Surely there's a country song for that...

You know, for getting kicked out of a Michael Jackson concert? Greetings peeps, this past weekend's adventures were courtesy of the mile high city, Denver CO.

Which is where one of my college besties (several favorite former Missourians live there, actually) resides. Emily and I flew out for the weekend to see her spanking new condo, celebrate her new found homeownership and party like it was 1999 (or more specifically 2005)

After a long day of pooltime, BBQs and other shenanigans, we went to a wine bar and had TAPAS (yesssssss!)

And then went got some PRETTY SWEET TICKETS.

At the end of the concert and we had been boozing ALL. DAY. LONG. We had smuggled our cameras in via the crotch of Kelly’s gay BFF (love him!!) p.s. they were searching purses for cameras, but we took a cab there, what were we supposed to do with them?. So I decided to take a picture of the venue for, you know, the blog….

And after one not-so-worth-it picture of the speaker in front of me and this dude's head, some large-and-in-charge butch looking lady grabs me by the elbow. And well...

Before I could pepper her with comments like ‘isn’t Portia derossi cute?’ and ‘those bugle boy shorts really make your calves look great’ …. I was outside. It was over before it started. I was making friends outside, but my friends came out to get me anyway (aren't they wonderful?). So I didn't get a picture, and I certainly wasn't wearing my specs (which means that anything over 10 feet away might have 15 noses or none at all, but not like I can see)... but I have it on good authority that the lead singer resembled this...

LUCKILY for … well… everyone involved, there was a fun bar/pizza place next door. I am proud to say I converted a table of people to pineapple pizza. It was my everything.

The morning after all of this ridiculousness, I got a craving for Ceasar salad like you wouldn't believe. I decided I would try to remake me own version this week. I discovered that regular Ceasar dressing has anchovies, but what am I..... Heathcliff? Yuck.

I found an eating well recipe with pureed cottage cheese, garlic, yogurt, parm, white wine vinegar, and worcheseterslekjrelk sauce.

The results? I got to use my cuisinart mini prep.. YAY how i've missed it!

I even took some WW bread and removed almost all of it's healthiness by dousing it with butter/oil/garlic. AND WHOAH WAS IT STRONG. I think I warded off plenty of vampires. It was probably strong enough to repel anyone who has even read twilight.

I had it with shrimpies and ...... meh. I was proud of it. And I ate it happily and cheerfully, but i still would've prefered to get a gooey, crusty (effortless on my part) restaurant salad. Applebee's anyone?

John was coming over later, and I was out of shrimp anyway so I threw together an egg salad salad. I actually learned out to make hard-boiled eggs via the better homes and gardens cookbook method (as opposed to haphazardly boiling them and inadvertently leaving a thousand tiny egg shell pieces all over the kitchen/world) I was proud of myself. Plus I subbed half mayo for yogurt, making myself EXTRA proud.

Then I took a photo montage of a Diane VonFurstenburg dress I got on ebay (slightly damaged) that I LOVED but when I got it in it was an old lady fabric in a WAY brighter color than I thought it would be (in real life it's brightest halloween orange). So I was taking photos to send to the former roomie fashion consultant who lives with her closet far far away in California. So, thoughts?

Happy Thursday friends!

The Rhythm is Gonna Get Cha..

One of my besties came in town last weekend (and brace yourself, another one's coming this weekend) ... and in honor we decided to catch up over a couple bottles of wine. Snacks.... obviously... were in order. Have I discussed Paula Deen's secret VEGAN recipe? The queen of butter and fried things accidentally made something healthy. It had to have been an accident, and what a delicous and healthy one that it was. She has an amazing black bean salsa recipe that includes the following:

• tomatoes
• black beans
• corn
• avocado
• onion
• cilantro
• red wine vinegar
• lime juice

ridiculously easy and heaven on a stick. I make big batches of this and eat it all week long (with fish, with cream cheese as a queso, in quesadillas, tex mex breakfast scramble...the options are endless).

I made a BIG 'ole batch to take to a Hog Roast the next day too. It was hit.. mostly because i was spreading rumors of how good it was. Also I made Zesty Cook's (food blogger extraordinaire) super easy greek dip. It basically included the following:

• cream cheese (like you could go wrong after that)
• feta
• NF plain yogurt
• dill
• tomatoes
• olives
• green onions

it was also supposed to have cucumbers but i forgot to add them to my grocery list..... so..... you know how that goes. Anyway with warm pita bread it was heaven.

Amy grabbed triscuits, some sort of summer sausagy thing and a delicous new kind of herbed cheese that for the life of me i can't remember it's name. This was the kind of gourmet lunchable that pseudo adults like us just LOVE.

Emily made fried green beans. She used some seasoned flour and fried them. With ranch they were SO good.

After mucho catching up and killing a few bottles of wine we got ready (this all went down just after work on friday, necessitating quick snacks and brief wardrobe changes). While we listened to some serious MJ hits and decided to be 'man in the mirror'

Which lead to this....

Which lead to a suggestion (I think emily gets the credit for this).. for pulling out a pair of white knit gloves from an OLD winter stash of warm things. It made it out with us for dance party madness. In recapping the evening the next morning on the phone with my mother she asked what others thought of us. Truthfully...... not sure. We actually just walked to bar area, proceeded to dance out in the open (where there's a DJ but no cover, etc.) and then go home. We actually had little interaction with others (minus friends of ours that were nearby and met up/hung out/dance partied too)

HIL.AR.I.OUS.

Lots of moonwalking happened too... I'm just saying.

Awesome.

Long Live the King

I woke up this morning wishing it was winter so I could ceremoniously wear one glove in memorium. I might've bedazzled it too. I loved that Michael loved bedazzlement. *sigh*

This further makes me vow that we WILL learn the thriller dance this summer. In college my good friend Amanda would ALWAYS lead the crowd/dance floor, knowing every single move. She was amazing. However in desperate need of-but without the guidance of the brilliant Amanda, we instead looked up the thriller youtube video and stopped/started it while we tried to learn it backwards (micheal facing the camera, us facing micheal) over a few bottles of wine. Cut to the next weekend on a dance floor when thriller was played and --not surprisingly -- when 1 1/2 eight counts into the dance when we crashed into one and other we asked the DJ to stop and start it again (he didn't)... it was SO FUN though. Here's to you Micheal, and moonwalking your way into our hearts and group dance aspirations. In other news, I had a FANTASTIC and creative meal planned, I promise. However, game time, one of the star pieces of produce in said meal was peeled and discovered to be BAD. that's right. dead. old news. finito. checked out. swimming with the fishes (okay that one just didn't make sense). gone to Avocado heaven (mexico? could be). Anyway Instead I decided to make an impromptu big 'ole salad based on inspiration from the following article:

Animals on drugs: Australian crop circles created by 'high' wallabies
That's right. Apparently a bunch of wallabies (by the way, what IS the difference between kangaroos and wallabies?) anyway, they got into some poppy fields and got HIGH and spun around a bunch of times until they crashed, ruining crops and causing all kinds of problems for farmers, animal control, and of course causing hilarity.


Then I got to thinking how poppy seed dressing sounded SOOOooo good. I searched my calendar for upcoming drug tests:
But since I'm not a MLB player, have a parole officer, or on Seinfeld, I'm pretty much able to have all the poppy seed I want :)

My Salad was DEE LISH

• Spinach
• Iceberg Lettuce
• Red peppers
• Roma tomatoes
• Carrot shreds
• Cucumber slices
• shelled edamame (YUM)
• PLENTY of poppyseed dressing

For more protein/good measure I had a little cup of lowfat cottage cheese and some fig newtons.


What did I do LAST weekend you ask? Well, John and I saw UP in 3D :) It was AWESOME. Totally adorable story line, and really cool to see things in 3D (check out our cool glasses!)

Also my friend Jessica (the first to have offspring) came into town and I got to have my second date with her completely adorable son. Not surprisingly, this rang no bells, clocks or timers. As much as this kid was trying to crawl away from me most of the time he was there, I was happy to live vicariously through his momma. :)

He IS cute though isn't he?

In other news the CHIRO says I need to have a more active spine at work. Hence forth, My regular spinning chair has been replaced by this guy:

Abs of steel in like ... what... two? three weeks? Too bad I spend most of the day with my elbows on the desk typing/moving hte mouse. I guess it will take more like a month for a six pack then, huh? :)

Hope everyone is has a FABULOUS weekend!