I live for this...

One-third of the way in, I've got fall fever, baby!

Even though I spent way more than I should have at the grocery store, I'm in fall heaven. I did not get a cornocopia, nor did I get cider, so I may not be the BIGGEST autumn enthusiast, but I'm pretty close.

I bought cranberries and green apples for fruits. I bought all kinds of squash - two went for a delicious chowder and the other will be eaten with dinner at my leisure - for vegetables. I think the cranberries are still a bit tart, but hey, so am I. I've moved on to warmer lunches of chili dogs (turkey dogs and veggie chili, but still) and chicken & dumpling soup. I made pumpkin cake with cream cheese frosting. I bought candles that smell like cranberries with orange and mulled cider.

It's a fall fest all the way. Now all I have to do is convince Allison to do some pumpkin carving with me and I'm all set.

It's eight days till my birthday, and I'll be honest, I'm a little freaked about being 25. But that's why I have all of the above, and red wine, yummy red wine (which, by the way, goes great with cranberries).

Oh did I forget to mention, it's the World Series? I live for this (and those awesome commercials)! Go Tigers!

Disappointing endings

If I ever get around to writing a book about relationships ending, the best metaphor might be of an anti-climactic one is the end of tonight's Mets v. Cardinals game.

Seriously, how anyone can live with a game that ends with the bases loaded and two outs and someone (ahem, Carlos Beltran) gets the third and final out on a CALLED STRIKE?! Who loses the pennant race on a called strike? It's horrifically anti-climactic and yet still depressing, again, like a relationship that just slowly fades away... it's no less melodramatic and tragic but still it fades away. Sigh.

Okay, now that I've been my own kind of dramatic, I'm going to make myself a consolation prize brownie and go on with life, secure in the knowledge that the Tigers will beat the Cardinals in the World Series. Ahhh. Enjoy the calm.

Two happy thoughts...

On this weird/miserable/okay day, I have two simply joyous little thoughts:

Could there be anything better in this world than (1) white Russians and (2) The West Wing on a freezing cold evening after working a late shift?

Well, maybe, but I'm still in heaven tonight.

13 Going on 25

Last night was hands-down the best night I've had since Labor Day.

I lived like a 13-year-old girl and it's never been more fun. My Internet friends, who really at this point should just be called friends, invited me over to their house to watch horror flicks. In celebration of Friday the 13th and the fact that Halloween is just over two weeks away, we thought it was appropriate. Well, okay, Allison did, but it was an emotion seconded by me and thirded by her husband. Is thirded a word? Can I add it to the dictionary if not?

More than watching horror movies, we dined like kings on peanut butter cups, popcorn and wine. Who could ask for better horror movie grub?

I probably stayed up later than I have in months but we made it through three movies. In honor of our reason to get together, we watched Friday the 13th Part II first, and I was delighted that my friends were happy to laugh at the movie with me. I'll grant you our comments were no deeper than analyzing how particularly clueless the characters were, but it was great fun nonetheless. We then bantered briefly about the meaning of organic and whether I could write a story on it. Then, we watched perhaps the best named movie ever to be made, Frankenfish. I'll grant you the movie was hilariously bad but it was all that the three of us could have asked for, and I even think a bit character from Batman Begins is in it. I imagine you can guess the plot based on the title, but it's so much more than a flick about a giant man-eating fish, it also touches on such deep subjects as the after-effects of the Vietnam War (thanks to Ricardo), the crazy voodoo lady and her gut feelings and the sport of hunting big fish. We then ended up chatting on the awesomeness of Emergency & I and The Arcade Fire. Then, we watched The Howling, which kind of confused me but that might have been because I was too busy talking about cryptozoology instead of watching the werewolf flick. Still, there were some great scenes, some maulings and of course, tons of nudity. Great times!

So, yeah, all in all, it was a good weekend and now it's time to catch up on reading my goofy political stuff. Yay Barack!

Just a little bit...

I keep getting all these ideas for blogs but when I finally sit down to write, I can't think of anything except all the other things I should be doing. However, since I'm drawing a blank, I'll keep this short and simple.

Basically, I caught up with two Netflix movies in the last few days and wanted to share my opinion with the world:

1) Jersey Girl - you know a romantic comedy isn't good in my book when I start crying because of the Bruce Springsteen song at the end and not because of the movie. As most romantic comedies go, it was all right, and although predictable still fun. Of course, the end scenes happened and sort of groan that that's the end and then this little live song comes on and The Boss starts singing Sha-la-la, and I lost it. I just broke down like the little girl I am. At least my heart is buried in this body somewhere.

2) Born Rich - like both these movies, I should have seen this a long time ago, and in fact have been thinking about it ever since I heard about it at least three years ago. It's awesome. Really if you haven't felt bad for really, really rich people for a long time, this is a movie to make you pity them. I am being mildly facetious but it was an interesting perspective and it does make you sympathize with them to an extent. I mean, Ivanka Trump found out her parents were getting divorced from The New York Post. At least I had the luxury of learning about it in private and sharing it with my friends when I was ready. One of the Johnson (of Johnson and Johnson) learned how rich he was from one of his 5th grade classmates who brought in a Forbes Fortune 500 issue. That would totally mess a kid up. Plus, on some level it is a little interesting to see how much these people don't understand about what is a reality for most people. Finally, the last thing I'll say is this: an overpriced, private school education sure does work; all those kids (most of them my age or younger) had tremendous vocabulary and had an understand of their place and that most people weren't like them, and most of them had even at least tried to hold down a job or find something they liked to do. A couple of them were even a little cute...too bad they don't date outside of their class. Sigh.

Anyway, it's crossword puzzle time! Yessssssss!

Post Script - I used spell check for the first time on this - did you know that Blogger doesn't recognize the word 'blog' as a word? Weird.

Oh no! I'm GWB

It's a rough day when you realize that listening to your gut instinct and intuition make you think you're the Commander in Chief, rather than a sensible person. I'd ask somebody to talk me out of it, but I'm too stubborn.

Welcome to the world of Xinia surrendering to destiny. Take that, free will!

Ferris Bueller, you're my hero

In an effor to make this timely, I feel like i should say something along the lines of: with the recent success of Heroes, the theme of today's blog is about my hero of the week. But that probably just means I've been watching too much daytime television or something.

But seriously, my hero this week is Cindy. She totally picked up my slack.

Because it's short, I'll start with her advice on relationships. She said, "You should never feel bad about loving somebody." Truer words were never spoken and I'm sure it was all the more difficult for Cindy to muster them as she doesn't really have faith in relationships. Still, kudos to her for offering some sage advice.

The second (and larger) reason she's my hero is for her taking me to Bismarck for a procedure. Eh, let's not mince words, I might still be delusional from the anasthesia so I may as well tell the world (like Katie Couric did but on a much smaller scale) that I had a colonoscopy. I recommend the anasthesia, but not the process to getting there.

Real quick: I'm fine, sort of; the results so far are negative.

Anyway, Cindy is my hero because she drove me there and back. But if that wasn't enough the nurses didn't warn me, and therefore not her, that she was going to be in for most of the ride. I got there at 7 a.m., and I was told to undress. Thankfully, Cindy left the room for that, but she did come in once I got my hospital garb on and watched the Today show with me (Matt Lauer used to be cool), and stayed while they started the IV and I almost passed out from saline (yeah, I have a low tolerance). Then, they carted me down to the room for the procedure and Cindy was taken to a waiting room. Once they started me on the anasthesia, I remember nothing. I remember the doctor coming in and I remember the nurse with the cool glasses and the other nurse who wrapped me in warm blankets. Before I knew it, I was back in the other room; the doctor had already told Cindy all my results; and they said I could get dressed. This time I was so dazed that Cindy did stay in there while I dressed to help me stay steady. After I got dressed, she sat with my while I ate one piece of toast and drank some water. I fell asleep while she drove me home and she helped me inside and fed my cats so I wouldn't fall asleep again and leave them locked up. All in all, she was great.

She even made me call later just to let her know that I was doing okay.

It's certainly not an experience I would recommend for anyone, but I was so glad to have someone there with me. Hooray for heroes.