OH Holy Crap...

The holidays are here. I have something every fucking weekend in December thanks to little baby Jesus.

I hate it when everyone you know HAS to throw a holiday party. Don't they all realize that they ALLLLLLL want to have a holiday party? I got 4 invitations before NOVEMBER had even really been in full swing. The best part? I am being FORCED to throw one myself. Yes. Forced. Because apparently, the torture of going to other peoples parties wasn't enough this year. Because my house is done. Because in some way - people like me enough to want to be at MY house no matter how hard I try to get people to hate me. Consider me like one of those lovable old hermit people, that people try to get to the heart of but the hermit person doesn't want to be loved even though they are lovable. And at Christmas they are the reason for some after school special Xmas miracle. Yeah, that's me.

There will be a shit load of people here at my house because everyone wants to see the remodel and they know that I will not invite them any other time. So I was TOLD I was to throw a party. The date was picked and it was relayed to me. As in "This is the day that we will be showing up at your house for said party. Make sure you bathe the night before."

Fuckin' A. With friends like that who needs enemies? No invites, just INVASIONS. So now I have to clean my house. Make a dinner menu, smile, make small talk, pretend I am not poisoning everyone and wait for the iocane powder to kick in. Yes, I got it from the Sicilian before he was tricked by the Dread Pirate Roberts. (OK- let's see who gets THAT reference......I doubt my UK friends will.)

Side note: When in London, we went with some friends to a "trivia competition" in a bar where everyone was put into teams. A sound bite from this movie (see above reference) was used as a questions and only the Americans knew it. Like, instantly. Without more than a second of the sound bite. Then we all completed the sound bite, because we knew EVERY word and then some. In the competition there were about 40 people total, including about 10 Americans. People - do you realize there are folks in the world who have lived their lives without knowing or cherishing this movie?!!! Seems like a hollow existence. Really.

I digress.

Happy Fuckin' Xmas.

You may kiss the bride.

By the power vested in me by the internet, I married two people this weekend. They are now husband and wife because of the magical shizz that is the internet ordination.

The internet fucking rocks.

Also, I had an AWESOME hair day on the wedding day. I am actually gonna have some decent pictures from this wedding. Being a woman of the Internet-God gets you good hair days. I should have become a reverend YEARS ago. Like in 3rd grade. Fuckin' A.

my day today.

Had a nice, pleasant, concerned, stressed out, freaked out, totally panicked text from my cousin this morning at 6 AM asking "What happened?!!!! R U guys oks?!"

Uh, yeah. Just sitting here drinking my coffee. So I quickly, before responding to her, jump online to see what the hell she is talking about. Did we sleep through an earthquake? Are the fires back? Wait! Mud slides, there must be mudslides! No, TSUNAMI! Shit! We're all gonna die! Put the floaties on the dogs!

I rapidly check the NY Times and CNN and Yahoo and any other of my go-to sites. Nuthin.

So I call her back and ask her what happened that called for her to text me in a panic. Her concern? She heard we got robbed. Yes, we did- and it was terrible. A MONTH AGO.

Seems my mom and my uncle spoke yesterday and in my mother's fabulously kookie way she proceeded to describe a minor break in that occured over 30 days ago as a major home invasion, complete with hostages, a crime chase and a ransom.

Old people. They have such imaginations.

Then, if that wasn't eventful enough... the King of Annaland had some issues at work, very minor. But I had to do some leg work for him. So I spent my morning on the phone with the US Department of Justice and the FBI. They say "hi" to you all. Yeah, they are nice.

So how was YOUR morning?

our carbon footprint

I am, like, TOTALLY excited about this new website they unveiled yesterday. I am a bit too granola for my friends and happily my husband has allowed me to be as radical as I want regarding it since he has some sense of a conscience, so watching our carbon footprint has been a big deal in our household. Even down to riding our bikes for groceries. So having this website allows us to look at not only those companies that are the worst in their carbon emissions, but those that are quite green.

Yippee for technology.

There are some who will want to type here that global warming does not exist. Fine. Not here to debate. But doesn't it just make sense to reuse and not waste as much as possible? Sheesh.

Anyway - I am off to make sure everything in my house is unplugged and that the whales are saved, that trade is made fair and that Brad and Angelina adopt another baby from a 3rd world. I got a lot of world saving to do today - so I must run.

Did you know that folks in the UK eat monkey balls?

They do. At least, I think they do. They MADE me do it too. I was frightened at first. Like many, at all things culinarily British. But then, I decided to act like the natives and indulge in the little tid bit of taste. Good, they were. Tasty, they are. Like Yoda sounding I am.

I can assume they were actually lychee nuts, or a version there of.. but Badgerdaddy had the true balls to grab them off the conveyor belt of food that we feasted on and plop them in front of us. They were tasty. Actually, this image makes it look like we had some sort of round egg, but I can assure you they were actually the balls of monkeys.

I also ate other things while in London. Here is my culinary diary:

This was the best-ever-tasted-like-heaven-in-my-mouth-probably-going-clog-my-arteries chicken and mushroom pie. It was accompanied by a Strong Bow, because I don't like beer, but I will suck down a cider with a nipple if I could.

Then there was the Indian food.

So yummy. Made my burps foul as foul can be. My husband actually yelled at me because he could no longer take the stench of regurgitated curry. Wonder why - it was soooo tasty the first time. Hmmm.

Then there was the site seeing, which I was forced to do by myself because the old ball and chain had to work the whole time. Bummer for him. Was OK since I had been to London before. Made me look like I new what I was doing. Which is rare.

Met with Badgerdaddy, as I have already eluded to :

Went to go and introduce myself to Gordon Brown.

Saw the changing of the guard - by accident, since this is the most overrated of sites... snapped a pic and then promptly feel asleep due to the severe uneventfulness of it.

Re-created a previous picture of the King and I in front of Buckingham Palace that we had taken on our initial trip several years ago. Our computer ate it and we were left with only memories. Take THAT MR. Stupid Evil Computer. We replaced it you bastard. AND I have a back up. Try and take my dreams again. I dare you!


Picnicked in Hyde Park because I was poor and the value of the dollar is SHITE.

Got attacked by this pelican. He was an asshole. Very grumpy.

Finally went to St. Pauls Cathedral. Looks the same as Westminster Abbey inside to me. Old, with candles and some dead people. I saw them. I see dead people.

Took a picture with the King in from of Parliment to add to my "Anna and Her Husband in Front of Famous Landmarks" Collection.

Got to sit in on the House of Commons during a session and wonder inside. Was pretty spiffy. Made up for the fact that to be nice, I didn't go to the Graham Norton taping I had tickets for since the King couldn't join me. I am such a giver.

I saw this dude get all painted up in gold during a photoshoot at Heathrow. If this is how they build them in England than long live the Queen.

Super Excited...

I am hopeful about the quality of this weeks SNL since Brian Williams will be the host. I LOVE it when newsmen are able to check their egos and make fun of themselves. Should be quite a treat. SNL has prett much sucked for several years with a few exceptions. I hope this is one of them.

Maybe even better than the time Stone Philips was on the Colbert Report and he and Stephen Colbert had an anchorman showdown. Was funny as hell.

We are Halloweeners

The King and I decided to have a little fun this Halloween and actually carve pumpkins. His was really cute as he carved his pumpkin into one of the characters from the Nightmare Before Christmas. All the kids loved it. And the parents did too. We even piped in some on the music from the movie since it added a nice little touch for the kids as they walked up to the door. (Most of the kids in our neighborhood are pretty young - we thought trying to scare the shit out them may be a little much. Maybe next year.)

Here are a couple of pics of our pumpkins:

Yes, mine is puking his guts out. I am quite proud.