Jamaican Me Cray

At the beginning of the year, Matthew asked me where we should go for the next three day weekend.
Around the same time, Mom requested to be invited to the next trip out of the country so she could get a passport stamp.

As Matthew's luck would have it, the next three day weekend and next trip out of the country happened to fall on Valentine's Day Weekend.
Pretty sure this is how sitcoms get written.

Also, remember that one time I lost my passport in Amsterdam?....well, this trip put me under the gun to get my emergency issued temporary passport renewed in time for our 2/14 departure.  Of course, being me, I'd put it off thinking it didn't expire until the end of February.....so imagine the look on my face when, on 1/27, I finally looked at my temporary passport and noticed the 2/14 expiration date.  By about noon, I'd had all my paperwork filled out and new picture taken and everything off to be overnighted to a Philly address on a hope and a prayer.  The paperwork all said that the expedited process would take 2-3 weeks. It showed up in my mailbox a week later.
The sense of relief that washed over me as I opened the envelope that day was indeed a glorious one.

The idea of Matt going alone with my mother for a long weekend in what ended up being Negril, Jamaica provided about an hour's worth of jokes and laughter with Pannacakes.  Good thing I didn't tell her about it until after the passport arrived.

Before we'd booked the trip, I'd done some research on Jamaica vs DR and knew we'd be good for an all-inclusive. Most of the articles found pointed towards Jamaica and then after reading some resort reviews, we determined that Negril was the place to go and the RIU Tropical Palace was the place to stay (mainly because it wasn't already sold out).

The trip looked a little like this:


We got some nice sunburns.
We drank a lot of rum, pina coladas, mimosas, Red Stripes.
We ate some really nice curries and jerks. (heh)
We met some really nice people.
We steered clear of some slightly questionable things and we didn't drink the water.

Jamaica was fantastic and I wouldn't be upset if we had to go back.
With more friends.
Mom's invited again, too, although she was makin' some noise about Costa Rica for Christmas.

2013 Highlighting the Ups

Matthew and I were at dinner the other night talking & getting excited about what we want to do in 2014 and discussing how we thought 2013 went.
Apparently, I had my cranky pants on because I said it was an "OK" year and he said it was "pretty fuckin' awesome".
I've realized since then that unfortunately, and for some stupid reason, my noggin was choosing to highlight some of the more awkward 2013 moments instead of all the seriously amazing things that happened.

The more I thought about it, the more I wanted to write out the rundown of awesome (and skipping over all the not-so-awesome), not to be a douche braggart, but to further reinforce those in my head instead of those less than optimal and maybe it'll help you do the same. I've seen your facebook posts about how crappy the year was and/or how you're ready for 2013 to be over and it's ok if sometimes we need reminders to clear our perspectives.

January was again full of drunken shenanigans at the Scottish Highland Games.  I dove head first into renovating the Dollhouse of Horrors and started building out stage pieces for the Bloody Jug Band...some by request, others not so much. We also saw Charlie Murphy down at the Improv.

February was more Dollhouse of Horrors work and a trip to Helen, GA.  We also went to see Muse at Amway Center and I cried a little bit at how amazing their show was.

In March, we saw the Dropkick Murphys again, I puppeteered for the Bloody Jug Band's video for "Roadkill Boys".  This was also the month we did Whole30 for the first time and I submitted my last photo for the 12month long Inspired class I'd signed up for in January.
Yep...I totally fell out of it for the rest of the year because of shiny new things and being inspired elsewhere.  But I'm glad I went out with a bang.

April started with a trip to see The Marvelous Mehegans up in Corning, NY.  I took a banjo lesson, we finally ate at Cask & Larder and Ravenous Pig, saw Tony Bourdain at Hard Rock, and visited Disney. This is also when I started thinking about a miniatures.com contest entry.

May was, of course, insane with a Mother's Day pool party that got way more rowdy than what was intended, a concert poster design class on Skillshare, a couple of BJB shows, and was capped off by a trip to New Orleans, LA for my & Pannacakes' birthdays.

June included a Glassman show at Peacock that was pretty killer, a visit with Vaughn & Jen to pick up one of my favorite purchases of the year (Betty & Veronica pictured below), jury duty selections for George Zimmerman, and was also when I received my walking papers from the company I'd worked for over the previous 12 years.

July started off with new hair to celebrate my corporate departure, a crazy 3rd of July party at Pannacakes', followed by a rained out pool party at the Merriam's for the 4th, a Khal Drogo costume for Matthew, the 8th Annual Summer Bomb, a couple of visits to DRIP, and Marilyn Manson at Hard Rock.

August had a The Cult show at HOB, another couple of BJB shows, a trip to Busch Gardens followed by a viewing of Blackfish, a Danny Leggett show, Cedric's surprise birthday party, a drunk monologues shoot (shut up, I'll get to that later), and a trip to Ocala to see April and her fam.  Made a fake movie poster for a friend's birthday and finished up a painting for Cedric & Michelle's anniversary.

September we rocked our own logo for a Labor Day weekend pub crawl, went and saw Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeroes at Hard Rock and then went to see them again during the Gentlemen of the Road festival weekend where we also saw Mumford & Sons and stayed at a dumpy St. Aug beach hotel.  And we attended a lovely DIY wedding.

In October we went to see Terribly Odd's Haunted Mansion inspired show, Ghost at Amway Center where they shook my pants and hair, I made a mermaid costume, had the best weekend at Spooky Empire where I finally met Tom Savini, hugged Bill Moseley & Ve Neill, told Glenn Hetrick that I'd be his huckleberry, fingered Kane Hodder's left gloved hand during a photobomb, and sang "Goodbye Horses" to Jason Mewes. We finished off October in Austin, TX to celebrate my & Matthew's wedding anniversary and dress up like the 11th Doctor and a Reptilian Shapeshifter for Halloween, and met up with The Krutikovs for some kick ass high-end mexican food with the first best mescal drink I've ever put down my neck followed by the best burlesesque show I've ever seen.

November I made a sideshow freak light-up sign out of an old guitar case & built out two rickety crate shelves for the Jugly Art show at Peacock and then Matthew & I left to spend a week in Amsterdam for his birthday where I lost my passport.  If you ever lose your passport in another country...hope you're in Amsterdam.  They were so nice and the whole process was a lot smoother than expected. We also met some great & crazy party people and Matthew gave up a Heisenberg shirt to a loud Scotsman. We spent Thanksgiving in Arizona with Matt's family during which we had a lovely evening strolling through the botanical gardens looking at giant lit up Chihuly glass sculptures in awe.

And so here we are at the tail end of December and I've submitted my Evil Dead Cabin to the miniatures.com contest before deadline and am making a Gatsby-style dress for New Year's Eve. We had a crazy drunken Pannacakes party, and a silly family presents exchange day that included Cards Against Humanity and boxing robots. We spent Christmas in San Francisco where we saw Brian Setzer Orchestra on Christmas Eve, Matthew got his first proper straight razor shave, dim sum in Chinatown, lobster bisque & crab salad at Pier 39, and we ate some pretty awesome food at some pretty awesome hotel restaurants and had The Best gin & tonic either one of us had ever had and the second best mescal drink I've ever put down my neck.

And peppered in throughout the year we were bombarded with Harlem Shakes, BatDad Vines, Breaking Bad, Red Weddings, Doctor Who, A Fox That Says Things, Goat remixes, Miley Cyrus' tongue, Blurred Lines, Twerking, Grumpy Cat & Li'l Bub, and an Astronaut Singing Space Oddity on the freakin' Space Station.

This year, like all other's before it, has included lots of ups and downs and were it not for the downs...how would you know just how up the ups are?
Plus, you'd probably be an insufferable asshole.

Even if you're a generally positive person like me, and incredibly lucky with a shit ton of ups, there are times that the Veil of Crap can fall down over your eyes to muddy your vision.
I am SO grateful for how up my ups were this year and I appreciate having those downs when they came along....but there's No. Possible. Reason. a down should ever overshadow an up....so remember to not let them, ok?

Thank you, Matthew for reminding me of that & helping to remove my Crap Veil.
You're absolutely right....2013 was pretty fuckin' awesome.

Cheers, everyone, to 2014!!  May your ups be fuckin' killer and your downs be valuable lessons to overcome.

That One Time I Forgot To Share The NOLA Video

Pannacakes and I went to NOLA for our birthdays earlier this year.
Matthew met us there after a work trip in Austin.
Here's what that mess looked like:

Ireland - Dublin, to be specific

Fuckin' Friday!!

I was traveling for work earlier this week and found myself sitting outside the office of a rowdy boss-type fella.  Here are a few snippets I joyfully overheard that made me feel comfy in new surroundings:

Him: No, its NOT a great day.  Its a fuckin' Tuesday and I'm in fuckin' New York when I could be home in Connecticut.

Him: No one wants to hear your fuckin' whining.  I have my own fuckin' whining to do.

Him to me: Excuse me.  Are you planning on getting a lot done today?

Me: No.

Him:  Good.  We're going to be stirrin' things up.  It'll probably get out of hand.

Me: You're comforting me, actually.

Him: Do you come from a miserable troubled childhood?

Me laughing: Yeah, something like that.

Him singing:  Its a long way to Tipperary.  Does it bother you guys when I sing?

Dudes in his office:  Not yet.

Him: Good, cuz I was gonna tell you to go fuck yourselves.

He's got a really nice singing voice.  Reminds me of my father-in-law.

1000 Places To See

My mom got us this book a few years back.

I just went through it the other day with a highlighter and a pen and marked all the ones we've been to already.
Out of 1000.....I'm going to say maybe 970 entries are actual places.  The remaining are "local eateries" or "art scene" or "music scene" or "romantic hotels" type entries that cover a handful of places.
Out of those 970, I have about 70 of those highlighted as places we've been to.  Either one or the other or both of us.

Region not even touched: Great Plains
All the other regions are pretty evenly spread with us living in the southeast and traveling up the east coast pretty frequently.  Also, with the inlaws in the mid & southwest.  Recent trips to Alaska and Hawaii kinda round things out, too.

I also think we need one that covers the world....not just the States and Canadia.

Which reminds me.....
Also a few years ago, I bought a wall sized map so we could pin it with our adventures/places we've been to.
Matt's parents have one that I've always loved looking at and I wanted to do one just for us.
So I have the map, but still need to find a big cork board to mount it on and start pinning.
Sounds like a good weekend project, no?

We Went To Hawaii Pt. 2.

After our stargazing at LAX, we received umbrella drinks when we got to our seats on the plane.
Matthew took a nap.
I caught up on Justified season 2.

At the Honolulu airport, I was smacked in the face by a flowery smell that reminded me of when I was 10 on a family hawaii trip.  It was a flower that was in the leis that folks were being welcomed with.
I kept walking behind them with my nose in the air huffing their flowers.
If you can tell me what this is, I'll find one to plant at home so I can huff it all the time.  I think its a jasmine or something.

Want.

We got the Jeep rental with a peppering of bickering while trying to map our destination, but we met up with our Party at this place to pick up some grub to make us less cranky.

Once back at the accommodations, we poked around the house, made up our beds, vowed to not turn on the tv during our stay, cracked open some brews, and munched on our take out foods.

I believe shortly after that, we sat on the back porch listening to the breeze & finished our beers before we called it a night.

The next morning, we woke up to coffee and this view:

After bagels and some general milling about, the boys decided it was time to go to Sandy's for some skimming & sunning.

 Me & Steph (look how white I am.)

 Flags mark the 'dangerous shore breaks'

 Random hot guy.

Random hot guy's dog.

 Chad.

 Exploring the lava rocks & tidal pools.

 Difficult to see, but there's a sea urchin hiding in there.

 Bob.

 Chad.

 Lifeguard talking to a random film crew.

Random actors being filmed.

We all discussed our theories on what they were shooting.

I believe we settled on 'Brazilian Porn'.

After we hung out there for a bit, we headed back to the house to chill by the pool & hot tub.

There were some fishing poles in the Fun Shed and I tried my luck sittin' on the dock of the bay.

The girls came down to join me and while we were chatting, a giant puffer fish swam up & was trollin' the nearby rocks.

For sunset, we drove out to this place with a bag full of beer and hung out.

 The Sunset Party.

Here's what my first-day-of-vacation sunburn looked like at the end of the day.

Wasn't even the worst burn I've ever had but it sure did get a lot of attention over the course of the following days.  Apparently people don't ever see sunburns anymore.  Certainly not in Hawaii.  Buncha friggin' weirdos.

Don't fret, pets - I'm completely white again.

We finished off the day with cocktails and 90s Trivial Pursuit.

Girls vs Guys...and the guys won.  Cuz they're older than us.

TT - Bedspread Jesus

Every year, when we go to Green Bay, WI for my mother-in-law's birthday Packer game, we stay at this place.
I think almost every room has a different bedspread in it.
This year, we noticed our motel room bedspread had these little Jesus faces all over it.

Happy December 1st!

WTH Weds - Key West Faves

Here are some of my favorite pics from Matthew's birthday trip: