Getting Ready!

So the big day is just 24 hours away! I'm referring to the Super Bowl of course - the big Steelers/Cardinals smack-down. I'm having a couple of friends and my cousin over to watch, and because every party needs a theme I'm serving Pittsburgh-style food. For those of you who may be a bit unfamiliar, here are some links to explain:

First, Primanti's sandwhiches. Basically, you put lots of meat, cheese, cole slaw and french fries on thick slices of bread, wrap it in parchment, then chop it in two with a knife that looks a lot like a machete. Sadly, I don't own a machete. But, the rest of it I can do!

Secondly, pierogies. I think every culture in the world has some sort of dough pocket filled with potatoes and cheese. In Eastern Europe, they're called pierogies. And they are a hometown favorite in Pittsburgh. I'm not going to make my own for tomorrow (I think only Polish grandmothers are actually allowed to make them) but here's a recipe for anyone who's adventurous.

Thirdly, Sarris chocolate-covered pretzels. Okay, okay, Sarris Chocolates is actually located in Canonsburg, PA not Pittsburgh, but its only about 15-20 minutes away on Rt.19. But anyone who loves chocolate and lives in Pittsburgh eats Sarris. Its the law.

Fourth, Iron City beer. Its really terrible - or so I'm told. I don't actually like beer at all, so I can't really tell the difference between good and bad. But Iron City is a must at a Pittsburgh-themed party - although I have a feeling no one is going to drink it!

So, that's my plan. I'm hungry just thinking about it!

Just a little cuteness

I was just fiddling around with my camera and Photoshop software and decided to post these two photos for no particular reason at all! In the first, we can see a joining of some of my favortie things: Fiesta ware, the color red, tea, and cherries. In the second, well, mostly I just posted that for humor sake. Notice how Bailey has strategically positioned himself only PARTIALLY on the towel placed across the back of the couch - as if to mock my attempt at keeping his fur off my white sofa.

Why is it that Photoshop has a function that removes human red-eye from photos, but it does not have a function that removes the dreaded white-eye often found in cat photos??

What a week...

Wow. That's all I can really say about this past week. Its been so jam-packed from start to finish that I haven't had a chance to sit down and blog about all the stuff that happened! The axiom of blogging, I guess.

Anyway, it all started last Sunday when the Steelers won the AFC Championship game and got into the Super Bowl - that I think I may have mentioned! That was followed by a day off from work on Monday - in honor of MLK, Jr. Day. It was the first time in history that my employer decided to recognize MLK Day, so it was kinda weird having a random extra day off. However, due to the Steelers game the day before, I NEEDED the rest! Then on Tuesday, I decided to continue the holiday and stay home for most of the day to watch inauguration coverage. And again - wow. Such a great moment. I have high hopes that we can ride this wave of goodwill for a while to come.

After Tuesday, I admit, my reasons for being so busy were not so lofty. Wednesday: Lost premiere. G came over to watch with me. We had popcorn. Our minds were blown by the end of the 3 hours extravaganza. It was great! I then spent the next two days discussing the premiere in excruciating detail with my co-workers at the museum. On Thursday I came home after work to discover that at long last Netflix had sent me the first disc of The Tudors, Season 2. Guess what I did all thursday night? Yeah, watched the whole first disc. Awesome.

Now, sadly, after my week of one great moment after another I am faced with the incredibly mundane task of doing laundry. I'm procrastinating at the moment, in case you can't tell. Its cold and cloudy outside, and the thought of loading 2 weeks worth of laundry into a basket and hauling out to my car and driving to my laundry-doing site and sitting there with nothing to do for the next 3 hours is not so appealing. How is it that after a week with such amazing history-making events (and I'm talking about Lost, of course) that I can still possibly be expected to do laundry??

Oh well, I guess life goes on...

HERE WE GO!!!

Alltogether now! In my native language - Pittsburghese:

Hur we go!

Hur we go!

Hur we go, Stillers, hur we go!

Picksburg's goin' to a'souper ball!

Translation:

The Pittsburgh Steelers are going to the Super Bowl!!!

Brrrrr....

This is pathetic. You wanna know how cold it is in my house right now? Its so cold that I'm cuddling with my laptop for warmth under a pile of blankets that's gotten so heavy that I can't muster the energy to reach across my coffee table for my camera so that I can download my latest batch of photos. It is record-setting cold here today, so I guess it should be no surprise to me that my house is an icebox, but that's not really very comforting at the moment. Bailey and Pepper refuse to share the cable box with me (despite the fact that I let them share my electric blanket last night - hmph) so I guess I'm just going to have to resign myself to the fact that I might be crushed under the weight of all these blankets. Its really my only option.

On the bright side, I think this cold snap has settled a raging debate that I've been having with myself lately. For weeks I had been torturing myself over whether or not I should attempt to go to the inauguration on Tuesday. I don't live too terribly far from DC, so it wouldn't require a plane ticket or a hotel reservation, but it would require squeezing myself into the subway with WAY more people than it was ever designed to hold, braving security lines that might stretch for miles, and dealing without bathroom facilities for a minimum of 7 hours. Needless to say, none of my friends or family members were even entertaining the notion of going, and indeed every major news outlet in this area has pretty much decided already that the crush of people about to descend on DC is going to result in a catastrophe of massive proportions. But....Its historic!! This might be the biggest moment in history that I'll ever have the chance to witness. How do you explain to your grandkids that, yeah, I could have gone to see Obama take office, but it was crowded and cold that day... Well, with the announcement this week that the last form of public transportation that I could have possibly used to get into DC had finally sold out of tickets, I was relieved - whew! decision taken out of my hands! No way I can go now! Well, then my sister asked me to go with her and my nephew to the big welcome concert at the Lincoln Memorial on Sunday. Oh geez - a whole new raging debate! Its going to be a huge event - 500,000 people, Bruce Springsteen, U2, Beyonce, readings by Denzel Washington and Maya Angelou, and an appearance by the President-Elect himself. How awesome would that be? Unfortunately, the same set of problems that go along with the inauguration go along with the concert, with the added bonus of it being even COLDER on Sunday. Aaauuggghhh! The torture! Why am I so indecisive?!?!?! Well, I think the suffering I'm going throught right now in this cold while INSIDE my house has made my decision for me.

HBO's showing the concert for free anyway...

So Much Great Stuff!

The last few days of my usually fairly boring life have been packed with some pretty awesome things, and I just had to post a report. First of all, the nicely Photshopped pic above is of my BRAND NEW CELL PHONE!! Now, to most people getting a new cell phone is not all that incredible - for some people, getting a new cell phone is practically a weekly occurance. But for me, being the technologically challenged person that I am, a new cell phone is a rare thing. This is only the 3rd one I've owned, and it is by far the fancy-schmanciest! Its an LG Shine, and so far I love it. Of course, I'm still carrying around the owner's manual in my purse (which, dear God, is heftier than some of my grad school text books!) because nearly every day I come across some new function I can't figure out, but otherwise its all good!

So, the new phone arrived on Friday. Saturday I headed off to a good old-fashioned girls-only sleepover birthday party, complete with an '80's soundtrack and tons of junk food. It was awesome! And I did take some pictures of the event with my new cell phone camera, but as I haven't figured out how to download them to the laptop yet, they are not posted here.

Then, Sunday arrived. And those of you who know me well know why I was such a happy camper on Sunday. My wonderful Steelers beat the San Diego Chargers to advance to the AFC Championship game next weekend. Well, actually, they didn't just BEAT the Chargers - they CREAMED the Chargers! It was great. My cousin Beth came over to watch the game with me - we seem to be the only Steelers fans in the area, so it was a small cheering section, but we made up for it with noise.

Sadly, Monday was just back to work, and nothing special there, but the weekend more than made up for it. Only 4 more days to go 'til the next weekend!

I Would Like to Thank...

Well, my tree is down and carted out to the curb (many thanks to G for allowing me to borrow her curb!), all of my colonial-themed caroling dolls are packed up and shoved back in the attic, and I finally ate the last of my holiday chex mix. Hmph. Christmas is really over, isn't it?

Since the holiday season is more than a week behind us at this point, I have to turn my attention to a very important task (well, in all honesty, I probably should have done it several days ago - I'm running afoul of Emily Post!) - writing thank you notes. Even though I am terrible at thinking up things to say in thank you notes, I love getting out cute stationary to use. Above is a selection of the cards I've chosen for this year - Mary Engelbreit. So, that's tonight's project.

On another note, you'll notice I've added a couple of "gadgets" to my blog. Clearly, more of my friends need to start blogs! Under the Apropos section (which I have more to add to, I just haven't tracked down the links yet) I've posted a link to ExhibiTricks, which is a cool blog belonging to a guy who works for a museum exhibition design firm. He has all kinds of great ideas for museums on a budget - something I know all to well.

Oh yeah - and just for Miss Bess: I've posted yet another bad cat picture - enjoy!

A New Era has Dawned...

I could say that this photo was intentional, and that I really was trying to get a shot of Phil's fish enjoying the New Year's Eve festivities at the annual Mark party, but I'm trying to be honest in the new year. I honestly have no idea what happened here...

Another great thing about having a digital camera is that now I can take even more photos of my cats. This is Pepper - she's sleeping on my cable box. Apparently its unbelievably comfy.

This is the first picture taken with the new CyberShot. Its my sister and brother-in-law's tree. My brother-in-law tried to tell me that the tree was not, in fact, listing to the left. You be the judge.

Guess what I got for Christmas?!?!?!? As you no doubt can guess, after perusing the, ahem, lovely images above, I GOT A DIGITAL CAMERA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Yes, that's right - readers of this blog will now be subjected to my horrible photography skills on a REGULAR basis, instead of just whenever I can smuggle the museum's camera out for the weekend. These photos are just testers - I was just trying out the bells and whistles on the Sony CyberShot (which, thankfully, there are not many of!). I'm sure once I start taking photos with more frequency, they will improve. However, if they do not, I have a back up plan! My sister and her family gave me Photoshop for Christmas, and I am a Photoshop fiend - I love it, and I waste endless hours at work (where we have the deluxe professional designer software) creating useless stuff with it. So, once I figure out how to get it loaded onto my laptop (Vista is being a pain in the you-know-what at the moment) my images will forever be beautiful and perfect, I'm sure!