my blind date

It is FINALLY Friday night and as I was wrapping up at work, I received a text message from my gay best friend.

"You doing anything tonight? Interested in seeing a single man at 1020?"

My thoughts = that's odd. Is he setting me up on a blind date? Who plans a date at 10:20? That's a weird time. I didn't think he knew any single, straight men. My response: "A straight single man?"


His response: "Ha! Tom Ford's new movie."


Oh. Right...

A few minutes later after feeling embarrassed and laughing at myself realizing I confused a movie for a man, I said, "So you realize I thought you were setting me up on a blind date, right? haha!"


"Yeah, I got that :-) Sorry don't know many single straight men"


I don't think anyone does.

ponytail lessons

Laina: do you ever wear your hair in a ponytail?

Me: no.

Laina: Why not?

Me: Because I have a weird shaped head.

Laina: Show me. I don't know what you're talking about.

I gather my hair and attempt to show her my weird head.

Laina: Has someone told you that your head is a weird shape?

Me: No, but I think so. Plus all the shorter pieces of hair fall in my face and are annoying.

Laina: You can pin them back. Ponytails are so convenient.

I get a ponytail holder and put my hair up and look at the back of my head with two mirrors.

Me: See, it just looks dumb. It sticks straight out and I don't know how high to wear it. My hair is too short to be in a ponytail anyway.

Laina: It does not look weird! And it does not stick straight out.

Me: Ok, but another reason I don't like them is since I'm tall when my hair is up it makes my head look tiny on a big body. Like a pea head.

Laina: You don't have a tiny head on a big body! Pull it up again and let me see. If you don't wear your hair in ponytails because you think you have a weird head or look like you have a tiny head, that's not true and not a legitimate reason to not wear ponytails. If you don't wear them because you simply don't like them, then that's fine.

Me: Ok, I don't like them.

I swear we've had this conversation before.

reindeer games

Holiday parties are starting to be talked about at work. I got an email from another assistant about planning a surprise Christmas party. It went a little something like this:

So- for our December monthly meeting coming up, the last 30 minutes will be a mini holiday celebration - it will be a surprise. I'm going to need some help so anyone else that would like to volunteer, please pass this along! I'm in the process of ordering pastries, cupcakes, gingerbread men, coffee, and mimosas.

I'm going to need help passing out the treats and drinks. I've got some cute little Santa hats and reindeer noses for you all to wear! Plus mini candy canes to pass around. Please let me know if you can/want to help out and we can talk at some point next week to nail down the plan. Thanks!

 I of course volunteered to help, but said a big HELL to the NO to wearing a reindeer nose. One girl replied to all saying:

I'm def in to help. I refuse to wear a reindeer nose unless I have 5+ mimosas. :-)

This will be fun to work with all people my age. Today we had our first planning meeting. The girl planning it was talking about her boss and how crazy he has been about it. She said he has called her a few times at night just to tell her the ideas he's thought of.

One of his ideas is that he is making her sing! She has created a makeshift band with other employees to perform during the party. Her most annoying band member is the flutist. haha. The other planners and I teased her about how embarrassing and lame it is going to be. The meeting and "party" will begin at 9am! Who is going to get in the social and holiday spirit and want to party at 9:30am!??

During all the joking and laughing, I uncontrollably said "oh too bad I didn't know about this sooner, I would've sang with you."

biggest. mistake. ever.

Now she asked me to come to her band practices! This party is going to be a bad rendition of a Glee song. How am I going to sneak away from my desk for my secret reindeer Glee club practices?

Other things her boss wants us to do that are equally embarrassing are:

• Sing-- obviously embarrassing
• Throw fake snow into the crowd
• Head of HR dress up as Santa Claus
• Walk down the main staircase in Santa hats and reindeer noses serving platters of candy canes
• Did I mention singing in front of 160+ work professionals with a reindeer nose on?!

I can just hear future conversations now:

"Who is the new girl in PR? I keep forgetting."

"Oh, that reindeer singer girl who threw fake snow."

"That's right. What a nerd."

case in point.

To Be Continued...

funny Target

Catch Phwase

Important preface to the story is that I was a nanny for 3 years in college. All three of the kids I babysat had the same speech impediment. Y's replaced L sounds and W's replaced R's. SO.. Aftew thwee yeaws of babysitting them I yeawned a pewfected babytalk and tend to talk in it fwom time to time. My famiyee has also twied it too and we talk yike it pwobably a yitt-oh too much, you will yeawn once you wead this stowy beyow.

Being home for Thanksgiving was great. What's more to love than family, food and games? I love to bring out all the board games whenever I'm home and force everyone to play at any slight sense of downtime. Waiting for mom to cook? Grab Scategories. Don't want to help with the dishes? Bring out Boggle.

I've had my favorites: Boggle was great last year at Christmas with my bro, Cranium entertained us all for hours last year at Thanksgiving, Balderdash was a hit a couple years ago on family vacation. Scategories is always a winner to me. And what was this year's winner? drumrolllllll......... trusty old Catch Phrase.

For some reason Catch Phrase seemed a little overplayed to me and I wasn't excited at first. Then the "how do you play?" questions started.. my family had never played before? Or had they forgotten?? This could be fun. So I explained the rules to everyone: "You have to say clues about whatever word pops up in this little window viewer thing without saying any part of the word," and I displayed how to click the disk (yes, literally click because we still have the original non-electronic first generation game).

We divided into teams. Me and my brother-in-law against my sister and Mom. We got a few rounds in before Dad's ears perked up at the sound of fun and he relocated from his solitary TV watching to join in. This complicated the teams having 5 people and uneven teams. The new teams were Mom, Sister, Brother-in-law versus Me and Dad. The seating arrangements were complicated too. We had a hard time with the logistics, but got a good game going. We had a nice flow until the buzzer started going spastically fast and Sister would pass to Brother-in-law and it would BUZZ causing Sister to get pissed that even after she got her word guessed, her team would still lose because she passes to her teammate.

Well, I pointed out that her slowdown was on par with mine because Dad was unable to read the tiny print within the disk's word viewer thing. Every time it was passed to him he'd sit there forever before he could make out the word. At one point he and Mom were sharing a pair of glasses back and forth which didn't work so well when they were passing both the disk and the glasses. This is a competition!

It was pure chaos when Mom thought she was trying to get her teammates to guess Bite the Bullet but misread it to be Bite the Dust and embarrassed herself by overly explaining "someone is JUST dead. They're TOTTTALLY dead.... ohmygosh that is NOT the phrase at all" Click to the next word. We all busted out laughing.

Dad was trying to get me to guess encore and my mind went blank. Mom was trying to get her team to guess Fingers and for some reason she apparently had been focused on the chicken fingers I had eaten at the airport TGI Fridays and kept talking about chickens to get her team to guess fingers. No one was even close to guessing fingers when she frustratedly shouted "FORGET ABOUT THE CHICKENS!!"

But the best Catch Phrase moment of all was when my mom was trying to get her teammates to guess broom so she said "You SWEEP with it!" and my sister yelled "a BLANKET!!"

Sounds yike my big sistoh has had a yitt-oh too much baby talk when she mistook SWEEP for SLEEP!

EWR ---> SEA

Wednesday November 25th 3:55pm flight to Seattle.

..out of Newark.

Out of the three NYC airports, Newark is my least favorite to fly out of -- especially during the holidays.

We had a half day at work so I left at 12, got on the subway to 34th Street, walked to Penn Station, waited in line for 15 minutes to buy my train ticket, got on the train and transferred to the air train.

At the air train station I checked the monitor for my flight and correct terminal. My flight wasn't posted. hmm that's weird. I must be early or the monitor must not be updated. I boarded the overly crowded air train anyway and was crammed into the little pod-like compartment among the other holiday travelers.

While in my seat on the air train I decided to verify my travel documents. Why wasn't my flight on the screen?? Waves of a sickening feeling started in my stomach. I unfolded my printed confirmation email to see "New York-Kennedy" discreetly printed at the very bottom. I AM ON MY WAY TO THE WRONG AIRPORT!!!!!!!!!!!

Panic, shaky hands, stomach cramps, frantic texts filled with misspellings to Jecca and Laina take place. Obviously I can't start making phone calls and let eavesdroppers hear of my mistake. I have to maintain a little bit of composure in front of my fellow air train-ers. I texted my mom, I texted Laina, Colleen and Jecca something along the lines ofHoly s***!!! My flight is out of JFK and I'm headed to Newark! F***

I got off the air train at terminal A and started a mad dash in pointless circles back and forth between the American Airlines ticketing counter to the escalator to the window and back again. I called my parents' house, I called my mom's office, I called my mom's cell, I called my dad's cell, I texted my sister... NO RESPONSES! Where is my family during this emergency! I may be absent from our Thanksgiving dinner!!

Luckily, thanks to gchat, Jecca stepped in and took the necessary steps to help me. She got on the phone with a car service who told her traffic between Newark and JFK would be an hour and a half. I would never make the flight. She checked the Alaska flights out of Newark and the 6:30pm flight wasn't sold out. She sent me the 1-800 number for Alaska Airlines.

I found a semi-private corner to make the call. I was connected with Sharon.

"Hi-Sharon- my-name-is-Jamie-and-I-am-traveling-to-Seattle-from-New-York-I-was-supposed-to-go-to-JFK-and-I-went-to-Newark-I-am-at-the-wrong-airport-I am-never-going-to-make-my-flight-home-for-Thanksgiving-what-can-I-doooo?"

While she put me on hold, I called my dad on my other phone. Terrified freak in the airport corner with two Blackberries, one on each ear. With hold music in one ear and my dad's voicemail in the other, I left my dad a panicky message.

Sharon got back on the phone and told me that I can leave from Newark on the 6:30pm flight. "PERFECT. Let's do it!"

"Bless your heart, dear. You will make it home in time for Thanksgiving. You're not the first person this has happened to. Have a Happy Thanksgiving!"

"Thank you so much! You have been so helpful. I will make it home to see my family, but they will never let me live this down. Thanks so much for your help!! Happy Thanksgiving!"

$305 later, after my "expensive mistake" as per Sharon, my ticket was changed.

I finally got in touch with my mom who was completely and surprisingly calm about the situation.. does she not know what trauma I just went through?! Does she realize her 25 year old daughter should be in assisted living?! She blamed my lazy eye.. That's right! I would have been able to get to the correct airport if I had some freaking contacts!

Anyway, I made it to Seattle and I am thankful for Jecca, gchat and Sharon from Alaska Airlines this year. Seriously.. if it wasn't for them I'd probably still be curled up in a ball crying in the corner of terminal A.

Happy Thanksgiving!!