miller

Haha, : (

He's so nice, I love him.

Getting to spend some time with Miller was all I wanted for Christmas.

merry christmas

I was going to do a random post and then I remembered what day it is.  Tis Christmas day!

If ever there was an excuse to post this it was today.

Oh to be in that audience.

I hope you're all enjoying the day.  I made my way up to Sarasota after work so I'll be spending the day with my family.

it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

I came home the other day to find that my downstairs neighbor had "decorated" for Christmas.  It does light up at night which Gala said made it cute.

I don't know if I agree.

I am amazed that our super hasn't forced her to move it yet.  I guess he probably doesn't think she's eccentric so he doesn't really care what she does.

I know if I tried a stunt like this I'd get a strongly worded text within a few days.

But whatever, merry Christmas.

Bah humbug.

so good

all I want for Christmas

Is it so much to ask for a teal Ferrari with red interior and black rims?

Maybe I'll do a kickstarter so everyone can chip in a couple thousand dollars.

the ghosts of Christmas soon to come

They've been decorating the store for Christmas and yesterday they put up these ornament displays.  This morning I glanced up at them and suddenly saw dozens of ghoulish faces and thought they had put up nightmare before christmas ornaments or something.

Do you see the faces in the silver ornaments?  The best are the clusters balls, especially at the bottom left.  I finally figured out that it's just the way the the hallway is reflected in the silver that makes it look like an evil smiling face, and now I can't unsee it.

I kind of love it though.  My little demon friends that will watch over me for the next two weeks.

I guess it's that time of year

As I was leaving work tonight I stumbled upon this in the home section:

I'm hoping they include Mariah in the playlist this year.  Last year they had the audacity to play a cover of All I Want For Christmas Is You.  Such a tease.  I actually had a customer complain about it to me and say that she wanted to write an email and I strongly encouraged her to do so.  Give the people what they want!




My favorite part of that video is the minute and fifteen second introduction of uninterrupted applause.  That and the fact that she rides in and offstage on the shoulders of some burly men.  And her outfit.  And the voice, and the hair, and the legs.

Ok, too many favorite parts of that video.  I'm just glad that I've gotten my first sign that it's ok to start listening to Christmas music again.

birthday beach booty

I even managed to get some color before the storm clouds rolled in.

Now we're showering and getting ready to go get Jonathan his Christmas present.  Yay!!

is it over yet?

I am hoping to return to work today and find that things are getting back to normal.  When I last left there was still a hint of crazy in the air, but it's almost January.  People have to move on, they can't be still looking for the elusive after Christmas deal.

Think of me as I head to the trenches.

what day is it?!

Hard to believe it's Christmas when you ride your bike to the beach to lay out.

I enjoyed my day off, I hope you all did as well.  If you had to work today, thank you.

and to all a good night

Gala bought us leopard print santa hats to wear today at work and I must say, it helped make the LONG day go by a little bit faster.  I felt like this all day:




I even suggested we could choreograph this at one point when we were desperate for something to do as there were hardly any customers all day today.  Nobody else seemed to be interested though.

But still we got a lot of compliments from people, especially when they saw us all together.  We even took a nice Christmas card photo of the whole work family.

Now I'm finally home and I'm just looking forward to going to sleep, where hopefully visions of sugar plums will dance in my head.  Or visions of love.

Ooh, maybe I'll watch Glitter tonight, as an ode to my secret santa.  It sounds like the start of a new, fantastic, Christmas Eve tradition.

now THESE are Christmas cards

About a week ago Daniel and I had plans to take one of the dogs to the mall.  The morning of he texted me and said, "Wear a green shirt, we're going to take a picture with Santa".

Today we finally got to take the second one.

Haha, those pictures make me happy.

secret santa

The secret is that he's angry.

I am EXTREMELY excited for secret santa at work, especially since I finally got my gift for my person.  Now that the pressure is off I can relax until it's time to give my gift, but I'm pretty certain it will be well received.  Just like I'm pretty certain the gift I'm going to get is going to be amazing.

I just have a feeling.

Just like I had a feeling I could get a better picture of him with my secret santa gift, but I was definitely off base with that feeling.

First I was trying to do it cold, but I knew he wouldn't show up in the darkness.  And as usual, the flash just made him in to evil santa clause:

I decided I would be able to get a great shot, I just needed to do some preparation.  Step one was feeding the detective, to hopefully help produce a less cantankerous santa clause.  While he was stuffing his gut I moved on to step two; lighting.

And yet, I really didn't end up with anything worthy of a Christmas card.  I got several nearly identical shots of dead behind the eyes santa:

it didn't get long for him to tire of the light, or the present.  I tried in vain to maintain his attention, but when I crossed the line to actually touching him is when he just straight up started biting me and kicking me.

The final pictures were of him glaring at me from behind the present, moments before he ran away altogether:

haha he says, "MERRY CHRISTMAS.  I'M ANGRY!"

Jonathan's for now Christmas gift

So I got something VERY nice today for an EXTREMELY GOOD VALUE through my work.  I thought I was going to be able to get two and give one to JONATHAN for Christmas but I was only able to get one.  

IT'S VERY NICE AND I WANT IT FOR MYSELF VERY BADLY.  But, I feel bad taking it for myself, when I was so excited to give Jon one as well.  

So I am going to wait, and if I can't find another more amazing gift for Jonathan, I will give it to him.  Because I know he will like it, everyone likes it.  Especially me.

This gives me incentive to come up with something even better to give to him, so I can keep this for myself.  

I still have time. In the meantime the box will sit on my counter and taunt me.  Did I mention that it's VERY nice?   

tamara brought us marshmallows

Tamara is definitely my favorite customer at my new job, and not JUST because she brought us pink peppermint marshmallows today.  THEY ARE SO GOOD!!!

Apparently we were waiting for a scarf to come in that she wanted and when Dervon called her to tell her it had arrived she said she'd be in to pick it up, and she was going to bring marshmallows.  Boy did she deliver too!

She kind of reminds me of Mary from the juice bar, who would always come in after work.  Thinking about her just now took me on a trip down memory lane to some of the interesting regulars we had at that place.  Like the lady who would always come in with her coat hanging off her shoulders and her sunglasses balanced on the brink of her nose, always in a crazy flurry.  She would always look at the desserts and then complain that they all had so much agave, which she pronounced "Aguave".  Allie would always have to turn her head away because she couldn't stop laughing.

There was a really eccentric regular who, upon finding out that I had gone to school for writing, would always insist that I should write a tv show about all the cooky characters that came in there.  While I'm glad I never wasted any of my life on that venture, I am always disappointed when I think of all the missed opportunities for blog posts if only I had started this back when I worked there.  I would even have documented my meeting the Detective, and subsequently agreeing to tolerate living with him.  I sadly don't even have pictures from back then, and when I looked back on facebook the oldest pictures I found were terrible.  Well actually, they are kind of hilarious, and pretty accurately reflect the kind of cat he was and still is:

This is the most frequent way I see him, back turned to me, semi lifeless on the floor.  Lately he has taken to resting his head on any elevated surface, but otherwise this sums it up.  Otherwise, the other pictures of him from the same night are these:

Hahaha, it was a Christmas miracle indeed.  Awww, this makes me miss living with Ariel, that's one thing that's definitely not still the same.  I liked when the detective smelled like Chanel after their cuddles.

Now I'm all nostalgic and missing having roommates to give Christmas presents too.  And I don't even have peppermint marshmallows to drown my sorrows in, I left them at work!

But at least I have the detective.

I CAN'T WAIT ANYMORE

I told myself I'd resist until they started playing Christmas music at work but all of a sudden tonight I was OVERCOME with the need to hear some Mariah Christmas albums.

So I have added both cds back in to my main playlist and I could not be more pleased with that decision.

In case anybody is thinking of getting me something this year I would like a "Mimi" apron for when I do my baking.  THANKS!

so wrong but it feels so right

Between Gala and my sister I'm sure somebody is going to throw paint on me but I can't help it.  I've decided this is what I am going to get myself for christmas.

Let me know when NYC is up and running so I can come visit.  I need a legit excuse to actually wear this, otherwise I am going to be pairing it with a t-shirt and jeans all winter so I don't overheat.  Because you know I'll be wearing it on the daily.

Jon said it looks like the lower half of my face is horribly disfigured and I have to cover it when I go in public.  ADDED BONUS.

ready for christmas

The general consensus about this sweater seems to be that it makes me look like Christmas.  Specifically people seem to think that I should be serving baked goods while wearing it.

Of course with my short shorts it's Christmas in Miami cause you know, you only wear sweaters for show down here.  I normally would not be wearing a sweater this early to begin with but fall is already here in the eyes of work so I have to figure out a way to wear things like this in August still.

And if pretending that it's actually December is the way to do it then I will get on board.  Especially because it means I can listen to this:




As if I wasn't already...

i'm amazed at the clarity

There is really no way I could talk my way out of this, the only explanation I can come up with is that I was probably looking at street signs and didn't notice the light had blatantly turned red.

I had grand dreams of having my christmas/birthday money last me well into march but thanks to things like this ticket, or my silly electric bill, I'm almost through it already.

Today will tell if I'll have any left by the new year or not.

Anyways, I hope you all had a lovely holiday.  I caught up with some much needed chores before spending the evening with my neighbor Heather and her family.  It was really nice.  So nice I didn't think about my blog at all so this is the only picture I took all night:

It's that precious angel climbing up the decorative bamboo.  Heather tries to claim that she's bad but I don't see it.  Those were obviously placed there for her to climb up, I don't see what the problem is.

I hope I get to babysit her again.  Unfortunately I am not spending today playing with adorable kittens, I will be spending it at work.  For those of you still on vacation, enjoy.

all I want for christmas is THIS

Thank you Jonathan for sending this to me.