What's New Pussy Cat?

This is probably my fourth favorite Tom Jones song. Ok, so most of you probably don't even have a favorite Tom Jones song. Hey, it's a guilty pleasure. My favorite song is either Delilah or You Can Leave Your Hat On. Those are both pretty fun little ditties. Don even took my to a Tom Jones concert on our first Valentine's Day. It was great, but he (Tom Jones) really shouldn't try to dance. He should just croon away wiping sweat from his brow with menopausal women's panties. This post isn't really about Tom Jones. Actually, it's not really about anything, but that's what we do best in blog world.

Let's see... Our trip to NYC is official (Yippee!). We booked the plane tickets and hotel last week. We also booked tickets to see Wicked and The Phantom of the Opera. I think that we will wait until we get there for other shows. Those are the two that we're super excited to see. We have second row Orchestra for Phantom. Our Wicked tickets are good, too but not second row. Now, we only have seven days and five nights to plan! I'm sure that it won't be hard to fill the time. I've heard that there are some nice day tours of all the touristy landmarks. We'll have to look into that. I think that Lisa and Dave are going to come up to see us while we're there. That will be fun, too. We just need to figure out which day works out best. There are also a few dinner cruises on the harbor. Maybe we'll do that. Everyone says that we need to have lunch at Tavern on the Green. Ice skating in Rockafeller Center would be fun, but knowing our luck one of us would end up with a broken ankle! Maybe, we'll just watch other people on the ice. We might be able to sit in on an SNL taping. That's not for sure, yet, though. We could always check out Martha. I really do enjoy her new show. That would be a very good thing. (ha, ha)

We have also made a lot of progress on our Christmas preparations. We decorated over the weekend. Of course, I always have ideas that I never complete, but I'm pretty happy with the outcome this year. I don't really care if I add anymore to it. My ornaments are half done which is great. I'm never that far this early! I'm also 75% finished with our shopping. That's a great feeling, too. I'm not trying to rush the holidays; I'm just trying to buy myself down-time to really enjoy the season while I'm in it. Sometimes, I stress so much that Christmas comes so fast that I forget to do the things that I really want to. We still have to finish our Christmas letter and take our picture, but that's not too bad. Hopefully, we'll do some of that over the weekend. I can't wait to go to the Magical Forest! There are other festive things that I would like to do, but our weekends are pretty packed with Don's gigs. Well, he's busy, but I'm not... Anybody want to check out the "snow" at Lake Las Vegas or the carolers at The District?

Hey, Mark, did you start your blog yet? Your public is waiting... :) Hey, Christine, have you found us yet? Don't give up!

Oh, yeah! I almost forgot. I was going through my pictures the other day, and I have so many Christmas ones that I love or at least have some memory of that's worthwhile. So, my plan is to feature a different Christmas Past picture with each post. I hope that you enjoy. Here's #1:

This is one of my favorite pictures ever! Magical Forest Baby! Lisa was home for Christmas from England, Katie was in Jr. High and I was in my theater faze. Good times.

"So long, farewell, auf Weidersehen, good night!" Rest in peace, Mr. Miyagi! (His funeral was today. One of my high school friends lived in his neighborhood, and we used to walk past his house for fun. Sad day.)

Why I Don't Go to the Movies

I know that it is probably one of the most popular national past-times and most people's choice for a first date, but I hate going to the movies. I guess, I don't hate it enough to never go, but my two movie going experiences this week have reminded me why I'd rather wait for movies to be released on DVD or HBO and view them in the comfort of my own home. It's cheaper that way, anyway. It's a small fortune to go to the movies these days! Most of you know that my biggest movie theater issue is the popcorn factor. I'm not going to explain my phobia at this time, but I will say that the smell of it drives me nuts, and it takes all the inner strength I possess to sit in disgusting seats that I know people have gotten popcorn all over. Yuck. My heart is beating faster even thinking about it. I try not to touch the seats with any part of my body that isn't clothed- like my hands, and I never put my purse or jacket on the floor or on the seat next to me. It's too risky. So, that part alone is enough to keep me away. I will say that Don is very considerate but does his best to remind me of the huge sacrifice he makes for me.

In choosing where to sit in the theater, I try very hard to find a section where almost no one is sitting. One, I don't want to be near other people's gross food, and two, I don't want to be near people in general. So, we try very hard to find an uninhabited area of the theater only to have people sit behind, in front of and beside us by the time the movie begins even though there are a ton of other seats they could have chosen. We must look like nice people. Last night we saw Rent and I had the seat kicker behind me and the musical's biggest fan next to me. Joy. I think after I rocked back really hard on my seat the person behind me got the picture, but the girl next to me insisted on singing the entire score even after we'd glared at her a few times. I totally understand loving a show and a lot of people do already know all the music by the time musicals make it to the big screen, but that does not give someone the right to make the experience a sing along! Shoot, Mark knew every song and he didn't open his mouth once! I knew every song when we saw Phantom, but I didn't insist on letting everyone hear that I could have been a wonderful Christine. It is just so rude! I paid to hear the actors sing. If they had wanted Jane Las Vegas to sing in the show, they would have cast her. Some cities do have sing along showings of beloved musicals. I remember hearing about a really big one for The Sound of Music. People were encouraged to dress in costume and sing their little hearts out. I would love to do that, but this showing of Rent was not billed as a sing along although my experience sure was! Oh,well. It was a good movie even still. I just seem to have the worst movie theater luck. It's a good thing that I only get it in small doses.

Back to High School (Ahhhh!!)

I stole this from Katie’s MySpace, so thanks Kate!

Hey, do you remember high school?Well lets hope so!Okay, put in your own answers and repost!

Ready...Set..GO!

Where did you graduate from and what year?
Clark High School ‘97!

Did you have school pride?
Hell, ya! I was Miss Good Morning Clark High School!

Who was your "group" senior year?
Student Council people

Was your Prom a night to remember?
Yeah, I’d rather not though, since I didn’t go. See my April or May posts for more on that one!

Most memorable moment the night of Prom?
Seeing Star Wars (the first, I mean fourth one) at the dollar theater with my mom and brother.

Do you own all 4 Yearbooks?
No, I don’t have my Freshman one. I wish I did, though.

Do you remember the First CD you ever bought?
Garth Brooks Beyond the Season- Country and Christmas. That pretty much sums it up!

What were your favorite movies in High School?
The same ones that have always been my favorites, although Evita came out my Senior year and I totally loved it. (I still do. That role was made for Madonna.)

What was your number 1 choice of College in HS?
I didn’t have one. I was all about who would give me the most money. UNLV won out. It would have been cool to go to Belmont in Nashville at the time. I was accepted and got money from them, too, but it wasn’t enough to lure me from home.

What radio station did you jam out to in high school?
95.5 KWNR and KFM102 when it was still Country

Were you involved in any organizations or clubs?
OMG! That’s all I did! Bravo! Jazz Choir, Madrigals, Exec Council, I know I did other stuff, but those were the biggies.

What was your favorite class in Highschool?
Bravo, Government, English

Who was your big crush in Highschool?
Wesley Nelson. I had a big thing for Mormon boys back then. It took me a while to realize that I was not an option.

Would you say you've changed a lot since highschool?
I think it’s a night and day difference. I was extremely conservative, closed-minded and insecure in high school. I’d like to think that I am more confident and open these days. I guess it’s a maturity thing.

What do you miss the most about highschool?
Student Council crap and all those big social things we had to do. Travel opportunities. High school kids have so many good and cheap opportunities to go places through music and clubs. I saw San Francisco and Washington D.C. for way cheaper than I could now. I miss a few of my friends, too.

Your worst memory of HS?
I think I’m repressing them. I know that there were a lot. I think that it was just the general feeling that I didn’t fit in especially with my small choir peers.

Favorite memory of HS?
All of our Christmas gigs in Bravo! And Mads. We sang everywhere. It was non-stop for two weeks. I loved it. I loved my Mads dress, too. I loved working on Homecoming my Senior year. Our float was a blast!

Did you have a car?
I did my senior year. Go Ford Tempo!

What were your school colors?
Black and Gold

Who was your favorite teacher?
Ms. Little/Schauer; Mr. Owcerzak (whatever); Ms. McGarvey; Mrs. Neel

Did you own a cell phone in highschool?
No one did. They were bricks! Some of my friends’ moms had them.

Did you leave campus for lunch?
Sometimes. It was open campus, so it wasn’t that big of a deal.

if so, where was your favorite place to go eat?
Taco Bell

If you could do one thing differently what would it be?
Been more open-minded and been a cheerleader. I had a chance my Senior year and chickened out.

Were you always late to class?
Not too often. I was always smart enough to have a pass.

Did you ever have to stay for Saturday School, or detention?
Nope, I was perfect.

Did you ever ditch?
I’m not sure that I ever “really” ditched. I had so many opportunities to legitimately miss class due to council and choir. I was never in class Senior year!

when it comes to a reunion will you be there?
Shoot, I’ll probably have to plan it! I think I’m the only one left in town!

Happy Birthday, Lacey and Happy Thanksgiving, too!

Can you believe that she's two already?! Plus, as of today, she's going to have a younger cousin to share her birthday with. That will be pretty cool unless she becomes a birthday diva like me! You might have trouble on your hands, Lisa!

I'm sure I won't be writing tomorrow, so Happy Thanksgiving everybody! I'm so thankful for the love and support of family and friends this year. I'm going to miss those of you who aren't here this year. If anyone needs to find us, we'll be at my mom and dad's.

Stop the Train!

I cannot believe that Thanksgiving is next week! I know it's not a lie, because you can't argue with the calendar. Mentally, I'm still at the end of September/beginning of October. The cooler weather is starting to push me into the mood, but I'm just not ready for the holiday rush. I totally love the holidays, but for the first time the thought of decorating, addressing cards, wrapping presents, etc. seems so daunting. Maybe, I'd feel differently if we hadn't taken down last year's Christmas decorations in March! I know that we are busy, but that was ridiculous! I did finally start my ornaments for the year. I think they'll be nice. They turned out a little different than I had expected, but I like them. The one thing I will say is that they will be my first ornaments that probably aren't breakable. Debbie suggested that I make them for our entire Youth Ministry Team. I just about crapped my pants! Obviously, she doesn't realize how long it takes me just to do them for family and friends. We'll see how motivated I feel...

On a related note, I am so pissed off this year about the early push into the holiday season. Did you know that Santa set up shop at the Galleria Mall last Friday? That's just wrong. Whatever happened to waiting until the day after Thanksgiving? The Festival of Lights at Sunset Park is also up and running already, I believe. Not only do I think it's a waste of money, but it's crappy that it's already open. My favorite community activity is still the Magical Forest. I love that they start the day after Thanksgiving and don't close until New Years. It would be fun to go up to Mt Charleston for a sleigh ride (hint, hint) and some warm cocktails. Hopefully, I can get all my Christmas "chores" done early so that I can enjoy all the other festive events closer to the holiday. Maybe, I am getting into the spirit after all!

One Step Forward and Two Steps Back

Sigh. Ever have one of those days when you don't know if you should laugh or cry? That is today to a tee. I tend to dislike Tuesdays as it is, because they can be so frenetic and I never see Don for more than ten minutes in the morning (if I'm lucky). We both seem to run in opposite directions on Tuesdays. I guess, for some people that's everyday. But, that's not the point of my post. The day started out ok enough. I got a bonus at the bank (Surprise! Surprise!) and I got to draw docs all morning which is my favorite bank task. I came home and worked on some stuff for our 6th grade retreat at church. Things were nice and peaceful. Then I left for church... We got a last minute "DVD" from an Army recruiter for our session on Veterans Day that was to take place tonight. So, here we are at 5:15 checking out a DVD that's supposed to play around 6:30. I don't do well with this kind of stuff at all. I like to have things planned and ready way earlier than this. The problem was that the recruiter didn't give us a DVD. He gave us a CD with a music video on it. Needless to say, we couldn't play it through the DVD player as planned. Thank goodness I had my lap-top and Chaz was there for a few minutes to walk me through hooking it up to the projector. (You learn something new everyday.) It projected through to the screen just fine, but we didn't have any audio output, so I had to crank the volume on the laptop so that there was actual music to go along with the images. Kinda' goofy, but problem solved and my stress began to subside.

Next the kids start showing up. Usually, they spend the time before class playing the games in the Youth Lounge and visiting while the team gets organized. I walked to my office for two seconds and returned to a broken ping-pong table in the corner of the Youth Lounge. Those of you who know the Tuesday kids probably only need one guess. If you can't figure it out, check my post entitled Full Disclosure. Of course, I was livid. Supposedly, it was a tripping accident. Unfortunately, no one actually saw what happened. Sigh. So, now we have a broken ping-pong table, a High School Youth Minister demanding a replacement, angry parents and a kid in a lot of hot water. Joy. Thankfully, Debbie was there to take care of calling the parents. I'm not very comfortable with that yet. I did gain some insight into the student tonight, though. I can share that later with anyone (Lisa) who may be interested. Other than that, the class went very well. Fr. Jerry came to talk to the kids about veterans and his experiences in the military. He took it so seriously, that he actually came in his uniform that he hasn't worn since the early 90s. That was a great moment. Of course, we got pictures.

Finally, all the students and team were gone, so I could go home and chill. I had an eighth of a tank of gas left, so uncharacteristically I decided to fill up before I made it to E. In my frazzled state from the day's events so far, would you believe that the next appropriate thing to do was to lock my keys in the car?! I couldn't believe it. There I was pumping gas and holding my cell phone, ATM card, church keys but no car keys. Big deal, right? Call your husband and have him unlock the door with your spare set of keys. Wrong. Don has Second City on Tuesday nights and was in the middle of his show. Thank God for dads! My dad actually helped with class tonight and kept feeling like he wasn't much of a help, so I was glad to restore confidence in his usefulness. He didn't actually have a key for my car, but did happen to have an old slim jim that my great grandfather had bought eons ago. After ten minutes or so of playing around with it, the lock finally popped. Yippee! I could finally go home! At least the dogs were there. A few swigs of libation didn't hurt either. I'm still stewing over a few things, but I suppose I will live to see another day. Let's hope that tomorrow is awesome.

(The) Jewel Lives!!!

Senior citizens all over the valley are jumping for joy; their radio station is back! Well, kinda. It's on a different frequency now: 104.7FM So, everyone tell your grandparents to dispare no longer Frank, Dean, Barry and the Carpenters have a home again. I am not a senior citizen, but I am glad that the standards format survived. Some of our customers at the bank were pretty upset. I heard it rumored that they were actually picketing and protesting. I'm not sure if that's true, but I wouldn't be surprised. They have the time and the bucks to do that kind of thing. I do know that a lot of angry letters were written to the newspaper and probably the radio station too. One thing I learned a long time ago was not to mess with old people. They're feisty as hell, have been around a lot longer than the rest of us and will get ya' every time! Viva la KJUL!

Dancing, Drinks, Film, Family, Friends and Famous Folk

That pretty much sums up my weekend. It was one of the busiest weekends I've had in a while and probably the most complete that I can remember. We did so many different things and saw so many different people. Usually, only a birthday results in that. We did have Dameon's birthday on Wednesday, but technically that wasn't the weekend. Saturday morning, we filmed our goofy video section for the Conference slide show. It is going to be hilarious. I could hardly keep from laughing the entire time we filmed. Maybe we'll end up with a few stills that we can post sometime later. I forgot how much fun those videos can be. I'm glad that opportunities are popping up outside of Youth Ministry.

What else...? I don't think we had a single meal this weekend that didn't involve a few friends. I went to lunch yesterday with some friends and the Toxic Audio singers. They are great on stage, but I was a little disappointed that they weren't more personable off stage. I'm sure that it was just downtime for them. Plus, I'm not the first person to jump into gushy small talk. It would have been nice to talk about what they do, but none of them seemed too interested in talking about "work". The food was good, though. lol.

Yesterday afternoon, I took my mom to the Second City Benefit of Laughter. I figured that was fair, since my dad got to be in our video the day before. (He was great, too. Thanks for the idea, Lisa.) The benefit was for Habitat for Humanity and their effort to rebuild homes in New Orleans. The cast was comprised of lots of Second City alumni and our regular Vegas cast (Don got to play, too.). Some notable names were George Wendt (Norm on Cheers) and Tim Meadows (from SNL). There were a ton of other people that I recognized, but I'm not a celebrity or TV watcher, so I can't tell you what shows they were on. Don will be posting pics on his blog, so maybe some people will look familar. There was one guy who I think was on Spin City and some other stuff that looked really familiar and was really good in the show. All in all, it was a really good cast and show, and there was a reception afterwards which is always nice. I just parked my butt with the other Second City wives while Don and crew mingled around. He's much better at that than I am. I never know what to say. I don't want to bug people about things they are tired of hearing, so I just opt not to say anything. However, Don's mingling may have hooked us up with SNL tickets when we go to New York in January. That would be so cool! I hope it happens. So, there are the highlights from the weekend. Next weekend we'll have family in town for the Nellis Air Show. Fun! Fun!

Another Locals' Tip

Here I am in the midst of another jam packed weekend, but I wanted to share this info really fast before I forget: Last night a bunch of us went out to the nightclub Plush at the Rampart in Summerlin. I have wanted to go there for a while, since it is so close to my house. Maybe I would be more willing to go out if we didn't have to go to the Strip for everything (what a pain!). I am reporting back to all of you that I had a very good time. The set-up is nice. They have seperate lounge and club areas, so that if you don't want to dance but still want to enjoy the atmosphere there is somewhere to sit. The lounge area has big wall sofas and tables. It's very inviting. Also, you can hear the music from the club but it's not so loud that you can't have a conversation. Of course, the tables in the club are reserved. Thankfully, we had a hook-up in the club and did end up with one. That is probably one of the biggest reasons that I don't go out much. I really don't look forward to getting all dressed up with heels and all just to end up standing in a crowded nightclub with no where to sit and astronomically priced boozes. I won't say that the booze were cheap here; alcohol was just as expensive as everywhere else. The difference was that they did a really great job of comping drinks for ladies. We were free to get in, too (sorry guys.). The hospitality was great, too. The bartenders, Djs and managers seemed genuinely happy that we were there. It was nice to not feel like the bartenders and bouncers were looking down at you. Another selling point was the crowd: it was "normal" people. I was probably one of the youngest people there. The emphasis wasn't so much on seeing and being seen. What a relief, because I hate the meatmarket feel of clubs, too. Most people there were probably in their 30s and not "perfect" by any means. So, if you are a local and enjoy dancing and having a good time but are put off by the crap on the Strip, check out Plush on Friday nights. (I don't know what it's like on other nights, but if any of you go, let me know.)

Don't forget my last tip: BJ's bar behind the MGM. Check out my early October blogs for a recap of that one.