free..." He also handed out CDs to all of us and said "This might be audio pornography, I'm not sure."

How I love Cathy...
I miss Cathy talking about "Jimminy Cricket" being in the Alamo.... (i think she meant Davy Crocket, but who knows...)

In Daytona Beach on vacation...
Cathy, Mike and I got videotaped on the beach. That was a little weird. This guy in his 40s or 50s I'd say was hanging out the passenger window of some car video taping us and he stops to wave, then turns around and video tapes us from the other way. Cathy gave him the finger and I grabbed by boobs...not sure why, it just seemed like the thing to do. I got really excited that we were going to be on Girls Gone Wild Daytona Beach or something, but Cathy reminded me that we weren't "gone wild" just by walking... another dream down the drain...

Daytona on vacation again...
Here's an embarrassing moment... we walked to Walgreens to get some stuff and I was doing the running man right in front of the security camera so I was on the big TV that everyone was watching and some girl shook her head at me and said "no..." in a very condescending way. I don't care though because I am the running man master and she was ugly.

Daytona again...
We went to the gym a lot in FL to work out. When I say "work out" i mean that we sat on the exercise bikes and watched TV from there. When we got bored with that Mike and I would have "weight time." We'd lift the 3lb weights... or just sit there with them in our hands, that works too. Cathy made fun of us for being lazy but during weight time, Cathy would just pull out a pilates mat and lie on it so I don't think she should talk.

Daytona...
Oh, so Tommie taught us a little history lesson this morning on the way to the airport. I think it went something like this: "So guys, do you know what burning at the stake means? It started back in the olden days out West. When someone did something, they'd just take him over to the maple tree and put him up in it. But watch out for that first step 'cause it's a doosey."

Cathy and Mike fighting in Daytona...
M: "You're ugly."
C: "You have big ears."
M: "At least I have a personality."
C: "I have a personality too!"
M: "Oh yeah? Where is it? With your tits or your ass?"

My first yoga experience...
Does anyone else see yoga as just a big game of Twister masquerading as an exercise class? All we need are some colored dots on the floor.

Mr. Anderson again...
Mr. Anderson told Jill to go get something from the office and he opens up the door and goes "Hurry up Jill, you better run." And Jill starts running really fast towards the door and right as she gets there he closes it and she slams RIGHT into it and has this huge bruise on her wrist now. I laughed so hard...

Interesting toothbrush...
Anyway, I was lying in bed wondering why I couldn't get to sleep when I realized "Hey, I'm still wearing my bra!" I never wear my bra to bed so I sat up to take it off and realized that I was actually still wearing all of my clothes too! Apparently I got so caught up with my new toothbrush that I completely forgot to take off my clothes.

Wow! You made it all the way to the end without realizing that this entire entry is completely useless! Thanks for reading and pretending to care!!

Posted by lauren at 10:41 PM | Comments (3)

New Job!

I got a new job!! I had been looking for a job somewhere on Greenwich Avenue for a little while now, and I got hired at Rags, my favorite boutique in the whole world. Rags sells the best, cutest, designer clothes you'll find anywhere. While they're obviously not as big as a place like Bloomingdale's (another of my favorite places to be) they carry a lot of smaller designers that you won't find other places, meaning that if you wear their stuff you probably won't spot 10 other people wearing the same outfit while walking to class (think J-Crew). Anyway, I had my first day on Friday and it was so much fun! I think they should just pay me in outfits... it would probably be easier that way. Anyway, I'm very excited and wanted to share that with everyone.

Moving on...

Thursday night, Kristina came to visit for the evening so a few of our friends met at a local pizza place called Pomodoro. We ordered the Extra Large size cheese pizza and split it five ways. It was so deliciously fattening... and the bill was $4 per person with a 20% tip! It doesn't get any better than that. Here are some pictures at Pomodoro:

Molly and Kristina:

Vanessa, Me, and Cathy:

After dinner, we all went to Blockbuster Video to rent a movie. We bumped into another group of people who had gone to high school with us and they convinced us to get a scary movie. We couldn't find any that we liked, so we settled on one nobody had ever heard of... Clawed. It was a low-budget movie about sasquatch with "The OC" quality acting... so at least it made for a good laugh. A couple more pictures....

Everyone in my kitchen making s'mores before the movie:

Vanessa tripping over the phone and face-planting in the carpet (sorry, I had to put it up...):

It was a lot of fun, as always.

I guess that's all for now. Have a great weekend!

Posted by lauren at 12:17 PM | Comments (3)

June 07, 2006

6/6/06

Well, I guess we all survived 6/6/06! It was actually a creepy day here in Greenwich. The entire day had that "quiet before the storm" feeling with dark skies and nobody outside. All the dogs kept barking around town too which was a little weird. Anyway, my mom got a call from one of her friends that afternoon saying that a police officer had told everyone to go home, lock their doors, and stay inside. We were all a little freaked out since we had no idea what was going on, but we still didn't follow the instruction.... My mom and I went over to my grandma's house where we saw police with bullet-proof vests and rifles walking the train tracks and through the bushes poking around looking for something. Here are some pictures.

On the train tracks:

Other officers:

It turns out there was a bank robber on the loose, how exciting! Anyway, here are a couple random pictures.

A robin that caught a worm:

And lastly, this is a picture at my attempt of making green eggs with food coloring:

That's it! Goodnight everyone!

Posted by lauren at 09:27 PM | Comments (2)

June 05, 2006

Happy Birthday Vanessa!

Vanessa's birthday was June 3rd, so we all went to Ali's house on Saturday night to have a birthday party for her! Ali had invited a bunch of her college friends down for the night so we got to meet all of them too.

Happy 20th Birthday Vanessa!

Cathy and Pat:

Laurel and Cathy:

John and Me:

Cathy and Me:

Ali:

Cathy, Ali, Me, and Vanessa:

Vanessa, Me, and Cathy:

Greg:

John, Ali, and Laurel:

Cathy, Lizzy, and Pat:

Cathy and Greg:

I got bored of normal pictures so I took this slanted one of Pat and Cathy:

Vanessa and Ali:

Ali's college friends (Kristin, Ali, Lizzy, Winter, Graham, Matt, and Greg):

Cathy and Alberto:

Alberto and Me:

Vanessa and Spencer:

Vanessa and Ali:

Vanessa, Greg, and Cathy:

Ali and Greg:

Cathy, Ali, Me, and Vanessa Take 1:

Take 2:

Ali turkey-basting Vanessa (obviously not with turkey juices...):

Ali and Me:

Vanessa, Ali, and Cathy:

Vanessa and Me:

Vanessa blowing out her candles:

"Lauren Rocks" (thanks Pat):

"Vanessa Rocks the Casbah" (also from Pat):

Pat and Spencer's wandering hands:

We tried to mix the pictures up a little and not do the standard smiling pose which resulted in the following pictures:

Vanessa and Spencer:

Cathy and Me:

Spencer:

And of course the boob pictures... don't worry, everyone's just pretending:

Pat guessed everyone's height and got us all right!

Andrew, Spencer, and Alberto:

Cathy, Vanessa, and Me:

Spencer and Vanessa:

Andrew, Spencer, and Alberto:

Ali, Kristin, and Lizzy:

Beirut outside:

Alberto, Andrew, Vanessa, and Spencer:

Cathy and Me:

Funny picture of Lizzy and Kristin with a ping pong ball heading towards them:

Spencer and Pat pretending to throw Vanessa in the pool:

Andrew, Alberto, John, and Laurel playing beirut:

Andrew, Pat, and Cathy:

Beirut:

Alberto:

I slipped on the deck and got really dirty:

Vanessa and Me:

We all had a great time so thank you Ali for having us over again and Happy Birthday Vanessa!!!

Posted by lauren at 01:29 PM | Comments (1)

June 04, 2006

Martha's Vineyard

Last Wednesday, I drove all the way up to New Bedford, MA (a 3 hour drive from Greenwich) to take the ferry over to Martha's Vineyard to see Brent until yesterday! I had an amazing time and took a bunch of pictures to show everyone.

View from the ferry in New Bedford:

The ferry's navigational system on a plasma screen so that we could see where we were:

When I got to the Vineyard, Brent was there waiting for me with Murdick's Fudge:

Brent's family has a beautiful summer home on the water in East Chop which is a part of Oak Bluffs, Martha's Vineyard. We got to his house where we picked up his dog, Beamer, to take her for a walk.

Brent and Beamer:

Don't they have a beautiful view?

We took a walk along the water which was absolutely gorgeous:

Brent and Beamer:

There were snails all over:

Brent's house:

The water in Oak Bluffs:

Brent and Me:

That night, Brent and I saw X-Men 3 which was very good. We saw it at this theater...

...after eating dinner here, where we had delicious paninis:

Thursday afternoon, we couldn't decide what to do so Brent and I made fishing poles and went fishing out on the jetty by his house. We made our fishing poles out of dowels, fishing line, and safety pins for hooks. We used gum and pieces of carrot for bait... and didn't catch anything. I don't think we really expected to catch anything, but we still had a great time picnicking out on the rocks while we waited for the fish to not come.

Our fishing equipment:

After fishing, we used our poles to have sword fights on the deck. Some people walked by and laughed at us:

Throughout my stay at the Vineyard, Brent and I were frequently in and out of the local arcade playing the Fast and the Furious racing game. I know, we're huge losers... but it gets worse. Before we even attempted the racing game, we beat Time Crisis and got the 6th highest score! We are so cool.

Arcade:

We did branch out from our video games to some other arcade games as well, the kind that give out tickets for prizes:

Too many tokens:

We used the tickets we won to buy Tootsie Pops:

At some point on Thursday, Brent and I tried to go to Long Point, a big beach nearby, but it was closed so we ended up getting lost and filling up the grill tank instead.

Brent with the grill tank:

I really like this gas station picture a lot:

Oak Bluffs:

Brent driving us around:

Someone was kite boarding:

Vineyard Gazette:

Shark Week protest:

Brent actually lives down the street from where the movie Jaws was filmed, so I get nervous that he's going to get eaten by a shark every time he goes to the beach.

Back by Brent's house we saw this cute bunny:

And an osprey nest:

Beamer on the deck:

A couple random pictures in Oak Bluffs:

Brent back at his house running up the stairs:

Thursday afternoon, Brent and I went to Edgartown to check out some of the stores, and then came back to Brent's house to cook dinner with his mom. Brent's mom certainly did the majority of the cooking, but Brent and I cooked a box of couscous together. We made Mediterranean chicken couscous and it was delicious!

That night, Brent and I watched a movie while wearing our new matching pajama shirts that Brent got us for free from Black Dog, where he works. This is, perhaps, one of the worst pictures ever taken of me, but I had to put it up anyway since Brent looks so cute:

Friday, Brent and I woke up relatively early and went on a bike ride to Vineyard Haven where we had sushi at The Net Result again (we had had it along with our fudge the first day there). The sushi was so fresh and delicious!! During our bike ride, we saw something really sad, though. A seagull had broken its wing and was stuck in the middle of a busy street. We ran over to try to help it, but luckily right as we got there, he made his way into the water where he could float around.

Friday night, Brent's dad got to the Vineyard right in time for dinner at Lambert's Cove Inn and Restaurant. The food was delicious, but even if it hadn't been, it would be worth going just for the decor. The inn is so beautiful, make sure you check out the web site to see some pictures.

Saturday morning I had to leave to come back home, but not before taking a few more pictures around town with Brent.

Brent and Me: