Jitterbug's Beat

Let She Who is Without a Slightly Revealing Halloween Costume Cast the First Stone.

Recently Molly and I were discussing what would have been the best way to deal with some fake trick-or-treaters who showed up at her door on Halloween night, NOT seeking candy, but handing out bible verses.  Mmmm hmmm.  

I recently received said bible verse in the mail.  And I quote:

"Kelly, Here's the bible verse I received on Halloween night (I kept the Jolly Rancher that came with it).  I figured you needed the preachin' more than me seen as how you were the one corrupting small children with the sight of your bosoms on Halloween night.  'Bosoms.'  Heh."

Hey.  It wasn't intentional.  Really.  Besides, they were really young.  They'll live.

The Good, The Bad and The Hungry.

Yo-yo-yo dieter.  That's me - it's a yo-yo dieter, only cooler.  I got to a point in my life where I weighed... let's say a LOT of pounds and I am a vertically challenged 5'3".  Although this began about three years ago, recently I re-steeled myself to see the end of this loooooong process of losing all the depression weight, and it's coming!  It's really coming!  But.  I always hated gym rats - now I think I might classify myself as one.  My personal trainer had to admonish me to stop measuring my bananas.  I don't see food, I see figures: calories, fat and fiber, which translates into points, and here I am, math-hater than I am (actually it's math that hates me, but that's a whole other story) and I CAN'T.  STOP.  THE.  MADNESS.  

I think it's been done in movies time and time again, where the voluptuous frat girl pokes her fork at a dressing-less salad and glares daggers across the table at her jock boyfriend who's lustily enjoying his burger with fries and a shake.  I've become that girl!  Only minus the frat.  

I've also become one of those intolerable people who's always looking at everything else everyone else in the world eats - OH go grocery shopping with me and let's look at that conveyor belt!  What do your groceries say about you?  And I judge!  Granted, I judge silently, and it's usually a VERY witty commentary, but still.   My poor boyfriend bears the brunt of my not-so-much-inner-dialogue if he (GASP) buys candy corn or (NOOOO!) eats a maple bar when I'm anywhere in a five-mile radius then its WOE TO HIM!  And I have to stop.  I don't go out with friends sometimes because I'm too intimated by what I might be feeling like and questioning my own willpower.  It IS getting easier, but boy, what a battle.  And it's a battlefield of one.   So, long story short, I've got lots to work on. It does make it easier to work on while wearing my skinny jeans though.  

That Reminds Me.

Recently my friend shared a funny story about she and her brother as kids - how they used to play parachute off the garage roof with bed sheets for capes.  He was always complaining about how she got to go first for everything, so she said FINE, you go first.  He did, and of course got hurt, and all she could call down to him was "Get out of the way!  It's my turn!"  

When I was a kid, I was also sure my siblings were out to kill me.  Thanks to too much television (yay A-Team) I was pretty sure that cars would randomly blow up - and I deduced that it happened when you left them running too long.  My sister once took me along on a drive for an errand she had to run.  It was Alaska, winter, freezing-ass-cold outside, and I was supposed to wait in the car while she went to do her thing.  Oooookay.  Not sure how the passing of time seems to most children, but I felt like I shivered away in the car for a REALLY long time in the car, which she'd left running of course, to prevent me from becoming a kid-sister-sicle - which would have TOTALLY pissed off mom.  But it was the perfect crime!  "Accidentally" leave the car running too long!  I was sitting out there getting more and more agitated - I'm TEN!  How do I turn this thing off?!  Does she NOT know that cars explode when you leave them running too long?  In what I can only describe as the most tense moment in the most exciting episode of MacGyver, I studied the control panel and in a state of utmost ten-year-old panic, TURNED THE KEY and I was saved from what was a certain fiery death by the luck of turning the key in the right direction.  The engine died and I breathed a sigh of relief you could have heard in China.  Just then (good timing?) my sister opened the car door.  She looked a little puzzled, then realization dawned on her face.  "OH," she said, "You don't like country music?"  

Sexy cake.

 

Funny, you know, I plugged in that title and thought HOLY SHIT I can't even imagine the hits my blog will get thanks to this snazzy title.  Anyhoo, ITS COMING.  That's right, the next book in the Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon, and I'm in one of those almost-doing-the-potty-dance-I'm-so-excited-I-can-barely-stand-it phases. 

My BFF Kristi recently started reading the Outlander series and I'm THRILLED to share these amazing stories with her - it just makes it all the better.  Sorry, it's not football, it's not the new Rock Star, and people who don't read just won't get it (or this blog entry either - it will probably just look like random squiggles on a page, so if you can't read, what the hell are you doing looking at a blog?  This isn't porn!) and with Kristi's permission I get to print her first email to me about our amazing Scottish hero, Jamie:

K: "By the way, you were right about Jamie... SWOON."

Me: "I know, right!?! If I ever find myself single again, I'm moving to Scotland."

K: "The problem is that of course we love men who are written by women.  Women create the perfect men, gruff and manly when necessary, gallant and brave and protective but also kind, thoughtful, caring, sweet and funny.  Real men are missing about half of those qualities because they are missing some essential aspect of what makes women... well, women.  Because let's face it, the parts we truly fall for in these guys (Jamie, Edward the Vampire) are the sweet aspects.  The manly, sexy stuff is the icing on the cake.  The very sexy cake."

My football fantasy.

Recently my dear friends and I came together to pick out our fantasy football lineup from the live draft.  Did I say dear friends?  You might not know it when things get underway with the pointed absurdity of me actually having the audacity to put Adrian Peterson in my queue when he is the best of the best of the best and my pick is the last of the last of the last.  I'm just gonna say it.  Sometimes.  I.  Lose.  My.  Temper.  I know you are shocked.  Please take a moment to put your socks back on.  Well I still had a few of my queued players when it came to be my turn, and I believe (FIRMLY) that I ended up with quite a good fantasy team.  Then my quarterback AND my backup quarterback ended up at the top of the list of BIG NO NO's for fantasy players.  I don't care what they say.  I stand by my fantasy men.  Like Tom Selleck.

At our fantasy draft gathering, we have also adopted the tradition of plunking everyone down in front of a video camera to record our predictions for the upcoming season.  What this year has taught me is that without alcohol, I am neither witty, nor charming, in front of that camera - in fact, I'm downright boring.  And probably less attractive.  Perhaps it's good that I occupy my time with friends who drink rather heavily.  My predictions were predictable.  But here's my theory.  If I keep saying the Seahawks and the Patriots will play each other in the Superbowl, eventually, if enough time passes... well it will still be my theory.  

 

 

Yeah, what is that all about?

A friend of mine in Alaska is hosting an exchange student, and this poor soul is attending my old high school.  I'm pretty sure I've mentioned it somewhere in this blog before that I didn't particularly enjoy high school.  Doesn't sound like she's having a very good time of things either.

My advice: Not to worry.  All the people who snub you now will want to be your friend on Facebook in 15 years. 

The Boys are Back in Town.

Relax, friends, relax - I know you've been logging on day after day wondering WHEN GOD, WHEN will she turn this back into that BRILLIANT football blog we miss EVER SO MUCH?!?  Well it's not a football blog, so BACK THE HELL OFF - oh but wait - right now we're going to talk about football.  I've even changed the scenery, if you noticed.  So.  Tonight was the Seahawks first preseason game, and we ruled the San Diego... what do they call them again?  OH right - the Chargers.  I think it has something to do with them maxing out high-end credit cards or some such thing.  That's what you get for growing up in San Diego.  So the Seahawks - the team seems so different!  And change is good!  As I flew to the store at 6:30, in a mad dash to make it home before kickoff, the radio announcer exclaimed: "It's such a relief to see Matt Hasselbeck walk on to the field without holding his back!"  Dah da dah, dah da dah!  (If you're a fan, you'll know how that sounds).

Even being a preseason game where we've got slightly stumped announcers trying to figure out the who's who among newbies on the field, the team is BACK - it was like a reunion out there!  I love to watch the passion the younuns bring to the field, out there playing for their carreers.  Granted some of those careers guarantee more moolah than proven veterans, some three-time pro-bowlers (Aaron Curry, you'd better EARN that contract, son) They get hit - and hit HARD and when they hit the ground they're still twitching, trying to get back up and get that ball.  Maybe it shouldn't have squirted out of your hands in the first place - but that was a goddamned HIT and you're lucky you only lost the ball and not your head.  I can't remember your name 'cause you're either new or you're not on the starting lineup, and I was generally distracted by the one-girl-preseason-party-general-football-happiness-miasma going on in my living room, but whoever you are, good on ya.

I have a lot to learn this season as well - like this new zone-blocking approach - and how to pick a winning lineup for fantasy and avoid shooting myself in the foot by choosing a player who shoots himself in the leg.  How to learn something - ANYTHING  - before my football homer of a boyfriend, who swears all my knowledge only comes from repeating what he says.  Yeah well... imitation is the most sincere form of flattery.  Besides, you gotta fake it 'till you make it.  I see LOTS of good change in the season ahead.  Stay tuned.

Because sometimes, you just have to punch a turkey leg.

So JW and I are addicted to Man vs. Food.  Ever watch that show?  Between the Travel Channel and the Food Network, I get to experience everything I can't [afford to] do: (a) jet off to Europe on a whim (b) eat all the gourmet food I want to and never gain weight (thank YOU Giada) and (c) work for Charm City Cakes.  On M vs. F Adam travels all around the U.S., eats food at all sorts of places and engages in eating contests. Every guy I know is thinking, why don't I have this job?  It's right up there with the guys who test Madden Football for a living.  Recently we watched Adam attempt to take down 15 milkshakes in a half-hour.  Just as I was asking JW, "What happens if he actually get si--"  and all of a sudden the screen read "CENSORED" and when it came back on, he was cradling a bucket.  Oh Adam.  15 shakes is too many.

Recently we watched the Portland and Seattle episodes  of the show - did you know you can get married at Voodoo Donuts?  That's right ladies, step on in, they pull one of those homeless fellows off the street and BLAM, you're married.  There also seem to be a lot of pirates that dine out in Portland.  In Seattle, Adam went to Red Mill Burgers.  World-famous onion rings.  Burgers so good they look like they're dripping burgery goodness right out of your TV screen.   That's bu-R-gery goodness you sickos.   So in JW's travels for work, he was lucky enough to stop at the Red Mill for lunch!  Check it out.  I missed out on this one.  And is that a SHAKE?  Oh I was so jealous!  Aren't you?!

A negligent blogger. Doesn't that sound like some sort of curse word?

I've become one - a negligent blogger, that is.  Why?  Because every time I go online, I look at Etsy.  Now when it's football season, this can get back to being a football blog, and all is well, but in the meantime, I'm wondering if I need to just give over and make this a full-on Etsy review blog, because every darn day I find something new and more fabulous.  When I began my own shop on Etsy, it was with the intention of actually making money, but nooooo, that was not to be, because I can't seem to stop spending it there. 

We could talk about my boyfriend and all the really odd/bad movies he's been finding on insta-view on Netflix.  Or the ants that seem to be working their way through every crevice of his house.

We could talk about my GREAT motorcycle ride back from Run 21 (I'd talk about the Run 21 campout in a separate post, but quite frankly, this is NOT a blog about fat, ugly, naked, drunk whoooores dancing around on stripper poles, and that's unfortunately the image of the campout that's permanently etched in my retinas... we'll talk about it later when I'm actually able to sleep through the night).

We could NOT talk about Twitter, which I don't know about, except that although I've never experienced it, I'm already sick of it.

We could talk about the Seahawks training camp - but see, that gets me right back into football season.

So.  Bear with me folks.  Between Etsy and porn, it's just really hard to get myself writing.

 

Celebrate Good Times, C'Mon!

Two of my very dear friends got married last weekend.  It was awesome and super fun.  I thought I'd gotten all of my to-do stuff out of the way in time for the wedding, but in the week before, I found myself a guest-zilla - slightly freaking out, having tried two dresses that just didn't work, waiting for (and pinning all of my hopes on) the third dress and an extremely last minute hair cut and color that I lucked into scheduling (yes, the hair gods were smiling on me).  Oh yeah and I should also note here that due to an unfortunate purse-unloading-while-looking-for-keys incident after the bachelorette party, I drove home with a bright pink vibrator wedged between my license plate and trailer hitch.  That's another story for another time - I'm just thankful I didn't get pulled over for a license obstruction.  The wedding was on Saturday - on Friday I got sick. Pretty darn sick, in fact, but I was NOT about to let that show at the wedding 'cause I was WEARIN' that dress!  I did have pockets - and should have had kleenex in one and a flask in the other - just to keep from drawing any attention my way during the ceremony due to an inopportune coughing fit.  JW says that I got sick in protest to yet another couple marrying who've been dating for a shorter time than he and I.  Mmmm, perhaps.  Well it's either get sick or hold my breath, and quite frankly, I'm just getting too old to hold my breath that long.  ZING! Anyhoo, it was a beautiful wedding - but there was one thing in particular that really hit home. From my seat, I could see my girlfriend's face while she recited her vows to her hubby-in-the-making, and the way she looked at him... it just broke your heart.  In a good way.  I felt like a fly on the wall of an incredibly private moment - it was as if those two were the only ones in the room.  That they let us all in to share that moment with them... it was a beautiful thing to bear witness to.  I can scarce describe it and still do it justice.  It was just... love.  Pure and unadulterated love.  And it was really, really amazing.  Shouldn't we all be so lucky.  

And as a special note, JW actually danced with me!  He wanted me to tell you all, gentle readers, that he asked me to dance SEVERAL times, and I didn't ask him to dance.   So let the record show, that's how it went.  He also took some very sweet pictures with me, which was only a little out of character.  We had a grand time.