Pre-Oscars Preparations

LaBev and I will be traveling to LaLa Land* to enjoy the pomp and circumstance of the Academy Awards... well, at least the hoopla behind the Kodak Theater. Yes, that's right, we'll be live from the alley behind the Oscars, right there between the dumpster and the passed out drunk in the SpongeBob costume. HUZZAH!

And just like the stars who will be using the front entrance, Bev and I are feverishly preparing to get glammed up! But unlike our starlet counterparts we haven't starved ourselves for the past two months we have to actually schlep through the mall to find clothing. Sadly, no designers have come knocking at our door, begging us to wear their clothes for free. Harry Winston, are you reading this?

Of course, it all starts with finding the perfect dress.

...which sadly, we didn't.

But at least we have the perfect footwear.
Classy, no?

Maybe we should focus on the accessories...

Do these make me look smaahhhhtttt?

A bird on the head is worth.... ummm... $3.99, according to Claire's.

OWLS!!! What does it mean?!?!

l'élastique rend parfait, non?

after eating a carb-filled lunch hours of shopping, Bev and I were exhausted and we got, perhaps, a little lazy in our quest for the perfect Oscar outfit.

I'm the second from the left... in case you didn't know.

Bev tires of taking her clothes off and finds an easier way to try on outfits.

In the end, we were asked to leave by mall management unsuccessful in our search for our red carpet back alley outfits.

So as it stands, Bev and I will be wearing sweats.

...unless we can borrow the Spongebob costume.

*barring any emergency surgeries or something.

Brazilians and Bobby D

Bev and I blew off all our adulty duties yesterday and headed to our favorite sweat shop nail salon for a little blog fodder pampering.
First we enjoyed relaxing pedicures. OK, I enjoyed a relaxing pedicure. Bev hurriedly did her homework for our writing class.

Why the rush? We had all of 5 hours before it was due.

The last time we visited this nail salon, they tortured us by forcing us to watch a Tyler Perry movie. And once it was over (Thank Gawd!), they started it over again. Of course, we could have just simply not watched it, but holy hell, they have 12 large LCD screens posted all over the joint. Besides, moving images on flat screens.... moths to a flame. Even if it's a total pile of suckage, Bev and I are watching it.

So we were not surprised to be entertained by yet another sucky, sappy film, Dear John, but were relieved to notice it was at it's sucky, sappy conclusion. Yay.

But as we were moving on to our manicures, they fired up Everyone's Fine. What has happened to Bobby D's career? Sigh

A quarter of the way through the film, Bev excused herself to the broom closet back room to be violated for her appointment with some hot wax.

Meanwhile, I had no choice but to allow my nails to dry and watch the movie. It was too late to stop. I was committed to see how this piece of poo ends. I then noticed one of the salon employees busting out his own portable DVD player. WTH? Even they hate this crap, and yet they make us watch it!

As he sat across the salon, enjoying his own film, he continuously kept turning down the volume of the movie showing on the big screens. Soon, I found myself leaning closer to the screens, practicing my lip-reading abilities, while he tinny little DVD player was turned up louder and louder.

And then suddenly it happened. The sound of an obvious porn flick filled the salon. YES! YES! YES! OHHHH OHHH OHHHHH! YEAH! YEAH! YEAH!.

I spun to face the ladies sitting next to me, also getting their nails done. Not a single reaction. I turned to the little Asian guy with his DVD player sitting on his lap, smiling.

OHHHHHHHHH!!! OHHHHHHHHHHH! OWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!

Did I take a crazy pill? Was I the only one hearing this? WTH!!!! Why is Bev missing this?! Where the hell is Bev?

Oddly enough, as it sounded like the scene was, *cough* coming to a conclusion, he finally turned the volume down.

I can't believe Bev was missing this.

Getting back to the cheesy Deniro film, which despite it's craptastic-ness, still made me cry (damnit!), I began to increasingly get worried that the film would never end about Bev.

But as soon as the credits rolled, Bev reappeared from the broom closet back room, a bit red in the face and muttering something about getting to the car NOW.

And dare say, she looked much younger.... I mean, much, MUCH younger. No, really, I mean, decades younger. So I hear. (yeah, you're going to want to click on that.)

Wine and Wabbits

Cheers to a fabulous weekend!

Friday I had my dog publicly humiliated by dropping him off at the groomers for a full body buzz cut. When I arrived to pick him up, he walked out like a doomed dog.

"Oh Benji (uncontrollably laughing), you look so good."
"Shut up, Mala! Just get me to the car."
"But Benji, it's adora...."
"Car! Now! I don't want to talk about it. Oh, and sleep with one eye open, lady!"

And to add insult to injury, the groomer topped him off with a pink bow.
Before

And while Benji plotted my death sulked, I dumped him and the kids on Joe and hit the town with La Bev.

Bev and I enjoyed a deee-lish Italian dinner at a BYOW (bring your own wine - and we did!) restaurant.

Shortly after we arrived, the french-Canadian version of Betty White walked through the door. Bev and I did a double take and laughed uncontrollably. We lovingly renamed her Betty Blanche, and stealthy tried taking a picture of her, you know, to share with all of you.

Because we love you like that.

See, the queens of the sly! But damn my zoom-less camera phone! But take our word for it, she looked just like BETTY WHITE!... only Canadian.

No? Here, look through this wine glass.... see?

Moving on....

After licking our plates clean finishing our delightful meal, we each paid the bill...

* cue: sound of scratching record*

Yes, we each handed over our credit cards and therefore paying the bill twice! Sadly, we were too busy drinking wine giggling to realize this until the next morning when I woke up to realize our two entrees ( remember, we brought our own wine.) cost us about $90. It was good, but not $90 good!

So why don't we simply call the restaurant and straighten out the little snafu? Welllllllll, we kinda couldn't pass up the opportunity to fill out the comment card... and immediately flee- giggling at our own awesome-ness.

Awesome Fail!

Next we hit the movie theater to enjoy Hot Tub Time Machine. It was good and it didn't require any deep-thinking... so, it was good.
But because we started our evening rather early, the movie was done by 8:30pm. Yeah, way too early to call it a night! So I introduced Bev to an old hobby of mine from back in my broke college days; movie hopping. We decided to take in a double feature of mindless comedy, and followed HTTM with She's Out of my League.
We had some time before our second feature so we grabbed some popcorn and sat in on 10 minutes of The Crazies. Yeah, 10 minutes was about 11 minutes too much.

Fast forward to Easter.

The kids enjoyed our annual egg hunt. Beck's special friend, and former orphanage homegirl, Aidai came over for the festivities as well. It was wonderful seeing these two together again... a half a world away from where they started.
Ready, set, HUNT!




Benji had a little run-in with the Easter Bunny... oh when does the humiliation end!?

After all the Easter festivities, my Mom and I took a relaxing trail ride.

A perfect ending to a perfect weekend.

Hope you had a wonderful weekend too.

Oh How the Vino Flows

Monday again, eh? Fabulous. How was your weekend? Mine was great... so I hear.

Saturday night I hosted a soiree with La Bev + family and introduced them to another family that we knew The Bevs would really like. When their first conversation was about poo, we knew we had a match made in heaven.

We tossed the 6 kids some pizza, sugary juice boxes and a face painting kit and hardly heard from the wild banshees again for a solid 5 hours while they destroyed my house. I'm sure the feeling of blissful freedom was mutual.

In a related story, I'm now an unemployed wino wine consultant. Sadly, my distributor abruptly closed shop... which leaves me with cases of wines. I know, so sad, right? Thank goodness I have good friends to help me remedy such a situation.

And remedy it, we did.

But never to be a hostess who runs out of anything, I lost my mind also picked up a box (gasp!)of wine... you know, just in case.

Two things I don't want my guests leaving with; empty stomachs and my good silver their sobriety. Let's just say, I succeed on both accounts.

In fact, sadly, it took me almost an hour to notice our dear friend E had slipped into a catatonic state in the kitchen.

What? I was busy rockin' out on the Guitar Hero.

But like all good things, the party came to an end around 1am when we all tried scrubbing our children clean (face paint + unsupervised children = FAIL). I fell asleep to the sounds of Joe scrubbing colorful little fingerprints off the walls.

Five hours later I woke up to the dreaded Carton Du Vin headache and the recollection of promising a friend we'd go horseback riding in the morning. I dragged myself out to the barn to feed the horses and get ready to ride. I'm not sure I've ever vomited on a horse, so I pleaded with Storm that I wouldn't yack on him if he'd just go all cruise control for me... oh and don't let me fall off. Deal.

Of course, I probably could have cancelled, but that's so not like me.

Luckily, the crisp fresh air and a healthy dose of Tylenol seemed to do the trick and I had a fabulous ride.

And no yacking.

Weekend of Water and Wind (But No Trees)

Good morning! OK, not good. At least not here at the casa de Mala... My washing machine bit the dust last night (why, oh why, did I wait until I only had sweatpants left to do laundry!?). Oh, and did I mention that the warranty just ran out like 25 minutes before it gave up the ghost? On an amazingly unrelated note, while the washing machine tried relieving itself of the last of it's water, the pipe to the leach field failed, sending all that water to my basement floor. Good times.

Thank goodness I had a fabulous weekend, because so far, this week sucks! And it's only 9:30am on Monday.


Saturday night we enjoyed a wonderful evening at La Bev's and let me tell you, she made a Chicken Tikki Masala that was out of this world! SO YUMMY. We stuffed ourselves silly until we could do nothing but lounge on the couch, bloated and happy, and watch the most mindless movie ever.



By Sunday, I could button my pants again felt refreshed and much lighter. No, really, MUCH lighter. Like floating on air lighter.






Thank you to my Mom and Tim, who treated me to a session of indoor skydiving. It was a blast! And best of all I didn't break my neck! Yay!



Well, that's all I got. I need to go and bail some more water. Jealous?

Ma Vie En Jam-Jams

Happy 2010!

I officially dub this year, "The Year of the Slack" and thus far, I have been ROCKING it!

Yeah, yeah, I know we're only on day 3 or 4 ( <---- see! SLACKER! Sure, I could hunt down a calendar, but that would require getting up. Pshhhhh!), but so far I've spent most of it cozy and warm in my PJs! But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Let me rewind, back to a time in which I was showered AND dressed.

The good times started a day or so (it's a blur now) before New Years when I took Morgan to go get her hair did for the big night. She decided to have her hair dyed hot pink. And since we have no dance recitals, weddings, graduations or funerals planned in the next few months I figured 'what the heck'. She's totally rocking the pink! And if I hadn't taken a vow of slackerhood, I'd have a picture of the finished product. So you'll have to take my word that it's super cute.

Next, it was my turn in the stylist's chair. But by then, sadly, my attention span had split with my motivation and I gave the new hair dresser carte blanc to do whatever she wanted. Yeah, you know that was a mistake. The good news is she didn't go hot pink, the bad news is I should have said something like, "give me a soccer mom haircut and I'll cut a bitch."
Lesson learned.

The following day, Morgan and I met the Bev for lunch and a visit to the nail salon. How embarrassed was Bev when she didn't get my text that it was "National Dress Like a Terrorist Day"?! Unfortunately it was so cold in the nail salon that I couldn't bare to take off my jacket and show off the package of brats I had strapped to my chest to complete the look. Shame.

Sadly, the only one who took notice of all the electric wires attached to me we're the poor abused gold(???) fish. One of them played dead (French Gold Fish?) while the other seemed elated that his life in the nasty algae-ridden tank would soon come to an end.

Bev came up with the brilliant idea to make her annual New Year's soiree a pajama party. Genius! Bev and I have partied in the new year every year together for at least a decade. And as always, good times were plentiful. Here's a few pictures I may or may not remember taking.

Then we went home and remained in our PJs for the next 2 days.
And it was awesome.

Foto Flashin' Friday

Morgan meets Aerosmith frontman, Steve TylerAnd they have a moment.

Beck of the Bubbles

Times Square... feels like I was just here.

Joe & Beck at the site of the World Trade Towers

Must be this tall to ride this attraction

Atlas statue that used to sit in the World Trade Center plaza, found months later under all the debris

Bushkill Falls

Feeding the Canadian Geese (AKA pissing off the locals)

Tubing with Bev

Chillin': Bev and Mala style

There you go. The laziest post ever.