Optimist Under Siege

I weeped just a little bit inside today. I finally had to drag my down winter coat out of the closet and I mourned its necessity (even though it’s a delightfully warm coat!). *Sigh* It’s now seasonally cold.

And sadly, you can’t really complain about the cold very much when it’s seasonal. If it were 25 degrees fahrenheit in July, then my complaints would be justified. But we’ve been having unseasonally wonderfully warm weather lately, and now that it’s seasonally cold, I have no right to whine.

But I will still mourn and weep inside, just a little!

A friend of mine planned a formal event this past weekend (something I approve of and very much appreciate! Yeah, dressing up!). As a result, my husband and I ended up going out to a fancy dinner beforehand at an old school Boston institution, Locke-Ober.

Now, I didn’t really know much about the place, which made my first impression that much more interesting. The restaurant, Locke-Ober, turned out to be the definition of an old school restaurant. Frank Sinatra should have been there drinking cognac and smoking a cigar! From the dark wood paneling to the framed mirrors and gold/brass highlights behind the bar areas, and even the oriental rug-like carpeting, I actually kept expecting a bar maid out or Renoir’s paintings to serve me a sidecar (which we both drank!). I know that I’m mixing my time periods in my description, but wow! And the average age of the clientele must have been at least 65!

The weird thing is that we actually got pretty bad service. The waiter never came back to get my husband’s drink order and he forgot to bring us our side dish of spinach. We tried to figure out if we had perhaps done something to offend him…and decided that perhaps our extreme relative youth was enough!

I had a very unique experience with the recent presidential election. On election day Tuesday, I happily went to the voting booth and did my civic duty (as they say). Then, coincidentally, Tuesday evening I boarded a plane for London (where I visited a friend in London and another in Edinburgh). The vacation had been planned with no consideration of election day, but I was glad to be here to vote instead of having to get an absentee ballot.

But here’s the funny part. My husband and I managed to watch some of the early election results from a bar at the airport, but then we spent the next six or seven hours on a plane without any access to news. Once we arrived in London (mid-morning UK time), we went to meet up with our friend for lunch and had to ask her, the European, who exactly our next president was going to be. She laughed at us! But she did know and filled us in on Obama’s victory. What a funny way to find out!

On a further funny presidential note, one of the London newspapers had a GREAT headline the following day. It read: “The day the US became a little bit cool again.” Amusing and awesome!

I killed a mosquito last night and it was really plump and squished all over my hands in a seriously gross, smeary way. I washed my hands A LOT after that.

So why did I kill it when I knew, based on its lovely plumpness, that by killing the mosquito I was going to create a nausea-inducing mess all over my hands? Well, I’ll tell you.

It was a matter of self-preservation. You see, a few nights ago, my husband and I were both literally kept up most of the night by one single, freakin’ obnoxious, lowly mosquito. Just one mosquito was all it took. I kid you not.

I’m not sure either of us were even bitten by it, but it kept doing that obnoxious anti-Darwinian (wouldn’t you think?) behavior where it buzzes in your ear. And when you’re half-asleep and you hear this, you tend to reflexively swat at it (ineffectually, mind you). But in swatting at the mosquito you wake yourself back up. And the mosquito, one single mosquito, managed to do this enough to keep us both awake most of the night!

We actually resorted to leaving the bathroom light on (hoping the mosquito would be drawn to the light) and spraying bug spray randomly on our dressers and other places (my memory is a little hazy as I was half asleep!).

So I killed the bug last night because I had to. And that’s that.

The good thing is that I FINALLY got myself to go clothes shopping yesterday. Otherwise, I might soon have been walking around au naturel! Somehow all of my fall/winter clothes seem to have worn out at the exact same time. How does that happen?

Well, I guess you could argue that it’s partially the fact that I never go shopping until I absolutely have to. I’m not a big fan of shopping, but I do quite enjoy the result (clothes to wear!).

Of course, I still haven’t gotten around to buying jeans. The ones I wear most often have some holes in unfortunate intimate places…yikes! But I’m sure I’ll get around to it soon. Of course I will. I probably will.

Oh let’s face it. I may be wearing holey jeans for some time…!

With the weather as nice as it’s been for the last week or so I have of late gotten this incredible urge to do something quintessentially fall-like, but am not really sure what that is. I’m really just looking for an excuse to be outside, crunch through piles of leaves, smell the trees and enjoy the colorful landscape. And yes, I’d like to also throw in some apple cider drinking and perhaps pumpkin pie eating.

But I’m not really sure what to *do*. There is, in fact, a corn maze a couple of hours west of Boston that sort of fits the bill, but it seems awfully silly to rent a zipcar for a day just to walk a corn maze.

Hmmm…I guess I’ll just have to keep brainstorming fabulous fall activities. In the mean time, I did have a pretty tasty locally made pumpkin ale last night. That’s on the fall side of things!

One of the coolest things ever is to know someone who is going to school for massage therapy. Because you know what that means? They need to practice! And what’s more, they act as if you’re doing THEM a favor by volunteering to be massaged. It’s the best scam ever!

So this happened on Saturday evening. A friend’s girlfriend came by with her table and massage oil and everything and gave me a massage. And when she was leaving she wholeheartedly thanked me for letting her practice.

Oh my goodness…”YOU’RE WELCOME!!!” (No, really, you’re welcome anytime…day or night…I’m here for you!)

I went out with a friend last night for Manicures and Martinis (it seemed epic enough to capitalize!). It was basically the perfect girly event. As you can see, we had our lovely fingers made even lovelier before heading out to grab some girly martinis. The fabulous martini in the picture is a key lime pie martini with a graham cracker rim and whipped cream garnish. It’s really one of the best things ever! The hand you see is actually hers, not mine, and is quite pretty, no?

As I recall, I rebelled against girliness somewhat while I was growing up. I was by no means a tomboy, but didn’t wear much pink, had never had a manicure, and didn’t really know how to apply makeup (I can’t really say I’m ALL that good at it now, to be honest!). In recent years, however, I have learned to embrace my girly side, to revel in the pink, sweet cocktail, cool clothing, mascara, frilliness of it all! I will drink my girly beer (ie. blue moon or wachusett blueberry), wear my girly high heels (thank you DSW), do my yoga (my husband claims this is a typical girl thing to like…so be it!), and read my cheesy Laurell K. Hamilton books (hey, I like them…back off!).

I would say that I am, at least mostly, at home with my girliness. Pink is not such a bad color after all. And manicures and martinis is just about the best thing to spend a Tuesday evening doing!

Today’s happy thoughts:

*I finally remembered to buy rice krispies and marshmallows. I haven’t made rice krispie treats yet, but I am VERY excited about the prospect!

*I did a solid “crow” yoga pose at the gym today, and a short version of “crane.” Yeah me!

*My WOW druid is level 70 and can fly as of this week. Yes, I’m a dork (or would that be geek?).

*I’m going to King Richard’s (Renaissance) Faire this weekend and I get to dress up. Huzzah! (Still a geek.)

*I have an excuse to put the light-up jack-o-lantern out in the living room.

*And it’s Friday. Enough said.

Do you think people become career counselors because they never figured out what they really wanted to do? I wonder.

That’s my deep thought for the day.

P.S. As I ruminate on possible new career choices it occurs to me that I’d make an excellent flight attendant. Don’t you think? Obviously my ideal profession is Queen, but I haven’t found any job openings for that lately!